Lord Moran (1882-1977). Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival 1940-65 (1966)
Part Four. Winston and Anthony
Chapter thirty. Et tu, Brute
February 3, 1955
... I asked the P.M. about Nehru. He said to me: ‘I get on very well with him. I tell him he has a great role to play as the leader of Free Asia against Communism.’ I was curious to know how Nehru took this. ‘Oh, he wants to do it - and I want him to do it. He has a feeling that the Communists are against him, and that,’ Winston added with a grin, ‘is apt to change people’s opinions.
‘I told the Prime Ministers,’ Winston continued, ‘that there were fifty thousand Chinese characters in their alphabet; six thousand of them are used by their Civil Service; three thousand by ordinary people. So the Civil Servant has to be educated for eight years.
That is why, for five thousand years, the proletariat in China has been kept out of the Civil Service. They roared with laughter. It had not occurred to them in that way.’
Chapter thirty-one. Swan-song
February 16, 1955
... ‘A week tomorrow I have to make a very important speech in the Defence debate. I shall need a “major”, because I want it to be one of my best speeches. Before I quit office I shall make it clear to the world that I am still fit to govern. I am going not because I can no longer carry the burden, but because I wish to give a younger man his chance.’