Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (148 page)

Roosevelt accepted Stalin’s offer, to the dismay of Roosevelt’s security team. The Soviet embassy naturally crawled with Soviet agents, most of whom apparently carried weapons under their coats. Robert Sherwood remembered the Teheran conference as a “nervous time” for Mike Reilly and his Secret Service men, “who were trained to suspect
everybody
and who did not like to admit into the President’s presence anyone who was armed with as much as a gold toothpick.”

Churchill didn’t like Roosevelt’s decision either, but he took it with good grace, to the point of claiming partial credit. By Churchill’s account, Soviet foreign minister Molotov had asserted that Soviet intelligence had uncovered an active plot to assassinate one or more of the Allied triumvirate. “If anything like that were to happen,” Molotov said, “it could produce a most unfortunate impression.” Speaking for himself, Churchill later wrote: “This could not be denied. I strongly supported Molotov in his appeals to the President to move forthwith inside the Soviet Embassy…. We prevailed upon Mr. Roosevelt to take this good advice, and next afternoon he moved with his whole staff.” If the event in fact unfolded as Churchill remembered, it almost certainly said less about Churchill’s powers of persuasion than about Roosevelt’s ability to act as though he needed persuading.

R
OOSEVELT UNSETTLED
Churchill a bit more by arranging for his first meeting at Teheran to be with Stalin, alone except for their translators. Roosevelt assumed that the Russians had planted listening devices in the room, but since he was speaking to Stalin he wasn’t worried. He supposed the British had
not
been able to bug the room.

“I am glad to see you,” Roosevelt said. “I have tried a long time to bring this about.”

Stalin took responsibility for the delay, politely but in a manner that reminded Roosevelt of the continuing difference between their two countries with respect to Germany. Stalin said he had been “very occupied because of military matters.”

Stalin’s style during the Teheran conference contrasted sharply with his practice at home. At least so it seemed to Charles Bohlen, Roosevelt’s translator, who had been stationed in Moscow before the war. Bohlen had studied Stalin closely, and he considered him in top form at Teheran. “I reflected on Stalin’s fluency and his lack of hesitation in choosing his words,” Bohlen recalled.

There was a kind of texture to his Russian that might be called an accent. His Georgian accent was not particularly noticeable to my ear, although I was subsequently told that some cultured Russians found it irritating. Stalin also seemed to me to be considerate of his interpreter and to be meticulous in observing the length of time that he spoke. He spoke quietly, never raised his voice, and frequently used expressions designed to indicate a certain humbleness of spirit…. In Teheran, Stalin used phrases like “in my opinion,” “I could be wrong, but I think,” and “I believe,” with no hint of the arbitrary dictator. I noticed him break from this mold only once, when I approached him from behind with a request from Roosevelt. I had interfered with his study of the Russian text of the final communiqué, and he was tired. Without turning, he snapped over his shoulder, “For God’s sake, allow us to finish this work.” Then he turned and saw that the interruption came not from a Russian but from an emissary of the President of the United States. This was the only time I ever saw Stalin embarrassed.

In response to Stalin’s remark about being occupied militarily, Roosevelt inquired about the conditions on the battlefront. Stalin said things were not going well. The Red Army had recently lost an important town and was about to lose a crucial railway center. The Germans were bringing up fresh divisions and were increasing the pressure at several points.

But did the initiative not remain with the Russian army? asked Roosevelt.

Stalin said it did, overall. Yet at the moment his troops were unable to mount significant offensive operations, except in the Ukraine.

Roosevelt said he wished it were in his power to compel the removal of thirty or forty German divisions from the Soviet front. This was a principal aim of the United States and Britain, he said, and it would be a subject of conversation in the days to come. But for the moment he wanted to talk about the postwar settlement. He related that he had had an “interesting conversation” with Chiang Kai-shek in Cairo regarding the future of China.

Stalin frowned. “The Chinese have fought very badly,” he said. He put the blame on Chiang and his associates, saying the dismal performance of the troops was “the fault of the Chinese leaders.”

Roosevelt didn’t defend Chiang at this point. Instead he explained how the United States proposed to strengthen China with additional supplies. He let the conversation turn to France, about which Stalin expressed equally vigorous views. General de Gaulle, Stalin said, was “very unreal” in his activities. He acted as though he commanded a great state, when in fact he commanded nothing at all.

Roosevelt agreed. Yet he implied that de Gaulle or someone like him would be essential to reconstructing France after the war. “In the future,” the president said, “no Frenchman over forty, and particularly no Frenchman who had ever taken part in the present French government, should be allowed to return to a government position.” Roosevelt went on to say that while Churchill believed that France must quickly be reconstructed as a strong nation, he disagreed. “Many years of honest labor will be necessary before France is re-established,” he said. “The first necessity for the French, not only for the government but for the people as well, is to become honest citizens.”

Stalin suggested that France ought not to be allowed to reclaim its colonial empire. No Allied blood, for example, should be spilled to restore French rule in Indochina.

Roosevelt said he agreed “one hundred percent.” After a century of French rule, the inhabitants of Indochina were worse off than they had been when the French arrived. Roosevelt took this opportunity to re-inject Chiang and China into the conversation. Chiang had said at Cairo that the Indochinese weren’t ready for independence. Roosevelt explained that he had replied that perhaps an international trusteeship of some sort could be established, leading to independence within twenty or thirty years.

Stalin said he concurred completely.

Roosevelt extrapolated from Indochina to India, which must receive its independence after the war as well. But he added, by way of warning, that it would “be better not to discuss the question of India with Mr. Churchill.”

Stalin agreed that India was a “sore spot” with the British.

Roosevelt said he would like to discuss India further, at a more convenient time. He added in passing that he thought the solution to India’s social and economic problems would be reform from the bottom, “somewhat on the Soviet line.”

Stalin said the Indian question was complicated by the caste structure of the country. He added, with no apparent enthusiasm: “Reform from the bottom would mean revolution.”

The conversation lasted an hour. The president and the marshal were informed that Churchill had arrived. As they went out to meet the prime minister, Roosevelt told Stalin he had enjoyed their informal chat and hoped to repeat it.

I
N CONTRAST TO
the Roosevelt-Stalin tête-à-tête, the three-sided plenary that followed was a full-dress, fully staffed affair. A round table had been brought in, lest a table with straight sides and sharp corners somehow connote precedence among the three contingents. Twelve men sat around the table: Roosevelt, Hopkins, Harriman, and Bohlen for the Americans; Churchill, Anthony Eden, cabinet deputy secretary Lord Ismay, and interpreter Arthur Birse for the British; Stalin, Molotov, Defense Commissar Klimenti Voroshilov, and interpreter V. N. Pavlov for the Russians. George Marshall would have joined Roosevelt, displacing Harriman, but, to the general’s lasting chagrin, he misunderstood the schedule and was out touring Teheran while the others gathered.

By common consent, Roosevelt took charge of this first meeting. He strove from the outset to keep it from growing too ponderous. He said that as the youngest of the three present, he ventured to welcome his elders. He added, “We are sitting around this table for the first time as a family, with the one object of winning the war.” He explained to Stalin that it had been his and Churchill’s practice, at their previous meetings, to be perfectly frank and confidential—“to publish nothing but to speak our minds very freely.” He hoped the same practice would apply now. He said the general staffs of the three countries could handle most of the military discussions. “Marshal Stalin, the Prime Minister, and I have many things to discuss pertaining to conditions after the war.”

He turned to Churchill, who remarked that the three of them represented “the greatest concentration of power the world has ever seen.” Churchill continued: “In our hands here is the possible certainty of shortening the war, the much greater certainty of victories, but the absolute certainty that we hold the happy future of mankind.” The prime minister expressed the hope that they might prove themselves worthy of “this God-given opportunity.”

Roosevelt nodded, then looked to Stalin. “Perhaps our host would like to say a few words,” the president said.

“I take pleasure in welcoming those present,” Stalin responded. “I think that history will show that this opportunity has been of tremendous importance. I think the great opportunity which we have and the power which our people have invested in us can be used to take full advantage within the frame of our potential collaboration.” He paused to let the translator catch up. “Now let us get down to business,” he said.

Roosevelt obliged. He offered a survey of the war and its meaning, starting with the Pacific and with China. He explained that American strategy toward Japan was based, for the present at least, on the principle of attrition: of destroying more Japanese ships and planes than the Japanese could replace. It was essential to this strategy that China continue to tie down the largest part of Japanese resources. “We must definitely keep China actively in the war,” he said.

From the Pacific the president moved to Europe. He merely alluded to the delays in opening a second front before reaffirming that the cross-Channel invasion would occur in the late spring of 1944. Weather would prevent anything earlier. “The Channel is such a disagreeable body of water,” Roosevelt said, before adding, “No matter how unpleasant that body might be, however, we still want to get across it.” (Churchill couldn’t help interrupting: “We were very glad it was an unpleasant body of water at one time.”)

The projected timetable raised the question of what America and Britain could do in the meantime to ease the burden on the Soviet Union—and it provoked the principal disagreement of the afternoon. Churchill, as always, argued for an operation in the Mediterranean. The British and Americans might push from Rome into the Po Valley, he said, or even strike at Germany from Italy. Perhaps complementarily, a thrust toward the Turkish Straits and the Black Sea would open up new possibilities for provisioning the Soviet Union.

Stalin wasn’t buying. He may have suspected the Anglo-Americans of trying to renege again on their second-front promise, or he may have imagined that Churchill was seeking a foothold in Turkey to use against Russia after the war. Either way, he rejected Churchill’s plan. He said it would be wrong “to scatter the British and American forces.” France was the primary target for their armies, and if they needed something to do while they waited for the Channel to calm, they could attack southern France. “This would be a much better operation than to scatter forces in several areas distant from each other.”