What kind of a People do they think we are? - Winston Churchill

Was Churchilla Flasher?Andrew RobertsChurchill's War,by David Irving,Volume 2:Triumph in Adversity,London:Focal PointPublications,1064 pages,£25 ($40),member price$32.Admirers of Sir Winston Churchillcan breathe a huge sigh of relief.For 14 years since the publication ofDavid Irving's first volume onChurchill they have been waiting to seewhat new conspiracies the right-winghistorian might have managed to digup in the hundreds of archives fromwhich he has worked, but in this thickhymn of hate it is clear he has notmanaged to land one single significantblow on the reputation of Britain'swartime leader.All the old accusations are trottedout: that Churchill was a rude, lying alcoholicwho concealed Japan's intentionto attack Pearl Harbour from theAmericans, was behind the murder ofBritain's ally the Polish leader GeneralSikorski, wanted to flatten Rome, andso on. There are even a few new andMr. Roberts is the author of EminentChurchillians (reviewed FH85:38 and 95:4),and Churchill, Embattled Hero (FH 90:35), andis a member of ICS(UK). The above is excerptedfrom a review in The Daily Telegraphand published here by courtesy of the author.ifoOKS,& CURIOSITIESequally groundless ones: according tothis volume Churchill was also a flasherwho enjoyed exposing himself to foreignstatesmen, was responsible for tippingoff the Nazis to the fact thatBritain had broken their codes, andasked MI6 to assassinate Britain's otherally, General de Gaulle. I have counteda dozen new accusations in this volume,most of which would be laughableif they were not so foamingly presented,complete with 160 pages ofnotes that are alleged to back them up.Yet when, for example, Irvingclaims that the then Queen Elizabeth(now the Queen Mother) supportedHitler's peace offer in 1940, and thatthe proof is to be found in Box Number23 of Lord Monckton's papers atthe Bodleian Library in Oxford, I recalledfrom my own work on Moncktonthat that particular box has neverbeen open to historians. The Bodleianconfirmed to me that Mr. Irving hasnot so much as seen the box, let aloneopened it. Many of Irving's assertionsare contradictory. If Churchill "invariablyput the interests of the UnitedStates above those of his own countryand its empire," why did he not warnthe Americans of what was about tohappen in Pearl Harbour? If Mr. Irving'sviews on Auschwitz are correct—that Jews were not being systematicallykilled there—why should Churchill beheld to account for not ordering theRAF to bomb Auschwitz?Mr. Irving consistently wants itboth ways, but winds up getting neither.Despite the book's (surely ironicallymeant) subtitle, Irving sees no redeemingfeatures in the man who hadthe temerity to defeat Adolf Hitler.Churchill's funniest jokes are dismissedas "jibes." The imperative need to meetPresident Roosevelt in late 1941 to coordinatea post-Pearl Harbour globalmilitary strategy against Germany andJapan is explained in terms of thePrime Ministers "desire to hobnob atthe highest levels." He is accused ofwinning the war "in spite of himself."Yet whenever the evidence for Irving'sclaims is minutely examined by someonewho has also visited the samearchives and handled the same originaldocuments, it fails to justify the claimshe makes.The selective quotation is legion.When Irving claims Churchill wishedto "eliminate" de Gaulle, whatChurchill in fact recommended to hisCabinet colleagues was that theyshould consider whether they should"eliminate de Gaulle as a political forceand face Parliament and France uponthe issue." Irving's entire Pearl Harbourtheory rests upon an obvious misreadingof the diary of the permanentunder-secretary at the Foreign Office,Sir Alec Cadogan.When Irving writes thatChurchill was of "partly Jewish blood,although safely diluted," he is simplybeing repulsive. When he claims thatChurchill "was ambivalent about whyhe was really fighting this ruinous war,"he is ignoring the evidence of dozens ofthe finest speeches ever delivered in theEnglish tongue, which explained toBritain and the world between 1939and 1945 in utterly uncompromisinglanguage precisely why Nazism had tobe extirpated for human civilisation tosurvive and prosper. When he writesthat the Duke of Windsor was forcedto leave Portugal in August 1940 atBritish "pistol point," Irving is simplywrong. Irving's profession of "shock"that Churchill turned a blind eye to hisdaughter-in-law Pamela Harriman's affairsis based on a failure to appreciatethe mores of Churchill's class and time.Churchill's supposed desire "to seeRome in flames" is utterly disproved byhis message to Roosevelt that "weought to instruct our pilots to observeall possible care in order to avoid hittingany of the Pope's buildings in thecity of Rome."This is the way the history of theSecond World War would have beenwritten if the wrong side had won,about the man, ironically, who preservedthe right of freedom of speech.FINEST HOUR 112/46