The Daughters Of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War

by Catherine Grace Katz

The untold story of the three intelligent and glamorous young women who accompanied their famous fathers to the Yalta Conference with Stalin, and of the fateful reverberations in the waning days of World War II.
 
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. Catherine Grace Katz uncovers the dramatic story of the 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. Kathleen Harriman was a champion skier, war correspondent, and daughter of US ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman. Sarah Churchill, an actress-turned-RAF officer, was devoted to her brilliant father, who depended on her astute political mind. Roosevelt’s only daughter, Anna, chosen instead of her mother Eleanor to accompany the president to Yalta, arrived there as keeper of her father’s most damaging secrets. Situated in the political maelstrom that marked the transition to a post- war world, The Daughters of Yalta is a remarkable story of fathers and daughters whose relationships were tested and strengthened by the history they witnessed and the future they crafted together.
 
 

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, World War II, Book Club, Politics, Historical

416 pages, Hardcover

First published September 29, 2020

Reviews

[Lisa of Troy · Rating 3 out of 5]

An important work lacking a strong narrative and should have been half as long

This is a non-fictional work which focuses on three daughters who attended The Yalta Conference in 1945. The Yalta Conference occurred right before the end of World War II when the US, Britain, and the Soviet Union gathered to discuss how the world would operate after the war, in peace time.

The three daughters were Sarah Churchill (daughter of Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill), Anna (daughter of the US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Kathy Harriman (daughter of the US Ambassador to the Soviet Union).

This book should have been right up my alley – it is meticulously researched, has strong female characters, and appeals to the Anglophile in me.

But I wanted to throw my Kindle across the room after I finished reading this.

Because I was so bored.

There are so many characters in The Daughters of Yalta, and the author tries to cover too much ground in the book. There are so many historical events (not just what takes place at Yalta) and background family information.

The writing style was not easily consumable with many large jumbo paragraphs that read more like an encyclopedia than a TED talk.

After The Yalta Conference ended, the book still went on for another hour.

A work that acknowledges the contribution of women to history but needs stronger editing and better formatting.

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[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting take on an almost forgotten summit meeting in Yalta near the end of WWII.

The book is well written and researched. I learned a few new items about the meeting in Yalta; but, I also learned something about each of these daughters of Churchill, Roosevelt and Harriman. It was great to obtain a view of each of these famous men through the eyes of their daughters. I read with the benefit of hindsight, therefore, felt Winston Churchill’s frustration even more as he tried to warn Roosevelt about Stalin’s pending power grab and what the fate of Poland and other boarder countries under USSR would be. But no one would listen to Churchill. If you are interested in this period of history, I highly recommend this book.

I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is fourteen hours and fifty-five minutes. Christine Rendel does a good job narrating the book. Rendel is a British voice-over artist and audiobook narrator.

I

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4+ This turned out to be a terrific book and I thought the audio was excellent. I knew that towards the end of WWII Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin worked together, ironic considering what is happening now, but so it was. What made this book so interesting was the inside look at the multi day meeting they had at Yalta, but even more so because it is told through the eyes of the three young women present. Cathy Harriman, whose father was the American ambassador to Russia and had served as her father's hostess and right-hand, Sara Churchill, in the RAF, but was invited to accompany her father and lastly, Anne who was FDRs daughter. Roosevelt was by then very ill
how sick even Roosevelt himself didn't want to know, but it was Anne's duty was to make sure he heeded the advice of his physician.

We learn what happened at this conference, what was decided and what the young women did and thought while their fathers were in the many meetings. What happened after and the turns, not very happy ones that happened to the three for the remainder of their lives.

So well done and incredibly interesting.

[Mikey B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The daughters in question are – Anna Roosevelt Boettiger (daughter of the U.S. President), Sarah Churchill (daughter of Winston) and Katherine Harriman (daughter of Averell Harriman who was at the time the U.S. ambassador in Moscow).

All were brought by their fathers to the Yalta conference mostly because they had a comfortable relationship with them. In fact, Katherine had just spent several months with her father in Moscow and was starting to learn Russian. Anna had lived the last few months in the White House at the request of Franklin and was starting to be seen as a gatekeeper to her father arranging appointments and the like. It was likewise for Sarah as her “papa” liked to bounce many of his ideas off of her and they were good company for each other.

This is a marvelous book which gives us a good grounding of what took place at Yalta. We get a fresh and intimate perspective from these three women. Of course, they did not participate in the meetings, but they were privy to the feelings of their fathers and those surrounding them, so to some extent they impacted the discussions that took place.

They also attended the memorable dinners that took place until the wee hours of the morning.

Page 232 (my book)

Stalin now raised his glass to the “ladies” who graced his guests with their presence that evening.

Each of the daughters had come to Yalta conscious of the history she was about to witness. No three women in recent history had acquired such a seat at the table alongside the most powerful leaders in the world at a major international summit. Now Stalin walked around the table and touched glasses with each of these three women in turn, recognizing each of them and the place they had earned.

They sometimes travelled during the day while the conferences were in session to visit the war-torn areas around Yalta and encountered inhabitants who had survived the dreadful years of Nazi occupation. The book also gives us glimpses into how they coped with each other and those surrounding their respective fathers. We get a close-up of many of their daily activities, interactions and conversations. This is a lively book.

All to some extent were struggling to assert their individuality as they were in the shadows of their illustrious fathers. Katherine Harriman was the most privileged of the three having grown up in wealth that was passed down from her very rich railroad owning grandfather E.H. Harriman. She was very athletic, and of the three likely the most self-assured.

We come away from this book with the enormous euphoria that they experienced at Yalta. They would remember it for the remainder of their lives.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

History Comes Alive!

The Daughters of Yalta is a brilliant book, bringing to life the minutiae of a historic conference through the eyes of three unlikely participants. These three were Sarah Churchill, Prime Minister Winston's daughter, who accompanied him, Anna Roosevelt, FDR's daughter, who watched over her ailing father who survived little more than two months after the conference, and finally Kathleen Harriman, daughter of the US ambassador to the Soviet Union, Averell Harriman, one of the richest men in the world, heir to one of the great railroad fortunes.

It was an amazing journey to take with the world still at war and for Roosevelt a very difficult journey to make and not be at full strength when dealing with the wily Stalin. The site of the conference was an old Imperial Russian palace in great disrepair among the ruins that the Germans had made of Crimea. The lush banquets the Soviets offered as a show of pride sharply contrasted with the desolation all around and the fear the populace had of the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB. Indeed, the palace was so bare that bathrooms were in short supply.

The whole background of the conference participants is fascinating. Their history and their connections are written about in such a manner that their stories come to life as those of individuals, not merely historical figures.

Nevertheless, the shortcomings of the conference are spelled out. With the Soviet army already holding Poland and the other East European countries, there was little hope of dislodging them short of all out war. Roosevelt believed as many as two million American troops would perish in an invasion of the Japanese homelands without the Soviet army's help. No one knew at the time if the Manhattan Project would prove successful. And, there was no mention of the Holocaust at all despite the evidence now being undeniable. The conference that set up the postwar world paved the way for decades of the Cold War.

All in all, a fantastic story about history that is unforgettable in its breadth and scope.

[Maine Colonial · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three of the key figures at the Yalta conference brought their daughters with them as their aides-de-camp. FDR brought Anna, whose undisclosed primary mission was to protect her father from the overwhelming demands of the trip. She alone knew that he had congestive heart failure and not long to live. Prime Minister Winston Churchill brought his lively daughter Sarah, who was a member of London’s smart set, but also a warrior, as she was in the WAAF and part of an aerial reconnaissance group. Averell Harriman’s daughter, Kathy, had been his trusted business aide for many years, and accompanied him to wartime Moscow when he was appointed the US ambassador to the USSR. Though her father didn’t see the need to do so himself, Kathy immediately set about learning Russian.

Author Katz presents a detailed, fly-on-the-wall account of the experiences of these three women and their fathers. But just because this book is based largely on personal materials of these three women, none of whom attended any of the negotiation sessions, don’t think there will be no insights into the Realpolitik of the Big Three’s dealings.

As with anybody interested in World War II and the Cold War, I knew a bit about the Yalta conference. Reading this book, I was struck by how momentous decisions could be made based on little information, and simply on prejudice and political expediency. For example, according to Katz, Averell Harriman and Winston Churchill cared deeply about Poland and knew that the USSR wanted nothing more than to control the country. Both Harriman and Churchill were very familiar with Poland, and the Polish government in exile was headquartered in England. But FDR was bored by the subject of Poland and sidelined concerns and insights into Soviet thinking. FDR thought he could somehow charm Stalin into cooperation with the West. Of course he was wrong, and the result was that Poland lived in subjugation for decades. Maybe there was nothing that could have been done about it, but FDR’s dismissive attitude—based on his judgment that Poland wasn’t a subject American voters cared about—was naïve and arrogant, unfitting to a world leader. It’s even more appalling that because of the casual antisemitism common at the time, there was no Yalta discussion of the fate of Europe’s Jews at the hands of the Nazis , though it was well known, and FDR even made an appalling “joke” about Jews when discussing his upcoming meeting with the Saudis.

In addition to the political insights the book offers, there are some gossipy bits too. Sarah Churchill’s close friend was her brother Randolph’s wife, Pamela Digby Churchill. While Averell Harriman was in London, before heading off to his ambassadorship in the USSR, and Randolph was stationed out of the country—and spending a ton of money he didn’t have on gambling and drinking—Pamela had an affair with Averell. Now, two years later, meeting Sarah Churchill again reminded Averell of his affection for Pamela. (Indeed, decades later Averell and Pamela would marry.) Anna learned at the conference that Kathy Harriman had had a romance with Anna’s married brother FDR Jr.

While the dealings at Yalta are, of course, of the most historical interest in this book, I appreciate that Katz also tells readers of the post-Yalta lives of the “little three” women.

Anyone who wants to go behind the scenes at Yalta, or who is interested in the role of women in political history, should find this a rewarding read.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Catherine Grace Katz takes an interesting approach with this book, turning a key meeting of the three major Allies from the Second World War into a highly unique exploration of the history and goings-on. Three women proved to be key players, albeit behind the scenes, at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, but their presence cannot be discounted. Katz explores these women, both their personal lives and time along the Black Sea, as well as how they noticed certain things in Yalta that have not been widely reported in history books up to this point. A great story that not only highlights the three, but also puts a new spin on Yalta, sure to impress the reader.

Preparations for the Yalta Conference in February 1945 had to be perfect, as the ‘Big Three’ would arrive to discuss the end of the Second World War. While Josep Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill get a great deal of mention in the history books, one would be remiss if some attention were not made of three key women who accompanied their fathers. Catherine Grace Katz explores each of these women in depth before setting out how the conference proceeded and what they saw, which might differ from the ‘mainstream’ tale of events.

American Ambassador to the USSR, Averell Harriman, had his daughter, Kathleen, with him to prep the Black Sea resort town for the meeting. Kathleen Harriman was a champion skier, war correspondent, and well-versed in all things political, having been with her father for the last few years. Her attention to detail made her the ‘leader’ of the three, when they came together for the conference, though she was not without her own opinions on matters, sometimes shared in private.

Anna Boettiger (nee Roosevelt) accompanied her father to the conference,. As Katz explains, this created quite a stir back home. While Anna was FDR’s only daughter, her selection ahead of her own mother, Eleanor, would not go over well within the family. Anna had a family all her own, but it was perhaps not her political prowess that brought her to Russia, but that she could (and did) keep her father’s darkest secret, namely that he was dying of heart failure and surely did not have long left to live.

Sarah Churchill, accompanied the British PM, serving as an astute political mind for her father, as well as having been a popular actress back home and having served in the RAF during the early part of the War. She had ideas and made her her father knew them, but was keenly aware that things were fluid and required analysis, rather than a knee-jerk reaction.

As the book progresses, Katz takes readers through some of the highlights of the Conference, including the agreements and clashes between the Big Three, as they sought to divide and retake Europe from the Nazis. She intersperses the events of the conference against views that these three women had, or their own personal struggles with the lives they have come to live. A detailed exploration of Katherine, Sarah, and Anna may not be possible, but Katz introduces the reader to them sufficiently that there is always room for more reading, should it be something of interest.

A piece like this is always hard to encapsulate easily, but it is a brilliant idea for a book. Catherine Grace Katz provides the reader with a great event in history and layers upon it new flavourings through the eyes of these three strong women. The narrative moves along, divided by chapters that tell of each day of the conference. The struggles found within are real and the backstories may not be well-known to readers, as they were not to mr. I thoroughly enjoyed the drams, humour, and little vignettes that emerged throughout, allowing me to learn and stay entertained as I made my way through the piece. I am eager to see what else Katz has penned and how I might learn more from her, in this unique way of discovering history.

Kudos, Madam Katz, for berthing life into history and keeping me attentive throughout.

Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

[David Quijano · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw The Daughters of Yalta by Catherine Katz on the shelf at the library and it immediately caught my attention. I read Witness by Whittaker Chambers a couple years ago, and since then I have been interested in the Soviet infiltration of America prior to the start of the Cold War. I was particularly interested in Alger Hiss, whom Whittaker specifically named as a Soviet agent, and was one of three people from the US State Department present at the Yalta Conference. I hoped The Daughters of Yalta would be a fresh new take on the events at the conference through the point of view of the daughters and I also hoped it would shed some light about the Soviet espionage during the conference. I was not disappointed and this is one of my favorite history books I’ve ever read.

My view of the Yalta conference going into this book was mostly negative. My general view is that the Soviets played the Americans and British (not just at Yalta, but all throughout the war) and somehow went from being nearly overrun by Hitler in 1943, to an unstoppable super power by 1945. This is, in part, due to some miscalculations by the British and American leadership.

The Daughters of Yalta mostly enforced my previously held views and then some. Even on paper (assuming the Soviets actually kept their promises), the grade for the conference would have been just okay. But considering Poland ended up as a Soviet satellite without elections makes it seem an unequivocal failure. The story of Yalta is mostly depressing, but the author, Catherine Katz, finds a way to keep the material relatively light-hearted yet still relevant and interesting by writing about the daughters of FDR, Churchill, and Harriman (who was the American ambassador to the USSR at the end of WWII).

To me, the daughters and their experiences are the strong points of this book. They are interesting, likable, and especially in the case of Kathleen Harriman, seemingly just as capable as their fathers. Not to mention, most people do not know their story. Everything about them is fresh and new.

The logistics of the conference was always something I wondered about. How did the American delegation even get to Yalta? It is in the middle of nowhere. Wasn’t it dangerous? What was it like when they got there? All this information is in the book. Long story short, it is as bad as you would assume. The trip described sounded like a nightmare. The accommodations once they got to Yalta would be considered a minor human rights violation today - bed bugs, mosquitos, and caviar and vodka for every meal.

By contrast, I find Churchill and especially Roosevelt to be mostly unlikable and not particularly competent. As I got deeper into the book it seemed clear that Stalin understood the geopolitical forces at play much better than his fellow allies. He had the foresight to prepare for the Cold War decades before it actually happened, having spies all throughout the US and UK while neither had a significant presence in the USSR. Unfortunately for the US and UK, Stalin was playing four dimensional chess. Meanwhile, Churchill was playing Tiddlywinks and Roosevelt was barely able to stay conscious, with one foot already in the grave.

Not only was Stalin able to manipulate the allies to have their meeting at Yalta, he bugged the entire conference. I genuinely wonder if there was any word said that he was not aware of. There were many anecdotes of allied personnel discussing innocuous complaints amongst themselves one day, only to have their issue addressed by Russian officials the next day. In one instance, one of the daughters mentions the caviar would benefit from some lemon. The next day, a Soviet official brings in a potted lemon tree filled with fruit for the use of the allied delegation.

I could go on and on about how I don’t think Churchill or Roosevelt deserve the credit they generally get from people. I think both were incredibly flawed leaders and could have made several decisions that could have lessened the pain of WWII. But the strong point of this book is that it gets beyond the good decision/bad decision aspect of these men. Churchill and FDR are humanized. They have daughters they care about, and have hopes for, and depend on in a very important time in history.

The one issue I was most interested in coming into this book was that of Alger Hiss. When he is first mentioned in the book, it is almost as an afterthought and I assumed she wouldn’t address whether or not he was a Soviet spy. I still read conflicting information about whether or not this is confirmed and I assumed she was avoiding the issue due to ambiguity. Eventually, though, she directly addresses Alger Hiss and seemed to think he was clearly a spy. I tend to lean in that direction as well, but the real issue to me is that the agreement at Yalta was so bad for the US that it is even debatable. US policy toward the USSR all throughout the war was so mind-boggling bad, it is as if our institutions were overrun by Soviet agents.

The Daughters of Yalta is pretty much everything I look for in a history book. The book zoomed in on ordinary people (the daughters) and used their specific experiences to tell a grander story. It found a perfect balance between the big picture and little picture as well as sticking to the main story, and deviating just enough into interesting anecdotes that fill out the narrative. This balance is difficult to find, but Katz succeeds beautifully. This is an amazing book and I highly recommend it to anyone who is into US, Soviet, WII, or women’s history.

[Book Concierge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Digital audiobook read by Christine Rendel


Subtitle: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War

When the Allied leaders chose to meet at Yalta for a summit concerning strategy for finally ending World War II, three young women, each a daughter of a key player, were asked to come along. Kathleen Harriman was the daughter of U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman; she was a champion skier and a war correspondent. Sarah Churchill, a RAF officer (and former actress) accompanied her brilliant father, who depended on her astute political mind. And Franklin D Roosevelt’s only daughter, Anna, was tasked with keeping her father’s closely guarded secrets, especially when it came to his failing health. Each young woman had a fierce sense of family loyalty but was also blessed with political savvy. They not only witnessed history but helped to craft the world’s future. And then there were the romantic intrigues …

I found this “behind-the-scenes” history fascinating. I had heard of Sarah and Anna, but knew nothing of Kathleen. These young women – beautiful, wealthy and vivacious – were treated by the press as “society” stories. But they were far more than just photo opportunities. Each was highly intelligent and quite accomplished. And each one helped her father in key ways.

As a bonus there was more info on Churchill’s daughter-in-law. I had previously read Life of the Party: The Biography of Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman by Christopher Ogden, so familiar with Pamela, but this work nicely supplemented what I knew about her, as well.

Christine Rendel does a fine job of narrating the audiobook edition. But there were several sections that I chose to read in text. I find that reading history in text helps me to better absorb the information than listening.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Daughters of Yalta is a thorough chronology given of the February 1945 Yalta Conference, through the experience and lens of three impressive father daughter teams in attendance during those momentous days.

Those preparing for the Yalta conference had great hopes for proposing, persuading and settling troubling issues related to matters of global and state importance, and each would bring supporting teams. Joseph Stalin was hosting on behalf of the Soviet Union, in the agreed upon region of Yalta. Winston Churchill brought all of the United Kingdom’s hopes and proposals for world peace. Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted on attending even though he wasn’t well, feeling he could do the best job of presenting the US side of things. Included in the US team was Averell Harriman who had long ties with the Soviet Union, and was the ambassador to the Soviet Union. Churchill brought his daughter Sarah, Roosevelt his daughter Anna, and Harriman brought daughter Kathleen. Each of these women had been immersed in their father’s politics their entire lives. Their purpose was to support and provide personal and professional assistance to their fathers and those others brought to the conference.

The Yalta conference was something I’d heard about all my life, having often seen that picture of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin sitting together, like in-law uncles at a picnic. . .not exactly comfortable but braving the awkwardness. That was all I knew of the Yalta conference. I appreciated the blanks this book filled in for me. From the first page to the last this is a day by day report of what happened, who was hoping for what to happen. There were correspondence and journal entries reporting on the facilities, events, meals and 20/20 hindsight information that most likely was not known by participants at the time. Those great details scratched my history itch.

The best part for me, though, was the attention the author paid to the father – daughter relationships. These men were politicians who made important contributions known and unknown to our countries and world. Yet before all that, they were Dads. They had families they answered to, who they sheltered and considered their most important inside circle. . .those who would know the beat of their hearts better than anyone. These three daughters had been part of their fathers’ careers, and had careers of their own. However for this particular time all the planets lined up and they ended up being asked, being available and deemed a good fit for the team’s objectives. I enjoyed the all the background provided by the author on the many ways these families had intersected through the years, and what happened after the conference – both to the participants and the outcomes, positive and negative of the conference.

This is a great non-fiction read for WWII buffs, for those interested in these particular men and countries, in Yalta and in world peace efforts (and fails). I recommend it highly. The endpapers were thorough and helpful for those who want to dig deeper on any of the topics brought up in the book.

A sincere thanks to Catherine Grace Katz, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid 4 stars for this book, which is well-written and well-researched. The three daughters of the title are Kathleen Harriman, daughter of Averell Harriman, US Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Sarah Churchill, daughter of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Anna Roosevelt, daughter of US President Franklin Roosevelt. All three women accompanied their fathers to the Yalta Conference of 1945 and the meeting of the Big Three--Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. We get the three daughters' perspectives on the historic event that occurred at Yalta, a former Czarist resort on the coast of the Crimean Peninsula, then a part of Russia. I knew a lot about Yalta and enjoyed seeing it from the unique perspectives of three very interesting women. It is a great debut book by Catherine Grace Katz.

[Joanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

First off, this was between 3-4 stars the entire book. At the end I decided on 4. 3 for the writing. the fourth star going to Catherine Grace Katz for the extensive and excellent research on her subjects.

Although the book highlights a turning point of WWII, little about the actual war is written. I say this to those of you who no longer want to read on the subject. Catherine Grace Katz uses her pages to focus on the eyes and ears of the 3 women involved, to tell their story and experience.

In February 1945, as WWII finally neared a victory, the "Big Three" (Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin) met in Crimea to discuss the rebuilding of Europe and reparations for Germany. Churchill and FDR brought a daughter with them. The third daughter was Kathleen Harriman, daughter of US ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman. The history of the Harriman's was most fascinating for me. I went into the book knowing the name and came out at the end with extensive knowledge and respect for both.

This is a small chunk of unknown history, and the story of 3 strong women. Strongly recommend to readers who enjoy either.

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 4 out of 5]

The untold story of the three intelligent and glamorous young women who accompanied their famous fathers to the Yalta Conference in February 1945, and of the conference’s fateful reverberations in the waning days of World War II. 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. Catherine Grace Katz uncovers the dramatic story of the 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 coloured these crucial days.

Kathleen Harriman was a champion skier, war correspondent, and daughter of U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman. Sarah Churchill, an actress-turned-RAF officer, was devoted to her brilliant father, who depended on her astute political mind. Roosevelt’s only daughter, Anna, chosen instead of her mother Eleanor to accompany the president to Yalta, arrived there as keeper of her father’s most damaging secrets. Situated in the political maelstrom that marked the transition to a post-war world, The Daughters of Yalta is a remarkable story of fathers and daughters whose relationships were tested and strengthened by the history they witnessed and the future they crafted together.

This is a deeply fascinating and richly informative read and one of the most interesting and eminently readable history books I've picked up in the past few years. What drew me initially was the focus on the women, rather than Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin themselves, which tends to be the perspective most often given of the Yalta conference. It's clear Katz has carried out impeccable research in order to provide us, the readership, with an accurate picture of the roles the women played at Yalta whilst accompanying some of histories most prominent political leaders. I, for one, am glad this book has been written to honour these daughters who have all but been forgotten from history but who played an extensive, unofficial role and one that should be recognised. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for an ARC.

[Lynn Horton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found The Daughters of Yalta to be fascinating. The author paints a clear picture of each young woman, and having had a great relationship with my father, I enjoyed reading about their relationships with their dads. Not everyone comes out of this book looking good, but history has its winners and losers. The details in the book made is especially interesting, and I'm thankful that the author didn't just rehash the politics of Yalta.

I recommend this book for anyone interested in fairly recent history, as well as for background information about leaders during the World War era.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Daughters of Yalta by Catherine Crace Katz is a great book that is nonfiction in nature, yet easily reads as fiction (in my opinion).

I love it when I can enjoy a book and learn so much about historical events and people that I only knew little about.

In this book, I was introduced to the events surrounding, during, and after the Yalta Conference that took place in the Crimea during Feb 4-11, 1945. I knew of this, but did not know much more then overall facts. With this book, I felt like I was actually there among so many dignitaries, leaders, and politicians.

I also got to learn more about several fascinating women: Sara Churchill (daughter of Winston Churchill), Anna Roosevelt (daughter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt), and Kathleen Harriman (daughter Averell Harriman in this case envoy to Britain and later USSR amongst many other important appointed positions within the American government). It was wonderful to learn so much about so many strong, fiery, intelligent, and impressive women. I was also privy to their relationships with their parents, each other, and the pool of significant others sprinkled throughout these families. It was beyond amazing. The things I never knew.

I really enjoyed learning more about Kathleen Harriman and I have already started reading more about her. I hope to find out even more!

An excellent book that takes historical events and subjects and presents it into a contemporary format and understanding so as anyone can read, absorb, learn, and enjoy. I know I did.

5/5 stars

Thank you Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for this ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon and B&N accounts upon publication.

[Cynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Until the Yalta Conference, sons and other trusted/beloved young men assisted the elder statesmen at political and military conference. For the first time we have daughters who assist. Not one. But three. Anna Roosevelt attended her US president father, Kathleen Harriman her US ambassador father, and Sarah Churchill her British prime minister father.

Due to documentation, such as the women's personal journals and letters, their business diaries and business notes, we get a look into the Yalta Conference that has more social aspects, aspects that tell is more than what was previously expected of hallway and dinner conversations and of the social realities of the towns and cities visited throughout Crimea. So a view of the Yalta Conference, the converse participants and assistants, the household arrangements, transportation diffculties, social conditions, and more can be known about what happened vefore, during, after & at and near the conference. A more whole history.

Now daughters often attend fathers at political and military fathers.

So here in this book we see a changing of the gender of assistants, how well it all worked to support the elder statement fathers. Rather well indeed.

[Jessica Senn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book! I'm a sucker for a good history book and this really fit the bill for my interests. I'm constantly amazed at the amount of women who quietly wielded influence and affected change and then faded back into the background and allowed history to forget them because they were "just doing their bit and no one would be interested in all that."
I would STRONGLY encourage you to read The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson before reading this book. I feel like I appreciated this more and understood a whole lot more of what influenced many of the players in the Yalta conference because most of them made significant appearances in The Splendid and the Vile.

[Carlina Scalf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this incredibly engrossing - Katz recreates the conference in incredible detail while also weaving a very engaging narrative around the event. It feels heavily researched but is never weighed down by the research - the plot moves quickly, and I was eager to find out the results of the conference and the larger fates of the daughters at the center of the narrative (an unfamiliarity with the specifics of the conference and a commitment to not Google the details definitely upped the suspense!). Especially interesting (and grim/eerie) to read in the context of present-day conflict in the Crimean peninsula. I loved most the way this book humanizes larger-than-life figures like Roosevelt and Churchill, reminding me that world politics is, in the end, carried about by flawed, mortal, complex humans, even when the impact of their decisions feel and are larger than life.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Detailed history about the three plucky daughters of the famous fathers who met Stalin at Yalta during the final months of the Second World War. I liked reading about what they did and how they related to each other. The primitive accommodations at Yalta made it a horrid place to hold a conference. Good overview of their post-Yalta lives. It should appeal to history fans, especially those who are WW II buffs.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War is the first novel by American author and historian Catherine Grace Katz. It covers the last meeting between President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Joseph Stalin at Yalta in the Ukraine. The purpose of the meetings is to coordinate the final battle against Hitler's Germany, to sort out the independence of Poland and to sort out a future world order, aka the UN. Winston Churchill brought along his daughter, WAAF officer, Sarah Churchill. FDR brought his daughter Ann Roosevelt and US Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Averil Harriman and brought his daughter Kathy. Stalin had a daughter, Svetlana but he didn't not bring her. In fact he didn't have much of a relationship with her.

It's an interesting, involved historical story, made more fascinating by the involvement of the daughters. We wander back and forth between the daughters, as they accompany their fathers to the conference, flash back into the lives before, their relationships within their families and their personal relationships and their efforts to help during the conference.

We are also provided with an excellent perspective on the conference, it's importance and many of the historical events leading up to it. It's a rich story, filled with wonderful personalities, the people who helped end the war and even the results of their deliberations. Was the Yalta conference a success or a failure. Catherine Katz presents the history logically, offering personal perspectives, correspondence and the thoughts of the participants. It's a rich, entertaining, thoughtful view of an important part of WWII history. The women each had their tragedies and life difficulties, with relationships, with the parents and were complex, intelligent, thoughtful women. Such a fascinating, well written story. (4.0 stars)

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book! This was a great book for a business major who didn’t take many (enough!) history classes! I learned so much. It almost reads like historical fiction but is in fact a historical account animated by the author’s voluminous research. Lucky for us, many of the legendary characters in this book wrote insightful and detailed letters to their family and friends recounting their conversations and experiences. The author (her first novel!) successfully weaves these individual and contemporaneous accounts (and interviews and other archival records) into a fascinating story about a very fraught time in the history of the world. There is a lot to unpack about the women/daughters at the center of this story and how unusual their roles were in 1945, dad/daughter relationships, how interconnected many of these people were, the sinister beginnings of the KGB, how this summit set the stage for geopolitical battles we still face… fun read for me and I look forward to talking about it with my book club.

[The Library Lady · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like so many people who have studied history (it was my minor in college) I knew about Yalta, but I didn't really KNOW about Yalta, except for the pictures showing Churchill, Stalin and a very decrepit FDR. I recall it being mentioned that Roosevelt's daughter Anna traveled with him, but no mention of Sarah Churchill (Oliver), Churchill's daughter, or Kathleen Harriman, daughter of Averill Harriman, the American Ambassador to the USSR. Katz tells the story of the Yalta conference through the three women, and also tells their stories.

We see Kathleen trying to organize the arrangements before the conference, dealing with Stalin's people and Anna Roosevelt, sailing in and changing things because of something only Roosevelt's doctor knows, he is dying of congestive heart failure, and shouldn't even be there--in fact he died only 2 months later. We see Sarah Churchill, trying to find her place with her father and to fulfill a meaningful role. We see them behind the scenes as Stalin reaches for control of post-WWII Europe, and Churchill and Roosevelt try to keep him in check. There are lavish meals with 20 courses and endless booze, and visits to a nearby town where only 6 of 200 buildings still stand, and people pour into the once forbidden churches.

I have always thought of Anna as just a side character in the Roosevelt story, but here we see her courage, and her devotion to her father (which I sincerely doubt that he ever appreciated), and that she was a worthy successor to her parents. She comes alive on these pages in a way that I have never seen her before. Katz tells her story and those of the others fluidly and clearly. Highly readable in a way adult history should be, but often isn't!

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating history of the Yalta conference right before the end of the WWII war in Europe. Three of the principals (Roosevelt, Churchill and Harriman) brought their daughters as aides de camp, and the author has obviously done a lot of research on the participation of the three women in the conference. Churchill and Roosevelt don't come off so well in this telling, but there are a lot of interesting aspects to the way the conference was conducted from the points of view of the daughters. It appears (to this seventies era cold warrior) that Joseph Stalin played the western leaders from the very beginning. The book is very well documented (almost half of the Kindle version is notes and index) for those of you interested in primary historical research.

[RoxAnne · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a disappointment! I was expecting this to be more about the daughters based on the title and the description. What it really is, is a detailed historical account of the Yalta Summit and the interactions of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, and their entourages. There were very few references to the daughters throughout the book. Only in the last chapter was the focus on the daughters and then it was a rushed biographical accounting of their lives til the end of their lives. If you love WW2 history, this is a good book, but that’s not what I was promised in the book summary or title.

[Carol Buchter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much Yalta not enough daughters.
If this book had been more honestly titled. I would have realized that it was a straight up WWII history book and most likely would not have picked it up - except for the fact that it was a book group read and thus not totally in the free will world.

Not my cup of tea.

[Pearl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first picture I ever remember seeing of FDR was the one of him at the Yalta Conference seated with Churchill and Stalin on either side. Roosevelt was in the middle with a big cape thrown around his shoulders and looking very frail and old; much older than the other two, although he wasn’t. I don’t know why this is the one I remember; I didn’t see it in real time, but I also remember wondering why he was considered handsome. I may have seen others, but this is the one I remember. Of course I have seen and remember scads of others since, and in some of them he is handsome.

The Yalta Conference has been much written about since it took place in 1945 just on the verge of Germany’s defeat. None of the reporting or analysis took note of the western leaders’ daughters being in attendance, so far as I know. So Katz has found a new lens for looking back at the conference. There’s some but not a lot of detail about the issues and their aftermath discussed in her book. But that was a secondary subject. The book focuses on the daughters: Anna Roosevelt, Sarah Churchill, and Kathleen Harriman. Stalin did not bring any family members. Katz doesn’t argue that the daughters helped shape the policy there but that they provided crucial personal support for their fathers.

In some cases their role was mostly that of gatekeeper. This was particularly true of Anna Roosevelt. Her father had been recently diagnosed with a congestive heart condition, a condition that the always secretive Roosevelt wanted to keep a secret. Anna was one of the few people who knew and she only knew because she pried the information from her father’s doctor. In an effort to protect her father’s failing health she barred, to the extent she could, several members of his close inner circle from meeting with him. Of course they were highly irritated with her as she was with them. Whether she kept her father from learning things he should have is not entirely clear. FDR, however, was very much his own man, and he himself shut people out that he should have seen and listened to.

Sarah Churchill played less the role of a gatekeeper and more the role of a companion and sparring partner. Churchill, unlike Roosevelt, liked to hear different opinions and argue about them. Sarah, much more confident in her relationship with her father than Anna was, could do this. She was also one of the few people, aside from her mother who was not at Yalta, who could manage Churchill’s moods and temper.

Kathleen Harriman is portrayed as more of a partner to her father. They had a strong, trusting relationship and she had worked with him on a variety of projects: developing a ski resort in Sun Valley and, most importantly, working as his aide while he was the U.S. Ambassador to Russia. She taught herself a passable Russian while there and generally developed good relations with Russian officials, including Stalin. Nevertheless she knew enough not to trust him. In this way her analysis was more acute than was FDR’s. At Yalta her primary job was to assist the Russians in making the physical arrangements for the conference. No small job.

Kathleen comes across as the most self-confident and outgoing of the three. Anna, as the least, although she was by far the oldest. Both Kathleen and Sarah were secure in their family and in their relationship with their fathers, as well as on good terms with their mothers. Anna had never felt confident in her relationships with either her mother or her father. She was thrilled to be invited by her father on the Yalta trip. Previously, FDR had always taken one of his sons. Eleanor was hurt not to have been invited. FDR tried to soothe her hurt feelings by telling her that Churchill and Harriman were bringing their daughters and for him to bring his wife would have meant much more additional fuss and security for the Russians to manage. Anna knew her mother was hurt but could not bring herself to yield her place to her mother. Clementine was away on a good will trip and Harriman and his wife, although still friendly, were separated.

The three daughters were not allowed to sit in on the discussions among Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin and their closest advisers, although they were at the lavish dinners where quite a lot of discussion was carried on. Since they couldn’t attend the strategy and policy discussions, they took the opportunity to explore Yalta and surrounds. No small task because Russian guards followed them everywhere and almost all of the area had been devastated by the war. They could see how poor the people were and how much they had and were continuing to suffer as a result.

Katz explains why Yalta was such an unlikely place for the conference. It was a long trip both for Roosevelt and Churchill. Neither wanted to take such a long journey; they were exhausted from the war years and Roosevelt was very ill, as was his long time aide, Harry Hopkins. However Stalin insisted that Yalta was as far west as he would come and as with so many other things as the conference, they gave in. The main events were held at the once sumptuous place of the Tsars. Now it was in very bad disrepair. The roads to get to Yalta were tortuous and the drive took, seemingly, forever. Nevertheless all could see the enormous effort the Russians (and Kathleen) had made to accommodate everybody. The table service and linens were beautiful; they were overseen by staff from Moscow’s famed Metropol hotel. The food was something else. They were served heavy Russian food and caviar, caviar, caviar and vodka, vodka, vodka! The meals were difficult for the British and the Americans.

Katz emphasizes that it’s not surprising that the outcome of the Yalta Conference, although initially praised, soon was subject to much criticism. The three leaders had very different goals for what would happen to Europe in the aftermath of the war. Churchill fought hard for Poland’s sovereignty. After all, isn’t that why Britain entered the war in the first place? Stalin wanted retribution for his country’s crippling losses in the war. Roosevelt wanted help in ending the war in the Pacific and in created a United Nations where diplomacy could settle disputes. Parts of these goals were achieved but, as usual, Stalin bullied. Churchill resisted, but Roosevelt often sided with Stalin to the discomfort of Churchill. Roosevelt believed his personal charm could win Stalin over. (He’s not the first or the last American President who was overly confident in personal charm.)

Fortunately for Katz Anna, Sarah, and Kathleen were all prolific letter writers. She had access to much of their correspondence to each of their mothers, their siblings, their friends and, in Anna’s case, to her husband who was still fighting in the war; and, in Kathleen’s case, to her friend and her father’s friend, Pamela Churchill, who later was to become Pamela Harriman. I’m not sure that Katz was unprejudiced in her view of the three women or their fathers, although what she writes broadly supports things we already know about all of them.

I think Averell and Kathleen Harriman come of the best in most of the book. They are accomplished, secure in their own persons, and friendly and helpful to others. Very attractive characters both in their appearance and in their personalities. Sarah Churchill comes off pretty well, too. According to Katz, she tries to be helpful and friendly to Anna and seemed not to realize that Anna didn’t like her, at least not at first. She is also described as very attractive. Churchill is always Churchill – lovely and irascible and grumpy and funny. Katz seems to go out of her way to describe Anna as not that pretty but more pretty than her mother. In a completely gratuitous way she writes that Franklin, Jr. was the best looking of the Roosevelt sons and the only one with any sort of a chin.

FDR turns on several of his loyal and trusted and well qualified advisers. Katz shows him as unaccountably and undeservedly shutting out Harry Hopkins and Harriman when he could have benefitted from their advice. She also writes the only account that I have ever read which had some negative views of Hopkins. Of course, he wasn’t perfect, but I have always seen him only very highly praised for his unflagging devotion to FDR and his causes. Katz also portrays Anna as quarreling with Hopkins; she didn’t believe he was as ill as he claimed to be, although everyone else could see that he was very, very ill.

As a kind of coda to her book, she softens toward Anna Churchill. She writes a little about Anna’s and Sarah’s lives after Yalta, but scarcely anything about Kathleen’s. Kathleen outlived both of them. Evidently all three of the women looked back on Yalta as one of the most treasured times in their lives.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I think of the Yalta Conference, the photo of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, apparently sitting outside in greatcoats, comes to mind*. So I was more than surprised to discover that the daughters referred to in the shortened title of this book are not those of the three men. They are Anna Churchill, Sarah Roosevelt and Kathleen Harriman. Stalin did not bring his daughter to the conference.

Author Catherine Grace Katz injects an added interest to the Conference by partly focusing on the three women, their actions and interactions and some of their perspectives of the serious business of determining what will happen after WWII.

Kathleen Harriman was the daughter of W. Averell Harriman, the US ambassador to Russia. She and Anna Churchill were journalists. At this time Sarah was a member of the British Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. The three women developed an easy friendship and spent their time in Yalta steadying their fathers, attending the many formal dinners of attendees and touring the general area.

… beneath geopolitics lie personal relationships. Entwined within the story of the end of one war and the beginning of another, there is also the story of three sets of fathers and daughters—fathers and daughters whose relationships were tested and strengthened by the history they experienced together.

Anna Roosevelt’s role at the Conference might have been the most difficult as her father was obviously sick, probably suffering from congestive heart failure. She was as protective of him as he allowed.

Kathy Harriman arrived at the Conference site first and helped determine which delegation would stay where. She arranged for the American delegation to be housed at the Livadia Palace, where the meetings would also be held. It had been the summer vacation home of Nicholas II and his family. Unfortunately, the Nazi’s had striped it, even taking the door knobs. In a very short time she had it set up with the help of the Metropol Hotel in Moscow which provided the linens, the cookware and much, more. Unfortunately it had only nine bathrooms that they could get working in the short time they had to set it up, and there were over one hundred people in the delegation. And, they could not completely eradicate the many insects that had taken over the palace, including the bedbugs.

Katz introduces each of the women while describing the major issues of the Conference and then after the Conference ends, she follows each daughter’s life. While they did not become long term friends, their lives, or those of people they were close to, often intersected.

Some of the issues of the Conference were new to me. I was not aware that the government of Poland was a very contentious issue. Churchill strongly promoted self determination for the Poles. Roosevelt was not particularly interested in Poland. Stalin conceded a bit to Churchill and then did not keep the agreement.

Neither the American nor the British people were happy with the agreements made at the Conference. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage two months after the Conference ended and Churchill was voted out of office.

The Daughters of Yalta was an interesting piece of history. Katz introduces many issues that could use further examination. It is a beginning.

I chose this book because I had been listening to several books about the Churchill family and wanted to learn more about them. It added another note.

The Daughters of Yalta was narrated by the British voice of Christine Rendel.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_C...

[Mal Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Few Americans today remember the name Yalta. But for two generations following the end of World War II, the word conjured up conflicting political visions of the war’s outcome. It was there on the shores of the Black Sea that Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin met for eight days in February 1945 to resolve the most troublesome questions facing the Allies: the treatment of defeated Germany, the fate of Poland, and whether the Soviet Union would enter the war with Japan. How those questions were resolved set off the Yalta controversy, which would divide Americans throughout the years of the long Cold War. And historian Catherine Grace Katz opens a window on those fateful eight days in her engaging account of three elite women who bore witness as aides to their fathers: Anna Roosevelt, Sarah Churchill, and Kathleen Harriman.

The Yalta controversy

When the Big Three met at Yalta, victory was at hand. Dwight Eisenhower‘s legions were pushing ever deeper into Germany, while the Russians under Konstantin Rokossovsky and Georgy Zhukov were sweeping into Central Europe from north to south. Only in the Pacific was the end not yet in sight. Douglas MacArthur‘s troops secured the Philippines during the conference, Chester Nimitz‘s naval forces were moving ever closer to the Japanese home islands, and Curtis LeMay‘s bombers were incinerating Japan’s cities. But the invasion of Japan lay ahead—a massive operation far larger than the Normandy landings that promised the take the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans and last well into 1946 or 1947.

Clashing priorities among the Allies

Thus, for Franklin Roosevelt—and for America’s Joint Chiefs—the highest priority at Yalta was to secure Marshall Stalin’s agreement to enter the war with Japan. And that priority led him to part ways with Winston Churchill on the Prime Minister’s highest priority: securing the independence of Poland as a democratic state. Some of the President’s top aides, including Harry Hopkins and Ambassador to Great Britain John Gilbert Winant, frantically attempted to persuade FDR to join Churchill in taking a hard line on Poland. And Congressional Republicans later charged—loudly and repeatedly—that he had capitulated to Stalin, betraying the Poles and their Eastern European brethren. This, in essence, was the Yalta controversy. But there was literally nothing that the Western Allies could have done to ensure democratic elections in Poland, and FDR knew it.

In reality, Soviet troops had overrun Poland and were only forty miles from Berlin while the Big Three met at Yalta. They also held Romania, Bulgaria, and much of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. Nothing short of a declaration of war might have given Stalin pause. And, in the end, the Soviet leader consented to join the war in the Pacific three months after the war in Europe had been won. Unlike many other promises Stalin made and later broke, he kept his word to enter the war against Japan—three months to the day after V-E Day.

The three women at the heart of this story

Sarah Churchill

Sarah Churchill Oliver (1914-82) was thirty years old at Yalta. “To the woman standing beside him, Winston Churchill was simply ‘Papa.'” The second of the Prime Minister’s three surviving daughters—a fourth had died at age three in 1921—Sarah was a stage actress. Separated from her husband, she had enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), the women’s branch of the RAF, when Britain entered the war. Sarah worked at a secret facility in rural England interpreting aerial reconnaissance photos in preparation for Allied operations in North Africa and Europe.

Anna Roosevelt

Thirty-eight years of age when she was at Yalta, Anna Roosevelt Boettiger (1906-75) was the oldest of FDR’s five children and his only daughter. She was the eldest of the three women profiled in The Daughters of Yalta. Anna was the mother of three children, two of them by her first husband. At the time of Yalta, she was married to John Boettiger, a lieutenant colonel in the US Army and a journalist. (The couple had jointly edited the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.) Although she had moved into the White House early in 1944 to help care for her ailing, wheelchair-bound father, he had taken her brothers with him to previous Big Three summits. The conference was her first experience of front-line diplomacy. Later in life, she would offer testimony that fed the Yalta controversy, but that lay years in the future.

Kathy Harriman

At age twenty-seven, Kathleen Harriman (1917-2011) was the youngest of the three women profiled in this book. Yet she was in significant ways the best prepared for the experience at Yalta. She had lived with her father, Averell Harriman (1891-1986), in London for two years and then followed him when he served for an additional two years as Ambassador to the Soviet Union. She spoke some Russian. And she had the good looks and self-confidence she inherited from her father that enabled her to work untroubled face-to-face with the men then running the world.
Contrasting roles at the conference

The three daughters served different functions as aides to their fathers.

** Anna Roosevelt was one of a handful of people who knew that her father was dying of congestive heart failure. (He would pass away just two months later at Warm Springs, Georgia.) Her role, as she viewed it, was to prevent others from learning of the severity of his illness and to shield the President from the incessant demands of aides and military officers. In this effort, she was only partially successful. Aides sidestepped her, with FDR’s connivance. And relations with the Soviets were so touchy that she was unable to prevent his attendance at the interminable banquets with Joseph Stalin prolonged by endless toasts with vodka. And some of his own aides, most prominently Secretary of State James Byrnes, presidential counselor Harry Hopkins, and Averell Harriman, proved almost equally troublesome. It was their frantic attempts to divert FDR from his course that helped feed the conspiracy-mongers who later sustained the Yalta controversy.

** Although Anna Roosevelt was the oldest of the daughters, she was by far the least experienced in diplomacy of the three. And FDR, who was secretive at the best of times, rarely took her into his confidence about political or military matters. To others at Yalta, she appeared nervous. By contrast, both Sarah Churchill and Kathy Harriman were old hands at the game and fully trusted by their fathers. Sarah had been Winston’s confidante for years. It was Kathy—the youngest of the three—who appears to have played the most consequential role in dealing with the Soviets. In fact, she had worked with Soviet officials in advance of the conference to transform the bomb-riddled ruins of Yalta into a setting where the Big Three could work in relative comfort.

About the author

Catherine Grace Katz was raised in Winnetka, Illinois, on Chicago’s North Shore. She has two younger siblings. She holds a BA in History from Harvard as of 2013 and a Master’s in Modern European History from Christ’s College at the University of Cambridge the following year. Her dissertation at Cambridge was on the origins of modern counterintelligence practices. She is currently pursuing her JD at Harvard Law School. The Daughters of Yalta is her first book.

[Tania Moroi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Când urmașii fostului premier britanic Winston Churchill au oferit pentru prima dată acces la arhivele fiicei acestuia, Sarah, familia și-a dorit ca un tânăr istoric să scrie în premieră despre relația specială dintre tată și fiică. Printr-o conjunctură favorabilă, Catherine Grace Katz a fost acel istoric, iar abundența informației dezvăluite pentru prima dată publicului a determinat-o să o dezvolte în cartea sa de debut. Pe partea americană informațiile au fost oferite de către copiii Anei Roosevelt.
Am descoperit detalii interesante despre culisele Conferinței de la Ialta, rolul fiicelor celor trei politicieni celebri Roosevelt, Churchill și a lui Averell Harriman, ambasadorul american în Uniunea Sovietică, precum și legăturile de generații dintre aceste familii.
Am aflat de relația de dragoste dintre Averell Harriman și Pamela Churchill nora lui Winston Churchill.
M-a impresionat redarea aspectelor privind diplomația internațională agitată, spionajul sovietic, tacticile negocierilor privind situația geopolitică, aranjamentele conferintei(de la caviar, somon până la ploșnițe 😀), precum și desconsiderarea acordurilor de la Ialta de către sovietici.
Totodată nu prea cunoșteam de starea de sănătate a lui Roosevelt și cum fiica acestuia timorată de această călătorie îi organiza ziua cunoscând gravitatea situației.
O lucrare extraordinară fiind meticulos documentată în care găsim povestea despre trei seturi de tați și fiice, relațiile cărora au fost puse la încercare și s-au consolidat grație istoriei pe care au trăit-o împreună, iar Ialta le-a oferit șansa să devină indispensabile pentru tații lor, după a căror dragoste, recunoaștere și stimă tânjeau mai presus de orice.
Unica obiecție ar fi că cărții îi lipsește niște fotografii de la eveniment care ar îmbogăți considerabil această cercetare.
Pentru mine prin descrierea naturii au reînviat amintirile despre Crimeea acele drumuri șerpuite, munții, marea cam rece, mirosul chiparoșilor din alte timpuri când am călătorit mai întâi în adolescență, apoi am fost cu băiatul ultima oară în anul 2012.
“Să nu ai încredere niciodată într-un om care nu-ți strânge mâna ferm și care nu se uită în ochii tăi.”
“În război-fermitate, în pace - bunăvoința, în victorii - mărinimie, în înfrângeri - sfidare.”

[Lisa of Hopewell · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Interest

If you’ve read here before you know I collect books on the Roosevelt and Churchill families, and have read them all. I collective biography of most of three of the daughters of Roosevelt, Churchill and Averell Harriman, was bound to hit my radar. So, I bought it and took my time reading it.

Having visited Yalta and Livadia Palace in 2003, seen the conference rooms, the wax museum-type figures of the Big Three, and stood on Roosevelt Street, I thought I’d like to revisit Livadia through the eyes of these ladies. I admit all the conference negotiations were such a part of college that I wasn’t that interested in revisiting that part.
The Story

Anna Roosevelt, only daughter of Franklin and Eleanor, Sarah Churchill the second of four daughters(1 died as a toddler) of Winston and Clementine, and Kathy Harriman, the younger of two daughters born within one calendar year to Averill and his ex-wife. All three of the daughters were adults–Kathy Harriman at 27 was serving as her father’s full-time hostess at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Sarah Churchill, estranged from her much older, actor husband, was three years older and serving as an officer in WRAF and had accompanied her father before to the Tehran Conference. At 39, Anna Roosevelt was the eldest of the trio and the one with the biggest burden. As we all know today, her father was dying before the world’s eyes. Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana, was not included.

My Thoughts

Kathy, about whom I knew very little, was the most interesting. I couldn’t help reflecting on myself at 27 and trying to imagine doing the job she had to do for her father [whom she was never allowed to call anything but “Ave”]. She had to deal with the Soviets in the planning and execution of all “domestic” matters of the conference. From Generals having to line up for a toilet, to secret police and army sentries botching the guests, to everything else.

Sarah, like Kathy, had grown up in this life of Very. Important. People. to lunch, tea, or dinner. She’d been well schooled for her role. She had made her own bed by marrying a much older, Jewish actor. She “owned it” as we’d say today and did not divorce until after the war.It was Anna that I felt the most for.

Unlike Anna, who, after all lived a world away in Seattle, Sarah and Kathy knew the goings on in the Churchill family and how they involved both the Chief of the Air Staff, Peter Portal, and, (and several other men) as well as (most importantly), Kathy’s father. Both Portal and Ave were sleeping with Churchill’s daughter-in-law Pamela–later the Grand Dame of the Clinton administration–U.S. Ambassador to France Pam Churchill, about whom one famous gentleman said “No one marries Pam Churchill,” but Randolph Churchill, Leland Hayward, and then Ave Harriman did just that.

It was Anna that I felt the most for. Her second husband, back in Seattle was running a newspaper while battling depression in a time in which there was little to be done about it. (He would later take his own life). She was burdened with knowing the state of her parents’ marriage and their personal lives and walked a tightrope in being gracious to both. FDR could have died at any moment. (Churchill’s doctor diagnosed his condition and confided to his diary that he was, obviously, very worried).

Anna had to fight the hangers-on that her father surrounded himself with for company, as well as put with Harry Hopkins who was often too ill to be of any use. (It should be noted that a large number if the British contingent was lost in a plane crash–everyone had to just go on). FDR had moments of obvious exhaustion and incoherence, yet Anna was forced to jolly him along when no letters arrived from Eleanor until the last days of the conference, and do her best to fight for the bed rest he needed each day, all the while worried about her own husband back home.

The Churchill and Roosevelt children famously went through spouses like they did fashionable clothing. If I remember correctly, there were 19 marriages among the 5 (surviving) Roosevelt Children. And, at least 8 among the same number of Churchills–only Mary, the youngest Churchill, had a loving and stable marriage. Both sets of children dealt with alcoholism. The Roosevelts were basically abandoned by their father after polio hit, the Churchill children had regular contact with both parents, but neither family felt loved enough by a mother forced to focus on the husband.

Like too many books about first ladies, this one strayed to far for my taste in this type book into the negotiations. This, after all, had nothing to do with the daughters beyond what their fathers’ shared or the “causes” staff asked them to help win a father over to championing.

In short, while there is little new here, it is nicely pulled together and well-told. I thought the subtitle was too sappy for a serious book, but I doubt the author had any control over that. I really couldn’t see a publisher putting a book on daughters written by a man out with such smaltz

My Verdict
3.75

One of my picky-picky title comments:

Adele Astaire Cavendish was known properly as Lady Charles Cavendish–NEVER as Lady Cavendish. Her husband is the younger son of a Duke. To be Lady Cavendish, he would have to be Baron/Viscount/Earl/Marquess of Cavendish or “Cavendish of Somewhere.” Or, he would have to be Sir Charles Cavendish.





READING NOTES not my review
Checking pet peeve boxes: Imagining what they are doing
Also some crazy statements
I want to know about Sarah, Anna, and Kathy. I already know about the Conference and I've been to Livadia Palace/Yalta. Quit padding the book with the conference and the fathers.