LETTERS - Finest Hour 186 - International Churchill Society

22 March 195

WASHINGTON—Dear Winston, The last sentence of your letter, with its implication that you are soon to withdraw from active political life, started, in my memories, a parade of critical incidents and great days that you and I experienced together, beginning at the moment we first met in Washington, December 1941. Since reading it I have been suffering from an acute case of nostalgia.

First I recall those late days of 1941, when this country was still shuddering from the shock of Pearl Harbor. I think of those occasions during the succeeding months when I was fortunate enough to talk over with you some of the problems of the war, and I especially think of that Washington visit of yours in June of ’42, when we had to face the bitter reality of the Tobruk disaster.

Somewhere along about that time must have marked the low point in Allied war fortunes. Yet I still remember with great admiration the fact that never once did you quail at the grim prospect ahead of us; never did I hear you utter a discouraged word nor a doubt as to the final outcome.

Later, of course, we were often together as we planned the TORCH Operation, the Sicilian venture, the move into Italy and the campaign through Normandy. Then, in these later years, starting with my return to Europe in January of ’51, I have valued beyond calculation my opportunities to meet with you, especially when those meetings were concerned with the military and diplomatic problems of the free world and our struggle against the evil conspiracy centering in the Kremlin….

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With my affectionate regard and my prayerful wishes for your continued good health and happiness. As ever—Ike

Finest Hour 186