June 18, 2015
“MINISTERS AT WAR:
WINSTON CHURCHILL AND HIS WAR CABINET” BY JONATHAN SCHNEER
A quite remarkable story, revealing facets of Churchill’s and his
administration’s leadership during World War II which I had never
perceived. I won’t try to record
all the detail. But there are some
insights and lessons to be drawn from them:
1.
There was a huge debate as to whether Churchill
would even take over the Prime Minister slot when Chamberlain was finally
deposed. Many wanted the more “temperate” Lord Halifax. Indeed, at one point, Churchill had
recommended Halifax. There was a
lot of “in and out” fighting which finally led to Churchill ascending.
2.
The cabinet of ministers that came together was
deliberately composed of all parties, Conservative, Liberal and Labor. The amount of back-fighting that went
on among them is incredible. Two
times in 1942, there were moves (or at least strong rumors) of Stafford Cripps
and William Aitken (first Baron Beaverbrook) seeking to supplant Churchill as
Prime Minister. These came at the
worst moments of the military situation when the Japanese were taking
Singapore, Britain was losing in the desert and London was being bombed.
With these setbacks came genuine questioning of Churchill’s
leadership. It was the darkest
year of his Presidency. Perhaps like
1861 was for President Lincoln after the defeat of the Union Army at Bull
Run. And like Lincoln that year,
Churchill had moments of deep depression, even tears in his eyes, observers
reported. Yet he never let it show
to the public. And it never broke
his indomitable spirit to carry on to win.
There was jostling between the ministers (Bevin and
Beaverbook) as to who would have control of production as Britain built its
armaments. The temperaments of the
individuals varied tremendously. They
often undercut each other and conveyed their disrespect openly. Their diary entries conveyed even more
disrespect. At times, and I think
the book may overdo this, it would seem that Churchill was spending more time
trying to control disagreements among his cabinet than having to fight the
war. But, make no mistake,
Churchill was focused on just one thing, and that was winning the war and
rallying the spirit of the British people.
Just as Lincoln had done with his cabinet, Churchill
suffered the barbs and nettlesome behavior of members of the cabinet in order
to get the job done. He sent
people who were getting in his way off to other places (Halifax to the United
States; Cripps to Russia).
3.
The role of First Baron Beaverbrook was very
significant. A crusty, tough,
action-oriented individual, he was the perfect person to lead production. For example, the production of fighter
planes quadrupled between February and September 1940. The total output of aircraft in Britain
from almost a standing start in 1940 was twice that of Germany; yet,
Beaverbrook, who owned two of the U.K.’s most important newspapers, was
extremely temperamental, threatening to resign from the cabinet many times and
doing it once.
4.
What is shockingly clear is that Churchill’s
colleagues did not treat him with the reverence that he usually receives
today. As the author writes, “They
did not know how posterity would view him. They saw him at the time as a great and prurient man, no
doubt, but also as a difficult and flawed one.” His hours were absolutely crazy; he drank to the hilt; he
ran meetings in a chaotic way. But
he knew what he was about, just as Lincoln did in saving the Union. His commitment to that mission carried
all, and the British people rallied.”
5.
I, of course, had known that Churchill and the
Conservatives lost the election in summer 1945. I had not known the venom of that campaign as the Labor
party decided that it could no longer serve in a coalition government and would
come out to oppose the Conservatives.
Churchill had actually moved a long way toward Labor’s position. National health care was being
promised; minimum wage and much more, including nationalization of the coal
industry. But that was not nearly
enough for Labor, which wanted to go further.
If we talk about
demonizing political opponents today, I have to say that the 1945 campaign in
Britain showed the way.
Churchill: “My friends, I
must tell you that a Socialist policy (referring to the Labor party) is
abhorrent to the British idea of freedom…Socialism is an attack upon the right
of an ordinary man or woman to breathe freely without
having a harsh, clumsy, tyrannical hand clasped across their mouths and
nostrils…no Socialist government conducting the entire life and industry of the
country could afford to allow free, sharp, refinely worded expressions of
public intent. They would have to
fall back on some form of Gestapo.”
Really, I think
it’s always been the same. Often
today, we feel we have entered new ground in the polarization of our political rhetoric
and, compared to some eras, I suppose we have. But compared to most eras, we haven’t. One only needs to go back to the
attacks made on Roosevelt, that he was about to introduce a government
equivalent to Communism or a Bolshevik regime, to realize that.
6.
In retrospect, this story brings home again that
sometimes we are fortunate in having the right person in the right place at the
right time. That was the case with
Lincoln and it was the case with Churchill during World War II. It was also the case with Roosevelt
during the Second World War.
Individuals, by no means perfect, though Lincoln comes pretty close; but
right for the time. Each is an example
that progress is not made without bitter debate and sometimes bitter
accusations, one person to another; yet even so, they worked together to
achieve a productive end. Life
isn’t always pretty, but you have to put up with ugliness sometimes to get a
big job done; and it only happens when very competent people believe in
something deeply and act with all their might to make it happen.
FM_MinistersAtWar061915
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