257. Churchill, FDR, & Mind Games at Yalta (Ep 2)

Summary

Empire Podcast Episode 257: Churchill, FDR, & Mind Games at Yalta (Ep 2)

Host: Anita Anand and William Dalrymple
Release Date: May 21, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 257 of Empire, hosts Anita Anand and William Dalrymple delve into the intricate dynamics between three pivotal leaders—Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), and Joseph Stalin—during the critical period leading up to the Yalta Conference. This episode examines their personal backgrounds, political maneuvers, and the underlying tensions that shaped the decisions made at Yalta, a conference that would significantly influence the post-World War II world order.

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Franklin D. Roosevelt: From Privilege to Paralysis

Timestamp: [02:00] - [09:53]

William Dalrymple opens the discussion by exploring FDR’s early life, highlighting his privileged upbringing in Hyde Park, New York. Born into wealth, FDR was schooled at home before attending the prestigious Groton School at 14. Contrary to the rugged environment, FDR was a bookish and reserved child, earning the nickname "the feather duster" for his delicate stature.

A pivotal moment in FDR's life occurred in August 1921 when, at age 39, he was stricken with an illness that left him paralyzed from the waist down. While initially diagnosed with polio, some modern medical analyses suggest it might have been Guillain-Barré Syndrome. This profound personal challenge shaped FDR’s public persona as the "Sphinx," a leader who concealed his vulnerability to project strength and resilience. Dalrymple notes, “[00:46] He never got use of his legs back... he will always kind of compensate, keep his medical history an enormous secret.”

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Eleanor Roosevelt: A Pillar of Strength and Compassion

Timestamp: [10:45] - [13:44]

Anita Anand shifts focus to Eleanor Roosevelt, FDR’s wife, portraying her as a formidable figure in her own right. An advocate for women's and civil rights, Eleanor maintained a strong partnership with FDR despite personal and political challenges. Their marriage, lasting 56 years, was marked by mutual support, especially during FDR’s bouts with depression, metaphorically referred to as his "black dog moments."

The discussion reveals Eleanor’s significant influence on FDR’s policies and her own relationships, including her close and possibly romantic friendship with journalist Lorena Hickok. This personal dynamic influenced the decisions made at Yalta, notably Eleanor’s absence from the conference, leading FDR to bring his daughter Anna instead.

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Winston Churchill: The Complex Legacy of a British Icon

Timestamp: [13:50] - [22:48]

Dalrymple and Anand provide an extensive overview of Winston Churchill’s background, emphasizing his aristocratic roots in Blenheim Palace and his adventurous military career, including his exploits in the Boer War. Churchill is depicted as a charismatic yet controversial figure—admired in Britain for his wartime leadership but vilified in India for his role in the Bengal famine and imperialist policies.

Churchill’s personal life, including his long and happy marriage to Clementine, and his resilience in the face of public criticism, are highlighted. Dalrymple recounts Churchill’s rebellious nature during his school years and his rise to political prominence, marked by his infamous crossing of the floor from the Conservative to the Liberal Party in 1904—a move that made him deeply unpopular among his peers.

Notable Quote:

"He is the figure whose speeches during the First World War rallied the nation and led to the British putting together to help defeat Nazism." – William Dalrymple [13:50]

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Prelude to Yalta: Complex Alliances and Hidden Agendas

Timestamp: [22:48] - [39:51]

The conversation transitions to the geopolitical landscape leading up to Yalta, emphasizing the strained relations and hidden agendas among the Allies. Roosevelt’s strategic charm offensive aimed at securing Stalin’s cooperation to confront Japan post-Germany’s defeat is contrasted with Churchill’s resistance to Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe.

A critical aspect discussed is the "percentages agreement" secretly negotiated between Churchill and Stalin, delineating spheres of influence in post-war Europe. This clandestine pact, documented in Churchill’s "naughty document," outlined Soviet predominance in Eastern Europe, which Dalrymple explains:

"Churchill writes that document... it's called the naughty document." – Anita Anand [34:09]

The episode also sheds light on the pervasive espionage activities at the time, particularly the betrayal by British spy Guy Burgess. Burgess, a member of the infamous Cambridge Five, supplied Stalin with classified British documents, undermining Allied strategies and adding layers of mistrust among the leaders.

Notable Quote:

"Roosevelt thinks he's got a handle on Stalin. Stalin's got all of their secret positions. Churchill has his naughty list which he thinks he's agreed with Stalin." – William Dalrymple [39:14]

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The Devastation of Yalta and Its Underlying Causes

Timestamp: [23:03] - [38:05]

Anand paints a vivid picture of Yalta as a symbolically significant yet physically devastated location, recently reclaimed from Nazi control but further ravaged by Stalin’s secret police and mass deportations, particularly of the Crimean Tatars. This backdrop sets the stage for the leaders’ grim negotiations.

Dalrymple recounts the rapid advancement of the Soviet Red Army across Eastern Europe, which left little room for negotiation as they approached Berlin. This military pressure forced the leaders into a swift agreement, despite underlying tensions and competing interests.

The episode underscores Churchill’s disdain for handing over Poland to Stalin, a decision that would have long-lasting repercussions on Eastern Europe's political landscape. The discussion highlights the moral and strategic dilemmas faced by Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin as they navigated their alliances amidst war's chaos.

Notable Quote:

"Yalta is none of their first preference, apart from Stalin. The others just don't want to go." – Anita Anand [24:19]

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Espionage and Its Impact on Allied Trust

Timestamp: [36:41] - [38:05]

The hosts delve into the espionage subplot involving Guy Burgess and his role in leaking critical British intelligence to Stalin. This betrayal not only compromised British strategies but also fueled Stalin’s ambitions, allowing him to dominate the discussions at Yalta with insider knowledge.

Dalrymple describes a pivotal moment when Burgess was nearly exposed by the police, yet managed to continue his espionage activities, providing Stalin with hundreds of classified documents. This leak exacerbated the mistrust among the Allied leaders, setting the stage for the contentious negotiations at Yalta.

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Conclusion and Tease for Next Episode

Timestamp: [38:05] - [41:34]

As the episode draws to a close, Dalrymple and Anand summarize the precarious balance of power and the fragile alliances that culminated in the Yalta Conference. They tease the upcoming discussions on how the hidden agendas and secrets of each leader influenced the outcomes at Yalta, shaping the modern geopolitical landscape.

The hosts encourage listeners to join the Empire Club for exclusive content and previews of future episodes, promising deeper insights into the historical events that continue to impact the world today.

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Notable Quotes:

• "He is a man I can do business with." – William Dalrymple [29:42]
• "He calls it the Riviera of Hades. If we had spent 10 years in research, we couldn't have found a worse place." – Anita Anand [24:30]

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Join the Empire Club:
Become a member to access bonus episodes, exclusive newsletters, early show tickets, and more at empirepoduk.com.

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This episode of Empire offers a riveting exploration of the personal and political intricacies among Churchill, FDR, and Stalin, setting the stage for the dramatic negotiations at Yalta that would redefine global power structures.

Transcript

[Anita Anand]

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[William Durrymple]

Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Anand and me, William Durandle. Can I just ask you a question?

[Anita Anand]

You could ask any question as long as it's not inappropriate.

[William Durrymple]

No, we're saving that one for later. I want to know why it is that in the middle of Britain's greatest heat wave, you're wrapped up like a baton truck driver in layers. What is wrong with you? It's hot.

[Anita Anand]

I've been up since 6 o' clock this morning preparing for this epic broadcast. Oh yes, and reading. And reading with huge pleasure Serhi Plochi's Yalta book, which is sitting beside me. And it's actually quite cold. In the garden of six I got a bit of a chill. So although it's a heat wave, I've got my Northwest Frontier Khyber Pucktun.

[William Durrymple]

Yes, shawl on there's a wonderful thing that they do. And we are going to get on with this. And actually you've mentioned the Plokie book. Also can I commend to you the Daughters of Yalta, Catherine Grace Katz and also huge plaudits to Diana Preston, who's written Eight Days at yata. They're all fantastic, fantastic books. I should remind you, in the last episode we were doing the kind of Marvel origin stories of Stalin, Kober, bank robber poets.

[Anita Anand]

Difficult to imagine anyone having a more unpredictable background.

[William Durrymple]

I know, right?

[Anita Anand]

To be both orthodox seminarian and bank robber. It seems to be two Venn diagrams that have probably never ever met again or before in history.

[William Durrymple]

Well, I was just trying to think who, who else I could think of. And it's only sort of Friar Tuck out of like, you know.

[Anita Anand]

That's very good, that's very well done.

[William Durrymple]

Literally, that's it. But we're going to talk about the other two because this is amazing.

[Anita Anand]

Friar Tuck and Stalin.

[William Durrymple]

All top history insights on Empire. Let me tell you, you would not get this on other history podcasts. Kind of laser like, laser like discernment. But we're going to talk about the other two of the big three, and that is Roosevelt and, and Churchill. So can I start telling you a little bit about Roosevelt, who was otherwise known as the Sphinx because he was so difficult to read. But he was also called, I mean, at school when he was younger, the feather duster, because he was flimsy, let's say that's what his. His robust boy school, a bit of a city, that's what they called him. And we'll go into that in a bit more detail. But my favourite nickname, because it's just so rude, was Mussolini, who used to call him of the Anus. Can I explain why it doesn't work.

[Anita Anand]

If you just know him as Franklin Roosevelt, but if you add the middle.

[William Durrymple]

Name, it becomes Delano. So Delano means in Italian, of the anus. And Mussolini delighted in his middle name and insisted on referring to him as the anus or out of the anus. Any possibility?

[Anita Anand]

The genitive of anus. Of the anus, of the anus.

[William Durrymple]

Public school education. Everybody gives himself away every single time.

[Anita Anand]

We know our genitives, us pus boys.

[William Durrymple]

FDR was born into a wealthy family, so his parents, James and Sarah, were very well off. You know, James was a landowner, he was a businessman. They were like New York. Old money is what he was brought up in. And this place that he lived in, Hyde park, because nobody has original names at this time. In history, everything's named after somewhere in England. He lived on a huge estate, even though it was sort of on the outskirts of New York. And they had, I mean, like literally hundreds of workers worked the land. So this is a man of means.

[Anita Anand]

As so many American presidents were and are.

[William Durrymple]

But FDR grew up pretty much in the, in the lap of luxury and he had parents who sort of doted on him, they loved him. He was largely schooled at home and he sort of had this very closeted environment for most of his young life. But then when he's 14, he has to go to school and they send him. It's sort of like a bit like the Prince Charles story. They send him to a school called Groton School, which is a little bit like, you know, it's going to make a man of you. And this is a private school where the boys are praised for being rambunctious, for being naughty, for being sporty. I mean, sporty is a really big thing.

[Anita Anand]

What school doesn't have boys praised for being sporty and naughty?

[William Durrymple]

But for him, you know, he's a bookish boy. He's kind of like narrow faced, blonde, pale. Rather have his head in a book than, you know, in a scrum.

[Anita Anand]

He looks a bit like F. Scott Fitzgerald in the pictures.

[William Durrymple]

He does, actually. He does, yeah. I didn't think of it.

[Anita Anand]

And he's got the same sort of suit and the same centre parting and that slightly sort of Gatsby ish sort of style to him.

[William Durrymple]

Yeah. And he's, he also grows up in the shadow of a family member. So I mean, you know the name Roosevelt, often when people just say Roosevelt, they don't mean fdr, they don't mean the man behind the New Deal, they mean Theodore Roosevelt, who we've talked about before in our Philippines episode. And he is related so, you know, a distant cousin of fdr. They are in the same sort of food group and family and he grows up in that kind of shadow, you know, the lesser Roosevelt if you like. And I don't know whether it is initially out of political conviction, but, you know, he joins the Democrats rather than the Republicans to forge his own way and he sort of rises through the ranks, as you quite rightly said. There's a certain class of American politico who sort of is carried on the slipstream of Wall street wealth, big houses, big dinners, all of that kind of thing.

[Anita Anand]

I've just come back from an American book tour where I was giving talks in Dallas in that sort of family and they had this extraordinary shrine to the Bushes, who they had given their money to and supported in the election campaign. And you have these dynasties of politicians who are supported by these enormous big money folk.

[William Durrymple]

So look, FDR is kind of one of those people who's sort of born into one of those born to rule families. And he becomes a lawyer and he's quite successful, successful. And he then gets involved in politics with the Democrats. And he's quite a good campaigner. You know, he sort of gets a following in the Democratic Party. But then something terrible happens in August 1921 at the age of 39. And this is, you know, I know we've sort of gone through his childhood, but it's pretty dull apart from, you know, he had a hard time at school. But it's at 39 that the real life changing, if you want origin story thing happens. He's stricken with an illness while he's on vacation, and it ends up with him being paralyzed from the waist down. He won't be able to use his legs again. People said immediately it was polio, is what they thought it was.

[Anita Anand]

Well, there was a big polio epidemic in the 1920s. I lost an aunt, funnily enough. My father's sister died of polio in 1947.

[William Durrymple]

It was a fact of life, as was typhoid, even these things that thankfully, most of us don't ever have to. I think what's really interesting about his illness is that, you know, people called it polio. He was diagnosed with it, but now there are doctors who've had a look at what actually happened to him, and they think it might have been something else. And weirdly, the same condition that we said Alexander the Great might have had, you know, when he was sort of a statue, the living statue, this rising paralysis, and it's called Ghislaine Barre syndrome. So what happened to Roosevelt is, you know, he had a fever, then he had this ascending paralysis that sort of started in his legs and then went all the way through, had numbness everywhere. And it sort of rose ascended, paralyzed him and then subsided. But he never got use of his legs back. And people have said, actually, you know what, that diagnosis sounds a lot like Guillain Barre Syndrome.

[Anita Anand]

Actually, in all the books I've read, people just say polio.

[William Durrymple]

Polio. I know, I know. But I've said, and it's not widely. It's a sort of. I've seen them, you know, me in medical documents. Dr. Quack is in the house. Dr. Quack is in the house.

[Anita Anand]

It's an Unexpected side of you. Those that haven't followed previous episodes. Anita's father was a doctor.

[William Durrymple]

He was a doctor.

[Anita Anand]

And she used to entertain herself as a child by reading medical encyclopedias.

[William Durrymple]

I did.

[Anita Anand]

So if ever you have some strange symptoms, just phone Anita and you'll be got an interesting.

[William Durrymple]

I'm your girl. Do you know, actually, I have to say that if my. My dear departed father was still around, I can actually feel him taking off a flip flop to throw at me. Stop diagnosing people. You have no qualifications. I should try that anyway. So look, that's interesting about him. It also leads to something which is going to define him and lead to this sphinx like character. He doesn't want people to pity him and he doesn't want people to know. And he hates all of the accoutrements that go with, you know, his paralysis. And he will always kind of compensate, keep his medical history an enormous secret. And more on that later, because there's some really strange stuff on that.

[Anita Anand]

I have to say, until I started researching this series, I had no idea because we have all those pictures of him and he's always seated because he can't. Delta, Tehran, all these images.

[William Durrymple]

There are also photos which he did not like, of him in a wheelchair with a blanket over his legs because that is not the image of. Of a man who is president.

[Anita Anand]

Anita, what I'd love you to tell me though, is this complicated marriage of his, which is interesting because Eleanor Roosevelt is an extraordinary figure in her own right, isn't she? But by the stage we're talking now, things are not good at the ranch.

[William Durrymple]

So she had married FDR 15 years before his paralysis. So she knew the man before and she was with the man afterwards. And she was a fifth cousin once removed of the Rose, the, of Roosevelt. And she is an extraordinary creature. If you look her up now, people know Eleanor Roosevelt really well because she fought the good fight, you know, she fought for women's rights, she fought for civil rights.

[Anita Anand]

Your kind of girl completely.

[William Durrymple]

She joined the women's trade union at a young age and then becomes actively involved in putting it on the table in front of her husband and saying, you know what? Workers need rights, women need protection. And this civil rights thing, no more lip service. You're gonna have to do something. And she spoke in public. She was a very, very strong character. But the really interesting thing is their marriage.

[Anita Anand]

There's a social secretary that gets in the way. Lucy Mercer.

[William Durrymple]

That's it, Lucy Mercer. So there's a lot of revision about this and you know who knows what goes on behind a closed door. But there's a biography by a woman called Hazel Rowley, and she says that they have something of. Well, she doesn't use the phrase open marriage, but she says they gave each other space to cultivate romantic friendships outside the marriage.

[Anita Anand]

I think there was definitely an affair with the social secretary, Lucy Mercer, because correspondence was found by Eleanor. And after that, there's a period where Lucy is sacked and disappears in life. But again, just in the run up to Yalta, the period we're talking about, by this time, Lucy is married and she is one of the people that sees FDR offdialta.

[William Durrymple]

So that's FDR's love interest. But Eleanor's love interest is said to be a woman. It's a journalist called Lorena Hickok. Eleanor and her are so sort of friendly. She calls her Hick. She was a lesbian, openly. And Elena and her do seem to be sort of, you know, very, very close. And who knows whether it's sexual or not. But Eleanor writes to Hick about their open secret. And this is just a few months after FDR's inauguration. You think they gossip about us? I'm always so much more optimistic than you are. I supp. I care so little about what they say. And Laura Hickok preserved almost all of the three and a half thousand letters that she and Eleanor wrote to each other. So that is love. I don't know if it's sex, but it is certainly love.

[Anita Anand]

This impacts on our story about Yalta because it means that Eleanor Roosevelt does not come to Yalta, and instead FDR brings his daughter Anna, who he has a very good relationship with. And it's Anna Roosevelt who's going to be appearing in this episode.

[William Durrymple]

And we'll talk about her because another extraordinary, extraordinary woman. Okay, why don't you take us away with Churchill? Because we've done Roosevelt.

[Anita Anand]

I live between India and Britain, and I can't think of any other character who has left a more varying impression depending on which side of those two countries you're in. In India, of course, Churchill is looked upon as the worst of all the British imperialists, as the man responsible for the Bengal famine. And there's a widespread belief in that Churchill was a racist who was responsible for the death of 6 million Bengalis in Britain. He is our most revered historical character. And in polls of great British figures from history, Churchill quite often comes top. And in a sense, both sides of Churchill are true. He is the figure whose speeches during the First World War rallied the nation and led to the British putting together to help defeat Nazism. But equally, his writings on Indians and India, and incidentally, Palestinians, are so racist by our standards today that they are completely beyond the pale. So both these characters are contained in this man.

[William Durrymple]

He comes from money as well, old.

[Anita Anand]

Money, more than money. He comes from one of the kind of grandest families in Britain. And he's born in Blenheim palace, just outside Oxford. If you go there today, there's a whole sort of Churchill wing of Churchill memorabilia and the whole exhibition about his life. His distant ancestor was the Duke of Marlborough who won the Battle of Blenheim. And Blenheim palace is built as a thank you from the nation for him. And Sir Churchill is born into, you know, one of the grandest palaces in the country.

[William Durrymple]

And he has beauty and glamour, too. I mean, his mother is an American heiress, Jenny Jerome, daughter of a New Yorker stockbroker. So she comes from her own wealth and class, basically sort of New York royalty.

[Anita Anand]

And at some point, there is actually a common ancestor between FDR and Churchill. There's a Spencer ancestor who they both share in distant mists of time. So he's actually a distant cousin of fdr. It's extraordinary that these two figures negotiating the future of the world, everything's connected. Not that they brings them any particular closeness.

[William Durrymple]

They're also very, very different at school. So, you know, Churchill, like fdr, is sent to a school that's meant to sort of toughen him up, and he actually ends up being tougher than the school. So he's a right hair away at school. Boarding schools in Ascot and Brighton before going to Harrow. And the reports about him just describe a willful, rebellious pain in the ass of a child, you know, just who does not look kindly on disappointment at all. There's one report that has him. It's sort of like that scene in Dead Poet Society where they jump up on the desks and things, you know, just. And in that sort of very sort of understated way, you know, this is not the way we expect our young men to behave. But he's a character. Right from the start, right from the get go, he goes to Sandhurst, which is the Officer Training Corps in here in Britain, where my father went. Your father went. And he gains his commission. He goes and joins the 4th Hussars in February 1895. And this is the thing that will make him. Because his adventures. I mean, he's a man with an appetite, a young man with an appetite for adventure.

[Anita Anand]

He goes off first to Cuba, where He gets into all sorts of adventures and then to the northwest frontier. And I have wandered around the hills of Swat looking at some of the forts that he attacked in my 20s. When you drive up from Peshawar into the Swat Valley, there are a whole chain of forts today called Churchill's Picket. And I remember climbing up a hill 20 years ago, looking at this place where famously, Churchill ostentatiously rode a grey pony along the top of the hill in full view of the Pashtun enemy. Foolish, perhaps, he told his mother, but I play for high stakes. And given an audience, there is no actual. Too daring and too noble. So that sort of sense of playing to the audience is something that is very much with him. And he writes this book called the Story of the Malakan Field Force that becomes, I think, his first publication. And then he goes to the Boer War where he is captured and escapes from the camp where he's being captured. And again to talk about my American hosts in that shrine to Churchill in Dallas where I was last week, they have the gun that he was given when he was had to, he had to cross. Is it a thousand miles or 200 miles of occupied enemy territory from his prison camp to get to British lines? And at some point he comes across a man, he's not sure whether he's a friend or a foe. And the character sees this lone boy and although I think he's a boar, he takes pity on this lone escaped prisoner and gives him his revolver.

[William Durrymple]

Wow. And that's the revolver you've seen.

[Anita Anand]

And that revolver I saw last week in Dallas, of all places.

[William Durrymple]

I mean, it has to be said, not many boys were sympathetic to him because they put a bounty on his head. There's a 25 pound bounty on his head. Wanted dead or alive. You know, just like in a western. And he is becoming a creature of daring. Do he also starts, you know, writing for newspapers. You know, he becomes a war correspondent. And he writes very well. I mean, he's a compelling writer even then. So the journey from that to being a politician, once you've got that name recognition, is not so hard. But he does find it hard to get elected. He first gets elected in 1900, shortly before the death of Queen Victoria, takes his seat in the House of Commons as a Conservative for Oldham in the north of England. And in 1901 he makes his maiden speech. But, but, but he then crosses the.

[Anita Anand]

Floor, which makes him deeply unpopular for a long period of time.

[William Durrymple]

Hated. Absolutely hated. But he goes and he does this sort of very ostentatious, I'M crossing the floor. I'm going to sit with David Lloyd.

[Anita Anand]

George, who was regarded as a sort of class enemy by the Conservative because he'd introduced death duties. It was a very ingenious way of Lloyd George to undermine the aristocracy because it meant that every time one of them died that the states would be divided. 50% would have to go to the government. And so in a generation, many of the greater states get wiped out. And for Churchill, born in Blenheim palace, to sit beside Lloyd George was the equivalent of, I don't know, Boris Johnson sitting beside Jeremy Corbyn.

[William Durrymple]

Yeah, it was a big deal. Do you know, talking about Lloyd George, it's just suddenly I remember there was a poem or kind of one of these doggrel verses that they used to scream at Lloyd George they hated in the Conservatives. Lloyd George, no doubt, when his life runs out, will ride on a golden chariot, seated in state on a red hot plate. Twit, Satan and Judas Iscariot.

[Anita Anand]

Iscariot.

[William Durrymple]

Judas. Is that right? That's it, yeah, yeah. It's funny the things that lodge in your head. I think that's from school. He's a liberal, but he's also, when he's sitting with the Liberals, an enemy of the suffragettes because the suffragettes hate him with a passion because he's not very sympathetic towards the cause of.

[Anita Anand]

He comes into your Sophia.

[William Durrymple]

He's very prominent in Sophia because he's Home Secretary at the time of, you know, the bloody march that takes place, Black Friday March on Parliament.

[Anita Anand]

As Orban would call himself a very illiberal liberal indeed.

[William Durrymple]

And so what happens is there is one suffragette who attacks him at a train station and he's only saved by his homburg hat. You know, she brings a riding cock crashing down on his head and it's his hat that saves him. But he does have rather a nasty welt on his head. Theresa Garnett was her name. So Temple Mead Station as well, in Bristol, in case you're interested. But then he, he marries there.

[Anita Anand]

A plaque to Churchill getting horsewhipped.

[William Durrymple]

Anyone who knows anything about suffragette history knows that is a big chapter. But his marriage to Clemmie. Tell us about Clemmie. Because Clemmie's such a central big part of his life and then we'll take a break and actually get you to Yalta. Now I think you've been acquainted with. But let's talk a little bit about Clemmie and him.

[Anita Anand]

Perhaps improbably, for a man that was quite a difficult man Churchill has a fantastically good marriage to Clementine. They meet in 1904. Love at first sight. The marriage lasts 56 years. Five children together and she's a blue blood.

[William Durrymple]

She's an aristocrat to her bone marrow.

[Anita Anand]

As well, but also importantly comes from money. Doesn't necessarily at this period go with being an aristocrat. They're a fantastic double act. Churchill, despite being this sort of bulldog with the cigar, has, like all of us, his, his weaknesses and his insecurities. Clemmy is, is there by his side when he has wobbly moments, as he.

[William Durrymple]

Does surprisingly often, the black dog moments.

[Anita Anand]

And he has depression, of course, she's there right to the end. So we have now gone through the backstories of these three extraordinary and utterly different characters. The two very rich men from extremely privileged backgrounds who are distant cousins lined up against a man who was the son of a cobbler who had been an orthodox seminarian.

[William Durrymple]

Gone to God, left God.

[Anita Anand]

So it's not an obvious party, this one. They're not obviously going to get on. And the way you'd imagine it to be is that Roosevelt and Churchill will be on the same side with everything and Stalin will be on a different side.

[William Durrymple]

But that's what you'd imagine.

[Anita Anand]

That's what you'd imagine. But it doesn't actually turn out to be quite as simple as that.

[William Durrymple]

Join us after the break and find out how they get on.

[Anita Anand]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[William Durrymple]

Upfront payment of $45 for three month plan, equivalent to 15 per month. Required intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full [e-mail] welcome back. So these are the big three who are meeting at Yalta. And can I just say, Yalta is none of their first preference, apart from Starlin. The others just don't want to go. They absolutely, absolutely don't want to be there. Roosevelt hates the Idea. It's a long way away from America.

[Anita Anand]

And Churchill has the best line ever, he calls it. He says it's the Riviera of Hades. If we had spent 10 years in research, we couldn't have found a worse place.

[William Durrymple]

That's it. Isn't that great? So, none too enthusiastic. They wanted to meet in Cyprus or somewhere sunny with like, you know, good Mediterranean.

[Anita Anand]

Mediterranean or somewhere.

[William Durrymple]

Anywhere like that. But Stalin is adamant it's got to be Yalta. And there is a reason for that, because Yalta, as we kind of touched on in the first episode, has been brutalized by the war. It's in his backyard. He wants them to see. He wants them to also know this is a place that they took back from the Nazis. So there's a lot of symbolism in choosing Yalte for Stalin.

[Anita Anand]

What, though, is not immediately apparent, as we'll see when Roosevelt and Churchill land, they come to this devastated Riviera that looks like, you know, Cannes, except Cannes, if a bomb had gone off in the middle of everything. And when Roosevelt and Churchill see this, they are appalled at the level of devastation. But what they don't know is that the Nazis are only responsible for about three quarters of it. That a quarter of the devastation is Stalin's own secret police and under barrier, who we'll meet at the conference, who's astonishingly ruthless and violent and rapey, Awful and rapey. Beast of a man, head of the nkvd. But they, prior to the conference, have gone around a. Weeding out any potential enemies of the state because they don't want anyone who's even remotely hostile to Stalin to be in the same region as him when he. When he comes in a conference. But we've also had this sort of mass deportation. So the indigenous people of the Crimea, who are the Crimean Tatars, 200,000 of them have been deported by the Soviets in the run up to this conference. It's one of the great deportations and war crimes of history. And so a lot of the stuff, the devastation and the empty villages and the destroyed houses that Churchill and Roosevelt see and imagine must be the Nazis. I mean, many of the devastations are Nazi devastations, but some of them are due to burial and the NKVD just getting rid of the local people who had been accused of supporting the Nazis.

[William Durrymple]

During the occupation and being complicit in the occupation. I'm just going to. Very quickly, though, recap before we get to Yata, because although we're concentrating on Yata, it's not the first time that the big Three have met and sometimes the big two meet behind the third's back. So you know, they. In Casablanca, Roosevelt and Churchill met without Stalin. In Moscow in 1940 and this is all 1943. 1943, Moscow, there is a meeting of foreign ministers. They're talking. But Tehran is the really big one, which is in December 1940 that the Big Three come face to face for.

[Anita Anand]

The very first time in the British Embassy. Now I have a little story. Not for me. I don't normally go on rabbit holes away from the main.

[William Durrymple]

No, especially when we've been told by the producer to stay on target. In the words of Star wars, stay on. But go on, tell us, but go on.

[Anita Anand]

If you look at pictures of the big three in the Tehran conference, if you look at their feet, there is a tortoise. And the tortoise was present in the photograph because he was a kind of mascot of the British Embassy in Tehran. And I met the same tortoise in my visit to the British Embassy in Tehran in 1986.

[William Durrymple]

You met the same tortoise.

[Anita Anand]

The tortoise is live forever.

[William Durrymple]

How do you know it's the same tortoise?

[Anita Anand]

Because it was introduced to me very formally as the tortoise.

[William Durrymple]

How do you do? How do you do? I'm the tortoise from the forest in the photograph. Nice to meet you. I've read all your books.

[Anita Anand]

And he was still going strong. Not very fast, but he was going strong in 1986 when I was there.

[William Durrymple]

That is an extraordinary. Was he a Dalrymple? I mean, I just want to round off this story with the usual. Was he just a relative?

[Anita Anand]

He was very friendly to Duranpools. An enormous affection for them, clearly. But no, he was, he was his.

[William Durrymple]

Own tortoise son, not cousin tortoise. Okay, well that's good. It's a good story. I don't mind it. But the Tehran conference is important. The reason I want to flag it is because a lot of what is then rubber stamped or will go on to be rubber stamped in Yalta is first hashed out for the very first time in Tehran. So they talk together about committing to a second front in Western Europe. The D day invasion. Stalin agreeing that the Soviet Union probably will enter the war against Japan once Germany is defeated. But you know, things are, are starting to build. A plan is starting to be made, but they need to meet again and Yata is going to be the rubber stamp on that. There is also something else that's really interesting going on in Tehran. Earliest Tehran, Roosevelt, from the moment he meets Stalin, or Uncle Joe, as he calls him, behind his back. But anyway, look, the thing about Roosevelt is he thinks he can be the puppet master. To Stalin, it is going to prove to be an enormous miscalculation. But he's sort of like this kind of weird sort of charm offensive goes on, you know, that he's a man I can do business with. And you see, even in Tehran, Churchill being slightly on the outside, you know, as you said, their backgrounds would suggest that they would be in the same boys club. But the boys club that is developing in Tehran is Stalin and Roosevelt versus.

[Anita Anand]

Little Churchill, who now controls less of the globe and has fewer resources. This is the first moment, in a sense, when the shrinking of the British Empire becomes very, very, very apparent. The British have borrowed massively from the Americans. They're no longer the power that strode the world. The British in the first half of the war haven't done very well. They've lost Singapore without a shot being fired, evacuated from. From Dunkirk and during the invasion of Normandy. The British divisions, is it numbered at what, one? Only one in five are British. Is it four fifths of the invasion force is actually American? Something like that. There's a. There's far more American troops.

[William Durrymple]

There's a disparity, and Britain appears diminished in their eyes, but they also diminish Churchill. And there's a bit of a sort of a boys club bullying thing. I mean, that's how I see it. So there's a really good story that Churchill tells. Can I just tell the story that Churchill tells about this? So. So Stalin, and he has got a dark sense of humor, but this is not even a joke, right? Stalin is saying he wants to punish the Germans for everything that they have visited upon the Soviets. And he says in sort of quite a serious way that he wants 50,000 German officers to be executed. That's what he would like to see. And Churchill is pretty appalled by this. Churchill is, you know, thinking future planning. You don't do this to people who are fighting for their country, number one. And number two, he's always got it in his mind that actually, if you have a Germany with its legs cut out from under it, the rest of you, what is the rest of Europe going to do? You need to rebuild Germany and just make sure it never builds in the same image as Hitler. And he sort of, like, is really offended. And then Roosevelt sort of steps in and Churchill must think, okay, he must be with me. This is kind of barbaric, executing 50,000 soldiers. And he says, it's okay. And sort of like does this patronizing pat on Churchill says, maybe, you know, we just might compromise. Churchill don't get so angry by shooting only 49,000. And they, oh. And then Stalin has the chance. Churchill gets up and leaves because he's so, you know, horrified. What. What the hell is wrong with you? Roosevelt, this is not okay. And Stalin sort of goes after him and says, you know, I was only joking. I was just joking. It was just a joke. But you see a weird dynamic right from Tehran that will become even more weird.

[Anita Anand]

Roosevelt and Stalin on one side and Churchill on the other, which is. I mean, it's unclear whether it's partly Roosevelt compensating for in order to make Stalin feel that it isn't, you know, the two capitalists against the communist and whether he's trying to win Stalin's trust.

[William Durrymple]

This is the thing, right? Everybody comes to Yalta or will come to Yalta with their own things that they need. And Roosevelt wants two things more than anything else. He wants the Soviets to come in and deal with Japan, because if the war with Japan goes on and on, there are projections of loss of American life that he will not countenance. He's like, this is just, we can't do this on our own. We can't do it without uncle Joe. So he's on a charm offensive for that. And also he has this idea which we'll go into in greater detail, about an organization that will involve the world and stop the world from going to war in the future. A sort of United nations, if you will. And he needs the Soviet sign off on that. But they all want different things. So there are room deals that are going on before they, you know, set foot in the Crimea. Churchill and Stalin have a correspondence between them, you know, throughout 1944. They're talking behind sort of Roosevelt's back, and they come up with this idea of something called a percentages agreement. You know, you've got Churchill flying to Moscow himself to meet Stalin directly and say, look after the war, what we'll do, because I know the Soviets, you've done great things in taking territory in eastern Europe. And we need to talk about how that's going to be divided afterwards. Let's just do a little scribble on a piece of paper about the percentages agreement that we might reach. So they come up with this list. It's like a laundry list. The Soviet Union, 90% predominance in Romania, 75% predominance in Bulgaria. Britain would have 90% predominance in Greece, Yugoslavia and Hungary would all be split 50, 50.

[Anita Anand]

I think you're letting Churchill slightly off the hook there. It's not. They come up together with. Churchill writes that document.

[William Durrymple]

He does. You're right.

[Anita Anand]

And Stalin puts a blue tick on it.

[William Durrymple]

And you can see the document I sent you the picture of the document. It's called the naughty document. Churchill calls him his naughty document. And it actually did go on display at the National Archives. You can see that the little blue tick that's Stalin has put at the top of the page. And so Churchill thinks he's got a deal that they'll go into Yotta and this is a deal. And then he can move on and do what he wants to do which is safeguard the interests of the British Empire and push the Nazis once and for all out of Germany.

[Anita Anand]

And we should highlight what Churchill's biggest red line is for Churchill. The British entered the Second World War in order to save it from invasion by Poland. And Churchill is determined that he doesn't want to end the Second World War by just handing over Poland to the.

[William Durrymple]

Soviets on a plate.

[Anita Anand]

And so this is the single biggest sticking point.

[William Durrymple]

But.

[Anita Anand]

And this is something which will haunt the whole of the Alta conference. And it's absolutely crucial that it's understood you can't understand what happens at Yalta unless you understand this is that by the time Yalta happens the Soviets have swept over the whole of Eastern Europe and are now just 50 miles from.

[William Durrymple]

Berlin at unprecedented speed. Nobody guessed they would move as fast as they did. But they have it.

[Anita Anand]

There were two hitches in the Allied invasion of Western Europe after D Day. D Day goes very well that the Germans don't realize that the Normandy landings are the main thrust. And it takes two weeks for the Panzer divisions to be sent down there. But then you get two holdups. There is the German counteroffensive in the Ardennes that nearly breaks the Allied line and is only ended when you have the famous Battle of the Bulge with the film that I remember was always being shared in my pret school. 10 times that tank battle. So that holds the Americans and the British up. And then there's a second hitch which is also a film of my youth which was a bridge too far, which is Arnhem when the Allies try to capture all the bridges and parachute beyond Nazi lines. And it all goes horribly wrong. Now while all this sort of hitches is happening on the Western Front the Red army is seamlessly moving through Eastern Europe at speed far faster than anyone had realized. And so by the time that this conference actually opens, the Soviet Red army is very close to Berlin and it's.

[William Durrymple]

Too late in a sense to negotiate something about what you're going to do because they're there already.

[Anita Anand]

Possession is 9, 10 of the law.

[William Durrymple]

But there's one other thing, there's one other thing, another weakness which actually, you know, you flagged to me is that the Soviets have been given top secret, compromising, devastating information by one British spy, Guy Burgess, who has taken shopping bags full of secrets and handed them over to Uncle Joe Stalin. Yeah, go on, I tell your story. It's so good, it's so good, it's so good.

[Anita Anand]

It's very good. So the famous Cambridge spies, Burgess, McLean, Philby, Blunt and Carecross are all working at high levels of British intelligence and all are passing documents to the Soviets because they are all Marxists. They believe that Britain is a class ridden society and they are sympathetic to the communism, egalitarian as they see it, communist ideal that they believe in. In the 1930s on through now into the 1940s. And at this point in the story, the person with the, with the most access is Guy Burgess, who is in the Foreign Office press department and has unprecedented access to all the important documents. And so the briefing papers, which contain all the position papers worked out between the Americans and the British, what their red lines are, the tactics they'll use.

[William Durrymple]

To stall the things you really want to keep secret in a negotiat.

[Anita Anand]

The whole lot had been handed over by Burgess to his NKDV handler in London. And there's this extraordinary moment that Plochy writes about. I'll just read it. It's a wonderful moment. Burgess had stolen documents by the hundreds and gone undetected for years. But one day in 1944, London Police officers noticed two suspicious looking men, one of whom was holding a carryall. The police patrol asked the man to open the bag, which they thought might contain stolen goods. There were no valuables or household items in the bag. Instead it was just full of papers that the police found of no interest. So they allowed the men to continue their meeting. And the man with the carryall was Guy Burgess, an employee of the Foreign Office Press Department. His companion was Boris Krotov, an NKGB officer working under Soviet diplomatic cover. The papers were the secret Foreign Office documents that Burgess had borrowed from other departments and was now delivering to the NKGB for photo reproduction. And in the first half of 1945, he supplied hundreds of such documents to his handlers. And of these, 389 were classified as top secret.

[William Durrymple]

So you have this intriguing situation where Roosevelt thinks he's got a handle on Stalin. Stalin's got all of their secret positions. Churchill has his naughty list which he thinks he's agreed with Stalin. They're basically turning up to these full and frank talks. But they all have enormous secrets. Join us for the next episode where we'll see how that plays out. If you can't wait, if one of those people who can't wait, you can listen to the whole Yalta miniseries, Eight Days that Changed the World. Just go to empirepod uk.com empirepod uk.com and join our club. And you get one big slathering heap.

[Anita Anand]

Plus you get all sorts of other things. Don't forget the other benefits of joining our club and Eaters. This is the very exciting magazine that arrives with you each week.

[William Durrymple]

So, baby, so what else do we. What else do we get?

[Anita Anand]

All sorts of other wonderful benefits. And I'm, I'm proposing. We haven't got this through yet. I am proposing that we do an evening with our club members once a year in London.

[William Durrymple]

Anyway, we'll see how that goes. Anyway, even if you don't want to come and have a drink with us, join the club. You don't have to. It's not man to drink. You don't have to come out first. Do you know, I once, I once won a newspaper competition when I was a student and I was telling somebody about it, I think it was my second job interview and I said, oh yes, you know, I got this bursary and I won this award. First prize was an evening out with the editor. And he said was the second price two evenings out with the editor. You don't have to come, but you can anyway, till the next time we meet is goodbye from me, Anita Arnold.

[Anita Anand]

And goodbye from me, William Durrymple.

[William Durrymple]

Before you go, can we tell you about something really exciting?

[Anita Anand]

Have you ever heard an ad on this podcast and thought, hang on, my brand would be way better here than whatever they are natting on about?

[William Durrymple]

I mean, it's bold of you, but you might be right. And here's the thing, you can actually make that happen. Make the dream realistically. Imagine your brand front and center on Empire and other shows across the Goal Hanger network.

[Anita Anand]

If you don't know who Goal Hanger is, they are the producers of this show. And if you're looking to get the brand right into the center of everybody's routines, they are the people you want to talk to.

[William Durrymple]

If you're curious, just head over to goalhanger.com. that's goalhanger. H-A-N-G-E-R.com.