Harry in London. Chapter Three: With Winston
Harry's long lunch with Churchill was followed by a big dinner that grew contentious with questions about why America had waited so long to help. Harry slapped them down in response.
This Chapter: Harry had a three-hour lunch with the Prime Minister at Ten Downing Street followed by an invitation to dinner at Ditchley, a fabulous house in a forest of tall trees that provided shelter from an attack by Nazi bombers. Beaverbrook probed Harry as to why America had so little ready to come to Britain’s aid. Harry said a better question was why Britain had done so little to stop Hitler until then.
Contents of “Harry in England”:
Queen Wilhelmina and Edward R. Murrow
Meeting The VIPs
With Winston
“Even to the end.”
“A little touch of Harry in the night.”
The Good Grind of Hard Work
Willkie comes to London. Not for long, but too long.
Hopkins Reports Details of British Needs
“Lord Root of the Matter.”
Chapter Three: With Winston
Reading time: Twenty minutes
Ten Downing Street was structurally vulnerable, largely wooden with jury-rigged steel reinforcing here and there. It had not taken a direct hit, but many bombs had landed close enough to shatter most of the windows and chase the occupants to cover. Bracken said, “Winston wants to meet you here for symbolic purposes, driven by the same defiant impulse that would cause him to manage the war from a canvas tent if we would let him.”
They went to the basement where Bracken left Harry alone in a dining room with a glass of sherry. In minutes, Churchill arrived. He wore a short, four-buttoned jacket over striped trousers, and the same floppy black bow tie with white polka-dots as when they had met that morning. Harry couldn’t recall ever seeing one quite like it, except for perhaps on a circus clown. When they shook hands, he noticed for the second time that though Churchill’s palm was soft, a surprising strength was within it. In person, he was a long way from the fat man of his photographs. His arms, his shoulders, even his torso, carried power. It was his head, a mellow face with a sweet smile under a bald dome, that obscured his strength. That, and his belly.
He said, “It was awfully good of you to visit the damage this morning.”
“It was my first observation of war damage, and I’ve come to close the remove. Newsreels don’t do it justice.”
“No. The people were awed by your arrival, spoke of nothing else when you were gone.”
“I was honored to meet them. And of course your wife and daughter-in-law.”
“As were they. Look here. See my grandson. My namesake.” And took him to a credenza where a half-dozen photos of a fat baby — in Winston’s arms, in Clementine’s, and in Pamela’s — were displayed. “He looks just like me, don’t you think? Though less ravaged by life.”
“In America, it’s said that all babies look like you.”
“Yes. Here also. I think it speaks well of their chances for a good life and great success with the ladies. Or the gentlemen. Let’s have a seat and see if any food arrives.”
It was potato soup, cold beef accompanied with mint jelly, a green salad, cheese, and a red wine served by an elderly woman the prime minister called Maude. Harry said, “Bracken told me of your kind words about the president yesterday in a speech. And of your concern about your unanswered telegram. Our apology for that. Read nothing into it except a clerical blunder.”
“We have some of those also.”
“Please know that in this case the oversight was not the president’s.”
Churchill said, “That is very good news. I have been much troubled that a breach had arisen between us, which I predominantly ascribe to the animosity that Ambassador Kennedy spread in the months of his service.”
“He’s gone. And the president is as pleased as you must be by his passing. There is nothing, no lingering difficulty, in the mind of my boss. He hopes you feel the same.”
“I most certainly do. Our nations have, have always had, far more reasons to bond that to disagree. You may tell President Roosevelt that my hand is extended across the wide ocean with an open palm and a warm heart.”
“I’ll do that. He is eager for you to know that we are determined to win this war together with you. Make no mistake about it. He has sent me here to tell you that at all costs and by all means he will carry you through. There is nothing that he will not do so long as he has human power. We are not oblivious of the difficulties, but we are optimistic in spite of them.”
“Let’s drink to that.” They touched glasses.
Harry said, “My goal is to leave here with a detailed and specific list of your needs. I will not make decisions on the cheap. I want to know what you need to win, and not merely to survive. I intend to be exhaustively inquisitive of the military and political principals, guided in all cases by you. Our intention is the development of an intimate relationship on the grounds that we must stand together to defeat Hitler.”
Churchill said, “Let’s call that the end of the why, leaving us with the what, when, where, and how. Your access will be unrestricted. How long will you be with us?”
“As long as necessary. Several weeks, I expect, but longer if necessary.”
“The time has come for your president and I to meld our minds. We should meet, I believe, and the sooner the better.”
“He agrees with that. He spoke of April.”
“I know more of the complications of your legislative process than I let on around here. I often rant about why you can’t just enact a law, pronounce it, and execute it. I know better. This Lend Lease proposition is the most unsordid action ever taken by one nation for another in human history. It is utterly unprecedented.”
“Thank you. Your recent letter deserves great credit for it.”
“What may we expect from the legislative process?”
“Hearings. Debates. Restrictions and constraints. And passage, we believe. Give it a few weeks. My belief is that it will give the president the authority he wants, but only on the condition that our military leaders have their own needs met. And I expect some kind of certification of your impoverishment to be required. I hope I’m wrong about that, for the difficulty it will bring to you. And maybe I am.”
“Have some more of the jelly, Mr. Hopkins. It makes a huge difference.” He reached across the table and scooped some on Harry’s beef. “May I call you Harry?”
“Certainly.”
“When there are no plenipotentiaries around, please call me Winston.”
Harry was having a little trouble with the idea of the Prime Minister of Great Britain scooping mint jelly on his cold beef like an old friend, and even to asking him to call him by his given name. He thought how amused Tallulah or Missy LeHand would be by his discomfort. No, it wasn’t actual discomfort. Churchill had put him very much at his ease. It was as though he were dreaming. He snapped himself out of it by saying, “Winston.”
The meeting went on for three hours. Winston took Harry to his map room where he discussed the dynamics of each of the geographic confrontation zones, and then they adjourned to Churchill’s office for a conversation on how Harry wanted to proceed. Winston insisted that Harry come with him that evening for a short weekend at Ditchley.
He explained, “Ditchley is the alternative the security officers have chosen for nights when the moon is up and there is no cloud cover. Chequers is exposed in those times, whereas Ditchley is shrouded by trees. And owned by Trees also. Ronald and Nancy Tree. He’s a Member of Parliament born in America of an American mother. Nancy’s born American on both sides. They have extended their estate to us for such purposes and moments as these, and have asked to be with us for dinner this evening to meet you, to which we agreed since it is, after all, their home. There is an excellent trans-Atlantic telephone connection there, and of course offices, should you need it. I shall hope to have your company on my weekends, and at any other time when our schedules permit. Which reminds me that as I am traveling to inspect our fleet at harbor in Scapa Flow to the north of Scotland on Monday, and to also see Lord Halifax off to America on Tuesday, I hope you will come along.”
“I’ll be honored. Mrs. Tree’s aunt, I understand, is the famous Nancy Astor.”
“That’s correct. You’ve done your homework.”
“Lady Astor did it for me. She phoned me this morning at my hotel to welcome me and to invite me to lunch at my first opportunity. She said I would likely meet her niece this weekend.”
“The Lady Astor is presumptuous to an exalted degree.”
“I got that impression.”
Nancy Astor was the first woman ever elected to Parliament, and the founder and hostess of the Cliveden Set of staunch appeasers, named for her estate where they routinely met.
Harry said, “Is the Cliveden Set still meeting?”
“Only surreptitiously. Yet they lurk.”
“They’re not surreptitious in America and their lurking is conspicuous.”
*
Harry thought for a guy from Grinnell in Iowa he had seen more than his fair share of mansions and estates, but Ditchley topped them all. It wasn’t as tightly enveloped in trees as he anticipated, but the enormous size of the trees of the forest, and its density, that surrounded the several dozen acres of the house and its manicured grounds would make it hard to hit from high above. Dive-bombers would have a better shot, but the mobile anti-aircraft batteries that were in place would compromise that.
Nancy Tree met him, and Winston’s entourage, at the door and embraced him after more decorously shaking his hand on their introduction. She insisted on showing him her home as soon as he was “refreshed from the journey.”
He said, “I’m refreshed. It wasn’t much of a journey by my recent standards.”
Clementine had told him on the drive that Nancy was so renowned for her work on the house that she had opened a hugely successful interior décor company with her participants. Clementine said, “It is said that ‘she has the finest taste of anyone in the world,’ ” making fingertip quotations. “That’s saying quite a lot, and I would be among the last to know how such a determination is to be made, but there you have it. She is recognized as the queen of the ‘English Manor House Look,’ ” using the fingertips, “or perhaps it’s the Country House Look. What do I know? Dear God, I must sound horribly catty, and I don’t mean to. The house is more than two hundred years old and every inch of it is spectacular, and she is immensely kind to us, so please forget all that.”
Harry said, “I don’t think I can. But I won’t tell anyone you said it.” He thought Clementine was as easy to be with, and as hard to find, as an amiable cat, which is what her husband called her. “Cat.” She called him “Pug.”
His enlarged expectation of Ditchley fell short of the actuality. The house was as large as the White House. On the tour, Nancy Tree spoke of “respect for each room in its historical context.” She said, “Understatement is extremely important. I love fabrics in places where they will fade from sunlight. Crossing too many t’s and dotting too many i’s makes a room look overdone and tiresome. One needs light and shade because if every piece is perfect a room becomes a lifeless museum. A gentle mixture of furniture expresses life and continuity, but it must be a delicious mixture that flows and mixes well. It is a bit like mixing a salad. I am better at mixing rooms than salads.”
Each room had an open fire, many burning candles, and fresh flowers in an abundance that was almost obscenely perfect. It made Harry very tired, and happy she wasn’t his wife. He needed to be refreshed. Or have a drink. But with all that, he conceded the point. Ditchley was fabulous, it’s executrix was a genius, and she was charming and touchy-feely as she chatted with him about his importance and how thrilled they all were to have him in England as they passed from one room to the next.
He napped, or tried to, and came downstairs early for dinner. Clementine was in the parlor reading and asked him to sit with her.
She said, “We’ve quite a gang coming for dinner, even by our usual standards. You are at least partially responsible.”
“Will name tags be worn for my benefit?”
She thought that was funny. She said, “I’ll give you a little rundown on them now and be at your side from beginning to end with saving whispers. Call me Clemmie if you like.”
“Harry. But I love the sound of Clementine.”
“Your choice then, Harry.”
She spoke of two women whose presence “always enlivens Winston for their romantic histories and their shamelessness of it.”
Present, she said, would be Venetia Stanley Montagu, who so ensorcelled Prime Minister Herbert Asquith that he often wrote two or three letters to her while he was leading cabinet meetings during the Great War. Clementine said, “The letters, which Venetia saved and graciously offered to the public archive, are thought to have historical value equal to the actual minutes of the meetings. Her son Louis was born about then from an unknown father. The rumors are equally split between Asquith as the father, and his love for her as having gone unrequited. In any case, she subsequently married Edwin Montagu, a minister in Asquith’s cabinet, amid rumors that the marriage was a professional shield for Montagu’s suspected preference for members of his own gender. For her part, she made so much of her own preference for men as to have had undisguised affairs hither and yon, including one with Lord Beaverbrook, who will also be here this evening. A second child, her daughter Judith, ensued along in there. The gossip about Judith’s father is unsettled, with Beaverbrook and William Ward, the Earl of Dudley, at the fore. Both children carry their mother’s maiden name.”
Harry said, “Does she get on well with Lord Beaverbrook? At times like this evening, for example?”
“Of course. We are a very well-mannered people, Harry, when others are around.”
“That’s comforting. And there’s another such woman?”
“The other is the Marquesa de Casa Maury, more comfortably known as Freda Dudley Ward from her first marriage, long since ended, to quite another William Ward — William Dudley Ward, even another Dudley — but known far more famously for her long affair, while married, with the Prince of Wales. Winston once told me that David’s adoration of Freda was pathetic for its obvious command of his constant thoughts, but not all that enduring after he met Wallis Simpson.”
The other guests, beyond Beaverbrook and the scarlet women, would include Frederick Lindemann, “The Prof,” David Margesson, recently appointed as Minister of War to take the spot Eden had given up for the Foreign Ministry, and Oliver Lyttleton, the President of the Board of Trade. Some with wives, and some not.
“Our lovely daughter Mary is here also,” Clemmie said, “joining us from her safer harbor in Norwich. But not likely so much for your amusement as for her fondness for Jock Colville,” who was one of the Prime Minister’s secretaries whom Harry had met that day. Colville was present, and Pamela and Bracken.
The dinner guests mingled and imbibed in a parlor for thirty minutes or so before dinner, which was scheduled for 8:00. Beaverbrook said to Harry, “I’m Max Aitken, actually. Call me Max unless you’re trying to use my title to impress. You’ve come to lighten my burden as I understand.”
“If Hitler permits,” Harry said. “And a few other obstacles.”
“Such as your empty arsenal?”
“Such as that, yes.”
Clementine introduced him to both Venetia and Freda. He guessed them to be about his age, but looking much better for the journey. They flirted with him, each in turn, and he wallowed in it.
Bracken found a minute to trouble him a little, or maybe just to tease. He took it as a little bit of both. Bracken said, “I’m not normally given to caution, but …”
“Too busy being insouciant?”
“Exactly. We here on our sceptered isle carry a genetic antipathy towards the uncivilized colonials. We do our best to overcome it, but it’s in the bloodstream.”
“That’s kind of snotty, don’t you think? Is that word in your vocabulary?”
“I don’t use it, but I know what it means. I plead guilty as charged for my race, but not for myself.”
“We carry something similar, a lingering contempt for our former captors who once burned down the White House.”
“There you have the conflicting elements of my concern.”
“But we’ve come to help. With openhearted generosity.”
“That makes it worse. Needing you chafes.”
“It’s not too late to call the whole thing off.”
“Yes, actually, it is.”
“So, am I being asked not to be easily offended?”
“Is that possible?”
“I’ve had some experience with it. It gives me hives. Why don’t you ask them not to be offensive?”
“There are so many of them.”
The dinner service was held for ten minutes or so because the host was late. Clementine was at Harry’s left, Pamela at his right.
Clementine explained, “He naps.”
“So do I, but not very much today, and I fear my stamina.”
“If your nose drops into your soup, I’ll give you an elbow.”
Winston arrived. She said, “Here we go. I hope to chat more with you. A walk tomorrow perhaps?”
“Count me in on that.”
Harry charmed the guests with his recollection of the visit of the King and Queen not two years previous. He said his daughter Diana was spellbound by the Queen, who permitted Diana’s presence as she dressed for the State Dinner. “She said, ‘Daddy, I have seen the Fairy Queen!’ ” And he spoke of meeting “the previous King last month. He visited the President on his ship when we dropped anchor off the coast of Eleuthera. The weather was rugged and the Duke thought the Duchess might be discomforted by the choppy seas, so he came alone. He was much interested in the president’s Civilian Conversation Corps, which employed many of our people in environmental preservation tasks to help us emerge from the depression. He seemed fit and fine in all respects and told the president to always give his love and best wishes to his brother when he communicated with him.”
Venetia Stanley said, “Is he unable to communicate directly with the King?”
“We didn’t ask and he didn’t say.”
“You might suggest that to him when next you meet.”
“I shall, and I shall say the advice came from you, ma’am.”
“No, say it came from Freda. Wait until Wallis is around and it will annoy him nicely.”
“Very well, but don’t hold your breath. I don’t expect our paths to cross very often.”
Winston said, “Well, we pray he’s keeping his nose clean.”
“Pray hard. He’s keeping company with a Swedish Nazi sympathizer. All that said, Prime Minister, please believe that nothing has done more to bind our people to yours than your words coming to us across the Atlantic. They have produced the most stirring and revolutionary effect on all classes and districts in America. The president brings a radio into cabinet meetings when your speeches coincide.”
Winston took the bait and went into a mild monologue. Harry thought he saw a slight rolling of the eyes from Bracken and a hunkering into her seat from Clementine.
Winston said, “I am very much touched and gratified by that, Mr. Hopkins. I hardly remember what I said last summer. I was merely imbued with the feeling that it would be better for us to be destroyed than to see the triumph of such an impostor. It deserves to be said that it would not have been possible without the loyal coöperation of the members of the other parties. I pray it holds not only through our crisis but beyond, as we confront the chores of reconstruction. I read the text of President Roosevelt’s Lend Lease legislation this morning and came away with the sense that a new world order may one day be possible.”
Bracken relaxed. Then Beaverbrook said, “Mr. Hopkins, if the Lend Lease legislation is approved, do you have any estimates for your production of war materials?”
“No, Lord Beaverbrook, I do not.”
“Your economy is flourishing as I understand.”
“Improving, I would say. But for the past few years the strength of it has come from products for domestic consumption. There will be considerable expense involved in retooling for weapons. Even to the construction of major new facilities.”
“Somewhat reluctant then, are they?”
“They?”
Brendan Bracken dropped his fork. He hadn’t had time for full tutorials, but should at least have put a note on their plates advising of the error of underestimating the spine of the skinny man in the rumpled suit.
Beaverbrook said, “The industrialists.”
Harry said, “Well, I would say that in light of your proximity to the war relative to our own, not so much as yours.”
“You realize, I’m certain, that we are spending considerably more of our budget on defense than you are. A percentage seven times more than America is spending. This was made possible by the Prime Minister’s declaration of the Emergency Powers Act that I used to convert factories to aircraft production.”
“I do realize all that, Max. Do you realize that you are at war and we are not?”
Churchill made an attempt at redirecting the conversation to what he thought to be Harry Hopkins’s social conscience. He said, “In keeping with the president’s expression of the Four Freedoms, I must say that we seek no treasure, no territorial gains. We seek only the right of man to be free, the right to worship his own God, and to lead his life in his own way, secure from persecution. As the humble labourer returns from his work when the day is done and sees the smoke curling upwards from his cottage home in the serene evening sky, we wish him to know that no rat-a-tat-tat” — rapping on the table top — “of the secret police upon his door will disturb his leisure or interrupt his rest. We seek government with the consent of the people, a man’s freedom to say what he will, and when he thinks himself injured to find himself equal in the eyes of the law. War aims other than these, we have none.
“I understand the need to see to the day when we must build a new social structure in England also. We intend an economy that is rooted in returning to our citizens the requirements, such as housing, that they have lost in the war. And a social order that recognizes the worth of all our people, with a new and more enlightened regard for the ancient presumptive privileges of the landed gentry. What will the president say to all this?”
Bracken shuddered. He had warned Winston for this moment and thought he’d been heard.
Harry waited a long moment before answering. He said very slowly, “Prime Minister, President Roosevelt doesn’t give a damn about any of that stuff. His concern is the end of Adolf Hitler. After that, we’ll talk about what comes next. For now, we just want to kill the sonofabitch.”
A sudden, deep silence settled over the table, which Churchill broke with, “By God, so do we!” He raised his glass and said, “Let’s drink to our unity of purpose.” Bracken drank deeply.