acknowledgements This book is the result of lengthy research, conducted in a spirit of genuine international collaboration, as a carefully researched Russian text was revised and rewritten for an Anglophone audience. Along the way, we have accumu- lated numerous debts, which it is our pleasure to acknowledge here. Financially, the work has been generously assisted by the Leverhulme Trust (Research Project Grant RPG–2015–156); the British Academy (Small Research Grant SG 100185) and the Russkiy Mir Foundation. Vladimir Pechatnov was also the grateful recipient of an Archives By- Fellowship at Churchill College, Cambridge and a research grant from The Roosevelt Institute, Hyde Park, New York. We are also greatly indebted to the help of archivists at the following reposi- tories: the Russian Federal Archive Agency (A.N. Artizov); the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (O.V. Naumov, A.K. Sorokin, V.N. Shepelev); the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation, the Historical Documentary Department and the Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Foreign Ministry (A.I. Kuznetsov, I.V. Fetisov, A.N. Zaleyeva); the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York (archivist Robert Clark); the Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri (archivist Rebecca Sowell); the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge University (director Allen Packwood). S.V. Kudryashov (German Historical Institute, Moscow) rendered great assis- tance in identifying and processing archival material. Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia and the German Historical Institute, Moscow (N. Katzer) created favourable xv xvi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS working conditions for the Russian research and provided organizational support. Vladimir Pechatnov is especially grateful to MGIMO President, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences A.V. Torkunov, whose faith in and constant promotion of the project made its Russian version possible. In Britain, David Reynolds acknowledges the assistance of Daniel Wunderlich and Edward Mayes in securing and administering the British funding, and the continued support of the Cambridge History Faculty and of Christ’s College in his work. The Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, the Russian State Archive of Film and Photo Documents and the Russian Defence Ministry kindly allowed use of some material from their collections as illustrations. Other photo credits are indicated in the list of illustrations. Crown copyright documents composed by Winston Churchill and other members of the wartime British government are reproduced under the Open Government Licence, but are cited where possible from publicly available collections. This publication greatly benefited from advice given by Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the late G.N. Sevostyanov, Honoured Scholars of the Russian Federation O.A. Rzheshevsky and V.L. Malkov. Two distinguished American historians of the Roosevelt era – Warren F. Kimball and David Woolner – made valuable critiques of the draft English text. Additional comment and advice were kindly provided by Kristina Spohr, Patrick Miles and Patrick Salmon of FCO Historians. We each owe a particular debt, as usual, to our long- suffering spouses: Margaret and Luba. Our thanks to those at Yale University Press who have supported the project, particularly Robert Baldock, Rachael Lonsdale and Clarissa Sutherland, and to copy- editor Clive Liddiard. Yale’s commitment to publishing this book, and also, later, an online edition of the whole correspondence, has been exemplary. Appreciation, too, for our agent Peter Robinson and assistant Matthew Marland at Rogers, Coleridge & White. The book could not have been completed without the help of two immensely talented younger historians of the Second World War era whose linguistic, scholarly and compositional skills were invaluable. Iskander Magadeyev worked closely on the research and publication of the Russian edition; Olga Kucherenko, likewise, on translating the Russian material and in helping to prepare the English- language text. Both of them are acknowledged on the title page. The Kremlin Letters is respectfully dedicated to two scholars – one Russian and the other American – who pioneered the way both in forging academic ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xvii contacts across the Cold War divide and in setting an example for the editing of wartime documents. We are indebted to them as historians and as friends. Finally, a word of mutual appreciation: this book shows that it is possible for two scholars from different, often frictional, political cultures to find common ground and complete a project that, we hope, will enhance historical research and also – in some small way – international understanding. Cambridge and Moscow, May 2018 xviii FINLAND Axis states Axis allies Leningrad NORWAY Axis conquered territory ESTONIA Volga North Sea Vichy France and territories LATVIA SWEDEN Moscow IRELAND UNITED DENMARK Neutral territories Baltic LITHUANIA KINGDOM Sea Frontiers, 1941 SOVIET Axis advance into London NETHERLANDS Soviet Union, December 1941 Berlin BELGIUM Warsaw UNION GERMANY POLAND Kiev Paris Stalingrad LUX. e n i h FRANCE R Vienna SLOVAKIA UKRAINE AUSTRIA SWITZ. ATLANTIC HUNGARY OCEAN ITALY ROMANIA be YUGOSLAVIA Danu Black Sea SPAIN Corsica BULGARIA PORTUGAL Rome ALBANIA Sardinia TURKEY Gibraltar GREECE (British) Mediterranean Sea Casablanca Algiers Tunis Sicily MOROCCO ALGERIA TUNISIA SYRIA Malta Cyprus Crete (British) Map 1 Europe at the beginning of December 1941. FINLAND Helsinki Leningrad Tallinn ESTONIA SWEDEN LATVIA Moscow Riga LITHUANIA Baltic Dvinsk SOVIET Sea Tula Königsberg Vilna Danzig Minsk Orel UNION Gomel Berlin Kursk POLAND Warsaw GERMANY Dresden Kiev Kharkov Prague Krakow Lvov BOHEMIA SLOVAKIA UKRAINE Vienna Budapest AUSTRIA HUNGARY Odessa ROMANIA Belgrade Bucharest YUGOSLAVIA Black Sea BULGARIA ITALY ALBANIA Front lines 1 August 1943 to 1 December 1943 GREECE to 30 April 1944 to 19 August 1944 to 30 August 1944 31 December 1944 Mediterranean Sea Main axis of advance Map 2 Advance of the Red Army into Eastern Europe, 1943–44. xix xx Front lines 24 July 1944 UNITED North 12 September 1944 Sea Hamburg 9 February 1945 KINGDOM NETHERLANDS Bremen 8 May 1945 London Amsterdam Main axis of advance Portsmouth Dover Berlin Essen Antwerp English Channel Calais Elb Brussels Düsseldorf e Cherbourg BELGIUM Cologne Le Havre Leipzig Brest R Caen h i Rouen n S e GERMANY e in Falaise e Soissons LUX. Loudéac Frankfurt Rennes Lorient Paris Verdun Laval Melun Prague Le Mans Nantes Stuttgart Regensburg Strassburg Loire Chatillon-sur- Seine FRANCE Dijon Munich Danube SWITZERLAND Bordeaux AUSTRIA Lyon Map 3 Allied advance across Western Europe, 1944–45. 1 & 2. Prime time The Big Three at Tehran, with photographers, 29 November 1943. 3. Stalin’s cri de coeur 3 September 1941. Stalin wanted a second front before the end of 1941, sufficient to divert from the east thirty or forty German divisions. 4. Nice words from Churchill 21 September 1941. 5. Special envoy Harry Hopkins in Stalin’s Kremlin office, July 1941, with Lenin at work in the background. 6. Diplomatic interpreter Ivan Maisky clinks glasses with Churchill in the Winter Garden of the Soviet embassy in London, 29 August 1941. 7 & 8. The go-between The intrepid Vyacheslav Molotov lands in Scotland, 20 May 1942, with the indefatigable interpreter Vladimir Pavlov at his side. Below, he is waved off from Washington on 4 June 1942 by Admiral Ernest J. King (left), Ambassador Litvinov, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and General George C. Marshall. 9. New friends On the veranda at 10 Downing Street, Maisky and Molotov take a photo call with Churchill, May 1942. Clement Attlee, the Labour leader, is next to Molotov, and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden stands to Churchill’s left. 10. The Alaska–Siberia air bridge Soviet and US airmen pose in front of a P-63 fighter delivered under Lend-Lease, Ladd Field, Alaska, 1943. 11. First meeting Churchill and Stalin in the Kremlin, August 1942, with the US envoy Averell Harriman in the middle and Molotov on the right. 12. Just the two Stalin was otherwise engaged when Roosevelt and Churchill conferred at Casablanca, January 1943. The battle of Stalingrad had reached its climax. 13. Stalin the editor Molotov’s draft to Churchill on 26 November 1942 damned the Allied pact with Vichy politico Admiral Darlan in Algiers. But the boss’s blue pen altered the whole tone, commending the Darlan deal as a matter of necessity: in war, one must use ‘even the devil and his grandma’ for military purposes. 14. ‘Most grateful’ Churchill to Stalin, 1 December 1942. 15. Behind Winston’s back Joseph E. Davies with Stalin and Molotov in the Kremlin, May 1943, having delivered a letter from the president proposing a Roosevelt–Stalin meeting without Churchill. 16. Mission accomplished FDR’s thank-you on 4 June 1943 for Stalin’s hospitality to Davies. ‘Mr Brown’ was the not-so- opaque codename used for Molotov during his 1942 visit to the USA. 17 & 18. Molotov’s new boys In the summer of 1943 Andrey Gromyko (left) was appointed ambassador in Washington and Fedor Gusev (right) took over in London. 19. The other three Cordell Hull, Anthony Eden and Vyacheslav Molotov at the Moscow conference of foreign ministers, October 1943. 20. Waiting for Roosevelt The new US secretary of state Edward Stettinius (left) and Molotov (front centre), along with Gromyko (behind them) and Pavlov (right), watch the president’s plane The Sacred Cow coming in to land at Saki airfield for the Yalta conference, February 1945. 21. Two little giants Stalin and Churchill in the Livadia Palace at Yalta, February 1945. 22. The waning president Roosevelt enjoys a lighter moment in the courtyard of the Livadia Palace, February 1945. 23. British diplomacy goes to work Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, Britain’s ambassador to Moscow, and Sir Alexander Cadogan, permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office, pictured at Potsdam, July 1945. 24. Ebb tide Churchill hosts a dinner for Stalin and FDR’s successor Harry S.