Maybe 10 or 20, chose not to go. They thought the war is over, we lost and they went home back to their farms. How they fared no one knows. Host whether was your reaction in Great Britain to dunkirk . Guest churchill and churchill did this he made a defeat sound as if it was the ost heroic and he saeid evacuations, retreats are not victories, he was clear on this. But the way he said it made dunkirk sound like a heroic victory. And the british people came away saying, well, if we can do that, we can bloody well whip the hun. Well, they had it backwards. They were running, swimming literally, home without their weapons, without their tanks and jeeps they didnt have generals then but trucks and rifles. They came back soaking wet with no weapons and church ill is telling the paoeeople that wer now building up what will be the finest army in europe and we will go back. Host in 1940, mid 1940, he is Prime Minister of Great Britain. How big at that stage is the British Empire . Guest well, it covered gee graphicically about a quarter of the lefthand mass and land mass and population. The population was about a quarter of the earth. India, subcontinent. Commonwealth and dominion, canada, new zealand, ulster, northern ireland. Host hong kong, singapore . Guest oh, yes. Host how about africa . Guest they had a relationship with egypt. I thought going into this that they sort of controlled egypt. But the treaty allowed them to go in and administer the country or safeguard the suez canal and they did that. They had in south africa jan smuts and the republic of south africa. They had some somali land, some territories there that the italians just plucked from them. They were completely unprepared everywhere for war. And i think the british army plus the Australian Army of five or six divisions, new zealand and the canadians, all of them put together, even if they could all get it england were outnumbered by lhitlers army or eight to one. But they were not in england ready to go back to france. The canadians paid in hong kong and australian and british in singapore. So after dunkirk here was a country like a boxer is down on one knee and the ref is about to call in a day. Host when did the blitz of london occur . This is actually part of the battle of britain. The air battle, the hollywood battle of spitfires and everything began in bid july, july 10 officially. Host of 1940. Guest of 1940. That is when the invasion scare began. The germans were soften up for the final blow which churchill never believed was coming. Never for a minute did he believe the germans would invade. But he had to pursue the invasion scare tactic in order to build up his armies and get more planes and get equipment from the u. S. , which was dragging its feet. The final plan, the german plan, would be to soften air bases then in lit august or september crush the remnants of the r. A. F. It was a good plan but it wasnt working and goring got hitlers permission to bomb the ports. Bombing was so ineffective on both sides that meant they would be bombing houses. They did. And churchill said give it back to them. That was the beginning. So, the blitz starts on september 7, i think, the evening. And germans came 81 of the next 82 nights or Something Like that. And the terror bombing they feared and predicted began. And there was no stopping the bombers. Host how many were killed and how many wounded in great brita britain . Guest i think about 40,000 to 45,000 londoners and 60,000 throughout then the rockets came. 60,000 people in a country of 47 million, you extrapolate, that would be at the time almost 2 200,000 americans, unimaginable numbers then and now for us in the United States. Host physically what did winston do during that time, where did he live . How did he relate to london and Great Britain during the blitz . Guest he, with reluctance, left number 10 downing street which was fire trap. If a bomb hit it, that would have been the efpnd. He went underground and even those rooms were a danger. The deep underground war rooms were a little more safe. So it was a cave with 200 soldiers, his family, typists, generals, map room all still there as many of your viewers know just fascinating with the red buckets and cigars put out and the walls yellowed by cigar smoke over 20 or 30 months. He hated that. When the bombers came and he heard the thuds he would go up to the roof, the worse place to go, and he would look at a flash and count one, two, three, four, five, that is a mile and he would call for his consider and take me. They would roar through the streets. Everyone saying dont do it, mr. Prime minister. Bombs fall being. He would go there and get out of the car, talk to people in the street, the survivors, civilians. He was out there among them almost every day and most evenings. And they knew that. He would go to portsmouth around do the same thing. That was his genius. It was rash behavior, he had it do it. Host you said at one point that the lights were supposed to be off but he would smoke his cigar anyway. Guest he either was one occasion there were four of them in the car, coalville, a general, Something Else and the auto hraoeug auto lights were painted only the upper half and you were not supposed to use them at all if you didnt have to. And he came to a roadblock and the soldier said you there. Host tommy is what they called a british soldier . Guest yes. You in the car you can go no further. And from the car came go to hell, man. Im thinking well, coleville was too general, the general was too polite. I think the fourth person feels was mr. Bevan, the minister of labor, he was from the west country of england and he would not have soundedlike that. It was churchill with a cigar in violation of all rules driving around telling the guards to go to hell. Host what did he think of the french . Guest he loved france and this i found interesting as i did the work. The u. S. Versus british versus churchills take on de gaulle and the french. He felt betrayed in 1940 when the french tried to lure the final british fighter planes over to their side to fight the final battle that they were already losing. Churchill kept the planes at home and he felt the french had lost their fortitude, their soul, five years later de gaulle gave it becom back. He was very disappointed because he loved france and loved the french people. He couldnt speak the language but he recognized the legacy, intellectual, cultural, of francs and it had to be resurrected. Host you connect a bit in here with back in the 1910eu90s nam harriman. Connect the randolph and pam ma haeir Pamela Harriman and avril hair man. Randolph was winstons son. He could fight, drink. Pame pamela, im drawing a blank on her family name here. She came from and old english family, very old. Back to Thomas A Beckett which is still a catholic part of england. And the first time she met churchill she had just met randolph. In fact, they met, married, proposed all within a week or so. And she came into chartwell, chumps country home in the tkpwrpbdz where he was painting and she walked up behind him and he turned and she was just 19, very pretty. And the first thing out of his mouth was are you catholic . Which is very telling in that country. She was tape aback and said well, we were but we learned our lesson under cromwell. And he loved her. Host how long feels she married to randolph . Guest well, i think they were married in then 39 1939. Somewhere after november of 1940 little winston was been. Winston churchill the grandson. The marriage by then was already essentially over. The divorce finally came four or five years later. Everyone in london knew in anyone 42 or 1943 or 1944 that the marriage was over. Avril harriman came as a special envoy from f. D. R. And his walking orders from roosevelt were to find out everything that we can do for england short of going to war and get it to them. And randolph was, i think, in the egyptian desert on duty. Was a brave soldier. And pamela and randolph and harriman met. They would have to at these weekend dinners that churchill had at checkers, the official home of the Prime Minister, because by then chartwell is in moth balls for the duration. Host where is chartwell . Guest in kent, 40 to 45 miles southeast of london, lovely green vistas and villages. And checker is also of that distance from london but not on the flight path of the german bombers. Host in 2010 Winston Churchill iii died of Prostate Cancer but in 1999 was here and we want to show you. [video clip] finally he was given that monumental kick in the teeth by the british electorate in the hour of victory, the architect of victory. And he took it quite hard. My grandmother said perhaps it is a blessing in disguise to which she said if so very effectively disguised. Host what was his grandmother like, clementine . Guest she didnt like politics and winstons friends. His best friends she didnt like at all. Lord beaverbrook and Brendon Bracken who was a strange irishman who once claimed churchill was his father and churchill didnt do anything to diminish the rumor. She didnt like the gambling winston did before the war in mon monte carlo. He never did well. She had a nervous temperament her daughter wrote. One year i think they had four dinners alone, 1944, clementine and winston. And if they were at dinner aides were coming in, bombs were falling and the house was full of guests. Russian diplomats she doesnt want there. She had a very hard time. Im not sure again i mentioned earlier winston was not sympathetic or empathetic over matters of mental anxiety, that sort of thing. Host what did you conclude about his Mental Health . Guest that was interesting. I had long talk with my editor bill tphreufpls phillips and they warn against a retroactive diagnosis but this whole black dog thing started in a letter he wrote in 1911. He never used the term again. A and coville and others who worked for him, nannies would say to their children, little kids they are taking care of, the black dog is on him today. Host depression . Guest no, for the little children it was bad behavior or bad day, an expression nannies used, what would be called a bad hair day. It was not as used by these folks something we would call major adult depression. Now, whatever churchill experienced in anyone 11 1911 sounded to these doctors like a moderate depressive episode. He got through it. He doesnt mention it any more. Years dirists would say he looked depressed and that created a depression word document and singapore just fell bismarck is on the loose, Something Else just fell, he is having very bad days and i dont think his cronies were using depression in a clinical sense. Winston was utterly destroyed today. He was depressed. So, i concluded that if as freud if you can live and love and work you have your full Mental Health and he loved his family. He never couldnt work which is a symptom of depression. He never thought nobody loves me or disconsolate and all of the sympto symptoms. Ironically he would exhibit some of them days apart. Too much drinking, you know, hyperactivi he wasnt manic depressive. He drank too much for 70 years. So, as a symptom of depression what does that tell you . Everything about him is complex, contradicto contradictory. Before we move on i have to ask you because in the jim miller piece he talks about your editor Bill Phillips and says that you and Bill Phillips have never met each other in person. Is that still the case . Guest that is the case. Bill phillips is the greatest man i never met. Host explain the relationship. Guest he says he has a thousand mills we ha emails we have exchanged. We would talk on the phone. I was about two years into the project before i met well, met him on the phone. Host where were you at the time . Guest i was center asheville, north carolina, at our house and in belmont, massachusetts, outside of boston. I didnt really have a man new script to send him and another year or two would go by and i would send him chunks. We began back and forth with the first 100 pages, the next and next. And we never really exchanged the entire manuscript. It slowly went along. But we would find that as we were in now the seventh or eighth year and working on the last year of the war, 1945, changes there resulted in changes at the beginning of the book. It sounds counterintuitive so i had to go back to something that was said in 1945 about the blitz and we were like wait a minute and back and forth and back and forth. And bill was very encouraging. We did have this bill manchester and Winston Churchill loft metaphors. And in volumes one and two manchester almost creates a shadow voice that is churchillian with his use of metaphors and i thought it worked. If he was writing about mcarthur y would not use that flower churchillian voice. And churchills memoirs is full of metaphors. 1941 was the rapids. 1942 was the whirl approximat. So i started doing that and Bill Phillips said forget the metaphors, paul. We want to write a 21st book in a voice different than manchesters. And if churchill use as metaphor and it is in quotes that is one thing but we are not trying to imitate either one of them. And that worked wonderfully. And bill also, on the facts of he told me im editing for read ability. If you tell me the bismarck sank on this date in this ocean, you know, im going to take your word for it, paul. He was not editing as newspaper editor does. That was a learning experience for me. My editors, if i wrote a feature story about the bismarck, they would say verified and sank on this day and this ocean and this many people died and the write ability was not of their highest concern. Host do you and Bill Phillips have any plans to meet . Guest yes. Well, no hard plans. I was going to meet him this very week and i had some dental issues that resulted in canceling the boston tour. I would love to meet him. My dream is at some tphaoepblg seafood new England Seafood place because i miss that and he could pick up the check, of course. Host how many times i know you say that Winston Churchill traveled to the United States 16 times. How many times did he ask f. D. R. To get in the war . Guest at one point i thought am i exaggerating and i thought no, im not. He took to begging. He asked, cajoled, he asked for 50 destroyers. F. D. R. Dragged his feet. First he said no. Then he said maybe. Then by november of 1940 the first five or six of the 50 dribbled in. They were rust buckets and virtually obsolete. Which roosevelt told tNew York Times and congress. He said we gave them junk and we get six or seven Caribbean Naval bases from the empire. At one point that summer i believe churchill wrote a letter and asked roosevelt to declare war. That is how desperate he was. And so after a few brandies in t the co vilville diaries churchi says they want to us bleed to death and pick up everything that is left for free. At one point they were thinking around the dipper table of having everyone in england melt their wedding rings because it might raise 8 million or 10 million of gold and use that to buy American Goods because it was all cash and carry, to shame the americans. They didnt do that. Host how much did Winston Churchill expect japan to get into the war . Guest one of the things, in doing this, i had to lock at what is he interested in . What is in his head. Try to place churchill in his tim times. He was interested in norway, sumatra, not japan, not the pacific. His knowledge of the geography, the politics, the military situati situation, was not there. And he admits in his memoirs in order to imagine a picture of a theatre of war or what have you, you have to have some knowledge to let your imagination run three. And he didnt and he admitted that and he paid dearly for it. He thought the japanese were a meek race who couldnt see well, couldnt shoot straight in an airplane, were bad fighters, would never have the tim merchantity to attack the British Empire. And he people that. They will not attack us. How could they possibly contemplate that. Host what was his reaction when the japanese bombed pearl harbor . Guest that he just won the war. Host that was december 7, 1941. Here he is in front of the Congress Joint Session on the day after christmas, 1941. [video clip] we have been inflict ed upon the nazi tyranny and it has bitten deep and will fester and inflame not only in the nagging body but the nagging minds the boastful mussolini has crumbled already. Hes now but a lackey and a surf, a mere aou continue sill of his aou utensil of his masters will. Japan should in a single day into war against the United States and British Empire. What kind of people do they think we are . Is it possible they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which the world will never forget. Host right over his left henry wallace, Vice President of the United States at the time. What impact did that speech have on the United States guest we were in the war. Whether clutch came or not america was rages against the japanese, not the germans. The first week pearl harbor. Then hitler made the decision to declare war on the United States when he didnt have to and that, churchill realized, meant the end for hitler if the americans went to europe first. The policy of Germany First then japan had to be worked out. Which is why churchill was in washington that month. I think americans always liked churchill. He had been speaking in america for 20 years. Was american. Guest his mother was american. He was well known on the lecture circuit and now here he is as Prime Mi