CHURCHILL, Winston S Typed letter signed ('W'), to Max [Aitk...

CHURCHILL, Winston S. Typed letter signed ('W.'), to Max [Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook], 28 Hyde Park Gate, 24 January 1962, one page, 4to . Provenance : Swann, 24 October 1985, lot 68.
CHURCHILL, Winston S. Typed letter signed ('W.'), to Max [Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook], 28 Hyde Park Gate, 24 January 1962, one page, 4to . Provenance : Swann, 24 October 1985, lot 68. 'WE PARTED ON FRIENDLY TERMS AND AS FAR AS I KNEW HE NEVER BORE ME THE SLIGHTEST ANIMOSITY' CHURCHILL REFLECTS ON CHAMBERLAIN'S FINAL RESIGNATION FROM THE GOVERNMENT, as he thanks Beaverbrook for passing along an exchange of letters between Beaverbrook and Anthony Montague Browne on the subject. 'When Chamberlain's health deteriorated', Churchill writes, 'he offered me his resignation without any prompting from my side. We parted on friendly terms and as far as I knew he never bore me the slightest animosity. That was why I caused Anthony to write to you ...'. In July 1940 Chamberlain was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and Churchill reluctantly accepted his resignation 22 September. By 9 November he was dead. It is one of the great ironies of Churchill's career that after two years of ferocious attacks following Munich, Churchill in 1940 became one of Chamberlain's most ardent defenders. Indeed his speech on 8 May 1940 defending Chamberlain in the aftermath of the Narvick debacle won him the Prime Ministership. Chamberlain stayed on in Churchill's 5-man war cabinet, a decision that owed as much to Parliamentary realpolitik as to Churchill's magnanimity, and he even allowed the Chamberlains to continue their residence at No. 10 for many weeks, while Churchill remained at the Admiralty. No one, Churchill once boasted to Colville, could ever say he had been disloyal or intrigued against Chamberlain. 'I never have done that sort of thing' (Gilbert VI, p.943). Writings of Sir Winston Churchill © Estate of Winston S. Churchill