Winston Churchill wanted to nuke Kremlin ‘to win Cold War,’ FBI memo reveals

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Winston Churchill wanted to nuke Kremlin ‘to win Cold War,’ FBI memo reveals
on November 10, 2014 at 23:00


A secret memo from the FBI’s archives has revealed that Britain’s Winston Churchill once urged the US to drop an atomic bomb to “wipe out” the Kremlin. He reportedly thought it was the only remedy against the spread of communism to the west.

Churchill, Britain’s prime minister during World War II and again during the Cold War 1950s, made his views known to a visiting American politician in 1947, The Daily Mail reported in a preview of a new book, “When Lions Roar: The Churchills and The Kennedys” by investigative journalist Thomas Maier. The book containing the secret FBI memo is to be published next month.

Britain and the Soviet Union had been allies during WW2. However, according to the memo written by an FBI agent, Churchill asked a Right-wing Republican senator, Styles Bridges, to help persuade then-President Harry Truman to launch a nuclear attack which would make the former USSR easy to deal with.

The FBI memo claims Churchill insisted that the “only salvation for the civilization of the world would be if the President of the United States would declare Russia to be imperiling world peace and attack Russia.” The Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb in 1949, much to the surprise to the United States, which was apparently unaware that the Soviet Union possessed nuclear weapons. Britain’s wartime leader allegedly pledged that if an atomic bomb could be dropped on the Kremlin, “wiping it out,” it would be “a very easy problem to handle the balance of Russia, which would be without direction.”


http://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/winston-churchill-wanted-nuke-kremlin-win-cold-war-fbi-memo-reveals.html

Yes, scary what these guys believed, and what it would have meant given where we went. You know...like we villify GWB, but half of these guys might have done the same. Oh well, it makes you all the more appreciative of what others did.

Churchill had OCD over Stalin. Churchill always preferred to invade Europe by Italy, not France. I believe that's because of one thing: look where we end up...Munich. Hundreds of miles to the east.

Anyone who knows position football knows it's all about where you start, not where you end up, and hence whose side of the field you play the rest of the game on. Or, in other words, Churchill wanted to go directly to Germany, and start pushing back the Soviets to the east from the Polish border. He was thinking post-war geopolitics even back then.

Yes but Churchill really did not factor in the terrain difficulties and I think his other choice of Greece, Yugoslavia would have been better with the fact the Germans did not have fuull control in the later. It would have still been difficult going through Austria, but Poland, would not doubt have been the incentive to free before the USSR got there.

We know no war ever happened, but tactically for the time, dropping a bomb, would have wiped out the nerve centre of the Soviet Union, no doubt leaving a power struggler, which could have crippled them. Interesting to hypothesize this.

Good points, all.  

This is just something I have mused over for decades.  Never written anything on it.  But I did detect an urgency on the part of Churchill to end up in Central Europe, where of course he would have confronted Stalin much further east.

But you are right about running into the Alps; perhaps Italy was a compromise?  And there was a lot of speculation about what to do with this new toy (the "gadget").  Churchill had the post-war much on his mind once England secured the US help.

The fact is many of the British even more so the armed forces were at odds that they were even allies to the USSR, but the reality is where Churchill had much influence in the early stages of the war, this became less and less as the war went on. It would have been interesting if in 1943 the attack had been through Yugoslavia, it would have cut the German main forces far from this battle zone, where Hitler had concentrated most in France and Russia. It was only Kesselring who adverted disaster in Italy, when Mussolini was other thrown by taking control of key areas in Italy with troops quickly. This would not have been possible in Yugoslavia, where they did not control areas of the country. Again where they faced Tito's forces and with having closer access to fuel, this would have made for an interesting campaign, though again the terrain would have favoured the defenders, but with one difference the local knowledge of this by Tito's forces.

Is interesting Quill

I heard that Gen. George Patton wanted to attack Stalin right after we wrapped things up with the Germans and Japanese, believing a war was inevitable in the first place.

Ben_Reilly wrote:I heard that Gen. George Patton wanted to attack Stalin right after we wrapped things up with the Germans and Japanese, believing a war was inevitable in the first place.

He did, many Germans also believed this and why many fought on in the hope this would happen. Even Stalin believed this would happen. The reality is the allies could have reached Berlin before the USSR, politics ensured that never happened, though even if they had, they would have still divided up Germany by the lines that did happen.

Another sensationalist headline from the Daily Mail. There is no document in the FBI archives that was written by Winston Churchill saying that the US should nuke the Kremlin or formally proposing that they should. This information isn’t new but you can depend on the Daily Mail to put its own special brand of spin on it. What Winston Churchill said was said in a private conversation when he was leader of the opposition and it’s  covered it in the book ‘The Struggle for Survival 1945-60’. He never made a proposal to anyone in the US to nuke the Kremlin or anywhere else. He was like that though – saying something controversial to get a reaction and gauge the mood of the people he was speaking to....he was a clever man in that respect. And I’m sure there are many things buried in the archives of the FBI for that era, much of it with Hoover’s special little touches to it  lol..

Montgomery or Patton probably could have reached Berlin first but what was the point of driving on causing needless deaths of even more of our young men. Patton actually had great respect for the Germans (not Nazi’s) and his real target were the Russians who he wanted to take on. A brilliant General with plenty to say about what the end game should have been. Turns out he never knew what happened in the end though.

Irn Bru wrote:Another sensationalist headline from the Daily Mail. There is no document in the FBI archives that was written by Winston Churchill saying that the US should nuke the Kremlin or formally proposing that they should. This information isn’t new but you can depend on the Daily Mail to put its own special brand of spin on it. What Winston Churchill said was said in a private conversation when he was leader of the opposition and it’s  covered it in the book ‘The Struggle for Survival 1945-60’. He never made a proposal to anyone in the US to nuke the Kremlin or anywhere else. He was like that though – saying something controversial to get a reaction and gauge the mood of the people he was speaking to....he was a clever man in that respect. And I’m sure there are many things buried in the archives of the FBI for that era, much of it with Hoover’s special little touches to it  lol..

Montgomery or Patton probably could have reached Berlin first but what was the point of driving on causing needless deaths of even more of our young men. Patton actually had great respect for the Germans (not Nazi’s) and his real target were the Russians who he wanted to take on. A brilliant General with plenty to say about what the end game should have been. Turns out he never knew what happened in the end though.

Would there have been needless deaths, they still faced the same units and with many capitulating already by this point in the west. I imagine as many were fighting for their lives in the east to do exactly this halt the Russian, knowing the war had been lost and that the US, Brits, French reached their first to save many German lives from the atrocities that were going on. So I doubt it would have caused more deaths, as many Germans as did happen by this point capitulated to the western allies.
Pattan was good but his ego did create many unnecessarily casualties, so not brilliant in my book, good none the less

Brasidas wrote:

Irn Bru wrote:Another sensationalist headline from the Daily Mail. There is no document in the FBI archives that was written by Winston Churchill saying that the US should nuke the Kremlin or formally proposing that they should. This information isn’t new but you can depend on the Daily Mail to put its own special brand of spin on it. What Winston Churchill said was said in a private conversation when he was leader of the opposition and it’s  covered it in the book ‘The Struggle for Survival 1945-60’. He never made a proposal to anyone in the US to nuke the Kremlin or anywhere else. He was like that though – saying something controversial to get a reaction and gauge the mood of the people he was speaking to....he was a clever man in that respect. And I’m sure there are many things buried in the archives of the FBI for that era, much of it with Hoover’s special little touches to it  lol..

Montgomery or Patton probably could have reached Berlin first but what was the point of driving on causing needless deaths of even more of our young men. Patton actually had great respect for the Germans (not Nazi’s) and his real target were the Russians who he wanted to take on. A brilliant General with plenty to say about what the end game should have been. Turns out he never knew what happened in the end though.

Would there have been needless deaths, they still faced the same units and with many capitulating already by this point in the west. I imagine as many were fighting for their lives in the east to do exactly this halt the Russian, knowing the war had been lost and that the US, Brits, French reached their first to save many German lives from the atrocities that were going on. So I doubt it would have caused more deaths, as many Germans as did happen by this point capitulated to the western allies.
Pattan was good but his ego did create many unnecessarily casualties, so not brilliant in my book, good none the less

Of course there would be needless deaths. The allies were not going to walk in all the way to Berlin without a shot being fired were they?

Germany had already been carved up and whatever gains had been made would be for nothing simply because they would have to fall back to the lines already agreed.

Again you are not looking at this from the evidence where after the Rhine crossing and encirclement of the Ruhr, Berlin was there for the taking, which again many German units capitulating. Yes I know  th boundaries had already been drawn, but this is a hypothetical debate, where even if Germany would still be carved up, hundreds of thousands of Germans, would not have been raped murdered, committed suicide all through being over run by the Russians, who were out for blood after years themselves of butchery to them.

So we re actually talking about the possibility of saving more lives here, where many of these people would have been able to flee to through the west, take Berlin and end the war with less casualties also in the east with the conflict finishing earlier by a few weeks. . You only have to read the accounts of German army groups fighting desperately in the east, just  sothat they could surrender to the western allies

From a totally non academic, inhumane perspective- I'm rather glad they didn't nuke the Kremlin. All that gorgeous architecture- definitely on my list of places to see in the not too distant future. We lost enough historical beauty during the wars, and to be honest, from a more considered perspective, the outcome of destroying Moscow would have been utter chaos with the rapid break up of the USSR, and possibly an incredibly ruthless America as the supreme power on the world stage. The Cold War may have been a dangerous period with the constant possibility of a nuclear armageddon, but it also likely that having 2 major nuclear powers at least 'checked' the excesses of the two- one supreme nuclear power would have been free to exert as much force as they wished...

Fair points Eilzel and think all would agree with you on this not being used at this time on Moscow. Good point about the architecture.

One point: America was not enthusiastic about the war.  It was truly Churchill's war...he was the one who felt passionately about the USSR.

You have to remember that the US aggression that you guys talk about didn't start until 1950's, beginning when MaCarthur crossed the 38th parallel and got fired for it.

usa.usembassy wrote:MacArthur conceived of the Korean war as a holy war; he kept talking about "unleashing Chiang Kai-shek," then holed up in his island fortress on Formosa, and launching atomic strikes, all of which made Truman, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the other UN countries involved very nervous. For Harry Truman and the Joint Chiefs, Korea was an exercise in containment, but that made it a very frustrating war for many Americans. It meant that in this war the United States was not aiming for total victory, but for more limited, and more ambiguous, results.
http://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/democrac/58.htm

That's when the American right-wing mindset awakened and became as rabidly anti-communist as Churchill...and hence launched McCarthyism.  Y'all are still thinking Cold War, when in fact there were three phases post-war in America, not one.

Eilzel wrote:From a totally non academic, inhumane perspective- I'm rather glad they didn't nuke the Kremlin. All that gorgeous architecture- definitely on my list of places to see in the not too distant future. We lost enough historical beauty during the wars, and to be honest, from a more considered perspective, the outcome of destroying Moscow would have been utter chaos with the rapid break up of the USSR, and possibly an incredibly ruthless America as the supreme power on the world stage. The Cold War may have been a dangerous period with the constant possibility of a nuclear armageddon, but it also likely that having 2 major nuclear powers at least 'checked' the excesses of the two- one supreme nuclear power would have been free to exert as much force as they wished...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century#Statement_of_Principles

I think you're pretty much on the button with the "ruthless America" scenario, because look what happened about a decade after the USSR fell ... the only thing I can think that could have changed that a bit was that the U.S.-as-the-sole-superpower scenario would have come at a time the U.S. was a bit more left-leaning, and might have become something a bit more like a modern Scandinavian country if the right didn't have the USSR to scare people with. The U.S. right used the scary stories from the Soviet Union to drive an awful lot of people away from anything that could be associated by the right with socialism.

we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;
we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad; [and]
we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

That's quite chilling actually Ben. Notice how the bits in red aren't exactly saying the same as those in blue. Certainly since the fall of the USSR there has hardly been a moment when the US hasn't tried to involve itself in some conflict militarily. The fortunate factor now (compared with 1945) of course is there are 9 (correct me if I'm wrong) nuclear armed nations. So America can never go 'too' far.

Eilzel wrote:

we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;
we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad; [and]
we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

That's quite chilling actually Ben. Notice how the bits in red aren't exactly saying the same as those in blue. Certainly since the fall of the USSR there has hardly been a moment when the US hasn't tried to involve itself in some conflict militarily. The fortunate factor now (compared with 1945) of course is there are 9 (correct me if I'm wrong) nuclear armed nations. So America can never go 'too' far.

Good pointing that out, Les.  That's exactly what Orwell was pointing out when he invented the term double-speak.  

Peacekeepers, indeed.