: You have totally misread my entire post,
: Damian. Yalta was held in February 1945.
: Two months later, Roosevelt was dead.
: Stalin, for one, walked all over both
: Roosevelt and Churchill. For another,
: Churchill tried working behind FDR's back to
: maintain some sphere of influence in the
: Balkans, namely Greece. Churchill wanted to
: have allied troops go to the Balkans, but
: FDR refused.
: However, at Yalta, FDR was not a well man,
: and did not have the ability to prevent what
: would happen. My post was hardly blatant
: American. Have you ever read the FDR/Stalin
: correspondence. There is no doubt that FDR
: thought he could get along with Stalin but
: no one is blaming Churchill for Yalta.
: Churchill was determined to save Greece as I
: stated above. Of course, by the summer of
: 45 Churchill would be out of power ..but
: Truman saw things differently. Oh, no doubt
: there was back-biting from all and everyone
: doing things behind the scenes but this is
: not to diminish that Churchill was a great
: leader ... I am no fan of FDR, by the way.
: FDR had ideas to bring in the Soviets to aid
: in Indian independence, but Churchill would
: not allow this - he described Indians as
: "beastly people with a beastly
: religion."

You said,quote: "The SU had a plan - and it wanted a greater sphere of influence in Europe and Churchill and Churchill (Roosevelt was not a well man) allowed it to happen."

Churchill didn't allow ANYTHING to happen.He was in no position to do so.Stalin and Roosevelt held all the power and all the cards at Yalta (and at the other meetings between them).Churchill was really only there under sufferance and Roosevelt often decided to put his trust in Stalin more than he did Churchill.Both men wanted to see the British Empire dismantled as quickly as possible which had always been one of FDR's main priorities anyway and Churchill's concerns and advice was often dismissed.

: I think Churchill was a great leader and PM
: ... I would voted for him in 1945 .. I would
: never have voted for FDR .. or Truman for
: that matter.

Churchill was a great wartime leader,playing what few cards he had left to the best of his ability.
But as a peacetime leader he would have been a disaster.The British electorate knew this.They had memories of him crushing the General Strike back in the 1920s and wanting to shoot miners and others desperate for a better life.A decade of grinding poverty for ordinary working people followed.This was not forgotten despite Churchill's wartime heroics.He was a man from another era and the British people wanted a government who would improve their standard of living and not waste resources trying to defend a dying empire.I would have felt the same.

Ironically,I'm the reverse again because I think I would have supported Roosevelt if I were an American.I think he did great things to turn the country around after the great Depression of the 1930s.Americans must have thought so as they elected him president for an unprecedented three times.In fact I wish we'd had someone like him around at that time and possibly the Germans too.It might have saved them from turning to Hitler.