Roosevelt , Churchill , and Stalin met for a second time at the February 1945 Yalta Conference . With the end of the war in Europe approaching , Roosevelt 's primary focus was on convincing Stalin to enter the war against Japan ; the Joint Chiefs had estimated that an American invasion of Japan would cause as many as one million American casualties . In return for the Soviet Union 's entrance into the war against Japan , the Soviet Union was promised control of Asian territories such as Sakhalin Island . With the Soviet Union in control of much of Eastern Europe by early 1945 , Roosevelt had little leverage over Soviet actions in Eastern Europe . He did not push for the immediate evacuation of Soviet soldiers from Poland , but he did win the issuance of the Declaration on Liberated Europe , which promised free elections in countries that had been occupied by Germany . Against Soviet pressure , Roosevelt and Churchill refused to consent to imposing huge reparations and deindustrialization on Germany after the war . Roosevelt 's role in the Yalta Conference has been controversial ; critics charge that he naively trusted the Soviet Union to allow free elections in Eastern Europe , while supporters argue that there was little more that Roosevelt could have done for the Eastern European countries given the Soviet occupation and the need for cooperation with the Soviet Union during and after the war
Yalta Conference
Yalta Conference
Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, third and fourth terms