Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference), 1945, Volume I

Leahy Papers: Telegram

No. 10
Prime Minister Churchill to President Truman ¹

top secret

London, 15 May 1945.

Prime Minister to President Truman. Personal and top secret. Number 50.

1. Your number 39² has just arrived. I agree with what you say. I will take a chance of getting a snub from Stalin by sending him a telegram urging a friendly tripartite meeting.³

1. Sent by the United States Military Attaché, London, via Army channels.
2. Document No. 9.
3. Churchill had already had one rebuff from Stalin on the subject of a Heads-of-Government meeting: On March 21 he had concluded a message to Stalin with an expression of confidence that all the difficulties which had arisen since the Yalta Conference “would soon be swept away if only we could meet together”, and Stalin, in his reply, had ignored this statement. See Stalin’s Correspondence, vol. i, p. 308. This official Soviet compilation of Churchill–Stalin correspondence contains no evidence of a further initiative on Churchill’s part until May 26, when Churchill sent a message to Stalin suggesting that the question of the German fleet “should form part of the general discussions which ought to take place between us and President Truman at the earliest possible date”. See document No. 141. By this time, however, Truman had sent Harry Hopkins to Moscow for conversations with Stalin, and on the evening of May 26 Hopkins raised the question of a Heads-of-Government meeting directly with Stalin. See document No. 24 and footnote 1 to document No. 35.