Cairo, December 5, 1943
My Dear Harry, I understand that Lord Beaverbrook has not received any favourable reply to his request to you for a conference on Civil Aviation.
Our people are anxious to get on with this and I should be grateful if you could let me know if there are any obstacles we could remove, so that progress may be made.
Yours always
W
| Present | ||
|---|---|---|
| United States | United Kingdom | |
| President Roosevelt | Prime Minister Churchill | |
| Mr. Hopkins | Foreign Secretary Eden | |
| Admiral Leahy | Sir Alexander Cadogan | |
| Mr. Steinhardt | Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen | |
| Commander Thompson | ||
| Captain Churchill | ||
| Turkey | Soviet Union | |
| President Inönü | Mr. Vinogradov | |
| Foreign Minister Menemencioğlu | Mr. Mikhailov | |
| Mr. Anderiman |
According to Leahy:
The next night, December 5, it was Churchill’s turn to entertain at dinner for Inönü. Same scene. Same cast. Almost the same lines except that the Turkish President talked a little more freely and impressed me with his direct approach to the question. He made it clear that before Turkey could come into the war, he would have to have enough planes, tanks, guns, etc., to make a strong resistance against invasion by the Nazis.
It was most interesting to watch the dinner-table maneuvers of the Prime Minister as he pleaded, cajoled, and almost threatened the soldier President of the once powerful Ottoman Empire in an effort to commit him to taking his people into the war. Inönü was told he would have to come in eventually if he was to have a place at the peace table. The Americans did not urge the Turks as vehemently as did the British.
Cairo, December 5 (?), 1943
Anthony Has he been told squadrons do not go in until Feb 15? Is there good reason not to tell him
HARRY
Yes; he has been told. Winston gave him a paper this afternoon. He understands, but issue is he won’t agree to flying in until his army is ready. This looks like a long job.
Cairo, December 5 (?), 1943
Anthony: It looks like BUCCANEER is out & our military plans hence will be agreed to tomorrow
HARRY
If so, you have been very generous, but our chances next year will surely benefit.
President has been grand about it all.
Note reinforcements (Scotch) just came in!
Cairo, December 5, 1943
I propose to send over my signature the following message to the Generalissimo tonight. Do you concur in this action?
I agree. WSC 5 XII
Conference with Stalin involves us in combined grand operations on European continent in late spring giving fair prospect of terminating war with Germany by end of summer of 1944. These operations impose so large a requirement of heavy landing craft as to make it impracticable to devote a sufficient number to the amphibious operation in Bay of Bengal simultaneously with launching of TARZAN to insure success of operation.
This being the case: Would you be prepared go ahead with TARZAN as now planned, including commitment to maintain naval control of Bay of Bengal coupled with naval carrier and commando amphibious raiding operations simultaneous with launching of TARZAN? Also there is the prospect of B-29 bombing of railroad and port Bangkok.
If not, would you prefer to have TARZAN delayed until November to include heavy amphibious operation. Meanwhile concentrating all air transport on carrying supplies over the hump to air and ground forces in China.
I am influenced in this matter by the tremendous advantage to be received by China and the Pacific through the early termination of the war with Germany.
FDR
The Pittsburgh Press (December 5, 1943)
Seize heights overlooking 70-mile open route to Eternal City
By C. R. Cunningham, United Press staff writer
…
Speediest defeat of Nazis mapped by Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin
By the United Press
A special communiqué giving further details of what President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin decided at their conference in Tehran last week will be released officially at 1:00 p.m. ET Monday afternoon.
Meanwhile, reports given out by TASS, the official Russian news agency, together with diplomatic speculation in other Allied capitals, disclosed that the discussions included both military and political matters.
The general military objective of the three great powers, it was said, will be to bring about the speediest possible defeat of Germany and the taking of measures to see that she does not rebuild her war machine in the future.
The German radio reported that President İsmet İnönü of Turkey, accompanied by political and military advisors, had left Saturday for Cairo to confer with Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill.
Face shuttle bombing
The assertion of some Washington observers that Germany would soon be subjected to a shuttle bombing, with Anglo-American heavy bombers utilizing Russian airdromes, was believed to presage military collaboration on a scale not heretofore seen in this war between the Eastern and Western Allies.
Russian sources in London have given a hint of the Russian post-war plan in the scheme to drive millions of German men for the reconstruction of the Russian areas which the Germans have laid waste during their slow retreat westward.
To speed attack
Whatever else the Stalin-Roosevelt-Churchill conference may produce in the way of agreement, there seemed no question that the present campaign of the Anglo-American armies in Italy would soon gain momentum, possibly pushing the Germans north of Rome by the first of the new year; that the Russians would soon launch new efforts to thrust the Germans beyond the Dniester River (border of Romania) and to free the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia); and that the long-heralded Anglo-American invasion of Western Europe would not be long in coming.
The London Times said editorially Saturday that the conference is:
…the major event of the war and will doubtless put the copingstone upon a vast military effort for the overthrow of Germany to which the grand alliance stands committed.
The London Daily Telegraph’s diplomatic correspondent wrote that the Allied leaders had now rounded off their plans for all fronts, “coordinating strategy and timetables.”
Read with emphasis
The United Press listening post in London reported that the Russians showed every indication of taking the forthcoming announcement as of prime importance. The announcer of Radio Moscow read the brief news bulletin on the TASS dispatch with great emphasis. The broadcast was repeated several times to reach all elements in the country, a rare procedure reserved usually for announcements by Marshal Stalin.
The brief announcement by the Russian radio was expected to have a great impact upon Germany’s discouraged satellites – Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary.
Nazis won’t crack quickly
Informed persons doubted that Monday’s announcement by the three leaders would mean an immediate crackup in the German war effort despite rumored peace feelers by so-called conservative Germans. However, the satellites are so shaky that an early crisis in Eastern Europe was seen as a distinct possibility.
The situation within Germany itself is obscured by a flood of propaganda which on the one side emphasizes the desperate situation confronting the Reich and on the other asserts that the “unbreakable determination of the German people will never yield.”
Can’t hide successes
But no propaganda can hide the success of the Russians in the east, which is soon to become even more of a German disaster when the Russians begin to roll forward on frozen soil. The attack in Italy is soon expected to become a general offensive for Rome and that too cannot be hidden from the German people.
The German people will receive any Allied proclamation with the realization that they have only two choices – to surrender or face having their cities devastated one by one.
Round-the-world reaction to the Moscow announcement:
WASHINGTON: Director of OWI Elmer Davis announced that he has asked the State Department to make inquiries in Moscow concerning the announcement by TASS, the official Soviet news agency, about the “Big Three” conference.
LONDON: Newspapers, commenting on the Moscow announcement, said the three leaders had been legislating for victory and that the conference would be a final and decisive blow to Hitler’s hopes of splitting the Allies.
MOSCOW: Pravda printed the TASS announcement on its main front page column, usually reserved for items of the utmost importance.
STOCKHOLM: Swedish quarters believed the conference would result in a statement regarding Allied plans for dealing with Germany similar to those announced after the Cairo Conference with regard to Japan.
TURKEY: Radio Ankara said the meeting was “warmly commented on in the Turkish press,” according to a CBS pickup.
Every Turkish newspaper is praising it and emphasizing the great importance that the three leaders met.
BERLIN: The Berlin radio said:
The premature announcement by Moscow of the conclusion of the Tehran meeting came for the American information service as a bolt from the blue. Thus, once again a bomb exploded too early. The barbed wire, which both in Cairo and Tehran, separated hermetically the conferees from the outer world, could not prevent premature explosions, thus depriving propaganda bombs aimed at Japan and Germany of their detonation power.
Army and Navy Register says it depends on parley
By Merriman Smith, United Press staff writer
Washington – (Dec. 4)
Decisions reached by President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Premier Joseph Stalin in Tehran – the conference on which a Soviet news agency scooped the world – may make an Allied invasion of Western Europe unnecessary, the Army and Navy Register said today.
What decisions the three Allied leaders made have not yet been officially disclosed, but Russia’s TASS Agency stated unequivocally that agreement was reached on both military and political moves for destroying Germany as war-making power.
Upon these decisions “and the results thereof in the next few weeks or months,” the unofficial Army and Navy Register said in an editorial, will depend the “necessity for invasion.”
Cites ‘future events’
The service publication added:
Near future events may avoid the necessity of invasion, and that is a consummation devoutly wished for.
European reports of a “momentary” official communiqué on the three-power conference to the contrary, responsible officials here thought the announcement was not particularly imminent. This situation seemed to stem from security considerations and an effort to protect the principals while they are in transit.
Meanwhile, Director Elmer Davis of the Office of War Information, smarting under the second foreign scoop in a week on a war conference, asked the State Department:
…to make inquiries in Moscow as to the circumstances of publication by the Russian government agency of news of a conference at Tehran and whether such publication was violation of any agreed release date.
Earlier in the week, the British Reuters News Agency reported the Roosevelt-Churchill-Chiang Kai-shek meeting in Cairo before American newsmen were permitted to release the story.
Cites Marshall transfer
The Army and Navy Register did not elaborate its remarks except to say:
In the event an assault invasion, as distinguished from mere military occupation, becomes unnecessary, there would seem to be no reason to transfer Gen. Marshall from his present place as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army to a high command in the European Theater, unless his administrative genius is needed for the meeting of the tremendous problems that will confront the occupation commander.
Gen. Marshall has long been believed to be the United Nations’ choice as commander to lead any cross-Channel invasion of Western Europe. The American staff chief accompanied President Roosevelt to the Cairo and Tehran meetings. Whatever decisions were reached, the Register said, he probably will not return here with the President.
Allies fire 1,000 rounds for every Nazi shell
By John Lardner, North American Newspaper Alliance
…
New York – (Dec. 4)
A new contingent of U.S. troops has arrived in Britain, the British radio reported today in a broadcast heard by CBS.
Heavier subscriptions to government loans proposed by professor
…
Rudder controls of bomber shot away during attack on Japs, but ship lands safely
By Ray Coll Jr., representing combined U.S. press
…
Equipment will permit hardest amphibious blows in history
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State aides seek way to end black markets bootlegging
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German who became citizen three weeks before attack under fire
…