17 OCTOBER 1998, Page 27

Sir: Richard Lamb assures us that Edward Heath is correct,

Frank Johnson is wrong and Munich was a disaster. But a disaster for whom?

We now know, of course, what Hitler thought of Munich in retrospect (early 1945): 'From the military point of view it was to our interest to begin it [the war] a year earlier. In 1938 I ought to have seized the initiative, instead of letting it be thrust upon me in 1939 ... At Munich we lost a unique opportunity of easily and swiftly winning a war that was in any case inevitable.' Indeed, he thought it was all the fault of Chamberlain, who was merely play- ing for time!

Michael McAllen

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