On August 9, 1941, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met secretly in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. From August 9-12, the two leaders hosted a series of meetings on Roosevelt’s flagship, the U.S.S. Augusta, and the British battleship, the H.M.S. Prince of Wales to coordinate Anglo-American strategy and discuss a joint public declaration of war aims. The resultant statement, The Atlantic Charter, was publicized at the conclusion of the conference.
Accompanying the president to Placentia Bay was his son Elliott, the fourth of Franklin and Eleanor’s six children. Elliott, who had recently enlisted in the Army Air Force, later published a memoir, As He Saw It, based on his experiences as one of FDR’s military aides. In the following excerpt from As He Saw It, Elliott Roosevelt recalls an August 10 discussion between FDR and Churchill that focused upon European colonialism. –M. Loayza, Minnesota State University, Mankato
H.W. Brands, Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (New York: Doubleday: 2008)
Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)
Patrick J. Hearden, Architects of Globalism: Building a New World Order During World War II (Fayetteville, AK: University of Arkansas Press, 2002)