December 26, 1941 – Winston Churchill Addresses Joint Session of the U.S. Congress

After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Winston Churchill decided to sail to America for a war confab with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. They had first met only four months earlier, off the coast of Newfoundland. They ended that meeting — their first of 11 during the conflict — by issuing a joint policy statement that came to be known as the “Atlantic Charter,” signed on August 14, 1941. The informal document formulated postwar goals, including no territorial aggrandizement, self-determination, global cooperation to secure better economic and social conditions for all, and the disarmament of aggressor nations.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill are shown in conference at sea, Aug. 15, 1941. | AP Photo

According to a history of the Newfoundland meeting in “Smithsonian Magazine”:

Both men had hoped it would convince the American people to join the war and ally with Britain, but public opinion in the U.S. did not change until Pearl Harbor.”

Churchill arrived at the White House on December 22. Smithsonian Magazine reports:

Churchill turned the second-floor Rose Suite into a mini-headquarters for the British government, with messengers carrying documents to and from the embassy in red leather cases. In the Monroe Room, where the First Lady held her press conferences, he hung up enormous maps that tracked the war effort.”

Smithsonian also writes that Churchill kept Roosevelt up until 2 or 3 a.m. every day, drinking brandy, smoking cigars and ignoring Eleanor’s exasperated hints about sleep. The two hit it off, with FDR both liking Churchill and admiring his courage.

On December 26, 1941, Churchill spoke to both houses of Congress, delivering a stirring, memorable address, including the following:

Members of the Senate, and members of the House of Representatives, I will turn for one moment more from the turmoil and convulsions of the present to the broader spaces of the future. Here we are together, facing a group of mighty foes who seek our ruin. Here we are together, defending all that to free men is dear. Twice in a single generation the catastrophe of world war has fallen upon us. Twice in our lifetime has the long arm of fate reached out across the oceans to bring the United States into the forefront of the battle.

. . . Do we not owe it to ourselves, to our children, to tormented mankind, to make sure that these catastrophes do not engulf us for the third time?

. . . I will say that he must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below of which we have the honor to be the faithful servants. It is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of the future. Still, I avow my hope and faith, sure and inviolate, that in the days to come the British and American peoples will, for their own safety and for the good of all, walk together in majesty, in justice and in peace.”

Churchill speaking to joint session of Congress, December 26, 1941

Congress gave him a thunderous reception. That night, Churchill had a minor heart attack. He did not let that setback stop him on his mission to garner support, and proceeded on to Ottawa to address the Canadian Parliament on December 30. Returning to Washington, he accompanied FDR to Mount Vernon on New Year’s Day to place a wreath on George Washington’s tomb.

Erick Trickey recounts what happened next:

That night, they gathered in the president’s study with diplomats from several Allied countries to sign a joint declaration that they would fight the Axis powers together, and that none would negotiate a separate peace. The pact included a historic new phrase: At Roosevelt’s suggestion, it was called ‘A Declaration by the United Nations.’ According to aide Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt hit upon the name that morning and wheeled himself to Churchill’s suite, unannounced, to run it by the prime minister. Ignoring a clerk’s warning that Churchill was in the bath, Roosevelt asked him to open the door. He did, revealing Churchill standing naked on the bath mat. ‘Don’t mind me,’ Roosevelt quipped.”

Churchill left for England on January 14, 1942, flying home via Bermuda. The visit proved fruitful for both leaders, and cemented not only their bond but the commitments they had made informally in Newfoundland.

Smithsonian Magazine reported:

Roosevelt, in the now-quiet White House, found he missed Churchill’s company. He sent a message to him in London that foresaw how their friendship would resonate in history. ‘It is fun to be in same decade with you,’ it read.”

Churchill and Roosevelt in the White House, December 1941