2 World Leaders, Their Boats + 1 Giant Cover Up

The headline, by modern-day standards, would seem like a public-relations faux pas. But more than 60 years ago, when The New York Times screamed, "President Sails For Weeks At Sea Vacation," it didn't cause much public consternation. By then, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, familiarly called FDR, had more or less established himself as "the oceangoing president" in people's minds. Indeed, his love of boats and the sea, and how that shaped his presidency, was the subject of a book by Robert E. Cross, Sailor In The White House, several years ago. Boating since he was a child, and a former Secretary of the Navy, in his early days at the White House he decided the wooden presidential yacht, the Sequoia, was a fire hazard and too small for his needs. So, he had a Coast Guard cutter, the Electra, re-fitted — a significant change being the addition of an elevator in the dummy rear funnel to facilitate his wheelchair moving from deck to deck — and he renamed her the Potomac. He was known to take the boat for frequent summer cruises up and down Washington, D.C.'s Potomac River in summer, to beat the stifling heat of the city. As it turned out, the new yacht was destined to play a significant and somewhat deceptive role in the course of its Commander's and its country's history.

By 1941, England was already at war with Germany, and many German submarines prowled the Atlantic. Germany had captured much of Europe, and was making rapid advance on the Russian front. The pressure on the U.S. to join the war effort was building. In August, FDR and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed to meet in secret in Placentia Bay, off the town of Argentia, Newfoundland, to plan war strategy. The location and duration of the meeting had to be kept top secret, and required that FDR be away from the White House for two weeks. In order to conceal the president's whereabouts, an elaborate plan was concocted.

On Sunday, August 3, the White House issued a press release — the one that spawned the aforementioned New York Times headline — that the president would be taking a week's vacation cruising New England aboard the Potomac, his "Floating White House." By Sunday evening, FDR and his entourage had arrived by train at the U.S. Navy submarine base in New London, Connecticut, where the base commander and the governor met them. The boarding party included several very high-ranking military and State Department officials. Although the public was only provided with skimpy details of FDR's itinerary, word of his whereabouts leaked out and many people lined the railroad tracks and bridges approaching the base to wave.

In the best of naval traditions, FDR was piped aboard, and the presidential ensign was hoisted on the mast of the Potomac, indicating the yacht was the flagship of the commander-in-chief, who was in residence. With that, the press, which had accompanied FDR on his trip from Washington, was dismissed. The White House announced there would be no press coverage of the Potomac (this was the president's vacation, after all) and that communications would be limited to those provided by White House press releases based on Navy ship-to-shore radio messages. Even the crew of the Potomac had no idea what was about to take place.

On Monday, August 4, the yacht cruised around the south coast of Massachusetts and the president was observed operating a small powerboat in Dartmouth Harbor, and providing a tour of the Potomac for several exiled royals from Scandinavia. All the visitors disembarked at the end of the day, and FDR's activities seemed consistent with White House press releases. But to a shrewd observer putting two and two together, something unusual was taking place. The first clue was that there were two U.S. Navy warships — the heavy cruiser Augusta, and an unnamed destroyer escort — anchored off Menemsha Bight on the southwest corner of Martha's Vineyard. The second clue came minutes before sunrise the next day, when the Potomac pulled alongside the Augusta, and FDR and his party were quietly and quickly ushered aboard. In a notable break with naval tradition, the presidential ensign was very deliberately not transferred to the Augusta. Shortly afterwards, the Augusta and escort headed out to sea at high speed … toward Newfoundland. At sea, they met the heavy cruiser Tuscaloosa and other escorts along the route.

Meanwhile, the Potomac spent the next two days cruising around Buzzards Bay, a body of water approximately 20 miles long in southeastern Massachusetts. At various points in its cruise, three impersonators were stationed on the deck disguised as the president, his press secretary Steve Early, and his aide General Edwin Watson. In later years, there have been various rumors and speculation as to the identity of the impersonators. Some claim they were actors, others that they were members of FDR's Secret Service staff, or Potomac crewmembers. Whichever is true, it's generally agreed upon that the FDR impersonator had a build close to the president, and frequently kept a cigarette holder dangling from his lips at a 45-degree angle, similar to FDR's habit. It was also noted that the three sat in what appeared to be very fancy deck chairs on the quarterdeck. Although FDR depended on a wheelchair for mobility, he was rarely seen in public or photographed in one.

Where Was The Real FDR?

On Wednesday morning, August 6, the lead story of The New York Times carried the headline: "Meeting Of Roosevelt And Churchill On President's Cruise Is Reported." Reporters on both sides of the Atlantic had started to put together the pieces. FDR and Churchill, along with numerous top officials, were scheduled to be away from their offices for several days, all at the same time. Something big was happening. The impersonators aboard the Potomac went into overdrive. During the day of August 6, the boat slowly traveled up Buzzards Bay, and then through the Cape Cod Canal, into the Atlantic. The trio on deck, dressed in elegant white summer clothes, spent much of their time genially waving to passing ships and those lining the banks and bridges — getting maximum public exposure. The sighting of "FDR" in the canal was well-discussed in Cape Cod homes, and elsewhere. The hoax appeared to be working. The following day, Thursday, August 7, newspapers reported that the only communication from the Potomac was: "Cruise ship proceeding slowly along coast with party fishing from stern. Weather fair, sea smooth. Potomac sailors responding to New England air after Washington summer."

Meanwhile, on August 8, FDR reached Placentia Bay in Newfoundland. A day later, Churchill arrived aboard the battleship HMS Prince of Wales. With steel will, FDR momentarily overcame the effects of his polio to stand and greet Churchill, whose own journey also had started with a heavy dose of secrecy and drama. Almost a week earlier, Churchill had been shepherded onto a special train in London to Thurso on Scotland's north coast. There, he and his entourage boarded a small boat called Morning Glory. Under gray skies, the craft made its way to the destroyer HMS Oribi, which swiftly carried them to an anchorage at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. Waiting there was Britain's newest battleship, the Prince of Wales, whose extensive damage from a May 24 engagement with the German battleship Bismarck had just been repaired. The same day FDR arrived in Newfoundland, the Potomac was observed in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, picking up supplies. The New York Times printed dispatches from the presidential yacht via the White House on August 9 and 10. The deception was continuing with success: "Ship anchored in fog. Prospects for fishing appear poor. No special news." But The New York Times hadn't let go of the story. Three days later, the headline was: "Roosevelt 'Lost' On Yacht For Three Days; Rumor Of Meeting With Churchill Persists."

The following day, August 14, almost two weeks since the president had boarded the Potomac, the jig was up. News dispatches confirmed that FDR and Churchill had met for several days. On August 15, 1941, they released an eight-point draft, commonly called the Atlantic Charter, outlining policies for peace at the end of the war.

Churchill headed back to England. The Augusta moved south, and FDR's party re-boarded the waiting Potomac off the Maine coast. The next day, the yacht tied up at Tillson's Wharf in Rockland, Maine, and the president disembarked and went by motorcade to the waiting train at Maine Central Station for the long trip back to Washington.

Their Atlantic Charter was a historical milestone. In it, Roosevelt and Churchill established a shared vision for a post-World War II world.

Aboard the Augusta that August, they determined that the U.S. and Great Britain would seek no territorial gains as a result of the war; that any territorial adjustments would attempt to honor the wishes of the affected people; that self-determination is a human right; and that real effort would be made to lower trade barriers. The two leaders agreed on the importance of the advancement of social welfare and global economic cooperation, and on the importance of freedom of the seas; they also agreed to work toward postwar disarmament and the mutual disarmament of aggressor nations.

The Atlantic Charter pledged no military support for the war ravaging Europe — indeed, the U.S. would not enter World War II until after the Japanese bombed Hawaii's Pearl Harbor four months later, on December 7, 1941. But in the end, it proved an essential step in defeating the Nazis and creating the United Nations, and it signaled the United States as a major player on the world stage. This remarkable accomplishment, which shaped the course of world history, had its birth, clandestinely, on the deck of a boat named Augusta one momentous summer, between two men of remarkable vision.