Beschreibung:

CHURCHILL AND ROOSEVELT. CHURCHILL, Winston S. and ROOSEVELT, Franklin D. Signatures ("Winston S. Churchill"), as wartime Prime Minister, and ("Franklin D. Roosevelt") as President, on ten shillings Bank of England note, 25 July 1942. ALSO SIGNED BY DWIGHT EISENHOWER, HARRY HOPKINS, GEORGE S. PATTON, LOUIS MOUNTBATTEN, HAROLD ALEXANDER, W. AVERILL HARRIMAN, ANTHONY EDEN and others. Inscribed "The Honorable Harry Hopkins, Nickname 'Harry,' 'Short Snorter' made at London 25/7/42." Matted and archivally framed, with photograph of Hopkins . CHURCHILL AND ROOSEVELT IN THE TENSE SUMMER OF 1942. Hopkins, FDR's wartime personal emissary to Churchill, started this "short snorter" in London, and then brought it back to Washington, where Roosevelt and others signed. It must have provided one of the few light moments in a difficult series of meetings with the Prime Minister as the British and American officials battled each other over when and where to take on Hitler. The Americans had pledged to Stalin to open a second front in France in 1942, to draw divisions away from the Russian front. Churchill led the Americans to believe he agreed with such plans, but by July 1942 insisted that such a move was impossible. He urged the opening of a Mediterranean front, attacking the Third Reich from its periphery. The Americans reluctantly agreed to postpone their western European assault and to plan for "Operation Torch," a North African landing, in late 1942 (Hoyt Vandenberg, one of the Torch planners, also signed the "snorter"). Churchill volunteered to take the bad news to Stalin personally.