Roosevelt Papers: Telegram
Prime Minister Churchill to President Roosevelt1
530. Prime Minister to President Roosevelt. Personal.
Hull tells Eden that you have no recollection of any remarks by UJ about unconditional surrender.2 I certainly heard, with great interest, [Page 863] him saying something to the effect that he thought it might be well to consider telling the Germans at some stage what unconditional surrender would involve, or perhaps what it would not involve. After that we began talking about the 50,000 and your compromise and my high falutin, and I finished up by no means certain that the Germans would be reassured if they were told what he had in mind.3
Find also Anthony telegraphed to the Foreign Office on November 30 as follows:
“Last night (November 29th) Marshal Stalin spoke to the President about unconditional surrender. Marshal Stalin said he considered this bad tactics vis-à-vis Germany and his suggestion was that we should together work out terms and let them be made known generally to the people of Germany”.
Perhaps this may give you a cue to what Anthony and I had in our memories and you may feel inclined to join with us in asking UJ whether he would care to develop his theme to us. If however, you prefer we can of course leave things where they are for the time being.