President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill co-wrote the Atlantic Charter at a meeting in Newfoundland in 1941. The Charter explained the leaders’ goals for global politics, articulating values such as self-government and self-determination, and discouraging aggressor countries from war. This Charter was the foundation of the “Declaration on Liberated Europe,” which the three leaders penned at Yalta, which also stated that people must be free to govern themselves.

Livadia Palace is located on the Black Sea near the town of Yalta, Ukraine. The Russian Tsar Nicholas ll and his wife Alexandra built the palace as their summer home. Stalin selected Livadia Palace as the accommodation for the American delegation to Yalta, and Kathleen Harriman helped oversee the palace renovations in preparation for the conference.

NKVD is the acronym for the Soviet secret police. The NKVD were responsible for enacting Stalin’s orders, including his personal security, police work, prison and gulag management, assassinations and deportations. Katz describes the NKVD as an “elite force of terror” (149), which allowed Stalin to have complete control over the Soviet population.