Leaders and their Pets

President Franklin Roosevelt had an adored black scottish terrier called Fala. Winston Churchill had a bulldog (what else) called Dodo. Throughout WW2 a marmalade cat called Nelson prowled No 10 Downing street receiving titbits from the prime minister’s table, much to the annoyance of Mrs Churchill.

The real Admiral Nelson never sailed without at least one cat on board although that probably had more to do with the ravages of ship mice than feline love.

The mad Roman Emperor Caligula tried to make his favourite horse Incitatus, a Consul while Hitler lavished love and fine food on his German shepherd Blondi. He was often photographed with the dog at his Bavarian retreat Berchtesgaden.

Poor Blondi paid a high price for his master’s affection. Hitler poisoned the dog in his last hours in the Berlin bunker to test the strength of his cyanide pills. They worked. Both Blondi and Hitler’s mistress Eva Braun died within minutes of taking the pills. Hitler then shot himself to complete the Gotterdammerung of the Third Reich.

Finally that great French leader General de Gaulle, who always did things differently, had the canine companionship of a corgi called Rasemotte given to him by Harold Macmillan; but his real love may well to have been the hens on whom he lavished food and affection.

Such leaders, whether great men or monsters, revealed an emotional need for the companionship of animals that would offer unconditional love and never ask awkward questions.

The wartime allied leader, General Dwight Eisenhower was no exception. He more than most felt the loneliness of high command and the pressures of supreme military power.

Kay Summersby, Eisenhower’s wartime driver companion and lover gave the general a lifeline to sanity and relaxation during moment of great stress. She also gave him a black Scottish terrier puppy which was to become, like Summersby herself, his inseparable companion.

Eisenhower named the dog Telek, a reference to Telegraph cottage outside London where he stayed while in the UK and a none too discreet tribute to his driver. Eisenhower’s love for Kay folded into his deep affection for Telek; in three and half years of war it seemed he could not do without either.

Telek followed his master everywhere. He was introduced to Churchill, Roosevelt and even Stalin during the allied summit at Yalta in 1945. When two German Generals signed the surrender in April that year Telek was there to growl at them.

Eisenhower cruelly parted from Kay Summersby at the end of the war but she made sure that Telek stayed with her. The dog whose name revealed the happiness Eisenhower found with his driver also symbolised the love between two people thrown together by war.

Learn more about Kay Summersby and her four-legged friend Telek in the absorbing new novel by James MacManus, Ike and Kay, published by Duckworth on 8 March 2018. Pre-order your copy here.