President Roosevelt and the British Prime Minister (Churchill) to the Chairman of the Soviet Council of People’s Commissars (Stalin)7
We have both arrived here with our staffs and will probably remain in conference for about 10 days. We fully understand the strong reasons which lead you to remain on the battlefronts, where your presence has been so fruitful of victory. Nevertheless, we wish to emphasize once more the importance of a meeting between all three of us. We do not feel that either Archangel or Astrakhan are suitable but we are prepared ourselves, accompanied by suitable officers, to proceed to Fairbanks in order to survey the whole scene in common with you. The present seems to be a unique opportunity for a rendezvous and also a crucial point in the war. We earnestly hope that you will give this matter once more your consideration. Prime Minister will remain on this side of the Atlantic for as long as may be necessary.
Should it prove impossible to arrange the much needed meeting of the three heads of governments, we agree with you that a meeting of the foreign office level should take place in the near future. This meeting would be exploratory in character as, of course, final decisions must be reserved to our respective governments.
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- Copy of telegram obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N. Y. It was sent at the beginning of the First Quebec Conference, August 17–24, 1943. Documentation regarding the Conference is scheduled for publication in a subsequent volume of Foreign Relations. ↩