Focus 580; Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of An Epic Friendship

This morning in this part of focus 580 we will be talking about the relationship that developed over the course of World War Two between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. This is the subject of a newly published book by Jon Meacham. Our guest. He's the managing editor of Newsweek. The book is titled Franklin and Winston An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship Random House is the publisher of this book is out now in bookstores if you want to take a look at it. And of course your questions or comments are welcome on this show as we talk all we ask is that people are brave. We ask that so that we can keep the program moving and get in as many different callers as possible but certainly anyone is welcome to call be part of the conversation the number here in Champagne Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 we do also have a toll free line that's good anywhere you can hear us. And that is eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 if you're listening around Illinois Indiana you can use that fact if you're listening on the Internet. And as long as you're in the United States you can use that number. Again toll free 800 to

2 2 9 4 5 5. And here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Mr. Meacham Hello. Thank you for having me. Thanks very much for talking with us we appreciate it. Let me ask a question you yourself pose and answer in the introduction to the book and that is that you know so so much has been written about these two men certainly Wiston Churchill himself wrote an awful lot about his own life and his experiences and the war and in the government why another quite yet another book that deals with the life of FDR and Churchill. Well the focus of it is the friendship and the emotional connection between the two men which had not been done before. And what I wanted to do was really try to figure out. How much of their relationship was personal and how much was political and how do you know it is possible to separate those two. Which is a very very difficult thing when you're talking about heads of state and heads of

government who are thrown together by amazing circumstances. And the other thing is I think there's a great deal of resonance with what Churchill and Roosevelt faced with what Bush and Blair are doing to Bush and Blair are playing parts first scripted and acted by FDR and Churchill Blair is quite clearly following a Churchillian script. Churchill once said his last advice to the last cabinet was never be separated from the Americans. And Bush is trying to become a war president in the mold of a Roosevelt or not. That's way sometimes but but clearly their story the story of Roosevelt and Churchill is very much alive in the heads of the people who are leading us now. In fact when Bush was first inaugurated he asked for a bust of Churchill to be sent over from the British embassy to put in the Oval Office. It's just to the right of the fireplace. And one thing I wanted to do was go inside

the Roosevelt Churchill friendship and also their leadership and try to figure out how much of their leadership was more nuanced had more to do with diplomacy sometimes and force than we sometimes remember. I think there's a tendency just to remember the two men had these black and white china ends who won a war. That's true. But these guys spend a hundred and thirteen days together they wrote 2000 messages back and forth and they were fierce and intricate negotiators. These were guys who would stay at the table until an issue was solved. And they also founded the international organizations that kept the peace for 60 years. The United Nations came out of their conversations. So I think there's a great deal of resonance for today. And it's also just an amazing story an amazing human story. I really do. Why did you do it. And the theme of the book crystallized for me when Churchill's last surviving child said to me that whenever she thought of the prime minister and FDR

she thought of the French proverb and love there is always one who kisses and one who offers the cheek and always kissing. And President Roosevelt was always turning the cheek. And I think that what I tried to do is reconstruct that emotional minuet as you point out. There are apparently and we're talking about just the nature of this friendship and how deep it was as you point out there are some historians that say that's been overblown and that in fact a lot of that is should be laid at the door of Winston Churchill in his memoirs he talked. He apparently wrote a great deal about it and what he was interested in was strengthening cementing that relationship between Britain and the United States. Having said all that. How close were these two and what what was the nature of this friendship. I think it was genuine and I took as my witness Eleanor Roosevelt who was. Is one of the most honest women who ever lived to a fault. I mean as a woman who could not tell a lie and she had every political reason and

ideological reason in the world to downplay any ties of affection and friendship between her late husband and Churchill in the years after the war because Georgia was still clinging to the British Empire. They had to pry it out of his cold dead hands basically. And of course Mrs. Roosevelt was a fierce advocate of the United Nations and the expansion of human rights and self-determination. And so they didn't agree politically in the years after the war. And yet again and again and again in her memoirs in a book she wrote the very end of her life in her private letters and it is rather. It said that the friendship between my husband and a prime minister was quite genuine and the affection and the pleasure they took in one another's company made the war easier to win and it would have been without it. And that was pretty powerful testimony because she would have had every reason to have said well it was all convenience we dispatched with that enemy and now Churchill is irrelevant. So that's an important

thing. And also just reading these letters again there are 2000 of them and each partition can fake it for a long time but you can't fake it over five years. Hundred thirteen days often voluntarily time spent together or you have to do to look at a case where a relationship was entirely political is look at Churchill and de Gaulle. They certainly didn't spend that much time together they didn't have the occasion to exchange that many letters and. Basically Roosevelt and Churchill came from the same class. They both came from the tops of their societies. They love Shakespeare they love bad movies. They love him so high office strong drink tobacco the sound of their own voices Mary Soames Churchill's daughter once told me to sing between them is like sitting between two lions roaring at the same time. Time is so bait they enjoyed the idea of themselves on the world stage they enjoyed being together.

And I also think we often think the politicians check their humanity and their emotions at the door of a summit meeting that history's a more clinical matter that forces are more important people. I don't think so and politicians are if anything more emotional and more human than than than a lot of people are more subject to the affections and the atmospherics of a moment because what they're paid to do is read those affections and atmospherics might be the best example of where the personal intersected with the political will on a June morning it was a Sunday in 1942. Churchill had been staying at Hyde Park with FDR and they had taken the overnight train to the White House Church old finished breakfast taken a bath and gone across to the Roosevelt study. Just as the news came that is important. Garrison in North Africa had fallen and the pain and the anguish and the humiliation really on Churchill's face was so

striking that Franklin Roosevelt a notably chilly and distant man not developing man simply looked across the table and said What can we do to help. And the British witnesses in the room were convinced that if the garrison had fallen when Churchill was in London and FDR was in Washington and if there was a request for tanks and more aid which Churchill immediately made while I was standing there had to go through channels. They got it. He asked for three hundred Sherman tanks at that point we had about three hundred two in the world in the American arsenal and it was a case where. I think if we all think about our own lives we can understand this. A case where seeing someone's anguish led to an action you know is the easiest thing in the world that they know by letter. It's a little harder by telephone and for a lot of people it's almost impossible that they know face to face and they've got to spend an enormous amount of time face to face.

Our guest this morning in this part of focus 580 Jon Meacham managing editor of Newsweek magazine. He's the author of this new book titled Franklin and Winston An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship about the relationship that developed between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill during World War 2. It's published by Random House and questions welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. I think it's interesting exercise to develop these two lists one list of ways in of things that the two men had in common and then set that aside the other left which is the ways in which they were different. And it certainly seems that one of the most important ways in which they were different was in terms of their personality. That Churchill did seem to be a more open person a much more emotional man a man who did tend more to wear his heart on his sleeve and that Roosevelt was much the opposite much more contained controlled perhaps manipulative there. There's a wonderful quote that you offer in the book that I'm sure is mentioned in every review. That was a quote from Harry Truman talking about Roosevelt

Truman said of Roosevelt he was the coldest man I ever met he didn't give a damn personally for me or you or anyone else in the world as far as I could see. Course then he does go on to say but he was a great president. He brought this country into the 20th century. All right. I think Churchill and Roosevelt there are two important points here. I think their personal vices were political virtues Franklin Roosevelt as you say was a difficult elusive often manipulative man. He controlled the flow of information. He completely compartmentalise. I just as live you know from his marriage to his politics. He once said himself I am a Jew. I never let my left hand know what my right hand is doing. That was exactly what we needed in 1939 and 1940 in 1941 when we had 90 percent of the country not wanting to get involved in another war. It was on the march. I

really look back now when self-righteousness in retrospect is easy and say well we should have gotten an after Hitler invaded Poland in 39 or how could we have sat out while Britain stood alone in 1040 and why did it take us until not only to were attacked at Pearl Harbor but until four days later which is when Germany declared war on us. People forget that we didn't enter the war against Hitler on December 7th and December 8 41. We had to wait until he moved first but we needed that kind of Roosevelt deft manipulation and I think what made him sometimes chilly friend and certainly a difficult husband and not a particularly good father with the qualities that made him a good president his was what I said I thought rather chillingly. This is Roosevelt once observed that a man in public life. Life is not husband father or friend in the commonly accepted sense of the word. It is a very interesting point. On Churchill's side of things I think his

emotional life was so richly imaginative and so when things are so focused on something like a laser beam and he could be right need to be wrong his best friend in British public life at the Smith once said when Winston is right he's right and when he's wrong my God you know that was his best friend. I think that Churchill in 1040 you can prime minister on the 10th of May when everything hung in the balance and a different kind of man a less romantic man I think ultimately probably would have seen the logic of trying to cut some kind of deal with Germany sanctioning some part of their conquests on the continent perhaps to rearm and fight another day. But that was the rational thing to do. But Winston Churchill with a romantic he wasn't rational in that way. He thought he was a soldier of Britain that his destiny was to save the country. And he thought this for

60 years since he was you know his first memory was of the sound of gunfire. And Marshall Splendor a little parade in Ireland when Perce grandfather was the envoy. And he didn't become prime nationalist. He was 65. We now remember him as this great amazing man of the centuries sort of figure. You know you would have found you could have gotten a phone booth full of the people who thought he was going to succeed even as late as one thousand thirty seven thirty eight. And I think a lot of that had to do with his emotional make up in the same way that Roosevelt did and the political virtue of Churchill who could talk too much you drank too much you smoked too much. Who would run off with an idea and pound it to death. Went to church all thought no orse was better than a dead horse. Sometimes though and in particular 1040 you needed someone who had that kind of steel and that kind of frankly irrationality to

stand there and say Hitler will go no farther. It will be over my dead body and he meant it I think he would have died in the streets of London repelling German invaders. At the time that were. Officially broke out was declared between Britain and Germany. Churchill was in Parliament he was a member of parliament and was distinguished by having said publicly all these things that you said taking a very strong stand against making any deal with Hitler and talking about how dangerous Hitler wasn't. And then when one war actually broke out Neville Chamberlain who was the prime minister was was forced was compelled to bring Churchill into the cabinet because Churchill at that point was vindicated everyone said well now Winston was right. And Churchill became the first Lord of the Admiralty a job that he had had before. And then at that point because Churchill understood just how important United States was going to be to Britain's survival. He initiated this relationship with with have been so this was before Churchill became prime

minister and more than two years before Pearl Harbor did Franklin Roosevelt at that point do you think see Churchill becoming prime minister. Did he did he in his heart some. We're thinking now this I'm going to help eventually I'm going to have to be dealing with this man as the leader of Britain. He was making a lot it's a great question. He was basically just trying to get any help he could. He was placing bets all over the table. He wrote Churchill on the 11th of September always a moment estate as you say a week after Chamberlain brought him back to the cabinet. Thank you for keeping in touch personally with anything you think I ought to know about. Send me notes through my pouch shall answer through yours which is quite a remarkable thing for a head of state of another country to reach out to a Cabinet minister of a second country. Now Churchill made sure Chamberlain knew about it and kept the ducks in a row there. But. Roosevelt had no real sense of this.

He'd met Churchill once they had met on the twenty ninth of July 1918. At a dinner on a Monday night and in London at Gray's Inn when Roosevelt was assistant secretary of the Navy he was thirty six once and Churchill was 43 and had already been first Lord fallen from power gone to fight in the trenches in France and with them back in the cabinet as Minister of munitions and was very glamorous to enter the war ministers of Britain went out of their way to heap praise on this young American visitor. Probably because they were so delighted that we'd finally gotten in the war then which was also late in terms of how long they've been fighting. And Churchill had not taken a shine through Roosevelt Roosevelt later told Joe Kennedy. He was the only man and George was the only man in public life who was ever rude to me. He acted like a stinker lording it all over us and he said remember that Kennedy was writing it with our master Britten was writing letters back to Washington to Roosevelt offering very dark

use of Churchill's future. He wrote it in February of 1040 that Churchill was turned into a fine two fisted drinker and his judgment is never proven to be too good. So Roosevelt was getting if if anything negative reports about Churchill. And in fact on the 10th of May when Churchill became prime minister the news came to the White House when Roosevelt was meeting with his cabinet and a telegram was brought in. And Roosevelt said out loud to his cabinet you know the room of 15 people. Well I suppose Churchill is the best man England has. Even if he is drunk half its time. So this was not a wild vote of endorsement and it makes sense in that in that way because to go back some of the time a second ago Churchill had bet big on huge public issues and lost he'd been the architect of the amphibious assault during the First World War which had been disaster. He had been the Sydney street riots

it was blamed for violence against striking miners when he was home secretary. He had bet epically wrongly on Edward the eighth during the abdication crisis. So Churchill was this figure of this Don. Quixote figure in a way where he would tilt at a window and would be absolutely obsessed with it and things didn't always work out in fact. By the time we got to 38 39 40 things had largely not worked out. He was not seen as a particularly strong factor in British public life but Roosevelt did have a sense that he might be vindicated Roosevelt saw the rise of the dictators in roughly the same way that Churchill did in the 30s. Roosevelt felt himself constrained by political realities here. And I think when he picked up his pen to write that letter on September 11th of 39 he was just really doing what FDR always did which was try try to keep as many

sources reporting directly to him as possible. You know Roosevelt was famous in his management style to get the same job to two people to see if you get it done faster. He believed in creative tension I think would be the nice way we would put it and enjoyed a certain level of chaos around him partly because that kept him in control and he got to hear arguments hashed out. I have a suspicion that he was hoping he would get letters from Churchill that might make a case he would not hear from Chamberlain. So an interesting way I think he was treating the British government rather like his. Cabinet sort of in the way you would have dealt with Harold Ickes and Harry Hopkins the moment that he used to sign the same job too. And Churchill was quite brilliant. He realized that FDR loved the stories and so he sent he would send long accounts of the early naval battles which Roosevelt loved and read. And I think there was early on at least

for Franklin Roosevelt's letters there was a note of respect not quite affection yet but certainly respect for Churchill's lonely stand in the wilderness. I think FDR admired politicians who endured even if they endured storms of their own making. We have a caller to talk with let's bring them into the conversation. In Urbana line one hello. Yes I was interested to find out that both Churchill and Roosevelt were Masons and I was wondering just knowing that information whether that would lead to well they both took that fight of their life seriously and whether that image enhance the relationship or whether you know anything about that fight of their relationship. I had a good question I did not explore that very deeply. It was one of the stay was sort of like a collection of things that was a mark of their membership

in a certain class and a certain milieu of society. They were also cousins. If you if you work back a match. I think it was more important that they shared they had both been I ranking officers of a you know officers in their navy during the First World War. They had both been intensely interested in the rise of progressivism. Churchill had been a very young liberal which we sometimes forget he had been a key figure in David Ford George's early governments and so they shared the same life experiences. They were both shaped by the Boer War on opposite sides. Roosevelt had been an anti-colonialist pro-bowl war. Undergraduate at Harvard of course Churchill had fought the Boers in the field so they had come through the same political battle that is shaped by the same forces sometimes in different ways. So when they came together finally again in August of 41 at sea

they were roughly of the same generation and had roughly at least had gone through the same the same battles which I think was by and large more important than any particular membership and something something else. OK thank you very much. Thank you. And again other questions are welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 here in Champaign Urbana toll free. Anywhere you can hear us 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. And again our guest is John Meacham He's managing editor of Newsweek and author of the book Franklin and Winston and it's about the relationship that developed during the course of World War Two between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill as published by Random House. I am expecting that like probably many Americans and Britons of their time that Roosevelt and Churchill would have had ideas about what the other country was like maybe on the level of stereotype but they would have some sort of sense you know Churchill would have had some sense of what America was and what Americans were like and FDR

would have had the same kind of idea in his head about Britain and what the British were like. Did did they in fact come to the relationship with that and over time do you think they refined changed that kind of perception to one that was more in line with with the way the two countries really were. And the trivia question I do think they came to the table with preconceptions. I think Churchill saw Americans as very strong but very untutored very rough edged and he saw his role and Britain's role as kind of the midwife or the mentor of this rude young power. And back when Churchill first came to America of course his mother was American as you know he first. In 1995 and visited New York and wrote a letter home to his brother Jack in which he said that Americans were like a boisterous young child among well-educated ladies and gentleman very strong but

very loud and not particularly well behaved. And there was another strain which came I think of the First World War. And you know we didn't begin fighting in 1917 of course the war began in August 1914. Now when Chamberlain once said it is safe to count on the Americans for nothing except words. And that was kind of the British view that Americans were very self-centered were very self-absorbed. And Churchill shared that in part but he. Had a very strong sentimental tie to the country largely because of his mother and also Winston Churchill had march strength. I always admired any anyone who had great power to wield and so he he always kept in the back of his mind. I think that changed as he got to know Roosevelt and America. I think he came to see that they were were not as untutored perhaps as as he had thought on them. On the

front end. But he did hope that his role his role and the country's role Britain's role would be to be the agent to be the translator the buffer between the New World and the old. And that's again you see that with Tony Blair now that's clearly his foreign policy pad. Roosevelt had a very anti-colonialist few of Britain. He thought of most Englishman is sort of like the father and Mary Poppins you know who sang it's grand to be an Englishman a 1910 King Edward's on the throne at the age of men. There was a strong view that from Roosevelt that the British Empire had not done right by its subjects that too much of the Empire lived in squalor and poverty. And if only they could see the sweet reason of the New Deal and of the kind of Roosevelt globalism. Then they would be better off as well. So both came to it thinking they were almost morally

superior to the other and I think that changed when Roosevelt sat and watched Churchill holdout and the British people hold out in that long 1940 41 period when they were under constant aerial attack. You know nearly 40000 Londoners died in attacks from the air during the war which is a phenomenal number when you think about it civilians civilians have become targets which is another reason frankly that I think this book resonates at least for me is you have states and semi States and it is a logical entity targeting civilians in other countries and trying to find what were for the moment and the time unconventional way to attack them. As the two men spent time together. They say these views in the church but at heart.

Roosevelt always believed that his best way to needle was Churchill to use FDR as word which he sometimes wanted to do it sometimes wanted to tease in the needle in particular when Joe Stalin came on the scene was to make fun of John Boll and the cigars and the Empire he once referred to a stopover he made in South America that hellhole of yours. And so he he really thought he could bring Churchill along in the way that Churchill thought he did bring Roosevelt along. We have another caller in Chicago. Let's talk with them. One in four. Hello good morning. I would like to know our culture question actually. When Rosol demanded unconditional surrender from the Germans and the Japanese didn't just take Winston Churchill The little by surprise. Well there's a great debate about that. I don't think so. I sort of walk with Warren Campbell and Michael Beschloss who went back through this I

think the element of surprise was he might not have expected it to be announced so starkly at that particular moment. It was more a matter of stagecraft than substance and I think we forget this now but unconditional surrender was hugely controversial because there's there was the issue that you would not encourage anti-Hitler Germans. But I wasn't sure that had he had a conspiracy or whatever it was like talking to the Americans in Switzerland and saying if you. Drop the unconditional surrender. Hillary would have had a little walk and come to an end right there and it is unburned very late in Roosevelt's life that's that's true. And trust Alan crazy because he thought the Anglo Americans were negotiating behind his back. So there's the question of whether I'm going to surrender prolong the war. My bet is no. But Churchill because of that controversy. Churchill's war memoirs have to be read very carefully. They are both advertently and inadvertently revealing.

And at that time he was composing them in the late 40s and early 50s unconditional surrender was not very popular so he covered himself a bit by saying that Roosevelt had gotten ahead of him. I think the record does not quite bear that out. OK well I fettle always a controversy about another question I was going to ask you when I have. And I got my clash during a battle of the bulge with my gun response fortunate remarks about the American army right. Didn't I want to relieve him and he felt he couldn't they really haven't said that well Roosevelt or Marshall will go to Roosevelt and also go to Churchill and demand it and it will happen. Central that is true. And and of course it did ultimately didn't but there was no question that was the huge moment you put your finger on something and it had happened nearly a year earlier it was more than a year earlier and in August of 43 you know I think if you want to ever pinpoint a moment where the mantle of global responsibility really moved from London to Washington

it would be in August of 43 at High Park when Churchill and Roosevelt were driving around the woods. Up at the presidents of state and Roosevelt prevailing Church old to name an American as the supreme commander. I think I don't really want that. That's position for self. Well Al McGovern wanted it but the more likely British candidate in fact Churchill and offered it to him twice was Alan brook. Who was the George Marshall of England you know was the chief of the child the chief of the Imperial General Staff. That's a title I'd like so. But Alan Brooke had to then be told he could not do it and Roosevelt then had to decide as you know between Eisenhower and Marshall and ultimately came down for Eisenhower. But there was no question particularly. December forty four and into forty five and Roosevelt's death that if the British had pushed commanding control questions asked where Eisenhower wanted I've now would have gone to Roosevelt and I think Roosevelt would have made it.

Yeah he would have been he would have told Churchill he would have insisted that my government be relieved and in fact I read that in that telegram if they didn't send they actually suggested my government for a place to save their Field Marshall broke hard General Alexander one of the other. Yeah you're right you're right. OK thank you. Thank you sir. Let's go to Champagne County for another caller here Line 1 0. I think you mentioned it. No sense of its own power and I think the commonalities are more more there than one would think. You using that you refer to when talking about Poland but America that had to be British Honduras that was the only enclave that Britain add in our backyard. So it might have been teasing might've been a little bit differently than you might think of just using anti-colonialism. The author of the earlier remark unless it would have been the only producer.

He's a son of a bitch but he's OUR SON OF A BITCH RIGHT wing argument. In fact you know Monroe Doctrine had you money over here basically. Oh I completely agree with you. Roosevelt hated the idea of an empire unless he was in charge of it. That's right. There's no question that Roosevelt had an idea though of having really an American empire or at least American order. Maybe that's a better way to put it in place after the war with the United Nations would be the instrument of it. He actually talked on his last few days of his life. To those adoring women who are always around and he mentioned out loud perhaps I should resign and become what he called the moderator of the United Nations and he had an idea in his head that he would move up to Hyde Park and Harry Hopkins would teach it faster nearby

and they'd build a landing strip and the world leaders would come and land there and he would solve their problems and they would take off and fly away. This was not a man without an enormous measure of self-confidence. And why. Not I mean here's a man who really overcame why it is almost unimaginable to me anyway to be thirty nine years old in the prime of life and wake up one morning and realize you can't walk and then to go on and be elected president nine states four times. Outstripping the great heroes use to go to Roosevelt. So you I understand why he was so self-confident he had ever every reason to be. I think all right let me interrupt you I might also. Graham kind of sort of liberal motive for arranging the world talks Americano. And I think that buys into the idea that you know he had mixed motives

even about the new deal. I think I think the New Deal was well done from below that he had to add to operate with to the extent that he had to. I just don't buy the complete Al. Portrait that he often gets even from people that are denigrating him. I suspect he didn't. Did you know he was frank about you know wanting to moderate the action. After the war I just I just think that that is any kind of you know real sense of America's role for democracy etc. etc.. He wasn't calling for most of it for no good reason I mean it was for that to be the case. I agree with you to a point.

I think that he and I greeted the new deal as one for complicate the idea that he is a nuanced liberal icon is wrong. I call in the book a practical idealist. I think that he rather liked JFK in a way he was uncomfortable with utopia and left wing rhetoric because he didn't think it sounded tough. He always wanted to be seen as a tough practical man and I carry a popgun share that. But he also had an extraordinary action when you think about it for a man coming from where he came from in life passion for the lot of the common person as a Churchill. And we're better off because even if he had attitudes about race and about economics and about democracy and human rights that we would not that were that would grate on our ears now. He is the man who with Churchill kept the

experiment in democracy alive. Very And it was right there on the cusp. We forget this. I mean that the wars between capitalism to tell a Tarion ism and communism you know that that's where the second world war was about and. And you never we're and the only adult Hitler could somehow or another get communism and capitalism together to beat him. But that's what happened and it really was Roosevelt I think I think that when you look at the alternatives in 1940 I know Wilkie is was a Republican internationalist but the Republican Party had a very interesting orientation toward the Pacific. In those days and I think it's possible that you would have had much more interest in the war against Japan and the war against Hitler. If you have Roosevelt had lost that third term and we might not have done what little we did for Britain and 41 which was when least which wasn't decisive but at least a link to our interests in such a

way that the British knew at some point to use Churchill's phrase in God's good time. We would we would get there and help them. It was under the belt that we shipped and while we were rampaging in the Caribbean I mean something like that. Acceptable for well-known stories of cooperation I levels of corporate interests between us. But I do think that Churchill was also very on. Oh I do. You did say he was you know empire. But you know this came out of his experiences in the 30s where he was you know Cohen Arab sniggers and and gassing them in Iraq he was involved in

subjugation of so many years ago. Sometimes you can say but there are people criticizing I think fun time we have but five minutes left in this part of focus 580 that our guest is Jon Meacham. He's the author. A new book looks at the relationship between Roosevelt Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in World War Two. The book is titled Franklin and Winston. And we just have a bit of time here left some so many things that we we could touch on if we had another hour. One thing I was interested in having you talk a little bit about was what how did Churchill think about Roosevelt's disability. He would fiercely admired Roosevelt's courage and he he sensed it from afar which is an interesting point I'm glad you asked that. Churchill wrote a profile of Roosevelt in 1934. Long before the war long before they came back together and

he wrote it word for Call years Churchill at the situation where as his daughter once said THEY LIVE FROM article to article. Book to book. Yeah that wonderful situation which apparently only British aristocrat have of being immensely rich but never having any money. So he wrote wrote and fed himself with his pen and he said I'm paraphrasing but roughly not one man in ten thousand could have with their lower limbs refusing their office rejoining life and not one man in ten millions could have joined public life and risen to the top. And he so admired Roosevelt's courage in fighting polio. And then I think one of the most touching moments in the relationship came when they had a church parade together on the HMS Prince of Wales in August of 41 and Roosevelt was determined not to ride in his wheelchair across the deck of a British warship that had been in combat. And as you may remember the way

Roosevelt walked in quotation marks was to snap his braces shut and have. Man on one side of him and a cane on the other and basically just will him self forward in a way that if he had fall and he would only been able to break his fall with his arms he would have fallen like a dead weight. But he walked and used to call it Stump things sometimes. He just went bang bang bang across that deck. And one of the British observers in real time wrote that what struck him seeing Roosevelt's courage as he made this this long long walk for him with an image of St. George slaying the dragon. And they were they were so moved by his attempt to to pay respect to them. Churchill shed a tear as he watched it happen. And it was actually after that morning that of which Churchill said every word seemed to stir the heart. It was a great hour to live. And they they say that's a cold Protestant hymns. And Roosevelt turned to his

son afterward and said. Onward Christian Soldiers. We are Christian soldiers and we will go on with God's help. As you mentioned earlier the two men exchanged a great many letters and actually met personally more than 100 times and you have to imagine just how difficult that was first of all because there was a worry going on and secondly because trying you know getting from one side of the Atlantic to the other in those days was not as easy as it is today. So they spent a lot of time together in the. Exchanged a lot of letters in the course of this relationship. Was there a lot of conversation about personal matters did they. They talk about their wives strong women both or their children are you know what was going on in their lives other then things other than the war. Absolutely they did. In fact the marriages all intersected Eleanor and Clementine Woods would spend time together. They talked about their children the children were almost all in uniform which is something we forget. So they had children under fire

and they also had children who had to put it charitably were rather a handful. Randolph Churchill was a formidable person. Sort of like what Lionel showing once said of Jane Austen's Fanny Brice in the evening with Randolph would not be undertaken lightly. It's actually a wonderful letter I found that I think I'm the first person to use it from Bill Walton who is a war correspondent letter a friend of John Kennedy's who had run across. It would come to the White House and had a moment of FDR before he went to Europe and FDR ask him because of all the news on the Churchill children ask after the Churchill children and Walton's observation was FDR seem delighted because one state had so many problem children of his own to deal with so they would sit and talk about this. They would talk about the burdens of command they would complain about the press. They would complain

about their opponents and the commons and Congress and they really were. This brings us full circle. This was the most exclusive of clubs. No one else on earth could understand what the other was going through except the other heads of the English speaking democracies to whom this incredible task fell at the hour of Freedom's maximum danger. And who else were they going to talk to about it hating. You know a newspaper column that was always second guessing them or congressman who didn't seem to understand the enormity of the issue. And they talk to each other and nothing ever leaked. Remarkably no not one of the 2000 letters ever inadvertently leaked which is almost impossible to imagine today. I would hope that we at Newsweek would be getting some of them if it were happening. So they really would. They were like two young soldiers in a way

and camp together. We're going to have to stop. We've just used our time for people who want to read more of course you look for the book Franklin and Winston published by Random House by our guest John Meacham he is the managing editor of Newsweek and Mr. Meacham thanks very much for talking with us. Very grateful.