During the victory of Stalin’s Red Army over the Germans in 1945, Stalin decided to express his gratitude to the two Western diplomats who majorly contributed to his war successes. He gifted Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, the British emissary to Moscow, by arranging a rare exit visa for his Russian masseur. For Averell Harriman, the representative of President Roosevelt stationed in Moscow, Stalin presented a couple of horses and bizarrely a large imitation of the US Great Seal to be displayed in the American embassy.
The Stalin Affair primarily narrates how Archie and Averell developed a bond with Stalin, paving the way for pivotal summit meetings with Churchill and Roosevelt which guided the war’s result. Pre-war Western diplomats perceived Stalin as a lawless gangster. But the consequential alteration of their views came when Hitler announced an assault on the Soviet Union in June 1941. They soon understood that a conquest by the Nazis would almost make Europe’s liberation impracticable, thus necessitating the formation of an amicable bond with Stalin and prepare his Red Army for war. However, as Roosevelt admitted, other than Averell, the Allied leaders were not familiar with Stalin.
Before Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union, Roosevelt had already sent Averell to London in March 1941. This railroad tycoon became a part of Churchill’s close-knit group to the extent of having a liaison with Churchill’s rather flirtatious daughter-in-law, Pamela. When Hitler declared the invasion, Averell, collaborating with Lord Beaverbrook, the British Supply Minister, undertook a dangerous expedition to Moscow. The journey was carried out flying via Archangel near the White Sea in order to conduct discussions with Stalin. They found Stalin to be a modest, reticent individual fond of sketching wolves during their talks. In response to their promises of supplying the Red Army with an abundance of airplanes, tanks, and trucks, a grateful Stalin held a lavish feast, during which 32 toasts were raised, each necessitating a shot of vodka.
Averell’s resilience for consuming alcohol and his captivating persona rendered him very popular during his initial visit. He soon returned, now serving as the US ambassador, accompanied by his stylish, sophisticated daughter Kathy who astonished the locals by learning Russian, contrary to the resident foreign journalists.
In January, Archie Kerr, a colourful individual who identified as bisexual and did not come from privilege or wealth, started his tenure as the UK’s ambassador. In his interactions with Stalin, he found the Russian leader to be a mischievous, possum-like character. Their initial interaction took place in the Kremlin bomb shelter as German bombs were falling, where the two indulged in smoking pipes, discussing intimate topics, and putting up with Stalin’s stomach’s loud rumblings.
Archie, like Averell, was skilled at managing his alcohol consumption. However, during one Kremlin feast while adorned in full formal attire, he slumped onto the table surrounding the company of Molotov and Mikoyan, an episode that no one seemed to mind.
During Churchill’s visit to Moscow, an apparent slight by Stalin almost provoked the British leader to abruptly end his stay and leave Stalin to face his battles without him. Fortunately, Archie convinced Churchill to reconsider with a long stroll and advocacy, saving the mission from potential failure.
As their association matured, the extent of aid given by the Allies became massive. Averell is particularly acknowledged for his contribution of facilitating the transport of a vast number of American manufactured Studebaker trucks via Iran for the Soviet troops, which consequentially spared multiple lives. It’s worth noting, however, that in 1944, while the war was ongoing, Stalin secretly utilized these American vehicles to execute a genocidal act by forcibly removing the Chechen inhabitants from the Caucasus region.
In 1944, Soviet officials, along with Kathy Harriman, guided foreign correspondents to Katyn Forest to view the exhumation of mass graves containing 22,000 Polish officers. These officers were victims of Stalin’s orders. This visit was part of a campaign to pin the atrocity on the Nazis, with Alexei Tolstoy, a fan favourite of Moscow’s elites, forged letters allegedly written by the Polish victims. This significant deception wasn’t fully unveiled until the collapse of the Soviet Union.
As the war concluded, Stalin found himself amidst considerable popularity in the West, much to the chagrin of our two diplomatic protagonists, whose disenchantment with Stalin’s undemocratic vision for free Eastern Europe had grown.
The original text provides a wonderfully intriguing, meticulously detailed, and pleasantly anecdote-filled account of one of the most intriguing diplomatic tales of World War II. In terms of Stalin’s presents: Archie’s Russian masseur managed to establish a fish and chip business on the island of Bute in Scotland. Averell chose to show off the replica of the Great Seal in the private library of the American ambassador, a place reserved for clandestine discussions.
It wasn’t until six years later that the embassy stumbled upon the fact that this replica concealed an intricate eavesdropping gadget. This allowed the Kremlin to remain abreast of all the activities of the Americans, notably as the World War II friendships gave way to the Cold War tensions. This work is by Conor O’Clery, the writer of ‘Moscow, December 25, 1991: The Last Day of the Soviet Union’.