Churchill, Roosevelt, Mackenzie King, or the story of a wartime friendship

Book of the Week

Neville Thompson: The Third Man: Churchill, Roosevelt, Mackenzie King, and the Untold Friendships That Won WWII (2021, Sutherland House)

Ever written LOL on the margins of a book about WWII? Then a few pages another LOL, and another, and many further LOLs, exclamation points, arrows? Found yourself scratching your head, wondering if you’re allowed to be entertained by a 450-page book on such a serious subject matter?

When I read the following on p. 8, I knew the book had found its groove from the get-go:

“There is no reason to think that the occult had any more noticeable effect on King than on any [of his similarly predisposed peers] mentioned here. Signs and visions simply reinforced what he wanted to think and do, in the same way that for his great hero, the devout William Gladstone, the will of God coincided with the interests of the Liberal party.”

And a little further down, about King’s er romantic inclinations and lack thereof:

“For the last thirty years of his life his closest companion was Joan Patteson, who was five years his senior and the wife of an Ottawa bank manager. Within what was practically a ménage à trois, the two enjoyed a sentimental, chaste relationship. The Pattesons were neighbours in town and King provided a cottage on his country estate. Joan Patteson was often his hostess an shared his spiritualism. At his houses and hers, they ate together, read together, sang hymns at the piano and communicated with the dead. This was all the home life King needed.” (9)

It gets complicated of course, and later in the book Thompson will mention that the husband wasn’t at all thrilled with the situation. King’s old sweetheart, as well, re-enters his life in his old age, to the displeasure of present company. King’s personal intrigues, though, stay slightly out of focus as the book keeps the main trio at the centre: imagine Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple, but with three men… and the Allies’ victory at stake.

Thomson writes his upper crust men with just the necessary balance of distance and sympathy. He is patient with people who consistently don’t see what we see today with the benefit of time passed, as he is with people who couldn’t imagine what lay in store. Indeed, the unimaginable. He understands where the shadow of WWI fell and left permanent marks.

He is also, did I mention, funny.

How is there no movie yet about this badass takeover of St Pierre and Miquelon by a rogue Admiral of de Gaulle-led Free French? The radio transmitter spewing Vichy propaganda itself is cinematic enough, let alone the takeover with a NYT reporter in tow:

A couple of the questions that the book (as many about WWII before) left me with:

How did France get a permanent seat on the UN Security Council? Pushiness? De Gaulle’s singular pushiness? Cultural glamour, pride? (I loved being reminded of Lester Pearson’s rejoinder to de Gaulle’s “Vive le Quebec libre” - along the lines of, Canadians don’t need to be liberated; in fact many have laid down their lives so France could be liberated. The sound of mike dropping was heard.)

How and why was it that the German army fought so ferociously till the last fecking day of the war, over every inch of non-German territory? Long after Italian and French landings had made inroads, when everything was pointing towards German defeat, they are still fighting like madmen, capacity apparently undiminished, over every goddamned inch of Italy, while over in Canada conscription is the works because the Empire and its dominions and the US forces need more capacity to push through? That last leg of the war, one feels, must have been exactly like Curzio Malaparte described it, madder than anything in human history. (The battle of Iwo Jima in 1945: same story.) I need to get hold of Norman Lewis’ Naples ‘44 next, though I know it’s a tough read.

Anyway, here’s my proper review of The Third Man in The Hub.