Yalta Conference

4 February 1945: an hour before the plenary

At 4 p.m. at Livadia Palace on 4 February 1945, Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin met privately to discuss the military situation, direct coordination between Eisenhower's staff and the Soviet staffs, and whether France should receive an occupation zone in Germany.

Roosevelt joked to Stalin that he had wagered whether American troops would reach Manila before Soviet troops reached Berlin.

At 5 p.m. he opened the first plenary meeting, attended by Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Stalin and their delegations.

Two fronts, reported

That opening session concentrated on the military situation rather than final postwar settlements. Soviet General Alexei Antonov reported on the Eastern Front, and U.S. General George Marshall described Anglo-American operations and planned offensives in the west.

Churchill pressed for detailed coordination between the three military staffs. The leaders scheduled a tripartite military-staff meeting for noon on 5 February and a Big Three meeting on the political treatment of Germany for 4 p.m. that day.

Dinner at 8:30

At dinner, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill debated the relative authority of great and small powers in the proposed international organization.

The evening ended with Churchill and his own foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, disagreeing over Security Council voting.

By nightfall the conference was formally underway and the next day's sessions were scheduled, but no Yalta settlement had been adopted: the agreements commonly labelled "Yalta" were negotiated across eight days.