POSTSCRIPT
This vignette recreates an intense moment in time when two great leaders were forced to keep some sense of normalcy while confronting huge obstacles and making critical decisions. It featured the factual events of Winston’s visit to America and the wartime decisions and dilemmas of both great leaders. FDR would begin the Manhattan Project in earnest, despite it being a huge gamble of time, money, and valuable resources.
Meanwhile, FDR’s supply of Sherman tanks and artillery to Northern Africa played a decisive role in the British victory at El Alamein. The Tobruk debacle was only abated by the solid partnership of Franklin and Winston. Their deep and friendly roots were the result of long, grave struggles together that only hardened their resolve. After the devastating shock of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt could readily empathize with Churchill when he was faced with humiliating defeats. This dynamic relationship was the most important in the twentieth century and was paramount to the Western world’s very survival.
During the preliminary years, before America officially joined the war, the British were primarily engaged in responsive tactics, striving to hold the Germans at bay. As Great Britain faced several major setbacks, Roosevelt vigorously rallied support for his friend personally, by lifting his spirits, and physically, by supplying the British with armaments. Due to Roosevelt’s struggles with Congress and an isolationist public, America entered the war late; as such, it was not fully mobilized. Fortunately, Roosevelt was clairvoyant, as well as shrewd, and had anticipated the inevitable, for he already had factories retrofitted and engaged in military production before entering the war. Moreover, FDR established his Lend-Lease program, which supplied Britain and the Allied Forces with crucial supplies.
Meanwhile, Churchill made no illusions about Britain’s early role and the world’s indebtedness to them for being the sole defenders of civilization. In the days and months ahead, the astounding rise of American ingenuity and facility proved awe-inspiring, not only to Churchill but more so to Josef Stalin. At their famous meeting in Teheran, Stalin stated point blank that the success of the war, at that point, was due to the Americans, since their unrivalled production of military machines surpassed that of Britain and Russia combined. As such, the dynamics of world power were inevitably shifting, to Churchill’s chagrin.
As a staunch imperialist, Churchill advocated his king and queen’s policy of global colonization. This caused a major rift between Roosevelt and Churchill as the president was already assessing the order of the postwar world. This led to Roosevelt’s evasive actions at Teheran that baffled and even offended his sentimental British friend. They may have been close friends, but America’s future weighed heavier on Franklin’s scale of priorities.
Over the ensuing years, Winston’s British empire crumbled while Franklin’s United States became the ultimate superpower devoted to democracy and freedom. Yet despite each nation's respective fall and rise, the fight to eliminate Hitler’s brutal Third Reich had been victorious. The darkness of Hitler’s bloody regime, born in the bowels of Hell and dedicated to hatred, was expunged, as the light of a new dawn shed its rays on a grateful free world. Integrity had conquered hatred.
The AUTHOR