2. Churchill’s exact words were not officially recorded but are reported in Hugh Dalton’s diary entry in slightly different language, see The Second World War Diary of Hugh Dalton, 1940–1945, Benjamin Pimlott, ed. (London: Cape in association with the London School of Economics and Political Science, 1986), pp. 27–29. The language quoted in my text is found in the margin of that entry. Lukacs suggests that it is possible that Churchill himself offered the correction to Dalton later. See John Lukacs, Five Days, pp. 4–5.
3. See, e.g., Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Finest Hour, 1939–1941 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1983). Note that a few revisionist historians dissent. See John Charmley, “Rethinking Negotiating With Hitler,” New York Times, November 25, 2000.
4. Neither Churchill nor Halifax would later acknowledge their debate in the War Cabinet. Churchill wrote: “[T]he supreme question of whether we should fight on alone never found a place upon the War Cabinet agenda.” Winston S. Churchill and John Keegan, The Second World War, Volume II: Their Finest Hour (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1986), p. 157. In 1942, Halifax falsely claimed to someone involved in writing the official history of the war that there had never been consideration of the “idea” of “asking Mussolini to mediate peace terms between [Great Britain] and Germany.” Andrew Roberts, The Holy Fox: The Life of Lord Halifax (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991), p. 227. It was as if they both wanted to reinforce the heroic narrative that they had never seriously considered negotiation.
5. Only in January 1990 were the secret minutes of the War Cabinet released. See CAB 65 War Cabinet Conclusions and Confidential Annexes, Public Records Office, London.
6. See generally Lukacs, Five Days. See also G. N. Esnouf, “British War Aims and Attitudes Towards Negotiated Peace, September 1939 to July 1940,” Ph.D. dissertation, King’s College, London, 1988.
7. They were members of the War Cabinet because Churchill’s new “National Government” included Labor.
8. Paul Kennedy, Strategy and Diplomacy 1870–1945 (New York: HarperCollins, 1983), p. 16.
9. Roberts, The Holy Fox, p. 49.
10. Ibid.
11. Lukacs, Five Days, p. 50.
12. German war documents indicate that Hitler would have immediately backed down if there had been resistance. At the time, France and Belgium had wanted to call Hitler’s bluff by responding with force and asked Britain to join them. But Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin refused to do anything concrete. With tears in his eyes, he argued that Great Britain lacked both the public will and the military resources to enforce her treaty guarantees. Roberts, The Holy Fox, pp. 58–60.
13. Roberts, The Holy Fox, p. 58.
14. Ibid., pp. 70–71.
15. Ibid., p. 75.
16. Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life (New York: Henry Holt, 1992), p. 599.
17. Winston S. Churchill, Blood, Sweat, and Tears (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1941), p. 66.
18. Its remaining territory was carved up among Germany, Hungary, Poland, and a newly independent Slovakia.
19. The summer before the outbreak of the war, Halifax delivered a speech that clearly warned Germany that Britain “was neither bluffing, nor willing to put up with further blackmail.” He said in the speech, “The threat of military force is holding the world to ransom, and our immediate task is to resist aggression. I would emphasize that tonight with all the strength at my command, so that nobody may misunderstand it … Hitler has said that deeds, not words, are necessary. That is also our view.” In response, Churchill toasted Halifax and said that “in principle there are no differences between us. We have all, from various standpoints, accepted the policy which you and the Prime Minister have now proclaimed. If differences remain, they will only be upon emphasis and method, upon timing and degree.” Roberts, The Holy Fox, p. 164.
20. Churchill was both ambivalent and skeptical about the wisdom of this treaty. On the one hand, he applauded a change in British policy that suggested Britain would resist further German aggression. On the other hand, he doubted that, without the Soviet Union’s help, the British and the French could prevent German military moves in Eastern Europe. See Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002), pp. 543–44.
21. In a secret appendix to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the German government and the Soviet Union had agreed to divide Eastern Europe. For further reading on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, see I. J. Vizulis, The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939: The Baltic Case (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1990). Germany would later declare war on the Soviet Union and occupy the remainder of Poland.
22. Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography, p. 22.
23. Ibid., p. 10.
24. Ibid., p. 22.
25. Ibid., p. 116.
26. Kay Halle, Irrepressible Churchill (New York: Facts on File, 1985), pp. 52–53, cited at http://quotationsbook.com/quote/44624/.
27. Roberts, The Holy Fox, p. 187.
28. Jenkins, Churchill, p. 464.
29. Roberts, The Holy Fox, p. 187.
30. Ibid., p. 209.
31. “[O]n 23 May the majority of the British people did not know how catastrophic the situation of their army was.” Lukacs, Five Days, p. 38.
32. Hugh Dalton on Churchill, quoted at ibid., p. 4.
33. Roberts, The Holy Fox, pp. 4, 6. Halifax inherited his father’s title and became a viscount in 1935 (p. 47). Halifax had earlier become the Baron of Irwin in 1926. Ibid., (p. 18).
34. Ibid., p. 6.
35. Ibid., p. 9.
36. Ibid., p. 303.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid., quoting Halifax Diary, September 22, 1940.
39. Roberts, The Holy Fox, p. 212.
40. Jenkins, Churchill, pp. 599–600.
41. Lukacs, Five Days, p. 94. In Halifax’s report of the meeting, Germany’s name is not explicitly mentioned. But the contemporaneous report of the Italian ambassador was much more direct about the need for German involvement in such discussions. As Bastianini wrote, Halifax had been told that, given the “special German-Italian relationship,” any problems between the Italians and the British could only be considered within the “greater and more enduring framework of a just and enduring European settlement.”
42. King Leopold II of Belgium surrendered to the Germans two days later, on May 28.
43. Lukacs, Five Days, p. 106.
44. War Cabinet Conclusions and Confidential Annexes, CAB. 65/13 WM 139.
45. War Cabinet Conclusions and Confidential Annexes, CAB. 65/13 WM 140.
46. Lukacs, Five Days, p. 113.
47. War Cabinet Conclusions and Confidential Annexes, CAB. 65/13 WM 140.
48. Ibid.; Lukacs, Five Days, p. 114.
49. Roberts, The Holy Fox, p. 214.
50. War Cabinet Conclusions and Confidential Annexes, CAB. 65/13 WM 140.
51. Lukacs, Five Days, p. 115.
52. Roberts, The Holy Fox, p. 217.
53. War Cabinet Conclusions and Confidential Annexes, CAB. 65/13 WM 140.
54. Ibid.
55. Esnouf, “British War Aims,” p. 223, quoted in Lukacs, Five Days, p. 119, n. 16. Roberts makes the same point in The Holy Fox, p. 95.
56. John Lukacs, The Duel: The Eighty-Day Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 97.
57. Ian Kershaw, Ten Decisions That Changed the World: 1940–41 (New York: Penguin, 2007), p. 38.
58. Lukacs, Five Days, pp. 137–39.
59. Lukacs, Five Days, p. 143. Since becoming prime minister, Churchill had written to Roosevelt several times pleading for help. But “during the dramatic last days of May there was no direct communication between Churchill and Roosevelt.” Lukacs, Five Days, p. 145.
60. Lukacs, Five Days, p. 145, quoting Cadogan Diaries, p. 290.
61. War Cabinet Conclusions and Confidential Annexes, CAB. 65/13 WM 142.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid. The quotations that follow are drawn from this source. See also Lukacs, Five Days, pp. 147
–51. Note that Churchill’s rebuttal at this point speaks only to the goal of keeping Italy out of the war. It didn’t address Halifax’s other purpose: to use discussions with Italy as an opportunity to explore the possibility of ending the war altogether.
64. Chamberlain indicated that he thought it likely that Hitler might make a definite offer to France, and if France indicated that it could only consider Hitler’s terms with the consent of Great Britain, he thought Hitler would say, “I am here, let them send a delegate to Paris.” Would Great Britain send a delegate to discuss the terms offered to France? Churchill thought the answer “could only be no,” and it appears that a majority of the War Cabinet agreed.
65. Roberts, The Holy Fox, pp. 220–21, quoting Halifax Diary, May 27, 1940 (emphasis added).
66. Roberts, The Holy Fox, p. 222; compare Lukacs, Five Days, p. 153. There was a third War Cabinet later that evening that began at 10 p.m. and dealt with the consequences of the Belgian surrender.
67. Roberts, The Holy Fox, p. 222.
68. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, p. 417.
69. War Cabinet Conclusions and Confidential Annexes, CAB. 65/13 WM 145.
70. As indicated above, there is no transcript of Churchill’s precise words. This quote is from Hugh Dalton’s contemporary diary entry, which reported what Churchill had said. See Lukacs, Five Days, p. 5.
71. The passage, which was of course written much later, continues, “There was no doubt that had I at this juncture faltered at all in leading the nation, I should have been hurled out of office. I was sure that every minister was ready to be killed quite soon, and have all his family and possessions destroyed, rather than give in. … It fell to me in those coming days and months to express their sentiments on suitable occasions. This I was able to do because they were mine also. There was a white glow, overpowering, sublime, which ran through our island from end to end.” Churchill and Keegan, The Second World War: Their Finest Hour, pp. 99–100.
72. War Cabinet Conclusions and Confidential Annexes, CAB. 65/13 WM 145.
73. Roberts, The Holy Fox, p. 221.
74. But, as Churchill would wryly note, wars are not won by evacuations.
75. Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006), p. 541.
76. Lukacs, Five Days, p. 128.
6: NELSON MANDELA
This chapter draws extensively on Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, and all quotations not otherwise footnoted with a reference come from this source. Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (New York: Little, Brown, 1995).
1. On January 31, 1985, President P. W. Botha publicly announced to the South African Parliament that he was offering Mandela his freedom if he “unconditionally rejected violence as a political instrument.” Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (New York: Little, Brown, 1996), p. 521. President Botha thought that this was a “brilliant solution” to the international pressure the government was receiving for keeping Mandela behind bars. He thought that “if Mandela refused, then the whole world would understand why the South African government could not release him.” Allister Sparks, Tomorrow Is Another Country (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 49.
2. Sisulu had been Tambo’s predecessor as secretary-general of the ANC.
3. Tom Lodge, Mandela: A Critical Life (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 2; Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, p. 5.
4. His teacher gave him the name “Nelson”; his given name, Rolihlahla, means “pulling the branch of a tree,” or “troublemaker.” Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, p. 3.
5. In 1949, Sisulu would eventually become the secretary-general of the ANC, Oliver Tambo’s predecessor as the head of the organization. Like Mandela, Sisulu would pay a high price for his fight against apartheid. He too would be arrested many times, eventually convicted of treason, and serve more than twenty-three years in South Africa’s prisons, many of them alongside Mandela.
6. Lodge, Mandela, p. 28.
7. The relationship with Great Britain was loosened in the early 1930s when the Union of South Africa became an independent country that was a member of the British Commonwealth with its own monarch. In 1961, South Africa became a republic.
8. In all but the Cape Province no blacks and few “coloreds” had the franchise. The Cape Province required property ownership as the qualification for voting, but even there blacks were barred from being members of Parliament. Graham Leach, South Africa: No Easy Path to Peace (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), p. 41.
9. Ibid. For a limited period of time, in the Cape Province the tiny minority of black property owners were allowed to vote.
10. In 1952, when Mandela was thirty-four, he became one of four deputy presidents of the ANC.
11. Patti Waldmeir, Anatomy of a Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of the New South Africa (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1997), p. 17. See also Daniel Lieberfeld, Talking with the Enemy: Negotiation and Threat Perception in South Africa (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999).
12. Allister Sparks, Tomorrow Is Another Country, p. 23.
13. In 1985, 859 people died in political violence. See Adrian Guelke, Rethinking the Rise and Fall of Apartheid (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 148.
14. Sparks, Tomorrow Is Another Country, p. 26.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., p. 27.
17. Waldmeir, Anatomy of a Miracle, p. 100.
18. Sparks, Tomorrow Is Another Country, p. 35.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., p. 36.
21. Waldmeir, Anatomy of a Miracle, p. 100.
22. The responses of his prison mates were varied. Walter Sisulu thought the talks were a good idea but “wished that the government initiated talks with us rather than us initiating talks with them.” Two wholeheartedly supported the idea, one of them exclaiming, “What have you been waiting for? We should have started this years ago.” The fourth colleague summarily rejected the talks on the grounds that they would be perceived as capitulation. But he told Mandela, he would not stand in his way. Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, p. 535.
23. Waldmeir, Anatomy of a Miracle, p. 101.
24. Ibid., p. 102.
25. Sparks, Tomorrow Is Another Country, p. 61.
26. Waldmeir, Anatomy of a Miracle, p. 104.
27. Ibid., p. 106.
28. Ibid., p. 109.
29. When the ANC leaders returned to their homes and began speaking publicly on behalf of the ANC, they were not arrested, signifying an effective lift of the ban on the ANC. De Klerk also began to erase the social restrictions of apartheid, opening up beaches, public parks, theaters, and other public facilities to citizens regardless of color. Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, p. 553.
30. Lodge, Mandela, p. 166.
31. Ibid., pp. 169–82.
32. On March 2, 1990, the ANC leadership re-affirmed that Mandela was Deputy President, and the next year he would become its President. Lodge, Mandela: A Critical Life, p. 260. Tambo would die in 1993.
33. Sparks, Tomorrow Is Another Country, p. 128.
34. Belgium is an example of a “democratic” country that does not have simple majority rule. The French-speaking minority have veto rights over some actions that might be taken by the Flemish speaking majority. For a full discussion of “consociational democracies,” see Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977).
35. Sparks, Tomorrow Is Another Country, p. 127.
36. In his memoir, de Klerk emphasizes the importance of the fall of the Berlin Wall in the timing of his decisions relating to Mandela’s release. See F. W. de Klerk, The Last Trek: A New Beginning (London: Macmillan, 2000).
37. While Mandela was in prison, the Zulu community had become split between the ANC and Inkatha. After Mandela’s triumphal release from prison, the Inkatha chief, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, became angry when some of his younger followers switched allegiance to the ANC. This led to vi
olence between the two groups. See Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, pp. 575–76.
38. Mandela investigated and was told that Operation Vula, as it was called, was a “moribund operation.” Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, p. 585.
39. Sparks, Tomorrow Is Another Country, p. 123.
40. The MK had not carried out any violent acts against the government since 1989 and had simply maintained its recruiting activities. Lodge, Mandela, p. 172.
41. Sparks, Tomorrow Is Another Country, p. 124.
42. Lodge, Mandela: A Critical Life, p. 172.
43. In July 1990, the ANC was tipped off that an attack was planned against ANC members in the Sebokeng Township. The ANC notified the police and asked them to prevent armed Inkatha from entering the township the following day. Instead, the police escorted the armed Inkatha into the township by bus. When the rally ended, the Inkatha engaged in a grisly attack, killing more than thirty people in broad daylight. Mandela was incensed and demanded an explanation from de Klerk. De Klerk did not respond or even acknowledge publicly that the event had occurred. Mandela was outraged. “[I]n any other nation,” he told de Klerk, “where there was a tragedy of this magnitude, when more than thirty people were slain, the head of state would make some statement of condolence.” De Klerk never did so and never provided an explanation. Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, pp. 587–88.
44. Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, p. 589. This explosive disclosure by the Guardian, based on top secret documents, caused a public uproar. De Klerk appointed Judge Richard Goldstone to head a new commission to investigate the facts, and Goldstone turned up even more damaging evidence of state involvement in fomenting black-on-black violence.
45. In April 1991, Mandela apologized to the ANC leadership for having previously vouched for de Klerk, saying that he had “misjudged” the president’s character. But as furious as he was, Mandela avoided demonizing de Klerk in public. He understood that such tactics, however temporarily satisfying, might result in a complete breakdown of the negotiations. Sparks, Tomorrow Is Another Country, p. 139.
46. In a positive development, the ANC and the National Party did manage to agree on a process for negotiation. There were some nine parties involved by this time, and the task of negotiating a new constitution promised to be Herculean. Therefore, they agreed that the process would consist of two stages. First, an “all-party congress,” composed of delegates from all of South Africa’s political parties, would negotiate the basic ground rules for electing a constituent assembly and the terms of an “interim constitution,” some terms of which would not be subject to change. In the second stage, a constituent assembly would be elected and form an interim government, which would then negotiate a permanent constitution, pursuant to the basic rules of the first congress. Sparks, p. 129. Stage One, christened the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA), progressed in fits and starts for about six months and ended in deadlock over the core political issue: majority rule versus “group rights.”
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