Office of the Historian

740.00119 European War 1939/10–143: Telegram

The British Prime Minister (Churchill) to President Roosevelt 11

[London, September 30, 1943.]

[427.]12 Your No. 363.13 I agree that we should make a joint announcement but would it not be a good chance of getting Uncle Joe in too? It is clear now, from correction of Molotov’s message,14 that he does accept the Italians as co-belligerents. It is true we may lose a few days in communicating with Moscow, but this delay seems relatively unimportant compared with value of Russian participation.

If you agree, would you put it to Stalin in the form that we wish an announcement of the kind made; will he join with us in making it, or would he prefer us to go ahead without him? Of course we should consider any drafting alterations he might wish to propose.

I myself would like to see several changes, and my immediately following telegram15 embodies these. If you see no objection to them would you, if you agree, approach Stalin and put text to him in this form.

  1. Copy transmitted to the Department by the British Embassy on October 1, 1943.↩
  2. Number supplied from copy of telegram obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.↩
  3. Dated September 29, p. 378.↩
  4. See footnote 5, p. 378.↩
  5. Infra.↩