In January 1941 Winston Churchill entertained Harry Hopkins, the American presidential adviser, to dinner at Chequers. During the course of the evening, the prime minister launched into one of his flowing monologues about the nobility of Britain’s war aims, emphasising the need to uphold liberty and democracy. ‘We seek only the right of man to be free,’ said Churchill, before asking Hopkins what Roosevelt would think of his statement. Hopkins replied that the president would not ‘give a damn for all that … You see, we’re only interested in seeing that that Goddam sonofabitch Hitler gets licked.’

At the time of that exchange,

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