Office of the Historian

Roosevelt Papers: Telegram

Prime Minister Churchill to President Roosevelt 1

top secret
London, 31 December 1944.

Prime Minister to President Roosevelt. Personal and Top Secret. Number 868.

Your 682:—

I will certainly meet you at Yalta. We are preparing to send a small signal ship to Sebastopol, also a civil liner for accommodation if later information indicates that this is necessary to supplement quarters on shore. It will be necessary for me to take with me about the same numbers as attended the last Quebec conference.2 This includes the provision for a round-the-clock signal service, but any excess over those who can be conveniently put up on shore will live aboard. Pending further news from you I am taking January 28th as target date for arrival of ships. I shall fly direct via Caserta in the C–54 which General Arnold gave me and which is a wonder. Have you a name for this operation? If not I suggest “ Argonaut ” which has a local but not deducible association.

Prime
  1. Sent by the United States Military Attaché, London, via Army channels.↩
  2. A handwritten note in the margin at this point reads as follows: “PM’s #771 of 20 Aug indicated he would take 121 plus ‘a few from Washington [‘] to Quebec”.↩