Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [184]
The prime minister arrived in the Liberator Commando on January 12, 1943. His identification for security purposes as “Air Commodore Frankland” seemed absurd from the moment he landed at Casablanca, where he was greeted by a glittering array of brass. Ismay muttered: “Any fool can see that is an air commodore disguised as the Prime Minister.” The “air commodore” was then driven to his appointed residence, the Villa Mirador, inside the closely guarded perimeter where the conference was to be held. He cabled Attlee: “Conditions most agreeable. I wish I could say the same of the problems.”
The American service chiefs flew from Washington to Bathurst, in west Africa, where George Marshall was persuaded to disembark in a beekeeper’s hood, to ward off mosquitoes. This was abandoned when the chief of the army found the welcoming party clad only in shorts. The Americans flew on to Casablanca with a lavish inventory of tents, cooking equipment and trinkets suitable for Arabs, lest they should be forced down in the desert, together with snowshoes and cold weather clothing for a possible onward trip to Moscow. The British had their own embarrassments. They felt humiliated by their makeshift air transports, which obliged exalted passengers to disembark dirty and dishevelled from the bomb bays. Roosevelt reached Casablanca on January 14, and was installed in a villa close to that of the prime minister. Churchill greeted him exuberantly. The two great men talked, while their Chiefs of Staff embarked upon the bruising process of seeking an agreement which the president and prime minister could then be invited to endorse.
The Casablanca conference was the most important Anglo-American strategic meeting of the war, because it established the framework for most of the big things which were done thereafter. It represented the high point of British wartime influence, because it took place at a time when projected operations still depended on preponderantly British forces. Its deliberations were warmed by victories in Africa, and knowledge of looming Russian triumph at Stalingrad. At El Alamein, to some degree, the British Army had retrieved its fallen reputation. Churchill answered a question from correspondents about Eighth Army’s pursuit of Rommel: “I can give you this assurance—everywhere that Mary went the lamb is sure to go.” British staffwork for the conference was superb, aided by the presence offshore of a purpose-equipped command ship.
However powerful were the reservations of British service chiefs about their prime minister’s strategic wisdom, an intimate working relationship ensured that they knew exactly what he wanted. By contrast, even after thirteen months of war the U.S. president was “still something of an enigma690 to his American advisers,” in the words of Marshall’s authorised biographer. “… Roosevelt imposed no unified plan.” His military chiefs “still had twinges of doubt about Roosevelt’s lack of administrative order, his failure to keep the Chiefs of Staff informed of private high-level discussions, and his tendency to ignore War Department advice in favour of suggestions from officials of other departments.” Marshall knew from the outset that he would lose his battle for a 1943 cross-Channel attack. In advance of the summit, Roosevelt had displayed his customary opacity. However, he threw out enough hints to show that he, like the British, favoured the capture of Sicily. Adm. Ernest King, for the U.S. Navy, was overwhelmingly preoccupied with the Pacific campaign. Quite uncharacteristically, the chief of staff of the army was blustering in suggesting that an early invasion of France remained plausible.
In the Combined Chiefs’ conference room at the Anfa Hotel, Alan Brooke echoed Churchill’s recent protests to Roosevelt about the scale of the American Pacific buildup, which, said the British CIGS, threatened the agreed principle of “Germany first.” The British thus wrong-footed Marshall,