Document 1: Extract from the Forrestal Diary, entry for July 28, 1945.
Source: Forrestal Diaries, vol. 2, Forrestal Papers, Mudd Library, Princeton University.

The passage in red was deleted from the version of this diary entry in Walter Millis's edition of The Forrestal Diaries, which was published at the height of the Cold War in 1951. (See p. 78 in that book.) This rather extraordinary passage reflects Truman's relatively complaisant attitude toward a Soviet-dominated Europe. The deletion of this passage made it seem that American policy was much tougher at the time of Potsdam than it actually was--a view that both left- and right-wing historians found congenial, albeit for different reasons. This is a striking example of the way a skewed documentary record distorted our understanding of basic American policy in the immediate post-World War II period.