Six Months in 1945; FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman--From World War to Cold War

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very Good. xvi, 418, [10] pages. Author's compliment slip laid in. 16 pages of photographs and 8 maps. List of Maps, Chronology, and a Note on Names. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Part 1 covers "The Best I Could Do''--Roosevelt; Stalin; Churchill; Poland; Grand Design; and Euphoria". Part 2 covers An Iron Curtain Is Drawn Down: Comrade Vyshinsky; An Impenetrable Veil; Death of a President; The Neophyte and the Commissar; Linkup; Victory; "The Salvation of the World"; Atomic Poker; and Red Empire. Part Three covers "A Peace That is no Peace", with chapters on Berlin, Terminal, Loot, "FINIS", Hiroshima; and After the Bomb; along with Acknowledgments, Notes, Bibliography, and Index, as well as maps on F in the Crimea; Into the Reich; Poland Border Changes; Linkup (Journeys to the Elbe); "An Iron Curtain Is Drawn Down" (May 1945); Stalin and the Middle East; Berlin (July 1945); and Stalin and the Far East. Michael Dobbs (born 27 July 1950) is a British-American nonfiction author and journalist. Dobbs spent much of his career as a foreign correspondent covering the collapse of communism. He was the first Western reporter to visit the Gdansk shipyard in August 1980; he also covered the Tiananmen Square uprising in China in 1989, the abortive coup against Gorbachev in August 1991, and the wars in the former Yugoslavia. At The Washington Post, when he was bureau chief in eastern Europe, based in Warsaw. He was bureau chief in Paris and Moscow. Other assignments included as a special correspondent in Belgrade (1977-80), when he covered the death of Marshal Tito. From the author of the best-selling One Minute to Midnight, a riveting account of the pivotal six-month period spanning the end of World War II, the dawn of the nuclear age, and the beginning of the Cold War. When Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill met in Yalta in February 1945, Hitler's armies were on the run and victory was imminent. The Big Three wanted to draft a blueprint for a lasting peace, but instead set the stage for a forty-four-year division of Europe into Soviet and western spheres of influence. After fighting side by side for nearly four years, their political alliance was rapidly fracturing. By the time the leaders met again in Potsdam in July 1945, Russians and Americans were squabbling over the future of Germany and Churchill was warning about an iron curtain being drawn down over the Continent. These six months witnessed some of the most dramatic moments of the twentieth century: the cataclysmic battle for Berlin, the death of Franklin Roosevelt, the discovery of the Nazi concentration camps, Churchill's electoral defeat, and the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. While their armies linked up in the heart of Europe, the political leaders maneuvered for leverage: Stalin using his nation's wartime sacrifices to claim spoils, Churchill doing his best to halt Britain's waning influence, FDR trying to charm Stalin, Truman determined to stand up to an increasingly assertive Soviet superpower. Six Months in 1945 brilliantly captures this momentous historical turning point, chronicling the geopolitical twists behind the descent of the iron curtain, while illuminating the aims and personalities of larger-than-life political giants. It is a vividly rendered story of individual and national interests in fierce competition at a seminal moment in history.