MAASTRICHT, Netherlands (AP) – The grandsons of World War II leaders Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met Oct. 1 for a debate, 60 years after their grandfathers’ wartime meeting at the Yalta Conference.
The three grandsons, now elderly, laughed often and argued in a friendly manner but at times differed sharply about the war and what happened at Yalta, the Ukrainian resort town where the leaders met in February 1945.
Yalta divided Europe into what quickly became postwar spheres of influence for Western powers and the communist bloc.
“My grandfather had the highest regard for your grandfather as a wartime leader,” British author and politician Winston S. Churchill told Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, Stalin’s grandson, a retired colonel and military historian.
But Churchill “was concerned what would be the fate of Europe with the Red Army on its doorstep and at its throat,” his grandson said.
The debate was held to mark the opening of a graduate studies program in governance at the University of Maastricht, on the Dutch border near Belgium and Germany.
Dzhugashvili said the three grandfathers were friendly personally, but in fact Stalin viewed the United States and Britain as implacable enemies.
“They didn’t have allies, only colonial interests,” he said. “Danger united them. As soon as the war was over, Churchill wanted to start a war against the Soviet Union.”
Curtis Roosevelt, the grandson of Franklin D. Roosevelt, said the decisions made at Yalta were mostly about realpolitik after the United States’ late entry into the war.
“Nobody got what they wanted from Yalta except the Russians, who were in a position to get it,” said Roosevelt, an educator and former United Nations diplomat.
“FDR had failed in his effort to get America behind the war effort until Pearl Harbor, although he was convinced Hitler had to be confronted. What he thought was: ‘If Britain goes down, we’re next,”‘ he said
Churchill agreed that Russia got most out of Yalta. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Marshal Stalin possessed half of Europe by the time of the meeting, and there was nothing (Churchill and Roosevelt) could do about that.”
Dzhugashvili said the divisions made at Yalta were fair, given the sacrifices made by the Soviet Union in defeating Germany. He added that not all the conference’s decisions were military.
“There were some very good things in Yalta: The United Nations was created at Yalta,” he noted.
Roosevelt said he hoped Europe would one day be united despite recent votes by France and the Netherlands to reject a single European constitution.
“I don’t know what FDR would have said. But my instinct tells me he would have been very keen to see Europe united again.”
Roosevelt said the most important geopolitical problem right now is United States’ occupation of Iraq.
“I think it’s a major error. It reflects a diminution of the kind of values that I consider American. Those are the values that I grew up with and I now see them going out the window. But don’t forget, I live in France,” he quipped.
But Churchill retorted that “The Unites States and its allies are doing an excellent job in difficult circumstances to enable fledgling democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan … in the face of vicious terrorist attacks.”
The three all resembled their famous grandfathers in varying degrees. Dzhugashvili was short-statured and mercurial, while Roosevelt was tall, spoke deliberately and wore glasses. Churchill looks like his namesake, but thinner – and without his grandfather’s trademark cigar.
Dzhugashvili said he felt “honored” to be Stalin’s grandson, despite Stalin’s reputation in the West as a murderous despot.
“The image of Stalin is very different in our country than the image of Stalin here. They say he did this and that. But he did everything to develop Russia.”
He conceded that being Stalin’s grandson “had some advantages.”
“For instance, I didn’t have to pass entrance exams to get into university,” he said.
