Franklin Roosevelt was never to know the triumphal journey to Britain of which he had dreamed. The wild reception that Churchill had predicted yielded instead to posthumous homage. Five days after FDR’s death the prime minister stood before Parliament, benches full, galleries overflowing, ordinary Britons crowding the entranceways, as he pronounced Franklin Roosevelt the greatest of all Americans, perhaps above Washington and Lincoln, because his leadership had influenced not just America, but the entire world. “What an enviable death was his,” the prime minister intoned. “He had brought his
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