American POTUS - Richard Toye - A Conversation with Harry Truman, Clement Attlee, and Ed Murrow

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Transcript

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 0:27

Welcome to American POTUS. I'm your host, Alan Lowe, and I thank you so very much for joining us for what promises to be a wonderful conversation. My guest today is Dr. Richard Toye, a professor of modern history at the University of Exeter in England and an award winning author of books like Churchill's Empire, The World That Made Him and The World He Made, Winston Churchill, A Life in the News, and An Age of Hope, Labor 1945, and the Birth of Modern Britain. Richard's also the host of Toys Tennessee, a terrific podcast I encourage you to check out. Now, I met Richard more than a few years ago, when he was part of a program created on the Anglo American Alliance by the Howard Baker Center, where I was director, and the Churchill Archive Center at Cambridge. And then just a few months ago, we both were part of a conference hosted by the East Tennessee History Center about World War II. And it was then that Richard asked if I'd ever heard of the amazing interview conducted by the famous journalist Edward R. Murrow on his show, Small World, with former President Harry Truman and former British Prime Minister Clement Attlee. I hadn't, and he told me in brief outline what it contained, and he recommended an American POTUS episode focusing on it. I'm so glad he did. This treasure that he found is a remarkable resource. You can find the video on YouTube. Thanks to the Truman presidential library museum. And today we'll include some relevant audio clips from that video in the program. So welcome Richard. Thanks for joining me. And for this wonderful idea.

richard-toye_1_01-14-2025_120227: 2:04

Well, it's a great pleasure to be here and thank you for picking up on the idea and running with it.

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 2:09

Well, I'm running, I'm running fast with it, Richard, because it was really just amazing. And as I researched Murrow's Small World just a bit, what an amazing program that was. Every week it gathered together several guests around the world, speaking on topics, a whole range of topics from atomic energy, to education, to art, to diplomacy. It aired from 1958 to 1960. With guests like Tennessee Williams, Edward Teller, Lauren Bacall, prime minister, neighbor of India. This is a remarkable catalog of guests and of episodes and chief among them, I think, is this one with Lord Attlee. President Truman, so I really enjoyed it. And just for a moment, Richard let's look at Lord Atley. Can you tell us a bit about his political background prior to World War ii? And then perhaps how did he work with Prime Minister Churchill during the war

richard-toye_1_01-14-2025_120227: 3:00

Sure. So he was somebody who came from a middle class family. So maybe not somebody you would automatically think of as a sort of natural leader of labor, the working class party. But he was somebody who had been to a sort of elite private school in the UK. We kind of call those. schools very, very paradoxically. Um, and so he was somebody who was, maybe set for a fairly kind of conventional, middle class type career as a solicitor or some other kind of professional. But in the East end of London, he got involved with social work and this really convinced him of the need to tackle the problem of poverty that moved him towards socialism. He served in the First World War with distinction, including at Gallipoli. And he, um, you know, after the war, rose through London Labour politics to become an MP. And when Labour formed its first government, first minority government in 1924, became a junior minister at the war office. So just thinking about his trajectory, by the time that he became prime minister in 1945, he did have considerable political experience.

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 4:21

and during the war? What was his role with Churchill during the conflict?

richard-toye_1_01-14-2025_120227: 4:26

Well, probably the first thing to say is that he got elected, uh, chosen as leader of the labor party in 1935, uh, rather as a kind of default. Candidate if you like because in 1931 labor was absolutely smashed in a real landslide defeat and he was one of the kind of three former ministers who actually kept their seats with labor being reduced to only about 50 seats in the house of commons and that meant that he became deputy leader. Um, you know, just on the sort of shortage of other people available. And in 1935, he actually becomes. leader with a lot of experience, which he's developed because with so few MPs in the House of Commons, you need people to be standing up and making speeches all the time. He was one, you know, one of the more able, uh, relatively younger MPs. There are a lot of older Labour MPs. And so by 1940, um, when he, He's not somebody who actually really has a great national profile in spite of being a leader of the Labour Party. He was still seen as a bit of a stopgap leader. And so, you know, nonetheless has developed some important political skills including political survival skills from withstanding the efforts of other people who might like to have pushed him out and become leader, um, themselves. So, he is a very, uh, I would say from the beginning, he is an effective member of Churchill's coalition. He does become. minister in 1942 he holds a range of a significant although perhaps not overwhelmingly important offices and I guess if you're trying to think about his kind of personal style, he was a kind of unflashy personality. He wasn't a. you know, sort of big kind of charisma type person like Churchill was, but he was very keen on efficiency and on getting things done and on taking decisions. And so of the other ministers said that, um, when Churchill was leading cabinet, as of course he usually did, Then you had the, sense of having been present on a great historical occasion, but when Churchill was out of the country and Attlee took over running the cabinet, then you actually had a meeting that got things done.

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 7:05

So, so I think for us non Brits outside of Britain, the fact that Churchill lost office in 45 right at the end of the conflict and Atlee became prime minister was a bit of a surprise. What led to him assuming office, Clement Atlee assuming office as prime minister in 1945?

richard-toye_1_01-14-2025_120227: 7:25

Well, I think that, you know, Churchill, of course, did have, A lot of support in the country during the period in which he was prime minister, because he managed to present himself as so warlike, if you like, because he didn't take during the war a great deal of interest in kind of post war planning and trying to prepare for the peace, that it was quite easy for people to, uh, say that, you know, You know, yeah, he's a great war leader, but he's not the leader we need for the peace. The Conservative Party itself was also discredited. I mean, it's not a presidential election. It's people voting for a party. And as a consequence of the appeasement of the 1930s and the, tough economic conditions and mass unemployment in the 1930s, the Tory party definitely had an image problem. So if you take those two things together, plus the fact that Labour had an appealing domestic policy and looked like they were the people who actually had a plan for what was going to happen next, then that kind of sets the conditions for this huge, uh, Labor victory. And I suppose I would just say in, in terms of what we're gonna talk about in a moment in terms of, Atley being present at the Potsdam Conference that you've gotta remember that when the election took place, victory in war in Europe had been achieved. But the victory over Japan had not yet been achieved. And so Churchill's pitch in the 1945 election was cool to a considerable extent. still a war going on. I'm really good at running wars. You should support me. Uh, whereas from the point of view of a lot of people, um, of course, Not from the point of view of the soldiers who were actually still fighting in the Far East, but for a lot of people at home in Britain, I didn't really want to be thinking about the war any longer. You know, the lights had gone on after the end of the blackout. People wanted to get back to normal and. Of course, that was what labor was promising not only to get back to normal, but to go towards a brighter future. And of course, it is so turned out that after labor was elected on 26th of July, in 1945, it's really only a matter of, uh, three weeks until. The atom bomb is dropped and that the war actually comes to an end. So in a sense, a war which people had expected to go on for maybe another two years was brought to an end much more rapidly than people expected.

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 10:05

And as you know, Richard, I now direct, uh, museums in Tennessee that very much tell that story about the Manhattan Project. So let's wrap up his prime minister tenure. How long did Attlee serve as prime minister? And what would you say were some of the highs and lows of that time as prime minister?

richard-toye_1_01-14-2025_120227: 10:23

Well, he served for a total of six years,

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 10:25

Mm hmm.

richard-toye_1_01-14-2025_120227: 10:26

general election in 1950 where Labour got a very small majority, and after another 18 months in 1951, he called another election, which Labour lost, I mean, relatively narrowly, but that brought Churchill back into office, and that was the beginning of 13 years of Conservative government. In terms of the highlights, well, retrospectively, people would always probably say the creation of the National Health Service, uh, free at point of use, health care would be the major domestic highlight. It was also the case that Atlee and many others believed that, Socialism wasn't just about social welfare. It wasn't just about making sure that, you know, unemployed people, had enough benefits to live on or something like that. They actually wanted to see a change in the nature of society. And to that end, they saw the nationalization of industry, the public ownership of things like coal, steel, and so forth, railways. As being important to bring that about and indeed they pledged to bring a large part of British industry under public ownership and did so that's generally not seen as one of the sort of the, you know, the greatest successes of the government. Although there were at least in some cases, logical reasons in particular industries for doing it at the time. so think that it. has been tended to be more remembered for the establishment or the building up of or welfare state. There was already some social welfare provision in Britain than it has been for its economic policies. But it should be remembered that in economic terms, the government. Did inherit an incredibly difficult situation in part, I mean, coming back to Truman because of the suspension of lend lease aid at that point that the war came to an end. And really the far from unproblematic, but broadly successful economic management was very, important part of that government's record, but also, of course, we've got to remember, and we'll talk about this later in depth, of course, you know, the whole foreign policy and imperial scorecard has to be considered as well.

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 12:46

Such an important time in world history and certainly in history of the United Kingdom. I want to turn to this great interview now, this conversation with Atlee, Truman and Morrow. It certainly appears that Truman and Atlee liked each other and I wanted to play a snippet here from the very beginning with Ed Morrow introducing a terrific exchange between the two men. So here we go. Good evening. My job normally is to hold the clock and be a sort of electronic gatekeeper and take care of the introductions. But tonight, those functions are not necessary because both of you gentlemen are old friends. However, I cannot resist the temptation of saying, President Truman, I believe you know Lord Attlee. Very well, and I like him very much. Lord Attlee is in London. President Truman is in his office in Independence, Missouri. You two gentlemen have been talking and conversing since Potsdam in 1945. I've been wondering, do you ever call each other by your first name? We never have today, but I wouldn't mind doing it. Well, I always stick to you, you know it. Hey. Well, I'll call you Clement then. That's right. Clement, that's right. Wonderful exchange. I love that. Uh, a perfect beginning for that program, too. And I do apologize to our listeners. That static you hear is just kind of a remnant of the age of that tape. Uh, was that friendship a reality?

richard-toye_1_01-14-2025_120227: 14:17

Yes, I mean, I think, in fact, the fact that they agreed to do this program is a sign of the kind of respect that they had for each other. So, obviously, the amount of faceTime they really had. I mean, there were times like, the Potsdam conference when they were in daily contact. But obviously, you know, there weren't times when, they were sort of hanging out together for weeks at a time. You couldn't instant message people in the same way. So I didn't really have an opportunity for that kind of friendship. But, I do think it's very significant that they would both sign up to do this program. And I think also, I just can't help reflecting on the brilliance of the technology of the time, we think today we have such brilliant technology, but it's even more brilliant where we've less sophisticated technology to manage a program, is bringing together people from different sides of the Atlantic. So, but I also think that, yes, friendship and respect real. But what we heard in that exchange there is the amazing thing where Ed Murrow is saying. Can I kind of make you talk to each other with your first names, you know, for the first time having, having known each other for, a dozen years or so. Um, and, and so that kind of level of formality was certainly, much more normal for the time. And also, of course, Even more normal in government circles, uh, that that was a sort of, the etiquette or the, or the conventions of the time that you wouldn't just automatically go to first names. I don't suppose is still some situations in which you don't automatically go to first names, but they are relatively few and far between. So time certainly have changed.

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 16:11

I noticed, even though they have that exchange at the very beginning, they don't ever call themselves by first names in the rest of the interview. So they say they're going to, but they do not do it. Now, a couple of times we mentioned the 1945 conference at Potsdam. Where they first met, um, what do you know about their work together specifically at that conference? Did they see eye to eye?

richard-toye_1_01-14-2025_120227: 16:34

I think probably speaking like did remember the conference in a way falls into two parts. The first is before the general election and actually. Uh, accompanies Churchill, who was still prime minister Churchill as a kind of courtesy uh, Atlee to go along as an observer because, the election, the, the actual polling day had taken place on the 5th of July, the results weren't to be known until the 26th of July, because of the counting of, the service boat. And so there was this kind of,. know, sort of shredding his cat moment where one party had won the election but nobody knew who it was. So, Atlee was invited on that basis and he didn't really at that stage make all that much of an impression on anyone. I don't think, um, but then, of course, after he wins the election, he comes back as prime minister and to the surprise of both the. Soviets and the Americans, uh, to maybe to a lesser extent, it's really effectively the same delegation that turns up the less, uh, Churchill and his, uh, foreign minister anti Eden, so even, uh, Churchill lends aptly his Man servant because he didn't have one. So the Soviets are terribly surprised to begin with. They're surprised simply that laborers won the election because at least previously told Molotov that the result is going to be a close thing. It's actually a landslide. So when he comes back, says, but you said it was going to be close. What's going on? You know, like they just assumed that there was going to be a kind of rigged election of some kind. And so the Soviets are actually pretty suspicious, and not especially friendly towards Atlee and certainly no more friendly towards him as a left wing prime minister than they were towards, Churchill as a conservative. Truman doesn't really record very much in his memoirs about what he thought of Attlee except to say that he felt that he had a sort of sensible appreciation of, world affairs or something like that. So, it's not an instant love in between the two, but they had been compared. in the media it was partly a way of making sense of what was going on, you know, often for the American public to say, Oh, he's aptly the British Truman again, because, of course, Truman had been, although, of course, very long serving senator, um, as it served as vice president. President, only briefly before being elevated to the presidency on Roosevelt's death, uh, and so counted as a relatively unknown figure. Similarly, the case with, with Attlee, that he'd been active in politics for a long time, but didn't have this big national profile. And also, they both came from, uh, I mean, as I said you know, Atlee's background, personal background wasn't that, modest, but on the other hand, he wasn't an aristocrat. He, you know, he wasn't a big name. He wasn't somebody who was going to go into politics by virtue of family connection. And of course, um, you know, Truman's, background was, was again relatively, although not excessively humble. I might just sort of chuck in an anecdote here. Which is that, um, you know, back in the week of 9 11, I was at the Truman library when, kind of all hell broke loose, but I was actually staying in a bed and breakfast, which was one of Truman's Boyhood homes, um, and, um, yeah, very nice, pretty substantial house, actually, so he wasn't kind of living in a shack, but of course, in comparison to, many other politicians, certainly, you know, sort of relatively humble beginnings.

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 20:31

And if our listeners haven't been to the Truman Library Museum, go. It's a great place. And I didn't know there was a bed and breakfast in one of his former homes. That's really cool. Richard, I have to try that out. So when looking at that post war world of diplomacy, They both very bluntly expressed their frustration with the Soviets in this program. And here I'm going to play a couple of segments. This first one is Truman discussing Potsdam. We had quite a time in Potsdam. We were there. We had a grand, uh, meeting over there. And we had cooperation on both sides of the table. And, I wouldn't say that on the third side. They forgot the agreement that we neglected. I'm talking about the Russians now. I don't know if you're aware. Ah, yes. Yep. And now there's a bit more here on the post Potsdam beginnings of the Cold War. I don't think we went wrong. I think if the Russians had kept their agreements, the protocols which Storodatle and myself signed at Potsdam, there would never have been any trouble in the world. But they broke 32 of those agreements within a year after they left that conference. I quite agree with you. So you place the blame entirely on the Russians? There are many questions about it. They don't believe in keeping their engagements. And it's too bad. Because honor is the topmost thing in international relations, and also in any political relation. They also have a missing interest in disturbance. They don't want a peaceful world. That's correct. They want a world where they can push their particular doctrines. Yes, that's what they've done in this last Nobel Prize award. They've treated the man who received it as if he were an outside dog and didn't belong to Russia at all. He was one of the great writers of the century. That's really fascinating. You can hear that frustration. Dislike in Truman's voice talking about the Soviets. We know Truman was a cold war warrior. You look at the development of the H bomb Korea Marshall plan, Berlin airlift. Uh, would you classify Atlee also as a cold war warrior?

richard-toye_1_01-14-2025_120227: 22:35

Well, I, I mean, a way, yes, but I suppose there's kind of different types of cold warrior, I suppose. I think that you've got to think about the fact that. From the beginning of his career or from, you know, sort of from the time of the Russian Revolution, wasn't somebody who was instinctively hostile to the USSR, where, in fact, he had visited, and even in the late 1930s, attended a Soviet show trial from the, from the gallery, um, didn't really seem, you know, think it necessary to, To comment, apparently, but at the same time, that sort of general sympathy on the British left for the Soviet Union didn't extend to the domestic communists in Britain, the Communist Party of Great Britain, who, of course, were rivals of the Labour Party and these two, you know, Labour and the CPGB Hated and distrusted each other with a vengeance and also, I would say that Atlee was probably relatively conventional in international affairs. That is to say, he was going to sort of stand up for British interests as any previous prime minister would have done without too many differences or variations. And that it wasn't. I guess the would I say, got to think about what kind of cold warrior he was. He wasn't necessarily saying we need to back the iron curtain and liberate all these territories. It was more that he wanted to, you know. Actually reach agreements with the soviet union to have a kind of reasonable division of spheres of influence if you like to make agreements that we're going to be stuck to and for the. Different sides to keep out of each other's hair. And so it wasn't the most aggressive form of promotion of the Cold War. He actually, his foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, was probably verbally more aggressive and at Potsdam, uh, After the election victory, Attlee you know, tends to sit back and sort of suck on his pipe, sort of nodding approvingly as Bevin has a go at the Soviets. And so it's not this kind of use of ideological cold war, but it is about is standing up for British interests and Anglo American interests and, above all wanting to make agreements that everybody is going to stick to and being very frustrated when, this proves to be incredibly difficult, if not impossible.

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 25:33

And you see everything you just said very well in the next couple of clips I'm going to play. And part of that is obviously though there was a close us UK alliance, there were differences. And one of those was over the issue of Taiwan and more broadly, the correct approach to communist China. So here are two clips on those topics. After that, let's talk about them. I'm going to play them both together here now. Well, does it follow from that, that we should recognize Red China rather than isolating that country? Well, Great Britain has already recognized Red China, but they're in debt to us to such an extent, I don't know whether we'll ever be able to recognize them or not, with any obligations to us. Well, that's, of course, my view. Well, I think you may drive them into the arms of Russia and make them into a solid block. I think you've got to look at it from their point of view. From their point of view, they've made a revolution that's now being interfered with. And that drives them on to seek help where they can. And that drives them into the arms of Russia. Now I think we've got to get as much contact as we can. America's had very great contact in China in the past. And I'm sure there will be plenty of goodwill still there if we want to cultivate. I think you're right, Lord Attlee. I think there are a large number of people in China who are not in complete agreement with this totalitarian approach to free thought and free action. And sometime or other, they may be on top in that case, then we may get closer and closer to a recognition. I think you're right about the putting all these totalitarians together makes a very dangerous situation as far as the free world is concerned. The more you hit a totalitarian government, the more you tend to get the feeling of nationalism running around it. That was so in the French Revolution, it was the same in the Russian Revolution. If you hit it, you strengthen it, you're kind to it. He weaken it. I think that's right. And eventually they, we've come to the point where we can be kind to'em, but we've been kind to'em in the past and they didn't appreciate it. And here's one more clip. Well, I sometimes thinking of how we didn't quite get the strategic position in the light of the modern world, I think you think too much importance of OSA as a place. Just, I think our people thought too much of Egypt and Cyprus as a place when you get to the hydrogen bomb. A lot of our old strategic notions have got to go west. I think you're correct on that, and I think you need to resurvey, and I think, President of the United States and the rest of the free world ought to sit down and make a survey, so we can keep the peace of the world. Such fascinating commentary there, and, uh, You know, at least saying you hit a totalitarian state, you make it stronger, essentially, and that that idea of engagement and it's interesting you hear that they, Seem to be agreeing, but they're not in that you engage with communist China and Truman saying, yeah, you engage with those who don't accept the totalitarian state. So it was really interesting to see how they finesse that to appear to be agreeing. So, um tell me, what do you think about those clips?

richard-toye_1_01-14-2025_120227: 29:02

first of all, you're absolutely spot on about this kind of finessing of, um, you know, uh, but I, I also, one thing which I found interesting is that, particularly in the first clip, Atlee seems quite loquacious. I mean, certainly for him, I mean, remember he was somebody who had this reputation of being very clipped and, uh, In monosyllabic, and something has kind of pressed his buttons there to actually make him, come out and talk more. And as you say, it actually kind of gets Truman into the position where Truman appears to be following his lead and saying, you know, I think you're right before then saying something which actually contradicts him.

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 29:41

Mm-hmm

richard-toye_1_01-14-2025_120227: 29:41

and it is fascinating to see that dynamic which What I'm really hearing there is what it might have been like to be in the room in 1950, in particular, where Atlee kind of makes this dash to Washington because In a press conference, this appears being at the time of the Korean War, having gone on for several months by that point, that Truman had appeared to suggest the United States might be willing to use the atomic bomb. Now, maybe he misspoke, he was, maybe he was just trying to say, of course, we always have the atomic bomb as a reserve option. But in the UK, this makes people. anxious, to go to the point of the extreme fear, really. So, Atlee dashes off and tries to get a commitment from Truman that the United States won't use the atomic bomb unless the British have agreed. uh, He kind of thinks he sort of gets Truman in a room by himself and, you know, sort of thinks that he's extracted this, commitment, yet afterwards, the British can't get the Americans to, you know, write anything like that down, and even if they did write it down, what would it really mean in the, you know, in the final instance, um, so you can almost hear it. the exchange that we've just heard what it might have been like when Atlee is saying definitely need you to launch the the bomb without us and then you know truman says I think you're right directly confronting him and then kind of you know comes in with an important But,

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 31:24

But, right.

richard-toye_1_01-14-2025_120227: 31:25

be, you know, telling us something about actually how they didn't fully communicate effectively at that moment, in spite of maybe thinking that they were on the same page. Mm-hmm

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 31:37

Mm-hmm Oh, this is so fascinating. I, again, I'm, I'm so glad that Merle had these programs and that you told me about them. Just again, you're, you're taken back in time so here's the next part. They, they both argued for something called internationalization of hotspots in the world. I thought that was a really interesting part of their conversation. So let me play a quick clip on that. You know, I wanna see some of these soft spots. Internationalized, I'm advocate for. An international police force located in various premises, not too big, but can intervene and stop whenever there's a bit of a row of stopping. You and I are in complete agreement on that. I think the United Nations ought to have the power to enforce its decrees, and the majority of them agree. But I thought that all along Well, Lord Atlee seems to believe that some of the troubled spots, including Formosa, ought to be internationalized. How do you feel about that, Mr. President? I seem to remember that you suggested as far back as 1945 at Potsdam that certain areas should be internationalized, including, I believe, the Suez Canal. Yes, I did. And for the Ryan Daniels Canal, for the Keel Canal, for the Panama Canal. All those, uh, waterways and the buses, too, ought to be, uh, internationally controlled and there wouldn't be any trouble at all. Yes, I remember very well your putting that forward at Potsdam, and I agree with you entirely. He certainly did, and they tried to vet the internationals, and the Russians wouldn't agree to it. I think straight away, a good step would be to internationalize the Antarctic. And also the Arctic. Yes, quite. Another really interesting conversation there. I was wondering as I listened to that, how did that call for internationalization of spots, like Suez and others, mesh with the priorities of his party and the voters in the United Kingdom? Uh

richard-toye_1_01-14-2025_120227: 33:32

Yeah, that's a really good question. And I think that what the interview brings out is that these were ideas which had some kind of longstanding heritage going back, you might say, to the League Nations administration of certain territories in the interwar years. And, one thing to note, of course, is that Atlee is out of office, by this time uh, that he's, you know, he ceased to be continued, uh, after he, office as Prime Minister for four years as, uh, Leader of the opposition, but then stood down in 1955. and there's a certain degree to which he then, maybe started to articulate kind of bolder ideas. He talked a lot about kind of world government during this period, which wouldn't necessarily sound so practical from the point of view of, um, know, sort of ordinary politics, if you like.

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 34:30

huh.

richard-toye_1_01-14-2025_120227: 34:30

But, with a couple of qualifications there. First, that he was definitely a sincere, uh, Advocate of the United Nations had been present at the, you know, the San Francisco founding conference in 1945. And I think there's always that dilemma, for politicians who may be quite sincere about internationalization. But then when Internationalizing things runs up against the interests of one's own country. Well, here, who do you put first? It would particularly make the point about what all the voters think. And so, he was, in some ways, a fairly kind of reasonably conventional Foreign policy politician, but when they talk about the United Nations there, of course, you've got to remember that the Korean War was, in fact, a United Nations operation, because the Soviets were boycotting the Security Council at that moment, which sort of facilitated that. So it wasn't a, wasn't sort of a genuinely global, um, um, You know, operation, uh, but of course it did have the imprimatur of the United Nations. So to a certain extent, Attlee could and Truman could claim to have made UN a reality, um, uh, to some degree. And also, although some of these ideas about internationalization could sound a bit utopian, when they turned to talk about the Arctic and the Antarctic, then, of course, there have been agreements about that. Uh, scientific cooperation and not treating it like, uh, not treating like any other territories. I guess the side of the coin is when you're talking about the Suez Canal, for example, and you talk about internationalizing it. Well, that might sound. very nice, but from the point of view of the Egyptians, that would actually sound like that was taking away their sovereignty and their control over it. So, that these, the internationalization is a term which can sound and potentially be double edged.

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 36:34

And I would note again for our listeners, both of these leaders are out of office during this interview. So they are able to say things you're right. That, uh, or emphasize things that perhaps were a bit more difficult when they were actually in office. Um, we started the conversation, as you noted, when Churchill and the conservative party were voted out, it wasn't like a presidential election. It was the, the party was lost the majority. And, that difference between the British and the American systems of government, actually Murrow starts the interview with a fascinating back and forth on that between the two men. So let me just play a little bit of that conversation. Under the British system, if the executive loses support of Parliament, then a new election is held or a new executive head is appointed. What do you think of the relative merits of the two systems? They have a set of reservations. I know people. Keeps your party together, you know. That's true. You have much better party discipline than we do. I'm sure that's right. Because we know we're all going to lose the job if we don't stand by the leader. I think so. I, uh, I hear frustration in Truman's voice there from not being able to control the party. Uh, I know Truman studied government, was a real student of government. Was the same true of Attlee?

richard-toye_1_01-14-2025_120227: 37:57

I mean, up to a point, so that in 1937, uh, Attlee publishes a book called The Labour Party in Perspective, which has got some thoughts about, the machinery of government, not from a particularly kind of theoretical perspective, more of a sort of a pragmatic perspective, and also he's certainly somebody who's given a lot of thought about the way in which you ought to compose your cabinet and how, uh, you ought to structure your meetings and so on in terms of reform. He was not a radical reformer off. The, the constitution, the labor government of 1945 does make some relatively, uh, marginal changes so that up until that point, university graduates had, um, got a second vote, for example, and there were university constituencies, so, you know, graduates of universities would elect their own MPs, that was abolished, uh, there was also, the, Reduction of the delaying power of the House of Lords from two years to one year. Um, but this is relatively marginal stuff and I think that Attlee was generally speaking quite confident that you could achieve a socialist program and remember he was a, you know, convinced that. If moderate socialist, he thought you could do that through the existing machinery of government and through the existing parliamentary system. But I guess I would also add that he appreciates some of the difficulties that Truman faces much because. He knows that when when dealing with Truman that Truman can't just do he happens to feel like or whatever he is convinced is best, he does have to deal with Congress. That comes back to some of our issues about, Formosa where, his one of his books of memoirs, which is called A Prime Minister Remembers, edited by his former press secretary, Francis Williams, he says that he thinks that the American failure to recognize communist China and to have such an obsession with, with was and I quote extraordinarily stupid he does also make the acknowledgement that truman had congress to deal with and Didn't have an entirely free hand and and of course had to deal with public opinion as well

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 40:31

Looking back at that, at the Truman administration, Many episodes could contain this, but what he did accomplish is truly amazing to see, uh, from the Marshall plan on, um, Richard, I want to thank you so much for really fascinating conversation and for telling me about this program and bring it to the table for American POTUS. Thank you so much. Uh, before I let you go, can you tell us what are you working on right now?

richard-toye_1_01-14-2025_120227: 40:59

well a number of projects. Um, but I guess one which might be of interest to your listeners is about Uh, you know People writing letters to MPs over a long period of time, throughout the 20th century and beyond, and just a sort of anecdote, um, which links it back to Attlee. Um, there was a, there was a school girl who had a complaint about, um, the way that the school system was run, who wrote to Attlee as Prime Minister, in the early 1950s, and she writes a complaint in the form of a poem. remarkably enough, Atlee also writes his response in the form of a poem.

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 41:45

That is, that is terrific. You know, for many years I worked as an archivist at presidential libraries and some of my favorite things to view were some of that, the public mail coming into the presidents. Remember when I first started at the Reagan. It was in the Reagan Project before the library was even constructed. I ran out into the stacks and found a letter my uncle Louis Elbow had written to President Reagan in, in the collections. But it really does give you a great, um, understanding of what issues were important to people. Um, so I'm really look forward to reading that Richard, as I always do your works. They're really terrific. And thank, thanks again for joining us on American POTUS.

richard-toye_1_01-14-2025_120227: 42:20

Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure.

alan-lowe_1_01-14-2025_070228: 42:22

And thanks to all of you for joining us as well. I so appreciate your support of our efforts to provide a nonpartisan. Educational and I hope a fascinating look at the presidents and the presidency. Also, please check out American FLOTUS, a new podcast, all about the first ladies formed in partnership between American POTUS and the first ladies association for research and education, or FLAIR. You can find American FLOTUS episodes at AmericanPOTUS. org FLAIR net. org or on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks very much. And I'll see you next time on American POTUS.