This month marks the 75th anniversary of the infamous meeting at Yalta of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and President Franklin Roosevelt. Yalta has become a synonym for the abandonment of oppressed people and helped inspire the 1952 Republican campaign theme "20 years of treason." It is time now to recall and recognize the lessons of that betrayal. 

FDR painted World War II as a crusade for democracy, hailing Stalin as a partner in liberation. From 1942 through 1945, the U.S. government consistently deceived the public about the character of the Soviet Union. Roosevelt praised Soviet Russia as one of the "freedom-loving Nations" and stressed that Stalin is "thoroughly conversant with the provisions of our Constitution." Harold Ickes, one of FDR's top aides, proclaimed that communism was "the antithesis of Nazism" because it was based on "belief in the control of the government, including the economic system, by the people themselves." (Shades of Bernie Sanders!)