Office of the Historian

The British Prime Minister (Churchill) to President Roosevelt 32

[London,] 3 October 1944.

790. 1. Anthony33 and I start Saturday34 and hope in two or three days to reach U[ncle] J[oe].35 We should like you to send a message to him saying that you approve of our mission and that Averell36 will be available to take part in discussions.

2. Will you tell Averell or General Deane what can be said about your Far Eastern plans and let us know what you have told them, so that we all keep within the limits prescribed. We want to elicit the time it will take after the German downfall for a superior Russian army to be gathered opposite the Japanese on the frontiers of Manchukuo and to hear from them the problems of this campaign, which are peculiar owing to the lines of communication being vulnerable in the later stages.

3. Of course the bulk of our business will be about the Poles, but you and I think so much alike about this that I do not need any special guidance as to your views.

4. The point of Dumbarton Oaks will certainly come up and I must tell you that we are pretty clear that the only hope is that the three great powers are agreed. It is with regret that I have come to this conclusion contrary to my first thought. Please let me know if you have any wishes about this matter,37 and also instruct Averell accordingly.

Prime
  1. Copy of telegram obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.↩
  2. Anthony Eden, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.↩
  3. October 7.↩
  4. Sobriquet for Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin.↩
  5. W. Averell Harriman. In a telegram to President Roosevelt on October 3, Ambassador Harriman stated that he would delay returning to the United States because a “prominent personage” was coming to Moscow for conversations with Stalin. Harriman asked for the President’s views, and expressed the hope that a settlement would be reached for the Polish situation which was “becoming increasingly bitter and difficult of solution.”↩
  6. For President Roosevelt’s reply on October 4, see Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945, p. 7.↩