A Prime Minister Remembers, by Lord Attlee & Francis Williams

[p025] G.G. Attlee sahib A Prime Minister Remembers. Earl Attlee and Francis Williams, Heine- mann, 21s. Francis Williams interviews Earl Attlee on his war and_ post-war memories. The interviews are supplemented. by extracts from Attlee’s private papers. From all this a picture of Attlee emerges—this in turn, being a picture of Social Democracy in action. The picture is far from pleasant. Gone is the myth surrounding Attlee. He does not appear as the quiet, mild-mannered, doodling leader. Instead, we see Attlee and the rest of the Labour Party leaders as nothing more than ‘ social- imperialists ’, as Lenin described their type. If this sounds a harsh judgment perhaps these few quotations will set doubts aside. There are many more like these in the book. _ Attlee on India in the war: Williams: ‘Do you think you helped things by ordering the -arrest of Gandhi and Nehru—a decision that you yourself actually took, as I remember, when Churchill was away and you were in charge?’ Attlee: ‘ Yes—it was necessary.’ Williams: ‘Why was it necessary? Attlee: ‘. . . If they chose to set themselves against the government in war they had to answer for it... .’ (pp. 205-206) Attlee vigorously defends the dropping of the atom bomb insisting that ‘. . . on the knowledge we had we were right... .” (p. 74) When Attlee took office in 1945, so used was he to collaboration with the Tories both in the war and pre-war (on the India Commission) that Williams records: ‘He (Attlee) had invited Churchill to return to Potsdam with him in the same capacity as he himself had gone there in the pause between the election campaign... .’ {(p. 69.) Attlee certainly tried, but Churchill declined. ; _ Nevertheless, recorded in the book are the warm letters. that passed ‘between Attlee, Bevin and Churchill . government from 1945 to 1951. Complete identity of views between them on foreign policy is revealed. They were an absolute trinity in their hatred of the Soviet Union. ~ Williams: ‘.. . And, you don’t think you sacrificed too much independence to get America in? ...’ Attlee: ‘ Of course not. Without the stopping power of the Americans the Russians might easily have tried sweeping right forward. I don’t know whether they would but it wasn’t a possibility you could just ignore... .” (p. 171) Thus did Attlee and the whole Right wing help to create the imperialist war machine of NATO with its rocket bases and its constant threat of nuclear annihilation. The Cold War and Hot War (Korea, etc.) policies of the Labour Government unfold before the reader page by page until it is kicked out of office. Unwittingly, Williams’ book helps to justify the sharp criticism that Marxists and other rank-and-file Left-wingers levelled at the Attlee for. its betrayal of socialism at home and abroad. — It would certainly take an expert— nay, a diviner—to find in Attlee’s recorded conversations any semblance of a socialist content bar the ‘usual clichés ‘about ‘humanity’ which politicians of all hues frequently utter. AF. From the inside