Sir, – Sir Ivor Roberts (Opinion, February 25th) quotes Churchill to the effect that, in general, "jaw-jaw is better than war-war". He agrees that this was not the case in the lead-up to the second World War "knowing what we now know about Hitler", but argues that the policy of appeasement was well worth trying. Leaving aside the fact that many people, Churchill among them, did indeed "know about Hitler", he argues for the appeasement policy on three grounds:
1. Britain and France were far too weak in the mid-1930s to stand up to Hitler. However, he omits to mention that Germany at the time of the re-militarisation of the Rhineland (1936) was weak too, and that Hitler would probably have been stopped in his tracks had Britain and France reacted.
2. An isolationist Congress would never have allowed US intervention – Congress was just as isolationist in 1939, when Britain and France did declare war on Germany, as they were in 1936.
3. Hitler did not enter into a “devil’s pact with Stalin” until August 1939 – there was no such pact in September 1938, when Britain and France abandoned Czechoslovakia to its fate.
Appeasement is discredited for a reason. (Peace in our time, indeed). – Yours, etc,
HENRY BACIK,
Ravensdale,
Dundalk, Co Louth.