Dinner With Churchill: Policy-Making at the Dinner Table

by Cita Stelzer

  26. Martin, Downing Street: The War Years, p. 59

  27. Ibid., photo insert following p. 56

  28. Gilbert, Churchill: A Life, p. 889

  29. Gilbert, Volume VI, p. 1168

  *The official title of the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom.

  CHAPTER 3

  Christmas in the White House December 1941–January 1942

  “I would like to suggest delay.” 1

  “Churchill hit the White House like a cyclone.”2

  Churchill never missed an opportunity to confer with key American policy-makers in his tireless effort to enlist the United States in Britain’s struggle for survival. On the fateful evening of 7 December 1941, he was dining at Chequers with American Ambassador John “Gil” Winant; Averell Harriman (Roosevelt’s Special Representative in the UK), and Harriman’s daughter, Kathleen (whose birthday it was); Pamela Churchill, (the Prime Minister’s daughter-in-law); his Principal Private Secretary, John Martin; and Commander “Tommy” Thompson, his ADC.

  Churchill was in this distinguished company when Frank Sawyers, his valet, entered the dining room with a small portable Emerson radio that Harriman had brought with him as a gift from Harry Hopkins.3 The BBC news bulletin was reporting the devastating surprise Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor. Churchill immediately asked Winant to telephone Roosevelt for confirmation, and just as quickly decided to travel to Washington, both to offer support – “We are all in the same boat now,”4 the President told the Prime Minister – and to promote his own strategy for prosecuting the war.

  Chequers dining room

  The following day, the Japanese attacked the British colony of Malaya and on 11 December, Germany declared war on the United States. Britain and the United States had become allies in what was clearly going to be a long war against two strong enemies, Germany and Japan. Because Roosevelt was under substantial Pacific First pressure to avenge the attack on Pearl Harbor, Churchill feared that the war against Germany would be subordinated to an American war against Japan and that the Lend-Lease material would be diverted from Britain to that effort in the Far East.

  As always, Churchill believed he could be most effective in a face-to-face meeting. Once ensconced in the White House, he would argue for the joint overall strategy – Europe First – he was convinced would win the war.

  Arranging this meeting was no easy thing. Such an extended transatlantic visit needed the approval of both the King and the Cabinet, and an invitation from the President. Churchill had little difficulty obtaining the sovereign’s approval. But the Cabinet was another matter.

  The Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, then on his way to meet Stalin, joined his Cabinet colleagues in opposing Churchill’s visit, arguing that Britain’s Prime Minister and its Foreign Secretary should not be away from London and the House of Commons at the same time. But neither Eden nor the War Cabinet could dissuade the Prime Minister from his view that telegrams and phone calls were no substitute for personal contact. Oliver Harvey, Eden’s Principal Private Secretary, noted in his diary:

  Really the PM is a lunatic: he gets in such a state of excitement that the wildest schemes seem reasonable. I hope to goodness we can defeat this one. AE believes the Cabinet and finally the King will restrain him, but the Cabinet are a poor lot for stopping anything.5

  In Washington, enthusiasm for a Churchill visit was equally muted. Influential congressional supporters of General Douglas MacArthur favoured a Japan-first strategy. Nor was the President’s wife alone in Washington in viewing Churchill as an unreconstructed “old imperialist” trying to drag the United States into a war that would restore Britain’s empire. The President, reluctant to receive the Prime Minister, enlisted the aid of the British Ambassador, Lord Halifax, to persuade Churchill to stay at home. Roosevelt told the Ambassador he was worried about Churchill’s security, and suggested a meeting in Bermuda at a later date. Neither fears for his safety, nor the prospect of a meeting at some later – perhaps much later – date could dissuade Churchill from setting sail for America as soon as possible. The Prime Minister set aside the doubts of some of his Cabinet, confident that the potential effectiveness of his personal diplomacy would secure Britain’s urgent national interest to give Hitler no respite in Europe. Churchill’s greatest fear was that the Nazis would defeat the Soviet Union and then invade Britain.

  The President’s uncertainty about the visit from the Prime Minister was reflected in cables he, or perhaps members of his staff not eager to expose the President to the Prime Minister’s persuasive powers, drafted for transmission to Churchill: “I would like to suggest delay … full discussion would be more useful a few weeks hence … I suggest we defer decision on your visit for [about] one week.” In the event, the cables were not sent, and Churchill and Roosevelt spoke over a radio telephone link later that day. Churchill prevailed. The President finally cabled Churchill: “Delighted to have you here at White House.”6

  For security reasons conversations were never about grand strategy. Ruth Ive, who monitored and, when talk turned to sensitive areas, censored transatlantic calls between the President and the Prime Minister, noted that “Churchill would sometimes describe the excellent dinner he had just eaten to the somewhat surprised President”.7

  The invitation to stay at the White House certainly suited Churchill, as he wanted to spend as much personal time as possible with Roosevelt, with every opportunity to practise the dinner-table diplomacy in which he had such confidence. Far better than staying at the British Embassy or Blair House, the presidential guest house, where interruptions would be inevitable.

  On 12 December, Churchill boarded his special train at London’s Euston Station on his way to the Clyde. For security reasons, the story had been put out that Lord Beaverbrook was sailing, and that Churchill was at the train station merely to see him off. Beaverbrook “had his private saloon on the train, and had a dinner party there before the train started”.8 Churchill and his party then embarked on the battleship Duke of York, sister ship to the Prince of Wales on which he had sailed to meet Roosevelt the previous August. (The Prince of Wales had been sunk by the Japanese, north-east of Singapore, a few days earlier with the loss of many lives, including Admiral Tom Phillips, a friend of Churchill’s.) While on board the Duke of York, Churchill telegraphed birthday wishes to Stalin, who was 63 on 21 December. Churchill had celebrated his 67th birthday three weeks earlier.

  The transatlantic voyage took ten days. Churchill described it to his wife as “… unceasing gales … No one is allowed on deck, and we have two men with broken arms and legs … Being in a ship in such weather as this is like being in prison, with the extra chance of being drowned”.9 Commander Thompson described it also: “Of all the journeys which the Prime Minister was destined to make during the war few rivalled this first voyage to America for sheer discomfort.”10 Nevertheless, Beaverbrook joked that he “had never travelled in such a large submarine”,11 and Churchill wrote to his wife: “We make a friendly party at meal times, and everyone is now accustomed to the motion.”12

  Churchill’s insistence on maintaining his usual habits was unaffected by the turbulence. At one point, the ever-present Sawyers rushed to the bridge to ask Captain Harcourt for help. “The Prime Minister doesn’t like the ship’s water, and I’ve run out of white wine.”13 Presumably, the Captain had extra wines aboard for just such emergencies.

  Churchill, as usual, devoted himself to work, albeit following his eccentric daily habits. He told Clementine, in the same letter, of his routine:

  I spend the greater part of the day in bed, getting up for lunch, going to bed immediately afterwards to sleep and then up again for dinner. I manage to get a great deal of sleep and have also done a great deal of work in my waking hours.14

  The numerous memoranda Churchill wrote while on this sea voyage included: “Future Conduct of the War”; “US troops to Northern Ireland”; “Re-establish France as Great Power”; “The Pacific Front”; “Proposed strat
egy for 1943 and a possible landing in Europe”.15 He also read and considered Eden’s reports from Moscow on his meetings with Stalin, and other staff reports from London – a full plate indeed. Also on Churchill’s mind was preparing what he would say to the President.

  On 22 December, Churchill, dressed as at Placentia Bay in a navy pea jacket and blue yachting cap, disembarked at Hampton Roads, at the lower end of the Chesapeake Bay. Insisting that there was not a minute to lose, he was flown up the Potomac to the new National Airport in the capital, where the President greeted him on the tarmac. Together, they drove to the White House. (The others on Churchill’s staff were taken by private train to Washington, where they were served hard-boiled eggs, salad and fruit.16) Both politicians were aware of the perils they faced, aware of the symbolism of their meeting and eager to project confidence and determination – witness the President’s jauntily angled Camel in his cigarette holder and the Prime Minister’s ever-present cigar, which both well knew cartoonists had made a symbol of their imperturbability and steadfastness.

  Churchill lived at the White House for the next three weeks. It was the first time in the long history of Anglo-American relations that a British prime minister had lived at the White House during wartime and probably – with the exception of Harry Hopkins – the only time that a non-family member, and a foreigner at that, was welcomed for such an extended period.

  Both parties were alert to possible differences, concerned about what the other would think and, more worrying, might demand. Brigadier (later Sir) Leslie Hollis, who was with Churchill, wrote:

  The Anglo-American alliance was still untempered steel. The Americans were reeling under the disaster of Pearl Harbor, and possibly a little nervous that the war-tried British might try to tell them what to do. We, on the other hand, were anxious to show that we had no desire to act as senior partners in the new-formed alliance, but as equals. We had no pattern to guide us …17

  At the White House, domestic planning was chaotic: because of the secrecy surrounding Churchill’s transatlantic voyage, Roosevelt’s wife, Eleanor, had not been told until the last minute that the Prime Minster would be her guest over Christmas, usually a family time. She was surprised – even angry – when her husband had asked her whom she had invited for Christmas dinner, as never before had he been interested in her guest lists. Early on the day of Churchill’s arrival, the President told his wife and staff to arrange dinner for twenty that night, a dinner that would include the Prime Minister of Great Britain. An old friend of Eleanor, Mrs. Charles Hamlin, watched as Churchill arrived, and recalled that he “wore a knee-length double-breasted coat, buttoned high, in seaman fashion. He gripped a walking stick with an attached flashlight for the purpose of navigating London blackouts. He reminded me of a big English bulldog who had been taught to give his paw”.18 Time magazine said Churchill “swept in like a breath of fresh air, giving Washington new vigour, for he came as a new hero”.19

  There was some confusion as to sleeping arrangements. When Eleanor showed Churchill to the Lincoln Bedroom (not then as famous as it was to become during the Clintons’ occupancy of the White House), he turned it down, claiming the bed did not suit him. Making himself at home from the start, Churchill then looked over the other available rooms. Alert as ever to opportunities, he chose a bedroom across the hall from Harry Hopkins’ almost-permanent rooms, the Rose Room on the second floor, where Queen Elizabeth had slept on her 1939 visit with King George VI.

  The Prime Minster had struck up a close relationship with Hopkins when the presidential adviser had visited Britain in January 1941, and intended to maintain it as a conduit to the President. With the strategically located bedroom secured (on New Year’s Day the Prime Minister and the President would meet there for a key strategy discussion20), Churchill then obtained offices across the corridor from the President, so they could meet at any time. Churchill’s travelling map room was set up in the Monroe Room, on the ground floor, by the valuable Captain Richard Pim who had run the Map Room since Churchill’s arrival at the Admiralty in 1939. Roosevelt liked it so much he had his own Map Room set up in the White House as soon as Churchill left for home. The Prime Minister’s Principal Private Secretary, John Martin, his naval ADC, Commander Thompson, two Scotland Yard detectives and Churchill’s valet, Sawyers, were all assigned smaller rooms on the second floor. The other members of the Prime Minister’s party, including Churchill’s personal physician, Sir Charles Wilson, were billeted at the Mayflower Hotel.

  Many years after the event, Alonzo Fields, the White House chief butler from 1931 to 1953, wrote a chatty memoir, My 21 Years in the White House. Fields records the secrecy, excitement and chaos of the Prime Minister’s visit. On 22 December 1941, the day on which Churchill arrived at the White House, just after six p.m. Fields said he

  was preparing to leave for home when my phone rang. I was told that an important guest was expected at about 7:00 p.m. The number in his party would be anywhere from 25 to 40 people, and the name of the guest was off the record.21

  No matter: Fields recognised Churchill immediately.

  Fields goes on to describe the alcoholic beverages he served the British Prime Minister. He thus became partially responsible for some of the tales that have sprung up about the Prime Minister’s drinking habits. According to Fields, on Churchill’s first morning at the White House on 23 December, the Prime Minister summoned him to his bedroom and said:

  “Now, Fields, we had a lovely dinner last night but I have a few orders for you. We want to leave here as friends, right? … I must have a tumbler of sherry in my room before breakfast, a couple of glasses of scotch and soda before lunch and French Champagne and 90 year old brandy before I go to sleep at night.”22

  Probably untrue. Fields later recounted another conversation he had with Churchill, who was in a joking mood:

  He said, “Fields, I want to ask you something. I want to know if I can count on you.” “Well, certainly Mr. Prime Minister, I will do whatever I can.” He said: “In years hence when someone says was Winston Churchill a teetotaler; I want you to come to my defense.” “Mr. Prime Minister, I will defend you to the last drop.”23

  Fields may not be the most reliable of reporters, either because of a fallible memory or a desire to add spice to his book and sell tickets for the subsequent dramatisation which toured the United States. Take the matter of breakfasts:

  On his breakfast tray I was instructed to have something hot, something cold, two kinds of fresh fruit, a tumbler of orange juice and a pot of frightfully weak tea. For “something hot”, he had eggs, bacon, or ham, and toast. For “something cold” he had two kinds of cold meats with English mustard and two kinds of fruit plus a tumbler of sherry. This was at breakfast.24

  François Rysavy, White House chef at the time of Churchill’s visits to FDR, has a different story to tell. He recalled serving the distinguished visitor “apples, pears and other fruits and a large pot of tea” for breakfast, which he says the Prime Minister consumed after his morning sherry.25

  Then there is what in my view is the more reliable report, from Lady Williams (née Portal), who worked as Churchill’s secretary from 1949 to 1955. She recalls that Churchill, after waking early, around seven or seven-thirty a.m., preferred a simple breakfast of orange juice, a boiled egg (a special daily treat since eggs were rationed in Britain to two per person per week), tea or sometimes coffee and a bit of fruit. He would then begin to work in bed. The sherry story has led to some of the misconceptions discussed in the chapter dealing with Churchill’s preferences for certain kinds of alcoholic beverages. Lady Williams describes the whisky ordered by the Prime Minister with his breakfast as just a “tumbler of barely coloured whisky, heavily diluted with water, which was put by his bed and it would last all morning”.26 No Sherry. The Prime Minister would have been delighted if his daily White House breakfast tray included poached eggs every day, given rationing restrictions at home.

  A detailed report by Harold Macmillan, s
ubsequently Prime Minister himself, indicated that there were circumstances under which the Prime Minister preferred a more ample breakfast. In June 1951, as part of a campaign to demonstrate to his party that he was sufficiently vigorous to continue to lead it despite his age, Churchill participated in a 21-hour debate in the House of Commons, “crowned all by a remarkable breakfast, at 7:30 a.m., of eggs, bacon, sausages and coffee, followed by a large whisky and soda and a huge cigar. This latter feat commanded general admiration”.27

  BOAC breakfast menu, on flight to Washington, June 1954

  Perhaps the best way to resolve these conflicting recollections and reports about the Churchillian breakfasts is to consult Churchill himself. On his last trip to the US as Prime Minister, in June 1954, aboard a BOAC flight, he had his son-in-law, Sir Christopher Soames, start to annotate a printed menu. Apparently finding that editing process tiresome or complicated, Soames eventually started afresh and wrote Churchill’s preferred order on the reverse side. It specifies almost exactly what Lady Williams, who was on the flight with the Prime Minister, earlier described as Churchill’s favourite breakfast. Soames humorously writes “wash hands” after the last words “whisky soda” and, finally, he writes “cigar”. Note that the washing of hands precedes handling the sacred cigar, and that Churchill was permitted to smoke a cigar aboard the flight. (This menu was auctioned off in 2009. The price anticipated by the auctioneers was £1,900 but so highly do Churchillians value such treasures that it sold for £4,800.)

  The Churchills and Tango at Chartwell, 1933, by William Nicholson

  One thing is certain about Churchill’s early-morning dining preferences: they included solitude. Even at the White House, where he was eager to maximise his time with the President, when it came to breakfast, Churchill would breakfast alone. His view was clear: