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By Root 1007 0

“to hurl across the Channel against the Germans every sinew of our strength.” Stalin enquired smoothly: “Who will command Overlord?” This was a brilliant shaft. He said that he could not regard any operation entirely seriously until a leader had been named to direct it. Though Eden found Stalin’s personality “creepy” and chilling, like all the Western delegates the foreign secretary recognised a master of diplomacy: “Of course the man was ruthless833 and of course knew his purpose. He never wasted a word. He never stormed, he was seldom even irritated. Hooded, calm, never raising his voice, he avoided the repeated negatives of Molotov which were so exasperating to listen to. By more subtle methods he got what he wanted without having seemed so obdurate.”

Roosevelt assured the Russian leader that a commander for Overlord would be appointed within days. Stalin—“Ursus Major,” as Churchill christened “the Great Bear”—was satisfied. He even professed enthusiasm for the Italian campaign, despite his dismay that German divisions were still being transferred from the west to fight in Russia. Churchill praised the efforts of Tito’s Communist partisans in Yugoslavia, which he assumed would please Stalin, and declared his eagerness to provide them with greater assistance. The Russian leader said that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan as soon as Germany was defeated, which gratified the Americans.

Early each morning of the summit, NKVD officers—who included Beria’s son Sergo—presented Stalin with transcripts of conversations intercepted by microphones planted in the American residence. The Soviet leader expressed amazement at the freedom with which the Westerners talked among themselves, even though they must have realised that they were being overheard. Latterly, indeed, he began to wonder whether they were indeed so naïve that they did not guess: “Do you think they know that we are listening?”834 He was gratified to find Roosevelt speaking well of him. Once, noting the president’s assertion that there was “no way to fool Uncle Joe,” he grinned into his moustache and muttered: “The old rascal is lying.” He was less amused by transcribed exchanges in which Churchill repeated to the president his reservations about Overlord. Young Beria was rewarded with a Swiss watch for the efficiency of his eavesdropping.

The most notorious episode at the conference arose from Stalin’s brutal jest about shooting fifty thousand German officers once the war was won, followed by Roosevelt’s rejoinder that forty-nine thousand would suffice. Elliott Roosevelt, one of the president’s sons, rose to say that he cordially agreed with Stalin’s proposal, and was sure that the United States would endorse it likewise. This caused Churchill to storm from the room in disgust. The Russians soothed the prime minister, but it was a grisly moment. When Stalin made his sally, Churchill knew him to be responsible for the cold-blooded massacre of at least ten thousand Polish officers—the true figure was almost thirty thousand—as well as countless of his own people. Moreover, the U.S. president’s willingness to join the joke suggested a heartlessness which was real enough, and which shocked the British leader. Finally, Elliott Roosevelt’s intervention was intolerable. It was a curiosity of the war that great men saw fit to take their children on missions of state. Randolph Churchill’s presence in North Africa, and everywhere else, was an embarrassment. Jan Smuts and Harry Hopkins both brought their sons to Cairo for Sextant. But none matched the crassness of the president’s offspring. Churchill knew that, to sustain the Anglo-American relationship, he must endure almost anything which Roosevelt chose to say or do. But that moment in Tehran was hard for him. Marshall said of Stalin at the conference: “He was turning his hose on Churchill835 all the time, and Mr. Roosevelt, in a sense, was helping him. He [FDR] used to take a little delight in embarrassing Churchill.”

Cadogan recorded the distress836 of the British delegation when Roosevelt seemed willing