THE CHURCHILL CONTROVERSY—I MR RANDOLPH CHURCHILL REPLIES TO LORD MORAN

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31107, 9 July 1966, Page 14

THE CHURCHILL CONTROVERSY—I MR RANDOLPH CHURCHILL REPLIES TO LORD MORAN

(By

RANDOLPH CHURCHILL)

A lot of people in many lands are beginning to ask whether W •’’’■’ton Churchill was fit to conduct the war to a successful conclusion after 1.40, whether he did as well as he should have done for the Western world at Potsdam; and whether his health justified him in persevering in Opposition in 1945; and then in 1951 resuming the Government of Great Britain tor three and a half years.

Most of this disquietude, which has shown itself parI ticularly in Britain, France and the United States, is due ,to the recent book by Lord Moran, my father’s doctor for the last 25 years of his life. It has led people in Britain to ask whether there should not be a statutory committee of doctors which should at regular intervals inquire into the health of the Prime Minister. as is done in the case of the senior executives of many of the great corporations in the United States. People are getting worried lest some utterly incapable person should be in charge of, important affairs at some moment of crisis. Do these suppositions rightly apply to Sir Winston Churchill? It is not my purpose here to review Moran’s book but merely to cite and refute a few statements which have given rise to these questions. A very few will suffice. He Was “Burnt Out” We are told, for instance, by Lord Moran in an interview in the “Sunday Times” of April 3: “Oh, after the war. He was burnt out. It was the exhaustion of mind and body and the series of strokes that accounted for much that is otherwise inexplicable.” In fact, as Moran reveals himself, he had no stroke until 1949. Apart from some pneumonic attacks in the war and a “coronary insufficiency” in Washington in December, 1941, he enjoyed, for a man of his age, labours and responsibility, good healthsufficient enough to do the job. And during none of these illnesses did he ever relax his control over the British war effort.

In December, 1943, Churchill had hoped to draw the Turks into the war. He had an agreeable but disappointing talk with President Inonu. Moran tells us of that incident, “he seems almost played out. I went to his bedroom tonight and found him sitting with his head in his hands.” What this supposedly perceptive doctor did not understand was that Churchill was a man of many moods, and reacted more than most other men would have to news, both good and bad. He felt every situation through his finger-tips. He

did not expect to be observed and reported. When he had come to a decision, like the Grenadier Guards, with whom he served in the First World War, he was always “steady on parade.” Yet men in charge of great destinies are apt to worry when things go wrong. They don’t disclose all their worries to their colleagues or the House of Commons; only. . alas, do they confide in some of the more physical of them to a doctor. After The War Later Moran tells us: “The end of the war found Winston spent/* While Churchill was forming his new Cabinet in 1951 Moran revealed an extraordinary and previously unsuspected political ambition. He wished to serve in the Government of this “burnt-out case,” the man whose forces had eight years before been “spent" and had now “crawled back to No. 10 Downing street,” to quote a somewhat inelegant phrase used by Lord Moran. I have the letter by me as I write.

In most professions there are definitely set retiring ages such as 60 or 65. This has never applied to politicians nor has anyone ever suggested that it should. In politics experience, wisdom and judgment may grow with advancing years; achievement and stature may be all important. Gladstone formed his fourth administration at the age of 82, though it is true that the Liberal Cabinet quite soon wanted to get rid of him, as did the Tory Cabinet when Churchill achieved a similar age.

Winston Churchill was 65 when he became Prime Minister in May, 1940. He had for five months been qualified to draw the old-age pension. It appears from the general consensus of mankind that he made a valuable, even indispensable, contribution to the war. Indeed, almost anyone else would have tried to have made a negotiated peace and the whole world might then have fallen under the sway of Hitler.

Perhaps Churchill might have managed the war better if he had been 55 when it started, but it didn’t. He had certainly done all he could to stop it happening and to try and make us ready if war nonetheless came. He was the unanimous choice of all parties in the State as the one man who could unite the nation in its dread hour of danger. I have been appointed by my father as his official biographer. It will certainly be no part of my tale to pretend that he never made any mistakes, either before, during or after the war. Of whom could that be said? But who else could have done any better? Ups And Downs Well, after 1943, when Moran tells us that he was “spent,” he made powerful contributions to the Allied victory. Moran says of Churchill: “It was exhaustion of mind and body that accounts for much that is otherwise inexplicable in the last year of the war—for instance, the deterioration in his relations with Roosevelt.” But at Yalta, it was not Churchill who was dying. Roosevelt was dead five months later. Churchill lived another 21 years. So much for medical prognosis! As for Churchill’s “failing powers” at Yalta, one of his

closest, confidential advisers recently wrote me: It Britain's Influence declined in 1944, this was primarily due to a shift In relative military strengths. By then, the U.S.A, had more divisions in the field. This meant, as W.S.C. had long foreseen, that within the Alliance, Britain's role became one of counsel rather than command. This change coincided with the decline In F.D.R s judgment—he WAS dying—and a growing disposition on the part of senior American advisers to believe that they could do a bilateral deal with the Russians.

It was these conditions and not any lack of grip by W.S.C. that led to lost opportunities at the Yalta Conference —and, to a lesser extent, at Potsdam. Throughout these difficult times. W.S.C. preserved his judgment and foresight undlminLshed. He was. after all. the first to appreciate the grav. ity of Russia's threat to Europe.

When the war ended, Churchill was 70. This is the moment at which Moran thinks he was “burnt out.” Churchill was certainly greatly distressed at the outcome of the election in 1945, as he had been by many things that had happened in the last year of the war. Well before the German surrender, he had seen the danger of Eastern Europe being overrun by Russia and in private, he had warned most of his colleagues about it It had done no good. Of course, he hoped he would be re-elected and have some share in the framing of a peace. Whether he would have succeeded or not is anybody’s guess. He certainly couldn’t have done much worse. Those who took over failed to make any peace at all and 21 years later, there is no German Peace Treaty. Equanimity Regained For three or four months after his electoral defeat, he was like a bear with a sore head. He did not show his mortification in public and he gradually regained his equanimity. Moran says that his defeat in 1945 left “a permanent scar.”

I believe this scar healed easily and without any therapeutic treatment. But 1 do remember some six or seven weeks after the election walking around the gardens with him at Chartwell. He was very morose and I tried to cheer him up. He stopped and turned on me and said quite angrily: “It is very silly of the child to mind when his toys are taken away from him. But he does mind.”

Of course by his “toys" he meant his Red Boxes with all the Foreign Office telegrams. He felt isolated from the great world of power. But quite soon he recovered his equilibrium and decided to continue as leader of the Tory party and to write his sixvolume account of the Second World War, which was widely acclaimed and certainly got a better press than did Moran's book. This work earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. Not bad for a burnt-out case! At the same time, he managed, with able lieutenants, to reform the Tory party, so that five years later, they were able to come within six of defeating the Socialists in 1950 and in 1951, when the Socialists threw in their hand, he was able, as Moran says, to “crawl back” to 10 Downing Street with a majority of 17. To Be Concluded A review of Lord Moran's book is printed nn naffp 4