In the moments before terrorists rearranged life across the globe on Sept. 11, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was in an English seaside hotel room tweaking a controversial domestic policy address that the Daily Mail said would trigger "the biggest test of his leadership." After learning that both Trade Center towers had been hit, Blair scrapped the speech. "The mass terrorism is the new evil in our world," he instead told his Brighton audience in a voice quaking with emotion. "We, the democracies of the world, are going to have to come together and fight it together and eradicate this evil."

From that first unambiguous statement, Blair, 48, has proven himself America's unflinching best mate. He has logged more than 9,000 miles traveling to help forge the international coalition that is now assisting in the campaign against Afghanistan's Taliban regime and the terrorist forces it harbors. He has committed more than 23,000 British troops and more than 20 warships to the effort. And he has answered Britons wary of both too broad a military commitment and too cozy a relationship with Washington. "Yes, America has its faults, but it is a free country, a democracy; it is our ally," he told fellow Labourites on Oct. 2. "This is a fight for freedom." Says presidential author Stephen Hess: "It has been remarkable that Blair has carried the argument for the United States so elegantly into a world suspicious of America."

For a leader who has been accused of being more Clintonesque than his old pal Bill Clinton—governing more with poll numbers than passion—Blair is proving stunningly surefooted. The strength of his performance has inspired comparisons to Winston Churchill. It has also inspired comparisons to Blair himself. "Dealing with domestic issues he's instinctively quite cautious and risk-averse," says Andrew Sparrow, political correspondent for The Daily Telegraph. "He's been much more decisive, single-minded and aggressive in the last four weeks."

It is a defining moment in a career that has been marked by an excess of accomplishment. Elected to Parliament in 1983 at 30, Blair ascended to leadership of the rancorous socialist Labour party 11 years later, following the sudden death of leader John Smith. By cutting in line ahead of party stalwarts, he was branded an opportunist by some. Three years later Blair became Britain's youngest prime minister in 185 years, claiming his place in a landslide victory as he brought to Downing Street his charisma and determination to drag his leftist party toward more centrist politics.

He also brought his wife, Cherie, 47, a top trial lawyer who was the first wife of a British PM to have a career outside the home. A model of the modern man, Blair never made it a secret that Cherie (whom he had courted while both were apprenticing in law and married in 1980) had served as the main family breadwinner with her up to $375,000 salary while he built his political career.

Despite their mutual ambition, the Blairs were determined to minimize disruptions to family life. Unlike most PMs, Blair moved his entire family to Downing Street. (No. 10, the traditional prime minister's quarters, was too small to house the Blairs' three children, so they took up residence next door at No. 11.) Last year the couple added another child, the first born to a sitting prime minister since 1848; Leo is now 1, Euan 17, Nicholas 15 and Kathryn 13. "The family is still predominant," says attorney Nick Ryden, an old friend of Blair's.

To that end, most nights the family tries to dine together, and Cherie does the cooking. "The strength they have for the public performance is because they do have a private life that they revere," says Michael Beloff, Cherie's former law partner and president of Oxford's Trinity College. Though they make no show of their weekly visits to church—"I really do not like God being used as a political platform," Blair, a Christian, told PEOPLE in 1996—friends say they, like the Bushes and Clintons, draw on their faith.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Blair has looked older, tougher and more tired and has had little if any time for his usual regimen of swimming and tennis. Cherie now sports an acupuncture needle in her right ear, to help with anxiety. "She does try alternative treatments," says John Burton, a political and family friend. "But she's not off the wall." It surely has not helped that oldest son Euan, who was arrested (though not charged) in July 2000 for drunken behavior following exams, was mugged—but not hurt—on Sept. 29 in London by a gang of teenagers.

Publicly, Blair has reached out with the same ready sympathy that endeared him to Britons at the time of Princess Diana's death in 1997. Only four months on the job, Blair hailed her as "the people's princess" and coaxed the royal family to confront the citizenry's grief head-on. "One of Blair's most arrogant assumptions is that he understands the British psyche better than almost anyone else—and that is right," says John Rentoul, a Blair biographer. "You can't separate the family man, the guy with the four children who listens to pop music and plays guitar, from the politician. He is all of a piece."

In that, he is much like Clinton, with whom he shared a particular closeness even when it was not politically expedient. "He stood shoulder to shoulder with Bill Clinton when Clinton had the cooties," says Rentoul. Bush and Blair have yet to show evidence of such a tight bond. But a friendship was forged after Blair visited Camp David in February, followed by Bush's July visit to Chequers, the British equivalent. Trust deepened that month at the G8 summit in Genoa, Italy. "In a private round-table discussion, Blair would slide a piece of paper over to Bush with a note saying, 'You could say such and such' or 'The answer to this is...' " says a source close to Downing Street. "Bush is smart enough to know when someone is trying to discreetly help him."

And smart enough to tap Blair's diplomatic skills for the first round of high-level team-building in Germany, France and Belgium following the Sept. 11 attack. Blair later conferred with leaders in India, Pakistan and Russia, where, says the Telegraph's Sparrow, "he's pally with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. They went for a walk and played snooker."

Whether Blair and Bush will ever go bass fishing together is uncertain. What is clear is Bush's faith in the declaration he made Sept. 20 to Congress. "America has no truer friend than Great Britain," Bush said. As a weary Blair looked on, Bush caught his eye and said simply, "Thank you for coming, friend."

Jill Smolowe
Nina Biddle and Eileen Finan in London and Jane Sims Podesta in Washington, D.C.