Citizens of London – The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour

The Preliminaries

• The US emerged from WWI as the world’s leading economic power. Many in the US felt that bankers and arms manufacturers tricked the US into intervening in WWI—as a result, Congress became increasingly isolationist.
• In 1939, Britain declared war against Adolf Hitler’s Germany. More than a million people evacuated London.
• In the summer and autumn of 1940, German air raids ravaged London and other British cities in the Blitz. London endured 57 straight nights of relentless bombing.
  • German submarines also sank hundreds of thousands of tons of shipping each month, causing severe shortages in Britain.
• Winston Churchill, Britain’s prime minister, relentlessly pleaded with FDR for support.
  • FDR acknowledged that the US had to do more but was unwilling to declare war; he unveiled the Lend-Lease program, where the US would lend or lease material to any nation considered vital to the US’s defense.
• Prior to the US entering WWII, the US Army had 300,000 men (Germany had 4 million and Britain had 1.6 million).

Gil Winant

• John Gilbert Winant came from a well-connected New York family, and in his early years taught American history and was a pilot in the US flying corps. He served as Governor of New Hampshire in the 1920s and 1930s, and gained national fame as the country’s youngest and most progressive governor. 
  • He was a very awkward speaker, but conveyed warmth and sincerity. He had a zeal for economic justice and social change.
• In 1934, FDR nominated him as the first US representative to the International Labor Organization, an agency sponsored by the League of Nations in Geneva.
• Soon after, FDR made him chairman of the new US Social Security Board.
• In 1940, Winant urged FDR to send Britain help as soon as possible. 
• In 1941, FDR appointed him as the US ambassador to Britain. (He replaced Joe Kennedy, an Anglophobe.)
  • Winant’s mission was to explain to a bombarded country that the US, safe 3,000 miles away, wanted to help but not fight.

Ed Murrow

• Murrow came from a family of impoverished farmers in North Carolina.
• In 1935, CBS hired Murrow as its Director of Talks, and dispatched him to London.
  • When Hitler pounced on Austria in 1938, Murrow conducted the first news roundup broadcast to America, which was a major success for CBS; radio emerged as America’s chief news medium.
• In 1940, the Blitz was perfect for radio: it had immediacy, drama, and sound. No other medium brought the reality of the attack in such a powerful way.
  • Murrow earned his listeners’ trust. Hundreds said that his broadcasts moved them from neutrality to the side of the British, and he was the most well-known reporter of the time.
  • He also felt a kinship with the middle- and working-class Britons who bore the brunt of the Blitz—he found them exceedingly brave, tough, and prudent.
• Murrow and Churchill became acquainted after their wives became friends.
• In 1940, Murrow pressed his connections in the White House to install Winant as US Ambassador (Murrow and Winant had been friends for years).

W. Averell Harriman

• Harriman was heir to one of America’s greatest railroad fortunes. FDR had known him for a long time (their mothers were friends) and was not impressed with either his intelligence or personality.
  • Harriman was an aggressive, hard-driving businessman. He was pragmatic, lacked a sense of humor, and was a womanizer.
• In 1941, after much persuasion from his chief-of-staff, FDR sent Harriman to London to oversee the Lend-Lease program.
  • Harriman wanted the job; he strongly believed that the US was obliged to save Britain from defeat.
  • Harriman was supposed to recommend everything that the US could do, short of war, to keep Britain afloat.
• Harriman had to persuade US military leaders that US material would be of greater value in British hands, and would have to convince Churchill to provide evidence that the material would be put to immediate use.

1941

• Winant was a terrible administrator but an inspirational leader, and the embassy funneled enormous amounts of information about British war developments to the US.
• Winant had to deal with Churchill’s growing expectation that the US would enter the war by early summer of 1941.
• Winant and Harriman kept emphasizing that it was up to Congress, not FDR, to declare war, and Congress was nowhere close.
• In April, thousands of Londoners were killed in German air raids, and due to German attacks on their merchant ships, Britain was also close to extreme hunger.
  • Churchill incessantly begged for the US to intercede, but FDR was waiting for public opinion to lead, and public opinion was waiting for him to lead.
• In June, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.
  • Churchill pledged Britain’s full support even though he despised Joseph Stalin; he needed the Soviets to bear the new attacks so that Britain could recover.
• A few days later, FDR invited Churchill to meet, and Churchill regarded this as one of the most fateful encounters of his life.
  • Ultimately, it was a disappointment. FDR said he couldn’t do more because of Congress, but did promise to ask for another $5 billion for Lend-Lease.
• Afterwards, Harriman was appointed US delegate to the Soviet Union.
  • Harriman had little knowledge of the country and didn’t tell anyone that he had more than $1 million in Russian investments.
  • Harriman gave Stalin virtually everything he asked for (weapons, planes, supplies, etc.) with no strings attached.

Pearl Harbor

• On December 7, 1941, FDR invited Murrow and his wife for dinner, while the Churchills invited Winant and Harriman.
• Immediately after Pearl Harbor was attacked, FDR called Churchill, saying that they were all in the same boat now. Churchill, Winant, and Harriman were euphoric.
• FDR and Churchill made an unprecedented decision: to bring their forces together in the most complete unification of military effort ever achieved by two allied nations.
  • A single commander would have authority over all British and American soldiers, while a Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee would coordinate the strategy. 
  • US-British agencies would control munitions, shipping, raw materials, etc. 
  • In the following years, everyone agreed that Winant was largely responsible for the high degree of cooperation between representatives.
• But there was also friction: The British believed that the US did not have the slightest conception of war, and their armed forces were severely underprepared.
  • There was also a huge division about how to destroy Germany; the British believed that they should target North Africa to weaken the Germans first.
    • Americans thought this was a scheme to safeguard Britain’s oil interests. 
• And, Americans thought of the British as miserable redcoats who knew nothing about Americans. Winant made it his mission to ease such difficulties.
  • Winant taught Britons about the US steel mill and textile mill workers, coal miners, and the railroad and the shipyard workers.
  • Murrow also explained the politics, personality traits, and peculiarities of each ally to the other through a new BBC series called Meet Uncle Sam.

1942

• In 1942, the first American troops arrived in Northern Ireland.
• General Dwight Eisenhower assumed command of American forces; he had never seen combat (he served in WWI, but not in the midst of battle). 
  • He was one of America’s few generals who wasn’t an Anglophobe, and was determined to forge a close working relationship with Britain.
  • Eisenhower became very close with Winant.
• The British continued to insist that a victory in North Africa would release at least 500,000 tons of shipping to put together a stronger offensive, and provide much needed supplies to Britain.
  • FDR agreed to the operation, but demanded that it be an American operation. An American needed to be there to talk with Vichy French forces in North Africa. 
    • (When France capitulated to Germany in 1940, Hitler allowed Marshal Petain to establish a collaborationist French government based in the town of Vichy. The US had maintained diplomatic relations, unlike Britain.
    • Vichy officials instituted highly repressive policies against Jews.)
• Eisenhower had to plan one of the most audacious amphibious landings in history.
  • Other than incredible logistical problems, the militaries did not know how each other operated, and there were many personality clashes and feuds.
• The Vichy French forces in North Africa fought the invasion furiously.
  • Eisenhower’s sole aim was to end the bloodshed. Admiral Jean Darlan, commander of the Vichy armed forces, offered to help (he had previously encouraged the persecution of Jews).
    • Eisenhower, unaware of Darlan’s anti-Semitism, said the Allies would appoint him governor of French North Africa in exchange for a ceasefire. 
    • Churchill and FDR agreed, and the fight in North Africa ended.
• A storm of protest greeted Eisenhower’s deal.
  • Murrow criticized the move, and though Winant believed that it was a monumental error, he felt obliged to defend the position in public. 
  • Darlan died soon after and Henri Giraud succeeded him; he also persecuted Jews—this posed a moral conundrum for the US and Britain.

1943

• On May 7, Tunis fell to the Allies, securing the Middle East and North Africa.
• As time went on, Eisenhower, who was Supreme Allied Commander, established himself as a fully authoritative and commanding person. No other military leader worked as hard as he did to make the alliance a success.
• The Allies pushed the Germans from North Africa and overthrew Mussolini in Italy. The main concern became postwar interests.
  • At this time, FDR began to pull back from his friendship with Churchill, as the US was dominant in the number of troops, weapons, and other resources.
  • Against Churchill’s opposition, the Americans pushed through a plan to invade southern France.
• On November 12, FDR, Churchill, and Stalin met in Tehran.
  • FDR didn’t have any real understanding of the massive divide between a Bolshevik and a non-Bolshevik.
  • FDR mostly backed Stalin (e.g., he mocked Churchill to get Stalin to laugh), which was an error because Stalin didn’t trust the West anyway.
    • Churchill and FDR secretly agreed to one of Stalin’s key demands: post-war Soviet control of eastern Poland, even though Churchill had promised the Polish government-in-exile that they would get their homeland back.

1944

• FDR and Churchill agreed on May 1, 1944 for the invasion of Europe. Thus, Britain became the largest operating military base ever, with 1.65 million US troops in Britain.
  • Winant knew that this enormous influx of Americans made life hard for Britons. He acted as an intermediary to make this transition as peaceful as possible.
  • The 100,000 US black soldiers were kept as separate as possible. Britain was not a segregated country, and its citizens were shocked by the blatant racism.
  • Overall, there was a relatively harmonious coexistence of US soldiers and British civilians, and most of the credit belonged to Winant.
• Operation Overlord, on June 6, was the greatest organizational achievement of WWII: nearly 2 million soldiers, sailors, and airmen from half a dozen Allied countries disembarked across Normandy.
• Murrow was deeply involved in every aspect of the preparations: how many journalists would cover the landings, how they would get there, etc.
• One week later, Germany attacked London, and for the next three months, thousands of pilotless missiles killed more than 33,000 people.
• In the summer, 25,000 Poles launched an uprising against their Nazi occupiers. They appealed to London and Moscow for help. Churchill urged British military leaders to aid them, while Stalin denounced them.
  • Harriman pleaded with the Soviets to reconsider. (They ignored him; his 11-month tenure in the Soviet Union had been humiliating.)
    • Harriman regarded Poland as the touchstone of Stalin’s attitude toward his less powerful neighbors.
  • Harriman and Winant urged FDR to press Stalin to do more, but he did not. 
  • The Poles surrendered in October; 250,000 residents of Warsaw had been killed.
• Winant grew worried about the Allies’ failure to make firm postwar decisions.

1945

• FDR, Churchill, and Stalin met again in Yalta, and FDR resisted all Churchill’s attempts to coordinate an Anglo-American strategy.
• FDR was unconcerned about leaving the Soviet Union as the continent’s dominant military and political power.
  • The question of Poland dominated Yalta, but Poland’s fate was already settled. Soviet troops now occupied most of the country.
• Murrow, with US troops, found the concentration camp Buchenwald. He estimated that 500 men and boys lay dead in a visible burial pit. 
  • More than 50,000 Buchenwald inmates died during the war.
  • The Holocaust was not a major wartime story. The US and British governments, who had access to more information, did little to make the public aware or to make any substantive actions to save the Jews. 
    • Winant had repeatedly pushed FDR to do more, but FDR declined to press for a change in America’s restrictive immigration laws so that more Jews could be admitted.
• On April 12, FDR died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
• On April 30, Hitler committed suicide.
• On May 7, WWII in Europe ended.
• On July 26, Churchill was voted out of office. 
• In the fall, British food supplies sank to their lowest level in 6 years, and millions were without permanent homes. Britain was essentially bankrupt. 
  • President Harry Truman terminated Lend-Lease, and the British could not understand why their closest ally, flush with prosperity, turned its back on them.
• Harriman soon took over Winant’s place as ambassador, and Winant became America’s representative to the Economic and Social Council, a UN agency.
• Murrow became VP of news at CBS.

The Later Years

• On November 3, 1947, Winant, deeply in debt because of his lifelong habit of giving financial aid to others, exhausted and depressed, took his own life with a pistol.
• Murrow grew greatly disheartened by the lack of freedom in the postwar world.
• Harriman became a playboy businessman, and in 1954 became governor of New York. Later, he negotiated the Geneva Accords to end a civil war in Laos.

• Details of the affairs that Murrow, Harriman, and Winant had with Churchill’s daughters
• The difficult relationship between Winant and Harriman, as Harriman consistently encroached on Winant’s turf
• The Americans who broke US law by enlisting for Britain
• A significant chapter about the forgotten Allies, in particular Polish intelligence, all of whom sacrificed greatly to end the war
• The monumental significance of Tommy Hitchcock—if not for him, the US Army Air Forces would never have adopted the plane that ultimately became the best American fighter of the war
• How FDR’s vague conceptions of a post-war world allowed Stalin to make enormous gains on controlling neighboring countries