FDR - Jean Edward Smith [373]
Stalin’s generous and unexpected tribute to American aid prompted Roosevelt to request the last word. He compared the Grand Alliance to a rainbow of many colors, “each individualistic, but blending into one glorious whole. Thus with our nations, we have differing customs and philosophies and ways of life. But we have proved here at Teheran that the varying ideas of our nations can come together in a harmonious whole, moving unitedly for the common good of ourselves and of the world.”106
Roosevelt had been concerned at Teheran to break through to Stalin. “For the first three days I made absolutely no progress,” he told Frances Perkins. On the final day
I began to tease Churchill about his Britishness. [FDR had forewarned the PM.] It began to register on Stalin. Winston got red and scowled, and the more he did so the more Stalin smiled. Finally Stalin broke into a deep, hearty guffaw, and for the first time in three days I saw light. I kept it up until Stalin was laughing with me, and it was then I called him “Uncle Joe.” He would have thought me fresh the day before, but that day he laughed and came over and shook my hand. The ice was broken and we talked like men and brothers.107
The president need not have tried so hard. Stalin had bugged FDR’s suite and knew the details of every conversation. The eavesdropping was entrusted to Sergo Beria, the nineteen-year-old son of secret police head Lavrenti Beria. (Sergo and Stalin’s daughter Svetlana were the same age and as children had often played together.) “I want to entrust you with a mission that is delicate and morally reprehensible,” Stalin told the young Beria on the eve of the conference. “You are going to listen to the conversations that Roosevelt will have with Churchill, with the other British, and with his own circle. I must know everything in detail, be aware of all shades of meaning.”
“I have never done anything with such enthusiasm,” Sergo confessed. He briefed Stalin at eight every morning. “It’s bizarre,” said the Soviet dictator. “They say everything in the fullest detail. Do you think they know we are listening to them?” Beria doubted it. The microphones were so well hidden that his own team could not spot them. “I was able to establish from my eavesdropping that Roosevelt felt great respect and sympathy for Stalin. Admiral Leahy tried several times to persuade him to be firmer with the Soviet leader. Every time he received the reply: ‘That doesn’t matter. Do you think you can see further than I can? I am pursuing this policy because I think it is more advantageous. We are not going to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the British.’ ”108*
Roosevelt departed Teheran for Cairo in the early-morning hours of Thursday, December 2, 1943. The president had promised Stalin and Churchill to name a commander for OVERLORD within a week but had not reached a decision. Originally Roosevelt had planned to name Marshall. “I want George to have the big Command,” he told Eisenhower in Tunis. “He is entitled to establish his place in history as a great general.”109 Hopkins and Stimson backed the choice of Marshall vigorously, and both Churchill and Stalin believed he would get the nod. Marshall may have assumed so as well. Although he refused to express any views on the appointment, Mrs. Marshall had quietly begun moving the family’s personal belongings out of Quarters One at Fort Myer to Lexington, Virginia, and there were stories that Marshall had crated his large Pentagon desk that once belonged to General Philip Sheridan for shipment to London.110
Yet there was good reason for Roosevelt to hesitate. General John J. Pershing, who knew both Marshall and Eisenhower, wrote the president from his bed at Walter Reed Hospital to caution against transferring Marshall to Europe. Both the command structure in Washington and the command structure in Europe were working well, said Pershing. “It would be a fundamental and very grave error in our military policy to break up working relationships at both levels.”111
Marshall