Winston Churchill Letter to Charles de Gaulle Sells for $50,908 at Auction
A rare letter revealing Winston Churchill’s concerns about postwar threats and the future of freedom highlighted RR Auction’s WWII-themed sale.
BOSTON, June 11, 2026 — A 1950 letter signed by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to French leader Charles de Gaulle sold for $50,908 at RR Auction’s Fine Autographs and Artifacts Featuring WWII sale, which closed June 10.
The two-page typed letter, written on Churchill’s Chartwell letterhead and dated August 22, 1950, thanks de Gaulle for remarks in his memoirs and looks back on their wartime relationship. Churchill writes that despite the “hard contretemps of War,” the two leaders maintained “fundamental goodwill” while serving “the common cause of freedom and tradition.”
Churchill warns that “all that we were able to achieve is now plunged in the greatest peril I have ever known”
The letter concludes with a warning shaped by the opening years of the Cold War. Churchill writes: “How terrible it is to feel that all that we were able to achieve is now plunged in the greatest peril I have ever known, and that is saying a good deal.”
Churchill and de Gaulle worked closely during World War II after the fall of France in 1940. With Churchill’s support, de Gaulle established the Free French movement from London and continued resistance to Nazi Germany. Although the two leaders frequently disagreed over military and political matters, they remained linked by a shared commitment to defeating the Axis powers and restoring French sovereignty.
Written weeks after the outbreak of the Korean War and less than a year after the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb test, the letter was written amid growing Cold War tensions that Churchill described as 'the greatest peril I have ever known.’
"The letter shows how Churchill viewed the world in 1950. World War II had ended, but he believed many of the gains secured by the Allied victory were already under threat," said Bobby Livingston, Executive Vice President at RR Auction.
The Fine Autographs and Artifacts Featuring WWII sale realized more than $1 million.
Additional highlights included:
• Alexander Hamilton letter signed as Treasury Secretary concerning the 1790 Tonnage Act, sold for $54,811
• Enola Gay and Bockscar crew-signed “short snorter” obtained by tail gunner Bob Caron in 1945, sold for $37,551
• Zhou Enlai signed letter discussing U.S. policy toward China, sold for $31,245
• Dambusters logbook documenting Operation Chastise and signed by five pilots later killed in action, sold for $25,611
• Alfred Jodl signed manuscript containing his final statement to the Nuremberg Tribunal, sold for $24,348
• Chester Nimitz signed letter to the parents of the Sullivan brothers, sold for $23,544
RR Auction’s Fine Autographs and Artifacts Featuring WWII sale opened May 19, 2026, and closed June 10, 2026. For more, visit www.rrauction.com.
