374 Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized Biographydescribed the Cliveden set as having been in existence in its current form for about 20 months, with
a policy including an Anglo-German, bargain, British recognition of Franco’s Spain, the final
dismantling of the collective security features of the League of Nations, and a round of new loans to
Germany from bankers — perhaps Brand — who are themselves Cliveden habitués. “The pro-
dictator attitude of this clique,” this article pointed out, “is the real reason that Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain refuses to tell Parliament and the world at what point England will fight.”
(Philadelphia Record, April 4, 1938) The New York Times article on Cliveden was headlined,
“Friends of Hitler Strong in Britain,” and noted that Chamberlain, more at ease with the pro-
German element, had spent Easter with Lord Londonderry, an outspoken pro-German and an
important official of the Conservative Party. (The wealthy elitist Lord Londonderry was about to
publish his book Ourselves and Germany, a plea for Anglo-German rapprochement.). The author,
Ferdinand Kuhn Jr., noted “British aristocracy by its very nature is more hostile to communism than
to fascism. When men like Londonderry or Viscount Rothermere or Lord Astor have political
nightmares the ogre of their imagination is Russia, not Germany. Menace to their wealth, their
social position, as they see, it, is the creed of communism, and, in their minds, whatever endangers
themselves endangers England.” But what of the demagogue Hitler? Kuhn felt that “it is not
difficult to see why so many British aristocrats today sympathize with Hitler. They may not approve
particularly of his persecution of Catholics or Jews, but they do regard him as a St. George who
killed the dragon of communism in Germany and prevented Russia from spreading her creed to
Western Europe.” (New York Times, April 17, 1938)
Lord Halifax of the Cliveden set met with Hitler, and offered cooperation against the USSR.
According to a German Foreign Ministry memo on the Hitler-Halifax talks later published by the
Soviets (although denied by the British), Halifax stated that Britain regarded Hitler as the chief
bulwark against communism in Europe. He hinted that the UK was seeking a four-power
combination of Britain, France, Germany, and Italy against Moscow. The Germans further
understood from Halifax that Britain was ready to sacrifice Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland to
the German sphere of influence if this could be done without war into which the Conservative
Cabinet might become embroiled.^197 The British Communist house organ, the Daily Worker,
revealed the guest book for this meeting of “the pro-Fascist clique that directs the policy of the
Chamberlain government,” naming the Astors, Lothian, Tom Jones, Neville Chamberlain, Sir
Thomas Inskip, Cadogan, Lady Wilson, and Mrs. Tate, the MP from Frome. The Daily Worker was
especially intrigued by the presence of Lady Ravensdale, the sister-in-law of Sir Oswald Mosely of
the British Union of Fascists. The communist organ alleged that Lady Ravensdale’s presence had
been reported by early editions of Monday’s Evening Standard, but suppressed in later editions. The
Daily Worker further alleged that Cliveden was planning peace-time conscription or forced labor,
citing Lord Lothian’s comments to The Times of March 14 in favor of “universal national service.”
(Daily Worker, March 30, 1938)’^198 Compare this to Obama’s extremely extensive program of
national service discussed above. The British historian A.J.P. Taylor wrote obliquely about the
Munich sellout of September 1938, where Czechoslovakia was sacrificed to the British
appeasement policy: ‘The settlement at Munich was a triumph for British policy, which had worked
precisely to this end; not a triumph for Hitler, who had started with no such clear intention. Nor was
it merely a triumph for selfish or cynical British statesmen, indifferent to the fate of far-off peoples
or calculating that Hitler might be launched into war against Soviet Russia.^199
But one year after Munich came the Molotov-Ribbentrop or Hitler-Stalin Pact, which meant that
the British policy had blown up in the faces of Lady Astor and her crew. Hitler now had a free hand
to turn west to crush France and the Low Countries, leading to the British debacle at Dunkirk. This