
This
2000 painting by Al Alexander, depicts Franklin
Delano Roosevelt and Winston
Churchill in the Blue Room of the
White House. White
House Historical Association.
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A White House Usher Remembers Winston
Churchill
After the United States
entered World War II, British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill was a frequent guest in
the Roosevelt White House. Although the Prime
Minister's visits were associated with weighty
issues, White House workers remembered Churchill
with delight and amusement. "The most
colorful visitor ever to appear at the wartime
White House was Winston Churchill," J.
B. West records in his memoir.1 West
was Assistant Chief Usher during the War,
and he relates many stories about the Prime
Minister. One of these concerns Churchill's
well-known fondness for cigars.
Churchill's meetings in the U.S. between
December 22, 1941 and January 14, 1942 had
a code name, the Arcadia
Conference. For security reasons, the
Prime Minister's arrival in the White House
on December 21 for the Arcadia Conference
was kept under wraps. The Secret Service
had given instructions that no one was to
enter the halls between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m.
on the 21st, but the staff did not know who
was coming. When the pungent odor of tobacco
wafted down the corridor, "It didn't
take long," says West, "for the
cigar smoke to announce Mr. Churchill's presence."2
1 J. B. West, Upstairs at the White
House (New York: Coward, McCann,
1973), 38.
2 Ibid., 39. |