Tensions during the Yalta Conference in February 1945 threatened to tear apart the wartime alliance among Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin just as victory was close at hand. For all that is known about “The Big Three” and their time spent deliberating the fate of postwar Germany and much of the world, too often overlooked is the parallel history of three young women who were chosen by their fathers to travel with them to Yalta, each bound by fierce family loyalty, political savvy, and intertwined romances that powerfully colored these crucial days. Anna Roosevelt, Kathleen Harriman (the daughter of the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union) and Sarah Churchill, through an intricate web of politics, clashing loyalties, and secret power brokering, each in her own turn played an intrinsic role in a conference that would shape the rest of history as we know it.
Catherine Grace Katz is a writer and historian from Chicago. She graduated from Harvard in 2013 with a BA in history and in 2014 received her MPhil in modern European history from Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, where she wrote her dissertation on the origins of modern counterintelligence practices. After graduating, Katz worked in finance in New York City before returning to history and writing. She is pursuing her JD at Harvard Law School. The Daughters of Yalta is her first book.
For more information about Catherine Grace Katz’s upcoming book, The Daughters of Yalta, visit catherinegracekatz.com.
Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill at the Tehran Conference with Churchill’s daughter Sarah, November 30, 1943. Photo: Fremantle / Alamy Stock Photo.
October 19, 2021
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