September 25, 2024

Finest Hour 201, First Quarter 2023

Page 05

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Coming in Finest Hour 202: Churchill the Orator

Sir Maurice Hankey to Sir Thomas Inskip: Notes on a Conversation with Mr. Winston Churchill, 19 April 1936

LONDON—A point on which he was really concerned was how far Russia could be relied on as an ally. In view of the danger from Germany he has buried his violent anti-Russian complex of former days and is apparently a bosom friend of [Soviet Ambassador] Maisky. Until quite recently he has been inclined to believe in the strength of Russia. He has, however, been seriously shaken in this by reading a book with the curious title Uncle Give Us Bread,* which he urged me to read. The book has awakened in his mind most serious misgivings of Russia, and he has evidently got the impression that Russia may perhaps present only a façade with nothing behind.

He suggested that Sir Thomas Inskip ought to collect all the evidence official and otherwise that there is about Russia in order to determine whether she is an ally worth having or not, and that in particular we ought to ascertain from the French Government the detailed views of their General Staffs on Russia’s naval, military and air strength, since it must have been on such views that the French The International Churchill Society (ICS) was founded in 1968 to educate new generations about the continuing relevance of the life and legacy of Sir Winston Churchill. In 2016 the society established the National Churchill Leadership Center (NCLC) at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. to serve as a forum for teaching about the important example of Churchill’s leadership. America’s National Churchill Museum (ANCM) opened in 1969 on the campus of Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where Churchill delivered his famous “Iron Curtain” speech in 1946. The museum was designated by act of Congress in 2009 as the official tribute to Churchill in the United States. The museum has hosted leading dignitaries such as Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Madeleine Albright to lecture on Churchill’s enduring importance. Government based its decision to enter into the [1935 Franco-Soviet] Treaty [of Mutual Assistance].

*A book by Arne Strøm, a Danish poultry expert who had spent eighteen months in the Soviet Union to help organize the State Poultry Farms. The book, first published in Denmark in 1934, was translated into English and published in London by Allen and Unwin in 1936.