Dinner With Churchill: Policy-Making at the Dinner Table (18 page)

Churchill’s decision to match his conference partners’ musical offerings was more out of necessity and not to be seen as a spoilsport, than from any love for dinner-time musical entertainment, which Churchill believed interfered with the main purpose of the dinner – conversation. The leaders were there to cement relationships, not to listen in silence to after-dinner music, at least in Churchill’s view.

He had very carefully placed the Generalissimo to his left and the President to his right because Stalin, at the opening session, had proposed, with a shrewd eye for flattery, that the American President serve as presiding officer at the
conference
.

Whereas the principal foreign advisers sat beside their leaders at the plenary sessions at the Cecilienhof, at the
dinner
Churchill placed Eden, Molotov and Byrnes opposite their chiefs so that they could be brought into the
conversation
whenever the Big Three chose, or excluded from it when they thought best. In order to have Stalin on one side and Truman on the other, Churchill had to deviate from his usual practice of keeping his interpreter next to him: Major Birse was placed one seat away, on Stalin’s left, with Pavlov across from Birse.

The printed menu – like many of his contemporaries, Churchill referred to menus as “bills of fare” – offered the diners, to start, a choice between a cold clear soup and hot turtle soup (a comforting reminder to Churchill of earlier days), neither being the detested cream soup. The soup course was accompanied by a 1937 Hallgartener Riesling. The Riesling carried on through the next course – fried sole.

On the front of the dinner card and on the menu itself is a repeat of the form used at Yalta, with both Downing Street and Potsdam addresses. This address was used because the villa was considered to be the Prime Minister’s official
residence
while in Potsdam, and the Prime Ministerial cypher meant that the dinner was official government business. Memories differ as to where Churchill’s dinner actually was held: at his private villa, at the Cecilienhof, or elsewhere. To add to the confusion, there is another menu for this dinner that is headed Schloss Cecilienhof. Perhaps the staff ate in the Cecilienhof dining room, which was larger, sharing the same menu. Admiral Cunningham recalled later that the official dinner was at the Prime Minister’s house at Babelsberg,
36
as does the German-language guidebook to the Cecilienhof.

Whatever the location, what is certain is that Churchill served “the good plain fare” that Moran tells us the Prime Minister felt it a host’s responsibility to provide,
including
roast chicken, boiled new potatoes and peas (new peas were one of his favourites). But the quality of the claret was not up to the usual Churchillian standards. The 1940
Saint-Julien
vines “suffered wartime neglect”, earning the wine only two stars of a possible five, according to wine expert Michael Broadbent.
37

Churchill’s selection of the final course before the
dessert
– cold ham and lettuce salad – was an afterthought that had been flown in from England at the last moment, perhaps to liven up the dull menu.
38
The dessert consisted of fruit salad and ice-cream (another Churchill favourite). By the time this was served, the orchestra was playing the tuneful
Holberg Suite
by Edvard Grieg, a move up the quality scale from Mexican music, and undoubtedly more pleasing to the presidential ear.

The dinner ended with the sappers, drafted as
waiters
, bringing in Scotch woodcock, a Victorian/Edwardian savoury served hot at the end of the meal. It consists of scrambled eggs, cayenne pepper, and Gentleman’s Relish on buttered toast, with anchovies crossed over the top. A
traditional
British food of the sort upon which Churchill had been raised. The reactions of the Prime Minister’s foreign guests to this offering are not recorded. It was accompanied by Stokes port, Prunier Brandy (an elegant brandy produced since the 1700s), Cointreau and Benedictine – and the
inevitable
cigars.

This straightforward, uncomplicated meal was a useful bridge over the tensions, stresses and ever-widening
differences
that had appeared at the meetings throughout the day. The sound of clinking glasses, toasts (brief speeches, really) in both languages, their interpretations and a seating
arrangement
– the Big Three side by side – that facilitated easy conversation, including frequent changing of places with the President at one point briefly sitting opposite Churchill, all combined to create an atmosphere very different from the formal plenary sessions. Churchill became
increasingly
jovial, and attentive to Stalin, whom, as at Teheran, he called “Stalin the Great”, in recognition of the fact that the Generalissimo’s power was far greater than that of the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great. Stalin, no stranger to flattery but too shrewd and wary to be affected by it, was all
business
. The wines and food notwithstanding, he turned the conversation to the coming showdown with Japan, and the Soviet Union’s possible role.

That was not the only serious business transacted at the dinner. Truman, by pre-agreement with Churchill, wisely mentioned, almost casually, to Stalin that the West had a
new and more powerful weapon. Stalin did not let on that he had known all along about the existence of the bomb from German-born, British-educated Klaus Fuchs, who operated in Britain, and worked on the Manhattan Project.

After dinner, to Churchill’s surprise, Stalin “got up from his seat with the bill-of-fare card in his hand and went around the table collecting the signatures of many of those who were present. “I never thought to see him as an
autograph-hunter
!”, Churchill later wrote.
39
Churchill complained that, if everyone did as Stalin had done, he would have to sign 28 menus, and sent Sawyers (ever-present in rooms when Churchill might need him) around with Churchill’s own menu card. Lord Moran wrote of how “all these hardened, sophisticated, wandering men” joined in the milling about, borrowing pens, exchanging information and signing each other’s menu cards, adding to the general relaxed
conviviality
.
40
So successful had Churchill been at cracking the formal ice of the daytime sessions that the usually dour Stalin
became
, in Moran’s words, “smiling and almost amiable”.
41

After formal toasts had been offered, Churchill filled what he describes as one “small-sized claret glass with brandy” for himself and another for Stalin. “We both drained our glasses at a stroke” and, as Churchill recalled, “gazed approvingly at one another”.
42
Unfortunately for Churchill, neither the brandy nor the mutual approving gazes kept Stalin from pursuing his post-war agenda. Having shown himself a
collector
of autographs, Stalin became, in the words of one
historian
, “a collector of territories” as well.
43

Churchill’s warning not to treat his post-election return to Potsdam as a certainty proved prescient. So that he could be in London for the election results, delayed for three weeks after polling day by the need to receive and count the votes
of overseas troops, he left Potsdam on 25 July, only two days after playing host to the American President and the
Soviet
Premier at his grand dinner. The confident forecasts he had received of a renewed mandate to govern proved to be wishful thinking. The Labour Party received an
overwhelming
majority; its leader, Clement Attlee, was the new Prime Minister; and Churchill, who did retain his parliamentary seat, was reduced to a new role as Leader of the Opposition. It was Attlee, initially attending the conference as Leader of the Opposition, who returned to Potsdam as Prime Minister to continue the meetings with Truman and Stalin.

July 1945 was thus an important turning point in Churchill’s career. Despite regaining the premiership in 1951, Churchill would never again lead with the vigour and effectiveness that characterised his wartime leadership. By the time he returned to Downing Street in 1951, just short of 77 years old, age and ill health had had their inevitable effects, Britain’s role and influence in world affairs was diminished, and President Eisenhower and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, proved less susceptible to the Prime Minister’s charm and persuasive powers.

Would the course of events have been different at Potsdam had the purposefully convivial Churchill not been replaced, mid-meeting, by the more monosyllabic Clement Attlee? That is unlikely. Churchill’s charm, his eloquence, his
farsighted
view of the future shape of world events –
foreseeing
the totalitarian horrors a tyrant like Stalin would impose on those lands his armies had overrun, and the Cold War Churchill would describe only six months later in his “Iron Curtain” speech in Fulton, Missouri – were in the end no match for what today we call “facts on the ground”. In 1945 those facts overwhelmingly favoured the Soviet dictator.

C
HAPTER
9

From Fulton to Bermuda: The Limits of Dinner-table Diplomacy

T
o the surprise of most of his close associates, but not to him, Churchill’s short-lived Conservative caretaker
government
had been voted out of power on 26 July 1945 and he had to resign as Prime Minister. According to Lord Moran’s published diary, the former Prime Minister, aged seventy, was weary in body ands mind after five tense and hectic years as a wartime leader travelling the world to deploy his personal skills on behalf of the British people. Perhaps. But after a few months of recuperation at Lake Como and the French Riviera, he went back to work as Leader of the Opposition, as a working historian, and as a speaker on the world stage,
full of zeal to help reshape the post-war world and
strengthen
the Western democracies.

President Truman had personally invited Churchill, the man about whom he noted in his memoirs: “I like to listen to him talk”, to give a speech in March 1946 at Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri, Truman’s home state. Churchill accepted. He would spend two nights on the presidential train, play poker late into the night with Truman, and once again use the dinner table – in this instance also a card table – to persuade an American President to share his views on foreign policy, which were realistic but focused hopefully on the “seeds of peace” as the Soviets tightened their grip upon the countries they had liberated from Nazi Germany.

Churchill’s arrival in the small Midwestern town was
eagerly
anticipated. At Fulton, the chef of the Fulton Country Club prepared a typical American, country-style lunch. The “meal was served family-style to the distinguished guests at small tables of four to six people. Churchill and Truman were seated together. The cook ensured that each of her
assistants
would be able to say that they had served Churchill
and Truman personally by allowing each of them to offer second helpings of one of the dishes to the two visiting dignitaries”.
4

En route to Fulton with President Truman

That day’s lunch included the not-yet-world-famous Callaway ham, fried chicken, buttered corn, rolls with cherry preserves (no butter) and angel food cake with strawberry topping – all many cuts above the dishes Churchill had
endured
from Mrs. Nesbitt’s kitchen during his stay at the White House in 1941. And a contrast with the fare in Britain, where rationing remained in force.

Churchill’s gallant description of his portion of the Callaway ham – “This pig has reached the highest state of evolution” – was not his typical response to foreign foods, especially those in which one of the courses required the slaughter of one of his favourite animals. The compliment
was heart-felt; he spoke fondly about the Callaway hams years later. The company was quick to trade on his comments.

Fifty years later, when Lady Thatcher spoke at Westminster College on the anniversary of her predecessor’s “Sinews of Peace” speech, she was served the same lunch, including the Callaway ham.

In his Fulton speech Churchill famously warned that an “iron curtain” had fallen across Europe “from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic”. The interests of the
members
of the wartime alliance no longer being compatible, he called for the formation of a new Western alliance to
oppose
Soviet expansion in territory and influence. At the
urging
of the State Department, which feared that Stalin would be offended if America did as Churchill was pressing it to do, Truman – after encouraging him to toughen it in several places – carefully distanced himself from what has come to be known as Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech.

The lack of initial success at Fulton was duplicated some
seven years later in Bermuda, at a conference proposed by Churchill, two years after he became Prime Minister for the second time. By then the effects of age, including increased deafness, and a stroke suffered in June 1953, from which it took him several months to recover (rereading
Phineas Finn
while doing so), were taking their toll. But he was full of enthusiasm to work on setting a course for what would later become détente.

After his stroke, Churchill immediately advised President Eisenhower that the planned Bermuda Conference would have to be postponed, attaching a full medical report to his telegram. The nation’s newspaper publishers agreed not to report the nature and extent of the Prime Minister’s illness.

By November 1953, a mere five months after his severe stroke, Churchill was very much on the mend. He
celebrated
his 79th birthday in the Cabinet Room with a party that featured a most unusual cake created by a London baker: a single tall layer with the spines of all the many books he had written replicated around the outside of it, as if it were a small circular library. A ribbon was tied around the cake, which was topped by a single tall candle, while a black
confectionery
dog, meant to be Rufus, Churchill’s beloved
poodle
, tried to clamber up the candle to reach a tiny cat at the top. This set a pattern for some of Churchill’s later birthdays when English bakers competed to bake the most original, even outlandish, cake, hoping for some publicity for
themselves
in addition to celebrating birthdays.

Immediately after his birthday celebration, Churchill left London for Bermuda. He had suggested this venue for the meeting, in part because in the British Crown colony he could act as host and lay on the pomp and ceremony he felt the arriving President deserved. Churchill went to
considerable 
lengths to make the conference attractive to the President, including selecting what he called the Mid-Ocean Golf Club as the site.

Churchill’s 79th birthday cake

Churchill thought that adding the word Golf to the name of the Club would be an inducement for the President to
accept
. But Eisenhower, sensitive to press criticism at home of the amount of time he spent on the links, said he could not agree to meet at a golf club. The Prime Minister was forced to admit his fib: he had inserted the word golf in the club’s name to entice the President.

On 8 November, Churchill promised the President warm Caribbean seas, writing:

The seventeen-hour flight in the stratocruiser (two
refuelling
stops were necessary, at Shannon in Ireland and at Gander in Newfoundland) allowed Churchill time to dip into one of his favourite authors. As he had done on his 1941 sea voyage to meet another American president, the Prime Minister read a C.S. Forester novel, this time
Death to the French
, perhaps an ironic reflection of his disappointment that Eisenhower had insisted France be represented by its Prime Minister, Joseph Laniel, ending Churchill’s hopes for a one-on-one meeting with him.

Mid Ocean Club, Bermuda

Churchill was eager to obtain Eisenhower’s approval for a new approach to Moscow, including a summit meeting with the new Soviet leaders, Stalin having died in March. But Eisenhower had warned him earlier that he was not eager for the new multilateral meeting with the Soviets that Churchill
so desired. He wrote to Churchill:

The first plenary session at the Bermuda Conference was held in the late afternoon of 4 December, continuing the tradition of late-afternoon meetings established at wartime summits. The Prime Minister officially requested that the President preside and Eisenhower quickly agreed.

A photograph now hanging on the wall of the Mid Ocean Club shows Eisenhower telling the British and French prime ministers where to sit.

Less officially, Churchill requested permission to smoke his cigars. The President quickly agreed, knowing he could then smoke his own cigarettes.

The meetings covered many issues of joint concern, but on the issue that had brought the Prime Minister to Bermuda – restarting negotiations with the Soviets – Churchill, despite the tremendous efforts he made, had to accept failure. He attributed his lack of success to two things: the intransigence of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and his own failing health. He told Lord Moran: “Dulles is a terrible handicap … Even as it is I have not been defeated by the bastard. I have been humiliated by my own decay.”
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There might have been an additional factor: President Eisenhower might have remembered that Churchill had fought to have General George C. Marshall
appointed
chief of operation for Overlord (the 1944 invasion of Europe), rather than then-General Dwight D. Eisenhower.