our discussion. The actual talk lasted for about one hour; the meal lasted for about two. I began by requesting that the US Airforce be permitted to use certain landing fields in Hungary for bombing attacks against the Nazis. The airforce is currently based in Italy, which presents a problem in that the fleet has to make a long and perilous flight across the Alps in order to reach Germany. I also asked Stalin if it might not be possible to have a group of American experts survey the effects of bombing. I did not really expect Stalin to grant me both of these requests immediately, and I wasn't completely assured that he would even consider them at all. To my surprise, he immediately complied with them both, and said that he would begin to make the arrangements right away. At the session, which began at 4:00, I asked Anthony Eden to give a full report on the foreign minister's meeting. He stated that they had agreed to hold the conference on world organization in the United States, and that it was slated to begin on the twenty-fifth of April. He explained that Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union would be the only nations invited to this conference. The goal of this conference, according to the foreign ministers, would be determine which nations should be the original members of this proposed world organization. Churchill wants the Russians, Americans, and British to be the only countries in this organization, but I have different views, and so does Stalin. Stalin remarked that it seemed strange to him that nations, which had no desire to maintain tactful alliances with the Soviet Union after the war, were attempting to build world peace with it now. Churchill and I glanced at one another, realizing that neither of us knew how to counter this comment, so I took the initiative and told the Marshal that most of these nations which he was describing had wanted to ascertain relationships with the Soviet Union...
