Editorial Note
This chapter presents those papers which show the arrangements made prior to Roosevelt’s arrival at Cairo for the Conferences to be held at Cairo and Tehran. For correspondence conducted during the First Cairo Conference on arrangements for the Tehran and Second Cairo Conferences, see post, pp. 368 ff. For discussions at the Tehran Conference on arrangements for the Second Cairo Conference, see post, pp. 586, 589. For correspondence conducted during the early stages of the Second Cairo Conference respecting the meeting with Turkish officials, see post, p. 662.
On December 14, 1941, Roosevelt wrote Stalin about his wish that they could meet personally, but he indicated that he realized the impossibility of their doing so then. See Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. IV, p. 752.
In April 1942 Roosevelt corresponded with Stalin inconclusively about the possibility of their getting together during the summer of that year, off Alaska. In November and December 1942 he corresponded with Churchill and Stalin inconclusively about the possibility of their meeting in January 1943 (at or near Khartoum or in southern Algeria) or early in March 1943 (in north Africa). Correspondence relating to these soundings of 1942 is printed in Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. III, pp. 662–663, 665–666, 675, 678. See also Stalin’s Correspondence, vol. II, pp. 22, 42–45.