How Clementine Churchill Wielded Influence As Winston's Wife

"At the outset, biographer Sonia Purnell didn't know much about Clementine Churchill. "I confess, like millions of others, I had absolutely no idea who Winston Churchill's wife was," Purnell tells NPR's Steve Inskeep."

"But then Purnell stumbled onto a letter from 1940, when Winston Churchill had just become prime minister. It was the middle of World War II, and England was in a very bad state."

"'She realized that he was in danger of losing support of the very people he needed most,' Purnell says. 'He was being brusque and rude and rather overbearing. So, she wrote him this letter. And it just tells him how he needs to bring people alongside him, to make them love him. His behavior changed as a result of this. And people changed their minds about him.'"