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Integrating Europe or Ending the Cold War? 21
United Nations in 1945 were consequently dominated by a concentration on the
more global powers of the General Assembly and the Security Council with its five
permanent great power members. Although initially it had been planned to emphasize
the regional aspects of the world organization, this did not happen. 30
By the end of the war Churchill had clearly lost interest in his earlier cursory
preoccupation with European Councils. His major concern consisted of the postwar
continuation of the “fraternal association” between Britain and the USA
which, as he hoped somewhat over-enthusiastically in mid-1943, might even result
in a common citizenship. 31 After all, since the 1943 Teheran conference Churchill
had increasingly realized Britain’s financial and military weakness; he was aware
that the Big Three were in reality merely the Big Two and a Half. 32 Moreover, he
increasingly distrusted Stalin’s post-war ambitions. Although he continued hoping
that it would be possible to co-operate with Moscow in the post-war world and
arrive at a quick settlement of all the many outstanding problems among the Big
Three, 33 he had become ever more anxious to persuade Roosevelt and, from April
1945, his successor Harry Truman, to remain involved in European affairs. As early
as October 1942, in a secret minute to Eden, and again in November 1943, in conversation
with Macmillan, Churchill had explained that “Germany is finished (...)
the real problem now is Russia. I can’t get the Americans to see it”. 34 By July 1944
the British Chiefs of Staff supported him in this view. They had also come round to
the opinion that amicable Anglo-Soviet relations and not renewed German aggression
would be crucial for the post-war period. 35
Churchill further realized that he needed the support, or at least the acquiescence,
of the USA to prop up the Empire until Britain had recovered its pre-war
strength. 36 Despite Washington’s well-known advocacy of anti-colonialism and
self-determination, Churchill never became tired of explaining that he was not will-
30. See BELOFF, “Churchill and Europe”, pp.448, 447.
31. See KIMBALL (ed.), Churchill & Roosevelt, vol.2, pp.225-26: memorandum C-297/1, 28 May 1943.
32. See A. HILLGRUBER, Der Zweite Weltkrieg. Kriegsziele und Strategien der großen Mächte, Stuttgart
1983, pp.124-28, 157; K. SAINSBURY, The Turning Point: The Cairo, Moscow and Teheran
Conferences, London 1985, pp.293 ff.; E. BARKER, Churchill and Eden at War, London 1978,
p.28.
33. See Churchill’s telegram sent to Stalin at the end of the war (29 April 1945) in: CHURCHILL, The
Second World War, vol.6: Triumph and Tragedy, London 1954, pp.431-34, also partly quoted in
House of Commons Debates (hereafter: H.C. Deb.), 5th series, vol.459, 10 Dec. 1948, col.721-23.
See also Barker, ibid., p.294.
34. Quoted in T. H. ANDERSON, The United States, Great Britain, and the Cold War, 1944-47, Columbia,
Mo., 1981, p.11. Churchill had written to Eden that “it would be a measureless disaster if
Russian barbarism overlaid the culture and independence of the ancient states of Europe” (CHARL-
TON, Price of Victory, p.13).
35. For the COS see WOODWARD, British Foreign Policy, vol.5, pp.189-90. On the other hand, in conversation
with Eden, Churchill spoke in 1944 of the “new confidence which has grown in our hearts
towards Stalin” and referred to the Soviet dictator as a “great and good man”. See R. DOUGLAS,
From War to Cold War, New York 1981, p.12; also BARKER, Churchill and Eden, p.223; R. M.
HATHAWAY, Ambiguous Partnership: Britain and America, 1944-1947, New York 1981, p.39.
36. See A. ADAMTHWAITE, “Britain and the world, 1945-49: the view from the Foreign Office”, International
Affairs, vol.61 (1985), pp.223-35.