"O God Our Help in Ages Past": Argen­tia, 12 August 1941. Stand­ing behind Roo­sevelt and Churchill: Admi­ral Ernest J. King (USN); Gen­eral George C. Mar­shall (U.S. Army); Field Mar­shal Sir John Dill (British Army); Admi­ral Harold R. Stark (USN); Admi­ral of the Fleet Sir Dud­ley Pound (RN). At far left is Harry Hop­kins, talk­ing with W. Averell Har­ri­man. (Wiki­me­dia Commons)

I am research­ing the events sur­round­ing, and indi­vid­u­als actively involved in, the first war-time Anglo-American sum­mit, the “Atlantic Con­fer­ence,” which took place in at Argen­tia, New­found­land from 9 through 12 August 1941. Most his­to­ries focus on the word­ing of the “Atlantic Char­ter” to the com­plete exclu­sion sub-meetings held by chiefs of staff and other high rank­ing indi­vid­u­als from the two coun­tries. They also fail to men­tion that the “Atlantic Con­fer­ence” was actu­ally a war coun­cil where strat­egy, tac­tics and war materiel logis­tics were dis­cussed in detail over a four-day period. Can you help me develop a com­pre­hen­sive list of the indi­vid­u­als who were involved in con­fer­ences those four days? Peo­ple like Sir John Dill, Admi­ral Ernest J. King, Lord Beaver­brook and Sir Alexan­der Cado­gan were not there to sim­ply to attend din­ners. Have mem­o­ran­dums of those meet­ings have ever been released from the con­fi­den­tial files of either coun­try, and if so, how I can obtain copies? —F.B., Alaska

Start by Googling some of these names, if you haven’t already. I did and linked the first of many ref­er­ences to each. On books, for the British par­tic­i­pants, start with the Churchill offi­cial biog­ra­phy by Mar­tin Gilbert, Win­ston S. Churchill, vol. 6 Finest Hour 1939-1941 and H.V. Mor­ton, Atlantic Meet­ing. Mor­ton, known mainly as a travel writer, was the “rep­re­sen­ta­tive jour­nal­ist” invited to come along with Churchill’s party, and has quite an inter­est­ing story to tell which touches on many British participants.

For the Amer­i­cans, check stan­dard works about Roo­sevelt and his col­leagues dur­ing the war, such as Robert Sher­wood, Roo­sevelt and Hop­kins (New York: Harper & Row, 1948). The Library of Con­gress and Churchill Archives Cen­tre web­sites may also offer some doc­u­ments relat­ing to par­tic­i­pants and any doc­u­ments per­tain­ing to the meeting.

In my opin­ion Argen­tia was not a war coun­cil, since the USA was not at war, and remained out of it (to Churchill’s great frus­tra­tion) through­out the autumn of 1941. In describ­ing the Argen­tia meet­ing, even Churchill was cir­cum­spect about the USA’s actual inten­tions. The first true war coun­cil was the one in Wash­ing­ton after Pearl Har­bor. Your idea to com­pile the reac­tions of the advis­ers and mil­i­tary chiefs at Argen­tia is most inter­est­ing and I hope you are able to pro­duce a paper or a book.

Tagged as: Admiral Ernest King, Argentia, Atlantic Charter, Atlantic Conference, Churchill Archives Centre, H.V. Morton, Library of Congress, Lord Beaverbrook, Martin Gilbert, Newfoundland, Pearl Harbor, Robert Sherwood, Sir Alexander Cadogan, Sir John Dill