Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman--from World War to Cold War

By Michael Dobbs

When Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin 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 they 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 beginning to fracture. Although the most dramatic Cold War confrontations such as the Berlin airlift were still to come, a new struggle for global hegemony had got underway by August 1945 when Truman used the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Six Months in 1945 brilliantly captures this momentous historical turning point while illuminating the aims and personalities of larger-than-life political giants.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Oct 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9780307960894

Michael Dobbs

Bestselling author Michael Dobbs was at Mrs Thatcher’s side as she took her first step into Downing Street as Prime Minister and was a key aide to John Major when he was voted out. In between times he was bombed in Brighton, banished from Chequers and blamed for failing to secoure a Blair-Major television debate. He is now one of the country’s leading political commentators.

Reviews for Six Months in 1945

[bke-3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a great over view of the period which set the basis for the cold war and shaped the world as it is today. Fast paced and well written. If you have an interest in the history of the last 60 years, this is a msut read.

[wildbill_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The title kind of says it all. The book begins with the Yalta Conference then Potsdam and ending with the dropping of the atom bombs. The theme is the relations between the WWII Allies and the men at their head. The coverage is almost completely political with very little of the military history events discussed.At the Yalta Conference FDR is a sick old man with not much longer to live. The author does a thorough portrayal of Stalin seemingly expecting his readers to have the least knowledge about him among the Big Three. In my case that was correct so it worked out well. Churchill is trying to hold up the image that Great Britain is an equal partner when everyone knows that they are slipping.There is a good use of primary sources including diplomatic cables and narration of the proceedings at the conferences. After flying to Teheran and having a bad flight Stalin insists on holding the next conference at a place he can reach by train, Yalta. The description of the living quarters at Yalta and Potsdam was extensive and interesting. Truman is in place at Potsdam which changes the whole chemistry of the group. It is at Potsdam that Truman received notice of the successful atom bomb test. Churchill left Potsdam to get the results on the British election and never returned, having been voted out of office.The section on the Potsdam Conference goes into the horrible conditions in Germany at the end of the war. The communist countries in the new Eastern Bloc made refugees out of 40 million Germans who were relocated to fit the new Russian map of Eastern Europe. The friction between the Americans and Russians is already flaring up in Berlin as the good feeling between the Allies evaporates with the beginning of the Cold War.The writing was rather dry with few of the human details of the situation besides those that tended to be depressing. Or maybe there just was not a lot of happy things in the situation to write about. The dropping of the atom bomb was not debated much at all. The U.S. had spent a lot of money developing this new weapon and they had few qualms about using them on the country that bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The book is adequate but I cannot recommend it highly. Three stars.