JFK+50: Volume 7, No. 2166
FIRST WASHINGTON BRITISH-AMERICAN WAR CONFERENCE BEGAN 75 YEARS AGO
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) 75 years ago today, December 22, 1941, only three weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain arrived here in the Nation's Capital for a week long conference with President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States.
This first Washington Conference, code named ARCADIA, came at the suggestion of Prime Minister Churchill. According to the BBC, it was "the most complete unification of military effort ever achieved by two allied nations."
The conference began in the evening of December 22nd when Mr. Churchill, Mr. Roosevelt and their political advisers "talked at length about the strategic situation."
The meetings, which continued through January 14, 1942, resulted in a joint declaration that the defeat of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany was the first objective.
Mr. Churchill lodged for most of the conference at the White House. The Prime Minister appropriately slept in the Queen's Bedroom on the second floor of the mansion. Harry Hopkins, FDR's adviser, referred to it as the "Headquarters of the British Empire."
SOURCES
"Editor's Note on ARCADIA Conference," The George C. Marshall Foundation, www.marshallfoundation.org/
"Washington Conference," World War 2 People's War, www.bbc.co.uk/
Churchill and FDR
FIRST WASHINGTON BRITISH-AMERICAN WAR CONFERENCE BEGAN 75 YEARS AGO
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) 75 years ago today, December 22, 1941, only three weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain arrived here in the Nation's Capital for a week long conference with President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States.
This first Washington Conference, code named ARCADIA, came at the suggestion of Prime Minister Churchill. According to the BBC, it was "the most complete unification of military effort ever achieved by two allied nations."
The conference began in the evening of December 22nd when Mr. Churchill, Mr. Roosevelt and their political advisers "talked at length about the strategic situation."
The meetings, which continued through January 14, 1942, resulted in a joint declaration that the defeat of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany was the first objective.
Mr. Churchill lodged for most of the conference at the White House. The Prime Minister appropriately slept in the Queen's Bedroom on the second floor of the mansion. Harry Hopkins, FDR's adviser, referred to it as the "Headquarters of the British Empire."
SOURCES
"Editor's Note on ARCADIA Conference," The George C. Marshall Foundation, www.marshallfoundation.org/
"Washington Conference," World War 2 People's War, www.bbc.co.uk/
Churchill and FDR
The White House
December 23, 1941
FDR Library Photo
