| Subject: Re: Trance seance with Winston CHURCHILL - Part 3 |
Author:
Maryse
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Date Posted: 01:59:42 03/03/08 Mon
In reply to:
Maryse
's message, "Re: Trance seance with Winston CHURCHILL - Part 2" on 01:56:06 03/03/08 Mon
Sitter: Yes. I want to ask about your personal relationship with Marshal Stalin. You seemed to get along reasonably well for people who ordinarily would have been perpetual enemies.
Churchill: I would say that we had a deep respect for each other’s talents. Stalin was a brilliant man in his own way, but he was also representative of something I totally abhorred. I respected his talent of leadership, but I abhorred the methods he chose to use to accomplish his goals. He was able to wield tremendous power, and our relationship was based on a respect for that power. I would continually remark to him that he was on the wrong side of the fence, that he was misusing his power and that some day he would regret the positions he took. He would simply laugh and proceed to tell me basically the same thing – that I would be better off working with him than in spite of him.
Sitter: I remember reading that following the end of overt hostilities in the second world war, and even before then, you were encouraging America and France to advance as far and as deeply as possible into Eastern Europe so that the Allies would be occupying those territories, not the Russian troops. Apparently you were not terribly successful in pushing the Americans to go along with this, but you wished to maintain the Allied occupation as long as possible to keep Stalin out of those countries.
Churchill: Yes.
Sitter: What fell apart there?
Churchill: Well, the Russians were our allies against Hitler, and a sort of camaraderies developed, which led some people to believe that this experience of fighting Hitler would bind us together in co-operation forever. There was the belief that we had trusted each other in the united effort against Germany and there was no reason why we couldn’t trust Russia now. That was an emotional assessment of the situation, of course, rather than a hard cold look at the facts and what Stalin and Russia stood for. I knew what tactics they used and it seemed very logical to me that with all our forces mobilised, as they were, we should have cleaned up the whole area right away and not fooled around trying to accommodate territorial divisions.
Instead, we were faced with the checkerboard dividing of Europe, which I found very distasteful, because we were allowing a very malignant force, however quiet at the moment, to entrench itself.
Sitter: Would there have been a realistic chance to have had free elections and democratic governments in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary?
Churchill: I believe so. The Allied forces could have gone straight through virtually as far as they would have wanted to, but war weariness and the desire to accommodate got to such a point that everyone said, « Well, we’ve come this far together so let’s just stop and hope that everything will work out. »
Sitter: Even today, it’s not quite clear how everything was decided at the Tehran and Yalta meetings. One gets the impression that the spheres of influence of post-war Europe were pretty well worked out in advance.
Churchill: That is true.
Sitter: And that Truman very much insisted on honouring those agreements while you attempted to persuade him to push forward and take as much territory as possible before hostilities stopped and then not give it to the Russians.
Churchill: That’s right – for precisely the reasons I outlined. The Americans were very much war weary, and that is generally a very good trait in a world that can be so volatile. The Americans take an awful lot of pushing before they’ll commit themselves to a war effort, and even when they do commit, it may be a half-hearted commitment until they realise they had better do something because the situation is rapidly deteriorating. This was one of my major frustrations in dealing with the Americans. As a people, they do not want to exercise or impose their will on others; they have a genuine desire to let things be. As a result, they often react too softly in counteracting those forces which would want to impose rule.
Sitter: I’m afraid the accusation is true. Well, would you care to comment on where this all ends? Who will be pushing America in the future – the underdeveloped countries of the Third World? The Soviet Union? Are he headed for another shootout as we had in the Second World War?
Churchill: It’s possible, but I think the confrontation will occur in internal struggles in various countries, rather than a military shootout. It’s very possible that the confrontations will continue and that the Soviet Union will continue to find the need to extract the vitality of an ever-greater number of people. And it is clear that military response to that kind of expansionism is going to be less and less viable – Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view.
It is very difficult to impose freedom militarily. Philosophically, it is hard to defend the invasion of another country in the name of freedom, even if the people in that country are being suppressed by a system of government which does not permit human freedom. Over the next few centuries, therefore, the world is going to become much more aware that freedom has to be established from within. It cannot be imposed from without. Those who have free governments cannot expect to impose a democratic system on a people.
However, that is not to say that those who live in free societies do not have a duty to come to the aid of those whose freedoms are in jeopardy, because of the expansion of those who would oppress them. Freedom can be taken away by force, even if it cannot be given by force.
Sitter: Some people, of course, seem to be eager to surrender to new tyrants. The Iranians, for example, seem to love self-destruction; as soon as they gained their freedom, they threw it away.
Churchill: It certainly does not make much sense to replace one dictator with an even more repressive one.
Sitter: I sometimes think the ultimate tyrant is stupidity.
Churchill: Yes.
Sitter: And that’s a very difficult disease to eradicate.
Churchill: It does not take much investigation to realise that ill-informed people are often likely to vote in incompetent leaders. It takes a very intelligent populace to make correct decisions. In a sense, therefore, the best safeguard of freedom is to educate the public as fully as possible and encourage them to think for themselves, as individuals. The public must be fully capable of recognising long-term versus short-term benefits of programs and solutions.
Of course, that’s the ideal – not the reality.
Sitter: Let me ask about another prominent individual you worked with, the American President at that time, Franklin Roosevelt. You seemed to get along together extremely well – I guess for obvious reasons. It seems that America was extremely fortunate to have such an able leader in a time of crisis. But your own personal rapport and respect for each other seemed to facilitate the co-operation of the two nations during the war. Would this have been possible with any American President, or was there something unique about Roosevelt which really made him the man of the hour, both for America and the Allied nations?
Churchill: I don’t believe there would have been many individuals who could have made the decisions he made, and rallied America to support them. He had to be cajoled – as any American has to be cajoled – to support us in the days before America entered the war; I was very frustrated throughout that time by the inaction and lack of desire of America to become involved. However, once we began to understand each other and the nature of what was occurring in the world, we were able to unite and work very closely together. He was a very intelligent individual and able to grasp issues clearly.
He’s here with me today, in fact. Would you like to talk with him?
Sitter: Of course. We’d be honoured.
Churchill: Then I will defer to my good friend on the left here [The spirit of Churchill then withdrew from the control of the medium, and the spirit of Franklin Delano Roosevelt entered.]
Roosevelt: So, you’ve had to sit here and listen to the old goat dissertate for a couple of hours on all of his worldly wisdom, huh ? [laughter.]
Sitter: Dearly so.
Roosevelt: That’s fine. I love to listen myself.
Sitter: He was a marvellous gift for conversation and writing.
Roosevelt: Yes, we had some wonderful times sitting around and –
Sitter: I understand you both just loved to talk but neither one of you cared to listen all that much. [laughter.]
Sitter: We invoked you.
Roosevelt: I see. I always wondered how that worked.
Sitter: Well, now that you are here, let me ask you a few questions. What had you hoped for as the outcome of World War II?
Roosevelt: Of course, we didn’t really want to get into that war in the first place. But after Pearl Harbor, we had to.
Sitter: In retrospect, wasn’t it absolutely essential?
Roosevelt: Yes. Of course, there have been many theories advanced about why this and that happened; some people believe I secretly called up the Japanese and told them to bomb Pearl Harbour so we could get into the war.
Sitter [sarcastically]: You mean you didn’t?
[laughter]
Roosevelt: No, I did not. And there are those who say the war was created to pull us out of the economic nightmare of the Depression, and that is not true either. Our unwillingness to enter the war should be evidence of that.
Sitter: Sure.
Roosevelt: It is absurd to believe that the only way to solve the economic cycles of the Western world is to create a war here and there.
Sitter: Do I dare ask you questions about current events?
Roosevelt: Why, sure. I can always refuse to answer. [Laughter]
Sitter: How do you see the current leadership in the United States? If you were to issue a report card on how well we are doing domestically and in foreign affairs here in 1980, what grade would you give?
Roosevelt: Probably either a D or an F. I’d probably be nice and give a D but ask for some special after-school work, rather than just give an F and kick the old boys out. But I am very concerned.
One of the traditional features of the American way of government which I have always believed in is the idea that you must learn to roll with the punches and come up with new ideas. You should deal with new situations with something other than old ideas, no matter how good the old ideas were when they were new ideas.
It’s being said that the economic policies of my administration have led to the economic disaster of today – that all of the programs we developed in order to deal with the economic situation of that time are the cause of today’s problems. And it is said that if it were not for old FDR and the New Deal, we would have a free economy and the world would be much better off.
That’s just stupidity and shortsightedness. We deals with the problems of our time with remedies we thought would work – but that does not mean that those particular policies out to be enshrined for all time. And it does not mean that the economic and foreign policies that we pursued in my administration are viable today. But there are those who still do believe that those policies ARE viable, and THAT’S THE PROBLEM.
Sitter: Yes, There are many people who still think that you solve problems by throwing money at tem and creating a new bureaucracy. Well, what would you suggest? If you could advise the leaders of America today, what would you say?
Roosevelt: Do you want me to write a whole book, or what? [Laughter.] Give me a subject.
Sitter: What about –
Roosevelt: Never mind – I’ve got a subject. [More laughter.] The economic situation today demands new solutions – creative solutions. I would be the first to admit that the current situation is caused by excesses in government policy – and that these excesses began as a result of some of the policies I instituted. But that does not mean that if I were sitting in the Oval Office today I wouldn’t be doing something else. I would be dismantling many of those programs – and would have done so long ago. I would not have let them go on for this long.
Sitter: Is it really possible in this day and age, given our political climate, for someone to dismantle a governmental agency?
Roosevelt: It is not only possible, but it should be done.
Sitter: It would be possible?
Roosevelt: Sure. You would have to be sneaky about it, but you could probably do it.
Sitter: It’s very difficult to dismantle bureaucracies and fire bureaucrats.
Roosevelt: Nonsense – you just start sending out pink slips and make no big deal about it. [Laughter.] I’m just kidding, of course, but there are ways of dealing with government. But I will tell you this: the person who is going to change these things is not going to ride in on a wave of election hysteria requesting that the government be dismantled.
Sitter: No.
Roosevelt: He will be elected because of his ability to make decisions. And then, once he is in office, he will make the decision to dismantle the excesses of government.
Sitter: That leads to another question. Do you think there is a need for reforms in the ways we elect the President? The primary system seems to lead to the selection of candidates who know how to handle the media and project a good television image as a paternalistic grandfather who smiles very sweetly, instead of someone who is competent. Is there something hideously wrong with our electoral systems?
Roosevelt: No – it’s the voters, not the system.
Sitter: The blame keeps coming back to us. [Laughter.] Phooey.
Roosevelt: It isn’t the system, it’s the electorate. If the people were able to grasp the fact that they are quickening their own economic and social demise by electing such incompetents to office, they would choose better candidates.
Sitter: I take it, then, that we are not really deficient in leadership talent – it’s just that the good leaders can’t get elected in this day and age.
Roosevelt: That is very true
Sitter: How can we turn this around?
Roosevelt: I suspect that very shortly, within the next decade or two, someone very intelligent and strong will inadvertently happen to be elected.
Sitter: Do you mean it might be a very intelligent vice-president who succeeds the usual dummy President?
Roosevelt: Or it may be a very intelligent person who gets elected by pretending to be the usual dummy.
Sitter: A clever disguise of mediocrity?
Roosevelt: Yes.
Sitter: Always the perfect disguise.
Roosevelt: Well, I don’t have much more to say. I just wanted to stop by and express my admiration for Winston.
Sitter: You were both very remarkable people. And I must say that the exuberance of both of you is still quite apparent.
Roosevelt: We’ll be back, someday, somewhere.
Sitter: Very good.
Roosevelt: You’ll be strolling along somewhere, and there we’ll be [Laughter]
[Roosevelt’s spirit then withdrew from the body of the medium, and the spirit of Sir Winston Churchill returned.]
Churchill: Well, I thought he would never relent. [Laughter.] What else do you wish to speak about?
Sitter: How about the separation of the Church and State?
Churchill: Oh, you Americans are hysterical about that subject.[Laughter]
Sitter: Is it healthy?
Churchill: Originally, it was. Your Founding Fathers were very concerned about the misuse of power which occurred during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, when the Church got caught up in its earthly powers and authority and was too much of an influence on governments. Government needed to free itself from this kind of ecclesiastical authority. And so your Founding Fathers wanted to send all the churches a message: « stick to your religious duties and leave government to us ».
However, the separation of Church and State is now being used to promote atheist rights, and that was not the original intent.
There’s a consultation going up here. Wait a minute.
Sitter: All right.
Churchill: One of the problems with many governments in the world today is that they are not sufficiently spiritual. The real solution to the problem of the separation of Church and State is to realise that there is a difference between our collective spiritual interests and need versus religion itself. Governments need to be spiritual and identified with humanitarian values, but at the same time independent of religious institutions.
It would be very undesirable to have a constitutional amendment which would cut off the humanitarian influence of spiritual values in government. There is no reason to take the separation of Church and State that far.
Indeed, in some countries it is probably appropriate to have one particular religion supported by the government, although obviously not in America. It depends on the people being governed. Unfortunately, when one religion is the official religion, the most fanatical and obnoxious elements of that religion tend to become too strong an influence. And whenever the religious leaders make a political statement, they hide behind God, saying: « God wants us to do this and will condemn you if you don’t go along with it.» They use religion to intimidate, and that is bad. Each nation and community needs to make the decision about separation of church and state for itself. There is no blanket statement I can make that would be right for all the people in all countries.
Sitter: One thing I’m curious about: what has happened to Hitler since he died?
Churchill: I don’t know where in hell he is.[Laughter] I don’t see him around, I can tell you that. And I’m not really interested.
Sitter: All right. How about yourself? How do you keep yourself busy without a nation to run or books to write?
Churchill: I’m thoroughly enjoying myself. As I mentioned earlier, I continue to be involved in influencing the government of the country that was so dear to me and so very kind to me. I passionately enjoyed my work as a Member of Parliament and as Prime Minister, and that line of work continues to interest me. I am still involved in it. I am still an ardent student of civilisation and the history of the English-speaking peoples, too.
Sitter: That sounds like a plug.
Churchill: I guess I did write a few volumes under that title.
Sitter: Have you figured out a way to take your royalties with you? [Laughter]
Churchill: There’s a certain coin of the realm up here. Anyway, I have the opportunity to study and encourage a few people from time to time. My life and work now is in many ways an extension of those very things which interested me in my lifetime as Winston Churchill.
Sitter: I have a question to test your chauvinism. What do you think of the fact that there is now a woman filling your shoes in Number 10 Downing Street?
Churchill: I think it’s wonderful. England, by the way, has often been ahead of America in its attitudes about women. We have had a number of women monarchs, after all. Some of our best monarchs were queens – Queen Elizabeth, Queen Victoria.
It’s very fitting that Mrs. Thatcher should be Prime Minister. There are many good people who could head the government of England, but she is doing a pretty good job, considering the horrendous problems that England is facing now. I’ll tell you – sometimes the woman’s touch can be very effective in politics, if it’s the right woman. If a woman hides behind tears and whimpering and sweetness, that is disastrous. But if she uses her natural talents for intuition and forthrightness and genuine concern for the welfare of the people, those are all attributes of a good leader. Women sometimes have extraordinary talent in those areas.
Given my concern for leadership and the welfare of the nation, it should be obvious that I don’t care who the leader is, as long as the person as the talent, the power, and the maturity to do the job well. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a man, a woman, or a horse.[Laughter] Leadership talent has nothing to do with sex, skin colour, or physical appearance. It’s the quality of mind and skill that counts.
Sitter: I think we’re about out of questions. Do you have any concluding remarks?
Churchill: A good orator always has a summation. [Laughter]
Sitter: Of course!
Churchill: Let me say that the fight is not over. The war against oppression is continuing – and in fact is heating up as we move away from our last major confrontation. The fight continues; the ideals we stand for and have fought for still need to be honoured and defended. To my mind, they are the only ideals worth living and fighting for, but we are still dealing with those who seek to suppress them. So the fight must go on and we must not give up. It may be a helluva fight, but in the end, the ideals are strong enough to prevail. So we must prevail in our efforts.
We cannot take this for granted. Every intelligent person has an obligation to observe human nature and study the lessons of history. It is very popular to reduce history to simplistic platitudes, but that does not serve; it leads to disaster. I would even go so far as to say that a knowledge of human nature and history is greater than the ability to read or write. Ignorance of any kind is a horrible neglect of our duties to ourself, our spirit, and our nation.
The more we are informed, the more we can participate meaningfully in our society, whether it’s in our attitude toward family and work, or in the actual activity of voting for a member of Parliament or Congress.
Sitter: Can I jump in with one more question? As you were just talking about history, it occurred to me that it might be useful if you could expand on the usual definition of history. Most people think of it just in terms of memorising dates and events and the driest of –
Churchill: Oh, that’s just trivia the history teachers have become obsessed with.
Sitter: Yes. I was thinking we really have to look at the mythical traditions, the cultural traditions, and the traditions of civilisation before we understand history, and there would seem to be a tremendous value to a leader or diplomat or anyone trying to be a good citizen to appreciate history in this way – as the rich tradition of any group of people.
Churchill: Well, just as individuals have personalities, countries do too. A nation builds up a set of traditions – and traditional likes and dislikes, needs and interests – which is unique, almost like an individual personality. But the problems of national character are infinitely more complex and deeper than an individual’s, and to properly understand them, they must be traced back over a period of many centuries. This is the value of history, to go back in time and discover what moved the people, what the people accomplished – artistically, scientifically, and politically – what the common people were proud of, and what they despised. And as you discover this for every epoch of a nation’s history, you do learn about that nation’s character. It tells you something about what that people will support or despise politically; it tells you something about their attitudes toward freedom and dictators – just about everything we’ve been discussing today.
I was aware of this character, and found it to be one of the sources of my power. Because I understood British history, I always had great faith in the British people and their undying loyalty to the preservation of their dignity and traditions. This was not blind faith; it was faith based on historical knowledge. It was faith based on power, and it gave me great power to act in moments of grave crisis. I never doubted that the British people would fight on the beaches if necessary to defend their island from invasion, because this is a deep, ingrained habit in the British people.
A good leader senses these deep levels of conviction in his people and draws power for them. These undercurrents of national character are really a vast reservoir of power which tempers the quick fads of interest which come and go; they form the basis for stable policy in government. Any leader who seeks to run contrary to this deeper sense of values and concerns will not survive in a democracy for very long – or even in a dictatorship, for that matter.
Sitter: Events in China would seem to confirm that idea.
Churchill: This is my point: the power to govern comes from the will of the people – not their current opinions and desires, but their ongoing sense of what they will do. The national character, really. Anyone who does not come to grips with this and seek to understand it is not going to be very effective leader. Unfortunately, there are far too many people who will try to interpret this will at too superficial a level. They ignore history and read just the current desires and values of the people – and end up hearing only the more vocal elements of society. This can lead to serious mistakes. Much of the growth of the so-called « welfare state » is the result of this type of superficial thinking. The motives for welfare are often of the highest level of compassion, but many of the people who advocate these programs do not take the time to read the will of the people deeply enough. They do not understand that their pride will eventually be hurt by welfare programs, and that they actually do honour the will-to-achieve. The student of history would develop programs which would stimulate that will-to-achieve, not just welfare, but this lesson has usually been missed.
When one has the ability to stand back and look at the great panorama of history – something I can now do from a far more penetrating perspective than before – one can see that there ARE cycles and tides in the affairs of men and nations. These tides encourage discipline and austerity and then encourage relaxation and self-indulgence. We will always have these cycles, because they lead to healthy growth. We develop self-reliance and skill during times of austerity but tend to lose our collective sense of humour and willingness to make new, bold changes. During easy times, we release our charm and dignity and become more creative, but we also let responsibilities lapses and neglect the future.
A secret of effective leadership is to recognise these cycles in human nature and society and work realistically to harness them. This is not opportunism, but a pragmatic view of moulding and focusing the patterns of destiny for a nation.
In practice, of course, the leader often has to cope with events as they arise. He might see a nasty trend brewing but be powerless to stop it until the mood of the people allowed him to act. I certainly experienced that in my life. There are firm limits on what any leader can accomplish. At best, you can have a long-range grasp of the character of the people you lead, a sense of their traditions and destiny, and the boldness to nudge the momentum of events one way or another at the proper time.
It is folly to think that the leader of any democracy has great power in his own right. There may be the illusion that you can punch buttons and call up people, who will rush to your bidding, but that tends to have little impact in the Parliament or the Congress – or with the people. The true leader isn’t interested in telling people what to do anyway, but in cultivating a consensus which reflects the national character and helps it to flower in a civilised way, rather than in the midst of chaos and conflict. This is no simple task, because what is right for the national character is often unacceptable to the legislature. But a good leader is something like an enlightened parent to the nation.
When its mood is down, he cheers them up. When they avoid their duty, he chastises them gently. Of course, just as indulgent parents can spoil the child, indulgent leaders can spoil the public with favours and weaken their will-to-achieve. We have seen too much of this in recent decades on both sides of the Atlantic. And just as good parents must often compromise to make headway with their children, political leaders must compromise constantly.
The good leader serves as a conscience for the people and warns them of the consequences of their demands and behaviour. He must be the mouthpiece of the public will, not the tail which drags long behind everything else.
These qualities build slowly in the leader, but eventually, if he comes to grips with the power of the national character, he becomes aware of a greater senses of destiny – a greater purpose being served by this act or that veto. It is a subtle thing which wells up from deep within as an inner knowing that a certain course of action will be far more appropriate than all the others.
And that, my friends, is why I believe a study of history is of such importance to the leader. It reveals the sources of power, and eventually leads one to discover the central and unifying power that underlies all enlightened decisions of government.
And on that note, I think we can conclude.
Sitter: Very good. Thank you for coming.
Churchill: It was my pleasure.
.
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