FDR and Churchill

Today’s Daily Dose short history film covers the special friendship between FDR and Churchill that helped save the world from Nazi aggression. The filmmaker has included the original voice over script to further assist your understanding: Today on The Daily Dose, FDR and Churchill. Following Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland, in less than a year, the Nazi war machine had steamrolled across much of Europe, knocking on Great Britain’s door by the time incoming prime minister Winston Churchill took office in May of 1940—just in time to face Britain’s defeat at the Battle of Dunkirk.

Torn by Campaign Promises

Fully aware that Britain’s back was up against the wall, incoming third term President Franklin D. Roosevelt anguished over his campaign promise to keep America out of the war, leading to one of his fireside chats now known as his “Arsenal of Democracy” speech, leading to the signing of the Lend-Lease Act on March 11th, 1941, which promised war supplies to any nation deemed “vital to the defense of the United States.” As the world spiraled into chaos, destruction and death, both leaders understood implicitly that their relationship and ability to work together held the utmost consequence for their nations and the world.

A Clandestine Meeting

To establish their relationship, the men held a clandestine meeting from August 9th to the 12th, 1941, aboard the U.S.S. Augusta off the coast of Newfoundland. To reach their meeting point, Churchill was obliged to cross the U-boat-infested Atlantic, while FDR concocted an elaborate story to throw off the press about a fishing trip off Cape Cod. Their meeting resulted in the eight-point Atlantic Charter, which laid American and British goals for the world after the conclusion of war. Four months later, America entered WW2 after Japan’s unprovoked attack on American naval assets at Pearl Harbor, taking the lives of 2,403 American servicemen and civilians. Between September of 1939 until FDR’s sudden death in April of 1945, the two world leaders exchanged nearly two thousand letters and cables, while meeting in person a total of eleven times spanning 113 days.

A Unique Relationship

Shunning the formalities of high office, the two men talked, dined and drank together, including four stays at the White House—sometimes for weeks on end—prompting Eleanor Roosevelt to write that “I was solicitous for his comfort, but I was always glad when he departed, for I knew that my husband would need a rest, since he had carried his usual hours of work in addition to the unusual ones Mr. Churchill preferred.” Besides their conference meetings with Joseph Stalin and other Allied leaders, which helped galvanize the Cold War years to come, on September 14th, 1944, the two men met in FDR’s Hyde Park study, initiating the Manhattan Project, which ultimately ended the Second World War, making the relationship between Churchill and FDR, a friendship which saved the world from Nazi aggression.