>> thank you for listening and may your dreams go with you. we want to tell you about wednesday night. there is more american history tv in prime time with the focus on the leg sieacy of john f. key at 8:00 p.m. eastern. >> c-span's washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up wednesday morning. we're getting your reaction to today's vote on the gop tax reform bill. join the conversation all morning with your phone calls, e-mails, facebook comments and tweets. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal live at 7:00

a.m. eastern wednesday morning. join the discussion. >> sunday night, astronaut scott kelly recalls the voyages into space in his book endurance. he sinlt viewed by nasa administrator charles bolden. >> yours was the third servicing mission. having been part of that mission and having become an official hubble hugger, talk to me about what you believe the legacy of hubble is. or does it have a legacy? >> i think it's incredible. it's been up there -- you would know better than i how long it's been up there. >> 27 years. 27 years. to have a telescope. >> getting to 30. >> doing that kind of science on a daily basis and, you know, letting them get the stuff most

of you don't see and the public engagement that is provided and let people kind of get a sense for, you know, where we are in the universe which is pretty insignificant. if you consider, you know, those images. i think it's been a great success. it was a great first mission for me. >> afterwards sunday night at 9:00 eastern on book tv on c-span2. >> winston churchill was awarded the nobel prize in literature for the book "the second world war." up next on american history tv, we'll take a look at dhuch hichs historian with andrew roberts. this is 50 minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, we ended last year's conference with a prenztation by andrew roberts. and we know winning formula whether we see one.

so to introduce andrew this year we have the beautiful katherine cats. >> hello. i'll keep my remarks brief in order to maximize the amount of time we have to be informed and entertained by our next and final speaker andrew roberts. for those of you who recall the presentation on sir winston's charming nature at last year's conference are looking forward to this as much as i have. amongst the numerous endeavors, andrew roberts is the guest curator of the exhibit churchill-shakespeare at the library. he's the author and editor of 19 books which we heard a bit about the last few days. his most recent publication was a biography of napoleon, a short work coming in at just under 1,000 pages. and we're all eagerly awaiting his next book, had a what is sure to be the definitive single

volume biography of sir winston churchill which will be published next year. so without further ado, on the subject of churchill's living history, ladies and gentlemen, andrew roberts. >> ladies and gentlemen, it's a great honor to be invited to address you. and thank you very much indeed katherine for the very kind words. and this morning whether we starmented this morning, david freeman equated this conference to an opera. the only thing i know about opera is that the opera entails until the fat woman sings. i think that is a rather rude thing to say about me. it could be summed up as

punditry and the greatest man in history also chose it as his. more than anything other than a statesman, churchill thought of himself as a historian and moreover, he thought of his roles as statesman and politician almost entirely through the prism of history. he was far from being a model schoolboy jack plum reminds us in his essay. he was willful, self involved and stupid about mathematics or latin. he was well ahead of his class in history and top of examination every time that he took it. he failed, of course, many times but never in history. indeed, so far from failing, churchill sold more history books than any other 20th century historian and possibly more than any historian ever. and, of course, churchill had to be -- he was largely self

taught. he wasn't born smart. randal, enjoy that more than anyone else i think. i think it -- i think it extremely difficult for anyone not born into churchill's world or time, jack plum also wrote, to realize what a dominance the past had over all his thinking and action. difficult, perhaps, but let's try. in his very first formal public speech, the one in near badge in 1987, he made reference to history saying there are not wanting those who say that in this jubilee year our empire reached the height of its glory and power and now that we shall begin to decline as babylon's rome declined. do not believe the croakers built give the light to the dismal croaking by showing by our actions that a vitality of our race is unimpaired.

i'm not going to do a churchill voice because kevin did that. you can take that home if you like. churchill liked to compare that british empire of rome. it gave context and induced pride in the audiences as the comparison is made of the advantages of the former. history is main stay of his writing, thought and speeches. i like to throw a few buckets over the side of the boat into the ocean that is churchill's studies and examine what we find about this ever present phenomenon in his life and thought. he didn't use history like other politicians in order to summon up the blood. instead, he employed it in his -- in the body of his argument for he truly believed that his generation had a duty to continue britain's work which he saw in the classically riggish way of being at the

forefront of human progress in every sphere. much of his pognasity stemmed from this belief that britain had a duty to fulfill. and that they would be betraying the forefather it's they stepped back from it. and the chinese demanded the port to be returned them in the early 1920s, clutch hill said why should bhelt down or moral capital collected by our forefathers to please a lot of pass fists? i would send a telegram beginning, nothing for nothing and precious little for nothing. the song that's taught him that the essentials in history did not change and he must strive like his predecessors had had a tremendously important infect on him. in december 1986, thank mr. j.l. anderson for sending him an act in 1808, wrote, it is all one

story in spite of every change in weapons from the sheep under wloes bellies they escaped from the cave of sight clubs to the oxon with which they broke the line in the orange free state. if anyone in the audience can tell me how he broke the used oxon, i'd be delighted to know that. it would be very helpful. for those who like to mischaracterize churchill's attitudes towards indians as holy aggressive and unpresident anlt, it's important to remember the statement he made in august 1 1909 about the revolutionary who was hanged for the assassination of a civil serve anlt. and his last words had been the only lesson required in india president sent to learn how to die and the only way to teach it is by dying ourselves. therefore, i die and glory in my

martyrdome. churchill wrote to blunt that dingra will be remembered in 2,000 years time as we remember other heroes and he quoepted last words as the finest ever made in the name of patriotism. the frob dproblem today is not taught in schools, we ourselves don't remember them. as i will straighted llustrated american war of independence had been won by denzel washington. churchill's famous row with king george v over the naming of battleship was about history. the king claimed not to have wanted oliver's name immortalized on a battleship because of the brutal repression

of the catholic island in the mid 17th century, in fact, it was probably his republicanism which he really took exception. there is moreover the danger of the men giving the ship nicknames of ill conditioned words that rhyme with it. his majesty had been a sailor. he's not of the old reference. that's what one might call a hanovarian sense of humor. churchill argued that pits and they had fine precedence around which historical associations of the greatest moments are gathered. he recalls the two famous statesmen under whom the most

marshal xploi marshal exploits of our world is achieved and the defeat of the martyr revifves the glories of the period as the war spike did and ultimately he was a result in 194 but prit and crumb never were. on the day that war broke out on tug 4th of august, churchill can ex-claimed, this will be read by 1,000 generations, think of. that the first world war gave churchill many opportunities for calling history and aid during the struggle as on the 23rd of may in which he said in a speech, if the germans are to be beaten decisively, they will be beaten like napoleon was beaten and the confederates were beaten, that is superior numbers

along fronts so extensive they cannot maintain them or replace the losses incurred along them. there he was right. but in the previous year, he probably lent on history too much when he planned and supported to the upt most the attempt to for the them out. in 1807, admiral successfully forced the straits by ships alone losing any ten men on the way there and 29 on the way back. it was not a precedence, of course, ultimately. under water mines didn't exist in 1807. this is one of the times that instead of sustaining clutch hill, his knowledge of history led him astray. in the debate on the report of the kplicommission, churchill s of the true buibunal of historyh was at chamberlain's funeral speech. during the hard fought discussions over the intervention in the russian civil war, churchill similarly had frequent recourse to historical parallels on the 29th of july, wl the face of david

lloyd george's demands that they all be evacuated. the whole episode was a very painful one and to go back into history reminded him of our operations and our desertion of the katalans. he was referring to a boftched effort to open a second front in eastern spain during the napoleon wor napoleon wars. the history was so deep that churchill could assume they would pick up the reference but find it painful one. he mentioned the siege of the desertion and today's cabinet there were literally only two members who would know what on earth he was talking about. because, of course today we know that the british empire in india was evil and wrong because we're zoonltly taught that in our schools and universities and by the bbc that poor, poor winston churchill in his ignorance could not have known that britain was

viciously exploiting india and giving absolutely nothing back to her. mass education has to be mentioned, newspapers, unprecedented amounts of international trade. standardized units of exchange. bridges. obviously universities and roads and aqueducts and docks and things of that. other than that, absolutely nothing else. the abolition i guess you got to plengs that practice of burning windows and tuggy, of course, the murders of travelers. i suppose we gave them the only incorrupt legal system in the history of the subcouldn't nent and industrial development and

unprecedented disease prevention projects. but other than that, all one can really mention is the english language and the first national and tell graphic communications and two centuries of protections from the russians and the french and afghans and other outside threats including that obviously from imperial japan that killed 17% of the philippines population during the second world war. but apart from that, we did nothing for india. in january 1925, churchill noted after meeting the french prime minister that he was personally convinced that germany would never acquiesce permanently in her condition of the eastern frontier. the wars of frederick the great as well as those of peter the great had arisen from deep causes and ambitions which so far from having passed away were now associated with great historic memories. such memories to the fall of may 1930, churchill complains of the anglo-german naval treaty that

never since the reign of charles ii this country been so defenseless as this treaty will make it. of course, he was open to criticism considering he himself had done to the admiral cruiser building program in the half decade long chancellorship that only ended the previous year. he had a fashion for old traditions, a great sense of traditions. he said in the speech the other club when churchill died. i think perhaps his ten years out of office when he was writing his life of great ancestor laid the basis for his greatness. once he finished, he started work on another history book. the history of the english speaking peoples. he was not writing the books for academic research. it was always with a mote they've history would be as he put it, helpful as a guide in

present difficulties. in 1936, churchill told his journalist friend that our communications cannot be left at the mercy of so unreliable things as italian friendship. we must retain that command of the mediterranean which my ancestor first established. later that year he told dana dir of great britain and france that those who embody the tradition and revive the force of nelson's fleets and napoleon's armies are not in combination be found a helpless prey. but if to these marshal values they add the sovereign conceptions of justice and freedom, then indeed they will be unconquerable. the idea of uniting nelson's navy and napoleon's army which were so antagonistic was typically churchillian. he wrote a history book that was a confederate victory at gettysburg. in the speech attacking the

munich settlement on october 1838, do the no suppose this is the end. this is only the beginning of the reckonning. this is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup. and he carried on speaking and said that we -- that this cup will be propered to us year by year unless by a supreme accompany of moral health and marshal vigor we rise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time. that knowledge sufficed in him after a lifetime of reading and writing history that britain was not as morally healthy as she had been in the olden time, tormented him. yet by articulating it, he was able to taunlt tt the british pe to becoming brave and northerlily vigorous and healthy as he and as their ancestors. it's not too much to say that without his historical imagination, this living sense

of history, churchill could not have warned britain in the world of what he was to call with another historical analogy a new dark age. today that analogy would also fall completely flat where any prime minister otherwise employed because the dark ages are not at all in britain's schools today. after the war started, told a victorious crew of ajax at a celebratory lunch in february 1940 that warrior heroes may look down at nelson's monument looks down upon us now without any feeling that island race lost the daring offer the examples they set faded as the generations succeeded one another. so the very act of going to war has shown the reinterdugs duction -- reintroduction of marshal vig dwror. while the norwegian campaign was being fought, he was somehow able at 11:00 at night to

discuss with his research assistant bill deacon and his god son1066. deacon recalled how despite naval signals being brought in by signals as the battle progressed talk ranged around spreading shadows of the norman invasion and the figure of edward the confessor, who as churchill wrote, comes down to us as faint, misty, frail. deacon went on, i can still see the map on the wall with the dispositions of the british fleet of norway and the voice of the first lord as he grasps with his unusual insight of his positions in 1066. this is no lack of attention to current business. it was the measure of the man with the supreme historical eye, the distant episodes were as close and real as the mighty events on hand. once churchill became prime minister, his use of the past as a tool for working out where britain was in the present

became, if anything, even more pronounced. montgomery recalled how in july 1940 he asked general allen brook whether england had ever been in such dire straits before such as the armada. yet monty wrote he showed no outward signs of anxiety in public. at a discussion at checkers he observed the stand of the 30th motor brigade and the third world tank regiment that may that the men of calais were the bitter grit that stopped us -- sorry, that saved us by stopping them as sydney smith stopped napoleon at acre. these references to the napoleonic war in speeches, conversations, books he watched undoubtedly influenced the grand strategy that britain adopted. in them britain had played to her greatest strengths, in this case maritime, and avoided major continental commitments of troops until her antagonist had

first blunted and broken his army in the wastes of russia. william pitt and then lord liverpool had played a waiting game, trusting napoleon to overextend himself and in meantime confining himself to privilege cal attacks, only crossing the channel into the netherlands, present day belgium to deliver the crushing blow. they only did that when they judged napoleon was ready to meet his work load. churchill largely copied that strategy and persuaded the americans to adopt it too with result that hitler's 12 years in power were even shorter than napoleon's 15. we have crossed, he wrote, the mysterious boundary which separates the presents from the past. he wrote that in his article old battlefields of virginia in 1929. we have entered the domain of history. and when america's entry into the second word war loomed a decade later, churchill crossed

the boundaries several advertisements more to fortify his listeners with the understanding that only history can give. some say americans were soft, he said. they would never understand the bloodletting. but i had studied the civil war, fought to the last desperate inch. by total contrast, hitler thought the americans too decadent to make a difference on any european battlefield until the year 1970. churchill's speech of september 11th, 1940 included the words we must regard the next week or so as a very important period in our history. it ranks with the days when the spanish armada was approaching the channel and drake was finishing his game of bowls, or when nelson stood between us. we've read about all this in the history books. but what is happening now is on a far greater scale and of far more consequence to the future of the life and the world than these brave old days of the past. as the canadian diplomatic and

diaryist who said theific of that speech on britons, it makes them feel -- charles richie, he said he makes them feel the living of history. they have the eye of history upon them, have the tangible effect of encouraging them to behave in a better, braver, more noble way, to carry themselves in such a way that for the rest of their lives, they knew that they would deserve finest hour. when general sir john dill wrote to churchill in october 1940, explaining why the maverick general sir percy hobart should -- hubbard, as it's pronounced -- should not be employed in a senior capacity, churchill naturally reached for the history books to refute his arguments. crumble, wolf, clive, gordon, and in a difference sphere, lawrence of arabia, all have very close resemblance to the characteristics assembled in

paragraph too, he raised in reply. this is a time to try men of force and vision, and not to be exclusively confined to those who are judged safe by conventional standards. d-day was to prove churchill right in this. and deal wrong. even before hitler invaded the so-called soviet union, churchill gave his family a short lecture on the various invaders of russia, especially charles the xii. in a speech the day after a heavy bombardment, he commended the fortitude of detachment from worldly affairs of all we have learned to believe of ancient rome or modern greece. a few days later he told britain's arp wardens and home crafts and guardmen this is indeed the grand heroic period of our history and the light of glory shines on us all. he allowed them to see

themselves as part of a great continuum of history. in the confidence the debit of he was careful not to eupdate his hero with hitler, saying it must be remembered, however, that napoleon's armies carried with them the fierce liberating and egalitarian wins of the french revolution, where as hitler's impeer is nothing behind it pillage, oppression and the crush of boots. yet napoleon's empire fell and flashed away like snow at easter until nothing remained except for his majesty's -- two months later, he told his old friends and comrade archie sinclair that he would like to see mussolini, the bogus mimic of ancient rome, stringles like versing get ricks in old roman fashion. on his way to meet president

roosevelt in newfoundland in august 1941, churchill read c.s. forster's splendid novel "captain hornblower" set in the napoleonic wars. time and again, he would quote from nelson's trafalgar memorandum. no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy. when in september 1941 the king offered churchill the lord wardenship of the port, he accepted. despite being daunted by the cost of warmer castle's upkeep, largely because of its historical connection to pitts, wilmington. when he heard about it his first quote was we should not be wiped out. our history would not come to an end. at the end of an audience with king farook on the 7th of august, 1943, the king stood by a big map of north africa and

put his whole hand overstating that it once all belonged to egypt. churchill was not going let him get away with that. and at once replied that he could not remember when. to the best of his belief it had belonged to turkey before the italians took it. according to the british ambassador, sir miles lampson, this, quote, rather stumped the king. needless to say, churchill was right. indeed, in the 13th century a.d. it was the tribes that made incursions into egypt rather than the other way around. one can't imagine what king farook could have been thinking of trying to make an untruthful historical point to winston churchill, of all people. i have a particular interest in king farook in that his last mistress once made a pass at me. in the rest of the war, churchill compared exposed position at alemain.

he was unimpressed and lectured churchill back about waterloo. he contrasted cairo in 1942 to napoleon's defense of paris in 1814. told the king in 1943 that if india were finally separated from your majesty's dominions, it would dim our fame in this age to future generations. he told the royal college of physicians in february 1944, as we heard earlier, the longer you look back, the further that you can look forward. and he noted when he reached one of the great rivers in italy, here the defeat had failed the fate of carthage. so i suggest that we should go across too. i'll stop at the end of the war. of course there were many occasions afterwards when he cited historical parallels to illuminate and amplify his messages. on the evening of his stroke in 1953, he had earlier that same night in dilating on the influence in which italy has exercised on the civilization of

rome, and how the roman legions crossing the alps bore with them something greater than they knew. this might have involved plumbing, as when he met the newspaperman charles ead in 1954, he said do you realize from the time the romans met britain until the arrival of the american heiresses, his country was completely without central heating. he then went on to speculate about what the romans did about lavatories. and as he did not think that anyone has ever found the remains of a roman lavatory in this country. ladies and gentlemen, one stands aghast at the sheer breath of knowledge of history that churchill was able as eddie murray row said he did of the english language, send it into battle. in this elect chr alone, in which i've drawn my examples almost completely at random. i could have included literally hundreds of other examples.

churchill, just in this speech alone, as mentioned nelson, genghis khan, the catalans, napoleon, babylon, the norman conquest, the elder and younger pitts, carthage, charles i, the battles, charles 12, wolf of quebec, the seejs of toulon, general gordon, asdrubal, and ancient roman lavatories. how strange it is the past is so little understood and quickly forgotten, churchill said. how modern those views seem today yet how often they've been expressed in the past. pliny said the same thing and he died in 150 a.d. if our own past is slightly better understood and hopefully not so quickly forgotten, much of the credit, ladies and gentlemen, for that should go to winston churchill. thank you very much. [ applause ]

thank you. right. we've got a few minutes for easy questions. can somebody give this gentleman the microphone. >> so andrew, as i've told you, i loved your past work. napoleon, the storm of war. >> don't stop there. >> my question is this. given the body of work out there on churchill and in the wake of roy jenkins' fabulous one volume biography, why are you tackling churchill now? in fact, is there a different slant that you might have? >> yes, very good question.

there are 1,009 biographies of churchill. and so why on earth impose a 1,010th? i do hope i'm not going to be the first person in over one hispanic years to write a biography of winston churchill that doesn't do well. that would be a terrible thing to have to have met. roy's book was very good, as you say. it was published in 2001. and since 2001, there have been no fewer than 52 sets of papers that have been lodged at the churchill archives in cambridge, including really important ones like -- well, randolph churchill's papers have been -- winston churchill's son rando h randolph. also sarah churchill's papers are there now. there have been all sorts of

fascinating series of documents and diaries and letters that were not available, either to martin or to roy. i am also the first person to be able to through the generosity of her majesty the queen read the king's diary for the second world war. that was not open to in its entirely. that was not open to martin in its entirety. martin had to use the published biography by wheeler bennett. and that is completely fascinating, the relationship between those two men is going to be a pretty much a mainstay of my book. i have basically concentrated on primary sources. roy never went to churchill archives, never used any primary

sources at all. he also wasn't terribly interested in the military strategy. as you can imagine, having written books on this, it's a subject that i think is both fascinating, but also absolutely central to understanding winston churchill and the importance of winston churchill in history. and the other point about roy is that he always made out winston churchill to be a liberal all his life, which i will not be doing. so there are different aspects. there is more information. and also, you know, winston churchill is such an enormous figure. so many appalling lies have been told about him in recent year, especially since 2001 by the revisionists. that i think every generation deserves to have a great deep book on winston churchill that puts the truth out there. and so i do believe that there's space for a 1,010th.

>> over here. >> rudy? >>. [ inaudible ] >> yeah, the question was churchill's use of american history. churchill was very well up on american history, as you can imagine. about two-thirds of the third volume of the history of english speaking peoples is about the american civil war. it was a -- and of course he loved seeing the battlefields of the american civil war. he had this dream that the american war of independence never took place. and as a result, the english speaking peoples were able to be together and be so strong that the kaiser was never going to take the risk of ever attacking them in 1914, and the world would be a much happier place. imagine it. no second world war, no russian revolution, no holocaust, no cold war. and so he read alfred as you

would expect. he red teddy roosevelt's books on the campaign. he was very well read in american history. it was part of his -- the drive -- the lifeblood of his love of america. >> next question is over here. andrew? >> what is to be done about the lamentable restriction in teaching of history in the schools? i guess in america, as well as in britain. my grandson, who is studying for his a levels, was restricted to the french revolution, the american civil rights movement, and the wars of the roses. and anything in between was completely neglected. what is to be done about it? >> well, can i first of all say next time you're talking to your son, congratulate him on the wars of the roses. because we have something. it's nicknamed in britain about

our history teaching in schools. it's just called henry to hitler. you jump from henry the viii to adolf hitler with nothing before and nothing in between show. was lucky in a sense. thing is a political question. i chaired an advisory group for the conservative party in 2005 in which i -- a small group of historians gave the -- which we were pointed by to torry party, by the secretary of state of education, precisely on this, the huge gaps, the way of which history of really important things in the nation just haven't been and won't be and are not taught. and we gave them this report. i'd love to give you a copy. i'm very proud of the report, in fact. and it was deposited i believe a 30 square container.

and that's it. so you basically have to bring pressure to bear politically on people. and you are not just -- you can persuade the secretary of state fairly easily. but then after that, he has got an educational establishment. education that the teachers trade unions. you wouldn't believe the civil service and their almost anger at the idea that british history can be taught properly and chronologically, including bits that have nothing to do with hitler and henry. it is a political battle which is still being fought, but is not being won. >> next question is over here. andrew? >> could you comment on churchill's reading habits given his enormous work load? and could you also comment on his point of view on fdr's domestic policies? >> yes. the work load, his reading

really, he did all of his great philosophical reading when he was a subaltern in the late 1890s. that's when we read darwin and windward reed and all of the great writers of the ancient world. that's when he read his socrates and plato and so on. when you say he is very busy, you might be referring to the second world war, then he only read two novels. but of course he was bowed down with the amount of work that he had in his red boxes, which he did master. and so he didn't have that much of an opportunity to read beyond the subject then. he had a voracious love of books. it was -- and as you're going to, i hope, all come in next

year to washington to discover also a voracious love of shakespeare and poetry. he had what i think of as a phonographic memory for musical songs and for soliloquies and so on. but his reading really was truly impressive. it would make a marvelous reading list for anybody going up to university today, in fact. your second question about the new deal is very interesting one because he criticized the new deal when he was writing his roosevelt from afar essay for pregreat contemporaries. he put it into great contemporaries. then when the war broke out -- in fact, before that, just before that, when he realized

that we desperately needed the good will of president roosevelt, he cut it out of additions of great contemporaries. and then after roosevelt's death, he stuck it back in again. so, you know, i don't like to ever accuse winston churchill of opportunism. but when it comes to his dealing with that particular essay, let's just say was superb timing. any more? well, i'm very pleased that that was a completely comprehensive speech. and ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much indeed. [ applause ] more on the life and career of winston churchill in just a moment. but first, we want to tell you about wednesday night. there will be more american history tv and primetime with the focus on the legacy of the

nation's 35th president, john f. kennedy. that begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern. this weekend on american history tv on c-span3, saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, on lectures in history, american university professor aaron bell talks about privacy laws and federal surveillance of civil rights leaders. >> here is the head of the co-intel operations william sullivan shortly after the mar on washington and writing martin luther king's famous "i have a dream" speech. we must mark king now if we have not before as the most dangerous negro in this nation from the standpoint of communism, the negro and national security. >> former members of congress and vietnam war veterans reflect on lessons learned and ignored during the war. >> we learned the limits of military power during the vietnam war. we learned that as a society, as a culture that you can't kill an

idea with a bullet. >> american history tv, this weekend only on c-span3. c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up wednesday morning, we're getting your reaction to today's vote on the gop tax reform bill. join the conversation all morning with your phone calls, e-mails, facebook comments, and tweets. be sure to watch c-span's "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern wednesday morning. join the discussion. now more from the annual winston churchill conference with historian kevin ruane. he talks about winston churchill and the development and use of nuclear weapons. this is 45 minutes. >> all right, ladies and gentlemen. welcome back. and to introduce our next

speaker of the morning, we have another very special lady. please welcome edwina sands. [ applause ] >> good morning. can you hear me all right? clear as a bell, i hope. well, it's lovely to be here for another conference. each one i come to seems to be even better than the last. now we have kevin, kevin ruane here, who has written this very, very good book, "churchill and the bomb." so i -- one of my grandfather's best quotations, and there are so many to choose from, is this one. "the farther backward we can

look, the farther forward you are likely to see." we think most of us that history is past, done and dusted, over with, just a memory. but history has a way of coming back to bite us. as ronald reagan said, here we go again. i remember when the cold war was over. but then it wasn't. i remember farther back when people were scared of the a-bomb, and then worse, of the h-bomb. and now today, the specter of nuclear war has once again reared its ugly head. kevin ruane is professor of modern history at canterbury

christchurch university in united kingdom. he has written quite a few books, one on vietnam and one is coming out shortly, very shortly on antoni eden. and that will be a very interesting one because for me, because he had such a long history with grandpapa. he is going -- he is working on now something that i'm really, really longing to get my hands on. but it's not in physical form yet. it's a book on graham greene, and it's going to be called "graham greene: in love and war slow. . so there is a lot to be said. i think it's going to show how fact and fiction is hard to

separate. and we get a bit of that today here. nobody thought that was funny. okay. anyway, kevin's book, "churchill and the bomb" is timely today. it covers amongst other things the close relationship between charwell, grandpapa and lord charwell. i knew him slightly like i was a fly on the wall because he was often at chartholm. he didn't relate much to the children or the children didn't relate much to him. we had a much more fun time with monty. >> field marshal montgomery, who would play croquet and took a

real interest in people. anyway, the prof was an important person for grandpapa because he could -- he could grandpapa could bat ideas back and forth with him on science. and it wasn't the house of commons. he could just find out, try to work out his own ideas and what he felt and understood. so the prof was a very important person. and that's one of the things that i've been interested in this book. so now i give you the wonderful kevin ruane, who will tell us some things about his book. [ applause ] >> thank you, edwina.

is this my -- okay. thank you, edwina. very generous introduction. and it's great to be back again. so thank you to michael bishop and the ics, the whole family for giving me this platform now two years in a row. it's a great honor. i begin by saying a little bit about how i came to write this book, how i came to "churchill and the bomb." it's a big man, a big subject. it really began about five years ago when i was asked to do some work by the churchill archive. that's to say the online digital repository of virtually all of churchill's paper, which you heard about from lawrence amongst others already in the conference. i'm told close to a million individual images. so letters as a home sick boarder in harrow to his mother all the way through world war i and world war ii, the cold war and so on and so forth. now the archive is a joint

venture between churchill college, to churchill archive center where the original material and bloomsbury publishers. i have to tell you this archive is one of the great jewels in the crown of this digital age. and although it is subscription only for universities and other what i call grown-up organizations, thanks to the spectacular generosity of lawrence geller, it is, as been pointed out already at this conference, it's absolutely free to school kids in the usa, the uk, and other places around the world. and lawrence deserves i think a round of applause for that, frankly. [ applause ] there is not many fantastic things around that are totally free these days it seems. but this is, if you are school kids, one of them. anyway, i was asked to do a web essay on churchill and nuclear weapons to illustrate the

aladdin's cave of riches that is this online archive. and in doing the original research, i came across a churchill that i only dimly knew existed. this was a churchill of fantastic scientific imagination and scientific vision. a churchill who as a teenager was devouring science fiction. particularly the work of h.g. wells. now "the time machine" -- rather, before i give the quote. i'm no gary oldman. i think the oscar is safe, i hope, i hope, after that magnificent performance. but churchill's speech pattern was so idiosyncratically his own, i can't quote churchill without trying a little churchillian rumle. so if you'll permit me that. "the time machine" was one of the books churchill said is one of the books i would like to take with me to purgatory. in 1991 he went on the say he

had read all of h.g. wells' output with closeness that i could take an examination in them. beyond this, i discovered a churchill of striking scientific vision, who in the interwar years was regularly publishing on what you call popular scientific themes. in mass circulation papers like "news of the world" and other magazines. now from this into world science writing, two things emerged. churchill recognized that scientific and technological progress was going to be ongoing. it was going to be revolutionary. it was probably going to be a force for good. it was new enlightenment, and it was going to bring betterment to the masses. he saw the positive side. but at the same time churchill also worried that mankind might not be mature enough to deal with the gifts that science was about to bestow, and that science might actually have its dark side. and one of those potentially

dark gifts or double edged sword gifts was something called nuclear energy. the '20s and the '30s see modern nuclear physics come of age, with newspapers carrying loads of stories about the pony 10 tentia potentialiates, cheap electricity if you could get at this thing called atomic energy. but also newspapers carrying stories about the potentialiate of something else, maybe, maybe, atomic weapons. i'd like to give you a couple of examples of things churchill was writing in the interwahrer rachet he is inspired by h.g. well and he is mentored by frederick linderman, professor of physics to you and i. churchill got to know the prof as he was universally known in

the early 1920s. and it's a very, very close friendship, but also scientific mentoring relationship. this piece, 1924 ominously entitled "shall we commit suicide?" in this article, churchill writes as follows, he suggests that the poison gas of the first world war might be the first chapter of a terrible book of destructive science. then there are explosives. as science turned its last page on them, might not a bomb no bigger than an orange be found in time to possess a secret power to destroy a whole block of buildings, nay, to concentrate the force of a thousand tons of cordite and blast a township at a stroke. 1924. what about this from december 1931?

it appeared in the bumper christmas edition of strand magazine. it's a pretty well-known piece called 50 years hence. many of you may be familiar with it. he says this. he says nuclear energy using comparably greater than the molecular energy which we use today. the coal a man can get in a day can easily do 500 times as much work as the man himself. nuclear energy is at least one million times more powerful still. there is no question among scientists that this gigantic source of energy exists. what is lacking is the match to set the bonfire alight. the scientists are looking for this. the match. within a year, that's 1932, two cambridge scientists, the english john cockcroft, the irishman walton have split the atom. and at liverpool university,

james chadwick has shown that the neutron can penetrate the power chambers of the atom, the nucleus of the atom, where most of its mass and most of its energy and power residence. 1932, the match has been found. 1933, january. adolf hitler becomes chancellor of germany. six years on, january 1939, two german scientists working at the kaiser wilhelm institute in berlin, otto hahn and fritz strassman. they prove in their laboratory experimentally that something called nuclear fission is realizable. in other words, a nuclear chain reaction using the heavy element uranium. they've done it on a teeny laboratory scale. but all around the world, 1939,

as europe slips closer to the abyss, all around the world, physicists corroborate their findings. and it is agreed that if this could be done, nuclear fission on a large enough scale, you would have the most tremendous power source. cheap electricity for everybody. but by the same token, nuclear fission could also make for a superlative weapon of mass destruction. what a year to discover that, 1939. i'd like to share with you one more piece of churchill pop science i suppose you would call it. mass effects on modern life. it was written in 1925. but it received a much bigger audience when it appeared in this very famous collection, "thoughts and adventures" in the early 1930s. in this churchill gave us the following prediction. he said it might be that the

military leader of some future world agony could extinguish london or paris, tokyo or san francisco by pressing a button. or by putting his initials neatly at the bottom of a piece of foolscap. that's 1925. 20 years on, on the 2nd of july, 1945, as war-time prime minister, churchill gave his approval. he put his initials neatly on the bottom of a piece of foolscap. he gave his approval to a request from the u.s. government that he agree with them to use the atomic bomb against japan. in so doing, churchill didn't just eerily live out his own pr premnition, ensured the bombs that would hit japan would bear

an a british as well as american seal of approval. more on that later. let me go back to today's scheme. in expanding that small web essay into a book-length treatment, i discovered the nuclear churchill, the nuclear statesman. and rather than splitting atoms or splitting ions, churchill's career splits into three chronological phases. and if i may, i'd like to run through those now. the first phase. it's the wartime phase. the first phase is what i call the atomic bomb maker phase. let me take you back in time to 1941. more precisely to the 30th of august, 1941. churchill is what, 15 months into his war-time premiership. his country remains in the coils of a desperate struggle for survival. on the 30th of august, 1941, his

lover of science fiction, his love of the appliance of science to warfare, his belief in science and innovation and technology all come together along with the urgent promptings of the man in the bowler hat, the bowlered prof, linderman, his nuclear mentor. they all come together on that day to produce churchill's approval for a top secret british effort to develop an atomic bomb. it's code named tube alloys. i think we can all guess, if we don't know what the great spur is. the great spur is the thought, the dread thought that nazi scientists could put one of these things in hitler's hands. this was race that simply had to be won. december 1941, of course, the united states enters the war. by late 1942, this pioneering british atomic project becomes subsumed in the juggernaut, the

leviathan, the monster that is the u.s. manhattan project. and from that point on, it was the united states drives this atomic bomb project. but the british are still there. as junior partner, maybe, but they are still there. and so we come to july in 1945. out in the wilds of new mexico, the world enters the nuclear age when a plutonium device is successfully tested to spectacular effect. july 1945. the test is code named trinitisy. now, by then, of course, hitler is dead. the third reich is a smoldering ruin, and the war in europe is over. it turns out, by the way, that the race, although won by the allies, it turned out that the nazi atomic program was nowhere near as advanced as at one time feared. but nonetheless. but out in the distant reaches

of the pacific, in asia in pacific, the war with japan grinds on and on and on. and so to come full circle, on the 2nd of july, 1945, winston churchill, as i've already said, gave a british green light to a request from the u.s. government to the use of the bomb against japan. he gave that approval in keeping with the mutual consent clause of a secret atomic agreement that he signed with president franklin d. roosevelt at quebec in august of 1943, the mutual consent clause. just over three weeks later, that's the 2nd of july, winston churchill isn't prime minister anymore. he has lost the general election. ackleylabor are in. not too long after that, of course, we have the atomic end

game. on the 6th of august, 1945, little boy, the code name for the uranium bomb, is dropped on hiroshima. or, it's an air blast. it's not dropped literally on them. in august 1945, fat man, the code name for the plutonium bomb is used against nagasaki. i think the results of the bombing, the impact of these two on weapon of mass destruction is so well-known, i don't really need to underscore it. for churchill, the most important thing, although he is now leader of the opposition is that on the 14th of august, 1945, japan surrenders. for churchill, it is cause and effect. the bombs are dropped. the surrender comes within five days of second atomic bombing. eight years later, 1953-'54, in the final volume of his history of the war, churchill maintained two things. absolutely maintained two things.

first, the decision to use the bomb in 1945 was a joint decision between himself and president truman, a joint decision. the second thing he main tarngs a , and i'm going to quote him again, the decision to use the bomb was never even an issue. his thinking went like this. in war, bombs get used. the allies were at war with japan in the summer of 1945. the atomic bombs were weapons of war, up sow facto, you use those weapons. moral qualms, ethical qualms were for churchill for others to indulge in. not for one he saw himself he had been tasked in 1940 with defense of country, commonwealth, civilization. the bomb maker, phase one. the second phase of churchill's nuclear career runs roughly from mid 1945 to 1950.

and it's maybe slightly more controversial. it's what i call the would-be atomic warrior phase. let me begin this one with ve day, victory in europe day, 8th of may, 1945. when churchill looked at the map of europe, as he must have done, as we know he did, he did not like what he saw. he saw stalin's red army and occupation of eastern europe, the balkans, the baltic state, after of germany there was little or no sign that stalin was going to abide by earlier wartime agreements to allow freedom, free elections, democracy to flourish. no sign. for churchill, this was a staggeringly distressing outcome to the war in europe. having fought the war in a sense to save the continent from the tyranny of the right, fascism, nazism, was the tyranny of the left.

it was in eastern europe. what about western europe? well, the democracies needed to get their act together. you know, it's here that this thing called the atomic bomb began to enter churchill's mind. churchill first learned of the successful test of the bomb 16th of july, 1945 trinity, when he was attending the final big three conference of the war at potsdam. the diary of this man, i could have give you other diaries or diris dirists, gives us an incite. and there are other insights that corroborate it churchill's reaction to the first atomic test. churchill said we now had something in our hands that would redress the balance with the russians. and bring writes in his diary, pushing his chin out and scowling, now we could say to stalin, if you insist on doing this or that, well, we can just

blot out moscow and then stalingrad and kiev, sebastopol, and now where are the russians? three days after that diary entry, that was the 23rd of july. the 26th, churchill isn't prime minister anymore. a fortnight or so, the atomic bombs are visited upon japan. my point is that churchill did not have time to factor this new atomic power into his russia policy, his soviet policy. but we got a good idea of his thinking. for example, on the 7th of august, that's the day after hiroshima, he had lunch with lorge camrose here. camrose wrote this. he said churchill is of the opinion that with the manufacture of this bomb in their hands, america can dominate the world for the next five years. if he continued in office, he is of the opinion that he could have persuaded the american government to use this power to

restrain the russians. churchill starts talking about a showdown. that's the word he uses, and he uses it repeatedly, showdown. a nuclear themed show down. what he means is a diplomatic head to head with stalin in which stalin is told in so many words pull the red army out of eastern europe, send it back to barracks, abide by wartime agreements, or else. dot, dot, dot. a nuclear infused showdown. for the next five years until early 1950, really, this was churchill's repeatedly, if privately expressed view. to all who listened, particularly successive u.s. ambassadors to london. now politicians in opposition are much freer, we all know, to express themselves than those who are actually in power. but you know, even allowing for that, even allowing for

churchill's showmanship, the consistency over five years, the vehemence with which he discoursed on the idea of a showdown suggests to me some at least seriousness of intent. just one example must suffice as the clock begins to run against me. november 1947, he met william mckenzie king, his old friend, the canadian prime minister, and kines di keen's diary tells us that the nations that have fought the last war for freedom have had enough of this war of nerves and intimidation. if you do not agree to pull out of poland and eastern europe here and now within so many days, we will attack moscow and your other cities and destroy them with atomic bombs from the air. we will not allow tyranny to continue. in the end, of course, the

atomic menaces that churchill had in mind, the sort of punishment of the kremlin for not abiding by democratic principles in eastern europe was never in churchill's gift to deliver. it was in a sense in harry truman's gift here. it was in america's gift. and to churchill's dismay, the united states in the late 1940s never got remotely close to using its atomic monopoly in the kind of threatening diplomatic manner that churchill evidently desired. the final phase of churchill's nuclear career begins in early 1950. i say begins. it's the beginning of a transformation, and it's extraordinary. it will see churchill move in the space of four years from would-be atomic warrior to nuclear peacemaker.

extraordinary transition. it begins in 1950. let me give you a tiny, tiny little bit of background. in august 1949, the american atomic monopoly ended when the soviet union tested its first atomic bomb, nicknamed joe 1 in the west. here it is. now in the west as well, there was alarm and anxiety and fear occasioned by this soviet atomic breakthrough. in january 1950, the united states responded. president truman announced that the united states would forge ahead with developing the hydrogen bomb, the super, it was nicknamed. a thermonuclear weapon. a monstrous device potentially what, a thousand times as powerful? think about that, as the puny things used against japan. this was a serious, serious weapon, if it could be made. now, against this backdrop,

there was a general election. lady williams mentioned it yesterday. an election in february 1950. now in the midst of that election, churchill calls for an east-west summit, a summit. the first time apparently the word summit had been used to describe a meeting of the great powers at the very apex of world affairs. he calls for a summit, an east-west summit to see if relations can't now be regulated so that cold war doesn't escalate into hot war with all its nuclear menaces. now labor immediately accused churchill of electioneering. he was exploiting the nuclear anxieties of voters at this point in time. and there may be something in that. but equally, he was very worried now by that soviet bomb. he was worried as well by the fact that soviet bombers had the range to reach western europe and britain, but not north

america in the early '50s. and he was aware that britain, a small land mass with a concentrated population in maybe 10 or 12 big cities was especially vulnerable. well, labor wins the 1950 election. but they don't win it by very much. and another election happens in october 1951, and this time winston wins it. not by much, 16 seat overall majority, i think. but the point is winston is back. again. in number 10. a year on exactly, october 1952, britain tests its own first nuclear weapon. october 1952. suddenly, the nuclear club has three members. america, russia, and now britain. but it is not a club of nuclear equals. a few months later, august 1953,

britain is left standing. the soviet union announces to the world that it now has the hydrogen bomb. it's won the thermonuclear race. it hadn't won the race. the united states had already tested a device in november 1952. but eisenhower won't really officially confirm that until 1954. but it doesn't matter. for churchill, this development was distressing. it chilled him to the marrow. and by the end of 1953, he can be found privately predicting that if hot war now came, and with the uk vulnerable to soviet bombing, all we hold dear, ourselves, our families and our treasures will be immole lated. and even if some of us temporarily survive in some deep cellar under mounds of flaming and contaminated rubble, there will be nothing left to do but

to take a pill to end it all. out of the dark, dark shadow of the hydrogen bomb in 1954 emerges churchill the nuclear peacemaker. churchill the disciple of detente. at least churchill now looking for peaceful co-existence between the cold war blocs. no more did he talk of showdowns. his last campaign again as lady williams stressed so eloquently yesterday was a campaign of peace. it became his obsession. there must be a summit, because a summit was the first step to what he called chaining the nuclear monster. sadly, it was not to be. churchill never made it to the summit. president eisenhower, amongst other things, was not madly keen

to rush to the summit table. stalin had died in 1953. stalin's successors began talking the talk of peace. eisenhower said i want deeds of peace, not just words before i run to the conference table. and no need to rush, winston, but that's really not what an 80-year-old winston needed to hear, who knew the clock was running down. and the clock does run down. in april 1955, he finally stands down, steps down as prime minister in favor of antoni eden here. the cold war continued and so therefore did the danger of hot war and nuclear war. but, you know, the final great surprise of my work on this was to discover churchill the nuclear visionary. at the very end, really, of his

political life. it would be a good ten years before this concept really got traction, the mid-'60s. mutely assured destruction. dr. strangelove, we all know. it's a concept most related to the 1960s. you know, winston got there first, a good ten years earlier. and i want to close by giving you two examples of what i, if you forgive me, i call them madness of winston churchill, at least the m.a.d.-ness of winston churchill. the first is from october 1953. he is nearly 79 years of age. he talks in the house of commons what he calls nuclear saturation. saturation. both sides having now lots of these weapons. he looked forward, he said, to a future when the advance of destructive weapons enables everyone to kill everybody else

because then nobody will want to kill anyone at all. if that's not a description of mutely assured destruction, i don't know what is. and again, in his final great speech before parliament in march 1955 on the hydrogen bomb, he left mps with the same message. there might in the future be a nuclear balance in the world, and that might not be a bad thing. it would be a sublime irony he admitted, but could be safety will be the sturdy power of terror and survival the twin brother of annihilation. in the meantime, he closed "never flinch, never weary, never despair." and with that, he sat down after 55 years as a parliamentarian and never got up to make another major speech in the house of commons again. what a way to go.

lord watson has got a fine book on two speeches, but that speech is up there for me with any of his great that for me is the nuclear statesman. you get three in one. that would-be atomic warrior and then you get the great transformation into a conviction driven disciple. it was quite a journey from his nuclear starting point to his nuclear ending point. but i have tie i've not as much fun, if you can have fun write about a subject like this, as i did with this one. thank you for your time and attention. [ applause ]

i think i need wait for the mic. i think maybe ladies first. >> oh, sorry. hi. it's of course rath arterrifying story about my grandfather and gets one a bit worried, very worried. but i'm glad that it all turned out well in the end and he ended up with peace. >> i think that i described him as a nuclear learner. but in the space of 10 years, 1945 to 1955, he went across the spectrum. he had to learn like a lot of people learned and what he learned in the end is if you stick ridgedly to dogmatic and

ideological positions in the nuclear age, sticking to those positions could lead to calamity. and that is why ultimately by 1954, he's talking about peaceful coexistence which is hard to do because it meant no lo longer overtly trying to challenge and confront soviet control. it was too dangerous. particularly for a united kingdom in range and at that point he felt uniquely vulnerable. >> joy mentioned that bomb had a uranium base, whereas the bomb dropped on nagasaki had a plutonium base. was wondering if you could explain why they switched the type of bomb they dropped.

>> i won't go heavy into the science but initially the heavy element, uranium was the thing everybody was working on in the war. in strieing to restrict uranium, in the process of trying to get the core of the uranium bomb, a by-product in what we call reactors, a by-product was plutonium which they were able to farm and a by-product in trying to make an explosive core, it turned out to be just physicianable and therefore more explosive. the scientists were confident that the uranium bomb would worked. they were confident the uranium

bomb would work. and that's why the trinity test was plutonium test. they ended up with two versions. does that help? tra there's a gentleman. do we need to wait for the mic? >> number one the soviets obtained the information to create a bomb through espionage. they didn't do the ooriginal search and number two, somewhere along the line, the u.s. disallowed the relationship with it brits in terms of information on further atomic energy

development. >> yes. >> comment? >> briefly, there is no doubt it was penetrated by soviet agents and the information as i understand it that was funneled did contrabutte to the soviet bomb in 1949. so i think that's accepted. despite the fact general kbroev groves, amongst others found a way to keep this hermetically sealed. your second point is the british decide they can no longer do a bomb space on their own. it's too expensive. if you start building all this stuff in the uk, you're vulnerable to bombing. there's lots of reasons why it was a good idea. the two come together in 1942

but very quickly it united states out strips anything the uk can contribute to this project and for are those that don't see the need anymore to atomic interchange with the uk and churchill finds that disterousing. they find it rather dist reszing and i mentioned the quibeck agreement of august 1943. it takes seven or eight months to actually get the british back in to the partnership but it's not a partnership of equals. rartsz partnership of one dominant partner and the british as a kind of support act. the biggest exclusion comes after the war and with the mcman act which doesn't just shoot the uk but other countries as well. >> it would be pure speculation

but would he feel more comfortable with the school that ultimately round out the cold war? >> i have thought about this because clearly you can't research this without having res daengss in your mind. i think it depends on where, along that nuclear journey you say what would he be like? . i prefer the churchill at the end, the peace maker and i think that if you accept churchill's anticommunism was very deep, not to mention his efforts with stalin, by 1953/54 to embrace peaceful coexistence suggests to

me one of the most remarkable acts of statesmanship is you can't be locked in, in this thermo nuclear age because if you do, we're going somewhere very bad, very, very soon. as for how he would manage world affairs today, nuclear affairs today, that's a very difficult o. i suspect my time is running out. for all his vision and scient scientific interest i think he probably suspected that britain, u.s., and russia would be it only members of the nuclear club. the fact that there's 6 or 7 other nuclear powers in the world. i think that would have been a

challenge to him.