Churchill attracted much attention when in a memorandum to all government offices he asked for a more effective and economic use of the English language in official communications and demanded the abandonment of the jargon currently in use by bureaucrats. He can be colloquial. The first time I met Mr. Churchill was at a luncheon given by Lady Colefax, who has done more to help American correspondents in London than almost anyone there. Present were Mr. Churchill, J. L. Garvin, the crusty, brilliant editor of the _Observer_ and one-time editor of the _Encyclopaedia Brittanica_, Somerset Maugham, Mrs. Simpson, not yet the wife of Edward, Harold Nicolson, Peter Fleming, Jan Masaryk, and a number of others. The conversation was almost exclusively between Churchill and Garvin, and well it might be, for Garvin is one of the few who can talk on anything like equal terms with the master, and indeed on this occasion Garvin practically talked Churchill silent. It was just two years before the war, but the topic was even then the position of Russia, and Garvin exclaimed, “Do you mean to say you would throw in your lot with the Bolsheviks?” The Churchillian reply was, “I mean just that, old cock!” with a remark to the effect that when one had to face an enemy like Germany it would be only common sense to try for the help of any ally no matter how distasteful otherwise. We can see from Churchill’s policy of helping Russia since the German attack how consistent he has remained. On the day after the Russians marched into Poland--and horrified the world of fellow travelers and caused all except party-liners and a few foresighted realists to draw back in aversion from this manifestation of Red Imperialism--I had a talk with Mr. Churchill, who had been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty a fortnight before. I asked him whether, since Great Britain had guaranteed the territory of Poland against aggression and had gone to war with Germany because of the German attack on Poland, one could now consider that Great Britain was at war with Russia since the Russians also had attacked Poland? I am not at liberty to quote him, but he gave the answer in public a fortnight later when after the fall of Warsaw he declared: “We could have wished that the Russian Armies should be standing on their present line as the friends and allies of Poland instead of as invaders. _But that the Russian armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace...._ I can not forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”