The Kremlin Letters by David Reynolds

Author:David Reynolds
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300226829
Publisher: Yale University Press

The response from Stalin to Roosevelt does not have the usual mark of approval from the ‘Boss’ or any traces of being edited by him. The text was drafted by Molotov and then revised on a typescript version (additions in italics).98 It is possible that both the wording and the changes were agreed with Stalin over the phone. If so, the Soviet leader was clearly warming up the tone of his correspondence with Roosevelt in the more cordial post-Tehran atmosphere.

Stalin to Roosevelt, sent 6 December 1943, received 6 December 194399

Thank you for your telegram.

I agree that the Teheran Conference was a great success and that our personal meetings were, in many respects, extremely important. I hope that the common foe of our peoples – Hitlerite Germany – will soon feel it. Now there is confidence that and our peoples will harmoniously act together during the present time and after this war is over.

I wish the best successes to you and your armed forces in the coming important operations.

I also hope that our meeting in Teheran should not be regarded as the last one, and that we shall meet again.

Having finally received Roosevelt’s warm personal message of 3 December, Stalin expressed agreement with the president that their close association in Tehran had yielded positive results. In his reference to ‘fate’, Stalin probably had in mind the information about the assassination attempt on the leaders of the Big Three, which served as an incentive for Roosevelt’s move to the Soviet embassy.

Stalin to Roosevelt, sent 20 December 1943, received 20 December 1943100

I thank you for Your letter, which Your Ambassador has extended to me on December 18.

I am glad that fate has given me an opportunity to render you a service in Teheran. I also attach important significance to our meeting and to the conversations taken place there which concerned such substantial questions of accelerating of our common victory and establishment of future lasting peace between the peoples.

Churchill was exhausted from several weeks of arduous travel and intense conferences. He had left London with a heavy cold and after Tehran this went onto his lungs, complicated by heart fibrillations on 14 December. ‘Am stranded amid ruins of Carthage,’ he told Roosevelt, ‘with fever which has ripened into pneumonia.’ For several days his condition seemed life-threatening, and his wife flew out to be with him. Such was the gravity of his condition that she was able to report to daughter Mary that he had ‘consented not to smoke, and to drink only weak whisky and soda’.101

Nevertheless, diplomacy was not forgotten. Like Roosevelt carrying vivid impressions of Tehran, Churchill sent Stalin a generous birthday message in accordance with their now established custom. The novel salutation ‘my friend’ is perhaps an echo of their post-prandial exchange on 30 November.

Churchill to Stalin, sent 20 December 1943, received 20 December 1943102

Cordial greetings, my friend, upon the occasion of your birthday. May the coming year see the culmination of our struggle against the common foe.

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