214: D-Day, Part I: From the First Quebec Conference to June 5, 1944

Greg Jackson (0:10)

It's a little after 3 in the afternoon, November 28th, 1943, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his entourage are just getting settled in at the gorgeous Yellow Mansion currently serving as the Soviet Embassy in Tehran, Iran. Now, FDR had planned to stay elsewhere, but after a vague warning from Soviet Foreign Commissar Vyacheslav Malatov about Nazi agents, possibly even an assassination plot, plans changed. So, here the Americans are, unpacking all over again. But as they do, there's a knock at the door. A few figures step into the room. A young American officer serving as escort, an interpreter, and finally a short, stout, salt and peppered man with a fantastic walrus mustache, dressed in a khaki tunic adorned with the gold star of the hero of socialist labor. While the uniform speaks to his role as Marshal of the Soviet Union, this rank is the least of his titles. This is the General Secretary of the Communist Party, the Premier of the USSR. This is Joseph Stalin, clad in a blue suit and smart tie. FDR grins from his wheelchair. This is their first meeting, and affable as ever, the American president says, I am glad to see you. I have tried for a long time to bring this about.

Stalin gives a hearty laugh as the two men quickly jump to talking shop. Everything from the struggles on the Russian front, to Generalissimo, Shung Kai Shek, and General Charles de Gaulle. Yeah, if anything beyond defeating the Axis can bond these strange bedfellows, in many ways, the living embodiments of liberal democracy and communism, they might be their shared distaste for the French general and his thin mustache. But we won't pin any hopes on a deep bond between these two. The real bromance will remain only between FDR and Winston Churchill.

It's now four o'clock. FDR, Stalin, and British PM Winston Churchill take their seats. This is the Big Three's first gathering ever, entourages in tow. Well, most of them. Thanks to a miscommunication, both US Chief of Staff George C. Marshall and Commanding General of the Army Air Forces Henry H. Hap Arnold are missing. They're out sightseeing.

Awkward. Nonetheless, FDR kicks off the meeting. Winking at his relative youth compared to his British and Soviet counterparts, he welcomes them to this auspicious conference at which they sit as a family with the one object of winning the war.

Winston too notes their shared goal and the burden it carries.

SPEAKER_2 (3:09)

We represent here a concentration of great worldly power.

In our hands we have perhaps the responsibility for the shortening of this war. In our hands we have, too, the future of mankind. I pray that we may be worthy of this God-given opportunity.

Greg Jackson (3:32)

Franklin turns to Stalin. Perhaps our host would like to say a few words.

I take pleasure in welcoming those present. I think that history will show that this opportunity has been of tremendous import. Now let us get down to business. Down to business indeed. And Paramount among this business is one particular invasion. The very same invasion that George Marshall has fought tooth and nail for at conferences over the past two years and would adamantly do so now.

If he had known to be here, this is the cross-channel invasion of Normandy, known as Operation Overlord. Quebec named it the top priority just months ago. But the challenges keep stacking up. FDR comments, the channel is such a disagreeable body of water. No matter how unpleasant that body of water might be, however, we still want to get across it.

SPEAKER_2 (4:33)

We were very glad it was an unpleasant body of water at one time.

Greg Jackson (4:38)

Ah, there's Winston's wry wit. As the room settles, FDR names the real problem. We cannot do everything we would like to do in the Mediterranean and also from the United Kingdom, as there is a definite bottleneck in the material of war called landing craft. And once again, the question rises. What is the greater risk? Cautiously waiting too long to cross the channel and hit France? Or recklessly pushing ahead? The Americans have long feared the former, the Brits, the latter. So now Franklin wants to know, what does Stalin think? In the USSR, it is believed that the most suitable sector for a blow at Germany would be from some place in France, Northwestern France or Southern France.

This Soviet push or nudge rather, is exactly what this stalled out, re-litigated at every conference question needed. Deadly and logistical challenges be damned. The Allies will cross that unpleasant body of water.

Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story.