End of a Missionary

Shortly after 8 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 7 , we reached Victoria Station. . . . My mission to Berlin had terminated, and the failure was complete.

What Sir Nevile Meyrich Henderson felt when he wrote these concluding words to his book, Failure of a Mission, no one knows. Certainly he had a sense of failure. "Peace was my big objective," he wrote of his two and a half years as British Ambassador in Berlin. "I did not go to Berlin to curse, but where possible to bless." When he stepped off the train in London, Great Britain had declared war on Germany.

But Sir Nevile, even when war had dashed appeasement's hopes, never fully realized how complete was his failure as a judge of Nazi Germany. In the first winter of the war, when he wrote his book, he still could say that unless Germany won by June 1940, she would be beaten by November and a "fair and honorable peace" could be dictated on Adolf Hitler's doorstep. He still wrote of the "honesty of the intentions which inspired me . .. and which afforded the Nazi Government every opportunity for frank cooperation with me." He still was convinced "that the right policy was to carry conciliation to its utmost point before abandoning hope of agreement."

Sir Nevile Henderson may have awakened to the facts at last. He joined the British Home Guards after Dunkirk, became group commander (colonel) in April 1941. He spent much time in making public speeches and appeals to aid the British refugees who drifted back from blasted Europe (Failure of a Mission raised -L-38,300 for that cause). Last week his mission on this earth ended. He was asleep when death came.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.