The Anglo-American summit conference at Quebec in August 1943 ("Quadrant”) was born out of a need to take fresh grand-strategic decisions in view of the fastchanging situation in the Mediterranean after the fall of Mussolini - and also out of underlying mistrust between the Western Allies. Churchill had proposed the summit to Roosevelt, partly because he had been informed by Averell Harriman that Roosevelt was thinking of convening a purely Soviet-American meeting. As the Prime Minister telegraphed to the President: "I do not underrate the use that enemy propaganda would make of a meeting between the heads of Soviet Russia and the United States at this juncture with the British Commonwealth and Empire excluded. It would be serious and vexatious and many would be bewildered and alarmed thereby.” (Michael Howard, Grand Strategy Vol IV, 559) Roosevelt replied that he had only intended to explore informally with Stalin the question of postwar Russian policy, and suggested that in the meantime he and the Prime Minister should confer in Quebec. Nonetheless here was the shadow of the future-Roosevelt’s burgeoning belief that he could settle the postwar world with "Uncle Joe” on the basis of personal deals in mutual trust; the emergence of two super-powers, the U. S.A. and Soviet Russia, and the relegation of Britain to the second division, against which Churchill was to struggle with all the force of his personal prestige in a frantic but hopeless fight.
World History
