Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [309]
If the prime minister failed to perceive the strategic limitations of nuclear weapons, his senior military adviser displayed in this encounter an extraordinary ignorance about the greatest scientific undertaking of the war, indeed the most momentous in history. Here was a manifestation of the manner in which even exalted Allied directors of strategy were slow to grasp the significance of the Bomb. Back in 1940–41, British scientists’ theoretical nuclear research was well ahead of their American counterparts’. Following the joint commitment to build an atomic bomb, and the transfer of all relevant British material and personnel to the United States, the Americans adopted an increasingly ruthless proprietorial policy towards nuclear research. It had been agreed that the project should be a partnership. But Sir John Anderson, the responsible minister, soon reported to Churchill that the Americans were concealing information from the British in a “quite intolerable” fashion. At Quebec in May 1943 a new agreement was reached between Britain’s prime minister and the U.S. president, subsequently confirmed in writing at Hyde Park in August. At Hyde Park again in September 1944 Churchill persuaded Roosevelt belatedly to sign a document agreeing that Anglo-American nuclear cooperation and exchange of information should continue after the war. But the Americans none the less displayed little inclination to regard atomic research as a shared venture—and impoverished Britain was in no condition to build a bomb of its own. After the war, successive British governments were reduced to pleading with Washington for the honouring of the nuclear agreements struck between Roosevelt and Churchill.
The social nuances of Potsdam were endless. During an Allied reception1115 at Churchill’s villa, the host offered a toast to Marshal Zhukov. The Russian, caught by surprise, responded by addressing the prime minister as “comrade.” Then, alarmed by the perils of being heard to use such fraternal language to an archcapitalist, he hastily amended this to “comrade-in-arms.” The next day in Stalin’s office, the soldier was indeed taunted about the readiness with which he had made a comrade of Churchill. Only Stalin, among the Russians, allowed himself freedom to take personal liberties with the Western Allies.
Churchill spent much time—there was one session of five hours—alone with the Soviet warlord. Stalin was in the highest humour. He perceived himself as the foremost victor of World War II. Not for decades would it become apparent that the Soviet Union’s devastation, and the economic consequences of subordinating all other interests to Russia’s vast military machine, had sown the seeds of the Communist system’s eventual collapse. In July 1945 the world, like the Soviet leader himself, perceived only that he presided over the greatest power on the European continent, one that was militarily unassailable. Stalin professed to confide in Churchill as if he was an old friend, apologising for Russia’s failure to publicly display its gratitude for British wartime supplies, and promising that he would make amends at some suitable moment. At a banquet given by Churchill, the tyrant amazed guests by circling the table and collecting autographs on the menu: “His eyes twinkled with mirth and goodwill.” He flattered the prime minister shamelessly—and was rewarded with Churchill’s beaming benevolence. Eden wrote in dismay: “He is again under Stalin’s spell1116. He kept repeating ‘I like that man.’” Yet the Soviet warlord, inevitably, conceded nothing. The puppet Polish leadership was brought to Potsdam at Churchill’s urging, and listened stonily to his arguments that non-Communists should be included in the Warsaw government, and that Poland should moderate its western frontier expectations.
Churchill never doubted the malevolence of Soviet intentions in eastern Europe, and indeed around the world. But he sustained residual delusions that he