Dinner With Churchill: Policy-Making at the Dinner Table

by Cita Stelzer

  Menu for the Prime Minister, Turkey, January 1943

  If the President’s train carriage was up to the standards of the diners built in Birmingham for Turkey’s railways, it would have been built to accommodate “gleaming silverware … spotless napery – even the double racks for hats and umbrellas”.10

  Dining with Turkish President Inönü in his private railway carriage, January 1943

  The meeting was cordial, the food fine. General Sir Alan Brooke recorded in his diary:

  The dinner party was a screaming success. Winston was quite at his best and had the whole party convulsed with laughter. In his astounding French, consisting of a combination of the most high flown French words mixed with English words pronounced in French, he embarked on the most complicated stories, which would have been difficult to put across in English.11

  Disconcerting, too, to the Turkish hosts must have been the sight of General Brooke indulging in a spot of impromptu birdwatching through the carriage windows. He thought he had spotted a pallid harrier but as he could not be sure, he continued to stare intermittently over the shoulder of his Turkish counterpart rather than concentrating on the discussions.

  Agreement was reached on a variety of post-war issues, but the Prime Minister did not get what he came for. Although Turkey did agree to enter the war “when the circumstances are favourable”12, as Churchill put it in his telegram to Attlee, it did not agree to join the Allies at that time.

  Notes

  1 FO 195/2478 Press Conference, given by British ambassador Sir H. Knatchbull Hugessen on 2 February 1943

  2. Churchill, The Second World War, Volume IV, p. 625

  3. Gilbert, Churchill, Road to Victory, 1941-1945, Volume VII, p. 301

  4. Chandler, Graham, “Travels with Churchill”, Air & Space Magazine, July 2009

  5. Gilbert, Churchill: A Photographic Portrait, picture caption, p. 289

  6. FO 195/2478 Press Conference

  7. Moran, p. 84

  8. Ibid.

  9. http//www.turim.net/turkey

  10. Behrend, George, Luxury Trains, p. 119.

  11. Danchev and Todman (eds.), Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, p. 374

  12. Gilbert, Volume VII, p. 325

  CHAPTER 6

  Teheran November 1943

  “Do you think you could bring me a little bit of butter from that nice ship?”1

  “No more can be done here”2

  Britain had been at war for four years before Churchill had an opportunity to meet simultaneously with his American and Soviet allies. So he gladly headed for Teheran and the first Big Three conference – there would be two more at Yalta and Potsdam – despite the fact that it meant still another arduous journey. As always, he arranged a series of very useful meetings along the way. To Malta, aboard one of his favourite ships, the HMS Renown for a meeting with the Chief of Staff Committee; to Cairo, via Alexandria, for a meeting with Roosevelt and the Combined Chiefs of Staff; and then a flight to Teheran.

  In Malta Churchill found the food at the Governor’s Palace not to his liking. He asked Lieutenant General Sir Hastings Ismay, his Military Secretary: “Do you think you could bring me a little bit of butter from that nice ship?” He complained that he only wanted “a cupful of hot water” for his bath “but could not get it”.3

  He did better in Cairo, where on 25 November, Thanksgiving Day for Americans, Roosevelt, also en route to Teheran, treated Churchill to a turkey dinner, carving the turkey himself.4

  Churchill, who had been too ill to preside at Cabinet before setting off on his trip, arrived in Teheran with a bad sore throat, so bad that he was unable to speak or to have dinner with the President.5 Instead, “he had dinner in bed like a sulky little boy … practically no voice”,6 reading Oliver Twist.7 Cadogan said that Churchill had strained his voice staying up late in Cairo arguing with the Americans and “then expressed surprise at having a sore throat”.8

  It must have been an easier flight as he was flying in his new Avro York aircraft newly fitted out, for the first time, with a “grill, fast heaters for drinks, and a toaster”.9

  The housing situation at Teheran was complicated by a battle between Churchill and Stalin for access to the President. The short version is that the Prime Minister’s invitation to Roosevelt to stay at the British legation went unanswered, while Stalin’s request that Roosevelt stay in the Soviet embassy’s compound to foil an alleged assassination attempt (and facilitate bugging) carried the day, for two reasons. Roosevelt was eager to cement relations with an ally he had never before met, and the plenary sessions were to be held in the Soviet compound, a convenience for the wheelchair-bound President.

  The British were able to be of service to the President in one particular. When the Americans, expecting the President to stay at their own compound, built ramps everywhere, they inadvertently blocked the entrance to the cellar of the house’s official occupant, Louis G. Dreyfus. This serious problem was discovered only when Roosevelt asked for a whisky. Wisely, the Americans quickly sent out a request to the British legation and some eight cases of whisky appeared.10 Another minor problem was that troops digging a protective trench in the British legation almost destroyed an important collection of Persian tulip bulbs collected and planted by the resident Oriental Secretary.11

  Churchill, visions of a Big Two forming in his mind, was unhappy but helpless to prevent the rearrangement of living quarters in line with Stalin’s, and very likely Roosevelt’s, wishes, especially since Stalin was able “to give the impression he was the host” by arriving first, earlier than announced,12 and greeting the arriving Roosevelt at the American legation, before his move into the Soviet compound.

  Churchill’s own base was at the British legation, built by the Indian Public Works Department. The British Minister was, by tradition, guarded there by “a small escort of Indian Cavalry for his personal protection”.13 Its gardens adjoined the Soviet embassy. Major Birse, Churchill’s interpreter and an old Persia hand, noted men from Paiforce (Persian and Iraq Force) “… guarding the entrance gate and grounds. They were mainly men of the Buffs (as the Royal East Kent Regiment was known), and Indian troops”.14 John S.D. Eisenhower called them Sikhs.

  On 28 November, the leaders met in the late afternoon, the same timing as at previous meetings, a schedule now traditional for summits, and certainly favoured by Churchill. The mornings were set aside for staff meetings to work on the briefings and communiqués to be presented to the leaders for discussion at the plenary sessions, all of which took place in the Soviet embassy. There were daily meetings of what has been called the Little Three: Hopkins, Molotov and Eden, as well as of the military staffs. The American delegation was small, according to Harriman, in order to emphasise the personal nature of the meetings.15 The formation of cordial and even intimate relationships was facilitated, with four people for each of the three countries attending, one of whom was an interpreter. The President enlisted “Chip” Bohlen to interpret Stalin into English, a chore somewhat more demanding than mere translation. Churchill depended on Major Birse, who, in his memoirs, makes clear his distrust of Stalin but could not allow any of his own misgivings to colour his translations.

  Each leader gave a dinner, another tradition established at earlier summits. The President was the host at his villa within the Soviet compound on the first evening, and he had pride of place as he was the only head of state present. A steak and baked-potato dinner16 was cooked up by his private “indispensable Filipino mess men from Shangri-La”17 (now called Camp David, the presidential country retreat), with cooking and serving equipment borrowed at the last minute from a nearby US military base. Stalin was the host on the next night, 29 November, a smaller and more intimate dinner but one with lasting effect. Widely reported were the taunts and barbs that Stalin threw at the Prime Minister, aided by the President. A bad night for Churchill.

  Churchill planned his own gala dinner on 30 November, his 69th birthday, promising himself a “glittering, never-to-be for
gotten” party at the British legation.18 That morning, the Chiefs of Staff had thought about singing happy birthday to the Prime Minister in his bedroom “in the forenoon” but “decided it was beyond our capability”.19

  As always, Churchill fretted over every detail of the arrangements for his own dinner, wandering through the British legation dressed in a dinner jacket, waiting for his famous guests and puffing on a cigar,20 his mind probably turning over how he wanted the dinner conversation to proceed and what the best outcome would be. Then Roosevelt arrived with his son, Elliott, and was wheeled up the improvised ramp onto the first floor of the British legation, surrounded by grim-faced Secret Service personnel. Roosevelt, who had not thought beforehand of an appropriate birthday gift, detailed Harriman to find one. The gift is described by one source as a twelfth-century Kashan bowl hastily purchased from the private collection of the Metropolitan Museum curator who was stationed in Teheran,21 while another says the bowl was bought quickly in a local bazaar.22

  Stalin arrived in a bad mood: he did agree to have his photograph taken under the British legation coat of arms, but turned down one of Roosevelt’s infamous cocktails, refused to shake Churchill’s hand,23 and criticised the confusion created for him by the profusion of silverware. One of the British interpreters, Hugh Lunghi, remembers a “complex layout of cutlery”, and that it seemed to worry Stalin, who questioned Birse, Churchill’s personal interpreter, as to which to use when.24

  Clearly, Churchill’s table was “set with British elegance. The crystal and silver sparkled in the candlelight”.25 The dining-room table that Churchill used is now in storage as it was later deemed too wide for the ease of cross-table chat, which might explain why the Prime Minister sat Stalin and Roosevelt next to him rather than across the table. Otherwise, the room itself looks much as it does today, despite all the changes in Iran since then. There are the same side tables – on one of which Churchill’s cake would have been waited the lighting of its birthday candles.

  Ready for the dinner guests at the British legation

  In addition to the President’s son, Lieutenant Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, Captain Randolph Churchill and his sister Sarah; FDR’s son-in-law Major Boettiger, and Harry Hopkins’ son, Robert; were all at the birthday dinner. In his memoirs, Churchill wrote that his two children were invited in after the dinner for the birthday tributes but contemporary photos clearly show Sarah sitting at the table, between two American admirals, Leahy and King. And the official seating chart lists their names.

  Make a wish, 69th birthday

  The photographs show only three glasses at each place, two for wine and a smaller one for port. Perhaps the champagne glasses were handed round afterwards with the birthday cake. Or maybe this photo was taken before the table was completely set.

  The Big Three, dining together for the first time, 1943

  Sarah Churchill describes the dinner:

  The three interpreters – one for each of the Big Three – rose I felt, to histrionic heights. It wasn’t just a matter of interpreting serious proposals, but of translating the nature of the different senses of humour which flashed between the three. Toasts were proposed and answered all through the long banquet … Between the courses anyone who felt inclined would spring up and propose a toast. Then the toaster would walk around and clink glasses with the toastee.26

  Details about the foods and wines leaked out from British and American attendees afterwards, most of whom had followed their respective leaders back to Cairo. Cocktails, wrote an American journalist, “looked like tomato juice … probably the famous Middle East Bloody Marys, made by mixing tomato juice and vodka”.27

  The menu was:

  Persian soup

  Boiled salmon trout from the Caspian

  Turkey

  “Persian lantern ice”

  Cheese soufflé

  And champagne and both French and Persian wines with which to accompany the multiple toasts that had become so much a part of the ritual of those war leaders’ meetings. They allowed Churchill that night to set aside the multiple irritations inflicted on him by both the President and the Marshal and to praise both the President (toasted by Churchill as President and personally) and Marshal Stalin (as “Stalin the Great”). The Soviet custom that the man proposing the toast clink glasses with the subject of his toast meant that Stalin was up and about throughout the meal, touching glasses all around the room. The small birthday cake would not have served the 34 guests but it did accommodate the 69 candles, in the shape of a V, and made the occasion more festive.

  The “Persian lantern” dessert – the source of the most unexpected and perhaps amusing event of the dinner – is best described by General Brooke, who was near Stalin’s interpreter Valentin Berezhkov:

  When we came to the sweet course, the Chief of Legation Cuisine had produced his trump card. It consisted of a base of ice 1 foot square and some 4 inches deep. In the centre a round hole of some 3 inches diameter had been bored, and in this hole a religious nightlight had been inserted. Over the lamp and hole a perforated iron tube stood erect some 10 inches over the ice. On top of this tube a large plate had been secured with icing sugar. On the plate rested a vast cream ice, whilst a small frieze of icing sugar decorated the edge of the plate! When lit up and carried in by white gloved hands with long white fingertips the total effect was beyond description. Two such edifices entered and proceeded solemnly around the table whilst each guest dug into the ice. I watched the tower … and noticed that the heat of the lamp had affected the block of ice that it rested in. The perforated iron tower … looked more like the Tower of Pisa! The plate … had now assumed a rakish tilt! An accident was now inevitable … With the noise of an avalanche the whole wonderful construction slid over our heads and exploded in a clatter of plates between me and Berezhkov. The unfortunate Berezhkov was at that moment standing up translating a speech for Stalin and he came in for the full blast! He was splashed from his head to his feet, but I suppose it was more than his life was worth to stop interpreting! In any case he carried on manfully whilst I sent for towels and with the help of the Persian waiters proceeded to mop him down. To this day I can see lumps of white ice cream sitting on his shoes, and melting over the edges and through the lace holes!28

  Another description of the famous dessert – a highlight of Churchill’s birthday dinner – comes from Lieutenant General Sir Hastings Ismay, Churchill’s Military Secretary:

  … the pudding … went by the name of “Persian Lantern”, and consisted of an enormous ice-cream perched on a large block of ice in which burned a candle. The waiter responsible for passing this chef d’oeuvre paid more attention to the speech which Stalin was making than his own business. As a result, instead of holding the dish straight he allowed it to tilt more and more dangerously, and by the time he reached Pavlov, the Russian interpreter, the laws of gravity could be denied no longer, and the pudding descended like an avalanche on his unfortunate head. In a moment ice-cream was oozing out of his hair, his ears, his shirt and even his shoes. His translation never checked.29

  Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal was heard to say, sotto voce: “Missed the target” – meaning it should have been tipped over Stalin’s head.

  The sharp-eyed Admiral of the Fleet, Sir John Cunningham, later described the “Persian Lantern” as an “ice pudding”. He also identifies the Russian interpreter as Pavlov.30 (There is some confusion about which Russian interpreter was actually there. Much later, Berezhkov wrote a memoir in which he lets us believe he was present. The official guest list prepared by Harriman says it was Pavlov; the list from the British Embassy in Teheran says it is Berezhkov. Hugh Lunghi says that, after 1942, Pavlov was Stalin’s only English interpreter. Oddly, the Soviet leader toasted – not once but twice – Churchill’s valet, Sawyers, who was probably standing at the back of the room in the event that his boss might need something.31 And then the dinner was over. It was successful in easing earlier tensions and may have been the basis for the
lunch the following day at which Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin agreed to a broad strategy for prosecuting the war to a triumphant conclusion, Overlord was to be launched during May 1944, and cooperation between the three nations’ military staffs was enhanced.32

  That evening, the Prime Minister asked Sir Reader Bullard, the British Minister, to commemorate the dinner he had given for Roosevelt and Stalin with a permanent plaque and instructed that it be hung in the legation’s dining room. Churchill approved the text, which says, in part:

  These three representatives of allied states were at that moment met in Teheran to concert further measures whereby Nazi tyranny might be most speedily overthrown and mankind set free to enjoy in peace the fruits of its labours and to develop mutual aid for the good of all.

  Crescit Sub Pondere Virtus

  (Virtue grows with adversity, translation not on the plaque).

  The plaque was engraved on silver and ceremoniously installed, and today frames the hallway just outside the dining room, across from a copy of the seating plan for the dinner. The Soviets later provided their own memento of the dinner but their text was engraved on a two-ton block of granite.33

  Churchill and Roosevelt left Teheran for Cairo on 2 December. Stalin returned to Moscow.

  Twenty years later, on Churchill’s birthday, in 1963, Averell Harriman sent him this private note: “All best wishes on your 89th birthday. I vividly recall your 69th birthday twenty years ago when we dined with you in Teheran when plans were laid for victory over Hitler and hopes were high for the development of a peaceful post-war world.”34