He liked Zhukov, a true soldier and not a Communist Party hack, and he felt he understood the Soviet outlook: they had sacrificed more than any other nation to defeat Hitler’s armies and wanted to be sure the job of breaking Germany was done once and for all. All that was needed was “a friendly acceptance of each other as individuals striving peacefully to attain a common understanding.” It was a characteristically optimistic, even naïve view of world affairs.
