Churchill's Empire: The World That Made Him and the World He Made (48 page)

9

ONCE MAGNIFICENT AND STILL CONSIDERABLE, 1945–1955

On 8 October 1948 Winston and Clementine Churchill arrived at the Grand Hotel, Llandudno, North Wales, accompanied by their poodle, Rufus. They were there for the Conservative Party’s annual conference. Loss of power had not dimmed Churchill’s celebrity status. The entire staff lined up to welcome him, and they spared no effort to ensure his comfort even at this time of harsh post-war austerity. Reportedly, one Tory worthy ‘stood by the elevator gate and watched the car go up eight times, carrying only a waitress with heavy trays. Finally, the elevator boy shouted through the gate: “Sorry, sir, but it’s Mr Churchill’s dinner.” ’
¹
Churchill’s keynote speech the next day provided the assembled delegates with a satisfying meal of their own. He gave a bravura performance, combining strong words on the Soviet threat coupled with an attack on the ‘guilty men’ of the Labour government, who, he claimed, had neglected Britain’s defences. He also looked forward with hope. In a well-known passage, he described ‘the existence of three great circles among the free nations and democracies’:

The first circle for us is naturally the British Commonwealth and Empire, with all that comprises. Then there is also the English-speaking world in which we, Canada, and the other British Dominions and the United States play so important a part. And finally there is United Europe. These three majestic circles are co-existent and if they are linked together there is no force or combination which could overthrow them or even challenge them.

The fact that Great Britain stood at the point where the three circles overlapped created an opportunity for it to exercise global leadership. ‘If we rise to the occasion in the years that are to come it may be found that once again we hold the key to opening a safe and happy future to humanity, and will gain for ourselves gratitude and fame.’
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Anthony Eden had already spoken to the conference of the ‘three unities’: ‘unity within the British Commonwealth and Empire, unity with western Europe, and unity across the Atlantic’.
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Churchill’s achievement was to rearticulate this in a more colourful fashion. His rhetoric served two important functions. First, for his national audience, it offered reassurance amid the post-war gloom. The speech seemed to show how (under Conservative leadership, it went without saying) Britain could play a pivotal world role in spite of the decline of her imperial power. Second, it helped smooth over divisions within the Conservative Party itself. There was significant anti-Americanism amongst Tories at this time, which manifested itself partly in hostility to US efforts to prod Britain into engaging in European integration.
⁴
Churchill had himself declared in favour of a ‘United States of Europe’ two years earlier. He now made clear, though, that ‘I cannot think [. . .] that the policy of a United Europe as we Conservatives conceive it can be the slightest injury to our British Empire and Commonwealth or to the principle of Imperial Preference which I so carefully safe-guarded in all my discussions with President Roosevelt during the war.’
⁵
His insistence that there was no incompatibility between a strong Empire, a united Europe and Anglo-American unity was a way of reconciling the competing ideological instincts of different groups of Tories.

His decision to give a
tour d’horizon
of foreign affairs at this point, rather than a speech on domestic matters, was characteristic. As
The Times
noted, this allowed him to avoid committing himself to the economically interventionist ‘new Conservatism’ associated with figures such as R. A. Butler.
⁶
He was not, in fact, a very dynamic Leader of the Opposition, and left much of the legwork to Eden. In part, this was an understandable reaction to the shock of electoral defeat. But it also reflected his greater comfort in his role as an international visionary than in dealing with the parochial issues that are the stuff of much party politics. Although many Conservatives became frustrated with his hands-off approach, it was not a bad strategy. His slow climb back to power, in fact, owed much to his assiduous cultivation of his image as a world statesman.

I

It was an arduous and uncertain path. The first months of peace were especially difficult for Churchill, as he struggled with the adjustment to life after Downing Street and with fractures within his party. The war with Japan had ended suddenly in August 1945, the surrender pre-empting the British operation to recapture Malaya. One consequence of the cessation of hostilities was that President Truman’s administration cut off Lend-Lease aid to Britain. As no alternative source of help had been put in place, this action seemed to threaten ‘stark ruin’ to the national economy.
⁷
It also revealed divisions within the Conservative ranks. Churchill’s reaction to the American announcement seemed to be one of shock.
⁸
However, Leo Amery (still a figure of some weight although out of Parliament) felt satisfaction. He told his diary: ‘It looks as if all my objections to Bretton Woods, multilateral low tariff schemes etc. and my advocacy of reliance on sterling will now be justified and that sheer necessity will force Attlee and Co onto a policy of Empire trade: “And not through Eastern windows only”!’
⁹
In fact, the government took steps in the opposite direction, despatching Keynes to Washington to negotiate a dollar loan, which the Americans made conditional on trade and currency liberalization and on the ratification of Bretton Woods. The US embassy in London noted that the proposal to link the progressive elimination of imperial preferences with the reduction of American tariffs would be fought by ‘the Amery group of Tory imperialists and the Beaverbrook clique who are fighting for an exclusive sterling area, Empire preference and bilateral bargaining’.
¹⁰
Although this posed no threat to the British government’s acceptance of the deal, it was a serious headache for Churchill. Amery did his best to exploit ‘the wonderful opportunity offered by the present situation’, and was eager to develop ‘a really effective campaign for educating both the Conservative Party and the public at large’.
¹¹
To him, Churchill’s economic views were those of a mid-Victorian Liberal, while Eden, who shared them, was ‘tiresomely internationalist’.
¹²

It was amazing, in fact, that Amery could summon the concentration to engage in politics at this time. His deeply troubled elder son John had spent the war in Europe and – believing that Britain should join with Germany to save civilization from communism – had broadcast on German radio. He argued that Churchill’s government was throwing away ‘the priceless heritage of our fathers, of our Empire-builders’ in the course of a war that served no British interests.
¹³
He also made pathetically ineffective efforts to recruit a British
Freikorps
to fight the Soviets. He was now awaiting trial for treason. In due course, knowing his case was hopeless, he pleaded guilty, and on 19 December he was hanged at Wandsworth prison. Leo Amery had naturally been mortified at John’s actions and, at the time of his initial broadcast in 1942, had offered to resign. Churchill had assured him that he could not be held responsible for his adult son’s behaviour.
¹⁴

During this appalling personal crisis, Amery Senior may have found some mental release in compulsive political activity. His misgivings about the US loan were not eccentric, being widely shared amongst Tory MPs and peers. Churchill ‘was instinctively for taking the American money’, as were Eden and other key figures, but backbench discontent was rife.
¹⁵
Hugh Dalton, now Chancellor, believed that Tory frontbenchers had had ‘great rows behind the scenes with Winston’.
¹⁶
The unexpected outcome was that the Shadow Cabinet decided to recommend abstention when Parliament voted on the loan. Yet Churchill could not enforce even this rather unheroic line. His appeal to abstain was ‘urged and repeated with almost desperate earnestness’, to little avail.
¹⁷
When the vote was called, dozens of Tories joined a smaller number of Labour rebels in the ‘No’ lobby; a handful supported the government motion, which passed comfortably. Dalton relished the sight of Churchill and his senior colleagues sitting ‘miserably on their backsides’ while their MPs defied them.
¹⁸
The Conservative Harry Crookshank noted, ‘Winston is very upset, talks of giving up etc.’
¹⁹
Amery recorded, ‘In spite of his very urgent appeal 71 Conservatives voted against Winston’s advice – a great shock to his leadership which now, in peace, is unnatural. The 71 may yet save the Conservative Party.’
²⁰
The
News Chronicle
offered the realistic assessment that Churchill was unlikely to resign: ‘Nor is the party likely to press for such a drastic step. All one can say is that when Mr Churchill does decide to step down there is not now likely to be much attempt to dissuade him.’
²¹

Churchill’s authority with his MPs had already been undermined by a recent weak performance against Attlee in the Commons and by his poor attendance record at the House. Urged by the backbench 1922 Committee to promise to show up more often, he had defiantly announced that he intended to go to the USA for several months’ visit.
²²
He set sail for New York on 9 January 1946. The highlight of his trip was the lecture in March at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri. Here he gave his famous warning about the Soviet menace: ‘From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended’. In order to counteract the threat, he called for the ‘the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples’. This, he said, meant ‘a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States of America’. More specifically, he pointed out that the USA already had a permanent defence agreement with Canada. (He had consulted Mackenzie King – who was highly supportive – before making the speech.) This, he said, should be extended to all Commonwealth countries ‘with full reciprocity’.
²³

Churchill’s speech provoked, at first, considerable hostility in the US. He was widely understood to be calling for a formal military alliance, something he denied. The celebrated columnist Walter Lippmann argued that there would be no difficulty for the USA in making a defence agreement covering the British Isles and the Dominions. The problem lay in the idea of extending US protection to the dependent Empire. This was because ‘a united front in that part of the world’ would not be the kind of equal partnership that was possible with Canada or other self-governing countries.
²⁴
The Republican Senator Arthur Capper said that Churchill was apparently ‘intent on using the United States as a threat against Russia to stop Russia’s march across Europe and into Asia – and at the same time to arouse the people of the United States to commit this country to the task of preserving the far-flung British Empire’.
²⁵
But, as the Canadian ambassador to Washington noted, the most violently anti-British sections of US opinion tended also to be anti-Russian. ‘Therefore, the vehement disapproval such elements would normally show towards Mr Churchill’s proposal for an Anglo-Saxon alliance has been modified in this case by their approval of the strong line he adopted against Russia. In their reaction to Mr Churchill’s speech, these elements find it difficult to combine their favourite pastimes of “Redbaiting” and “Lion tail twisting”.’
²⁶

The ‘iron curtain’ speech thus achieved much of the effect that Churchill desired, once the initial fuss had died down. Although he had not mentioned the Anglo-American loan – which had yet to be approved by Congress – opposition to it in Washington now weakened.
The Economist
noted that if the loan passed, the balance in its favour would have been tilted by the belief that it represented an investment in security against Russian expansion: ‘This may well be the first fruit of Fulton.’
²⁷
Furthermore, Churchill made concerted efforts to ensure that the loan passed. On 10 March, Lord Halifax (then still British ambassador) hosted a dinner attended by Churchill and nine key Democratic and Republican Senators and Congressmen. According to the official who kept a record of the conversation, Churchill set the record straight about his own attitude to the loan: ‘There were indeed certain aspects of the Agreement which he did not like but that was a far cry from saying that he did not wish to see the Loan approved as was believed, he thought, in this country.’ He urged Americans to be ‘more understanding’ in their approach to imperial preference – even though, as he said, he was not a believer in it himself. His main emphasis, however, was on the trade war which, he said, would be bound to follow on rejection of the Loan by the United States: