Mr. Churchill did not like to give his time to anything not exclusively concerned with the conduct of the war. This seemed to be a deep instinct in him and, even though it was part of his strength as a war leader, it could also be an embarrassment.1
Anthony Eden (1897–1977), in his memoirs. After distinguished service in the British Army during World War I, Eden began a career in Conservative Party politics and government. In 1935, he was named foreign secretary in the government of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. He resigned in a policy dispute in 1938, as he became more opposed to Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement of Fascist Italy. When Winston Churchill became prime minister in May 1940, Eden was named secretary of war. When Lord Halifax was moved to the British embassy in Washington at the end of 1940, Eden returned as foreign secretary. He was generally considered Churchill’s heir apparent.
Winston Churchill’s strength lay in his vigorous sense of purpose and courage, which carried him undismayed over obstacles daunting to lesser men. He was also generous and impulsive, but this could be a handicap at the conference table. Churchill liked to talk, he did not like to listen, and he found it difficult to wait for, and seldom let pass, his turn to speak. The spoils in the diplomatic game do not necessarily go to the man most eager to debate.2
Anthony Eden (1897–1977) in his memoirs.
Winston Churchill’s partner in foreign policy was Anthony Eden, a traditional diplomat who had resigned in 1938, in a dispute with Prime Minister Chamberlain over policy toward Mussolini. Had Eden stayed as foreign secretary, he might have been the logical Tory, instead of Churchill, to replace Chamberlain in 1940. Eden was well respected by the Conservative Party; Churchill was not. Churchill entered Parliament in 1900, as a Tory. In 1904, he crossed over to the Liberal Party, subsequently indicting the Conservative Party in every significant respect. In 1924, he crossed over again to the Tories. Staunch Conservatives thought him an opportunistic renegade. They still did not trust him in 1940.3
British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden talks with U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull at the Moscow summit, October 1943.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Although the prime minister and Eden would have disagreements—especially over relations with French General Charles de Gaulle—they worked well together. Churchill kept Eden far better informed of his initiatives than FDR did the State Department. The prime minister wrote of his diplomatic correspondence: “Having obtained from the Cabinet any specific decisions required on policy. . . . I was of course hand-in-glove with the Foreign Secretary and his department, and any differences of view were settled together.”4 He would make the decorous, tall diplomat his right hand and frequent troubleshooter—especially in representing Britain’s interests on crucial trips that the prime minister could not make.5
On February 21, 1941, Churchill dispatched newly appointed Foreign Secretary Eden to Cairo: “During his visit to the Mediterranean theatre the Foreign Secretary will represent His Majesty’s Government in all matters diplomatic and military.”6 When Eden was away or sick, the prime minister assumed Eden’s duties in addition to his own. Such a wartime burden had no precedent, but he soldiered on. In 1942, Churchill told King George that Eden was his designated replacement, should the prime minister die or become incapacitated. The prime minister considered his relationship with Eden to be paternal. Eden aide Oliver Harvey wrote in his diary on October 9, 1941: “A.E. dined with P.M. last night. They had a long and intimate evening. ‘I regard you as my son’ Winston said—‘I do not get in your way nor you in mine’.”7 Harvey wrote in his diary on July 24, 1942: “The relation of P.M. to A.E. is father to son and heir, but the others are left out in the cold and there is risk of A.E. becoming himself isolated from his own age group of colleagues.”8 Eden wrote that Churchill told him, in April 1943: “I was his chief lieutenant and only really intimate friend among his colleagues and that, though he would hate to lose me, etc., etc. In short Winston’s imagination has clearly caught fire, encouraged no doubt by the difficulty of finding anybody else and by the fun of reconstructing his government which he proceeded to do straight away!”9
At the outset of his government in May 1940, Churchill as prime minister had thought it inexpedient to remove Lord Halifax as foreign secretary. He thus appointed Eden as secretary of state for war, rather than return him to the Foreign Office, where Eden had served from 1935 to 1938. When Eden became foreign secretary in December 1940, the prime minister cross-examined him in order to be sure he had the right man. As secretary of war, Eden had traveled at Churchill’s request to the Middle East in October 1940, to review the political and military situation, just as Italy was preparing to attack Greece. Before Eden departed, Churchill instructed him on the efficient use of British military personnel:
Please examine in detail the field state of the Middle Eastern Army in order to secure the largest proportion of fighting men and units for the great numbers on our ration strength. . . . All British battalions should be mobile and capable of taking part in battle. I fear that the proportion of fighting compared with ration strength is worse in the Middle East than anywhere else. Please do not be content with stock answers. Even Army Ordnance and Service Corps depots and other technical details can all help in keeping order where they are, and should be organized for use in an emergency. Not only the best, but the second and third best, must be made to play their part.10
Here, Churchill attended to the details of full mobilization of fighting men in the Middle East. The prime minister believed in the doctrine of every soldier a fighting man, equipped to engage the enemy. From his experience in World War I, Churchill well understood modern warfare, even total war. He nevertheless had difficulty adjusting to the scale of manpower needed for logistical support in World War II.
Eden returned to London at the beginning of November 1940, bringing with him news of British plans by General Archibald Wavell for a bold and preemptive attack on Italian divisions massing for an onslaught on the British in Egypt. Churchill was clearly delighted by news of the proposed Operation COMPASS. Churchill recalled: “Here, then, was the deadly secret which the Generals had talked over with their Secretary of State. This was what they had not wished to telegraph. We were delighted. I purred like six cats.”11 General Wavell got enthusiastic permission to proceed with the attack, which would become one of the very rare British successes in the first two years of World War II. But victory over the Italian troops was a different matter from the coming struggles with superior German forces that Britain would face in 1941 and 1942.
Anthony Eden seemed prepared by central casting to represent his country in diplomatic affairs. “Eden was the very image of a British gentleman in appearance, speech and manners,” wrote historian S. M. Plokhy.12 Eden grew close to U.S. Ambassador Winant, the Lincoln look-alike. They developed an excellent working relationship in early 1941, soon after they assumed their respective offices. “We used to go down occasionally on a Sunday to his country house in Sussex,” noted Winant. “It was not different from London as far as the work load was concerned, and we had the same long hours hooked up to a ‘scrambler’ telephone, but instead of a room and a desk we used to go out into the garden.” Winant argued that Eden’s “entire foreign policy was based upon a high conception of moral right.”13 In wartime, Eden would be called upon to do things that diminished his self-esteem and his high-minded values.
The Eden-Churchill relationship itself was not without strains. Eden aide Oliver Harvey wrote in his diary, on August 4, 1941: “A.E. told me today that he had been over to Chequers on Saturday—as I had expected—P.M. was most penitent, apologising for having kept him so long and even saying ‘Yes, I’m afraid sometimes I do talk rather a lot. I’m quite ashamed of myself!’”14 Five months later, Harvey wrote in his diary that Eden was “perturbed at P.M. himself who is again showing increasing signs of weary and dictatorial behaviour.”15 But there were warm, intimate moments as well. Eden wrote Churchill on his birthday in November 1940: “Very few men in all history have had to bear such a burden as you have carried in the last six months. It is really wonderful that at the end of it you are fitter & more vigorous, and better able than ever to guide & inspire us all.”16
More than most cabinet colleagues, Eden could stand up to Churchill. Historian David Dilks noted that the World War I veteran stood out in London, “which abounded in people who were on the point of waxing valiant before the Prime Minister but was less full of those who had actually steeled themselves to this feat, which did require no mean degree of courage.”17 On one occasion in February 1943, Private Secretary John Martin conspired with Foreign Secretary Eden to delay a Churchill telegram to Harold Macmillan, then minister resident in Northwest Africa. When Eden talked to Churchill about it the next day, Churchill was incensed: “By what right do you interfere with my private correspondence?” Eden recalled in his memoirs that Churchill asserted “that he was not dead yet and would send any telegrams he chose.” Eden was concerned that Churchill’s pneumonia was affecting his thinking. Later that day, Eden returned to see the bedridden Churchill. “Oh, by the way,” said Churchill after dealing with other topics, “you remember that message I intended to send? Perhaps we had better not send it.”18 Eden aide Harvey wrote in his diary, on July 14, 1943, of the frequent arguments that characterized the Eden-Churchill relationship: “A reconciliation! I’m beginning to know the form now. Frightful rows, nervous exhaustion on both sides, then next day a rather contrite P.M. seeking to make up, like a schoolboy who knows he’s been naughty, rather shamefaced, needing much face-saving.”19
Eden travelled much more than his American counterparts.20 He was a frequent traveling partner of Churchill, but he often travelled solo. When Roosevelt made his plans for the Casablanca Conference of January 1943, FDR made clear that he did not intend to bring Secretary of State Hull: “My thought would be that each of us could be accompanied by a very small staff made up of our top Army, Air, and Naval Chiefs of Staff. I could bring Harry [Hopkins] and Averell [Harriman] but no State Department representative, although I believe we should arrive at tentative procedures to be adopted in event of a German collapse.”21 German collapse would not come until two long years in the future. A few days later, FDR added: “In view of Stalin’s absence, I think you and I need no Foreign Affairs people with us, for our work will be essentially military.”22 FDR told Averell Harriman that “Hull was forceful, stubborn, difficult to handle. He had some rigid ideas and Roosevelt felt he would be a nuisance at the conference.”23 As a result, Eden was left in London to handle de Gaulle and manage de Gaulle’s visit to Casablanca. There, during the summit, in an effort to unite the French opposition to Vichy and the Nazis, the prime minister and the president brought about a “marriage” between de Gaulle and General Henri Giraud.
“Soviet policy is amoral; United States policy is exaggeratedly moral, at least where non-American interests are concerned,” Eden wrote in January 1942.24 The foreign secretary was more focused on relations with Russia than Churchill, but the key Russians did not respect him. Years later, Russian Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov would describe Eden as “spineless, too delicate, quite helpless,” but “I could deal with him.”25 In December 1941, Stalin had pressed Eden for British recognition of Russia’s borders, including the Baltic states established after the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement. Eden demurred; Churchill balked. The Americans were highly reluctant to make any such commitment, but were also unwilling to act decisively to block Stalin. After a March 1942 meeting at the White House, Halifax reported to Eden that FDR “proposed to tell Stalin that, while everyone recognized Russia’s need for security, it was too dangerous to put anything on paper, now. But there was no need to worry about the Baltic states since their future clearly depended on Russian military progress and, if Russia reoccupied them, neither the United States, nor Britain, could or would turn her out.”26 The president had given Stalin the green light. At the end of the war, both Britain and the United States recognized the Baltic takeover by the Soviet Union as a fait accompli.27
In early February 1943, Churchill suggested that Eden visit Washington, a trip that had been under discussion in London since the previous summer. FDR, who had met Eden when he was foreign secretary under Neville Chamberlain, replied: “This is an excellent thought about Anthony Eden. Delighted to have him. The sooner the better.”28 Eden visited the United States in March, and initially impressed President Roosevelt with the “progressive” nature of his worldview.29 FDR wrote Churchill: “Anthony has spent three evenings with me. He is a grand fellow, and we are talking everything, from Ruthenia to the production of peanuts!” He added: “It is an interesting fact that we seem to agree on about 95 per cent of all the subjects—not a bad average.”30 Roosevelt thought Eden “the nicest type of Englishman, very clever. He thinks he sees the future as F.D.R. sees it, but is not sure that he has the strength to go against conservatives in England,” reported FDR companion Margaret Suckley. “Winston Churchill of course would not ever ‘see’ much beyond the British Empire. A.E. told the P. that the P. will have to run for a 4th term—‘We need you in the peace conference.’”31 Talking to Hopkins in Washington in March 1943, Eden recognized that FDR “loves Winston as a man for the war, but is horrified at his reactionary attitude for after the war.”32 A few months later, Suckley wrote that the president had changed his mind about Eden, writing that the president “had great hopes that Anthony Eden would be a progressive and helpful in the post-war world, [but] after seeing A.E. in Canada, he feels he is no more progressive than W.S.C. and he will be ‘difficult to get on with.’”33
Eden was consistently skeptical of American actions and more willing to disagree with the Roosevelt administration than Churchill.34 On July 25, 1942, Eden wrote the prime minister: “American views are of interest, but ours are even more important where Europe is concerned. . . . As regards America, we should always consult U.S. Government, but our object should be to bring them along with us. They know very little of Europe and it would be unfortunate for the future of the world if U.S. uninstructed views were to decide the future of the European continent.”35 Over a year later, Eden wrote on September 10, 1943, after the Quebec summit: “Roosevelt has had his way again and agreed to Moscow for the Foreign Secretaries’ conference with alacrity. His determination not to agree to a London meeting for any purpose, which he says is for electoral reasons, is almost insulting considering the number of times we have been to Washington. I am most anxious for good relations with U.S. but I don’t like subservience to them.”36 It was in 1943 that FDR would edge toward Stalin, away from Churchill.
“Roosevelt was, above all else, a consummate politician,” wrote Eden in his memoirs. “Few men could see more clearly their immediate objective, or show greater artistry in obtaining it. As a price of these gifts, his long-range vision was not quite so sure. The President shared a widespread American suspicion of the British Empire as it had once been and, despite his knowledge of world affairs, he was always anxious to make it plain to Stalin that the United States was not ‘ganging up’ with Britain against Russia. The outcome of this was some confusion in Anglo-American relations which profited the Soviets.”37 Historian Fraser J. Harbutt argued that the British government was more Eurocentric than America, and that Eden was even more Eurocentric than the prime minister. “While Churchill was typically furthering the war effort by spending weekends entertaining United States Ambassador John Winant and other American visitors at Chequers . . . Eden was just as vigorously trying to shape the future by lunching with and otherwise cultivating the leaders of the exile of European governments.”38
A major source of conflict between Eden and the Americans was diplomatic recognition of Charles de Gaulle and the French Committee of National Liberation. American leaders disdained de Gaulle, who in turn held them in contempt. The general was a hair shirt of frustration for Churchill. At the beginning of World War II, the American government, as a neutral power, was intent on maintaining good relations with the Vichy government of France. After America entered the war, they were affronted by de Gaulle and reluctant to give him a formal status. De Gaulle’s brusque and arrogant manner, and his devotion to French grandeur and retention of French colonies, did not help. FDR objected to French colonial policy more than to British policy. He seemed intent on breaking up the weakened French colonial empire, especially in Indochina and West Africa, where Roosevelt coveted Dakar as a U.S. air base, administered by his new United Nations.39 The president’s animus to de Gaulle ran deep, and his annoyance with de Gaulle’s public statements frequently surfaced in comments he made to Churchill: “The bride evidently forgets that there is still a war in progress over here. . . . Best of luck in getting rid of our mutual headache.”40
Secretary of State Hull could nurture a grudge. He reinforced Roosevelt’s dislike of the Free French leader. Hull wrote that at the August 1943 summit in Quebec, “Eden thereupon said he felt that Mr. Churchill could not accept any formula with regard to the French Committee of National Liberation which did not contain the word ‘recognition.’ My advisers and I argued that ‘recognition’ was given only to a government or some form of government, where in this case we understood that both the British and the United States Governments had no intention whatever of considering the French Committee as a government. . . . Eden remarked that the British public was against our view, and that this fact required consideration.”41 On August 20, Eden wrote in his diary: “More work after luncheon and then talk for more than two hours with old Hull. Most of it was about recognition of French Committee. . . . I like the old man but he has an obsession against Free French which nothing can cure. I eventually suggested we each take our own course.”42
Ten months later, Eden clashed with General Marshall over General de Gaulle’s uncooperative attitude regarding Operation OVERLORD. According to Army Secretary Stimson, Marshall erupted at Eden during a London meeting, and Eden walked out.43 The foreign secretary and the prime minister often differed on de Gaulle, whose arrogance infuriated Churchill. Eden consistently supported de Gaulle, and he advocated recognizing the French National Liberation Committee. At one point in August 1942, Churchill and de Gaulle had a furious argument. “You claim to be France!” exclaimed Churchill. “You are not France! I do not recognise you as France.”44
After the Roosevelt-Churchill summit at Quebec in August 1943, it was decided to seek a preliminary meeting of foreign secretaries—which the Russians insisted must be held in Moscow. General Hastings Ismay, whom Eden asked to accompany him, noted that Secretary of State Hull, then 72, “was very aged and had never flown before.” Once in Moscow, noted Ismay, Eden’s “hours of work were phenomenal, and he was extremely thorough. Nothing was too much trouble and he never went to a meeting without making sure he had every aspect of the problem at his finger tips. He could be tough when necessary, but he could also give way gracefully if the situation demanded it. He had a pretty wit, and transparent integrity.”45
The Moscow meeting produced the first big tripartite agreements—less than a month before the Allied Big Three were to gather at Teheran. “Simultaneously in Washington, Moscow, and London announcement was made of five documents agreed upon in Moscow by Secretary Hull, Russian Foreign Minister [Vyacheslav] Molotov, and British Foreign Minister Eden, providing close co-operation of the signatory powers in war and postwar operations,” wrote presidential aide William D. Hassett.46 The next day, FDR claimed that his contribution had been to insist on the inclusion of China—against the wishes of Russia and Britain, whose governments dismissed the importance of the Chiang Kai-shek government. Churchill wrote of the importance of a secret protocol that the Allied foreign ministers signed “to establish a European Advisory Committee in London to begin work on the problems which would arise in Germany and the Continent when the Hitler régime neared collapse.” Unlike the dissonance that sometimes characterized Allied meetings in Moscow, Churchill explained: “There had been a smoothing of many points of friction, practical steps for further co-operation had been taken, the way had been prepared for an early meeting of the heads of the three major Allied Governments, and the mounting deadlock in our working with the Soviet Union had in part been removed.”47
Churchill and Eden could disagree in the presence of U.S. officials. At Yalta in February 1945, Edward Stettinius recorded a major disagreement between them over the necessity for “unanimity” of the Big Three powers. Eden said that the prime minister had declaimed vigorously against a report from foreign secretaries on territorial trusteeship, whose target was Japanese possessions, but which Churchill feared might be applied to the British Empire. Eden wrote: “Though the Prime Minister’s vehemence was a warning signal to the Americans it appeared to give most pleasure to Stalin.”48
Eden’s immense labors imposed a heavy burden on the foreign secretary during the war. For two years, he also served as leader of the House of Commons, itself a very demanding and time-consuming duty. Churchill had told King George VI that Eden was his choice in extremis to take his place as prime minister. Churchill occasionally had doubts about Eden’s readiness to succeed him, but the prime minister praised Eden in speaking to the House of Commons in February 1945: “I cannot describe to the House the aid and comfort he has been to me in all our difficulties. His hard life when quite young in the infantry in the last war, his constant self-preparation for the tasks which have fallen to him, his unequalled experience as a minister at the Foreign Office, his knowledge of foreign affairs and their past history, his experience of conferences of all kinds, his breadth of view, his powers of exposition, his moral courage, have gained for him a position second to none among the Foreign Secretaries of the Grand Alliance.”49
The often-disappointed Eden would have to wait another ten years until 1955, when Churchill, then 80, made way for Eden to succeed him.