Churchill had hoped, as he did at Tehran, that he and the president would confer before the three-power summit to align British and American strategy in advance of their discussions with Stalin. On January 4, Churchill sent a cable to FDR, asking, somewhat diffidently, if it might be possible for the president to spend two or three nights at Malta to accomplish this task.11 But Roosevelt—ever mindful of Soviet suspicions about possible Anglo-American conspiracies against the Russians—refused. Concern over Soviet perceptions of Anglo-American collusion was not the only factor that shaped FDR’s decision-making. He also wished to distance himself from the British out of his profound conviction that the United States must, as one intelligence analyst put it, “start exercising the dominant influence which power properly entitles us.” To FDR the exercise of this “dominant influence” required above all else an independent relationship with Stalin, the leader of the other emerging superpower.12
This attitude marked a dramatic shift, of course, from the early years of the war, when Great Britain, with far more troops available for combat in the European Theater, remained the senior partner in the Anglo-American Alliance.13 Thanks to this preponderance, Churchill and the British Chiefs of Staff largely determined the military strategy adopted for Europe in 1942. Much as Admiral King feared, and General Marshall opposed, this took the Allies to North Africa in November 1942 and on to Sicily and Italy in 1943 in pursuit of what eventually became known as the “Mediterranean strategy.” Churchill, who preferred this indirect approach to the war (in part, out of his experience with the horrors of the trench warfare of World War I), and never stopped thinking about the impact that such a strategy might have on his desire to restore British influence in the region, was delighted at these developments, and would continue to press for the expansion of operations in the Mediterranean, even if this meant having to postpone the invasion of Northwest France.14
The USS Quincy arriving in Valletta Harbor, Malta, February 2, 1945. (Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library)
By the end of 1943, however, US mobilization had shifted the military tide rather dramatically in America’s favor, with the result that Churchill increasingly found himself the junior partner in the Anglo-American Alliance. The most striking example of this shift came during the first two days of the Tehran conference of November–December 1943, where FDR all but ignored Churchill, held a number of one-on-one meetings with Stalin, and firmly supported Stalin’s demand that the Anglo-Americans open a second front in northwest France in the spring of 1944—which was also the strategy vehemently favored by General Marshall.15
This pattern now repeated itself in the days leading up to the Yalta conference. Unable to convince FDR of the advantages of a pre-summit tête-à-tête and still distressed about Great Britain’s diminishing influence over the course of the war, Churchill proposed at the very least a preliminary meeting of the Combined Chiefs of Staff as well as a conference involving the three Allied foreign ministers “of about a week’s duration” prior to the summit. Churchill was also anxious to learn FDR’s thoughts on the length of the Yalta meeting as he speculated that this “may well be a fateful conference, coming at a moment when the great allies are so divided and the shadow of the war lengthens out before us.” Giving vent to the pessimism that seemed to plague him at the time, Churchill also expressed his fear that “the end of this war may well prove to be more disappointing than the last.”16
After further entreaties from Churchill, FDR finally agreed to send both his military chiefs and Secretary of State Edward Stettinius to Malta in time for preliminary discussions. But he made certain that these talks would be of limited duration. General George Marshall, Admiral Ernest King, and General Laurence Kuter (who replaced the ill General Henry H. Arnold) would not arrive on the island until January 30, and Stettinius would fly in a day later, a mere forty-eight hours before the delegation was scheduled to depart on the evening of February 2.
Churchill and his foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, found Roosevelt’s willingness to allow these brief discussions reassuring, although the prime minister confessed to being somewhat perplexed by FDR’s response to his question about how long the president expected to remain at Yalta: five to six days. It was a good thing, Churchill mused in a mid-January cable he sent to FDR, that the president had agreed to the preliminary talks. Without them, he did not see how the Allies could realize their hopes for the creation of a world organization in just five or six days; after all, as he put it, “even the Almighty took seven.”17
Left unsaid in these polite diplomatic exchanges was the fact that American skepticism over British policies and behavior was possibly greater than that over the Russians. The view in Washington, emanating from the president on down, was that the continuation of British imperialism was antithetical to the new world order the Americans wished to see emerge from war. Admiral King’s opposition to the use of the WASP to deliver British aircraft to Malta in April 1942 was one example of this phenomenon. So, too, was the American insistence not to shore up what one US general called “Churchill’s eternal and infernal Balkan enterprises,” which persisted even after the successful Allied invasion of France in June 1944. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff remained vehemently opposed to this idea. Indeed, they regarded any British move to send additional forces to Italy or the Balkans as not only militarily counterproductive but a grave threat to Allied unity. Accordingly, when the idea reemerged in the fall of 1944, American military planners insisted that it was imperative to permit “no more diversions such as Winston Churchill is now asking,” and by mid-October 1944 both FDR and Secretary of War Henry Stimson concurred that the United States should remain “absolutely inflexible” on this question.18
Unable to get Washington to support his calls for the strengthening of the Allied presence in the region—and lacking forces of his own to carry out such a mission—Churchill turned to diplomacy. Hence, at the very moment that FDR and his advisers had come to a firm decision not to support the dispatch of additional troops to Italy or the Balkans, Churchill flew to Moscow to meet with Stalin directly. On October 9, 1944, the two men negotiated Churchill’s famous “percentages agreement.” Under its terms, which came in the form of a note that Churchill passed across the table to Stalin, the prime minister proposed that the Soviets would retain 90 percent influence in Romania and that Great Britain would hold the same figure for Greece. The two powers would split Hungary and Yugoslavia 50/50, while the Russians would retain a 75 percent influence—and Great Britain a 25 percent interest—in Bulgaria.19
FDR was aware that Churchill had decided to fly to Moscow to meet Stalin, and he made no objection, so long as both leaders understood that “in this global war, there is literally no question, political or military, in which the United States is not interested.” The president also insisted—as he put it in a private message to Ambassador W. Averell Harriman (whom he instructed to attend as an observer)—that the talks be regarded as “nothing more than a preliminary exploration” by the two powers leading up to “a full dress meeting between the three of us.”20
Churchill had conveniently organized the “percentages agreement” talks shortly after his arrival and at a time when Harriman could not be present. But his motivations were clear: to protect the British sphere of influence in the Eastern Mediterranean—an objective confirmed by the forceful British intervention in Greece at the end of 1944. Both FDR and Harriman soon became aware of the percentages agreement, and even though FDR would subsequently inform Churchill in private that he understood “the anxious and difficult alternatives” that his government faced in Greece, Churchill’s machinations did nothing to allay the overall apprehensions that many of FDR’s senior advisers harbored about the political motives underlying British military strategy. These remained as strong as ever, with the result that the pre-summit meetings that took place on Malta shortly before FDR arrived turned out to be what General Marshall termed “the stormiest of the entire war.”21
The question of how to come to an agreement on the two outstanding issues that stood in the way of the creation of the world organization—on voting and the number of seats granted to the USSR in the General Assembly—was the first priority among the American delegation to the Yalta conference. All three of the major powers agreed that the five permanent members should have the right to exercise a veto, but a significant dispute arose over the question of when this power should be exercised, particularly in cases where one of the permanent members was a party to a dispute. By the time the Dumbarton Oaks conference wrapped up in the fall of 1944, the Soviets had made it clear that they favored an “unlimited veto.” This would allow each of the five permanent members the power not only to veto any potential Security Council enforcement action but to block mere discussion of it. In light of the still-strong isolationist sentiment in America and the failure of the Senate to endorse US membership in the League of Nations over the fear that US involvement in the international body might threaten the sovereign exercise of US foreign policy, FDR recognized that the possession of a veto would significantly enhance his ability to gain Senate acceptance of the United Nations. But in his view, the permanent members should exercise this right regarding only questions, as former Secretary of State Cordell Hull put it, “of the gravest concern,… never on secondary matters, and never in a way to prevent thorough discussion of any issue.”23 Hence, in lieu of the unlimited veto favored by the Russians, what Hull, Leo Pasvolsky, and other officials within the State Department favored was a “limited veto” that would allow the free airing of grievances. Failure to allow such open discussion, they argued, might result in a backlash against the organization among the lesser states, whose spokespeople could justifiably argue that the five permanent members had been granted such sweeping powers as to place them on a higher plane than smaller nations in attempts to resolve potential conflicts.24
FDR confers with Admiral Cunningham, commander-in-chief of the British Naval Forces in the Mediterranean, Valletta Harbor, February 2, 1945. (Getty Images)
In an effort to sway Soviet opinion on this question once it became clear that the Anglo-Americans and the Russians had reached an impasse at the Dumbarton Oaks gathering, FDR agreed to meet with Soviet Ambassador Andrei Gromyko in September 1944 to discuss the matter. Using one of his homespun analogies, FDR noted that “traditionally in America, husbands and wives having trouble never have the opportunity to vote on their own case, although they are always afforded the opportunity to testify—to state their case. It should be the same,” he thought, “within the family of nations.”25 FDR sent a note to Stalin in which he made the same argument. But Stalin remained unmoved, even in the face of the American argument that the impasse might destroy “the prospect of ever having a world organization.”26
Determined to resolve the issue, the State Department put together a detailed proposal on the voting procedure that spelled out the exact nature of the powers that the permanent members would possess under the limited veto by offering a more complete definition of “enforcement actions.” These included all sanctions or military operations, as well as membership questions and determinations of “threats to the peace.” This more detailed proposal was sent to the Kremlin in early December in the hope that the Soviets would be prepared to accept it at the Yalta gathering.27
Unable to put aside his fears that the Soviets might continue to maintain their hard-line position on the matter at Yalta, the president, during the voyage, had worked up a short memorandum on the subject that he passed on to Stettinius on deck that morning. For his part, Stettinius reported that the conversations he’d had with Eden the day before over the voting question had gone very well, as Eden, who had read the State Department’s proposal, indicated that he fully approved of it and was prepared to support it at the conference.28
Having finished his brief talks with Stettinius, FDR left the bridge for a deck chair on the port side of the ship, away from the shore, where for the next hour he would begin the task of receiving the many visitors who expected to see him that day. Just before noon, Prime Minister Churchill was “piped” on board (the shrill sounding of a bosun’s pipe is a traditional honor accorded to flag officers and other dignitaries), followed a few minutes later by Eden and Churchill’s daughter Sarah. While Eden spoke with Stettinius, the two leaders and their daughters spent about an hour on deck enjoying each other’s company. At 1:00 p.m., they moved to the president’s cabin for a lunch that included Eden, Stettinius, Director Byrnes, and Admiral Leahy.
Churchill was in fine form as he took his seat to the right of the president. The prime minister particularly appreciated the small candle that FDR had placed next to his plate so that Churchill could light his cigars. Still, any hope (specifically felt by Eden) that this first semi-official gathering would include a serious examination of the issues the two leaders were about to confront at Yalta was quickly put to rest, though FDR did raise the issue of the Atlantic Charter. Remarking on the unofficial nature of the document (which had created such a furor in the press in December), the president wondered if the prime minister might have a moment to countersign the only draft FDR had in his possession, which included his own signature but not Churchill’s. Churchill was happy to do so, and then launched into a lengthy discourse about the Declaration of Independence, Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech—both of which he greatly admired—and the nature of democracy. He also mentioned that he was quite confident he would be returned to office when the British people next went to the polls. The two also briefly discussed China, which, given recent difficulties, Churchill somewhat caustically referred to as “the Great American Illusion,” and engaged in some speculation about when the war against Japan might come to an end. Beyond this, “no business whatsoever” was discussed, as Eden lamented in his diary.29
While Churchill returned to the Orion for his daily hour-long nap, FDR went on a motor tour of Malta accompanied by its governor, Lieutenant General Sir Edmond Schreiber, his wife and daughter, Sarah Churchill, and Anna. As the party made their way from the harbor to the medieval walled city of Medina, the ancient hilltop town that once served as Malta’s capital, Anna quickly fell in love with the soft hues and texture of the local limestone and the colorful luzzu fishing boats, whose sturdy construction and painted “eyes of horous” were said to date back to the Phoenicians. But as she also recorded in her diary, the contrast between these peaceful scenes and the massive destruction she witnessed in Valletta left her feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the brutality of modern war.30
After viewing the plaque of FDR’s citation that had been mounted on the wall of the grand master’s palace in Valletta, the party returned to the ship at 4:30 p.m. FDR then went straight into a meeting with his military advisers, where he was finally able to obtain a more complete picture of the acrimonious meetings that had taken place over the past two days among the Combined Chiefs of Staff. As Marshall reported—and in sharp contrast to the more harmonious encounter between Eden and Stettinius—the American Chiefs had gone into the meeting with every intention of maintaining Eisenhower’s broad-front strategy. This meant that while the weight of the Allied thrust would proceed north of the Ruhr, a simultaneous attack would be mounted in the south. The Americans insisted that the southern thrust was essential. Without it, the Germans would be able to concentrate their forces agai
nst the Allied attempt to cross the northern reaches of the Rhine, slowing or perhaps even halting it.31
But Hitler’s stunning offensive in the Ardennes in December had revived earlier British objections to this approach. It would be far better, Churchill and his military chiefs argued in the days leading to the conversations on Malta, to concentrate Allied forces in a single thrust north of the Ruhr and to “pass to the defensive all other parts of the line.” Never a fan of Eisenhower, Churchill and his chiefs also used the Ardennes setback as an opportunity to reissue their call for the appointment of a British officer as commander-in-chief of all Allied ground forces on the Western Front—a responsibility that Eisenhower had assumed by design following the Normandy breakout. Convinced that Churchill’s promotion of this idea would mean that “the British had won a major point in getting control of ground operations,” General Marshall made it clear to both Eisenhower and Roosevelt that he was adamantly opposed to the idea. Moreover, both Marshall and the president suspected that, as with Churchill’s proposed “infernal” adventures in the Balkans, the motives behind London’s advocacy of the single-thrust strategy were political—an attempt to sweep across northern Germany to grab the ports and naval bases along the North Sea and Baltic coasts ahead of a possible Russian attempt to do the same.32
The American Chiefs were adamantly opposed to this idea. From the moment the United States joined the war, American strategists had repeatedly stressed the importance of the Soviet Union in the Allied effort to defeat the Nazis. With the Red Army facing roughly 90 percent of the German Divisions and having inflicted 93 percent of German battle casualties between 1941 and 1944, a Russian defeat or separate peace would—in the Joint Chiefs’ view—make victory over the Germans impossible.33
The Last 100 Days Page 7