WINSTON CHURCHILL: THE VALIANT YEARS

[Music] so [Music] spring 1945 after the long blackout after the long night of war the lights of london are on again [Applause] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] the happiest spring england has known in six long years perhaps the most joyous the most glorious spring in all english history [Music] so i moved about among the cheering crowds of londoners in their hour of well one rejoicing a tremendous foe they had fought for more than five years had surrendered unconditionally however there was another side to the picture japan was still unconquered the atomic bomb was still unborn the main bond of common danger which had united the great allies had vanished overnight the soviet menace to my eyes had already replaced the nazi foe [Music] within a few days of the german surrender i sent the president what may be called the iron curtain telegram of all the public documents i have written on this issue i would rather be judged by this i said i am profoundly concerned about the european situation surely it is vital now to come to an understanding with russia before we weaken our armies mortally we do not know what is going on behind the russian front an iron curtain is drawn down [Music] at home the foundations of national unity upon which the wartime government had stood so firmly were also gone from the moment of the german surrender the public mind turned swiftly from national rejoicing to political party strife on may 23rd being confronted by a definite breach between the parties i tendered my resignation to the king mr churchill was always basically and fundamentally a house of commons man he took the view that no government could hope to carry out its policies effectively unless it could show that it had the full support of the house of common now this of course uh involved a fairly rigid discipline and he was prepared because he believed in the house of commons and in the way it works he was prepared to accept that discipline whether in war or in peace during the period prior to the election the king requests winston churchill to form a caretaker government july 5th is established as polling day but because time is allotted to record the soldier vote from overseas the election results will not be known until july 26th the next month was hard to live through strenuous motor tours with three or four speeches a day consumed my time and strength but i was trained in my father's house to believe in democracy trust the people he said the incongruity of political party excitement and clatter with a somber background which filled my mind was in itself an affront to reality in proportion all the while i felt that much we had fought for in our long struggle in europe was slipping away and that the hopes of an early and lasting peace were receding i could feel the vast manifestation of soviet and russian imperialism rolling forward over helpless lands what were we to do in a very short time our armies would have melted but the russians would remain with hundreds of divisions in possession of europe from lubeck on the baltic in the north to the greek frontier on the adriatic [Music] the civilian armies of the west were clamoring to go home [Music] in this hour of triumph and jubilation dark undercurrents run beneath the surface gaiety my prime thought was a meeting of the three great powers and i hope that president truman would come not everyone in britain perceives the storm clouds in the eastern sky for there are many grave problems at home problems of housing and poverty and of old age and pensions the war shortages are still acute shortages of food and a fuel [Music] these are the issues on which the labor party hammers away during the election campaign during the campaigning churchill is heckled in boom being an old-handed election since 1899 he knows how to retort the winners cheer and the beaten bull i want to talk about london's wonderful war record would you like to boo that too for millions of young british subjects voting is a new experience there has been no election since 1935 so it is the first ballot for everybody under 30 years of age [Music] on july 7th two days after polling day i resolved to have a week of sunshine and flew to bordeaux with mrs churchill and mary and found myself agreeably installed near the spanish frontier at on dye with lovely bathing and beautiful surroundings in the afternoons i sallied forth with my elaborate painting outfit and found attractive subjects on the river neve and the bay of saint john de luz an ardent admirer of churchill's paintings is miss vivian lee i've always loved pictures and i think one of the most wonderful marvelous experiences of my whole life was when the winston allowed me to see his i'd been lunching with within a charcoal and after lunch i remember it was a lovely sunny day we were walking around the garden and we came to a garden house with i suppose um four or five rooms in it and in each one the walls were simply covered in his own paintings and i was astonished and fascinated by the variety and the number of them but as i was passing one particular one i said oh sir that is beautiful and my ass super wilderment he said would you like it actually i i in fact i just fainted i i didn't know what to say but i believe i gave him to understand that i would be more thrilled and honored that i could possibly say to have it so he said he would send it to me for christmas however two weeks later marble package arrived and there it was with a letter which of course i shall keep all my life saying i couldn't wait till christmas on the 15th my sky master took me to berlin the city was nothing but a chaos of ruins [Music] the prime minister is conducted to hitler's air raid shelter beneath the shattered walls of the chancellery i went down to the bottom and saw the room in which hitler and his mistress had committed suicide when we came up again they showed us the place where his body had been burned [Music] ten thousand british and american troops with tanks and other armor move in impressive array down the charlottenburger chaucer to the brandenburg gate as churchill takes the salute he says this is the hour i have lived for president truman arrived in berlin the same day i did i was eager to meet a potentate with whom my cordial relations had been established by correspondence i was impressed with his gay precise sparkling manner and obvious power of decision he was good enough to say how earnestly he hoped the relations i had with president roosevelt would be continued between him and me i felt that here was a man of exceptional character and ability with a great deal of self-confidence and resolution potsdam july 17 1945 this historic confrontation of the three most powerful men in the world marks the end of the grand alliance and the beginning of the cold war the three great powers discussed the political and economic problems of germany under the occupation they also discussed the final frontiers of poland on july 17 world shaking news arrived in the afternoon mr stimson called my abode and lay before me a sheet of paper on which was written babies satisfactorily born [Music] to quell the japanese resistance man by man and conquer the country yard by yard might well require the loss of a million american lives and half that number of british or more now all this picture had vanished in its place was the vision of the end of the whole war in one or two violent shocks the day before the declaration of the polls on july 25th mr churchill came back in order to hear the results of course nobody had as any serious results although i do remember that some months before mr churchill had said to me that the british people had a curious way of showing their affection for people whom they thought it served them well by throwing them out at the first possible opportunity when an election came along and he had quoted israeli and lloyd george however on that morning i don't think he or anybody else thought that the result of the election could be anything but a great conservative victory it was thought to be a foregone conclusion in fact i believe that stalin said to mr churchill with a wink when he left something which gave gave the schedule to understand that stalin knew he'd gone back to fix the results my wife met me and we dined quietly i went to bed in the belief that the british people would wish me to continue my work thus slumber just before dawn i woke suddenly with a sharp stab of almost physical pain a hitherto subconscious conviction that we were beaten broke forth and dominated my mind power to shape the future would be denied me [Music] churchill's defeat at the polls is overwhelming watching churchill's reactions to the election results was his friend and fellow conservative lord boothby it should not be forgotten that in the 1945 election churchill had to bear the whole brunt not only of his own mistakes in the war and there were quite a number and some of them were inevitable and unavoidable but he had to bear the brunt the whole front of the misdeeds of the government before the war presided over successively by mr baldwin and mr neville chase a government that reduced a great country and a great empire from a position of absolute security and world power to the brink of total destruction within a decade it took the roman empire 200 years of quite enjoyable decadence to achieve the same results many people all over the world were surprised shocked disappointed when churchill lost this election in 45 but they have the wrong view of it they're thinking of it as a contest between personalities as if winston churchill was fighting clement atlas who was the leader of the labour party but of course it wasn't like that at all it was two great political parties who were fighting this concept and the fact was that the majority of the british electors didn't want the tourists back again they'd been there for many years before the war there was a new spirit and they felt the labor party better embodied that spirit it created the kind of slow social revolution we needed it gave india independence and it did something very important that really halted the spread of communism in western europe it showed that you could have a left-wing government that was not a communist government the indomitable old war horse has been turned out to pasture he who had flashed magnificent defiance in the face of defeat the subjugation of poland the doomed campaign in norway the annihilation of the low countries in dunkirk the fall of france the catastrophe and creed the humiliating surrenders at tobruk [Music] hong kong [Music] singapore he who had rallied his people when they stood alone awaiting invasion and facing extinction from the sky and strangulation by sea [Music] he who in history's darkest moment called upon his country to renounce the craven fear of being great he who overcame all and led the island people to victory on july 26 1945 is dismissed from office i tended my resignation to the king and advised his majesty to send for mr atley the decision of the british people has been recorded in the votes counted today i have therefore lay down the charge which was placed upon me in darker times it only remains for me to express to the british people or whom i've acted in these perilous years my profound gratitude for the unflinching unswerving support which they have given me during my task and for the many expressions of kindness which they have shown toward their [Music] servant [Music] i have not always been wrong about the future of events and if you will permit me i shall inscribe some of these words as my testament because i should like to be held accountable for them in years which i shall not see it is my earnest hope that pondering upon the past may give guidance in days to come enable a new generation to repair some of the errors of former years and thus govern in accordance with the needs and glory of man the awful unfolding scene of the future so the american broadcasting company gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the british broadcasting corporation in the preparation of this series you