1941
THE A T L A N T I C C H A R T E R In July 1941 presidential envoy Harry Hopkins told Churchill that President Roosevelt would like a personal meeting. Churchill grasped the opportunity to draw the USA closer to the beleaguered Britain. The meeting took place in early August off Newfoundland: Churchill arrived in HMS Prince of Wales and Roosevelt in USS Augusta. Roosevelt suggested a joint declaration of principles, and the Atlantic Charter, agreed on August 12, bound both states to forswear territorial aggrandisement, support self-determination and establish a peace bringing "freedom from want." Despite its bland tone, the Charter aligned the USA, though still technically neutral, firmly against Germany. One of the least-posed of a series of photographs of the meeting shows Roosevelt and Churchill with General George C. Marshall, US Army Chief of Staff (over Churchill's left shoulder) and, on Marshall's right, Admiral Ernest J.King, later Commander-in-Chief of the US fleet. The balding civilian in profile is US Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles, who helped his British opposite number, Sir Alexander Cadogan, to prepare the Charter.
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