Winston Churchill's War Leadership - Martin Gilbert [3]
One integral part of the Private Office were the secretary-typists—a lynchpin of the whole vast operation. At their apex was a woman whose photograph at Churchill’s side almost never appeared in the press. Her name was Kathleen Hill. She had been his residential secretary since 1936. Once, at the end of the war, when a newspaper published a photograph of Churchill which included her walking next to him, she was described in the caption as “an unknown woman.” Her contribution to Churchill’s war leadership was silent, unnoticed and essential.
The method used by Churchill and Mrs. Hill, and by his two other principal typists, Elizabeth Layton and Marian Holmes, was simple and effective. They would sit “still as a mouse” (in Mrs. Hill’s words) wherever Churchill was, whether in Downing Street, at his country retreat at Chequers, travelling by car, on trains, on board ship, even on planes, with a notepad at the ready or with a silent typewriter (specially designed by Remington), paper in place, to take down whatever he might say whenever he might say it. He might be reading a newspaper and be prompted by something he read to dictate a Minute to a Cabinet Minister. He might be reading a clutch of diplomatic telegrams from ambassadors overseas, or top-secret signals from commanders-in-chief on land, sea or air, and have a thought, a point of criticism, a note of praise, a request for information, or a suggestion for action. As he began to speak, often in a difficult mumble, the typist on duty would immediately take down his words and transcribe them. So good was this trio of Mrs. Hill, Miss Layton and Miss Holmes that, after one or another of them had taken down his words on the silent typewriter as he spoke them, all that remained was to hand him the sheet of paper for his signature. They were masters of their craft. A fourth member of this team was Churchill’s shorthand writer Patrick Kinna. It was he who had been present when Churchill, walking naked in his bedroom at the White House after a bath, giving dictation, was interrupted by President Roosevelt, who entered the room. Churchill, “never being lost for words,” as Kinna recalled, said, “You see, Mr. President, I have nothing to conceal from you.”
There can hardly have been a single day of the war when Churchill did not dictate to one or other of his devoted secretarial staff. At the outset of his premiership, he decided that every instruction, suggestion, proposal or criticism emanating from him—and all the answers he received—should be in writing. He remembered too many occasions during the First World War when a policy agreed upon at one meeting was challenged at the next but there was no written record to show what the first decision had been or what arguments had been put forward and by whom, either for it or against. He was determined that no such muddles and uncertainties would exist under his war leadership. “Let it be clearly understood,” he minuted on 19 July 1940, to General Ismay, as well as to the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Edward Bridges, and the Chief of the Imperial Staff, Field Marshal Sir John Dill, “that all directions emanating from me are made in writing, or should be immediately afterwards confirmed in writing, and that I do not accept any responsibility for matters relating to national defence, on which I am alleged to have given directions, unless they are given in writing.” This Minute was shown to all members of Churchill’s Private Office and implemented.
In March 1918, during the First World War crisis when German forces drove back the Anglo-French defenders and confusion and doubt reigned among the British war leadership, Churchill