At midnight on 1 December 1953 Churchill left London by air for Bermuda. It was a long flight, the first landing, because of strong headwinds, being at Shannon, before flying on to Gander in Newfoundland, then south to Bermuda.
Churchill was accompanied by one Cabinet Minister, Anthony Eden, by the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brook, by his two Principal Private Secretaries, David Pitblado and Jock Colville, as well as by Lord Cherwell, Lord Moran, Christopher Soames, and several Foreign Office officials. ‘Lunched at a table for four,’ Lord Moran noted during the flight, ‘the Prof and the PM on one side, Anthony and I opposite. After greeting Anthony cheerfully, Winston took up his book, Death to the French, by C. S. Forester, and kept his nose in it throughout the meal.’
After the lunch Christopher Soames brought Churchill some notes connected with the coming conference, ‘but Winston’, wrote Lord Moran, ‘did not seem at all keen on work’. Moran added: ‘We were bumping on the edge of a storm, and possibly his mind went back to the night in February, 1943 when we were crossing the Atlantic and were struck by lightning. His flying memories are not at all happy, and however he may hide it, he is full of apprehension.’2519
After seventeen hours’ flying, Churchill’s party reached Bermuda. Churchill was driven from the airport to the Mid-Ocean Golf Club, which was to be his home for the week of the Conference. On the morning of December 3 he went back to the airport to receive the French Prime Minister, Joseph Laniel, and his Foreign Minister, Georges Bidault. ‘Last time this conference was proposed,’ Jock Colville noted in his diary, ‘the French could not form a Government and the meeting had to be postponed week after week until just as we were packing to leave the PM had his stroke.’
That night Churchill dined with Lord Cherwell, Lord Moran, Sir Norman Brook, Christopher Soames, Pitblado and Colville, his inner circle for the duration of the Bermuda visit. ‘The PM got going well after dinner,’ Colville wrote, ‘but the room was too small and we were all but perishing from the heat. The PM said, “It may be that we are living in our generation through the great demoralisation which the scientists have caused but before the countervailing correctives have become operative.”’2520
Lord Moran also recorded some of the dinner table conversation on December 3, dominated as it was by the shadow of the hydrogen bomb:
PM: ‘We have been living in a time when at any moment London, men, women and children, might be destroyed overnight.’
I was glad to turn the conversation.
‘But does Russia want war?’
PM: ‘I believe it is not in her interest to make war. When I meet Malenkov we can build for peace.’
Moran: ‘Then who is making difficulties?’
PM: ‘Ike. He doesn’t think any good can come from talks with the Russians. But it will pay him to come along with us. I shall do what I can to persuade him. I might stay longer here than I meant, at any rate if I could persuade Ike to stay too. He is the key man in this business.’
Moran: ‘I thought Dulles was.’
He took no notice of my remark.
PM: ‘I would not hesitate to go on to Washington if that was necessary. I think, Charles, I could manage it. I don’t feel old, though I have some of the disabilities of old age. My outlook on things has not changed. It is exactly what it was. In the mornings I feel the same as I always did, but I have become torpid in the middle of the day. You ought to be able to think out some line of action which would help me. This old carcass of mine is a bloody nuisance.’2521
On Friday December 4 Churchill returned to the airport to greet Eisenhower and Dulles, then lunched alone with Eisenhower. ‘This greatly disturbed Dulles and Eden,’ wrote Colville, ‘who neither of them trust their chief alone.’2522
The first topic, raised by Eisenhower, was Korea. Expecting that the Chinese and North Koreans might again seek to challenge the existing lines, he told Churchill that ‘if there were a deliberate breach of the Armistice by the Communists’ the United States ‘would expect to strike back with atomic weapons at military targets’. She would not expect to bomb cities ‘but would attack areas that were directly supporting the aggression’. Churchill did not object, telling Eisenhower, as the minutes recorded, that he ‘quite accepted this’, and that Eisenhower’s statement of American policy ‘put him in a position to say to Parliament that he had been consulted in advance and had agreed’.
Speaking of those countries over which either Britain or the United States could assert their influence, Eisenhower wanted each case to be ‘considered on its merits as to who should take the lead and as to who might play the role of “moderator”’, and said ‘that it was not necessary always openly to appear to present a consolidated front’. Churchill, in reply, ‘argued for the united front approach’. Speaking of the United States policy not to recognize Communist China, Eisenhower ‘urged a closer alignment of UK policy with the US’. Replying, Churchill said that he had originally opposed recognition of Communist China ‘but that this had now become an established fact which would be difficult to alter’. As for trade with China, which the United States had embargoed and wished to see embargoed in the future, Churchill told Eisenhower that he ‘looked upon trade as a means of achieving the desired results’ of keeping the Chinese nose ‘above water’. The Chinese were gradually getting stronger, he said, ‘but need trade’.
There was further disagreement in regard to Churchill’s suggestion that, if the French continued to ‘balk’ the European Defence Community, it might be possible to create it without France, or to bring Germany into NATO, or, ‘if the French vetoed this, establishing a new treaty arrangement with Germany’. The President, as the American notes of the meeting recorded, ‘indicated skepticism concerning this’.
On the question of a Foreign Ministers’ meeting with the Soviet Union, there ‘seemed agreement’, the minutes recorded, ‘that there should be a meeting as promptly as possible, preferably early in January’. Churchill then suggested that if the meeting were to be held in Berlin it might alternate between the two sectors, telling Eisenhower that he felt ‘we should always keep the “door open” to the Russians’. Eisenhower was not so enthusiastic, emphasizing ‘that he would not participate in the Heads of Government meeting until at a Foreign Ministers meeting the Soviets had shown evidence of good faith’.2523
After his meeting with Eisenhower, Churchill walked with Christopher Soames and Jock Colville to the beach where, Colville noted, ‘the PM sat like King Canute defying the incoming tide (and getting his feet wet in consequence) while C and I bathed naked and I swam out to fetch Winston some distant seaweed he wished to inspect’.
The first Plenary meeting of the Bermuda Conference opened that afternoon at five o’clock. There were several ‘memories of former conferences’, Jock Colville noted in his diary. ‘The Big Three’, Churchill, Eisenhower and Laniel, ‘first sat on the porch in wicker chairs and were photographed in a manner reminiscent of Teheran. Then, when the conference started, all the lights fused and we deliberated by the light of candles and hurricane lamps as in Athens at Christmas 1944.’2524
For this first meeting, Eisenhower, Churchill and Laniel, together with Dulles, Eden and Bidault, initially met in restricted session, without their advisers. The meeting was opened by Churchill, who ‘rejoiced to think’, as the minutes recorded, that they had met together ‘and expressed his pleasure at being present at this long-projected meeting’. He had ‘long hoped’, he said, ‘to open the proceedings’, and as a first action he would like to ask the President of the United States, as the Chief of State, to take the chair to preside at future meetings’. This, Eisenhower agreed to do. Churchill then asked, ‘not as a sign of personal indulgence but rather as an indication of the informal nature of the talks, if he might have permission to smoke’. The President replied that, ‘in his first ruling as chairman, he granted this permission’.
Eisenhower then proposed a pool of atomic energy materials, through a United Nations authority. The United States might ‘put in’ 1,000 kilogrammes, the Soviet Union 200 and Britain 40. ‘Thereafter details could be worked out between the interested parties as to how much could be made available to the scientists of the world for practical purposes.’ In reply, Churchill said he would like his answer to be ‘as helpful and suggestive as possible’, but that he felt there would be ‘a great difficulty in drawing a line between atomic energy commercial information and atomic energy military information’. Such a line had, however, already been drawn ‘in general terms’.
Eisenhower intended to make his proposal public in four days’ time, on December 8. ‘It would be very nice,’ Churchill commented, ‘if mankind could share the blessings from this subject without suffering from the disadvantages of its curses. That was as he understood the general line or tendency by which the President would be governed in making his statement. Thus, he would view it with favour.’2525
Eisenhower then suggested that for a discussion of the Soviet position, the remaining members of the delegation should be invited to join them.2526 It was then Bidault who asked, in a forceful speech, if the changes in Soviet policy since the death of Stalin were more in ‘manner, atmosphere and attitude’ than ‘fundamental policy changes’. Eisenhower then asked Churchill if he would like to ‘present a paper, make a presentation or supplement the discussion by any method which he desired’. Churchill had not prepared any paper; but he did have an appeal to make for the possibility that the change since Stalin’s death was more than a matter of atmosphere, telling the Conference:
…in his view the great question, the supreme question, which must underlie our judgment in a dozen spheres was ‘is there a new look, is there a new Soviet look?’ Had there been a deep change in the mighty entity we call the Soviet Union? Had there been such a change since the death of Stalin? Several things M. Bidault had said gave reason for belief that this was so. Other considerations set forth by M. Bidault indicated that there had been no change of heart but an ingenious variation of tactics.
It must of course have come as a great shock to the Kremlin when at the end of the war they thought they had the future at their feet but then found that, owing to the initiative and gigantic strength of the United States, the thing for which they had been hoping and even had been planning was no longer possible, confronted as they were by the immense process in which the conferences were taking part today. The free world was rearming and facing their extensive movements and ambitions. This must have come as a great shock to them. It was easy to see that at the end of 1945 or at the beginning of 1946 they might have thought that they had only to press forward to carry Communism and behind it Soviet imperialism to the shores of the Atlantic and far and wide across the Pacific world. Then they had found that this was not so.
It was profoundly difficult to judge what they had felt but at any rate, when the Stalin regime passed away, they must have thought that an opportunity had come for re-considering the situation. It was quite clear that they would face a struggle if they continued on a course of aggression, infiltration and undermining.
He did not think that it was in any way ‘extraordinary’, Churchill continued, that in reviewing the new circumstances of the world situation, ‘the Kremlin had come to the conclusion that the thoughts they might have had after Potsdam might require profound re-consideration’. This was a first reason why he ‘might be inclined to answer the question as to whether there was a new look in the affirmative’. A second reason, he said, was the economic conditions of the Russian people. Churchill told the Conference, as the American notes recorded:
The hopes of a Communist utopia which had been dangled before the eyes of millions had not been borne out. At the disposal of the Soviet leaders at any moment were enormous opportunities for improving the material situation of their population. He found it reasonable to believe that these two facts (1) opposition from the United States and (2) the need for economic hope, may well have brought about a definite change in Russian policy and outlook which may govern their actions for many years to come.
Therefore, on the question of a new look he would answer ‘let us make sure that we do not too lightly dismiss this possibility’. Confrontation by the Western world abroad and economic and other internal troubles at home might well have led to a definite change.
We should, however, be very careful of two dangers, first to be thrown off our guard, and second, to exclude altogether the possibility that there may have been a real change. If there had been a change, it was due, if not entirely at least mainly, to the strength and unity of the Western allies. If they had gathered to consider whether they should weaken that or to allow themselves to be divided, they would have indeed come to a dangerous pass.
Churchill then set out the philosophy which had guided his attitude to foreign affairs and defence for more than forty years:
The only hope for a better state of affairs lay in the maintenance of Western strength and unity and a clear resolute determination to defend the cause of freedom by all means at hand. If this gathering were being held to find ways to reduce our defenses, that would be an extreme act of criminal folly but if we were resolved to continue our preparation with the utmost vigor and perseverance—if we are, then this second question whether there was any reality in a Russian change was one that could be examined within limits and it should find its part in a general survey of the scene, once we had convinced them that there was no hope of dividing the allies.
We should not repulse every move for the better. There should not be a question of finding a reason full of suspicion for giving evil meaning to every move of the Soviets. That might be so if we were considering lessening our precautions but we might afford to look shrewdly and delicately at the new scene which the Russians presented.
It was ‘not merely those around the table’ at Bermuda who had to be convinced, Churchill warned, ‘but also our peoples’, that no bona fide Soviet movement ‘towards a “detente” or effort for improvement had been rebuffed or cast aside without consideration’. Britain, the United States and France ‘should be on the look out for any sign of improvement in the situation’. Thus, he explained, ‘we could guard our people and hope for a real improvement in the situation’. The note it would be right to strike ‘was that we have a two-fold policy—of strength, and readiness to look for any hope of an improved state of mind, even if it were necessary to run a slight mental risk. This would give us great strength.’
Churchill went on to tell Eisenhower and Laniel that he:
…felt sure that the British Parliament and people were willing to make every exertion to maintain the unity and strength of the North Atlantic Treaty alliance. Nothing could make it easier to rally and sustain our peoples than the fact that we have not brushed aside anything which would give us assurance or hope of a better state of affairs. Therefore, he was anxious that contacts be considered.
The Soviets were more afraid of infiltration now than we were—infiltration behind the iron curtain if he might use the word. This was feared by what was bad in the Kremlin. If infiltration takes place, it could do us no harm. Trade was a vehicle of infiltration and the best way in which ordinary people and countries could earn their livelihood. We had nothing to fear from that and he would like to see such contacts improved and trade increased and the process of infiltration developed.
He would not be in too much of a hurry to believe that nothing but evil emanates from this mighty branch of the human family or that nothing but danger and peril could come out of this vast ocean of land in a single circle so little known and understood.
Churchill then spoke of the need to open relations with Russia, within the limits of realism:
Contacts, infiltration, trade leading to greater prosperity, reassurance that they would not have another dose of Hitler—and they had a right to this—and at the same time make it clear that we do not regard the position of the satellites nor admit that such a position could be permanent or tolerable but saying that we do not intend to use world war efforts to alter this. Time and patience must play their part. Such are the ideas I would venture. While hope springs eternal in the human heart, there is never an occasion where hope should be so modest and restrained. We are not attempting to heal the world or banish danger for that would be far beyond our powers.
Churchill’s final plea was graphically recorded by the United States note takers:
‘Encourage, encourage,’ Sir Winston repeated, ‘the world by stimulating prosperity and getting people in a more agreeable state of mind. This might well carry us through a period of years to a time when a much better scene will come. I would finish where I had begun.’ This would only be possible if combined as he had depicted, we continued in a strong and resolute manner to perfect our defenses and organisation so that we would not risk throwing away all that had been gained so far and did not undo the great work already achieved. If mitigation of our work were contemplated, he would not ask for consideration of the other thought.
Standing together indivisible and growing stronger, we might be entitled to cherish the hope that we could come to the end of our difficulties having preserved the peace of the world.2527
To the amazement of the British participants, Eisenhower then replied ‘with a short, very violent statement, in the coarsest terms’, depicting the Soviet Union as ‘a woman of the streets’.2528 He believed, he said, ‘that Sir Winston meant that we should examine to see if the dress were a new one or merely an old patched one’, and he added:
If we understood that under this dress was the same old girl, if we understood that despite bath, perfume or lace, it was still the same old girl, on that basis then we might explore all that Sir Winston had said if we might apply the positive methods of which M. Bidault had spoken. Perhaps we could pull the old girl off the main street and put her on a back alley. He did not want to approach this problem on the basis that there had been any change in the Soviet policy of destroying the Capitalist free world by all means, by force, by deceit or by lies. This was their long-term purpose. From their writings it was clear there had been no change since Lenin.
‘If he had misinterpreted the Prime Minister,’ Eisenhower added, ‘he would be happy if Sir Winston would correct him,’ whereupon he adjourned the Conference.2529
Commenting on Eisenhower’s remarks, Jock Colville noted in his diary:
I doubt if such language has ever before been heard at an international conference. Pained looks all round.
Of course, the French gave it all away to the press. Indeed some of their leakages were verbatim.
To end on a note of dignity, when Eden asked when the next meeting should be, the President replied, ‘I don’t know. Mine is with a whisky and soda’—and got up to leave the room.2530
That night Churchill dined with Eden and Cherwell, before returning to his room, where he was joined by Soames and Moran. ‘He told us,’ Moran noted, ‘that the Press had got a full account of the first meeting and were making a great story of the division of opinion between the PM and the President about Russia. The PM seemed put out; he did not know that the Press would be informed in this way.’2531
***
On Saturday December 5 the British delegation met to discuss the previous afternoon’s Plenary meeting, and the meeting for that afternoon. ‘Everybody greatly perturbed,’ noted Colville, ‘by the American attitude on (a) the prospects, (b) their action, in the event of the Korean truce breaking down. This question has such deep implications that it is undoubtedly the foremost matter at the conference—though it has to be discussed behind closed doors with the Americans.’ No atomic matters, Colville added, ‘can be talked about to the French who are very sensitive at having no atomic piles or bombs. The PM, Ike, Lord Cherwell and Admiral Strauss discussed the matter in the President’s room from 11.30 till lunch-time.’2532
Strauss, the Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, took a longhand note of the discussion, a copy of which was preserved by the President. The meeting opened with a reference by Churchill ‘to his concern at the cessation of full scale co-operation between the US and UK which had prevailed during the war. He made a plea for its resumption.’ Churchill also pointed out that British planes were being ‘designed and built’ with no proper knowledge of the characteristics of American atomic weapons ‘if they might ever be called upon to deliver them’; he hoped ‘as a minimum’ that the weight, dimensions and ballistics of the American weapons could be supplied to Britain.
Eisenhower’s reply remains a secret.2533 Churchill then told Eisenhower that Britain, having concluded ‘successful weapons tests’ of atomic weapons, was ‘now embarked upon weapon production’; the first weapon had ‘recently been delivered to the RAF’. Lord Cherwell then explained that Britain was ‘not intending to do any work on hydrogen bombs’, as she felt able to get sufficient destructive power of one and possibly two megatons from ‘boosted fission weapons’, and that in Britain’s view ‘few targets needed a larger yield’. At this point Eisenhower spoke of his belief that atomic weapons ‘were now coming to be regarded as a proper part of conventional armament and that he thought this a sound concept’. Strauss noted at this point: ‘Sir Winston concurred.’
When Churchill told Eisenhower that he felt ‘that there should be more freedom of information between the two countries on discussion of intelligence concerning enemy weapons and capabilities’, Eisenhower expressed himself as ‘sympathetic to this idea’. The aim of this meeting, it was agreed, was to facilitate a climate ‘for closer working relations’ on matters of atomic weapons.2534
The second Plenary meeting was held that afternoon. ‘Very heavy work here,’ Churchill telegraphed to his wife just before it began, and he added, ‘No sunshine today.’2535 ‘Although this is my first letter,’ Clementine Churchill wrote that day from Downing Street, ‘I have been thinking of you constantly since you flew away at mid-night on December the 1st,’ and she added: ‘A telegram has just come from you saying that the work is “heavy”. I do pray that it will also be fruitful.’2536
Clementine Churchill’s letter crossed with a further telegram from her husband. ‘Much disappointed to have no word from you,’ it read. ‘I have telegraphed every day but am very hard pressed. Love W.’2537
The meeting on the afternoon of December 5 was dominated by a discussion of the European Defence Community. If the French refused to ratify the Community, the American administration was prepared to turn its back on Europe. But Bidault, with all the goodwill at his command, could not bring his own people into line.
In an attempt to persuade the French not to abandon the European Defence Community, Churchill suggested that the Conference should look ‘at what was wanted, what was the hope of the EDC’. Its object was to form a ‘fighting front’ with an army. There was, he believed, ‘nothing to prevent such a front from being formed under a unified command with whatever resources could be gathered at present’. Churchill went on to tell Eisenhower and Laniel that ‘when he had been active in starting this idea in Europe of an EDC or European army, he had thought of it in terms of a grand alliance with all nations standing in line together under a unified command. All sorts of questions arose in connection with an army of a federation of Europe. Three years had been lost on complicated details and the only thing that had come out of it was the EDC Treaty.’
The treaty itself, Churchill felt, was a ‘great improvement’ on earlier editions. It included an idea of which he approved, the creation of separate national military units—divisions each with its national uniform and identity. The previous idea ‘of making an army in a few years of people talking different languages, armed with different weapons’, Churchill added, ‘was indeed forlorn’: even companies and battalions would have been of different nationalities. Churchill continued, in support of the divisional scheme:
There could be no doubt that the division is the minimum that is workable. He would, therefore, refrain from making the criticisms he used to make when he had been independent. Personally, he preferred a national presentation of armies bound by a grand alliance. The present army would be the best that could be obtained with a unified command. We would be prepared to take our part with our troops in line in sections chosen for occupation. Immense sections would be undefended except by flank attacks. We would be prepared to take our part and submit to the Supreme Commander.
Churchill then pledged Britain to support the EDC proposals. ‘He would do all he could,’ he said, ‘for the defence of the West. British troops could be ordered to any part of the front. If a war were to break out and one who did not know were looking at the forces of the West in action, he could not tell whether they were operating as EDC or as a grand alliance. The troops could be moved about at will.’ Of French objections to German participation in the army scheme, Churchill told the Conference:
…an immense amount of mutual energy had been expended in raising new and complicated problems. Three years had been completely wasted in getting what was absolutely necessary for a good strong German army. We ought to have had it three years ago. Under EDC, this could be done with the consent of the German Government with safeguards against nationalistic excesses. It contained great advantages. It should not be let slip away but we might have to return to the plan of a grand alliance under NATO. We must have a Germany army.
There was no use in talking of the defence of Europe against Russia without Germany. It was not possible to allow this immense no man’s land of Germany to remain utterly undefended. The Germans wanted to defend it and they ought to have effective means of defense. If this contribution were made within the framework of EDC, it would be the most satisfactory solution in the view of our French friends.
We could not go on for three more years without a German army. We must have this German army; even with it the front would still be thinly held. But it would be a deterrent to the Soviets and he would beg his French friends to do their utmost.
Churchill then expressed his appreciation of the efforts which Bidault himself had made to bring about the participation of Germany in the European Army. ‘If, however, this were to prove impossible in the next few weeks, eight or ten,’ he warned, ‘then he would be bound to say that he would propose to make a new version of NATO achieving the same hope as EDC, with controls over the German army by the NATO organization so as to make it quite clear that this army could not be used against France or to precipitate war to regain the Eastern lost territories….’ These Eastern territories, he said, ‘were far more prominent in the German mind than the old stories of Alsace-Lorraine which are now in the German mind “vieux jeu” compared to the Eastern and Western Neisse’. He therefore ‘earnestly hoped’ that Laniel and Bidault, ‘his French friends’, would realize that unless the European Defence Community ‘that they had shaped so carefully, could come in at once, we ought to establish an arrangement under NATO that would give us at once 12 German divisions, all battleworthy. Otherwise, we could not undertake this burden as it would present us with an insoluble problem. And we must do this or admit complete failure.’
It was necessary, Churchill told Laniel and Eisenhower, for the Russians to know that the military arrangements of the European Defence Community ‘were going to be kept’. He had spoken on the previous day of a ‘detente’, but he did not advocate detente ‘at the expense of jeopardizing our situation’. To reinforce this firmness, Churchill assured the Conference:
The United Kingdom would stand in line and obey the Supreme Commander. It would contribute to the utmost and do everything it could to make its contribution strong and effective. If there is anyone who cannot now come in to join the line of battle in preparation for these dangers, let him then stay out.
Nothing could affect the dominating fact that British and US troops would stand in line with their French comrades and their comrades of the Benelux and that they could be moved as required. To go on waiting would only weaken us from every point of view. It was wrong to think that we could effectively direct the future of Germany with this question unsettled and the Russians closely interested, though without wickedness, in preventing the creation of any Germany military force.
He hoped it would be ‘clearly understood’, Churchill declared, that if France could not come to a decision about German participation, ‘it would not prevent the formation of a German army as soon as possible incorporated into NATO with all the safeguards that could be arranged’. Such a German army, he felt, ‘would fight loyally and effectively in defence of the West. If there were traitors then those who remained would close lines and stand together. Germany would then become a no man’s land subject to bombing, atomic and otherwise.’
It would make ‘no difference’ to the strength of the European Defence Community, Churchill told Laniel and Bidault, ‘if the British were called partners—with EDC but not in it. The greater part of British armed forces were there. Some countries had comfortable armed forces at home. The British had not a single brigade in the United Kingdom.’ The British were already ‘doing their utmost’. He would not be prepared ‘to advise his fellow countrymen to undertake more’. Nor could he go forward with the British plans to participate in the European Defence Community ‘if it should cause any delay in the formation of a German army’. The matter was not one on which Churchill was prepared to delay, or to obstruct, and he told the Conference, in an appeal directed at the Frenchmen present:
He was sorry to have to speak in this way and he would not do it if he did not feel that it were in the interest of France, as well as the United Kingdom. For 40 years, he had been intimately associated with the valiant efforts of his French comrades to face these perils. He knew well the fearful losses they had sustained in the First World War and their great efforts in the Second World War. He understood the brilliant and valiant efforts of the resistance….
At this point, the American minutes noted, ‘the Prime Minister’s voice choked and tears came to his eyes’. He ‘knew well’, Churchill continued, ‘the gallant part that M. Bidault and M. Laniel had played in this resistance and this had won for them the gratitude of the free world. He must beg his French friends to understand that we must go on with EDC, or have in NATO a German army with a minimum of delay. Much preliminary work had been done and in a few years a substantial German contribution could be available. This would tend to check the Russians as it was the thing they feared most.’2538
After the second Plenary meeting Churchill spoke to Eisenhower about a possible meeting with the Chinese. ‘Meeting the Chinese,’ he said, ‘does not necessarily imply recognizing them for any purpose other than identification. In war there are often parleys between enemies while they are in fact still fighting (cf the campaign of 1814). This is quite distinct from approval of the actions and policy of the other side or their recognition in the diplomatic sense.’2539
That evening Churchill, Eisenhower, Eden and Dulles dined alone, the French being excluded because the purpose of the meeting was to evolve a common atomic strategy, without which no summit could possibly succeed, certainly not without a unified Anglo-American stance, and strength.
The ‘grim conversations’ at that dinner, as Colville learned later that night, were about the future action to be taken in the event of a breach of the truce in Korea. Eisenhower reiterated what he had told Churchill on the previous day, that America was prepared to use the atomic bomb. ‘Eden was most particularly disturbed by this,’ Colville noted, ‘and by the effect on public opinion in England.’ Churchill too now ‘strongly resisted’ Eisenhower’s suggestion.
On the morning of Sunday December 6, Colville added, ‘everybody was in rather a state’ as a result of the previous evening’s discussion, which, he added, ‘far outstrips in importance anything else at the conference’.
As to the previous day’s impasse over the European Defence Community, the Americans were now putting the onus of an agreement on Britain, saying that ‘it is the British who must satisfy the French Chamber of Deputies by guaranteeing to leave their troops on the continent for a defined number of years or even by actually joining the EDC. Thus it is we who are to suffer on account of French weakness and obduracy.’ The ‘obvious answer’ to that, Colville noted, was ‘(i) we will keep our troops on the Continent as long as the Americans agree to do so, (ii) we could not possibly get our Parliament and people, or the Commonwealth, to accept our actual membership of EDC.’
That morning Churchill accepted a suggestion by Eden, that the British must make clear to Eisenhower that they did not accept his atomic bomb proposals in so far as they concerned the United States being ‘free to use the atomic bomb’ in certain circumstances. Eisenhower was going to set out these proposals in a speech to the United Nations. Churchill and Eden then drafted a statement to that effect, which Churchill gave to Colville, to take to the President, so that Britain’s reservations could be made clear in the President’s speech.
Colville took the British statement to Eisenhower, recording Eisenhower’s comment ‘that whereas Winston looked on the atomic weapon as something entirely new and terrible, he looked upon it as just the latest improvement in military weapons. He implied that there was in fact no distinction between “conventional weapons” and atomic weapons: all weapons in due course became conventional weapons.’ This, Colville wrote, ‘represents a fundamental difference of opinion between public opinion in the USA and in England’.
Eisenhower also proposed, in his United Nations’ speech, to refer to the ‘obsolete Colonial mould’ which was now over, or being broken. After lunch that day, Churchill persuaded Eisenhower to remove this ‘obnoxious phrase’, as Colville called it, from his speech. More significantly, Churchill persuaded Eisenhower to substitute for the United States being ‘free to use the atomic bomb’ a phrase about the United States ‘reserving the right to use the atomic bomb’. The central theme of Eisenhower’s proposal, the control of atomic energy by an international body, was very much acceptable to Churchill. It seemed a way back from the brink.
During the afternoon of December 6, the Foreign Ministers sent Dr Adenauer the text of their proposed reply to the Soviet Government, accepting a conference of Foreign Ministers at Berlin in January. Neither Eisenhower nor Churchill had been shown this text before it was sent off. Colville noted in his diary:
W remonstrated strongly with Eden and wanted to have left out the reference to German reunification, on the grounds that you couldn’t confront the Russians at Berlin with both our determination that Western Germany should be an armed member of EDC and a demand that Eastern Germany be united to it.
Eden enlisted the support of Dulles (even heavier and more flabby now than last January) and after pointing out that German reunification had figured in all the previous notes, and that Adenauer expected it, they won their case.
‘In the confusion,’ Colville added, ‘Frank Roberts, who was in a state of fury with the PM, was mistaken by the latter for one of Dulles’ advisers and treated to a homily as such.’2540
***
The third Plenary meeting, held on the afternoon of December 6, was again dominated by the European Defence Community problem. The French, increasingly isolated since the Conference began, were now alone. Churchill begged them not to become bogged down by earlier disputes and disagreements with Germany on France’s eastern frontier, and especially by French concern over the future of the Saar, about which Bidault had spoken with considerable passion.2541 He had thought, Churchill said, that the heads of Government ‘were really going to talk about the EDC with the thought of the salvation of the French. He did not feel we should be mixed up with a few fields in the Saar valley. We should maintain a sense of proportion.’ Churchill added:
EDC had been a French proposal and her allies and friends had been doing all they could to help her out. This project had delayed for more than three years the formation of a German army, without which there could be no safety for anyone in Europe. A critical point had been reached where EDC would either be ratified by France or not.
He hoped that the French would consider what the consequences might be before they made a final decision. He had hoped, that if the French were unwilling or unable because of parliamentary difficulties to ratify EDC, Germany would be brought in by a rearrangement or broadening of the NATO organization. He was not at all sure from what he had heard the President say that this might appear to be a good plan to the United States.
It might be that EDC would be cast aside improvidently at this vital and perilous moment and that the NATO organization might not be reorganized in order to achieve the purpose of EDC. He hoped that before the French Parliament would take a final decision they would see the dark possibilities ahead if the US would withdraw from its policy of direct aid and giving to Europe.
It was certain that British troops could not stay any longer than the Americans (as long, no longer). If US troops were withdrawn from France, it would expose Britain to mortal danger. No other country was doing in peace time what they were. They had two-year military service and not a single brigade in the UK. With the development of aircraft in a few months, they might be faced with a heavy paratroop attack in the UK. If the US were unable to continue their effort, if EDC were rejected, the British would then have to do their utmost to fight to the death in their own island and this they would not hesitate to do to the best of their ability.
He begged and implored his French friends not to let a few fields in the Saar valley come between the life and death of the flaming spirit of France and the break up of the great structure on which so many hopes had been founded.
Churchill now warned the French of what he saw as the ultimate danger of not admitting a German force to the European Defence Community. If the EDC were rejected, he said, and NATO ‘put aside as not being feasible’, something which could only provide a ‘peripheral’ defence would be found; this ‘would indeed be a frightful disaster, for Europe could be quickly undermined and suborned by the Russian Communist advance and then, if a general war followed, it was very likely that they would never succeed in reviving the civilization and culture of Western Europe and of France’. With stern emphasis, Churchill ‘stressed the importance of preventing another world war, the preliminary of which would probably extinguish the culture, civilization and freedom of Western Europe. He could not understand how the seriousness of this was not realized.’ Then, as the minutes of the Conference recorded:
He urged that the awful peril be not underrated. He pointed out that Germany would be totally disarmed, at the mercy of Russia at any moment, and that the British themselves might expect to be shattered but thank God they still had the Channel which had stood them in such good stead.
M. Bidault interrupted to say that France did not.
All the more reason, said the Prime Minister, why France should support EDC which might well become for France what the Channel was for the UK. He knew that there was no fault on M. Bidault’s part but, if the French Parliament rejected EDC, he would view the future more somberly than at any time in World War II.
He earnestly hoped this would not happen. EDC should be first and last but if that failed, he would beg the President and his associates to consider some way of achieving the same result through changes in NATO. If this fails the British would stay only so long as the United States.
Eisenhower supported Churchill’s plea to Bidault. If no German national army were to be allowed, he warned, he did not see how a European defence policy could be brought about.
The discussion of the European Defence Community had taken up the whole meeting. Other issues must not, however, be crowded out of the agenda, Churchill insisted. He wanted there to be a discussion as soon as possible about Egypt. ‘Herein,’ he explained, ‘the interests of the UK were entirely in accord with those of France. In comparison with the terrible matters they had been discussing, this might seem like a small matter but they had 80 thousand men in this area who might come into action next week or soon thereafter if attacked.’ He was not asking ‘for physical support in favouring a solution’, Churchill added, ‘but he felt it would be helpful if the Middle East thought that the US and UK were thinking in the same way, seeking no advantage of imperial power but finding a way to discharge their duty to NATO and to the civilization of the world’.2542
That night Churchill told Colville that ‘he and Ike had agreed to treat forcing through the ratification of EDC as a combined military operation’.
A more serious problem would arise, however, if the European Defence Community did not go through, for in that eventuality, Colville noted, ‘the Americans do not agree with the PM that Germany must be invited to join NATO. On the contrary they talk of falling back on “peripheral” defence, which means the defence of their bases stretching in a crescent from Iceland via East Anglia, Spain and North Africa to Turkey.’ This, Churchill told Colville, ‘would entail France becoming Communist-dominated (and finally going the way of Czechoslovakia) while the Americans sought to rearm Germany sandwiched between the hostile powers of Russia and France’.
If France refused to accept the European Defence Community, Colville noted, ‘the PM intends to go all out to persuade the Americans to work for the Germany-in-NATO alternative’.
The possibility of America using the atomic bomb against China perturbed Churchill far more than the problems of the European Defence Community or the Middle East. ‘I have been feeling for the past forty-eight hours,’ he told Colville on the night of December 6, ‘that all our problems, even those such as Egypt, shrink into insignificance by the side of the one great issue which this conference has thrown up.’2543
The problem of Egypt dominated the fourth Plenary meeting, which was held at noon on December 7, when Churchill told the Conference: ‘The great waterway of the Suez Canal was a question of world interest. He felt that there was a need to take every precaution to preserve it against neglect or obstruction. He was not considering the closing of the Canal by bombing by hostile nations. That would be difficult with the improved facilities. He did feel that an attempt should be made to consider the Suez Canal on an international basis. It was as worthy of dignity and respect as the Panama Canal.’ Anything along the lines of an international force ‘would steady the whole Middle East’, that was ‘all he was asking’. If Britain could obtain assurances from Eisenhower or Dulles ‘with the authority that they carry’, such assurances ‘could have moral support in the negotiations now going on, that might lead to a reasonable conclusion and avoid what was not impossible, namely a lot of fighting’.
What he ‘did not want’, Churchill warned, was that, with 80,000 British troops and Air Force units in Egypt, troops might be arrested by the local troops ‘or something else done which would constitute a military action and might lead to actual war’.2544
Early on the afternoon of December 7, Churchill read the communiqué which it was intended to issue as soon as the Conference ended. It was the Russian aspect which disturbed him, as he minuted to Eden:
I can find nothing in this communiqué which shows the slightest desire for the success of the Conference or for an easement in relations with Russia. We are to gang up against them without any reference to the ‘Locarno’ idea. The statement about Europe ends with the challenge about a united Germany in EDC or NATO, for which Russia is to give up the Eastern Zone. Many people would think that we were deliberately riding for a fall. Perhaps we are.
‘I understand,’ Churchill added, ‘this draft is to be submitted to us at 5 p.m., and I hope it will be understood that it is only a draft.’2545 ‘I am doing my best with it,’ Eden replied, ‘without much success.’2546
That afternoon, at the fifth Plenary meeting, Churchill spoke first of the continuing French struggle in Indo-China, contrasting it with Britain’s own withdrawal from India six years earlier:
…he would like to pay his heartfelt compliments to France for her valiant effort to preserve her empire and the cause of freedom in Indo-China. He greatly admired her exertions and was sorry insofar as his own country was concerned that they had not been able to match these efforts on the vast subcontinent of India. This was a colossal disaster which he had lived to see and would leave its imprint on the future. He might not live to see it, but many of those around the table would realize what a great misfortune it was when Great Britain cast away her duties in India. He admired France and envied the record she had established under such difficult conditions.
He also felt impelled to say how much he admired the splendid work of France in North Africa and in Tunisia. He had often been there and had been struck by the wonderful manner in which the French cherished and nourished the civilization they had implanted. He earnestly hoped that all the powers allied with France would endeavour to lend their moral support and aid in the difficult task which she had undertaken with so much skill and resolution. The British had a small but costly preoccupation in Malaya. There the situation was improving and they had not the slightest intention of wavering in their effort. He only wished to pay this tribute to France. He felt it was a great mistake to suppose that the ancient powers of Europe had not made a contribution to the progress of these races in Asia and that all they had done was obsolete and that it was good that it had passed away. He said he hoped that France would courageously persevere in her efforts.
‘Dark days lie ahead in Asia,’ Churchill continued, ‘as a result of those who thought that they could do without the guidance and aid of the European nations to whom they owed so much. He would say no more on this subject. He knew it was not a popular thing at present but he had done his utmost for it all the days of his life.’
As to the struggle in South-East Asia, Churchill said, he ‘wished only the best of good fortune to France and to express his gratitude to the United States for giving aid to Indo-China and this aid will be found to have been farseeing’.
It was Bidault who then asked the Conference if it could discuss the problem of assurances in regard to European security, and the part which relations with the Soviet Union would play in this. As this was a clear reference to Churchill’s desire for détente, Churchill set out his arguments in favour of the policy which he had come to Bermuda to assert, telling the Conference:
…there was great difficulty in finding something which would please the Russians—which he was anxious to do—because they have already taken everything they could lay their hands on and now we were looking around to find something they had not taken and could not. This was a great pity. When the Second World War was in its late phases he had been profoundly impressed with the deep grievance and passionate desire of the Soviets for effective protection against another Hitler or something like it, and he had felt the deepest sympathy with that anxiety. If they had not been carried away by victory, something much better for all would have been feasible.
Looking around after they have treated us so badly in the last few years, he still thought one ought not to fail to do for them what was just or express willingness to do it. He would hope that full assurances could be given them not only to the effect that our organization was an absolutely defensive one in nature, but that if they were wrongfully attacked, we should aid and support them. He felt this note should be struck. He had tried to strike it some months ago and it was still audible. We should do something to reassure them.
Such was Churchill’s argument in favour of an attempt at détente, but he did not neglect the aspect with which the French, and the Americans, were so concerned. Reassuring the Russians, he said, ‘was a minor thing compared to the need of maintaining our unity and self-defence. We should give them the feeling that what was right and just when they were behaving well had not ceased to be right and just at a time when we might believe that they were inclined to behave badly. He felt this note should be struck and played upon.’ Churchill added: ‘It would be very difficult to make any arrangement if we could not do anything of interest to them. They ought to have freedom of access to the broad waters.’ He had ‘never contemplated that we should commit ourselves to recognizing the present state of affairs in the satellites. We should try to make clear that we would not try to end this by violence but by allowing time, patience and perhaps good fortune to work. That was the note he would like to see.’ Churchill then told the Conference:
In the draft communiqué there were nine notes of strength and unity for a strong front. He felt we could afford to strike one note which, at any rate, would give the sense that we wished them no harm and would feel it our duty to help them if they were maltreated or assaulted, that we would instantly play our part on their side as intended if they were right. He felt it would be well to use such language now. He was sure it would now be welcomed on the other side by the governments at least. It might help to alleviate the suffering and tyranny which prevails.
He had read many phrases in the communiqué on one side, and few on what he called Locarnoism or reassurances. The other way would make the balance better and provide steady and continuous improvement. He recognized all the way through that this was only a very small counterpoise to the main effort which must absorb all our energies and brains.2547
The sixth and final Plenary meeting was held that night. On the question of Egypt, Churchill was unable to persuade the Americans to support Britain’s position that for the troops withdrawn from Egypt there must be a joint Anglo-American plan of redeployment within the NATO strategic defence system. On the question of negotiations with Russia, too, the principal object and driving force of Churchill’s transatlantic journey, he was unable to persuade Foster Dulles to change his mind, telling Lord Moran on the night of December 7:
‘…it seems that everything is left to Dulles. It appears that the President is no more than a ventriloquist’s doll.’
He said no more for a time. Then he said:
‘This fellow preaches like a Methodist Minister, and his bloody text is always the same: That nothing but evil can come out of meeting with Malenkov.’
There was a long pause.
‘Dulles is a terrible handicap.’ His voice rose. ‘Ten years ago I could have dealt with him. Even as it is I have not been defeated by this bastard. I have been humiliated by my own decay. Ah, no, Charles, you have done all that could be done to slow things down.’
When I turned round he was in tears. That was the last I heard of Moscow while we were at Bermuda.2548
One important aspect of the Bermuda meeting concerned the future of Anglo-American co-operation in the sphere of nuclear policy. On December 7 Churchill wrote to Eisenhower, from the Mid-Ocean Club, to summarize what had been decided:
We agreed, did we not, that Admiral Strauss and Lord Cherwell should compile a White Paper of the documents, and their linking together, which constitute the story of Anglo-American relations about the Atomic Bomb. You and I will then consider and discuss whether it will be helpful or not to publish. Personally I think it will be. We both desire a fuller interchange of intelligence and the fact that secrecy is evaporating through growth of knowledge between us, and alas between both of us and Soviet Russia, makes it desirable that we two should make the best joint progress we can.
‘Your speech,’ Churchill added by way of encouragement, ‘will, I think, encourage the new atmosphere.’2549
On the morning of December 8 Churchill went to see Eisenhower on another serious concern, the Egyptian problem. He was anxious for the Americans to stop sending arms to Egypt, telling Eisenhower, as he later told Colville, ‘that the Americans sending arms to Egypt after January 1st would have no less effect in the UK than the British sending arms to China would have in the USA’. The President, said Churchill, ‘took this seriously’.
It was their last meeting at Bermuda. Eisenhower left before lunch to return to the United States, where, that same day, he placed before the United Nations a set of proposals for the international control of atomic energy.
At Bermuda on December 8, the French delegation lunched with Churchill, before making its own departure. ‘W said to Bidault,’ Colville recorded, ‘that if he had been rough on the French it was not because he loved them less than formerly, but because he wanted to urge them to save themselves and not, in consequence of refusing EDC, to force the Americans to fall back on a “peripheral” defence of Europe.’2550
***
On December 9 Churchill remained at Bermuda with the British delegation. ‘I hope,’ his wife had written on the previous afternoon, ‘that now the heavy work of the Conference is over you will have a little sunshine & rest before flying home.’ It was very hard, she added, ‘to judge by the newspapers what has been achieved. The general impression is that the French have been as tiresome, obstructive & odious as usual,’ and she added: ‘I am sure you were right to insist on this meeting.’2551
Clementine Churchill was flying that evening to Stockholm, with her daughter Mary, to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature on her husband’s behalf.
When Lord Moran saw Churchill after breakfast on December 9, his patient told him ‘he had had some twitching in his foot’ and would have ‘an easy day’. The Governor would drive him round the island in the morning, and he had promised to inspect the Bermuda troops in the afternoon. At dinner that night, Lord Ismay, Secretary General of NATO, was also present. Moran recorded some of the discussion, which centred upon Britain’s defences against a Russian attack:
Pug felt the strength of the Russians had been exaggerated. In the event of war they would have long lines of communication, and would always be looking back over their shoulders at Poland and the other satellite countries. The PM agreed they were probably not so strong as people thought, but even if they were only a third as strong we had no real defences in Europe to hold them back.
As long as this discussion went on the PM remained alert and interested. He was particularly scornful of the lack of proportion shown in the allocation of the House’s time for debate—two days for TV and only one day for foreign affairs and atomic war. He might be out of date, but to him it sounded fantastic.2552
Churchill decided to dictate a letter to R. A. Butler on this subject. ‘He rang for a secretary to take it down,’ Moran noted, ‘but there was no one in the private office and no one in the Foreign Secretary’s office. Everyone, it appeared, had gone bathing by moonlight. The PM became very irritable. He would never again bring only two private secretaries to a conference. At this point Anthony volunteered to take down the PM’s words, and it was in this manner that the letter took shape.’2553
On the morning of December 10, Colville found Churchill ‘in a cantankerous frame of mind’.2554 It was time to go home. But the aircraft was not due to come until the evening. After lunch, as Moran recorded, Churchill went by car to the beach, where ‘leaning on his stick and on a detective, he descended a steep sand dune. At the bottom there was a rock, about twice a man’s height. Up this, to everybody’s amazement and consternation, he proceeded to crawl. We got him down eventually and pulled and pushed him up the dune. At the top he stood getting his breath, perspiring profusely.’
Having recovered his breath, Churchill then ‘insisted’, Moran noted, on driving to the aquarium eight miles distant. ‘Christopher said I was against it,’ Moran added. ‘The PM had done enough.’ But Churchill ‘dismissed such counsels of weakness and climbed into his car….’2555
At eight o’clock that evening Churchill left Bermuda by air for Britain. He reached London at 11.30 on the following morning, December 11. While he had been spending his final day in Bermuda, Clementine Churchill was in Stockholm accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature on his behalf.2556
There were those who thought that Churchill should have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. Ironically, the prize for literature came on the day of his greatest disappointment since the war, to build at Bermuda a path to the Summit which, as he had envisaged it, would also have been a path to peace.
On his return from Bermuda, Churchill found that many Conservative MPs were deeply uneasy about the course of the Egyptian negotiations. They feared that Britain was abandoning her one remaining position of strength in the Middle East. On December 16, before a luncheon meeting of the backbench 1922 Committee, Churchill explained to the Cabinet that he would do his utmost ‘to assure Government supporters generally that the Government’s policy in the negotiations was not in any way based on fear of what the Egyptians might do but on a realistic appraisal of our own interests, and he could appeal to them to have faith that the Government would continue to handle the situation with firmness and cool judgement’.2557
The meeting itself went well. ‘There were two hundred members of the Committee present,’ Churchill told Lord Moran that night, ‘one of our largest meetings. They were very friendly, singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”. I think they took what I said to them, it was quite plain spoken. I was very firm, telling them that we should not be deterred from doing what we thought was right, either by the violence of our enemies or even by the eloquence of our best friends.’ Churchill added: ‘I dominated and conquered the committee. I spoke for twenty-five minutes. I did not prepare anything. I did not give it ten minutes’ thought. Some of the Tories had been very worked up about Suez….’2558
On December 17 Churchill spoke in the House of Commons. His opening words reflected one of his remarks at Bermuda. ‘The curious fact,’ he said, ‘that the House prefers to give two days to the television White Paper and only one day to foreign affairs may be noted by future historians as an example of a changing sense of proportion in modern thought.’ It was, however, ‘also a proof of how great a measure of agreement exists between our established parties on the present handling of foreign affairs’.
Speaking first about Egypt, Churchill reiterated that, despite ‘a constant stream of minor outrages’ on British troops in the Canal Zone. ‘We remain convinced, however, that it is in our interests, military and financial, to procure a replacement of our forces in North Africa and the Middle East.’
Turning to the Bermuda Conference, and his hopes for an eventual meeting with the Russian leaders, Churchill told the House of Commons that he had used the opportunity of the Conference ‘to emphasize the view which I expressed here on 11 May that the Soviet Union is entitled to assurances against aggression after what she suffered at Hitler’s hands. I think I was successful in impressing upon my colleagues at Bermuda the justice and the advantage of such a course, even though Russian strength is so vast.’ It was his hope that from the Foreign Ministers’ meeting planned for January 4, ‘there may emerge some means of providing the Russians with a sense of security arising from other facts than mere force. The whole world is in need of that.’2559
In regard to French hostility to the European Defence Community, Churchill sought on December 19 to put Eisenhower’s mind at rest. ‘If EDC is repudiated by the French,’ he wrote, ‘I still think some variant of NATO will be necessary. After all, this meets the French objection to being in a European association alone or almost alone with a much more powerful Germany. I think you would find it very difficult to make and get a good plan on the “empty chair” basis.’2560
Of Eisenhower’s proposal of December 8, for the international control of atomic energy, Churchill told the House of Commons:
I consider this speech of the President as one of the most important events in world history since the end of the war. A few weeks ago, I spoke to the House about the ever-increasing destructive power which has now come into human hands, and also about the almost limitless material benefits which science can for the first time give to a peaceful age.
As I meditated on the President’s proposals, limited though they are in scope, and shrouded in technicalities as they are for laymen, I could not help feeling that we were in the process of what might prove to be a turning point in our destiny.
I fervently hope that the Soviet Government will not ignore this beam of light through much darkness and confusion. I am sure of the sincerity and altruistic good-will by which it was inspired, and I trust that they will advance with confidence, to which their own strength entitles them, along a path which certainly leads in the direction of expanding the welfare and calming the fears of the masses of the people of all the world.2561
In his search for an early summit, Churchill did not dismiss out of hand the American hesitations. ‘American anxiety about Russian rearmament must be borne in mind,’ he wrote to Richard Stokes, Labour MP for Ipswich. ‘We cannot get through without them.’2562
In the last week of December, Churchill saw the Soviet Ambassador, Yakov Malik, who was returning briefly to Moscow.2563 ‘I impressed two things on him,’ Churchill telegraphed to Eisenhower. ‘Firstly that your atomic proposal was not a mere propaganda move but a sincere attempt to break the deadlock and, though on a small scale, might well achieve invaluable results and also open fruitful contacts. Secondly, there was no chance of splitting the English-Speaking world, though we use our common language to argue about a lot of things.’
Churchill also sent Eisenhower his thoughts on the new French President, René Coty, and his attitude:
Coty has for long been a keen supporter of European movements and has frequently spoken in favour of the European Defence Community. I think we might easily have got someone worse. Anyhow no one can now say that Foster’s outspoken warning, which I supported, has done any harm. It seems that in France in order to get on you have to be unknown. It is different in our two democracies where a certain amount of publicity is not necessarily always a drawback.2564
At a meeting of the Cabinet on December 29, R. A. Butler had proposed the release of a further £5 million to Egypt. Failure to do so, he said, would, under the terms of the 1951 Anglo-Egyptian agreement, ‘involve a direct breach of an international agreement and a consequent loss of confidence in sterling. He would prefer that the £10 millions should also be released on 1st January.’
Churchill, speaking next, said that he was ‘most reluctant to see this money paid to Egypt at a time when she was showing such hostility to us. He was particularly embarrassed at the thought that this should be done when, with the Foreign Secretary’s concurrence, he had been pressing the President of the United States to delay the grant of economic aid to Egypt.’ If Britain now released sterling balances, Churchill said, as proposed by Butler, ‘we might lay ourselves open to the reproach that we were trying to win from the Egyptians favours which we wished to deny to the United States’.
In the discussions that followed, Eden supported Butler. The American administration, he said, ‘would appreciate the difference between the two transactions. We should be repaying the debt in accordance with an international agreement; but the United States were being asked to postpone giving new money for development projects in Egypt which would bring benefits to American engineering contractors. He agreed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that to withhold the promised instalments of Egypt’s sterling balances might lead to a loss of confidence in sterling.’ It might ‘in particular’, Eden added, ‘prompt other Arab countries, notably Kuwait, to withdraw sterling balances which were not governed by any formal agreement’.
Churchill was out-argued and overruled; it was agreed to release the £5 million in accordance with the terms of the agreement. As to the continuing defence negotiations with Egypt, here Churchill’s views were supported by his colleagues. The time had now come, he said, ‘to bring to a head the defence negotiations with Egypt’, and he suggested that ‘unless the Egyptian Government agreed in the very near future to accept our latest proposals, we should declare that after a specified date these proposals would lapse and we should regard ourselves as free to make our own plans. We should then begin to carry out a vigorous and effective redeployment of our forces in the Middle East.’ It was Eden, however, who warned the Cabinet that if Britain withdrew from Egypt without an agreement, ‘we should have lost the right of return and might have weakened our influence with other Arab states’.2565
***
At Chequers on Christmas Day 1953, Churchill gave his wife a gift of money. ‘My darling Beloved Clemmie,’ he wrote, ‘I hope you will ask Brendan to invest this for you. It may come in handy on some Christmas I shall not see.’ And of their Christmas festivities he wrote: ‘How wonderfully you have organised it all this time! With all my fondest love, your devoted husband, W.’2566
That day, at noon, Churchill received a letter from the Queen, written a week earlier on board SS Gothic, then approaching Fiji. ‘We have followed with interest,’ the Queen wrote, ‘the news of the Bermuda Conference and all it implies for the good of the world. I hope you are satisfied with the way it went and I trust you did not find it too strenuous.’2567 Churchill replied seven days later, in his own hand:
Madam,
On Christmas Day at noon precisely I received Yr Majesty’s most kind and gracious letter and photograph. My wife and I cherish this token of Yr Majesty’s thought, and memento of our most pleasant visit to Balmoral (and the Leger!).
Today I have the belief that the New Year starts well and good hopes that its end may be better still. If this shd prove true it will be largely due to the sparkle, youth and unity which the amazing exertions of Yr Majesty and the Duke are making for the sake of our world-wide but hard-pressed combination. My only misgiving is lest too much may be drawn from You by the love and admiration of your subjects in so many lands.2568