Phillips Payson O’Brien - The Second Most Powerful Man in the World: The Life of Admiral William D. Leahy, Roosevelt’s Chief of Staff

On the morning of March 3, 1946, an overnight train from Florida pulled into Union Station in Washington, DC. On board was one of the most famous men in the world, Winston Churchill. The former British prime minister and wartime leader had spent the previous six weeks lounging in the Miami sun, battling vertigo and a chest infection while writing one of the most consequential speeches in history. Properly titled the Sinews of Peace, it was to become better known as the Iron Curtain speech. If Churchill could not have known how famous this speech would become, he did know that it could be political dynamite. He intended to address the growing split between the Anglo-American allies and the Soviet Union, a division that threatened another catastrophic world war on the heels of Germanys defeat, and he knew his words would garner attention around the globe. In two days he was set to deliver his speech before President Harry S. Truman at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, Trumans home state. Churchill knew that his call for a dramatic change in policy could succeed only if he had the wholehearted support of the president. And he knew that there was only one man who could let him know all would be OK.

Churchills first destination in Washington was the British embassy on Massachusetts Avenue, where a bedroom had been put at his disposal. Next was a telephone call to the White House, with a request not for Secretary of State James Byrnes, nor even President Truman himself, but for Adm. William D. Leahy, a salty seventy-year-old sailor whose military career extended back almost as far as Churchills own.

Leahy arrived to find Churchill in bed, but the former prime minister roused quickly and handed over a manuscript of his speech. The two men went through it methodically, reading each line aloud as Churchill puffed on a long cigar, scattering ash all over his bed and sprinkling the papers they passed back and forth. They made an odd pair: the orderly sailor and the disorderly politician. It is not hard to imagine Leahy, relatively trim for a man his age, with only the slightest hint of a potbelly, dressed as always in a crisp, clean uniform, speaking in his clipped tones while the portly Churchill, all energy and eloquence, rehearsed the speech in his dressing gown.

Leahy listened intently to Churchills words, knowing full well their gravity. Earlier that morning, he had provided Truman a briefing on the state of the world and American security, as he did every day, and knew, as much as anyone, what was on the presidents mind. As Churchill spoke, Leahy did not hesitate to interrupt, suggesting changes in both content and emphasis. These Churchill were quick to note and incorporate, and for which he would remain grateful for the rest of his life.

This was not the first such consultation between the renowned British hero and the relatively obscure American naval officer. Indeed, Churchill had stopped briefly in Washington back in February to discuss the speech with Leahy, understanding the mans outsized influence on the workings of the highest level of the US government. He knew that Leahy was the one man in DC who could approve the speech on behalf of the president. Whats more, he respected Leahys opinion of international affairs, having worked with the man, sometimes tempestuously, sometimes affectionately, during the great strategic conferences of World War II. Churchill had taken the measure of William Leahy, and vice versa, and each liked what he foundmostly.

Only after the speech had been thoroughly vetted by Leahy would Churchill allow anyone else to see it. Byrnes was given a copy only later that evening. The speech itself proved to be momentous. Churchill spoke of Europe being divided into two armed camps, a Communist Eastern Bloc and a Capitalist West. He made an explicit call for the United States to toughen up its policy toward the Soviet Union, to protect Europe against any further increases in Communist power. In a line that has echoed down the decades, and will echo down the centuries, he spoke: From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all of these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere...

An examination of history books, however, will show no mention of William Leahys role in shaping Churchills world-changing address, and that is typical of the man and the way he has been remembered. Churchill understood what subsequent generations of historians have not: William Leahy had influence in the US government in ways that almost no other individual has had in American history. For almost seven years Leahy was the closest policy-making individual to the president of the United States. Between 1942 and 1949, America was the globes unchallenged superpower, possessing almost half the worlds product, sucking up almost all the worlds gold, building up an air force and navy without parallel and, finally, becoming the sole possessor of the atomic bomb. American air and sea power determined the outcome of World War II and American policy choices established the contours of the Cold War in Europe, Asia, and around the world. Every other power in the world was reactive to American decision-making. As Leahy had more influence over those decisions than anyone not named Roosevelt or Truman, he was even more powerful than leaders of other nations, such as Winston Churchill or Joseph Stalin.