An
older generation of Americans who lived through World War II recall the British
Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who John F. Kennedy said, “In the dark days
and darker nights when England stood alone and most men save Englishmen
despaired of England’s life, he mobilized the English language and sent it into
battle.”
As
Margaret Thatcher is laid to rest with full honors, it would be well to recall
that she would not have been Prime Minister if there had not been a Winston
Churchill. Against the most daunting odds, he mobilized England against the
threat of Nazi Germany and its allies, Italy and Japan. After World War Two
broke out in 1939, England would wait years before the United States joined the
war after having been attacked by the Empire of Japan in 1941.
America
had a strong isolationist streak from the years before it joined the allies to
defeat Germany in World War I and it remained strong as the Nazis seized control
of one European nation after another in the 1930s and 40s. Churchill knew that
if England was to survive, he had to strengthen the bonds between America and
England. It was a task to which he had devoted his life.
It
was by any measure, an extraordinary life. His mother, Jennie Jerome, was an
American, born in Brooklyn in 1854, the daughter of a leading American
entrepreneur. Churchill’s father was Randolph Churchill, the son of the Eighth
Duke of Marlborough. On November 30, 1874, Winston was born. On April 9, 1963,
Churchill received an honorary citizenship from the United States. He would live
until January 24, 1965, dying at age ninety.
A
book by his official biographer, the historian Martin Gilbert, “Churchill and
America”, tells the story of his long love of America, one that was returned by
generations of Americans who shared their times with him. Churchill was,
contrary to what one might expect, not born into great wealth, but his parents
did rank among British aristocracy. Churchill loved his parents, as he put it,
“from a distance.” What he had inherited from them was a prodigious
intelligence, courage, and a tenacity that his contemporaries understood would
rescue them after earlier prime ministers had failed to act against the threat
of Hitler.
Churchill’s
relationship with Franklin D. Roosevelt mirrored in some ways that which
Margaret Thatcher had with Ronald Reagan. Like Churchill, they were comfortable
in their own skin and possessed principles that valued liberty and freedom in
the face of aggression. Like Churchill before them, they understood the threat
of Communism in the form of the Soviet Union that Reagan openly called “the evil
empire.”
Thatcher,
the first and thus far the only woman PM, showed her grit when she rescued
England from its steep decline, battling the trade unions and other forces, and
succeeding to a point that the news of her death reawakened the enmity they felt
for her when she lived.
At
age 25, in 1900, Churchill was first elected to Parliament. He would serve
there, with only a two-year break, for more than sixty years. He would hold a
variety of roles as part of PM’s cabinets, all of which prepared him for the
years he would serve in that post. Throughout those years, Churchill was
uncannily prescient in identifying the trends of his time and, throughout those
years, he remained enamored of America.
While
his fame rested on his achievements in government, his wealth was based in a
prodigious writing talent, particularly in the arena of history. He wrote many
books and many magazine articles. Another source of wealth came from the many
speaking tours he had, touring the U.S. In the course of his visits, he came to
know many outstanding leaders in business and government here and his admiration
for them was reciprocated.
Even
so, he would have to labor long and hard to bring America into the war before
the attack on Pearl Harbor facilitated it. “Apparently, you always have to have
a disaster before anything sensible can be done which would prevent it.” In
1939, he joined the War Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty.
The
generations since World War II cannot imagine the threat that existed in those
days. In 1940 when Churchill became Prime Minister, he had been in office just
thirty-six days as Germany conquered Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland,
Luxembourg, and France. FDR did what he could to assist England but was hampered
by a Neutrality Act that imposed difficulties; American opinion and the need to
be reelected made action difficult as well.
We
can, with the benefit of hindsight, look back and say that it all turned out as
it was supposed to, but Churchill had to deal with an unknown future, a nation
that had been weakened by World War I, and one that was in great need of ships,
the weapons of war, and munitions.
Americans
may think that the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944 were an American victory,
but it was in fact the culmination of intensive Anglo-American planning. U.S.
soldiers, sailors and airmen were joined by 61,715 British and Canadian troops.
At war’s end, Churchill’s political party lost the majority in Parliament and he
was required to step aside. He would be returned as Prime Minister from 1951 to
1955.
Margaret
Thatcher once said,"I had the patriotic conviction that, given great leadership
of the sort I heard from Winston Churchill in the radio broadcasts to which we
listened, there was almost nothing that the British people could not do."
She
well knew the lessons of Churchill’s life and leadership in the gravest years of
England’s history. In addition to her own indomitable character, she could draw
on Churchill’s example. Americans owe a debt of gratitude to both of them.
By Alan Caruba
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