John R. Deane

"[6] Some weeks after his December missive, Deane repeated his "warnings and recommendations in a fifty-four page memorandum to the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

[1] At the Yalta Conference, February 4–11, 1945, he and Ambassador Harriman clashed with Soviet officials over the issue of the return of American and British soldiers who had been held in a German administrated POW camps liberated by the Red Army.

The "resulting clashes" over this issue greatly influenced Harriman and Deane "in their negative attitudes toward the Soviet Union and thus to the development of the Cold War.

[8] According to diplomat George F. Kennan, Harriman's deputy chief of mission, the ambassador found in Deane "a senior military aide of the highest quality: modest, unassuming, scrupulously honest, fair-minded and clear-sighted.

Through the efforts of William J. Donovan and industrialist Seton Porter, Deane relocated to his home state of California to become president of wine maker Italian Swiss Colony.

General George C. Marshall (left) shakes hands with Major General John R. Deane , center, as Brigadier General Stuart Cutler extends his hand in greeting. He is arriving for the Potsdam Conference, 1945.
Major General John R. Deane , Commanding General, Military Mission to Moscow, arrives at the residence of U.S. Ambassador W. Averell Harriman during the Potsdam Conference in Potsdam, Germany, 1945.