“I must confess, sir,” Churchill went on, “I held you in very low regard then. I loathed your taking the place of Franklin Roosevelt.” He paused. “I misjudged you badly. Since that time, you more than any other man, have saved Western civilization.” In a dark period for Harry Truman, a winter of tawdry scandal, of interminable war in Korea and greatly diminished public confidence in his leadership, the gallant old ally had again, and as only he could, served as a voice of affirmation.
