March 18, 2015

Finest Hour 160, Autumn 2013

Page 20

By June Hopkins

Churchill from the beginning had recognized that Harry Hopkins was unique. The tenacity of this physically frail man, so admired by the steadfast Churchill, was an intrinsic factor in the Allied victory. Hopkins’ unstinting efforts toward that victory were largely responsible for his early death at the age of 55. Churchill wrote in his memoirs: “Few brighter flames have burned.”


In August 1941, as Washington sweltered in a brutal heat wave, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced that he was going fishing. To some it may have seemed an odd time. Hitler’s armies now held most of Western Europe, and seemed to be rolling through the Soviet Union; Congress was squabbling over intervention versus isolation; Britain and the Commonwealth seemed to be losing everywhere.1

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As the presidential yacht USS Potomac sailed up the coast of New England, Churchill in London boarded a train for Scapa Flow in the Orkneys. Winging to join Churchill was Harry Hopkins, the President’s friend and adviser, flying in primitive conditions in a PBY Catalina from Moscow after three days with Stalin. He was ill and the trip was debilitating, but vital.

On August 4th, Roosevelt left his yacht and boarded the cruiser USS Augusta, which continued north. In Placentia Bay, a large inlet near Argentia, Newfoundland, Roosevelt planned to meet Churchill, accompanied by Hopkins, who were sailing to the rendezvous from Scotland aboard HMS Prince of Wales.

That first wartime meeting of FDR and Churchill was a game-changer. If not quite the beginning of the “grand alliance,” it did mark the beginning of the Anglo-American “Special Relationship.” The Atlantic Charter was a communiqué, not a signed agreement, and no set policies were established. Yet despite their ideological differences, a bond between the two leaders was established.

While the Roosevelt-Churchill relationship proved critical to Allied victory, it was Harry Hopkins who constructed much of its foundation. His personal connection with Roosevelt is well known (see Ron Cynewulf Robbins, “Roosevelt’s Bracken,” FH 146), but there was also a unique relationship between Hopkins and Churchill. Without it, the Anglo-American alliance might have been much less than it was.

Scholars have compared Hopkins to Woodrow Wilson’s Col. Edward House (Hopkins scoffed at the suggestion), to Churchill’s Brendan Bracken, and even to Czarina Alexandra’s Rasputin. Though he had no official title, some called him (not always with approval) the “Assistant President.” He certainly wielded extraordinary influence in the White House. But Hopkins was not a shadowy figure hovering in the background, nor was he merely an intermediary. He served, rather, as a kind of third leg of a tripod. Churchill and Roosevelt had previously viewed each other with a wary eye; Hopkins provided stability for the often-tenuous balance between two powerful leaders with very different world outlooks.

The bond of trust between Hopkins and Churchill began in January 1941, when Hopkins first visited London, and deepened into what might be called the “other Special Relationship.” Hopkins did more than keep the Special Relationship alive; he often calmed troubled waters between the U.S. and Great Britain. While Hopkins’ friendship with the President had evolved over many years, his Midwest brusqueness, utter practicality and intense belief in Britain’s commitment to victory struck an immediate chord with the Prime Minister.

Hopkins’ mission to London arose out of a clear need. In a desperate fight on air and sea, Churchill had called on the United States for material aid. Britain was short of armaments, low on food—and out of money. Churchill’s appeals were powerful, but Roosevelt’s ability to meet them was limited by a Congress that wished to remain neutral.

Hopkins, long Roosevelt’s right hand, was ideally situated to order events. An internationalist by nature if not by ideology, he believed that unless the United States entered the war, or at the very least provided the necessary armaments, Hitler could not be defeated. Roosevelt might have been of the same mind, but had to contend with Congress. FDR was reluctant to commit anything more than supplies to Britain, which he presented to the public as a way to prevent direct American involvement. And Roosevelt himself was no advocate of monarchy or empire—two institutions Churchill held in almost religious awe.

Roosevelt’s challenge was twofold: to help Britain materially, he needed to convince Americans that their scarce munitions would not be wasted. Simultaneously he had to convince Churchill that Americans were indeed supportive of British efforts to resist what many in the world saw as an inevitable capitulation to the Germans.2 Hopkins was the right man to send to England on Roosevelt’s behalf. Or at least this is what Hopkins thought.

Roosevelt and Churchill both believed that face-to-face meetings were necessary to ascertain “inner thoughts and ultimate intentions,” leading to significant political and military decisions.3 Hopkins agreed wholeheartedly. And he was certain that he should orchestrate such a meeting.

It was difficult, however, to convince Roosevelt to send his ailing adviser to London, even on such a vital mission. Since 1937, Hopkins had suffered from debilitating illnesses, including stomach cancer, a duodenal ulcer and hemochromatosis, along with a mysterious inability to absorb protein. He survived with frequent blood transfusions, and by daily injections of nutrients. On a personal level, also, FDR liked having him around. Hopkins had been living in the White House since the middle of 1940, and the President was used to bouncing ideas off a man whose opinion he could trust.

In the end, probably from Churchill’s constant pleas and the fact that the two nations were “between ambassadors,”4 Roosevelt relented. Hopkins would fly to England, take the measure of the Prime Minister and of the country itself, and report back to the President. Simultaneously, Congress was considering the Lend-Lease bill, allowing the U.S. to supply Britain with food and munitions while deferring payment.

Though he took an internationalist view of the war, Hopkins was an Iowan from a modest background, a former social worker with little experience in foreign affairs. He certainly had reservations about meeting Churchill, who seemed an almost mythical figure. On the eve of his departure, with his trademark cynicism, he told Jean Monnet, a French businessman working with the British: “I suppose Churchill is convinced that he’s the greatest man on earth.”5 Clearly he did not expect to like the PM—but he was on a mission for his boss.

Hopkins left New York aboard a Pan Am Yankee Clipper on January 6th, arriving in Poole, Dorset, late on the 9th. Exhausted, he was unable even to walk off the plane. On the train ride to London he slowly recovered, gazing out at the devastation German bombs had wreaked on the countryside. If he had originally carried a chip on his shoulder about the British, he quickly brushed it off as he observed firsthand what Britons were going through.6 His pro-British sentiments increased with each mile traveled. Still, Hopkins did not know what to expect from the Prime Minister, a man with whom he had little in common, politically or socially. He clung to the idea that they had one common goal—to beat Hitler.

Their first meeting, on January 10th, was a three-hour lunch at Ten Downing Street. When Hopkins suggested to Churchill that it would be a good idea to meet the President face to face, Churchill responded, “The sooner the better.”7 Roosevelt, Hopkins said, was also anxious for a meeting, but wanted to wait until the Lend-Lease bill had been passed. Churchill quickly realized that Hopkins was no mere social worker, or a New Deal administrator, and concluded that whatever Hopkins reported to Roosevelt would be of extreme importance for the British.

On a personal level Churchill liked the frail but outspoken American. Hopkins admired the PM’s knowledge of the war situation, his eloquence and determination. At subsequent meetings, and there were many, their friendship strengthened. Hopkins began his education in wartime diplomacy at Churchill’s side during the nearly six weeks he spent in Britain. In his accustomed style, he reported to Roosevelt by personal courier, not embassy channels. He described Churchill’s determination to fight to the finish, and the pride the British had in their country’s battle. “If courage alone can win,” he wrote, “the result will be inevitable. But they need our help desperately….Churchill is the gov’t in every sense of the word.”8

Hopkins’ concern, in the American vernacular, was to get on with the “business of licking that goddam sonofabitch Hitler.”9 Although of two worlds in every sense of the term, his close relationship with Churchill from their first meeting on was set in stone. Churchill’s daughter Mary recalled: “the chemistry was right between them.”10 Britons from all walks of life responded to Hopkins’ genuine empathy. One of Churchill’s aides remarked that it was “extraordinary how Hopkins has endeared himself to everyone here he has met.”11

Hopkins spent weekends with Churchill at Chequers, the country residence of prime ministers (where he suffered terribly from the cold) and travelled with the Prime Minister on inspection tours of military installations. They made an extraordinary couple—the imposing PM with his inevitable cigar; the frail, unkempt and often shivering American, traveling to see the fleet, to inspect munitions factories, to view bomb damage. Altogether Harry Hopkins spent twelve evenings with Churchill—a time, as Robert Sherwood suggested, full of “intimacy” almost as strong as Hopkins’ relationship with Roosevelt.12 Perhaps it was even stronger than the relationship between Roosevelt and Churchill.

In his memoirs, Churchill recalls Hopkins as “a most extraordinary man, who played…a decisive part in the whole movement of the war.” True, Hopkins could “be disagreeable and say hard and sour things”—a reference to Hopkins’ forthrightness and inability to mince words. But few words between the PM and Hopkins were sour at their first meeting, and Churchill must have warmed to hear Hopkins say: “The President is determined that we shall win the war together. Make no mistake about it…there is nothing he will not do so far as he has human power.”13

That remark was pregnant with meaning. The United States was not in a state of war. Constitutionally, no president of the U.S. could have uttered these words to a British prime minister. It is probably true that Hopkins had overstepped his authority, informal as it was, in making such a forthright declaration. But it was clearly meant to give encouragement to Churchill. Few Americans wished the British to make peace with the Germans. The vital task for both Churchill and Hopkins was to convince the Americans (and the British) that Britain would continue the fight, but that it could not hold out without U.S. material support. Still, it is almost certain that both men believed there was little chance of final victory unless the United States entered the war.

Hopkins left London on February 8th. The next day he flew home from Bournemouth to pass his views to the President. By the time he got home, the Lend-Lease Act had made it through Congress. Churchill knew he could rely on his new American friend to ensure that Britain would get the munitions and food it needed—for the time being at least. FDR named Hopkins administrator of Lend-Lease, an extremely powerful position. He became in effect “Roosevelt’s own personal Foreign Office.”14

If Lend-Lease was the lifeline, Hopkins held the rope. In other circumstances, Churchill would have dealt very carefully with any American official having that kind of power. But it is clear from the documents that emerged from their meetings that he and Hopkins were unified in heart and mind. Hopkins, ever the social worker, was determined that Britain would get what it needed. “I find my thoughts constantly with you in the desperate struggle,” he wrote to Churchill, “which I am sure is going to result, in the last analysis, in your victory.”15

Hopkins returned to London on Monday, July 17th, a few weeks after Hitler had attacked the Soviet Union. In an ironic turn of events, Joseph Stalin, the Communist leader who had signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler in 1939, had become a British ally—and an American supplicant.

Churchill knew that if the United States were to send war materiel to the Soviet Union, it would cut into Britain’s own Lend-Lease supplies. But he trusted Hopkins’ promise to keep the British Isles supplied. Underlying that trust, the PM invited Hopkins to attend a meeting of the War Cabinet—an unprecedented invitation to an American or, for that matter, the representative of any other nation.

After the meeting they walked and talked privately in the small walled garden behind Number Ten, Churchill puffing his cigar, Hopkins likely with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, discussing the latest turn of events. Hopkins reiterated the President’s desire to schedule, a secret, face-to-face meeting. Churchill agreed, saying he would make the hazardous trip across a U-boat-infested Atlantic to meet the President in August. In the meantime, Hopkins said, he needed to visit Stalin in Moscow.16

The Red Army now desperately needed war materiel from the United States. Since Hopkins’ approval was required for Lend-Lease purchase orders, he was the man Stalin wished to see. Most politicians and military leaders thought the Soviets would not last more than about four months, which raised a serious question. Roosevelt needed to know if they were right. Could the Russians, without the aid of Allied war materiel, actually hold out? Or would they give up and sign an armistice? Churchill too wanted that information. Hopkins, who had the trust of both leaders, was the right man to send. He could fly in his Catalina to Archangel, travel to Moscow, and be back in a week to accompany Churchill to the Atlantic Conference. He had promised the PM that he would be at his side when he met the President.

It was a dangerous and long twenty-four-hour journey. Hopkins boarded his plane at Invergorden on July 30th, flew to Archangel and proceeded to Moscow. Three days later, having promised Stalin American aid, Hopkins left for Scapa Flow to join Churchill on Prince of Wales. The schedule was tight and he almost didn’t make it: in the rush to meet the Catalina in Archangel he had left his medications in Moscow. He did not have the time to go back.

After another twenty-four-hour flight, this time through enemy fire, lacking the nutrients to inject into his body, Hopkins was close to death. But he was determined not to let Churchill down. Landing in Scotland, gravely ill but alive, he joined Churchill for the journey across the Atlantic. Semper fidelis, a Marine would say: he had made incredible sacrifices. But he and Churchill knew how crucial his presence would be.

The five-day crossing was rough, with high seas and a zigzag course to elude U-boats. Churchill, still a Naval Person,17 was in his element, thrilled to be at sea on a dramatic secret mission. If he feared the U-boats it was not for his own safety, nor for the safety of those on board. What he feared was the disruption of the lifeline of arms and munitions from the United States.18 On this journey hung the hope, in the words of a British journalist, “of saving the world from measureless degradation.”19 That Churchill could approach the Atlantic Conference with confidence was largely owed to his meetings with Hopkins. They were headed in fact toward the first summit conference.20

Despite rough seas and cramped accommodations, Hopkins regained much of his strength during the crossing. He even managed to attend a few evening films with Churchill, his staff and the crew. Hopkins had brought two gifts from Moscow, which he presented to the PM on one of the five movie nights: a tin of caviar and a film clip of his arrival in the bleak Soviet capital. A delighted Churchill played the clip for the party and shouted “bravo” when Hopkins stepped off the plane; “for one evening at least, Hopkins was Mr. Churchill’s favourite film star.”21

Prince of Wales cruised slowly into Placentia Bay on Saturday, August 9th; Augusta was already at anchor. The Old World met the New in a remote inlet which Churchill later described as “somewhere in the Atlantic.” FDR doffed his hat and stood in salute as Prince of Wales, camouflaged and battered with guns pointing to the sky, moved by.

Aboard Augusta, the band struck up God Save the King. Franklin Roosevelt, recognizing a tune Americans sang with other lyrics, quipped, “That’s the best rendition of My Country,’Tis of Thee I’ve ever heard.” The Prime Minister stood on his own bridge as the band played The Star-Spangled Banner, gazing at the pristine American cruiser in her peacetime light grey livery. The difference was palpable.

It was a historic moment, colored by what a British journalist called “a touch of danger, humor, secrecy” that would “prevent the carving up of the world and the enslavement of Humanity.”22 For those present this was not mere hyperbole. Everyone on board, Hopkins included, had experienced what Hitler had let loose on the globe.

The same day, Hopkins transferred to Augusta to finalize arrangements for the meeting between the two leaders. He had been so impressed with Churchill’s analysis of the war situation that he was very anxious for Roosevelt to hear the details from the PM himself.

Much to the relief of Harry Hopkins, the President and the Prime Minister quickly came to like each other. The Anglo-American alliance had taken root, months before the United States entered the war. But the relationship between Churchill and Hopkins, that other Special Relationship, had flourished beforehand. Here and at other wartime conferences, Hopkins’ ties to Churchill smoothed decisions both military and political that might have been far more fraught without him—a man with no title, no elective office, and certainly no illustrious background. Merely through the force of his personality, he exercised an influence felt long after his untimely death in 1946.

Churchill from the beginning had recognized that Harry Hopkins was unique: “the main prop and animator,” as he put it, “of Roosevelt himself.” Hopkins had always been single-minded in achieving his goals, whether the relief of unemployment during the Depression or the defeat of fascism during World War II. The tenacity of this physically frail man, so admired by the steadfast Churchill, was an intrinsic factor in their triumph. Hopkins’ unstinting efforts toward that victory were largely responsible for his early death at the age of 55. Churchill wrote in his memoirs: “Few brighter flames have burned.”23


June Hopkins, Harry Hopkins’ granddaughter, is professor of history at Armstong Atlantic State University, author of Harry Hopkins: Sudden Hero, Brash Reformer (1969) and editor of “Jewish First Wife, Divorced”: The Correspondence of Ethel Gross and Harry Hopkins (2003). She is now researching Hopkins’ role in WW2 allied relationships.

Endnotes:

1. Theodore A. Wilson, The First Summit (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press: 1991), 3-6.

2. Frank Costigliola, Roosevelt’s Lost Alliances: How Personal Politics Helped Start the Cold War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, reprint, 2013), 101-03.

3. Ibid., 98.

4. Joseph P. Kennedy, increasingly defeatist over Britain’s prospects, resigned as ambassador to the Court of St. James’s in October 1940; his replacement, John G. Winant, did not arrive until March 1941. Lord Lothian, appointed ambassador to the United States in 1939, had died in December 1940.

5. Robert Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948), 232.

6. Roosevelt and Hopkins, 135.

7. Ibid., 238.

8. Ibid., 243.

9. Roosevelt and Hopkins, 237; Roosevelt’s Lost Alliances, 104.

10. Roosevelt’s Lost Alliances, 104.

11. Ibid., 106.

12. Roosevelt and Hopkins, 261.

13. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, abridged edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959), 401-02.

14. Roosevelt and Hopkins, 268.

15. Ibid., 265.

16. H.V. Morton, Atlantic Meeting (London: Methuen, 1943), 12-15.

17. Churchill, who had begun corresponding with Roosevelt when First Lord of the Admiralty, had signed his letters “Naval Person.” After becoming Prime Minister he signed them “Former Naval Person.”

18. The Second World War, 410.

19. Atlantic Meeting, 155.

20. Dwight William Tuttle, Harry L. Hopkins and Anglo-American-Soviet Relations 1941-1945 (New York: Garland, 1983), 110-11.

21. Atlantic Meeting, 62.

22. Ibid., 90.

23. The Second World War, 403.

Further Reading

Berthon, Simon and Joanna Potts, Warlords: An Extraordinary Re-creation of World War II through the Eyes and Minds of Hitler, Churchill and Roosevelt. New York: Da Capo Press, 2007.

Churchill, Winston S., Memoirs of the Second World War, abridged edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1959.    

Colville, John, The Fringes of Power: 10 Downing Street Diaries, 1939-1955. New York: W. W. Norton, 1985.

Fenby, Jonathan, Alliance: The Inside Story of How Roosevelt, Stalin & Churchill Won One War and Began Another. New York: Simon Schuster, 2006.

Fullilove, Michael, Rendezvous with Destiny: How Five Extraordinary Men Took America into the War and into the World. New York: Penguin Press, 2013.

Levin, Ronald, Churchill as Warlord. New York: Stein and Day, 1973.

Manchester, William and Reid, Paul, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm 1940-1965. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2012.

McJimsey, George, Harry Hopkins (etc.): Ally of the Poor and Defender of Democracy.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987.

Meacham, Jon, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship. New York: Random House, 2003.    

Morton, H. V., Atlantic Meeting. London: Methuen, 1943.

Parrish, Thomas, To Keep the British Isles Afloat: FDR’s Men in Churchill’s London 1941. London: HarperCollins, 2002.    

Roll, David L., The Hopkins Touch: Harry Hopkins and the Forging of the Alliance to Defeat Hitler. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Sherwood, Robert E., Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History. New York: Harper & Brothers,1948.

Tuttle, Dwight William, Harry L. Hopkins and Anglo- American-Soviet Relations 1941-1945. New York: Garland Publishing, 1983.

Wilson, Theodore A., The First Summit: Roosevelt and Churchill at Placentia Bay 1941. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991.

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