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Wwii Rhetoric Among East And West Leaders

As the Second World War was coming to an end, the main leaders of the United States, Britain, and Soviet Union meet several times at key conferences to discuss postwar relations. The Yalta and Potsdam Conferences were critical moments in history for the ‘Big Three' leaders to agree upon diplomatic and unified solutions to postwar peace, yet their disagreements, personal conflicts, and ideological beliefs lead to an eventual Cold War crisis. The opposing views of both the West and East blocs made it difficult to achieve a possible coexistence. Personal conflicts amongst leaders lead to their firm positions on foreign matters, resulting in a series of rhetorical speeches that intensified the situation further. In the following paper, I will demonstrate the rhetoric employed through speeches by Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Joseph Stalin that lead to the escalating conflict into a Cold War standoff.

"During World War II, the Soviet Union was often pictured very romantically as an ally in the popular press, but quickly after the end of the war disenchantment with its actions and intentions set in." As the postwar talks continued at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Allied Powers came to realize two different approaches in their negotiations. Comrade Stalin, behind his twelve million soldiers in Eastern Europe, was initially firm with his demands as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill reluctantly agreed to a ‘spheres of influence' concept where the West would retain influence over the Western European nations while the Soviet Union controlled the Eastern European countries until elections were held. "Roosevelt avoided any showdown with Stalin, in general because he continued to hope that a trustful policy would encourage trust in return."

Personal conflicts amongst leaders began to unravel as Stalin and Churchill could not cooperate with each other. Stalin viewed Churchill as a selfish individual who would probably "slip a kopeck out of...