2. From left to right: Joseph
Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt,
Winston Churchill on the
of the Russian Embassy during
the Tehran Conference to
discuss the European Theatre in
1943.
Churchill is shown in the
uniform of a Royal Air Force air
commodore.
TEHERAN CONFERENCE
3. THE FIRST WORLD WAR2 CONFERENCE
• The Tehran Conference was named Eureka and it was a strategy
meeting of Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill from 28 November to 1
December 1943.
• It was held in the Soviet Union's embassy in Tehran, Iran.
• It was the first of the World War II conferences of the "Big Three"
Allied leaders (the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United
Kingdom).
4. OTHER CONFERENCES
It closely followed the Cairo Conference which had taken place on
22–26 November 1943, and preceded the 1945 Yalta and Potsdam
conferences.
5. THE OUTCOME
• Western Allies' commitment to open a second front against Nazi Germany.
• Addressed the Allies' relations with Turkey and Iran, operations in Yugoslavia and
against Japan, and the post-war settlement.
• A separate protocol signed at the conference pledged to recognize Iran's
independence.
6. CONFERENCE DECISIONS
• The Yugoslav Partisans should be supported by supplies and
equipment/commando operations.
• Turkey should come into war on the side of the Allies before the
end of 1943.
• If Turkey found herself at war with Germany, and as a result
Bulgaria declared war on Turkey, the Soviet Union would
immediately be at war with Bulgaria.
7. OPERATION OVERLORD
• The most notable achievements of the Conference focused on the next phases of the war
against the Axis powers in Europe and Asia.
• Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin committed to launching Operation Overlord, an invasion of
northern France, to be executed by May of 1944.
• The Soviet forces would launch an offensive at about the same time preventing the German
forces from transferring from the Eastern to the Western Front.
8. CONCESSIONS FOR SOVIET UNION
• Stalin also agreed that the Soviet Union would declare war against Japan following
an Allied victory over Germany.
• In exchange for a Soviet declaration of war against Japan, Roosevelt conceded to
Stalin’s demands for the Kurile Islands and the southern half of Sakhalin, and access
to the ice-free ports of Dairen and Port Arthur, located on the Liaodong Peninsula in
northern China.
• The exact details concerning this deal were not finalized, however, until the Yalta
Conference of 1945.
9. PLANS FOR UNITED NATIONS
• Broader international cooperation also became a central theme of the negotiations at
Tehran. Roosevelt and Stalin privately discussed the composition of the United Nations.
• During the Moscow Conference of the Foreign Ministers in October and November of
1943, the United States, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union had signed a four-power
declaration whose fourth point called for the creation of a “general international
organization” designed to promote “international peace and security.”
• At Tehran, Roosevelt outlined for Stalin his vision of the proposed organization in which
the future United Nations would be dominated by “four policemen” (the United States,
Britain, China, and Soviet Union) who “would have the power to deal immediately with
any threat to the peace and any sudden emergency which requires action.”
10. ASSASSINATION PLOT
According to Soviet reports, German agents planned to kill the Big Three
leaders at the Tehran Conference, but called off the assassination while it
was still in the planning stage.
Western intelligence dismissed the existence of this plot.
Otto Skorzeny, the alleged leader of the operation, claimed that Hitler
had dismissed the idea as unworkable before planning had even begun.
The topic continues to be a theme of Russian historians.
