Winston Churchill Through My Father’s Eyes

In March 1947, a delegation of deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR arrived in London in response to similar visit of English parliamentarians to our country a year before.

The Soviet delegation included famous writers like Konstantin Simonov and Alexander Fadeyev, plus future chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Vasily Kuznetsov and Mikhail Suslov who would later become chief party ideologue. My father was stationed in Great Britain as a TASS correspondent then, and this is what he later wrote in his Notches On The Heart book.

“The day before our delegation went back to Moscow, our embassy held a farewell reception. It drew lots of distinguished guests including Labour Party leader, Prime Minister Clement Attlee and his spouse.

Quite unexpectedly Winston Churchill also showed up (he had not attended our receptions for a long time). At that time Churchill and Attlee resembled a cat and a mouse. Churchill used to constantly mock his opponent, calling him “Sheep in sheep’s clothing”.

When Attlee saw Churchill at our embassy he turned pale and began to fuss. He looked like a shy schoolboy in front of a strict teacher… He was eating fish and choked: a bone got stuck in his throat. Mrs. Attlee had a lot of trouble helping him get it out. Then they left while Churchill watched them mockingly.

Many other guests surrounded him. Churchill was offered a glass of vodka, which the 72-year-old Conservative leader liked a lot. I said to myself: “Will he manage to drink the whole glass?“. Churchill did just that in a gulp and ate a tiny sandwich with black caviar.

Soon afterwards he gratefully accepted a second glass of vodka, and a third, and a fourth. He still stood firmly on his feet, joked and chuckled. When he took his fifth glass, he looked slyly at those around him and said: “To the friendship of nations!“.

Later I found out from local publications that his daily norm was a bottle of whiskey and cognac. Seemingly alcohol did not affect him at all. When Churchill turned 90 years old journalists asked him to reveal the secret of his longevity. “I follow a strict regime,” he said in response. “In my whole life, I was late for dinner only twice which happened during the war.”

In another chapter of his memoirs, my father shared a spectacular story he had heard in the press department of the Foreign Office from a columnist who worked at a respectable newspaper.

“In 1943 my British colleague covered the Tehran Conference of the leaders of the three allied powers. “That’s where I saw Stalin for the first time in my life,” he told me. ‘Always calm, focused and silent, Stalin attracted everyone’s attention. When the conference ended, members of the Iranian royal family presented gifts to the heads of British, American and Soviet delegations. Stalin was offered a magnificent Persian carpet.

The Iranian court ritual stipulated that the recipient should kneel and kiss the hand of the giver and Stalin obeyed in his own remarkable way. He duly kneeled, lifted an edge of the carpet, kissed it and said: “I kiss the hands of those who created such a wonderful master piece!”. What a smart personality!”