In December 1941, a few days after the United States declared war, Winston Churchill secretly boarded a British battleship, which made a dangerous 10-day journey to the United States.
The journey was so secret that Eleanor Roosevelt later wrote that while President Franklin Roosevelt told her “that we would be having some guests visit us,” in late December he added “that I could not know who was coming, nor how many, but I must be prepared to have them stay over Christmas. He added as an afterthought that I must see to it that we had good champagne and brandy in the house and plenty of whiskey.” The guest was Churchill, who was born on November 30, 1874 and is pictured on today’s #stampoftheday, a 5-cent stamp issued in May 1965 about four months after he died.
Churchill stayed in the White House for over three weeks and during that time, he and Roosevelt solidified their relationship and developed some of the overarching strategies that characterized the war effort, notably decisions to prioritize the war in Europe and to mount the first Allied attacks in North Africa.
Churchill believed himself to be a “man of destiny.” But until the onset of World War II, he was widely mistrusted and disliked, in part because he had twice switched parties and had in his long career in Parliament been known for a barbed speaking style that won him many enemies. But when his time came, he had a remarkable ability to rise up and meet the extraordinary challenges of his time.
His speeches, particularly in the darkest days before the US entered the war, are the stuff of legend. When he became prime minister in May 1940 after the Germans invaded Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg, he famously said, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.”
And two months later, after France had fallen and the British troops just barely escaped at Dunkirk, he warned that “the Battle of Britain is about to begin….If we can stand up to [Hitler], all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age…Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.'”
Churchill also was a character. Mike Reilly, who headed security for Roosevelt, later wrote: “Never had the staid butlers, ushers, maids, and other Executive Mansion workers seen anything like Winston before. He stayed up later and slept later than even Alexander Woolcott,” the curmudgeonly critic who was the inspiration for the play, ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner’; “he ate, and thoroughly enjoyed, more food than any two men or three diplomats; and he consumed brandy and scotch with a grace and enthusiasm that left us all openmouthed in awe.”
And after Roosevelt came to Churchill’s room only to find him naked after a bath, Churchill supposedly said “You see Mr. President, I have nothing to hide” and later reported to King George VI after he returned to England, “Sir, I believe I am the only man in the world to have received the head of a nation naked.”
And yet Churchill’s visit also was marked by glimmers of hope. At a modified lighting of the White House Christmas tree, Roosevelt told the national radio audience, “There are many men and women in America…who asked themselves this Christmas: ‘How can we light our trees? How can we meet and worship with love and with uplifted hearts in a world at war, a world of fighting and suffering and death?”
He answered: “Our strongest weapon in this war is that conviction of the dignity and brotherhood of man which Christmas Day signifies…Against enemies who preach the principles of hate and practice them, we set our faith in human love and in God’s care for us and all men everywhere.”
Speaking at the same ceremony, Churchill added: “Let the children have their night of fun and laughter….Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern task and the formidable year that lie before us, resolved that by our sacrifice and daring, these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied their right to live in a free and decent world.”
I believe we are at another fraught moment. I am hopeful that President-elect Biden, will like Churchill had been passed over several times before, will turn out to be uniquely able to rise to this historic moment and, like Churchill, provide the right mix of honesty and hopefulness. And I hope, at least for a time, his political opponents will, like Britain’s Labor Party, will see that the times require that we put aside partisan differences for the moment, all the while knowing that there will be a time to return to partisan politics as they did when they defeated Churchill’s Conservative Party in June 1945.
Churchill’s wife suggested the defeat was “a blessing in disguise.” Churchill replied: “At the moment it seems very effectively disguised.” However, a day later, when his doctor commented on the British public’s “ingratitude,” Churchill replied: “I wouldn’t call it that. They have had a very hard time.”
Be well, stay safe, find ways to let the children have their nights of fun and laughter before turning again to the stern tasks and formidable year the lies before us, fight for justice, and work for peace.