201570th Anniv. Yalta Conference - Special Folder

The Yalta Conference was held in February 1945. The meeting brought together the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Premier Joseph Stalin respectively and was intended to discuss Europe's reorganisation following World War II.

The agreement to hold the meeting on Soviet territory was met after numerous exchanges between the three heads of government, with many options being turned down by Stalin who insisted that his doctors opposed any long trips. He offered, instead, to meet at the Black Sea resort of Yalta, in Crimea.

Each leader had an agenda for the Yalta Conference; Roosevelt wanted Soviet support in the U.S war against Japan, as well as Soviet participation in the United Nations; Churchill pushed for free elections and democratic governments in Eastern and Central Europe while Stalin insisted for Soviet political influence in Eastern and Central Europe.

Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to meet in Malta for preliminary discussions, and as Churchill famously declared in his correspondences with the U.S President "No more let us falter! From Malta to Yalta! Let nobody alter!" voiced in the light of the many options put forward prior to the final decision being taken for the meeting to be held in Yalta.

The meetings in Malta, which began on January 30, were designed to coordinate American and British views on a number of issues that were expected to come up with Stalin at Yalta a few days later. Four of the meetings between Roosevelt and Churchill were held at Montgomery House in Floriana while the fifth one was held aboard the U.S.S. Quincy.

Initially the conclusions of the Yalta Conference were viewed positively, however this sentiment was short-lived since the agreements reached during the Conference were not kept. The Conference is therefore said to have foreshadowed the Cold War that followed as among other failings Stalin did not maintain his promise that free elections would be held in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.

It is rumoured in some quarters that Malta was chosen as the location for the 1989 Malta Summit between the US President George H.W. Bush and U.S.S.R leader Mikhail Gorbachev, as a sequel to the 1945 Yalta Conference - with the end of the Cold War an important chapter in the history of the 20th century was concluded.