Play Called ‘Monstrous Libel’

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31863, 16 December 1968, Page 17

Play Called ‘Monstrous Libel’

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) LONDON, Dec. 15. Mr Winston Churchill, a grandson of Britain’s war-time Prime Minister, said that Rolf Hochhuth’s play, “Soldiers,” was an “infamous libel,” the New York Times News Service said. The controversial play, which had its long-delayed London opening last night, implies that Sir Winston Churchill had a hand in the death of General Wladyslaw Sikorski, the head of the Polish Government in exile.

He died in an air crash at Gibraltar in 1943. The suggested reason was that the anti-Communist Polish leader threatened the war-time alliance with Russia. “This play is an infamous libel, especially on the dead,” said Mr Churchill. “Hochhuth infers that Churchill connived at the murder of General Sikorski, a personal friend and honoured ally. “Neither Hochhuth nor his supporters in Britain, Kenneth Tynan, has publicly put forward any evidence whatever to substantiate these allegations, which' are without foundation. “They claim that they have evidence but that it is locked

up in a Swiss bank and cannot be revealed for 50 years. I believe the British public will treat such men and such allegations with the contempt they deserve.” Churchill, who said he had no intention of seeing the play, was joined in his condemnation of it by Anthony Montague Brown, Sir Winston Churchill’s private secretary for 13 years, who said “it is a monstrous libel.” Most of the London critics and the audience acclaimed the production. There were shouts of “bravo” when the curtain fell last night at the new theatre. Mr Tynan, literary manager of the National Theatre

and one of the sponsors of the production, was seen with tears in his eyes after the applause. Nearly two years ago, the National Theatre refused to allow Sir Laurence Olivier to produce the play on the ground that it “grossly maligned” the war-time Prime Minister. When production was considered anyway, the Lord Chamberlain, with powers of theatre censorship, said the play could be performed publicly opjy if written permission were obtained from surviving relatives of the British figures portrayed in the play. Theatre censorship was recently lifted in Britain.