Therefore Churchill took the initiative in a telegram on September 27, and proposed a visit to the Kremlin. Stalin, in his reply of September 30, welcomed the idea "warmly”. Roosevelt excused himself from accompanying Churchill to Moscow as the presidential elections were imminent, and his absence from the U. S.A. at this time might well have prejudiced the result to his disadvantage. However, his ambassador in the U. S.S. R., Averell Harriman, was to replace him, taking part in the conversations as an observer, and as Roosevelt’s message of October 4 stated:
"While naturally Averell will not be in a position to commit the United States-I could not permit anyone to commit me in advance-he will be able to keep me informed, and I have told him to return and report to me as soon as the conference is over.”
And as he feared that his British partner might indulge in some passing whim, Roosevelt sent word to Stalin on the same day:
"I am sure you understand that in this global war there is literally no question, military or political, in which the United States is not interested. I am firmly convinced that the three of us, and only the three of us, can find the solution of the questions still unresolved. In this sense, while appreciating Mr. Churchill’s desire for the meeting, I prefer to regard your forthcoming talks with the Prime Minister as preliminary to a meeting of the three of us which can take place any time after the elections here as far as I am concerned.”
Churchill does not mention it in his memoirs, but he took great offence at the President’s precaution, according to Lord Moran, who in his capacity as Churchill’s doctor saw him every day. But what was more serious, according to Moran, by the end of September "the advance of the Red Army has taken possession of [Churchill’s] mind. Once they got into a country, it would not be easy to get them out. Our army in Italy was too weak to keep them in check. He might get his way with Stalin by other means.
"All might be well if he could win Stalin’s friendship. After all it was stupid of the President to suppose that he was the only person who could manage Stalin. Winston told me that he had found he could talk to Stalin as one human being to another. Stalin, he was sure, would be sensible. He went on to speak of this proffer of friendship to Stalin as if it were an ingenious idea that had just occurred to him, and while he spoke his eyes popped and his words tumbled over each other in his excitement. He could think of nothing else. It had ceased to be a means to an end; it had become an end in itself. He sat up in bed.
"Tf we three come together,’ he said, 'everything is possible-absolutely anything.’”
As can be seen, there is a strong difference between Churchill’s attitude in his memoirs and his reactions at the time as his doctor saw them; in 1953, when the cold war was at its height and he had just been re-elected, Churchill could not admit to his readers that he had deluded himself into thinking he could win Stalin over.
World History
