The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

Churchill persistently seeks an alliance with the United States to help Britain win the war and defeat the Germans. He firmly believes that America is the world’s most powerful democracy and that only her economic and military might can help Britain. Indeed, Churchill sees Britain and America as the two leading democracies in the world and the only forces that can win the war. This view was notably implied in his multi-volume History of the English-Speaking Peoples, written over several decades and published in 1956, which ends with a chapter on “The Great Democracies.”

Churchill seeks, first, to secure military aid from the United States and then hopes to have the US join the Allies in the war. This is all finally accomplished after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which forces the US into the war. It is the US diplomat Harry Hopkins who, more than anyone else, solidifies the feeling of an Anglo-American alliance among the British people. He does this by visiting with Churchill and his ministers and appearing at public events in which he gives speeches assuring the British people of America’s friendship with their country.