Winston Churchill: An Informal Study of Greatness

by Taylor, Robert Lewis

  When the delegation boarded the battleship Prince of Wales, Churchill emerged full-blown as an able old salt. Forgoing a valet, he had asked Inspector Thompson to administer to his personal needs, and he instituted a call that went out frequently over the ship’s speaker: “Inspector Thompson lay aft to the Prime Minister’s cabin.” Somebody noted that both the sound and the spirit of this were evocative of Captain Flint’s bawling, in one of Churchill’s favorite books (Treasure Island), “Darby McGraw! Darby McGraw — fetch aft the rum, Darby!” Thompson has told how he was also kept hopping by crew members who wanted Churchill souvenirs — cigar butts, cigar bands that had his name on them, and other articles (including empty bottles, according to a sailor who was aboard and is now risen to be a much-decorated chief petty officer). The crew could never be sure when Churchill was apt to burst in on them. Wearing the characteristic impish grin of his lighter moments, and smoking a cigar, he would clamber down a companionway and make pointed inquiries of a work party. He wished to know how everything was done, down to the last detail. If the group was called to attention, he said, “No, no. Carry on. I want to walk about without interfering. Allow the men to be at ease, so that I can have personal contact with them.” In the Warrant Officers’ Mess he found the darts in poor condition and presented his hosts with a costly new set he bought from a canteen. Playing at darts, he concentrated just as hard as he afterward seemed to do on the provisions of the Charter.

  President Roosevelt’s cadaverous agent, Harry Hopkins, was aboard the battleship, having previously visited Churchill at 10 Downing Street. The Prime Minister and this ill but alert ambassador spent a lot of time in conference, bringing closer the meeting of two executive minds that was to form the fulcrum of the Allied effort. Churchill and Hopkins commonly got together in the evenings before dinner, and, after dinner, appeared at the ship’s entertainments. At a showing of the English film, Pimpernel Smith, they came into the wardroom in resplendent condition. Hopkins was smartly dressed in a dinner jacket, but Churchill had slipped into what seemed to be part, at least, of the formal costume of the Royal Yacht Squadron. At each change of reel, he twisted around in his seat and called out, “Jolly good, what?” or “Splendid,” or another of his pet approbations. Some of the company thought the movie only passable, but everybody wondered how a man of such responsibility could sit in perfect detachment while a great battleship with every gun anxiously manned plowed through hostile seas. H. V. Morton, in his account of the trip, tells of running into a violent gale, with the heightened discomfort of having to keep up speed because of U-boats. No one inexperienced in the sea can foretell the nauseous shock of smashing into massive mid-ocean combers at twenty-five or thirty knots. The vibration, the out-of-control pitching and rolling, the crash and clatter of every object within earshot, the shrieking of wind and water across the decks — all go to make a sort of Dantesque nightmare of confusion and despair. At the peak of the gale, around 2 A.M., Churchill, who had been enjoying himself with C. S. Forester’s Captain Horatio Hornblower, rang for a midshipman, who entered the cabin to find him naked and dancing with rage. The Prime Minister’s quarters were aft, and the propellers were periodically climbing out of water and “waggling the ship’s tail.” He put on his siren suit and his black yachting cap and demanded to be escorted to the admiral’s sea cabin on the bridge.

  It was quite a stroll. The midshipman, staggering against the fury of the storm, tried to steer Churchill on an easy, dry path — out of the way of protruding davits, capstans, and cables — but only received a reprimand for his pains. “Young man, do you imagine I have never climbed a ladder in my life?” the Prime Minister cried at one point, and immediately afterward clanked his head cruelly on a steel overhang. “But, do you know, the most extraordinary thing happened,” said the midshipman later. “I expected a proper mouthful, but — he never said a word! I tell you, it was absolutely awe-inspiring.”

  Approaching Placentia Bay and a personal encounter upon which the entire world hung in large measure, Churchill exhibited a certain degree of unaccustomed tension. When Inspector Thompson remarked that the meeting would be “historic,” he replied, “Yes, and more so if I get what I want from him.” It was a stirring scene as the gigantic Prince of Wales rounded a promontory and entered the mouth of the bay, convoyed by two American destroyers that had made contact at 7:30 A.M. (August 9), an hour and a half ahead of the expected time. The calm gray waters inside the bay were thick with American warships, in formation around the cruiser Augusta, which bore President Roosevelt. The day was damp; awnings had been broken out on several decks. The Prince of Wales moved slowly by the Augusta, which was riding at anchor, and a band of Royal Marines struck up “The Star-Spangled Banner.” At the same moment, a band aboard the Augusta swung into “God Save the King.” Churchill stood at attention on the Prince of Wales’ quarterdeck, his hand to the bill of his cap; then he took up a pair of binoculars and gazed at the Augusta. He commented that President Roosevelt was standing bareheaded beneath a canopy over the forward gun turret and had on a light suit. (The fact was that Roosevelt had been wearing a hat but had removed it to salute the British battleship.) In the same attitude of expectancy, the President was straining for his first sight of Churchill.

  When the Prince of Wales reached its station and dropped anchor, the waters became alive with small boats; parties of officers were beginning courtesy visits. The British looked on, amazed. “We were a remarkable contrast as we lay anchored side by side,” says Morton. “The Prince of Wales was camouflaged; her guns protruded from their turrets like rigid pythons. The American ships were uncamouflaged and shone in peace-time grey. We had been in action, and our brass was either painted or tarnished, and our decks were not what they would have been in other days. The American ships were spotless. We admired the beautiful rubber steps of their pinnaces, the gleaming brass, the pine-white woodwork, as those craft lay tossing in our grim shadow. It was almost with a shock that, having lived since 1939 in a country at war, I looked — as over a great gulf of experience — at such evidence of a country at peace.”

  Churchill and his aides boarded the Augusta at 11 A.M. “God Save the King” was played again as he mounted to the deck. He had on his blue serge “semi-naval” suit and his black yachting cap and his expression was at first grave as he walked slowly up to President Roosevelt and took him strongly by the hand. Then he presented a letter from King George, and his face broke into a triumphant grin. The memorable Roosevelt smile, possibly the most winning of modern times — head thrown back and tilted at a cocky angle — greeted the visitor from war-ravaged England. The precise words they exchanged were not heard by anybody except themselves, but the tête-à-tête was plainly one of such instant liking that all the ships’ companies relaxed into the mood of genial camaraderie that marked the proceedings of the next four days. After the general introductions, the Prime Minister returned to the Prince of Wales and then came back to the Augusta for lunch. The function was brilliantly successful. It has always been hard for Churchill to establish himself on a basis of companionable equality with persons of mediocre standing, and Roosevelt, though hailed as the savior of the common man, was distinctly ill at ease with the lower orders. The descendant of the Dukes of Marlborough and the heir of rich Dutch patroons had a community of tastes and interests.

  In the afternoon Churchill was pacing the deck of his battleship, thinking over the conference just ended, when a fleet of loaded launches arrived from the American ships. President Roosevelt was sending gifts to the austerity-hardened British sailors — 1500 cardboard cartons each containing an orange, two apples, 200 cigarettes, half a pound of cheese, and a card saying, “The President of the United States of America sends his compliments and best wishes.” Obviously it was an occasion of high promise for photographers, who appeared on deck to record the distribution, though with anxious glances at the meditating Premier. Their concern was wasted; his reaction was typically Churchillian. Seeing the preparations
, he stepped forward and took complete command, with the tacit hint that he was a photographic master in the classic tradition. “Come over here!” he called to some American sailors who were foolishly listening to instructions of the official photographers, and then, after grouping them, he cried, “Don’t take it yet — more tooth.” Churchill arranged everything to his satisfaction, and the photographers fell in line with patient sighs.

  We are indebted to Inspector Thompson for some intimate scraps of conversations that took place that evening after dinner. The occasion as a whole was so clearly one of the milestones of history that the inspector asked Mike Reilly, of the American Secret Service, to introduce him to President Roosevelt. Overhearing this, Churchill broke in with, “Oh, no. I will perform that introduction myself.” The two men turned back into Roosevelt’s cabin, and Churchill said, “Inspector Thompson has guarded me faithfully for a period of nearly twenty years. It gives me great pleasure to present him to you.” After chatting a few minutes, the President said, “Look after the Prime Minister. He is one of the greatest men in the world.” In the small boat going back to the Prince of Wales, Churchill told Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., who went along, “Your father is a great man. He has accomplished much. I am glad that our meeting has resulted in such understanding.” Young Roosevelt, then a naval ensign, replied that he thought his father had been ennobled by overcoming a crippling affliction through faith and determination. “My father is really a very religious man,” he remarked thoughtfully, and added, “He was talking to me of you, and he said that Churchill ...”

  “No, no — Winston,” interrupted Churchill.

  “... is the greatest statesman the world has ever known.”

  Churchill and Roosevelt came to have affection and respect for one another, but they were competitive and did not always hit it off. After their first meeting, each is supposed to have demanded of his aides, “What did he think of me?” and John Gunther records that Roosevelt later crowed, “I had thirteen warships at that meeting and Winston had only two or three.” In the sessions that continued aboard the Augusta, there was a military meeting of minds but a great amount of political bickering. Throughout the war, Roosevelt, under the ceaseless pressures of various groups in the United States, nagged at Churchill to grant independence to India and to renounce the empire system generally. On one occasion, the Prime Minister was asked bluntly, “Will you give up Hong Kong?” He was outraged. Roosevelt thought also that Churchill had always been unduly suspicious and backward about the idealistic new state of Russia. In consequence, Churchill was talked into making a number of concessions, at Yalta and elsewhere, that he thought unwise. At one meeting early in the war, Roosevelt, backed by Stalin, chivvied Churchill so nastily about establishing a second front according to the Russian demands that several embarrassed onlookers feared that a serious disruption might result.

  Churchill and Roosevelt got together a dozen times in the course of the war. When news came of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Churchill was at Chequers. He prepared an immediate statement for the American people, assuring them that the British Cabinet would declare war on Japan without delay. Then he got on the telephone and reaffirmed this in a conversation with Roosevelt. Churchill has always placed strong reliance in the personal contact, if the contact involves himself, and he decided, after England’s statement of intentions, to pack up and visit the White House for Christmas (of 1941). His motives were twofold: in the first place he enjoyed visiting in luxurious houses; second, he was afraid that America might become overly anxious about the war in the Pacific, to the detriment of England’s scrap with Hitler. Dozens of cables and telephone messages were exchanged before he left with his large entourage of military personnel. Both the President and the Prime Minister felt that in a homey session of this kind the important questions of what kind of wines to serve, which movies to show, and the like, should be settled beforehand. On the voyage back aboard the Prince of Wales, Churchill had been conspicuously entertained by a pair of American films — ? Donald Duck in Fox-hunting and Laurel and Hardy in Saps at Sea — and he hoped to have more along those lines.

  Persons present at the Christmas visit say that its whole tone was one of good-fellowship. According to Charles J. V. Murphy and John Davenport, writing in Life, the pace was set in the beginning by Harry Hopkins, who, as a member of Churchill’s party approaching the White House, saw some red-coated British marines standing beside the front entrance. “How the hell did they get in here? The last time we had them around they burnt the place down,” Hopkins said. Churchill thought this a prime good hit, and, for a change, allowed himself to be told anecdotes of various kinds for days. He showed a limited partiality for Roosevelt’s dialect stories. Under different circumstances, he might have found them trying. Churchill has always been impatient in the presence of garrulity, and he has been known to leave rooms in the middle of “jokes.” One of his friends says that “People generally try to tell Winnie shady stories only once — he is quite outspoken about it.” Maurice Macmillan, son of the Cabinet minister, describes a wartime appearance of Churchill’s at Pratt’s, an exclusive London club. A beardless subaltern, excited by drink and the illustrious company, took the floor and sailed into a disreputable account. Churchill stood it for slightly more than a minute; then he got up and left, turning at the door to bellow: “Young man, what you’re saying is all a lot of . I predict that you will go far — in the wrong direction.”

  Roosevelt had a predilection for harmlessly off-color stories, and he fed them to Churchill in bulk quantities. So far as is known, the recipient has never handed down a critique of this material, but the chances are that he placed small value on it. However, he did complain, amidst the privacy of his British associates, that Roosevelt seemed to him an unusually talkative man. “He tries to monopolize the conversation,” explained the Prime Minister. Roosevelt had an identical view of Churchill. At one war conference, the President remarked to James Byrnes that it would be wonderful if Churchill could refrain from making long speeches, adding that they “hold up business.” Byrnes agreed absently and suggested that they were, nevertheless, pretty good speeches. Roosevelt laughed and said, “Winston doesn’t make any other kind.” Another time, when Churchill arose to rid himself of a few ideas on a trivial subject, Roosevelt wrote “Now we are in for half an hour of it” on a scrap of paper and shoved it across to Edward Stettinius.

  For an intensely masculine man, Churchill has always been severe about levity concerning sex. It is a strange quirk. He is by no means modest physically, but rather parades around home with very little on a good part of the time. Roosevelt wheeled himself into Churchill’s White House room one morning to find the Prime Minister standing naked before a mirror, shaving. Unperturbed, Churchill made no attempt to cover himself but merely observed that “this is probably the only time in history when the Prime Minister of England has received the head of another great state in the nude.” A lady visitor to Chartwell was once being shown about the house by Mrs. Churchill and, to the latter’s horror, ran across the great man emerging from the bathroom. He was dressed only in a pair of shorts and was smoking a cigar. Without stopping to chat, he made a courtly bow and went on his way, humming an approximation of a little tune. After the holiday meetings with Roosevelt, Churchill took a villa at Palm Beach for a “rest,” during which he worked about fourteen hours a day, interspersing his stints with frequent swims. When the group arrived, Inspector Thompson started in to one of the local shops for a bathing suit and asked the Prime Minister if he would like one too.

  “I don’t think I need one,” Churchill said. “It is entirely private here. Nobody knows I am staying in this place, and I have only to step out of the back door into the sea.”

  The inspector suggested that he could be seen “through the glasses.”

  Churchill’s reply was, “If they are that much interested it is their own fault what they see.”

  Shortly afterward he came out on his beach wrapped in a huge
white bath towel, and Thompson felt relieved. Approaching the water, however, Churchill yanked the towel free and tossed it to an attendant who was standing near by. Then, naked, he dove into the sea. At this resort, Thompson was impressed, as others have been, with Churchill’s odd style of swimming. It has been mentioned that John Pudney, the English poet, was once baffled by Churchill’s convolutions in the pool at Chartwell. Inspector Thompson records that the Prime Minister, at Palm Beach, swam out a way and began to turn over and over “like a porpoise,” agitating the water so violently that a fifteen-foot shark swam up to see what was going on. The shark’s impression was apparently unfavorable, for it got out pretty fast. “My bulk must have frightened him away,” Churchill said later.

  *

  Of Harry Hopkins, arriving in London from a flying trip to Moscow late in 1941, Churchill asked, “How is my pal Joe?” This lightning friendship represented an important turnabout for England’s Prime Minister, who had previously thought up such neat phrases about Joe’s government as “the foul baboonery of Bolshevism” and “the bestial appetites of Leninism.” Attempting to explain his new stand, Churchill stressed in a radio address that he did not withdraw his comments on Communism as a philosophy but he welcomed the “glorious warriors” and “mighty heroes” of Russia as comrades-in-arms against the villain Hitler. Probably no other statesman in the world could have uttered these joyous transparencies with a straight face. An English writer also doubted if it would have been physically feasible to withdraw all the comments within the space of a single broadcast. Churchill’s insight into the true aspect of Stalin’s mind was matched only by his revulsion from the bloodstained character of Russia’s over-all scheme. His feeling was strong and permanent, and it is creditable that he was able to take advantage of Soviet power without any false twinges of conscience. While Churchill’s partnership with Russia was purely one of expediency, many of Roosevelt’s advisers saw America’s military alliance with Stalin as part of a greater, nobler union, in which a form of “limited Capitalism” and an eventually sanctified Socialism would march hand in hand down the drab corridors of a unilateral world. American diplomats, innocents abroad, had painted luminous pictures of the glorious new order; the various missions to Moscow presented Joseph Stalin as a humanitarian whose sole concern was equality for all classes, colors and creeds, and, more tragically, as a man who pre-eminently wanted peace.