Roosevelt Papers: Telegram
Prime Minister Churchill to President Roosevelt1
secret
London, 27 October 1943.
Former Naval Person to President Roosevelt personal and most secret No. 476.
Your No. 397.2
- 1.
- Like you, I rejoice in the good progress made at Moscow, and I greatly hope we may arrange Eureka.
- 2.
- I deprecate the idea of inviting a Russian military representative to sit in at the meetings of our joint staffs. Unless he understood and spoke English, the delays would be intolerable. I do not know of any really high officer of the Russian Army who can speak English. Such a representative would have no authority or power to speak except as instructed. He would simply say [bay]3 for an earlier second front and block all other discussions. Considering they tell us nothing of their own movements, I do not think we should open this door to them as it would probably mean that they would want to have observers at all future meetings and all discussions between us would be paralyzed. We shall very soon have six or seven hundred thousand British and American troops and airmen in Italy and we are planning the great operation of Overlord. There will not be a Russian soldier in any of these. On the other hand, all our fortunes depend upon them. I regard our right to sit together on the movements of our own two forces as fundamental and vital. Hitherto, we have prospered wonderfully, but I now feel that the year 1944 is loaded with danger. Great differences may develop between us and we may take the wrong turning. Or, again, we may make compromises and fall between two stools. The only hope is the intimacy and friendship which has been established between us and between our high staffs. If that were broken, I should despair of the immediate future. A formal triple conference with the Russians is another thing. Then, they have to be represented by plenipotentiaries, or at any rate, persons having wide discretionary powers. I need scarcely say the British Chiefs of Staff fully share these views. I must add that I am more anxious about the campaign of 1944 than about any other with which I have been involved.
Prime