Publisher's Synopsis
During Franklin D. Roosevelt's last years of presidency and the first ones of Harry S. Truman, sharp controversies divided the political, military and economic elites of the United States. Real alternatives existed in international relations. Would there be a postwar world of wise co-operation or of new confrontation? It was an exciting period in which in opposition to conventional power politics new and promising ideas were tried out - but in the end these new ideas failed.;By presenting highly differing documents from several sources (National Archives, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Harry S. Truman Library) the editors of this work depict the large variety of concepts concerning US foreign policy, particularly with regard to postwar relations with the Soviet Union. Thus they draw a comprehensive picture of how the Cold War came into existence.;Four groups of documents are of special interest: statements of leading corporations and enterprises on postwar foreign and foreign economic policies; papers concerning the vital issues of atomic bomb, atomic energy, and international relations; resolutions adopted by AFL-CIO conventions demanding US-USSR co-operation as a decisive precondition of international peace and security; and a series of CIA reports: "Review of the World Situation as it Relates to the Security of the United States".
