Leonard Cheshire answering questions
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Leonard Cheshire answering questions
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Asked about human ability to cope with crisis objectively and whether there were any circumstances in which a nuclear war was morally justified, Cheshire provides his answers. Explains his rationale for atomic bombing of Japan. Questioned on use of force in Vietnam and bombing of Hanoi and what was alternative. Goes on to discuss nuclear war. States that even if use of force justified, we are limited in the manner in which we use it. Goes on with question and discussion of use of interrogation techniques and use of force in Northern Ireland. Continues to discuss the use of force with audience. Discusses what to do if an individual thinks a cause is unjust. Carries on with further discussions on just war and mistakes and other matters.
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This content is property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre.
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Q: There is a tremendous amount of talk about crisis management and all that sort of thing. I wondered if I could ask a few questions arising from that. One is whether you think that given the nature of the human being whether crisis management would in fact ever be perfect enough to avoid the need to go to war and secondly whether you consider there are any circumstances in which a nuclear war would be morally right.
LC: If your first question is about crisis management or the human being’s ability to cope with a crisis objectively — is that the question? I would say that it depends very much upon the situation. If you know that you are going to get really hit if you make the wrong decision I would suggest that you tend to be much more realistic and objective. If you take cases where say Britain has made decisions in the past about a particular thing where it could be right or it could be wrong but there are no immediate vast consequences upon the nation you could easily be carried away by emotion. If you know that if you take the wrong decision and then that means a nuclear war on your head I would suggest that man is then pretty responsible. But the one blessing to me is that nuclear war is so terrible that everybody, no matter what he is after can see that it has got to be avoided if humanly possible. I can’t see that anybody would really gain from a nuclear war in the absence of our sudden pre-emptive strikes that just succeeded without retaliation. If you’ll allow me to qualify it by saying I’m completely out of this field so, you know I don’t know the military implications. The much bigger question you asked was whether there is ever a situation in which it’s justified. I would say there could be a situation in which it is justified depending upon what a given nation or group of nations is intending to do to the rest of the world and that I would say that it would have to be very very extreme. And also I don’t have the information as to what a nuclear war would really do in terms of casualties. I mean all of you know that but I don’t so I can only answer that question with some hesitation. But if its relevant I would like to say that the, what I would like to call the passivist argument that you, you cannot take human life when you analyse it is really a materialistic argument because it’s really arguing that the worst thing that can happen to a man is death. There can well be injustice and oppression which is worse than the death of so many people. I can only say that if it were a question of deciding upon a nuclear war it would be a question of weighing up the consequences of the alternative courses of action and if the one was less than the other. Say you take Nagasaki. I think one can truthfully say that greater good or rather less harm was achieved by those two bombs at least in terms of human life than by withholding them and carrying on a conventional war. I suppose it is conceivable that you can reach a comparable situation with not just two bombs but a whole nuclear census.
Q: Similar to that argument that they can’t actually know in advance what you are, or what the alternative is and for instance Vietnam has killed the, virtually the whole of the young age group in North Vietnam between seventeen and thirty two. Something like that. It is a colossal amount. [unclear] something like [unclear] and you can argue that had the United States known in ‘62 or ‘61 what Vietnam was going to lead to that a nuclear weapon on Hanoi would have been the correct answer. But you can’t foretell how the future is going to unroll. You can’t foretell the alternative.
LC: But one nuclear bomb on Hanoi wouldn’t have ended the war would it because it would have brought in, inevitably it would have brought in NATO powers. If you, if you raise the conflict to that level I would call nuclear war a major power level only. If you use a major power weapon in what is intended to be a limited war you immediately escalate it to a major power level and I would have said that one of the consequences you’d have to take into account in that course of action was the bringing in of the, of Russia.
Q: Well, it is possible to do it.
LC: I mean clearly as human beings we can only do our best to estimate the consequences but I do feel that even if it is justified to use force we are limited in the manner in which we use force. I mean, to argue that if I torture this man I will get information out of him that will enable me to save the lives of five hundred of my own country to me is unjustified. I feel that we are, although we have a right to use force under certain circumstances we are limited in the manner in which we use it and that we may not resort to torture and I don’t think one could justifiably argue that torture is permissible.
Q: Could I follow that one up by asking then how you would [unclear] if at the use of the interrogation technique in Northern Ireland. You express the need for justice and fairness in the application of [unclear] and we can all agree we have our own views.
LC: Yeah quite.
Q: [unclear] Now, on the interrogation technique in Northern Ireland there are two views are there not? That they are justified because of the information that it obtained and that this is greater justice for the people of Northern Ireland or greater service. On the other hand they could argue these are not the same as internment. Surely the difficulty confronting any one is not the morality or not the basic need for justice and fairness but the grey area. Where, where do you draw the line? Surely this is the fundamental difficulty and Northern Ireland is a particularly difficult case.
LC: Yes. I have got to agree absolutely and I tended to make it clear if I didn’t but whereas I would say the principal is fairly clear the interpretation of it in a given instance is extremely difficult and calls for some very clear thinking and very good intelligence. If you ask me the question of interrogation methods firstly I’m not in my mind absolutely certain about the facts. But if we assume for the moment that there has been what would normally be considered excessive force used in interrogation I can see that relative to the repressing the terrorists to use a general term one could say it was justified. But one also has to take into account the psychological effect that it has upon the people and if the result of that is to make us appear in their minds to be brutal, to be unjust then I think on expediency grounds alone it’s questionable because it seems to me that nothing can be solved in Northern Ireland except by the establishment of good community relations between the Army and people, the police and the people and the different sections of the people. And therefore if a particular military course of action is really seriously militating against that in the long term as well as the short term I question whether it was answered.
Q: Sorry, may I follow that?
LC: Yes, of course.
Q: Because what you are really saying is whether it is politically effective [unclear] not whether it is just and surely I mean this is the problem. I mean —
LC: But the two to me are synonymous unless you [pause] but they should be synonymous and I am trying to say that what we do must be just but the force that we use must be related to the, to the aggression. In Northern Ireland it seems to me you have a minority group using the situation to apply their own forceful guerilla activities. By and large the people as a whole don’t subscribe to that method. But if in repressing those guerilla activities we make ourselves out to be persecuting them we appear to them to be unjust and harsh and determined to establish a system that they don’t think is quite fair then justice apart we are not achieving our objective. You would surely agree that you must take into account not just the military implications of that investigation but the effect upon the people. If it is going to turn the people against the Army, against the authorities, against Britain, against Stormont you’ve escalated it.
Q: Well, can I talk on the same subject? As you say here as far as [unclear] is concerned I don’t think there is any doubt about the effect on the wider [unclear] and the rather advanced intellectual press is rather worrying but when the Times tried to do a poll about it they could only rake up four percent who considered that the better is the less use of force in interrogation, the majority thought that there ought to be more. I think the effect on the people of course I agree with you if it is having an effect on the people of Northern Ireland they would be [unclear] but up to a point [unclear] because of the way in which it has been presented. All the materials to show why it was necessary to introduce internment and why it was justified to use the interrogation technique rather than sitting down over a cup of tea and hoping the chap would talk. The evidence about intimidation of witnesses and so forth has never been published [unclear] sufficiently then I think where the damages I would say were not inferred.
LC: Yes. I am limited because I really and truthfully do not know the facts. I do not know if excessive force, you know and brutality has been used. I just don’t. But I have to make, I have to make an assumption that for the purposes of the questions that excessive brutality has been used. If we allow that for the moment the effect on the British public doesn’t seem to me to be quite so relevant because the British public doesn’t understand the historical situation, doesn’t know that there ever was oppression by us in the past in Ireland. Merely sees its own soldiers and its own family with whom it probably has the highest regard being subjected to this terrible situation and therefore this is the context that it sees. The minority in Ireland sees it in a totally different point of view and as I understand it they saw the British soldiers come, they welcomed us when we came there but sadly it appears that some elements over there have succeeded in turning the scales so that now we appear to be against them. To me this is a terrible tragedy.
Q: I agree on two [facets] I think they, as you say slightly exceeded the challenge. People who [unclear] of course are the IRA provisionals —
LC: Yes.
Q: By using the guerilla technique straight out of [unclear] they deliberately try to provoke the [unclear] majority.
LC: Yes.
Q: Government and the security forces to react up to a point being made to feel I think the answer to that deliberate attempt by the use of violence to create a reaction in which there is a backlash or a reaction then it is incumbent upon the government in control to use propaganda better to counteract it and that is what I think is vague.
LC: I think I’d agree with you. However, I can only state the view that the, that the decision as to whether or not it is just and right must depend upon the effect that it is having upon the total situation. And if there is some element lacking, you’re suggesting propaganda well then this is where the fault lies.
Q: The theme of your talk seems to be a soldier was morally justified in taking life providing he was fighting for a just cause. Now, regrettably this doesn’t even come to the problem of the provision of soldiers who is likely to be fighting for a cause [unclear] What is your view of a soldier in a Vietnam situation? What is he to do if the cause for which he is fighting he believes to be unjust? Should he soldier on and [unclear]. [unclear] Now, this to me seems to me to be the moral [unclear] could you give us your opinion on [unclear]
LC: Yes. You are quite right and I know that I didn’t touch on that subject. Largely because I saw that time was running and I suspected this would come up in the questions and it is a subject to which I have, you know, given some thought. I recognise that if one enters the armed forces one has a duty to the discipline and loyalty to which one takes an oath and that if you are going to go into an action and then opt out of it in the middle of the action because you don’t think that the general cause which you’re fighting is just you completely undermine the discipline of the unit in which you are fighting. Having got to that point I would say that you, you have a duty to go on fighting subject only to the just use of force, not using excessive force or not giving way to, you know, anger and reprisals and so on. But as a citizen each one of us has a duty to come to a decision in our own minds on basic principles and we have a duty to try in so far as we can to influence government thinking it seems to me. Now, if we’re going to, if you are a soldier and you are called upon to take part in a military action which you believe is unjust I would say that the, that it has to be a very high level or a very advanced degree of injustice before you could properly opt out. But when you joined the armed forces you presumably had confidence in your country within reasonable limits to pursue a just policy. You were definitely committing yourself to the implementation of your country’s policies it seems to me. If having done so you then come to the conclusion that a particular action, shall we say Vietnam is unjust at any rate as regards your own country presumably you have a right to go to your authorities and say, ‘I’m very sorry but in conscience I can’t go along with this. I would like to be released.’ I would assume that you have the right to do that provided you are not doing it in the middle of an action in Vietnam itself because if you do that you are then provoking a very difficult situation for your, for whoever is your immediate superior and also as I say you are undermining the discipline of the, of the unit. But over and above that you do have this duty and right to make your impact upon the country’s thinking. Of course, I realise that the minute you join the armed forces you are precluded or at least I believe you are from participating in politics. So I feel that if you’ve joined voluntarily you’ve put yourself in rather a difficult position. If you are conscripted it seems to be somewhat different. But have you got your own views?
Q: Well, I just [pause] well, my own view is quite simple. I believe that the soldier’s duty is to do as he is told and that we can’t have individuals in [unclear] deciding whether a particular act is right or wrong. And after all whose [unclear] is it? We have [Christians] on both sides presumably praying to the one almighty that ultimately their just cause is decided [unclear] but I’d like to ask your opinion. You mentioned.
LC: Yeah.
Q: The degree of force that is unjust. A sort of [unclear]
LC: Yes.
Q: [unclear]
LC: No, I didn’t —
Is it, is it in order for him to be told then? I mean we can’t moralise about it. I mean we are dealing with a difficult subject. Is it in order for an infantry soldier to stick a bit of steel into someone’s gut [unclear]? Is that ok? [unclear]
LC: No, excuse me. I did not say. I did not bring up the question of interrogation as being unjust. I didn’t raise that point. I think that I made the point that living in a concrete world we can only take the best of whatever courses lie open to us and that will often mean doing something which appears to be pretty brutal. For instance, there was an aircraft carrier that went down in the Mediterranean in the war and the captain had the alternative of closing the watertight doors and sealing off the fate of all those the other side of it but keeping the ship afloat long enough to get most of the others off or not closing those doors and letting everybody go down. He closed the doors. Now, taken in itself that could be as you said sticking a piece of steel in a man’s guts. Pretty brutal. But under the circumstances it was the best he could do and I personally would defend it and against the man whom I’ve often met who said you never have the right to take an innocent life no matter what is at stake. I will argue this. So when you say has a soldier the right to kill another man you put it symbolically whether it’s a piece of steel or a bullet doesn’t make all that much difference. If you’re fighting you have got to do it. But suppose to go back to the question of concentration camps which were purely retaliation upon people who had been captured or taken for one reason or another with the purpose of intimidating and finally exterminating them you wouldn’t think that was justified would you? Would you?
Q: [unclear] the circumstances.
LC: Under any circumstances. Would you?
Q: I would think [unclear] where it could be justified [unclear]. That would be my view. And on the subject [unclear]
LC: Yes.
Q: I can appreciate the view of a [passive] who doesn’t believe in taking a life. but I can’t appreciate the view of somebody [unclear] the moral [unclear] of the situation. I mean war is a horrible thing as we can see. You know, when war is alright. It takes a long time to come to [unclear] and I can’t imagine a situation when an individual conscience how you could ever conduct a war with these individuals [unclear] on the rights and wrongs [unclear]
LC: But I didn’t —
Q: And the cause, the overall cause [unclear]
LC: Well, I’m sorry but you can. Suppose we, suppose I move on to something that I am more familiar with. Bombing. Now, Bomber Command set out to destroy or hope to destroy the German industrial, war industrial machine. They could do that one of two ways. You could either [block bomb] whole cities or you could try and be more precise and damage just the factories. You obviously have that choice. That is a choice and each could be equally militarily effective. So you do have a choice. I know there are certain other circumstances which you don’t but I never said that it was left to each individual to decide what to do. In fact, when answering one question I specifically, yours, I specifically said that once you are committed you’ve got to go along with it. But nevertheless there is a degree up the hierarchy of command that takes these decisions. Now, take Nagasaki. You could have dropped that bomb on the most heavily populated city of Japan or you could have dropped it out to sea couldn’t you? That was a free choice. In one you took no life at all and in the other you took forty thousand or whatever it was. That was a free choice. So there is a degree of choice and if you say you can believe in one extreme or the other. Most things in life, the just and true part lies somewhere between those two extremes. I absolutely agree that the interpretation into the given situation is exceedingly difficult. You are in the heat of battle. You’re under great provocation. You may be without sleep. It is a very very difficult thing to do and I’m not for one minute saying that having started a war you’ve got to sort of play it with soft gloves. I didn’t in my own case and I don’t, I mean that doesn’t make sense at all. I agree with you. But I’m talking more about the decision as to whether a country goes to war and what terms of reference are given to its commanders in chief. Surely you’ll agree that there is a choice there. We must allow for human weakness. I mean, we are frail. We are prompted by all sorts of things. We do act under provocation. Nobody denies that. No one country however just its cause has been totally just in the way in which it has fought its wars except for a short period.
Q: Speaking [as an officer] have you not indicated that there is indeed a very fundamental problem there in that [unclear] with that Germany so there are two options. One was to shore up Germany’s [unclear] and the other to destroy the German people’s will to resist. In fact, those options were used and used totally [unclear] and an option the equation of the war that will always be [unclear]
LC: Yes.
Q: This debate has been dealing on the one uncertainty in the equation and that is the question of justice. What is justice? And I think it is really a variable. It is a variable and will always be interpreted by different people in different ways.
LC: Yes.
Q: If you put a variable into a mathematical equation based on [unclear] you will get a different answer depending on the variable. I mean there have been wars that have been fought through the ages which were [unclear] just wars in the light of the people who determined the structure. The Inquisition in Spain was done by just men who believed in the cause that they were using in those circumstances. So this notion of justice is central to the whole theme we are tripping over all the time.
LC: No. I’m sorry. I don’t hold that we’re tripping over it. For one thing we are not mathematical units. We are human beings. So I don’t think you can bring quite the analogy of a mathematical equation. I know that people will interpret justice differently. I know that even the best man will make a mistake and I’ve said that but what I’m saying is that we have got to do our utmost to see that the decisions we take and the vein in which we carry them out are just. As human beings we can’t do more than that. But the point is that I think we, that so long as we know that this is our objective and so long as we use our full mental and spiritual and moral resources to, to see that our decisions are just that’s the best we can do. I mean, I know that there have been good men who have made complete mistakes. Who have pursued what they thought was just which in fact wasn’t. I know that. And so it would be presumably until the end of time. But after all the more we make up our minds that this is what we need to do and the more we realise that each one of us as an individual has a duty to try and influence our own country towards that end the better hope we have. I mean you couldn’t surely suggest any other criteria for it. You are merely saying the criteria is right but the implementation is difficult. So, I don’t accept the difficulty as an argument that the basic principle is false.
Q: [unclear] come back to respond to that. What would a serving military man under particular circumstances would have to consider whether his actions [unclear] for instance a bomber pilot engaged on a mass raid on Berlin. Should he have considered whether this was a just act or not? I mean there is a large body of opinion now that with hindsight who have said it was a wholly immoral and unjustified action.
LC: I don’t.
Q: Is that right? Justice varies. It varies with time. It varies with people [unclear] it varies with hindsight. It varies with a whole lot of things.
LC: Well, I don’t hold the justice varies. I hold that our view and interpretation and understanding of it varies. If you come to the question of the bombing of Berlin Speer had said that if there had been four more Hamburgs Germany would have given up the war. They would have had to. So that what I think went wrong with the bombing of Germany was that we never had a consistent policy. There were so many pressures to these directions we started on one course which could have been successful if logically pursued then shifted to another. I don’t think that an individual bomber pilot under those circumstances when you think that twenty thousand lives were being, were being methodically liquidated every day of the war which was what was happening could have opted out. But let me take another situation. You see, you see a fighter pilot, an enemy fighter pilot coming down by parachute. You shot him down. You might sort of feel so angry that you feel, ‘Right I’ll machine gun him,’ which probably happened on both sides. It certainly did happen. Now, in that instance the man has an option and he can be right and he could be wrong. So that is at least one area in which the individual has a responsibility because he is undertaking an individual action. The CO of a small platoon might come across an enemy group which he now has in his hands and instead of capturing them he may just decide just out of spite to machine gun them. I would hold that was wrong. He had an option there. There are others in which I felt that I had made a response but I suppose I hadn’t where we did not have an option. Where we can only pursue what appears to be the best of two courses. But I would say that there can come a point of injustice where something is so manifestly unjust that we do have a duty to go against the system. And after all if we take Hitler there were Germans who saw the price for this and risked everything to fight the system and paid for it with their lives and we would hold them to be just. They were just. And I also have vivid recollections of a German telling me, in the middle ‘30s, I mean he told me immediately after the war, the middle ‘30s the Gestapo would come to the house of a friend of yours and take him away and you knew that you should do something about it in those early days but you didn’t and the moment you didn’t you were less of a man. You’d lost your self-respect and because you hadn’t done something in that instant you never could in the next. So step by step you were caught in it. You got to the point where you just ran along with everybody. So I do feel that there are certain points in which you do have an option and should do something even though it appears to be against your society.
Q: [unclear] views the motive must be good.
LC: Ahum.
Q: [unclear] Defining what is good.
LC: Defining.
Q: [unclear]
LC: Yes.
Q: I’m not talking about just or unjust. But seen from one side only just and seen by [unclear] How would you find out who was right, who was wrong. It was easy to find out when finished the war and won the war to say who was right and who was wrong [unclear] During your talk you were talking about the [unclear] between the rich and poor nations and [unclear] This is a field where injustice is coming up and every day you can see it. [unclear] assuming one can understand the poor countries don’t see any [corroboration] beyond threatening their situation. That they must resort to violence. Is this a good cause for the use of force in this case good because the differences have not been resolved by people who have to resort to violence or is it not good?
LC: I just have to recall now your first question. What was your first question? Briefly. Just give me one —
Q: [unclear]
LC: Ah yes. Well, you’re only saying what we all, it seems to me you are only saying what we’ve all really been thinking. That it is almost impossible for a human being to be totally right in its assessment of a given situation and to be totally just. That I’ve got to agree. And in all conflicts or practically all conflicts there is a bit of justice on both sides. I mean in most of the civil wars and fights that there has been since the war one can see both sides point of view. It’s a question of which is right and which is more right and so on. I’m saying that the essential thing is that when we on our particular side do anything we are really out for the total good of the people as a whole. The community or mankind as a whole. That we are not out merely to promote our own particular goal. There is a distinction. I mean, we [pause] sorry. What did you want to say —
Q: [unclear] Yes. Come across two different points of view. From [unclear] we would say we would like to fight Communism because it’s not good. But the communists would say the whole world must be liberated from Capitalism. My cause is good. [unclear]
LC: I know. But I’m trying to say that we’ve got, we’ve got to be certain in our own minds that we really believe that our cause is good. That we are not merely promoting our own section of society or our own particular country and so on and after all people do respect sincerity. You may disagree with a man but if you see that if you really feel that he is sincere, if you really believe he is not trying to promote his own personal aims from good you would have a respect for him. And if you’ll permit me to be now specific about something. The Nigerian Civil War [pause] Now, at the end of that war and I’m quite certain I’m right in saying this both sides welcomed each other almost as brothers. They ended with great respect for each other. Whatever they may have been in the past I have a feeling that was forgotten and there was a great relief you know. Contradict me if I’m wrong. There was a great relief that it was finished and out of it emerged great good and there can be no question in that that particular country is going to play a major and profound role in the development of the whole continent. There were vast differences of opinion. I hold the view that we here might have operated in a different way and taken some of the heat out of the situation. That is a personal view. But both those sides were very sincere. Having been personally into what was for a short time called Biafra I discovered that they there considered that the Nigerian Army had treated them pretty lightly. In fact, they, they felt that there were several moments when the Nigerian Army could easily have advanced right through and overcome them but didn’t and they seemed to think, you know why? Well, they didn’t want to hit us too hard. But although there was a great deal of bitterness, although there was a tremendous loss of life through starvation I know, nevertheless I honestly think that at the end of it all those fighters recognised the sincerity in the other and there was a happy outcome. You will never get two groups of people to [pause] I mean they each believe in their own cause. There is a conflict in the world. There is a basic conflict in us all in the world. There must be, and I don’t believe it’s realistic to suggest that there won’t. But sometimes a nation goes to war out of fright. An individual goes for another out of spite. He’s annoyed because somebody has got the better of him and one could point to times in history and even recent history when that has happened. I’m saying that the real test is whether we, to the best of our ability are being sincerely aiming at the greater good of mankind and that we really believe in the justice of our cause. You mention Communism but Communism is an ideology and you don’t fight ideologies with weapons. You fight them with ideas. You fight them with dedication. And I would say that Communism could not conceivably have spread as it did if there weren’t so much injustice in the world and that we in the West have not paid sufficient regard to that injustice. And if you say are the poorer nations justified in the final resort in resorting to force for their survival I’d almost be inclined to say that if it goes far enough they are because to me the first injustice or the first, sorry the first violence was injustice. We talk about the first stage of force of as being the counteraction of the State against the group of people trying to assert their rights. But in truth that meant injustice, that initial injustice was the first violence and we should look upon it as that. And I do hold that this, the fact that there is so much disparity between the poorer countries through no fault of their own and the richer countries and the fact that we want to protect our interests and to be honest we do in very subtle ways but very powerful ways constitutes an injustice and this is why violence tends to spread so much. Violence sometimes is the outcome of malice but very often it’s the outcome of injustice and somebody takes advantage of that injustice to mobilise otherwise good people into taking violent action. So, if we want to be practical I’m saying the more we can go out in our own lives and do something about this the more we are eradicating some of the root causes of violence.
Q: [unclear] some of the religions where both sides believe passionately in the right of their [unclear]
LC: Well, I admire the passionate belief in the rightness of their cause. I just do not believe that in matters of religion you have a right to resort to force. I would say that you have a right to resort to force when what you are dealing with is [false] If somebody comes in this room with a sub-machine gun there is, you don’t talk him out of it, I suppose you try for a half a second but you’ve got to repress him. I mean the justification for force is that force is the only way of dealing with it. But if you’ve gone to the limit to use other means of persuasion that’s alright if you leap to force at the first instance. But when it comes to religious beliefs, I mean to me I know that they believed so passionately in the Middle Ages and so on that that’s what they did but nobody would justify that today and it doesn’t even work. You know, I mean you don’t compel. This has got to be a free [pause] God wants our free acceptance not our compelled acceptance.
Q: Might I ask you another question on a related moral issue which is not strictly in the defence issue but the Home Secretary’s view, can you envisage any situation however extreme and I could give a rather false scenario [unclear] particularly in this country a whole proportion of the population clamour for bringing back the death penalty. Can you morally see any justification for the death penalty for individual criminals?
LC: I find it difficult to see a complete moral argument against the State’s right to impose the death penalty. I haven’t applied my line that I suppose I should have done but I mean I wouldn’t feel totally offended if the state considered that it had a duty under certain circumstances to bring in the death penalty. The death penalty or life imprisonment. If it’s really going to affect the situation and be a real deterrent I personally don’t feel a total repulsion to that idea.
Q: [unclear] I’m not sure if you haven’t answered my question. I’m not even sure that it is my question [unclear] very much at all.
[laughter]
Q: Started with morality and then you started talking about governments.
LC: Yes.
Q: I think you pointed out the definition of morality but they are not necessarily the same. [unclear] certain circumstances that it is morally right to steal rather than starve. It still remains [unclear] to steal and the law would still hunt you for stealing even if it was an alternative to starvation. That would be a mitigating circumstance and the two are not the same. Do you feel now talking about morality of this report, do you believe morality is a factor which man [unclear] making decisions on the use of force even covertly. Surely most decisions on the use of force or the motivation for it is self-interest. I don’t think and I admit to your opinion that a natural motivation is indeed morality. I think the religious imposition of morality are superficial to the natural instinct of man. Self-interest. And even in your final [unclear] where your present your reflections [unclear] between the poor nations and the rich nations by implication whoever produces a moral [unclear] self-interest. It is in our own interests to keep the poor nations, make them richer but not a moral [unclear] In what sense do you think that morality is in fact a subject at all when considering the use of force?
LC: Yes. I agree with you. I didn’t say that it was morally, at least I don’t think I said that it was morally right to steal. I said that my church would hold that the man had a right to steal under those circumstances because the alternative was the death or extreme depriv, deprivis, deprivation, I can’t pronounce it, of his family and that therefore given that situation that was the lesser of two evils. He will probably have to bear the consequences you are right but nevertheless he would have saved his family. I think most people who believe in natural justice would agree that. There is a difference between natural justice and what I call divine justice. But natural justice is what we feel impelled to do in our natures but we have to try and discipline and educate ourselves to live according to a higher moral law which is very difficult to do. This is an area we’re not discussing. I’m afraid I agree that nations in fact have decided their policy very largely on questions of self-interest. In fact, a senior civil servant the other day said to me after I’ll be honest if Britain or any country takes a decision its main duty is to protect its own citizens and its property and so on. This is probably the governing factor. This is one of the tragedies. I mean to me a nation becomes great by virtue of its moral integrity and its willingness to forego its own self-interests for the interests of the greater and more international good towards perhaps which we are advancing. When you say I reduce the arguments for expediency in relation to the rich and the poor it’s true but I did that because I usually find that people when I’m talking to them will reject the moral argument or the charitable argument. You know, they will say that charity begins at home. Therefore one throws it back on to the lowest denominator which is self-interest. I’m trying to say that even out of grounds of expediency do it because you’ll suffer. But that isn’t to say what I would really like to see done is on grounds of morality and if I may digress this question of charity begins at home which you hear so often means of course that it begins at home but doesn’t end at home and that it is at home that we learn charity. We can give all our money away and do what we like. If we’re not charitable at home than probably our motive for giving are still not charitable. It is a misused quotation. But I do say that what is wrong with the world is that we are too concerned with our own vested interests whether business or political or national. This is my theme and this is where the soldier is caught in a moral dilemma because he has to fight in a situation which is really just protecting his own country’s interests.
Q: There really is no distinction between the individual and the group. The individual is entitled and self-sacrifice —
LC: Yes.
Q: And are the individuals within a group [unclear]
LC: Sorry. If we’re talking about an armed, an armed , part of the armed forces when we join up we know that we are going out to do what we’re told. We know that when it comes to battle we’ve got to be prepared to sacrifice everything in order to carry out our orders. If I was told to hold a position in order that a greater body of men behind can escape that’s our duty and in that case the group as I see it acts, operates as an individual. We, we join the Force knowing that this is what’s going to happen. So I would say that there are circumstances in which the individual has the right or the duty to sacrifice his group if it is in the greater good of those for whom he is fighting.
Q: Yes, but if you were —
LC: Sorry?
Q: If you were drawing moral [unclear] nations which argue because they acted in self-interest and the decisions that were taken if they were taken properly is taken by individuals. The question is whether those individuals —
LC: Oh.
Q: Are entitled to sacrifice the interests of the people who put them where they are in the same way that they would be able to sacrifice their own interests as an individual apart from [unclear]
LC: Well, I don’t divorce the individual or the government. You’re talking about the government. Elected by the people to carry out policies to which they subscribe. So I don’t distinguish. You can’t isolate the government from the people. They should be one and the same. Obviously you don’t ask the government totally to factorise the interests of its country but there is a degree of sacrifice and I’m not applying this to governments. I’m applying this to the whole country. It’s not the government that’s unwilling to do this and the people that be more willing. It’s that each of us in our own little way is determined to protect our own interests. I mean I have heard of very good men. I’ve heard this quite often of businessmen who have got very high principles and I very highly regard. When it comes to this question of the economic viability of the so-called developing nations taking the line that I would not subscribe to enabling a developing nation that holds raw materials to be able to manufacture to the same degree that we can because he’d then have an advantage over us. Well, now can one defend that point of view which is pure self-interest? And yet these are good people. So I’m saying that in different levels in society we are determined to protect our own interests and impose restrictions on other people and —
Q: [unclear] an MP representing a cotton town in Lancashire has a moral duty to throw his whole constituency out of work in order to enable people in other parts of the world where they are poorer to become richer.
LC: You’re quoting rather an extreme instance. I do not believe that is —
Q: I’m sorry [unclear]
LC: Well, I’m sorry. I think that we have to have much greater regard for the problems and the needs of the poorer nations and the developing countries and in fact we would be much more prosperous. We’d have much more of a sense of achievement as a nation which we’ve not got. If I were to ask you what we as Britain have as our national objective what are we really? What are we achieving as a nation apart from our internal prosperity? You’d have a [pause] Could you answer me?
Q: Well, I’m concerned that the morality of [unclear] it’s easy to sacrifice [unclear] as an MP [unclear] to the poor. It’s not ok. It seems to me the morality, if it is the moral duty to give away the goods of the people who he is there to represent in the same way. And the people [unclear] it’s not.
LC: But he’s not giving away. I mean there’s the process of making a developing nation economically viable is a very lengthy process. I mean it’s a question but there’s no reason why we couldn’t start all sorts of joint schemes together. It would operate in my opinion to the benefit of both of us. I don’t subscribe to the belief that if we were to help shall we say India to become a fully industrialised country that we would be out of jobs. The way we are going at the moment we are the part of the world will end up with all the money and how are we going to spend it because the other half of the world won’t be able to buy anything. To me it’s a self-defeating policy.
LC: If your first question is about crisis management or the human being’s ability to cope with a crisis objectively — is that the question? I would say that it depends very much upon the situation. If you know that you are going to get really hit if you make the wrong decision I would suggest that you tend to be much more realistic and objective. If you take cases where say Britain has made decisions in the past about a particular thing where it could be right or it could be wrong but there are no immediate vast consequences upon the nation you could easily be carried away by emotion. If you know that if you take the wrong decision and then that means a nuclear war on your head I would suggest that man is then pretty responsible. But the one blessing to me is that nuclear war is so terrible that everybody, no matter what he is after can see that it has got to be avoided if humanly possible. I can’t see that anybody would really gain from a nuclear war in the absence of our sudden pre-emptive strikes that just succeeded without retaliation. If you’ll allow me to qualify it by saying I’m completely out of this field so, you know I don’t know the military implications. The much bigger question you asked was whether there is ever a situation in which it’s justified. I would say there could be a situation in which it is justified depending upon what a given nation or group of nations is intending to do to the rest of the world and that I would say that it would have to be very very extreme. And also I don’t have the information as to what a nuclear war would really do in terms of casualties. I mean all of you know that but I don’t so I can only answer that question with some hesitation. But if its relevant I would like to say that the, what I would like to call the passivist argument that you, you cannot take human life when you analyse it is really a materialistic argument because it’s really arguing that the worst thing that can happen to a man is death. There can well be injustice and oppression which is worse than the death of so many people. I can only say that if it were a question of deciding upon a nuclear war it would be a question of weighing up the consequences of the alternative courses of action and if the one was less than the other. Say you take Nagasaki. I think one can truthfully say that greater good or rather less harm was achieved by those two bombs at least in terms of human life than by withholding them and carrying on a conventional war. I suppose it is conceivable that you can reach a comparable situation with not just two bombs but a whole nuclear census.
Q: Similar to that argument that they can’t actually know in advance what you are, or what the alternative is and for instance Vietnam has killed the, virtually the whole of the young age group in North Vietnam between seventeen and thirty two. Something like that. It is a colossal amount. [unclear] something like [unclear] and you can argue that had the United States known in ‘62 or ‘61 what Vietnam was going to lead to that a nuclear weapon on Hanoi would have been the correct answer. But you can’t foretell how the future is going to unroll. You can’t foretell the alternative.
LC: But one nuclear bomb on Hanoi wouldn’t have ended the war would it because it would have brought in, inevitably it would have brought in NATO powers. If you, if you raise the conflict to that level I would call nuclear war a major power level only. If you use a major power weapon in what is intended to be a limited war you immediately escalate it to a major power level and I would have said that one of the consequences you’d have to take into account in that course of action was the bringing in of the, of Russia.
Q: Well, it is possible to do it.
LC: I mean clearly as human beings we can only do our best to estimate the consequences but I do feel that even if it is justified to use force we are limited in the manner in which we use force. I mean, to argue that if I torture this man I will get information out of him that will enable me to save the lives of five hundred of my own country to me is unjustified. I feel that we are, although we have a right to use force under certain circumstances we are limited in the manner in which we use it and that we may not resort to torture and I don’t think one could justifiably argue that torture is permissible.
Q: Could I follow that one up by asking then how you would [unclear] if at the use of the interrogation technique in Northern Ireland. You express the need for justice and fairness in the application of [unclear] and we can all agree we have our own views.
LC: Yeah quite.
Q: [unclear] Now, on the interrogation technique in Northern Ireland there are two views are there not? That they are justified because of the information that it obtained and that this is greater justice for the people of Northern Ireland or greater service. On the other hand they could argue these are not the same as internment. Surely the difficulty confronting any one is not the morality or not the basic need for justice and fairness but the grey area. Where, where do you draw the line? Surely this is the fundamental difficulty and Northern Ireland is a particularly difficult case.
LC: Yes. I have got to agree absolutely and I tended to make it clear if I didn’t but whereas I would say the principal is fairly clear the interpretation of it in a given instance is extremely difficult and calls for some very clear thinking and very good intelligence. If you ask me the question of interrogation methods firstly I’m not in my mind absolutely certain about the facts. But if we assume for the moment that there has been what would normally be considered excessive force used in interrogation I can see that relative to the repressing the terrorists to use a general term one could say it was justified. But one also has to take into account the psychological effect that it has upon the people and if the result of that is to make us appear in their minds to be brutal, to be unjust then I think on expediency grounds alone it’s questionable because it seems to me that nothing can be solved in Northern Ireland except by the establishment of good community relations between the Army and people, the police and the people and the different sections of the people. And therefore if a particular military course of action is really seriously militating against that in the long term as well as the short term I question whether it was answered.
Q: Sorry, may I follow that?
LC: Yes, of course.
Q: Because what you are really saying is whether it is politically effective [unclear] not whether it is just and surely I mean this is the problem. I mean —
LC: But the two to me are synonymous unless you [pause] but they should be synonymous and I am trying to say that what we do must be just but the force that we use must be related to the, to the aggression. In Northern Ireland it seems to me you have a minority group using the situation to apply their own forceful guerilla activities. By and large the people as a whole don’t subscribe to that method. But if in repressing those guerilla activities we make ourselves out to be persecuting them we appear to them to be unjust and harsh and determined to establish a system that they don’t think is quite fair then justice apart we are not achieving our objective. You would surely agree that you must take into account not just the military implications of that investigation but the effect upon the people. If it is going to turn the people against the Army, against the authorities, against Britain, against Stormont you’ve escalated it.
Q: Well, can I talk on the same subject? As you say here as far as [unclear] is concerned I don’t think there is any doubt about the effect on the wider [unclear] and the rather advanced intellectual press is rather worrying but when the Times tried to do a poll about it they could only rake up four percent who considered that the better is the less use of force in interrogation, the majority thought that there ought to be more. I think the effect on the people of course I agree with you if it is having an effect on the people of Northern Ireland they would be [unclear] but up to a point [unclear] because of the way in which it has been presented. All the materials to show why it was necessary to introduce internment and why it was justified to use the interrogation technique rather than sitting down over a cup of tea and hoping the chap would talk. The evidence about intimidation of witnesses and so forth has never been published [unclear] sufficiently then I think where the damages I would say were not inferred.
LC: Yes. I am limited because I really and truthfully do not know the facts. I do not know if excessive force, you know and brutality has been used. I just don’t. But I have to make, I have to make an assumption that for the purposes of the questions that excessive brutality has been used. If we allow that for the moment the effect on the British public doesn’t seem to me to be quite so relevant because the British public doesn’t understand the historical situation, doesn’t know that there ever was oppression by us in the past in Ireland. Merely sees its own soldiers and its own family with whom it probably has the highest regard being subjected to this terrible situation and therefore this is the context that it sees. The minority in Ireland sees it in a totally different point of view and as I understand it they saw the British soldiers come, they welcomed us when we came there but sadly it appears that some elements over there have succeeded in turning the scales so that now we appear to be against them. To me this is a terrible tragedy.
Q: I agree on two [facets] I think they, as you say slightly exceeded the challenge. People who [unclear] of course are the IRA provisionals —
LC: Yes.
Q: By using the guerilla technique straight out of [unclear] they deliberately try to provoke the [unclear] majority.
LC: Yes.
Q: Government and the security forces to react up to a point being made to feel I think the answer to that deliberate attempt by the use of violence to create a reaction in which there is a backlash or a reaction then it is incumbent upon the government in control to use propaganda better to counteract it and that is what I think is vague.
LC: I think I’d agree with you. However, I can only state the view that the, that the decision as to whether or not it is just and right must depend upon the effect that it is having upon the total situation. And if there is some element lacking, you’re suggesting propaganda well then this is where the fault lies.
Q: The theme of your talk seems to be a soldier was morally justified in taking life providing he was fighting for a just cause. Now, regrettably this doesn’t even come to the problem of the provision of soldiers who is likely to be fighting for a cause [unclear] What is your view of a soldier in a Vietnam situation? What is he to do if the cause for which he is fighting he believes to be unjust? Should he soldier on and [unclear]. [unclear] Now, this to me seems to me to be the moral [unclear] could you give us your opinion on [unclear]
LC: Yes. You are quite right and I know that I didn’t touch on that subject. Largely because I saw that time was running and I suspected this would come up in the questions and it is a subject to which I have, you know, given some thought. I recognise that if one enters the armed forces one has a duty to the discipline and loyalty to which one takes an oath and that if you are going to go into an action and then opt out of it in the middle of the action because you don’t think that the general cause which you’re fighting is just you completely undermine the discipline of the unit in which you are fighting. Having got to that point I would say that you, you have a duty to go on fighting subject only to the just use of force, not using excessive force or not giving way to, you know, anger and reprisals and so on. But as a citizen each one of us has a duty to come to a decision in our own minds on basic principles and we have a duty to try in so far as we can to influence government thinking it seems to me. Now, if we’re going to, if you are a soldier and you are called upon to take part in a military action which you believe is unjust I would say that the, that it has to be a very high level or a very advanced degree of injustice before you could properly opt out. But when you joined the armed forces you presumably had confidence in your country within reasonable limits to pursue a just policy. You were definitely committing yourself to the implementation of your country’s policies it seems to me. If having done so you then come to the conclusion that a particular action, shall we say Vietnam is unjust at any rate as regards your own country presumably you have a right to go to your authorities and say, ‘I’m very sorry but in conscience I can’t go along with this. I would like to be released.’ I would assume that you have the right to do that provided you are not doing it in the middle of an action in Vietnam itself because if you do that you are then provoking a very difficult situation for your, for whoever is your immediate superior and also as I say you are undermining the discipline of the, of the unit. But over and above that you do have this duty and right to make your impact upon the country’s thinking. Of course, I realise that the minute you join the armed forces you are precluded or at least I believe you are from participating in politics. So I feel that if you’ve joined voluntarily you’ve put yourself in rather a difficult position. If you are conscripted it seems to be somewhat different. But have you got your own views?
Q: Well, I just [pause] well, my own view is quite simple. I believe that the soldier’s duty is to do as he is told and that we can’t have individuals in [unclear] deciding whether a particular act is right or wrong. And after all whose [unclear] is it? We have [Christians] on both sides presumably praying to the one almighty that ultimately their just cause is decided [unclear] but I’d like to ask your opinion. You mentioned.
LC: Yeah.
Q: The degree of force that is unjust. A sort of [unclear]
LC: Yes.
Q: [unclear]
LC: No, I didn’t —
Is it, is it in order for him to be told then? I mean we can’t moralise about it. I mean we are dealing with a difficult subject. Is it in order for an infantry soldier to stick a bit of steel into someone’s gut [unclear]? Is that ok? [unclear]
LC: No, excuse me. I did not say. I did not bring up the question of interrogation as being unjust. I didn’t raise that point. I think that I made the point that living in a concrete world we can only take the best of whatever courses lie open to us and that will often mean doing something which appears to be pretty brutal. For instance, there was an aircraft carrier that went down in the Mediterranean in the war and the captain had the alternative of closing the watertight doors and sealing off the fate of all those the other side of it but keeping the ship afloat long enough to get most of the others off or not closing those doors and letting everybody go down. He closed the doors. Now, taken in itself that could be as you said sticking a piece of steel in a man’s guts. Pretty brutal. But under the circumstances it was the best he could do and I personally would defend it and against the man whom I’ve often met who said you never have the right to take an innocent life no matter what is at stake. I will argue this. So when you say has a soldier the right to kill another man you put it symbolically whether it’s a piece of steel or a bullet doesn’t make all that much difference. If you’re fighting you have got to do it. But suppose to go back to the question of concentration camps which were purely retaliation upon people who had been captured or taken for one reason or another with the purpose of intimidating and finally exterminating them you wouldn’t think that was justified would you? Would you?
Q: [unclear] the circumstances.
LC: Under any circumstances. Would you?
Q: I would think [unclear] where it could be justified [unclear]. That would be my view. And on the subject [unclear]
LC: Yes.
Q: I can appreciate the view of a [passive] who doesn’t believe in taking a life. but I can’t appreciate the view of somebody [unclear] the moral [unclear] of the situation. I mean war is a horrible thing as we can see. You know, when war is alright. It takes a long time to come to [unclear] and I can’t imagine a situation when an individual conscience how you could ever conduct a war with these individuals [unclear] on the rights and wrongs [unclear]
LC: But I didn’t —
Q: And the cause, the overall cause [unclear]
LC: Well, I’m sorry but you can. Suppose we, suppose I move on to something that I am more familiar with. Bombing. Now, Bomber Command set out to destroy or hope to destroy the German industrial, war industrial machine. They could do that one of two ways. You could either [block bomb] whole cities or you could try and be more precise and damage just the factories. You obviously have that choice. That is a choice and each could be equally militarily effective. So you do have a choice. I know there are certain other circumstances which you don’t but I never said that it was left to each individual to decide what to do. In fact, when answering one question I specifically, yours, I specifically said that once you are committed you’ve got to go along with it. But nevertheless there is a degree up the hierarchy of command that takes these decisions. Now, take Nagasaki. You could have dropped that bomb on the most heavily populated city of Japan or you could have dropped it out to sea couldn’t you? That was a free choice. In one you took no life at all and in the other you took forty thousand or whatever it was. That was a free choice. So there is a degree of choice and if you say you can believe in one extreme or the other. Most things in life, the just and true part lies somewhere between those two extremes. I absolutely agree that the interpretation into the given situation is exceedingly difficult. You are in the heat of battle. You’re under great provocation. You may be without sleep. It is a very very difficult thing to do and I’m not for one minute saying that having started a war you’ve got to sort of play it with soft gloves. I didn’t in my own case and I don’t, I mean that doesn’t make sense at all. I agree with you. But I’m talking more about the decision as to whether a country goes to war and what terms of reference are given to its commanders in chief. Surely you’ll agree that there is a choice there. We must allow for human weakness. I mean, we are frail. We are prompted by all sorts of things. We do act under provocation. Nobody denies that. No one country however just its cause has been totally just in the way in which it has fought its wars except for a short period.
Q: Speaking [as an officer] have you not indicated that there is indeed a very fundamental problem there in that [unclear] with that Germany so there are two options. One was to shore up Germany’s [unclear] and the other to destroy the German people’s will to resist. In fact, those options were used and used totally [unclear] and an option the equation of the war that will always be [unclear]
LC: Yes.
Q: This debate has been dealing on the one uncertainty in the equation and that is the question of justice. What is justice? And I think it is really a variable. It is a variable and will always be interpreted by different people in different ways.
LC: Yes.
Q: If you put a variable into a mathematical equation based on [unclear] you will get a different answer depending on the variable. I mean there have been wars that have been fought through the ages which were [unclear] just wars in the light of the people who determined the structure. The Inquisition in Spain was done by just men who believed in the cause that they were using in those circumstances. So this notion of justice is central to the whole theme we are tripping over all the time.
LC: No. I’m sorry. I don’t hold that we’re tripping over it. For one thing we are not mathematical units. We are human beings. So I don’t think you can bring quite the analogy of a mathematical equation. I know that people will interpret justice differently. I know that even the best man will make a mistake and I’ve said that but what I’m saying is that we have got to do our utmost to see that the decisions we take and the vein in which we carry them out are just. As human beings we can’t do more than that. But the point is that I think we, that so long as we know that this is our objective and so long as we use our full mental and spiritual and moral resources to, to see that our decisions are just that’s the best we can do. I mean, I know that there have been good men who have made complete mistakes. Who have pursued what they thought was just which in fact wasn’t. I know that. And so it would be presumably until the end of time. But after all the more we make up our minds that this is what we need to do and the more we realise that each one of us as an individual has a duty to try and influence our own country towards that end the better hope we have. I mean you couldn’t surely suggest any other criteria for it. You are merely saying the criteria is right but the implementation is difficult. So, I don’t accept the difficulty as an argument that the basic principle is false.
Q: [unclear] come back to respond to that. What would a serving military man under particular circumstances would have to consider whether his actions [unclear] for instance a bomber pilot engaged on a mass raid on Berlin. Should he have considered whether this was a just act or not? I mean there is a large body of opinion now that with hindsight who have said it was a wholly immoral and unjustified action.
LC: I don’t.
Q: Is that right? Justice varies. It varies with time. It varies with people [unclear] it varies with hindsight. It varies with a whole lot of things.
LC: Well, I don’t hold the justice varies. I hold that our view and interpretation and understanding of it varies. If you come to the question of the bombing of Berlin Speer had said that if there had been four more Hamburgs Germany would have given up the war. They would have had to. So that what I think went wrong with the bombing of Germany was that we never had a consistent policy. There were so many pressures to these directions we started on one course which could have been successful if logically pursued then shifted to another. I don’t think that an individual bomber pilot under those circumstances when you think that twenty thousand lives were being, were being methodically liquidated every day of the war which was what was happening could have opted out. But let me take another situation. You see, you see a fighter pilot, an enemy fighter pilot coming down by parachute. You shot him down. You might sort of feel so angry that you feel, ‘Right I’ll machine gun him,’ which probably happened on both sides. It certainly did happen. Now, in that instance the man has an option and he can be right and he could be wrong. So that is at least one area in which the individual has a responsibility because he is undertaking an individual action. The CO of a small platoon might come across an enemy group which he now has in his hands and instead of capturing them he may just decide just out of spite to machine gun them. I would hold that was wrong. He had an option there. There are others in which I felt that I had made a response but I suppose I hadn’t where we did not have an option. Where we can only pursue what appears to be the best of two courses. But I would say that there can come a point of injustice where something is so manifestly unjust that we do have a duty to go against the system. And after all if we take Hitler there were Germans who saw the price for this and risked everything to fight the system and paid for it with their lives and we would hold them to be just. They were just. And I also have vivid recollections of a German telling me, in the middle ‘30s, I mean he told me immediately after the war, the middle ‘30s the Gestapo would come to the house of a friend of yours and take him away and you knew that you should do something about it in those early days but you didn’t and the moment you didn’t you were less of a man. You’d lost your self-respect and because you hadn’t done something in that instant you never could in the next. So step by step you were caught in it. You got to the point where you just ran along with everybody. So I do feel that there are certain points in which you do have an option and should do something even though it appears to be against your society.
Q: [unclear] views the motive must be good.
LC: Ahum.
Q: [unclear] Defining what is good.
LC: Defining.
Q: [unclear]
LC: Yes.
Q: I’m not talking about just or unjust. But seen from one side only just and seen by [unclear] How would you find out who was right, who was wrong. It was easy to find out when finished the war and won the war to say who was right and who was wrong [unclear] During your talk you were talking about the [unclear] between the rich and poor nations and [unclear] This is a field where injustice is coming up and every day you can see it. [unclear] assuming one can understand the poor countries don’t see any [corroboration] beyond threatening their situation. That they must resort to violence. Is this a good cause for the use of force in this case good because the differences have not been resolved by people who have to resort to violence or is it not good?
LC: I just have to recall now your first question. What was your first question? Briefly. Just give me one —
Q: [unclear]
LC: Ah yes. Well, you’re only saying what we all, it seems to me you are only saying what we’ve all really been thinking. That it is almost impossible for a human being to be totally right in its assessment of a given situation and to be totally just. That I’ve got to agree. And in all conflicts or practically all conflicts there is a bit of justice on both sides. I mean in most of the civil wars and fights that there has been since the war one can see both sides point of view. It’s a question of which is right and which is more right and so on. I’m saying that the essential thing is that when we on our particular side do anything we are really out for the total good of the people as a whole. The community or mankind as a whole. That we are not out merely to promote our own particular goal. There is a distinction. I mean, we [pause] sorry. What did you want to say —
Q: [unclear] Yes. Come across two different points of view. From [unclear] we would say we would like to fight Communism because it’s not good. But the communists would say the whole world must be liberated from Capitalism. My cause is good. [unclear]
LC: I know. But I’m trying to say that we’ve got, we’ve got to be certain in our own minds that we really believe that our cause is good. That we are not merely promoting our own section of society or our own particular country and so on and after all people do respect sincerity. You may disagree with a man but if you see that if you really feel that he is sincere, if you really believe he is not trying to promote his own personal aims from good you would have a respect for him. And if you’ll permit me to be now specific about something. The Nigerian Civil War [pause] Now, at the end of that war and I’m quite certain I’m right in saying this both sides welcomed each other almost as brothers. They ended with great respect for each other. Whatever they may have been in the past I have a feeling that was forgotten and there was a great relief you know. Contradict me if I’m wrong. There was a great relief that it was finished and out of it emerged great good and there can be no question in that that particular country is going to play a major and profound role in the development of the whole continent. There were vast differences of opinion. I hold the view that we here might have operated in a different way and taken some of the heat out of the situation. That is a personal view. But both those sides were very sincere. Having been personally into what was for a short time called Biafra I discovered that they there considered that the Nigerian Army had treated them pretty lightly. In fact, they, they felt that there were several moments when the Nigerian Army could easily have advanced right through and overcome them but didn’t and they seemed to think, you know why? Well, they didn’t want to hit us too hard. But although there was a great deal of bitterness, although there was a tremendous loss of life through starvation I know, nevertheless I honestly think that at the end of it all those fighters recognised the sincerity in the other and there was a happy outcome. You will never get two groups of people to [pause] I mean they each believe in their own cause. There is a conflict in the world. There is a basic conflict in us all in the world. There must be, and I don’t believe it’s realistic to suggest that there won’t. But sometimes a nation goes to war out of fright. An individual goes for another out of spite. He’s annoyed because somebody has got the better of him and one could point to times in history and even recent history when that has happened. I’m saying that the real test is whether we, to the best of our ability are being sincerely aiming at the greater good of mankind and that we really believe in the justice of our cause. You mention Communism but Communism is an ideology and you don’t fight ideologies with weapons. You fight them with ideas. You fight them with dedication. And I would say that Communism could not conceivably have spread as it did if there weren’t so much injustice in the world and that we in the West have not paid sufficient regard to that injustice. And if you say are the poorer nations justified in the final resort in resorting to force for their survival I’d almost be inclined to say that if it goes far enough they are because to me the first injustice or the first, sorry the first violence was injustice. We talk about the first stage of force of as being the counteraction of the State against the group of people trying to assert their rights. But in truth that meant injustice, that initial injustice was the first violence and we should look upon it as that. And I do hold that this, the fact that there is so much disparity between the poorer countries through no fault of their own and the richer countries and the fact that we want to protect our interests and to be honest we do in very subtle ways but very powerful ways constitutes an injustice and this is why violence tends to spread so much. Violence sometimes is the outcome of malice but very often it’s the outcome of injustice and somebody takes advantage of that injustice to mobilise otherwise good people into taking violent action. So, if we want to be practical I’m saying the more we can go out in our own lives and do something about this the more we are eradicating some of the root causes of violence.
Q: [unclear] some of the religions where both sides believe passionately in the right of their [unclear]
LC: Well, I admire the passionate belief in the rightness of their cause. I just do not believe that in matters of religion you have a right to resort to force. I would say that you have a right to resort to force when what you are dealing with is [false] If somebody comes in this room with a sub-machine gun there is, you don’t talk him out of it, I suppose you try for a half a second but you’ve got to repress him. I mean the justification for force is that force is the only way of dealing with it. But if you’ve gone to the limit to use other means of persuasion that’s alright if you leap to force at the first instance. But when it comes to religious beliefs, I mean to me I know that they believed so passionately in the Middle Ages and so on that that’s what they did but nobody would justify that today and it doesn’t even work. You know, I mean you don’t compel. This has got to be a free [pause] God wants our free acceptance not our compelled acceptance.
Q: Might I ask you another question on a related moral issue which is not strictly in the defence issue but the Home Secretary’s view, can you envisage any situation however extreme and I could give a rather false scenario [unclear] particularly in this country a whole proportion of the population clamour for bringing back the death penalty. Can you morally see any justification for the death penalty for individual criminals?
LC: I find it difficult to see a complete moral argument against the State’s right to impose the death penalty. I haven’t applied my line that I suppose I should have done but I mean I wouldn’t feel totally offended if the state considered that it had a duty under certain circumstances to bring in the death penalty. The death penalty or life imprisonment. If it’s really going to affect the situation and be a real deterrent I personally don’t feel a total repulsion to that idea.
Q: [unclear] I’m not sure if you haven’t answered my question. I’m not even sure that it is my question [unclear] very much at all.
[laughter]
Q: Started with morality and then you started talking about governments.
LC: Yes.
Q: I think you pointed out the definition of morality but they are not necessarily the same. [unclear] certain circumstances that it is morally right to steal rather than starve. It still remains [unclear] to steal and the law would still hunt you for stealing even if it was an alternative to starvation. That would be a mitigating circumstance and the two are not the same. Do you feel now talking about morality of this report, do you believe morality is a factor which man [unclear] making decisions on the use of force even covertly. Surely most decisions on the use of force or the motivation for it is self-interest. I don’t think and I admit to your opinion that a natural motivation is indeed morality. I think the religious imposition of morality are superficial to the natural instinct of man. Self-interest. And even in your final [unclear] where your present your reflections [unclear] between the poor nations and the rich nations by implication whoever produces a moral [unclear] self-interest. It is in our own interests to keep the poor nations, make them richer but not a moral [unclear] In what sense do you think that morality is in fact a subject at all when considering the use of force?
LC: Yes. I agree with you. I didn’t say that it was morally, at least I don’t think I said that it was morally right to steal. I said that my church would hold that the man had a right to steal under those circumstances because the alternative was the death or extreme depriv, deprivis, deprivation, I can’t pronounce it, of his family and that therefore given that situation that was the lesser of two evils. He will probably have to bear the consequences you are right but nevertheless he would have saved his family. I think most people who believe in natural justice would agree that. There is a difference between natural justice and what I call divine justice. But natural justice is what we feel impelled to do in our natures but we have to try and discipline and educate ourselves to live according to a higher moral law which is very difficult to do. This is an area we’re not discussing. I’m afraid I agree that nations in fact have decided their policy very largely on questions of self-interest. In fact, a senior civil servant the other day said to me after I’ll be honest if Britain or any country takes a decision its main duty is to protect its own citizens and its property and so on. This is probably the governing factor. This is one of the tragedies. I mean to me a nation becomes great by virtue of its moral integrity and its willingness to forego its own self-interests for the interests of the greater and more international good towards perhaps which we are advancing. When you say I reduce the arguments for expediency in relation to the rich and the poor it’s true but I did that because I usually find that people when I’m talking to them will reject the moral argument or the charitable argument. You know, they will say that charity begins at home. Therefore one throws it back on to the lowest denominator which is self-interest. I’m trying to say that even out of grounds of expediency do it because you’ll suffer. But that isn’t to say what I would really like to see done is on grounds of morality and if I may digress this question of charity begins at home which you hear so often means of course that it begins at home but doesn’t end at home and that it is at home that we learn charity. We can give all our money away and do what we like. If we’re not charitable at home than probably our motive for giving are still not charitable. It is a misused quotation. But I do say that what is wrong with the world is that we are too concerned with our own vested interests whether business or political or national. This is my theme and this is where the soldier is caught in a moral dilemma because he has to fight in a situation which is really just protecting his own country’s interests.
Q: There really is no distinction between the individual and the group. The individual is entitled and self-sacrifice —
LC: Yes.
Q: And are the individuals within a group [unclear]
LC: Sorry. If we’re talking about an armed, an armed , part of the armed forces when we join up we know that we are going out to do what we’re told. We know that when it comes to battle we’ve got to be prepared to sacrifice everything in order to carry out our orders. If I was told to hold a position in order that a greater body of men behind can escape that’s our duty and in that case the group as I see it acts, operates as an individual. We, we join the Force knowing that this is what’s going to happen. So I would say that there are circumstances in which the individual has the right or the duty to sacrifice his group if it is in the greater good of those for whom he is fighting.
Q: Yes, but if you were —
LC: Sorry?
Q: If you were drawing moral [unclear] nations which argue because they acted in self-interest and the decisions that were taken if they were taken properly is taken by individuals. The question is whether those individuals —
LC: Oh.
Q: Are entitled to sacrifice the interests of the people who put them where they are in the same way that they would be able to sacrifice their own interests as an individual apart from [unclear]
LC: Well, I don’t divorce the individual or the government. You’re talking about the government. Elected by the people to carry out policies to which they subscribe. So I don’t distinguish. You can’t isolate the government from the people. They should be one and the same. Obviously you don’t ask the government totally to factorise the interests of its country but there is a degree of sacrifice and I’m not applying this to governments. I’m applying this to the whole country. It’s not the government that’s unwilling to do this and the people that be more willing. It’s that each of us in our own little way is determined to protect our own interests. I mean I have heard of very good men. I’ve heard this quite often of businessmen who have got very high principles and I very highly regard. When it comes to this question of the economic viability of the so-called developing nations taking the line that I would not subscribe to enabling a developing nation that holds raw materials to be able to manufacture to the same degree that we can because he’d then have an advantage over us. Well, now can one defend that point of view which is pure self-interest? And yet these are good people. So I’m saying that in different levels in society we are determined to protect our own interests and impose restrictions on other people and —
Q: [unclear] an MP representing a cotton town in Lancashire has a moral duty to throw his whole constituency out of work in order to enable people in other parts of the world where they are poorer to become richer.
LC: You’re quoting rather an extreme instance. I do not believe that is —
Q: I’m sorry [unclear]
LC: Well, I’m sorry. I think that we have to have much greater regard for the problems and the needs of the poorer nations and the developing countries and in fact we would be much more prosperous. We’d have much more of a sense of achievement as a nation which we’ve not got. If I were to ask you what we as Britain have as our national objective what are we really? What are we achieving as a nation apart from our internal prosperity? You’d have a [pause] Could you answer me?
Q: Well, I’m concerned that the morality of [unclear] it’s easy to sacrifice [unclear] as an MP [unclear] to the poor. It’s not ok. It seems to me the morality, if it is the moral duty to give away the goods of the people who he is there to represent in the same way. And the people [unclear] it’s not.
LC: But he’s not giving away. I mean there’s the process of making a developing nation economically viable is a very lengthy process. I mean it’s a question but there’s no reason why we couldn’t start all sorts of joint schemes together. It would operate in my opinion to the benefit of both of us. I don’t subscribe to the belief that if we were to help shall we say India to become a fully industrialised country that we would be out of jobs. The way we are going at the moment we are the part of the world will end up with all the money and how are we going to spend it because the other half of the world won’t be able to buy anything. To me it’s a self-defeating policy.
Collection
Citation
G L Cheshire, “Leonard Cheshire answering questions,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed March 10, 2026, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/40200.