Atlantic Charter never existed: Churchill diary
Jack Fitzgerald’s “Treasury of Newfoundland Stories, Volume III: Classic Spy Tales and Epic Sea Adventures,” coming this December from Breakwater Books. Excerpts from Fitzgerald’s latest book in The Telegram over the next eight weeks.
When Sir Winston Churchill published his memoirs in 1953, he boldly asserted that the Atlantic Charter did not exist. Churchill provided proof in the form of the actual document he and Franklin D. Roosevelt verbally agreed to release to the press as a cover story for the meeting. In 1941, the name Atlantic Charter was not used, nor was it intended to be used, and Churchill noted he first heard the title in 1945 and was upset the document had not been destroyed. In fact, he later revealed that the signatures on the so-called charter had been written in the same hand. The document used in 1941 had not been signed by either of the world leaders. Years later, in his book Triumph and Tragedy: The Second World War Volume VI, Churchill sarcastically stated, “Everyone claims to have read the document but no one knows what is in it!”
The Atlantic Charter became a pretext to conceal the true reason for their risky meeting at Placentia.
The actual history in no way diminishes Newfoundland’s important role in WWII. Without such a meeting, and without the results it produced, the outcome of the war would have been quite different.
The Truth about Churchill and FDR Meeting at Placentia
In August 1941, the US was still a neutral country, England was the underdog against Germany, and Russia, under attack, had already adopted a scorched earth policy, but with limited supplies and weapons, Russia was not expected to hold out in a long war. Hitler was telling his colleagues that England had lost the war and would soon surrender. It was a time of worldwide danger and uncertainty. With German Uboats dominating the Atlantic in 1941, it would have taken a matter of great urgency for the prime minister of England to cross the Atlantic.
It was under these conditions that the historic meeting between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill was held at Ship Cove in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. The meeting was set for August 9, and the British military arranged for their largest and latest battleship, the HMS Prince of Wales, to take Churchill and his party to Newfoundland under escort. Roosevelt travelled to Placentia on the USS Augusta, but not to draw up
an Atlantic Charter.
The meeting in Placentia Bay is best remembered for the eight principles put forward in a joint statement, which by 1945 was known as the Atlantic Charter and later inspired the founding of the United Nations after the war. However, the Placentia meeting was actually concerned with issues far more important and immediate at the time than any plans of improving the already existing League of Nations or creating a new force aimed at
keeping world peace after the war. First, the war had to be won.
While the world was digesting the news that Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt had secretly met in Placentia Bay, senior diplomats and military officials, acting on the topsecret aspects of the meeting, were moving behind the scenes to activate decisions made there to help change the course of the war.
Read Excerpt #2 next week.