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

“Realizing that her father would never have time to master the language while also performing his ambassadorial duties in Moscow, Kathy had decided to learn Russian for both of them. […] The small number of English-speaking Russian tutors in Moscow were already engaged, so she had to employ a French-speaking tutor […] Her Russian was hardly perfect, but she spoke well enough to act as her father’s interpreter at social gatherings.”

This quotation demonstrates Kathleen Harriman’s intelligence, professionalism and work ethic by showing how devoted she was to her role as her father’s assistant in Moscow. Katz also stresses the cultural rift between the USSR and the US, as there were few English speakers in Moscow at the time and even Kathleen’s father, the American ambassador, did not speak Russian. Such gaps in linguistic and cultural understanding foreshadowed The Tensions Between the Western Allies and the USSR that became more prominent during and after the Yalta Conference.

“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.’”

In this passage, the author reveals that Sarah Churchill had participated in the 1943 Tehran conference, at the request of her father. The conference had been a “triumph,” since the Allies had managed to arrange the D-Day landings, which were ultimately successful. Churchill’s optimistic expectation that the Yalta conference could be a continuation of this “genuine” friendship would later be disappointed.

“Anna was anxious not for herself but for her father. Sarah’s perception had been acute: Franklin Roosevelt was seriously ill. He was dying of congestive heart failure. Other than the doctors, Anna was the only person who knew just how grave his situation had become.”

Katz reveals that at the time of the Yalta Conference, President Roosevelt was very sick, and did not even know the extent of his own illness, since it was kept secret from him. This passage shows Anna Roosevelt’s perspective at Yalta, where she was fiercely protective of her father without revealing to their British allies the reason behind her behavior. This lack of communication led to a fracturing of Roosevelt and Churchill’s friendship.

“The ambassador feared that the president was once again choosing to downplay a grave danger to American and Allied interests, thus revealing a naive understanding of the Soviet leadership’s true power and ambition. It was convenient to forget that the Soviet Union had been in league with the Nazis for a year and half at the beginning of the war.”

Averell Harriman considered President Roosevelt a naively optimistic leader when it came to assessing the Soviet threat, while Roosevelt was confident that Stalin could be persuaded to set aside imperialist ambitions. This passage reflects The Complexities of Diplomacy and the tension, competing interests, and ultimately, betrayal, involved in the Allies’ commitments at Yalta.

“Though neither Sarah nor Anna knew it as they drove south, the destruction the Nazis had wrought in the Crimea masked the brutality the Nazis had already inflicted on their own people there. The charred cooperative farms, which Stalin had organized in response to a grain shortfall in 1928, were vestiges not of agrarian prosperity destroyed by war, but of state-sponsored famine. Between 1928 and 1940, Soviet collectivization led to the deaths of millions of peasants.”

This passage provides historical context of the Crimean region, where the Yalta Conference took place, stressing the consequences of Stalin’s leadership for millions of people under his rule. It also reveals that while Anna Roosevelt and Sarah Churchill were educated and politically connected, the extent of Stalin’s terrors were still unknown to them, reflecting the limited knowledge Westerns had about the Soviet Union and Stalin’s secretive regime.

“The notion that they could, in five to six days, settle matters as complicated as German partition, reparations payments, the structure of Roosevelt’s international peace organization, Soviet participation in the Pacific War, and free elections in Eastern Europe was pure folly. Of all the issues up for debate, nothing upset Churchill more than the Americans’ complacency about the future of Poland and what the nation’s independence represented.”

At the conference, three superpower nations had to agree on numerous contentious topics within a short period of time. Churchill believed that the brief timeline for the conference had set them up to fail, and was concerned about securing Poland’s post-war independence from the Soviet Union.

“The Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact between the Nazis and the Soviets had long since been torn to shreds, but Poland seemed like an alternative reality, where a pact between enemies was still alive and well. If the Americans and the British failed to guarantee Polish sovereignty now, Britain’s original declaration of war against the Nazis, as well as the sacrifices of the Polish soldiers who had fought steadfastly against the Nazis, would have been in vain.”

While the outcome of the conference would have significant consequences for Poland, they did not have any representatives at the conference. The British were particularly invested in securing Polish independence, since they had declared war on Germany after Hitler invaded Poland, a British ally. The competing approaches to post-war Poland were at the heart of The Tensions Between the Western Allies and the USSR.

“Like her father and grandfather, Kathy was unquestionably independent and forthright, and she seemed to succeed in everything she attempted. Shortly after arriving in Moscow, Kathy had decided to compete in the Moscow Slalom Championships […] she had taken third place against a field of the Soviet Union’s best female skiers—many of whom were in the Red Army.”

Katz characterizes Kathleen Harriman as an independent and confident person, traits which seemed to run in the family. By emphasizing Harriman’s athletic skills and her competitive nature, Katz explores Kathleen’s commitment to Defying Gender Roles and Expectations in a variety of ways.

“Though they had made no concrete agreements, Roosevelt had achieved what he wanted. He had offered Stalin an important signal: the Americans were not simply going to walk in lockstep with the British this time. The Americans and the Soviets could negotiate without them.”

Katz claims that Roosevelt’s approach to negotiating with Stalin meant distancing himself from the British and privately extending an olive branch to the Soviets by critiquing British plans behind their backs. This passage ominously implies that by approaching Stalin on his own, Roosevelt inadvertently gave the Soviet leader more power in the negotiations, adding another layer to The Complexities of Diplomacy.

“While at first Stalin seemed to drive a hard bargain about German dismemberment, he now took a step back. It was all part of Soviet posturing in the delicate dance of negotiation, minimizing the important and magnifying the trivial to obscure true intentions. […] If he appeared willing to negotiate in good faith now, on an issue that seemed to be a Soviet priority, Churchill and Roosevelt would have to reciprocate later. And that was where he would win the most important concessions.”

Katz here considers Stalin’s cunning negotiating style, in which he pretended to care about relatively trivial subjects—such as the potential permanent separation of Germany into smaller states—to manipulate Roosevelt and Churchill into compromising on other matters. This passage emphasizes Stalin’s secrecy and disingenuous approach to negotiations, foreshadowing the breakdown of his commitments after Yalta.

“Though the Americans and British expected the Soviets to bug the premises and therefore swept for listening devices when they arrived, many of the Soviet bugs contained no metal, so the sweeps failed to pick them up. In addition to bugs, the Soviets had directional microphones […] The visiting delegates would inevitably flock to the gardens for private conversations, so the Soviets planted bugs there too.”

Katz reveals that the Soviets spied on British and American delegations with bugs and microphones placed strategically inside and outside Livadia Palace. They had translators eavesdrop on private conversations and transcribe them so Stalin could keep abreast of each delegation’s exchanges. This passage reveals the disadvantage that the British and American administrations experienced by agreeing to hold the conference on Soviet soil, and emphasizes The Tensions Between the Western Allies and the USSR. 

“There was just one problem. Kathy was wrong. With a journalist’s skepticism, she had become wary of the Soviet regime in the early days of the war, long before her father and his colleagues developed the same attitude. But like many others before her, she had been taken in by Stalin’s deceit.”

In spite of her suspicion, Kathleen Harriman was initially convinced by Stalin’s presentation of the Katyn Forest massacre, which blamed the Nazis for the slaughter of tens of thousands of Polish soldiers. The passage emphasizes how Stalin could masterfully weave false narratives, suggesting that his actions at Yalta might also be deceitful.

“In her compassion for the enemy, Sarah was much like her father. Near the end of the long and gruesome Boer War, Winston, just twenty-five, wrote in the morning post, ‘The wise and right course is to beat down all who resist, even to the last man, but not to withhold forgiveness and even friendship from any who wish to surrender […] Therein lies the shortest road to ‘peace with honor.’‘ Evidently, the Soviets did not share this perspective.”

Katz draws parallels between Sarah Churchill’s compassion for Romanian POWs who were enslaved by the Soviets to rebuild Russian cities, and Winston Churchill’s merciful attitude toward those he fought in the Boer War in South Africa. This passage connects to the two nations’ different approaches to the post-war period, as seen in their discussions at Yalta: Churchill advocated for a more measured, merciful approach, while Stalin demanded reparations and suggested killing all the officers in the German army. This anecdote also reveals more about Sarah Churchill’s sensitive personality and her personal experience at Yalta.

“When it came to Poland, Harriman knew Stalin ‘wanted to dominate them, to make certain that they would never again serve as a pathway for German aggression against Russia.’ Roosevelt’s appeal would be as ineffectual as a glass hammer in moderating whatever behavior Stalin felt was necessary to bring his neighbor into line.”

Katz explains how Ambassador Averell Harriman and President Roosevelt’s approaches to Stalin’s aggression against Poland diverged, reflecting The Complexities of Diplomacy. While Harriman had lived in the Soviet Union and dealt directly with the communist government there, Roosevelt did not agree with his advice about Stalin, instead insisting that he could persuade him with friendship and reason.

“But no matter how analytically Anna looked at the situation, the matter was emotional and intensely personal. Her father was dying, and she was willing to do anything to give him peace and comfort to ward off the inevitable.”

This passage explains how Anna Roosevelt overcame her anger and discomfort with her father’s affair because of his advanced age and ill health. By explaining Anna Roosevelt’s complex relationship with both her father and his mistress, Katz emphasizes how Anna often ignored her own disappointments in her father to make him happy.

“Beria thrived on the dread he almost universally instilled in people, and this ready creation of fear allowed him, and by extension Stalin and the Soviet regime, to control individuals and subjugate a population.”

Katz characterizes Beria, the head of the Soviet secret police, as a terrifying individual who supported Stalin’s rule by controlling the Soviet population with fear of punishment. This passage highlights the frightening tactics which Stalin’s government used against its own population, with Katz depicting the Soviets as an unreliable ally by default.

“If the British and the Americans failed to check the Soviets’ efforts to seize control of the Polish government and undermine Polish self-determination, the Soviets were sure to do the same in every country in Eastern Europe, where the Red Army had boots on the ground. The Soviets were not liberators. They were simply replacing the Nazis as the occupying power […] Churchill made his feelings perfectly clear: ‘These are among the most important days that any of us shall live.’”

Churchill repeatedly insisted on guaranteeing Polish freedom from Soviet interference, reflecting The Tensions Between the Western Allies and the USSR. Katz characterizes Churchill as a clear, forceful, and eloquent leader who wanted to ensure that British efforts to secure democracy in Poland were not in vain.

“The western Allies feared that if they failed to repatriate the Soviet nationals, the Soviets might use the British and American POWs as a bargaining chip, by treating them poorly or delaying their repatriation. Herein lay the problem: many Soviet nationals were begging to not be sent back. Some were so desperate they tried to commit suicide to avoid being repatriated. But for the British and Americans, their own POWs remained their primary concern.”

This passage adds to Katz’s theme on The Tensions Between the Western Allies and the USSR by highlighting the distrust between the delegations and the uneasy compromises which British and American leaders felt they had to make. This quotation Katz again portrays Stalin’s government as a force of cruelty which many people wished to escape.

“Sarah had watched as her father spent weeks, months, and years, grappling with the Soviets, trying to bridge the gap between socialism and democracy in order to vanquish a common enemy. Despite the apparent success of the conference, it was clear that the Soviet Union was pulling farther and farther away from Britain and the United States, even as their armies—and their borders—moved closer together.”

Katz explores the irony of the Yalta Conference’s externally celebratory mood, focusing on Winston Churchill’s private anxiety at the state of British-Soviet affairs and the Soviets’ imperialist ambitions. This quotation reiterates that, like his initial stance on Hitler, Churchill had a realistic assessment of Stalin as a person and leader, and that the deepening chasm between their countries was concerning to him.

“In the two months since Yalta, the goodwill between East and West had almost completely evaporated, even though nothing but news of success was coming in from the front lines […] Kathy admitted to Pamela, ‘Lord knows I fell for the Yalta atmosphere of good fellowship, brothers in arms etc etc hook line and sinker.’”

Kathleen Harriman’s admission that she was persuaded by the Soviets’ deceptive bargaining strategies reinforces how manipulative Stalin was at Yalta, and how quickly he violated his agreements. Within only two months of the conference, The Tensions Between the Western Allies and the USSR had only grown.

“Franklin had never mentioned any of these feelings to Anna. In her heart she had known she had been a help to him, that she had been invaluable in the last weeks of his life. Reading it stated now, in the letter from Lucy, it must have felt as if her father were speaking to her one last time, finally saying what she had yearned to hear for so long.”

Katz here explains how a letter from Roosevelt’s mistress, Lucy Mercer, provided Anna Roosevelt with the validation and recognition she had wanted from her father. This passage provides further insight into the father-daughter dynamic between the Roosevelts, and characterizes Anna as a dutiful daughter who sought her father’s attention and approval. Roosevelt’s reluctance to openly credit his daughter for her help reflects the challenges of Defying Gender Roles and Expectations that women like Anna habitually faced.

“Churchill began his month-long campaign on June 4 with a fiery speech denouncing the rising popularity of socialism in Britain. He hoped desperately to convince Labour’s followers of the perils that followed what appeared to be a humanitarian, well-meaning form of socialist government […] These were fierce words fueled by Churchill’s growing alarm over developments in Eastern Europe.”

Churchill campaigned passionately against the Labour party in Britain’s first post-war election (which he would later lose). Churchill drew parallels between some of the Labour party’s proposed social services and socialism as practiced in the Soviet Union. Katz portrays Churchill’s campaign as “off-tone” and out of touch with the British public, as Churchill conflated Soviet totalitarianism with Labour’s much milder and democratic policies—an assumption Sarah warned Churchill was inaccurate.

“The war had taken her from the lowest point of her life to the summit of the world, but what mattered to Sarah more than the glamorous banquets, the travel to far-flung reaches of the earth, the privileged information, or the chance to meet leaders whom history would long remember was the relationship she had built with her father.”

Sarah Churchill confessed in her letters to her parents that she felt she knew them better than ever, and was thankful for their new closeness. This passage points to the distance and formality Sarah felt in her parental relationships as a child, and demonstrates how the silver lining of the war was her ability to build a closer bond with both of her parents.