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That information helped to assure a Communist victory in China's civil war in 1947-1948. The Soviet Union was aware that President [[Harry Truman]] was seriously considering the use of nuclear weapons to prevent a [[Chinese Communist]] victory. Stalin initiated the Berlin crisis, blockading the Western-controlled sectors of the city in 1948. Western press reports indicated that Truman and [[Clement Attlee]], the British prime minister, were prepared to use nuclear weapons to prevent Berlin's fall to communism, but the Soviet Union we knew that the Americans did not have enough nuclear weapons to deal with both Berlin and China. The American government overestimated our threat in Berlin and lost the opportunity to use the nuclear threat to support the [[Chinese nationalist]]s.  

That information helped to assure a Communist victory in China's civil war in 1947-1948. The Soviet Union was aware that President [[Harry Truman]] was seriously considering the use of nuclear weapons to prevent a [[Chinese Communist]] victory. Stalin initiated the Berlin crisis, blockading the Western-controlled sectors of the city in 1948. Western press reports indicated that Truman and [[Clement Attlee]], the British prime minister, were prepared to use nuclear weapons to prevent Berlin's fall to communism, but the Soviet Union we knew that the Americans did not have enough nuclear weapons to deal with both Berlin and China. The American government overestimated our threat in Berlin and lost the opportunity to use the nuclear threat to support the [[Chinese nationalist]]s.  

In 1951, Soviet Foreign Minister [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] told Sudoplatov that the Soviet position in Berlin helped the Chinese Communists. Stalin pursued a tough policy of confrontation against the United States when the Cold War started; he knew he did not have to be afraid of the American nuclear threat, at least until the end of the 1940s. The Chinese Communist victory supported his policy of confrontation with America. Only by 1955 did we estimate the stockpile of American and British nuclear weapons to be sufficient to destroy the Soviet Union. <ref>Pavel Sudoplatov and Anatoli Sudoplatov, ''Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness - A Soviet Spymaster'', with Jerrold L. and Leona P. Schecter, Little Brown and Co., London 1994.</ref>  

In 1951, Soviet Foreign Minister [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] told Sudoplatov that the Soviet position in Berlin helped the Chinese Communists. Stalin pursued a tough policy of confrontation against the United States when the Cold War started; he knew he did not have to be afraid of the American nuclear threat, at least until the end of the 1940s. The Chinese Communist victory supported his policy of confrontation with America. Only by 1955 did we estimate the stockpile of American and British nuclear weapons to be sufficient to destroy the Soviet Union.<ref>Pavel Sudoplatov and Anatoli Sudoplatov, ''Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness - A Soviet Spymaster'', with Jerrold L. and Leona P. Schecter, Little Brown and Co., London 1994.</ref>  

==References==

==References==