Sean Gabb: The Churchill Memorandum

Powell raised his eyebrows again. But there was now a knock on the door. As it opened, I heard the rattle of a refreshments trolley. I waited while a cup of what looked like brown, steaming treacle was place on a little table before me. I looked at it, and reached for a custard cream. Without turning, I heard the door close again. Powell was on his feet and walking over to perch by the window.

“It may be on account of their mixed parentage,” he said, “that neither Mr Churchill nor Mr Macmillan was able to appreciate one simple fact.” He held up a hand to silence what he thought would be a comment from me, and pressed on. “This, Dr Markham, is that there is room on this planet for only one English-speaking great power. All the talk one used to hear about the brotherly affection of the Anglo-Saxon powers was never more than an attempt to hide the jealous struggle of two close relatives for an estate that could never be divided.

“In 1917, in circumstances I do not have to describe, but that gave us no feasible alternative, we played the part of the apprentice in the old tale. We took out a book of spells and uttered the fateful words that called America to life within the greater world. During the next five years, we watched helpless as the Americans reduced that world to still greater chaos than it already knew. We could not stop them as they dictated a peace agreement that made a joke of the balance of power. We did stop them from building what they called ‘a fleet second to none’—but only at the expense of nearly alienating of our Japanese allies in the East. Then, their own internal politics, and then the accident of their economic collapse, gave us a respite of fifteen years. It was never more than a respite. We could still watch the giant stretching its mighty limbs within its own confines—reaching out now with its cultural, now with its financial, arm into the world. We measured ourselves against that growing strength, and thanked Providence for the respite we had been given.

“Once we began rearming in 1937, however, it did seem as if our respite was at an end. As we strained every muscle for the coming renewal of struggle with Germany, we looked once more across the Atlantic for help, and watched again as our own money revived those torpid but vast industries. Had we gone to war in 1939 or 1940, there is no doubt that we should eventually have needed to repeat the spell we cast in 1917. And there is no doubt that the eventual defeat of Germany would have been as great in its own way a defeat for ourselves. Do you for a moment suppose that, folded in that gigantic embrace, we could have remained a great power? Do you suppose we might even have remained independent in any meaningful sense?

“Then, by one of those strokes of a Providence that, ever mysterious, have never been wanting in the history of our nation, the headlong rush into another Great War abruptly ceased. And what Providence supplied, the foresight of Mr Chamberlain and Lord Halifax secured.

“I am in no position to tell you what, if any, verbal undertakings were made in Pressburg. But such secret undertakings as may have been made did no more to the United States than the United States—in some other manner, perhaps—would have done to England and to Germany.”

“And you think that the restored equilibrium that came out of Pressburg can be continued forever?” I broke in. “Russia will get the Bomb within ten years—so, at least, Foot assured me. And Anslinger can’t go on much longer. The Treaty of Pressburg, surely, was just another respite.” Powell gave me one of his frigid smiles and walked over to stand beside the trolley. He poured himself a cup of tea and sipped with mild approval.

“Nothing, Dr Markham, is forever,” he said. “The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils. By the nature of things, however, the artifices of one generation must be supplemented by those of the next. All we can do is try to ensure that our own prevention of evils does not raise up less surmountable problems for those who take our place.

“In a country like England, there is no shortage of wisdom and forethought. There is also no shortage of folly, and even of what may be regarded—if only in its effects—as treason. These qualities are not abstractions. They are manifest in the characters of men. If, from time to time, the Divine Providence gives chances, it is up to us to seize those chances. It is for us to ensure that men such as Harold Macmillan said he wished to raise to greatness shall remain in harmless obscurity.”

Powell sat down again behind his desk. He looked past me at the portrait of Canning, and laughed without any sign of joy. I lit another cigarette and wondered when I could take myself aside for a shot of morphine that would get me through the rest of the day.

“Next year,” he struck up again, “or the year after that, we shall stretch forth the hand of renewed friendship across the Atlantic. The Americans may sniff it with hostile suspicion. They may affect to detect a few spots on it of their own blood. They will ask by what tune of our own composition they are being called to the dance. But they will allow us to help them through their first and tottering steps. For the moment, things remain exactly as they have been for the past few decades.” He looked at me and past me to the Canning portrait. “The balance of the old world is not yet in need of redress. Until such time as it is, the new world has no need to exist.

“If you have not yet seen them,” he said with a change of tone, “this morning’s newspapers carry more details of the unfortunate accident at Birch Grove. The loss adjusters have traced the explosion to the chaining in series of old and new home generators. There is, apparently, the slight chance of an explosion. When a house of that size is all lit up for a reception, the chance that the generators will all overheat and become unstable is unlikely but sufficiently possible for the insurers to justify asking no further questions.”

“ No further questions !” I sneered with a sudden loss of temper. “You make the country sound like a bloody police state!” I winced at the sudden expulsion of breath. But I was beginning to understand why Powell got on the nerves of everyone who had to work with him. There was another of his mirthless smiles. Then a light seemed to come on behind those hooded eyes.

“Come on, Dr Markham,” he said with sudden humour. He reached out a hand to pull me from the chair. “Do please come over to this window.” Wincing and choking back the pain as, supporting me, he squeezed hard on bruised ribs, I hobbled with Powell over to the window. It looked from a great height over Whitehall. Below us, hundreds and thousands of people went about their business. Men in their overcoats and hats, women in their elaborate clothing and high heels—they passed back and forth between Whitehall and a Parliament Square that, closed to traffic, was dominated by its toga-clad statue of Neville Chamberlain.

“Do you know, Dr Markham,” Powell asked in a voice almost too soft for me to hear, “who those people are? Do you know what they are about—let alone what they are thinking? No? Well, we don’t know either. We don’t know because we make it our business not to know. In this country, we honour those who serve the nation, but think no ill of those who prefer to look purely to their own affairs. It is because of this that we do not need to boast—as the governments of other lands do—how we serve the public good, or how trusted we are by the people. It is something implicitly known in this country.

“And because we are trusted, no one complains when we ask—or sometimes take—a favour. It requires a century of honest government to bring about an implicit trust of this sort. If Mr Macmillan’s friends might have squandered it in at most a generation, this is a trust on which our whole way of life depends.” He moved away from the window and let me follow him back to my chair. He smiled, now with a semblance of human feeling. “Of course the insurers will report as we have asked them. All else aside, your evidence and that of the one other survivor will be decisive.”