Truman Papers: Telegram
No. 2
President Truman to Prime Minister Churchill
1
31. Your messages 342 and 35.3
I am in agreement with your opinion that a meeting of the three heads of government would be desirable in order to get action on the questions of interest to the three governments upon which either a decision or a common understanding have not been reached.
I very much prefer to have the request for such a tripartite meeting originate from Marshal Stalin and not from either one of us. Perhaps you have means of some kind with which to endeavor to induce Stalin to suggest or request such a meeting.
In the meantime it is my present intention to adhere to our interpretation of the Yalta agreements,4 and to stand firmly on our present announced attitude toward all the questions at issue.
In order to prepare for a possible tripartite meeting in the not distant future, I would be very pleased to have from you a list of the questions that you consider it necessary or desirable for us to bring up for discussion, and also suggestions as to meeting places.
There should now be no valid excuse for Stalin’s refusing to come west toward us.
In regard to timing, it will be extremely difficult for me to absent myself from Washington before the end of the fiscal year (30 June), but I probably will be able to get away after that date.
- Presumably sent to the United States Naval Attaché, London, via Navy channels. Text communicated to the Secretary of State by Leahy in a memorandum of May 9 (file No. 860c.01/5–945).↩
- Document No. 1.↩
- Not printed herein. See Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, p. 499.↩
- See vol. ii, documents Nos. 1416 and 1417.↩