Kemper Lectures
Churchill – Prophet of
Detente - continued
Sir Michael Howard, O.B.E., March 25, 1990
And it is sad that it cannot be Winston Churchill himself. No event would have given him greater joy. Certainly it was with no pleasure that he carried out his self-imposed task all those years ago and gave warning of the bleak years ahead. This was not the peace for which he and his people had struggled for so long. Churchill was no Cold Warrior. Wary as he had been of Soviet ambitions and objectives, he had gone to extreme lengths – in the eyes of some, too extreme – to conciliate his wartime ally. He had established – so he had believed – a warm relationship with Marshal Stalin. He was sensitive to the security needs of the Soviet state. Most of all, he had a deep respect and affection for the Russian people and a grateful recognition for all they had suffered in the common cause. In his speech here, he movingly conveyed the ‘deep sympathy and good will’ of the British people “towards the peoples of all the Russias, and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friendships. We understand (he said) the Russian need to be secure on her Western frontiers by the removal of all possibility of German aggression. We welcome Russia to her rightful place among the leading nations of the world. We welcome her flag upon the seas. Above all, we welcome constant, frequent and growing contacts between the Russian people and our own people on both sides of the Atlantic.”[iv]
Churchill’s desire to establish, or rather to re-establish good relations with the Soviet peoples (who to the end of his life he persisted in calling Russian) was not eroded by the hostility of their leaders. A few months after his Fulton Speech he stressed, before the House of Commons, the ‘earnest desire (of the West) to dwell in friendly cooperation with the Soviet government and the Russian people.’[v] For him, Western rearmament was a cruel necessity, but not one that should inhibit an unwearying search for accommodation with the Soviet Union: “we arm” as he once put it, “to parley.” His deepest hope was that the frost of the Cold War should be temporary, and that the world was not entering another political ice age.
When he spoke at Fulton, Churchill was of course no longer Prime Minister. For another five years he remained in opposition; years in which he continually stressed the need for Allied strength and unity, but no less his goodwill towards the Russian people, if only they could be reached through the carapace of oppression imposed by the apparatus of Party rule. Then in 1951, shortly before his 77th birthday, Churchill became Prime Minister for the second time.
Sir Michael Howard, O.B.E., March 25, 1990
And it is sad that it cannot be Winston Churchill himself. No event would have given him greater joy. Certainly it was with no pleasure that he carried out his self-imposed task all those years ago and gave warning of the bleak years ahead. This was not the peace for which he and his people had struggled for so long. Churchill was no Cold Warrior. Wary as he had been of Soviet ambitions and objectives, he had gone to extreme lengths – in the eyes of some, too extreme – to conciliate his wartime ally. He had established – so he had believed – a warm relationship with Marshal Stalin. He was sensitive to the security needs of the Soviet state. Most of all, he had a deep respect and affection for the Russian people and a grateful recognition for all they had suffered in the common cause. In his speech here, he movingly conveyed the ‘deep sympathy and good will’ of the British people “towards the peoples of all the Russias, and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friendships. We understand (he said) the Russian need to be secure on her Western frontiers by the removal of all possibility of German aggression. We welcome Russia to her rightful place among the leading nations of the world. We welcome her flag upon the seas. Above all, we welcome constant, frequent and growing contacts between the Russian people and our own people on both sides of the Atlantic.”[iv]
Churchill’s desire to establish, or rather to re-establish good relations with the Soviet peoples (who to the end of his life he persisted in calling Russian) was not eroded by the hostility of their leaders. A few months after his Fulton Speech he stressed, before the House of Commons, the ‘earnest desire (of the West) to dwell in friendly cooperation with the Soviet government and the Russian people.’[v] For him, Western rearmament was a cruel necessity, but not one that should inhibit an unwearying search for accommodation with the Soviet Union: “we arm” as he once put it, “to parley.” His deepest hope was that the frost of the Cold War should be temporary, and that the world was not entering another political ice age.
When he spoke at Fulton, Churchill was of course no longer Prime Minister. For another five years he remained in opposition; years in which he continually stressed the need for Allied strength and unity, but no less his goodwill towards the Russian people, if only they could be reached through the carapace of oppression imposed by the apparatus of Party rule. Then in 1951, shortly before his 77th birthday, Churchill became Prime Minister for the second time.