Churchill and the Atlantic Charter <strong>MUNINN</strong> Volume 2 (2013)the process.” He said that Congress needed to work together andquickly so that the Atlantic Charter did not lose its opportunity ormomentum. Baldwin also made the point that the Atlantic Charter wasthe only document signed by the United Nations that contained any sortof concrete peace aims. 21 Other Americans continued to press theCharter’s outcomes deeper into the war, such as New York MayorFiorello LaGuardia (1882-1947), who gave a speech at the OpeningCeremonies of Free World House just days before the Battle ofNormandy in June 1944. La Guardia took it upon himself to explain thepsychology of Britain’s agreement to the Charter:I am going to talk this evening about the Atlantic Charter. Whenmen are in great sorrow they speak from the innermost of their soul.When men are in great danger they think clearly and act unselfishlyfor their own safety as well as that of others…. While there were somepeople in our country who perhaps could not or would not evaluateproperly and fully on our own situation and our common interest withGreat Britain, and the inevitable attack which would follow a Nazivictory in Europe, the military and naval minds of our country wereworking frantically to utilize every second of time while our Presidentwas pleading and begging Congress for necessary appropriations.” 22La Guardia emphasized the desperate situation of the British military in1940 and that without this US aid to Britain in 1940, Britain wouldhave fallen—and the Germans would be off the American coast with aforeign threat not seen since the War of 1812. LaGuardia said that theAtlantic Charter was a pledge on the parts of the United States andGreat Britain that they would do whatever was necessary to fight theAxis and that it was a promise of hope to the rest of the world. 23Both Churchill and FDR had a healthy personal sense of“historical purposefulness.” 24 Churchill needed to save his Britain,which had not been so threatened by invasion in centuries. For Britain,the central aim was simply the survival of the United Kingdom. Bycontrast, Roosevelt wanted to save and arguably spread democracy—even making it a central aim of the war. 25 Despite their competingminimalist and maximalist positions over the Atlantic Charter, thespecial relationship was sustained between these men and even grew tonational levels. Even today we hear of this special relationshipbetween the US and UK in matter of foreign policy. As early as 1940,Churchill had little doubt as to the success that could be gained if he21Baldwin, 381-382.22F. H. LaGuardia, "Interpreting the Atlantic Charter," Vital Speeches of the Day 10, no.18 (July 1944): 555. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed April 16, 2012)23LaGuardia, 555.24Joseph P. Lash, The Partnership that Saved the West: Roosevelt and Churchill, 1939-1941 (New York: W.W. Norton., 1976), 179.25LaGuardia, 556.8
Churchill and the Atlantic Charter <strong>MUNINN</strong> Volume 2 (2013)became prime minister and had close relations with the President of theUnited States: “I wish to be Prime Minister and in close and dailycommunication by telephone with the President of the United States.There is nothing we could not do if we were together.” 26 He believedan Anglo-American alliance to be the winning force. If we see theAtlantic Charter as the beginning of this special relationship, we maybe left disappointed in its outcomes at least in the short-term as Britainfought many wars to keep its empire in the 1940s and early 1950s fromAden to Malaya, before embracing decolonization in the late 1950s and1960s. The US also retreated from its maximalist position on selfdeterminationwhen so many of the anti-colonial rebels turned to theSoviet Union for assistance and promised socialist or communist formsof government. Ironically, the US and the UK exchanged their originalpositions. In the end, the outcomes of the Charter may not have beenas significant as the special relationship itself between these nationsthat was fostered by this personal relationship and the Charter. Thisrelationship, despite some moments of diplomatic tension, has endured.26D'Este, 497.9
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