SIR,—Miss Wiskemann turns from her siudy of the recently published
archives of the German Foreign Office to cry, "Oh, Villainy! " in fine, round terms. " Mr. Chamberlain and an unnamed clique, by intrigue and unconstitutional means, encouraged the Germans to set the world on fire." Quite apart from the implication that the Nazis required such encouragement, this view is not supported by memoirs of several people who might be expected to know more of the deeds of the British Govern- ment than the German Foreign Office. The policy of " appeasement' sprang not only from the machinations of a small clique, but also from the short-sighted policies of both major parties. The argument that nothing is as disastrous as war overbore Mr. Churchill's warning that appeasement only made war more certain ; and for this no scapegoat can carry the blame.
The " publicists' thesis, that Stalin . . . in 1939 . . allowed the visits of the Western negotiators in order to whet Hitler's appetite," is surely a fantasy, if not unintelligible. Which, one might reasonably ask, of Hitler's appetites might have been so whetted, and how?—Yours faithfully,
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