Details
[POTSDAM CONFERENCE, 1945]. Printed menu from a banquet at this historic conference, signed by President HARRY S. TRUMAN, JOSEF STALIN, Prime Minister WINSTON CHURCHILL, Field Marshal B.L. MONTGOMERY and Andrew Cunningham, "10 Downing Street, Potsdam" [in occupied Germany], 23 July 1945. 1 page, 139 x 95 mm. (5 7/16 x 3 3/4 in.), printed on heavy card stock, paper brace attached to back so that the menu would stand upright on the banquet table. Royal arms of Great Britain embossed in red at top, text in italic. From top to bottom, the signers are: "Winston Churchill," "Harry Truman," "J. Stalin"; at the bottom, "B.L. Montgomery Field Marshall," and along the right-hand edge "Andrew Cunningham."
"THE BIG THREE" AT POTSDAM
This rare souvenir of a banquet held during the historic Potsdam Conference (17 July - 2 August) is dated one day before Truman's announcement to Stalin that the United States had perfected a nuclear bomb. The signing of the menu is recorded in several of memoirs of the participants. At the end of the meal, Stalin himself suggested that the it be signed and he was the first to sign and pass it to his fellow conferees for their signatures. The Potsdam Conference, held a month after the final defeat of Germany but before the Japanese had surrendered, was the last meeting in World War II between the three Allied Chiefs of State (Churchill was supplanted late in the conference by the new Prime Minister, Clement Atlee). In their cordial meetings, terms were fixed for the occupation of Germany and the occupied lands and the Potsdam Declaration, calling for the Japanese surrender, was adopted by Great Britain and the United States. During the meetings, Truman received telegrams announcing the successful test of the first atomic bomb at Alamagordo, New Mexico. On July 22, Truman and his Chiefs of Staff held a secret conference to make a final decision on the use of the new weapon. Churchill was informed of the bomb, but the news was kept from Stalin until the plenary session of July 24, when Truman "strolled over to the Russian leader and told him that the United States had created a new weapon 'of unusual destructive force." Prime Minister Churchill and Secretary of State Byrnes stood only a few yards away, studying Stalin's reaction. He was remarkably cool" (Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman, p.276-277). Provenance: Anonymous owner (sale, Sotheby's, 13 December 1983, lot 985).
"THE BIG THREE" AT POTSDAM
This rare souvenir of a banquet held during the historic Potsdam Conference (17 July - 2 August) is dated one day before Truman's announcement to Stalin that the United States had perfected a nuclear bomb. The signing of the menu is recorded in several of memoirs of the participants. At the end of the meal, Stalin himself suggested that the it be signed and he was the first to sign and pass it to his fellow conferees for their signatures. The Potsdam Conference, held a month after the final defeat of Germany but before the Japanese had surrendered, was the last meeting in World War II between the three Allied Chiefs of State (Churchill was supplanted late in the conference by the new Prime Minister, Clement Atlee). In their cordial meetings, terms were fixed for the occupation of Germany and the occupied lands and the Potsdam Declaration, calling for the Japanese surrender, was adopted by Great Britain and the United States. During the meetings, Truman received telegrams announcing the successful test of the first atomic bomb at Alamagordo, New Mexico. On July 22, Truman and his Chiefs of Staff held a secret conference to make a final decision on the use of the new weapon. Churchill was informed of the bomb, but the news was kept from Stalin until the plenary session of July 24, when Truman "strolled over to the Russian leader and told him that the United States had created a new weapon 'of unusual destructive force." Prime Minister Churchill and Secretary of State Byrnes stood only a few yards away, studying Stalin's reaction. He was remarkably cool" (Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman, p.276-277). Provenance: Anonymous owner (sale, Sotheby's, 13 December 1983, lot 985).