The Foundation of Peace

Winston Churchill is a great clarifier of the muddied obvious. He tells people what they already know; but again & again it turns out that they did not know it clearly enough to understand it until Churchill made it brilliantly plain. Last week at the Tory party conference in Wales, Churchill repeated his familiar miracle. Out of the scrambled staccato of "current events" he fashioned a sort of prophetic poem--as if he were reading from a page of history (which he was). Excerpts:

"We are confronted with the deadly enmity and continued aggression of the Russian Communist government and its imprisoned satellites . . .

"The Assembly of the United Nations, which we fondly hoped would be the majestic center of world security . . . has been reduced to a mere cockpit in which the representatives of mighty nations and ancient states hurl reproaches, taunts and recriminations at one another to . . . prepare . .. for what seems to be a remorselessly approaching third world war . . .

"I will not encourage you with false hopes of a friendly settlement with Soviet Russia. It may be that some formula will be found or some artificial compromise effected . . . But the fundamental danger and antagonisms will remain. The 14 men in the Kremlin who rule nearly 300 million human beings . . . dread the friendship of the free civilized world almost as much as they would its hostility. If the Iron Curtain were lifted, if free intercourse . . . were allowed between the hundreds of millions of good-hearted human beings who dwell on either side, the power of the wicked oligarchy in Moscow would soon be undermined . . .

"It is my belief--and I say it with deep sorrow--that . . . the only sure foundation of peace and of the prevention of actual war rests upon strength. If it were not for the stocks of atomic bombs now in the trusteeship of the United States, there would be no means of stopping the subjugation of Western Europe . . . If the United States were, to consent, in reliance upon any paper agreement, to destroy the stocks of atomic bombs . . . they would be guilty of murdering human freedom . . . I hope you will give full consideration to my words. I have not always been wrong . . .

"If the Soviet government wish to see atomic energy internationalized and its military use outlawed . . . let them release their grip on the satellite states of Europe. Let them retire to their own country, which is one-sixth of the land surface of the globe. Let them liberate by their departure, the eleven ancient capitals of Eastern Europe which they now hold in their claws . . . Let them cease to oppress, torment and exploit the immense parts of Germany and Austria which are now in their hands . . . Let them cease to foment the hideous civil war in China. Above all . . . let them give others the chance to breathe freely and let them breathe freely themselves. No one wants to take anything that belongs to them away from them . . .

"[We cannot] believe that we have a limitless period of time before us. We ought to bring matters to a head and make a final settlement . . ."

His concluding sentence was more than a cry for his party: it was a cry for his country and his world. "Never let us despair! All can be regained!"

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