W I N S T O N C H U R C H I L L ' S THE SECOND WORLD WAR:

M E T A N A R R A T I V E , M A R K E T S , AND T H E POLITICS OF M E M O R Y

By

D A V I D J. G O S S E N

B . A . , The University of Lethbridge, 1979

L . L . B . , The University of Victoria, 1982
M . A . , The University of British Columbia, 1994

A T H E S I S S U B M I T T E D LN P A R T I A L F U L F I L M E N T O F
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE D E G R E E OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

in

T H E F A C U L T Y OF G R A D U A T E STUDIES

(Department of History)

We accept this thesis as conforming

4p the required standard

T H E UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH C O L U M B I A

A p r i l 2001

© David James Gossen, 2001

 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced
degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it
freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive
copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my
department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or
publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written
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Department

The University of British Columbia

Vancouver, Canada

DE-6 (2/88)
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ABSTRACT

The potency o f memoirs to shape collective memory makes it important to seek a critical

understanding o f their political and historical functions. Memoirs offer insights into the character,

motives, and influence of political leaders, yet many scholars question this genre's ability to produce

accurate history, insightful political analysis, or literature o f merit. However, to the extent that

memoirs contribute to our knowledge and understanding o f the past they deserve closer study.

Memoirs mediate remembrance o f the recent past by functioning primarily in the interval between

contemporary political discourse and professional historiography, where their reception molds

historical memory. This study assesses how the past is remembered, and the political influences

embedded in memory that shape collective identities, through a study o f Winston Churchill's

metanarrative o f the second world war, produced at a critical period in war memory formation.

Exposing the politicized aspects o f social memory requires examining the means by which

private memories are transmitted into the public realm o f collective consciousness. In the early

postwar era, the dominant transmitter o f war memory was the political press, which responded to

war narratives by amplifying, dramatizing, or challenging their underlying political messages. Thus,

we examine how Churchill's metanarrative o f war was produced and promoted by his publishing

syndicate, and how his messages were received by the political press and general reading public in

Britain and America. After 1945, the main stimuli for contested political memory arose from

widespread fears over security, freedom, rapid social change, and historical discontinuity caused by

the war. Churchill's metanarrative o f legitimation offered an explanation o f the traumatic past that

contained conservative lessons for political culture. H i s messages fused an abiding faith in the

righteousness o f imperial memory with a sense of historical destiny that linked the English-speaking

peoples in a common cause to resist totalitarian challenges in the 2 0 th

century. Their reception

reveals that imperial memory and the archaic language o f redemption through war did not end with

the first or second world wars, but gained a renewed sense o f relevancy and power during the early

cold war era.

 i ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ii

Preface ii v

Acknowledgments v 1

CHAPTER I Introduction. 1
C H A P T E R II Churchill's Metanarrative: Messages and Leadership 19

2.1 Imperialism and Democracy ...........19

2.2 Unifying the English-speaking Peoples 27
2.3 Appeasement and Political Praxis 32
2.4 Churchill's Finest Hour 46

C H A P T E R III Memoirs and Markets: The Origins o f a Publishing Syndicate 55

3.1 Building a Publishing Syndicate 57

3.2 The Chartwell and Literary Trusts 65
3.3 The Artistry and Techniques o f Production 71
3.5 Abridgements 83

C H A P T E R I V The Messages: Lessons from the Past for the Present 93

4.1 Imperialism and the C i v i l i z i n g Mission 93

4.2 The "Special Relationship" o f the English-speaking Peoples 103
4.3 Leadership, Character and V i s i o n in War 115
4.4 Lessons o f History and Origins o f the C o l d War 130

C H A P T E R V Reading Churchill: Press Reception and the Public .....155

5.1 A Literary Phenomenon 160

5.2 Empire, Commonwealth, and W o r l d Order 163
5.3 Appeasement, Leadership and the Preventable War 173
5.4 Forging the Anglo-American Fraternity 185
5.5 Fighting the C o l d War 196
5.6 A Monument on Celluloid 210

C H A P T E R V I Conclusion 230

Bibliography 251
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PREFACE

This dissertation project had a long gestation period. It began more than 33 years ago, when

a fourth grade classmate of mine handed me Time/Life''?, one-volume edition o f Churchill's memoirs

with the suggestion that I might be interested in looking at it; indeed I was. Lost in my memory is

why a nine-year-old child of pacifist parents and conscientious objectors would be interested in such

a book about war. What I do remember most vividly is being completely entranced by the picture-

book's stunning depictions o f a world at war. Churchill's stirring prose surely enhanced the

experience, though I confess that it was the visual imagery o f war that was most memorable at the

time. Years later, while in undergraduate school, I became interested in reading The Gathering

Storm during a summer recess, and found myself so taken by Churchill's story o f political failure

and redemption in war that I read the entire memoirs with alacrity. I enthusiastically followed

Churchill's every step and decision on that long, tortuous road from the political wilderness to E l

Alamein and victory because for the first time in my life I felt that someone was providing a

powerful explanation for the complicated postwar world into which I had been born. Unwittingly,

and to large extent uncritically, I absorbed into my consciousness Churchill's conception o f the

principal causes for the cataclysmic events o f the interwar and war years.

Exactly to what extent my world view on war, peace, and international relations was molded

by Churchill, and the glowing public memory o f Churchill as the savior o f the free world, only

became apparent to me after entering graduate school in the 1990s, where I commenced a study o f

appeasement and the press for my Master's thesis. Though a detailed recollection o f Churchill's

metanarrative had receded into the background of my memory over the decade and a half since I had

last read his memoirs, I retained a lingering bias against British leaders from the 1930s who had

pursued appeasement for so long without realizing its inefficacy, and who had ignored viable

political alternatives that might have prevented war. In my Master's thesis, I focused on Neville

Chamberlain's political alliance with Times editor Geoffrey Dawson, as the chief architects o f

appeasement, who allegedly chloroformed public opinion in order to promote their foreign policy

agenda. Only near the latter stages o f my thesis research did I re-read The Gathering Storm to flesh

out the perspective o f anti-appeasers who had resisted Chamberlain and Dawson. It was then that

I realized just how closely my general outlook on war causation, along with that o f a great many

secondary sources I consulted, was premised on a thoroughly Churchillian critique o f appeasement

 V

contained in his memoirs.

About a year after completing the Master's thesis, my academic advisor Dr. George Egerton

recommended a dissertation project centered on the production arid reception o f Churchill's war

memoirs. Despite my abiding interest in Churchill and an obvious affinity for his ideas at the time,

I hesitated at first to embrace the project. For one thing, so much had been written about Churchill

that I naively presumed there was little unique or original left to say about the man or his political

influence. In addition, being iconoclastic by nature, it was apparent that such a research project

would involve critical analysis o f a man whom I still considered in a heroic light. M y study o f

appeasement had taken an unsympathetic view o f revisionist historiography that undermined

Churchill's political legacy, since he was to me an icon o f historical greatness in a time o f immense

turmoil and crisis who towered above the petty maneuvering o f present-day politicians.

Nonetheless, having taken the plunge, my research into Churchill, his politics, and war writing

prompted a major reappraisal o f my previous views on appeasement as a policy o f weakness and

ignorance, and o f the British leader's prophetic wisdom.

Studying Churchill's speeches, correspondence, and literature spanning six decades enabled

his world view to come into much sharper focus, and enabled me to get out from under the awesome

weight o f traditional historiography which had invested such tremendous authority in the man and

his messages. Re-reading The Second World War, I conceived a thematic approach to the study o f

Churchill's memoirs. Four thematic threads were found to comprise the author's metanarrative, all

originating in his world view from before the war, and becoming entwined in the course o f W o r l d

War II and its aftermath. This analysis was then connected to a media study o f Churchill's reception

after the war. In this sense, my dissertation constitutes a continuation o f research begun in the

Master's thesis, in which I attempted to weave together an analysis o f appeasement, political

leadership, and press influence upon the shaping o f foreign policy during the 1930s. But whereas

the Master's thesis was concerned with the power o f politicians and the press to shape public

opinion before the war, this dissertation examines the issue from the perspective of postwar memory

formation, and the power o f politicians and press to shape conceptions o f the recent past for

advancing their specific ideological agendas.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This dissertation project has consumed many years o f research and writing, more than this

writer could have imagined possible at its outset. Yet it would have taken even longer to complete

had I not received guidance and continued encouragement from my supervisor, Dr. George Egerton,

who steered me away from numerous rocky shoals upon which my venture threatened to founder.

M y rather headstrong desire to go in directions that were perhaps interesting and exciting, but which

were not always conducive to producing the focused results necessary for achieving the project's

objectives, were thankfully kept in check by Dr. Egerton's timely and gentle admonitions. The end

result o f my research also would have been much less satisfactory without the patient and

uncomplaining willingness o f my advisor to vet draft chapters, and on several occasions the entire

manuscript, i n order to offer valuable criticisms which I have endeavored in all instances to

incorporate into the thesis. M y debt o f gratitude to h i m is incalculable.

M a n y individuals along the way facilitated my research by enabling access to primary

sources at Cambridge, England, the Public Record Office at K e w , and Harvard, Massachusetts. The

professional archivist Clare Stephens at Churchill College, along with the librarians at Houghton

and Lamont Libraries in Harvard, deserve special mention for their kindness in fielding my

questions and going beyond the call o f duty to track down sources o f information. A s a result, I

cherish fond memories o f my stays at those two institutes o f higher learning. Finally, my wife

K a y o k o must be recognized as a vital source o f inspiration and energy whose constant support,

patience, and personal sacrifices, made this dissertation possible. I am supremely grateful for

everything she has done to make this journey o f learning a most memorable and enjoyable

experience.
 1

1 Introduction

For millions o f people in the English-speaking world, Winston Churchill is remembered as

democracy's greatest political leader o f the 20 century, credited with dramatically shaping the
th

course of history by inspiring the successful defiance of Hitler's armed forces in Britain's finest hour

during the second world war. Churchill did much to instill this heroic image in popular collective

memory through a literary output that revealed his unique talent for conveying powerful emotions,

dramatic images, and inspiring ideas to a wide readership. The making o f an international icon was

immensely facilitated by the intense publicity and acclaim accorded Churchill and his war memoirs

by the press and public in most corners o f the world. While all Prime Ministers since W o r l d War

I who survived office considered it necessary to write their political memoirs, no one has matched

the impact o f Churchill's account o f war on subsequent historiography. H e ranks among that rare

group o f leaders whose character stamped itself so powerfully on the political developments o f an

era that personality appeared to dominate over circumstances, making his memoirs much more than

personal history. After the war, Churchill used his towering status as a war hero to shape memories
1

of the recent past in the English-speaking world. Though memoirs as a genre o f literature are prone

to bias and special pleading, Churchill's memoir constitutes a memory site o f major significance,

not least because o f the author's talent for writing with true historical scope. Churchill also

possessed a treasure-trove o f valuable historical documents and an exceptionally good team o f

research assistants which enabled h i m to create an impressive work on the second world war that

greatly influenced scholars and general readers alike in the early postwar years.

Though memoirs represent a literary genre as old as antiquity, and remain ubiquitous in the

modern age, they have not received a great deal o f systematic critical analysis from scholars. Yet

it is clear that they are capable o f offering significant insights into the past, making them a

potentially valuable historical source combining political, biographical, and literary characteristics.

Though British historian G . P . Gooch pioneered the study o f "political autobiography" in 1942, it

was not until the 1988 U B C Political Memoirs Project, directed by D r . George Egerton, that

memoirs as a "polygenre" received focused scholarly attention in a series o f monographs.

Churchill's memoir was not among those analyzed, a lacuna that this study seeks to fill by an

appraisal o f his second world war metanarrative, written between 1946 and 1954. Paul Fussell's

influential work on war and memory in 1975 asserted that memoirs were a kind o f literary fiction,

different from novels only by their "continuous implicit attestation o f veracity or appeals to
 2

documented historical fact." Thus, he felt that the same principles o f analysis were applicable to
2

the study of war memoirs as had been used in regard to other literary forms. In this respect, political

memoirs can be treated like most other literature engaged in story-telling; i.e., as an instrument o f

power and social control that shapes collective memory o f the past in order to legitimate the

dominance o f ruling elites.

In the Political Memoirs Project, Dr. Egerton defined political memoirs as a "fascinating but

problematic genre" that was polymorphous in the way it appropriated a diverse range o f literary

forms, including autobiography, biography, diary, history, political science, and journalism. Most

commonly, it is a term used to denote the writing by a retired politician who attempts to recount his

or her years in office for the purpose o f vindicating a political record or presenting a pedagogy o f

political wisdom. The fact that it seldom achieves the purpose for which it is produced does not

diminish its value as historical literature that can be utilized by scholars to gain valuable insights

into the functioning o f political leadership and the political systems in which they operate. Most
3

important for this purpose are memoirs that contain an overarching metanarrative structure that

functions as a carrier o f ideology by enhancing the appeal and potency o f its political messages. 4

The primary function o f political memoirs is to record events o f historical significance that

are within the writer's memory for the benefit o f posterity. Except in confessional memoirs, the

author attempts to place herself in the most favorable light while disparaging her detractors and

political opponents. Nonetheless, her attempts to do so, as well as her evasions and omissions, can

illuminate issues o f authorial intentionality while enabling an appraisal o f the memoirs for its

"presentation o f personality." In some instances, memoirs constitutes literature written by a person

5

o f letters or o f action that closely identifies the author's personal experiences with the collective

identity o f a community through metanarrative. Literary theorist W i l l i a m Howarth identifies three

6

essential elements in the creation o f metanarrative: the writer, the work (and its technique o f

production), and the work's readership, which "form a single chain o f relationships progressing from

motive, to method, to meaning." B y analyzing each o f these elements in turn we can dissect the

author's strategy while distinguishing between his actions and his recollection o f them. Often, an

author recollects the past to satisfy a troubled mind "searching his self through history," making it

not an objective and disinterested pursuit, but rather a work o f personal justification. 7

Roy Pascal notes that autobiographies by politicians are almost always memoirs, since true

autobiographies are possible only "where their political activity stands in an essential relationship
 3

to their personality, where it can appear as the efflux o f their personality." Rarely does a political
8

figure reach such a status. But the manner in which Churchill fused private and public lives through

a personality that imposed itself distinctively upon world events, his robust temperament, his gift

for drama and vivid imagination, all made him well-equipped to write autobiography. His memoir

o f the first world war was largely autobiographical, as L o r d Balfour acidly attested to in 1923: "I

hear that Winston has written a big book about himself and called it The World Crisis." One o f 9

Churchill's most impressive literary works was his autobiography, My Early Life (1930), which

wonderfully revealed his nascent world view at the turn o f the century. Pascal notes, though, that

Churchill was forced to write as a historian when constructing his memoir o f the second world war,

since the events depicted were so sweeping in scale that they overwhelmed the autobiographical

aspect o f the work. 10

Nonetheless, like The World Crisis, Churchill attempted in his later war

memoir to subsume national and global events into the story o f his leadership in wartime.

In essence, Churchill's memoir presented a personalized political drama that functioned as

a powerful unifying narrative for a community o f readers, satisfying their perceived needs and

desires in the postwar era. Dr. Egerton notes: "It is the potency o f political memoir in thereby

shaping the popular, living generational memory o f a culture which adds particular importance to

promoting a critical understanding of its political and historical functions." W i t h the exception o f

memoirs o f challenge written by those seeking to overturn or subvert the status quo, such literature

tends to serve an essentially conservative function by affirming the centrality of political leadership

while downplaying long-term economic and social forces that drive historical change. Sometimes,

memoirists unwittingly undermine this function when they expose incompetence or disunity at the

upper echelons o f power. But invariably their intention is not to question the system o f authority

itself, or the established political culture, but rather to critique political opponents operating within

it in order to enhance their own position as part o f a simplistic appeal for different leadership, not

structural change." Despite such limited objectives, memoirs are excellent sources for revealing the

character o f political leaders, while analysis o f their reception offers insight into the source o f their

enduring popularity with the reading public.' Critical analysis also enables us to perceive how
2

memoirists can create an illusion of linear development in their political consciousness that masks

differences between past perspectives and contemporary outlooks or identity. This is especially true

where they enjoy privileged access to secret or restricted information at the time o f production. 13

It is political elites who write the vast majority o f war memoirs with the principal intent to
 I

explain the meaning o f a conflict by making sense o f the slaughter. Writing their memoirs becomes

a kind o f memorial act that selectively commemorates and preserves the memory o f a community. 14

A s a war recedes into history, the meaning o f wartime experiences is constantly being negotiated

between these "official" public commemorations and the private, or popular, memory that seldom

finds its way into print. War becomes a dominant symbol o f nationhood, as it did in Britain after

1945, when collective and individual narratives of the past are fused in cultural meaning in ways that

reinforce each other within family, social, and political groups. 15

What war narratives share,

including Churchill's sweeping nationalist commemoration o f Britain's finest hour, is a deep sense

of irony derived from the fact that war is almost always worse than expected, and the end result less

than anticipated. 16
In Churchill's memoir, this was expressed i n his final volume by a sense o f

disillusionment that the glorious triumph over N a z i tyranny was compromised by the tragic failure

of other nations and their leaders to learn the appropriate lessons from Britain's past experience.

Churchill's pedagogical metanarrative was intended to enlighten present and future generations o f

English-speaking peoples o f the necessity for unity o f purpose to prevent future tragedies. In doing

so, he sought to instill in readers the idea that changes in leadership had been the key factor in

Britain's tortured path from prewar ignominy to wartime greatness, followed by the slide into

postwar weakness when ineffectual leaders compromised the peace and sacrificed the empire.

The power o f war memoirs to shape national consciousness has been well illustrated by

scholars studying the literature of post-World War I Europe. Fussell's The Great War and Modern

Memory examined war memory through the literature of middle class British poets and writers. He

argued that a new form o f remembrance was created by them which profoundly affected public

perceptions o f war during the 1920s and 30s. Fussell concluded that W o r l d W a r I caused a great

caesura in the language o f war memory, away from romantic and feudalistic discourse toward a

modern form o f ironic expression. But this conclusion was derived from an exceedingly narrow
17

focus on the experiences o f a small group o f highly sensitive, middle class British writers who

projected their personal sense o f loss onto national memory through best-selling memoirs and

novels. 18
Consequently, historian J . M . Winter contended that the great historical caesura in the

language o f war did not really emerge until 1945, when the horrors o f genocide and atomic

holocaust produced a belief that there could be no redemption from sacrifice in war. While the

carnage o f the first world war had produced a sense o f hope that "Never A g a i n " would such a

tragedy be revisited upon mankind, after World War II there could be no such optimism: "In contrast
 5

to the post-1918 period, the rupture o f language and imagery which followed the Second World War

was profound and enduring." 19

M y study o f Churchill's war memoir tests this hypothesis by

assessing public reception of the author's imperial metanarrative and its language of valor, glory and

sacrifice. Whereas J . M . Winter qualified Fussell's thesis by suggesting that traditional motifs of war

and redemption retained their appeal in the interwar era, this study questions whether his

qualification needs to be extended well beyond 1945 before a caesura in war memory truly arose.

The study o f war novels and their reception reveals that the politics o f war memory

powerfully shapes collective identities. The critical reception o f war literature usually has more
20

to do with the postwar state o f mind than with wartime experiences. Reactions to war literature are

intensified i f publication occurs at a critical moment when the mood o f hope and relief following

victory intersects with a growing sense o f fear and foreboding over the prospect o f renewed peace

and prosperity. Modris Eksteins' case study o f Eric Remarque's 1928 novel All Quiet on the

Western Front concluded that everyone involved in the process o f reception, including the author,

his political supporters and critics, exploited the war memory expressed in the book for their

respective political agendas in the interwar era. The same was true, he found, o f the novel's film

adaptation, which turned the past "into a chattel o f the present." 21

In a similar vein, this study w i l l

examine Churchill's memoir for authorial intendonality and messages, the postwar context o f

production, and the politics o f reception in the early cold war era.

Dr. Egerton observes that when the talent for historiography is present, the documents have

been collected, and the writer is skilled at dramatic presentation, there exists the possibility for

producing memoirs o f "truly historical compass." H i s study o f L l o y d George's memoir revealed

22

that the British leader's dramatic narration o f the first world war greatly influenced interwar

perceptions o f political leadership in ways that acclaimed the heroism o f a few and the bungling o f

many. This contrasts sharply with the ironic tones o f the war poets and novelists, who could find
23

little to praise in the conduct or outcome o f the war. Analysis o f middle-brow writers from the

1920s and 30s reveals that their interpretation o f the war most closely paralleled that o f memoirists

like L l o y d George in their refusal to decry the conflict as futile or deny the existence o f heroism.

Unlike the war poets, these narratives were a staple o f libraries and bookstores in the interwar era,

dominating book review columns and best-seller lists in Britain. In fact, they formed the mainstay

of the publishing industry, which promoted them vigorously through newly formed book clubs that

appealed to middlebrow tastes. Through these works, the Victorian canon o f war literature was
24
 6

kept alive after 1918, re-invigorating its romantic and moral values against the onslaught o f

disillusioned modernism. In response to the disillusioned and fragmented tones o f modernist

literature, they offered positive assurances o f cohesion and common meaning in the concepts o f

development, progress and moral perfectability. 25

Thus, patriotic and romantic appeals that

incorporated euphemisms o f battle, glory, and hallowed dead continued to be widely disseminated

in both popular and elite cultures after the first world war. 26
In the interwar years, the imperial

memory o f British elites remained strong, with narratives o f legitimation from this period waxing

eloquent about empire as a force for good in the world, and the necessity for a strong navy to

solidify Commonwealth and colonial ties. British writers elevated the idiom o f war memory to
27

such a level that Barbara Tuchman later quipped: " N o nation has ever produced a military history

of such verbal nobility as the British. Retreat or advance, win or lose, blunder or bravery, murderous

folly or unyielding resolution, all emerge alike clothed in dignity and touched with glory....Disasters

are recorded with care and pride and become transmuted into things o f beauty. " 2 8

Churchill powerfully reinforced this tradition in writing his metanarrative o f war after 1945,

premised on notions o f imperial greatness, a heroic people, wise leadership, and Anglo-American

solidarity in combating tyranny. Churchill was evidently inspired by the earlier war narrative o f

T . E . Lawrence, whose Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1935) he praised as "a grand and permanent

contribution to English literature." In producing his memoir o f W o r l d W a r II, he adhered to

Lawrence's style o f blending history, autobiography and epic in a grand metanarrative o f power.

L i k e Lawrence, Churchill was enamored with neo-classical epics in which facts were subordinated

to the primary goal o f achieving artistic effect, and where the author was himself portrayed as the

hero o f the story. But unlike Lawrence, who wrote at a time when Britain still dominated the
29

counsels o f Europe, Churchill's war memoir appeared when its world role, and the author's own

political fortunes, were significantly diminished. Oddly, Churchill avoided any references to Seven

Pillars in his memoir, instead claiming to follow the method o f Daniel Defoe's Memoirs of a

Cavalier in hanging the chronicle of great political and military events on the thread o f his personal
i n

experiences in wartime.

Churchill applauded those who espoused traditional values in writing about war, while he

decried leftist intellectuals for anti-war abstractions. 31

He believed that humans were primarily

motivated to act through their emotions, not reason, and that words were not merely symbols but

powerful emotive tools for stimulating the right action. To that end, Churchill refined his poetic
32
 7

and artistic talents for writing gripping war stories so as to inspire the development o f Anglo-

American unity and strength after the war by representing the alliance as the pinnacle o f human

achievement to date. It was, he felt, a major step on the road to world unity and peace. However,
33

with the notable exception o f Paul Addison, historians o f Churchill have focused primarily on his

wartime activities, largely ignoring his important political influence after the war. Y e t this period

is also vitally important for an understanding o f the man, less for what he did as a politician than for

what he wrote in his memoir. Churchill succeeded more than any other contemporary o f the war
34

years in shaping collective memory in the English-speaking world through his postwar writing,

when perceptions o f the recent past were still highly malleable. Consequently, this study assesses

how his metanarrative of war was produced and promoted by publishers, and received by the reading

public, during this critical historical epoch o f memory formation.

Analyzing the genesis and reception o f Churchill's war memoir takes its inspiration from the

historiography o f memory and identity formation. Scholarly analysis o f historical events has

broadened in the last few decades to include assessments o f the manner in which events like the

second world war are remembered and commemorated, and the political influences embedded in

memory that shape collective identities. 35

Social practices and forms that represent the past and

perpetuate memory within a specific collectivity are considered politicized "memory sites" that

assist in identity formation. 36

This study focuses on one such site, the war memoir o f Winston

Churchill, in order to determine how his metanarrative o f war influenced collective memories in

Britain and America. Most political memoirs are subjective accounts o f the past that reveal elitist

power over the process o f commemoration, utilizing compelling stories containing elements of truth

and fiction. Nonetheless, the great memory theorist Jacques L e G o f f contends that it is the very

process of exposing the fictional and socially constructed dimensions to such narratives that enables

students o f history to preserve a sense o f historical objectivity and truth. 37

Exposing the politicized aspects of social memory requires examining the means by which

private memories are transmitted into the public realm o f collective consciousness. In the early

postwar years, the most powerful transmitter o f carefully prescribed images o f war memory

remained the national print media. In publicizing and responding to war narratives, the political

press amplified, dramatized, or challenged their underlying political messages. It did this through

a process o f "vilification or heroization" within social memory, whereby unexpected historical

 8

consequences were reinterpreted into conscious aims, with past heroes depicted as i f they existed

only to bring about the present. In the decade following the war, right-wing print media in Britain
38

played a central role in publically commemorating the past through politically constructed images

of the world that lent legitimacy to imperial and conservative metanarrative. Churchill's war

memoir was a memory text that bolstered a shared sense o f identity in Britain based on commonly

perceived experiences o f war. This study examines how war memory was politicized by Churchill

and his allies in the media so as to advance their respective political agendas in the cold war.

Since personal and collective memory is always selective and usually contested, says

Michael Kammen, major conflicts are critical for "stimulating, defining, justifying, periodizing and

filtering" memories and traditions. 39

In other words, identity is manifestly political, with social

groups engaging in continuous political warfare to maintain or change collective perceptions. Most

often, the political right uses memory to legitimize the existing social and political order, with

people who are in positions o f authority wielding their considerable power to manipulate public

memory for conservative ends. 40

National political leaders are inclined to seek social unity, the

preservation o f existing institutions, and hegemonic control over images o f the past so as to

minimize conflict or ambiguity in collective consciousness. The symbolic language o f patriotism

is central to the right's efforts to mediate internal conflicts over national memory arising between

political groups who contest the past. The left, on the other hand, often seeks to challenge such
41

conceptions through a counter-narrative that urges class or "popular" struggle against the forces o f

social control. After W o r l d War II, the main stimuli for a contested national memory in Britain and

America arose out o f widespread fears over security, freedom, rapid social change, and historical

discontinuity caused by the war and the advent of nuclear power. Into this atmosphere o f frightening

postwar disorder and danger, with its rash o f domestic and foreign crises, Churchill's metanarrative

of legitimation sought to explain the past in ways that appeared to offer hopeful lessons for resolving

the dilemmas o f the present.

Metanarrative, Dr. Egerton notes, presents a sweeping vision o f history, based on what the

writer perceives as the significant past, in order to justify particular attitudes and meanings toward

past events. The narrative structure which a writer o f history creates is determined principally by

his or her world view. Metanarrative derives its power from an ability to convert the apparent chaos

of complex historical events into a dramatic, didactic, story that offers an imaginative presentation

of history and destiny. It presents a paradigm o f meaning that is intensely felt by particular social
 9

groups or classes, such as hegemonic elites who advance their political interests through narratives

extolling patriotic nationalism. Thus, effective metanarrative offers a didactic version o f history
42

that "serves ideology as a vehicle for the dramatization, communication, and socialization o f

political values and beliefs." It engages the recipient's beliefs and faith in forging a strong sense o f

collective identity. 43
Today, grand metanarrative no longer dominates the writing o f history, a

caesura in historical consciousness that began in the aftershock o f the first world war, when faith

in the Enlightenment's vision o f social order and progress was undermined. But as this study w i l l
44

show, reception o f Churchill's war memoir suggests that metanarrative history continued to resonate

powerfully during the 1950s, and for many still today.

A metanarrative of legitimation presents overarching political and historical assumptions that

justify the conduct o f powerful social groups or individuals, making it an apologia for power. 45
It

promotes national cohesion by instilling faith in a shared set o f historical truths, whereas a

metanarrative o f challenge seeks to discredit and subvert the established order. Whenever a

"conventional truth" no longer appears to comport with reality there is an opportunity for political

leadership to reshape visions o f nationhood, as occurred in America under F D R during the

depression, and in France with de Gaulle after the humiliation o f wartime occupation. In postwar
46

Britain, Churchill sought to combat the rise o f socialist visions o f a new national identity based on

anti-imperialism and collectivism, since he feared they would weaken national power and prestige.

His war memoir grafted together an affirmation of Britain's imperial mission with a vision of Anglo-

American global hegemony through which the British people's traditional sense o f purpose could

be sustained in the new world order. In writing his memoir, he sought to create an idealized version

o f Britain's past that would inspire his countrymen to live up to what he considered their noblest

qualities in advancing human civilization and leading the world toward political union.

This objective, while liberal in its sense o f historical progress and purposefulness, was

conservative in presenting a version o f national character and history that promoted ruling class

hegemonic memory over the popular memory o f lower classes. 47

Gramsci revealed that social

control is secured not by ideological compulsion but by cultural leadership that manages to win the

active consent o f subordinate groups. Hegemonic control over such groups is achieved through the

exercise o f prestige that attains public consent rather than domination by coercion. Narratives o f

legitimation mask or defuse contradictions between social groups by establishing "common values"

that render the existing power structure acceptable to all. Gramsci pinpointed the press as one o f
 10

the "most prominent and dynamic parts" of the ideological structure o f hegemonic groups because

of its ability to organize consent around certain ideas conducive to control, such as the mystique o f

leadership, through its promotion and dissemination o f appropriate narratives. It is in civil society,
48

dominated by schools, churches, media, and political organizations, that hegemony is primarily

generated through the transmitting o f belief systems. 49

In the early postwar era, Churchill enjoyed

an exceptionally close relationship with all o f these powerful institutions o f memory and identity

formation, which greatly facilitated the production and reception o f his metanarrative.

Ostensibly independent, media organs in the early postwar years were, in fact, ideological

entities that mostly reflected and sustained Churchill's conservative messages. 50

Benedict

Anderson's seminal work on collective identity reveals that o f all civic institutions, newspapers and

book publishers are the two agents o f communication most effective in the formation o f national

consciousness. 51
After W o r l d War II, the press in Britain and America ensured that most citizens

remembered the second world war through national and elitist "structures o f signification" rather

than through local totems o f their own construction. The ruling classes, through control o f media

institutions, were able to elicit immense prestige for presenters o f elitist memory, who were then

able to shape and inform collective historical conceptions o f the war that superceded personal

experience. This was especially true when authors could disguise incompatible viewpoints through
52

their monopoly on access to official information about the recent past. 53

Gramsci viewed the press as an agent o f politicization through its shaping o f messages that

are conveyed to the public. H e perceived the media as powerful hegemonic definers o f value by

facilitating the expression of ideas by political, military, and economic elites, while at the same time

muting alternative voices o f dissent. In the early postwar years, newspapers in Britain and America

were still the most efficient links between politicians and the political public, providing them a

central role in forging reader identification with Churchill's war narrative. The established press
54

enabled influential writers like Churchill to utilize public space as a forum for the exchange,

enhancement, and dissemination o f conservative foreign policy views. Since most newspapers

lacked the resources to cover international issues in depth, as most still do, they tended to rely on

syndicated reporting from a handful o f powerful national organizations whose news coverage and

analysis o f foreign affairs was distinctly right-wing. Consequently, several newspapers in a

particular market did not necessarily ensure a multiplicity of voices receiving and responding to his

metanarrative. A similar situation prevailed in the early postwar years in the book publishing
 11

industry, where a small number o f influential critics determined what was "serious" or "good" fare

that the public should read. The writer John Farrell complained in 1945 that readers were being

induced into accepting the inflated status o f certain authors who had been elevated by the so-called

critical elite. 55
Most journalists reviewing books in the press, he claimed, had sacrificed their

independence for the safety o f wage-earning status with major publishing houses. Such critics

tended to "iconize" a few great writers who they expected the public to receive reverently, while

ignoring a great amount o f literature that was equally worthy. Farrell maintained that these critics

were backed by great economic and political power in performing the role o f ideological policemen

who imparted "appropriate meaning" to important political texts. 56

Thus, it becomes imperative in

media-based studies to assess the creator, content, and consumer o f literary texts as a three-part

communications continuum. In this respect, literary reception theory and the history o f political

thought are useful for determining how meaning is imparted to political texts through media

channels connecting the author with her readers. 57

Both literary reception theory and the history o f political thought are concerned with

questioning the received canons of great texts in their respective fields. Literary theory has focused

on the aesthetic o f production, where textual meaning is derived from author intentionality, as well

as the aesthetic of reception, where textual meaning is created in the act o f reading. Thus, a literary

work can be seen as possessing two poles, the artistic creation o f messages by an author, and the

realization of meaning by the reader. It is the convergence of text and reader that brings the literary

work into existence. Postmodern reception theorists have shifted the weight o f emphasis decidedly

toward the reader, reducing the significance o f the author as a creator o f textual meaning, notes

Robert Holub: "Perception and not creation, reception, not production, become the constituent

elements o f art." While the story o f an author's life may be interesting, it is the image o f the author

and perception o f his narrative that these reception theorists consider most important. They are

concerned with the reasons why a given work or author becomes famous and how that fame is

perpetuated over time, thereby shifting emphasis from the writer to those persons or groups that

bestow fame upon h i m . 58

Literary theorist Martyn Thompson has offered a critique o f this approach, arguing that it

is too one-sided in accounting for how texts become effective. He maintains that such theorists are

unduly suspicious o f author intentions, leading to extreme ideas that a literary text can acquire

whatever meaning the reader desires, and that only the receiver o f a work is in a position to imbue
 12

it with semantic unity. Reception theorists hold that a text's meaning changes over time when it is

"appropriated" by different interest groups with varying ideological agendas or needs. A n author's

political intentions in writing his narrative are thought unknowable, and in any event, become

irrelevant when groups of readers appropriate the text for their own purposes. In other words, a text

acquires meaning only through the questions that readers put to it, and "the availability of what those

readers and the readers' readers [reviewers] consider appropriate evidence for answering them." 59

Thompson rejects this approach, and offers instead a modified reception theory that incorporates the

text-based focus o f new political thought.

Though postmodernist literary analysis offers its share of insights, taken to extremes it makes

literary history impossible or pointless. Thompson's answer is to incorporate political historical

analysis from J . G . A . Pocock and Quentin Skinner to form a modified reception theory, an approach

to literary reception that this project adheres to in its study o f Churchill's metanarrative. According

to Skinner, textual meaning arises from a dialectical process involving author and reader equally:

"[A]ny interpretation o f the meaning o f a text cannot be based on 'the idea o f a text as an

autonomous object' (as some reception theorists assert) but on an 'idea of the text as an object linked

to its creator, and thus on to the discussion of what its creator may have been doing in creating it." 60

One needs to analyze literature by assessing the power relations implicit in each stage of production,

distribution, and consumption o f a work. Collective behavior is shaped by the production o f written

histories containing national metanarrative, which are then transformed into collective memory and

shared visions o f the future through media dissemination and absorption by readers. In effect, the

author's messages and readers' perceptions o f reality react with each other in a particular historical

context to produce political meaning for individuals and collective groups. Both reader and author
61

enter into a kind o f "referential pact" in which the reader accepts the author's textual construct as

a direct reflection o f reality, reconstructing his story on the basis o f textual clues to intentionality. 62

A reader's responses are in turn shaped by knowledge o f the author's background, world view,

previous achievements and writings, which set the context for his narrative. Issues o f book

distribution networks, edition, formatting, pricing, and display also play a role in determining who

reads a book, when, with what expectations, and to what purpose. 63

A l l o f these issues affect the

authority o f an author and his work as received by the reading public.

Thompson's synthetic approach recovers historical meaning by utilizing reception theory's

focus on readership as a creator o f textual meaning along with new political thought's concern with
 13

an author's rhetorical strategies. J.G. A . Pocock acknowledged that the act o f writing and the act o f

publishing involve a process o f discourse whereby a text invites a response, leading to a counter-

text, or rezeptionsgeschichte. He saw analysis o f this process as combining a search for responses

by elites, whose ideas were recorded in book reviews and media commentary, along with a search

for reception o f the "silent majority" o f readers. 64

This perspective involves assessment o f the

manner in which ideological beliefs are created, revised, and promoted in texts, in the course o f

which they acquire authoritativeness with the reading public. Thompson's synthetic approach also
65

reconciles the conflict between reception theory's emphasis on changing interpretations of texts over

time and political thought's emphasis on the historical understanding o f meaning in texts as author-

centered. It pays greater attention to publishing practices, the role o f media institutions in the

production process, and the ideology of a work's all-important "first readers," who in most instances

constitute influential media opinion makers. 66

In adhering to this approach, my study analyzes Churchill's memoir by a three-staged

process that begins with an examination o f authorial reputation, world view, and intentions in

writing his metanarrative. It then examines press institutions, their ideology, and the author's

relationship to the media in Britain and America. Subsequently, it explores reception o f The Second

World War among politically influential opinion makers in the media, scholars, and laymen readers.

M y approach to reception analysis is premised on the notion that only by studying the inter-

relationship o f author, publisher, and reader can a balanced assessment o f textual meaning be

achieved as an answer to why Churchill's work had such a powerful impact upon collective memory

and identity formation. The issue o f authorial intentionality is addressed in two stages, the first one

dealing with Churchill's developing world view up to the outbreak o f W o r l d War II, discussed in

Chapter 2. The next chapter proceeds with an assessment o f the publishing industry in the 1940s

and the creation o f Churchill's publishing syndicate after the war. The fourth chapter reconstructs

how Churchill's metanarrative o f imperialism, power, and leadership was shaped through the

various stages o f drafting his memoir. In the penultimate chapter, we address post-publication

reception o f Churchill's messages in the political press, academic community, and reading public

during the early postwar years. Reception is analyzed primarily through book reviews or

commentary contained in the political press, as well as from personal correspondence between

Churchill and his readership. Finally, the conclusion carries my discussion o f reception forward

from the mid-1950s to the present day by providing an overview o f second world war historiography
 14

and the changing perceptions o f Churchill's influence on national cultural memory.

Writing about war was a life-long endeavor for Churchill, who apparently was never happier

than when he was involved in pursuing a war story. H e was unique in playing a prominent

leadership role during both world wars, after each conflict producing memoirs that totaled almost

three million words. This massive war narrative spanned three decades o f crisis-ridden history that

Churchill likened to another Thirty Years' War. H i s account o f the second world war, published

between 1948 and 1954, established a narrative structure for the conflict that profoundly influenced

a generation o f historiography. Reception o f Churchill's memoir was in turn greatly influenced by

the altered postwar world order riven by bitterly contested ideological beliefs premised on capitalist

democracy and communist totalitarianism. In America, influential rightist media power-brokers saw

Churchill as a perfect symbol for marshaling public support behind their cause o f resisting

communism. Just as Churchill had assumed the mantle o f free world leadership during the fight

against Hitlerism, so again in the postwar era he was placed at the forefront of the Cold war struggle

against a new tyranny from the left. It was this commonality o f purpose between Tory statesman

and conservative publishers that created a powerful syndicate o f press owners in the early postwar

years to produce, promote and distribute Churchill's memoir. Their mutual interest was to create

a compelling war narrative that legitimized the existing political order in the West while dissipating

support for radical social change from the left that had gained currency during the previous decade

o f economic, social, and political upheaval.

Churchill was an immensely marketable commodity after the war, both commercially as a

source o f great potential revenue for publishers o f his writing, and historically as a powerful

conveyor o f collective memory for Britons and Americans who shared a common understanding o f

what the war experience meant for their nations. Publishers and readers revealed a strong personal

and political interest in how Churchill's war memoir was written and interpreted, evident by

opinions expressed in correspondence with the author during the production process, and afterwards,

when his volumes were published. Virtually everyone who commented on the memoir, whether

approvingly or critically, was convinced that they constituted an authoritative text that would

undoubtedly continue to be read and remembered for generations to come. Members o f the

publishing syndicate believed they were "building a property" based on Churchill's war story that

would become a permanent monument to Anglo-American greatness through unity. M a n y laymen

 15

readers also felt a "proprietary" interest in Churchill's memoir in the sense that they considered the

author to be their generation's most eloquent spokesman for a commonly shared war experience.

Collectively, their letters depict a readership convinced that Churchill was writing not just for

himself, or for his class, but was committing to print an epic tale o f the British people's heroic

struggle against tyranny that would long be remembered in the annals o f history as an instance o f

unparalleled courage and sacrifice. Understandably, most readers viewed Churchill's memoir as the

most important historical account of Britain's role in defeating Nazism that was likely ever to come

out o f the war.

A t the time o f publication, rightist press commentary attempted to bolster Churchill's

messages about the war as a vital lesson against weak leadership, appeasement o f tyranny, and

divided counsels among the democracies that enabled totalitarianism on the left to gain control o f

eastern Europe. Collectively, the press bestowed immense prestige and authority upon Churchill's

metanarrative that solidified his hold as a towering political icon in the minds o f most Britons and

Americans. H i s contention that the pursuit o f appeasement caused British leaders to sacrifice the

honor o f their country by cowering before aggressive dictators, and in the process brought about the

very war they had so earnestly sought to avoid, became conventional wisdom in the political culture

of all English-speaking nations after the war. It was also widely accepted by American liberals and

moderate leftists in Britain, who previously had been highly critical o f Churchill's conservative

world view. Though the war leader's metanarrative gradually lost its hold on scholarship in the

course o f successive waves o f revisionism during the 20 th

century, it remains ensconced in the

foreign policy thinking o f many political leaders and lay readers in Britain and America, evidenced

by repeated references to the lessons o f appeasement by a Democratic President and Labour Prime

Minister during the Balkan crises o f the 1990s that culminated in the Kosovo intervention.

Chapter 1 Endnotes
1. George Egerton, "Politics and Autobiography: Political Memoir as Polygenre," Biography 15,3 (1992): 236.
2. G. Egerton, ed., Political Memoir: Essays on the Politics of Memory (London: Frank Cass, 1994), pp.xii-
xiii,3; Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (Oxford: OUP, 1975), p.311; Michael Hanne, The
Power of the Story: Fiction and Political Change (Providence: Berghahn Books, 1994), p.7.
3. Egerton, "Politics and Autobiography," Biography 15,3 (1992):222-23.
4. Ibid., p.235.
5. Ibid., pp.234-35
6. Pierre Nora, "Between Memory and History," Representations 26,1 (1989):21-22.
 16

7. William Howarth, "Some Principles of Autobiography," in Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and

Critical, ed. James Olney, (Princeton: PUP, 1980), pp.88; Georges Gusdorf, "Conditions and Limits of
Autobiography," in Autobiography, pp.28,36.
8. Roy Pascal, Design and Truth in Autobiography (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1960), p.6.
9. John Charmley, Churchill: The End of Glory (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993), p. 192.
10. Ibid., pp.121-23; W. Zinsser, Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1995), p. 13; W. Spengemann, The Forms of Autobiography: Episodes in the History of a Literary
Genre (Yale UP, 1980), pp.37-39,52.
11. G. Egerton, ed., Political Memoir, pp.344-45,349; G. Egerton, "The Lloyd George War Memoirs: A
Study in the Politics of Memory," Journal of Modern History 60 (March 1988): 56-57.
12. R. Young, "Partial Recall: Political Memoirs and Biography from the Third Republic," in Political
Memoir, ed. Egerton, pp.64,74; R. Bothwell, "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Political Memoirs and
Biography in Canada," in Political Memoir, ed. Egerton, p. 121.
13. Cheryl A . Michael, "Constructing the Self," in The Uses of Autobiography, ed. J. Swindells (Taylor and
Francis, 1995), p.74
14. Evelyn Cobley, Representing War: Form and Ideology in First World War Narratives (Toronto: U of
Toronto, 1993), pp.8,84.
15. K . Darien-Smith, "War Stories: Remembering the Australian Home Front During the Second World
War," in Memory and History in 20 Century Australia, eds. Darien-Smith and P. Hamilton, (Oxford: OUP,
th

1994),pp.l39-41.
16. Milton Bates, The War We Took to Vietnam: Cultural Conflict and Storytelling (Berkeley: U of Cal.
Press, 1996), p.237.
17. Fussell, Modern Memory, preface.
18. Correlli Barnett, The Collapse of British Power (London: Eyre Methuen, 1972), pp.427-28.
19. J . M . Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: the Great War in European Cultural History
(Cambridge: CUP, 1995), pp.2-8.
20. Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (Toronto: Lester and
Orpen Dennys, 1989), pp.256-57,280-90.
21. Ibid., pp.294,299; George Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (Oxford:
OUP, 1990), pp.6-7,197-99; M . Eksteins, "War, Memory and Politics: The Fate of the Film ,4// Quiet on the
Western Front," Central European History 31,1 (1980): 60,64,70-76.
22. Egerton, "Politics and Autobiography," pp.237-38,348-49.
23. Egerton, "Lloyd George," JMH: 91; T. Travers, "The Relativity of War: British Military Memoirs from
the Campaigns of Marlborough to the First World War," in Political Memoirs, ed. Egerton, p. 151.
24. Rosa Bracco, Merchants of Hope: British Middlebrow Writers and the First World War, 1919-1939 (New
York: Berg, 1993), pp. 1-3.
25. Ibid., pp.11-13,200.
26. J.M. Winter 1995, p.2-4.
27. B.J.C. McKercher, "Memoirs of the British Foreign Policy Making Elite, 1919-39," in Political Memoir:
Essays in the Politics of Memory, ed. George Egerton (London: Frank Cass, 1994), p.197.
28. B . Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945 (New York: 1971), p.557.
29. T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom. New Ed. (London: Jonathan Cape, 1935, 1939); A . Rutherford,
The Literature of War: Studies in Heroic Virtue (London: Macmillian, 1989), pp.45-48.
30. W.S. Churchill, The Second World War. Vol.1: The Gathering Storm. (London: Cassell, 1948), p.ix.
31. Manfred Weidhom, A Harmony ofInterests: Explorations in the Mind of Sir Winston Churchill (London:
Associated University Presses, 1992), pp. 17-20,24-28.
32. R.C. Kemper, ed., Winston Churchill: Resolution, Defiance, Magnanimity, Good Will (Columbia: U of
Missouri, 1996), p. 10-11.
33. M . Weidhorn, Sword and Pen: A Survey of the Writings of Sir Winston Churchill (Albuquerque: U of
New Mexico, 1974), pp.9,42-45; Keith Alldritt, Churchill the Writer: His Life as a Man of Letters, (London:
Hutchinson, 1992), p.101; J.H. Plumb, "The Historian," in Churchill Revised: A Critical Assessment, A.J.P.
 17

Taylor, etal., (New York: Dial Press, 1969), p.142.

34. Keith Robbins, Churchill (New York: Longman, 1992), p. 150.
35. Patrick Hutton, review of History and Memory, by J. Le Goff, in History and Memory, 33,1 (1994): 95;
John Meacham, "Reminiscing As a Process of Social Construction," in The Art and Science of Reminiscing:
Theory, Research, Methods, and Applications, ed. B . Hoight and J.D. Webster (New York: Taylor and
Francis, 1995), p.48.
36. Henry Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France Since 1944, trans. Arthur
Goldhammer (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1991), pp.3-4; Paula Hamilton, "The Knife Edge: Debates about
Memory and History," in Memory and History, eds. Darian-Smith and P. Hamilton, p. 17.
37. Peter Burke, "History and Social Memory," in Memory: History, Culture and the Mind, ed. T. Butler
(London: Basil Blackwell, 1989), pp.100-01; Jacques Le Goff, History and Memory, trans. Steven Rendall
and Elizabeth Claman (New York: Columbia UP, 1992), pp.xvii-iii.
38. Burke, "Social Memory," in Memory, ed. Butler, pp.97-99,104,110.
39. Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture
(New York: A . A . Knopf, 1991), pp.4-5,13.
40. H. Hirsch, Genocide and the Politics of Memory (Raleigh: U of N C , 1995), pp.22-23,134; M . Matsuda,
The Memory of the Modern (Oxford: OUP, 1996), pp.6,17.
41. John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the 20 th
Century
(Princeton: PUP, 1992), pp.4-9,13-15.
42. Egerton 1997, "Meta-narrative and Modern World Politics," unpublished; Darian-Smith and Hamilton,
Memory and History, eds. Darien-Smith and Hamilton, p.2.
43. Egerton, "Collective Security as Political Myth: Liberal Internationalism and the League of Nations in
Politics and History," International History Review 4 (Nov. 1983): 498,500-01.
44. Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in 19 th
Century Europe (Baltimore: John
Hopkins UP, 1973), pp.428-30; Maurice Mandelbaum, "The Presuppositions of Metahistory," History and
Theory 19,4 (1980): 41; Cobley, Representing War, pp.118-20; S. Mailloux, Reception Histories: Rhetoric,
Pragmatism and American Cultural Politics (Ithaca: Cornell, 1998), pp.39-40.
45. Michael Shapiro, ed., "Literary Production as a Politicizing Practice," in Language and Politics
(Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 1984), p.243; Michael Hanne, The Power of the Story: Fiction and
Political Change (Providence: Berghahn Books, 1994), p. 12.
46. William McNeill, Mythistory and Other Essays (Chicago: U of C. Press, 1986), pp.14,30.
47. R. Johnson, Making Histories: Studies in History-Writing and Politics (Hutchinson, 1982), p.239.
48. Stuart Hall, "The Rediscovery of Ideology: Return of the Repressed in Media Studies," in Culture, Society
and the Media, eds. M . Gurevitch, et.al. (New York: Methuen, 1982), p.85; D. Forgas and G. Nowell-Smith,
eds., Antonio Gramsci: Selections From Cultural Writings, trans. W. Boelhower (London: Lawrence and
Wishart, 1985), p. 165; B . Fontana, Hegemony and Power: On the Relation Between Gramsci and Machiavelli
(Minneapolis: U of Minn. Press, 1993), p. 140.
49. N . Abercrombie, Class, Structure and Knowledge: Problems in the Sociology of Knowledge (Oxford:
OUP, 1980), p.131.
50. Hanne, Power of the Story, p.22.
51. Anderson quoted in P. Schlesinger, Media, State and Nation: Political Violence and Collective Identities
(Newbury Park: Sage, 1990), pp. 164-68.
52. J. Fentress and C. Wickham, Social Memory (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1992), p.125; H. Kaye, The Powers
of the Past: Reflections on the Crisis and the Promise of History (New York: Harves, 1991), p.69.
53. G.H. Jamieson, Communication and Persuasion (London: Croom Helm, 1985), p.25.
54. J. Seaton and B . Pimlott, eds., The Media in British Politics (Avebury: Brookfield UP, 1987), p.ix; J.
Curran, et.al., "The Study of the Media: Theoretical Approaches," in Culture, Society and the Media,
Gurevitch, et.al., eds., pp.14-17; V . Berghahn, eds., Perception of History: International Textbook Research
on Britain, Germany and the United States (Oxford: St. Martin's Press, 1987), p.2; C. Seymour-Uri, The
British Press and Broadcasting Since 1945, 3 ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1968,1996), p.286-88; R.
rd

Lorimer, Mass Communication: A Comparative Introduction (Minneapolis: Minn. UP, 1994), p. 168.
 18

55. L. Loft, " A Study in the Pre-Revolutionary French Press," European History Quarterly 23 (1993): 7-8;
Louis Liebovich, The Press and the Origins of the Cold War, 1944-47, (New York: Praeger, 1988), p.8;
Reuben Brower, "Book Reading and the Reading of Books," Daedalus 92,1 (1963): 16-17.
56. J. Farrell, "The League of Frightened Philistines," (1945) in Literary Taste, Culture and Mass
Communication, 14 vols., P. Davidson, etal., eds., vol. 12: Bookselling, Reviewing and Reading, (Teaneck,
NJ: Chadwyck-Healey, 1978), pp. 124-29; Marcia Landy, Film, Politics and Gramsci (Minneapolis: Minn.
UP, 1994), p. 10.
57. Lorimer, Mass Communication, pp. 157-58; K . B . Jensen, Making Sense of the News: Towards a Theory
and an Empirical Model of Reception for the Study of Mass Communication (Aarhus UP, 1986), pp. 15-16.
58. R. Holub, Reception Theory: A Critical Introduction (NY: Methuen, 1984), pp.xii,17-20,47-49,149.
59. Hanne, Power of the Story, p.4; Paul Hamilton, Historicism (New York: Routledge, 1996), pp.205-06;
Holub, Reception Theory, p.34; Martyn Thompson, "Reception Theory and the Interpretation of Historical
Meaning," History and Theory 32,3 (1993): 260.
60. Ibid., pp.248,251,255-58,267.
61. Hanne, Power of the Story, pp.24-25,36-7; Iser quoted in Thompson, "Reception Theory," History and
Theory: 253.
62. K . Lever, 77ze Novel and the Reader (London: Methuen, 1961), p.44.
63. Cobley, Representing War, p.16; E. Nardoccio, ed., Reader Response to Literature: The Empirical
Dimension (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1992), pp. 16-17; Thompson, "Reception Theory," History and
Theory: 256.
64. J.G. A. Pocock, Virtue, Commerce, and History: Essays on Political Thought and History (Cambridge:
CUP, 1985),pp.5-6,18-20.
65. M . Thompson, "Reception and Influence: A Reply to Nelson on Locke's 'Two Treatises of
Government,'" Political Studies 28,1 (1980): 100-08; "Reception Theory," History and Theory: 248-72.
66. Ibid., pp.248-50,258,269-72.
 19

2 Churchill's Metanarrative: Messages and Leadership

Churchill's grand world view encompassed what he believed was the whole of the knowable

past in conceiving o f history as purposeful in that it was leading toward human enlightenment and

world unity. A t the forefront o f this great tidal wave o f human development was the British nation

and empire, a force for good in the world that possessed a divine mission to lead humanity out o f

darkness and chaos. Churchill saw himself as a born leader for this greatest o f nations because he

knew best how to protect its interests and keep the world moving along the proper historical path.

It was a world view fashioned in his Victorian youth and doggedly retained, with one major

alteration, until his death at the age o f 90. Churchill's passion for preserving the empire did not

blind him to its mounting structural weaknesses by the early 2 0 century, and he became alarmed
th

by the deterioration in Britain's strength following the first world war. Consequently, he revised

his imperial world view in the interwar era to incorporate the idea o f unity among all English-

speaking peoples in the world under British guidance as the great hegemonic force o f the future.

He envisaged an Anglo-American 'special relationship' that would ensure world domination of the

English-speaking peoples, whose combined powers would be put to benevolent use in lifting

humanity from its misery by securing international peace and stability. There was a darker side to

this world view, though, which was premised on notions o f a world divided between the forces o f

enlightenment and evil. It was Churchill's conviction that repeated failures o f Britain's political

elites to follow the right course in past epochs were responsible for recurring outbreaks o f calamity

and war that periodically threatened to undermine national power. Thus, he felt it his duty to lead

the country, and to teach future generations the lessons o f statesmanship through his writing.

Imperialism and Democracy

A s a young man at the turn o f the century, Churchill was thoroughly imbued with the

prevailing ethos o f Victorian imperial grandeur. H i s nation was still the world's greatest power,

with large swaths o f Africa and A s i a under British dominion, though in Europe it was being

challenged by newly industrializing powers. In the Western hemisphere, Britain's navy and

commercial enterprises dominated trade, as they had for most o f the 19 century, though America
th

was beginning to flex its economic and political muscle in the region. When Churchill died sixty-

five years later, his beloved empire was at an end, its remnants transformed into a loose association
 20

of independent Commonwealth nations averse to any form o f direct control from London. America

had become a global superpower, with Britain a very junior partner in the fight against world

communism. British national identity, so long tied to its imperial heritage, had become unhinged,

fragmenting into conflicting forms that undermined its very existence. Churchill's life-long

ambition had been to prevent such an eventuality by bolstering the foundations o f empire, not

because he held deeply thought out views on the meaning o f imperialism, but rather because he

considered it necessary for his nation to be a great world power.

In the first half o f the 20 century, Churchill's passionate and articulate defense o f imperial
th

greatness in books and speeches constituted a vain attempt to arrest long-term national decline. His 1

doggedness was based on an abiding faith that history was on his side, with the trend o f millennia

moving toward a gradual coalescing o f power into larger and larger aggregates, culminating in an

all-conquering empire o f English-speaking peoples. Such ideas were at the heart o f Churchill's

metanarrative on war, making h i m the most powerful carrier o f the imperial ethos among Britain's

ruling elite. It was an ethos that perceived history as a continuous evolution o f democratic freedoms

and liberalism originating in Saxon times and surviving into the modern era, where it was carried

to the rest o f the world through British imperialism. Thus, Churchill viewed the imperial tradition
2

as liberating rather than confining or oppressively hegemonic; Britain was on the side o f morality

and justice in pursuing its national self-interests. Such historical assumptions o f British identity and
3

mission were class-based in considering patricians natural rulers and guardians o f the institutions

of empire and democratic government. Churchill absorbed this perspective in his youth during the
4

reign o f Queen Victoria, when it was commonplace, and retained it long after the second world war,

when it was obsolescent. H i s imperial memory spanned a thousand years o f history in which a
5

heroic island nation repeatedly rallied behind a single great leader to defeat tyranny on the continent

of Europe. From an early age, he believed that it was his destiny to be such a leader who would rise

to the occasion in a great crisis to preserve Britain's greatness and power. 6

According to W i l l i a m M c N e i l l , more than "nationalistic self-flattery or contemptible error"

was at work in Churchill's reiteration o f a historic British mission in wartime. Nations with an

inherited tradition of resisting enemies successfully are more likely to act heroically in future crises

than nations lacking such a tradition. Churchill was intensely proud o f an imperial history imbued
7

with a sense o f courage and invincibility against superior foes, and he sought at every opportunity

to instill in his countrymen pride in this tradition. H i s historical discourse with the British people
 21

clothed imperial ambition in a moralistic rhetoric that sought to ensure public acceptance o f colonial

stewardship as "wise, enlightened and humane." He feared that the British national character, based
8

on hard w i l l and realism during its Victorian heyday, was becoming soft and pacifist under the

influence of socialist idealism in the 20 century. From his days as a young subaltern in the British
th 9

army, it became his ambition to halt or reverse this apparently dangerous moral decay.

When asked in later years what was the most impressive sight he had ever seen, Churchill

declared "without a doubt, the advance of the Dervishes at the Battle o f Omdurman." He considered

the battle to have been "the last link in the long chain o f those spectacular conflicts whose vivid and

majestic splendour has done so much to invest war with glamour." Such comments reflected a
10

powerful self-image once prevalent within British political culture whose roots were in the

"Disraelian spirit" o f mid-Victorian Britain, when ruling elites were inculcated with martial values

stemming from heroic struggles against foreign tyranny. The global conflict against Napoleon two

generations earlier was part o f a long and glorious record o f English resistance to continental

hegemony from hostile powers. However, the rise o f social imperialism and mass politics in the late

19 century precipitated a new domestic danger that threatened to undermine the established order,
th

prompting political elites to perceive foreign adventurism as an alternative focus for home-grown

dissent and unrest." Churchill praised the Victorians for having taught children to appreciate "the

greatness o f our Empire and o f our duty to preserve it...." H e also paid tribute to one o f the era's
12

pre-eminent imperialists: "Joseph Chamberlain's greatest achievement that lofted him into the

highest sphere for posterity was his ability to use Imperialist reform policy to revive the Tory party

and make the world-spread peoples o f the British Empire realise they were one." 13
Churchill saw

himself following in this pedagogical tradition o f educating Englishmen to the virtues o f empire.

Before the carnage o f the first world war, his views on imperial wars were not unlike his

contemporaries who treated it as sport, a test o f manliness, honor, and courage, with combat an

altruistic act on behalf o f the nation. In My Early Life he recalled his experiences as a subaltern at
14

Sandhurst during the 1890s when only colonial "brush fires" interrupted the Victorian peace:

It did seem such a pity that it [military training] all had to be make-believe, and that the age
of wars between civilized nations had come to an end forever. If it had only been 100 years
earlier what splendid times we should have had. Fancy being nineteen in 1793 with more
than twenty years of war against Napoleon in front of one!...Luckily, however, there were
still savages and barbarous peoples. 15
 22

Though many of his comrades died in the frontier wars of India and Sudan, he considered it "all very

exciting, and for those who did not get killed or hurt, very j o l l y . " Still, he thought colonial wars a

poor substitute for great power conflicts, and he "longed to have a similar store o f memories to

unpack and display, i f necessary repeatedly, to a sympathetic audience!" 16

A s a young soldier, Churchill was contemptuous o f civilians "hurrying to and fro engrossed

upon their petty personal interests, oblivious and indifferent to the larger issues o f human

government." He doubted that such weak products o f democracy could retain the vast provinces and

domains "gained by centuries o f aristocratic and oligarchic rule." H i s romanticism brought tears

over British acts o f heroism in war, but also to fear for the future o f empire. 17
He thought that

conflict and the lust to k i l l were fundamental to man's nature, and that all other institutions and

events were subordinate to war in the shaping o f humanity. It was the robust willingness o f

Englishmen to wage war that had allowed them to carve out the greatest empire in history. During 18

the Boer war, he thrilled to the experience o f a "real war" in a conflict pitting white against white.

Churchill urged Britons to defend the empire by organizing a mass army, believing that the cost in

blood and money was well worth it. When the response was less than expected, he chided his

countrymen: " A r e the gentlemen o f England all fox-hunting? W h y not an English Light Horse

[regiment]? For the sake o f our manhood, our devoted colonists, and our dead soldiers, we must

persevere with the war." 19

The savagery o f the Boer conflict, with its guerilla warfare, village

burning, and concentration camps did not lessen Churchill's fascination with war. Only when

mechanized slaughter in 1914-18 strained Britain's imperial resources to the maximum did he begin

to question the efficacy o f modern war to advance national interests.

Nonetheless, his faith in empire remained firm, and he was greatly disappointed to find that

his countrymen did not prove equally faithful to its cause in the interwar years, or that Americans

lacked appreciation for its value as a progressive institution. In My Early Life, he reflected: "I was

a child o f the Victorian era, when the structures o f our country seemed firmly set, when its position

in trade and on the seas was unrivaled....In those days the dominant forces in Great Britain were very

sure o f themselves and o f their doctrine." That self-assuredness and faith in empire were strongly

in evidence during his maiden political speech in July 1897:

The [Primrose] League has indeed set itself many hard tasks in the past fifteen years. It has
been teaching the people of Great Britain the splendour of their Empire....But more remains
to be done. We must carry out the work of popularizing those institutions which have made
this country what it is, and by which we alone can maintain our proud position. (Cheers) 20
 23

In his first historical work, The Malakand Field Force (1897), Churchill justified Britain's imperial

rule over the vast Indian sub-continent as due to "the influence o f that mysterious Power, which

directing the progress o f our species, and regulating the rise and fall o f empires, has found a needed

opportunity for a people, o f whom at least it may be said that they have added to the happiness, the

learning and the liberties o f mankind." 21

H i s widely acclaimed study o f The River War (1898),

recounting Britain's re-conquest o f the Sudan, professed supreme confidence in the regenerative

qualities o f imperial democracy. Churchill depicted life as a Homeric struggle between the forces

of enlightenment and barbarism; always lurking in the background o f life were evil and chaos

waiting to prey upon a civilization that had lost its vigilance, self-confidence, or willpower. 22

Churchill's personal manifesto at the outset o f his political career called for a firm and

unrelenting grip upon non-white colonial populations who were unsuited to democratic rule. He

advocated "Peace and Power abroad - Prosperity and Progress at home" through a revitalized

imperialism that would assert its moral authority to w i n the hearts and minds o f subject peoples. If

they resisted, as later occurred in South Africa and Ireland, political authorities should not hesitate

to use military force for preserving imperial hegemony, but that magnanimity ought to prevail after

the rebels had been thoroughly vanquished. 23

Though such views found a natural home in the

Conservative Party, his political opportunism led to a falling out with Tory hardliners in November

1903, when he opposed increased spending on the army: "The strength and splendour o f our

authority is derived not from physical forces, but from moral ascendancy, liberty, justice, English

tolerance, and English honesty." 24

After crossing the floor o f the House o f Commons to become a

Liberal in 1904, Churchill became a vigorous advocate o f Liberalism as a policy o f social reform

to ameliorate the worst hardships o f workers while keeping them loyal to the imperial system and

away from radical socialists. Thus, his rhetoric about the "glory and lustre" o f the British empire

continued to flow freely during his years as a Liberal social reformer. 25

Churchill believed that the British empire was a monument as great as that o f Cologne

cathedral, both o f which took centuries to build. When constructed, these monuments served to

"excite and evoke the inspiration and imagination" of all who beheld them: "This is the kind of work

upon which we are engaged: Let us remember that the British empire is a far larger fabric than any

that was ever planned by a man." He lauded all the selfless Britons who had gone into the imperial
26

system to protect natives from exploiters and speculators. But in order to preserve the gains that had

been made, Britain needed to effect social reforms at home to produce more hearty members o f an
 24

"Imperial race" capable of shouldering the burdens o f a great empire. Churchill appreciated that the

era o f British preeminence that followed the defeat o f Napoleon a century earlier was nearing an

end. The empire faced new daunting challenges in the century ahead, which he couched in terms

of a stark choice between "melancholy disaster" or "the not unreasonable hope" o f rejuvenation. 27

Churchill's main innovative idea on empire was to propose a federated imperial system that

would appease the grievances o f disaffected white Boers and Irishmen by granting them limited

political autonomy. He noted that "the two most formidable and powerful and progressive Powers

o f the modern world, the United States o f America and the Empire o f Germany, conduct their

business and carry on their development through a gigantic system o f federated states and

subordinate legislatures." Thus, he called on Tories to end their obstructionism and work with

Liberals in effecting the necessary structural changes to the empire: " W e live in a world o f

unceasing change. The spirit o f decay pervades all human arrangements. N o race, no empire, no

institution can repose for any length o f time on past virtues or past achievements. Unless we renew

our strength continually...we cannot hope to preserve indefinitely our happy and prosperous

situation." When world war erupted in August 1914, Churchill's worst fears about Britain's

institutions and way o f life under siege from the forces o f barbarism and tyranny appeared to be

confirmed. A s First Lord o f the Admiralty, he poured his abundant energies into fighting the war,
28

oblivious o f his many political enemies who despised his opportunism. They were quick to

capitalize on a series o f military blunders that were not o f his making, but which he greatly

exacerbated by his restlessness impatience for action and adventurism in pushing ahead the ill-fated

Gallipoli landings, leading to his removal from office.

Despite the carnage and futility o f trench fighting in Europe, Churchill retained faith in the

necessity o f war as an essential part o f life and human advancement. In his memoir on the first

world war, he reflected simultaneously on the horrors o f modern warfare and the courageous sense

o f duty engendered by it. War, which used to be "cruel and magnificent," in the democratic and
29

scientific age had become "cruel and squalid." But this somber verdict did not diminish his respect
30

for the achievements o f British forces, "inspired by love o f country and human freedom," which

grudged no sacrifice in the fight against tyranny. Conscious of their "race," British soldiers did their

duty by throwing themselves at the enemy with honor and valor: "Unconquerable except by death,

which they had conquered, they have set up a monument o f native virtue which w i l l command the

wonder, the reverence and the gratitude of our island people as long as we endure as a nation among
 25

men." The many acts of heroism by Britons during the bloodiest conflict known to man raised their
31

moral claim to empire to its highest position in their nation's history, he insisted. 32

The horror o f the first world war did not cause Churchill to lose confidence in war as a

rational instrument o f national policy, asserting that there were worse things than bloodshed, even

on an immense scale. A n eclipse o f the central imperial authority would be a far worse calamity,

he felt. It was an eventuality he feared, since the British people habitually cast away hard-won

victories by sliding into pacifism immediately after a danger had abated. 33

Unlike most other

politicians, Churchill delighted in the challenges and adversities o f war, convinced that only through

repeated baptisms o f fire could an "imperial race" remain strong and united. H e found the prospect

o f war "the key to future delights,"assuming that through it all the empire would be sustained, an

idea that showed little appreciation for economic forces undermining Britain's war-making abilities

in the 2 0 century.
th 34
H e and the Colonial Office thought alike in the early 1920s, expecting the

empire to pay for itself, which seemed only fitting since colonial rule was a benevolent system that

brought enlightenment and peace to savage peoples: "The Empire...has been given to us as a means

to that great end for which Christ came into the world, the redemption o f the human race." 35
When

the cost o f maintaining imperial possessions became prohibitive after W o r l d War I, Churchill

optimistically assumed that the mystical ties of blood and language between Britons and Americans

could be strengthened for the purpose o f reviving the sagging fortunes o f empire. 36

In the interwar era, Churchill combined the views o f a realist, romantic and idealist in

perceiving the British empire as the most vital link in Europe's balance o f power, by which peace

and world order was maintained. He was convinced that it would never fight a war to upset that
37

balance, and since the League o f Nations was also an instrument for preserving order, Britain's

imperial interests were considered to be in harmony with international law: "The fortunes o f the

British Empire and its glory are inseparably interwoven with the fortunes o f the world. W e rise or

we fall together." However, in contrast to the progressive internationalism o f Wilsonian liberalism,

38

Churchill's conservative internationalism saw the League as complementing, not supplanting, the

British empire and Commonwealth. While he defended the League against its many detractors in
39

Britain, he never intended it to play a central role in foreign affairs. Rather, his strategy after the

rise o f Hitler to power was to solicit support from pro-League forces in Britain for his agenda o f

strengthening the empire through rearmament. 40

In most other instances, he kept the pacifist-minded

League o f Nations Union at arms length throughout the 1930s. 41

 26

Churchill was greatly disillusioned by the mounting nationalist challenges to British imperial

control in the interwar era. H i s solution was to utilize the air force for bombing rebellious villagers

in remote areas while shoring up imperial power by forging tighter bonds between the Anglo-Saxon

peoples: ' " H o w was it,' the historians o f the future w i l l ask, 'that these vast, fairly intelligent,

educated, and on the whole virtuous communities were so helpless and futile as to allow themselves

to become the victims o f their processes, and o f what most abhorred them?' The answer w i l l be,

'They had no p l a n . ' " Churchill decried the "inertia and negativism" of the British people after 1918
42

that caused many o f them to doubt their national mission and question the purpose o f empire. 43

Nonetheless, his interwar policies were far from consistent, as he largely ignored the empire except

for occasional rhetorical outbursts reminiscent o f Gibbon or Macaulay that struck many o f his

contemporaries as out o f place in the bleak, deflationary, and disillusioned 1920s. A t the same
44

time, he opposed imperial reforms that would have given preferential tariffs to the Dominions and

stabilized relations with India. A s Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was the darling of those seeking
45

imperial retrenchment through defense spending cuts. Only the air force was expanded, as an

inexpensive terror weapon for imperial control. 46

In the 1930s, Churchill immersed himself in writing an epic history o f ancestor heroes and

empire builders. In his four-volume work on the life of Marlborough, he noted that after defeating
47

Louis X I V in 1699, Europe's "Grand Alliance" tragically fell apart when the people o f England

began clamoring for disarmament and greater freedoms:

In fact, it has been an invariable rule that England, so steadfast in war, so indomitable in
peril, should at the moment when the dire pressures are relaxed and victory has been won
cast away its fruits. Having made every sacrifice, having performed prodigies of strength
and valour, our countrymen under every franchise or party have always fallen upon the
ground in weakness and futility when a very little more perseverance would have made them
supreme, or at least secure. 48

Churchill blamed weak leadership for such lapses, though in the 1930s he too was slow to appreciate

the new threat to British security from air power and fascist dictatorships. While he urged greater
49

armaments to protect British power and prestige after 1933, the public would only accept increased

arms expenditures for a higher moral cause, prompting him to couple rearmament policy with a plea

for collective security. He expected Britons to faithfully support traditional imperial values and

interests, but he offered few tangible benefits in return. Churchill considered the decision to grant
50

Indians self-rule evidence of the nation's declining moral courage. H i s inflammatory rhetoric decried
 27

"the greatest e v i l " brought upon the peoples o f India and Great Britain. India was a source o f

imperial power whose loss he feared would reduce Britain to the status o f a minor nation. Refusing

to accept India as an evolving and sophisticated polity, he viewed it as a geographical abstraction

of intense racial and religious rivalries that would collapse into tribal conflict i f left to its own

devices: 51

The rescue of India from ages of barbarism, tyranny and internecine war, and its slow but
ceaseless forward march to civilisation constitutes upon the whole the finest achievement of
our history. This work has been done in four or five generations by the willing sacrifices of
the best of our race....Science, healing or creative, has been harnessed to the service of this
immense and, by themselves, helpless population. 52

Churchill maintained that Dominion status for India would enfeeble Britain and make defense of the

empire east o f Suez virtually impossible. Unlike many o f his contemporaries who saw the empire
53

as a burden that weakened Britain's ability to protect its vital interests in Europe, Churchill saw it

as fundamental to national security and international order. 54

O n the eve o f war, he fervently

believed that i f the British people were to save civilization from tyranny they must regain the moral

courage o f their great imperialist forefathers. 55

Unifying the English-speaking Peoples

In the same decade that Churchill came o f age, Anglo-American relations underwent a sea

change from the prior century-long rivalry and belligerency to an era o f growing friendship and

entente. In the 1890s, a series of treaty negotiations between Britain and the U S over territorial and

trading rights in the Western hemisphere eased economic and political tensions that had nearly

instigated war on several occasions. Germany's dramatic rise to power in the late 19 century after
th

the Franco-Prussian war caused British leaders to perceive a new threat to national security,

particularly after Kaiser W i l h e l m removed the moderating influence o f Chancellor Bismarck and

initiated a massive naval arms race. British leaders immediately realized the mortal danger from

Germany's emergent blue-water navy, leading to a calculated decision to appease U S interests in

North and South America, and acceptance o f an open-door policy for trade in East Asia.

Befriending the U S enabled Britain to concentrate its fleet in home waters where it could more

effectively meet a German challenge and protect the vital economic lifeline to North A m e r i c a . 56

Churchill's American heritage on his mother's side prompted a keen interest in U S history
 28

and its development as a world power. A t the same time that he was absorbing Victorian notions

of Britain's divinely inspired imperial mission, he came to appreciate American aspirations o f

manifest destiny and trans-Pacific expansionism. A s a journalist observing the Cuban rebellion

against Spain in 1896, Churchill thrilled to U S intervention: " A m e r i c a can give the Cubans

peace...and perhaps prosperity then w i l l return. American annexation is what we must all urge, but

possibly we shall not have to urge very long." He welcomed American power on the international

stage, largely because he saw it as complementing - rather than challenging - British imperial

interests. 57
He was not alone in perceiving Anglo-American rapprochement as a useful device for

strengthening the empire. British elites in the early 20 th

century entertained romantic views o f

America that were an expanded version o f social Darwinian concepts o f Anglo-Saxon "racial"

superiority. They continued to perceive the U S as a land populated by predominantly white

descendants o f "British stock" with similar political values, cultural traditions, and national

aspirations, even though by 1900 only one third o f the population actually derived from British

ancestry. Immigrants from southern and eastern Europe pouring into America after the 1880s had

dramatically altered the social mix from earlier times. 58

Ties between the two countries grew warmer when the U S also began to view Germany's

industrial power and aggressive imperial policy as a threat to its hegemony in the Caribbean,

prompting Washington to welcome the British navy as a friend for the first time. In 1906, Alfred

Mahan, author o f The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, urged President Teddy Roosevelt to

accept the British empire as based "substantially on the same lines o f world policy as ourselves; that

its strength w i l l be our strength, and the weakening o f it injury to us." Mahan's ideas on naval

power and geopolitics profoundly influenced political culture in both countries, and his book was

avidly read by a young Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. When Churchill entered politics
59

early in the new century he was already an advocate o f Anglo-American friendship. Four years

later, he joined the Liberal Party over the issue o f free trade, criticizing the "wanton folly" o f his

former Tory colleagues who vehemently opposed it: "The union o f the Anglo-Saxon race is a great

ideal, and i f ever it is to be achieved it w i l l be by increasing and not diminishing the friendly

intercourse o f trade between this country and the United States." 60

Churchill believed America was

a bastion o f Anglo-Saxon virtue and power that should be harnessed by British leaders to bolster

imperial power and more effectively confront the German challenge. B y the early 20 century, the
th

German and U S economies were surging forward, while Russia was beginning to fulfill de
 29

Tocqueville's prediction o f a nascent superpower, all o f which left Britain vulnerable and in need

of allies. 61

A t the same time, Britain was beset by a more immediate problem in the form o f Irish

sectarianism that threatened to provoke civil war. In promoting Irish Home Rule, Churchill saw an

opportunity to ease tensions in Ireland while using constitutional reform to stimulate greater

English-speaking unity in the colonies, and in America where a large Irish expatriate population was

fomenting anti-British sentiment. Speaking in Unionist Belfast in 1912, Churchill urged the

formation o f a federalist imperial system as the best solution for quelling Irish-Catholic

secessionism: "Great as are the difficulties which...stand in the way o f a federation o f the Empire,

those difficulties would be sensibly diminished by a reconciliation between Great Britain and

Ireland, and, far wider even than the unity o f the British Empire, the great dream could be dreamed

o f good relations and ultimate unity with the English-speaking peoples all over the world." Six

months later, Churchill appealed for English-speaking unity in a speech on naval preparedness,

contending that it would facilitate mutual defense against aggressor powers. Optimistically, he

asserted that a political union was already well on the road to consummation. 62

Churchill's romanticism toward America was largely based on faulty historical assumptions,

distorting emotions, and a poor understanding of the U S constitution, rather than on close social and

political analysis. Nonetheless, after the outbreak o f war i n 1914 he became convinced that

American power could prove decisive to the outcome. 63

In his memoir after the war, he asserted that

only a handful o f British vessels separated the world from Teutonic hegemony. I f they had been

lost, potentially in a single naval engagement lasting an afternoon, there would only be left "far off

across the Atlantic unarmed, unready, and as yet uninstructed America to maintain, singlehandedly,

law and freedom among men." In the first three years of war, Churchill claimed that a great wealth
64

of kinship and goodwill by Americans toward the allied cause overwhelmed all legal disputes over

international rights o f neutral nations to trade with belligerents. Though U S demands for freedom

of the seas clashed sharply with Britain's naval embargo against central Europe, Churchill later

lauded the wise leaders in Washington and London who had "guarded the English-speaking world

and its destiny from measureless injury." 65

America's entry into the war in 1917 revealed the

"splendour of American manhood" marching together with their fellow Englishmen in Europe, proof

of the reconciliation o f two Christian civilizations who were united in a "great struggle against

Teutonic and scientific barbarism." For the first time since America's independence, the two nations
 30

were united militarily in a common cause against tyranny. Churchill's views on America were

widely reported in the U S press during the war, greatly contributing to his growing popularity

there. He believed it a development o f epochal proportions that British and American troops were
66

fighting side by side as "the two great branches o f English-speaking peoples began again to write

their history in common." Americans, though, had stayed out o f the war until Britain and France
67

were near exhaustion from three years o f unprecedented bloodletting, a fact that caused much

resentment among other British leaders but which Churchill brushed aside in his effort to solidify

the bonds o f friendship.

His optimism, though, was not always reciprocated. After the war, President Wilson

expressed such intense moralistic hostility to British imperialism that many British politicians

became suspicious of U S motives. While Churchill in public lauded American friendship, in private

he was embittered by Wilson's refusal to cancel allied war debts, complaining about the President's

"selfish and extortionate policy." When British and U S delegates at Versailles fought over the peace

treaty, Churchill despaired: " I f we fall apart all that we have achieved w i l l collapse in ruin to the

ground." After America retreated into isolationism, undermining the future viability o f the League

of Nations, Churchill warned that the U S "cannot leave that continent [Europe] in a welter o f

anarchy," or it would bode ill for the stability o f the postwar world order. 68
A t the same time, he

refused to accept the fact that N e w Y o r k had replaced London as the financial capital o f the world,

maintaining that America was treating its allies as vassals on account o f the unpaid war debt. In

1923, at the Washington Naval Conference, Churchill became further angered by U S assertions o f

naval parity with Britain, telling colleagues that the "Americans are arrogant, fundamentally hostile

to us, and...wish to dominate world politics...." A t the same time, he noted that U S demands to
69

abrogate the Anglo-Japanese alliance "only shows how little advantage is to be gained by making

such efforts to conciliate American opinion. Whatever may have been done at enormous cost and

sacrifice to keep up friendship is apparently swept away by the smallest tiff or misunderstanding,

and you have to start again and placate the Americans by another batch o f substantial or even vital

concessions." 70

In the interwar era, Churchill sought to counteract American isolationism by suggesting that

their nations had a mutual interest in working for peace and stability. He conducted a speaking tour

of the U S and Canada in 1929, garnering much attention i f not active support from Americans for

his views. Hitler's rise to power in 1933 caused Churchill to renew appeals for Anglo-American
 31

cooperation. After Germany's re-occupation o f the Rhineland in March 1936, he urged the creation

of a grand alliance involving the U S , Britain, and France to prevent another war. Though Prime

Minister Baldwin agreed that U S cooperation was a high priority, his most powerful Cabinet

colleague Neville Chamberlain was contemptuous of American politicians for talking big but doing

little. A s an isolated backbencher throughout the 1930s, Churchill could do little more than utter
71

hopeful rhetoric about the warmth o f Anglo-American relations and their mutual dislike o f

totalitarianism: "I declare my belief that a major war is not imminent, and I still believe there is a

good chance o f no major war taking place again in our time," he said during an appeal in 1938 for

the English-speaking peoples to unite in resisting German expansionism. 72

After the Anschluss o f Austria, Churchill expressed his concern that the English-speaking

nations were shirking their collective duty to protect humanity from chaos and ruin. H e lamented

this neglect o f international responsibilities in allowing tyranny to rise again in Europe. Churchill

argued that i f the U S supported France and Britain against Germany there would be no risk o f war,

ignoring the fact that American public opinion prior to November 1938 was sympathetic to revision

of the Versailles peace settlement. In fact, U S presidents from Harding to Roosevelt had maintained

that Germany was Europe's industrial heartland whose economic and political rehabilitation was

vital to the region's prosperity and stability. The advent o f the Third Reich did not substantially

alter that viewpoint. In 1936, F D R blithely claimed that the Rhineland occupation helped to dispel

the "dark clouds of Versailles." Though he had no illusions about Hitler's lawlessness, he respected

German culture and its desire for an enhanced international presence. Conversely, he disdained

Britain's upper classes and the "Bank o f England crowd," complaining that they "took eighty

percent o f every deal." Feelings in the City were mutual; when Roosevelt proposed a summit in

early 1938 to draft international codes for arms reduction and trade enhancement, the idea was

peremptorily dismissed in London as preposterous. 73

The rebuff meant that during the ensuing Czech crisis Roosevelt remained politically

inactive, privately favoring appeasement o f German demands while warning European leaders that

the U S would not join an anti-Hitler front under any circumstances. The U S ambassador to Britain,

the ardent appeaser J. Kennedy, spoke openly o f giving Germany a free hand in the east, though

Roosevelt later rebuked him for such talk. Following the M u n i c h Pact, Churchill broadcast to the

U S : "We are left in no doubt where American conviction and sympathies lie; but w i l l you wait until

British freedom and independence have succumbed, and then take up the cause, when it is three-
 32

quarters ruined, yourselves alone?" 74

Even after Hitler's takeover o f Prague in M a r c h 1939,

American leaders continued to support appeasement policies in Europe. Roosevelt's most trusted

State Department advisor remained the Anglophobic A d o l p h Berle, whose strongly isolationist

views on foreign policy prevailed until August 1940 before he was replaced by Cordell H u l l . 75

Despite Churchill's inspiring rhetoric, America figured little in his calculations o f world

affairs prior to the start o f W o r l d War II. Only after the war did he claim that F D R ' s overtures in

1938 were the last slim chance o f stopping Hitler by drawing America into European affairs before

its hates and fears spilled over into bloodshed:

That M r . Chamberlain, with his limited outlook and inexperience o f the European scene,
should have possessed the self-sufficiency to wave away the proffered hand stretched out
across the Atlantic leaves one, even at this date, breathless with amazement....One cannot to-
day even reconstruct the state o f mind which would render such gestures possible. 76

The retreat into isolationism by the U S was not reversed even with the outbreak of war in September

1939. American officials remained decidedly cool toward the dilemma o f Europe's democracies, and

for the first seven months of the war F D R did not even bother to respond to Churchill's telegrams. 77

Meanwhile, Ambassador Kennedy informed the President that the prevailing mood in Britain was

strongly defeatist, with an effete and decadent ruling class showing little desire to prosecute the war,

a view shared by many Americans. Churchill sought to counteract Kennedy's corrosive ideas by

proclaiming in direct radio broadcasts to the American people that the British were resolved to die

rather than surrender to Nazism: "It w i l l then be for you, the Americans, to preserve and to maintain

the great heritage of the English-speaking peoples...." Despite a policy o f strict neutrality by the U S

in the first year o f war, Churchill was convinced that eventually they would unite with Britain to

stop Hitler and restore world order. 78

Appeasement and Political Praxis

Churchill's influence on British political culture in the 2 0 th
century produced starkly

contrasting impressions of the man and his policies. He has been perceived as a genius and prophet

who heroically rose to prominence in a crisis to save the world for democracy, and decried as a

reckless adventurer, warmonger, and would-be dictator who was dangerous to British democracy.

Prior to the second world war, most of his contemporaries, whether Tory, Liberal, or socialist agreed

with the latter perspective. They disparaged Churchill as a rank opportunist whose bold and restless
 33

nature propelled him to dangerous adventurism. A s one pundit in the mid-1920s noted: "He obeys

no one, fears no one, reveres no one. He is his own superman and is so absorbed in himself and in

his own fiery purposes that he does not pay others the compliment even o f being aware o f them." 79

Liberals and Tories saw h i m as lacking in wisdom or judgement, while socialists despised h i m as

a reactionary who never even attempted to understand the social and economic issues plaguing the

working classes. H i s frequent calls to revitalize Britain's political system were widely interpreted

as masking a hidden desire for dictatorship. Ironically, it was his very audacity and egotism that
80

enabled him during the second world war to radically reverse his negative image. Perhaps it is best

to view Churchill's political philosophy as a hybrid o f 19 century liberalism and conservatism,

th

since he was clearly not ideologically dogmatic. In this sense, he resembles the mid-19th century

views o f the philosopher L S . M i l l , who defended political democracy but recoiled from radicalism

in his later writing, warning against the "tyranny o f universal suffrage." 81

When Churchill began his political career in 1900, he pledged to faithfully support the cause

of his father's Tory democracy, which sought to combine conservative values with amelioration o f

the worst social abuses. Yet Churchill always viewed himself to be above party orthodoxy, his only

permanent allegiances being to the monarchy, empire, and personal ambition. Consequently, over
82

the course o f a long career, the major political themes animating his speeches changed constantly

as he tacked for political advantage. A s his first major biographer R . R . James notes, these twists

and turns undoubtedly enhanced the longevity o f his life in politics, but they also gave it an

"unimpressive looseness." 83
Churchill's political inconsistencies can be viewed in terms o f tactical

maneuvering to ensure his continued proximity to the levers of political power, but at the same time,

he held firmly to faith in the empire, Parliament, and the monarchy. H e would hot compromise

politically when he felt that these institutions were threatened, which explains his die-hard stance

on India in the 1930s and his defense o f K i n g Edward in 1936, even though such actions badly

undermined his political standing. His bold adventurism and naked ambition for power, so different

from customary British pragmatism and selflessness, led h i m to make tactical judgements about

partisan politics that deeply angered and alienated virtually every major political group in Britain

before the second world war. Churchill's sheer brilliance at public speaking often worked against

him because the power and pyrotechnics o f his oratory in defending or advancing political causes

roused the venom o f political opponents that exceeded and outlived their disenchantment with the

issues in question.
 34

Churchill was already famous for his daring and cunning even before entering Parliament

in 1900. Months earlier, he had stunned Britain and the world with a daring escape from Pretoria,

where he was being held captive by Boer rebels fighting against British control. H i s colorful story

o f the adventure drew huge crowds wherever he spoke, and served to launch h i m on his political

career. A s a freshman Member o f Parliament, Churchill immodestly lectured Tory leaders on the

need to improve working class living standards by a policy o f moderate social reform. Only in this

way, he asserted, could the "dried-up drain-pipe o f Radicalism" be prevented from gaining enough

political backing to achieve power for implementing their Utopian v i s i o n . 84

When Churchill noted

a "shocking lack o f cohesion" in Tory ranks, he prepared to jump ship. Fearing the Party's hold on

power was slipping, putting in doubt his chances o f gaining high office through Tory patronage,

Churchill began a series o f scathing attacks on the Party leadership that culminated in his decision

to join the Liberals. Churchill used the opportunity o f a debate on free trade reform in 1904 to burn

his bridges in a speech that was jeered by fellow Conservatives. Soon after, secret negotiations with

Liberal functionaries prompted him to cross the floor of the Commons to j o i n a Liberal Party on the

Verge o f wresting political power from Arthur Balfour's Conservatives. 85

In 1905, Churchill asserted that free trade and self-government for white colonies were the

only means by which a modern liberal democracy could reconcile its interests with the responsibility

to create "loyal, prosperous, powerful, and profitable colonies." He was cognizant o f lessons learned

from the Boer war, where reconciliation with the rebels had been swift following Britain's decision

to grant South African whites a large degree of political autonomy through self-government. Liberal

leaders rewarded him with a Cabinet post as Secretary o f Colonial Affairs following their election

victory in January 1906. The Tories, embittered by defeat and Churchill's acerbic attacks on their
86

policies, carried their fight against reforms into the House o f Lords, using obstructionist tactics that

precipitated a constitutional crisis. Despite the fact that he was from one of Britain's most venerable

aristocratic families, Churchill immediately launched a sharp assault on the "effete oligarchy" o f

aristocrats that he alleged was the "laughing stock o f Europe." It was evidence o f the lengths to

which he would go in order to curry favor from those who wielded political power. Churchill issued

the sharpest rebuke among Liberals against upper class privilege exemplified by the House of Lords:

"Posing as a chamber o f review, remote from popular passion...it nevertheless exhibits a taste for

cheap electioneering, a subservience to caucus direction and a party spirit upon a level with many

of the least reputed elective Chambers in the world; and beneath the imposing mask o f an assembly
 35

of notables...we discern the leer of the artful dodger...." From this time onward, many Tories would
87

view h i m with suspicion as a traitor to his class.

Churchill's class warfare reached its peak in 1909 with his articulate defense o f L l o y d

George's People's Budget while mocking Tories for their hostility toward it. Behind his radical
88

rhetoric, however, lay the fundamentally conservative purpose o f preserving the empire and the

established political order by cautious appeasement o f working class grievances:

It is here in our midst, close at home, close at hand, in the vast growing cities o f England and
Scotland, and in the dwindling and cramped villages o f our denuded countryside. It is there
you w i l l find the seeds o f Imperial m i n and national decay. The awful gap between rich and
poor - the want o f proper discipline and training in our young people...the absence o f any
established minimum standard o f life and comfort among the workers, and at the other end,
the swift increase o f vulgar, joyless luxury - here are the enemies o f Britain. Beware lest
they shatter the foundations o f her power. 89

Churchill dismissed the Tory dominated House o f Lords as a "lingering relic o f the feudal order"

that had long outlived its usefulness. The vehemence o f his speeches against the aristocracy and

Tories, though popular with his working class constituents, began to arouse disquiet among his own

Liberal colleagues who thought it excessive demagoguery. 90

Churchill's brashness spun h i m in dangerous new directions in 1911, when a crisis erupted

over labor unrest in England and Wales. It soon brought h i m into conflict with left-wing Liberals

and Labour supporters for his use o f excessive violence in quelling the protests. After the K i n g

declared that the situation in northern England appeared more like revolution than a strike, Churchill

(now Home Secretary) ordered the military onto the streets to restore calm. A s a result, he was

vigorously attacked by the left for overreacting and using bad judgment, while Tories seized on the

opportunity to criticize him for being too slow to act. 91

Shortly thereafter, Churchill was removed

from the Home Office and put in charge o f the Admiralty when German aggressiveness during the

Agadir crisis of July 1911 revealed that the navy was not prepared for war. A bold hand at the helm

was deemed necessary to put British defenses in order. Churchill eagerly poured his restless

energies into the task o f modernizing the navy, vigorously fighting against left-wing resistance to

further increases to military spending. A t the Admiralty, Churchill again displayed a disconcerting

quickness to contemplate military action in an ostensibly domestic dispute. W i t h tensions in

northern Ireland mounting over Home Rule, he hastily ordered a naval squadron to Ulster as a threat

to Unionist rebels without first winning Cabinet approval. This time Tories were on the opposite
 36

side o f the intervention issue, vilifying the move as "the Ulster Pogrom." The naval action added

to their grievances with Churchill, and a year later they exacted revenge by ensuring his downfall. 92

Before 1914, many Britons also felt that Churchill was deliberately acting belligerently in

foreign affairs, inducing a war scare that was entirely out o f proportion to the circumstances then

prevailing. Nonetheless, when war came the navy was ready, enabling Churchill to repair some o f
93

the damage caused by his Ulster action, but among Conservatives he was still intensely disliked, and

his support with Liberals was not as firm as he believed. Thus, when he lost the confidence o f his

service advisors for rashly insisting on two amphibious operations, at Antwerp in 1914 and in the

Dardanelles during 1915-16, both o f which turned into disasters with considerable loss o f life,

Churchill found himself "utterly and completely alone" in Parliament. H i s fall from power was

swift, yet he appeared not to have seen it coming until the last moment. In November 1915, he was

forced to resign from the Admiralty, and in deep despair took a battlefield commission in France.

But unlike his father before him, whose career had come to a screeching halt after resigning from

Salisbury's Cabinet on a dispute over naval spending, Churchill was much luckier at reviving his

political fortunes. M a n y contemporaries thought they saw the same instability and unsound

judgement in Churchill that had marked his father's meteoric career, making h i m an untrustworthy

ally. Nonetheless, disenchantment with Asquith's leadership and the perceived need for desperate

measures led to a new government under L l o y d George in December 1916. Catastrophes on the

Western front and in the Mediterranean precipitated the accession to power o f an energetic and

unconventional politician to lead the country's war effort. Six months later, L l o y d George appointed

Churchill (another maverick who he hoped could energize the war effort) Munitions Minister despite

vehement opposition from Tories in the coalition. 94

When the war ended a year later, Churchill was appointed Secretary o f State for War in the

new government. But almost immediately he alienated his working class constituents by vigorously

supporting military intervention in Russia's civil war. The Cabinet was uneasy about becoming

embroiled in the war, and L l o y d George soon distanced himself from it entirely. Y e t Churchill

seemed oblivious to the thin ice he was on when he urged support for Russia's disparate anti-

Bolshevik forces, whose chances o f success he greatly exaggerated. H e became completely

absorbed in the Russian war, delivering vituperative speeches around England that demonized the

Bolsheviks. In the four years after World War I, Churchill's intense fear o f communist revolution

caused h i m to rapidly move far to the right, jettisoning Liberal ideas like excess baggage in favor
 37

of waging a struggle against "socialist subversives." In the same breath as he attacked the

"criminality and animalism" o f the Bolshevik regime in Russia, he lambasted the growing political

influence o f Labour in Britain. Churchill decried as "misguided and degenerate" Labour supporters

who defended the cause o f the Bolsheviks. Fearing that Russia's revolutionaries might ally with

domestic socialism to subvert the British political system, Churchill appealed for bi-partisanship

between the established centrist and right-wing parties against the left. In July 1919, he declared:

"We must advance together, hand in hand. We have not only got a common cause and a common

danger, but we have also got leaders who by their action and the risks they have run for their

opinions have proved themselves in full harmony with modern requirements." Six months later,

having lost the intervention fight, he called on Liberals and Tories to unite behind a policy o f

confronting extremism at home and abroad. 95

In the 1920s, Churchill was appalled by the advent o f a mass electorate that enabled Labour

to gain control o f the government for the first time. H e bitterly complained that broadening the

franchise had debased modern British society and made the electorate unmanageable. In his

autobiography, he declared: "I must explain that in those days [before universal suffrage] we had

a real political democracy led by a hierarchy o f statesmen, and not a fluid mass distracted by

newspapers." Churchill complained that the creation o f a mass electorate had resulted in the

"liquefaction o f the entire British political system." 96

He decried the passing o f an era when the

upper classes controlled politics "as a matter of habit and duty," and Parliament was filled with men

of commanding intellect and personality. It seemed to h i m "a very great w o r l d " in which to live:

[A] few hundred great families who had governed England for so many generations and had
seen her rise to the pinnacle of her glory, were interrelated to an enormous extent by
marriage. Everywhere one met friends and kinsfolk. The leading figures of Society were
in many cases the leading statesmen in Parliament....In those days the glittering parties at
Lansdowne House, Devonshire House or Stafford House comprised all the elements which
made a gay and splendid social circle in close relation to the business of Parliament, the
hierarchies of the Army and Navy, and the policy of the State." 97

It was a perspective that subsumed British history into the biography of his own family, articulating

a sweeping nationalist narrative through the lens o f familial experience. H i s biographies o f L o r d

98

Randolph Churchill and Marlborough displayed immense filial piety and ancestor worship, which

of course helped to elevate his own standing as their successor. In both cases, he was motivated by

a desire to vindicate their records o f public service from detractors by glorifying them as great men
 38

of vision and statesmanship: "Every prophet has to come from civilization, but every prophet has

to go into the wilderness....He must serve periods o f isolation and meditation. This is the process

by which psychic dynamite is made." 99

Vindication and self-glorification became central objectives for Churchill after the first world

war, especially since the shadow o f suspicion regarding his unstable character and unsound

judgment continued to haunt him. In The World Crisis he sought to redeem his role in the Gallipoli

operation that had ended so badly, producing what Balfour described as Churchill's case "disguised

as a history o f the universe." 100

Historian M . Weidhorn contends that Churchill "distorted history

to suit the imperious needs of his voracious ego, private myths and romantic dreams" in recounting

his conduct during the war. 101

The humiliation o f the Gallipoli fiasco strongly reinforced a

pathological need developed in childhood to w i n praise and attention from an indifferent father, a

disposition acknowledged decades earlier when he recalled the positive reception to his first book:

"The reader must remember I had never been praised before....Now here was the great world with

its leading literary newspapers and vigilant erudite critics, writing whole columns o f praise!" 102
In

The World Crisis, he claimed that the terrible slaughter of W o r l d War I could have been avoided by

his ingenious plan to turn the enemy's flank in the Balkans, but there were no allied leaders with the

courage or imagination to take the bold action required to bring it to fruition. Churchill attributed

the campaign's failure to great conviction and determination by Turkish leaders, and the lack o f

those qualities among British leaders, who "defrauded the attackers o f the reward." 103

What Churchill did not mention in his memoir was the fact that his many shifts and turns in

prewar politics, his adventurism and lust for action, had resulted in a reputation for unreliability that

was increasingly difficult to overcome. 104

Despite his impressive personal qualities o f pugnacity,

boundless energy, wit, and imagination, by the 1920s most of his contemporaries thought he lacked

an essential characteristic o f effective political leadership: the ability to build a network o f reliable

allies. Almost all o f his close political associates were erratic and distrusted men, to whom he

remained fiercely loyal while expecting their sycophantic devotion in return. 105
It was this

reputation more than his failure in the war that caused him to lose a succession o f elections between

1922-24. Following Labour's rise to power in 1924, Churchill sought to rehabilitate himself with

the Tories by warning that quarrels and jealousies of the two historical parties were playing into the

hands of socialists. He accused Liberals of becoming the cat's paw o f Labour, whose government

under Ramsey MacDonald was "one vast monument of sham and humbug" that was deliberately and
 39

wantonly corrupting the character o f the British nation. Shortly before crossing the floor o f the

House o f Commons for a second time, Churchill urged Liberals to abandon their flirtation with

Labour and j o i n the Tories to preserve British democracy. 106

A s a born-again Tory, Churchill urged his Party to seek working class support by using

inflammatory anti-socialist rhetoric since the masses were allegedly more interested in watching a

dog-fight than listening to a political lecture on party doctrine. 107

H i s paternalistic strategy for

sustaining political authority by Britain's conservative elites was to brand socialism as anti-

democratic whose leaders were unfit to rule, warning: "The Socialist party can only progress by

destroying and devouring the Liberal party." 108

Churchill's attacks on Liberals in the 1920s occurred

just as the Party was slipping into terminal decline, and achieved a similar result as his anti-Tory

diatribes two decades earlier, earning h i m the lasting enmity o f his former Liberal colleagues.

Nonetheless, it led to Tory leader Stanley Baldwin appointing h i m Chancellor o f the Exchequer,

marking yet another miraculous recovery o f his political fortunes. 109

Despite his obvious fascination with war and weaponry, Churchill gladly adhered to

B a l d w i n ' s pacific views in order to ingratiate himself with the Tory leadership after decades o f

estrangement. A s a delegate to the Locarno conference in 1925, he supported arrangements to

normalize relations with Germany, ignoring the fact that Britain's refusal to guarantee eastern

Europe's borders signaled to German leaders that future revisions to the Versailles treaty were

possible. A t the Treasury, he supported sharp reductions in military spending and opposed

strengthening Singapore's defenses: "I do not think in our lifetime or in that o f our children you are

going to see an attempt by Japan to invade and colonise Australia by force." 110
A s Minister o f War

in 1928, he drastically curtailed the A r m y ' s Tank Corps, later claiming that he did not fully

appreciated the revolutionary impact o f fast moving mechanized armor in battle, an excuse

contradicted by The World Crisis, where he had noted the tank's great potential for future wars.

Prior to 1928, Britain had been a leader in tank design, but Churchill's actions, premised on

economic imperatives, caused the country to rapidly lose ground to Germany, where the lessons o f

tank warfare were studied closely. In addition, Churchill's placing o f the Ten-Year Rule on a daily

basis eliminated yearly reviews o f war prospects and had a debilitating effect on the military's

ability to modernize its forces. 111

During the 1920s, Churchill became the most hated politician on the left for aggressively

resisting the 1926 General Strike, running the virulently anti-union British Gazette. Churchill's
 40

combativeness made him a target o f Labour accusations that he was hostile to a negotiated

settlement. Churchill responded that "a general strike in a great number of trades...obviously means,

i f it were continued for any length o f time, the ruin o f the country." He inflamed passions further

by contending that the strike was "an enemy to be crushed" by the Conservative Party, which "is

now the only organized force strong enough to defend the popular liberties o f Britain and to defend

them against new dangers which everyone can discern quite clearly." The danger alluded to was

the presumed infiltration o f Bolshevik influence into the Labour Party as part o f an international

conspiracy by leftist extremists. Consequently, he saw no middle ground on which the Tories could

reach a compromise with Labour demands. His obsession with domestic subversion also caused him

to misread the emerging fascist movements in Europe, which he initially thought were "rendering

a service to the whole world" by providing a necessary antidote to the "Russian virus." In

connecting foreign and domestic affairs in this way, Churchill called on Tories to wage class warfare

against socialism to preserve the British empire, which "must become for all o f us, now and

henceforward, the main and common purpose o f political action and o f public l i f e . " 112

In 1929, Labour's majority in the general election forced Churchill out o f office and into a

ten year long political wilderness. A t first he remained an active member o f Baldwin's shadow

cabinet, but his irascible personality and indelicate political posturing regarding imperial reform lost

him the support o f Tory leaders by early 1931. A l l o f the major political parties favored granting

some form o f local self-rule to Indians. They were completely unreceptive to Churchill's die-hard

stance that inflated the rhetoric o f doom to such an extent he was no longer taken seriously by most

members of Parliament. For six years he waged an incessant battle against negotiating with Gandhi,

who he decried as a "fanatic and an ascetic o f the fakir type well known in the East." He warned o f

anarchy in India, mass unemployment, and even the prospect o f large-scale starvation in Britain i f

the reforms were implemented, arguments which only undermined his credibility and reaffirmed the

worst opinions about his poor political judgement. 113

In the midst o f Churchill's attacks on imperial reform, foreign affairs began to occupy more

of his attention when he sensed an opportunity to score political points against Labour's arms policy.

In 1930, he expressed disenchantment over a naval disarmament treaty between Britain, the U S , and

Japan, asserting that it represented the abandonment o f parity for "a declaration that the British

Empire accepts the position o f a second Power at sea." Churchill was irrate that Britain would no

longer maintain a fleet equal or superior to the next largest naval power in the world. With typical
 41

hyperbole, he called it a very grave matter that Britain had been made more defenseless than at any

other time since the reign o f Charles II. A year later, Churchill issued a broadside against the entire

policy o f disarmament, arguing that Britain alone among European and Asian powers had cut its

defenses on land, sea, and air to a point o f insecurity. He contended that Britain's navy should

immediately be rearmed to levels commensurate with national security. A t the same time, he called

for closer military cooperation with the French before seeking to resolve German grievances: "I

would say to those who would like to see Germany and France on an equal footing in.armaments:

' D o you wish for w a r ? ' " 114

It was an about-face from his prior policies in B a l d w i n ' s government,

which raised questions whether it was just another ploy to regain political influence.

However, disarmament remained very popular with the British public. Churchill's warnings

of dire peril in foreign affairs were not taken seriously, particularly since they were rendered in

conjunction with his greatly inflated rhetoric o f doom over India. Thus, few people were listening

closely when in November 1932 he made a prophetic speech on "mounting European dangers,"

warning that Hitler and N a z i militarism were a serious threat to peace. But at the same time,

Churchill equivocated on offering a response to fascism by signaling support for the traditional

British policy o f avoiding continental entanglements. H e believed the first duty o f leadership was

to ensure that " i f war should break out among other Powers, our country and the K i n g ' s Dominions

can be effectively defended, and w i l l be able to preserve...that strong and unassailable neutrality

from which we must never be drawn except by the heart and conscience o f the nation." 115

Churchill's attempts to scare the British public into supporting faster paced rearmament by

prophecies o f doom from the air were based on fallacious extrapolations o f W o r l d War I bomb

damage. Unwittingly, his exaggerated rhetoric lent credence to pacifists and appeasers who argued

that large-scale war in the modern age was unthinkable, the only viable alternative being the

reconciliation of grievances through negotiation and compromise." In 1934, Churchill warned that
6

Britain's military defenses were stretched too thin: "The idea that we can intervene usefully in

sustaining the peace o f Europe while we ourselves are the most vulnerable o f all, are the beggars in

fact, is one which cannot be held firmly by any one man who looks at this in the faithful discharge

o f his duty." H e accused British leaders o f lacking moral courage in their efforts to chloroform

public opinion by masking harsh realities about military unpreparedness and foreign dangers." 7

Though generally a poor judge o f character, Churchill recognized with clarity that Hitler's ethos o f

violence, for a time expressed only in the domestic realm, made likely the extension o f German
 42

military force beyond its borders. Aware that rearmament was highly unpopular with the public, but

disturbed by the rise o f Hitler to supreme power in Germany, Churchill joined an appeal for greater

military strength with a moral cause dear to the hearts of many Liberals and socialists: "I look to the

League of Nations to rally the forces which make for the peace o f the civilized world and not in any

way to weaken them." Until M a y 1938, though, he mostly avoided contact with pro-League groups

like Focus and the League o f Nations Union, only belatedly joining their campaigns to uphold the

Covenant with an appeal for security through arms and collective security." 8

Contrary to what he later claimed, Churchill did not unequivocally oppose the appeasement

of German grievances during the Czech crisis. Rather, his main difference with British leaders until

then was to advocate appeasement from a position o f armed strength: "[T]he least risk and the

greatest help w i l l be found in re-creating the Concert o f Europe through the League of Nations, not

for the purpose o f fiercely quarreling and haggling about the details o f disarmament, but in an

attempt to address Germany collectively, so that there may be some redress o f the grievances o f the

German nation...before this peril o f German rearmament reaches a point which may endanger the

peace o f the w o r l d . " " Churchill genuinely hated Nazism's excesses, but he also admired Hitler's
9

amazing success at revitalizing German economic fortunes and stimulating national pride. In 1935,

he suggested that it was impossible to tell i f Hitler would go down in history as a destroyer o f

civilization or as the man who brought Germany back into the European family circle. Though

Hitler's decision one year later to occupy the demilitarized Rhineland caused Churchill to decry it

as an immense blow to the League o f Nations, in the same speech he called Hitler a great leader

"who has raised his country so high - and I honour him for that...." H i s respect for power caused him

in 1937 to declare: "One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If

our country were defeated I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage

and lead us back to our place among the nations." 120

A t the same time, he was determined that

British power not slip to where it would be vulnerable to attack. Citing Germany's tremendous arms

buildup, which he exaggerated, Churchill demanded that British leaders make air parity with other

major powers their first priority. It would provide a deterrence against attack and enable a flexible

diplomatic approach between continental commitments and splendid isolation: " W e must be free.

We must preserve our full latitude and discretion o f choice....We could hold our own here and take

what time we chose to make up our minds, and what time we required to raise the whole vast might

of the British Empire." 121

 43

Churchill's attempt to present Britain's dilemma in the starkest terms, as a choice between

abject humiliation and submission to the greater power or a glorious defense o f British rights and

liberties, caused his warnings to be dismissed as overwrought. Y e t German air power did render the

nation vulnerable as never before in its history, prompting Churchill to vigorously attack Prime

Minister Baldwin for the "fiasco, ludicrous i f it was not so tragical" o f Britain's foreign and defense

policies. After 1935, he hit hard at Baldwin's alleged political incompetence for allowing Britain's

defenses to fall into such a poor state o f disrepair while doing nothing to marshal international

support against the dictators: "The Government simply cannot make up their minds, or they cannot

get the Prime Minister to make up his mind. So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be

undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be

impotent." Churchill's speech before the League of Nations Union at Albert Hall in December 1936

launched his public appeal for collective security through a grand alliance o f League members.

Only much later did he claim that it marked the culmination o f a four-year long effort to join his

appeal for rearmament with the Covenant. 122

After a long period o f political isolation, he appeared

at last to be gaining a large and receptive following o f concerned citizens who transected party lines

in their concern for the darkening pall over world affairs.

But at this critical moment, Churchill made another error that cost h i m politically when he

began a crusade to save K i n g Edward VIII from abdicating on account o f the monarch's marriage

to an American divorcee. Churchill's credibility with leftists, who were beginning to gravitate to

his idea of arms and the covenant, quickly evaporated. H i s support among fellow Conservatives was

also shattered, especially after rumors that Churchill would be asked by Edward to form a

government o f friends to defend the K i n g ' s marriage. Churchill's close association with L o r d

Beaverbrook brought his campaign into further disrepute, since the press baron was known to be

using the abdication crisis to intrigue against Baldwin. Tory M P Robert Boothby lamented that

Churchill's defense o f the K i n g "has undone in five minutes the patient reconstruction work o f two

years." 123
Consequently, Churchill's continued warnings about the German peril fell on deaf ears,

or were dismissed as the ravings o f an eccentric.

Churchill's quirky ideas about the nature o f modern dictatorship raised more doubts about

his character and judgement. O n the one hand, he saw fascist rule as "the fetish worship o f one man

- a passing phase," yet at other times he appeared to offer an apologia for its existence:
 44

Something may be said for dictatorships, in periods of change and storm; but in these cases
the dictator rises in true relation to the whole moving throng of events. He rides the whirlwind
because he is a part of it. He is the monstrous child of emergency. He may well possess the
force and quality to dominate the minds of millions and sway the course of history.

Churchill later claimed to have maintained strict neutrality regarding the c i v i l war in Spain, but in

fact he disgusted the left by revealing strong support for Franco's fascist rebels while attacking the

legitimately elected Republican government as the tool o f international communism. 124

In M a r c h 1938, Europe was thrown into turmoil after a year o f relative calm by Hitler's

Anschluss o f Austria. Neville Chamberlain, who had replaced B a l d w i n as Prime Minister in M a y

1937, was actively promoting appeasement o f German grievances and did not feel that Hitler's

action warranted jeopardizing the larger goal o f a general European settlement. Churchill was ever

hopeful o f a Cabinet post in the new administration and did not strongly oppose the decision to

tacitly accept Hitler's fait accompli. He seemed at a loss regarding what approach to take, speaking

in vague rhetorical flourishes of making Britain strong again but not clearly defining how its foreign

policy might further that objective. Nonetheless, the Anschluss did cause Churchill to abandon his

optimism about the prospect o f peace in Europe. He modified his vague advocacy o f collective

security through the League o f Nations into a concrete proposal for a grand alliance involving

Britain, France, and the Soviet Union to counteract German expansionism. Only in this way, he felt,

could war be averted after Hitler had deranged the balance o f power in Europe. But Churchill

lacked support in the House o f Commons, and even dissenters in the Conservative Party shunned

him on account o f his proven unreliability and suspected opportunism. 125

Anti-appeasement sentiment remained a minority opinion in Britain, and public support for

Chamberlain's agenda was still very strong as Europe slid into a prolonged Czech crisis culminating

in the M u n i c h accord of September 1938. From M a y until August, Churchill supported the general

government line of urging the Czechs to make concessions to Sudeten Germans by according them

greater autonomy. Only when Chamberlain and the Times in early September embarked on the

dangerous course o f urging Czechoslovakia's partition by ceding the Sudetenland to Germany did

Churchill part company with the government. However, his past reputation for adventurism and

love o f war came back to haunt him, as it caused even admirers to question his motives in opposing

Chamberlain's decision to negotiate a peace deal with Hitler. When his demand for a joint Anglo-

French warning to Germany was rebuffed, Churchill hastily flew to Paris to meet with anti-appeasers

in an effort to undermine British policy. It had little effect on French government policy, but it did
 45

reaffirm Chamberlain's suspicion o f Churchill as politically utterly unreliable. 126

Churchill was greatly disheartened by the M u n i c h accord, but did not have a clear idea o f

what to do next. In October 1938, he rebuked the government, mimicking Attlee's critique in

decrying the arrangement as a "total and unmitigated defeat." He continued his verbal assault on the

accord in the ensuing months, depicting it as a "disaster and humiliation" for Britain: "The time is

serious and dire. Either Britain w i l l rise again in her strength as a mighty, valiant nation, champion

of lawful right, defender o f human freedom, or she w i l l collapse and be despoiled, plundered,

mutilated, and reduced not merely to the rank o f a second-rate power but to a dependent condition,

a vassal state...." 127

Despite such rhetoric, Churchill was feeling pressure from within the Party to

conform, and he admitted that there was little point in launching another speaking tour as the public

was hostile to his message. He even wondered whether it was not actually better for Britain to seek

an accord with Hitler, or whether there was any hope of organizing an anti-German alliance. Adding

to his doubts about the future was the fact that his Conservative constituency association chastised

him for disloyalty and narrowly avoided voting to expel h i m from the Party. 128

Churchill's political life was saved only by the fact that the constituency vote came in early

March 1939 amid mounting rumors that the German army was concentrating on the Czech border,

followed days later by Hitler's occupation o f Prague. 129

It marked a decisive turning point in

Churchill's political fortunes after a decade in which many contemporaries had written him off as

a failure. Between M u n i c h and Prague, Churchill had resigned himself to writing his history of the

English speaking peoples while staying out o f the public eye. He turned down several requests to

launch lecture tours on behalf of the League of Nations Union to alert the public to the threat of war.

He also moderated his criticisms o f the government's rearmament program, admitting that great

progress was being made in aircraft production that would soon put Britain's front-line strength on

a par with Germany. There was talk in Whitehall of the need for a Ministry o f Supply, and Churchill

harbored hopes that he might wheedle the post for himself by showing support for the government's

foreign policy. Thus, after the Prague takeover he claimed that there was no point resisting

Germany's action. 130

Germany's liquidation o f Czecho-Slovakia did not immediately end Churchill's political

isolation, but it did cause a groundswell o f public support for his inclusion in the government. But

Chamberlain continued to view Churchill skeptically, despite a shift in public opinion against

appeasement and in favor o f full-scale rearmament. Chamberlain publically acknowledged that

 46

Hitler could no longer be trusted to keep his word, yet he still harbored notions o f salvaging his

peace policy as Europe slid toward the precipice of war. Just one day after stating that negotiations

on the basis o f assurances from Hitler were no longer feasible, Chamberlain accepted Nazi demands

to un-freeze £six million o f Czech currency reserves held by the British Treasury.' 31
In response,

Churchill demanded that the government "not yield another yard" to the dictators, optimistically

declaring that the nucleus of a grand alliance was already in the making: " W e must go forward now

until a conclusion is reached. Having begun to create a Grand Alliance against aggression, we

cannot afford to fail." 1 3 2

In fact, Chamberlain was not ready to consider a formal alliance in the spring and summer

o f 1939, least o f all with the Soviet Union, telling associates that he deemed M o s c o w "not a

respectable neighborhood" for British diplomatic initiatives. Though he abruptly issued a guarantee

to Poland in A p r i l 1939 as a warning to Hitler, and then strengthened it with a treaty o f assistance

in the event of war, he was not prepared to make arrangements with Stalin which would have given

substance to British promises.' Rather than attacking this obvious flaw in British foreign policy
33

making, in the months leading up to the outbreak o f war Churchill assumed the role o f a loyal but

constructive critic o f the government, approving most o f its initiatives in anticipation o f being

invited into the Cabinet. However, no invitation was forthcoming, since Chamberlain remained

dubious of Churchill's political motives and untamed adventurism. Consequently, he kept the future

war leader at arms length until Hitler forced Britain's hand by initiating a Nazi-Soviet Pact to

partition Poland, thereby precipitating a second world war. 134

C h u r c h i l l ' s Finest H o u r

The first year of war produced a profound transformation o f Churchill's reputation from that

o f a dangerously eccentric and unreliable Victorian adventurer to the triumphant savior o f

democracy during Britain's darkest - and finest - hour. The very audacious qualities that had gotten

him into trouble in the past were still in evidence, but in wartime they were exactly .what the British

people needed to rouse themselves from business-as-usual complacency so as to meet the daunting

challenges ahead. It was Churchill's finest hour, and by his own admission the greatest time of his

life. When Chamberlain declared war on September 3, 1939, Churchill enlisted history in the cause

of freedom, speaking glowingly of a generation of Britons "ready to prove itself not unworthy of the

days of yore and not unworthy of those great men" who laid the foundations o f a great empire. He
 47

also took the rather bold step for someone not yet officially a member o f the War Cabinet to

pronounce a set o f sweeping war aims that would guide Britain in the future: " W e are fighting to

save the whole world from the pestilence o f N a z i tyranny and in defense o f all that is most sacred

to man. This is no war o f domination or imperial aggrandizement or material gain....It is a war,

viewed in its inherent quality, to establish, on impregnable rocks, the rights o f the individual, and

it is a war to establish and revive the stature o f man." 135

It was one o f several key speeches by

Churchill during the first year o f war that set a tone o f indomitable courage and defiance which

inspired the British people's refusal to surrender when utter defeat stared them in the face.

In the first eight months o f the war, some o f Churchill's speeches were broadcast to an

international audience. He used the opportunity to paint a hopeful picture o f Britain's war effort by

greatly exaggerating its successes in combating German surface raiders and submarine attacks on

allied shipping. Churchill optimistically contended that "behind the brazen fronts of Nazidom" there

were clear signs o f mental and physical disintegration. In fact, this state o f affairs would not come

about until six years later, during the final months o f the war. Nonetheless, Churchill's radio

addresses were a striking contrast to the tired and uninspiring efforts o f his Cabinet colleagues,

including Chamberlain, who still hoped that Germany might come to its senses before a land war

engulfed the West. Churchill, however, was eager to vigorously prosecute the war from the outset

by every means possible. Drawing on historical parallels, he declared to the nation that "our

ancestors showed qualities o f doggedness and phlegm deemed remarkable by all who observed it.

But that is nothing to the ordeal which the British nation is today facing with complete composure."

Such confidence proved an immense morale booster for the British public, and enabled Churchill

to rapidly elevate his reputation as an inspirational leader. While he assured radio listeners that

"freedom w i l l not be trampled down" and justice would eventually reign supreme in Europe, he also

won respect for not mincing words when he warned that the world faced "a hideous state o f alarm

and menace" from N a z i Germany. Churchill cautioned that no one should delude themselves into

thinking that the war would end quickly or without sacrifice, defiantly asserting that there would be

no peace until the sword of justice had done its righteous w o r k . 136

Churchill's rhetorical flourishes were more than simple window dressing, as he undoubtedly

had an ulterior motive in rousing passions and steeling public resolve to see the war through to the

end. H e knew very well that Chamberlain and Foreign Secretary Halifax, the two most powerful

members o f the War Cabinet, as well as Geoffrey Dawson o f the Times, one o f the most influential
 48

press editors, secretly desired a negotiated settlement to the war in Europe before Germany burned

its bridges by striking West. 137

But while hesitancy and uncertainty on how to prosecute the war

continued to plague British and allied counsels, Churchill acted decisively and with spirited

aggression from the outset o f the war at sea. He fully appreciated the vital importance o f winning

the Battle o f the Atlantic for preserving Britain's economic lifeline. Therefore, he re-intfoduced the

convoy system on trans-Atlantic voyages despite the advice o f naval experts who initially thought

it unwise. The result was a significant reduction in shipping losses once the system was fully in

place. Churchill's public statements on the early fighting at sea were frank about losses suffered,

but they also exuded robust self-confidence that buoyed public morale at a time when inadequacies

elsewhere in government brought Chamberlain's competence to lead the war effort into question. 138

Matters came to a head following the fiasco o f the N o r w a y intervention that pointed out

serious shortages and a lack o f coordination between the armed services and other government

agencies. One o f the most dramatic debates in the history o f the House o f Commons ensued,

resulting in Chamberlain's resignation and the accession o f Churchill. O n the same day that he

assumed supreme control o f the war effort, Hitler abruptly ended the "phoney war" by unleashing

an armored blitzkrieg upon France and the L o w Countries. A s John Lukacs' fascinating microcosmic

study o f five days in M a y 1940 reveals, though Churchill was now Prime Minister, he still faced a

tough battle behind closed doors for control o f the War Cabinet and direction o f the war effort.

Halifax was anxious to pursue negotiations through Italian intermediaries in London in order to

determine Hitler's demands when French resistance collapsed, and before the British army had

managed to extricate itself from a seemingly hopeless situation on the continent. Churchill knew

what many other British leaders refused to acknowledge at the time, that once negotiations were

commenced and peace feelers made, no matter how tentative, the spirit o f resistance in Britain would

be badly compromised. The obvious question would arise in the minds o f most Britons: why

continue to fight so hard and risk death i f a peace settlement was imminent? Over a five day period,

from M a y 24-28, Churchill fought for control of the War Cabinet and the ability to pursue war aims

premised on the absolute refusal to surrender short o f total victory. Lukacs observes that nothing

less than the fate o f Western civilization rested upon the outcome o f this political struggle. It was

an exceedingly narrow margin by which Churchill ultimately defeated Halifax's initiative and set

Britain firmly on the course o f an uncompromising, unrelenting struggle against N a z i s m that

ultimately produced a grand alliance to overthrow Hitler's nightmarish N e w Order. In a few days
 49

during the spring o f 1940, Churchill experienced his greatest achievement o f war, and his greatest

contribution to the future o f humanity by putting the fight into British resistance. 139

Having won the battle for control o f the Cabinet, Churchill set his mind to saving the

remnants o f Britain's Expeditionary Force, desperately trying to escape annihilation in France, and

preparing the nation for an imminent German invasion. The country's prospects for survival hinged

on succeeding in those two endeavors, and to many outside observers they appeared doubtful.

Churchill later claimed that he simply expressed the "white glow" o f defiance that was in the hearts

of every Briton in 1940, but i f so there was little evidence o f it prior to his assumption o f supreme

power. H i s ability to combine eloquence that stirred emotions with decisive - and at times, brutal -

action proved o f immense value in Britain's victory in the Battles o f Britain and the Atlantic that

forestalled a German invasion. H i s bold decision to appoint the much maligned and deeply

distrusted Beaverbrook to head the Ministry of Aircraft Production broke the logjam of bureaucratic

inertia that dramatically improved armaments output at a critical time. This action, probably more

than any other, secured the necessary airplanes for Britain to w i n the air war over England that

delivered Hitler his first major rebuff. Churchill also acted with ruthless efficiency in ordering the

navy to destroy the French fleet at Oran, thereby ensuring it did not fall into German hands. Finally,

Churchill defied the advice o f his generals in order to succor the British army in Egypt with the

remnants o f Britain's tank corps at the height o f the invasion scare, enabling the army o f the N i l e

to deliver a crushing defeat to the Italians in the North African desert. 140

After the suspense o f 1940, Churchill spent the rest o f the war attempting to overcome or

disguise Britain's limited ability to assume the strategic initiative. In June 1941, Hitler's invasion

of Russia shifted the decisive theater o f the conflict to the eastern front. It was thereafter the Red

Army, and not British, or later American, forces that tore the heart out o f the N a z i war machine and

brought Hitler's thousand-year Reich to an end after years o f unprecedented bloodletting. Until

1944, Britain was confined to resisting German advances on the periphery o f Europe, without the

slightest hope of mounting a serious challenge on the continent. Even after America entered the war

in 1941 and began to marshal its vast resources behind the war effort, British leaders remained

skeptical o f successfully invading France. Only when the U S threatened to shift its focus to the war

against Japan did Churchill and the British Chiefs o f Staff relent to the Normandy invasion. B y

then, British military power, and Churchill's ability to shape allied war counsels, had shrunk

immensely in relation to the nations and leaders with the big battalions. Churchill's triumphant
 50

leadership in repelling Hitler in 1940-41 contrasts starkly with his frustration and sense o f tragedy

in 1944-45 when American and Soviet power left little room for British leaders to maneuver.

Chapter 2 Endnotes
1. D. Cannadine, "Winston Agonist," New York Review of Books, June 15, 1989, p.42.
2. Kaye, Powers of the Past, p.48; Kirk Emmert, Winston S. Churchill on Empire (Durham, N C : Carolina Academic
Press, 1989), p.vii.
3. Weidhorn, Harmony of Interests, pp. 108-09.
4. Plumb, "The Historian," in Churchill Revised, p. 135.
5. D. Jablonsky, Churchill, The Great Game and Total War (London: Frank Cass, 1996), pp. 16,23,42,106.
6. J. Baxendale and C. Powling, Narrating the Thirties: A Decade in the Making, 1930 to the Present (London:
Macmillan, 1996), pp.128-9; M . Smith, "The Changed Nature of the British State, 1929-59," in What Difference Did
the War Make, eds., Brian Brivati and H . Jones (Leicester: Leicester UP, 1993), pp.44-45.
7. McNeill, Mythistory, pp. 13-22,47-48; for example, in 1940 Britain lacked the means to defeat Germany, but it
continued the war out of a historic sense of righteousness that eventually transformed debacle into victory.
8. John Darwin, Britain and Decolonization: The Retreat from Empire in the Post-war World (New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1988), p.62; D. Marquand, "How United is the Modern United Kingdom?" in Uniting the Kingdom? The Making
of British History, ed. A . Grant and K . Stringer (New York: Routledge, 1995), p.288; Plumb, "The Historian," in
Churchill Revised, p. 137.
9. Barnett, Collapse of Power, pp. 19-28,51-53.
10. W.S. Churchill, My Early Life: A Roving Commission (1930; reprinted., London: Reprint Society, 1944) p. 186; R.
Holland, The Pursuit of Greatness: Britain and the World Role, 1900-1970 (London: Fontana Press, 1991), p.341.
11. Ibid., pp.342-3.
12. W.S. Churchill, My Early Life, p.9.
13. W.S. Churchill, Great Contemporaries (London: 1937), p.75.
14. Weidhorn, Harmony of Interests, 59-61; K . W . Thompson, Winston Churchill's World View: Statesmanship and
Power (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1983), p. 194.
15. Churchill, My Early Life, p.58.
16. Ibid., pp.88-89,147.
17. Ibid., pp.59,68; Jablonsky, The Great Game, p.10.
18. Thompson, Churchill's World View, pp.55-57; Weidhorn, Harmony of Interests, pp.68-70,76.
19. Churchill, My Early Life, pp.316-17.
20. Churchill's first political speech in R.R. James, ed., Churchill Speaks, 1897-1963: Collected Speeches in War and
Peace (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1980, 1998), pp.23-24.
21. Churchill, My Early Life, p. 10,139.
22. W.S. Churchill, Frontiers and Wars; Aldritt, Churchill the Writer, pp.8-10,17-19,30-35.
23. R. Churchill, Youth: Winston S. Churchill, 1874-1900 (London: Minerva, 1966, 1991), p.318; A . Summers,
"Edwardian Militarism," in Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity. V o l . 1. History and
Politics, ed. Raphael Samuel (London: Routledge, 1989), p.236; Weidhorn, Harmony of Interests, pp.57-58.
24. Speech on November 11, 1903 in R.R. James, ed., Churchill Speaks, pp.49-51.
25. Ibid., pp.58,86: speeches in Feb.19, 1904 and Jan.16, 1906; H.L. Stewart, Winged Words: Sir Winston Churchill
as Writer and Speaker (London: Ryerson , 1953),pp. 2,5-11, and H . Pedraza, Winston Churchill, Enoch Powell and the
Nation (London: Antony Rowe, 1986), pp.26-7: Churchill as a modern imperialist in the early 20 century who was
th

critical of imperial excesses during the Boer war, causing him to clash with traditional Tory imperialists in 1904,
contributing to his decision to become a Liberal.
26. Speech on April 16, 1907 in R.R. James, ed., Churchill Speaks, p . l 19.
27. Speeches on Jan.16, 1908, May 22, 1909, and Sept.4, 1909 in R.R. James, ed., Churchill Speaks, pp. 126,165-66,174.
28. Speeches on April 30 and Oct.30, 1912, and Sept.l 1, 1914 in R.R. James, e d , Churchill Speaks, pp.230,251,297.
 51

29. Aldritt, Churchill the Writer, pp.74-76; D. Cannadine, "War and Death, Grief and Mourning in Modern Britain,"
in Mirrors of Mortality: Studies in the Social History of Death, ed. J. Whaley (Europa, 1981), pp.201-02; W.S.
Churchill, The World Crisis. Vol. 5. The Aftermath (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929), pp.454-5; Jablonsky,
The Great Game, p.72.
30. Churchill, My Early Life, p.74.
31. Churchill, The World Crisis. V o l . 3, pp. 196-97.
32. Churchill, Aftermath, p. 1.
33. Tuvia Ben-Moshe, Churchill: Strategy and History (Bolder: Lynne Reinner, 1992), p.2; R.R. James, ed, Churchill
Speaks, p.271; W.S. Churchill, Marlborough: His Life and Times, Vol. 1, 3 ed. (London: George Harrap, 1933), p.428.
rd

34. Weidhorn, Harmony of Interests, pp.63-4; Churchill, My Early Life, p. 106; Lord Moran, Churchill Taken from the
Diaries ofLord Moran: The Struggle for Survival, 1940-65 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966), p.327: in 1945, Churchill
was still convinced of war's ennobling qualities, even in "the better units" of Hitler's army.
35. E. Goldstein, "The Evolution of British Diplomatic Strategy for the Locarno Pact," in Diplomacy and World Power:
Studies in British Foreign Policy, 1890-1950, eds. M . Dockrill, and B. McKercher (Cambridge: CUP, 1996), p.l 18: A .
Hirtzel's sentiment was repeated by Lord Curzon in 1921, and Austen Chamberlain in 1925.
36. Churchill, The World Crisis. Vol. 1, pp.1-2; R. Churchill, e d . Arms and the Covenant: Speeches by the Rt. Hon.
Winston S. Churchill (London: George G . Harrap, 1938), pp.115-18.
37. Michael Fowler, Winston S. Churchill, Philosopher and Statesman: The Credibility of Institutions, Policies and
Leadership, Hewlett Foundation Series, no. 19 (Lanham, M D : University Press of America, 1985), pp.7-10; Kaufman,
"Art of Statecraft," DS: 160-2; Gordon Craig, "Churchill and Germany," in Churchill, eds. R. Blake and L . Rogers
(Oxford: OUP, 1993), p.22.
38. Churchill, Arms and the Covenant, pp.272-3; Thompson, Churchill's World View, p.200.
39. Egerton, "Conservative Internationalism," DS: 3,15-16; B . McKercher, "Old Diplomacy and New: the Foreign
Office and Foreign Policy, 1919-39," in Diplomacy and World Power, pp.83-86.
40. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: 1922-1939 (Heinemann, 1976), pp.65-7.
41. Clive Ponting, Churchill (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994), pp.398,405.
42. M . Gilbert in Winston Churchill, ed. R.C. Kemper, pp.43-44; W.S. Churchill, Step by Step, 1936-1939 (London:
Thornton Butterworth, 1939), p.37.
43. Martin Gilbert, Churchill's Political Philosophy (Oxford: OUP, 1981), p.82; Gilbert, Churchill: 1922-39, p.124;
David Thomas, Churchill: The Member for Woodford (Portland: Frank Cass, 1995), pp.50-1; W.S. Churchill, The
Second World War. V o l . 1. The Gathering Storm (London: Cassell, 1948), pp.51,75-79.
44.1. Berlin, " A Man of First Principles: Churchill in 1940," (1949) in Churchill, ed. Stansky, p.69.
45. Barnett, Collapse of Power, pp.328-30.
46. Lord Hartwell, William Camrose: Giant of Fleet Street (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1992), p.206.
47. Raymond Callahan, Churchill: Retreat from Empire (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1984), p.43; Robbins,
Churchill, pp. 104-07.
48. Churchill, Marlborough, p.428.
49. Hartwell, Camrose, p.207; Churchill, Arms and the Covenant, pp.115-118; Thomas, Churchill, p.76; Churchill, Step
6y Step, pp. 110-112,170.
50. Taylor, "The Statesman," in Churchill Revised, pp.32,59-60.
51. Thomas, Churchill, pp.53-55; Darwin, Britain and Decolonization, pp.61-62; Emmert, Churchill on Empire, p.xvii.
52. Churchill quoted in Thomas, Churchill, p.52.
53. Callahan, Churchill, p.35; Pedraza, Winston Churchill, p.44; Gilbert, Churchill's Political Philosophy, pp.85,100:
Pedraza asserts that Churchill was right in thinking that Britain liberated Indians from tyranny, pestilence, suttee,
thuggery, and chronic civil conflict, while Gilbert sees evidence of humanity in Churchill's outrage over the Amritsar
massacre.
54. Churchill, Arms and the Covenant, p.455.
55. Ibid, p.466.
56. P. Kennedy, The Realities Behind Diplomacy: Background Influences on British External Policy, 1865-1980
(London: Allen and Unwin, 1981), p. 122; J. Hutchinson, Dominance and Dependence: Liberalism and National
Policies in the North Atlantic Triangle (Toronto, 1978), pp.55-66,83; N . Hillmer, ed. Partners Nevertheless: Canadian-
American Relations in the 20"' Century (Toronto, 1989, p. 165: Canada was allowed to fall into the American economic
orbit and US claims to the Alaskan panhandle were conceded.
57. R. Churchill, Youth, pp.16,280,383: an early literary ambition was to write about the American civil war; p.280;
Kaye, Powers of the Past, p.43; Varg, America, p. 109.
58. Barnett, Collapse of Power, pp.258-9.
 52

59. P. Varg, America, From Client State to World Power (Norman, Ok: U of OP, 1990), pp.105,119.
60. Speech on June 16, 1904 in R.R. James, ed., Churchill Speaks, pp.67-68.
61. Charmley, Churchill's Grand Alliance, p.4; P. Taylor, Britain and the Cold War, pp. 17-18.
62. Speeches on Feb. 8, April 12, and Nov. 9 1912 in R.R. James, ed., Churchill Speaks, pp.213,234,253.
63. F. Harbutt, The Iron Curtain: Churchill, America, and the Origins of the Cold War (Oxford: OUP, 1986), p.20.
64. Churchill, The World Crisis, V o l . 1, p. 124.
65. Churchill, The World Crisis, Vol.2, p.306.
66. Gilbert, World in Torment, pp. 122-3.
67. Churchill, The World Crisis, Vol.5, p. 1-2.
68. Harbutt, Iron Curtain, pp. 10-13; Varg, America, pp. 162-3.
69. Charmley, Churchill's Grand Alliance, p.6; A . C . Turner, The Unique Partnership: Britain and the United States
(New York: Pegasus, 1971), pp.64-66; D.C. Watt, Succeeding John Bull: America in Britain's Place, 1900-75
(Cambridge, C U P , 1984), p.52.
70. Harbutt, Iron Curtain, p. 14.
71. Churchill, Step by Step, pp.37-8; P. Taylor, Britain and the Cold War, pp.28-9; Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History,
pp. 108-11: detaching himself from his ideological stance, he urged the inclusion of the USSR; Ovendale, Appeasement
and the English Speaking World, (Cardiff: 1975), pp. 14,94; B.J.C. McKercher, The Second Baldwin Government and
the United States (Cambridge, CUP, 1984), pp.2-9.
72. Churchill, Step by Step, pp. 177,193.
73. Churchill, The Gathering Storm, p.78; Varg, America, p. 194.
74. Harbutt, Iron Curtain, p. 19.
75. D. Haglund, "Plain Grand Imperialism on a Miniature Scale: Canadian-American Rivalry over Greenland in 1940,"
American Review of Canadian Studies 11,1 (1981), p.23.
76. Churchill, The Gathering Storm, pp.212,441,448.
77. Ibid., pp.441.
78. Gilbert, Churchill, 1922-1939, p. 1074; Colville, Diaries, p. 106; J. Colville, The Churchillians (London: Weidenfeld
and Nicolson, 1981), pp.207-08.
79. A . G . Gardiner, "Genius Without Judgement," in Churchill, ed. Stansky, p.50.
80. Thompson, Churchill's World View, pp.22-24; D. Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New
Haven: Yale UP, 1990), p.546; but note J. Colville in Action This Day: Working with Churchill, ed. J. Wheeler-Bennet,
(New York: St. Martin's, 1968), p.75: Churchill believed fervently in sustaining the parliament against the executive.
81. Gertrude Himmelfarb, Victorian Minds (New York: Knopf, 1968), see Ch. 5 on "high Victorians."
82. Paul Addison, Churchill on the Home Front, 1900-1955 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1992), p.3.
83. R.R. James, ed., Churchill Speaks, p.451.
84. First political speech, July 26, 1897 in R.R. James, Churchill Speaks, pp.22-23.
85. Speeches on May 13, 1901, May 21 and 28, 1903, November 11, 1903, and February 19, 1904 in R.R. James, ed.,
Churchill Speaks, pp.34-47,54-58,60-62.
86. Speeches on Dec.5,1905, Jan. 15, 1906, April 5, 1906, July 31,1906,Feb.4,1907, and Aug.24, 1907 in R.R. James,
ed., Churchill Speaks, pp.77-80,85-86,99-100,102-05,112,121 -22.
87. Speech on Jan. 13, 1909 in R.R. James, ed., Churchill Speaks, p. 159.
88. Speeches on May 22, 1909, and Aug.2, 1909 in R.R. James, ed., Churchill Speaks, pp. 162-66,171-72.
89. Speech on September 4, 1909 in R.R. James, ed., Churchill Speaks, pp. 175-78.
90. Speeches on Dec. 4, 1909, March 19, 1910, Aug. 7, 1911 in R.R. James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp. 185-89,199-201.
91. Speech on August 22, 1911 in R.R. James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.200-06.
92. R.R. James, e d , Churchill Speaks, pp.263-73.
93. Speeches on November 11, 1911, February 9, March 18 and July 22, 1912, March 13, 1913, and March 17, 1914
in R.R. James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.208-10,218-29,239-44.
94. Speeches on March 7, 1916 and July 21, 1917 in R.R. James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.350-53,361-62.
95. Speeches on April 11, May 14, June 6 and July 15, 1919, and January 3, 1920 in R.R. James, ed, Churchill Speaks,
pp.372-88.
96. Churchill, My Early Life, pp.373-4.
97. Ibid, pp.47-48,103-04.
98. Ibid, p. 16; Thompson, Churchill's World View, p . l 17.
99. Quote from Marlborough in Weidhorn, Sword and Pen, p. 129.
100. Quoted in F. Neilson, The Churchill Legend (Appleton, WI: Nelson, 1954), p. 171; M . Gilbert, The Challenge of
War (London: Minerva, 1971,1990), pp.824-26; M . Gilbert, World in Torment (London: Minerva, 1971,1990), p.907.
 53

101. Weidhorn, Sword and Pen, p.8.

102. Churchill, My Early Life, p. 170.
103. Churchill, The World Crisis, Vol. 2, pp.6,15,536; Taylor, "Power, Propaganda," in Power in Europe? p.449; but
Fowler, Churchill, Philosopher and Statesman, p.3: argues that Churchill was a pragmatic realist.
104. James, "Churchill, the Parliamentarian, Orator and Statesman," in Churchill, eds. Blake and Louis, pp.512-3.
105. Taylor, et.al, Churchill Revised, pp.20-25 such as Beaverbrook, F.E. Smith, B. Bracken, and F.W. Lindemann.
106. Speeches on May 7, September 24, and October 3, 1924 in R.R. James, e d , Churchill Speaks, pp.431-42.
107. Addison, Churchill on the Home Front, p.393; J. Colville, The Fringes of Power: 10 Downing Street Diaries,
(London: W W Norton, 1985), pp. 127-8; D. Jarvis, "The Shaping of the Conservative Electoral Hegemony, 1918-39,"
in Party, State and Society: Electoral Behaviour in Britain Since 1820 (Aldershot: Scalor Press, 1997), pp.132-4,142.
108. Addison, Churchill on the Home Front, p.436; P. Addison, "Churchill and Social Reform," in Churchill, eds. Blake
and Louis, pp.60,66,76; Speech on November 3, 1924 in James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.442-44.
109. Speeches on April 28, October 19, 1925, and January 21, 1926 in James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.450,457,465-78.
110. Quoted in J.R.M. Butler, gen.ed. History of the Second World War, 6 vols. (London: H M S O , 1976), vol. 1:
Grand Strategy, by N . H . Gibbs, p.51; M . Gilbert, Road to Victory, 1941-45 (London: Heinemann, 1983), p.630.
111. Pedraza, Churchill, Powell and the Nation, p.43: the Rule was introduced in 1919, to be reviewed yearly. Churchill
suggested a sliding Rule that assumed on a daily basis no war for ten years, eliminating the yearly review until 1932.
112. Speeches on May 3 and 26, July 2, and December 8, 1926, January 20 and May 6, 1927 in James, ed, Churchill
Speaks, pp.479-90,494-96.
113.Speeches on Dec. 16and23, 1929,Nov.5, 1930, and Jan. 26-31, 1931 in James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.506-28.
114. Speeches on June 2 and 29, 1930 in James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.508-12.
115. Speeches on May 13 and November 23, 1932 in James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.540-57.
116. Barnett, Collapse of Power, pp.437-8; T. Harrison, Living Through the Blitz (London: Collins, 1976), pp.21-26.
117. Gibbs, Grand Strategy, p. 138; Churchill, Step by Step, pp.75-77; Stewart, Winged Words, pp.36-7,44.
118. Gilbert, 1922-39, pp.xix,408; R. Churchill, e d . Arms and the Covenant, p.466; W.S. Churchill, "Europe's Hour
of Danger," in James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.565-66; Ponting, Churchill, pp.381-82,390-98.
119. W.S. Churchill, "Germany and the League," November 7, 1933, in James, Churchill Speaks, pp.567-68.
120. Churchill, Step by Step, p.170; T. Lewis, A Climate for Appeasement (New York: 1991), p.165; Parliamentary
Debates, Hansard Sept.17, 1937, v. 285, col. 1193-1200; March 26, 1936 in James, e d , Churchill Speaks, p.618.
121. W.S. Churchill, "Defence," February 7,1934, "Need for Air Parity," March 8,1934, "Delusions of Disarmament,"
March 14, 1934, in James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.570-80.
122. W.S. Churchill speeches on May 2 and 31, Oct. 29, 1935, March 26, May 8, Nov. 12, and Dec. 3, 1936 in James,
ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.596-600,612-31; Ponting, Churchill, pp.398.
123. Charmley, The End ofGlory, pp. 317-18.
124. B.H. Liddell-Hart, "Churchill in War," (1940) in Churchill, ed. Stansky, p. 96; W.S. Churchill, Blood, Sweat, and
Tears: Speeches by the Rt.Hon. Winston S. Churchill (London: McClelland and Stewart, 1941), p.90; W.S. Churchill,
Great Contemporaries, p.41.

125. Speeches Feb. 22 and March 14, 1938 in James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.638-45; Ponting, Churchill, pp.394-98.
126. Ibid, pp.398-400; Charmley, The End ofGlory, pp.339-43.
127. Speeches Oct. 5, Nov. 25, Dec. 11, 1938 in James, ed, Churchill Revised, pp.662-64.
128. Ponting, Churchill, pp.400-02.
129. Taylor, "The Statesman," in Churchill Revised, p.34; Thomas, Churchill, pp. 108-09; R.R. James, "The Politician,"
in Churchill Revised, pp.118-20.
130. J. Wheeler-Bennett, Munich, pp.356-57.
131. Times, March 18, 1939, p. 14.
132. Speech on April 3 in James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.678-81.
133. M . Cowling, The Impact of Hitler, pp.296-304; R.Cockett, Twilight of Truth, pp.116-20; P. Kennedy, The Realities
Behind Diplomacy, pp.308-9; W. Rock, British Appeasement in the 1930s (London: E. Arnold, 1977), pp.20-22.
134. Norman Rose, Churchill: An Unruly Life (London: Simon and Schuster, 1994), pp.245-46; Charmley, The End
of Glory, pp.359-61; Ponting, Churchill, pp.405-08.
135. Speech on September 3, 1939 in James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.692-94.
136. Speeches on October 1, 1939, January 20 and 27, March 30, 1940 in James, e d , Churchill Speaks, pp.694-703.
137. S. Koss, The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain, pp.599.
138. James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.668-69.
 54

139. J. Lukacs, Five Days in London, May 1940 (New Haven: Yale UP, 1999); this theme was also dealt with in his
earlier work The Duel: 10 May - 31 July 1940: the Eighty Day Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler (New York:
Ticknor and Fields, 1990); a less complimentary view of Churchill at war is taken by D. Cannadine, The Decline and
Fall of the British Aristocracy, pp.618-20: the ordeal of war brought a host of "aristocratic adventurers" to the pinnacle
of power, led by Churchill, who "were not patricians governing as of right or by virtue of their class position; they were
individual rebels and gatecrashers who were in power by fluke and favour."
140. James, Churchill Speaks, pp.668-71.
 55

3 Memoirs and Markets: The Origins of a Publishing Syndicate

When Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940, he brought to the office a deep appreciation

for the potential o f press and propaganda to influence political consciousness. Few British leaders

in the 20th century were as intimately connected to the press through the pursuits o f journalism and

politics as Churchill, who assiduously cultivated friendships with every major newspaper owner and

editor in the country. H e carefully studied the major newspapers for their reactions to his speeches

and policy decisions, and during the war did not hesitate to call proprietors at midnight to discuss

the next day's headlines. Churchill's relationship with the press was at times stormy, as when they

deserted h i m after the Gallipoli debacle, prompting his wife Clementine to rail against "the Fleet

Street misinformation campaign" that nearly destroyed her husband's political career. Yet the press
1

remained a consistently lucrative source o f income for Churchill, with Beaverbrook's Evening

Standard his biggest financial backer until 1938. Churchill's critiques o f appeasement eventually

strained relations with the pro-Chamberlain press baron, forcing a shift to Camrose's Daily

Telegraph. Despite the fact that most o f Britain's press supported appeasement o f German
2

grievances prior to M u n i c h , Churchill was seldom without the means for getting his political

messages published, and after March 1939 won widespread support for his inclusion in the

government. Even leftist intellectual Harold Laski, who previously had excoriated Churchill as a

dangerous reactionary, wrote essays in Time and Tide and the New Statesman urging his inclusion

in the Cabinet. O n the left, only Labour's Daily Herald and the communist Daily Worker remained

unreconciled to Churchill's "fascistic tendencies" once the war began. 3

During the war, Churchill's enthusiasm for accumulating and wielding power confirmed

suspicions o f his enemies in the press that he was dictatorial-minded. H i s repressive impulses

prompted h i m to squash "disruptive" news reports that were thought to be damaging to morale,

shutting down the Daily Worker and threatening the Daily Mirror with similar treatment for

publishing offensive political cartoons. After the fall o f Singapore in 1942, Churchill complained

that press criticisms were like wasps buzzing all around while he wrestled a tiger: "The war is not

fought to amuse the newspapers, but to save the peoples." But for the most part he delegated issues
4

concerning the press to his crony Brendan Bracken, Minister o f Information from 1940-45, who

adroitly steered it in directions supportive o f the government. Despite a string o f military disasters

suffered up to November 1942, most o f Fleet Street emulated Churchill's bulldog spirit that
 56

contributed to his immense popularity. However, after the crushing victory at E l Alamein assured

Britons that the tide o f war had turned, the press became increasingly partisan in its reporting. 5

Churchill was similarly concerned with his reputation in the U S media, since he considered

himself the personification o f the Anglo-American "special relationship," monitoring attitudes

closely through British embassy summaries o f press reactions to his policies. A collection o f
6

Churchill's pre-war speeches published in 1941 became a bestseller in the U S when 50,000 copies

sold on first printing. The Saturday Review of Literature compared its author to Lincoln, praising

him as one o f the greatest defenders o f liberty. B y the time America entered the war, Churchill had

become an iconic figure for Americans with little knowledge o f his prewar reputation for political

audacity and opportunism. American journalists stationed in Britain fed readers a steady diet o f

articles that expressed awe at the war leader's ability to rally his countrymen against fierce odds.

A t the end o f the war, influential publishers like Time/Life owner Henry Luce saw the inculcation

of Churchillian values in American political culture as necessary to prepare the nation for its new

role as world leader. The fact that Britain was no longer a rival for political and economic influence
7

in the world made it that much easier to idealize Churchill.

A s the most colorful and dynamic leader o f the free world, there was a great deal o f interest

in the possible publication o f Churchill's war memoir, as the narration o f war histories in

personalized form have always powerfully attracted readers. Readership surveys and bestseller lists

at the time revealed that political memoirs were the most popular form o f historical literature. L i k e

all major wars before it, the drama and personae o f the second world war offered a wealth o f

exciting material for potential memoirists. In the early postwar, Churchill was in a similar position
8

as L l o y d George was at the end o f W o r l d War I. Both leaders constituted "a publisher's dream"

because they were controversial figures who had wielded enormous political power during a world

crisis, and were renowned for rhetorical brilliance in vigorously defending their positions. Thus,

Churchill had every reason to believe that he might also obtain vast advances from publishers for

his memoir on the second world war. 9

Speculation in the media began almost immediately as to

whether he would produce an account o f the great war drama in which he had played such a

significant part. Consequently, by 1946 Churchill possessed a very solid base o f interest in both

Britain and America on which to construct a publishing syndicate for disseminating his lessons on

war, while finally ensuring his family's financial security.

 57

Building a Publishing Syndicate

From the time he was a war correspondent for the Morning Post in the 1890s to the start o f

W o r l d War II, Churchill proved a prodigious writer. O n the eve o f war, he was engaged in several

literary projects, among them a multi-volume history o f the English-speaking peoples through

Cassell's publishing house, whose owners Desmond and Newman Flower specialized in producing

high quality "worthwhile texts." Each year they selected one or two books for special "artistic

treatment" that utilized the finest formatting, paper, typesetting and binding to showcase their

company's capabilities. In the interwar era, Cassell specialized in war memoirs, professing an

altruistic sense o f duty to make available to English-speaking readers the most important works on

the first world war. 10

In the mid-1930s, Newman Flower acquired the rights to A History of the

English-speaking Peoples, subsequently selling the U S rights to Houghton M i f f l i n o f Boston. In

1941, Churchill had second thoughts about the arrangement, and proposed exchanging rights to the

History for anything he might write about the war. Given the tremendous wartime demand for

Churchill's published speeches, Flower was only too happy to accept the new offer. L u c k i l y , the

paper reserve, managed by a committee o f publishers, subsequently released additional quantities

to the company for what it deemed "an essential work" o f national importance."

Churchill's offer to Cassell was the genesis o f an arrangement that subsequently grew into

the greatest memoir publishing syndicate ever created. In effect, Churchill began to lay the

foundations o f his first draft in September 1939, when he joined Chamberlain's War Cabinet and

initiated a torrent o f memoranda, directives, minutes, letters, and telegrams that did not abate until

his removal from office in 1945. O n occasion during the war, even after a matter was well in hand,

Churchill would draft a memorandum setting out his strategic position so as to have a permanent

record o f his prescience or insights. A t the height o f the Battle o f Britain in 1940, he informed John

Colville that he planned to retire to Chartwell after the war to write a book about the events o f that

year, having already mapped out in his mind chapter by chapter the story he intended to tell.

Churchill possessed a v i v i d historical consciousness that caused h i m to perceive contemporary

events through the memory and knowledge o f "the whole panorama o f European military history

stretching back over a thousand years." 12

In 1940, Churchill was not alone in recognizing a war story o f immense magnitude in the

making. Immediately after the dramatic events o f that spring and summer, publishers became

attuned to the possibility o f a bestseller from Britain's newest war hero. Once the country was freed
 58

from the peril o f imminent invasion, Fleet Street buzzed with talk o f a literary blockbuster from the

man o f the hour. Charles Eade, editor o f the Sunday Dispatch, contended that Churchill's memoir

would be "the biggest seller that the Prime Minister's works have ever attained." 13
Meanwhile,

Churchill was content to publish five volumes o f his speeches during the war. In July 1942, as

Parliament debated his war leadership following a series of military setbacks, Churchill cast an eye

to the future: "Nearly all my work has been done in writing, and a complete record exists o f all the

directions I have given, the inquiries I have made, and the telegrams I have drafted. I shall be

perfectly content to be judged by them." Later that year, when large American ground forces went
14

into action for the first time in the war and Britain's importance began to diminish, Churchill

consulted his solicitor Leslie Graham-Dixon about the tax implications o f signing a literary contract

for his war memoir. Nothing substantive was arranged, and it wasn't until late 1944 that he resumed

efforts to line up publishers and agents to facilitate his war narrative. Churchill sought to vindicate

his war record and replenish a depleted bank account when he offered Cassell first refusal rights for

his memoir, which Newman Flower accepted without hesitation. Shortly thereafter, by gentleman's
15

agreement, Churchill offered Camrose's Daily Telegraph serialization rights for the memoir. N o

papers were drawn up at the time because Churchill was still uncertain he would be able to actually

commence the project any time soon. 16

A s the war neared its end, British politicians jockeyed for political advantage in anticipation

of impending elections. Churchill was confident o f victory, since he was a world renowned war

leader whose stature and popularity in Britain were unmatched by any politician, least o f all

Labour's unassuming leader Clement Attlee. However, Labour had proven itself an able and loyal

party in the war, whose operatives worked diligently to organize support for the war effort in

factories and working class districts. Conservatives, on the other hand, lacked direction from the

top, as Churchill was entirely absorbed in the military aspects o f winning the war. In July 1945, the

Tories were ill-prepared for a major campaign. Party stalwarts assumed they could ride to victory

on the coattails o f Churchill's personal popularity. But memories o f the Tories' harsh fiscal policies

of the 1930s were still vivid, and workers anticipated a payoff for their sacrifices in the war. Labour

appealed to these interests by promising an ambitious program o f social reforms that would usher

in a new age o f welfare benefits for ordinary Britons. The Tories offered in return a negative

campaign that sought to scare the public away from the prospect o f a Labour "Gestapo" to oversee

public policy, a notion most voters considered ridiculous. Consequently, Labour swept into power
 59

in July 1945 with a landslide electoral victory, driving Churchill out o f office. 17

Suddenly out of power, Churchill was free to devote his attention to reconstructing the events

of the recent past. Nonetheless, he hesitated to announce plans to write his memoir, concerned that

severe taxes in Britain would eat up all o f the profits. Instead, he considered leaving his archive o f

documents to his children as a tax free gift. Camrose and Desmond Flower, however, urged

Churchill to set the memoir project in motion, confident that it would be the biggest literary event

since L l o y d George's memoir of the first world war. Churchill agreed to begin the preliminary work

o f classifying his records, noting that the amount o f original composition available in the form o f

personal war documents was substantial and naturally commanded the highest historical interest. 18

He was also very much concerned by the fact that his role in the war was being tarnished by

memoirs from former U S government officials in Roosevelt's administration.

Memoirs pouring out of U S publishing houses after the war displayed a decidedly American

perspective on the conflict. It was feared by a growing number o f Britons that collective war

memory in the English-speaking world was in jeopardy o f losing its appreciation o f their country's

enormous contribution to victory. In the fall o f 1945, newspaper columnist Hannen Swaffer

lamented that "Britain's share in what we regarded as a noble comradeship-in-arms becomes

increasingly maligned." He maintained that a riposte from Churchill was essential in order to

establish "the unchallengeable facts" of the nation's role in the war so that future generations in both

countries would know the truth. Swaffer asserted that the world must never forget the harrowing

days o f 1940-41, when all of Europe fell under the jackboot and Britain was forced to endure alone.

While Europe was in flames and democracy imperilled, Americans showed a strong inclination to

stay out o f the war, making it particularly galling that writers like Ralph Ingersoll (who served on

the U S General Staff Corps from 1943-45), Harry Butcher (a veteran o f the Italian campaign), and

Eliot Roosevelt ( F D R ' s son) should spout falsehoods and distortions that disparaged Britain's war

effort. 19

In London, British Books to Come, a publishing industry newsletter, noted that Churchill's

wartime speeches demonstrated a pungent vocabulary, robust phrasing, and eloquence that would

also be found in his war memoir, ensuring their highest literary standing for centuries to come. It

noted that Churchill's unparalleled ability for prose was "quick with the stirring flavour o f an

Elizabethan tradition, but also was the true expression of the spirit o f a people. Generations to come

w i l l be moved, as we have been moved, by the unflinching purpose o f his oratory through Britain's
 60

darkest hour to her most triumphant." 20

Thus, before a single word was published, and before

Churchill even had made known intentions to produce his memoir, commentators were fueling

extraordinary excitement for what was considered a sure literary masterpiece. Churchill was pressed

from many quarters to write his story "for the ages," Mountbatten wrote: "Never has the world had

the history of a gigantic war written by the Napoleon himself....If you w i l l do this, posterity w i l l gain

something unique." General Montgomery made a similar appeal, contending that Churchill was the

only man in Britain who could deal the American bias a mortal blow, and restore appreciation for

Britain's selfless stand against fascism. 21

In August 1945, Churchill poured over his war minutes while vacationing in the

Mediterranean. Moran later recounted that Churchill said to him:

'People say my speeches after Dunkirk were the thing. That is only a part, not the chief
part,' he complained. 'They forget I made all the main military decisions. You'd like to
read my minutes, Charles.' I asked him had they worn well. He smiled comfortably. 'They
are mine. I can publish them.' 22

Though he was not yet in the mood to do so, quoting Dr. Johnson to the effect that only a fool wrote

when he wasn't paid for it, Churchill began organizing an army o f research assistants, advisors,

secretaries, and proofreaders into a production team that later enabled h i m to churn out an average

of one large volume per year. H i s military advisors, Generals Ismay and Pownall, Admiral

Cunningham, and Commodore A l l e n , assisted in reconstructing key battles from the war. In

addition to drafting sections o f text, they utilized their contacts in the services to gain access to

classified war records that allowed detailed and authoritative accounts o f military operations. 23

In March 1946, Churchill asked his former literary assistant F.W. Deakin to help in preparing

and editing material for the memoir dealing with political and diplomatic events. Deakin fulfilled

the role o f "in-house" editor until becoming an Oxford D o n later that year, whereupon Churchill's

archivist Denis K e l l y assumed the chief editorial duties at Chartwell. Deakin played a central role

in organizing a five-man research team to consult with former officials, military officers and

politicians. They submitted detailed questionnaires and obtained personal diaries or dossiers from

key figures in the war. Even after his move to Oxford, Deakin continued to work closely with

Churchill throughout the memoir project, and wrote large portions o f the manuscript dealing with

diplomacy, especially after Churchill's second stroke in 1949. One of Britain's top scholars, Isaiah

Berlin, was also hired to work on drafts and proofs, verifying facts, figures and arguments. 24
Finally,
 61

government officials and publishing editors vetted sections of the narrative prior to publication. The

advice Churchill received from Whitehall went beyond technical issues to include recommendations

for strengthening the dramatic aspects o f the story, and even suggestions on how to accentuate his

image as a decisive and prescient war leader while disguising his amateurish conjectures. 25

In the months before the release o f each volume, Churchill worked feverishly on revisions,

expecting his research team to show the same level o f dedication. Six full-time secretaries working

in six-hour shifts were kept busy typing for up to 16 hours a day. Prior to assuming editorial duties,

K e l l y worked in the basement o f Chartwell to bring "cosmos to chaos" in Churchill's personal

archive. K e l l y produced the required documents that Churchill used to scribble notes or cut into

sections, writing a short introduction to link each fragment together. Churchill worked virtually

non-stop throughout the year, taking with him wherever he traveled a full office staff and all o f their

necessary equipment. Within one hour o f de-planing anywhere in the world, his office was up and

running. In addition to secretaries and literary advisors, Churchill employed an army o f couriers to

relay drafts between England and the U S , where publishers anxiously awaited the latest proofs. 26

Such intensive labor in the production process added immensely to overall costs, prompting some

publishers to lament that their profits were being eaten up by Churchill's method o f writing. 27

Before he could publish anything, however, Churchill needed to get around the hurdle o f

Britain's secrecy laws. In the first world war, government policy regarding use o f Cabinet

documents in political memoirs had been based on informal practices that varied considerably from

one administration to the next. The Official Secrets A c t (OSA) o f 1911, which laid the groundwork

for modern day disclosure o f government secrets, was originally limited in its application to cases

of treason and terrorism. The man most responsible for utilizing the O S A as a device for protecting

Cabinet secrecy was Maurice Hankey, who developed a set o f rules governing ownership and use

o f Cabinet papers in memoirs. Hankey had been instrumental in creating the Cabinet Secretariat

under L l o y d George during the first world war, using the office to streamline communications

between the War Cabinet and government departments. During Hankey's long tenure as Cabinet

Secretary from 1916-38 he sought to protect Cabinet secrecy by expansively interpreting the O S A ,

making it applicable to any unauthorized publication o f government documents deemed prejudicial

to the state. Prejudice was presumed in the case o f unauthorized disclosures, placing the burden o f

proof upon an author to establish that there was no harm caused. Hankey further tightened

government control over minutes and memoranda produced in Cabinet by threatening departing
 62

ministers with prosecution i f they did not surrender documents in their possession. 28

It took Hankey most o f the interwar period to w i n acceptance o f the new procedural rules.

For most o f that time, the O S A was never invoked to stem the flow o f memoirs from former

ministers who used official Cabinet documents to write about their time in office. It was tacitly

accepted by political leaders that the A c t did not operate at the ministerial level, despite Hankey's

efforts to apply it to all former officials regardless of rank. Nonetheless, Churchill freely submitted

drafts o f The World Crisis to relevant ministries, thereby giving birth to a procedure whereby former

ministers vetted their memoirs with the administration in office at the time o f production. In 1934,

Hankey finally succeeded in imposing stricter guidelines by making an example o f a former

intelligence officer who published his memoir without authorization. The new rules made Cabinet

ministers subject to prosecution for unauthorized disclosures, and required departing ministers to

return all documents in their possession to the Cabinet Secretariat. Unlike other government

records, Cabinet documents were deemed permanently closed to the public, a prohibition that

remained in effect until 1966. The success o f Hankey's reforms was most evident in the interwar

memoirs o f Samuel Hoare, John Simon, L o r d Halifax, and D u f f Cooper. These former ministers

were prevented from incorporating detailed political and diplomatic information into their accounts

of appeasement policy, causing their stories to appear banal and weak. Churchill and L l o y d George,

however, refused to surrender their papers when asked in 1934, snubbing Hankey and the Cabinet's

clear directive. Churchill asserted that his practice o f seeking consent o f the government o f the day

was a sufficient safeguard. 29

While the Cabinet Secretariat between 1934-66 maintained a tight grip on Cabinet secrecy

by denying minor officials and historians access to Cabinet documents, a massive exception to the

1934 rules was made for all memoirs produced by former War Cabinet members. This wholesale

suspension o f the disclosure provisions was effected on the final day o f the coalition government's

existence in M a y 1945, when the Cabinet gave its assent to a special memorandum on "Return o f

Cabinet Documents," which specified: "Ministers are entitled to keep all telegrams, minutes or

documents circulated to the Cabinet which they wrote and signed themselves....These must be

regarded as their personal property except that they w i l l be bound by the rules governing the use of

official papers which are well established." In effect, it re-defined the concept o f "property" to

exclude War Cabinet documents, though Hankey's successors did manage to retain the practice o f

governmental vetting o f any memoirs based on such records. 30

 63

In M a y 1946, Churchill informed Prime Minister Attlee that he had always adhered to his

father's dictum that no document or state paper relating to official government work should be made

public "without the approval o f the Departmental Minister concerned and o f the Prime Minister o f

the day," though such approval ought not to be arbitrarily denied. W h e n he was Prime Minister,

Churchill had granted such consideration to Baldwin, despite their bitter political rivalry before the

war. Churchill explained that it was his method o f doing business to put everything in writing, and

he felt strongly that such documents deserved to be published, adding that it was not solely for

reasons o f personal vindication:

These pieces, written at the moment and under the impact o f events, with all their
imperfections and fallacies o f judgment, show far better than anything composed in
subsequent years could do, the hopes and fears and difficulties through which we made our
way. I am by no means certain that I should wish to publish these documents in my lifetime,
but I think they would certainly w i n sympathy for our country, particularly i n the United
States, and make them understand the awful character o f the trials through which we passed
especially when we were fighting alone, and the moral debt owed to us by other countries.

Churchill claimed that books recently published in the U S sullied his personal reputation and that

of Britain, requiring a forceful and authoritative rejoinder. He was particularly upset by American
31

criticisms that he delayed the Normandy invasion, supported wholesale bombing o f civilians,

approved a draconian plan to pastoralize Germany, deviously maneuvered to secure total British

control o f Operation Overlord (the D - D a y invasion), and insisted on the ill-fated A n z i o landings

near Rome while in a feverish state of mind. Ingersoll alleged that Churchill bore full responsibility

for the Italian fiasco because o f his amateurish meddling in military operations. He also blamed

Churchill's belligerence and deceit toward the Russians in trying to renege on the Yalta agreement

as the cause o f the tragic chilling o f relations between the allies after the war. 32

Churchill was determined to refute these allegations before they became widely accepted by

the American public as true. In a letter to Cabinet Secretary Edward Bridges, Churchill intimated

that he was being pressed from many quarters to give his account o f Britain's war story and noted

his intention to rely on personal memoranda from the war. Nonetheless, conscious o f the

government's ability to obstruct access to official sources, he promised not to publish anything that

might be harmful to the public interest. He also offered to submit all final proofs to interested

ministries, and to accept the excision o f any sensitive matters prior to publication: "I feel I have a

right, i f I so decide, to tell my tale and I am convinced that it would be to the advantage o f our
 64

country to have it told, as perhaps I alone can tell it ....I should be glad to receive the Prime

Minister's view upon this matter at his convenience in order that I may consider what course to

take." Attlee thought the arrangement acceptable, but Foreign Secretary Bevin objected to granting
33

Churchill such privileges, arguing that his memoir was likely to damage Britain's relations with

foreign nations at a time when he was seeking a comprehensive peace settlement in Europe. Attlee

brushed aside this objection since publication of the memoir was not expected for several years. He

officially approved Churchill's request in October 1946, permitting the author free access to

whatever government archives he desired. 34

Churchill was now free to circumvent the O S A and breach the barriers o f Cabinet secrecy

in ways that no historian or other writer on the war could hope to emulate for at least fifty years,

giving h i m a tremendous advantage in generating collective memory about appeasement and the

war. Even the blanket prohibition against revealing wartime Enigma decrypts o f German and

Japanese top secret codes did not seriously hamper him. Churchill's rise in stature during and after

the war as a man o f great strategic vision was to some extent due to his secret knowledge o f enemy

decrypts that the general public did not learn about until the early 1970s. In the meantime, his

decisions were cast in a more prophetic and far-sighted light than they undoubtedly warranted,

greatly enhancing his reputation for military and political genius. There remained the issue o f the
35

Copyright A c t which stipulated that minutes and documents "prepared by or under the direction or

control o f His Majesty" were government property and subject to a fifty-year non-disclosure rule.

Narrowly defined, it could have precluded Churchill from using his documents. H i s solicitor A .

M o i r concluded that all o f the author's personal minutes from the war fell outside the statute's

domain, and the government made no attempt to challenge that assessment. 36

Churchill's success in securing the Attlee government's full cooperation in producing his

memoir signified the national importance and quasi-official status that was attached to his war

narrative. This is also apparent in actions taken by the Historical Section, an agency under the

direction o f the Cabinet Secretariat responsible for producing official war histories. Its work began

in 1941 under Churchill's authority, but the final volumes were only completed thirty-five years

later. Nonetheless, historians working on official accounts o f the war during the late 1940s readily

made their unpublished research available to Churchill, enabling h i m to glean the most pertinent and

interesting information for use in his memoir. This close working relationship also influenced the

shaping o f the official histories. 37

Early volumes closely conformed to Churchill's own
 65

metanarrative, though later volumes, such as those on grand strategy written by Norman Gibbs in

the 1970s, took a more critical line that reflected revisionist thinking on the war years.

The Chartwell and Literary Trusts

In July 1945, just days after the Tories' election defeat, Churchill began the legal business

o f organizing a publishing syndicate with the help o f his solicitors and L o r d Camrose. A scheme

was devised whereby Churchill's papers were given to a trust in favor o f his children. The trustees

then contracted with a publisher (the Daily Telegraph) to hire an author (Churchill) to write a history

based on the former war leader's records. The Literary Trust was managed by Churchill's old

friends L o r d Cherwell and Brendan Bracken, along with his wife Clementine, who undertook to

administer the proceeds from sales o f the memoir for the benefit o f his children and grandchildren.

The terms of the trust were only finalized when Camrose and Churchill's foreign agent Emery Reves

(see below) settled the U S publication rights in December 1946. Churchill appears to have become

so intimate with Camrose, in whom he felt an absolute trust, that he dispensed with the usual

practice o f hiring an independent literary agent, except in regard to foreign language publication

rights. Camrose combined a great deal of experience in producing memoirs, having serialized L l o y d

George's literary effort in the 1930s, with a strong personal affection for Churchill that flowered in

the late 1930s and persisted for the rest o f his life. Consequently, Churchill readily entrusted

Camrose with full powers to negotiate the U S rights to his memoir. 38

In mid-1946, Camrose learned that financial woes had forced Churchill to put Chartwell up

for sale. Camrose promptly devised another clever scheme to establish a property trust that would

purchase the estate for double its market value. It was then leased back to Churchill for a nominal

sum for the duration o f his and Clementine's lives, and upon their deaths the property reverted to

a National Trust memorial to Britain's great war leader. O n short notice, Camrose solicited sixteen

wealthy friends o f Churchill to put up £5000 apiece toward the purchase, with the Daily Telegraph

owner contributing £15,000 himself. The trusts put Churchill's literary and financial affairs on a

solid footing, allowing him to concentrate on writing his memoir. H i s research assistants, already

hard at work on the text, were finally Offered formal retainers o f £ 1 0 0 0 each. 39

For another year, Churchill publically denied plans to write his memoir, partly because he

was uncertain they could be produced in his lifetime. Rumors spread, eliciting an unprecedented

publishers' bidding war for what was perceived as the literary plum of a lifetime. Churchill appeared
 66

to enjoy playing cat-and-mouse with eager American publishers seeking an audience with him while
flooding his mailbox with contract offers. Before the end of 1945, nineteen publishers in the US had
submitted formal offers to produce his memoir, though none matched the sums that Luce was
prepared to spend, nor the prestige or publicity that he could bring to the project. By the 1940s, 40

Luce was a legend of the publishing world due to his remarkable success at redefining the form and
content of popular weekly journals in the US. For him, the profit motive in pursuing the memoir
was of secondary importance, as he was willing to spend lavishly on winning the rights even without
clear knowledge of potential sales revenues. Rather, he saw Churchill's memoir as a feather in his
cap that signified he was "top dog" among publishers. In addition, Luce had become an ardent anti-
41

communist by 1944, and he envisaged that Churchill's memoir could be used in the fight against
communism at home and abroad.
Luce began his quest for Churchill's memoir in July 1945, when he dangled publishing
plums before the now underemployed British politician. Life's London bureau chief Walter
Graebner offered $75,000 (US) for three short articles on topics of Churchill's choosing, but tax
concerns caused the deal to be rejected. Instead, Churchill suggested that some of his paintings be
reproduced in lieu of an article, since their publication was subject to a lower capital gains tax. Luce
recognized that buying reproduction rights to the paintings would give Life an inside track to the
memoir, and so agreed to pay $20,000 for them. In January 1946, Life published twelve of
42

Churchill's oil paintings in a full-color spread with commentary on the war leader's artistic passion.
Aside from providing Churchill with some easy money, the feature article presented a warm,
humanistic side to his image that countered his reputation among some Americans as a man who
reveled in war. Churchill next offered Life three of his secret session speeches from the war for
43

$75,000. Though Luce thought the speeches were boring and of little interest to Life's readers, he
agreed to the deal, informing a skeptical Dan Longwell:

I t w a s , o f c o u r s e , a p i g i n a p o k e . A n d I b e l i e v e t h a t Life h a s g o t t o b u y s o m e s u c h p i g s i n o r d e r
to keep a position in the meat market. Also, the prestigious flam flam may make itworth while.
Also, it can be worth the space plus the money if, in some sense, Churchill becomes 'our
author.' 4 4

Longwell, a co-founder of Life who handled the creative side of the magazine, personally chose the
layout and illustrations for Life's feature articles. Three weeks after Life reproduced Churchill's
paintings, it published thefirstsecret session speech, causing an uproar in Britain over its use of
 67

secret government documents. M a n y British readers felt they should never have reached the public

via a popular American picture magazine famous for its displays o f buxom women. 45

Negotiations for the memoir continued during Churchill's trip to the U S in M a r c h 1946 to

deliver his "Sinews o f Peace" address at Fulton, Missouri. Luce ensured that Life representatives

feted and coddled the British leader so as to monopolize his time and attention. He also offered

Churchill $50,000 for a radio broadcast on national hookup, which was turned down out o f concern

it might ruffle feathers in Washington. Just before returning to Britain at the end o f March,

Churchill was honored at a lavish dinner hosted by Luce and a hundred specially selected Time/Life

employees. Unbeknownst to Churchill, Luce invited his biggest advertisers to the event in order to

"show o f f his client. Luce personally reminded employees that it was imperative Churchill have

an enjoyable evening, meaning he be permitted to do most o f the talking. Weeks later, Luce made

a return visit to Churchill at Chartwell, and instructed Graebner to make follow up "social visits"

to keep abreast o f Churchill's thoughts and plans. 46

In September 1946, four days after Churchill complained o f unfair allegations made in the

U S about Britain's role in the war, Life's European correspondent John Osborne informed him that

the American press was not giving British affairs or Tory policies adequate attention. Osborne

offered to write a story about Churchill's international agenda in order to educate American readers

"that in fact there still is a British policy which is worth reporting." He suggested that Americans

were "shocked and disillusioned" by Labour's victory, believing it a betrayal o f allied war aims and

contributing to perceptions o f Britain as a greatly diminished power that had lost its way. Life's

pages were offered as a forum for disabusing American readers o f the notion that the values o f

capitalist democracy were no longer alive in postwar B r i t a i n . 47

While Luce and company pursued their quarry by dispensing generous quantities o f cash and

flattery, another publishing dynamo was working just as hard to court Churchill's favors. Emery

Reves had been Churchill's foreign publishing agent before the war, but had lost touch with his

client in the intervening years. The day after the Conservatives' election defeat in July 1945, Reves

cabled Churchill to offer his services again regarding any articles or memoirs he might contemplate

writing. When he received no response, Reves continued to send telegrams to his former client

almost daily, informing Churchill that his many contacts in American publishing circles could be

of invaluable service to the author, such as his close ties with Readers' Digest, a popular monthly

journal with ten million subscribers and an estimated fifty million readers. Reves also claimed to
 68

have received million-dollar offers for Churchill's memoir that would guarantee the British

statesman financial security for the rest o f his life. 48

Churchill knew Reves to be a man o f the highest integrity with a genius for turning literary

ventures into lucrative world-wide best sellers. Born to a Hungarian Jewish family, Reves (Imre

Revesz before changing his name in 1936) went to Germany in the 1920s to study commerce and

earn a doctorate in economics. However, journalism was his true passion, and in 1927 he created

an innovative business to distribute world-wide articles and speeches from major international

figures. N o such service then existed, but in a short time Reves built up an impressive list o f

prominent clients. H i s Jewish background, and the practice o f distributing pro-democracy essays,

forced his hasty departure to Paris after Hitler came to power in 1933. He first met Churchill in

1937, and shortly thereafter began placing the British leader's anti-appeasement articles in major

newspapers throughout Europe, Africa and A s i a . It enabled Churchill to disseminate his messages
49

in ways that would otherwise have been impossible for someone without political power. Aside

from the income it earned, Churchill undoubtedly valued the international attention Reves garnered

for him at a low point in his career. Reves' business made it possible for Churchill to reach 15-20

million foreign readers in twenty-five different languages. Pleased by the results, in 1938 Churchill

granted Reves exclusive rights to distribute all of his articles outside o f Britain, but shortly thereafter

the relationship was disrupted by the outbreak o f war. Reves was forced to relocate again, first to

Britain, where he worked briefly with Bracken and Camrose at the Ministry o f Information, before

moving to N e w Y o r k in 1941, where he re-established his distribution service. 50

In early fall 1945, Reves informed Churchill o f offers from leading U S newspapers for

serializing his memoir. He noted that some newspapers were offering a half million dollars for the

rights, but claimed even better offers awaited. Though he had no authority to act on Churchill's

behalf, in October 1945 he solicited an offer in excess o f one million dollars for North American

publishing rights. Reves suggested that the intense interest shown by U S publishers and readers for

Churchill's war story presented the British leader with an opportunity to repair Anglo-American

relations, which had deteriorated following Labour's election victory. He believed that a proposal

comprising magazine, newspaper, radio and film rights for the memoir could yield up to two million

dollars, since an all-inclusive package deal guaranteed higher profits in the U S than separate deals

for articles now and memoir later. In January 1946, Churchill authorized Reves to be his publishing

agent in America, albeit under the general direction o f Camrose. In return, Reves agreed to pay
 69

Churchill £80,000 for foreign language rights to the memoir. 51

That autumn, Reves and Camrose traveled to the U S where they discovered two competing

syndicates vying for the memoir, each comprising a major national magazine and a N e w Y o r k daily

newspaper. There were also several lone publishers interested in the memoir who were offering to

pay high fees. The inside track was held by Life and the New York Times against their next closest

competitors, the Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald Tribune. Camrose handled the

newspapers, since he knew all of the principals well, while Reves dealt with Colliers, Life, Readers'

Digest, and the Saturday Evening Post. During negotiations, great care was taken by the two men

not to disclose the existence o f the Literary Trust, since it might reveal that Churchill was eager to

complete a deal. Nothing was mentioned about the previously arranged book and serial rights for

British and Commonwealth markets (excluding Canada). A m o n g U S book publishers, Doubleday,

Harpers, and Simon & Schuster initially expressed the strongest interest in Churchill's memoir, but

it was Houghton M i f f l i n that eventually won the book rights, thanks to Reves' close business

relationship with its owner Harry Laughlin. 52

After weeks o f negotiations, Camrose was ready to

close a $ 1.1 million deal with Colliers when Churchill suddenly accepted a long-standing offer o f

$25,000 from its owner for an article on current affairs. Colliers promptly reduced its offer for the

memoir to half a million dollars, causing Camrose and Reves to decide that the offer o f Life and the

New York Times was more prestigious in addition to providing much more money. 53

While in N e w York, Camrose learned that the Republican-dominated Congress was putting

intense pressure on Roosevelt's estate to have all o f the deceased President's papers made public.

M a n y Republicans, including Luce, resented F D R ' s immense popularity with the American people,

whose fame had not diminished with his death in 1945. Republicans hoped that declassifying F D R ' s

papers would produce revelations damaging to his reputation, thereby enhancing their party's chance

of recapturing control o f the White House. The prospect o f early publication o f Roosevelt's papers

was most disconcerting to Camrose, who feared that it would steal much o f the thunder from

Churchill's account o f their wartime relationship. 54

Consequently, he rushed to finalize the deal,

urging Reves to make a late-night visit to Luce's home to pressure the publisher into a final offer

of $1.4 million, bringing the total sale o f publication rights to £633,000 (the equivalent o f £12.3

million, or $9.8 million U S in 1999). While most o f this money went to the trustees, administered
55

for the children and grandchildren o f Churchill, the author received advances o f £35,000 per volume

for delivery o f a completed manuscript. Camrose was ready to close the deal on a handshake, but
 70

the more litigiously minded Americans determined that a formal contract was necessary, meaning

it could not be made public until the following M a y . Matters were complicated by Life's insistence

on a clause in the contract guaranteeing that Churchill would write for no other American magazine,

something he thought too restrictive in light o f his deal with Colliers. Luce settled the issue by

buying the Colliers article for $25,000 in return for a gentlemen's agreement that Churchill only

write for Time/Life publications for the duration o f the memoir project. 56

The Agreement stipulated that Churchill was to produce five volumes o f about 200,000

words each, but as it turned out his memoir ran to six volumes and over two million words. This

created legal complications in the U S , when corporate lawyers for Life and the New York Times

insisted on adhering strictly to the terms o f the contract. In Britain, however, publishers had no

difficulty overlooking legal strictures to permit production o f another volume. The contract

specified a tight production schedule that called for Volume I to be completed in 1947, Volumes II

and III in 1948, and Volumes I V and V in 1949. It was an ambitious plan, even by Churchill's

prodigious literary standards, and he wisely insisted on an escape clause stating that there would be

no penalty for failing to maintain the designated schedule. 57

H i s declining health and increased

political commitments after the Tories' victory in 1951 made it impossible to produce the volumes

as quickly as originally intended. Nonetheless, Churchill was still paid his full fee o f £175,000 in

five equal installments, and even managed later to secure an additional payment o f £60,000 from

his British publishers for the sixth volume, though they were under no obligation to do so. He also
58

enjoyed lucrative fringe benefits, as when Luce bankrolled expenses totaling $13,600 for a trip

Churchill and his entourage made to Marrakesh in 1947 to work on the memoir, and in 1949 when

Life funded two dinners in Churchill's honor costing over $8000. 59

When Churchill expressed an interest in writing an article on the Truman Doctrine in 1947,

Reves initially warned against the idea, but a few months later his attitude changed when he

recognized the interest it was attracting. 60

The article on aid to anti-communist forces in Europe

included secret information about Britain's controversial intervention i n Greece late in the war.

Reves saw it as an excellent primer for the first volume o f memoir due to be released a few months

later. But while he was happy for the publicity, Reves objected to the manner in which Luce

handled the article's distribution whereby Life gained exclusive publishing rights for one week prior

to its release elsewhere. Reves resented Luce's arrogant attempt to establish a position o f

preeminence within the syndicate, complaining to Churchill: " Y o u must realize that the publication
 71

of such an article by you is a major event in the world press and that in order to organize worldwide
distribution you must appoint one commanding general who plans the overall strategy." This was
not possible under current arrangement, Reves felt, because Life and its editors were "suffering from
some sort of a persecution mania which induces them to dictate intolerable conditions." The people
at Life were treating the British and European press as their subsidiaries, rather than as colleagues
in a joint venture. 61

Churchill's article was published in twenty-five countries and received immense attention
wherever it was sold. Its publication was a dress rehearsal for the syndicate, serving to iron out
kinks in the relationship between author and publishers. Reves informed Churchill that foreign
reception of the article showed that his position in the world was "absolutely unique." Newspapers
in small and impoverished countries fought intensely for the publishing rights, offering up to fifteen
times the highest previous price paid for an article in their respective markets, enabling Reves to
capitalize by maximizing the fees attained for Churchill's memoir. As work on the memoir
62

progressed, Churchill confided to Luce his annoyance at the rubbish being produced in the US about
Anglo-American friction during the latter stages of the war. Confidently, he asserted that his
memoir would "blow it all away" while vindicating his war leadership. As a token of gratitude for
63

Luce's generosity, he gave the publisher one of his paintings. Luce promised to cherish it as long
as he lived, after which it would pass to his son so that he might carry it into the 21 century: "How
st

brightly then will burn the fame of its author, when civilization will have known that it was saved
by his efforts and by his eager love of all that is not barbarous." 64

The Artistry and Techniques of Production

For a year prior to the release of Volume I, the media syndicate publicized Churchill's
memoir, urging prospective readers to subscribe to the "literary event of the century." In the New
65

York Times, a front page story complete with photograph of the author (the only one on the page)
declared that his war narrative would constitute "one of the greatest and most brilliantly written
historical documents of all time" from a writer with an outstanding literary record. The syndicate,
and many media sources not directly affiliated with the project, excitedly noted that Churchill's
memoir would constitute the crowning literary achievement of his life, just as his direction of
Britain's war effort marked the pinnacle of his political career. Time magazine called the planned
production of one million Churchillian words the literary jewel of World War II that was not to be
 72

missed by discerning readers anywhere. 66

After the syndicate's somewhat shaky start over publication of the Truman Doctrine article,
Churchill requested that publicity campaigns be carefully coordinated by all of the publishers. In
order to generate interest in the memoir prior to publication, the syndicate conveyed a sense of
public involvement in the writing process, implying that readers were observing history in the
making. For example, Life noted that Churchill was one of the most brilliant historians of the
English-speaking world, and was currently the only major figure from World War II writing its
history, making this combination of statesman and historian without parallel since Julius Caesar
wrote his Gallic War. Churchill was pleased with publicity that kept him in the public eye and on
61

the front pages of newspapers, even as he neglected his political duties as Tory leader. Far from
subordinating his personal writing to his public responsibilities, Churchill utilized the Conservative
Party's Central Office as a communications link for messages between himself, his staff, and the
publishers. It appears that lesser paying members of the syndicate were forced to rely on Party
officials for communicating with the author, whereas Churchill always made himself available to
Camrose or Graebner on short notice. But even Life's editorial staff found it difficult to persuade
Churchill to grant permission for taking photographs of Chartwell, one sanctuary to which the author
felt he could escape the pressures of daily life. In early 1948, the international media were also
68

primed for the impending release of Churchill's memoir. Newspapers in virtually every major city
fueled the mood of excitement by reporting regularly on the whereabouts of the famous author and
his work-in-progress. Every sighting of Churchill on his travels around Europe, North Africa, and
America became front-page news stories. Journalists reported that Churchill's memoir represented
the most important personal narrative likely to come out of the war. 69

The issue of timing the first volume's release concerned most syndicate members,
preoccupying a good deal of their correspondence with Churchill in the year leading up to
publication. The book publishers were anxious that Volume I be in bookstores by autumn 1948 in
order to capitalize on reader interest fueled by the earlier serialization. It also would allow book
publishers to benefit from the annual Christmas shopping spree. Consequently, Longwell drafted
a note to all syndicate members on how best to harvest their literary plum:

Let's always remember that the Churchill Memoirs are the biggest literary and historical
project that L I F E , or for that matter any other publication, has ever undertaken. There is no
doubt about its success, but the problem is how to present the material so that it will achieve
 73

an impact which is equal to the importance of the work. To accomplish this there must be
complete co-ordination and co-operation between the magazines, newspapers and book
publishers involved, and the publication of the volumes must be perfectly timed.
The ideal cycle - and one that would create the greatest effect on the largest number
of people - would be for LIFE and the New York Times to publish one volume in the first
two months of the year and one volume in the summer. This would then allow the book
publishers to bring out their volumes in the spring and autumn which are the best seasons
for book publishing and, in this instance, are the times when the book publisher can best
capitalize on the publication, promotion and publicity by LIFE and the New York Times.
If this cycle can be maintained the necessary momentum will be developed. A long
break between the publication of two volumes would destroy the momentum and necessitate
a fresh start. The three American publishers involved fully realize the importance of this
element and are ready to co-ordinate their efforts in this direction.
Naturally, we are most eager to begin publication as soon as possible and at the most
propitious time.... We do not, of course, wish to press Mr. Churchill, but I feel that he will
want to know and consider the facts in planning his work. 70

However, Churchill refused to be rushed, feigning disinterest in the project whenever pressure

became too great. H i s insistence on making "overproof' corrections (overtakes, according to his

publishers) to the typed and set final proofs delayed production o f each volume by many months.

Even after "final" corrections were sent to the printers, he continued to re-work the galley proofs,

driving book publishers to distraction. Houghton M i f f l i n chose to ignore most o f these late and

costly corrections to the text, publishing an incomplete version, but one that appeared right after

Life's serialization. Cassell, however, was obliged to wait, resulting in a definitive British version,

but one which was released up to six months after the American edition arrived in bookstores. 71

The issue o f book titles also excited much debate among syndicate members. Desmond

Flower thought that publishing all volumes under a general title would harm book sales, since

readers might defer making purchases until the full set was available. He wanted separate titles for

each volume, which would be more eye-catching to readers and accord with Churchill's notion o f

writing a contribution to history rather than a definitive account o f the war, as a general title might

imply. 72
It was eventually agreed to combine both approaches, with each volume separately titled

under a general name, The Second World War. Churchill wanted to call Volume I "The Downward

Path," to reflect the course o f British foreign policy from the end o f W o r l d War I, but Laughlin

preferred a title that would give readers a sense o f living the war again at the side o f the man who

bore a major responsibility for its conduct: "It is vitally interesting to know the facts o f the war but

what you have to say goes far beyond that.... What makes it intensely exciting reading is that the

reader put himself in your place and for the moment identifies himself with you....My point is that

this book is not just history or just narrative. It is our (italics mine) presentation o f it to the
 74

public." Reves disliked any use of "memoirs" in the title, fearing that most readers considered the
73

genre "frightfully dull." Given the tremendous interest in memoirs before and after the war, his

concern was clearly misplaced. Nonetheless, references to memoirs were omitted from the general

title, and explicit instructions given to all publishers to emphasize volume titles in their advertising.

For Volume I, Churchill and Laughlin finally settled on The Gathering Storm for its title. 74

Days before serialization began, K e l l y received copies o f Life's extracts that revealed

dubious editing practices. Sections o f narrative had been inserted alongside text from entirely

different chapters, without any apparent regard for their original order. Life's editors appeared to

demonstrate little respect for the author's narrative structure, creating composite paragraphs

comprising sentences from several different sections. They justified the distortions by claiming that

readers in the U S would find their version more entertaining and dramatic. Excising paragraphs

from the original version was deemed necessary to reduce the quantity o f material that was o f little

interest to American readers. Surprisingly, Churchill did not demand that this wholesale re-working

of his text be stopped, though he did insist that it "would be wrong to omit in these days" his prewar

prophecies o f doom. K e l l y , however, was incensed by Life's editorial practices:

Isolated paragraphs have been picked out of various chapters and strung together in an
entirely new order. In many cases only portions of the paragraphs have been extracted. I
have already found several instances of sentences from one paragraph being tacked on to
sentences from an entirely different one. In two cases only half of your sentences have been
included. The whole effect, to my mind, is misleading and I feel that you should consider
whether they should not be asked to abstain from mutilation of the text, and to include whole
paragraphs as opposed to 'snatches.' 75

His. indignation spurred Churchill to write Longwell that he was deeply troubled by Life's practices.

Graebner replied that Life merely wanted to use the best material with revealing and lively

anecdotes, succinct historical recapitulations, and as much Churchillian rhetoric as possible. Each

installment constituted a story that required a unity o f its own, with a clearly identifiable beginning,

middle and end. He denied that Life had damaged or distorted the prose in any material way, but

where it had been altered for the sake of clarity or concision the installment was better for it. A s for

newspaper extracts, K e l l y and Churchill were generally satisfied, though they urged the Daily

Telegraph to allocate even more space to them on account o f intense reader interest in Britain. 76

Serialization began simultaneously in twenty different countries in A p r i l 1948. While Life

ran only six installments o f Volume I that featured a few dramatic episodes from the memoir, the
 75

New York Times and Daily Telegraph published thirty installments over two months, incorporating

40% o f the original text. 77

While extracts were being published, Time presented an article on the

business o f producing the memoir, revealing some o f the author's work habits while noting the

unprecedented global interest in Churchill's story and praising h i m as the greatest living man in the

world. 78
In Britain, the Daily Telegraph informed readers that Churchill's memoir constituted the

most expensive copy in publishing history. Readers were titillated by suggestions o f revelations

from a great number o f secret documents o f the highest importance. They were reminded that

Churchill was the man o f destiny, untainted by any responsibility for the diplomatic debacle o f the

1930s, who mercifully arose out of the political wilderness to lead his people in their hour o f peril. 79

A t the same time, the B B C ' s international radio service offered readings from Churchill's memoir

that were broadcast around the world in fifteen different languages. Each reading, preceded by "an

important announcement" warning, was narrated by popular British radio personality George

Rhodes and earned Churchill £ 4 in residual fees. The interest generated by the serialized extracts

prompted Britain's National Institute for the B l i n d to seek permission to publish a special Braille

edition, while its American counterpart released an audio version o f the memoir. 80

Since serialized extracts contained the most dramatic parts o f the narrative, book publishers

sought to launch their editions as soon as possible thereafter, when reader interest was at a peak.

This required bookstores to have copies o f each volume well before its release date. O n l y through

advanced distributions could publishers meet the demand of every bookstore and retail outlet in their

respective markets, with prominent storefront displays o f Churchill's memoir in place oh the last

day o f serialization. Houghton Mifflin succeeded in adhering to this schedule, but only by ignoring

Churchill's later revisions involving hundreds o f corrections to the text. Britain's chronic paper

shortages and rationing made it impossible for Cassell to act as quickly, but it took consolation in

the fact that it had published the definitive version. Postwar austerity caused many headaches for
81

Cassell, such as when the government Controller initially refused to allocate enough paper for more

than 200,000 copies o f Volume I. Based on advanced subscriptions, this figure was at least 30%

short o f what was needed to satisfy consumer demand. The restrictions forced Cassell to limit its

run o f proofs, much to Churchill's annoyance. When the book went to press, Flower was forced to

apologize to an irrate author that quotas on paper and cloth prevented a better end-product. Among

other things, Churchill was displeased with the exceedingly small print after being embarrassed by

friends who received complimentary copies they apparently could not read. 82
 76

In M a y 1948, Laughlin reported that advanced orders for Volume I were running very high,

and that the book would surely be reviewed in the American media "to an extent which no book has

ever been reviewed here before," an outcome sure to boost sales further. He added: "The publication

of The Gathering Storm which so far as Houghton Mifflin Company and I are concerned is simply

the result o f a great many happy chances which swung in our favor is, nonetheless, in my opinion

the most worthwhile venture in our century of publishing and the book most significant for our time

and likely to last in influence for countless years to come." The determined efforts o f Laughlin and
83

Reves to promote the book in America secured its selection to the Book-of-the-Month Club's June

list, guaranteeing an enormous sales spurt from the Club's 750,000 members. Houghton Mifflin's
84

Riverside Press worked closely with the Book Club, leasing printing plates to the Club for use at its

own facilities. The fact that Cassell's release came four months later caused Flower to complain that

the Americans for violating the spirit o f the syndicate's arrangement to publish simultaneously.

Churchill's overproofs also increased the cost to Cassell o f producing each volume by up to 40%,

yet the author's chief proof-reader still complained that the machining o f Volumes I and II made

them look like "a cheap, third-rate production." In his memoir, Flower refuted accusations that
85

Cassell was not up to the task o f producing "our national hero's history," claiming that its version

was definitive and artistically superior to Houghton M i f f l i n ' s product. 86

In Europe, retail stores used photographs and Churchill memorabilia in special shop window

displays when their editions were released. The Times correspondent in western occupied Germany

observed that everywhere he went Churchill's name was on people's lips. However, publication o f

the German language edition proved a great disappointment for Reves, with sales figures o f only

5000 on the first printing. Elsewhere, Reves adroitly coordinated releases in 20 different countries,

despite the complication o f last-minute special revisions to some foreign editions. The launch in

Paris of the French-language edition was orchestrated in "a brilliant ceremony" with dignitaries and

the press in attendance. However, this auspicious start in France was not to be sustained. The next

volume frayed sensitive nerves with its uncomplimentary account o f France's humiliating defeat in

1940. A firestorm of controversy erupted over Churchill's alleged insults on French military honor,

particularly regarding criticisms o f prominent officers who were accused o f incompetence. Reves

was also confronted with concerns arising from copyright violations and pirated editions o f

Churchill's memoir. In countries where copyright laws were poorly enforced, Reves fought a

constant battle against black marketeers. The situation in China was so chaotic because o f the civil
 77

war that he was unable to do anything about pirated editions that appeared within days o f the

authorized release. 87
Ironically, British readers were virtually the last in the world to obtain their

copies. Nonetheless, within weeks o f Cassell's release Flower proudly asserted that sales in Britain

had surpassed all other markets combined, a clear exaggeration, but a true reflection o f the immense

interest in the memoir. Churchill was soon inundated with correspondence from readers offering

"salient facts" and advice for enhancing his story o f Britain at war. 88

In December 1948, Churchill belatedly offered a retainer to his chief Chartwell assistant

Denis K e l l y , who the Trustees were told was essential for the success o f the project and deserved

to be paid £1200 per annum, more than what was being paid to Ismay, Pownall, or Cunningham. 89

One day after serialization o f The Gathering Storm commenced, the syndicate turned its attention

to ensuring a timely release o f the next volume. Life wanted to begin serializing Volume II within

eights weeks, immediately after the U S political conventions (1948 being a major election year) but

well before the fall campaigning began in earnest. Laughlin objected that it would follow too

closely upon the book release o f Volume I, while Cassell would not even have its edition out yet.

Longwell acknowledged: "We are building a literary property, and we need the sound success of the

first volume as a serial and [emphasis in original] a book as a firm foundation for that property." 90

Churchill's advisors continued to urge greater paraphrasing o f documents to enhance the

flow o f his narrative. Cabinet Secretary Norman Brook, who had succeeded Bridges in 1946, was

most generous with his time, offering to rewrite chapters to condense and tighten their structure.

He also assisted Churchill in connecting narrative threads so as to make the story more dramatic and

interesting for the general reader. B i l l Deakin later recalled the invaluable assistance in editing the

memoir provided by the Cabinet Secretary: "Norman Brook saw everything. H e used to come down

quite often to Chartwell. He was a man o f limitless integrity. He was o f enormous help. He and I

would go through everything in detail. He was the most responsible and most learned witness." ' 9

Brook and Reves were both bothered by the plethora o f military code names, dry statistical tables,

and abbreviations that they feared would confuse laymen. Reves reminded Churchill that his memoir

were being written not just for the present generation but for a thousand years to come: "It is like

reading Goethe's 'Faust' with a dictionary. It is certainly a great pleasure to be able to read it

without a dictionary." The New York Times complained that too many important events were

recorded only in the minutes, giving the effect o f a Greek tragedy in which nothing but talk occurs

on stage, while all the action happens offstage. Nonetheless, all were smiles when Churchill
 78

traveled to Boston in early 1949 to promote the release of Their Finest Hour. The author was
honored at a dinner where he spoke to an audience of distinguished historians, writers, and
prominent politicians about world affairs. 92

In spring 1949, Kelly feared that Churchill's pace was slackening due to physical fatigue and
an inefficient method of preparing drafts. The procedure was for Churchill to personally select all
documents for publication, while Pownall, Allen, Ismay and Deakin supplied factual briefs used for
transitional and explanatory narration. This formed the basis for early drafts, which were then
checked, commented on, and expanded by proof-readers, after which the burden of more revisions
shifted back to Churchill. Such back-and-forth re-working of the text caused each chapter to pass
hands six or seven times before completion, an "assembly-line process of production" that Kelly felt
was terribly inefficient and ended up producing too many errors. He proposed weekly meetings
between Churchill and his advisers that would involve open and frank debates of key narrative
points, with detailed notes prepared so that subsequent drafts were not revised in isolation. Kelly
emphasized that these meetings should not entail a mere dictation of the author's own perspective
on events. The new approach would also relieve Churchill of many technical aspects of production,
allowing him to concentrate on the overall framework and final polish. 93

Churchill's declining health led to suggestions of a ghost writer at this time, but Kelly
strongly opposed the idea, noting that it was the author's memories and insights that the reading
public and publishing syndicate were paying such large sums of money to receive. Hiring a ghost
writer would undoubtedly result in a reassessment of the publishing contract, and in addition to
hurting Churchill's pocketbook, his reputation would be permanently damaged. Churchill's flagging
attention may also have been due to the narrative's shift after Volume II from Britain's solitary stand
against Nazism to its marginalization within the Grand Alliance. Kelly's unpublished memoir
94

suggest that after August 1949 most work on Churchill's memoir was done by himself and the
research team, with the author limited to vetting near-final proofs. But the Christmas 1949 publicity
blitz by Life for Volume III signaled no change in Churchill's involvement:

Expert and skeptical by training and temperament, Life's staff of checkers are accustomed
to question every single factual statement they see in writing. Digging into our ownfilesand
library and consulting outside experts, they search for the best authority to back up every fact
set down by the writer....In Mr. Churchill our staff has met a historian whose personal files
contain more documentary material than we could ever uncover, and a meticulous and
considerate writer who carefully cites his evidence as he goes along.
 79

Life praised Churchill's perfectionism and attention to every detail o f the literary work, disguising

the fact that his practice o f revising "Provisional Final," "Almost Final," " F i n a l , " and "Overproof'

drafts o f galley proofs appears to have produced as many errors as it caught. A l l told, there were

up to twenty full revisions with seventy sets o f galley proofs required to complete each volume. 95

In January 1950, serialization o f Volume III began, despite Churchill's efforts to delay it

when Attlee called a general election for the following month. Camrose considered it too late to stop

publication, and he thought that Churchill's critique o f Labour leader Cripps mission to Moscow in

1941 was excellent grist for the political m i l l . 96

H i g h demand for the memoir in Britain continued

unabated, with Cassell printing five times as many copies as Houghton M i f f l i n . After preliminary

sales figures for Volume III were gathered, Flower triumphantly informed Churchill that while U S

sales had fallen with each successive volume, British sales exceeded the entire number of books sold

in the rest of the world. A t 25 shillings per volume (£1.25), the memoir was proving very profitable,

though at that price a large potential market o f readers was being missed. Flower persuaded

Churchill to authorize the Reprint Society to produce a cheap version o f each volume, sold at six

shillings apiece, since its readers were "studious, cultured citizens" o f limited means who were the

very people thought to benefit most from the author's lessons o f peace and war. 97

A s work proceeded on the final three volumes, Longwell sounded a note o f exasperation that

Churchill's narrative was becoming ever more laden with lengthy documents. H e implored the

author to eliminate this blight on his memoir, since it detracted from Churchill's great talent as a

historian. But neither flattery nor criticism caused any significant change in the nature o f the text,

prompting Luce to write: "What more can an author ask? W h y , he can ask for a super-satisfied

customer. If you don't have that at the moment, it is for an altogether flattering reason - namely that

it is so easy to imagine how superlatively good some passages might have been had you written

them." Despite efforts to keep Churchill's deteriorating health a secret, Luce's comments suggest
98

that he was aware o f ghost writers at work. Deakin, K e l l y , the generals, and Brook were writing

more and more of the text, with Churchill acting in mainly a supervisory capacity, meaning that his

rhetorical flourishes were noticeably absent from later volumes. 99

Churchill admitted that The Hinge of Fate needed to be completely recast into narrative

form. 100
But having promised to do it, the final proofs were constructed much as before, by stringing

a series o f lengthy documents together with only the barest connecting narrative. Concerned that

Churchill was becoming depressed by mounting criticisms o f the memoir, Laughlin broke ranks to
 80

send an adulatory note to his client:

I remember very well your saying to me before I had seen the galleys of the first volume that
your history of the war was going to be different from all other histories in that you were
going to write it directly from your own records and your history would differ from the
accounts of other leaders in great national crises, for you would write it not as you
recollected it or as you wished it had been but as it actually was. I contended that too much
of that would lessen the interest, for people enjoy reading your writing as it is today as
opposed to the more restrained and often less colourful language of the records, but in
Volume IV your plan seems to have worked admirably. 101

But Houghton M i f f l i n ' s decision to publish the volume in November 1950 angered Flower, who

bitterly noted that this production schedule would make Cassell look inept in the publishing

community and cut into its export sales. 102

Churchill agreed that a Christmas deadline was not

reasonable, especially because of his increased political activities since the outbreak o f the Korean

war and the likelihood o f a general election that f a l l . 103

But he was also cognizant o f the drop in U S

book sales for Volumes II and III that was making publishers there anxious to reverse the downward

curve by releasing their volumes earlier. Cassell suffered further delays by having to publish a 3 rd

edition o f The Gathering Storm and a 2 nd

edition o f Their Finest Hour in 1951 to incorporate

corrections arising from heated reception among Poles, Belgians, and Frenchmen. Compounding

its misfortunes was a wildcat strike by book binders producing work stoppages and delays that an

unsympathetic client blamed on the publisher. 104

When Churchill shifted his focus to Volume V in late spring 1950, time was o f the essence,

since the Conservative Party looked set to w i n the next election due to public discontent over

Labour's six years o f austerity. It had raised expectations o f a " N e w Jerusalem" in 1945, but had

followed with increased rationing and shortages that made the public restive for change. The war

in Korea also heightened public concern for national security and rearmament, issues that played

to Churchill's strength as an international leader. Despite the urge to wrap up the project, Churchill

decided that he could not do justice to his war narrative without a sixth volume, even though the

New York Times and Life strongly opposed extending the memoir out o f fear that reader interest in

the U S would drop off. O n the other hand, Laughlin, the Daily Telegraph and Cassell agreed to give

Churchill a £60,000 bonus to complete his sixth volume in the manner he saw fit. 105

Frustrated by the American syndicate's resistence to his plans, Churchill grumbled that he

was apparently building a property, not a book - "something fit for publishers, but not for
 81

publication." In October, he officially announced that he could not finish the memoir without a sixth

volume, causing foreign language publishers to vent their extreme displeasure. The Europeans

protested that they had sold the memoir as a set to subscribers, which in 1947 was calculated on the

basis o f five releases. If a sixth volume was to be published, they would be legally bound to deliver

it to readers at no extra charge, effectively wiping out their profits from prior sales. Anxious to

avoid a financial bath, the publishers warned Reves that they would seek legal redress from him for

any losses suffered. Caught in a bind, Reves informed Churchill o f the dilemma and asked for an

apology, but got an excuse instead:

The story yet to be told is certainly the most interesting part o f the entire drama. I still have to
tell o f the liberation o f Europe, the Conferences o f Quebec, Teheran, Cairo, Washington, Yalta,
and Potsdam, where the most important decisions were made, decisions which are in direct
relationship with the present and the future. I feel strongly that it is my duty to tell the story in
full.106

Churchill even briefly considered producing a seventh volume before abandoning the idea when his

publishers expressed their unanimous displeasure. 107

In M a y 1951, rumors o f a delay in publishing the final volume added to the already

considerable headaches o f foreign publishers. The Danish publisher was dismayed by rumors that

Volume V I was being delayed until after the U S elections in 1952 because it contained revealing

details of the Potsdam conference, where many disagreements between British and American leaders

arose. The rumor caused a flood o f enquiries from booksellers and readers about the status o f the

memoir, and whether the final volume would ever be completed. Churchill avoided making any

public comment on the matter for seven months before suddenly announcing his intention to defer

publication at least until 1953. A s a result, sales o f the memoir in the U S stalled because o f

uncertainty over the final volume. 108

The decision to delay publication led to speculation that there

were serious problems with the project not being acknowledged in public. Churchill's reluctance

to be more forthcoming about his health or future intentions only fueled more rumors. 109
Finally, in

June 1952 he announced that official obligations made it impossible for h i m to complete the literary

project any time soon. Though the final draft was virtually done, there was nothing the publishers

could do to change their client's m i n d . 110

Reves urged Churchill to utilize the additional time to revise his draft by focusing on what

counted most in the last year of war, omitting discussions o f minor battles: " A t this stage o f the war
 r

82

and at this stage of your War Memoirs, (when your readers have nearly two million words) the great

strategic moves and the vital political struggles are o f interest."" 1

Months later, with the U S

elections over, he urged Churchill to bring his work to an "artistic and triumphant conclusion."

Reves was delighted with the title, Triumph and Tragedy, which he thought reminiscent o f Crime

and Punishment. 112

But not everyone was happy with the go-ahead to publish the final volume.

Flower bitterly complained to K e l l y that it was impossible for Cassell to match Houghton Mifflin's

plan to publish in August 1953: "I see the usual rat race looming, with the Americans trying to cut

every corner and beat every gun. Could you do your best to urge the noble author towards brutally

telling Houghton Mifflin to jolly well wait for the final text?"" Once again Houghton M i f f l i n and
3

the Book-of-the-Month Club acted hastily so as to release their versions the day after serialization

in Life. Churchill made no complaint, accepting what had become standard practice for the

American book publishers since 1948. In Britain, the Daily Telegraph was also in a hurry to publish

so that it could complete its run o f extracts before Queen Elizabeth IPs coronation in June 1953.

Life incongruously planned to end its serialization on an upbeat note, with colorful anecdotes about

the book's reception, including a story o f Saudi prince Ibn Saud ordering a copy for each o f the

seventy ladies in his harem. Cassell again brought up the rear, only releasing its edition in A p r i l

1954, nine months late. Though the memoir project was officially at an end, revisions to the

manuscript continued to be incorporated into additional printing runs until 1962. 114

In writing his memoir, Churchill's strategy had been to use a crushing weight of documented

evidence at key points in the story to enhance the authority o f his judgements and actions taken.

Despite a text that publishers complained was overladen with documents, he made little or no use

o f key records from the Committee on Imperial Defence, Cabinet Office, or Chiefs o f Staff

Committee. B y selective presentation of evidence, Churchill excelled as a creator of his own image

as a historical hero whose actions and decisions were entirely justified. The portrayal of himself as

a great strategist and statesman in wartime may have distorted history, but flaws in the argument

were counterbalanced by a cleverly engaging, lucid, erudite, and witty style of writing." Churchill
5

openly admitted that it was his case before the bar o f history, with a jury composed o f his readers

whose sympathy he cultivated through the power of rhetoric. L i k e other great polemicists, Churchill

concealed crucial facts so as to influence readers' emotions and sense of context. Dramatic narrative

was a method of persuasion that he utilized like a great fiction writer, with the crucial exception that

he claimed to be offering a truthful rendition o f historical events." 6

 83

Abridgements

Talk o f abridgements from publishers on both sides o f the Atlantic began as early as the

release o f Volume I in October 1948, when a British publisher recommended a juvenile edition

targeted at the swelling postwar population o f pre-15 year old readers. It was considered a sure

success so long as a competent editor provided "a scholarly yet v i v i d and inspiring interpretation

of your immortal story." Pitkin Publishers believed that there were thousands o f parents and

teachers who wished for their children to read an "undistorted history o f the war years" like the one

offered in Churchill's memoir. Churchill was intrigued by the proposal, which he conceded had real

possibilities, but deferred making any commitment at that time. 117

Luce was also considering a

children's edition in 1948, since he was confident the memoir would continue to speak to future

generations of young readers. Life was already the undisputed world leader in integrating visual and

print mediums, having invented the genre o f photojournalism in the 1920s, making it a logical

choice to produce a children's picture history based on Churchill's memoir.

In Britain, the high cost o f production, which Flower had regrettably been forced to pass on

to consumers in March 1952 by raising the volume price to 30 shillings (£1.5), prompted K e l l y to

renew calls for an abridged edition. He offered to undertake the task o f editing the volumes himself,

adding that an abridgement would sell well enough to produce a substantial windfall for non-

beneficiaries o f the literary trust,.like Churchill's wife. Several months later, the vice-president o f

A v o n Publications wrote Churchill: "I have to tell you that the satisfaction I have enjoyed [reading

the memoirs] is something that is beyond my limited powers o f expression." He deemed it required

reading, especially for the generation o f young readers born after 1930 who had no conception o f

what it meant to their security and peace to realize how easily the last war could have been avoided.

He suggested a "Penguin-type" edition in one or two volumes for young readers, who would carry

the memory o f Britain's greatest wartime leader into the next century. However, Deakin

recommended that Life be given the task of publishing an abridgement as soon as hardcover editions

sold out of bookstores, since it had proven adept at fostering interest in the memoir among the young

by giving free copies to libraries at schools and colleges around North A m e r i c a . " 8

In 1954, Churchill was more interested in publishing A History of the English-speaking

Peoples. Consequently, it was another two years before Laughlin urged an abridgement by offering

Churchill £15,000 for him to write a preface to it. Another year passed before the subject was again
 84

raised by Reves, who tendered £20,000 for a 10,000-word epilogue in which Churchill would carry

forward his narrative from the end o f the war to 1957. A t two pounds per word, the retainer

represented the highest publishing fee ever offered for a manuscript. Churchill accepted after K e l l y

agreed to do most o f the editing work. K e l l y urged Churchill to use the epilogue to rebut the

memoirs o f Eisenhower, Truman, and others who had criticized his wartime mixing o f politics and

military matters. Political considerations were precisely what should guide the conduct o f a war

leader, he declared, disparaging the Americans for their narrow focus on victory in battle." 9

In paring down six large volumes to a single book o f a thousand pages, K e l l y felt that it was

"rather like killing someone else's child." In deference to Churchill, he submitted all proofs for

approval, though the contract specified that the publishers retained full authority to vet proofs o f the

abridgement. K e l l y ' s loyalty to Churchill bordered on worship, making h i m wary o f doing anything

that might compromise the author's trust. When approached by the B B C for an interview, he

assured Churchill that under no circumstances would he appear on television to discuss the book or

any aspect o f his long association with the author: " M y relationship with you is sacred and I am

proud o f the trust and confidence you have shown me since we first met on M a y 12, 1946." The

abridgement was completed in early 1959, and following publication o f extracts in the Daily

Telegraph and the American Look magazine, Cassell finally had the satisfaction o f beating its rival

Houghton M i f f l i n to the bookstores by two weeks. 120

In his epilogue, Churchill's defense o f imperialism remained as strong as ever. Concerning

the creation o f Israel, he sharply criticized Jewish terrorists for their violent campaign to end

colonial rule, contending that it was a black mark on the nation's history. Reves objected to the

comments but Churchill persisted, arguing that everyone knew he had been a supporter o f Zionism

since the Balfour Declaration o f 1917. 121

O n Asia, Churchill claimed to have always desired

Dominion status for India. But in 1957 he perceived the sub-continent collapsing into chaos and

violence following the end o f imperial authority. The bloodshed and dislocation that ensued from

Labour's "scuttling o f India" in 1947 created carnage on a scale never experienced during centuries

o f British rule. Churchill heaped scorn on the Indian National Congress, denigrating it as "a small

political faction" that did not represent the w i l l o f the people. In the case o f southeast Asia, he

credited Dutch colonists with having created "a model o f effective administration" in Indonesia that

was tragically overthrown in "an orgy of bloodshed" after the war. Churchill ignored the fact that

Indonesians for a long time had bitterly hated colonial oppression and exploitation. Likewise, he
 85

praised an "efficient French colonial administration" in Vietnam, but failed to mention that it had

facilitated the virtual enslavement o f labor on the rubber plantations o f colonial land barons. 122

Churchill's epilogue revealed his limited understanding o f the profound changes to the

international system wrought by the second world war. The man who professed to know exactly

what the war was about, and who spent over two million words explaining it to his readers, did not

comprehend the forces o f decolonization unleashed by the conflict, arguably the most profound

historical development of the 20 century. A t the same time, Churchill repeated his egotistical effort
th

to meld personal biography with national history by equating the loss of British resolve with his own

political defeat after the war: "The election results and figures were an even greater surprise to

Europe and America. They naturally thought that the steadfastness o f the British people, having

survived the grim ordeals o f 1940 and having come triumphantly through the five years struggle,

would remain unshaken." 123

It never occurred to him that perhaps the "shaken" British people had

demonstrated their democratic resilience by dispensing with his leadership in favor o f a more

forward-looking political party bent on building an egalitarian social and economic order.

B y the time Churchill wrote his epilogue, the most dangerous period o f cold war hostility

had passed, with the notable exception o f the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962. Nonetheless,

he confided that during the late 1940s, while the U S held a nuclear monopoly, he had contemplated

a demonstration o f Western power over Soviet cities as a means o f producing "a more friendly and

sober attitude" from the Russians. Paradoxically, he maintained that Stalin should not be judged too

harshly by historians, for the dictator's actions were based on a profound concern for Russia's safety

following three devastating invasions during the previous one hundred years. Churchill did not

explain how a nuclear demonstration over Russian cities would have alleviated the K r e m l i n ' s deep

suspicions o f the West; surely it would have exacerbated them. In discussing the Korean war,

Churchill asserted a domino theory as justification for the US-led intervention, arguing that i f South

Korea had fallen to communism, it would have emboldened leftists throughout the world, making

a third world war more likely. He maintained that these facts were obvious to everyone but the left

wing o f the Socialist Party (Labour), who "true to their tradition, alone stood out from the courage

and wisdom of what was being done." 124

Churchill ended his epilogue on an upbeat note, contending

that Russians in the 1950s were becoming capitalistic in ways that would render Marxism obsolete

in the near future. A t the same time, he asserted that the Anglo-American alliance assured

"opportunity for all who claimed it" by its guarantees o f freedom and peace. 125
Thus, while he still
 86

considered nuclear bombs a legitimate weapon of war, he was also eager to urge detente, a approach

he broached to a very reluctant Eisenhower and Dulles in late 1952.

Following K e l l y ' s abridgement, Life published a two-volume juvenile edition o f Churchill's

memoir aimed at young teenagers. The editors of Life were named contributing authors, evidence

that Churchill's hold over his literary property had been reduced to a symbolic presence. One year

later, Life produced another abridgement, a one-volume special children's edition which was

predominantly a picture-book o f dramatic war scenes. In this version, Churchill's narrative was

relegated to a secondary function o f supporting a heavily visualized presentation o f the war. The

volume was designed for pre-teenage children, thus rounding out the marketing o f Churchill's

memoir to virtually every age group and financial class in existence. 126
In Britain, two national

dailies reviewed the abridgements. The Yorkshire Post presented its usual string o f accolades for

anything bearing Churchill's name. Its review ("The V o i c e that W i l l Reach to the Ages")

commended the power o f Churchill to hold his readers in thrall, the abridgment only adding

concentration to an already intense story that was the "most certain classic o f the Britain we

know." 127
Oddly, no mention was made of the central role performed by the book's editor D . K e l l y ,

who performed the difficult task o f producing an abridged text that was both enjoyable to read and

retained the essence o f its much larger original.

The Manchester Guardian was more guarded in its praises, and in some respects was critical

of Churchill's epilogue. O n the one hand, it held that the abridgement succeeded even better than

the original volumes in creating a sense o f mounting tragedy over the collapse of the Grand Alliance

into cold war hostility. But it also pointed out that postwar events revealed how Britain's great war

leader suffered from serious mental blind spots. Churchill may have understood Europe, but in a

global conflict he was woefully ignorant o f A s i a , and had learned nothing about India in the

intervening years. Considering the fact that India by the late 1950s was the leading non-communist

nation in Asia, and the impetus for a non-aligned movement that eventually encompassed half the

United Nations, Churchill's allegation that Indians had sunk into a well o f despair since Britain's

departure seemed badly off the mark. Also revealing was Churchill's incomprehension o f the

Middle East, since the epilogue's narrative, carried up to February 1957, inexplicably said nothing

about the Suez crisis and its significance for Britain or the Arab w o r l d . 128
B y 1958, it was becoming

increasingly clear that the Suez fiasco constituted a defining moment in British history. For a new

generation o f historians, it signaled the end o f British imperial pretensions in the postwar era.
 87

Revisionist scholarship regarding Britain's role in the 20 century was born in the Suez episode,
th

which historian D . C . Watt claimed as unequivocally marking the end of empire. But in his declining

years, Churchill appeared oblivious to these momentous changes in intellectual thought about

national identity. 129

Nonetheless, book publishers continued to find the general reading public interested in

Churchill's war story. U p to the mid-1950s, his memoir had appeared on the New York Times and

Publishers Weekly bestseller lists for a combined total o f 185 weeks. A t the time o f Cassell's release

of Triumph and Tragedy, 3.63 million copies of the volumes had been sold in America, Britain, and

Commonwealth countries. 130

Thus, new and old publishers alike were eager to devise inventive ways

in the ensuing decades to market Churchill's war memoir to laymen readers o f history. In

September 1960, Penguin Books marked its 25 anniversary by publishing twenty-five specially
th

selected titles that included The Gathering Storm. A year later Bantam books reproduced the entire

set o f volumes unabridged in paperback for a modest $2.25 (US). A t the time o f Churchill's death

in 1965, the National Union Catalogue listed eight editions o f the memoir contained in the Library

of Congress. In 1974, on the centenary o f Churchill's birth, Houghton M i f f l i n and Cassell each

issued commemorative editions o f The Second World War. Finally, i n 1998 Houghton M i f f l i n

released Great Battles and Leaders of the Second World War, a re-titled one-volume version o f

Churchill's memoir containing 500 photographs and selected narrative from the original work, with

an introduction by British military historian John Keegan. It was promoted on the publisher's

Internet site, which declared that Churchill's account "remains the definitive work on the war and

a monumental literary achievement." 131

The continuous stream of new editions has helped to ensure

that in the new millennium, Churchill's memoir remains a fixture on retail store shelves in North

America and Britain, a tribute to the public's enduring fascination with the man and his times.

Chapter 3 Endnotes
1. W. Graebner, My Dear Mister Churchill (London: Michael Joseph, 1965), p.48: his favorite publication was the
Manchester Guardian, which he regarded as the best newspaper in the world; Addison, "Churchill and Social Reform,"
in Churchill, pp.60,66,76; Koss, The Political Press, p.8; Gilbert, The Challenge of War, pp. 130-6,459-60.
2. P. Taylor, "Power, Propaganda, and Public Opinion," in Power in Europe? Vol.2, p.449; Koss, The Political Press,
pp.562-63: in 1937, he earned £13,630 from publishers for his literary efforts; M . Gilbert, J922-1939, pp.884-85;.
 88

3. Cudlipp, Publish and Be Damned, pp. 104-05,130; Koss, The Political Press, pp.598-613; G. Weinberg, The Foreign
Policy of Hitler's Germany. Vol.1, (Chicago, 1980), p. 120; M . Jones, "Reporting on Germany: Historical Perspectives,"
German Life and Letters 34 (1981): 431; for the press and appeasement in the 1930s, see A . Adamthwaite, "The British
Government and the Media, 1937-38," Journal of Contemporary History 18 (1983): 281-297; R. Cockett, Twilight of
Truth: Chamberlain, Appeasement and the Manipulation of the Press (New York: 1989); M . Cowling, The Impact of
Hitler (Cambridge: CUP, 1975); F. Gannon, The British Press and Germany (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971); Morris,
The Roots ofAppeasement.
4. Gilbert, Road to Victory, pp.62-63,80.
5. Colville, The Churchillians, pp.57-8; Addison, Churchill on the Home Front, p.334; Koss, The Political Press,
pp.602,606-7; Taylor, Beaverbrook, pp.550-60; partisanship became overt in spring 1945, when Beaverbrook's pro-
Tory newspapers commenced vitriolic attacks against Labour's socialist agenda as a prelude to the impending elections.
6. June 14, 1904, April 30, 1929 in James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.68,504-06; Gilbert, Road to Victory, pp.494-95.
7. J.R. Sikorsky, "The Churchill Legend in the United States, 1940-1965" (Ph.D. dissertation, Arizona State, 1997),
pp.15-18,48-51.
8. Egerton, "Politics and Autobiography," pp.221,229-30; Mass O b , Reading Habits, FR#A11,38A,46-52,93,968,1332;
the American Gallup polling firm also conducted regular surveys of book reading habits starting in the mid-1930s.
9. Egerton, "The Lloyd George War Memoirs," pp.57-59.
10. S. Nowell-Smith, The House of Cassell, 1848-1958 (London: Cassell, 1958), pp.208-09,219; Bracco, Merchants
of Hope, p.28.
11. Nowell-Smith, e d . Letters to Macmillan, 1967, pp.225-30,256; D. Flower, Fellows in Foolscap: Memoirs of a
Publisher (London: Robert Hale, 1991), pp.148,268: between 1940 and 1946, Cassell published five volumes of the
British leader's speeches. D. Flower served as editor of the volumes until he joined the army and offered the job to
Churchill's son Randolph.
12. Flower, Fellows in Foolscap, p. 148; Aldritt, Churchill the Writer, p. 150; Colville, Diaries, p.310; J.H. Plumb, "The
Historian," in Churchill Revised, pp. 164-5.
13. C H U R 4/1: C. Eade (Sunday Dispatch) to Mrs. Hill, August 7, 1941.
14. W.S. Churchill speech on conduct of the war, July 2, 1942 in James, e d , Churchill Speaks, pp.802-07.
15. C H U R 4/1: K . Hill to Montague Brown, March 19, 1958; 4/42: N . Flower to Churchill, November 28, 1944;
Churchill to S i r N . Flower, "Private," November 24, 1944.
16. Nowell-Smith, House of Cassell, pp.225-7; Hartwell, Camrose, pp.333-4.
17. Gilbert, Never Despair, pp.28-41,46-59,105-08.
18. C H U R 4/4: Churchill to A.J. Christiansen, January 13,1947; Hartwell, Camrose, pp.333-4;; Egerton, "The Lloyd
George War Memoirs, p.59: Camrose also serialized those memoirs in the 1930s; Gilbert, Never Despair, pp.270,315:
Churchill later claimed that he saw the memoir as an anthology of his personal papers.
19. C H U R 1/104: "As Hannen Swaffer Sees It," Durant's Press Cuttings, London, September 8, 1946; Gilbert, Never
Despair, pp.235-36.
20. C H U R 1/104: "British Books to Come," Issue #10, May 1945.
21. Gilbert, Never Despair, pp. 132,140.
22. Moran, Struggle for Survival, pp.311,313-314: still depressed over the election debacle, he informed his
physician while in Italy that he did not care if he ever returned to England.
23. C H U R 4/18: Churchill to Commodore Allen, June 18, 1947; Allen to Churchill, July 24, 1947, 4/22/83; Moran,
Struggle for Survival, p.316; Callahan, Retreat from Empire, p.246.
24. Gilbert, Never Despair, p.221,315; Moran, Struggle for Survival, p.339: in late 1946 the pace of production was
accelerated by Churchill's decision to employ a team of Oxford dons to "devil for Winston."; Sikorsky, "The Churchill
Legend," p.189; Aldritt, Churchill the Writer, p.155.
25. C H U R 4/141: P. Portal (Ministry of Supply) to Churchill, July 23, 1947.
26. Moran, Struggle for Survival, p.346; Gilbert, Never Despair, pp.332,481.
27. Houghton Mifflin Archive, M S Stor Box 1, "Reves,": Reves to Laughlin, September 2, 1950; Emery Reves was
Churchill's foreign agent who was employed to handle all matters relating to publication outside the North American
and British markets; "Misc.,": Memo (unsigned) to J. Olney, Sept. 24, 1951: "Here are the devastating overtakes....God
help us one and all"; "Life,": Graebner to Longwell, "Confidential," Dec. 12, 1952; M S Stor 318 Box 4, Reves to
Laughlin, April 3, 1953; C H U R 4/15: Graebner to Longwell, January 26, 1951; 4/24: Chiswick Press (P. Morgan) to
Churchill, April 19, 1949; 4/25: Cassell (Flower) to Churchill, August 2, 1950.
28. J. Naylor, A Man and an Institution: Sir Maurice Hankey, the Cabinet Secretariat and the Custody of Cabinet
Secrecy (Cambridge: CUP, 1984), pp.69,126.
29. Ibid, pp. 118,125-6,206, 214-18,236.
 89

30. Ibid, pp.227-9.

31. C H U R 2/4: Churchill to Attlee, May 29, 1946.
32. Gilbert, Never Despair, pp.235-36,259; see Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, p.317: his analysis of Churchill as
strategist suggests that allegations of amateur adventurism were largely true.
33. C H U R 4/22: Churchill to Sir Edward Bridges, September 23, 1946.
34. Gilbert, Never Despair, pp.269-70; Churchill next sought US approval for publishing messages between himself
and Roosevelt, but encountered strong opposition in Washington; the matter was not fully resolved until 1952.
35. Naylor,,4 Man and an Institution, pp.3,229; B. Lenman, Eclipse of Parliament, p. 175; Great Britain, Parliamentary
Debates (Commons) 5 series, 426 August 1, 1946, cols. 1207-8.
lh

36. C H U R 4/42: A . Moir to Miss Sturdee, February 23, 1948.

37. C H U R 4/22: Churchill to General Georges, January 25, 1947; PRO 98/8: Draft Minutes, War Cabinet Committee
for the Control of Official Histories, January 31, 1941 and July 9-11, 1941; 98/13: Advisory Historical Committee,
Minutes, December 9, 1941: stipulated that narrators be people who Ministries felt "belonged the them" and who would
work together "for a common purpose;" the histories to be directed at young military cadets.
38. Gilbert, Never Despair, pp.244,274.
39. Gilbert, p.256; Hartwell, Camrose, p.337.
40. C H U R 4/4: Churchill to A.J. Christiansen, January 13, 1947; Literary Offers dossier, January 9, 1946; K . Smith
(International News Service) to Churchill, April 1, 1945.
41. Graebner, My Dear Mr. Churchill, pp. 16-20; Elson, World of Time, pp. 153-55.
42. Ibid, p. 155: he claims that Life offered $25,000 for each of four articles; Graebner, My Dear Mr. Churchill, p. 16.
43. Life January 7, 1946, p.9.
44. Elson, World of Time, p. 157: Churchill and Luce settled on a fee of $50,000; the speeches, all from 1942, dealt with
the fall of Singapore, the state of British shipping, and allied negotiations with Vichy prior to the invasion of North
Africa.
45. Ibid, pp.83,191,215; Sikorsky, "The Churchill Legend, p. 185.
46. Ibid, pp.158,211-12.
47. C H U R 4/17: J. Osborne (Life Chief European Correspondent) to Churchill, September 27, 1946.
48. Gilbert, ed, Churchill and Reves, pp.251-53.
49. Ibid, pp. 1 -4; Aldritt, Churchill the Writer, p. 161.
50. Gilbert, e d , Churchill and Reves, pp.7-16.
51. Ibid, pp.16-17,260,311: it eventually covered 70 countries in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East.
52. C H U R 4/42: Camrose to Churchill, November 15, 1946; 4/14: L . Thompson to Churchill, November 22, 1946.
53. Gilbert, e d , Churchill and Reves, pp.268-71; Hartwell, Camrose, pp.334-5.
54. C H U R 4/42: Camrose to Churchill, November 15, 1946.
55. Equivalent rates based on IMF, International Financial Statistics, Consumer Price Index; Hartwell, Camrose, p.334;
Flower, Fellows in Foolscap: the breakdown of payments in British pounds was Life and New York Times 287,500,
Montreal Standard 27,500, Houghton Mifflin 62,500, Daily Telegraph 75,000, Cassell 25,000, Reves 80,000, K .
Murdoch's Australian syndicate 75,500; Cassell's initial offer of £20,000 was deemed too low by Camrose, who readily
got Flower to raise it by £5,000, since the memoirs' tremendous success made it Cassell's "sheet-anchor" in the 1940s;
Gilbert, e d , Churchill and Reves, p.273.
56. Gilbert, Never Despair, p.274; Woods, Artillery of Words, p. 138; C E . Lysaght, Brendan Bracken (London: Allen
Lane, 1979), p.273; Aldritt, Churchill the Writer, p.161; Elson, World of Time, pp.212-213: Churchill insisted that it
not be made a written term of the contract.
57. C H U R 4/41: Chartwell Literary Trust - Legal Issues; A . Moir to N . Sturdee, April 24, 1947; Agreement between
the Daily Telegraph Ltd. And Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill, June 22, 1947.
58. Gilbert, Never Despair, p.662.
59. C H U R 4/63: Laughlin to Churchill, April 15, 1949; 4/17: Churchill to Sulzberger, September 26, 1949; Swanberg,
Luce and His Empire, pp.278-279; Gilbert, Never Despair, p.376.
60. C H U R 4/71: Draft "One Way to Stop a Third World War;" 4/12: Reves to Churchill, January 10, 1947; Churchill
to Reves, January 12, 1947.
61. C H U R 4/43: Reves to Churchill, April 10, 1947.
62. Ibid.
63. C H U R 4/25: Churchill to Luce, February 19, 1947.
64. C H U R 4/25: Luce to Churchill, March 3, 1947.
65. C H U R 4/23: Life International, promotional pamphlet, May 1947.
 90

66. C H U R 4/16: "The New York Times and Life Magazine Will Print Memoirs of Winston Churchill," New York Times,
May 15, 1947; 4/42: "The Press: 1 Million Churchillian Words," Time, May 19, 1947.
67. C H U R 4/17: Graebner to Miss Sturdee, May 8, 1948; 4/42: "Advance Notice: War Memoirs of Winston Churchill,"
Life, May 19, 1947, p.26; apparently, Iosif Stalin's Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union (New York: International
Publishers, 1945) did not count in the eyes of syndicate members, since it comprised a collection of speeches from the
war and not memoirs based on the Soviet leader's recollections.
68. C H U R 4/11: Conservative Office to Miss Sturdee, October 29, 1947.
69. F. Woods, A Bibliography of the Works of Sir Winston Churchill (Kaye and Ward, 1969), pp.354-56; Houghton
Mifflin Archive: M S Stor 318, Box 1: Reves and Laughlin re promotional strategies, March 1 and 9, 1948; M S Stor 318,
Box 4: Laughlin to N Y T re publicity, May 5, 1947, April 21, 1948; C H U R 4/141: Sulzberger (NYT) to Churchill,
December 9, 1947; 4/15: W. Lippman, Ladies Home Journal, February 1, 1948.
70. C H U R 4/15: Memorandum, Andrew Heiskell to London Group, undated.
71. Nowell-Smith, House of Cassell, pp.230-1.
72. C H U R 4/24: Cassell (D. Flower) to Churchill, February 13, 1948.
73. C H U R 4/14: Laughlin to Churchill, February 17, 1948.
74. C H U R 4/12: Reves to Churchill, March 3 and 8, 1948; Gilbert, ed, Churchill and Reves, pp.282-5.
75. C H U R 4/52: Kelly to Churchill, March 28 and 30, 1948.
76. C H U R 4/52: Churchill to Longwell (Life); C H U R 4/16/266: A l l other foreign publishers used the New York Times'
extracts; Churchill received copies of all extract proofs, often making line-by-line comments on style and pleading for
more space due to reader interest; C H U R 4/52: W.J. Gold (Life) to Graebner, "Notes on Life Selections from " Second
World War," April 11, 1948;
77. C H U R 4/141: Longwell to Churchill, August 27, 1947; N . Brook to Churchill, January 20, 1948; 4/133: Longwell
notes on proofs of Vol.1-2, undated; 4/16: Memo from N . Sturdee to Churchill, April 2, 1948; New York Times (H.
Mathews) to Churchill, May 10, 1948; C H P C 26: "Expensive Memoirs," Daily Telegraph, April 10 1948; " A Mighty
Tale," Daily Telegraph, April 15, 1948; Gilbert, ed, Churchill and Reves, p.277,280: while most publishers urged
Churchill to speed production, Reves felt that a work of incomparable historical literature could not be rushed.
78. C H U R 4/15: "Churchill," Time, May 17, 1948; Memorandum, Churchill to Life, May 2, 1948; Time draft; 4/16: N .
Sturdee to Churchill, June 11, 1948; Churchill to N Y T , June 18, 1948: money was undoubtedly the primary reason.
79. C H P C 26: "Expensive Memoirs," Daily Telegraph, April 10, 1948; "Churchill," Daily Telegraph, April 12, 1948;
" A Mighty Tale," Daily Telegraph, April 15, 1948.
80. C H U R 4/47: B B C Broadcasts to Europe, 1948-51: Since an average of twenty-five broadcasts were made in each
language, total payments for Volume I exceeded £1500; C H U R 4/56: B B C to Miss Sturdee, July 20, 1949; 4/56: C B C
(Canada) to Daily Telegraph, undated: A year later, Churchill's memoirs were adapted for television. Canada's C B C -
T V filmed dramatic readings of extracts to accompany radio broadcasts; 4/42: National Institute for the Blind to Miss
Gilliatt, May 21, 1948 and July 14, 1949.
81. C H U R 4/141: Laughlin to Churchill, September 17, 1948; 4/14: Houghton Mifflin to Miss Gilliatt, May 25, 1948;
Woods, A Bibliography, pp.3 52-54.
82. C H U R 4/24: Cassell (D. Flower) to Churchill, March 18, 1948, June 14, 1948 and July 2, 1948; Nowell-Smith,
House of Cassell, pp.229-30: Cassell reduced the point size by 2, which allowed it to produce 20,000 extra copies;
Churchill insisted that all future editions be printed with a larger font size.
83. C H U R 4/14: Laughlin to Churchill, May 22, 1948.
84. C H P C 26: "June's Book-of-the-Month," Daily Telegraph, March 3, 1948.
85. C H U R 4/23: Lt.-Col. Moore to Miss Gilliatt, May 24, 1948; 4/141: Longwell to Churchill, August 27, 1947; 4/24:
Kelly to Churchill, August 5, 1948; Chiswick Press (P. Morgan) to Churchill, April 19, 1949; Cassell (Flower) to
Churchill, March 18, June 14, and July 2, 1948; Churchill to Flower, November 25, 1948: Chiswick Press was hired
to help with the printing of subsequent volumes; 4/13: "Memorandum," (C.C.W.), Daily Telegraph, June 13, 1949.
86. Flower, Fellows in Foolscap, p.276.
87. C H U R 4/22: W . Hooymeyer to Churchill, Feb. 3, 1948; J.H. Freeman to Churchill, Oct. 22, 1948; C H U R 4/11:
Reves to Churchill, June 23, 1948; 4/12: Reves to Churchill, November 5, 1948.
88. C H U R 4/18: Churchill to N . Brook, August 2, 1948; 4/22: Society of British Aircraft Constructors to Churchill,
November 10, 1948; there were many letters from former military officers as well.
89. C H U R 4/22: Society of British Aircraft Constructors (E. Bowyer) to Churchill, November 10,1948; 4/42: Churchill
to Trustees, Chartwell Literary Trust, December 1948; Kelly to Churchill, December 11, 1948.
90. C H U R 4/25: Office Memorandum, Editors of Life to Luce, April 27, 1948.
91. Gilbert, Never Despair, p.315.
 91

92. C H U R 4/251: Brook to Churchill, February 22, 1949; Reves to Churchill, April 19, 1949; 4/18: Churchill to Brook,
July 15, 1949: Brook provided Churchill with a copy of the first official war history produced by the government's
Historical Section, on Britain's war economy. Churchill claimed it was of great assistance in preparing his memoir,
though he hardly discussed economic issues in any of his volumes; 4/201: Reves to Churchill, undated; 4/63: G. Adler
(NYT) to Longwell, May 12, 1949; 4/14: Laughlin to Churchill, February 16, 1949.
93. C H U R 4/300: Kelly to Churchill, May 22, 1949.
94. D E K E : Manuscript, May 22, 1985; Gilbert, Never Despair, p.522; Moran, Struggle for Survival, p.355; C H U R 4/18:
Brook to Churchill, July 15, 1949; 4/18: Longwell to Luce, April 14, 1950; 4/15: Deakin to Graebner, Aug. 19, 1950.
95. C H U R 4/15: "Churchill's Monument," Life, January 20, 1950; 4/17: N . Sturdee to Churchill, April 28, 1950.
96. Elson, World of Time, p.219; Flower, Fellows in Foolscap, pp.274-5; C H P C 30: "Mr. Churchill's Memoirs," Daily
Telegraph, January 17, 1950; C H U R 4/13: Churchill to Camrose, January 10, 1950.
97. C H U R 4/25: Cassell (Flower) to Churchill, March 23, April 24, and May 8, 1950, June 7, 1951: In fact, Houghton
Mifflin also contracted much of its printing to the Book-of-the-Month Club.
98. C H U R 4/15: Longwell to Churchill, April 21, 1950; 4/25: Luce to Churchill, May 19, 1950.
99. D E K E : Manuscript, May 22, 1985.
100. C H U R 4/15: Churchill to Longwell, August 23, 1950.
101. C H U R 4/14: Laughlin to Churchill, June 12, 1950.
102. In 1947-48, Cassell and Houghton Mifflin divided the world into exclusive markets. Cassell would sell its edition
to Britain and the Commonwealth, Houghton Mifflin to America and Canada.. Cassell was also accorded exclusive
rights to Europe, while Houghton Mifflin would control English-language sales in South America. Asia was left open
for either publisher. By 1949, however, the arrangement had fallen apart, with Houghton Mifflin accusing Cassell of
selling in South America, and Cassell representatives alleging that they had found copies of the American edition on
sale in Europe.
103. C H U R 4/25: Churchill to Laughlin, August 4, 1950; Cassell (Flower) to Churchill, August 2, 1950.
104. C H U R 4/14: Laughlin to Churchill, July 26, 1951; H M Archive, M S Stor 318, Box 1: Houghton Mifflin's sales
of Churchill's memoir had declined from 145,000 for The Gathering Storm to less than 68,000 for The Hinge of Fate;
Book-of-the-Month Club sales dropped from a high of 385,000 for Volume I to 210,000 for Volume IV; 4/24: Cassell
(A. Hayward) to Miss Marston, January 15, 1951; 4/25: Cassell (Flower) to Churchill, July 4, 1951.
105. C H U R 4/63: Bernstein (NYT) to General Adler, April 8, 1949; Laughlin to Churchill, April 15, 1949; 4/25: Luce
to Churchill, June 3, 1949; 4/15: W.J. Gold (Life) to Churchill, June 17, 1949; Gilbert, Never Despair, p.662.
106. C H U R 4/63: Churchill to Publishers, May 1951.
107. C H U R 4/17: Churchill to Sulzberger, September 26, 1949; Sulzberger to Churchill, November 1, 1949; 4/300:
Kelly to Ismay, June 6, 1950; 4/299/1; 4/63/34-35; 4/392A/5
108. C H U R 4/63: Churchill to Reves, May 24, 1951; Hasselbachs Forlag (Copenhagen) to Reves, May 26, 1951; Reves
to Churchill, February 23, 1952; 4/25: Churchill to Ismay, Pownall, Allen, Deakin, September 20, 1951.
109. Gilbert, e d , Churchill and Reves, Reves to Camrose, February 2, 1952.
110. C H U R 4/15: Churchill to Graebner, June 12, 1952; 4/25: in Oct. 1952, he dismissed his entire research staff.
111. CHUR4/392B/7: Reves to Churchill, September 21, 1952.
112. C H U R 4/392B/8: Reves to Churchill, December 12, 1952.
113. C H U R 4/63: Cassell (Flower) to Kelly, August 14, 1953.
114. C H U R 4/63: Laughlin to Churchill, August 24, 1953; T. Bernstein (NYT) to Churchill, August 2, 1953; 4/63: Time
Inc. to C. Graebner (NY), November 3, 1953; 4/467: press tributes to Churchill on birthday.
115. Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, pp.332-3; Weidhorn, Sword and Pen, pp.8,143,153-7.
116. J. Fletcher, Novel and Reader (London: Marion Boyars, 1980), pp.68,77; Churchill, The Gathering Storm, p.x.
117. C H U R 4/17: H.A. and W.L. Pitkin Publishers to Churchill, October, 6, 1950; Churchill to Pitkin, October, 1950.
118. C H U R 4/25: Cassell to Churchill, March 14, 1952; Kelly to Churchill, "Personal," September 7, 1952; 4/24:
Churchill to Commodore Allen, October 25,1952; 4/16: Deakin to Prime Minister, November 1953; M . Diamond (Avon
Publications) to Churchill, November 17, 1953.
119. C H U R 4/469: Laughlin to Churchill, September 20, 1956; 4/400: Kelly memo, undated; Sikorsky, "The Churchill
Legend," p.207.
120. C H U R 4/469: Cassell to Churchill, February 4, 1959; Kelly to Churchill, March 6, 1958; Gilbert, Never Despair,
Ft. #2, p. 1230; 4/469: Houghton Mifflin to Churchill, January 20, 1959; Sikorsky, "The Churchill Legend, p.207:
Houghton Mifflin published the book under the title, Memoirs of the Second World War.
121. Gilbert, Never Despair, p. 1233.
122. W.S. Churchill, The Second World War and An Epilogue on the Years 1945-1957. Abridged Edition (London:
Cassell, 1959), pp.953, 970-93.
 92

123. C H U R 4/400: Draft of Epilogue, undated.

124. Churchill, Second World War, Abridg, pp.953,964-5,969.
125. Ibid, p. 972.
126. Sikorsky, "The Churchill Legend," p.207.
127. C H P C 63: W.L. Andrews, "The Voice that Will Reach to the Ages," Yorkshire Post, February 5, 1959.
128. C H P C 63: "The War and After," Manchester Guardian, February 5, 1959.
129. Ibid.
130. Keith Justice, Bestseller Index: Books, Publishers Weekly and the New York Times Through 1990 (Jefferson, N C :
McFarland, 1998, p.385; there is no single source that provides a complete record of sales; the figures here are compiled
from H M Archive M S Stor 318, Box 4, and F. Woods, A Bibliography, pp.351-56.
131. Houghton Mifflin, U R L www.hmco.com/.
 93

4 The Messages: Lessons from the Past for the Present

When Churchill's memoirs were published, they offered what were perceived to be essential

lessons for facing the awesome new perils o f a dangerously polarized world in the nuclear age. In

chapter 2, we examined the foundation for Churchill's historical world view through analysis of his

speeches and written works from before the second world war. In this chapter, we focus specifically

upon the memoirs and their messages as constructed by Churchill, the media syndicate, government

officials, political and military advisors, and research assistants, all o f whom vetted drafts o f the

memoirs. Our concern here is with Churchill's postwar world view and the construction o f war

memory within the context o f a bitterly contested cold war. The ideological divide strongly affected

his desire after 1945 to produce a metanarrative o f the war years that would speak to the fears,

interests, and foreign policy concerns of the postwar era. Press treatment of Britain's foremost cold

warrior also polarized between near-uniform adulation in the rightist press and vilification in many

leftist publications. In contrast to Labour's Clement Attlee, who claimed to be allergic to the press

and did little to facilitate public relations, Churchill enjoyed a long association with Conservative

press lords and their newspapers. It was this intimate relationship that had enabled him in the early

postwar years to create a publishing syndicate for the purpose o f advancing his metanarrative.'

Imperialism and the Civilizing Mission

In the waning days o f World War II, Permanent Undersecretary o f State Cadogan gloomily

surmised that the country's imperial problems were "too numerous and awful to contemplate."

Whitehall could see few means beyond propaganda to protect Britain's foreign interests and disguise

evidence o f national decline. Government officials and the Tory press deemed self-promotion
2

necessary for bolstering the prestige o f the empire and Commonwealth as a global community o f

peoples connected for mutual benefit, not exploitation. But rhetoric alone could not disguise the fact

that after the war national political consciousness gradually shifted its focus from empire to the

Atlantic community. Churchill welcomed the tightening o f bonds with North America, but at the
3

same time sought to strengthen the empire and Commonwealth by heaping glory and honor upon

it for being victorious in war, a view shared by moderates in the Labour Party and press. Churchill
4

strongly disputed the radical left's notion that postwar realities demanded a retreat from empire,

accusing anti-imperialists o f "crazy theories and personal incompetence" in pursuing independence

 94

for India, a policy o f scuttle that he claimed sacrificed centuries o f progress in southeast A s i a . 5

Though his rhetoric was toned down from the 1930s, he remained unrepentant about his opposition

to Indian self-rule, viewing it as a sad milestone on Britain's downward path. H e accused British

politicians o f "fatuity and fecklessness" in appeasing Indian nationalism, then and now. 6

Churchill's defense of empire was central to his war story, which he connected to the politics

of appeasement by rebuking all parties, including the Tories, for ignoring Britain's traditional

balance-of-power strategy of utilizing the empire as a counterweight to European hegemony. In The

Gathering Storm, he argued that the life, endurance and greatness o f the British people and their

empire was the government's foremost duty, and in this task the nation's political leaders failed

miserably by acting in an "unchivalrous and dishonorable" manner before the war. It was Britain's

alleged failure to live up to its great imperial heritage that Churchill believed was a direct cause o f

war. Though severe in his criticisms o f a few named Tory leaders, he tempered his attack on the

Party by broadly accusing all politicians in the 1930s o f being wrong i n their views on empire. 7

In his memoirs, Churchill maintained that the decline o f Western power in the world was due

to a weakening o f imperial control in the 20 century. Without a moral and spiritual revival o f
th

Western imperialism, he foresaw "a prolonged eclipse o f our civilisation." He attempted to bolster
8

sagging faith in Britain's imperial mission by accentuating its vital contribution to victory in the war

against tyranny: "I do this with no desire to make invidious comparisons or rouse purposeless

rivalries with out greatest ally, the United States, to whom we owe immeasurable and enduring

gratitude. But it is to the combined interest of the English-speaking world that the magnitude of the

British war-making effort should be known and realised." Churchill held that in 1940 "the life o f
9

Britain, her message, and her glory" were in mortal peril. Thus, he had considered it his duty to alert

the English-speaking peoples in their hour o f peril to what was truly at stake:

Y o u ask. What is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory - victory at all costs, victory
in spite o f all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory,
there is no Empire; no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for
the urge and impulse o f the ages, that mankind w i l l move forward towards its g o a l .
10

For Churchill, the spring and summer o f 1940 was a time o f epic drama, glory, self-sacrifice, and

heroism for the British people: "There was a white glow, overpowering, sublime, which ran through

our island from end to end." He could never have countenanced a compromise peace that would

subvert such a great nation's status as a strong imperial power." Ignored in this glowing tribute to
 95

nation and empire was evidence o f national disunity and resignation that in some places bordered

on defeatism in the wake o f France's collapse, though as John Lukacs notes, morale never sank into

abject despair or panic during Britain's ordeal, and it quickly recovered after the armistice shock. 12

Churchill's memoirs gave the erroneous impression that the War Cabinet in 1940

unanimously supported his resolve to fight on, when in fact Halifax strongly urged negotiating with

Hitler while Chamberlain appeared sympathetic to the idea. 13

In calling for an all-out struggle

against Nazism, Churchill chose to ignore Britain's economic plight. He continued to shape policy

in the war under the illusion o f power that considered political and spiritual w i l l to be more

important for achieving victory than economic considerations. In other words, Churchill simply

assumed British greatness during the war so as to play the role o f world statesman. He also naively

believed that American gratitude for British sacrifices and its sense o f goodwill would restore

national solvency after the war. A t the same time, he harbored doubts in 1940-41 about the British
14

people's ability to withstand the strain of war. Strict censorship o f the media was imposed, sweeping

emergency powers enacted, and a system o f regional commissioners established to snoop on local

government authorities, none o f which he mentioned in his memoirs. 15

Churchill saw himself fulfilling destiny's call by leading the British empire from the brink

of ruin to new heights o f greatness in defiantly resisting Hitler. Though Britain had no way o f

winning the war in 1940, the public was misled with wishful thinking that Germany's economy was

near collapse, or that Britain's strategic bomber force offered a quick and cheap means o f achieving

victory. In reality, Britain's only choice at the time was between accepting German hegemony in

Europe or waging limited warfare indefinitely. Churchill deemed both o f these options unpalatable

and instead mobilized the nation for total war, presuming incorrectly that this objective was

synonymous with the preservation o f British power. H i s memoirs disingenuously claimed that the
16

War Cabinet never discussed whether Britain should seek a settlement with Hitler, alluding to a

millennium o f British history in order to infer continuity and inevitability in the his government's

war aims. Omitted from this glorious chapter of national history was any mention o f labor strikes,
17

which were actually more frequent in 1940 than during the previous year. Few Britons relished the

thought o f a long war against Germany, and even fewer o f them had any idea how to achieve

victory. Nonetheless, he praised the Commonwealth for rallying to Britain's cause, proving that
18

it was capable o f bearing the full weight o f the world's destiny. For Churchill, this was its finest

hour, leaving no doubt that humanity owed a great debt o f gratitude for fighting the "good cause"
 96

while other nations cowered before the N a z i jackboot. 19

Cabinet Secretary Brook considered Churchill's glowing praises for the British people in his

memoirs admirable and without controversy. However, he questioned the wisdom o f contrasting

the honor and glory o f Britain with the shameful ignominy o f other nations and peoples who

succumbed to N a z i militarism. It was an overly harsh contrast between good and evil that Brook

thought would surely cause protests from foreign governments and citizens. H e also disliked

Churchill's use o f statistics on the number o f divisions in the field during the various stages o f the

war to compare Britain's overall war effort with the U S . Brook felt it misleading in that it failed to

reveal U S army divisions were at least one-third larger than their British counterparts. Finally,

Brook questioned Churchill's inflated casualty figures that listed 412,240 British and imperial

soldiers killed in the war compared to 322,188 Americans killed; the White Paper on Casualties

(1946) reported total empire losses o f only 266,273. 20

After consulting with Pownall, who had

provided the figures for use in the memoirs, Churchill decided not to modify his figures, stating that

he was citing the "somber roles o f honour in the confident faith that the equal comradeship

sanctified by so much precious blood w i l l continue to command the reverence and inspire the

conduct o f the English-speaking world." 21

Brook was most troubled by Churchill's occasional bluntness regarding foreign relations

during the war. For instance, he asked Churchill to omit allegations that many Irishmen in 1940

were eager to support Germany, and to confine his discussion o f Ireland to concerns about a N a z i

invasion and plans to counteract it with a British brigade in the north. Regarding Franco's Spain,

Brook disliked Churchill's allegation that it had considered seizing Gibralter while Britain was

distracted by invasion fears. The Cabinet Secretary feared that Churchill's acknowledgment o f

contingency plans to rebuff a Spanish attack would anger Franco into publicizing secret British

promises to support Spain's claim to French M o r o c c o . 22

Such revelations would surely cause a

storm o f controversy in France over British perfidy in bargaining away part o f its empire at a time

when Paris was under German occupation. A t the same time, Churchill agreed to tone down his

provocative references to "vulgar Spanish prejudices," but later complained that the revised text was

too tame. Likewise, his accounts of British plans to seize Crete and the Cape Verde Islands without

the consent o f Greece or neutral Portugal were removed. Finally, Churchill's admission that " a l l

our military men disliked the Jews and loved the Arabs" was removed after Brook questioned the

wisdom o f publishing comments sure to inflame anti-British passions in Palestine. 23

 97

W h i l e Churchill agreed to soften his criticisms o f European nations and leaders, his

patronizing views o f colonial subjects caused h i m to entertain only a modest appreciation for the

vital role Indian troops played in the defense of empire during the war. This attitude did not sit well

with K e l l y , who had spent most o f the war in India fighting alongside Sikhs and Hindus, where he

acquired a great admiration for their dedication and tenacity in battle. He complained that Churchill

had grossly underestimated India's contribution to the war effort, which he feared would worsen the

author's reputation in the region. But Churchill refused to modify his text to incorporate greater

praise for India at war, offering only a single tribute in all six volumes to the contribution o f Indian

troops in the various theaters o f combat. K e l l y also disagreed with Churchill's contention that India

was an economic liability during the war, with an exchange rate fixed at an artificially high level that

was completely disproportionate to the rupee's true value. He pointed out that the currency's value

had been set in the early 1920s, and remained unchanged during and after the second world war.

Consequently, K e l l y disputed Churchill's assertion that it cost the British Treasury £1 million per

day to feed and defend the Indian people, since this sum included the cost o f supplies sent from India

to succor troops in the Middle East. The actual cost to Britain for India's defense was thus

considerably lower, and it was more than compensated by the loyal service o f Indian military units

in the Middle East and Asia. However, once again Churchill chose to disregard K e l l y ' s advice in

writing his memoirs. 24

In contrast, Churchill could not say enough about British "fortitude, phlegm and courage"

worthy o f a great imperial race. Recounting a visit to Bristol during the Blitz, he compared British

resolve in carrying forward the torch of freedom and liberty with "the ancient, unconquerable, spirit"

that imbued Roman and Greek civilizations. In The Grand Alliance, he paid equally glowing tribute

to the sacrifices of Dominion forces in Greece and Crete, whose deeds represented "an inexpressible

relief to the Empire." Canadians, N e w Zealanders, and Australians all received credit for standing

steadfastly with the mother country in its hour of peril. Subsequent volumes continued to emphasize

the empire's predominance in fighting the A x i s , even after America had entered the war. Sensitive

to American opinion that Britain had used its colonial and Dominion troops for most o f the hard

fighting, Churchill stressed that in the desert war British casualties until 1942 exceeded those o f all

other allied forces combined. The martial vigor, efficiency, and discipline o f Britain's soldiers was

comparable to none, the story o f their hard fight to thwart Rommel ranking alongside Blenheim and

Waterloo in the annals o f warfare. 25

 98

In recounting the long road to E l Alamein, a battle that helped to turn the tide o f war,

Churchill rebuffed his American publishers' concerns that he was not doing justice to Britain's ally.

While he devoted seventeen chapters in Volume III to the desert campaign, he gave scant attention

to American issues prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The New York Times

editors maintained that the volume did not begin to deal with matters o f interest to American readers

until the battle o f the Atlantic mid-way through the book. A s a result, they feared that serialization

in the U S would get off to a slow start, with reader interest lost even before all the extracts were

published. Life's Dan Longwell agreed that Britain's desert war was discussed in too much detail
26

given its limited success and significance for the overall war effort. He urged a major realignment

of the chronology so as to deal with the U S buildup in Europe earlier, but Churchill brushed his

concerns aside, arguing that the final draft would appeal equally to American and British readers. 27

In The Hinge of Fate, Churchill dealt with Britain's humiliating defeat in Malaya and

Singapore following Japan's surprise attack. Australian officials urged Churchill to clarify the

controversy surrounding deployment o f imperial troops in early 1942, and Britain's failure to

anticipate the Japanese attack that led to an ignominious surrender o f 130,000 troops. M a n y

Australians believed that their efforts in the Far East, where they had contributed eighteen divisions

and many air squadrons, were not sufficiently appreciated in Britain or America. Churchill ignored
28

these concerns, portraying Australian leaders as foolish and faint-hearted in demanding the return

o f their troops from Egypt in 1942 to counter a Japanese invasion threat. Likewise, he was

contemptuous o f Singapore's civilian authorities who wished to exonerate themselves for the terrible

defeat they suffered. In his memoirs, Churchill asserted that he did not wish to become a court o f

inquiry to pass judgment on "the worst disaster and largest capitulation o f British history," stating

that he would confine himself to "the salient facts" from which readers could form their own

opinion. But he then proceeded to dismiss the work on field defenses by local authorities as bearing

no relation to the mortal needs o f the army at the time. In 1942, caught off-guard by the speed o f
29

Japanese forces moving down the Malay peninsula, he had desperately ordered a fight to the finish:

"The honour o f the British Empire and o f the British army is at stake. I rely on you to show no

mercy to weakness in any form. With Russians fighting as they are and the Americans so stubborn

at Luzon, the whole reputation o f our country and our race is involved." N o mention was made
30

then or in his memoirs o f the large contingent o f Indian and Malayan soldiers defending Singapore.

Instead o f praising these troops for defending a white-man's empire, Churchill criticized the
 99

coddling o f Indians during the war, implying that they derived far more benefit from the imperial

relationship than the mother country. He asserted that F D R ' s appeal for Britain to surrender its

imperial control in 1942 was "sheer madness," arguing that he had an obligation to defend four

hundred million o f His Majesty's subjects from chaos. A t the same time, however, he worked to

sabotage S. Cripps' mission to India designed to reach an accommodation with Indian nationalists. 31

Despite Churchill's efforts to promote the British imperial mission, at times he argued at

cross-purposes, such as when he expressed disenchantment with the hesitancy o f British officers to

engage the enemy while enjoying a large superiority in manpower and resources. Churchill

complained that British generals were obsessed with waging set-piece battles, requiring the time-

consuming stockpiling o f supplies before launching an attack. H e compared this practice

unfavorably with Rommel's imaginative use of a few German divisions and a very restricted supply

line to harry allied forces for two full years. Churchill reiterated this point in discussing the Burma

campaign, claiming that on one key sector o f the front 33,000 British troops were arrayed against

five thousand weary and ill-equipped Japanese soldiers. In 1942, Churchill had been humiliated
32

in front o f F D R by news o f the British capitulation at Tobruk to a German force alleged to be less

than half as strong, calling it a "national disgrace." It was one o f the heaviest blows he experienced

during the war, and led to a vote of censure on his direction o f the war effort. Churchill claimed that

the criticisms in Parliament only steeled his determination to beat Rommel, referring to the fight for

Egypt as "a Homeric struggle" that turned unmitigated defeat into total victory. The successful

defense at E l Alamein, followed by Montgomery's crushing offensive in November, was hailed by

Churchill as one o f the most glorious chapters in the history o f war. Secrecy laws prevented him

from mentioning that top secret Enigma decrypts of Hitler's communiques had revealed to the allies

that Rommel was desperately short o f fuel and supplies. 33

Churchill attempted to put a brave face on another debacle in 1942 at Dieppe, arguing that

the raid on the French coast revealed the utmost gallantry and devotion o f the troops involved, even

i f its results were disappointing. Many Canadians retained a lingering suspicion that their soldiers
34

had been used as cannon fodder on a suicidal mission without adequate logistical support or

planning, merely for the sake o f achieving a propaganda coup at a particularly low point in the war. 35

Churchill tried to dissociate himself from its military planning, even though in virtually all other

instances he had become immersed in the details o f battle. 36

When asked for his comments,

Mountbatten placed responsibility for its planning and execution squarely on Churchill's shoulders:
 100

That you were (as ever) the moving spirit behind carrying out another operation that
summer....You and the Chiefs of Staff went into the revived plans carefully (which were
hardly changed except in respect of substituting Commandos for airborne forces to silence
the flank batteries) and gave your approval. You decided to tell the Foreign Secretary but
not the Defence Committee. 37

In his memoirs, Churchill offered only a two-page explanation o f Dieppe, claiming that he merely

adhered to the recommendations o f Canadian and British generals in charge o f operational planning.

He ignored the advice o f his military research team that the Dieppe raid deserved a chapter o f its

own in light o f its importance to Canadians, and because a thorough vetting o f the issues o f

command and responsibility was needed. 38

Instead, Churchill contended that he first gave the

operation serious consideration only after receiving a report o f the attack in mid-August 1942. H e

blamed the commanding officers for an ill-devised plan that defied conventional military wisdom

by using amphibious forces in a frontal assault on a heavily fortified port. 39

Nonetheless, his

contention that the raid offered valuable lessons for planning Operation Overlord became widely

accepted by a generation o f historians who studied the war. 40

In Closing the Ring, Churchill continued to emphasize the preponderant role played by

British forces in the war against Germany, though he readily acknowledged U S domination o f the

Pacific theater. H i s account o f the conquest o f Sicily asserted that it was primarily a British effort

with the Americans playing a supportive role. A t the same time, he criticized American attempts

in mid-1943 to assume overall control o f Mediterranean operations, insisting that British forces had

done the lion's share o f fighting to that date and still comprised two-thirds o f all fighting units in the

region. However, for all o f his rhetoric acclaiming a nation o f valiant and courageous warriors, he

could not disguise the fact that Britain in 1943 could no longer undertake even modest operations

in the Aegean without U S logistical support. 41

A few months later, at the Teheran conference in

November 1943, the scales fell from his eyes when he realized just how low Britain had slipped in

the opinion o f its wartime partners, making h i m lament that he wished "to sleep for a billion years."

For the first time since the war began, he feared that Britain was being marginalized and the global

balance o f power completely overturned. However, Churchill refused to believe that sheer

willpower could not somehow achieve an imperial revival through victory in war. 42
He had hoped

during the war to revive British prestige in the Mediterranean by making Arab nationalism and

British imperialism partners in a new Middle East, but instead his efforts only exacerbated Arab

rivalries and heightened suspicions among Zionists. Elsewhere, Churchill proved he was unable
43
 101

to think beyond the failed imperial structures o f the past. For example, he urged the re-

establishment of monarchies in Italy, Greece, and Yugoslavia as the best means o f bringing stability

to those nations. When Roosevelt acted independently after Mussolini's fall to establish a republican

government in Italy, Churchill complained that Britain had borne most o f the casualties in the war

against Italian fascism, and therefore deserved a major say in such matters. 44

In Triumph and Tragedy, it was impossible for h i m to accord a central role to Britain's war

effort as he had done in previous volumes. After June 1944, a great expansion o f U S forces on the

fighting front in Europe meant that Britain's contribution quickly diminished to a distant third

among allies. In recounting the D - D a y invasion, Churchill praised the brotherhood in arms o f

America and Britain, making special note o f the British effort for its importance more than its

results. H e claimed that the heaviest fighting on the entire Normandy front prior to U S General

Patton's breakout in July occurred in the British sector around Caen. H e referred to it as the hinge

upon which the entire leftward pivot o f the American advance was based, a convenient bit o f

hindsight for what transpired after the British army became bogged down in Caen's rubble. He did

not mention that frustration at the British army's lack o f progress had prompted a rash decision to

flatten Caen in a massive aerial assault, an action that caused great bitterness among the local French

population that was not soon forgotten. 45

A s Churchill finalized his manuscript of Volume V I in anticipation of publication in the fall

of 1953, he received support from an unlikely source for projecting his theme o f continuing British

power in the final months o f the war. Life's, Walter Graebner suggested that Churchill accentuate

comparative allied losses in the first three months after D-Day, since most Americans still thought

that the British had been too reticent about incurring casualties, thereby delaying the rollback o f

Hitler's army. However, when casualty figures were compiled, they revealed that U S losses up to

September 1944 actually exceeded those o f British and Canadian forces by a factor o f two. K e l l y

believed that to quote such figures would only reinforce American impressions that they had made

the predominant contribution to victory after D-Day. Instead, Churchill emphasized that

Montgomery repelled the "only substantive German counter-attack" during the summer fighting. 46

In Volume V I , Churchill affirmed Britain's right to regain on the field o f battle its "rightful

possessions in the Far East" rather than have them handed back after the war. H e argued that when

the war finally ended Britain had the greatest moral claim o f any nation to a prominent place at the

peace table, since it alone had resisted tyranny from beginning to end: "Weary and worn,
 102

impoverished but undaunted and now triumphant, we had a moment that was sublime. W e gave

thanks to G o d for the noblest of all His blessings, the sense that we had done our duty." In a victory

speech, he urged his countrymen not to fall into a rut o f inertia again, as had happened after the last

war, nor should they be overwhelmed with "the craven fear of being great." He exhorted them to "go

forward, unflinching and indomitable," to make the whole world safe. Oblivious to Britain's

financial bankruptcy, he insisted on stopping moves to reduce the R A F ' s gigantic strategic bomber

force, arguing that the country must remain a great military power in the postwar era. 47

In his biography o f Marlborough, Churchill depicted Britain as a heroic nation that

repeatedly triumphed over more powerful foes in the name o f freedom. In his war memoirs, he

strongly reinforced this metanarrative o f British national identity and power. Cultural nationalism,

based on the image o f Churchill, the spirit o f Dunkirk and the B l i t z , and atomic military power,

became prevalent totems in the early postwar years that appeared to vindicate the British way o f life.

For Churchill, it was the fulfillment o f Britain's historical role as leader o f the free world and

principal carrier o f civilization. H i s memoirs gave historical intentionality, and hence justification,

to the events o f 1940, when in fact they were contingent and in doubt. H e combined facts about the

war that were known or believed to be true with inspirational values and compelling rhetoric, while

ignoring much that did not fit his romantic image o f nationhood. In wartime, he had the benefit o f
48

patriotism and propaganda to achieve a national consensus. After the war, he used his memoirs to

promote a war memory that disguised social divisions, sometimes shaky morale, and the loss o f

national power. He ignored a good deal o f anti-English hostility in many parts o f the empire where

nationalism was ascendant, creating instead appealing images o f Britain's empire and

Commonwealth as a family o f free peoples that starkly contrasted with the N a z i slave state. 49

Churchill felt that after six years o f war "[t]he island and empire have received no damage in any

permanent sense." It was a remarkable assertion, given that the strain on the imperial system caused

by the war meant that only substantial U S assistance in Europe, the Middle East, and A s i a enabled

Britain to maintain a semblance o f its prior influence in the postwar era. 50

Nonetheless, the power o f Churchill's war memoirs is reflected in the fact that it enhanced

a postwar consensus in Britain supportive o f imperial revival as a counterweight to the world's

superpowers. There was no attempt by leaders in either major political party to forge a new post-

imperial identity, though the left-wing of Labour did resist the Churchillian hegemony. In contrast,

Attlee's foreign and imperial policy was remarkably Churchillian in the sense that his government
 103

supported rearmament after 1949, advocated containment o f communism, and proved quite

unsympathetic to indigenous independence movements. Even Cripps, a passionate anti-imperialist

before the war, pursued a nationalist policy that sought economic integration o f the empire and

Commonwealth in a new sterling bloc. The dreams o f leftist intellectuals to make decolonization
51

movements a basis for eradicating Britain's culture o f imperialism and national identity were

stymied. Instead, both political parties sought to foster a stronger Commonwealth, though these
52

ambitions foundered on the rocks o f economic austerity, budget cuts, and sterling devaluation that

forced severe import restrictions. 53

The "Special Relationship" of the English-speaking Peoples

Churchill's abiding faith in an Anglo-American mission to protect freedom in the world had

its roots in the late 19 century rise o f U S power. But it was the immediate necessity o f British
th

survival in 1939 that caused him to make an "indissoluble family connection" o f English-speaking

peoples an urgent political ambition. When war ended six years later, Britain's weakened position

in the world was partially disguised by the formalities o f early postwar conferences where it was

accorded the status o f victor alongside Russia and America. The new Labour government initially

pursued an independent course, but within two years the political right and moderate left reached

a consensus that national security required American assistance. Only the radical left challenged

this perspective by arguing that it would make Britain a vassal o f the U S . 5 4

Churchill's appeal for

an Anglo-American partnership was premised on equality o f status that was belied by the reality o f

a greatly weakened imperial grip and vastly unequal military and economic resources after the war.

Rather than integrating Britain into a reconstructed European order, Churchill urged an

Atlantic triangle for Britain's primary foreign policy focus. Britain might oversee the creation o f

Franco-German entente in a United States o f Europe, but it would not j o i n in such a federation.

Between 1945 and 1947, Labour toyed with the idea o f "a third course" in which the French and

British empires would combine to form a customs union rivaling the economic might o f the U S , but

eventually Attlee and Bevin accepted Churchill's view of Britain within an Atlantic orbit of English-

speaking nations. Churchill's ambitious notion o f Britain's geopolitical destiny based on three

concentric rings that placed empire and the Atlantic community above Europe in importance was

to have a baleful impact on British attitudes toward continental integration in later years. 55

In enunciating his world view after the war, no speech has garnered more attention than his
 104

"Iron Curtain" address at Fulton, Missouri on M a r c h 5, 1946. When the war ended, Churchill's

incredible reception from adoring crowds wherever he traveled encouraged h i m to think that even

out o f office his immense prestige might be used to "start some thinking that w i l l make history." 56

Anglo-American relations in the early months o f the postwar had fallen into the doldrums, with

British leaders doubting U S dependability and fearing its economic strength. Concerned that the

Russians might capitalize on disagreements between the democracies over trade and empire,

Churchill traveled to Fulton with President Truman to lay out his vision o f Anglo-American

hegemony as the world's only salvation. He told his audience that the U S "stands at this time at the

pinnacle o f world power." It was a solemn moment in history that demanded wisdom from its

leaders to "rule and guide the conduct of the English-speaking peoples in peace as they did in war."

But "[n]either the sure prevention o f war, nor the continuous rise o f world organization w i l l be

gained without what I have called the fraternal association o f the English-speaking peoples." 57

Churchill argued that the moral strength of the English-speaking peoples was a powerful world force

premised on the unshakeable principles o f freedom and liberty. However, his suggestion o f a formal

partnership between Britain and the U S startled many Americans, who thought it contrary to their

national interest. After his speech, Churchill was accused by many liberals o f advocating "a

poisonous doctrine" that sought to create a hostile alliance against the Soviet Union. Left-wing

liberals in America in early 1946 were cool to a fraternal association with Britain because their

suspicions o f empire were still greater than their fear o f Soviet expansionism. Liberals soon

changed their perspective as cold war rivalries intensified in the months following the Fulton speech,

with Churchill's talk reinterpreted as an early warning against the world-wide communist peril. 58

Thus, within a year o f the end o f W o r l d War II, the makings o f a bipartisan consensus on foreign

policy toward the Soviet Union was being forged in America, one that would survive intact until the

1980s.

A year later, Churchill's publishing syndicate worked to change American perceptions o f

their client while promoting his memoirs. Longwell noted that all publishers in the syndicate were

inspired by "the common cause" and a sense o f duty toward the project: " W e feel that we are

engaged on a most important historical record for our people - something that might well prove

important in the memories o f our two countries." But Churchill's campaign for a fraternal

association soon became caught up in Washington's partisan politics when he promoted his wartime

relationship with F D R as a model o f Anglo-American amity. In 1947-49, President Truman was

 105

involved in a battle with Republicans over the publication o f F D R ' s wartime papers. Truman was

resisting Congressional pressure to publish the papers because he deemed it not in the national

interest, but partisanship lay at the heart o f the dispute. The messages which Churchill wished to

use in his memoirs revealed that F D R had quietly abandoned strict neutrality in the summer and fall

of 1940, despite attempts by an isolationist Congress to mandate American neutrality through

legislation, Truman was in the midst o f promoting U S participation in a North Atlantic security

system, and he feared that publishing the wartime messages would encourage Republican critics to

assert that Democrats were again drawing America into another European conflict, just as F D R had

done in 1940-41. In order to w i n approval for publication, Churchill assured the White House that

nothing discomfiting would be divulged in his memoirs until well after the 1948 election. 59

In contrast, the Republican Luce urged Churchill to ignore Truman's concerns, since

complying with the President's request "would only cause more trouble." H e believed that

Churchill's account o f U S policies from 1938-41 offered a valuable critique o f F D R ' s delay in

coming to Europe's rescue. The fact that Roosevelt moved faster than either Congress or the

American people in coming to Europe's aid did not negate what Luce believed was the

administration's isolationist and pro-appeasement failings. L o o k i n g ahead, Luce realized that

Churchill's subsequent volumes would discuss the crucial summits at Casablanca, Teheran, and

Yalta, where he believed F D R would be exposed as an incompetent appeaser o f Stalin. Churchill's

publication o f F D R ' s correspondence in 1948 would open the door for Republicans to compel

complete disclosure o f the former President's papers, inviting yet more embarrassing disclosures. 60

Churchill claimed to hold the highest sense o f responsibility in everything he wrote to defend the

interests o f their two nations, but he also desired a fair chance to defend his honor and reputation

by using all available documents to refute his detractors, some o f whom had been subordinates in

the Roosevelt administration. Truman finally relented after assurances from Churchill that the

White House could vet all final proofs. With relief the President wrote: "I am more than happy that

the publication [of Volume II] w i l l not come out until January 1 , 1949 because, as you know, we
st

are in the midst o f a very bitter political presidential election in this country and it w i l l be better for

all concerned i f this publication comes out after the election is over." 61

In return for the favor, Churchill authorized the U S State Department to transmit excerpts

of his memoirs to eastern Europe over the Voice of America. Luce agreed that it would be o f great

use in the propaganda war against communism, since the war narrative offered "the greatest service
 106

to Britain, to the United States and our common cause." He also asked Churchill in 1949 to meet

with Jewish philanthropists dedicated to dispelling anti-British sentiment among fellow American

Jews that had arisen from the colonial war in Palestine. Their organization maintained that Britain

currently occupied an unhappy position in the eyes of many other U S citizens because o f its socialist

government, which was thought to constitute a betrayal o f Anglo-American war aims. 62

Since

Churchill was a foremost critic o f socialism, and had recently attacked B e v i n ' s foreign policy and

Labour's allegedly anti-American views, the philanthropists thought that he was an ideal person to

effectively bridge the gap in understanding between their countrymen. 63

In contrast to the scolding tone with which he criticized America's pre-war policies in The

Gathering Storm, Churchill's second volume stressed the warmth, friendship, and harmony o f

interests between the two nations' leaders from 1940-41. Though not formally allied at the time,

Churchill praised F D R for doing everything possible to coax and cajole the American people into

supporting Britain's war effort. He asserted that a perfect understanding was gained between the

two countries through his personal exchanges with the President, blurring the distinction between

American appreciation o f Britain's plight and willingness to take decisive action on its behalf. He

merely acknowledged that F D R had "not found it convenient" in M a y 1940 to seek Congressional

approval o f the sale o f fifty aging destroyers to the beleaguered British nation, despite the fact that

France's collapse left the only democracy remaining in Europe very poorly equipped to defend

against the vaunted Wehrmacht. A t the time of the French armistice, Churchill informed the world
64

that Britain's fight was to save not only itself but all o f mankind: " W e have become the sole

champions now in arms to defend the world's cause." A month later he declared: " W e are fighting

by ourselves alone; but we are not fighting for ourselves alone." In his memoirs, Churchill claimed
65

never to have doubted that America would come to the rescue, omitting to mention that the cash-

and-carry terms o f assistance in 1940 guaranteed Britain's financial bankruptcy before the year was

out. 66
According to J . M . Keynes, Churchill sacrificed Britain's independence by "throwing good

housekeeping to the wind," pouring the country's gold reserves into U S hands in the vain hope that

Anglo-American friendship would ensure Britain's vital interests in the long run. It is true that
67

Churchill abandoned a balanced budget to facilitate the acquisition o f arms from America in 1940,

but given the dire military peril that Britain faced, he had little choice in the matter. Britain's

formerly tight-fisted Chancellor and Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, appears to have fully

assented to the Cabinet's decision to spend massively on arms in 1940.

 107

But while Churchill had looked hopefully upon U S actions that extracted maximum

economic gain from British desperation in 1940, his advisors were furious at American "grab."

After the destroyer-for-bases deal was finalized, Beaverbrook complained that the Americans had

not given fair compensation, and were taking advantage o f the war to muscle into British markets.

Churchill's memoirs defended the deal as a good bargain for both countries: "Believing, as I have

always done, that the survival of Britain is bound up with the survival of the United States, it seemed

to me and my colleagues that it was an actual advantage to have these bases in American hands." 68

He realized that U S aid came at a high price, but sought to make those sacrifices more rhetorical

than real. Thus, in August 1941 he made a public declaration o f war aims in a meeting with

Roosevelt that promised support for self-determination, while privately maintaining that the Atlantic

Charter applied only to sovereign states and not to Britain's imperial possessions. 69

In the war, Churchill had sought to erode U S neutrality through a series o f agreements and

concessions, starting with cash-and-carry in October 1939, Lend-lease in late 1940, and the Atlantic

Charter in August 1941, which came close to a joint declaration o f belligerency against Germany.

But in the process, Britain was transformed into a garrison state tethered to the interests o f the U S .

Its armies, strategic bomber force, and navy were less manifestations of resurgent British power than

indications o f American hegemony in the West. 70

Nonetheless, Churchill was ecstatic over the

President's agreement to supply Britain with weapons in 1941: " A l l this reads easily now, but at the

time it was a supreme act o f faith and leadership for the United States to deprive themselves o f this

very considerable mass o f arms for the sake of a country which many deemed already beaten. They

never had need to repent it." For this act o f selflessness, Churchill paid fulsome tribute in his

memoirs to American leaders who he claimed never lost faith in Britain's resolve or ability to resist

invasion, omitting to mention that many U S officers at the time doubted the country could hold out

against Germany. H e also waxed poetic about the American people's support for Britain's fight
71

in the air campaign o f 1940-41:

Away across the Atlantic the prolonged bombardment of London, and later of other cities
and seaports, aroused a wave of sympathy in the United States, stronger than any ever felt
before or since in the English-speaking world. Passion flamed in American hearts, and in
none more than in the heart of President Roosevelt....I could feel the glow of millions of men
and women eager to share the suffering, burning to strike a blow.

Opinion polls did reveal overwhelming sympathy for Britain against the A x i s , but on the key issue
 108

of whether Americans were willing to risk war, they were badly divided. Churchill had to admit that

it took Pearl Harbor for the U S to finally unite behind Britain in the war against fascism. Knowing 72

that the terms of American aid risked a backlash in Britain from those who thought it too beneficial

to the U S , in 1941 he elevated the deal onto a higher moral plane by claiming that it reflected the

common interests of the two great branches o f English-speaking peoples: "I do not view the process

with any misgivings. I could not stop it i f I wished; no one can stop it. L i k e the Mississippi, it just

keeps rolling along. Let it roll. Let it roll on -full flood, inexorable, irresistible, benignant, to broader

lands and better days." 73

In his memoirs, Churchill recalled with satisfaction that in America's

intensely partisan election of 1940 there was a clear consensus in support o f the "Supreme Cause."

Though he had hoped Wendell Wilkie would win, he claimed in his memoirs that it was an immense

relief to learn of F D R ' s victory, contending that the election results unleashed a wave o f admiration

for Britain, as Americans came to realize that their fate was bound up with their cousins across the

ocean. It was this growing appreciation for their common interest in defeating Hitlerism that

prompted the Lend-lease policy, "the most unsordid act in the history o f any nation." 74

Churchill's American publishers agreed that it was a matter o f vital importance for their two

nations that readers in the U S come to appreciate the story's relevance for their own lives. They felt

that the author's stirring rhetoric and many dramatic high points in Their Finest Hour went a long

way toward achieving that objective. Yet for all his praise o f F D R ' s "refined comprehension o f
75

the Cause," Churchill could not disguise his frustration in recalling that upbeat messages about

Britain's heroic fight were not matched by an all-important declaration o f war, and the President

seemed nonchalant about the prospect o f a British collapse in Egypt. It was largely to allay

Roosevelt's suspicion that Britain was militarily overextended in 1941 that Churchill arranged for

the two leaders to meet at Placenta Bay in a "deeply moving expression o f the unity o f faith o f our

two peoples..." From this historic gathering emerged the Atlantic Charter, which Churchill took the

initiative in drafting to demonstrate he was not a reactionary and to show the world Britain's

righteous intent. It was intended to appease U S concerns in the short term while reserving Britain's

freedom o f action on imperial issues after the war. Thus, Churchill was pleased with F D R ' s

"remarkable expression o f realism" that after the war Britain and the U S would police the w o r l d . 76

Though they possessed remarkably different personalities and outlooks on life, Churchill

portrayed himself and F D R as adhering to similar principles. 77

In fact, F D R ' s intentions in 1940-41

were radically different from those o f British leaders. Roosevelt wished to keep Britain in the war
 109

against Germany while avoiding direct U S involvement, a policy that enabled it to replace British

imperial control in A s i a and the Middle East with a new world order based on American economic

hegemony. Roosevelt effectively made the U S pre-eminent economically by 1941 at virtually no

cost in American lives, even though it remained a relatively weak military power until the latter part

of 1943. Only then did the U S emerge on the world stage as a colossus that dwarfed Britain, a new
78

reality reflected in its growing assertiveness at the conference table, much to Churchill's chagrin.

Churchill's glowing assessment o f his relations with F D R is belied by a full reading o f their

correspondence, which reveals that from the start o f the war Churchill waged a battle to protect the

British empire against American pressure for reform. While he saw the empire as a carrier o f

democratic values, the White House was hostile to imperial systems as a barrier to commerce.

Though Churchill never wavered from his conviction that victory could only be achieved through

an alliance with the U S , he was frustrated by American financial pressure, which he thought was not

in the spirit o f a great democratic crusade against tyranny. 79

During the war, the Foreign Office had surmised that F D R ' s primary objective was to

achieve U S hegemony over foreign markets through a system o f informal empire, making America

not so much a land o f opportunity in 1941 as "a land looking for opportunity." 80
After the U S

entered the war, Whitehall felt considerable ambivalence over the prospect o f Americans sweeping

into Europe and establishing a world order conducive to their economic self-interests. For very

different reasons, Churchill also doubted American war aims, which he thought naive and in need

o f guidance from a wiser hand. But in fact it was Churchill who lacked a clear vision o f the future

with which to give his war strategy momentum, whereas F D R proved highly adept at enhancing

America's strategic position during the war at the expense o f Britain's global interests. 81

Churchill's American publishers were intrigued by revelations in The Grand Alliance that

Roosevelt in 1941 put the U S navy on a semi-war footing in the Atlantic by gradually expanding

its activities under cover o f strict neutrality. B y the summer, navy vessels were in a state o f

undeclared belligerency against German U-boats after an executive order authorized them to shoot-

on-sight. The New York Times' Arthur Sulzberger feared that the disclosure would cause a major
1

stir in Washington, where Republicans were already intensely suspicious o f Democratic

interventionism:

I have a feeling that what you have written may very well cause a storm of Roosevelt
criticism, and that if it were to occur at this time it might even go so far as to jeopardize
congressional action on the Atlantic Pact and the Military A i d programme. The blunt
 110

statement made by you in Chapter 10, galley 2, 'Our job is to get the Americans into the war'
will not help.
82

Concerned lest he become embroiled in partisan politics in the U S , Churchill agreed to soften his

account o f F D R ' s willingness to use military force to aid Britain in 1941. 83

During the war, Anglophobic Americans were convinced that Churchill was wedded to

notions o f empire and old world spheres o f influence, two aspects o f the international system they

were determined to overthrow. In an open letter to the British people in October 1942, Luce had

declared: "One thing we are sure we are not fighting for is to hold the British empire together. W e

don't like to put the matter so bluntly, but we don't want you to have any illusions. I f your

strategists are planning a war to hold the British empire together they w i l l sooner or later find

themselves strategizing all alone." Churchill's attempt to disguise sharp differences over foreign
84

policy with rhetoric that touted an Anglo-American mission to combat world anarchy were met with

silence from Washington during the war. 85

In his memoirs, however, he contended that the U S

military fully recognized that Britain was a "bastion o f American security." Japan's attack on Pearl

Harbor in December, he said, had brought into being an all-conquering alliance o f English-speaking

peoples that they owed to mankind not to dissolve or allow to fall apart in the postwar era. 86

Churchill alleged in his memoirs that with America in the war, he easily won approval o f

Britain's strategic focus on the Mediterranean theater o f operations. O n l y the timing o f various

military actions, he claimed, was altered to accommodate unforseen circumstances that arose during

the course o f the war. In discussing plans for a cross-Channel invasion, however, it was apparent

that disagreements had became progressively worse during the war. Churchill had walked a fine line

between showing his support for Operation Overlord and pursuing "alternative prizes" in the

Mediterranean. Realizing that U S officials were determined to launch the main assault against

Germany in 1943, he still fought for approval of operations in the Aegean, thereby risking American

anger which almost caused them to redirect their main effort to the Pacific. When his military

advisors questioned Churchill's idea, he denied that additional operations in the Mediterranean

necessarily precluded a cross-channel invasion in 1943. But this assertion directly contradicts

evidence of his intentions stated in a memorandum to Ismay in August 1942. It is an example of how

Churchill often outlined two or more non-complementary threads o f strategic thought in his wartime

correspondence, which allowed h i m to later choose the one that presented himself i n the best

possible light based on the actual turn o f events. Thus, while urging diversionary operations in

Norway, Burma, Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily during 1943 that would have allowed the British army
 Ill

a greater role in strategic planning, Churchill quixotically urged F D R not to abandon plans for a late

summer invasion o f France, despite insufficient resources to do both. 87

In recounting the Casablanca conference o f January 1943, Churchill admitted that Anglo-

American harmony was only restored when F D R accepted his Mediterranean strategy for the next

year. Immediately, he began devising a scheme to involve allied troops in the Aegean in a forlorn

effort to embroil Turkey in the conflict. In his memoirs, Churchill claimed that bringing Turkey into

the war had always been an objective o f American and British leaders. In fact, his own Cabinet

thought it futile, while the Americans were utterly opposed to h i m trying to vindicate his Gallipoli

strategy from the last war. Nonetheless, Churchill contended that all was harmonious in M a y 1943

when he visited Washington to seek approval for a permanent Anglo-American fraternal association

and combined military command structure. He offered no evidence to support this claim, and in fact

contradicted it when he noted that American leaders took pains a few months later to ensure that the

U S and Britain were not seen to be colluding in a way intended to dictate allied policy to M o s c o w . 88

Stalin was deeply suspicious that the Western allies were deliberately delaying a second front in

order to bleed Russia white. While American generals were anxious to prove h i m wrong,

Churchill's bitter experience in W o r l d War I had taught h i m that massive and sustained logistical

support was essential to the success o f any amphibious operations on the continent o f Europe. In

his memoirs, he complained that American plans to invade France in 1942 or 1943 utterly failed to

appreciate the mortal dangers involved in such an undertaking. 89

F o l l o w i n g the Teheran conference in November 1943, Churchill confided to his personal

secretary that there was no use beating up on the Americans over strategy; it was now for history

to judge the issues, and he planned to be one o f the historians. Churchill and the British Chiefs o f

Staff agreed that the central objectives for 1944 were to secure control o f the Mediterranean,

eliminate Italy from the war, and ensure Turkey's cooperation in driving the Germans out o f the

Balkans. They were frustrated, however, by strong resistance to all o f these objectives from

American officials who suspected they were intended principally to bolster British imperial interests

while undermining preparation for the Normandy invasion. When Churchill proved unable to sway

American decision-making as he had done during the previous two years, he became sullen and

morose. 90
In writing his memoirs, he was anxious to prove his case regarding the strategic

controversies surrounding Overlord (D-Day). In 1948, while still working to complete his account

of prewar politics, he sent a preliminary draft o f his views on D - D a y planning to Montgomery for
 112

comment, whose response was reassuring: "It is a very remarkable and accurate forecaste [sic] by

a master brain; it is a great privilege to have been allowed to read it at this stage. It is my view that

a landing in Normandy [in 1943] would not merely have been a 'terrible hazard'; it would have

failed." 91
Bolstered by this assessment, Churchill proceeded to attack the strategic thinking o f

American military planners in 1942-43, claiming they were inflexible, single-minded, and apolitical.

Laughlin was impressed by the critique, believing that it would serve as a useful reminder to

American readers o f the wisdom and foresight o f Churchill, and o f the British leader's desire to

pursue policies that were in the best interests o f their two countries:

[T]he bond that held the two nations together eight year ago w i l l be renewed through reliving
in memory those stirring days. The cooperation and leadership you gave then w i l l rekindle
the flames which have burned l o w in the aftermath o f the war. W e need this stimulus....It
is, I think, a matter o f real significance to you and to the welfare o f the British Empire and
the United States in this decisive hour. 92

In Closing the Ring, Churchill reiterated his theme o f Anglo-American wartime cooperation as

proof o f the tremendous achievements possible when Washington and London worked as one. For

example, the turning point in the war against A x i s submarines came only after Britain and America

coordinated air and naval operations in one great maritime organization. Churchill linked this

account o f wartime success to his postwar lesson that both countries faced a stark choice between

world anarchy i f they became divided or world order under their joint stewardship. The wartime

system o f coordinated policy was a model o f international cooperation that he lamented had been

abandoned after the war due to "unwisdom" among political leaders in both countries. 93

While Churchill dreamed o f an English-speaking fraternity that would enable Britain to

remain a major player in world affairs, his memoirs highlighted growing friction from 1943-44 over

his Mediterranean strategy. In retrospect, he called it a glorious success, when in fact the Germans

managed to create a deadlock on the Italian front that was not broken until mid-1944. 94
Brook

considered Churchill's account of American opposition to the Italian campaign overly provocative

in implying that U S officials were unreasonable and petty. Churchill's draft portrayed American

officers as inexperienced and obsessed with an invasion o f France, stymying a united British

command eager to obtain glittering prizes in the Mediterranean, when in fact there was no consensus

between the Prime Minister and his military commanders on that point. 95

In Closing the Ring, Churchill disparaged " a l l o f the loose talk" since the war that he had
 113

sought to lure a large allied force into the Balkans, reiterating his commitment to Overlord and

claiming that he only favored reinforcing the army in Italy for the purpose o f capturing Rome. This

may indeed have been his stated objectives in November 1943, but as documents cited in his

memoirs reveal, several months later he advocated extending well beyond Rome into the Po valley

by diverting forces slated for Normandy. He considered it not unreasonable to delay the cross-

channel invasion by a month or two until late summer 1944, claiming that he could easily have won

Stalin's consent to such a move. This is doubtful, however, given the fact that Stalin had chided him

mercilessly at Teheran about lack o f British resolve in coming to grips with the enemy. A few

chapters later, Churchill admitted to never having believed that a direct assault across the Channel

was the best way to w i n the war. 96

In 1951, Churchill was well advanced on the final volume o f his memoirs when he again

became Prime Minister. Following his election victory, he declared in a speech that "the fraternal

association is unbreakable," but in private he feared that cold war hostilities were spiraling out o f

control. When he visited Washington the next year, he preached the theme o f a common A n g l o -

American front as the only basis for securing concessions from M o s c o w . Hoping to ensure a

favorable reception to his ideas, he informed Eisenhower that publication o f Triumph and Tragedy

had been delayed so that the manuscript could be carefully culled o f all criticisms o f American

strategy during the final year of war. Eisenhower was wary o f Churchill's quest for rapprochement,
97

and while admiring "the great man" for his accomplishments in the war, thought the British leader

was trying to live in the "glorious past." Though personally an Anglophile, Eisenhower was strongly

influenced by his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, an intense Anglophobe who was suspicious

of Churchill's ability to weave spells over American leaders. 98

In Triumph and Tragedy, Churchill's account of continued Anglo-American disagreements

after the D - D a y landings became inextricably wound up with his cold war narrative o f a failed

peace. He ended up arguing at cross-purposes, on the one hand praising allied unity as capable o f

removing all obstacles on the road to victory, while on the other hand blaming Americans for failing

to respond more quickly to the growing Soviet peril. Continued disputes over war strategy after D -

Day led Churchill to complain in his memoirs that U S leaders never comprehended the great

potential for military success by strengthening Alexander's army in Italy. While F D R had held that

military objectives superceded political goals in war, Churchill averred that he had always believed

in using armies to secure political goals. In fact, he too had been so absorbed in military planning
 114

in 1943-45 that he failed to consider the political consequences o f victory. In his memoirs, he

complained that "splendid victories and widening opportunities" in 1944 did not bring U S and

British leaders closer together, conceding that he had intended to use Italy as a springboard for a

move into the Balkans. American hostility forced h i m to confine British intervention to Greece,

where he reinstated a corrupt monarchy despite strongly republican sentiment."

In early 1945, Churchill had tried to patch over rifts in Anglo-American relations caused by

the Greek action by deferring to American wishes regarding Poland: "I am most relieved that you

[FDR] do not feel that there is any fundamental divergence between us, and I agree that our

differences are only about tactics. Y o u know, I am sure, that our great desire is to keep in step with

you, and we realise how hopeless the position would become for Poland i f it were ever seen that we

were not in full accord...." He assured F D R that their friendship was the rock upon which he built

for the future, since it was absolutely essential that Britain and America walk hand-in-hand into the

future. 100
But just weeks later Roosevelt died, a tragedy that Churchill alleged had prevented the

West from presenting a united front against Stalin's growing intransigence. The arrival o f a new

president in the White House in A p r i l 1945 did little to mitigate American distrust o f British

imperial ambitions: "It seemed to me extraordinary, especially during the last few months, that

Roosevelt had not made his deputy and potential successor thoroughly acquainted with the whole

story and brought him into the decisions which were being taken. This proved o f grave disadvantage

to our affairs." Churchill had been troubled by Truman's insistence on withdrawing U S troops in

Germany to their pre-arranged zone o f occupation before first securing Soviet concessions on

Poland, arguing in his memoirs: "Thus in the moment of victory was our best, and what might prove

to have been our last, chance o f durable world peace allowed composedly to fade away." 101
At

Potsdam, the new President had appeared to treat Britain's empire as a greater threat to order and

stability than Soviet imperialism, which Churchill deemed a major factor in the development o f the

cold war. 102

In considering Churchill's account, Norman Brook urged h i m to pay greater tribute to

F D R ' s leadership in the war. Early drafts only referred briefly to the President's death, inserted in

the middle o f a chapter on mounting Soviet paranoia toward the West and heated allied differences

over war strategy. It was an ungracious way to discuss Roosevelt's final days, and jarringly

contrasted with the author's previous volumes that extolled their great friendship. In the final

proofs, Churchill declared that F D R died at the supreme climax o f the conflict, and at a time when

his wisdom and experience were needed most to ensure a smooth transition from war to peace. 103
 115

After delaying the release o f Volume V I for almost a year, Churchill realized that

Eisenhower's election victory in November 1952 meant that anything published about the general's

conduct in the war might adversely affect British relations with America, especially since the author

was himself again Prime Minister. Ismay feared that Eisenhower's enemies might use Churchill's

memoirs to attack the President's lack o f political acumen, so he convinced Churchill to insert a

lengthy passage applauding the general's character and importance for the allied victory. However,

Brook felt that Churchill's critique o f Eisenhower's strategy for attacking Germany on a broad front

in 1944-45 was essential to the author's theme o f cold war origins, and thus could hardly be omitted

as Ismay desired. Instead, Brook urged Churchill to soften his criticism o f the general by

emphasizing British disagreements with officials in Washington and removing references to Ike's

refusal to seize Prague or Berlin. Churchill acknowledged to Brook that those cities were beyond

the West's reach in 1945 anyway, even i f they had been made a top priority in the last months of the

war. 104
Nonetheless, in his memoirs he maintained that glittering political prizes were lost because

of American failure to recognize the tremendous psychological impact o f occupying these cities. 105

Churchill's pointed criticisms o f U S policies and leadership in the latter part o f the war did

not impede his American supporters in both major political parties from making h i m a symbol o f

resistance to communist tyranny in the 1950s. His idea that America and Britain had a common duty

to lead humanity toward a brighter future became a foreign policy pillar o f the new imperial

Presidency. Churchill's rhetoric was frequently invoked in Congressional debates on war and

national destiny, though his argument that English-speaking unity was essential for world stability

was undermined by increasing American unilateralism in the postwar years. The romantic vision

of a "special relationship" between Britain and America was espoused by both nation's elites, but

primarily to suit their respective self-interests during the cold war, a marriage o f convenience

involving mutual manipulation o f Churchill's memory. 106

Leadership, Character and Vision in War

In Churchill's world view, a few powerful individuals o f genius were the principal engines

of historical change through their wisdom and force of personality. One such titan was his ancestor

the Duke o f Marlborough, in whose footsteps Churchill imagined himself following when he was

returned to power in 1940, after the short-sightedness and folly o f his political predecessors had

failed to ensure that Germany remained disarmed and Prussian militarism thwarted. The hard-won
 116

spoils o f victory after the first world war were needlessly squandered, he asserted, when small-

minded politicians reverted to living from one election to the next on false promises and deceit. His

memoirs grimly depicted Britain's march on this downward path, while the nation's savior-in-

waiting languished in the political wilderness. 107

Churchill's view of leadership had been developed

in earlier works that contrasted the weakness o f other politicians with his Own unshakeable vision

and prophecy: "[T]hose who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace, and those who could

make a good peace would never have won the war. It would perhaps be pressing the argument too

far to suggest that I could do both." 108

Obsession with the role o f personality in shaping history

caused h i m to focus exclusively on high diplomacy as the cause o f war in 1939, ignoring evidence

of Britain's economic frailty and the people's psychological exhaustion from the first world war.

Instead, Churchill argued that moral weakness at the top of Britain's political order was responsible

for public apathy and lost willpower that emboldened aggressors to embark on a war o f expansion. 109

The depiction o f appeasers as "guilty men" actually originated in a polemical treatise by

three leftist journalists in 1941 writing under the pseudonym "Cato." Their highly simplified

account o f Britain's political and foreign policy dilemmas in the interwar era was later enshrined

into national memory and orthodox historiography by Churchill's memoirs. Cato's Guilty Men

caricatured Baldwin and MacDonald as do-nothing political hacks who allowed a nation victorious

in W o r l d W a r I to be run down to the brink o f ruin. In contrast, a clear-eyed and courageous

Churchill saw the menace of Nazism all along, but was kept from power by these small-minded and

mean-spirited men o f little talent. Baldwin was demonized as a kind o f Roman tyrant and mad

Caligula, with Churchill the savior saint o f Britain who rode to the rescue. 110

Churchill's memoirs were more subtle but carried the same essential message. H e attributed

his political isolation in the 1930s to his adherence to higher moral values that did not allow h i m to

seek short-term gain at the polling booth by disguising from voters hard truths about the nation's

security. He believed that his whole life before 1940 was a preparation for the climactic epic

struggle in w a r . " In assessing the 1930s, Churchill criticized political leaders o f all parties for
1

weakness in resisting faster rearmament and ignorance in failing to comprehend the full magnitude

of Europe's terrible political and social upheavals:

We must regard as deeply blameworthy before history the conduct not only of the British
National and mainly Conservative Government, but of the Labour-Socialist and Liberal
Parties, both in and out of office, during this fatal period. Delight in smooth-sounding
 117

platitudes, refusal to face unpleasant facts, desire for popularity and electoral success
irrespective of the vital interests of the State...obvious lack of intellectual vigour in both
leaders of the British Coalition Government, marked ignorance of Europe and aversion from
its problems in Mr. Baldwin, the strong and violent pacifism which at this time dominated
the Labour-Socialist Party, the utter devotion of the Liberals to sentiment apart from reality,
the failure and worse than failure of Mr. Lloyd George, the erstwhile great war-time leader,
to address himself to the continuity of his work...[A]ll these constituted a picture of British
fatuity and fecklessness which, though devoid of guile was not devoid of guilt, and though
free from wickedness or evil design, played a definite part in the unleashing upon the world
of horrors and miseries which, even so far as they have unfolded, are already beyond
comparison in human experience. 112

His account o f interwar politics and diplomacy depicted a litany o f folly among Western leaders in

feebly responding to N a z i challenges to the Versailles settlement. For instance, he decried British

pressure on France in the early 1930s to unilaterally disarm, blaming misinformed pacifists for

failing to appreciate the threat to national security posed by Franco-German military parity. He

asserted that British diplomacy lacked realism at interwar conferences to discuss Germany's

breaches o f the Versailles Treaty, especially the refusal to even consider using force to uphold

League sanctions against fascist truculence and naked aggression in Abyssinia. When directly

confronted by fascist belligerency in Europe, as in Hitler's brazen march into the demilitarized

Rhineland, British leaders lost their nerve by pursuing weak and irresolute policies. Churchill

considered the fact that he had played no part in this pre-war bungling as "divine w i l l " that ensured

he was not tainted with the stain o f appeasement: "Over me beat the invisible wings." 113
If, however,

appeasement was indeed such an odious and malign policy, as he alleged to have recognized from

the outset, one wonders why he required divine intervention to save h i m from it.

For Churchill, the crucial turning point in European affairs came with the 1936 Rhineland

occupation that tore up the Versailles and Locarno treaties. War could easily have been prevented,

he argued, i f British leaders had cooperated with France in forcing a prompt German withdrawal.

But British pacifism allegedly created an excuse for inaction, which in turn caused the French to

slide into apathy. Churchill claimed to have foreseen the consequences o f this development, though

he provided no evidence o f having anticipated Hitler's next move against Austria, nor did he admit

that his alarmist warnings at the time were based on exaggerated figures about German arms

production. He argued that a display of French and British resolve in 1936, or at any point during

the succession o f crises leading to M u n i c h , would have stopped Hitler in his tracks. H e failed to

note, however, that at the time o f the Rhineland occupation Western nations were completely

unprepared for war, and were not in a position to force a German withdrawal from Austria i n 1938.
 118

A s for the Sudeten crisis later that year, testimony o f German generals at Nuremberg after the war

revealed that Hitler was irrevocably set on crushing the Czechs, even at the risk o f a general war.

Nonetheless, Churchill insisted that a tougher Western stance in 1938 would have precipitated a

military coup against Hitler, but instead British and French leaders displayed "the quintessence o f

defeatism" in pursuing a policy o f peace at any price that reneged on promises to Czechoslovakia.

The argument relied on self-serving assertions o f German generals after the war, who sought to

blame the West for their own inaction in the face o f Hitler's criminally aggressive conduct.

Churchill drew a lesson from these events, asserting that nations and their leaders must always act

morally and honorably by respecting their obligations no matter the consequences. H i s memoirs

accused British leaders o f failing to appreciate that only a grand alliance involving Russia could

prevent war, though he had not advocated such a policy himself before mid-193 8. Churchill

maintained that Chamberlain's stiffness with the French, hostility toward Russia, and contempt for

America revealed "a terrible lack of proportion" by failing to consider their potential for containing

Germany." What Churchill omitted to mention was the state o f France's abject pacifism and
4

political turmoil at the time, the power o f America's isolationist and anti-European lobby, and the

heavy price that Stalin would have exacted for any arrangement with the West to stymy Hitler.

Despite a prewar record that was far from consistent, Churchill declared in his memoirs that

the events o f 1939-40 proved seven years o f prophecy that he had foretold. H e fused past history

with cold war realities to create a morality play about leadership. In the process, he denigrated as

"criminally irresponsible" peace and disarmament movements of pacifists and socialists who spread

disunity and weakened morale before the war, and who he claimed were doing so again in the

postwar. Such defeatist and divisive mentality was contrasted with the rock-solid unity and resolve

of his wartime leadership after he became Prime Minister: "[T]he attitude o f all those I sent for was

like that o f soldiers in action, who go to the places assigned to them at once without question."" 5

But Churchill's memory o f a popular war leadership united with the masses in a common cause

overlooked considerable hostility, disillusionment, and cynicism towards the political system that

lingered throughout the war. Working classes retained a deep distrust o f strong central leadership

that they thought was out o f touch with the realities o f wartime privation and suffering." 6

Churchill's account disguised the fact that government officials often found his ideas "unrealistic

and disruptive." Colville noted on A p r i l 25,1940: "The country believes he is the man o f action who

is winning the war when in fact he is ineffective and harmful."' Churchill's depiction o f complete
17
 119

unity in the War Cabinet in M a y hid the fact that Halifax had wished to offer Gibralter and Malta

to Mussolini as part o f a general peace initiative toward the A x i s powers. In whitewashing this

episode, Churchill sought to draw a line under years o f Tory appeasement while strengthening the

idea that the world owed a moral debt to Britain for refusing to give up the fight.118

Churchill imagined himself a warrior-statesmen whose actions formed the centerpiece o f a

great historical pageant, an image that contrasted with the Chief o f the Imperial General Staff, A l a n

Brooke, who lamented the Prime Minister's constant meddling in strategy. Throughout the conflict,

he harbored the illusion that Germany might fall apart from internal pressures before a massive clash

of arms in the West became necessary. For this reason, he urged a less effective peripheral strategy

o f resisting Germany while awaiting the inevitable collapse, a policy that historian Ben-Moshe

claims extended the war's duration by a year or more." When a series o f military disasters in 1941-
9

42 brought Britain to its lowest point in the war, Churchill bitterly complained about the army's lack

o f martial spirit, though part o f the problem was his penchant for initiating schemes that Brooke

called "half-digested products o f Winston's impatience." Churchill's memoirs defended the

Mediterranean strategy for tying down nineteen German divisions to the allies' eleven, but neglected

to mention that in terms o f actual manpower the figures were two million allied troops to 412,000

German soldiers in-theater. 120

Alan Brooke complained frequently that Churchill's military thinking

was ineffectual, and distracted the Prime Minister from important political issues relating to postwar

reconstruction. But Brooke's opinion o f Churchill's war leadership was not supported by official

historians and the memoirs o f most other British generals, as Ben-Moshe notes: "It was they who

managed to embed the Churchillian-British version o f events in historical consciousness and to

persuade U . S . scholars o f its veracity. The latter had accepted it even before the relevant documents

were opened to public inspection. A n d recently Churchill's official biographer, Martin Gilbert, has

also echoed his subject's record...." 121

During the war, he traveled extensively in a vain attempt to use the power o f personality as

compensation for declining British influence in world affairs. H e naively thought that summit

diplomacy could gloss over serious differences between the allies. Thus, he devoted considerable

space in his volumes to B i g Three conferences, depicting himself as a master negotiator able to

resolve the most intractable differences between the great war leaders. U n k n o w n to most readers

was the fact that insiders were incredulous o f Churchill's suggestion o f "bliss and harmony" at the

summits. Moran recalled U S General Marshall complaining that the Prime Minister was incapable
 120

of listening: "It is as i f he had lived for years in a foreign country without picking up the language.

He must lose a chunk of life in this way, and must often be lonely, cut off from people." 122
Churchill

appeared to see and hear only what confirmed his preconceptions o f British power and influence.

In his role as Britain's supreme war leader, Churchill portrayed himself as indispensable and

above party politics, disingenuously alleging that he enjoyed total loyalty from all major parties.

In fact, during the war many Tories continued to treat him with apprehension, disparaging his

neglect o f duties as Party leader. 123

They also resented the fact that he permitted Labour to become

an effective governing party for the first time by mobilizing the working classes as never before.

Thus, while weakening Tory prospects of winning a postwar election, he actually enhanced Labour's

chances by elevating it to the position o f a responsible and patriotic party. B y September 1944, he

was unable to master his brief, and was having misgivings about the future: "I have a very strong

feeling that my work is done. I have no message. I had a message. N o w I only say 'fight the

damned socialists.' I do not believe in this brave new w o r l d . " 124

While Churchill had become despondent as the war neared its close, the left was invigorated

to attack the ruling plutocracy for it moral failure in once believing that fascism was a bulwark

against socialist revolution. Labour rallied around the slogan "Never again," in reference to the

Tories' prewar policies that had failed to alleviate unemployment and poverty. In contrast,

Churchill's disinterest in domestic politics after the excitement o f grand strategy caused his

campaign in 1945 to appear listless and without direction. In his memoirs, he alleged that the

Tories' election defeat occurred because Party members had patriotically joined the military while

Labour activists stayed at home to consolidate their political base. In fact, voters were fed up with

the Tories for years o f ineffectual appeasement, inadequate military preparedness, harsh economic

policies, and resistance to social reforms. 125

Despite no new vision o f conservatism in the postwar era, Churchill refused to relinquish his

hold on the party's leadership after 1945. Attempts to remove h i m failed because o f his huge

popularity as Britain's war hero, an image he inculcated in his memoirs by waging retrospective

warfare against political opponents. While Churchill cultivated his own legend, Tory supporters

lauded his memoirs in Party conferences and manifestos, despite growing misgivings about his

capacity to lead. 126

Conservatives knew that his'memoirs could play a major role in aiding their

political comeback, principally by winning the war of collective memory that saddled socialists with

responsibility for pacifism, factionalism, and opposition to rearmament before the war. A t the same
 121

time, the Tories connected these issues to the present in their attacks on Labour's postwar austerity,

economic crises, and inadequate military preparedness, which distracted voters from the left's claim

to have banished the old evils o f unemployment and privation. In addition, Tories were able to

capitalize on growing nostalgia about the war years in the early 1950s, which Churchill's memoirs

stimulated by the claim that a spirit o f selfless devotion and grand sense o f purpose had unified

Britons in a glorious cause between 1939-45.

A m o n g his publishers and literary advisors, Churchill's theme o f a preventable war got a

mixed reception. H i s attack on "guilty men" was precisely the kind o f political message that Luce

hoped readers in the U S would internalize and apply to Roosevelt's administration. In contrast,

Laughlin thought that Churchill was overdoing his critique o f guilty politicians and human folly,

conveying an overly gloomy scenario for American readers. Laughlin preferred Churchill's

"triumphalist message" o f democracy's glorious victory over fascist tyranny. Though Europe may

have thrown up a retrograde politician like Hitler, Laughlin saw a silver lining in the lesson that evil

was destined for defeat from the forces o f human goodness, with the path o f progress resumed after

a brief but violent interruption:

The first book of your M E M O I R S for anyone to read is unfortunately the account of the mistakes of
others which led from the first to the second war. To the average man looking back on it, it seems
dreary and he must be spurred on to read it. The spur is the fact that you understood what was
happening and in the end reached the position which enabled you to do something about it. 127

Laughlin's primary concern was to build on the initial surge in interest for the memoirs by

presenting the first volume as an exciting and uplifting story for general readers, not a lamentation

o f human error and perfidy.

Luce agreed that uninformed American readers did not understand or care about the "arcane

political maneuvering" o f Britain's interwar politics, fearing that the narrative was too closely tied

to European political history in general, and to the House o f Commons in particular. Churchill

countered that his story was extremely relevant for Americans in the present day, suggesting that

readers should appreciate how his political themes related to contemporary international problems.

Luce acknowledged that the documents proved Churchill's prescience and farsightedness, while

offering an "edifying and purgative moral:"

Therefore all the things you said at all the various moments in those years of the locusts is of the
essence of Western European history....You interpret the drift to catastrophe mainly in terms of
 122

unnecessary folly and unnecessary weakness. A l l history may indeed be so interpreted, and to repeat,
your own record is the clear proof that if leaders and the led had thought and acted in a different way,
as was continuously and actually proposed to them by you among others, mankind could have been
spared unspeakable sorrows. Nevertheless, the question still remains: why were leaders so studed (sic)
and weak? Why did the nations and peoples of Europe throw up such bad leadership?....I accept and
am carried along by all that you say about folly and weakness but even if now and then I get clues as
to your analytical insight (e.g. the suggestion about monarchy) still as a reader I would also like to
know more explicitly what you, my chief guide through purgatory, has to say about why the human
128
race in this period was doomed or doomed itself to so much folly.

Despite these substantive concerns with the memoirs , Luce praised Churchill's "unique mission to

history" and hoped that the British people would soon "awaken to their predicament" o f moral and

economic stagnation by re-electing their great war leader. Churchill replied:

The reason is because in those years there happened exactly what is happening today,
namely no coherent or persistent policy, even in fundamental matters, among the good
peoples, but deadly planning among the bad. The good peoples, as now, drifted hither and
thither, to and fro, according to the changing winds of public opinion and the desire of public
men o f medium stature to gain majorities and office at party elections from electorates, who
were absorbed in earning their daily bread, whose memories were short and whose moods
changed every few years....[T]he lack o f will-power and conscious purpose among the
leading states and former allies drew us upon these slippery slopes o f weak compromises,
seeking the line o f least resistance, which led surely to the abyss. The same thing is
happening now, only with greater speed, and unless there is some moral revival and
conscious guidance o f the good forces, while time remains, a prolonged eclipse o f our
civilisation approaches. 129

Given American isolationism and Britain's leading role in appeasement during the 1930s, Churchill

could hardly have written his narrative to make it more interesting to uninformed American readers,

and Luce conceded that Churchill's story was crucial for their two nations: "Here's to you, Sir - the

modern Joshua, making his strategy and blowing the trumpet against the walls o f foreboding." 130

In Britain, civil servants who vetted Churchill's memoirs were skeptical o f his thesis that

resolute leadership by Britain and France in 1936 or 1938 could have forced Hitler to pull back from

the precipice o f war. In The Gathering Storm, he exaggerated the power o f Britain to determine the

destiny o f European affairs and avoid war by making its intentions known to the dictators. Former

Permanent Under-Secretary of State Sir Robert Vansittart replied that Churchill's memoirs contained

"glaring misrepresentations of fact," bluntly informing the author that in numerous instances he was

only telling half-truths at best, and "fabricating myth out o f whole cloth" at worst. Vansittart

particularly objected to Churchill's inflated notion o f British power and the ability o f officials in

London to control the destiny o f European affairs during the interwar era. 131
Churchill held
 123

Vansittart in the highest regard for his anti-appeasement stance before the war, but the author now

chose to ignore the civil servant's criticisms in constructing his thesis. Nonetheless, they remained

on close terms, and three years later in June 1950, upon the outbreak o f the Korean war, Vansittart

wrote: "Here we are again in a most awful mess despite the many warnings that you and I...have

uttered. H o w damnably and idiotically history does repeat herself. The unpreparedness is even

greater than under Chamberlain." 132

In 1947, however, Vansittart's successor Orme Sargent tried to disabuse Churchill o f his

preventable war thesis by urging a review o f comments from Britain's Ambassador to Berlin in the

waning months o f peace, a plain reading o f which unequivocally refuted the idea that Hitler could

be dissuaded from war. 133

Sargent believed that Churchill's memoirs badly overrated the prospect

of a German army revolt during the Munich crisis, since declassified documents o f troop movements

contradicted later claims o f an imminent coup against Hitler. Sargent's interview o f Goering after

the war revealed that Hitler saw 1939-41 as the most favorable time for Germany to start a war.

Hitler was worried by mounting economic difficulties in Germany brought on by years o f

stupendous military and naval expenditures. If war booty were not obtained soon after the autumn

of 1939, Germany's autarkic economy would have slipped into severe recession. Brook agreed with

Sargent that a more even-handed account o f appeasement was needed, noting that Churchill quoted

so many o f his own documents it created the impression no one but he took any initiatives to resist

Nazism. However, Churchill continued to insist that a tougher stance by British leaders in 1938-39

would have resulted in Hitler's overthrow before he could plunge the world into w a r . 134

Contradictory recommendations from Churchill's advisers highlighted a significant rift iii

their understanding o f the memoirs' character and meaning. O n the one hand, some advisors urged

the author to produce a definitive analysis o f all available evidence that minimized personal

digressions and stuck to broad historical developments. Those vetting the drafts in Whitehall wanted

Churchill to give greater attention to the bureaucratic machinery in wartime, which in their minds

was the key to victory. O n the other hand, Churchill's Service advisers preferred to emphasize

military organizations which they thought responsible for ultimate victory. They wanted the

memoirs essentially to constitute a military history o f Britain at war, rather than a moral tale o f

human weakness and redemption, contending that prewar politics should be downplayed in favor

of addressing "greater matters," like the decisive land battles in North Africa and Europe. 135
Military

officers understood the central meaning o f W o r l d War II as simply an armed struggle. The
 124

profoundly altered political landscape of the postwar world had little impact on their opinion of war

meaning, reflected in the lack o f second-guessing o f military operations in their own memoirs. 136

Yet another perspective was offered by the publishing syndicate, whose editors complained

that Churchill spent too much time re-hashing abortive military plans and minor operations that bore

little relationship to the broader story line, while political themes and personal anecdotes revealed

Churchill at his greatest. Desmond Flower felt that "for me, personalities make history, not vice

versa...." The desire to heighten the dramatic quality o f the political narrative by personalizing it,

so as to accentuate differences between "good" and "bad" leaders, was foremost in the minds o f all

publishers, who felt that readers would relate more easily to a simplified story of human drama than

to technical accounts o f military operations. 137

But Churchill considered military matters to be

inseparable from his discussion o f political issues: "After all, it is my personal narrative, and the

political and military were all one in my m i n d . " 138

Consequently, neither his publishers nor advisers

were entirely happy with the end result.

In Volume I, Churchill's account o f his relationship with F D R troubled Luce, who thought

it too complimentary toward the President. Luce contrasted the peaceful world o f the late 1920s,

when a Republican President was in office, with the international calamity o f the 1930s, when a

Democrat controlled the White House. He contended that Roosevelt's immense power and prestige

during the 1930's allowed him unprecedented influence over American policy, thereby making him

highly culpable for the failure to stop fascism from plunging the world into war. Luce accused F D R

o f deviously manipulating political debates on foreign policy by branding Republicans

"Baldwinites," when really it was the President who opposed proposals for closer military

cooperation with France and Britain before 1940:

Your view of Roosevelt is whatever it is - as you saw him in the war and as you look back on
him....What I want to remind you of, is that the responsibility for American international
failure became a purely political issue -i.e. a weapon, that is, of partisan politics which
Roosevelt used to divide and confuse Republicans. It was a very mean attack which Roosevelt
launched on them from a very lofty and, especially in 1944, a very emotionally strong
position.

Luce disingenuously implied that he did not want to influence Churchill's account o f Roosevelt, but

merely to suggest how he might write about American isolationism in the 1930s. 139
But surely it

would have been impossible for Churchill to write in the way that Luce desired without criticizing

the politician in Washington most responsible for directing the nation's foreign policy.
 125

Most o f Churchill's publishers saw his story of prewar folly as a poignant lesson for present

day perils. Liberals feared a return o f isolationism in America, and hoped that Churchill's narrative

would highlight the mistake of pursuing such a course. In 1948, Congress was dominated by newly

elected Republicans, who viewed with wariness Truman's continuing efforts to fulfill his

predecessor's internationalist agenda. But while Luce sought to enlist the lessons o f history to vilify

Democrats, liberals contended that it was the isolationist Republicans who were most in need o f

learning from Churchill's narrative of the recent past. The New York Times believed that the policy

of Wilsonian internationalist idealism pursued by F D R and Truman was the wisest course for

America to follow. Luce, however, believed that Truman was a weak and ineffectual appeaser,

ignoring the fact that since Potsdam the President had toughened his stance against "world-wide

communism." Despite their partisan stance on politics, all syndicate members agreed that Churchill

needed to deliver a strong anti-appeasement lesson to the American people. 140

In Their Finest Hour, Churchill drew a sharp distinction between bitter political in-fighting

before the war and a political landscape in 1940 marked by complete harmony and unity of purpose.

Disguising an intense ambition to lead, Churchill implied that the mantle o f power was thrust upon

him by a desperate nation awakened to its terrible predicament, claiming that he accepted power for

the altruistic purpose o f preserving national unity. While some members o f his administration had

wished to purge all the "guilty men" in office, he was a magnanimous leader whose primary concern

was not to disrupt the war effort. In marked contrast to the bitter divisions between "frocks" and

"brass hats" during the previous war, Churchill alleged that he was able to maintain smooth relations

with civilian and military personnel, omitting any reference to his many disputes with advisors over

war strategy: "Our national War Cabinet, Tory, Labour, and Liberal, were hard, resolute men

imbued with an increasing sense o f playing a winning hand. So all the orders were given, and

everything went forward under unchallengeable authority." 141

In later volumes, Churchill sought to justify meddling in military affairs that often resulted

in disaster. For example, in January 1941, Wavell's offensive in L i b y a had produced a stunning

victory, with thousands o f enemy captured and the Italian army in head-long retreat. The Chiefs of

Staff urged a rapid push to Tripoli that would drive the A x i s out o f Africa and secure British control

of the entire Mediterranean. However, at that moment Churchill fatefully intervened in the

campaign, hoping to reap rewards in both North Africa and Greece by diverting a large contingent

of Wavell's army to the Balkans. H i s rationale for this strategy was to bolster Greek resistance and
 126

induce Turkey into joining the war on Britain's side. But weakening W a v e l l ' s army allowed A x i s

forces a critical breathing space, during which Rommel's Afrika Korps was airlifted to Tripoli, the

tattered Italian forces were reorganized, and a devastating A x i s counter-attack launched. 142
Within

weeks, Rommel had stunned the world by turning a rout into victory, pushing the British army all

the way back into Egypt. In the Balkans, British forces were too little, too late, and were soon

forced into a hasty exodus with another loss o f all heavy equipment. Churchill's intervention had

turned an impending victory in Africa into defeat on two fronts, but i n his memoirs he blamed the

setback on military commanders in Cairo who lacked drive and imagination. Nonetheless, he

acknowledged several chapters later that victory in the desert was strategically all-important, with

every other action in the Mediterranean paling in significance. Recalling C.I.G.S. urgent request

not to overextend British forces, he declared: " M a n y Governments I have seen would have wilted

before so grave a pronouncement by the highest professional authority, but I had no difficulty in

convincing my political colleagues. ...My views therefore prevailed and the flow o f reinforcements

to the M i d d l e East continued unabated." 143

Despite the retreat from Greece in mid-1941, Churchill claimed the Balkan intervention was

a success because Britain's action delayed Germany's invasion o f Russia by five weeks, thereby

saving the U S S R from near-certain defeat. This argument overlooks the fact that Wehrmacht troops

diverted to the Balkans were a minuscule part o f the southern attack group that in fact attained all

of its objectives in Russia in 1941. The failure of Operation Barbarossa was due to the sheer weight

of numbers in terms of manpower, tanks, and willingness to incur losses, that Russia brought to bear

in its fight against Germany. It was not due to Britain's minor action in Greece. A t the time,

Churchill admitted that the plan to aid Greece was an ill-conceived failure, but his memoirs took a

much different view that was later repeated by official historians. 144
Further setbacks in the desert

over the next year and a half almost cost Churchill his job when a restless Parliament demanded a

vote o f censure; in recounting those days Churchill was keen to redeem his leadership and refute his

critics. Just as L l o y d George had used his memoirs to heap scorn on incompetent generals for

Britain's heavy losses in W o r l d War I, Churchill made Generals Auchinleck, Wavell, Portal, and

D i l l scapegoats for the defeats o f 1941-42. He justified replacing them all by claiming they were

tired and lacked fighting spirit, but it was an argument that even his publishers found implausible

given how long the generals had been kept in command before being sacked. Churchill further

undermined his argument when documents revealed that he had planned to remove Auchinleck one
 127

month before expressing "the highest opinion" o f the general. 145

For The Grand Alliance, Churchill produced a chapter on "The Parliamentary Front" dealing

with the grumbling and second-guessing at Westminster. The fall o f Greece and Crete, followed by

the reversal o f fortunes in Libya, aroused strong criticism in the Commons regarding Churchill's war

leadership. Churchill asserted that the clarity and precision of his explanations soon silenced critics,

including L l o y d George, who "sailed forward on the breeze o f general uneasiness, and made a

speech which I described in reply as 'the sort o f speech with which I imagine the illustrious and

venerable Marshal Petain might well have enlivened the closing days o f M . Reynaud's cabinet.'"

Deakin wanted the chapter strengthened by including reflections on the function o f Parliament in

wartime, the value o f secret sessions, and differences between British and U S systems o f

government. 146
Instead, Churchill dropped the chapter from Volume III, eliminating most references

to political criticisms o f his handling o f the war effort in 1941. 147

When America entered the war in December 1941, Churchill was convinced he knew how

to achieve victory in Europe and Asia. In his memoirs, he reproduced three papers on strategy that

had been prepared for F D R , contending that they predicted clearly the actual course o f events: " A l l

the objectives in these memoranda were achieved by the British and United States forces in the order

here set forth." 148

They also reflected Churchill's belief that success in battle depended on willpower

and determination as much as superior resources and weaponry. The truth o f this was proved, he

claimed, by the fact that after replacing Auchinleck and Wavell in 1942 there was an astonishing

transformation o f spirit in the army of the Nile. Only passing mention was made by Churchill of the

massive quantities o f military supplies from America that began to pour into Egypt that year. In

addition, he said little about the interdiction of Rommel's supply line, which sank 90% of A x i s ships

headed for North Africa. Churchill also believed he was the man to provide the required energy and

conviction at the pinnacle o f power. Thus, he accused leftists o f distorting the historical record

when in 1942 they urged him to step aside in favor o f Cripps, who they wrongly hailed as the man

most responsible for making Russia an ally. While claiming the highest regard for Cripps' political

skills, Churchill argued that it would have been the height o f folly to change administrations in the

middle o f war. Calls for revamping the command structure in London were dismissed as delusional

since the best men for the job were already in place. 149

Churchill disparaged the wartime "shrill chatter and criticism" from Labour's far left fringe,

claiming that it had no significant bearing on the coalition, which remained strong and united behind
 128

his government's leadership: .

All its principal Ministers stood together around me, with never a thought that was not loyal and
robust. I seemed to have maintained the confidence of all those who watched with full knowledge
the unfolding story and shared the responsibilities. No one faltered. There was not a whisper of
intrigue. We were a strong, unbreakable circle, and capable of withstanding any external political
attack and of persevering in the common cause through every disappointment. 150

Proof o f this fact was offered in testimonials to his leadership from American friends that poured

in after he prevailed over a vote of censure in August 1942. He reflected upon the striking historical

parallel between himself and William Pitt, Britain's hero o f the Napoleonic wars, who also survived

a no-confidence motion in the midst of a life-and-death struggle by the same margin o f 25 votes. 151

Churchill's critique o f the left prompted Cripps to complain to Attlee after being shown a copy o f

the manuscript. A s a result, Churchill was forced to cut his narrative o f this episode from seven

pages to two, including his denunciation o f Cripps' plans to restructure the government, deemed

"irresponsible and academic speculations which were vicious in principle." 152

Attlee personally

intervened a second time to ensure that the earlier draft was not by accident published: " Y o u w i l l

remember that this chapter was in large part re-written and you w i l l readily appreciate that we

cannot afford to run any risk of the original version being published in any form." Churchill's subtle

allegation that the War Cabinet in 1942 was disenchanted with Attlee was also removed. 153

During the war, Field Marshal Smuts had suggested that Churchill attempt to guide U S

political and military leaders so as to ensure that control o f the overall war effort did not slip from

British hands. He considered Churchill's handling o f American and Russian leaders crucial for

maintaining the alliance intact, view that the author bolstered in discussing summit diplomacy. 154

He believed that: " O n l y the heads o f State or governments face to face could settle the fearful

questions that were open." Churchill considered the Great Power conferences to have been crucial

for the successful prosecution o f the war. It enabled h i m to remain a major power broker despite

Britain's declining military status vis-a-vis its two main allies, and reach agreements with Stalin that

no underling could have achieved through regular diplomatic channels. Such self-assurance seems

naive, however, given that "concessions" rung from Stalin came at the price o f Soviet control over

most o f eastern Europe. 155

In Closing the Ring, Churchill tried again to vindicate his strategy o f attacking Germany via

Italy by accusing those who failed to support it for delays that prevented the capture o f Rome until
 129

June 1944. When leftists had criticized the slow progress up the peninsula, he had fired back:

"When I hear people talking in an airy way o f throwing modern armies ashore here and there as i f

they were bales o f goods to be dumped on a beach and forgotten, I really marvel at the lack o f

knowledge which still prevails o f the conditions o f modern war." Churchill disparaged political

partisanship as indecent i f it impeded the war effort, a rationale used to resist any criticisms o f his

administration. In fact, he claimed, the success o f British authorities i n countering German rocket

attacks in 1944-45 was a model o f competence: "The whole story may stand as an example o f the

efficiency o f our governing machine, and o f the foresight and vigilance o f all connected with i t . " 156

In his final volume, Churchill cited Smuts to justify his opposition to U S - l e d plan to invade

southern France so as to reinforce Alexander's army in northeast Italy. Smuts thought Churchill's

proposal comported with "every sound military as well as political consideration." But the

Americans refused it, suspecting that Churchill was plotting to embroil them in a Balkan adventure.

Churchill admitted that the American landings on the French Riviera proved a great success,

resulting in rapid advances that collared 50,000 Germans in three weeks and forced Hitler to hastily

withdraw four divisions from Italy. Nonetheless, he insisted that American obstinance had

sacrificed a golden opportunity to capture Vienna and Budapest. H e ignored the fact that

Alexander's forces were ill-equipped for conducting such an extensive campaign to the east, and

could not possibly have reached either city before the Russians. 157

One o f the most contentious actions by Churchill in the latter stages o f the war was his

decision to have the British army intervene in the Greek c i v i l war. In his memoirs, he scarcely

disguised a feeling of contempt for the left's hostility to it at the time, haughtily asserting that he had

little difficulty withstanding their fickle dissent, and that subsequent events had vindicated his efforts

to stymy a communist takeover of the country after the Germans fled: "[T]he War Cabinet stood like

a rock against which all the waves and winds might beat in vain. When we recall what has happened

to Poland, to Hungary, and Czechoslovakia in these later years we may be grateful to Fortune for

giving us at this critical moment the calm, united strength o f determined leaders o f all parties." He

concluded that aside from a few renegades on the far left, the nation solidly supported his decision,

omitting to mention that the Americans were apoplectic over Britain's unilateral intervention in the

Balkans.' O n the other hand, the Russians were silent on the matter, since Churchill had ensured
58

Stalin's acquiescence to British action in their October 1944 meeting.

Stalin's consent to the Greek operation, and the warm hospitality shown by his Soviet hosts
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during the Yalta conference in February 1945, had prompted Churchill to express a remarkable spirit

o f camaraderie and faith in Stalin's "word o f honor" when he reported back to Parliament. In his

memoirs, however, he needed to balance these fine sentiments with a sense o f outrage over the bitter

postwar realities that ensued from a breakdown in relations between Russia and the West. Churchill

attempted to finesse the failure of world leaders to secure a lasting peace from the "Yalta spirit" by

claiming that Great Power summit meetings always left many grave issues unresolved; all depended

on the spirit in which agreements were carried out. It was a tacit admission that his personal

friendships with Stalin and F D R were not as decisive for the course o f history as he sometimes

wanted to believe. 159

In concluding the memoirs, Churchill claimed that amid celebrations o f victory in 1945 he

was oppressed by a vision o f peril that made him seek another summit o f Great Powers to head off

impending doom. In the meantime, he had wished to postpone elections i n Britain on the grounds

that they would unduly divide the country and weaken its ability to reap the rewards o f war.

Churchill considered himself best able to lead the ship o f state at that critical juncture in history, and

had proven as much by his adroit handling o f the war. Consequently, when the Tories were

overwhelmingly defeated in the July 1945 elections, Churchill concluded that the change o f

leadership caused the Potsdam conference to "end in frustration." In a parting critique o f Attlee's

political skills, Churchill alleged in his memoirs that i f he had been able to remain in power, Stalin

would never have been permitted to get away with insulting the West at Potsdam. Churchill asserted

that his government's demise made it impossible for satisfactory solutions to international problems

to be reached at the end o f the war. 160

Such criticisms, however, completely overlooked the fact that

by mid-1945 the R e d A r m y had imposed a fait accompli in eastern Europe that no amount o f

diplomacy could undo. Besides, Potsdam was to a large extent the reiteration o f agreements already

reached at Teheran and Yalta, where Churchill had played a prominent role.

The Lessons of History and Origins of the Cold War

Though Churchill was never a dogmatic Conservative, he firmly believed in a British social

order premised on hierarchy and class deference. He feared the revolutionary implications of even

moderate socialism, and at one time had decried F D R ' s N e w Deal as "a milestone on the downward

march o f human progress." Even in his most radical days as a L l o y d George Liberal reformer,

Churchill reviled socialism as a destroyer o f wealth, enterprise, and individual liberties; it was to
 131

him a creed founded in "spite, hatred, envy, and inhumanity." 161

H e perceived socialist

internationalism as traitorous, fearing that Britain's Labour movement before the war was on a

slippery slope leading to full-blown communist conspiracies and revolutionary upheaval. In his

memoirs, he renewed his warnings that the calamity o f war and ruin stalked Europe and the world

much as it had in the 1930s:

In their loss of purpose, in their abandonment even of the themes they most sincerely
espoused, Britain, France, and most of all, because of their immense power and impartiality,
the United States, allowed conditions to be gradually built up which led to the very climax
they dreaded most. They have only to repeat the same well-meaning, short-sighted
behaviour towards the new problems which in singular resemblance confront us to-day to
bring about a third convulsion from which none may live to tell the tale. 162

It was a theme that he first raised in The Gathering Storm, but which formed the central thesis o f his

final volume o f war memoirs produced at the height o f the cold war. Churchill's virulent anti-

communism was a product o f the Russian revolution in 1917, when he decried Bolshevism as "an

insidious bacillus" that spread rapidly through a political culture by corrupting its institutions. 163
In

1918, he urged Minister o f Information M a x Aitken (later L o r d Beaverbrook) to graphically depict

Bolshevik outrages, ferocity, and treachery in newspapers and official propaganda so as to convince

British workers that communism was a wretched system. Afraid that anarchy i n Russia would

spread to other countries, Churchill urged intervention in its civil war to hunt down Bolsheviks while

quickly rehabilitating Germany's army to defend Europe against the communist menace: "Russia

is being rapidly reduced by the Bolsheviks to an animal form o f Barbarism....Civilization is being

completely extinguished over gigantic areas, while Bolsheviks hop and caper like troops o f ferocious

baboons amid the ruins o f cities and the corpses o f their v i c t i m s . " 164
Churchill became so obsessed

with the Russian turmoil, he was said to have "Bolshevism on the brain." However, L l o y d George

had strong misgivings about getting embroiled in the "Russian jungle," declaring that it was not

British policy to overthrow Bolshevism by force, which he feared might incite violence at home.

Churchill, though, considered Lenin "the most grisly o f all weapons," whose eradication needed to

be Britain's top priority after the first world war. 165

Churchill's inflamed rhetoric appeared to know no bounds; he vilified Bolsheviks as mass

murderers, enemies o f the human race, and vampires who should be attacked with poison gas. H e

contended that atrocities committed by Lenin and Trotsky in the civil war were far worse than those

for which the Kaiser was responsible, with M o s c o w a nest o f vipers whose leaders were "a vile
 132

group o f cosmopolitan fanatics." When coalition government in Britain gave way to partisan politics

in the early 1920s, Churchill extended his venom to the "Socialist Party, behind which crouched the

shadow o f Communist folly and Bolshevik crime." He tried without success to build an anti-

socialist coalition in 1922, attacking Labour leaders as unpatriotic communists in mufti who were

plotting revolution. Churchill's overwrought warnings that civilization was imperilled caused friends

and colleagues to fear that his mind had become unhinged. 166
In the interwar era, he continued to

decry the Soviet peril, preferring Mussolini and Franco to the socialist alternatives in Italy and

Spain. Not until the later 1930s did he dramatically alter his stance toward M o s c o w when he called

for an alliance o f necessity with Stalin to contain an even greater evil in H i t l e r i s m . 167

In 1938, Churchill revealed an unusual flexibility o f mind in his willingness to set aside

hatred o f communism in order to advance a pragmatic agenda premised on maintaining Europe's

balance o f powers. 168

H i s belief that a balance o f powers was essential to stability and order in

Europe prompted a startling change of rhetoric when he began claiming in 1938 that Soviet leaders

were actually peace-loving and trustworthy potential allies, a perspective that was met with

incredulity by many fellow Tories. Chamberlain contemptuously saw it as another ploy by an

opportunist to w i n political influence by pandering to the left. 169

While Churchill had no illusions

about Soviet brutality and cold-bloodedness, he sensed a degree o f realism in Stalin that could be

utilized to contain N a z i aggression. In his memoirs, he castigated British leaders for failing to seize

on the opportunity to secure an alliance in 1939 with the only country capable o f putting muscle

behind a warning to Hitler not to violate Polish sovereignty. Churchill excused Stalin for concluding

that the Western democracies were not serious about preventing Germany's move eastward, forcing

him to reach the best deal he could to deflect or delay Hitler from invading the Soviet U n i o n . 170

His faith in Stalin's sincerity and the genuine possibility for friendship between Russia and

the West did not die with the war. Several months after the defeat o f Germany, Churchill laid out

his strategic vision for the future that anticipated English-speaking unity as the foundation for

friendly relations with the Soviet Union and its realistic leaders. Churchill clearly still believed in

the possibility o f accommodation with the Kremlin, but only five months later he reversed course

dramatically in delivering his most important speech o f the postwar at Fulton, M i s s o u r i . 171
His

reference to an Iron Curtain across Europe precipitated a torrent o f Soviet invective against

Churchill and Western nations. It marked the beginning o f Churchill's efforts to view appeasement

as a lesson in failed statesmanship that would mobilize Western hearts and minds against the new
 133

threat to world peace. Churchill's long hatred o f communism had caused h i m twice in the past to

urge containment o f the Soviet Union. In 1946, he initiated a third call to arms for the English-

speaking world to fight the Soviet menace. 172

Before his "Iron Curtain" speech, Churchill warned his countrymen against expectations o f

overnight Utopias. He denied that a socialist paradise could be created through legislation, or that

the United Nations could usher in a new age of international problem-solving. H i s view o f foreign

affairs was premised on an eternal struggle for power, with tyranny and evil always ready to strike

i f the democracies let down their guard. Until March 1946, British and American public opinion

was generally sympathetic toward Russia due to its immense sacrifices in the war and contribution

to victory. Thus, Churchill's warning about the "dark shadows" gathering again in foreign relations

was initially meet with mixed or hostile reactions from liberals. 173
H i s main motive for delivering

the Fulton speech was to enlist U S support for upholding British influence in the world and

countering communism, an idea that George Kennan (US diplomat in M o s c o w and subsequent

author o f America's containment strategy) dismissed at the time as "an empty dream." 174

Nonetheless, Churchill's speech succeeded in causing a paradigm shift in American political

debates on foreign policy as the international situation deteriorated. Prior to Fulton, American

opinion leaders had said little about US-Soviet relations, but after M a r c h 5, 1946 the press wrote

extensively on the subject, and increasingly it was favorable to Churchill's toughened stance against

Moscow. 175
Within months, American politicians were outdoing each other to assure voters that they

agreed with Churchill's sense of urgency about world affairs. Historian Louis Liebovich notes that

the threat o f international communism was soon on everyone's lips after Churchill elevated a

European power struggle into an ideological crusade:

A speech by a single man, who no longer held public office, had far greater impact on the
news organizations than did the movements of millions of soldiers or hundreds of edicts in
occupied parts of the world. Such was the structure of the news business and the ability of
someone like Churchill to capitalize on susceptible news organizations. The cold war of the
1940s would be a war of words and philosophies, and Churchill knew how to wage such
warfare. 176

Churchill perceived the world divided between communist tyranny and Christian humanity. Since

the pluralistic United Nations was considered helpless to resist the combined power o f international

communism, it was up to the English-speaking world to organize a response: " W e cannot be blind

to the fact that the liberties enjoyed by individual citizens throughout the United States and
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throughout the British Empire are not valid in a considerable number o f countries, some o f which

are very powerful." Speaking specifically o f the Soviet threat, he warned:

A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. Nobody knows
what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organization intends to do in the
immediate future, or what are the limits, i f any, to their expansive and proselytizing
tendencies....Communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to
Christian civilization." 177

American isolationists and liberals initially criticized the speech as a poisonous plot to prop up the

sagging fortunes o f Britain's empire with U S blood and money. Churchill was accused o f reneging

on the promises o f the Atlantic Charter by advocating postwar power blocs rather than an

international system o f law.

However, such attitudes shifted dramatically following a series o f international crises

between 1946-49 that caused advocates o f rapprochement with Russia to be branded appeasers who

had failed to learn the lessons o f M u n i c h . 178

Even as Churchill spoke, the Truman administration

was moving to confront Soviet influence on Russia's periphery. When budget constraints in 1947

forced Britain to curtail its commitments abroad, the Truman Doctrine filled the void by proclaiming

U S readiness to aid anti-communist forces around the world. A few months later, the Marshall Plan

introduced a massive aid package to prop up Western Europe's struggling democracies. After a

communist coup overthrew democracy in Czechoslovakia in 1948, the U S and Britain established

coordinated defense strategies that led to the creation o f a North Atlantic military alliance ( N A T O )

a year later. Churchill hailed it as a U S guarantee to Western Europe against Russian aggression and

a revival o f the English-speaking alliance that would serve as the foundation for lasting peace.

Political opinion in America and Britain had arrived at a postwar consensus that adhered closely to

the "Iron Curtain" agenda. 179

The new consensus marginalized leftist opinion sympathetic to Soviet security concerns .

In Britain, Attlee and Bevin moved to the political center as Labour's pacifist platform was

jettisoned. When the Korean war broke out in June 1950, the economy was militarized to a degree

never before attempted in peacetime. Bevin's defense of empire, support for containment strategies,

and push to develop a British atomic bomb fit perfectly with Churchill's ambition to bolster national

and imperial strength in the postwar. 180

B e v i n and Attlee became convinced that East-West

cooperation was dead, making Anglo-American collaboration essential for Britain's well-being.

They blamed the U S S R for blocking all progress at the U N and using communist agents throughout

the world to foment disorder. The far left's Bevanite campaign for a socialist alternative to Soviet-
 135

style communism and American-style capitalism was rejected b y the centrist leadership, which

threatened the renegades with expulsion. 181

L i k e Churchill, Attlee was imbued with Victorian

conceptions o f an enlightened empire as a force for good, causing h i m to disparage indigenous

nationalist movements. Labour politicians sought to contain communist insurgency in the colonies

through military partnership with the U S , though each country had different approaches to

combating it. 182

Whereas Americans took a hard line against politicians who were not avowedly anti-

communist, British leaders preferred a more subtle approach to influencing local politics. 183

When Churchill began to write his memoirs after the war, ever present in his mind was the

issue o f cold war origins that tragically emerged out o f the struggle against fascism. A t the very

outset of Volume I, he stated that the source of both conflicts lay in division among the democracies

which had allowed the forces o f evil to gain an advantage:

[I]t would be wrong not to lay the lessons of the past before the future....The human tragedy
reaches its climax in the fact that after all the exertions and sacrifices of hundreds of millions
of people and of the victories of the Righteous Cause we have still not found Peace or
Security, and that we lie in the grip of even worse perils than those we have surmounted. It
is my earnest hope that pondering upon the past may give guidance in days to come...and thus
govern, in accordance with the needs and glory of man, the awful unfolding scene of the
future. 184

Churchill's account o f democracy's mistakes before the war were also considered by his publishers

to be o f paramount importance for understanding the postwar struggle. In M a y 1947, Adler noted

worsening international tensions: "It seems vital to us that your views, particularly on mistakes o f

governments following W o r l d War I, be given the widest publicity and as soon as possible during

this critical period." 185

Over the previous year, rigged elections and Soviet strong-arm tactics had

resulted i n the governments o f Poland, Romania, Albania, and Bulgaria declaring themselves

socialist republics, allied with the U S S R , and undergoing internal Sovietization. Publishers hoped

that Churchill's words o f wisdom would bolster faith in democratic values throughout the world.

B y early 1948, the mood i n America was heavy with foreboding over the growth o f communist

movements in western Europe, Soviet dominance in eastern Europe, and the spread o f communist

insurgencies in A s i a . 186

In spring 1948, after reading excerpts o f The Gathering Storm, Britain's U N ambassador

Alexander Cadogan, remarked that the world was once again dealing with the kinds o f perplexities

and forebodings that marked European affairs a decade earlier. Cadogan entirely agreed with
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Churchill that naive and inattentive democracies were i n danger again o f being duped by

unscrupulous dictators: "The brilliant blatancy o f the Russians is something that we can admire but

cannot emulate." 187

In America, Time/Life sought to mobilize its readers for the "next war," though

in considering Churchill's anti-Soviet messages in his memoirs, Longwell, who was disturbed by

the author's admission that in the conflict between fascism and Bolshevism his sympathies lay with

the far right. 1 8 8

Since most Americans saw the war as a moral crusade to rid Europe o f its malignant

fascist ideology, Longwell feared that Churchill's comments would provoke sharp criticism:

Shouldn't you have a qualifying phrase there to the effect that 'although you disliked
fascism, etc...?' European readers would, of course, understand your words better than
Americans would, being closer to the reality of the gradations of democracy and freedom the
various people have attained. So it would be largely in this country that this sentence might
be misconstrued and misused. 189

But Churchill ignored the request to qualify or omit his statements on fascism, maintaining in his

memoirs that Britain's historical role in supporting Italy's Risorgimento should have continued to

form the basis for British foreign policy after the rise o f M u s s o l i n i . 190

Communists had long suspected that Britain's political elites had been sympathetic toward

fascism as a bulwark against the Soviet Union during the 1930s. Soviet propaganda contended that

Britain had tried to induce the fascist powers into attacking the U S S R . Consequently, Brook urged

Churchill to remove his admission in Volume II that "war between Germany and Russia was the first

of our hopes." The revised text downplayed Churchill's advance knowledge o f German intentions

to attack while emphasizing Russo-German plans to partition the British empire: 191

Mussolini was not the only hungry animal seeking prey. To join the Jackal came the
Bear....Germany and Russia now worked together as closely as their deep divergences of
interest permitted. Hitler and Stalin had much in common as totalitarians, and their systems
of government were akin. 192

Churchill alleged that he always knew the two dictators would eventually fall out. But i n his

memoirs, he mocked the work o f his envoy Stafford Cripps in early 1941, who had endeavored to

lay the groundwork for an alliance between Britain and the Soviet U n i o n . 193
In addition, Churchill

ridiculed Stalin's friendship with Germany as a colossal blunder. The Soviet leader's failure to react

to repeated warnings o f an impending German attack in 1941 were evidence o f gross incompetence:
 137

War is mainly a catalogue of blunders, but it may be doubted whether any mistake in history
has equalled that of which Stalin and the Communist chiefs were guilty when they cast away
all possibilities in the Balkans and supinely awaited, or were incapable of realising, the
fearful onslaught which impended upon Russia. We have hitherto rated them as selfish
calculators. In this period they were proved simpletons as well. 194

Churchill's hindsight made it appear clear cut, but in early 1941 his action in sending British forces

to Greece suggests that he did not believe a German attack on Russia was imminent. Had he known

of it, he would not have jeopardized the chance to gain a new ally by distracting Germany with a

British incursion in the Balkans. Nonetheless, he was delighted when Germany attacked the Soviet

Union, immediately promising the Kremlin full support in their fight. He told a sceptical Colville:

" I f Hitler invaded H e l l I would make at least a favorable reference to the D e v i l in the House o f

Commons." In recounting this episode, Churchill distinguished his unshakeable contempt for the

odious communist system with a heart-felt sympathy for the Russian people who had been set upon

by a "band o f villainous murderers." 195

He assured the Stalin that Britain would do everything

possible to relieve pressure on the Soviet Union, but in private he soon began to fear the

"measureless disaster" confronting Europe i f Russian barbarism were to defeat Germany. 196

In The Grand Alliance, Churchill depicted himself as the wise statesman who bore patiently

Soviet rudeness and lack o f appreciation for Britain's efforts to succor the Russians. He noted the

hypocrisy o f Soviet demands for a second front in 1941 after they had spent the previous eight

months anticipating with Germany the demise o f the British empire. Disagreements quickly arose

between the new allies over the fate o f Poland and its government in exile. Questions o f border

demarcations were temporarily shelved after Stalin made vague assurances that territorial

arrangements under the Nazi-Soviet pact were no longer valid. In a further gesture o f goodwill,

Stalin authorized Polish exiles to collect fellow nationals languishing in Soviet prison camps, no

doubt aware that many o f them would not be found. 197

While Churchill claimed to be a hard-nosed

realist who understood Soviet intentions, there is little evidence o f it in the documents produced in

his memoirs until the final months o f war, when the emerging shape o f the postwar order shocked

him into realizing that communist hegemony over half o f Europe was already a fait accompli.

Throughout his memoirs, Churchill said next to nothing about the greatest land battles in

history being fought on the eastern front, choosing instead to dwell at length on the Mediterranean

theater where Britain engaged a fraction of Hitler's armed forces. He acknowledged only in passing

the decisive nature o f the conflict in Russia, and when he did so, it was to disparage the K r e m l i n ' s
 138

inordinate demands for military assistance. Churchill noted the complete lack o f realism by Soviet

officials regarding what was militarily feasible from a British standpoint. Though he appeased

Stalin's anger at Britain's continued relations with Finland in 1941, an ally o f Germany, he rebuked

M o s c o w ' s claim to the Baltic states. 198

The New York Times' Arthur Sulzberger urged Churchill to

heap even more scorn on the Russians by recording the many fronts on which Anglo-American

forces were engaged during the war, so as to undermine Soviet propaganda that communists had

waged war against the fascists singlehandedly until mid-1944. 199

While Churchill worked on his last three volumes between 1949-53, cold war tensions

escalated after the Soviet Union detonated an atomic device. The heightened fear o f nuclear

confrontation prompted greater interest in the West in understanding the workings o f the Kremlin

and its leaders. Graebner felt that Churchill's chapters on Russia offered fascinating insights into

Stalin's character, and he urged the author to include as many anecdotes about the dictator as

possible in order to reveal more forcefully "the absurdity o f Kremlin policies." In Washington, the

U S Information Service considered Churchill's commentary on Stalin excellent material for its

broadcasts to eastern Europe as part o f its on-going propaganda war to undermine confidence in

communist leaders around the w o r l d . 200

However, Americans were less enamored with Churchill's

justification in The Hinge of Fate o f Soviet control over the Baltic states as a just reward for the

immense blood shed by Russia in liberating those countries:

When I was in Washington on the morrow of the American entry into the war, and Mr. Eden
had reported the wishes of the Soviet Government to absorb the Baltic States, I had reacted
unfavorably, as the telegrams already printed show. But now, three months later, under the
pressure of events, I did not feel that this moral position could be physically maintained. In
a deadly struggle it is not right to assume more burdens than those who are fighting for a
great cause can bear. 201

The U S State Department had flatly rejected the Kremlin's annexation o f the Baltic states, but

Churchill was w i l l i n g to accept Soviet claims after Stalin agreed to adhere to the principles o f the

Atlantic Charter. In his memoirs, he defended this stance by claiming that it ushered in a period o f

cordial relations with the Russians to the point where "Stalin was almost purring." 202

Recalling his first visit to the Soviet Union in August 1942, Churchill expressed a fascination

for Stalin that bordered on awe for the man whose ruthless use o f power held a vast empire in an

iron grip. H i s mission to "the sullen, sinister Bolshevik state" that he had tried so hard to strangle

at birth awakened a wartime relationship with Stalin that Churchill described as "intimate, rigorous,
 139

but always exciting, and at times even genial." The Russians did not always reciprocate Churchill's

sense o f camaraderie, as relations often became acrimonious over canceled Arctic convoys or

delayed military action in the West that a paranoid Stalin suspected was politically motivated. 203

Luce praised Churchill's commentary on the Soviet Union in The Hinge of Fate, since he thought

that it greatly aided in the noble task o f uniting all freedom-loving peoples against "the Enemy" by

revealing the full extent o f Russian duplicity and ingratitude. 204

In Closing the Ring, Churchill admitted in passing to the lack o f military action in the West

in 1943 while the R e d A r m y was busily tearing great chunks out o f the German army. T w o years

of vastly expanded arms production in America and Britain had not resulted in any sizable escalation

o f fighting on land. In contrast, the Soviet army was waging a titanic struggle using "magnificent

strategies" to wear down the A x i s in ceaseless battles. A t the time, Smuts had feared that ordinary

people around the world would feel that the Russians were winning the war single-handedly, a

perspective he judged likely to undermine Britain's status as a great power and leave the Soviets

master o f the world. Churchill had reassured the Field Marshal that great events were in store for

1944, and in one telegram let slip that in addition to Overlord, the Italian front, and bombing

campaign he "had always been most anxious to come into the Balkans." Before that latter strategy

could be implemented, however, he needed to foster good relations with the Kremlin to patch over

differences and provide a foundation for friendship in the postwar era. I f that failed, he intended to

form a "fraternal association" between the British Commonwealth and U S as a counterweight to

Soviet power. 205

Churchill added these documents to his memoirs as proof that he had recognized the Russian

threat by 1943, and had devised a strategy to counteract it, but was stymied by Roosevelt's naive

opposition to power politics. In fact, Churchill never created any plan for circumventing a Russian

takeover o f eastern Europe until June 1944, when he sought to reinforce Alexander's army for a

drive towards Vienna, and then it was primarily motivated by the desire to bring greater glory to

British and Commonwealth forces in Italy. It was not until M a r c h 1945 that he spelled out to

Roosevelt his fear o f Soviet hegemony in eastern Europe. For most o f the war, Churchill's

preoccupation with Anglo-American strategy and tactics caused h i m to ignore the political

ramifications o f rising Soviet power. When postwar concerns did arise, he was usually indecisive

in dealing with Stalin, vacillating between idealistic support for East-West amity through the United

Nations and a policy o f realism based on spheres o f influence in E u r o p e . 206

 140

Churchill's account o f the Teheran summit revealed considerable naivete regarding Russia

and the postwar order. H i s casual attitude toward Soviet designs on eastern Europe was apparent,

and in late 1943 he still believed that Russia, Britain, and America would remain great military

powers after the war, as did one faction o f apparatchiks in the K r e m l i n . 207
Together, they would act

as trustees to guide the world toward peace and security, though he did not explain how this squared

with the promise o f self-determination set out in the Atlantic Charter. Churchill frankly admitted

in his memoirs that he and Eden initiated at Teheran the idea o f Poland moving westward by

absorbing a large slice o f eastern Germany, while the Soviet U n i o n retained its ill-gotten eastern

territory from 1939. Stalin seemed quite pleased with this proposal, since it gave the Soviet leader

virtually everything he desired in terms o f border revisions in that region. Churchill then promised

to pressure the Polish exiles in London into accepting the new frontiers, assuring Stalin that in any

event the reconstituted government of Poland would have to be friendly toward the Soviet U n i o n . 208

It is difficult to imagine how Churchill hoped to reconcile the Polish government-in-exile to such

arrangements, given that Stalin had severed relations with them a year earlier after being implicated

in the Katyn massacre of thousands of Polish officers. In fairness to Churchill, though, he did what

he could to work a settlement between two highly intransigent parties.

Churchill considered himself the most prescient and far-sighted statesman in the Western

world, yet at Teheran in 1943 he considered the postwar too remote to spend much time worrying

about, despite Eden's persistent efforts to get him thinking about European reconstruction.

Churchill argued in his memoirs that it would not have been right to base allied policy on suspicion

o f Russian attitudes once the German threat was removed. Thus, he seemed willing to accept

Stalin's wartime promises at face value, without considering the type o f regime in Poland that the

Soviet dictator would likely consider "friendly." During the war, Churchill had placed all o f his

hope for future peace and stability on continued friendship o f the Great Power leaders. In his

memoirs, he claimed that his reversion to a hard-line stance toward the Soviet U n i o n was because

"vast and disastrous changes have fallen upon us in the realm o f fact." 209
In considering this point,

Norman Brook worried that Churchill was arguing at cross-purposes with his cold war theme o f

confronting expansionist dictators, since his account of the Teheran conference portrayed the Soviet

leader as charming and sincere. Brook stated that what Churchill said made good sense in 1943,

when the Soviet Union was a valiant ally conducting the lion's share o f fighting against Germany.

But it was not the sort o f thing that ought to be said in 1950, when the West was trying to roll back
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communist influence in A s i a and Europe. 210

In his final volume, Churchill blamed U S leaders for naivety toward Stalin, but in fact,

British and American leaders from 1943-45 were both overly hopeful o f long-term cooperation with

the Kremlin. After Stalin accepted Churchill's proposal o f a "percentage deal" during their tete-a-

tete in October 1944 that delimited spheres o f influence for Britain and Russia in eastern Europe,

Churchill brimmed with enthusiasm for the future o f East-West relations, despite the fact that

months early Russia had demonstrated intransigence and unwillingness to cooperate over Poland. 211

In June 1944, when the Polish underground surfaced to attack Nazis, Stalin had suddenly stopped

Soviet tanks outside Warsaw. Whether this was due to a German counterattack, as Martin Kitchen

alleges, or was based on more insidious motivations by K r e m l i n officials, the respite enabled the

Germans to brutally liquidate Poland's pro-West forces. The Russians had also refused to allow the

West to airlift aid to the besieged rebels. Nonetheless, long after the events o f 1944 in Poland,

Churchill continued to express confidence in Stalin as "a man of his word" who could be relied upon

to respect British interests. 212

Churchill's final volume constituted a story of triumph and tragedy on a global, national, arid

personal scale. H i s publishers saw "serious political implications" in its revelations o f the Grand

Alliance collapsing in an atmosphere o f suspicion and mutual recrimination, particularly Churchill's

contention that the Russians always had harbored expansionist ambitions. The New York Times was

startled to learn o f the existence o f serious disagreements in 1944-45 between Britain and America

over strategy, considering it of paramount importance for understanding the genesis of the cold war.

Raymond Daniell was sure that Churchill's revelations would produce serious political fallout in the

U S , with Republicans using it as a cudgel to beat the Democratic record on foreign policy. 213
O n the

other hand, Churchill worried that his critique o f Eisenhower's military strategy in the last year o f

war might subject him to accusations by Republicans that he was undermining their candidate in the

impending presidential elections. Churchill was concerned not to give offense to the leaders o f

either major U S political party, despite believing that Eisenhower had blundered in not pushing

allied forces farther east in 1945 while Truman erred in withdrawing troops from central Germany

well after Russia allegedly had violated the spirit of the Yalta agreement. 214
Consequently, he toned

down some o f his criticisms and delayed publication o f Volume V I for almost a year.

Churchill contended that the advance o f Soviet armies into central and eastern Europe in

mid-1944 had made it urgent to reach an arrangement with Stalin on the postwar administration o f
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those regions. H i s memorandum to Eden in M a y 1944 asked i f the West would acquiesce in the

communization of half of Europe. But it took three more months, when the R e d A n t i y arrived at the

gates o f Warsaw, for Churchill to give serious consideration to the political consequences o f this

military feat. Y e t even then, he still thought that an agreement with Soviet authorities to divide

control o f eastern Europe was feasible. In his memoirs, Churchill noted that Soviet officials claimed

to have no desire to impose a communist political system on nations in the region. While he had

wanted a united Anglo-American appeal to assist the Polish uprising in August 1944, neither

Western leader was prepared to risk a breach with Stalin. A t the time, he cautioned colleagues not

to cast reproaches on "the strange and sinister" behavior o f the Russians in stopping their offensive

outside Warsaw at the very moment that partisans came out o f hiding. Though Parliament had

condemned Soviet conduct as abominable, Churchill claimed that "terrible and even humbling

submissions must at times be made to the general aim." For that reason he had not acted upon

suggestions to stop supply convoys to Russia. 215

Churchill had wanted to help anti-communist forces

in Poland and Hungary, but Britain could do little to mitigate Soviet influence: "Communism raised

its head behind the thundering Russian battle-front. Russia was the Deliverer, and Communism the

gospel she brought." 216

Paradoxically, he asserted that he had hoped to take advantage o f improved

relations with the Russians to work out a satisfactory solution to the new European order, with the

percentages deal serving as a useful starting point. 217

A s German units fled the Balkans in late 1944, Churchill had ordered the British army to

seize Athens, claiming that his action enjoyed the full support o f the Greek population. In fact,

Greece was in the midst o f a popular uprising led by communist guerillas who appeared about to

take control o f Athens. A t first the British were greeted as liberators, but by December 1944 the

communist guerillas became convinced that Britain was planning to re-establish the conservative

prewar political elites. When the guerillas began to attack British forces, Churchill authorized

General Scobie to conduct a general crackdown on "lawlessness" by closing communist newspapers

and party offices. The British army was ordered to shoot "treacherous aggressors" who interfered

with their actions. Churchill claimed that his tough policy was necessary since Greek communists

had incited mob violence as a cover for gaining power, requiring force to be met by force. He

declared that those in politics and the press who condemned his actions in 1944 had since changed

their opinion in light o f what was now known about the modus operandi o f subversive movements:
 143

It is odd, looking back on these events, now that some years have passed, to see how
completely the policy for which I and my colleagues fought so stubbornly has been justified
by events. Myself, I never had any doubts about it, for I saw quite plainly that Communism
would be the peril civilisation would have to face after the defeat of Nazism and Fascism. 218

Churchill rebuked Britain's left for painting a "wholly false" picture o f his government trying to

stymy a guerilla war for democracy. Only the strength o f the English-speaking world, he declared,

had saved the friends o f democracy in Greece from falling into the clutches o f tyranny. 219

Churchill's memoirs sought to balance the author's optimism about Soviet intentions in early

1945 with the bitter reality of Kremlin policies that ultimately denied all but the Lublin communists

legitimacy as a political force in Poland. This contravened Stalin's assurances to Churchill at

Teheran that the Polish exiles would be allowed to participate in forming a new government

following liberation. In early 1945, Churchill had thought that a panacea for resolving such

problems was to convene another B i g Power summit. In his memoirs, he claimed to have fought

as hard as he dared for Polish independence and democracy. 220

A s for his expressions o f admiration

and praise at Yalta for Stalin's war leadership, Churchill excused them as a necessary part o f

diplomacy, alleging that F D R was ill and detached in meetings, requiring the British leader to do

what he could to retain harmonious relations with the Russians while three hundred German

divisions remained in the field. Consequently, he had not wished to press Stalin on the Polish issue,

even though it greatly concerned h i m . 221

Nonetheless, it took only days for the spirit of Yalta to disappear in a wave of recriminations

over malign intent and breaches of promise. Churchill's obvious shock in M a r c h 1945 when Polish

communists took power by force undermines his ex post facto claim to have foreseen the cold war.

He blamed the unwillingness of U S officials to bring matters to a head for Stalin's brazen disregard

of the Yalta accords, but also acknowledged that his own percentages deal o f October 1944 later

hampered Britain's ability to respond vigorously to Stalin's policy on Poland. M u c h as supporters

of appeasement had claimed that the M u n i c h accord offered a useful test o f Hitler's good faith,

Churchill now suggested that Soviet conduct in Poland tested Russian willingness to respect the

principles o f representative democracy, sovereignty, and self-determination. 222

In reviewing Volume V I , Brook thought it unduly provocative that Churchill cite Eden's

disparaging remarks about the pro-Soviet Lublin Poles as "the Skunk, the Rat and the Snake." Since

the first caricature referred to the current President o f Poland, Brook asked Churchill to replace it

with a more guarded reference to Eden's low opinion o f the L u b l i n P o l e s . 223

H e also removed a
 144

reference in one o f Churchill's letters to Polish communists as "the greatest villains imaginable,"

noting: "Strictly speaking, you ought to insert dots to show that an omission has been made; but I

would not recommend this as it might leave an even worse impression than the original text." Brook

also thought that Churchill's blunt account o f Tito's land-grabbing propensities was likely to

provoke a row with Y u g o s l a v i a . 224

But Churchill decided to retain his assertion that Tito's

communist guerillas in 1945 acted in an aggressive, brutal, and expansionist manner with the

approval o f the Kremlin, since it enabled the author to argue that only his determined efforts to

prevent the unilateral seizure o f territory had stabilized the region. 225

Shortly before the release o f Triumph and Tragedy, Churchill was pleased to learn that

Australian author Chester Wilmot's acclaimed The Struggle for Europe vindicated his own view o f

strategic planning by the allies in the final year of war. Wilmot's book was the first well-documented

survey o f strategy and tactics by allied and German commanders from D - D a y to the end of the war,

though he only had limited access to Western archives, and none at all to Soviet sources. In his

analysis, Wilmot depicted Churchill as a champion o f democracy, countering criticisms that the

British leader was a political intriguer who wanted to embroil the U S in protecting imperial interests.

He argued that Churchill worked hard during the war to promote the democratization o f eastern

Europe. However, historian Michael Howard, in a forward to the book following W i l m o t ' s death,

refuted this claim by arguing that Churchill had thrown full British support behind leftist guerillas

during the war, since they were the only effective anti-fascist force in the region, willingly

conceding to communists a sphere o f influence long before Y a l t a . 226

Stalin's death in 1953 removed the last of Churchill's lingering inhibitions against publishing

his account o f B i g Three politics in the final year o f war, since the possibility o f another B i g Three

summit was unlikely. He wanted those who felt that the slide into cold war had rendered

meaningless victory in the second world war to know how it all might have been avoided. Churchill

notified Eisenhower that Triumph and Tragedy would deal with war events from Overlord to

Potsdam, "a period o f almost unbroken military success for the A l l i e d arms but darkened by

forebodings about the political future of Europe which have since been shown to have been only too

well founded." He explained his intention to release the book that autumn, as it was more than ever

necessary in the current international climate, not mentioning that another reason was Eisenhower's

refusal to consider a summit at which Churchill had hoped to play the role o f Great Power statesman

one more time. 227

Nonetheless, great pains were taken to ensure that the text contained nothing
 145

which might imply controversy or lack of confidence in Eisenhower's generalship. Churchill asked

publishers to included in their serialized extracts all the "nice explanatory things" he had written

about Truman and Eisenhower. Brook reassured Churchill that U S officials had no reason to take

offense at the publication o f his final volume o f memoirs, since all references to disenchantment

over American policies at the end o f the war had been removed or toned d o w n . 228

One week before serialization began, Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature,

primarily for his work on the war memoirs. Following on the heels o f this good publicity came a

less welcome report in the Sunday Express that Churchill was having second thoughts about certain

passages in his final volume regarding American policy toward the Soviet Union. It implied that

the author had hastily revised his story to obscure inter-allied conflict during the last year o f war.

Reves complained that this nasty piece of journalism could have a very bad effect i f it spread around

the world, since the allegations made Churchill appear less than forthright in his writing. 229
His fears

were confirmed when Paris' France-Soir reported that the British leader apparently felt he could not

write as freely o f American war leaders now that Eisenhower was President: "Nothing can stop now

this rumour to spread all over the world except a denial in the next Sunday Express. Perhaps L o r d

Beaverbrook can find a form to correct this blunder, which may cause more harm to Anglo-

American relations than anything that might have been printed in the v o l u m e . " 230
Brook was also

troubled by the adverse publicity, but felt that a formal denial would only draw more attention and

incite further rumors. A t the same time, Life challenged Churchill's critique o f U S military leaders

who it claimed had acted strictly in accordance with the Yalta agreement:

Eisenhower (in Crusade, p. 418), Bradley (A Soldier's Story, p. 549) and Wilmot (The
Struggle for Europe, p. 705) all indicate that there was some kind of agreement with the
Russians that U.S. troops would not penetrate Czechoslovakia as far as Prague. We double-
checked with the Army in Washington, and they confirm that there was a military agreement
with the Russians to stop the U.S. from occupying Prague. 231

K e l l y suspected that Life had given the Pentagon an advanced copy o f the manuscript to enable it

to respond in advance o f publication. K e l l y noted that U S military historian Harry Latham called

utterly false Pentagon assertions o f a prior binding agreement with the Russians regarding the

capture o f Prague: "Latham thinks that the American A r m y Headquarters in Washington are still

playing politics when they talk to Life, and are trying to defend themselves from what they know

now was a blunder." Luce was also trying to avoid further criticisms o f the military at a time when
 146

Republicans were seeking major defense appropriation increases to fight world communism. A s a

result, Life's extracts o f Volume V I omitted all o f Churchill's criticisms o f the U S army and

emphasized instead Churchill's claim that weak diplomacy at Potsdam was to blame for the

deterioration in postwar relations with R u s s i a . 232

Churchill set the stage for his discussion o f the Potsdam conference by laying out a litany

of prior broken Soviet promises and his frustration with American slowness to respond. In A p r i l

1945, Russian distrust led to an exchange o f insults by leaders o f the Grand Alliance over how best

to secure the surrender of German forces in Europe. Despite mounting evidence o f fundamental and

intractable divergences in East-West views on the postwar order, Churchill at the time optimistically

assumed that all issues could be resolved by another summit o f great men. But since his involvement

at Potsdam ended abruptly following the Tories' election defeat in July 1945, Churchill concluded

in his memoirs that the conference was a failure. He insisted that he had fully intended to orchestrate

a showdown with Stalin at Potsdam over the Russians' brutal treatment o f Poland, something he had

manifestly refused to do during the three previous years o f w a r . 233

A t the conclusion of his memoirs, Churchill reiterated the central theme from Volume I that

his wisdom and leadership could have saved the world from much grief, both before and after the

war. While the public in 1945 rejoiced in victory, Churchill was once again the lone Cassandra

warning about looming dangers from unchecked tyranny, while everywhere the locusts ate up false

promises o f a new golden age o f prosperity and peace. He noted that unity of purpose among well-

intentioned leaders had vanished in 1945, much as it had in 1918, while to the east a new peril

threatened democracy, with the "vast manifestations o f Soviet and Russian imperialism rolling

forward over helpless lands." In the midst of this disaster, British voters had foolishly forsaken their

war leader, who had just brought them all safely to port in the storm. 234

With his memoirs completed, Churchill believed there was one last opportunity for him to

play world leader by utilizing his leadership to end the cold war through summit diplomacy. He was

increasingly troubled by U S brinkmanship, its willingness to consider using atomic weapons in

Korea, and the mood o f anti-communist hysteria among Americans. Churchill hoped to engineer

"an easement" o f cold war tensions and initiate a fresh start for the world's leading nations.

Harkening back to his prewar stance o f rearmament and conciliation, Churchill now advocated a

massive arms build-up in the West in conjunction with a revision o f the doctrine o f containment

through detente. He hoped to undermine communism with the temptations o f capitalist wealth, and
 147

in the process play the role o f peacemaker. 235

The Americans, however, remained cool to the idea

o f moderating their cold war policy, and shortly thereafter Churchill left office.

Churchill's successor Anthony Eden soon learned the consequences o f deviating from U S

cold war policies when, during the Suez crisis o f 1956, he was rebuked by Eisenhower for acting

unilaterally. Eden's obsession with exorcizing the ghosts o f M u n i c h and appeasement from British

political culture had induced him into reacting violently against Nasser's belligerence. He appeared

not to appreciate that in the new world order, Egypt was an important cold war battleground in

which the U S and U S S R were fighting tp w i n hearts and minds. 236

Britain's efforts to protect its

imperial interests there clashed directly with American concerns in the region. The Suez debacle,

coming a year after Churchill's retirement, signaled a caesura in British imperial history that marked

the end o f an age imbued with Victorian moral visions. Churchill never doubted the value o f British

imperialism's contribution to civilization, seeking to reinvigorate its mission i n the postwar era by

marshaling U S support. But by the mid-20th century, grand Victorian conceptions o f Britain's

global role confronted the reality o f a nation in terminal decline. Churchill may have succeeded in

forging the West's cold war agenda through his lessons on appeasement, but it was in Washington

rather than London that the key decisions were made during the next four decades on how to

implement anti-communist policies around the world.

Chapter 4 Endnotes
1. H . Cudlipp, Publish and Be Damned! The Astonishing Story of the Daily Mirror (London: A . Dakers, 1953), p.236;
C. Seymour-Uri, The British Press and Broadcasting Since 1945. 3 ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1996), p.34;
rd

Lenman, Eclipse of Parliament, pp. 197-199: right-wing publications were not uniformly admiring, evidenced by
Punch's relentless harping on Churchill's declining faculties after 1945; P. Hennessy and M . Young, "The 1945 General
Election and the Post-war Remembered," Contemporary Record 9,1 (1995):19,26; Margach, Anatomy of Power, pp.4-8;
Burridge, Attlee, p. 198; Pearce, Attlee, pp. 163-4: Despite his calamitous press, Attlee made no effort to court or bribe
it after 1945 with leaks of confidential information as most of his predecessors had done. He identified the media and
publicity apparatus as a necessary evil of capitalism.
2. A . Adamthwaite, "Overstretched and Overstrung: Eden, the Foreign Office and Making of Policy," in Power in
Europe? V o l . 2. The Origins of the EEC, ed. Ennio Nolfo (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1992), p.26; P. Taylor,
"Power, Propaganda, and Public Opinion: The British Information Service and the Cold War," in Power in Europe?
pp.445-7; but see B.J. Wendt, "Europe Between Power and Powerlessness," in Power in Europe. V o l . 1. Postwar
 148

World, eds. Becker and Knipping (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1986 ), pp.552-3: British leaders failed to perceive
their nation's weakness, causing them to eschew support for supranational organizations as a counterweight to
superpowers.
3. Susan Carruthers, Winning Hearts and Minds: British Governments, the Media and Colonial Counter-insurgency
(Leicester: Leicester UP, 1995), pp.11-12,17; P. Taylor, Britain and the Cold War: 1945 as Geopolitical Transition
(New York: Guilford Publications, 1990), pp.21,41; Vladimir Pechatnov, "The Big Three After World War II: New
Documents on Soviet Thinking About Postwar Relations with the United States and Great Britain," Cold War
International History Project (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center, 1995), p. 12: Kremlin "old school" diplomats
did not anticipate British imperial decline at war's end, considering it one of three great power blocs of equal strength.
4. C H P C 26: "Telling it AW," Observer, October 19, 1947.
5. W C H L 10/8: "Churchill Flays 'Guilty Men,'" Daily Graphic, August 5, 1947; Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Never
Despair, 1945-1965 (London: Stoddart, 1988), pp.298-9,473.
6. Churchill, The Gathering Storm, pp.45,70-71,87; also James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.906-14: his speeches on Indian
and Burmese independence in 1947 accused Attlee of a "shameful" policy that history would blame for the blood shed.
7. Ibid, pp. 178-81,266.
8. C H U R 4/25: Churchill to Luce, November 22, 1947.
9. Churchill, The Gathering Storm, pp.502-05, ch. 32-37: for example, he dedicated seven full chapters to the Royal
Navy's role in the Norwegian campaign of 1940, which was little more than a brief sideshow; W.S. Churchill, The
Second World War. V o l . 2. Their Finest Hour (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949), pp.4-5.
10. Ibid, pp.22,26.
11. Ibid, pp. 100,112.
12. Mass Observation File Report Series: Morale Today Reports (5/18-7/26/40) #159,172A,181,199,222,241,298; J.
Lukacs, Five Days in London, May 1940 (New Haven, 1999).
13. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, pp.22,124,256; C. Ponting, 1940: Myth and Reality (London: Hamish, 1990), pp.96-7;
Taylor, "Statesman," in Churchill Revised, pp.42-45.
14. Ibid, pp.52-55.
15. Ponting, 1940, pp.138-55; N . Harman, Dunkirk: The Necessary Myth (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1980, p.237-8.
16. Jablonsky, Great Game, pp.90-91; B . Lenman, The Eclipse of Parliament: Appearance and Reality in British
Politics Since 1914 (New York: Edward Arnold, 1992), pp. 169-73; Barnett, Collapse of Power, p.588.
17. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, pp.256,278,343.
18. Mass Observation: Report #277,278, Churchill's Speeches, July 1940.
19. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, pp.440,497,628-9.
20. Ibid, p.6; C H U R 4/193: Brook to Churchill, undated; C H U R 4/196: Notes and Comments by Pownall, undated.
21. Ibid: Pownall defended the higher British figures on account of the American practice of counting deaths from non-
operational causes, including natural causes. In order to offer a fair comparison, he wished to account for British losses
in the same manner; Churchill, Their Finest Hour, pp.4-8.
22. C H U R 4/193: Brook to Churchill, undated; Churchill, Their Finest Hour, p.172.
23. Ibid, 422,519-23: the author retained references to "Spanish cold-bloodedness, selfishness, moroseness, and
trickery;" C H U R 4/193: Brook to Churchill.
24. CHUR4/201: Kelly to Churchill, undated; Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 172-73,628-30.
25. W.S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance, pp.38-40,242-246,356,447,493.
26. C H U R 4/63: Bernstein to J. Adler, April 8, 1949; Gottfried Adler to Longwell, May 12, 1949.
27. C H U R : 4/63: Longwell to Churchill, May 17, 1949; Life wanted 6 months added to Volume III, and Volume IV
taken to D-Day; C H U R 4/17: Churchill to A . Sulzberger, December 24, 1949.
28. C H U R 4/23: Agent-General, Australia to M . McCorquodale, October 13, 1948; 4/300: Dr. Evatt, Minister of
External Affairs, Australia to Churchill, March 11, 1949; 4/300: Memorandums from Commodore Allen and General
Pownall to Churchill, June 29, 1949: they confirmed Australia's major role in defeating Japan.
29. C H U R 4/50: S. Thomas, Governor of Singapore to Churchill, January 19,1949; W.S. Churchill, The Second World
War. Vol. 4. The Hinge of Fate (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950), pp.6-7,80,87-92;
30. Ibid, p.87.
31. Ibid, pp. 177-8,189-90,280-1,441-42; also R.J. Moore, Churchill, Cripps, and India, 1939-45 (Oxford: OUP, 1979):
the Quit India Movement of 1942 was crushed by British forces. The ensuing calm caused Churchill to claim in his
memoirs that it proved the INC possessed only a superficial hold over Indians, an argument belied by postwar events.
32. C H U R 4/342A: Brook to Churchill, April 16, 1951: The War Office considered the remarks "particularly
challenging."
33. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, pp.332,370-72,524,676.
 149

34. Ibid, p.445.

35. C H U R 4/23: Royal Canadian Military Institute (S.T. Bigelow) to Lord Mountbatten, September 4, 1948;
Mountbatten to Churchill, September 25, 1948.
36. Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, pp. 197-200;
37. C H U R 4/17: Correspondence between Churchill and Mountbatten ("My Dear Dickie"), September 1-4, 1950.
38. C H U R 4/300: Allen to Churchill, January 6, 1950.
39. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, pp.443-5; 4/392A: Brook to Churchill, August 22, 1951, June 23, 1952.
40. Ben Moshe, Strategy and History, p. 198: he argues that the lessons of Dieppe were trite; J.R.M. Butler, Grand
Strategy, Vol.2, (London: H M S O , 1957), pp.641-2.
41. W.S. Churchill, Closing the Ring (New York: Bantam, 1951, 1962), pp.34-35,207,286-7,305.
42. Holland, Pursuit of Greatness, p. 188-89; Max Beloff, Imperial Sunset. Vol. 2. Dream of Commonwealth (London:
Sheridan House, 1989), pp.370.
43. Darwin, Britain and Decolonization, pp.54-58.
44. Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp.362,504-14,604-10: he referred to the US and Britain as "two great empires."
45. W.S. Churchill, The Second World War. Vol.6. Triumph and Tragedy (New York: Bantam, 1962), pp.9,14-15.
46. C H U R 4/63: Graebner to Churchill, September 9, 1953; Life (H. Latham) to Kelly, September 17, 1953; Kelly to
Pownall, September 23, 1953.
47. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 125-28,230-31,308,366,391,469-70,492.
48. Samuel, e d . Patriotism, p.xxiv; Angus Calder, The Myth of the Blitz (London: Jonathan Cape, 1991), p.42.
49. Ibid, pp.52-54,72-77; Frederick Woods, Artillery of Words: The Writings of Sir Winston Churchill (London: Lee
Cooper, 1992, p.148.
50. Quoted in Thomas, Churchill, p. 129; Darwin, Britain and Decolonization, p.69-70,73.
51. Ibid, pp.71-72,124-5.
52. S. Howe, "Labour Patriotism, 1939-83," in Patriotism, ed. Samuel, p.131.
53. S. Dockrill, "Re-Ordering Europe after 1945," International History Review 16,4 (November 1994): 760; Darwin
Britain and Decolonization, p. 168; Holland, Pursuit of Greatness, pp.260-1.
54. Ibid, p.86; R.A.C. Parker, "British Perceptions of Power," in Power in Europe? Vol.1, pp.448-50.
55. A. Adamthwaite, "Britain and the World," p.16; and G. Warner, "Britain and Europe in 1948," pp.34,42-44: claims
the shift away from a third course did not occur until 1949; and M . Ceadel, "British Political Parties," in Power in
Europe? Vol.1, pp.144,154-55; Speech on Oct.9, 1948 in James, e d , Churchill Speaks, pp.915-18.
56. J. Ramsden, "Mr. Churchill Goes to Fulton," in Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' Speech Fifty Years Later, ed. J. Muller,
(Columbia: U of Missouri, 1999), p. 19; Moran, Struggle for Survival, pp.328,331; J. Dickie, Special No More: Anglo-
American Relations (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1994), p.xiii; D . Reynolds, "Rethinking Anglo-American
Relations," International Affairs 65 (1989): 94: Churchill first used the expression "special relationship" in February
1944 in a memo, but only in March 1946 did he use the term in public.
57. W.S. Churchill, "The Sinews of Peace," in Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' Speech, pp.5-6,11.
58. Dickie, Special No More, pp.xiv-xv; Taylor, Britain and the Cold War, p.59; Kemper, "The Rhetoric of
Civilization," in Churchill, p.28; Lenman, Eclipse of Parliament, pp. 178-79; Gilbert, Never Despair, pp.204-07, 220;
even then, only for intelligence sharing did the relationship become real and appreciated by US officials.
59. C H U R 4/15: Longwell to Churchill, Aug. 13 and 20, 1947; 4/141: Longwell to Churchill, Aug. 27, 1947; 4/133:
Notes on Proofs, Aug. 1947; 4/144: Brook to Churchill, April 6, 1948; 4/18: Brook to Churchill, April 14, 1948.
60. C H U R 4/25: Luce to Churchill, April 23, 1948.
61. C H U R 4/23: Churchill to Truman, May 5,1948; Truman to Churchill, and Churchill to Brook, May 18, 1948; 4/18:
Brook to Churchill, July 15, 1949.
62. C H U R 4/25: Luce to Churchill, April 28 and July 12, 1948; 4/42: Luce to Churchill, May 7, 1948.
63. T. Burridge, Clement Attlee: A Political Biography (London: Jonathan Cape, 1985), p.244; K . W . Thompson,
Churchill's World View, p. 42; R. Cockett, e d . My Dear Max: The Letters of Brendan Bracken to Lord Beaverbrook,
1925-1958 (London: Historian's Press, 1990), pp.117,123,139; Gilbert, Never Despair, pp.610-614.
64. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, pp.4-6,23-25.
65. Quoted in Bryant, Turn of the Tide, pp. 193-94.
66. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, p.555.
67. Ponting, 1940, pp.232-5; A.J.P. Taylor, "The Statesman," in Churchill Revised, pp.52-55.
68. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, p.403.
69. Young, Churchill and Beaverbrook, p. 178; Beloff, Imperial Sunset, Vol.2, p.334.
70. J.B. Brebner, North Atlantic Triangle: The Interplay of Canada, the United States, and Great Britain (Columbia:
Toronto, 1945, 1968), pp.329-333; Barnett, Collapse of Power, pp.590-2.
 150

71. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, pp. 142-3,256.

72. Ibid, p.359; George Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1935-71. Vol.1. 1935-48 (New York: Random
House, 1972): polls between July 27, 1938 and October 14, 1940 never recorded less than 83% support for question,
"Should US stay out of (a) war in Europe?"
73. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, p.409.
74. Ibid, pp.557,567-9.
75. C H U R 4/133: Notes of Proofs by Longwell, August 1947.
76. Churchill, The Grand Alliance, pp.21,209-10,377-84,386,393-4.
77. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, pp.229,553-555,568; The Grand Alliance, pp.478,527-28.
78. Charmley, Churchill's Grand Alliance, pp. 19-20.
79. Kimball, "Wheel Within a Wheel: Churchill, Roosevelt and the Special Relationship," in Churchill, pp.295-7; C.
Hitchens, Blood, Class, and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies (London: Chatto and Windus, 1990), pp.203-04, 229;
Gilbert, Finest Hour, pp.715-6,733.
80. Rothwell, Britain and the Cold War, 1941-1947 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1982), pp.11-12.
81. Holland, Pursuit of Greatness, p. 181; W. Deakin, "Churchill and Europe in 1944," in Churchill, pp.87-88; P. Taylor,
Britain and the Cold War, p.48.
82. C H U R 4/17: Sulzberger to Churchill, June 16, 1949.
83. Churchill, The Grand Alliance, pp.111,118-34.
84. Hitchens, Pursuit of Greatness, p.39; for discussion of Anglophobia in America, see John Moser, Twisting the Lion's
Tail: Anglophobia in the United States, 1921-48 (London: Macmillan, 1999).
85. Robbins, Churchill, pp.138-9; Lenman, Eclipse of Parliament, p.178; Thompson, Churchill's World View, p.294.
86. Churchill, The Grand Alliance, pp.457,478,539-40.
87. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, pp.275-80,302-09,463-4,469-70, 495-6,548,563.
88. Ibid, pp.566-75,588,605-611,700-04; Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, pp.217-21,247-8,276.
89. Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp. 130,369-81.
90. Gilbert, Road to Victory, p.940; Bryant, Turn of the Tide, pp.613-30,640; Colville, Diaries, pp.528,574; C P . Stacey,
Mackenzie King and the Atlantic Triangle (Toronto: Macmillan, 1976), pp.60-62,68; J. Holmes, Life with Uncle: The
Canadian-American Relationship (Toronto: UTP, 1981), pp.49-50: in 1944, Canadian officials also feared growing
American assertiveness, prompting suggestions that London do more to foster Commonwealth ties to counteract US
hegemony in the world; Hillmer, Partners Nevertheless, pp. 149-52.
91. C H U R 4/20: Montgomery to Churchill, October 28, 1948.
92. C H U R 4/25: Houghton Mifflin (Laughlin) to Churchill, August 9, 1950.
93. Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp.13,124,129.
94. Ibid, pp.211,215-25,254-5,316-20.
95. C H U R 4/342: Brook to Churchill, March 31,1951.
96. Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp.344-46,373,582.
97. Gilbert, Never Despair, pp.590,648,659-60; Moran, Struggle for Survival, p.443; P. Boyle, e d . The Churchill-
Eisenhower Correspondence, 1953-1955 (Chapel Hill: U of N C Press, 1990), p.40.
98. Colville, The Churchillians, p. 104; Boyle, ed. Correspondence, pp.4-10,34; Holland, Pursuit of Greatness, pp.251;
Dickie, Special No More, pp.80-82: Churchill and Eden recoiled from Dulles' evangelical millenarianism.
99. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp.55-60,62-66,95-96,108-09,122.
100. Ibid, pp.366-70.
101. Ibid, pp.410-11,514.
102. Attlee, As It Happened, pp. 170-73.
103. C H U R 4/392A: Brook to Churchill, Aug. 22, 1951, June 23, 1952; Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy,
pp.381,390,403-412,467-8,495: he still criticized F D R for ignoring Stalin's brutality and expansionism in the mis-
guided belief that Soviet-American friendship outweighed such concerns.
104. C H U R 4/392B: Ismay to Prime Minister, Dec. 26, 1952; 4/392B: Brook to Churchill, Dec. 22, 1952; 4/392B:
Churchill note, January 26, 1953.
105. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp.390-401.
106. Hitchens, Blood, Class, and Nostalgia, pp.3-4,8-10,16-21,181-95; Kimball, "Wheel within a Wheel," p.291.
107. Churchill, The Gathering Storm, pp.32-33.
108. Churchill, My Early Life, p.346.
109. Churchill, The Gathering Storm, pp.23-33,312; Callahan, Retreat from Empire, p.249; J. Margach, The Anatomy
of Power: An Enquiry into the Personality of Leadership (London: W . H . Allen, 1979), p. 106.
110. Lenman, Eclipse of Parliament, p.158; Cato, Guilty Men (London: Gollancz, 1941), pp. 19-20,74,82-85.
 151

111. Moran, Struggle for Survival, p.322; Churchill, The Gathering Storm, pp.45,52-58.
112. Ibid, p.87.
113. Ibid, pp.88-91,104-06,120,154,157.
114. Ibid, pp.169,212-17,234-40,251,264-66,298,305,338.
115. Ibid, pp.29,73-75,84,338; Robbins, Churchill, pp.152-3; V . Brittain, Testament of Experience: An
Autobiographical Story of the Years 1925-50 (New York: Macmillian, 1957), pp.371-2: she denied that pacifists were
irresponsible, claiming that Churchill was completely out of touch with public sentiment after the war; Churchill, Their
Finest Hour, pp.8,10-17.
116. M O F R : May-July 1940, #99,112,247,257,277; Harrison, Living Through the Blitz, pp. 151-55,316.
117. Colville, Diary, p. 108: two weeks later, however, the new govt had the complete confidence of the country.
118. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, pp. 124,570; Callahan, Retreat from Empire, pp.7-8; K . Young, Churchill and
Beaverbrook: A Study in Friendship and Politics (New York: Eyre and Spottiswoods, 1966), pp. 174-5: Yet he was not
strong enough to remove Halifax from the Cabinet before December 1940; for an hour-by-hour account of these
dramatic events, see J. Lukacs, Five Days in London.
119. Churchill, The Grand Alliance, pp.3-19,193-210; P. Brendon, Winston Churchill: A Brief Life (London: Seeker
and Warburg, 1984), p. 153; D. Reynolds, "1940: the Worst and Finest Hour," in Churchill, eds. Blake and Louis,
pp.244-6; Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, pp. 121 -24,317-25.
120. Alan Brooke quoted in Moran, The Struggle for Survival, pp.30,763-4; C R . Attlee, As It Happened (London:
Odhams Press, 1954), p. 146; Young, Churchill and Beaverbrook, pp.239-45; J. Keegan, "Churchill's Strategy," in
Churchill, eds, pp.327-8; Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, p.254.
121. Ibid, pp.241-3,252-4,258,269.
122. Moran, Struggle for Survival, pp.111-112; Robbins, Churchill, pp. 137-9.
123. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, pp.8-17; M . Gilbert, Finest Hour (London: Heinemann, 1983), pp.835-6; J. Ramdsen,
"Winston Churchill and the Leadership of the Conservative Party, 1940-51," Contemporary Record 9,1 (1995): 103-07.
124. Moran, Struggle for Survival, p. 197; Colville, Diary, p.510; P. Addison, "The Road from 1945," in Ruling
Performance: British Governments from Attlee to Thatcher (New York: Blackwell, 1987), pp.7-10; Young, Churchill
and Beaverbrook, pp.263-4.
125. W.S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, p.509; Baxendale and Powling, Narrating the Thirties, p. 133; H.J. Peeling,
"The 1945 General Election Reconsidered," History Journal 23,2 (1980): 408-12; Evans and Taylor 1996, pp.69-70;
P. Hennessy, "The Attlee Governments," in Ruling Performance, p.30: Barnett in The Audit of War sees the election
as a catastrophe for Britain, since Labour's welfare program ushered in an era of unparalleled decline: "As that descent
took its course the illusions and dreams of 1945 would fade one by one - the imperial and Commonwealth role, the
world-power role, British industrial genius, and at the last, New Jerusalem itself, a dream turned to a dank reality of a
segregated, subliterate, unskilled, unhealthy, and institutionalized proletariat hanging on the nipple of state
maternalism."
126. Robbins, Churchill, pp. 156-7; Addison, Churchill on the Home Front, pp.397-402.
127. C H U R 4/141: Laughlin to Churchill, September 17, 1947, October 17, 1947.
128. C H U R 4/25: Luce to Churchill, November 18 and 22, 1947.
129. C H U R 4/25: Churchill to Luce, November 22, 1947.
130. C H U R 4/25: Luce to Churchill, November 22, 1947.
131. C H U R 4/141: Vansittart to Churchill, October 10, 1947; October 7, 1947; October 8, 1947.
132. C H U R 4/55: Vansittart to Churchill, July 21, 1950.
133. C H U R 4/141: Sargent to Churchill, December 15, 1947.
134. Ibid.; M . Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Never Despair, 1945-65 (London: Heinemann, 1988), p.405; Churchill,
The Gathering Storm, p.264; C H U R 4/145: Churchill Notes and Reflections, December 1947.
135. C H U R 4/20: Pownall to Deakin, December 19, 1947; Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, pp.328-33.
136. See Arthur Bryant, Triumph of the West, 1943-46 (London: Collins, 1959); Arthur Bryant, The Turn of the Tide
(London: Collins, 1957); Lord Ismay, The Memoirs of General Lord Ismay (London: Viking, 1960); J. Kennedy, The
Business of War: The War Narrative of Major-General Sir John Kennedy (London: Hutchinson, 1957); B . L .
Montgomery, The Memoirs of Field Marshal Montgomery of Alamein (New York: Dacapo, 1958).
137. C H U R 4/141: Kelly to Churchill, January 2, 1948; Longwell to Churchill, January 13, 1948; Flower to Churchill,
January 13, 1948; C H U R 4/145: Kelly to Churchill, January 3, 1948.
138. C H U R 4/25: Churchill to Kelly, January 1948.
139. C H U R 4/25: Luce to Churchill, January 14, 1948.
140. C H U R 4/17: Sulzberger to Churchill, January 23, 1948; 4/141: Laughlin to Churchill, January 14, 1948.
141. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, pp. 10-22,448,452-4,477,496; C H U R 4/18: N . Brook to Churchill, February 26,1948.
 152

142. Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, pp.142-54.

143. Churchill, The Grand Alliance, pp.56-69,83-97,175-192,298,377-8.
144. Ibid., pp.354; Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, pp.160-62; J.M. Gwyer, Grand Strategy, Vol. 3 (London:
H M S O , 1964), pp.70-72; Butler, Grand Strategy, Vol. 2, pp.538-41; Colville, Diary, pp.432-43.
145. C H U R 4/251: Graebner to Churchill, October 20, 1949; C H U R 4/25: Churchill to Laughlin, August 4, 1950;
Churchill, The Grand Alliance, pp.353-361.
146. C H U R 4/239: Proof of draft chapter, "The Parliamentary Front," (discarded); Deakin to Churchill, undated.
147. Churchill, The Grand Alliance, pp.276-7; some of Deakin's recommendations were incorporated into the next
volume that recounted the no-confidence vote in 1942.
148. Churchill, The Grand Alliance, pp.573-86.
149. Churchill, The Hinge ofFate, pp.30-1,53-59,321-4,452-4,483-4,679; Moore, Churchill, Cripps, and India, p.122.
150. Churchill, The Hinge ofFate, pp.340.
151. Ibid., pp.354-55,556-8.
152. C H U R 4/24: N . Brook to Churchill, July 18, 1950; Brook re-draft, Vol.4, ch.8; Churchill to Brook, Aug. 22,1950.
153. C H U R 4/299: Cabinet Office (R.B. Marshall) to Kelly, Sept. 7, 1950; C H U R 4/300: Brook to Churchill, undated.
154. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, p.439.
155. Ibid, pp.579,595-7; Closing the Ring, p. 68; Triumph and Tragedy, p.241: This was surely true of requests to
accelerate the Red Army's advance on Berlin in 1944 to relieve pressure on the Western front during the Battle of the
Bulge. It was also true of the "percentages" deal in October 1944 that carved out spheres of influence in eastern Europe,
as well as the Yalta accord in 1945 that settled Poland's eastern borders.
156. Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp.154-57,166-7,240.
157. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp.21,56-7,84-6; Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, pp.294-98.
158. Ibid, pp.252,272.
159. Ibid, pp.338,429; Moran, Struggle for Survival, p.323: In private, Churchill confided that he was fascinated by
Stalin, talking about him constantly, whereas he said virtually nothing about Roosevelt. Aside from the war, Moran felt
that Churchill and F D R had little in common.
160. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp.574-5.
161. Harbutt, The Iron Curtain, p. 18; R. Churchill, Young Statesman, pp.263-4.
162. Churchill, The Gathering Storm, p.51.
163. Lloyd George quoted in Charmley, Churchill: The End of Glory (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993), p. 153; K . W .
Thompson, Churchill's World View, p. 169; Aldritt, Churchill the Writer, pp.78,90-91: he relates this biological
metaphor to Churchill's hysteria in 1921 over the death from infection of his mother and daughter within a week of each
other.
164. Gilbert, World in Torment, p.227; Churchill, The World Crisis, Vol.5, p.171.
165. Ibid, pp.63-64,71: Lenin's Kremlin cabal were "sub-human crocodiles" who hunted political rivals like animals.
166. Gilbert, World in Torment, pp.246,270-78,355,413,429,774,881-8, 902-06; Charmley, End of Glory, pp.218-220:
during the General Strike in 1926, he wrote in the British Gazette that T U C leaders were potential Lenins and Trotskys.
167. Churchill, The Gathering Storm, pp. 182-84.
168. Churchill, Great Contemporaries, p. 199.
169. Charmley, End of Glory, pp.309,316; Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, pp. 104-09.
170. Churchill, The Gathering Storm, pp.315-19,414.
171. Quoted in Cato, Guilty Men, p. 11.
172. P. Taylor, Britain and the Cold War, pp.28-9,43,103: prior occasions were in 1919 and 1931. In 1945-47, Bevin
worried constantly about the threat of Soviet encroachment in the Mediterranean upon the flank of Britain's imperial
communications; J. Young, Winston Churchill's Last Campaign: Britain and the Cold War, 1951-55 (New York:
Clarendon, 1996), pp. 19-20.
173. Speech on August 16, 1945 in James, ed, Churchill Speaks, pp.873-76.
174. K . W . Thompson, Churchill's World View, pp.34,88,120-1; Liebovich, The Press and Origins of the Cold War,
pp. 126-29; Ramsden, "Churchill and Leadership of the Conservative Party," pp. 109-110.
175. Ramsden, " M r Churchill Goes to Fulton," pp.25-26: he says it is a myth that opinion in the US press was strongly
negative; in fact, only about 20% of newspapers were very critical, with most of those from the isolationist Midwest.
176. Liebovich, The Press and the Origins of the Cold War, pp. 128-9.
177. Churchill, "The Sinews of Peace," pp.4-5,8.
178. K . W . Thompson, Churchill's World View, p.91,209-214; Kemper, e d , Churchill, pp.28-30.
 153

179. Hitchens, Blood, Class, and Nostalgia, pp.239,246-52; Addison, Churchill on the Home Fronts p.387; Gilbert,
Never Despair, p.397; Ramsden, " Mr. Churchill Goes to Fulton," p.46; Hennessy, eds, "The Attlee Governments,"
pp.43-44.
180. D. Morgan and M.Evans, The Battle for Britain: Citizenship and Ideology in the Second World War, (New York:
Routledge, 1993), pp.150-3; D. Reynolds, "The B i g Three and the Division of Europe, 1945-48," Diplomacy and
Statecraft 1,2 (July 1990): 122; Holland, Pursuit of Greatness, pp.206-07; D. Dilks, e d . Retreat from Power: Studies
in Britain's Foreign Policy in the 20"' Century, (London: Macmillan, 1981), pp. 155-6: Britain's A-bomb status was seen
as a necessary step to reviving nuclear collaboration with the US.
181. Robbins, Churchill, pp.154-5; J. Brookshire, Clement Attlee (Manchester: M U P , 1995), pp.210-211,214; Ceadel,
"British Political Parties," p. 152; J. Morgan, ed. The Backbench Diaries of Richard Crossman (London: Jonathan Cape,
1981); M . Newman, Harold Laski (London: Macmillan, 1993), pp.303-08.
182. Brookshire, Attlee, pp. 124-6,156-66; Carruthers, Winning Hearts and Minds, pp.11-12; N . Owen, "Decolonization
and Postwar Consensus," in The Myth of Consensus: New Views on British History, 1945-64, eds. H . Jones and M .
Kandiah, (London: Macmillan, 1996), p. 162.
183. A . Singh, The Limits of British Influence: Southeast Asia and the Anglo-American Relationship (New York: St.
Martin's, 1993), pp. 1-10; T. Wildy, "The Social and Economic Publicity and Propaganda of the Labour Governments
of 1945-51," Contemporary Record 6,1 (1992): 46-58; R. Pearce, Attlee (London: Longman, 1997), p.120; P. Lewis,
A People's War (London: Thames Methuen, 1984), p.241; Holland, Pursuit of Greatness, pp.237-8: Despite this
bipartisanship in fact, rhetorically Churchill continued to attack Attlee as a craven appeaser, while Labour vilified
Churchill as a warmonger who would lead Britain and the West into a third world war.; Gilbert, Never Despair,
pp.644,660-2.
184. Churchill, The Gathering Storm, pp.ix-x.
185. C H U R 4/16: J. Adler to Churchill, May 15, 1947; on same day, the NYT ran frontpage feature on memoirs project.
186. C H U R 4/141: Sulzberger to Churchill, December 9, 1947.
187. C H U R 4/144: Cadogan ( U K Delegation, UN) to Churchill, February 6, 1948.
188. W.A. Swanberg, Luce and his Empire (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972), pp.233,239.
189. C H U R 4/199: Longwell to Churchill, November 11, 1948.
190. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, pp. 119-23.
191. CHUR4/193: Brook commentary on Vol.2, undated.
192. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, p.133.
193. Ibid, pp.120,135-6,578,593.
194. Churchill, The Grand Alliance, p.316.
195. Ibid, pp.316-23,331-33.
196. Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, pp.161-63; Callahan, Churchill, pp.215-44; Gilbert, Never Despair, p.239;
Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, p.488.
197. Churchill, The Grand Alliance, pp.337-47,350.
198. Ibid, pp.466-75,557-60,605-06: A joint declaration was signed on January 1, 1942 by the allied powers, including
the Soviet Union, setting out a common program of purposes and principles based on the Atlantic Charter's expressions
of respect for national sovereignty and human rights.
199. C H U R 4/17: Sulzberger to Churchill, June 16 and 28, 1949.
200. C H U R 4/251: Graebner to Churchill, November 8,1949; C H U R 4/18: USIS (L. Reid) to Churchill, May 16,1950.
201. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, p.285.
202. Ibid, pp.284-96.
203. Ibid, pp.414-15,502-05.
204. 4/25: Luce to Churchill, August 30, 1950; Life's first two extracts were "How Our Russian Troubles Began," and
"Face to Face with Stalin."
205. Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp.125-3,155-62,270.
206. Ibid, pp.211-15,406-07; Deakin, "Churchill and Europe," in Churchill, p. 88-90: claimed that Americans never
woke to reality of a Soviet-imposed sphere in eastern Europe until July 1944, when Stalin allowed Nazis to ruthlessly
crush the Polish uprising; Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, p.298,307.
207. Charmley, The End ofGlory, pp.559-70; see also V . Pechatnov, "The Big Three After World War II."
208. Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp.359-62,394-97.
209. Ibid, pp.400-07.
210. C H U R 4/342B: Father Preston Benson ("The Star") to Churchill, August 4, 1951.
211. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 196-97.
 154

212. Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, pp.321 -23; Moran, Struggle for Survival, pp. 195-6; Pechatnov, "The Big Three
After World War II," p. 18: leading Soviet diplomats were convinced that an Anglo-American alliance in the postwar
posed a serious threat. They hoped to split the West by benefitting from what they perceived as inherent contradictions
in British and US capitalist systems; Gilbert, Never Despair, p.29; for a contrasting view of the Polish uprising, see
Martin Kitchen, British Policy Toward the Soviet Union (1986)
213. C H U R 4 / 3 9 2 A : "Confidential Memorandum," R. Daniell (NYT), May 15, 1951.
214. Gilbert, Never Despair, p.546; Robbins, Churchill, p. 176.
215. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp.61,66,75-79,113-123.
216. Ibid, p.181.
217. Ibid, pp. 179-82,206-10.
218. Ibid, pp.262.
219. Ibid, pp.94-98,250-63: Churchill devoted more space to Britain's intervention in Greece than to the entire D-Day
operation and subsequent fighting up to the liberation of Paris.
220. Ibid, p.310.
221. Ibid, pp.284-90,310-19; M . Gilbert, ed, Winston Churchill and Emery Reves: Correspondence, 1937-64 (Austin:
U of Texas Press, 1997), pp.334-5: Reves to W C 9/30/52: Reyes was disappointed that Churchill did not elaborate on
his impressions of Stalin and the Russians at Yalta.
222. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp.360-63.
223. C H U R 4 / 3 9 2 B : Brook to Churchill, undated; Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, p.204.
224. C H U R 4/63: Brook to Churchill, April 27, 1953; 4/392B: Kelly to Prime Minister: Kelly failed to see why the
author's "moderately expressed opinions" should have political repercussions in 1953, "more than eight years after the
events discussed;" 4/392A: Brook to Churchill, August 22, 1951 and June 23, 1952.
225. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp.471-480.
226. C H U R 4/25: Churchill to Pownall, February 3, 1952; M . Howard, "Introduction," in The Struggle for Europe, by
Chester Wilmot (London: Collins, 1952), pp.5-6.
227. Callahan, Retreat from Empire, p.247.
228. C H U R 4/63: Draft letter to Sir A . Lascelles, March 28, 1953; Letter to Eisenhower, April 9, 1953; Draft letter to
Truman, undated; Truman to Churchill, May 20, 1953; Brook to Colville, Oct. 8, 1953; Churchill to Kelly, Oct. 2, 1953;
Kelly to Churchill, Oct. 3, 1953.
229. C H U R 4/63: Reves to Kelly, October 19,1953; A B C Whipple (Life) to Kelly, October 16 and November 12,1953.
230. C H U R 4/63: Reves to Kelly, October 21, 1953.
231. C H U R 4/63: Life memorandum, undated.
232. C H U R 4/63: Brook to Kelly, October 22,1953; Kelly to Pownall, November 3, 1953; Time (Caturani) to Graebner,
November 3, 1945; Life, November 23, 1953.
233. Ibid, pp.390-92,429-30,437.
234. Ibid, pp.487-91,495,555-6,574-5.
235. Gilbert, Never Despair, pp.571 -4,748-50; Young, Churchill's Last Campaign, p.293-4,322.
236. Colville, The Churchillians, pp. 167-70; Addison 1992, pp.426-31; J. Lukacs, The Duel: The 88-Day Struggle
Between Churchill and Hitler (New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1991), p.219; Holland, Churchill,.-pp.247'-8,253-4; R.
Girault, "On the Power of Old and New Europe," in Power in Europe? Vol.2, pp.560-1.
 155

5 Reading Churchill: Press Reception and the Public

W h i l e the previous chapter examined the initial reception o f Churchill's metanarrative by

insiders who vetted his proofs prior to their publication, this chapter examines public reception o f

Churchill's messages in the form o f reviews in the political press. It also extends the analysis o f

reception to film and television adaptations of the memoirs in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This

latter form o f reception is important for an understanding o f the creation o f collective war memory

because it is estimated that more people "viewed" Churchill's memoirs than ever read his account

o f the war. In our modified reception theory, textual meaning is perceived to be shaped by the

interaction o f authorial intentionality and public reception. M e d i a studies reveal that the political

press in the early postwar remained the most influential first reader in magnifying, interpreting, or

qualifying Churchill's metanarrative for the broader reading public. Examining this critical first

reception o f the politically conscious public provides insight into the postwar state o f mind and

political landscape o f the cold war in which war memory was fashioned. Reactions to Churchill's

metanarrative were intensified by its publication at a critical point when the mood of relief and hope

following victory in the war intersected with growing fears and foreboding over the prospects o f

peace and stability. Those involved in facilitating reception, including Churchill himself, his

publishers, media supporters and critics, sought to exploit memory o f the war for their respective

postwar ideological agendas. This process continued right up until the author's death in 1965, as

the political press gave way to television and film as the most powerful conveyors o f collective

identity through metanarratives o f legitimation.

In the first decade after World War II, though, the print media remained a key barometer o f

public opinion and the principal means by which the political public formulated and shared ideas

about the world. It was through press dissemination o f political messages that collective memory

and a shared vision o f the future were mainly absorbed by the reading public. Positive reception o f

an author's metanarrative by literary and political elites in the press was not only beneficial for sales

and profits, it could also establish a work's authoritativeness as a critical foundation for its general

reception. In the early postwar era, the reading public in Britain and America was highly receptive

to an overarching assessment o f the war years that would enable individual experiences to be

situated within a broader contextual meaning. After a decade o f war and privation, readers were

ready for a narrative that would explain and validate their trauma. Churchill's metanarrative o f the
 156

recent past advanced the cause of English-speaking unity in a mission to redeem humanity. His use

of dramatic plot, characterization, rhetoric, and didactics to fashion a powerful metanarrative of the

second world war elicited intense interest and strong emotive responses from readers. A s a 1

maverick politician, Churchill had always been controversial, inciting strong reactions o f adoration

or disgust from the press and public. Such responses arose from the fact that he was correctly

perceived to be a strong-willed man of action whose decisions had a direct influence on the lives o f

millions o f people, for better or worse. Memories of the war were still v i v i d when readers received

Churchill's memoirs and his messages on war meaning.

Reception o f Churchill's memoirs was powerfully shaped by attitudes toward growing

ideological tensions between East and West. The ascendancy of domestic socialism and international

communism after the war precipitated a rightist backlash in the political press that reversed a long-

term trend toward political non-partisanship that began after the first world war, and resumed in the

late 1950s. In America, the cold war rivalry in the first decade o f peace produced anti-communist

fears when conservatives whipped up sentiment that the American way o f life was threatened.

Liberal opinion, which in 1945 had sought cooperation and reconciliation with the Soviet Union,

a few years later was under attack from the right as un-American, forcing its shift for at time toward

a more stridently anti-communist stance. Churchill's attempt to draw analogies between prewar

appeasement o f Nazism and postwar accommodation o f Soviet Russia induced the liberal press to

affirm the author's conservative message o f Anglo-American hegemony and leadership through a

strategy o f containment. This bipartisan consensus overwhelmed the small coterie o f leftists who

postulated a counter-narrative o f East-West cooperation and disarmament.

Consequently, the left proved unable to challenge significantly the right's hegemonic grip

on presentation o f collective war memory to the general public. Fragmentation o f leftist opinion

after the war prevented a united voice from forming to refute the resounding chorus o f praise for

Churchill's imperial metanarrative. Even the Labour Party's own press organs were split between

the Daily Herald's adherence to the Party line and the Tribune's support for the disaffected left-

wing. Pro-Labour independent publications were generally supportive o f social welfare reforms at

home, but largely accepted a Churchillian world view on foreign policy. Only the small-circulation

radical left-wing press consistently attacked Churchill as a defender o f the hegemonic right bent on

pacifying or persuading the working classes to accept the political status quo after the war. The left

readily acknowledged that Churchill's dramatic presentation of history appealed to readers' emotive
 157

impulses, but argued that it was designed to disguise social injustices and divert working class

grievances from radical solutions toward patriotic expressions of national unity and power that only

benefitted the ruling elites.

Despite sharp differences o f opinion between the right and left on contemporary political

issues in the 1940s and 50s, most o f Britain's press was imbued with common liberal values that

informed political thought and practice in the mid-20 century. W i t h the exception o f a handful o f
th

radical journals, most publications and their editors adhered to a liberal world view premised on an

Enlightenment faith in rational, progressive historical development and abhorrence o f ideological

extremes. This liberal consensus had shaped the unduly hopeful views o f international affairs in the

press before World War II that contributed to its failure to comprehend the dynamic energies driving

fascism toward war. The liberal press' painful recognition o f this failing made it receptive to
2

Churchill's postwar message that warned o f another menace to liberal democracy more dangerous

than anything previously confronted. Liberals, Conservatives, and moderate socialists in the media

were fearful of being tarred with the same brush as the appeasers of Hitler, who Churchill contended

had jeopardized national security and world order by not heeding his warnings in the first place.

In 1947, the Royal Commission on the Press investigating the ownership structure and

function o f the newspaper industry in Britain concluded that the political press constituted the

central communications link between the government and the politically conscious public. Since

the 1930s, its function to provide information and facilitate political debate had been shared with

radio, but the new medium's qualities o f impermanence, technical limitations, and emphasis on

entertainment meant that the press remained the dominant news source for concerned citizens in the

early postwar era. Politicians rightly placed great significance on the ability o f the press to influence

political attitudes and behavior because politically minded readers still relied primarily on

newspapers for information and opinions about what was happening in Britain and the world. A t 3

their most powerful, British newspapers promoted political causes, captured the loyalties o f

journalists and readers, and maintained intimate contacts with major politicians. This made them

the most reliable barometers o f public opinion, as well as a major influence upon it. 4

Concentrated ownership had long been a feature of the British newspaper industry ever since

unscrupulous press barons in the late 19 century carved out publishing empires using "yellow
th

journalism" to attract the new mass readership. During the next sixty years, a handful o f wealthy

British plutocrats created six large newspaper combines that dominated the national and provincial
 158

press. The nine major national morning dailies were roughly divided between low circulation

"quality" papers and mass circulation "popular" publications. A l l nine newspapers were separately

owned by mostly pro-Tory press barons who also controlled evening and Sunday papers, along with

chains of provincial broadsheets. B y the 1940s, much of Fleet Street was given over to the "popular
5

press" that operated alongside the more established "quality" newspapers catering to the politically

conscious middle classes. Though the "quality" press was small in circulation, it had tremendous

influence since it was read daily by Party officials, political activists, civil servants, and influential

opinion leaders throughout British society. Press readership, the Commission found, was slowly

shifting toward major national newspapers at the expense o f provincial papers, with the circulation

of the former increasing 80-100% from 1928-47. In W o r l d War II, sales o f national newspapers
6

exceeded by two to one those o f all provincial newspapers combined. This trend continued after the

war, with national press readership peaking in the 1950s at sixteen million daily, and a Sunday

readership o f twenty-five m i l l i o n . 7

In contrast to the powerful national press in Britain, America's political press in the 1940s

and 50s was predominantly provincial, in that even the largest newspapers were marketed to limited

geographical regions surrounding urban centers, with only a handful o f them managing to transcend

their locality to reach regional or national audiences. Geography and historical differences between

regions o f America thwarted most attempts to create a national press prior to the 1970s, the Boston-

based Christian Science Monitor proving a notable exception. Even the New York Times sold the

vast majority o f its copies within a hundred mile radius o f the metropolitan center in the 1940s.

D a i l y newspapers mostly represented community over national political opinion, and seldom did

they function as partisan political broadsheets in the tradition o f leading European newspapers.

Though there were no major national dailies like those based in London, the American print media

did contain over fifty weekly political periodicals that were sold nationally, some o f them enjoying

sales in the millions. 8

There were also pronounced differences between America and Britain in book publication

and reception. Literary critic John Hollander observed: " I f in England the Establishment is under

fire, the very weapons being used against it remain the property o f a continuing Establishment o f

the M i n d , which in any event gives some evidence o f appearing to be in control o f the printed

page." Nonetheless, Hollander criticized the shortcomings o f American literary criticism, noting
9

that book reviews were largely assigned space and prominence on the basis o f anticipated sales or
 159

the amount o f advertising space purchased by publishers. Editors feared that critical reviews might

drive away readers and violate the decorum of their Sunday newspapers (where most reviews were

found) as "family" publications. Thus, newspapers in America seldom attained the quality o f

analysis found in such British publications as the Times Literary Supplement, New Statesman,

Observer, Manchester Guardian, or Spectator.™ In Britain's livelier publications, critics enjoyed

being "sarcastic, ferocious, sometimes vicious and patently unfair," whereas in America reviewers

usually avoided deriding a work. Even reviewers for the Saturday Review of Literature or the

nation's two biggest newspapers, the New York Herald Tribune and New York Times, were often

hesitant to interpret for their readers in the manner o f European journalists, with the result that

reviews were often banal or non-committal. The rush o f deadlines, limitations o f space, and

enormous quantity o f new books to consider each year made thoughtful literary judgements in

review essays difficult. Too often, periodicals squeezed their reviews at the end o f each issue,

sandwiched between advertising, as i f they were an afterthought. These constraints on the press in

America meant that outside o f academia there were few first-rate book reviews."

Reviewers in America and Britain offered a diverse set o f opinions regarding the place o f

Churchill's memoirs in the historiography o f war. There were, however, a number o f recurring

themes that this chapter w i l l highlight in its discussion o f press reception. There was, for instance,

virtual unanimity, even among leftist periodicals, that Churchill's memoirs were a literary

phenomenon, both in terms o f the publishing industry and in regard to the author's artistic talent for

writing engaging prose. There was much grumbling about the excessive use o f documents, but when

the narrative was clearly Churchill's, reviewers agreed that he knew how to grip his readers. In

considering Churchill's imperial metanarrative, reviewers in America and Britain largely remolded

the theme into a discussion o f democracy, with the right acclaiming the author as the greatest

defender o f democracy, whereas leftists and a few liberals looked skeptically upon him as a

destroyer o f democratic principles. The issue o f leadership, a theme that runs through the course

of Churchill's memoirs, was divided into an assessment o f the author as a military strategist and as

a political motivator o f people. Liberals and conservatives praised Churchill for both qualities,

whereas leftists doubted his leadership abilities in both the military and political realm.

Least discussed among reviewers was Churchill's theme o f forging a permanent English-

speaking fraternity on the basis o f the wartime alliance. British reviewers preferred to accent

national pride in Churchill's story o f a people at war, while most Americans were embarrassed by
 160

anything more substantive than rhetorical pleasantries regarding a common spirit o f humanity

among the English-speaking peoples. The sharpest divisions o f opinion came in regards to

Churchill's theme o f cold war origins and confronting the communist peril. Leftists were

understandably severe in rebuking the author for exacerbating the cold war, though among moderate

socialists the Soviet Union was accepted as an.international menace to democracy and civilization.

The right, o f course, offered exclamations for Churchill's critique o f Stalin and communism;

American conservatives vilified without mercy their nation's own political leaders who allegedly

had impeded the author's fight at the end o f the war. Liberals were in many respects dubious o f

Churchill's intentions, but fearful of a rightist backlash in the midst o f an anti-communist witch-hunt

in America, shifted rightward while at the same time attempting to elevate the discussion o f cold war

origins onto a higher moral plane that viewed the author as above petty partisanship.

A Literary Phenomenon
One thing virtually everyone in the press agreed upon, Churchill's memoirs were a literary

sensation and tour de force by Britain's greatest statesman/author o f the 20* century. The Tory

press saw Churchill's memoirs as a brilliant achievement that all patriotic Britons needed to read.

Churchill did not just write history, he re-lived all the intensity and conviction o f the war years in

a work of unmatchable literary splendor. The Sunday Express praised Churchill as "the outstanding

historian of the century," a unique giant among statesmen who refused to hide behind ghost writers

and editors. Churchill's memoirs revealed him to be a natural leader who had no need for synthetic

"myth" to disguise faults or foibles. Duff Cooper hailed Churchill's high literary standards and
12

lofty impartiality that would ensure his memoirs stood the test o f time:

A library of books will be written on the history of the war which we have recently survived,
but it is safe to say that in that library the great work upon which Mr. Churchill is engaged
will occupy the most prominent position....And how luck we are to have such an historian
to tell us the truth of it! Every statement is authenticated, documented, and unarguable. 13

Churchill's poetic writing, declared historian R . C . K . Ensor ("Scrutator"), displayed his genius for

finding the exact words to give his account a clarity and ordered impressiveness in what could easily

have been a tangled tale. H i s heavy use o f documents gave the work a special authenticity

uncommon to most memoirs, and did not undermine the vitality of the narrative in any way. Other 14

Conservative papers echoed the view that these memoirs were essential reading, and a virtual duty
 161

of good citizenship for young and old alike to absorb their messages. 15

The mostly Conservative provincial press contended that Churchill was an author par

excellence, whose "inspiring account" o f Britain at war rose to fresh heights o f literary power and

moral grandeur. According to W i l l i a m Andrews in the Yorkshire Post: "Here is nothing o f the

favoritism o f memory which tempts a man to exaggerate the wisdom and foresight he showed in

days long past." Instead, readers were told they were getting "breathless realism" in a story that

would never die: "What a theme for a painter in words!...Through chapter after chapter we never

lose the realization that here is one o f the lasting works o f English literature, one o f the enduring

memorials o f our time, one of the noblest tributes to the endurance and resourcefulness of the British

people." Andrews declared how incredible it was that people should doubt Churchill's fitness to

lead when his "long, disciplined march o f words" revealed a national treasure o f matchless history

that was the richest literary masterpiece o f a generation. 16

Independent right-wing dailies acclaimed Churchill's "incomparable work o f art" as highly

relevant for the present day. Labour M P and literary critic Harold Nicolson proclaimed Churchill's

memoirs a success as history, autobiography, and literature: "Unlike his predecessors, he has no

need o f self-justification; his record stands unassailable for all to learn." The architecture o f the

memoirs was a model o f literary construction: "Such passages o f deliberate decoration as occur are

not purple passages; they are lapidary; they adorn the facades and porticos o f his immense edifice

with all the solemnity o f Roman inscriptions." Reading Churchill's memoirs, claimed the Times, was

like watching a great batsman keeping the field on its toes in a test match: "There is no knowing

whether point or the man in the deep is going to get the next nasty one." They contained all the

material for an epic drama that was "a possession of the ages." L o n g forgotten were the days when
17

the Times had dismissed h i m for opposing Chamberlain's appeasement policy. Churchill was

deemed a master o f narrative who marshaled the technicalities and chaos o f battle into a coherent

and engaging story. His memoirs dwarfed in scale those o f all other great figures in the past, making

him the "supreme historian" o f the 20 th

century. 18

Reception in the left-wing press grudgingly acknowledged Churchill's skills as a writer, and

the Second World War as a literary phenomenon, but attacked the right-wing publicity blitz for

creating misleading images o f Churchill as a giant o f historical prose. The memoirs might offer a

masterly portrayal o f men and events, but the author's childish pretensions and special pleading

made his narrative less a history o f Britain at war than the story o f Winston Churchill: The Daily
 162

Herald contended: "It is a passionate, almost pathological endeavour by a haunted man to prove that

for thirty-odd years he has been always right." Churchill was credited for writing great speeches that

were enjoyable to read many years after, but his memoirs were not considered real history, though

they made for a good novel with the author as hero. Labour M P Michael Foot noted that by writing
19

his memoirs at the end o f his struggle rather than before it, as Hitler had done, Churchill was able

to clothe his rationalizations in the garb of history; but all the same it was bad history for the benefit

of the Churchill legend: "The Prince o f Denmark is clearly present in this 'Hamlet', but where are

Horatio, Laertes and the rest?" Among most leftist reviewers, Churchill was thought to have written

a lively account o f the war, but with serious omissions and distortions that subordinated events and

collective history to the author's personal role. 20

In the New Statesman, Labour M P Richard Crossman initially deviated from leftist opinion

by declaring the memoirs a guaranteed classic that would stand the test o f time. But by Volume III

he was noting serious problems with Churchill's strategy o f hanging the war narrative on his

personal experiences in a "Napoleonic mixture" o f autobiography arid objective history. While it

worked fine for the first two volumes, as the war became global in scope, Churchill's approach

increasingly strained and distorted reality, with "more artifice and apologia than insight." B y the

final volumes, Crossman had decided that Churchill was too self-centered and selective to write

good history, concluding that the memoirs were a "passionately prejudiced" account from a

participant who lacked the capacity for detachment. Churchill's gilded facts ensured that historians

would read them for what they said about the author, not for what they revealed about the war. 21

While the Liberal press disagreed with Churchill's conception o f history as a grand pageant

dominated by great men o f supreme willpower, they lauded his ability to create a drarnatic and

popular account o f the British experience at war. The Manchester Guardian noted that Prime

Ministers seldom wrote a history of their times: " W e should have to go back to Clarendon for a fair

comparison, for L l o y d George's memoirs, though good, have not behind them the sure instinct for

words, the historian's temper, or the artist's serenity...." The Guardian considered Churchill's

heavy reliance on documents no detraction from "the artistry o f the canvas," and in anticipation o f

Volume V , conveyed a sense o f awe for his significance as a writer in postwar Britain:

Up and down the country in the back rooms and basements of bookshops there is unusual
activity; the consumption of brown paper, strings and labels mount as September 3 draws
rd

near. For on that day the fifth installment of Mr. Churchill's war memoirs 'Closing the
 163

Ring' will be published, and over a hundred thousand people who have placed their orders
already will expect to have the book in their hands, no later. It is an extraordinary thing, this
intensity of activity, this vast and well anticipated demand; no single bestseller can produce
anything like it....It is queer to think that on the morning of the third thousands of fingers
will open the parcels simultaneously and thousands of eyes read the first page or two with
the avidity with which a morning newspaper is read. There are many bestsellers but none
compares with this in massive and impeccable rhythm of demand and supply. Like the
personality of the author, it is a formidable matter. 22

Liberals were more complimentary than the left of Churchill's genius for the narrative form, though

there were criticisms o f flaws in his history. Viscount Templewood, a pre-war critic o f Churchill's

stance on India, questioned why the author thought it necessary to write an apologia given the

unanimous recognition among contemporaries o f his courage. While Time and Tide called it a

narrative for the ages, it complained that Churchill's account was often vexatious and unfair to other

leaders. The Economist, however, observed that in the nine years since the war's end, Churchill's
23

stature had grown on account o f his "astonishing volumes," which were a paragon. The Second

World War was deemed an expansive conception o f history that served as a guide to life. It was

history conceived as morality play with Churchill the leading actor teaching by example in a

magisterial survey and source-book o f the utmost importance. While Volume I elicited shades o f

Gibbon, the somber and laconic final volume was reminiscent o f Caesar. 24

Considered as a whole, the number of reviews that lent authority to Churchill's memoirs far

outweighed the handful of pithy and biting commentaries from the left. Liberals and Conservatives

appeared more than willing to concede that Churchill had written an engaging story o f the entire

British people's struggle in war. It was a national history that was deemed to speak for all Britons,

even though Churchill hardly mentioned the contributions o f women or the working classes who

produced the materiel to keep the armed forces in the field. In contrast, the left denied that

Churchill's memoirs were true history since it was entirely focused on a few "great men" who

directed the war effort from the pinnacle o f power, but who lacked an appreciation for the true

experiences o f the rank and file, whether civilians at home or members o f the military abroad.

Empire, Commonwealth, and World Order

Britain's right-wing press considered the publication o f Churchill's memoirs to be an event

of national importance. After years o f demoralizing economic austerity, social upheaval, and

imperial retrenchment, the right was anxious to reinvigorate faith in the nation and imperial identity.
 164

Consequently, they celebrated Churchill's dramatic affirmation o f Great Power status, contending

that it was profoundly significant for the future o f Britain as long as people learned the appropriate

lessons and did not shrink from international responsibilities. Foremost among Churchill's insights

was the British nation's immeasurable contribution to victory over fascism, an achievement that

revealed how imperative it was to maintain military strength in the postwar so as to keep the world

safe for democracy. F i l m producer and author M i l t o n Shulman contended that a central lesson o f
25

Churchill's memoirs was that the survival o f democracy required a sturdy people imbued with

courage, faith, and confidence in resolute leadership. H e feared that democracy was again

imperilled by the British people's slide into materialism, induced by hollow leftist Utopian promises.

Churchill's appreciation for austere military virtues was deemed a valuable corrective to such

misguided idealism, claimed the right. 26

The provincial press similarly praised Churchill for showing the rest of the democratic world

the magnitude o f Britain's finest hour, and the debt o f gratitude owed to the British people. It was
27

considered a duty for all Britons to read about their nation's wartime role in the memoirs o f its

greatest statesman; failure to do so was a demonstration o f one's "lack o f patriotic virtue." 28

Churchill's memoirs were thought to be a healthy tonic for the British psyche at a time when foreign

powers appeared to delight in pulling the lion's tail. Enhancing British self-respect was the first step

in engendering the required degree o f respect from abroad that was worthy o f a victorious nation

which single-handedly had beaten back the greatest tyranny known to man.

Churchill's theme o f appeasement and leadership was received warmly by the Conservative

press, which argued that Britain's past troubles had arisen as a result o f political leaders who sought

to divorce morality from foreign policy. M u n i c h had been wrong politically because it was wrong

morally for Britain to dishonorably abandon a weaker nation to the mercy o f a predatory neighbor. 29

Ignored by these reviewers was the obvious parallel between British appeasement o f Germany in

1938, when part o f Czechoslovakia was sacrificed to an oppressive power for the greater good o f

a general European peace accord, and Churchill's appeasement o f Stalin at Teheran and Yalta, when

Polish autonomy was sacrificed for the greater good of ensuring a peaceful end to the war. Only the

Catholic press expressed dissonance on the right regarding Churchill's message on appeasement,

complaining that he was grossly unfair to Poland in failing to show sufficient appreciate for the

heroic contribution o f loyal Poles who risked everything to fight for the allied cause. 30

In considering Britain's finest hour, the right sought to fuse pride in Churchill as statesman-
 165

hero with the nation itself. Duff Cooper praised Churchill's memoirs as an epic of Homeric
proportions and a modern detective story rolled into one. In this thrilling drama "there were two
heroes, John Bull and Winston Churchill," an invincible combination of complementary qualities.
While the British national character was "eternal, sober, and pragmatic," Churchill brought to the
war effort "youthful vigor, flamboyance, and genius for innovation," who surmounted the nightmare
of 1940-41 when the nation stood alone. Churchill's second immeasurable contribution to the
31

nation was to proved in his memoirs that until August 1944 British and Commonwealth forces had
performed the lion's share of actual fighting in the West. 32

There was no retreating on the right from Churchill's strong defense of British imperial
memory. Before the war, Conservatives had been badly divided on how to reform the empire, with
many Tories viewing imperialist "die-hards" as obstreperous fanatics out of touch with reality. After
the war, Churchill's claim that Britain had to win back its imperial possessions on the field of battle
rather than have them handed back at the peace table was saluted as "noble sentiment" that
embodied "everything grand about the proud spirit of the British people" who ruled a great empire. 33

Churchill's foresight in sending the Royal Navy to Pacific waters in 1944 to assist in the assault on
Japan was credited with helping to ensure that Britain's prestige in the Far East was not disastrously
affected by "the previous misfortunes of war." In stark contrast to such a noble policy, D. Cooper
34

declared that the British people now found themselves with a "shrunken imperial heritage" thanks
to Labour's scuttle of India. The calm and order of India under Churchill's management was
35

contrasted with the chaos and violence that killed half a million Indians in 1947 on Labour's watch. 36

Churchill's firm grip during the Quit India Movement had prevented a slide into defeatism and
ethnic fratricide, a perspective that Americans badly failed to understand during the war. The right
felt that Churchill's memoirs had revealed just how prescient authorities in London were on empire,
and how wrong FDR was to disdain imperial rule. 37

The right-wing press accepted Churchill's contention that imperialism was a force for
stability and order in the world that benefitted the humble masses as much as it did their overlords. 38

Only Beaverbrook's Daily Express dissented from Churchill's argument that saving the empire
required confronting Nazism earlier rather than later. It contended that Churchill's thesis of a
preventable war through early confrontation with Germany was not Britain's only option before
1939, reminding readers of Beaverbrook's prewar campaign for imperial preferences. Isolationists
might have strengthened the empire by turning Hitler eastward while Britain focused on building
 166

up imperial trade, it contended. 39

Stated in 1948, this argument reveals a shocking incomprehension

of the evil recently crushed, and how close Germany had come to defeating Russia and establishing

permanent hegemony over Europe.

W h i l e the right amplified Churchill's imperial message, the Liberal press was moderately

critical o f The Second World War as a monument to national and imperial greatness. The

Manchester Guardian mildly rebuked Churchill for failing to acknowledge his wrong-headed

attitude toward Indian self-rule in Volume I. But it praised Volume IPs stirring account of Britain's

finest hour as a great literary and political testament that was a service for future generations o f

Britons. The Observer went further, offering an ode to Churchill for his unparalleled account o f
40

the Dunkirk spirit, which brilliantly illuminated the national mood in 1940:

Read this book and you w i l l realise that the British action, in the year o f the storm cone, was
solidly based. The sums add up. The propositions are proved. But the legend [of Dunkirk]
w i l l defeat history...Long after the dust has gathered on the history, men w i l l read, men w i l l
quote, the superb rhetoric o f the speeches....Above and beyond the statistics w i l l come a
strange grunting voice that once spoke out o f every little radio in every little house, here or in
America: " W e shall not fail nor falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock
o f battle nor the longdrawn trials o f vigilance and exertion w i l l wear us down. G i v e us the
tools, and we shall finish the job." D o you think history is going to beat that? Think again. 41

Churchill's memoirs were proclaimed a precious contribution to the nation that preserved for

posterity the memory o f its epic struggle against tyranny. National honor and greatness were

inextricably linked in Churchill's mind with his sense o f historical progress, a perspective that the

B B C ' s Listener thought conformed with the values o f 19 th

century Victorian humanism. 42

Nonetheless, it saw nothing unduly archaic in Churchill's conception o f national character and

willpower as the leitmotif o f international relations, nor did it challenge his frequent references to

"race" as akin to nationality. Only B . H . Liddell Hart among Listener reviewers disputed the idea

that the British military at war merited the kind o f tributes accorded it by C h u r c h i l l . 43

Discordant notes regarding Churchill's imperial metanarrative were prevalent, though, in

Britain's socialist press. Leftist reviewers denigrated Churchill's elitist, patronizing, romanticized,

but wholly inadequate treatment o f the British people's contribution to victory. The masses

appeared in his narrative infrequently, and usually only as the subject for humorous anecdotes and

platitudes about selfless devotion to duty. Omitted by Churchill was any reference to the fear,

indiscipline, and indecision that came over the public at critical times during the war -at Dunkirk,
 167

after the fall o f France, during the Blitz, or when rocket attacks shattered the sense o f safety in 1944.

Crossman conceded tongue-in-cheek that Churchill's memoirs served as excellent propaganda for

selling Britain to the rest o f the w o r l d . 44

The radical press chastised the establishment press,

including "Labour mouthpieces," for eulogizing Churchill's literary efforts whose aim was to

reinforce confidence in the control o f society by the ruling elites. Churchill was declared an enemy

o f the people who the right was falsely holding up as a symbol o f national greatness. A l l that

Churchill should be remembered for, it said, was to marshal the resources o f British and American

capitalism to defeat Hitler in order to safeguard the ill-got possessions o f the propertied classes. 45

While Churchill was credited with eloquently expressing the British people's w i l l to resist during

the early war years, after 1941 he slid back into his reactionary ways, evident by his failure to

mention the Beveridge Report, which had captured the imagination o f millions o f ordinary Britons

with its promise o f a better life after the war. A s the war neared its end, Churchill had allegedly
46

become fearful o f revolution, seeking to end the conflict without disturbing the social and political

fabric o f Europe, so as to give no advantage to progressive forces at home and in the colonies

seeking constructive change. 47

Whereas the right-wing press assumed that Britain should retain a prominent role in world

affairs, the left was prepared to jettison international prestige and status for the sake o f substantive

domestic reforms to redistribute national wealth. The left felt no affinity for preserving national or

imperial unity at the cost o f improvements in living standards for ordinary Britons, or sovereignty

for indigenous masses. Since the imperial system benefitted primarily economic and social elites

who staffed its command structure, empire offered few tangible benefits to workers, the left argued.

It correctly surmised that Churchill's memoirs were an attempt to revitalize imperial memory by

crediting the empire and Commonwealth with achieving a great victory in the war, rather than seeing

it as a collective effort o f common people whose enormous sacrifices demanded repayment.

In America, press commentaries on Churchill's memoirs were written by an impressive array

o f poets, novelists, historians and literary critics, most o f whom had military experience from the

first or second world wars. They represented the cream o f American journalism who impressed

upon readers the importance o f Churchill's war history for their present day lives. In doing so, most

American reviewers skirted the issue o f Churchill's imperialist message, focusing instead on the

heroism o f Britons in defying tyranny before the U S became involved in the war. Ironically, the

strongest criticisms o f British imperial policies during the war came from the right. The isolationist
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Republican Chicago Tribune reminded readers that Churchill remained an unabashed imperialist

whose seductive rhetoric should not fool Americans into a postwar alliance to retain colonial

possessions, while the moderate Republican New York Herald Tribune found his imperial sentiments

in "disharmony with contemporary social realities." Other reviewers focused instead on Churchill's
48

nationalistic ode to British heroism, since it was felt that only a handful o f Americans truly

appreciated the fire and spirit that animated Britons in 1940. It was an example o f courage that

Americans thought should rally democratic peoples everywhere to the cause o f freedom. 49

Few American reviewers challenged Churchill's contention that the Mediterranean deserved

to be the main theater o f operations from 1942 until D-Day. Not until Volume V did Robert

Sherwood, playwright and wartime advisor to President Roosevelt, concede that Churchill was

devoted to Egypt as a theater o f war because he perceived it as an imperial frontier. Renowned U S

historian Henry Steele Commager praised the moral character o f the British people and their war

leaders for an offensive spirit that saved the Middle East from being overrun by fascists, thereby

defending Churchill's Mediterranean policy on strategic, tactical, and moral grounds as signaling

to the world that Britain was still prepared to act honorably in meeting its global obligations. In
50

the Republican San Francisco Chronicle, Casper Weinberger (future Secretary o f Defense under

Reagan), was already a devoted Churchillian, contending that American liberals were woefully

ignorant o f Britain's empire and its role in the war. A former intelligence officer for General

M a c Arthur, Weinberger claimed to possess "overwhelming evidence" o f Gandhi's subversive

intentions to parlay with the Japanese in 1942, making Churchill's decision to imprison leaders o f

the Indian National Congress entirely justified. America's obsession with Britain's imperial

objectives during the war was seen as a tragic mis-apprehension that distorted allied strategy and

benefitted Stalin. In Canada, newspapers expressed satisfaction that Churchill offered a corrective
51

to the "American self-obsession" with their contribution to victory in Europe, but were disappointed

that he hardly mentioned the Dominion's role in safeguarding Atlantic supply routes. 52

A m o n g U S periodicals, there was an even split between left-liberal and center-right

perspectives on Churchill's imperial metanarrative. The mainstream liberal journals o f the early

postwar era were the Atlantic Monthly, Nation, and moderately reformist New Republic. In addition,

the Saturday Review of Literature and New Yorker espoused mainly liberal values in their editorial

policies. Reinhold Neibuhr, who wrote frequently for the New Republic, was the nation's foremost
53

liberal theologian who decried the politics o f America's right, whether it be the isolationism o f
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McCormick's Chicago Tribune or the imperialism of Luce's Time/Life publications. His associate
at the New Republic was James Newman, a former intelligence officer and advisor to FDR. The
slightly more leftist-minded Nation was more direct in criticizing Churchill's preoccupation with
nationalism, empire, and militarism while ignoring economic and social concerns of common people
in the war. For this reason, his memoirs were said to lack balance because of an obsession with
presenting the best case for British imperial power rather than the strength of Britain's pluralist
democracy. Unlike the Tory right, who lauded Churchill as the champion of democracy, the Nation
considered him "the patrician savior of empire" who managed as an afterthought to save democracy.
In the postwar, he had become a disgruntled imperialist trouble-maker who imperiled world peace,
claimed Newman. The Nation's, other reviews by J.B. Brebner, a Canadian war veteran and history
54

professor at Columbia University, noted Churchill's attempt to lump imperial and Commonwealth
forces together under the rubric "British army." When the war broadened into a global conflict in
1941, Churchill appeared to lapse into hopeful dreams of Anglo-Saxon unity under his guiding hand.
But Brebner defended Churchill against accusations that he was anti-democratic, praising his
prudent use of war powers that did not subvert the traditions of parliamentary democracy. 55

In the Saturday Review ofLiterature, Harvard historian Crane Brinton, a protegee of Harold
Laski, celebrated Churchill's dramatic story of Britain against the enemies of civilization: "He
makes the most of this theme, with no concessions to the academic notion that the historian is above
moral judgements as he is above emotion." However, Brinton complained that Churchill used the
rhetoric of self-determination to win American sympathies without taking democratic principles
truly to heart. Whereas FDR held a doctrinaire adhesion to abstract democratic principles that he
thought could liberate millions of oppressed people in Asia and Europe, Churchill's limited sense
of democracy precluded him from supporting its application to people under imperial authority, or
even to Italians, Spaniards, and eastern Europeans. But the most pointed liberal critique of
56

Churchill's imperialism came from A. West, son of novelists H.G. Wells and Rebecca West, whose
essays for the New Yorker noted that during the war US leaders were constantly bemused by
Churchill's persistent efforts to induce them into serving British imperial aims. The man who had
tried to hold Ireland and India down with bayonets and irregular forces, and who repeatedly pursued
adventures in the Balkans, was not to be trusted. Churchill's intervention in Greece in 1944-45
confirmed peoples' worst suspicions about him, contributing to his election defeat in 1945. 57

Among right-wing popular weeklies in America, very little was said about Churchill's
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imperialist sympathies; most reviews were brief and descriptive, without serious analytical content.

The British people's loss of will-power and sense of purpose after 1918 was said to have contributed

to the second world war, with 1940 the hour of redemption that served to erase their national shame

over past policies. Churchill's folksy anecdotes describing visits to communal air raid shelters,

bombed neighborhoods, and front-line troops (urging more beer rations) were deemed proof o f a

sensitive leader in touch with "the common people." H i s frequent references to troop "wastage" as

a normal cost o f war operations were not seen as disproving his sensitivity in any w a y . 58

In stark contrast, scholarly reviews for monthly and quarterly journals were animated by

questions regarding Churchill's attempt to reconcile his beliefs in empire, democracy, and Great

Power status for Britain. Some intellectuals thought Churchill epitomized democratic principles in

his alleged defense o f liberty and human rights. However, more scholars critiqued Churchill's

political conceptions as essentially elitist and anti-democratic, and a few saw evidence o f racialist

and fascistic undercurrents in his memoirs. The author's assertion o f national revival borne out o f

the war experience was widely accepted as true, though some reviewers contended that systemic

weaknesses in Britain's economy made its decline into a second rate power inevitable. Some

scholars saw Churchill's memoirs as indispensable for students o f modern democracy in offering

vital lessons on statecraft and war avoidance. In these instances, Churchill was depicted as a true

democrat in touch with the pulse o f contemporary pluralistic democracy, who made the baffling

events o f the interwar years explainable by revealing where Europe's liberal democracies had

failed. For these reviewers, Churchill was a true democrat who never took advantage o f flaws in
59

Britain's political system during the war that could easily have led to authoritarianism, whereas the

rise to power o f Labour's "collectivist-minded politicians" after the war posed a greater risk. 60

For the most part, though, scholars viewed more skeptically Churchill's narrative of imperial

and national greatness in war, and its relevancy for modern democracies. Y a l e professor Reed

Whittemore depicted Churchill as a modern-day benevolent despot who saw himself leading the

ignorant masses to triumph. Churchill wished to return to the ideals o f an ancient past when heroic

nations imbued with militaristic virtues were led by titans, believing that the rejection o f militarism

by liberal bourgeois leaders after the first world war had resulted i n moral and physical decay o f

British power. Whittemore saw this as "Homeric myth" disguised as "straight history." A more 61

sympathetic critic o f Churchill's political values was Hans Morgenthau, political scientist at the

University o f Chicago and State Department consultant from 1949 to 1980, who advocated a form
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of realism in which nations pursued national self-interest irrespective o f world opinion. Thus, he

interpreted Churchill as a "progressive conservative" who sought to ensure the survival o f Britain's

empire using traditional foreign policy strategies based on balance o f power considerations and

diplomacy. But Churchill's faith in the paramountcy o f high politics meant that he understated the

influence o f economics or public opinion in democracies during the interwar era. 62

Churchill's narrowly political view o f the source o f Britain's problems in maintaining its

power after the first world war did not convince most academic reviewers. History professor

Preston Slosson, a U S State Department representative to the Paris Peace Conference, criticized

Churchill's simplistic understanding o f foreign affairs based on aristocratic sensibilities that

glorified imperial rule as the pinnacle of political achievement. H i s apologias for imperial despots,

including the decrepit and militaristic Romanov, Hohenzollern and Hapsburg dynasties, and later

the corrupt monarchies o f Yugoslavia, Italy, and Greece, were regarded as appalling. Churchill's

claim that war would not have occurred i f the aristocracies o f Europe had been allowed to retain

their power and influence was belied by the case o f Italy, where fascism easily gained control under

a monarchy. Churchill's views on fascism raised many eyebrows, since it revealed a glaring blind
63

spot in the author's understanding o f this violently dynamic movement and raised doubts about the

depth o f his faith in democracy. 64

H i s romantic view o f history led h i m to display undisguised

admiration for Mussolini as Italy's savior from Bolshevism, whose fascist regime was overthrown

only because he misjudged British staying power. Only James Farrell's Catholic Historical Review

chastised Churchill for being unduly critical of fascist regimes in Italy, Spain, and Vichy, contending

that they were "continental hostages" o f Hitler who deserved better than they got from the victors

after the war: " W h y , then, except as insurance against 'liberal' criticism in a general election, must

he preserve the terms o f abuse which were war-time distortions?" 65

Churchill's respect for the dictators was premised on their successes in reviving national

power, a view which two scholars related to the author's Victorian romanticism and social

Darwinian ideas from his youth. While the perversions of Nazism had relegated such notions to the

dustbin o f history well before W o r l d War II, Churchill clung to antiquated notions o f racial

hierarchies and the inherent superiority o f Anglo-Saxons. One o f his assistants on the memoirs

project, Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin, observed in a review essay:

Mr. Churchill is one of the diminishing number of those who genuinely believe in a specific
world order: the desire to give it life and strength is the most powerful single influence upon
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everything which he thinks and imagines, does and is. When biographers and historians
come to describe and analyze his views on Europe or America, on the British Empire or
Russia, on India or Palestine, or even on social or economic policy, they will find that his
opinions on all these topics are set infixedpatterns, set early in life and later only reinforced.

Berlin noted that Churchill always placed states, civilizations, and their people i n a hierarchical

order, with the English-speaking peoples at the top, followed by the peoples o f Western Europe.

Lower down the scale appeared Russians, a quasi-Asiatic, semi-barbaric people, while Asians and

blacks were largely beneath his consideration. 66

While reviewers clearly rejected such demeaning notions, they were more amenable to his

efforts to elevate the English-speaking peoples. H i s stirring account o f Britain's finest hour, when

Englishmen used audacity, cunning, and courage to overcome a dire shortfall in military resources

and stave off invasion was lauded. A l l Souls Fellow A . L . Rowse considered it a masterpiece o f

military history that only leftist intellectuals and mean-spirited people would not thrill to, or be

moved by the author's pride in his nation's accomplishments i n war. The Battle o f Britain was a

great climacteric in which British resolve and spirit won the day. For Berlin, the "textures and

tensions" o f Churchill's "tragic operatic narrative" rose and fell, reaching their peak i n a "tale o f

epic grandeur and heroism," when good prevailed over e v i l . 67

The blunders and defeatism o f the

Poles, Russians, French and Belgians in 1939-40 were contrasted with British resolve, moral

integrity, and smashing victories in the African desert. Catholic World considered the desert

campaign one o f the greatest military feats in history, with Churchill's account o f the fighting i n

North Africa during 1940-41 proof that British national strength had been badly underestimated after

Dunkirk by foreign observers. While these reviewers gave Churchill credit for raising British

fighting capabilities after M a y 1940, W i l l i a m W i l l c o x argued that the true hero was the British

people, without whom even the most gifted leader could not have succeeded. 68

After 1941, there were few victories that Churchill could attribute entirely to Britain without

the need to acknowledge the vital role o f its Soviet and American allies. Consequently, his narrative

after Volume III became more narrowly focused on his personal exploits at the conference table, and

on the military operations o f British forces in the Mediterranean. H i s effort to carry the theme o f

British military prowess beyond 1941 increasingly strained credulity, causing scholars to ignore or

denigrate it in later volumes, especially when he continued to downplay the decisive struggle on the

Eastern front or the colossal U S arms buildup in the West that made victory possible. British

novelist C.S. Forester, author of the popular "Horatio Hornblower" series, saw beneath Churchill's
 173

theme of British military achievement to perceive the core reality of a nation in decline. Churchill's
account of Britain's intervention in Norway in early 1940 was deemed pathetic reading, revealing
the nation's difficulty in scraping up a single company of soldiers to undertake an action that had
been debated in Cabinet for months. Political scientist William Fox was also struck by Britain's fall
from unchallengeable security in the early 1930s to near-capitulation in 1940: "Gibbon's Rome took
centuries to decline, Churchill's Britain less than a decade." Ironically, it was Churchill's outdated
conception of power, scholars argued, that gave him and the British people the courage to overcome
a bad case of moral lassitude in their supreme test of strength. 69

Appeasement, Leadership, and the Preventable War

None of Churchill's messages received greater attention in the press than his contention that
political leadership could have averted the second world war. Churchill's memoirs placed himself
at the center of events, the man of action who achieved results, in stark contrast to the faint hearted
political leaders of the past who failed to recognize his genius or the hesitant generals who dithered
when he wanted to strike. He was the far-seeing statesman and politician who combined a rare
genius for strategic planning. This personalized account of past politics and war leadership met with
mostly resounding approval from the Tory, Liberal, and conservative press in the US, qualified
support from liberals in America, but ridicule from the British left.
Debating Churchill's statesmanship proved tricky for British Conservatives, given that so
many of them had shunned him before the war. In the 1930s, Beaverbrook was ardently isolationist
and pro-appeasement, who refused to believe in the possibility of war. In reviewing Churchill's
memoirs, his newspapers held that the author's assertion of a preventable war up to 1938 was
unprovable, since his remedy of using greater force to cajole Germany into peaceful acquiescence
might have caused a general war sooner than later. Nonetheless, the Daily Express agreed that war
arose from weak statesmanship, and that Churchill had proven himself the greatest statesman the
country possessed. The Rothermere press also praised Churchill's greatness for "leadership,
70

courage, toughness and chivalry," lamenting the decline in national leadership since the war: "Now
littleness, however well intentioned, is again in the seat of power; and Britain needs most sadly those
qualities of courageous vigour which, all his life, Mr. Churchill has given to Britain's cause."
Churchill towered above those petty men who had denied him power in the past despite his wisdom
and unshakeable integrity. His tenacity, energy, wisdom, benevolence, and graciousness contrasted
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with N . Chamberlain's confusion and S. B a l d w i n ' s lassitude prior to the war. Given the

monumental follies o f people and nations in the 1930s, D u f f Cooper and Oxford scholar Gilbert

Murray considered Churchill exceedingly charitable in his discussion o f prewar politics. 71

W h i l e the rightist press attacked Baldwin as "the monument o f mediocre complacency" it

mostly sought to deflect criticisms o f interwar policies onto Labour. Britain's "ghastly interwar

politics" a was considered a great tragedy, with The Gathering Storm rendering a service to mankind

by proving that men o f stature were at all times required to lead Britain. The follies o f interwar

politics were blamed on the wilful complacency and dangerous self-indulgence o f the public who

demanded appeasement o f their politicians. Churchill was considered too magnanimous to issue

words o f reproach against the fickleness o f voters, who rejected h i m after faithful service to the

nation in wartime, but his defenders in the press made the connection for h i m . 72
Weekly rightist

journals reiterated the theme o f Churchill's political acumen by contrasting it with the inadequacies

of socialist leadership. James Squire argued that World War II, as well as the horrors o f India and

Burma, could have been avoided i f Churchill's warnings had been heeded. Tories suggested that

while Churchill was consistently right, leftists were entirely wrong in opposing rearmament during

the 1930s. Punch noted: "Here the scathing criticisms and heart-breaking warnings of the statesman

agonizing in the wilderness through the long years o f wasting hope are once again on record to form

an apologia for his own conduct as complete as his scarification o f his opponents is severe." 73

Left-wing critics perceived Churchill's political leadership rather differently. Churchill was

seen as the "master o f back-handed tributes," such as when he alleged no personal bias against

Labour's Stafford Cripps, yet implied that the M P was dishonest and arrogant during the war.

Churchill's reputation for leadership was thought to be grossly inflated, which developments in the

postwar era were slowly proving. Michael Foot claimed that Churchill lacked the virtue of wisdom

that he sought to claim for himself, denouncing The Gathering Storm as a 500-page vilification o f

all the "weak, stupid, and vacillating men in the world," with hardly a single admission o f error on

his own part. Foot accused Churchill o f using artifice to discount Labour's concerted opposition to

Chamberlain and Baldwin in the 1930s so as to usurp for himself the role o f prophet. In the war,

Churchill revealed himself to be a nagging and petty leader who wrongly implied that Attlee had

done nothing but sit adoringly at the war leader's feet. Despite Labour's total loyalty, Churchill had

tried to curb its powers, proof to the left that he was at heart a political schemer hiding behind the

facade o f an impartial war leader. Some leftists even dismissed his famous speeches from 1940 as
74
 175

"meaningless verbiage." Too much attention was paid to Churchill's wartime rhetoric, since during

his long career he had publically supported and attacked virtually every political position

conceivable, making h i m less than a true prophet. 75

Churchill's reactionary past was repeatedly raised by the radical left to remind readers that

at no time before the war had he enjoyed public confidence. H e symbolized for too many poor

Britons the dark miseries of a past epoch. In the interwar era, he had supported reactionary blunders

in Russia and Spain, which were ignored in his memoirs in order to build a case for his prescience.

The Socialist Leader attempted to discredit Churchill's claim to the moral high ground by dredging

up evidence o f "despicable moral turpitude" in the Marlborough family. It accused Churchill o f

deceitfully hiding behind heroic posturing about resisting Germany in 1940 to the last British

soldier, while in fact political elites were anxiously preparing to flee the country. Socialist weeklies
76

tarred Churchill and the prewar Tory leadership with a similar brush as equally antiquated in their

views o f social democracy and world politics. Churchill, B a l d w i n and Chamberlain were all

accused o f being irresponsible and out-of-touch with working class realities before the war.

Churchill's class-ridden ideas kept him from offering a vision o f the future. In an open letter to the

author, Reynolds News declared that Churchill in the war spoke words o f courage, but now he rarely

talked without insulting half the population, "and you never argue a case without resorting to

misinformation that is childish even for a Tory politician." 77

Britain's Liberal press struck a balance between the extremes o f hero worship and character

assassination. The Manchester Guardian believed that the reputations o f MacDonald, Baldwin, and

Chamberlain were settled for good, as "no adulator is going to get round M r . Churchill's devastating

picture." O n the other hand, his prophecies needed to be seen in the context o f his own role in the

tragedy o f the 1930s. B y crying w o l f too often on issues o f secondary importance, Churchill

discredited himself in the eyes of his countrymen, who could be excused for looking skeptically on

his warnings o f German rearmament. Though the Guardian credited Churchill with objectivity in

writing about the political battles o f the war, it argued that he could have been more edifying in

explaining the causes o f disenchantment with his war leadership in 1942. M o r e positive was the
78

News Chronicle, which argued that Churchill's political skills proved he was a natural leader who

walked with destiny. The stolid English always had been uneasy with Churchill's flamboyant genius,

which explained why he suffered so many detractors in his own country. A s a result, voters in 1945

chose Attlee, who for five years had watched "the great man" inspire the entire war effort. 79
 176

While some Liberal weeklies questioned the validity o f Churchill's preventable war thesis,

they all accepted his metanarrative o f leadership. The Spectator's H . W . Harris denied that Churchill

was consciously seeking self-glorification, even though the effect of his narrative was to elevate his

stature as a war leader. Oddly, Churchill was deemed an excellent judge o f men for his account o f

Kremlin leaders and others in high office. His memoirs elevated the author to such heights that he

could never be dragged down by historians in the future, thought Harris. 80

The left's belief in the

centrality o f the masses was felt to have been undermined by Churchill's "magnetic sensitivity"

toward the British people and their needs in the war. Churchill was praised as the living

embodiment o f the Dunkirk spirit, whose memoirs served to preserve its memory for all time.

Though ultimately the well-spring o f that spirit and vitality came from the people, Churchill's

political genius tapped into it at a critical moment, argued Liberals. 81

In assessing Churchill's strategic planning during the war, the Tory and Liberal press

maintained that his decisions were sound. Many reviewers possessed military experience, and could

not resist second-guessing some o f the war leader's decisions. But on the broad strategic plan o f

attacking Germany through the Mediterranean rather than by frontal assault before 1944, they were

virtually unanimous in affirming his approach. Churchill was perceived to have been at the center

of the entire war effort, a human dynamo whose firm grip on strategic policy was unsurpassed in

Britain or America. H i s actions in 1940 were brilliant, with the failed intervention in Norway no

fault of his own. Churchill's urgent calls for action and innovation from his generals were contrasted

with the delay and indecision o f less imaginative minds. Even the Greek intervention in 1941 that

ended in failure was considered an honorable policy well worth the effort. Only one reviewer on

the right questioned whether the intervention was justified, given the Greek government's opposition

to it, but he too concluded that Churchill had proven beyond any doubt the necessity o f aiding

"valiant Greece" in its fight against the German invader. 82

The Tory press dismissed wartime criticisms o f Churchill's leadership as petty, especially

since he had accepted more than his share o f the blame for military tragedies. Reviewers focused

instead on Churchill's success in steering U S strategic planning toward Europe, marked by F D R ' s

decision to crush Nazism first before focusing on Japan, an outcome that wholly justified his joint

command o f the offices o f Prime Minister and Defence. With his enhanced powers, Churchill was

able to push overly cautious service chiefs to the limit, achieving results much more quickly,

claimed the Tory press. 83

Churchill's justification for attacking Italy in 1943 also was seen as
 177

warranted by circumstances, though some reviewers wondered if it didn't undermine cross-Channel

invasion plans, even if the southern strategy was well designed to secure British interests in the
region. Rothermere's Evening Standard fully supported Churchill's strategy, calling him the
84

undisputed architect of victory in the West: "His reputation indeed, in the minds of all thought-full
critics, has been enhanced by the passage of the years and the difficult and saddening happenings
since the end of the war. Again and again he has been proved right, and those who sought to
denigrate his motives and belittle his deeds, have been shown to be sourly and dismally wrong."
Churchill's leadership was seen as the key to victory, and could have secured lasting peace had it
not been debased by the folly and inexperience of others. There was no doubt that the Italian
campaign was secondary to Overlord in Churchill's thinking, despite what American critics alleged.
Churchill's candor in discussing strategic differences with the US only enhanced his claim never to
have doubted the necessity of a cross-Channel invasion. 85

The left-wing press, on the other hand, widely denigrated Churchill's reputation for military
genius propagated by his supporters on the right. Crossman acknowledged that for a few weeks in
spring 1940 the spirit of resistance engendered by Churchill was more important than weapons. He
also commended Churchill's "maritime strategy" of concentrating on sea power in the Atlantic as
Britain's first line of defense, but strongly disagreed with strategic decision-making after 1940.
Crossman considered the decisions to aid Greece in 1941, the saturation bombing of Germany, and
the focus on Italy as all badly flawed, since they forced a vast diversion of war resources that
delayed D-Day by a year. On relations with the US, Crossman complained that Churchill feebly
capitulated to the Americans over vital wartime issues, such as the destroyers-for-bases deal and
demand for unconditional surrender in 1943. Nonetheless, Churchill displayed strategic acumen in
appreciating the vital importance of the Middle East and mounting the strongest possible resistance
in Egypt, since it was the only theater in which Britain could significantly aid the Soviet Union
before 1943. The US plan to sit idle for a year while building up an invasion force seemed terribly
misguided in light of the titanic battles taking place on the eastern front.
86

However, Crossman's colleague Anthony Bevan lambasted Churchill for allowing the war
in the West to languish while Russia struggled valiantly to repel the Nazi horde. Bevan reminded
readers that in 1943 he had pointed out Italy's poor terrain for engaging large numbers of German
troops, an opinion that was shared by Smuts, but which Churchill inexcusably disregarded.
Churchill urged a landing far to the south of Rome, whereas the Americans wanted to attack farther
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north where support for Mussolini was weakest, a strategy that Bevan thought would have short-

circuited many months o f hard slogging up the mountainous Italian peninsula. Thus, Churchill's
87

excuses for delaying the cross-Channel invasion in 1943 were deemed simply not credible. It was

not for any grand strategic vision that he focused on the Mediterranean, but merely because it was

a British sphere o f interest. Churchill's desire to reap glory for Britain at the expense o f rational

planning motivated his efforts to reinforce Alexander's army in Italy, which would have ensured

further delays o f Overlord. Such antics severely tried American patience, leftists claimed, so that

by 1944 he had lost what influence he once enjoyed over F D R and U S strategists, thereby losing the

opportunity to impose a coherent British strategy on the Grand A l l i a n c e . 88

In the Liberal press, Churchill's strategic leadership in wartime was viewed as both masterful

and amateurish. A few reviewers praised Churchill as a born strategist who more than any previous

politician adroitly handled a war machine o f incredible complexity. H . W . Harris suggested that

proof o f Churchill's skills as a strategist was that no major disagreement arose between the service

chiefs and Minister. A t least that was how Churchill wished people to believe it, but as Alanbrooke

and Major General John Kennedy later revealed, it was far from the truth. Nonetheless, Liberal

reviewers argued that every document in Churchill's war memoirs displayed his strategic

imagination. A . J . Cumings concluded that Churchill "believed he knew better than anyone else how

to run the war; and in cold retrospect it has to be admitted he was right." Those reviewers with
89

little military experience found it exhilarating to watch over Churchill's shoulder as he directed the

war effort, and they were chary to second-guess him.

Britain's foremost military thinker B . H . Liddell Hart felt no such compunction, however.

He argued that Churchill's justification of the Greek intervention in 1941 was seriously undermined

by knowledge at the time that there was a high probability o f disaster. The heavy losses suffered

by Britain on land and sea severely handicapped Wavell's desert campaign, forcing h i m onto the

defensive. Liddell Hart noted that for two years Rommel ran circles around British forces despite

suffering an acute shortage o f men and materiel. But he thought Churchill's greatest blunder was

in Asia, brought about by his wilful ignorance regarding the strategic importance o f Singapore.

Churchill maintained in The Grand Alliance that nothing could have saved M a l a y a anyway, but

given Britain's immense build-up o f half a million men in Egypt by late 1941, Liddell Hart

challenged this assertion. Worse, Churchill was guilty o f focusing on short-term military objectives

without considering until far too late the power vacuum arising in Europe from Germany's defeat:
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"This blindness is the more strange since Churchill's latest volume prints abundant evidence o f

Stalin's consistent hostility." The author's black-and-white contrast between the disasters o f the

early war years and his dynamism that achieved stunning victories later in the war was far too

simplistic. Such a two-dimensional picture ignored the lack o f resources that Wavell and

Auchinleck experienced in 1940-42, and the abundance o f supplies enjoyed by their successors

Alexander and Montgomery from late 1942-45. In contrast, Chester Wilmot strongly supported
90

Churchill's war strategy in the last two years of the war, contending that it saved the Western allies

from a disastrously premature invasion of France. Churchill's firm and effective handling of military

policy and resources ensured that "the cause" did not become a victim to political bickering. 91

In the U S , newspapers displayed remarkable uniformity in appraising Churchill's qualities

as writer, statesman, and warrior. Even the Anglophobic Chicago Tribune, whose reviewers had

reacted acerbically toward Churchill's theme o f British imperial greatness, praised his genius for

leadership in war. The far right Tribune, the moderate conservative New York Herald Tribune, and

the liberal New York Times were virtually indistinguishable from the Tory press in paying fulsome

tribute to Churchill's political and military genius. 92

The uncritical tone o f American reviews is

exemplified by the New Orleans Time-Picayune, which asserted prior to the release of Volume I that

Churchill's memoirs were "unquestionably a classic," destined to become an authentic and

indispensable narrative for generations to come that "every thinking man and woman" had a duty

to read. Churchill's memoirs were "a historical and literary monument to inform and inspire

generations o f men," it claimed. American reviewers considered Churchill a master o f language

who combined artful simplicity and majestic rhythms to produce a work o f incomparable brilliance.

The Christian Science Monitor considered the memoirs proof of a perfected writing style that placed

Churchill among the great men o f letters: "This first volume...is like entering a cathedral. The hush

of greatness is all around." 93

There was little to distinguish commentary in the daily press from weekend book reviews

in major U S newspapers. Anne M c C o r m i c k ' s review o f Volume I for the New York Times Book

Review observed that Churchill "is at once the hero o f the drama and the dramatist. This dual

character is immortalized in this book, the magnificent beginning o f the crowning work of his life."

Though she felt that Churchill's account o f the war was far from definitive, what mattered was that

"it w i l l be The [emphasis in original] war book because it w i l l be the only one i n which the grand

theme is matched by the grand style. Few books belong in the category o f great events, and this is
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one of them. Few books make history in the sense that the epoch they depict w i l l always live as they

saw it. This is such a book." It was a solid masterpiece, brilliant but durable, which could not be

surpassed. Churchill's gift for "pathos, satire, invective, and urbane wit," combined with awe-

inspiring care for detail, put his work well beyond the category o f ordinary memoirs. 94

Before the publication o f Volume II, some American reviewers already thought that

Churchill was assured o f imperishable fame as the foremost author o f the second world war, "a

modern-day John-the-Baptist," articulating the dreams and hopes o f millions. H i s memoirs were

a moral epic o f "burning, unforgettable memory," its author's genius flaring "with the intensity o f

an exploding star." Some reviewers got so carried away with superlatives they felt that grandeur

o f Churchill's theme and his memoir's magnificent power and scope defied review, as there was

little with which to compare it. 95

The Republican San Francisco Chronicle and Democratic New

York Times both considered that never before had one o f the world's truly great men written such

a brilliant narrative o f the history he helped to shape. Not until Volume V I did any hint o f criticism

for Churchill's literary style appear, when reviewers noted the mainly descriptive account o f the last

year o f war that lacked the author's considered judgements. 96

American reviewers in the press were equally positive about Churchill's statesmanship and

military strategy, at least until the events o f 1943-45, accepting his interpretations as the last word.

H i s pre-war opposition to appeasement and call for rearmament were considered vindicated beyond

a shadow o f a doubt, his thesis o f a preventable war unchallengeable for generations to come. The

memoirs were a lesson and a warning, said the Los Angeles Times: "...free people cannot and must

not tolerate a dictator anywhere at any time, or believe o f him anything save evil. Appeasement is

death." 97
Chamberlain was "the prince o f ineffectual appeasement," whose policy paralleled the

"unwisdom and carelessness" o f Washington politicians. Americans leaders could not escape

censure for smugly feeling before 1941 that the upheaval in Europe was no concern of theirs.

Churchill's memoirs offered documentary proof that he was overwhelmingly right in all essential

details about international politics. 98

A t the same time, there was some concern that Churchill's

generalizations o f interwar politics slurred over details o f vital interest. But M c C o r m i c k thought

it unlikely that any British leader could have broken through "the pathological revulsion from war

that blanketed the mind o f England and France" i n the interwar era. 99
W h i l e paying tribute to his

wartime leadership, the Christian Science Monitor questioned whether the author's very brilliance

as a military leader made h i m less than ideal as a statesman for building peace. 100
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Most reviewers considered Churchill's realism most praiseworthy, expressing appreciation

for his masterful political strategy in establishing the foundations for a Grand Alliance. The arch

anti-communist might easily have turned his back on Russia in June 1941; instead, he carefully

cultivated its friendship despite repeated Kremlin insults. Churchill's adroit handling o f Anglo-

American relations in 1941 was also critical for winning U S support before Pearl Harbor. American

reviewers were thankful that Churchill's realism had tempered F D R ' s naive idealism toward the

Soviet Union, while his ability to mediate between leaders kept the alliance focused on its primary

task o f defeating fascism. Churchill appeared to understand European leaders much better than the

Americans, who owed much to his management, diplomacy and strategy in bringing the war to a

successful conclusion. The author's fantastic grip on the details o f war policy was considered far

superior to most other political planners. Churchill drew the last ounce o f military potential from a

stuffy bureaucracy that often sought to create obstacles to decisive action. 101
Thus, American

commentators readily conceded to him the honor of being the principle architect o f victory, despite

Britain's obviously weakened condition by 1943.

In assessing the most important strategic decision o f the war, most U S newspapers accepted

Churchill's assertion that he always favored the cross-Channel invasion. They appeared unwilling

to debate h i m on this point, as some U S officials had done in their memoirs. Churchill's dynamic

personality was said to have attained a strategic unity that gave him most o f what he wanted, though

only after much time was wasted by petty U S obstructions. Only Robert Sherwood among

newspaper reviewers thought Churchill's claim to have always favored Overlord was belied by "far

too many 'chance phrases' in more chapters than one, and Winston Churchill is a master of language

who chooses his words carefully, especially when such momentous issues are at stake." The author

seemed increasingly defensive in Volume V because o f his many disappointments and frustrations

with U S officials in directing war policy after 1942. 102

American liberal weeklies took a more critical stance on Churchill's statesmanship, strategy,

and literary skills. Paul Hutchinson perceived the memoirs as a vital source-book on the second

world war, crammed with unimpeachable facts that historians would utilize for centuries, The

Gathering Storm a brilliant apologia that could not be overturned. However, in his next review

Hutchinson sharply criticized Churchill's narrative as dull, badly arranged, and full o f "turgid

minutiae." While James Newman initially thought them the most colorful and literary o f all postwar

memoirs, with facts skillfully arranged like a great novelist, he later noted that Churchill's narrative
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had stalled in a welter of documents. Nonetheless, for Triumph and Tragedy Newman again praised

Churchill's writing, "his huge final chords magnificently muted." 103

In contrast, historian John

Lukacs' review o f Triumph and Tragedy for Commonweal attacked the "tawdry concert o f praise

arranged by our literary public relations experts" for superficial, ponderous, and uninstructed

reviews o f Churchill's final volume. Though supportive of the author's strategic arguments, Lukacs

did not consider his narrative style in any way praiseworthy. 104
Some liberal reviewers readily

agreed that the memoirs were a publishing sensation, the author a brilliant chronicler who brought

clarity to chaos, and who was too good a historian to indulge in wisdom after the fact. Dexter

Perkins, though, considered the memoirs un-deserving of the Nobel Prize for Literature because they

lacked literary brilliance, while Anthony West complained o f Churchill's failure to create a

stimulating narrative to match the sweep and grandeur o f the wartime events he depicted. 105

In contrast, conservative U S weeklies considered the Nobel Prize for Literature awarded

Churchill in 1954 entirely justified. Newsweek called the memoirs "the modern equivalent o f the

songs o f Homer over the fall o f Troy," while Time praised them for their "lusty, unflagging

readability" and the basis for all future histories on the war. Churchill's candid account o f the

appeasement debate was esteemed an invaluable record o f "unwisdom and carelessness" by the

good-natured who succumbed to wickedness, whereas the author pursued an undeviating virtuous

stance. Leftist critics o f Churchill were dismissed as motivated by class hatred and pettiness. The

memoirs revealed inner motivations o f leaders in power, such as B a l d w i n ' s crass opportunism

contrasted with Churchill's integrity and morality. The greatness o f Churchill was seen in his ability

to anticipate and master vastly complex situations that arose in world affairs, as opposed to the

tunnel vision o f lesser politicians and statesmen. 106

America's liberal press perceived Churchill's memoirs as an indictment o f statesmen who

had not mastered the arts of political and military strategy. Reinhold Neibuhr lamented democracy's

failings which Churchill sought unsuccessfully to correct in the 1930s, and finally did at a terrible

price in the 1940s. W o r l d War II was a time when great men carried the burdens o f leadership,

Newman asserted, in contrast to the feeble sloganeers of today "who were not fit to wipe Churchill's

pen." J . B . Brebner found himself transported by the memoirs to where the master o f destiny

performed with nobility, virtue and wisdom, despite being ignored, condescended to, and overridden

by F D R , and being treated boorishly by Stalin. Few reviewers chose to remind readers that before

the war Churchill's egotism and eccentricity had made him an untrustworthy politician, though Paul
 183

Hutchinson did suggest that Churchill was not quite as prescient as he alleged. 107
Churchill's

ignorance o f A s i a and his weakness for appraising past events in light o f present circumstances, his

outrageous self-esteem and conscious effort to re-live the role o f Marlborough in his own life made

him an uneven strategist and diplomat, with unrivaled skill matched by reprehensible action. In his

final review, Anthony West recounted a long list of blunders by Churchill before the war that caused

most politicians to distrust h i m . 108

Scholarly reviewers in monthly and quarterly periodicals were far and away the most critical

yet o f Churchill's faulty leadership, with only a few reviewers conceding that his personal narrative

succeeded brilliantly as literature. British historian G.P. Gooch felt that all six volumes throbbed

with the pulse o f a dynamic and energetic personality, whose enforced leisure from politics after

1945 enabled him to compose "a masterpiece" o f historical literature. For John Hubbard, it was to

the everlasting good fortune o f posterity that Churchill's stirring words, which rallied the

democracies in war, were preserved in print to inspire readers in peacetime. H e did not doubt that

The Second World War would become a classic o f English literature, despite the fact that it

constituted the standard apologia o f a famous statesman. But his thesis o f a preventable war was

considered dubious and unproven, his account o f the 1930s too simplistically premised on high

politics, with broader historical processes beyond Churchill's ken o f comprehension. John Cairns

of the University o f Toronto agreed that Churchill's memoirs were good history, but were far from

the greatness that had been widely attributed to them: " [ A ] long, hard look at this historic sense

reveals important limitations - crippling ones to anyone claimed to be the greatest living historian."

Churchill's philosophy o f history was based on the exploits o f a few great men; power and

achievement were the gods he worshiped, with fate and chance the only other engines o f change he

recognized. Unlike most contemporaries, Cairns perceived Churchill's world view as grounded in

a profoundly pessimistic view o f life, which explained why his memoirs ended on a tragic note. 109

Other scholars thought the memoirs terribly biased and vainglorious, meaning they did not succeed

as either biography or history. It was rumored that Churchill wrote his speeches and dictated his

books, which explained why the former were so much better than the latter. Churchill's narrative

was elevated above the tedious only by his character and the events depicted. 110

Some scholars argued that Churchill's interwar narrative was highly problematic in trying

to link his messages from The World Crisis to The Second World War. It meant that his account o f
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the interwar was stretched too thin, only gaining momentum with his discussion o f the M u n i c h

crisis. Walter H a l l was doubtful that war was preventable, though he conceded that the Nuremberg

records proved a grand alliance in the late 1930s could have stopped Hitler in his tracks. But

Churchill's harsh judgement o f Britain's interwar leadership was attacked by critics who noted his

own substantial errors in judgement, undermining the notion that a simple change o f leadership

might have averted war. Churchill appeared to have learned and forgotten nothing about Versailles,

while totally ignoring the economic imperatives o f appeasement. Structural weaknesses in the

Versailles settlement and in Britain's traditional power base meant that vigorous leadership could

not have avoided the predicament o f appeasing fascism before the war. 111

A m o n g scholars who agreed with Churchill's thesis o f a preventable war, his memoirs were

said to offer a valuable lesson in statecraft. The lack o f fearlessness among political leaders in

interwar Britain was considered a major factor in the "misguided appeasement policy" and

unwillingness to heed Churchill's "truthful warnings." H i s unique combination o f experience and

prose style was providential for the education o f English-speaking peoples. The interwar years

offered evidence o f democracy's unfortunate tendency to advance inferior men while geniuses like

Churchill were kept from power. British historian A . L . Rowse contended that Tory leaders totally

misread public opinion in the 1930s, which he alleged was solidly behind Churchill's demands for

greater military preparedness. Rowse urged readers to heed Churchill's warnings by utilizing his

text as a guide for building peace, while eschewing the "ancient irritations" o f British leftists. 112

Other scholars concluded that Churchill's genius for leadership was justified by the record; his gift

was the foresight o f a realist rather than that of a prophet. They agreed that Churchill demonstrated

brilliant political talent in forging a Grand Alliance out o f such disparate entities as capitalist

America, imperial Britain, and communist Russia. Regardless o f the alliance's many frustrations

in the war, it held together until fascism was crushed in Europe, and for that Churchill deserved the

lion's share o f credit. Even as British power waned, Churchill's personality and remarkable political

skills continued to inspire and lead in wartime. 113

Churchill's military skills were thought by many scholars indispensable for victory and

showed exceptional competence for a civilian leader. From disaster in 1940 to crushing victory in

1942 and beyond, Churchill's guiding hand was at work, ensuring that even minor concerns over

weapons and logistics were not neglected. 114

Churchill's military intuition, by no means infallible,

was deemed far superior to other political leaders, especially the dictators. 115
But explaining away
 185

the many military disasters o f 1941-42 was more difficult. Determined leadership in London was

credited by reviewers for what gains were made in those trying years, while the fiascos were blamed

on incompetent generals, just as Churchill alleged. Few historians questioned his justification for

a southern strategy o f attacking Germany, except Francis Neilson, who castigated Churchill's

"Mediterranean stupidity" as responsible for the failure in 1943-45 to prevent communists from

gaining dominance over eastern Europe." Reed Whittemore acknowledged that Churchill's
6

narrative succeeded on many levels, offering value for money to readers in the form of entertainment

and education by converting the tragedy o f appeasement into a modern version o f the fall o f man

from moral virtue, with the author as hero who redeemed national honor and saved humanity. While

Churchill's leadership was vital to allied harmony and victory, Whittemore deemed his morality play

incredulous when he attempted to superimpose it upon the entire war, extending his interesting story

beyond the realm o f plausibility for the cynical modern-day reader." 7

The moral dimension to Churchill's leadership was accented by religious scholars. They

emphasized that Churchill brought to policy making a history-shaping moral force superior to the

calculated judgements o f other officials. This morality permeated his memoirs, contrasting past

mistakes with the principles o f correct action that served to enlighten readers with political wisdom.

Churchill's greatness as a war leader elevated him above personal biases and shortcomings by

combining the qualities o f intellect and moral dynamism harnessed to a cause in ways that no one

else could emulate. Some non-religious scholars agreed that Churchill had the intellect to recognize

his mistakes and failures, the moral integrity to show humility, and a humane generosity toward the

failings o f others. Consequently, his memoirs brought great intellectual and moral force to bear

upon the greatest issue o f the day - the survival o f the West." It proved, said H . S . Commager, that
8

moral character counted for much, and Churchill was above all a moralist "clad in the armor o f a

righteous cause" that Americans found very appealing." Churchill's leadership and resolution in
9

the face o f desperate odds were awe inspiring to American reviewers, proving to some that the spirit

and soul were more important than military strategy and power in winning battles. Churchill's book

was a testament not to military brilliance but to a moral quality which gave h i m and his country

courage, mental resilience and strength o f spirit. 120

Forging the Anglo-American Fraternity

Churchill attached tremendous importance to the idea o f an English-speaking "special
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relationship," which formed the lynchpin to his postwar metanarrative o f British power. Thus, it is

striking that British newspapers and journals did not have more to say about it. Reviewers in Britain

fixated on Churchill's memoirs as a monument to their nation's glorious achievement in war, with

Americans widely perceived as latecomers to the main event, having dawdled on the sidelines while

Europe's last surviving democracy fought for its life. N o one could ignore the fact that U S military

strength was ultimately decisive in the West, but American policy, strategy, and leadership between

1933 and 1945 were compared unfavorably by the right to that o f Britain's wartime leadership.

While the leftist press was critical o f political elites in both countries, it saw in American power a

new imperialism that was even more belligerent and threatening to world peace.

The right-wing press played up the nationalist message in Churchill's memoirs, ignoring the

full implication o f Churchill's theme from Volume I, " H o w the English-speaking Peoples Through

their Unwisdom, Carelessness, and Good Nature A l l o w e d the W i c k e d to R e a r m . " 121

The author's

contention that Chamberlain made a measureless blunder in 1938 when he forsook the American

hand o f friendship proffered by Roosevelt was only acknowledged in passing. Several Tory

newspapers commented briefly upon U S generosity and cooperation after the outbreak o f war in

1939, reiterating Churchill's notion that American sympathy was born o f common traditions, ideals

and beliefs among English-speaking peoples. 122

Like Churchill, they did not recognize the existence

of a large Anglophobic political lobby in America, preferring to focus on the tremendous postwar

reception Americans were according Churchill and his memoirs, which was seen as a sign that they

now appreciated fully what he and the British nation had meant to the war effort. 123

Churchill's diplomatic and strategic vision was credited by the right for having forged the

close Anglo-American military alliance after 1941 through his personal influence on the U S

President. F D R ' s wisdom was his apparent ability to appreciate Churchill's genius by overriding

the narrow plans and ambitions o f his own advisors. Roosevelt's memory was sanctified by

Churchill's memoirs, which depicted a President who was always wise, benevolent and helpful, in

stark contrast to the roguish leaders in the Kremlin. A n instinctive understanding was thought to

have developed between the two English-speaking leaders, with Churchill's brilliant statesmanship

steering the decision-making process in Washington and London by shrewdly conceding on small

points in order to w i n on the larger strategic issues. 124

However, there occurred a marked shift in the right's attitude to U S policies in the final two

volumes. M a n y Britons still smarted from American accusations since the war that Britain had
 187

prolonged the conflict because o f timidity over incurring casualties. Some Americans claimed that

British leaders had undermined plans for the cross-Channel invasion by diverting U S forces to the

Mediterranean in order to limit casualties and bolster imperial interests. The Manchester Daily

Dispatch thanked Churchill for exposing such allegations as "legends without factual foundation."

R . C . K . Ensor (Scrutator) indignantly shifted responsibility for delays in the war onto Americans,

declaring that U S officials "with not a tithe o f Churchill's war experience," used cast iron theory to

oppose the British leader's ingenious strategic conceptions, resulting in many missed opportunities

to prosecute the war. Churchill was deemed to have convincingly refuted the charge o f British

obstruction in planning Overlord, the Times Literary Supplement reminding readers that he

appreciated better than any other leader the risks of a major amphibious operation against a powerful

land army. H i s primary concern always was to ensure its success, since failure would have added

years onto the war, and possibly induced Stalin to negotiate a settlement with H i t l e r . 125
William

Andrews claimed that Churchill continually worked toward the fruition o f Overlord: "He is ever

thinking how to ensure its safety. It is above all others, the way to victorious peace. In these pages,

Overlord is paramount." Given Churchill's vastly superior experience with war, rightist opinion

wondered why he showed such deference to the Americans for so long, forgetting that Britain had

little choice but to defer to the allies with bigger battalions. AlanBrooke's diary reveal that i f

Churchill had been any more obstructive o f U S plans, it was prepared to re-direct the main war

effort to the Pacific theater, a strategy that U S commanders were eager to pursue. 126

The right feared that F D R was at heart anti-British, since "he was inclined to suspect our

most innocent motives" for something more malicious, thought Ensor. Americans revealed glaring

ignorance and naivete in overestimating the capabilities o f China, interfering i n British imperial

affairs, and badly misreading Stalinist Russia. Nonetheless, some Conservatives continued to affirm

near-perfect Anglo-American harmony to the very end of the war, as Andrews alleged: "The outlook

was darkened by the death o f President Roosevelt, whose mind, though sometimes suspicious o f

British tactics, moved so closely with the Prime M i n i s t e r ' s . " 127
Y e t documents produced in

Churchill's own memoirs hardly justifies such a position.

If national pride and identification with empire on the right did not permit greater recognition

o f America's role in winning the war, disenchantment on the left with Anglo-American hegemony

in the West had much the same effect. Leftist critics perceived Churchill to be a symbol o f elitist

social control, interpreting his dream o f an Anglo-American fraternal association as a quest for
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global hegemony over progressive political movements in the world. W h i l e the moderate left

compared Churchill's imperialist values unfavorably to the U S President's apparently progressive

ideas on reforming the capitalist system, among the radical left they were both seen as part o f the

same social structure involved in propping up an essentially conservative world order. The far left

saw the Anglo-American alliance as an insincere attempt by the two main capitalist powers to

counteract communism's ability to w i n hearts and minds around the world during the war against

fascism. The actions o f Western leaders were denigrated as "feeble" and ignorant when they

proclaimed a policy of unconditional surrender in 1943 because it sabotaged the capability o f leftist

underground movements to gain support in occupied Europe, thereby prolonging the war by two

years. It was just one o f numerous instances when Churchill was alleged to have shown weakness

and "political stupidity" in acquiescing to American initiatives for the sake of maintaining harmony

between the two capitalist powers. Churchill's glowing account of the Grand Alliance in action was

ridiculed as a cynical attempt to disguise the intention o f Western leaders to use it as a temporary

expedient before turning against the Soviet U n i o n . 128

Moderate socialists were more sympathetic towards Churchill's aim o f promoting Anglo-

American unity, though they too felt that the memoirs were being used as propaganda for "selling

Britain" to Americans after the war. Crossman noted that Churchill appeared to comprehend

precisely those aspects o f his country that Americans found so enchanting, leaving out "the boring

and sober realities" o f English life. Churchill "personified O l d England" that American visitors

encountered with delight on their tours o f Oxford, Cambridge, and London's Horseguards Parade.

But such mis-perceptions did not diminish the sincerity o f Anglo-American friendship during the

war, which Crossman noted was based on a mutual respect for liberty and freedom, and a loathing

of tyranny, though the failure to achieve an equivalent rapport with Soviet Russia made the wartime

alliance less that " G r a n d . " 129

Crossman credited Churchill with uncanny skill in utilizing his understanding o f American

psychology to control the direction o f the war effort. From 1942-44, Churchill knew that as long

as he remained content to play second fiddle in public he could ensure that the British view

prevailed in strategy sessions between leaders. But with the Russians, Churchill was forced onto

the defensive appeasing Soviet suspicions o f Anglo-American intentions about a second front. In

order to preserve British honor and prevent Stalin from making a separate peace, Churchill urged

a large-scale action in the West in 1942, rather than concentrating on a buildup for the main invasion
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the next year. When fighting in North Africa extended into spring 1943, eliminating the possibility

of a cross-channel assault that year, Churchill and F D R cast about for an alternative plan that would

keep their forces busy. 130

Short-sighted expediencies and reaction to emergencies dominated

strategic thinking, claimed Crossman: "Anglo-American policy was a series o f snap improvisations,

adopted almost haphazard in the intervals o f a continuous, all-absorbing argument about the relative

merits o f Overlord and the Mediterranean campaign." Amateur generalship by both leaders and an

obsession with waging total war prevented them from considering a negotiated peace that might

have saved lives. They failed to foresee that their military strategy would create a power vacuum

in central Europe that the democracies were ill-equipped to f i l l . 131

Crossman did not explain, though,

how Western leaders could have pursued a negotiated settlement as long as Hitler remained in

power, or what the consequences o f such action would have been on an exceedingly paranoid Stalin.

Churchill's memoirs suggested that war brought the English-speaking peoples close to fulfilling

their historic destiny o f establishing an enlightened hegemonic order over the entire world. In the

postwar era, he tried to revive what he perceived as the harmony o f sentiment that had proven so

successful in war. But leftists believed this "special relationship" was a chimera based on

Churchill's romantic misreading o f U S policies during the war. Isaiah Berlin appeared to agree,

noting that the abnormal imperatives o f war drew closely together two civilizations that were in

essence profoundly different, a reality epitomized by the starkly contrasting world views o f F D R

and Churchill. While Churchill looked to the past for inspiration, Roosevelt was uplifted by ah

enthusiasm for the exciting challenges o f the future in which America would be preeminent. 132

For Britain's Liberal press, the Anglo-American alliance was a great achievement o f

Churchill's leadership. There was less agreement for his argument that better leadership could have

secured active American involvement in European affairs in 1938. H i s denunciation o f Chamberlain

for spurning Roosevelt's overtures before the war was discounted, since U S politicians lacked the

w i l l to perform a volte face when public opinion strongly opposed "foreign adventurism." The

Manchester Guardian dismissed Churchill's optimistic assessment o f American policy before 1941,

since it often entailed misguided advice and misinformed criticisms rendered from the safety o f

neutrality. Ambassador Bullitt's "hysteria" over Britain's refusal in M a y 1940 to send its last

twenty-five air squadrons to aid French resistance completely overlooked the fact that France was

already a lost cause. Sending the squadrons would not have turned the tide of war, but it would have

seriously jeopardized British security. The U S government's vocal disapproval of Britain's decision
 190

to sink the French fleet at Oran rather than risk it falling into German hands was also seen as

misguided, since it failed to recognize that at a stroke the entire balance o f power at sea was thrown

into Britain's favor. 133

Liberal commentary warmed to the U S after Volume III, when the functioning of the Grand

Alliance was considered. Liberals expressed a strong appreciation for how crucial close cooperation

between Britain and America became for the survival o f the free world. The idea o f Anglo-

American unity, so widely accepted in 1950 that its utterance sounded platitudinous to the

Economist, had been vigorously resisted before Pearl Harbor by pacifists and a variety o f leftist

groups in the West. Since that time, the "blindness and folly" o f isolationist sentiment in America

had been entirely refuted. 134

Liberals in Britain and America accepted Churchill's rosy appraisal o f

his relationship with F D R . Sherwood praised Churchill's account o f F D R ' s reaction to the fall o f

Tobruk in 1942 as intensely moving, filling him with nostalgia for "those generous and enlightened

days when good friends were not hesitant to behave as such." The Spectator and Listener considered

Churchill's personal friendship with F D R unparalleled and a central feature o f Anglo-American

relations that forged "one o f the prime constituents o f victory." However, their enthusiasm for its

successes was tempered by distaste for "unconditional surrender," which ensured such an escalation

of devastation before the war ended that western Europe was left utterly dependent on American

assistance while eastern Europe was firmly under Soviet control. Liberals supported close Anglo-

American cooperation during and after the war, but they regretted that it came at the cost of Britain's

independence o f action. 135

For Volumes V and V I , the Liberal press could hardly ignore Churchill's bitterness about

disagreements with the U S over war strategy in 1944-45. Despite their admiration for F D R , British

Liberals accepted Churchill's contention that he was stymied by inflexible American decision

making that refused to modify military plans to meet new political circumstances. Though the

Americans appeared militarily more ruthless in their readiness to incur higher casualties that the

British, politically they were thought naive about Europe, yet were unwilling to accept wiser

councils in London which could have prevented many mistakes. The Spectator declared that time

and again Churchill proved himself "so often, so incredibly and so magnificently right...." 136

Ironically, in setting out his case for alternative strategies, Churchill undermined much o f the

sentiment o f friendship between the two English-speaking allies that he had carefully built up in his

first four volumes. Nonetheless, Liberals muted this point by continuing to emphasize the
 191

cooperative nature o f the relationship more than its sources o f friction. When Churchill wrote after

the war of building an Anglo-American partnership on the solid foundations of the wartime alliance,

he was thinking very selectively o f 1941-43 when he dominated strategic thinking. It was a view

that most Liberals in Britain found persuasive because Churchill couched it in terms o f national

honor and transatlantic amity linked to a humanist philosophy o f world progress.' 37

In America, while liberals largely ignored F D R ' s appeasement and isolationist foreign

policies from the 1930s, Republicans readily vetted the issue in reviews o f The Gathering Storm,

despite Churchill's contention that isolationism i n the U S was a major impetus for F D R ' s prewar

stance. Churchill's assertion that America shared responsibility for the failure to stem N a z i

aggression short o f war was overlooked by liberals in all the finger-pointing at Tory leaders. It was

much safer politically for them to blast Chamberlain and Baldwin for pre-war follies. However, the

Republican San Francisco Chronicle directly related British interwar folly under its pro-

appeasement leadership with F D R ' s foreign policy, who was accused o f perpetuating a "head-in-the-

sand" attitude among Americans. Likewise, the New York Herald Tribune noted Chamberlain's

"incredible folly" in spurning American overtures in 1938 while criticizing the President's refusal

to act more boldly in shaping public opinion. Time was more belligerent, blasting F D R ' s foreign

policy record and that o f his successor, which it decried as "wasteful, extravagant, mocking, [and]

painfully inept." It expressed incredulity that he could have been so cool toward Britain in 1939-40

at a time when Americans were overwhelmingly supportive o f the beleaguered democracies o f

Europe. While it is true that public opinion polls at the time showed sympathy for France and

Britain in their war against Germany and Italy, those same polls revealed intense opposition

everywhere, save for the south, to becoming militarily involved in the w a r . 138

American liberals felt that Churchill was more sorrowful than angry at American foreign

policy before Pearl Harbor. The Washington Post acknowledged U S shortsightedness in the author's

critique: " A g a i n and again Churchill contrasts the frequent incantations against evil, which came

from Washington, with the desperate urgencies o f the prewar years." A t the same time, it defended

Roosevelt's policy by arguing that Churchill underestimated the numbing psychological impact o f

the depression on millions o f Americans. Anne M c C o r m i c k in the New York Times also parried

Churchill's criticisms by noting that the documents reproduced in his memoirs gave little evidence

that the U S entered his thoughts much prior to September 1939. H i s melodramatic account of seeing

a vision of death following Eden's resignation, apparently over Chamberlain's rejection of American
 192

overtures, was startling to M c C o r m i c k , given the prior indifference. 139

If Churchill's critique o f appeasement was meant to chastise Americans into right thinking

on foreign policy matters in the postwar, his discussion o f war strategy cut both ways in promoting

English-speaking harmony. Republican newspapers happily criticized F D R ' s leadership while

praising Churchill's strategic vision, though a few reviewers on the right felt there was complete

unity among the allies on war strategy up to 1944. The Democratic press, on the other hand, was

more inclined to point out flaws in Churchill's exculpatory arguments regarding strategic errors that

he alleged extended the war's duration. These differences aside, there was largely bipartisan

consensus in the American press that Churchill's memoirs were proof o f an Anglo-American

wartime relationship that was special, displaying a unique and precious harmony o f interests to resist

all forms o f tyranny in the world.

Republican newspapers downplayed the ambivalent attitudes to war in America prior to Pearl

Harbor, contending that both Britain and the U S were long-standing champions o f high causes in

the world, though it was acknowledged that in 1940-41 Britain's finest hour was achieved without

substantial assistance from abroad. Harry Hopkins' "glowing comprehension o f the Cause" in 1941

was seen as indicative o f the unshakeable strength o f the American and British peoples. This

"intimate and natural fraternity o f mind and spirit" was poorly understood by the A x i s , and served

as a refreshing contrast to the acerbic atmosphere o f Anglo-Soviet relations during the war. Thus,

Pearl Harbor was deemed the consequence -rather than cause- o f an enduring alliance between

English-speaking peoples, whose pursuit o f global hegemony was a noble endeavor worthy of their

two nations. Just as Churchill's vitality energized the wartime alliance, his memoirs revitalized the

sense o f importance for world peace in preserving Anglo-American unity in the postwar era. 140

Moderate Republican considered Anglo-American differences before 1944 as secondary to

the larger reality o f a unified purpose in defeating fascism. What disagreements arose were due to

the White House and State Department's misunderstanding o f European conditions. While

Republicans noted the many vexations, difficulties and obstinate differences between the allies that

arose after mid-1943, Churchill was praised for working doggedly "to soothe prideful nationalisms

and prickly personalities," adroitly keeping the allies focused on the goal o f victory. 141
In contrast,

liberals took a more sympathetic view o f F D R and American strategy from 1940-44, defending U S

policies as shrewd and effective. Prior to Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt was credited with doing

everything he could to bring about the closest cooperation short o f a military alliance between
 193

Britain and America in the face o f serious domestic opposition. A t great political risk, he aided

Britain "through the backdoor" in ways which bent, but did not break, the letter o f the law.

Sherwood noted that the complexity o f Asian and Pacific considerations complicated American

foreign policy before December 1941, necessitating F D R ' s cautious approach. Churchill's memoirs

were thought overly contentious in critiquing U S strategies that put limits on his own ambitions,

especially after America entered the war. 142

Nonetheless, liberals and conservatives agreed that

Anglo-American unity during the war overrode in significance any squabbling over strategy.

Liberal weeklies, however, were more equivocal than newspapers toward Churchill's idea

of a fraternity, arguing that his obsession with the U S was based on his notion o f it as a bulwark o f

empire. Churchill envisioned the wartime alliance as the harbinger o f a supranational conglomerate

under British leadership, an idea that J.B. Brebner noted had approximated reality in 1941-43, but

was already deteriorating by the Teheran conference when U S leaders assumed an independent, and

at times condescending, posture toward their ally. Churchill's memoirs sought to prove how

detrimental this development was to the war effort and postwar world order. 143
While Brebner was

at least sympathetic to Churchill's vision, most American liberals were critical o f the author's

romantic contention that he and Roosevelt symbolized the workings o f a common Anglo-Saxon

spirit. Despite his obvious respect and admiration for the office o f President, there seemed little

actual warmth or friendship between the two war leaders, with Churchill's imperious habit o f

command utterly alien to Roosevelt and the American way o f life. British loyalties in the war

remained centered around the Commonwealth and empire, with Churchill seeking to manipulate U S

decision-making to channel allied resources toward imperial ends. British strategists were thought

to have succeeded only for a while in disguising their underlying contempt for F D R ' s "naive

political idealism." 144

In fact, strategic disagreements between the allies were seen as a routine part

of the relationship by 1943, highlighting the growing confidence of American leaders and increasing

irritability o f Churchill at not getting his way. Liberals were astonished that Churchill supported

the fascist Badoglio in Italy after Mussolini's fall and his failure to comprehend American eagerness

to establish a representative government, as Crane Brinton noted:

Here Churchill's most Churchillian retrospect on Mussolini, a passage which deeply offended
many Americans when it appeared in the newspaper version of this volume is a perfect case in
point...[M]ay it also be the judgment of a man who believes deeply that democratic values
realizable in England cannot be realized in Italy? Roosevelt, on the other hand, is a good
American, convinced that at bottom all human beings are -or would like to be- good Americans. 145
 194

A few months later, at Teheran, Churchill seemed subtly disturbed by Roosevelt's presence, thought

James Newman, especially when he found that the President and Stalin had banded together to force

agreement on a second front in France for 1944. 146

L i k e most liberals in the press, American intellectuals cherished the memory of F D R for his

social reforms at home and Wilsonian internationalist foreign policy expressed in the Atlantic

Charter and United Nations. Right after the war, they still believed in the possibility o f cooperation

and peace with the Russians, who were fondly remembered as the West's valiant ally in the fight

against fascism. After Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech, liberals became torn between adherence

to internationalist principles and mounting fear o f communism as a threat to the American way o f

life. This ambivalence was apparent in reception o f Churchill's call for Anglo-American global

hegemony. Liberal intellectuals accepted his interpretation o f U S responsibility for war origins

because their international idealism led them to maintain that it should have supported the League

of Nations and taken an active part in European affairs in the interwar era. They largely accepted

Churchill's lessons from the prewar era because they conformed to their view that America needed

to assume a larger military and political role in policing world affairs. However, Churchill's

argument that the postwar order could have been stabilized i f Americans had adhered to his own

strategic vision for winning the war in 1943-45 was less well received.

Churchill's memoirs highlighted the need to coordinate political and military policies in

America. While Churchill had ensured the closest communication o f interests between service

departments and their political head in the war, in America F D R set policy directly from the White

House through his personal envoy Hopkins, keeping the War and State Departments at arms length.

Consequently, generals and departmental chiefs lacked an effective voice in setting war policy.

Political scientist Dan Price believed that the British and American administrative systems actually

complemented each other, and that a hybrid system was essential for the future survival o f

democracy. 147
U S military historian H.J. Maloney accepted Churchill's critique o f Britain's prewar

civilian leaders as highly relevant for Washington politics, making the memoirs a useful guidebook

for civilians and military alike: "There w i l l certainly form in the mind o f every American reader the

U S parallel to the successive positions of Britain in the ghastly period between the wars." Maloney

alleged that while highly competent and well trained military officers in the U S had presciently

warned o f the need to rearm, civilian politicians foolishly ignored the warnings from Europe with
 195

the result that America was i l l prepared for war when it came. 148

The gradual shift in U S foreign policy toward belligerency after 1939 was seen as a major

political triumph for Roosevelt and Churchill, since Britain was fighting the battle o f the West

against "the enemies o f our civilization." Churchill's bold assertion in 1940 that the U S must

perform its "duty" i f Britain and America were to achieve "our common purpose" had startled many

Americans. Y e t it was this confidence in the existence o f a joint Anglo-American interest in

crushing fascism, Deuel observed, that helped create the reality he so fervently desired. Churchill's

memoirs revealed the "phenomenal growth in Anglo-American cooperation" from 1940-41,

facilitated by a common understanding o f sea power as essential for their nations' survival and

security. 149
Scholars agreed that up until 1943 Churchill articulated better than anyone else the

mutuality o f interests that strengthened an Anglo-American relationship capable o f subduing the

entire world. America's war effort was thought to fully justify Churchill's confidence i n the power

of this international nexus to transform the world order and set it on a stable footing. The intimacy

between Churchill and F D R depicted in the memoirs was seen as proof i n itself that allegations o f

major disputes over strategy were exaggerated. James Godfrey argued that there was full agreement

between the two countries on the necessity o f invading northern France, while Farfell thought

Churchill had "driven his arguments.home effectively," proving his superior strategic grasp. Most

impressive was the alliance's strength in weathering the enormous stresses o f war, proof o f the

extraordinary goodwill that persisted between the two nations in the face o f all obstacles. 150
Only

Hamilton and Neilson dissented from this perspective, contending that Churchill's memoirs were

a facade o f harmony to disguise the author's true ambivalence toward the U S President and

American power. They felt that Churchill was less than candid in recounting the debates over war

strategy because it was his aim to avoid exhibiting the Anglo-American brotherhood in arms "as a

dog-fight." Neilson went further, accusing Churchill o f diplomatic artifice to entangle America in

another European war, which "leave h i m not a rag o f respect." Churchill's diplomacy had snared

a guileless America into sending its youth "to the European shambles!" 151

Churchill's faith in a divine w i l l that was bringing the British Commonwealth and U S

together to form the greatest agglomeration o f power in history permeated his writing on the war.

He sincerely believed that it was providence that had forged the Anglo-American alliance, with

himself the great facilitator. A s long as his views held sway, all obstacles on the road to victory

were supposedly overcome. Only when American leaders began to deviate from his leadership did
 196

a glorious victory turn into the tragedy of cold war. Reviewers on both the right arid left in America

were generally supportive o f the first part of this theme, at least in respect to the wartime role of the

"special relationship." Reception of the second part of his analysis became entangled in the author's

lessons about cold war origins in the latter stages o f the war.

Fighting the C o l d War

Churchill's memoirs began with a personal account o f interwar politics that blamed

appeasement and faulty leadership for the failure to avert disaster. In concluding his memoirs, he

was confronted with his own record o f appeasement that involved sacrificing a small democratic

nation (Poland) to its larger totalitarian neighbor. H i s last two volumes, published at the height o f

the cold war, sought to blame other war leaders for the division o f Europe into hostile ideological

blocs. A s with his prewar narrative, he suggested that his leadership could have averted the cold war

and saved British imperial power. H i s cold war narrative coalesced his prior themes into a

metanarrative o f war and redemption, produced when the democratic world was suffering from a

crisis o f confidence in its own ability to survive communism's challenge.

The Tory press provided a solid phalanx o f support for Churchill's message o f victory

forsaken by misguided U S leadership. In contrast, his diplomacy at Teheran and Yalta was accepted

as statesmanship at its finest, without any hint that it entailed appeasement o f Stalin. Likewise,

Britain's intervention in Greece in 1944 was justified by international events since the war that

revealed communists as cruel tyrants whose word could not be trusted. Tory newspapers praised

Churchill's memoirs as a devastating critique o f U S and Labour policies for their failure to

sufficiently counteract communist expansionism during and after the war. The right argued that

Churchill presciently recognized before 1945 that the Soviet U n i o n and socialist ideology were

perils to world peace and stability. For this, Churchill was touted as the greatest champion o f

democracy in the 20 century who smashed two dictators in war, but was tragically removed from
th

power with an even most formidable one still standing. While he fought the first two with the

sword, he now battled the third with his mighty pen. The Tory press did not doubt that the

judgement of history would confirm Churchill as the savior twice over o f Britain and the free world.

A s for Churchill's alleged appeasement o f Stalin, W . L . Andrews sharply distinguished between the

N a z i thugs who were appeased by Chamberlain and the Russian ally for whom necessary

concessions were made as an act of expediency. 152

Conservatives commended the memoirs' cold war
 197

message as an invaluable lesson for all democracies. Appeasement o f Hitler was the 20 th
century's

world tragedy that bore directly on contemporary cold war realities. Since British readers had little

first-hand knowledge o f the Soviet Union and its rulers, Churchill's memoirs were thought to offer

brilliant insights into the "sinister nature of the socialist system." In 1949, as the N A T O alliance was

being implemented, the right in Britain asserted that Churchill's memoirs proved the need for

regional alliances to supplement the workings o f supranational organizations, which in the past had

proven ineffective at stopping aggression from unscrupulous dictators. 153

A t the same time, the right accused British socialists of harboring anti-democratic values and

displaying ignorance of international dangers. The Daily Mail reflected on the grim parallel between

Labour policies in the 1930s and the postwar: "The Socialists who voted against their country's

defence are now in office, and democracy, is again in danger." Labour was enjoined to study

Churchill's memoirs for their lessons on foreign policy and national security, warning against what

was considered the current government's foolhardy appeasement o f Russia. Rothermere's Sunday

Dispatch ominously declared that "thunder was again in the air," requiring Churchill to intervene

once more to steer the ship o f state through the menacing storm ahead. Comparing Churchill to his

socialist detractors, the Evening News stated: "Again and again he has been proved right, and those

who sought to denigrate his motives and belittle his deeds, have been shown to be sourly and

dismally wrong." Blindness to facts and sourness o f temper were considered afflictions o f both

domestic and foreign types o f socialism that had little in common with British decency and common

sense. In castigating Stalin's abandonment o f the West to its fate between 1939-41, the Tory press

reminded readers that socialists had imperilled Britain and the free world prior to Hitler's invasion

of Russia, and did so again in the postwar era. 154

Only the Beaverbrook press on the right took exception to Churchill's cold war message,

which reflected its owner's prior crusade for aiding Russia during the war. The Evening Standard

and Sunday Express paid fulsome tribute to the Russians for breaking the back o f the N a z i war

machine between 1941-45. Churchill was chastised for not coming to Russia's aid sooner by

diverting more convoys eastward, and for not accelerating plans to invade France to relieve pressure

on the Red Army. A t the same time, Churchill's percentages deal with Stalin in 1944 was questioned

as not furthering the interests o f world peace by re-establishing spheres o f influence in Europe. A s

a result of that casual arrangement, the Yalta conference was bedeviled by complications and discord

among the allies arising from American suspicion o f British p o l i c y . 155

 198

Most other reviewers on the right, however, lauded Churchill's "brilliant and far-sighted"

negotiating skills with the Soviets. The percentages agreement with Stalin was excused as a

temporary expedient that accurately reflected the military situation and enabled Britain to enter

Greece just in time to expel communist guerillas without M o s c o w ' s interference. For example,

Ensor suggested that it was the disruptions in political leadership o f Britain and America at the end

of the war that gave Stalin such an advantage in 1945, allowing h i m to brutally impose his iron grip

over Poland: " A great deal o f the paralysing deterioration in the concert o f the victorious Powers,

which soon hardened into the international disaster of the 'cold war', must be ascribed to the change

of Government brought about by the British electorate for internal and domestic purposes only."

Churchill was said to be too magnanimous to make recriminations in his memoirs, but documents

produced in Triumph and Tragedy clearly revealed that blame lay with the White House and

Pentagon.' In addition to being a shrewd negotiator, Churchill showed "decency, forbearance, and
56

loyalty" toward Russia, which was reciprocated by "abominable rudeness and crass opportunism."

The right was convinced that Stalin always intended to communize eastern Europe; remarkable was

how patient Churchill acted with "the grudging, mean and unreliable" Russians who were chillingly

uncooperative and unsympathetic to British concerns. Given such a treacherous and expansionist

ally, there was not much Churchill could do to prevent the alliance's break-up after 1945. 157

Whereas the Kemsley and Rothermere press was staunchly anti-Soviet in their commentary,

the Times was ambivalent about Churchill's conduct toward the Russians in the last year and a half

of war, a reflection o f its pro-appeasement editorial policy before the war, and leftist slant after it

under Barrington-Ward. Nonetheless, it dismissed charges that Churchill deliberately delayed

Overlord in order to take advantage o f Soviet difficulties in the east, or that Churchill and Roosevelt

pandered to K r e m l i n thugs in 1943-45. A s Churchill had noted: " Y o u always walk with the devil

till you get to the end of the bridge." A t the same time, it disputed his argument that Americans were

to blame for the cold war because they failed to push as far east as possible in 1945, noting that

Churchill's tactic o f entrenching allied armies in central Europe to extract concessions from Stalin

would only have accelerated the slide into a cold war rather than prevented i t . 158

In the weekly press, right-wing journals rebuked the Russians for ingratitude toward

Britain's efforts to aid them in the war. James Squire rebuked both hardened foreign communists

and home-grown socialists as duplicitous, incompetent ingrates "who couldn't hold a candle" to

Churchill:
 199

W h y S i r S t a f f o r d C r i p p s w a s e v e r s e n tt o M o s c o w a s A m b a s s a d o r I c a n o n l y c o n j e c t u r e ; w e
h a d a C o a l i t i o n g o v e r n m e n t i n office, a n d i t m a y b e t h a t c e r t a i n o f o u r w o r d - m o n g e r s , w h o
think that the word 'Socialist'means the same in all countries, earnestly maintained that the
right man to discuss things with 'Socialists'in the Kremlin was a Fabian, vegetarian Socialist
from England; not realizingthat,in the eyes of the 13 men in the Kremlin, the British Labour
P a r t y c o n s i s t s o f p e t i t - b o u r g e o i s , r e f o r m i s t m i l k - s o p s , o r e v e n c a p i t a l i s tc a t ' s p a w s .

Squire considered Cripps "an earnest bigot who made a mess o f it" because he could not

comprehend that in Russian eyes Churchill strode the world stage as a colossus. In contrast,

Britain's socialists were two-faced charlatans who promised a golden age that was a false utqpia

premised on faulty dogma.' 59

However, "the present ghastly situation" in 1950, when Russians

controlled half o f Europe and Britain was fighting in Korea, owed a lot to Roosevelt's naivety.

Churchill was never a "Babe in the Woods" about Russians, claimed Squire, but Roosevelt forced

him into making too many compromises. It was left to Churchill "to beard the bear in his den" in

1942 when Stalin got too unruly. 160

But the only evidence offered was a single incident in which the

Prime Minister refused to accept a truculent telegram from M o s c o w berating Britain's decision to

cancel a convoy to Murmansk during the battle for Stalingrad. Punch was also scathing o f Soviet

guilt and ignorance, praising Churchill for getting tough with the Russians after they showed

ingratitude over the immense help Britain was rendering through its risky Arctic convoys. Not

mentioned was the scale o f Russia's titanic life-and-death struggle, and the very limited resources

supplied by the West in comparison to what was required. In Punch's, final review, K e o w n

acknowledged "the almost sycophantic friendliness" between war leaders at Yalta in February 1945,

which served to create an atmosphere o f mutual trust, despite Churchill's "vast knowledge and

experience" that surely alerted him to Russian deceit. Presumably, Churchill was playing a

diplomatic cat-and-mouse game with the Kremlin, and had he been allowed to remain in office

would have prevented the breakdown in East-West relations after the war. But once the Attlee-

Bevin combination gained power, there was no hope o f containing Soviet ambitions. 161

Churchill's memoirs were said to reveal that despite efforts to propitiate Stalin, the Soviet

dictator remained unappeasable. Though it was too soon to cast definitive judgements on the events

of 1944-45, the Times Literary Supplement found appalling Churchill's assumption o f Soviet good

faith after Yalta, chiding him for basing strategic policy on short-term military considerations that

failed to anticipate the communization o f eastern Europe. Documents in Triumph and Tragedy

showed Churchill pursuing cooperation with Stalin and Tito's communists at the same point that his

narrative alleged a political showdown was inevitable. In fact, in 1943 Churchill cut off aid to non-
 200

communist partisans in the Balkans when he became convinced that leftist guerillas could inflict

more harm to the Germans. While Churchill's motives were "plainly and quixotically non-

political," they were not necessarily misguided. 162

The left's reception o f Churchill's cold war theme drew antithetical conclusions from those

of the right. Churchill's account o f the Soviet ally was repeatedly criticized for failing to stress the

decisive nature o f the fighting on the eastern front, and the heroism o f Russian soldiery. The Daily

Herald concluded that Churchill was not a true defender o f democracy, but an anti-democratic

reactionary whose cold war message was dangerously reactionary. H i s wartime policies led to the

division o f Europe into spheres o f influence, and were not primarily the fault o f American leaders.

It asserted that Churchill had a poor comprehension o f the Soviet U n i o n despite his superficial

camaraderie with Stalin. H i s anger and confusion about the abruptness o f Soviet diplomatic

exchanges revealed that he was unable or unwilling to comprehend the true scale and intensity o f

destruction in the east, or how little Britain was doing to assist its embattled a l l y . 163

In the radical press, Churchill's memoirs were decried as propaganda for the cold war rather

than representing a fair accounting of each ally's contribution to victory. Churchill's fleeting tributes

to Russia were entirely inadequate, while he dwelt ad nauseam on the dubious record o f Britain's

army in North Africa. The Daily Worker contended that Churchill's memoirs constituted "a cold

war maneuver" to obscure the immense debt owed by the West to Soviet arms, using rhetoric to

intoxicate and blunt the critical faculties o f his readers "like sherry in a trifle." Churchill was the

personification o f counter-revolutionary forces in his reaction to the growth o f communist influence

in eastern Europe during the war, supporting a host of reactionary and corrupt monarchies who had

discredited themselves by previously flirting with fascism. Churchill's "shocking record o f double-

dealing and deception" in the later stages of the war were revealed by his hypocrisy in sending Stalin

expressions o f comradeship and affection while he schemed to start the cold war, claimed Kartun.

A t Yalta, he told the world that past misunderstandings had been wiped out while he secretly plotted

a new armed front against communism. 164

In attacking Churchill's memoirs, the Daily Worker ridiculed reviews in Labour newspapers

as anemic and hypocritical, given the Party's support for the wartime coalition. However, the Daily

Herald and Tribune hardly pulled their punches in attributing the miserable state o f the postwar

world to Churchill's "deceitful policies" toward Russia. Churchill's memoirs were criticized for

completely overlooking the importance of resistance movements in tying down Germany's military
 201

and providing vital intelligence information. Labour Defence Secretary Emmanuel Shinwell

criticized Churchill's suppression o f Greek partisans as shameful. The Greek people had wanted

to oust the king because of his dictatorial attitudes, he claimed, but Churchill feared that communists

would gain the upper hand, and since that would not suit the ending to his book, he decided to

intervene, provoking a confrontation with communist demonstrators as a pretext for armed action. 165

Independent leftist weeklies also were critical o f Churchill's cold war message. The editors

of Reynold's News deemed the author's ideas "worn-out" and lacking vision. Churchill could not

comprehend the liberating forces on the left unleashed by the war against fascism, since he feared

revolutionary change from progressive social movements. Thus, in 1944 he ignored public

enthusiasm for the Beveridge Plan and engaged in "thumb-twiddling" over reconstruction, a move

that contributed to Labour's victory at the polls in 1945. 166

The New Statesman noted that leftist

movements everywhere had been given a major boost by their opposition to fascism, but Churchill's

cold war mentality made him oblivious to this profound shift in social consciousness. A s for

Churchill's alleged prescience, Crossman considered the Yalta agreement completely incredible i f

by 1941 the British leader was as wary o f the Kremlin as he maintained in his memoirs. In fact,

Churchill's account revealed numbing mis-communication between Russia and the West. But

unlike the radical left, Crossman also roundly criticized Stalin for his utterly unrealistic policies,

evidence o f the Kremlin leader's "cussedness, ignorance and provincialism." In "adapting the past

to the conveniences of the present," Churchill tried to balance his portrayal of the Russians as valiant

allies in 1941-45 with his claim to have foreseen the growing Soviet menace. While the right lauded

Churchill's genius for negotiating with the devious Russians, Crossman argued that Stalin played

the Prime Minister "like a fish and knew the abusive bait which would prove irresistible." During

the war, Churchill had appeased Stalin, but now that appeasement "is out o f fashion, M r . Churchill's

legitimate claims to fame -that he persuaded the Americans to appease Russia- is an

embarrassment." 167
Crossman considered Churchill's policy toward the Soviet Union as incoherent

and poorly coordinated with the U S . The Western allies pursued opposing strategies that were

driven by the desire for national prestige, enabling Stalin to divide and conquer. Only after the war

did Churchill interpret this development as proof o f Soviet machinations. Churchill's boast that he

anticipated the policy o f containment in 1944 by Britain's intervention in Greece was deemed

ridiculous. Instead, a British debacle was narrowly averted as a result o f Churchill's "romantic

ruthlessness" in Greece, which set a terrible precedent that Crossman believed "destroyed the moral
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position of the Western democracies and brought them down to a level on which the totalitarian has

all the advantages." Churchill's memoirs revealed that he had learned little from the intervening

eight years o f cold w a r . 168

The Liberal press, which was philosophically supportive o f international cooperation and

understanding, nonetheless sided with the right in praising Britain's war leader as the defender o f

democracy against communist tyranny. The sincerity of the author's quest for a better world where

freedom and justice would prevail was contrasted with Soviet cynicism and oppression. It was

widely assumed that Russia was an expansionist power whose ambitions were anathema to Western

interests. In the late 1940s, Liberals saw democracy once again threatened by totalitarianism, much

as it had been ten years earlier. The editors o f Time and Tide enjoined readers to study The

Gathering Storm like no other book, since the very situation that brought about the last war was

repeating itself, with Churchill once again out o f power and unable to take action. There was

"undescribable irony" in the fact that Labour was treating Churchill's warnings about communism

much as Baldwin had treated his concerns about the N a z i peril. The Observer decried the fact that

democracies were making the same mistakes o f the past by lacking vigilance and demonstrating an

unwillingness to confront hard truths from visionaries like C h u r c h i l l . 169

Liberals found illuminating

Churchill's view of Russian communists as ingrates and a liability prior to 1942. After 1942, he was

as preoccupied with keeping the peace among allies as waging war against Germans: "Stalin, with

his 'manifestations o f ill-temper and bad manners,' made inordinate demands on patience and

restraint." Tragedy marked the memoirs' later volumes when other Western leaders failed to

recognize Churchill's prescience about Stalin. 170

Time and Tide, which before the war was strongly

leftist, now argued that the passage o f time had only verified Churchill's judgement o f the Soviet

enigma, making his memoirs compulsory reading for all "fellow travelers" who saw communism

as a model for social reform. The Korean war only added emphasis to Churchill's warnings. 171

Churchill's justification o f his policies from the latter part o f the war was defended by

Liberals as a measured response to the "vicious, unprincipled and sustained campaign" o f the left

to discredit him. W i l m o t ' s The Struggle for Europe, which blamed F D R for making disastrous

concessions to the Russians, was used to rebut Churchill's detractors. H i s policies, founded in

historically minded realism, might have prevented the loss o f eastern Europe to communism had

British views prevailed. Liberals saw the final opportunity for lasting peace irretrievably lost when

Americans withdrew from central Germany in July 1945, despite Churchill's ardent appeal to defer
 203

the move until Stalin made concessions on Poland. The Manchester Guardian was appalled that

Americans had assumed at the time that Stalin was not an imperialist: " A s naively as Chamberlain

thought he could get on with Hitler i f they met face to face, so Roosevelt though he could get on

with Stalin and make him a good democrat." Churchill's political prescience concerning escalating

Russian bellicosity was ignored by the U S , who "threw away" all the West's cards. 172
Liberal

journals agreed, with only the B B C ' s Listener offering a rebuttal to Churchill's version o f cold war

origins. B . H . Liddell Hart countered that Churchill was as blind as F D R and the generals in

focusing on short-term military objectives at the expense o f grand strategy, giving Russia the chance

to dominate Europe and Asia: "Their blindness is the more strange since Churchill's latest volume

prints abundant evidence o f Stalin's consistent hostility." Churchill's discussion o f the decisive

summit conferences in 1943-45 dealt largely with trivialities, saying nothing important about

attitudes toward issues that came to dominate postwar politics. Churchill's cyclical view o f "history

as the future" was considered the main reason he falsely elevated Soviet Russia in his memoirs to

the status o f evil totalitarian aggressor, with himself as Cassandra. 173

In America, a postwar consensus emerged among liberals and conservatives that the U S bore

a heavy responsibility as leader o f the free world to counteract the new totalitarian threat.

Churchillian perspectives on Stalin, Russia, communism, appeasement o f dictators, and the dangers

of isolationism formed a central feature o f this new bipartisan world view. Liberals and

conservatives differed, however, on exactly how to fulfill this new role. Republican interventionists

like Luce promoted "America's Century" in which the U S actively promoted its cultural and

political values around the world. M a n y liberals disliked Luce's imperialistic overtones, preferring

to fight isolationism at home and communism abroad by promoting international cooperation

through the United Nations and multilateral arrangements. Still, they lauded Churchill's memoirs

for providing a deeper understanding o f Russians, the Soviet system, and Stalinist dictatorship.

Russia in the late 1940s was likened to fascist Italy as "a jackal" in search o f prey.

The rightist press recounted how the Soviet government and coriimunist agents around the

world had congratulated Hitler on his successes in 1940, ignoring the consequences o f defeat in the

West. For such "callousness and carelessness," Churchill's bitterest criticisms regarding the utter

untrustworthiness o f communists were said to be entirely warranted. Soviet wickedness was

apparent in Stalin's casual recounting to Churchill o f collectivization in the Ukraine that caused

starvation for millions of peasants. Walter M i l l i s noted about The Hinge of Fate that "no other book
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I know o f gives so clear a picture o f the mind o f the monumental Georgian. The others are

guesswork. M r . Churchill knows." 174

Weinberger drew a harsh picture o f Stalin's sinister character

as "increasingly suspicious, unreasonable and surly" as the war progressed. Churchill's revealing

portraits were "indispensable for politicians, diplomats and ordinary citizens" trying to understand

tyranny in the modern world. H i s tact in dealing with this most enigmatic and tight-fisted ally was

much admired. 175

The lesson that dictators should never be appeased from a position o f weakness

was internalized by Americans to such an extent that it still animates foreign policy debates there

today. From the first volume o f Churchill's memoirs to his last, reviewers repeated as gospel the

author's contention that appeasement o f dictators was immoral i f pursued from a position o f

weakness. In applying this lesson to an American context, reviewers ignored Churchill's

qualification by castigating appeasement as utter folly. Liberals who praised the United Nations but

failed to support U S military intervention on its behalf were urged to read Churchill's memoirs

carefully for their foreign policy lessons. 176

Churchill's argument that wartime strategies were a direct cause of the cold war was widely

accepted by liberals and conservatives, both of whom blamed the naivete o f U S leaders for failing

to hold back communism in eastern Europe. Churchill's Balkan adventure, severely criticized by

newspapers in 1944, was hailed in book reviews as a great achievement. O n Poland, M i l l i s noted

the "brutal and utterly callous immolation o f the Warsaw Underground on the altars o f Communist

imperial interests." He praised Churchill for trying to salvage something out o f the flood tide o f

Soviet expansionism by his percentages deal with Stalin, though the White House had considered

it too scandalous to contemplate. M i l l i s found shocking Roosevelt's idea that the U S should mediate

between Soviet and British imperialism, as was Truman's adherence to this misguided policy at

Potsdam in 1945. 177

Reviewers thought that the sad state of the postwar world gave Churchill cause

to chastise Americans for failing to construct a postwar settlement before the fighting ended.

Triumph and Tragedy was perceived as an articulate warning o f how much could be won through

valor and how much lost through leaders whose wisdom and resolution did not match Churchill's.

Soviet treachery was in plain view by the end o f the war, yet the U S government pretended that

allied harmony and cooperation could be sustained indefinitely. The lack o f advanced thinking
178

by American leaders on the postwar order proved o f immense benefit to the Russians, said columnist

Henry Jackson, who ignored the fact that Churchill too was obsessed with military considerations

for most of the war. F D R was blamed for disastrously combining misguided confidence with woeful
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ignorance o f world affairs and a fear o f offending the Russians. For some reason, the President

thought "that he alone 'could handle Stalin' by means o f his personal charm." Weinberger added

that Churchill foresaw the precise course o f Soviet postwar policies in 1944, but F D R ' s "feebleness"

meant that the U S did not stand firm against "the fearfully consistent policy o f aggression" practiced

by the Russians. 179

The only chink in this armor o f Churchillian righteousness came from a few obliquely

worded queries by liberal commentators. Harrison noted the remarkably cordial relations between

Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at their summit meetings: "One is tempted to ask i f greater good

w i l l on the side o f either East or West, or even both, could have produced that 'permanent

friendship.'" Sherwood wondered i f Churchill was not being entirely forthcoming regarding his

strategic aims in the last year o f war. While Sherwood praised the author's "magisterial work," in

private he complained to Harry Laughlin that Churchill's justification o f his policies was misguided

and small-minded. In Volume V , Churchill spent too much time snarling at his critics and far too

little time explaining the background to events that led to the cold war: "In writing my review, I

dislocated several vertebrae in the attempt to lean over backwards out o f respect for this great man,

but he could have and should have done much better than this." Laughlin agreed that it showed

Churchill and F D R at their worst, as when they allowed Stalin to have a large part o f Poland while

joking about horse-trading populations. 180

But in reviewing Triumph and Tragedy, Sherwood

revealed little o f this frustration to readers, calling the book o f overwhelming importance for an

understanding o f the postwar world. O n Greece, Sherwood concluded: "The Prime Minister saved

the day by an action which might be called foolhardy, but which must forever be called valiant....His

daring venture so appealed to the imagination o f the free world that controversy ceased - and today

he must read with amusement o f the cordial welcome given by Americans everywhere to the K i n g

and Queen o f Greece who succeeded to the throne after George IPs death i n 1947." 181

American liberal weeklies were less enamored with Churchill's cold war message, but

offered only moderate dissenting opinion. Reviewers in the Nation and New Republic sought to

mitigate the criticisms leveled at F D R by accusing Churchill o f being equally acquiescent in the

establishment of Soviet hegemony in eastern Europe. Liberals accepted that the alliance with Russia

was never an easy one, but not all o f the blame lay with Stalin and the K r e m l i n , since Churchill's

contempt for Soviet foreign policy was manifest throughout his narrative. While he may have had

good cause for such feelings prior to June 1941, when Soviet indifference led to Britain's near-
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destruction, after Germany invaded the Soviet Union Churchill should have shown greater

appreciation for the scale o f fighting in the east. 182

H i s narrative treated Russia as mere background

for events in the West. Britain and America filled Churchill's field o f vision, while Russia was an

afterthought whose alliance with the West was seen by h i m as a historical accident o f temporary

significance. Future generations would puzzle over this distorted picture, claimed J.B. Brebner; the

memoirs' incomplete account o f Anglo-Soviet relations "exhibited an unfortunate weakness for

appraising past events in light o f present circumstances." Brebner also saw few insights into the

emotional concerns o f people that Churchill interacted with during the war. Likewise, the New

Republic's James Newman thought that Churchill's memoirs clarified few o f the "gloomy

obscurities" about relations with the Russians. Newman even thought that Stalin had good reasons

for being suspicious o f the West over delays in opening a second front in Europe. Churchill and

F D R deceived their indispensable ally over invasion plans, risking a serious breach. 183

Most American liberals saw Churchill's memoirs as a pedagogical text for the cold war, but

few thought that he could actually have prevented the ideological conflict, even had U S leaders

adhered to his end-of-war strategy. Churchill's world view was deeply rooted in balance o f power

politics that liberals felt had given moral legitimacy to Russian hegemony over eastern Europe. J.

Newman went further, arguing that Churchill was a "disgruntled trouble maker" whose outdated

ideas imperilled the world. In the early war years, Churchill had been the savior o f democracy, but

he had since outlived the glory by descending into disillusion and betrayal o f liberal democratic

principles. 184
Anthony West contended that Churchill's entire career needed to be perceived in the

context of his hatred for Bolshevism. During W o r l d War II, "[a]s victory approached, the theme o f

M r . Churchill's ancient fear o f the Soviets became as important as the Dardanelles...." But his

warnings were ignored because "memories could not be effaced" o f his earlier adventurism in

Russia. It was supremely ironic, thought West, that victory over fascism revived Churchill's worst

nightmare o f a Bolshevized Europe that he had feared at the end o f the first world war. 185

On the other hand, popular right-wing weeklies were perplexed by Churchill's talk o f

friendship and camaraderie with Stalin in Triumph and Tragedy, though they justified his wartime

praise for Stalin as a calculated move to shore up the alliance. A t the same time, the right credited

Churchill with a prevision o f future trouble arising from the K r e m l i n ' s insatiable appetite for

territory and power. Newsweek and Time argued that personal friendship with Stalin did not in any

way cloud Churchill's vision o f reality, evidenced by his outrage at Russian treatment o f Poles in
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1944-45. While Time suggested that Churchill was determined to avoid a premature breach in the

alliance, Newsweek contended that he saw the war against Hitler as secondary by the start o f 1945:

"The great conflict [against communism] was too deeply embedded in the modern world to be ended

by the defeat o f one totalitarian power." 186

Churchill was depicted as champion o f a "common

cause" against international Marxism who was three years ahead o f other leaders in recognizing the

threat o f a communized Europe. The editor o f the evangelical Eternity, whose commentaries on the

memoirs were widely quoted from pulpits around the country, exhorted American audiences on

national radio to take inspiration from the British leader's fight against godless communism.

Churchill was seen as a "minister of the Word of G o d " in standing up to Stalin during the war, while

his memoirs were a lesson to the world about communist wickedness. 187

Scholarly reviews were divided between those that saw Churchill's memoirs as a

pedagogical text o f great importance and those that rejected the author's interpretation o f cold war

origins. But whether reviewers accepted Churchill's apportionment o f blame for the cold war on

American naivete and Soviet perfidy, or argued that British leaders shared responsibility for

appeasing Stalin, they were traditionalists in believing that the Soviet U n i o n was an expansionist

" e v i l empire" that needed to be contained. Not until a decade later did revisionism begin to shift

responsibility onto American capitalist aggressiveness for compelling a defensive U S S R to counter

the West's push for hegemony in Europe with its own buffer zone in the East. But in the 1940s and

early 1950s, Churchill's account o f the "Soviet enigma" was deemed to be extraordinary and

essential reading for American leaders concerning the "cynical indifference" o f the K r e m l i n to the

fate o f the Western Powers. 188

After 1941, Churchill's friendliness toward the Soviet leader was

perceived as a shrewd exploitation of their common interest in destroying Nazism. H e parried every

offensive remark by Soviet leaders without losing his temper, while never forgetting the true nature

of the "sullen, sinister Bolshevik state" he had once sought to destroy. Charles Rolo maintained that

Churchill's goodwill toward the Soviet ally was made a mockery by K r e m l i n conduct in the war. 189

Slosson agreed that Churchill's memoirs wisely tempered sympathy for Russia in 1941-43

with evidence o f Soviet guilt for past atrocities that enlightened readers about the communist

mind. 190
It was a mind that would not hesitate to betray the West by subversion from within, Slosson

claimed. This open justification o f postwar efforts to weed out domestic communism in America

was reinforced by Robert Wilberforce:

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[I]n spite of the glory of victory, the chief theme of this volume, we who live in the postwar
world are left with a sense of tragedy. The present seems so unworthy of that holocaust of
lives....No doubt the grim fact of Russian Communism is largely to blame for the armed
truce which has succeeded the war. But that is not the whole picture. If it was not for an
insidious poison in Western civilization, Communism would be almost negligible.

For Wilberforce, the antidote to such poison was greater faith in the spiritual healing o f the Catholic

Church, a point he thought Churchill overlooked in discussing the rise in 1945 o f a new tyranny

"equally relentless and aggressive." 191

Churchill's unparalleled understanding o f war and its impact

on the international order was what enabled him to enlighten readers about the significance o f

Stalinism, reviewers thought. Unlike F D R , Churchill recognized the K r e m l i n leader's callous

indifference to human suffering as a fundamental Russian characteristic, exemplified by his brutal

conduct toward Poland. Triumph and Tragedy's tone o f sadness was considered the result of Russian

trouble-making that prevented Churchill from ensuring a truly independent Poland. Churchill's

tenacious and heartfelt struggle with Stalin over Poland dispelled the glib criticisms o f those who

argued that Anglo-American diplomacy sold out P o l a n d . 192

Intellectuals agreed that the failure o f American officials to follow Churchill's lead

weakened the West's position after the war. Diplomatic historian S.F. Bemis considered Churchill

more of an internationalist than the cautious-minded Roosevelt, favoring a strongly-worded Atlantic

Charter in 1941 that promised an international organization to preserve peace and ensure freedom.

In contrast, Roosevelt's "facile optimism" about his ability to influence Stalin caused him to delay

implementation o f clearly defined guidelines for a postwar world order. Rolo found it impossible

to resist the conclusion that the West's position after the war " w o u l d have been vastly more

commanding" had Churchill's long-range political objectives prevailed over the American doctrine

that military expediency was paramount, a doctrine that U S military officials adhered to as rigidly

as President Roosevelt. 193

A few scholars saw the key lesson from Churchill's narrative to be the vital inter-relationship

between political policy and war strategy. Whereas Churchill was reputed to have seen the end o f

German and Japanese power leading inevitably to a new threat from Soviet imperialism, the U S saw

the defeat o f fascism as the end o f international crises facing the West, causing F D R to ignore the

British leader's view o f a historical continuum to postwar problems. It was a lesson that the leading

intellectual o f political realism, Hans Morgenthau, warned had yet to be learned by Americans. In

Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, U S leaders continued to elevate military strategy above foreign
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policy considerations. In Morgenthau's opinion, Churchill's memoirs were a repository o f eternal

wisdom that sought "to make us not clever for one day but wise forever." 194
Surprisingly, none o f

these commentators noted the British left's critique o f Churchill for the very same reason o f failing

to distinguish political from military considerations in the war.

American critics o f Churchill's cold war lessons o f The Second World War derived mainly

from the right. Most severe was Francis Neilson's claim that Churchill incorrectly assumed benign

intentions by the Soviets for too long, "babying Stalin along," with the result that the world

confronted problems now more terrible than those faced in 1939. Neilson's extreme anti-

communism prompted him to argue that the "virus" was spreading unchecked throughout the world,

as Western democracies faced "a worse threat to Christian civilization than the N a z i forces ever

were." H i s vitriol extended to U S officials, accusing Cordell H u l l o f being "the unwitting tool o f

Communists in the State Department." Chillingly, Neilson claimed that in F D R ' s entourage there

were advisors more concerned about the success o f Stalin's armies than the fate o f other allies, an

allusion to the Alger Hiss case that implied there were more communist sympathizers still hiding

in government. 195

Less extreme views nonetheless accorded with Neilson's basic premise that Britain and

America went too far in accommodating Russian demands in Poland. Churchill's account o f the

Teheran conference convinced Slosson that the author inexplicably put great store in the Soviet

leader's assurances o f future cooperation in 1945. Farrell accused Churchill o f throwing overboard

the Polish government in exile, and only "his guilty conscience" made h i m now ascribe trouble with

the Soviets over Poland to the exile community's "stubbornness." It was nothing less than "a

betrayal o f the weak by the strong." A l s o critical was Twentieth Century, which stated that when

Churchill met Stalin in October 1944, "the wretched Poles were finally browbeaten into submission

by the Western A l l i e s ' threat to abandon them to their fate. In the end they were o f course

abandoned anyhow." Churchill seemed to do everything possible to avoid annoying the Kremlin,

including attempts to chloroform the British press from reporting vile Soviet behavior: "It is indeed

difficult, after reading this account of the war-time conferences, to remain patient with the current

cant about 'Soviet trickery' at or after Yalta. There was no trickery. The Russians asked for the

moon, got a large slice o f it, and calmed their allies with an assurance that they would not try to

annex the M i l k y W a y as w e l l . " N o serious attempt was made to keep the Russians out o f eastern

Europe, and they could hardly be blamed for capitalizing upon their opportunity. 196
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Monument on Celluloid
Though the press depicted a wide range of opinions about Churchill's memoirs, the right was

clearly dominant in terms of sheer size. Their interpretation o f Churchill's metanarrative was further

accentuated by the shift o f liberal and moderate socialist opinion toward the right in the early

postwar years. Even where there was sustained criticism, as in the leftist press and intellectual

community, there was wide acceptance o f the view that appeasement o f dictators caused the second

world war and cold war. In the late 1950s, such appraisals o f Churchill's war memoirs reached a

new level o f intensity when visual media adapted The Second World War for television and film.

Since 1940, Churchill already was a celluloid hero o f sorts, his image featured regularly in newsreels

shown in movie theaters around the world. In the 1950s and 60s, film and television played a vital

role i n popularizing Churchill to a new generation o f readers-cum-viewers who lacked direct

experience with the war. The cultivation o f a media image by politicians was still a new art form

in the early postwar years; ironically (considering what was to follow) Churchill was initially hostile

to the "vulgar" new medium o f television. H e even treated radio at arms length, accepting it only

as an intrusive necessity on formal occasions. R.R. James notes that "radio was not his medium, and

his thunderous declamations sometimes seemed comical when heard in the calm o f a home." 197

Though he is famous for his recorded wartime speeches, in fact he preferred speaking before live

audiences, considering Parliament the primary forum for his perorations. 198
In the late 1950s, just

as scholars were beginning to reassess Churchill's place in history and the merits o f his

metanarrative, the visual media swung into high gear to promote the war leader's messages in the

alluring form o f popular entertainment. 199

A second media chase for reproduction rights to

Churchill's memoirs began, and was every bit as intense as the publishing war a decade earlier. It

culminated in film and television adaptations that were viewed by more people in more countries

than were estimated had ever read Churchill's war memoirs.

When Triumph and Tragedy was published in 1954, Churchill's publishing syndicate had

labored for almost a decade producing two million words o f text. Aside from plans for several

abridged versions o f The Second World War, the memoirs' project appeared at an end. Almost

immediately, however, a surge in interest for a visual adaptation o f Churchill's war story arose.

British film producers were first to broach the subject to Churchill, but it was the Americans who

enjoyed the advantage as world leaders in commercialization of television and the production of big-

screen feature films. Thus, it was American producers who first capitalized on Churchill's memoirs
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as the perfect screenplay for a dramatic film o f the war years. The man who succeeded in winning

Churchill's support for the new venture was Jack L e V i e n , an enterprising N e w Y o r k film producer

whose expertise was in war documentaries. H i s first achievement was to overcome Churchill's

strong aversion to television, since by the time L e V i e n met him the author already had turned down

several offers that he feared might cheapen his narrative. Before meeting L e V i e n in mid-1958

aboard the yacht o f shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, Churchill had permitted only one other film

producer to acquire production rights for any o f his literary output, British film-maker Alexander

Korda, whose jingoistic movies from the 1930s glorified the empire. Prior to the war, Churchill had

been a consultant and script writer for a Korda short film, Conquest of the Air, released in 1940.

Korda expressed an interest in producing a film based on My Early Life, but in 1941 Churchill sold

production rights to his autobiography to Warner Brothers for £7500. The film was never produced,

however, and its rights were later sold to Columbia Pictures by the Chartwell Trust for £100,000.

Then in 1944, Korda acquired film rights to Churchill's unfinished History of the English-speaking

Peoples for£50,000, but again took no steps to bring the project to fruition. 200

Ten years passed before another British film producer, R o y Boulting, offered to create "a

monumental f i l m " based on Churchill's memoirs that he claimed would be o f great value for

promoting Anglo-American relations. A U S film on naval warfare, Victory at Sea, had just been

released to public and critical acclaim, but Boulting felt that its American slant did not do justice

to Britain's war effort. He wanted to strengthen public awareness o f the nation's great contribution

to victory, and believed that Churchill's memoirs offered the perfect script for a film to balance the

powerful and moving imagery o f Victory at Sea with an account o f Britain's finest hour. H e was

convinced that only a British film company could do justice to Churchill's war story, and would earn

precious foreign currency for the cash-strapped economy. Churchill's solicitor Anthony M o i r was

unimpressed by Boulting's proposal, and the producer's suggestion that an unauthorized American

project was being considered struck him as a threat. 201

For several years, while Churchill worked on

A History of the English-speaking Peoples, all film proposals were put on hold. This did not deter

television networks in the U S and Britain from annually producing a flood o f birthday tributes to

Churchill in films celebrating his larger-than-life role in the second world war. Though weak on

analysis, these films were strong on heroic imagery o f Britain's great war leader. 202

In 1958, L e V i e n finally met with Churchill to propose a television drama based on his war

memoirs, to be called " H i s Finest Hours." L e V i e n declared that the series would serve as a
 212

postscript to The Second World War, as well as a family album that revealed the human side o f the

British war leader. He wanted to depict "the strong voice that cried out against the growing strength

of Hitler and the growing weakness o f Chamberlain," using a unique film format in which the

camera represented the memory of Churchill, seeing events, people and places as he saw them, with

Churchill's own image inferred from the context. Unsure o f L e V i e n ' s credentials, Churchill

consulted C B S personality Edward R. Murrow, famous for his broadcasts from London during the

Blitz that helped sway American opinion on the war. Murrow warned Churchill against entering

the deal since he considered L e V i e n untrustworthy and unsuitable to the task, not mentioning that

C B S was in the process o f drawing up a film proposal o f its own. Undeterred, L e V i e n persisted in

his quest until in early 1959 a deal was reached which promised to pay the author $75,000 (US) plus

5% o f gross proceeds from the sale o f television rights abroad. 203

L e V i e n ' s production company in N e w Y o r k worked in conjunction with A B C - T V arid

Screen Gems studios to come up with a script based on excerpts from Churchill's memoirs. The

producer intended to bring the memoirs to life by building inspiring musical and visual themes

around its most stirring prose, so that Churchill would be portrayed as "the brave and intrepid

Englishman who used the old-fashioned bow and arrow" to smite the evil H u n . In order to bring

Churchill to life on screen, L e V i e n planned to cast a theatrical voice to articulate his prose, with a

narrator used for commentary and to focus audience interest and emotions on the subject: "This w i l l

enable us skillfully to weave a spell for an audience seeing and hearing our leading man - and then,

by the second voice, being given an explanation o f historical background, which is necessary at all

times." L e V i e n envisioned a type o f film presentation -the historical docudrama- never before

attempted on television, but which became immensely popular afterward. Its central theme was "the

struggle between good and evil, with Churchill the leading man." H i s memoirs formed 70% o f the

dialogue, adapted for the screen by writers W i l l i a m Shirer (author o f The Rise and Fall of the Third

Reich) and Quentin Reynolds (war correspondent and author o f Britain Can Take h) so that each

episode ended as a cliffhanger. L e V i e n considered producing up to 78 half-hour programs but

settled on 26 episodes, each based on specific chapters from the memoirs. Paradoxically, he told

his staff that he wished to avoid "anything reminiscent of history or war per se" in the episode titles,

instructing the script writers to always accentuate the personal and dramatic. Thus, rather than

calling an episode "The Battle o f Britain," L e V i e n preferred the more dramatic " C i t y on F i r e . " 204

In filming the series, L e V i e n paralleled Churchill's wartime exploits with Hitler's actions
 213

and appearances, so that the two historical figures came to symbolize in the minds of viewers "good

and evil, the lead and the heavy, the cowboy and the Indian." Churchill was represented as the

symbol and embodiment o f "Britain the good, alone and unafraid." Despite playing fast and loose

with the historical record, Churchill and his advisors raised no objections to draft scripts as work

progressed from conception to production. In June 1959, Variety magazine broke the story that

Churchill's memoirs were being adapted for television. B y early August, filming in N e w Y o r k was

well advanced, though L e V i e n still had not decided on the precise number o f episodes to make.

Churchill's advisors were more concerned about the choice o f theatrical voice for the film, raising

doubts that A l e c Guiness "was virile enough" for the voice o f Britain's war leader. Prince Philip

and Lawrence Olivier were considered before Richard Burton was finally chosen. 205

In September 1959, the impending series produced intense competition among advertising

agencies in the U S who fought for commercial air-time for many o f America's most prestigious

corporations. The entire television industry was abuzz with excitement, with world famous actors

clamoring for the chance to participate in what was thought to be the acting opportunity o f a

lifetime. In Britain, the News Chronicle anticipated that the programs would contain "some o f the

most dramatic and poetic use o f the English language since Shakespeare." Expectations that the

program would commence in the fall o f 1959 proved premature, however, as film production

became ever more elaborate. L e V i e n knew that his career rested on the success o f the project, and

his meticulous care to ensure a ratings winner necessitated delaying its release until the following

year. He hired the top television producer o f the late 1950s, Edgar Peterson, to direct the filming.

Peterson and the Chartwell trustees agreed to build on the strong reception o f Churchill's war

memoirs by referring to the volumes specifically by name and presenting them as the definitive

history o f the war, which contravened Churchill's own caveat placed in the preface to his w o r k . 206

In fact, the film project strayed far from any justifiable claim to historical veracity when L e V i e n

decided that he needed to create a quality o f freshness and youth in the program:

I am driving toward the point of avoiding the trap of making each episode seem an old
people's war or an old people's story. We need throughout a tone of freshness because we
are dealing with people and events 20 years ago, and many an atom bomb has gone under
the dam since then, [sic]

He demanded a tempo o f immediacy, instructing his staff to avoid making the series too English,

in order to appeal to American and foreign viewers. Peterson's directing was also utterly
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unhistorical, claiming that the ingredients for making the series a success were the same as for a

good western: "There's the chase, heavy, and a hero." Nonetheless, the lack o f historical veracity

did not preclude unprecedented sums o f money being lavished on the film project. The Daily Mail

estimated that the total cost of production set an American television record. N o expense was spared

to hire the very best artists in the business. For the soundtrack, Rogers and Hammerstein were

asked to compose an original musical score that would outdo their award winning work for Victory

at Sea. B y the summer o f 1960, L e V i e n was at last ready after creating over one million feet o f film

in producing his episodes. 207

O n November 28, 1960 Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years debuted on North American

television and was immediately greeted with public enthusiasm and critical acclaim. American

reviews effusively praised the innovative audio-visual techniques utilized in the program. Richard

Burton was credited with an inspired performance, waxing eloquent v i a a constant stream o f

Churchillian quotations. The Philadelphia Inquirer lauded the stirring musical score, which it

compared favorably to Victory at Sea's soundtrack. But highest praise was reserved for "the doughty

Briton whose six-volume history, The Second World War, inspired it a l l . " The Philadelphia Daily

News was equally smitten, declaring the series to be A B C - T V s finest half-hour ever: "The series

succeeds in translating Churchill's eloquently wrought memoirs o f W o r l d War II into ennobling

swatches o f audio and video power and beauty." Not to be outdone, the N e w Y o r k Daily News

declared: "In a world of petty men, appeasers, contrivers and compromisers he towered in pudgy but

rugged grandeur like a granite mountain above a soggy p l a i n . " 208

Television commentators were

awed by the enormous cast of prominent politicians and world leaders who were interviewed for the

series, including Attlee, Truman, Eisenhower, the Duke and Duchess o f Windsor, Eden, Eleanor

Roosevelt, Adenauer, Nasser, Gromyko, Montgomery, and many others. The effect, according to

the Los Angeles Times film critic, was to reveal Churchill as "a giant rising among pygmies, a man

of divine providence who saved the world." The Chicago Sun-Times praised "the classic theatrical

style" by which this largest chapter in contemporary history was presented. 209

The U S media was so impressed by the film that it exuded good feeling toward Britain, just

as some advisors had predicted it would. Britain's Ambassador in Washington informed Churchill

that the series had done more than anything in recent years to enhance British prestige in America.

He acknowledged that L e V i e n had produced a brilliant piece o f propaganda disguised as

entertainment that would be shown around the world. While the series was still running, Telefilm
 215

Magazine in the U S honored it with an award for "Best N e w T V Series" and "Best T V Documentary

Series" o f 1960. Advertising sponsors were ecstatic at ratings figures for the first half-dozen

episodes, assuring Churchill that they intended to maintain a higher than usual level o f restraint in

marketing their products out o f respect for "the great responsibility" they felt in promoting the

British writer's story. President Kennedy was in tune with the messages too, declaring himself an

avid watcher o f the series, which he called the best film on television. 210

However, reception o f the series was not unanimously positive in the U S , even less so in

Britain. A few media commentators rendered qualified criticisms, resisting the intense media

"hype" surrounding the program. The T V critic for the New York Times was skeptical that the visual

quality o f the production came up to the standards o f Churchill's prose, but after several episodes

he too gushed with praise for the program's "stirring dramatization o f great historical events and

personalities." Harriet Home, media critic for the New York World Telegram, was impressed with

the writing for the series, but expressed concern that the film did not do full justice to Churchill's

literary opus. In Britain, L e V i e n noted in an interview for the B B C that there was enormous interest

in the program, but also acknowledged that many Britons questioned the ability o f an American

film-maker to present a balanced and insightful view o f the subject. It was apparent that some o f

the more literary and historical-minded British public considered the program a second-rate

documentary at best. 211

Nonetheless, in M a y 1961 Le V i e n declared his program an unqualified commercial success.

Income receipts to date, along with projections o f future earnings, were enough to make everyone

associated with the project very happy indeed. The producers earned $1.3 million (US), with

projected total distribution receipts ranging from $2.6 to $3.1 million (US). In September 1962, the

series began a second highly successful run on North American television. 212
A final tally o f the

program's earnings in M a r c h 1964, not counting residual fees, revealed a total income o f $2.5

million. The series was a media sensation, setting several precedents as the first television

docudrama and the first major film adaptation of a politician's memoirs. Within months of the series

release, film producers were besieged with proposals from other political leaders to market their own

memoirs for the small screen. 213

Justified or not, the program was perceived by most viewers in the

U S as serious historical fare that offered an invaluable representation o f the war experience.

The enthusiastic reception of his film inspired L e V i e n to produce a book based on episodes

from the television program. He planned to publish it in early 1962, timed to coincide with
 216

completion o f the series' second television run. Churchill's memoirs on the second world war had

come full-circle, with the film " s p i n - o f f o f his massive literary project becoming the basis for yet

another literary venture. L e Vien's book, Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years, was praised by the

Christian Science Monitor for skillfully culling from Churchill's memoirs the most dramatic

segments depicting the great leader's statesmanship during the war. The Monitor only worried that

L e V i e n and co-writer John Lord had done too good a job, making the war "so dramatic and brave"

that inexperienced readers might be misled about its true nature. But the newspaper conceded that

any book dealing with the "irrepressible, sentimental, indomitable, sonorous, human and grand

figure, that man o f the ages, Winston Spencer Churchill, could hardly be dull for a moment." 214

Following television production, film-makers next sought to put Churchill's memoirs on the

big screen. The Daily Telegraph and Time/Life, who together owned the rights to re-publish

documents used in The Second World War, evaluated several film proposals before Churchill's

solicitors intervened, insisting that the author retained all rights to "new matter" which included

screen adaptations of his work. Hence it was the trustees, not the publishers, who ultimately decided

on how to proceed with a film project based on Churchill's memoir. In 1960, as work on the

television series neared completion, L e V i e n and Paramount Pictures proposed a multi-million dollar

feature film, but while the lawyers haggled, Paramount withdrew its offer. It was not until January

1963 that Churchill's solicitor, Twentieth Century Fox, and L e V i e n finally agreed to a contract

ensuring the author $20,000 (US), plus 7% o f gross proceeds from a film.215

In A p r i l 1963, L e V i e n started work on The Finest Hours, directed by two-time Academy

Award winner L . C . Stoumen. Together, they created a dramatic, documentary-style movie blending

historic footage with newly photographed sequences. Churchill's war memoirs formed the story

line, with filming conducted on-location at Chartwell. The narration was performed by Orson Wells.

In a B B C interview, L e V i e n stated that his intention was to condense Churchill's war memoirs into

a three-hour dramatization, so that "anyone could watch the film and learn all about the great man

who saved humanity from tyranny." L e V i e n declared that the film was ostensibly "the story o f a

man's triumph over evil; o f a gallant warrior who led, at first alone, and finally in concert with

others, the forces o f freedom to victory." H i s film premiered in mid-1964 at the Royal Festival H a l l

in London, attended by the Duke o f Edinburgh, Attlee, Eden, Ismay, Prime Minister Harold Wilson,

and a host o f other dignitaries from British high society. It proved a sensation in Britain and in

virtually every other country where it was shown, with a chorus o f adulatory commentary from
 217

movie critics impressed by the technically superb quality o f production. 216

Its cinematic techniques

were ahead of their time, and in the early 1980s some were still viewed as exceptional. The Evening

News and Star declared that L e V i e n ' s film crew venerated Chartwell as a sacred temple, adding that

Churchill's war memoirs offered a "grandly tailored" script for the most stirring o f war films. The

Daily Express called the film "splendidly colorful." The Times, though, complained that it lacked

balance because it did not reveal Churchill's many mistakes and strategical miscalculations. 217

The B B C ' s film critic declared that the movie proved there now existed a fourth perfect

scriptwriter for the English cinema, after Shakespeare, Dickens, and Shaw, with the heart o f the

film's verbal feast coming straight out o f the war memoirs: "In a way, it gave me the same feeling

as listening to 'Hamlet' does -so many words and phrases sailing back on the waves o f that rugged,

rhetorical grandeur, phrases that are now part of the English language, phrases that are part o f one's

life." When asked why it took an American to make a film about the greatest modern Englishman,

L e V i e n replied that the English temperament prevented them from saying about themselves "what

the outsider knew to be true," noting that Americans viewed the English people and their war leader

much more heroically than Britons themselves d i d . 218

Unlike many people in Britain, North

Americans were content to view the man through the exceedingly narrow prism o f his finest hour

in war, ignoring his many personal and political failings that had preceded it.

Nonetheless, a great many Britons also responded enthusiastically to the film, which set an

all-time box office record for attendance and revenues in that country, attracting audiences o f all

ages, gender, and classes. One film critic noted that audiences tended to linger after the movie for

the playing of the national anthem, an example of patriotism which by the early 1960s was becoming

exceedingly rare in Britain. 219

Entire grade-school classes engaged in movie outings, after which one

twelve-year old school-girl was moved to write:

Your colossal courage and invincibility...awakened in us a new sense of patriotism and loyalty
towards our country, and one of its greatest men. It made us realise how worthless our 'pop'
idols and film stars are, compared to you, Sir Winston. Thank you for giving my generation
such a wonderful heritage, one which I and my friends will do our best to live up to.

A middle-aged man was also inspired to thank Churchill for "the wonderful and entirely happy

experience," declaring that all those who valued freedom and liberty, and anyone proud to call

himself British, should be required to see the film.220

Outside of Britain, reception of the movie was in most places overwhelmingly positive, with
 218

the notable exception o f communist bloc nations. The English-speaking U n i o n o f the

Commonwealth sponsored gala events in many countries that were attended by politicians and

celebrities. In the U S , following the biggest opening day at the box office in film history, the New

York Times declared it to be "an uncommon piece o f entertainment, like an audio-visual symphony

composed with all the elements and devices o f cinematic orchestration to raise a grand hymn in Sir

Winston's praise." It was deemed to be elegy in good taste. The chief editor o f Scholastic

Magazines, a publication widely distributed to students and librarians across America, honored the

film with an award in a special issue featuring Churchill as "Man-of-the-Century." L e V i e n was so

thrilled by the film's terrific reception that he wrote Churchill's solicitor to convey his unbounded

appreciation for allowing it to be made, so that millions o f viewers around the world who had not

read his memoirs could know what he had accomplished in the war. 221
The only sustained criticism

of the film came from the communist press, which branded it a false representation o f history and

biography, symbolic o f the worst form o f Western hero worship, incongruously alleging that

"Churchill was still dreaming o f a third world war" so that he could return to power. A t the British

embassy's premier showing in Holland, attended by Queen Juliana, the entire Dutch Cabinet, and

a host o f diplomats, the Soviet Ambassador loudly departed the theater twenty minutes before the

film's end, complaining o f bias toward the Russian people, who had been compared in the movie

to "aggressive crocodiles." 222

The movie was still showing in theaters when Churchill died on January 24,1965 at the age

o f 90. H i s death caused a week-long outpouring o f commemorations in the world's media for

Britain's greatest war leader. The queen ordered a funeral befitting royalty for only the second time

in British history. 223

In the U S , special features were printed in major journals to mark Churchill's

death. In recounting his life, some publications noted how The Second World War had taken its

place among the great classics o f history. For the New York Post, the passage o f time since the end

of the war had seen Churchill's stature and literature grow in significance. A s a man o f words and

ideas, he knew how to make uncanny use o f symbols, and to make himself one o f them through the

popularity o f his writings. Time reiterated Churchill's metanarrative in describing the stirring

funeral service in which The Battle Hymn of the Republic was sung:

It was also symbolic of his lifetime dream of a closer union between the two nations whose
blood flowed in his veins....The church that symbolized the survival of the British nation and
the hymn that symbolized the endurance of the American Union - the suddenly mingled
 219

echoes of Agincourt and Antietam -served to remind the world of a kinship that goes deeper
than shifting alliances and new patterns of power. It was an Anglo-Saxon moment....

For the first time ever, flags flew at half-mast all over the U S for the death o f a non-American. A n

estimated 350 million viewers tuned into the funeral via satellite, the most elaborately televised

memorial in British history before the death of Princess Diana in 1997. The three main U S networks

gave unprecedented coverage to it, canceling all commercials during the event. 224
In Britain, the

B B C produced a documentary ("Homage to a Great M a n " ) in which Lawrence Olivier and John

Gielgud read excerpts o f Churchill's prose. Reporters for the Daily Telegraph recounted the

procession o f mourners who viewed Churchill's body while it lay i n state, portraying them as

participants in a solemn religious ceremony in which the "little people" of Britain enjoyed a moment

of communion with greatness before "leaving the titan o f history i n the ghostly company o f his

peers." Visions o f Wagnerian opera and Wotan were conjured up by the newspaper to depict the

historic moment when the ghost o f Churchill passed before the collective eye o f the w o r l d . 225

Churchill's death also precipitated a further round o f press commentary on his literary

legacy. The Manchester Guardian declared that the success o f The Second World War was well

deserved, since it contained so much o f his finest writing. It professed to be at a loss to see how

posterity could judge Churchill any differently from the verdict o f his contemporaries, suggesting

that the hindsight o f a quarter-century had not diminished the validity o f his appeasement critique

or the thesis o f a preventable war. The formerly pro-appeasement Times echoed this viewpoint,

calling Churchill "the Great Deliverer" who forever would dominate the British people's memory

of the second world w a r . 226

But unlike the Guardian, the Times d i d not specifically endorse

Churchill's war history nor discuss the appeasement issue in its tribute. The Observer, a strong critic

of Churchill before and after the war, now praised him as "a spurned prophet" whose warlike spirit

the British people for too long resisted to their great detriment. B u t its glowing editorial was

balanced by a less reverential eulogy from Attlee, who claimed always to have admired Churchill's

inspired prose more than its dubious content, complaining that for all the millions o f words used i n

his war memoirs, too much important material was left out:

If there was one thing that marked him off from comparable figures in history, it was his
characteristic way of standing back and looking at himself - and his country - as he believed
history would. He was always, in effect, asking himself, 'How will I look if I do this or
that?' And 'What must Britain do now so that the verdict of history will be favourable?' All
he cared about, in Britain's history, of course, were the moments when Britain was great.
 220

He was always looking around for 'finest hours,' and if one was not immediately available,
his impulse was to manufacture one. 227

In a separate article, the Observer's Patrick O'Donovan offered an insightful perspective on the

meaning o f Churchill's death, which marked for him nothing less than the passing o f an age: "This

was the last time that London would be capital o f the world. This was an act o f mourning for the

Imperial past. This marked the final act in Britain's greatness. This was a great gesture o f self-pity

and after this the coldness o f reality and the status o f Scandinavia." 228

The Daily Mirror, another o f Churchill's sharpest critics i n the past, now paid fulsome

tribute to the fallen warrior, praising him as the savior o f his nation during its greatest ordeal ever

faced. It noted the speed with which he had produced his war memoirs, testimony to his unimpaired

will-power and intellect i n the postwar years. The historian A l a n B u l l o c k ' s eulogy credited

Churchill with an ability to write in "bold primary colors," revealing the instinct o f a man o f action

who wanted to reduce the subtleties of history to simple, straightforward issues. Bullock recounted

that upon first meeting Churchill in 1940 he felt bewildered by the man's powerful sense o f British

history rising to a climax under his direction: "So I think that Sir Winston's writing o f history was

not something apart, a relaxation, a diversion, perhaps like his painting; it was central to him -

central to his way o f looking at the world." H e revered the heroic deeds and gestures o f the 19 th

century that seemed so out o f touch with 20 century realities: "It is not only that he himself lived
th

life so fully and so magnificently and with these splendid gestures, it is also that secretly we all feel

this is the way life should be lived. For this reason he has fastened on our imagination." 229
In all this

commentary, there was barely a hint of the rising tide o f revisionist historiography that was already

starting to undermine the British leader's hold on collective war memory. H i s metanarrative had

stood supreme for a generation o f war survivors, and those reading about the war for the first time

in the early postwar years. Though its lessons about war and leadership would continue to inspire

the hearts and minds o f countless readers in the ensuing decades, Churchill's imperial metanarrative

would no longer form a central totem around which national identity coalesced.

Chapter 5 Endnotes
1. K . N . Hull, "The Literary Art of Winston Churchill's The Second World War" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of
Washington, 1969), D A I - A 30/11, p.4987.
 221

2. Benny Morris, The Roots ofAppeasement: The British Weekly Press and Nazi Germany During the 1930s (Portland:
Frank Cass, 1991), pp.2-3,5-9.
3. Great Britain, Parliament, Royal Commission on the Press, 1947-1949, Report 1949, Vol.20, Cmd.7700,pp.l00-101;
Seymore-Uri, British Press and Broadcasting, pp. 180,215,286-8.
4. J. Tunstall, The Media in Britain (New York: Columbia UP, 1983), pp.80-81; S. Koss, The Rise and Fall of the
Political Press in Britain. Vol.2. The 20"' Century (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1984), pp.3,9-12,629-32; R. Williams,
Communications 3 ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1976), pp.4-22.
rd

5. Royal Commission 1949, pp.30-36; Cannadine, British Aristocracy, p.328; Seymour-Uri, British Press and
Broadcasting, pp. 1-2,28-31,38: he offers a three-tiered classification system of quality papers, middle market press, and
massed market newspapers; J. Curran, "Advertising as a Patronage System," in The Sociology of Journalism and the
Press, ed. H. Christian (Totawa, NJ: J.H. Brookes, 1980), p.9: after 1955, the industry underwent another major shakeup
in its ownership structure based on advertising patronage; S. Jenkins, The Market for Glory: Fleet Street Ownership in
the 20 Century (London: Faber and Faber, 1986), pp.228-229; Tunstall, Media in Britain, pp. 169-174; Viscount
th

Camrose, British Newspapers and Their Controllers (London: Cassell, 1947), pp.11-15: combines are Daily Mail Group
(Associated Newspapers), Harmsworth Press (provincial), Kemsley Newspapers, Westminister Press (provincial),
Provincial Newspapers, and Beaverbrook Press.
6. Royal Commission, p.80: most remarkable were the Daily Mirror and Daily Telegraph, which achieved rates of
growth equal to 246% and 480% respectively.
7. Seymour-Uri, The British Press and Broadcasting, pp. 16,32,265; Williams, Communications, pp.20-21; A . Smith,
The British Press Since the War, pp. 16-18; T. Gray, Fleet Street Remembered (London: Heinemann, 1990), pp.63-4;
Jenkins, Market for Glory, pp.228-9: Thereafter, sales of national newspapers slowly declined as electronic media
became increasingly popular for disseminating information, ultimately prompting a wave of takeover battles between
proprietors vying for survival in a shrinking marketplace.
8. L. Bogart, "Newspapers in the Age of Television," Daedalus 92,1 (Winter 1963): 120: even the New York Times was
considered a regional paper in the early postwar, since it lacked the distribution network for being a truly national daily.
9. J. Hollander, "Some Animadversion on Current Reviewing," Daedalus 92,1 (Winter 1963): 147.
10. Ibid, pp. 149-52.
11. H . Peyre, "What is Wrong with American Book-Reviewing," Daedalus 92,1 (Winter 1963): 131-2,135-40.
12. G. Thompson, "Churchill - The Blunderer," Evening Standard October 4, 1948, p.6; W . Barkley, Daily Express I;
B. Townsend, "Churchill's Hour," Sunday Express, October 3, 1948; "No Halo Hero," Daily Express, Nov. 28, 1948.
13. D. Cooper, "England Would Live," Daily Mail, July 20, 1950, p.2.
14. "Second Thoughts," Daily Graphic, June 12, 1948; V . Davidson, "Churchill Surveys the Crisis Years," Sunday
Graphic, October 3, 1948; Scrutator, "This Was Their Finest Hour," Sunday Times, June 26, 1949, p.6; R.C.K. Ensor,
"Hot and Cold War," Sunday Times, April 25, 1952.
15. C H U R 4/25: Cassell (D. Flower) to Churchill, October 19,1949; J. Duff, "Mr. Churchill Tells of Big Three's Most
Fateful War Meeting," Newcastle Journal, September 9, 1952; E. Holt, "King George Had to Think Hard to Stop
Churchill," Manchester Dispatch, September 3, 1952.
16. S. Koss, The Political Press, p.596; W.L. Andrews, "Our Finest Hour in His Fittest Prose," June 27,1949; " A Story
That Will Never Die," September 3, 1952; "Foolish Sneers by Some Americans," Yorkshire Post, May 11, 1954.
17. H . Nicolson, "Mr. Churchill's History: A Unique Record and a Work of Art," Daily Telegraph, October 4, 1948;
"If," and " A l l Around the Wicket," Times, September 3-4, 1952; "In the Quick Forge," Times, April 26, 1954.
18. "The Unnecessary War," Times Literary Supplement, August 14,1948; "His Happiest Hour," August 3,1951, Times
Literary Supplement; Times Literary Supplement V I ; a view shared by C . C . P , Punch I.
19. W.H. Ewer, "You've No Need to Brag, Mr. Churchill," Daily Herald, October 4,1948; E. Shinwell, " A Novel- With
Sir Winston as Hero," Daily Herald, April 26, 1954.
20. M . Foot, Tribune I; M . Foot, "Churchill's War," Tribune, July 28,1950, pp. 17-18; W . Rust, "Churchill on the Great
Tory Betrayal," Daily Worker, October 4, 1948, p.2.
21. R.H.S. Crossman, New Statesman I, II; Crossman, "Every Post a Winning Post," New Statesman, July 22, 1950;
Crossman, "Total Warmanship," New Statesman, September 6, 1952; Crossman, "Portrait of the Artist as a Great Man,"
New Statesman, April 24, 1954.
22. Manchester Guardian I; "Mr. Churchill's War History," Manchester Guardian, July 20, 1950; Editorial, Manchester
Guardian, August 27,1952; "Mr. Churchill's War Memoirs," Manchester Guardian, September 3, 1952; "Triumph and
Tragedy," Manchester Guardian, April 26, 1954.
 222

23. V . Templewood, " A Formidable Indictment," Listener, October 7, 1948, pp.533-35; J. Connell, "The Decisive
Year," Time and Tide, August 4, 1951, pp.749; J. Connell, "Closing the Ring," Time and Tide, Sept. 6, 1952, p. 1007.
24. "Captain and Cassandra," Economist, May 1, 1954; H.G. Nicolas, Listener••VI; A . Schlesinger, Jr., "Churchill on
the Lost Victory," Observer, April 25, 1954; J. Connell, "The Shadowed Victory," Time and Tide, May 1, 1954, p.581.
25. J.H. Bingham, "The Fateful Days of 'The Gathering Storm'," Sunday Dispatch, October 4, 1948; "Those Soft
Years," Daily Mail, October 4, 1948; A . Forbes, "Churchill Raises the Curtain," Daily Mail, October 4, 1948.
26. M . Shulman, "The Bitter Moment," Evening Standard, August 3, 1951, p.9.
27. "Churchill's War Memoirs," Western Mail (Cardiff), October 4, 1948; M . Stopford, "Churchill Purred Like a Cat,"
Newcastle Journal, June 22, 1949, p.2; W.L. Andrews, "Mr. Churchill's New Book," Yorkshire Post, Oct. 4, 1948.
28. B. Nichols, "When Words Were His Only Weapon," Sunday Chronicle, October 3, 1948.
29. "Urbane Chronicle of World Crisis," Glasgow Herald, October 4, 1948; Yorkshire Post I; Sir J. Squire, "The
Twilight War, and its Prelude," Illustrated London News, October 9, 1948.
30. "Unfortunate Remarks," Catholic Times, June 12, 1948.
31. E. Keown, "Mr. Churchill's Second Volume," Punch, July 6, 1949; E. Keown, "Churchill: The Third Volume,"
Punch, August 2, 1950.
32. D. Cooper, B B C European Service Weekly Book Review Summary, July 19, 1950; E. Keown, "Churchill No.5,"
Punch, September 10, 1952; G. Murray, "His Finest Hour," Daily Mail, June 27, 1949, p.4.
33. A . Tomkins, "Churchill's 12 Secrets," Sunday Dispatch, April 25, 1954.
34. Brigadier D. Mills-Robert, "Storming the Fortress of Europe," Liverpool Daily Post, September 3, 1952.
35. D. Cooper, BBC I
36. Sir J. Squire, Illustrated London News I
37. H.D. Ziman, "Mr. Churchill's Story of the War's Transformation," Daily Telegraph, August 3, 1951; H.D. Ziman,
"Prophesy into History," Daily Telegraph, April 26, 1954.
38. "Churchillian Conclusion," Times Literary Supplement, April 30, 1954, pp.273-74: was the sole publication to make
this connection overtly in its review of Triumph and Tragedy.
39. W. Barkley, "The Unnecessary War," Daily Express, October 4,1948; Liverpool Daily Post V : also astonishing was
Andrew's claim that Churchill's view of Mussolini as "the Italian law giver" was fair, though Punch questioned this
extraordinarily generous treatment of the fascist dictator; B . A . Y , "The Real Tragedy," Punch, May 5, 1954, p.561.
40. "The Unnecessary War," Manchester Guardian, October 4, 1948; "Unfair," Manchester Guardian, Nov. 9, 1948;
"Their Finest Hour," Manchester Guardian, June 27, 1949.
41. W. Eliot, "Years of Storm Cone," Observer, June 26, 1949, p.4.
42. C V . Wedgewood, "Summer 1940," Time and Tide, June 25, 1949, p.646; H . G . Nicolas, "The Past at His Elbow:
Churchill's View of History," Listener, May 6, 1954, p.747.
43. B . H . Liddell Hart, "Looking Over Churchill's Shoulder," Listener, July 27, 1950, p. 137.
44. "Churchill's War Secrets," Reynolds News, June 26, 1949, p.4; R.H.S. Crossman, "Books in General," New
Statesman, October 9, 1948, p.307; "Alone," New Statesman, July 2, 1949, p. 18.
45. "History by Churchill," Socialist Leader, July 2, 1949, p.2; C. Hughes, "The End of the Churchill Myth," Socialist
Leader, August 6, 1949; "Churchill's Chatter," Socialist Leader, January 28, 1950; G. Shaffer, "Churchill Tells How
the Tide Turned," Reynolds News, August 5, 1951, p.4.
46. Ibid.; Cassandra, "Whitewash for the Jackal," Daily Mirror, September 5, 1952; D. Kartun, "He Planned to Put Back
the Clock," Daily Worker, September 3, 1952; M . MacEwen, "Churchill Tells How He Cheated His Allies," Daily
Worker, April 26, 1954.
47. A . Bevan, "Churchill's Greatest Gamble," Reynolds News, September 7, 1952; M . Foot, "Churchill's 'Mein
Kampf,'" Tribune, October 8, 1948, p.7-8.
48. J. Thompson, "History Written by Churchill," Chicago Sunday Tribune, June 27, 1948, Pt.4, p . l ; V . Sheehan, " A
Master Hand at the Helm: Winston is Back," New York Herald Tribune, June 20, 1948.
49. W. Millis, "Mr. Churchill's Vivid Epic of Britain at Bay," New York Herald Tribune, April 3, 1949; D. Middleton,
"Churchill on Britain's Finest Hour," New York Times Book Review, Sec.7, p. 1,25-26; D. Middleton, "The War and Mr.
Churchill: 1942-43," New York Times Book Review, November 26, 1950, Sec.7, p . l ; a theme also raised by S. North,
"Memoirs of a Fighting Writer," Cleveland News, March 30, 1949.
50. R. Sherwood, "1941: Winston Churchill's Own Story," New York Times Book Review, April 23, 1950, Sec.7; H.S.
Commager, "Major Patterns in Britain's Year of Decision-1941," New YorkHerald Tribune, April 23, 1950, p . B R l ;
J. Harrison, "The Grand Alliance," Christian Science Monitor, April 24, 1950, p. 16; "Churchill and Russia," Boston
Daily Globe, April 23, 1950, p.l4A.
 223

51. C W . Weinberger, "Books," San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 3, 1950, p.18; W . Millis, "Churchill Concludes His
Great History: A Noble Record of Our Time," New York Herald Tribune, Nov. 23, 1953, p. 1,22; W . Ruggles, "Final
Volume From Churchill," Dallas Morning News, November 29, 1953, p.8.
52. F . B . W , "The First Volume," Winnipeg Free Press, July 10, 1948; W. Deacon, "Churchill's War History," Globe
and Mail, June 26, 1948; C. Wood, "The Threshold of Victory," Montreal Gazette, November 24, 1951, p.29; W.
Deacon, "Sir Winston Completes His War History," Globe and Mail, December 5, 1953, p. 14; G . Odgers, "Low Rating
for Our Diggers," Melbourne Argus, June 5,1954: a similar complaint was made in Australia, when Churchill accorded
only one paragraph in Volume V I to the exploits of the Australian army in Southeast Asia.
53. N . Cousins, Present Tense: An American Editor's Odyssey (New York: McGraw Hill, 1967), pp.3-5,30; J. Hendin,
"The New Yorker as a Cultural Idea," Dissent 29,4 (1982):450-4
54. Felix Walter, "Reviews" 20"' Century 150 (July 1951):66; J. Newman, '"Facts are Better than Dreams,'" New
Republic, June 21, 1948, p.22; J. Newman, "The Infinite Capacity of Winston Churchill," New Republic, May 2, 1949,
pp.21-22; C. Weiss, "Books," Commonweal, June 9, 1950, p.226-28; K . Hutchinson, "Churchill's Finest Hour," Nation,
April 2, 1949, p.20.
55. J.B. Brebner, "Dreams Come True," Nation, May 6, 1950, p.427; J.B. Brebner, "Churchill: Volume IV," Nation,
December 16, 1950, p.655.
56. C. Brinton, "Britain Alone Against Her Enemies," Saturday Review of Literature, April 2, 1949, p. 13; C. Brinton,
"War Problems of the High Level," Saturday Review of Literature, April 22, 1950, p . l 1; C. Brinton, "Memoirs of a
Tempered Realist," Saturday Review of Literature, November 24, 1951, p.12.
57. Contemporary Authors; A . West, "Books: Foresight and Hindsight," New Yorker, December 26, 1953, pp.56-61.
58. " A Churchill Classic," Newsweek, June 21, 1948, pp.96-98; P. Hutchinson, "Filing Cabinet History," Christian
Century, April 6, 1949, pp.432-33; "Warrior Historian," Time, June 28, 1948, pp.90-92; II; "Churchill is Quite a
Prophet," Collier's, July 10, 1948; Time, Jan. 2, 1950; "The Web and the Weaver," Time, April 25, 1949, pp. 102-04.
J. O'Connor, "Last of a Great Series," America, December 19, 1953, p.322; but note P. Hutchinson, "The First Great
War Memoir," Christian Century, July 28, 1948, pp.757-58; "Unfortunate Remarks," Catholic Times, June 12, 1948:
Churchill was sharply criticized for his harsh treatment of the Polish people and their "national character."
59. H.F. Angus, International Journal A (1949): 74-76; J.L. Godfrey, Social Forces 27 (March 1949): 313-14; M .
Goodwin, "Books of the Month," Twentieth Century 144 (November 1948): 299.
60. Don K. Price, "Notes from the WarMemoirs," Public Administration Review 10-11 (1950-51): 197-207; Revelation,
June 1949, pp. 188-262: an apocalyptic tone was struck by this evangelical monthly, which devoted an entire issue to
its review, declaring that Churchill's memoirs proved democracies who deviated from the truth of God would be
destroyed.
61. R. Whittemore, "Churchill and the Limitations of Myth," Yale Review 44 (1954-55): 254-55.
62. H . Morgenthau, "Foreign Policy: The Conservative School," World Politics 7 (1954-55): 284-6
63. P. Slosson, "Review of Books," American Historical Review 54 (1948): 102-04; P. Slosson, "Churchill: Triumph
and Tragedy," American Historical Review 59 (1954): 594-96.
64. W. Hall, "Review of Books," Journal of Modern History 21 (Dec. 1949): 357-59; W. Hamilton, "Churchill: Actor
as Historian," South Atlantic Quarterly 50 (Fall 1951): 399-411; W. Willcox, Yale Review 38 (1948-49): 140-42.
65. J.R. Hubbard, Mississippi Valley Historical Review (1952): 582-83; A . L . Kennedy, "Munich: The Disintegration
of British Statesmanship," Quarterly Review 286 (Oct. 1948): 425-44: that staying power, thought Kennedy, was
premised on Christian morality, a point he thought insufficiently explored by Churchill; J.T. Farrell, "Books Reviewed,"
Catholic Historical Review 35 (1950): 473-75.
66.1. Berlin, "Mr. Churchill," Atlantic Monthly, September 1949, p.38.
67. A . L . Rowse, "England in Peace and War," National Review 131 (Nov. 1948): 411; P. Slosson, American Historical
Review 54 (1949):858-60; I. Berlin, Atlantic Monthly II; Nineteenth Century 144 (Fall 1948): 299; J. Godfrey, Social
Forces 28 (Oct. 1949): 90.
68. G. Howe, Military Affairs 13 (Summer 1949): 115-16; Deuel, "Letters and Life," Survey 85 (April 1949):226-27;
R. Wilberforce, "New Books," Catholic World 169 (July 1949): 313-14; W. Willcox, "Eight Fateful Months," Yale
Review 38 (1948-49): 732-24.
69. P. Slosson, American Historical Review 57 (1952): 652-53; R. Whittemore, Yale Review'VI; C.S. Forester, "Winston
Churchill, Leader and Historian," Atlantic Monthly, July 1948, pp.93-95; W. Willcox, Yale Review I; W. Fox, American
Political Science Review 43 (1949): 357-58.
70. Barkley, Daily Express I; M . Schulman, "Churchill Probes the Blunders Like a Dynamic Buddha," Evening
Standard, July 19, 1950; F. Owen, "Churchill and the Year of the Long Night," Daily Express, August 3, 1951.
 224

71. "The Great Leader," Evening News, October 4, 1948; G . Murray, Daily Mail II; D. Cooper, Daily Mail III; G.
Murray, "One Thing About Molotov," Daily Mail, August 3, 1951.
72. B. Nichols, "When Words Were His Only Weapons," Manchester Sunday Chronicle, Oct. 3, 1948; Lord Beveridge,
"Was Last War Avoidable?" Newcastle Journal, Oct. 4, 1948; "History's Lessons," Scotsman, Oct. 4, 1948; H . O'Neill,
"Churchill's Keen Indictment of Pre-war Politicians," Liverpool Daily Post, October 4, 1948; Glasgow Herald I;
Western Mail I; W . L . Andrews, Yorkshire Post I, VI; Cooper, BBC III.
73. J. Squire, Illustrated London News I; R. Boothby, "Churchill Looks Back on Britain's Disastrous Decade," News
of the World, October 3, 1948; C . C . P , Punch I; Times Literary Supplement I.
74. Cassandra, "Tar and Whitewash," Daily Mirror, October 21, 1949; Reynold's News II; W. Wyatt, "Whose Finest
Hour," Tribune, July 8, 1949;"Twilight of a Giant," Daily Mirror, April 1, 1954; M . Foot, Tribune I.
75. W. Wyatt, Tribune II: R. Rider, "Such Men are Dangerous," Tribune, September 5, 1952; "Swaffer," Daily Herald,
April 24, 1954.
76. W. Rust, Daily Worker I; "Our Old Nobility," Socialist Leader, May 8, 1948; "Churchill's Memoirs," Socialist
Leader, October 9, 1948; Socialist Leader II.
77. Crossman, New Statesman I; "Tell Us the Old, Old Story," Reynolds News, April 25, 1948.
78. Manchester Guardian I; "Mr. Churchill's War Memoirs," Manchester Guardian, August 3, 1951.
79. A.J. Cummings, "The Man Who Walked With Destiny," News Chronicle, October 4, 1948; "He Made it Our Finest
Hour," News Chronicle, June 27, 1949; R. Waithman, "Victory Knell," News Chronicle, April 26, 1954.
80. W. Harris, "Finest Hour," Spectator, July 1, 1949, pp.6-7; "Churchill's Paranoia," Spectator, July 21, 1950, p.88;
C. Webster, Spectator, August 3, 1951, p.162; W. Taplin, "The Wise Man," Spectator, April 30, 1954, p.522.
81. "Mr. Churchill's Book," Time and Tide, October 2, 1948, pp.997-98; Wedgewood, Time and Tide II; C. Buckley,
Time and Tide, July 22, 1950, pp.733-34; W. Eliot, Observer II; "The Year of Greatness," Economist, June 25, 1949,
p.l 183; "Groundwork for Victory," July 22, 1950, p.166; "The Tide Turns," August 4, 1951, p.282.
82. Times Literary Supplement I; E. Shanks, "Grand Alliance," Daily Graphic; July 22, 1950; W.L. Andrews, "Mr.
Churchill Tells of Rebuffs From Stalin," Yorkshire Post, July 20, 1950.
83. Owen, Daily Express IV; J. Duff, "Six Black Months," Newcastle Journal, August 3, 1951; W.L.Andrews,
Yorkshire Post III; Robert-Mills, Liverpool Daily Post V ; "Mr. Churchill's Third Volume," Times Literary Supplement,
July 21, 1950; Times Literary Supplement IV.
84. M . Shulman, "The Second Front," Evening Standard, September 3, 1952; M . Shulman, "Did the Key to Peace Hide
in a Bit of Paper?" Sunday Express, April 25, 1952.
85. Shulman, Evening Standard V ; E. Spears, "This Was Churchill's Saddest Hour," Daily Mail, April 26, 1954;
Andrews, Yorkshire Post V ; "Up to D-Day," Times Literary Supplement, September 5, 1952, p.575.
86. Crossman, New Statesman II, V I ; Socialist Leader II.
87. Crossman, New Statesman III; Bevan, Reynolds News V .
88. Bevan, Reynolds News V ; D. Kartun, "Churchill Tells How He Planned Cold War," Daily Worker, August 3, 1951;
Kartun, Daily Worker V ; Cassandra, Daily Mirror V ; Rider, Tribune V ; Crossman, New Statesman V .
89. W. Harris, "Threshold of Victory," Spectator, September 5, 1952, p.303-04; Bryant, Triumph in the West; Economist
II; Cumings, News Chronicle II.
90. B . H . Liddell Hart, "Looking Over Churchill's Shoulder," Listener, July 27, 1950, p. 137; B . H . Liddell Hart,
"Churchill's Fourth Volume," Listener, August 9, 1951, p.235.
91. C. Wilmot, "Dangerous Year," Observer, September 7, 1952, p.7; Economist V .
92. Among newspapers surveyed, this was true of the Cleveland News II, and New Orleans Times-Picayune VI.
93. "History a la Churchill," New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 27,1948; J. Thompson, Chicago Tribune I; O. Prescott,
"Churchill," New York Times, June 21, 1948, sec.7, p. 19; A . Murphree, "Churchill Charts Path of World History,"
Denver Post, June 27, 1948; P. Lyne, "Winston Churchill's War Memoirs," Christian Science Monitor, June 24, 1948.
94. McCormick, New York Times Book Review I; Sheehan, New York Herald Tribune I.
95. C H U R 1/104: Washington Post, November 27 and 30, 1949; S. Davis, " A n Intimate Study of War and Democracy,"
Christian Science Monitor, March 31,1949, p. 11; Millis, New York Herald Tribune II.
96. J.H. Jackson, San Francisco Chronicle, April 23, 1950, p.22; Harrison, Christian Science Monitor III; Middleton,
New York Times Book Review IV; R. Sherwood, "On the Threshold of Allied Triumph," New York Times Book Review,
November 25, 1951, sec.7, pp. 1,50; C. Weinberger, "From Sicily to the Eve of D-Day," San Francisco Chronicle,
December 2, 1951, p. 19; Millis, New York Herald Tribune VI; R. Sherwood, "The Year of Overwhelming Victory,"
New York Times Book Review, November 29, 1953, sec.7, pp.1,34.
 225

97. Thompson, Chicago Tribune I; Lyne, Christian Science Monitor I; Murphree, Denver Post I; P. Jordon-Smith,
"Churchill's Memoirs Prove Epic," Los Angeles Times, June 25, 1948, sec.3, p.8.
98. Murphree, Denver Post I; "Churchill Looks at the Record," St. Louis Post Dispatch, June 21,1948; J.H. Jackson,
" A World During War and Peace," San Francisco Chronicle, June 20, 1948, p. 10; Thompson, Chicago Tribune I.
99. Prescott, New York Times I; McCormick, New York Times Book Review I.
100. Sheehan, New York Herald Tribune I; Davis, Christian Science Monitor II; J. Harrison, "Turning the Tide Toward
Victory," Christian Science Monitor, December 3, 1951, p. 15; J. Harrison, "Where We Have Been - Where We Should
Go," Christian Science Monitor, February 19, 1954.
101. Middleton and Sherwood, New York Times Book Review II, III, IV; Millis, New York Herald Tribune II, IV;
Jackson, San Francisco Chronicle III.
102. W. Millis, "Churchill's Story of the War on the Eve of Invasion," New York Herald Tribune, November 25, 1951;
Sherwood, New York Times Book Review V; "End of Winnie's Memoirs Tells Problems of Peace," New Orleans Times-
Picayune, November 29, 1953.
103. Hutchinson, Christian Century I, II; Newman, New Republic I; H . Nicolson, New Republic VI; J. Newman, "The
New Chapter," New Republic, June 5, 1950, p. 19.
104. Weiss, Commonweal III; J. Lukacs, "The Lingering Agony of a World in Dissolution," Commonweal, Jan. 1,1954.
105. Brinton, Saturday Review II, III, V ; R. West, "Twenty Years' Tangle," Saturday Review of Literature, June 19,
1948, p.7; C. Brinton, " A Change in the Struggle," Saturday Review of Literature, November 25, 1950, pp.12-13; D.
Perkins, "The End of the End," Saturday Review of Literature, November 28, 1953; West, New Yorker VI.
106. Newsweek I; "Human Triumph," Newsweek, November 30, 1953, p. 106; Time I; "The Web and the Weaver," Time,
April 25, 1949, pp.102-04; "The Central Figure," Time, December 4, 1950, pp.102-06; "Readable History," Time,
November 26, 1951, p. 114.
107. Newman, New Republic I, II; J. Newman, "The Marlborough of Our Age," New Republic, December 25, 1950,
p. 18; R. Neibuhr, "Churchill's Hour," Nation, June 26, 1948, p.720; Brebner, Nation, III, IV, V : though he also accused
Churchill and Stalin of treating Molotov like a gangster; R. West, Saturday Review I.
108. Hutchinson, Christian Century I; Weiss, Commonweal III; Newman, New Republic III, IV; West, New Yorker VI.
109. G,P. Gooch, "The Churchill Saga," Contemporary Review 185 (June 1954): 378-78; J. Cairns, "Clio and the
Queen's First Minister," South Atlantic Quarterly 43 (1950): 505,510,515-18.
110. Roy Hillbrook, "Churchill's War Memoirs," Current History 14-15 (Aug. 1948): 100; Hall, Journal of Modern
History I; Willcox, Yale Review I; E. Chase, "The Story of 1941," Virginia Quarterly Review 26 (1950): 444-46.
111. Hall, Journal of Modern History I; J. Hubbard, Mississippi Valley Historical Review 37 (1950-51): 348-50; W.
Hamilton, South Atlantic Quarterly I; Willcox, Yale Review I.
112. Forester, Atlantic Monthly I; J. Farrell, Catholic Historical Review 34 (1948): 332-34; Rowse, National Review
I; G. Britt, "Heroism as a Magnet," Survey Graphic 37 (August 1948): 373-74.
113. W.R. Fox, American Political Science Review 43 (1949): 1047-48; Deuell, Survey II; Godfrey, Social Forces II;
Godfrey, Social Forces 29 (May 1951): 458; H . Gulley, Quarterly Journal of Speech 37 (1951): 233-34.
114. Slosson, American Historical Review II; Fox, American Political Science Review II; Farrell, Catholic Historical
Review II; R. Wilberforce, Catholic World II; Willcox, Yale Review II.
115. P. Slosson, American Historical Review 55 (July 1950): 876-77; Howe, Military Affairs II; J. Marshall-Cornwall,
International Affairs 26 (1950): 110-11.
116. Hamilton, South Atlantic Quarterly IV; J. Marshall-Cornwall, International Affairs 28 (1952): 91; Slosson,
American Historical Review VI; F. Neilson, "Mr. Churchill's Second Volume," "The Hinge of Fate," "Closing the
Ring," and "Triumph and Tragedy," American Journal of Economics and Sociology (1949-54), published in The
Churchill Legend (Appleton,WI: C C . Nelson, 1954), pp.369-458.
117. Whittemore, Yale Review VI.
118. Revelation II; Wilberforce, Catholic World II; Barnhouse, "Churchill's Memoirs," Eternity 2 (May 1950): 8-9,49;
Morgenthau, World Politics VI, pp.288-9.
119. Boston Daily Globe III; J.H. Jackson, San Francisco Chronicle III; Sherwood, New York Times Book Review III;
Commager, New York Herald Tribune III.
120. Millis, New York Herald Tribune II; J. Jackson, "The World, the War and Prime Minister Churchill," San
Francisco Chronicle, April 3, 1949, p.22; V . Royster, " A People and Their Scribe," Wall Street Journal, March 29,
1949.
121. Churchill, The Gathering Storm, p.xi.
 226

122. Thompson, Evening Standard I; Shulman, III; J. Grigg, "Grand Alliance," Sunday Times, July 23, 1950; W .
Poulton, "Churchill Attacks Soviet Blindness," Newcastle Journal, July 20, 1950.
123. C H U R 4/25: Flower (Cassell) to Churchill, October 19, 1949; Daily Telegraph I; Grigg, Sunday Times III; Lt.Gen.
B. Harrocks, "Tides of War," Sunday Times, August 5, 1951; W.L. Andrews, Yorkshire Post III; "Mr. Churchill's
Glorious Flame," Yorkshire Post, August 3, 1951.
124. J. Duff, Newcastle Journal III, IV; D. Cooper, Daily Mail III; E. Keown, "Mr. Churchill's Fourth Installment,"
Punch, August 8, 1951, p. 164; Keown, Punch V .
125. Holt, Manchester Daily Dispatch V ; Scrutator, "Grand Alliance," Sunday Times, September 7, 1950; Times
Literary Supplement V ; Andrews, Yorkshire Post V .
126. Tompkins, Sunday Dispatch VI; Bryant, The Turn of the Tide, p.706: At the Quebec Conference in August 1943,
Brooke noted: "It is quite impossible to argue with him [Marshal] as he does not begin to understand a strategic
problem...The only real argument he produced was a threat to the effect that, i f we pressed our point, the build-up in
England would be reduced to that of a small corps and whole war re-oriented toward Japan."
127. Ensor, Sunday Times VI; Ziman, Daily Telegraph IV; J. Squire, "The Year Before D-Day," Illustrated London
News, September 6, 1952; Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, p.344; W . L . Andrews, "Foolish Sneers by Some
Americans," May 11, 1954; "Sir Winston Churchill Ends His War Story," Yorkshire Post, April 26, 1954.
128. Hughes, Socialist Leader II; Kartun, Daily Worker IV:
129. Crossman, New Statesman II, III.
130. R.H.S. Crossman, "When Appeasement Paid," New Statesman, August 4, 1951, p. 132.
131. Crossman, New Statesman V , V I .
132. Crossman, New Statesman V ; I. Berlin, Atlantic Monthly II, pp.38-40.
133. Templewood, Listener I; Time and Tide I; Manchester Guardian II.
134. "The Grand Alliance," Economist, January 7, 1950, p.220; Buckley, Time and Tide III; Liddell Hart, Listener III.
135. R. Sherwood, "War and Friendship," Observer, Aug. 5, 1951, p.4; Liddell Hart, Listener IV; Harris, Spectator V .
136. Manchester Guardian V ; "Strategic Argument, 1943-44," Economist, September 6, 1952, p.548; C. Wilmot,
"Dangerous Year," Observer, September 7, 1952, p.7; A . J . Cummings, "He Had a Finger in Every Pie," News
Chronicle, September 3, 1952; Harris, Spectator VI.
137. Nicolas, Listener VI; I. Berlin, News Chronicle II.
138. Jackson, San Francisco Chronicle I; Sheehan, New York Herald Tribune I; Time I; Gallup, The Gallup Poll, Vol. 1.
139. F. Kuhn, "Churchill Traces 20 Years of Pre-War Folly," Washington Post, June 20, 1948; McCormick, New York
Times Book Review I; Hutchinson, Christian Century I; R.R. James, Churchill: A Study in Failure (New York: World
Publishing, 1970), pp.318,361: In fact, Eden resigned over Chamberlain's refusal to accept a "get-tough" policy with
Mussolini. Eden resented the Prime Minister's usurpation of Foreign Office policy; the Roosevelt overture was merely
the last straw. The disagreeable Eden was eased out of the Cabinet by Chamberlain for no one particular reason.
140. Jackson, San Francisco Chronicle III; Millis, New York Herald Tribune II, IV; Commager, NYH. Tribune III.
141. Millis, New York Herald Tribune IV, V ; Weinberger, San Francisco Chronicle IV, V .
142. Sherwood, New York Times Book Review III, V ; Harris, Boston Daily Globe III, V .
143. Brebner, Nation III, IV, V ; Nicolson, New Republic VI.
144. Weiss, Commonweal III; Brinton, Saturday Review of Literature III, IV; Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, p.129:
contrary to accepted opinion, imperial considerations were not the primary influence on his Mediterranean strategy.
145. Brinton, Saturday Review of Literature V .
146. J. Newman, "From Anzio to Overlord," New Republic, December 24, 1951, p.18.
147. Price, Public Administration Review I, pp. 198-99,207.
148. Major-Gen. H.J. Maloney, "Gathering Storm," Military Affairs 12 (1948): 237.
149. Godfrey, Social Forces II; Deuel, Survey II; Willcox, Yale Review II; R. Hillbrook, "As Churchill Saw It," Current
History 16-17 (May 1949): 286-87.
150. Slosson, American Historical Review III, IV; Chase, Virginia Quarterly Review III; Marshall-Cornwall,
International Affairs IV; Godfrey, Social Forces 29 (Oct. 1950): 95-96; C. Rolo, "Forward to Overlord," Atlantic
Monthly, December 1951, p.92; J.T. Farrell, Catholic Historical Review 38 (1952-53): 468-70; "Book Notes," Twentieth
Century 152 (1952): 364; Gooch, Contemporary Review VI.
151. Hamilton, South Atlantic Quarterly IV; Neilson, The Churchill Legend, II; S. Crowe, Journal of International
Affairs 5 (1951): 94: Crowe also noted in passing that Churchill glossed over Anglo-American differences
152. Cooper, Daily Mail III; Murray, Daily Mail IV; W. Barkley, "Churchill Achieves the Impossible," Daily Express,
April 26, 1954; Andrews, Yorkshire Post I, V I .
 227

153. Beveridge, Newcastle Journal I; J. Duff, Newcastle Journal V ; Western Mail I; "Churchill and the War,"
Edinburgh Evening News, October 4, 1948, p.2; Scotsman I.
154. Forbes, Daily Mail I; Bingham, Sunday Dispatch I; "Glories Revived," Evening News, Sept. 3, 1952: Churchill's
complaint against the "little folk" in Britain who obstructed his pre-war and wartime agendas were pointed out as
Aneurin Bevan and communist grumblers; W. Barkley, "On One Sheet of Paper," Daily Express, September 3, 1952;
Grigg, Sunday Times III; Daily Telegraph I; J. Duff, Newcastle Journal III.
155. Shulman, Evening Standard V ; Shulman, Sunday Express V I .
156. Duff, Newcastle Journal VI; Ensor, Sunday Times V I ; R. Blake, " Y o u Can't Blame Winston For Losing the
Peace," Evening Standard, April 26, 1954.
157. J. Grigg, "Mr. Churchill's Story of the Year Before D-Day," Daily Telegraph, Sept. 3, 1952; Andrews, Yorkshire
Post VI; Norwich, "When Churchill Walked Out on Stalin," Daily Mail, Sept. 3, 1952; Spears, Daily Mail VI.
158. Times V , V I .
159. I L N III, IV; Punch IV: Churchill was prophetic regarding the dishonesty of promises of a postwar "New
Jerusalem" that were financially well beyond Britain's means.
160. Times Literary Supplement IV: But if this were true, it is more likely that an innocent President would have been
led astray by his wily colleague, not vise versa; Squire, Illustrated London News V ; J. Squire, "Sir Winston Ends His
History," Illustrated London News, May 1, 1954, p.702.
161. Keown, Punch III, IV, V ; B . A . Y , Punch V I .
162. Grigg, Sunday Times III; Times Literary Supplement V', V I .
163. W.N. Ewer, "Stalin as an A l l y , " Daily Herald, July 20,1950; W.N. Ewer, "Churchill's Story of the Dramatic Race
Between D-Day and the Flying Bombs," Daily Herald, September 3, 1952.
164. D. Kartun, "Churchill Lets It Out: Who Really Started the Cold War," Daily Worker, July 24,1950; Kartun, Daily
Worker, IV, V , V I .
165. Ewer, Daily Herald V ; E. Shinwell, Daily Herald VI; M . Foot, "When Churchill's Finger Was on the Trigger,"
Tribune, April 30, 1954.
166. Bevan, Reynolds News IV, V ; H.O. Ward, "War Secrets Smash a Book Record," Reynolds News, April 25, 1954.
167. Crossman, New Statesman III, IV.
168. Crossman, New Statesman V , V I .
169. Time and Tide I; P. Reynaud, "Churchill, War and Democracy," Observer, October 3, 1948.
170. " A Bitter Attack on Poles," Glasgow Observer, June 11, 1948; Harris, Spectator III, V ; Taplin, Spectator VI.
171. Buckley, Time and Tide III; Sherwood, Observer IV.
172. Connell, Time & Tide V ; Wilmot, Observer V ; Economist VI; Waithman, News Chronicle VI; Man. Guardian VI.
173. Liddell Hart, Listener III, IV; H.G. Nicolas, "Closing the Ring," Listener, September 4, 1952, p.389; ListenerVl.
174. Millis, New York Herald Tribune II, IV; also Harrison, Christian Science Monitor III, IV; "Churchill Provides
Comfort Recalling Russia's Weakness," Memphis Commercial Appeal, April 23, 1950; Sherwood, New York Times
Book Review IV.
175. Weinberger, San Francisco Chronicle IV; New Orleans Times-Picayune I; T. Sherman, "Churchill Concludes a
Monumental History," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 29, 1953, sec.C, p.4.
176. Jordon-Smith, Los Angeles Times I; Sheehan, New York Herald Tribune I; New Orleans Times-Picayune I; Kuhn,
Washington Post I.
177. Ruggles, Dallas Morning News VI; Millis, New York Herald Tribune VI.
178. Harrison, Christian Science Monitor VI; P. Jordon-Smith, "Churchill Describes Triumph, Tragedy," Los Angeles
Times, November 29, 1953, sec.4, p.6; C. Roberts, "Churchill as Prophet of Perfidy: Struggle with US Sentiment,"
Washington Post, November 30, 1953, p.8B; New Orleans Times-Picayune VI.
179. Jackson, San Francisco Chronicle I, III; Weinberger, San Francisco Chronicle IV; V ; C. Weinberger, "Churchill's
Famous History of the Second World War Ends in Despair," San Francisco Chronicle, December 6, 1953, p.26.
180. Harrison, Christian Science Monitor V , V I ; Roberts, Washington Post V I ; Houghton Mifflin: M S Stor 318:
Sherwood to Laughlin, November 13, 1951; Laughlin to Sherwood, November 23, 1951.
181. Sherwood, New York Times Book Review VI.
182. Weiss, Commonweal III.
183. Brebner, Nation III, IV, V ; Brinton, Saturday Review of Literature IV; Newman, New Republic III, IV, V ; in
contrast, H . Nicolson, New Republic VI, was full of adulation for "the great man who stared down the Russian bull,"
and would have done so again at Potsdam if British voters had not intervened.
184. Brinton, Saturday Review of Literature V ; Perkins, Saturday Review of Lit. V I ; Newman, New Republic II, IV.
 228

185. A . West, New Yorker VI.

186. "Epilogue," Time, November 30, 1953, pp.106-09; Newsweek VI.
187. C H U R 4/18: D.G. Barnhouse {Eternity) to Churchill, June 1, 1950; E.G. to Sturdee, June 5, 1950; N . Sturdee to
Barnhouse, June 10, 1950; Barnhouse, Eternity III; Time II, VI; Lukacs, Commonweal V I .
188. Maloney, Military Affairs I; C. Rolo, "Reader's Choice,' 'Atlantic Monthly, 185 (June 1950): 80; R. Wilberforece,
Catholic World 171 (July 1950): 316.
189. Godfrey, Social Forces III; J. Farrell, Catholic Historical Review 38 (1952-53): 68; C. Witke, Mississippi Valley
Historical Review 38 (1951-52): 142-45; Rolo, Atlantic Monthly V ; H.S. Canby, Book-of-the-Month Club News,
November 1951, pp. 1-8.
190. Slosson, American Historical Review III, V ; P. Slosson, American Historical Review 56 (1951): 532.
191. R. Wilberforce, Catholic World 174 (March 1952): 474; R. Wilberforce, Catholic World 178 (March 1954): 477.
192. J. Godfrey, Social Forces 32 (1954): 381; Gooch, Contemporary Review'VI; Slosson, American Historical Review
VI; C. Rolo, "From D-Day to Potsdam," Atlantic Monthly 192 (Dec. 1953): 90-92; J.R. Hubbard, Mississippi Valley
Historical Review 39 (1952-53): 543-44; Current History 26 (January 1954): 62.
193. C H U R 4/17: W . L . White (Reader's Digest) to Churchill, October 10, 1950; S.F. Bemis, "Roosevelt's
Internationalism - and Churchill's," Yale Review 40 (1950-51): 149-52; Rolo, Atlantic Monthly V , V I ; Slosson,
American Historical Review VI.
194. Rolo, Atlantic Monthly VI; Bemis, Yale Review III; Morgenthau, World Politics V I .
195. F. Neilson, The Churchill Legend, IV, V , V I .
196. Slosson, American Historical Review V I ; Farrell, Catholic Historical Review V , V I ; J. Marshall-Cornwall,
International Affairs 30 (Oct. 1954): 494: defended Churchill's "prophetic warnings" about the Russians, but accused
him of naivete for crediting Stalin with keeping his word over Greece; G.L. A , Twentieth Century 155 (1954): 468-71.
197. R.R. James, ed, Churchill Speaks: Collected Speeches in Peace and War (NY: Barnes & Noble, 1980), p.451.
198. Sikorsky, "The Churchill Legend in the US," pp.139-40: it was not until his last years as Prime Minister that he
made a concerted attempt to utilize radio as a political tool to promote summit diplomacy.
199. D.C. Watt, "The Historiography of Appeasement," in Crisis and Controversy, ed. Alan Sked (London: 1976): he
sees 1956 as the decisive year in which revisionist historiography began to question Churchill's widely accepted
rendition of appeasement and war origins.
200. C H U R 4/452: "Good to Be 'Alive' Again," Variety, June 3, 1959, p . l ; Sikorsky, "The Churchill Legend," p.142:
in 1971, Young Winston was produced by R. Attenborough; Gilbert, Never Despair, p . l 196, Ft. 4.
201. C H U R 4/1: R. Boulting (Charter Film Productions) to Lord Bracken, Jan. 5, 1954; A . Moir to Boulting, undated.
202. Sikorsky, "The Churchill Legend," pp. 146-7.
203. C H U R 4/452: Hearst Metrotone News, Proposal for Script for T V historical drama, August 13, 1958; A B C T V
Sample Format for Churchill Series Based on Memoirs, undated; "Good to be ' A l i v e ' Again," Variety, p.40; Moir to
Churchill, June 29, 1959: Le Vien first offered $25,000 (US) plus 5% of the gross proceeds, or 25% of net profits.
204. C H U R 4/452: A B C T V Sample Format for Churchill Series; Montague-Brown to Moir, August 15,1959; Sikorsky,
"The Churchill Legend in the U S , " p. 148.
205. C H U R 4/452: A B C T V Sample Format for Churchill Series; "Good to be ' A l i v e ' Again," Variety, p.40; Moir to
Churchill, June 29, 1959; Le Vien to Churchill, August 11, 1959; C H U R 4/453: Le Vien Directive, undated.
206. C H U R 4/452: "Sir Winston's Life on T V in 234 Episodes," News Chronicle, September 24, 1959; C H U R 4/453:
A B C News Press Release, March 8, 1960; Montague-Brown to E. Peterson, April 23, 1960; F. W. Deakin, Churchill
the Historian, Pamphlet (Winston Churchill Memorial Lecture: Foundation Swisse, 1969).
207. C H U R 4/453: Le Vien Directive, undated; E. Gowing, "The Memoirs of Churchill - But No Sir Winston," Daily
Mail, April 21,1960; A B C T V to Montague-Brown, May 31,1960: all was not harmonious behind the scenes, however;
Le Vien had a falling out with his producer just two months before the series was scheduled to begin.
208. C H U R 4/453: R. Graff to Churchill, November 29, 1960; H . Harris, "Winston Churchill Documentary Debut
Matches Lavish Build-up," Philadelphia Inquirer, November 26, 1960; B . Gross, "Winston Churchill Story a
Tremendous T V Series," New York Daily News, November 28, 1960.
209. C H U R 4/452: Le Vien to Montague-Brown, September 2, 1959; C H U R 4/453: C. Smith, "Giant Rises Among
Pygmies," Los Angeles Times, November 28, 1960; P. Malloy, "Critic Flashes Victory Sign for Winnie," Chicago Sun-
Times, November 26, 1960.
210. C H U R 4/453: "Finest Half-Hour," Time, Dec. 5, 1960; J. O'Brian, "Kingsize Pack of Sir Winston," New York
Journal-American, Nov. 28, 1960; P.RH. Wright (British Embassy, Washington) to Montague-Brown, Feb. 14, 1961;
Le Vien to Moir, February 21,1961; E. Dalton Co. (R. Sessions) to Churchill, March 28, 1961; R.D. Graff to Churchill,
 229

October 1961; 4/454: R.D. Graff to Montague-Brown, October 3, 1961.

211. C H U R 4/453: J. Gould, "Series of Churchill's Memoirs," New York Times, November 28, 1960; H . Van Home,
"Churchill's V - for Valiant," New York World Telegram, November 28, 1960; Le Vien International Productions
(London) Release, undated.
212. C H U R 4/454: R. Karp to Moir, June 13, 1961: the literary trust's share of the proceeds exceeded $ 150,000; 4/454:
R.D. Graff to Montague-Brown, September 6, 1962:,in Canada, repeat broadcasts did exceedingly well, grossing an
average of $34,000 (US) per quarter. Aside from British and US markets, Canadian television profits surpassed all other
foreign receipts by a wide margin.
213. C H U R 4/456: S. Granett (New York Attorneys) to Moir, March 24, 1964: A B C - $1.4M; England - $382,623;
Canada - $195,598; Australia andNZ - $100,808; Japan - $34,500; 4/454: Le Vien to Montague-Brown, May 24, 1961.
214. C H U R 4/454: Le Vien to Montague-Brown, December 28, 1960; W. Stringer, "Sir Winston in Wartime," Christian
Science Monitor, March 20, 1962.
215. Sikorsky, "The Churchill Legend," p.146; C H U R 4/458: Book-of-the-Month Club News, June 1956, p.17; Cassell
to Montague-Brown, September 7,1960; 4/453: Le Vien to Montague-Brown, August 25,1960; 4/454: Moir to Le Vien,
July 1961; Le Vien to Montague-Brown, August 1, 1961, June 12, 1962, October 9, 1962, and December 3, 1962.
216. C H U R 4/455: Le Vien Prospectus, "The Churchill Story," April 1963; "The Finest Hours," Variety; M . Herbstman,
"Review of New Films," Film Daily, undated; "The Finest Hours," Le Vien Films Press Release; Interview by R. Burns
(BBC) with Jack Le Vien, December 20, 1963: innovative features included color tinting on old newsreels and
juxtaposing color with black-and-white imagery.
217. C H U R 4/456: F. Fogerty (English-Speaking Union of the Commonwealth) to Montague-Brown, February 3,1964;
"The Finest Hours," The Evening News and Star, April 24, 1964; Sikorsky, "The Churchill Legend," p. 151.
218. C H U R 4/456: Extract, B B C Radio Newsreel, April 28, 1964; Excerpt from Movie Go Round (BBC), May 4, 1964.
219. C H U R 4/456: '"Finest Hours' Sets New Box Office Record," Daily Cinema, May 8, 1964; B . Millar, "No Rush
for Exits After This Film," Glasgow Evening Times, June 19, 1964.
220. C H U R 4/456: Linde Taylor (Middlesex) to Sir Winston Churchill, undated; M . Considine (Lancashire) to
Columbia Pictures, September 26, 1964.
221. C H U R 4/456: "The Screen: Churchill's Finest Hour," New York Times, November 11, 1964, p.38; S. Granett
(Attorney) to Moir, November 17, 1964; B . Rosenthal, (Scholastic Magazine) to Columbia Pictures, Dec. 17, 1964;
Sikorsky "The Churchill Legend,", p. 151.
222. C H U R 4/456: A . Jespersen to J. Wiener (Columbia Pictures), undated collection of foreign reviews; P. Garran
(British Embassy, The Hague) to Moir, November 30, 1964.
223. "Churchill Lies in State," Japan Times, January 21, 1965, p . l : the previous one was for Gladstone in 1898.
224. "Requiem for Greatness," Time, February 5, 1965, pp.18-25; "Death of a Titan," Newsweek, February 1, 1965,
pp.38A-42D; US News and World Report, February 1, 1965, p.28; B R D W 20/1: Max Lerner, "This Was a Man," New
YorkPost, Janurary 25, 1965; Sikorsky, "The Churchill Legend in the US," p.5: another first was the US government's
decision to issue a commemorative stamp of Churchill that proved one of its most popular releases; New York Times,
January 26 and 31, 1965, sec. 1, p.34.
225. Sikorsky, "The Churchill Legend in the U S , " p.152; W C H L 5/la: D. Marrah, "The Homage of Many," Daily
Telegraph, January 30, 1965.
226. W C H L 5/la: "Out of Harrow," Manchester Guardian, Jan. 25, 1965; "The Great Deliverer," Times, Jan.25,1965.
227. W C H L 5/la: "Estimating Churchill," Observer, January 31, 1965.
228. Cockett, David Astor and the Observer, p. 147.
229. B R D W 20/1: J. Beavan, "Saviour of the Nation," Daily Mirror, Jan. 25, 1965, p.9; W C H L 5/lc: A . Bullock,
"Characteristics of a Historian," Listener, February 4, 1965, p. 1871.
 230

6 Conclusion

Winston Churchill was undoubtedly the premier political memoirist o f the 20 century. In

terms o f literary style, production, readership, and influence on historiography, Churchill's memoirs

of the second world war were exceptional. H i s powerful metanarrative and entertaining style o f

writing made the memoirs hugely popular with laymen and politically conscious readers alike.

Though Churchill demurred that he was not writing history, but a contribution to history, his

memoirs were nonetheless widely acclaimed by journalists and scholars as a literary and historical

work o f genius. H i s messages o f war and politics were studied with great interest by millions o f

readers in the English-speaking world, and in the process profoundly shaped collective historical

memory o f the second world war for at least two generations. W h y Churchill should have had such

an impact on war memory through his memoirs has been manifested by assessing his work through

the analytical prism enunciated in the U B C Political Memoirs Project. While the vast majority o f
1

political memoirs have a relatively "short shelf life," soon becoming o f interest only to antiquarians

or a few historians, The Second World War is remarkable in terms o f its enduring popularity, with

new editions still being produced more than fifty years after publication o f the original work.

A central factor in this longevity is that Churchill's memoirs contain all o f the elements

required for a superlative record o f the past. Its author was a charismatic political leader who was

capable o f writing sophisticated entertainment containing a powerful metanarrative o f a seminal

collective experience in the lives o f his readers. Churchill personalized and dramatized the

monumental scale of the war in a way that gave readers a sense of purposefulness to their experience

of chaotic and traumatic events. In this respect, he facilitated a common vision o f life through his

metanarrative o f war that made himself a totem o f memory and identity formation during the

unsettling years o f the early cold war. Churchill was the first major British political leader to write

his war memoirs, and in so doing achieved an enhanced sense o f authoritativeness by his reliance

on personal experience and a wealth o f classified documents. This imbued his memoirs with the

qualities o f contemporaneity and historical understanding that proved highly alluring for readers

hungry to learn the truth about the war. It enabled them to place within a broader historical context

their personal memories o f the war years, validating experiences and rendering them meaningful.

In addition, Churchill's psychological insights into other political leaders and the working o f

political systems, representing lessons in statecraft, were perceived by a great many readers as
 231

informative, entertaining, and evidence o f profound political wisdom. Such elements o f literary

greatness are what helped to ensure that The Second World War would have an enduring appeal with

the reading public.

A t the end o f the war, Churchill was already seventy years old and had sustained a political

defeat that removed him from high office. Y e t far from diminishing his energy or enthusiasm for

active political life, he was motivated to achieve a remarkable burst o f renewed literary output that

won him the Nobel Prize for Literature nine years later while serving to enshrine his reputation in

the English-speaking world as the second world war's greatest leader and dramatist. Aside from

being acclaimed as brilliant literature on a par with Shakespeare, Churchill's memoirs were a

tremendous stimulus for public discourse in the early postwar years regarding the war's meaning,

its lessons, and the role o f political leadership in times o f conflict. Churchill used his prodigious

literary talents to promote imperial revival through an Anglo-American nexus that would ensure

democratic capitalism's global hegemony. It was a conservative metanarrative o f legitimation that

sought to bolster the established political and economic order against threats from external

subversion. In expressing faith in Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian principles of human progress

and destiny, Churchill made himself the spokesman for deeply felt sentiments held by millions o f

readers o f all classes. 2

Churchill's memoirs succeeded in their overall objective o f indelibly stamping the author's

image as an indomitable war leader upon the collective consciousness o f the early postwar years.

Ironically, his essentially conservative metanarrative was upheld by the liberal intelligentsia who

reviewed his memoirs in major journals and national newspapers. Even most leftist writers did not

seriously challenge Churchill's depiction o f himself as the central political figure in the war whose

country was owed an immense debt o f gratitude for its efforts in defeating fascism. M u c h o f the

political press accepted Churchill's interpretation of appeasement and its implications for responding

to the communist challenge after the war. His literary legacy propounded political lessons that were

reinforced by a flood o f press commentary at a critical historical juncture when largely inchoate

recollections o f war experiences were solidified into collective memory. This process o f

memorialization during the 1940s and 50s helped to safeguard Churchill's reputation for political

greatness among laymen readers from decades o f subsequent scholarly revisionism.

The outpouring o f commentary on Churchill's war memoirs at the time o f their publication

became the foundation for an authoritative body of traditional historiography that dominated popular
 232

and scholarly war memory for many years. In fact, for popular writers o f history, members o f the

political right, and much o f the reading public, Churchill remains a powerful totem that shows no

sign o f losing its appeal at the onset o f the 2 1 century, much as Henry Luce had predicted.
st

However, intellectual analysis o f Churchill, his memoirs, and the war has undergone a sea-change

of opinion that shifted the historical emphasis from political to social, cultural, and economic

paradigms. The emergence o f New Left revisionism in the 1960s was the first concerted challenge

to Churchillian historiography in stressing the collective achievements o f British society during the

war, while minimizing the significance o f political leadership in achieving victory. Beginning in

the 1970s, a new revisionist historiography from the right issued a critique o f historical orthodoxy

that blamed Churchill's wartime leadership for accelerating British imperial decline rather than

revitalizing national greatness as he had alleged. But despite decades o f such scholarly revisionism,

public perceptions o f Churchill as a great historical icon who was wise, ingenious, and prophetic

remain largely unaffected. Keepers o f the Churchillian flame remain powerful, numerous, and

active in defending their hero against revisionists attacks, for reasons which are more political than

historical in nature.

After 1940, Churchill's reputation as the savior o f democracy obliterated notions o f him as

a colossal failure that had dominated political opinion before the war. W h e n asked in later years

what time period o f his life he would most wish to relive, he always said the early war years. In

writing his memoirs, he succeeded brilliantly in reinforcing his heroic image in collective memory,

erasing the bitter legacy o f past politics by placing blame for prewar failures on his rivals in

government. In this task, he enjoyed a great advantage, having privileged access to secret

government documents that gave The Second World War an official tone, significantly enhancing

its credibility with the politically conscious public. In 1969, historian J.H. Plumb asserted that all

historians o f W o r l d War II were directly or indirectly influenced by Churchill's reconstruction o f

events: "They move down the broad avenues which he drove through war's confusion and

complexity....Hence, Churchill the historian lies at the very heart o f all historiography o f World War

II, and w i l l always remain there. A n d the book w i l l continue to be read....It is, in spite o f its theme

-war and destruction- a heartening book." Churchill's genius was to dramatize a simple yet alluring
3

historical pattern o f national dishonor and defeat redeemed through personal courage and valor in

war, with himself the guiding hand who led the way to victory. It was a theme that captured the
 233

imagination and emotions o f a wide readership in the early postwar years.

Another reason why Churchill's memoirs proved so appealing and influential with readers

was the author's impeccable timing. His memoirs were produced a the confluence o f several critical

historical developments in the years following W o r l d War II. A t the very point when public relief

and j o y arising from victory were confronting a growing mood o f fear and despair over mounting

postwar tensions in the world, Churchill's memoirs appeared as the first authoritative account o f the

war years from a central actor in the drama. While several books from subordinates in Roosevelt's

administration had been produced right after the war, none o f their authors enjoyed Churchill's

status as a world-renowned colossus. In Britain, no accounts o f the war from Cabinet members or

top military officers were published to contradict Churchill's account o f the war until Attlee's

memoirs appeared in 1954, which were written in an utterly nondescript style o f writing that

M a l c o l m Muggeridge described as "so flat and banal as to be quite fascinating." In contrast,

4

Churchill's grand rhetorical flourishes, dramatic episodes, and massively documented story

overwhelmed the senses o f even the most critical o f readers.

Churchill's rendition o f the recent past was powerfully reinforced in the early postwar era

by Britain's official historians, whose first publications were released just as The Second World War

was completed. This voluminous body o f historical orthodoxy served to validate Churchill's

reputation for political prescience and strategic genius, its early accounts o f Britain's government

and people in wartime highly charged with social and patriotic idealism. The first official history,
5

published in 1953 concerning the Royal A i r Force, affirmed Churchill's critique o f Britain's prewar

rearmament policies. It argued that amid the hue and cry against increased expenditures from many

quarters, Churchill was the lone brave "voice o f reality" who warned that the country was

extraordinarily vulnerable to air attack. In 1957, the first volume o f the official history on grand

strategy ventured some criticisms of Churchill's audacity and impatience in war planning. But on

the broader issue o f his leadership and overall direction o f the war effort, Churchill was deemed to

have shown true greatness, far surpassing in depth o f understanding his American contemporaries.

The official account o f grand strategy was only completed in 1976, when Norman Gibbs published

his long-awaited appraisal o f rearmament and foreign policy during the interwar era. Gibbs'

interpretation reflected the intervening revisionist historiography o f the appeasement years,

expressing strong sympathy for Chamberlain's predicament and asserting the prewar leader had the

full support o f government and population. Nonetheless, in discussing Churchill's prewar role,
 . 234

Gibbs avoided attacking directly his reputation for having foreseen by the mid-1930s the tragic

course on which appeasement policies were headed. 6

Churchill's defense in his memoirs o f Britain's Mediterranean strategy during the war, and

his denials of ever having opposed the Normandy invasion, were affirmed by official historians, who

denigrated American mistrust of British intentions in setting war policy. Ironically, most Americans

after the war readily accepted the version put forward in Churchill's memoirs and the official

histories, treating it as conventional wisdom, even though the key documents on government

decision making had not yet become available for public inspection. Reflecting on war strategy and

the official histories, Ben-Moshe notes: "It was they who managed to embed the Churchillian-British

version o f events in historical consciousness and to persuade even respectable U S scholars o f its

veracity." Even after the archives on the war had been opened, this traditional interpretation o f the

war years was strongly reiterated by Churchill's official biographer Martin Gilbert, despite evidence

that London had wished to postpone the invasion of France until after German resistance collapsed. 7

For much o f the postwar era, criticism o f Churchill's memoirs were muted in Britain largely

because o f the second world war's extraordinary hold on national political culture and collective

identity. Churchill's metanarrative o f war placed Britain at the forefront o f world historical

developments at a critical turning point in human affairs, tightly connecting British identity with the

war experience. Intellectuals at this time found compelling Churchill's message o f an a l l -

conquering Anglo-American alliance against fascism, since after the war it was viewed as a template

for addressing future international crises. World War II was seen by them as a seminal event in 20 th

century British history, notes M a l c o l m Smith: "The war in general, and 1940 in particular, acted

through the 1950s, 1960s, and into the 1970s as the fulcrum o f contemporary British politics."

Britons came to perceive 1940 as the end o f bad times, marked by twenty years o f indecision and

incompetence in government, and the start o f "good times," marked by national consensus that

rallied behind decisive and experienced leadership. It was a scholarly affirmation o f the polemical

thesis contained in Churchill's The Gathering Storm*

The Churchillian view of the war perceived it as a heroic struggle for democracy and Anglo-

American power. It won widespread support in Britain and America from the bulk o f the political

right, liberal center, and moderate left. Some leftists, however, offered a contrary view o f the war

as a demonstration o f the virtues o f democratic collectivism. This idea, propounded by J.B.

Priestley, J . M . Keynes, and W i l l i a m Beveridge among others, competed for public attention and
 235

support in the early postwar era with the Churchillian metanarrative. In this battle for hearts and

minds, the image makers on the right proved masters at dramatizing and disseminating Churchill's

messages through print and film media that legitimated conservative social hegemony. The right's

ability to counteract the leftist metanarrative o f challenge was enhanced by the fact that victory over

fascism in 1945 made most Britons highly nationalistic and conscious o f their distinctness from the

rest o f Europe, which had succumbed to tyranny. This popular patriotism was encouraged through

the development o f a mystique o f the war years that transformed it into a golden age o f national

unity, strength, and purposefulness. In contrast, the rhetoric o f democratic collectivism, with its

predominantly negative images o f misery and hardship suffered under wicked Toryism before and

during the war, proved less emotionally uplifting to ordinary Britons. 9

Churchillian pride in national identity was further enhanced by a strong postwar reaction

against the nihilism and pessimism of the previous generation of war writers who were often thought

to have been responsible for weakening Western resolve to counteract the fascist challenge. In the

1940s, the specter o f a new totalitarian menace was raised by the right that was said to be as

threatening to democratic liberties as Nazism. In the midst o f this new peril, Churchill offered a

metanarrative that promoted nationalism and "public spiritedness." A m o n g Churchill's countrymen,

the experience o f Dunkirk and the Blitz were seen as vindications o f British democracy and its

historic role as defender o f the free world. Cultural historian R. Samuel contends that in the early

postwar years Britain was a nation " i n love with itself and its' sense o f national character," a

sentiment given powerful expression in Churchill's memoirs. 10

British national identity became

centered on a fundamental belief in the country's uniqueness and divinely inspired mission. School

textbooks during the 1940s and 50s adhered to this theme in portraying Britain as the greatest

embodiment o f democracy and freedom in the world, advancing strongly nationalistic narratives that

identified major historical personalities with the essence of nationhood. In contrast to Europe, where

national identity was highly problematic after the war on account o f the legacy of N a z i occupation,

school texts in Britain reflected an unbroken national consciousness that focused on individual

leaders and their actions rather than social or economic processes o f historical change. Since there

was no centralized curriculum in Britain, large commercial publishers were given virtually free reign

to promote conservative messages among the young by commissioning texts that lauded the qualities

of great British leaders."

Orthodox historiography held that Churchill's memoirs spoke for all Britons who recognized
 236

the war leader's sense o f national and imperial identity as their own. Leftists who disagreed with

his metanarrative were branded by the right as hypocrites for decrying British imperialism in A s i a

and Africa while turning a blind eye to Soviet imperialism in eastern Europe. Consequently,

Churchill's memoirs were widely accepted by scholars as a thoughtful thesis on war and peace, the

product of a great accumulation of experience by a statesman o f the first order. His inflexible stance

on the merits o f empire and the dangers o f ideological extremism were deemed to have been

validated by postwar events, while leftist critiques o f imperialism were dismissed as serving the

interests o f Soviet propaganda. M a n y fiction writers after the war followed Churchill's lead in

attacking the "anti-colonial myth" by depicting freedom fighters as opportunistic thugs out to

oppress native peoples rather than liberate them from foreign occupation. Colonial movements that

advocated self-determination were considered a swindle and power-grab by native political elites.

Such attitudes reveal that many postwar narratives expressed a shrill urge to defend old traditions

and mores in the wake o f socialism's political victory in 1945, and the growth o f communist power

abroad. 12

Churchill's anti-appeasement message acutely affected the reactions o f political elites in

Britain and America to international crises after 1945. H i s outlook on appeasement, leadership, and

cold war origins were studied carefully by foreign policy elites. North Korea's invasion of the South

in 1950, Egypt's nationalization o f the Suez Canal Company in 1956, and the Cuban missile crisis

o f 1962 all came to be regarded as key tests o f Western resolve and responsiveness to aggression

by dictators in much the way that Churchill had perceived the Rhineland occupation o f 1936 as a

critical turning point on the road to war. The idea o f appeasement as a policy symptomatic o f

national decline and moral decay became commonplace among politicians and foreign policy

analysts in the two decades following World War II. B y 1948, Labour's centrist leaders had shifted
13

from a prewar policy o f pacifism and socialist idealism toward a Churchillian foreign policy that

eschewed political radicalism at home or.accommodation with communism abroad. Attlee was

inspired by Churchill's "unique gift" of leadership, which he praised in his memoirs as free from the

"taint o f M u n i c h . " He also defended the archetypal image o f Churchill as the savior o f his country,

rejecting radical leftist views o f the war leader as a dangerous reactionary. 14

In 1955, a turning point in British political history was reached when Attlee and Churchill

both resigned from leadership o f their respective parties. It marked the end o f a political era imbued

with confident Victorian moral visions of Britain's place in the world. Though their parties belonged
 237

in principle at opposite ends o f the political spectrum, both leaders' creeds stemmed from the same

broad psychological roots: "They belonged, in Attlee's words 'to a generation which had believed

that the world was more or less settled, that it had become to a greater or less extent civilized.' Both

Tories in their youth, neither had ever doubted the value o f the English contribution to civilization

and each, in his own way, had sought to extend it." But by the mid-1950s, British leaders were

painfully conscious o f their country's declining world power. A t the same time, the shadow o f

M u n i c h hung heavily over the nation's political culture, serving as a major inducement for the Suez

intervention in 1956. 15
Few political thinkers at the time were willing to challenge Churchill's

assumption that Britain must endeavor to remain a great power, though they may have disagreed

on the appropriate strategy for sustaining greatness. Conservatives had been angered by Labour's

"scuttling o f empire" in Asia at the hands o f "a few pro-communist agitators" a decade earlier. In

1956, the new Tory leader Eden felt that the lessons o f 1940 meant Britain must retain the right and

freedom to shape its own destiny. He accepted Churchill's metanarrative o f imperial greatness, but

neglected his mentor's stricture on the necessity o f close Anglo-American cooperation in setting

foreign policy objectives. 16

The impact o f the Suez fiasco in altering perceptions o f Britain's role in the world is still a

matter for debate among historians. Some scholars see few significant changes in British imperial

policy before the 1960s, while others contend that Suez represented a last-gasp attempt to stem

American hegemony in the Middle East, whose failure ended all further British pretensions o f great

power status. John Darwin's multi-causal analysis o f the end o f empire considers it a mistake to

exaggerate the impact o f Suez on British imperial consciousness, since foreign policy elites

continued to use ruthless methods against colonial "extremists" for many years afterwards. Eden's

fall from power in 1956 led to the accession o f Harold Macmillan, another Churchill protegee who

shared the war leader's far-reaching conceptions of British power and influence. Darwin contends

that not until the sterling crisis o f 1967 did "the dikes o f illusion and rhetoric" finally break, leading

to Britain's abandonment o f all strategic commitments outside o f Europe. 17

In his latter years, Churchill contented himself with reading the continuous stream of books

and articles that exalted his war leadership. Memoirs written by officers from Britain's military

establishment mostly supported Churchill's contention that he had dominated allied war strategy.

For example, H . Ismay's memoirs acclaimed Churchill as the master planner o f victory in the war,

while even Wavell, Auchinleck, and strategical thinker J.F.C. Fuller agreed that his personality and
 238

leadership inspired war planning. Thus, the publication of Lord Alanbrooke's highly critical diaries
18

in 1957 shocked many people who saw them as a bolt out o f the blue that was an affront to

Churchill's reputation. Privately, Lord Moran considered them the first serious contribution to the

task o f placing Churchill's war leadership into its appropriate historical context, but a great many

other readers in Britain and America lamented the tarnishing o f a legend. U n t i l the late 1950s,

Churchill had been treated as a kind o f infallible demi-god in Britain and America, but the

publication o f Alanbrooke's diary began to loosen tongues outside o f Parliament for the first time

since the war. Ironically, Alanbrooke had sought to soften the harshness o f his diary criticisms by

writing a foreword to the published volume that glowingly praised "the great man to whom, above

all others, we owe our national survival." 19

This tribute, however, did little to mitigate the anger

from Churchill's defenders, who rightly saw the diary as a direct assault on the postwar image o f

the war leader as a genius who enjoyed the full confidence o f his Service chiefs. The hue and cry

against Alanbrooke was such that he and his publisher were forced to issue repeated assurances in

public that the diary was not meant as an attack on Churchill per se, nor a rebuke o f his political

leadership in wartime. That same year, Major-General John Kennedy produced his memoirs, which

also challenged the Churchill legend by contending that Britain's leader was little more than a

cheerleader during the war who often proved more o f a hindrance than a help with his long-winded

and irrelevant distractions during strategy sessions. In response, Churchill's supporters attacked the

general as disloyal, disgruntled, and incorrect in thinking that the war leader was anything less than

indispensable for the survival o f Western civilization. 20

Churchill's death in 1965 produced many accolades for the man millions of people in Britain

and America felt was the greatest statesman o f the 2 0 century. D a v i d Cannadine notes that it
th

signified a "final display o f national thanksgiving and global homage, unique in its intensity and

unrivaled in scope....Whether predicting history, making history, or writing history, he dwarfed the

pygmy ploddings o f ordinary mortals." The extravagant collective grief at the time o f his funeral

was a reflection o f the fact that Britons were burying with Churchill their own imperial past, says

Rees: "[I]t was a nation in mourning for his and its own past greatness." But once the venerated
21

warrior was laid to rest in a grand pageant befitting a king, the ensuing months and years witnessed

an opening o f the floodgates o f restraint for those who wished to demystify the Churchillian totem

that had been erected over two decades o f historical orthodoxy. M o r a n ' s diaries on his years as

Churchill's personal physician, published in 1966, offered startling insights into his patient's many
 239

physical and mental infirmities, a side to the British war leader that not even political confidantes

had appreciated fully. Moran depicted Churchill as a morbid neurotic who was obsessed with his

place in history, his memoirs a product o f the author's determination to prove, to posterity that he

was as far-sighted about the Soviet menace as he alleged to have been about N a z i Germany. Moran

argued that this objective o f Churchill's compelled h i m to deliberately obscure his inconsistencies

during the war, so as to disguise his many strategic and political blunders. Moran felt that Churchill

had tried to take all the credit for the triumph over Nazism, while blaming others for the tragic

failure to anticipate the Soviet postwar threat. Most damaging, Moran alleged that Churchill's mind

had become bereft o f new ideas by 1949; his wartime optimism gone, the former war leader

gloomily cast a glance at the future before hurriedly retreating into the glorious past. 22

Moran's damaging commentary invited a severe riposte from Churchillian defenders o f the

faith, who closed ranks to rebut the physician's "incorrect and misleading" book. In a collection o f

essays published in 1968, they maintained that during the "devil's decade" preceding the war, and

especially in the dark days of 1940-42, Churchill stood as a tower o f inspiration to all democratically

minded people. The war leader's history o f that period was praised as a "great pageantry works"

by a titanic political figure. Lord NormanBrook (formerly Cabinet Secretary Brook), expressed deep

appreciation for Churchill's prescience and political genius, rebuking M o r a n for going beyond a

doctor's expertise when he offered personal assessments o f his patient as war leader and writer.

Leslie Rowan and John Colville, Churchill's Private Secretaries during the war, indignantly asserted

that they would never consider betraying the sacred trust o f "the Secret Circle" as Moran had done;

his book was an inexcusable breach o f confidence. They dismissed the physician's commentary as

being unfairly based on a number o f infrequent contacts with Churchill when he was i l l . 2 3

This spirited rearguard action by Churchillians was met a year later by R . R . James' first

comprehensive revisionist biography o f the British leader in Churchill: A Study in Failure, using

recently opened government archives on the war. James sought to place Churchill's heroic

reputation, based on his dogged defense of Britain in 1940, within the context o f his entire political

career. In doing so, he portrayed the "savior of his country" as a failure in virtually every one of his

endeavors before the war. The wartime events from Dunkirk to Pearl Harbor, when Britain stood

alone against N a z i tyranny, were depicted as a historical aberration rather than the culmination o f

some divinely ordained plan. James' biography precipitated more revisionist assessments Of

Britain's war leader through scholarly analysis o f documents from the Public Records Office that
 240

undermined Churchill's reputation from the war. Nonetheless, the popular image o f Churchill as

the indomitable war hero who saved civilization seems to have been hardly affected. Churchill's

memoirs continued to be the first historical work that intelligent-minded lay readers turned to when

they studied the war years. Furthermore, orthodox historiography o f Churchill in books and film
24

continued to be produced by popular historians in great abundance.

In America, many scholars continued to view Churchill's wartime relationship with F D R as

a glowing symbol o f Anglo-American amity, overlooking a large body o f historical evidence that

revealed there were deep fissures in the allied leaders' war aims and decision making throughout

the conflict. For these historians, Churchill's memoirs continued to serve as a guide for interpreting

wartime politics and diplomacy, with the author seen as the wise and prescient elder statesman who

foresaw dangers to democracy when others could not. Postwar developments were thought to have

vindicated fully Churchill's courage, strategy, and tactics during the second world war and ensuing

cold war. Neo-orthodoxy, as it came to be called in the 1980s, saw Churchill's policies and

metanarrative as furnishing the basis for the eventual liberation o f Europe from dictatorships of both

the left and right, thereby proving that his messages were still a valid guide for international

relations at the end o f the 20 century.

th 25
In 1988, the popular historian Martin Gilbert completed

work on the monumental eight-volume official biography o f Churchill's life that had been initiated

more than twenty years earlier by the subject's son Randolph. After Randolph completed the first

two volumes, Gilbert took over the project under the guiding principle that he was to allow his

subject to speak for himself as much as possible through the documents. The result o f this approach

was that the later volumes on the war years adhered closely to the themes propounded by Churchill

in his own memoirs. Gilbert defended Churchill's controversial wartime policies at Teheran and

Yalta, contending that the British leader was a victim o f Stalin's sinister duplicity and cunning, and

was not a willing accomplice in the subjugation o f eastern Europe as some critics maintained. 26

The British people's ongoing absorption with the memory o f their country's war experience

had given Churchill powerful leverage in the early postwar era to shape collective identity based on

his imperial metanarrative. J.H. Plumb Observed: "Unless one understands this instinctive attitude

to the past held by most Englishmen, one cannot understand the astonishing dialogue which

Churchill held with his people during the war." This dialogue obviously continued well after the

war, with Churchill's history o f past greatness influencing popular perceptions o f the meaning o f

nationhood. Political culture in Britain retained a sense o f faith in Churchill's notion o f national
 241

history as a long and glorious progression o f parliamentary democracy and a civilizing world

mission. In contrast, leftist revisionism came to perceive such concepts o f history and destiny as
27

hopelessly archaic. Early postwar unease among a handful o f scholars about Britain's role in the

world erupted into "full-blown neurosis" in the 1960s, claims D J . Taylor, when the reality o f

economic decline in relation to other world powers became a dominant sub-text o f intellectual

discourse. Churchill's massive symbolic authority was simply not enough to allay growing concerns

that Britain's economic and political retreat in the world was due to an acute inability o f Britons to

adapt to changing global circumstances. A wave o f leftist scholarship by a generation o f postwar

historians seriously undermined the nationalist metanarrative, 28

as intellectuals in Britain responded

to the decline o f empire in ways that were ambivalent toward Churchillian notions o f national

greatness. Socialist "Little Englandism" saw imperialism as an aberration in British history, and

hence not a fundamental element o f national identity. It rejected the grandiose foreign policies o f

Tory elites, criticizing Churchill's notion o f a cold war alliance with the U S while supporting the

cause o f "third world" liberation movements. 29

O n the other hand, Labour Party centrists after the

war promoted the Commonwealth ideal which maintained that Britain still had an important and

constructive role in world affairs. Its viewpoint adhered to Churchillian notions o f imperial revival,

though Labour leaders preferred to use the rhetoric o f "development." Anti-imperialist leftists

disparaged such ideas as socialism that had "ceased to decry the wickedness o f empire past and

exalted a better empire to come." They believed that British imperialism in the postwar was doomed

to collapse, a view that came to dominate N e w Left revisionism in the 1960s. 30

Leftist critiques were shaped by the breakdown of wartime solidarities and social consensus

in the 1960s that were in turn brought about by economic decline. The apparent national malaise

was exacerbated by unfulfilled expectations o f a welfare Utopia after 1945, contributing to social

discontent, the decline o f deference, and deep social divisions in Britain. British historiography in

turn became increasingly fragmented through perceptions o f national history as "the interaction o f

several peoples and several histories." Linda Colley's study o f national identity, Britons: Forging

the Nation, argued that wars in the 20 century had produced a general resurgence o f nationalism
th

in the world, but that in Britain the end o f imperial power marked a crisis in national identity as the

country slid into "a process of dissolution, into Europe or the mid-Atlantic, or a post-imperial fog." ' 3

Leftist revisionists saw Churchill as a war leader bent on "the biggest restoration o f traditional

values since 1660" in his desire to divert the radical groundswell emerging from the war with
 242

palliatives o f patriotism and glory. The state hegemonic machine carried Churchill's government

and the British people through an era o f war and international crises while maintaining a

conservative consensus premised on the social and political status quo. But beginning in the 1960s,

revisionists argued, public spiritedness declined along with the ethic o f duty, obligation, and

sacrifice toward higher causes. 32

This contributed to a decline in state prestige and the loss o f social

hegemony by establishment elites. According to Raphael Samuel, "British history is no longer, as

it was in the heyday o f imperialism, about the triumph o f the nation-state - or the 'genius' o f the

British constitution - but rather a world o f interiors." He lauded the romance o f everyday life in the

study o f ordinary culture, with patriotic metanarrative a necessary victim o f this shift in focus. 33

This trend in intellectual thought produced harsher appraisals o f Churchill's political

leadership that undermined the iconic image of him created by rightist orthodoxy. Churchill's vision

o f national unity in wartime was contradicted by T o m Harrisson's first detailed assessment of Mass

Observation data in 1972, which revealed that at no time during the war was the public entirely

united on anything. Perceptions o f the war as a golden age o f British national consciousness were

found to be based on unchecked memory and a massive cover-up by ruling elites regarding the

grimness o f the war experience. However, contradicting the "myth o f the B l i t z " in the early 1970s

was still a risky proposition for writers, and it drew a storm o f protests from former officials,

veterans, and ordinary citizens who insisted that indeed there had been much "gallantry, public

spirit, and bravery" in the war. In a review o f Harrisson's study, historian Paul Addison made

reference to incompetent local officials and a breakdown in the political system during the Blitz,

prompting more sharp protests against this apparent besmirching o f collective war memory.

Critiques o f local government in the war based on Mass Observation data appeared at about the

same time that other historians were reassessing the role o f central authorities during the war. 34

Manfred Weidhorn contended that Churchill's war record varied markedly from the "Shakespearean

monarch triumphing personally over his enemy" that was allegedly depicted in his memoirs. He

disparaged The Second World War as a paean to "the Great M a n o f History" that reflected

Churchill's sympathetic identification with anyone in a position o f high authority, even tyrants, in

an attempt to ennoble his own status. Similarly, Robert Payne argued that "Churchill at his worst

is scarcely credible, so ponderous, so pontifical, so self-indulgent that he might be an elderly

archbishop gone to seed." 35

But despite these uncompromising attacks on Churchill's memoirs and

reputation, the N e w Left's counter-narrative failed to excite the public's imagination in the way that
 243

Churchill's stirring dramatization o f war had managed decades earlier. Consequently, popular

sentiment remained fixated on images o f a heroic war that had been fashioned by the right through

its dominance o f television, film, and popular historical literature.

Beginning in the 1970s, the left's refutation o f Churchill's metanarrative gained an unlikely

ally in the rise o f N e w Right revisionism. While the leftist critique o f orthodox historiography

marked the culmination o f a long fitful decline in nationalistic literature that began in the aftermath

of World War I, rightist revisionism constituted a sweeping assault upon all prior interpretations o f

Churchill, his memoirs, and Britain's role in the w o r l d . 36

The N e w Right asserted that all previous

explanations o f the war were fraught with "wilful distortions, mythologies, and coverups."

Therefore, it sought to re-write the history o f World War II by arguing that a tragic mistake had been

made in 1940 to continue the struggle against Nazism under Churchill's leadership. I f Britain's

leaders had made peace with Hitler after the fall o f France, rightist revisionists argued, the empire

and Commonwealth would have been preserved, Germany and Russia would have bludgeoned

themselves into exhaustion and ruin, while America would have remained an isolated nation with

only minor influence on world affairs. That would have left Britain to play the dominant role in

regulating the international order, much as it had done in the 1920s. Consequently, the N e w Right

saw appeasers like Chamberlain and Halifax as the true heroes o f Britain, because they had been

motivated by a desire to preserve national strength through an accommodation with Hitler. In

contrast, Churchill was deemed the villain who mortgaged the nation's power and wealth to America

in order to carry on the war, while falsely claiming it was a fight for British freedom. 37

To some extent, right revisionist attacks on popular memory o f Britain's last great collective

achievement as a nation arose out o f disenchantment with socialist collectivism's failed promises.

That is, its proponents blamed Churchill for facilitating Labour's rise to power in 1945, which

resulted in the "ruinous effects" upon the economy and morale o f postwar welfare reforms. It was

felt that i f Churchill had attended more closely to his duties as Tory Party leader during the war,

rather than immersing himself in military affairs, Labour would never have won the first postwar

election. N e w Right revisionists took much o f their inspiration from the rise o f Thatcherism's "new

orthodoxy" that sought to dismantle the welfare state and unshackle capitalist initiative. A n early 38

advocate o f this perspective, historian Correlli Barnett contended that W o r l d War II was both the

defining experience o f Britain in the 20 th

century and the cause o f its "sclerosis as a modern

capitalist society," an attitude that Addison likened to a social Darwinian assault on the British
 244

tradition o f "romantic humanism." Barnett remorselessly lampooned socialist policies that turned

postwar Britain into "a dank reality o f a segregated, subliterate, unskilled, unhealthy and

institutionalized proletariat hanging on the nipple o f state maternalism." A t the same time, he

blamed Churchill for being the person in charge when the mortgage came due, accusing the war

leader o f tunnel vision in staking everything on a single-minded pursuit o f total victory that only

guaranteed Britain's financial ruin. 39

In the 1990s, British historian John Charmley fused many o f the postwar critiques from the

right and left into a devastating assault on Churchill's reputation. Charmley claimed that Churchill

badly overestimated American altruism and Soviet fidelity during the war, with disastrous results

for British sovereignty and power. H e maintained that Churchill passed up a perfectly good

opportunity for achieving "reasonable" peace terms in 1940, and the chance for "excellent terms"

in 1941, because he was bent on pursuing a delusional "chimera o f power" through an Anglo-

American alliance. Charmley's well-documented biography o f Churchill in 1993 won strong

approval from the liberal Guardian, which stated in a review essay that Churchill had "sold every

stick o f family silver to his American cousins....All went bust in 1945. O h yes, and the Russians

ended up with half o f Europe, as Churchill spotted too late." In contrast, the conservative Times

deemed Charmley's study to be mean-spirited and displayed a shocking lack o f appreciation for the

consequences o f a negotiated peace with Hitler in 1940 or ' 4 1 . 40

Charmley's views diverged most

radically from traditional historiography in his interpretation o f Churchill's war aims in 1940. While

early postwar scholarship saw Churchill's call for total victory as evidence o f the war leader's

"indomitable stoutness and unflinching defense o f democracy," says D a v i d Reynolds, Charmley

ridiculed it as proof of his "pathetic self-delusion." He argued that Churchill overextended imperial
41

defenses by adopting romantic heroism as his guiding policy, oblivious o f the country's limited

economic resources that necessitated a compromise peace. In addition, Churchill's claim in his

memoirs to have always perceived -and worked to minimize- the danger o f a ruthless, immoral,

Stalinist Russia gaining too much power in Europe was dismissed by Charmley as nonsense.

Churchill's attitude toward Stalin during the war was judged uncertain and inconsistent, an

assessment that was reiterated by military historian Tuvia Ben-Moshe. Charmley considered it

supremely ironic that Britons in the 1990s found themselves in a German-dominated Europe despite

having fought two world wars to prevent that very result, which he said cast serious doubt on any

need for a "finest hour." A s for Britain's ally in the war, Charmley saw Americans as motivated by
 245

calculation, not sentiment or racial affinity as Churchill claimed, with F D R a Machiavellian master

strategist who ran rings around the Prime Minister. Charmley contended that British leaders should

have sought accommodation with Hitler during the war, which would have protected the national

interest far more than Churchill's scheme o f an Anglo-American world condominium. 42

In a critique o f right revisionist historiography, L . D - Rubin notes that these scholars

perceptions o f the war appear to have been shaped by their middle class education that led them to

anticipate rising to positions of privilege in class-conscious Britain. But having attained their career

goals, they discovered that Britain as a nation, and the ruling elite as a class, were much diminished

from what they had been before the war. It has prompted a rightist backlash that cast about for a

scapegoat, fixing on Churchill, who happened to be in power when Britain's financial independence

was abandoned in the all-or-nothing fight against Hitlerism. But this perspective ignores the fact

that Britain and the empire had been in decline for more than fifty years prior to Churchill assuming

the nation's highest office in 1940. 43

It is most unlikely that any British leader could have halted

the nation's slide into second-power status in an age o f superpowers. According to the Times,

Charmley's critique o f Churchill is so sweeping and unrelenting that it raises questions i f it isn't

"politically motivated perversity rather than scholarship." But while Charmley's motives raised

eyebrows among Conservatives, fears o f a much greater perversity have arisen in relation to the

revisionist work o f D a v i d Irving, whose biography o f Churchill in 1988 fell into the gutter by

rendering a gross caricature o f the man. Irving maintained, among other things, that Churchill was

a drunken megalomaniac who deliberately prolonged the war to satisfy his mad craving for power.

His biography was so controversial that he could find no British publisher w i l l i n g to handle it,

despite Irving's previous popularity with non-academic readers o f history. 44

Despite thirty years o f revisionism that has sought to lessen Churchill's popular reputation

for statesmanship and strategy, the press in Britain and America continues to recognize in his

persona good copy for selling newspapers. Newspapers eagerly report whenever possible any

plausible -and sometimes implausible- stories about Britain's most famous war leader. For example,

a series o f articles in the late 1990s alleged that Churchill was a debauched drug-addict who plotted

to assassinate Mussolini, deliberately withheld news o f Japan's plan to attack Pearl Harbor, helped

Hitler's notorious Secretary Martin Bormann escape Berlin in 1945 (and found h i m a home in the

English countryside), and assisted a daughter-in-law to cuckold his son Randolph. In 1997, an

advance o f half-a-million pounds was paid by one British newspaper for the right to publish such
 246

tales about C h u r c h i l l . 45
Evidently, four decades o f scholarly revisionism by right and left-wing

writers aimed at contextualizing or diminishing Churchill's historical significance have proven

unsuccessful in weaning the general public from its fascination for the man. In the 1950s, his

memoirs repeatedly topped bestseller lists in the U S and Britain, and in Gallup opinion polls he was

the most admired living man among respondents. H e topped the list o f outstanding living

personalities in the world in a December 1959 poll, even though by then he was 84 years old, nearly

deaf, and senile. Public opinion does not appear to have changed much over the intervening years
46

either. Nationalistic ideals associated with Churchill remain a powerful, half-submerged force in

Britain, says Samuel: "Fantasies of national rebirth remain a stock-in-trade o f political rhetoric, 'our

threatened values' a favorite theme o f newspaper editorials and pundits... 1588, the defeat o f the

Spanish Armada, and 1940, when Britain stood alone against the dictators, remain magic dates in

the national calender." Churchill, like Lincoln in America and de Gaulle in France, has become a

kind o f eternal symbol that is always available in times o f crisis to remind people o f past

achievements, and to inspire them to greater deeds or sacrifice. 47

Churchill's long-term impact upon the American public and its politicians has been equally

profound, i f not more so. B y the time o f his retirement in 1955, he was already viewed as a living

monument who perfectly symbolized the American ideals o f liberty and freedom. Bruce Lenman

notes o f his countrymen, Churchill was "a mirror in which to admire themselves as they saluted

him." A veritable Churchill cult has developed in the U S , a product o f informal public relations by

right-wing organizations that is the envy o f governments. According to British expatriate

Christopher Hitchens, there is no other country in the world that matches America in its fascination

for all things British, which most often manifests itself in a powerful urge to conjure up a sense o f

grandeur on occasions o f war. Hitchens contends that "this relationship is really at bottom a

transmission belt by which British conservative ideas have infected America, the better to be re-

transmitted to England." He argues that the notion o f a "special relationship" between Britain and

America has been artificially created by the two nations' ruling elites to suit their respective self-

interests. 48
In the 1960s, some o f those elites created the International Churchill Society, based in

Washington, D . C , as a nexus o f scholarship, trusts, foundations and institutions to promote the

British connection using Churchill as its most powerful totem. In one respect, Churchill is safer for

Americans to quote freely than even Lincoln because he was never part o f any domestic political

faction. Though he is deemed to stand above the political fray in America, it is Republicans who
49
 247

have embraced most openly his metanarrative. Casper Weinberger declared in a speech before the

Churchill Society: "In many ways, you can find in the Churchill writings almost everything, as you

can in the Scriptures." Annual Churchill Society conventions are attended by an odd mix o f war

veterans, military buffs, and senior political officials, revealing a meeting o f hearts and minds among

patricians and plebeians around the image o f Churchill, revealing that fascination for anything to

do with Churchill extends far beyond an elitist American clique. In the media, conservative political

pundit W i l l i a m Safire refers to Churchill approximately once every four columns that he writes in

the New York Times. A Lexus computer survey conducted in the late 1980s found over 1200

references to Churchill in major American newspapers in just a nine-month period. Hitchens notes

that a fascination with Churchillian ways is not confined to amateur Anglophiles, since it includes

"the neuroses o f would-be great politicians" in America, who occasionally take to "smoking cigars,

drinking brandy, and giving dictation in the bath." 50

In fact, the media and public in America appear to feed off each other in perpetuating the

Churchill mystique. In a 1987 Los Angeles Times' survey, Churchill was considered one o f the top

three figures used by American parents as a role model for their children, a finding that shows

remarkable similarity to opinion polls taken in the 1950s. This sentiment is to a large extent based

on a patriotic, idealized, and highly selective reading o f Churchill and the Anglo-American

partnership during the second world war. Anyone with the temerity to attack this image o f the

"good war" in a just cause is usually vilified in the media, as Paul Fussell discovered after writing

his scathing rebuke o f military incompetence and pettiness in Wartime. ^ 5

Churchill and the

Churchillian metanarrative not only make good copy for the press, they continue to elicit the

involvement o f publishers in finding new ways to promote the British leaders' war memoirs. In the

publishing industry's millennium commemorations, Churchill's memoirs featured prominently in

a series o f "Top-100" lists. Random House chose The Second World War as one o f its "top-100

nonfiction books" o f the century, based on a survey o f library editorial boards across the country

Churchill also appeared high on Time magazine's readers' poll o f Person o f the Century, after an

intensive on-line campaign by Churchillians who tried to rally public support for placing their

candidate at the top o f the list. Finally, Churchill was also among the top fifteen names to appear

on the U S Historical Society's lists o f century and millennium greats. 52

The fact that books by and about Churchill continue to feature prominently in British and

North American bookstores is an indication that the "Churchill industry" is a thriving business at
 248

the dawn o f the 2 1 century. A s part o f its millennium celebrations, Houghton M i f f l i n released a
st

reprint edition o f Churchill's memoirs, introduced by acclaimed military historian John Keegan.

It appears that four decades o f historical revisionism have hardly made a dent i n public perceptions

o f Britain's war leader as the irrepressible hero who saved civilization. The emergence o f post-

modernist discourse in academia seems to have only widened the gap o f incomprehension between

the reading public and intellectuals. While deconstructionists may see Churchill's metanarrative as

a form o f hegemonic social control propagated by ruling elites, among laymen readers its author is

still an idealized figure o f moral and martial vigor who can be unequivocally admired, unlike the

corrupt and ineffectual politicians o f our unheroic present. The grand imperial narrative that

Churchill fervently believed in may no longer resonate as it once did among readers, the "special

relationship" may lie dormant for extended periods o f time, and the end o f the cold war may have

dissipated the sense o f national purpose that heightened the relevance o f Churchill's messages in the

1950s, but his reputation for greatness continues to inspire many historically-minded people to

believe that they stand upon the shoulders o f a titan.

Chapter 6 Endnotes
1. In articulating the functions and elements of great memoirs, I rely primarily on the works of G. Egerton, e d . Political
Memoir, pp.342-51; "Politics and Autobiography," pp.221-39; "The Lloyd George War Memoirs," pp.55-57,89-93.
2. Callahan, Retreat from Empire, p.245; Brendon, Churchill, pp.205-06; Blake and Louis, eds, Churchill, p.4; M .
Weidhorn, Churchill's Rhetoric and Political Discourse (Lanham, M D : University Press of America, 1987), pp.4,9,67.
3. Plumb in Churchill Revised, pp.149,166; Woods, Artillery of Words, p. 139; but see Cairns, "Clio and the Queen's
First Minister," SAQ: he saw a darker message underlying Churchill's writing premised on belief in the inevitability of
war; Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, p.329: the 1988 New Encyclopedia Britannica referred to his war memoirs as
historical writing of "classic proportions."
4. Ibid, p.332; Pearce, Attlee, p. 190.
5. Addison, "The Road from 1945," in Ruling Performance, p. 18: he claims that critiques come mainly from socialists
or the radical right who constitute a minority of opinion.
6. D . Richards, Royal Air Force, 1939-1945. Vol.1. The Fight at Odds (London: H M S O , 1953), p.7; Butler, Grand
Strategy, Vol.2, p.562; Gibbs, Grand Strategy, Vol.1, pp.xx-xxii,318,599,793-5.
7. J. Ehrman, Grand Strategy, Vol.5 (1956), pp. 105-21; Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, p.257-8; M . Howard, Grand
Strategy, Vol.4 (1972), pp.208,421 -31.
8. Jones and Kandiah, ed. The Myth of Consensus, p.xv; P. Addison, The Road to 1945; Cato, Guilty Men; C.L. Mowatt,
Britain Between the Wars, 1918-1940 (London: 1959); M . Smith, "The Changing Nature of Britain," in What Difference
Did the War Make? p.40.
9. J. Cockcroft, "Review Essay," Contemporary Record 9,2 (1995): 266-7; Johnson, et. al, Making Histories, p.248.
10. Glicksberg in Literary Taste, Culture and Mass Communication. Vol.6. The Sociology ofLiterature, P. Davidson,
e t a l , eds, (Teaneck, NJ: Chadwyck-Healy, 1978), pp.93-94; D.J. Taylor, After the War: The Novel and English Society
Since 1945 (London: Chatto and Windus, 1993), pp.25-32,60; Samuel, e d , "Introduction," in Making and Unmaking
of British National Identity, V o l . 1, pp.xxii-v.
 249

11. Textbook sources; Kaye, The Powers of the Past, p.43; Berghahn and Schissler, "History Textbooks and Perceptions
of the Past,", p.2,8: contra P. Kennedy, who asserts that nationalistic historiography in the West was in decline since
1914, with a rise of internationalist and radical outlooks that emphasized the underprivileged over national glory.; H .
Schissler, "Perceptions of the Other and Discovery of the Self: What Pupils are Supposed to Learn About Each Other's
History," in Perceptions of History, p.30; K . Rohe, "Constitutional Development in German and English History
Textbooks," in Perceptions of History, pp.64-69: an example is R.J. Unstead, Looking at History: Britain from Cavemen
to the Present Day, 4 vols, London, 1953.
12. Stewart, Winged Words, pp.79-80,82-84,113; D.J. Taylor, After the War, pp.6,12-15,56-60: for fiction, see One Fine
Day (1947), The Slaves of Solitude (1947), Love Among the Ruins (1948), The Old Bank House (1949).
13. D . C . Watt, "Churchill and Appeasement," in Churchill, pp. 199-202: the two historians who most advanced
Churchill's views on war causation were J. Wheeler-Bennett, Munich: Prologue to Tragedy (New York: 1948), and L .
Namier, Europe in Decay: A Study in Disintegration, 1936-40 (London: Macmillan, 1950), esp. pp. 150-205; D.C. Watt,
"The Historiography of Appeasement," in Crisis and Controversy, ed. Sked and C. Cook (London: 1976), pp.110-29.
14. Attlee, As it Happened, p.162; Addison, Churchill on the Home Front, pp.2-3; S. Burgess, "1945 Observed: A
History of the Histories," Contemporary Record 5,1 (1991): 158-60: nonetheless, Attlee's tepid memoirs still managed
to exorcize the Tory press, who oddly viewed his effort as "menacing."
15. Burridge, Attlee, pp.313-14; Pearce, Attlee, pp. 183,190; Girault, "On the Power of Old and New Europe," in Power
in Europe? Vol.2, p.560.
16. Owen, "Decolonization and Postwar Consensus," in The Myth of Consensus, pp. 166-9; Holland, The Pursuit of
Greatness, pp.268-70.
17. Lenman, The Eclipse of Parliament, p.208; Young, Churchill and Beaverbrook, pp.311 -12; Darwin, Britain and
Decolonization, pp. 167-8,224; Darwin, The End of the British Empire, p.80.
18. Ismay, The Memoirs of General Ismay, pp.189,269-71,395; S. Lawlor, Churchill and the Politics of War, 1940-41
(Cambridge: C U P , 1994), p. 13.
19. Moran, Struggle for Survival, p.758-62,770-2; Bryant, The Turn of the Tide, p.7; Bryant, Triumph in the West, p. 166:
such hindsight, though appears less than heart-felt, considering his frustrations over Churchill's strategic meddling,
remarking about 1944: "I began to wonder whether I was in Alice in Wonderland or qualifying for a lunatic asylum."
20. Sikorsky, "The Churchill Legend in the US," p.204-05; Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, p.258,274-76: considers
the books by Alanbrooke and Kennedy, along with Ismay (1960), to actually reinforce Churchill's account in his
memoirs that he did not oppose the Overlord operation in 1944, a point Ben-Moshe refutes.
21. Brendon, Churchill, p.225; Cannadine, "Winston Agoniste," p.36; G . Rees, "Churchill: A Minority View," in
Churchill, p.209.
22. Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, pp.330-1; Moran, Struggle for Survival, pp.348-51,802-03: he also criticized the
diffuseness of Churchill's memoirs, which he attributed to the author's physical and mental exhaustion: "He is inclined
to repeat himself, the sense of proportion is gone."
23. Wheeler-Bennett, "Introduction," in Action This Day, pp. 10-11; Normanbrook in Action This Day, pp.26,31; Rowan
in Action This Day, pp.249-50; Colville inAction This Day, pp.47,138; Martin mAction This Day, pp.139-57.
24. R.R. James, Churchill: A Study in Failure, pp.ix-x, 14-17,85-88,136-38,150,197,238,310,385; Cannadine, "Winston
Agoniste," p.37; Ben-Moshe, Strategy and History, pp.331-33.
25. Kimball, "Wheel Within a Wheel," in Churchill, p.294; Martin Gilbert, Finest Hours; Road to Victory; Never
Despair; Muller, e d , Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' Speech; Kaufman, "Winston Churchill and the Art of Statecraft," D
& S, pp. 174,179-82; M . Howard, "Is Winston Churchill Still Relevant? Crisis in the Era of National Unity," Encounter
70,1 (1985), p.26; R; Outram, " A Man of Too Many Letters," Globe and Mail, October 24, 1992, p.C8.
26. M . Gilbert, "Churchill: Victim not Villain," Times, September 24, 1986, p. 16: in a highly unusual move, the Times
allowed Gilbert to write his own review of the seventh volume, Road to Victory.
27. J.H. Plumb, "The Dominion of History," in Winston Churchill: Resolution, Defiance, pp.63-65,73.
28. D.J. Taylor, After the War, pp.64-66; Johnson, et.al, Making Histories, p.210.
29. R. Gott, "Little Englanders," in Patriotism, Vol.1, pp.90-91.
30. S. Howe, "Labour Patriotism: 1939-1983," in Patriotism, Vol.1, p.131-35; D. Marquand, "How United is the
Modern United Kingdom?" in Uniting the Kingdom? p.288.
31. Morgan and Evans, The Battle for Britain, pp. 165-67; L. Colley, Britons: Forging a Nation, p.312-13,328; J.G.A.
Pocock, "The Limits and Divisions of British History: In Search of an Unknown Subject," AHR 87,2 (1982): 313.
32. Smith, The Changing Nature of the British State," in What Difference Did the War Make? p.41; P. Addison, The
Road to 1945 (London: Cape, 1975); A . Calder, The People's War (London: Cape, 1969), pp.46,52-4; B . Pimlott, "Is
the Postwar Consensus a Myth?" Contemporary Record 2,6 (1989): 12-14; Kaye, The Powers of the Past, p.56: he
places the breakdown in consensus later, after the oil shocks of the 1970s.
 250

33. Ibid, p.41; Samuel, "Exciting to be English," in Patriotism, Vol.1, pp.xxl l-xxx,xli.
34. Harrisson, Living Through the Blitz, pp. 13-18,327-30; James, Churchill: A Study in Failure; R. Payne, The Great
Man: A Portrait of Winston Churchill (New York: Cowarel, McCann and Geoghegan, 1974), p.354.
35. Ibid, p.354; Weidhorn, A Harmony of Interests, pp. 154-7.
36. Berghahn and Schissler, "History Texts and Perceptions of the Past," in Perceptions of History, pp.2-3; "The Other
Churchill," Times, January 6, 1993, p. 11.
37. Rubin, Virginia Quarterly Review, pp.59-63.
38. Hehnessy, "Never Again," in What Difference Did the War Make? p.6; Seldon, "The Churchill Administration,"
in Ruling Performance, pp.63-65; Morgan and Evans, The Battle for Britain, pp. 165-68: Thatcher paid tribute to
Churchill's efforts to resist socialist dictatorship at home and abroad, but her political agenda did not adhere to the "One
Nation" Toryism of Britain's war leader.
39. C. Barnett, The Audit of War (London: 1986); Holland, The Pursuit of Greatness, p. 159; PaulAddison, "The Road
from 1945," in Ruling Performance, pp. 18-19; Hennessy, "The Attlee Government," in Ruling Performance, p.30
quoting from Barnett in The Audit of War.
40. A . Clark, "The Other Churchill," Times, January 6, 1993, p . l 1; Guardian, March 24, 1994, p . l 1.
41. Charmley, The End of Glory, pp.401 -02,465-68; D. Reynolds, "Churchill the Appeaser?" in Diplomacy and World
Power, pp. 199,211.
42. Young, Churchill's Last Campaign, pp. 13-14; Charmley, The End of Glory, pp.549,612,645; Ben-Moshe, Strategy
and History, pp.277-316; Charmley, Churchill's Grand Alliance, pp.2-10; A . Roberts, "Churchill and the Revisionists,"
History Today 47,3 (March 1997): 37-39; R. Quinault, "Winnie the Who?" History Today 43 (September 1993): 51 -54.
43. Rubin, Virginia Quarterly Review, p.66.
44. Alan Clark, "The Other Churchill," Times, Jan.6, 1993, p . l 1; David Irving, Churchill's War: Struggle for Power
(Veritas, 1989); R. Laver, "Winnie's Darker Side," Maclean's, Feb.l, 1988, p.61.
45. A . Roberts, "Churchill and the Revisionists," p.39.
46. Robert Wybrow, Britain Speaks Out, 1937-87: A Social History As Seen Through the Gallup Data (London:
Macmillan, 1989), pp.36,41,58.
47. Samuel, "Exciting to Be English," in Patriotism, Vol.1, pp.xxxii; M . Howard, "Is Churchill Still Relevant?" p.21;
A . Applebaum, Intellectual Capital.com, March 4, 1999 (www.intellectualcapital.com): In 1999, Germany's cultural
minister set off a storm of protest in Britain when he disparaged that nation's obsession with World War II. It was the
only nation, he said, that had made the war a "sort of spiritual core of its national self."
48. Lenman, Eclipse of Parliament, p. 179; Hitchens, Blood, Class, and Nostalgia, pp.3-5,8.
49. Ibid, pp. 10-16,181,186; Kimball, "Wheel Within a Wheel," in Churchill, p.292.
50. A . Sullivan, "The Winstoning of America: Churchill Envy," New Republic, December 7,1987, pp. 14-15; Sikorsky,
"The Churchill Legend," pp.214-15.
51. Sullivan, "The Winstoning of America," NR p. 15; Gallup data; Kimball, "Wheel Within a Wheel," in Churchill,
p.291.
52. Christian Science Monitor, Email Edition, February 9, 1999; National Public Radio, Online, October 1, 1999; D.
Gardner, "Man of the Century," Ottawa Citizen, December 22, 1999, p.A17.
 251

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