(Washington) Both warlords of a country under bombing, both in search of the support of the United States… The arrival of Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington echoes the passage of Winston Churchill in the American capital in 1941.
By welcoming him to the Capitol where he is to deliver a speech, the patroness of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, recalled on Wednesday that on December 26, 1941, “81 years ago, to within a week”, the British Prime Minister also addressed the American parliamentarians.
He had “said at the time that we were doing the most noble work in the world, defending not only hearths and homes but the cause of freedom in all countries. This is exactly what the Ukrainian people are doing,” she said.
Comparison is not reason and the parallel of course has its limits, in form and substance.
The British Prime Minister stayed for three weeks between late December 1941 and early January 1942, at the invitation of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Historians relate that this long stay had worn on the nerves of the first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who had little taste for the long nocturnal conversations of the two men, in the swirls of cigars and the vapors of alcohol.
The staff of the White House, somewhat surprised, had complied with the demands of this guest wandering sometimes in pajamas and silk bathrobe: sherry before breakfast, French champagne at lunch, old brandy at bedtime.
Such eccentricities are unthinkable in 2022, in a world where transport is infinitely faster, while diplomatic exchanges are much more polished and above all subject to incomparably stricter security conditions.
The Ukrainian president, who will only spend a few hours in Washington, contented himself with a fireside chat in the Oval office, before a joint press conference with Joe Biden, then a long-awaited speech in Congress.
Biden’s limits
Winston Churchill ventured to cross the ocean despite the threat of German submarines, while the journey of the Ukrainian head of state, by plane, was prepared in the greatest secrecy and announced at the last minute.
On Capitol Hill, no doubt Volodymyr Zelensky could endorse this observation by Winston Churchill, shortly after the attack on the American base at Pearl Harbor.
“We are facing enormous powers. They are relentless, they are unscrupulous,” the Prime Minister told American parliamentarians, referring to Nazi Germany and its allies, first and foremost Japan.
“And here we are together, defending everything that is dear to the hearts of free men”, also declared this formidable speaker.
Here too, the comparison stops.
Upon arriving in the United States, Winston Churchill had found a country shaken by the Japanese attack on its own soil, and effectively embroiled in an international conflict.
Not so for Volodymyr Zelensky. He will meet a Joe Biden determined to support him. But the American president made it clear that he would certainly not send troops to Ukraine, or even planes or long-range missiles.
If the 80-year-old Democrat wants to be compared to Roosevelt for his ambitious economic reforms, he does not want, and has said so several times, to be drawn into a “Third World War”.