by Philip Kerr
• The murder of four thousand Polish officers in the Katyn Forest was finally admitted by Russian president Boris Yeltsin in 1992. But hundreds of thousands of Poles deported to labor camps in the Soviet Gulag system were never seen again.
MUCH OF WHAT took place at the Big Three Conference is still shrouded in secrecy. But the following strange facts are uncontested:
• Two American generals—General George C. Marshall and General H. H. Arnold—absented themselves, without leave, from the Teheran conference and went on a tour of the woods around the city. Why?
• As soon as Roosevelt landed in Teheran, Stalin claimed his NKVD had uncovered a plot to kill the Big Three. He suggested that Roosevelt—though not Churchill—should move into the safety of the impregnable Russian compound. Roosevelt seems to have believed in the plot; and, contrary to all advice, he agreed to move, thus laying the American delegation open to eavesdropping. Was there any truth to the plot? Wasn’t Roosevelt too canny not to have known that all his conversations in the Russian compound would be bugged? If he did know, what was he up to? Could there have been another reason he agreed to stay at the Russian compound?
• At Teheran, Churchill was irritated and upset with Roosevelt on a number of occasions; never again were the two men friends. Why?
• At Teheran, Roosevelt collapsed with severe stomach pains. Was he poisoned? Some think he was.
• Before, during, and after the Teheran conference, von Papen, the German ambassador in Ankara (Turkey), was kept informed of what was happening by a spy who worked as a valet for the British ambassador in Ankara, Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen.
• At Teheran, Churchill spent much of the Big Three Conference marginalized by the other two principals, and on his own. Why?
• At Teheran, Stalin suggested, seriously, that the best way of making sure that Germany never again posed a threat to the security of the world was to destroy its militarism at the root: to this end he proposed the execution of 100,000 German officers and NCOs. Reluctantly, he accepted that 50,000 executions might be enough. Churchill protested vehemently. Roosevelt said he thought 49,000 ought to be enough! This was most uncharacteristic of Roosevelt. Why did he say this? And why did he sell out Poland and Finland to Stalin? Did Stalin have some temporary hold over Roosevelt?
• The Katyn Forest massacre, for which the Russians were responsible, was not mentioned by Roosevelt to Stalin at Teheran.
• General Marshall was widely expected to command the Allied landings in June 1944. But Roosevelt handed the command to Eisenhower instead. No explanation was given for this choice, which caused widespread surprise at the time. Was the reason, perhaps, something to do with Marshall’s unexplained absence for part of the conference at Teheran?
• In 1944, more Jews died in “special camps” than in any other single year.
