Author Q + A

What was the inspiration for this story?
When the archive of Winston Churchill’s daughter Sarah’s papers was opened, the International Churchill Society (ICS) and members of the Churchill family wanted a young historian to mine the material in order to write an article about father and daughter. I’d gotten to know the owner of Chartwell Booksellers in New York City, and he knew that I was ready to leave my job in finance and return to history and writing. He introduced me to ICS. Once in the archive, I became fascinated by Sarah’s wartime experience, especially her journeys with her father to major wartime conferences as his aide. I had studied the Yalta Conference but never knew that Sarah —or Anna Roosevelt or Kathleen Harriman—had been there. I quickly realized that a 5,000-word article would not be enough to tell their story. The three families gave me access to all of the papers, places, and interviews I could possibly need. It felt as if these daughters had found me!

Is there a common theme that inspired these three famous fathers to bring their daughters to Yalta?
For all three, it came down to trust. In this environment shrouded in self-interest, deception, and espionage, each father needed someone at his side, a “daughter diplomat” who could understand the intricacies of, and advance the delicate dance of, international diplomacy. Each father also needed someone he could count on to keep secret his true feelings about the conference and his concerns for the future—especially Winston—and to guard secrets that were even more damaging. For Averell Harriman, it was his affair with Pamela Churchill, and for FDR, it was the fact that he was dying.

You’ve referred to the role of the three women as “daughter diplomats.” What do you mean by that?
Sarah, Anna, and Kathleen held positions of authority as their fathers’ aides and representatives, yet they were also at Yalta unofficially, as family members. Their fathers could work through them to gather information, to deliver subtle but important messages that could not be explicitly expressed by a member of the government, and to give the leaders plausible deniability on thorny diplomatic issues in which they could not be directly involved. Each daughter was intelligent, savvy, and had a lifetime of experience in her father’s world of politics and government. In fact, they were some of their fathers’ greatest assets.

The Daughters of Yalta delivers a memorable opening scene: tell us about the preparations for the Yalta Conference at Livadia Palace.
The Nazis occupied Livadia Palace during the war, and when they left, they stole everything they could carry: sinks, toilets, even doorknobs. While Anna and Sarah were en route to Yalta with their fathers, Kathleen was tasked by her father, who was the American ambassador to the Soviet Union, with the whirlwind job of coordinating with the Soviet advance team—led by the fearsome NKVD boss, Lavrentiy Beria—to make the palace habitable for the hundreds of forthcoming guests. She oversaw thousands of workers; gardens were planted; mattresses riddled with bedbugs were fumigated; fixtures that had been ripped off the walls were replaced. Kathleen was scrupulous, going head-to-head with the Soviets to ensure that everything was just right—down to the paint color of FDR’s bathroom walls.

What surprised you most in your research?
These families were intertwined with connections between them that go back multiple generations and continue to the present. At Yalta, the three families were so tightly connected—politically, professionally, and personally—that they were bound forever, whether or not they wanted to be. It is impossible to separate the story of one from the others.

As you’ve mentioned, the connections include love affairs. Tell us a bit more about Averell’s affair and about the other relationships and intense atmosphere at Yalta.
The love affairs in this story are anything but strictly personal. All of them had enormous geopolitical ramifications. Sarah was having an affair with the American ambassador to the UK, John Gilbert Winant. Averell’s affair with Pamela Churchill—who was married to Winston’s son—began during the Blitz in London, and though Pamela and Kathleen were close friends, it was never a question in Kathleen’s mind that this was an affair she would keep secret, both to protect her father’s position as FDR’s envoy, and to ensure that she remained indispensable to her father. Anna made a similar calculation regarding FDR’s affair with Lucy Mercer; this loyalty was one reason FDR chose Anna over Eleanor to be his aide at Yalta. In addition, Kathleen, at some point before Yalta, had a brief fling with Anna’s married brother, Franklin Jr. Anna learned about the affair while both women were at the conference, and she tucked away the knowledge as a means of remembering that Kathleen might not be quite as put-together as she seemed.

How did Anna, Kathleen, and Sarah contribute to, and influence, their famous fathers’ mission at Yalta?
Each daughter had unique skills that made her invaluable to her father’s mission. Sarah, much like her father, was a brilliant writer and had an astute political mind. In another era, she might have been her father’s political successor. She was also an officer in the women’s branch of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and was privy to great military secrets. At Yalta, Winston relied on her to understand the complexity of Britain’s position between its two allies and the immense frustration this position produced, particularly with regard to FDR. By working through this frustration with her in private, Winston could channel his thoughts and filter out his emotions before going into the conference room. Kathleen spoke Russian, which allowed her to act as an extension of her father while planning the conference and working with the Soviet team on the ground, basically serving as the Americans’ protocol officer. She also helped Averell project his independent power and influence and shielded him in tricky diplomatic situations. Anna’s influence was perhaps the most direct. FDR was dying of congestive heart failure. Other than the doctor, Anna was the only person who knew; even FDR himself did not know how ill he was. In the face of myriad challenges—especially the forceful personalities used to having their way—Anna shouldered the crushing burden of this secret while keeping FDR alive.

What is new in this history? Why do you think this story remained hidden for so long?
These father-daughter relationships were among the most important in these leaders’ lives, but the sources necessary to tell this story have only recently become accessible. The Churchill family made Sarah’s papers available for the first time to outside researchers in 2016. While a handful of Kathleen’s letters had been included in her father’s collection at the Library of Congress, her son discovered the full set of her wartime papers in a box in her closet only after she passed away in 2011. Interviews with Anna’s daughter, Ellie Seagraves, were also a source of brand-new information that was at times quite heartbreaking.
I also think that our current moment changes our perspective on history. Though it may seem that we know all there is to know about a particular event, period, or individual, the present reveals the past to us, and we suddenly notice something that has been staring us in the face the whole time. Today, we see the contributions of women like Sarah, Anna, and Kathleen in a new light, and the rediscovery of such figures is a source of inspiration for women around the world.

What relevance does The Daughters of Yalta have today?
First, this year marks the 75th anniversary of Yalta and the end of World War II. Second, as we head into this election season, we are sure to see the presidential candidates’ children front and center, especially Ivanka Trump, which leads us to ask, What is the appropriate role for an elected official’s unelected family members in his or her public life?

There is also the seemingly eternal conflict between Russia and the West, which has continued with the annexation of the Crimea (including Yalta) in 2014 and the interference in the 2016 election. We don’t know what this fall will bring, but Russia will certainly continue to be a factor. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this book is especially poignant now because in the face of great international challenges, fear, and uncertainty, people look to figures like Churchill and Roosevelt for comfort and inspiration. Many young people are experiencing a crisis on a global scale for the first time and are looking for leaders to help them make sense of the world. Churchill and FDR are timeless sources of inspiration, and we need them now more than ever.

Why Yalta for this epic conference? And what about this region will readers find most fascinating? Most timely?
Stalin was paranoid about security, and by the end of the war, he refused to leave the safety of his home soil. Yalta was as far west as he was willing to travel. His insistence on Yalta for the conference was also a power play. By early 1945, Stalin knew that Roosevelt and Churchill needed him much more than he needed them. If they wanted to meet with Stalin, they had to come to him.
Russia has long fixated on the Crimea in its quest for access to warm-water ports on the Black Sea; this is one of the sources of enduring conflict that have locked Russia and Ukraine in a deadly dance, seemingly for eternity. The Crimea is only connected to Ukraine by a strip of land five miles wide, but the effects of this curse of geography were felt strongly by each of the three daughters at Yalta and are still felt today, as evidenced by Putin’s 2014 annexation of the Crimea. The villa where Stalin stayed during the conference is now a government office that is directly under Putin’s authority.

Do you feel any personal connection to the figures in the book?
I was the same age that Kathleen Harriman was at Yalta (twenty-seven) while writing this book, and will be almost the same age Sarah Churchill was when it is published. I could not help but stop and think, What would it have been like to be the age I am now, sitting at the table at a conference like this, surrounded by Churchill, FDR, Stalin, Harriman, Chip Bohlen, Lavrentiy Beria, and George Marshall? What would it have been like to be Kathleen Harriman, who, in her mid-twenties, had more access to Stalin’s inner circle than any other American woman in history? These women experienced something incredible, and it was a great adventure to witness it through their eyes.

Is there anything in particular in this story that haunts you, or that has especially stayed with you?
The relationship these daughters had with their fathers gave them extraordinary opportunities, but their trusted positions also threw them into very difficult situations—both as daughters and as people. Shortly before Yalta, Averell sent Kathleen to serve as a witness to what the Soviets claimed was the murder by the Nazis of tens of thousands of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest.

The British and Americans thought the Soviets had actually murdered their longtime Polish adversaries, but sending an official representative from the American government to call out the Soviets could have compromised the Allied relationship. In her dual role of “daughter diplomat,” Kathleen was the one chosen to go—as the ambassador’s daughter, her opinion carried authority, but she did not officially speak for the government. What she saw that day was evidence of one of the most horrific atrocities of the war, and the truth regarding it continues to be controversial in Russia today.

Are there any surprising figures that make an appearance in this story?
Yes! I was amazed by how many extraordinary people touched the lives of the central figures of this book. It includes everyone from spies like Alger Hiss and Kim Philby, to great society personalities like Pamela Churchill and Noël Coward, not to mention wartime giants like George Marshall and future Cold War “Wise Men” like Chip Bohlen and George Kennan. We even see one of history’s greatest villains, Lavrentiy Beria. These were people whose lives immediately transected those of the fathers and daughters at the heart of this book.

Who will be drawn to this story?
This is a story for fathers, daughters, and everyone in between. It will appeal to people who have a lifelong interest in history—particularly those interested in Churchill, Roosevelt, World War II, and the Cold War—and to those whose interest was more recently piqued, perhaps by reading narrative nonfiction like Erik Larson’s The Splendid and the Vile or by watching The Crown. It will also appeal to those who loved Hidden Figures, or the Schuyler sisters in Hamilton, and are excited to read about another awesome trio of young women participating in a transformative moment in history.