SIR PETER MARSHALL - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 11/09/1953 - HFSID 1294

PETER MARSHALL
As Private Secretary to the British Ambassador, he signs a typed 1953 letter to an American admirer of Prime Minister Churchill.
Typed Letter signed: "Peter Marshall" as Private Secretary to Her Majesty's Ambassador [to the US]. 1 page, 7½x9½. British Embassy, Washington, D.C., 1953 November 9. On official letterhead to Mrs. M. I. Lynch, Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y. In full: "The Prime Minister has received such a very large volume of mail recently that it has not been possible for him to send personal replies to all the friends and well-wishers who have written to him. I have therefore been asked to inform you that your Greeting Card of September 28 to Sir Winston Churchill was safely received and that its message was much appreciated. Yours sincerely". Sir Peter Marshall, a longtime member of the British Foreign Service, rose to the office of Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General (1983-1988). He discussed the insights gained from his diplomatic career in Positive Diplomacy (1997). At the date of this letter, he was Private Secretary to the British Ambassador to the US, Sir Roger Makins. Winston Churchill, best remembered as Britain's inspiring Prime Minister during World War II (1940-1945), regained the office in 1951, serving until 1955. The year 1953 saw important honors bestowed on Churchill - a knighthood and a Nobel Prize for Literature. However, it was a less successful year for his diplomacy. As this letter was written, final preparations were underway for a December meeting in Bermuda between the British PM and the new American President, Dwight Eisenhower, who had forged close relations during World War II. At the Bermuda meeting, however, Eisenhower rejected Churchill's recommendation that the death of Soviet leader Stalin earlier that year opened prospects for better East-West relations and warranted a Summit meeting of the heads of government, and relations between Eisenhower and Churchill were temporarily strained. Normal mailing folds. Toned and lightly creased. Otherwise, fine condition.