A review by mkesten
Citizens of London by Lynne Olson

4.0

I can't say enough good things about this book, recommended to me by a customer of mine. The three central characters of the book, including Edward R. Murrow, John Gilbert Wynant, and Averil Harriman, were pretty much unknown to me. The stress and strain of the Anglo-American relationship in the years leading up to and including when the US entered WWII was also fairly new to me. I did not understand the weakness of the British and American intelligence in the years leading up to war and how important intelligence from Polish, Scandinavian, French, and other European nationals were to the Allied success. I also had little appreciation for the hole America dug for itself with the appointment of the Vichy French Admiral Darlan to run French North Africa, or the abandonment of Poland to the USSR, expeditious though they may seem to us today.