Download - Winston Churchill

was “cocking a snook” at the prospectof utter disaster.In June 1940 Churchill was goinginto the back door of 10 DowningStreet—the door on the Horse GuardsParade—fumbling with his key. Agroup of men around the nearby statueof Kitchener, putting up scaffolding soit would not be hit by shrapnel (whichin fact it was a year later; the marks canbe seen to this day), started cheering,“Good Old Winnie!” The Private Secretarywith Churchill was puzzled that hekept fumbling with his key to open thedoor—normally he would go and chatwith them or wave to them. So the PrivateSecretary tugged at him and said,“Prime Minister, the men on the scaffolding...”Suddenly he saw the tearsstreaming down Churchill’s face. Atthat moment, with France having capitulated,and German invasion bargesgathering in the North Sea and Channelports, he must have thought the situationwas hopeless. But he did notwant the men to feel his doubt; to seehim without his grin, his defiance, hiscigar, his V-sign.Churchill’s emotions often surprisedthose who knew him best. GeneralSir Hastings (later Lord) Ismay, thehead of his Defence Secretariat, hasrecorded in his memoirs accompanyingChurchill to the London docks immediatelyafter the first heavy attack of theBlitz. “Our first stop,” Ismay writes,“was at an air-raid shelter in whichabout forty persons had been killed andmany more wounded by a direct hit,and we found a big crowd, male and female,young and old, but all very poor.“One might have expected themto be resentful against the authoritiesresponsible for their protection; but,as Churchill got out of his car, theyliterally mobbed him. ‘Good old Winnie,’they cried. ‘We thought you’dcome and see us. We can take it. Giveit ’em back.’“Churchill broke down, and as Iwas struggling to get to him throughthe crowd, I heard an old woman say,‘You see, he really cares; he’s crying.’”PM: I interrupted you over Churchill’sability to continue his leadership in thetelevision age...MG: Churchill was a very adaptableperson. In his enormously long life—his time in Parliament spanned sixtytwoyears—he had to adapt to all sortsof aspects of politics. Where he wasvery good—and this was unexpectedfor his contemporaries—was on theradio in its early days. I was astonishedto discover that when the BBC wantedin 1926 to have someone make theChristmas appeal for the blind, theychose him. It was a wonderful appeal,because he spoke with wit as well as oratory,with light touches as well asheavy touches. So, he adapted to theradio, as we now know with the famousSecond World War speeches.PM: A question about politicalhangers-on....MG: Churchill did not use imagemakers,but I came across a fascinatingcase where he recommended one.When General de Gaulle arrived inLondon in 1940—the one hope reallyof maintaining a fighting France inexile—Churchill was impressed thatthis man wanted to go on fighting theGermans. I found a note that he wroteto the Cabinet Office the theme ofwhich was that General de Gaulle is ourman but he has such a poor personalityand presentation that governmentmoney should be used to get a leadingPR firm to boost his image. So a considerablesum of money was paid to aPR agency, which trained de Gaulle fora month before he made his first greatspeech from London to the French people.Although Churchill did not have a“PR man” per se, he did have an excellentliterary agent, Emery Reves, whoarranged for his articles to be publishedaround the world between 1937 andthe outbreak of war in 1939.PM: After thirty books and havinggone through fifteen tons of materialduring your research, if he were alivetoday, what would be the one questionyou would ask?MG: It would be a question he himselfasked, and I would like to know whathis answer would be. While the SecondWorld War was in its final stages, heFINEST HOUR 135 / 61asked a friend, “Do you think I spenttoo much energy on the German questionand not enough on the Sovietquestion?” I would ask if he thoughtthat he had not done enough, or allthat he could have done, in dealingwith Stalin in 1944.PM: What do you think his answerwould be?MG: I would like to feel that it wouldbe “no,” that he would say that he haddone all that could be done, that he didhis best. But he was a very self-criticalperson, so he might feel that that he didfail in that regard.PM: What was Churchill’s greatest contributionin helping us to define leadership?MG: I think it was a combination ofdrawing on his vast experience, and hisperseverance. So often knocked down,so often marginalized, so often out ofpower, out of office, he never gave up.On one occasion, when he came toCanada in 1929, he thought perhaps heshould give up politics altogether, buy aranch in Alberta, and become a Canadianrancher!PM: Really?MG: He wrote to his wife from Banffin 1929, “I am greatly attracted to thiscountry....I have made up my mindthat if Neville Chamberlain is madeleader of the Conservative Party or anyoneelse of that kind, I clear out of politicsand see if I cannot make you andthe kittens a little more comfortable beforeI die.”* But by the time he hadcompleted his holiday, he was back inthe cut and thrust of British politics.PM: Lucky; who knows what wouldhave happened to us if he hadn’t beenhere?MG (laughing): Perhaps he’d have becomea great Oil Baron!*Sir Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill. CompanionVolume V, Part 2, The Wilderness Years1929-1935 (London: Heinemann, 1981), 62. ,