Mr. Churchill in the White House: The Untold Story of a Prime Minister and Two Presidents
“. . . Schmuhl tells the fascinating story of Churchill’s visits to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in his new book Mr. Churchill in the White House: The Untold Story of a Prime Minister and Two Presidents.”
Winston Churchill, before, during, and after the Second World War sought a “special relationship,” or as he more often put it, a “fraternal association,” between Great Britain and the United States.
To achieve this, Churchill traveled to the United States several times during and after the war, staying for long periods of time at the White House and meeting with American presidents at their homes and presidential retreats. He did so initially to gain an important ally to defeat Hitler’s Germany, then to retain his country’s relevance in the postwar world, and finally to promote a structure of peace in the nuclear era. He succeeded at the first goal, partially succeeded at the second, and failed at the third.
Author Robert Schmuhl tells the fascinating story of Churchill’s visits to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in his new book Mr. Churchill in the White House: The Untold Story of a Prime Minister and Two Presidents. The book’s subtitle is a bit misleading. Churchill’s visits to the White House, FDR’s home at Hyde Park, and the presidential retreat in Maryland during World War II, and his subsequent visits to the White House and Gettysburg during Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency are not “untold” stories. Indeed, much of this story was told by Martin Gilbert in his book Churchill and America, which Schmuhl cites in his bibliography. But Schmuhl adds some tidbits of information and interesting judgments about Churchill and the two presidents.
Schmuhl notes that Churchill brought with him to these visits his “unconventional habits,” including walking around the residence area of the White House clothed only in a towel, and sometimes without any clothing. After one such incident during the war, Churchill remarked to FDR that he had “nothing to hide” from the president. Churchill also kept unconventional work hours, often discussing the war and strategy with Roosevelt until 2:00am, and sometimes later.
After Churchill’s White House visits, an exhausted FDR would often retreat to his home at Hyde Park, New York, to relax and get some needed rest. This is one of the reasons Eleanor Roosevelt sought to banish Churchill to Blair House during his visits, but FDR overruled her. Churchill was a demanding guest whether he was at the White House or at the Roosevelt mansion in upstate New York. At the White House, Churchill always stayed in the Rose bedroom.
Each of Churchill’s wartime visits are told through the memories of Churchill himself in his six-volume The Second World War, the diaries and memoirs of Churchill’s doctor, Lord Moran, Churchill’s daughter Mary, and his top military advisers such as Gen. Alan Brooke and Gen. Hastings Ismay, and the diaries and memoirs of presidential aides such as Averell Harriman and Henry Stimson, articles written after the war by Eleanor Roosevelt, Eisenhower’s memoirs and books written by Eisenhower’s aides, to name just a few.
Schmuhl treats each source material very carefully, recognizing that authors often have their own agendas in writing memoirs. This applies especially, but not exclusively, to Churchill himself. In his memoirs of World War II, for example, Churchill downplayed the often bitter disputes and infighting among the Combined Chiefs of Staff over wartime strategy. Churchill also deleted certain passages in his memoirs that were critical of Eisenhower toward the end of the war because Churchill’s goal was to maintain favor with first the general and later President Eisenhower.
Churchill and Roosevelt did not always see eye to eye on military strategy during the war. The two leaders shared common enemies, but beyond winning the war they saw their respective nation’s interests very differently. Churchill wanted to preserve as much of the British empire as possible and reestablish a balance of power in Europe and Asia, while FDR wanted to win the war and establish a United Nations to keep the peace. Most British military leaders viewed their American counterparts as amateurs in waging global war. American military leaders viewed North Africa and the Mediterranean theaters as unnecessary distractions from the main effort in northwest Europe.
Churchill was able to carry the day with FDR early in the war, but as America’s contribution to the war effort began to dwarf Britain’s Churchill’s influence over FDR waned. Schmuhl views their wartime comradeship as less a real friendship than a marriage of convenience brought about by the exigencies of war. Roosevelt’s treatment of Churchill at wartime conferences with Soviet leader Josef Stalin was inexcusable. Yet Roosevelt was courting Stalin the same way Churchill had previously courted Roosevelt.
Schmuhl’s judgments about Roosevelt are harsh but ring true. He was outwardly warm and gracious but inwardly cold, remote, deceitful, and ruthless. Churchill could be ruthless when necessary, but his word meant something, and you knew where he stood on issues large and small. Eisenhower, too, could be cold and calculating behind the cheerful, smiling visage. But Schmuhl contends that Churchill and Eisenhower had a genuine friendship that dated to their many wartime meetings. Not so, Churchill and FDR. In fact, Schmuhl quotes several people close to FDR as saying that he had no real friends, just people that were useful to his political career.
FDR during the war repeatedly promised that he would visit Churchill in London, but he never did, yet he traveled halfway around the world to meet with Stalin. Churchill had traveled to the United States on four occasions during the war, yet when FDR died Churchill did not travel to attend the funeral. When Churchill died in 1965, the most prominent American attending the funeral was Dwight Eisenhower.