American Experience

Historian Robert Dallek on the Atlantic Charter

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ROBERT DALLEK: Well the Atlantic conference in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland is a dramatic moment in World War II history because for the first time, Roosevelt and Churchill are meeting face to face in this war.

They had had an earlier meeting back during World War I, but Churchill certainly didn't remember it. But for the first time now in World War II they're getting together and having a summit conference. And the two of the great world class leaders are coming together and they're going to confer on how their two democracies can combat Nazism, fascism. There's a lot of worry in the United States when it's revealed that Roosevelt went to meet with Churchill that he's mixing us up too much in British affairs and that he's going to draw us into this war. And they're deeply concerned. On the other hand there's also the feeling that this is a very good idea because what they're doing out of this conference is issuing what they call the Atlantic Charter. And that they stand for the principles of freedom of religion, of free speech, of free assembly, of national sovereignty, of nonaggression. They are standing together for those time-honored principles of constitutionalism and democracy that the American people are very committed to.

Roosevelt meets with Churchill in the summer of 1941 and Harry Hopkins is instrumental -- Roosevelt's right-hand man, Harry Hopkins -- is instrumental in arranging the meeting. He's very worried that these two men of such gigantic ego and prestige and standing may not get along and this will be very destructive to this Anglo-American alliance which is developing in World War II. In fact they get along marvelously. They find that they're very drawn to each other, that they're very congenial. Though they have terribly different habits, their schedules of sleeping and of drinking and eating are really at odds with one another. But what's striking is how much they accommodate to each other. And also how much Churchill accommodates to Roosevelt, cause he understands how dependent Britain is upon this great American leader. And so he works very hard to achieve a kind of rapport with him and they do it marvelously.

I think the lasting importance of the Atlantic conference between FDR and Churchill was that they got along, that they had a kind of mutual view of the world. They accepted the proposition that the greatest thing they had to do was to defeat Nazi Germany, that this was an absolutely crucial thing for democracy in the world. And that this blight upon western civilization had to be overcome. And that they were both committed to it and it was clear, crystal clear to both of them that this was their agenda. Whatever tactics, methods they might use, that this was their ultimate goal and they shared it and they wouldn't lose sight of it.

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