Book Review: The Inner Circle
| Date | 01 December 1960 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206001500408 |
| Published date | 01 December 1960 |
| Author | Robert A. Spencer |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
356
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Professor
E. L.
Woodward
(and,
by
extension,
all
historians)
for
show-
ing
lack
of
understanding
of
the
dictators-would
be
richly
comic
if
one
did
not
remember
that
they
were
taken
seriously
by
a
lot
of people
who
should
have
known
better.
Mr.
J.
R.
M.
Butler
has
written
an
honest
informative
book which
covers
every aspect
of
Lothian's
life,
including
his
religious
develop-
ment.
He
respects Lothian's
sincerity,
while
gently
deploring
many
of
his
views. He
points
out,
charitably,
that
"Lothian's judgement
was
apt
to
fail
when not
faced
with responsibility
for
action"
and
that
his
best work
was
done,
not when
he
was
writing
pieces
about
world
politics
or
speculating
on
the
potentialities
for
good
in
the
Nazis,
but
when
he
was
working
at
his
job
for the
Rhodes
Trust
or
serving
as
war-time
ambassador
to
the
United
States,
where
his
earnestness
for
once
was
an
asset.
Princeton
University
GORDON
A.
CRAIG
THE
INNER
CIRcLE.
The
Memoirs
of
Ivone
Kirkpatrick.
1959.
(Lon-
don:
Toronto:
Macmillan.
x,
276pp.
$5.00.)
Sir
Ivone
Kirkpatrick
served
with
the
Foreign
Office
from
1919
until
he
laid
down
the
burden
of
Permanent
Under-Secretary
at
the
end
of
1956.
His
memoirs
contain
some
reminiscences
of his
early
years-it
is
a
pleasant
reminder
of
training
for
a
career
in
another
generation
to
read
that
he
was
taken
to
Switzerland
to
learn
French
and
spent
several
summers
in
the
Black
Forest
to
reinforce
the
efforts
of
a
German
governess,
and
there
are
some
amusing passages
on
intelligence
work
during
World
War
I.
But
the
bulk
of
the
book
deals
with
the
years
after
September,
1933,
when
Kirkpatrick arrived
at
the
Anhalter
Bahn-
hof.
He
remained
with
the
Berlin
embassy
until
the
outbreak
of
war,
and
was back
in
Germany
again
in
1950
as
British
High
Commissioner.
On
the
whole
the
book
is
not very
informative.
Before
1939
Kirk-
patrick
was
probably
too
junior
to
be
able
to
add much
to
the
general
picture;
after
1945
he
is
too
discreet.
He
makes
no
attempt
to
rival
Sir
Anthony
Eden
in
discussing
the
Suez
crisis
of
1956,
which
is
passed
over
in a
few
words,
though
he
must,
as
head
of
the
Foreign
Office,
have
a
great
deal
more
to
say
on
the
subject.
(Incidentally
his
Inner
Circle
was
not
chosen
to
rival
Eden's
Full
Circle,
but
to
suggest
his
career
on
the
London-Paris-Rome-Berlin
track).
Nevertheless
there
is
much
of
interest
and
a
good
deal
that
is
amusing.
He
recounts,
for
example,
that
just
after
the
massacre
of
June
30,
1934,
Goering
arrived
late
for
dinner
and
excused
himself
with
the
words
that
he
had
only
just
got
back
from
shooting.
"Animals,
I
hope",
snapped
the
ambassador.
Kirkpatrick
was
present
at
Godesberg
and
at
Munich
in
1938.
At
the
former
meeting
he
and Schmidt
did
the
interpreting,
and
as
a
good
Germanist
he was
able
to
observe
how
Schmidt
pacified
the
Ffihrer
by
toning
down
Chamberlain's
more
obnoxious
phrases.
How
near
war
was
believed
to
be
on
the
eve of Munich
is
demonstrated
by
Kirkpat-
rick's making
a
lengthy
telephone
call
to
his
wife
in
London
for
which
he
was
convinced
he
would
never
have
to
pay.
Perhaps
the
most
inter-
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