by Alan Watson
Kennan wrote his telegram in bed. He was down with flu. In Washington the Treasury, shocked by Russia’s refusal to co-operate in setting up the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, pleaded with the State Department for an explanation. They in turn asked their embassy in Moscow to provide one and, as we have seen, Harriman was happy for Kennan to reply. As Kennan confided in his memoirs, ‘They [the State Department] had asked for it. Now by God they would have it!’6 In 5,000 words he spelled out Soviet realities as he saw them. His message was simple, however: it was imperative now to smite the crocodile.
The Yalta Protocol was signed by Stalin and accepted by Roosevelt and Churchill. This stated that the liberated peoples of Eastern Europe should be allowed to create democratic institutions of their own choice. In Kennan’s view this pledge was not worth the paper it was written upon.7 Roosevelt may have believed it, Churchill may have wished to, but events revealed a different and chilling reality.
In the ‘long telegram’, Kennan had confirmed what was happening. Now it was for Churchill to give the clarion call. He now returned to Washington to finalise the speech he hoped would do the job of alerting the Americans and the world to what needed to be done. Containment would become imperative and the unique Anglo-American alliance the means of achieving it.
Crucially his political imagination was binding together a synthesis of agendas. One was that the Anglo-American alliance was essential if Stalin was to be stopped and his bridgehead strategy of further European expansion frustrated. The USA had to be persuaded to defend Europe.
For that, America’s unique ally in Europe – the United Kingdom – had to survive economically. This meant the administration had to deliver on the loan Britain desperately needed following the cessation of Lend-Lease. And thus we come to the second part of Churchill’s agenda. It wasn’t only saving Britain economically. Europe had to be saved and more importantly it had to be seen by the Americans to be worth saving. Europe had to become economically and politically viable. Churchill was clear that for this to happen Europe would have to unite, profoundly unlikely though that prospect seemed in 1946.
Churchill’s political instinct was pushing him towards a magician’s touch. At Fulton he would call for an Anglo-American alliance militarily capable of containing Soviet expansionism – using the unique window of a temporary atomic monopoly. He would also push his case for the loan to Britain from the USA. But he would also put down the marker for a second speech – the one he would give in Zurich later in the year and a speech that would astonish the world by calling for Franco-German partnership.
PART III
CHURCHILL’S CRUSADE
9
Lord Halifax and the White House
Churchill’s travel plans were never simple and always subject to whim. He loved the indulgence of changing his mind. When he arrived in Washington, on 10 February 1946, he was not as free to alter arrangements as on previous visits. He was no longer prime minister and thus was not invited to stay in the White House. During the war he had virtually been given a wing of the presidential mansion. However, the food was dire and he loathed Roosevelt’s cocktails – preferring surreptitiously to fortify himself on visits to the lavatory from a flask of Johnnie Walker whisky. But he had been Roosevelt’s guest at the epicentre of power. Now he was relegated to the British embassy – so near yet so far. And to make matters worse, his host was not the president but instead Lord Halifax – the man he had sent to Washington in 1940 to get him out of London.
During May 1940 Lord Halifax, in cabinet, was unhappy with Churchill‘s resolute objection to any form of negotiation with Hitler either directly or through Italian intermediaries. Churchill believed the British people would find any terms repugnant unless they had joined battle to the last. The Labour Party agreed. Halifax, who had so nearly become prime minster on Neville Chamberlain’s resignation and who was the preferred choice of the king and many Tory MPs, took a very different view. He favoured seeking the mediation of Mussolini and in talking with the Italian ambassador had even contemplated putting the future of Gibraltar, Malta and Suez on the negotiating table.1
Churchill’s style infuriated Halifax. ‘I have seldom met anybody with stranger gaps of knowledge or whose mind works in greater jerks . . .’2 After the key war cabinet meeting on 27 May 1940 he condemned Churchill as talking ‘the most awful rot’. He threatened to resign and Churchill later would, in effect, accept it and send him to Washington as ambassador. It was not that Halifax proposed treason. He believed he proposed reason – negotiate before risking defeat. Churchill believed there could be no negotiation unless defeated and in these circumstances he and the rest of the cabinet should be prepared to ‘choke in their own blood’. Surrender would be left to others and, astonishingly, he had the aged Lloyd George in mind as a British Pétain.
We now know from German Colonel General Franz Halder’s war diaries that Adolf Hitler had indeed started to think along similar lines. He suggested during a planning conference for Operation Sea Lion, the German invasion of the United Kingdom, that a British cabinet might be formed consisting of Lloyd George, Chamberlain and Lord Halifax.
None of this had come to pass but on arriving in Washington on 10 February 1946, with Halifax as his host, Churchill may well have sensed that his determination to throw down the gauntlet to another tyrant, Stalin, might evoke the same trepidation in Halifax as when he had defied Hitler. In the event that is precisely what happened.
They all had dinner together on the evening of the 10th, where Jo Sturdee, Churchill’s secretary, was present. A letter to her parents not only includes a drawing of the table plan – Lady Halifax on Churchill’s left, Lord Halifax at the head – but also her verdict on the occasion. It was, she wrote, ‘exhausting, small and very polite talk. Dreary, dreary, dreary!’3 Churchill was not going to unwind with Halifax beside him.
At 10.00pm, the ‘dreary’ dinner complete, Churchill left for the White House for a private meeting about the arrangements for Fulton. Media interest was intense but the next day the White House spokesman had little to say. Churchill and Truman had talked in the president’s study and it was ‘almost wholly’4 to do with their journey to Fulton. In fact they were to go by train. Press Secretary Charles Ross was insistent that the conversation between the two men had ‘not been on any political matter or on the British loan’. However, this very first encounter with Truman at the White House signalled that things were not quite as they seemed.5
So, what did the two men talk about that night? The correspondent of The Times of London was in little doubt. ‘Obviously when a speech is made by the former Prime Minister and present Head of the Opposition in the British Parliament under the virtual sponsorship of the head of the American Government, reasons of policy and courtesy demand that its contents and emphasis should be known to the President in advance.’6 Undoubtedly this was the case. For the first time therefore we encounter the ambiguity surrounding this ‘most important’ speech of Churchill’s life. Later and often, Truman was to deny any advance knowledge of what Churchill was to say at Fulton. That deception begins with his press secretary’s denial on 11 February that anything of any political significance had been discussed in the president’s study on 10 February.
Churchill slept in on the morning of the 11th. His meeting with Truman had been demanding. He will have risen with pleasure because the embassy’s guests for lunch were General Eisenhower and his wife. Eisenhower and Churchill got on famously at that time, and they were to meet again after Fulton when both visited Richmond and Williamsburg.
We have no record of what they said to each other at lunch on the 11th but the conversation was more animated than the ‘dreary, dreary’ dinner with the Halifaxes the night before. As tension was rising with the Soviets the subject might well have been raised by either man. George Kennan’s telegram had not yet arrived. It reached Washington on the 22nd after Churchill had returned to Miami, but the disquiet which prompted the State Department t
o request the views of the US embassy in Moscow would have been common ground between Eisenhower and Churchill. Sturdee has left us the table plan but no record of table talk.
The Churchills departed back to Florida where Churchill would again paint and swim, and start the final formulation of his speech, which he was entitling ‘The Sinews of Peace’. It was not a title that would stick – this was to become known as the ‘Iron Curtain’ speech and as such the first significant salvo of the Cold War.
10
The Train to Missouri
The Churchills returned to Washington from Miami by train on 1 March. Even this straightforward journey had been complicated by Churchillian whimsy. Sturdee wrote to her parents:
After the usual umpteen changes of plans about whether to fly or to travel to Washington by train . . . write a nice letter . . . Get me Lord someone or other on the phone. Fetch me a whisky and soda. What are you doing? Now don’t run away and leave me with nothing to do! Grunt, grunt grumble, grumble, mumble.1
Churchill was being his most demanding. The great man could be exasperating but, as Sturdee also confessed to her parents, everyone loved him.2
Churchill was buoyed up. Attlee sent encouragement from London. ‘I am sure your Fulton speech will do good.’3 He had also outlined the speech to Secretary of State Byrnes and told Attlee ‘he seemed to like it very well’.4
All looked fair, the prospects good. And then again logistics complicated matters. Sturdee, on whom Churchill was dependent for the finalisation and presentation of the speech which he was constantly altering, had assumed that she would not be on the train to Missouri. In the flurry of arrangements and rearrangements before the party eventually boarded the president’s train on 4 March, Churchill kept on demanding things of her. ‘What have you done with my red pen? Tell the Ambassador I want to see him. Haven’t you opened the post yet?’ She explained to him that she could not answer all his questions because she had to put his speech together ‘before you leave’. ‘Why?’ ‘Because I’m not coming.’ After all no one had asked her. ‘Of course you must come. If you can’t come I shall have to fly.’ Given the importance Churchill gave to his train journey with Truman this was indeed heavy pressure. She concluded to her parents, ‘So we all ran around in circles and . . . in the end . . . I tagged along feeling just like another piece of baggage . . . very self-conscious about the fuss caused by my being added at the last minute – the shy female.’5
It was just as well she was included because Churchill continued to make changes to the speech until the very end. He also tried a press release about the Anglo-American alliance, which the president’s party did not like. Without Sturdee there might well have not been a finalised, readable text for Churchill next day in the Westminster College gymnasium.
In the event, the speech was completed on board the train and shown to Truman, Byrnes, Admiral Leahy and the others. Churchill and Truman had sat up drinking and playing poker until after 2.30 in the morning but at light ‘steaming beside the broad Missouri river’6 Churchill showed the president the final text. What is more he mimeographed it and gave copies to the president and the others present. As he later reported to Bevin the president ‘told me he thought it was admirable and would do nothing but good’. Significantly Truman added ‘though it will make a stir!’7
Churchill’s report of what happened on board the train was telegrammed to Bevin on 7 March after the speech. It remains the most detailed account. No reference is made to Kennan’s ‘long telegram’, which by then had arrived and Admiral Leahy, at least, had read, but the on-board discussion was dominated by Soviet moves on Iran and Turkey and the planned US response. This created an environment in which it would have been odd indeed if Truman, Leahy and Byrnes had not endorsed Churchill’s text which they were now able to read in its final form.
The text of Churchill’s cable to Bevin is as follows:8
1.The President told me, as we started on our journey from Washington to Fulton, Missouri, that the United States is sending the body of the Turkish Ambassador, who died here some days ago, back to Turkey in the American battleship MISSOURI, which is the vessel on which the Japanese surrender was signed and is probably the strongest battleship afloat. He added that the MISSOURI would be accompanied by a strong task force, which would remain in the Marmara for an unspecified period. Admiral Leahy told me that the task force would consist of another battleship of the greatest power, two of the largest and strongest aircraft carriers, several cruisers and about a dozen destroyers, with the necessary ancillary ships. Both mentioned the fact that the MISSOURI class carry over 140 anti-aircraft guns. I asked about the secrecy of this movement and was told that it was known that the body of the late Ambassador was being returned in a warship but that the details of the task force would not become known before March 15. I feel it my duty to report these facts to you though it is quite possible you may have already been informed through other channels. At any rate, please on no account, make use of the information until you have received it from channels, other than my personal contact with the President.
2.The above strikes me as a very important act of state and one calculated to make Russia understand that she must come to reasonable terms of discussion with the Western Democracies. From our point of view, I am sure that the arrival and stay of such a powerful American Fleet in the Straits must be entirely beneficial, both as reassuring Turkey and Greece and as placing a restraint on what Beria called cutting our life-line through the Mediterranean by the establishment of a Russian naval base at Tripoli.
3.I did not consult the President on the exact text of my speech at Fulton before I finished it, but he read the mimeographed reproduction, which was made on the train in its final form, several hours before I delivered it. He told me he thought it was admirable and would do nothing but good, though it would make a stir. He seemed equally pleased during and after. I also showed it to Mr. Byrnes the night before leaving Washington, making it clear that this was quite private and informal. He was excited about it and did not suggest any alterations. Admiral Leahy, to whom I showed it first of all, was enthusiastic. Naturally I take complete and sole personal responsibility for what I said, for I altered nothing as the result of my contacts with these high American authorities. I think you ought to know exactly what the position is and hope you will understand the very strong and precise terms in which I disclaim any official mission or status of any kind and that I spoke only for myself. If necessary these words of mine could be quoted.
4.Having spent nearly three days in most intimate, friendly contact with the President and his immediate circle, and also having had a long talk with Mr. Byrnes, I have no doubt that the Executive forces here are deeply disturbed at the way they are being treated by Russia and that they do not intend to put up with treaty breaches in Persia or encroachments in Manchuria and Korea, or pressure for the Russian expansion at the exposure of Turkey or in the Mediterranean. I am convinced that some show of strength and resisting power is necessary to a good settlement with Russia. I predict that this will be the prevailing opinion in the United States in the near future.
The high drama of the USS Missouri’s steaming to the Sea of Marmara with the corpse of the Turkish ambassador on board, and then staying there with all its mighty firepower available as a warning to the Soviets, would have vastly appealed to Churchill. So too would the tokenism of deploying the battleship on which only the year before imperial Japan had unconditionally surrendered.
Sensing and hoping for the furore his Fulton speech would generate, Churchill was careful to emphasise that he took ‘complete responsibility’ for the speech and disclaimed ‘any official mission or status’. But he would speak with the president beside him, he would speak under ‘his aegis’ and he had Attlee’s support in his pocket. He would fly the kite but with their full connivance. The scene was finally set for Fulton.
11
‘The most important speech of my life’
There was no railroad
to Fulton itself. They all had to disembark at Jefferson City – a twenty-mile drive away. It was 10.30 in the morning and a warm spring day. A convoy of cars awaited them, first a large open presidential car in which Churchill and Truman would travel as soon as they reached Fulton. It seemed that up to 40,000 people were cramming the streets waiting to glimpse and welcome them. There were two closed cars. In one Churchill and Truman would ride until the moment to switch to the open vehicle. The other was for Sturdee, still incredulous that she was there, Colonel Clarke and Frank Sawyers.
The cars started on their way and the ever observant Sturdee noted that there were crowds all along the route ‘all very well dressed, smiling, well looking but very orderly’.1 Fulton was described to Winston as the ‘heart of America’. Certainly it was at the heart of the Midwest – Truman country. As Churchill was to emphasise a few hours later in his speech, this was a country ‘at the pinnacle of world power’. The USA has prospered from the war. The evident contentment and prosperity of the Midwest folk lining the roads reflected the strength of America and it was to their strength and the ‘awe-inspiring accountability to the future’ that this conferred that Churchill was about to appeal. He must have felt he had his finger on the pulse of the great nation he saw as his second home.