On Valentine's Day, February 14, 1950, in an electioneering speech delivered in Edinburgh, Scotland, Winston Churchill appropriately came out fighting against the socialists. On the same day that Moscow was signing a 30-year friendship treaty with Peking, the old Lion never the less admonished that war was no longer a Romance.

Set within his Victorian mold, the soon to be again Prime Minister inadvertently displayed the true tenure of his perspective on armed conflict. It had been throughout his life, beginning in his Blenheim Castle nursery, of the size ample to drill a squad of Sandhurst cadets, where he commanded his armies of thousands of tin soldiers, the gallantry and pomp of battle that wooed him.

Approaching his final days in command, the legend become an ancient politician began to recognize the brutal realities foreshadowing the destruction of humanity, "by the hideous force of perverted science," as quoted by biographer David Stafford.

Drawn into the web of spy world reports opened to him on another assignment, author Stafford deigned to return when able to collate the bits and pieces of the myriad puzzles that spanned the decades of Churchill's private world.

Readers acquainted with the public life of the man, both his autobiographies reported from his desk at center stage of the era, and the second-hand efforts that sprinkle the landscape of literature in all forms of intention, will be enamored of the mountains of incidentals collected by Stafford.

Irresistible vignettes of historical import file past in a scenario that if speeded up would unlikely result in the appearance of an Italian Opera. Left to their own pace, however, one is continually sobered by the entanglements that made up the under belly of the crucible that was the formation of the first half of our last century.

The author's challenge to bring the report to an end is recognized for the difficulties involved even as Churchill plays his last years in public. And with the marking of his final moments the inescapable realization arises that the man was battling to his end with the very questions haunting society today, even now in London.

Churchill vows in his re-election bid to make a "vigorous purge of subversives..." Commenting on the Burgess-Maclean defection, Churchill unabashedly confides to his primary secretary, Sir John Colville, his personal view that their homosexuality was a security risk.

Once re-elected, the Prime Minister sees through the return of the Shah to his Peacock Throne in Iran to ensure British oil interests.

One final remarkable political dance has Churchill being closed out of his own European Movement, because he was deemed to be a great disappointment from the 'federalist' standpoint.

Contrary to some perceptions, the Lion went out as he had entered, with a roar.

TL Farley,
Author,
When Now Becomes too late,
Distant Reaches

As Stafford says that Churchill appreciated the value of good intelligence and how it could influence the outcome of any struggle .But on the whole I must express my profound disagreement on some of the information contained in this book. The LUSITANIA episode: Fortuitously-Magdeburg incident 26th August 1914- the Room no.40 of the British Admiralty cracked German Navy's tactical codes .Bulk of naval traffic related to the movements of U-boats and German High Seas Fleet it was able to read .Churchill as the First Lord of Admiralty was privy to this fact .What now follows is difficult to digest for a rational mind .If one were to believe the author the movement of U-20(which sank the American ship)was detected and all ships in the immediate vicinity warned of its presence.Message received by LUSITANIA but ship's captain instead of changing course continued with the voyage thus courting disaster. In other words author has implied the American ship was commanded by a mad man who sent her to the watery grave, a chain of reasoning difficult to follow.It looks as though Stafford wanted to defend the British leader from accusations of his detractors who have claimed the latter staged the incident to bring America on a collision course with Germany. It is very hard to accept Churchill's innocence in certain matters because I know him as a shrewd practitioner of Realpolitik .Desmond Morton ( an influential figure in the Whitehall corridors of power and later SIS officer )connived with Churchill to forge Zinoviev's letter which damaged Labour Party's electoral prospects in the early 20's. Coming to the Second World War, soon after the captitulation of France there came invasion hysteria . Now it must be said when it came to invading Britain the Nazi dictator was strangely reluctant . Early July 1940 Hitler disclosed his intention of invading Soviet Union to Schmundt his chief-adjutant and Von Brauchitsch the Army Commander-in-Chief .Churchill via ULTRA decrypts knew that much of German troop deployments along Channel coast was sham. Yet he kept up the invasion bogey because this was bringing public support. Later in January 1941U.S.Presidential envoy Harry Hopkins visit to war-torn Britain was stage-managed to draw American support for Britains' war effort. Author has demolished claims that Churchill sacrificed Coventry (heavily bombed by Luftwaffe on 14 November 1940) for protecting ULTRA. The target was identified very late but the argument that it was not brought to PM's attention sounds skeptical. Instead Crete was sacrificed .However I am of the view that Britsh Commonwealth forces could have defended the island without blowing ULTRA.The battle for Crete hinged upon the possession of Maleme airfield . A spotter aircraft could have been sent to show it had detected the approach of German aerial armada carrying elite paratroops instead of denuding Maleme defences for masking ULTRA.The exercise is cleverly contrived attempt to cover up British Middle East Command's lack of resolve in defending Crete.I endorse Stafford's view that British leader was not knowing Japanese plans to attack Pearl Harbor.However it is difficult to accept the naivete of US political establishment in this matter . Suffice to say the US intelligence had broken codes used by Tokyo to exchange information with Consul -General Kita in Honolulu.String of messages showing Japan taking unusual interest in Pearl Harbor were intercepted . One such message intercepted divided the place into five areas asked for exact location of Pacific Fleet warships and carriers . Washington correctly guessed this could be a grid system for a bombing attack.Had Roosevelt and his men been shrewd ,vigilant, the ensuing tragedy could have been averted The author has misinterpreted the train of events that led to the German intervention in the Balkans April-May 1941. It was Mussolini who dragged Hitler into the Balkan mess .On 28 October 1940 Italian troopsinvaded Greece . Invaders were soon bogged down which gave British the pretext to land troops in that country .Besides RAF bombers started operating from bases in Crete.They had the range to strike Ploesti in Rumania from where Wehrmacht drew bulk of its oil..British deployment also menaced the southern flank of German armies slated to take part in Barbarossa :invasion of Soviet Union .Germany intervened to neutralise the flank threat . Churchill's role in fomenting guerilla warfare in Nazi-occupied Europe forms underlying theme of this book. British leader's brush with partisans in the far reaches of the Empire during heydays of his youth made him advocate this mode of fighting. It must be said , however , in the final analysis the role of the guerillas in the victory over Nazi Germany appears minimal.Owing to reasons of geography guerilla warfare never struck roots in Europe,much of the continent lay inert under the Nazi jackboot.Exceptions being Greece , Yugoslavia where mountainous terrain favoured large -scale guerilla operations .Finally a few things I like about this book: Churchill during prewar years exaggerated the capabilities of Luftwaffe,failed to appreciate the role tanks would play in the coming war ,underestimated the threat posed by Japan . Information such as that he bought Spain's neutrality in the war through bribes , came very close to compromising ULTRA during the speech marking German invasion of Soviet Union , approved a plan to assassinate Hitler , 'Operation Foxley', came close to carrying it out. Upon reading this book I gained the impression that Stafford has condoned the British leader's misdemeanours ,author no doubt is a Churchill apologist. To me Churchill was the most reactionary politician thrown up by the Western World. He stroved to ensure the Britains' domination of the post war world .He resisted Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy not because they were fascist regimes rather to their interference with Britains' imperial interests. Neverthless a remarkable man ,patriot who presided his country's fortune at a critical time of her existence .To his credit it must also be said Churchill realised, unlike other leaders of the Conservative party, the threat posed by Nazi Germany could only be contained by entering into a defence alliance with the Soviet union .In June1940 he took the decisive step in his career by deciding to continue the war against Germany.