Books in Brief

Between War and Peace—The Potsdam Conference, by Herbert Feis. (Princeton University Press, $6.50). Churchill, that famed phrasemaker, chose the code name of the 1945 Potsdam Conference: “Terminal.” His meeting with Truman and Stalin, amid the ruins of Hitler’s vanquished Germany, promised the triumphant end of war and the beginning of peace. This detached and scholarly study of Potsdam details the tragic connotation “Terminal” acquired; it marked the end of a declared war and the beginning of Stalin’s undeclared Cold War against the despised Western democracies whose aid had insured his survival. Sharply drawn are Truman, brusque and uncertain; Churchill, alarmed yet compelled to compromise; Stalin, sure of his aims and his strength. Germany, keystone of a peaceful and united Europe, was permitted to fall halfway into the Soviet orbit, even though news of an explosion brighter than a thousand suns gave Truman unimagined power to compel Stalin’s acceptance of the West’s aims. The vagueness and uncertainty of those aims led Truman to believe that he had actually succeeded at Potsdam—a judgment that historian Feis suggests might have been confirmed if there had been more mutual “trust.” His facts are sharp; his hindsight is somewhat fuzzy.

R. WHALEN

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Between War and Peace—The Potsdam Conference, by Herbert Feis. (Princeton University Press, $6.50). Churchill, that famed phrasemaker, chose the code name of the 1945 Potsdam Conference: “Terminal.” His meeting with Truman and Stalin, amid the ruins of Hitler’s vanquished Germany, promised the triumphant end of war and the beginning of peace. This detached and scholarly study of Potsdam details the tragic connotation “Terminal” acquired; it marked the end of a declared war and the beginning of Stalin’s undeclared Cold War against the despised Western democracies whose aid had insured his survival. Sharply drawn are Truman, brusque and uncertain; Churchill, alarmed yet compelled to compromise; Stalin, sure of his aims and his strength. Germany, keystone of a peaceful and united Europe, was permitted to fall halfway into the Soviet orbit, even though news of an explosion brighter than a thousand suns gave Truman unimagined power to compel Stalin’s acceptance of the West’s aims. The vagueness and uncertainty of those aims led Truman to believe that he had actually succeeded at Potsdam—a judgment that historian Feis suggests might have been confirmed if there had been more mutual “trust.” His facts are sharp; his hindsight is somewhat fuzzy.

R. WHALEN