On the morning of January 12, the two flying boats left Trinidad and headed southeast along the South American coast and across the equator to Belm, Brazil, on the Amazon delta. Late that afternoon, as the clippers refueled, the president visited with the air transport command officers who ferried aircraft across the South Atlantic to West Africa and on to the North African theater. Then it was time to begin the longest leg of the trip, the 2,100-mile crossing to Bathurst, in the British West African colony of Gambia. The two Boeings had to fight stiff headwinds during a 19-hour flight, but Roosevelt endured it with equanimity, enjoying cocktails, dinner, and a good night’s sleep. At the U.S. base in Bathurst the cruiser USS Memphis was waiting, but the president felt so energetic when he arrived that he insisted on touring the harbor for nearly an hour before boarding. That night, while other members of the party watched a film on the deck of the Memphis, Roosevelt retired to his cabin to deal with dispatches and write letters. Roosevelt rose early the next day and was driven across Bathurst to Yundum Field, where an army C-54 transport plane was waiting to take him to Casablanca. Roosevelt had always been a staunch critic of colonialism, and what he saw on his drive through the crowded British port to the airfield only reinforced his views. Writing to Suckley, he described the crowds of semi-dressed natives — thatched huts — great poverty and emaciation and added that Bathurst was an awful, pestiferous hole.

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The final flight required the C-54 to climb to nearly 15,000 feet to cross the Atlas Mountains, and Admiral McIntire grew concerned about the effect the altitude would have on Roosevelt. The president did have to take what he described to Suckley as a few whiffs of oxygen, but the flight went smoothly, and the president’s plane reached Casablanca on the evening of January 14. It taxied to a stop near a bomb crater left by the recent fighting, a stark reminder that the president was now within range of Axis bombers.

U.S. forces had taken over the Anfa Hotel for the conference. A compound of several luxurious villas in an exclusive Casablanca suburb, the hotel revealed another side of colonialism — the wealth it offered to a fortunate few. But the hotel provided Roosevelt and Churchill separate quarters in close proximity, and it was a perfect choice for the summit.

Roosevelt had watched the newly released film Casablanca during the past New Year’s celebrations, and the intrigue portrayed in the Humphrey Bogart/Ingrid Bergman classic was still a characteristic of the newly liberated city. Before the president arrived, Secret Service agents had discovered and destroyed several recording devices that unknown parties had placed in some of the Anfa villas. Medical officers tested all the food and liquor the two leaders would consume in Casablanca, and the supplies remained under heavy guard. Barbed wire surrounded the hotel, American troops guarded the buildings, and antiaircraft batteries and fighter planes protected the area.

Soon after Roosevelt arrived, Churchill came to the president’s door, eager to greet him. Less than an hour later, the conference began over a candlelit dinner. Roosevelt invited Churchill and his military chiefs to dine with him and his chiefs and aides. The meeting was relaxed and went on until the early hours of the morning. The talks were spread out over eight days. Although the British and American chiefs of staff of the armed forces dealt with much of the hard work of negotiations, the presence of Roosevelt and Churchill was vital in assuring that the chiefs came to an agreement. But the two leaders did confer most evenings, sometimes until after midnight. Churchill kept the president up until 2:30 a.m. on January 23 working on a joint communiqu to Stalin. The success at Casablanca was partly due to Roosevelt’s sympathy for aspects of the British position. The president wanted a massive invasion of the European mainland as quickly as possible, but he also wanted to intensify the fighting against Japan and keep U.S. troops in action and advancing. Furthermore, Roosevelt needed some early victories for U.S. forces. By ousting German forces from North Africa and then moving on to Mediterranean targets — as Churchill proposed — the U.S. could demonstrate to the American public that the tide of war had turned. At the same time, Roosevelt and Churchill could show Stalin they were continuing to press German armed forces on a second front, however limited.

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