During one of the most consequential political negotiations of the 20th century, in August 1941 the British prime minister Winston Churchill asked for a recess so he could reconnect with an old army friend.
The old friend was Major Gen Sir Henry Hugh Tudor, a name, by then, that hardly anyone in Churchill’s circle would have recognised.
In any case, it would have been a startling suggestion.
Churchill was busy with the president of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, on a British battleship, HMS Prince of Wales, half way between London and Washington at Placentia Bay, on the south coast of Newfoundland. Tudor lived in Newfoundland.
It would be hard to overstate the urgency of the conversations on the Prince of Wales. The second World War was going badly for Britain and her allies. The war was at the top of the agenda, along with how to secure a postwar future through diplomacy.
The secret meeting venue was secured by 24 American and British warships. The US was still sitting on the sidelines.
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