Rich history. Learn more at www. Cspan. Org. Are watching American History tv, all weekend, every week it on cspan 3. Coming up next on the presidency, a conversation about the world war ii leadership styles a president Franco Roosevelt and british Prime MinisterWinston Churchill. Policy posse institute hosted this event. Welcome to roosevelt house. , the actingpolsky dean of Hunter College. And professor of political science. Our program this evening features to visitors, who are deeply knowledgeable about the decisions that led up to be historic moment 70 years ago when allied forces stormed ashore of normandy to begin the final struggle of the liberation of europe from nazi germany. Nigel hamilton is the author of the just published book the mantle of command. Works, allenher packwood is the director of director of churchill archives centre. The leading authority on all things western churchill. In a few moments, i will turn thethe microphone to tina, sponsor of our series on churchill of which at this Evenings Program is the final installment. Following her introduction, each of our guests will speak for about 20 minutes and then they will join me for a conversation. Well have time for audience questions before we close. Over time and perhaps it is so with the two men who are the subjects of this Evenings Program. Antern churchill exercise influence over the immediate postwar depreciation of allied leadership. He was admire for his determination after the fall of france in 1940 through the battle of britain and for his warning an iron curtain was dissenting after the war. His reputation was helped in those small measure to buy his own magisterial six volume series, the Second World War. Fictionthe first great that the war generated. Fdrs star faded when his political enemies depicted him as the great sellout of the people of eastern europe. More recently though, we have seen a shift in historical perception will stop historians have found more to admire and roosevelt. Had lost ofill stashed some of his luster. Had lost some of his luster. I am very much in the roosevelt camp. How fitting we should be having this conversation here and roosevelt house. The restored home of franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt shared with franklins mother. The president no longer resided here i the time of pearl harbor but he spent important formative time in this space both before and after he was stricken with polio. He interacted here with key political leaders. It is safe to say he developed many of his ideas about the world within a few feet of where i now stand. Guideideas would in turn and grand strategy for better and worse. And influence the kind of world order he hoped to develop as part of the victory he expected the allies to achieve. This program is part of a series that is the brainchild of tina flaherty. She gives new meaning to the label multitalented. She starred as a radio personality in memphis, tennessee. She began a successful career as a corporate executive. She became the first female vice atsident of colgate and then two other leading corporations. She is an accomplished arthur at the tripping too many journalists and news shes accomplished author and journalist. Rereleased ineen 2014 and in an expanded edition and would mark here in a special program a month ago. Tina has been active in flint three oh such as a generous donor to the Writing Center which will host its Fourth Annual conference conference. Team has been an active philanthropist and generous donor to the Writing Center which will host its Fourth Annual conference. Thank you for that very gracious introduction and all of you for showing up tonight. Are glad you chose to be with us. Call youshould i andrew. I heard so many good things about you. It and innot take decided to google you. Your credentials are very impressive and even more impressive is what your students say about you. They say you are not only brilliant with your words but with your humor. I think we can all expect not only an enlightening discussion but a lively discussion. Speaking of enlightenment, i have to Say Something right now. Hunter, this is ruminating series would not have been possible without the involvement of the whole Hunter College which starts with the and also roosevelt, the director of Public Policy here at the roosevelt house and lewis, who i do not think is here tonight, but he was involved as well. Briefly, everybody wants to know why are you so hung up on roosevelt . I am home got on here, too. Why are you so hung up on churchill . The reason i am so hung up on churchill is i believe Everybody Needs a hero in life. Churchill is my hero for all seasons and for all reasons. That is why i sponsored it. [applause] as a lot of you know, this is the culmination of our churchill series. Adly, it was such blockbuster, what a run and we have had from the very beginning. Just to briefly review, i do not know how many of you joined us when churchills granddaughter spoke about churchills leadership and what made him a leader for the ages. That was a beautiful lecture and followed by the roberts lecture. He is a renowned churchill and ar and historian bestselling author. His was wonderful, too. And lee olson, who wrote a book that i love, it is so beautifully done. Her latest book is those angry days. She spoke of her book. That was followed by randolph and ginny churchill, the great granddaughter and great grandson of sir winston. They spoke of the influence on western churchills mother from brooklyn and beyond. And we filled the playhouse for that. After that, we had paul read. He wrote the book with the late william manchester. Anybody who knows me knows by now i am a handson person and i like to get involved in all aspects of the project. Starting with the vision of this which was wonderful, i had such what i was trying to say and it better. Team made also, i got very involved with selecting the speakers. What a lineup of the speakers we have had. Tonight is the icing on the cake. This it has this is really been a splendid series. I think the you are going to meet every body but i will briefly say we have three distinguished individuals. Allen packwood, nigel hamilton, and Andrew Polsky to moderate. Alan. Introduce my friend he is the director of the Churchill Archives Center at the university of cambridge in england and a fellow and the executive director of the Churchill Center in the u. K. Allen has worked on sir winstons personal papers since 1995. It is almost one million it now. Those papers are alongside the Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and john major. Is a very gifted writer. I am lucky to know him because he did something for me for my book. Think everybody can agree that this is a lot of churchill and you have done a lot of things with churchill. You are absolutely the right person for the right time to speak. The title of his topic is courage, planning, and preparation. To briefly introduce nigel hamilton, our next speaker. Nigel hamilton is britishborn. There he is right there. He is an american citizen now. He is an awardwinning biographer. He divides his time between new orleans and and. And boston. He has written more than 20 works of history and biographies which have been translated into 16 languages. I am sure a lot of you are from the u. S. Is bestselling work on the young john f. Kennedy jeff youth. Jfk reckless his previous book was a biography on the last 12 president from fdr to george bush. I have heard nigel speak several times. He speaks with passion and he speaks with insight and he speaks with a great grasp of history. As you know, there are going to be books for sale later in that book is called the mantle of command. It is a key entry in the ongoing debate as to who made the grand strategy in the early war years. Was it roosevelt or churchill . Talk is how nigels fdr overruled his generals and laid down the strategy by which the allies would win world war ii. Our moderator is sitting right there, Andrew Polsky, a distinguished scholar of the american presidency. His most recent book is elusive victories the bank victories. , you can direct us from here on. We have changed the order of the speakers. Thank you. [applause] thank you very much, tina. Withyou said nigel speaks but i thought you were going to say with a british accent. [laughter] i have lived here with a 20 years. Can i not get rid of it . I am delighted to be here. I cannot think of a more appropriate place. I did speak at the fdr president ial library last week on memorial day weekend. This is even better. Thank you very much, everybody for coming out tonight. Panelelighted to be on a with allen packwood, who i got to know when researching my new book in cambridge and more recently in new orleans. We share a love of jazz. [laughter] i am also not any fortunate and you asked me to speak here in the roosevelt house. I am fortunate to have actually met Winston Churchill. In fact to have stayed with Winston Churchill at his country when i was a student at many, many years ago. An incredible weekend and i think we should take a moment to remember churchills wonderful daughter, mary, who died on saturday evening a couple of nights ago. And i went to mary and her husband, they had a farmhouse near winstons house. They put on a beautiful Birthday Party for winston. I have to say that when i think back to that memory am a i do remember mary as a wonderful lady. And i met her in subsequent years. That weekend, i was only 19 years old and i remember the night before at the dinner, which i do not think mary came to. But her sister, sarah, who was an actress came. She came very late. Montgomery, who had to watch is on his wrist. Wrist. Watches on his sarah came in and said she was sorry but was for her sing. Said, darling, you better have a joint. She said, that will be wonderful. You better have a drink. She was wearing this very tight, little, black number. I was 19. I was rather knocked out. Very lowcut. As [laughter] and the Lady Churchill had a friend, a houseguest friend called mrs. Hanley. She was a rather oldfashioned lady. I think i am right in saying she had a so she takes the te out ofet loinet her purse. She sees the voluminous deck ok sees around the tight, black number was a fox stole as a trim. Said, shouldnt that be up there . Anyway, a very unforgettable weekend for a 19yearold student at cambridge university. Unfortunate to spend that weekend with winston. I was incredibly fortunate to spend probably about 10 years or at least many hours over the next 10 years talking about Winston Churchill with field marshal montgomery, who absolutely loved churchill, almost actually did him. Him. Ulated monti was the general of the armys active dday. He had a pretty close knowledge of Winston Churchill and would often visit him on the battlefield and in north africa and europe. After monti died, i spent 10 years at the montgomerys of visual biographer and wrote a three volume biography which i am not suggesting any of you undertake to read as each one is 1000 pages. You can imagine i became pretty conversant as a military historian with the story of world war ii and the stories of world war ii. And by the end of it, i think i had enough of world war ii and i came to the United States. In 20 years, i have been a president ial historian based in the boston. I have written about the young jfk and also to volumes about president clinton and my recent book was lives of the president from fdr to george w. Bush. When i finished that book, finishing five years ago, i was very disappointed as tina was ,lluding to to the fact that the memory of fdr has somewhat faded. I cannot believe as a military historian or former military historian that there was not an United States as commander in chief. By virtue of our constitution, the president is not the chief executive but the commanderinchief of the armed forces. And to think he had been the commanderinchief from pearl harbor through world war ii , 1945,ust a few weeks just a few weeks before hitlers suicide, really stunned me. I looked into it. Not that there were no books about fdr, there were plenty of books about fdr. He is the father of the new diplomat, fdr is a stamp collector. About fdr as aok commander of chief during world war ii. , i said i would not go myk to military history, trenches here i am and once again in the middle of a work. Volumes andrst of 2 i hope to finish the next volume sometime next year. All, why do we think has it not been a really serious account of fdr as commander in chief . One of the reasons is that after every every general, every admiral wrote his own autobiography or had commissioned his biography about how he contributed. Winning world war ii. I am thinking of marshall and admiral king and the secretary of war. Theirll recounted how achievements in world war ii. President had not survived the war, he actually started writing what he thought would be his biography before the war began. The press responsibility made it impossible. He was looking forward in retirement to doing it. That moment, it even though he , itonly 63 when he died never came. And so, i think in a sense the story of fdr as commander in chief has gone by default. The portrait we have in our minds of fdr is largely secondhand. It is a reflection bouncing of the memoirs of other people. Trying to tell the rooseveltresident wearing the mantle of command from pearl harbor to the end of his life in world war ii. Problem the other of course, the other problem biography of of fdr and world war ii is that Winston Churchill who was considerably older did survive the war. Not only did he survive it but he wrote a magisterial series of books, six volumes. Wongantic enterprise which him the nobel prize of literature and wonderfully written and which has survived wonderfully to this very day. You cannot pick up the book without being entranced by its ability not only as a writer, a brilliant writer, his grasp of history. His ability to see events in a larger context of history of century of previous grand strategy, of previous character. Extent, theome views which we have inherited of colored to a great deal by the way that sir Winston Churchill or trade in the Second World War portrayed in the Second World War. View,churchills point of churchill expresses his gratitude, his admiration for the president , for the president s generosity and the president s willingness to help out britain. Find fault with sir winston in my new book, it is not againsti have anything Winston Churchill or his memory i have nothing but admiration and respect for a singlehandedly 1940 and that in was one of the things that monti used to say to me again and again, montgomery directed the division and felt that it was not anybody left in britain who could just marshall the morale of the country. I have enormous respect for what Winston Churchill achieved in 1940 in standing up alone against dictators. I do think that my criticism of Winston Churchill is more that his view of the war which is his that of is very much where her, westminster directed military operations. And i have taken on a different project. My task is to tell the story of world war ii for the first time from the point of view of the white house 1600 pennsylvania avenue. Studys to say the oval behind fdrs bed room, the oval office downstairs, the rooms he down intheir there the ground floor. He converted on the advice of Winston Churchill into his map room. All of his secret signals went out and came in. Interviewn able to the last surviving officers from that map room and many of the diaries relating to fdrs role as commander in chief of world war ii. I cant tell you it is quite different from the one we have come to accept. You see the president of the United States in his role as. Ommanderinchief first of all, you see him stunned and shocked on the day of pearl harbor. Exactly as Winston Churchill was when becoming Prime Minister when the germans sliced through the french and british lines and expedition,ritish the same sort of force that had been sent to europe in 1914. And being evacuated. And in the mantle of command, you see in a similar situation on the night of pearl harbor. Stunned, and without much idea of what could be done since the entire American Fleet had been sunk. Then you see him taking the reins of a different kind of power than he had ever had before once congress authorized a declaration of war. First against the japanese, who started the business, and then hitler who declared war on us on the 11th of december, 1941. It is fascinating for me and i hope it will be fascinating for you to see how the president actually takes over the running of the military. Forhow much we owe to him the way he did it. The first thing he does, he decides to ignore largely Public Opinion. There is panic in washington. Across the whole United States, there is a call for the war to be prosecuted against the japanese. After all, is the japanese that has attacked the u. S. Hitler has declared war and that its a piece of paper in berlin. It is the president of the United States who said, no, germany first. We could defeated japan and hitler would still be in complete control of the whole of europe pretty much. ,here as if we def