ACTION THIS DAY

The contributors have given all royalties on this

book to Churchill College, Cambridge
 ACTION
THIS DAY
Working with Churchill

Memoirs by
LORD NORMANBROOK
JOHN COL VILLE
SIR JOHN MARTIN
SIR IAN JACOB
LORD BRIDGES
SIR LESLIE ROW AN
Edited with an Introduction by
SIR JOHN WHEELER-BENNETT

Palgrave Macmillan
 ISBN 978-1-349-00674-8 ISBN 978-1-349-00672-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-00672-4

©Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, Lady Normanbrook, John Colville,

Sir John Martin, Sir Ian Jacob, Lord Bridges, Sir Leslie Rowan, 1968
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1968 978-0-333-10013-4

Published by
MACMILLAN AND CO LTD
Little Essex Street London wc2
and also at Bombay Calcutta and Madras
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The Macmillan Company rif Canada Ltd Toronto
 Contents

INTRODUCTION BY

Sir John Wheeler-Bennett,

K.C.V.O., C.M.G., O.B.E. 7
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE I3
MEMOIRS BY

Lord Normanbrook, P.c., G.C.B. I5

John Colville, c.B., c.v.o. 47
Sir John Martin, K.C.M.G., c.B., c.v.o. I39
Lieutenant-General Sir Ian Jacob,
G.B.E., C.B. 158
Lord Bridges,
K.G., P.C., G.C.B., G.C.V.O., M.C. 218
Sir Leslie Rowan, K.c.B., c.v.o. 241

INDEX 267
 Introduction

THE question may well be asked: Is there either the

need or the place for another book about Sir Winston
Churchill? Has not every aspect of his Protean career
been covered - and amply - either by himself or by
others? It is certainly true that no one in our time has
both made history and recorded it with the same im-
mediacy, the same cogency and the same sublime
beauty of language as has Sir Winston himself. And,
in addition, there is the biography so excellently begun
by Mr Randolph Churchill. These are the great
pageantry works on a titanic figure portrayed against
the background of history of which Sir Winston was so
great a part; they represent him as a world figure as
seen by himself and his son. Are they not sufficient?
The answer to this question must, in consideration of
this present volume, most surely be 'no'. No man can
see himself, no son can see his father, in the same per-
spective as those who have lived with him and served
under his immediate command through the loneliness
of high office, the agonies of defeat and glory of victory,
who saw him day by day shouldering the burdens of a
seemingly crushing responsibility, who shared with
him, in selfless devotion, the long hours of grinding
labour, the moments of black depression and the
brilliant flashes of exaltation.
It is these particular facets of Sir Winston Churchill's
career as a war-leader which are illumined by the con-
7
 INTRODUCTION
tribution of this book, a contribution which will prove
alike an imperative and enjoyable 'must' both for the
professional historians of this period and for that per-
haps mythical figure, the general reader. From its
pages speaks the true voice of history, for these essays
are the very bones of history itself, of history in that
sense in which Sir Winston himself conceived and
understood it: 'History with its flickering lamp stumbles
along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its
scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams
the passion of former days.'
It goes without saying that the recorded observations
of those whose intimacy with Sir Winston was so
regular and so close must of necessity rank higher in
historical value and esteem than those of others who
saw him only sporadically and then only at moments
of emergency, transience or ill-health. The authors of
these essays have drawn for their assessment of Sir
Winston as a wartime leader upon their day-to-day
experiences and their personal contacts with him at all
hours of the twenty-four. They varied in age, at the
time that they became associated with Sir Winston
after the outbreak of war, from Lord Bridges, at forty-
eight, to Jock Colville, at twenty-five, so that they
ranged from mature experience to enthusiastic youth.
This is an advantage for their collective authorship,
for there is consequently an acceptable variety in their
several senses of perspective and proportion. As the six
essays were written quite independently of one an-
other, the reader will find that in some instances the
same point is made several times. No attempt has been
made to avoid this reiteration, which in these particular
circumstances goes far to establish historical accuracy.
8
 INTRODUCTION
These essays are not a series of great canvases such
as are hung in Burlington House; they are rather the
snapshots found in the family album. Each one of them
crystallises for history certain episodes and personal
memories in association with a common subject depict-
ing Sir Winston Churchill in moments of relaxation,
annoyance or exhilaration, as well as of greatness. No
one butthosecloselyandintimatelyassociated with their
chief could have given such clearly defined vignettes
with such impeccable and unassailable authority.
Herein lies the unique historical value of the book,
for, as a collective result of their individual writings,
the portrait which they jointly offer is one of a man
conceived on grand and magnificent lines, displaying
fortitude and magnanimity and vision, yet with the
engaging frailties of personality which make him an
essentially human character - the unwillingness to
accept correction, the quick and minatory admonition,
the equally immediate readiness to praise. These are
endearing traits, known necessarily but to a few, those
of 'The Secret Circle' who alone are equipped and
qualified to describe with authority the circumstances
of Winston Churchill, both as a 'Mighty Warrior
before the Lord' and as a man.
Civil servants are famous for their loyalty to their
chief; this is given generously and without stint,
whether the Minister concerned be great or insignifi-
cant, a success or a failure. But in depths of affection
and admiration they give less readily. They are men
who see Ministers come and go; the weakness and the
strength of many politicians pass under their survey in
the course of their careers. They are not given to
starry-eyed enthusiasms or feckless emotions. When,
9
 INTRODUCTION
therefore, they offer high praise it may be accepted as
being heart-felt and genuine, and their assessment of
personality and character may be held as fair and dis-
passionate, for they judge with a detachment born of
many years of experience and observation.
It is of this relationship, and of its significance in
the origins of this book, that the late Lord Norman-
brook, shortly before his death, wrote, on behalf of
himself and his fellow-contributors, as follows:

The essence of the relationship between a Minister and

his personal staff is a mutual feeling of trust and con-
fidence. This was especially true of the relations
between Churchill and his staff, because of the highly
personal nature of his methods of administration and
the exceptional frankness which he showed in discus-
sion within his inner circle. The freedom which this
relationship gives - freedom on the part of the official
to say fearlessly what he thinks, and freedom on the
part of the Minister to share his doubts and un-
certainties - is undermined if either party to this un-
written contract feels at liberty to disclose what passes
in their confidential exchanges. In ordinary circum-
stances, therefore, we should have been reluctant to
write for publication now an appreciation of Churchill's
qualities based on the knowledge we acquired through
our privileged position as members of the inner circle.
We have felt impelled to do so by the publication of
Lord Moran's book, Winston Churchill: The Struggle for
Survival I94o-I965, which consists of extracts from the
diaries which he kept during the period when he was
attending Churchill as his medical adviser. Lord
Moran has set out to paint a picture of Churchill as a
man: he has not been concerned merely to describe his
physical condition. He has also given his assessment of
Churchill's qualities as a statesman and leader of his
country in war and peace. We cannot accept this
10
 INTRODUCTION
assessment as it stands: we believe that in some respects
it is incorrect and in others incomplete and on both
counts misleading.
As editor of this volume of essays - which has been
written and compiled with the full authority and
approval of Lady Spencer-Churchill - I cannot resist
the temptation to pay my own tribute to Sir Winston.
In those terrible years of Appeasement I was much in
Germany, where I had many friends and contacts,
and on the various occasions of my return to England
I, like many others, tried desperately to convince those
in authority of the growing menace of National Social-
ism first to Germany and then, once Hitler had come
to power, to Europe and the world at large. In the
attainment of our initial objective of arousing interest
and awareness of danger we failed miserably. The forces
of apathy, of wilful myopia and of general delusion
in high places were too strong for us. We were de-
nounced as alarmists and unfounded prophets of doom,
finding disbelief and frustration to be our portion.
In these days of his political exile Sir Winston was a
tower of comfort and encouragement to us. He listened
to what we had to say, he understood the warning
which we sought to give, he perceived, in all its stark-
ness, the danger of a fresh outbreak of the Furor
Teutonicus. He became the Cassandra of the thirties,
preaching in the splendour of his rhetoric the message
of the necessity for awakening and preparing for the
challenge which sooner or later would come from be-
yond the Rhine, though not until Hitler's final das-
tardly jettisoning of the Munich Agreement in March
1939 did Britain respond to his warning. To have fol-
lowed him in those years when, as Brendan Bracken
I I
 INTRODUCTION
once said: 'There were no stars,' to have been cheered
and sustained by his indomitable leadership, was a
privilege which one will always feel honoured to have
experienced.
During the war years, which this book covers, it
was given to me to serve only remotely under Sir
Winston Churchill's command. Yet, with millions of
others in all parts of the world, I derived the same thrill
and encouragement as I had during the pre-war years
when his following was significantly smaller. In the
type of war which was then loosed upon the world, the
courage and the imagination, the steadfastness and
the irrefragable determination of one man were neces-
sary for the survival of Britain, one man in whose
leadership the British people could unwaveringly place
their trust, whose inspiration could fire their own
dogged resistance and whose genius could interpret
them to themselves. It was inevitable that he should
fill this role. The Man and the Hour had met, and
Winston Churchill was 'the Lord of his Event'.
Feeling as I do about Winston Churchill it was with
no little sense of honour that I received and accepted
the invitation of the authors of these essays to be
their editor. I am confident that this contribution to
Churchilliana (and therefore, by definition, to history)
is unique, vital and invaluable. I would reiterate that
this is not 'just another book about Winston Churchill'
but a book which no student of Churchill can possibly
be without, which the general reader will enjoy with
relish and avidity, and which those historians working
in the field of the Second World War will find
indispensable.
jOHN WHEELER-BENNETT
I2
 Biographical Note
THE authors of the memoirs that comprise this book
were all, at varying times, members of Sir Winston
Churchill's personal staff when he was Prime Minister.
Lord Bridges was Secretary to the Cabinet from I 938
until December I 946, and in that capacity was
Churchill's senior civilian adviser throughout the war.
Lord Normanbrook was attached to the Cabinet
Secretariat in I94I and served in it throughout the
war, apart from a year with the Ministry of Recon-
struction in I 944· He was Secretary to the Cabinet
from I947 to I962, covering Churchill's second period
in office as Prime Minister. He died on I5June I967.
General Sir Ian Jacob was a senior assistant to
General Lord Ismay in the military wing of the War
Cabinet Secretariat, which served Churchill in his
capacity as Minister of Defence from I 940 to I 945·
Later, in I952, Sir Winston brought him back to serve
for a period as Chief Staff Officer to the Minister of
Defence.
Sir John Martin and Sir Leslie Rowan were Private
Secretaries at IO Downing Street- Martin from I940
and Rowan from I 941. Both continued to serve
Churchill until the summer of 1945, when Rowan
succeeded Martin as Principal Private Secretary.
Mr John Colville had joined the Secretariat at
10 Downing Street shordy after war broke out and
continued to serve there under Churchill until October
13
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
I94I, when he joined the Royal Air Force. He served
again on Churchill's staff from December I 943 until
the end of the war. When Sir Winston assumed office
again in I 95 I he brought Mr Colville back as his
Joint Principal Private Secretary; and he continued in
that post until Churchill resigned in I 955·
The editor of this volume, Sir John Wheeler-
Bennett, historian and biographer, is an authority on
Germany from I914 to 1945. The official biographer
of King George VI and author of Nemesis of Power, the
German Army in Politics, he is Historical Adviser to the
Royal Archives.
 Lord Normanbrook
CABINET SECRETARIAT 1941-6
SECRETARY TO THE CABINET 1947-62

WALTER BAGEHOT, in contrasting the British con-

stitution with that of the United States, said of the
former that it has this advantage that in a sudden
emergency the British people can choose a ruler for
the occasion. 'It is quite possible', he wrote, 'and even
likely that he would not be ruler before the occasion.
The great qualities, the imperious will, the rapid
energy, the eager nature fit for a great crisis are not
required - are impediments - in common times ....
But by the structure of the world we often want, at the
sudden occurrence of a grave tempest, to change the
helmsman - to replace the pilot of the calm by the pilot
of the storm.' By way ofexample he quoted the appoint-
ment of Lord Palmerston as Prime Minister in the
crisis of the Crimean War, and wrote: 'We abolished
the Aberdeen Cabinet ... which abounded in pacific
discretion, and was wanting only in the demonic
element; we chose a statesman who had the sort of
merit then wanted, who, when he feels the steady power
of England behind him, will advance without reluc-
tance and will strike without restraint.' These words,
written by Bagehot in 1867, are still apt to describe the
emergence of Churchill as the national war-leader in
the crisis of 1940.
 ACTION THIS DAY
I remember the moment when I first realised that
Churchill was 'the pilot of the storm' who was needed
to lead us through the crisis of the Second World War.
It was on a Sunday evening in October I939 when I
was listening to a broadcast that he was making as
First Lord of the Admiralty - the first broadcast that
he made as a member of the wartime Government. I
was not yet working at the centre of the Government
machine: I was still at the Home Office and was
Private Secretary to the Home Secretary. But one did
not need to be at the centre to feel the lack of leader-
ship and urgency at the top, and the consequent sense
of frustration which was threatening to paralyse the
effort and sap the will of the British people in these
months of what we then called 'the phoney war'.
Chamberlain, during his years in office as Prime
Minister, had bent all his efforts towards preventing
war. The policy of appeasement, to which he had
devoted all his energies, now lay in ruins. He was dis-
pirited and disillusioned: it was hardly to be expected
that he could turn overnight from a man of peace into
an inspiring leader of the nation in war. Throughout
that year the recognition had been spreading that war
would be forced upon us. Now it had come, and a new
and different spirit was needed to enable the country
to meet the challenge.
It was in this mood- a mood shared by many- that
I listened to Churchill on that October evening. It was
not one of those inspiring speeches which were to follow
later, when the crisis deepened. It began with a rather
flat review of the military situation. But he went on to
speak of the work of the Royal Navy, and of the threat
which submarine warfare was presenting to British
I6
 LORD NORMANBROOK
shipping. And then I heard him say, in that voice
which became so well known throughout the world,
'But the Royal Navy has immediately attacked the
U-boats, and is hunting them night and day- I will
not say without mercy, because God forbid we should
ever part company with that - but at any rate with
zeal, and not altogether without relish.' It was these
last words, and the tone of voice in which they were
spoken, that made me realise that this was the man to
give us the leadership that we now needed. War could
no longer be averted: we were at war; and here was a
man who could be trusted to prosecute it with vigour
and determination - indeed, 'with zeal, and not
altogether without relish'.
It thus was natural and in accordance with our
history that, when the first serious crisis of the war
developed six months later, after the fall of Norway,
Britain called on the man who, by his record and by
his temperament, was best fitted to lead the country
out of peril. When he became Prime Minister he was
already sixty-five years of age. But his vigour and
determination were undimmed. The eleven years
which he had spent in the political wilderness meant
that he had been spared the physical strains of office.
They meant, too, that he had escaped the need to
compromise, to which he would have been subject if
he had been a member of the Cabinet in the years
immediately before the war. He was untainted by the
policy of appeasement. For six years he had con-
sistently foretold the course of Hitler's ambitions. His
warnings had not been heeded: now they were tragic-
ally vindicated - events had proved him to be right.
In another sense, too, he was the man of the moment.
B I7
 ACTION THIS DAY
Throughout his life he had been a student of the art of
war, and, now that the die was cast, he did not shrink
from the responsibility of guiding his country's fortunes
in arms. In his own account of that day in I 940 when
he became Prime Minister he has written: 'I felt that
I was walking with destiny and that all my past life
had been but a preparation for this hour and for this
trial.'
He took over the leadership without political con-
vulsion and with universal acclaim. He formed a
Coalition Government and commanded the support
and confidence of all Parties. He at once told the
country, through the House of Commons, the bitter
truth: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears
and sweat.' Our situation was indeed critical: to many
it soon seemed that it was hopeless. The German
onslaught on France had begun. Within three weeks
the resistance of the French army had been broken,
and the British Expeditionary Force had been
evacuated from Dunkirk with the loss of all its equip-
ment. Within six weeks Britain stood alone, with most
of Europe in Hitler's power. Her fortunes were at
their lowest ebb. Friends abroad despaired of her sur-
vival. Within Britain there was confusion and per-
plexity, and in some quarters morale was brittle. But
Churchill remained steady and undaunted, and set
himself to organise the country to resist invasion, if it
came, and also to serve as a safe base from which, as
soon as possible, Britain could turn again to the offen-
sive. Everyone knows how he rallied the British people,
through that summer of I 940, by a series of speeches
which are already part of English history and will
form an imperishable page in English literature. For
I8
 LORD NORMANBROOK
this phase of the war, the motto which he subsequently
chose was 'In defeat: defiance'; and in those dark and
critical days he hurled defiance at the dictators in
phrases which lifted up the hearts of the British people.
Years later he said of these speeches that he did no
more than express the will of the country - it was the
'nation that had the lion heart; I had the luck to be
called upon to give the roar.' But this was too modest
an account. In fact, it was his personal courage, his
determination and his own incomparable leadership
which evoked in the British people the will and spirit
of 1940- a will that he later described as 'resolute and
remorseless and, as it proved, unconquerable'.
His public impact at that time is well known. What
is perhaps less well known is the sureness and speed
with which he established control over the internal
machinery for the conduct of the war. This was
achieved mainly by the force of his personality and the
circumstances in which he came to power. But he was
assisted from the outset by one significant change, made
at his own suggestion. He was appointed to be, not
only Prime Minister, but Prime Minister and Minister
of Defence. His assumption of this additional function
and title had the result that, for the first time, respon-
sibility for the strategic conduct of the war was vested
in the Minister holding the supreme political power.
He showed from the start that he intended to take
personal charge of all matters affecting the strategic
direction of the war. He made no attempt to build up
a separate Ministry of Defence or a separate staff of
private advisers. He worked through the existing
Departments and agencies of Government, mili-
tary and civil. But he brought the Chiefs of Staff
19
 ACTION THIS DAY
Committee under his own control and made it directly
responsible to him for all matters affecting the
strategy of the war. He thus established a clear chain
of command, and set himself to dominate it. At an
early stage, in July I940, he gave the following direc-
tion to the War Cabinet Secretariat:
Let it be very clearly understood that all directions
emanating from me are made in writing, or should be
immediately afterwards confirmed in writing, and that
I do not accept any responsibility for matters relating
to national defence on which I am alleged to have
given decisions unless they are recorded in writing.
This confirmed his practice, which he had followed
from the outset, of issuing his directions in personal
memoranda over his own signature or initials written
in his highly individual and easily recognisable style.
These personal messages played an important part in
bringing his personal impact to bear on the admini-
stration. This seems now to be a small innovation, but
it produced at the time a startling effect. Hitherto
Prime Ministers wishing to seek information or to offer
advice to a colleague had done so by letter- more often
than not by correspondence conducted in their name
by Private Secretaries. Now, Ministers received direct
and personal messages, usually compressed into a
single sheet of quarto paper and phrased in language
showing beyond doubt that they were the actual words
of the Prime Minister himself.
Members of the Government were kept in touch
with the progress of military events, and with the
formulation of strategic policy, by meetings of the War
Cabinet and of the two divisions (for Operations and
Supply respectively) of the Defence Committee. But,
20
 LORD NORMANBROOK
as time went on, Churchill conducted an increasing
amount of business in smaller meetings attended only
by those directly concerned with the subjects under
discussion. Of these, his meetings with the Chiefs of
Staff were the most frequent. But there were many
other separate meetings on special subjects, to which
he summoned not only the responsible Ministers but
also the advisers, both Service and civilian, who were
closely concerned with the problem under review and
best able to make some contribution towards its solu-
tion. Of these the most significant series were the
meetings on the Battle of the Atlantic, through which
he supervised the defence of our shipping routes; but
there were many others on the same pattern, some
ad hoc and some continuing. This was a special feature
of his wartime administration.
His general method of work was to concentrate his
personal attention on the two or three things that
mattered most at any given moment, and to give to
each of these all the time and attention that it merited.
He had a remarkable intuitive capacity for picking
out the questions on which he could most usefully con-
centrate his effort. He was thus able to control the use
of his own time, and to prevent its being eaten into
by the demands of colleagues wishing to have his help
in solving their problems. He wasted none of his time-
though others whom he summoned to help in discuss-
ing his problem of the moment may sometimes have
felt that he was distracting them from their work. The
major part of his time was devoted to these discussions
on major topics; but at the beginning or the end of
each day he would dictate a batch of Personal
Minutes - to individual Ministers, to the Chiefs of
21
 ACTION THIS DAY
Staff (through General Ismay) or to others engaged in
some project attracting his attention - some of general
importance and some on matters of comparative detail,
asking for information or conveying instructions.
Knowledge of these messages, sometimes peremp-
tory in tone but always pertinent and timely, quickly
spread through the administrative cadres in Whitehall.
They did much to confirm the feeling that there was
now a strong personal control at the centre. This
stream of messages, covering so wide a range of sub-
jects, was like the beam of a searchlight ceaselessly
swinging round and penetrating into the remote
recesses of the administration - so that everyone, how-
ever humble his rank or his function, felt that one day
the beam might rest on him and light up what he was
doing. In Whitehall the effect of this influence was
immediate and dramatic. The machine responded at
once to his leadership. It quickened the pace and im-
proved the tone of administration. A new sense of
purpose and of urgency was created as it came to be
realised that a firm hand, guided by a strong will, was
on the wheel. Morale was high.
The same techniques were used in establishing
closer contact with leaders overseas. There were per-
sonal telegrams to military commanders in the field,
sent with the knowledge of the Chiefs of Staff, but not
through them. There was the continuing exchange of
confidences with Roosevelt and later, on a somewhat
different basis - as an ally rather than a friend - with
Stalin. There was the close relationship with Dominion
Prime Ministers, based on the long personal telegrams
which he sent to them giving his assessment of the
march of events and sometimes his forecast of develop-
22
 LORD NORMANBROOK
ments to come. All this formed part of a pattern of
personal leadership which he established in 1940 and
maintained throughout the war.
There were occasions no doubt when these enquiries
and reminders caused irritation. Military commanders
sometimes found in them an unjustified impatience;
they felt that their difficulties were underestimated or
that they were being pressed to move more quickly
than they thought prudent. These feelings were more
likely to be entertained by men who had not had the
opportunity of discussing their problems with him face
to face. And there was, of course, some importunity
in the formula: 'Pray let me have, by this evening, on
one sheet of paper' an account, for example, of the
development of our tank-production programme or of
some other project of similar magnitude. A question
can be compressed more easily than an answer; and,
as everyone knows, it takes longer to write a short
reply than a long one. But Churchill knew well that
the machine, both military and civil, tends to be
sluggish if it is left to move at its own pace and needs
to be prodded from time to time if it is to produce its
best results. And it was an essential part of his function
to provide the spur to action. On the whole, though he
pressed his demands hard, he rarely pressed them too
far. And, at least among those who had personal
access to him, any grievances were soon dispelled.

Those who served on Churchill's personal staff at that

time will always be thankful to have had this experi-
ence. It was an exacting assignment. Churchill himself
devoted to his task every ounce of his energy and every
second of his waking hours. He was deeply conscious
23
 ACTION THIS DAY
of the weight of responsibility which rested on him;
but, for him, to have supreme control over the
country's resources in the crisis of a major war was the
fulfilment of a lifetime's training and preparation, an
opportunity to use to the full his peculiar powers and
talents. The problems which it brought filled his mind
and absorbed his energies. They were all that mattered
to him: he needed neither respite nor relaxation. He
never left London except for some purpose connected
with the prosecution of the war; and, wherever he
went, an emergency office was immediately estab-
lished - the despatch boxes went with him, and the
telegrams continued to pass in and out. From all who
held responsible positions under him he expected the
same sense of urgency and the same single-minded
devotion to the task in hand. He could not believe that
anyone who had a chance to play a part in these great
events would ever wish, or need, to turn away from
them for a moment. I remember an occasion when he
wanted information from some senior member of the
Air Staff and was told that this particular officer was
away on a few days' leave. He just could not under-
stand how a man who was doing such an important
and interesting job could possibly leave it, even for a
few days' rest and relaxation, in time of war; and it
was with difficulty that he was restrained from follow-
ing his initial reaction of demanding that the man
should be removed from his post. The members of his
personal staff were expected to conform to the same
standards. Everything that he wanted had to be done
at once: all demands, however exacting and unreason-
able, had to be met: anything that was not of im-
mediate importance and concern to him was of no
24
 LORD NORMANBROOK
value: when he wanted something done, everything
else had to be dropped. The work was heavy, and the
pace was hot.

Lord Moran has recorded that, in a conversation

which I had with him later, in 1954, I said about
Churchill's attitude towards his personal staff:
He is the king-pin, of course, and he will do the job.
He thinks of those around him only as menials, they
do not really count. He is not in the least interested in
any of us or in our future. As long as we are devoted to
him, and do not make bad mistakes, Winston will not
think of anyone else. One man at a time has always
been his motto.
This, I believe, was true so far as it went. Churchill
did not give continuing attention to the interests of
those who worked for him; his mind was on other
things of larger importance. In this sense he was self-
centred and, for much of the time, inconsiderate of
others. Certainly it was true that he was reluctant to
make changes in his personal staff: he disliked new
faces and preferred to rely on people whom he had
come to trust. But this is not the whole of the truth.
Though he seemed to take our work for granted, and
might allow some time to pass without showing any
special interest on it or in us, he would at intervals find
time to say or write a few words of appreciation which
showed a quite exceptional generosity and kindness.
He was essentially a very human man, and no one who
worked closely with him can have failed to be affected
by the generosity of his temperament. In any event it
should be added that none of us was looking for thanks:
we were there to do the job to which we had been
25
 ACTION THIS DAY
assigned, and we counted ourselves fortunate indeed to
have the chance of working for a man of his stature.
It was, indeed, an exciting experience - and a
colourful life. It was not all fun: there were grim times
as well as gay. There were moods of gloom, and some-
times outbursts of anger - though these storms never
lasted for long. Certainly nothing was drab or dull: it
was all shot through with colour and contrast. Above
all, perhaps, there was wit. Churchill was not a great
conversationalist: he was not much interested to hear
what others had to say and, if he was not talking, he
tended to withdraw into silent communion with him-
sel£ But as a soloist, in pursuing and embroidering his
own theme, he was supreme. He had an ear for a
phrase, and his conversation was less rhetorical than
his written prose. It is not surprising that there are so
many Churchill stories - most of them with some
foundation in fact. It was not often that we left a meet-
ing of his without carrying away some memorable
phrase or sentence, and it is a pity that more of these
were not recorded.
There was another aspect of Churchill's dealings
with his personal staff which put us in a position of
special privilege. So far as we were concerned he drew
no sharp distinction between his private life and his
official duties. This was partly due to the fact that he
never stopped work, wherever he was, and wanted
some of us to be continuously on hand; but it also
flowed from the generosity shown towards his staff by
himself and by Lady Churchill. Those of us who were
in personal attendance on him were taken freely into
the family circle- both at No. IO and at Chequers, and
also at his private house at Chartwell - and were
26
 LORD NORMANBROOK
treated as members of the family. This privilege, which
was deeply appreciated by us all, would not have been
conceded by a man who was truly 'inconsiderate' to
his staff.
Nor was he 'impervious to argument'. He certainly
was a man of strong will. For this, surely, we should be
grateful. In a national leader it is a quality which is
valuable at any time and in time of war essential. It
was by his strength of will- it might almost be said
that it was by his strength of will alone- that we were
carried through the greatest crisis in 1 940; and this
quality continued to inspire his leadership throughout
the war. When he had strong views, he persisted in
pressing them. On questions of strategy, in particular,
he was fertile in ideas and specially eager to seize and
exploit any opportunities for taking the offensive. He
forced these projects on the attention of the Chiefs of
Staff, required them to spend time and energy in
examining them, and was reluctant to accept objec-
tions. Objections were frequent, for he was sometimes
wrong and often premature and impatient. Argument
was tense and long. But opportunity was always given
for full discussion. On occasion he may have overborne
the Chiefs of Staff by the weight of his personality, or
wearied them into accepting his view by his persistency
in advocating it. But he was careful throughout the
war to avoid over-ruling his military advisers, in the
sense of requiring them to undertake operations to
which they were opposed. This was a conscious and
deliberate restraint which he imposed on himself-
largely, I believe, because of his experience over the
Dardanelles in the First World War, which had taught
him that a brilliant strategic concept can end in
27
 ACTION THIS DAY
disaster if its execution is entrusted to military staffs
who have no confidence in it. He had learned this
lesson in a hard school, and he never forgot it. In his
dealings with colleagues in the War Cabinet he wielded
immense influence - again on account of his strong
personality and of the commanding position as a war
leader which he had secured by his achievement in
I 940. He pressed his own proposals hard, and was reluc-
tant to abandon them. On proposals by others which
he disliked he usually contrived to delay decision.
But he always sought to preserve the principle of collec-
tive responsibility; for he knew that, unless he carried
his Cabinet colleagues with him, he could not continue
to command the support of the House of Commons.
On many issues he kept an open mind and was
ready to follow advice from men whose judgment he
trusted. When he had made up his mind, it was difficult
to persuade him to change it. But, until that point was
reached, he was ready to listen to the arguments on
either side. And, even when he had formed his view,
he was ready to modify it- usually after a period of
reflection which might be protracted -if fresh evidence
was brought up or fresh arguments were introduced.
Two of his favourite sayings recorded by Lord Moran
as having been quoted by me were: 'I would sooner
be right than consistent,' and 'In the course of my life
I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess
that I have always found it a wholesome diet.' Such
words would not be used by a man who was truly
impervious to argument.

It has also been suggested that, in a more general way,

Churchill was not interested in people. This, again, is
28
 LORD NORMANBROOK
open to misinterpretation. In his later years Churchill
was disinclined to extend the range of his friendships.
He certainly disliked new faces; he preferred the com-
pany of old friends, whose views and opinions were
familiar to him. In his thinking he was concerned
more with broad general issues or with particular pro-
jects and plans: he was not greatly interested in assess-
ing the merits of an individual as an end in itself. It is
also true that at this stage of his life he moved within a
narrowly restricted circle. He knew little at first hand
of how 'the other half of the world' lived. I doubt if he
had ever travelled on a bus, and it must have been
many years since he bought anything in a shop. When
I knew him, he did not even carry money with him.
Even as a Member of Parliament he had spent little of
his time in dealing with the affairs of individual con-
stituents: I cannot imagine him holding a weekly
'surgery' in his constituency as the modern Member
normally does.
But, while he was less interested than some in weigh-
ing the merits of individuals, this did not mean that he
was lacking in concern for people generally. On the
contrary, he had a very lively imaginative sympathy
with ordinary people and an intuitive understanding
of their attitudes and likely reactions. This was shown
on many occasions during the war. Thus, it was after
a visit to a town where numbers of small houses and
shops had been destroyed or damaged by an air-raid,
that he at once decided by his personal intervention to
force a reluctant Treasury to bring forward a plan to
provide compensation for war damage. And it was
he who always tried to delay and, indeed, some-
times seemed to wish to obstruct, proposals by the
29
 ACTION THIS DAY
Government's economic advisers for tighter rationing
of food or clothing. There was in fact a strong bond of
sympathy between him and ordinary people. Their
interests lay close to his heart, and he was always con-
cerned to promote their welfare. He had the name of
being 'a good House of Commons man'; he would not
have won that reputation and kept it if he had shown
no interest in people. With the wider public his popu-
larity increased as the years went on. People would
not have responded to him so warmly if they had
thought him to be aloof and careless of their interests.
To some extent, no doubt, they regarded him as an
eccentric, but his eccentricities endeared him to them
and the warmth of his generosity won their hearts.
The mass of the people, including his political oppon-
ents as well as those who supported him, had a great
depth of affection for him. He was moved and in-
fluenced by this, and, in emotional terms, he returned
it in full measure. It was this, rather than any feeling
of personal pride, which caused his sorrow at the result
of the I 945 election. He felt that he had been rejected
by the people whom he had served.

It is a main theme of Lord Moran's book that through-

out his term of office as Prime Minister Churchill was
struggling to maintain his ascendancy against a grow-
ing weight of age and physical infirmity. This is
implied by the sub-title which he chose for the book -
The Struggle for Survival I94o-I965. As a description
of our national situation this title would be apt for the
period from 1940 to I 945· As applied to Churchill as
an individual, it would be true of the period from I 953
to I965. But Lord Moran's thesis is that even before
30
 LORD NORMANBROOK
the end of the war Churchill's grip had already slack-
ened; that in I 944 and I 945, particularly, he had lost
his grasp of the situation and that from then on his
influence continued to decline. This thesis is explicitly
stated in the Preface:
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. Masefield ascribed the diffuseness of
Winston's The Second World War to the same reason. I tis
certain that the onset of old age and the succession of
strokes explain in part why he was not more effective
as Leader of the Opposition, and later as First
Minister of the Crown. While Winston counted politic-
ally these details are part of history and ought not to
be left out of his story. It is as plain that only a doctor
can give the facts accurately.
If Lord Moran had been content to give an account of
Churchill's physical condition during this period, with
all the technical medical details, it would not have
been right for a layman to contest his expert opinion.
In fact, however, he has gone beyond this and has
offered his personal assessment of Churchill's perfor-
mance and achievement in the direction of the con-
cluding stages of the war, and in his political activities
in Opposition after I945 and during his second period
in office from I95I to I955· In this he has exceeded his
professional brief and speaks, not as an expert, but as
an onlooker. The facts do not in my judgment support
his theory. If Britain's influence over the conduct of
the war declined in I 944, this was due, not to any
failure of powers in Churchill, but to a shift in the
balance of the Anglo-American Alliance. For the first
two years, Britain and the other Commonwealth
31
 ACTION THIS DAY
countries fought alone under Churchill's leadership,
with moral and material support from the United
States. In the second phase of the war, after Pearl
Harbour, we fought in alliance with the Americans;
but, while their vast military potential was being
mobilised, we remained the senior partner in the
Alliance because we had the greater experience and
the larger proportion of the fighting troops engaged in
battle. In the course of I 944 this balance shifted, and
before the end of that year the United States had at
their disposal a strong and experienced military
machine which, in number of combat troops, was
larger than that of Britain and the other Common-
wealth countries. By I 944 war production in the
United Kingdom had passed its peak; and by the
middle of that year the Americans had more divisions
in the field than the British. From then onwards
Britain's military strength continued to decline in
proportion to that of the United States. By the spring
of I945 Churchill felt obliged to remind the British
Chiefs of Staff that Britain had 'only a quarter of the
forces invading Germany' and he had to admit, in a
message to Roosevelt, that the British Army amounted
to 'only a third' of the American forces in the field.
He realised very clearly that in the supreme direction
of military strategy his role was now to counsel rather
than control. This change in the balance of military
strength was accompanied and emphasised by a
decline in Roosevelt's powers of judgment. He had not
long to live. For some months before his death in
April I945 his personal control over the conduct
of American policy had begun to weaken. This
was realised by Churchill before the end of I 944,
32
 LORD NORMANBROOK
and it became evident to all at the Yalta Conference.
During these months some of the President's senior
advisers also came to believe that there would be better
prospects of reaching satisfactory understandings with
the Russians if negotiations with them were conducted
solely by the Americans without British co-operation.
They did not understand, as Churchill had come
increasingly to realise, what the aspirations of the
Soviet Government were for the longer term, and they
were deluded by the idea that they could successfully
conclude a bilateral deal with the Russians. All this
weakened the solidarity of the Anglo-American
Alliance. And some time passed before it became
possible to close the gap which was developing between
the leaders of the two countries. Churchill could not
at once establish personal contact with the new
President; and in the few remaining months before
the war in Europe ended he had not time to reach
with Truman the firm basis of personal friendship and
mutual confidence which he had built up over the
years in his relations with Roosevelt. It was these
changes of circumstance, and not any loss of mental
or physical vigour on the part of Churchill, that led to
lost opportunities in the concluding phases of the war-
especially perhaps at the Allied Conferences at Yalta
and at Potsdam.
There is other evidence that throughout this period,
and in spite of its growing difficulties, Churchill's
judgment and foresight remained undimmed. He was,
after all, the first to see and foretell the threat which
a victorious Russia would present to Europe. It was
in May of 1945 that he sent his prophetic telegram to
President Truman with its dramatic picture of the
c 33
 ACTION THIS DAY
'Iron Curtain' which the Russians were drawing down
between eastern and western Europe- a characteristic
phrase which has become part of the terminology of
all subsequent discussion on international affairs. 1
Among the Allied leaders he was the first to read these
omens for the future and he read them correctly.
Moreover, he was not content to point out the dangers:
he used all the influence he could exert to persuade the
Americans to join in action to contain and correct
these developments. He did his utmost to thwart the
Soviet plan to dominate Poland. He urged, with
success, that the Western Allies should play a part in
the capture and occupation of Berlin. He pressed,
without success, that the advance of Eisenhower's
armies in the south should include the capture of
Prague. He pleaded, in vain, that the Western forces
should not fall back from the positions they had won
in battle to the lines of the occupation zones until there
had been a further parley with the Russian leaders to
test their long-term intentions. All this is proof that
even in the concluding stages of the war he had not
lost his grasp of the strategic situation. If the views
which he expressed at that time did not win acceptance
by our American allies this was not due to any lack
of foresight on his part or any slackening in the force
and vehemence with which he sought to exercise his
influence over the development ofWestern policy.
Some of these points were noted by Lord Moran
himself in entries which he made in his Diary at the
time. Thus, he observed that Roosevelt's health was
1 This phrase had already been used in German ('ein eiserner
Vorhang') by Josef Goebbels in Das Reich on 25 February 1945 and by
Count Schwerin von Krosigk in a broadcast to the German people on
2 May 1945 reported in The Times on the next day. J. w.-B.

34
 LORD NORMANBROOK
failing. At the Quebec Conference in September I 944
he noted signs of physical infirmity and wondered
'how far Roosevelt's health impaired his judgment
and sapped his resolve to get to the bottom of each
problem before it came up for discussion.' 1 At the
Yalta Conference in February I945 he noted that 'the
President appears a very sick man. He has all the
symptoms of hardening of the arteries of the brain in
an advanced stage, so that I give him only a few
months to live. But ... the Americans here cannot
bring themselves to believe that he is finished.' 2 He
himself told Churchill at Yalta that he thought that
Roosevelt had 'lost his grip on things'. 3 He was aware
that in the differences over strategy at the end of I943
Roosevelt and his advisers were drifting away from
Churchill and tending to align themselves with the
Russians. Harry Hopkins had said to him, on the way
to the Teheran Conference: 'You will find us lining up
with the Russians.' 4 Nevertheless, he recognised that
Churchill was ahead of the Americans in appreciating
the Russian threat to Europe. In a Diary entry made
in Rome in August I 944 he noted that 'Winston never
talks of Hitler these days; he is always harping on the
dangers of Communism. He dreams of the Red Army
spreading like a cancer from one country to another.
It has become an obsession, and he seems to think of
little else.' 5 And at the Yalta Conference he recorded
that Churchill had seen for some time the threat which
Russian policy held for Europe and the Soviet plan
to divide the two western democracies, but added that
'the President's eyes are closed.' 6 Again, in applauding
1Moran, 179. 1 Ibid., 226. 8 Ibid., 230. • Ibid., 132. 6 Ibid., 173.
• Ibid., 232.
35
 ACTION THIS DAY
Churchill's personal intervention in Greece in Decem-
ber 1944 he noted that 'Once again Winston had
spoken before his time: he had given a lead to the
English-speaking peoples, and before they had fallen
into step he had saved Greece from the fate of Czecho-
Slovakia, leaving it a free nation.' 1 Finally, writing in
retrospect after the war was over, he offered his con-
sidered opinion:
when we look back we see that Winston was often
right in his clashes with the President about the con-
duct of the war. It was Winston who wanted to post-
pone the Second Front until the American infantry
were battle-worthy. It was Winston who wanted to
avoid costly frontal attacks on the Italian Front by
flanking operations, when America would not give
him the landing craft. And if he was at first taken in by
Stalin, he woke to the Russian designs before most
people. Roosevelt never did: he was certain that he
understood Stalin and that no one else did. If Stalin
was given all he asked for, Roosevelt was sure that he
would help to build a better world after the war.
Winston was as certain that the President had invented
a Russia that did not exist. But he could do nothing.
He had to watch Stalin redraw the map of Europe
with Roosevelt's blessing. 2
These are some of the contemporary judgments
recorded by Lord Moran in his Diary as the events
developed. Yet, when he came to publish his book, he
asserted in the Preface that it was Churchill's 'exhaus-
tion 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'. This assertion is not supported by the facts.
1 Moran, 215. I Ibid., 783.
 LORD NORMANBROOK
It is not even consistent with the picture presented by
entries which Lord Moran made at the time in his
Diary.

When the war in Europe ended Churchill certainly

was a tired man. This was not surprising, for he had
driven himself mercilessly for six crowded and anxious
years. It is also true that he had not prepared himself
to deal with the problems of post-war Britain. Pre-
occupied with the conduct of the war, he had given
little time and thought to the questions which would
have to be faced when it was over. In this sense he was
ill-equipped for the Election of 1945; and, when this
resulted in an overwhelming defeat at the polls, he
ceased for a time to give his active interest to domestic
politics. Though he was official Leader of the Opposi-
tion, he took little part in the ordinary business of the
House of Commons. He remained in politics because
he had resolved that, before he died, he would try to
reverse the verdict of the electorate and erase this blot
from his escutcheon. For this he knew that he must
wait: for the time being he could not expect to make
any impact on the huge majority which the Labour
Party commanded in the House of Commons. But he
was not idle. On the international stage he was still a
great figure. His prophetic speech at Fulton in the
United States, and the leading part which he played
in the early history of the Council of Europe at Stras-
bourg, showed that he still had power to influence the
course of world events. In international politics his
voice was still heard, and it was still strong.
It was not to be expected that in his second period of
office as Prime Minister Churchill would be the same
37
 ACTION THIS DAY
commanding figure that he had been during the war.
For many years it had been said, by friends as well as
critics, that he would not be a great peacetime Prime
Minister. The special qualities which had made him an
ideal national leader in war were not required in time
of peace. In international affairs he was still a states-
man of world standing, but in domestic business he
had perforce to play the lower role of party politician.
His natural pugnacity, which had commanded the
united support of his fellow-countrymen when it was
aimed at Hitler and the Nazis and the 'jackal'
Mussolini, had now to find a different target; and,
when it was directed against Socialism, it evoked a
much more limited response. His speech in the election
campaign of I 945, in which he likened the methods of
Socialism to those of the Gestapo, had dismayed many
of his friends and supporters. In the past he had
enjoyed the cut and thrust of party politics. It was
typical of him that when he drew up the constitution
of the Other Club - a political dining club which in
Igii, when he was a Liberal, he had founded jointly
with F. E. Smith (later Lord Birkenhead), a leading
Conservative - he provided in the Rules that 'nothing
in the intercourse of the Club shall interfere with the
rancour or asperity of party politics'. And when, more
than forty years later, he was telling my wife that he
had decided to resign and she suggested that he might
be glad to be spared the burden of office, his only reply
was: 'How would you like it if you were told that you
would never again be able to play your favourite game
of cards?'
But, even so, I doubt whether he had the same relish
for Party government after the war. He had never
38
 LORD NORMANBROOK
been ready to give unquestioning support to every
article of Conservative faith; he had been an indivi-
dualist in politics; and it was only with hesitation that
he had accepted the leadership of the Conservative
Party. He had deplored the decision of the Labour
Ministers to withdraw from the War Cabinet when
the war in Europe was over, and he had tried hard
to hold the wartime Coalition together at least until
the end of the war againstJapan. For him it had been
a proud privilege to be the head of a national Govern-
ment comprising men of patriotism and goodwill from
all political parties, and to feel that he was leading a
country united by a common sense of purpose. It was
out of gratitude for this experience that he had a special
medal struck at the end of the war 'in memory of the
great Coalition' and presented it to all the members of
his wartime Government.
Leadership in war had been congenial to him, not
only because he knew himself to be uniquely qualified
for the task, but also because he drew inspiration from
the knowledge that the whole country was united in the
pursuit of a single aim- victory. The stakes were high,
and the problems were hard; but, while there was
room for differences and arguments about means,
there was no disagreement about the ultimate objec-
tive. The goal at least was plain, though the road to it
might not always be clear.
In time of peace the tasks of government were more
complex, at least in domestic affairs. Ends, as well as
means, were in dispute: policies were judged, not
solely on their merits, but partly by ideological stan-
dards: and judgement was influenced by political
prejudice and sectional interest. Some of the points at
39
 ACTION THIS DAY
issue did not seem to him to be worthy of the con-
troversy to which they gave rise. And sometimes he
felt irked to find himself obliged to quarrel, over things
which seemed to him to be of minor importance, with
men who had worked in easy and fruitful partnership
with him during the war. I suspect that he sometimes
sighed for the days of wartime comradeship when all
were united in the pursuit of a common aim.
His second period of office as Prime Minister falls
into two phases - from his appointment in October,
1951, to his first serious stroke in June 1953, and from
the autumn of 1953 to his final retirement in the spring
ofi955·
In the first of these periods he followed the same
methods of personal control that he had used during
the war, and his performance did not fall far short of
the standard which he had then set for himsel£ He
was older, of course, and less energetic. The problems
of peacetime government did not engage his interest
to the same extent as the problems of military strategy
to which he had devoted himself during the war. He
still followed his earlier practice of concentrating his
main interest on two or three questions at a time, but
his instinct in selecting the most important issues was
less sure in the context of peacetime politics than it
had been in war. Nor had he quite the same zest to
pursue them to a conclusion. The pace of his work was
slower, and his demands on colleagues and staff were
less exigent. The Personal Minutes still went out; but
there were fewer of them and none now carried the
old label 'ACTION THIS DAY'. He was still capable of
rising to the great occasion- an important meeting or a
big speech. But speeches were more of a burden. He
40
 LORD NORMANBROOK
would accept no help with them: he dictated every
word himself and made numerous revisions. But, when
a speech was impending, he felt that a cloud was hang-
ing over his head for days in advance, and the final
text often remained unsettled until a few moments
before he had to leave to deliver it.
His main interest continued to be in international
affairs. He concerned himself closely with the broad
lines of foreign policy, though he was careful to leave
its detailed execution to his Foreign Secretary,
Anthony Eden, in whom he had the utmost confidence.
He disappointed the enthusiasts for the European
movement because he lost his earlier interest in it
when he was once again in control over his own
country. He was particularly distressed by the plans
for the European army; an integrated organisation
of the kind then envisaged would not, in his view,
provide an effective fighting force: it would be no
more than 'a sludgy amalgam'. He probably viewed
the Council of Europe as a useful sounding-board for
politicians in opposition, but a waste of time for states-
men wielding executive power. He was similarly dis-
illusioned about the United Nations. He had envisaged
this as an organisation in which the three great Powers
would rule the world and keep the peace. He foresaw
that, as it was developing, it would be better adapted
to serve the interests of smaller countries more anxious
to make propaganda than to share responsibility.
Within the British family he accepted the transition
from Empire to Commonwealth with grace but with-
out enthusiasm. He was, as he liked to say, not one of
those who 'on waking up in the morning wonder what
part of the British Empire could be given away during
41
 ACTION THIS DAY
the day'. But he presided with patience and success
over two meetings of Commonwealth Prime Ministers.
There he found congenial colleagues from Canada,
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa; and he
came to appreciate the merits of the other leaders. In
particular, though he had been strenuously opposed
to the grant of independence to India, he now accepted
this as a fact and treated Nehru with respect as a
bastion of civilisation in Asia. But his whole attitude
towards the conduct of international affairs was
coloured by his desire to return to the wartime system
of top-level conferences at which the leaders of the
three great Powers could meet in person to iron out
their differences and forge a common approach. His
meeting with President Eisenhower at the Bermuda
Conference in I953 was conducted on the wartime
model. It was a continuing disappointment to him
that he was unable to bring about a tripartite meeting
with the Russians, and his desire to achieve this was one
of the factors which kept him in office in later years.
He still dominated his colleagues in the Cabinet, by
the weight of his personality and by the prestige which
he had won as a wartime leader. In the House of
Commons he had the full support of his Party and he
found no difficulty in handling the criticisms of the
Opposition. With the general public his reputation had
continued to stand high in spite of his electoral defeat
in I945, and the affection in which he was held spread
and deepened as the years went by. He was a great
national and international figure, and his world
standing helped him to give at home a leadership
which none of his colleagues was able or anxious to
challenge.
42
 LORD NORMANBROOK
In the second phase of this period of office, from his
stroke in 1953 until his retirement in 1955, the position
was different. Then he was indeed engaged in a
struggle for survival - initially a struggle to preserve
his life and thereafter a struggle to remain in office. It
may be that, if Anthony Eden had been available
when the blow first fell, Churchill would have been
willing to hand over to him the reins of government.
It had been known for a long time that it was his wish
that Eden should succeed him when the time came: he
had made this recommendation in a written submission
to King George VI during the war. He was still of the
same mind, and he would not have wished that Eden
should lose this opportunity merely because he was
at the moment absent through illness. Churchill was
therefore determined to overcome his disability,
primarily no doubt because ofhis will to live, but also
because he was anxious to remain in office at least
until Eden was available to take over from him.
It was, I believe, by a supreme effort of will-power
and personal determination that he beat off the effects
of the stroke. I well remember an evening at his home
at Chartwell soon after he had begun to recover from
its worst effects. Colville and I dined with him alone.
He was in a wheelchair. Mter dinner, in the drawing-
room, he said that he was going to stand on his feet.
Colville and I urged him not to attempt this, and,
when he insisted, we came up on either side of him so
that we could catch him if he fell. But he waved us
away with his stick and told us to stand back. He then
lowered his feet to the ground, gripped the arms of his
chair, and by a tremendous effort- with sweat pour-
ing down his face - levered himself to his feet and stood
43
 ACTION THIS DAY
upright. Having demonstrated that he could do this,
he sat down again and took up his cigar. It was a
striking demonstration of will-power. 'In defeat:
defiance': he refused to accept defeat: as he had done
for the nation in 1940, so he did for his own life in
1953. He was determined to recover.
He did recover. From then onwards he was always
unsteady on his feet - he had what he described as
'a kick in his gallop' - but for some time he contrived
to conceal this fairly successfully. By the autumn of
1953 he was able to resume his duties; but, as time
went on, he found it increasingly difficult to put forth
the energy required to discharge them to the full. He
could not feel full confidence in his capability to get
through all that he had to do. He was apprehensive
about the successive hurdles which he would have to
face - handling of Cabinet meetings, the conduct of
business in the House of Commons, the few public
speeches which he would still have to make. But during
the following year he confronted all these difficulties
successively, and he managed to overcome them all.
His struggle for survival was not only courageous: to
a remarkable extent it was also successful. In dealing
with his Cabinet colleagues he was less masterful, but
he could still play the hand. In the House of Commons,
though his major speeches were not always successful,
he continued to the end to be adroit and resourceful
in answering Questions and dealing with supple-
mentaries. And with the general public he had a vast
fund of credit on which he still could draw.
Towards the end of 1954 there were signs that he
would not be able to carry on for very much longer.
He could still rise to the great occasion, by an effort of
44
 LORD NORMANBROOK
will and a modest use of the stimulants prescribed by
his doctor. But in the daily round of his responsi-
bilities he no longer had the necessary energy, mental or
physical, to give to papers or to people the full attention
which they deserved. He was reluctant to take the
final step of naming a date for his resignation. In part,
I believe, he was influenced by the thought that
resignation of office would also mean the end of his
connection with Parliament. For him, Parliament
meant the House of Commons: he had no wish to take
an honorific position in the House of Lords. Indeed,
he would have preferred to keep unchanged the name
by which he had always been known and to remain
plain 'Mr Churchill'. Though he had always been avid
for medals, he was not interested in titles. This was
why he was reluctant for so long to accept the offer of
the Garter. He would have liked, characteristically,
to have it both ways, to accept the Garter but retain
the 'Mr'. During the long period when he was
struggling with this dilemma, he once said to me:
'I don't see why I should not have the Garter but
continue to be known as Mr Churchill. Mter all, my
father was known as Lord Randolph Churchill, but
he was not a Lord. That was only a courtesy title. Why
should not I continue to be called Mr Churchill as a
discourtesy title?'
But, apart from his distaste for leaving the House of
Commons, he was reluctant to abandon his special
position of influence as Prime Minister. People who
hold positions of authority and power are often
reluctant to abandon them voluntarily without the
influence of some external factor. It was so with
him: in the end his decision was forced by external
45
 ACTION THIS DAY
circumstances. The life of the Parliament was running
out, and it was in the best interests of the Conservative
Party that a General Election should be held before
the end of I 955· He recognised that he could not lead
the Party through another Election. That being so,
it was desirable that the new leader should take over
in time to give him the opportunity to establish his
authority well before the Election and to make his own
choice between an Election in the early summer or in
the autumn. There was no conspiracy or intrigue to
force his resignation. The timing of his departure was
determined only by the facts of the electoral situation.
These pointed inexorably to the conclusion that he
should resign in April. He accepted this conclusion and,
when the time came, he went with dignity and with
general good will.
 John Colville
ASSISTANT PRIVATE SECRETARY I94G-I, I943-5
JOINT PRINCIPAL PRIVATE SECRETARY I95I-5

WisDOM after the event is a privilege no historian can

renounce. It is comparatively easy to judge and assess
in the sure knowledge of what subsequently happened;
but it requires insight and compassion to review a
problem as it originally presented itself, and to recreate
for posterity the conditions in which decisions had to
be made. The contemporary actor, however small
his part in the drama, has at least experienced those
conditions. Yet he too must suffer the handicap of
subsequent enlightenment, brightening judgment but
dimming memory, and he labours under the weight of
personal loyalties and affections which an uncom-
mitted historian has no need to bear.
In writing about the past it is tempting to explain
motives and decisions without taking due account of
the information, or lack of it, then available, of the
customs generally accepted, of the character of the
men whose duty it was to decide. Analysis of distant
events is often guesswork based on a patchwork of im-
perfect evidence; and events within living memory are
no less subjected to interpretations that are over-subtle
or unjustifiably sinister. A motive which seemed
obvious and straightforward at the time falls prey to
an atavistic taste for mystery and tests the ingenuity of
47
 ACTION THIS DAY
those who are triumphantly successful in over-com-
plicating the simple. Even if the sensation-hunters and
the mere fabricators can be disregarded, serious
historians may still fall into the trap of ascribing con-
temporary emotions to people who were unlikely to
experience them. It is therefore important to be able
to appraise the temperament and natural inclinations
of those who dominated the scene, and this is particu-
larly so in the case of Winston Churchill, whose per-
sonality towered over his contemporaries and who took
or influenced countless decisions on which judgments
will be pronounced for centuries to come.
In May I 940 the mere thought of Churchill as Prime
Minister sent a cold chill down the spines of the staff
at IO Downing Street, where I was working as
Assistant Private Secretary to Mr Neville Chamber-
lain. Churchill's impetuosity had, we thought, con-
tributed to the Norwegian fiasco, and General Ismay
had told us in despairing tones of the confusion caused
by his enthusiastic irruptions into the peaceful and
orderly deliberations of the Military Co-ordination
Committee and the Chiefs of Staff. His verbosity and
restlessness made unnecessary work, prevented real
planning and caused friction. Indeed we felt that
Chamberlain had been weak in allowing the First Lord
of the Admiralty to assume responsibilities far in
excess of his Departmental concerns, and if we had
known he was conducting his own telegraphic corres-
pondence with President Roosevelt we should have
been still more horrified by such presumption. Our
feelings at IO Downing Street were widely shared in
the Cabinet Offices, the Treasury and throughout
Whitehall.
 JOHN COLVILLE
The tenth of May dawned. The Germans were
sweeping into Holland and Belgium and, in spite of
Churchill's robust speech in Chamberlain's defence,
there was no doubt whatever that the Prime Minister
had lost the confidence of the House of Commons. We
at No. 10 had hoped so much that the King would
send for Halifax; but the lot had fallen on Churchill,
and we viewed with distaste the arrival of his myr-
midons, Bracken, Lindemann and Desmond Morton, to
take the place of such well-liked colleagues as Sir
Horace Wilson, Captain Dugdale and Lord Dunglass.
We even feared we might soon see the last of Captain
David Margesson. The country had fallen into the
hands of an adventurer, brilliant no doubt and an
inspiring orator, but a man whose friends and sup-
porters were unfit to be trusted with the conduct of
affairs in a state of supreme emergency. Seldom can a
Prime Minister have taken office with 'the Establish-
ment', as it would now be called, so dubious of the
choice and so prepared to find its doubts justified.
Within a fortnight all was changed. I doubt if there
has ever been such a rapid transformation of opinion
in Whitehall and of the tempo at which business was
conducted. The new Prime Minister was still living at
Admiralty House. There, after dinner, Ministers,
military chiefs and officials would begin to assemble,
using the drawing-room with its dolphin furniture
('the fish room', as Churchill called it) as a promen-
ade, while the new Prime Minister popped in and out,
first through one door and then through another,
appointing Under Secretaries with Margesson, dis-
cussing the German thrust at Sedan with the Secretary
of State for War, Anthony Eden, listening to the
g 49
 ACTION THIS DAY
alarmist views expressed by the American Ambassador,
Joseph Kennedy, and soothing the antagonism already
sprouting between Lord Beaverbrook and Sir Archi-
bald Sinclair. There was sometimes a touch of farce
about the performance, but the underlying realities in
those May days were far from comic nor was there the
slightest buffoonery about the orders which proceeded
from Admiralty House. Churchill's own energy was
ceaseless and dramatic, and his ideas flowed out to the
Chiefs of Staff or the Ministries in the form of questions
and minutes, to which more often than not in those
early weeks he attached his bright red label 'ACTION
THIS DAY'. Most of the matters were of major im-
portance relating to the battle that was raging or to
aircraft production, but he always found time for the
trivialities, too. Could trophies taken in the First
World War be reconditioned for use? Could wax be
supplied for troops to put in their ears and deaden the
noise of warfare? What was to be done with the animals
in the Zoo in the event ofbombardment? Nobody com-
plained that he neglected the vital for the insignificant,
but there were those who lamented his preoccupation
with detail in matters great as well as small.
The effect of Churchill's zeal was felt immediately
in Whitehall. Government Departments which under
Neville Chamberlain had continued to work at much
the same speed as in peacetime awoke to the realities
of war. A sense of urgency was created in the course of
a very few days and respectable civil servants were
actually to be seen running along the corridors. No
delays were condoned; telephone switchboards quad-
rupled their efficiency; the Chiefs of Staff and the
Joint Planning Staff were in almost constant session;
50
 JOHN COLVILLE
regular office hours ceased to exist and weekends dis-
appeared with them. At 10 Downing Street itself there
was no respite at all. Churchill had his hour's sleep in
the afternoon, whatever the situation might be, and
this enabled him to work until two, three or four
o'clock in the morning and to start again on the papers
in his box at eight a.m. the following day.
He had assumed the responsibility of Minister of
Defence as well as Prime Minister, convinced that in
war the two offices were inseparable. This double
burden would have been too heavy, even for Churchill,
had it not been for the almost infallible efficiency of
the Cabinet offices, with their closely interconnected
civilian and military sections under Sir Edward
Bridges and General Sir Hastings Ismay. This tireless
organisation processed much of the material which
emerged daily from 10 Downing Street for the Civil
Departments and the Chiefs of Staff. They made them-
selves responsible for ensuring that all decisions were
followed up and that no enquiries were left unanswered.
They soothed the exasperated and they prodded the
indolent.
Churchill himself was no administrator. When he
had some major problem to resolve, he turned the
searchlight of his mind on it, neglecting all else in the
fervour of his concentration. In December 1940 I com-
mented to David Margesson on the high quality of a
long and subtle letter to President Roosevelt to which
Churchill had devoted hours of preparation, and
Margesson replied wearily that he only wished the
Prime Minister were as great an administrator as he
was a leader, orator and writer. Again, in December
1944, when Greece preoccupied Churchill to the
51
 ACTION THIS DAY
exclusion of almost everything else, Sir Alexander
Cadogan, who admired and respected the Prime
Minister as much as any man, told me Churchill was
making a deplorable impression in the Cabinet
because he would not read his Cabinet papers and
dwelt endlessly on Greek affairs. Similarly, in April
I 945, the fate of Poland, and the unsatisfactory dis-
cussions in Washington between Eden, Stettinius and
Molotov, so obsessed Churchill that he would do no
other work but talked repetitively in and out of
Cabinet on these matters alone. It was on occasions
such as these that the influence and diplomacy of
Bridges and Ismay enabled the machine to maintain
its well-oiled running capacity, and Churchill often
spoke of the debt owed to Ismay for the absence in
the Second World War of that friction between the
Cabinet and the military leaders which had so be-
devilled the administration of Lloyd George.
It would, however, be wrong to deny Churchill most
of the credit for the smoothness of relations within the
Government, the Armed Forces and Whitehall. There
were grounds for complaint. The constant flow of
Minutes and directives often gave rise to irritation,
and in some circles the activities of Lindemann and
Morton, acting with the direct authority of the Prime
Minister, created indignation. The telephone enquiries
to the Service Departments and to Fighter and
Bomber Commands were frequently harassing. One
night at Chequers I was instructed, as usual, to ring
up the Duty Captain at the Admiralty and find out
if there was any news. There was none, and the Duty
Captain promised to telephone immediately if any-
thing of the slightest interest was reported. An hour
52
 JOHN COLVILLE
later I was instructed to enquire again, and an injured
Duty Captain reminded me of the promise he had
given. When, at about 2 a.m., I was bidden in spite
of all remonstrances to try yet again, the angry officer,
aroused from a few hours' sleep, let fly at me the full
vocabulary of the quarter deck in times of crisis.
Churchill, hearing a flow of speech, assumed that at
least an enemy cruiser had been sunk. He seized the
receiver from my hand and was subjected to a series
of uncomplimentary expletives which clearly fascinated
him. Mter listening for a minute or two he explained
with great humility that he was only the Prime
Minister and that he had been wondering whether
there was any naval news.
The exasperation, the occasional Prime Ministerial
insistence on details which the Chiefs of Staff thought
immaterial, the fear which many felt of Churchill (and
this applied in particular to the spokesmen for the
Service Departments) ; all these were outweighed by
the realisation of his forcefulness and competence and
by the inspiration which he gave both in public and
to those with whom he came into personal contact.
His charm, his energy, the simplicity of his purpose,
his unfailing sense of fun and his complete absence of
personal vanity- so rare in successful men- were the
Secret Weapons which outmatched any that Hitler
could produce. There was another facet ofhis character
which gradually dawned on those who worked with
him and ensured their lasting affection: he pretended
to a ruthlessness which was entirely foreign to his
nature and while the thunder and lightning could be
terrifying, they could not disguise the humanity and
the sympathy for those in distress which were the solid
53
 ACTION THIS DAY
basis of his character. I never knew him be spiteful.
He once said to me, with reference to a disgraceful act
which was alleged in Whitehall: 'If there is one thing
I abhor it is a manhunt.'
If he pretended to be ruthless and this disguise was
easily pierced, it was because, while Churchill could
play a part, he was not an accomplished actor. He
behaved in public just as he behaved in private. There
were no two faces, no mask that would drop when the
audience had retired. The sentiments he expressed
abroad were familiar to those at home. His decisions
were often unpredictable, because his mind did not
operate in predetermined grooves, but a sudden whim
or unexpected judgment caught his family or staff
unawares no less frequently than the Cabinet or the
Defence Committee. This is not to deny that he was
steeped in the wiles of politics and that he might
embroider his theme with a judiciously, perhaps
intuitively, blended mixture of guile and persuasive-
ness which few could resist. A colleague, an opponent,
a foreign statesman might be subjected to the full
treatment; but so might humbler people whose captiva-
tion was less apparently essential.
However, if Churchill was not in the mood, he found
it difficult to put on an act of affability even when
circumstances positively demanded it; and in so far as
he had good manners (which many would have
denied) they came from fundamental kindness of
heart. They were in no way cultivated, and it was
unnatural for him to display a sentiment he did not
genuinely feel. Thus if he was bored by people he
showed it; not because he desired to hurt anybody's
feelings, but because he was too honest to dissimulate,
54
 JOHN COLVILLE
and les petits soins consumed time and effort which
could be more profitably employed. He drew a con-
scious distinction between those with whom it was
agreeable to have dinner and those who for one good
reason or another were part of the scene. Once his
affection was given it lasted, but his animosity was
transitory and it was not in his nature to bear a
grudge.
His sympathy for people in distress was immediate,
whatever he might have felt about them in the past.
He blamed Baldwin for much of his country's ill, for
pushing out the men of vision like F. E. Smith and for
his own long exclusion from office; but when he heard
that angry crowds had thrown stones at Baldwin's car,
Churchill's instantaneous reaction was to invite him
to luncheon at No. 1 o and spare two hours of a busy
day in an endeavour to cheer him up. Several years
later he said to me that, in passing judgment on
Baldwin's stewardship, it was only fair to remember
that 'the climate of public opinion on people is over-
whelming'. His verdicts on Neville Chamberlain were
sometimes harsh, but once the supreme power was his
he showed the utmost consideration both for the feel-
ings and the opinions of one who, until yesterday his
Chief, was now merely Lord President in the new
Coalition Government. Within three months Cham-
berlain was stricken with cancer; but scarcely a day
passed, even at the height of the Battle of Britain,
without despatch riders taking papers and messages to
his bedside at Heckfield, and, on I 5 August 1940,
Churchill's first thought when he returned to No. 10
from witnessing a great air battle at Fighter Com-
mand Headquarters was to tell me to telephone to
55
 ACTION THIS DAY
Chamberlain and give him the good news. I remember
how overwhelmed he was that Churchill should remem-
ber him at such a time. When he died that November,
Churchill paid his tribute at Church House, where the
House of Commons was sitting, in a speech full of
emotion and of poetry, a speech in which no insincere
compliments were paid and no false credit given, but
which brought lumps to the throats of the hostile no
less than to those of his friends. Poor Chamberlain;
indeed he 'had his friends', but not all of them had
stood by him so staunchly as Churchill, the man whom
he had hesitated to invite as a colleague and of whom
he had had deep suspicions almost to the last.
It has been said that Churchill had no interest in the
common man and knew nothing of people's lives,
hopes and aspirations. This is a half-truth. It is a fact
that when Churchill was preoccupied he concentrated
on the matter in hand to the exclusion of all else, and
the feelings or the convenience of others were of no
account. He could be totally inconsiderate. On I 7 May
I 940, I rose early and drove to Hendon to meet the
new Prime Minister and his military advisers returning
from France. Sir John Dill and Ismay told me that
Churchill had ordered them to be ready to depart at
5·45 a.m. It had then transpired that he himself had
decided not to leave till seven and had gone on sleeping
while they wandered about aimlessly and could get
no breakfast. All his staff suffered from his lack of con-
sideration which could, at least in those days, be
explained and excused by his urgent preoccupation
with matters of far greater importance than his
secretaries' need for sleep. Throughout the war years
plans were changed with no thought for others and
56
 JOHN COLVILLE
meetings were arranged, cancelled and rearranged to
suit nobody's convenience but his own. Cabinet meet-
ings would drag on interminably, and often unneces-
sarily, so that in days of wartime austerity Ministers
and officials would find that lunch was 'off' when at
long famished last they reached their club or restaurant
or canteen, while the Prime Minister had merely to
take the lift upstairs to luncheon.
There was a reverse side to this coin, and a gleaming
one. He was lavish with his hospitality and there was
no streak of meanness apparent. If something good
came his way he wished to share it with all at hand.
He had a natural disinclination to hurt feelings, and
his sympathy for those in disgrace (provided they had
done nothing unpatriotic or dishonourable) was as
immediate as for those in distress. The high moral tone
of disapproval was something he could not abide.
He was by no means indifferent to the well-being of
the people as a whole and I quote, at random, a few
examples of his consideration for the welfare of the
community which I noted from time to time. On
28 August I 940, Churchill returned from Dover much
affected by the bomb damage to small houses. He was
determined that their owners should receive compensa-
tion (this was before the War Damage measures had
been contemplated) and made a note to browbeat
the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject the
next day. When the bombing of London began, he
demanded full reports on the state of the air-raid
shelters and insisted on obtaining complete information
as to who was responsible for what. On I7 October,
dissatisfied with certain rumours which had come to
his ears, he held a 'Shelter Meeting' at Downing
57
 ACTION THIS DAY
Street and vigorously pursued enquiries into the pro-
vision of oil-stoves for heating and of adequate cooking
facilities. Throughout the war it was his constant
desire to make people cheerful and do batde with
those who seemed to favour austerity for austerity's
sake. The people's diet and their entertainment were
high on his list of priorities, and he took an unfailing
interest in the wrongs of individuals about which he
read in the press. Many a Government official found
himself obliged to satisfy an irate Prime Minister on
some incident of which the only source of information
to either of them was a paragraph in the Daily Express
or the Daily Mirror.
In February 1941 Leslie Burgin complained to
Churchill that the Government was indifferent to
certain cases of suffering. Churchill, who was largely
in agreement, replied: 'When one is in office one has
no idea how damnable things can feel to the ordinary
rank and file of the public.'
On his return to office in 1951, with no war to con-
duct, Churchill's declared policy was to restore freedom
where there was still restraint and to sweep away as
quickly as possible the relics of rationing and Crippsian
austerity. The Tory programme, he told me, should
be 'Houses and meat and not being scuppered- though
perhaps not being broke is going to be the principal
preoccupation.' The new Government was indeed heir
to a grave economic crisis and priority had to be given
to surmounting it. In March 1952 when the first budget
was in course of preparation, Churchill, deeply dis-
turbed by the effect its measures would have on old-age
pensioners and widows, demanded that correctives
should be found. Sentiment perhaps; because he had
58
 JOHN COLVILLE
no experience of the hardships an old-age pensioner
might feel; but in this case his attitude was certainly
not dictated by political expediency. Early in 1953 he
insisted, despite gloomy warnings from the Ministry
of Food, that sugar should be derationed before the
Coronation. Sentiment perhaps again; but he was
determined that the Queen should be crowned amidst
uninhibited rejoicing and that the hundreds of
thousands of foreign visitors should not come to a
country still, eight years after victory, in the grip of
food rationing. The Ministry of Food were, in this
event, totally confounded: an ample supply of sugar
proved to be available and not long afterwards there
was a glut.
If ever there was a Cavalier it was Churchill: let the
people be merry, let there be brass bands, let the
church-bells ring; and if some of his colleagues were
Roundheads, who took a more austere view of
their responsibilities, they should nevertheless be
thwarted clandestinely to whatever extent might be
practicable.
It is true that Churchill had little idea how people
actually lived. On the other hand, he had no Curzon-
ian sense of superiority, and he was anything but a
snob. He merely liked his own way oflife and assumed
that while the reasonably well-to-do all lived as he did,
the deserving poor must be cherished and enriched
even though in due course this exercise would involve
a levelling out which, fortunately, he would not live
to see consummated. When, at the end of 1941, I per-
suaded him to let me go away and become a pilot in
the R.A.F ., he approved my intention. 'The R.A.F .,'
he said, 'is the cavalry of modern war.' But he was
59
 ACTION THIS DAY
horrified when I told him I was going off to South
Mrica to train, starting in the ranks as an Aircraftman,
2nd Class. 'You mustn't,' he said, 'you won't be able
to take your man.' It had not crossed his mind that
one of his junior Private Secretaries, earning £350
per annum, might not have his own valet.
Chivalry to the defeated ranked with honour to the
brave among the sentiments he particularly cherished.
When Lord Dowding said that his men were expected
to shoot at enemy pilots descending by parachute over
enemy territory, Churchill expressed horror and said
that an escaping pilot should be treated in all respects
like a drowning sailor. In January 1941 he was deeply
worried by the fate which might be in store for Italian
civilians in Abyssinia when 'those savage warriors who
have been burned with poison gas get among them';
and in the same month he said to me that he hated
nobody and did not feel he had any enemies 'except
the Huns, and that is professional'.
Churchill attached paramount importance to per-
sonal contacts in politics and especially in foreign
affairs. The success with which, from the days when he
was First Lord, he established a close relationship with
Roosevelt convinced him of the value of personal
diplomacy. When we sailed for New York on I january
1952, he told me that he was going to Washington not
to transact business but to re-establish relations. The
briefs which had been so laboriously provided inter-
ested him far less than the impression he might succeed
in making on Truman, Acheson and the American
Chiefs of Staff. It would, however, be wrong to assume
that Churchill's friendships were political, even though
their inspiration might be so. Since he was naturally
6o
 JOHN COLVILLE
affectionate, it was difficult for him not to become fond
of people once he had come to know them, and his
liking for Roosevelt, as subsequently for Truman and
Eisenhower, was entirely sincere.
The same was true of the Service Chiefs. He might
argue with the Chiefs of Staff, and bark at them
fiercely; but he loved them deeply, and he was there-
fore the more distressed by the contents ofAlan brooke's
diaries. He had provided guidance and purpose in
matters which would have otherwise been lost in the
maze of interdepartmentalism or frittered away by
caution and compromise. He had supplied imagina-
tion and he had never been found wanting in resolu-
tion. Certainly Churchill had no doubt of his own
contribution to military thought. On 2 January 1944
he said of the Chiefs of Staff: 'They may say I lead
them up the garden path, but at every tum of the path
they have found delectable fruits and wholesome
vegetables.'
He was, of course, subjective in his assessment of
people, and the main reason for his failure to establish
a close relationship with Wavell was because Wavell
was so unforthcoming. I was present at Chequers when
Lord Rosebery, who was a close friend of Wavell,
brought him to luncheon for the first time. Churchill
tried his hardest to elicit the General's views and was
met with the silence of shyness. He was not accustomed
to accepting other people's judgment of a man, but in
the case of Wavell he did. His faith was eventually
destroyed by events in Crete and by the arrival of
Rommel at Agedabia unknown to Wavell's Intel-
ligence, together with the surprise and capture of three
high-ranking British officers. Perhaps if he had known
6I
 ACTION THIS DAY
and understood Wavell better, his faith might have
lasted longer; but even though Churchill's views on
the quality of a man's exploits were sometimes
coloured by the extent of his personal esteem for him,
this seldom, if ever, applied to a commander in the
field, and Churchill certainly had a great liking for
Auchinleck. The Cretan affair remains particularly in
my memory because Churchill believed that our
defence of the island, and thus our control of the
Eastern Mediterranean, depended on our troops being
able to deny Maleme airfield to the enemy. He be-
sought Wavell to spare a dozen tanks from Egypt for
its defence, but Wavell did nothing, on the ground
that all his tanks required refitting in the workshops
of the Delta. So enemy gliders and parachutists seized
Maleme and Crete fell. Shortly afterwards Colonel
Robert Laycock, newly returned from Crete, was
invited to luncheon at Chequers. We all listened
eagerly to his first-hand account of the fighting. Then,
quite unconscious of the effect his words would have,
Laycock remarked that if we had had a dozen tanks
Maleme and Crete itself could have been saved. I
could almost hear a large nail being driven into
Wavell's coffin.
It is open to question whether Churchill's judgment
of men was good. There are famous cases, Beatty,
Freyberg and Templer, in which he rapidly sized up
the qualities of an outstanding man. But there were
times when the meretricious speech of the glib seemed
to impress him more than the solid virtuesofthetongue-
tied, and there were occasions when the lilt of Auld
Lang Syne was too well remembered. His justifiable
admiration of Sir Roger Keyes, and his memories of
62
 JOHN COLVILLE
Zeebrugge, led him to listen much too readily to that
gallant admiral's views in 1940, and it was only the
solid opposition of the Chiefs of Staff and Ismay which
finally dissuaded him from making Keyes, long past
his prime, Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee.
Keyes even suggested that he ought to be made deputy
Prime Minister. Again in 1951 Churchill could not
resist bringing back Lords Leathers and Woolton as
Overlords of various departments, a wholly unsuccess-
ful experiment; and because Lord Alexander repres-
ented to Churchill everything that was heroic and
personally admirable, he insisted on the reluctant
Field-Marshal abandoning the Governor-Generalship
of Canada to become Minister of Defence.
As against this he always maintained complete in-
dependence of judgment. It was no use anybody going
to one of Churchill's closest friends in the expectation
that the Prime Minister could be persuaded to take a
certain course or make a desired appointment. He
would take the course and make the appointment
which he himself thought fit. He was not in the least
influenced by the personality of the proposer: he con-
sidered only the proposition.
On a different plane from Churchill's relations with
political and military leaders, or with the general
public, were those with his family, his friends and his
staff. His affection for his wife and children was bound-
less and his loyalty to them, in difficulty or distress,
never faltered. To his friends he was equally loyal,
sometimes perhaps to excess. Over a long life his friends
inevitably changed, and in his early days, when he was
not a popular figure, they must have been at least
matched by his enemies; but I noticed that he never
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spoke of the latter, or seemed even to remember that
they existed, whereas in the forties or fifties he would
often talk of long-dead friends with emotion and with
gratitude. His staff, old or young, high or low, adored
him. His secretaries, from Eddie Marsh onwards, were
usually his devoted slaves, and he treated them as his
own children. Servants loved him. However late he
might keep them up, however unpunctual his habits,
inconsiderate his behaviour or harsh his manner, they
respected him, were amused by him and concluded,
quite rightly, that his inclination was to wish them well
even if the provision of their comfort hardly seemed to
him to fall within his province.
On one occasion, however, it did. When the Queen
and Prince Philip returned from Australia in I954,
Churchill and I boarded the Britannia off the Needles,
firstly because the Prime Minister adored the Queen
and secondly because he thought it proper that Her
Majesty's principal United Kingdom adviser should
accompany her as she returned to these islands after
so long an absence. After dinner and a film the time
came to go to bed, so that all Inight be on the bridge
next day when Britannia steamed up the Thames. Alas,
one of the Prime Minister's servants, overcome by the
splendour of the occasion, was incapacitated. Churchill
was deeply distressed. In the first place it was years
since he had put himself to bed; in the second he feared
the Royal servants might have noticed; in the third he
liked the man, and he felt sure Lady Churchill would
insist on his instant disinissal if the event was ever
reported to her. Thus the evening on Britannia ended
with Churchill and me surreptitiously undressing the
servant, who was sober enough to indicate his own
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 JOHN COLVILLE
cabin, and Churchill tucking him up with many
admonitory remarks. Nothing was heard of the incident
the following day or ever again.
Perhaps because his own youth had been unhappy,
he went out of his way to be kind to young people. On
journeys by battleship he never failed to visit the gun-
room and to spend hours answering the midshipmen's
questions: on his annual visits to Harrow he would
collect the senior boys round him after the concert and
converse with them on whatever topics they chose. He
loved pretty girls, and, though he sometimes found
them less easy conversationalists than their brothers,
he tended to devote more attention to them than to
their mothers. Among older women he had friends to
whom he was deeply attached, such as Lady Lytton,
Lady Desborough, Lady Juliet Duff, Lady Cranborne,
Lady Diana Cooper and Lady Violet Bonham-Carter;
but they were all brilliant conversationalists, who could
talk (and in most cases listen) as intelligently as any
man, and he did not in general find the company of
women particularly stimulating. There was, however,
one over-riding exception to the rule, Lady Churchill,
by whose company he was never bored, in whose
presence he felt happy and relaxed and who was,
perhaps, the only human being who, on matters which
were not political, could influence his decisions in a
sense contrary to his own judgment and volition.
She was indeed the only person who was never, in
any circumstances, even the slightest bit overawed or
afraid.
Churchill could state a case and advocate a cause in
a way that compelled attention and often forced the
reluctant to agree. His choice of language, the unex-
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pected use of metaphor, the resort to pathos and the
sudden tum to humour combined to sweep oppon-
ents from their entrenched positions. Occasionally it
failed: he rambled or repeated himselfor used arguments
which carried no weight with a well informed audi-
ence; but if he really wanted something or was
deeply convinced, success was far more frequent than
failure.
When he sought to persuade, his charm was irresis-
tible, particularly on some personal matter; and there
were many who entered his presence firmly resolved
to decline what they knew he was going to ask and left
it after giving a meek affirmative. General Ismay,
awoken from slumber in October I95I by a summons
from the new Prime Minister, rehearsed his negatives
the whole way to Hyde Park Gate. He would accept
nothing; he had earned his retirement; he was going
to spend the rest of his days as a country gentleman.
He knew how it would be put - whatever it was - but
forewarned was forearmed. Half an hour later,
bemused and unbelieving, he trod the early morning
pavements as Secretary of State for Commonwealth
Relations. The following day, on leave from the
Embassy in Lisbon, I was watching the Cambridge-
shire at Newmarket. An official from the jockey Club
told me that I was required immediately on the
telephone from IO Downing Street. I told my wife to
have no fear: I was not, in any circumstances, going
to interrupt my career once again by returning to the
Prime Minister's secretariat. 'Would you be so good,'
said a fainiliar voice on the telephone, 'as to come and
see me this evening? - unless of course it is incon-
venient.' I went, a polite and grateful formula for
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 JOHN COLVILLE
declining word-perfect in my head; I emerged Prin-
cipal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister. Countless
others had similar experiences, seldom, if ever, to their
ultimate regret.
After dinner, when the brandy had arrived,
Churchill's conversation could be sparkling and
spontaneous. The power of his argument and a degree
of his wit are less striking in print than in speech,
because none can aspire to reproduce his manner of
speaking (nor, indeed, were even the most accom-
plished mimics successful in imitating it); and only
those who knew him can recall the suddenly engaging
smile which preceded an aphorism, the skilful use of
climax and anticlimax and the riveted attention
which, at his best, he could command of any audience.
His after-dinner conversation was often a monologue,
interspersed with comments from those who knew him
well enough to risk it; but in fact he welcomed inter-
ruptions, however contradictory or irreverent, pro-
vided they were short, witty and did not stem the flow
or divert the theme. Sometimes, when he was tired,
he used his audience as a waste-paper basket, or
repeated long stories they had all heard before, but
when he did this it was frequently because his thoughts
were on something else, and the surface talk was an
automatic exercise. I remember on one occasion he
saw us yawn and he looked benignly at Commander
Thompson, the 'Flag Commander', saying: 'You must
admit, Tommy, that at least I do not repeat my stories
as frequently as our dear friend, the President of the
United States.'
Often, when conversation flagged or no absorbing
topic presented itself, he would declaim poetry at
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 ACTION THIS DAY
length. It might be Shakespeare, Pope, Swinburne,
Macaulay or his favourite poem, taken from some
long-past edition of Punch, about the ducks in St
James's Park. The repertory, vast and by no means
monotonous, was occasionally interspersed with for-
gotten songs from the music halls of the Nineties.
But this was for the family circle, which was taken
to include many with no blood relationship, and
although almost invariably entertaining, it was the
exception rather than the rule. What was memorable,
particularly during the war, were the military and
political assessments, sharp as steel and flashing in their
rapid eloquence, with which he would sometimes hold
the table spellbound till the early hours of the morning
had struck and the despairing servants had long
abandoned any hope of clearing away.
It was not entirely safe for others to give rein to their
own sense of humour. I was once rash enough, on the
spur of the moment, to interject into a discussion about
Montgomery's public relations a suggestion that the
Field-Marshal had forbidden bands in the 8th Army
to play 'The British Grenadiers'. Churchill asked why,
and I said I believed it to be on account of the first line
of the song ('Some talk of Alexander'). There was a
gratifying giggle round the dining-room table, but the
next morning, to my horror, I discovered that
Churchill had dictated a minute to the C.I.G.S.
instructing him to have the order rescinded. When I
explained with embarrassment that I had only said it
as a joke, he was far from amused.
Churchill often rehearsed a phrase or a line of poetry
again and again in private conversation until one day
it would find its place in a speech in the House of
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 JOHN COLVILLE
Commons. Sometimes, too, he practised a speech on
the unsuspecting or thought aloud to them a telegram
or directive which he contemplated composing. I once
spent a bewildering hour with him, lunching in the
cottage at Chartwell. It was sJune 1941. The situation
in the Middle East was disturbing. Lord Beaverbrook
was being difficult, and an important speech on the
war situation was shortly due. The only other guest at
lunch was The Marmalade Cat, resident at Chartwell
and of all Churchill's cats his favourite. It sat on a
chair at his right-hand side, and he addressed it most
affectionately throughout the whole of luncheon. He
cleaned its eyes, offered it mutton and expressed deep
regret that cream was not available in wartime. All
the time, half under his breath, he was composing a
speech, arguing with Beaverbrook and chiding W avell
on the size of his rearward services. I was conscious for
the first but by no means the last time of his ability to
act a part - in this particular case an exceedingly
amusing one - while his thoughts were concentrated
on serious realities.
The composition of a speech was not a task Churchill
was prepared either to skimp or to hurry; nor, except
on some convivial occasion, was he willing to speak
impromptu. He might improvise briefly, but only to
elaborate or clarify, and he stuck closely to the text he
had prepared. He was sometimes a great orator, and
there was poetry in his speeches as well as magnificent
prose. He knew how to move hearts and emotions; he
instinctively understood that drama must never cross
the line into melodrama. Quick as was his wit and
unfailing his gift of repartee, he was not a man to
depart in the heat of the moment from the theme or
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indeed the very words which he had laboriously con-
ceived in set-speech form. To the last he retained a
sense of apprehension in addressing the House of
Commons or, for that matter, any large assembly, and
this seemed to me a strange characteristic in one whom
none but Lord Moran ever considered to be naturally
apprehensive and whose actions in other respects con-
vincingly proved that he was not. He did not seek to
disguise his anxiety before a speech was due, and when
it was all over his relief and his desire to learn how it
had been received were touching in their childlike
simplicity. He was seldom displeased with the recep-
tion, although just occasionally he was capable of
making a thoroughly bad speech.
The procedure was the same in I 955 as it had been
in I 940. A theme would unfold in his mind, and over
the course of several days he would dictate sections of
his speech, mainly in bed, often in a car (where he
found the movement conducive to thought) and some-
times late at night pacing up and down the Cabinet
Room or his upstairs library at Chartwell. In the early
years of the war he liked to dictate straight on to the
typewriter, so that no time was lost between dictation
and correction of the draft; later on he became
resigned to shorthand, provided his secretaries worked
in relays. He would demand material from the
Government Departments, would almost invariably
refer to both its style and content in the most oppro-
brious terms and, while using the facts and figures for
which he had asked, seldom inserted a phrase or a
sentence that was not entirely his own. He had no
intention of allowing others to think for him and he
was quite capable of delivering a major speech in the
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 JOHN COLVILLE
House which advocated a policy out of tune with that
of the Department concerned. A notable example was
his Foreign Affairs speech on I I May 1953, when he
called for a conference of the Powers, without ponder-
ous or rigid agenda, to endeavour to settle the quarrels
of East and West. The Foreign Office were distraught,
and the State Department were equally unreceptive;
but a profound stir was created throughout the
world, and this is not a speech which historians will
neglect.
When a speech had been composed, the final correc-
tions, the insertions and deletions, were like the last
touches to a picture. The draft required reading and
re-reading, and it had finally to be put into speech
form arranged, as Lord Halifax said, to look like the
psalms and typed on special sheets of paper tagged
together with an instrument called a 'clop'. Churchill
constantly suspected that somebody would perform
this latter task in the wrong order: perhaps somebody
once had, because he personally checked the sheets on
every occasion, and since the final typing was usually
being done against the clock, and he was almost in-
variably still in bed correcting the speech when he
should have been on his way to the House, the scene
before he left Downing Street with Private Secretaries
urging speed, messengers holding the lift, the car's
engine running and anxious Whips telephoning, was a
cross between comic opera and the launching of a
major offensive.
Churchill's style was difficult to plagiarise. After
serving him for many years I found I could imitate his
style but could seldom, if ever, aspire to the choice of
words - the apt but unexpected turn of phrase - which
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was so peculiarly his. Thus although in his second
Administration, with age beginning to weigh and zest
to flag, there were occasions when he actually used a
draft speech prepared for him on some ceremonial or
social occasion, he never, to my knowledge, spoke
words that were not his own in a political speech
delivered as Prime Minister. I remember that on a
visit to Ottawa in January I952, he arrived exhausted
after several gruelling days in Washington and New
York. He had to deliver a speech at a banquet given
in his honour by both Houses of the Canadian Parlia-
ment. He had had neither the time nor the energy for
his usual meticulous preparation and so I, in despair,
drafted an entire speech and took it to him in bed at
Rideau Hall. He read it sadly and paid me the com-
pliment of saying it was too good: he would have to
use it. Then suddenly, with eyes flashing, he sat up and
said that nothing would induce him to play such a
deceitful trick on the Canadians. He had never done
such a thing, and he never would. So casting my draft
and his lethargy aside, he summoned 'a young lady'
and launched himself into the dictation of a speech
which was entirely his own.
In March I 955, Churchill opened two debates in the
House of Commons, one on Defence and one on
Foreign Affairs. The speeches were prepared just as
they had been in I 940. The difference lay in the situa-
tion: there could be no call to fight on the beaches, no
tribute to the Few. Poetry which danger evokes in
speakers and writers of the English language is out of
place and even absurd in a peacetime ministerial state-
ment. What was magic in 1940 would have been
melodrama in I 955· Among those who listened to
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 JOHN COLVILLE
Churchill's two last parliamentary performances were
many, indeed certainly a majority, who considered he
was played out and should have retired months or
years before. Perhaps in some respects they were right,
but they could not fail to be astonished by the contents
and delivery of speeches which all but stand compari-
son with the famous utterances that had inspired the
world fifteen years before.
In political philosophy Churchill was at once a
radical and a traditionalist. At heart he felt little sym-
pathy for the Conservative Party except in so far as it
embodied Lord Randolph's conception of 'Tory
Democracy'. Even though the bearing of grudges was
unnatural to him, he retained some bitterness towards
'the caucus' which, first under Baldwin and then under
Chamberlain, had kept him out of office throughout
the nineteen-thirties; but, while remembering their
deafness to his warnings about Germany, he was un-
willing to take account of the more justifiable resent-
ment and suspicion which stemmed from his factious
opposition to the Government of India Bill and his
attitude over the Abdication. He never quite forgave
the Men of Munich or, Grand Master ofthe Primrose
League though he might be, wholeheartedly identified
himself with the Conservative Party. Temperamentally
he remained a radical (just as Attlee was, by temper-
ament, a Conservative) although never anything but
hostile to Socialist theory.
He believed passionately that freedom at home was
assured by Parliamentary government. It was vital to
sustain the authority of Parliament against the
executive and respect for Parliamentary institution
in the hearts of the electorate. This was a precious
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inheritance of the English-speaking peoples, but it was
not necessarily one to be imposed on others. He was
never a party to the Anglo-Saxon folly of supposing
that representative government is the only passport to
happiness and respectability. He used to quote the
statement that democracy is the worst form of govern-
ment apart from any other that has ever been tried;
but he felt no sacred obligation to prescribe it as the
infallible remedy for every country's ills. Indeed, he
regarded infallibility of any kind as a totally unaccep-
table dogma. It was one thing to save the Poles or the
Greeks from foreign domination and oppose a system
forced on them from outside; it was quite another to
lecture the Spaniards, the Portuguese or the Russians
on the form of government they ought to adopt.
Churchill told me, in October I 940, that he had
learned one great lesson from his father: never to be
afraid of British democracy. The British alone had
managed to combine Empire and Liberty. He was
determined that in days of national crisis the Con-
servatives should not allow any others to excel them
in the sacrifice of party interests and party feeling.
Few things needed to be changed quickly and drastic-
ally, but he shared Disraeli's belief in the gradual
increase of amenities for an ever larger number of
people who should enjoy benefits previously reserved
for the few. The future depended not on political
doctrines, but first on every man having sufficient and
then on the heart and soul of the individual. On visiting
Harrow School in December I 940, he told the boys
that after the war the advantages of the Public Schools
must be extended on a far broader basis, and in August
the following year he remarked to Lord Halifax that
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 JOHN COLVILLE
it was the Secondary schoolboys who had saved this
country. 'They have,' he said, 'the right to rule it.'
Views expressed on impulse or from sentiment can
be misleading, and Churchill was not averse to
dramatic statements, even in private. I do, however,
remember certain considered judgments on policy and
events which seem to denote the Whig rather than the
Tory, the Radical as opposed to the Conservative. In
January 1941 he told the Foreign Secretary that he
trusted the time would come in Egypt when the
interests of the fellaheen would be cherished by the
British, even if some of the rich pashas and landowners
had to pay taxes comparable to those paid by the
wealthy in Britain. The radical sledgehammer was, he
said, required in the Delta, where too many fat,
insolent class and party interests had grown up under
our tolerant protection. In April 1944 he said to Attlee
at Chequers that he recognised the old order was
changing and that 'the pomp and vanity must go: the
old world will have had the honour of leading the way
into the new.' In the following September he told me
that if at the coming General Election there were a
left-wing majority then 'what is good enough for the
English people is good enough for me.' A few weeks
later he said that his own programme at home would
be free enterprise for the individual, provided no
cartels or monopolies were permitted, and the reten-
tion of high taxation on the rich until prosperity was
assured for all.
In his second Administration the flashes of radical-
ism were less frequent, but the traditionalism - the
love of colour, gaiety and pageantry- remained strong.
Lady Churchill told me she thought him to be the last
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believer in the Divine Right of Kings: she felt reason-
ably sure the King was not. Certainly Churchill had
the deepest veneration for the monarchy. Once when
I asked him why he had taken the line he did at the
time of the Abdication, he replied that he could not
then or ever consider disloyalty to his Sovereign. Com-
bined with respect for the institution, and a strong
personal liking for the successive monarchs he served,
was his conviction that political stability was founded
on constitutional monarchy. 'A battle is won,' he used
to say, 'and crowds cheer the King. A battle is lost:
the Government falls.' He was sure that no better
system could be devised.
When King George VI questioned a decision, as he
sometimes did, Churchill took infinite pains to explain
the reasons underlying it. The King commented and
occasionally criticised, but he never pressed any objec-
tions he might feel beyond that limit. Churchill, for
his part, firmly upheld the right of the Sovereign to
choose the Prime Minister, and he would have violently
opposed the decision of the Conservative Party to
elect its leader and thus limit the Sovereign's freedom
of choice. Indeed, he twice went out of his way to stress
the point. When he resigned on 25 May 1945, pre-
paratory to the formation of a Caretaker Government,
he insisted on a four-hour pause before returning to
Buckingham Palace since he wished it to be demon-
strated publicly that the King had the right to decide
for whom he should send. Similarly on 5 April I 955,
when he resigned for the last time he instructed me to
make a note that he had acted with constitutional
propriety in not mentioning to the Queen the question
of his successor. His successor was, of course, obvious:
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 JOHN COLVILLE
but he wished it to be on record that Eden was chosen
without any prompting or advice from the outgoing
Prime Minister.
It must be emphasised that Churchill, much as he
loved colour and tradition, never allowed his reverence
for the latter to warp his judgment of what was
expedient. President Roosevelt and the State Depart-
ment believed that Churchill's Greek venture at
Christmas 1944 was inspired by his desire to put the
King of Greece back on his throne, and they obviously
thought his support of both King Peter of Yugoslavia
and Marshal Tito an unhappy case of schizophrenia.
In these two cases, particularly that of Greece, there
was a serious political motive, and Churchill had to
fight hard against the blindness of the State Depart-
ment to keep Greece and Turkey on the right side of
the Iron Curtain. He knew that republicanism and
anti-colonialism were shibboleths in Washington and
that no American paused to consider the implications
of either. He regretted the dissolution of the Habsburg
Empire, which had left a vacuum on the Danube, and
the failure of the Allies after the First World War to
encourage the establishment of 'a Crowned Weimar
Republic' which would have given the German Army
a rallying-point against the Nazis. He condemned
President Wilson and the State Department for this
shortsightedness but maintained that the Foreign
Office must also share the blame.
Churchill had no love for the Foreign Office, one of
the very few Departments of which he had never been
head. He suspected them of pursuing their own policy,
irrespective of what the Government might wish, and
he mistrusted their judgment. One evening, after he
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had abused the Foreign Office (which was my own
Department, and for which I felt both loyalty and
affection) with unusual vehemence, I reminded him
that during the afternoon he had been equally harsh
about the Treasury. Which, I asked, did he dislike the
most? Mter a moment's thought, he replied: 'The
War Office!'
He bore no ill-will towards the Labour Party, and,
except at election times, he never suspected them of
anything so undesirable as Socialist principles. He
liked both Attlee and Bevin, and he found Cripps
stimulating, though he was exasperated by his less
practical propositions. There were a number of Labour
back-benchers and members of the I.L.P. to whom he
was personally attached, and he had a genuine liking
for many of the Trades Union leaders. When the war-
time Coalition broke up in May I 945, Churchill was
distressed by the prospect of waging political warfare
against the men with whom he had worked in harness
and in harmony for five years. Attlee wrote to inform
him of the Labour Party's decision not to continue the
Coalition until victory over Japan was achieved. The
first draft of Churchill's reply, written for publication,
contained a warm tribute to his late Socialist colleagues:
and it was only after much argument that he acceded
to Beaverbrook's urgent demand for its omission. Once
committed to the ensuing electoral fight he threw him-
self into it with zest and gave rein to his natural pug-
nacity; but there were many, notably including the
Conservative Chief Whip, James Stuart, who felt that
he overdid the combative spirit. Certainly the Gestapo
speech was a thunderbolt which missed its mark,
although Attlee recognised it for what it was: the kind
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 JOHN COLVILLE
of hard-hitting electioneering on which Churchill had
been brought up.
Churchill was by no means an arrogant man, even
ifhe was overbrimming with self-confidence. Arrogance
was a fault he detested in others, particularly in its
intellectual form. For this reason above all he had dis-
like and contempt, of a kind which transcended politics,
for the intellectual left wing of the Labour Party,
although this by no means extended to James Maxton
or even to the Communist, William Gallacher. In the
war he believed that many of them lacked patriotism
and, while he considered parliamentary opposition to
be the very life-blood of British politics, the form in
which Aneurin Bevan applied it seemed to him to
contribute nothing towards our principal objective,
which was to win. The Bevan oflater years might have
appealed to him more. Churchill had a natural sym-
pathy for simple people, because he himself took a
simple view of what was required; and he hated
casuistry. This was no doubt why the man-in-the-
street loved him and the intellectuals did not. He dis-
dained the easy laugh won by irreverence and he could
be sure of commanding attention without seeking to
shock or indulging in iconoclasm. It was better to be
constructive than to be scornful. Hiinself a sentimen-
talist, he had no patience with sentimentalism of the
sloppier kind. His sympathies were with the victim of
crime and not with the perpetrator. He held well-
defined views of right and wrong and had no wish to
excuse the wrongdoer on psychological grounds. Mercy
was to be commended and magnanimity was noble,
but he saw no point in psycho-analysing the criminal or
the aggressor. Moreover he felt that criticism should
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come from those who stood on sure ground in making
their strictures. Who was Michael Foot to abuse
Baldwin, Chamberlain and the Men of Munich in his
book Guilty Men? Churchill might justifiably do so if
he chose, but not the non-combatant representative of
a party which had so long supported pacifism and had,
as late as I 939, voted against conscription. Moreover
it seemed to him that in foreign affairs the left wing of
the Labour Party normally championed people and
causes inimical to their country's cause.
Being first and foremost a man of action he took no
intellectual interest in either political or social theories.
In considering a problem his test was first whether the
proposed solution was right and secondly whether it
was practicable. It was immaterial whether or not it
fitted the tenets of a particular doctrine or philosophy.
He was thus uninterested in the distinction between
Communism and Fascism: both were vile because they
denied freedom.
In I 940 he demanded the incarceration of leading
British Fascists, not because they were Fascists, but
because invasion threatened and we had before us the
example of Quisling (a name which he prophesied
would become, with a small q, a part of the language,
like boycott and sandwich). Later he supported
Herbert Morrison in the suppression of the Daily
Worker, not because it was Communist, but because it
incited its readers to defeatism and disloyalty. Friend-
ship to Britain was a criterion of supreme importance.
Mter the war he observed with distaste the venom
which the left wing spat at Franco and Salazar, whose
attitude to Britain was friendly, while they kept silent
over the far greater cruelties and oppression exercised
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 JOHN COLVILLE
by regimes in Bulgaria, Roumania and Hungary
which were noticeably more hostile to the institutions
we had built and the ideals that we cherished.
Strength often marches with simplicity. In the war
Churchill's burden was lightened and his task sim-
plified by his refusal to be diverted from the single aim
of victory: victory at any price, since the alternative
was slavery or extinction. This suited his temperament,
because although a brilliant political tactician and
more fertile than most men in imagination and ideas,
he was fundamentally a straightforward person who
eschewed devious paths and struck out for goals which
he could see. He had little of Lloyd George's cunning
or the well-disguised craftiness of Stanley Baldwin.
His decisions might be unpredictable, but his motives
were seldom hard to fathom, and in forming his opinion
of men he would have thought it an impertinence
to probe too far beneath the surface.
In August 1940 he considered the clamour for a
Statement of War Aims ill-conceived. We had, he
said, only one aim: to destroy Hitler. Let those who
did not know what we were fighting for stop and see
for themselves. France was now discovering why she
had been fighting, and we, since we must win in order
to survive, could only take the short view. In January
1941 he made the same point to Harry Hopkins and
added that when the war was over we should be con-
tent to establish a few basic principles: justice; respect
for human rights and for the property of other nations;
respect also for private property in general so long as
its owners were honest and its scope was moderate.
We could find nothing better on which to build than
the Sermon on the Mount, and the closer we were able
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to follow it the more likely we were to succeed in our
endeavours. What more, he asked, had a State-
ment of War Aims to offer than this? He reminded
Hopkins of Clemenceau's comment on President
Wilson's Fourteen Points: 'Meme le bon Dieu n'avait
que dix.'
There were occasions during the war when Churchill
allowed his thought to dwell on the form of a World
Organisation, on Germany after defeat, on Russia
after victory, and again and again on the future might
of America, benevolent without doubt but no less
certainly in need of guidance. The best hope for
Britain, and this was what mattered to him first and
foremost, was the continued unity of the English-
speaking peoples, broken after 1918 by the follies of
a Republican administration, but gloriously recreated
in 1 94o-- 1 just in time to pull humanity back from
precipitous disaster, from the ultimate calamity to
which America's withdrawal into herself had led us
so close. Churchill spoke of these things often, after
dinner and in mellow mood, and it is worth quoting
his views; but they were not thoughts that possessed
him during the long active hours when his energies
were directed to the over-riding necessity first of sur-
vival, then of victory.
As early as 1940, with invasion apparently imminent,
I first heard him speak of the future after we had won
the war. On 12 December General de Gaulle came to
Chequers, as he often did, and during luncheon
Churchill said he was inclined to lay stress on the fact
that we were fighting the Nazis rather than Germany,
even though many people had murderous thoughts
towards the whole German race. De Gaulle objected
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 JOHN COLVILLE
that we had fought the last war against the Hohenzol-
lerns and German militarism. We had crushed them
both and then came Hitler - 'et toujours le militarisme
allemand'. He thought, therefore, there was some-
thing to be said for those who blamed the Germans
as a whole.
Later the same day, after de Gaulle had left,
Churchill reverted to the subject and spoke at length
of his ideas for the future. We had got to admit that
Germany should remain in the European family:
'Germany existed before the Gestapo.' When we had
won the war he visualised five great European nations:
Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Prussia. In
addition there would be four confederations: the
Northern, with its capital at The Hague; the Middle
European with its capital at Warsaw or Prague; the
Danubian including Bavaria, Wiirttemberg, Baden,
Austria and Hungary, with its capital at Vienna; and
the Balkan with Turkey at its head and Constantinople
as its capital. These nine powers would meet in a
Council of Europe, which would have a Supreme
Judiciary and Economic Council, and each would
contribute men to a Supranational Air Cohort. None
might have its own air force, but each would be allowed
its own militia, since democracy must be secured on a
people's army and not left to the mercy of oligarchs
or a secret police. Prussia alone would, for a hundred
years, be denied all armaments apart from her share
in the Supranational Air Cohort.
Britain would be part of Europe, but she would also
be part of the English-speaking world which, as the
reward for victory, would alone control the seas,
though bound by covenant to respect the commerce
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and colonial rights of all peoples. Russia would fit into
an Eastern Confederation and the whole problem of
Asia would have to be faced; but as far as Europe was
concerned a system of confederation was necessary to
allow the small powers to continue to exist and to
avoid balkanisation. There must be no war debts,
no reparations and no demands on Prussia. Certain
territories might have to be ceded, and exchanges of
population would have to take place on the lines of
that so successfully achieved by Greece and Turkey
after the First World War. But there must be no
pariahs, and Prussia, though unarmed, should be
secured by the guarantee of the Council of Europe.
Only the Nazis, the murderers of3ojune I934, and the
Gestapo would be made to suffer for their misdeeds.
A year later, on gjuly I94I, he said that after the war
there should be an end to all bloodshed, though he
must confess he would like to see 'Mussolini, that bogus
mimic of Ancient Rome, strangled like Vercingetorix'.
He would segregate Hitler and the Nazi leaders on
some island, though he would not desecrate St
Helena.
This sketch of the future was presented at a time
when Britain stood alone and most people beyond our
shores thought we had little chance of survival. The
blitz was at its height; the United States was still
doubtful (Harry Hopkins had not yet arrived to make
his report to the President); Russia was hostile; what
remained of Free Europe seemed to be veering to the
Axis; de Gaulle commanded but s,ooo men; Spain
and Greece were the only unoccupied European
countries disposed to withstand the demands ofHitler;
and for us the lights in a dark world consisted solely of
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 JOHN COLVILLE
Wavell's victorious action at Sidi Barrani, made
possible because Churchill had denuded this island of
its surviving armoured strength, and 'our mastery of
the daylight air'. As the years went by hope began to
grow, eventual victory became certain and finally the
war was won. It may be illuminating to consider how
Churchill's own thoughts developed, towards Ger-
many, Europe and the English-speaking peoples as
the drama continued to unfold. In the course of time
a new problem emerged: the Soviet Union, which in
December 1940 lay quiescent, apprehensive towards
its German ally but still hostile and unforthcoming to
Hitler's surviving opponent.
Churchill's attitude to Germany underwent little
change. Hitler and his gang were beyond the pale; the
Gestapo was an instrument of evil with scarcely a
parallel in history; but anti-German sentiment as such
was unwise, ungenerous and unrealistic. In January
1941 he told Sir Robert Vansittart that while he
thought it might be right to separate the Prussians
from the South Germans, we must not let our vision
be darkened by hatred or obscured by sentiment. He
contemplated a reunited European family in which
Germany would have a great and honourable place,
even though he admitted we had 'rather overdone it'
in putting Germany back on her feet after Versailles.
In March the same year he said he was unmoved by
bloodthirsty demands for the destruction of Germany.
He would never condone atrocities against the German
civil population. The ancient Greeks, he remembered,
once spared a city not because its inhabitants were
men but because of the nature ofman.
Never at any stage did I hear Churchill express
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vindictiveness to the Axis powers, or propose anything
but chivalrous treatment of them in defeat. But he did
believe that bombing Germany would for a long time
be our sole method of containing the enemy, since
invasion of the continent, from north or south, could
not be undertaken until we had built up vast resources.
As early as June 1940 he saw that the blockade could
not be effective and that overwhelming air attack on
Germany would be the only powerful weapon avail-
able to us. Ten days later he was urging Beaverbrook
to still greater miracles of aircraft production with the
assertion that an all-out attack on the Nazi homeland
was the only road open towards victory. The unthink-
able alternative was stalemate, and a negotiated peace
would mean 'a final spring of the tiger' in a few years'
time. The third possibility, our own defeat, did not
enter into his calculations.
He never faltered in his belief in the efficiency of the
bomber offensive, and it may be that as time went on,
and the accumulated horrors of the war hardened all
our hearts, he grew indifferent to the sufferings of the
German cities. Certainly he gave 'Bomber' Harris the
full weight of his support, and I remember being sur-
prised by the apparent equanimity with which he
received an account of what befell Dresden in 1945.
But equally, he steadfasdy refused to be swayed by the
demands for revenge with which he was greeted when
he visited the still smoking ruins of Coventry, Bristol,
Plymouth and Swansea, nor did he ever listen to Lord
Cherwell's violent anti-German proposals with any-
thing but polite tolerance. However, he disagreed with
public expressions of brotherly love for the Germans
and when Sir Stafford Cripps made a speech on these
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 JOHN COLVILLE
lines, in January I 945, Churchill remarked that he
would applaud such sentiments when victory was won,
but not with a great battle raging and the Germans
shooting captured soldiers in cold blood.
I record all this at some length because of the wide-
spread belief that Churchill was a fire-eater and fire-
raiser, and also because of what has been written about
the Morgenthau Plan for the pastoralisation of Ger-
many after the war. I was present at the Second
Quebec Conference in September I 944· I remember
Cherwell's advocacy and that Churchill's initial
reaction to the plan was hostile. Why he signed it, I do
not know. Presumably he was subjected, in Roosevelt's
presence, to the combined advocacy of Morgenthau
and Cherwell, and I think that when Roosevelt,
already a dying man, decided to sponsor it Churchill
fell into line without careful deliberation. Certainly
its drastic theme, the elimination of German industry,
held no place in his considered views, and I am sure
that on the journey home in the Queen Mary, when
all that had happened at Quebec was digested and
discussed, the Morgenthau Plan was not mentioned.
It was the Hyde Park Agreement on the future of
atomic production, initialled by himself and Roosevelt,
which shared with events at Arnhem the forefront of
his mind.
Anthony Eden, who came to Quebec by air after the
Conference had begun, has told me that when he
arrived at the Citadel Roosevelt and Churchill were
together and the document had been initialled. He did
not agree with it and, on being asked, said so. Churchill
was displeased, and this is the only occasion that Eden
can recall when Churchill openly expressed opposition
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to his views in front of the President. Eden felt that the
reason for this must have been the course of the earlier
discussions of which, having just arrived, he had no
detailed knowledge. He declined, however, to alter his
opinion and the position might have become difficult
if the American Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, had
not arrived at Quebec on the following day. Hull
entirely shared Eden's opinion and was somewhat in-
dignant that Morgenthau should have intruded in a
matter which Hull considered to be his responsibility.
Roosevelt had to take account of Hull's opinion, and
the result was that both he and Churchill were content
to let the proposal drop.
Had Churchill really changed his mind about the
treatment of Germany, I should certainly have
remembered. On the contrary his lack of animosity
was particularly striking, and when, in March I 945,
I accompanied him on to German soil to watch the
2 I st Army Group cross the Rhine I remember how
upset he was by the strained look on the faces of the
civilian inhabitants, particularly the children. By this
time, indeed, he was again advocating clemency: let a
list of a hundred or so of the principal war criminals
be drawn up, and let them, on capture, be tried by
drum-head court-martial, sentenced to death and shot
on the ratification of any officer with the rank of
Major-General or above. Mter that no more blood-
shed. True there was no longer any talk of segregating
the Nazi leaders on an island, but the reckoning was
to be short and severely restricted. A few weeks later
the concentration camps were opened and their full
horror was revealed in photographic form to the
world. Even then I think that pity rather than anger
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 JOHN COLVILLE
remained the predominantemotionin Churchill'sheart.
If his attitude to Germany remained broadly con-
stant, his feelings towards the Soviet Union went
through many vicissitudes between 1941 and 1955.
On 20 June 1941 I was walking with him on the
croquet lawn at Chequers when he said that he was
now sure Hitler would attack Russia. Remembering
the part he had played in inspiring the pro-White
expedition to Archangel in I 920, and his detestation
of Communism, I enquired whether this event might
not put him in an awkward predicament. He replied:
'If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favour-
able reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.'
Two days later the expected attack was launched. I
awoke Churchill with the news, and he at once
directed his energies to preparing a broadcast which
urged all-out support for Russia. He firmly resisted the
efforts of the Foreign Secretary to see the text in case
he should seek to tone the speech down. Now, Churchill
maintained, we should forget all about the Ribben-
trop-Molotov Pact and about Communism: the sturdy
Russian peasant fighting for his Fatherland deserved
every bit of help and encouragement we could provide.
We must display frankness and generosity to the limit
of our productive capacity. What was more, Hitler
was about to make the identical mistake Napoleon had
made: the German hordes would be swallowed up in
the deep snows of Russia; our own hard-pressed front
would be relieved; invasion no longer threatened; and,
whatever General Dill, or Mr Winant or anybody else
present at Chequers that day might assert, he believed
Stalin's armies would fight valiantly, and perhaps in
the end victoriously, for the soil of Holy Russia.
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This was the first elation. The fact that the military
mission which we sent to Russia was received with
scant courtesy, and at no stage taken into the con-
fidence of the Soviet Command, did something to
damp that initial enthusiasm; but Churchill was con-
fident that once he could meet Stalin face to face
suspicion and misunderstanding would be dissipated
like the mists of morning. The problems that in the
event our representatives, and Churchill himself, faced
in the Kremlin during the succeeding years have been
well recorded. I will mention only some of Churchill's
own views, expressed in my hearing, which may be
a footnote to these records.
When I left Churchill to join the R.A.F. in October
I94I, he was unchanged in his determination to wipe
out past quarrels with the Soviet Union, however
vividly the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of August I939
and Russia's naked aggression against first Poland and
then Finland still persisted in our memories. I returned
to his Private Office in December 1943, immediately
after the Teheran Conference. He was still louder in
his praise of Russian courage than in his criticism of
Stalin's surliness, and I believe he thought the Soviet
Government more sensible than in fact they were of
our efforts to supply them through Murmansk and
Archangel, at soul-searing loss to our convoys, and of
our unreciprocated willingness to keep them informed
of our military plans. Churchill was continuing to
concentrate on victory rather than ideology. This was
exemplified by his decision to switch British support
in Yugoslavia from Mihailovich to Tito. He erred in
crediting Stalin, and with a lesser degree of error
Roosevelt, with the same single-minded motive.
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 JOHN COLVILLE
By the spring of 1944, while the Americans still had
visions of a newly inspired Soviet Union, free, bene-
volent and democratic, Churchill already had his
doubts. At the end of February Stalin had sent an
ungenerous and unhelpful reply to our proposals for
a solution of the Polish problem. Churchill brooded
unhappily on the fate which he began to realise the
Russians were planning for Poland and on 4 March
I first heard him use a sentence which became part of
his theme song: 'I feel like telling the Russians that
personally I fight tyranny whatever uniform it wears or
slogans it utters.' Throughout the spring the British
Government's efforts to secure even an element of
future freedom for Poland were met with hostility or,
at the best, silent contempt. But Operation 'Overlord'
was approaching and during the summer Churchill's
thoughts were concentrated on the allied campaign in
northern France.
In August the Russians were approaching Warsaw.
To facilitate their task the exiled Polish Government
in London called on General Bor Komorowski and the
Polish Home Army to rise against the Germans. There
then occurred one of the vilest double-crosses in history:
the Russians halted their advance until the Home
Army, fighting in the sewers of Warsaw, had been
destroyed and the supporters of the London Poles
conveniently exterminated. In spite of Churchill's
pleas the Russians refused the R.A.F. permission to
use their airfields to fly supplies to General Bor.
Churchill discovered that Warsaw could be reached
by aircraft flying from American bases in Italy. To his
anger and astonishment Roosevelt refused: we must
do nothing to offend our gallant Soviet allies, and to
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supply the Polish Home Army, fighting against hope-
less odds and desperately short of arms, would offend
them.
Warsaw held out until September, and this tragic
drama convinced Churchill that we now had to face an
enduring Russian danger. If they could pause in their
march towards Germany in order to achieve a political
end and impose a Communist regime on a decidedly
non-Communist country, the Western Allies must be
on their guard for the future. Early in September the
women of Warsaw, in their final agony, appealed to
the Pope, and Churchill, stirred by the pathos of their
message, drafted a telegram to Roosevelt suggesting
Stalin be informed that in default of his allowing us to
send assistance to Warsaw the British and American
Governments would take drastic action in respect of
the supplies they were sending to Russia. 'This world,'
he said to me, 'is full of wolves - and bears' ; and he
subsequently told me that it was this treacherous
episode that finally revealed to him (though apparently
not to President Roosevelt and the State Department)
the chasm which divided the Western from the Soviet
code of honour. When Churchill returned to power in
I 95 I one of his first acts was to make enquiries about
General B6r Komorowski, who had escaped the final
massacre, and to demand assurances that provision had
been made for his comfort and well-being.
Churchill accordingly went to Yalta in February
I945 with his eyes wide open. It was too late to save the
Balkans: the Russian armies had arrived. On 23
January, before the expedition to the Crimea set forth,
he told me that he believed he had managed to save
Greece and that Stalin would respect the fact. The
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 JOHN COLVILLE
remammg states of Eastern Europe would be bol-
shevised and there was nothing we could do to save
them or, for that matter, Poland.
He returned from Yalta in sombre mood. At
Chequers in the evening of 23 February we listened to
the music of The Mikado and Churchill said that it
brought back his youth and the Victorian era, 'eighty
years which will rank in our island history with the age
of the Antonines'. Now, however, the shadows of
victory were upon us. In 1 940 the issue was clear and
he could see distinctly what was to be done; but when
Sir Arthur Harris (who was present) had finished his
destruction of Germany, 'What will lie between the
white snows of Russia and the white cliffs of Dover?'
Perhaps, however, the Russians would not want to
sweep on to the Atlantic; or something might stop
them as the accident of Genghis Khan's death had
stopped the horsed archers of the Mongols. Be that as
it might, there was an unspoken fear in many people's
hearts. Mter this war we should be weak; we should
have no money, and our strength would have been
drained away. We should lie between the two great
powers of the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. If he lived he
would concentrate on one thing: the air. Harris inter-
jected that it would have to be rockets since 'the
bomber is a passing phase and, like the battleship, it
has nearly passed.'
Churchill made a last, unavailing effort to save
Poland. On 28 February 1945, on receiving alarming
news that Vyshinsky was acting in Roumania oblivious
of the agreement reached at Yalta, Churchill said to
me: 'I have not the slightest intention ofbeing cheated
over Poland, not even if we go to the verge of war with
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Russia.' On 7 March the news of further aggressive
moves in Bucharest, and a threat to remove General
Radescu by force from his sanctuary with the British
Military Mission, caused Churchill to say that our
willingness to trust our Russian ally had been in vain,
and he felt he could only regard the future with despon-
dency. The march of events was such that he could do
nothing for the Poles: he had hoped that by brow-
beating Mikolajcik into accepting the Curzon Line
frontier and surrendering Lvov to the Russians, he
might at any rate save Western Poland; but in his heart
he knew that for the Russians possession was ten-
tenths of the law.
It is probable that if Churchill had had his way, and
General Alexander had been allowed to keep the eight
divisons withdrawn from his command in June I944
for a fruitless landing in the south of France, British
and American troops would have passed through the
Ljubljana Gap to capture Vienna and Budapest before
the Russians. It was on a drive through Trieste and
not, as so often suggested, on a landing in the Balkans
that Churchill's strategy was based. He always believed
that this would have brought about the collapse of
Germany in the autumn of I944· The Iron Curtain
would have dropped many miles to the eastward and
although the Russian claims to their allotted zones of
occupation could not have been disputed, our bar-
gaining power on behalf of Poland and the Balkan
countries would have been immeasurably strength-
ened. In the event the Iron Curtain stretched from
Leipzig to the Adriatic and it fell to Churchill, in his
post-war speeches at Fulton and Ziirich, to sound
another alert to Western Europe and America. He did
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 JOHN COLVILLE
not, however, despair of coming to terms with Russia
and in his second administration he made a consistent
effort to do so. He believed that whereas the Nazis had
had to be destroyed, since no compromise with Hitler-
ism was possible, the other great tyranny, Com-
munism, was susceptible of internal change. This
would come from the growth of prosperity and the
disappearance of that miserable poverty on which
Marx and Lenin had built. It must also come because
the human soul would rebel against the permanent
suppression of freedom; and this was what he meant
when he said that Russia feared our friendship more
than our enmity.
Nothing the Americans did, the futile landing in the
south of France, Warsaw, Yalta nor Churchill's deep
distress at Eisenhower's failure to take Berlin and
Prague when they lay within his grasp, for one moment
damped his faith in the essential virtue of the United
States. Ancestral feeling and a genuine love of America
marched with policy both during and after the war.
Unlike most Englishmen, he knew the history of the
United States, and American poems were well
represented in his repertory. 'The Great Republic'
was always in his thoughts, and, from the moment he
became Prime Minister in 1940, he was convinced that
America would and must come into the war. His con-
fidence in victory, even in the darkest days, was at
least partly based on his certainty that Roosevelt
would not desert us.
There were periods of exasperation, and the deliber-
ate leakage ofhis most secret messages to the Washing-
ton columnist, Drew Pearson, was enough to try
anybody's temper. There were times when he found
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the State Department, the U.S. Chiefs of Staff and
the President himself, almost unbearably obtuse and
impervious to argument. Very occasionally his faith
in American altruism was shaken, as when in Novem-
ber I 944 he learned from an ashamed Ambassador
Winant that the U.S. Government were threatening
to change their attitude on Lease-Lend unless they
were guaranteed certain Civil Aviation advantages;
and when in April I 945 the Americans demanded that
we should consult the Soviet Government before
sending any more arms to the Greeks, Churchill wrote:
'This is the usual way in which the State Department,
without taking the least responsibility for the outcome,
makes comments of an entirely unhelpful character in
a spirit of complete detachment.'
All this was as nothing to the admiration and grati-
tude which were predominant in his thought. The
future was America's, but Britain had an important
part to play. In February I945 Churchill said to
President Bene~ of Czechoslovakia that a small lion
was walking between a huge Russian bear and a great
American elephant, but that perhaps it would turn out to
be the lion thatknewtheway. 1 lbelieveChurchillhoped
that one day the close understanding of the English-
speaking peoples, which was always the consideration
r It is of interest to note that Mr Churchill made a very similar com-
ment to Lady Violet Bonham-Carter (Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury)
on his return from the Teheran Conference: 'I realised at Teheran for the
first time,' he said, 'what a small nation we are. There I sat with the
great Russian bear on one side of me, with paws outstretched, and on the
other side the great American buffalo, and between the two sat the poor
little English donkey who was the only one, the only one of the three, who
knew the right way home.' (Television interview with Mr Kenneth
Harris first broadcast 13 April 1967, printed in the Listener 17 August
1967.) J· w.-B.
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 JOHN COL VILLE
of primary importance for him, would develop into
something yet more significant. Some years after the
war he gave me a lecture on protoplasm. It was, he
said, sexless. Then it divided into two sexes which in
due course united again in a different form to their
common benefit and gratification. This should also be
the story of England and America. Whether this
particular venture into science originated, as was
normally the case, with something Lord Cherwell had
explained to him, I do not know; but certainly in 1952
Cherwell told me, quoting Churchill, that if Roosevelt
had lived and Churchill had been returned to office
in 1945 the United States and the United Kingdom
would have progressed far along the road to common
citizenship. It was, at the last, something he achieved
uniquely for himself: I think he would have chosen it
for all his countrymen.
How did this unwavering faith in the unity of the
English-speaking peoples synchronise with his hopes
of a United Europe? He never for one moment during
or after the war contemplated Britain submerging
her sovereignty in that of a United States of Europe
or losing her national identity. He wanted to see
Europe one family and during the war he reverted
again and again to the subject; but, in his vision of the
future, Britain was only linked to Europe. Her true
destiny was the moral leadership of the English-
speaking peoples to which she had a historic right
endorsed by her single-handed championship of free-
dom. He spoke to me in 1940 of the European Federa-
tion that was to come, 'with their Diets of Worms',
and shuddered at the prospect of the intricate economic
and currency problems. Injanuary 1941 at Ditchley,
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 ACTION THIS DAY
he went so far as to say that there must be a United
States of Europe and that he believed it should be built
by the English: if the Russians built it there would be
Communism and squalor: if the Germans built it there
would be tyranny and brute force. On the other hand
I know he felt that while Britain Inight be the builder
and Britain Inight live in the house, she would always
preserve her liberty of choice and would be the natural,
undisputed link with the Americas and the Com-
monwealth.
Years passed, and Churchill, by then Leader of the
Opposition, agreed to sponsor the European move-
ment. In this he was encouraged and to a considerable
extent carried along by his son-in-law, Duncan Sandys.
He was, I am sure, in search of a striking policy and
there were few that offered themselves. He followed
consistently the line he had taken in the war, but his
thoughts were closer to those of de Gaulle than of
Spaak, Monnet and Schuman. When, once again
Prime Minister, it fell to him to encourage the forma-
tion of the European Defence Community, his main
preoccupations were Western Defence, the fear that
America, sickened by French prevarication, Inight
resort to a threatened form of withdrawal known as
'Perimeter Defence', and a by no means contradictory
desire to initiate top-level discussions with the Soviet
Union. The European Defence Community was
worthy of support because it was a method ofbringing
the Germans and the French together; but it was, as
he said to Acheson and a group of leading Americans
in january I953, 'a sludgy amalgam' and infinitely less
effective than a grand alliance of national armies. One
thing must be taken for granted: there would be no
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 JOHN COLVILLE
British contingent in the E.D.C., although we should
keep our divisions in Germany as long as the Americans
did the same. I have no doubt at all that he would
have been equally averse to our signing the Treaty of
Rome. Association with Europe was to be encouraged;
but 'Westward look, the land is bright' was the im-
mutable inspiration of his faith for the future and the
cornerstone of his policy. Lord Crewe told me that
Asquith once said to him: 'Lloyd George has no prin-
ciples and Winston has no convictions.' However that
may have been in 191 o, the Churchill I knew had at
least one unshakeable conviction.

Throughout the war there were amongst Churchill's

friends and counsellors a number of men in whose
company he delighted, whom he held in a special
category of esteem and whose gifts supplemented his
own. None of them dominated him, but he relied in
different ways on all of them.
There was General Sir Hastings Ismay, whom
Churchill had not previously known. Ismay could
quote extracts from The World Crisis by heart, shared
Churchill's love of India in the polo-playing days of
the Raj, and was a patriot who would have thought
it shameful to deny one ounce of his strength to his
country's cause. When Churchill was First Lord, in
the first eight months of the war, Ismay found his
restless, unco-ordinated efforts to energise the Chiefs of
Staff unhelpful and exasperating. But when Churchill,
in his capacity as Minister of Defence, became his
master, he served him with zest, loyalty and dis-
crimination. Flanked by his two lieutenants, Generals
Hollis and Jacob, in both of whom the Prime Minister
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had confidence, Ismay presented Churchill to the
Chiefs of Staff and the Chiefs of Staff to Churchill not
only with tact but, which was often difficult, with un-
breakable patience. He aimed at averting quarrels,
and he succeeded. When it was his lot to put forward
the unpalatable, he did so with ingenuity. He was no
moral coward, but he knew as well by intuition as by
experience that 'show-downs' and direct confrontations
were the least satisfactory methods of obtaining a
decision. In Churchill's black working box there was
a special folder, always bulging, entitled 'Minutes
from General Ismay'. His industry never flagged, and
he emerged from the war universally loved and
respected by soldiers, civil servants and politicians of
all parties, the Fidus Achates of Winston Churchill and
a man whom all wished to honour. He and Edward
Bridges were the twin pillars on which for five years
Churchill leaned without qualm or disappointment.
In May 1940 Churchill brought with him to Down-
ing Street two men the mere thought of whom filled
those already established there with deep-seated alarm.
They were Brendan Bracken and Professor F. A.
Lindemann (subsequently Lord Cherwell).
Bracken was an astonishing character. He deliber-
ately made a mystery ofhis origins and his private life.
He had chosen Churchill as his patron and he had
forced himself upon him. He had let it be rumoured,
without (as Churchill assured me) the smallest atten-
tion to fact, that he was Churchill's illegitimate son.
His love for his patron was for many years the guiding
factor in all he did, and since the quickness of his wit
and the excellence of his company matched the drive
with which he served Churchill, the affection he
IOO
 JOHN COLVILLE
offered was soon returned and he had long become
indispensable. Beneath an exterior which was brash
and which he tried vainly to make appear hard,
Bracken had the softest of hearts. He was gifted with
an astonishing memory, and the power of quick
repartee; he pursued good by stealth, and he boasted
incessantly, not ofhimselfbut of Churchill. He refused
formal appointment as Parliamentary Private Sec-
retary, because it might detract from his position of
eminence grise; and his reluctance to accept the Ministry
of Information, an office he filled with remarkable
distinction, was not because it was known to be the
grave of reputations but because he did not want to
leave the back corridors of No. 10. Yet, being a man
of contradictions, he accepted the Admiralty in I 945
although he was secretly aggrieved that Churchill had
not offered him the Treasury; and he took a peerage
without the slightest intention of taking his seat in the
Lords - 'the Morgue', as he persisted in describing it.
He had, by now, become the inseparable friend of
Lord Beaverbrook, and there were times when his
principal loyalties became divided. From I95I on-
wards, while he carried on endless political conversa-
tions at 8 Lord North Street with Anthony Eden, Rab
Butler and other leading Ministers, he seldom came
near IO Downing Street. Indeed he tended to keep
away from the Prime Minister, in spite of their mutual
love, until Churchill was struck down by illness in 1 953·
In the last analysis it was clear where his foremost
loyalty lay.
There was no truer friend, to many others besides
Churchill, and few who both gave and received so
much affection. On those of whom he was fond he
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bestowed countless benefits, most of them imaginary
in the event but sincerely intended at the time. In the
course of one short evening he made me a Director of
Union Corporation and of the Suez Canal, a Member
of Parliament and Ambassador in Paris. Fortunately,
I knew him well enough not to be over-elated by such
preferment. Those less close to him must sometimes
have been disappointed, although his promises to the
poor, the humble and the distressed were not of the
hypothetical kind. He died, too young, the repository
of a vast amount of information, political, ecclesias-
tical, personal and perhaps above all architectural,
and he sought to obliterate himself from human
memory by ordering the destruction of all his papers.
He left most of his furniture and the residue of his
estate to Churchill College, wishing to be associated
in death, as in life, with the man he had loved and
served so well.
If Bracken was sometimes an enigma, he was sim-
plicity itself in comparison with 'the Prof'. Lindemann
came from Strasbourg, where he derived his consider-
able fortune from the waterworks, and he had been
educated in Germany. By the time I knew him he had
an obsessive hatred for Germany, which found no
responding echo in Churchill, and he demonstrated
an implacable, almost ludicrous dislike of anybody
who had ever thwarted or opposed him. His two loves
were Oxford and Churchill, to whom he was im-
mensely useful. He was able to explain in simple terms,
without omitting anything of essential importance,
scientific and economic problems of the most complex
kind. It might be devices to guide night-bombers,
secret weapons to destroy tanks or submarines, the
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 JOHN COLVILLE
basis of nuclear fission or the intricacies of Article VII
of the Anglo-American Trade Agreement. In these
and many other instances the Prof's clear exposition
was in constant demand. Fastidious and intolerant, he
yet had time for everything and a patience that was
inexhaustible. He was as willing to spend an afternoon
at Chequers explaining to me the triangle of velocities
(since I was about to join the R.A.F. and should need
to understand navigation) as he was to clarify matters
of the highest concern for the Prime Minister. He came
every weekend to Chequers, where special vegetarian
meals were provided for him but, since he would sleep
in no bed but his own, he returned each night to
Oxford. He brought with him charts which showed
how production was faring, how U-boat sinkings com-
pared with new tonnage, how fighters could be
expected to become available, or how coal stocks
might or might not be adequate for the coming winter.
In I 940 his aircraft production charts were impatiently
awaited and scanned with eagerness. He was, perhaps,
the best and most universal interpreter that any Prime
Minister has ever had at his disposal.
The Prof's activities away from Chequers or No. IO
were more questionable. Armed with the Prime
Minister's authority, but sometimes in spheres where
Churchill had little idea he had involved himself, he
ran vendettas against the Service Departments and
pursued objectives which he believed to be in the
interest of the country, but which some thought
unduly wasteful of time and effort. Churchill allowed
him great licence, constantly referred to his 'beautiful
brain' and occasionally regarded him as a prophet.
Certainly in I 94I I heard him describe with great
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accuracy the future effects of an atomic bomb and,
although he was wrong in denying the practicability
of the Germans using rockets, he was right in fore-
casting the use of pilotless aircraft and in asserting that
neither they nor any conceivable rocket could, before
the war ended, deliver warheads weighing more than
a ton.
He was well informed on subjects outside his own
special sphere. His knowledge of history was profound
and, though an atheist, he knew the Bible well.
'I am,' he used to say, 'not a pillar ofthe Church, but
one of its buttresses' - a statement which Churchill,
who seldom stole other men's aphorisms (since he so
readily manufactured his own), was sometimes tempted
to apply to himself. He had a sardonic and original
sense ofhumour and a fund of unlikely stories which he
never repeated twice to the same person. It was im-
possible not to be fond of him, except for those on his
personal blacklist.
In 1951 Churchill made him an Overlord, together
with Woolton and Leathers, and he moved into a flat
at the top of 1 1 Downing Street. He engaged himself
in a deadly struggle with Duncan Sandys (Minister
of Supply) about the Ministry's control of atomic
energy. Since a vendetta once begun could not be
allowed to rest, he pursued Sandys, by this time
Minister of Housing and Local Government, on the
vexed question whether a road should be built
through Christ Church Meadow. Sandysjustmanaged
to see the funny side of it all, though he confessed
that his sense of humour was under some strain;
but Churchill, for the first time, became a little
impatient with the Prof who, in any event, retired
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 JOHN COLVILLE
finally to Oxford in 1953, not having found enough
useful work to keep him longer away from Christ
Church and the Clarendon laboratory.
Churchill's colleagues in the Government fell into
various categories. There were a few like Duff Cooper,
Oliver Lyttelton, Lord Cranborne, Sir Archibald
Sinclair and occasionally even Sir Stafford Cripps,
whose company he found as agreeable as their abilities;
there was a larger body, including Attlee, Halifax,
Woolton, Waverley and Andrew Duncan, for whose
wisdom he had deep respect, but whom he would not
choose as boon companions; there was Bevin who
represented for him everything that was decent,
honourable and patriotic in the Labour Party, with
A. V. Alexander as the runner-up; there was Morrison
whom, try as he might, he could never really bring
himself to like, though he greatly preferred him to
Dr Dalton; and there were three in a special compart-
ment, Beaverbrook, Smuts and Anthony Eden.
Beaverbrook was the last of his old cronies, and he
exerted an infallible fascination on him, even though
he openly laughed at much that Churchill held
precious and sometimes at Churchill himself. He
fascinated Bracken too, and, if he never entirely
destroyed the Churchill-Bracken relationship, he was
responsible for a number of cooling-off periods.
Churchill always spoke with emotion, verging on
hero-worship, of Beaverbrook's feats as Minister of
Aircraft Production, and he was sure that the entire
Commonwealth and Empire were to such an extent in
Beaverbrook's debt that all else must be forgiven.
Beaverbrook for his part was genuinely devoted to
Churchill and he was faithful to him in sickness as in
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health. There was nobody else, in or out of the Govern-
ment, safe from attack in the Daily Express; but
Churchill was sacrosanct. The horse, Government or
Tory Party, might be the target; but there was never
anything but praise for the jockey.
It was the custom to invite the Prime Ministers of
the Dominions to attend meetings of the War Cabinet
during their visits to the United Kingdom. Churchill
welcomed Mackenzie King, Fraser and particularly
Menzies with enthusiasm. But General Smuts had an
altogether special position. When in England he was
treated with an intimacy reserved for Churchill's
closest circle of friends and advisers, and when in
South Africa he was frequently consulted on im-
portant matters of policy and strategy.
There were many reasons for this. Churchill took
pride in the part he himself had played in establishing
a just and generous peace after the Boer War: romance
and chivalry, dominant in his emotions, found in
Smuts the perfect image of a gallant foe who had
become a loyal and devoted subject of the British
Crown. Like Botha and Deneys Reitz, he was a living
proof that magnanimity in victory leads to goodwill in
peace. Then, Smuts had been a member of the
Imperial War Cabinet in the First World War and
was a link with stirring memories of an earlier Great
Coalition. Churchill respected his judgment, acknow-
ledged his wisdom and was invariably impressed by
the clarity with which he presented his views and his
arguments. Finally, even if the two men were unlike
in character and philosophy, the General's company
was congenial to Churchill and his conversation
stimulating. There was, on most questions, a true
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 JOHN COLVILLE
meeting of minds and a common faith in the virtues
and destiny of the British Empire.
Nobody was more successful than Smuts in moderat-
ing Churchill's more impetuous schemes and in
offering a constructive criticism of genuinely states-
manlike proposals. They seldom disagreed profoundly,
although Lord Salisbury has told me that after India
became independent Smuts vehemently opposed
Churchill's conviction that she should be ejected from
the Commonwealth if she adopted a Republican
Constitution. No doubt the transition from Empire to
Commonwealth, which Churchill regarded with dis-
like and dismay, was a development which his fellow
Imperialist was prepared to accept with a greater
degree of resignation. However that may be, until
Smuts's dying day Churchill, in and out of office,
turned again and again for advice, comfort and en-
couragement to the enemy General whom he had
persuaded the King to create a Field-Marshal in the
British Army.
Anthony Eden could do wrong in Churchill's eyes,
but never for long. Churchill used to describe how the
news of Eden's resignation from the Foreign Office in
I 938 had given him almost physical pain and what
despair his absence from the Front Bench had brought
him. He felt that when a grave situation arose Eden
and he, though miles apart, would automatically
reach the same conclusion. Indeed on major questions
they almost always did, at any rate until the two
problems of rapprochement with Russia and of the
Suez Canal zone arose in 1953-5; but in minor matters
they just as often differed and Churchill, who said with
approval early in 1941, 'Anthony has got his grip on
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 ACTION THIS DAY
the Foreign Office,' was soon complaining that Eden
was 'Foreign-officissimus'. Churchill's persistent inter-
ference on the fringe of Foreign Affairs caused friction,
even if Eden accepted that it was Churchill who should
deal direct with Roosevelt and Stalin; but although
Eden frequently arrived to protest, eyes ablaze and
'at the end of his tether', he could never resist
Churchill's paternal charm and he would return to the
Foreign Office soothed and relaxed. In the 1951
Government there were more serious differences:
Eden was ill, Churchill took formal charge of the
Foreign Office whenever he could, there was a distinct
difference of policy as regards both Russia and Egypt,
and there was the gnawing uncertainty as to when
Churchill would or would not abdicate in favour of
his accepted successor. However, Eden was always
welcome, whatever the problems, and although there
were times of acute exasperation on both sides the
underlying unity of thought and sympathy survived
unbroken.
In the 195 I Government two new figures appeared
on Churchill's scene; Norman Brook and Christopher
Soames. As far as the Secretary of the Cabinet was
concerned, the mantle of Elijah Bridges fell amply on
to the shoulders of Elisha Brook. Churchill trusted him
implicitly, relied on his judgment and listened to his
advice with attention. From October 1951 to April
1955 Brook never put a foot wrong and, as Churchill's
energies began to flag, Brook filled in the gaps and
ensured the competent conduct of Government busi-
ness with unerring skill. Christopher Soames won
Churchill's esteem and confidence with remarkable
speed. His capacity for seizing on the salient point in
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 JOHN COLVILLE
a complicated issue was valuable; the consideration
with which he treated his father-in-law was wholly
laudable; and his lack of any inhibition when
Churchill was impatient or perverse was a positive
asset to the machinery of government. There were
those who thought he acquired too much influence, but
he used what he had with discretion and in any case
Churchill, even in old age, never lost the capacity for
taking his own decisions independently of the advice
proffered, and of making up his own mind.
Finally, throughout the later years, there was Lord
Moran. At Britain's, and Churchill's, finest hour he
scarcely knew the Prime Minister, whose doctor, in so
far as he ever needed one, was Lord Horder. However,
when his services began to be required, from the end of
194 I onwards, Churchill certainly had faith in his
medical skill and devotion. Moran's handling of his
patient, especially during his dangerous attack of pneu-
monia at Carthage in December I 943, was as adept
psychologically as it was doubtless sound medically.
Since Churchill was prone to pulmonary disturbances
of one kind or another and his heart had given a flutter,
the habit of taking Moran on journeys abroad was
formed. Whenever Churchill sought to leave him be-
hind, Moran warned him of the possibility of dire
physical consequences. As much out of good nature as
conviction Churchill usually, though not invariably,
gave in. Once the party had left for its destination,
Moran was the only member of it who had nothing to
do. He would bring his golf-clubs, which he had a
habit of leaving behind in awkward places, to the
indignation of Commander Thompson, who would
then have to arrange for their recovery. He also had
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plenty of time to converse and, since Churchill had
made him, at any rate in his own mind, an honorary
member of what he called 'The Secret Circle', he was
only excluded from the Prime Ministerial table if the
meal was to be used for serious planning or negotiation.
Indeed Churchill often expressed his fear that 'the poor
doctor' must be bored, and he went out of his way to
include him in as many social gatherings as possible.
Moran was seldom, if ever, present when history was
made; but he was quite often invited to dinner after-
wards.
Although Moran was embraced in the fairly wide
circle of his patient's affections, I think that neither his
conversation nor his companionship were such as
Churchill would normally have found congenial. None
could fail to recognise his keen intelligence; but none
could remain oblivious of the criticisms he directed
both at people and at military or political decisions
which did not fall within his competence. He loved to
analyse, but it seemed to many of us that his analysis
was rarely constructive. He prided himself on his
scientific approach to problems and criticised Churchill
for being intuitive. Churchill was frankly sceptical of
Moran's constant emphasis on psychology since he liked
straightforward uncomplicated explanations of men
and behaviour. Moran was always trying to fathom the
workings of his patient's mind, and he sometimes
seemed to resent the fact that Churchill's policy was so
often proved right. He used on occasion to speak of it
with pitying contempt, but it was noticeable that when
challenged he was unwilling or unable to propose an
alternative. He claims in his book that Churchill had
none apart from him on whom to unburden his cares.
IIO
 JOHN COLVILLE
My experience was entirely to the contrary: Churchill
was prone to unburden himself, impulsively but never
with self-pity, on all with whom he was intimate, and
the more worried he was the more he did so, for, in-
discreet as he could sometimes be himself, he trusted
all too readily in the discretion ofothers.
Finally, to put the record straight for posterity, it is
desirable to explain the financial arrangements which
Churchill made to remunerate Lord Moran. He was
embarrassed because Moran would accept no payment
for his visits although, of course, the trips abroad, both
during and after the war, were paid either from
official funds or, when he was not in office, out of
Churchill's own pocket. This worried Churchill, and
so at an early stage arrangements were made for
covenants to be made in favour of Moran's family.
From Moran's point of view this was an admirable
solution since, although he personally received no
remuneration, he equally paid less tax on it. Neither this
arrangement nor the conferment of a peerage deterred
Moran from asking for more. In December I 944, on
our return from Athens, he suggested to Sir Anthony
Bevir and me that, in view of all he had done for
Churchill, it would be reasonable to ask the Prime
Minister to submit his name to the King for the
appointment to the vacant Provostship of Eton. This
was a surprising proposal, and it had to be explained to
him that the Prime Minister would certainly wish to
be guided by the opinion of the Fellows of Eton. In
I95I he went further: he asked to be made Minis-
ter of Health, but Churchill, astonished and taken
aback, pointed out that he knew nothing of politics.
Churchill practically never referred to this incident,
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 ACTION THIS DAY
but he did once tell me how much it had distressed him.
A man's doctor, particularly one in fairly constant
attendance over twenty years, must be assumed to
know more about his health than anybody else. How-
ever, Lord Moran published his book about Churchill
scarcely more than a year after his death, excusing
himselffor this conduct on the grounds that Churchill's
physical and mental exhaustion in the last years of the
war accounted for much that is otherwise 'historically
inexplicable, including the deterioration of his rela-
tions with Roosevelt'. In support of this argument
Moran turns a searchlight on incidents and magnifies
their significance in the wider context of events of
which, to do him justice, he cannot have been fully
aware, since he was never himself on the stage, and
only spasmodically an interested, inquisitive spectator
in the wings of the theatre. The theme presented is
surprising to those who knew Churchill well, by no
means least to his wife and family, and it requires
examination since it is offered as a serious contribution
to history.
Mter dinner one evening in August I 940 Churchill
declared to Desmond Morton and me, as he waved
away the brandy and demanded iced soda-water:
'My object is to preserve the maximum initiative
energy. Every night I try myself by court-martial to
see if I have done anything effective during the day.
I don't mean just pawing the ground - anyone can
go through the motions- but something really effec-
tive.' His energy was indeed startling for a man of
sixty-five, not only mentally but physically. He liked
to see things for himself, and this involved inspecting
troops, dockyards, coastal defences and bombed towns.
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 JOHN COL VILLE
When he reached his destination he would set off at a
pace which left men years younger panting to keep up.
One of his favourite evening interludes was to stride
across the Foreign Office courtyard to inspect the
building operations at the Central War Room, to
penetrate underground passages, clamber over girders
and temporary walls which obstructed his passage
and to offer the workmen advice about a traverse or
the method of bricklaying. On one such occasion he
leapt off the top of a high girder into a pool of liquid
cement. His feet were embedded. 'That,' I said, 'is
your Waterloo.' 'Blenheim,' he corrected; 'but how
dare you! I am not a Frenchman.' He would climb
hills near Chequers for target practice with rifle and
revolver, since he always envisaged the possibility of
having to defend his life against invading parachutists.
He took no regular exercise and constantly defied all
the rules, dietary and otherwise, which any doctor
would have prescribed, but by October 1941, after
two gruelling years of endless work and never a
day's holiday, he was gay, resilient and apparently
tireless.
By the time I rejoined his staff, two more anxious
years had passed with scarcely a moment's respite, his
heart had given a flutter and he was recovering from
a serious attack of pneumonia. It was December 1943,
and the war was to last another eighteen months. I flew
out to Carthage with Mrs Churchill expecting, as she
did, to find him desperately ill and perhaps dying.
Instead, he was sitting up in bed, smoking a cigar and
in the best of humours. Within a few days he was up
and about, and on Christmas Eve five Commanders-
in-Chief arrived to discuss Operation 'Shingle',
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 ACTION THIS DAY
Churchill's personal brainwave for a landing at Anzio,
on which he had been brooding during his enforced
confinement. There was a touch ofGallipoli about the
Anzio landing: it was Churchill's own conception; he
left no stone unturned to obtain the necessary equip-
ment (in this case landing-craft) from all ends of the
earth; it might, if successful, have shortened the war;
and it was in the event a failure. As he said to me after
the landing: 'I intended to throw ashore a hell-cat and
all I got was an old stranded whale.'
Moran asserts that Churchill was never the same
man again after his illness at Carthage. The zeal with
which he threw himself into the Anzio planning itself
contradicts this; and when he returned to London he
reverted to the daily grind of Cabinet, Parliament,
Defence Committee and the endless tasks of office with
a resolution stimulated by the now accepted certainty
of victory. There was no attempt to reduce the
pressure, and no additional delegation of work. There
were times when Churchill was tired, as was every-
body in Whitehall after four years of war, and there
were times when, because he was preoccupied with
some particular problem, he neglected the daily
routine and the papers awaiting his attention piled up
alarmingly. Those around Churchill came, says Moran,
to invite his help because the tin boxes (there were
never, in fact, any tin boxes) by his bed were never
empty. This congestion of the boxes was equally
familiar in I940 and I94I: it was Churchill's nature,
and one of the reasons why he was not a good admini-
strator, that he picked on the subjects that interested
him and left the duller papers, marked R (which
meant 'Return') or RWE (which meant 'Return at
II4
 JOHN COLVILLE
the Weekend') until, with an air of martyrdom and
an effort of conscious will-power, he could bring him-
self to dispose of what he found uncongenial.
The approach of Operation 'Overlord' redoubled
Churchill's energies and multiplied the excitement on
which he throve. What fun, he said, to land with the
troops on D-Day and perhaps get there ahead of
Monty! It required the King, not Lord Moran, to stop
him. Much as he disliked Operation 'Dragoon', the
landing in the South of France on which the Americans
had insisted, he put to sea to witness it. He was
becoming increasingly prone to lung complaints and
illnesses of short duration and, although he seldom
spoke of his health except to his doctor, he told me in
January 1944 that his heart had been giving him
trouble. But he remained undaunted and showed no
signs of worry or dejection. On 29 August 1944, he
arrived back from Italy with a temperature of 103°
and an agitated Moran. By 1 September, his tempera-
ture was normal, and he was in tearing form. He had
entirely emptied his box. It was the same at Quebec
ten days later; a temperature on the outward journey,
but once established in the Citadel a keen, cheerful
and assiduous Churchill, who told me he feared the
President was 'now very frail'. There was no doubt
that Roosevelt was sinking into a physical decline.
Churchill's own zest was diminished only at intervals
and his ability to shake off both worry and occasional
lethargy showed little tendency to weaken. His ex-
haustion was sometimes evident, notably in December
1944, while the Greek crisis approached its climax and
his suspicion of Soviet intentions in Eastern Europe
intensified; but the Churchill who flew to Athens on
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 ACTION THIS DAY
Christmas Day had thrown off all signs of fatigue. Nor
were his expeditions in 1945, including that to watch
the 21st Army Group crossing the Rhine, undertaken
by a man of declining force. Circumstances had
changed: at Yalta and Potsdam we had powerful
allies whose policy and interests frequently failed to
coincide with our own; but to me Churchill at seventy
seemed as apt a performer, as powerful an orator and
as much in command at home as he had been in the
momentous summer days of 1940. If one looks at it
with an open mind I think one will find that the
choice of I948 as the year in which Churchill's physical
powers began to deteriorate would be a more histori-
cally convincing exercise; and even then the decline
was a slow one.
I think Moran was baffied because, obsessed by his
own Anatomy of Courage, he was always pursuing his
favourite analytical researches from a basis which was
false as far as Churchill was concerned. The subject
had to be made to fit into the accepted framework, and
he therefore satisfied himself that Churchill suffered
from long fits of depression, was a prey to bad dreams
and was deeply apprehensive. There are, I suppose,
few if any normal human beings who are never
depressed, and, though Churchill was the exception to
many rules, this was not one of them. But if there were
times when he seemed moody and introspective, gaiety
and ebullience were far more often the order of the
day, and the sun was seldom long behind the clouds.
I remember an occasion towards the end of 1944,
when Churchill lay in bed at No. 10 Annexe, trying
to throw off a cold and sunk in indignant gloom
because Attlee had written to protest about the length
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 JOHN COLVILLE
ofhis monologues in the Cabinet and to complain that
he was wasting his colleagues' time. Outraged by the
letter, which Attlee had discreetly typed himself,
Churchill sought a denial of the distasteful thesis first
from Lord Beaverbrook and then from Brendan
Bracken. Both said they thought Attlee was quite
right. He had then turned to Mrs Churchill for con-
solation and support, only to be met with the reply
that she admired Mr Attlee for having the courage to
put into writing what everybody else was thinking.
Churchill spent the afternoon in a state of ill-tempered
depression. His friends, even his wife, had deserted
him at a time when he desperately needed support. It
was a Saturday, and, because of his cold, he had put
off going to Chequers. Suddenly, at about 4 p.m., he
threw back the bedclothes, gave me a beaming smile
and said: 'Let us think no more of Hitlee or of Attler:
let us go and see a film.' And for the rest of the weekend
the sun shone.
As for his dreams, which Churchill seemed to remem-
ber with clarity, he seldom referred to any that dis-
tressed him, but he frequently retailed those that
struck him as particularly ludicrous. On one occasion
in August 1953 he told me he had had a nightmare.
He had found himself making a speech in, of all places,
the House of Lords, and it was an appalling flop.
Mterwards the first Lord Rothermere had come up to
him and said: 'It didn't even sound nice.'
To Churchill courage was the greatest virtue. He
revered it in others, and he himself was brave both
physically and morally. If he thought a course of
action right, he would proceed with it fearless of the
consequences and sometimes, too, regardless of political
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expediency. He might worry about a speech, but not

about his own safety. One morning in October I940
we told him that an unexploded landmine was in
StJames's Park and that, unless it could be defused,
No. IO was in grave danger. We might have to
evacuate. He merely looked up from his papers at the
Cabinet Room table and expressed concern for the
ducks and the pelicans. At about the same period I
walked with him during a noisy air-raid from IO
Downing Street to the Annexe in Storey's Gate. As we
emerged from the India Office arch into King Charles
Street, we heard the loud whistles of two descending
bombs. I dived back under the arch for shelter, and
the bombs exploded in Whitehall. Churchill, mean-
while, was striding along the middle of King Charles
Street, his chin stuck out and propelling himself
rapidly with his gold-headed walking-stick. I had
to run to catch him up. Another evening, when a
particularly heavy raid was expected, he sent several
of us away in his armoured car to a deep shelter at
Down Street Underground Station and established
himself on the roof of the Air Ministry. Inconsiderate
though he often was, he was never thoughtless about
the safety of those about him. I am sure that in a ship-
wreck he would have been the last to step into the
lifeboat.
The political scene when Churchill returned to
office in October I95I still bore some resemblance to
that he had left six years previously. Many of the
faces were the same, and the problems of peace, more
complicated than those of war, were still to a consider-
able extent the flotsam and jetsam left by the receding
tide of conflict. The Tories, like the Labour Party
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 JOHN COLVILLE
thirteen years later, inherited a financial crisis and the
growing realisation that it might prove to be endemic.
Individual poverty was on the way out, but national
economic stability required an entirely different capa-
city for endurance and provided a much less easily
identifiable goal than victory over Hitler. Churchill
was well aware of this, and the complexity of the issues
sometimes appalled him. He accordingly set himself
a number of tasks which he could isolate, since it was
his nature to go bald-headed for what he could under-
stand and to leave the rest to the experts. In retrospect
it seems that the years of his second administration,
195I-5, flowed smoothly past: nothing went seriously
wrong, austerity vanished from the land, the Korean
war ended, the Queen was crowned amidst universal
rejoicing, controls were loosened, and freedom of
enterprise was admitted to be respectable. Perhaps
fortune smiled on Churchill in his last years of office
to make amends for so many frowns in earlier times;
but perhaps, too, the presence at the summit of a
gigantic figure, still eager for the rancour and asperity
of party politics, but loved and revered even by his
opponents, did something to ensure calm and avert
unrest. His eightieth birthday on 30 November I954
was celebrated on a national scale. In the eyes of the
world and, I think in his own, it represented an
apotheosis rather than a sunset. He had mellowed
since I945· In October I95I the Office Keeper at
I o Downing Street laid before the Prime Minister's
seat at the Cabinet table a sheaf of 'ACTION THIS
DAy' labels, which had been carefully preserved
against the day of Churchill's return. They remained
there for three and a half years; and they were never
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 ACTION THIS DAY
used. Perhaps this was symbolic of the change which
had taken place. The sense of urgency had not entirely
vanished, but it was no longer Churchill's constant
companion. Slower to anger, content to feed his golden
carp and to play bezique, more amenable to argument
and readier to listen to advice, he was none the less the
undisputed master of the House of Commons and of
the Cabinet. He was distressingly deaf, less resilient
than of old, quite often lazy; but, when he chose, he
could still rise to the heights of oratory, could charm a
disenchanted colleague, turn aside the most awkward
question with a reply which made the House of
Commons laugh, and, though less frequently than of
old, sparkle with conversational wit. The skill with
which he could play on words remained: 'What!
Give him a peerage? Well, perhaps, provided it's a
disappearage.'
When he asked me to rejoin him he said it would
probably be only for a year. He did not intend to
remain long in office, but wished to initiate the recovery
of the country under a Conservative Administration.
He was glad to leave to R. A. Butler, the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, most of the intricate problems of
finance and commerce; nor did he show more than a
passing interest in such matters, except at budget times,
when he was more interested in the effects which
fiscal charges might have on the widows and old-age
pensioners than in the possibilities of reducing surtax
and death duties for which many of his supporters
were pressmg.
His objectives were to recreate a special, personal
connexion with the President of the United States; to
revive the influence of the United Kingdom in the
I20
 JOHN COLVILLE
world; to denationalise steel and transport; to abolish
rationing and all relics of Crippsian austerity; and to
establish, as he believed he could, a relationship of
trust and goodwill between his Government and
organised Labour. As time went on, a further most
laudable ambition possessed him: to put an end to
the Cold War by convincing the Soviet leaders that
while we were not afraid of them, and were fully
prepared to meet any threat they mounted, we were
also waiting to extend the hand of friendship if they
showed the least inclination to grasp it.
Before considering his pursuit of these objectives, and
the measure of his success or failure, it is as well to
describe two events, one of which made a strong im-
pact on his thought and the other on his capacity.
One morning in February 1954 I walked into his
bedroom at No. 10 and found him with the Manchester
Guardian open on his bed-table. Alone among the news-
papers, all of which he read carefully every morning,
it published an account of a speech in Chicago by
Mr Sterling Cole, which contained a detailed descrip-
tion of the explosion in the Pacific of the first hydrogen
bomb. Churchill had vigorously supported the decision
of the Attlee Government that Britain should make
her own atomic bombs; but he resented the fact that,
while in 1940 we had pooled with the United States
our nuclear knowledge and discoveries, and while he
had secured a favourable agreement with Roosevelt
at Hyde Park after the second Quebec Conference, the
Labour Government had traded our rights under that
agreement for concessions in the eventual use of atomic
power for civil purposes. He had got the story slightly
wrong and persisted in keeping it so; but he could
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never forget that when he told Senator McMahon of
the Hyde Park Agreement, the Senator volunteered
that had he known of its existence he would never
have sponsored the Act which bore his name and which
prevented the United States from sharing its atomic
secrets with any foreign power, including Great
Britain.
Here, however, was something entirely new. He
read aloud to me the account of the Chicago speech
and said, with a mixture of triumph and indignation,
that he had just rung up in turn the Foreign Secretary,
the Secretary of the Cabinet and all three Chiefs of
Staff. None of them had had the slightest idea ofwhat
had happened, and yet he believed we were now
almost as far from the atom bomb as the atom bomb
itself had been from the bow and arrow. This tremen-
dous event would alter the history of mankind, because
it would make wars of the old-fashioned kind impossible
for this and future generations. Its immediate effect
must be to alter our own strategic thinking in Egypt
and elsewhere, and perhaps to make easier a rapproche-
ment with the Soviet Union. It was lucky, he concluded,
that at least one person in Whitehall read the
newspapers.
The second event, previous in time, which made an
impact on Churchill personally was the stroke which
he suffered on the evening of23june 1953. It was not
his first. He had been stricken while staying with
Beaverbrook at Cap d'Ail in 1948, and in February
1952 Moran had come to tell me that Churchill had
had an arterial spasm which might well be the pre-
cursor of an immediate stroke. At any rate, Moran was
sure that unless pressures were relaxed results might
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 JOHN COLVILLE
be disastrous. In May I noted that Churchill's periods
of 'lowness' were increasing, and age was beginning
to show. lnJune he seemed depressed and bewildered
and said to me: 'The zest is diminished.' By Novem-
ber I 952 he was finding it hard work to compose a
speech and complained that ideas no longer flowed.
Paradoxically when the blow fell in the following June
the threat of paralysis and the obvious expectation
that he would now resign, had a certain tonic effect.
Here was a challenge to survival, political no less than
physical, and he summoned to his aid the formidable
resources ofhis natural courage, resolute obstinacy and
powerful constitution.
On the day after his stroke Moran tried to dissuade
him from attending the Cabinet and, so it appears
from his book, he believed he had succeeded. As soon
as Moran's back was turned, Churchill got up, dressed
and presided at the Cabinet. Rab Butler told me a
week later that nobody had noticed anything wrong
although Churchill had been unusually reticent and
had allowed each item on the Agenda to be taken
without intervention on his part: an introductory wave
of the hand to the Minister concerned and that was all.
Escorting him into the Cabinet Room, I had felt sure
the tell-tale droop of his mouth on the left side and his
slurred speech would betray the secret, but in the event
no member of the Cabinet had noticed anything awry.
That afternoon Churchill and I drove to Chartwell and
he asked me to tell no body at all what had happened.
The following morning Moran came into the library
where I was working, closed the door and said that he did
not expect the Prime Minister to live over the weekend.
Here was a pretty pass. I had Churchill's instructions
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 ACTION THIS DAY
to tell nobody, and his undisputed successor, Anthony
Eden, was in Boston undergoing a serious abdominal
operation. I felt I had no choice. I telephoned to Sir
Alan Lascelles, asking him to warn the Queen that she
might have to find a new Prime Minister on Monday
morning, and I wrote personal letters which I sent by
despatch-rider to Churchill's closest friends, Bracken,
Beaverbrook, Camrose and Alexander. I also got in
touch with Churchill's senior cabinet colleagues, R. A.
Butler, for whom in the preceding months Churchill
had been developing a growing esteem, and Salisbury.
We had been due to sail for Bermuda in H.M.S.
Vanguard the following Tuesday for a meeting with
Eisenhower, and it was necessary to cancel the arrange-
ments without explaining the whole truth.
Meanwhile Churchill, who at first went rapidly
downhill, losing the entire use of his left arm and leg,
began to improve. His recuperative powers, both
mental and physical, invariably outstripped all expec-
tation; but on this occasion it was more than surprising
that after a week he should have made such startling
progress, even if his ability to concentrate appeared
slight and he preferred Trollope's political novels to
Cabinet papers. Bracken and Beaverbrook, more
assiduous in their attentions and demonstrative of their
affection than they had been for years, urged him not
to resign but to continue in office as, in Bracken's
words, 'a lazy Prime Minister'. Churchill himself, at
quite an early stage, set a target: if he could acquit
himself with distinction at the Conservative Party
Conference at Margate in October, he would remain;
if his performance were below par he would make way
for Eden.
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 JOHN COLVILLE
By I9 July I observed that Churchill's powers of
concentration had greatly improved; that he was
working on his box and approving answers to Parlia-
mentary Questions; that he sparkled at dinner; and
that afterwards he went carefully and meticulously
through an important speech in the House which
Butler had brought to show him. By 8 August he had
moved to Chequers and was fit enough to preside
authoritatively over a meeting to discuss the Soviet
reply to a Three-Power note. On this occasion he
proposed action which was entirely contrary to that
advocated by the Foreign Office, and Selwyn Lloyd,
though defeated in the argument, told me he found it
refreshing to receive simple and clear instructions
which were such poles apart from 'the mystique of the
Foreign Office'. At the end of the luncheon which
followed Churchill, drinking brandy for the first time
since 23 June, informed those present that all his life
he had found his main contribution was by self-
expression rather than by self-denial. On I 8 August
he again took his seat at the Cabinet and set his mind
to reconstructing his Government, and by 9 October,
after a brief holiday at Cap d' Ail (during which he
was still undecided whether to go or stay) he was ready
for the test at Margate. It was a striking success, and
when it was over Churchill told me he would remain
Prime Minister until the Queen returned from
Australia in the spring of I 954·
When that moment arrived circumstances had
changed, in Churchill's mind if not in Eden's. The
facts about the hydrogen bomb necessitated new
thoughts on strategy, for which Churchill considered
himself more fitted by experience than any of his
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 ACTION THIS DAY
colleagues; Anglo-American relations were still not
intimate enough for his full satisfaction; the Foreign
Secretary and the Prime Minister were at loggerheads
over the withdrawal of British troops from the Suez
Canal zone; and above all Churchill believed with
increasing conviction that an understanding with the
new rulers of Russia, and the end of the Cold War,
could and should be achieved by him alone as his final
contribution to the welfare ofhis country.
Churchill's last year of office was bedevilled by the
ups and downs in his health, for he was fighting with
grim determination and often with success to stem the
decline of his powers and the ebb of interest and
energy which flowed from it. He continually changed
his mind about the date of his resignation, to the
natural exasperation of his successor; but it is con-
venient to look backwards from the day ofhis eventual
resignation on 5 April I 955, in order to see to what
extent he attained his objectives.
Steel and transport had been largely denationalised
and private enterprise was again to the fore; three
hundred thousand houses a year had been built by
Harold Macmillan, a promised figure which the
Opposition had begun by laughing to scorn; rationing
and austerity were forgotten nightmares; in July 1954
Eden had skilfully negotiated at Geneva a settlement
of the war in Indo-China, and in September of the
same year the London Conference had established the
basis of Western European Union; a final solution of
the Persian oil dispute had been reached to the satis-
faction of all concerned; Walter Monckton, as Minister
of Labour, had established trust and friendship with
the Trades Union leaders and Churchill included
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 JOHN COLVILLE
them among his guests at Downing Street whenever he
gave a party; industrial peace reigned at home (though
it was ironical that Churchill's final departure should
synchronise with a newspaper strike); Templer had
restored security and order in Malaya; the Common-
wealth, apart from the Mau Mau excesses in Kenya,
appeared contented and still devoted to the Mother
Country; and in spite of the victory (and Thoughts)
of Mao Tse-tung, and recent experiences in Korea,
nobody considered China anything but a distant
long-term menace.
Historians may claim it was in these years we missed
our chance of entering and leading Europe. In so
doing they would disregard the strongly held convic-
tions of the House of Commons, the electorate and the
Commonwealth. If Churchill spoke of the proposed
European Army as 'a sludgy amalgam', he certainly
thought any conception of European Federation un-
realistic and probably undesirable in the foreseeable
future. He agreed with Eisenhower to bring all possible
pressure on France to ratify the European Defence
Community Treaty, but only because he had tem-
porarily failed to persuade the United States that
Germany must be invited to join N.A.T.O. He feared
that if the Americans carried out their threat to fall
back on 'Perimeter Defence' in the event of the E.D.C.
Treaty failing, France might become Communist-
dominated and finally go the way of Czechoslovakia.
His colleagues, and the Opposition leaders, were
equally insensible to the possibility of a European
solution.
Churchill was certainly a man of vision, sometimes
an Old Testament prophet, and he might therefore
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 ACTION THIS DAY
have been expected to see into the mists of the future
on this issue. In fact his gaze was fixed in another
direction, and he sought in his Second Administra-
tion, as he had in his first, to concentrate on partner-
ship with the U.S.A.
His reception by Truman in Washington, for which
he set sail as soon as he could after forming his Govern-
ment, was frank and friendly, but it fell short of the
almost miraculous recreation of the earlier connexion
for which he was hoping. He addressed, as of old, a
Session of Congress and his words in the Capitol, at the
Embassy and to the Washington Press Club were
greeted with rapturous applause. But in the meetings
at the White House a reserve, almost a suspicion,
could be detected: patriotic officials clustered round
Truman to protect him from the insidious magic of a
dangerously legendary wizard. At home Churchill
concentrated attention on the American Ambassadors,
first Walter Gifford and then Winthrop Aldrich, both
of whom had the entree to No. IO without reference
to the Foreign Office; and he courted Eisenhower, the
prospective Republican candidate, with an eagerness
facilitated by their wartime relationship.
There were encouraging signs. On I 5 May 1952
Eisenhower dined at No. 10 on the eve ofhis departure
from S.H.A.P.E. to become the Republican candidate.
There were thirty-two to dinner, including all the
wartime military leaders, and as Ike left he said that
if he were elected he would pay only one visit outside
the U.S.A., and that would be to the U.K. in order to
advertise the special relationship. In August Churchill
persuaded Truman to join him in sending a message
signed by them both to the Persian Prime Minister,
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 JOHN COLVILLE
Mossadeq. It was the first time since I945 that the
Americans had agreed to joint action against a third
power, at any rate openly.
Thus, Churchill, although always privately declar-
ing himself a Democrat in American politics, thought
he had cause to be equally optimistic whichever party
won the November Presidential Election. He confided
to me that, if it was Ike, he had every hope of a joint
approach to Stalin, proceeding perhaps to a Congress
at Vienna, where the Potsdam Conference would be
reopened and concluded.
Eisenhower was elected, and it was with high hopes
that we sailed for America after Christmas I 952.
Churchill had arranged to see the incoming Adminis-
tration in New York and then pay a courtesy visit to
Truman in Washington. On 3 January, after dinner
in the Verandah Grill of the (been Mary, Churchill
asked me to imagine myself to be the American Press
and fire at him the kind of questions he was likely to
be asked on arrival in New York. I fired about thirty,
and his answer to the last of them was 'If Britain and
America refuse to be disunited, no ill can come.'
This was his supreme article of faith, but he found
Eisenhower's colleagues less eager than he had hoped.
He stayed with Bernard Baruch at whose apartment
he had long talks with Eisenhower, Dulles and
Dewey. Baruch himself set the tone the first night when
he said that European unity in some striking form was
essential if America was not to tire of her efforts, and
only Churchill could bring it about. England had
three remaining assets: her Queen ('the world's sweet-
heart'), Winston Churchill and her glorious historical
past. The following day, 6 January I953, Churchill
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 ACTION THIS DAY
sent me to the Commodore Hotel with some papers to
show Eisenhower who spoke to me at length, presum-
ably for onward transmission, about the dangers of
collusion. He was in favour of it clandestinely, but not
overtly, since it was important for the United States
not to offend other nations. On 7 January Dulles and
Dewey sought to dissuade Churchill from returning
to Washington with Butler in February for economic
discussions. Dulles explained that the American public
thought Churchill could cast a spell on all American
statesmen and that if he were directly associated with
the economic talks the fears of the people and of
Congress would be aroused to such an extent that the
success of the talks would be jeopardised. Churchill
was furious and spoke so harshly both to Dulles and to
Dewey that Christopher Soames and I, seeing them off
when they left, felt obliged to explain rather lamely
that a sharp debate was Churchill's idea of a pleasant
evening. The fact was that Churchill now realised, to
his bitter disappointment, that he was welcomed and
revered in America much more as Winston Churchill
than as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
He was not discouraged for long, but as his project
for ending the Cold War increasingly absorbed his
thoughts, and the world applauded his great speech of
I I May I953 on this theme, he was more and more
distressed by the cold, negative response not only of the
Foreign Office, but of the White House and the State
Department. In October he revived his plan to sail to
the Azores in Vanguard to meet the President, but
Eisenhower was far from keen. Churchill wished to
press the matter, but was stopped by a chance remark
of mine when I asked: 'What subjects are you going to
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 JOHN COLVILLE
discuss when you get there?' It suddenly dawned on
him that everything he might say to the President
about Russia would necessarily be met with a negative
response, and that on other topics, such as Egypt, he
himself would have nothing to offer but criticisms and
complaints of the American attitude. He said that to
bring the President a thousand miles just for that
seemed discourteous and unfair.
At the Bermuda Conference in December I 953,
things looked up a bit. Eisenhower declined to accept
Churchill's view that since Stalin's death there was 'a
new look' about Russia, but personal relations were
unclouded and both Churchill and Eden were success-
ful in bringing influence to bear on American defence
policy in Europe. Mter one particular meeting in
camera Eden told me that Churchill had done brilliantly
and he had really 'turned the minds of the Americans'.
The fact, however, that the French had been invited
to the Conference, even though Laniel and Bidault
played little part in its deliberations and the main im-
portance lay in the Anglo-American discussions out of
conference hours, proved that the Americans were
determined not to admit openly the unique family
relationship in which Churchill so ardently believed.
In June I 954 Churchill returned to Washington. It
was thought that on almost every topic, Indo-China,
atomic policy, Europe, Egypt, there was greater
Anglo-American friction than for years. Churchill was
thus overjoyed when on 2 June, the very day of his
arrival, Eisenhower agreed to talks with the Russians.
Good progress was also made on the vexed topic of
Egypt. Churchill was elated by success and in a state
of excited good humour. On 26 June the Russian
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 ACTION THIS DAY

project was expanded, by the President himself, to take

the form of a meeting in London to include the French
and West Germans, and to be attended at the opening
by the President in person. On the 27th, after Dulles
had spoken privately to the President, the prospects of
a large conference grew dimmer, but Churchill was
assured that if he chose to meet the Russians, the
American Government would not object. Churchill
and Eisenhower then proceeded to issue a joint
declaration of principles which was a pale imitation of
the Atlantic Charter and lacked all the fire and
eloquence with which the Churchill of earlier years
could have inspired it. It scarcely aroused a flicker of
interest in the world, but at least Churchill left
America for the last time as Prime Minister content
with the progress he had made and fully reassured as
to his influence with the Administration. In fact he had
achieved little: the United States never succeeded in
resisting the personality of Winston Churchill; he
could and did bewitch them; but by the time he left
office in 1955 he was no nearer to attaining the happy
state of the protoplasm, with its two parts reunited 'to
their common benefit and gratification', than he had
been in I 95 I. Indeed eighteen months after his resigna-
tion Anglo-American relations were to reach their least
fine hour.
He was, in the event, no more successful in attaining
his other great objective, a detente with the Soviet
Union. But it was not for want of trying, even though
the Russians themselves knew little about it. In July
and August 1953 Churchill spoke much on this subject.
Talks, he said, might lead to a relaxation of the Cold
War, and a respite during which science could use its
I32
 JOHN COLVILLE
marvels so to improve the lot of man that the leisured
classes of his youth might give way to the leisured
masses of tomorrow. 'We must go no further on the
paths to war,' he said, 'unless we are sure there is no
other path to peace.' The Foreign Office and the State
Department disagreed and Churchill told me he
thought their policy, unchecked, would consign us to
years of hatred and hostility. He was depressed to hear
that Salisbury, who returned from Washington in
July, had found Eisenhower violently russophobe,
even more so than Dulles, and that Salisbury believed
the President to be personally responsible for the use-
less pinpricks and harassing tactics which the Americans
were using against Russia in Europe and the Far East.
Churchill was looking into the mists of the future in
search of a permanent cure for the antagonism between
the East and West. He was therefore less impressed by
the immediate obstacles than were those impelled by
duty to consider the problems of the day. It is only
fair to recall what these were. The negotiations to
create a European Defence Community, so as to
establish a genuine European deterrent to aggression,
had been fraught with every kind of difficulty, and
had finally foundered on the rock of French senatorial
opposition. The leading Western Powers were there-
fore seeking to make alternative arrangements which
would bring Germany into N.A.T.O. and would sub-
stitute a Treaty of Mutual Assistance for the original
Brussels Treaty, which had been aimed not at aggres-
sion from the East, but at the ex-enemy Powers,
Germany and Italy. The Soviet Government were
naturally making every effort to prevent the successful
negotiation of a new treaty, and it seemed to many
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that the Russians would seize the opportunity of an
approach by the British to sow suspicion in French
and German minds. Even as things turned out, the
results of the London Conference in the autumn of
I954 were only ratified by a very narrow margin.
Churchill's wider conception appeared to Eden and
the Foreign Office as almost certain to jeopardise the
immediate objective, and it was this fear, rather than
mere obstinacy or russophobia, which raised serious
doubts in their minds.
Impatient of opposition at home and in Washington,
Churchill determined to press on with his own policy.
At the end of September he spoke earnestly of the need
for Eden and himself to meet Malenkov and Molotov
face to face. He can scarcely be blamed for not
realising how transitory this particular Soviet regime
was to be. At Bermuda, in December, he advocated a
policy of strength towards Russia combined with
gestures of friendship, personal contacts and trade
negotiations. Only by proving to our peoples that we
should neglect no chance of easement could we per-
suade them to accept the sacrifices necessary to main-
tain strong armed forces. He brushed aside the Foreign
Office advice that a visit might lead to appeasement
(by him of all people!) and would discourage our
European allies who would be only too glad of an
excuse to relax the defence efforts to which we were
goading them. The Foreign Office and the State
Department were at one in maintaining that the
slightly more reasonable attitude detected in the
Kremlin was due not to Stalin's death but to the suc-
cess of our own policy of constant pressure and in-
creased strength. Churchill was unmoved by their
I34
 JOHN COLVILLE
arguments, reinforced though they were by Eisen-
hower personally and by the entire French delegation
at the Bermuda Conference.
It was against this background that Eisenhower's
sudden change of front in Washington at the end of
June 1954 gave Churchill new hope and new zest. He
would, he said, redouble his efforts to avert war and
procure a 'ten years' easement during which our riches
and ingenuity could be diverted to ends more fruitful
than the production of catastrophic weapons'. He
would go to Russia and demand the freedom of Austria
as an earnest ofbetter relations.
We set sail for home on the Queen Elizabeth. On
2 July Churchill dictated to me, in spite of protests
that I knew no shorthand, a long telegram to Molotov
proposing talks with the Soviet leaders, in which the
United States Government would not participate but
could be counted on to do their best with their own
public opinion. Churchill asked me to show the tele-
gram to Eden and then to have it despatched. Eden
told me he disapproved of the whole thing. He had
been adding up the pros and cons and was sure the
latter predominated. Moreover, it was in his view a
practical certainty that nothing would come of the
meeting and the high hopes of the public would be
shattered. He much disliked the idea of the telegram
being despatched without submission to the Cabinet.
Why could Churchill not wait till we were home and
then let Eden deliver the message to Molotov whom
he would be seeing at Geneva? Would I tell him that
if he insisted he must do as he wished, but it would be
against Eden's strong advice? Churchill told me that
he would make the matter one of confidence with the
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 ACTION THIS DAY
Cabinet. They would have to choose between him and
his intentions. If they opposed the visit it would provide
him with the occasion to go. He finally agreed to send
the telegram to the Cabinet provided he could say
that Eden accepted it in principle. Eden, in despair,
agreed.
Back in London Churchill faced an uneasy Cabinet.
Salisbury decided to resign. 'Cecils are always ill or
resigning,' said Churchill cheerfully. But Salisbury was
not alone in his discontent, and Harold Macmillan
sought an interview with Lady Churchill to tell her
that the Cabinet was in danger ofbreaking asunder on
the issue. Churchill admitted to me that he had quite
deliberately made up his mind to despatch the tele-
gram without consulting the Cabinet. The stakes were
so high and, as he saw it, the possible benefits so crucial
to our survival that he was prepared to adopt any
methods to procure a meeting with the Russians. This
is the only instance I remember of his contemplating
an important action without first submitting the pro-
posal to the Cabinet for approval.
After a meeting on Friday, 23 July, the Cabinet dis-
persed for the weekend with the threat of Salisbury
and Crookshank resigning, and the still more alarming
possibility that Churchill, the bit between his teeth and
behaving like a prophet new-inspired, might resign,
announce his reasons for so doing and split both the
Conservative Party and the country. The telegram
still awaited despatch. The crisis was resolved by
the Russians themselves taking an initiative which
demanded a meeting not of Churchill and Malenkov
but of thirty-two powers to discuss a European Security
Plan. 'Foreign Secretaries of the World unite; you
I36
 JOHN COL VILLE
have nothing to lose but your jobs,' was Churchill's
comment. It was, however, clear that his own initiative
must be at least postponed.
He had failed in his last great objective, although he
went on hoping for a meeting of the Big Three and as
late as March 1955 he saw a glint of hope in a proposal
from Washington for a meeting between Eisenhower,
President Coty and Dr Adenauer in Paris on the tenth
anniversary of V.E.-Day to ratify the London-Paris
Defence Agreements which had replaced the defunct
E.D.C. proposals. But this was not the same as a meet-
ing with the Russians, and Churchill felt that he could
battle on no further against such hopeless odds. His
eightieth birthday had passed, and during the winter
months of 1954-5 he repeated to me again and again:
'I have lost interest; I am tired of it all.' He stayed on
longer than some hoped and many thought possible.
Reluctance to relinquish the reins joined forces with a
genuine belief that he could still achieve something
worthwhile on the international stage to haul him back
from the final step into retirement. He could still com-
pose and deliver a great speech, but he was ageing
month by month and it was tedious for him to read
official papers or to give his mind to anything he did
not find diverting. More and more time was given to
bezique and ever less to public business. The preparation
of one answer to a Parliamentary Question might con-
sume a whole morning; facts would be demanded from
Government Departments and arouse no interest when
they arrived. It was becoming an effort even to sign a
letter and a positive condescension to read Foreign
Office telegrams. Yet on some days the old gleam would
be there, wit and good humour would bubble and
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 ACTION THIS DAY
sparkle, wisdom would roll out in telling sentences and
occasionally the touch of genius could still be seen in a
decision, a letter or a phrase. But he was no longer the
man to tame the Russians or to moderate the Americans.
Physical blows had indeed fallen and now in I 955 forti-
tude was his main surviving asset. It was time to go,
on a wave of popular acclaim and affection which was
felt far beyond the shores of Great Britain. If he had not
achieved all the goals for which he had striven, he
could still claim an unusually large score.
 Sir John Martin
PRIVATE SECRETARY I94o-I
PRINCIPAL PRIVATE SECRETARY I94I-5

ONcE, meeting Churchill a few years after the war,

I said that life was not as exciting as it used to be.
He replied: 'You can't expect to have a war all the
time.' It was said in jest, but indeed for him his five
years as wartime Prime Minister were the supreme
period of his life, for which all that went before was a
preparation and the years after an epilogue. I worked
with him as Private Secretary almost throughout that
period, starting in May 1940 (when the increased
tempo arising from his arrival at No. 10 called for an
addition to the staff). But it is the events and emotions
of the first year and a half- the summer and autumn
of 1940 ('the most splendid, as it was the most deadly,
year in our long British and English story') and 1941 -
that bulk largest in my memory. That was the 'finest
hour,' when Churchill made his most decisive contri-
bution to history and delivered the most outstanding
of the great speeches.
Made to stand in the light of the window of the
Prime Minister's room and approved by a quick
scrutiny, I began work at once, in a grim moment of
the war, on the eve of Dunkirk. As we worked late at
Admiralty House, under the wondering gaze of Samuel
Pepys, it seemed like a tragic drama played in the
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 ACTION THIS DAY
setting of French farce, with huddled groups talking
among the dolphin furniture, the urgent telephone
calls (now to Paris; now to the beach at La Panne),
the constant coming and going through the Prime
Minister's door, the bedroom scenes. The Prime
Minister worked tirelessly and late, under the pressure
of intense anxiety. He was an alarming master. For a
newcomer it was often difficult to understand his
instructions. His speech was hard to follow. Only after
months did one acquire skill to interpret what at first
seemed inarticulate grunts or single words thrown out
without explanation. One had to learn his private
allusions, as when he referred to 'that moon-faced man
in the Foreign Office' or identified one of his own
Minutes by its opening words like a Papal encyclical.
On one ofthose early nights, when I was working alone
with him long after midnight and the more experienced
hands had left, everything went wrong: I knew none of
the answers and could find none of the papers he
wanted. At last he rose wearily to go upstairs to bed
but not before he had laid his hand kindly on my
shoulder and said he was sorry there had been no time
in the rush of those days to get to know me. 'You know,'
he added, 'I may seem to be very fierce, but I am
fierce only with one man- Hitler.'
Later he became easier, as one knew him better,
Especially in the last years of the war, as the shadow
of danger and anxiety lifted a little, he seemed to
mellow. But, though there were moments of irrita-
bility and anger, he was not a harsh and unfeeling
master. It has been suggested, unjustly, that he had
little concern for the welfare of those who worked
immediately around him. It is certainly true that his
I40
 SIR JOHN MARTIN
demands upon them were heavy, and, in his concentra-
tion on the great issues which filled his waking hours, he
had little time or emotion to spare. He expected the
same exacting rules of diligence to apply to his staff as
to himself. At my first Christmas with him the then
Principal Private Secretary suggested that he should
arrange short periods of leave for the staff during the
recess, only to receive the answer:
No holidays can be given at Christmas, but every en-
deavour should be made to allow members of the Staff
to attend Divine Service on Christmas Day, either in
the morning or afternoon. My own plans will be to
work either here [Chequers] or in London con-
tinuously.... On the other hand, I should approve of
one week's holiday being worked in and well spread
between now and March 3 I.
His parting greeting to the Private Secretaries at No.
IO when he left for Chequers on Christmas Eve was 'A
busy Christmas and a frantic New Year.' But by many
words and actions he showed that he did not regard us
as just part of the furniture. There were many little
intimate jokes and digs. I recall much friendly interest
at the time of my engagement and marriage, such as
the thoughtful enquiry at Casablanca whether my
fiancee had been told of our safe arrival, the occasional
teasing- 'Look at john Martin wandering among the
trees thinking about his wife.'
At No. IO, which is as much a house as an office, and
even more at Chequers, we were part of the family.
We passed our days in a friendly family atmosphere,
like that of many a Government House or Embassy.
It was this unreserved acceptance into the privacy of
the home and at the dining-room table which made it
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 ACTION THIS DAY
seem difficult to keep the sort of diary which could
afterwards be the source of 'revelations' and memoirs.
As the stream of uninhibited talk ran on, one often
realised that much that would fascinate posterity and
illumine history was going unrecorded: yet it seemed
impossible to enjoy such intimacy and at the same time
play the part of a hidden tape-recorder.
The friendship which we so much prized in 'The
Secret Circle' was only one expression of the generosity
of Churchill's many-sided nature. He was a great-
hearted man, with deep feelings, which he was never
ashamed to show. Those of us who saw him in tears in
the House of Commons after announcing the attack on
the French fleet at Oran, or the agony of reluctance
before dismissing a loyal minister when Cabinet
changes were necessary, will never think of him as
hard or unsympathetic. It may be that he had never
travelled in a bus and had little direct knowledge of
how the other halflives; but he felt deeply for the war-
time sufferings of the common man as he saw him
waiting patiently in a bus queue at the end of the day's
work or picking up the bits and pieces of his shattered
home on the morning after an air-raid. Churchill's
Minutes afford many examples of this concern - of his
practical efforts to provide better bus services, to im-
prove the air-raid shelters and their comfort and
amenities, to reduce the petty restrictions of what he
called the policy of 'misery first'. He was sincere in
writing that he 'felt, with a spasm of pain, a deep sense
of the strain and suffering that was being borne
throughout the world's largest city'. After all, he was
one of the ministers who, years before, had laid the
foundations of the welfare state.
I42
 SIR JOHN MARTIN
Churchill also revealed at times a sort of simplicity
that was very engaging (though it was perhaps more
often assumed than some people realised, for I am sure
he often half-consciously presented himself as the
'character' he was expected to be). He was the sort of
person who, if given a warning prod under the table,
would ask loudly, 'Why are you kicking me?' When
talking to President Roosevelt on the transatlantic
radio-telephone, which he had been warned was an
insecure channel, he once or twice used the disguise of
pretending that the speaker was John Martin. I
received a rocket from the Censorship. Once in Florida,
where he was disguised as 'a Mr Lobb, an invalid
requiring quiet', while I was his English butler, we
were told to be careful in any telephone references to
future movements, so in speaking to the White House
he said: 'I mustn't mention how we are travelling;
but we are coming by puff-puff.'
He had a voracious appetite for work. Apart from
talk (his greatest outlet and recreation), an occasional
film-show or evening games of bezique or Corinthian
bagatelle (in which the monotonous click of the balls
seemed to have a therapeutic value), he left himself no
time for relaxation. We introduced the film-shows at
Chequers after dinner, hoping that they would be fol-
lowed by early bed, but often the only result was a
corresponding prolongation of the evening's labours.
Only very rarely, on travel or when ill, did he read a
book (Hornblower was a great success); but all the
London newspapers, in their various editions, starting
with the first brought by despatch-rider from Fleet
Street at midnight, were carefully scrutinised (not
omitting the lighter contributions, such as 'Jane' in the
I43
 ACTION THIS DAY
Daily Mirror and Nathaniel Gubbins in the Sunday
Express). The regular afternoon sleep - deep and
sound for an hour and a half or more in bed undressed,
and to be followed on rising by a second bath- enabled
him, as he said, to press a day and a half's work into
one. The long meetings in the Cabinet room drew
heavily on his mental and emotional energy. In office
work he did not spare himself, dictating not only his
own speeches but also (with few exceptions) his letters,
other than the most formal official ones, and his per-
sonal Minutes. The latter were multiplied not only
by his concern over the whole field of government, but
also by his invariable rule of following oral instructions
with confirmation in writing and in the fullest detail.
Dictation, especially of speeches, could be a long
process, while he carefully savoured and chose his
words, often testing alternative words or phrases in a
low mutter before coming out loudly with the final
choice. It was the function of the Private Secretaries
not to draft the speeches but to check his own drafts,
referring them as necessary to the appropriate Depart-
ments, and then to submit to him any proposed amend-
ments. That was one of our more formidable duties,
especially as tension rose with the approach of the time
of delivery. 'What fool suggested that?' he would ask
irritably; but scarcely ever was a reasonable suggestion
not taken into account in the final version. He shot off
ceaselessly the famous stream of Minutes to Ministers
and Service chiefs - enquiring, proposing, criticising,
prodding and on occasion praising. His 'ACTION THIS
DA v' labels were treated with respect: it was known
that such demands from the summit could not be ig-
nored. Once an ecclesiastical dignitary from overseas
I44
 SIR JOHN MARTIN
took one as a souvenir. Asked on a return visit ifhe still
had it, he replied, 'Yes. I gummed it in my prayer book.'
This ceaseless toil would have killed any but the
toughest of men. A succession of illnesses proved that
he was not invulnerable, though he wrestled fiercely
against them. He was then almost uncontrollable,
putting as much strain on his doctors as on himself,
even insisting on drafting his own medical bulletins,
so that at Carthage Lord Moran was driven to say of
him that the doctors 'had the benefit of an excellent
consultant'. Although in the ordinary way he took no
physical exercise and disregarded the rules of training,
he could give astonishing displays of physical energy
on his tours of inspection, striding along at a pace that
left staff officers and reception committees panting in
the rear. As the war years rolled on he showed increas-
ing marks of strain. He became more exhausted at the
end of the day and sometimes more reluctant to deal
with the mass of routine business fed into his despatch
box. His talk in the evening would become more dis-
cursive and his colleagues often grudged the long hours
of discussion. But, as Alan Brooke had to admit, he
was 'far from failing fast'. Except in his worst days of
illness, he remained fully in control, his will as strong
as ever, his mind as clear. The growing predominance
of the American effort reduced his power of final
decision, and this was hampering. 'It is not as easy as
it used to be for me to get things done,' he admitted
at the end of I944· But the record of his warnings in
the last year of the war of the new dangers looming in
Eastern Europe is evidence that his vision was un-
dimmed. The deterioration in Roosevelt's health,
which so shocked us all at Yalta, led to a costly
K. 145
 ACTION THIS DAY
enfeeblement of Anglo-American liaison at the highest
level; and it is a strange inversion to suggest that
deterioration in relations with the President was attri-
butable to Churchill's 'exhaustion of mind and body'.
In the short time that remained after Roosevelt's death
the Prime Minister strove immediately and effectively
to establish cordial relations with his successor.
It has been suggested that in Churchill's 'impression-
able nature' lay a source of weakness that ultimately
undermined his strength. A powerful imagination may
indeed have made him apprehensive of danger in
situations where blind courage could tread the abyss's
edge unmoved. His deep sensitivity enhanced his
appreciation of the agony of war (as well as its glory).
But it is hard to reconcile any representation of him
as an essentially apprehensive man with the constant
exhibition of the unflinching moral and physical
courage of a leader who would 'never surrender', who
took a delight in mounting to the roof in air-raids, and
who turned back his car to London from the road to
Chequers because the German 'beam' seemed to point
to a heavy attack on the capital.
Whether or not the sensitive artist in temperament,
Churchill was, of course, an artist in words and a
master of the English language. He attached great
importance to the discriminating choice of words in
composition and to the observance of the accepted
rules of grammar. He had never forgotten the lessons
of Somervell at Harrow. He would sometimes quote
the authority of Fowler's Modern English Usage, to
which for example he referred the Director of Military
Intelligence in correcting the misuse of 'intensive' for
'intense'. A copy of Fowler was his Christmas present
I46
 SIR JOHN MARTIN
to one of the Royal Family. He was intolerant of
sloppiness and jargon in official letters (which he did
not like to be signed only with Christian names).
'Appreciate that . •• ' was a hAte noire: again and again
the substitution of'recognise that' was the only amend-
ment in a departmental draft submitted for his
approval. Once, driving with him along the Embank-
ment, I used the description 'extraordinary' of the
windings of the Thames, to which he had drawn atten-
tion. 'Not "extraordinary",' he corrected, 'all rivers
wind. Rather, "remarkable".' By his direction 'Local
Defence Volunteers' became 'The Home Guard',
'communal feeding centres' were renamed 'British
Restaurants' and we were instructed to substitute
'aircraft' for 'aeroplanes' and 'airfields' for 'aero-
dromes'. (His interest in Basic English was, I think,
inspired by political rather than linguistic reasons: it
was a means of promoting 'the English-speaking
club'.) He waged continual war against verbosity in
official documents, especially Foreign Office tele-
grams. 'It is sheer laziness,' he said, 'not compressing
thought into a reasonable space.'
Many stories have been told of Churchill's prodi-
gious memory, which enabled him to quote, without
mistake, long poems read many years before. It is a
priceless asset in a statesman. He had served in most
high ministerial offices, and his memory was stored
with the knowledge gained in that wide experience,
from which he could draw at will. Thus as Prime
Minister he could survey most of the wide field of
government with an expert's eye. His special knowledge
was in the affairs of the Service Departments, in which
he had so long taken a close and personal interest.
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 ACTION THIS DAY
Although not himself a scientist, he had kept in touch
with recent scientific and technical developments
affecting weapons and methods of warfare - especially
in the four years before the war in the new apparatus of
air fighting and defence - so that he was able to speak
to the Service Chiefs in their own language and almost
as a professional. The range and tenacity of his
memory were also an aid in the conduct of current
affairs, for example in dictating long and detailed
directives without the need to mug up or rely on a
devil for the facts and figures, or in examining the
many periodical returns fed to him by his Statistical
Office and others. I learnt this at an early date when
submitting a periodical report on the state of readiness
of the divisions of the Army in various items of arms
and equipment. The previous report was not available
for purposes of comparison, but I found this did not
matter, since he carried the picture in his head.
Of his conversation Lord Moran wrote that it
resembled that of Max Beaverbrook in that 'they bat,
and the other fellows field ... Winston talks to amuse
himself; he has no thought of amusing anybody.' It is
true that he made no attempt at small talk and that
his conversation often tended to monologue. When
asked to furnish a record of an interview with a foreign
ambassador he admitted that he found it easier (as so
many of us do) to remember his own remarks than the
contributions of his visitor. At table the outpouring
from a rich and fertile mind often dazzled and over-
whelmed his audience. But he was as conscious of
audience reaction as any trained speaker must be.
True, he did not take kindly to criticism, and his im-
mediate response to it could be fierce and angry; but,
I4fJ
 SIR JOHN MAR TIN
if there was any merit in it, the point usually went
home and was not forgotten.
His sensitiveness to effect was shown by various
small traits of behaviour no doubt learnt in a long
experience of political campaigning, presenting the
character which the public expected and wanted to
see- the hat, the stern set of the jaw, the cigar. On one
occasion, in instructing me to show some final
courtesy to a parting guest whom it was important to
send away happy, he said we were like the Chicago
canners: 'We use everything except the squeak.'
I leave it to others, better qualified, to assess
Churchill's contribution to the strategy of victory. It is
clear enough how much some of the great determining
choices owed to his wisdom, supported by the massive
drive of his will - such as the refusal at the time of
France's agony to throw into the battle there that bare
minimum of aircraft strength which secured our sur-
vival when left to continue the struggle alone; the
'blood-transfusion' to Egypt of precious troops and
arms (including nearly half our best tanks) in the last
months of 1940, when invasion still threatened Eng-
land; the postponement of the Second Front until
there were reasonable chances of success (but the
record shows, in contradiction of suggestions that he
was half-hearted about the project, that he had been
preparing for it from the earliest months after the fall
of France, and the famous Minute about the construc-
tion of floating piers was written as early as May 1942);
the North Mrican landings; the exploitation of the
Sicilian victory and the invasion of Italy; the rescue of
Greece from Communist control.
No doubt there were also impulses and plans which
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 ACTION THIS DAY
are open to criticism in the light of hindsight. But the
portrait which emerges from the Alanbrooke diaries
has elements of caricature. After all, Churchill never
over-ruled the combined advice of the Chiefs of Staff;
and the ferment of ideas, the persistence in flogging
proposals, the goading of commanders to attack -
these were all expressions of that blazing, explosive
energy without which the vast machine, civilian as
well as military, could not have been moved forward
so steadily or steered through so many setbacks and
difficulties. Lord Moran's portrait is equally strange.
He was devoted to the Prime Minister and had real
affection for his difficult patient. Yet the drip of dis-
paragement eats away the finer features of the man,
which are so clear in the memory of those who worked
with him. We are presented with the image of one who
in a way had never grown up, an impulsive gambler,
bludgeoning his clumsy way among people whom he
did not understand and in whom he was not interested,
in physical and mental decline, to a victory in whose
sequel on the home front he did not concern himself.
Churchill was too much of an individualist to be
a tidy administrator. But, even if he is allowed no
credit for the general efficiency of the official machine
over which he presided, it is remembered by those who
served in it that from the moment when he assumed
control a new drive and energy pulsed through it.
He established the structure at the summit which en-
dured, almost unchanged, to the end. As he wrote later,
'the machinery worked almost automatically, and one
lived in a stream of coherent thought capable of being
translated with great rapidity into coherent action.'
Those who read his Minutes may accept too readily
150
 SIR JOHN MARTIN
that he 'wallowed' in detail. It is true that he some-
times intervened in what were primarily departmental
affairs, and those Minutes could cause irritation in
Whitehall, especially when it was suspected that the
inspiration came from the roving eye of Lord Cherwell.
But it was salutary for departmental administrators
to know that they worked under the master's scrutiny.
As he said, 'an efficient and a successful administra-
tion manifests itself equally in small as in great matters.'
His own long and varied experience in ministerial
responsibility qualified him to exercise this super-
vision, and the force and energy of his mind enabled
him to do so without distraction from the greater
issues. One of the most inadequate definitions of genius
is that it is an infinite capacity for taking pains; but
there is this much truth in it that the mind of a genius
like Churchill (or, for example, Nelson) has a vigour,
a power of deep penetration that enables him not only
to take the wide view of the problems of his time (what
the Americans accustomed us to call the 'overall
strategic concepts') but also to see the whole field in
focus and to master the details on the proper handling
of which success in dealing with the broader issues
depends. Churchill's rule that all directions emanating
from him were to be given, or immediately confirmed,
in writing avoided that uncertainty about the content
of instructions or responsibility for them which can be
such a source of confusion in administrative work.
Another aspect of administration to which he attached
importance, though (like others) he found it difficult
to achieve, was proper coordination of official statistics.
He is sometimes presented as a reactionary with an
old-fashioned outlook, who had little sympathy with
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 ACTION THIS DAY
plans for a brave new world after the war. He was, of
course, in background a Cavalier rather than a
Roundhead, and he was not found on the side of the
angels in debates on Indian constitutional reform; but
in thinking about the future shape of things in Britain
and the world - and he did ponder much about both -
if a label has to be given, he was liberal and progressive.
He was strong in his devotion to parliamentary demo-
cracy and passionate in opposition to regimes that
suppress it. 'Trust the people' was the faith he in-
herited from his father. 'My idea of democracy,' he
said, 'is that the plain, humble common man, just the
ordinary man who keeps a wife and family, who goes
off to fight for his country when it is in trouble, goes
to the poll at the appropriate time, and puts his cross
on the ballot-paper showing the candidate he wishes
to be elected to Parliament - that he is the foundation
of democracy. And it is also essential to this foundation
that this man or woman should do this without fear,
and without any form of intimidation or victimisation.'
Silent leges inter arma was not his principle, and
throughout the war he was careful to preserve the
authority of Parliament. At no time was Parliament's
right of criticism restricted, and, if anything, he seemed
over-sensitive to parliamentary opinion, insisting on
debates and votes of confidence even when it was clear
that he enjoyed the support of the overwhelming
majority. In the summer of I940 it would have eased
the strain of making speeches to the separate audiences
of Parliament and (by radio) the nation if his state-
ments in the House could have been recorded for
broadcasting; but as soon as it was clear that there
was substantial parliamentary opposition to such an
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 SIR JOHN MAR TIN
innovation he dropped the proposal. He upheld the
proper use of Question Time as 'one of the most lively
and vital features of parliamentary life'.
Churchill's attitude towards plans of social reform
in Britain after the war seems to have been misunder-
stood. It would be strange if one who, as noted above,
had been active in laying the foundations of the welfare
state had been out of sympathy with the Beveridge
Report and similar proposals, and indeed he was not,
welcoming plans which would 'bring the magic of
averages nearer to the rescue of millions'. The first
object, however, from which no energy should be dis-
tracted, was to win the war, remembering the danger
of selling the skin before you have caught the bear.
And, recalling experience after the First World War,
he foresaw the great economic difficulties which would
face Britain when the fighting ended and warned of
the risk of leading people to feel cheated if they had
been led to expect attractive schemes which turned out
to be economically impracticable.
Uncompromisingly English (not British), the em-
bodiment of the bulldog breed, professing that 'foreign
names were made for Englishmen, not Englishmen
for foreign names', he yet built on this foundation of
English patriotism a wider loyalty. He can claim a
place in history as one of the great Europeans and
citizens of the world. He took pride in the fact that the
Atlantic Charter was in its first draft a British produc-
tion, cast in his own words, and he pondered much on
forms of organisation for the post-war world. Though
a fervent monarchist whose first instinct was to support
exiled kings and monarchical parties, he declared that
'it would be a mistake for Great Britain to force her
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 ACTION THIS DAY
system on other countries'. He believed that the pre-
servation of the 'fraternal association' of Britain and
the United States would be as vital in peace as it
had been in war; but he had no idea of the great
powers ruling the world in derogation from national
sovereignty, and, as he wrote in I942, his thoughts
rested 'primarily in Europe - the revival of the glory
of Europe, the parent continent of the modern nations
and of civilisation'.
How far was it this one man who inspired that will
to resist which carried the nation through its darkest
hour? He often recalled the Cabinet meeting just
before Dunkirk, when the issue was whether to con-
tinue the struggle alone to the end, even if it were to
defeat. When, after describing in sombre colours the
situation facing us, he declared 'whatever happens at
Dunkirk, we shall fight on', something unique in his
experience of Cabinet meetings happened - his col-
leagues rose to their feet and cheered. He had expressed,
he said, what was in every heart. The letters of support
and unflinching resolution which poured into the
office at that time from many ordinary people were
very moving. But history will surely confirm the
verdict of those days: Unus homo restituit rem. By his
speeches, and in all his contacts, he gave forth a con-
fidence and invincible will that called out every-
thing that was brave and strong. It is easy to see how
under less resolute leadership things might have gone
very differently. As it was said of Pitt, 'nobody left his
presence without feeling a braver man', and the
broadcast speeches brought that presence into every
home.
Churchill knew in that summer of I 940 that defeat
I 54
 SIR JOHN MARTIN
was possible. I had to look out for him George Borrow's
prayer at Gibraltar, with the words, 'fear not the
result, for either shall thy end be a majestic and an
enviable one, or God shall perpetuate thy reign upon
the waters.' If we went down, the end would be
majestic: we should go down with all guns blazing to
the last. And yet I think he had at the bottom of his
heart a confidence that in the end all would be well, a
faith rooted in something deeper than any assessment
of the facts as they could be measured at the time. It
was part of the secret of his inspiring leadership that
he saw the events of the present against the wide back-
ground of history, of which he carried such a clear
picture in his memory. When in conversation one day
I said something to the effect that I should like to sur-
vive to see how the war ended, his comment was that
'history is a scenario without an end.' He made his
countrymen feel that they were playing a part on the
great stage of history and that, whatever our im-
mediate tribulations, this was indeed the 'finest hour'.
An example may be given of the emotions he could
arouse, which I remember with special vividness. In
his first broadcast speech as Prime Minister, on 19 May
1940, speaking as he said in a solemn hour, Churchill
described the great battle raging in France and
Flanders. The Germans had broken through the
Maginot Line, and their armoured vehicles were
ravaging the open country. Behind them large masses
of infantry were moving forward. He did not disguise
the gravity of the prospect. Soon it would be the turn
of England: 'We must expect that, as soon as stability
is reached on the Western Front, the bulk of that
hideous apparatus of aggression which gashed Holland
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 ACTION THIS DAY
into ruin and slavery in a few days will be turned upon
us.' He went on to prepare the nation for the supreme
emergency which faced it, and to warn of the long
night of barbarism which would descend 'unbroken
even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer
we must; as conquer we shall'. Then he ended with
these words:
Today is Trinity Sunday. Centuries ago words were
written to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants
of truth and justice: 'Arm yourselves, and be yemen
of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is
better for us to perish in battle than to look at the out-
rage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is
in Heaven, so let it be!'
'Today is Trinity Sunday.' It was as if a great bell
tolled. This sudden and unexpected reminder of our
Faith and its most mysterious doctrine had a strangely
moving effect. The dark scene in Europe and the
clouds threatening our island were shot through and
illumined as by a great flash of lightning. We saw our
Army in France and those preparing to meet the
invader in England as protagonists on a vaster scene
and as champions of a high and invincible cause, for
which the stars in their courses were fighting. Our eyes
were opened to a vision like that of the prophet's
servant, who 'saw; and, behold, the mountain was full
ofhorses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.'
I cannot end these notes without mentioning two
people to whom Churchill owed much in carrying his
heavy load of responsibility. First, among all who
worked with him, to none did he and the country owe
a greater debt than to General Ismay, his Chief of
Staff. 'Pug', the most self-effacing of men, was almost
I 56
 SIR JOHN MARTIN
unknown to the outside world. It is impossible for those
who were not in the inner circle to know how vital a
part he played, without relaxation though he must
often have been utterly weary, as the intermediary
between the Prime Minister and the Chiefs of Staff-
a wise interpreter and an immensely tactful conciliator,
with complete integrity, a shield before the flame of
genius. Finally and above all, Churchill was sustained
in storm and stress because his life was rooted in such
a happy marriage. His fragment of autobiography,
My Early Life, ends with the just tribute 'I married
and lived happily ever afterwards.' He was indeed
happy in his wife and in their tender devotion to one
another.
It was not easy to work for such a man. But, as we
all agreed, it was often tremendous fun.

157
 Sir Ian Jacob
MILITARY ASSISTANT SECRETARY
TO THE WAR CABINET I939-45
CHIEF STAFF OFFICER TO THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE
AND DEPUTY SECRETARY (MILITARY) TO THE CABINET I952

IT is hard to realise that, in the year before the out-

break of the Second World War, we in the staff of the
Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence and of the
Committee of Imperial Defence had virtually no deal-
ings with Mr Winston Churchill, who was ploughing
his lonely furrow as a critic of the Government in
Parliament. When, early in 1939, Lord Chatfield
succeeded Sir Thomas lnskip as Minister for Co-
ordination of Defence, there was a certain amount of
speculation as to why Churchill's obvious qualifications
for the job had been overlooked, but we were not con-
cerned with political appointments; we, like many
others, had in our minds the many ups and downs that
Churchill had experienced, and, not having studied
some of the facts as closely as we might have done, we
tended to think ofhim as a somewhat unreliable ifbril-
liant person who could not be trusted to exercise a wise
judgement in large matters. However, when war came,
and Chamberlain at once formed a small War Cabinet
with Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty, we were
gready encouraged. The idea of the War Cabinet
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 SIR IAN JACOB
seemed right, and Churchill seemed to be ideally
placed back at the Admiralty.
In the early months of the war things seemed to be
superficially satisfactory. There was a certain feeling
of relief that in the air and on land we were granted
a breathing-space, as this would enable our fighter
strength to be built up, and our Army to expand some-
what and receive the modern equipment of which
pre-war parsimony had kept it so deficient. At the
Admiralty Churchill seemed to be in firm control, and
at sea, where the war started in earnest immediately,
results seemed to be favourable. It was not very long,
however, before we realised that the drive which
should have been exerted to ensure that we profited
from our respite was sadly lacking. Chamberlain
presided efficiently over the Cabinet; business was
managed in an orderly fashion; but nothing much
happened. Naturally Churchill, who was the embodi-
ment of the offensive spirit, and was never content
unless action was afoot, chafed in this situation, and
did what he could to prod and question in all directions.
A good deal of friction resulted. Memoranda addressed
to the Prime Minister, and sometimes to his colleagues,
flowed from his office on every conceivable subject.
As a member of the War Cabinet Secretariat I saw
these, and I wondered how long this could go on; but
I had only a limited contact with Churchill, and so
could not see clearly whether his conduct was due to
misguided enthusiasm or to the inevitable frustration
of the biggest man in the team being held down to a
secondary position.
The Norway campaign showed Mr Churchill in
his strength and in his weakness. It was a disastrous
I 59
 ACTION THIS DAY
campaign, redeemed by occasional flashes of brilliance,
such as the action of the destroyers at Narvik, and it
showed only too clearly how badly operations develop
if there is no well-devised combined organisation to
direct the efforts of the three Services. At the beginning
the Admiralty interpreted the intelligence of German
movements as a purely naval affair, probably an
attempt by the Germans to pass one or two fast war-
ships out on to the Atlantic trade routes. They, and
Mr Churchill at their head, made the dispositions of
the Home Fleet without regard to the broader require-
ments of Allied interests. They sent all available ships
to sea, and, without a word to anyone, they put back
on shore the troops who had been embarked on
cruisers in the Forth for the express purpose of being
sent to forestall the Germans at Stavanger and Bergen
in the event of a move against Norway. Churchill
seemed to be back in the atmosphere of the First World
War, when German moves at sea might be the prelude
to a Fleet action, and when no one but the Admiralty
was concerned with the steps taken to bring it about.
Later, when it was found that the Admiralty had
allowed themselves to be hoodwinked, and the
Germans were firmly ashore at Oslo, Bergen, Trond-
hjem and Narvik, Churchill was the mainspring of a
forward policy aimed at trying to throw them out. We
then saw the difference between him and other
Ministers in a time of stress. He was always in touch
with the situation personally. He had all the opera-
tional telegrams brought direct to him, often while he
was sitting in Cabinet. Although he was in no sense
in charge of the conduct of the war, his intense eager-
ness made him so much better informed than his
160
 SIR IAN JACOB
colleagues, and so much in hourly contact with events,
that he was usually able to sway them in the direction
he thought the right one at the moment. There was
no Combined Headquarters directing the campaign
with full knowledge of the situation throughout the
theatre, and reporting to the Chiefs of Staff and the
Cabinet. The result was a series of ad hoc decisions,
often arrived at on the incomplete information that
came to Ministers through telegrams from a single
commander produced by Mr Churchill, telegrams that
no one else had seen.
The Cabinet entrusted the military conduct of the
war quite early on to the Military Co-ordination Com-
mittee, which consisted of the three Service Ministers
and the Chiefs of Staff, with, at first, Lord Chatfield,
the Minister for Co-ordination of Defence, in the chair.
Churchill was so much larger in every way than his
colleagues on this Committee that it ran like a coach
with one wheel twice the size of the other three, and
achieved very little with much friction. When, on
3 April I 940, Lord Chatfield resigned, Churchill
became Chairman, but even then things did not go
well, because he was still only one of three equal
Service Ministers, and the others resented his tendency
to cover the whole field. Chamberlain presided effec-
tively over the Cabinet, where his personality and
experience and his position as Prime Minister were
decisive, but he was so clearly out of his element in
warlike matters that he achieved little except the
orderly conduct of Cabinet business. He was a fine
chairman of a board of directors. He was not the
managing director that is necessary in war. Neverthe-
less the opinion we formed of Churchill at that time,
L I6I
 ACTION THIS DAY
operating as he was from a subordinate position and
yet trying to impart some drive and imagination to the
conduct of affairs, was of a tireless and brilliant mind,
yet unpredictable and meddlesome, and quite un-
suited to handle his colleagues in a team. When we
heard he was to be Prime Minister on the fall of
Chamberlain I well remember the misgivings of many
of us in the War Cabinet Office. We had not the ex-
perience or the imagination to realise the difference
between a human dynamo when humming on the
periphery and when driving at the centre. We were
too inclined to respect order and method and to dis-
count initiative and leadership. It wasn't long before
we began to see how greatly we had under-rated the
quality of the man. Nevertheless, in fairness to our
judgement, which wasn't altogether wrong, I must
record that in my opinion the lack of administrative
understanding displayed by Mr Churchill would
hardly have been counterbalanced by the other
qualities he possessed, if he had not been quickly har-
nessed to a most effective machine, which was ready
to his hand without his knowing it. It was in achieving
this that General Ismay made what I regard as his
greatest contribution to the winning of the war.
How this came about should be recorded. Lord
Ismay, in his Memoirs, recounts how, when Chatfield
resigned as Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence,
Chamberlain at first asked Churchill to preside with-
out giving him any special position. This, as I have
said, did not work, and Chamberlain had to take over
the chair himself. Mter less than a month a new
arrangement was announced by Chamberlain to Ismay.
Churchill was to take the chair if the Prime Minister
162
 SIR IAN JACOB
was absent, but would be responsible on behalf of the
Committee for giving guidance and direction to the
Chiefs of Staff. Mr Churchill was to be assisted by a
suitable central staff under Ismay, who was to become
an additional member of the Chiefs of Staff Com-
mittee. How this arrangement could have worked
without creating an impossible position for the Sec-
retaries of State for War and Air one cannot say, but
it seemed to satisfY Chamberlain, who was always out
of his depth in military matters, and it pleased
Churchill, who felt that at last he was getting a grip on
the conduct of the war, and that the proposed plan
was perhaps the best that he could expect short of his
becoming Prime Minister. Organisation did not loom
large in Churchill's mind, and he cared little whether
others were disgruntled, as long as he got his way. He
had had to put up with the disgruntlement himself on
numerous occasions in the past. His immediate idea
was that now he could surround himself with some of
his devoted political adherents, to whom he would give
suitable spheres of responsibility without any distur-
bance of the existing official hierarchy. He clearly
envisaged something analogous to Lloyd George's
'Garden Suburb', and he wrote a Minute to General
Ismay in which he set out his proposals. The men he
wanted were those who had supported him when he
was in the wilderness, such as Professor Lindemann,
Duncan Sandys, Desmond Morton and Oliver Lyttel-
ton; and he said that he intended each of them to over-
see and inform him on a sector of activities. They were
not to be in existing official posts, nor were they to be
Ministers. They were to be his unofficial advisory staff.
This proposition would have been fatal if it had been
I63
 ACTION THIS DAY
carried out as Churchill desired. Ismay did not im-
mediately oppose him. He realised that head-on
opposition would have simply aroused the innate
pugnacity and obstinacy o Churchill, and that he
would have been borne down. He sat on the Minute
and set to work to bring Churchill to realise that, on
military matters at any rate, he had at his elbow an
official and responsible organism, and that there would
be no scope in the military field for the operations of
irregular advisers and links. Fortunately this new
arrangement only came into existence towards the end
of April, and the Chamberlain Government fell in
May. During this short time so much was going on,
including the beginning of the great German attack in
the West, that there was little time to create new staffs.
Nevertheless Ismay's task was not easy. Churchill was
in the Admiralty, and continued there for more than
a month after he became Prime Minister, while
Chamberlain was moving out of No. IO. There was a
constant stream of people in and out around him, and
he kept very late hours. Ismay had to be there con-
stantly and to make his presence felt, and to make sure
that anything with a military flavour was safely chan-
nelled into the right machine. He had to jostle the
friends and adherents of Churchill who were at first
like bees round a honey-pot. He had to ensure that the
Prime Minister received from the military machine
rapid and effective service, a task made more difficult
by the separation between himself, when he was in the
Admiralty attending on Churchill, and his Staff, who
were in Richmond Terrace. He succeeded, and from
that moment until the end of the war, in spite of
occasional disagreements and temporary estrange-
164
 SIR IAN JACOB
ments, the Prime Minister and the Chiefs of Staff came
increasingly together as parts of a well-designed team.
Ismay, and to a much lesser degree Hollis1 and I,
were the oil of the machine, though this analogy is by
no means complete. As the Prime Minister's Chief
Staff Officer, and as an additional member of the
Chiefs of Staff Committee, Ismay took the knocks from
above and below, and worked day and night to ensure
that misunderstandings were smoothed out, and that
the often exasperating vagaries of the Prime Minister
and the sometimes mulish obstinacy of the Chiefs of
Staff did not break up the association. Fortunately by
the end of I 94I the Chiefs of Staff settled down in the
persons of three outstanding men, Alan Brooke, Pound
and Portal, and there was no further change until the
end of the war except that caused by the sad death in
1943 of Sir Dudley Pound. The Prime Minister
developed a very strong liking for these three, and a
real respect for their judgement and professional
attainments, and, although he often battled hard in
argument with them, he never over-rode them. But
this happy result could never have been achieved if
Ismay had not fought hard and skilfully in the early
days to prepare the ground, at a time when there was
no basis of mutual knowledge and confidence to guide
the Prime Minister into the right relationship with his
military advisers.
To get a clear idea of the work of the Cabinet office
and office of the Minister of Defence under Churchill,
we must start with the pre-war work of the Committee
of Imperial Defence. This body has often been
1 Colonel L. C. Hollis, R.M., later Lieutenant-General Sir Leslie

Hollis, K.c.B., who was Secretary of the Chiefs of Staff Committee.

165
 ACTION THIS DAY
described, and its characteristics have been recorded.
The Prime Minister was the only member, all others
who attended being summoned ad hoc. There was, of
course, a panel of senior Ministers who were always
summoned, and the Chiefs of Staff were always there,
but other Ministers or officials or outside experts came
to particular meetings or to the discussion of particular
items. Bridges and Ismay sat always on the Prime
Minister's right at the table in the Secretary's own
office in Richmond Terrace. Ismay's desk occupied
one end of the room to the left of the door; a long
meeting-table occupied the rest of the long room, to
the right of the door. The Agenda went out well in
advance, and meetings were held on Thursday morn-
ings. There was always a feeling of tenseness in the
office on Thursdays. Many of the items on the Agenda
were brought forward from sub-committees. The
Assistant Secretary who looked after the sub-committee
came into the room to a small side-table and took the
Minute of his item on the conclusion of which he was
relieved by another Assistant Secretary. Items not
arising in this way were handled as decided by the
Secretary. Thus the draft Minutes of the meeting were
sent down to the Secretary by the various Assistant
Secretaries who had attended the meeting, and he
edited them and authorised their circulation. It was
a rule that Minutes were always dealt with the same
day, and this rule carried on into the war, so that I
often attended a meeting at No. IO at I0.30 p.m.,
which finished perhaps at I2.30 a.m., and the Minutes
were dictated and typed then and there, work finishing
perhaps at 3 a.m. Everyone thus had the Minutes
when they came to work that morning.
I66
 SIR IAN JACOB
Ismay's over-riding duty before the war was to make
sure that the C.I.D. and its many sub-committees were
together covering all aspects of preparation for war
without undue overlapping, to help and guide his
Assistant Secretaries, each of whom had a number of
sub-committees of which he was the Secretary, to
advise Ministers and others on how to get the question
in which they were particularly interested brought
forward for examination. Thus, although he had no
responsibility for advising anyone on the substance of
their work, he naturally came to be consulted by any-
one who felt that progress was slow in their field, or
who wanted advice on how to proceed. The essence of
the work in the C.I.D.- and later in the War Cabinet-
was to help and press forward the work and those who
were responsible for doing it, without trying to get into
their place and do it for them. If, for example, the
C.I.G.S. ever came to think that Ismay or his staff
were offering strategic advice to the Prime Minister all
confidence would have been destroyed. On the other
hand, much could be done by Ismay to help the Chiefs
of Staff to frame their advice in a way that was likely
to make it more easily understood or assimilable. Much
could also be done to brief Ministers so that the advice
of the responsible officials would be thoroughly tested
and, if sound, accepted.
When war broke out the C.I.D. ceased to exist. The
great mass of preparatory work done within it had
served its purpose. The Government, the armed forces,
and the nation moved smoothly from a peace to a war
footing. The task now was to conduct the war. For-
tunately the system of work of the C.I.D. and its
secretariat was carried over into the new phase.
167
 ACTION THIS DAY
The situation that confronted Mr Churchill when
he took office as Prime Minister could hardly have
been more critical. The great German offensive in the
West, which had been poised for so long, had begun
and had already revealed a violence which gave
promise of deadly danger. A new Government had to
be formed in the heat of battle. The country had to be
roused from the lethargy of the 'phoney war'. Our
only ally, France, had already given signs of decay
through the feebleness of her representatives at meet-
ings of the Supreme War Council. Belgium and
Holland who had clung to a vain neutrality were being
torn to shreds. Italy increasingly closed in to her ally
Germany, and might be expected to declare war at
any moment, thus threatening our position in the
Mediterranean and Middle East. I do not think that
we immediately realised how courageously, even
eagerly, Mr Churchill was ready and able to confront
his task. Nevertheless we did immediately experience
his energy. There was little or no delay in forming the
War Cabinet, and I attended its first meeting. A
ceaseless flow of Minutes and instructions emanated
from the Admiralty, where the Prime Minister was
still working, and all round Whitehall people sat up
and took notice. 'ACTION THIS DAy' on a red tab
attached to a Minute from the Prime Minister began
to appear. General Ismay was constantly over at the
Admiralty, and we did our best to support him from
our offices in Richmond Terrace. Cabinet meetings
took place in No. IO, but all other meetings were held
in the Map Room at the Admiralty. We longed for the
Prime Minister to move into his residence, so that we
could be closer to the scene of action.
I68
 SIR IAN JACOB
Very soon after the Prime Minister began his task
General Ismay saw that it would be necessary to set
up a special section of our office to register and handle
the Minutes that flowed out and to follow them up and
prepare or co-ordinate the replies. He chose me to take
charge of this section, which became known as the
Defence Registry. To understand what this involved it
is necessary to explain how the Prime Minister worked.
As he explains in his history of the war the Prime
Minister conducted all his business in writing. Apart
from the decisions taken at meetings, which were, of
course, recorded and circulated in the Minutes, all the
Prime Minister's questions, requests, instructions or
suggestions were made in his personal Minutes, which
he dictated to his secretaries. These were typed and
then initialled by the Prime Minister. They were then
sent by his Private Secretary to the addressee. Those
on civil topics were copied to the Secretary of the War
Cabinet, Sir Edward Bridges, and were followed up by
him and by the civil side of the War Cabinet Office.
Those on military topics reached me. If addressed to
General Ismay, to Hollis, or to me, or to the Chiefs of
Staff Committee, they came to me in original and were
immediately passed on as appropriate. If addressed to
authorities outside our office, I received a copy. My
task was to see that these Minutes were dealt with, and
to get the answers. The Prime Minister frequently
addressed Minutes on the same topic to several authori-
ties in quick succession. I would then have to co-
ordinate the reply. He did not like information served
up to him at second hand. In consequence he insisted
on seeing all the principal operational telegrams from
Commanders-in-Chief as they arrived, and I had to
I6g
 ACTION THIS DAY
handle this traffic too. My office thus became the focus
for the Prime Minister's military correspondence. The
flow of business was very great, and General Ismay
decided that it would be impossible for all the sub-
missions to the Prime Minister to go through him.
Matters of chief importance were handled by him, and
he signed the Minutes addressed to the Prime Minister
on these. Hollis signed the Minutes arising directly out
of the proceedings of the Chiefs of Staff Committee of
which he was the Secretary. I dealt with the remaining
business. It thus came about that the Prime Minister
dealt freely with any one of the three of us, and, as he
was never very particular about machinery, he might
address any of us at random on any topic, it falling
to us then to get the correspondence into the right
channel. The system would not have worked had not
General Ismay been the most flexibly-minded chief,
and if the three of us had not been in every way on the
closest terms.

The Prime Minister's extraordinary fitness to handle

the greatest affairs in times of extreme national stress
can be seen from the remarkable account he has given
of his assumption of office, and of his thinking and
methods, in the first chapter of Their Finest Hour, the
second volume of The Second World War. It was only
after a few weeks that we realised the kind of man we
had to serve. We felt his impact in two ways. The first
was through our direct contact with him in the
Government machine; the second was as members of
the population of the country. Our first feelings in the
office were of dismay because the smooth working of
the machine was upset. For some days I had no direct
I70
 SIR IAN JACOB
dealings with the Prime Minister and merely experi-
enced the difficulties which followed from the mass of
Minutes that he issued in all directions, from the
awkward geographical dispersion between No. 10,
the Admiralty and Richmond Terrace, and from the
summoning of meetings of people of all kinds at any
time of the day or night, the records of which fitted
into no Committee pattern. However, all this gradually
sorted itself out, and, when I began to see him in action
at meetings, and to observe the complete command he
exercised, no matter how bad the news or how difficult
the situation, I began to get some idea of the real
quality of the man. As an ordinary citizen I, like the
rest, also began to feel the strength of leadership that
was emerging.
The summer of 1940 was naturally extremely hectic.
Of the many meetings held by the Prime Minister in
the Admiralty War Room I most clearly remember
one held in the middle of the Dunkirk operations.
General Pownall, Gort's Chief of Staff, had been sent
over to explain the situation. Anxiety was intense in
London, and Pownall's account, clear and calm
though it was, did little to cheer us. It looked almost
certain that the greater part of the British Expedition-
ary Force would be lost, and with it so many friends.
Everything seemed to be moving inevitably towards
this horrible end. The Prime Minister, who felt the full
tragedy of the situation and had on top of it all the
responsibility to bear, gave no outward sign of depres-
sion, and, as usual, was simply concerned to make sure
that every conceivable action was being taken. He
showed himself at his very best in moments such as that.
Another agonising meeting that I remember was
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 ACTION THIS DAY
held soon after this at No. IO. It was a lovely June
afternoon, and the business was to consider an urgent
request from the French Government for ten more
R.A.F. Fighter Squadrons to be sent over to operate
in France, where the situation was desperate. Several
Ministers, the Chiefs of Staff and Air Marshal
Dowding, commanding Fighter Command, were there.
The decision was one of the hardest to take in the whole
war, and opinion swayed back and forth. Dowding,
an austere man, spoke up clearly and well, and his
case for retaining the whole of Fighter Command for
home defence was very strong. The Prime Minister
was torn in two. With his great historical sense he felt
the urgency of the call from one country to its ally. On
the other hand, he held the responsibility for the fate
of his country. After much thought and discussion it
was decided to send nothing. The Prime Minister then
went out into the garden with a few others, and second
thoughts prevailed. The decision was reversed, and I
think it was decided to send four squadrons. The scene
is clearly stamped on my memory, more so than the
actual decision, but I believe it was the only occasion
in the whole war on which, a firm decision having been
reached, the Prime Minister changed his mind. The
strain on him must have been almost unbearable. We,
who bore little responsibility, went about our work
with sinking hearts, glad to have something constantly
to do to take our minds off the events in France. What
it must have been like to carry the supreme load of
responsibility it is hard to imagine.

The Prime Minister was intensely loyal to his friends

and supporters and to those who had served him. He
I72
 SIR IAN JACOB
always liked to fit them into jobs if possible near him,
or else offering special opportunities for exercising
what he thought were their talents or qualifications.
At the same time he was a poor judge of character
and had little understanding of organisation, so that
he sometimes insisted on unsuitable appointments. It
may seem strange that a man of his extraordinary
quality should not be a good judge of men, and yet
long observation of him from close quarters convinced
me that it was true, at any rate in part. He could tell
and appreciate courage, energy and spirit, but I think
he then took it for granted that these qualities were
automatically joined to others, such as discretion,
judgement and balance, which they often were not.
He was brought up in an atmosphere of political con-
troversy, and thought nothing of rows and discussion.
He was very hard to convince that his geese were not
swans. He greatly distrusted the inertia and orthodoxy
of Government Departments and the Services, and he
always suspected that opposition to his desired appoint-
ments sprang from these origins and not from honest
opinion. His own intense concentration on the job in
hand seemed to prevent him from taking an objective
view of the people surrounding him, and anyone who
entered into his mood and showed willingness to help
him, and to further the cause he had at heart, gained
his regard and from then on was sure of his support,
particularly if his views were unorthodox or he had
incurred the hostility of officials. Being very receptive
to new ideas, he welcomed those who could put them
forward, and was naturally inclined to favour those
who could speak up boldly and hold their own in the
rough-and-tumble of controversy.
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 ACTION THIS DAY
The period of a little over a year from early May
I940, when Churchill became Prime Minister, until
22 June I94I, when the Germans attacked Russia, was
without doubt the greatest in his life. The period
started with disaster of a dimension unknown to us
within living memory, and occurring right outside
our front door. Our only ally, France, was torn to
pieces in six weeks. The whole coast of Europe from
North Cape to the Spanish border fell into the hands
ofthe enemy. The Commonwealth and Empire stood
firmly united, but it seemed probable that the sea
communications between the various parts would
become so precarious that men and supplies could
not be moved from one part of it to another. Already,
by the end of June I940, the Mediterranean was
closed to us. The United States, though friendly,
seemed quite unwilling to help except with equipment,
most of which at that stage was out of date, though
much better than nothing. Indeed such plans as the
American military leaders made throughout this
period took as their starting-point the defeat of the
United Kingdom, and they were inclined to regard
material sent to us as good money thrown after bad.
If it had not been for the imagination and strength of
mind of President Roosevelt we should have had little
aid from the U.S.A. In any case no one could see
beyond the opening moves in the great air attack that
was about to fall on the country. Everything depended
on the strength and resolution of the people in Britain,
and on the courage and vigour with which their
strength could be built up at a time when their minds
were weighed down with defeat and disintegration
around them. It is possible that the people would have
174
 SIR IAN JACOB
risen to the occasion no matter who had been there to
lead them, but that is speculation. What we know is
that the Prime Minister provided leadership of such
outstanding quality that people almost revelled in the
dangers of the situation and gloried in standing alone.
As one humble citizen remarked: 'We have got into
the final, and it is on the home ground.' How did the
Prime Minister do it?
Everyone knows that Churchill was possessed of
extraordinary vitality and mental energy. His whole
career, with its immense scale of achievement as a
soldier, war correspondent, politician, historian and
painter, shows that his mind had a range, and his
energy a potential, of quite extraordinary dimensions.
In the circumstances of I940, when the fight for sur-
vival was all-absorbing, the whole of his energies were
concentrated on this fight, and, although the problem
was most complex, there were no distractions. The
demands of political life and parliamentary warfare
which take up so much time and energy in peacetime
were reduced to a minimum. There were no social
activities. Except during the hours of sleep every
moment could be used for work. Meal-times and
journeys by train or car were never wasted, because
useful conversations could be held or Minutes dictated.
Little or no effort had to be diverted to handling
private business or to the machinery of living. All that
could be done by others. Even so, a man of lesser
stature could have worked equally long and devotedly
and have achieved little. I have myself worked with or
under people whose energy seemed inexhaustible, but
who had little to show for it in the end. Energy and
stamina are not enough, and it was Churchill's other
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characteristics which made so great a difference. He
had several which contributed in varying degrees to
the result.
First I would put concentration, drive and thorough-
ness, in combination. When his mind was occupied
with any particular problem it was relentlessly focused
upon it and would not be turned aside. His usual
method was to decide at the start what he wanted to
do, and then to beat down opposition and drive
through his course of action to the last point at which
the conduct of the affair had finally to pass into other
hands. In the course of this process it frequently hap-
pened that his proposed action was shown to be
unsound, or quite impracticable with the resources
available - or seemed to be so at first sight. This did
not deter him in the least. He drove on regardless, until
either he had his way or additional resources had been
found from somewhere, or until at length he had to
recognise that his proposal was no good, or could be
replaced by a better. It often happened that it was the
Chiefs of Staff who had to examine his proposals and
who had to fight against them. Sometimes he prevailed,
and sometimes he gave way; but only after having
driven them to the limit in the process. If the Prime
Minister and the Chiefs of Staff were in agreement,
then he followed matters up without pause until every-
thing had been put in train. I never heard him say that
he hadn't time to do something, or that it was too late
at night, or that something could be put off, though,
if he came against opposition and couldn't see his way
to prevail then and there, he would be quite ready to
put the question 'on the hob', as he put it, for further
discussion. He rarely, if ever, failed to return to it at
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 SIR IAN JACOB
the first opportunity. No detail was too small for him
to take an interest in, if he felt that it was important
to his theme at the moment, or if he felt that it could
be used as a means of obstruction by those who disliked
his proposed course of action. And, such was the pres-
tige and power that he developed in a few weeks after
taking over his office, that the mere fact that he was
known to take an interest in details kept everyone alert
and active, however much they might complain about
his meddling. He insisted on being informed constantly
about details, and had a continuous flow of statistics
and graphs prepared for him either by us or by his
private statistical office under Professor Lindemann.
He was extremely suspicious of concealment or sloth,
and, if it was ever suggested that the flow might be
curtailed or condensed by the staff, he immediately
imagined that someone was trying to hide something
from him and became more insistent than ever on
receiving the full information as before.
He had a remarkable independence of mind. No one
ever had the Prime Minister 'in his pocket'. Many who
did not know him imagined that Lord Beaverbrook, or
Brendan Bracken, or the Prof had a great influence on
him, and that one or other of them could get him to
do this or that. Nothing could have been less true. He
took great pleasure in discussing matters with his
friends, supporters, political colleagues or staff, but
he used this process as a means of clearing his mind by
his own talk, and no one could ever be confident of
being able to convince him in any particular sense.
He always reacted against any attempt to 'nobble'
him, and no one could predict what his mind would
be on any problem. Even his closest associates were
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merely the means by which he would arrive at his own
judgement. The more he trusted them the more he
made use of them, but he never fell under the influence
of anyone, as a lesser man would have done. Thus it
came about that the Ministers and officials who were
responsible for advising him could never tell whether
their advice would be taken or not. Often their most
carefully considered advice would be torn to shreds,
because his commanding mental powers, his sense of
history, his remarkable grasp of the essentials, or some-
times his natural pugnacity, would cause him to take
quite a different view. The outcome of the ensuing
argument could never be foreseen.
His concentration was made possible by the way in
which he conducted business. He spent very little time
interviewing people. He did not see his staff to talk
over the matters they were working on for him. They
all had to address him in writing, and his replies or
instructions came back in writing. All this corres-
pondence, and the Foreign Office and Inilitary tele-
grams, and papers of all kinds submitted to him by
Ministers, Chiefs of Staff, and others, were placed by
his Private Secretaries in a box, one of the Whitehall
circulating type which could only be opened by the
holder of the right key. In the morning when he awoke
he rang his bell, and then his breakfast, his box and a
stenographer came in. He began at once to work
through his box. He got up at a time regulated by his
engagements for the day, and, at all times that he was
not taken up by meetings or other specific occupations,
he continued to work through his box.
If, therefore, he was particularly taken up with one
affair, he could pursue it without having to cancel a
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 SIR IAN JACOB
lot of interviews. The only things that suffered were
the contents of his box and sometimes meetings, the
times of which were liable to be changed at short
notice. There were times of crisis when the box got
hopelessly behindhand, and we used to ring up the
Private Secretaries in despair. As the war proceeded
there was a sub-division of the box which was known
to them and us as 'top of the box', but even that was
sometimes subject to great delay. The final step that
could be taken was to ask Ismay to go and see the
Prime Minister at breakfast-time and try and get him
to deal with the particularly urgent matters that were
held up. Of course, it was rarely the most important
matters that became delayed in the box; these were the
subject of special meetings or minutes, and were them-
selves the cause of the neglect of the box. The papers
that suffered were those of comparatively secondary
importance, which nevertheless had to win his approval
before action could be taken.
It was of course most desirable that the Prime
Minister should see and get to know the chief men in
the different branches of the war effort, and it was here
that Chequers was of such value. He spent nearly
every weekend there, going down on Friday night as
a rule, and there was a stream of guests for one night
ot two, or for lunch or dinner. The routine at Chequers
was like that at No. Io, but more so. That is to say the
work and the flow of papers, telegrams, minutes, etc.,
was just as intense, but in addition there were the meal-
times, at which discussion could take place, and there
was the night. Recreation took the form of a film each
night after dinner, and this was followed by serious
discussion with those invited down to stay. Dinner
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rarely ended before 10 p.m., and the film lasted till mid-
night, so that bedtime was not often before 2.30 a.m.
Another characteristic that was of great importance
to him was his capacity to sleep at once and at any
time. He went straight to bed, and straight to sleep.
This was well illustrated during my first visit to
Chequers in 1940. The principal guest was General
Gordon-Finlayson, who had recently returned from
commanding the British troops in Egypt, and who had
been invited to Chequers to expound to the Prime
Minister the problems of the Western Desert and the
defence of Egypt. After the film there was an interesting
discussion of all this, and, when at 2.30 a.m. the Prime
Minister decided to go to bed, he asked General
Gordon-Finlayson to put his views down on paper.
We walked upstairs and dispersed. Almost immediately
the General sought me out and asked whether I had
a map of the Western Desert, as he couldn't write what
he wanted to do without one. I said I hadn't, but that
I would get the War Office to send one down first
thing in the morning. I then groped my way down-
stairs again to the Private Secretaries' room to tele-
phone to the War Office. There were a good many
telephones there, and it was rather dark. Eventually I
picked one up and unfortunately pressed the central
knob. Almost at once a voice said, 'What is that? Is
there any news?' I realised that it was the Prime
Minister and apologised. He said, 'Well, please don't
do it again, I was just dropping off.' It cannot have
been more than five minutes after we had separated
downstairs.
He usually awoke about 8 a.m. after five or six
hours' sleep only, but he always slept every afternoon.
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It didn't matter to him when. It could be at any time
from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., but he always got completely
into bed and had at least an hour. He then had a bath,
and came down ready for action till 3 a.m. next
morning. If he was travelling by car he still had his
sleep, either by stopping somewhere or by tying a
bandage round his eyes and sleeping in the car.
Rarely would he have a meeting before noon. Then
a good lunch, then a sleep, then meetings at 6 p.m. or
thereabouts. Dinner at 8 p.m., then meetings at I o or
I0.30 p.m. All this could be varied by events, by Par-
liamentary business, by visits of inspection and so on,
but the main framework was rarely changed, and he
hardly ever missed his afternoon sleep.
Then there was his personality. This conveyed
itself in two principal ways. To those around him who
came into direct contact with him there was a feeling
of powerful character, immense drive and force. This
spread to those further down the line, who felt that
there was a focus of intense activity at the centre, which
might at any moment impinge on them. To those out-
side the range of personal contact, there was not only
the effect spread by hearsay, but also that of his great
speeches in Parliament and on the wireless. He had a
remarkable knack of expressing himself so that he
could be easily understood by anyone, even though
his words were richer and more flamboyant than other
people's. There was a complete absence of woolliness
in his English, so that unfamiliar words took their
natural place and did not confuse or complicate the
sense, but rather added to and illuminated it. The
abstract, the long word, the involved jargon of normal
official language, and the padding used by those who
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are not absolutely clear what it is they want to say,
were all absent. His mind went straight to its target,
and his writing and speech conveyed this fact to the
audience. His great speeches that thrilled the nation
in I940 expressed in matchless form what the men and
women of Britain were feeling inarticulately. It was
the inspiration of hearing their dim thoughts brought
out, focused, and phrased so nobly that bound the
people to him in so remarkable a fashion.
No one who had a close acquaintance with the
Prime Minister could fail to wonder how he maintained
his remarkable energy and activity while leading the
kind of life he did. He had a very good appetite at all
meals, and ate whatever he liked. I saw him in Cairo
one day eat a breakfast that would have been a large
one for a young man engaged in physical labour, and
I never saw him off his feed. He smoked cigars from
morning till night, except during meals, or in the
House, or somewhere else where smoking was impos-
sible. I have often seen him arrive somewhere by car
smoking a cigar, get out and inspect some troops still
with the cigar in his mouth, and it seemed so much a
part of him that no one seemed to notice anything
peculiar. As a matter of fact he didn't really smoke at
all. He used to light the cigar and hold it in his hand
and occasionally put it in his mouth and suck it, and then
when it went out he would relight it. Except when
actually lighting the cigar he rarely drew in and
puffed out smoke, and he did not inhale the smoke at
any time. He never smoked cigarettes or a pipe. He
drank a great deal. At breakfast he had coffee and
often orange juice, though I have seen him drink white
wine for breakfast on occasion. During the morning
I82
 SIR IAN JACOB
he would often have a glass of iced soda-water by him
which he sipped from time to time. He didn't drink
cocktails or sherry, but drank a good deal at lunch,
often champagne followed by brandy. He didn't have
tea, but about tea-time or later, according to when he
had his sleep, he would start drinking iced whisky and
soda. He probably had two or three glasses, not very
strong, before dinner, and then at dinner he always
had champagne, followed by several doses of brandy.
Then during the late evening and night he had more
whisky and soda.
He had obviously been accustomed to this kind of
routine for years, and yet he was never the worse for
drink in my experience, and, as far as I could see, he
never felt the slightest ill-effects in the morning. This
was the more peculiar in that he took no exercise at all,
though, when his duty took him, as it often did in 1940,
to visit defences or factories, or as it did later to long
days in a car or jeep going round the desert or visiting
and talking to commanders and troops, he stumped
round with unflagging energy and didn't seem to turn
a hair. Nor did all the drinking and smoking affect his
appetite.
It is not for me to explain this phenomenon, but it
is obvious that his body must have been capable of
disposing of alcohol and its waste products with
unusual efficiency. I am sure that it is impossible to do
a very hard mental job, day in day out, and at the same
time take a lot of exercise, without putting an overload
on the system, but all the same there are few people
who don't find that a certain amount of gentle exercise
is a necessity. Mr Churchill was one of the exceptions.
He made no use of the grounds at Chequers for
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exercise and fresh air. Even at home at Chartwell he
contented himself with strolling round and feeding the
large number of goldfish. His relaxations were largely
mental - conversation, reading and so on, and even
his chief hobby in later life, painting, is a sedentary one.
But his chief quality was his fearlessness both
physical and mental. His physical courage is well
known, and there is no need to give further examples
of it. His mental courage was remarkable to me in this
way. He was quite impervious to depression, despair,
or indeed to the sinking of the morale which assails
people when the news is constantly bad and disaster
looms ahead. He equally did not show much elation
when great victories began to come our way. This did
not mean that he was insensitive, far from it, but he
had tremendous fibre and toughness. His whole life
was one long series of ups and downs, and few men
can have had so wide an experience of physical danger
and also political vicissitude. He had admitted that he
felt that he was capable and equipped to shoulder the
supreme responsibility which came to him when he
became Prime Minister, and this feeling no doubt bore
him up. He more than anyone could 'meet with
triumph and disaster, and treat those two imposters
just the same'. He was aided, I feel sure, by his great
sense of history, and his somewhat old-fashioned ardour
for fame. He had more than a touch of the spirit that
so inspired Nelson, a spirit the expression of which
seems to us nowadays slightly embarrassing. But this
spirit, when not spurious, can be a real inspiration.
There was no trace ofvanity about him, and that can
be said of few men whose lives have been spent in
politics.
 SIR IAN JACOB
I often tried to analyse the Prime Minister's power
as one felt it in a meeting when there was a good deal
of difference of opinion. An interesting comparison
was available, because I had for a year watched
Chamberlain operating as Prime Minister, and
Churchill has himself spoken of the ascendancy that
was exercised by Chamberlain over his colleagues. They
could not have been more different. Chamberlain was
the efficient chairman, cold and orderly, and not say-
ing much until the views round the table had been
expressed. Then he would speak quietly and effectively,
and that was that. Churchill talked a great deal, and,
though he could listen when he wanted to, he could
also debate, browbeat, badger and cajole those who
were opposed to him, or whose work was under dis-
cussion. He had a most devastating method of argu-
ment. He would start by stating his case strongly.
Often what he said could only be described as a half-
truth. The strong emphasis would be on one particular
sore point, and many of the surrounding factors would
be disregarded or distorted. The result of this method
of attack was that the person addressed didn't quite
know whether to defend the particular point seized
upon by the Prime Minister, or to deal with the dis-
tortions in order to try and get the emphasis restored.
Churchill would continue the attack, and the un-
fortunate victim often ended in confused silence. The
only hope was a vigorous reply, even a counter-attack,
and a clear and accurate statement of the case. Those
who were capable of this had no difficulty in holding
their own, and earned his respect. He might continue
the attack, but he listened to the reply. Those who were
naturally tongue-tied found the situation most difficult,
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and found him most unreasonable. Churchill, too,
failed to appreciate them. A good example was General
Wavell, who was inarticulate to the verge of dumb-
ness, and failed to get on terms with him.
I think that Churchill's method was the result of his
innate pugnacity mixed with his somewhat cross-
grained and unorthodox nature, and of many years of
partisan debate in Parliament. It wasted a great deal
of time, and created a good deal of misunderstanding
and heart-burning, but it made people take great pains
to be sure of their ground. If it had not been allied to
his immense industry, his driving-power and his
personality and prestige, it could have been disastrous.
But the combination of these factors was so strong that
people put up with behaviour they would have toler-
ated from no one else.
Most men who are in big positions seem to consider
that they should concentrate on the larger questions of
policy, and should leave the details to their subordin-
ates. Moreover, senior subordinates are apt to resent
the interference by their Minister or other chief in the
working out of the action after the policy decision has
been taken. It is generally thought that only by draw-
ing a distinction between matters of real importance
and secondary questions can waste of effort be
avoided, and the limited time that one man can spend
on his work be made use of to the best advantage.
No doubt this is a sensible view in ordinary times, but
the Prime Minister did not hold it himself. He con-
stantly took a keen interest in details and demanded
information on all kinds of activities that no normal
Prime Minister would have paid any attention to.
This undoubtedly caused a good deal of work, some
I86
 SIR IAN JACOB
of which seemed unnecessary, and it also meant that
other Ministers and senior people of all kinds had to
be informed on these details too. There was a lot of
criticism of the Prime Minister's meddling in trifling
matters. On the other hand the very fact that his
interest was insatiable kept many people up to the
mark. Officials would suddenly find themselves in the
limelight, and roused from the even routine of their
work, and this did good. Also, in many great matters
in wartime the major decisions depended on the avail-
ability of special equipment, such as landing-craft,
ammunition of the right kind, radio aids and so on,
and the Prime Minister had to know about these
things to keep abreast of developments if he was to
understand the nature of the problem under considera-
tion. Much that could be labelled as detail was in fact
of vital importance at the time. No doubt he carried
his curiosity and his attention to detail too far, as, for
example, when he insisted on certain pronunciations
of place-names, or when he called attention to the size
of the flag which flew over the Admiralty, but this was
because with him thought was always translated into
action. He saw the Admiralty flag from his window
every day. The thought came to him that it should be
attended to. Most men would have left it at that,
but not the Prime Minister. The thought went
down on paper straight away in a Minute to the First
Lord.
I remember one occasion in I 952 when I was having
lunch with Churchill in the flat in which he then lived
on an upper floor of No. IO. As we sat down he heard
a noise outside the window. He got up and looked out
over the courtyard behind the old Treasury building
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 ACTION THIS DAY
in Whitehall. In the corner of this yard was a large
heap of coke, and the noise was caused by a man who
was taking coke in a wheelbarrow from a lorry which
was standing outside the arched entrance to the court-
yard and adding it to the pile. The Prime Minister
looked at this, and remarked that it would have been
more sensible to have brought the lorry into the court-
yard and to have emptied it directly on to the heap.
Ten years before he would have summoned a steno-
grapher then and there and would have sent a Minute
on the subject to the Minister of Fuel and Power (who
quite probably was not the right person): 'Pray tell
me why ... ' The fact that he sat down again and went
on with his lunch without doing anything showed
me that he was no longer the same man as he had
been.
Those who had not had any close experience of
Churchill and his methods found it hard to understand
why he bothered about details, and why he addressed
them on such a variety of subjects many ofwhich they
naturally left to the appropriate subordinate to get on
with. They tended to feel that there was a lack of con-
fidence. The Commanders-in-Chief abroad were per-
haps the chief sufferers. They did not realise when the
Prime Minister sent them telegrams prodding, in-
quiring, suggesting and often apparently misjudging,
that this was exactly what went on in his relations with
Ministers, Chiefs of Staff, and Commanders-in-Chief
at home. As they were far away, communication had
to be by telegram. At home it would have been in
conversation at Chequers, in Minutes, in argument at
meetings. In both cases it was Churchill giving neces-
sary vent to his intense eagerness. It was much
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 SIR IAN JACOB
harder to understand and to deal with at a distance,
though those Commanders-in-Chief who had served
at home and had seen something of him understood
and could keep their end up and their sense of
perspective.
Churchill's relationship with Ministers and with the
Cabinet was interesting to watch, though I only saw it
in part. He rapidly developed a mastery over his col-
leagues, but he did this in a manner which varied from
person to person. Those who had supported him in the
past he supported in turn, and his loyalty to his old
friends (most of whom, however, were not Ministers)
was most striking. He had a great regard for men who
showed energy and drive, who were masters of their
subject, and who could make their case effectively in
Cabinet or at other meetings. He seemed to get closer
to men who were Parliamentarians, and he did not
care much about the official turned Minister. Lord
Hankey he immediately turned out. Sir John Anderson
(later Lord Waverley) he respected but never really
took to. The chief exception to this rule was Sir James
Grigg, who had been Private Secretary to Churchill
when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was
Permanent Under Secretary in the War Office, and
who was made Secretary of State for War. He liked
appointing for some tasks experts such as Lord
Leathers, and Andrew Duncan, but he never got
intimate with such men.
No Minister found him easy to deal with, and there
were several reasons for this. First of all, by nature he
was pugnacious, intensely individual and extremely
political. His restless energy, and his concentration on
the particular matter that was engaging his attention
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at the moment, prevented him from being an easy
social companion. Hence he had many associates, men
who were with him in some political campaign or in
some piece of work, but he appeared to have few friends
in the ordinary sense among the present Ministers.
Those whom he supported with such loyalty were
followers, adherents, or assistants, or men who had
impressed him by their courage or by their opposition
to slow-moving authority. Secondly he was of an
earlier generation than most of those who surrounded
him in the Cabinet or even in Parliament. He had been
a Minister since I go6, with intermissions, and had lived
through the intensely exciting days just before and
during the First World War, and had held many high
offices then. Hardly any of his present colleagues had
been part of his world then, or had even entered
Parliament. They had not gone through the political
experiences of those days, and were all comparative
juniors. One of the reasons why he liked having Lord
Beaverbrook around was because he was an exception
in this respect, and knew and could talk about the
political struggles of that era. Finally, he had been out
of office for nearly ten years, and thus was not closely
bound to either the Conservative or the Labour
members of the wartime Coalition. He had not shared
recent political experiences with the Ministers of
Chamberlain's Government or of Baldwin's before
that.
All these circumstances held him somewhat alooffrom
his colleagues. His quality as a wartime leader soon
placed him in a position of unchallenged authority
over them, but the urgency of the times did not
perinit of social contact of the kind that Inight have
I go
 SIR IAN JACOB
built up friendship. He was never a man for small talk
and trivialities, and he was ready to argue with and
browbeat any colleague if it seemed right to do so. In
meetings he preserved a sense of dignity, and always
addressed his colleagues or the Chiefs of Staff by the
titles of their posts. He did not appreciate levity, and
disliked humorous stories being introduced at un-
suitable moments. I do not remember hearing him on
any occasion tell stories or indulge in vulgarity, though
he certainly had a sense of humour of a kind. I find it
difficult to define it. He never in my experience laughed
loudly or fully. He smiled and chuckled, but that
was all. Whether this was always so, I don't know,
but I rather imagine it must have been for a long
time. I don't think he was very good at laughing at
himself, though he hadn't any trace of vanity. He
could carry off clothes or situations which in anyone
else would have seemed comic, without any loss of
dignity.
The Prime Minister, curiously enough, was never
keen on making decisions on matters that did not
demand immediate action. Unless one had to be made
he liked to discuss the pros and cons at length, and
would then adjourn the meeting for further thought,
particularly if the decision was likely to be one which
went against the grain. There would be then a period
of private discussion, further documents, either in the
form of Minutes by him or of memoranda trying to
strengthen the case of those who wanted action, and
perhaps of more meetings.
As the war progressed, and as it began to have its
inevitable effect on his health and strength, the dis-
cussions became longer, and to an increasing extent
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they took the form of monologues by him. This was
particularly true in the Cabinet, and the business
became difficult to force through. Often the Agenda
was hardly dealt with at all. At all times, however, the
situation was quite different when he had made up his
own mind and was bent on driving on with what he
wanted to bring about. There was no delay then, and
no lack of decision. Everybody and everything was
pressed into service with the sole object of getting his
project under way. The long discussion, the pro-
crastination, the 'putting on the hob', were all methods
that came into play when others were urging action,
or propounding a suggested policy, which he did not at
first agree with. These methods were designed to test
the case of the authors of the proposal under considera-
tion, and they gave him opportunities of trying to
demolish it, or modify it to bring it nearer his own
ideas.
This brings me to the Prime Minister's relationship
with the Chiefs of Staff. I have already mentioned the
way in which things might have gone wrong in 1940,
and the skilful work of General Ismay in steering him
towards the Chiefs of Staff and clamping the machinery
into place. From then on the pattern was clearly estab-
lished. Churchill as Minister of Defence conducted
the military side of the war - strategy, operations,
major supply matters such as aircraft or tanks, and the
general utilisation of resources through the Defence
Committee and the Chiefs of Staff. On many occasions
he met the Chiefs of Staff without other Ministers
present. On other occasions he summoned three or
four Ministers with special responsibilities to meetings
with the Chiefs of Staff. These meetings were known
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 SIR IAN JACOB
as 'Staff Conferences'. Sometimes he had formal
meetings of the Defence Committee, which had two
forms, operations and supply; the method of work that
seemed best suited to the time and to the matter was
used. It was our job as the secretariat of the War
Cabinet and as the office of the Minister of Defence, to
organise these meetings, to take the Minutes, to draft
reports, telegrams, etc., and to ensure that the right
people were notified of what was decided.
When the time had come for the Prime Minister to
bring an issue to the War Cabinet, he did not himself
act in any way as the military spokesman. This was left
to the Chairman ofthe Chiefs of Staff Committee, who
was always accompanied by his colleagues, and who
from January 1942 until the end of the war was the
C.I.G.S., Sir Alan Brooke. As the war progressed the
Cabinet came to have increasing respect for Churchill's
conduct of the military side of the war and were less
and less eager to receive full advance information or to
delve into matters in an effort to decide what should
be done. They left this to the Prime Minister and the
Defence Committee, and were quite content to be told
in due course what was going to happen. The close
association between the Prime Minister and the
President, and the existence of the Combined Chiefs of
Staff, helped to bring about this situation, but it was
most remarkable nevertheless that in this war there
were none of the intrigues, the personal strife, and the
distrust between Ministers and Service chiefs that
were so unfortunately prevalent in the First World
War.
The normal mode of operation would be something
like this. About g.30 a.m. Ismay would see the Prime
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 ACTION THIS DAY
Minister, usually in bed. He would emerge often with
one or two Minutes that Churchill had dictated late
at night or early that morning addressed to 'General
Ismay for Chiefs of Staff Committee'. The Chiefs of
Staff Committee met at Io.go a.m. every day, the
Agenda having been sent out by Jo Hollis, the Sec-
retary, the afternoon before. There would be C.I.G.S.
in the chair, the First Sea Lord and the Chief of the Air
Staff. There would be Ismay, who was a member in
his capacity as Chief Staff Officer to the Minister of
Defence, and there would be Admiral Mountbatten,
the Chief of Combined Operations, who was also a
member for questions of general strategy or of Com-
bined Operations. There would be General Hollis,
the Secretary, accompanied by one other assistant
secretary from our office. That would normally be all,
but others, for example the Directors of Plans, or the
Directors of Intelligence, or an individual Minister,
official, or officer, would be called for a particular
item on the Agenda.
The meeting usually lasted until noon or later, and
resulted in instructiens to the Planning Staff, or to a
Commander-in-Chief, or in a report to go forward to
the Prime Minister. It was the job of the secretariat
to draft the necessary terms of reference for the Joint
Planning Staff, or telegram to the Commander-in-
Chief, or the report, and generally to deal with the
aftermath. Often the Chiefs would go on to a meeting
with the Prime Minister at I2.30 p.m. or later in the
day (or night), or there would be meetings of the
Defence Committee or Cabinet. Often the Prime
Minister would send for C.I.G.S. to have a discus-
sion with him. A day rarely passed without some
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 SIR IAN JACOB
personal contact between him and one or all of the
Chiefs, though Ismay had often to act as the inter-
mediary, receiving, when there was any lack of
harmony, the ill-humour ofboth parties.
Churchill accepted the machinery up to a point. He
developed a strong feeling for the Chiefs of Staff, and
never sought to circumvent them when he did not like
their advice, but he was always impatient of restraint
and of the orthodox view, and suspicious of obstruc-
tion. He had a special relationship with the First Sea
Lord and the Admiralty dating from his tenure of the
office of First Lord in both wars, and did a lot of
purely naval business direct with Sir Dudley Pound.
The latter had many rough-and-tumbles with the
Prime Minister, but held his own well, and the
Admiralty never suffered from the distrust that
Churchill displayed for the War Office. Many things
had contributed to this over the years. He thought that
in general the War Office was hidebound, devoid of
imagination, extravagant ofmanpower and slow. The
Chief of Air Staff and the Air Ministry occupied a
kind of midway position between the Admiralty and
the War Office. They seemed more up-to-date, but
nevertheless they weren't as flexible as he expected.
Sir Archibald Sinclair, the Secretary of State for Air,
had been Churchill's adjutant for a short time in the
Royal Scots Fusiliers in France in I 9 I 5 or I 9 I 6, and
he treated him at times with a half serious levity. Sir
Charles Portal handled Churchill extremely well, and
in return he, like Sir Alan Brooke, enjoyed the Prime
Minister's complete confidence.
The body that Churchill never understood or
appreciated was the joint Planning Staff which worked
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to the Chiefs of Staff. He found so often that they
produced papers which proved conclusively that what
he wanted to do was out of the question. He referred
to them on one occasion as 'the whole machinery of
negation'. As he was always bent on having his cake
and eating it, it was hardly surprising that those
who had to try and keep him straight were never
popular.
I should here give a fuller account of the personality
and position of Ismay, because he was a key figure in
the working of the Prime Minister's military activity.
Ismay was a tall, well-built and upright man with dark
hair, a round head rather closely set on his shoulders.
He had a striking pair of grey eyes, under rather
arched eyebrows, a wide mouth and broad nose. The
nickname 'Pug' certainly expressed the general im-
pression of his face. He was a good horseman and
games player, and had a brain which was naturally
quick and had been cultivated not only by his staff
training but by his contact with keen men. He was a
very hard worker, with amazing mental and physical
endurance, but he combined all this with a real
capacity to break away and enjoy himself. He was a
hom host, loved good living, and had the strength of
personality to fit into any society. He had no trace of
vanity, though he had a proper sense of ceremony and
the honour due to those who deserve it. He was quite
fearless both physically and morally, and was incapable
of subservience of an undesirable kind. His loyalty,
both to his seniors and to his juniors, was absolute. It
extended to Ministers no matter what their politics
might be, and no matter what he might privately
think of their qualities, and in spite of his natural
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 SIR IAN JACOB
feeling for the British social system in which he grew
up. His ambition was entirely honourable, and had no
element of jealousy or self-seeking. In the very best
sense of the word he was a gentleman, and inspired in
all who worked for him the same spirit of loyalty that
he so outstandingly possessed. As the war went on and
the scope and burden of his work for his most exacting
master grew, his zeal never faltered, and no trouble
was too great for him to take. His steady good temper
never failed, and helped him to overcome the diffi-
culties that beset the path of one whose position could
so easily be misunderstood.
Ismay was a true decentraliser. That is to say he
never allowed the usual feelings of protocol to stand
in the way of speed and efficiency of work. He never
insisted that everything destined for the Chiefs of Staff
or the Prime Minister must pass through him. Hollis
and I could deal directly with anyone, so there were
no bottlenecks. The result was, I believe, entirely
successful. It made no difference which of us dealt
with a piece of work, and except on the highest plane
we were to a great extent interchangeable, though
Hollis and I knew exactly where we should step back
and leave him to act. On the many occasions during
the war that the Prime Minister or the Chiefs of Staff
or some of them went abroad, Ismay or Hollis or I
could be sent or could stay at home to mind the shop
without any reservations. Such an arrangement would
have been impossible with a man who had not the
faculty of inspiring his assistants with his spirit and the
unselfishness to waive all questions of personal status.
His position never suffered.

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One is bound to question whether Churchill could be
classed as a strategist at all. He was certainly not the
calm, self-contained, calculating personality that is
usually brought to mind by the term, nor did he weigh
up carefully the resources available to us, the possible
courses of action open to the enemy, and then, hus-
banding and concentrating his forces, strike at the
selected spot. His mind would never be content with
such theoretical ideas. He wanted constant action on
as wide a scale as possible; the enemy must be made
continually to 'bleed and burn', a phrase he often
used. I remember at the Casablanca Conference a
meeting was held by him with our Chiefs of Staff
Committee before the meetings with the Americans
began. At this the Chiefs sketched out their ideas of the
operations which they hoped to get American agree-
ment to undertake in the ensuing three or four months.
They had carefully examined the whole situation in
the European, Mrican and Asian theatres, the situation
of the Americans in the Pacific, and the shipping and
other key resources that could be made available.
They proposed to follow the completion of the North
African campaign by the conquest of Sicily, thus truly
opening the Mediterranean to through convoys; they
proposed certain limited operations in Burma and the
continued bombardment of Germany from the air.
Meanwhile, certain key positions were to be held in
the Pacific. Churchill approved all this, but wanted
more as well - not because other operations were
strategically desirable in the military sense, but because
he did not consider that the proposed programme was
worthy of the two great Powers, America and Britain.
He wanted a limited operation to be mounted in 1943
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 SIR IAN JACOB
in North-West Europe, or, failing this, his favourite
scheme, to which he so often reverted, namely, the
capture of Northern Norway.
It can be seen from this - and other examples could
be quoted - that Churchill had in the affair of grand
strategy, as in so many other fields, great strengths and
some weaknesses. He had great breadth of vision. He
saw more clearly than most how to conduct matters
with his allies so as to secure British interests. He felt
very deeply the dangers that would arise at the end of
the war in Europe, and he almost unaided strove to
secure the entry of British and American troops into
Vienna and Berlin before the Russians. He saw how
damaging it would be if Greece were to fall to the
Communists, and, considering his age and state of
health, took immense risks in flying to Athens at
Christmas-time, 1944, to avert this calamity, and saw
to it that British troops were deployed there in sufficient
strength. He, almost alone, saw the disastrous con-
sequences that would flow from the system for occupa-
tion of Germany in three zones, leaving Berlin sur-
rounded by the Russian zone, and the Red Army in
unbridled control of half Europe. He tried vainly to
get President Roosevelt to join in instructing Eisen-
hower to drive forward to Berlin and Prague so as to
forestall the Russians, and then to decline to withdraw
from that part of the Russian zone of occupation that
our troops might be in, until satisfactory guarantees
had been secured. In all these great matters he could
hardly be faulted. It was when the military plans were
being drawn up at periodic intervals that his vision was
less sure. As I have said, he wanted always the maxi-
mum effort, and the total employment of all resources,
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and indeed, a programme of operations that was
beyond our capacity. The United Kingdom had forces
deployed and heavily engaged in many theatres. I
would be inclined to say that by insisting that over-
ambitious plans should be framed, and several opera-
tions conducted simultaneously, he overstrained our
resources of manpower, and tended to prevent us being
really strong in any one place. Part of the difficulty
was caused by trying to 'keep up with theJoneses'- in
the shape of the Americans, whose vast strength began
to appear in 1944, and from then onwards increasingly
predominated. As the governing factor in a military
alliance is power, we had to agree to many courses of
action that we did not care about in order to placate
the Americans. Churchill led the way in this, as he had
firmly determined from 1940 onwards that nothing
must stand in the way of his friendship for the
President, on which so much depended. Whether it
was opening the Burma Road, or Operation Anvil
(the landing in the South of France), or relations with
De Gaulle and the Free French, it was the President
who in the end must be supported, and whose ideas
must prevail. The British effort had to be superhuman
in order to match to the best extent possible that of the
United States.
In his military thinking Churchill was a curious
blend of old and new. He tended to think in terms of
'sabres and bayonets', the terms used by historians to
measure the strength of the two forces engaged in
battle in years gone by. Thus, when he considered
Singapore or Tobruk, his mind seemed to picture an
old-fashioned fortification manned by many thousands
of men, who, because they possessed a rifle each, or
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 SIR IAN JACOB
could be issued with one, were capable of selling their
lives dearly, if necessary in hand-to-hand fighting. He
did not seem to understand that infantry on the Second
War battlefield had very little power unless properly
organised in trained formations with good communica-
tions and a real command structure, and backed by
artillery and anti-tank weapons as well as armour.
Much of Churchill's doubt about the invasion of
North-West Europe sprang from his First War think-
ing. He did not fully realise the change that had taken
place since then in large-scale warfare. The develop-
ment of armoured divisions, of self-propelled artillery,
of mechanical transport and of great tactical air forces,
had not only robbed the static machine-gun of its
mastery of the battlefield, but had also made it im-
possible for any nation to raise and equip, in addition
to all these, enough infantry divisions to man a con-
tinuous front from the sea to Switzerland in the kind
of strength that could repel a full-scale attack. In the
First World War, until Germany's strength was on the
point of collapse, every attack either by the Allies or by
Germany had broken down after the initial break-in
had succeeded. No one had yet devised the instrument
for rapid exploitation of success. Cavalry was too
vulnerable; the early tanks were too slow, and com-
munications were too inefficient.
Many battles, from the breakthrough at Sedan in
I940 to El Alamein in I942, had shown that things had
changed, and that once the break could be made the
exploitation would be fast and devastating. Yet
Churchill, right up to the summer of I 944, feared the
crystallisation of a front in France, and a repetition
of the vast casualties of I 9 I 6 and I 9 I 7 in trying to
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break through. I remember that when Patton's army
had started their southward break from St Lo, and
when it was becoming evident that his army would
soon reach open country, I went into the Prime
Minister's map room and found him there looking at
the map which had the latest information marked on
it. He asked where I thought the front would be
stabilised. I said that I doubted whether it would ever
be, and that the Allied armour might not be stopped
before the Rhine. This was clearly a new and surpris-
ing concept to the Prime Minister, who still thought
that reserves could quickly patch up even a major break.
Similarly at sea he tended to attribute to battleships
a power in all circumstances that they no longer
retained. It was, of course, true that a Bismark or a
Tirpitz in harbour in Norway or Brest could exercise
a great influence, because it could without undue
difficulty escape into the Atlantic and prey upon our
convoys, which could not be easily protected. The
same conditions did not apply where the battleship
had to operate where no vital enemy supply-line could
be threatened and when his air power either from land
or from carriers could be deployed. It was soon found
in the Pacific war that battleships could never engage
other battleships, and were of value chiefly as heavy
bombardment vessels. The aircraft-carrier ruled the
roost, and the fleet action in the old sense had become
a thing of the past. The German battle-cruiser
Scharnhorst must have been the last great warship to be
sunk purely by naval gunfire.
With these somewhat old-fashioned views of warfare
Churchill also succeeded in combining an intense
interest in new inventions. He kept fully abreast of
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developments in radar, in aerial navigation, in
counter-measures to mislead the enemy's aerial navi-
gators, and in Hitler's developing V -weapons. He
encouraged the development of new weapons of an
unorthodox kind, such as those produced by Brigadier
Millis Jefferis's research establishment, and was
always on the look-out for official obstruction to
their introduction. He took a keen interest in the
design of new warships, though he naturally could
only sustain a superficial knowledge of the subject.
Nothing fell outside the scope of his enquiring mind,
and his energetic method of following up any matter
which attracted his passing attention ensured that little
was allowed to escape ifit was found to have promising
possibilities.
Besides these two contrasting characteristics, he
possessed a solid base of experience of war and of great
events that no one else in or around the Government
could match. He always could distinguish the major
factors in the current situation, and would concentrate
his energies on them, allowing no one any respite until
he felt satisfied that all possible steps had been taken.
An important factor in the conduct of the war was
Churchill's attitude to the Dominions. Naturally this
was greatly coloured by his experiences in India, South
Africa and Egypt as a young man, and by his connec-
tion with the central direction of the First World War
as a Minister. All these experiences tended to give him
a great feeling for the British Empire as something,
though diverse and growing, which could be directed
from London, the great Imperial centre. His connec-
tions with the United States were closer than with
Canada, and unfortunately he had never been further
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east than India. By training and historical connection
he was a European first, and then an American. He did
not seem to understand the Far East so well, nor was
his feeling for Australia and New Zealand deep or
discerning. He had a great admiration for Smuts as a
person and as a romantic figure of outstanding wisdom.
He found it difficult to remember that the leaders of
the Dominions required handling rather differently
now from the way in which they were handled thirty
years before, when no direct danger threatened them
as long as Britain ruled the oceans. The difficulties that
arose between him and the Australian Prime Minister,
Mr John Curtin, in early I942 were made worse, I
thought, because of his failure to understand the
Australian outlook. Taking a broad view he always said
that it wouldn't matter what the Japanese did, because
the overwhelming factor was that their entrance into
the war brought in the United States, whose power
would in the end be decisive. This was quite correct,
but in the early disasters of I942 it was a little difficult
for Australians to see that, and a more sympathetic
attitude would have been useful.
Few, if any, national leaders have travelled so much
during their years of office. Churchill had fully realised
that thanks to the speed and efficiency of modern com-
munications it would be possible for him to continue
to conduct his full business as Prime Minister from any
locality to which an aeroplane, a ship or a train could
take him. In the summer of 1940 he spent a good deal
of time examining defences, seeing the latest weapons
and visiting key airfields. He also visited the Fleet and
paid a number of visits to France. His first long
journey was in August 1941, when he went in H.M.S.
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 SIR IAN JACOB
Prince of Wales to meet President Roosevelt at Placentia
Bay, Newfoundland. There followed in the next four
years a succession of long and often perilous journeys,
across the Atlantic, to the Middle East, Moscow,
Casablanca, Turkey, Italy, the Crimea, Teheran,
Athens and finally to Berlin. I cannot here give an
account of these journeys, and much has already been
written about the matters discussed at the many
meetings to which the journeys gave rise. I propose to
give my impressions of Churchill's relations with
President Roosevelt and with Generalissimo Stalin.
Churchill had determined from the outbreak of war
to cultivate his contact with the President. He had
grasped at once that the one decisive factor in the war
would be the entry of the United States into active
alliance with Britain and the Commonwealth and
Empire, and beyond that he had formed the vision of
the ultimate conjunction of the English-speaking
peoples, whose history he had nearly finished writing,
and whose role in the future he believed to be of
immense importance to the peace and happiness of the
world. The result of this was that by the time they met
for the first time in the war on board the U .S.S.
Augusta, and then on H.M.S. Prince of Wales, a very
close bond had been established between the two
leaders through the medium of letters, telegrams and,
to a limited extent, by telephone. President Roosevelt's
special assistant, Harry Hopkins, had paid his visit
to England and had also become closely bound to
Churchill. Throughout the difficult year that had
followed the fall of France it was the support of the
President, apparently thinking constantly further
ahead than other Americans, that had sustained
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Churchill. Lend-Lease, the gift of rifles, the destroyer
deal, and the gradual extension into the Atlantic of
the zone covered by American escorts, all seemed to
be measures owing their initiation to the President's
imagination and skill. Conversely, the President had
greatly admired Churchill's courageous leadership
during the days when the British Empire stood alone.
Thus the ground was well-prepared for the meeting
between the two men, even though the United States
was still neutral, or at any rate non-belligerent.
It was hard to tell whether Churchill returned from
Newfoundland entirely satisfied with his conference
with Roosevelt. There had been moving occasions and
ceremonies, particularly the church service on the
quarterdeck of the Prince of Wales; there had been
discussions leading to the adoption of the Atlantic
Charter, but there had been little or no discussion of
war plans. As a manifestation of the fundamental
sympathy between the two nations the meeting had
been valuable, and I believe that the President and
Prime Minister had begun to understand each other.
For the next two years at least, the friendship seemed
to be firmly established; both men could communicate
with each other without danger of being misunder-
stood. It is doubtful whether more than this could
possibly have been achieved, because the relationship
between the heads of any two great states, however
cordial, must be subject to severe limitations. Each is
bound to think first and foremost of the true interests
of his own country. Often, although the immediate
objective may be a victory in common, there are long-
term considerations that cannot be hidden away, and
which must prevent a complete identity of view. The
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 SIR IAN JACOB
history, the geographical position and the nature of
each country varies, and thus each problem is looked
at in a different frame of reference. The leaders them-
selves may have quite different temperaments, may
conduct business in very different fashions, and have
their own special state apparatus through which to
work. They are subject to the prejudices, the ambitions
and the private opinions of their principal advisers.
Hence friendship can only be a term to be used in a
restricted sense. A natural sympathy of mind can be
cultivated, and understanding developed, and relations
will thus be made more easy; but in the last resort
friendship cannot stand against a real divergence of
interest. It is interesting to see how Churchill fared
within these bounds with Roosevelt and Stalin.
Churchill had a real understanding of the United
States - indeed he was half an American. He studied
the President's mind, and he remembered always that
he had to deal with a man who was not only Chief
Executive of the American Government, but also Head
of State. He was careful to give due precedence to the
President, and he several times referred to himself as
the 'President's lieutenant' at their joint meetings. In
doing so he in no way prejudiced British interests,
though he was inclined sometimes to stretch things to
the limit, when he thought that the need in the long
run to keep closely in harmony with the President
outweighed shorter-term conflicting considerations.
Having said this, it is fair to say that Churchill felt
that he could convince the President of the wisdom
of any course he wanted to pursue by written memo-
randa and by conversation. He liked to be in the
White House, and to have informal meals with the
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President and Harry Hopkins, followed by long talks.
Whether the President enjoyed this kind of life is
doubtful. He did not keep the Prime Minister's
hours, especially at night, and he sometimes found the
conversation, which tended to be a little one-sided,
tedious. The President's principal advisers were in-
clined to suspect the Prime Minister's methods, which
they felt were designed to get the President's ear, and
to get him committed, before they could put their
views to him. Churchill was very sharp on attempts by
his own Ministers or officials to use him to get some-
thing to the President which was hanging fire in the
normal channels. He fully realised that if he over-
loaded his personal man-to-man link, the President
would be antagonised.
The quite different methods employed by the
President in dealing with his Ministers and the
United States Chiefs of Staff had a marked effect on
Anglo-American relations. Roosevelt was inclined to
leave most things to them, and only to intervene on
matters where political policy or general state con-
siderations were important. He did not want to in-
fluence operations in detail, or to act as his official
position as Commander-in-Chief might entitle him to
do. Churchill, on the other hand, took a deep interest
in all the details of military operations, sat almost daily
with his Chiefs of Staff, and so could ensure that the
policy which it was desired to advocate to the Ameri-
cans would be the same whether he was pressing it
on the President or whether the Chiefs were meeting
their opposite numbers. This closely co-ordinated
method of negotiation which extended fairly widely,
was always a source of suspicion to the Americans.
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They felt that if we were opposed low down we would
simply raise the channel higher, and if necessary get
the Prime Minister to work on the President, and all
the time it would be the same policy that would be
argued. It was also somewhat galling to the Americans
that, except in the Pacific, where the United States
Navy ruled the roost and would allow no interference
with its plans, they were necessarily constrained to fall
in with British ideas, as their force had not developed
and we were already in action. This situation ruled
up to the Casablanca Conference inJanuary 1943, and
it gradually changed in the following year. The change
was obvious when the Conference at Cairo and
Teheran took place early in 1944, and it presented
Churchill with problems that even he could not solve.
The change which came about when the Americans
felt that they had developed enough power to conduct
their own line of policy also showed the President in a
new light. At Casablanca there was a high degree of
harmony, and Roosevelt and Churchill saw eye to eye
about Russia and 'Uncle Joe' Stalin. When the first
conference was to take place at Teheran between the
three leaders instead of the two, it soon became clear
that the President had determined to break free from
entanglement with Churchill and the British, and to
meet Stalin without any prior consultation or agree-
ment on a common line beforehand. Churchill was
gravely disturbed by this development. It went clean
against his concept of the English-speaking peoples as
a combined force for good in the future world. It
seemed to give Stalin, who was answerable to no one,
and whose troops were not fighting alongside the
British and Americans, a great opportunity of driving
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a wedge between the Western Allies and to plant ideas
which would ease the Russian path to the domination
of Europe. That the President should deal with
Churchill and Stalin as if they were people of equal
standing in American eyes shocked Churchill pro-
foundly, and seemed to nullify all the patient work
that he had done during the previous three years.
America seemed to be in danger offorming links with
Communist Russia that could be extremely dangerous.
The President, whose knowledge of the world outside
America was very superficial, did not see the dangers.
He had no idea of the Russian age-long goals in
Eastern Europe which Stalin was striving to attain.
He seemed to imagine that he could handle Stalin,
and that both of them would have the same general
philosophy after the war. He mistrusted the British
Empire, and was anxious to prevent us from restoring
our, or the Dutch, positions in South-East Asia. In fact
the Anglo-American position which Churchill had
sought to found on his relationship with Roosevelt
seemed to be about to collapse. The frustrations of
the conversations at Teheran can easily be seen by a
reading of the published accounts of the meeting.
Nevertheless, Churchill was not the man to let
things slip if he could prevent it, and nothing that had
happened was allowed to stand in the way of a con-
tinuation of his relationship with the President by
correspondence and by occasional meetings. Lord
Moran has written in his Introduction: 'It was exhaus-
tion 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 Roose-
velt.' This is a statement that I cannot accept. It is,
2IO
 SIR IAN JACOB
of course, evident that the strain of the long war had its
effect on everyone, including Churchill who was not
only older than most of his colleagues, but had to bear
the greatest burden; but whenever there was a ques-
tion of real importanc e he was as keen and energetic
as ever. He became long-winded at meetings, and no
doubt appeared tired and out of sorts when he let
himself down in the presence of his doctor. He dealt
more slowly with his box. But he showed little diminu-
tion of his powers when issues of first-rate importanc e
arose. Some examples may illustrate the point.
First we must note that between August I 944 and
the end of Churchill's premiership he travelled as
extensively as before, if not more so. Italy in August,
Quebec in September , Moscow in October, Athens in
December, Yalta in February, Potsdam inJuly, and in
the intervals of these major excursions several visits to
France. Nowadays no one thinks anything of an air
trip across the Atlantic, or to any European capital.
It was a different matter in 1944, when the aircraft
were bombers with improvised seating and no interior
heating, when all the navigation al aids were somewhat
primitive, when weather informatio n was far less com-
plete. Flights took very much longer, and there was
always the enemy's possible actions to consider. The
dangers and discmnforts were not to be under-rate d,
and would have daunted a less determined man, or
one whose health had seriously impaired his powers.
Nearly every conference was marked by the death of
some of the participan ts due to the hazards of air
travel: Brigadiers Dykes and Stewart coming home
from Casablanc a, Peter Loxley and others on the way
to Yalta, and Sir William Malkin and Colonel Capel-
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Dunn and others returning from San Francisco in
1945·
Then we can see the vigour with which Churchill
grappled with the problem of the Communist threat
to Greece. In the face of American suspicion, and
much misunderstanding at home, he persisted in going
personally to Athens in the depths of winter, and by
great efforts saved the situation.
The problems of Eastern Europe, and particularly
of Poland, caused Churchill to travel to Moscow and
to do his utmost to save something from the clutches
of the Red Army. On the strategic front he did not
desist from his efforts to get Allied troops into Vienna,
and so that this might be possible he opposed the
American conception of weakening the Italian front
and transferring as many troops as possible to the
South of France. In this Stalin naturally backed the
President, who seemed unable to appreciate the im-
portance of the post-war situation in Europe, and the
perils of allowing the Russians to overrun Germany,
Austria and the Balkans.
Throughout this period, as one can see from the tele-
grams which passed between them, the Prime Minister
and the President were on cordial personal terms, but
Churchill did not meet with much success in converting
Roosevelt to his view on European affairs. Neither
Churchill nor the Chiefs of Staff could induce the
Americans to agree to orders being issued to Eisen-
hower which would ensure that the Allied advance into
Germany, which was clearly going to succeed, should
be so managed as to bring about the most favour-
able political-military situation when the war ended.
None of this was caused by Churchill's 'exhaustion
2I2
 SIR IAN JACOB
of mind and body'. Such deterioration in the relations
between the two men was due to two principal
causes. The first was the deliberate policy adopted
by the President, as I have described, of treating
Britain at arm's length once American power had
developed, and thus, as he thought, making it easier
for him to handle affairs in partnership with Stalin.
The second was the grave deterioration in the Presi-
dent's personal powers, which ended in his death on
I2 April I945· At Yalta in February the President,
whom I had not seen since I 943, was clearly a dying
man. It was obvious that in the last year of the war he
was no longer capable of the masterful control of
affairs that he had exerted previously. The remarkable
thing about Churchill was that in spite of his quite
serious illnesses he had recovered and, although tired,
had the courage and strength to carry on with almost
his previous effectiveness until the country rejected
him in the General Election.
If one could sum up this relationship it would be by
saying that never in the history ofgreat states embarked
upon a life-and-death struggle has a closer bond,
lasting five and a half years, been forged between the
leading figures of two of them. The blessings that
flowed from this bond cannot be quantitatively
assessed, but I doubt if the two countries could other-
wise have come through such critical events without
grievous damage. Of course, there were times when
the relationship was less close than at others, and this
is to be regretted; but taking the rough with the smooth
their friendship was solid and of lasting benefit to the
English-speaking world.
With Stalin things were quite otherwise. Here
2I3
 ACTION THIS DAY
Churchill was dealing with a man who had 'waded
through slaughter to a throne', who had been harried
and imprisoned himself, who was without compassion
for others, and who was impervious to the demands of
friendship. Stalin ruled Russia in a manner which
could not be examined in detail. No one in the outside
world could tell how the power was distributed, or
what the machinery of control consisted of. None of
the officers of our Military Mission ever had more than
the briefest glimpse of their natural opposite numbers
in Moscow. They had to deal solely through a single
channel. Stalin was never seen touring Russia, or
driving about in Moscow. His life was entirely con-
cealed. Neither he nor Molotov, nor any other Russian
with whom we had dealings, ever admitted that they
were convinced by our arguments. None of us ever
penetrated into a private house.
In this extraordinary situation, and having also to
accept the fact that all contact had to be through
interpreters, Churchill did his best to build some kind
of a link. He warned Stalin of the approaching
German attack in 1941, and when it took place he
immediately broadcast his welcome to the Russians as
our allies. With varying success he carried on a corres-
pondence with Stalin in the hope that some human
bond could be added to the purely formal community
of interests. Then the moment came for the two men to
meet face to face when Churchill travelled to Moscow
in August 1942. Several accounts of this meeting have
been published, and it is touched upon by Sir Leslie
Rowan later in this book, 1 so I do not propose to go at
length into the issues involved. But the occasion was of
1 See page 251, below.
214
 SIR IAN JACOB
tremendous importance, particularly in its effect
on the relationship between the two men.
Churchill had a very difficult mission to execute.
The Russians kept on pressing for a so-called 'Second
Front' in North-West Europe, and had stimulated
their Communist stooges in Western countries to do
the same. They also pretended to believe that when
Molotov visited Washington and London in May he
had been promised that an invasion of North-West
Europe would take place in 1942 or 1943 at the latest.
Churchill had to tell Stalin that we had not the
resources to mount a successful invasion in 1942, and
that we intended to clear North Africa as a necessary
preliminary step. He did not expect an easy passage,
so he made a plan to tell Stalin the worst, and then,
when it had been made quite clear that a European
invasion couldn't happen, to invite his interest in
'Torch', the invasion of French North Mrica. This
plan he put into operation at the first meeting with
considerable apparent success, but at the second
meeting Stalin behaved with studied rudeness, and
demanded a Second Front. It was hard to tell whether
the rudeness was all intended, or whether some of
it came through crude interpretation. The Russians
always insisted on Stalin's words being translated into
English by Pavlov, the Russian interpreter, who at
that stage in his development was not nearly so pro-
ficient in English as he later became.
Churchill was decidedly upset by the lack of com-
radeship that he had encountered. There was none of
the normal human side to the visit - no informal
lunches, no means of doing what he most liked, which
was to survey at length the war scene in conversation,
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 ACTION THIS DAY
and to explore the mind of his interlocutor. He felt
inclined to refuse to go to the banquet which was to
take place in the Kremlin that night. However, he
swallowed his feelings, and accompanied only by his
interpreter, Major Birse, he had a further meeting
with Stalin the following evening, which went on until
the early hours. At this long meeting he tried his
utmost to get on to friendly terms with Stalin, and up
to a point he undoubtedly succeeded, but that point
was reached far earlier than usual. Stalin was not the
man to respond to friendship or to let it, if it began to
develop, influence for one moment his line of thought.
Churchill came to respect Stalin as a powerful and
most effective ruler who had brought Russia through
near-catastrophe by his will-power and determination,
but he had no illusions as to the fundamental difference
between Stalin's aims and methods and those of
the Western world. Comradeship and C<!>-operation
between them was possible, but had to be accompanied
by constant vigilance.

Looking back on those tremendous years, when

Churchill came to power and wielded it to such effect,
one can only deplore that the spirit he embodied seems
so rarely to be present in our leaders. From time to
time men of Churchill's stamp arise and lift us above
ourselves. Macaulay in his essay on William Pitt, Earl
of Chatham, wrote:
Pitt desired power, and he desired it, we really believe,
from high and generous motives. He was, in the strict
sense of the word, a patriot. He had none of that
philanthropy which the great French writers of his
time preached to all the nations of Europe. He loved
216
 SIR IAN JACOB
England as an Athenian loved the City of the Violet
Crown, as a Roman loved the City of the Seven Hills.
He saw his country insulted and defeated. He saw the
national spirit sinking. Yet he knew what the resources
of the empire, vigorously employed, could effect; and
he felt that he was the man to employ them vigorously.
'My Lord,' he said to the Duke of Devonshire, 'I am
sure that I can save this country, and that nobody
else can.'

The same could have been written of Churchill in

1940 with complete truth, and in circumstances of
much greater danger and anxiety than those faced by
Pitt. Five years later, ignominiously dismissed by an
ungrateful people, he could look back on a task
gloriously fulfilled. Since his departure we have
resumed our 'unheroic and spiritless path'. We can
but recall with gratitude the five years in which he
inspired us, and those of us who were privileged to
work closely with him have a special sense of his power
that will live with us all our days.

217
 Lord Bridges
SECRETARY TO THE CABINET 1938-46

WHEN Churchill joined the War Cabinet in Septem-

ber I 939, I was virtually a stranger to him. Nor did I
have much to do with him during the months,
September I939 to May I940, when he was First Lord
of the Admiralty. Most of his time and energy was
spent on Defence matters, but from the outset he
showed considerable interest in the work of the War
Cabinet Office. Even in I 939 I think that he still
retained some doubts as to the constitutional propriety
of the very existence of a Cabinet secretariat. But this
did not prevent him from recognising the practical
convenience of having a Cabinet secretariat, or from
making full use of it. His general attitude to me was a
welcoming friendliness combined with outspoken com-
ment. Thus I remember him coming over to me, at the
end of a War Cabinet meeting in this period, and
telling me that the Minutes I wrote were far too full
and detailed. To all intents and purposes, he said, I
was runnmg a magazine. The Minutes should be
far shorter.

On the evening of I o May I 940, Neville Chamberlain

resigned the office of Prime Minister and Churchill
was appointed in his place. Early next morning I was
summoned to Admiralty House. I was put in a little
2I8
 LORD BRIDGES
waiting-room overlooking the Horse Guards Parade
until Churchill was ready to see me. Half a dozen
members of his staff and household were rushing round
frantically, in the effort to enable the new Prime
Minister to speak to a score of people on the telephone.
And, as I sat and waited, I wondered what I should
say to him. Twelve hours earlier I had been serving a
different Prime Minister. It would not be becoming for
me to be too effusive. And would congratulations be
in place when one considered the desperate situation
which the country faced? So when I went into his
room I said, 'May I wish you every possible good
fortune?' He gave one of the little grunts that one got
to know so well, and after a long look said, 'Hum.
Every good fortune! I like that! These other people
have all been congratulating me. Every good fortune!'
As I was to learn later on, he was very conscious of the
unspoken attitude of those he dealt with, and I am
sure that he looked right into my mind, and knew why
I had spoken as I did.
Two things impressed me deeply in the first few days
after Churchill had become Prime Minister: first his
superb confidence, second the unhurried calm with
which he set about forming his Government. He knew
that he alone had the courage and determination, the
power ofleadership and the range of qualities required
to deal with the dangers facing the country. But he also
thought deeply, and showed a good deal of delibera-
tion about the steps which he took in forming his
Government. And he took every care to make sure that
the change-over was done in a way which showed
consideration to the outgoing Prime Minister and the
other Ministers who left the Government.
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 ACTION THIS DAY
But, for all the calm and confidence which Churchill
radiated, within a very few days of his becoming
Prime Minister, the whole machinery of government
was working at a pace, and with an intensity of pur-
pose, quite unlike anything which had gone before. It
was as though the machine had overnight acquired
one or two new gears, capable of far higher speeds
than had ever before been thought possible.
No doubt the acute crisis in the nation's affairs had
something to do with this. But I believe that the main
reason for the change lay in the vigorous sense of pur-
pose which at once made itself felt, and in the methods
which Churchill introduced. His experience ofGovern-
ment business enabled him to pick out the points
on which prompt decisions were needed, and his
authority to make sure that they were brought before
him and that decisions were given without delay.
I will come back to this later. Here I want to record
only what many others can testify to - the way in
which, when Churchill became Prime Minister, the
whole machine of government was at once galvanised
into speedy action.

Working for Churchill was unlike working for any

other man. Perhaps the chief difference lay in the
relationship which he established with those who
worked for him.
It soon became clear that he liked to have about him
a group of those whom he saw frequently. Chief of
these, of course, were the senior Ministers, with some
of whom he was in almost day-to-day consultation. On
a different level were those who were called upon to
provide him with help and services of various kinds.
220
 LORD BRIDGES
This group included his Private Secretaries, the senior
Staff Officers in the War Cabinet Office, chief of whom
were Sir Hastings Ismay and Sir Ian Jacob, and
advisers on particular subjects such as Lord Cherwell
and others. As Secretary of the War Cabinet I found
myself in this group, which he sometimes called his
'Secret Circle'. This group had, of course, no formal
existence. Its membership changed from time to time
with the postings of individuals or the increase or
decline in the importance of particular subjects.
It is also impossible to define the nature of the jobs
which those in the group were given to do. The most
responsible and difficult tasks, and the ones which
arose most continuously, concerned the conduct and
direction of military matters; and the brunt of these
fell on Ismay and Jacob and other members of their
staff. I would find myself brought in to lend a hand on
a wide range of civil affairs, either those to be discussed
in the War Cabinet itself, or on Cabinet Committees;
or on miscellaneous matters on which he would send
me Minutes if he did not wish to deal with the matter
himself directly with the Minister concerned. I
became a sort of general factotum on the civil side. At
other times we would all of us find ourselves helping
to collect material for some speech or statement, or
to check points which arose. This work on speeches
nearly always had to be done at top speed.
In these war years there were no regular office
hours. Nor indeed was there any frontier between the
Prime Minister's office and the quarters in the New
Public Offices overlooking Birdcage Walk in which he
and Mrs Churchill lived for most ofthe war. We might
find ourselves working with Churchill in his study or
221
 ACTION THIS DAY
in his bedroom, or be called in to take some urgent
orders while he was having a meal with his family.
Before long he made us all feel that we had in some
sense become honorary members of his domestic
household.
All this was part of the confidence he placed in us
and of his continuous friendliness to us. This would
show itself in his boisterous spirits which very often
included a good deal of good-humoured teasing.
An early instance comes into my mind. It must, I
think, have been the first time I went to Chequers after
Churchill had become Prime Minister. I had been
asked to lunch on a Saturday. I arrived in good time,
and was shown into a sitting-room where Mr and
Mrs Churchill were awaiting their guests. Mrs
Churchill asked me how long I had been Secretary of
the Cabinet and when I had succeeded Maurice
Hankey. I gave the date, August 1938, and rather
stupidly added 'just before the Munich time'. Chur-
chill, who was not taking part in the conversation but
turning over the pages of some newspapers on a table
across the room, at once looked up and said, with the
broadest grin, 'Oh yes, my dear, he has the Munich
Medal and Bar!' It was said with such a sense of
boyish humour that I found it encouraging to be
greeted with this sort of sally by the Prime Minister.
Such was the framework of the group of those who
worked closely with Churchill. More significant are
the frankness and freedom with which he would discuss
things with us, or in our presence. When his mind was
occupied with some important issue, he would often
discuss it off and on for two or three days with those
who happened to be summoned to his work-room. As
222
 LORD BRIDGES
some new point arose, he would go over the whole
ground again to see how this new point affected the
argument. In this sort of discussion he would keep
nothing back. He would express the most outspoken
views about the probable reactions or attitudes of the
most important persons, or about the various ways in
which the situation might be expected to develop.
And these confidences were not prefixed by 'You must
not repeat this.' This was so clearly understood to be
the basis of the relationship.
In this way we all got to know a great deal about
his mind. We acquired a good understanding of his
aims and his anxieties on many matters.
This degree of candour (which was unlike anything
I had ever experienced) and his readiness to expose
the rough workings of his mind added, of course,
greatly to the interest of our work. But it did far more
than that. It enabled us to serve him far better than we
could possibly have done if he had not been willing to
let us see so far into his thoughts. And, indeed, it often
happened to many of us that when some new situation
arose, be it small or great, calling for fresh orders, we
would feel pretty certain what the decision would be.
This insight into his ways of working and thinking,
added to the confidence which he put in us, was the
essence of the special relationship between Churchill
and those who worked closely for him; and, of course,
it had a great influence on the ways in which we did
our work for him.
Perhaps an example will make my meaning clearer.
On occasion he would send for me and tell me to go and
see someone on his behalf, and would give me orders
for some piece of business to be carried out in a
223
 ACTION THIS DAY
particular way. Usually on these occasions his in-
structions to me were given orally. I always felt that,
having given me the orders he regarded the matter as
having been finally concluded on the lines which he
had laid down, just as much as if he had done the job
himself, and that he had put the matter out of his mind.
I felt myself for the time being to be an extension of
his mind and presence, finishing off his work.
But sometimes it would turn out that the position
was different from what he had been told, and that his
orders could not be carried out exactly. And I would
have to judge as best I could how far I should be acting
in accordance with his wishes if I made some variation
in his instructions to meet the changed situation.
Churchill's habit of talking so freely and disclosing so
much of his mind was, of course, a great help on these
occasions. All the same, when this happened I would
always feel acutely uncomfortable until I had taken
the earliest possible opportunity to tell him that I had
not carried out his exact orders, but had had to vary
them.
Or another instance. As Secretary of the War
Cabinet and many of its Committees, I had of course
to write the Minutes of many meetings at which
Churchill was in the Chair. It was well understood
between us (though never explicitly laid down) that I
could issue the Minutes without reference to him
unless either he asked to see the draft, or there was
some reason why I felt that I ought to consult him. This,
of course, saved a lot of time, and worked very well.
But I well remember one night when a long meeting
had finished about 8.30 p.m. One of the items had
proved very controversial, and the discussion on it had
224
 LORD BRIDGES
been confused and inconclusive. I had finished the
Minutes about midnight; but being unhappy about
this item I went down to Churchill's study to seek his
instructions. I found he had gone out to visit the Army
Unit in which his youngest daughter (now Mrs
Soames) was then serving. No one knew when he
would be back. His Private Office thought that 3 a.m.
was a likely time. I felt sure that he would want to see
this Minute. But it was also important that the Minutes
should be completed in time to leave the Cabinet
Office for circulation, in accordance with the regular
procedure, by the first delivery which left at 8 a.m.
the following morning. Three typists were standing by
to roll off the Minutes and put them in envelopes, and
I asked myself whether it was really necessary to keep
these girls out of their beds for another three hours.
And in the end, against my better instinct, I decided to
take the risk.
Early next morning a message came that Churchill
wanted to see me. I said to myself that I had better
take down the Minute on this controversial item to
show him. As soon as I got into his bedroom he said,
'I want to see the Minute about Somaliland.' I handed
him the Minute, and said I had tried to see him the
night before but had failed, and had issued the
Minutes without his seeing them. 'What!' he said,
very deliberately and emphatically. 'What! rou issued
that Minute without showing it to me! You must have
known perfectly well that I wanted to see it.' And of
course I had to admit that this was so.
What happened if you were a member of Churchill's
staff and you disagreed with him, and started an
argument with him? The short answer is that arguing
p 225
 ACTION THIS DAY
with Churchill could be very difficult uphill work, and
that it was no use arguing with him unless you had a
very good case indeed.
My experience here is much less valuable than that
of the military staff of the War Cabinet, for, while they
were directly responsible for questions ofdefence policy,
my concern was not with policy, but to see that the
general business of the War Cabinet ran smoothly;
more particularly to make sure that the Civil Depart-
ments were consulted as necessary, to ease the working
of the machine and to do particular ad hoc tasks which
the Prime Minister assigned to me. But plenty of
occasions arose for me to comment on schemes or
draft Minutes, or to put forward my own views.
Such occasions often arose in the preparation of
speeches or statements. Or it might be that I would be
sent for in the morning by Churchill on some business,
and he might show me a Minute which he was on the
point of signing and issuing to some Minister. He
would be pleased with his handiwork and rather
expect me to applaud it. But suppose that I thought
that something in it was wrong, or needed alteration,
what could I say, given that there was practically no
time for reflection?
One thing that I soon learned was that a perpetual
critic or fault-finder achieved nothing. You had to
make Churchill feel that you were on his side, that
you sympathised with his general views, and that any
criticism you made was genuinely intended to be help-
ful. Once convinced of this, he would listen to what
you had to say, and you became, so to speak, a
licensed critic.
But the fact that I had no responsibility for any field
226
 LORD BRIDGES
of policy did not prevent me from having one or two
really heated arguments with him.
I remember one occasion vividly. I have forgotten
the exact subject, but it had to do with the allocation
of responsibility. It was an organisation question on
which I felt I had a right to give a decided view. I was
absolutely certain I was right, and that he was wrong.
Moreover I had two arguments which I felt were con-
clusive. So I weighed in.
Churchill also had clear views, and they were
entirely opposed to mine. It also emerged that he had
held these views for years, and he supported them with
a wealth of detailed arguments which seemed to him
incontrovertible. Still sure I was right, I used my
second argument, but with the same result.
Being most unwilling to accept defeat I fell back on
another argument which I knew was less sound, but
which I thought might appeal to him. As I was speak-
ing I remembered that I had used this argument with
him some years ago, but I consoled myself with think-
ing he would never remember this occasion. 'Hmm,'
he said, 'Hmm, I seem to remember your using that
argument with me once before but in support of some
entirely different proposition!'
Churchill enjoyed a good battle like this, and, of
course, he enjoyed having his own way; and he bore
no malice. But even if, as in this case, one was defeated
yet unconvinced, one had to admit that he could back
almost any statement he made with a wealth of well
organised supporting arguments; and that, although
he might be uncertain of the details, it was never safe
to assume that he would not remember any single
fact or argument.
 ACTION THIS DAY
I mentioned how the whole machinery of government
was miraculously speeded up when Churchill became
Prime Minister. Throughout the war he sent a stream
of Minutes to Ministers, and those in charge of par-
ticular branches of administration, putting questions -
some of them on matters of great importance, others
on minor issues. Many of these Minutes carried an
'ACTION THIS DAy' slip.
Churchill had several motives for these Minutes.
The first - the more personal one - was his intense
interest in and curiosity about everything which con-
tributed to the nation's war effort. His vast energies
found satisfaction in exploring each one of them, great
and small.
The second and more important motive was his
instinctive distrust oflarge organisations, whether civil
or military. He was suspicious of what would happen
to any question when it passed down the line into the
depths of some great Department. How long might it
not be before a decision was reached? And what
processes of thought unknown to Ministers, or un-
acceptable to them, might not be brought into play
in reaching a decision?
Moreover the Minister or official to whom the
Minute was addressed had himself to look into the
matter and produce almost immediately a short con-
vincing answer, and this brought home his personal
responsibility, in much the same way as Churchill
established a special relationship with his own
staff.
Busy Ministers were no doubt often irritated by
having to answer these Minutes. Sometimes the
evidence on which they were written was incomplete.
228
 LORD BRIDGES
In dictating them, Churchill often relied on his own
retentive memory; but sometimes it failed, and a later
Minute was not always wholly consistent with a
previous one on the same subject, or with the Minister's
reply to it. And this, of course, would provoke criticism.
The positive good achieved by these personal
'ACTION THIS DAy' Minutes was that they brought
home to all Ministers and Senior Civil Servants and
officers of the three Services that everything, great or
small, might come under the Prime Minister's eyes,
and that everything should be handled with dispatch.
These personal Minutes, coupled with the Prime
Minister's habit of summoning special meetings to
deal with important matters, have given rise to sug-
gestions that Churchill took all the important decisions
himself, and was apt to ride roughshod over all opposi-
tion. This ignores two essential points.
First, Churchill never forgot the over-riding author-
ity of Parliament. All those who worked closely with
him will testify how, when any really important event
took place, he was always insistent that 'the Parl.'
should be told at once. And if, as often happened in
the early days of the war, the news was bad news, he
would take the greatest care to keep nothing back.
Indeed, his sense of caution disposed him to overstate,
rather than understate bad news.
Secondly, Churchill held the Cabinet (or War
Cabinet) in the highest regard. Throughout the war
he saw to it that all important issues, civil and military
alike, were brought before the War Cabinet. And this
was strictly adhered to subject to details of operational
plans being restricted to those whose business made it
necessary for them to know them.
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 ACTION THIS DAY
Churchill was indeed very proud of being the Head
of a Coalition which commanded such strong nation-
wide support, and he felt bound by strong ties of
loyalty and gratitude to all his Ministerial colleagues.
I often heard him speak of this. One night at
Chequers, when there was a very small party, he said
something which gave me a chance to put to him a
question which I had long had in my mind. I said I
had often heard the Liberal Government of Igo6
spoken of as one of the strongest governments of
modern times, and one which contained many
Ministers with brilliant qualities. I tried to draw him
on as to how its strength compared with the Coalition
War Cabinet. He laughed in a way which made it
clear that this was a pretty foolish comparison. He
shook his head and said that no British Govern-
ment of which he knew had ever had such massive
support as the War Cabinet of which he was Prime
Minister.
Mter the war, he had a medal cast, which he
presented to War Cabinet Ministers and to some
others, bearing on one side the name of the recipient,
and on the other the words 'THE GREAT COALITION
1940-45'. Later on he told me that on reflection he
wished that he had not included the word 'GREAT'. It
was not that he had any doubt about the greatness of
the Coalition. But this was so obvious that the word
was wholly unnecessary.
A good deal has been written of the way in which
Churchill conducted meetings of the Cabinet. Some
have said that the proceedings often consisted largely
of monologues by Churchill, and took far longer than
necessary.
 LORD BRIDGES
Here one must distinguish. At times of crisis, when
big issues had to be settled promptly, Churchill was
always superb and most businesslike. The essential
points and arguments would be quickly brought to the
surface. They would be searchingly discussed and
decisions taken.
But when the matters on the Agenda were less im-
portant or pressing, Churchill's love of argument, and
his enjoyment in following up some point raised in the
discussion which interested him, could lead to a far
longer meeting than was necessary. This was partly due
to his feeling that the Cabinet was a body of supreme
importance and that its meetings ought not to be
hurried through or disposed of in the shortest possible
time. Such a meeting was like a good dish - something
to be enjoyed and savoured and not gulped down.
This tendency to long meetings became more marked
towards the end of the Coalition Government, when
post-war developments were being discussed in the
War Cabinet, and Churchill, I think, felt that he
would like more time before he could make up his
mind.
Once, when Field-Marshal Smuts had just arrived in
London, Churchill sent for me to give orders about
the Agenda for a meeting of the War Cabinet which
the Field-Marshal was due to attend. It was to be an
Agenda worthy of the Field-Marshal's presence.
Besides the customary review of military events and
foreign affairs, certain long-distance problems were
brought forward for preliminary discussion. I remem-
ber thinking that what I had been told to do was
almost like arranging a Gala Performance of the War
Cabinet. And so indeed it was.
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 ACTION THIS DAY
Then there was Churchill's practice of summoning
meetings at g p.m. or even later, to explore some topic
which could not be properly investigated at a meeting
which had to end at a fixed hour because of other
engagements. These late meetings were not popular.
But they certainly served a purpose.
I remember some of these meetings well, particu-
larly those held to discuss what little was known at the
time about the sites from which the Germans were
later to launch the V.Is. These late meetings would
go something like this:
A proposition would be advanced. Churchill would
repeat it once or twice rather slowly, looking above
him rather like a man throwing a ball into the air and
catching it. Then another train of thought would occur
to him. Was this really the right proposition, or should
it be differently stated? He would then try it in a
different form: and by degrees the arguments would
start: different lines of thought would emerge: and
crucial points would be forced into the open.
This could certainly prove a lengthy process. But I
remember feeling, as I went late to bed after some of
these meetings, that this unhurried discussion had
thrown new light on the problems discussed and on the
action to be pursued. The time had not been wasted.
So far I have described what it was like working for
Churchill. But I also want to discuss some general
Issues.
First, how much did Churchill contribute to the
civil aspects of government in the war years ?
No doubt he spent far more time on military than
on civilian matters. But this did not mean that he
regarded civilian affairs as comparatively unimportant.
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 LORD BRIDGES
On the contrary he saw them as an essential part of
the nation's war effort, and the fact that he did so, and
was known to do so, had much to do with the unity of
purpose which inspired the whole country.
This calls for some explanation. At the outset of
Churchill's administration, the pattern of major War
Cabinet Committees was not very well suited to the
work to be performed. But soon the Lord President's
Committee, under the Chairmanship of Sir John
Anderson (later Viscount Waverley), established a
supremacy over all the other Committees in the civil
field, and both disposed of less important matters
itself, and prepared all the major civil issues for sub-
mission to the War Cabinet.
Much of the work of the Lord President's Committee
was concerned with measures to restrict the use of
labour and other resources on purposes which did not
contribute to the war effort. In these discussions
Churchill was always at pains to see that the needs of
the ordinary citizen were considered, and that they
were not squeezed so hard that they became ill-fed or
discontented.
The same considerations applied in the allocations
of manpower, shipping and other scarce resources,
- allocations which soon became the principal tool
for directing the nation's war effort. At one period
shipping-space was the bottleneck, but for all the later
stages of the war the crucial factor was manpower.
The preparatory work on these allocations was
done by Departments or by War Cabinet Committees.
But Sir John Anderson had a special responsibility for
the manpower budget, which was always submitted to
the Prime Minister and then to the War Cabinet.
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 ACTION THIS DAY
Here military and civil requirements were always in
conflict - manpower for the forces, for making their
war supplies, for essential civilian needs, and so forth.
Churchill always gave the manpower budget his
closest personal attention.
The advantage of having a Prime Minister who was
also Minister of Defence, spanning authoritatively the
whole field of Government activities, civil and military,
was never more clearly shown than in the wise, far-
seeing decisions reached in these matters.
A statistical analysis compiled after the war showed
that Great Britain devoted a higher proportion of her
resources to the war effort than any other belligerent
on the Allied side, whether measured as a percentage
of the National Income devoted to the war, or the
proportion of the total labour force mobilised for
war, either in the armed forces or in civilian war
employment.
The allocation of manpower and resources laid the
foundation for much of our war effort. It excites less
interest or praise than successful campaigns. But it is
something which should not be lost sight of in any
assessment of Churchill's wartime premiership.

Secondly there is the suggestion that Churchill

occupied too dominating a role in the Government and
in theWar Cabinet, and that other politicians were not
given sufficient scope, or were pushed on one side.
This last point I find difficult to follow. With
perhaps two possible exceptions aU the most influen-
tial political figures in the country were Ministers
in Churchill's Government. These exceptions were
Aneurin Bevan and Lloyd George. The latter, who
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 LORD BRIDGES
was seventy-eight in 1941, resisted various approaches
made to him by Churchill to join his Government.
It was on Churchill's personal initiative that Ernest
Bevin, whose influence in Parliament became so im-
portant, was in May 1940 appointed to be Minister of
Labour and entered Parliament in the following
month. Moreover, as in total war all else is subordin-
ated to winning the war, and political divisions become
of less importance, there are obvious advantages in
appointing to certain Ministerial offices non-political
figures with the special qualifications of a Woolton or a
Leathers.
The argument that politicians were not given suffi-
cient scope cuts no ice. It is, however, true that during
the Second World War Churchill inevitably occupied
a far more dominating position than any other British
Prime Minister for at least half a century. But this was
due to the circumstances in which he became Prime
Minister and to the fact that he alone had the qualities
and authority needed to lead the country.
To anyone who still maintains that Churchill played
an unduly dominating role in the war, I would reply:
firstly, that relations between the politicians and the
soldiers were infinitely better in the Second than in the
First World War; and secondly, that I cannot recollect
a single Minister, serving officer or civil servant who
was removed from office because he stood up to
Churchill and told Churchill that he thought his
policy or proposals were wrong. Opposition could
indeed on occasion anger him, but he did not take it
out of those who differed with him. Indeed the saddest
instances of those who could not establish a position
of confidence with Churchill were not ofmen who stood
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 ACTION THIS DAY
up to him; but of those who for some reason or another
could not 'communicate' with him. What he disliked
most in those who worked with him was the lack of any
positive response.

There is also the suggestion that in the later war years

there was a marked decline in Churchill's decisiveness
and power to direct affairs.
Here I think there is danger of some confusion unless
one understands how the situation changed after 1942.
From May 1940 to, say, the middle of 1942 were
the greatest years of Churchill's life. Everything de-
pended upon him and upon him alone. Only he had
the power to make the nation believe that it could win.
In these years we stood alone. There was no other
great power to be consulted. The nation's decisions fell
to be taken, and were taken by Churchill's Govern-
ment alone.
It was in these years, too, that Churchill sustained
the faith of the peoples of the countries ofEurope which
had been over-run by Hitler, and that the special rela-
tionship with President Roosevelt was established.
Mter Germany had invaded Russia, and after the
United States had come into the war, the position
changed. The Combined Chiefs of Staff organisation
was established, and many international conferences
of the chiefbelligerent Allies were held.
From this point onwards the way to ultimate victory
could be seen more clearly. But the problems ofleader-
ship were greatly changed, and indeed became more
difficult. The fact that Britain was now in alliance
with two great powers, each of them able to put in-
creasingly large forces in the field, whereas only with
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 LORD BRIDGES
difficulty could we sustain our existing forces, pro-
gressively lessened the influence which Britain could
exercise over the grand strategy and conduct of the
war. As the years went by there was less scope for
Churchill to reach major decisions on his own respon-
sibility; moreover the process of reaching agreed
decisions necessarily took far longer.
All this is obvious enough. I have stressed it because
we must distinguish, in the later years of the war,
between, on the one hand, the difficulties which
Churchill encountered in handling broad policy issues
with the leaders of the United States and the Soviet
Union, and the doubts which he often entertained as
to their policies, and on the other hand a decline - or
supposed decline - in Churchill's powers of making
decisions. One must remember too Churchill's habit
of talking freely about whatever was on his mind. If
depressed at the end of a long day, he might give voice
to all sorts of gloomy doubts and fears. But he had
immense powers of recovery. Mter a good sleep he
would wake fresh and eager, having resolved the
difficulty, and cast off his doubts, full of energy and
determined to pursue the course he had now decided on.
Churchill's physical health was no doubt affected by
the illnesses he suffered from in the later war years.
But to say that his judgement and power to take
decisions was affected in these years, is to fail to take
account of the changed situation.
The only occasions when I can remember feeling
frustrated in my work, through Churchill's reluctance
to come to a decision, occurred towards the very end
of the Coalition Government, and after the Coalition
had broken up; and this was for political reasons. His
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 ACTION THIS DAY
hesitation and reluctance to come to decisions were
particularly marked in the weeks immediately pre-
ceding the announcement of the results of the General
Election.

Finally it has been suggested that Churchill showed

a lack of consideration to his colleagues, and to those
who worked for him. If one applies the ordinary peace-
time standards, this is obviously true. But the condi-
tions in which we were working for Churchill in the
war were entirely different. He certainly made great
demands on all of us - demands which sometimes put
us to great inconvenience. But when he asked one to
do something for him, even if the demand was rather
unreasonable, he was one of the hardest men in the
world to say 'no' to.
We all worked very long hours, many of us for
years with very little let-up. But I don't believe that it
occurred to any of us to regard this as a hardship, still
less to feel any kind of resentment. Certainly I never
remember anybody who worked at No. IO in those
years wishing to leave.
Lest the reader should think that I am looking back
through rose-coloured spectacles, let me recall some-
thing which records my feelings at the time.
I was not one of those, like Ismay, Jacob or the
Private Secretaries, who spent very many weekends
at Chequers. But from time to time I was summoned to
'dine and· sleep' there. Some cynics used to say it
should be to 'dine and stay awake'. But, of course, it
was tremendous fun; an occasion to which I always
looked forward.
But one weekend when I was asked to Chequers, I
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 LORD BRIDGES
was sorry to have to go. I think it was because it meant
missing a day with my young children of whom I saw
all too little in the war years. Anyhow I set off that
afternoon from the War Cabinet Office in a disgruntled
mood and so continued for about half the journey.
Then it began to dawn on me that it was very silly of
me to be cross. And there ensued what would today
be called a dialogue between the grumpy and non-
grumpy parts of my mind. The latter reminded me
that I was doing far more interesting and exciting
work than I had ever hoped to do. More than that,
I could never hope to work for anyone who gave so
much of his confidence to those who worked for him
closely, or treated them with such generosity and
friendship. Whatever might happen later on, these
would be by far the most worthwhile years of my life.
Indeed, notwithstanding all the stresses and strains,
I could not expect at any other period to get so much
satisfaction and enjoyment from what I was doing.
And, instead of being grumpy, I should admit that as
compared with the discomfort and anxieties and dis-
tress which most people were undergoing in the war,
I ought rather to feel ashamed at my good fortune. I
can still see the place in the road where the dialogue
reached this happy conclusion.
Against this background, talk of Churchill being
inconsiderate to those who worked for him, seems to
me to be talk about superficial things and not to touch
the essentials of the relationship.
Looking back many years afterwards on the long
hours and little leave over a long period which were
the lot of so many of us, I have often wondered how
we endured these physical conditions. In this respect
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 ACTION THIS DAY
I was particularly fortunate because I don't think I
missed a single day in the war through ill-health or
indisposition.
Today it seems to me obvious enough. I can see now
that, like a few other really great men, Churchill had
the power, not only to inspire those who worked for
him, but to pass on to them while they worked for him,
something of his own stamina, something of his own
matchless qualities of courage and endurance.
 Sir Leslie Rowan
PRIVATE SECRETARY I94I-5
PRINCIPAL PRIVATE SECRETARY 1945

THE most vivid and lasting impression I have of my

association with Churchill, first as a Private Secretary
and then as a friend, is the complete trust he placed
in those who served him in what he called 'The
Secret Circle'. This trust was not lightly given; it
had to be earned, and, as I look back, I realise that
incidents that seemed at the time to have little
significance were in fact tests to see whether one came
up to the necessary standard. To bring someone fully
into 'The Secret Circle' was a tremendous step for
Churchill to take, for once you were in you knew and
saw everything except the date for military operations
and the contents of the famous 'yellow boxes', the
most secret enemy intelligence.
When I was summoned in May 1941 to go to No. 10
to be interviewed by him we had never met. He knew
only of my record in the Civil Service, and no doubt
John Martin, his Principal Private Secretary, with
whom I had served in the Colonial Office in the early
1930s, had in his kind way said pleasant things about
me. As I waited outside the Cabinet Room wondering
what form the interview would take, my mind went
back to the only time I had actually been present
when Churchill had made a major speech. At that time
Q
 ACTION THIS DAY
I was in the Treasury, and my main function was to
deal with Admiralty supply expenditure- that is, all
expenditure except on personnel- as well as with ex-
penditure by the Home Office on air-raid precautions.
The speech which came back to my mind was made
in the House of Commons in the spring of I936, when,
as a backbencher in the wilderness, he was criticising
the inadequacy of British defence expenditure and
asserting that Hitler was spending approaching
£I,ooom. a year on German rearmament. Practically
no one in this country believed him, and many
(including myself, as I confessed to him later) thought
he was exaggerating violently. But he was right; and
all the rest of us, including the whole panoply of the
Government machine, wrong - a fact I determined
never to forget in assessing Churchill's judgments
subsequently.
This experience has also made me impatient with
those who say airily, 'Churchill was a good wartime
Prime Minister, but he would have been no good as
a Prime Minister in peacetime.' There are many
criteria by which a peacetime Prime Minister can be
judged. Not the least important, I imagine, is whether
he would have succeeded either in preventing this
country being involved in war while still maintaining
our honour; or, if war came despite all his efforts,
ensuring that we would enter it well prepared. By this
criterion Churchill stands infinitely higher than any
other inter-war politician in this country, even though
he clearly was not so good as others in lesser matters.
Thus, for example, he said, on 2 I May I 936 in a
debate in the House of Commons, with little support
from anyone: 'We are told we must not interfere with
242
 SIR LESLIE ROWAN
the normal course of trade; that we must not alarm the
easy-going voter and the public; how thin and paltry
these arguments will be if we are caught in a war a
year or two hence, fat, opulent, free-spoken and
defenceless.'
Later in the year there was perhaps an even more
remarkable example. Churchill continued to be deeply
anxious about the Government's reluctance to rearm.
On I I November in the Debate on the Address, he
pressed them to give a clear answer to his demands for
the appointment of a Minister of Supply who could
co-ordinate arms production for the three armed
services and thereby start to put them on a strength
parallel with Hitler's forces. Churchill asked Sir
Samuel Hoare (then Home Secretary) whether he
agreed with Sir Thomas Inskip (then Minister for the
Co-ordination of Defence), who had said that the
question of the appointment of a Minister of Supply
must be reviewed in a few weeks. The following inter-
change took place:
Hoare. All that my right hon. Friend quite obviously
meant - and I repeat it - is that we are constantly
reviewing it.
Churchill. You cannot make up your minds.
Hoare. It is very easy to make interjections of that kind.
He [Churchill] knows as well as anyone in the
House ... that the situation is very fluid.
The word 'fluid' was used several times by Sir
Samuel Hoare in answering criticisms of the Govern-
ment, and it was on this word that Churchill seized
when he made his speech the next day, I2 November.
In it the following passage occurred:

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 AC:TION THIS DAY
The Government simply cannot make up their mind,
or they cannot get the Prime Minister to make up his
mind. So they go on in strange paradox, decided only
to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant
for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.
So we go on preparing more months and years -
precious, perhaps vital to the greatness ofBritain- for
the locusts to eat. They will say to me, 'A Minister of
Supply is not necessary, for all is going well.' I deny
it. 'The position is satisfactory.' It is not true. 'All is
proceeding according to plan.' We know what that
means.
He finished this speech by demanding a Parliamentary
enquiry into the state of the country's defence and
ended with the following words:
I say that unless the House resolves to find out the
truth for itself, it will have committed an act of abdica-
tion of duty without parallel in its long history.
The House did not resolve to find out the truth for
itself, with the consequences that we know. But if
Churchill had been Prime Minister and had possessed
the power to put this into effect, it might not have
been regarded by history as the act of a bad peacetime
Prime Minister.
Later in my service with Churchill I said that,
brilliant though his description of the 'strange
paradox' was, I thought that, in the mood of the
House, it had rather lessened the impact of his speech.
He did not take kindly to that suggestion.
However, to return to the meeting at No. 10. Here
I was in May 1941, a very ordinary Civil Servant so
wrong five years earlier, about to be interviewed by
Churchill at the height of the war, and my job still was
244
 SIR LESLIE ROW AN
to deal with Naval expenditure, among other things.
After what seemed an eternity, and well after the time
fixed for the appointment (a lesson it was as well to
learn early), the bell sounded; john Martin went into
the Cabinet Room, and a few moments later Churchill
and he came into the Private Secretary's room, where
I was waiting. I was standing between him and the
window that looks out on to the garden of No. 10 and
the Horse Guards Parade. As he spoke he wheeled
round me so as to get a good view of my face with the
light at his back and not in his eyes. He liked to see the
faces of those he had to deal with, and often made
judgements on what he saw. He asked me about my
career, or rather told me, as John Martin had, as
usual, briefed him well. Then came the question,
'And what do you now do at the Treasury?'- he knew
quite well, of course. I started to reply, 'I deal with
the supply side of Naval expenditure,' and, before I
could go on, he said, 'Trying to cut it down, no doubt?'
I replied, 'Yes, sir, I do my best.' After a slight pause,
'Well, I suppose someone has to do it; thank you so
much for coming to see me,' and he went on his way
to lunch. Next day I heard that I had been appointed.
Looking back, I am sure this was a test. He hated
above most things what he called 'the official grimace'.
Provided you told him the truth and had some real
conviction about and basis for your views, you had
a fair hearing, and he was open to argument. If I had
fluffed this answer, and made some polite but insincere
remarks designed to please, I am convinced that I
should not have been appointed.
Further tests were to come; at No. 1 owe Private Sec-
retaries were all together in adjacent communicating
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 ACTION THIS DAY
rooms. The first weekends on duty at Chequers were
when you really felt lonely - though, of course, you
could speak to London on the telephone, ordinary or
scrambler, immediately. I at any rate approached
my first few weekends with a good deal of apprehen-
sion. On one of these occasions, early in my time at
No. 10, we did not go directly to Chequers; we went
by train to Shoeburyness to see the new British six-
pounder tank-gun and an American innovation, the
'tommy gun'. Churchill saw the first in action and
himself tried out the tommy gun. On the way back we
stopped at a small railway halt so that he could inspect
a detachment of the women's Auxiliary Territorial
Service. This was the day on which the Scharnhorst and
Gneisenau were making their break up-channel, and I
arranged a code with the office so that I could get
information quickly. While Churchill was inspecting
I went into the station-master's office and telephoned
to No. IO to ask about the 'rabbits'. The news was bad:
all our attacks had failed, and the ships succeeded in
their break-out. So I returned to the train and sat
down. I was reading the papers rather dejectedly
when Churchill returned; he looked at me with some
distaste and asked me pointedly whether it had struck
me to communicate with the Private Office to get
news, rather than just to sit about in the train. When
I said I had spoken to the office and gave him the news,
he merely grunted. Clearly this test was not arranged,
but test it was nevertheless, and I approached the rest
of the weekend with rather more confidence. I was to
need it.
The weekend went quietly enough until Sunday
morning; the Prime Minister worked upstairs in bed,
246
 SIR LESLIE ROW AN
and our small private office was downstairs. He always
had his box with him, with his files, top of the box,
Foreign Office telegrams, military telegrams, staff
papers and so on, and the Private Secretary would take
up new papers and take out those he had dealt with.
These were sent by despatch-rider to London, unless
there was something really urgent, often marked with
his special red label, 'ACTION THIS DAy'; in that case
we normally telephoned it on the 'scrambler'.
On this morning there was a paper so marked; in
fact a telegram offering a peerage to a political per-
sonality. I had some vague idea of a body called the
Political Honours Scrutiny Committee (established
following the Honours scandals in the years after the
First World War), but I was very hazy about it. So I
telephoned the message to London; Anthony Bevir,
another Private Secretary who dealt in particular with
appointments and such affairs, was on duty and said,
'He cannot send that telegram; it must be cleared by
the Political Honours Scrutiny Committee.' I began
to feel rather uneasy and asked, 'What do I do?'
Anthony Bevir replied, 'You tell him so.' I asked a
little about the Committee, and then went up. I told
Churchill the position, and received in return a con-
siderable blast broadly to the effect that his job was to
direct the war, which took all his time; mine was to be
helpful and not to hinder him, especially in matters of
this kind. He, however, had the draft telegram in his
hand, and as I could not think of anything else to do
I stood still and silent. His toes twitched under the
bedclothes, always a bad sign. Finally he said, 'What
would you do?' I said I would put it to the Committee
with a request that it be considered urgently, as I
247
 ACTION THIS DAY
thought it a pity to disregard them and raise unneces-
sary trouble, when a few days' delay could not really
matter. There was another silence on both sides; he
went on with some other paper and finally looked up
and said rather crossly, 'And what are you waiting
for? Have you no work to do?' I thought the moment
had come to depart; so I cleared the box (the draft
telegram was still on his bed-table) and left. Before
lunch I fetched the box. The telegram was in it; still
'ACTION THIS DAY', but on it in his red ink 'Refer to
P.H.S. Committee for advice.'
These may seem small incidents against the back-
cloth of the great events of that time; but to me they
were important, because they were, I am sure, the
beginning of my introduction into 'The Secret Circle',
and to the character of Churchill.
I retain very precious memories of what being in
'The Secret Circle' meant, and if I have one wish
above all others it is simply this; that I shall never by
word or action betray the trust that this imposed. One
simple domestic example will perhaps show as well as
any other what that trust meant. I was on duty at
Chequers, and Mrs Churchill's birthday happened to
fall that weekend. Unusually, there were no guests
that evening. So about seven o'clock in the evening
when I was summoned to his bedroom upstairs to
'take the box' I said that I would dine with Mrs Hill
(his confidential secretary), as I felt sure Mrs Churchill
and he would like to dine alone; at Chequers the
Private Secretary on duty always had lunch and
dinner with the Prime Minister and any others who
might be there. The reply was immediate, short and
kind: 'You will do no such thing; Clemmie and I
248
 SIR LESLIE ROW AN
should like you to dine with us.' I have no record of
what was said at that dinner; in fact I have no record
of what was said at any dinner; it was sufficient for
me that I had been shown such friendship and trust.
None of us would ever betray that trust.
Whether or not Lord Moran was a member of 'The
Secret Circle', I feel that his book is an inexcusable
breach of confidence. I will leave others in this volume
to controvert his judgment of Churchill and wish here
merely to set the record straight about Ismay. For
Moran has made judgments about people, notably
Churchill and Ismay to take only two, which are based
on only an intermittent contact with the subject.
Moran's only continuous contacts with Churchill were
on trips overseas, or when Churchill was ill. His
contacts with Ismay were even less frequent. Moran
never took part in the great debates, nor was he
present when the great decisions were made. As if this
were not enough, he often takes remarks made by
people like myself, late at night and under tension, as
reasoned and mature judgments. This is not the mark
of a great or even a serious historian. Churchill saw
Ismay day in day out, and I think Moran stands alone
in belittling him, since no official made a greater
contribution to winning the war than he did. Yet his
contribution might all have gone wrong had he not
said at a crucial moment what he really believed,
though it was not to the liking of Churchill, precisely the
point on which Moran misrepresents his role namely,
that he passed on only what was agreeable to Churchill.
It happened soon after Churchill became Prime
Minister and Ismay his Chief Staff Officer. Ismay was
summoned to the bedroom in the Annexe to discuss
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 ACTION THIS DAY
a paper from the Chiefs of Staff which Churchill did
not like at all; he asked Ismay to explain the reasoning
ofthe Chiefs of Staff more fully. When he had done so
he asked Ismay, 'Now tell me what do you yourself
really think?' Ismay's job was to interpret the Chiefs of
the Staff to the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister
to the Chiefs of the Staff. If he were to interpose, on
his own initiative, views and ideas of his own contrary
to an agreed Chiefs of Staff position, he would lose all
influence. So Ismay asked in return, 'Do you wish me
to be of value to you or not?' 'Naturally,' said the
Prime Minister, 'of course, I do.' 'Then,' said Ismay,
'you will never ask me that question again.' And he
never did. Contrary to Moran's view, Churchill could
be convinced by argument.
My first journey overseas with Churchill was in
I942, when we went first to Cairo and then to Moscow.
As it was my baptism in journeys abroad, and as I was
the only Private Secretary with him, it all stands out
very clearly in my mind, and was very different from
the picture given by Lord Moran. For him the visit to
Cairo was the 'sad business' of the dismissal of
Auchinleck. All agree that it was a very sad affair, but
history and historians will see much more in that
Cairo visit than just that.
Equally the visit to Moscow seems, in his version,
to be concerned with Churchill's alleged ill-temper
and the problems of the communique. One cannot say
that Churchill was not cross, or that there were not
problems with the communique, but neither of these
was the real issue.
How then should one look at these two visits?
First I think one can look at them as a method of
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 SIR LESLIE ROW AN
assessing an aspect of Churchill's character, and
secondly as among the most important turning-points
in the history of the war.
The aspect of Churchill's character which they
bring out most clearly is his courage. It is worth
recalling the position; our armies in the Middle East
had been pushed back to El Alamein, and there had
been fears that Cairo and the whole of the Middle
East might be laid open. Similarly the Russians had
only recently repulsed an attack which had partly en-
circled Moscow, and the Germans were still making
deep incursions towards the Caucasus. Finally, Molotov
had visited Britain and America in the early part of
the year to press upon us the importance of opening a
Second Front in Europe in I942, a line of policy which
was based on a deep suspicion in the Russians' minds
that we were quite ready to let their armies bleed to
death before we were prepared to risk anything in
what they regarded, quite wrongly, as the compara-
tively simple operation of invading North-West
Europe.
I do not think Churchill would have regarded the
undertaking of the journey to Cairo and to Moscow
at his age, in an unconverted Liberator bomber and
partly at any rate over hostile country, as an act of
physical courage, though courageous it was. The real
courage was of a deeper sort and lay in facing up to the
fact that he was confronted with two very unpleasant
but vital tasks, first to revitalise the armies in the
Middle East, whatever the personal consequences
might be, and second, to persuade Stalin that to open
a Second Front in Europe in 1942 would be a calamity.
He knew that unless these were accomplished the whole
251
 ACTION THIS DAY
course of the war could be changed, and that he, and
he alone, had any real chance of succeeding. To start
on these missions and then to fail in either would have
been disastrous both for our cause and for Churchill
as a political leader. Much better never to have started
at all. Such a thought never entered Churchill's head;
he saw where the course of duty led, and that was
enough for him.
The story of what happened in the Middle East is
well known; Auchinleck was removed from command,
and Alexander and Montgomery appointed, and from
then on, helped by the American Sherman tanks, we
went from victory to victory. But I doubt whether
anyone who was not there can have any idea of the
amazing impact of Churchill's presence alone on the
morale of the troops and on the command in Cairo.
The troops were dispirited, baffled and defensive in
their outlook; the command was disjointed and leader-
less. His visits to the Front gave the troops new heart,
and some of his actions in Cairo pulled up the com-
mand pretty sharply.
A single incident will clearly show one of Churchill's
great qualities, his ability to get to the root of a matter,
to pick out the essential and, again, his abhorrence of
the 'official grimace'. Harry Hopkins, President
Roosevelt's closest adviser, also had these qualities,
and Churchill once paid him the compliment of saying
that after the war he should be given a peerage and
call himself Lord Root of the Matter; even Harry
Hopkins, with all his modesty, could not refrain from
showing how much that tribute meant to him.
Churchill was rather shy of his French translation of
this- Il a la racine de la matiere dans lui-meme. I can still
252
 SIR LESLIE ROW AN
see his unrestrained delight when later in Algiers a
Frenchman said to him that this was good classical
French.
The root of the matter was that Churchill saw from
the very outset of the war the vital potential importance
of the United States, at that stage still strictly neutral.
So grew his messages from 'Naval Person [he was then
First Lord of the Admiralty] to President Roosevelt'.
No other Minister, not even the then Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain, conducted such a correspon-
dence; it was Churchill alone who saw the importance
of it and thus established a vital link in the chain of
victory. Had it not been for this correspondence,
which was conducted when Churchill became Prime
Minister under the title 'Former Naval Person', and
for the constant efforts of Churchill to strengthen
relations with Roosevelt, our armies in the Middle
East, for example, would certainly not have received
the first 350 Sherman tanks straight from the United
States production line, even before the United States
Army had itself received any. Naturally on arrival in
Cairo Churchill was anxious to have full details of their
movements. The first news was bad; a shipload had
been sunk on the way over. He so informed the
President, and within twenty-four hours had a tele-
gram to say a replacement shipload would be sent
immediately.
The second news was no better: the arrangements
for bringing them up to the battlefield were very casual,
but, worse still, they were to be used in small numbers
and not as a real mass of manoeuvre. It was this which
really finally decided Churchill that he was right in his
views that changes in command were necessary, for
253
 ACTION THIS DAY
here was the essential being ignored. These tanks would
give us parity, if not superiority, with the Germans in
fire-power. Yet, when he asked how they were to be
used, he received the reply, 'In small numbers
attached to existing formations.' 'Why not as a single
major mass of manoeuvre?' asked Churchill. Then
came the bombshell, 'Because of a shortage of motor
transport.' As on our drive from the aerodrome to
Cairo and subsequently we had seen masses of motor
transport, Churchill was not ready to take that 'no' or
'official grimace' for an answer. Out came a minute
with the red tag 'ACTION THIS DAy' asking for an
inventory of all the motor transport in the command
and an analysis of how it was being used, all this to be
provided within twenty-four hours. Back came the
reply that such a 'breakdown' of all the units in the
Middle East would take at least a week. Back went a
reply that the analysis was to be provided in the time
specified, together with some comments on the am-
biguity of the word 'breakdown' when used in this
context, a flash of wit and an insistence on the correct
use of English, which never left him even in the hardest
moments. The outcome was that the plan was changed,
and the Shermans were used as a mass of manoeuvre.
Everyone who knew General Auchinleck was sad at
what happened; less courage on the part of Churchill
in facing and himself taking responsibility for this
unpleasant decision, or less capacity in him to see the
simple truth that Auchinleck had to be replaced, could
have changed the course of the war. An even more
difficult task lay ahead in Moscow.
On out way back from Moscow to Teheran, General
Wavell wrote, while sitting on the floor of the
254
 SIR LESLIE ROWAN
Liberator, his 'Ballade of the Second Front - Lines
Written in a Liberator'. The envoi read:
Prince of the Kremlin, here's a fond farewell,
I've had to deal with many worse than you,
You took it, though you hated it like hell,
No Second Front in I942.
The great aim here was to maintain Stalin's faith in
our integrity, and yet to persuade him that to attack
North Europe in I942 would be disastrous. These lines
express the accomplishment exactly, especially the line
'You took it, though you hated it like hell.' But behind
it all lay the drama of the communique. After a suc-
cessful start, all had gone wrong, and there was a real
danger either of no communique or of a thoroughly
bad one. Stalin had not been accustomed to people
who stood up to him. So when Churchill announced
that come what may he was leaving on a certain
morning, there was in some quarters a feeling that in
a fit of bad temper he had made a dreadful mistake.
Yet events proved the contrary; it was not bad temper;
it was a calculated response to a calculated move, and
it succeeded. The communique was good, but above
all so was the achievement.
Although there was then much to be elated about,
there were also many sadnesses; for example, the shoot-
ing down of Straffer Gott and the terrible casualties of
the Malta convoy: Churchill felt all this as deeply as
anyone. Yet Churchill never lost his sense of fun.
Throughout the war this was one of his most endearing
characteristics and had a tremendous impact on our
morale. Two examples taken from the end of this most
exhausting trip will show what I mean.
255
 ACTION THIS DAY
In Cairo the Greek Government-in-exile was carry-
ing on. The man in charge was Canellopoulos, and Sir
Alexander Cadogan, head of the Foreign Office, who
was on the trip, was anxious Churchill should see him.
I tried and tried, but could only get as a reply 'Can't-
ellopoulos.' I gave up; Sir Alexander Cadogan thought
I was not trying, so I suggested that he had a try.
Churchill was going up the stairs at the Embassy to
change for dinner when Cadogan made him quite
a little speech from the foot of the stairs about
the importance of seeing Canellopoulos. Churchill
hesitated half-way up, looked very grave, and then,
retreating fast up the remammg stairs, just
said, 'Can't-ellopoulos'. In the end a meeting was
arranged.
The Press Conference on Churchill's return to Cairo
from Moscow showed both his loyalty to his staff and
his wit. The press had not been allowed to the aero-
drome, although it was now widely known that
Churchill had been in Cairo, because Smuts on his
return to South Africa had talked of his meeting with
Churchill in Cairo. Some of the press were furious,
and stupidly spent the first twenty minutes complain-
ing of this. Finally they asked, 'Were you consulted,
Mr Churchill, about the decision?' 'No,' said Churchill
in the gravest tones. You could hear the murmur of
glee go round the press; some poor official would be
in trouble. The mood changed quickly, when Mr
Churchill added, 'Which is not to say that I should
not have given the same decision had I been consulted.'
Churchill never let down his staff. This meeting was
also notable for another remarkable phrase. He had
visited some caves then being used as repair work-
256
 SIR LESLIE ROWAN
shops for the Army. From these caves had been
excavated some of the stones used for the Pyramids.
Churchill said, 'Little did these pious architects know,
when they were quarrying these stones for the
Pyramids, that their work would be put to such
profitable use,' and, after a pause, 'though I must
confess the dividend was somewhat deferred.'
So, as I look back, I recall most vividly his implicit
trust in and friendship for all of us in 'The Secret
Circle', his courage, his grasp of the essential, his sense
of humour and his capacity to inspire others.
All these qualities can be seen so often in his famous
Minutes. He was not only a master of the written word,
he was a great believer in it as a discipline. So at the
outset of the war he gave an instruction that no order
from him was to be regarded as valid unless it was in
writing. He thus imposed a discipline on himself and
gave certainty to others. Some have said that he wrote
his Minutes 'for history', as though that is a reproach.
I doubt if history will complain. But again it was a
great discipline on himself; for this committed to
paper at the moment his views, his orders, his requests;
I can think of no other great man who has ever done
this. And the Minutes were his, and not those of
others. The secret of his great speeches was that he
himself dictated all that he was going to say, for he
rarely wrote in his own hand, and, when he did, it
was not easily decipherable, a point on which he
tended to be touchy. He did not accept, even in tech-
nical matters, the official texts which had to be sub-
mitted to him. I have often felt that the versatility and
great humanity of the man would be well shown if one
could have a book with on one page the events of the
R 257
 ACTION THIS DAY
day during the war and on the opposite side the
Minutes he wrote on the same day.
These qualities did not diminish as, with the
progress of the war, he grew more tired, and as the
centre of power gradually passed to Washington
because the Americans had increasingly more men in
the field than we had. Perhaps one of his most
courageous and lonely acts was what he did for Greece
after its liberation. He saw very clearly that the so-
called liberators were really Communists; certainly
the Americans and influential sections of the Labour
Party were against the action he took; and there was
even a Vote of Censure, which was heavily defeated.
His visit to Athens at Christmas I944 and the sub-
sequent story are well known, and what is now clear
is that Greece would not have been a free country had
it not been for Churchill's courage and grasp of the
essential. It reminded me so much of the other occasion
I have mentioned when he had been so right, and the
rest so wrong, in the mid-1930s about Hitler's re-
armament. I believe that during the whole Greek
episode Churchill felt more lonely than at any other
time in the war; yet he never gave up, and never
doubted his own judgement.
Then after the war there was the famous Fulton
speech when he first referred in public to the 'iron
curtain' 1 which Stalin had drawn across Europe from
north to south. It is interesting now to recall the furore
which this speech caused; yet no other international
statesman was taking this line in public. Now the
speech in retrospect represents accepted doctrine; it
was not then. But suppose Churchill's vision had been
1 For the origins of this phrase see the note on page 34-
258
 SIR LESLIE ROW AN
proved wrong; he might never have lived it down. But
he had the courage of his convictions, and his con-
victions were right.
Among his other major convictions was that our
democratic form of government was that under which
freedom, the basis of all real human dignity and
progress, had the best chance to flourish. In many of
his actions he was in fact dictatorial, though it is
notable that he never once over-ruled the Chiefs of
Staff. But when he gave orders in relation to the con-
duct of affairs, civil or military, he expected to be
obeyed or to be told, quickly and clearly, why he
should not be; and, after so many years of laxity,
surely this was what the country needed. But this
never led him to forget that he was a democratically
elected leader, and he was always ready to submit his
leadership to the judgement of Parliament when this
was demanded by a responsible body of Parliamen-
tarians. In order to preserve this principle, he was
ready to take what some thought then to be undue
risks; he himself never thought that way. He was ready
to be judged, and he asked only that those who wished
to remove him from office should stand up and be
counted. I recall many times when he did this; I was
on duty the night before Churchill made his final
speech on the vote of censure debate of I and 2 July
I942, when the first Battle of El Alamein was at its
height, and we could not know whether the way to
Egypt and beyond would be barred.
The motion proposed by Sir John Wardlaw-
Milne and seconded by Admiral Sir Roger Keyes,
read:

259
 ACTION THIS DAY
That this House, while paying tribute to the heroism
and endurance of the Armed Forces of the Crown in
circumstances of exceptional difficulty, has no con-
fidence in the central direction of the war.
Historians will undoubtedly pay regard both to
the circumstances and to the opening sentences of
Churchill's speech:
This long Debate has now reached its final stage. What
a remarkable example it has been of the unbridled
freedom of our Parliamentary Institutions in time of
war! Everything that could be thought of or raked up
has been used to prove that Ministers are incompetent
and to weaken their confidence in themselves, to make
the Army distrust the backing it is getting from the
civil power, to make the workmen lose confidence in
the weapons they are striving so hard to make, to
represent the Government as a set of nonentities over
whom the Prime Minister towers, and then to under-
mine him in his own heart and, if possible, before the
eyes of the nation. All this poured out by cable and
radio to all parts of the world, to the distress of all our
friends, which no other country would use, or dare to
use, in times of mortal peril, such as those through
which we are passing. But the story must not end
there, and I make now my appeal to the House of
Commons to make sure that it does not end there.
The ending sentences are equally notable. He said:
The mover of this Vote of Censure has proposed that
I should be stripped of my responsibilities for Defence
in order that some military figure or some other
unnamed personage should assume the general con-
duct of the war, that he should have complete control
of the Armed Forces of the Crown, that he should be
the Chief of the Chiefs of the Staff, that he should
nominate or dismiss the generals or the admirals, that
260
 SIR LESLIE ROWAN
he should always be ready to resign, that is to say, to
match himself against his political colleagues, if col-
leagues they could be considered, if he did not get all
he wanted, that he should have under him a Royal
Duke as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and finally,
I presume, though this was not mentioned, that this
unnamed personage should find an appendage in the
Prime Minister to make the necessary explanations,
excuses and apologies to Parliament when things go
wrong, as they often do, and often will. That is at any
rate a policy. It is a system very different from the
Parliamentary system under which we live. It might
easily amount to or be converted into a dictatorship.
I wish to make it clear that as far as I am concerned
I shall take no part in such a system.
(Sir John Wardlaw-Milne here interjected, 'I hope
that my Right Honourable Friend has not forgotten
the original sentence which was "subject to the War
Cabinet".')
Churchill went on:
Subject to the War Cabinet, against which this all-
powerful potentate is not to hesitate to resign on every
occasion if he could not get his way. It is a plan, but it
is not a plan in which I should personally be interested
to take part, and I do not think that it is one which
would commend itself to this House.
The final vote was 25 in favour and 475 against.
Two other examples of his complete acceptance of
our Parliamentary system of democracy remain also
most vividly in my mind. First the fact that he took
Attlee to the Potsdam Conference with him. By that
time Attlee was Leader of the Opposition, since the
National Government had broken up and a General
Election had been held, though the results had not
26I
 ACTION THIS DAY
been announced. These were to be announced during
the Potsdam Conference once the overseas service-
men's votes had been received and counted. Attlee was
not expected to take any decisions, but he had made
available to him all the papers and information. This
was a fairly remarkable action for a Prime Minister
to take, more especially as it was at least possible that
he might be fighting for his political life as a Prime
Minister with Attlee still as Leader of the Opposition.
Actually it turned out the other way; Attlee was Prime
Minister, and his presence at the beginning of the
Potsdam Conference, to which he returned two days
after the General Election, certainly provided a con-
tinuity which could not have been assured otherwise.
Of course, Churchill was greatly disappointed that
at his moment of triumph he was rejected; I saw him
perhaps more that day than any other official, and it
was one of the saddest days of my life. I was certainly
very bitter, but not so Churchill. No single word of
condemnation passed his lips; this was the working
of the system, and he accepted it. Indeed he would
have said that it was precisely this freedom of choice
for which we had fought. But for him the system was
not merely Parliament; it was also the Civil Service;
for he said to me, immediately he was back from his
resignation visit to the Palace, 'You must not think of
me any more; your duty is now to serve Attlee, if he
wishes you to do so. You must therefore go to him, for
you must think also of your future.' I am bound to
confess that I broke down and cried, but obeyed. One
of the greatest joys of my life as a Civil Servant has
been that the system, based on complete confidence
and loyalty irrespective of _politics, enabled me to be
262
 SIR LESLIE ROW AN
a friend of both Churchill and Attlee, equally while
they were still in politics as when they had retired.
To those of us in 'The Secret Circle' it was his warm
friendship we valued most. This was no normal rela-
tionship between master and servant; he was the master
who demanded much, sometimes unreasonably much,
who did not often understand the normal mechanics
of life. Thus in the White House when I was with him
as the only Private Secretary, he said about three
o'clock one afternoon, 'You look tired, I'm going to
sleep, I hope you will too.' I thanked him and said
I would; but, of course, I had my work to do. So I did
it, and had no sleep. But his remark did not prevent
him asking immediately he woke up, 'What is the
news?' Had I not known the answer I think a reference
to sleep would not have profited me much.
He was quite often inconsiderate, though this had
its compensations. After the war I served Stafford
Cripps when he was Minister for Economic Affairs.
He was an early riser and went early to bed. But he
said to me once, 'I never minded being called by
Churchill late at night, or even in the early hours of
the morning, for it was then that you really got down
into his mind.' But we all felt, rightly, that we were
serving a real leader; such a person as is only produced
once in a century, even if that often. It would surely
be enough for anyone merely to serve, and ask or
receive no more. :But we received from him, and, let
me add, from Mrs Churchill, the most precious gift
of all, his friendship for us as individuals, irrespective
of our jobs and duties. For me at any rate I could wish
for nothing more.
But actually I did receive more, for I have a very
263
 ACTION THIS DAY
personal reason to be grateful to Churchill for taking
me into his service. Had it not been for that I should
not have met the Wren who was to become my wife. I
have four children, and this carried out the advice he
gave me some three or four months after we were
married. It was late at night, or rather early in the
morning; he was in one of his most difficult and
puckish moods, and just would not get ahead with his
work, especially the Answers to Parliamentary Ques-
tions for the next day. (This was a quite usual course,
but it did not in fact mean he was wasting his time; he
was working out in his mind the Answers to Supp-
lementaries in which he could be quite devastating).
The following conversation ensued:
'Do you approve that answer, Sir?'
A pause.
'How many children have you?'
'None, sir,' -in a rather surprised tone of voice, in
view of my recent marriage.
'Oh, and how many do you propose to have?'
'We have not come to any final view on that yet,
sir. But how many should we have?'
Without any hesitation, Churchill replied: 'You
should have four.'
I could not leave it at that, so I asked: 'Why?'
Again, without any hesitation: 'One to reproduce
your wife, one to reproduce yourself, one for the
increase in population, and one in case of accident.'
I was able to report to him in 1958 that I had carried
out his instructions to the letter.
This is merely a short account of how I saw
Churchill as a man; it is not an attempt to analyse
264
 SIR LESLIE ROWAN
his war policy or his place in history, national or inter-
national. Time and others will do that.
But his place, as a man, in the hearts of all Britons
was surely established beyond doubt by his last journey
of all, to St Paul's, on the River Thames and finally to
Bladon churchyard. On that last journey by train
from Waterloo to Bladon, after the great crowds of
London, two single figures whom I saw from the
carriage window epitomised for me what Churchill
really meant to ordinary people; first on the flat roof
of a small house a man standing at attention in his old
R.A.F. uniform, saluting; and then in a field, some
hundreds of yards away from the track, a simple
farmer stopping work and standing, head bowed, and
cap in hand.
 Index
Abdication crisis, 73, 76
Abyssinia, 6o
Acheson, Dean, 6o, g8
Adenauer, Dr Konrad, 137
Admiralty, r6, 158-g, 164. r68, 171,
195. 218
Agedabia, 61
Air Ministry, 195
Alanbrooke, Viscount, 61, 145, 150,
165, 193, 195
Aldrich, Winthrop, 128
Alexander, Field-Marshal Lord, 63,
94· 124,252
Alexander, A. V. (later Lord Alex-
ander of Hillsborough), 105
Anderson, Sir John (later Viscount
Waverley), 105, 189, 233
'Anvil', Operation, 200
Anzio, II4
Army Group, 21st, 88, I 16
Asquith and Oxford, Lord, 99
Athens, II5, 199,212,258
Atlantic Charter, I 32, I 53,
200
Attlee, Lord, 73, 75, 78, 105, u6-17,
261-3
Auchinleck, Field-Marshal
Claude,62,250,252,254
.Augusta, U .S.S., 205
Austria, 83
Avon, Lord- see Eden, Anthony
Baden, 83
Bagehot, Walter, 15
Baldwin of Bewdley, Stanley, Earl,
55, 73,81
Balkan Federation, 83
Baruch, Bernard, 129
Bavaria, 83
Beatty, Lord, 62
Beaverbrook, Lord, 50, 6g, 86, IOI,
u7, 122, 124, 148; relationship
with C, 105--Q, I 77, I go
Benes, Eduard, 96
Berlin, 34, 95, I 99
Bermuda Conference, 42, 124, 131,
134-5
Bevan,Aneurin,79,234
Bevin, Ernest, 78, 105,235
Bevir, Sir Anthony, I I I, 247
Bidault, Georges, 131
Birkenhead, F. E. Smith, Lord, 38, 55
Birse, Major, 216
Boer War, 106
Bonham-Carter, Lady Violet (now
Baroness Asquith ofYarnbury), 65,
96n
Borrow, George, 155
Bracken, Brendan (later Viscount),
49, 105, II7, 124; relationship with
C, IOD-I, 177
Bridges, Sir Edward, 51, 52, roo, 166,
169
Britannia, H.M.S., 64-5
Brooke, Sir Alan - see Alanbrooke,
Viscount
Sir Brussels Treaty, I 33
Burgin, Leslie, 58
Butler, R. A. (now Baron Butler of
Saffron Walden), IOI, 120, 123,
124, 125, 130
Cabinet, C's relationship with, r88-
I92, 229. See also War Cabinet
Cadogan, Sir Alexander, 52, 256
Cairo, 209,250,251-4,256
Camrose, Lord, I 24
Canellopoulos, Panayotis, 256
Capd'Ail, 122,125
Capel-Dunn, Colonel, 2 I 1
267
 INDEX
~thage, tog, II3-14, 145
Casablanca Conference, 141, Ig8,
!log, !III
Chamberlain, Neville, 48, 49, so, 73o
158, 162, 163, 218, 253; C's con-
sideration for, 55-6, 219; conduct of
Cabinet business, 159, 161, 185
Char~ll,43,6g,7o, 184
Chatfield, Lord, 158, 161, 162
Chequers, 27, 52, 61, 82, 8g, 103, I 13,
125, 141, 143, 183, 188, 222, 238,
2{8-g;routine, 17g-8o,246-8
Cherwell, Frederick Lindemann,
Lord, 49, 52, 97, IOO, 151, 163,
177; anti-German, 86, 87, 102; re-
lationship with C, 102-5
Chiefs of Staff, 22, 27, 32, {8, 50, 51,
52, 53, 61, gg-too, 176, 188; Com-
mittee, tg-20, 21, 6g, 163, 165,
16g-7o, 193-4, 198; smooth work-
~ with, 52, IOO, 156-7, 162-5,
167, 170, 192-5, 196-7, 208, 250,
259
Churchill, Sir Winston:
CAREER: First Lord of Admiralty,
16, {8, gg, 158-6I, 163-4; in poli-
tical wilderness, 17, 73, 158, 163,
Igo, 242-4; appointed Prime Mini-
ster, 17, 18, 48, 49, 155-6, 162,
1118-Ig; formation of Coalition, 18,
219; his 1940 rallying of nation,
18-tg, 139, 154-6, 175; as Minister
of Defence, 19--20, 51, 165, 192;
defeat in 1945 Election, go, 37, 42,
262; as Leader of Opposition, 37,
98; as post-war Prime Minister,
37-9· 4o-6, s8-g. 6g, 75. tog,
u8-g8; break-up of Coalition, 39,
78, 237; strokes, 40, 43-4, 123-5;
retirement, 45-6, 76, 126, 138; in-
vigorating effect on Whitehall, 49-
51, 220; Washington visits, 6o,
128-g, I3I--2, 135; his two last par-
liamentary performances, 72-3;
eightieth birthday, I 19, 137; Mos-
cow visit, 214-16, 250, 254-5; vote
of censure debate (1942), 25g-61;
~eraljoumey,264-5
ATI'ITUDE TO, AND OPlNIONS ON:
America, 82-3, 95-7, 128-35• 154.
1100, 1105-13, 1153: battleships,
268
power of, 202; bomber offensive,
86; British Empire, 1103-4; chil-
dren, optimum number of, 1164;
civil aspects of government, 37-8,
151-3, 232-4; Cold War, 121, 1116,
130, 132-7; Communism, 79, 95,
1112, 258; Conservative Party, 38,
73; democracy, 74, 1511, 25g-62;
domestic politics, 37-8, 151-g;
Dominions, 1103-4; Europe, post-
war, 33-4, 35-7, 41, 811-4, 93-5,
97-g, 1117, 133-7, 154, 199; Fas-
cism, 79; Germany, 811, 83-4, 8s-
8g, 1117, 133, tgg; hydrogen bomb,
IIII-11, 1115; inventions, new, 147-8,
2011-3; Joint Planning Staff, 195-
196; Labour Party, 78-g; monar-
chy, 76, 153; Parliament, 45, 73-
74, 1511-3, 11119, 25g-62; party
politics, gB-g; personal contacts
with heads of state, 6o--2, lllo-I,
205-7, 21o-16; personal staff, 25-
117, 56, 64-s. I4Q-2, 2111-7, 248-
249, 1163; public schools, 74; Russia,
33-4, 35-6, 811, 84, 85, ag-g5, 1116,
131--2, 133-8, 199, 209-10, 214-
216; social reform, I 53; Socialism,
g8, 78; Statement of War Aiins,
81-2; War Office, 195; Western
policy, 34, 36, 127-37; women, 65;
World Organisation, 82, 153-4 ;
young people, 65
CHARACTERISTICS AND HABITS:
administrator, weakness as, 51--2,
I5o-1, 162; aloofness from col-
leagues, I go-I; appetite, 182-g;
argument, love of and method o£
27-8, 185-6, 1125-7, 231; candoU:,
~22-4; ~ Cavalier, 59, 152;
character, self-presentation as,
142, 149: charm, 53. 66-7, toB;
chivalry to defeated, 6o, 86; cigar-
smoking, 1811; community welfare,
concern for, 57-9, 142, 153; con-
centration, 40, 173, 175-7, 178,
tgo, 203; consideration, 55-6
57-8, 1163; consideration, lack of
25, 56-7, I{Q-I, 1138-g, 263; con:
versation, 26, 67-8, 1{8; courage,
19, 44• 117-18, 123, 146, 184, 213,
25o-I, 258; decisions, taking of,
 INDEX
2I, I9I-2, 222-3, 236--8; declining
powers, go-I, g6, 43-6, I I4, I I6,
Ilg-20, I26, I37-8, 236-7; detail,
concentration on, ISI, I77, I86--8;
dignity, sense of, 191; discussion,
liking for, 21, I91--2, 222-3, 23I,
232; dominating role, alleged un-
due, 234-5; dreams, I I 7; drink,
I82-3; emotionalism, I42; energy,
II2-I6, I43-5, Iso, 168, I75-6,
I 82, I 89; essentials, grasp of, I 78,
252, 258; exacting demands, 24-5,
56-7, 64, I4I, 238; exercise, lack of,
II g, I 45, I 83-4; forceful personal-
ity, 19, 27, 28, 18I; foresight, 33-4,
I27-8, 145,242;friendships,6o, 6g-
64, 65, 99-I I I; generosity, 25, 26-7,
57, I42; health, go-I, g6, 40,
43-5, roi, 109, u2, ug-16, I22-6,
I45, 192, 237; history, sense of, ISS,
I78, I84; hospitality, 57; human-
ity, 25, 53, 79; humour and fun,
sense of, 53, I9I, 222, 255-6;
'impressionable nature', I46; judg-
ment, independence of, 63, 109,
177-8; judgment of people, faulty,
6I-2, 173; language, 66, 7I, 146-7,
I81-2; loyalty, 63, 172-3, I89-go,
256; memory, I47-8; military
strategist, 27-8, 34, 61, 94, 113-14,
148-g, 192, 193, 198-203; Minutes
and messages, 20, 2I-g, 40, so,
52-3, 144, 149, I5o-1, I69, 17I,
188-g, I93, 228-g, 257; mono-
logue, tendency to, 26, 67, 148, 192,
230; new faces, dislike of, 25, 29;
'official grimace', dislike of, 245,
252, 254; ordinary life, ignorance
of, s6, 59-60, I42; people, alleged
lack of interest in, 28-g, s6, 57-8;
persuasiveness, 66-7; poetry, reper-
tory of, 68; radicalism, 73, 75;
routine, 180-4; ruthlessness, pre-
tended, 53-4; sensitivity, I42, 146;
simplicity, 53, 143; sleep, capacity
for instant, 180-I; speech prepara-
tion, 4o-I, 69-73, I44; straight-
forwardness, 81, 142; strong will,
27, 43-4, 125, I49; style, 7I--2,
I46-7; sympathy, 29-30, 53-4,
ss-6, 57. 79; a traditionalist, 73·
26g
75-6; travel, extensive, 204-5, 2I2l
vanity, absence of, 53, I84, I91;
warfare, old-fashioned view of,
20o-2; wit, 26, 67, II7, 120, 256-7;
work, appetite for, 143-5; working
methods, 2I-3, 40, 49-SI, 69-73,
II4, 144, 169-70, I78-g, I93-5,
228-35, 246--8 ('Action this Day'
labels, 40, so, I I9, 144, I68, 229,
247-8, 254; boxes, 114, I78-g;
Minutes and messages, 20, 21-3,
40, so, 52-g, I44, 149. 15o-I, I69,
I71, 188-g, 193,228-g,257)
Churchill, Lady, u, 26, 63, 64, 65,
75, 113, II7, 136, I57, 221, 222,
248,263
Churchill, Lord Randolph, 45, 74,
I 52
Clemenceau, Georges, 82
Co-ordination of Defence, Minister
of, I 58, 161, I62, 243
Cole, Sterling, 12I
Colville, John, 43
Combined Chiefs of Staff, 193, 236
Combined Operations, I94
Commanders-in-Chief, 'prodding' of,
22, 188-g, 194-5
Commonwealth Prime Ministers,
meetings of, 42
Conservative Party, 39, 46, 73, 76,
118; Margate conference (1953),
I24
Constantinople, 83
Cooper, Alfred Duff (later Lord
Norwich), 105
Cooper, Lady Diana, 65
Coty, Rene, 137
Council of Europe, 37, 41,83-4
Cranborne, Lord and Lady, 111
Salisbury
Crete, 61--2
Crewe, Lord, 99
Cripps, Sir Stafford, 58, 78, 86, Ios,
263
Curtin, John, 204
Curzon Line, 94
Daily Worker, So
Dalton, Dr Hugh (later Lord), 105
Danubian Confederation, 83
Dardanelles, 27
 INDEX
de Gaulle, General, S2-3, S4, gS, 200
Defence Committee, 20, 54, 192, 193,
194
Defence Registry, 169
Des borough, Lady, 65
Dewey, Thomas, 130
Dill, Sir John, 56, Sg
Disraeli, Benjamin, 74
Ditchley, 97
Dominion Prime Ministers, 22, 203-4
Dowding, Air Chief Marshal, 6o, 172
'Dragoon', Operation, 115
Duff, Lady Juliet, 65
Dugdale, Captain, 49
Dulles, John Foster, 129, 130, 132,
133
Duncan, Sir Andrew, 105, 1Sg
Dunglass, Lord (now Sir Alec
Douglas-Home), 49
DUDJcirk, 1S, 139, 154, 171
Dykes, Brigadier, 211
Eastern Federation, S4
Eden, Anthony (now Lord Avon), 41,
43· 49. 52, S7--8, 101, 124, 126, 131,
134, 135-6; as C's successor, 4S• 77,
124; relationship with C, 105,
107--8, 126
Eisenhower, General Dwight D., S4,
42. 61, 95. 124, 127, I28-S5· IS7.
199, 212
El Alamein, 201,251, 259
Elizabeth II, 64, 124, 125
European Defence Community, g8-g,
127, 13S· IS7
Fighter Command, 172
Food, Ministry of, 59
Foot, Michael, So
Foreign Office, 71, 77--8, 107--8, 125,
134· 147
Fourteen Points, Wilson's, S2
Fraser, Peter, 106
Freyberg, General Sir Bernard, 62
Fulton, C's speech at, 37, 94, 25S
Gallacher, William, 79
General Election (1945), so, S7, 3S,
75. 7S, 213, 2SS, 261--2
George VI, 4S• 76, 115
George II of Greece, 77
270
Gestapo, S4, S5
Gifford, Walter, 128
Gneisenau, 246
Goebbels,Josef, s4n
Gordon-Finlayson, General, 18o
Greece, s6, 51-2, 77, S4, 92, g6, 115,
199, 212, 25S
Grigg, Sir James, 1S9
Hague, The, S3
Halifax, Lord, 49, 71, 74, 105
Hankey, Lord, 1Sg, 222
Harris, Sir Arthur, S6, 93
Harrow, 65, 74, 146
Hitler, Adolf, Ss, S4, S5, Sg, 242
Hoare, Sir Samuel (later Viscount
Templewood), 243
Hollis, General Sir Leslie, 99, 165,
169, 170, 194, 197
Hopkins, Harry, S5, S1--2, S4, 205,
20S, 252
House of Commons: C's regard for,
SO, 42, 44, 45, 120, 152-3, 25g-61;
his speeches in, 6S, 7o-3, 242-4
Hull, Cordell, SS
Hungary, So, S3
Hyde Park Agreement, S7, 121--2
Imperial Defence, Committee of
(C.I.D.), 15S, 165-7
India, independence of, 42, 73
Indo-China, 126
Inskip, Sir Thomas (later Lord
Caldecote), 15S
'Iron Curtain', S4, 77, 94, 25S
Ismay, General Sir Hastings (later
Baron), 22, 51, 56, 63, 66, 99-100,
166, 16S, 16g, 221, 23S; responsi-
bility for smooth working with
Chiefs of Staff, 52, 100, 156-7,
162-5, 167, 170, 192, 194-5. 196-7,
250; Moran on, 249-50
Jacob, Sir Ian, 99,221, 23S
Jefferis, Brigadier Millis, 203
Joint Planning Staff, 50, 194, 195-6
Kennedy, Joseph, 50
Kenya, 127
Keyes, Admiral Sir Roger, 62-3, 259
King, Mackenzie, 106
 INDEX

Komorowski, General B6r, 91-2 Moran, Lord, 115, 118, 34-6, 70, I48,
I50; on C's alleged declining
Labour Party, 37, 39, 78-g, 8o, I 18, powers, 3o-1, 36-7, II!I-I6, 146,
258 !IIo; on 'deteriorating relationship'
Laniel,Joseph, 131 with Roosevelt, 36-7, I Ill, 146,
Lascelles, Sir Alan, I 24 !IIO; relationship with C, IOg-I6,
Laycock, Sir Robert, 62 1113-4, 249; on Ismay, 149-50
Leathers, Lord, 63, 104, 189, 235 Morgenthau Plan, 87-8
Lend-Lease, 96, 2o6 Morrison, Herbert (later Lord
Lindemann, Frederick - see Cherwell, Morrison of Lambeth), So, 105
Lord Morton, Major Sir Desmond, 49, 511,
Lloyd George, David, Earl, 52, 81, II2, 163
99,163,235 Moscow, 2II, !II2, 214-16, 115o-I,
London Conference (1954), 126, 133 254-5
Lord President's Committee, 233 Mossadeq, Dr Muhammad, Ill9
Loxley, Peter, !III Mountbatten, Admiral of the Fleet
Lvov,94 Earl, 194
Lyttelton, Oliver (now Lord Chandos), Mussolini, Benito, 84
105, 163
Lytton, Lady, 65 N.A.T.O., Ill7, 133
Nehru,Jawaharlal, 42
Macaulay, Lord, 216-17 Normanbrook, Lord, 108
McMahon, Senator, 121 Northern Confederation, 83
Macmillan, Harold, I 26, I 36 Norwegian campaign, 48, 15g-6o
Malaya, 127
Maleme,62 Oran, 142
Malenkov, Georgi, 134, 136 Other Club, 38
Malkin, Sir William, 2 I I Ottawa, 711
Mao Tse-tung, 127 'Overlord', Operation, 91, I 15
Margate, Conservative conference at
(1953). 124, 125 Palmerston, Lord, 15
Margesson, Captain David, 49, 51 Patton, General George, 20!1
Marmalade Cat, 69 Pavlov (interpreter), !115
Marsh, Sir Edward, 64 Pearson, Drew, 95
Martin, Sir John, li4I,ll45 'Perimeter Defence', 98, 127
Masefield,John, 3I Peter II ofYugoslavia, 77
MauMau, Ill7 Philip, Prince, Duke of Edinburgh,
Maxton, James, 79 64
Middle European Federation, 83 Pitt, William, I 54, 2 I 6- I 7
Mihailovich, General Draza, go Placentia Bay, 205
Mikolajcik, Stanislaw, 94 Poland, 52, 91-2, 93-4, !I Ill
Military Co-ordination Committee, Political Honours Scrutiny Com-
48, I6I, I63 mittee, 247-8
Ministers, C's relationship with, Portal, Air Marshal Sir Charles (later
I05-g, I88-gi, !l!lo-I, !1!18-g, 1130, Viscount), 165, 195
!134-5 Potsdam Conference, 33, n6, 129,
Molotov, V. M., 511, I34> 135, !1I4, !II5 !161-2
Monckton, Sir Walter (later Pound, Admiral Sir Dudley, 165, 195
Viscount), I!l6 Pownall, General Sir Henry, 171
Montgomery of Alamein, Viscount, Prague,83,95, 199
68,!15!1 Primrose League, 73
 INDEX
PrinceQ[Wales, H.M.S., !!05
Prussia, 83-4, 85
Quebec Conferences, 35, 87-8, I 15,
121
Queen Elizabeth, 135
Quisling, Major, 8o
Radescu, General, g4
Rhine, crossing of, 88, I 16
Rome, Treaty of, gg
Roosevelt, Franklin D., !1!1, 48, 51,
61, 77, go, gs, g7, 106, 143, 1gg,
!ZOO, !105; special relationship with
C, !12, 6o, 205-13, 236, 253;
'deterioration of relations', 31, 36,
II!!, 146, 21o-I3; failing health,
32, 34-5, 115, 145, 213; at Yalta,
33, 35, 213; illusions over Russia,
33, 35, g1-2, 210; at Quebec, 35,
115, 12!1; and Stalin, 36, 20g-lo,
!II!!, 213; and treatment of
Germany, 87-8; and aid to Britain,
I 75, 205-6, 253; method of dealing
with Ministers, 208; at Teheran,2og
Rosebery, 6th Earl, 61
Salisbury, Robert Cecil, 5th
Marquess of, 105, 107, 124, 133, 136
Salisbury, Marchioness of, 65
San Francisco Conference, !II!!
Sandys, Duncan, g8, 104. 163
Scharnhorst, 202, 246
Second Front, 36; Russian pressure
for, 14g, 215, 251, 254-5
•Secret Circle', I 10, 142, 2!11, !141,
!148-g,257.263
Sedan,4g,2o1
Sherman tanks, 252, 253-4
'Shingle', Operation, 113
Shoeburyness, 246
Sidi Barrani, 85
Sinclair, Sir Archibald (now Lord
Thurso), 50, 105, 1g5
Smuts, Field Marshal Jan, 105, 106-7,
204,231,256
Soames, Christopher, 108-g, 130
Soames, Mrs Christopher (Mary
Churchill), !125
Stalin, Josef, !1!1, 36, go, 106, 12g,
131, !!Dg-10, !158; and Poland,
272
g1-2; and Roosevelt, 36, !!Og-Io,
!112; and Churchill, 213-16;
Moscow meeting with (1g42),
!114-15,251,254-5
Stettinius, Edward, 5!1
Stewart, Brigadier, !III
Strasbourg, 37
Stuart, James, 78
Suez Canal, 107, 126
Supreme War Council, 168
Teheran Conference, 35, go, 2og, 210
Templer, Field-Marshal Sir Gerald,
62, 1!17
Thompson, Commander, 67, 10g
Tito, Marshal, 77, go
'Torch', Operation, 215
Truman, Harry S., 33, 6o, 61, 128, I!lg
Turkey, 83, 84
United Nations, 41
Vanguard, H.M.S., 124, 130
Vansittart, Sir Robert (later Baron),85
Vienna, 83, 1gg, 21!1
War Cabinet, !18, 3g, 51, !ZI8; and
military leaders, 52, 162-5, 167,
1g2, 1g4-5; formation of, 158, 168;
C's and Chamberlain's contrasting
conduct of, 15g, 185, 23o-2;
working of, 168-72, 221-40; C's
high regard for, 229-30; Lord
President's Committee, !133; C's
alleged dominance of, !134-6
War Office, 78, 1g5
Wardlaw-Milne, Sir John, !15g, 261
Warsaw, 83, g1-2
Washington, I 28-g, I 31, I 35
Wavell, Lord, 61-2, 85, 254; failure
to establish relationship with C, 61,
!86
Western European Union, 1!16
Wilson, Sir Horace, 4g
Wilson, Woodrow, 77,82
Winant, John, 8g, g6
Woolton, Lord, 63, 104, 105, !135
Wiirttemberg, 83
Yalta Conference, 33, 35, g2--g, g6n,
II6, 145, 211 1 !113