Eisenhower, in all this, remained ambivalent. At one point in early April, he wrote Churchill a surprisingly passionate letter asking him to join in united action: “If I may refer again to history; we failed to halt Hirohito, Mussolini and Hitler by not acting in unity and in time. That marked the beginning of many years of stark tragedy and desperate peril. May it not be that our nations have learned something from that lesson?” A few days later, at a press conference, he outlined for the first
