 Victory over Japan. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Speech given by Winston Churchill to the House of Commons, 16th August 1945. Our duty is to congratulate His Majesty's government on the very great improvement in our prospects at home, which comes from the complete victory gained over Japan and the establishment of peace throughout the world. Only a month ago it was necessary to continue at full speed and at enormous cost all preparations for a long and bloody campaign in the Far East. In the first days of the Potsdam conference, President Truman and I approved the plan submitted to us by the combined chiefs of staff for a series of great battles and landings in Malaya, in the Netherlands East Indies, and in the homeland of Japan itself. These operations involved an effort not surpassed in Europe and no one could measure the cost in a British and American life and treasure they would require. Still less could it be known how long the stamping out of the resistance of Japan in the many territories she had conquered and especially in her homeland would take. All the while the whole process of turning the world from war to peace would be hampered and delayed. Every form of peace activity was half strangled by the overriding priorities of war. No clear cut decisions could be taken in the presence of this harsh, dominating uncertainty. During the last three months an element of barring dualism has complicated every problem of policy and administration. We had to plan for peace and war at the same time. Immense armies were being demobilized. Another powerful army was being prepared and dispatched to the other side of the globe. All the personal stresses among millions of men eager to return to civil life and hundreds of thousands of men who would have to be sent to a new and severe campaigns in the Far East presented themselves with growing tension. This dualism affected also every aspect of our economic and financial life. How to set people free to use their activities in reviving the life of Britain and at the same time to meet the stern demands of the war against Japan constituted one of the most perplexing and distressing puzzles that in a long lifetime of experience I have ever faced. I confess it was with great anxiety that I surveyed this prospect a month ago. Since then I have been relieved of the burden. At the same time that burden, heavy though it still remains, has been immeasurably lightened. On 17th July there came to us at Potsdam the eagerly awaited news of the trial of the atomic bomb in the Mexican desert. Success beyond all dreams crowned this somber magnificent venture of our American allies. The detailed reports of the Mexican desert experiment which were brought to us every few days later by air could leave no doubt in the minds of the very few who were informed that we were in the presence of a new factor in human affairs and possessed of powers which were irresistible. Great Britain had a right to be consulted in accordance with Anglo-American agreements. The decision to use the atomic bomb was taken by President Truman and myself at Potsdam and we approved the military plans to unchain the dread pent-up forces. From that moment our outlook on the future was transformed. In preparation for the results of this experiment the statements of the president and of Mr. Stimpson and my own statement which by the courtesy of the prime minister was subsequently read out on the broadcast were framed in common agreement. Marshall Stalin was informed by President Truman that we contemplated using an explosive if in comparable power against Japan and action proceeded in the way we all now know. It is to this atomic bomb more to any other factor that we may ascribe the sudden and speedy ending of the war against Japan. Before using it it was necessary first of all to send a message in the form of an ultimatum to the Japanese which would apprise them of what unconditional surrender meant. This document was published on 26th July the same day that another event differently viewed on each side of the house occurred. Note the result of the general election and the resignation of Churchill from the premiership and note the assurances given to Japan about her future after her unconditional surrender had been made were generous in the extreme. When we remembered the cruel and treacherous nature of the utterly unprovoked attack made by the Japanese warlords upon the United States and Great Britain these assurances must be considered was magnanimous in a high degree. In a nutshell they implied Japan or the Japanese and even access to raw materials apart from their control was not denied to their densely populated homeland. We felt then in view of the new and fearful agencies of war power about to be employed every inducement to surrender compatible with our declared policy should be set before them. This we owed to our consciences before using this awful weapon. Secondly by repeated warnings emphasized by heavy bombing attacks an endeavor was made to procure the general exodus of the civil population from the threatened cities. Thus everything in human power prior to using the atomic bomb was done to spare the civil population of Japan. There are voices which assert that the bomb should never have been used at all. I cannot associate myself with such ideas. Six years of total war have convinced most people that had the Germans or Japanese discovered this new weapon. They would have used it upon us to our complete destruction with the utmost alacrity. I surprised that very worthy people but people who in most cases had no intention of proceeding to the Japanese front themselves should adopt the position that rather than throw this bomb we should have sacrificed a million American and a quarter of a million British lives in the desperate battles and massacres of an invasion of Japan. Future generations will judge these dire decisions and I believe that if they find themselves dwelling in a happier world from which war has been vanished and where freedom reigns they will not condemn those who struggled for their benefit amid the horrors and miseries of this gruesome and ferocious epic. The bomb brought peace but men alone can keep that peace and hence forward they will keep it under penalties which threaten the survival not only of civilization but of humanity itself. I may say that I am in an entire agreement with the president that the secrets of the atomic bomb should so far as possible not be imparted at the present time to any other country in the world. This is in no design or wish for arbitrary power but for the common safety of the world. Nothing can stop the progress of research and experiment in every country but although research will no doubt proceed in many places the construction of the immense plants necessary to transform theory into action cannot be improvised in any country. For this and for many other reasons the United States stand at this moment at the summit of the world. I rejoice that this should be so. Let them act up to the level of their power and their responsibility not for themselves but for others for all men in all lands and then a brighter day may dawn upon human history. As far as we know there are at least three or perhaps four years before the concrete progress made in the United States can be overtaken. In these years we must remold the relationships of all men wherever they dwell in all nations. We must remold them in such a way that these men do not wish or dare to fall upon each other for the sake of vulgar and outdated ambitions or for passionate differences in ideology and that international bodies of supreme authority may give peace on earth and decree justice among men. Our pilgrimage has brought us to a sublime moment in the history of the world. From the least to the greatest all must strive to be worthy of these supreme opportunities. There is not an hour to be wasted there is not a day to be lost. It would in my opinion be a mistake to suggest that the Russian declaration of war upon Japan was hastened by the use of the atomic bomb. My understanding with Marshall Stalin in the talks which I had with him had been for a considerable time past that Russia would declare war upon Japan within three months of the surrender of the German armies. The reason for the delay of three months was of course the need to move over the trans-Siberian railway, the large reinforcements necessary to convert the Russian Manchurian army from a defensive to an offensive strength. Three months was the time mentioned and the fact that the German army surrendered on 8th May and the Russians declared war on Japan on 8th August is no mere coincidence but another example of the fidelity and punctuality which with Marshall Stalin and his valiant armies have always kept their military engagements. I now turn to the results of the Potsdam conference so far as they have been made public in the agreed communique and in President Truman's very remarkable speech of a little more than a week ago. There has been general approval of the arrangements proposed for the administration of Germany by the Allied Control Commission during the provisional period of military government. This regime is both transitional and indefinite. The character of Hitler's Nazi party was such as to destroy almost all independent elements in the German people. The struggle was fought to the bitter end. The mass of the people were forced to drain the cup of defeat to the dregs. A headless Germany has fallen into the hands of the conquerors. It may be many years before any structure of German national life will be possible and there will be plenty of time for the victors to consider how the interests of world peace are affected thereby. In the meanwhile, it is in my view of the utmost importance that responsibility should be effectively assumed by German local bodies for carrying on under Allied supervision all the processes of production and of administration necessary to maintain the life of a vast population. It is not possible for the Allies to bear responsibility by themselves. We cannot have the German masses lying down upon our hands and expecting to be fed, organized and educated over a period of years by the Allies. We must do our best to help to avert the tragedy of famine. But it would be in vain for us in our small island which still needs the import half its food to imagine how we can make any further appreciable contribution in that respect. The rationing of this country cannot be made more severe without endangering the life and physical strength of our people all of which will be needed for the immense tasks we have to do. I therefore most strongly advise the encouragement of the assumption of responsibility by trustworthy German local bodies in proportion that they could be brought into existence. The Council which was set up a potstam of the foreign secretaries of the three, four or five powers meeting in various combinations as occasion served affords a new and flexible machinery for the continuous further study of the immense problems that lie before us in Europe and Asia. I am very glad that the request that I made to the conference that the seat of the Council's permanent secretariat should be London was granted. I must say that the late foreign secretary, Mr. Anthony Eden, who has over a long period gained an increasing measure of confidence from the foreign secretaries of Russia and the United States and who through the European Advisory Committee which is located in London has always gained the feeling that things could be settled in a friendly and easy way. Deserve some of the credit for the fact that these great powers willingly accorded us the seat in London of the permanent secretariat. It is high time that the place of London, one of the controlling centers of international world affairs, should at last be recognized. It is the oldest, the largest, the most battered capital, the capital which was first in the war, and the time is certainly overdue when we should have our recognition. I am glad also that a beginning is to be made with the evacuation of Persia, Iran, by the British and Russian armed forces in accordance with the triple treaty which we made with each other and with Persia in 1941. Although it does not appear in the communique, we have since seen it announced that the first stages in the process, namely the withdrawal of Russian and British troops from Tehran, has already begun or is about to begin. There are various other matters arising out of this conference which should be noted as satisfactory. We should not however delude ourselves into supposing that the results of the first conference of the victors were free from disappointment or anxiety or that the most serious questions before us were brought to good solutions. Those which proved incapable of agreement at the conference have been relegated to the Foreign Secretary's Council, which, though most capable of relieving difficulties, is essentially one gifted with far less reaching powers. Other grave questions are left for the final peace settlement, by which time many of them may have settled themselves, not necessarily in the best way. It would be at once wrong and impossible to conceal the divergences of view which exist inevitably between the victors about the state of affairs in Eastern and Middle Europe. I do not at all blame the Prime Minister or the new Foreign Secretary, whose task it was to finish up the discussions which we had begun. I am sure they did their best. We have to realize that no one of the three leading powers can impose its solutions upon others and that the only solutions possible are those which are in the nature of compromise. We British have had very early and increasingly to recognize the limitations of our own power and influence, great though it be, in the gaunt world arising from the ruins of this hideous war. It is not in the power of any British government to bring home solutions which would be regarded as perfect by the great majority of members of this house wherever they may sit. I must put on record my own opinion that the provisional Western Frontier agreed upon for Poland running from Stettin on the Baltic along the Oder and its tributary, the Western Nace, comprising as it does one quarter of the arable land of all Germany, is not a good augury for the future map of Europe. We always had in the coalition government a desire that Poland should receive an ample compensation in the west for the territory ceded to Russia east of the Corazon Line. But here I think a mistake has been made in which the provisional government of Poland have been an ardent partner by going far beyond what necessity or equity required. There are few virtues that the Poles do not possess, and there are few mistakes they have ever avoided. I am particularly concerned at this moment with the reports reaching us that the conditions under which the expulsion and exodus of Germans from the New Poland are being carried out, between eight and nine million persons dwelt in those regions before the war. The Polish government say there are still one million five hundred thousand of these not yet expelled within their new frontiers. Other millions must have taken refuge behind the British and American lines, thus increasing the food stringency in our sector, but enormous numbers are utterly unaccounted for. Where are they gone and what has been their fate? The same conditions may reproduce themselves in a modified form in the expulsion of great numbers of student and other Germans from Czechoslovakia. Sparse and guarded accounts of what has happened and what is happening have filtered through, but it is not impossible that tragedy, on a prodigious scale, is unfolding itself behind the Iron Curtain, which at this moment divides Europe in twain. I should welcome any statement which the Prime Minister can make which would relieve, or at least inform us, upon this very anxious and grievous matter. There is another sphere of anxiety. I remember that a fortnight or so before the last war, the Kaiser's friend, Herr Ballin, the great shipping magnate, told me that he had heard Bismarck say, towards the end of his life, if there is ever another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans. The murder of the Archduke of Sarajevo in 1914 set the signal for the First World War. I cannot conceive that the elements for a new conflict do not exist in the Balkans today. I am not using the language of Bismarck, but nevertheless not many members of the new House of Commons will be content with the new situation which prevails in those mountainous, turbulent, ill-organized, and warlike regions. I do not intend to particularize. I am very happy to see the new Foreign Secretary, Mr. Ernest Bevin, sitting on the front bench opposite. I should like to say, with what gratification I learned that he had taken on this high and most profoundly difficult office, and we are sure he will do his best to preserve the great causes for which we have so long pulled together. But, as I say, not many members will be content with the situation in that region, to which I have referred, for almost everywhere communist forces have obtained, or in the process of obtaining, dictatorial powers. It does not mean that the communist system is everywhere being established, nor does it mean that Soviet Russia seeks to reduce all those independent states to provinces of the Soviet Union. Marshall Stalin is a very wise man, and I would set no limits to the immense contributions that he and his associates have to make to the future. In those countries torn and convulsed by war, there may be, for some months to come, the need of authoritarian government. The alternative would be anarchy. Therefore, it would be unreasonable to ask, or to expect, that liberal government, as spelt with the small g, than British or United States democratic conditions, should be instituted immediately. They take their politics very seriously in those countries. A friend of mine, an officer, was in Zagreb when the results of the late general election came in. An old lady said to him, poor Mr. Churchill, I suppose now he will be shot. My friend was able to reassure her. He said, the sentence might be mitigated to one of those various forms of hard labor, which are always open to his Majesty's subjects. Nevertheless, we must know where we stand, and we must make clear where we stand in these affairs of the Balkans and of Eastern Europe, and indeed of any country which comes into this field. Our ideal is government of the people, by the people, for the people. The people being free, without the rest to express, by secret ballot, without intimidation, their deep-seated wish as to the form and conditions of the government under which they are to live. At the present time, I trust a very fleeting time police governments rule over a great number of countries. It is the case of the Odeous 18b carried to a horrible excess. The family is gathered around the fireside to enjoy the scanty fruits of their toil and to recruit their exhausted strength by the little food that they have been able to gather. There they sit. Suddenly, there is a knock at the door and a heavily armed policeman appears. He is not, of course, one who resembles in any way those functionaries whom we honor and obey in the London streets. It may be that the father or son or friend sitting in the cottage is called out and taken off into the dark, and no one knows whether he will ever come back again or what his fate has been. There are millions of humble homes in Europe, at the moment, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia, in Austria, in Hungary, in Yugoslavia, in Romania, in Bulgaria, where this fear is the main preoccupation of the family life. President Roosevelt laid down the four freedoms, and these are expressed in the Atlantic Charter which we agreed together. Freedom from fear, but this has been interpreted as if it were only freedom of fear of invasion from a foreign country. That is the least of fears to the common man. His patriotism arms him to withstand invasion or to go down fighting. But that is not the fear of the ordinary family in Europe tonight. Their fear is of the policeman's knock. It is not fear for the country, for all men can unite in comradeship for the defense of their native soil. It is for the life and liberty of the individual, for the fundamental rights of man, now menaced and precarious in so many lands that peoples tremble. Surely we can agree in this new parliament or the great majority of us wherever we sit. There are naturally and rightly differences and cleavages of thought, but surely we can agree in this new parliament which will either fail the world or once again play a part in saving it. That it is the will of the people freely expressed by secret ballot in universal suffrage elections as to the form of their government and as to the laws which will prevail, which is the first solution and safeguard. Let us then march steadily along that plain and simple line. I avow my faith in democracy, whatever course or view it may take with individuals and parties. They may make their mistakes and they may profit from their mistakes. Democracy is now on trial as it never was before, and in these islands we must uphold it as we have held it in the dark days of 1940 and 1941 with all our hearts, with all our villains, with all our enduring and inexhaustible strength. While the war was on and all the allies were fighting for victory, the word democracy like many people had to work overtime, but now that peace is calm we must search for more precise definitions. Elections have been proposed in some of these Balkan countries where only one set of candidates is allowed to appear and where if other parties are to express their opinion it has to be arranged beforehand that the governing party armed with its political police and all its propaganda is the only one which has the slightest chance. Chance that I say? It is a certainty. Now is the time for Britons to speak out. It is odious to us that government should seek to maintain their rule otherwise than by free, unfettered elections by the mass of the people. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, says the Constitution of the United States. This must not evaporate in swindles and lies propped up by servitude and murder. In our foreign policy let us strike continually the notes of freedom and fair play as we understand them in these islands. Then you will find these will be an overwhelming measure of agreement between us and we shall in this house march forward on an honorable theme having within it all that invests human life with dignity and happiness. In saying this I had been trying to gather together and present in a direct form the things which I believe are dear to the great majority of us. I rejoiced to read them expressed in golden words by the President of the United States when he said, Our victory in Europe was more than a victory of arms. It was a victory of one way of life over another. It was a victory of an ideal founded on the rights of the common man, on the dignity of the human being, and on the conception of the state as the servant, not the master of the people. I think there was not such great disagreement between us. Emphasis may be cast this way or that in particular incidents, but surely this is what the new parliament on the whole means, that this is what is in our heart and conscience in foreign affairs and world issues we desire. Just as in the baleful glare of 1940, so now when calmer lights shine, let us be united upon those research and principles and impulses of the good and generous hearts of men. Thus to all the material strength we possess and the honored position we have acquired, we shall add these moral forces which glorify mankind and make even the weakest equals of the strong. I turn now to the domestic sphere. I have already spoken of the enormous easement in their task which the new government have obtained through the swift and sudden ending of the Japanese war. What thousands and millions of pounds sterling are saved from the waste of war? What scores and hundreds of thousands of lives are saved? What vast numbers of ships are set free to carry the soldiers home to all their lands to carry about the world, the food and raw materials vital to industry? What noble opportunities have the new government inherited? Let them be worthy of their fortune, which is also the fortune of us all. To release and liberate the vital springs of British energy and inventiveness, to let the honest earnings of the nation fructify in the pockets of the people, to spread well-being and security against accident and misfortune throughout the whole nation, to plan wherever state planning is imperative, to guide into fertile and healthy channels the native British genius for comprehension and goodwill. All these are open to them and all these ought to be open to all of us now. I hope we may go forward together not only abroad but also at home in all manners as far as we possibly can. During the period of the caretaker government, while we all still had to contemplate 18 months of strenuous war with Japan, we reviewed the plans for demobilization in such a way as to make a very great acceleration in the whole process of releasing men and women from the armed forces and from compulsory industrial employment. Now all that is overtaken by the worldwide end of the war, I may say at once that the paragraph of the gracious speech, the king's speech, outlining the new government's policy referring to demobilization and to the plans which were made in the autumn of 1944, with which I am an entire agreement in principle, gives a somewhat chilling impression. Now that we had this wonderful windfall I am surprised that any government should imagine that language of this kind is still appropriate or equal to the new situation. I see that in the United States the President has said that all the American troops that the American ships can carry home in the next year will be brought home and set free. Are His Majesty's government now able to make any statement of that kind about our armed forces abroad? Or what statement can they make? I do not want to harass them unduly but perhaps sometime next week some statement could be made. No doubt the Prime Minister will think of that. Great hopes have been raised in the electoral campaign and from those hopes have sprung their great political victory. Time will show whether those hopes can be well founded as we deeply trust they may be. But many decisions can be taken now in the completely altered circumstance in which we find ourselves. The duty of the government is to fix the minimum numbers who must be retained in the next six or twelve months period in all the foreign theaters and to bring the rest home with the utmost speed that are immensely expanding shipping resources will permit. Even more is this releasing process important in the demobilization of the home establishment. I quite agree with the feeling of the class A man must be ever the dominant factor but short of that the most extreme efforts must be made to release people who are standing about doing nothing. I hope the public expenditure committee will at once be reconstituted and that they will travel about the country examining home establishments and reporting frequently to the house. Now that the war is over there is no ground of military secrecy which may prevent the publication of the exact numerical ration strengths of our army, navy and Air Force and every theater and at home and we should have weekly or at least monthly figures of the progressive demobilization affected. It is an opportunity for the new government to win distinction. At the end of the last war when I was in charge of the army and Air Force I published periodically very precise information. I agree with the words used by the foreign secretary when he was minister of labor in my administration namely that the tremendous winding up process of the war must be followed by a methodical and regulated unwinding. We agree that if the process is to be pressed forward with the utmost speed it is necessary for the government to wield exceptional powers for the time being or so long as they use those powers to achieve the great administrative and executive tasks opposed upon them. We shall not attack them. It is only if and in so far as those powers are used to bring about by a sidewind a state of controlled society agreeable to socialist doctrinaires but which we deem odious to British freedom that we shall be forced to resist them. As long as the exceptional powers are used as part of the war emergency his majesty's government may consider us as helpers and not as opponents as friends and not as foes. To say this in no way relieves the government of their duty to set the nation free as soon as possible to bring home the soldiers in accordance with the scheme with the utmost rapidity and to enable the mass of the people to resume their normal lives and employment in the best easiest and speediest manner. There ought not to be a long dragged out period of many months when hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women are kept waiting about under discipline doing useless tasks at the public expense and other tens of thousands more highly paid finding them sterile work to do. What we desire is freedom. What we need is abundance. Freedom and abundance these must be our aims. The production of new wealth is far more beneficial and of an incomparably larger scale than class and party fights about the liquidation of old wealth. We must try to share blessings and not miseries. The production of new wealth must proceed common wealth otherwise there will be only a common poverty. I am sorry these simple truisms must excite the honorable member opposite whom I watched so often during the course of the last parliament and whose many agreeable qualities I have often admired as if they had some sense of novelty for him. We do not propose to join issue immediately about the legislative proposals in the gracious speech. We do not know what is meant by the control of investment but apparently it is the subject for mirth. Evidently in war you may do one thing in peace perhaps another must be considered. Allowance must be made for the transitional period through which we are passing. The debate on the address should probe and elicit the government's intentions in this matter. The same is true of the proposal to nationalize the coal mines. If that is really the best way of securing a larger supply of coal at a cheaper price and at an earlier moment than is now in view I for one should approach the plan in a sympathetic spirit. It is by results that the government will be judged and it is by results that this policy must be judged. The national ownership of the Bank of England does not in my opinion raise any matter of principle. I give my opinion anybody else may give his own. There are important examples in the United States and in our dominions of central banking institutions but what matters is the use to be made of this public ownership. On this we must wait the detailed statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer whom I am glad to say has pledged himself to resist inflation. Meanwhile it may be helpful for me to express the opinion as leader of the opposition that foreign countries need not be alarmed by the language of the gracious speech on this subject and that British credit will be resolutely upheld. Then there is the Trade Disputes Act. We are told that this is to be repealed. Personally I feel that we owe in an estimable debt to the trade unions for all they have done for the country in the long struggle against the foreign foe. But they would surely be unwise to reinstitute the political levy on the old basis. It would be very odd if they wish to regain full faculties for legalizing and organizing a general strike. It does not say much for the confidence with which the trade union council view the brave new world or for what they think about the progressive nationalization of our industries that they should deem it necessary on what an honorable and gallant gentleman called the D-Day of the New Britain. To restore and sharpen the general strike weapon at this particular time of all others. Apparently nationalization is not regarded by them as any security against conditions which would render a general strike imperative and justified in the interest of the workers. We are I understand after nationalizing the coal mines to deal with the railways, electricity, and transport. Yet at the same time the trade unions feel as necessary to be heavily re-armed against state socialism. Apparently the new age is not to be so happy for the wage earners as we have been asked to believe. At any rate there seems to be a fundamental incongruity in these conceptions to which the attention of the socialist intelligentsia should be speedily directed. Perhaps it may be said that these powers will only be needed if the Tories come into office. Surely these are early days to get frightened. I will ask the Prime Minister if he will tell us broadly what is meant by the word repeal. I have offered these comments to the House and I do not wish to end on a somber or even slightly controversial note. As to the situation which exists today it is evident that not only are the two parties in the House agreed in the main essentials of foreign policy and in our moral outlook on world affairs but we also have an immense program prepared by the joint exertions during the coalition which requires to be brought into law and made an inherent part of the life of the people. Here and there there may be differences of emphasis in view but in the main no parliament ever assembled with such a mass of agreed legislation as lies before us. I have great hopes of this parliament and I shall do my utmost to make its work fruitful. It may heal the wounds of war and to turn to good account the new conceptions and powers which we have gathered amid the storm. I do not underrate the difficult and intricate complications of the task which lies before us. I know too much about it to cherish vain illusions but the moral of such a victory as we have gained is a splendid moment in both our small lives and in our great history. It is a time not only of rejoicing but even more of resolve. When we look back on all the perils through which we have passed and at the mighty foes we have laid low and all the dark and deadly designs we have frustrated why should we fear for our future. We have come safely through the worst. Home is the sailor home from sea and the hunter home from the hill. End of speech. Never flinch, never weary, never despair. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Speech given by Winston Churchill to the House of Commons 1st of March 1955 I beg to move that this House approves the statement on defence 1955 command paper number 9391. This motion stands in my name and it is supported by my right honourable friends the Foreign Secretary, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Minister of Defence. We live in a period happily unique in human history when the whole world is divided intellectually and to a large extent geographically between the creeds of communist discipline and individual freedom, and when at the same time this mental and psychological division is accompanied by the possession by both sides of the obliterating weapons of the nuclear age. We have antagonisms now as deep as those of the Reformation and its reactions which led to the Thirty Years War, but now they are spread over the whole world instead of only over a small part of Europe. We have to some extent the geographical division of the Mongol invasion in the 13th century only more ruthless and more thorough. We have force and science hitherto the servants of man now threatening to become his master. I am not pretending to have a solution for a permanent peace between the nations which could be unfolded this afternoon. We pray for it. Nor shall I try to discuss the Cold War which we all did test, but have to endure. I shall only venture to offer to the House some observations, mainly of a general character, on which I have pondered long and which I hope may be tolerantly received as they are intended by me. And here may I venture to make a personal digression. I do not pretend to be an expert or to have technical knowledge of this prodigious sphere of science. But in my long friendship with Lord Chirwell I have tried to follow and even predict the evolution of events. I hope that the House will not reprove me for vanity or conceit if I repeat what I wrote a quarter of a century ago. We know enough to be sure that the scientific achievements of the next fifty years will be far greater, more rapid, and more surprising than those we have already experienced. High authorities tell us that new sources of power, vastly more important than any we yet know, will surely be discovered. Nuclear energy is incomparably greater than the molecular energy which we use today. The coal a man can get in a day can easily do five hundred times as much work as the man himself. Nuclear energy is at least one million times more powerful still. If the hydrogen atoms in a pound of water could be prevailed upon to combine together and form helium, they would suffice to drive a one thousand horsepower engine for a whole year. If the electrons, those tiny planets of the atomic systems, were induced to combine with the nuclei in the hydrogen, the horsepower liberated would be one hundred and twenty times greater 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, or it may be the detonator to cause the dynamite to explode. This is no doubt not quite an accurate description of what has been discovered, but as it was published in The Strand magazine of December 1931, twenty-four years ago, I hope that my plea to have long taken an interest in the subject may be indulgently accepted by the House. What is the present position? Only three countries possess in varying degrees the knowledge and the power to make nuclear weapons. Of these the United States is overwhelmingly the chief. Owing to the breakdown in the exchange of information between us and the United States since 1946, we have had to start again independently on our own. Fortunately executive action was taken promptly by the Right Honourable Gentleman, the leader of the opposition, to reduce as far as possible the delay in our nuclear development and production. By his initiative we have made our own atomic bombs. Confronted with the hydrogen bomb I have tried to live up to the Right Honourable Gentleman's standard. We have started to make that one too. It is this grave decision which forms the core of the defence paper which we are discussing this afternoon. Although the Soviet stockpile of atomic bombs may be greater than that of Britain, British discoveries may well place us above them in fundamental science. May I say that for the sake of simplicity and to avoid verbal confusion I use the expression atomic bombs and also hydrogen bombs instead of thermonuclear and I keep nuclear for the whole lot. There is an immense gulf between the atomic and the hydrogen bomb. The atomic bomb with all its terrors did not carry us outside the scope of human control or manageable events in thought or action in peace or war. But when Mr. Sterling Cole, the Chairman of the United States Congressional Committee, gave out a year ago, 17 February 1954, the first comprehensive review of the hydrogen bomb, the entire foundation of human affairs was revolutionized and mankind placed in a situation both measureless and laden with doom. It is now the fact that a quantity of plutonium probably less than would fill the box on the table, it is quite a safe thing to store, would suffice to produce weapons which would give indisputable world domination to any great power which was the only one to have it. There is no absolute defense against the hydrogen bomb nor is any method in sight by which any nation or any country can be completely guaranteed against the devastating injury which even a score of them might inflict on wide regions. What ought we to do? Which way shall we turn to save our lives and the future of the world? It does not matter so much to old people, they are going soon anyway, but I find it poignant to look at youth in all its activity and ardour and most of all to watch little children playing their merry games and wonder what would lie before them if God wereied of mankind. The best defense would of course be bona fide disarmament all round, this is in all our hearts. But sentiment must not cloud our vision, it is often said that facts are stubborn things. A renewed session of a subcommittee of the disarmament commission is now sitting in London and is rightly attempting to conduct its debates in private. We must not conceal from ourselves the gulf between the Soviet government and the NATO powers which has hitherto for so long prevented an agreement. The long history and tradition of Russia makes it repugnant to the Soviet government to accept any practical system of international inspection. A second difficulty lies in the circumstance that, just as the United States on the one hand has, we believe, the overwhelming mastery in nuclear weapons, so the Soviets and their communist satellites had immense superiority in what are called conventional forces, the sort of arms and forces with which we fought the last war, but much improved. The problem is therefore to devise a balanced and phased system of disarmament which at no period enables any one of the participants to enjoy an advantage which might endanger the security of the others. A scheme on these lines was submitted last year by Her Majesty's government and the French government, and was accepted by the late Mr Fischinsky as a basis of discussion. It is now being examined in London. If the Soviet government have not at any time since the war shown much nervousness about the American possession of nuclear superiority, that is because they are quite sure that it will not be used against them aggressively, even in spite of many forms of provocation. On the other hand, the NATO powers have been combined together by the continued aggression and advance of communism in Asia and in Europe. That this should have eclipsed in a few years and largely effaced the fearful antagonism and memories that Hitlerism created for the German people is an event without parallel. But it has to a large extent happened. There is widespread belief throughout the free world that but for American nuclear superiority Europe would already have been reduced to satellite status, and the Iron Curtain would have reached the Atlantic and the Channel. Unless a trustworthy and universal agreement upon disarmament, conventional and nuclear alike can be reached, an effective system of inspection is established and is actually working, there is only one same policy for the free world in the next few years. That is what we call defence through deterrence. This we have already adopted and proclaimed. These deterrence may at any time become the parents of disarmament provided that they deter. To make our contribution to the deterrent we must ourselves possess the most up to date nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them. That is the position which the government occupy. We are to discuss this not only as a matter of principle. There are many practical reasons which should be given. Should war come which God forbid there are a large number of targets that we and the Americans must be able to strike at once. There are scores of airfields from which the Soviets could launch attacks with hydrogen bombs as soon as they have the bombers to carry them. It is essential to our deterrent policy and to our survival to have with our American allies the strength and numbers to be able to paralyze these potential communist assaults in the first few hours of the war should it come. The House will perhaps note that I avoid using the word Russia as much as possible in this discussion. I have a strong admiration for the Russian people for their bravery their many gifts and their kindly nature. It is the communist dictatorship and the declared ambition of the communist party and their proselytizing activities that we are bound to resist and that is what makes this great world cleavage which I mentioned when I opened my remarks. There are also big administrative and industrial targets behind the iron curtain and any effective deterrent policy must have the power to paralyze them all at the outset or shortly after. There are also the soviet submarine bases and other naval targets which will need early attention. Unless we make a contribution of our own that is the point which I am pressing we cannot be sure that in an emergency the resources of other powers would be planned exactly as we would wish or that the targets which would threaten us most would be given what we consider the necessary priority or the deserved priority in the first few hours. These targets might be of such cardinal importance that it would really be a matter of life and death for us. All this I think must be borne in mind in deciding our policy about the conventional forces to which I will come later the existing services. Meanwhile the United States has many times the nuclear power of Soviet Russia. I avoid any attempt to give exact figures and they have of course far more effective means of delivery. Our moral and military support of the United States and our possession of nuclear weapons of the highest quality and on an appreciable scale together with their means of delivery will greatly reinforce the deterrent power of the free world and will strengthen our influence within the free world. That at any rate is the policy we have decided to pursue. That is what we are now doing and I am thankful that it is endorsed by a mass of responsible opinion on both sides of the house and I believe by the great majority of the nation. A vast quantity of information some true some exaggerated much out of proportion has been published about the hydrogen bomb. The truth has inevitably been mingled with fiction and I am glad to say that panic has not occurred. Panic would not necessarily make for peace. That is one reason why I have been most anxious that responsible discussions on this matter should not take place on the BBC or upon the television and I thought that I was justified in submitting that view of Her Majesty's government to the authorities which they at once accepted very willingly accepted. Panic would not necessarily make for peace even in this country. There are many countries where a certain wave of opinion may arise and swing so furiously into action that decisive steps may be taken from which there is no recall. As it is the world population goes on its daily journey despite its somber impression and earnest longing for relief. That is the way we are going on now. I shall content myself with saying about the power of this weapon the hydrogen bomb that apart from all the statements about blast and heat effects over increasingly wide areas there are now to be considered the consequences of fallout as it is called of wind born radioactive particles. There is both an immediate direct effect on human beings who are in the path of such a cloud and an indirect effect through animals, grass and vegetables which pass on these contagions to human beings through food. This would confront many who escape the direct effects of the explosion with poisoning or starvation or both. Imagination stands appalled. There are of course the palliatives and precautions of a courageous civil defence and about that the Home Secretary will be speaking later on tonight but our best protection lies as I am sure the House will be convinced in successful deterrence operating from a foundation of sober calm and tireless vigilance. Moreover a curious paradox has emerged let me put it simply after a certain point has been passed it may be said the worse things get the better the broad effect of the latest developments is to spread almost indefinitely and at least to a vast extent the area of mortal danger. This should certainly increase the deterrent upon Soviet Russia by putting her enormous spaces and scattered population on an equality or near equality of vulnerability with our small densely populated island and with Western Europe. I cannot regard this development as adding to our dangers. We have reached the maximum already. On the contrary to this form of attack continents are vulnerable as well as islands. Here the two crowded countries as I have said like the United Kingdom and Western Europe have had this outstanding vulnerability to carry but the hydrogen bomb with its vast range of destruction and the even wider area of contamination would be effective also against nations whose population hitherto has been so widely dispersed over large land areas as to make them feel that they were not in any danger at all. They too become highly vulnerable not yet equally perhaps but still highly and increasingly vulnerable. Here again we see the value of deterrence immune against surprise and well understood by all persons on both sides. I repeat on both sides who have the power to control events. That is why I have hoped for a long time for a top level conference where these matters could be put plainly and bluntly from one friendly visitor to the conference to another. Then it may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a stage in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror and survival the twin brother of annihilation. Although the Americans have developed weapons capable of producing all the effects I have mentioned we believe that the Soviets so far have tested by explosion only a type of bomb of intermediate power. There is no reason why however they should not develop some time within the next four three or even two years more advanced weapons and full means to deliver them on North American targets. Indeed there is every reason to believe that within that period they will. In trying to look ahead like this we must be careful ourselves to avoid the error of comparing the present state of our preparations with the stage which the Soviets may reach in three or four years time. It is a major error of thought to contrast the Soviet position three or four years hence with our own position today. It is a mistake to do this either in the comparatively precise details of aircraft development or in the measureless sphere of nuclear weapons. The threat of hydrogen attack on these islands lies in the future it is not with us now. According to the information that I have been able to obtain I have taken every opportunity to consult all the highest authorities at our disposal. The only country which is able to deliver today a full-scale nuclear attack with hydrogen bombs at a few hours notice is the United States. That surely is an important fact and from some points of view and to some of us it is not entirely without comfort. It is conceivable that Soviet Russia fearing a nuclear attack before she has caught up with the United States and created deterrence of her own as she might argue that they are might attempt to bridge the gulf by a surprise attack with such nuclear weapons as she has already. American superiority in nuclear weapons reinforced by Britain must therefore be so organized as to make it clear that no such surprise attack would prevent immediate retaliation on a far larger scale. This is an essential of the deterrent policy. For this purpose not only must the nuclear superiority of the western powers be stimulated in every possible way but their means of delivery of bombs must be expanded improved and varied. It is even probable, though we have not been told about it outside the NATO sphere, that a great deal of this has been already done by the United States. We should aid them in every possible way. I will not attempt to go into details but it is known that bases have been and are being established in as many parts of the world as possible and that over all the rest the United States strategic air force which is in itself a deterrent of the highest order is in ceaseless readiness. The Soviet government probably knows in general terms of the policy that is being pursued and of the present United States strength and our own growing addition to it. Thus they should be convinced that a surprise attack could not exclude immediate retaliation. As one might say to them although you might kill millions of our peoples and cause widespread havoc by a surprise attack we could within a few hours of this outrage certainly deliver several indeed many times the weight of nuclear material which you have used and continue retaliation on that same scale. We have we could say already hundreds of bases for attack from all angles and have made an intricate study of suitable targets. Thus it seems to me with some experience of wartime talks you might go to dinner and have a friendly evening. I should not be afraid to talk things over as far as they can be. This and the hard facts would make the deterrent effective. I must make one admission and any admission is formidable. The deterrent does not cover the case of lunatics or dictators in the mood of Hitler when he found himself in his final dugout. That is a blank. Happily we may find methods of protecting ourselves if we were all agreed against that. All these considerations lead me to believe that on a broad view the Soviets would be ill-advised to embark on major aggression within the next three or four years. One must always consider the interests of other people when you are facing a particular situation. Their interests may be the only guide that is available. We may calculate therefore that world war will not break out within that time. If at the end of that time there should be a supreme conflict the weapons which I have described this afternoon would be available to both sides and it would be folly to suppose that they would not be used. Our precautionary dispositions and preparations must therefore be based on the assumption that if war should come these weapons would be used. I repeat therefore that during the next three or four years the free world should and will retain an overwhelming superiority in hydrogen weapons. During that period it is most unlikely that the Russians would deliberately embark on major war or attempt a surprise attack either of which would bring down upon them at once a crushing weight of nuclear retaliation. In three or four years time it may be even less the scene will be changed. The Soviets will probably stand possessed of hydrogen bombs and the means of delivering them not only on the United Kingdom but also on North American targets. They may then have reached a stage not indeed of parity with the United States and Britain but of what is called saturation. I must explain this term of art. Saturation in this connection means the point where although one power is stronger than the other perhaps much stronger both are capable of inflicting crippling or quasi-mortal injury on the other with what they have got. It does not follow however that the risk of war will then be greater. Indeed it is arguable that it will be less for both sides will then realize that global war would result in mutual annihilation. Major war of the future will differ therefore from anything we have known in the past in this one significant respect that each side at the outset will suffer what it dreads the most the loss of everything that it has ever known of. The deterrents will grow continually in value. In the past an aggressor has been tempted by the hope of snatching an early advantage. In future he may be deterred by the knowledge that the other side has the certain power to inflict swift inescapable and crushing retaliation. Of course we should all agree that a worldwide international agreement on disarmament is the goal at which we should aim. The western democracies disarmed themselves at the end of the war. The soviet government did not disarm and the western nations were forced to rearm though only partially after the soviets and communists had dominated all china and half europe. That is the present position. It is easy of course for the communists to say now let us ban all nuclear weapons. Communist ascendancy in conventional weapons would then become overwhelming. That might bring peace but only peace in the form of the subjugation of the free world to the communist system. I shall not detain the house very much longer and I am sorry to be so long. The topic is very intricate. I am anxious to repeat and to emphasize the one word which is the theme of my remarks namely deterrent. That is the main theme. The hydrogen bomb has made an astounding incursion into the structure of our lives and thoughts. Its impact is prodigious and profound but I do not agree with those who say let us sweep away forthwith all our existing defense services and concentrate our energy and resources on nuclear weapons and their immediate ancillaries. The policy of the deterrent cannot rest on nuclear weapons alone. We must together with our NATO allies maintain the defensive shield in Western Europe. Unless the NATO powers had effective forces there on the ground and could make a front there would be nothing to prevent peace meal advance and encroachment by the communists in this time of so called peace. By successive infiltrations the communists could progressively undermine the security of Europe. Unless we were prepared to unleash a full scale nuclear war as soon as some local incident occurs in some distant country we must have conventional forces in readiness to deal with such situations as they arise. We must therefore honour our undertaking to maintain our contribution to the NATO forces in Europe in time of peace. In war this defensive shield would be of vital importance for we must do our utmost to hold the Soviet and satellite forces at arms length in order to prevent short-range air and rocket attack on these islands. Thus substantial strength in conventional forces has still a vital part to play in the policy of the deterrent. It is perhaps of even greater importance in the Cold War. Though World War may be prevented by the deterrent power of nuclear weapons the communists may well resort to military action in furtherance of their policy of infiltration and encroachment in many parts of the world. There may well be limited wars on the Korean model with limited objectives. We must be able to play our part in these if called upon by the United Nations organisation. In the conditions of today this is also an aspect of our commonwealth's responsibility. We shall need substantial strength in conventional forces to fulfill our worldwide obligations in these days of uneasy peace and extreme bad temper. To sum up this part of the argument of course the development of nuclear weapons will affect the shape and organisation of the armed forces and also of civil defence. We have entered a period of transition in which the past and the future will overlap. But it is an error to suppose that because of these changes our traditional forces can be cast away or superseded. The tasks of the army, navy and air force in this transition period are set forth with clarity in the defence white paper. The means by which these duties will be met are explained in more detail in the departmental papers which have been laid before the house by the three service ministers. No doubt nothing is perfect. Certainly nothing is complete. But considering that these arrangements have been made in the first year after the apparition of the hydrogen bomb, the far-seeing and progressive adaptability which is being displayed by all three services is remarkable. I understand that there is to be a motion of censure. Well, certainly nothing could be more worthy of censure than to try to use the inevitable administrative difficulties of the transitional stage as a utensil of party politics and would be electioneering. I am not saying that anyone is doing it. We shall see when it comes to the vote. The future shape of civil defence is also indicated in broad outline in the defence white paper. This outline will be filled in as the preparation of the new plans proceeds but the need for an effective system of civil defence is surely beyond dispute. It presents itself today in its noblest aspect, namely the Christian duty of helping fellow mortals in distress. Rescue, salvage and ambulance work have always been the core of civil defence and no city, no family nor any honourable man or woman can repudiate this duty and accept from others help which they are not prepared to fit themselves to render in return. If war comes great numbers may be relieved of their duty by death but none must deny it as long as they live. If they do they might perhaps be put in what is called coventry. I am speaking of the tradition and not of any particular locality. The argument which I have been endeavouring to unfold and consolidate gives us in this island an interlude. Let us not waste it. Let us hope we shall use it to augment or at least to prolong our security and that of mankind. But how? There are those who believe or at any rate say if we have the protection of the overwhelmingly powerful United States we need not make the hydrogen bomb for ourselves or build a fleet of bombers for its delivery. We can leave that to our friends across the ocean. Our contribution should be criticism of any unwise policy into which they may drift or plunge. We should throw our hearts and consciences into that. Personally I cannot feel that we should have much influence over their policy or actions wise or unwise while we are largely dependent as we are today upon their protection. We too must possess substantial deterrent power of our own. We must also never allow above all, I hold, the growing sense of unity and brotherhood between the United Kingdom and the United States and throughout the English speaking world to be injured or retarded. Its maintenance, its stimulation and its fortifying is one of the first duties of every person who wishes to see peace in the world and wishes to see the survival of this country. To conclude, mercifully there is time and hope if we combine patience and courage. All deterrents will improve and gain authority during the next ten years. By that time the deterrent may well reach its acme and reap its final reward. The day may dawn when fair play, love for one's fellow men, respect for justice and freedom, will enable tormented generations to march forth serene and triumphant from the hideous epoch in which we have to dwell. Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair, end of speech. Recording by Ruth Golding. End of Selected House of Commons Speeches by Winston Churchill