June 1, 2003

CHURCHILL AND HITLER



The topic of this installment was prompted by two events during this lull between military campaigns in our war on terrorism. The first one was that I had come across the recently released new edition of Sir Charles Wilson's war diaries Churchill at War 1940-45. The second was a TV miniseries Hitler The Rise of Evil, which was shown in the middle of last month. These coincidences made me wonder if there will be a future Plutarch who will write an objective assessment of these "Parallel Lives." It is not possible at this time because even if it were written it would not be published, and if it were published, it would not be reviewed and the book relegated to oblivion. The myths which have grown up around these two personalities must be preserved or the entire current political world-view of that era, and its consequences, would collapse. Yet it is a fact that the fate of these two people was so intertwined that neither would have become what he was without the other. In the following pages I shall give a skeleton outline how these parallel lives led the one to greatness and the other to ruin.

Sir Charles who wrote the above cited book was Churchill's physician from June of 1940 until his death in 1965. He accompanied him on most, if not all, conference trips abroad and was elevated in 1943 to "1st Baron Moran of Manton" for his services. As he reports, this puzzled a young Russian interpreter no end on one of his trips to Moscow. "You are Lord Moran, and he is Mister Churchill?" was a discrepancy this poor Soviet citizen could not fathom. The diaries provide us, however, not only with an intimate glimpse of Churchill but also of the other major leaders of the day, although remarkable enough Hitler hardly figures. The book ends with the diary entry of July 27, 1945 the day after Churchill had lost the election by a landslide to the Labor government and Attlee had become Prime Minister. Yet these are only the first 308 pages of an 848 page book Churchill. Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran, published in 1966, which I found at the Marriott Library of the University of Utah.

While Churchill at War reinforces the picture of the solitary war time hero who had stood up to evil against all odds, the complete book gives a considerably more rounded picture, and I shall rely on this publication for the subsequent analysis. It shows that Churchill's life basically fell into three major portions: up to May 1940 when he became Prime Minister at age 65; the war years until he was voted out of power; and the subsequent slow decay, in spite of re-election in 1951, until his death at age 91 in 1965. But even within the war, the height of his glory, there are clearly three phases. The first from May 1940 to December 1941 when America was drawn into the war, the second ended essentially with the Teheran conference, while the third lasted till his landslide defeat by the Labor Party in July 1945.

Immediately prior to WWII Churchill was out of a job and had a very dubious reputation. He had switched parties twice and his political colleagues did not trust his judgment. He was regarded as a flamboyant adventurer and the Gallipoli disaster in 1915 which had cost 20,000 lives was laid at his feet. He was never allowed to live it down before WWII. Although he is regarded as a brilliant orator public speaking was not his natural forte. His speech was halting, he lisped and he dreaded major speeches, even during the war. Some of his most famous ones, which he gave in Parliament, were read on the BBC by an actor. His strength was the written rather than spoken word and he carefully prepared his speeches, filing key phrases and, like Hitler, practiced them before a mirror. But unlike Hitler his speeches never aroused the passions of his colleagues in Parliament and as Moran wrote,

"Winston had no idea what was going on in their minds. He said a piece. It was a kind of one way traffic, he thought more of the sound of his words than their effect on his audience. It was rather a cold-blooded business, I suppose, the words picked so deliberately as in some fine balancing act, the sentences built up with cool deliberation in his own bedroom. The speech from beginning to end had been contrived beforehand, every word typed out, the very pauses marked in the script. Even his expression as he mouthed his carefully polished periods had been observed and studied before the looking glass."

Churchill's warnings about the danger Hitler presented to the established order might have gone over better with responsible circles in government had he not used marked exaggerations, which were patently false, and vindictive language. Some other similarities between Hitler's and Churchill's opinions have already been presented in War & Mayhem. These included: passionate love for war, a disdain for "colored people," the necessity for eugenic efforts, the establishment of "labor colonies" for "tramps and wastrels," so that they be "made to realize their duty to the state." He bullied others and could reduce grown men to submit to his will by shouting matches. Humanitarian concerns about civilian casualties in war did not exist for him. He intended to float down mines in the Rhine river, was in favor of terror bombing of cities to demoralize the civilian population, and in 1944 approved the manufacture of 500,000 bombs capable of delivering poison gas and anthrax to decimate the German population. But these projects were, fortunately, never carried out.

These aspects of his character were known in Britain but are relegated to oblivion now. Had Churchill lost the war he would have been tried and convicted for war crimes. Moran, who obviously liked and admired Churchill, was nevertheless, puzzled by the internal contradictions of what he called on one occasion "this strange creature." He records a characteristic exchange in a diary entry of August 12, 1956 between himself and Sir John Anderson (Viscount Waverley; former Lord President of the Council and in 1943 Chancellor of the Exchequer)

"Moran: "If Winston had died in 1939, before the war what would history have said of him?"

John (becoming very serious): "he had been wrong about so many things: India for example, and he was wrong on finance, and wrong on Gallipoli . . . . And he wasn't a very good Home Secretary. Then when he was in opposition he was isolated and Winston needs advisers, who will say to him; 'Winston you are making a fool out of yourself.' . . . . Left to himself, Winston's judgment was a menace. No, if he had died then he would have gone down as a failure."

Moran: "What about the war?'

John: "Well, he had this wonderful gift for inspiring people. He was, too, astonishingly fertile in ideas; some were hopeless, of course, but something came out of others. And he was, as you know, a wonderful mouthpiece of the nation. No, I agree he couldn't place people, and he was no good in administration unless somebody held his hand. But his imagination was his most valuable gift. And there was something . . . " (John hesitated for the word) ". . . something selfless about Winston; if an idea got hold of him he would follow it up with endless enthusiasm and energy, quite regardless of whether it would help him personally."

These were the characteristics which made the British people accept Churchill as a leader during war but reject him as soon as the war was won. For the British, dictatorship was a necessary evil during war but not to be perpetuated in peace-time when other qualities were called for. Churchill's re-election in 1951, in-spite of failing health, was essentially a reward for his war-time services and to assuage the guilt for having dismissed him at the height of his triumph. This had been a severe blow to him and exacerbated his tendency to intermittent life-long depressions which he called the "black dog business." Although he was mentally no longer up to the job he stood for election because the need for power was in his blood and he just couldn't let go. This posed a dilemma for Moran, the physician. Should he have told him point blank? "Winston [they were good friends and on first name basis], stay in retirement, enjoy the world-wide accolades you are receiving, you are no longer the man you once were and another term as PM is not the best thing for the country." But Moran knew that out of office Churchill's purpose in life would have vanished and the man would have sunk into even greater depressions than he was already experiencing. As a doctor who considered his patient above all else he encouraged him to run for office. A series of minor strokes and a major one disabled Churchill to an extent that four years later he was forced to resign by his party.

In this connection Moran also commented on Roosevelt's appearance at Yalta, "The president looked old and thin and drawn; he had a cape or shawl over his shoulders and appeared shrunken; he sat looking straight ahead with his mouth open, as if he were not taking things in. Everyone was shocked by his appearance and gabbed about it afterwards." On another occasion Moran commented that "Winston became impatient with the President's apathy and indifference [at Yalta]. He did not seem to realize that Roosevelt was a very sick man." When one looks at the famous Yalta photograph of the "Big Three" it is obvious that Roosevelt was dying and I personally have a feeling that he had cancer because cerebro-vascular disease alone would not account for this obvious weight loss. But diagnosis aside, there is a more important problem. Roosevelt should not have been allowed to run for a fourth term in 1944. During a time when momentous decisions had to be made the country required a sound mind at the helm and the only positive aspect that came from that election was the appointment of Truman as Vice President. Truman could not undo all the harm that had been done in Teheran and Yalta but at least he prevented further inroads by Stalin at Potsdam and thereafter. Thus, the question remains for the physician who is in charge of the leader of a country, "where does your duty lie?" Should the will of the patient, and his "court camarilla," override the good of the country? I cannot answer it but in our age where the fate of the world can be decided by the push of a button the question needs to be discussed openly and guidelines issued.

As mentioned, Churchill saw the potential nightmare scenario unfolding after the Teheran conference and became deeply concerned about not only how his war for the honor and glory of England had turned out but also the ultimate fate of the world. He sincerely detested communism and said on one occasion in 1947 in a private conversation,” If ever it comes to the triumph of the Communists, I hope that some people will have the guts to resist. I am prepared to commit a crime" - he spoke more quickly and with emphasis - "to throw a bomb among the most subversive people. I am not afraid of death." Clemmie, the good wife knew how to handle him when he had worked himself up, just said," Have a little more brandy, Winston." In a 1954 speech at Woodford he said, "Even before the war had ended, and while the Germans were surrendering by the thousands . . . I telegraphed to Lord Montgomery directing him to be careful in collecting the German arms, to stack them so that they could easily be issued again to the German soldiers whom we should have to work with if the Soviet advance continued." The comment created a furor in the press; the mentioned telegram has never been found and may never have been sent. But it does represent Churchill's genuine feelings about the state of post-war affairs. As an aside I might mention that, as reported in War&Mayhem, we, the soldiers of the Wehrmacht, would only have been too happy to join the Brits and Americans in order to send the Russians from Central Europe back to their own country.

"Poor England," Churchill kept repeating after the war and especially after the existence of the atomic bomb had become known. In 1946 he felt that a pre-emptive war against the Soviet Union should be launched within the next few months before Stalin got the bomb. It is also remarkable how his attitude to the German people changed after they had been thoroughly defeated and the Soviets were in charge. During the war he had routinely referred to the Germans, even in private conversations, as "The Hun" and had countersigned the Morgenthau plan, which would have reduced Germans to subsistence levels, but in 1954 he was all for rearming Germany. "They are fine fellows. That is the element which has been the strength of England for a thousand years; responsibility, constancy." When Moran asked him in the same year on another occasion, "what would happen to Germany if there was war between Russia and the United States?" "Poor lambs, they would be over-run and our neutrality would not save us. I wanted America to have a show-down with the Soviet Republic before the Russians had the bomb."

On the other hand when Stalin died and Malenkov took over, Churchill was eager to make peace. He repeatedly urged Eisenhower to arrange for a three man summit conference but ran into a brick wall. Neither Ike nor Foster Dulles wanted to even explore the changed realities. Churchill had to resign himself to another failure. Now only the goal to leave the most admirable picture of his life for posterity remained. "History will be kind to me, because I shall write it," he reportedly said. As Moran noted, Churchill became obsessed in the last years of life how the press wrote about him and became very upset over negative comments. Moran closed his diary entries in March 1960 with a cruise they took on Onassis' yacht to the Caribbean. The last five years were simply slow, progressive mental decay which needed not to be chronicled.

But as mentioned earlier Churchill's days of political glory were actually limited to three of his 91 years, between 1940 and 1943. From then on his, and England's, influence was permanently eclipsed by America. "Poor England," he kept muttering but he also said that "I will not be the grave digger of the British Empire." Nevertheless, when one views his decisions objectively, that was indeed his role. He saved England but lost the empire. The fact that he sensed it himself is attested to by a comment to Moran when he mumbled, "I ought not . . . I must not . . . be held to account . . . for all . . . that has gone wrong." The fate of the empire, which had been tottering even prior to the war, was sealed at Teheran. Since this conference was pivotal for the rest of the war and post-war history, although it has been largely ignored by the popular media, I shall now present the essence.

When Churchill made his defiant speeches in June and July of 1940, he knew that eventually America would come to the rescue, just as in WWI, and all he had to do was to hang on long enough for America to be able to do so. While he still had considerable influence on the conduct of the war up to 1943 it had become apparent to him by the time of the Teheran conference that the center of gravity had shifted and decisions were no longer made in London but Washington and Moscow. Churchill's personal influence on Roosevelt had also declined to an extent that the latter didn't even want to talk to him any more because their goals had diverged. Churchill had fought the war for the preservation of the British Empire while Roosevelt's goal was "free trade" throughout the world, and the abolition of all colonies, regardless of whether they were British, French, Dutch or whatever. At Teheran Roosevelt side-lined Churchill and negotiated directly with Stalin. Harry Hopkins (FDR's most intimate advisor) told Moran at that time that in a "heart-to-heart talk" the President,

"made it clear that he was anxious to relieve the pressure on the Russian front by invading France. Stalin expressed his gratification, and when the President went on to say that he hoped Malaya, Burma and other British colonies would soon 'be educated in the arts of self-government' the talk became quite intimate. The President felt encouraged by Stalin's grasp of the democratic issue at stake, but he warned him not to discuss India with the Prime Minister. Stalin's slit eyes do not miss much; he must have taken it all in.

As I listened to Harry, I felt the President's attitude will encourage Stalin to take a stiff line in the conference. But Harry is not worried. Things are going fine he said."

When one looks back nearly sixty years later one is appalled what this unfortunate conference and Roosevelt's plus Hopkins' naiveté have brought us. Europe was cut in half, for nearly fifty years; Africa became one vast disaster zone with tribal wars and accompanying famine; China became communist; Burma is a dictatorship, India and Pakistan are at each others throats over Kashmir; and the other South-east Asia countries Hopkins mentioned are fertile spawning grounds for Muslim extremists. Roosevelt thought that he would bring democracy to the world but in fact he brought us chaos. It is truly terrible to see that our current government seems to be pursuing a similar disastrous course.

But to return to Churchill. As Moran makes clear, up to the summer of 1943 Churchill still had a fair amount of influence on FDR. He persuaded Roosevelt to make the war in Europe the number 1 priority with the Pacific theater the secondary one. He also convinced Roosevelt, over General Marshall's objections, to postpone the invasion of France in 1942, which Stalin urged. Instead the North African and subsequently Italian campaign was pursued which had only half hearted support from Roosevelt and none from Stalin. After 1941 Churchill's conduct of the war was driven by three major considerations. One was to get Rommel out of Africa and secure the Suez Canal; the other to drive through Italy, Trieste and Yugoslavia for Vienna, thereby saving the Balkans for the West; and in addition he was deathly afraid of a repeat of the trench warfare of WWI. The German Wehrmacht had to be bled white first in Russia, and the American infantry had to be steeled in battle against lesser forces before the channel was to be crossed. But Roosevelt's nightmare was that Stalin would come to a separate arrangement with Hitler, if he saw that the West, whom he never trusted, was dragging its feet. If Stalin dropped out and Roosevelt was to be confronted with Japan as well as Germany the military equation would have looked rather differently. Since neither Roosevelt nor Churchill, in contrast to Stalin and Hitler, were dictators for life but had to worry about elections, this concern was very real. It is in this light Roosevelt's demand for unconditional surrender in Casablanca needs to be seen. It was meant to reassure Stalin that the West would not make a separate peace but would stay with him for the duration. All he had to do was to hang on and he would be rewarded thereafter. This is also the reason why FDR acted in 1943 at Teheran the way he did. Stalin had mentioned to Churchill that the Red Army was war-weary and it was, therefore, essential to keep them fighting not only with the firm promise of a second front in France by 1944, but also of post-war rewards.

As far as Stalin was concerned, he admitted to Churchill at Teheran not only the mentioned "war-weariness" of the Red Army but also that “Without America we should already have lost the war." To make sure that Roosevelt would stick to his promises, Stalin also pledged at Teheran that he would enter the war against Japan as soon as Germany was defeated. America was the key and this key Hitler had so badly misjudged.

Although the producers of the Hitler TV miniseries had made a concerted effort to minimize the cartoon picture of Hitler as a boisterous buffoon they could not resist it altogether because the Zeitgeist demands it. Yet if Hitler had indeed behaved mainly in the way as presented by Mr. Carlyle he would hardly have impressed Lloyd George, the Duke of Windsor, Halifax, Mussolini, a variety of European monarchs as well as other statesmen. Even Stalin stood up for him. In the book Summit at Teheran by Keith Eubank one can find that in December 1941 Stalin said to Anthony Eden, the British Foreign Secretary,

"Hitler had proved himself a man of extraordinary genius. He had succeeded in building up a ruined and divided people into a mighty world power, within an incredibly short space of time. He had succeeded in so regimenting the Germans that all elements were completely subservient to his will. 'But,' Stalin added he has one fatal defect. He does not know where to stop.' “When Eden smiled Stalin added that, 'I will always know where to stop.'"

But stopping a war is not as easy as starting one. Whenever Hitler did want to stop the war, prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union, there was Churchill who would not let him. Sumner Welles wrote in Seven Decisions which Shaped the World, "When Roosevelt commented that Hitler was mentally unstable, Stalin dissented - 'Only a very able man could accomplish what Hitler had done in solidifying the German people, whatever we thought of the methods.' “

But the myth makers have succeeded and Hitler will continue to be portrayed as evil incarnate, a madman, who wanted to conquer the world and kill all Jews. This picture must remain paramount and any genuine understanding of who the man was and what he really wanted to accomplish is not allowed to be shown on TV screens. Yet this is the main source the vast majority of the American people rely upon for historical information. Although the mentioned mini-series was certainly politically correct there were two CBS affiliate stations in Texas which refused to show the film. Any potential understanding of the man is to be feared and must not come to pass. Although historical accuracy was for the most part preserved the film failed to show, or at least emphasize, the reasons why Hindenburg had no choice but to appoint Hitler chancellor. Furthermore, while the April 1, 1933 boycott of Jewish stores and professionals was shown, the fact that this was a response to the call for a boycott of all German goods by America as demanded by Jewish organizations in the United States and reported in the New York Times was ignored. Thus the American public is always fed half-truths because what is left out is equally important as what is reported.

I have absolutely no intention to defend Hitler's crimes because they are indefensible, all I intend to do is to correct the most glaring misinterpretations of his intentions. First he never wanted to conquer the world. Had this been his goal he would have insisted on building a navy. But he was a man of the infantry, not a sailor like Churchill or Roosevelt. This is why he was quite willing to sign the Naval agreement with England in 1935 which limited the German fleet to a third of the British. The idea that he wanted to attack America is, of course, ludicrous. He didn't even have the navy to successfully launch a cross-channel invasion of England and that is why he abstained from the effort. Furthermore, if he had any such ambitions he would not have left the French their fleet as part of the 1940 armistice. Churchill on the other hand genuinely misunderstood Hitler and shot some of the French battle ships to pieces at Oran, causing considerable casualties among the French sailors.

Hitler's foreign policy goals were limited to Central and Eastern Europe. He didn't even want the colonies back. These demands were simply a bargaining chip. But the other clauses of the Versailles treaty had to be undone. All the German speaking people had to be united in one Reich which also included not only the 1919 Austria, but that of the 1914 monarchy with Bohemia, Moravia and parts of Poland. Poland would have to cede, in addition, the corridor she acquired in Versailles which separated East Prussia from Germany proper. Furthermore, if feasible, the USSR would be smashed in order to gain its phenomenal natural resources. "Blut und Boden," blood and soil, was the slogan. As Hitler also put it "the German plow will follow where the German sword has conquered." That was the plan from which he never deviated. To put it into operation he had to re-arm but the thrust was to the East rather than the West. Churchill on the other hand insisted, in contrast to Prime Minister Baldwin for instance, that Hitler was a military menace for the West which was simply not true.

For his plans to succeed Hitler also needed allies. France and Russia did not enter into consideration, because of historic enmity against the first and Bolshevism in the second. But Italy and England he thought would qualify, which was the first serious miscalculation. As an Austrian he should have known that Italians, even under Mussolini, are not necessarily natural allies and their talents lie in areas other than military prowess. The idea of England as an ally was dictated by his racial notions and the precariousness of the British Empire. He admired the British for their ability to control nearly a third of the world population and since the empire kept the non-whites in check he was all for it. He did not necessarily want to attack France either because there was nothing to colonize there. But he knew that England and France might not approve of his "New Order" in Europe and that is why he built the West Wall-Siegfried line. Defense in the West, offense in the East was the plan.

But there was Churchill who nixed it. Although in opposition, rather than the government at the outbreak of the war, he had sufficiently agitated against the appeasers that Chamberlain was honor bound to declare war when Hitler invaded Poland. Germany's occupation of Denmark and Norway was due to Churchill's plans to deny Hitler Sweden's iron ore which was shipped through Narvik and was a genuine pre-emptive strike. The invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece was forced upon him also by Churchill and the military inaptitude of the Italians who had gotten bogged down in the north of Greece, while the British landed in the south. An exposed flank immediately before the Russian campaign could not be tolerated. The North African front was also forced upon him by the weakness of the Italian army which had to be bailed out. In spite of the fact, that Mussolini had become a liability instead of an asset Hitler continued to show him loyalty throughout all his subsequent misfortunes.

Why were Churchill and some others in the West so adamantly opposed to come to an understanding with Hitler? The propaganda machine had already painted him as such an ogre that any lasting political, rather than military solution, would have been out of the question, and it was the treatment of the Jews in Germany which provided grist for the mill. Soon after the Anschluss I found in my father's library a book Hitler in der Karrikatur der Welt. It showed how Hitler had been portrayed in the German and foreign press between February 1924 and spring 1933. When I first saw these cartoons I was flabbergasted: How could a book like this which contains genuinely vicious diatribes be published in Germany? I wondered. But as the title page also displayed it was, "vom Fuehrer genehmigt" (approved by the Fuehrer) and the publication date was May 1938. The infamous cartoons in the Stuermer, which were equally vindictive, differed only in the person of the villain; Jews in the one, Hitler and the SA in the other. The caricatures showed Hitler either as an incompetent ninny who wouldn't last; a tool of bankers, the army, or monarchists; a vicious tyrant or bloodthirsty menace who would unleash a disastrous war. In the summer of 1938 we knew that the first aspects were clearly wrong but that a war was only a little over a year away nobody would have believed. After the war I looked for the book but it had been gotten rid of by my parents before the Red Army arrived. I was, therefore, very glad to find another copy in a second-hand bookstore in Vienna later on, because it is an important document which resides now in my library. The point is that we have here a perfect example of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As mentioned, Hitler did indeed want war but a limited one rather than a world-war. Churchill on the other hand could not win a war against Germany after June 1940 and the rest of the world had to be recruited. Germany's mal-treatment of Jews was the ideal pretext. "See what this monstrous tyrant is doing?" was used to mobilize the world against Hitler. Did Hitler intend to kill all the Jews all along, as has been alleged? No, he wanted them to emigrate and didn't care where to. I have already mentioned some of these aspects in War&Mayhem but they are so important that a brief outline is essential here. What needs to be clearly understood, and what is not taken into account now, is that for Hitler Jews were not a religion, but a nation. This nation within the German nation had, in his opinion, usurped rights which it was not entitled to by being successful in all aspects of public life. This success, which denied Germans rightful positions within their own country, had to be curtailed. This was the purpose of the Nuremberg laws and why there were also contacts with Zionist organizations. Initially Hitler had no objections to send large numbers of German Jews to Palestine, but the British were adverse because of Arab hostility. During the war he wanted to cultivate Arab friendship against the British and thought that Madagascar, for instance, might have served as a German "mandate." The European Jews, who were to be shipped there, would have had complete sovereignty in all internal aspects but no standing army or independent foreign policy. This seems to be the model Sharon envisions now for the Palestinian state. The Madagascar plan fell apart because neither the finances nor the transports were available. Furthermore, the British were unwilling to cooperate. This is what led to the Holocaust. With the Polish and subsequently Russian campaign Hitler had acquired a large number of Jews in the East. As a separate nation Jews were even officially "enemy aliens." A few days prior to Hitler's invasion of Poland Chaim Weizman, as spokesman for International Zionism, had pledged full support to the British cause in a letter to Chamberlain. It was published under the headline "Jews to fight for Democracies" in The Times of London on September 6, 1939. As enemy aliens Jews were segregated first in ghettoes then in concentration camps. With America in the war, steadily mounting losses on the Eastern front and increasing civilian casualties due to the relentless bombing campaign, revenge took over in Hitler's mind. When valuable German blood was being spilled, those who were really responsible for the world wide extension of the war, the Jews who had agitated for it, should not escape their just punishment. They needed to bleed also. Since he could not get at the American and British Jews who had agitated against him he would take his ire out on those who were in his power within Europe. In this way the cartoons had become grim reality.



Let me now return to Churchill and how he was really seen by his contemporaries. The following is a series of statements from Moran's book. They are valuable in this context because anybody who has read authentic biographies of Hitler cannot fail to be impressed by similarities between these two politicians. Prior to 1939 Churchill was regarded "a brilliant failure." Then came June 1940 when he demonstrated an "indomitable will to conquer" "Never, Never give in," became the obsession. There was a demonic element in him and an extraordinary concentration on one purpose - victory. He had an extraordinary sense of mission and said, "This cannot be accident, it must be design I was kept for this job." He was pugnacious and seemed to frighten people. But it was also theatrics "I can be very fierce when I like," he said. He governed as a dictator, wanted people to listen to him rather than argue with him. He didn't want criticism, but reassurance. General Marshall said, "some of his projects were positively dangerous had they been carried out." Moran also mentioned that Churchill was "ignorant of human behavior. Where people are concerned he lives in an imaginary world of his own making." He was largely self-educated and virtually stopped reading when he went into politics. He was regarded as a soldier of fortune with the mind of an artist. His planning was all wishing and guessing. War was his hobby. Moran also called him, "that improbable man. A genius trampling down like a bull elephant everything that got in his way." Attlee felt that he was, "Fifty percent genius, fifty percent bloody fool." How did Churchill see himself? As Joan of Arc!

June 1940 was the month when the two parallel lives permanently intersected. With the fall of France Hitler stood at the height of his glory. England might well have made peace with him. As Sir Charles Portal, Chief Air Minister during the war commented later, "They say there was no danger that we should have made peace with Hitler. I am not so sure. Without Winston we might have." After June 1940 Hitler went down to defeat and ignominy, while Churchill's star rose to mythical heights. What was a will for power by each one of the antagonists became an epic struggle of good versus evil by the myth-makers. But morality in politics is an oxymoron. It is a superb propaganda tool yet has never had a place in the real world. What these two lives should really teach us is that when hate is met by hate death, destruction, and chaos are the outcome.

We have been told that Churchill is President Bush's role model and that he ever so often contemplates the bust which sits in his office. What was June 1940 for the one is September 11 for the other. He would, however, be well advised to look at Churchill's entire life and how contemporaries, who knew the man rather than the myth, really saw him. Will Bush also have to mutter some years from now, "I ought not . . . I must not . . . be held to account . . . for all . . . that has gone wrong."?
 
 
 
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