On 31 December 1951 Churchill left London by train from Waterloo Station for Southampton, and went on board the Queen Mary for his transatlantic voyage, the eleventh time he had set off for the New World.1843 With him were three Cabinet Ministers, Eden, Ismay and Lord Cherwell, as well as the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Slim, and the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Rhoderick McGrigor.1844 That night the ship’s anchor was found to be fouled, so that the first night had to be spent on board, moored at the quayside.
That evening Lord Mountbatten, then Fourth Sea Lord, was Churchill’s guest at dinner. It was a stormy conversation, as Mountbatten questioned the wisdom of linking Britain irrevocably to American foreign policy, especially if it seemed that the course followed by the Americans was likely to lead to war; ‘the one thing that could destroy the present relatively happy and peaceful conditions in this country would of course be a war,’ Mountbatten declared. Churchill replied that the only security for Britain was to be found in linking its fortunes entirely with the Americans, and then, as Mountbatten noted in his diary:
He then turned to me and said: ‘I think you should be careful about your anti-American attitude. The Americans like you. They trust you. You are one of the few commanders that they would willingly serve under. You will throw all that away if they think you are against them!’
I replied that I was very fond of all my American friends, and that individually I thought they were a charming people; but, taken as a corporate mass, they were immature, and if they were allowed their own way they would probably take a course which would not only destroy this country but would ultimately end in the destruction of their own system….
He then said: ‘I am very sorry to hear you express such Left-Wing views. I think you should try and avoid expressing any political opinions. Your one value as a sailor is that you are completely non-political. Take care you remain so!’
I pointed out that I had always been completely non-political…. I had never been known to make any political remarks, but that I could not see that expressing the hope that he would be able to guide the Americans in such a way that our own country would not be destroyed could possibly be regarded as Left-Wing.
My impressions of this grand old man are that he is really past his prime. He was very deaf and kept having to have things repeated to him. He quoted poetry at great length. He went through the whole of the verses of ‘Rule Britannia’ and ‘It’s All Quiet Along the Potomac’. He was very sentimental and full of good will towards me. He kept telling me what a friend he was of mine and of my family.
‘I realize,’ Mountbatten added, ‘that I made myself very unpopular by the views that I expressed that night. But I also believe that he is a big enough man to at least have absorbed the point of view I was putting forward.’1845
Jock Colville, listening to this altercation, noted in his diary that Mountbatten was talking ‘arrant political nonsense; he might have learned by heart a leader from the New Statesman. The PM laughed at him but did not, so Pug Ismay thought, snub him sufficiently.’1846
Among those on board the Queen Mary was Lord Moran, who recorded in his notes how he and the other members of the Prime Minister’s party had been summoned to his room at ten minutes before midnight, to toast the New Year:
When the clock had struck twelve times the PM, whose thoughts seemed a long way off, pulled himself out of his chair, put down his glass and, crossing his arms, began to shout ‘Auld Lang Syne’. When this had been sung he tried to give the note for ‘God Save the King’. Then he resumed his seat as if his part in the proceedings had been safely accomplished. After a little the room began to thin—youth went off to dance—till none were left but the Prof, Pug, Slim and Norman Brook. For some time the PM sat lost in his thoughts and no one spoke.
‘I cannot tell you,’ he said at last, ‘how much happier I shall be when I have worked out the substance of what I shall say to Congress. The speech might not come off,’ he mused, ‘but I shall do my best whatever happens. I feel bewildered in my mind. The three thousand seven hundred millions of pounds which was to be spent on rearmament has gone up to five thousand two hundred millions. We have not stopped the rise in wages. Anyway, I’m not going to beg.’
He sat glowering at the carpet.
‘We shall have to make great sacrifices,’ the PM murmured without looking up. Then his face brightened. ‘How much would it mean to the country,’ he asked, ‘if everyone gave up smoking? I would not hesitate to give up my cigars.’
He got up and I went with him to his room.
‘I have done very little today,’ he said as he kicked off his slippers so that they skidded along the floor. ‘I am not so good mentally as I used to be. A speech has become a burden and an anxiety. Tell me, Charles, the truth. Am I going slowly to lose my faculties?’
He asked me to take his pulse; it was rapid and irregular.1847
As soon as the Queen Mary had sailed, Norman Brook wrote to a colleague in the Cabinet Office, ‘and the PM found himself without newspapers or telegrams, he at once convinced himself that all activity in Whitehall had stopped. He could not be persuaded otherwise.’ Hence a series of insistent demands for news, passed back from ship to shore. ‘Once he got here,’ Norman Brook added after the Queen Mary reached New York, ‘he ceased to be so insistent, tho’ he hates getting the English newspapers later.’1848
‘During the crossing,’ Jock Colville later recalled, ‘we worked on our briefs: oh the amount of paper that even a small conference evokes!’ It was ‘very difficult’, Colville added, ‘to get the PM to read any of it. He said he was going to America to re-establish relations, not to transact business.’1849 Not everyone had the same impression, however. One of those on board ship was Donald MacDougall, a member of Churchill’s Statistical Office during the Second World War. ‘I was responsible for preparing Churchill’s brief for the economic part of his talks with Truman,’ he later wrote, ‘and was delighted when, after he had read it, he sent me back a masterly summary in true Churchillian prose.’1850
The Queen Mary reached New York on January 4. Among those waiting to greet Churchill was Leslie Rowan, to whom, when they were alone on the following day, Lord Moran put the question of whether he noticed many changes in Churchill since 1945. Rowan’s answer, as recorded by Moran, was unequivocal:
‘Oh, yes,’ he answered rather sadly, ‘he has lost his tenacity; he no longer pushes a thing through. He has lost, too, his power of fitting in all the problems one to another. Of course in the war he would run a pet scheme, but it was always fitted into the whole plan. And he forgets figures. In the war he never did. Why, the other day I mentioned a figure he had used in the House of Commons. “Did I?” he asked, puzzled. Besides, the problems are different now. Questions of economics. He was not brought up on such things.’
I asked Leslie if he had noticed any physical changes. He seemed surprised that I should ask such a question.
‘Yes, of course.’
‘How?’ I persisted.
‘Oh, the way he walks—slowly, like an old man. Even his handling of the Press Conference today was different. It was good, of course, but not so good as it used to be in the war.’ Leslie smiled. ‘But he can still coin phrases. He referred yesterday to the Standing Group who deal with a future war as “Chiefs of Staff vitiated by the intrusion of the French”.’1851
From New York, Churchill flew in the President’s plane to Washington, where he was greeted at the airport by President Truman. That night they dined together on board the Presidential yacht Williamsburg.1852 The Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, later recalled how:
…with apparent spontaneity and the aid of the Prof and his slide rule, Mr Churchill put on what I was told was a favourite act. He first established from the President the dimensions of the dining saloon of the Williamsburg, and then that over a period of sixty years he had consumed on the average a quart of vinous and spirituous liquors a day, some days more, some days less, some not at all, as when he had been a prisoner of war in South Africa or hiding after his escape. If, he asked the Prof, all this liquid were poured into the dining saloon, how high would it rise? His vast disappointment when, instead of drowning us all in champagne and brandy, the flood came only up to our knees provided the high point of the performance.
The first serious discussion of the evening took place on board the Williamsburg in the aft saloon, as the dining table was being cleared, with Churchill, Dean Acheson later recalled, giving ‘his unfavourable view of Schuman’s European Defense Community, which was to be repeated often’. Acheson then described how, that evening, Churchill ‘pictured a bewildered French drill sergeant sweating over a platoon made up of a few Greeks, Italians, Germans, Turks and Dutchmen, all in utter confusion over the simplest orders. What he hoped to see were spirited and strong national armies marching together to the defense of freedom singing their national anthems. No one could get up enthusiasm singing, “March, NATO, march on!”.’1853
The President and the Prime Minister then moved below, to the dining room, the table having been cleared, whereupon Churchill gave Truman a survey of the international scene. There was, he said, ‘fear in the Kremlin’. The Russians had feared British and American friendship more than their enmity. This was now beginning to change. At the time of the Berlin airlift in 1948 risks had been very great. Now they were a little less. He did not expect a deliberate attack by the Soviet Union in 1952. On the other hand, the Soviet Union had not lost much; since the end of the war ‘they had gained half Europe and all China without loss’.
Churchill went on to describe the result of the Korean War and Truman’s ‘great decision’ to commit American forces, as American rearmament. ‘Now the free world was not a naked world, but a rearming world.’
The Americans had complained in strong terms about British trade with China. Truman had reiterated these complaints. Churchill did not belittle American fears of China, telling Truman that he looked upon Hong Kong ‘as a little Formosa’, and promising to aid the United States ‘as far as was possible’. He did not think that China had gone permanently Communist. ‘But we had to deal with what was before us.’ He therefore ‘felt inclined’ to give aid in resisting further Chinese aggression. At the same time, he asked the United States to give Britain ‘moral assistance’ in Persia. ‘We must both play one hand there.’
As to Egypt, Britain’s position there was not one of imperialism, Churchill told Truman, but of international duty. The proposal of the Four Powers for an international supervisory force on the Suez Canal was ‘an act of genius’. He hoped that the United States would be willing to back up this proposal by sending ‘a Brigade perhaps, as a symbol’ to the Canal Zone. If America would send such a force, ‘everything would be cleared up quite quickly. Everyone else would fall in behind this.’1854 The British would then withdraw ‘a whole Division or more’. Churchill added, by way of explanation, as Acheson noted:
This one step would indicate such solidarity between us that the Egyptians would stop their unlawful conduct and get on with the four-power discussions. Similarly, in Iran, if we undertook to give financial support to the Iranians, the problem would never be solved. Whereas, if we would stand solidly with the British, the Iranians would come to terms in short order.
As Churchill prepared to return to the British Embassy, where he was staying, he said to Dean Acheson: ‘Did you feel that around that table this evening there were gathered the governments of the world—not to dominate it, mind you—but to save it?’1855
When, in the small hours, Churchill returned to the British Embassy, even the sceptical Moran was ‘startled’, as he wrote, ‘to find something like the Winston we had half forgotten. He was full of the evening. “Oh, I enjoyed it so much. We talked as equals.”’1856
Throughout January 6 and 7 the Washington talks centred upon the question of the organization of NATO and its commands. At the first Plenary session, held at the White House on the morning of January 7, Churchill pointed out that Britain had put in hand a rearmament programme for the common cause ‘against aggression and the spread of Communism’. Despite rising defence costs and the need for economy at home, it was Britain’s intention ‘to make the maximum possible contribution to common defence against aggression and Communism’. To do this, however, there was an urgent need of steel; the United States must help Britain here. It was also essential to increase coal production. This would be done by offering special incentives to the miners, by provision of additional houses, and by the introduction of foreign labour. It was not easy, Churchill pointed out, to persuade miners to accept the importation of foreign labour, ‘but every effort was being made to do so’.
Turning to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Churchill declared: ‘The great burden which the United States was bearing on behalf of the free world was a matter of universal admiration.’ The United Kingdom would continue to make ‘the biggest contribution of which they were capable’. The Second World War had ‘swallowed up’ Britain’s reserves and resources to such an extent that the Government would still have to impose ‘restrictions and restraint’ upon the fifty million inhabitants of the British Isles.1857
The British Government, Churchill told Truman, ‘is determined to see that the UK with its own resources takes care of its internal problems and difficulties’. He was not in Washington ‘to seek aid in order to improve the comfort and welfare of the British people. The British people themselves will accept the necessary sacrifices required by the British internal situation, and the British Government will adopt the necessary measures.’ Churchill added: ‘This is the UK’s form of a declaration of independence.’
Churchill went on to tell Truman that he was ‘governed’ by two principles: ‘First, the British Government will submit to Parliament whatever measures are needed for Britain’s “internal independence”. Second, the UK considers that the defence task against Communist tyranny is a common one and therefore Britain is not abashed to accept help in this field.’1858 He hoped, Churchill concluded, that the ‘strength of the West’ would now reverse the Soviet fear of the friendship between Britain and America, ‘so that they would fear our enmity more than our friendship and would be led thereby to seek our friendship’.1859
***
On January 7, Moran noted in his diary:
There was a discussion during luncheon—it went on till half past three—in the course of which Mr Churchill attacked with some heat the decision to give the command of the Atlantic to an American. The CIGS,1860 the First Sea Lord1861 and Pug Ismay in turn urged him to accept the plan; we had got everything, they argued, that really mattered, for in a war the First Sea Lord would really be in control. They were particularly anxious to avoid putting up the back of the American Navy, which had taken criticism from the PM in the most generous spirit, just because it was Mr Churchill.
The British Ambassador to Washington, Sir Oliver Franks, ‘interjected in his cool way’, noted Moran, ‘that it was an issue which only counted on paper’. But Churchill ‘would have none of it’, telling his advisers:
I realize that England is a broken and impoverished power, which has cast away a great part of its Empire and of late years has misused its resources, but these fellows bungled the U-boat war; and had to come to us for help. America may know far more than our Navy does about combined ‘ops’ in the Pacific, between their Navy and Air Force, but she knows very little of U-boat warfare. You have urged me to do this fake without any explanation to public or Parliament. I will not do that. It must all come out publicly.1862
The second Plenary session, held on the afternoon of January 7, discussed Truman’s proposal for the ‘standardisation of weapons for the free world’; the President felt that a useful start could be made with the rifle.1863 Churchill disagreed. It was, he said, ‘dangerous to change the calibre of a rifle unless a really long period of change was in prospect’. For the moment, when circumstances were ‘critical’, Britain and the United States would be well advised to continue to operate on the basis of their existing rifles.1864
Turning to naval matters, Churchill ‘declared’, as the American note of the discussion recorded, ‘that he was not convinced of the need for a Supreme Commander in the Atlantic. He had lived through two world wars without any such arrangement. He insisted that he was not speaking lightly for, indeed, the Atlantic supply line was of vital importance to the UK and if naval affairs in the Atlantic were mismanaged, the UK “would die”.’ This was ‘not true’ in the case of the United States, Churchill added, ‘which later would still be in a position to land its armies in Europe’.1865
Churchill then asked the First Sea Lord, Sir Rhoderick McGrigor, to present the case for a British naval commander for the Atlantic. There followed what Colville recalled as ‘an embarrassing incident’, as the Admiral ‘went red in the face, large drops of perspiration appeared on his brow and he was too overawed to do more than stutter a few disjointed words’. At that moment, Field Marshal Slim ‘stepped into the breach and presented the naval case coolly and calmly. It was a magnificent tour de force by the representative of another service and it was evident that the Americans were as impressed as we were.’1866 The Americans did not agree, however, to the British proposal; three months later, when the Atlantic Command was formally set up, it was under an American Admiral, Lyndon McCormick.1867
At the third Plenary meeting, on the morning of January 8, Churchill reiterated that Britain was now in Egypt ‘from a sense of international duty and for no other reason’. If the United States could make a contribution to the defence of the Suez Canal Zone, ‘the trouble in Egypt would soon be brought to an end, and the British would be able to make more forces available to Europe or to the United Kingdom itself, which was without adequate defences’.
Churchill went on to tell Truman that Britain would support the American proposal of a four-power pact for the Middle East, of Britain, the United States, France and Turkey. He then, as the American minutes recorded, ‘stressed the great importance of the four powers all sending token forces to this area. He thought that such a proof of solidarity should bring the difficulties with Egypt very quickly to an end.’
Speaking of the Korean war, Churchill, as the American minutes recorded:
…expressed his admiration for the manner in which the United States was carrying virtually the entire load of the West in the Far East. He paid special tribute to American fortitude in the Korea war which had resulted in 100,000 United States casualties. He recognized the peculiar difficulty of prosecuting such a war when the nation as a whole does not consider itself to be directly threatened. He emphasized the United Kingdom’s desire to help the United States in every way possible and recognized that in the Far East there could be no UK priority or equality of leadership. The role of leader squarely belonged to the United States and the UK will do its utmost to meet US views and requests in relation to that area.
Churchill went on to tell Truman, Acheson, and the other Americans present that, in his opinion, ‘the President’s decision to resist in Korea had done more than anything else to reverse the tide in our relations with the Soviets in the postwar period. Indeed, he felt that June 25, 1950 marked the turning point in the danger to the free world of communist aggression, and the United Kingdom was profoundly grateful to the United States for its action.’ Had he been in power in June 1950, Churchill continued, ‘he would have broken relations with China when the Chinese attacked the UN forces in Korea. However, when he was returned to power the phase of armistice talks had been initiated and he did not think that such a British action would be desirable now because of its possible effect on the negotiations.’ 1868
He was ‘most anxious’, Churchill added, to help the Americans in any way possible ‘and would be glad to know where this help was needed’.
When Truman pressed for a more sympathetic British attitude to the Chinese Nationalist Government in Formosa, Churchill agreed that ‘in spite of the weakness and corruption of Chiang Kai-shek’s régime, it would be wrong to leave his three or four hundred thousand followers in Formosa to be murdered by the Communists’. As to the war in Indo-China, Churchill emphasized the effect of that war on Europe. It was a ‘constant drain’ on the French Army, with the result that France remained militarily weak in Europe ‘and therefore more apprehensive about the arming of Germans’.1869
One of those present at the Plenary meetings, Evelyn Shuckburgh, noted in his diary, about Truman:
He was quite abrupt on one or two occasions with poor old Winston and had a tendency, after one of the old man’s powerful and emotional declarations of faith in Anglo-American co-operation, to cut it off with a ‘Thank you, Mr Prime Minister. We might pass that to be worked out by our advisers.’ A little wounding.
Shuckburgh’s account continued:
Our own side (including AE, Lord Cherwell and Lord Ismay) were a good deal concerned by the PM’s readiness to give away our case, both in regard to the Far East and on raw materials. On the latter subject, when we were trying to get steel in return for tin and some other metals, but were known to be unable to meet the Americans over copper, Winston electrified us by himself raising the question of copper, just at the point when agreement was about to be reached without it. He gave quite a little lecture on the need to develop copper production in the British African colonies, and appeared to be under the impression that he was addressing the British Cabinet. The American officials bravely and loyally extracted us from this difficulty.1870
This misunderstanding took place at the fourth Plenary session, on the evening of January 8. The American minutes recorded Churchill’s intervention, and Eden’s counter efforts:
Mr Churchill then said that there was plenty of copper in Africa, and the UK should provide the necessary inducements and take the necessary steps to increase production there.
Mr Eden said that this was much more complicated than it might appear….
Lord Cherwell responded that the British government would explore this possibility to the best of its ability….
Mr Churchill again expressed his disbelief that copper production could not be increased in Africa.
Mr Eden reiterated that the task was much more complicated than it sounded and that in any event no copper could be produced immediately. He assured the Prime Minister, however, that the British government would do its best, as furthermore it would be to the UK’s own advantage to increase copper production.
Mr Churchill then referred to nickel.
Mr Fleischmann reported that no request had been made of the UK….1871
At one point in the discussion that evening, Churchill told the Americans:
Frankly, he did not think that the French were doing their full part towards this European army but that this was due to the fact that they had to fight ‘like tigers’ to protect their empire in Indochina. Were it not for this, the French could become stronger in Europe and therefore be willing to permit the Germans to become stronger. As it is, we could well lose both France’s and Germany’s contribution in Europe.1872
It was the rearming of Germany, and the future of the European Defence Community, which dominated the discussion at the Plenary meeting that afternoon, when Churchill told Truman that Britain would do ‘everything possible’ to further the formation of a European Army, although she would not participate in a European Federation. The European Army, he said, ‘offered the only method of integrating German forces in the defence of Western Europe’. Without the support of the Germans, he doubted if Western Europe could be ‘successfully defended’. What was needed was ‘loyal’ divisions which would fight ‘shoulder to shoulder’ in the defence of Europe. His one fear was that the ‘sacrifice of nationality’ which the European Defence Community implied, with its creation of a multi-national force, would damage the loyalty of the soldiers.1873
The American minutes of the meeting recorded:
Mr Churchill said that what we had to bear in mind was whether or not there would be an army available to meet a Soviet aggression. More important than constitutional and other instruments are divisions available and ready to do their best. At the present time the UK had four divisions on the Continent, this figure including three armored divisions.
The UK is ready to fight and to die. That, in the opinion of the Prime Minister, is the important thing and not the technical arrangements. He saw no reasons why the British divisions could not serve temporarily in the midst of the European forces. That, he considered, was only a tactical matter. Whether or not these divisions are organically a part of the EDC is immaterial. Mr Churchill reaffirmed that the UK would do everything within its power to encourage the European army even though he personally still thought that the ‘national spirit element’ was most important.1874
It was during the Washington talks that Churchill and Truman agreed that the atomic bomb would not be used from the American base in East Anglia without British consent. This written agreement, which was made public, stated in a formal manner an earlier verbal and secret understanding between Truman and Attlee.1875 By so doing, it put at rest many fears that had grown in Britain of a unilateral American action which might lead to fearsome reprisals.
On January 9, before leaving Washington for New York, Churchill addressed the staff of the British Embassy, who had assembled in the garden for the occasion. Jock Colville later recalled:
When he walked out on to the terrace for this purpose, he gasped with astonishment. In front of him, filling the entire garden, was a crowd not, as he had expected, of some fifty or sixty people, but, including the wives and children, the best part of a thousand. The service departments in particular were grossly overmanned.
He addressed the huge gathering most affably, but he instructed me to procure a detailed list of the officers attached to the Embassy. I did so when we returned to London and discovered that there were, amongst many others, forty-seven lieutenant-colonels and forty-three wing commanders. Evidently nobody had given thought to reducing the vast staffs established in a war which had ended six and a half years previously.
The Prime Minister then issued a peremptory order, in his capacity as Minister of Defence, and a drastic reduction was effected.1876
In New York, Churchill was the guest of Bernard Baruch, then aged eighty, at his magnificent apartment on East 66th Street. Baruch and Churchill had become friends before they had ever met, in 1918, when as Minister of Munitions Churchill had negotiated with Baruch by telegram on an almost daily basis about the supply of raw materials, and particularly nitrates, from South America to Britain.1877 Lord Moran, who was present when Churchill and Baruch were reminiscing, noted that only once in the discussion was the ‘pleasing harmony’ between the two men ‘in danger’:
Britain ought to be consulted, the PM contended vigorously, before an atomic bomb was sent off from airfields in East Anglia. Baruch at once broke in:
‘But a considerable proportion of our bombing personnel are in Britain, and they would in that case be subject to your veto. If that is maintained it might be wise to withdraw them.’
The PM (with some vehemence): ‘If the American Government take the line that they need not consult us, then they had better begin removing them now. Have you seen our agreement with Roosevelt?’
Baruch: ‘No, I haven’t.’
PM: ‘It laid down that neither America nor Britain would release bombs without the consent of the other Government.’
Baruch: ‘Cadogan made no objection.’
The PM thought the Russians were frightened of us and that there would be no war, but he spoke of October, 1952, as if it might be touch and go. Baruch agreed.1878
During his two days in New York, Churchill continued the preparation, which he had begun on the Queen Mary, for what was clearly to be the culminating point of his American visit, his address to Congress. On January 10 Baruch gathered for him at luncheon, at Churchill’s request, three of America’s leading journalists, General Adler and Arthur Sulzberger of the New York Times and Daniel Longwell of Life. His aim, Churchill told Moran, was to ‘get the feel’ of American opinion before his address. ‘We had hardly taken our seats,’ Moran added, ‘when the PM said without warning’:
‘What other nation in history, when it became supremely powerful, has had no thought of territorial aggrandizement, no ambition but to use its resources for the good of the world? I marvel at America’s altruism, her sublime disinterestedness.’
All at once I realized Winston was in tears, his eyes were red, his voice faltered. He was deeply moved. Sulzberger broke the silence.
‘I think, Prime Minister, it was hard-headedness on our part. I mean it was thought out, not emotional. Anyway, I hope it was, because emotion soon passes, whereas a thought-out plan might last. What view is taken in Britain about German unity?’
PM: ‘I always felt in the war that we must strike down the tyrant, but be ready to help Germany up again as a friend. I have been doubtful about a European army only because I was concerned with its fighting power. It will not fight if you remove all traces of nationalism. I love France and Belgium, but we cannot be reduced to that level.’
And then the PM began to plead for a token American brigade, or even a battalion of Marines, to be sent to the Suez Canal.
PM: ‘Now that we no longer hold India the Canal means very little to us. Australia? We could go round the Cape. We are holding the Canal not for ourselves but for civilization. I feel inclined to threaten the Americans that we will leave the Canal if they don’t come in.’
General Adler: ‘Could not America be invited to send this token force? If this is not done, I doubt if Congress will play.’
PM: ‘I want it as a symbol that it is a United Nations project. Stalin was responsible for the United Nations and for the coming together of the two great English-speaking peoples; without him it might not have happened for generations. The architect of the Kremlin “builded better than he knew”.
‘Since Persia the Egyptians have felt that America would not support Britain. A token brigade would convince them they were wrong.’1879
From New York, Churchill travelled by train overnight to Ottawa, where he was greeted and entertained by the Governor-General, Field Marshal Alexander. He also spent two hours with General Templer, soon to be appointed High Commissioner of the Malayan Federation, with the task of trying to restore order after the assassination of his predecessor.1880 Templer later gave Lord Moran an account of the conversation:
Winston began: ‘I am an old man. I shall probably not see you again. I may be sending you to your death.’ When he said this he almost broke down. And then he said to me: ‘Ask for power, go on asking for it, and then—never use it.’ At the end the PM smiled: ‘Here am I talking to you for all this time when I have two speeches on my hands.’
‘What is there about this man,’ Templer asked Moran, ‘which no one else has?’1881
On January 14 Churchill spoke in Ottawa at a banquet given in his honour by the Government of Canada. He had first come to Canada, he recalled, ‘more than fifty years ago, to give a lecture about the Boer War’. Ten years had passed since his last visit at ‘an inspiring but formidable moment’ in the war when, with the entry of the United States into the struggle, ‘the pathway to victory seemed, and in fact was, open and sure’.
Churchill went on to ask his Canadian listeners:
What is the scene which unfolds before us to-night? It is certainly not what we had hoped to find after all our enemies had surrendered unconditionally and the great World Instrument of the United Nations had been set up to make sure that the wars were ended. It is certainly not that. Peace does not sit untroubled in her vineyard. The harvest of new and boundless wealth which science stands ready to pour into the hands of all people, and of none perhaps more than the people of Canada, must be used for exertions to ward off from us the dangers and the unimaginable horrors of another world war.
At least this time in visiting you I have no secrets to guard about the future. When I came last time I could not tell what was going to happen, because I could not make it public. This time I do not know. No one can predict with certainty what will happen. All we can see for ourselves are the strange clouds that move and gather on the horizons, sometimes so full of menace, sometimes fading away. There they are. They cast their shadow.
Churchill then spoke of NATO, calling it ‘the surest guarantee not only of the prevention of war, but of victory should our hopes be blasted’. Hitherto the North Atlantic Treaty had been regarded ‘only in its military aspect’, but ‘now we all feel, especially since our visit to Washington, it is broadening out into the conception of the North Atlantic community of free nations, acting together not only for defence but for the welfare and happiness and progress of all the peoples of the free world’. For this, a United Europe, and a European Army including Germany, were essential. That did not mean that Britain would become ‘a unit in a federated Europe’, nor that the British Army, which was already ‘in line’ on the Continent and which would grow steadily, would be merged ‘in such a way as to lose its identity’. But, under the Supreme NATO Commander, Britain stood ‘with the United States, shoulder to shoulder with the European Army and its German elements’, ready to face ‘whatever aggression may fall upon us’.1882
‘Your speech in Ottawa was wonderful,’ Sarah Churchill wrote from Washington, where she was staying as the President’s guest at Blair House.1883
On January 15, Churchill travelled by train from Ottawa to Washington. Sir Roger Makins, a senior Foreign Office official who was travelling with him, later wrote:
I recall lunching in the train restaurant car with him, the Prof and Norman Brook. We had the tale, told in many forms, of the Prof, the slide rule and the amount of champagne imbibed by WSC during his lifetime, a result which he found extremely disappointing.1884 The head attendant in the restaurant car was a Filipino. The PM told him he was a carnivore and would have a steak. An immense hunk of beef was placed before him. The PM looked at it and said, ‘I may be a carnivore, but I’m not a glutton.’1885
After his arrival in Washington, Churchill continued to work on his speech to Congress. The final version proved more troublesome than he had anticipated. As Roger Makins later recalled:
By the time WSC had left for New York and Ottawa (I went with him) it was in pretty good shape, but on the journey some rats got at it, and the revised version was not shown to the Ambassador, Oliver Franks, and myself until 9.00 p.m. on the evening of the 16th January. We read it through hastily and saw that it needed a lot of amendments.
We quickly decided to try to take a couple of points that evening, and we obtained access to the PM in his double bedroom in the Embassy. (The PM was lying prone in one bed, but both beds were made up, apparently so that if he got too hot in the first one he could move to the second!)1886
In the Prime Minister’s speech, Jock Colville later recalled, ‘it was essential to refer to Britain’s contribution in the Korean War, which had been raging since 1950’.
‘If the Chinese cross the Yalu River, our reply will be—what?’ Churchill asked.
‘Prompt, resolute and effective,’ suggested Roger Makins on the spur of the moment.
‘Excellent,’ said Churchill, writing the words in his speech.1887
That night, Churchill slept at the British Embassy. But the speech was still not completed. As Roger Makins recalled, of January 17:
Next morning Oliver Franks and I went to see the PM in bed again to take up the remaining points in the speech. Oliver had to go off after a bit, and I was left to argue with the PM. As I am sure you know, he was very obstinate and rough to deal with, especially if a Foreign Service Officer was involved, and it was necessary to be equally obstinate in return. In the end the PM always agreed to meet the objection, but it was a time-consuming operation.
The speech was to be delivered at 12.00 noon and at 11.20 the PM was still in bed arguing with me. However, by that time I had got pretty well all the bugs out of the speech.
‘The PM then got up,’ Makins added, ‘was quickly dressed, and with the assistance of a motor cycle escort, reached the Capitol on time.’1888
Churchill began his speech by assuring Congress: ‘I have not come here to ask you for money to make life more comfortable or easier for us in Britain,’ and he added: ‘Our standards of life are our own business and we can only keep our self-respect and independence by looking after them ourselves.’ During the war Britain had borne her share of the burden ‘and fought from first to last, unconquered—and for a while alone—to the utmost limits of our resources’. America’s ‘majestic obliteration’ of all she had given Britain under Lend-Lease ‘will never be forgotten by this generation in Britain, or by history’.
Churchill then spoke of China, of British democracy, and of his own presence in the Capitol that morning:
I am by no means sure that China will remain for generations in the Communist grip. The Chinese said of themselves several thousand years ago: ‘China is a sea that salts all the waters that flow into it.’ There’s another Chinese saying about their country which is much more modern—it dates only from the fourth century. This is the saying: ‘The tail of China is large and will not be wagged.’ I like that one. The British democracy approves the principles of movable party heads and unwaggable national tails. It is due to the working of these important forces that I have the honour to be addressing you at this moment.
After thanking the United States for bearing ‘nine-tenths, or more’ of the burden in Korea, Churchill went on to welcome American patience in the armistice negotiations. The two countries were agreed, he said—using the words which Roger Makins had suggested to him—‘that if the truce we seek is reached, only to be broken, our response will be prompt, resolute and effective’.1889
Churchill went on to tell Congress:
The vast process of American rearmament in which the British Commonwealth and Empire and the growing power of United Europe will play their part to the utmost of their strength, this vast process has already altered the balance of the world and may well, if we all persevere steadfastly and loyally together, avert the danger of a Third World War, or the horror of defeat and subjugation should one come upon us.
Mr President and Mr Speaker, I hope the mourning families throughout the great Republic will find some comfort and some pride in these thoughts.
Churchill also spoke of the Middle East. It was ‘no longer possible’ for Britain alone ‘to bear the whole burden of maintaining the freedom of the famous waterway of the Suez Canal’. That had become ‘an international rather than a national responsibility’, one in which Britain, the United States, France and Turkey would have to share with Egypt. There were more than 80,000 British troops in the Canal Zone. Even ‘token forces’ of the United States, France and Turkey would create ‘a symbol of the unity of purpose which inspires us’. Nor did he believe it an exaggeration to state that such token forces ‘would probably bring into harmony all that movement by which the Four-Power policy may be made to play a decisive part by peaceful measures, and bring to an end the wide disorders of the Middle East in which, let me assure you, there lurk dangers not less great than those which the United States has stemmed in Korea’.
Churchill also spoke of one other area of the Middle East, where ‘there is still some sunshine as well as shadow’. It was a personal perspective which, although not shared by many of those who had travelled with him across the Atlantic, was emphatically his own, but in no way uncritical:
From the days of the Balfour Declaration I have desired that the Jews should have a national home, and I have worked for that end. I rejoice to pay my tribute here to the achievements of those who have founded the Israelite State, who have defended themselves with tenacity, and who offer asylum to great numbers of Jewish refugees.
I hope that with their aid they may convert deserts into gardens; but if they are to enjoy peace and prosperity they must strive to renew and preserve their friendly relations with the Arab world without which widespread misery might follow for all.
Churchill then spoke about the prevention of a third world war, by means of a ‘united command’ of the strongest possible forces in Europe. The sooner this was done, he said, ‘the sooner, also, will our sense of security, and the fact of our security, be seen to reside in valiant, resolute and well-armed manhood, rather than in the awful secrets which science had wrested from nature’.
These secrets, the atomic bomb, constituted ‘at present’ what Churchill went on to call ‘the supreme deterrent’ against a third world war, and the ‘most effective guarantee’ of victory in such a war, and he then set out his own words of advice and warning:
If I may say this, Members of Congress, be careful above all things, therefore, not to let go of the atomic weapon until you are sure, and more than sure, that other means of preserving peace are in your hands. It is my belief that by accumulating deterrents of all kinds against aggression we shall, in fact, ward off the fearful catastrophe, the fears of which darken the life and mar the progress of all the peoples of the globe.
We must persevere steadfastly and faithfully in the task to which, under United States leadership, we have solemnly bound ourselves. Any weakening of our purpose, any disruption of our organization would bring about the very evils which we all dread, and from which we should all suffer, and from which many of us would perish.
Churchill’s concluding words were not, however, words of warning, but words that looked forward to a healing of the wounds and a reconciling of the differences:
We must not lose patience, and we must not lose hope. It may be that presently a new mood will reign behind the Iron Curtain. If so it will be easy for them to show it, but the democracies must be on their guard against being deceived by a false dawn.
We seek or covet no one’s territory; we plan no forestalling war; we trust and pray that all will come right. Even during these years of what is called the ‘cold war’, material production in every land is continually improving through the use of new machinery and better organization and the advance of peaceful science. But the great bound forward in progress and prosperity for which mankind is longing cannot come till the shadow of war has passed away.
There are, however, historic compensations for the stresses which we suffer in the ‘cold war’. Under the pressure and menace of Communist aggression the fraternal association of the United States with Britain and the British Commonwealth, and the new unity growing up in Europe—nowhere more hopeful than between France and Germany—all these harmonies are being brought forward, perhaps by several generations in the destiny of the world.
If this proves true—and it has certainly proved true up to date—the architects in the Kremlin may be found to have built a different and a far better world structure than what they planned.
Many changes had taken place throughout the world, Churchill said, since his visit in 1941, but there was ‘one thing which is exactly the same as when I was here last. Britain and the United States are working for the same high cause’; and he ended: ‘Bismarck once said the supreme fact of the nineteenth century was that Britain and the United States spoke the same language. Let us make sure that the supreme fact of the twentieth century is that they tread the same path.’1890
These were stirring sentiments, but not all those who listened to them were as impressed as they might have been. One of those present, Denis Rickett, the head of the British Treasury and Supply Delegation in Washington, later recalled:
The Prime Minister included a reference in his speech to Congress, ‘I have not come to ask for Gold but for Steel, not for favours but for equipment.’ It did not make the sort of impact left by his famous wartime phrase, ‘Give us the tools and we will finish the job.’ He worried over the speech until the last moment and seemed to lack spontaneity and inspiration.1891
Also listening to Churchill’s speech from the floor of the Congress were Jock Colville, Viscount Knollys, Economic Minister in the Washington Embassy, and Air Chief Marshal Sir William Elliot, Chairman of the British Joint Services Commission in Washington. They, with other British Embassy people present, ‘thought it had had a chilly reception’, Colville recalled, ‘but we were quite wrong. Congress reacted slowly, but the subsequent praise was generous….’1892 ‘It was very moving,’ Miss Gilliatt later recalled, ‘even if one had been up all night working on it!’1893
‘When it was done,’ noted Lord Moran, ‘the PM, flushed and happy, was like a man who has been granted a reprieve. He slumped back in the car, gazing vacantly out of the window; his cigar had gone out; he yawned contentedly. It had gone well, he thought; anyway, they had been very kind before he left the Senate.’
‘It was a great success, Prime Minister,’ were General Marshall’s words when he greeted him at the door of the British Embassy.1894
‘Mary and I listened together to your speech with emotion,’ Clementine Churchill telegraphed from London. ‘We both send our love.’1895 ‘Perfect radio reception,’ telegraphed Randolph, ‘your magnificent, masterly, meaty speech.’1896
That afternoon Churchill and Truman presided over the fifth and final Plenary meeting of their conference. The subject under discussion was a possible meeting between the Western and Communist leaders. At the present time, Churchill told Truman, he would not be in favour of proposing a meeting with the leaders of the Soviet Union to review the major questions outstanding between Russia and the West. ‘A different situation would however arise,’ Churchill added, ‘at any time the Soviet leaders indicated that they were prepared to make a genuine effort to reach an understanding with the democracies.’
Churchill then spoke of the danger that people would assume, if a summit conference broke down, that ‘war would be inevitable’. He would wish to interpose between the breakdown of such a conference and total war an ‘intermediate stage’ in which there would be ‘an intensification of the cold war’. In that stage the democracies would make an intensive effort to bring home to all people behind the Iron Curtain the true facts of the world situation, ‘by broadcasting, by dropping leaflets and by all other methods of propaganda which were open to them’. He believed that the leaders in the Kremlin ‘would fear such a revelation of the truth to the masses whom they held in their grip’. And it might well be, Churchill added, ‘that, under pressure of an intense propaganda campaign on these lines, the conference might be resumed with greater hope of success’. Detailed methods for conducting such a campaign, Churchill proposed, ‘might profitably be studied in advance’.1897
As the discussion continued, the question of the Atlantic Command was raised again. ‘There followed,’ Dean Acheson later recalled, ‘one of Mr Churchill’s greatest speeches,’ and he went on to give the gist of it:
For centuries England had held the seas against every tyrant, wresting command of them from Spain and then from France, protecting our hemisphere from penetration by European systems in the days of our weakness. Now, in the plenitude of our power, bearing as we did the awful burden of atomic command and responsibility for the final word of peace or war, surely we could make room for Britain to play her historic role ‘upon that western sea whose floor is white with the bones of Englishmen’.1898
Churchill’s arguments were in part effective; the United Kingdom Home Command was extended westward to the hundred-fathom line. The final communiqué noted: ‘These changes however do not go the full way to meet the Prime Minister’s objections to the original arrangements. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister, while not withdrawing his objections, expressed his readiness to allow the appointment of a Supreme Commander to go forward in order that a command structure may be created and enabled to proceed with the necessary planning in the Atlantic area. He reserved the right to bring forward modifications for the consideration of NATO, if he so desired, at a later stage.’
On January 19 Churchill left Washington by train for New York. That night he stayed with Bernard Baruch on East 66th Street, and on the following morning, learning that Sir Roger Makins was about to return to Britain, he wrote out in his own hand a letter to his wife:
My darling,
Sir Roger Makins is flying home today & I send this line w him to tell you how much you have been in my thoughts & how much I love you.
I have just finished what seems to be the most strenuous fortnight I can remember, & I am staying quiet here for 48 hours to recover. I never had such a whirl of people & problems, and the two speeches were vy hard & exacting ordeals. Now I sail for home going on board QM midnight 22.
Beatrice Eden came to dinner last night. She seems as young and attractive as she was when I saw her last 8 or 10 years ago. She gave no intelligible explanations of her mental attitude though she tried vy hard to do so. She says Anthony has no heart—She does not seem to have much herself. She is coming over to England in March. She is a real puzzle.1899
You will have seen what the papers say about my ‘Mission’. The enclosed cutting wh Bernie gave me is fair & informative. I am far from sure about the future in the Far East—or indeed elsewhere. No one can tell what is coming. I still hope we shall muddle along to greater strength.
The Presidential Election is now going to amuse the Americans for the next nine anxious months. They in their turn will have the dose we have swallowed in the last 2 years. But I suppose the Russians have their troubles too. I hope so anyway.
I look forward so much to seeing you next Monday week. Let us dine alone at No. 10. Tender love my darling Clemmie.
Your ever loving husband
W
‘Sarah is looking lovely,’ Churchill added, ‘& Miss Truman & she seem to have made good friends.’1900
On the following day Churchill wrote to his wife again:
Darling,
It is splendid (as I cabled) that you will meet me at Southampton. The arrangements are being made accordingly. It is possible we may have to motor to London as the train may have to wait for the other passengers. I have only one piece of urgent business wh I may have to settle before starting either by train or car. This may settle itself beforehand. The enclosed telegram to Tommy Lascelles will explain the possible urgency.1901
I have let myself in for a Parade through the streets of New York to the Mayor’s Parlour tomorrow (Tuesday) to receive a gold medal. Unfortunately the weather has turned icy. (Yesterday warm & muggy.) I have the beginning of a cold. This is a tiresome problem. I shall however have to follow Charles’s directions. But if I cancel there will be gt disappointment! Such is life nowadays. I am so glad you reminded me about the Ronnie Trees, I have been so hunted that I had forgotten them, & they have only today returned from Washington. They are coming to dine.1902
Sarah was really vy good yesterday in the opening, it is all in the Hall brothers Christmas Card Trade Advertisement programme of the Television. She does 4 a month—one of wh is all her own acting. The fee is $2,000 each time! All this may broaden out considerably. She seems vy happy & is looking beautiful.
I shall indeed be delighted to get home. I never remember 3 weeks taking so long to live, although it has been all kindness & compliments.
With fondest love
Your loving husband
W1903
At midnight on January 22, as planned, Churchill left New York for home. His cold was still not entirely better. ‘Started very comfortably,’ he telegraphed to his wife from the Queen Mary on January 23. ‘Temperature normal in the morning. Cold will take another day or two. Am staying in bed almost entirely. Much love, W.’1904
Reflecting on Churchill’s American mission, Lord Moran noted in his diary on January 26, while they were still on board the Queen Mary:
What have I learnt about the PM during this American visit that I did not know before? He is still better informed than any of his Ministers on any question affecting the Armed Forces of the Crown. It had taken a long time to settle the Atlantic Command, and his obstinate refusal to yield had provoked even members of his own little party. But in the end he salvaged more out of the dispute than anyone thought possible. British anti-submarine forces were, he argued, the key to action in the Atlantic, and he insisted that our naval staff should retain control of any action fought within the ‘hundred-fathom line’—Shinwell, he said with contempt, had never heard of the line.
‘Our writ will run in the western approaches; two hundred miles west from Plymouth and the St George’s Channel; a hundred and fifty miles from Belfast and the Mull of Kintyre and more than a hundred miles from Scapa Flow.’1905
‘No other man could have achieved so much,’ Moran added, ‘when the Americans were disposed to give so little.’1906
On January 28 the Queen Mary reached Southampton. At the quayside to greet the Prime Minister were Clementine Churchill and Mary; they lunched with him on board ship before returning to London. ‘It is splendid that you are safely back’ was Randolph’s epistolary greeting.1907