Did your opinion of any of the three leaders change as a result of reading this book?

Did your opinion of any of the three leaders change as a result of reading this book?

I haven't really read much about Roosevelt or Churchill (need to find a couple of good biographies, I guess!) so I was surprised by a number of things about them. Roosevelt was a surprisingly shrewd politician, and I thought he balanced his relationships with Stalin and Churchill surprisingly well, given the other two personalities involved. I was also surprised at the times when Churchill came across as petulant.

No--I knew about their personalities and their relationships pretty thoroughly before.Churchill has never been high on my list of favorites, though I appreciate his abilities, his arrogance and sense of entitlement has never sat well. Stalin is still hard to get into--his activities etc are well known but even in this book I didn't get a sense of really knowing him as a person. I was surprised at his lack of height--I'd always thought of him as huge. FDR was a familiar figure--he lived and governed our State as well as being an important Naval man before he became President so there were many aspects of him and his life that I grew up knowing.

Not so much changed as enhanced. All three were real people with their own bias, philosophy, experiences and personalities. Again, what makes the study of history so fascinating and important.

My opinions did not change very much because I had read about each of them previously. I was a little bit surprised by Roosevelt's seeming lack of insight about Stalin; he almost seems to admire him. I have read two biographies of Churchill so I was aware of his arrogance and eccentricities; but I still have the opinion that he saved the free world, in a sense, by stubbornly holding out against the Nazis all alone.

I have read a lot about Churchill and Roosevelt and their actions and thoughts during the war but not as much about Stalin. I was surprised to see that he had sympathetic thoughts for his people and gave them a great deal of credit.

No change in opinion… maybe understand their character and personalities better.

Not really. Too many biographies?

As I said in a previous post, being 73 and knowing my parent's generation well they adored Roosevelt and maybe Churchill, Stalin was always a problem for them. Think about this, one of the greatest countries with an exceptionally bright people committed some of the greatest atrocities ever put on man-Germany. What would have happened if they dominated all of Europe and Russia.

I did find myself admiring Stalin for his tenacity in saving his country; however I knew too much about his later years and the atrocities he committed to say that my negative opinion of him changed.

Stalin reminds me of the saying, "there is a little good in the worst of us and a little bad in the best of us". He is a really bad person who did have moments of good (or just expediency).

Yes, my opinion of Stalin changed. He seemed compasionate towards his people who suffered greatly in the war. Not a lot of information about that makes it into many books. Its always about the US and England. And I did not know that Stalin asked for the invasion of France 18 months before it happened! Churchill was very persuasive about holding off on that, to the detriment of Russia.

I guess I didn't really expect Churchill to be the person holding up Operation Overlord and that if he hadn't sort of been forced into agreeing, it might never have happened.

Yes it did. I knew a bit about Roosevelt, but was impressed with his ability to negotiate and "keep the peace" between the three of them in such stressful times. I really feel like the whole meeting would have fallen apart without his interventions.
As for Churchill and Stalin; pretty much what I had read and heard about them; BIG ego's and narcissistic personalities.

Yes and no. My father, a lifelong Democrat, who served in WWII in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and Austria had tremendous regard for Roosevelt, not only because of his leadership during the war, but also because of what he did to preserve our country and bring it out of the Great Depression. The book gave me insight into his shrewdness in dealing with the contrasting leadership styles of Churchill and Stalin, but also his compassion for the people not only of his country, but of all of the Allies.

Although he did come off as a bit petulant, I still have tremendous regard for Winston Churchill. Through sheer force of will, he fought and overcame a Parliament that had many members who were more than willing to let Hitler roll over all of Europe in the belief that somehow Great Britain would be spared. His doggedness in pushing America for assistance which resulted in the Lend Lease Plan immeasurably helped his country withstand The Blitz of London and engage the Nazis on mainland Europe.

Stalin is still an enigma to me. Yes, he stood strong for the USSR, yet I can't reconcile that with the human rights abuses he promulgated on his own countrymen before, during, and after WWII. And I, like other commenters, was floored by how short he was. Apparently, pictures were posed so he appeared taller than he was and obviously the statues of him were made to make him mythic.