5.  Meeting With Ambassador John Winant

When one has the opportunity to meet a world figure, even if only very briefly, it becomes an event to be remembered forever, such as when there has been an audience with the Pope. Some call this a flash-bulb experience.

Knowing that I was coming to London, in July, 1942, Ambassador Winant was told by his secretary, Ruth Mary Penfield, that I would be very pleased to meet him. He and Wilder Penfield had been good friends at Princeton, so he was glad to arrange for Ruth Mary to come to London as his secretary, and now that she was there, glad to meet any of her Canadian friends.

A very gracious, friendly man, big and handsome but rather clumsy, Winant had been a close friend of Franklin Roosevelt, and had, in fact, been one of those who had persuaded him to run for another term.

When F.D.R. knew that Britain needed help, but the U.S.A. wasn’t nearly ready to enter World War II, he asked John Winant to accept the Ambassadorship, being the link between him and Churchill. He had been in public office a long time, having been the youngest senator ever elected, then after being elected three times, and being the Director of the International Labour Office and the first Chairman of the Social Security Board, F.D.R. knew that he could handle anything. He arranged all the lend-lease deals including handing over the old destroyers that escorted us across the Atlantic!

Any person interested in Winant’s work should read the fascinating “Letter from Grosvenor Square”, a book that I was fortunate enough to find in a London bookshop. He tells how sad he was to move out of his home for five years in London, spent without serious incident, “except for a bit of shrapnel-shattered glass in one of the bedrooms”. He remembered all the important people he had met in London, and the many military individuals (including, but not naming Ashton Kerr!).

This man was so modest, and he was embarrassed by his grand reception in England, having been met at the station by the King, the first time that an ambassador had this honour. Worse than that, the King had him sit on the right, where the senior individual should sit, so he can accept the salutes!  Talking with him, he was so enthusiastic, anxious to know what it was like being a Canadian working with the British, under their command.

It was a great tragedy that John Winant’s last years became unhappy. He had been the United Nations delegate, and quite disappointed the way the U.N. was leaning towards the left. Not many people will remember what was happening in 1947, but he felt that he could no longer work with the U.N. and wanted to become a private citizen at last. Showing signs of depression, he was seen by a psychiatrist, and admitted to Bethesda Hospital. Very unwisely, he was placed on a high floor, the 17th, I think. In any event, he jumped to his death.

What a tragedy, that a man who had done so much for his country and the world, should meet so miserable an end. I shudder when I remember how happy he was when we chatted in the Embassy on Grosvenor Square.