To see closeup and in dramatic detail who was responsible for rescuing and insisting upon the great invasion of france in june of 1944. As the trial turns to personal tragedy we watched with heartbreaking compassion the course of the disease and how they attempted to prepare the United Nations for an american backed postcold war era. Now we know that even on his deathbed he was the wars great visionary. Douglas brinkley says war and peace is a masterful reevaluation of dday, the demise and the conference and the pulitzer prizewinning coauthor of american war and peace are stunning achievements. Hamilton commands the talent both as a meticulous military historian and a seasoned biographer and the result is an intimate portrait of americas most consequential president. Hes the bestselling and awardwinning biographer of president john f. Kennedy, general Bernard Montgomery among other subjects. The most recent book 1941 to 1942. Hes a senior fellow at the Mccormack Graduate School at the university of boston and splits his time between boston massachusetts and new orleans louisiana. Thank you for joining us please welcome nigel hamilton. [applause] thank you very much. I will split my time between somerville and new orleans. The command was actually the first of the volume called commanderinchief and this one borrowing from a very distinguished writer many years ago is cold war and peace. Welcome this evening. Im delighted to be giving a talk in a bookstore i started my literary career as a bookseller so many people ask for a book about it and there wasnt one, so i started my writing career with my mother also and the book was a bestseller. Thats where it all began and the book was published 50 years ago. That dates us doesnt it . Today and yesterday we are celebrating a number of things. In one littl little way the begg of my own writing career in a much bigger way the anniversary of dday, the invasion of normandy 75 years ago yesterday. On one of the british beaches and a tremendous battle began at normandy. He was 25yearsold commanding innings in trade infantry and there were casualties between june 7 and midaugust of 1944. So its a pretty extraordinary moment 75 years later i was pleased to see our president went to france and britain to commemorate the invasion and pay some tribute to somebody else. For me, its a somewhat emotional moment because this book is the culmination of ten years of my life. I began it thinking i was right to just a short book about fdrs commanderinchief in world war ii and it seemed to me to be wrong, but no american historian or biographer had actually written a serious study of the president of the United States and his role as commander in chief, his constitutional role in the armed forces of the United States. And in the most violent war in Human History how come no one had done this . So, having become an american, i decided to see if i could rectify this and that was the beginning of this much longer journey than i had expected. I go to the end of the first manuscript and sent it off to my editor, got a wonderful email a week or two later saying i loved the manuscript. We are up to november 1942. Where is the rest of the war. [laughter] well, that was a sign that it would take more than one volume. And one of the reasons the books became longer, became a trilogy is because every biographer when he works on a project undergoes a learning experience. If you knew in advance what you were going to say, and everything about the subject, you wouldnt be much of a biographer. You would come across as somebody as they know little. I think one of the charms of good biography is that you the reader are going on a journey with the writer, and appropriately i began the first volume of a journey and at that stage i knew very little about when fdr boarded his president ial yacht in the summer of 1941 and set off on what seemed to be a fishing expedition and when he reached the Cape Cod Canal transferred to an american battleship and went off to meet Winston Churchill for the first formal time and together they signed the Atlantic Charter because fdr wondered if the United States, this is the summer of 1941, if the United States was going to be involved in a world war, fdr wanted to set down the moral basis for the country to fight such a war. The Atlantic Charter. In the course of the book i found that he had overruled his military chiefs of staff and this is a biography of fdr as the commanderinchief. Before they get fired had firee shot at a german so the president who fortunately was a politician who was sent to the voters and were concerned decided he must overrule his military chiefs of staff and ordered a quite different invasion that here, the invasion of north africa, morocco and algeria. And the second volume covered a similar where they bough built n airplane middle of the war and flies to casablanca to sit down but again with Winston Churchill and decide how the war should be continued and again overruled the chiefs of staff and said we will stay in the mediterranean for a moment because the soldiers have still only four states, defenders, morocco and algeria. Now here in the mediterranean not just soldiers but combat commanders, generals have to learn how to defeat the opendoublequote if hitler hadnt become the master of europe for no reason. This was tough business. And to ensure nobody would have any doubt what was required of the American Armed forces he insisted on the policy of Unconditional Surrender of the enemy, Unconditional Surrender. There would be no negotiation with the nazis. Unconditional surrender. And a few months later the First German Army did surrender to general eisenhower in may of 1943 and tw tunis leaving the wy under general eisenhower occupied sicily and established themselves in the great airfields. This final volume picks up the story and once again for me this was a learning experience because i had been brought up in britain on or just before dday under the impression that the strategy for the military conduct of world war ii by the allies and the west in europe was very much a strategy of Winston Churchill and in volume two, i have found out that they opposed the notion of the cross channel landing and for understandable reasons. After all, nobody had actually launched an invasion across the English Channel since almost a thousand years, not even hitler dared do it after the fall of france and dunkirk. So twice that year Winston Churchill had come to north america, to washington, to hide park to plead with the president not to launch dday are giving that it would be too much of a gamble, too many lives at stake that the channel would be running red with blood. But the president insisted advised by his military Staff Committee had overruled them up until that point, but he had said he declared dday must be launched in the spring of 1944, at the end of the winter in the traditional difficult waters could be crossed by the large invasion force. And the reason he wanted that to take place on the first of may, 1944, 75 years ago was because just getting onto the beaches of normandy wouldnt be enough in order to defeat a million troops there would have to be a campaigning summer in which sufficient american tanks could be landed on the shores of normandy and they would build up an army of two or perhaps 3 million men to defeat so it was vital to launch dday in may of 1944. But sadly as the president sets off the latest american battleship to meet churchill in november, 1943 with the allies in southern italy he is told by his staff that churchill wont do it. It had been overruled by the president for the third time churchill was simultaneously setting off on his battleship to meet the president in cairo before they would fly on to meet with the third party in the Great Alliance and before they ever got to tehran he was going to argue with the president that it must be delayed or canceled. On board is battleship, churchill prepared in between parts of the guard a huge monumental indictment of american stupidity. Why crossed the English Channel, why not stay in the mediterranean, why not simply guard the ceilings to the British Colonial empire could be reestablished after the war. Why not let somebody else win the war against hitler and those in the concentration camps, that is what it boils down to. There was only one man in this universe who had the kind of authority and respect to compel Winston Churchill was the commanderinchief of all the British Empire forces that includes not just british that includes canadian, south africans, australians, new zealand. There was only one who could persuade Winston Churchill to back off and get with the program he had agreed a couple of months before that dday should take place 1944 come hell or high water. So the drama of the book which again i stress sufficed me as much as anything because it has virtually been whitewashed out of history. Im sure its somewhere in this book that came out a few months ago, a new biography of Winston Churchill 1100 pages claiming that churchill never wanted to delay let alone a band in the day. Andrew roberts, well with your help bring him up to date. Persuaded the most critical moment i would argue as a historian in the history of world war ii to back down, get with the program and provide 50 of the forces which were necessary on dday itself because it couldnt be mounted without the british. It would have to be launched from england. But what could they do with Winston Churchill was pressing his own cabinet that he would resign if the americans went ahead with roosevelts plan he would reassign as the Prime Minister of britain and if he didnt like it, he could switch his forces to the pacific. I ask you today how is it that the knowledge of this crisis certainly in my lifetime has gone so uncharted its so unknown and 999 people they have no idea even though we are celebrating yesterday and today where we have no idea who saved this plan, who forced Winston Churchill to back down, to get on the planes, fly t plane, flya few days later from cairo, sat him down with marshall and fdr to launch a simultaneous russian offensive on the Eastern Front at the same time as the dday operation with a million Russian Troops so that hitler wouldnt be able to move from Eastern Front to meet the forces on the western front in france. And not only that but persuaded the ones surrendered unconditionally, the russians would provide a million troops to help defeat japan. Germany first, then japan. That had always bee has always e strategy from just before pearl harbor. So, this for me was certainly the most exciting of the three books to write because this is the culmination of the strategy for fighting the nazis in world war ii. I wish we had slides and i could show you photographs we have of the president returning and appointing at this great moment of success having gotten the british to back off and agreed to dday. The president surprises everybody by not appointing them and everybody assumetheman everd command the invasion, general George Marshall butz appoints the young general dwight eisenhower. And in richboro specht looked fantastic appointment that was because the president unlike some others we could name the lead in coalition, believe you couldnt just when a modern war on your own but even hitler could do that. So the remarkable thing about the president is that he not only saved dday, but he appoints the man that will command it, the Supreme Commander and doesnt just send him a table or a telegram from cairo, he gets on his plane which is wonderfully nicknamed the sacred cow and flies to see eisenhower in person and claimed to him why hes chosen him and what dangers he would face from ten downing street where there is a magnificent Prime Minister who is one of the great debaters and arguers of all time. So the president spends several days with eisenhower, takes him on board, they fly to bolt and sicily and its in sicily when they land and he awards the distinguished Service Medal to general mark clark for his bravery at salerno and also asks general George Patton who is in disgrace at the time for having slapped two soldiers faces in a Field Hospital suffering from shell shock and he thought that was the end of his military career. They said you will command an army in the great attack. He returns and flies to the west coast of africa and returns on board. The book is illustrated he returns and is greeted five months before the invasion is due to take place. He is greeted as a conquering hero who had flown all the way to tehran to meet with stalin and decide how the war would be won. Christmas, 1943, the president goes up to hyde park and celebrates christmas with his family and makes a wonderful broadcast to the nation and the world saying the Supreme Commander of the great attack would be general dwight eisenhower. Then a few days later, he catches the flu and nobody thinks much of it. He normally would give his address to congress on the state of the nation in person in congress, but he didnt feel up to it and so it was recorded at the white house and it was broadcast with a wonderful speech outlining what he hoped would happen after the war, trying to encourage people to think beyond the war that was being fought. Unfortunately, he never got better. And therefore, although the first half of the book is the story of a triumph that we should all know about and recognize and give credit to the president for, the second half of the book tells a sadder sto story, the story of how the president s medical team under his white house doctor who was a naval officer basically kept the public from knowing the truth about the president s condition, not just kept it from the public but kept it even from other medical authorities and so it was only months later in late march of 1944 just weeks before the dday invasion roosevelts daughter that had been out on the west coast came back to washington and saw how ill her father was and could hardly breathe and said to the admiral gets a consultant in straight away, which finally the admiral did. And a young cardiologist is brought in from the naval the nl hospital in bethesda who diagnosed a fatal hear the fatat disease and basically said the president had days to live. Again, it is an extraordinary story. Some of us have a notion of how ill the president was not how ill. Basically only able to work perhaps one or two hours a day to have all his meals in the white house usually in his bedroom unable to see visitors, and its at that point he just has enough strength he goes to South Carolina to try to recuperate but doesnt get any better, people think he is dying on his feet, not that he could stand of course, but she comes back to washington and writes the weekend before dday that wonderful prayer which i quote in the book the most beautiful, not an address, but a prayer i noticed when i was looking at the propaganda minister it amused me to read that he was incensed by the idea that this american president would invoke god in a prayer against this wonderful third reich. As we know, they were right to be concerned about the casualties that could ensue, but the casualties turned out to be relatively modest invisibility and things were not only a historic success, but where the two would hitler have always feared. Hitler had said to his generals months before dday this will be the deciding battle between world war ii. He didnt say this will be the deciding how this campaign. He said the deciding battle of world war ii and it was. And my father lost so many men in normandy, his battalion within days he was already moving into belgium and holland and by december of 1944, he was on the border of germany for which he won the distinguished Service Order at age 25. What i was doing at age 25 i have every bit of admiration for those people who risk and especially those who lost their lives in the mighty endeavor as fdr called it. But i think it also, speaking now as a biographer who has spent so many years writing these long the doors will have to close. They cant be kept open. My motivation for spending pay much a lifetime writing these biographies, my montgomery biography with three volumes and took ten years. My motivation has always been the curiosity. I want to know the real story behind the myth, but also in my case i grew up admiring not only my father, but other people that i came to interview in my various books for their leadership qualities. I think leadership is not a particularly popular word in the 1600 pennsylvania avenue, but we need leadership not only in this country, but our hopefully not former allies. Leadership. It doesnt grow on trees. Its a human characteristic. And for a biographer to be able to trace the genesis and be able to follow the story of a great leader and the greatest of all american leaders of the 20th century and i would argue probably the greatest american strategist in American History on a global scale. I am honored and proud to complete my big biography with this book. Thank you very much. [applause] we have time for some questions. There will be a microphone. My dad had the commander on the ship and then i talked to him for the first time 50 years later, all he said about it, all we can think is get off the beach. There is a standard narrati