Two realms, two peoples, two leaders

Richard Lamb

CHURCHILL'S GRAND ALLIANCE: THE ANGLO- AMERICAN SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP, 1940-1957 by John Charmley John Curtis/ Hodder & Stoughton, 120, pp. 427 John Charmley by this book maintains his reputation as a lively and controversial historian. But he goes too far when he reiterates his defence of the appeasers and writes:

Appeasement [in the Thirties] was the only road open to a statesman who wished to preserve the power of the United Kingdom and its empire.

This is a perversion of history which must be contradicted. It is indisputable that Hitler could have been stopped dead in his tracks by force in March 1936 when, defy- ing Locarno and Versailles, he sent his troops into the demilitarised Rhineland. It is indisputable that then given proper British encouragement the French would have thrown him out with their army with little difficulty.

Again Munich in 1938 was a disaster, because when the war started 12 months later, France and Britain were in a much weaker position vis-à-vis Germany. In 1938 not only would the Czech army have fought hard against the Nazis but Russia would have come in on the Allied side, while there is also strong evidence to suggest that the German Generals' plot might have top- pled Hitler.

Still the meat of this book is the special relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt. Here Charmley has done considerable research and is stimulating and interesting, although in places naive. I agree with him that the 'Churchill portrait' of this relationship is a myth. The two did not get on well, and the image of two statesmen conducting the war in perfect harmony as painted in Churchill's own memoirs and his official biography is false.

Charmley is on strong ground in arguing that Roosevelt could never have persuaded Congress to declare war if it had not been for Pearl Harbor. He demolishes the often repeated theory that the President provoked Japan into war, and believes correctly that Roosevelt genuinely wanted the modus vivendi with Japan to continue, and this nearly kept Japan out of the war. Of course this would have been disastrous for Britain, and Charmley points out that even after Pearl Harbor there was the `horrific' possibility that America would fight only in the Far East and not in Europe. This uncertainty was only removed when Hitler made his monumental mistake of declaring war on America.

The whole of the Churchill/Roosevelt wartime correspondence has been conveniently published in a book edited by Warren Kimball, and the letters disclose continuous tension. For Churchill the most infuriating was Roosevelt's insistence on immediate independence for India in 1942. India's declaration of war on Germany in

Syria

At every intersection, in each square, Stone superman, bronze bust, or smiling father Ride above traffic-fret gigantically.

They promise force, and fear, and permanence, They warn and chasten, clenched in one strong man. They stand unshaken and invincibly.

South of Aleppo blow the plastic bags: Tatters of polythene in thornbushes, The desert wind shredding them fitfully.

These stunted leafless junipers, festooned With such parodic fluttering foliage, Quiver and jerk and twitch continually.

All other rubbish rusts, rots, vanishes Along the dunes among the dusty trees. Only these remnants last perpetually.

Anthony Thwaite

1939 had been an arbitrary act by the Viceroy without democratic backing but it would have been madness to give India independence while Japanese armies were overrunning the Far East and approaching India's frontier. Yet this is exactly what Roosevelt pressurised Churchill to do. Although Churchill was a hardliner over India with statesmanship he had sent Stafford Cripps, then in the War Cabinet, to try for a deal with Ghandi under which India would be given immediate Dominion status as soon as the war was over. Because of American encouragement Ghandi vetoed any bargain; then Roosevelt tried Churchill's patience too far by asking for `one final effort'. Churchill exploded and even drafted a resignation letter which lies in the Public Record Office (although Charmley has not found it). It was never sent, but Roosevelt's meddling over India was the low point in the Special Relation- ship.

Another trough was over Mediterranean strategy in 1943. Strangely this is omitted from the book. When Italy surrendered in September 1943 Churchill correctly perceived a magnificent opportunity to open the Dardanelles and link up with the southern wing of the Soviet army. Rhodes was the key to the Straits and if only Eisen- hower had agreed to provide the required landing craft the island would have fallen to the British. Roosevelt turned a deaf ear to Churchill's frenzied entreaties to inter- fere with Eisenhower, as he (Roosevelt) did the very next year, when Churchill planned to shorten the war by a landing in Istria, which would have taken Trieste, and enabled the Allies to cross the Lubljana Pass and link up with the Russians. Again Churchill drafted a resignation letter but soon thought better of it.

The evidence of Churchill's frequent exasperation with Roosevelt shows how brittle and unsatisfactory was their rela- tionship. Still for all the ups and downs it was a vast improvement on the state of play in 1927 after the failure of the Geneva Naval Conference on reducing the size of the British and American navies when, as the author points out, some responsible people including Churchill thought the possibility of a war between America and Britain was 'not really unthinkable'.

The tale continues into the Macmillan era about which Charmley writes: 'Then there were really times when being allied to America was like being the registered keeper of a lunatic.' These are strong words but they are well justified. Foster Dulles and his successors were ready to use atomic weapons against the Chinese, and Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnston were trigger-happy. The British nation owes a great debt to Harold Macmillan and Harold Wilson for keeping us out of the Vietnam war. Here is a realistic account of the much vaunted Special Relationship, and it must cause traditional views to be revised.