Tehran Conference

Origins

The Tehran Conference was the first wartime meeting of the leaders of the three main Allies: Joseph Stalin (USSR), Franklin D. Roosevelt (USA), and Winston Churchill (UK). It was held in Tehran from 28 November to 1 December 1943. [[P1]][[P48]] After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Western Allied and Soviet delegations had shuttled between London and Moscow over supply and cooperation, but a common strategy for allocating resources between Europe and Asia and for handling postwar Germany remained unsettled. [[P5]] Above all, the Soviets had pressed for a second front in the west since 1941 without obtaining a firm commitment.

Stalin was reluctant to leave Moscow, and Roosevelt found travel difficult because of his disability. Roosevelt proposed Cairo, but Stalin declined that and offers of Baghdad or Basra, finally agreeing to meet in Tehran in November 1943. [[P7]] Stalin traveled by train to Baku and then by air; Roosevelt reached Oran in Algeria aboard the USS Iowa and came on via Cairo. [[P6]][[P52]] In secret correspondence the meeting was codenamed "Eureka." [[P54]]

Proceedings and the second front

The conference convened at 16:00 on 28 November 1943 and ran until 1 December. [[P9]] Its central question was opening a second front in Western Europe. Churchill favored expanding operations in the Mediterranean and Italy, while the Soviets demanded a landing in northern France. [[P12]] When the debate deadlocked, Stalin rose and, turning to Voroshilov and Molotov, said with irritation that they had too much to do at home to waste time there; fearing the conference would collapse, Churchill compromised. [[P66]]

As a result, the United States and Britain committed to launching Operation Overlord, the invasion of northern France, by May 1944, while the Soviets agreed to mount a concurrent major offensive on the Eastern Front to divert German forces. [[P12]][[P27]] This is regarded as the conference's most critical military outcome; Roosevelt secured Churchill's agreement at lunch on 30 November. [[P36]] The conference also addressed an invasion of southern France, support to the Yugoslav Partisans, and Soviet entry into the war against Japan after Germany's defeat. [[P33]][[P61]]

Postwar questions: Germany and Poland

The participants shared the view that postwar Germany would have to be divided, but differed on the method and number of divisions. Roosevelt proposed splitting Germany into five states, Churchill raised a Danubian federation, and Stalin insisted on preserving German unity. [[P70]][[P40]] No decision was reached at Tehran; the matter was referred to the London commission, and the European Advisory Commission was to "carefully study the question of dismemberment." [[P129]]

On Poland, Churchill's proposal was adopted: the eastern border would follow the 1920 Curzon Line, with Poland compensated by German territory to the west. [[P30]][[P72]] Roosevelt asked to be excused from the discussion, citing Polish voters in the 1944 U.S. election, and just before the conference the USSR unilaterally withdrew recognition of the Polish government-in-exile in London. [[P30]] The decisions were not formally ratified until the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences of 1945. [[P11]][[P129]] On the Baltic republics, Roosevelt secured Stalin's assurance of a vote, but Stalin refused any international control over it. [[P31]][[P75]]

Iran, Turkey, and the United Nations

Iran was under Allied occupation. The three leaders issued a "Declaration of the Three Powers Regarding Iran," thanking the Iranian government for its wartime assistance, promising continued economic assistance, and affirming their desire for the maintenance of Iran's independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. [[P16]][[P17]][[P131]] Regarding Turkey, they agreed it was desirable for it to enter the war on the Allied side and discussed offering Crete and the Dodecanese islands as inducement. [[P18]]

The design of a postwar international organization was also discussed in earnest for the first time. Roosevelt outlined to Stalin a vision in which the future United Nations would be dominated by "four policemen" (the United States, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union), and Stalin broadly welcomed it while warning that small states might object and raising the need for regional bodies. [[P82]][[P86]][[P130]] No formal decision on creating an international organization was taken at Tehran. [[P87]]

Alleged assassination plot and security

According to Soviet reports, Nazi Germany planned to assassinate the three leaders at Tehran, with the mission assigned under the codename "Long Jump" to Otto Skorzeny. [[P89]] Soviet intelligence notified Roosevelt's chief of security of the suspected plot several days before his arrival, and large-scale arrests were carried out in Tehran ahead of the conference. [[P44]][[P94]]

The reality of the plot is disputed. The Soviets asserted that German agents had been infiltrated into Tehran, but after the conference Molotov told Harriman that they had known of German agents there but not of a specific assassination plan, scaling back the earlier claims. [[P46]][[P47]] The Americans suspected Stalin might have fabricated the plot as an excuse to move Roosevelt into the Soviet embassy. [[P46]] Roosevelt initially stayed at the American legation but moved to the Soviet embassy after the warning, which also gave him closer access to Stalin and Churchill. [[P45]][[P53]] Conversations at the Soviet embassy were bugged by Soviet intelligence. [[P53]]