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Washington.”
    With a large French-speaking population in Quebec and realizing its sensitivities, King would soon have fraying relations with the Vichy rump of defeated France to plague him. For Roosevelt, the issue was German influence on the unoccupied quarter of France. With its vast colonial empire almost intact, collaborationist Vichy was under pressure to submit to whatever the Nazi regime wanted, under threat of cutting off food supplies or even of a full takeover. America’s major French prize, the big liner Normandie, docked in Manhattan after 139 Atlantic crossings since 1935, had been requisitioned by the United States after the surrender of France in 1940. It was almost like seizing a piece of French territory.
    Worried about German occupation, the State Department ordered American ambassador Admiral William D. Leahy, an old FDR friend from the Great War years and since, to send eight staffers and all confidential files in Vichy to the embassy in Switzerland. Press and radio censorship, Leahy cabled Roosevelt on the 22nd, left “Japanese treachery” at Pearl Harbor “completely unknown here” and had no influence on popular French feeling. The seizure of the Normandie and its being refitted as a troopship, now rechristened the Lafayette, 3 “had produced no violent reaction whatever,” Leahy reported from talks with the Vichy resident generals in Tunisia and Morocco. The liner’s reuse had long been expected.
    Leahy reported, more than Vichy knew, “that Germany is suffering a major defeat in Russia and is rapidly approaching a similar but more complete military reverse in [colonial] Cyrenaica”—Libya. The Germans would have to rescue the situation there for the inept Italians, which might also mean Wehrmacht intervention in French North Africa. The subject was certain to turn up in Anglo-American discussions.

    HALF A DAY AHEAD IN TIME, the British in Malaya had blown all the bridges across the broad, muddy Perak, abandoning several thousand dismayed Indian troops on the north bank. “The British Army,” Colonel Masanobu Tsuji wrote wryly, “excels in retreat.” The Japanese began constructing pontoon bridges and brought up collapsible motor launches. While his new ally was prospering in semitropical Southeast Asia, to Hitler’s frustration and outrage, reverses were afflicting the Germans deep into frigid Russia. Backtracking in snow and ice from untenable forward positions was not permitted by his edict but was nevertheless a fact of survival. His chief of staff, General Franz Halder, noted in his diary, “an exceedingly difficult situation has developed here, and it is beyond anyone’s power to say how it will be restored. And yet it is impossible to prevail upon the Führer to order any long-range withdrawal.”

    PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SECRETARY Steve Early announced Churchill’s arrival at 6:45 P.M. It was past seven in Washington when cameramen camped in the White House were able to pop flashbulbs and photograph Churchill and Roosevelt on the south portico. The President had a cane in his right hand, with his left arm gripping the arm of his naval aide, Captain John R. Beardall. Churchill wore a navy cap and heavy double-breasted sea overcoat. Before reporters could rush to telephones, Early handed them a brief statement for the morning papers: “The British Prime Minister has arrived in the United States to discuss with the President all questions related to the concerted war effort. Mr. Churchill is accompanied by Lord Beaverbrook and a technical staff. Mr. Churchill is a guest of the President.” Newspapermen could add background color and speculation. Although his sea attire was a clue, how the PM got to Washington was unstated.
     
    Franklin D. Roosevelt greets Prime Minister Winston Churchill on his arrival to the United States, December 22, 1941. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library

    The news emerged quickly. By 10:30 P.M. onecent Jefferson-head postcards imprinted by the