I recently embarked upon the daunting task of reading Winston Churchill's memoirs of The Second World War. It's a six volume set with each volume finishing up somewhere around 6-700 pages in miniscule print. This is why the books have been on my shelf for about 2 years. That notwithstanding, I'm glad I started to read this collection. The first volume is entitled "The Gathering Storm" and chronicles the countless political blunders that lead to Hitler's re-armament and eventually to war, as well as Churchill's rise to the role of Prime Minister. In reading this book I'm confronted with a number of astounding things: 1) Churchill was spot-on re: Hitler as far back as 1931 and he was continually ridiculed and derided for his opinions even into 1939 2) In their blind search for peace and their belief in the innate goodness of man, the French and British foolishly allowed Hitler to do whatever he wanted, at the expense of a number of treaties violated; they were in essence, "men without chests." 3) The US isolationist policies virtually sank the League of Nations and thus deflated many hopes of keeping Hitler in line 4) Many of the mistakes made with the German tyrants could apply to our situation with Islamic Terrorists of the present day. The US is still as rash about their foreign policy as they were in the 30's. Let's hope that Sept. 11th taught us something about helping out around the globe.

Churchill summarizes the folly from '32-'39 nicely at one point:

"In this sad tale of wrong judgments formed by well-meaning and capable people we now reach our climax. That we should all have come to this pass makes those responsible, however honourable their motives, blameworthy before history. Look back and see what we had successively accepted and thrown away: a Germany disarmed by solemn treaty; a Germany rearmed in violation of a solmen treaty; air superiority or even air parity cast away; the Rhineland forcibly occupied and the Seigfried line built or building; the Berlin-Rome Axis established; Austria devoured and digested by the Reich; Czechoslovakia deserted and ruined by the Munich pact, its fortress line in German hands, its mighty arsenal of Skoda henceforward making munitions for the German armies; President Roosevelt's effort to stabilise or bring to a head the European situation by the intervention of the United States waved aside with one hand, and Soviet Russia's undoubted willingness to join the Western Powers and go all lengths to save Czechoslovakia ignored on the other; the services of thirty five Czech divisions against the still unripened German army cast away, when Great Britain could herself supply only two to strengthen the front in France; all gone with the wind."