Malcolm Muggeridge

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30653, 20 January 1965, Page 14

Malcolm Muggeridge

Sir, —Iconoclasts always remind me of little boys who rush to take to bits a complicated bit of machinery such as a watch, but are quite uninterested in what originally made it tick, and having demolished it simply look about for another object of destruction. Malcolm Muggeridge and the late Hugh Kingsmill have, ever since I can re-

member, indulged in this rather sterile type of selfexpression, without contributing greatly to the more constructive thought and action of our datf It is generous of Mr Muggeridge to acknowledge Sir Winston Churchill’s “moment of glory,” but he evidently does not appreciate that it was that little speck of time which has earned him such world-wide reverence and admiration. His earlier career was as chequered as that of most statesmen, and laboured criticism of his political life is unnecessary except for the purpose of inflating Mr Muggeridge’s ego.— Yours, etc., CARACTACUS. January 19, 1965.

Sir,—So the jackals could not even wait until the lion is dead; and one would have wagered more than a brass farthing that Mr Malcolm Muggeridge would be well up in the pack waiting to get their teeth into the Churchillian legend. It seems fashionable. and may well be profitable, nowadays, to deride and decry anything that savours even remotely of what is commonly called the “Establishment”; from the Crown downwards, and including the lives, with all their human failings, of those who have assumed, under the Crown, positions of incalculable responsibility, demanding the exercise of qualities that manifestly proclaim the superman. To misquote—“Unus homo nobis pugnando restituit rem”—might well be said of Sir Winston Churchill; and if, Soviet-like, we are so chary of the “personality cult” as to deny him our unqualified veneration, Heaven help us.—Yours, etc., ILAM. January 19, 1965. Sir, —With deep disgust I read alongside the report on Sir Winston Churchill’s condition a venomous attack on his political career by a columnist. If it all was true this is not the time to publicise it, but fortunately Sir Winston saved our civilisation.—Yours, etc L. ROLLINGS. January 19, 1965.