On 1 May 1951 Churchill’s work on his war memoirs reached a turning point. ‘I regard Volume V as finished except for overtakes, American corrections and final reading by me,’ he wrote to his five helpers. Any overtake corrections, or other last-minute alterations, would be dealt with by Denis Kelly and must be sent to him. ‘From now on we turn to Volume VI.’ Each of the helpers would be receiving copies of what had already been done in outline. ‘I should be glad,’ Churchill wrote, ‘if General Pownall would take up the story from the end of Chapter I “The Struggle in Normandy”, and describe the salient military events in France and Normandy covering the liberation of France and Belgium.’
Churchill would prefer his helpers to provide him with ‘a synopsis and a report’, he wrote, ‘rather than attempt at present the writing of the chapter’. He recognized that each process involved ‘a great deal of work’ by the ‘Syndicate’, as he now called it in racing parlance, and he went on to outline the division of work for the immediate future:
I should be glad if Mr Deakin will bring ‘Balkan Policy & Events’ along.
I should be glad if Commodore Allen could survey the assembled material that will come in this Volume for ‘Burma and the Pacific’. We only want skeletons (5,000 limit) to begin with.
Perhaps Lord Ismay could look after ‘The Second Quebec Conference’.
I am asking Mr Sandys to do me a note on the ‘Pilotless Bombardment’ which I will then send to Sir Guy Garrod. I think we have already got some material of Mr Sandys on this.
Churchill’s Volume 6 instructions ended:
It would I am sure be most helpful if the Syndicate could meet early next week after all the circulations have been made, and could discuss this note, which is of course only my first thoughts on approaching our new text. I thought it would be a help if I put this forward as a sort of guide. I welcome all suggestions.1655
While the ‘Syndicate’ prepared the materials and outlines for 1944 and 1945, Churchill worked on a speech to the House of Commons on the dispute which had broken out between Britain and the United States over the export of raw materials to China. Churchill supported the American arguments in favour of the ban on such exports, and invited the House of Commons to try to understand their point of view:
The United States have lost nearly 70,000 men, killed, wounded and missing. We know how we feel about the Glosters, and that should enable us to measure the feelings of people in the United States, in many cities, towns and villages there, when the news comes in of someone who has lost a dear one in the fighting overseas.1656 Feelings are tense: very dangerous to distress or to disturb. We can measure these American feelings by our own. They also know that they are bearing virtually the whole weight of the Korean War.
Churchill then spoke, not without a touch of irony, directed against the Government, of the money which the United States had given to Europe. That too, he argued, had to be taken into consideration:
Look at the money they have lent or given to our country during the period of Socialist rule. I doubt whether we should have had the Utopia which we enjoy without their aid. Where should we all be without their assistance in Europe? Free Europe is quite incapable of defending itself, and must remain so for several years, whatever we do. These considerations must be kept in our minds when we discuss these matters of trade, which I consider minor matters, and the different points of friction between us and the United States.
As he had urged in every speech on defence and foreign affairs, Churchill now reiterated during his remarks on trade with China the theme which he felt most deeply, that Britain must work in harmony with the United States, and not pick quarrels on relatively minor issues which might endanger that harmony:
Our great danger now is in pursuing a policy of girding at the United States and giving them the impression that they are left to do all the work, while we pull at their coat-tails and read them moral lessons in statecraft and about the love we all ought to have for China.
Churchill urged ‘a sense of proportion’; the States of Western Europe needed the United States ‘on the grounds of national safety and even of survival’. The Norwegians, Danes, Dutch, Belgians and French lay ‘nearer to Soviet power with its mighty armies and satellite States’ than Britain.
Their plight is even worse than ours. We at least have the Channel, although even that as a means of safety would, without air superiority, soon depart; and air superiority cannot be obtained by us without the fullest aid from the United States.
Therefore I say that on every ground, national, European and international, we should allow no minor matters—even if we feel keenly about them—to stand in the way of the fullest, closest intimacy, accord and association with the United States.
During his speech, Churchill reminded the House that he had also been opposed to the export of ‘high-grade war manufacture, and even machines and machine tools’, to Russia or to its satellites. ‘The Government denied the charge,’ he commented, ‘but took steps to stop it.’ In the same way ‘we ought not’, he declared, ‘to be exporting any rubber to China at all’. The question ‘we have to consider today’, he said, ‘is whether it is worth while to go on nagging, and haggling, and higgling with the United States over a lot of details, and extremely complex details, and making little progress and creating ill will out of all proportion to any advantages gained by us. The United States have a valid complaint on the admitted fact that rubber is an indisputable strategic material.’
As was now an increasing feature of each major speech by Churchill, the interruptions were frequent and his reaction as sharp as ever:
Mr Harold Davies rose—
Mr Churchill: Perhaps I am going to use the very argument of which the hon. Gentleman is thinking. Anyhow, it is my show at the moment.
Mr Poole (Birmingham, Perry Barr): Do not write down your own country all the time.
Mr Churchill: Will the hon. Member yell it out again?
Mr Poole: I suggested that the right hon. Gentleman should not so continuously write down his own country.
Mr Churchill: There is no better way of writing down your own country than to make boastful and untruthful statements about facts which are known to all.1657
Mr Shinwell rose—
Hon. Members: Withdraw.
Mr Churchill: Hon. Members will not frighten me by their yelling.
When Churchill quoted Shinwell to the effect that things would go ‘better’ in Korea following the removal of General MacArthur, a further altercation took place:
Mr Shinwell rose—
Hon. Members: Sit down.
Mr Shinwell: I shall not sit down. May I tell the right hon. Gentleman that he has made a most false statement about me in this House, and that he had no right to make such statements about Ministers?
Mr Churchill: Do not be so nervous about it.
Mr Shinwell: I am not nervous about it. [Laughter.] You should be ashamed of yourself. The right hon. Gentleman has done more harm to this country than anyone.
Mr Churchill: Very helpful, but it is not the right hon. Gentleman who would have any right to teach me my conduct. However, I am sorry to see him so infuriated. The French have a saying that ‘it is only the truth that wounds’.1658
Churchill had been helped in the detailed preparation of his speech on trade with China by the Conservative MP for Bury and Radcliffe, Walter Fletcher, an expert on rubber and Far Eastern affairs, Chairman of a firm of rubber merchants, and twice past Chairman of the Rubber Trade Association. Like Churchill, Fletcher was also a painter who had exhibited at the Royal Academy.1659 ‘Thank you for your letter and enclosures of May 8,’ Churchill wrote to Fletcher after the debate. ‘They were of considerable assistance to me in preparing my speech, and I am so obliged to you for the trouble you took.’1660 Another of those who had provided what Churchill called ‘valuable notes’ for this same speech was Sir Arthur Salter, newly elected Conservative MP for Ormskirk, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in Churchill’s Caretaker Government.1661
***
There was a brief royal and racing interlude from politics on May 14, when Princess Elizabeth invited Churchill to luncheon with her at Hurst Park racecourse, before the Winston Churchill Stakes. Churchill’s horse Colonist II was among the runners. Another runner, Above Board, was in the royal colours.1662 Colonist II came in first, closely followed by Above Board. ‘Many congratulations on your win,’ the King telegraphed that evening from Balmoral Castle.1663 ‘I am deeply grateful for Your Majesty’s most kind and gracious telegram,’ Churchill replied.1664 A week later he wrote to Princess Elizabeth, in his own hand:
Madam,
I must thank Your Royal Highness for so kindly asking me to luncheon with you at Hurst Park last Saturday, and for the gracious congratulations with which you honoured me. I wish indeed that we could both have been victorious—but that would be no foundation for the excitements and liveliness of the Turf.
Believe me Your Royal Highness’
devoted Servant.
Winston S. Churchill1665
The pleasure of victory on the course was quite offset by news that Clementine Churchill was in need of an operation. After it, she had to remain in hospital for three weeks. It was, Mary Soames later recalled a ‘major “repair” operation’—‘a major gynaecological operation’; her mother ‘suffered all the pain and lowness of spirit which are inseparable from such an operation’.1666 ‘I am so sorry to see the news of Clemmie’s illness,’ wrote Harold Macmillan on May 21, and he added: ‘I am sure it must be a source of great anxiety to you.’1667
***
On May 18 Churchill was in Glasgow, where he spoke at the Annual Conference of the Scottish Unionist Association. He had been shocked, he said, during the debate in the House of Commons on the supply of raw materials to China, ‘to see how much anti-American feeling there was among the Left-wing Government supporters below the Gangway. They showed themselves definitely pro-Chinese, although it is the Chinese who are killing our men and the Americans who are helping us.’
Churchill also spoke at Glasgow of the differences between Labour and Conservative in economic policy, telling his audience, in answer to the frequent question ‘What would you do if you came into power?’ that:
A Conservative Government would aim at keeping State expenditure within bounds. We believe that a healthy economy depends, as Mr Gladstone used to say, on money being allowed to fructify in the pockets of the people.
For the production we need for the defence programme, for the export trade, and to maintain decent living standards at home, we look to the impulse of individual effort as well as a well-conceived State policy.
We would encourage work and thrift. We shall call a halt to all further nationalization, and rely for increased production on the experience, skill and enterprise of our great industries. Wherever we can we shall restore freedom to those industries which the State has taken over. Iron and steel will become again a great free-enterprise industry, strengthened and aided as the TUC proposed, by a board representing workers, management and the Government. Where industries cannot be restored to the full freedom of competition we intend to do everything possible to lessen the unhealthy grip of Whitehall and revive local initiative and responsibility.
Churchill ended his Glasgow speech, as he now ended every speech to Conservative audiences, with an election alert. ‘Be sure you are ready for the call when it comes. Be sure you lay aside every impediment and allow no class or privilege or vested interest to stand between you and your duty to the nation.’1668
***
Throughout June 1951, Churchill stayed as much as possible at Chartwell, where his wife was convalescing after her operation. On June 3 the new American Ambassador, Walter Gifford, and Margaret Truman came to lunch.1669 Churchill gave Miss Truman a painting for her father, to whom he wrote two weeks later:
This picture was hung in the Academy last year, and is about as presentable as anything I can produce. It shows the beautiful panorama of the Atlas Mountains from Marrakech. This is the view that I persuaded your predecessor to see before he left North Africa after the Casablanca Conference. He was carried to the top of a high tower, and a magnificent sunset was duly in attendance.1670
‘I can’t find words adequate,’ Truman replied, ‘to express my appreciation of the beautiful picture of the Atlas Mountains, painted by you. I shall treasure that picture as long as I live and it will be one of the most valued possessions I will be able to leave to Margaret when I pass on.’1671
On June 4 Churchill left Chartwell for London. He was at Kempton Park on June 5 to watch Colonist II gallop, dined that night at Buckingham Palace, and dined on the following night at the Norwegian Embassy, to meet the King of Norway.1672 On June 7, at the start of two all-night sessions of the House of Commons, he dined at the Other Club, and for twenty-one hours led the Opposition in a series of divisions. ‘Churchill stuck it out, much to the delight of the party,’ noted Harold Macmillan, ‘and voted in every division.’1673 A week later Macmillan wrote again in his diary:
Conscious that many people feel that he is too old to form a Government and that this will probably be used as a cry against him at the election, he has used these days to give a demonstration of energy and vitality. He has voted in every division, made a series of brilliant little speeches; shown all his qualities of humour and sarcasm; and crowned all by a remarkable breakfast (at 7.30 a.m.) of eggs, bacon, sausages and coffee, followed by a large whisky and soda and a huge cigar. This latter feat commanded general admiration. He had been praised every day for all this by Lord Beaverbrook’s newspapers; he has driven in and out of Palace Yard among groups of admiring and cheering sightseers, and altogether nothing remains except for Colonist II to win the Ascot Gold Cup this afternoon.1674
On June 8, Churchill lunched with the President’s special representative, John Foster Dulles, who wrote to Churchill later that day about their exchange of views: ‘What you say always reflects the ripeness of experience and the vigor of a dynamic faith.’1675 Later that month, Churchill learned that in the West Houghton by-election some 20,000 votes, or two-thirds of the electorate, had been uncanvassed. He wrote at once to Lord Woolton:
When I spoke to the Area Agent he said it was thought better not to disturb the mining areas which comprised between ten and twelve thousand electors, but only to concentrate on the districts favourable to us. This is the essence of defeatism.
Surely there was plenty of time for the area to have organized a strong campaign in these districts? They could not anyhow have done worse. But the idea that the Conservatives were afraid to show their noses in these areas must have had a thoroughly bad effect not only on them but throughout the constituency.
Considering how important by-elections are at the moment it would surely have been worthwhile for the Area to force the local people into accepting the outside help which you no doubt could readily have afforded.
‘I hope,’ Churchill added, ‘you will go into this matter searchingly with the area organization and with the local people.’1676
Churchill was also angered on the domestic front by a News Chronicle poll which announced a 4 per cent Liberal upsurge. ‘Of course,’ Churchill told Woolton, ‘the News Chronicle aims at a deadlock between Liberals and Conservatives with the Liberals holding the balance,’ and he added: ‘I do not trust their bona fides and certainly they have presented the matter in the most depressing way.’1677
***
On the morning of June 18 Churchill was the guest at Biggin Hill of 615 Squadron, of which he was Honorary Air Commodore. After he had addressed the whole Squadron on parade there was a fly-past; Churchill then lunched with the station commander, Wing Commander Arthur Donaldson, and the Squadron’s officers, who had been called up for the Korean War emergency. Churchill told them:
That you are discharging a duty which is absolutely vital to your fellow-countrymen, all of you, voluntarily joining this organization and keeping it in a state of efficiency which very soon after any lengthy period of training, in peace, will take its place absolutely on equal terms with our regular friends—it redounds to the credit of all of you. And you have well the right to receive the honour and respect of your fellow-countrymen.1678
On the international front, it was developments in Persia which now excited Churchill’s alarm: the nationalization, on May 2, by the new Prime Minister, Dr Mossadeq, of all foreign oil assets in Persia. The chief of these assets was the Anglo-Persian Oil Company’s oilfields and refinery at Abadan, in which Churchill himself had secured the British majority holding by negotiation in the summer of 1914.
On June 27 Churchill discussed the Persian crisis with the Shadow Cabinet at luncheon, and with the Conservative Consultative Committee in the evening. At this latter meeting, Harold Macmillan noted in his diary, Churchill spoke ‘with great moderation and caution’. Macmillan added: ‘It is clear that he thinks there may be a change for the better and that it would be foolish for the Tory Party to “stick its neck” out. This was not to the taste of some of his audience.’1679
Alarmed not only by the loss of control over this essential source of oil, Churchill telegraphed to President Truman on June 29:
I feel it my duty to add to the representations His Majesty’s Government are making to you about Persia my own strong appeal for your help. The question of commercial oil is minor compared to the strategic and moral interests of our two countries and the United Nations. Short of an invasion of Western Europe I cannot think of any Soviet aggression more dangerous to our common cause than for the region between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf to fall under Russian-stimulated Tudeh Communist control.
If this area fell behind the Iron Curtain it would be a serious blow to Turkey, for whom you have made great exertions. Iraq would inevitably follow suit (forgive the metaphor) and the whole Middle East, both towards Egypt and India, would degenerate. Limitless supplies of oil would remove the greatest deterrent upon a major Russian aggression.
I see that the Soviets have just paid up eleven tons of gold to Persia, which shows what they think about it all, and may well enable the tottering Mossadeq to carry on for a while.
Now that he has appealed to you I beg you to reply by word and action so as to lighten the burdens which press upon us all.1680
‘I think this message might be very helpful,’ Herbert Morrison wrote from the Foreign Office on July 3, ‘and I am glad that you sent it.’1681
Truman’s reply, while stating that he shared ‘fully’ Churchill’s view as to the dangers involved in Persia, was otherwise noncommittal and uninformative. ‘This matter is being given constant and most careful attention by this Government,’ Truman wrote, ‘and we are, as you know, in touch with the Government of the United Kingdom concerning all developments.’ He hoped, Truman added, that ‘counsels of moderation will yet prevail and that a satisfactory solution can be found’.1682 To Attlee, after three discussions at which the leading political figures of both Government and Opposition were present, Churchill wrote on July 9 of ‘certain points’ which the Conservative leaders, himself, Eden and Lord Salisbury, had tried to make clear. The first was that the Anglo-Iranian personnel ‘should be encouraged to remain at their posts in Abadan’. The second was ‘that military movements would be continuous so as to secure ample forces, naval, air and army, on the spot to meet any emergency’. The third was ‘that if the worst came to the worst, the Government should not exclude the possibility of a forcible occupation of Abadan’.
Churchill’s letter ended:
We have urged that the strongest representations should be made to the United States to take positive action in supporting the common interests of the Atlantic Powers, which would be deeply endangered by the Sovietization of the vital area between the Caspian sea and the Persian Gulf, and we are glad to know that there is no question of our asking for mediation.1683
In his reply, Attlee assured Churchill that, ‘In particular, we are keeping up strong pressure on the United States Government and are urging them to give us their full support.’ As to the other points, Attlee added: ‘I would be very glad to have another meeting with you on this subject early next week, if you would like it.’1684
While wanting to put pressure on the United States over Persia, Churchill was at the same time perturbed by the strong anti-American feeling which he sometimes encountered. Nor was he alone in being upset by this. As he told the House of Commons seven months later:
In July last, when I was a private person, a delegation of the American Senate, which had been sent round many countries, came to London, and during their visit they asked to see me, and I received them in my home.
I was impressed by the fact that this powerful body was greatly disturbed by the anti-American feeling which they thought existed in the House of Commons. So I said to them: ‘Do not be misled. The anti-American elements in Parliament are only a quarter of the Labour Party, and the Labour Party is only a half of the House. Therefore, you may say that one-eighth at the outside give vent to anti-American sentiments. The Labour Party as a whole, and the Government of the day, supported by the Conservative Party in this matter, are whole-heartedly friendly to the United States, and recognize and are grateful for the part they are playing in the world and of the help they have given to us.’1685
On July 3, General Eisenhower spoke, in Churchill’s presence, at an English-Speaking Union Dinner in London. His theme was the danger of any neglect of the Western alliance, and the importance of a United Europe within that alliance. ‘A healthy, strong, confident Europe,’ he said, ‘would be the greatest possible boon to the functioning and objectives of the Atlantic Pact.’1686
Two days later, Churchill wrote to Eisenhower:
My dear Ike,
As I am getting rather deaf I could not hear or follow your speech when you delivered it. I have now procured a copy for which I am arranging the widest circulation in my power.
Let me say that I am sure this is one of the greatest speeches delivered by any American in my life time,—which is a long one,—and that it carries with it on strong wings the hope of the salvation of the world from its present perils and confusions.
What a great conclave we had last night! I had not comprehended the splendour of your speech until I read the text this evening, which I procured only with some difficulty. But I feel that we were close enough together anyhow. I think we ought now to be able to see the way forward fairly clearly, and I believe that events in the next two years are going to be our servants and we their masters.
You will no doubt have seen the interim judgment of the Hague Court on the Persian tangle. I am sure it would be a great help if in accordance with the view you expressed last night when I read you my telegram to the President, you sent something home on the same lines in support from your angle.
I look forward to seeing you again before many weeks have passed.
Meanwhile with all my heart believe me your comrade and friend.1687
So pleased was Churchill by Eisenhower’s speech, when finally he read it, that on the morning of July 5 he instructed Conservative Central Office to make a hundred copies of it ‘by noon tomorrow at the latest’. He also sent Central Office his letter to Eisenhower quoted above, for Lord Woolton to see, with the note: ‘Make sure it reaches him without an hour’s delay.’1688 In sending a copy of Eisenhower’s speech to Woolton, Churchill wrote:
This is one of the greatest speeches that has been made by an American for many years. It was scarcely reported at all in the British Press and Ike had to read it so fast on account of the time limit that it was difficult to follow at the moment. It seems to me that it expresses the policy of our Party, and I trust of our country, in the most complete and perfect manner.
I ask you to give directions for the immediate circulation of this speech in every constituency and through every form of organization that you control. I wish that several millions of copies shall be printed, and that it shall become apparent that this is our policy, purpose and plan.
‘Please telephone me tomorrow at Chartwell on receipt of this letter,’ Churchill added.1689
After listening to Eisenhower’s speech, if not hearing it, Churchill had returned to Chartwell, where he at once began, and finished, a book which its author had sent him: C. S. Forester’s novel Lord Hornblower. On July 5 he wrote to its author:
I read Lord Hornblower during twenty-four hours. I have only one complaint to make about it; it is too short. This is the fault which, if I may say so, belongs in my opinion to all your writings on this inspiring topic. You have created a personality which calls back from the past a grand but hard manifestation of the Royal Navy, in its age of glory. The dark side is not concealed, but, after all we fought and conquered not only for Britain against Napoleon, but kept our place among nations to render other services to the whole world in a succeeding century.
‘Thank you so much,’ Churchill ended, ‘for sending me a signed copy which I shall always prize. Please write more about it all.’1690
Churchill returned to London on July 10, to speak at the Royal College of Physicians at the unveiling of a portrait of Lord Moran, commenting to his medical audience on the ‘wonderful bevy of new and highly attractive medicinal personalities’. He went on to explain: ‘We have M and B, penicillin, Tetramycin,1691 aureomycin, and several others that I will not hazard my professional reputation in mentioning, still less in trying to place in order.’
After expressing his concern about the onward march of science, Churchill referred to ‘such awful agencies as the atomic bomb’, exclaiming, ‘Give me the horse,’ and he went on to contrast ‘the destructive sciences with the healing arts’, telling his listeners:
All that cures or banishes disease, all that quenches human pain, and mitigates bodily infirmity, all those splendid names, the new arrivals which I have just mentioned to you, all these are welcome whatever view you may take of religion, philosophy or politics. Of course it may be said these discoveries only lengthen the span of human life, and then arises the delicate and difficult question, is that a good thing or not? It is a question which presents itself in a blunt form to the rising generation.
For my part I shall not attempt to pronounce because my impartiality might be doubted. I might be thought an interested party….1692
***
On July 10 armistice talks opened in Korea; the war was all but over. Almost six years had passed since the Conservative Party had been defeated at the polls and Churchill thrust out of office and out of power. Speaking in his constituency on July 21, Churchill was harsh in his criticisms of the Labour record. Devaluation was ‘the child of wild, profuse expenditure’. Rearmament has ‘hardly begun’. Nationalization had proved ‘an awful flop’. In Persia, and other countries, ‘our Socialist Utopians are getting fed back with their own tail’. The Government, though it deserved ‘credit’ for its hostility to Communism, was ‘bringing it nearer by all they do’. But all was not lost, Churchill said, for there was going to be a General Election ‘as soon as we can force these office-clingers to present themselves before their fellow countrymen’. Then, Churchill declared, ‘the people will have a chance to express their will’.1693
Again in London on July 23, Churchill spoke at the Mansion House, in support of a United Europe and a European Army in which Germany would play its part equally with France. ‘It was with a deep sense of comfort,’ Churchill commented, ‘that I saw the representatives of the German Parliament take their seats in the European Assembly at Strasbourg.’ The European Movement and the European idea for which it stood had, he said, ‘undoubtedly played a large part in bringing nearer the reconciliation of these two foes whose quarrels through the centuries have wrought both them and all of us grievous injuries’. He was sorry only that the British Government had refused an invitation to join in the Paris talks on the Schuman Plan. ‘I believe that if a British representative had been there,’ he said, ‘we might very likely have secured further modifications which would have made it possible for Britain to join in this scheme, either on the same footing as the others or as some kind of associate member. From the Continental standpoint the Schuman Plan is greatly weakened by the absence of Britain—the largest steel and coal-producing nation in Europe.’1694
***
The final volume of the war memoirs was now being completed. Help came from many quarters, including Miss Sturdee who, having accompanied Churchill to Yalta as one of his personal secretaries, now set down her recollections for him, including an occasion at Yalta when Sir Charles Portal ‘happened to remark that there was no lemon-peel for the cocktails at your villa. The next day a lemon tree, in a large tub and laden with lemons, appeared.’1695
Prompted by Miss Sturdee’s notes, Churchill dictated his own recollections of the journey to Yalta, the course of the discussions there, and, once the conference had ended, the visit to Athens and then his final meeting, as it turned out, with Roosevelt, off Alexandria, and Roosevelt’s ‘placid, frail aspect’.1696
In setting out his own recollections for General Pownall, Churchill asked that in preparing the account of the fighting on German soil in 1945, while there was ‘no doubt of the tremendous achievements of the Americans in encircling the Ruhr and forcing all the fortifications on their own front’, it should be remembered that ‘We did fight also on our front’.1697
On July 20 Churchill had been sent a comprehensive set of queries, sixty of them in all, for Volume 5 from Austin G. Olney of his American publishers, Houghton Mifflin. ‘I think it is better to err on the side of fussiness,’ Olney wrote to Denis Kelly.1698 Churchill at once asked Kelly to recheck the chapters which Olney had scrutinized; many of the American’s points made possible the avoidance of factual errors of the sort which a disgruntled reviewer would much have enjoyed pouncing upon.1699
Briefly, current affairs intruded on Churchill’s pattern of work when he learned of the assassination of King Abdullah of Jordan, murdered in Jerusalem by a Palestinian Arab. Asked for his comment, Churchill declared: ‘I deeply regret the murder of this wise and faithful Arab ruler, who never deserted the cause of Britain and held out the hand of reconciliation to Israel. This is a tragic event.’1700
Churchill had also to speak in the House of Commons in answer to a speech by Herbert Morrison to the Durham miners, accusing the Conservatives of wanting war. On July 29, a Sunday, Harold Macmillan went down to Chartwell to help co-ordinate Churchill’s speech with his own speech winding up the debate. Macmillan later recalled:
With his usual skill he had prepared a great deal of material which would stand whatever might happen in the next twenty-four hours. But he was continually distracted by one of his new hobbies—an indoor aquarium with tanks of tropical fish, minute but very lovely. He was quite fascinated by their delicate beauty.
On this occasion he gave me an inscribed copy of Volume IV of his war history, ‘The Hinge of Fate’. It was really amazing to realise the amount of work of which this extraordinary man was capable, in spite of his age. Since the war, with its appalling strain, he had fought two General Elections and was about to fight a third; by the Fulton speech he had been the inspiration of the Western rally against Russian aggression; he had launched the European Movement; and he had completed four volumes of his book.1701
Churchill’s speech, Macmillan noted in his diary, was ‘one of his most devastating and polished efforts. (It was much improved on the version he had completed on Sunday.) He was in tremendous form and under a mass of chaff and invective covered the only weakness of his position—that is, the brake which he has put during the last six weeks on the more ardent Tory spirits. He thus established a complete ascendancy over the party and indeed over the House.’1702
During his speech, Churchill criticized the Government for being unwilling to do anything to counter Egypt’s refusal to allow ships bound for Israel to go through the Suez Canal. During the debate there were several angry altercations between Churchill and Morrison. At one moment, Morrison declared: ‘They are laughing at the right hon. Gentleman behind him,’ to which Churchill replied: ‘I expect that the right hon. Gentleman wishes that he had such cordial relations with his own backbenchers.’ Referring to Morrison’s speech to the Durham miners in which he had stated that if the Tories had had their way ‘we should have been involved in two wars in the last ten days’, Churchill commented: ‘how far the right hon. Gentleman dwells below the level of events, and how little he understands their proportion in the discharge of the great office to which he has been appointed.’ Morrison’s ‘main thought in life’, Churchill added, ‘is to be a caucus boss and a bitter party electioneer. It is tragic indeed that at this time his distorted, twisted and malevolent mind should be the one to which our foreign affairs are confided.’ As to the Government’s bowing to Persian pressure to evacuate British personnel from the oilfields at Abadan, Churchill warned:
If they use their precarious and divided majority to cast away one of the major interests of the nation, and indeed injure, as I think and I have sought to show, the world cause, if they are found to be guilty of such a course of action now that they are asking of all of us so many sacrifices to carry out the policy of rearmament, then I say the responsibility will lie upon them for this shameful disaster, diminution and impoverishment of our world position; and we are quite certain that in the long run justice will be done to them by the British people.1703
Churchill also spoke on July 30 about what he had long considered another of the Labour Government’s ‘mistakes and miscalculations’, the ‘winding-up’ of the Palestine Mandate in such a way as ‘to earn almost in equal degree the hatred of the Arabs and the Jews’. It was Britain’s ‘weakness’, he pointed out later in his speech, which had let Israel suffer through the Suez Canal being closed to Israeli ships.1704
Speaking of Persia, Churchill supported the Government’s policy of seeking conciliation and accepting President Truman’s proposal that Averell Harriman should be sent to Persia as a mediator.1705 It was a situation, Churchill said, ‘calling, in an exceptional degree, for patience on the basis of firmness’. If there was violence against British personnel, however, ‘we must not hesitate to intervene, if necessary by force, and give all the necessary protection to our fellow subjects’.
Frequently during this debate there were again interruptions and altercations, including one with the Foreign Secretary and one with Attlee:
The Prime Minister indicated dissent.
Mr Churchill: The Prime Minister may hold a very different view, but he cannot dismiss an argument or even an assertion by muttering: ‘Quite untrue, quite untrue.’1706
***
On August 1, Field Marshal Alexander sent his comments on Volume 5, suggesting in the Italian campaign chapters ‘a special tribute to the Polish Corps and the French Corps—They were both excellent, also to say something about the 3 Indian Divisions’, who, Alexander added, ‘got on very well with the Italian people’.1707
All Alexander’s factual points, Pownall noted, had been ‘taken care of’. As to the Poles and French, Pownall added, ‘The trouble is that if one does too much of that sort of thing the poor b—— English feel out in the cold.’1708
From Emery Reves came a further criticism on Volume 5, on August 2, when he urged ‘The elimination of the far too many code names in the text and their replacement by clear language.’1709 Churchill made no comment, and no change. A few days later, however, Reves sent an impressive list of fifty-six points on the first eleven chapters. Kelly, Pownall and Deakin at once set to work on them. ‘Reves has sent a long list of suggestions and amendments,’ Churchill wrote to Lord Camrose, ‘most of which, as usual are extremely good,’ and he added: ‘I wish he had sent them earlier.’1710
The private comments of a critic reading the proofs of an as yet unpublished volume were offset on August 3 by the main leading article in The Times, which declared that while the text of Volume 4 was filled, as its predecessors had been, with documents ‘in great profusion’, nevertheless ‘the design to which they are moulded is subtly different, revealing that, though the earlier volumes may have marched with the steady pace of a melancholy epic, Mr Churchill’s true genius is not epic but dramatic’. The Times continued: ‘The essence of tragedy lies in reversal of fortune. So also does that of comedy, and Mr Churchill, with the youthful zest which has carried him unfatigued through half a century of public life, here misses no opportunity of picking out the little comic things in the midst of the sorrows and terrors of war.’ The review went on: ‘The quiet faith in ultimate victory in no way detracts from Mr Churchill’s consciousness of the infinite inherent evil of war itself.’ Quoting Roosevelt’s telegram to Churchill, ‘It is fun to be in the same decade as you,’ The Times concluded: ‘Many readers will feel the same sort of exhilaration as they turn the pages of this most graphic and revealing autobiography.’1711
In its review of the new volume, The Times Literary Supplement wrote of how, ‘As a chronicler of war, Mr Churchill has, hitherto, been disappointing,’ but in ‘The Hinge of Fate’ ‘the methods followed with varying success in its predecessors match the theme. It is a breathtaking book.’ The review continued: ‘To say that Mr Churchill is a romantic, as immortally young as the hero of Treasure Island, is not to lose sight of the massive common sense of his judgment at the grimmest moments or his superhuman resilience in facing the ugliest facts squarely and taking tremendous decisions. It is rather to point at one deep source of his strength.’1712
On the day these encouraging reviews were published, Churchill sent a long letter to his wife, who was recuperating at Hendaye near Biarritz, accompanied by their daughter Mary:
My darling,
We had a rotten day at Goodwood. Nightingall should not have proposed running Colonist only ten days after his effort in the Festival Stakes. He was undoubtedly an overworked horse. Also he lost a shoe early in the race and hurt himself, though not seriously. There is no reproach on him, but undoubtedly his immediate sale value has been reduced. Why Tell, who was only being trained to the racecourse, did not have an experienced jockey put upon her by Nightingall, and when the gate went up, the poor lamb turned the other way and started fifty lengths behind everybody. However both these misfortunes were understood sufficiently for everybody to make polite explanations to me.
The Duke and Duchess of Richmond were most affable. I had not seen him before—he seems a very nice fellow. He was an airman in the war, and has several extremely presentable young boys and girls.1713 Princess Margaret was there, very piano, but she assured me that she had recovered from the German measles.
The Session has ended, thank God, but no one knows what is going to happen next. The uncertainty is a bore, as one cannot make clear-cut plans about the farm, etc.
I am plunged in Volume V, which I am trying to deliver in time for the Book-of-the-Month Club in America, which sells 350,000, to take it for November. They have taken the whole five volumes, and this is a record when you think of the enormous figures involved. The British edition of Volume IV comes out to-day, or rather tomorrow, August 4, and is reviewed in all the papers to-day. I thought you would like to see The Times leading article, The Times Literary Supplement review, and The Manchester Guardian review, which are now enclosed.1714 I am sending a hundred copies of the book to our friends.
I am virtually re-writing the early chapters of Volume V as I deal with them. They take four or five hours apiece, and there are twenty in each. You may imagine I have little time for my other cares—the fish, indoors and out-of-doors, the farm, the robin (who has absconded). Still, I am sleeping a great deal, averaging about nine hours in the twenty-four.
Camrose came here the other night to celebrate the five-years consummation of our Literary Trust gift. Randolph and Christopher were there too and all passed off jubilantly. (Camrose has a similar anniversary of his own, though on a much smaller scale.) This of course is the most important thing that could happen to our affairs, and relieves me of much anxiety on your account.
I am dead set on taking the Freedoms of Deal and of Dover in the morning and afternoon of August 15, leaving with Christopher by the ferry after midnight, and expecting to meet you and Maria at the Lotti Hotel in Paris (unless you can make better plans) on the 16th. Then the night train to Annecy. I am sure it would not be well to chop and change now, unless you have some altogether new plans for staying longer at Hendaye.
Here I must mention that Massigli arrived yesterday.1715 He is coming with his wife to Hendaye on August 12, and I think you should offer them some salutation. They are staying at your hotel. Perhaps you would send him a telegram. How clever the French are to get on without a Government, or Prime Minister, or Parliament. All these follies cancel themselves out. The Civil Servants run the show, and the happy land rejoices in the sunshine and complete contempt of politics.1716
I send you the Hansard of the Debate on Persia, in which I spoke, with this letter and other stuff which I have mentioned, by Randolph who goes forth tomorrow. His visit passed off all right and I think Winston enjoyed himself all right riding at Sam Marsh’s and swimming and petting Nicko. He enjoyed going to the races and spotted a winner which no one else had thought of. The reason was because it belonged to the Aga Khan, whose sons were with him in the school at Switzerland. This is as good a reason as any other.
Give my best love to Maria, and please don’t get drowned by the billows of the Bay of Biscay.
The Birleys are arriving at 5 o’clock, and I shall have to sit up in a chair for two hours a day.1717
Churchill had agreed to sit for Sir Oswald Birley for two hours each day, from August 3 to August 8. ‘He used to dictate during the sessions,’ Miss Gilliatt later recalled, ‘because he could not relax.’1718
The publication in Britain of Volume 4, ‘The Hinge of Fate’, though so many months after its publication in the United States, gave Churchill considerable pleasure, especially as it had been so well reviewed. ‘How proud and happy you must be,’ Clementine Churchill wrote from Hendaye on August 5, ‘of the warm and glowing reception of “The H of F”.’1719
Among those to whom Churchill sent the new volume was Jock Colville, who described it, and its predecessors, as ‘one of the brightest things in this depressing age’. ‘I am glad to see you are having a holiday in France’, Colville added, ‘before returning to the rigours of the political battle and, very soon I am sure, of No. 10.’1720