The Churchill Series - Nov. 19, 2005

(Sorry to be late with this post, one of a series of daily posts.)

In January 1943, Churchill and Roosevelt met at Casablanca with their Chiefs of Staff and other military and diplomatic aides.

On the night of the seventeenth, Roosevelt had only one guest to dinner: Churchill. By all accounts, things went very well until Churchill ran out of cigars.

No one at Roosevelt's villa had thought to lay in cigars for this guest who smoked the finest Cubans. The only cigars that could be found were a small package of White Owls, which a soldier's wife had packed and sent him. White Owls were then one of America's most popular five-cent cigars.

Churchill took one puff of his first White Owl and immediately stubbed it out while telling FDR America certainly did need a good five-cent cigar. (See note below)
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Conrad Black, Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom. (p. 801)

Note: Woodrow Wilson's Vice President, Thomas Marshall, is the man who famously said, "What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar." You can read more about him and the circumstances in which he made his remark here. Except for the remark, Marshall is now forgotten, which I think you'll agree is unfortunate if you read the short bio I've linked to.