- The Kurile Islands were given outright to the Soviets, and Port Arthur was given to the Soviets for use as a naval base. The Soviets were given effective control of the commercial port of Dairen, the Chinese-Eastern Railroad and the South-Manchurian Railroad, using the subterfuge of assuring that the Soviet Union's "pre-eminent" interests would be "safeguarded."
- The Soviet Union was given three votes in the United Nations, while all other nations got only one.
Roosevelt's defenders have tried to claim that his concessions were necessary to bribe Stalin to enter the war against Japan. The Yalta papers prove that was false: 3 1/2 months before the Yalta meeting, Ambassador Averell Harriman had relayed to Roosevelt a "full agreement from Stalin not only to participate in the Pacific war, but to enter the war with full effort."
Russia wasn't needed in the Pacific war, and letting Russia in simply opened the way for a Communist empire in China and North Korea. This set the stage for the Korean War in the 1950s and for the son of the original North Korean Communist dictator to threaten us with nuclear weapons today.
News photos of the Yalta meeting reveal the hovering presence of the Communist spy Alger Hiss. As the chief adviser to Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Hiss attended nearly all the Yalta meetings and could be reached on telephone No. 3, right after FDR. with No. 1 and Stettinius with No. 2.
Hiss was given all top-secret files and documents about the U.S. position 19 days before the conference. Sen. William Knowland, R-Calif., said this made FDR "like a man playing poker with a mirror at his back."
While Republicans and honest writers such as David Lawrence and John T. Flynn denounced the Yalta betrayal, the pro-Roosevelt media praised it. Time called Yalta "a great achievement," Life called it "a success," and the New York Times called it "a milestone on the road to victory and peace."
But truth finally overtakes lies and cover-ups. President Bush set the record straight when he repudiated Yalta as part of the "unjust tradition" of Munich and the Hitler-Stalin pact that carved up Europe and left millions in oppression.