The Yalta Story: THE NOTE-TAKERS

THE Yalta documents released by the State Department run some 500,000 words and take about nine hours to read. The minutes of the political meetings at Yalta come from three major sources:

1) Charles E. Bohlen, assistant to the Secretary of State (now Ambassador to the U.S.S.R.), acted both as interpreter for President Roosevelt and as narrator of the Big Three meetings. His smooth narrative is regarded by the State Department as "the nearest approach to an official American record of the Yalta Conference." 2) H. Freeman Matthews, director of the State Department's Office of European Affairs (now Ambassador to The Netherlands), put much conference dialogue in direct quotations. 3) Alger Hiss, who went to Yalta as U.S. adviser on United Nations matters, took sketchy, sometimes inaccurate longhand notes and never transcribed them. They throw no light whatever on the accusations of Communism made against Hiss—and little on the conference.

Not included in the compilation are the personal notes of Presidential Adviser James Byrnes, Secretary of State Stettinius and Ambassador Harriman. Some of Harriman's official reports are, however, in the Yalta record and are notable for their clarity and forethought.