Interviews: |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Interview with Hugh Lunghi, 1/7/96 CAM. ROLL #10260 INTERVIEWER: Thank you very
much, Hugh, for coming in this morning and giving us this interview. You were posted to
Moscow in June of 1943. Can you give us an idea of how people reacted to you, how you were
received? HUGH LUNGHI: When I went out there, of course, I was full of
enthusiasm, as was the British public, the British press, for helping our gallant ally, the Soviet
Union, which had begun to have victories over Germany. And I found that with ordinary people
this was reciprocated: they thought that we were there to help them; they believed it, and they
were always very hospitable, the Russians, as they always are. But very soon, that atmosphere of
being received as a friend quickly dissipated when we started to meet officials, Communist
Party officials particularly, but also our opposite numbers in the military. They were very weary.
So one lived a life on two levels, as it were. And even ordinary Soviet people had to be very
careful, we learnt, that they weren't suspected of really being too friendly to the enemy, because
by officials we were regarded, as best, as enemies; at worst, as neutrals, whom they hated. I
mean, Stalin, for example, I remember later on in the conferences called the Swiss "swine", for
example; the Swedes were no better; the French were "rotten to the core", and so on. So we were
lucky if we were regarded almost as enemies. On the other hand, on official occasions, of course,
we were given a marvellous time, and there was this sort of superficial attitude of great friendship
and bonhomie and fighting to win the war. But then, of course, we had all kinds of nasty things
done to us - for example, the bugging of our premises. I found 38 bugs in the military mission
premises where we lived, in Malaya Khoritonskaya in Moscow. I pulled those out myself... or I
started pulling one or two out, because we suspected that they had always been there, and in a
spare moment I started pulling them out, and then we got the Americans to come and buzz back,
and we pulled out 38 bugs altogether. That was one thing. But also the media could be
very spiteful, very nasty towards us. This was all because the second front had not yet opened at
that time, when I was first out there, and there were little digs at us. There was a newspaper
which we... our press department, belonging to the Embassy, under the Embassy, produced a
newspaper called the "Britanskyi Soyusnik", which means "The British Ally", and some of the
writers, in very satirical articles, would start referring to it as the "Britanskye Soyusnichki", using
the diminutive, so we were often called, even by Russians who were friendly, and half-jokingly,
as "soyusnichki", "little allies" - we were doing nothing, you see. They took no notice of the fact
that we were fighting a war in Italy, and there was the aerial front, of course, the bombing. They
ignored that - I mean, the media ignored that deliberately, so the Russians didn't really know what
was going on on our side, so they believed the propaganda that they were fighting the war alone
and that we were just sitting back. So it wasn't a very happy situation. But still, we were their
allies, and sometimes we were treated very well. INT: When you got to the first
conference where you participated, Teheran, in November of 1943, what was the mood then?
Because by that time there was still no second front. HL: There was still no second front, and Stalin at that time... at
Teheran, his main objective was to get a definite date for the opening of the second front. But the
mood - you can't really compare it with the situation in Moscow, where we were living among...
among the Russians, the Russian people, and as I said, we were living on these two levels and
officials; but because it was a conference, because it was an official do, everything was really
quite pleasant; on the surface, everything was fine and friendly. I mean, our opposite numbers
were a bit guarded, but the interpreters on the Soviet side, you could see were beginning to thaw.
Pavlov was the main interpreter for Stalin, and he was very friendly; beginning to be more
friendly than he had been before. In general, the atmosphere, particularly at sort of the banquets
and the drinks parties and so on, was very friendly. One can't say any more than that. It wasn't the
same, of course, in the plenary sessions; and when I was interpreting, for example, for the chiefs
of staff, Voroshilov was the man who was taking the Soviet part; Stalin had brought Voroshilov
almost as an afterthought: he said... in the plenary session he said, "Oh, I didn't know we were
going to have military discussions, but I've brought Voroshilov - perhaps he will do." So he was
the one who sat with us. He wasn't hostile, but he was totally uncooperative. He was rather dim-
witted, actually. When we were trying to explain the importance of having landing craft for
launching invasions, whether it was in the north of France or in the south of France or in the
Balkans, he couldn't grasp the fact that you had to have landing craft and this was most
important. So he was awkward on this; he kept saying that, "Oh, I'll have to refer to Stalin." But
afterwards he was quite friendly. And of course there were the ceremonial occasions. When
Churchill presented the Stalingrad Sword to Stalin, I was standing just behind him, just behind
Churchill, and that was a magnificent occasion. They played the Internationale first, and then our
national anthem, and Churchill was given the sword, which was on a cushion, and he handed it
over to Stalin, who kissed the hilt, and then Stalin handed it over to Voroshilov, Marshal
Voroshilov, who promptly dropped it, or he let it slide out of the scabbard, held it to his chest; it
fell down on on to his toes, fortunately not right out of the scabbard, and he had to pull it
out. Well, Voroshilov, after that, came up to me and he said, "Would you take me over to Mr
Churchill, please?" And I was slightly taken aback - this was when we were walking away
already from the ceremony - I was a bit taken aback. I said, "Well, of course, of course, Sir." I
took him over to Churchill, and he apologised, and then he wished Churchill a very
happy birthday. Well, this was the 29th of November, and of course Churchill's birthday wasn't
till the next day; and afterwards, as we were walking away, Churchill said to me, "I think he's a
bit premature. Do you think he's angling for an invitation?" And there was a laugh about that. So
there were these lighter moments. And of course, the highlight was Churchill's birthday party,
and that was a great occasion. INT: You say that Churchill was quite
realistic. What about Roosevelt? You give the impression in some of the things
written that Roosevelt was a great optimist. How did he see
Teheran? HL: Well, Roosevelt... May we stop? (Cut) INT: Could you give us an idea of the mood at Teheran, in particular
Roosevelt's optimistic view of things? HL: Roosevelt had come to Teheran intent on winning Stalin over. He...
by lucky chance, he was able to stay with Stalin, because what happened was that before the
conference, Churchill had sent a telegram to Stalin, saying wouldn't it be more convenient if
Roosevelt stayed in the British Legation, which was next door... well, it was just separated by a
small road, a small alleyway, from the Soviet Embassy, and for the sake of convenience, wouldn't
it be a good idea if he stayed with the British Legation? He got no reply to this. However, soon
after Roosevelt arrived, he moved, to begin with, into the American Legation, which was a mile
or two away, and he received a message via the American Ambassador in Moscow, who was in
Teheran, of course: Molotov, Stalin's foreign minister, had said to him that "we have got news of
an assassination attempt by German agents in the city, on Roosevelt". Wouldn't it be better if he
were to stay in the Soviet Embassy, so that we could all be together? Would he please consider
this as an invitation; "we have a place ready for him" - and indeed they did: they had a wing
prepared, ready for Roosevelt. And Roosevelt apparently consulted his security people, and they
said, "Oh, well, yes, OK," and he was delighted to go there. So he was able to have tete-a-tete
with Stalin. And we didn't know this at the time, of course, but subsequently it transpired he got
the idea of ingratiating himself into Stalin's favours by making jokes about Churchill, by saying
some rather nasty things about Churchill behind his back. But as I say, at the time we didn't
know. What we did see was, when Churchill arrived, he had a sore throat and a cold, so he wasn't
in the best of tempers; but I did notice that he looked rather grumpy at the beginning, and again I
learned later on that he had invited Roosevelt to lunch with him before the two of them
confronted Stalin. Roosevelt would have none of it, just as he had not wanted to
discuss anything about Eastern Europe, or indeed the opening of the second front, of
Overlord, at the previous conference at Cairo which had just preceded Teheran. He had his mind
on the future really, what was going to happen after the war. As his ambassador said afterwards,
Roosevelt was always dreaming, dreaming his dreams. Among these dreams, of course, was the
dream of America and the Soviet Union policing the Far East. He held out all kinds of bait to
Stalin about the Far East, and Stalin was very ready to swallow it; and Stalin made various
demands of his own, to which Roosevelt acceded. Yes, and throughout the whole of the
conference, both at the official plenary sessions and on the more relaxed occasions, at the
dinners, Roosevelt was really quite cheerful. Churchill also, of course, could be very cheerful, as
he was at his birthday party, but he was more thoughtful and more down-to-earth. One got this
impression. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||