May 12, 2013

Finest Hour 149, Winter 2010-11

Page 6

Theme of the Issue – The Value of Intelligence, Then and Now

Considering articles for this issue, I searched—as always—for a common thread around which to build the contents. On the surface, publication-ready articles seemed interesting but eclectic: one on Young Winston and Mark Twain (ergo, our cover); a colorful exposition of WSC’s travelogue My African Journey; the Churchill Centre-NEH 2010 Teacher Institute in England; the last of our San Francisco conference papers; book review on the alleged Churchill-Mussolini letters. But nothing, it seemed, jelled together.

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We had a lengthy article by Sir Martin Gilbert, spawned after one of our conversations on “Leading Myths,” detailing Churchill’s global involvement with World War II Intelligence; and what Christopher Sterling called a “technology footnote,” on security methods for wartime phone conversations. Far more important than his modest title suggested, this was in fact the beginning of the modern digital age.

Intelligence, perhaps? The theme still needed bolstering. Churchill was deeply involved with intelligence long before World War II.

I thought of David Stafford, the great intelligence scholar, author of the best books on the subject, and an old friend. I asked if I might republish his remarks at our 1996 Conference on Churchill and intelligence from World War I to Pearl Harbor to 1953 Iran (yes, Iran; fancy that!)—subjects which dovetailed quite nicely with Sir Martin’s commentary. And lo, we were on our way.

By good fortune arrived a human interest story by Myra Collyer, an 86-year-old ex-WAAF who had helped decypher aerial reconnoissance photos with none other than Sarah Churchill. It was ideal to “pace” the issue, between the technical articles. Almost there! But I wanted an article to stitch it together in modern context.

What might we learn today by comparing the near-reverence with which Churchill treated intelligence information—his “Golden Eggs,” he often called it— compared to our modern, lackadaisical approach to it? Why, for example, aren’t more of today’s leaders calling for “WikiLeaks” to be prosecuted for posting secret documents on the Iraqi and Afghan wars for the whole world, including the enemy, to peruse? What would Churchill think about that?

I asked David Freeman, who has the critical faculty and historical perspective to consider that question. He duly produced a reminder that Churchill had actually faced something similar. Suddenly we had another “themed” issue of Finest Hour.

And then there was the back cover. Imagine my satisfaction in realizing, as the layout process started, that Danny Rogers, the gifted artist who portrays “Young Churchill” on our cover, had also painted Alan Turing, proclaimed a hero by WSC: the Bletchley encryption expert who had designed the “bombe” machine which broke the German Enigma. Rounding off the theme with Turing on the back cover was as if the ghost of Sir Winston were guiding us with an invisible hand.

Only in Finest Hour, I suppose, could we expect to read so much on one aspect of Churchill, and the work of such contributors—writers who for forty years have helped us explore what Sir Martin calls “The Vineyard,” and Lady Soames “The Saga.” This issue is truly the work of the best people in their spheres—which it is my privilege to refract.

Where else could we find such expert and good scholars as Gilbert, Stafford, Sterling and Freeman, to inform us about Churchill and intelligence? To whom does Christopher Schwarz turn to publish his account of Churchill and Twain? Ronald Cohen, the great bibliographer; Arthur Herman, Pulitzer Prize nominee; Suzanne Sigman, our education leader and exemplar; columnists McMenamin and Lancaster; artist Daniel Rogers; Patrizio Giangreco, ever ready to help us dismember silly books by Italians; senior editors Muller and Courtenay, without whose polish FH would be a lesser product; Sir Winston himself, the craftsman whose words resound regularly in our pages—all are represented.

It is overpoweringly satisfying to know that Finest Hour has established that no one or two people are indispensable to its role as the Journal of Winston Churchill: the magazine that keeps the tablets. I look at FH and say to myself that it is kept alive by people who dare to believe that Churchill’s inspiration isn’t dead, can’t be permitted to die—who make sure that they, their children and grandchildren have, to plead Churchill’s cause and irradiate his wisdom, this little beacon of faith.