Finest Years (57 page)

The British delegation sailed on from Malta to Alexandria, and thence flew to Cairo, arriving on 21 November. Macmillan, seeing Churchill for the first time for some months, perceived his powers diminished, yet still remarkable: ‘
Winston is getting
more and more dogmatic (at least outwardly) and rather repetitive. One forgets, of course, that he is really an old man – but a wonderful old man he is too…It is amusing to watch how he will take a point and reproduce it as his own a day or two later. He misses very little, although he does not always appear to listen.'

The first meeting of the
Sextant
conference took place on 23 November, and addressed the Far East. The US contingent was in irritable mood, because prior word of the gathering had leaked
to correspondents, increasing the security risk. The British were galled by the attendance of Chiang Kai-shek and his wife, at American insistence. Much attention was given to Chinese issues. The British shared US faith neither in China's value as an ally nor in the massive commitment to provide aid ‘over the Hump' of the Himalayas. They had not forgotten that a few months earlier Roosevelt had urged them to cede possession of Hong Kong to Chiang Kai-shek as a ‘gesture of goodwill'.
This caused Eden to observe
to Harry Hopkins that he had not heard the president suggest any similar act of largesse at American expense. Smuts said emolliently: ‘
We are inclined to forget
the President's difficulties. There is a very strong undercurrent against him. The things the Americans do are based partly on ignorance, partly on their determination to get power. We have learned hard lessons in the four years of the war. They have had no hard lessons. Yet we do not want to wait another four years while they learn them.'

The British were right about the intractability of China, but their dismissive attitude increased Anglo–American tensions. Churchill made much of plans to launch Orde Wingate and his Chindits on ambitious deep penetrations in north Burma. The Americans, however, regarded these as reflecting the characteristic British enthusiasm for sideshows at the expense of major operations. They favoured
Buccaneer
, a big coastal landing in Burma. The British, however, now argued that Mediterranean action, not to mention
Overlord
, would be fatally compromised by diverting landing craft to the Bay of Bengal.

At the second plenary session on the 24th, Churchill complained vigorously about the loss of Kos and Leros. He also said it was untrue that he favoured unlimited operations in Italy: he was committed to
Overlord
‘up to the hilt'. But he sought agreement that Allied armies should aim to reach a line between Pisa and Rimini. Eisenhower addressed the conference on the 26th. He was still only Mediterranean supreme commander, unaware that
Overlord
would soon become his personal responsibility. He said that he supported British aspirations both in the valley of the Po and the Aegean. ‘He stressed the vital importance of continuing the maximum possible operations in an established theatre since much time was invariably lost when the
scene of action was changed.' This was welcome to Churchill, if not to Marshall.

The conference's British administrators were at pains to offer hospitality matching that which the Americans had provided at Casablanca in January. But given Britain's impoverished state, they were embarrassed by their guests' locust-like response. The assembled throng of officials and service officers accounted for 20,000 cigarettes and seventy-five cigars. Each day, 500 beers, eighty bottles of whisky, twelve of brandy, and thirty-four of gin were consumed. It was decided that at future summits, out of respect for the rationed people of Britain, those attending should at least be asked to pay for their own drinks.

Between sessions, Churchill took Roosevelt to see the Pyramids, and talked enthusiastically to his staff about the warmth of their relationship. Yet Eden described the Cairo conference as ‘among the most difficult I ever attended'. British fortunes in the Far East were at their lowest ebb. Imperial forces were apparently incapable of breaking through into Burma in the face of a numerically inferior Japanese army. Given Roosevelt's rambling approach to business, ‘
W. had to play the role
of courtier and seize opportunities as and when they arose. I am amazed at the patience with which he does this…Though the role of attendant listener was uncongenial to him, the Prime Minister played it faultlessly all these days, so that we came through without the loss of any feathers, if not with our tails up.' But presidential needling of the prime minister was more pronounced than usual. Roosevelt reproached Churchill for allowing Eden to tell the king of Greece not to attempt to return home once his country was liberated until it was plain that his subjects wanted him. This was an odd intervention, given the Americans' subsequent hostility to the monarch. The British were furious with the president for encouraging Greek intractability.

Churchill lamented to the British delegation Roosevelt's casual approach to business, observing that while he was ‘a charming country gentleman', his dilatory habits wasted time. The prime minister and his colleagues were surprised and irked by the Americans' failure to
hold bilateral discussions with them before meeting Stalin. ‘
PM and President
ought
to have got together, with their staffs, before meeting the Russians but that through a series of mischances has not happened,' mused Cadogan. The British were slow to perceive that such evasion reflected policy rather than ‘mischances'. This would be the president's first meeting with Stalin. Earlier in the year Roosevelt had sought a meeting with the Soviet leader without Churchill present. When his initiative came to nothing he coolly lied to the prime minister, asserting that the proposal had originated with Moscow, not himself. Roosevelt believed that he could forge a working relationship with Moscow, which must not be compromised by any appearance of excessive Anglo–American amity or collusion. It did not trouble him that to such an end Churchill must be discomfited.

Hopkins bemoaned the prime minister's ‘
bloody Italian war
', and warned Moran: ‘
We are preparing for a battle
at Tehran. You will find us lining up with the Russians.' The doctor wrote wonderingly of the American attitude to Churchill: ‘
They are far more sceptical
of him than they are of Stalin.' Hopkins's enthusiasm for the prime minister had diminished, and so too had his influence in his own country. Roosevelt's secretary wrote pityingly: ‘
Poor Harry
, the public is done with him. He is a heavy liability to the President.' The US delegation in Cairo leaked freely to correspondents. The
Washington Post
was among many newspapers which afterwards disclosed to the American public ‘
the reported recalcitrance
of Churchill' towards US strategic wishes. No military agreements between the British and Americans had been reached by 27 November, when
Sextant
adjourned for the principals to fly on to Tehran.

Churchill seldom showed much concern for his own security, but raised an eyebrow when his car was almost engulfed by crowds as the convoy approached the British Legation in the Persian capital. Roosevelt had accepted lodgings in the Russian compound next door, and chose to meet Stalin for the first time alone. The opening session of the summit took place on the afternoon of 28 November, in the Soviet embassy under Roosevelt's chairmanship. It bears emphasis that, for every participant with a scintilla of imagination, these gatherings were
awesome occasions. Even Brooke, tired and cynical, found it ‘
quite enthralling
' to behold the ‘Big Three' for the first time assembled together around a table. Those present knew that they were sharing in the making of history. Most strove to speak and act in a fashion worthy of the moment.

Churchill began by asserting his firm commitment to an advance to the Pisa–Rimini line in Italy; to a landing in southern France; and to
Overlord
, provided his preconditions about maximum German strength in the invasion area were met. ‘It will be our stern duty,' he said, in a trumpet blast notably discordant with his haverings about the operation, ‘to hurl across the Channel against the Germans every sinew of our strength.' Stalin enquired smoothly:‘Who will command
Overlord
?' This was a brilliant shaft. He said that he could not regard any operation entirely seriously until a leader had been named to direct it. Though Eden found Stalin's personality ‘creepy' and chilling, like all the Western delegates the Foreign Secretary recognised a master of diplomacy: ‘
Of course the man
was ruthless and of course knew his purpose. He never wasted a word. He never stormed, he was seldom even irritated. Hooded, calm, never raising his voice, he avoided the repeated negatives of Molotov which were so exasperating to listen to. By more subtle methods he got what he wanted without having seemed so obdurate.'

Roosevelt assured the Russian leader that a commander for
Overlord
would be appointed within days. Stalin – ‘Ursus Major', as Churchill christened ‘the Great Bear' – was satisfied. He even professed enthusiasm for the Italian campaign, despite his dismay that German divisions were still being transferred from the west to fight in Russia. Churchill praised the efforts of Tito's communist partisans in Yugoslavia, which he assumed would please Stalin, and declared his eagerness to provide them with greater assistance. The Russian leader said that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan as soon as Germany was defeated, which gratified the Americans.

Early each morning of the summit, NKVD officers – who included Beria's son Sergo – presented Stalin with transcripts of conversations intercepted by microphones planted in the American residence.
The Soviet leader expressed amazement at the freedom with which the Westerners talked among themselves, when they must realise that they were being overheard. Latterly, indeed, he began to wonder whether they were really so naïve that they did not guess: ‘
Do you think
they know that we are listening?' He was gratified to find Roosevelt speaking well of him. Once, noting the president's assertion that there was ‘no way to fool Uncle Joe', he grinned into his moustache and muttered: ‘The old rascal is lying.' He was less amused by transcribed exchanges in which Churchill repeated to the president his reservations about
Overlord
. Young Beria was rewarded with a Swiss watch for the efficiency of his eavesdropping.

The most notorious episode at the conference arose from Stalin's brutal jest about shooting 50,000 German officers once the war was won, followed by Roosevelt's rejoinder that 49,000 would suffice. Elliott Roosevelt, the president's son, rose to say that he cordially agreed with Stalin's proposal, and was sure that the US would endorse it likewise. This caused Churchill to storm from the room in disgust. The Russians soothed the prime minister, but it was a grisly moment. When Stalin made his sally, Churchill knew him to be responsible for the cold-blooded massacre of at least 10,000 Polish officers – the true figure was almost 30,000 – as well as countless of his own people. Moreover, the US president's willingness to join in the joke suggested a heartlessness which was real enough, and which shocked the British leader. Finally, Elliott Roosevelt's intervention was intolerable. It was a curiosity of the war that great men saw fit to take their children on missions of state. Randolph Churchill's presence in North Africa, and everywhere else, was an embarrassment. Jan Smuts and Harry Hopkins both brought their sons to Cairo for
Sextant
. But none matched the crassness of the president's offspring. Churchill knew that, to sustain the Anglo–American relationship, he must endure almost anything which Roosevelt chose to say or do. But that moment in Tehran was hard for him. Marshall said of Stalin at the conference: ‘
He was turning his hose
on Churchill all the time, and Mr Roosevelt, in a sense, was helping him. He [FDR] used to take a little delight in embarrassing Churchill.'

Cadogan recorded the distress
of the British delegation that Roosevelt seemed willing to endorse almost everything Stalin proposed. When the future boundaries of Poland were discussed, Averell Harriman was dismayed by his president's visible indifference. Roosevelt wanted only enough to satisfy Polish-American voters, which was not much.
Soviet eavesdroppers reported
to Stalin Churchill's private warnings to Roosevelt about Moscow's preparations to install a communist government in Poland. According to Sergo Beria, Roosevelt replied that since Churchill was attempting to do the same thing by installing an anti-communist regime, he had no cause for complaint.

The American leader was much more interested in promoting Soviet support for the future United Nations organisation, an easy ball for the Russians to play. They indulged Roosevelt by ready acquiescence, though even Stalin expressed scepticism about the president's vision of China joining Russia, Britain and the US to police the post-war world. Harriman perceived the danger of flaunting before the Russians Roosevelt's carelessness about East European borders. The relentless advance of Stalin's armies would have rendered it difficult for the West to stem Soviet imperialism. Churchill was by now reconciled to shifting Poland's frontiers westwards, compensating the Poles with German territory for their eastern lands to be ceded to Russia. That proposal represented ruthlessness enough. But the US president's behaviour went further, making plain that Stalin could expect little opposition to his designs in Poland or elsewhere.

Roosevelt, bent upon creating a future in which the Great Powers acted in concert, seemed heedless of reality: that Stalin cared nothing for consensus, and was interested only in licence for pursuing his own unilateral purposes. Among the American team, Charles Bohlen and George Kennan of the State Department shared Harriman's misgivings about Roosevelt's belief that he shared a world vision with Stalin. The prime minister's fears for the future began to coalesce. ‘
That the President should deal
with Churchill and Stalin as if they were people of equal standing in American eyes shocked Churchill profoundly,' wrote Ian Jacob.