Yalta: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

This inflated meditation on the 1945 Yalta Conference by a French scholar inconclusively considers the balance struck between demands and concessions by Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt. Laloy is less critical of FDR and Churchill than are others who contend that the two Allied leaders ``betrayed'' Europe at Yalta. Europe betrayed itself, according to his vague argument, with the Bolshevik Revolution, the Versailles Treaty and the Munich Pact. In regard to the continued divisions within Europe, Laloy calls for a sustained, ``evolutionary'' effort at East-West dialogue instead of reliance on periodic high-pressure summits. The main points of this attenuated essay are valid, but at times seem stale or commonplace (that FDR failed to understand Stalin, for instance). The most substantive section of the book is the appendix, which includes excerpts from letters exchanged by the Big Three in the months following Yalta. (Jan.)