Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War) (91 page)

“My friendship,” I said, “with the great man to whose work and fame we pay our tribute today began and ripened during this war. I had met him, but only for a few minutes, after the close of the last war, and as soon as I went to the Admiralty in September 1939 he telegraphed inviting me to correspond with him direct on naval or other matters if at any time I felt inclined. Having obtained the permission of the Prime Minister, I did so. Knowing President Roosevelt’s keen interest in sea warfare, I furnished him with a stream of information about our naval affairs, and about the various actions, including especially the action of the Plate River, which lighted the first gloomy winter of the war.

“When I became Prime Minister, and the war broke out in all its hideous fury, when our own life and survival hung in the balance, I was already in a position to telegraph to the President on terms of an association which had become most intimate, and to me most agreeable. This continued Triumph and Tragedy

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through all the ups and downs of the world struggle until Thursday last, when I received my last messages from him.

These messages showed no falling-off in his accustomed clear vision and vigour upon perplexing and complicated matters. I may mention that this correspondence, which of course was greatly increased after the United States’ entry into the war, comprises, to and fro between us, over seventeen hundred messages. Many of these were lengthy messages, and the majority dealt with those more difficult points which come to be discussed upon the level of heads of Governments only after official solutions have not been reached at other stages. To this correspondence there must be added our nine meetings — at Argentia, three in Washington, at Casablanca, at Teheran, two at Quebec, and, last of all, at Yalta — comprising in all about one hundred and twenty days of close personal contact, during a great part of which I stayed with him at the White House or at his home at Hyde Park or in his retreat in the Blue Mountains, which he called Shangri-La.

“I conceived an admiration for him as a statesman, a man of affairs, and a war leader, I felt the utmost confidence in his upright, inspiring character and outlook, and a personal regard — affection, I must say — for him beyond my power to express today. His love of his own country, his respect for its constitution, his power of gauging the tides and currents of its mobile public opinion, were always evident, but added to these were the beatings of that generous heart which was always stirred to anger and to action by spectacles of aggression and oppression by the strong against the weak. It is indeed a loss, a bitter loss to humanity, that those heartbeats are stilled for ever.

“President Roosevelt’s physical affliction lay heavily upon him. It was a marvel that he bore up against it through all the many years of tumult and storm. Not one man in ten Triumph and Tragedy

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millions, stricken and crippled as he was, would have attempted to plunge into a life of physical and mental exertion and of hard, ceaseless political controversy. Not one in ten millions would have tried, not one in a generation would have succeeded, not only in entering this sphere, not only in acting vehemently in it, but in becoming indisputable master of the scene. In this extraordinary effort of the spirit over the flesh, of will-power over physical infirmity, he was inspired and sustained by that noble woman his devoted wife, whose high ideals marched with his own, and to whom the deep and respectful sympathy of the House of Commons flows out today in all fullness.

“There is no doubt that the President foresaw the great dangers closing in upon the pre-war world with far more prescience than most well-informed people on either side of the Atlantic, and that he urged forward with all his power such precautionary military preparations as peace-time opinion in the United States could be brought to accept.

There never was a moment’s doubt, as the quarrel opened, upon which side his sympathies lay. The fall of France, and what seemed to most people outside this Island the impending destruction of Great Britain, were to him an agony, although he never lost faith in us. They were an agony to him not only on account of Europe, but because of the serious perils to which the United States herself would have been exposed had we been overwhelmed or the survivors cast down under the German yoke. The bearing of the British nation at that time of stress, when we were all alone, filled him and vast numbers of his countrymen with the warmest sentiments towards our people. He and they felt the Blitz of the stern winter of 1940–41, when Hitler set himself to ‘rub out’ the cities of our country, as much as any of us did, and perhaps more indeed, for imagination is often more torturing than reality. There is no doubt that the Triumph and Tragedy

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bearing of the British, and above all the Londoners, kindled fires in American bosoms far harder to quench than the conflagrations from which we were suffering. There was also at that time, in spite of General Wavell’s victories — all the more indeed because of the reinforcements which were sent from this country to him — the apprehension widespread in the United States that we should be invaded by Germany after the fullest preparation in the spring of 1941. It was in February that the President sent to England the late Mr. Wendell Willkie, who, although a political rival and an opposing candidate, felt as he did on many important points. Mr. Willkie brought a letter from Mr.

Roosevelt, which the President had written in his own hand, and this letter contained the famous lines of Longfellow:
Sail on, O ship of State!

Sail on, O Union, strong and great!

Humanity with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate.
1

“At about that same time he devised the extraordinary measure of assistance called Lend-Lease, which will stand forth as the most unselfish and unsordid financial act of any country in all history. The effect of this was greatly to increase British fighting power, and for all the purposes of the war effort to make us, as it were, a much more numerous community. In that autumn I met the President for the first time during the war at Argentia, in Newfoundland, and together we drew up the declaration which has since been called the Atlantic Charter, and which will, I trust, long remain a guide for both our peoples and for other peoples of the world.

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“All this time, in deep and dark and deadly secrecy, the Japanese were preparing their act of treachery and greed.

When next we met in Washington, Japan, Germany, and Italy had declared war upon the United States, and both our countries were in arms, shoulder to shoulder. Since then we have advanced over the land and over the sea through Triumph and Tragedy

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many difficulties and disappointments, but always with a broadening measure of success. I need not dwell upon the series of great operations which have taken place in the Western Hemisphere, to say nothing of that other immense war proceeding on the other side of the world. Nor need I speak of the plans which we made with out great Ally, Russia, at Teheran, for these have now been carried out for all the world to see.

“But at Yalta I noticed that the President was ailing. His captivating smile, his gay and charming manner, had not deserted him, but his face had a transparency, an air of purification, and often there was a far-away look in his eyes.

When I took my leave of him in Alexandria harbour I must confess that I had an indefinable sense of fear that his health and his strength were on the ebb. But nothing altered his inflexible sense of duty. To the end he faced his innumerable tasks unflinching…. When death came suddenly upon him he had finished his mail. That portion of his day’s work was done. As the saying goes, he died in harness, and we may well say in battle harness, like his soldiers, sailors, and airmen, who side by side with ours are carrying on their task to the end all over the world. What an enviable death was his! He had brought his country through the worst of its perils and the heaviest of its toils. Victory had cast its sure and steady beam upon him.

“In the days of peace he had broadened and stabilised the foundations of American life and union. In war he had raised the strength, might, and glory of the great Republic to a height never attained by any nation in history. With her left hand she was leading the advance of the conquering Allied Armies into the heart of Germany, and with her right, on the other side of the globe, she was irresistibly and swiftly breaking up the power of Japan. And all the time

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ships, munitions, supplies, and food of every kind were aiding on a gigantic scale her Allies, great and small….

“But all this was no more than worldly power and grandeur, had it not been that the causes of human freedom and social justice, to which so much of his life had been given, added a lustre … which will long be discernible among men. He has left behind him a band of resolute and able men handling the numerous interrelated parts of the vast American war machine. He has left a successor who comes forward with firm step and sure conviction to carry on the task to its appointed end. For us it remains only to say that in Franklin Roosevelt there died the greatest American friend we have ever known, and the greatest champion of freedom who has ever brought help and comfort from the New World to the Old.”

Although Roosevelt’s death came as a shock and a surprise, as I have said I had been aware ever since we parted at Alexandria after the Yalta Conference that his strength was fading. I did what I could in personal telegrams to relieve the strain of the divergences on large matters of policy which Soviet antagonism brought into our official correspondence, but I had not fully realised how serious the President’s condition had become. I knew that it was not his practice to draft his own telegrams about official business and no change in their style was apparent. Oliver Lyttelton, who saw him on March 29, telegraphed on the 30th that he was “greatly shocked by his appearance.”

My first impulse was to fly over to the funeral, and I had already ordered an aeroplane. Lord Halifax telegraphed that both Hopkins and Stettinius, were much moved by my thought of possibly coming over and both warmly agreed Triumph and Tragedy

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with my judgment of the immense effect for good that would be produced. And later that Truman had asked him to say how greatly he would personally value the opportunity of meeting me as early as possible, and that he thought a visit for the funeral, if I had had this in mind, would have been a natural and easy occasion. Mr. Truman’s idea was that after the funeral I might have had two or three days’ talk with him.

Much pressure was however put on me not to leave the country at this most critical and difficult moment, and I yielded to the wishes of my friends.

I sent the following message to the President:
Prime

Minister

to

13 Apr. 45

President Truman

I very much regret that it is impossible now for me to
change my plans, which were approved by the King
and the Cabinet this morning, and upon which all
arrangements have been made for the conduct of the
debates in Parliament next week, including my tribute
to the late President on Tuesday, and my attendance
upon the King at the memorial service to be held in St.

Paul’s Cathedral. I am looking forward earnestly to a
meeting with you at an early date. Meanwhile the
Foreign Secretary knows the whole story of our joint
affairs.

In the after-light I regret that I did not adopt the new President’s suggestion. I had never met him, and I feel that there were many points on which personal talks would have been of the greatest value, especially if they had been spread over several days and not hurried or formalised. It seemed to me extraordinary, especially during the last few months, that Roosevelt had not made his deputy and potential successor thoroughly acquainted with the whole story and brought him into the decisions which were being taken. This proved of grave disadvantage to our affairs.