As George W. Bush relaxes at his Texas ranch, it's fitting to recall
another executive August holiday that ended, not with saddle sores and
smoldering barbecue pits, but with an eight-point document that later
inspired the United Nations.

The president was Franklin D. Roosevelt; the place, the waters off
Newfoundland, where, from Aug. 9-12, 1941, FDR and British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill drew up a document that become known as the
Atlantic Charter. Although not legally binding, the paper, postdated
Aug. 14, 1941, nonetheless made a bold statement in the midst of war,
with its vision of a world of free trade, self-governed nations and
military disarmament.

"Unlike the current White House press corps covering the goings-on in
Crawford, Texas, there were no reporters at the Atlantic Conference,"
explained Robert Swanson, an attorney from Massapequa Park, N.Y., who
brought today's 60th anniversary of the event to the Bangor Daily News'
attention. Swanson, whose father, Harold Swanson, later served on the
USS Augusta, the warship that took FDR to the conference, was a
consultant to a forthcoming video documentary on that topic.

Robert Swanson said Roosevelt boarded the Augusta on Aug. 5 under cover
of darkness in Vineyard Sound, Mass., leaving behind a smiling,
cigarette-smoking body double to sail through the Cape Cod Canal in the
presidential yacht Potomac. FDR's top-secret rendezvous with Mr.
Churchill, their first of many cordial meetings, was fraught with
danger, resulting from deadly German U-boat activity in the North
Atlantic.

Not until Aug. 16, after the prime minister had returned safely to
Britain and the president was back onboard the Potomac off the mid-Maine
coast, were the details of the meeting made known at a 20-minute
yachtside press conference in Rockland. A couple dozen reporters jammed
on board the Potomac to hear FDR outline the charter. He said, with some
anxiety, that Russia had not been asked to subscribe to the document,
but indicated that it soon would be.

Memories of the Atlantic Conference after 60 years are tainted by how
far the world must go to realize the two leaders' dream. On a tragic
note, the HMS Prince of Wales, the battleship that ferried Churchill to
Newfoundland, was bombed in the South China Sea on Dec. 10, 1941; half
of the sailors who witnessed the document's signing were lost.

On the light side is this anecdote, set in South Brooksville. As
Roosevelt was cruising up the Maine coast en route to the conference, he
recalled from his sailing days at Campobello, New Brunswick, a taciturn
storekeeper named Ray Gray who sold sumptuous hand-dipped ice cream made
from fresh peaches and thick cream. Just the ticket, he thought, to
please our British allies.

President Roosevelt might have been crestfallen, or perhaps doubled over
with laughter, when a detachment of sailors returned with the news that
Gray wasn't serving the delicacy just now.

"Ain't got no peach ice cream," Mr. Gray is said to have barked at the
sailors. "Cream and peaches all goin' overseas. Don't you know there's a
war on? And furthermore, go back and tell that darn fool so! He made the
law, didn't he?"

Ray Gray isn't mentioned on Robert Swanson's Atlantic Charter Web site,
but nearly everything else about the event is. The link to the site is
http://www.internet-esq.com/ussaugusta