The main question was the opening of a second front in Western Europe. Stalin pressed for it, and Roosevelt and Churchill committed to invading northern France in May 1944, the operation that became D-Day. Stalin promised to join the war against Japan after Germany's defeat, and the leaders discussed the postwar borders of Poland and the future of Germany. Roosevelt, invited to stay at the Soviet embassy after warnings of a German assassination plot, used the time to build a relationship with Stalin.
The conference, code-named Eureka, took place in Iran, which had been occupied by British and Soviet troops since 1941. Stalin rarely left Soviet territory, and Tehran was as far as he would go. Roosevelt flew in on November 27 and moved into the Soviet compound the next day, where his quarters were almost certainly bugged.
Churchill wanted to expand operations in the Mediterranean and the Balkans, but Stalin and Roosevelt sided against him, and the cross-Channel invasion, Operation Overlord, became the priority. At one point Stalin asked who would command it; Roosevelt had not yet decided and soon named General Dwight Eisenhower. Stalin agreed to a Soviet offensive timed to coincide with the landings.
The conference also had its ceremonial moments. On November 29 Churchill presented Stalin with the Sword of Stalingrad, a gift from King George VI to the people of the city. At a dinner, Stalin suggested shooting 50,000 German officers after the war; Churchill walked out, and Stalin said he had been joking. Churchill later said he realized at Tehran how small Britain was, sitting between "the great Russian bear" and "the great American buffalo".
Key people: Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill