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PARTNERS?: At Teheran, both Roosevelt (right) and Churchillthought they could trust Stalin (left). The map below, whichappeared in time as the Red Army drove across Polandtoward the Reich, forecast the post-Yalta endgame, althoughtime proved wrong about Yugoslavia and, later, Austria.did not trust those he thought were trying to curryfavour with him. Stalin at one point told Churchill hefelt more at home with frank and even tough negotiatorsand open enemies. The P.M., though wilier in thisrespect than Roosevelt, also thought he could win Stalinover by compromise and concession. By the way, unbelievably,he also said he liked the Deputy Commissar forForeign Affairs Andrey Vyshinsky—a more despicableand treacherous character I could not imagine.It was not until years after the Yalta Conferencethat one of its most tragic outcomes—one of theblackest pages in British history—was revealed. The lastformal act was Eden’s signature to the secret agreementon repatriation, in other words the return to Stalin’smerciless hands of Soviet prisoners of war. Many, forcedinto auxiliary service in the German army, had falleninto our hands. The Foreign Office agreed to Sovietdemands that even non-Soviet Russian civilians who hadlived in Eastern Europe before the war should be handedover: an unnecessary and dishonourable act whichChurchill at one point tried to stop.Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt’s close adviser, whomChurchill admired, hailed Yalta as “the dawn of a newage.” Hopkins, for whom I interpreted briefly, wasunhappily a chronically ill man, and he seems to haveprovided some dodgy advice to the President aboutStalin, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In hisrecently published book, Sergo Beria, son of Stalin’ssecret police chief, claims Hopkins was “blindly pro-Soviet even before he met Stalin.”What stays in my memory is the doggedness, thetoughness—not without old-world courtesy and magnanimity—withwhich Churchill fought not just forBritain, but for Poland and France and for smallernations too. His private secretary Jock Colville onceremarked that the difference between WSC and deGaulle was that “de Gaulle’s loyalty was to France alone;Churchill’s was merely to Britain first.”By contrast the xenophobe Stalin and the stolidMolotov, taking the cue from Roosevelt, poured vitriolon the French: “rotten to the core and should be punished,”was one expression I heard. Churchill stuck upfor France not just out of love—Britain would need heras the main ally on the continent. But Churchill alsostood up for fair play for the German people, as distinctfrom the Nazis. Stalin taunted him: “You are pro-German,” adding to his censure the Argentinians,Brazilians and Swiss, calling them “swine,” the Swedeseven worse, the Finns “stone-obstinate.”PotsdamBy the time the leaders met again in July 1945 at“Terminal,” the last of the Big Three gatherings atPotsdam, Truman had replaced Roosevelt, who had >>FINEST HOUR 135 / 21