By the time Churchill’s plane touched down in Egypt in February 1945, however, the relationship between the two leaders had entered a new phase. They still enjoyed each other’s company, but the warmth that characterized the early stretches of the war—when Churchill referred to himself in their correspondence first as “naval person” and then as “former naval person”—had given way to more formal, and at times distant, interactions. Much of the shift can be attributed to FDR’s objections to what he deemed Churchill’s Victorian sensibilities—above all, his inability to imagine a world without the Empire. Then there was FDR’s determination to maintain an independent relationship with Stalin and the Soviet Union. FDR never gave up the notion that he “could handle Stalin better” than Churchill or his British colleagues. “Stalin hates the guts of all your top people,” he once remarked to Churchill, adding “he thinks he likes me better, and I hope he will continue to do so.” Most distressing to Churchill, however, was the diminution of the British role in the war—and the loss of influence that it undoubtedly represented as the conflict drew to a close.10
One issue that drove a wedge between the two leaders, and that made manifest Great Britain’s waning power, was the question of the joint development of the atomic bomb. The genesis of this all-important scientific endeavor dates to a letter President Roosevelt received in the fall of 1939 from Albert Einstein largely at the instigation of the physicist Leo Szílard. The letter noted the recent discovery of nuclear fission, and warned the president of the possibility that this breakthrough might lead to the creation of extremely powerful weapons. It also alluded to the likelihood that German scientists were already working to develop such weapons.11
FDR wasted no time in responding to these developments. He immediately established an Advisory Committee on Uranium under the leadership of Dr. Vannevar Bush, president of the Carnegie Institution in Washington. In the meantime, Great Britain launched a similar effort, which, over the next two years, made enormous scientific strides. In the fall of 1941, the British sent a copy of their findings—under the euphemism “the Maud Report,” after the committee that carried out the work—to Washington. Its revelations spurred FDR to throw the entire weight of the American government into a massive effort to develop the atomic bomb. By January 1942 the program was fully under way; its code name—the Manhattan Project—was a reference to the Manhattan offices of the US Army Corps of Engineers, which had been assigned to oversee the construction of the initial facilities.12
At the time the Maud Report came out, FDR suggested to Churchill that the two powers might want to coordinate their scientific efforts.13 But owing to a split of opinion in London over the degree to which Great Britain should collaborate with the Americans, it would take some time—and a good deal of rancor—before the two governments would be able to hammer out a formal understanding.14 This document, known as the “Quebec Agreement,” was signed in Quebec City in August 1943, and its terms called for “full and effective collaboration” between the two governments and their scientists. It further stipulated that any decision to use an atomic bomb or to share information about the project with a third party would require “mutual consent.”15
The Quebec Agreement also addressed the non-military uses of atomic energy that might result from the Manhattan Project. In a clear expression of American suspicions of the British, and of the competitive nature of the transatlantic relationship, the agreement demanded that the latter “recognize that any post-war advantages of an industrial or commercial character shall be dealt with as between the United States and Great Britain on terms to be specified by the President of the United States.” In addition, it stated that the prime minister “expressly disclaims any interest in these industrial and commercial aspects beyond what may be considered by the President of the United States to be fair and just and in harmony with the economic welfare of the world.”16
Many officials and scientists in Britain were appalled by America’s demands. Yet as Churchill wrote to Lord Cherwell, his scientific adviser, sometime later, he was “absolutely sure” that the British could not have achieved “any better terms… than are set forth in my secret agreement with the President.” He remained confident that the British association with the United States was permanent and had “no fear that they will maltreat us or cheat us.”17 Cherwell was not so sanguine. At the end of 1944 and the beginning of 1945, as the bomb—and the atomic age—came to the fore, he pressed Churchill to go back to FDR to secure American acquiescence to any effort by the British to conduct independent atomic research after the war.18 Thus there was another reason, beyond a discussion about the “three kings,” for which Churchill made the decision to travel to Alexandria to see FDR a mere four days after he had left the president’s side at Yalta.
FDR SPENT THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 15, 1945, ON THE FLAG DECK of the Quincy. Almost immediately after the ship reached its moorings, however, he launched into a series of meetings. The first was with Secretary Stettinius, who came aboard just after 11:00 a.m. in the company of Charles Bohlen and John Winant, the American ambassador to Great Britain. Stettinius had stopped in Alexandria on his way from Moscow to Mexico City to give the president a preliminary report on the discussions in the Russian capital among the three foreign ministers, as well as to bring the president up to date on a number of State Department matters. This included a brief review of Stettinius’s coming trip to Mexico City to take part in the Inter-American Conference on the Problems of War and Peace, a conference that FDR insisted Stettinius attend in an effort to solidify Latin American support for the United Nations.19
The two men also touched upon a secret and sensitive mission Stettinius was to carry out on his way to Mexico City that was closely linked to the discussions FDR was about to have with Churchill. Stettinius would visit Brazil to meet with President Getúlio Dornelles Vargas, with whom he would arrange an agreement for the US to purchase all of Brazil’s production of monazite sands—a mineral rich in thorium, one of the key elements needed for the construction of an atomic bomb. In fact, the secretary of state completed his mission with aplomb, securing access to Brazil’s monazite deposits without divulging the reason for the purchase—an outcome that thoroughly pleased FDR.20
At approximately 12:35 the shrill sound of the bosun’s pipe announced the arrival of Prime Minister Churchill, his daughter Sarah, and the ubiquitous Commander Charles Thompson, Churchill’s naval aide-de-camp. While Sarah and Anna enjoyed a few moments on deck, Churchill retired to FDR’s quarters where the two men, in the company of Harry Hopkins, discussed what the prime minister referred to as the “Tube Alloys” project.
Churchill began the meeting by reading aloud the memo that Lord Cherwell had prepared for him explaining the British desire to carry out independent research into the potential commercial and industrial uses of atomic energy after the war. FDR reportedly made “no objection of any kind” to Cherwell’s arguments. He did say, however, that recent reports indicated new uncertainty about the possibility of atomic power being used for commercial purposes. And, in perhaps an intentional misrepresentation of the timeline reported to him by Stimson at the end of the year, FDR specified September 1945—rather than August—as the likely date for “the first important [military] trials.” Churchill was pleased that Roosevelt was not opposed to the British engaging in atomic research after the war. But like many of the other understandings that passed between them, this implied agreement would prove short-lived: just over a year after FDR’s death, President Truman would sign the McMahon Act, which brought the wartime atomic collaboration and sharing of information between the two nations to an abrupt halt, eventually leading the British to develop their own atomic arsenal.21
At 2:00 p.m. it was time for lunch, where the two leaders and Hopkins were joined by Anna, Sarah, Churchill’s son Randolph (who had arrived roughly an hour before), Admiral Leahy, and Ambassador Winant. Given how often Sarah Churchill saw Ambassador Winant, with whom she was having a secret affair,
she could not help but be bemused and delighted by his presence. “Yesterday lunch we went on board the President’s ship in Alexandria,” she carelessly wrote to her mother, “and who do you suppose was there? The Ambassador!! But alas our paths separated right after coffee!”22 The luncheon was a purely social affair, and a most pleasant one at that. But as Churchill later reflected, FDR seemed placid and frail; it was as if the president possessed “a slender contact with life.”23
At the close of this convivial gathering, shorn of all of the tensions that had burdened the two leaders at Yalta, something of the old warmth seemed to return. It had been three and a half years since their first fateful wartime meeting, where in far darker circumstances they had created their vision for a better world. Now, they parted affectionately, never to see one another again.
THE QUINCY LEFT ITS MOORINGS IN THE ANCIENT HARBOR LESS THAN ten minutes after the prime minister and his party had departed, and arrived in Algiers just before 9:00 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, February 18. The ship’s arrival provided Anna a last opportunity to write home. Knowing that her mother would be concerned about her father’s health, she wrote first to Eleanor, noting that “father is really fine… [and] has been resting for the past two days.” Today will be busy, she continued, making reference to the many appointments FDR had scheduled in the hours ahead, “but then we’re thru.”24
Anna offered much the same assessment about FDR’s condition in a note she sent to her husband. “OM seems fine, thank goodness,” she wrote. But this view was not shared by those who came to see the president on board the Quincy that day.
Samuel Rosenman, who had flown from London so that he could assist FDR in drafting the address on Yalta, was deeply disheartened by FDR’s appearance. He had never seen the president looking “so tired.” FDR appeared to have lost a great deal of weight, and “seemed listless and uninterested in conversation,” as he “slowly and silently went through the process of signing some bills and correspondence to be dispatched home by air.”25
An even less optimistic assessment came from Carmel Ophie, a career diplomat who had traveled to Algiers with the US ambassadors to France and Italy, Jeffrey Caffery and Alexander Kirk, to join the president for lunch.26 “He looked ghastly, sort of dead and dug up,” Ophie observed as he greeted the president and Anna. He was also shocked to see Hopkins “carried off the S.S. Quincy on a stretcher,” while Pa Watson was “under an oxygen tent” and another aide was “in the sick bay with a bad case of influenza.” Nor was Ophie alone in this observation; as Ambassador Kirk said to him, “This is really a ship of death and everyone responsible in encouraging that man [FDR] to go to Yalta has done a disservice to the United States and ought to be shot.”27
Hopkins, not willing to contemplate a long sea voyage confined to his cabin, had indeed finally made the decision that he had no choice but to leave the Quincy and make arrangements to fly back to the United States.28 FDR had been counting on Hopkins to help him draft his Yalta message to Congress, and the latter’s decision to abandon him at this key moment seemed to wound the president. Perhaps out of exhaustion, or hubris, or perhaps overwhelmed by the knowledge that Watson’s health had taken a further turn for the worse, FDR appeared unable or unwilling to recognize the seriousness of Hopkins’s condition. He suspected that the real reason Hopkins wanted to leave was to escape the tediousness of the journey. As a result, their parting that afternoon was not a pleasant one. Anna, too, was “furious” over Hopkins’s decision to leave. But Hopkins was in fact gravely ill. Within two days of his arrival in Washington, he was flown immediately to the Mayo Clinic, from which he would not emerge until he had to rush back to Washington to attend the president’s funeral.29
Since Bohlen planned to accompany Hopkins on his return journey, and since Stephen Early was scheduled to depart that day to take up a planned visit to Eisenhower’s headquarters in France, Rosenman suddenly found himself tasked with helping the president draft this major address without the assistance of three of the key people who had been at Yalta. Admiral Leahy suggested that Rosenman hold a “hurried conference” with Hopkins, Bohlen, and Early in the hectic hours before their departure. Armed with this “fill-in” information, which was supplemented by a six-page memorandum Bohlen hastily dictated before he left, Rosenman went right to work. He hoped that it might be possible for him and the president to complete a final draft in advance of their arrival at Gibraltar in roughly twenty-four hours, which might allow him to return to London. But it soon became apparent that “the hard voyage to Yalta and the shattering responsibilities of the conference” had sapped the president’s strength, and no matter how hard Rosenman tried, he could not get his chief to work on the speech.
THE EXPANSE OF OCEAN BETWEEN ALGIERS ON THE NORTH AFRICAN coast and Newport News, Virginia, runs roughly 4,200 miles. Thus far, Captain Elliott Senn and the other officers of his task force could look back on the president’s journey with a high degree of satisfaction. They had run into some fairly high seas and stiff winds in their first traverse of the Atlantic, but they had brought the president to his first destination, Malta, safely, and had not run into any difficulties since their departure from the Great Bitter Lake a few days before.
But as FDR and his party settled down to dinner on the evening of February 18, 1945, Captain Senn was unnerved by a report indicating possible U-boat activity in the region and even more so by the news that two Allied merchant ships had been sunk in the vicinity of Gibraltar the night before. Thus the security screen around the Quincy was enhanced considerably. A third destroyer was added to the task force as the president’s vessel left the harbor, and within hours of breaking out into the Mediterranean, the group was joined by three more destroyers, so that by 11:00 p.m. that night the Quincy was protected by no fewer than seven warships.
At noon the next day, there was much excitement as the now-famous USS Murphy approached the Quincy to deliver both the president’s mail and Commander Bernard A. Smith’s report on the ship’s “Mission to Mecca.” About an hour later, the Quincy and its now eight escort vessels entered the Strait of Gibraltar, steaming ahead at 27 knots. As on the way into the Mediterranean, above them flew two Ventura bombers, a squadron of P-38 fighters, and a K-Class Navy Blimp.30
With the famous rock clearly visible seven miles off the starboard bow, the task force increased its speed to 29 knots, passing the Cape Spartel Light shortly after 2:00 p.m. and then, at last, reaching the Atlantic. Roughly three hours later, this most dangerous portion of the return voyage having been completed, four of the eight escorts broke away from the task force, leaving the Quincy with the light cruiser USS Savannah and the usual complement of three destroyers for the rest of the crossing.
FDR did little over the twenty-four-hour period between the Quincy’s departure from Algiers and the ship’s safe passage into the Atlantic. Nevertheless, he seemed extremely worn, and as a result, Anna and Drs. Bruenn and McIntire agreed that he should spend the next two days in bed. But on the very morning that Anna intended to put this regime into place, Pa Watson died. Anna had just finished her breakfast when Dr. Bruenn brought her the news, and for a time the two of them talked about what effect this might have on her father. Watson was much more than the president’s appointments secretary and aide. He was also a dear friend, and there was no question that his passing would come as a severe blow.31
Anna and Dr. Bruenn waited anxiously outside FDR’s quarters as Ross McIntire went in to inform the president. Dr. McIntire soon emerged to say that FDR “had taken it in his stride,” which, Anna reflected, was “typical of him,” although he was prone “to hide much in the way of inside turmoil.” Anna then went in to see her father, accompanied by Admiral Brown, and together the three of them discussed the message to send to Frances Watson, the noted concert pianist and the general’s spouse of twenty-five years. After determining that it would be best to keep FDR’s mind occupied so he would not “be thinking too much about Pa,” Anna abandoned the notion that
he should spend two days in bed. It would be far better to keep him engaged in his usual routine, and after about fifteen minutes, she suggested he go up on deck to take in the sun.32
ANYONE WHO KNEW FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT WOULD AGREE THAT he had an ebullient personality. The similarly affable Churchill once compared seeing him to opening a bottle of champagne. Thus his behavior in the days that followed Watson’s death suggests that the passing of his old friend and aide threw FDR into a sort of depression.
The Last 100 Days Page 21