Roosevelt Papers: Telegram
President Roosevelt to Prime Minister Churchill1
priority
Number 397, personal and secret, from the President for the Former Naval Person.
The present Moscow conference appears to be a genuine beginning of British-Russian-U. S. collaboration which should lead to the early defeat of Hitler. In order to further stimulate this cooperation and particularly to increase the confidence of Stalin in the sincerity of our intentions it is suggested that immediately upon our receipt of information if it turns out that he is unable to meet with us at Basra or other place that is acceptable to both of us,2 we jointly transmit some such message as the following to him:
“Heretofore we have informed you of the results of our combined British-American military staff conferences. You may feel that it would be better to have a Russian military representative sit in at such meetings to listen to the discussions regarding British-American operations and take note of the decisions. He would be free to make such comments and proposals as you might desire. This arrangement would afford you and your staff an intimate and prompt report of these meetings.
If you favorably consider such an arrangement we shall advise you of the date and place of the next conference as soon as they have been determined. It would be understood that the procedure outlined carried no implication of discussion of plans for purely Russian operations except as your representative might be instructed to present.”
If he does agree to meet us at Basra, we can discuss this matter with him at that time.3
- Sent to the United States Naval Attaché London, via Navy channels.↩
- In the draft of this message as submitted by Marshall to Leahy (ante, p. 41) the words from “immediately upon” to “both of us” (except “if it turns out”) were written in by Leahy. The words “if it turns out” may have been added by Roosevelt.↩
- In the draft as submitted by Marshall to Leahy, this paragraph was written in by Leahy.↩