At the Tehran Conference in November 1943, a dinner was given in celebration of Winston Churchill’s 69th birthday. Seated on the prime minister’s left was Joseph Stalin, on his right, Franklin D. Roosevelt. The president had not brought a dinner jacket to Persia, but he nevertheless wore a black tie with his pinstripe suit. Dining though he was with a Bolshevik, he would observe the proprieties so far as he was able to.
That Roosevelt and Churchill belonged to the upper crusts of their respective countries undoubtedly helped them to establish a rapport. The president could affect a hearty bonhomie in any company, but his wife was probably right when she observed that “Franklin is not at ease with people not of his own class.” He regularly circumvented the official chain of command to confide business into the hands of such patricians as Averell Harriman and Sumner Welles, who spoke the same language he did and would understand him instinctively. Less creditably, he liked to cultivate European royalties.
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