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SynopsisAllies At War is a historical documentary about the relationship between Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II.
On June 17th 1943, President Roosevelt wrote to Prime Minister Churchill; " I am fed up with de Gaulle, there is no possibility of working with him.We must divorce ourselves from de Gaulle because he has proven unreliable, uncooperative, and disloyal to both our governments."
It was an astonishing thing to say, at the height of battle, about an ally.Yet this was no one-off remark.Throughout the war, out of the glare of propaganda newsreel films, the relationship between the three western leaders was stormy, deceitful and rancorous.Even today it remains the subject of a cover-up.The British Public Records Office will still not release the files on M15's wartime surveillance of de Gaulle.
The bitterness never diminished.Later, as President of France, de Gaulle lost no opportunity to chastise the United States, describing the Vietnam War in a major speech in Phnom Penh as a "detestable war, since it lead a great nation to ravage a small one."He took his revenge on Britain by blocking it early attempts to join the EEC.
This legacy, which affected both Britain and the United States at crucial stages of their postwar development, is rooted in the extraordinary relationship between three allies at war.
This program tells that story.
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