Roosevelt Papers: Telegram
Prime Minister Churchill to President Roosevelt1
Prime Minister to President. Most secret and personal. Number 481.2
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2. Your number 403.3 Can you give me a firm date when Marshall will be available, as I see great difficulties in the various stop gap arrangements proposed? The press this morning publishes reports from Washington correspondents that Marshall will be succeeded by Eisenhower and Eisenhower by Alexander. This is of course largely assumed throughout the Mediterranean, but the uncertainty is harmful. [Page 132] If you still hold to your opinion, which I share, about the three chief commands, why cannot we make the announcement jointly and add that the dates of the changes of commands will be fixed in relation to operations? We could then at Sextant settle together the consequential reactions, which are complicated and important.
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- Apparently sent to Washington via military channels, and forwarded by the White House Map Room to Roosevelt at Hyde Park.↩
- For paragraph 1 of this message, see ante, p. 57.↩
- In telegram 403, October 30, 1943 (printed in Churchill, p. 304), Roosevelt referred to continuing preparations for the cross-Channel attack, and said, as regards the choice of a commander for the operation, “I cannot make Marshall available immediately”. He also suggested the early appointment of a British deputy commander.↩