Foreign Relations of the United States, Conference at Quebec, 1944

Roosevelt Papers: Telegram

Prime Minister Churchill to President Roosevelt¹

top secret

London, 20 June 1944.

Prime Minister to President Roosevelt personal and top secret number 707 your 564.²

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2. Your operations in the Pacific assume every day a more vehement and compulsive course. Admiral King gave me a full account in the several good talks I had with him. Everything went well at the meeting of the Chiefs of Staff.³

3. However, it is most desirable we have a meeting before October.⁴ How about August 20 at the Citadel Quebec? A week in those surroundings and cool air would do you no end of good.

4. Your troops are fighting magnificently and I should not think that Cherbourg would hold out long. Anyhow, the synthetic harbours, which are a miracle of rapid construction, would each of them handle more traffic than Cherbourg, and I hope you will honour one of them with your arrival.

1. Sent to Washington by the United States Military Attaché, London, via Army channels; forwarded by the White House Map Room to Roosevelt, who was then at Hyde Park, New York, as telegram No. Red 77.
2. Not printed.
3. The Combined Chiefs of Staff had held their 162d–166th meetings in England in the period June 10–15, 1944. With reference to these meetings and related activities and conversations, see Matloff, pp. 467–469; Alanbrooke, pp. 156–162; Arnold, pp. 504–512; Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 60–61; and King, pp. 547–553.
4. No message from Roosevelt to Churchill has been found which mentions the possibility of a meeting in October.