WEBVTT - The Prime Minister and the Prof 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:21.316 Pushkin. What was your mother's experience in the family. So 0:00:21.356 --> 0:00:23.516 your family is from Bengal. 0:00:24.116 --> 0:00:28.996 Yeah, my mother was about twelve years old and she 0:00:29.076 --> 0:00:32.716 was living in the city. She saw all of this 0:00:32.836 --> 0:00:36.396 starvation on the pavements, all of the people coming into 0:00:36.396 --> 0:00:39.476 the city from the villages because there was absolutely nothing 0:00:39.556 --> 0:00:43.756 left in the villages. And I had this question that 0:00:43.916 --> 0:00:46.796 no one seemed to have answered, which was why is 0:00:46.836 --> 0:00:49.236 it that no relief was sent? 0:00:50.036 --> 0:00:53.036 Motus read Mukiji, a writer and historian whose work I 0:00:53.076 --> 0:00:56.156 came across not long ago. I wanted you to read 0:00:57.276 --> 0:01:01.556 a passage from your book. Can you just read the 0:01:01.596 --> 0:01:04.436 first paragraph? I thought it was as a way of 0:01:04.476 --> 0:01:07.276 communicating to people what a famine is. 0:01:08.276 --> 0:01:13.716 In Shahpurabuda, village of the seventeenth Union of Pashkuratana, a 0:01:13.796 --> 0:01:18.116 Muslim weaver was unable to support his family and crazed 0:01:18.156 --> 0:01:22.556 with hunger, wandered away. His wife believed that he had 0:01:22.596 --> 0:01:26.756 drowned himself in the flooded Kashai River. Being unable to 0:01:26.756 --> 0:01:30.516 feed her two young sons for several days, she could 0:01:30.596 --> 0:01:34.916 no longer endure their suffering. She dropped the smaller boy, 0:01:35.116 --> 0:01:38.596 torn from her womb. The sparkle of her eye into 0:01:38.636 --> 0:01:49.276 the Kashai's frothing waters. 0:01:50.836 --> 0:01:54.156 My name is Malcolm Glabo. You're listening to Revisionist History, 0:01:54.436 --> 0:01:59.076 my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This episode is 0:01:59.076 --> 0:02:01.556 about a famine that took place in India in nineteen 0:02:01.596 --> 0:02:09.236 forty three. Famines are the immediate result of things like 0:02:09.316 --> 0:02:13.196 droughts and crop failures, packs of nature, but their cause 0:02:13.556 --> 0:02:18.636 is invariably human wars misguided policies. Right now as I'm 0:02:18.676 --> 0:02:23.356 recording this, Venezuela is facing a malnutrition crisis. A country 0:02:23.356 --> 0:02:26.036 with vast oil wealth in one of the most fertile 0:02:26.076 --> 0:02:30.556 corners of the world doesn't have enough food. Humans cause that, 0:02:31.036 --> 0:02:33.796 not nature. So what was the human cause of the 0:02:33.796 --> 0:02:38.076 Bengal famine of nineteen forty three. I think it was 0:02:38.116 --> 0:02:42.916 a friendship, but that's a much more complicated story that 0:02:43.036 --> 0:02:44.756 begins on the other side of the world. 0:02:46.436 --> 0:02:49.636 It is my great privilege to welcome Sir Charles back 0:02:49.676 --> 0:02:52.836 to our community to present him to the audience in 0:02:52.916 --> 0:03:03.236 Cambridge tonight, mister President bean Price, ladies and gentlemen. I'm 0:03:03.316 --> 0:03:08.076 very pleased, I'm very honored to be here this evening. 0:03:09.156 --> 0:03:13.836 It's nineteen sixty Harvard University. One of England's great post 0:03:13.836 --> 0:03:17.556 war intellectuals, a scientist named C. P. Snow, is giving 0:03:17.596 --> 0:03:19.716 the Godkin Lecture at the Sanders Theater. 0:03:20.436 --> 0:03:23.876 Coming to Harvard, I felt as I felt before, that 0:03:24.476 --> 0:03:27.916 in many ways this is the most splendid university I 0:03:27.956 --> 0:03:32.036 ever set foot in, and I don't feel the faintly 0:03:32.076 --> 0:03:37.956 apologetic quiver that I get at some American institutions, which 0:03:39.196 --> 0:03:43.636 I can only admire as a distant spectator, and one 0:03:43.676 --> 0:03:47.356 for which I feel, sometimes happily that I have no responsibility. 0:03:51.676 --> 0:03:55.356 Snow was a physicist by training, a high ranking scientist 0:03:55.396 --> 0:03:58.196 in the British government during the Second World War, then 0:03:58.196 --> 0:04:01.276 a best selling novelist. Back when the Nazis thought they 0:04:01.316 --> 0:04:03.396 were going to win the war, they made a list 0:04:03.436 --> 0:04:05.676 of twenty eight hundred people they were going to hand 0:04:05.676 --> 0:04:09.556 over to the Gestapo. The minute they invaded, England was 0:04:09.596 --> 0:04:14.116 on the list. In the intervening years, Snow's reputation has grown. 0:04:14.916 --> 0:04:18.276 The Sanders Theater was packed, his lecture was so long 0:04:18.356 --> 0:04:20.756 it had to be broken up over three days and 0:04:20.876 --> 0:04:25.796 was broadcast live on television. But he does something unexpected. 0:04:26.316 --> 0:04:29.156 He devotes fully half of his speech to one person, 0:04:29.796 --> 0:04:32.636 someone whom I'm guessing few Americans had ever heard of. 0:04:34.916 --> 0:04:39.636 Frederick A. Linderman born April fifth, eighteen eighty six died 0:04:39.756 --> 0:04:44.716 July third, nineteen fifty seven, otherwise known as Lord Churwell. 0:04:45.956 --> 0:04:51.556 Lindermann was by ennions a very remarkable and a very 0:04:51.596 --> 0:04:55.356 strange man. He was a real heavyweight of personality. 0:04:56.196 --> 0:04:59.156 Remember Snow's a novelist, a student of character. 0:04:59.996 --> 0:05:04.476 Linderman was quite un English. I almost thought if you 0:05:04.516 --> 0:05:06.116 met him in middle Age, would have thought he was 0:05:06.156 --> 0:05:09.436 the kind of Central European business man that when you 0:05:09.516 --> 0:05:13.036 used to meet in the more expensive hotels in Italy. 0:05:13.916 --> 0:05:19.636 He was heavy featured, pallid all, was very correctly dressed. 0:05:20.356 --> 0:05:23.556 He spoke German at least as well as he did English, 0:05:23.596 --> 0:05:26.556 and indeed under his English there was a tone of 0:05:26.636 --> 0:05:29.556 German if you could hear him at all, because he 0:05:29.596 --> 0:05:32.596 always mumbled in an extraordinarily constricted fashion. 0:05:33.916 --> 0:05:36.876 Snow is obsessed with Linderman. That's the first thing that 0:05:36.916 --> 0:05:40.556 comes across in the lecture. Frederick Lindeman was the kind 0:05:40.556 --> 0:05:44.596 of man who obsessed people. People talked about Linderman, gossiped 0:05:44.596 --> 0:05:48.036 about him, gave speeches about him. I got obsessed with him. 0:05:48.116 --> 0:05:50.956 Last summer, and by the time my Lindomania was over, 0:05:51.316 --> 0:05:54.596 I'd read six books about him, six and I think 0:05:54.636 --> 0:05:56.996 I just scratched the surface about him. 0:05:57.036 --> 0:06:02.636 There hung a kind of atmosphere of indefinable malaise. You 0:06:02.716 --> 0:06:05.676 felt that he didn't understand his own life well, and 0:06:05.716 --> 0:06:08.796 he wasn't very good at coping with the major thing. 0:06:09.116 --> 0:06:12.236 His family was ven a mercy wish, harsh tongue. They 0:06:12.236 --> 0:06:16.436 had a malicious, sadistic sense of humor. But nevertheless you 0:06:16.516 --> 0:06:20.396 felt that somehow he was lost. And I said he 0:06:20.436 --> 0:06:22.956 was a figure and made a novelist. 0:06:23.076 --> 0:06:31.876 Fingers Ith Lindermann was born in Germany. His father was 0:06:31.876 --> 0:06:35.436 a wealthy German engineer. His mother was an American heiress 0:06:36.356 --> 0:06:39.356 like C. P. Snow. He was also a physicist and 0:06:39.396 --> 0:06:42.516 got his PhD in Berlin just before the First World War, 0:06:42.716 --> 0:06:44.876 at a time when Germany was the center of the 0:06:44.916 --> 0:06:49.596 world in physics. His thesis adviser compared his mind to 0:06:49.636 --> 0:06:54.796 that of Isaac Newton. He was a captivating conversationalist, a 0:06:54.916 --> 0:06:59.236 champion tennis player. He dressed like a nineteenth century count. 0:06:59.716 --> 0:07:02.756 He was a generalist who knew more than most specialists. 0:07:03.796 --> 0:07:07.996 He could demolish anyone in an argument. Once, after Lindermann 0:07:08.036 --> 0:07:10.916 had taken a post at Oxford, Albert Einstein came to 0:07:10.956 --> 0:07:14.956 a faculty dinner and afterwards all the young physicists gathered 0:07:14.956 --> 0:07:17.876 around Einstein as you would expect them to, and their 0:07:17.876 --> 0:07:21.716 first question was what do you think of Lindermann. That 0:07:21.996 --> 0:07:24.956 was what they wanted to know. Another night, at dinner, 0:07:25.156 --> 0:07:29.076 Einstein talked about some mathematical proposition for which he'd never 0:07:29.116 --> 0:07:31.556 been able to come up with a proof. The next 0:07:31.596 --> 0:07:35.476 day Lindermann casually mentioned that he had the answer. He 0:07:35.516 --> 0:07:38.756 figured it out in his bathtub. You can see why 0:07:38.796 --> 0:07:43.676 everyone was so obsessed with him. 0:07:43.836 --> 0:07:47.396 He impressed us immensely because he was very much the 0:07:47.476 --> 0:07:48.276 man of the world. 0:07:48.796 --> 0:07:50.956 This is a friend of his, George Thompson. 0:07:51.196 --> 0:07:55.516 He was a striking person to look at, tall, slim, dark, 0:07:56.676 --> 0:07:59.116 a young kind. People said he looked like Mephistopheles. I 0:07:59.116 --> 0:08:02.276 think this is that's quite fair to him. I think 0:08:02.316 --> 0:08:07.516 he was the most exciting person to talk physics to 0:08:07.876 --> 0:08:08.996 that I have ever talked to. 0:08:09.916 --> 0:08:13.076 Even Linderman's valet sung his praises when he was interviewed 0:08:13.076 --> 0:08:13.996 by the BBC. 0:08:13.956 --> 0:08:17.756 In thirty two years so closely with him, never once 0:08:17.996 --> 0:08:25.076 seen anything slightly even remotely suggesting impropriety. The one was 0:08:25.156 --> 0:08:27.876 occasion when he was showing some films to a lady 0:08:28.996 --> 0:08:31.356 and he was the spy, and he walked behind the 0:08:31.356 --> 0:08:32.476 curtain to mop his brew. 0:08:33.876 --> 0:08:37.916 But Linderman was also profoundly eccentric. He played tennis with 0:08:37.956 --> 0:08:41.236 a shirt button to the neck, long sleeves fastened to 0:08:41.276 --> 0:08:45.636 the wrist, thick black rib socks, and white boots. People 0:08:45.676 --> 0:08:50.196 who wore shorts disgusted him. Linderman's family was eccentric as well. 0:08:50.636 --> 0:08:52.796 He had a brother named Seppi, who lived in style 0:08:52.836 --> 0:08:56.676 on the Riviera with two Rose royces. One was white 0:08:56.876 --> 0:08:59.436 and driven by a black man, the other was black 0:08:59.796 --> 0:09:02.516 and chauffeured by an albino. I'm not making that up. 0:09:03.236 --> 0:09:06.476 In his lecture, Seep Snow spends an unusual amount of 0:09:06.556 --> 0:09:08.876 time just talking about Linderman's diet. 0:09:09.756 --> 0:09:13.076 He was the most cranky of all vegetarians. He wasn't 0:09:13.076 --> 0:09:17.796 only a vegetarian, but he would only eat very minute 0:09:18.636 --> 0:09:21.876 fractions of what you might regard as a vegetarian diet, 0:09:21.916 --> 0:09:25.876 and he lived mainly on cheese, what the whites of eggs, 0:09:26.036 --> 0:09:31.396 the yoaks being apparently two animal olive oil and rites. 0:09:36.156 --> 0:09:38.796 During the Second World War, there was hardly a drop 0:09:38.796 --> 0:09:42.156 of olive oil in England, and Lindenman got his brother, Charles, 0:09:42.436 --> 0:09:45.156 who was serving in the British embassy in Washington, to 0:09:45.196 --> 0:09:47.436 put a case of olive oil in the diplomatic pouch 0:09:47.476 --> 0:09:51.916 at regular intervals to be flown back to London. At 0:09:51.956 --> 0:09:55.156 one point, when the war is getting intense, his brother 0:09:55.276 --> 0:09:59.636 doesn't send him enough oil. Lindenman goes ballistic, tell Charles, 0:09:59.676 --> 0:10:02.396 I can only suppose that he attaches no value to 0:10:02.436 --> 0:10:03.916 what I am trying to do in the war effort, 0:10:04.316 --> 0:10:06.476 that he would as soon have me go to bed, 0:10:07.396 --> 0:10:09.596 and that is what I shall have to do unless 0:10:09.596 --> 0:10:15.156 he sends me more olive oil than Europe is burning. 0:10:15.796 --> 0:10:21.356 That's what's on his mind. Lindaman was thin skinned, defensive. 0:10:21.876 --> 0:10:24.796 He'd never admit when he was wrong. He'd never change 0:10:24.796 --> 0:10:27.116 his mind once it was made up. He thought he 0:10:27.196 --> 0:10:30.636 was an expert on everything, even when he wasn't. His 0:10:30.756 --> 0:10:33.516 friend Roy Harrad once wrote of him, he would not 0:10:33.676 --> 0:10:36.636 shrink from using an argument which he knew to be wrong, 0:10:37.156 --> 0:10:39.396 if by so doing he could tie up one of 0:10:39.396 --> 0:10:49.396 his professional opponents. That was his friend, saying that CP 0:10:49.556 --> 0:10:52.356 snow remembers one New Year's Day with Lindaman in Oxford. 0:10:52.996 --> 0:10:56.476 The British Crown had just published its honors list, people 0:10:56.516 --> 0:10:59.156 who were being recognized with knighthoods and ladyships. 0:10:59.916 --> 0:11:03.316 I remarked innocently enough that the English honors list must 0:11:03.356 --> 0:11:06.876 give much more pain than pleasure, because obvious to the 0:11:06.876 --> 0:11:09.476 people who were left out, a much greater number of 0:11:09.476 --> 0:11:13.516 the people who were in. And Linderman's face lit up. 0:11:13.756 --> 0:11:16.716 He got a very somber, heavy face with very sad 0:11:16.796 --> 0:11:20.916 brown eyes. Well, these brown eyes sparkle with savagely, and 0:11:20.996 --> 0:11:24.276 he said, of course it is. It wouldn't be any 0:11:24.356 --> 0:11:26.436 use getting an award if one didn't think of all 0:11:26.476 --> 0:11:28.756 the people who were miserable because they hadn't managed it. 0:11:28.836 --> 0:11:33.916 Oh, here's what another friend said of him. He was 0:11:33.996 --> 0:11:37.196 lacking in the bond of human sympathy for every chance 0:11:37.236 --> 0:11:43.036 person who was not brought into a personal relationship with him. 0:11:43.076 --> 0:11:46.556 I think that's the crucial fact about Linderman. One time 0:11:46.596 --> 0:11:49.356 he's asked for his definition of morality, and he answers, 0:11:49.716 --> 0:11:53.476 I define a moral action as one that brings advantage 0:11:53.516 --> 0:11:58.156 to my friends. Frederick Linderman was a man who put 0:11:58.196 --> 0:12:02.436 his friends first, to the exclusion of all other moral considerations. 0:12:02.676 --> 0:12:05.956 Now why does that matter? Why would CP snow devote 0:12:05.996 --> 0:12:08.756 three days to this man whom few people in the 0:12:08.756 --> 0:12:12.956 audience had ever heard of? Because of who Frederick Lindemann's 0:12:13.156 --> 0:12:17.756 best friend was. The man who defined a moral action 0:12:17.996 --> 0:12:21.636 as one that brings advantage to my friends was best 0:12:21.636 --> 0:12:23.676 friends with Winston Churchill. 0:12:24.236 --> 0:12:28.196 We are the masters of our fate. That the task 0:12:28.316 --> 0:12:31.036 which han't been set us is not above our strength, 0:12:31.876 --> 0:12:34.356 that it's pangs and toils are. 0:12:34.276 --> 0:12:35.876 Not beyond our endurance. 0:12:37.836 --> 0:12:40.716 I'm guessing you think of Churchill as a hero, the 0:12:40.756 --> 0:12:44.156 man who bravely led the fight against Adolf Hitler. But 0:12:44.236 --> 0:12:47.996 once I learned about his friend, I don't know. Churchill 0:12:47.996 --> 0:12:49.116 will never be the same for me. 0:12:50.236 --> 0:12:53.556 People have often speculated on why this friendship. I mean, 0:12:53.996 --> 0:12:59.716 an extremely cranky, non smoking, non drinking vegetarian doesn't sound 0:12:59.756 --> 0:13:05.796 the obvious soul mate for also, of course, so Winston. 0:13:05.836 --> 0:13:10.156 I can only answer that. But to give any sense suggestion, 0:13:10.236 --> 0:13:12.276 and you would have to know both men not only well, 0:13:12.316 --> 0:13:14.476 but as well as they knew each other. One can 0:13:14.556 --> 0:13:16.916 make guesses, But why any. 0:13:16.676 --> 0:13:22.596 Friendship Linderman and Churchill met each other in nineteen twenty 0:13:22.596 --> 0:13:25.116 one at a dinner in London. It was arranged by 0:13:25.116 --> 0:13:30.356 the Duke and Duchess of Westminster. Linderman would always say 0:13:30.356 --> 0:13:32.316 that only two people in the world were smarter than 0:13:32.356 --> 0:13:36.956 he was Einstein, of course, and Churchill and Churchill felt 0:13:36.996 --> 0:13:39.756 the same way. If you read some of the letters 0:13:39.796 --> 0:13:44.916 Churchill writes Linderman, they're almost worshipful. The psychologist Daniel Wegner 0:13:45.156 --> 0:13:48.876 has this beautiful concept called transactive memory, which is the 0:13:48.876 --> 0:13:52.756 observation that we don't just store information in our minds 0:13:52.956 --> 0:13:57.156 or in specific places. We store memories and understanding in 0:13:57.196 --> 0:14:00.196 the minds of the people we love. You don't need 0:14:00.236 --> 0:14:03.996 to remember your child's emotional relationship to her teacher because 0:14:04.036 --> 0:14:06.996 you know your wife will. You don't have to remember 0:14:07.196 --> 0:14:09.956 how to work the remote because you know your daughter will. 0:14:10.356 --> 0:14:14.796 That's transactive memory. Little bits of ourselves reside in other 0:14:14.836 --> 0:14:20.716 people's minds. You know, when one half of a long 0:14:20.756 --> 0:14:24.036 marriage dies and the surviving partner says that some part 0:14:24.036 --> 0:14:27.036 of them has died along with her spouse. Wegner has 0:14:27.076 --> 0:14:31.236 a heartbreaking riff about how that is actually true. When 0:14:31.236 --> 0:14:34.516 your partner dies, everything that you have stored in your 0:14:34.596 --> 0:14:39.156 partner's brain dies along with them. Churchill is in a 0:14:39.196 --> 0:14:43.916 transactive relationship with Lindemann. Think about it. Churchill is a 0:14:43.916 --> 0:14:46.996 man of the big picture, a visionary. He is a 0:14:46.996 --> 0:14:51.436 deep intuitive understanding of human psychology and history. But he 0:14:51.516 --> 0:14:55.516 struggles with depression. He has mood swings. He's impulsive, he's 0:14:55.556 --> 0:14:58.756 a gambler. He has no head for figures. Throughout his 0:14:58.796 --> 0:15:02.396 life he's always losing huge amounts of money on foolish investments. 0:15:03.196 --> 0:15:06.476 In nineteen thirty five, Churchill spent the modern equivalent of 0:15:06.636 --> 0:15:11.516 sixty two thousand dollars on on Champagne in one year. 0:15:12.276 --> 0:15:15.076 Within a month of becoming Prime Minister, he was broke, 0:15:15.276 --> 0:15:19.636 literally broke. Here we have a man of volatile temperament 0:15:19.916 --> 0:15:22.716 with no way to bring order to his life. So 0:15:22.876 --> 0:15:27.796 who does he become best friends with? Frederick Lindemann. Someone disciplined, 0:15:28.116 --> 0:15:32.556 almost fanatically consistent, someone who ate the same three things 0:15:32.596 --> 0:15:35.956 every meal of every day. Someone so naturally at home 0:15:35.996 --> 0:15:38.476 in the world of numbers that, even as a child 0:15:38.556 --> 0:15:41.796 he would read newspapers and recite back reams and reams 0:15:41.796 --> 0:15:48.476 of statistics from memory. When Churchill becomes Prime Minister in 0:15:48.556 --> 0:15:51.876 nineteen forty, just after the war breaks out. He takes 0:15:51.916 --> 0:15:55.716 Lindeman with him, first as scientific advisor, then he gets 0:15:55.796 --> 0:15:58.796 him a job in the war cabinet as the Paymaster General, 0:15:59.516 --> 0:16:02.756 and Lindenman becomes a kind of gatekeeper to Churchill's mind. 0:16:03.676 --> 0:16:06.796 Over the course of the war. He writes Churchill two 0:16:06.796 --> 0:16:11.276 thousand memos, basically one a day, double spaced, large print, 0:16:11.716 --> 0:16:14.836 no more than a page or two, reducing some complicated 0:16:14.956 --> 0:16:20.036 question to its essence. Lindenman travels with Churchill to international conferences. 0:16:20.316 --> 0:16:23.556 He dines with him. Lindenman never drinks unless he's eating 0:16:23.556 --> 0:16:26.756 with Churchill, who's a big drinker. Then he drinks. He 0:16:26.796 --> 0:16:30.036 goes to Churchill's country house on the weekends. People spot 0:16:30.076 --> 0:16:32.076 them at three in the morning, sitting by the fire 0:16:32.556 --> 0:16:37.436 reading the newspaper together. One time, in Parliament, another MP 0:16:37.716 --> 0:16:41.876 criticizes Lindermann, and Churchill goes crazy. He says, love me, 0:16:42.236 --> 0:16:44.596 love my dog, and if you don't love my dog, 0:16:44.676 --> 0:16:47.676 you damn well can't love me. And that's high praise, 0:16:48.116 --> 0:16:51.516 because remember, to an Englishman of that generation, the only 0:16:51.556 --> 0:16:54.956 living creature you're allowed to show affection for is your dog. 0:17:01.396 --> 0:17:05.276 Drew occurred in nineteen forty two, and it occurred over 0:17:05.316 --> 0:17:06.396 a strategic bombing. 0:17:07.196 --> 0:17:10.356 The heart of Snow's lecture is about an argument that 0:17:10.396 --> 0:17:14.116 took place at the highest reaches of British government. The 0:17:14.236 --> 0:17:16.956 question was what was the best use of the Royal 0:17:17.036 --> 0:17:18.636 Air Force against the Germans? 0:17:19.196 --> 0:17:21.476 And it was quite right that the leaders of the 0:17:21.476 --> 0:17:25.316 West should be looking for anything which would play a 0:17:25.436 --> 0:17:26.996 serious part in the war. 0:17:27.916 --> 0:17:30.596 One school of thoughts says, let's use our bombers to 0:17:30.596 --> 0:17:35.516 support military activities, protecting ships against German U boats, destroying 0:17:35.556 --> 0:17:39.396 German factories. The other school of thought argues that bombing 0:17:39.436 --> 0:17:43.076 ought to serve a bigger strategic purpose. In other words, 0:17:43.316 --> 0:17:46.316 let's use bombing to break the will of the German people. 0:17:46.956 --> 0:17:49.796 Let's make their lives so miserable that they give up. 0:17:53.836 --> 0:17:57.356 The UK's military leadership was fanatical about the virtues of 0:17:57.396 --> 0:18:01.796 strategic bombing, but Churchill was on the fence. So what 0:18:01.836 --> 0:18:04.756 did he do? He turned to Lindenman, of course, and 0:18:04.796 --> 0:18:08.716 asked Lindemann to do a formal study of strategic bombing's effectiveness. 0:18:09.356 --> 0:18:12.596 That's the sort of analytical question Churchill had always turned 0:18:12.596 --> 0:18:15.876 over to his best friend and Linnemann says, let's look 0:18:15.876 --> 0:18:18.916 at the English cities of Hull and Birmingham, both of 0:18:18.956 --> 0:18:22.556 which were bombed heavily by the Germans. He analyzes the data, 0:18:22.996 --> 0:18:26.796 then writes one of his famous memos to Churchill. I'm 0:18:26.876 --> 0:18:32.036 quoting now from Lineman's memmo. Investigation seems to show that 0:18:32.156 --> 0:18:37.316 having one's house demolished is most dangerous to morale. People 0:18:37.356 --> 0:18:39.356 seem to mind it more than having their friends or 0:18:39.356 --> 0:18:43.356 even relatives killed. At Hull, signs of strain were evident. 0:18:43.676 --> 0:18:47.076 Though only one tenth of the homes were demolished. On 0:18:47.116 --> 0:18:49.436 the above figures, we could do as much harm to 0:18:49.476 --> 0:18:53.076 each of the fifty eight principal German towns. There seems 0:18:53.196 --> 0:18:56.036 little doubt that this would break the spirit of the 0:18:56.076 --> 0:19:03.396 German people. Strategic bombing is about making an all out 0:19:03.436 --> 0:19:07.196 assault on the homes and the lives of German civilians, 0:19:07.796 --> 0:19:12.836 not soldiers, innocent people. There's a moment in Snow's speech 0:19:12.996 --> 0:19:16.196 when he stops because he can't believe, with the benefit 0:19:16.236 --> 0:19:19.156 of fifteen years hindsight, that he was part of a 0:19:19.196 --> 0:19:21.796 government that thought that this was the right thing to do. 0:19:22.716 --> 0:19:26.116 What our descendants will think of us, I don't know 0:19:26.796 --> 0:19:31.076 Will they think, as Roger Williams said of some Indians, 0:19:31.076 --> 0:19:35.756 that we were wolves with the minds of men? Will 0:19:35.796 --> 0:19:38.036 they think we resigned our humanity? 0:19:38.076 --> 0:19:41.716 Eh? But you won't find any of those kinds of 0:19:41.716 --> 0:19:46.396 considerations in Linenman's memo to Churchill. It's very matter of fact. 0:19:46.676 --> 0:19:50.916 It's all about what the data says, except for one 0:19:50.956 --> 0:19:58.236 thing that's not what the data says. The Birmingham Hall 0:19:58.276 --> 0:20:02.516 study reached the exact opposite conclusion that Linnenmann did. It 0:20:02.676 --> 0:20:05.516 said that, and I'm quoting in neither town. Was there 0:20:05.636 --> 0:20:08.436 any evidence of panic resulting from either a series of 0:20:08.516 --> 0:20:15.916 raids or from a single rate. Lindenman also makes estimates 0:20:16.076 --> 0:20:19.636 on how many German homes the British could destroy. Other 0:20:19.676 --> 0:20:23.236 experts in the government critics of strategic bombing point out 0:20:23.276 --> 0:20:28.636 immediately that Lindemann's numbers are ridiculous, five or six times 0:20:28.676 --> 0:20:33.836 too high, based on obvious errors. Doesn't matter. Remember what 0:20:33.956 --> 0:20:37.476 one of Lindenman's friends said, he would not shrink from 0:20:37.596 --> 0:20:40.476 using an argument which he knew to be wrong, if 0:20:40.516 --> 0:20:42.556 by so doing he could tie up one of his 0:20:42.676 --> 0:20:48.756 professional opponents. Lindenman wanted strategic bombing, so Churchill went ahead 0:20:49.036 --> 0:20:50.876 and ordered the bombing of German cities. 0:20:52.036 --> 0:20:54.596 No one had ever thought how these bomber forces were 0:20:54.596 --> 0:20:57.196 really to be used. It was just an act of faith. 0:20:57.236 --> 0:21:00.316 This was a way to fight a war. And I 0:21:00.316 --> 0:21:03.436 think it's fair to say that Lindermann was with as 0:21:03.556 --> 0:21:08.316 usual extreme intensity, as committed to this faith as any 0:21:08.316 --> 0:21:08.996 men in England. 0:21:11.156 --> 0:21:15.356 So what happened? Most historians agree that strategic bombing was 0:21:15.396 --> 0:21:19.836 a disaster. One hundred and sixty thousand US and English 0:21:19.836 --> 0:21:24.076 airmen and hundreds of thousands of German civilians were killed 0:21:24.116 --> 0:21:27.436 in those bombing campaigns. Many of Europe's most beautiful cities 0:21:27.476 --> 0:21:32.116 were destroyed, and German morale didn't crack. The Germans fought 0:21:32.116 --> 0:21:35.796 to the bitter end. After the war, the Nobel Prize 0:21:35.796 --> 0:21:39.636 winning physicist Patrick Blackett wrote a devastating essay where he 0:21:39.676 --> 0:21:42.596 said that the war could have been won six months 0:21:42.676 --> 0:21:45.636 or even a year earlier, if only the British should 0:21:45.716 --> 0:21:50.116 use their bombers more intelligently. There should have been a 0:21:50.196 --> 0:21:53.996 proper debate about strategic bombing in the British war. Cabinet 0:21:54.436 --> 0:21:59.116 numbers should have been scrutinized, hard questions should have been asked. 0:21:59.236 --> 0:22:02.116 But how can you have a real debate against Churchill's 0:22:02.116 --> 0:22:06.916 best friend. Friendship comes first. That's the thing that makes 0:22:06.956 --> 0:22:11.356 friendship so powerful and beautiful, except when your friend is 0:22:11.356 --> 0:22:14.436 feeding you falsehoods and your loyalty to him means that 0:22:14.516 --> 0:22:16.276 you can't see them. 0:22:17.436 --> 0:22:21.196 Cherwell was a loner. He had no one in his 0:22:21.316 --> 0:22:23.356 life he loved except I think Churchill. 0:22:23.916 --> 0:22:27.436 Motusary Mukiji. She's the voice you heard at the beginning 0:22:27.436 --> 0:22:31.356 of this episode talking about a famine in India. She's 0:22:31.356 --> 0:22:33.836 a historian who wrote a book a few years ago 0:22:33.916 --> 0:22:37.676 called Churchill's Secret War. It's about what happened in the 0:22:37.716 --> 0:22:41.636 Indian province of Bengal during the war. The Cherwell she 0:22:41.716 --> 0:22:45.836 is referring to is Frederick Lindeman. In nineteen forty one, 0:22:46.156 --> 0:22:50.996 Churchill gave him a peerage, Lord Cherwell. Mukuji prefers to 0:22:51.036 --> 0:22:54.036 call him by his formal name. When I got obsessed 0:22:54.076 --> 0:22:56.956 with Lindenman, Mukujie's book was the last one I read 0:22:57.676 --> 0:23:00.876 and maybe the most important. If you think of C. P. 0:23:01.116 --> 0:23:05.076 Snow's lecture as chapter one in the Frederick Lindeman Winston 0:23:05.156 --> 0:23:09.916 Churchill Love Story, Mukerjee's book is the final pressing chapter 0:23:10.636 --> 0:23:11.036 It was. 0:23:10.956 --> 0:23:14.396 Clearly the only person he ever loved in his life. 0:23:14.436 --> 0:23:15.436 There was no one else. 0:23:16.236 --> 0:23:19.276 India was still a British colony during the war, governed 0:23:19.316 --> 0:23:23.556 by a viceroy sent from England. Like all British colonial possessions, 0:23:24.036 --> 0:23:26.636 India was a major part of the war effort. They 0:23:26.676 --> 0:23:30.476 exported food for the Allies. They sent hundreds of thousands 0:23:30.476 --> 0:23:31.956 of soldiers to fight the Germans. 0:23:32.396 --> 0:23:38.156 At the entire industrial production, the entire cloth production, wool, silk, timber, 0:23:38.476 --> 0:23:40.356 you name it, it was being used for the war. 0:23:42.636 --> 0:23:46.476 In wartime, countries operate right at the brink, and in 0:23:46.556 --> 0:23:49.756 late nineteen forty two, there's a kind of perfect storm 0:23:49.756 --> 0:23:53.876 in India's northeastern corner that pushes the region over the edge. 0:23:55.316 --> 0:23:58.996 First of all, the Japanese capture Burma, which sits on 0:23:59.076 --> 0:24:03.036 India's northeastern border. India used to import rice from Burma. 0:24:03.356 --> 0:24:07.196 Now they can't. The British are terrified that japan will 0:24:07.196 --> 0:24:10.316 invade India until they order a score earth policy. All 0:24:10.356 --> 0:24:15.676 along the northeastern border and coast, they destroy stocks of rice, boats, bicycles, 0:24:16.156 --> 0:24:19.196 anything they think that might help the Japanese if they invade. 0:24:20.036 --> 0:24:24.516 Then there's a cyclone twenty foot storm surge kills thirty 0:24:24.596 --> 0:24:28.716 thousand people. The new rice crop is devastated. The government panics. 0:24:29.356 --> 0:24:31.116 They don't know how they're going to feed their troops, 0:24:31.556 --> 0:24:33.756 so they go into all the towns and start buying 0:24:33.796 --> 0:24:38.116 up rice. The price sores. Speculators step in and start 0:24:38.156 --> 0:24:41.716 hoarding rice. That's exactly how famines start. 0:24:42.196 --> 0:24:44.996 What you have is by the end of nineteen forty 0:24:45.036 --> 0:24:48.916 two you have the Vicero of India making fervent pleas 0:24:49.036 --> 0:24:51.956 to the wark Eminet in London for imports of wheat. 0:24:52.716 --> 0:24:56.156 The police go to Lindeman he's Paymaster General in the 0:24:56.196 --> 0:24:59.916 War Cabinet, which means he's basically the government's logistics man, 0:25:00.396 --> 0:25:02.956 the one responsible for making sure there are enough food 0:25:02.996 --> 0:25:07.276 and supplies for England and its allies. Lindemann says, no, 0:25:07.916 --> 0:25:09.876 we're in the middle of a war. We can't spare 0:25:09.916 --> 0:25:12.396 the food, and even if we could, we have no 0:25:12.516 --> 0:25:15.716 way of getting the food to India were tapped out. 0:25:15.916 --> 0:25:20.876 Throughout the spring of nineteen forty three. The Viceroy is saying, 0:25:20.876 --> 0:25:24.716 we absolutely need this, we absolutely need this food, and 0:25:24.876 --> 0:25:27.236 Turwi is saying we can't spare the ships. We can't 0:25:27.236 --> 0:25:28.356 spare the ships. 0:25:28.276 --> 0:25:33.636 But Mukuji wonders is that true. Was Lindaman telling another lie. 0:25:34.596 --> 0:25:37.236 She then does something no historian had ever done before. 0:25:37.956 --> 0:25:40.596 She digs into the British shipping archive from the war, 0:25:40.996 --> 0:25:44.756 which had just been declassified, files that literally hadn't been 0:25:44.796 --> 0:25:47.556 opened in sixty years, and she finds out that the 0:25:47.556 --> 0:25:51.756 British had lots of food in nineteen forty three, huge stockpiles, 0:25:52.316 --> 0:25:54.716 so much that the Americans, who were the source of 0:25:54.716 --> 0:25:57.316 a lot of that food, got suspicious that the British 0:25:57.396 --> 0:26:00.156 were hoarding surplus weak to sell when the war was over. 0:26:01.236 --> 0:26:05.596 And what about the UK's supposed shortage of boats. Mukuji says, 0:26:05.956 --> 0:26:08.276