Office of the Historian

Hopkins Papers: Telegram

President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill to Marshal Stalin1

secret
[Cairo,] 6 December 1943.

Secret and personal from the President and the Prime Minister to Marshal Stalin.

In the Cairo Conference, just concluded, we have arrived at the following decisions as to conduct of war in 1944 against Germany additional to the agreements reached by the three of us at Teheran:

The bomber offensive against Germany, with the objective of destroying the German air combat strength, dislocating the German military, industrial and economic system, and preparing the way for a cross-channel operation, will be given the highest strategic priority.

We have reduced the scale of operation scheduled for March in the Bay of Bengal to permit the reenforcement of amphibious craft for the operation against Southern France.

We have ordered the utmost endeavors to increase the production of landing craft in the United Kingdom and the United States for the reenforcement of Overlord, and further orders have been issued to divert certain landing craft from the Pacific for the same purpose.2

Roosevelt and Churchill
  1. Regarding the preparation of this message, see ante, pp. 738, 749. It was sent to the White House Map Room, via military channels, and forwarded by the Map Room to Moscow, via Navy channels.↩
  2. For Stalin’s acknowledgment, dated December 10, 1943, see Stalin’s Correspondence, vol. ii, p. 113.↩