The Churchill Series – Apr. 17, 2007

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Cigars today, threats to Prime Minister’s life, and a caution to be careful who you buy cigars from on your next visit to wartime England.

In a Finest Hour article, Allan Packwood, then Archivist at the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge, tells us:

The problem facing those trying to protect the premier [from Nazi assassins] was immense. The only way they could be absolutely certain that a cigar [received in a gift package] was safe to smoke was by exposing it to a testing process that would destroy it. [That solution] was clearly unacceptable to the Prime Minister. …

[What to do?]

It became the policy of Churchill's Private Office not to accept small gifts, while larger consignments of cigars were individually assessed for the risk they posed. If the source was considered respectable the consignment could be referred to M.I.5 for random testing. But when the source was considered unreliable the cigars clearly had to be disposed of.

On 7 November 1941, John Martin, Churchill's Principal Private Secretary, sent the Prime Minister a minute relating to two recent gifts of cigars from Brazil. He noted that, "In view of the German record in matters of this kind, there is undoubtedly an element of risk...and it does not seem to be a risk which you should take."

He suggested three alternatives: the cigars could be exchanged at a reputable dealer's for reliable stock and sold to unsuspecting customers; they could be exchanged with cigars owned by Lord Rothschild and smoked by him; or they could be destroyed or smoked by any of Churchill's staff who were prepared to take the risk.

From his marginal annotations, it is clear that Churchill considered the first option to be "lousy" and the second to be unacceptable. He minuted back, "If these cigars are not thought safe for me, they are not safe for anyone, and had better be destroyed."

Churchill had the right solution for the right reason.

Whatever possessed Martin to suggest the cigars “be exchanged at a reputable dealer’s for reliable stock?” Or to think Churchill would endorse such a proposal?

It may be that Martin was doing what staffers often do for the top executive: laying out all the options, even those with which they might disagree.

That said, and remembering that fine cigars were very scarce in wartime England, I don’t think any of us would have bought a cigar from Martin if we knew what Churchill learned on 7 November 1941.