Anglo-American Establishment полностью

Group in the United States since the death of George Louis Beer. Dr. Aydelotte was one

of the original Rhodes Scholars, attending Brasenose in 1905-1907. He was president of

Swarthmore from 1921 to 1940; has been American secretary to the Rhodes Trustees

since 1918; has been president of the Association of American Rhodes Scholars since

1930; has been a trustee of the Carnegie Foundation since 1922; and was a member of the

Council on Foreign Relations for many years. In 1937, along with three other members of

the Milner Group, he received from Oxford (and Lord Halifax) the honorary degree of

Doctor of Civil Law. The other three recipients who were members of the Group were

Brand, Ormsby-Gore, and Sir Herbert Baker, the famous architect.

As soon as Streit's book was published, it was hailed by Lord Lothian in an interview

with the press. Shortly afterwards, Lothian gave it a favorable review in the Christian

Science Monitor of 6 May 1939. The book was distributed to educational institutions in

various places by the Carnegie Foundation and was greeted in the June 1939 issue of The

Round Table as "the only way." This article said: "There is, indeed, no other cure.... In

The Commonwealth of God Mr. Lionel Curtis showed how history and religion pointed

down the same path. It is one of the great merits of Mr. Streit's book that he translates the

general theme into a concrete plan, which he presents, not for the indefinite hereafter, but

for our own generation, now." In the September 1939 issue, in an article headed "Union:

Oceanic or Continental," The Round Table contrasted Streit's plan with that for European

union offered by Count Coudenhove-Kalergi and gave the arguments for both.

While all this was going on, the remorseless wheels of appeasement were grinding out

of existence one country after another. The fatal loss was Czechoslovakia. This disaster

was engineered by Chamberlain with the full cooperation of the Milner Group. The

details do not concern us here, but it should be mentioned that the dispute arose over the

position of the Sudeten Germans within the Czechoslovak state, and as late as 15

September 1938 was still being expressed in those terms. Up to that day, Hitler had made

no demand to annex the Sudeten area, although on 12 September he had for the first time

asked for "self-determination" for the Sudetens. Konrad Henlein, Hitler's agent in

Czechoslovakia and leader of the Sudeten Germans, expressed no desire "to go back to

the Reich" until after 12 September. Who, then, first demanded frontier rectification in

favor of Germany? Chamberlain did so privately on 10 May 1938, and the Milner Group

did so publicly on 7 September 1938. The Chamberlain suggestion was made by one of

those "calculated indiscretions" of which he was so fond, at an "off-the-record" meeting

with certain Canadian and American newspaper reporters at a luncheon arranged by Lady

Astor and held at her London house. On this occasion Chamberlain spoke of his plans for

a four-power pact to exclude Russia from Europe and the possibility of frontier revisions

in favor of Germany to settle the Sudeten issue. When the news leaked out, as it was

bound to do, Chamberlain was questioned in Commons by Geoffrey Mander on 20 June

but refused to answer, calling his questioner a troublemaker. This answer was criticized

by Sir Archibald Sinclair the following day, but he received no better treatment. Lady

Astor, however, interjected, "I would like to say that there is not a word of truth in it." By

27 June, however, she had a change of heart and stated: "I never had any intention of

denying that the Prime Minister had attended a luncheon at my house. The Prime

Minister did so attend, the object being to enable some American journalists who had not

previously met him to do so privately and informally, and thus to make his

acquaintance."

The second suggestion for revision of frontiers also had an Astor flavor, since it

appeared as a leading article in The Times on 7 September 1938. The outraged cries of

protest from all sides which greeted this suggestion made it clear that further softening up

of the British public was urgently necessary before it would be safe to hand over

Czechoslovakia to Hitler. This was done in the war-scare of September 15-28 in London.

That this war-scare was fraudulent and that Lord Halifax was deeply involved in its

creation is now clear. All the evidence cannot be given here. There is no evidence

whatever that the Chamberlain government intended to fight over Czechoslovakia unless

this was the only alternative to falling from office. Even at the height of the crisis, when

all ways out without war seemed closed (27 September), Chamberlain showed what he

thought of the case by telling the British people over the BBC that the issue was "a

quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing."