The three states were represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Joseph Stalin.

[1] The aim of the conference was to shape a postwar peace that represented not only a collective security order, but also a plan to give self-determination to the liberated peoples of Europe.

Intended mainly to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe, within a few years, with the Cold War dividing the continent, the conference became a subject of intense controversy.

It was also preceded by a conference in Moscow in October 1944, not attended by Roosevelt, in which Churchill and Stalin had spoken about Western and Soviet spheres of influence in Europe.

[3][4][5] The French leader General Charles de Gaulle was not invited to either the Yalta or Potsdam Conferences, a diplomatic slight that was the occasion for deep and lasting resentment.

[6] De Gaulle attributed his exclusion from Yalta to the longstanding personal antagonism towards him by Roosevelt, but the Soviets had also objected to his inclusion as a full participant.

[13][16] Furthermore, the Soviets agreed to join the United Nations because of a secret understanding of a voting formula with a veto power for permanent members of the Security Council, which ensured that each country could block unwanted decisions.

[17] The Soviet Army had occupied Poland completely and held much of Eastern Europe with a military power three times greater than Allied forces in the West[citation needed].

[citation needed] Also, the Big Three agreed that all original governments would be restored to the invaded countries, with the exceptions of Romania and Bulgaria, and Poland, whose government-in-exile was also excluded by Stalin, and that all of their civilians would be repatriated.

[citation needed] The Declaration of Liberated Europe was created by Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin during the Yalta Conference.

[20] The key points of the meeting were as follows: The Big Three further agreed that democracies would be established, all liberated European and former Axis satellite countries would hold free elections and that order would be restored.

[29] Regarding Poland, the Yalta report further stated that the provisional government should "be pledged to the holding of free and unfettered elections as soon as possible on the basis of universal suffrage and secret ballot".

[28] The agreement could not conceal the importance of acceding to the pro-Soviet short-term Lublin government control and of eliminating language that called for supervised elections.

During the debate, many MPs criticised Churchill and expressed deep reservations about Yalta and support for Poland, with 25 drafting an amendment protesting the agreement.

"[35] Four days later, on March 27, the Soviet People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) arrested 16 Polish opposition political leaders who had been invited to participate in provisional government negotiations.

[35][36] Churchill thereafter argued to Roosevelt that it was "as plain as a pike staff" that Moscow's tactics were to drag out the period for holding free elections "while the Lublin Committee consolidate their power".

[45] The report's arguments included geostrategic issues (a possible Soviet-Japanese alliance resulting in moving of Japanese troops from the Asian Continent to Home Islands, threat to Iran and Iraq) and uncertainties concerning land battles in Europe.

[46] The Potsdam Conference was held from July to August 1945, which included the participation of Clement Attlee, who had replaced Churchill as prime minister[47][48] and President Harry S Truman (representing the United States after Roosevelt's death).

Roosevelt's generous terms to Stalin, followed quite quickly by the start of the Cold War under Roosevelt's Vice President and successor, Harry Truman meant that Yalta was often seen in a bad light in American public opinion, particularly among most shades of Republicans and more Conservative Democrats in the South and West as well as by many ethnic Americans with links to Eastern Europe.

Efforts were made by both the new Senate Majority Leader, Robert A. Taft, and Republican members of the Foreign Relations Committee, although this fizzled out after Stalin's death.