Posted on 11/09/2014 10:16:24 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Winston Churchill urged the United States to launch a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union to win the Cold War, a newly released document reveals.
The previously unseen memorandum from the FBI archives details how Britain’s wartime leader made his views known to a visiting American politician in 1947.
Churchill believed a pre-emptive strike on Stalin’s Russia might be the only way to stop Communism conquering the West.
The note, written by an FBI agent, reports that Churchill urged Right-wing Republican Senator Styles Bridges to persuade President Harry Truman to launch a nuclear attack which would ‘wipe out’ the Kremlin and make the Soviet Union a ‘very easy problem’ to deal with.
The Russians would have been defenceless against a nuclear attack at that time – they did not successfully test their own atomic bomb until 1949.
Britain and the Soviet Union had been allies in the Second World War until 1945, the year Churchill lost office as Prime Minister. But he was one of the first international statesmen to recognise the post-war threat posed by the USSR, and in 1946 made a famous speech in Fulton, Missouri, about an ‘iron curtain’ having descended across Europe as Joseph Stalin consolidated his grip on the eastern half of the continent.
The FBI document shows Churchill’s belligerence towards Britain’s former wartime ally ran so deep that he was prepared to tolerate the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Soviet civilians in a nuclear strike.
The memo claims Churchill ‘stated that the only salvation for the civilisation of the world would be if the President of the United States would declare Russia to be imperilling world peace and attack Russia’. The note continues: ‘He pointed out that if an atomic bomb could be dropped on the Kremlin, wiping it o
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Stalin took great pains to ensure that wartime footage showed only Soviet equipment.
Right. And not once during the war did Stalin say “We must defend Communism”. It was always “We must defend Mother Russia”.
True. During the war, Stalin opened the Churches, and commissioned films about former Russian heroes like Aleksander Nevsky.
That’s right. Stalin was a ruthless Communist. And for FDR and others to call him “Uncle Joe” was disgraceful.
“He included using German Army units in his calculations”
If he had the Wehrmacht from 1941 and the US Army, okay, we could have beat the Russians. Not the Wehrmacht from 1945 though.
I won’t go into details but they could have fielded a lot of German troops.
oh, I think after the fall of Berlin, we would have had plenty of volunteers from Germany to invade russia if the USA was providing the lead and we used every last German tank crew with us
We could have gone in and armed the Poles as well.
You know the old joke, A Polish soldier comes across a German and Russian soldier, which one does he shoot first? The German, business before pleasure.
People here use to overestimate nuclear weapons, especially earlier ones so there is a great possibility that Stalin and his government could have been largely survive it.
Not to mention we aren’t talking about particularly easy target.
In 1941 Germans abandoned idea of air raids on Moscow very early despite the fact that the Kremlin was within the range of their shortest ranged aircraft.
In a first raid alone they had only slightly over half of the bombers making it further suburbs and it become worse later.
The most valuable target they have managed to hit was a British embassy.
Not to mention a strike on Kremlin wouldn’t have made any different effect on Communists than nuking Mecca which is a daydream of some local armchair strategists on Islamists.
An idea to defeat Soviets in Europe conventionally is laughable to say the least too.
And the most important, how do you think the US government could sell this new war to a public?
IMO, Churchill was fully aware of the above and US was a target in his plan on par with USSR.
He wanted to tie both countries in conflict and try to maintain his empire.
If he really cared about an iron curtain he had to voice his concerns earlier in the war in Yalta and especially in Tehran when he still had leverage over Stalin.
If the Nazis took out Moscow, that could have very well been the end of Stalin. He certainly had enough enemies in the Red Army, and some optimistic Politburo member could have made their move.
optimistic should be “opportunistic.”
~If the Nazis took out Moscow, that could have very well been the end of Stalin. He certainly had enough enemies in the Red Army, and some optimistic Politburo member could have made their move.~
True, but Stalin’s demise wouldn’t mean that the survivors must be cooperative with the Germans.
Not to mention that Moscow was occupied more than once in history and every time Russian troops marched into an occupiers’ capitals shortly after.
The Russians were going to fight either way, but let’s say a bit more benign leader, like say, Khrushchev took the reins, how different would things have turned out, even if the Soviets won?
It should have been different for sure though we have to admit no one knows how exactly.
Khruschev wasn’t actually that nice person (mind Cuba, Berlin Wall etc).
On the other hand he wasn’t a blood thirsty paranoid too.
Soldiers, particularly American soldiers, are not automatons. This applies even more to American civilians.
There was simply no way for the Commander in Chief, even with the support of Congress, to launch a preemptive assault on the USSR. The people simply would not have stood for it, especially after several years of wartime propaganda lauding our gallant allies the Russians.
To paraphrase a famous writer on war, “War is politics by other means.” Among other things, this means that war takes place inside the political system and military possibilities are limited by what is politically feasible.
Lots of generals, including MacArthur and apparently including Patton, forget this. It is possible, though I doubt it, that launching nuclear war on USSR or a few years later Red China was a good idea from a purely military POV. However, it was simply not possible politically, and therefore would not happen.
I agree.
Patton’s problem was that he wanted to fight until he died. He admitted that he was going to be a mess without a war.
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