Clinging to Power
ROCHE, JOHN P.
Clinging to Power Winston S. Churchill Volume VIII: Never Despair, 1945-65 By Martin Gilbert Houghton Mifflin. 1,456 pp. $40. Reviewed by John P. Roche I hold Martin Gilbert in the...
...If his actions in 1945 showed WSC at his best, I'm afraid it can be said, to paraphrase Shakespeare, that nothing in his political life demeaned him like the leaving it...
...Theirs was not an egalitarian impulse, such as motivated the Socialists...
...that WSC's refusal to pass the torch, say, after his election victory and vindication in 1951, left all three of his talented potential successors overage in grade...
...All in all, his response to defeat provides a moving saga of inner courage and faith in the British democratic system...
...A by-product of the 180 degree turn in British Conservatism has been the meltdown of the Labor Party, lost without its old dirigiste sparring partner...
...Those who have read the diary of his doctor could emerge with the impression that Lord Charles Moran ran a one-man drug ring for WSC, who was always popping something...
...Macmillan observed somewhere that the question was not whether socialism would come to Britain, but whether it would be under Labor or Conservative auspices...
...In fact, the difficulty with this tome is that it falls between the slats of these two genres...
...From Gilbert's detailed coverage it is clear that while WSC was shaken and hurt, neither alternative crossed his mind...
...To me, however, the most interesting aspect of Gilbert's work is the extent to which it exposes the dirigiste assumptions of all the then Conservative leaders...
...it is a computer print-out of Winston Churchill's last 20 years...
...But it is a roll-your-own enterprise...
...In short, if a reader comes to this book in search of material on specific topics— e.g., Churchill-Eisenhower relations, the background of the liquidation of "the Empire," or patterns of the Cold War—there is a feast to be consumed...
...Unquestionably it is invaluable as a mine for studies of Churchill's fading years, but to call it a biography violates the fundamental meaning of truth in advertising...
...As Edward VII learned (and Prince Charles is now learning), nothing is more enervating than outwaiting Victoria (or Elizabeth II...
...The man who had taken the helm in Britain's darkest hour and dedicated his enormous energy and talent for five years to the defeat of "that guttersnipe" Hitler, unexpectedly faced at age 70 repudiation by the people he loved...
...I chose to focus on three matters of personal interest: Churchill's incredible resilience in the face of electoral defeat in the July 1945 General Election...
...On this principle one could designate the innumerable volumes of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson—which are a historian's delight—a "biography...
...His relationship with his wife "Clemmie," earlier so beautifully limned by their daughter Mary, was truly extraordinary...
...Gilbert has set out the sad tale in all its manifestations except one...
...But Moran kept him dosed up and he apparently had a jolly time playing off the heirs presumptive—Eden, Harold Macmillan and "Rab" Butler —one against the other...
...A lesser man would have either muttered "once again the crowd chose Barabbas" and excommunicated the electorate forever, or shot himself...
...He is a splendid writer and the topic is worthy of his talents...
...it was a new medievalism, a noblesse oblige corporativism...
...As in the Jefferson papers, though, such detail can be extremely useful to professional historians...
...In fact, Churchill acted as though he believed the British people had taken a vacation from him, so he would take one in return—and then come back fighting...
...The bond of brotherhood forged in the trenches, so the argument runs, led the Edens, Macmillans, Churchills and others to advocate the obligation of the state to concern itself with the troubles of the lower classes...
...Reviewed by John P. Roche I hold Martin Gilbert in the highest scholarly esteem, but too much is too much...
...I don't know whether Hubert H. Humphrey used the same potions, but in Washington two weeks before he died we had an only semi-lucid talk—and a few days later I saw him stemwinding at the hew building...
...his struggle to evade the harsh fact that, approaching age 80, he should pass the Prime Ministership to Anthony Eden...
...To conclude on a friendly note, I hope that Martin Gilbert as penance for this monumental compendium will distill from it a biography...
...To someone of Churchill's ego and stature, Labor's overwhelming victory in 1945 was a savage blow...
...Several historians attribute this to the impact of World War I on the British élite: It suddenly discovered, as Lord Curzon observed when he saw his troops bathing in Belgium, "You know, they're white...
...Technically now the Leader of the Opposition in Commons, hesimply went off first on a painting spree and then on an extended vacation...
...Yet whenever Anthony, Harold and Rab thought he was about to fold his hand, "Charles" would turn up with a potion and Churchill would stun aTory Conference with his eloquence...
...Indeed, these "Tory radicals" might even have rejoiced in Karl Marx' excoriation of "the pig philosophy...
...Unless you really must know that George Christ, who was hired by the Conservative Central Office in 1949, rhymed his name with "whist and grist," or how Churchill protected his swans, most of those can be skipped...
...After Churchill's 1953 stroke there was considerable sentiment within the Tory leadership (quietly) favoring his retirement...
...This 1,456-page creation is not a book...
...Eden finally put it to WSC and took the reins...
...As the whole 1956 Suez episode indicated, though, this once incisive man was over the hill, and Macmillan made a further mess when he came in to pick up the pieces...
...Thus in all candor I must admit I have not read every line on every page, nor all the interminable footnotes...
...It is only a slight overstatement to say that after his stroke WSC went in and out of focus like a cheap microscope...
...and, on a different level, the medieval character of Churchill's Tory party and its leadership by comparison with Margaret Thatcher's contemporary conservatism...
...This is speculative, but (as I noted in these pages in my review of Macmillan's War Diaries) in his old, old age Macmillan, now Earl of Stockton, rose in the House of Lords and inveighed against the heartlessness of the Thatcher government—and my guess is that WSC and his friends would have been appalled at Maggie's dedication to the gods of the marketplace...
Vol. 71 • December 1988 • No. 22
