First Lady

by Sonia Purnell

  The Queen invited her to tea beforehand, while Clementine also shared her excitement with the Downing Street staff and a few personal friends by throwing a small party. She even invited Beaverbrook. Yet she could not entirely conquer her anxiety about leaving Winston by himself for so long, or her trepidation at flying so far. Before leaving she wrote to Mary: ‘Darling supposing anything happened to me (e.g. air crash) Do you think you could be released from the ATS on Compassionate grounds to look after Papa?’116 She also asked Sarah to ‘say a little prayer now & then for your devoted Mother who altho’ she keeps up a brave front sometimes feels like a nervous old lady’.117

  Knowing she would be spending her sixtieth birthday (like her fiftieth) away from him, Winston gave her a diamond-encrusted heart-shaped brooch. After just one day, she wrote about the ‘long separation’ and implored him to ‘think of your Pussy now & then with indulgence & love’.118 Winston made sure the British ambassador in Cairo, where she was grounded for several days by storms, gave her his birthday note on 1 April. ‘Your lovely Birthday telegram was handed to me in Church this morning,’ she told him.119

  More bad weather during the final stage of her flight forced the plane down to an altitude of just 200 feet for the last hundred miles, but it made a perfect landing, and she was able to disembark pristine in her blue uniform. ‘I was there at the Moscow aerodrome, gay with the Union Jack and Red flag,’ Radio News-Reel’s man in Moscow reported. Presented with a large bouquet of roses by the reception party, which included Foreign Minister Molotov as well as Ivan and Agnes Maisky and Averell Harriman, she thanked everyone in ‘well-chosen and well-practised’ Russian.

  As she toured hospitals from Leningrad to Stalingrad (all equipped courtesy of her Red Cross Fund) and received a Soviet Red Cross Distinguished Service Medal for her ‘exceptional’ contribution to the Russian war effort, Clementine delighted in being the centre of attention. Cheering crowds greeted her everywhere, dancers at the ballet applauded her, many onlookers threw bunches of violets at her feet. Such an effusive welcome rivalled that given to Eleanor Roosevelt on her tour of Britain back in 1942. She cuddled children, posed for photographs, and chatted in snippets of English and Russian with as many as she could. She even gave a press conference. Back home, reports of her astonishing popularity made Winston burst with pride. ‘My darling one . . . Your personality reaches the gt masses & touches their heart.’ He told her of the ‘lovely accounts’ from British and American officials of the good she was doing: ‘At the moment you are the one bright spot in Anglo-Russian relations.’120 He also made sure she was kept in the geopolitical loop by asking the British ambassador, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, to show her secret Foreign Office telegrams – including those on how Russia was already breaching agreements made at Yalta on the independence of Poland and Romania. At one point he even sent senior military officials to brief her. She was there, as Winston sternly reminded her, to be his eyes and ears: ‘Please telegraph to me freely every day about your doings and political outlook,’ he cabled on 5 April.121 Shoring up the alliance at a time of heightened tensions remained her paramount duty, however: ‘Please always speak of my earnest desire,’ he instructed her, ‘for continuing friendship of British and Russian peoples.’122

  Two days later, she received an invitation to meet Stalin himself at the Kremlin – or the ‘Ogre in his Den’,123 as she had previously described him. Clementine, her Red Cross secretary Mabel Johnson, and Grace Hamblin were led by their Red Army escort down ‘long impressive corridors’ until finally they came to a great double door. The guards ‘indicated, in no light terms, by placing their guns across the entrance’124 that Grace (who had received no express invitation) would not be permitted to enter and so the other two women went through without her. Once inside, Clementine and Johnson could see the stocky figure of Stalin, flanked by Molotov, behind a writing desk at the far end of a vast and imposing room (most likely his study in the neoclassical splendour of the Kremlin Senate). They walked the distance to his desk where, speaking through an interpreter, Stalin thanked Clementine for the work done by her fund. She knew that Winston was hoping for a great deal from this meeting; having taken advice from the ambassador, she presented Stalin with a gold fountain pen, saying: ‘My husband wishes me to express the hope that you will write him many friendly messages with it.’ Stalin was not to be won so easily. He put the pen to one side, muttering that he wrote only with a pencil.

  Clementine initially attributed this ungracious response to what she and her companions referred to as Russian ‘dourness’. But Stalin later added the vaguely ominous: ‘I will repay him,’ and one of Clementine’s interpreters, Hugh Lunghi, who was stationed at the British military mission in Moscow, subsequently explained that the Marshal had been making a point. He was deliberately denying the British government the satisfaction of having him publicly acknowledge the gift (or giving one in return). Nor did he wish to raise her stature still further by allowing his name to become attached to Clementine’s tour. Pravda, the official newspaper of the Soviet Communist Party, for instance, carried just two, purely factual sentences on this extraordinary meeting, citing the date and the names of those present. Her very success and strength of character was making her a potential threat, one that was becoming difficult to control. ‘The Soviet authorities didn’t want her to steal too much of the limelight,’ Lunghi explained. ‘The Cold War was already starting.’125

  Lunghi was monitoring the reaction to Clementine’s visit of the Soviet news agency TASS and the Russian press in general, and he noted: ‘On the whole they were trying to be complimentary and nice but then [as relations worsened] they left her out of the picture and became increasingly rude.’ Meanwhile, Winston ‘was very annoyed [Clementine] had not given him a full account of her talks with Stalin’. As Lunghi recounted, ‘The alliance [with Russia] was about to break up so it was important to get every little clue as to what Stalin was thinking.’ Yet all she said in her message following the meeting was: ‘Miss Johnson and I received by Marshal Stalin. Pen gracefully received.’

  Ten days later Winston’s impatience for news ran out and he cabled with a terse: ‘You have not yet sent me the account of your talk with Stalin.’ Her lack of response – at least in writing – might suggest she was concerned about Soviet surveillance; most likely, though, her reluctance was simply due to Stalin’s conduct, which had left so little of cheer to report. The encounter was surely the highlight of her six-week tour, but the growing crisis between Moscow and London – which Winston described to her as ‘dynamite’126 – meant it was kept curiously quiet. The Times’ Moscow correspondent seems to have been unaware it had even taken place.

  Despite the souring of inter-governmental relations, Clementine continued to receive a rapturous welcome from the Russian people. In one military hospital equipped by her fund, the stoic Clementine was ‘visibly moved’ when wounded men lined the stairways and corridors to bid her farewell. But Winston was not alone in being disturbed by the ‘inconsistency’ between the apparent warmth of her reception and the growing chill emanating from the Kremlin. For all her outward charm, Clementine was determined to act over the growing evidence of the Soviets’ brutality and treachery. Eleanor Rathbone, an Independent MP with a keen interest in Poland, had written to her in Moscow about the large number of Poles being deported to the horrors of the Soviet labour camps. Thus briefed, Clementine ‘rather flew at’ Maisky, who was reduced to beating a ‘diplomatic retreat’. Indeed, even while she was still in Moscow, she was more in favour of adopting a tough stance with Stalin than was her husband. Upon her return to London in May, she wrote back to Rathbone and made plain her view that the West should ‘break off Diplomatic relations’ with Moscow if ‘they do not mend their ways’. In a handwritten annotation to this line, she told the MP ‘Winston would disapprove!’127 She appreciated the difference between the enveloping friendliness of the Russian people and what she viewed as their ‘sinister’ Soviet government and though
t only a tough stance would pay dividends.

  During her stay, Lunghi noticed how Clementine was indeed no ordinary emissary. He recalled how she constantly exploited her position to glean useful information for her husband and country. One such occasion was when she used the Soviet Guest House provided for her in Moscow to invite the immaculately attired Josip Tito, the Communist leader of the Yugoslav partisans, to afternoon tea. ‘Tito was trying to grab Trieste,’ recalled Lunghi, referring to the ambitious Communist’s designs on the Italian city on the Yugoslav border, and Clementine was ‘sounding him out’ on an increasingly alarmed Winston’s behalf. Perhaps aware of Tito’s fondness for the finer things in life, she had intended to serve him an ‘English vicarage tea’, even remarking that she would teach the Russian staff to cut the crusts off the sandwiches. She was somewhat surprised, therefore, when a servant wheeled in two trolleys laden with bottles of vodka. ‘She was obviously horrified and rather angry,’ Lunghi said. ‘But in the end all was merry’ and her intelligence mission went to plan.

  Outside Moscow, she particularly enjoyed the spontaneous post-dinner singing in Leningrad, during which her hosts were surprised to discover that she knew the ‘Song of the Volga Boatmen’. It was here that she learned Stalin was to award her the prestigious Order of the Red Banner of Labour. But her travels beyond the capital left Clementine cut off from the extraordinary events unfolding further west as away from the relative security of the British Embassy she no longer had access to secret official telegrams. She therefore had no inkling of why Molotov was on the platform to greet her when she returned to Moscow on her private train (specially provided by the Soviets with a butler, maids and guards) on 13 April. Molotov informed her of the shocking news that Roosevelt was dead. Needing time to think, she suggested he join her in her private carriage for a few moments of silent reflection. She then alighted and immediately proceeded to the British Embassy to phone Winston and discuss her next move.

  The cable she later sent to Eleanor (via the British ambassador in Washington) is surprisingly flat, as if in her shock she resorted to the safest option: ‘I am deeply grieved and send my respectful sympathy and my thoughts. Clementine Churchill.’ Eleanor replied a few days later, with equal formality: ‘I am grateful for your thought of us . . . We are grateful that the President suffered no pain and had no long illness . . . Very cordially yours, Eleanor Roosevelt.’ It was Winston who, despite his differences with the First Lady, immediately struck the right note: ‘Accept my most profound sympathy in your grievous loss which is also the loss of the British Nation and of the cause of freedom in every land . . . I trust you may find consolation in the magnitude of his work and the glory of his name.’ A grateful Eleanor replied: ‘Your beautiful message has given me comfort and renewed courage.’

  ‘No one fought more valiantly than he to save the world,’ Clementine hastily wrote to Averell Harriman. ‘It is cruel that he will not see the Victory which he did so much to achieve.’ It was indeed cruel. Franklin had told Eleanor to acquire some ‘fine’ clothes for their long-awaited trip to Britain together in May – which suggested just a glimmer of a brighter future together. Yet when he keeled over with a cerebral haemorrhage at lunchtime on 12 April, during a short break at his house at Warm Springs, Georgia, none of the four women in attendance was his wife. One was Lucy Mercer, who within an hour had packed up and left.

  Surely aware of his own ever-growing reliance on Clementine, Winston paid a sensitive tribute to Eleanor in the Commons. ‘In this extraordinary effort of the spirit over the flesh, of will-power over physical infirmity,’ he told MPs, ‘he was inspired and sustained by that noble woman his devoted wife.’ At the last moment, though, Winston decided not to attend the funeral of the man he had once hailed as his greatest friend – ‘on account’, he cabled Clementine, ‘of much’ that was ‘going on here’.128 He appears to hint in the shorthand of an encrypted cable that this decision (made while his plane was waiting for him at the aerodrome) had been calculated to improve Britain’s standing in Washington. Perhaps after all that he had endured at Roosevelt’s hands, he was using his absence to signal his (and Britain’s) rediscovered independence. In any case, he was able to report to his wife that he had received a ‘very nice telegram from President Truman opening our relations on the best conditions’.

  On 30 April, Hitler shot himself in his bunker in Berlin. A week later Germany surrendered. Europe was finally at peace. In London, Winston was making urgent enquiries into whether the capital would be ready to celebrate the designated Victory in Europe day, on 8 May, and receiving ‘assurances’ from Scotland Yard that there was ‘no shortage of beer’.129

  In Moscow, Clementine longed to be home with her husband. Before her departure, however, there was a mild panic at the British Embassy because no one could be found to conduct a VE service until she had what was widely credited as a ‘brainwave’.130 Dr Hewlett Johnson, known as the ‘Red Dean’ of Canterbury for his Communist sympathies, was due to arrive in town at midnight on the 7th. He had previously accused her Red Cross Fund of ‘poaching’ public support from alternative, more politically motivated campaigns, such as his own Joint Aid to Russia Committee. Now she grabbed the opportunity to recruit a critic as an ally, by asking him to preach. Dr Johnson was delighted and sat up until dawn composing his address.

  ‘All my thoughts are with you on this supreme day my darling,’ she cabled Winston on 8 May itself. ‘It could not have happened without you.’131 From a balcony overlooking Whitehall, he told the jubilant crowds that it was not a victory of any class or any party: ‘My dear friends, this is your hour.’ Clementine personally arranged a simultaneous party at the embassy in Moscow. She grabbed a glass of champagne and climbed onto a chair, declaring ‘We will drink to victory!’

  She also found time to think of Eleanor, writing to her the following day in more affectionate terms: ‘All yesterday I was thinking of you and your husband to whom we owe so great a part of the victory. Love from Clementine Churchill.’132 This elicited a warmer response, although not ‘love’. ‘I am deeply appreciative of your thinking of me,’ Eleanor replied ‘affectionately’, although she found it ‘impossible to rejoice’ until Japan was also defeated.

  Winston too was far from jubilant. Moran noticed he did ‘not seem at all excited about the end of the war’.133 A few days earlier, he had ordered his ambassador to show Clementine more secret cables on Russian atrocities, and on 5 May had warned her, ‘I need scarcely tell you that beneath these triumphs lie poisonous politics and deadly international rivalries.’ He instructed her to come back urgently. ‘Do not delay beyond the 7th or 8th except for weather. On no account leave in bad weather.’134 ‘I long to be with you,’ she replied, ‘but have some necessary engagements to fulfil . . . after which I shall joyfully fly home.’

  Those last few days were packed with more concerts, hospital tours and receptions staged in her honour. Most important was her award ceremony at the Kremlin on 7 May.135 It seems likely from the Churchills’ correspondence that she was hoping to have another crack at extracting useful intelligence from Stalin, whom she was expecting to award her the honour. No doubt it was a crushing disappointment then that the Marshal chose not to come and a deputy, Mr Shvernik, officiated: ‘I heartily congratulate you,’ he told her with great pomp, however. ‘You have accomplished tremendous work . . . for our heroic Red Army.’

  Clementine’s ‘eyes open’ tour had been, in personal terms, a triumph. After six weeks apart, Winston wanted to be there to greet her in person when she arrived at Northolt on 12 May, but as usual he was running late. Her plane circled the airfield several times to allow his speeding red Napier to reach the side of the runway just as it landed. Clementine emerged, still wearing her Red Cross uniform, smiling with joy as she walked proudly down the steps to meet her husband, the great victor.

  Chapter Twelve

  A Private Line

  1945–65

  At any other time Clementine would hav
e relished the palatial appointments of an elegant penthouse in her favourite London hotel. Although maintaining a proud façade, she was in truth despondent at finding herself in the Brook Suite at Claridge’s, for all the streams of visitors whisked up in a special lift to see them. Winston simply pointed tearfully to the seventh-floor balcony and declared a dislike of ‘sleeping near a precipice’.1 But, having been turfed out of Downing Street by an ungrateful electorate, they simply had nowhere else to go.

  When Winston had called a general election, a fortnight after VE Day, Beaverbrook had predicted he would be voted back to power with a hundred-seat majority. Winston had believed him. After all, cheering crowds turned out to line the route wherever he went; another term was surely his due. But Clementine had been more doubtful. Having dutifully dealt with her mailbag during the war and toured the country listening to people’s woes, she had known that there was a yearning among the populace for social reform, and that many saw Labour as the only party to offer credible policies on housing, jobs and social security. Winston, she believed, could no longer rely on his personality, or even his war record. He had to paint a rival vision of a fairer Britain all his own.

  Instead, he had opened his campaign with a patently absurd warning that a Labour government would result in tyranny enforced by a homegrown ‘Gestapo’. Clementine had begged him to drop the words from his speech, but it was as if, under Beaverbrook’s influence, Winston’s reason had once again deserted him. To turn on his wartime coalition colleagues so provocatively, with what the Economist dubbed ‘pernicious nonsense’, seemed un-statesmanlike and insulting. It all helped to revive searing memories of the unemployment under the Tory-led governments of the ‘hungry thirties’; indeed, many still felt cheated by Lloyd George’s promise to build ‘a country fit for heroes’ after the First World War.