The Daughters of Yalta

When Kathy was in her teens, her mother, Kitty, used to worry that if the governess did not handle her carefully, Kathy would turn out to be nothing more than a ‘sporting woman’. (The comment did not lack irony, as Kitty had herself been an expert equestrian and crack shot.) In London and Moscow, Kathy’s life had certainly evolved beyond riding, shooting and skiing. Her stepmother now had a tendency to worry about Kathy’s ‘state of spinsterhood’, despite the fact that in London, Kathy had no shortage of ardent suitors and often found her calendar booked two weeks in advance – though appropriate dates in Moscow were a bit more difficult to come by. Most of the women in Kathy’s social set, including her sister, Mary, who was only eleven months older, were married and settling down with husbands and children. But for Kathy, there would be plenty of time for that later.

Averell may have once predicted he and Kathy would become the closest of friends, but in many ways, the necessities of wartime made their relationship less like that of a father and daughter and more like one between business partners or colleagues. Even though much about life in Russia was unpleasant, Kathy had no intention of leaving her father’s side before the war was over. As one of her most persistent admirers, General Ira Eaker, the American commander in chief of the Allied Air Forces in the Mediterranean, had prophesied in a letter to her, ‘You are going to be in the USSR for a long time, if you continue to be your Dad’s ablest Lieutenant.’

The ablest lieutenant now had just seventy-two hours left before the American delegation arrived at Livadia, and everything around her was still in an alarming state of extremes. There was more than enough caviar to feed a small city, but scarcely enough lavatories for a large family; the bed linens that had been acquired from one of the finest hotels in the world now covered hard, thin mattresses riddled with bedbugs.

But that was Russia, a land of extremes and contradictions, a place where perception often had no relation to reality. Where Moscow shops beckoned passers-by with tempting displays, yet inside there was nothing to purchase. There were luxuries that no American would ever expect in wartime at the embassy residence, such as champagne for breakfast and bouquets of irises and dahlias for Kathy’s bedside table, yet no glass in the south- and east-facing windows for more than two years after nearby bombings of the Battle of Moscow had shattered them to pieces. And here, in this vestige of empire on the Black Sea, the three most powerful men in the world would gather in a tsar’s palace that, save for some furniture and a coat of paint, otherwise would have been condemned.

TWO

February 2, 1945

Sarah Churchill stood on the deck of the HMS Orion, looking out over the cruisers anchored in the fingerlike inlet that formed Malta’s Valletta Harbour as the walls of the ancient city bore down from above. Malta was a rocky fortress of an island off the southern tip of Italy, the city of Valletta seemingly carved directly from the local limestone. The city walls spiralled upward, and within each spiral the buildings fitted together like pieces of a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. The first time Sarah had come to Malta with her father, a year and a half earlier, she was struck by the colour. As an aerial reconnaissance intelligence analyst in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, or WAAFs, as the women’s branch of the Royal Air Force was known, she had spent two years scrutinising photographs of Malta and the Mediterranean so closely, she knew them as well as London. But those pictures were black and white. In reality, these homes, churches and buildings of state glowed with blushing warmth in the morning sunlight; everything was pink.

It was not yet 9.30 a.m., but excited crowds had gathered on both sides of the narrow harbour wherever they could get a view of the ships moored below, even piling onto the rooftops of buildings that had miraculously survived more than three thousand air raids during the enemy’s relentless two-and-a-half-year bombardment. By the middle of 1942, Malta was the lone speck of an Allied stronghold between Italy and North Africa. This island, just one-fifth the size of London, had become the most bombed spot on earth. In honour of the Maltese people’s fortitude, Britain’s King George had awarded them the George Cross, and President Roosevelt had presented them with a hand-drawn scroll of honour. Now another prize lay in wait – the chance to catch a glimpse of the meeting of the two great leaders for whom they had fought and endured. The moment was imminent. The ship for which they were all waiting would soon steam into port.

Usually, crowds made Sarah anxious – which was ironic, considering that before the war she had been a stage actor. But today the onlookers were the least of her worries. Her father was pacing the deck beside her. As he puffed on his long cigar, little white clouds of smoke followed in his wake. The British delegation had been waiting nearly half an hour for the American ship to appear on the horizon. Half an hour’s delay was nothing in the context of transatlantic sea travel, but given her father’s multi-month ordeal in securing this meeting, patience had long since worn thin. Across the harbour, the rest of the delegation was gathered along the rail of the Orion’s sister ship, the HMS Sirius. The British and American military chiefs of staff were there, as well as Averell Harriman; Harry Hopkins; the American secretary of state, Edward Stettinius; and the British foreign secretary, Anthony Eden (who had experienced a rather rude awakening that morning, when the military band assembled on board had kicked off the day’s festivities a trifle early, jolting Eden from his bed with a rousing rehearsal of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’).

There were arguably better ways to spend one’s morning than waiting for a ship to appear, but at least the day was warm. Back in England, seven inches of snow had fallen, but here the Mediterranean climate was so pleasant and mild that Sarah could leave her greatcoat behind in her cabin. In her neatly tailored WAAF uniform, she cut a striking figure beside her father, who was smartly attired as an officer of the Royal Yacht Squadron.

Though her ensemble, a blue wool skirt and jacket, was just one of many uniforms on display along the harbour that morning, it was nearly impossible for Sarah to melt into the sea of navy and olive, not least because of her red hair, which was tucked in tidy waves under her uniform cap. Once, she had a mane of red hair the very same shade as her father’s – though he was now practically bald. When Sarah had arrived at the WAAF recruiting office in the autumn of 1941, the greatest concern of the woman conducting her interview was not Sarah’s fitness to serve. Rather, she was broken-hearted to inform Sarah that her hair, the most beautiful red hair she had ever seen, would have to be cut. But Sarah hadn’t cared. All she wanted was to get into the war as quickly as possible. Still, the recruiter had made Sarah promise she would visit a fashionable London hairdresser before departing for training, rather than place herself at the mercy of the camp barber.

Even if her hair colour had not prevented her from hiding in plain sight, her name made her instantly recognisable. Sarah was listed on personnel rosters as Section Officer Oliver, but by the time she joined the WAAFs, her ill-fated marriage to Vic Oliver was over, save for the technicality of obtaining a divorce. Regardless of what the personnel papers said, everyone knew Section Officer Oliver by her maiden name. Sarah Oliver was one Sarah Millicent Hermione Churchill, the prime minister’s thirty-year-old daughter. As they stood side by side on the deck, any observer would have noticed her close resemblance to her father. She was slender and tall like her mother, with a delicate nose and chin, but she had her father’s eyes and upturned smile. Father and daughter stood together along the rail of the Orion in the February sunshine, waiting for the president of the United States to arrive.

President Roosevelt was nearing the end of his 4,883-mile journey from Washington. The plan was for the British and American delegations to rendezvous in Malta and confer on military and political strategy throughout the afternoon and evening. Then, in the early hours of the next morning, they and their contingents would all leave Malta together and fly 1,375 miles over the Greek islands, the Aegean Sea and Turkey, to the Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea. There, at the end of an eighty-mile drive, their host for the conference, Joseph Stalin, would be waiting.

Sarah had been granted special leave from her Royal Air Force base – RAF Medmenham – west of London, to join her father for this trip. It was the second time Winston had asked Sarah to accompany him to a major international conference. In early November 1943, Sarah’s commanding officer had summoned her to his office and informed her that he was granting her leave, as the prime minister had requested her presence on an important but unspecified voyage. It was thrillingly hush-hush, every bit as dramatic as the start of a novel by G. A. Henty or H. Rider Haggard, and Sarah had ‘walked on air’. Soon she was on a plane bound for Tehran, for the very first meeting of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. The Tehran Conference, a triumph in Allied cooperation, solidified the leaders’ commitment to the D-Day landings at Normandy, which finally relieved the Soviets of the concentrated brunt of Nazi aggression on the Eastern Front. Tehran had left Sarah optimistic. Goodwill seemed to flow among the three leaders, and Sarah felt inspired. ‘Whatever follows,’ she had written to her mother, ‘one couldn’t help but feel that a genuine desire for friendship was sown.’

Since then, the Allied forces had routed the Nazis at Normandy and slowly begun to push them east towards Germany. In the wake of Allied victories across Europe that summer, the three leaders called for another meeting to coordinate plans for what they hoped would be the end of the war. The code name for this conference would be ARGONAUT, as Churchill suggested, after the Greek mythological heroes who had accompanied Jason in his search for the Golden Fleece on the shores of the Black Sea. In early January, Sarah learned that she too would be an Argonaut. Once again her commanding officer had summoned her and told her to pack her bags. Her father required her for another ‘Top Secret’ journey. Asking a trusted friend at Medmenham to cover for her, she put out a rumour that she was ill, so no one would suspect the real reason for her absence. On the night of January 29, she met her father at RAF Northolt. Soon they were underway.

Despite the sense of optimism as victory in Europe became more tangible with every passing day, Sarah felt disquiet about this conference. It had started with the weather. They flew from RAF Northolt with a blizzard chasing their tail. They had raced to take flight before the gale truly set in, but new problems emerged once they were airborne. The pilots had trouble controlling the temperature inside the plane. The unpressurised cabin was so hot and uncomfortable that Sarah and her fellow passengers felt like ‘tomatoes screaming for air’, while her father looked just like a ‘poor hot pink baby about to cry’. Not only did he have to suffer in the boiling cabin, but he also had developed a 102-degree fever. Despite Winston’s stalwart constitution, it seemed as if every time he left for an overseas conference, he managed to fall ill. Every time he had willed himself to recover, even from a serious bout of pneumonia on the way home from Tehran, which had left him grounded in Carthage for two weeks; but cracks in his resolute nature were beginning to show. This time, the prime minister told his daughter, as they flew through the night towards Malta, he was absolutely certain he was ‘in for something’.

Between the blizzard that had chased them east and her father’s premonition, Sarah could not help but feel superstitious, experiencing something like an actor’s qualms before opening night, as the start of the conference approached. She had begun to ponder the idea of fate. During a conversation with her father’s doctor, Lord Moran, who had travelled with them to Malta, Sarah posed an unusual question. Was it possible, she asked, for the lines in one’s hand to be used to predict one’s future? Sarah’s comment threw the man of science off balance. Surely not, he assured her. The distinct patterns in each person’s palm were entirely the result of anatomy and genetics. ‘You think there is nothing in it?’ she asked, with a hint of disappointment. But Lord Moran could not give her the answer she sought and quickly changed the subject.

Fortunately, after several nights’ sleep Winston had fully recovered his health, as well as much of his usual buoyant demeanour. He even had made up a rhyming couplet on the way to dinner the previous evening to reassure Sarah that all was well: ‘My temperature is down, my tummy ache gone, my functions have resumed their norm: in fact I’m in the best of form!’

But by the time the British contingent gathered on deck to wait for Roosevelt, the cheerful atmosphere was gone. At eight that morning, they had received dreadful news. During the night, a plane transporting several Foreign Office experts to the conference had crashed into the sea near Lampedusa, a small Italian island. According to early reports, of the nineteen passengers and crew, seven had survived, but no one knew who those survivors were, nor if seven was an accurate number. The British delegation was stunned.

Winston was filled with trepidation as he paced the deck. Ever since he and his allies had begun planning the conference, he had harboured grave concerns about holding the meeting on the Black Sea. As the date drew near, he became even more convinced that his concerns were justified. Averell Harriman had reported that the Soviets had relayed inaccurate information about the runway at the airfield where the British and Americans were scheduled to land the next morning. It had not been lengthened, as promised, to accommodate the delegations’ C-54s and Yorks. Instead, the planes were to land at a different airfield altogether, where the runway was two thousand feet shorter than normally required. The drive from the airfield to Yalta looked similarly troubling. An RAF officer who had arrived at Yalta with the advance team described a six-hour journey through a blizzard over nearly impassable mountain roads. Not only was the airfield six hours away from their lodgings, but the HMS Franconia, which contained the secure communications centre for the British and had dodged the floating mines on its way into port, was anchored in Sevastopol Harbour, a three-hour drive east from Yalta. As a British Army major in the advance contingent told a colleague, it was like ‘running a conference with three focal points, one at each corner of Wales, linked by bad mountain roads covered with snow, ice and slush’.

The prime minister also had deeper concerns, particularly regarding his relationship with Franklin Roosevelt. Churchill and Roosevelt had developed a genuine friendship over the course of the past four years. The visit to Malta itself was a heartening reminder of that partnership. In the early days of the war, Italy and Germany controlled the Mediterranean and North Africa, save for this one tiny island outpost. From Malta, the British could attack the Italian navy and target enemy supply lines, thus keeping General Erwin Rommel and the Wehrmacht from unchecked domination in North Africa. But by May 1942, Malta was nearly on its knees. The enemy sank convoy after convoy of supplies from Britain, driving the population to the brink of starvation. Meanwhile, with no materials available to fix the planes engaged in a near-constant series of dogfights, the Allied fighting force was crippled. At one point, the RAF was down to a mere five functioning fighters to defend Malta. The British aircraft carrier ferrying Spitfire replacements to the island was so badly damaged, it was not seaworthy, and without more fighters to ward off enemy bombers, the island would surely fall, and soon. Desperate for help, Churchill had cabled Roosevelt. The president responded immediately, sending an American aircraft carrier loaded with new British Spitfires to the Mediterranean not once but twice, thus saving Malta from annihilation and the British forces from a fully supplied German army in North Africa.

In recent months, however, Roosevelt seemed increasingly ambivalent towards Churchill’s opinions, convictions and concerns as they tried to arrange a tripartite conference. This stung Churchill acutely. Throughout January he repeatedly pushed Roosevelt to meet with him in Malta ahead of their conference with Stalin in order to outline a united Anglo-American position on the issues up for debate at Yalta. Churchill was particularly concerned about Polish independence. He thought the Americans failed to fully appreciate the matter’s delicate complexities, while the Soviets understood them implicitly. Stalin was a merciless and wily autocrat, but Churchill was willing to believe he would be a man of his word. ‘If only I could dine with Stalin once a week, there would be no trouble at all,’ he once declared. In October 1944, Churchill and Stalin met in Moscow. During that meeting, the two men had reached a secret bargain whereby the Soviets agreed they would not interfere in liberated Greece, where the British had long held influence, and the British would largely stay out of Romania and Bulgaria. So far, Stalin had kept his promise. However, Churchill remained wary of the people surrounding Stalin and the historical forces that had shaped Russia for hundreds of years. Like the tsars in the imperial era, the Kremlin sought to control Eastern Europe. The entrenched national paranoia about security on Russia’s western border, where open plains left the vast nation exposed to enemy invasion, retained a strong grip on the minds of Soviet leaders. Hitler’s 1941 assault on the Soviet Union – Operation Barbarossa – was only the most recent example of such an invasion, and it might have been successful, had not an especially cruel winter taken the Nazis by surprise and halted their progress just outside the gates of Moscow. In pursuit of their national interest, the Soviets would be looking to exploit even the smallest points of disagreement between the two western partners. Poland had long been the object of Russian desire. But it was the guarantee of Polish sovereignty that had led Britain to declare war on Germany in the first place. On that issue, perhaps more than any other, it was imperative that the British and the Americans iron out their differences well in advance.

Roosevelt, by contrast, was far more concerned that meeting with Churchill in Malta would make Stalin feel as if the western powers were plotting behind his back. In response to Churchill’s many requests for such a meeting, Roosevelt consistently demurred on the grounds that neither he nor his secretary of state would be able to arrive in sufficient time to hold any meaningful discussions. Pressing matters in Washington prevented them from leaving for Malta until the last possible moment. Besides, Roosevelt preferred to keep discussions with his counterparts ‘informal’ and saw no need to prepare an agenda.

Roosevelt wanted to commit to meeting at Yalta for a mere five to six days. But the end of the war presented deep ideological questions about the future of Europe, and Churchill adamantly believed that the answers would be too complex to resolve in five or six days. After all, he scoffed, ‘Even the Almighty took seven.’ Churchill was haunted by what he called the ‘follies of the victors’ after the Great War. The triumphant nations believed they had secured peace for generations, but they had failed to craft institutions strong enough to guarantee it. Old wounds continued to fester, and victory proved an illusion that led to further disasters: a global financial crisis, the failure of the League of Nations, German national humiliation, and ultimately another, bloodier war. This time, the Allies would have to proceed carefully; otherwise, Churchill wrote to Roosevelt, ‘The end of this war may well prove to be more disappointing than was the last.’ Cooperation between the Allies was crucial. As Churchill told Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden several days before leaving for the conference, ‘The only hope for the world is the agreement of the Great Powers … If they quarrel, our children are undone.’

Because the prime minister was seen by so many, including the throngs of Maltese who had turned out to catch a glimpse of him, as a giant among men, it was easy to forget that just like so many of his countrymen, he was also a father, one with children in uniform – a father standing with his daughter on a sunny February morning.

To the woman standing beside him, Winston Churchill was simply ‘Papa’. But Sarah had always known, long before her father became prime minister, that something special set her father apart from other men. He had an aura of greatness that sent dinner guests scurrying out of the room in search of pen and paper to take down his every word. But for all his lofty, imposing rhetoric and force of personality, he was also a doting father who let his children climb on his back and used his mastery of the English language to compose an ode, for ‘Poor Puggy-Wug’, his daughters’ beloved dog that had fallen ill. When Sarah was home from school, she loved nothing more than to spend hours in the garden below the family’s country home, Chartwell, engaged in one of her father’s favourite, if unusual, pastimes: bricklaying. This work was the furthest thing from politics, and Winston found the manual labour relaxing. He built hundreds of yards of brick walls around Chartwell’s gardens. While he did have a professional bricklayer on call, Sarah was his chosen ‘second mate’. They established a perfect system. Sarah handed him bricks and maintained a ready supply of mortar, and while Winston laid the bricks on the wall, he entrusted her with the crucial responsibility of making sure the plumb line running along the top kept the bricks straight and even. Together, the mason and his assistant passed many pleasant hours anticipating the other’s every move in quiet, contemplative harmony.

Twenty years later, she was at his side once again. There had been long periods of separation in the years when Sarah was touring with theatrical productions. For a man of his age and class, it was surprising that Winston did not wholeheartedly object to her decision to pursue a career on the stage, but his own mother, the wealthy American debutante Jennie Jerome, had been something of an unconventional woman for her day. She wrote plays for London’s West End, was rumoured to have scores of lovers, and had a snake tattooed on her wrist. By comparison, Sarah’s way of bucking convention was quite tame. There had been tension between father and daughter when she ran away to New York to marry the much older actor Vic Oliver, a decision Winston did not condone and from which he had persistently tried to dissuade her.

But the war had brought Sarah and Winston back together. Early in the conflict, Winston and his wife, Clementine, had decided that someone from the family should accompany him as aide-de-camp and all-round protector, supporter and confidant on his travels. The various Churchills were not equally suited to the task. Clementine was terrified of flying. Diana, the oldest, was married, with three young children, and she detested politics. Randolph, the second child, the only son, and a major in the British Army, was brilliant like Winston, and while he sometimes joined his father, his drinking made him brash and arrogant, a liability in the delicate role of supporting Winston during stressful, high-stakes negotiations. Mary, the youngest, had travelled with Winston and Clementine to Quebec for Winston’s meeting with Roosevelt in 1942, but though bright and capable, and an officer in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, Mary was eight years younger than Sarah and still a bit too inexperienced. Sarah was the ideal choice. She was the right age, had a sharp intellect, and was keenly aware of the military and political issues at stake, thanks to her work at RAF Medmenham.