The Windsors visited the States several times while he was Governor of the Bahamas (1940-45), and their third visit began 9 May 1943. The Duke visited Bahamian laborers in Florida and New Jersey, spoke to General Foods about Bahamas operations, and met with British colonial officials in Washington. Churchill, who had holidayed with FDR at what is now Camp David, addressed Congress on 19 May. The Windsors attended in the diplomatic gallery. Michael Bloch, in The Duke of Windsor’s War, records that Windsor got more applause than Churchill, disconcerting the latter. They met twice, once with the President, talking about the war and Windsor’s future. The Duke wanted to be assured he’d done well in the Bahamas. (He hadn’t done well, which I know from local sources as a part-time Bahamian resident.)

Churchill smoothed his feathers, promised he’d look for something for him to do, and later offered him the governorship of Bermuda (a promotion from the Bahamas, then considered the worst governorship in the Empire). Windsor refused: “I can’t see much point in island-jumping. I’m for the big hop to a mainland.” A mainland job he never got. Bloch believes Churchill never lost “his respect and sympathy for his former King [and] his expressed desire to improve his lot.” But Churchill after all depended strongly on his friendship with the King and Queen, who had despised the Windsors since the Abdication. And so the Duke wasted away, an exile, to the end of his life. It was, really, his own doing. As Alistair Cooke said, “He was at his best only when the going was good.” (See “Alistair Cooke: An Introduction and an Appreciation.”)