Churchill Defiant: Fighting On 1945–1955. Barbara Leaming

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СКАЧАТЬ that victory had been secured, however, Cranborne maintained that Churchill ought to ‘face facts and retire’ without delay. Had not Churchill himself taken a similar view of Cranborne’s grandfather in the twilight of his career?

      During the war, the Tory party had been allowed to disintegrate on almost every conceivable level. Churchill was not a party man and never had been, and from the time he became the party’s leader in 1940 he had shown no interest in overseeing its affairs. As a consequence, by 1945 there was no management, no organization, and no programme. Lacking specific policies, Tories had fought the general election on the aura of the Churchill name and record. In the wake of overwhelming defeat, there was broad agreement that Conservatism needed to be drastically rethought. In Cranborne’s view, the effort needed to begin immediately under younger leadership. Anthony Eden had long been his ‘horse’ in the political race. From the outset, Cranborne’s career in politics had been closely tied to Eden’s. Cranborne started out as Eden’s parliamentary private secretary, and Eden and he grabbed headlines together in 1938 when they resigned as Foreign Secretary and Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs respectively in protest at the Chamberlain Government’s appeasement of Mussolini.

      The description of Cranborne as Eden’s under secretary belied a more intricate relationship. Cranborne was Eden’s most powerful political supporter. Cranborne did not himself aspire to the premiership; influence was what he was after, and he viewed an Eden Government as the best way to secure it. As a politician, Eden benefited from the prestige of a connection to the house of Cecil, as well as from Cranborne’s superior intellect and cunning. Cranborne was also the nervier by far. He often quietly but insistently pressed Eden to act as Eden almost certainly would never have dared on his own. Eden, whose theatrical good looks and sartorial elegance contrasted sharply with Cranborne’s less photogenic appearance, attended the meeting on 1 August 1945 to discuss Churchill’s future.

      Also present was Britain’s Ambassador to the US, Lord Halifax, who had returned from Washington on leave the previous day. When Chamberlain resigned in 1940, Halifax had been his choice to replace him as prime minister, as well as that of King George VI and much of the Conservative Party, but Halifax had declined in favour of Churchill. (Halifax calculated that the public clamour for Churchill was so great that any other appointment would inevitably be overshadowed by his looming presence in the Government. Halifax took consolation in the judgement that Churchill’s character flaws made it likely that his tenure would be brief.) When Churchill became prime minister, he returned the favour by shipping Halifax off to Washington lest he re-emerge as a political rival.

      For Churchill, who could be as passionate about fighting off real and potential rivals for power as he was about fighting the war, there had been an additional advantage to replacing Halifax as Foreign Secretary with Anthony Eden. As the Conservative Chief Whip James Stuart later observed, Churchill ‘knew he could bully Anthony … but not Halifax’. By exiling him to the US, Churchill lowered the curtain on Halifax’s political career. Five years later, Halifax was one of those who believed the time had come for Churchill to bow out, and by his reckoning, Churchill was fortunately not one of those individuals whose sole interest in life is his work. There were many activities that afforded him much pleasure, but that he had had little time to pursue during his premiership. Among other things he was an author and painter, and Halifax believed he might actually welcome a chance to be free of the burdens of leadership and retire of his own accord.

      Eden thought he knew Churchill’s mood better. Cranborne, as well, was far from optimistic that Churchill would willingly step down, and his strategy was to ease him out of power. Churchill had been asked to go to New Zealand to be honoured for his war service, and Cranborne was determined that he accept that invit ation, as well as many similar ones that were sure to follow from around the world. While Churchill was abroad, Eden would run the party in his stead. Halifax was set to see Churchill at 5 p.m. that day, and Eden was to dine with him after that. Cranborne urged both visitors to press Churchill to go to New Zealand, and generally to entice him with the joys of retirement. Halifax readily agreed, but Eden hesitated.

      This was partly a matter of propriety on Eden’s part, partly a matter of self-preservation. He flinched at the unseemliness of trying to push Churchill aside in open pursuit of his own interests. He did not wish to appear vulgarly ambitious. Was that not among the very qualities in Churchill that had long repelled him and many others? At the same time, Eden longed to lead the Opposition and he did not want to do or say anything to provoke Churchill to turn against him at this late date and to name another successor. During the war, Churchill had been known to taunt him with the names of other ‘possibles’ – Oliver Lyttelton, John Anderson, Harold Macmillan. By Eden’s lights, the wait to succeed Churchill had been long and excruciating, and he did not want to jeopardize his position before the handover actually took place. But Cranborne was insistent, and as had often been the case between the two friends, Eden reluctantly gave in to the stronger will.

      As it happened, 1 August was also the closing day of the Potsdam Conference. The plenary sessions were set to wind up that night, and Halifax was scheduled to be present at the King’s meeting with Truman in England the following day. The talks had failed to produce anything like the settlement Churchill had been chasing. When the newly configured British delegation returned to Potsdam, Stalin had viewed Attlee warily and had insisted on grilling him and Ernest Bevin, the new Foreign Secretary, about Churchill’s fate. Long preoccupied with averting his own removal from office, Stalin was palpably shaken by the news from London. If Churchill was dispensable, presumably the same was true of Stalin. He did not like the change. He would not have it. For two days he failed to show up at the conference table. Ostensibly he was ailing but Truman suspected the real reason was that he was upset about Churchill. When Stalin did reappear, he seemed to have lost interest in the proceedings.

      Under the circumstances, Potsdam and all it signified to Churchill cast a shadow over Halifax’s visit to Claridge’s. Rather than listen to his guest’s paean to memoir-writing and other activities to be looked forward to in retired life, Churchill preferred to mourn the loss of power and efficacy. In conversation, he dwelled on the fact that only a week had passed since he had been at Potsdam. He found that impossible to believe. How could everything have changed so quickly?

      By the time he saw Eden, he had begun to dwell on the mistakes that might have led to his defeat. It was widely believed that by attacking Labour too violently Churchill had diminished his hard-won status as a national hero who stood above the political fray. On the present occasion, he lamented that if only Eden had not been ill with a duodenal ulcer during the campaign he would have had the advantage of his heir’s advice and avoided that perhaps fatal error. In making such a claim, Churchill was flattering Eden in the conviction – which had helped to sustain the number two man during the war – that he served as a ‘restraining hand’ on Churchill’s often monstrously poor judgement. (As Pug Ismay once put it, ‘Some men need drink. Others need drugs. Anthony needs flattery.’) Over the course of the evening, Churchill clutched Eden to his bosom, insisted the younger man was his ‘alter ego’, and otherwise strove to convey how much he valued and depended on him. But the love fest was short-lived. When Eden dared to suggest that the party vice-chairmanship be awarded to a close friend of his own, a man associated in people’s minds with Eden’s interests, Churchill exploded. The charm, the flattery, the unctuous affection – all dissolved in an instant. Furious at being pushed, Churchill made it clear that he had his own candidate for the post.

      After Eden left at midnight, Churchill swallowed a sleeping pill and went to bed. Since Saturday when the Potsdam talks had resumed without him, he had found that even after taking a ‘red’ he was unable to sleep through until morning. For the fifth night in a row, he shot awake at 4 a.m., his thoughts racing uncontrollably, and he required a second barbiturate pill to sleep.

      In the days that followed, Churchill in his misery was of various minds about how to proceed. He tested some of the suggestions others had made, but none appeared to satisfy him. He spoke of his war memoirs, but despaired of the taxes he would be required to pay on the earnings. СКАЧАТЬ