Churchill Defiant: Fighting On 1945–1955. Barbara Leaming

UN. It was only now he discovered that one day previously in London some of the South American delegates had put forth the name ‘Winston Churchill’ as the latest candidate for the post. After a second’s reflection, he swatted the question aside: ‘I never addressed my mind to such a subject.’ The following day in London, Eden chaired a meeting of the Shadow Cabinet. Cranborne hovered about Eden to be sure he made better use of Churchill’s absence. In the wake of Eden’s suicidal performance at the state banquet, Cranborne was pleased to see him act calmly and effectively to consolidate his position in the party. Where Eden had bristled at suggestions that he had yet to prove himself fully, Cranborne saw the deputy leadership as a huge opportunity for their side. Whatever assurances Cranborne had previously offered to Eden in the interest of dissuading him from accepting the post of UN Secretary General, Cranborne did not really believe that Churchill would readily hand over any time soon. He did, however, hope that if the deputy leader performed well, Eden would be in a strong enough position to push Churchill out when the old man came home.

       VI Winnie, Winnie, Go Away Miami Beach, Florida, 1946

      Seated beside a bed of red poinsettias near the pink brick seaside house his wife had arranged to borrow from a friend, Churchill contentedly scanned the coconut palms overhead in search of a ‘paintaceous’ angle. His tropical-weight tan suit fit snugly across his stomach. The deep creases radiating from the centre button, which looked as if it was about to burst, testified that he had grown thicker since he acquired the suit in North Africa during the war. In the white patio chair beside him, Clementine Churchill wore one of her customary headscarves, big round white-rimmed sunglasses and wrist-length white gloves. After the bone-chilling cold they had had to endure in New York harbour and the rain-splashed train windows en route through Virginia and the Carolinas, she proclaimed the intense heat and sunshine on the day they arrived in Miami Beach ‘delicious’. Churchill had lately suffered his share of colds and sore throats, and in keeping with his wife’s wishes he intended to rest and to enjoy the good weather in Florida. Still, from the outset the couple had contrasting perspectives on their stay. She saw their holiday as an end in itself, he as a chance to get in shape for the main event in Missouri.

      The next morning, the Churchills were unhappily surprised. The sky had darkened and the temperature had plummeted. There followed a day and a half of shivering cold and rustling palm fronds until the afternoon emergence of the sun prompted Churchill to rush off with his painting paraphernalia. He worked for hours in the shade on a picture of palms reflected in water. Despite the knitted afghan which Clementine draped around his shoulders when she brought him his tea, he caught another cold and was soon running a slight temper ature. The episode was exactly the sort of thing they had come to Florida to avoid. At a time when he was supposed to be gearing up for Fulton, the usual concerns about pneumonia plunged him into a fit of agitation. For all of his philosophy, he always found it maddening when illness threatened to get in the way of his great plans. Friends affectionately called Churchill the world’s worst patient. This time, he alternated between insisting he wanted no medicine and taking several conflicting remedies all at once.

      His fever broke after thirty-six hours. The perfect weather resumed and Churchill was able to paint again and to swim in the ocean. Welcome news arrived in the form of a message from Truman that he would soon be on holiday in Florida and would be happy to dine with Churchill on the presidential yacht. The prospect freed Churchill from the need to brave any more bad weather were he to have to fly north to confer with Truman. In the meantime, Truman sent a converted army bomber to transport the Churchills to Cuba for a week of painting and basking in the sun. The President and the former Prime Minister were set to meet after that, but when Churchill returned from Havana he discovered that Truman had had to cancel his holiday because of the steel strike. Churchill insisted he would fly to him the next day.

      The exceptionally rough five-hour trip proved to be an ordeal. Churchill was finishing lunch when the B-17 bomber passed into a sleet storm above Virginia. Suddenly, plates and glasses pitched in all directions and Churchill was thrown against the ceiling. Not long afterwards, the aircraft landed safely amid a swirl of ice pellets. Churchill rose amid the shattered glass that covered the cabin and relit his cigar by way of composing himself. He descended the steps at National Airport beaming and waving his hat to Lord Halifax and other official greeters as if he had just enjoyed the most tranquil of flights. After he had bathed and dined at the British Embassy, he was off to the White House to meet Truman for the first time since Potsdam.

      When Churchill last saw him, Truman had recently inherited Roosevelt’s unrealistic perception of Stalin, as well as his predecessor’s tactic of dissociating himself from Churchill in an effort to win the Soviet leader’s confidence. Accordingly, Truman had had little use for Churchill’s perspective or advice. By early 1946, however, Moscow had given the President reason to reconsider. A series of speeches in January and February by Molotov and other of Stalin’s lieutenants warning of the peril of an attack from the West had culminated, the previous day, in a bellicose address by Stalin himself. A translation appeared in American newspapers on 9 February, the day Churchill flew into Washington. Stalin’s enunciation of a tough new anti-West policy was a throwback to prewar Soviet attitudes. Immediately, as Halifax pointed out, the speech had the effect of ‘an electric shock’ on the nerves of a good many people in Washington. Could this possibly be the wartime ally with whom they had been looking forward to close future cooperation?

      In part, Stalin’s confrontational tone had its origins in a two-month holiday he had taken starting in early October 1945. While the ailing, exhausted Stalin rested near Sochi at the Black Sea, he had left Molotov in charge of daily affairs at the Kremlin. The arrangement set off a chain reaction of rumour and gossip in the international press. By turns, Stalin was reported to be contemplating retirement, about to hand over to Molotov, and nearly or already dead. There were news profiles of Molotov and some of the other possible contenders should a fully-fledged succession struggle erupt on Stalin’s demise. Though he was supposed to be resting, Stalin obsessively pored over a dossier collected under the title ‘Rumors in Foreign Press on the State of Health of Comrade Stalin’. References to the second-in-command’s ever-expanding prestige both at home and abroad fired Stalin’s suspicions. Was Molotov behind the reports? Why had he not censored such material? Was the anointed heir using Stalin’s absence to con -solidate his position?

      The rumours about Stalin’s health had also distressed Churchill, who continued to hope that he might one day face him across the conference table and pick up where they had left off at Potsdam. Churchill therefore had been greatly relieved when the US Ambassador in Moscow, Averell Harriman, announced that he had visited Stalin’s seaside retreat and found the Soviet leader in good health. In the House of Commons on 7 November 1945, Churchill had expressed gratitude that Stalin was well, offered some kind words about his leadership, and voiced a wish that the bond that had developed between their two peoples during the war be allowed to continue in peacetime. On the face of it, Churchill’s remarks were innocuous. Nonetheless, when Molotov directed that they be published in Pravda, Stalin breathed fire and fury. Such praise would have been welcome during the war, but now Stalin insisted that it was simply a cover for Churchill’s hostile intentions and that Molotov should have recognized it as such.

      Soon, it was reported in the British press that, according to high-level sources in Moscow, Stalin’s power was not as great as many outsiders believed and government affairs were perfectly capable of being carried on without him. Incensed, Stalin lashed out at his designated heir, who, even if he were not the actual source of such statements, should have undertaken to suppress them. Stalin set his other satellites, Georgi Malenkov, Lavrenti Beria, and Anastas Mikoyan, against Molotov. They vied to denounce him for, among other outrages, consenting to an interview with the journalist Randolph Churchill. (‘The appointment with Churchill’s son was cancelled because we spoke against it.’) At length Molotov managed to stay afloat by tearfully admitting his mistakes to his rivals and penning a cringing letter to Stalin. Molotov kept his job, but from then on Stalin refrained from speaking of him as his successor.

      Thus Stalin had put Molotov and the others on notice that he was always watching and that they ought not to grow too lax or