April 24, 2013

FINEST HOUR 150, SPRING 2011

BY TERRY REARDON

Mr. Reardon, of ICS Canada, is a FH contributor whose recent articles were “Churchill and de Gaulle (FH 138) and “Mice That Roared: The Thirty-Minute Invasion of St. Pierre and Miquelon” (FH 136). His “Winston Churchill and Mackenzie King,” in FH 130, Spring 2006, won the Somervell Award for the best article of of 2005-06.

ABSTRACT
Did Churchill Stay Too Long?

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He then began to speak quite feelingly to me about himself at the present time, saying, ‘I have no ambition beyond getting us through this mess. There is nothing that anyone could give me or that I could wish for. They cannot take away what I have done.’ That as soon as the war was over, he would get out of public life.”[1]

So wrote Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King of Churchill in his diary for 23 August 1941. Yet when the war was won in 1945, the 70-year-old Churchill stayed in public life, against the wishes of his wife Clementine and many of his closest colleagues, hoping to “win the peace.” The landslide victory of the Labour Party in the 1945 election elicited the oft-quoted comment from Clementine that “It may well be a blessing in disguise,” and Winston’s rejoinder, “At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised.”[2]

In spite of the blow, Churchill retained his sense of humour. “When an acquaintance suggested that he should tour England so that the thousands of his own countrymen who had never seen him could have a chance to honour him he growled: ‘I refuse to be exhibited like a prize bull whose chief attraction is its past prowess.'”[3]

Churchill was as frank about the election as his reasons for staying on after it. Addressing the Conservative Central Council on 28 November 1945 he thanked them for welcoming “one who has led you through one of the greatest political defeats in the history of the Tory Party.” Then he added that staying on was—”not from any motives of personal ambition—for what could I possibly want?— but only because of the strong convictions which I hold about the future of our country, and my desire to serve you as long as you may think me of any use, or I feel that I have anything worthy of your acceptance to give.”[4]

Even Churchill had his doubts about that. A few weeks later he wrote to the Duke of Windsor in reflective mood: “…I increasingly wonder whether the game is worth the candle. It is only from a sense of duty and of not leaving my friends when they are in the lurch, that I continue to persevere.”[5] Churchill would not of course confess that his ego was involved, although it was, as it would be for any major leader who had gone through what he had.

Churchill remained a dominant figure abroad. In November 1945 he spoke in Paris, and then Brussels. where he received a tremendous reception. The British Ambassador, Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, later recalled that “people stretched out their hands to touch him…. remarks in the street included one from an old lady who had placed her camp-stool at a street corner—’Now I have seen Mr Churchill, I can die’….people broke through the police-cordon….one girl threw her arms round his neck and kissed him fervently.”[6]

In October 1945 Churchill received an invitation from President Truman to speak in Truman’s home state of Missouri, at Westminster College. His resultant “Iron Curtain” speech in March 1946, warning of Russia’s territorial ambitions, resulted in fierce criticism by the American media and also in Britain, where ninety-three Labour MPs, including future Prime Minister James Callaghan, tabled a motion of censure against Churchill. It was not long before those short-sighted politicians had to eat their words.[7]

Would Churchill have had the same impact if he had chosen to retire? Possibly so: Roosevelt was dead, Stalin was proving to be expansionist in eastern Europe; Churchill’s reputation as the man who had stood up to Hitler and given hope to the world was still intact.

As at Fulton, Churchill was trying desperately to ensure that the mistakes of the 1920s and 1930s were not repeated. On 19 September 1946, at Zurich University, he spoke of the need for a United Europe: “The first step in the recreation of the European family must be a partnership between France and Germany. In this way only can France recover the moral leadership of Europe. There can be no revival of Europe without a spiritually great Germany.”[8]

Even with the benefit of hindsight, which shows Churchill to have been right again—and considering that France had been invaded by Germany in 1870, 1914 and 1940—this was an astonishing statement. In announcing the Marshall Plan of aid to Europe on 12 June 1947, U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall said Churchill’s call for a United Europe had influenced his belief that the European States could work out their own economic recovery with financial help from the United States.[9]

Churchill’s world stature conflicted with his leading the Opposition, according to Rab Butler, future Chancellor of the Exchequer and potential prime minister: “The constructive part of his mind always dwelt more naturally on the international scene than on bread-and-butter politics But Harold Macmillan, who did become PM, added: “Any attempt to remove a man whom the whole nation knew to be the greatest Englishman of this or perhaps of any time would have been deeply resented by the country…. Moreover, it would certainly have failed. Anyone who knew Churchill intimately must have realized that he was a man impossible to frighten and equally difficult to dislodge.”[11]

In April 1949 Churchill wrote to his old friend, the financier and adviser to presidents Bernard Baruch, that he would not continue in politics “but for the fact that I feel it my duty to help the sane and constructive forces in Britain to restore our position in the world.”[12] Even his first stroke, on 24 August 1949, while visiting Beaverbrook on the French Riviera (reported to the press as a “chill”), did not alter his determination.

In the General Election of 23 February 1950 the Labour Party lost seventy-eight seats, the Conservatives gained eighty-five, and the Labour’s overall majority was reduced to six. Inevitably they went to the nation again on 25 October 1951, and this time the Conservatives won with an overall majority of twenty, returning Churchill to Downing Street a month shy of his 77th birthday. Two days before the election Churchill told an audience in Plymouth that he would strive to make “an important contribution to the prevention of a third world war, and to bringing the peace that every land fervently desired….It is the last prize I seek to win”[13]

Mrs. Churchill was of mixed mind, as stated by their daughter, Mary Soames: Clementine “must have felt—for his sake alone—some sense of satisfaction after the bitter defeat of six years before; but of elation she felt none. Nothing that had happened had changed the conviction she held in 1945, namely, that Winston should have retired at the end of the war.”[14]

Churchill’s wartime private secretary, John Colville, now re-hired, wrote that WSC told him he intended to remain Prime Minister for just one year. He just wanted to “re-establish the intimate relationship with the United States, which had been a keynote of his policy in the war, and to restore at home the liberties which had been eroded by wartime restrictions and postwar socialist measures.”[15]

Churchill broadcast to the nation on 22 December on the dire economy, and measures being taken to improve it. Internationally, he said, “we shall stand up with all our strength in defence of the free world against Communist tyranny and aggression….It may be that this land will have the honour of helping civilization climb the hill amid the toils of peace as we once did in the terrors of war.”[16]

Churchill spoke in Ottawa and Washington in early 1952, showing he had lost none of his ability to tailor an address to obtain the desired reaction from his audience. His oratory was also put to good effect when he returned to London and spoke in the House of Commons on the death of King George VI.

As recounted by the socialite MP “Chips” Channon, a staunch Chamberlain supporter before World War II, “Winston spoke, and I thought he was sublime, so simple and eloquent with his Macaulay phrases pouring out. The attentive House was electrified.”[17]

On 21 February 1952 Churchill suffered a small arterial spasm; his doctor said, “You’ll have to pull out or arrange things so the strain is less.” Just five days later Churchill had to respond to an opposition Vote of Censure, accusing him of wanting to make war on China in order to hasten the end of the Korean War. In a powerful response, Churchill pointed out that his stance was exactly the same as Labour had agreed to when they had been in power. As Nigel Nicholson wrote: “There was pandemonium…. [Labour Leader Clement Attlee] was sitting hunched up like an elf just out of its chrysalis, and stared at Winston, turning slowly white….Winston sat back beaming…..We had won.”[18]

After speaking with John Colville and Lord Salisbury, Moran put his comments on the arterial spasm to Churchill in a letter on 12 March, again insisting that he had to reduce his workload. The next day Clementine telephoned Moran: “He was not angry when he got your letter; he just swept it aside….I’m glad you wrote. It may do good.”[19]

But Churchill was 77, and could not fight time forever. On May 16th Colville wrote: “the P.M. is low…his concentration less good…age is beginning to show…tonight he spoke of coalition. He would retire in order to make it possible.” Two weeks later he added: “Winston is, I fear, personally blamed in the country and by his own party in the House. Mrs. Churchill does not think he will last long as Prime Minister.” Then in mid-June: “The Prime Minister is depressed and bewildered. He said to me this evening,

‘The Zest is diminished.'”[20] But Churchill remained as driven as ever. On New Year’s Day 1953 Colville recorded WSC’s prophetic statement: “He said that if I lived a normal span I should assuredly see eastern Europe free of Communism.”[21]

In April 1953 pressure on Churchill to step down eased when Eden was operated on for gallstones. Serious complications occurred, and eventually Eden went for an operation in Boston which, while successful, required a lengthy recuperation.

Eden did not return to his duties until September 1953 and in the intervening period Churchill assumed Foreign Office duties. Then, without warning, on 23 June 1953, Churchill suffered a stroke. When a press release was eventually made, it was to the effect that the Prime Minister needed a complete rest.

“He had not enjoyed his convalescence,” Roy Jenkins wrote. “He did not welcome old age, and he knew that the best way to stave off the effects was to postpone the time when power had gone for the last time….Outweighing all these other considerations, however, was his conviction that the world was in danger of nuclear destruction, and his mounting belief that his last service might be to save it from such a fate as could no one else.”[22]

Churchill’s remarkable powers of recovery again saved him. Though he had previously proposed to retire when Eden was fit, he now decided that if he could make a successful address at the Conservative Party Conference on 10 October 1953, he would stay on. The fifty-minute speech, Macmillan said, “was really magnificent.”[23]

A week later Churchill was thrilled to be told that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize, but when he was informed that it was for Literature, not Peace, his pleasure was diminished. In December he kept a date for talks with Eisenhower and the French Prime Minister at Bermuda, which had been postponed by his stroke.

Stalin had died on 5 March and at Bermuda Churchill spoke of opening relations with his successors. But “Ike followed with a short, very violent statement, in the coarsest terms. He said that as regards the P.M.’s belief that there was a new look in Soviet policy, Russia was a woman of the streets and whether her dress was new, or just the old one patched, it was certainly the same whore underneath.”[24]

In spite of the rebuff from Eisenhower, Churchill continued his quest for peace. A four-power foreign ministers’ meeting (USA, USSR, France, Britain) was held in Berlin in February 1954, and while no specific agreement was signed, there was progress over the occupation of Austria. In the subsequent House of Commons debate on 25 February, Churchill said: “Patience and perseverance must never be grudged when the peace of the world is at stake. Even if we have to go through a decade of cold war bickering….that would be preferable to the catalogue of unspeakable and unimaginable horrors, which is the alternative.”[25]

Churchill still would not commit to a firm date to step down. Rab Butler wrote that his “affectionate admiration for Anthony Eden was beyond doubt, but equally so was the disservice he did his successor by making him wait too long. This did not suit Anthony any more than it suited King Edward VII. The latter took it out in life and licence, the former in controlled impatience.”[26]

It is interesting that Eden, in his autobiography covering this period, Full Circle, does not once mention his frustration at Churchill’s repeated broken promises to resign. Since the book was published in 1960, with Churchill still alive, Eden may have felt the need for discretion. Churchill was still adamant for staying on: “Now it’s a case of a world crisis,” the Prime Minister informed Moran on 10 June 1954. “I could not leave the Government in an emergency such as this. It is not that I want to hang on to the office for a few weeks more. But I have a gift to make to the country: a duty to perform. It would be cowardly to run away from such a situation.”[27]

Pressure to resign nevertheless mounted, and there were testy exchanges with Eden. On 9 January 1955 Harold Macmillan told Moran: “Winston ought to resign…since I became Minister of Defence I have found that he can no longer handle these complicated matters properly. He can’t do the job of Prime Minister as it ought to be done.” Moran conveyed this to Churchill: “When he looked up his eyes were full of tears….Harold’s intervention had left a bruise. The P.M. had come to depend on him and counted on his support….And now he had gone over to the other camp.”[28]

Churchill finally decided to resign on 7 April 1955; however in March he mistakenly construed that a letter from Eisenhower gave hope for a summit and thus he said he would put back his resignation again. But when he was persuaded that his optimism was misplaced, he went back to the original timetable.

Three days before he stepped down after entertaining the Queen and Prince Philip at Number Ten, John Colville found Churchill on the edge of his bed: “…suddenly he stared at me and said with vehemence: ‘I don’t believe that Anthony can do it.'”[29] Was this another prophetic statement, or just the frustration of someone who hated to give up?

Ironically, three months after Churchill resigned, a summit was held in Geneva, Eisenhower writing to Churchill that “his courage and wisdom would be missed.”[30] The official reason for Eisenhower’s change was that the Russians had signed the Austrian State Treaty on 15 May, ending Austria’s occupation, a prior condition for a summit. But some historians concluded that Eisenhower feared Churchill would “give the store away.” Certainly Secretary of State John Foster Dulles took that view. In February 1953, discouraging Churchill’s intended visit to Washington, Dulles said the U.S. public “thought Churchill could cast a spell on all American statesmen.”[31]

Harold Macmillan concluded: “There are some critics who declare that Churchill’s last decade in politics was a failure, and added little to his reputation….In some respects they were as fruitful as any in his life. There was the Fulton speech in 1946, which led to the aligning of the Western and democratic countries against the advancing menace of Russian aggression. There was the foundation of the European Movement which has led to the recovery of Europe….No Minister out of office has ever had such an effect on foreign policy. [And] his conduct of the Opposition gave new life and impetus to the Conservative Party.”[32]

Had Churchill won the 1945 election, would he have been more conciliatory with Stalin at Fulton? And even if still unsuccessful with Stalin, would he have handed over to Eden in 1950? There is no doubt that Stalin retained some respect for Churchill after Fulton, as illustrated by an exchange recounted by Stalin’s biographer: Nine months after Fulton, “Churchill sent Stalin a greetings telegram on 21 December 1946—’All personal good wishes on your birthday, my wartime comrade’ to which Stalin returned his ‘warm thanks.'”[33]

A slightly more conciliatory Fulton speech might have left Stalin ready to continue the wartime dialogue; but with the Soviets in control of Eastern Europe, Churchill had no cards to play, and anything he gained would have been minor. It was not in Churchill’s nature to have stepped down in 1950, with Stalin still alive and no hope for a settlement leading to world peace, his overriding goal. If reelected in 1950, I think he would have stayed on.

When he did return to power in 1951, his original intention to remain for just a year was generally accepted, since that would give Anthony Eden the reins in timely fashion for the next election. Eden’s health was a substantial reason for delay, but by 1954, with no hope for American participation in a summit, there was no legitimate reason
for Churchill to stay.

Eden’s span as Premier was short: from 6 April 1955 until he resigned for health reasons on 18 January 1957. Certainly Eden’s decision to embark on the disastrous Suez Canal seizure without prior agreement with the United States was a major error, with the humiliation of having Canada, a member of the British Commonwealth, brokering a peace solution. The true humiliation, however, was that the U.S. government told Britain that the pound sterling would come under attack if Britain failed to back off—and even Churchill might have found good reason to stop in that case.

Churchill was depressed by Suez and what it meant for the Anglo-American relationship. Colville wrote: “…he thought the whole operation the most ill-conceived and ill- executed imaginable.” When Colville asked if he would have acted as Eden had over Suez, WSC replied, “I would never have dared; and if I had dared, I would certainly never have dared stop.”[34] On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine Churchill not engaging in close conversations with the Americans before engaging at Suez.

Although it is clear that Churchill was in his final years as Premier, perhaps the real question is: was a fifty percent Churchill better than a hundred percent Eden?

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ENDNOTES

1. William Lyon Mackenzie King, Diaries, 23 August 1941 (Library and Archives Canada).

2. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 8, “Never Despair” 1945-1965 (Toronto: Stoddart, 1988), 108.

3. Virginia Cowles, Winston Churchill: The Era and the Man (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1953), 356.

4. Winston S. Churchill, The Sinews of Peace (London: Cassell, 1948), 45.

5. Gilbert, “Never Despair,” 174.

6. Ibid., 170.

7. Ibid.. 208.

8. Churchill, Sinews of Peace, 201.

9. Gilbert, “Never Despair,” 337.

10. Lord Butler, The Art of the Possible (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1971), 133.

11. Harold Macmillan, Tides of Fortune (London: Macmillan. 1969), 287.

12. Gilbert, “Never Despair,” 471.

13. Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life (London: Heinemann, 1991), 897.

14. Mary Soames, Clementine Churchill (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 979), 566.

15. John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries 1940-1955 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985), 632-33.

16. Winston S. Churchill, Stemming the Tide (Boston: Houghton Mifflin), 213.

17. Sir Henry Channon, Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1967), 464.

18. Gilbert, “Never Despair,” 705.

19. Lord Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966), 407-08.

20. Colville, 647, 649, 651.

21. Ibid., 658.

22. Roy Jenkins, Churchill (New York: Plume, 2002), 868.

23. Macmillan, 526.

24. Colville, 683

25. Gilbert, “Never Despair,” 955.

26. Butler, 165.

27. Moran, 590.

28. Ibid., 666-67.

29. Colville, 708.

30. Gilbert, “Never Despair,” 1151.

31 Colville, 661.

32. Macmillan, 558.

33. H. Montgomery Hyde, Stalin: The History of a Dictator (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972), 554.

34. Colville, 721.

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