Soviets proposed that reparations should only be paid to countries that had sustained direct material losses such as damage to factories, land, and homes and the losses of personal property by citizens. Since the losses were so huge, Stalin proposed that countries receive reparations based on their contribution to the winning of the war and the value of their direct material losses. He stated that reparations should not exceed twenty billion dollars and the Soviet Union should get no less than half of that, ten billion dollars. Churchill was first to respond to this proposal and stated that he did not believe it would be possible to get even the amount the Soviets wanted for themselves much less twenty billion dollars for all damaged countries. He spoke from British experience after World War I, trying to collect its reparations from Germany, stating that "1,000 million pounds . . . would never have been extracted if the United States, at the same time, had not loaned Germany a larger sum." This attitude was common to Roosevelt as well
             ...