Try as He Might, JFK Never Met Churchill

On 12 April 1961 Winston Churchill sailed into New York harbour aboard a luxury yacht. Then 86 years old and increasingly frail, this was to be his final visit to the US. Conscious of this possibility, old colleagues and admirers went aboard to see their fading friend. A few hundred miles away, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, news of Churchill’s arrival reached President John F. Kennedy who had the same idea. Kennedy telephoned Churchill and they spoke briefly. Jackie Kennedy, once her husband had put down the phone, asked him why he had not taken the opportunity to invite Churchill to the White House, whereupon another call was made and the invitation promptly extended; Kennedy would send his plane to collect Churchill, the presidential schedule would be changed and Churchill would be accommodated at the White House. On the yacht, Churchill’s staff were blindsided by the offer and strongly opposed his accepting it. Increasingly deaf, infirm and disengaged, he was no longer capable of such a meeting and, as his private secretary later wrote, ‘the thought of America, and indeed the world, seeing him at his worst was not endurable’. The president was told that Churchill needed to return to England to see his wife, and off he went.