FDR - Jean Edward Smith [372]
With the mood at the table turning testy, Roosevelt adjourned the meeting for dinner. That evening Hopkins called on Churchill at the British Embassy. Whether FDR sent him is unclear. Hopkins told Churchill he was fighting a losing battle. Roosevelt was determined to hold to the May date for the cross-Channel attack, and the Russian view was equally firm. Hopkins told Churchill there was little he could do to prevent it, and he advised the prime minister to yield gracefully.95
The effect of Hopkins’s visit cannot be measured for certain. But the next day the British announced their agreement to OVERLORD. The Combined Chiefs set the invasion date for May 1944 in conjunction with supporting landings in southern France (ANVIL). Stalin pledged a simultaneous Soviet offensive to pin the Germans down and prevent the transfer of any divisions to the West. Churchill suggested they needed a cover plan to confuse and deceive the enemy. “The truth,” he said, “deserves a bodyguard of lies.”96
“I thank the Lord Stalin was there,” wrote Stimson when he learned of the discussion at Teheran. “He saved the day. He was direct and strong and he brushed away the diversionary attempts of the Prime Minister with a vigor which rejoiced my soul.”97
November 30, 1943, the third day of the conference, was Churchill’s sixty-ninth birthday, and dinner that evening at the British Embassy was a gala celebration. “This was a memorable occasion in my life,” wrote Churchill. “On my right sat the President of the United States, and on my left the master of Russia. Together we controlled practically all the naval and three-quarters of all the air forces in the world, and could direct armies of nearly twenty millions of men, engaged in the most terrible of wars that had yet occurred in human history.”98
Bohlen reports that the table was set with British elegance. The crystal and silver sparkled in the candlelight.99 “The speeches started directly we sat down and continued without interruption until we got up,” Lord Ismay recalled.100 Churchill praised Roosevelt, whose courage and foresight had “prevented a revolution in the United States in 1933,” and followed with a toast to Stalin, “who would be ranked with the great heroes of Russian history.”
Stalin responded that the honors heaped upon him belonged to the Russian people. “The Red Army has fought heroically, but the Russian people would have tolerated nothing less. Persons of medium courage and even cowards become heroes in Russia. Those who do not are shot. It is dangerous to be a coward in Russia.”101
The conviviality continued all evening. “I felt that there was a greater sense of solidarity and good-comradeship than we had ever reached before,” wrote Churchill.102 “Uncle Joe enjoyed himself as much as anybody,” said the prime minister’s secretary, John Martin.103
At one point Churchill remarked, “England is getting pinker.”
“It is a sign of good health,” Stalin responded.
“I drink to the proletarian masses,” said Churchill.
“I drink to the Conservative Party,” replied Stalin.
“I believe that God is on our side,” said Churchill. “At least I have done my best to make him a faithful ally.”
“And the devil is on my side,” Stalin, a former seminary student, rejoined. “Everyone knows the devil is a Communist—and God, no doubt, is a good Conservative.”104
As Churchill raised his glass for the concluding toast, Stalin requested the privilege of proposing one more toast—to the president and people of the United States:
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 thing in this war are machines. The United States has proven it can turn out 10,000 airplanes a month. Russia can turn out, at most, 3,000 airplanes a month. The United States is a country of machines. Without the use of those