From War to Peace

Abstract In covering the final months of the war, this chapter includes Ismay’s recollections of the Allied conferences at Malta, Yalta, and Potsdam, an account of one of Churchill’s final clashes with the Chiefs of Staff (over Air Marshal Tedder), and the feasibility study commissioned by Churchill for an offensive (codenamed “Unthinkable”) against the Soviet Union. The chapter describes Ismay’s farewell to Churchill as Prime Minister and his relationship with the new Prime Minister Attlee, Ismay’s proposals for the central organization of defense and his cooperation with Eisenhower about a joint Anglo-American approach to the developing Soviet threat. It also includes his initial work assisting Churchill in the research and writing of Churchill’s memoirs.