Unpacked boxes of paper heaped on every available surface, Enoch Powell greeted me at the door of his office. We shook hands and made some desultory conversation about the state of my health. Then he guided me across to an armchair placed before his desk. I winced from the undrugged pain of all my bruises and cuts and settled into the soft upholstery. Powell stood over me with his desk lighter. I pursed still swollen lips as I sucked on the Capstan and waited for the faint wavering of shapes and colours about me to settle.
“Dr Markham,” Powell said in his intense Midlands accent, “I am most grateful that you were able to leave your bed and attend on me with such promptness.” I took out my cigarette and smiled carefully. It was Monday the 16 March, and the wireless in the carrying chair that had brought me here had been carrying reports from Berlin of the twentieth anniversary commemoration of Hitler’s death. The flags in the Mall had been at half mast, and there was a small gathering of elderly national socialists shouting back at some half-hearted Communist Party protestors.
I looked at Powell. He seemed very pleased with himself. Well he might, I supposed. Halifax still wasn’t back from Africa, but news of Powell’s transfer from the India Office had been the lead story in the previous evening’s news. If the official gazetting would have to wait another few days, Powell was to all intents and purposes already the new Foreign Secretary. He sat at what had been Macmillan’s desk, a large portrait of Castlereagh behind him. It looked across at a portrait of Canning on the far wall. I twisted in the chair to find a point of least discomfort and tried for another smile.
“You will appreciate, Dr Markham,” he continued, “that your services cannot be officially acknowledged. Even so, they have been considerable, and I am glad you are able to be here this morning to receive the private thanks of Her Majesty’s Government.” He paused and tried for a smile as his eyes looked straight through me.
“Since this meeting is covered by official secrecy,” I said, “do you think you might be able to tell me something of what you were up to?” As if I’d accused him of dipping into the church collection, he raised his eyebrows. I took another suck on my Capstan and looked unwaveringly back. “Obviously, there was no Churchill Memorandum,” I added. “At least, if the pages Macmillan had were genuine, what you got your agents to plant on me in America was a forgery. Can I suppose it follows that there were no Pressburg Accords—no shameful secrets about the destruction of America? Was all this just a game you were playing with Macmillan—a game you’ve now won.”
Powell raised his eyebrows again. But there was now a knock on the door. As it opened, I heard the rattle of a refreshments trolley. I waited while a cup of what looked like brown, steaming treacle was place on a little table before me. I looked at it, and reached for a custard cream. Without turning, I heard the door close again. Powell was on his feet and walking over to perch by the window.
“It may be on account of their mixed parentage,” he said, “that neither Mr Churchill nor Mr Macmillan was able to appreciate one simple fact.” He held up a hand to silence what he thought would be a comment from me, and pressed on. “This, Dr Markham, is that there is room on this planet for only one English-speaking great power. All the talk one used to hear about the brotherly affection of the Anglo-Saxon powers was never more than an attempt to hide the jealous struggle of two close relatives for an estate that could never be divided.
“In 1917, in circumstances I do not have to describe, but that gave us no feasible alternative, we played the part of the apprentice in the old tale. We took out a book of spells and uttered the fateful words that called America to life within the greater world. During the next five years, we watched helpless as the Americans reduced that world to still greater chaos than it already knew. We could not stop them as they dictated a peace agreement that made a joke of the balance of power. We did stop them from building what they called ‘a fleet second to none’—but only at the expense of nearly alienating of our Japanese allies in the East. Then, their own internal politics, and then the accident of their economic collapse, gave us a respite of fifteen years. It was never more than a respite. We could still watch the giant stretching its mighty limbs within its own confines—reaching out now with its cultural, now with its financial, arm into the world. We measured ourselves against that growing strength, and thanked Providence for the respite we had been given.
“Once we began rearming in 1937, however, it did seem as if our respite was at an end. As we strained every muscle for the coming renewal of struggle with Germany, we looked once more across the Atlantic for help, and watched again as our own money revived those torpid but vast industries. Had we gone to war in 1939 or 1940, there is no doubt that we should eventually have needed to repeat the spell we cast in 1917. And there is no doubt that the eventual defeat of Germany would have been as great in its own way a defeat for ourselves. Do you for a moment suppose that, folded in that gigantic embrace, we could have remained a great power? Do you suppose we might even have remained independent in any meaningful sense?
“Then, by one of those strokes of a Providence that, ever mysterious, have never been wanting in the history of our nation, the headlong rush into another Great War abruptly ceased. And what Providence supplied, the foresight of Mr Chamberlain and Lord Halifax secured.
“I am in no position to tell you what, if any, verbal undertakings were made in Pressburg. But such secret undertakings as may have been made did no more to the United States than the United States—in some other manner, perhaps—would have done to England and to Germany.”
“And you think that the restored equilibrium that came out of Pressburg can be continued forever?” I broke in. “Russia will get the Bomb within ten years—so, at least, Foot assured me. And Anslinger can’t go on much longer. The Treaty of Pressburg, surely, was just another respite.” Powell gave me one of his frigid smiles and walked over to stand beside the trolley. He poured himself a cup of tea and sipped with mild approval.
“Nothing, Dr Markham, is forever,” he said. “The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils. By the nature of things, however, the artifices of one generation must be supplemented by those of the next. All we can do is try to ensure that our own prevention of evils does not raise up less surmountable problems for those who take our place.
“In a country like England, there is no shortage of wisdom and forethought. There is also no shortage of folly, and even of what may be regarded—if only in its effects—as treason. These qualities are not abstractions. They are manifest in the characters of men. If, from time to time, the Divine Providence gives chances, it is up to us to seize those chances. It is for us to ensure that men such as Harold Macmillan said he wished to raise to greatness shall remain in harmless obscurity.”
Powell sat down again behind his desk. He looked past me at the portrait of Canning, and laughed without any sign of joy. I lit another cigarette and wondered when I could take myself aside for a shot of morphine that would get me through the rest of the day.
“Next year,” he struck up again, “or the year after that, we shall stretch forth the hand of renewed friendship across the Atlantic. The Americans may sniff it with hostile suspicion. They may affect to detect a few spots on it of their own blood. They will ask by what tune of our own composition they are being called to the dance. But they will allow us to help them through their first and tottering steps. For the moment, things remain exactly as they have been for the past few decades.” He looked at me and past me to the Canning portrait. “The balance of the old world is not yet in need of redress. Until such time as it is, the new world has no need to exist.