A Legacy of Leadership: Happy 138th, Winston

November 30 was Winston Churchill’s birthday. 138 years after his birth, historians, politicians and the public are still as fascinated as ever about this most iconic of British Prime Ministers. Of course, as with every major historical figure, the amount of one-sided deconstructionismhas increased over the past few years, no more useful to the reader than one-sided hagiography. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in the middle–a deeply flawed (aren’t we all!) larger-than-life figure who botched a lot of decisions–notably his resistance to home rule for India and well-meaning but ill-conceived support of Edward VIII during the 1936 abdication crisis–who got the big things right.


Among the latter was Churchill’s foresight over the divisions between the democratic West and the Communist East. Since the inception of Communism and its violent manifestation in the Russian Revolution, Churchill had despised the movement, calling it a “pestilence.” Certainly, his monarchial devotion was part of this, but more so, Churchill believed Communism destroyed the very principles of liberty and freedom that he would devote his career to advancing and defending. 

Certainly, with his love of Empire, there were some inconsistencies in his thinking, but above all, Churchill believed that the individual should be able to make choices and that systemic freedom–of the press, of religion, of the ballot, must be upheld for individuals to enact such choices. That’s why he vowed to “strangle Bolshevism in its cradle,” though his plan to bolster anti-Communist forces was quickly shot down by Woodrow Wilson and David Lloyd George as another of “Winston’s follies.”

In this case, his plan to oppose Communism was indeed unrealistic. There were a small amount of British, Canadian, and American troops and a trickle of supporting materiel going to aid the White Russians toward the end of World War I, but once the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, the Allied leaders wanted to get their boys home, not commit more to a seemingly hopeless cause.

But over the next three decades, Churchill’s ideas on how to deal with Communism became more informed, more realistic and, arguably, more visionary. Though he reluctantly accepted Stalin as an ally when Hitler turned on Russia in the fateful summer of 1941, Churchill’s pragmatism and public admiration of the Marshal did not blind him to the ills of the Communist system. The Percentages Agreement he signed with Stalin in a late 1944 meeting has since been blamed for hastening the fall of democratic Eastern Europe, but what Churchill was actually doing there was essentially recognizing that the Communist takeover was a fait accompli, and guaranteeing Stalin’s agreement to largely leave the Greek Communists to their own devices in Greece after World War II. Though Moscow did supply arms and it took the Marshall Plan to prop up the anti-Communist side in Greece, Stalin largely honored this pledge.

He was not so good on his word with many other things, however. Among the promises he made to Churchill and FDR were to include the London Poles (exiled during the war) in a so-called representative government in Poland. In fact, the Communist puppet Lublin Poles ran the new regime after the war, and the old guard was either shunned or killed. In fact, horrifyingly, many of the leaders of the Polish Underground were taken out by Stalin’s henchmen, and others were held in former Nazi camps that the Red Army had supposedly “liberated.” 

At the Potsdam Conference in July 1946, Stalin showed that his vows at Yalta were mere lip service to the British and American leaders. He made demands for bases in Turkey, threatened the vital British trade route through the Suez canal and refused to withdraw troops from oil-rich Iran.

Churchill, still putting his faith in personal diplomacy, believed he could reason with Stalin, particularly if Harry Truman backed him up. But halfway through the Potsdam meeting the British public sent the Conservative Party to its second worst defeat in one of the most surprising General Election decisions. Churchill was out as Prime Minister and Clement Attlee was in. Off Attlee went to Germany to finish the dialogue with Truman and Stalin. Churchill feared he was headed for political oblivion. 

Yet, after a few weeks of moping, he realized that he still had his pen and, as arguably the most famous democratic leader of the age (only FDR came close in global renown), his voice.

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Winston Churchill's Short-Lived VE Day Victory, and His Memorable Comeback

May 8, 1945. London. Winston Churchill stands alongside King George VI and other members of the Royal Family on a Buckingham Palace balcony, waving to a crowd of thousands who've gathered to celebrate with him the fall of Germany, and victory in Europe.

For Churchill, this was the defining moment of his career, a career that had once seemed, even to him, to be quickly fading away, as he shouted his clarion call about the Nazi menace from the fringe of the Conservative Party in the mid to late 1930s. Having put himself there with his lamentable, pro-Empire denial of India's independence and his monarchist knee-jerk reaction of supporting Edward VIII during the abdication crisis, (not to mention his relentless criticism of Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain's appeasement), Churchill must have thought many times that he would never rise to the position he had once felt fated for: Prime Minister, in England's darkest hour.

And yet, when the shadow fell as the Wermacht marched unchecked and unchallenged across Europe, it fell to Churchill to rally his ill-prepared nation, to woo FDR for weapons (until Pearl Harbor propelled the United States into the war) and to stare down Hitler as the future of Europe and, arguably, global democracy hung by the finest of threads.

Almost five years to the day after he assumed the highest office in the land (May 10, 1940), Churchill now savoured the victory over his mortal foe. He had promised "Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat" in his first speech as Prime Minister and had contributed all he had in the course of a seemingly endless string of long days and nights, through inspiring ups (such as winning the air war in the Battle of Britain and cracking the German U-boat code) and spirit-sapping downs (the fall of Singapore, the capitulation of France).

After his palace appointment and addressing the nation from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street, Churchill spoke to a rapturous crowd from a balcony outside the Ministry of Health. Afterwards, they showed their appreciated with a rendition of For He's a Jolly Good Fellow.

With such an endorsement ringing in his ears, it's easy to see why Churchill thought he would handily defeat Labour leader Clement Attlee in the General Election that soon followed. And yet, on July 26, the day of the results, he knew something was very wrong: "...just before dawn I woke suddenly with a sharp stab of almost physical pain. A hitherto subconscious conviction that we were beaten broke forth and dominated my mind." And so it proved. And not just beaten, but routed: Labour won 393 seats, giving them a majority of 183 in the Commons.

Finish reading this post at, err, the Huffington Post

Syria: Have Our 'Best and Brightest' Learned Nothing From History?

I recently wrote about Kofi Annan's peace plan for Syria, and how I hoped it was not too late for the Syrian people living under President Bashar al-Assad's tyranny. Unfortunately, my worst fears have been realized on this matter: Assad continues his assaults on the 'rebels,' all the while thumbing his nose at the democratic West and the U.N.

We should have seen this coming. Certainly, our leaders, the latest "best and brightest" contingent who represent us, should have. But, as is so often the case, we chose to overlook the lessons of history, instead favoring optimism and faith in our fellow (hu)man.

Even a basic grasp of the recent past would have spared us the wasted time of frowning at Assad and threatening him with sanctions, which to a dictator like him are about as effective as trying to stop a grizzly charge with a pea shooter. And, more importantly, we could have DONE SOMETHING to help the poor people of Syria, many of whom simply want the right to vote, the rule of law, and the other freedoms we take for granted. Instead, as Assad spoke out of one side of his mouth to agree to the ceasefire, he spoke out of the other to order his generals to continue the killing.

Part of the problem is that it is human nature to assume we are on a level playing field with our adversaries and that they will respect supposedly universal standards of engagement - the Queensbury Rules of international politics. Yet, with dictators from Stalin to Hitler to Saddam Hussein, this is not the case.

They don't care about the rules because they consider themselves above them - the megalomania and arrogance that every tyrant I can recall possesses. They also have the assurance of protection by armaments, which just fuels their blind disregard for the Geneva Convention, the Charter of the United Nations and any other coda that democratic nations abide by. The dictator views ruling by committee as weakness, diplomatic exchange as folly, and assurances of cooperation as contemptible, only to be used to buy time to solidify the position of strength.

And so it goes with Assad.

He will not be deposed by ceasefire plans, by transition strategies or by diplomatic engagement. The only language he understands is force, or, as Harry Truman put it about the Soviet Union, the simple question of "how many divisions do you have?" This is not to say that a full-scale ground invasion is needed, or, indeed, that it would do anything other than ignite the tinderbox of the Middle East. Yet we have seen recently (in the case of Libya) and not so long ago (in Bosnia), that there are other, smarter ways to topple a man like Assad. Regardless of what Britain and America do - for with certain nations continually exercising their vetoes in irresponsible fashion in the UN, it may be time for independent action - the window for talking has been slammed down on our fingers.

More Syrian men, women and children are dying by the day. How long will we allow this continue?

The Guns Will Be Silent

This past week we had a date anomaly – the day, week and month all mirroring each other. But for a small, and ever-dwindling, group of men, the past seven days were significant for a reason far more profound than calendar alignment. They gathered at sites across Europe and America commemorate the moment when, on the 11th hour of the 11th day in the 11th month of 1918, the roaring guns of World War I finally fell silent.

It soon became known as the “Great War,” yet that is ill-fitting in all respects save one – the great sacrifices made by soldiers and their families on both sides. More than 8.5 million died (and a further 21 million were wounded), and their number has been dubbed “The Lost Generation,” to signify the enormous loss of life and potential on the fields of Flanders and beyond.

After the war, the leaders of the Western Allies idealistically hoped for permanent peace, though the League of Nations that was set up to foster togetherness and prevent future hostility quickly proved to be a paper tiger. Nonetheless, the sentiment of “never again” was on most lips among the “victors.” Meanwhile, the defeated Germans smarted, not just at their losses of men and material, but also at the overly-punitive terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which punished the “Fatherland” by imposing harsh sanctions on an already ravaged economy, and confiscated territories far and wide. It was the resulting frustration and the promise of restoring national pride that enabled Hitler to take power so swiftly and terribly in the mid to late 1930s. Even with his rise, the majority outside of Germany still hoped for peace, not seeing that no number of Munich Agreements could slake the Fuhrer’s lust for revenge and land.

Though it is easy with hindsight to slam those who, like British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, signed such treaties and they must certainly be held accountable for inaction and, in some cases, capitulation, it is just as easy to forget how horrendous the trench-based battles of World War I were, and the impact they had on the collective psyches of both the victors and the vanquished.

Trench foot, rat bites, and typhoid were rampant, as the soldiers literally rotted in their water-logged holes, to say nothing of the mustard gas. There was no sanitation, no clean facilities to treat the wounded, no place to bury the dead. Then, when they were sent over the top, the weak, despairing bunch were greeted by machine gun fire that toppled their ranks like contorted dominoes and, if they advanced to the enemy lines, were ensnared as if they were game in barbed wire, or run through by enemy bayonets. Those who did not capture their foes’ positions yet could not make it back to their own trenches were sometimes so stunned by the clamor, the fear and the firework flashes of barking muzzles that they wandered around in “No Man’s Land” until captured, finished off or, for a lucky few, retrieved by their comrades. Some opposing trenches gained or lost a total of mere inches over the course of the war.

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Erik Larson Interview for Historically Speaking

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Erik Larson, whose books include The Devil in the White City, Thunderstruck and Isaac's Storm, for leading journal Historically Speaking. The Historical Society recently published an excerpt from the Q&A, which appears in the September issue of HS. During our conversation, Larson talked about his latest book, In the Garden of Beasts, a masterful account of American Ambassador William Dodd's time in Germany as Hitler was consolidating power. We also discussed the impact of Larson's journalism career on his books, the research tools he used and the value of going to Berlin to experience the city as Dodd would have. Here's a snippet:

White: Is it true that you were inspired to write In the Garden of Beasts after reading William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich?

Larson: The thing that caused my imagination to kick in was the fact the Shirer had been there in Berlin and had met Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels, but he met them at a time when nobody knew the ending. And that’s the key thing— nobody knew the ending. What would it have been like to have met what turned out to be these awful people when nobody knew what was coming down the pike?

From there I started looking for characters. It’s a process—finding what kind of narrative energy this person could apply. I read memoirs, newspaper accounts, and letters, looking for little things that might lead to bigger things. I knew nothing about Dodd when I stumbled across him. I found him compelling but by no means someone I could hang a book on; he was a little dry, and I’m not that interested in diplomatic history. But I liked the fact that he was a plain-spoken, low-key guy who was thrust into a job for which he was anything but qualified. From a narrative perspective that made him interesting. He was an outsider, and that’s what I was looking for—an outsider who entered into the world of the Reich during its first two years. Then I discovered that Martha Dodd had written a memoir. After reading that I decided that these might be the two perfect characters, and happily both underwent transformations in their first full year in Berlin.

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