Ime magazine named Churchill “Man of the Half-Century” in 1950, and since nobody else had appeared to challenge him in the fifty years since, there was some expectation that he would remain on top for 2000. But in late 1999, a Time that Henry Luce would.
Not have recognised proclaimed Albert Einstein “Person of the Century”. In response, Finest Hour offered two factoids: 1) Winston Churchill wrote “Shall We All Commit Suicide?”, the first entry below, warning of a future nuclear holocaust, fifteen years before Einstein sent his famous letter to President Roosevelt, warning of the same possibility; 2) It was Albert Einstein who suggested that the world was far more likely to come to grief from bad politics than bad physics. And somewhere along the line in 1940, Winston Churchill had saved civilisation.
Notwithstanding that Time's citation is designed to sell magazines, and that Churchill was proclaimed the leading figure of the past century by just about every other authority, Time’s lurch was a disappointment. Churchill is forever seen by light thinkers as a man of war, who had his moment in 1940 and faded away. Few recall his lonely campaign for a “final settlement” with the Soviets in the 1950s, as the H-bomb appeared and the terror of imminent extinction flickered.
What he said as the Nuclear Age unfolded speaks for itself. We all have our views on the validity of his quest. Whether the Soviet Union post-Stalin was a changed country or, as Eisenhower believed, the same whore in a new dress, will forever be debated by historians. But there is no doubt that Churchill recognised the apocalyptic nature of the hydrogen bomb early - even earlier than he recognised the dangers of Hitler. And his efforts to reach at least a peaceful stand-off were principled and noble.
As with previous chapters in this section, I have arranged the obviously time-sensitive quotations first in chronological order as applicable, and the general observations later.
World History
