The 1941 Christmas season was an especially bleak time. Our military had been caught with its pants down at Pearl Harbor days earlier. The war so many Americans had wanted to stay away from had come to us. Families gathered around their Christmas trees wondering which relatives would soon be going off to fight and whether they would return.
The American spirit desperately needed a fresh infusion of hope, and it got it from a highly unlikely source.
On Dec. 23, White House press secretary Steve Early herded some 100 journalists into the Oval Office for a press conference with President Franklin Roosevelt. Press conferences were much different then. They were held more frequently, and they were remarkably casual. FDR enjoyed the give-and-take with reporters, who simply crowded around his desk and peppered him with questions. The fourth estate loved covering him in return. He was a master of the game who could always be relied on for good copy.
With America’s involvement in the war just days old, the press knew they would likely get good information that Tuesday. But nobody expected what greeted the newsmen as they rushed into the room.
There, comfortably seated in a chair beside Roosevelt’s famous “cluttered desk,” sat British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
If a lightning bolt had struck the room, the reporters couldn’t have been more surprised. This was more than an unannounced state visit. Everyone realized it was a critical meeting of two new wartime allies.
On Dec. 8, the day Roosevelt had delivered his famous “day of infamy” speech to a joint session of Congress, Churchill had essentially invited himself to Washington. With the Luftwaffe in the skies and U-boats under the ocean surface, it would be a highly dangerous journey, the president had reminded him. Churchill shrugged it off. Come on, Roosevelt finally said.
After a 10-day sea voyage hidden in great secrecy, Churchill landed on U.S. soil and hurried to the White House, where he remained for the better part of three weeks. It was a highly productive visit. The two leaders hammered out the basic framework for deciding how to wage, and ultimately win, the war. More importantly, they a cemented a deep personal trust in each other. Fighting side by side would have been harder for both countries without it.
But one highlight of Churchill’s time in Washington, the one that gave Americans a much-needed dose of optimism, had nothing to do with the war. In fact, it involved a touchingly simple peacetime ritual. Roosevelt invited Churchill to join him for the lighting of the National Christmas Tree on Christmas Eve. The event was carried live from coast to coast on radio. Millions of Americans were listening to hear what Churchill had to say. And here’s what he told them:
Let the children have their night of fun and laughter. Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play. Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern task and the formidable years that lie before us, resolved that, by our sacrifice and daring, these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied their right to live in a free and decent world.
Churchill’s words touched Americans. He reminded them not only what the war was about, but what Christmas itself is about, too. He persuaded people to set aside their fears and worries for just one precious night.
And that was exactly what Americans needed to hear most of all those 77 Decembers ago.
J. Mark Powell (@JMarkPowell) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a former broadcast journalist and government communicator. His weekly offbeat look at our forgotten past, “Holy Cow! History,” can be read at jmarkpowell.com.
