Whatever Franklin Roosevelt or Winston Churchill said—or did not say—the real story of their meeting in Quebec's Citadel would be acted out step by step, in the answers by action to these questions:
>How soon will the "second front," infection center of ill-will between the English-speaking Allies and Russia (see p 23), be established in Western Europe?
>How soon will the Allies get decisive help to China for the war against Japan?
>Will the U.S., Britain, China and Russia learn to live together as great powers must—now and after World War II ends?
If Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill found the right answers, Quebec's Citadel, where the end of New France was once written by the great Wolfe, may again become a landmark of history. If they did not, their conference may some day be known as the most tragic failure of World War II.
Pressure of Victories. Roosevelt and Churchill worked under great pressure. The rapid pace of military events called for urgent decisions: even as they met, the Germans backed up toward Italy's Po River, bombers continued their spectacular successes in softening up -Western Europe, the Russians recaptured Kharkov, U.S. air power forced the last Japanese out of the Aleutians. Victory was now certain—and, in Europe, perhaps near. The political pressure was equally tense. The worries of Europe's little people, now that victory could be foreseen, demanded a firm policy toward the postwar government of Germany, Italy, Poland, the other occupied nations. And over the conference hung the huge, dark shadow of a distrustful Russia.
At week's end, timed like an explosion, came a Moscow announcement that Maxim Litvinoff, great & good friend of collaboration, had been removed as Russian Ambassador to the U.S. and an unknown diplomat, Charge d'Affaires Andrei A. Gromyko, given his place. There was other strong evidence that Russia was retreating—or bluffing a retreat—into nationalistic lone-wolfing, perhaps even a separate peace.
Pressure of Possibilities. The time called for long-range policy, and Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill are by nature improvisers. Their previous meetings have followed the pattern set in their first war council in the North Atlantic, when the U.S. was not yet in the war, Britain had yet to win her first victory and the atmosphere was as heavy with ifs and buts as the Atlantic fog that surrounded them.
Did Quebec change the pattern? There were a few hopeful signs, mostly on the military side. Great strategic decisions were obviously made. The baronial, turreted pile of the Chateau Frontenac, famed old Quebec hotel where conference advisers lived, was so full of gold braid that the eyes of bellhops and chambermaids were dazzled. Rumor said that colonels were sleeping two to a room.
To the Citadel itself, the grim grey fortress where Roosevelt and Churchill lived and worked on the Plains of Abraham 300 ft. above the broad St. Lawrence River, went China's earnest Foreign Affairs Minister T. V. Soong—a hint that real action might be on its way in the Far East.