Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood With Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour

by Lynne Olson

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  MY FIRST EXPRESSION OF THANKS MUST GO TO THE LATE EDWARD R. MURROW, for without him, I would not have written this book or, for that matter, the two that preceded it. All three have dealt, in various ways, with Britain during World II. It’s a subject that has fascinated me ever since my husband, Stan Cloud, and I started our research for The Murrow Boys, a book we wrote more than a decade ago about Murrow and the correspondents he hired to create CBS News. The eight years that Ed Murrow spent in Britain, most of them during the war, were the most satisfying of his life. His brilliant reporting about the country and its people not only won him international fame but made him a key player in the shaping and sustaining of America’s wartime alliance with Britain.

  So when I decided to write a book about the alliance and the men who helped forge it and keep it alive, it was only natural that I would choose Murrow as one of the book’s three main characters. The dozens of interviews that Stan and I did with Murrow’s widow, Janet; the surviving Murrow Boys; and many others who worked closely with him have added greatly to this latest effort. So has my additional research in the Edward R. Murrow and Janet Brewster Murrow papers at Mount Holyoke College—a collection that includes a new cache of the Murrows’ letters and diaries, given to the college by their son, Casey. I’d like to thank Patricia Albright, Mount Holyoke’s archives librarian, for her generous assistance.

  Thanks, too, to the staff of the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, which houses the papers of Averell and Pamela Harriman. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Dr. John E. Haynes, the library’s expert on twentieth-century politics and government, for providing me access to Pamela Harriman’s papers, now in the process of being opened to researchers, which shed new light on her relationships with Harriman and Murrow. Of particular interest are the transcripts of a series of lengthy, candid, and provocative interviews she gave to her biographer, Christopher Ogden. I’m grateful to Chris and to the late Rudy Abramson, Harriman’s biographer, for their shrewd and perceptive comments to me about both Harrimans.

  Researching the life of John Gilbert Winant, the book’s third main character, was a particular pleasure and challenge. This shy former ambassador and New Hampshire governor is a largely unknown figure in the United States today; a major aim of the book is to show how important his work was to the success of the Anglo-American partnership. The couple of weeks I spent at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library archives, doing research in Winant’s papers, were immensely fruitful, in no small part because of the encyclopedic knowledge and unstinting help of Bob Clark, the library’s chief archivist, and his staff.

  I also appreciated the kindness and generosity of William Gardner, New Hampshire’s secretary of state, who took considerable time out of his packed schedule to track down sources who knew Winant or possessed information about him. Bill Gardner, who knows more about New Hampshire history than anyone I’ve ever met, spent a day in the fall of 2008 introducing me to a wide variety of sources and showing me around the state capital of Concord, while offering me his own valuable insights into Winant and his complex personality. Through Bill, I met Dean Dexter, a former New Hampshire state legislator and fellow Winant devotee, who provided me with a recording of a revealing interview he did with Abbie Rollins Caverly, a onetime Winant assistant. To Bill, Dean, Bert Whittemore, and others in New Hampshire who helped me get to know Winant better, I offer my thanks. I am similarly grateful to Rivington Winant for sharing with me his memories of his father and for the gracious hospitality he and his wife, Joan, showed me in Manhattan and Oyster Bay, New York.

  Thanks also to Edwina Sandys, Ru Rauch, John Mather, Phyllis Bennett, Ray Belles, Larry DeWitt, Nancy Altman, Susanne Belovari, Paul Medlicott, Kirstin Downey, Rev. W. Jameson Parker, and Pat and Cassie Furgurson.

  Working on this book has been a thoroughly enjoyable experience, thanks in large part to having Susanna Porter as my editor. Susanna’s enthusiasm for the book, her support and encouragement throughout its writing, and her skilled and perceptive editing have made for a wonderfully satisfying collaboration. Gail Ross, my longtime agent and friend, is uncanny in her ability to pair her authors with the right editors; with this book, she has shown again why she’s one of the best in the business.

  My deepest thanks and appreciation go to my daughter, Carly, and my husband, Stan, who’s the best editor and writer I know. I owe him more than I can say.

  NOTES

  INTRODUCTION

  “convinced us”: Letter from unidentified sender, John Gilbert Winant scrap-book, in possession of Rivington Winant.

  “We were”: Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman, eds., War Diaries, 1939–1945: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001), p. 248.

  “There were many”: John G. Winant, A Letter from Grosvenor Square: An Account of a Stewardship (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947), p. 3.

  “There was one man”: Times (London), April 24, 1946.

  “conveyed to the entire”: Wallace Carroll letter to Washington Post, undated, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “two prima donnas”: Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1948), p. 236.

  “The British approached”: Carlo D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life (New York: Henry Holt, 2002), p. 337.

  “It was not Mr. Winant”: “British Mourn Winant,” New York Times, Nov. 5, 1947.

  “Blacked out”: Donald L. Miller, Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), p. 137.

  “This is an American-made”: Peter Clarke, The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the Birth of the Pax Americana (New York: Bloomsbury, 2008), p. 103.

  “they needed to know”: Norman Longmate, The G.I.’s: The Americans in Britain, 1942–1945 (New York: Scribner, 1975), p. 376.

  “to concentrate on the things”: Star, Feb. 3, 1941.

  “must learn to live together”: Bernard Bellush, He Walked Alone: A Biography of John Gilbert Winant (The Hague: Mouton, 1968), p. 216.

  CHAPTER 1: “THERE’S NO PLACE I’D RATHER BE THAN IN ENGLAND”

  “I am glad”: Sunday Times, March 2, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “wars were bad”: James Reston, Deadline: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 1991), p. 68.

  “Isn’t it wonderful”: Michael R. Beschloss, Kennedy and Roosevelt: The Uneasy Alliance (New York: W. W. Norton, 1980), p. 177

  “England is gone”: Bellush, p. 155.

  “I’m for appeasement”: Reston, p. 73.

  “devote my efforts”: Beschloss, p. 230.

  “one of the toughest”: “Winant Esteemed by British Chiefs,” New York Times, Feb. 7, 1941.

  “I’m very glad”: Times (London), March 3, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “significant incident”: Ibid.

  “not only extreme”: John Keegan, “Churchill’s Strategy,” in Robert Blake and William Roger Louis, eds., Churchill (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993), p. 331.

  “very distressing”: John Colville, The Fringes of Power: 10 Downing Street Diaries, 1939–1945 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1985), p. 358.

  “even now England”: Joseph P. Lash, Roosevelt and Churchill, 1939–1941: The Partnership That Saved the West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1976), p. 292.

  “The expert politician”: Ibid., p. 143.

  “If Britain is to survive”: Warren F. Kimball, “The Most Unsordid Act”: Lend Lease, 1939–1941 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969), p. 70.

  “This rather”: Colville, Fringes of Power, p. 223.

  “I thought”: Herbert Agar, The Darkest Year: Britain Alone, June 1940-June 1941 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973), p. 143.

  “We have so far”: Lash, Roosevelt and Churchill, p. 251.

  “if we wished”: Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Vol. 6, Finest Hour, 1939–1941 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983), p. 745.

  “We seek�
��: Christopher Hitchens, Blood, Class and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1990), p. 202.

  “When you sit”: David Reynolds, The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance, 1937–1941 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), p. 25

  “far more”: Agar, p. 153.

  “likable and attractive”: Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971), p. 200.

  “an untried”: John Gunther, Roosevelt in Retrospect (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), p. 242.

  “the life of the party”: Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, p. 221.

  “I have always”: Beschloss, p. 200.

  “there is a strong”: Ibid.

  “always sucking”: Reston, p. 70.

  “a drunken sot”: Jon Meacham, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship (New York: Random House, 2003), p. 51.

  “supposed Churchill”: David Dimbleby and David Reynolds, An Ocean Apart: The Relationship Between Britain and America in the Twentieth Century (New York: Random House, 1988), p. 136.

  “We have not had”: David Reynolds, In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (London: Penguin/Allen Lane, 2004), p. 200.

  “hunched in an attitude”: Andrew Roberts, “The Holy Fox”: The Life of Lord Halifax (London: Phoenix, 1997), p. 256.

  “those bloody Yankees”: Meacham, p. 54.

  “I am not in a hurry”: Gilbert, Finest Hour, p. 672.

  “the most unsordid”: Warren F. Kimball, Forged in War: Roosevelt, Churchill and the Second World War (New York: William Morrow, 1997), p. 74.

  “Remember, Mr. President”: Ibid, p. 976.

  “The percentage”: David Reynolds, Rich Relations: The American Occupation of Britain, 1942–1945 (London: Phoenix, 2000), p. 41.

  “Utopian John”: Bellush, p. 118.

  “extremely unhappy”: Eileen Mason interview, Bellush papers, FDRL.

  “always told him”: Ernest Hopkin interview, Bellush papers, FDRL.

  “came to mean”: “He Multiplied the Jobs,” New York Herald Tribune, Sept. 25, 1932, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “Our function”: Alex Shoumatoff, “A Private School Affair,” Vanity Fair, January 2006.

  “an incredibly”: T. S. Matthews, Name and Address: An Autobiography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960), p. 156.

  “Like most”: Ibid, p. 155.

  “all right”: Janet Murrow to parents, April 24, 1943, Murrow papers, Mount Holyoke.

  “It was one”: Dean Dexter interview with Abbie Rollins Caverly.

  “People in the audience”: Author interview with Bert Whittemore.

  “It’s too bad”: Charles Murphy, “A Boy Who Meddled in Politics,” American, April 1933, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “begin by feeling”: “A New Kind of Envoy to a New Kind of Britain,” New York Times, Feb. 16, 1941.

  “Railroads”: New York Times, Sept. 16, 1934, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “put through”: New York Herald Tribune, Nov. 5, 1947.

  “I don’t understand Winant”: “He Multiplied the Jobs,” New York Herald Tribune, Sept. 25, 1932, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “every public policy”: Larry DeWitt, “John G. Winant,” Special Study #6, Social Security Historian’s Office, Social Security Administration, May 1999.

  “carried the Christian injunction “: Lawrence F. Whittemore speech to New Hampshire House and Senate, July 25, 1951.

  “Whenever people want”: Robert Bingham interview, Bellush papers, FDRL.

  “revered and loved”: Author interview with William Gardner.

  “loved to pick off”: Gunther, p. 57.

  “transfusion of new”: Undated newspaper clipping, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “Winant Moves”: Boston Evening Transcript, Sept. 27, 1934, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “has caught”: Charles Murphy, “A Boy Who Meddled in Politics,” American, April 1933, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “You personally”: Unsigned letter to Winant, July 12, 1934, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “would trade”: Undated clipping, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “No, no”: Frances Perkins interview, Bellush papers, FDRL.

  “Most Americans”: “The Manager Abroad,” Time, Dec. 1, 1947.

  “Since the war”: Jean Edward Smith, FDR (New York: Random House, 2007), p. 22.

  “Americans dipped in”: Kimball, “The Most Unsordid Act,” p. 1.

  “Of the hell broth”: David Reynolds, Rich Relations, p. 8.

  “men rush”: New York Times, Feb. 14, 1937.

  “He had no”: Robert Bass interview, Bellush papers, FDRL.

  “He was, beyond”: Larry DeWitt, “John G. Winant,” Special Study #6, Social Security Historian’s Office, Social Security Administration, May 1999.

  “shoddy politics”: Bellush, p. 131.

  “at least one man”: Allan B. MacMurphy to Winant, Oct. 16, 1936, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “More than any other”: William L. Shirer, Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1939–1941 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1941), p. 505

  “They will take”: New York Times, Feb. 7, 1941

  “gave me the feeling”: Times (London), April 24, 1946.

  “There is no”: News Chronicle, Feb. 7, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “He is an American”: Manchester Guardian, Feb. 7, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “There is something”: “A Man of Strength and Straightness,” Times (Lon don), Feb. 8, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “One has often”: “Mr. Winant Knows the Plain People,” Star, Feb. 7, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “this stocky figure”: Winant, A Letter from Grosvenor Square, p. 26.

  “Mr. Winant”: Washington Post, March 18, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “lord of language”: Sunday Times (London), March 23, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “Every word”: Ibid.

  “rather like”: “The Voice of New England,” Star, March 19, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “not an orator”: “Lincoln Comes to Town,” Daily Herald, March 19, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “gone into action”: John G. Winant, Our Greatest Harvest: Selected Speeches of John G. Winant, 1941–1946 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1950), p. 7

  “language of simple grandeur”: “Mr. Winant’s Success,” Evening Standard, March 19, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “U.S. ENVOY”: Daily Mirror, March 19, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “Nearly everyone”: Star, March 19, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “an extraordinary triumph”: Sunday Times (London), March 23, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

  CHAPTER 2: “YOU ARE THE BEST REPORTER IN ALL OF EUROPE”

  “the most magnificent”: Reginald Colby, Mayfair: A Town Within London (London: Country Life, 1966), p. 50.

  “An ambassador from”: David McCullough, John Adams (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), p. 337.

  “They hate us”: Ibid., p. 348.

  “studied civility”: Henry Steele Commager, ed., Britain Through American Eyes (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974), p. 23.

  “I shall never”: Ibid., p. 26.

  “Some years hence”: Geoffrey Williamson, Star-Spangled Square: The Saga of “Little America” in London (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1956), p. 47

  “These people”: Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Complete Writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Vol. 11 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1900), p. xx.

  “The only sure”: Commager, p. 432.

  “He cannot dance”: McCullough, p. 349.

  “coming so slowly”: Daily Herald, March 4, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “EXCELLENT IMPRESSION”: Washington Evening Star, March 3, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “In the first”: News Chronicle, March 4, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

  “His political views”: William Stoneman, “Excellent Impression Made by Winant in London,” Washington Evening Star, March 3, 1941, Winant papers, FDRL.

&
nbsp; “has more influence”: A. M. Sperber, Murrow: His Life and Times (New York: Freundlich, 1986), p. 131.

  “You are the best”: Nelson Poynter to Murrow, June 21, 1940, Murrow papers, Mount Holyoke.

  “You are the No. 1“: Sperber, p. 188.

  “a catalytic agent”: Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948), p. 236.

  “treated as tin gods”: R. Franklin Smith, Edward R. Murrow: The War Years (Kalamazoo: New Issues Press, 1978), p. 95.

  “Good to see you”: Alexander Kendrick, Prime Time: The Life of Edward R. Murrow (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), p. 231.

  “I still have”: Sperber, p. 122.

  “Ed seemed”: Joseph Persico, Edward R. Murrow: An American Original (New York: Dell, 1988), p. 138.

  “the British somehow”: R. Franklin Smith, p. 101

  “Ed had enormous”: Sperber, p. 189.

  “both rather inward-looking”: Ibid.

  “expected individuals”: R. Franklin Smith, p. 145.

  “I hope that life”: Murrow to Charles Siepmann, May 6, 1940, Murrow papers, Mount Holyoke.

  “If the light”: Murrow to William Boutwell, July 22, 1941, Murrow papers, Mount Holyoke.

  “He was concerned”: Sperber, p. 172.

  “a young American”: Persico, Edward R. Murrow, p. 123.

  “there was a satisfaction”: Ben Robertson, I Saw England (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1941), p. 97.

  “the most richly”: Sperber, p. 53.

  “If the rest”: Ibid., p. 120.

  “They have made”: Persico, Edward R. Murrow, p. 150.

  “Assuming that the BBC”: Lynne Olson, Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007), p. 119

  “conspiracy of silence”: Sperber, p. 131.

  “these people”: Persico, Edward R. Murrow, p. 150

  “They had a quick way”: Ibid., p. 119.

  “It’s a beautiful house”: Janet Murrow diary, July 13, 1941, Murrow papers, Mount Holyoke.

  “an agreeable, comfortable”: Asa Briggs, The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, Vol. 3, The War of Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 22.