Down the Memory Hole: Roosevelt, Truman, and the Hidden U.S. Role in the Soviet Invasion of Manchuria
In: Journal of American-East Asian RelationsForeign Military Studies Office, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, United States
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Abstract
During World War II, Lend-Lease aid on Soviet-reflagged Liberty ships sailed across the hotly contested Pacific with cargoes specifically tailored to prepare the neutral Soviet Union for its coming war with Imperial Japan. This was a closely guarded secret because of the extreme vulnerability of both Russia’s land and sea lines of communication to preemptive action by even the severely weakened Japanese. After the war, this and other secret US-Soviet initiatives that took place were not something that either government, each for its own reasons, wanted to draw any attention. Down the “memory hole” it all went, skewing what historians, be they critics or defenders of President Harry S. Truman’s use of atomic bombs against Japan, thought they knew about his, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin’s actions in the war’s final ten months. Both the U.S. State and Defense departments’ quiet release of this information in 1955 went essentially unnoticed. The U.S. State Department, Army, and Navy historical branches as well as presidential libraries piecemealed out more over the coming decades and briefly, after Glasnost, additional documents came available from the Russian Federation itself, all having no effect whatsoever as the narratives on the war had been long established and, in effect, frozen. This article explains how World War II and Cold War historiography was distorted by these omissions.
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Down the Memory Hole: Roosevelt, Truman, and the Hidden U.S. Role in the Soviet Invasion of Manchuria
In: Journal of American-East Asian RelationsForeign Military Studies Office, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, United States
Search for other papers by D. M. Giangreco in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
During World War II, Lend-Lease aid on Soviet-reflagged Liberty ships sailed across the hotly contested Pacific with cargoes specifically tailored to prepare the neutral Soviet Union for its coming war with Imperial Japan. This was a closely guarded secret because of the extreme vulnerability of both Russia’s land and sea lines of communication to preemptive action by even the severely weakened Japanese. After the war, this and other secret US-Soviet initiatives that took place were not something that either government, each for its own reasons, wanted to draw any attention. Down the “memory hole” it all went, skewing what historians, be they critics or defenders of President Harry S. Truman’s use of atomic bombs against Japan, thought they knew about his, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin’s actions in the war’s final ten months. Both the U.S. State and Defense departments’ quiet release of this information in 1955 went essentially unnoticed. The U.S. State Department, Army, and Navy historical branches as well as presidential libraries piecemealed out more over the coming decades and briefly, after Glasnost, additional documents came available from the Russian Federation itself, all having no effect whatsoever as the narratives on the war had been long established and, in effect, frozen. This article explains how World War II and Cold War historiography was distorted by these omissions.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 43 | 43 | 43 |
| Full Text Views | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 6 | 6 | 6 |
