Prosaic reality was pressing in from every side in this month (which saw the presentation by Churchill to Roosevelt of the Kipling poems). Churchill had to fend off a “friendly suggestion” from Roosevelt that Brigadier General William Donovan, legendary director of the OSS, should be placed in command of resistance work in the Balkans, a region of historic British predominance. Next month, November 1943, Churchill was hurt to discover that Roosevelt was again attempting to deal with Stalin behind his back in the run-up to the Cairo and Tehran summits. His cable began;
There seems to have been a most unfortunate misunderstanding.
And it ended:
I was very glad to hear also from Ambassador Clark Kerr that you contemplate going on November 26th to Teheran. I rather wish you had been able to let me know direct.
At preparatory talks in Moscow among the Foreign Ministers, Anthony Eden had acted as spokesman for the Anglo-American alliance. This was, in the words of the editor of the Churchill-Roosevelt correspondence, “the last time during World War II that the Americans would accept anything less than the role of senior partner with Britain.” At the subsequent meeting in Tehran, once and future site of the ascendancy of America over Britain, Churchill was deprived of his ambition to be chairman of the conference; an ambition he had forwarded by citing his seniority in age, his alphabetical precedence, and the greater historic standing of the British Empire over the two young superpowers. Rebuffed in this claim, and told that Roosevelt and Stalin would meet privately, Churchill sarcastically told Averell Harriman that he was “glad to obey orders.” The summit was also significant in that it definitively overruled Churchill’s preference for continued operations in the British-dominated Aegean and Mediterranean, and concentrated all efforts on the “Second Front” in mainland Europe. Next month, in December, Roosevelt rubbed in the new relationship by brusquely opposing Churchill’s plan to restore King George to the throne of Greece.
The year 1944 opened with a renewal of ill-feeling over India. Admiral William Leahy had written to Roosevelt saying:
It has become evident that differences between the interests and objectives of the United States and Great Britain in Southeast Asia raise serious objections to the continuance of the New Delhi Committee. Much of the territory in which military operations in that theater of the war are to be conducted consists of portions of the British Empire now under Japanese occupation. British interests and objectives in that area are, therefore, both military and political, while those of the United States are concerned with the defeat of Japan. . . . The State Department has consistently taken the position of opposing any integration of our propaganda program for the India-Burma region with the program of the British.
This may have been righteous and hypocritical in respect of presumed American altruism, but it was accurate in respect of Britain, which made no secret of its intention to restore “the King-Emperor” wherever and whenever possible. (As so often in this story, it appears that the imperial motives of others are always easier to discern.) Roosevelt acted on the letter of Leahy’s message, contacting Churchill and recommending the scrapping of the New Delhi Committee. He added a veiled threat in his own handwriting, saying that discontinuation of the committee would obviate the need for him to make “a trip to India to sort it out.” Churchill could have wanted few things less than a presidential visit to India.
Admiral Leahy also urged Roosevelt to pursue a policy at odds with the British in the matter of Western Europe. In spite of the fact that it was on the British flank in the plans for the invasion of Normandy, the prize of northwestern Germany with the ports of Hamburg and Bremen was felt in Washington to be worth the military risk. “Although the occupation of the northern area will render our military problem more difficult initially,” wrote Leahy to the President, “the long-term political and military advantages to the United States are of such importance that we should not accept the recommendation of the British chiefs of staff.”
As 1944 drew on, the word “political” increasingly took precedence over the word “military” in the discussion of Anglo-American commitments. On the American home front, the Five Senators were still active, touring American bases overseas and returning home to denounce what they termed “giveaway” programs. They wanted raw materials as well as bases in exchange for Lend-Lease, and they understood that the crucial raw material was oil. Responding to these and other pressures, Roosevelt called for high-level Anglo-American talks on oil, placing such key words as “transportation rights,” “concession rights,” and “price and marketing policies” on the agenda. This drew a furious response from Lord Halifax at the Washington embassy, who exclaimed that the Americans “were treating us shockingly, and that they were being as cavalier as U.J.” Since U.J. in cable parlance meant “Uncle Joe,” one has a measure of British pique.
Churchill understood instinctively that this meant an American challenge to the British position. He wrote to Roosevelt in February 1944, saying:
There is apprehension in some quarters here that the United States has a desire to deprive us of our oil assets in the Middle East on which, among other things, the whole supply of our navy depends. This sensitiveness has of course been greatly aggravated by the Five Senators.
This, as it turned out, was only the harbinger of future rivalry. Roosevelt’s reply was unexpectedly tough:
You point to the apprehension on your side that the United States desires to deprive you of oil assets in the Middle East. On the other hand, I am disturbed about the rumor that the British wish to horn in on Saudi Arabian oil reserves.
He insisted on going ahead with the Cabinet-level oil discussions. At the same time, he took the side of Under Secretary of State Edward Stettinius against Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau on the restriction of British dollar balances in America. Both Stettinius and Morgenthau favored reducing and restricting British balances, but Morgenthau felt the question could be postponed until after the war. Stettinius vigorously disagreed, telling Roosevelt that “if the financial side of the war is run in such a way as to keep British balances at or about $1 billion, we thereby reduce our chance to achieve the basic economic policy we want and need.” Roosevelt expressed his usual view that “the domestic aspect of this situation was great enough to be controlling”: his invariable and unanswerable practice when conveying news of this sort to Churchill. The same consideration applied to the simultaneous cancellation of Lend-Lease agreements which benefited the British economy rather than the war effort. Many of these, such as Caribbean sugar purchases, also involved jostling over colonial possessions.
Oil, currency, colonies, and trade: it was difficult not to discern a pattern of American maneuver aimed at an ever-wider “Open Door.” Certainly, that conception was self-consciously present in the minds of men like Stettinius. And it appears to have dawned on an increasingly gloomy Churchill, who, writing to Roosevelt with his reservations about Middle East oil talks on February 24, 1944, said sadly:
Your telegram dismisses all these points and if you will allow me to say so seemed to convey your decision on these matters.
By way of reply a mere five days later, Churchill received one of the most astonishing communications of the entire correspondence. It took the form of a memorandum, commissioned by Roosevelt, from Major General Patrick Hurley. Hurley was an ambitious soldier-diplomat who acted as presidential “fact-finder” in the Middle East. Although he was a staunch Republican, his memo described the enemies of United States policy as “greedy minorities, monopolies, aggression and imperialism.” In its rhetoric, the memo is the most classic expression of American anti-imperial imperialism since Mahan. As Hurley put it:
The imperialism of Germany, Japan, Italy, France, Belgium, Portugal and the Netherlands will, we hope, end or be radically revised by this war. British imperialism seems to have acquired new life. This appearance, however, is illusory. What appears to be a new life of British imperialism is the result of the infusion, into its emaciated form, of
the blood of productivity and liberty from a free nation through lend-lease. British imperialism is being defended today by the blood of the soldiers of the most democratic nation on earth.
Glancing backward for a moment, Hurley defined Woodrow Wilson’s policy in the First World War as “designed ‘to make the world safe for democracy’ and to sustain Britain as a first class world power. Sustaining Britain as a first class world power has for many years been the cornerstone of America’s foreign policy.” Hurley added, with another echo from Mahan, that “I have long believed and have many times stated publicly that the ultimate destiny of the English-speaking peoples is a single destiny.” However, he asserted, “an effort to establish true freedom among the less favored nations, so many of which are under the present shadow of imperialism, will almost inevitably run counter to the policy of sustaining Britain as a first class world power.” (Italics mine.)
Turning to the business in hand, which was Iran, Hurley urged Roosevelt to disassociate entirely from British policy there. “Many Iranian officials believe that American troops are in Iran on the invitation and for the purpose of serving as an instrumentality of Britain.” That this was harmful to American objectives seemed clear to Hurley, who added:
In addition to this the United Kingdom Commercial Corporation which was first engaged in preclusive purchasing in Iran has since been selling American lend-lease supplies to civilians and to the Government of Iran. Lastly through our lend-lease supplies, paid for by the American taxpayer, the United Kingdom Commercial Corporation has been attempting and, to a considerable degree, succeeding in establishing a complete trade monopoly in Iran. . . . The Iranians believe that the post-war monopoly plans of the United Kingdom Commercial Corporation now have the support of the United States government.
Urging the rival claims of the United States Commercial Corporation, Hurley pointed out that there would soon “be a great rush on the part of American businessmen to get oil, mineral and other concessions in Iran. I suggest that the State Department, with the assistance of the other agencies of our government, should be prepared to advise the Government of Iran definitely concerning the character and other qualifications of every applicant for a concession.”
Among those American businesses trying to get concessions in Iran was the Sinclair Oil Company, with which General Hurley had an exceedingly close personal and business relationship. Churchill’s reply, which was three whole months in coming, could hardly have been more contemptuous had he known of this connection, which he did not. One can almost see the angry cigar smoke wreathing the riposte:
The General seems to have some ideas about British imperialism which I confess make me rub my eyes. He makes out, for example, that there is an irrepressible conflict between imperialism and democracy. I make bold, however, to suggest that British imperialism has spread and is spreading democracy more widely than any other system of government since the beginning of time.
No inverted commas for “imperialism”; no euphemisms about “Commonwealth of Nations”; this was Ur-Churchill refusing to apologize for Empire. He may or may not have snorted at Roosevelt’s promise, made in the meantime on March 3, 1944: “Please do accept my assurances that we are not making sheep’s eyes at your oil fields in Iraq or Iran.” And he must have been outraged by Hurley’s mention of German and Italian imperialism in the same breath as British. Something of the resentment he felt at this period is to be found in a deleted passage from one of his cables. The matter under debate was the transfer by Roosevelt of captured Italian ships to the Soviet navy, but the hurt nerve of amour propre obviously ran deeper than that:
Considering Great Britain has suffered at least twenty times the naval losses of your fleet in the Mediterranean and has been fighting the Italians since June 1940, we had hoped to be consulted or at least informed beforehand.
The day after he decided not to send this bitter sentence, Churchill wrote to Roosevelt saying:
Thank you very much for your assurances about no sheep’s eyes at our oil fields at Iran and Iraq. Let me reciprocate by giving you the fullest assurance that we have no thought of trying to horn in upon your interests or property in Saudi Arabia. My position on this, as in all matters, is that Great Britain seeks no advantage, territorial or otherwise, as the result of the war. On the other hand she will not be deprived of anything which rightly belongs to her after having given her best services to the good cause—at least not so long as your humble servant is entrusted with the conduct of her affairs.
Five days later, in a less sensitive vein, Churchill was again protesting at the proposed reductions of British dollar balances:
Will you allow me to say that the suggestion of reducing our dollar balances, which constitute our sole liquid reserve, to one billion dollars would really not be consistent with equal treatment of Allies or with any conception of equal sacrifice or pooling of resources. We have not shirked our duty or indulged in an easy way of living. We have already spent practically all our convertible foreign assets in the struggle. We alone of the Allies will emerge from the war with great masses of war debts. I do not know what would happen if we were now asked to disperse our last liquid reserves required to meet pressing needs, or how I could put my case to Parliament without it affecting public sentiment in the most painful manner and that at a time when British and American blood will be flowing in broad and equal streams.
Next day, ever equal to the literary demands of wartime, Churchill sent Harry Hopkins a hand-lettered parchment with an inscription to commemorate the death in action of his son Stephen. Movingly taken from the closing scene of Macbeth, it evoked the idea of blood and common heritage very aptly:
Your son, my Lord, has paid a soldier’s debt;
He only liv’d but till he was a man;
The which no sooner had his prowess confirm’d
In the unshrinking station where he fought,
But like a man he died.
At about this time, Roosevelt made another of his ingratiating references to past British generalship. Discussing his loathing for de Gaulle and his refusal to receive him in Washington, he said that if de Gaulle asked for a meeting, “I will incline my head with complete suavity and with all that is required by the etiquette of the 18th Century. This is farther than the Great Duke would have gone, don’t you think so?” Keeping up the joshing atmosphere that prevailed whenever there was no outright froideur, the next cable from Churchill referred to trouble with nationalist “wogs” in Egypt. This might or might not have been an implied rebuke to General Hurley’s pretended concern for the wretched of the earth under the British yoke. But Roosevelt showed that he was still serious about this, by refusing Churchill’s appeal for extra ships to relieve famine in British-controlled India. Throughout 1944, in fact, Churchill continued to give ground to superior force, using his own prestige and the emotional ties of earlier years to delay matters where he could. For example, he always tried to follow Roosevelt’s suit—overruling his own Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden—in derogating de Gaulle. At the time of the Normandy landings he wrote to Roosevelt in almost fawning terms, describing his peremptory treatment of the general and saying, “I have repeatedly told de Gaulle and he acknowledged it without irritation that failing an agreement, I stand with you.”
De Gaulle himself had an even clearer memory of this meeting, which he set out in his memoir Unity. “Each time we must choose between Europe and the open sea,” Churchill told him, “we shall always choose the open sea. Each time I must choose between you and Roosevelt, I shall always choose Roosevelt.” This at a time when British forces were fighting their way onto the beaches of Normandy.
Speaking of “open seas,” it was in this same month that Roosevelt protested at the British attempt to establish a “sphere of influence” in the Mediterranean and the Balkans. An aspect of this protest concerned American worries that the British were making separate agreements with the Soviet Union in Romania and Greece. One State Department minute told the Presid
ent: “The British are giving us informal notice that the U.K. expects to follow a strong policy in regard to the Eastern Mediterranean even if it means standing up and making deals with the Soviet Union. This is part and parcel of the British policy of regarding the Mediterranean as a British sea.” Meanwhile, the corresponding view in the British Foreign Office was that the U.K. “could not have a free foreign policy in Europe as long as there was an American Supreme Commander responsible to the Combined Chiefs of Staff in Washington.” Both confidential opinions were, in their different ways, correct. (So was Churchill’s otherwise seemingly irrelevant reminder, at this point, of the fact that Britain had allowed the United States a free hand in South America.)
It was actually in the context of the Monroe Doctrine that the next Anglo-American friction arose. The United States refused to recognize Juan Perón’s coup in Argentina in 1944 unless he agreed to suppress pro-Nazi activity in his country. His predictable refusal led the State Department to withdraw the American ambassador; an action considered inadvisable by the British Foreign Office, which bore in mind the importance of Argentine beef to the United Kingdom. Under pressure, and perhaps not unmindful of the recent objections to Britain’s independent line in the Balkans, Churchill sent a rather acerbic cable reporting the recall of the British envoy and adding: