Wartime
John Grigg
The War Diaries of Oliver Harvey 1941 1945 Edited by John Harvey (Collins £10)
Oliver Harvey was a career diplomat who became Anthony Eden's principal private secretary at the Foreign Office for the second time in June 1941, having served him in the same capacity from 1936 until his resignation in 1938. An earlier volume of diaries covered Harvey's first Eden period, a shorter time with Halifax, and a spell as Minister at the Paris Embassy until the fall of France. After the war Harvey followed Duff Cooper as Ambassador in Paris where, in a quiet way, he was outstandingly successful. (One can only hope that there will be a final volume giving the inside story of his mission there, though nothing is said of any further instalment).
His war diaries -which, we are told, have been considerably cut omit a year at the Ministry of Information after his return from France, and end effectively in December 1943, when he left Eden's private office to become Assistant UnderSecretary. The whole of 1944 and half of 1945 are disposed of in less than 60 pages (out of 385). So long as he was with Eden he was involved in high politics, domestic as well as foreign, because Eden was Churchill's acknowledged second-in-command and heir presumptive, and he took Harvey very much into his confidence. The book is, therefore, of quite absorbing interest.
On the domestic side, it throws new light on the workings and inner tensions of the Churchill coalition, more especially on the Cabinet crisis of February 1942, when Churchill's dictatorship was most seriously threatened. Eden himself was understandably reticent on this subject when he came to write his memoirs, but he seems to have been far from reticent at the time in his conversations with Harvey.
He had never thought much of Churchill as Minister of Defence, and in June 1941 would have preferred Trenchard in the post. But by the following February it is clear that he had even lost faith in Churchill as Prime Minister. On the 14th and 15th Harvey records: I've written to A.E. giving my views of absolute necessity of P.M. reforming Cabinet or of going. . He thinks events have made P.M. more stubborn rather than less. It is essential to get a separate Minister of Defence, but I think in my heart of hearts nothing less than the departure of Winston and Beaverbrook will now avail . . . Talked to A.E. on the telephone. He said he had got my letter and agreed with it.
A surprising alliance developed between Eden and Cripps, who at the time regarded himself and was widely regarded as a potential national saviour. On the 27th Eden was even saying that he would serve as Minister of Defence under Cripps. Bracken approached Eden with a suggestion that he [Eden] should become Churchill's deputy Defence Minister, while retaining the Foreign Office. Characteristically Eden replied that 'he would certainly be willing to do it [but] didn't wish to press for it.' He would like Bracken to put the idea to Churchill, and for Churchill then 'to make the first move'. No doubt Bracken reported this conversation to Churchill, who would have gathered from it that Eden was a halfhearted challenger. In the event, Churchill survived without too much difficulty as Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, while Cripps was gradually cut down to size and Eden remained as lieutenant a grumbling and often exasperated Cassio, but definitely not Iago.
There was plenty to grumble about, and Harvey shows, in particular, how foolish and outrageous was Churchill's behaviour towards de Gaulle. The only excuse was that he could not afford to quarrel with Roosevelt, whose determination to prevent France's revival as a great power was reinforced by the pro-Vichy sympathies of his Secretary of State, Cordell Hull. But Churchill, without of course being in the least pro-Vichy was for most of the time as antide Gaulle as the American Government. Eden, for his part, had no doubt that a strong France would suit British interests after the war, or that de Gaulle was the true representative of France during the war. He gave the General all the backing he could and spent countless hours wrangling with Churchill on his behalf. De Gaulle never forgot and much later, when he was President and Eden a fallen idol, would ask him to stay at the Elysee and show him every consideration.
Harvey fully shared his master's view of French affairs, though in this as in no other respects he had an independent mind and was no yes-man. (He differed from Eden, for instance in being a strong Zionist). In
Spectator 19 August 1918 the diaries de Gaulle appears as the onlY figure on the same scale as Churchill which was perhaps why Churchill resented him, because he also had the advantage tif relative youth. Roosevelt was a formidable man, but his greatness surely owed much I° the power of his country. Churchill's greatness exceeded his country's power, and de Gaulle's was manifest despite his countrY's temporary impotence. Unlike Churchill, he saw that Soviet Russia and the United States would be the super-powers of the future, and that Gra!, Britain and France would have to stall': together if they were to carry any weight t all. At a dinner in July 1942 he was Ii about the prospects for Anglo-Frene" friendship and replied that 'at present French sympathy was divided equally hetween England, America, and Russia but he thought we should eventually again beconie the favourite ally "Car les American's deviendront trop fatigants et les Russes inquietants".' The Harvey diaries are easy to read; lucidly written and with much intelligen` comment on the passing scene, as well as some remarks that look silly in retrosPnistiv ec: The author himself was the first to recog this, and in a note dated May 1958, VI the the editor places at the beginning of," is book, says that the value of such reMarxsh'e that they show `How we saw things at the that To this category must belong statement that Russia, in 1942, was dawn of sudden Freedom and enlighten' ment'. The diaries lack the vividness of descridPe; tion which is often found in Sir Alexall Cadogan's or in some diary entries ve Eden's memoirs. Harvey seems not to ha. tbheeetnei lickoemEpdaerne,anfdorCaedxoampgani,e, a visual ael .e the thilo'n mens reactions to the sight of Murmansk
13th December 1941: th
It was a lovely sight. The glow 0n horizon, on the far side of the town, "tbe just sufficient to light the snow 011 ignob(lce ard000gfsan)anel it looked reallY like. _„„atislc, As we topped the hill above NW' ked the clouds lifted and the harbour loo. most beautiful in its semi-circle of pale and half-lights. The colour of "n"uite pearl-grey and of a fairy texture. 1-/ air indescribable and unpaintable, thehas crisp and fresh. This Arctic scenerY I; the beauty which is the exact antithesis niiting Christmas card of tradition. Soft, Met . h half-tones. ones. Nothing brittle or (E galls". ars and We then got into waiting motor c tovie drove some 12 miles to Muritialiskrolling over roads invisible in the snow, a m. is sort of country with sturnPY
quite a big town over 100,000 innaafish.. ants, having been developed ria.fvey)
ing village by the Bolsheviks. ( t Yet Harvey gives us more al fa°
than either Eden or Cadogan.
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