December 12, 2024 • 30 mins
How exactly did Winston Churchill go about directing and managing first the Battle of Britain and then Britain’s part in the wider war? Did he act like a CEO or more like a Chairman of the Board when dealing with the British government? Allen Packwood, the Director of the Churchill Archives Centre at the University of Cambridge, joins us to explain the decisions that Churchill had to make, and how that helps understand his leadership styles. A fascinating and eye-opening show! Episode 575.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Hello, everyone, that's Professor Buzzkill here, your favorite history professor.
Fortunately for you, we have on the line Alan Packwood,
who's here from the Churchill Archive Center at Churchill College
and the University of Cambridge to talk to us about
how Churchill waged war the most challenging decisions of the
Second World War. Thank you so much for coming on
(00:35):
the show having me. As you and I were talking
about before the show started. You know, most Americans here
Churchill and they think of great speeches, they think of
inspirational leadership, things like that, but they don't actually know
very much about how he ran the war. And everything
I've read in it, especially your work, leads me to
(00:56):
believe that, sure, the speeches were important in the in
their own way, but what really wins the war is
how he runs it as a sort of chief executive.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Oh well, well, I'm glad you picked up on this
because I think it is the main theme of the book.
I mean, really, what motivated me to write this book
was to try and answer the question, well, what did
Churchill actually do? Rather than what did Churchill say? It's
very interesting that at the end of the war, as
(01:29):
he was traveling out to Italy, with his doctor. He
made the point that he didn't want to be remembered
just for his wartime speeches, that he felt that he
actually he had contributed to some of the big military decisions,
and so that really sort of got me thinking, well,
then you know, what are those decisions and what was
(01:50):
his approach to wartime government.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Well, I think the crucial thing we need to establish
first is that again, most of our listeners in America,
they won't necessarily understand how a British prime minister works,
and up until Churchill in the war, I think it's
fair to say that the prime minister acted sort of
as a chairman of the board. But this change is
and has to change.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
It does I mean the first thing I would say,
of course, just to remind your listeners that Churchill is
not elected prime minister in May nineteen fourteen. He's actually
there really as a result of a Westminster coup. He's
there as a result of the fact that the Labor
Party and a significant portion of the Conservative Party made
(02:36):
it clear that they no longer want to serve under
Neville Chamberlain. And it is clear that Chamberlain is going
to have to restructure the government that he needs to
bring in the opposition parties, and once the Labor leaders
have made it clear that they won't serve under him,
then there's going to have to be somebody else in charge.
The choice falls on Churchill or Halifax, the Conservative Foreign
(02:58):
Secretary's really a choice, as I think I say in
the book, between a hawk and a dove. You know,
it's quite clear that the new Prime Minister is going
to have to be drawn from the ranks of the
Conservative Party, because the Conservative Party is the biggest party
in the House of Commons. But it's going to have
to be someone who can bring together a national coalition.
(03:18):
Churchill has been the most bellicost member of Chamberlain's war cabinet,
whereas it's clear that Halifax takes a rather different line
and favors some form of negotiation if possible, And I
think Halifax probably senses that the mood of the House
of Commons is far more with Churchill than it is
with him. So Churchill becomes the Prime Minister in May
(03:41):
nineteen forty, but actually he's not in a particularly strong
political position. He hasn't been elected prime minister. He has
really very little choice as to who he brings into
his initial war cabinet, he has to bring in his predecessor,
Neville Chamberlain, who's still the leader of the Conservative Party
at this point. Halfax is such a powerful figure that
(04:04):
he can't be ignored and has to remain Foreign Secretary.
And then he has to bring in the labor leaders
Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood, who you know, these are
people who Churchill has spent much of the last decade
criticizing and attacking in Parliament.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
So as he looks around that.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Cabinet table its first meetings on sort of early May
nineteen forty, this is not a cabinet of his choosing.
It's not a cabinet of natural friends to him.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
So he's not in a.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Particularly strong political position. And his response to that, I
think is really interesting. And one of the first things
that he does is to make himself not just Prime
Minister but also Minister of Defense. And this, of course
is a new position one that he is creating. Up
until this point, the armed forces have been represented by
(04:58):
their own ministers in cabinet. So First Lord of the
Admiralty has represented the Navy, the Secretary of State for War,
the Army, the Secretary of State for Air the Royal
Air Force. By making himself Minister of Defense, Churchill effectively
demotes those ministers. They're no longer members of the war cabinet.
And what it means is that the chiefs of staff
(05:18):
are now reporting into him directly, and he is chairing
the key committee on Military operations, so he is putting
himself right at the center of the military decision making
as well as the political decision making. And this is
why I say, actually, you know, he's quite clear that
he's going to get his hands dirty, that he's going
(05:39):
to be not playing the chairman's role but the chief
Executive CEO's role here, and.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
I think it's a very important decision.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
It sends out a very clear message that he is
going to play this sort of hands on role, and
what it allows him to do is to centralize power
in Downing Street, because it allows him to bring together
this military secretariat which is serving him as Minister of Defense,
with the cabinet secretariats which is serving him as Prime Minister,
(06:10):
along with his own specialist advisors, and meld them into
one machine at the center, which is then playing a
sort of critical role in running the war. So he
brings in Desmond Morton to help advise him on intelligence matters,
and he brings in the Oxford physicist Frederick linderman to
advise him on scientific issues. Effectively, he's the first British
(06:34):
prime minister to have a scientific advisor in Downing Street,
and he sets up under Lindermann a statistical unit, which
is basically an information unit which is gathering information on
all the issues that the Prime Minister might be concerned
with and feeding it to him in sort of digestible
and often graphical graph format so that you know, he
(06:57):
can be briefed when speaking to his other ministers or
or speaking to the American President. So it is about
creating this machine to run the war at the center,
which brings together the key sort of political and military staffs.
Churchill had a reputation for being quite overbearing in meetings
(07:19):
and before he becomes Prime minister. One of the main
criticisms of him from his contemporaries is that you know
he will try and dominate the meetings and control the agenda.
And I think the problem he has is that before
he becomes Prime minister, he doesn't actually have either the
responsibility or the machine to convert that sort of drive
(07:41):
and dynamism into action. So when he's chairing the Military
Coordination Committee under Chamberlain, it's described as being like a
vehicle with one wheel that is far too large and
consequently it won't work. But the important thing is that
once he's in the center, then the machine can be
geared around him, and I think that's what makes him
(08:02):
an effective war leader.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Well, to a lot of people, this was seemed to
be the obvious thing to do. After all, this is
a war, it's a new type of war. It's a
more massive war than anyone's ever seen before. But it's
also changing the British governing system. Was there much pushback
among his colleagues or people saying, oh, no, he's trying
to become a president.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
I think if you're going to do it, if you're
going to make this change, then the spring of nineteen
forty is clearly the moment to do it. And I
suppose what really enables Churchill to get away with this
is the fact that on the same day that he
becomes Prime Minister, at the tenth of May nineteen forty,
Hitler launches his Blitzkrieg offensive against the Low Countries and
(08:46):
ultimately France changing in a stroke the dynamic of the
whole war, and of course within weeks you're in a
situation where Britain's military strategy has effectively collapsed. Our main
ally is on the brink of surrender, have been evacuated
from the beaches of Dunkirk, and we're facing the possibility
of direct attack across the channel. So the scale of
(09:08):
that emergency I think allows Churchill to drive through those changes,
but it also puts that new system under very immediate
and huge critical stress. And of course, you know Churchill's
strategy is not without risks. By making himself Minister of Defense,
by working directly with the chiefs of Staff, he is
(09:30):
effectively taking responsibility for those main military decisions, and he
has no way then of distancing himself from them, so
that you know, if it all goes wrong, then you
know it is Churchill who's going to be blamed.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
You know, he can't.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Simply sack the first Lord of the Abyalty. If he's
been taking some of the key decisions.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Well, that's right. If he's creating this new system, then
he becomes responsible for it. Well, as you say, all
these things are happening more or less at the same time.
And then the first real test of this new system,
the first real test of Churchill's leadership approach, is the
fall of France. And that's one of the things that's
a chapter two. How did Churchill respond to the collapse
(10:13):
of his ally. We should remind our listeners again, Americanism
may not know this that Churchill's a Francophile. Churchill's a
Napoleon worshiper. Churchill, you know, doesn't have this traditional Anglo
feeling towards the French's. He's very much for a Francophile.
So this is a big deal.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
You will, yeah, I mean it is. I mean it's
a big deal on several levels. First of all, on
the personal level, you're absolutely right, he was a Franco file.
People talk about the special relationship with the United States,
and we can maybe talk about that, but of course
that's something that really develops after the fall of France.
Prior to the fall, France's our main ally, and Churchill,
(10:51):
you know, he's someone who has a huge love of
French history and French culture. He likes French food, wine,
he likes holidaying on the riviera. But it goes deeper
than that, as you imply just a moment ago. He
has a great knowledge of French history. He's a huge
admirer of Napoleon. It's Napoleon's bust who he has on
(11:14):
his study desk at his house chart Well in Kent.
And I think, you know, he's been through the First
World War, both as a minister but also briefly commanding
a battalion on the Western Front. He's worked with the
French generals and commanders. He knew people like Foch and Clemenceau.
(11:34):
He admires them, He's written about them. And you know,
in nineteen thirty nine he visits France just before the
outbreak of war and he inspects the Magino defenses and
I think, like many in the British establishment, he doesn't
see how quickly France will fall.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
He doesn't foresee it.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
He believes, like so many others, that war is going
to come, but that that war will be fought largely
in Europe, using a very large French army backed up
by British expeditionary Force, supported by the Royal Air Force,
and with a blockade of Germany from the Royal Navy. So,
in other words, the strategy going into the Second World
(12:14):
War is very similar to that going into the first
and of course all of that unravels within weeks of
him becoming Prime Minister.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
And then one of the decisions he has to take,
which is an absolutely horrific decision, is what to do
after France has fallen, what to do about the French fleet,
for instance, in various places in Europe and around Europe,
and to try to stop it falling into German hands.
And I don't want to tell this story because you're
so much better out it than I am, but it
(12:45):
is really one of the most gut wrenching decisions of
the war.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
And I think it builds on earlier decisions. I mean,
I think, well, what I hope I show in this
chapter in the book about the battle in France is
how torn Churchill is because on the one hand, he
is a Francophile, France is our ally he wants to
do everything he can to keep the fight going in France.
When he goes out there and meets with General Wagan
(13:10):
and the French commanders, he struggles to believe how quickly
this collapses happening. Can't believe it when he's told that
there are no reserves, so on the one hand, he
wants to keep fighting in France desperately, and of course
the French are begging him for aid and support for
more aircraft. But on the other hand, he's also conscious
that his primary responsibility is to Britain and that if
(13:33):
France is going to fall, then you're going to need
your troops, your equipment, your aircraft for the defense of Britain.
So how far do you go in propping up France,
in trying to keep France in the conflict? How much
do you hold things back for the defense of the
UK And balancing those things must have been incredibly hard.
I mean, the war Cabinet in Britain at this point
(13:55):
is in almost constant session as the news is sort
of coming in by dispatch rider from France and sort
of getting grimmer and grimmer, and you know, it's carrot
and stick really here. In terms of the carrot, Churchill
wants to keep France fighting so as the fall seems inevitable.
One of the things that he does is to reach
(14:17):
out and actually offer a full political union with France,
which when you think about it, is an unprecedented offer.
But you have to understand the context in which that
offer is being made. I mean, this is a way
of keeping France fighting when mainland France doesn't exist. By
(14:38):
merging the governments. It would also have allowed the British
legitimately to take control of French troops, French gold reserves,
and of course the French navy. And you know, Churchill
was incredibly worried about the French navy. This is a
very powerful navy. He's aware that should France fall, it
(14:59):
means that we're going to have to defend the British Isles.
The Royal Navy is going to have to concentrate on that.
But we also have huge commitments in the Mediterranean, where
we also have strong British presence, British colonies and British
mandates to defend. And the prospect of the French navy
falling into German hands and being combined with the German
(15:22):
navy and possibly also of course the Spanish navy if
Spain were to come into the war.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Is a real fear for him.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Threatens to really sort of unbalance British naval dominance and
actually put us at risk of defeat in the Mediterranean
theater and threaten our ability to defend our own shores.
So these are huge decisions for him. And when the
carrot fails, when then Patam's government rejects just before it's
for the offer of union, then I think his mind
(15:52):
switches to, well, you know, if we can't secure the
French fleet in this way, then we're going to have
to neutralize it as a threat.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
But this was an incredibly tough decision to take.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Oh yeah, And basically, the British blockade the French navy
in Algeria and in other ports, and they give the
French navy a certain deadline by which to surrender or scuttle.
And when the French Navy does not do that in Algeria,
they opened fire Urselle Kabir with the loss of a
large number of French sailors. And these were people, these
(16:24):
were men who had been allies of the British only
days before.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
It was something that was done very.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Very reluctantly by the Royal Navy, and most of the
higher command of the Navy was advising Churchill against it.
But his view was that this needed to be done
to neutralize that threat to allow Britain to continue to
fight in the Mediterranean. But I think he was also
aware that in doing this it was sending a very
(16:53):
strong signal, obviously a strong signal of defiance to Hitler,
but this is also about a signal to the United States,
signal to Roosevelt that the British are not going to
surrender in the same way that France has just done.
And it's very interesting that when Churchill then announces this
action in the House of Commons.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
He's in tears.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah, as he desaid, it's not a decision that he's
taken lightly, but it is the first time since becoming
Prime Minister on the tenth of May, that he is
actually cheered to the rafters by all sides, including by
those elements of the Conservative Party who had remained loyal
to Chamberlain.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
So if you've seen the movie Darkest.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Hour, and at the very end of that movie, there's
a scene where Gary Oldman as Churchill is there talking
about how we will fight on and Chamberlain gives a
coded signal and all of his followers sheare along.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
With everyone else.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Now, that point did not happen in May June nineteen forty.
It actually happens in July nineteen forty, at the time
of the sinking of the French Fleet. That's the moment
where the British Parliament sort of coalesces around Churchill's leadership.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
And we should say that he you know, he felt
moral qualms about doing this and it bothered him for
a very long time, but felt it had to be done.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yeah, And I think, you know, you cannot be a
war leader without taking incredibly tough decision, and Churchill takes
tough decision after decision, but it's clear that some do
affect him quite deeply on a personal level. I think
the sinking of the French Fleet is one example. Another
from later in the war would be the sinking of
(18:32):
the H and S Prince of Wales and which, of
course huge British battleship, which was sunk off the coast
of Malaya by the Japanese just after Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
And I think Churchill.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Felt that loss particularly deeply, partly because he'd been responsible
for sending the Prince of Wales out to Malaya and
had known that it was going without proper air cover.
It was sent out really prior to Pearl Harbor as
a deterrent to the Japanese, but partly also because that
is the ship that he crossed the Atlantic on in
(19:02):
August nineteen forty one to meet with President Roosevelt off
the coast of Newfoundland. So in this particular case, all
those young officers and crew who died on that ship,
he'd spent time with them. He would have been able
to put faces and names to many of those casualty figures,
and so you can see why that would have really hurt.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Well, then, not very long after that he has to
decide between well, he doesn't have to decide, but there
are two developments. First of all, the US comes into
the war, and then Germany invades the Soviet Union, and
suddenly you have these two allies who, at least ideologically
in economic terms anywhere, are completely opposed to each other.
(19:44):
Yet Britain is in the middle, having to treat or
considering how to treat both of these each of these allies,
and how to treat them equally. That's what's so fascinating
about the fourth chapter in your book. In fact, I
love the title of it, Evil and the Deep Blue Sea,
because it's saying that the British government and Turchill is
(20:05):
in between these two conundrums. How much do we keep
drawing support from the US, and then do we give
a lot of it to the Soviet Union? Is the
US going to object to that? Things like that as
an absolutely fascinating conundrum, as you.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Say, ideologically and personally, for Churchill, there was no equivalence
between the United States and the Soviet Union. Churchill had
been a die hard opponent of Bolshevism from its inception.
He described the famous train that imported Lenin back into
Russia from Germany in nineteen seventeen as being like the
(20:39):
importation of a plague. Bacillis he talked about the foul,
baboonery of Bolshevism. In the immediate period after the First
World War, he'd wanted to keep British troops fighting in
support of the white Russians who were fighting Trotsky's Red Army,
And in the nineteen twenties he certainly sees the hand
of communism everywhere and sees it as sort of undermining
(21:01):
British Empire but also undermining British stability at home through
Communist support of strikers in the UK. So he is
a die hard opponent of Bolshevism and communism. By contrast,
of course, he's half American by birth, and unlike many
of his contemporaries, he has spent time.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
In the United States.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Visits New York in eighteen ninety five en route to Cuba,
and he returns and conducts major lecture tours of the
United States in nineteen hundred and then again in nineteen
twenty nine and nineteen thirty one. So he has a
knowledge of the United States. He has contacts, arsenal contacts
in the United States, and I think after the First
(21:44):
World War he's very clearly of the world view that
the Soviet Union is a bad thing, but the United
States is a very good thing and is perhaps where
the future lies.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
And he's quite clear.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
I think from the moment that he becomes Prime Minister
in May nineteen forty that Britain is going to need
the support of the United States. And actually that's very
clear in a document that his chiefs of staff draw
up for him in May nineteen forty, where they make
it very clear that really Britain's only hope of ultimate
success and of delivering the victory that he's promised is
(22:17):
if they get the material help from the United States.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
And there are two wonderful quotes.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
I think that illustrate this how he views this these relationships.
When Hitler invades the Soviet Union with Operation Barbarossa in
June nineteen forty one, Churchill has to decide how much
support to give to the Soviet Union. He's very clear, actually,
I think almost immediately that he is going to support
(22:44):
the Soviet Union. Of course, he's very careful in his
public pronouncements not to retract one word of the criticism
that I've previously made of their government. And it's noticeable
that he talks about the Russian people rather than the
same Soviet Union. He also tells his private secretary John Colville.
(23:05):
When Colville teases him about supporting Stalin, he says, if
Hitler had invaded Hell, I would at least make a
favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
And I think, you know, he's very.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Clear that my enemy's enemy is my friend, and that
every German soldier, every German aircraft, every tank that is
lost fighting on the Eastern Front is also helping the
British war effort at this point, but he also says
to Colville of the United States and a President Roosevelt,
(23:38):
no lover ever studied every whim of his mistress, as
I did those of President Roosevelt. So his heart is
intent on sort of bringing in the United States and
working with the United States. His head tells him that
he also needs the alliance with the Soviet Union, but
it's quite clear that from very early on those things
(23:59):
are going to pull in very opposite directions.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Roosevelt makes it.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Very clear at the Atlantic Meeting off Newfoundland in August
nineteen forty one, before Pearl Harbor, before America has come
into the war, that his vision for the postwar world,
once Hitler has been defeated, is the creation of the
United Nations and effectively a new world order. At the
(24:25):
same time, Stalin is making it very clear to Churchill
that his price for working with Britain is much more
based on real politique, and it will be about the
division of Eastern Europe.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
It will be about the division of the Balkans.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Now, in nineteen forty one nineteen forty two, none of
this really matters. What really matters is defeating Germany. But
as the war goes on, these pressures start to mount,
and they start to put incredible stress on Churchill as
he's pulled between his two increasingly powerful allies.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Well, that's that's what gives us. Those those things give
us an example examples of the different decisions that he
had to make. Now, let's go back to our original
thing at the beginning of the show, and we talked
about him becoming the chief executive and sort of inventing
a chief executive role within the British cabinet. So then
(25:20):
how does doing that way back at the beginning help
him make these decisions as the war goes on?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Really good question, and I think the answer is that
it streamlines the decision making at the center, particularly as
regards the key decisions on international relations and military operations,
because it is clear really that the main decisions in
(25:48):
terms of foreign policy, international relations, diplomacy, the creation of
this grand alliance with the United States and the Soviet
Union that that is being run out of Downing Street
by Churchill directly. So yes, he's working with Eden, but
Eden is really very much in the deputy's supporting role
(26:09):
to Churchill as Prime Minister. Similarly, in terms of the
military operations, it allows Churchill, at least in the early
phase of the war, to get directly involved with who
is going to command the major offensives and what action
it's going to be taken. I think there are disadvantages
to this approach as well as advantages. One of the
(26:32):
disadvantages is of course that by concentrating on the war effort,
by concentrating on international relations, it means that Churchill cannot
spend the time on running the domestic front, and that
he has to delegate to others there, and increasingly, of
course he delegates to Clement Atlett, who from nineteen forty
(26:54):
two onwards is Deputy Prime Minister.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
The Labor Party, of the Labor Party.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
An important member of Churchill's coalition government. But I think,
of course what that does then is to make it
much more difficult for Churchill when it comes to the
end of the war and the nineteen forty five general election,
because actually when he launches into his criticism of the
(27:20):
Labor Party and their leaders, these are the people who
have been running.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
That home front. They've been very visible to the British.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Electorate, and it makes it much more difficult, I think,
for him to grasp the metal there. I mean, really,
at the end of the war, you can argue that
what Churchill should have done is to step back from
that CEO position that it worked during the war, but
at the end of the war, perhaps he should have
stepped back and played the chairman's role and said to
(27:49):
the British electorate, well, I promised you victory.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
I've delivered victory in Europe.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Let me finish the war against Japan and we'll continue
with this coalition. Instead, what he does is to launch
back into British domestic politics to make some very forceful
attack on the Labor Party who'd been members of his
government till only weeks before, which rather backfires and leads
to the election defeat. So I think the interesting thing
(28:14):
here is that that CEO role serves him incredibly well.
I think in the early part of the war in
nineteen forty one through to about nineteen forty three. But
when you get to the last two years of the war,
I think it takes its toll. It takes its toll
on his physical health, as I think it would on anyone,
(28:35):
and he comes very close to death in North Africa
in nineteen forty three when he collapses after the Tehran
Conference with pneumonia.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
So the other.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Side of this hands on CEO role is the toll
that it takes on him personally. And what it means
he can't concentrate on because by the end of the war,
the war has become so big, so global, that actually
it's impossible to play that hands on role in quite
the same way.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
If that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Well, that explains an awful lot, and I hope it
helps people understand and put into better context what really happened,
first of all the Battle of Britain, but also the
war in general and Churchill's handling of it. So really
it just remains for me to say thank you so
much for coming on the show and enlightening us.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
It's been a real pleasure, and I'm sure that your
listeners will have plenty of questions, comments, arguments.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
I'd be very happy to come back on and answer
some of them.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Well, the book is How Churchill Waged War the most
challenging decisions of the Second World War, and of course
it's on the Buzzkill bookshelf, So everyone please go to
professor Buzzkill dot com, do everything you need to do there,
and we will talk to all of you about this
and other topics next week.
Hello, everyone, that's Professor Buzzkill here, your favorite history professor.
Fortunately for you, we have on the line Alan Packwood,
who's here from the Churchill Archive Center at Churchill College
and the University of Cambridge to talk to us about
how Churchill waged war the most challenging decisions of the
Second World War. Thank you so much for coming on
(00:35):
the show having me. As you and I were talking
about before the show started. You know, most Americans here
Churchill and they think of great speeches, they think of
inspirational leadership, things like that, but they don't actually know
very much about how he ran the war. And everything
I've read in it, especially your work, leads me to
(00:56):
believe that, sure, the speeches were important in the in
their own way, but what really wins the war is
how he runs it as a sort of chief executive.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Oh well, well, I'm glad you picked up on this
because I think it is the main theme of the book.
I mean, really, what motivated me to write this book
was to try and answer the question, well, what did
Churchill actually do? Rather than what did Churchill say? It's
very interesting that at the end of the war, as
(01:29):
he was traveling out to Italy, with his doctor. He
made the point that he didn't want to be remembered
just for his wartime speeches, that he felt that he
actually he had contributed to some of the big military decisions,
and so that really sort of got me thinking, well,
then you know, what are those decisions and what was
(01:50):
his approach to wartime government.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Well, I think the crucial thing we need to establish
first is that again, most of our listeners in America,
they won't necessarily understand how a British prime minister works,
and up until Churchill in the war, I think it's
fair to say that the prime minister acted sort of
as a chairman of the board. But this change is
and has to change.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
It does I mean the first thing I would say,
of course, just to remind your listeners that Churchill is
not elected prime minister in May nineteen fourteen. He's actually
there really as a result of a Westminster coup. He's
there as a result of the fact that the Labor
Party and a significant portion of the Conservative Party made
(02:36):
it clear that they no longer want to serve under
Neville Chamberlain. And it is clear that Chamberlain is going
to have to restructure the government that he needs to
bring in the opposition parties, and once the Labor leaders
have made it clear that they won't serve under him,
then there's going to have to be somebody else in charge.
The choice falls on Churchill or Halifax, the Conservative Foreign
(02:58):
Secretary's really a choice, as I think I say in
the book, between a hawk and a dove. You know,
it's quite clear that the new Prime Minister is going
to have to be drawn from the ranks of the
Conservative Party, because the Conservative Party is the biggest party
in the House of Commons. But it's going to have
to be someone who can bring together a national coalition.
(03:18):
Churchill has been the most bellicost member of Chamberlain's war cabinet,
whereas it's clear that Halifax takes a rather different line
and favors some form of negotiation if possible, And I
think Halifax probably senses that the mood of the House
of Commons is far more with Churchill than it is
with him. So Churchill becomes the Prime Minister in May
(03:41):
nineteen forty, but actually he's not in a particularly strong
political position. He hasn't been elected prime minister. He has
really very little choice as to who he brings into
his initial war cabinet, he has to bring in his predecessor,
Neville Chamberlain, who's still the leader of the Conservative Party
at this point. Halfax is such a powerful figure that
(04:04):
he can't be ignored and has to remain Foreign Secretary.
And then he has to bring in the labor leaders
Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood, who you know, these are
people who Churchill has spent much of the last decade
criticizing and attacking in Parliament.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
So as he looks around that.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Cabinet table its first meetings on sort of early May
nineteen forty, this is not a cabinet of his choosing.
It's not a cabinet of natural friends to him.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
So he's not in a.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Particularly strong political position. And his response to that, I
think is really interesting. And one of the first things
that he does is to make himself not just Prime
Minister but also Minister of Defense. And this, of course
is a new position one that he is creating. Up
until this point, the armed forces have been represented by
(04:58):
their own ministers in cabinet. So First Lord of the
Admiralty has represented the Navy, the Secretary of State for War,
the Army, the Secretary of State for Air the Royal
Air Force. By making himself Minister of Defense, Churchill effectively
demotes those ministers. They're no longer members of the war cabinet.
And what it means is that the chiefs of staff
(05:18):
are now reporting into him directly, and he is chairing
the key committee on Military operations, so he is putting
himself right at the center of the military decision making
as well as the political decision making. And this is
why I say, actually, you know, he's quite clear that
he's going to get his hands dirty, that he's going
(05:39):
to be not playing the chairman's role but the chief
Executive CEO's role here, and.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
I think it's a very important decision.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
It sends out a very clear message that he is
going to play this sort of hands on role, and
what it allows him to do is to centralize power
in Downing Street, because it allows him to bring together
this military secretariat which is serving him as Minister of Defense,
with the cabinet secretariats which is serving him as Prime Minister,
(06:10):
along with his own specialist advisors, and meld them into
one machine at the center, which is then playing a
sort of critical role in running the war. So he
brings in Desmond Morton to help advise him on intelligence matters,
and he brings in the Oxford physicist Frederick linderman to
advise him on scientific issues. Effectively, he's the first British
(06:34):
prime minister to have a scientific advisor in Downing Street,
and he sets up under Lindermann a statistical unit, which
is basically an information unit which is gathering information on
all the issues that the Prime Minister might be concerned
with and feeding it to him in sort of digestible
and often graphical graph format so that you know, he
(06:57):
can be briefed when speaking to his other ministers or
or speaking to the American President. So it is about
creating this machine to run the war at the center,
which brings together the key sort of political and military staffs.
Churchill had a reputation for being quite overbearing in meetings
(07:19):
and before he becomes Prime minister. One of the main
criticisms of him from his contemporaries is that you know
he will try and dominate the meetings and control the agenda.
And I think the problem he has is that before
he becomes Prime minister, he doesn't actually have either the
responsibility or the machine to convert that sort of drive
(07:41):
and dynamism into action. So when he's chairing the Military
Coordination Committee under Chamberlain, it's described as being like a
vehicle with one wheel that is far too large and
consequently it won't work. But the important thing is that
once he's in the center, then the machine can be
geared around him, and I think that's what makes him
(08:02):
an effective war leader.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Well, to a lot of people, this was seemed to
be the obvious thing to do. After all, this is
a war, it's a new type of war. It's a
more massive war than anyone's ever seen before. But it's
also changing the British governing system. Was there much pushback
among his colleagues or people saying, oh, no, he's trying
to become a president.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
I think if you're going to do it, if you're
going to make this change, then the spring of nineteen
forty is clearly the moment to do it. And I
suppose what really enables Churchill to get away with this
is the fact that on the same day that he
becomes Prime Minister, at the tenth of May nineteen forty,
Hitler launches his Blitzkrieg offensive against the Low Countries and
(08:46):
ultimately France changing in a stroke the dynamic of the
whole war, and of course within weeks you're in a
situation where Britain's military strategy has effectively collapsed. Our main
ally is on the brink of surrender, have been evacuated
from the beaches of Dunkirk, and we're facing the possibility
of direct attack across the channel. So the scale of
(09:08):
that emergency I think allows Churchill to drive through those changes,
but it also puts that new system under very immediate
and huge critical stress. And of course, you know Churchill's
strategy is not without risks. By making himself Minister of Defense,
by working directly with the chiefs of Staff, he is
(09:30):
effectively taking responsibility for those main military decisions, and he
has no way then of distancing himself from them, so
that you know, if it all goes wrong, then you
know it is Churchill who's going to be blamed.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
You know, he can't.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Simply sack the first Lord of the Abyalty. If he's
been taking some of the key decisions.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Well, that's right. If he's creating this new system, then
he becomes responsible for it. Well, as you say, all
these things are happening more or less at the same time.
And then the first real test of this new system,
the first real test of Churchill's leadership approach, is the
fall of France. And that's one of the things that's
a chapter two. How did Churchill respond to the collapse
(10:13):
of his ally. We should remind our listeners again, Americanism
may not know this that Churchill's a Francophile. Churchill's a
Napoleon worshiper. Churchill, you know, doesn't have this traditional Anglo
feeling towards the French's. He's very much for a Francophile.
So this is a big deal.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
You will, yeah, I mean it is. I mean it's
a big deal on several levels. First of all, on
the personal level, you're absolutely right, he was a Franco file.
People talk about the special relationship with the United States,
and we can maybe talk about that, but of course
that's something that really develops after the fall of France.
Prior to the fall, France's our main ally, and Churchill,
(10:51):
you know, he's someone who has a huge love of
French history and French culture. He likes French food, wine,
he likes holidaying on the riviera. But it goes deeper
than that, as you imply just a moment ago. He
has a great knowledge of French history. He's a huge
admirer of Napoleon. It's Napoleon's bust who he has on
(11:14):
his study desk at his house chart Well in Kent.
And I think, you know, he's been through the First
World War, both as a minister but also briefly commanding
a battalion on the Western Front. He's worked with the
French generals and commanders. He knew people like Foch and Clemenceau.
(11:34):
He admires them, He's written about them. And you know,
in nineteen thirty nine he visits France just before the
outbreak of war and he inspects the Magino defenses and
I think, like many in the British establishment, he doesn't
see how quickly France will fall.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
He doesn't foresee it.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
He believes, like so many others, that war is going
to come, but that that war will be fought largely
in Europe, using a very large French army backed up
by British expeditionary Force, supported by the Royal Air Force,
and with a blockade of Germany from the Royal Navy. So,
in other words, the strategy going into the Second World
(12:14):
War is very similar to that going into the first
and of course all of that unravels within weeks of
him becoming Prime Minister.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
And then one of the decisions he has to take,
which is an absolutely horrific decision, is what to do
after France has fallen, what to do about the French fleet,
for instance, in various places in Europe and around Europe,
and to try to stop it falling into German hands.
And I don't want to tell this story because you're
so much better out it than I am, but it
(12:45):
is really one of the most gut wrenching decisions of
the war.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
And I think it builds on earlier decisions. I mean,
I think, well, what I hope I show in this
chapter in the book about the battle in France is
how torn Churchill is because on the one hand, he
is a Francophile, France is our ally he wants to
do everything he can to keep the fight going in France.
When he goes out there and meets with General Wagan
(13:10):
and the French commanders, he struggles to believe how quickly
this collapses happening. Can't believe it when he's told that
there are no reserves, so on the one hand, he
wants to keep fighting in France desperately, and of course
the French are begging him for aid and support for
more aircraft. But on the other hand, he's also conscious
that his primary responsibility is to Britain and that if
(13:33):
France is going to fall, then you're going to need
your troops, your equipment, your aircraft for the defense of Britain.
So how far do you go in propping up France,
in trying to keep France in the conflict? How much
do you hold things back for the defense of the
UK And balancing those things must have been incredibly hard.
I mean, the war Cabinet in Britain at this point
(13:55):
is in almost constant session as the news is sort
of coming in by dispatch rider from France and sort
of getting grimmer and grimmer, and you know, it's carrot
and stick really here. In terms of the carrot, Churchill
wants to keep France fighting so as the fall seems inevitable.
One of the things that he does is to reach
(14:17):
out and actually offer a full political union with France,
which when you think about it, is an unprecedented offer.
But you have to understand the context in which that
offer is being made. I mean, this is a way
of keeping France fighting when mainland France doesn't exist. By
(14:38):
merging the governments. It would also have allowed the British
legitimately to take control of French troops, French gold reserves,
and of course the French navy. And you know, Churchill
was incredibly worried about the French navy. This is a
very powerful navy. He's aware that should France fall, it
(14:59):
means that we're going to have to defend the British Isles.
The Royal Navy is going to have to concentrate on that.
But we also have huge commitments in the Mediterranean, where
we also have strong British presence, British colonies and British
mandates to defend. And the prospect of the French navy
falling into German hands and being combined with the German
(15:22):
navy and possibly also of course the Spanish navy if
Spain were to come into the war.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Is a real fear for him.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Threatens to really sort of unbalance British naval dominance and
actually put us at risk of defeat in the Mediterranean
theater and threaten our ability to defend our own shores.
So these are huge decisions for him. And when the
carrot fails, when then Patam's government rejects just before it's
for the offer of union, then I think his mind
(15:52):
switches to, well, you know, if we can't secure the
French fleet in this way, then we're going to have
to neutralize it as a threat.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
But this was an incredibly tough decision to take.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Oh yeah, And basically, the British blockade the French navy
in Algeria and in other ports, and they give the
French navy a certain deadline by which to surrender or scuttle.
And when the French Navy does not do that in Algeria,
they opened fire Urselle Kabir with the loss of a
large number of French sailors. And these were people, these
(16:24):
were men who had been allies of the British only
days before.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
It was something that was done very.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Very reluctantly by the Royal Navy, and most of the
higher command of the Navy was advising Churchill against it.
But his view was that this needed to be done
to neutralize that threat to allow Britain to continue to
fight in the Mediterranean. But I think he was also
aware that in doing this it was sending a very
(16:53):
strong signal, obviously a strong signal of defiance to Hitler,
but this is also about a signal to the United States,
signal to Roosevelt that the British are not going to
surrender in the same way that France has just done.
And it's very interesting that when Churchill then announces this
action in the House of Commons.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
He's in tears.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah, as he desaid, it's not a decision that he's
taken lightly, but it is the first time since becoming
Prime Minister on the tenth of May, that he is
actually cheered to the rafters by all sides, including by
those elements of the Conservative Party who had remained loyal
to Chamberlain.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
So if you've seen the movie Darkest.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Hour, and at the very end of that movie, there's
a scene where Gary Oldman as Churchill is there talking
about how we will fight on and Chamberlain gives a
coded signal and all of his followers sheare along.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
With everyone else.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Now, that point did not happen in May June nineteen forty.
It actually happens in July nineteen forty, at the time
of the sinking of the French Fleet. That's the moment
where the British Parliament sort of coalesces around Churchill's leadership.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
And we should say that he you know, he felt
moral qualms about doing this and it bothered him for
a very long time, but felt it had to be done.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yeah, And I think, you know, you cannot be a
war leader without taking incredibly tough decision, and Churchill takes
tough decision after decision, but it's clear that some do
affect him quite deeply on a personal level. I think
the sinking of the French Fleet is one example. Another
from later in the war would be the sinking of
(18:32):
the H and S Prince of Wales and which, of
course huge British battleship, which was sunk off the coast
of Malaya by the Japanese just after Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
And I think Churchill.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Felt that loss particularly deeply, partly because he'd been responsible
for sending the Prince of Wales out to Malaya and
had known that it was going without proper air cover.
It was sent out really prior to Pearl Harbor as
a deterrent to the Japanese, but partly also because that
is the ship that he crossed the Atlantic on in
(19:02):
August nineteen forty one to meet with President Roosevelt off
the coast of Newfoundland. So in this particular case, all
those young officers and crew who died on that ship,
he'd spent time with them. He would have been able
to put faces and names to many of those casualty figures,
and so you can see why that would have really hurt.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Well, then, not very long after that he has to
decide between well, he doesn't have to decide, but there
are two developments. First of all, the US comes into
the war, and then Germany invades the Soviet Union, and
suddenly you have these two allies who, at least ideologically
in economic terms anywhere, are completely opposed to each other.
(19:44):
Yet Britain is in the middle, having to treat or
considering how to treat both of these each of these allies,
and how to treat them equally. That's what's so fascinating
about the fourth chapter in your book. In fact, I
love the title of it, Evil and the Deep Blue Sea,
because it's saying that the British government and Turchill is
(20:05):
in between these two conundrums. How much do we keep
drawing support from the US, and then do we give
a lot of it to the Soviet Union? Is the
US going to object to that? Things like that as
an absolutely fascinating conundrum, as you.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Say, ideologically and personally, for Churchill, there was no equivalence
between the United States and the Soviet Union. Churchill had
been a die hard opponent of Bolshevism from its inception.
He described the famous train that imported Lenin back into
Russia from Germany in nineteen seventeen as being like the
(20:39):
importation of a plague. Bacillis he talked about the foul,
baboonery of Bolshevism. In the immediate period after the First
World War, he'd wanted to keep British troops fighting in
support of the white Russians who were fighting Trotsky's Red Army,
And in the nineteen twenties he certainly sees the hand
of communism everywhere and sees it as sort of undermining
(21:01):
British Empire but also undermining British stability at home through
Communist support of strikers in the UK. So he is
a die hard opponent of Bolshevism and communism. By contrast,
of course, he's half American by birth, and unlike many
of his contemporaries, he has spent time.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
In the United States.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Visits New York in eighteen ninety five en route to Cuba,
and he returns and conducts major lecture tours of the
United States in nineteen hundred and then again in nineteen
twenty nine and nineteen thirty one. So he has a
knowledge of the United States. He has contacts, arsenal contacts
in the United States, and I think after the First
(21:44):
World War he's very clearly of the world view that
the Soviet Union is a bad thing, but the United
States is a very good thing and is perhaps where
the future lies.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
And he's quite clear.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
I think from the moment that he becomes Prime Minister
in May nineteen forty that Britain is going to need
the support of the United States. And actually that's very
clear in a document that his chiefs of staff draw
up for him in May nineteen forty, where they make
it very clear that really Britain's only hope of ultimate
success and of delivering the victory that he's promised is
(22:17):
if they get the material help from the United States.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
And there are two wonderful quotes.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
I think that illustrate this how he views this these relationships.
When Hitler invades the Soviet Union with Operation Barbarossa in
June nineteen forty one, Churchill has to decide how much
support to give to the Soviet Union. He's very clear, actually,
I think almost immediately that he is going to support
(22:44):
the Soviet Union. Of course, he's very careful in his
public pronouncements not to retract one word of the criticism
that I've previously made of their government. And it's noticeable
that he talks about the Russian people rather than the
same Soviet Union. He also tells his private secretary John Colville.
(23:05):
When Colville teases him about supporting Stalin, he says, if
Hitler had invaded Hell, I would at least make a
favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
And I think, you know, he's very.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Clear that my enemy's enemy is my friend, and that
every German soldier, every German aircraft, every tank that is
lost fighting on the Eastern Front is also helping the
British war effort at this point, but he also says
to Colville of the United States and a President Roosevelt,
(23:38):
no lover ever studied every whim of his mistress, as
I did those of President Roosevelt. So his heart is
intent on sort of bringing in the United States and
working with the United States. His head tells him that
he also needs the alliance with the Soviet Union, but
it's quite clear that from very early on those things
(23:59):
are going to pull in very opposite directions.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Roosevelt makes it.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Very clear at the Atlantic Meeting off Newfoundland in August
nineteen forty one, before Pearl Harbor, before America has come
into the war, that his vision for the postwar world,
once Hitler has been defeated, is the creation of the
United Nations and effectively a new world order. At the
(24:25):
same time, Stalin is making it very clear to Churchill
that his price for working with Britain is much more
based on real politique, and it will be about the
division of Eastern Europe.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
It will be about the division of the Balkans.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Now, in nineteen forty one nineteen forty two, none of
this really matters. What really matters is defeating Germany. But
as the war goes on, these pressures start to mount,
and they start to put incredible stress on Churchill as
he's pulled between his two increasingly powerful allies.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Well, that's that's what gives us. Those those things give
us an example examples of the different decisions that he
had to make. Now, let's go back to our original
thing at the beginning of the show, and we talked
about him becoming the chief executive and sort of inventing
a chief executive role within the British cabinet. So then
(25:20):
how does doing that way back at the beginning help
him make these decisions as the war goes on?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Really good question, and I think the answer is that
it streamlines the decision making at the center, particularly as
regards the key decisions on international relations and military operations,
because it is clear really that the main decisions in
(25:48):
terms of foreign policy, international relations, diplomacy, the creation of
this grand alliance with the United States and the Soviet
Union that that is being run out of Downing Street
by Churchill directly. So yes, he's working with Eden, but
Eden is really very much in the deputy's supporting role
(26:09):
to Churchill as Prime Minister. Similarly, in terms of the
military operations, it allows Churchill, at least in the early
phase of the war, to get directly involved with who
is going to command the major offensives and what action
it's going to be taken. I think there are disadvantages
to this approach as well as advantages. One of the
(26:32):
disadvantages is of course that by concentrating on the war effort,
by concentrating on international relations, it means that Churchill cannot
spend the time on running the domestic front, and that
he has to delegate to others there, and increasingly, of
course he delegates to Clement Atlett, who from nineteen forty
(26:54):
two onwards is Deputy Prime Minister.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
The Labor Party, of the Labor Party.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
An important member of Churchill's coalition government. But I think,
of course what that does then is to make it
much more difficult for Churchill when it comes to the
end of the war and the nineteen forty five general election,
because actually when he launches into his criticism of the
(27:20):
Labor Party and their leaders, these are the people who
have been running.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
That home front. They've been very visible to the British.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Electorate, and it makes it much more difficult, I think,
for him to grasp the metal there. I mean, really,
at the end of the war, you can argue that
what Churchill should have done is to step back from
that CEO position that it worked during the war, but
at the end of the war, perhaps he should have
stepped back and played the chairman's role and said to
(27:49):
the British electorate, well, I promised you victory.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
I've delivered victory in Europe.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Let me finish the war against Japan and we'll continue
with this coalition. Instead, what he does is to launch
back into British domestic politics to make some very forceful
attack on the Labor Party who'd been members of his
government till only weeks before, which rather backfires and leads
to the election defeat. So I think the interesting thing
(28:14):
here is that that CEO role serves him incredibly well.
I think in the early part of the war in
nineteen forty one through to about nineteen forty three. But
when you get to the last two years of the war,
I think it takes its toll. It takes its toll
on his physical health, as I think it would on anyone,
(28:35):
and he comes very close to death in North Africa
in nineteen forty three when he collapses after the Tehran
Conference with pneumonia.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
So the other.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Side of this hands on CEO role is the toll
that it takes on him personally. And what it means
he can't concentrate on because by the end of the war,
the war has become so big, so global, that actually
it's impossible to play that hands on role in quite
the same way.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
If that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Well, that explains an awful lot, and I hope it
helps people understand and put into better context what really happened,
first of all the Battle of Britain, but also the
war in general and Churchill's handling of it. So really
it just remains for me to say thank you so
much for coming on the show and enlightening us.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
It's been a real pleasure, and I'm sure that your
listeners will have plenty of questions, comments, arguments.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
I'd be very happy to come back on and answer
some of them.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Well, the book is How Churchill Waged War the most
challenging decisions of the Second World War, and of course
it's on the Buzzkill bookshelf, So everyone please go to
professor Buzzkill dot com, do everything you need to do there,
and we will talk to all of you about this
and other topics next week.
Popular Podcasts
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com