James Callaghan Quotes
I have not the slightest doubt that the economic measures and the Socialist measures which one will find in countries of Eastern Europe, will become increasingly powerful against the uncoordinated, planless society in which the West is living at present.
Callaghan, James. Speech in the House of Commons. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), House of Commons, 1946.
This quotation illustrates White’s favorable view of Russia. Note his use of the “it works” phrase which he picked up from Stefens’ famous quote {634892}. At the time the Soviet Union had been perceived by many economists to have been a great economic improvement over Czarist Russia. And over all, Russia which in 1917 was an economic basket case, had become one of the stronger states in Europe although the Russian people paid a horrendous price. Most historians agree that White passed classified information to the Russians. He was accused of being a Communist, but there was never any evidence of that. Some people believe that he was a spy for the Russians and committed espionage, but others disagree observing that White was very much his own man and felt that much information that was classified never should have been. White substituted his own judgment, it is believed, about what could be given to the Russians for the security system. He was an admirer of what Russian socialism had accomplished economically, educationally and medically since the 1917 revolution deposing the Czar. Russia had been a valuable military ally, which had taken the brunt of both military and civilian casualties in WWII. White’s economics were certainly not Marxist but very much Keynesian. He was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee where he was accused of being a Communist which he denied (see {634907}). He died of a heart attack 3 days later.
At the time extreme socialist doctrine was that the state should own the factories and the other means of industrial production. The socialists believed that the people through their government had to be able to control the economy and the private owners’ greed would always drive the economy for themselves and not for the society in general. Deal was one of the first who argued that there were other, less draconian modes of economic control like government regulation and central banks. Deat turned traitor during WWII and served in the Vichy Nazi cabinet of Pierre Laval. He was sentenced to death for treason but escaped to Italy where he assumed a new identity and then was sheltered by a right-wing Catholic religious order in the convent of San Vito, near Turin, where he wrote his memoirs and lived undiscovered until his death.
Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980. Callaghan is the only person to have held all four Great Offices of State, having served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1964 to 1967, Home Secretary from 1967 to 1970 and Foreign Secretary from 1974 to 1976. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1945 to 1987.
