In January 1953, before Eisenhower's inauguration, Churchill came to New York. He told Eisenhower that he was thinking of undertaking a meeting with Stalin. Churchill was aware of certain symptoms in the East. On New Year's Day in 1953 his secretary, John Colville, noted two remarkable things: "Churchill said that if I lived my normal span I should assuredly see Eastern Europe free of Communism. . . . Finally he lamented that owing to Eisenhower winning the Presidency he must cut much out of Volume VI of his War History and could not tell the story of how the United States gave away, to please Russia, vast tracts of Europe they had occupied and how suspicious [ the Americans ] then were of his pleas for caution."

What Churchill, at that moment, did not know was how much his wartime comrade was prone to suspicions again -- partly because of his recently acquired and personally satisfying view of the world, partly because of his unwillingness to displease American popular sentiment, which was reaching heights of anti-Communist hysteria around that time. Statesman that Churchill was, he probably did not understand how much of a politician was Eisenhower -- a quality that some of his recent biographers have elevated as if that were identical with statesmanship.

Stalin died on March 5, 1953, six weeks after Eisenhower's inauguration. There was an accumulation of intelligence information about the unsureness of the new Russian leaders and their inclination to reconsider their relationship with the West. On March 11 Churchill wrote Eisenhower. He reminded the President that "I was welcome to meet Stalin if I thought fit and that you understood this as meaning that you did not want us to go together, but now when there is no more Stalin . . . I have the feeling that we might both of us together or separately be called to account if no attempt were made to turn over a leaf so that a new page would be started with something more coherent on it than a series of casual and dangerous incidents at the many points of contact between the two divisions of the world. I cannot doubt you are thinking deeply on this which holds first place in my thoughts."

Eisenhower did not seem to think deeply about this. He saw no difference now that Stalin was gone. "I tend to doubt the wisdom" of such a meeting, he wrote, "since this would give our opponent the same kind of opportunity he has so often had . . . to make of the whole occurrence . . . another propaganda mill for the Soviet."

On April 5 Churchill agreed that "we must remain vigilantly on our guard" and maintain the defensive rearmament, but added that "we think, as I am sure you do also, that we ought to lose no chance of finding out how far the Malenkov regime are prepared to go in easing things up all around." He followed this up with two messages. On April 11: "I believe myself that at this moment time is on our side." On April 12: "It would be a pity if a sudden frost nipped spring in the bud. . . . Would it not be well to combine the re-assertions of your and our inflexible resolves with some balancing expression of hope that we have entered upon a new era?"

Eisenhower's answer was brief and insubstantial. Churchill became somewhat impatient. On April 21 he wrote: "If nothing can be arranged I shall have to consider seriously a personal contact. You told me in New York you would have no objection to this. I should be grateful if you would let me know how these things are shaping in your mind." Eisenhower answered on the 25th: "I feel that we should not rush things too much. . . . Premature action by us in that direction might have the effect of giving the Soviets an easy way out of the position in which I think they are now placed."

By this time it was obvious that Eisenhower was not only influenced but guided by John Foster Dulles (about whose "great slab of a face" Churchill complained privately). Yet, wishing to demonstrate his loyalty to Eisenhower, Churchill sent him a draft of a proposed letter to the Russian Foreign Minister, V. M. Molotov. Eisenhower responded at once. "Foster and I have considered it deeply. . . . We would advise against it. You will pardon me, I know, if I express a bit of astonishment that you think it appropriate to recommend Moscow to Molotov as a suitable meeting place. . . . Certainly nothing that the Soviet Government has done in the meantime would tend to persuade me differently."