Simon Montefiore - Stalin

The night before he arrived in Potsdam, Stalin called Zhukov: “Don’t get it into your head to meet us with an honour guard and band. Come to the station yourself and bring anyone you consider necessary.”

At 5:30 a.m. on 16 July, the day of Stalin’s arrival, the United States tested a nuclear bomb in New Mexico that would change everything and, in many ways, spoil Stalin’s triumph. The news was telegraphed to Harry S. Truman, who had succeeded Roosevelt as President, with the understatement of the century: “Babies satisfactorily born.”

Stalin and Molotov, attended by Poskrebyshev, Vlasik and Valechka, found the platform virtually empty except for Zhukov, Vyshinsky and a table bearing three telephones connected to the Kremlin and the armies. “In good spirits,” Stalin raised his hat and climbed into the waiting ZiS 101 armoured limousine but then he opened the door and invited Zhukov to ride with him to his Babelsberg residence, “a stone villa of two floors” with “fifteen rooms and an open veranda,” Beria informed him, “supplied with all necessary electricity, heating and organized telephone stations with VCh for 100 numbers.” It had been Ludendorff’s home. Stalin hated the extravagant furniture and ordered much of it to be removed—as he once had done in his Kremlin flat.

Stalin was late for the conference but it mattered little: the great decisions had been made at Yalta. The other leaders had arrived on the 15th and gone sightseeing to Hitler’s Chancellery. Beria, who was already in Berlin to oversee the arrangements, accompanied by his son Sergo, longed to visit the ruins but obediently waited to ask Stalin’s permission. Stalin refused to go himself, no tourist he. So Beria, in a baggy suit and open-necked shirt, went with the immaculate Molotov.

At midday on Tuesday the 17th, Stalin, resplendent in a fawn Generalissimo’s uniform, arrived at Truman’s “Little White House” for their first meeting. The new President said nothing about the topic that dominated the conference. Sergo Beria wrote that his father, informed by spies in the American nuclear project, gave Stalin the news during this week: “I didn’t know then, at least not from the Americans,” was how Stalin put it. Beria had first informed him of the Manhattan Project in March 1942: “We need to get started,” said Stalin, placing Molotov in charge. But, under Iron Arse, it advanced with excruciating, ponderous slowness. Finally in September 1944, the leading Russian nuclear scientist, Professor Igor Kurchatov, wrote to Stalin to denounce plodding Molotov and begged Beria to take it over. Stalin had little conception of nuclear fission’s world-shattering importance nor of the vast resources it would require. He and Beria distrusted their own scientists and spies. Nonetheless, they were aware of the urgency in procuring uranium, and twice during the conference, Stalin and Beria debated how to react to the Americans. [236] Beria had also secured as much uranium as possible in a special operation in the ruins of Berlin: he and Malenkov reported to Stalin they had found “250 kgs of metallic uranium, 2 tons of uranium oxide and 20 litres of heavy water” at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, rounded up key German physicists, and spirited all this treasure back to the USSR. Roy Medvedev in his Neizvestnyi Stalin claims Beria did not tell Stalin about the American test until 20 or 21 August but we do not know the precise date. They had agreed that Stalin should “pretend not to understand,” when the subject was mentioned. But so far, Truman said nothing. They discussed Russia’s entry into the war against Japan. Truman asked Stalin to stay for lunch but he refused: “You could if you wanted,” said Truman.

Stalin stayed, unimpressed by the Missouri haberdasher who was no substitute for FDR: “They couldn’t be compared,” he said later. “Truman’s neither educated nor clever.” (Truman was nonetheless charmed: “I like Stalin!” but, revealingly, he reminded the President of his patron, T. J. Pendergast, the machine politician boss of Kansas City.)

Stalin, ever more sartorially aware, changed into his white, gilded Generalissimo’s magnificence with the single Hero of the Soviet Union gold star, and arrived last for the first session at the Cecilienhof Palace, built in 1917 for the last Crown Prince, mocking its Kaiserine grandeur: “Hmm. Nothing much,” he told Gromyko. “Modest. The Russian Tsars built themselves something much more solid.” At the conference, Stalin sat between Molotov and his interpreter Pavlov, flanked by Vyshinsky and Gromyko. Champagne glasses were brought to toast the conference. Churchill, puffing at a cigar, approached Stalin who was himself smoking a Churchillian cigar. If anyone were to photograph the Generalissimo with a cigar, it would “create an immense sensation,” Churchill beamed, “everyone will say it is my influence.” Actually British influence was greatly diminished in the new world order of the superpowers in which they could agree on the de-Nazification of Germany but not on reparations or Poland. Now Hitler was gone, the differences were mountainous.

When Stalin decided he wanted a stroll in the gardens after a session, a British delegate was amazed to see “a platoon of Russian tommy-gunners in skirmishing order, then a number of guards and units of the NKVD army. Finally appeared Uncle Joe on foot with his usual thugs surrounding him, followed by another screen of skirmishers. The enormous officer who always sits behind Uncle at meetings was apparently in charge of operations and was running around directing tommy-gunners to cover all the alleys.” After a few hundred yards, Stalin was picked up by his car.

At 8:30 p.m. on the 18th, Churchill dined at Ludendorff’s villa, noticing that Stalin was ill, “physically oppressed.” Smoking cigars together, they discussed power and death. Stalin admitted that the monarchy held together the British Empire, perhaps considering how to hold together his own. [237] Stalin was a regicide who constantly compared himself to monarchs: he even joked with his Yugoslav visitors, “Maybe Molotov and I should marry princesses,” a prospect that no doubt sent a shiver through the Almanac de Gotha. He was happy to use monarchies when necessary, urging Tito to restore the young Yugoslav King: “You can always stick a knife in his back when no one’s looking.” No psephologist, he predicted that Churchill would win the election by eighty seats. Then he reflected that people in the West wondered what would happen when he died but it had “all been arranged.” He had promoted “good people, ready to step” into his shoes.

Finally, on 24 July, two monumental moments symbolized the imminent end of the Grand Alliance. First Churchill attacked Stalin for closing off Eastern Europe, citing the problems of the British mission in Bucharest: “An iron fence has come down around them,” he said, trying out the phrase that would become “the iron curtain.”

“Fairy tales!” snapped Stalin. 4The meeting ended at 7:30 p.m. Stalin headed out of the room but Truman seemed to hurry after him. Interpreter Pavlov deftly appeared beside Stalin. Churchill, who had discussed this moment with the President, watched in fascination as Truman approached the Generalissimo “as if by chance,” in Stalin’s words.

“The U.S.A.,” said Truman, “tested a new bomb of extraordinary destructive power.”

Pavlov watched Stalin closely: “no muscle moved in his face.” He simply said he was glad to hear it: “A new bomb! Of extraordinary power! Probably decisive on the Japanese! What a bit of luck!” Stalin followed the plan he had agreed with Beria to give the Americans no satisfaction but he still thought the Americans were playing games: “An A-bomb is a completely new weapon and Truman didn’t exactly say that.” He noticed Churchill’s glee too: Truman spoke “not without Churchill’s knowledge.”