WASHINGTON — September 1 was the 70th anniversary of Hitler’s
blitzkrieg into Poland and the beginning of World War II. Fifty
million people died. Western Europe was devastated. Eastern
Europe was more thoroughly devastated and subjected to Communist
tyranny that for decades seemed invincible and a threat to the
Free World, which remained armed and vigilant. Winston Churchill
and Franklin Roosevelt emerged from that war as legendary heroes
who saved our civilization. Almost immediately there were
skeptics. Some claimed that both were responsible for the war.
Some claimed that Roosevelt provoked the Pearl Harbor attack and
failed to notify our doomed soldiers and sailors. These skeptics
were, of course, cranks.
Yet now there is another generation of skeptics sounding off, and
one might well wonder if they too are cranks. Or have these
skeptics developed evidence against Churchill and Roosevelt that
was heretofore unknown?
On September 1 the distinguished debating organization,
Intelligence Squared, teamed up with London’s Evening
Standard to afford America’s most famous Churchill critic,
Pat Buchanan, the opportunity to argue that Churchill was “more
of a liability than an asset to the free world.” Actually, if I
have read Buchanan accurately, he holds Churchill responsible for
the war. As he writes on his website, “Hitler wanted to end the
war in 1940…” Churchill and Roosevelt’s policy of unconditional
surrender caused it to drag on to May of 1945. They also are
responsible, if I read Buchanan accurately, for the Holocaust. As
Buchanan said the night of the debate, “No war, no Holocaust.” On
his website he claims that Hitler wanted to end the war “almost
two years before the trains began to roll to the camps.”
At the debate, which took place in London, Buchanan faced a
formidable team of historians, Antony Beevor, Richard Overy, and
Andrew Roberts, all widely published experts on, among other
matters, World War II. On his side Buchanan had distinguished
scholars also, Norman Stone and Nigel Knight, neither of whom
seemed completely in synch with Buchanan. They were critical of
Churchill for other issues. I was not at the debate, but my
agents were, and when Buchanan said that the killing of the Jews
did not begin until January 1942 I would like to have seen the
look on his teammates’ faces. Even better, I would like to have
seen the look on Buchanan’s face a few minutes later after
Roberts enunciated the places where the Nazis killed over 1.5
million Jews before the first month of 1942. Really, Pat, “No
war, no Holocaust”?
Buchanan’s point seems to be that Hitler had limited geopolitical
aims and that the excitable Churchill overreacted. Buchanan
doubts that Hitler “was out to conquer the world,” because Hitler
did not build a military with the strategic reach to conquer the
world. What is more, he let the British army evacuate from
Dunkirk and he built a defensive line between Germany and France,
the Siegfried Line. That Hitler was a racist lunatic and military
incompetent escapes Buchanan’s notice.
So does the word Lebensraum, escape Buchanan’s notice.
Lebensraum was the Nazi name for Germany’s policy of
aggression. Developed when Hitler was in Landsberg Prison in
1924, counseling with such theorists of Lebensraum as
Professor Karl Haushofer, Hitler explained the whole rapacious
policy in Mein Kampf. If the Lebensraum policy
of conquering other lands for the security and economic
well-being of the Nazi state was not “world conquest,” as
Buchanan puts it, it was a sufficient threat to the Western
democratic order for Western alarm. It is easy to be nonchalant
about old Adolf today. But back in the 1930s when thugs such as
Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin were frisky, I think we should all
be grateful that Churchill sounded the alarm and Roosevelt too.
I can understand what motivated the early critics of Churchill
and Roosevelt. I have read enough of their criticism to mark them
down as simply perverse and in some cases very stupid. But what
motivates Buchanan and our contemporary critics?
Consider boredom. One of my most deeply held beliefs is that
boredom is one of the most underestimated motives behind human
action. It has been behind reform movements that spring up almost
unbidden. It has been behind great debates, for instance this one
over Churchill’s value to the free world. Very few people are
fetched in the least by Buchanan’s argument. In an audience of
some 1,800 people only 181 agreed with Buchanan, but Pat can be
very entertaining. He amuses others and he amuses himself. He
knows how to beat boredom. Apparently C-Span agrees. Before the
month is out, I am told, the network will air this entire debate.
Watch for it, particularly if you are bored.
