Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [272]
For all their public expressions of mutual regard, it is hard to suppose that, by this time, Churchill or Roosevelt cherished much private affection for each other. Their objectives were too far apart. The president’s world vision was more enlightened than that of the old imperialist prime minister, yet even less realistic. He pinned his faith for the future upon the new United Nations organisation, the rise of Chiang Kai-shek’s China, and a working partnership between America and the Soviet Union. His motives were exalted. Churchill’s impassioned commitment to freedom excluded the world’s black and brown races, as that of the president did not—though he shocked his own staff by domestic references to “the nigger vote.” But, while Churchill had a quixotic strand of personal humility intermixed with his vanity, Roosevelt had none. His faith in his own power, as well as that of his nation, was unbounded. His unwillingness to acknowledge his own mortality, which was even more pressing than that of men threatened by death on the war’s battlefields, was a grievous omission in the last months of his presidency. He might at least have ensured, as he did not, that Vice President Harry Truman was admitted to the secrets of the Grand Alliance.
It seems mistaken to be surprised, however, by Washington’s cavalier treatment of both Britain and its prime minister. Beyond the new hubris of the United States, on many matters of strategy and policy the British had displayed poor judgement in 1944. They were wrong about Overlord, about Italy both militarily and politically, and were dilatory and confused about the Japanese war. On the battlefield their soldiers performed adequately rather than impressively. Churchill allowed himself to be distracted into pursuit of self-indulgent whims, such as a proposal that some aged British naval guns mounted at Dover should be shipped to the Continent to aid Eisenhower’s campaign. British attempts to ignore their own impoverishment and retain a giant’s role in the world inspired pity among their American friends, contempt among their American enemies. Churchill told Smuts: “You must remember … that our armies992 are only about one-half the size of the Americans and will soon be little more than one third … It is not as easy as it used to be for me to get things done.” Churchill often asserted that, far from owing a huge cash debt to the United States when the war was over, Britain should be recognised as a creditor, for its lone defence of freedom in 1940–41. This was never plausible. When the war ended, the world would assess Britain’s rightful place by reading its bank statement. Informed British people recognised this, and feared accordingly.
On October 27, Churchill reported to the Commons on his visit to Moscow. He now commanded an affection among MPs which transcended partisan loyalties. “How much depends on this man993 nowadays,” wrote Tory MP Cuthbert Headlam, for so long a sceptic. “Without Winston’s prestige and personality, where should we be with Roosevelt and Stalin? They are tiresome enough as things are—but how could Anthony Eden, or Attlee, stand up to them? No—I have never been a Winstonian, but I do realize that today if a man ever be indispensable, Winston is that man.”
When Attlee told MPs that Churchill was again in Moscow, Labour members were seen shaking their heads in mingled admiration and sympathy, saying: “He oughtn’t to do it994. Poor old boy, he really oughtn’t to do it.” There was a readiness to indulge him, almost unique in parliamentary experience: “He is not of course995 as vigorous or pugnacious as in 1940,” wrote Harold Nicolson. “But he has no need to be. He is right to take the more sober tone of the elder statesman.” Conservatives who had spurned Churchill in 1940 recognised him in 1944 as offering the only political hope for their party, which