later, the conversation between Stalin and Churchill naturally turned to the death of great men and the problems of succession. A discussion of how Roosevelt’s successor was doing under the circumstances prompted Churchill to ask if Stalin had given any thought to what would happen at the Kremlin after he died.
Churchill had designated his own political heir. In 1942 he had written to King George that in the event of his death he wanted Anthony Eden to carry on as prime minister because he possessed the ‘resolution, experience and capacity’ the times demanded. Tall, slim, graceful, debonair, the forty-eight-year-old Foreign Secretary accompanied Churchill to Potsdam. Eden had a furrowed but handsome face with penetrating pale blue eyes and a carefully trimmed grey moustache, and he spoke in a mellifluous baritone. Stalin too had brought an heir apparent to the Potsdam Conference: Eden’s opposite number, the fifty-five-year-old Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. Recently, Stalin had anointed Molotov with the words, ‘Let Vyacheslav go to work now. He is younger.’ Small and chunky, Molotov spoke with a slight stammer and had an impassive, ‘lard-white’ face. When he was upset, though his countenance remained stony, a telltale lump in his forehead swelled and throbbed alarmingly.
Stalin insisted to Churchill that he had arranged everything. He claimed to have groomed good men and thereby to have guaranteed the continuity of Soviet policy for thirty years. He made it all sound so sensible, but then Stalin was adept at portraying himself to foreigners as utterly reasonable and rational. In fact, in the words of the American diplomat George Kennan, he was ‘a man of absolutely diseased suspiciousness’. Stalin had a history of exterminating not only his opponents but also those whose character suggested that they might oppose him later. He sniffed plots and cabals everywhere, and never more so than after the war. In 1945, the leader widely venerated as his nation’s saviour was at the pinnacle of his power. At the same time, his own physical decay left him feeling vulnerable to the machinations of the ambitious younger men who formed his circle. As the fawning Molotov and other contenders for the postwar Soviet leadership well knew, Stalin was capable of ordering their arrest or execution at any time, ‘no questions asked’. (As a precaution, Molotov slept with a loaded revolver under his pillow and never permitted his sheets or blankets to be tucked in lest he have to leap out of bed and defend himself in the middle of the night.) Stalin spoke matter-of-factly of retiring on a pension in two or three years, but he was no more inclined to leave office willingly any time soon than Churchill was.
This evening, when Churchill voiced anxiety about the British election, Stalin expressed confidence that the Conservative leader had nothing to worry about. The concept of free elections meant nothing to Stalin. Churchill was in power; surely he had arranged to stay there. The only real mystery as far as the dictator was concerned was why Churchill would go to the trouble of flying home for the result. Characteristically, Stalin suspected a ploy on Churchill’s part.
Stalin was right to sense that Churchill was up to something, though at this point the latter’s calculations had nothing to do with the British election. Churchill asked whether there would be free elections in the territories under Soviet control, and he raised concerns that the Red Army was preparing to surge westward across Europe. When Stalin sought to reassure him on every count, Churchill took care not to provoke an angry confrontation by too directly challenging anything the Generalissimo said. Churchill was biding his time until he knew what kind of hand he had to play with Stalin.
Exactly a week remained before Churchill was due to fly to London. Every day that passed without news from New Mexico with precise details of the bomb test was an agony to him. There were plenary sessions on Thursday and Friday, but still no additional information came in. At half past four on Saturday, Churchill was about to leave for the Cecilienhof when Stimson arrived with the full report. This was the document the Prime Minister had been waiting for since Tuesday; everything depended on its contents. But no sooner had he begun to read than an aide reminded him that if he did not go now, he would be late for his 5 p.m. meeting. Following the day’s talks, Stalin was due to host a party for all of the conference’s participants, and Churchill naturally was expected to attend.
As the report was of the highest secrecy, Stimson had shown the single copy personally to each individual on his list, beginning with Truman. There was no question of his leaving the document for Churchill to study later, so it was agreed that he would return to the Prime Minister’s villa in the morning. Churchill reluctantly handed the report back to Stimson. Impatient to resume reading, he found the evening that followed interminable.
It was not until 11 a.m. on Sunday that Stimson reappeared and Churchill at last had a chance to study the report in full. The details of the atomic bomb gripped him: the lightning effect equal to that of seven suns at midday; the vast ball of flame which mushroomed to a height of more than ten thousand feet; the cloud which shot upward with immense power, reaching the substratosphere in about five minutes; the complete devastation that had been wrought within a one-mile radius. Immediately, Churchill saw that this was the card he had been hoping for. The bomb completely altered the balance of power with the Soviets. Stalin’s vast armies were negligible compared to it. Truman no longer had to worry about Stalin’s willingness to fight the Japanese, and Churchill hoped that that would translate into real support for some tough bargaining to get a viable settlement in Europe. He rushed over to see Truman, both to discuss a speedy end to the war in the Pacific and to confirm that the Americans were not intending to share the bomb’s secrets.
Churchill spoke excitedly of the bomb to his physician, Lord Moran, the following morning. He swore the doctor to secrecy and assured him that it had come just in time to save the world. Again, at lunch, he laid out the new situation to Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, General Hastings ‘Pug’ Ismay, Eden, and other key members of the British delegation. Referring to the sudden shift in the diplomatic equilibrium, Churchill thrust out his chin and scowled. He spoke of threatening to blot out Russian cities if the Communists refused to behave decently in Europe. But for all his talk of bullying Stalin with the bomb, Churchill’s aim was not to start another war. As he had told Eden early on, he believed that the right bargaining counter might make it possible to secure a ‘peaceful agreement’. He calculated that Stalin did not want war any more than he did, only the fruits of war, which the Soviets felt they had earned by their signal contribution to the defeat of Hitler. If Stalin could not be persuaded to settle, it might be best, as Churchill had previously told Truman, at least to know where they stood with him – and to know it sooner rather than later.
Churchill’s optimism about what he would be able to achieve with both his fellow leaders provoked intensely sceptical reactions from British colleagues. There was sentiment in the British camp that Truman (who controlled the bomb, after all) would never provide the backing Churchill needed, that Stalin would simply shrug off any real or implied threat, and that the details in the report from New Mexico might yet prove to have been exaggerated. Still, Churchill had found reason to hope, and to him that was all that mattered. On Monday night he called Lord Beaverbrook, who had had a hand in shaping the Conservatives’ electoral strategy, for the most up-to-date predictions. Churchill had come to Potsdam empty-handed; now that he had what he believed was the basis of a real negotiation, nothing must be allowed to interfere. Beaverbrook told his friend that the Conservatives were expected to win, though perhaps by a smaller majority than first predicted.
Having proposed at the outset that the leaders take their time moving towards the most difficult questions, Churchill was ready to step up the pace and intensity of the talks. But the moment was still not right for what he saw as the climactic confrontation about Soviet intentions in postwar Europe. That, he believed, must wait until the British election results were known and the people had affirmed their confidence in him. Fresh from having submitted himself to their judgement, he would be in an optimal position to demand free elections in the territories liberated by the Russians.
He managed to put off the sharpest exchanges of the conference until Tuesday, 24 July, the eve of his departure. Speaking of reports from Romania and Bulgaria, he charged that an ‘iron curtain’ had descended in those countries. Until this point in the talks Stalin had been inclined to speak in a low, controlled tone of voice, but Churchill had succeeded in arousing his ire, and he shot back, ‘Fairy tales!’ A fierce dispute about the veracity of Churchill’s claims followed. There was a good deal of pique and perspiration on