Download - Winston Churchill

TROUBLED TRIUMVIRATE...being played out in front of Stalin.As the debate developed, the PrimeMinister increasingly appeared onthe defensive, still arguing stronglyfor his vision of the militaryoptions. To me, Stalin seemed puzzledat first over the disunitybetween the Americans and British.He allowed his normallyinscrutable face a rare smile.Down the years I’ve beenasked what it was like to watchChurchill, at this momentous juncturein his life, making friends withthe ally we simply couldn’t dowithout: Josef Stalin, the biggestmass-murderer of all time, with thepossible exception of Mao Tsetung.I have vivid memories.Stalin always spoke softly,briefly, and to the point, completelyin command of facts andstatistics, hardly ever looking at anote, asking pertinent, awkwardquestions. At times we couldhardly make out his words, withtheir marked Georgian accent.Away from the table he was not thegreat heroic leader of the RedSquare icons. Short, even in hisbuilt-up, square-toed shoes, peeping under door-keeperliketrousers with a broad stripe down each side, at firstglance he looked unimpressive. His Marshal’s tunic witha plain Russian upright collar was decorated only withthe Hero of the Soviet Union gold star. At close range,he looked like a humble, kindly uncle. But I was struckby the yellow whites to his greenish brown, cat-like eyes,which hardly ever met yours if you were a stranger, aforeigner. His own staff was often brought to order witha fearsome glare. You could see them freeze, almost literallytremble in their boots.Apart from questions of military strategy and timing,Poland’s postwar frontiers, and how to secure ademocratic government, were the major battlegroundsfor Churchill. An early and firm date for the launch ofthe Second Front in Northern France was Stalin’s mainaim. Roosevelt’s was to get Russia into the war againstJapan. He was also determined to get Stalin to supporthis dream of an international peace-keeping bodypoliced by the Soviet Union, the USA, Britain andChina (at that time Chiang Kai-shek’s China, of course).At first Stalin was evidently not at all keen on a singlebody, doubtless thinking of the League of Nations, fromwhich the Soviet Union had been kicked out when itTHE WORLD OF TEHERAN: The Red Army had not yet penetrated any eastern Europeancountries, but the portents for 1944 were obvious. (Map from Newsweek, 6 DecemberFINEST HOUR 135 / 18attacked Finland in 1939. When Stalin saw the importanceRoosevelt attached to the project, the Sovietmedia, following Stalin’s line of course, ostentatiouslybegan to support it.Teheran was, I believe, the most important of theBig Three Conferences, more significant than Yalta. Apersistent historical misconception has it that EasternEurope was “betrayed” at Yalta. Not so. That happened,and I believe it did happen, in Moscow in October1943, before Teheran, at a meeting of foreign ministers:Molotov, Eden and Cordell Hull, Roosevelt’s then-Secretary of State, who seemed to know little and careless about the countries of Eastern Europe. From thelittle I saw of him I found him rather frosty. Eden’sattempt to involve the others in discussing the future ofeast and central Europe was smothered by Molotov,with the help of Hull’s cushion of indifference.Roosevelt at Teheran reinforced that impression, sayinghe intended to withdraw his troops from Europe withina year after the end of hostilities there. Stalin, I feel inretrospect, couldn’t have believed his luck. At the time,of course, we interpreters, even when briefed for a particularsession, could only guess at the strategic dreamsof the principals.