I am carrying the London book by Seattle’s own Rick Steves. I read the book in his voice, as I used to watch his PBS travel show and liked hearing him live in and around Seattle when he would speak to talk about travel and cannabis.
Last time I was in London in December 2006 I did not even know about the Churchill War Rooms but Rick Steves in his book says that it is one of about 5 top attractions for tourists. I like reading about World War II, especially to learn about science and everyday life of the time, and I enjoyed this museum entirely, but I am not sure that I would recommend it to others as a top pick of London. The museum is in and about the rooms in which the British government planned its war affairs during World War II. In this museum there is also an annex to the life of Winston Churchill. The most striking part of the main museum to me are the austerity and simplicity of these war rooms. These rooms decided the fate of the British Empire in war time and yet did not at all seem appropriate for meeting, planning, office management, living, or working. These were just a series of small rooms and dormitories, really, in an excellent geographic location but would have been very uncomfortable for anything more than a small group of people to meet. Perhaps privacy and seclusion was the intention. The large meeting rooms here could not hold more than 20 people, and perhaps the largest office likewise could hold 20 people, and always as cramped as could be. There were some bedrooms and dining spaces of the sort smaller than students would expect in university dorms. All of this is in underground bunkers, which would be safe in bombing. I was suprised a little that so much must have been managed by so few, and with technology which I would not know how to use. They had a few phones, a radio, and a large room with maps onto which they pressed hundreds of pins with colored heads to indicate the location of ships. I saw charts and graphs which I assume must have been calculated by humans on paper then drawn by other humans on paper. Something that is often said about better technology is “Any phone now has calculating power far beyond that which NASA used to put man on the moon”, and that is true. NASA’s calculators in the 1960s were themselves marvels compared to what existed in the 1940s. I visited the B Reactor at Hanford where plutonium was made for the World War II Hiroshima bomb several times to look again at the analog computers they had, and a similar room was in these war rooms. I have no idea what they were calculating. In any case, any phone nowadays has much better calculating power to manage a world full of armies far beyond what Churchill ever could play with in these little rooms.
The museum has a Churchill museum in it. Some exhibits in this museum talk about how Churchill took three controversial political positions which brought a lot of criticism into his career – he supported Edward VIII’s abdication to marry, he opposed self-rule for India, and he denounced Hitler as being likely to bring war when other politicians wanted to negotiate peace with Hitler. The Edward VIII abduction crisis took on an out-of-time sexist perspective to me. The situation was that the king wanted to marry a divorced American woman, when it would have been expected that he married someone of noble background who met ideals of contemporary sexual purity. In another context in his London book, Rick Steves jokes that Queen Elizabeth intends to outlive Charles so that the next ruler can be his son, William. I have heard this before also. I think everyone loves Elizabeth and thinks whoever will come after her will be less for the people, and that William is likely to be more of a public figure than Charles could be. Charles is criticized for marrying Diana then divorcing her, perhaps with an undercurrent of thought that he secretly wanted to marry his current wife Camilla but was not true to himself for marrying Diana instead when she was not really what he wanted. The reality is not important, but nowadays, it is a romantic story to think of Edward abdicating the throne to marry someone he loved when the society would not have accepted that woman entering the royal family.
About Churchill on self-rule for India and the Indian Independence Movement – I have no idea what to think of Churchill opposing self rule. “Self-rule” is a different idea than independence, and means Commonwealth self-rule like Canada and Australia have. There were some exhibits about England needing to bring peace and benefit to the Indian people for their own sake. India has long portrayed England as an oppressor, whereas the British view for a long time has been that England brought India benefit and only charged a bit of money for administration. There were many callouse acts which England commited against India, and likewise England is blamed for famines, economic exploitation, and warmongering in India. I would like to think that someday there could be a narrative listing all the good things that came from the relationship to both sides, and an accounting of all the costs that each endured for the other, and that there could be more complete reconciliation between India and British culture. India is still so isolated nowadays and are just now with Modi having more commitment to export their culture and world power, and I wish that could have started decades ago. I cannot say that it would have started sooner with Britain still in their politics, but obviously it took 60+ years for it to start without Britain which I think no one in the 1940s would have expected.
After living in New York and meeting so many Jews I am always struck in World War II contemporary narratives by how little discussed German oppression of Jews was. German brutality of Jews is the major cultural memory of World War II now because the industrialization and routinized process of genocide is a reality beyond the worst imagining of anyone ever before. Not only was the Holocaust not a wartime issue during the war, but somehow talk about treatment of Jews did not even deeply enter popular media discussion. Here in London and in New York also now and recently I have seen major demonstrations and protests in the streets about the Israeli bombing of Gaza. It is hard for me to understand Palestine at all. When I try to understand, I put it in terms of an unresolved real estate issue much in the same way that I imagine India an Pakistan’s war which began at the same time and also because of a British land divide. I wish that it could be said that if the real estate were divided in a way that pleased one side and if the other side agreed to abide by that, then the war could be over, but among the players India and Pakistan and Israel and Palestine, so I understand, the thought that is if any of those four were given all the land they requested, then whoever got the land and whatever else they wanted would still wish to attack the other side, and that a surrender of land would only further encourage the party benefiting most.
Churchill in his museum is emphasized to be a writer. Apparently he was a journalist and although not a historian, wrote some history books which were commerciall successful. In the museum there is a description somewhere that he had simple tastes, and could be quite satisfied with having the best of everything. This sounded odd to me at first but I understand it to mean that he liked quality in his everyday life, but did not seek conspicuous consumption and that his appetite extended to what he could consume, and he did not strive to have more that what he needed. Throughout the museum Churchill is shown as a person who expected very devoted workers and who insisted on the food, alcohol, cigars, clothing, and relaxation that he liked. He seems to have smoked and drank as much as a person could if their work really was their priority, as it seemed to be the case in his life. The popular depiction of Churchill as a big man who ate hearty meals while appreciating wine, liquor, and tobacco all while directing a government and war and being a stateman is a very British idea. I cannot imagine a time in American history when a personality like this could get favor. It is completely out of bounds for most other cultures. I really am not sure that a person like Churchill could have had respect anywhere other than Britain. It seems to me that he was produced by British culture then in turn defined it.