In the days following the North African landing it became clear to the President that a conference to determine strategic plans for 1943 would shortly become necessary. Late in November, Mr. Churchill proposed that Marshall, King and Hopkins repeat their London visit of July, but the President felt the need of sitting down at a table with the Russians either in Cairo or Moscow. As it appeared that free discussion with the Russians could take place only on the highest level, Stalin himself was invited to participate. Mr. Churchill suggested a new Atlantic Conference in Iceland, with the three heads of state housed in ships lying together in Hvalfjordur, but Mr. Roosevelt's comment–"I prefer a comfortable oasis to the raft at Tilsit"–turned plans toward North Africa, which offered a more suitable climate at this season. In the end Casablanca in French Morocco was chosen. Although Stalin never came, the President, the Prime Minister, the Combined Chiefs of Staff, and other governmental representatives assembled there for a ten-day conference, designated by the code word SYMBOL. Tremendous precautions for secrecy were observed during the outward journey, particularly as the President had never left the country since the United States had declared war nor flown since he became President. Leahy, who accompanied him, was stricken with bronchitis early in the journey, and so, to his keen disappointment, was left behind at Trinidad.
On 9 January, in advance of the President's party, King left Washington by air for Borenquen Field in northwest Puerto Rico. Generals Somervell and Wedemeyer accompanied him while Marshall, Arnold, and SIr John Dill traveled in another plane. During the flight to Borinquen toward Brazil, off the mouth of the Pará River, King crossed the equator for the first time in his sixty-four years. The next night was spent at Belém, before the party continued to Natal, Brazil. The planes then crossed the South Atlantic by night to Bathurst, Gambia, and skirted the coast of Africa as far as Agadir where they flew inland. Landing at Marrakech in French Morocco on the afternoon of 12 January, they spent the night in a handsome villa owned by Mrs. Moses Taylor, and after dinner strolled in the city. King was not in a mood to see sights–not even the bazaars of this antient city, characterized by Mr. Churchill as "the Paris of the Sahara"–for he felt that in such matters he had done his duty adequately in the course of his European cruises of 1899 and 1903. During the hour's flight to Casablanca the following morning, Sir John Dill accompanied King and reminisced about his duty in India and Palestine.
Casablanca had been chosen for the site of the SYMBOL Conference largely because convenient and secure accommodation was available there. The Combined Chiefs, with their staffs, were lodged in the Anfa Hotel, some four miles south of the city, while the President and the Prime Minister each had an attractive villa nearby.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff met on Wednesday afternoon, the thirteenth, and again early the following morning to lay their plans for the conference. King at once suggested that world-wide strategy and basic strategic concepts should be discussed first, and strongly stressed the need of determining the proportions of the total effort that should be delivered against Germany and against Japan. He urged that we resist any effort on the part of the British to deviate from a discussion of world-wide strategy in favor of any particular operation until the basic strategic concepts had been settled. He was greatly concerned at this time with preventing the building up of a large excess force of troops in NOrth Africa with no immediate prospect for their useful employment. In this he was in full accord with Mr. Churchill, who several weeks previously had observed: "I never meant the Anglo-American Army to be stuck in North Africa. It is a spring-board and not a sofa."
--Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King
and Cdr. Walter Muir Whitehill
From: The United States Navy in World War II
Part II: Chapter 8 Summit Conference
Compiled and edited by: S. E. Smith
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