Dinner With Churchill: Policy-Making at the Dinner Table

by Cita Stelzer

  Bernard Baruch

  Amassed a fortune on Wall Street. Baruch (1870–1965) was a financial adviser to various US presidents, including Roosevelt during the war. He was also a long-standing friend of Churchill, offering personal financial advice and generous hospitality.

  Lord Beaverbrook

  Press magnate and Minister of Aircraft production, 1941, Minister of Supply 1941 and Lord Privy Seal, 1943–5. Born Max Aitken in Canada in 1879, he was the son of a Scottish minister. He bought the Daily Express in 1916, turning it by the 1930s into Britain’s best-selling newspaper. Beaverbrook supported appeasement but was also considered a crony of Churchill. During the war he built a popular reputation because of his perceived energy in improving armament production. He contrived to combine a firm belief in the British Empire with repeated calls for more help for the Soviet Union and the early opening of a Second Front in Europe.

  Valentin Berezhkov

  Stalin’s interpreter at the Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences. In retirement he remained loyal to Stalin’s memory though when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 he moved to California, where he died in 1998. One of his sons wrote to Ronald Reagan asking if he could defect; another became interpreter to Boris Yeltsin.

  Arthur H. Birse

  Born in Russia and trained as an international banker, Birse was fluent in Russian and an expert in Russian affairs. During the war, he served in the Intelligence Corps in Cairo, achieving the rank of major in the British Army. He was later appointed to the British embassy in Moscow. He was asked to translate for Churchill at Teheran, Moscow in 1944 and at Yalta. In 1945, he acted at Churchill’s interpreter. He also interpreted for Eden, Attlee and Bevin

  Charles E. Bohlen

  The diplomat “Chip” Bohlen (1904–74) was working at the US embassy in Tokyo when Pearl Harbor was attacked and thereafter endured six months in a Japanese internment camp. After his repatriation to Washington he advised Harry Hopkins and President Roosevelt on Soviet affairs. He travelled with Roosevelt to the Teheran and Yalta Conferences, where he served as an interpreter, a role he revived at Potsdam for Truman. Alongside his friend George Kennan, Bohlen helped shape the policy of Soviet containment, and he succeeded Kennan as Ambassador in Moscow in 1953. Rethinking some of his earlier conciliatory overtures, Bohlen concluded that “anyone who started with too many illusions about the Soviets came out disillusioned”.

  Violet Bonham Carter

  Daughter of the Liberal Prime Minister, H.H. Asquith and stepdaughter of Margot Asquith, Violet Bonham Carter lived in Downing Street between the ages of 21 and 27 and knew many of her father’s contemporaries, marrying his Principal Private Secretary. She was a close friend of both Winston and Clementine Churchill. Created Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury, she remained active in Liberal politics in the House of Lords. She wrote Winston Churchill as I Knew Him in 1965, and died in 1969. Her diaries containing many revealing anecdotes were published in 1996.

  Brendan Bracken

  Churchill’s most loyal supporter in the House of Commons. Born in 1901, the son of an Irish Fenian activist and partly educated in Australia, Bracken arrived in England in 1919 and began a rapid social and political advancement by impressing the editor of The Observer, J.L. Garvin. Elected a Conservative MP, aged 28, he became a press magnate of financial newspapers and helped Churchill to survive his own money problems on the eve of the Second World War. He was Churchill’s parliamentary Private Secretary from 1939–41 and a successful Minister for Information from 1941 to 1945. During the war, he lent his Swedish cook to the Downing Street Private Office mess in the Annexe. His last years were spent actively in establishing Churchill College, Cambridge. Died 1958.

  Bessie Braddock

  Labour MP for Liverpool Exchange, 1945–70. A firebrand socialist, campaigner for women and family issues and member of Labour’s National Executive. She was known by admirers and opponents alike as “Battling Bessie”.

  Joan Bright (later Astley)

  Personal assistant to Sir Hastings “Pug” Ismay, the Deputy Secretary to the War Office. She handled the British administrative arrangements of six foreign wartime conferences from Quebec to Potsdam. Before the war she had turned down a job offer to go to Germany to teach English to Rudolf Hess’s family.

  Norman Brook

  Prominent Civil servant. Deputy Secretary to the War Cabinet, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Reconstruction, 1943–5. He took the title Lord Normanbrook in 1963 and died four years later, aged 65.

  Alan Brooke

  Alongside Churchill, the primary architect of Britain’s wartime strategy. Born in 1883, Brooke fought on the Western Front during the First World War and again in France in 1940. Appointed Chief of Imperial General Staff in 1941 and chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. Brooke admired Churchill but was frequently exasperated by his meddling. Promoted to Field Marshal, 1944. On elevation to the House of Lords in 1945, he took the title Lord Alanbrooke. Away from the killing fields, he was a keen ornithologist. Died 1963.

  Anthony Montague Browne

  Churchill’s Private Secretary from 1952 until Churchill’s death in 1965.

  Reader Bullard

  British Minister in Teheran 1939–1946, later Ambassador.

  R.A. “Rab” Butler

  Senior Conservative politician. Supported appeasement and adopted a defeatist attitude to Britain’s chances of survival in 1940. Butler’s Education Act of 1944 – introduced when he was President of the Board of Education – was widely acclaimed for improving the scholastic opportunities for the post-war generation. Despite holding high office in the Conservative cabinets of the 1950s and early 60s, he twice failed in his bid to become Prime Minister in 1957 and 1963. He believed in Bismarck’s dictum that politics was “the art of the possible.” Died 1982.

  James F. Byrnes

  US Secretary of State, 1945–47. A South Carolina senator prior to serving as a judge in the US Supreme Court, he was a close associate of Roosevelt during the war and accompanied the ailing President to Yalta and, as Secretary of State, went with Truman to Potsdam. As Secretary of State, he reversed his previous appeasement of the Soviet Union and argued for the reintegration of West Germany into a Western power bloc. Personal differences with Truman led to his resignation in 1947.

  Alexander Cadogan

  British diplomat. Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, 1938–46. In 1971, two years after his death, his diaries were published, providing an illuminating insight into wartime diplomacy.

  Neville Chamberlain

  Prime Minister, 1937–40. A determined driver of Britain’s policy of appeasing Hitler, he nevertheless declared war on Germany when it invaded Poland. He appointed Churchill First Lord of the Admiralty. He was accused of lacking a coherent and determined plan to pursue the war. When Churchill succeeded him as Prime Minister in May 1940, Chamberlain continued as leader of the Conservative Party and used his position to offer Churchill vital support in resisting pressure for peace talks. He remained in Churchill’s cabinet as Lord President of the Council until he was overcome by ill-health and died in November 1940.

  Clementine Churchill

  Churchill’s wife. Born Clementine Hozier in 1885, she was eleven years Churchill’s junior. She married him in 1908. Thereafter, she stood steadfast throughout his tumultuous life, despite a strong temperament and a determinedly independent streak of her own. She enjoyed outdoor pursuits and travel. She served as President of the YWCA Wartime Fund and Chairman of Red Cross Aid to the Soviet Union Fund. Died, aged 91, in 1977.

  Mary Churchill

  Churchill’s youngest daughter. Born in 1922, she served with the Auxiliary Territorial Service during the Second World War and accompanied her father on many of his journeys. In 1947, she married the future Conservative politician, Christopher Soames and wrote a biography of her mother. Now Lady Soames.

  Lady Randolph Churchill

  Churchill’s mother. Born Jennie Jerome in New York State in 1854, she mar
ried Lord Randolph Churchill in 1874. She was noted for her beauty and her attraction to a variety of men. She was unresponsive to Churchill’s pleas for attention while he attended boarding schools but later used her charm and wide-ranging social skills and contacts to advance his career. She died in 1921, aged 67, when Churchill was Colonial Secretary.

  Lord Randolph Churchill

  Churchill’s father. Ambitious politician and exponent of populist “Tory democracy” before destroying his career by an opportunistic resignation as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1886. Died, disappointed, in 1895 when he was 45 and his son 21. An indifferent parent, who did little to justify his son’s lifetime affection and regard.

  Randolph Churchill

  Churchill’s only son. Born in 1911, he left Oxford without taking his degree and became a journalist. Fought and lost six election campaigns, but took advantage of the “wartime truce” to serve as Conservative MP for Preston during the war. He served in the army in North Africa and Italy and was part of the British mission to Tito’s forces in Yugoslavia. He wrote the first two volumes of the official biography of his father, but his career was blighted by the burden of high expectations, drink and an irascible temper. He died in 1968, only three years after his father.

  Sarah Churchill

  Churchill’s second daughter. She was born two months into the First World War. She became a dancer – performing with, among others, Fred Astaire – and an actress. In 1936 she married the popular entertainer, Vic Oliver, who divorced her in 1945. She died in 1982.

  John Colville

  Churchill’s Assistant Private Secretary 1940–45 and his Joint Principal Private Secretary 1951–55. Churchill inherited “Jock” Colville as his prime ministerial Assistant Private Secretary from Neville Chamberlain, whom Colville had loyally served. Churchill and Colville enjoyed a warm rapport and Colville’s diaries are a major source for the period and are held at Churchill College, Cambridge – an institution he helped endow. He died in 1987.

  Alfred Duff Cooper

  Conservative politician, diplomat, socialite and historian. An opponent of appeasement, Duff Cooper resigned as First Lord of the Admiralty over the Munich Agreement in 1938. During the war he was Minister of Information from 1940–1, British Representative in Singapore in 1941 (prior to its surrender) and back in the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1941–43. He was Ambassador to France from 1944 to 1947 and wrote an admired biography of Talleyrand.

  Diana Cooper

  Born Lady Diana Manners, widely rumoured not to be the daughter of the Duke of Rutland, she was considered a great beauty. In 1919, she married Duff Cooper, who subsequently became a Conservative politician. Lady Diana Cooper (as she preferred to be known) was a friend of Churchill’s for many years. The Prime Minister appointed Duff Cooper British Ambassador to France in 1944, where she shone as an outstanding and gracious and, sometimes provocative, Ambassador’s wife. She died in 1986.

  Eric Crankshaw

  Head of the Government Hospitality Fund, to which all requests are made for food and wines for foreign guests visitors to Chequers etc.

  Andrew Cunningham

  Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean, 1939–42, during which time he oversaw crushing victories against the Italians at Taranto and Cape Matapan. First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from 1943 until 1946.

  John Cunningham

  Having served in the 1940 Norwegian campaign, Cunningham was joint naval commander of the unsuccessful Dakar expedition against Vichy French West Africa. Thereafter he succeeded Sir Andrew Cunningham first as commander of the Mediterranean fleet and then as First Sea Lord from 1946 to 1948.

  Archbishop Damaskinos

  Damaskinos was the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Athens and All Greece from 1941 until his death in 1949. During the German occupation of Greece, he had risked death by publicly condemning the persecution of the Jews. He was installed by the Allies to rule Greece as regent on behalf of the exiled King George II and endeavoured to hold the country together as it splintered into civil war between royalist and communist insurgents, prior to the monarchy’s return.

  Marion Davies

  Mistress of William Randolph Hearst. Born in 1900, she was a dancer and Hollywood actress whose films included Cain and Mabel and Ever Since Eve. She died in 1961.

  Joseph E. Davies

  US Ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1937–38, whose attempts to improve relations with Stalin led him into many gullible actions – including excusing the Purges – while at his post. His book, Mission to Moscow, adapted into a film, provided pro-Soviet propaganda for America’s wartime ally.

  Louis G. Dreyfus

  American diplomat. He held various consular posts, served as Ambassador to Afghanistan between 1941–42 and 1949–51 and was also Minister to Iran 1939–44. He was Ambassador to Iceland, 1944–46, and to Sweden 1946–47.

  Pierson Dixon

  British diplomat who was Principal Private Secretary to Anthony Eden from 1943 to 1945 and then to his successor at the Foreign Office, Ernest Bevin until 1948. He was later Ambassador to Czechoslovakia and to France. He was the UK’s Permanent Representative at the UN from 1954 to 1960 during which time he had to represent British interests over the Suez Crisis.

  Blanche Dugdale

  Niece and biographer of the Edwardian British Prime Minister and First World War Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, whose 1917 Declaration promised support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Dugdale (1880–1948) was herself a passionate Zionist.

  John Foster Dulles

  US Secretary of State,1953–59. Dulles intensified the Communist containment policies of his Democrat predecessor, Dean Acheson, threatening massive nuclear retaliation in the event of a Soviet strike, a policy sometimes described as “brinkmanship”. He constructed the South East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATOTO) for mutual defence. Although he connived in the overthrow of the Mossadegh government in Iran, he strongly opposed Anglo-French-Israeli action against Nasser’s Egypt during the 1956 Suez Crisis. Ill health forced him to retire as Secretary of State in April 1959 and he died the following month. His famous dictums included “the United States of America does not have friends, it has interests”.

  Anthony Eden

  British Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister. He resigned as Foreign Secretary in 1938 because of Neville Chamberlain’s meddling and offered measured criticism of appeasement. Secretary of State for War in 1940, he succeeded Lord Halifax as Foreign Secretary later that year. Long seen as Churchill’s natural successor, he was repeatedly frustrated by Churchill’s failure to step aside in his favour until 1955 by which time Eden’s own judgment and health were under strain, resulting in the fiasco of the Suez Crisis in 1956 and his resignation as Prime Minister in 1957. He married Churchill’s niece, Clarissa in 1952. Died, 1977.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  US President, 1953–61. As Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, 1944–5, Eisenhower had ultimate responsibility for planning the invasion of Western Europe and with the war’s conclusion was also initially in charge of the defeated Germany in America’s occupied zone. He was Chief of Staff of the US Army from 1945 to 1948 and Supreme Commander of NATOTO from 1950 to 1952 before focusing on politics.

  Alonzo Fields

  White House chief butler, 1931–53. A black man from Indiana, he hoped to be a musician, but a temporary job at the White House diverted him to his career in the domestic service of four US presidents. After retirement, he published his memoirs in 1960 and died aged 94.

  C.S. Forester

  Novelist. Born Cecil Smith in 1899. Churchill was a particular admirer of his Napoleonic War novels about a fictitious Royal Navy captain, Horatio Hornblower, which began to be published from 1937. Moved to the United States and died in 1966.

  King George VI

  British King, 1936–52. He was born in 1895 and unexpectedly succeeded his brother when Edward VIII abdicated in 1936. Shy and suffering a
stammer, he soon overcame initial doubts about Churchill’s suitability when he became Prime Minister in 1940. Churchill reacted to the news of the King’s death in 1952 with the solemn response: “Bad news? The worst!”

  Alexander Golovanov

  Soviet Marshal of Aviation, 1943, and the following year, Chief Marshal of Aviation.