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Nazi regime, but Churchill might have liked to leave a margin of hope in the minds of prospective German anti-Nazis that their nation could expect some mercy if Hitler was deposed. Just before Pearl Harbor, in November 1941, Churchill reminded the Cabinet that, when Russia was invaded, “we had made a public statement707 that we would not negotiate with Hitler or with the Nazi regime.” He added that he thought “it would be going too far to say that we should not negotiate with a Germany controlled by the Army. It was impossible to forecast what form of Government there might be in Germany at a time when their resistance weakened and they wished to negotiate.” It is likely that in January 1943 his view had not changed much about the desirability of a constructive vagueness in the Allies’ public position towards non-Nazi Germans, even following the vast accession of American strength, and the transformation of the war.

At Casablanca, Harriman told the president of Churchill’s apparent distress about unconditional surrender. Roosevelt seemed unmoved. Likewise, at dinner with the prime minister, he mused aloud about independence for Morocco, compulsory education, fighting disease and other social crusades. Churchill displayed impatience. Harriman believed that Roosevelt talked as he did for the fun of provoking the old British Tory. “He always enjoyed other people’s discomfort,”708 wrote the U.S. diplomat. “It never bothered him very much when other people were unhappy.” As at all their encounters, Churchill strove to create opportunities for tête-à-tête conversations with the president, but found it increasingly difficult to catch him alone. Roosevelt had grown wary of Churchill’s special pleadings, impatient of his monologues, and was probably also mindful of Marshall’s resentment about any strategic discussion from which the chief of staff of the army was absent.

In the months that followed Casablanca, such disaffected figures as Albert Wedemeyer made no secret of their anger at the manner in which a strategy had been approved by their president against the wishes of U.S. armed forces chiefs. They believed that British enthusiasm for Mediterranean operations was driven by imperialistic rather than military considerations. This remained their view through the ensuing two years. Such sentiments became known in Congress and the media, and were responsible for much cross-Atlantic ill temper. But Marshall, with notable statesmanship, acknowledged the decisions graciously. He strove against the anti-British sentiment widespread among America’s soldiers, and wrote to the army’s public relations chief shortly after Casablanca, urging him to counter the “insidious business of stirring up ill-feeling between the British and us.”

The conference broke up with fervent expressions of goodwill on all sides. The prime minister and president drove for four hours to Marrakesh, where they installed themselves at the Villa Taylor. That evening, as the sun was setting amid the snowclad Atlas Mountains, Churchill climbed to the roof to savour the scene, which had much moved him on a peacetime visit six years earlier. Now, he insisted that the president must share the experience. Two servants locked hands to form a chair on which the president was carried up the winding stairs, “his paralysed legs dangling like the limbs of a ventriloquist’s dummy,” as Charles Moran noted cruelly. The prime minister murmured: “It’s the most lovely spot in the whole world.”

It seems open to doubt whether Roosevelt gained equal pleasure from an experience which emphasised his own incapacity. Churchill could be notably insensitive to the vulnerabilities of others. Amid delight about winning his battle for the Italian commitment at Casablanca, he allowed himself to express an enthusiasm for Britain’s ally which few of Roosevelt’s conference team would have reciprocated: “I love these Americans,” he told his doctor, “they behave so generously.” Yet never again would his enthusiasm be so unqualified. If there had been a period of real intimacy between America’s president