Read The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt Online
Authors: Eleanor Roosevelt
On this visit of Mr. Churchill’s, as on all his subsequent visits, my husband worked long hours every day. The prime minister took a long nap every afternoon, so was refreshed for hard work in the evening and far into the night. While he was sleeping, Franklin had to catch up on his regular work. Even after he finally retired, if important dispatches or messages came in, he was awakened, no matter what the hour, and nearly every meal he was called on the telephone for some urgent matter. It always took him several days to catch up on sleep after Mr. Churchill left.
A number of people have accused me at various times of having no sense of propriety, because frequently I had what they called unimportant people to meet important ones. Throughout the war years the comings and goings of official people was shrouded in mystery, and it was never as simple as it now sounds to make arrangements for them. They arrived and they left suddenly, and none of us were warned beforehand. This often accounted for my having conflicting engagements and for the presence of people whom I might not have invited had I known in advance what was going to happen.
During this first visit of the British prime minister I had invited Mr. and Mrs. Louis Adamic, Monroe Robinson, my cousin, and several others to dinner on January 13. Of course, when I invited them I had no idea that Mr. Churchill would be there. After dinner I took Mr. and Mrs. Adamic, Monroe Robinson and Miss Thompson to the Philadelphia concert, and the evening seemed to me of casual interest.
The reason for asking Mr. and Mrs. Adamic was that I had read a book of his,
Two-Way Passage
, which I thought interesting. Because I was always looking for new points of view to interest my husband, I had given him the book to read.
No one was more surprised than I when Mr. Adamic wrote a book,
Dinner at the White House
, based on this occasion. He seemed to think every smallest detail of the evening had some particular significance or meaning behind it. It was the supreme example of how much can be made of how little. In the book Mr. Adamic repeated a story which was most derogatory to the British prime minister; in fact, the whole book was anti-British and anti-Churchill. Mr. Churchill hotly resented it and sued Mr. Adamic in Great Britain, where the libel laws are somewhat different from ours. Of course, Mr. Adamic to the contrary, the whole evening had been a completely casual affair.
In these first talks which my husband and the prime minister had, they faced the fact that there was a long drawn-out war ahead during which there would be many setbacks, and that both of them, as leaders of their nations, would have to be prepared to bolster the morale of their people. To explain to one’s country that there must be a long period while the military forces are being trained and armed, during which production will be one of the most important factors, and that meanwhile people must be patient and hope at best to hold the line is no easy or popular thing to do.
I always had great admiration for the way in which Mr. Churchill did this. In some ways he was more blunt with the people of Great Britain than my husband ever was with us. The British people were closer to the danger and I suppose for that reason could better understand the blunt approach.
IN RETROSPECT
, the thing that strikes me about these days is my triple-barreled effort to work with the OCD, carry out my official engagements, and still keep the home fires burning. I wonder particularly how I ever managed to get in all the trips I took. At the same time my husband was having more and more meetings with the Cabinet, military advisers, foreign diplomats and labor people. In one morning he saw Major General Joseph W. Stilwell, the Greek minister, and David Dubinsky.
The list of White House guests was interestingly varied during the first half of 1942. It seems to me that everyone we were to know well during the next few years began coming at about that time; and all the royal families whose countries had been overrun sooner or later appeared, looking for assistance. Each was given a formal dinner; whatever else they got, of course, I do not know.
One of the most interesting and peculiar visitors was Alexander Woollcott, who came to the White House in January and spent four days with us. I doubt if it would have been possible to have had Mr. Woollcott as one’s guest very long in any ordinary household, because he required a good many things that the ordinary household could not easily provide. For instance, he wanted coffee at all hours, and he invited guests for meals in his bedroom or in a sitting room where he could be alone with them. My work and my engagements kept me away from the house a good part of the time, but late one afternoon I returned just as he was leaving for an engagement. As I came in the door he said: “Welcome, Mrs. Roosevelt, come right in. I am delighted to see you. Make yourself at home.”
Among our other guests in 1942 were Prime Minister Mackenzie King, President and Señora Quezon. In May Foreign Minister Molotov came, accompanied by his interpreter, Mr. Pavlov. I was not at home when they arrived so he was given a stag dinner, but the following morning Mr. Molotov came into my sitting room with Mr. Pavlov, to have a talk with me. He talked about social reforms in his country and in mine, and he hoped that I would some day visit the U.S.S.R. I had already been told of an incident that had caused much quiet amusement. One of the White House valets was astounded when he unpacked Mr. Molotov’s bag to find inside a large chunk of black bread, a roll of sausage and a pistol. The Secret Service men did not like visitors with pistols, but on this occasion nothing was said. Mr. Molotov evidently thought he might have to defend himself, and also that he might be hungry.
I liked him and I was impressed by Mr. Pavlov’s English, which, he told me, he had learned from American students in Russia. He must have been gifted with a good ear, for he had no accent. I think Mr. Molotov, too, could understand English, for he often began to answer questions without waiting for the translation.
The King of Greece was with us on June 10, and on the 14th there was an impressive Flag Day ceremony in the state dining room of the White House, at which the secretary of state and the diplomatic representatives of twenty-seven other nations were present.
I spent a good deal of time in New York City that spring, emptying our house and Mrs. James Roosevelt’s. We had lived in these houses since 1908 and one can imagine the accumulation of the years. My mother-in-law never threw anything away. It was a tremendous job.
Mr. Churchill was with us again from the 21st to the 25th of June. The friendship and affection between my husband and Mr. Churchill grew with every visit. It was evident that Great Britain and the United States would have to co-operate in any case, but the war could be carried on to better advantage with the two nations closely united through the personal friendship of Mr. Churchill and my husband. The two men had many interests in common, in addition to the paramount issue of the war. They were men who loved the sea and the Navy. They knew a great deal of history and had somewhat similar tastes in literature. Both of them had read much biography. Their companionship grew, I think, with their respect for each other’s ability.
I remember the day Tobruk fell. Mr. Churchill was with us when the news came, and though he was stricken, his immediate reaction was to say, “Now what do we do?” To neither of these men was there such a thing as not being able to meet a new situation. I never heard either of them say that ultimately we would not win the war. This attitude was contagious, and no one around either of them would ever have dared to say, “I am afraid.”
Franklin knew and understood Mr. Churchill’s background. He seemed to agree when I said on one occasion that I thought the time that would be hardest for Mr. Churchill would be after the war. The world that had existed before the war had been pleasant as far as he was concerned; his tendency would be to want to go back to it, even though he might realize that there was no way in which one could go back to a prewar world.
My husband often said he felt sure Mr. Churchill would retire from office after the war ended, but I gathered that he expected that he and Mr. Churchill and Mr. Stalin would still be in office for at least a short time afterward and have something to say about the policies laid down. He felt that the world was going to be considerably more socialistic after the war and that Mr. Churchill might find it difficult to adjust to new conditions. A remark made to him by Mr. Stalin in one of their talks gave him hope that there might be, after the war, more flexibility in Communism than we actually have seen so far.
Franklin had been wondering aloud what would happen in their respective countries if anything happened to any of the three men. Stalin said: “I have everything arranged in my country. I know exactly what will happen.” My husband said: “So much depends in the future on how we learn to get along together. Do you think it will be possible for the United States and the U.S.S.R. to see things in similar ways?” Mr. Stalin responded: “You have come a long way in the United States from your original concept of government and its responsibilities, and your original way of life. I think it is quite possible that we in the U.S.S.R., as our resources develop and people can have an easier life, will find ourselves growing nearer to some of your concepts and you may be finding yourselves accepting some of ours.”
This, of course, was casual conversation, and I give it as I remember hearing my husband repeat it. It encouraged him to believe that confidence could be built between the leaders and that we might find a way to live in the world together, each country developing along the lines that seemed best for it.
My husband had great confidence in his own ability to understand others and to make them understand our motives and the needs and realities of a situation. One of his reasons for being willing to meet with the heads of other nations outside the country, when they were unwilling to come here, was his feeling that he could convince them better by personal contact than by letter or telephone. I think Franklin accepted what other men in high office said, and believed that if he kept his word they would keep theirs. But he was never prone to overlook a breach of contract.
I shall never cease to be grateful to Mr. Churchill for his leadership during the war; his speeches were a tonic to us here in the United States as well as to his own people. The real affection which he had for my husband, and which was reciprocated, he apparently never lost. It was a fortunate friendship. The war would have been harder to win without it, and the two men might not have gone through it so well if they had not had personal pleasure in meeting and confidence in each other’s integrity and ability.
The day before Mr. Churchill left in June, 1942, young King Peter of Yugoslavia came to the White House and afterwards Franklin said to me: “That young man should forget that he is a king and go to work. In the long run, he would be better off.” I think of that now when I see him with his wife and child. Waiting around for a throne is not really a satisfactory business.
That spring we had Crown Princess Marta and her children and household at Hyde Park. During the war she usually spent a week or more with us each spring and autumn on her way to some place for the summer or back to Washington for the winter. We came, for that reason, to know them all very well and I shall never forget some of the things I learned about the bringing up of royal children. Prince Harald seemed devoid of fear, and though he was frail when he first came, I can remember his swimming when the water was extremely cold. I thought he ought to come out and get warm, but I was told that the water in Norway was colder and that he must become accustomed to the cold.
The names of the people who came to see me that year recall a great many activities. One of the guests who gave my husband and me the greatest pleasure was John Golden, who always went to any amount of trouble to put on a performance or to find something he thought Franklin would enjoy. Franklin once told him that the first play he had ever seen was
The Black Crook,
which he had stolen away to see without the permission of his parents. John Golden found one of the original copies of the play and had it beautifully bound for him, which gave Franklin much real pleasure. He also did a tremendous amount of work for the servicemen, getting them free tickets for plays and movies, giving prizes for the best plays written by enlisted men, and putting on a show, the proceeds of which went to the Army and Navy Relief.
In August we had our first visit from Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. My press conference ladies wanted to meet her, and she did attend one conference the morning after her arrival. During the course of the meeting she said something about the increase in tuberculosis in Holland under the Nazis, which she immediately afterwards regretted, fearing the Nazis would retaliate against her people. So I had to chase after the women and insist that everything the Queen had said about tuberculosis must be off the record.
This was Franklin’s second meeting with the Queen of the Netherlands. The first had been when he called on her while she was staying with Princess Juliana in Massachusetts, not many miles from Hyde Park. Crown Princess Marta, who was staying with us at the time, went with him and she told with amusement how Franklin announced to the Queen that he had been nervous before meeting her because he had heard she was one of the most awesome of crowned heads. His respect for her increased with each meeting and both he and I came to have a warm affection for her.
The next event of real importance to me was my husband’s decision that I should accept Queen Elizabeth’s invitation to go to Great Britain to see the work the women were doing in the war and to visit our servicemen stationed there. I did not know that one of the reasons my husband was eager to have me go over was that those men would shortly be leaving for North Africa for the invasion.
Franklin had received some tentative inquiries about whether I would be interested in going over and seeing the role that the British women were playing in the war. Naturally the British looked upon my visit as providing an opportunity to get that story told in the United States, for the Queen, knowing I wrote a column and made speches fairly frequently, felt that I had access to the people here.