Q: What was Stalin's diplomatic response to the U.S. nuclear weapons monoply?
JLG: I think Stalin was very clever in the way that he responded, once he got
over his surprise about the use of the bomb. He took the view simply that the
Soviet Union would, if anything, become tougher in its dealings with the
Americans. He made a point of not being intimidated. We know that he
was afraid. We know that he feared the bomb. But the last thing he was going
to do was to show this. And so the instructions go out to [Viacheslav] Molotov
and to other diplomats to take an even tougher position, which they do at the
London Foreign Ministers' conference in September.
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