In Journalism and Politics, As in War, You Sometimes May Have to Deal With the Devil

As much as he despised what he called Stalin’s “wicked regime,” Winston Churchill saw its reluctant addition to the Allied ranks as a miracle of deliverance for himself and Britain, allowing both to catch their breath and regroup. American’s entry into the war after the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor made the deliverance complete. The Soviet Union and United States had done everything they could to stay out of the conflict, but once they had been catapulted into it, Allied victory, in Churchill’s view, was complete.

—From Last Hope Island, by Lynne Olson, about Britain battling to survive in World War Two.