If Mr. Churchill, as First Lord, brought Mr. Chamberlain’s Cabinet a sorely needed touch of colour, Mr. Anthony Eden endowed it with whatever remained of the credit which had accrued to him as a Conservative Foreign Minister who had resigned, rather than continue to countenance, a policy of appeasing the axis. The bloom of those days when he first declaimed so earnestly in favour of peace at Geneva and West-minster was somewhat faded; those journeyings from capital to capital in the same pursuit, when, with finger tips pressed together, he listened attentively to what Stalin or Tatarescu or Goering had to say, seemed now a remote, and perhaps unsubstantial, enterprise. Even so, his presence in the Cabinet added to its repute, and created the feeling that youth was being given a chance. Age could not wither him, nor custom stale his infinite banality.
The others were all familiar faces - Sir Kingsley Wood, Mr Hore-Belisha, M. Walter Elliot, Sir John Simon. They were still theoretically a National Government, first assembled under the auspices of Ramsay MacDonald to execute a doctor’s mandate, and now retaining faint vestigial remains, in Mr Harold Nicolson and others, of National Labour, and of several Liberal varieties, ever ready to sink party differences and take office. Between the wars, with only brief interruptions, they had governed, but their reign was drawing to its close, and most of them would soon be little heard of except to be denounced as Guilty Men. The impression they made as they directed what came to be known, somewhat inaptly, as the war effort, was rather of weariness or decrepitude than guilt. A quality of twilight was in their faces and voices as they appealed to their countrymen to ‘Save for the Brave,’ not adding, however, that none but the brave deserved to save; as they assembled together or dispersed, making speeches, thumbing through documents, taking their places in Parliament, in the Carlton Club; spreading out their already abbreviated Times or Daily Telegraph in the morning, and somnolently listening to the nine o’clock news at night.
In France there was no such figure as Mr Churchill to turn to. Instead, an aged Marshal was preparing to surrender, and the last poor pillars of the Third Republic, shaking and tottering, would provide no impediment. Daladier, Reynaud, Leon Blum, Chautemps, Flandin and others, who for a quarter of a century past had been in and out of Ministries, felt their power ebbing away. Photographed in groups with various combinations and permutations, delivering orations, saving the franc only to lose it again, Right, Left and Centre - now it seemed they had little or nothing to offer, or even to suggest. Even more than their prototypes across the Channel, they had become quite irrelevant. Other forces were shaping which would sweep them relentlessly aside.
Already the most hopeful direction in which to look was westward - old dry parent trunk hoping for sap to drain back into its parched tissue from distant shoots still apparently green and alive. Such hopes were not in vain. In the White House president Roosevelt, preparing to win his third presidential election on a promise to keep America out of the war, was also, at the same time, preparing to take her in fine style into it. His extraordinary political knockabout performance had now gone on for eight years, and his position seemed stronger than ever. Seldom, if ever, has such sustained political agility been seen. His followers and his associates might change, sometimes with startling suddenness, but he went marching on.
Since his death, attempts have been made to deduce a consistent pattern out of his conduct of American affairs, to trace through them some consistent purpose which was being pursued; but the more his career is examined, the more inconsequential and, at the same time, fabulous, does it appear. He played by ear rather than following any score of his own or another’s composition; he improvised, he smiled - he and his consort ever, ever smiling. Having got into the White House, there he triumphantly remained, to the almost apoplectic rage of his opponents, and the delight of his varied supporters, all of whom were persuaded to believe that he was deeply concerned with their particular interests - Southern Democrats convinced that though he might for political reasons pay lip service to ideas like racial equality, White supremacy was safe in his hands (as, indeed, it was);Left Wing intellectuals equally convinced that though he might, for political reasons, associate with reactionary Southern Democrats, his heart was on the Left, and all his endeavours directed towards improving the circumstances of what he called, in the jargon his regime brought into current usage, the ‘under privileged;’ farmers, trade unionists, cranks of every sort and description, all likewise convinced that in Roosevelt they had a faithful friend and champion.
If the Western democracies were looking westwards, he was looking eastwards, knowing that there he, too, had a role to play, and that a major one. Already he had issued appeals to all the Governments of all the world, and would be frequently addressing this large, but nebulous, clientele, later expanded into all the people everywhere. Mr Sumner Welles and other emissaries had made the rounds from capital to capital, voluminously reporting, but leaving little trace behind of their wanderings; and an intimate correspondence had begun between the President and Mr Churchill in the guise of a ‘Naval Person.’ In his wheel chair, cigarette in long holder tilted into the air, heavy metal braces which, in his last public utterance, he for the first time complained were heavy to carry around with him - thus accoutred, Roosevelt, too, was anxious and ready to enter the fray.
On the other side were the dictators - the Axis or anti-Comintern contingent, which had acquired, as a temporary associate, the Comintern. Hitler and Mussolini were then seemingly at the top of their bent. The Führer’s somnambulistic course had almost reached its stupendous climax. Now, when its ignominious end is known, it is difficult to remember the days of his glory. Yet how tremendous they were! What a concentration of purpose his single purpose generated - outward and visible in those howls of animal approval which punctuated his speeches, and became a familiar, if horrifying, sound even in English ears. His phosphorescent personality, physically so horrifying, yet succeeded in imposing itself on the German people, and in producing a kind of fascination, or, at any rate, obsession, elsewhere. Afterwards, notably at Nuremberg, his associates tried to show that their acceptance of his will’s finality was hesitant, or positively reluctant. Their excuses, however, were unconvincing even to themselves. They followed him with blind confidence. He was their Pied Piper, whose words lured them on. If the end was destruction, his as well as theirs, their faith never faltered. In his star they could not but believe. Everything seemed to be working in his favour; and perhaps even the destructive end was what, in their hearts, they longed for - a stupendous bonfire of themselves and their world, a collective act of suttee or self-immolation whose like had never before been seen.
The junior partner, Mussolini, was now set on the same course, though after doubts and hesitations, which still occasionally recurred. Like Lancelot Gobbo, there was a fiend who said ‘On!’ and an inner voice which urged him ‘Back!’ On the whole, the fiend had it, though the final step had still to be taken. The Duce hesitated on the brink of war, anxious to plunge in, but fearful that the water might be chilly, occasionally inserting a toe to test its temperature, taking up a position on the diving board for a decisive plunge, and then deciding still to wait a little longer. If only his Italians had been Germans! - but they remained irretrievably Italian even when he made them goose-step, and actually toyed with the idea of planting forests in the north of Italy in the expectation that, by thus altering geographical conditions, he might produce a more warlike people suitable to execute his purposes. On the one hand he saw a prospect of illimitable loot; and on the other, some native prudence, which had survived his later megalomania made him hesitate.
He lived in a state of perpetual irresolution, of irritation with himself and with everyone else -particularly with his minute King,Victor Emmanuel, whom he had kept on the throne of Italy, and from whom he received constant little pricks and annoyances. He wanted to be absolutely sure that victory would come to him without the necessity of winning it on the field of battle. His
envy and dislike of Hitler warred with his conviction that the Führer’s star would never wane. Like Macbeth, he continually assured himself that Burnham Wood could never walk to Dunsinane - and yet it might; no man of woman born could interrupt the Führer’s triumphant course - and yet who knew if there might not be one, like Macduff, from his mother’s womb untimely ripped? For Mussolini, these were uneasy months, full of hesitation, changes of mood, stomach disorders, and the exhausting blisses of a youthful mistress.
Far away in the Kremlin, inscrutable and watchful, Hitler’s latest colleague, Stalin, took quiet advantage of opportunities as they presented themselves. To the Duce’s annoyance, he had pulled in quicker and bigger dividends than the earlier members of the Axis firm. By his sudden reversal of policy he had been able to gather up half Poland and the Baltic States, and, though he found himself for the time being engaged in an unexpectedly stubborn conflict with Finland, might be expected to make other gains before very long. From remote Georgia he had obscurely appeared as one of Lenin’s minor lieutenants, and since that time, with ruthless and patient persistence, he had become, in himself, the dictatorship of the proletariat by the simple expedient of eliminating all other actual and potential claimants to that important position.
For the moment, relations between Berlin and Moscow seemed most harmonious. Friendly and congratulatory messages were exchanged, and the German Foreign Minister, von Ribbentrop, could wear on his breast the Order of Lenin designed to honour the greatest heroes in the struggle for world proletarian revolution. War supplies, which had been promised in the Russo-German Agreement of August 1939, were being punctually delivered, and other conversations were pending designed to extend the basis of collaboration in return for further participation in Hitler’s bounty. Aryan superman and proletarian dictatorship seemed to have joined forces, and to represent a mighty combination, capable of dividing the world between them.
6
Letters From America
April 21, 1946.
New York
Dearest Kit, I’m leaving New York for Washington tomorrow, and send you a note before I go. Wandering about a town with nothing much to do is a rather melancholy occupation. This is what I’ve been doing over Easter. Yesterday, Easter Sunday, there was a huge fashion parade in Fifth Avenue - masses of well-dressed and well-fed people aimlessly drifting to and fro in bright sunshine. After all the desolation of Europe, it was in a way impressive, and yet I don’t know. I didn’t envy them particularly, or feel any greater confidence in their future than in that of their shabby, hungry equivalents in Paris or London. The skull beneath the flesh I always seem to see. Perhaps morbidly, and have too keen a nose for mortality.
April 24, 1946.
Washington
I was delighted and relieved to find here a batch of letters from you and the children and to know that all was well. Hughie quoted to me some lines of verse last time I saw him which finished up, ‘For terrible is earth.’ I’ve said this line over and over to myself - terrible when one’s alone, especially after a certain age. There’s so little one wants now, and that little so precious in consequence; just to be with the faces one knows and cares for, and to hear unfamiliar voices; no more. I have an awful feeling when I wake up in the night that I made one of the great mistakes of my life when I didn’t just settle down and write on leaving the army. However, I didn’t, and no doubt it’ll turn out for the best. Certainly, if writing ‘The Forties’ is to be considered worth doing, I couldn’t have chosen a better method of equipping myself for it.
29 April, 1946.
Washington
I’m staying for the time being in a faded antique flat in the house of an aged Frenchwoman. There’s no cuppa on the premises, so I have to get up and go out to a drug store for my morning coffee. Everyone does this, seated on tall stools at a counter. Then I acquire two enormous newspapers through whose stagnant columns I swim lazily for an hour or so. After that there are press conferences, visits to the Senate, etc etc.
How unutterably contemptible is power and all its uses. I’ve seen so much of it, too much. How loathsome are legislative assemblies and political gatherings of all sorts and descriptions. Strident men getting up and asserting their opinions, straining to establish their authority. I can’t imagine myself going on doing this - I mean to the extent of conveying their importance, an instrument in their struggle for power. As far as I’m concerned, let them keep their power and good luck to them. I don’t want any of it. I need scarcely say that I haven’t done any writing to speak of, and wonder now if I ever shall.
May 21, 1946.
Washington
I’ve just emerged from one of the longest and most unrelieved fits of melancholia I’ve ever experienced in which dark thoughts or devils quite possessed me. Perhaps it was a change of life or something. It went on all through the journey and in New York and here - a sense of such desolation that the very air I breathed seemed full of corruption. I’ve only just now begun to work at all, and though I wouldn’t say I was even now particularly cheerful I can get along. Journalism is a loathsome occupation but I suppose I deserve it.There’s a wonderful passage in Coleridge, which seems to me the cri du coeur of all journalists in which he says that like an ostrich he’s planted too many eggs in the hot sand of the desert of this world.
May 28, 1946.
Washington
I’ve taken over in the office here. It’s a bit heavy going to begin with but I suppose one’ll get used to it in time. I really think that this job will just about cure me of what Hughie calls my realpolitik. On Saturday I went to a joint session of the Congress and Truman came in and there was a lot of excitement. Poor little man - he seemed very lost. How absurd a thing is power, especially when combined with insignificance. At least it’s more pitiable in such circumstances. I suppose ceremonial and all that has to be invented to help it out. King George VI is a more satisfactory proposition than President Truman. I’m haunted by the idea of not getting any of my own work done, by those terrible Ciano sheets, by this sense of time slipping past. And yet I don’t know that it matters much. It’s only one’s egotism which makes one think it matters. My morning cuppa has at last been organised (made by myself which I really prefer) and I’ve found a swimming pool in a club here so get my favourite exercise, and altogether it’s not so bad except that I’m so unutterably sick of newspapers and find America a lonely desolate sort of place.
16 June, 1946.
Washington
The weeks pass by quickly now. I’ve got into a routine, my usual - up at seven and make the cuppa and potter around in a dressing gown; then newspapers and picking over the dung-heap of this world’s affairs for my little necessary morsels; then my own little shovelful or two into the heap; then the evening and a stroll; then a glass or two and some talk if any available. I do actually now occasionally write a little on my own. A routine is essential when one becomes older, a framework or scaffolding to hold up one’s tottering life.
America as I’m sure you’ll find, is a place about which one has highly varied feelings. One doesn’t acquire a settled relationship with the place. Sometimes it seems utterly abhorrent and at other times oddly sympathetic, I suppose according to one’s own mood.
September 2, 1946.
Washington
How infinitely melancholy the affairs of the world are just now. I can’t tell you with what weariness I approach the task of having my little daily say about them from here. Then every now and again, perhaps walking in the morning, I suddenly forget all about them and feel briefly the mystery of things and am suddenly serene.
August 20, 1947.
Washington
The Regents Park flat sounds absolutely wonderful and in the circumstances I’d personally make any financial sacrifice to get somewhere more or less agreeable to live. It seems to me that’s the thing to go for. Present intentions are that I should leave for Toky
o at the end of September and be back in London late November. Then I shall never go on any more travels unless we decide to emigrate all together to give the boys a better chance elsewhere. As it’s turned out I’ve scarcely been able to go to New York at all. I only spent one rather ghastly weekend there with the Broughs who now live in a remote suburb with a car and a flavour of death.
November 15, 1947
Los Angeles
On Monday I go to Seattle and early Tuesday fly to Tokyo via Alaska. You may be sure I shan’t linger unnecessarily on the way. I feel as though the day I walk into 5 Cambridge Gate and am home at last with us all under one roof will be the happiest day of all my life. This place, Los Angeles, is ugly and rather ludicrous but I’m quite glad to have seen it. The drive across has made me feel well after being rather run down at the end of my time in Washington and I feel full of ideas about writing and everything else.
My darling, although actually I’ll be further away in Tokyo than in Washington I feel nearer every day because I’m on my way back.
All my love as always,
Malcolm
7
Fellow Travellers
Mr. Adolphe Menjou the other day expressed astonishment that so many rich men should be Communists or fellow travellers. It seemed to him an extraordinary circumstance that a millionaire should embrace a creed which, if it succeeded, could not but deprive him of the advantages of his wealth. As a matter of fact, so complex a thing is human nature, there are plenty of precedents for such apparent illogicality. For instance, Talleyrand, an aristocrat and a bishop, associated himself with an anti-clerical revolutionary movement, and Nietzsche, prophet of the Aryan superman, personally disliked Germans, and spent most of his life outside Germany, dying at last in a lunatic asylum. There have been Jewish anti-Semites, and male feminists, and brewers who were total abolitionists. The fact is that human behaviour cannot be comprehended in the concept of enlightened self-interest.
Time and Eternity Page 6