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Winston Churchill had no recollection of giving Franklin Roosevelt the cold shoulder on the night they met in 1918.  While Roosevelt insisted that he had and was a scoundrel for it, for Churchill the first contact he had with FDR was 1933, when he sent the new president volume one of a biography he had penned on his illustrious ancestor John Churchill, Marlborough:  His Life and Times.  An ardent admirer of the New Deal, Churchill inscribed the book “With earnest wishes for the success of the greatest crusade of modern times.”  He did not know then that the two would become partners in an even greater campaign in several years’ time.

The two started to go steady, if you will, in December 1940. After months of soul-searching, a letter from Churchill detailing Britain’s life-support condition and raising the spectre that America could be next on Hitler’s hit list if it fell finally convinced Roosevelt to lend more help. The president had been slow in coming to the rescue. But now that he did his move was a dramatic one, reminiscent of the decisive action he had taken to get America back on its feet during the desperate early days of his presidency. He would personally champion a Lend-Lease bill through Congress that would substantially enhance the threadbare aid America had been providing Britain to sustain itself, and to take the fight to Hitler. The time had come, Roosevelt would tell the American people, for the United States to do its moral duty and become “the great arsenal of democracy.” It was a bold political move by the president, one that told the Axis powers that the United States was no longer going to stand idly by on the sidelines and was going to do everything it could to help its British friend defeat their odious aims. Roosevelt had given Churchill the pledge ring he had been coveting in the window.

Confident he was doing the right thing, FDR still had doubts that Churchill was the man to lead his countrymen to a stalemate, nevertheless victory. He knew that the British leader was a phenomenon of the human species. Already proven as a gifted artist, visionary inventor, noted scholar, sagacious philosopher, prolific author, intrepid soldier, keen military strategist, indefatigable politician, accomplished raconteur, brilliant orator, indomitable leader, and remarkable drinker and cigar smoker, Churchill no doubt ranked among the Aristotles, da Vincis and Jeffersons of the ages in his scope and aptitude. But what would his stirring rhetoric and V-for-victory poses be worth if the Nazi juggernaut unleashed an amphibious assault against his small land? For all his tough talk, would the PM roll over?

Wondering if Churchill was the partner he would need to decapitate the Nazi monster, in January 1941 Roosevelt dispatched his loyal lieutenant Harry Hopkins to London to take the man’s measure. Churchill knew he was being auditioned and put on his best show, a performance few could resist. Hopkins certainly was no match: “Jesus Christ, what a man,” he exclaimed after a night with the PM. Thus, the Roosevelt loyalist was the one who rolled over, singing the praises of Churchill to his boss whenever the man allowed him a moment to come up for breath. Hopkins the Roosevelt retriever became Hopkins the Churchill lapdog.

Roosevelt trusted Hopkins implicitly and jumped on the bandwagon from the first glowing reports. He now viewed Churchill as “a brilliant and great leader” and immediately wanted to meet the man. However, scheduling conflicts and pressing matters would put off a meeting for precious months, until August 9, 1941.

By then, the timing could not have been more urgent. Germany had betrayed its co-conspirator in the partition of Poland and invaded Russia on June 22; in less than a month the Wehrmacht had smashed its way halfway to Moscow. If Russia fell, as looked increasingly likely, Britain could in theory be subjugated by the end of summer (with possible dire implications for the United States). The summit was to convene not a moment too soon. (In fact, Roosevelt and Churchill were taking a mind-boggling gamble in not holding their conference at least a month earlier, if not before.)

Planning the getaway to Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, top secret site of the meeting (code named RIVIERA), brought out the boy in Roosevelt, the sometimes overgrown kid who still reveled in maneuvering wooden soldiers and ships across maps, playing childish pranks, and sneaking out of the house at night.  The latter, in effect, is what the president did to keep a potent isolationist faction, still steaming over the push Lend-Lease gave toward full-scale involvement in the war, from getting wind of a meeting it could use to undermine him during the fortnight he planned to be away “on vacation.”  Creating a ruse that he would be sailing on the presidential yacht Potomac he had boarded the evening of August 3 ostensibly for a prolonged fishing trip to Maine, Roosevelt slipped unnoticed onto the USS Arkansas in Massachusetts less than 36 hours later for the journey north.  Not even Eleanor knew the truth of his escapade, which tickled FDR to no end.  He had pulled off his crafty “plan of escape.”

When one thinks of the excruciating pain Roosevelt silently suffered as a victim of polio and  anguish he stoically endured as steward of his nation during the Depression and WWII, a sense of joy follows at learning of any happiness he found during his presidency.  His great Augusta getaway was one of the rare times in his 12 tumultuous years in the White House when he achieved that state, and the heart gladdens knowing he did.

August 9 was one of those exceptional days in human history when two personages of the highest order came upon the same stage at the same time. Knowing that the stuff of legend was about to be enacted, FDR had summoned his sons Elliott and Franklin Jr. to be on hand for the electrifying moment when the bulldog of Britain and he clasped hands for the first time.

With a picture for the ages about to be taken, the posterity-conscious Roosevelt had his sons shackle him in the heavy and painful leg irons he needed to stand. The proud man who would not let people of his own time know he could not was certainly not going to let future generations in on the secret. Another reason for his resolve was Churchill. Think what he would of the man as a person, he had no doubt that in him resided an indomitable force that had led a poorly equipped tiny island nation to bear up against the mightiest bombardment from the skies the world had ever known. A man of Roosevelt’s character didn’t greet a man like that sitting down. One gets the feeling that even if he were struggling for breath on his deathbed, he would have stood in honor of such a giant.

Finally, the hour of destiny arrived.  From his flagship HMS Prince of Wales, Churchill embarked Augusta.  One can imagine a static charge in the air like before an electrical storm, or that weighted moment before a supergroup like the Stones appears on stage, as he stood at attention while a military band played God Save the King and The Star Spangled Banner.  Finally, with the anticipation at a crescendo, the PM approached Roosevelt, who was holding on to the arm of Elliott for support, and bowed.  “At last, we’ve gotten together,” the president said.  Churchill nodded.  “We have.”

On first reflection, the disappointing spare words might seem incongruous in light of the loquacious temperaments of the two men. But on further thought, the laconic exchange was just right. For it captured perfectly the awe in which they held each other, due in no small part to Arthurian images Harry Hopkins had masterfully cultivated in both.

There are dozens of Web sites and hundreds of books and articles chronicling the pledges of wartime aid and Atlantic Charter that came out of Roosevelt and Churchill’s first meeting as heads of state in what has become known as the Atlantic Conference.  But only a handful provide a glimpse at what happened behind the scenes, and even fewer (Jon Meacham’s wonderful character study Franklin and Winston is one) describe what was going on in the minds of the main players.  None touches on what Churchill was thinking when he saw the great effort FDR had taken to stand in his honor.  A softy known to weep at tear-jerking movies and weddings, the thought What a man! (echoing Hopkins’ impression of him) must have crossed his misty-eyed consciousness.  If one wonders why a man of exponential greater accomplishment than the president would frequently in the 112 days to come grovel at his feet, the answer lies here.  Churchill regarded Roosevelt’s dismissal of his crushing disease to rise to the pinnacle of human power as an unparalleled triumph of the human will.

He admired the man, and the feeling was mutual.

Note: On December 10, 1941, four months after Roosevelt and Churchill met on its deck, Japanese torpedo bombers sunk the HMS Prince of Wales near Singapore. Three hundred and twenty-five crew members who had sailed with the prime minister to Newfoundland and prayed alongside the president and him in a Sunday religious service on the ship were killed in action.

Roosevelt and Churchill (seated, upper left corner of quarterdeck) attend a Sunday, August 10, 1941, religious service aboard the HMS Prince of Wales, harbored in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland.  The USS Arkansas looms in the background.
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