Callaghan Book

Over one half of this book focuses on the World War II years. Martin Gilbert has a style of "only the facts". There is little probing beneath the surface as the book quotes Churchill enormously and also uses letters sent to Churchill. I was, for instance, hoping to find some enlightenment as to why Churchill did not attend Roosevelt's funeral, but found virtually none. Churchill travelled continuously during the war years - so why did he not go to the U.S. to at least meet Roosevelt's successor Truman? I did find some interesting speculation on this in Jon Meacham's Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship.

"Churchill and America" makes for highly interesting reading because the story in itself is great history. But there are still many things missing. Eleanor Roosevelt is absent and Clementine is rarely present.

Martin Gilbert follows the path of many historians in the assumption that Roosevelt caved in at Yalta. He does not mention the concessions that Stalin gave about the U.N. or that Poland was already a "fait accompli" for Stalin by that time (there were millions of Russian troops in Poland by January 1945).

My favourite quote (in a telegram to Truman): "An iron curtain is drawn upon their front. We do not know what is going on behind this enormous Muscovite advance into the centre of Europe which will isolate us from Poland".