Joseph E. Davies and Soviet-American Relations, 1941–43

Joseph E. Davies is best known for his controversial service as U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1937–38. His 1941 book, Mission to Moscow, and the movie based on that book, provided a highly favorable image of the Soviet Union during World War II, when both the United States and Russia were warring against Nazi Germany. From 1941 to 1943, however, Davies also played a little known but important unofficial role as a personal liaison between the White House and the Soviet embassy in Washington. In that capacity he served as a direct channel through which representatives of the Soviet Union could express their views to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and in turn the president and his administration could explain American policies to the Soviets. The key to the success of Davies's activities as an intermediary between Soviet and American officials was the awareness on the part of each side that he had the confidence of the other. In 1943, as a result of the trust in him shown by Soviet officials, Roosevelt broadened Davies's role as a liaison by sending him on a personal mission to Soviet Premier Josef Stalin. That later “mission to Moscow” was the high point of Davies's wartime career in Soviet-American relations.

Joseph E. Davies was uniquely qualified to serve as an unofficial liaison between the Soviet embassy and the White House. His role grew out of a special combination of personal and political relationships he had developed over many years with Franklin Roosevelt, on the one hand, and with high officials of the Soviet Union, on the other. Davies and Roosevelt developed a close friendship while serving in the administration of President Woodrow Wilson. They saw much of each other on both a social and political basis, attending biweekly meetings of the Common Counsel Club for Democratic progressives, playing golf, and socializing at family gatherings. The two young men were seen regularly at parties euphemistically dubbed “Administration Dancing Classes.” Davies treasured a photograph that Roosevelt gave him at the time with the inscription, “to my old side kick.”1

After World War I, while establishing a lucrative corporate law practice in Washington, Davies kept in touch with Roosevelt, enthusiastically supporting his budding national political career. In 1920 he seconded Roosevelt's nomination for vice president at the Democratic convention. A decade later, he took charge of the Democratic presidential campaign in the West, renewing contacts with Roosevelt's old associates from Wilsonian days and lending his well-established oratorical and organizational skills to the cause. With victory came the offer of a cabinet post, but Davies turned it down; he wanted to rebuild his personal fortune that had been diminished by the 1929 crash. Four years later, with his financial position restored, Davies again contributed his time and a generous share of his substantial income to Roosevelt's campaign. In return, the president appointed him U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union.2

Davies began his ambassadorial mission in January 1937, at a time of growing tension and concern over the threat that Nazi Germany posed to European peace. The president, recognizing that the Soviet Union would play a crucial role in a European crisis, specifically instructed Davies “to win the confidence of Stalin.” The new ambassador accepted the assignment with enthusiasm. Arriving in Moscow in January 1937, he immediately launched a vigorous campaign to cultivate the friendship of the Soviets. After exploring the capital, he traveled through south Russia to investigate the condition of Soviet industry and agriculture. Aware that “Stalin would get wind of” his reports to the State Department, Davies highlighted his accounts of Soviet economic progress and military development by commending the work of local directors and praising Moscow officials. He also plunged into the social scene, entertaining the Soviets lavishly and being entertained in return on an unprecedented scale for visiting foreigners. He established close ties with several high Soviet officials, including Vyacheslav Molotov, president of the Soviet of People's Commissars, and Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov. Even Premier Stalin invited the ambassador to a private meeting, an event Davies believed was “a unique occurrence in [Soviet] diplomatic history.”3

Davies's social activities and unconventional methods of collecting data irritated career diplomats at the American embassy. As specialists in Soviet affairs, they were understandably insulted when Davies rejected their expert advice and relied instead on information from British and American journalists. He not only refused to adopt the embassy's hard-line approach to Soviet-American relations but showed at times an undisguised contempt for professional diplomats as a group. He was accused of treating the embassy “staff as hired help.” George Kennan, Charles Bohlen, and other diplomats criticized Davies's fitness for the post. The ambassador was a novice on Soviet affairs, schooled only in State Department documents, and, according to Bohlen, “sublimely ignorant of even the most elementary realities of the Soviet system and of its ideology.” In the eyes of his critics, Davies was seduced by the flattery of Moscow officials, and his reports to Washington, in Bohlen's opinion, were “incurably optimistic” and misleading. “While containing a good deal of information and shrewd observation, [they] were almost always superficial and heavily slanted.” Kennan considered Davies a political opportunist, a publicity hound. He challenged the ambassador's motives for accepting the post and questioned his seriousness regarding the mission. Davies's well-publicized effort to improve the atmosphere in Soviet-American relations, by creating a more positive impression of the Soviet Union for home consumption, was motivated, according to critics, by a desire to enhance his own newspaper image. The more egregious aspects of his personality and his excessive concern with public relations made him a target of ridicule and caused many of his contemporaries as well as later historians to discount his influence.4

During the years following his assignment in Moscow, Davies offered to serve the president as an intermediary to the Soviets. It was not until June 1941, however, after Nazi Germany had invaded the Soviet Union, that the Roosevelt administration capitalized on the personal contacts Davies had established with Soviet officials. The president and his advisers became aware of the potential advantages of Davies's position as a result of the vigorous campaign he launched in the summer of 1941 to convince the administration to send aid to the Red Army. In early July, Davies was in and out of the executive offices, pressing his case for aid on Roosevelt's closest advisers. He argued that the Russian front was crucial to the security of the United States. Despite the predictions of military experts, Davies believed the Red Army could hold out against the Nazi onslaught if America sent immediate aid. He warned presidential assistant Harry Hopkins that the administration's failure to take action might force Stalin into signing a separate peace with Hitler. The Soviets had to be assured of American support, both material and psychological, and those assurances, he advised, could best be provided through personal contacts at the highest levels. “Word ought to be gotten to Stalin direct,” wrote Davies in a memo to Hopkins, “that our attitude is ‘all out’ to beat Hitler and that our historic policy of friendliness to Russia still exists.”5

In his effort to convince the administration to support the Red Army, Davies not only talked with American officials but also took the initiative to sound out the Soviets. He wanted to show Soviet officials that he had a personal interest in their cause. He hoped to gather evidence on the Red Army's capacity to withstand the Nazi attack, which would add weight to his argument for American aid.

On 9 July, over lunch at his home, Davies reestablished his contacts with Soviet Ambassador Constantin Oumansky. The ambassador was sufficiently impressed with Davies's interest in the Russian situation to meet him again several days later at the Soviet embassy. Davies found Oumansky more than willing to furnish specific evidence on the Red Army's capacity to withstand the Nazi invasion. After several conversations, Davies came to the conclusion that he could play a part in improving communications between Soviet officials and the administration, and he requested the State Department's permission to serve unofficially as a liaison to the Soviet embassy. On 15 July, he told Acting Secretary of State Sumner Welles that he “wished to be of every possible help, freely, of course, to the Soviet Embassy.” Welles responded positively to the idea, assuring the former ambassador of his “entire confidence,” as well as that of the State Department.6

Meanwhile, Davies had also hoped to talk with Roosevelt about the aid situation. He had first tried to see the president on 30 June. It was not until 16 July, however, the day after making his request to Welles to serve as a liaison to the Soviet embassy, that Davies finally had an opportunity to meet with the president on the matter. It was the nature of the role Davies could play, as much as the nature of the advice he had given, that sparked Roosevelt's interest in the former ambassador. The idea of a personal liaison to the Soviet embassy may have appealed to Roosevelt for several practical reasons. The president wanted to show the Russians that, despite the State Department's reluctance to support the Soviet cause, he was sincere in his efforts to help. Davies had argued that in order to keep the Soviets fighting they had to be assured of American support, and the president may have viewed the former ambassador as a means of providing that reassurance. The president also may have been motivated by personal considerations. He did not like Oumansky and avoided contact with him as much as possible. He may have welcomed the opportunity to have Davies serve as a link to the Soviet ambassador. Davies wrote later in his diary that Roosevelt asked him “to keep in close touch with the Embassy.”7

It was not unusual for Roosevelt to give an unofficial, but potentially influential, role to a man like Davies. In his formulation of foreign policy, the president tended to rely on individuals who were not professionals or career diplomats. He once told Davies that he, “like Woodrow Wilson, appreciated men who had a ‘passion for anonymity.’ ” Although Roosevelt did not “systematically” circumvent the State Department, his opinion of many of its members was not particularly high. He preferred to have private, informal discussions with trusted individuals rather than formal conferences with State Department officials.8 Davies's long personal relationship with the president, therefore, contributed to his position of influence after July 1941.

Thus, Davies's unofficial connection with the Soviet embassy helped give him access to the Oval Office, and, throughout the war, he used that opportunity to press his personal views on Roosevelt. In terms of their basic analysis of Soviet-American relations, Davies and the president were in accord to a striking degree. Although Roosevelt's confidence in the evolution of the Soviet Union from a dictatorship into a capitalist democracy never paralleled Davies's heights of enthusiasm, the president believed that American capitalism and Soviet communism eventually might evolve into more similar forms. Like Davies, he did not share the apprehension of the State Department toward Russia's postwar goals. At the beginning of World War II, pragmatic considerations motivated Roosevelt to adopt an approach to Soviet-American relations similar to that of Davies. It was the president's opinion that Nazi Germany threatened the Western world in the summer of 1941, not the Soviet Union. Roosevelt initiated a policy of aid to Russia because, in words echoing those of the former ambassador, “the defense of any country resisting Hitler or Japan was in the long run the defense of our own country.” After Operation Barbarossa, the president, like Davies, considered Soviet-American cooperation indispensable.9

The policy approaches advocated by Davies in early July were given added momentum later that month by the successful outcome of a series of conversations between Harry Hopkins and Premier Stalin in Moscow. Hopkins seemed impressed by the sincerity of the Soviet premier, as Davies had been earlier. The resolution of several matters involving supplies, which had plagued Soviet-American relations on the lower echelons, reinforced Davies's argument for personal diplomacy at the top levels. The discussions, furthermore, convinced Hopkins that given sufficient aid, the Red Army could hold out through the winter, as Davies had predicted, and could provide a permanent front against the Nazis. Hopkins's visit to Moscow produced a “point of no return” in Roosevelt's determination to provide all-out aid to the Soviet Union. On 1 October the Anglo-American Supply Conference in Moscow issued a formal protocol extending substantial aid to the Red Army with no strings attached. Davies had won his case with the administration.10

Meanwhile, changes were taking place in the Soviet embassy that were to solidify Davies's position as a personal liaison. In September 1941 Oumansky informed Davies that he was leaving his Washington post. Davies said he hoped that Maxim Litvinov, with whom he had been on particularly cordial terms during his 1937–38 mission to Moscow, would be appointed the new ambassador. A month after his conversation with Oumansky, Davies indeed learned that Litvinov had been assigned to the embassy post. On 7 December, having been notified beforehand by the Soviet embassy of Litvinov's arrival, Davies greeted the new ambassador at the airport in Washington.11 Only hours before Litvinov's plane landed, the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Thus, with America in the war and with his ties to the Soviet embassy cemented by Litvinov's appointment, Davies's efforts to promote cooperation between the Soviet Union and the United States took on new dimensions.

After Pearl Harbor, Davies settled into the role he was to play as a liaison throughout the war. When problems in allied relations were discussed at the Soviet embassy, the former ambassador listened sympathetically to what Litvinov and other Soviet officials had to say and then relayed their opinions to the White House. The liaison worked both ways. Davies spent as much time explaining the American position to the Soviets as he did listening to the Soviet point of view. According to the president, his efforts were “of inestimable help in assessing situations.” Roosevelt told Hopkins “to keep in constant touch” with Davies and asked the former ambassador to “come in and see him at lunch or otherwise” whenever he “thought it necessary.” Davies shuttled messages and opinions back and forth from the Soviet embassy to the White House, occasionally meeting with both Hopkins and Litvinov on the same day.12

Davies functioned as an intermediary in several areas. During 1942 his primary responsibility was to maintain Soviet confidence in the American supply effort, a job that involved soothing ruffled nerves and egos on both sides. When the Russians complained, for instance, that American manufacturers were “stalling” in order to avoid completing Soviet supply orders, Davies assured Litvinov that there were good reasons for the delays and that Roosevelt had informed him that the United States would be “caught up” on deliveries “by the end of April.” Soviet complaints remained an habitual topic of discussion in his meetings with Hopkins. Lower echelons on the American side also had grievances that Davies relayed to the Soviet embassy. Early in the year, apparently with the supply problem in mind, Roosevelt considered offering Davies his old post as ambassador to the Soviet Union. He wrote Secretary of State Cordell Hull that “Joe would be really persona grata, would have access to Stalin, and in a couple weeks could get into complete touch with the airplane and tank situation.” Davies, however, declined the post for health reasons, and instead the appointment was given to Admiral William H. Standley.13

In the spring of 1942 Stalin offered his Western allies another opportunity to demonstrate their sincerity in support of the Soviet war effort. The Soviet premier wanted Great Britain and the United States to recognize his claim to certain eastern European territories acquired during the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Particularly controversial was his demand for a section of Poland east of the Curzon Line, a boundary established by Britain's Curzon Commission after World War I. Prime Minister Winston Churchill was willing to acknowledge Stalin's claim, but Roosevelt and Hull were not. Davies feared that the American stand threatened to destroy Soviet confidence in the West. His unofficial position as a liaison gave him the unique opportunity to encourage some form of understanding.

Davies discussed the issue of the Curzon Line with Soviet, British, and American officials. In conversations with Litvinov, he became convinced that the Soviet argument for the Curzon Line was sound, but he cautioned the ambassador not to press the issue. The American public, he warned, would not understand the Soviet demand. He counseled patience; the matter would resolve itself in time.14

In the meantime, Britain's Ambassador Lord Halifax, who had been denied an interview with the president, took up the subject of the Curzon Line with Davies. The British at that time were completing the draft of a twenty-year treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union. Halifax wanted to know whether Davies thought the British should officially recognize Stalin's territorial claim by incorporating it in the treaty. If Britain resisted, would Stalin sign a separate peace with Hitler? Davies said he believed not. Stalin would continue to fight as long as he was certain the West would give him “effective” help. He warned Halifax, however, that by refusing to recognize Stalin's claim, the Western allies “would seriously prejudice [Soviet] confidence in allied judgement and good faith.” That refusal would have serious repercussions on allied unity during the war and on cooperation between the Soviet Union and the West after the war.15 Davies thus counseled Litvinov to be patient, while he advised the British to accept Stalin's claim without delay.

In reporting his conversation with Halifax to Welles and Roosevelt, Davies urged each of them to recognize the Soviet claim to the Curzon Line, but he found them both adamantly opposed. Though the president “understood” the security argument behind the Soviet demand, he maintained that “it was not necessary nor wise to bring it up now.” Roosevelt did not want the territorial provision incorporated in the Anglo-Soviet treaty, believing that the matter would solve itself in time. At the peace conference it might “ultimately be done, in equity and good conscience,” he said, but it must “not be projected and established through or during military operations.” The president was confident that if he and Stalin could have a personal talk, the Soviet premier “would appreciate the value of not offending world public opinion now.”16 Roosevelt had made his position clear; Davies did not initiate a discussion of the topic again in 1942. Not until the early spring of 1943, after Roosevelt failed to convince Stalin to meet with him, did Davies find the president more receptive to his views on the territorial issue.

Meanwhile, the president set in motion a plan designed to postpone the question of Stalin's territorial claim by offering the Soviet premier something he needed more, a second front. After Hopkins acquired Churchill's agreement “in principle” to a 1943 invasion of Europe, with a possible emergency landing in 1942 if necessary, Roosevelt invited Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov to Washington. Molotov arrived in May 1942, after stopping first in London to sign the Anglo-Soviet Treaty of Alliance. The treaty omitted the crucial clause regarding the Soviet claim to the Curzon Line. With an impending Nazi offensive in mind, the Soviets had decided to avoid any action that might prejudice Roosevelt's plans for an early second front. Having given in to the president, however, Molotov had reason to expect a quid pro quo when he arrived in Washington.17 At their meeting on 30 May, Roosevelt informed his Soviet guest that he could expect a second front that year. Molotov, however, demanded more than a private pledge from the president; he wanted a firm, public commitment to an invasion of Europe in 1942.18

During their discussion the previous evening, the president had asked Molotov if there were any Americans he wanted to see while he was in Washington. The foreign minister had replied that he wished to “exchange greetings” with Joseph Davies. Meeting at the Soviet embassy a few days later, Davies found the Soviet minister particularly concerned about the Anglo-American plans for a second front. Molotov may have been trying to encourage Davies to use his influence to induce the Roosevelt administration to make a more definite commitment to a 1942 invasion. He told Davies that the Red Army “desperately needed” the front. In light of the impending Nazi offensive, “his government needed a definite date so they could coordinate their plans…. His Government had to be definitely advised.”19 A few days later Molotov did obtain Roosevelt's commitment, in the form of a public joint communique, to a second front in Europe in 1942. Davies, however, left no record of a meeting with the president during the remainder of Molotov's stay in Washington, so it is unlikely that he had a direct influence on the president's final decision.20

Molotov returned to England to obtain Churchill's endorsement of the joint communique, but the prime minister refused to sign. He had never committed himself fully to a 1942 front in Europe. By mid-July he succeeded in convincing Roosevelt to agree to an alternate strategy for 1942, an invasion of North Africa, code named “Torch.” Soviet resentment of the new Anglo-American plan was clearly reflected in Litvinov's remarks to Davies. The ambassador had told Davies earlier that “right or wrong, the Soviet people believed that they had received a definite promise” in the joint communique. After the decision on Torch, Litvinov “grumbled bitterly” that the Red Army was doing all the fighting, while the British and Americans were making the decisions and presenting them to the Soviets as a “fait accompli.” Davies urged that they had no “time to stop to pick up pins.” They had to maintain confidence in each other, but as he wrote later, “it didn't go over.”21

During the Anglo-American discussions on Torch, Litvinov's complaints became increasingly anti-British and anti-Churchill in nature. His attitude reflected a long history of Anglo-Soviet friction, stemming from the Bolshevik Revolution itself and from Britain's intervention in the Russian civil war. Churchill, who was instrumental in that intervention, remained an implacable foe of the communist regime throughout the twenties. With the rise of Nazi Germany, however, Churchill led the opposition to appeasement and endorsed collective security measures against Hitler. Old hostilities and suspicions were revived, nonetheless, when negotiations for an alliance against Germany broke down and Moscow and Berlin signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact. In 1941, when the Germans attacked the Soviet Union, Litvinov was convinced, as he later told Davies, “that the British fleet was steaming up the North Sea for [a] joint attack of the British with HITLER” In early 1942 an unpleasant personal encounter between Litvinov and the prime minister could have scarcely encouraged cordial relations between the two men. Churchill had “rather impatiently upbraided” the Soviet ambassador for his handling of a matter involving the UN declaration. According to what the president later told Davies, Churchill's “language bordered on the insulting.” When the prime minister pressed for the invasion of North Africa, Litvinov insisted that Churchill opposed the cross-channel invasion “for political and Empire reasons.”22 The argument began to appeal to Davies.

The president, unwittingly, may have reinforced Litvinov's views. In several conversations with Davies, Roosevelt complained about Churchill's “mid-Victorian attitude” toward the British Empire. The prime minister refused to endorse the mandate system, and he opposed Roosevelt's call for colonial independence after the war. The president feared that peace would be threatened by the existence of colonial empires. “The tail,” he said, “could not continue to wag the dog.” He told Davies that he had informed the prime minister that he was prepared to take the problem “up personally with his King and his advisers.” He was confident, however, that in the long run Churchill himself would “lead the way.”23

During the summer, the former ambassador began to interpret Soviet-Western diplomacy in terms of the historic friction in Anglo-Soviet relations. That bias influenced his analysis of a series of conversations between Churchill and Stalin in Moscow. In August 1942 the prime minister went to the Soviet Union to personally explain the Anglo-American decision on Torch to the indignant Soviet premier. Though cordiality dominated the final meeting of the two leaders, Davies became convinced that the general tone of their conversations clearly revealed the deep distrust with which Stalin regarded the British prime minister. He began to assume that Churchill could not serve as a mediator to restore Soviet confidence in the Western allies. Only Roosevelt could do that.24

The president's confidence in his own ability to win Stalin's trust paralleled that of Davies. He had expressed that faith with brutal frankness in a letter to Churchill the previous spring. “Stalin hates the guts of all your top people. He thinks he likes me better, and I hope he will continue to do so.” By August, however, the premier had rejected all Roosevelt's invitations for a meeting, and the president made no secret of his growing concern. He told journalists Arthur Krock and Mark Sullivan that he had instructed Ambassador Standley in Moscow to propose the idea of a meeting to the Soviet premier, but Standley “had received a ‘brush-off.’ ” Krock and Sullivan discussed the problem with Davies late in the summer. They suggested that he “try to do something about it.”25

Not surprisingly, Davies responded to the suggestion. Throughout the fall of 1942, using his access to the Soviet embassy and the White House, he encouraged the Soviets to trust Roosevelt, while advising Hopkins and the president to give first priority to a private meeting with Stalin. In conversations with the Soviet ambassador, Davies was forced to submit to a barrage of complaints that reinforced his conviction that a Roosevelt-Stalin meeting was imperative. As Hitler's armies marched toward Stalingrad, Litvinov became desperately worried. “Why—why, … do you not take some of the weight ‘off the back’ of our Army,” he demanded. Although Litvinov sympathized with Roosevelt's predicament regarding the joint communique, he said that the Soviet people could not accept a broken promise. Davies suggested that the African invasion and air bombing of Germany were in “compliance with the spirit of the [joint] communique,” but Litvinov “would have none of it.” He criticized Churchill's motives and warned that the Soviets were losing faith in America's “ability to resist British influence.” Davies said he “had no need to worry about F.D.R.” He urged the Soviet ambassador to assure Stalin that Roosevelt's prime objective was to keep allied unity in order to defeat Hitler.26

In conversations with Hopkins, Davies emphasized the need to restore Soviet confidence in the United States. The Russians were suspicious, he said, because of Roosevelt's opposition to the Curzon Line as well as his failure to carry out the promise of the joint communique. However, the main problem, he told Hopkins, was Churchill. The Soviets thought he was “only using them to beat off a mad dog, until, thereafter, [he could] discard them as no longer necessary. That is, of course, crazy, … but that is what the ‘tops’ are thinking as I read them.” As a solution, Davies recommended a private meeting between Stalin and Roosevelt. There was no reason why Churchill should serve as “a friendly broker” in Soviet-American relations, especially when Stalin “distrusted the broker more than he did the other party.” The argument seemed to appeal to Hopkins, who suggested that Davies explain it to Roosevelt.27

Davies volunteered the suggestion to Roosevelt, but he did not press it. Early in November 1942 British and American troops invaded North Africa. Military considerations required a meeting of the leaders of the three allied governments to plan future strategy. There could be no question of omitting Churchill. As plans for a top-level conference proceeded, Roosevelt was careful to avoid any action that might suggest to Stalin that the president and the prime minister were settling matters between themselves before conferring with the Soviet premier. With that in mind, Roosevelt rejected Churchill's request for a preliminary Anglo-American conference.28

Arranging a meeting for the three leaders proved elusive. Roosevelt wrote three invitations to the Soviet premier and received three rejections before he became convinced that Stalin was not interested in a meeting with his two Western allies. In early December the premier's final message on the subject implied that there was nothing to talk about, that all the West had to do was open a second front in Europe in the spring. The president had no choice but to settle for a conference alone with the prime minister.29 Thus, in 1942 Roosevelt failed to establish personal contact with Stalin. The groundwork had been laid, however, for a presidential initiative the following spring, which would directly involve Davies in the arrangements for a private meeting between the president and the Soviet premier.

Soviet-Western relations continued to deteriorate in early 1943. In January, at the Casablanca Conference, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to delay the cross-channel invasion a second time in order to attack Hitler from the south through Sicily. Litvinov complained bitterly to Davies when he learned of the decision and scorned Churchill's plan to “attack by way of the ‘soft underbelly of the axis.’ ”30 In March, Soviet-American relations were further chilled when Ambassador Standley accused Soviet officials of concealing information from the Russian people on America's Lend-Lease contribution to the war effort. Responding to the situation, the London Times suggested that Britain should serve as a friendly broker to ease the tensions in Soviet-American relations. On 12 March, when Foreign Minister Anthony Eden arrived in Washington, it was rumored that he had come to serve as a mediator to “patch up” relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Roosevelt resented the idea that he needed Britain's help to restore harmony in his relations with the Soviets.31

On 13 March, the president began to formulate a rudimentary plan that could, in its final stages, simultaneously restore Soviet confidence in the United States and disqualify Britain as a broker. In a meeting with Davies, he outlined his concerns about the deterioration in Soviet-American relations. The president “knew Stalin was bitter over the second front”; Standley's criticism had made the situation worse. The ambassador “had messed things up,” Roosevelt said, and was no longer of use in Moscow. He would have to come home. The president wanted Davies to return to Russia to take up his old post as ambassador. Davies was the best man “to straighten out that situation.” According to Roosevelt's advisers, the former ambassador was his “ ‘Ace in the Deck.’” The assignment appealed to Davies, but he reminded the president that his doctors would oppose any plans for a long stay in the Soviet Union. Roosevelt recommended a physical checkup. If the medical test results showed that Davies could not stay in Moscow for an extended period, the president wanted him to go for about “four or six weeks.”32

The two men discussed Foreign Secretary Eden's visit to Washington “and the idea being circulated that it required the intervention of G. B. as a friendly broker or ‘go between’ to bring about understanding between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A.” Davies admitted that at that moment relations between Moscow and London appeared to be more stable than relations between Moscow and Washington. The former ambassador was convinced, however, that despite the good will produced by the Anglo-Soviet treaty, “legacies of old suspicions” continued to plague relations between Britain and Russia. The Soviets harbored a deep “mistrust of British Imperialism” and of Churchill's motives in prosecuting the war. Roosevelt was suspect, warned Davies, because the Soviets thought that he and Churchill “were great cronies.” The president believed it was essential that “there should be no differences now to divide the allied strength against Hitler. He wanted Stalin to know that [the United States was] on the level—had no axes to grind, and [was] concerned first with winning the war.” Possibly as a result of Davies's analysis of Soviet opinion, the president kept the Soviets fully informed of his discussions with Eden and made it clear that the United States was party to no decisions on the status of postwar Europe. Roosevelt wanted to convince the Soviets that the United States was not “in a secret combination with the British.”33

Roosevelt reviewed the efforts that he and Churchill had made to convince Stalin to agree to a meeting of the three leaders. All had failed. The president believed “it was vitally necessary that” he meet with the Soviet premier. He was certain that “if he and Stalin could have a face to face talk,” he could clear up the misunderstandings. He instructed his envoy to “talk the whole situation” over with Stalin and “to arrange for a meeting.” Davies was to make “a general exploration of all matters affecting the war and the peace,” and “to see where the ideas of the Pres. and Stalin might be in accord and wherein there might be difference[s].” Roosevelt did not want the Soviet premier to fear that in the event of a meeting of the three powers, Stalin “would be in the ‘nutcracker’ and at a disadvantage.” Roosevelt did not suggest at that time that he wanted Davies to arrange a meeting without Churchill. The former ambassador was left with the impression that the president had devised a new strategy to convince Stalin to agree to a meeting of the three heads of state.34

On 16 March, Davies was admitted to Boston's Lahey Clinic. He underwent a series of tests that proved that his condition was benign, but confirmed his earlier suspicion that he could not remain in Moscow for an extended period. “You silly, old idiot,” cabled Roosevelt when he heard the news, “why did you think that you could have a condition other than benign after suffering from it for fourteen years! For the love of Pete take care of yourself first and when that is done, come to Papa at the White House.”35

On 2 April, while still resting in the hospital, Davies sent a memo to Hopkins and Roosevelt, analyzing Britain's diplomatic role as a friendly broker. “Ironical” though it was, wrote Davies, in 1943 Churchill was being “heralded as the ‘good broker’ to patch up differences between” the Soviet Union and the United States. That recently achieved stability in Anglo-Soviet relations was due to London's “realistic” approach to foreign policy. “Without blinking,” Britain had recognized Stalin's claim to the Curzon boundary and had signed a treaty of alliance with the Soviets, both of which the United States had refused to do. The situation was “not good,” warned Davies. Washington had to adopt a similarly realistic approach to relations with Moscow. After the war, “the world ‘setup’ [would] be radically changed.” England would “be faced with bankruptcy,” and only the United States and the Soviet Union would have sufficient resources to finance world reconstruction. Peace and stability would then depend on their ability to cooperate. In view of the cordial relations that had existed between Russia and the United States before the war, there was no reason why present or future differences “could not be rationally composed.” The same, however, could not be said for England. With the defeat of Hitler, latent tensions in Anglo-Soviet relations over Churchill's desire to control the balance of power in Europe and to maintain the empire and command of the seas would surface and lead to clashes of interest that could threaten world peace. The United States would then be called on to assume the role of broker in Anglo-Soviet relations. In the meantime, Davies concluded, it was essential “in the face of Stalin's bitterness toward Churchill, bred at Versailles and thereafter, and recently intensified, … that the President should personally step into the breach to at least establish confidence in our good faith and purposes.”36

On 12 April, just after Davies returned to Washington, he and the president met again. Their discussion that afternoon covered a wide range of topics from domestic politics to the structure of the postwar peace. Regarding Roosevelt's instructions for the mission, Davies left only a brief and incomplete note. The president wanted him to “arrange for a meeting either ——or——.”37 In a later, more detailed account of their discussion, however, Davies made it clear that the president had definitely abandoned his original plans for a three-power meeting. His new instructions were explicit. “If you are able to arrange this meeting, after some thought I think it would be better at the outset if it were confined to Stalin and myself…. ‘Three is a crowd,’” he said, “and we can arrange for the Big Three to get together thereafter. Churchill will understand. I will take care of that.”38

The president's ideas regarding the arrangements for the meeting with Stalin continued to evolve. On 29 April, in a final conference with Davies, Roosevelt said he had come to the conclusion that the best way to broach the subject of the meeting with Stalin was to address a letter from himself directly to the premier. In that case, replied Davies, there was no need to send a special envoy to Moscow. Ambassador Standley could give Roosevelt's message to Stalin. But the president said no and that he specifically wanted Davies to deliver the letter, as he knew the Soviets “had confidence in what [Davies] would say.” The former ambassador, moreover, could present his “own views which [the Soviets] knew would have weight” with Roosevelt. Davies would also be in a position to obtain Stalin's ideas for the president's use. Roosevelt was certain that if a meeting could be arranged, “he could convince Stalin of the advisability of doing things in a way that would not give offense to the public…. He was sure that ‘Uncle Joe’ (as he called him) and he would understand each other.”

The president said that Hopkins had told him about the brief that Davies had prepared on the subjects he would need to explore with Stalin. Roosevelt “felt that this had covered the ground thoroughly.” The president was referring to Davies's brief entitled “Complaints I May Have to Confront,” which outlined possible responses to questions Stalin might raise. On the matter of the Curzon Line, Davies planned to tell Stalin: “We think you are entitled to the Curzon Line, but think it unwise to insist upon it now.” The evidence suggests that the president was authorizing the former ambassador to inform Stalin that the United States would take a positive stand on the Soviet Union's crucial claim to the Curzon Line. According to Davies's notes on the meeting, however, Roosevelt never made that authority explicit.

The two men discussed a possibly site for the meeting. The president recommended a secluded place, possibly on a ship. Checking his desk globe, he decided that Alaska seemed to be about halfway between Moscow and Washington. The former ambassador could suggest that site to Stalin.39

Davies left Washington on 6 May 1943, arriving in Moscow thirteen days later. On the evening of 20 May, Davies and Ambassador Standley were ushered into Stalin's conference room in the Kremlin where they were greeted by Stalin, Molotov, and the interpreter Pavlov. Standley formally presented Davies to the premier and then excused himself saying he had “guests at the Embassy.” Davies had informed Standley earlier that the president believed “more could be accomplished” if Davies were “unaccompanied when he delivered the President's letter.” Roosevelt had told his envoy in March that the Soviet leaders “would talk on a more frank and friendly basis” if Standley were not present.40

Davies spent two and a half hours with Stalin. He presented Roosevelt's letter, which Pavlov translated. The president requested a meeting with the premier that summer; Churchill was not to be invited. Roosevelt wanted a “completely simple visit,” without large staffs, so the two leaders could have “ ‘a meeting of the minds.’ ” During the translation, Stalin, “doodling” on a piece of paper, remained silent and “grim.” Davies said that the president was concerned about the deterioration in Soviet-American relations, which “had become acute when there developed the recent unfortunate incident precipitated by a statement made by our Ambassador here.” If Stalin and Roosevelt could meet, the problems between them could be ironed out. “I am not so sure,” Stalin replied. It took Davies “a long time to penetrate a suspicious, almost hostile attitude.” Finally, however, the Soviet premier agreed to meet with the president.41

During the course of their discussion, Davies offered Stalin some insights into the relationship between Roosevelt and Churchill. Despite mutual respect and loyalty, he said, Roosevelt did not agree with Churchill on several issues. The president's “ideas as to post-war conditions, in some respects, particularly with reference to colonial and backward peoples, for instance, differed from those of the Prime Minister.” Churchill was “more representative of British Imperial policy than of the American point of view.” Davies's description of the Churchill-Roosevelt relationship was based on several conversations he had had with the president during the past year.42 There is no evidence, however, that Roosevelt gave his emissary the authority to discuss his relationship with the prime minister in such detail with Stalin.

Davies said that Roosevelt did not believe that the United States needed a friendly broker in its relations with the Soviet Union, and that it was essential that Soviet and American leaders work out their own problems. The former ambassador predicted that after the war Britain would be exhausted, and world peace would depend on the ability of the United States and the Soviet Union to cooperate. The Soviets, Davies suggested, could do their part in reducing tension between the two countries by abolishing the Comintern.43 The suggestion may have had no direct influence on the matter, but two days later the Soviet Union abolished the Comintern.

Davies followed the general outline of his April brief in presenting the American position on the major issues of controversy. On the question of the Curzon Line, he assured the premier that recognition of the Soviet claim would come “as a natural and necessary decision at the Peace Table.” For the moment, however, he said, “our Public Opinion had to be considered.” Roosevelt was “concerned that there should not even be suspicion that the Principles of the Atlantic Charter were not being now sustained by the Three Allies.” Stalin could be assured that the president, a realist as well as an idealist, was cognizant of the fact that “the millenium had not yet arrived,” and in the meantime the great powers would have to take whatever steps were necessary to maintain their vital securities.44 It has generally been assumed that Stalin did not learn of Roosevelt's position on the Curzon Line until the Tehran Conference in December 1943. It would appear, however, that Davies provided Stalin with that information seven months earlier.

A week later, Stalin presented Davies with a formal written reply to Roosevelt's invitation. The Soviet premier agreed that a conference was “necessary,” and suggested they meet sometime “in July or August.” He recommended Fairbanks, Alaska, as a site.45 Having accomplished the primary goal of his mission, Davies left Moscow two days later. His plane had been spruced up for the journey home. Painted on the outside in large yellow letters in both English and Russian were the words: “Mission to Moscow.”46

Arriving in Washington on 3 June, the former ambassador went directly to the White House to report to the president. Roosevelt read Stalin's written reply and questioned Davies in detail about the premier's oral response to the invitation. Davies explained the code that Stalin had suggested should be used for any further correspondence related to the Fairbanks meeting. Based on his discussions with Stalin and several other officials in Moscow, the presidential envoy then presented his own analysis of the state of Soviet opinion. Much of the report confirmed his earlier impressions of Soviet attitudes based on conversations before the mission with officials at the Soviet embassy in Washington.47

In an official written report for the president, Davies described the Soviet attitude toward Britain as “cordial and strong.” He wrote that the Russians placed “great reliance upon the May 26, 1942 treaty with Great Britain.” In his unofficial, oral report to the president, however, Davies described the Soviet attitude in less positive terms. Talks with Stalin, Molotov, and other Soviet officials had confirmed his earlier impression that the Russians did not trust Churchill. They feared that his first concern was to protect the British empire and to maintain control of the balance of power in Europe. They were suspicious of British attempts to build a federation out of eastern European countries that would serve in the future as a possible “cordon sanitaire” against the Soviet Union. A small group of Soviet “isolationists” feared that Britain planned to let the Soviet Union and Germany fight each other until both were exhausted, so that Britain could control the terms of peace.48

Davies had found the Soviets critical of American policy as well. Stalin had stated emphatically that his claim to the territory in Poland east of the Curzon Line was not open to discussion; he “held that to be settled.” The Soviets did not accept the Anglo-American campaign in Africa as a true second front. “They were suspicious,” said Davies, “and stated flatly that commitments had been broken.” Davies believed that his mission “had relieved [the] fear and suspicion somewhat as to the President himself.” The Soviets, however, “were still convinced that if he [could] help it, Churchill [would] never consent to a Cross-Channel crossing.” If the allies failed to establish a front in western Europe in the summer of 1943, Davies concluded, it would “have far reaching effects” on the Soviet attitude toward “the prosecution of this war and in their participation in the reconstruction of peace.”49

The mission was finished. Davies had spent twenty-seven days traveling almost 26,000 miles at a cost of $25,000 from the president's emergency fund. Roosevelt complimented his friend on a job well done and told him to go home for a well-deserved rest.50

What had the mission accomplished? Davies's personal assessment was predictably positive. He concluded that the mission served as a “transitional period in Soviet-American relations. President Roosevelt had taken the initiative, and Marshall Stalin had responded…. Stalin had come out of his shell.” Roosevelt had replaced Churchill as the friendly broker.51 On the surface, Davies's conclusions may have been justified. Stalin had finally responded positively to Roosevelt's request for a meeting, and Soviet-American relations, threatened earlier by the Standley incident, appeared to be more cordial. Symbolic of that new atmosphere was the decision to abolish the Comintern and the manner in which the Soviets treated Davies during his mission. His reception “was the warmest given any visiting foreigner.” Pravda allotted him “more prominence than even Winston Churchill received.”52

In the long run, however, the mission may have had other more subtle effects on relations among the allies, particularly in regard to Stalin's approach to the United States. Since June 1941 the Red Army had been on the defensive, pleading for support from the West. Then in early 1943 the victory at Stalingrad had turned the tide. The Soviets were feeling “pretty cocky” after their victory, Hopkins later told Davies. They “don't need the West to beat Hitler, if they have to.”53 It was just at that time that the president sent his personal envoy halfway around the world to entreat the Soviet leader to join him in a private meeting, a meeting without Prime Minister Churchill. Stalin must have been impressed with his seemingly improved status vis-à-vis his two Western allies. Davies's assurances on the Curzon Line and the information he provided concerning Roosevelt's relationship with Churchill could have only reinforced that impression.

The mission also created tension in Anglo-American relations. Roosevelt did not inform Churchill of his purpose behind the mission until after Davies had returned from Moscow. The prime minister at first responded angrily to the news, although in the long run he grudgingly gave his assent to a Roosevelt-Stalin meeting. The president later denied that he had proposed the idea of a private meeting with the Soviet premier. He wrote Churchill that it was Stalin who had “assumed” that the meeting would not include the prime minister.54 That the strain in Anglo-American relations was kept to a minimum was more to Churchill's credit than to that of Roosevelt.

The mission may have reinforced Roosevelt's confidence in the personal approach to Soviet-American relations. Events seemed to prove that Stalin could be reached through informal personal contacts. Hopkins's trip to Moscow in the summer of 1941 had clearly demonstrated the benefits of such an approach. Davies's mission in May 1943 seemed to confirm them; personal diplomacy had succeeded, after every other approach had failed, in convincing Stalin to meet with the president.

In the end, the mission did not succeed in its purpose; the meeting at Fairbanks never took place. While Davies was in Moscow, the British and American Joint Chiefs of Staff met in Washington and agreed to again delay the cross-channel invasion. Stalin reacted by withdrawing his ambassadors from London and Washington and by calling off the Fairbanks meeting. Roosevelt's carefully planned strategy had failed. The president could conclude, however, that it had not failed because of any fault in Davies's personal diplomacy, but because of a military decision entirely divorced from the activities of the former ambassador.

The mission to Moscow in 1943 was the high point of Davies's career as an unofficial intermediary between leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States. It was not the last time, however, that the administration relied on Davies's services. When the Fairbanks meeting was called off, Roosevelt again turned privately to the former ambassador for help in arranging a meeting with Stalin. After establishing his own personal relationship with the Soviet premier at the Tehran conference in December 1943, the president depended on Davies's services on fewer occasions. The former ambassador continued to function as a liaison but during the remainder of Roosevelt's administration, it was the State Department, rather than the president, that took advantage of Davies's connections with Soviet officials.55

In April 1945, when Harry S Truman became president, he turned for advice to Davies and Roosevelt's other old advisers. The new president also capitalized on Davies's position as an intermediary to the Soviets. Truman's decisions to send the former ambassador on a mission to London in May 1945 and to take him as an adviser to the Potsdam conference in July of the same year were largely based on the advantages stemming from Davies's personal connections with Soviet officials.56 The rapid decline of Davies's influence in the administration after the Potsdam conference reflected the changes then taking place in Truman's approach to Soviet-American relations. Davies's position as an unofficial liaison had rested on two assumptions: the United States needed to have the confidence of the Soviets, and Stalin could be trusted. As the two former allies turned into adversaries, it became clear that the Truman administration no longer accepted those assumptions. In the atmosphere of the Cold War, there was no place for a Joseph E. Davies.

Footnotes

Author notes