With Polandâ??s membership in NATO at issue, a question has arisen as to whether America owes a debt to the Polish people for Franklin D. Rooseveltâ??s having â??betrayedâ? the Polish nation to Joseph Stalin at Yalta.
Undersecretary of State Stuart Eizenstat has lately raised the issue of a moral debt to Poland for the 1945 summit where FDR accepted Stalinâ??s assurances of free elections. Eizenstat was taken to task by columnist Lars-Erik Nelson for repeating a â??50-year-old right-wing slander.â? Robert Novak defended the â??betrayedâ? thesis.
Nelsonâ??s point: By 1945 Stalin had 12 million troops in Eastern Europe, and Dwight Eisenhower only 4 million in the West. Conservatives who condemn FDR for Polandâ??s fate, says Nelson, are joining the â??Blame America Firstâ? crowd. We couldnâ??t save Poland!
But, in truth, Yalta was only the final betrayal of Poland, and not only FDR but Winston Churchill bears moral responsibility for a half-century of communist enslavement of the Polish people.
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