Citizens of London, Olson - B

                                         Thanks to Wendell Erwin for recommending this fine book.  The sub-title is 'The Americans Who Stood With Britain In Its Darkest, Finest Hour'.   It's focus is the Alliance, with special attention to three men who stood by Britain in 1941: Averill Harriman, Edward R. Murrow and John Gilbert Winant.  These very different men were ardent Anglophiles who were in London in 1941 and did all they could to help the British carry on in the extremely trying times between Dunkirk and Pearl Harbor.   While the British suffered through the Blitz, they called for the US to come to the aid of the UK.
                                         Murrow is probably the most famous of the trio.  I believe the only phrase in broadcast journalism  more famous than "This is London" would be Cronkite's sign off a generation later in a much larger medium.   Murrow led the CBS team that "rounded up" the news on radio broadcasts back to the States.  He used BBC facilities in London to tell America about the Nazi slow-motion take over of Europe and to paint a picture of London and Londoners besieged by the Blitz. He was the most famous American in Britain, and as such, was romanced by Churchill, who invited him to Chequers regularly.  He agreed with the British who were appalled by America's failure to join them in the fight against the Nazis. He was back in the States on a speaking tour on behalf of the UK when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
                                        Harriman was in England for about half a year and was with Churchill the night they found out about the Japanese attack.  Churchill knew that once America was in,  victory was inevitable.   Harriman had been sent to London by FDR with an open-ended brief to initiate and supervise Lend-Lease.  He spent most of his time interfering with the activities of the US Embassy and starting his affair with Pamela Churchill, the PM's daughter-in-law.
                                       The hero of this book is Gil Winant, the man who succeeded the despised Joe Kennedy as Ambassador to the Court of St. James.  The former Republican governor of New Hampshire was so important to the British that he did not have to present his credentials to the King. George VI actually came to the train station to meet Winant.  The quiet hard-working Winant was completely beloved by the British.  In addition to handling all the duties of his office, he wandered the streets of London talking to the men and women surviving the Blitz.  They regarded him so highly that in 1943 when the coal miners started an illegal strike, he intervened on behalf of His Majesty's government and convinced the men to go back to work.  He and Eisenhower worked hand in hand keeping the peace among the Allies, whose endless personality conflicts threatened their efforts to win the war.  When FDR died, he was planning to appoint him as the UN's first Secretary General.  In 1946, with the war over and his five year affair with Churchill's oldest daughter Sarah falling apart, he returned to the US.  He was so esteemed that he was the only speaker at the Joint Session of Congress honoring FDR.  Nonetheless, he soon committed suicide and has been pretty much forgotten.
                                       Murrow too came back to the States and fame on CBS in the '50's.  He never was comfortable in all of New York's post-war splendor and excess. He had a falling out with Bill Paley and worked for the  U. S. Information Agency in the Kennedy administration.  Harriman, who had hoped to shed his playboy businessman reputation, was the most successful of the three.  Ambassador to the USSR and Great Britain, Governor of New York and one of the 'Wise Men' during a very long career and life, he married Pamela when he was 80.