Brooke cross-examined

President Roosevelt now suggested that the question should be referred to the staffs for study and report. This vital session took place next day, when Marshal Voroshilov, following Stalin’s line,

A > The presentation of the "Stalingrad Sword” to Stalin.

It had been forged to commemorate the defence of Stalingrad, and its display in London had drawn large crowds. Writing of the presentation Churchill said, "When, after a few sentences of explanation, I handed the splendid weapon to Marshal Stalin he raised it in a most impressive gesture to his lips and kissed the scabbard. He then passed it to Voroshilov, who dropped it. It was carried from the room with great solemnity by a Russian guard of honour. As this procession moved away I saw the President sitting at the side of the room, obviously stirred by the ceremony.”

> Stalin chuckles as Churchill takes out a cigar. Though the photographs seem to show the Allies in agreement, Brooke, commenting on Stalin’s intransigence and the strain of working with interpreters, said "After listening to the arguments put forward during the last two days I felt like entering a lunatic asylum or a nursing-home!”

Unmistakably sided with the Americans against the British. Sir Alan Brooke found himself the victim at Voroshilov’s hands of the kind of suspicious crossexamination about the sincerity of the British commitment to "Overlord” that he had been forced to endure from his American colleagues at earlier summit conferences.

"Marshal Voroshilov said he understood from General Marshall that the United States High Command and United States Government considered 'Overlord’ to be an operation of the first importance. He said he would like to know whether Sir Alan Brooke considered this to be an operation of the first importance; whether he both thought the operation was necessary and that it must be carried out, or whether, alternatively, it might be replaced by another operation if Turkey came into the war.”