My pick would be Winston Churchill, on the basis of the difference between his public image and the actual reality of the man. He was unquestionably determined to fight for Britain’s survival, sincere in his utter loathing of Hitler, relentless in the pursuit of his efforts to bring the US into the war on Britain’s side, and a formidable stiffener of British resolve at a dark time in that country’s history. He did, however, have a number of failings – some of which were countreproductive to the British war effort, and some of which would have provoked a public outcry if they had been known outside of his immediate circle during the war. In the latter category was his private flouting of the wartime rationing system: he supposedly had daily breakfasts of pheasant or partridge which exceeded the weekly protein allowance of British schoolchildren, and the war did not interrupt his lifetime habit of drinking a daily pint of champagne (on top of his other forms of liquor consumption).
In the former category, he had a habit of meddling with military matters in ways that were controversial, sometimes with disastrous results. One example was Churchill’s insistence that Wavell – who had managed to reach Libya – send substantial forces to Greece, a move which not only wrecked Wavell’s advance but also failed to save Greece and led to another humiliating Dunkirk-like evacuation for Britain. Churchill preached magnanimity towards one’s enemies, but showed little enough of it towards his own commanders: the ill and elderly Admiral Sir Dudley Pound was one of the victims of Churchill’s bullying (notably at the time of the Bismarck operation), and Sir John Dill (briefly Chief of the Imperial General Staff) was another senior officer with whom Churchill had a very fractious relationship.
