The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War

Sarah Churchill accompanied her father, Winston Churchill, by ship to Malta, a small island in the Mediterranean which the Allies had used as a strategic base to assault Nazi-occupied Europe. Sarah had eagerly assisted the war effort as an aerial reconnaissance intelligence analyst with the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force; she had studied maps of the region and knew it well. She was in the process of divorcing her husband, Vic Oliver.

Sarah had a close relationship with her father from childhood. As an adult her marriage to Vic Oliver had strained their relationship, but Sarah was still eager to be his “aide de camp” during the war. Sarah had accompanied her father to the previous Allied conference in Tehran (See: Background) and was enthusiastic about joining him again in Yalta for the conference code-named ARGONAUT.

Things did not get off to a smooth start, however. Sarah was stunned to learn that a British plane of Foreign Office experts had crashed on its way to Malta, killing most on board. Winston Churchill also grew increasingly worried about having agreed to a conference on the Black Sea; it was difficult to secure the area and ensure that the runways and transportation were functional.

Roosevelt and Churchill had formed a friendship, and Churchill appreciated Roosevelt’s support for the war effort, but Churchill was offended that Roosevelt was becoming dismissive of his opinions. Churchill was very wary of Stalin and knew that he would want to control as much of Eastern Europe as possible; he was especially worried about Poland’s independence after WWll. He believed the American government was not concerned enough about the Soviet agenda. Churchill was “haunted” by the way that the great powers of Europe mishandled the end of WWl, which left Europe in shambles and laid the foundations for future conflict. He proposed a private meeting with Roosevelt, but Roosevelt was worried that meeting separately would make Stalin feel excluded and suspicious.

The Churchills waited for the American delegation to arrive, and then joined them on their ship. Roosevelt often traveled with one of his sons, but on this trip his daughter Anna joined him. Sarah Churchill was pleased to meet Anna, and was saddened to see that her father seemed much weaker and more aged than during the last conference. She also wondered if Roosevelt was becoming less friendly to the British.

President Roosevelt had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure, a disease which could be treated but not cured. His cardiologist, Dr. Bruenn, did not inform the Roosevelt of his condition. However, Dr. Bruenn revealed the secret to Anna. Anna told her husband, but kept this information from her father.

Anna was frustrated at having been left out of her father’s previous trips and felt that he treated her differently from her brothers because of her gender. She was surprised, but excited, to go to Yalta, and hoped to also see her husband, who was stationed in Italy at the time. Her mother, Eleanor Roosevelt, had also wanted to come, but the President made the excuse that the others were bringing their daughters. While the president appreciated Eleanor’s activism and opinionated nature, he also sometimes felt overwhelmed by her critiques when he needed a break from politics. Moreover, Roosevelt trusted that Anna’s priority was his well-being and that she was not using him to try to network or make a name for herself.

Anna often sought her father’s attention during her early childhood and was deeply saddened when he abruptly developed paralysis due to polio when he was only 39. She saw even less of her father during her time attending boarding school in Manhattan, while he concentrated on his political career. Now that her father’s health was failing, Anna assumed a full-time position to help him manage his workload: She took meetings in his place and passed along her notes, delegated tasks to others, and even took papers from her father’s file that she felt could be dealt with by other staff. Anna knew that as an unelected and unofficial helper some of her behavior was violating the rules, but she was “desperate” to help her father cope and extend his life (46).

On board, some of Roosevelt’s colleagues were concerned for his health, and Anna guarded his time and energy very closely. She was worried that the trip could end his life, but because of the ship’s radio silence he was actually able to rest more. Churchill constantly messaged the President, but Anna kept the Prime Minister at arm’s length. Roosevelt had two main objectives: to minimize American casualties in the Pacific, and to lay the foundations for a “global fraternity united by a commitment to peace” (50) which would be more effective than the League of Nations had been. Roosevelt felt that he could persuade Stalin to see the value of such an organization and include the Soviets as a “part of the world order” (50).

Averell Harriman was frustrated by the remote location for the conference and by the difficulties in communicating with the Soviets. He was concerned that President Roosevelt was in denial about the reality of the Soviets’ “true power and ambition” in the postwar aftermath (55). The Soviets had only sided with the Allies after the Nazis had invaded the Soviet Union and violated their previous agreement, but Averell Harriman was convinced that their alliance would be useful and was necessary to keep the war in Europe rather than spreading toward America. Kathleen, meanwhile, was much more suspicious of the Soviet Union, and of Stalin in particular, since she had met many Eastern European exiles in her reporting work who regarded him as a terrible and manipulative leader who would surely try to occupy Poland when he could.

Averell Harriman disagreed with his daughter until August 1944, when the Soviet Army, which had been steadily advancing westward, allowed Nazi troops to decimate local Polish forces when they could have assisted them, only taking the country from Nazi control afterwards. Churchill’s RAF dropped supplies for the Poles even though Stalin objected, but Roosevelt was worried about angering Stalin. Now seeing their real goals in Eastern Europe, Averell Harriman told Roosevelt to take a “hard line” against the Soviet dictator before they took over Eastern Europe (58).

Roosevelt was openly unconcerned about the Soviets’ post-war ambitions, since he felt the American public did not know or care about the matter, and it was therefore irrelevant. The issue became a major point of contention between Harriman and President Roosevelt. Harriman was particularly concerned about Roosevelt’s belief that he could persuade the Soviet leader to shift his policy and worldview; Harriman had learned that the Soviets did not respond to gestures of cooperation and friendship.

Sarah Churchill had assisted with Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa, and impressed her father with her level of detailed knowledge about the Mediterranean. Over 500 British and American personnel gathered at the airport in Malta, ready to travel to Yalta. There was a constant danger of the planes being shot down by the remaining Nazi military, who occupied a few of the Aegean islands. Moreover, Soviet airfields were poorly equipped to help pilots in the foggy conditions.

The night of their departure Anna Roosevelt was in a frenzy trying to manage her father’s schedule. It was difficult to protect her father from all the people who wanted to speak with him. At 11:30 pm the first planes took off.

In spite of the icy and poorly-paved runway, the planes landed safely and everyone disembarked into the gray, featureless landscape.

The President and Prime Minister greeted the Soviet foreign affairs minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, a “ruthless and calculating” man who stood in for Stalin before his arrival (71). Roosevelt looked particularly fragile as he was lowered from the plane in his wheelchair. In America, the press did not print pictures of his chair and many Americans did not know he had paralysis. However, in Yalta Roosevelt was more exposed, and Anna felt protective of her father as the Soviet press documented his arrival.

Crimea was a unique region which, over the centuries, had been conquered by a variety of kingdoms and empires before being absorbed into the Russian empire under Catherine the Great. While the south had a Mediterranean climate and vegetation, the Crimean steppe was frosty and foggy in winter. The Americans and British complained about these difficult conditions as they drove the six-hour journey from the airfield to Yalta. The Nazis had besieged Crimea and left it in ruins, but the region was already traumatized by Stalin’s intentional famine, the Holodomor, which he orchestrated to kill Ukrainian peasants whom he perceived as enemies of the state. Stalin had also deported over 200,000 of the region’s Tatar people to Uzbekistan, where many of them died.

The Allied cars passed through Simferopol, a ruined city whose inhabitants were eking out a meagre existence. The cars stopped at a pitstop, where the Soviets had arranged a decadent lunch. Anna was concerned that her father could not eat any of the foods, which were forbidden due to his condition, and she politely declined the meal. Meanwhile, the Churchills felt obligated to stop and accept Soviet hospitality; they resented the Roosevelts for leaving them in such an awkward position. The Soviets noticed this “rupture” in relations between the Americans and British, which they were “only too happy to exploit” (78).

Kathleen Harriman greeted everyone as they arrived at Livadia Palace, meeting President Roosevelt and his daughter for the first time. Kathleen offered to share her bedroom with Anna, but Anna preferred to stay close to her father in a tiny “cubicle” of a room.

After dinner, Ambassador Harriman left Livadia to sort out the next day’s agenda with Vyacheslav Molotov. Harriman requested that the conference begin with a discussion about military advancements, since three different Allied armies were approaching Berlin and there was a danger of friendly fire if they encountered each other. Harriman also communicated that Roosevelt wanted to meet with Stalin privately before the conference began—something which he kept secret from Churchill, who would have been upset by it.

The British arrived at Livadia as the Americans were having dinner. Churchill was upset for various reasons: He had just learned the details of the Mediterranean plane crash; they had lost many preparations for the conference in the crash; and he was worried that the conference was not long enough to negotiate all of the complex issues they needed to discuss, especially Russia’s oppression of Poland. Hearing Churchill’s frustrations, Averell confided in his daughter Kathleen, noting that while Roosevelt was optimistic about the conference, Churchill was now prepared for the worst.

Kathleen Harriman’s closest confidant was her best friend, Pamela Churchill, whom she had met in London when she and her father were stationed there early in the war. Kathleen liked all of the Churchill daughters, but became closest with Pamela, who was the Prime Minister’s daughter-in-law. Pamela’s husband Randolph was an unfaithful husband with significant gambling debts, and she was raising their newborn son, Winston, while Randolph was away in the army. Harriman’s close relationship with Churchill left Randolph with the impression that Harriman was more of a “servant” of Churchill’s than Roosevelt’s (94).

Pamela Churchill was having an affair with Averell Harriman. She secretly passed along information from Harriman to Lord Beaverbrook in exchange for Beaverbrook paying off her husband’s gambling debts. Kathleen knew about the affair but was largely unbothered, as she was not close with her stepmother and her main goal was to remain in London. Pamela had numerous other lovers during this time, and maintained her friendship with Kathleen even after her affair with Averell seemed to be over.

Anna Roosevelt learned that presidential adviser Harry Hopkins was very ill; this was especially unfortunate because he was one of the very few American experts at the conference. Hopkins knew that he could pass away while at the conference and updated his will before he left.

Hopkins was an unlikely political star who came from humble roots in Iowa. Over the years he had become a very trusted adviser to Roosevelt, and had worked closely with him since 1931. However, his relationship with Roosevelt was strained by Hopkin’s extended absences for cancer treatment and his new marriage to a woman whom Eleanor Roosevelt disliked. Hopkins had spent several days with Churchill in London, trying to mend Churchill’s relationship with the president ahead of the conference, and he felt strongly that Roosevelt must meet with Churchill ahead of seeing Stalin. He begged Anna to communicate his message to Roosevelt, but she refused, since she privately thought that Churchill would exhaust her father before the day’s events. She also wanted to fill the role of adviser that Hopkins had held for so long. Even the press noticed the change in dynamic, with one article noting Anna’s increasing prominence in the administration. Hopkins was frustrated, believing that Roosevelt used his daughter to deflect from conversations he did not want to have.

While the future of many countries, especially Poland, remained in peril, no one from the Polish government was invited to the conference. The American ambassador to Britain, Gil Winant, telegrammed his colleagues the night before the conference, relaying a message from the Polish Prime Minister Arciszewski asking for the leaders to ensure political freedom and human rights for Poland. The Soviet Red Army was currently persecuting Polish people as it beat back the Nazi forces and advanced toward Berlin. Polish pilots, soldiers, academics, and resistance fighters had all contributed to the war effort alongside the allies, and yet the Polish leadership “could do nothing more than beg to be remembered” (110).