5 MARCH 1994, Page 28

Churchill's handicap

Sir: Of the various charges levelled against Harold Macmillan in Simon Heffer's article (`Centenary of a double-crosser', 5 Febru- ary), surely the most damaging was Enoch Powell's acute observation that because he had an American mother Macmillan never had Britain's best interests at heart. An American mother was, of course, a defect Macmillan shared with another well-known 20th-century prime minister. Goodness knows what Churchill would have been able to accomplish for Britain had he not laboured under this handicap.

John Cutcher

1513 Meeting House Road, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA