BRITAIN AND A NEW ORDER
Sta,—The letters from Dr. Edwyn Bevan and Mr. Mander in your issue of July 18th illustrate the difficulties of discussing the subject of political warfare and war/peace aims within the inevitable limita- tions of the space you can spare. It is for this reason that I have felt it to be necessary to set forth my views in some detail in a book entitled Total Victory, shortly to be published by Messrs. Faber and Faber. I hope it will stimulate discussion on what I feel to be a vital and hitherto neglected aspect of our war-effort. What I, and those who think with me, have been asking for is not precise details of future frontiers. We want ammunition for political warfare on the German home-front, so as to create an agenda for controversy inside Germany and thus supplement the effect of our military operations• from outside Germany.
Mr. Mander asks me to be more precise. I have made definite proposals (too lengthy to be quoted here) in my book, but in general they are an expansion of Lord Halifax's eighth point quoted by Mr. Mander. Since I wrote my article in your issue of July 12th, the Prime Minister has said that it would be " better still" if the destruc- tion of the Nazi regime was brought about by the German people. Little attention seems to have been paid to this significant statement. It should be developed by our new Minister of Information.
Your two correspondents contradict each other in their summaries of what we have said we are going to do with victory. This is not surprising, for we have said many things since September, 1939, but neither of them tackle the problem of how we should wage political warfare in order to help our military forces to achieve victory.
There are many points in Dr. Bevan's letter with which I disagree, but I will mention one. He seems to think we must not concern ourselves with the nature of the political life selected by nations. Surely, experience has shown that it matters supremely to us whether or not nations " select " to be Nazis or Fascists. See the last words of Lord Halifax's third point.—Yours truly, STEPHEN KING-HALL.
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