I am the Senior Historian here at the museum. I am also the executive director for the institute of the study of war and democracy. Tonight is the latest installment of our meet the authors series. We like to mention our sponsor, we bring this to you with the generous support of the strake foundation. So, thank you. Many of you have been to our events before. You know we have a tradition at the museum. May i ask, are there any world war ii veterans or homefront workers in the audience tonight . If you would please stand. Or wave. [applause] thanks, folks. [applause] i heard the president and ceo emeritus, and the current president say as many times, we built this museum for you, so thanks for coming to these events. Military veterans of any other era, if you would stand and wave. [applause] we always know that is a large number. I love the waves. People give different forms of waves. Looks good. I like that one. Thank you so much. We would like to acknowledge three special guests in the audience. A current board member, robert pretty. There he is. Robert, good to see you. Thank you for coming. And past board members, Deborah Lindsay i am looking in the wrong direction. Eborah and dr. Michael kerry. Is dr. Mike in the audience . Great to see you, as always. [applause] thanks so much to all of you for being with us this evening. And, of course, we will never move on before we acknowledge the National World war ii museums cofounder, president , and ceo emeritus in the front row, nick, as always. [applause] and to all of you in the audience and livestream who may be museum members, you keep us going, so thank you. Finally a sincere thanks to , cspan for being here. It is great to see your cameras at our events. I know i tend to stand up a little straighter when the cspan cameras are in operation, so thank you, too. You have all heard the phrase, so and so needs no introduction. You probably know what that means. Deserves a very fulsome introduction indeed. As is the case with our speaker tonight, nigel hamilton. Nigel is an awardwinning author and biographer, author of a biography of marshal montgomery, known as monty, which has been on my shelves for a long time. This bestselling work on the young john f. Kennedy, which was turned into an abc miniseries, bill clinton mastering the presidency. Nigel is the first president of the national biographers organization, senior fellow at the mccormick graduate school of massachusetts, boston. I will say this flat out, he is one of the worlds greatest writers. You know you are in for a treat. This one is no exception. [applause] nigel is also a dear friend of the museum. He spoke at our 2012 international conference, and for the first two books of this fdr trilogy. From a personal perspective, he is a friend of nicks and a friend of mine. He lives right down the road with his wife. Please stand if you wouldnt mind. [applause] thank you. And so, to the main event. We are honored nigel has selected our museum as the site of his official book launch for war and peace. This is the third book in the fdr trilogy. Here, nigel brings this story home, covering the saga of fdr from dday to the altar. It is an appropriate time for book and itof this is an appropriate time for gathering. Today is the 74th anniversary of the german surrender in western europe. We are mere weeks away from the 75th anniversary of dday. Without further ado, i give you the incomparable nigel hamilton. [applause] nigel good evening, everybody. This is a slightly sad occasion for me because it is a sort of farewell to somebody i have lived with for 10 years. Franklin delano roosevelt. And i shall miss him. I never intended to spend 10 years writing this series. And i certainly didnt intend for the story to take three volumes. All i did know was that is was it was something of a National Scandal in this country that no one, no historian had written a fullscale account of president roosevelt in his role as commanderinchief of the armed forces of the United States in the most violent war in Human History. How was it possible that that had never been done . One of the main reasons, of course, was that fdr died in april of 1945. He had begun to assemble his papers. I was able to interview the harvard graduate who was working in the map room in the white house who was helping them him prepare those papers for his memoirs. He was never able to write them. The person who did write them was the british Prime Minister , Winston Churchill, in retirement, and later when Prime Minister again. Who was an extraordinary writer, apart from being a great Prime Minister and leader of his country. And churchill took six volumes to tell the story of world war ii. So, although i am embarrassed i have taken three volumes to tell fdrs story, it is only half of what churchill wrote. [laughter] i call my talk tonight and thank you so much for coming. You work for years and years and you wonder always if there is anybody out there who wants you to do it, who responds to what you are doing. I call tonights talk the man who saved dday, because, as bob said, we are about to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the normandy invasion. It may be probably the last occasion on which there will still be significant numbers of survivors. The story that i will focus on tonight, the focus is on dday itself, or rather, not on dday, but on the project of dday. Each of my fdr volumes began with a voyage. Volume i began with the president s trip to newfoundland in the summer of 1940, before pearl harbor, to meet a man who would become his opposite number as commanderinchief of the British EmpireWinston Churchill. They met on their battleships off the canadian coast. They drew up together the great far as possible from the german lines of communication, so that American Forces could learn in the field how to meet and defeat the german wehrmacht. So, the second volume took up story and also begins a with a great voyage. The first president ever to fly abroad in office, in a flying boat to casablanca, where again, he met with Winston Churchill , and again, overruled his chief s of staff, recognizing that in january of 1943, almost no american troops had ever fired a single shot in action against a german soldier. Better to conting process in modern warfare in the mediterranean and also to declare a moral policy, much as it when laying down the atlantic charter, mainly, Unconditional Surrender. No negotiation with the nazis. Unconditional surrender. At the end of the book, american soldiers had landed in sicily, conquered sicily, and were on the shores of southern italy. The german army surrendered to eisenhower in northern africa. So, we come to the book that is being launched tonight, volume iii. I can reveal that my editor was somewhat surprised at the title. He thought it had been used before. [laughter] mr. Hamilton well, yes, but a long time ago and nobody else had thought to use it since. [laughter] mr. Hamilton so, i thought it was pretty appropriate, war and peace. This third volume also begins with a voyage, a journey. It begins with fdr sailing on a new american battleship, the uss iowa, with his chiefs of staff to north africa. I am looking at a picture that is very small, but i think you can see general marshall, admiral leahy, and admiral king. They are going to north africa because they were going to go on to cairo and there, once again, he is going to meet with his opposite number, the Prime Minister of britain, Winston Churchill. But, before he gets to cairo he , he wants to make quite certain that he has a chance to talk with the american commanderinchief, allied commanderinchief in the mediterranean, the young dwight david eisenhower. He is anxious, in fact, and fortunately, there are quite a number of photographs from that period, to listen to ikes views on strategy in europe, and to think about him for a very good reason. Because ike tells him that he has just been to see Winston Churchill and he is worried by the Prime Ministers unwillingness to go ahead with the dday invasion in 1944. So, when roosevelt arrives in cairo, on the surface, the two men look like they have those always been great friends, which they were. But, sometimes, great friends fall out over great issues and dday was a great issue. And very quickly, in cairo, the president of the United States faces a crisis, an extraordinary moment in history where his main Prime Minister not only of great britain, but de facto commanderinchief of all the empire forces including the south africans, australians, and canadians, has, as he had learned, threatened to have a showdown over delaying or halting dday. Which had been agreed, should should take place in the spring of 1944, in a few months time. Why was Winston Churchill, a Prime Minister whose British Empire military forces were so essential to the success of the invasion, which would be launched, a crosschannel invasion from britain, why was Winston Churchill such an implacable opponent of the great landing . Afterwards, Winston Churchill would cast his magical rhetorical and literary spell over the story, claiming that it was simply that he wanted to do much more than just cross the English Channel, but he would therefore prefer to focus first on the mediterranean and its steppingstone to the balkans in 1944. Also, that as Prime Minister, he had deep misgivings about russian intention in eastern europe. He was thus unashamedly, he wrote in his memoirs, against putting all the eggs of the western allies into one basket, dday, which could be done later, if at all. Now, many historians have followed suit, lauding churchills political perspicacity, and downplaying and downplaying the very lens of opposition to planning in 1943. Some, like the biographer andrew roberts, whom i admire, even claim that is not true that churchill wanted to postpone, still less cancel, operation overlord, the codename of dday. As had sometimes been alleged. Others, like the director of the churchill archives, alan packwood, who i count as a friend, claim that it is near mere hindsight to assume that dday was the most important military operation in world war ii, upon which the success of the war against hitler depended. I have to say, as a military hornes localt is that is loyalist hogwash. I bow to no one in my admiration for Winston Churchills lonely standing. After the franco british defeat in 1940, his finest hour. But after pearl harbor, in 1941, the direction of the war against hitler is surely fdrs finest hour. As i hope my fdr trilogy can persuade you, as it has persuaded me. All through volume two, commanderinchief, churchill has done his best to argue , vainly, against a cross channel landing. Twice coming to the u. S. To argue personally with the president. War and peace reveals not only how opposed to dday churchill remained, but how the Prime Minister sent arguably treasonous messages to the messages, in the view of the american secretary of war, direct to stalin, to say that dday would have to be postponed in favor of more combat in italy and the mediterranean. Finally, in cairo, in front of the president and military advisors, the Prime Minister delivered his grand indictment , as he called it, of the president s dday strategy and a lastditch appeal to delay or abandon the invasion. This was, to my mind, the greatest military crisis of the second world war. A crisis of churchills own. The culmination of a whole year of opposition to the dday project. The Prime Minister claims his tolier promise in quebec, carry out the invasion is simply a lawyers agreement. One that he, as british commanderinchief, can tear up. And he is serious. He threatened his own war cabinet, he will resign if the ddays can insist upon spring 1944 priority and timetable. He even threatened his military chiefs and will risk breaking the grand alliance telling the americans that they will be welcome to switch their focus, if they do not accept a delay or cancellation of dday. In other words, the Prime Minister of britain is willing to break his partnership with the u. S. , a partnership that he himself had created, rather than give in. He openly complains to his staff that he is the only genius that can win the war, but is being forced to fight with one arm tied behind his back, thanks to american stupidity. Rome, roads turkey, the , dardanelles, the black sea, the balkans, vienna anyway anywhere but dday and normandy in the spring of 1944. He demands, by the pyramids. How the president of the u. S. Deals with churchills rebellion is the core drama of war and peace, my final volume. In his great volume his six volumes of war memoirs. Churchill gave his own version, and it helped him win the nobel , ase for literature literature. As a historian and biographer, i cannot match Winston Churchills prose. I can only offer fdrs point of view, which is very, very different. Fdr saw dday, as did hitler. As did hitlers, as the theding strategy against third reich. Thus, inevitably, against japan one sittler was defeated. Hitler was defeated. Perhaps, no one will ever really explain Winston Churchills opposition to dday. What we can do at last, 75 years after the landing, is to see exactly how the president of the u. S. Went about diffusing churchills time bomb in cairo. And insisting, as the president did, that the dday operation be carried out, as agreed in quebec. Saving dday, in other words. Churchill was furious, boiling with rage. The two men flew to tehran. Where fdr got stalin to promise to back the dday invasion with a simultaneous russian offensive on the eastern front, which would force them to fight on two fronts. In which case, the germans would be unable to withdraw forces from the east to reinforce their armies in france, facing the allies. Stalin also promises the president to join the war against japan, once hitler surrenders. This trip was historic, a triumph. When churchill was asked by his doctor whether anything had gone wrong, he snapped. A bloody lot wrong has gone wrong. [laughter] in fact, as history shows, a bloody lot has gone right. Certainly, hitler is in no doubt as to the defining importance of an allied cross channel invasion for the fate of the nazi third reich. The landing and subsequent battle will decide the war. Hiller warned his staff, and s. Bel it will not be too hard to beat the western allies, he adds. After all, he does not have the feeling that the british have their whole heart in this attack. After the president s trip to cairo and tehran, the dday project is energized. It will go forward in the spring of 1944. It is energized for one, extra historic reason, as i have tried definitively, at last in this book, or in peace. Namely the president s , surprising decision not to appoint general marshall to command the dday invasion, but the man he interviewed at length on his way out to cairo, young general dwight d. Eisenhower. This was one of the most inspired appointment of world war ii. A coalition war, involving the forces of many nations, but led by the u. S. Typically, fdr is not content to send ike a telegram. Cairo,ng from tehran and he stays with eisenhower in tunis. Together, the men fly in the president s plane, nicknamed the sacred cow, to malta and sicily. Where the president decorates general mark clark and tells Lieutenant GeneralGeorge Patton , whom i think you can see next ,o the last figure at the back despite the current, black cloud hanging over patton for slapping shellshocked gis in a field you will have an army command in the great normandy operation. Thus was the grand alliance saved. Dday set in stone and its Supreme Commander appointed. Back in washington, the thedent is feted as conquering hero from hyde park, surrounded by his family, he broadcasts a christmas message, announcing to the world his appointment of eisenhower as Supreme Commander of the forthcoming assault. He looked, and found, full of , as someonee pink describes him. But he is not. He soon falls ill with the flu and he never gets better. The second half of war and peace tells a sadder story of fdr behind the scenes. He is finally, and belatedly diagnosed with fatal heart , disease. Neither he, nor eisenhower, and who was moving to england to take command of the invasion, has been able to stop churchill from mounting his own version of dday in italy under new, british supreme command. It was one of the Prime Ministers worst military intercessions in the entire war, which results in 43,000 allied casualties in three months to no purpose before dday. 43,000. By contrast, the dday invasion is a triumphant allied success. The president broadcasts a prayer on behalf of all americans for its success. The landings not only prove one of the great combat achievements in military history, but they did prove churchills forecast of an English Channel running in blood, which churchill had predicted to american senators and congressmen in 1943. The president even insists on an American Invasion of southern france. This is part of a normandy invasion, but the president also insists on an American Invasion of southern france, near marseilles. To give eisenhower more heft as he advances into germany. That invasion is similarly successful. In the public image, the president is the master strategist of the war. In fact, he even sails by summer, to that pea