Roosevelt And Churchill

Roosevelt and Churchill is the story of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill—a friendship that saved the world. “Being with them was like sitting between two lions roaring at the same time.” —[Churchill's daughter] Mary Soames As the world faced the deadliest conflict in human history, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, thirty-second president of the United States, and Winston Churchill, wartime prime minister of the United Kingdom, recognized each other as vital allies. Under the menacing threat of world domination by Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany in Europe and the military power of Japan in Asia, Roosevelt and Churchill’s urgent need for each other’s support soon turned into a firm friendship. Thrown together during World War II, their relationship was rarely straightforward. They disagreed politically, but maintained the greatest affection and respect for each other. They would often sit up late into the night drinking and smoking together. Their correspondence comprised nearly two thousand letters and cables. Together they steered the world through the dark days between 1939 and 1945 and emerged victorious. Both men were fallible, both making political and strategic mistakes—sometimes at the cost of thousands of lives. However, without the bond between them, the war against Nazism, Fascism, and Japan’s imperial ambitions would have been lost. Roosevelt and Churchill tells the tale of a friendship with consequences like no other, that helped create world peace.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The most complete portrait ever drawn of the complex emotional connection between two of history’s towering leaders Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were the greatest leaders of “the Greatest Generation.” In Franklin and Winston, Jon Meacham explores the fascinating relationship between the two men who piloted the free world to victory in World War II. It was a crucial friendship, and a unique one—a president and a prime minister spending enormous amounts of time together (113 days during the war) and exchanging nearly two thousand messages. Amid cocktails, cigarettes, and cigars, they met, often secretly, in places as far-flung as Washington, Hyde Park, Casablanca, and Teheran, talking to each other of war, politics, the burden of command, their health, their wives, and their children. Born in the nineteenth century and molders of the twentieth and twenty-first, Roosevelt and Churchill had much in common. Sons of the elite, students of history, politicians of the first rank, they savored power. In their own time both men were underestimated, dismissed as arrogant, and faced skeptics and haters in their own nations—yet both magnificently rose to the central challenges of the twentieth century. Theirs was a kind of love story, with an emotional Churchill courting an elusive Roosevelt. The British prime minister, who rallied his nation in its darkest hour, standing alone against Adolf Hitler, was always somewhat insecure about his place in FDR’s affections—which was the way Roosevelt wanted it. A man of secrets, FDR liked to keep people off balance, including his wife, Eleanor, his White House aides—and Winston Churchill. Confronting tyranny and terror, Roosevelt and Churchill built a victorious alliance amid cataclysmic events and occasionally conflicting interests. Franklin and Winston is also the story of their marriages and their families, two clans caught up in the most sweeping global conflict in history. Meacham’s new sources—including unpublished letters of FDR’ s great secret love, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, the papers of Pamela Churchill Harriman, and interviews with the few surviving people who were in FDR and Churchill’s joint company—shed fresh light on the characters of both men as he engagingly chronicles the hours in which they decided the course of the struggle. Hitler brought them together; later in the war, they drifted apart, but even in the autumn of their alliance, the pull of affection was always there. Charting the personal drama behind the discussions of strategy and statecraft, Meacham has written the definitive account of the most remarkable friendship of the modern age.

Using the Roosevelt-Churchill correspondence, British War Cabinet and Foreign Office files and Roosevelt Map Room papers, Joseph P. Lash takes a fresh look at men and events in the critical months between the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 and Pearl Harbor. He brings out the similarities and contrasts between Roosevelt and Churchill, where they were great or flawed, how each sought to manipulate the other but always in the framework of common purposes, most importantly their understanding of the importance of sea power and of the necessity of Anglo-American naval supremacy. “[Joseph Lash] has written an excellent account, full of shrewd personal and political insights and based on a real command of the sources and an ability to organize his material into a continuously interesting narrative. Much of the story is familiar, but Mr. Lash has added some telling new details from the archives at Hyde Park and in the British Public Record Office...” — The New York Times “[A] rich account of a remarkable collaboration during the pre-Pearl Harbor years of WW II... Throughout Lash examines with candor and admiration how FDR manipulated Congress, the bureaucracy, and public opinion, working with Churchill on the phrasing and timing of steps toward American entry into the war.” — Kirkus “Joseph Lash has once again demonstrated his gift for blending diligent historical research with the human drama of an extraordinary relationship. His chronicle of Roosevelt and Churchill is absorbing and exciting; it will also be an invaluable document for any future exploration of the struggle for democratic survival in this century.” — James A. Wechsler, Editorial Page Editor, New York Post “A splendid work — incisive in its analysis, compelling in its narrative, sensitive in its judgments. It is quite worthy of its protagonists — and what more can one possibly say?” — Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. “[A] perceptive, well organized and well-written exploration both of his two main characters and of a large supporting cast... The book is... a pleasure [...] to read.” — History “The publication of Lash’s book is an important event in the historiography of World War II... Lash has accomplished an impressive historical synthesis.” — Reviews in American History “There is much to praise in this volume, a book which undoubtedly will be widely read... Lash is a first-rate writer and researcher.” — Political Science Quarterly “[A] fascinating book.” — The Virginia Quarterly Review “The major strands of this story have long been familiar, but the author adds many revealing and colorful details... he writes superbly.” — Foreign Affairs “This is a beautifully written book which captures the spirit of the two leaders and is well worth the time spent reading it. Lash offers some thoughtful insights into the personalities of both Churchill and Roosevelt as well as some perceptive comments on their relationship. His picture is clear; Roosevelt and Churchill, for all of their faults, were the great men which the times demanded.” — The American Historical Review

Best-selling author Winston Groom tells the complex story of how Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin--the three iconic and vastly different Allied leaders--aligned to win World War II and created a new world order. By the end of World War II, 59 nations were arrayed against the axis powers, but three great Allied leaders--Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin--had emerged to control the war in Europe and the Pacific. Vastly different in upbringing and political beliefs, they were not always in agreement--or even on good terms. But, often led by Churchill's enduring spirit, in the end these three men changed the course of history. Using the remarkable letters between the three world leaders, enriching narrative details of their personal lives, and riveting tales of battles won and lost, best-selling historian Winston Groom returns to share one of the biggest stories of the 20th century: The interwoven and remarkable tale, and a fascinating study of leadership styles, of three world leaders who fought the largest war in history.

The dramatic secret meeting between Churchill and FDR that forged their alliance against global fascism is brought to life in this WWII history. On August 14, 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a joint declaration of goals for the world after the Second World War. The Atlantic Charter was a powerful statement against tyranny and an important display of the “Special Relationship” between the UK and the US. Roosevelt and Churchill: The Atlantic Charter tells the story behind this momentous document and the secret meeting that led to its creation. Churchill and Roosevelt barely knew each other when they met off the coast of Newfoundland aboard the USS Augusta. After a desperate dash across the U-boat infested Atlantic, Churchill spent four days at sea with Roosevelt, establishing both a personal friendship and an international alliance that would change the world. Exploring the lives of both men, the authors also include biographies of those who were vital to the process: Roosevelt’s Secretary of Commerce Harry Hopkins and foreign policy advisor Sumner Welles; and Churchill’s confidants Lord Beaverbrook, Lord Cadogan, and his son Randolph Churchill.

Relates the story of the friendship that grew up between two of the great leaders of World War II. The result of extensive research carried out by the author on Churchill and Roosevelt, the book presents Churchill from the perspective of the Roosevelt circle.

During World War II the “special relationship” between the United States and Great Britain cemented the alliance that won the war. But the ultimate victory of that partnership has obscured many of the conflicts behind Franklin Roosevelt’s grins and Winston Churchill’s victory signs, the clashes of principles and especially personalities between and within the two nations. Synthesizing an impressive variety of sources from memoirs and letters to histories and biographies, Lewis Lehrman explains how the Anglo-American alliance worked--and occasionally did not work--by presenting portraits and case studies of the men who worked the back channels and back rooms, the secretaries and under secretaries, ambassadors and ministers, responsible for carrying out Roosevelt’s and Churchill’s agendas while also pursuing their own and thwarting others’. This was the domain of Joseph Kennedy, American ambassador to England often at odds with his boss; spymasters William Donovan and William Stephenson; Secretary of State Cordell Hull, whom FDR frequently bypassed in favor of Under Secretary Sumner Welles; British ambassadors Lord Lothian and Lord Halifax; and, above them all, Roosevelt and Churchill, who had the difficult task, not always well performed, of managing their subordinates and who frequently chose to conduct foreign policy directly between themselves. Scrupulous in its research and fair in its judgments, Lehrman’s book reveals the personal diplomacy at the core of the Anglo-American alliance.