Why Macmillan took a soft line on the Soviets

sir – Nikolai Tolstoy (Letters, June 26) draws attention to the indifference with which, after the war, the British delivered millions to be killed or enslaved by Stalin’s henchmen.

Harold Macmillan was responsible for turning over the Cossacks. But why? I doubt it was simply to demonstrate we were reliable allies.

Macmillan believed (as did many of his contemporaries) in world government. This was to be organised through regional governments under a new United Nations Organisation. Western Europe was to be one region; Eastern Europe under the Soviet Union another. America gave up on the idea under Harry S Truman. But Macmillan did not. He clung to the ideal, showing little concern about the Soviets running Eastern Europe.

As late as November 7 1957, one of his Foreign Office ministers, the Earl of Gosford, could still declare that Britain “was fully in agreement with world government”. In 1961, the

Future Policies Committee, set up by Macmillan under Sir Frank Lee, concluded that, by 2000, it was questionable whether Britain would still be an independent state. By then it would be simply a province of a united Europe. The EU had an unhealthy history from the very start.

Professor Alan Sked

London School of Economics London WC2

sir – In 1944, shortly after turning 20, my husband drove his tank on to the beach at Arromanches on D-day.

During the campaign his sergeant was killed at his side. Later he lost comrades whose tanks were hit.

After the ceasefire, he had to drive a truck full of refugees to the Russians and hand them over. Even with everything else he had experienced, he found this greatly upsetting. He never forgot it.

May Nuttall

Great Bentley, Essex