Blog Archives

Men in the Back Channels of World War II

“My job was to try and oil the wheels between the British and the Americans.  After that first dinner with the President, I used to go out to Hyde Park at weekends.  There were always Roosevelts there, and people like

Posted in Essays

Winston Churchill versus Joseph Chamberlain

Colville noted that Chamberlain “likes to be set on a pedestal and adored, with suitable humility, by unquestioning admirers.”[1]  As Prime Minister, however, Chamberlain collected critics.  One Conservative ally of Chamberlain noted that the Prime Minister “engendered personal dislike among

Posted in Essays

The Poetry of Leadership

In early 1941, defeated Republican presidential candidate Wendell Willkie visited London.  He took with him a handwritten note from the American President  for the British Prime Minister.  Franklin D. Roosevelt had written out five lines from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem

Posted in Essays

Union Leaders

As a young politician, Abraham Lincoln had said: “I know the American People are much attached to their Government; – I know they would suffer much for its sake; – I know they would endure evils long and patiently, before

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Lincoln and Churchill: Pacing and Prodding

Both Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill were pacers.  Lincoln paced in hall of the second floor of the White House, usually at night.  Churchill paced in the Great Hall of Chequers, the Prime Minister’s weekend getaway – even later at

Posted in Essays

Leaders, Maps and Globes

In December 1941, just seventeen days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the National Geographic Society delivered a map cabinet to the White House.  Franklin D. Roosevelt welcomed the gift, which was installed in the second floor study where

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Isaiah Berlin in War

Isaiah Berlin in War Latvian-borne Oxford academic Isaiah Berlin was a intellectual fox with many talents. Berlin loved to talk, but he was an even more skilled writer and political analyst. In the summer of 1940, the Russian-speaking Berlin was

Posted in Essays

Revenge & Reconstruction

Abraham Lincoln and Reconstruction Mr. Lincoln and Reconstruction President Abraham Lincoln needed to mobilize the North to fight the Civil War. To fight the Second World War, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill needed to mobilize his own country, the Dominion,

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Peace & Unconditional Surrender

Abraham Lincoln and Peace Hampton Roads Conference Abraham Lincoln and Alexander H. Stephens Francis P. Blair, Sr. Horace Greeley James Jaquess In February 1862 just before the surrender of Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River, Union General Ulysses S. Grant

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Democracy, Liberty & the Legislature

Members of Congress Visitors from Congress Abraham Lincoln and Republican Radicals Abraham Lincoln’s Values and Philosophy “I leave you,” concluded Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln at a Chicago campaign rally in July 1858, “hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn

Posted in Essays