Conferences, In Church & Out

When nightfall shut off the brief winter afternoon, the train was sliding swiftly south toward Vermont. Newsmen on the train were bored, listless, let down after the four days of pressure in Ottawa. They had watched 12,000,000 Canadians having their greatest day since the King & Queen visited in 1939; had heard the sturdily sesquipedalian Prime Minister of England wow the House of Commons with his oak-hearted phrases, with a tactful tribute (in French) to the loyal French-Canadians; they had listened as he recalled the 1940 prophecy of French generals, that "in three weeks England will have her neck rung like a chicken," had roared with delight as he growled: "Some chicken! . . . Some neck!" Now the newsmen glumly dined, glumly conversed. This was the heel of the last day of the last year of a decade of defeat.

A few minutes before midnight, footsteps clumped swiftly down the corridors, doors were rapped in staccato, a voice called: "Everybody up in the diner. The Prime Minister wants to see you."

In five minutes a half hundred reporters, photographers, British military and naval attaches filled the diner. At 11:58 Winston Churchill waddled in, waved, moved to the middle of the car. His left hand clutched a tall whiskey-&-soda.

Toward the stroke of twelve, Churchill raised his glass high and steady, spoke clearly in his soft growl, pausing an instant between each phrase:

"Here's to 1942. . . . Here's to a year of toil ... a year of struggle and peril.. . and a long step forward to victory."

Everyone drank, shouted: "And a happy New Year to you, sir!"

Churchill set his drink on a table, crossed his arms, reached for the hands of those nearest him, and struck up, in his flat, heavy baritone: "Should auld acquaintance be forgot. . . ." There were more cheers at the end. "God bless you all," said Churchill. He raised his glass for a' final toast: "May we all come through safe and with honor."

The Englishmen broke into For He's A Jolly Good Fellow, and the Americans joined in. The Prime Minister turned, flipped up his V-for-Victory salute, and left as he had entered, with an odd combination of dignity and familiarity.

Fireside Chats. At the White House that afternoon President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill renewed their conferences. First upshot: 26 nations of the New and Old Worlds formally pledged themselves to employ their full resources against the Axis powers and to enter into no separate armistice or peace.*

Next was the selection of the first Allied generalissimos of War II (see p. 17).

Next came a problem still unsolved: how to deal with the British Ministry of Supply's forthright fireball, beaver-like Lord Beaverbrook. Simplest procedure would be to appoint a single U.S. head of defense production, who would negotiate and decide directly with Beaverbrook. But thus far there was no single U.S. head. The President still preferred to delegate problems individually. Meanwhile Beaverbrook's effectiveness deeply impressed many White House advisers. (Particularly bowled over was OPM's William Knudsen, who had long agreed with U.S. automobile companies that they were unable to convert more than 15% of their plant to war production, had always suggested slow, costly building of new plants. Lord Beaverbrook, who had been told the same thing by British automen, told Knudsen that auto-plant conversion in Britain was now 100%.)

Church. In 1775 George Washington, before taking command of the nation's first army, prayed in his white pew in Christ Church, Alexandria, Va. Before his decision to take command of the Virginia forces, Robert E. Lee prayed there in 1861. In Alexandria, at daybreak Thursday, the balding, vigorous, 34-year-old rector, the Rev. Edward Randolph Welles, summoned eight young men of the parish, gave them a Secret-Service-combed list of 250 parishioners' names, admission cards.

The young men rapped sharply at the shiny knockers of old Colonial doors. Sleepy householders were told: "Be at Christ Church for a special service at 11 a.m. There will be two distinguished guests. Don't talk till afterward."

A few minutes before 11 a.m. the sputter of motorcycles outside drowned the soft music within the little church. First through the door came Mr. Roosevelt on the arm of his military aide, Major General Edwin ("Pa") Watson, his big hand gripping an ivory-headed walking stick. Then came Mrs. Roosevelt and the President's naval aide, Captain John R. Beardall; Miss Malvina Thompson, Mrs. Roosevelt's secretary; Lord and Lady Halifax.

There was a pause. Then Winston Churchill shuffled up the aisle to join the President in Pew 59, George Washington's square, hard-cushioned bench.

Side by side the two men listened to George Washington's Prayer for the U.S. (". . . that thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government. . . ."), a prayer "In Time of War" from the English prayerbook (". . . grant us victory, if it be thy will. . . ."), a prayer from the American Book of Common Prayer ("Almighty God, who has given us this good land for our heritage. . . ."--TIME, Dec. 15). The hymns were militant : God of Our Fathers, Once To Every Man and Nation (James Russell Lowell's great hymn), America and Battle Hymn of the Republic. The sermon was militant: Rector Welles asked God's pardon for past shortcomings, asked power for the task of victory, asked for peace by God's help. He preached the "sin of international irresponsibility": "We have passed by on the other side when we have seen other nations in need or peril, or we have given them aid at the end of a 3,000-mile pole, fearful of involving ourselves in danger."

The party emerged in rain. The motorcade slithered over the rain-drenched Memorial Highway to Mt. Vernon. The President held the umbrella himself while the Prime Minister went into the little brick tomb, laid against the sarcophagus of George Washington a wreath of red-brown chrysanthemums and blue iris, tied with red-white-blue ribbon. Mr. Churchill stood a moment in silent meditation. When he came out, waiting newsreel men, hoping for a deathless line, a Lafayette-we-are-here quote, heard him say to Mrs. Roosevelt: "A very wet day, isn't it?" The rain was coming down in buckets. "Yes, it is, isn't it?" rejoined Mrs. Roosevelt. The party headed back to the White House, to confer and ponder and confer some more.

* The 26: The U.S., the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Russia, China, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czecho-Slovakia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Poland, South Africa, and Yugoslavia. Other peoples were invited to sign. Guiding principle of the signatories: The Atlantic Charter. Name of the group: the United Nations.

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