>> welcome to roosevelt house. i am andrew polsky, the acting dean of hunter college. and professor of political science. our program this evening features two visitors, who are deeply knowledgeable about the decisions that led up to be historic moment 70 years ago when allied forces stormed ashore of normandy to begin the final struggle of the liberation of europe from nazi germany. nigel hamilton is the author of the just published book "the mantle of command." among many other works, allen packwood is the director of director of churchill archives centre, the leading authority on all things western churchill. in a few moments, i will turn off the microphone to tina, the sponsor of our series on churchill of which at this evening's program is the final installment.

following her introduction, each of our guests will speak for about 20 minutes and then they will join me for a conversation. we'll have time for audience questions before we close. history shifts over time and perhaps it is so with the two men who are the subjects of this evening's program. western churchill exercised an influence over the immediate postwar depreciation of allied leadership. he was admired for his determination after the fall of france in 1940 through the battle of britain and for his warning an iron curtain was dissenting after the war. his reputation was helped in no small measures to build his own magisterial six volume series, the second world war. perhaps the first great fiction that the war generated. [laughter] fdr's star faded when his political enemies depicted him

as the great sellout of the people of eastern europe. more recently though, we have seen a shift in historical perception. historians have found more to admire in roosevelt, while churchill had lost some of his luster. i am very much in the roosevelt camp. how fitting we should be having this conversation here and roosevelt house. the restored home of franklin and eleanor roosevelt shared with franklin's mother. the president no longer resided here by the time of pearl harbor but he spent important formative time in this space both before and after he was stricken with polio. he interacted here with key political leaders. it is safe to say he developed many of his ideas about the world within a few feet of where i now stand. those ideas would in turn guide

grand strategy for better and worse. and influence the kind of world order he hoped to develop as part of the victory he expected the allies to achieve. this program is part of a series that is the brainchild of tina flaherty. she gives new meaning to the label "multitalented." she starred as a radio personality in memphis, tennessee. she began a successful career as a corporate executive. she became the first female vice president of colgate and then at two other leading corporations. tina is also an accomplished author and journalist. her book has been rereleased in 2014 and in an expanded edition and would mark here in a special program a month ago. tina has been active an active

philanthropist and generous donor to the writing center which will host its fourth annual conference. [applause] >> thank you for that very gracious introduction and all of you for showing up tonight. we are glad you chose to be with us. dean, or should i call you andrew? i heard so many good things about you. but, i cannot take it and i decided to google you. your credentials are very impressive and even more impressive is what your students say about you. they say you are not only brilliant with your words but with your humor. i think we can all expect not only an enlightening discussion

but a lively discussion. speaking of enlightenment, i have to say something right now. the team at hunter, this is ruminating series would not have been possible without the involvement of the whole hunter college which starts with the president and also roosevelt, the director of public policy here at the roosevelt house and lewis, who i do not think is here tonight, but he was involved as well. briefly, everybody wants to know -- why are you so hung up on roosevelt? i am hung on him, too.

why are you so hung up on churchill? the reason i am so hung up on churchill is i believe everybody needs a hero in life. churchill is my hero for all seasons and for all reasons. that is why i sponsored it. [applause] as a lot of you know, this is the culmination of our churchill series, sadly. it was such a blockbuster, what a run and we have had from the very beginning. just to briefly review, i do not know how many of you joined us when churchill's granddaughter spoke about churchill's leadership and what made him a leader for the ages. that was a beautiful lecture and followed by the roberts lecture. he is a renowned churchill scholar and historian and a best-selling author. his was wonderful, too. and lee olson, who wrote a book that i love, it is so beautifully done. her latest book is "those angry days." she spoke of her book. that was followed by randolph

and ginny churchill, the great granddaughter and great grandson of sir winston. they spoke of the influence on western churchill's mother from brooklyn and beyond. and we filled the playhouse for that. after that, we had paul reed. he wrote the book with the late william manchester. anybody who knows me knows by now i am a hands-on person and i like to get involved in all aspects of the project. starting with the vision of this which was wonderful, i had such -- what i was trying to say and do and her team made it better. also, i got very involved with selecting the speakers. what a lineup of the speakers we have had. tonight is the icing on the

cake. this it has -- this is really been a splendid series. i think that you are going to meet everybody but i will briefly say we have three distinguished individuals. allen packwood, nigel hamilton, and andrew polsky to moderate. first, introduce my friend allen. he is the director of the churchill archives center at the university of cambridge in england and a fellow and the executive director of the churchill center in the u.k. allen has worked on sir winston's personal papers since 1995. it is almost one million now. those papers are alongside the prime minister's margaret thatcher and john major. allen is a very gifted writer. i am lucky to know him because

he did something for me for my book. i think everybody can agree that this is a lot of churchill and you have done a lot of things with churchill. you are absolutely the right person for the right time to speak. the title of his topic is "courage, planning, and preparation." i want to briefly introduce nigel hamilton, our next speaker. nigel hamilton is british-born. there he is right there. he is an american citizen now. he is an award-winning biographer. he divides his time between new orleans and boston. he has written more than 20 works of history and biographies which have been translated into 16 languages. i am sure a lot of you are from

the u.s. is best-selling work on the young john f. kennedy "jfk: reckless youth." his previous book was -- a biography on the last 12 president from fdr to george bush. i have heard nigel speak several times. he speaks with passion and he speaks with insight and he speaks with a great grasp of history. as you know, there are going to be books for sale later in that book is called "the mantle of command." it is a key entry in the ongoing debate as to who made the grand strategy in the early war years. was it roosevelt or churchill? the title of nigel's talk is how fdr overruled his generals and laid down the strategy by which

the allies would win world war ii. our moderator is sitting right there, andrew polsky, a distinguished scholar of the american presidency. his most recent book is "elusive victories." dean polsky, you can direct us from here on. we have changed the order of the speakers. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much, tina. when you said nigel speaks with -- but i thought you were going to say with a british accent. [laughter] i have lived here for 20 years. can i not get rid of it? i am delighted to be here.

i cannot think of a more appropriate place. i did speak at the fdr presidential library last week on memorial day weekend. this is even better. thank you very much, everybody for coming out tonight. i am delighted to be on a panel with allen packwood, who i got to know when researching my new book in cambridge and more recently in new orleans. we share a love of jazz. [laughter] anyway -- i am also not any fortunate and you asked me to speak here in the roosevelt house. i am fortunate to have actually met winston churchill. in fact to have stayed with

winston churchill at his country home in kent when i was a student many, many years ago. an incredible weekend and i think we should take a moment to remember churchill's wonderful daughter, mary, who died on saturday evening a couple of nights ago. mary was there that weekend -- and i went to mary and her husband, they had a farmhouse near winston's house. they put on a beautiful birthday party for winston. i have to say that when i think back to that memory, i do remember mary as a wonderful lady. and i met her in subsequent years. in relation to that weekend, i was only 19 years old and i remember the night before at the

dinner, which i do not think mary came to. but her sister, sarah, who was an actress came. she came very late. i was with montgomery, who had two watches on his wrist. sarah came in and said she was sorry but she was rehearsing. so her mother said, darling, you better have a drink. she said, that will be wonderful. she was wearing this very tight, little, black number. i was 19. i was rather knocked out. it was -- it was very low-cut. [laughter]

and the lady churchill had a friend, a houseguest friend called mrs. hanley. she was a rather old-fashioned lady. i think i am right in saying she had a -- so she takes the loinette out of her purse. she sees the voluminous decollate and sees around the tight, black number was a fox stole as a trim. she said, "shouldn't that be up there?" [laughter] anyway, a very unforgettable weekend for a 19-year-old student at cambridge university.

i was not unfortunate to spend that weekend with winston. i was incredibly fortunate to spend probably about 10 years or at least many hours over the next 10 years talking about winston churchill with field marshal montgomery, who absolutely loved churchill, almost adulated him. monti was the general of the army's active d-day. he had a pretty close knowledge of winston churchill and would often visit him on the battlefield and in north africa and europe. after monti died, i spent 10 years at the montgomery's of

biographer and wrote a three volume biography which i am not suggesting any of you undertake to read as each one is 1000 pages. you can imagine i became pretty conversant as a military historian with the story of world war ii and the stories of world war ii. and by the end of it, i think i had enough of world war ii and i came to the united states. in 20 years, i have been a presidential historian based in the boston. i have written about the young jfk and also to volumes about president clinton and my recent book was "lives of the president from fdr to george w. bush." when i finished that book, finishing five years ago, i was very disappointed -- as tina was

alluding to to the fact that, the memory of fdr has somewhat faded. i cannot believe as a military historian or former military historian that there was not an account of fdr as united states commander in chief. by virtue of our constitution, the president is not the chief executive but the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. and to think he had been the commander-in-chief from pearl harbor through world war ii until just a few weeks, 1945, just a few weeks before hitler's suicide, really stunned me. i looked into it.

and it was not that there were no books about fdr, there were plenty of books about fdr. he is the father of the new deal, fdr is a diplomat, fdr is a stamp collector. it was not a book about fdr as a commander in chief during world war ii. although, i said i would not go back to military history, my trenches -- here i am and once again in the middle of a work. it is the first of 2 volumes and i hope to finish the next volume sometime next year. first of all, why do we think has it not been a really serious

account of fdr as commander in chief? one of the reasons is that after the war, every -- every general, every admiral wrote his own autobiography or had commissioned his biography about how he contributed. winning world war ii. i am thinking of marshall and admiral king and the secretary of war. they all recounted how their achievements in world war ii. and since the president had not survived the war, he actually started writing what he thought would be his biography before the war began.

but the press responsibility made it impossible. he was looking forward in retirement to doing it. that moment, it even though he was only 63 when he died, it never came. and so, i think in a sense the story of fdr as commander in chief has gone by default. the portrait we have in our minds of fdr is largely secondhand. it is a reflection bouncing of the memoirs of other people. and so, i am trying to tell the story of president roosevelt wearing the mantle of command from pearl harbor to the end of his life in world war ii. of course, the other problem

with the lack of biography of fdr and world war ii is that winston churchill who was considerably older did survive the war. not only did he survive it but he wrote a magisterial series of books, six volumes. a gigantic enterprise which won him the nobel prize of literature and wonderfully written and which has survived wonderfully to this very day. you cannot pick up the book without being entranced by its ability not only as a writer, a

brilliant writer, his grasp of history. his ability to see events in a larger context of history of century of previous grand strategy, of previous character. and so, to some extent, the views which we have inherited of fdr is colored to a great deal by the way that sir winston churchill portrayed in the second world war. it is churchill's point of view, churchill expresses his gratitude, his admiration for the president, for the president's generosity and the president's willingness to help

out britain. if i find fault with sir winston in my new book, it is not because i have anything against winston churchill or his memory on the country -- i have nothing but admiration and respect for a man almost single-handedly facing britain in 1940 and that was one of the things that monti used to say to me again and again, montgomery directed the division and felt that it was not anybody left in britain who could just marshall the morale of the country. i have enormous respect for what winston churchill achieved in 1940 in standing up alone against dictators.

i do think that my criticism of winston churchill is more that his view of the war which is his view, it is very much that of the bunker, westminster where he directed military operations. and i have taken on a different project. my task is to tell the story of world war ii for the first time from the point of view of the white house 1600 pennsylvania avenue. that is to say the oval study

behind fdr's bed room, the oval office downstairs, the rooms he created their -- there down in the ground floor. he converted on the advice of winston churchill into his map room. all of his secret signals went out and came in. i have been able to interview the last surviving officers from that map room and many of the diaries relating to fdr's role as commander in chief of world war ii.

i can tell you it is quite different from the one we have come to accept. you see the president of the united states in his role as commander-in-chief. first of all, you see him stunned and shocked on the day of pearl harbor. exactly as winston churchill was when becoming prime minister when the germans sliced through the french and british lines and forced the british expedition, the same sort of force that had been sent to europe in 1914. and being evacuated. the president and in the mantle of command, you see in a similar situation on the night of pearl harbor. shocked, stunned, and without much idea of what could be done since the entire american fleet had been sunk. then you see him taking the reins of a different kind of

power than he had ever had before once congress authorized a declaration of war. first against the japanese, who started the business, and then hitler who declared war on us on the 11th of december, 1941. it is fascinating for me and i hope it will be fascinating for you to see how the president actually takes over the running of the military. and how much we owe to him for the way he did it. the first thing he does, he decides to ignore largely public opinion. there is panic in washington. across the whole united states,

there is a call for the war to be prosecuted against the japanese. after all, is the japanese that has attacked the u.s. hitler has declared war and that it's a piece of paper in berlin. it is the president of the united states who said, no, germany first. we could defeat japan and hitler would still be in complete control of the whole of europe pretty much. where as if we defeat hitler, japan will follow within a few months. he was absolutely right. the second thing is, the united states generals in the war department -- i will be very brief because it is in the book and it is a dramatic story. a story i feel very strongly about. my father was evacuated and went back to d-day as the youngest

battalion commander in the british army. and my father -- he never went to college, but he rose to great heights. and he like many young officers felt that the british army had been let down by the people in the war office. and i think there were a lot of american servicemen in world war ii who felt the same about the war department. the secretary of war at that time was henry stilson who served in world war i and with general george marshall was determined that the united states should -- if the president had decided to pursue a policy of germany first, well

then, let's go to berlin. let's cross the english channel, the russians need our help, there must be a second front. we will cross the english channel in 1942 or the latest, the spring of 1943. it is the president of the united states as commander-in-chief, this is a lesson, a moral that goes through this very day, the president of the united states that has to say to the secretary of war and all the senior generals of the war department, no. we are not going to attempt to cross the english channel in 1942 or even in 1943. we have not shot a bloody bullet and germany yet, not one. they have been fighting since 1939. what in the hell do you think you mean by this plan?

and if the crux of the book is, roosevelt's fight with united states' generals and admirals who at one point, in the summer of 1942 comes very close to mutiny. this is something that has been really covered up in the years since because of the president wants to do something else. they called it the president great pet scheme. and that was not to land across the english channel but to land in northwest africa and controlled morocco and algeria where united states forces could be landed and could engage the germans in battle in a safe area where they could learn the

skills of modern warfare. not just fighting, command and coalition warfare. and it is roosevelt's greatness as a civilian president, who by our constitution is given the role of commander-in-chief, i think it is his greatest that he opposed his generals and overrode his generals. and the person who helped him at that time was winston churchill. because winston churchill had seen the british empire collapsed in the far and knew that british simply could not go through a cross english landing with partners who were never fired a single shot at germans

when there were 25 divisions waiting in france. i do not know about you, but i have read 15 volumes and hitler was waiting for us to cross the channel in 1942. in fact, you may remember, when winston churchill was put under great pressure to do something especially by the russians and he authorized a landing a cross channel, a mini version of d-day in 1942 of the 19th of august in a little french seaport. and a canadian brigade was chosen for that task and almost 1000 canadians died in the first two hours on the beaches without

ever getting off, without ever getting off of the beaches. and that, to the president, what the proof of his policy that it was crazy to attempt -- it would've been a mass suicide for american forces to do a cross channel invasion. and so, the story of "the mantle of command" is how the president overrode his generals and with the full cooperation and support of winston churchill and how wonderfully successful it was. can you imagine the secretary of -- the secretary of war of the united states betting the president of the united states

that torchwood -- torch would fail? i wonder how many secretaries of war have ever betted the presidents. it did not fail. that became the basis of the prosecution of the war and the ultimate defeat of the german army. i thought this might be a nice segue into allen packwood's talk tonight about d-day itself, the anniversary, the 70th anniversary which will be celebrating next week. thank you very much. [applause] >> how do you follow that? the first thing that occurred to

me if it puts me in mind of a churchill quote from the house of commons in 1947 where churchill said, he thought it would be best for all parties to leave the past to history, especially as he was going to write that history himself. here in roosevelt house, there's only one way to begin this talk and that is by sharing some of the key personal correspondence which survives in winston churchill's personal papers between these two great leaders. after the war, churchill told his private secretary that no lover ever studied every whim of his mistress as i did president roosevelt. it was a rather one-sided love affair. roosevelt looked on with alarm as france collapsed but he could

only move public opinion so far and so fast. for churchill, things were moving too fast. by 1940, with the fall of france imminent, he writes to president roosevelt and refers to the possibility of his own fall of office. he writes, although the present government and i would never fail to send a fleet across the atlantic, a point may be reached in the struggle where the present ministers no longer have control of affairs and when easy terms can be to the british islands by becoming a vessel state. in public and it is great speeches and broadcast, churchill remained defiant and resolute. in private, he knows how much depends on america.

imagine the psychological effect of the delivery of this letter to churchill. it is hand written by a triumphant franklin roosevelt on inauguration day. his first day of the third term of his presidency. fate hangs in the balance. pearl harbor lies months in the future. here at least, we have a clear unambiguous statement of moral support. dear churchill, wilke will give you this. i think this applies to your people asked to us. sail on. sail on. humanity with all of his fears and on the hopes of future years is hanging breathless. now clearly, on a personal level, he would like the intimacy being shown. the president not only wrote the

letter by hand but even the accompanied envelope. it would've appealed to his romantic nature and sense of history. it must've been the political message being sent that would please churchill the most. it was no accident this letter was entrusted to wilke. he actually shared roosevelt views. this letter of introduction was a clear statement of bipartisan support at an indication for its deliberate linking of the british cause the roosevelt might do more than offer moral support. it is clear that churchill recognized the importance. he telegraphed back to roosevelt to say i received wilke yesterday and was moved. i shall have it framed as a souvenir of these tremendous

days and a mark of our friendly relations which have been built up telegraphic link but telepathically. he was as good as his word. this document to a sort of brown color is a testament that churchill framed it a hunger for a long time. churchill was also a statesman of great experience and there is no doubt he recognized not only the long term importance but also the short term importance. it was ammunition he could turn to his advantage in his oral assault on the people of the united states. in 1941, he broadcasted the letter across the atlantic and he quotes by longfellow before going on to ask, what is the answer that i shall give him your name to this great man?

here is the answer. put your confidence in us. give us your faith and blessing and all will be well. we should not fail or falter or weaken or tire. neither a shock of battle or vigilance of exertion will wear us down. give us the tool ands we will finish the job. it was set out in the characteristic blank verse format he used to give him the pauses and evidence. it marks the beginning of what we call the special relationship, unprecedented military and political union of our 2 countries. how did they finish the job? they finish is 70 years ago today with a return to europe in 1944 in the opening up of the long-awaited second front. let me continue with an ending or to paraphrase churchill.

the following quote is taken from the penultimate paragraph as his closing volume five of the second world war. he wrote "the immense cross channel enterprise of the liberation of france has begun. all of the ships were at sea and a mastery of the oceans and air and hitler was doomed." it seems to me it sums up the problem we had of operation overlord. the luxury of knowing it worked. the american casualties on omaha beach, there's no doubt it was a great success. it was conducted with hardly a casualty. complete mastery of this guys. within a week, it was secured in the mission had been fulfilled. when the breakout came, it was

faster and more sweeping that most had dared to predict. paris was liberated in 1944. by the end of the year, allied armies were preparing for the crossing and final assault on nazi germany. it is easy for us to sit here today and say it was the right strategy and brought the war to an end and secured the freedom of western europe from both fascism and communism. in spite all what he wrote in 1952, i do not think it was so easy, simple, and predictable for churchill or roosevelt or eisenhower. i want to look at the factors they came together to make d-day successful. i want to pick up on a point that nigel ended on and address the criticism that has been leveled against the allied leadership and perhaps churchill

both in his lifetime and cents. the criticism that he obstructed the cross channel invasion and as a result, by crossing the channel in 1944 rather than 1942, he joined anglo american for duration of the war caused unnecessary death and extending the misery of countless millions. it is certainly clear from his own writings that churchill was a guilty of the strategy. as you just heard, he was far from alone in this. you can easily make the case in doing so, he was saving more lives than sacrificing. what made it successful? in my mind, a number of key objectives that have to be in place if success were to be guaranteed. i put them up here. he viewed a sophisticated network of cooperation, buildup of materials, development of

offices and troops with real experience, mastery of the air, control of the city, superb intelligence and intentions among a greatly weakened enemy, and the right to whether an title conditions. and right weather and tidal conditions. how many were present? first of all, a sophisticated level. what i would say is that rome was not built in a day, from the top down, the prime minister and president, it took time to forge a close tie and develop the trust and teamwork that underpinned the special relationship. president roosevelt sent hopkins to london to discuss planning of the second front in april of 1942. the anglo-american cooperation

planning was needed to make an assault against europe was not going to be produced but was tested in operation torch. and from title beaches of north africa. general eisenhower's winning team of admirable ramsey and bradley and patton was put together and tested in the mediterranean. secondly, a huge buildup of men and materials. the logistics was simply staggering. initial naval operation was supported by 23 cruisers and 100 destroyers and 1000 other fighting ships. the sweeping of the minds has to be carefully coordinated. the official assault may have been by five divisions but that was the start of a much longer campaign to liberate france and push into germany.

by 1940 four, there are 20 americans and three canadians and one polish. they are being protected by 4035 heavy bombers and light to medium torpedoes and transport planes. the allied armies are consuming 600-700 tons of supplies a day with the delivery from the porch to the front lines of 20,000 times per day. it was larger and had to be more sustained that anything that had been contemplated by the alliance. such materials and a man had to be achieved before the operation could be contemplated. could it be achieved on that scale? figures vary from book to book, the germans was probably 10 times greater than the american

army in 1941. it is true by 1941, huge production plans were in place in the united states for all three armed services. it took time to produce commission, delivery. then the development of troops with more morale to restore it after successive defeats in france and greece. as you just heard, look what happens when the reconnaissance was tried.

the americans getting their baptism by fire. mastery of the air. this dependent on the erosion of forces. it may have cleared the skies above britain that the fight had to be taken back into the skies above mainland europe and it took time to build up. the american air force did not become fully engaged until the second half of 1942. they gradually found himself fighting on several fronts and the mediterranean and russian and their losses were not sustainable. it took time to grind them down and build us up. control of the seas. the royal navy had patrolled around the united kingdom but as churchill made clear, it was

only final victory over the u boats that truly opened the direct routes. intelligence, crucial to the winning of the battle was the breaking of the german naval foes to it was the subsequent cracking between berlin and the commanders in france they gave the huge intelligence advantage of d-day. it was exploited by their elaborate plans, allowing churchill that in wartime proved to be so precious that should always be attended. perhaps the real turning of the tide was the one in which churchill chose overland, that was the smashing of the german military machine in russia. their german losses are staggering. they lost a whole army group cobbled with the collapse of their italian allies. finally, we come to the weather. no one attempts to cross the

british channel in winter. after the summer of 1943, the role of the weather mitigated against an invasion inevitably delay in operation from that point until the spring of 1944. take all of these factors together and i will argue that an assault in 1944 and not before makes perfect sense. that does not mean the allied commanders could be complacent on the night before d-day, churchill dined along with his wife and told her do you realize by the time you wake up in the morning 20,000 men may have been killed. it would be wrong it was a lonely manifestation of churchill, it was not. you see it was shared by almost all of the senior allied commanders. admiral ramsay, the

architect, wrote in his diary, i am under no delusion of the risks involved in this difficult of all operations. alan burke, went even further in his private journal the same day, writing, it is very hard to believe that in a few hours the cross channel invasion starts. i am very uneasy about the whole operation. at best, it will fall so short of expectations of the people, namely and of those who know nothing of it. at the worst, it may be the most ghastly disaster of the whole war. i wish to god it was safely over. even general eisenhower after giving the order to go, wrote a letter in the event of failure accepting personal responsibility of withdrawing the troops. later in his book, he concluded that, the two countries, britain

and the united states, replacing all their hopes, expectations, assess and one great effort in western europe. failure would carry consequences that would be almost fatal. such a catastrophe would mean the redeployment of all of the united states forces in the setback to allied morale and determination would be so profound it would be beyond calculation. in other words, the failure would've marked the failure of everything churchill and roosevelt had worked at. it was a make or break moment. it is not surprising that churchill was worried. in my mind, the fact that we know churchill and eisenhower does not diminish their leadership but enhances it. they did all they could to prepare for victory and stack the odds.

in the end, they have to roll the dice. courage, it is the quality which guarantees all others. winston churchill wrote those words about a king, a roller who survived a violent assassination attempt. it seems to me it applies equally to all of those who took part in the d-day landings and subsequent military operations. with a few exceptions, my generation has never really seen a war. we owe a huge debt to our prosperity to generations who came before us and those who sacrifice so much in the first and second wars. it may have taken credible courage. to fight your way through the hedges and lanes of normandy. there are different forms of courage and it took incredible courage to lead and choose the

right moment. courage without planning is not enough. that is the debt we owe churchill and roosevelt. i want to end with the worst churchill spoke of 1944, spoken without hindsight, he said, it is a most serious time we enter upon, then god we enter upon which our great allies, all in great friendship. thank you very much. [applause] >> ok.

thank you. well, before i begin with a few questions. would either of you like to respond to the other that you heard in the opening? >> can you hear me? >> yes. >> i found allen's remarks very moving. my father landed at age 25, commanding 1000 men. by the end of august, he lost 600. that says it all. having said that, that's a personal feeling i have.

the only thing i think we may have airbrushed a little bit. -- we have talked about the fears of the individuals involved, churchill, as in -- eisenhower, and alan burke. secondrking on my volume, which goes from casablanca to roosevelt's death, and i think there is a complicating aspect, and that is the mediterranean, and churchill's strategy -- and her strategy -- >> or obsession. it obsession,all but to be honest, i am leaving that for volume two.

in honor of my dad, i think we should stick with d-day. he >> before we stick with d-day, let me respond to that slightly, because i think the points you made in your remarks, nigel, roosevelt was very much center stage and involved in the key military and political decisions. my feeling is that quite often the accusation that is leveled against vincent church hill is that this -- winston churchill is that this whole mediterranean was an unnecessary british divergent. it was all about saving egypt and propping up the british empire. i do not buy that. i do not believe president roosevelt, general marshall, and the other american leaders were so naïve, so stupid as to be hoodwinked by the british into a policy that was not the right

policy for them. i think it was the right policy for them, partly because of the reasons you alluded to in your remarks. it was a place where they could take the fight to the enemy in 1942 in a way they could not yet take the fight to the enemy on the beaches of europe, and this was a policy that was just as much in american interest as british interest at that point. >> your book begins with world -- with pearl harbor. and the build up a two world war ii begins in the 1930's and proceeds through munich. i think when we are evaluating , our assessment of him as a president in a period leading up to the war because one of the responsibilities is to set the stage and prepare the people and groundwork for going to war. did he do that effectively?

>> clearly he didn't. pearl harbor was a catastrophe. those of us who are historians rather than armchair theorists have to accept the world as it is or was. the world as it was in 1939 in the united states and in 1940 and even in 1941 was overwhelmingly isolationist. we see it today with our president. there is a limit to what the president can do. the greatness of roosevelt was behind the scenes he began to build up america's manufacturing industry to a point where it could out-produce all the axis countries combined.

he brought to washington a number of men on a $1 a year salary to make that possible, already a year before the war began. you have to look at roosevelt's strategy in the far east in sending the fleet out to pearl harbor as a holding action. he just hoped he could hold the japanese off long enough so american industry could produce the airplanes, the tanks, the ships we needed. yes, it it was not effective. but a president fighting -- well, you will remember in the 1940 election, he had to go around the country claiming he would never send american boys into war. that was the only way he could get reelected. >> let's step back from the sequence of events for a moment. i would like to hear each of you

say something more generally about churchill and roosevelt. the head of roosevelt house put it to me very nicely. he said leaders are a package, you have to take them that way. when you look at roosevelt and churchill as packages, what are their strengths and weaknesses? as wartime leaders in democracy? >> shall i go first on this one? i think if you look at churchill, i think his strengths as a war leader are clear. he is a war leader who leads very much in the front and visibly. there he is with the v for victory salute. he is there with the cigar. he very much puts himself center stage. i think linked to that what he does is inject the creaking

british war machine and corridors of whitehall with a him sense of urgency, which had been lacking up until that point. he combines that were underpins that with his wonderful oratory of those fantastic speeches. to my mind the great strength of those beaches as they are carefully crafted to appeal to several audiences at once. yes, they are about raising british domestic morale, but they are also about sending a clear call for support to the united states. almost all have a passage aimed at the united states. they are about sending a message of defiance to hitler and a call to arms to the occupied countries of europe. i think his great strength is leading from the front. the weakness of churchill or the other side of that coin is he could be massively overenthusiastic and over-ambitious.

you see this in the diaries of the people around him. when he comes in, he has the backing of british public opinion after munich when it swings behind him. but many of his own party, the conservative party, many of the mandarins in whitehall are skeptical of him as a leader. they think he may lead the country into rash exploits. it is the other side of that. that has to be carefully managed by people like general alanbrooke and the whole team that worked with him to win the war. >> do you want to say anything about roosevelt? >> roosevelt, i know less about. i would defer to nigel. looking at it from the outside, i think roosevelt's great strength surely has to be his strategic vision and the fact he is able to see the interests of

democracy, the interests of the united states, and the alliance are best served by tackling germany and steering the country in that direction. as an outsider, if you're talking about the weaknesses of roosevelt, and i hesitate to say this in roosevelt house, he has always seemed to me a slightly machiavellian figure. of course, being machiavelli is not always bad. [laughter] >> machiavellian? no, it was often said about him. they or two completely different characters. undoubtedly, in many ways probably the two greatest leaders and characters of the 20th century. if you think of fdr not only in

terms of his domestic condition but also as commander-in-chief, commander-in-chief not only of the united states armed forces, but he really became the commander-in-chief of the western allies. winston churchill two days after the success of the torch invasion in north africa gave a great speech in london saying i am the president. we have achieved this great landing, the future is ours. "i am the president's ardent left hand." it is a telling phrase. it is not something he invented in a speech. it is something i see again and again in the papers of the

people around roosevelt quoting it. it is even in the goebbels diary in german. as i go through the diaries, there may be as much as eight or 10 pages per day. goebbels is often staying with the fuehrer in his quarters. goebbels is as obsessed as hitler is with winston churchill. every time winston gives one of these speeches it really cuts goebbels up. i mean, he got under their skin. i think that speaks to something very moving, that churchill was always talking to a moral imperative in waging the war. the moral imperative of democracies, not simply self-defense of the british empire. the machiavellian aspect of roosevelt served him very well because the united states, i am

sure we have forgotten it, but it is pretty true today and i think it was true in those days, the united states was a very politically polarized country. it was not only isolationist and interventionist. it was republicans and democrats and people who hated roosevelt and people who loved him and felt he had saved the country in the great depression. now the twain could meet. the president needed to be elected.

the president had to be elected again in 1944. churchill came to the united states in 1943 and could not understand why everybody was talking about the next election. any american knows, we all know we are already talking about the next election and hillary clinton even while the president has several years to go. those are the political realities that roosevelt was up against, which winston churchill was not really. there were times winston churchill's majority in the house of commons was possibly

threatened, especially after the surrender where 30,000 british soldiers surrendered without even fighting in the summer of 1942. at that point, churchill's prime ministership did look iffy because he had never had a victory. it started with norway, went through france, dunkirk, crete, greece, north africa, the far east, etc. he did not have a very good military record in terms of success. the president was very aware of that. i think one of the most moving passages in the book is when churchill comes to washington in june of 1942, and he comes to the white house. he actually comes to washington, and the president is at hyde park. churchill goes up to him at hyde

park and they both come back from hyde park to washington. they come up on the overnight train. they come to union station and then up to the white house. it is breakfast time. i have only just come across -- i wish i had been able to put it in the book. i have just come across a new diary. they go up to the white house. they go into the president's oval study on the second floor. roosevelt's naval aide just pops his head in the map room and says, "are there any new cables?" the duty officer hands him this pink piece of paper, and he takes it up. roosevelt is trying to be his charming self and says,

"winston, what do you want for breakfast?" he looks at the naval aide and says, "what do we have here?" the naval aide says, "i am afraid it is bad news, mr. president." roosevelt reads it and hands it to winston and says, "winston, it is for you." it is the cable saying tobruk has surrendered with over 30,000 troops without fighting. churchill is completely stunned. there are people that say that nothing in the world came as a greater shock. he was sitting with a man whose friendship and cooperation is crucial for the survival of britain. it is just so upsetting and embarrassing and shameful for him. if ever there was a moment at which these two men are so close and wonderful together, it is when the president leans over and says -- he does not say, "have you fouled up again?" he says, "winston, what can we

do?" they talk about it and they called general marshall up. the president says we have a u.s. armored division almost ready. it will go to britain to prepare for eventual cross channel invasion. can we send it out to help you in egypt? churchill is bowled over. that is not just generosity. that is a decision at a terrible moment in war where two allies work together.

the division, because it was so critical that moment in june of 1942, it may surprise you that a united states senator was out in the desert at tobruk. fortunately, he was not captured. he was with an american armored unit testing out american infantry tanks. any ideas? senator henry cabot lodge. he escaped rommel and wrote a devastating report on the british. [laughter] that was the moment that summer when my great childhood hero field marshall montgomery was finally summoned by churchill and sent out to the desert and

took a big stiff brush and swept out the duds and re-created the british army in battle. >> bring us back to the d-day story toward the end. you make the compelling argument and i don't think anyone would seriously disagree with it that a cross channel invasion in 1942 of the kind general marshall was contemplating would have been a disaster. you made a strong argument that certain conditions had to be

present in order for an invasion to be successful. but we have left out what happened in between. that is important story because it is not just the case that everyone had reservations about the d-day invasion and saw the risk of until it happened. but in fact, churchill and the british resisted the idea of invading even in the spring of 1944 and continued to want to postpone it because they felt still the conditions were not right. it was roosevelt who in the fall of 1943 put his foot down and said now we are going, the time has come. to say churchill was right in 1942, of course that is true. but i think we also have to recognize churchill still wanted to pursue the peripheral strategy beyond 1943 and 1944. it was roosevelt who was the one and stepped up and said this is the moment. >> i think that is undoubtedly correct in the sense that i do believe churchill continued to favor a peripheral strategy. part of that strategy would have included an attack eventually. i think it goes back to what i was saying in my presentation that he did not want to put all of the eggs into one basket, so

he favored continuing to engage in italy and would have favored engaging in the balkans. part of it is protecting the british empire and securing the british position in the postwar world. i think if churchill were here today, he would not be an apologist for that. this was a man who was a lifelong proponent of the british empire and famously said in 1942 in the speech i have not become the king's first minister to preside over the liquidation of the british empire. he is going to do everything he can to say that british division. there is undoubtedly an element in that as well. the reason the decision is taken to go against france comes down to the meeting. i agree it is partly roosevelt. but you can argue it is equally as much stalin and stalin's doing because he is determined

the second front will not be delayed and will happen now. stalin pushes roosevelt and churchill for that commitment there. >> i prefer to think of the triumph the d-day. i am reserving my account of what happened in 1943 for the second volume. i would just say churchill's preference for going in the mediterranean, i don't know quite how to put this kindly. [laughter] churchill, you know, there were times in roosevelt's presidency, particularly towards the end, because you did not ask me what fdr's failings were.

i would say if you asked me, i would say his great strengths were his self-confidence, his sureness in himself that he could lead his nation and gather around him a team that would be supportive of his prosecution of the war. his problem probably is machiavellian. at times, he felt he was the only man in the world who could do his job. that is seen in terms of his choice of vice president until

the very end. i think i would say in 1943 winston churchill does come again to the united states. in fact, this time does not come on a plane. he comes on the queen mary with 160 staffers. he had the staff rooms reinstated on the ship, absolutely determined in late spring and early summer of 1943 to dissuade the president from going [indiscernible] in 1944. it was president roosevelt who i think brilliantly dealt with him and said to various aides whose diaries i have, "i may have to sit on winston. i may have to read him the riot act."

the difference is churchill sees the mediterranean primarily as a lifeline to the empire and a peripheral strategy. the president sees the mediterranean, sees the invasion and the mediterranean as a place where the united states can practice modern war. i have a personal connection with that because that was my father's great beef in the british army, but not until monte took over the british army did the higher generals really understand the nature of modern war and just how tough it was to

face the german wehrmacht in battle. >> one of the generals said we needed a place to be bad in. that was very much what they learned there. i would like to open it for questions. do we have a microphone in the audience? wait for the microphone. with the session we have had about two of the great orators tonight, you may be tempted to give a speech. but let's just have questions if we may.

>> was there anything in the -- >> can you hear them? >> hello? was there anything in the views of churchill and roosevelt in deciding strategy cross channel or peripheral based on their interest in seeing the russians and germans bleeding each other before the end of the war? did roosevelt feel more kindly toward the russians at that point than churchill did? >> before our guests answer that question, i know the view of the americans at the time was churchill was willing to fight to the last russian. [laughter] >> if that was the case, why go in 1944? let them continue to fight it out. i think there are much bigger things at play. from 1942 onwards, from 1941 onwards, churchill is doing everything he can to support stalin and keep the russians in the war because they want their involvement. if you remember when the german armies invade in 1941,

churchill, according to his private secretary, makes a wonderful remark. people are saying, "you're a long-term anti-bolshevik, how can you be allying yourself with them?" he said -- let me get this right. "if hitler invaded hell, i would at least make a favorable reference to the devil in the

house of commons." [laughter] thereafter, it is churchill who has to travel to see stalin in 1942 to explain why there cannot be a second front in 1942. churchill has to take the difficult decisions to relieve the pressure on the eastern front. churchill is sending the convoys through the north sea to keep the russian supplied and engaged. the real allied fear in all of this is there may come a point where stalin concludes this is not worth anymore russian blood, that he has gone so far but no further and will include an alliance with hitler. that is the nightmare scenario and one of the pressures driving them towards a second front. i think churchill and roosevelt are also worried by the time you get to 1944 of how the war will play out as the russians start to move forward. how much of europe are they going to dominate? their thoughts do start to turn to that postwar scenario and ensuring you don't have a

complete russian domination of the whole of the european continent. >> i think that is well put. the only thing i would add is it was not simply a fear the russians might make these with hitler. after all, they had made peace with hitler in 1939. as the war progressed, the president became more aware of the casualties american forces were sustaining in the pacific. the navy, army, and the air force were doing and a credible job in the pacific. the british were not. there were australians but there was not a british contribution there. fdr worked differently from churchill. churchill liked to have everything on paper through proper channels. fdr loved everything -- you know, he had a healthy

skepticism of bureaucracy, of paperwork. he loved sending personal emissaries, even wendell willkie. can you imagine sending the person you have just beaten in an election to london? the president is using these personal emissaries. he is a paraplegic. he is in a wheelchair. he could not get in a bomber and go to moscow, which he courageously does. for the president, it is a different matter. when fdr went to casablanca, which is the first chapter of my new book, everyone around him is saying don't go. no president has ever flown in an airplane, much less go abroad and go thousands of miles to

africa. roosevelt is receiving information from his informants. sometimes they are a bit wacky, but often they are very much people not afraid to tell him the truth. you know, lyndon johnson goes out not just on behalf of congress. he goes out and reports for the president of the united states. what they are telling him is we may have said like macarthur, "i shall return."

but the casualties that will be required are just colossal, and we have to keep stalin not only fighting the germans on the eastern front, we have to get stalin to sign up to join with us in the war against japan once germany is beaten. people always forget that when they consider tehran and yalta. >> another question. let me go to the back over there. >> thank you. i am not sure how germane this is, but two thoughts i had. did gallipoli in any way influence churchill in his caution with d-day? my second question because many of my friends are worried about this, was there any contemplation of honoring the train tracks to auschwitz and other? >> can i deal with the second question first? i am still working on volume two but i can tell you after 10 years as a world war ii military

historian if we had bombed the railroads into auschwitz, the germans would simply have made those jews walk. i know this is heartfelt because it is too awful to think we, in britain and in this country, knew what the nazis were doing. but to imagine we could miraculously find a bomb that would stop jews from being sent to auschwitz is simple innocence. it reminds me a bit of those people who say surely there was another shooter on the grassy knoll. after all, you know, it is not that difficult for two or three people to shoot and hit a moving target at the same time. well, i have to tell you it is impossible. just is not possible. as regards gallipoli, allen, do you want to take that? >> i would be happy to. i do think a little he did prey on churchill's mind. it was the setback that nearly destroyed him in 1915.

it is why clementine said she thought he was going to die from grief. about half of his book is a defense for the gallipoli campaign. the campaign foundered because there was no real coordination between the army, navy, and national forces, all the things you needed to have in place to make d-day a success. i think it goes wider than just gallipoli. it is not just gallipoli. it is the memories of that whole generation, churchill included,

but also the other commanders of what happened in europe between 1914 and 1918 and the horrors and their fear in sending forces across to confront hitler directly in northwestern europe that we might be about to have another battle of the somme. i think you can see that in the memoirs and some of the quotes. on the bombing of auschwitz, i think martin gilbert has addressed that fully. churchill was shown a memo. could something be done? it gets referred to various commanders who conclude strategically it cannot be done at that point. i think nigel's point overall is right. i think both churchill and roosevelt saw the bigger picture. the bigger picture, of course, is if you're going to stop the horror and genocide in europe,

then you need to win the war as quickly and decisively as possible. >> one more question, i think. on this side. i saw a hand. >> hi. i have heard revisionists say, you talk about roosevelt being machiavellian. is there any evidence roosevelt somehow backed the japanese into a corner a cousin in the back of his mind he thought this would start the war after he had promised not to send american troops to war in 1940? >> no evidence at all. i have in the second chapter tried to tell the story as dramatically as i can using evidence of people who were

around the president in the white house that day. in fact, in the days before pearl harbor. i was giving a talk in the fdr library last weekend. somebody came up and said my father was in the fbi and he told me that there were these secret tables, and the president knew that the japanese were going to bomb pearl harbor but of course it had to be covered up. i was on a radio program the other day. actually, hyde park. i said, can i say bullshit on the radio? [laughter] >> and on television? >> that is what they said. it just is not true.

what is interesting is the president was receiving the decoded diplomatic signals being sent from tokyo to the ambassador and assistant ambassador just a few hundred yards away on massachusetts avenue. it is an extraordinary moment in history when you know the official ambassadors of the country with which you are not at war are receiving signals telling them to break off negotiations, to start burning your codebooks and even destroying your code machines. so you know war is coming. you know that. harry hopkins, white house adviser, says, "mr. president, can we take some preemptive action?" the president says, "no, we have never done that. we don't do that. we want to be morally in the right. we know they're going to attack.

we have done our best to prepare our defense is. you know, this will have to play itself out." i think he was absolutely right about that. but knowing in advance the japanese were only 300 miles from pearl harbor is just ridiculous. >> we have a letter in the churchill archive from president roosevelt to winston churchill from october of 1941. in the letter, he writes japanese moving northwards. in spite of this, i think you and i have two months of respite in the far east he gets it almost exactly right. do i think that means he was predicting pearl harbor and knew about pearl harbor?

absolutely not. but what it does show, i think, is as you have alluded to, there was a growing awareness in american government circles, in roosevelt's circles, that there was an escalating tension and they were starting to prepare for that. >> thank you. i would like to thank our two guests this evening. [applause] nigel hamilton's book is available upstairs, and i highly recommend it. >> the berlin wall fell 25 years ago. that historict day on sunday with c-span video, featuring george bush from the

oval office, reaction from senate leaders, and speeches from president kennedy in 1963 and president reagan in 1967. at 8 p.m.morrow eastern time here on american history tv. >> at 10, the annual u.s. oh gala -- annual uso gala featuring martin dempsey. just afternoon a discussion on veterans mental health issues and later selections from this years white house medal of honor ceremonies. >> american history tv traveled

to the kludgy center in washington dc. the center welcomes over 100 scholars every year to pursue their research interests at one of the world's largest libraries pre-and up next we speak with one of their 2014 fellows. >> joining us on american history tv is will riddington, a phd candidate at the university of cambridge. what is your interest in the evolution of american conservatism? >> my academic interest stems from trying to understand how american conservatism turned from this political creed kind of reserved for the northeastern elite, the bankers on wall street, country club republicans, it was always