After dinner, the president lifted his glass. “Large families are usually more closely united than small ones . . . and so, this year, with the peoples of the United Kingdom in our family, we are a large family, and more united than ever before. I propose a toast to this unity, and may it long continue!”
Never one to be outdone, Churchill, too, lifted his glass. “He started slowly,” Robert Hopkins recalled. “His sentence used a very unusual construction. He stopped. He seemed lost. There was a long pause. He can’t get out of this, I thought. He’s an old man, his faculties are failing. Then suddenly he picked out a word so perfect, so brilliant, that everyone broke into spontaneous applause. It was a tour de force.”
After dinner, the army band played music and dancing began. Since Sarah was in great demand as the only woman present, Churchill asked Pa Watson, Roosevelt’s big, bluff aide, to dance. Watching the odd couple from the sofa, Roosevelt roared with laughter. All in all, it was a delightful evening, one that would remain a high point in Churchill’s mind for years.
Roosevelt arrived in Teheran eager to meet Stalin face to face. All his life he had prided himself on finding common ground with disparate men; so now he looked forward to the challenge of creating a bond with the forbidding, unapproachable Russian premier. He had scarcely settled into his bedroom at the yellow mansion which housed the Soviet Embassy when word came that the marshal was at the door. “Seeing him for the first time was indeed a shock,” Mike Reilly recalled. “Stalin sort of ambled across the room toward Roosevelt, grinning.” Though he was short, he had the presence of a large man; his mustard-colored uniform boasted such large epaulets that it looked, Lord Moran observed, “as if the tailor . . . had put a shelf on each shoulder and on it has dumped a lot of gold lace with white stars.”
“I am glad to see you. I have tried for a long time to bring this about,” the president said, evoking hearty laughter on Stalin’s part. For thirty minutes they chatted briefly about things they would later talk about at length. “He seems very confident, very sure of himself,” Roosevelt remarked to his son Elliott. But when the pleasantries were finished, Roosevelt still felt he was dealing with a complete stranger. He had no idea as Stalin left whether he’d been able to dissipate any of the distrust that lay like a thick fog between them.
The conference convened that afternoon in the embassy’s boardroom, an immense chamber with dark tapestries on the walls, large, heavy chairs, and a round oak table made specially for the occasion so that no one would argue about who should be placed at its head. “It was a thrilling experience to see the Big Three sitting round the same table at last,” Lord Ismay wrote.
Roosevelt, State Department aide Charles Bohlen observed, “clearly was the dominating figure at the Conference.” Ismay agreed: “He looked the picture of health and was at his best . . . wise, conciliatory and paternal.” Churchill, by contrast, was suffering from a miserable cold, a bronchial cough and an intermittent fever, though, as always, Ismay noted, “mind triumphed over matter, and he did his full share of talking.” As for Stalin, he seemed at first not to be seeing or hearing what was passing about him; he had the air of a man absorbed in his own reflections, doodling wolfheads on his pad with downcast eyes.
It was, at first, the old story. Though Roosevelt thought that at Quebec he had gained Churchill’s absolute commitment to the cross-Channel invasion, the prime minister was once again suggesting a host of peripheral possibilities—including the capture of Rome and inducements to get Turkey to enter the war. But this time, Stalin’s presence was the deciding factor. Bluntly opposing Churchill’s diversionary tactics, Stalin argued that the capture of Rome was irrelevant and the hope for Turkish entry into the war illusory. “If we are here to discuss military matters,” Stalin said, “then Russia is only interested in Overlord.”
As Stalin took the offensive for Overlord, his eyes grew keener, his voice deepened. “I thank the Lord Stalin was there,” Stimson later wrote, after reading the minutes of the conference. “In my opinion, he saved the day. He brushed away the diversionary attempts of the PM with a vigor which rejoiced my soul.”
As he watched the balance swing against him, Churchill’s mood became somber. Unable to purge himself of his abiding fear that catastrophe would accompany a direct assault on the Continent, he told Lord Moran that he believed “man might destroy man and wipe out civilization,” Europe would be left desolate, and he would be held responsible.
His only hope, Churchill believed, was to see Roosevelt alone and to win him back. As soon as the first plenary session was over, Churchill asked Roosevelt if they could lunch together. It seemed a simple request, considering the vast number of lunches these two men had shared, from elegant meals at Casablanca to hot dogs at Hyde Park. But Roosevelt firmly declined the invitation; he feared that Stalin’s suspicions would be aroused if he and Churchill were seen alone, conferring in a language the Russians couldn’t understand.
Having come to Teheran to accommodate Stalin, Roosevelt was determined to do everything he could to make a personal connection with the Russian leader. The task was proving more difficult than he had imagined. “I had done everything he asked me to do,” Roosevelt remarked. “I had stayed at his Embassy, gone to his dinners, been introduced to his ministers and generals. He was correct, stiff, solemn, not smiling, nothing human to get hold of. I felt pretty discouraged.”
Finally, Roosevelt conjured a way to break the ice. “‘I hope you won’t be sore at me for what I am going to do,’” he warned Churchill as they reassembled at the plenary session. As soon as they sat down, Roosevelt began talking privately with Stalin. “I didn’t say anything that I hadn’t said before, but it appeared quite chummy and confidential . . . .
“Then I said, lifting my hand up to cover a whisper . . . , ‘Winston is cranky this morning, he got up on the wrong side of the bed.’
“A vague smile passed over Stalin’s eyes, and I decided I was on the right track . . . . I began to tease Churchill about his Britishness, about John Bull, about his cigars, about his habits. It began to register with Stalin. Winston got red and scowled, and the more he did so, the more Stalin smiled. Finally Stalin broke out into a deep, hearty guffaw, and for the first time in three days I saw light.”
Suddenly Roosevelt and Stalin had become a twosome, with Churchill, rather than the marshal, the third man out. “From that time on,” Roosevelt exulted, “our relations were personal . . . .”
After a while, Stalin, too joined in the fun of teasing the prime minister. Churchill later claimed that he didn’t resent the teasing in the slightest, but it couldn’t have been easy, and he may have felt envious as he watched Roosevelt turn his considerable charm toward Joseph Stalin.
More important, Churchill must have realized that, as long as Roosevelt and Stalin stuck together on Overlord, there was nothing he could do to stop the invasion. Bowing to reality, he lent his voice to a unanimous agreement that Overlord would be launched on the first of May. The threesome also agreed, over Churchill’s initial objection, to a supporting attack in the south of France. And Stalin promised that, once Germany was defeated, Russia would join the war against Japan.
When these decisions had been reached, the tension snapped. On November 30, Roosevelt and Stalin joined Churchill in a jubilant celebration of the prime minister’s sixty-ninth birthday. “There were toasts and more toasts,” Hap Arnold recalled. “One speech followed another. Churchill extolled the President, glorified Stalin, then the U.S.” Roosevelt toasted the valor of the Red Army. As each toast was made, “Stalin went around the table and clicked glasses with all the military men.” Finally, Stalin rose to speak.
“I want to tell you, from the Russian point of view, what the President and the United States have done to win the war. The most important things in this war are machines. The United States has proven that it can turn out from 8,000 to 10,000 airplanes per month. Russia can only turn out, at most, 3,000 a month. England turns out 3,000 to 3,500 . . . . Th
e United States, therefore, is the country of machines. Without the use of these machines, through Lend-Lease, we would lose the war.”
This was the first time the Soviet government had ever publicly thanked the United States for lend-lease. Except for sporadic releases in the Russian press about the arrival of particular items, the people of Russia had never been officially informed about the relationship between the vast American shipments that were coming into Russia every week and the phenomenal success of the Red Army in rolling back the Germans.
At the time of the Teheran Conference, American factories were supplying the Soviet Union with fully two-thirds of their motor vehicles and one-half of their planes; the United States had sent Russia over five thousand fighter planes in 1943 alone, more than to any other theater of war. American rails were enabling the Russians to rebuild their railroad lines; American communication equipment was making possible the control of military movements; American tires and American oil were keeping Russian trucks moving and planes flying. American explosives were being used in the manufacture of bombs and shells in Russian factories; American seeds were being planted in reconquered farmlands that had been devastated in the fighting. At the same time, American industry was supplying thirteen million Soviet soldiers with their winter boots, their uniforms, and their blankets. And for the larder of the Red Army, the United States was sending millions of tons of foodstuff, including wheat, flour, meat, eggs, and milk.
It was an astonishing story: every week, hundreds of thousands of tons of supplies were being loaded onto freight trains and transferred to one group of ships, which plied their way through the icy waters of the Arctic Ocean to Murmansk and Archangel, while another fleet sailed halfway round the world across the Pacific to Siberia, and a third traveled through the Persian Gulf to the port of Basra. For more than two years, American ships had been sailing the hazardous waters of both the Atlantic and the Pacific to bring their precious cargo to the Russian troops. More than 12 percent of the American convoys had been lost in 1942, with a heavy loss of life. But only now was Stalin willing to express the gratitude of his nation.
Midnight came and went, and the toasts continued. Finally, at 2 a.m., Roosevelt asked for the privilege of the last word. “We have differing customs and philosophies and ways of life,” he said. “But we have proved here at Tehran that the varying ideals of our nations can come together in a harmonious whole, moving unitedly for the common good of ourselves and of the world.”
The conference drew to a close the following day with a wide-ranging discussion of postwar concerns, including the need for an international body to keep the peace, the fate of the Baltic States, the borders of Poland, and the dismemberment of Germany. At one point, in an exercise that would have infuriated Eleanor had she been there, the three men huddled around a large map of Central Europe blandly drawing new borders for Poland.
The next morning, believing that the conference had been “an important milestone in the program of human affairs,” Roosevelt departed for Cairo, where he continued his talks with Churchill. Though everybody was tired, one crucial decision remained. The time had come to choose the commander for the Allied invasion. Roosevelt was leaning toward George Marshall; in a letter earlier in the year to General John J. Pershing, commander of American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, Roosevelt said that, although he considered Marshall the most important figure among the Combined Chiefs, and would hate to lose him, he thought it only fair to give him a chance in the field. “I want George to be the Pershing of the Second World War and he cannot be that if we keep him here.”
But, the nearer the decision drew, the more Roosevelt worried about losing Marshall’s presence from the Joint Chiefs. Everything had worked so well for so long; to break it up now seemed too risky. Better, he reasoned, to keep Marshall in Washington and give Eisenhower the job. Unable to face Marshall directly, Roosevelt sent Hopkins to feel him out. When Marshall gamely replied that he would go along wholeheartedly with whatever decision the president made, the die was cast. “Well, Ike,” Roosevelt jovially announced when they met in Tunis, “you are going to command Overlord.”
“Homeward bound,” Roosevelt cabled Eleanor on December 9. “I am now on a 12 hour plane trip which I hate. But on the whole it has been a real success . . . . Lots to tell you about and lots and lots of love.”
• • •
Tanned by the sun of North Africa, the president returned to the White House in a positive frame of mind. His spirits were raised still further when he found his entire Cabinet, the congressional leaders, and the White House staff on hand in the Diplomatic Reception Room to welcome him home. “He was in his traveling linen suit,” Stimson recorded, “looked very well, and greeted all of us with very great cheeriness and good humor and kindness. He was at his best. Republicans were mixed with Democrats and they all seemed very glad to have him back safe and sound.”
The president’s good humor did not extend to his wife and daughter. Knowing they were still angry with him for not taking them along on his fabulous trip, he was withdrawn, ill at ease, uncommunicative. “OM was very cool to me that first day,” Anna wrote John, “never mentioned you except to answer my questions by saying that you were well.” For her part, Eleanor was determined, in recompense for not being invited, to find out everything that had happened at the conference. That evening, to the president’s first dinner home in more than three weeks, she invited Trude Pratt and Franklin’s old friend Harry Hooker to join Anna and FDR, Jr. “Tonight,” she pledged, “we shall ply him with questions.”
The dinner that night, Anna reported to John, was “a complete fiasco,” as Eleanor “proceeded to push, push, push at OM to relate his experiences,” though FDR “wanted to sit leisurely over cocktails and dinner and tell his story in his own way.” Instead, “LL rushed him through cocktails and kept hammering at him until his annoyance was so obvious, Frankie and I were wild, could do nothing about it.”
Finally, to appease his wife, the president began telling the story of the conference, revealing in rich detail anecdotes about Stalin and Churchill. So intimate, even indiscreet, were these disclosures that Anna felt compelled to interrupt, putting her hand on her father’s arm. If any of the stories were to leak from this room, she warned, looking at Mr. Hooker and Mrs. Pratt, “it would be dynamite and could be used by the ‘opposition’ to ruin all of your most important plans. OM answered ‘you’re quite right’ but LL did not appreciate my crack!”
“Honestly,” Anna admitted to John, “LL uses such poor judgment at times. Tommy and I have had long talks about our sweet and wonderful LL’s indiscretions in repeating things to such people as Trude. Also Tommy has good evidence that LL’s letters to Joe are opened sometimes and that LL is not always discreet in these letters. By that I mean that Tommy worries that LL might repeat to Joe what OM told that night at dinner. It’s all kinda tough, because LL is so damn sweet and unselfish, so lovely and sensitive.”
Still, Eleanor refused to give up. When the dinner guests departed, she tried to get more out of the president by following him to his room. Her efforts proved fruitless. It was nearly midnight, he had had a long day, and he was exhausted.
The next morning, Anna joined her father for breakfast in his room. Knowing how uncomfortable Eleanor had made him the night before with her relentless quest for details about the conference, Anna deliberately confined her conversation to good-natured gossip about family and friends—the sort of talk FDR loved.
“I finally managed to break the ice,” Anna proudly reported to John, with “a good old chin-fest.” During their frolicsome talk, Anna provided her father with juicy details about the “sex peregrinations” of her two brothers Elliott and FDR, Jr. Apparently Elliott was involved in a passionate romance with the actress Faye Emerson, and FDR, Jr., had developed a terrific crush on Kay Summersby, General Eisenhower’s beautiful young driver.
As it happened, the president had met Miss Summersby in Algiers when he stopped to see
Eisenhower. He had sat only one place away from her at dinner one night, and had shared a picnic lunch with her and Eisenhower the following day. An experienced observer of human nature, Roosevelt had come to the conclusion, he confided in Anna, that this attractive young British woman was sleeping with General Eisenhower! Delighting in the intimacy of their conversation, Anna then recalled that Frankie, in the throes of his own passion for the same woman, had remarked that, as beautiful as she was, “the things she had been through [divorce and death of her subsequent fiancé] had made her a bit of a psychopathic case.”
Anna’s “chin-fest” with her father continued until nearly 10 a.m., when he had to get ready for a meeting with the vice-president and congressional leaders. As he dressed, he was in great spirits. There was nothing he enjoyed more than exchanging gossip. Yet, with Missy gone, the opportunities for lazy, relaxed conversations had greatly diminished. It was good to have Anna home. For her part, Anna was euphoric. “Ever since my talk with OM about Elliott and other things,” she exulted to John, “he and I have been on very good terms—closer, I think, than usual.”
Roosevelt’s chumminess with his daughter coincided with his loss of Harry Hopkins. On December 21, Hopkins finally moved out of the White House into his new home, a charming town house in Georgetown, at 33rd and N. For Harry and Louise, who had felt for months that Eleanor resented their being at the White House, the move was long overdue. “It is the first time I have had Christmas in my own house for years,” Hopkins wrote his youngest son, Stephen, who was a marine in the South Pacific, “and Louie made it the pleasantest that I think I ever had in my life.”