In the summer of 1941, Germany broke its wartime alliance with the Soviet Union and invaded the Soviet frontier. Joseph Stalin was stunned and unprepared, and his army suffered many casualties. Hitler’s about-face was good news for Great Britain’s prime minister, Winston Churchill. Now, Germany’s forces would be split, and Great Britain and the Soviet Union had a common enemy.
Only four months prior, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had agreed to aid Great Britain and appointed millionaire businessman Averell Harriman to be his personal liaison to Churchill. As bestselling historian Giles Milton describes in his vivid portrayal of high-stakes diplomacy and personal relations during World War II, The Stalin Affair: The Impossible Alliance That Won the War, this invitation “would lay the foundations of a remarkable, if bizarre, three-power wartime alliance.”
Soon after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, the Soviet ambassador presented a formal request to the U.S. government for $2 billion in guns, ammunition and aircraft. Once the decision was made to help the tyrannical government, with whom the U.S. strongly disagreed on almost everything, Harriman soon found his mission expanded. He worked closely with Churchill and Stalin, coordinating the ordering and shipping of military supplies. He was also FDR’s eyes and ears, reporting back the goings-on of political leaders. Harriman’s astute judgment of Stalin, as a leader suspicious of everyone and focused on dominating all the territories “liberated” by his army, would prove critical. Milton writes that “Averell had helped to manage a complex relationship between three leaders with widely different backgrounds, approaches, and goals,” often assuaging Stalin’s fears of betrayal to keep the alliance on course.
In addition to relying on a vast archive of official records of events, Milton also uses accounts written by some of the less prominent observers of this political alliance, which brings a sense of immersion and immediacy to The Stalin Affair. Among the previously unpublished sources are letters from Harriman’s daughter, Kathy, who accompanied her father and worked as a news service reporter. Her many letters to family and friends give us a special window into events.
Milton’s outstanding writing and research make The Stalin Affair an authoritative and lively account that shows how despite tensions, strong egos and different approaches to leadership, these unlikely partners worked together to end the war.
