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That last sentence no one can dispute. Wouk's tale begins in the spring of 1939, with Hitler giving his generals the date for the invasion of Poland: Sept. 1. As the series progresses, other events familiar from the history books fly by: the fall of France, the Battle of Britain, the German attack on the Soviet Union and, finally, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Wouk, who wrote the screenplay from his 885-page novel, ingeniously invented a witness to these dramatic events, Victor ("Pug") Henry, a commander (later captain) in the U.S. Navy. Sent to Berlin as the American naval attache in the spring of 1939, Henry, played by Robert Mitchum, meets all the top Nazi leaders. Through his prescience, with just a little help from the author's hindsight, Henry alone anticipates the signing of the Soviet-German Nonaggression Pact, which enabled the Germans to launch the war. That prediction brings him to the attention of President Roosevelt, who thenceforth makes him his unofficial confidant and emissary. As F.D.R.'s man on the spot, he meets Churchill, Mussolini and Stalin and is on hand for memorable occasions like the first conference between the President and the Prime Minister, aboard a U.S. warship off the coast of Newfoundland.
Along with Henry's adventures in history, Wouk has constructed various subplots involving Henry's family, particularly his son Byron (Jan-Michael Vincent), and Natalie Jastrow (Ali MacGraw), the American Jew Byron woos and marries. Natalie is an impetuous and headstrong woman who works as secretary to her Uncle Aaron (Houseman), a cultivated historian who lives in Bernard Berenson-style splendor outside Siena.
A few days before the Germans storm into Poland, Natalie insists on visiting her fiance Leslie Slote (David Dukes), an American Foreign Service officer stationed in Warsaw, and she drags the love-smitten Byron along with her. Through this credibility-straining contrivance, Wouk brings within his action the German blitzkrieg and the bombing of Warsaw. Later, after Natalie marries Byron, she is trapped in Europe with her uncle; as Jews, both are in grave danger of disappearing into Hitler's Holocaust. The persecution of the Jews is one of the dominating concerns of both the series and its author, who is a devout Orthodox Jew.
It took Wouk the better part of 16 years to research and write The Winds of War, and its sequel, War and Remembrance, and he jealously guarded the results of his labor. For years he had no trouble resisting the persistent blandishments of film and TV executives. Finally, in 1977, under the ministrations of Barry Diller, a former ABC executive who had become chairman of Paramount, an extraordinary offer won him over. ABC paid Wouk an estimated $1.5 million, gave him approval of director and producer and, to meet his desire for a high-toned context, allowed him some say over commercials (he wanted none for such things as toilet paper and feminine-hygiene products). Furthermore, ABC agreed to cluster more commercials together, thus interrupting the drama less often. British Writer Jack Pulman, who wrote the BBC's I, Claudius and War and Peace, was hired to do the adaptation. After eleven months of research and planning, he suffered a fatal heart attack. Wouk was persuaded to undertake the script (see box).