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Truman with Attlee and Stalin at Potsdam

Cold War Origins

This collection of primary source documents discusses international relations during World War II and the years shortly after. It begins with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed in 1939 and ends with documents from the 1950’s. The collection contains a wide variety of documents including agreements, memorandums, meeting minutes, cables, letters, diary entries, and military reports from WWII. The documents mainly come from Russian and Bulgarian archives. See also the End of the Cold War. (Image, Clement Attlee, Harry Truman, and Joseph Stalin at the Potsdam Conference, July 1945, NARA, Army Signal Corps Collection, USA C-186)

Truman with Attlee and Stalin at Potsdam

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September 27, 1946

Telegram from Nikolai Novikov, Soviet Ambassador to the US, to the Soviet Leadership

Soviet Ambassador to the US, Nikolai Novikov, describes the advent of a more assertive US foreign policy. Novikov cautions the Soviet leadership that the Truman administration is bent on imposing US political, military and economic domination around the world. This telegram has, since its discovery in the Russian archives, been labelled the Soviet equivalent of US Ambassador to the Soviet Union George Kennan's "Long telegram."

February 9, 1946

Speech Delivered by Stalin at a Meeting of Voters of the Stalin Electoral District, Moscow

English translation of Stalin's 1946 "election" speech.

February 22, 1946

George Kennan's 'Long Telegram'

George F. Kennan writes to the Secretary of State with a lengthy analysis of Soviet policy in an attempt to explain their recent uncooperative behavior. This message would later become famous as the "long telegram."

April 14, 1950

National Security Council Report, NSC 68, 'United States Objectives and Programs for National Security'

On US national security policy at the beginning of the Cold War. Includes an assessment of the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as US and Soviet nuclear weapons capabilities.

February 11, 1945

Yalta Conference Agreement, Declaration of a Liberated Europe

The text of the agreements reached at the Yalta (Crimea) Conference between President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Generalissimo Stalin.
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Foreign Policy Correspondence between Stalin and Molotov and Other Politburo Members, September 1945-December 1946

Vladimir O. Pechatnov on the motives and methods of Stalin’s policy at the critical juncture in relations between the Soviet Union and the West.

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