Target Churchill

Chapter 7

Benson had come back from Miami on the train, arriving the day before. That morning, he had checked in with his editor to discuss his interview with Churchill.

“He was having his portrait painted, Todd,” Benson told him, “and was quite evasive about the speech.”

He had debated with himself all night on the train if he should violate Sarah’s conversational confidences made under the influence. Even now, with his editor sitting in front of him, he had not reached a decision.

“Not the slightest hint?” Todd asked. “Why so close to the vest?”

“You know he dictates his own speeches and doesn’t like to preempt his own drama.”

“Did you get an impression, something instinctive?” Baker asked.

He remembered Sarah’s words almost verbatim and had written them down after getting back to his hotel. He had called her upon arriving in Washington, but she had already gone back to Los Angeles. He hoped he would not lose a good friend—and a source, he added cynically to his thoughts.

“My impression, Todd,” he said, after a lengthy pause, “in the light of his deliberate evasion, is that he is planning a significant speech.”

“What exactly does that mean?”

“Maybe something critical about the way the peace is going, the division of Berlin by the Potsdam Agreement. Maybe something very unpleasant about the Russians.”

He waited for a reaction from his editor.

“He’s always been critical of the Russians.”

“Still it’s only speculation. I don’t think you could build a hot news story on a mere reporter’s impression without quoting sources. And I’ve never felt comfortable not using real live sources. I hate quoting anonymous sources.”

He knew he was being ingenuous, since the paper often quoted anonymous sources, albeit sparingly. But he knew that if Sarah got wind of a story about her father wanting to create a stem-winder that would rock the world and practically indict Stalin for stealing half of Europe, their friendship would be over. He didn’t want that to happen. It would always be a journalist’s dilemma.

“Tell you what, Todd,” he said. “Suppose I sleep on it. The speech is more than a month away. I know what you’re looking for. Also, Todd, I’ve got some good stuff for a Churchill feature. Maybe I can get Sarah to arrange some photo stuff to go with it.”

“How is your friend?”

“Great,” Benson said, as he walked away to see Maclean.

They met in Maclean’s opulent, paneled first secretary’s office in the British embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. The redbrick dwelling with stone dressing featured a pillared, classical Greek front. The combined residence and diplomatic office, which he had once described in a feature story, suggested an English manor house in the time of Queen Anne.

A large desk dominated the thick-carpeted room. To one side was a spit-shined, long, oval conference table, and the other side contained a sitting area with dark leather chairs and couches and a large, square cocktail table.

Benson noted a number of pictures with Maclean, his wife, and children, as well as photos of him with various members of the royals, including the king and queen, and Churchill and Anthony Eden. It was an impressive stage setting for the tall, handsome Maclean.

Maclean ran the embassy for the ambassador, Lord Halifax, a tall, austere man whom Benson had met and who spent much of his time riding to the hounds or other familiar pursuits of the British aristocracy. He had been Chamberlain’s foreign secretary and had hoped to be Churchill’s. But after Dunkirk, when he had advocated making peace with the Nazis, Churchill had sent him off to Washington.

Donald Maclean, in his capacity as first secretary, was always the first to arrive at the embassy and the last to leave. No diplomatic activity between the Americans and the British took place without his knowledge.

Benson’s appointment had been timed for teatime; and almost as soon as Benson arrived, a tall, attractive, dark-haired, young woman brought in a tray filled with tea things and small cakes and sandwiches in the age-old tradition.

“This is Victoria Stewart,” Maclean said, making a sweeping motion toward the woman. “Spencer Benson, a good and trusted friend.”

He patted the reporter on the upper arm.

“So pleased to meet you, sir,” she said, offering a broad smile.

“So how was your little tête-à-tête with the great Winston Churchill and the magnificent Sarah?” Maclean asked.

The young woman carefully poured the tea and politely asked for the usual preferences of milk and lumps of sugar.

“Impressive,” Benson replied.

“And what will the old man talk about when he greets the great unwashed in Nowheresville, Missouri?”

Benson was impressed with Maclean’s command of American slang.

“My sense of it is that it will be a real Soviet basher.”

“Really?” Maclean said, with a heavy touch of sarcasm.

With well-manicured fingers, he lifted a tiny cucumber sandwich, pausing for a moment to ask a question.

“Did he tell you that?”

“Not in so many words,” Benson said.

“Will that be all, sir?” Victoria interrupted politely.

Maclean nodded and observed her as she left the room. Benson noticed that he was observing her with what seemed like more than routine interest. Maclean daintily slipped a sandwich into his mouth and washed it down with a sip of tea.

“Just your conclusion then?” Maclean pressed, returning the cup and saucer soundlessly to the table.

Benson again mulled over Sarah’s words. He weighed the harm of revealing them in this venue. It wasn’t as if he were quoting it in his story.

“I had a drink with Sarah while I was down there. She alluded to it.”

“Alluded?”

“She seemed convinced her father was going to be rather harsh.”

“On the Russians?”

Benson nodded.

Maclean turned away and looked into his teacup as if some response was hidden there.

“Nothing more specific?”

“Just an allusion.”

Maclean grew oddly pensive.

“At our lunch at Cosmos, you predicted it,” Benson said.

As in all relationships with sources, it was business under the guise of socializing. Each wanted something from the other. Benson was looking for a quotable source.

“That wasn’t for attribution, Spencer,” Maclean rebuked, his expression suddenly wary.

“Of course not, Donald,” Benson said. “As always, we are on background here. And confidential.”

He was, of course, disappointed. A quote from Maclean would take him off the hook with Sarah.

“It is inevitable, Spencer. Darling Winnie has been pissed about Uncle Joe for endless reasons. Stalin blamed him for delaying a second front. Indeed, he actually called him a coward to his face, which infuriated the old man. Later, Churchill wanted the Allies to take Berlin before the Soviets. Patton was hot to go, and Churchill — it is rumored — agreed. He apparently pressed Roosevelt to take such action, but Roosevelt, who thought good old Uncle Joe a kindred soul, turned down the idea. Of course, the PM yielded, with — I may add — a Latin quotation: Amantium irae amoris integratio est.

“Meaning?”

“‘Lovers’ quarrels always go with true love,’” Maclean snorted, as if it were a private joke. “Nothing like an English education.”

“Makes me feel somewhat diminished,” Benson shrugged.

“And diminished you should be.”

His hand reached again for the cup and saucer. Benson followed suit, although his tea was already getting cold.

“Churchill, it is common knowledge, hates Stalin. Thinks him a cruel, heartless bastard.” Maclean continued, “When Stalin suggested that one hundred thousand German officials and military officers be lined up and shot at the end of the war, the PM was so appalled he left a banquet in disgust and went into one of his black dog depressions.”

“How do you know this, Maclean?”

“Foreign office gossip. Even when Stalin told the old man he was only joshing, Churchill was unappeased. Secretly, he was rumored to be soft on Germany, which, by the way, gave Stalin the heebie-jeebies, fearing that Churchill would push for a separate peace with Hitler.”

“You are a fount of Churchill lore, Maclean.”

The men picked up their cups and saucers simultaneously and eyed each other over the rims. Maclean was the first to break the brief silence.

“Then there were the Jews,” Maclean said, lowering his voice and swiveling his neck for a furtive look around, although there was no one in the room.

“The Jews?”

“Churchill lobbied Roosevelt to do something about the Jews. They all knew that Hitler was exterminating the whole race, burning them in the ovens. Roosevelt didn’t want the distraction of doing something about it to deflect attention from the main point: winning the war. Stalin agreed.

“Churchill wanted the world to know what was happening, thinking that it would give a boost to our will to win. Churchill, once again, reluctantly surrendered. It was also suspected that our PM was not fully in accord with unconditional surrender, on the grounds that it would prolong the war. He was getting flack from the British people in the streets who were growing weary of the conflict. But then, it did conflict with his ‘never give in’ cheerleading, and he acquiesced. Not that it mattered. They turned him out anyway. So you see, there were differences between them.”

Benson had the impression that Maclean was egging him on, pouring out information, offering areas of response in the hope that Benson would reveal more than he was willing to impart. He knew the Washington Ping-Pong game; only the little white ball was potentially inside information, a tit-for-tat pas de deux.

“If I read you correctly, Maclean, you think that Churchill, no longer constrained by the diplomatic niceties of being prime minister, will use the occasion to blast away.”

“Hardly at the Americans. I’d guess that he would hold his fire there, but the Russians would be fair game. He’s always hated Communists and, you must remember, he fought with the Whites attempting in his words ‘to strangle them in the cradle.’”

Maclean chortled, as if he were ridiculing the idea, adding with what might pass as glee, “Without success.”

“How far do you think he will go with Truman standing by?” Benson asked. “Considering the present climate is distinctly pro-Russian.”

“As you say, he is no longer constrained. Even the great ones have a soft spot for vengeance. My sense is that he might be so blinded by old prejudices, he may well not recognize that the Soviets could have earned their new spheres of influence.”

Benson found this latest wrinkle of Maclean’s somewhat off-key and perhaps a reflection of the Brits’ current political agenda vis-à-vis the Soviet Union — or his own.

“But he is out of power. In our last conversation, you dismissed his having any real impact for that very reason. Have you changed your mind?”

Maclean smiled and took another quick sip of his tea and put the cup and saucer on the table.

Benson detected a sudden change in the man’s expression. His face seemed ruddier than usual as if some internal mechanism was heating his blood.

“Does it sound so? I’m not sure. With old Winnie, there’s no telling. There seems to be a groundswell of interest in the old man’s prognostications. Perhaps it comes from some pity over his political defeat. But with Truman introducing him, he will be in the spotlight of the world stage. When he addressed the American Congress in ’41, he brought the house down. His weapons are quite formidable.”

“Weapons?”

“Words, my dear Benson. Although being turned out of office may have diminished his power, Winston is a master of words. And words — as we have heard ad infinitum — are mightier than the sword. ‘We will fight them on the beaches,’ et cetera, et cetera. Who knows what would have happened to our tight little island if we Brits had not heard those words?”

Maclean reached for another cucumber sandwich and popped it into his mouth.

“His words could be a fatal stab into the heart of our plans for the postwar world. We need harmony, Spencer, not divisiveness.”

“You think his words can be that influential?”

“Without the shadow of a doubt, my journalist friend. Without the shadow of a doubt.”