Tehran Conference

Once the German-Soviet War broke out in June 1941, Churchill offered assistance to the Soviets, and an agreement to that effect was signed on 12 July 1941. However, Churchill, in a spoken radio transmission announcing the alliance with the Soviets, reminded listeners that the alliance would not change his stance against communism. Delegations had traveled between London and Moscow to arrange the implementation of that support, and when the United States joined the war in December 1941, the delegations met in Washington as well. A Combined Chiefs of Staff committee was created to co-ordinate British and American operations and their support to the Soviets. The consequences of a global war, the absence of a unified Allied strategy, and the complexity of allocating resources between Europe and Asia had not yet been sorted out, which soon gave rise to mutual suspicions between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. He went by train to Baku, and then by air. There were two planes at Baku; one for him piloted by a colonel-general and one for officials piloted by a colonel, but Stalin chose the colonel's aircraft, saying "Colonel-Generals don't often pilot aircraft". Roosevelt was physically disabled and found travel difficult. Churchill was an avid traveller and, as part of an ongoing series of wartime conferences, had already met with Roosevelt five times in North America and twice in Africa and had also held two prior meetings with Stalin in Moscow. To arrange the urgently needed meeting, Roosevelt tried to persuade Stalin to travel to Cairo. Stalin turned down the offer and also offers to meet in Baghdad or Basra. He finally agreed to meet in Tehran in November 1943. Iran was a neutral country but was nevertheless invaded jointly by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union in August 1941. ==Proceedings==

, Stalin's translator, second man on right side. The conference was to convene at 16:00 on 28 November 1943. Stalin had arrived well before, followed by Roosevelt, who was brought in his wheelchair from his accommodation adjacent to the venue. Roosevelt, who had traveled to attend and whose health was already deteriorating, was met by Stalin. This was the first time that they had met. Churchill, walking with his general staff from their accommodations nearby, arrived half an hour later. According to Roosevelt's interpreter, Charles Bohlen, Roosevelt was accompanied by Harry Hopkins, who had served as Roosevelt's personal emissary to Churchill, and W. Averell Harriman, the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union. Stalin was accompanied by Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov and military leader Kliment Voroshilov. Churchill brought Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden his CGS Alanbrooke, chief military assistant Hastings Ismay plus Dill, Cunningham, Portal, Boyle, and his interpreter Arthur Birse. Three Western women attended: Churchill's daughter Sarah, Averell Harriman's daughter Kathleen and Roosevelt's daughter Anna Boettiger. , shortly after his father's forced abdication during the Anglo-Soviet Invasion of Iran, meeting with American president Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Conference at the Tehran Conference (1943) As Stalin had been advocating for a second front since 1941, he was very pleased and felt that he had accomplished his principal goal for the meeting. Moving on, Stalin agreed to enter the war against Japan once Germany was defeated: The leaders then turned to the conditions under which the Western Allies would open a new front by invading northern France (Operation Overlord), as Stalin had pressed them to do since 1941. Until then, Churchill had advocated the expansion of joint operations of British, American, and Commonwealth forces in the Mediterranean, as opening a new western front had been physically impossible because of a lack of existing shipping routes. That left the Mediterranean and Italy as viable goals for 1943. It was agreed Operation Overlord would be launched by American and British forces by May 1944 and that Stalin would support the Allies with a concurrent major offensive on Germany's eastern front (Operation Bagration) to divert German forces from northern France. Additional offensives were also discussed to complement the undertaking of Operation Overlord, including the possible allied invasion of southern France prior to the landings at Normandy with the goal of drawing German forces away from the northern beaches and even a possible strike at the northern tip of the Adriatic to circumvent the Alps and drive towards Vienna. Either plan would have relied on Allied divisions engaged against the German Army in Italy around the time of the conference. Churchill argued for the invasion of Italy in 1943, then Overlord in 1944, on the basis that Overlord was physically impossible in 1943 for lack of shipping and that it would be unthinkable to do anything important until it could be launched. Churchill successfully proposed to Stalin a westward movement of Poland, which Stalin accepted. It gave the Poles industrialized German land to the west but took marshlands to the east. It also provided a territorial buffer to the Soviet Union against invasion. Churchill's plan involved a border along the Oder and the Neisse, which he views to give Poland a fair compensation for the Eastern Borderlands. Discussion on Iran and Turkey Iran and Turkey were discussed in detail. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin all agreed to support the Iranian government, as addressed in the following declaration: In addition, the Soviets pledged support to Turkey if it entered the war. Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin agreed that it would also be most desirable if Turkey entered on the Allies' side before the year was out. In order to encourage Turkey to act as soon as possible, they agreed to make "the offer to take Crete and the Dodecanese islands because they are rather close to Turkey." Dinner meeting Before the Tripartite Dinner Meeting of 29 November 1943 at the Conference, Churchill presented Stalin with a specially commissioned ceremonial sword (the "Sword of Stalingrad," made in Sheffield), as a gift from King George VI to the citizens of Stalingrad and the Soviet people, commemorating the Soviet victory at Stalingrad. When Stalin received the sheathed sword, he took it with both hands, and kissed the scabbard. Stalin held the sword by the sheathe and angled the pommel downwards, causing the sword to slide out of its scabbard and fall to the ground. He then handed it to Marshal Kliment Voroshilov. Stalin proposed executing 50,000 to 100,000 German officers so that Germany could not plan another war. Roosevelt, believing that Stalin was not serious, joked that "maybe 49,000 would be enough." Churchill, however, was outraged and denounced "the cold-blooded execution of soldiers who fought for their country." He said that only war criminals should be put on trial in accordance with the Moscow Document, which he had written. He stormed out of the room but was brought back in by Stalin, who said he was joking. Churchill was glad Stalin had relented but thought that Stalin had been testing the waters. ==Military decisions==

• The Yugoslav Partisans would be supported by supplies, equipment, and commando operations. • The leaders stated that it would be desirable for Turkey to join the war on the side of the Allies before the end of the year. • The leaders took note of Stalin's statement that if Turkey found herself at war with Germany and, as a result, Bulgaria declared war on or attacked Turkey, the Soviet Union would immediately be at war with Bulgaria. The Conference noted that this could be mentioned in the forthcoming negotiations to bring Turkey into the war. • The cross-channel invasion of France (Operation Overlord) would be launched during May 1944, in conjunction with an operation against southern France (Operation Dragoon). The latter operation would be undertaken in as great a strength as the availability of landing-craft permitted. The Conference further took note of Stalin's statement that the Soviet forces would launch an offensive (Operation Bagration) about the same time with the object of preventing the German forces from transferring from the Eastern Front to the Western Front. Operation Overlord was to be on 1 June, but the moon and tides required to be delayed to 5 June. • The leaders agreed for the military staff of the three powers to keep in close contact with one another in regard to the impending operations in Europe. In particular, a cover plan to mislead the enemy about the operations was to be concocted by the staff concerned. Political decisions Stalin and Churchill discussed the future borders of Poland, stating a variant of the so-called Curzon Line for the eastern border, supporting the annexation of the rest by the USSR, proposing annexation of German territories in the north and west to Poland instead. Roosevelt had asked to be excused from any discussion of Poland, stating it as a matter for the effects of any decision on Polish voters in the US and the upcoming 1944 election. The decisions were not officially ratified until the Yalta Conference and Potsdam Conference in 1945. Soon before the conference, the USSR unilaterally withdrew recognition of the Polish government-in-exile, still recognized by the UK and the US and the negotiations were made covertly without their involvement. During the negotiations, Roosevelt had demanded that the Republics of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia would be deemed as part of the Soviet Union only after the citizens 'voted' on the action. Roosevelt secured formal 'agreement', however, Stalin would not consent to any international control over the elections and stated that all issues would have to be resolved 'in accordance with the Soviet Constitution'. In the end, after Soviet occupation, the areas were subjected in accordance with Soviet plans. The US, for example, in principle never officially recognised. ==Results==

The Yugoslav Partisans were given full Allied support, and Allied support to the Yugoslav Chetniks was halted. (They were believed to be cooperating with the occupying Italians and Germans rather than fighting them; see Yugoslavia and the Allies). The communist Partisans under Josip Broz Tito took power in Yugoslavia as the Germans gradually retreated from the Balkans in 1944 and 1945. Turkish President İsmet İnönü conferred with Roosevelt and Churchill at the Cairo Conference in November 1943 and promised to enter the war when his country had become fully armed. By August 1944, Turkey broke off relations with Germany. In February 1945, Turkey declared war on Germany and Japan, which may have been a symbolic move that allowed Turkey to join the future United Nations. Operation Overlord Roosevelt and Stalin spent much of the conference to try to convince Churchill to commit to an invasion of France and finally succeeded on 30 November, when Roosevelt announced at lunch that they would be launching the invasion in May 1944. Division of Germany There was a shared view among the participants that a postwar division of Germany was necessary, with the sides differing on the number of divisions needed to neutralize her ability to wage war. Soviet entry to the Pacific War On 29 November, Roosevelt asked Stalin five questions about data and intelligence, relating to Japanese and Siberian ports and about air bases in the Maritime Provinces for up to 1,000 heavy bombers. On 2 February, Stalin told the American ambassador that America could operate 1,000 bombers from Siberia after the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan (Vladivostok is in the Russian Far East, not Siberia). ==Alleged assassination plot==

According to Soviet reports, German agents planned to kill the Big Three leaders at the Tehran Conference, but called off the assassination while it was still in the planning stage. The NKVD, the USSR's counterintelligence unit, first notified Mike Reilly, Roosevelt's chief of security, of the suspected assassination plot several days before Roosevelt's arrival in Tehran. Reilly had gone to Tehran several days early to evaluate security concerns and explore potential routes from Cairo to Tehran. Just before Reilly returned to Cairo, the NKVD informed him that dozens of Germans had been dropped into Tehran by parachute the day before. The NKVD suspected German agents were planning to kill the Big Three leaders at the Tehran Conference. When housing accommodations for the meeting were originally discussed, both Stalin and Churchill had extended invitations to Roosevelt, asking him to stay with them during the meeting. However, Roosevelt wanted to avoid the appearance of choosing one ally over another and decided it was important to stay at the American legation to remain independent. Roosevelt arrived in Tehran on 27 November 1943 and settled into the American legation. Close to midnight, Vyacheslav Molotov, Stalin's top aide, summoned Archibald Clark-Kerr (the British ambassador in the Soviet Union) and Averell Harriman (the American ambassador in the Soviet Union) to the Soviet embassy, warning them of an assassination plot against Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. Molotov informed them several assassins had been apprehended, but reported additional assassins were at large and expressed concerns for President Roosevelt's safety. Molotov advised Roosevelt should be moved to the safety of the British or Soviet embassy. ==See also==