Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [307]
The Soviet ambassador appended to this dispatch a personal commentary on the meeting:
Churchill was extraordinarily angry1110, and seemed to be making an effort to keep himself under control. His remarks were full of threats and blackmail, but it was not just blackmail. Following his radio broadcast of 13 May, the English press has adopted a stronger anti-Soviet line in reporting European events. It seeks to interpret all the emerging problems in terms of the USSR’s attitude. Churchill’s speech was an instruction to the press. Polish agents are conducting a bold anti-Soviet campaign in parliamentary circles and demand new debates on the Polish issue. Eden had already announced in the House of Commons that a foreign affairs debate will take place after the holidays. We may expect this to develop into a big anti-Soviet demonstration intended to pressure and threaten the USSR. So far we have no precise information on the purpose of Eisenhower’s and Montgomery’s forthcoming visit to London, but we have reason to think that they have been summoned to discuss and evaluate the allies’ military position. We should recognise that we are dealing with an adventurer who is in his element at war, who feels much more at ease in the circumstances of war than those of peace.
Gusev’s account of this meeting is unlikely to have been shown to Stalin, because Churchill’s bluntness would have displeased him. In any event, it could have exercised not the smallest influence upon Moscow’s policies. The Russians knew that the Americans shared little of the prime minister’s passion about eastern Europe. For all Churchill’s bluster and his mutterings to the Chiefs of Staff about the possibility of launching Operation Unthinkable, neither Western nation was ready to challenge the Russians by force. The old statesman’s diatribe merely vented his personal bitterness and frustration. He knew in his heart that the tyranny established by the Red Army could not be undone either through diplomacy or by force of arms.
After polling day on July 6, there was a three-week pause before the election result was announced, to allow the overseas service vote to be counted. Churchill flew to southwestern France for his first holiday since 1939, at a château owned by a Canadian well-wisher. Then, on July 15, he took a plane onward to Berlin, for the last great Allied conference, the closing episode of his own war.
Churchill professed confidence about the election outcome. This was shared by Stalin who believed he would be returned to power with a parliamentary majority of at least eighty. Nonetheless, in a most honourable display of his respect for democracy, Churchill invited Clement Attlee, the possible prime minister–in–waiting, to join the British delegation at Potsdam. The Labour leader was waiting to greet him at his appointed villa, 23 Ringstrasse, along with Montgomery, Alexander and Eden. On July 16, Churchill held his first two-hour meeting with Harry Truman. He emerged much encouraged by what he saw and heard. Truman spoke much more toughly than had Roosevelt in his last months. Later, the prime minister toured the ruins of Berlin, and gazed without animosity upon the Germans foraging amid the rubble. “My hate had died with their surrender,”1111 he wrote later. “I was much moved by their desolation, and also by their thin haggard looks and threadbare clothes.” Staring at the remains of Hitler’s bunker, he reflected that this was how Downing Street would have looked had matters turned out differently in 1940. But he quickly wearied of tourism. Now as ever, what seized his imagination was the opportunity to discuss great issues with the most powerful men on earth, if not as