Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Franklin and Winston : An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship

Franklin and Winston : An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship
reviewed on + 3559 more book reviews


After their first meeting, in 1918, Roosevelt said that Churchill was "a stinker" Churchill didn't even remember Roosevelt. But by their next exchange, in 1939, Churchill was convinced that Britain's future depended on getting Roosevelt to like him. Meacham's engaging account argues that personal bonds between leaders are crucial to international politics. He draws heavily on diaries and letters to describe a complicated courtship and, at times, seems amazed at what Winston is willing to put up with from Franklin. Churchill paints a landscape for the President, sings for him, and agonizes when his notes go unanswered; Roosevelt teases him in front of Stalin, criticizes him to reporters, and eventually breaks his heart with a diverging vision of the postwar world. But Churchill never gives up, and he later recalled, "No lover ever studied the whims of his mistress as I did those of President Roosevelt."

Franklin Roosevelt was very disgusting. His mistress whom he almost divorced Eleanor, That Tart Lucy Mercer Rutherford married an older and Much more rich than Franklin, man Mr Rutherford. She and Franklin wrote letters regularly and Mrs Rutherford that cheap tart had a front row seat at Franklin's 1932 inauguration. She did have a daughter with Mr Rutherford and helped himRaise 6 young children from his first marriage. She looked almost identical to Eleanor.

Churchill was no saint but he did not cheat on his wife like Franklin did. Franklin may have been a good president but he was a secretive, Lousy excuse for a man.