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Articles
Great Contemporaries: Harry S. Truman (1): Prelude to Potsdam
- By FRED GLUECKSTEIN
- | August 17, 2023
- Category: Explore Great Contemporaries
“Looking forward earnestly…”
On Thursday, 12 April 1945, President Franklin Roosevelt died suddenly at Warm Springs, Georgia. “Although Roosevelt’s death came as a shock and surprise,” Churchill wrote, I had been aware ever since we parted at Alexandria after the Yalta Conference that his strength was fading”…. Only weeks remained in the President’s life, Churchill continued:
I did what I could in personal telegrams to relieve the strain of the divergences on large matters of policy which Soviet antagonism brought into our official correspondence, but I had not fully realized how serious the President’s condition had become….
My first impulse was to fly over to the funeral, and I had already ordered an aeroplane…. Truman [said] how greatly he would personally value the opportunity of meeting me as early as possible, and thought a visit for the funeral, if I had had this in mind, would have been a natural and easy occasion. Mr. Truman’s idea was that after the funeral I might have had two or three days’ talk with him.1
But Churchill was soon pressured not to leave the country at a critical time—a German surrender was expected at any moment.2 Finally, he yielded to circumstances and did not travel to Washington. He expressed regrets to the new President, promising to eulogize FDR in Parliament. Churchill was nonetheless anxious to see America’s new chief, hitherto unknown to him: “I am looking forward earnestly to a meeting with you at an early date,” he wrote. “Meanwhile the Foreign Secretary knows the whole story of our joint affairs.”3
From doubt to regard
Knowing nothing of Truman, Churchill had his doubts: “It seemed to me extraordinary, especially during the last few months, that Roosevelt had not made his deputy and potential successor thoroughly acquainted with the whole story and brought him into the decisions which were being taken.” While Churchill’s own number-two, Anthony Eden, knew everything, an American vice-president “steps at a bound from a position where he has little information and less power into supreme authority.” Years later, having known Truman closely, he called him “a resolute and fearless man, capable of taking the greatest decisions.” But early on, his office “was one of extreme difficulty, and did not enable him to bring his outstanding qualities fully into action.”4
In April 1945, of course, Churchill could not help but speculate. “Truman had no experience in relations with Britain or Russia, no firsthand knowledge of Churchill or Stalin,” wrote his biographer, David McCullough. “He didn’t know the right people. He didn’t know Harriman. He didn’t know his own Secretary of State, more than to say hello. He had no background in foreign policy, no expert or experienced advisers of his own to call upon for help. Most obviously, he was not Franklin Roosevelt.”5
In his first week as President, Truman received Anthony Eden, his first foreign dignitary. Eden informed Churchill that the President seemed “honest and friendly.” Clearly, a working relationship needed to be established. “I hope that I may be privileged to renew with you the intimate comradeship…that I enjoyed [with FDR].” Churchill wrote on 13 April. “I offer you my respectful good wishes as you step into the breach in the victorious lines of the United Nations.”6
First call to Truman
On 17 April 1945, American forces entered Nuremberg, the scene of Hitler’s triumphant prewar rallies. By now telegraphic exchanges between Churchill and Truman were occurring almost daily, and Churchill was hopeful. Truman, he told Eden on 20 April, “is not to be bullied by the Soviets.”7
On 25 April, Churchill was told that Heinrich Himmler, architect of the SS and of the Holocaust, was trying to open peace negotiations with the Allies behind Hitler’s back. “Churchill at once telephoned Truman,” wrote Martin Gilbert. “It was the first time that they had spoken together. The two men agreed that there would be no ‘piecemeal’ surrender by any Germans; the surrender must be made simultaneously to Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union.”8
On 4 May, German Chief of Operations Staff Alfred Jodl signed the instrument of surrender at Eisenhower’s headquarters at Rheims. All fighting was to cease at midnight on 8 May. Eisenhower passed the word to London. Waiting till Churchill woke, Captain Richard Pim, head of Churchill’s Map Room, brought him the news. “For five years you’ve brought me bad news, sometimes worse than others,” Churchill said. “Now you’ve redeemed yourself.”9
Excitement swept Britain over the imminent and long-awaited victory. Churchill had asked Truman to declare Victory in Europe on the 7th. Truman was unwilling to do so, since Stalin had asked to postpone celebrations until the 9th. Russians were still fighting in parts of Czechoslovakia and in the Baltic. To this day Britain celebrates VE-Day on the 8th, Russia the 9th.
“Avoid any suspicion of ‘ganging up’”
On 11 May Churchill suggested to Truman that they invite Stalin “to meet us at some agreed unshattered town in Germany for a Tripartite Meeting in July. We should not rendezvous at any place within the present Russian military zone. Twice running we have come to meet him…. I doubt very much whether any enticements will get a proposal for a Tripartite Meeting out of Stalin. But I think he would respond to an invitation. If not, what are we to do?”10
Truman replied at once, saying he’d prefer that Stalin proposed the meeting, hoping their ambassadors would encourage him. “Mr. Truman then declared that he and I ought to go to the meeting separately,” Churchill wrote, “so as to avoid any suspicion of ‘ganging up.’”11 Harry Hopkins, who had dealt broadly with the Soviets during the war, conveyed the idea to Stalin in Moscow. Stalin said he was willing to talk.
Churchill’s and Truman’s primary concern was Poland, by now occupied by the Red Army. At Yalta in 1945, the Big Three sanctioned a provisional, coalition Polish government pending postwar elections. Stalin manipulated that decision to Soviet advantage. A mostly communist Provisional Government of National Unity was formed in Warsaw, absent any representatives of the exile government in London.
Churchill did not get his wish to meet somewhere outside the Soviet military zone. Stalin stipulated Potsdam, a Russian-occupied Berlin suburb. With his daughter Mary as aide-de-camp, Churchill flew from Bordeaux to Berlin. His base for the conference was 23 Ringstrasse, about 45 minutes from Potsdam.
“He just plants his foot down firmly…”
Meeting Roosevelt, Churchill declared, “was like opening your first bottle of champagne.”12 Harry Truman, whom he finally met on Monday 16 July, didn’t bubble. But he certainly pleased Churchill, who called him “a man of immense determination. He takes no notice of delicate ground, he just plants his foot down firmly upon it.” To make his point, Churchill “jumped a little off the wooden floor and brought both bare feet down with a smack.”13
Churchill and Truman talked earnestly for two hours at Truman’s residence, Number 2 Kaiserstrasse, 400 yards from Churchill’s quarters. Walking back, the Prime Minister told his daughter Mary how much he liked the President. “He says he is sure he can work with him,” Mary wrote her mother. “I nearly wept with joy and thankfulness, it seemed like divine providence. Perhaps it is FDR’s legacy. I can see Papa is relieved and confident.”14
“Soft soap…”
Harry Truman’s view of the meeting was rather plainer, and full of earthy midwestern vernacular….
His daughter told General Vaughan [Truman’s military aide] he hadn’t been up so early in ten years! I’d been up for four hours. We had a most pleasant conversation. He is a most charming and a very clever person—meaning clever in the English not the Kentucky sense. He gave me a lot of hooey about how great my country is and how he loved Roosevelt and how he intended to love me. Well, I gave him as cordial a reception as I could—being naturally (I hope) a polite and agreeable person. I am sure we can get along if he doesn’t try to give me too much soft soap. You know soft soap is made of ash hopper lye and it burns to beat hell when it gets into the eyes. It’s fine for chigger bites but not so good for rose complexions. But I haven’t a rose complexion.15
Potsdam begins
On 17 July 1945, the first of the plenary sessions of the Potsdam Conference began at the Cecilienhof Palace. The oak-paneled reception hall served as the conference room. The colors of the room were a dismal dark red, black and gold. The bland color arrangement was offset by one immense window two stories tall that looked onto the gardens and lake.
To enter the room, Churchill, Stalin and Truman had their own separate doors, each heavily guarded by Russian soldiers. The conference was officially called to order at 5:10 p.m. Stalin spoke first, proposing that President Truman, as the only head of state present, should preside. Churchill seconded the motion. The postwar world was about to begin.
Continued in Part 2…
Endnotes
1 Winston S. Churchill (hereinafter WSC), Triumph and Tragedy (London: Cassell, 1954), 418.
2 See Richard M. Langworth, “Dudgeon or Duty? Churchill’s Absence from the Roosevelt Funeral,” Hillsdale College Churchill Project, 2022.
3 WSC, Triumph and Tragedy, 418.
4 Ibid., 419.
5 David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 355.
6 WSC, Triumph and Tragedy, 419.
7 Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life (London: Pimlico, 1991), 836.
8 Ibid, 839.
9 WSC to Captain Pim, in Richard M. Langworth, Churchill by Himself (New York: Rosetta, 2016), 287,
10 WSC, Triumph and Tragedy, 497.
11 Ibid.
12 Langworth, Churchill by Himself, 371.
13 WSC to Lord Moran, in McCullough, Truman, 412.
14 McCullough, Truman, 412.
15 Harry S. Truman, recollection, in Martin Gilbert & Larry P. Arnn, eds., The Churchill Documents, vol. 21, The Shadows of Victory, January-July 1945 (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2018), 1884.
The author
Fred Glueckstein travels widely in search of Churchill and is a regular contributor to the Churchill Project.