MR CHURCHILL AT EDINBURGH

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26039, 16 February 1950, Page 5

MR CHURCHILL AT EDINBURGH

In his speech at Edinburgh, Mr Churchill demanded a supreme effort to bridge the gulf between East and West, and suggested that he might approach Mr Stalin personally if he v ere elected Prime Minister on February 23. With a solemnity reminiscent of his great war-time orations, he said: “It is my earnest hope that we may find our way to some exalted and august foundation for our safety than the grim and sombre balancing power of the atomic bomb.”

Mr Churchill said that American superiority in the atomic bomb was “our surest guarantee of world peace.” His speech was broadcast to America and Switzerland.

Mr Churchill recalled his earlier relations with Mr Stalin and then said: “I can’t help coming back to this idea of another talk with Russia upon the highest level. The idea appeals to me of a supreme effort to bridge the gulf between the two worlds, so that each can live their life, if not in friendship, at least without the hatred of the cold war.

“Surest Guarantee of Peace” “It is my belief that the superiority in the atomic bomb, if not indeed almost a monppoly of this frightful weapon, in American hands is the surest guarantee of world peace. It is my earnest hope that we ma Y find our way to some more exalted and august foundation for our safety than this grim and sombre balancing power of the atomic bomb.

“When I say ‘we,’ I must not let you forget that ‘we’ means the United States, and it is their power which protects not only Britain but Europe.” Britain was spending enormous sums on the. Army, Navy, and Air Force, yet it was*“very odd that we should not have been able to make an atomic bomb for ourselves by now.” This, Mr Churchill added, was “one of the most extraordinary administrative lapses that has ever taken place.” Mr Churchill said that the British, although busy with national and party controversies, must not forget the gravity of Britain’s position, or that of the whole world. “Soviet Russia that immensely powerful band of men gathered together in the Kremlin—has ranged itself against the Western democracies. They have added to their dominion the satellite States. Jugoslavia has

broken away, Greece has broken away and has been rescued by the United States, which is -carrying on the task we began. At the other end of the world 500,000,000 in China have fallen into the Communist sphere, but Communism is not all.”

Mr Churchill said .that China was old, and he did not regard it as having finally accepted Soviet servitude. “Still, when you look at the picture as a whole, you see two worlds ranged against one another, more profoundly and on a larger scale than history has ever seen before,” he continued. ‘The Soviet Communist world has by far the greatest military force, but the United States has the atomic bomb, and now, we are told, they J ave a thousandfold more terrible manifestation of this awful power.” He said that the Western Powers must not pass away their only shield of safety—the atomic bomb—until they could find something better and surer and more likely to last.

Appeal in 1945 Recalled Mr Churchill said he still felt in his heart the same sentiments that prompted him in 1945 to cable to the Kremlin appealing for co-operation. He read out his cablegram, which ended: “Even embarking on a long period of suspicion, of abuse and counter-abuse, and of opposing policies, would be a disaster hampering the great development of world prosperity for the ihasses, which is attainable only by our trinity.” Mr Churchill continued: “That was written nearly five years ago. Alas, it was only too true. All came to pass with horrible exactitude. It is not easy to see how things can be made worse by a parley at the summit. I feel that Christian men should not close the door upon any hope of finding a new foundation for the life of the self-tormented human race.”

Raising his voice, Mr Churchill said: “What prizes lie before us—peace, food, happiness, and wealth for the masses never known nor dreamed of. a glorious advance into a period of rest and safety for all the hundreds of millions of homes where little children can play by the fire and girls grow up in all their beauty and young men march to fruitful labour in all their strength and valour. Let us not shut out the hope that the burden of fear and want may be lifted for a glorious era from the bruised and weary shoulders of mankind.”