3. One of the disagreements was over reparations - how much Germany would pay the Allies for war damage. Former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Joseph Davies wrote in his diary on July 28, 1945:
"[Byrnes] was still having a hard time over Reparations. The details as to the success of the Atomic Bomb, which he had just received, gave him confidence that the Soviets would agree as to these difficulties." (Gar Alperovitz, The Decision To Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 281). Davies continued in his diary that night,
"Byrnes' attitude that the atomic bomb assured ultimate success in negotiations disturbed me more than his description of its success amazed me. I told him the threat wouldn't work, and might do irreparable harm." (Alperovitz, pg. 282). Byrnes never openly threatened the Soviets with the atomic bomb. But his feelings about covert atomic diplomacy were noticed shortly after the war by Sec. of War Henry Stimson, Assistant Sec. of War John McCloy, and Manhattan Project scientific director J. Robert Oppenheimer, all of whom were worried that even an implied nuclear threat could backfire into a nuclear arms race.
As the end of the Pacific War approached, Byrnes was walking a tightrope. On one hand, he wanted to end the war before Russia could enter it and gain more control in Asia. Walter Brown, who was Byrnes' assistant, wrote in his diary on July 24, 1945 that Byrnes told him he believed:
"after atomic bomb Japan will surrender and Russia will not get in so much on the kill". (Robert Messer, The End of an Alliance, pg. 105). Later Byrnes told an interviewer:
"we wanted to get through with the Japanese phase of the war before the Russians came in." (U.S. News and World Report, Aug. 15, 1960, We Were Anxious To Get the War Over, pg. 66). |
