"An Ample Feast"

The Old Man still had it in him to command the attention of the world. The weight of his years (he will be 79 next month) lay on his stooped shoulders, he had been ill for four months, yet in authority and eloquence and in the ability to rise to an occasion, there was still no other Englishman around to match Sir Winston Churchill. He proved it again last week. His platform was the Winter Gardens at Margate, where 4,000 Tory bigwigs sat in party convention beneath a panoply of Union Jacks. They sang For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, and cheered until the rafters rang when he suddenly appeared before them, a beaming, black-jacketed old gentleman, venerable as Queen Victoria, familiar as Big Ben.

Churchill played two roles, and his audience loved him in both. To the party, he was Old Tory, bucolic and patriotic, quick to boot Socialist backsides and to chuck the British voter under the chin. The other Churchill looked larger, more visionary and controversial. He was the great Britannic Moses, sharing his wisdom with the benighted, urging them to follow where he led.

Modest Plan? "I have thought a great deal about the overpowering problem that . . . haunts all our minds," said Churchill. "My prime thought is to simplify." Churchill's simplification was that "the world needs patience. It needs a period of calm rather than vehement attempts to produce clear-cut solutions."

Churchill had been bitterly disappointed because his own attempt to find a clear-cut solution--in a Big Four "parley at the summit"--had been cold-shouldered by the U.S. and France, stonily ignored by the Soviet Union. It had even been labeled "mischievous" by the London Economist. But Sir Winston would no more give up his project than he would part with the Empire. "I asked for very little," he told the Tories. "I held out no exciting hopes about Russia. I thought that friendly, informal, personal talks between the leading figures . . . might do good and could not easily do much harm, and that one good thing might lead to another."

Churchill called his proposal "a humble, modest plan." He is sticking to it even though his own Foreign Office thinks it likely to do more harm than good. To the cheering galleries, he said: "I still think that the leading men of the various nations ought to . . . meet together without trying to cut attitudes before excitable publics, or using regiments of experts to marshal all the difficulties and objections. Let us try to see whether there is not something better for us all than tearing and blasting each other to pieces, which we can certainly do."

Spot of Advice. Churchill was not advocating appeasement of the Russians. He was quick to remind the world that "the Soviet armies in Europe, even without their satellites, are four times as strong as all the Western allies put together." Jaw thrust forward, blue eyes flashing fire, the Old Man denounced "Socialist politicians who hope to win popularity both by carping and sneering at the U.S." He warned the Tories, too, that "it would be madness to make our heavily burdened island take up an attitude which, if not hostile, was, at any rate, unsympathetic both to the U.S. and to the new Germany which Dr. Adenauer is building . . ."

Churchill had a spot of advice for each of Britain's allies: P: France must ratify the European Army treaty, permitting the Germans to rearm. "If not," said Sir Winston--in a sharp either/or that would have been denounced as an "ultimatum" if an American had uttered it--"If not, we shall have no choice in prudence but to fall in with some new arrangement which will join the strength of Germany to the Western allies through NATO." P: Germany is welcome to "a place among the great powers of the world," but, "as one a large part of whose life has been spent in conducting war against [the Reich]," Sir Winston urged the Bonn government to remember the famous maxim: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." Presumably, he was advising Bonn to watch out for its domestic foes. P: The U.S. got a big Churchillian bouquet, and a homily on its past mistakes. "Had the U.S. taken before the First World War, or between the wars, the same interest and made the same exertions and run the same risks to preserve peace and uphold freedom which, I thank God, she is doing now, there might never have been a first war, and there would certainly never have been a second. With [America's] mighty aid, I have a sure hope that there will not be a third."

Old Tory. Thus spake Churchill the Prophet--to Britain and the world. Churchill the Old Tory stuck to party politics.

With puckish grin and rolling eye, he surveyed the achievements of two years of Tory government. "We are not without some satisfaction," he said, and the understatement got a roar. "Danger is farther away than when we went into harness . . . Recovery will grow surer and firmer as the clattering months roll by."

Churchill was in his element, mingling, pantomime and frolic, spilling wit like wine. He enumerated the party's successes and, like the headmaster of Harrow, distributed congratulations to his blushing middle-aged ministers. To each he made a play of peering along the rows to find the next recipient of his favors. He kept each one in suspense until his turn came.

"Take our finances," said the Prime Minister, singling out Chancellor of the Exchequer "Rab" Butler. "Two years ago, we were sliding into bankruptcy. Now, at last, we may claim solvency." Churchill paused, squinted over his spectacles, and suddenly demanded: "What is the use of being a famous race and nation ... if at the end of the week you cannot pay your housekeeping bill?" He looked inquiringly at Lady Churchill, and the delighted audience roared.

"And what about meat? Even red meat?" Mouthing his words like a music-hall comic, Churchill spluttered: "I am always very chary with percentages . . . I like short words and vulgar fractions. Well, here is the plain vulgar fact: in the first two years of the Tory government, the British nation has actually eaten 400,000 tons more meat, including red meat, than they did in the last two years of the Socialist administration." And with that, Sir Winston Churchill rinsed out his mouth with, of all things, a glass of cold water. Grimacing like the champion brandy drinker that he is, he looked up at the audience apologetically. "I don't often do that," was all he needed to say to set the great hall bellowing with laughter.

Next Year, Too. Yet for all Churchill's magnificence and the pinkness of his unseamed cheeks, many Tories were worried that he may not be up to the day-to-day demands of his job. There were reports that he would shortly turn over affairs to ailing Anthony Eden, who at Margate spoke animatedly but looked exhausted. Talk of a new general election was in the air. Noisy Nye Bevan had already demanded that Sir Winston should "clear out . . . if he is unable to do his duty"; and even the London Times had sternly warned that "the Prime Minister must satisfy himself and the nation that he is physically equal to the task ahead." At Margate, the Old Man killed the rumors as he might have swatted a fly. "We have no intention of plunging the nation into electioneering strife this year," he said. "And indeed, so far as my immediate knowledge is concerned, that applies to next year, too.

"And now," said Sir Winston, "a word about myself." He seemed tired, and his eyes were moist, but with an effort he roused himself for the simple peroration that would proclaim to the world that Churchill is staying put. "If I stay on for the time being, bearing the burden at my age, it is not because of love for power or office. I have had an ample feast of both. If I stay, it is because I have the feeling that I may, through things that have happened, have an influence on what I care about above all else--the building of a sure and lasting peace . . ."

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