Question:

A r eader writes: “Rather late in the day, I have been reading The Spectator (UK) Christmas Special dated 15/21/29 December 2018. Page 28 refers to one Ronnie Boyd, who had been a teenage Ordinary Seaman aboard HMS Ajax in December 1944, when Winston Churchill arrived in Athens to try to end the ongoing civil war.

 “British forces ‘helped put down, with considerable force of arms, a perceived partisan/communist uprising—the so-called Battle of Athens, or the Dekemvriana in Greece,’ the article states. There follows the extraordinary statement ‘Not Winston Churchill’s Finest Hour, it has to be said.’ It is accompanied by a mini-cartoon showing WSC on the bridge of HMS Ajax making this announcement. What is it all about?”

Answer:

Well, Athens 1944 was not his foremost finest hour—since, as he wrote, “Nothing surpasses 1940.” But in any list of his finest hours, it’s right up there.

It wasn’t a “perceived partisan/communist uprising.” It was the real McCoy, by ELAS, the Greek People’s Liberation Army. Fortunately, in Moscow a few weeks earlier, Churchill had had the foresight to work out an agreement with Stalin to keep Soviet hands off Greece. To his credit, our benevolent “Uncle Joe” did so—for the time being. Some consider the “Percentages Agreement”, handing Stalin dominance over eastern Europe less Greece, another of Churchill’s Not-So-Finest-Hours. But the Greeks seemed all right with it.

Sarajevo, 1992 – Athens, 1944

I wrote this news article in 1993:

A reporter named Burns was talking the other night about the United Nations’ “inspection mission” to Sarajevo in 1992, during the Bosnian War. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and company arrived at the airport, were driven through the streets in bullet-proof limousines. They enjoyed an elaborate lunch while blocks away people were starving. They drove back to the airport, where guards protected their luxury jet. Then they flew home, to abhor the ongoing horror but do nothing.

Which reminds me of Churchill, Greece and December 1944.

Similar situation: civil war had made Athens a killing field. Churchill sent troops, telling his generals to “hold and dominate Athens…with bloodshed if necessary.” Then he flew in personally, stationing himself in HMS Ajax moored in the Piraeus, the harbor for Athens.

He chortled “Missed again!” when ELAS gunners sent shells hurtling toward the ship. He drove into the fighting zone to meet the opposing sides with bullets flying. He asked his private secretary, Jock Colville if he had a pistol: “I certainly had my own.” He parleyed in an unheated room lit by hurricane lamps, reminding both sides of Greece’s fame and majesty. Peace followed in his wake.

Further Reading

Read more about Churchill’s intervention in Athens in December 1944 in Hillsdale College’s The Churchill Documents, Volume 20, Normandy and Beyond, May-December 1944.

For a photo of Churchill signing autographs for HMS Ajax sailors, see previous post.

Churchill (stepping naked from his bath): “The Prime Minister of Great Britain has nothing to hide from the President of the United States.” **

[Also quoted as: “You see, Mr. President, I have nothing to hide.”]

Churchill allegedly said this during his visit to the White House in December-January 1941.  The Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor and America was in the war.  The encounter was confirmed by Churchill’s bodyguard, Walter Thompson, and one of his secretaries, Patrick Kinna. On the strength of their comments I included it as “likely” in Churchill By Himself.

The story goes that Roosevelt thought to call the new world body  he hoped to organize after the war the “United Nations.” Excited about the name, he wheeled himself into Churchill’s room. There he found Churchill, as Harry Hopkins, put it, “stark naked and gleaming pink from his bath.” Hopkins repeated his version of this remark (using “conceal” instead of “hide”) often enough to raise a presumption in favour of its veracity. But perhaps not!

Churchill’s recollection

Churchill never confirmed the wisecrack attributed to him by Thompson and Kinna. Queried by Roosevelt biographer Robert Sherwood, Churchill said: “I could not possibly have made such a statement as that. The President himself would have been well aware that it was not strictly true.” Churchill told Sherwood he “never received the President without at least a bath towel” wrapped around him.

Of course, receiving the President in a bath towel may have been enough in Churchill’s mind tell  King George VI (just after returning from Washington): “Sir, I believe I am the only man in the world to have received the head of a nation naked.”

Churchill must have repeated his crack to the King to Roosevelt. FDR told his confidante, Daisy Suckley, and the British Ambassador, Lord Halifax, on 17 January 1945. (See Geoffrey C. Ward, Closest Companion: The Unknown Story of the Intimate Friendship between Franklin Roosevelt and Margaret Suckley, 384-85.) In Suckley’s version, Churchill did not say he had “nothing to hide,” which he had denied saying to Sherwood. According to Suckley, Roosevelt simply said, “United Nations!” and Churchill responded, “Good!”

**Paul Screeton prompted this post, referencing columnist and TV show host Jeremy Kyle. Kyle wondered whether Prime Minister David Cameron had similarly sealed the bond of Britain and America with Barack Obama. (The Sun, 26 May 2011)

Reader comments: “Made in England. Size: medium.”

I take the liberty of translating the amusing exchange with Antonio Carlos Da Costa in the comments section below:

Related legends

“Roosevelt and Churchill: Don Quixote and Sancho Panza,” 2018.

“Churchill’s Ersatz Meeting with Lincoln’s Ghost,” 2018.