Jonathan schneer is a professor of modern british history at Georgia Tech School of History Technology and society where he has taught modern european and british history since 1989. Hes the author of several major works including the thames and wind river london 1900 the imperial megalopolis, metropolis and the Balfour Declaration origins of the arabisraeli conflict. The last of which won the 2010 National Jewish book award. Dr. Schneers writings can be seen in journals and periodicals. His extensive editorial experience includes work as a board member of the 20th century british history. Dr. Schneers book ministers at war spotlights minister churchvilles divisive cabinet cabinet. The work illustrates how churchills own team of rivals made up of tories and Labour Party Members proved instrumental in combating nazi germanys dance to the weird british isles. Please join me in welcoming jonathan schneer. [applause] good evening. And thank you everybody for coming on a spring night and there are other things you could be doing. I want to thank first jon golden who is the director of the livingston lecture series and i want to thank sheffield hailed which escape me that generous introduction and i would like to thank kate whitman who expedited much of my arrangements to speak here tonight. Im very glad to be here. Thank you all three of you very much indeed. All right, so now we are going to begin. I will speak for about 45 minutes maybe a little less than that and then i will take questions. I have just written a book about Winston Churchills war cabinet. The war cap net was a subset of the larger body. The war cabinet dealt with only the most important issues raised by world war ii and originally its members had no departmental responsibilities to distract them. The larger cap net included war cabinet ministers and also ministers and secretaries of various compartments, ministers of supply town and country planning, ministries of mines and so on. I will be mentioning both the cabinet and the war cabinet in my talk to you tonight. Churchill formed his war cabinet in may 1940. It had five members including himself at the start. Over the course of the war he enlarged it to suit circumstances the cast of characters shifted over time but it never had more than eight members at once and here is a photo of the original eightman team. It is supposed to be. There we go. Now only two members remained constant. Churchill himself of course and also Clement Attlee who is a leader of the labour party. Most serbs are the war and they were the conservative the great trade unionist and Labour Party Member ernest bevan and then a nonparty man with conservative inclinations whose name was john anderson. Furthermore this man Herbert Morrison and member of the labour party served for nearly three years in the war cabinet. Moreover to quite extraordinary individuals flashed through like comets. When was the conservative lord beaverbrook and the second was the socialists, stafford crypts. Tonight i cant talk about all of them but i guess i do not discuss the roles of noble chamberlain for Kingsley Wood and other conservatives doesnt mean that they were unimportant however for their roles for the roles of others who served at one time or another in churchills war cabinet i have a suggestion. Please read my book. [laughter] so anyway led by Winston Churchill the men whose names i have mentioned and some whose names i havent mentioned successfully steered britain through the greatest crisis in our modern history and churchills war cabinet has been deservedly celebrated ever since since. But the story is more complicated than is often thought. The title of my book ministers at war has a double meaning. Churchills war cabinet ward against the nazis of course, but also its members sometimes ward against each other. This has been mentioned by historians but it has been generally downplayed and i try in the book to present a more nuanced, a more complex portrait of the war cabinet than is commonly offered. You could say that i shake the kaleidoscope to show familiar pieces in unfamiliar patterns and that is what i intend to try to do tonight in the time remaining to me. I take it as given that everybody here is familiar with and accepts the common assessment. Winston churchills work cap has saved britain and help to save the world from nazi horror. I agree. I would never minimize the greatness of Winston Churchill or his Wartime Coalition government. We all owe it an unpayable debt but, life is not blackandwhite. Life is not simple. Churchills war cabinet was not simply a smooth functioning machine. Its members, including the Prime Minister were highpowered ambitious hard men. They had great talent. They have great capacity for work but also they had great egos. They Work Together to save their country but it was not always smooth sailing. On more than one occasion conflict within the war cabinet threatened to cap size the ship altogether. Moreover, today we think of churchill as the indispensable man but its impossible for us to mention britain during the Second World War without churchill as Prime Minister. But believe me, it was not impossible then and i will be explaining that. I want to just pull out the water. In the book, i show how churchill assembled this highpowered team in may, 1940. It included men whose politics conflicted more starkly than do those of american liberal democrats and tea partier republicans of today. Socialists like attlee Beth Van Morrison Cripps believed in nationalizing the means of distribution and exchange. No american liberal democrat believes in that. Cripps moreover was not even that nationalization could be carried out or maintained peacefully. He thought it might require revolutionary violence. The socialists also believed that government should sponsor farreaching social welfare programs, more farreaching than those of american liberals today. On the other hand conservatives like chamberlain, halifax beaverbrook, believe firmly in free enterprise. They thought government should usually keep hands off the economy. They did not believe that it had a major role to play with regard to social welfare either and churchill himself was instinctively a man of the right right. Yet, he was determined during the war to keep his disparate Team Together and by and large he did it. In the book i show how that team fix the problems of the war. For a year pertinent for empire faced the nazis alone and during that period war cabinet ministers largely suppressed whatever ideological and personal tensions existed among them. But also i show in the book that once russia and then america entered into the fray the war cabinet ministers began to argue argue. The emergency beast. Britain seemed likely to win the war after all and now cabinet ministers could vent jealousies, admitees strained always present but previously always favored over. Ideological conflict grew ever more fierce and i show how churchill strove quite heroically but with decreasing effect to contain it all. In 1945 labour pulled out of his coalition government. As soon as germany surrendered and with the war against japan still raging, churchill called a general election. It proved to be one of the worst tempered of the 20th century. All the pentup frustrations of the previous five years finally burst forth. It was like the longdelayed eruption of a volcano and that by the way is a quick resume of my book. What i intend to do tonight is to give you just a further taste. Im going to try to show you how members of the war cabinet functioned for good or for ill before 1945. I will show you how one of the war cabinet ministers came to the conclusion that he could run the war and the war better than Winston Churchill could and i will show you how churchills off the threat posed by this man man. So the men of the war cabinet sat around a table every monday afternoon at 5 30 00, every wednesday and thursday at noon tempting to hammer out policy on the most pressing domestic foreign and imperial issues raised by the war. During periods of crisis, they met more than three times a week week, sometimes even three times a day. At first, the war cabinet met in the cabinet ram at 10 downing street. During the blitz and the b1 and b2 attacks they usually met in a suite of underground rooms in the basement of the new government offices at the corner of horse guards road and king charles street just across from saint james park. Today that site is a museum called the war cabinet rooms. I suspect some of the world have visited the place and for those who have and i strongly recommend it. Its a Wonderful Museum and its well worth the trip. Anyway the war cabinet sat and debated and argued in those two venues about matters of life and death. Secretaries took notes. Afterwards the notes were compiled and an accurate summary of the meeting was produced and circulated to the proper recipients. The original notes were supposed to be destroyed. One secretary however named john burgess kept his notes and today they may be found at the churchill archive Churchill College cambridge university. Burgess employed an idiosyncratic shorthand. His handwriting varied between legible and execrable. Moreover as the war progressed his notes grew ever more cryptic cryptic. Deciphering them is a great sure sure, believe me but on occasion they provide a better sense of how the war cabinet functioned than the official minutes to and tonight when i repeat war were cabinet discussions for you i am largely quoting from burgess notes. Now here is an example. I cant see it from here but i hope that you can see it where you are. Its from september 11, 1940. By the way this is an uncharacteristically legible example. [laughter] so september 11, 1940, some months after dunkirk when the british had managed to evacuate most of their army from the european mainland before the germans could kill or capture them but stating off what would have been an absolute disaster. However, britains ally france was about to surrender. Neither the soviet union nor the United States had entered the war yet. The British Empire would soon stand alone against hitler to have most of europe at his feet. It should stay up in the northeast. Alexander expected this in size of attacks have the matter in hand. This reveals the war cabinet at a moment of extreme peril absolute focused on saving their country and confident they can do it despite all odds. Yet there are obvious divisions among the groups with an ideological divide i will not talk about it more in this talk but instead first of all, about a fairly obvious to by the conservative ministers were all more or less will be some more aristocrats. As they come from next backgrounds cripps was the son of the lord but morrison was from a policeman and. The illegitimate son of a of a woman who has labored on the docks the only member of the cabinet to earn his living as a manual laborer. One can perceive the notes in the letters they wrote to one another in the consciousness to divide the group. Here is anthony eden after the war. Recalling Herbert Morrison he is recalling him and his work in the war cabinet he was the kind of man you promote to Lance Corporal one week but he will be back up again soon. Herbert morrison. With that quotation is an officer referring to his subordinates. So in that war a cabinet with something to prove it does not sound as if he tries to do just that to the lord chancellor mr. John simon. With the exclusive publicschool effects had a firstclass degree from the oxford union when the liberal split just as they make a speech how much i enjoyed reading your speech from yesterday. To give the date of the publication of the great poem at 1694 instead of 1649 even looking at them you could see what he was up against. Is easy to imagine the unspoken assumption and tension hesitation and resentment that must have been part of the atmosphere the war Cabinet Meetings. In fact, church had assembled his own team of rivals as the linking cabinet was deemed during the civil war. Maneuvering for a position. The minister of aircraft employed flattery to get what he wanted and sometimes it worked. And to pass a note to serve as first lord of the admiralty i will do all i can to help you. I believe you will do the job better than anyone else. Alexander became the chief supporter in the cabinet. Sometimes however the flattery failed. Can we make a platform for you where i can stand by your side . I am sure you can do so if you build it. He wrote to the minister. , the minister of labour. He seemed to be suggesting that he build a platform to rival Winston Churchill and he thought this photograph was dangerous and replied i have no intention of building any platforms during the war outside of the platform of the government itself i have seen letters where he would try to flatter morrison or where he tried to flatter crips but with churchill there was of flattery of the trial. [laughter] maybe one dozen such examples and i will give you one. I send this letter of gratitude and devotion to the leader of the nation, the savior of our people in this single place of resistance in the free world. Church hill enjoyed receiving these letters i think but the surprisingly he never trusted him. By the time the war had finished practically nobody trusted bill llord in 1945 it was cautioned the newly elected labor members to the house of commons. There are many people it is easy to talk i warn you that if you talk to him no good will come of it. Be aware of flattery. You may object to any group of strong individuals will jockey for position and that is all he was doing. I agree. Still i was struck by the intensity of discord with a war cabinet celebrated 40 opposite. He described despised Clement Attlee. Once he quit trying to flatter him he rifled so bitterly that they threatened to sue him. He dismissed him and once called him the religious lord halifax. We are missing a wonderful picture of lord halifax that beaverbrook would call a sort of jesus is not long boots. [laughter] and he says the long boots are needed because he has to wade through the muddy is not responsible for the mud he could never make anything so dirty as mud in the last thing you would think is to throw with at the others. This kind of talk was not limited to llord beaverton. Everybody looked at the deputy leader of the labor party birth the greenwood. Martha had a drinking problem. He cannot even sign his name at 2 00 in the afternoon. And i think if you look at this photograph bill looks like he had a drink or to. Anthony eden, a conservative , sat between the two men and founded a rather uncomfortable because whenever morrison spoke he provided the accompaniment of torrance. Someone once said of morrison that he was his own worst enemy. Not while im alive he aint he quipped. [laughter] so how did churchill attempt to keep his team in good temper . He to be solicitous. I was sorry to see he looked very tired the other night i hope you will not hesitate to take a welder and holidays he wrote this to one minister recently recovered from the flu. He could be encouraging. Your speech was magnificent to give strength and resources. When members of the team disagreed with each other you woodwork to conciliate them in one meeting even declared he would not attend a celebration of the and cinnamon dash anniversary of the bolshevik revolution because it is promoted under communist influence but why should that be comparable to the of birthday . You mean the is our death day food distrusted and disliked the Crips Churchill intervened why not have the meeting in november no specific russian day to celebrate the russian resistance and with this compromise the meeting concluded. When churchill thought he was barking up the wrong tree he could throw humor to change his mind. In 1940 the minister of food recommended bridges have a more balanced diet and churchill found time in the midst of the greatest emergency to write to the lord. Almost all the food facts i have ever known have died young after senile the k. [laughter] the way to lose the war is to force the British Public into a diet of milk oatmeal and potatoes washdown with someone and jews. [laughter] like im jus. Churchill would not back down. In june 1942 the nazis slaughtered 1,300 innocent czechoslovakian civilians and burned to the ground to villages in which they had lived. As an appraisal the war cabinet met to advocate the next nine lignite and to agree with him and his secretary of state for india to be more ferocious advocated bombing highly populated towns not just the near villages. But then Clement Attlee introduced a moral consideration it would be interesting to enter into the frivolous with the germans. Morrison back to much. Of the right your force purposely bombed german civilians the cycle would ince do and public will say why did you draw this down on to us . The secretary of state, a liberal, sinclair introduced a practical consideration to bomb civilians would represent a divergent of effort from the military objective. And anders said and agreed paul mack it cost us something and then nothing nothing by which he meant it it bombed defenseless towns or villages she would lose the opportunity to bomb important military objectives while germany would lose its own civilian lives. Now anthony eden in swung decisively against the proposed action waste of the moonlit night. Bigger diversion that i have thought. . Five opposed three in favor in churchill argued my instinct is to go the of their way but i submit unwillingly to the view of the cabinet against. A solicitous supported humorous democratic Prime Minister kept his fractious war cabinet on that even keel and it sounds to a good to be true and often it was. First of all war cabinet ministers deemed churchill to be unrealistic and rump romantic. It drives me to despair when he works himself up in a passion of the motion to make his brain thinking and reasoning halifax wrote. Some deemed churchill a tyrant like a rogue elephant and others said what he does is jump to decision still consider this and say it shows weakness to recede. E did kept a diary into the sprinkled with comments like the following. Winston wants to move all the people himself and i find winston irritating. But none of his colleagues were shrinking violets when he acted like a dictator they objected. I thank you wish to withdraw i do not accept any in the third paragraph. Do not ruin each other if we can avoid it. I told him he continued to make Public Comments he would have to find another minister of food he is a bully and it is necessary to deal briefly with him. Also he was not a good chairman of meetings he loved the sound of his own voice he thought what he said was much more interesting than what anybody else said and he was right half the time but edens comment, cabinet in the evening when he would speak to was ted tremendous link of all aspects of military situations the a australian Prime Minister who attended or Cabinet Meetings when he came to london, spoke of the complete ignoring of time of the churchill war cabinet makes me very cross. Then churchill very rarely read the notes for guidance prior to the meetings Clement Attlee took him up on this and to pontificate and wrote part of which went as follows. Often half an hour or more is wasted explaining what could have been done by two with three minutes reading of the document. Not infrequently it gives rise to the interesting point only slightly connected with the subject matter. The result is a long delay and unnecessary watching cabinets i consider the present position with the tasks imposed upon us injuries to the war effort. So it is not surprising that churchills colleagues concluded they could run the war cabinet better than he could. As churchill designated his error air if anything happened to him tramped of the succession but even loyally refrained from undermining the Prime Minister during the war then minister of food leader of reconstruction revealed he toyed with the ada to mount a challenge to churchill but never acted upon the idea. Morrison intended to replace Clement Attlee as leader of the labor party than challenge churchill for leadership of the country with the next general election if it to place with the war still being on, then so be it. Lord beaverbrook seriously considered to overthrow church show his good friend and steps but nothing decisive for complicated reasons that i could go into during questions. Crips came closest to mount a direct attempt but churchill pasted in die will conclude this with a brief explanation of churchill purses crips. First a little about this man. Be the war he had been an extremely successful barrister. He had a mind like a calculating machine machine, astonishing capacity for work and organization with the ability to inspire devotion and was a patriot and deeply loves his country. The Labor Party Leaders feared him because he was effective and extremely leftwing. Before the war he advocated a popular front including communist as well as liberals and conservatives to confront fascisms the Labor Party Leaders would have nothing to do with communist and crips would not back dell they expelled him so he begins the war as a man without a party. He was personally peculiar to have important consequences. He did not think because he was a puritan. He stuck to a vegetarian diet for health because also he disapproved of gluttony he was a militant socialist of militant christian, he did not appeal to Winston Churchill at all maggie has all the virtues i dislike and none of the vices that i admire. [laughter] but church recognized crypts ability and patriotism. When the war began he sent him to russia as british ambassador. The experience of rush said disillusioned grips with this sovietstyle communism. However he still sympathized with the aspect of Foreign Policy and for the reason the British Foreign office distrusted him. Crips felt and was underutilized in russia and wanted to return home he thought he could make a greater contribution to the war effort there. Germany invaded russia in june 1941 nobody imagined the soviets could stand up to the blitzkrieg but they did. In britain people felt in its gratitude. Thank god for russia is a frequent expression of a deep and fervent appealing for that country which permeates wide sections of the public with the home Intelligence Branch reported to the government. Given their newfound popularity crypts reaped the benefits. Seven days sir stafford will return from moscow and will have a great following his sense of power will be developed fully into will be dressed in the garb of leadership and will find somewhere to go. In fact, he may have already to i the top position all the way from moscow in churchill thought he was and told he didnt he let crypts come home as he wanted then i will put my fist into his face. Crips returned to britain junior reid 1942. Many thought he had come to claim the top job. Churchill did not punch him but he did in tint to pop the bubble and invited him to lunch. How would you return . Friend or foe . A friendly critic for critical friend he offered him the post to the cabinet but not the war cabinet and crips turned it down as beneath his dignity and ability then gave the press conference about russia so interesting according to one who attended that the journalist almost forgot to take notes afterwards burst into applause he gave an address or the bbc radio about the russians heroically dealing with horrific conditions of wellconnected listener wrote after words the trouble in the past is that there has been no one to replace winston and. Now crypts is the man. His popularity soared soared, simultaneously churchills ltd. Plummeted because then came back news three damaged german warships sailed up the coast to the home port without being discovered until it was almost too late in people wondered how the navy could protect england from invasion if it could not stop three votes in plain view. Then the fall of singapore. The japanese captured 130,000 imperial british soldiers three times as many as the germans had taken in france. That night he wrote that churchill was headed for a downfall the chairman of the conservative party caucus approached wilton. They wonder how long he would last. The chairman came to see if i had used about succeeding him the party would not mind having me if i was taken on but it was not llord wilton who worried churchill. He moved swiftly to reorganize the cabinet anwr cabinet and was a romantic but could also be an efficient political butcher and it got rid of the most remaining advocates of appeasement and dumped the dead wood regardless of party or ideology that is very he dove to greenwood a and a new the he must recognize crips and he did so in a brilliant way to appoint him leader of the house of commons. That was enough to stop him to attempt a coup at the moment but not enough to stop thinking about it or stop discussing it with his friends. Churchill their view offered him a place a poisoned chalice and he did not recognize it. The leader of the house interprets government policy to house members and house opinion to the government but crypts never went to the house of commons bar because he did not drink he belonged to no party so he had no natural amount of followers to support him which would have been the case in fact, many distrusted him and so did the vast majority of conservatives and was entirely unsuited for the job a and with his first speech he condemned dog racing, a boxing horseracing, personal extravagance with every other form of waste of small or large and unnecessary expenditure. Everybody knew he was a purity is and nobody could accuse him of hypocrisy but morrison you knew what his constituents loved said he was tone deaf the conservative party said he was amazed by his speech of liberal said if he goes on line this rate he will not be popular for very long. He managed to alienate the leaders of the three main parties on his first day. [laughter] already the air was leaking from his balloon and the puente the pin that led to rush out came a couple months later the and they stuck it then sells the government had arranged a of a two day debate on policies and india but they began to drop that chain at lunchtime even though the Prime Minister was speaking. Cripps was appalled and members were rude they put the bellies ahead of the responsibilities and the soap yesterday he said so and with the way to that we should conduct them unless members are prepared to pay greater attention to their duties. The day after the house reconvened and it grows up practically as one to defend its honor conservatives and liberals peppered him with high style questions one after another then later when the war cabinet met churchill himself took trips to task. Why encourage criticism . Didnt regretted a lost opportunity for house members to express support of india policy. Silence support is perhaps more house of commons is in a very good mood better to have left them alone. The general effect was bad. Disagreed. They could wait until Prime Minister finished his speech. Didnt worry me. [laughter] churchill had him where he wanted. And that was the part and he feared that would precipitate another political crisis to bring down his government. On the night of september 30th he summoned him to warn him not to resign the two men argued and he charged churchill was doing a poor job running the war over the next two days the fate of the government seemed to hang in the balance church show met with advisers and so did crips. Anthony been served as the middleman churchill wanted to continue to take advantage of his abilities and wanted him out of the war cabinet where he was a rifle but inside the larger cabinet where he could do good work as minister of aircraft production and instructed yibin begin to tell crips not to resign and he now confirmed his suspicions we should all get along so much better without winston. But churchill outmaneuvered the allies just mounted operation torch which was the invasion of west africa and the Prime Minister appealed to his patriotism been told him it would be unpatriotic to resign and force a crisis of an important operation and he agreed and promised to hold off resigning for the time being. If operation torch when badly then everybody in the government might be resigning. If it went well the government would be popular and crips would resign alone. Churchill maneuvered his opponent to take that position hens you lose tales of the body loses bin the coin came up heads and crips resigned after operation torch succeeded and nobody even noticed. There were too busy celebrating there was no crisis. Churchill softened chauffeured shuffled his cabinet again and appointed crips to become the minister of aircraft production which is probably where he wanted him the entire time out of the war cabinet he served out the war doing useful work but never again a rifle to the Prime Minister. Let me sum up and conclude. The achievements of his cabinet are in perishable and he was ending a giant nobody could have done what he did. He led the country to victory over the nazis and kept a group of highpowered men working together. In addition a great juggler and kept eight balls in the air at once which is to say the number of men in the war cabinet and did it five years but then they came crashing down in the summer of 1945 when the war was just about over to show how it happened and why. Not only the familiar pieces but it explains why churchill lost the general election of a pretty shot the party could win. Even that aspect of the explanation that is not how the war cabinet is portrayed. Thank you very much. [applause] all questions must be asked from the microphone. I dont know where it is. Does anybody have a question . I would be interested to know the secret of the enigma code. I cannot answer that question. [laughter] not because the information is classified although i have seen the movie i do not know the answer. I certainly never saw in any of the Cabinet Meeting minutes of reference to the code breaking but then again they might not be in the cabinet so i dont really know the answer here comes another question. How did churchills frequent visits to the United States impact of the operation of the cabinet . And what did your review of the time table show was the reaction and expectation of the germans after pearl harbor of hitlers decision to declare war on the United States . Did you get any sense why he decided to do that from your research . The first question has to do with his trips to the United States but he also traveled a great deal during the war. There are a number of reasons for that they were in an important meetings all the time after one of them he went to discuss how to best make said germans burned and lead but he took those trips because he was greeted as a hero whereases he always dealing with the difficult cabinet often there were several votes of no confidence he had to manage and deal with he enjoyed flying and to the great terror of hit airplane he would take over and fly the airplane. [laughter] how did cabinet ministers feel about this . Although they understood he was doing work that nobody else could do they became frustrated and annoyed and there are many references to that in the papers of the labor party who want to push various programs for word. It caused friction. The second question about the german decision to declare war on the United States after pearl harbor is not in my book. My research did not touch on that except i have read many books on the subject but what i have read is that hitler realized he had to close down the pipeline. He could not bomb american ships spur he knew he would have to declare war on us sooner or later and that is my vendor standing why the germans declared war on us. That is not disclosed by my research but secondary sources. If i could interpret what you said meaning it was not churchill that was so great but the threat of disaster that kept the cabinet together and once that threat abated it fell apart. So what is the relative importance of the threat as opposed to new churchills abilities . Is there any other leader with whom you would compare churchill with his ability to navigate the tough waters . Everybody is the war cabinet understood the nature of the threat. That did not stop them even before the United States and soviet union chewing to it never boiled over and tell the threat had eased but the threat was always there. Therefore it did in his bid them to a degree and to a large degree however from the work i did i do not see anyone else that could have kept that fractious Team Together i only gave the few examples. There was a time when ernest davis beach that insulted a bunch of conservative military police they were incurred and complained and churchill wrote a note that said you cannot do that sort of saying you cannot attack of party that is part of the coalition which you are serving. And deadend road to back i hear to every word i said. Then churchill called in the conservative mps who were upset to smooth things over. The men who wanted to replace Churchill Crips and beaverbrook are the most important. Neither could have done it then they came the closest to trying. I cannot imagine crips or beaverbrooks moving some smoothing the fed there is 71. Beaverbrook just like to order people around. [laughter] so i came to the conclusion that Winston Churchill was not perfect. He had many faults and objectionable ideas about race and gender. I dont think any other men in the cabinet could have done what he did. I thought maybe Clement Attlee is leader of the labor party but that could not have been the Prime Minister in world war ii are dont see another person. Circumstances kept them from killing each other but churchill played an important role. That was a long answer i forgot the second question. [laughter] i cannot do that one. I dont know. The other grey british wartime leader is boy george world war i a significant role of the british victory as churchill did of world war ii and they are as different as apples and oranges. I think he could be generous who else could speak like churchill . I am a british historian. [laughter] i am understand roosevelt was a great president and a great wartime leader from the secondary reading that i have done. He seems to of a completely different personality but it is apples and oranges. I am not minimizing roosevelt. Believe me. One more question. Where do these conflicts was it publicized . Always in charge when churchill was a way. There was a lot of rumor in the newspapers i spend a lot of time is the newspapers these men were surprisingly you do slipped about the conflict but it was kept within a close circle. People could say betty is rotten in the government except to leave or churchill or anthony eden. Basically only the cognizant new. And the deputy Prime Minister was Clement Attlee and he was in charge when churchill went on his trips and everybody commented when Clement Attlee was in charge they were faster comedy efficient and went more smoothly. Thank you very much. [applause] take you very much. Please get a First Edition and to use the line tonight 25 off. What a great night. Thanks for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations] when we write history is an ted written as conflict . I think a lot of people do write history as conflict