September 27, 2013

DESPATCH BOX: FINEST HOUR 102, SPRING 1999

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TR.WSC AND ARL

I read Finest Hour 100 and encountered on page 46 the piece about Theodore Roosevelt’s view of Churchill. I once asked Alice Roosevelt Longworth why her father disliked Winston Churchill so much. She replied, “Because they were so much alike.”

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ARTHUR SCHLESINGER, JR., NEW YORK CITY

BALDWIN: “A RESPECTFUL SALUTE”

With the greatest respect to you and Sir Martin Gilbert I was dismayed that you wrote, “in the end [Churchill] did not grant forgiveness” to Baldwin (FH 101, “How Churchill Saw Others”). This view was based on a letter quoted by Sir Martin (In Search of Churchill, p. 106) in which Churchill wrote to an unnamed recipient, “I wish Stanley Baldwin no ill, but it would have been much better had he never lived.” This was surely a private letter intended only for its recipient, and not for publication.

I will cite opposing evidence, from H. Montgomery Hyde’s biography of Baldwin (Hart-Davis MacGibbon 1973) to show that this letter was not truly representative. Their meeting at Downing Street, which you mention, lasted three hours and “happily put an end to their previously strained relations” (Hyde, pp. 553-54). After Baldwin’s death in 1947, when a public appeal for a memorial near his home was under-subscribed, Churchill generously made up the difference (Hyde, p. 564). At the ceremony when he handed the memorial deeds to the trustees, he said, “As the years roll by and the perspective of history lengthens and reduces so many of our disputes to their due proportion, there will be many who will not pass this place without giving their respectful salute.”

DEREK LUKIN JOHNSTON, VANCOUVER, B.C.

Editor’s Response: Baldwin’s biographer could not have known what Churchill wrote privately of Baldwin. Churchill’s generosity toward Baldwin’ memorial and his public remarks are very typical of him; I suppose what we conclude about Churchill’s true feeling depends on whether we credit what he said in public more than what he said in private.

CHURCHILL MEMORIAL

We just completed a full weekend of Churchill Fellows/Kemper Lecture activities with gatherings in St. Louis, Fulton, and Kansas City featuring P.M.H. Bell (Senior Research Fellow from Liverpool University) who spoke about Winston Churchill’s policy toward France and Charles de Gaulle during World War II and Lady Soames, who spoke about the development of her latest book, Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills. We very much enjoyed having Jim Muller join us on Sunday 21 March here in Fulton, and speaking at the luncheon in order to bring us up to date on Churchill Center activities. I enjoyed meeting you at Williamsburg and hope we can work together to mutual benefit and interest.

GORDON DAVIS, DIRECTOR CHURCHILL MEMORIAL & LIBRARY, FULTON, MO.

CHURCHILL’S SOUTH AFRICA

I am pleased to hear of Celia Sandys’s tour of South Africa. I remember touring some of the preserved battlefields of the Boer War, including the outline of the trenches, etc. when I was in my early 20s. Some of them were in remote areas and I took with me a memorable book about the Boer War, Good Bye Dolly Gray. In those days (1971) I was able to travel alone and wander round these historic sites, most of which were off the beaten track.

ROBIN LINKE, ICS AUSTRALIA, WEMBLEY, W.A.

YOU CAN PLEASE SOME OF THE PEOPLE SOME OF THE TIME….

I am sure that you and Barbara have been inundated with congratulations on the 100th edition of Finest Hour. It gives me pleasure to add my thanks and congratulations. The concept and layout did full justice to a uniquely challenging occasion, a landmark in the history of The Churchill Center and Societies. I found the concept utterly compelling: a scrupulous and exciting retracing of growth from small beginnings expertly blended with a fascinating and convincing display of Churchill’s many-sided genius. In the years ahead FH 100 will help confound ill-informed critics and inspire every believer serving the cause. Another advantage is that newcomers, given the opportunity to study it, will readily realize the lasting importance of carrying the flag boldly forward. I am greatly indebted to you for your constant encouragement and generous reference to my efforts.

RON CYNEWULF ROBBINS, VICTORIA, B.C.

…BUT NOT ALL THE PEOPLE (ETC.)

It dismays me to hear some of the stuff being pumped out about Churchill in certain British schools and colleges nowadays, but that young fellow from Texas (“The First Time I WSC’d…,” FH 101), who is I fear far from alone in his obtuseness, is planting some equally offbeat, albeit opposite, notions. Churchill’s proper place in history will not be secured if these bigoted so-called experts go around attracting ridicule through promoting him as some kind of deity. FH should have no truck with them. Such absurd notions do more harm to the cause than the “Thoughts of Chairman Charmley.” There are and always will be Churchill critics. Counter them by all means by wheeling out all the enlightened Churchill apologists you can muster. Let there be vigorous, informed and healthy debate. But Churchill deifiers are simply bad news up with which you should not put. Pragmatic Brits will treat them with the contempt they deserve, and by giving them any kind of encouragement FH probably damages its own credibility.

DOUGLAS HALL, GRANTHAM, LINCS., UK

IGNORANT FAN CLUB

I am glad to see you’ve been giving “Churchilliana” a period of “benign neglect” lately. Nothing leaves us more open to charges of deification of a very human being, or serving as an ignorant fan club, than page after page of kewpie dolls and toby jugs in the image (most of them pretty dreadful) of the Great Man. Give it a rest!

JAMES WARREN, NEW YORK CITY

GANGING UP

I find your glorification of Churchill quite disgusting. It is typical British/American arrogance to ignore the outcome of WW2 for the peoples of Eastern Europe, not to speak of the Germans. Churchill knew from the beginning about the terrible fate of the Russians and many other East European peoples under Bolshevist dictatorship. He obviously didn’t care. He was obsessed with anti-German hatred. Knowing the fact that he bombed German cities, killing thousands of civilians long before the Germans were retaliating, makes him in my opinion even worse than Hitler. Why at all did he go into alliance with Stalin against the Germans? That is his crime and the recognition of it will come.

HELMUT WILD

Reader response (via Internet): Seems like we need to check our WW2 timeline: Who occupied the Rhineland in violation of Versailles in March 1936? What was the March 1938 Anschluss about? What about March 1939 and the absorption of all those German-speaking Bohemians, Moravians and Slovakians into the Reich? Last I looked it was Berlin, not London, which initially sided with Moscow; August 1939 comes to mind. As for unprovoked bombing, places like Guernica, Warsaw, Rotterdam and East London were all hit before the RAF had dropped a single bomb on the peace-loving Reich. Indeed, a man who has been singularly demeaned as an agent of peace in a time of war, Neville Chamberlain, would only go so far in 1939 as to drop pamphlets out of airplanes over Germany. When someone in the House of Commons asked why only paper was being dropped on Germany, a government spokesman answered, “Don’t be absurd, that would be destruction of private property.” Apparently Goering had no such reservations on this matter. General William Sherman said “war is hell” in 1864, and nothing has changed. If you start a World War, you’d better be able to finish it, or sooner or later expect quite a few bombs over your own skies. -Bob Caputi

Editor’s response: It is a legitimate criticism that Churchill ignored Stalin in his obsession with Hitler, and arguments to that end are not coming out, they’ve been out—for up to thirty years. But the notions that he (1) hated Germans in general and (2) was obsessed with Hitler are mutually exclusive. If he hated all Germans, exclaiming in 1946 that the only way to salvage Europe was through rapprochement between France and Germany was an odd way to express it. If you are seriously interested in understanding, consider several articles we have published. These express differing views, which is what we are about: “Churchill and the Baltic”‘(FH 53, 54); a review of Christopher Harmon’s book, ‘Are We Beasts?’ Churchill and the Moral Question of World War II Area Bombing, (FH 76); and two articles in Churchill Proceedings 1994-1995: “Churchill, Roosevelt and Eastern Europe, ” by Warren Kimball and “The Best He Could Do in the Situation That Prevailed,” by Larry Arnn.

SCOTTISH DEVOLUTION

“Churchill Online” (FH 101) discussed “banter” that occurred over this matter. I was one of those engaged and I believe my opinion has been misrepresented. I did not state, or mean to infer, that Churchill opposed the potential establishment of regional parliaments or even a Scottish parliament, in theory. A break-up of the UK is another matter entirely; which, I believe, would appall him. Whether or not such a potential break-up can be laid at the door of Margaret Thatcher, as Professor Addison asserts, is a more debatable point. Academics tend to blame Mrs.Thatcher and her American compatriot, Ronald Reagan, for just about every calamity under the sun.

Churchill’s comments on regional parliaments were made when he was a Liberal MP for Dundee in Scotland and hoping to keep Ireland in the union. He does not appear to have shown much interest in this matter later. But quoting Churchill on anything is like quoting the Bible in terms of variety and depth and does not necessarily make the point. This is due to his nearly six decades in public service, including numerous cabinet positions, prolific pen and tongue, two world wars, a cold war, and two changes in party affiliation! I remain unconvinced that Churchill’s support of regional parliaments within the United Kingdom was ever anything more than theoretical.

WILLIAM J. SHEPHERD, CROFTON, MD., USA

I agree that there is a clear distinction between the creation of a federal system and the break-up of the Union. Churchill’s thinking in the early part of this century—and again I agree it was just thinking—seems to have revolved around the possibility of an Imperial Parliament at Westminster with subsidiary regional parliaments in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and possibly even parts of England. He was clearly influenced by the need to solve the Irish question, and also possibly by the fact that he was a Scottish MP. He was also clearly aware of the flaws and dangers inherent in his own plan.

In general, I am sure it is correct to assert that Churchill would have been opposed to full Scottish independence. He would have seen it in the same light as the loss of Empire, as a further weakening of Britain in the modern world. But that is not to say that he did not toy with Scottish nationalism when it suited his own political agenda. At Edinburgh in 1950 he announced that no-one would be able to blame Scotland for breaking away from England if the latter became an “absolute socialist state.”

ALLEN PACKWOOD, CHURCHILL ARCHIVES CENTRE CHURCHILL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

William Shepherd is quite right to stress that it’s always difficult to define Churchill’s position on some issues, since he took different positions in different phases of his career. He and Allen Packwood also underline the key distinction between federal devolution within the UK, which Churchill in principle supported in the period just before the First World War as a means of binding the UK together and removing the Irish question from party politics; and the break-up of the UK, which he would surely have regarded as a disaster. As we musn’t have too much agreement, I stick to the point that the Blair government’s view of the Scottish question is very much in line with Churchill’s view of the Irish question, namely that Home Rule is the best antidote to separatism. We’ll never know whether Churchill was right about Ireland, but we’ll find out eventually whether Blair is right about Scotland.

PROF. PAUL ADDISON, UNIV. OF EDINBURGH