"Teheran," by Robinson Jeffers

 Teheran
Robinson Jeffers, 1948
 
The persons wane and fade, they fade out of meaning.
     Personal greatness
Was never more than a trick of the light, a halo of illu-
     sion -- but who are these little smiling attendants
On a world's agony, meeting in Teheran to plot against
     whom what future?  The future is clear enough
In the firelight of burning cities and pain-light of that
     long battle-line,
That monstrous ulcer reaching from the Arctic Ocean to
    the Black Sea, slowing rodent westward: there will
    be Russia
And America; two powers alone in the world; two bulls
     in one pasture. And what is unlucky Germany
Between those foreheads?
                                 Observe also
How rapidly civilization coarsens and decays; its better
      qualities, foresight, humaneness, disinterested
Respect for truth, die first; its worst will be last -- Oh,
     well: the future! When man stinks, turn to God.
 
 
1-18-17 (last updated)
Encyclopedia Britannica
Tehrān Conference
WORLD WAR II
WRITTEN BY:
 The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica
Alternative Title: Teheran Conference
https://www.britannica.com/event/Tehran-Conference
Tehrān Conference, (November 28–December 1, 1943), meeting between U.S. President Franklin D. RooseveltBritish Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin in Tehrān during World War II. The chief discussion centred on the opening of a “second front” in western Europe. Stalin agreed to an eastern offensive to coincide with the forthcoming Western Front, and he pressed the western leaders to proceed with formal preparations for their long-promised invasion of German-occupied France.

Though military questions were dominant, the Tehrān Conference saw more discussion of political issues than had occurred in any previous meeting between Allied governmental heads. Not only did Stalin reiterate that the Soviet Union should retain the frontiers provided by the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939 and by the Russo-Finnish Treaty of 1940, but he also stated that it would want the Baltic coast of East Prussia. Though the settlement for Germany was discussed at length, all three Allied leaders appeared uncertain; their views were imprecise on the topic of a postwar international organization; and, on the Polish question, the western Allies and the Soviet Union found themselves in sharp dissension, Stalin expressing his continued distaste for the Polish government-in-exile in London. On Iran, which Allied forces were partly occupying, they were able to agree on a declaration (published on December 1, 1943) guaranteeing the postwar independence and territorial integrity of that state and promising postwar economic assistance.