The First Full Session in Moscow

The Moscow Conference’s first regular meeting of the three foreign ministers began at 4 p.m. on 19 October 1943. The evening before, Cordell Hull and Anthony Eden had called on Vyacheslav Molotov to discuss procedure and publicity. The call was cordial. On the 19th, Eden conferred with Hull at noon; Molotov called on Hull at 2:30 p.m. The formal session admitted only the three ministers and senior representatives of their governments. The Soviet Government had provided Hull with an armored limousine with bullet-proof glass.

Molotov put the Soviet delegation’s first item on the conference agenda: measures to shorten the war against Germany and its European allies. His written proposals asked Britain and the United States to take urgent measures in 1943 to ensure an invasion of northern France. He wanted confirmation that the Anglo-American plan for an invasion in spring 1944 remained in force. He also proposed that the three powers urge Turkey to enter the war immediately, and ask Sweden to provide air bases for operations against Germany.

The requests joined military coordination to questions of access and alignment. Hull and Eden answered the northern France question on 20 October, endorsing statements by their military representatives that the Quebec decisions had reaffirmed the spring 1944 invasion plan, subject to stated conditions. They and Molotov agreed to continue studying the questions of Turkey and Sweden. The Americans also proposed bases in the Soviet Union to support shuttle bombing of industrial Germany, alongside improved exchanges of weather information and air communications. Molotov accepted those proposals in principle and agreed that Soviet authorities would meet American generals to consider the details.

The Moscow meetings continued through 30 October. Their agenda ranged well beyond the opening question: it included Italy and the Balkans, Germany’s treatment after an armistice, Poland, Persia, and postwar security. On 30 October, the four governments—the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China—adopted a declaration on general security. The conference also adopted a declaration on responsibility for atrocities committed by the Nazis. On its first afternoon, however, the work had begun with a narrower test of allied coordination: what each government would do to bring the war in Europe to an end sooner, and what each was prepared to promise the others.