To the Editor:
In her review of Tim Bouverie’s “Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchilll, and the Road to War” (July 21), Lynne Olson gives a number of reasons for what happened at the Munich conference in 1938, among them Chamberlain’s ignorance of foreign policy. However, she omits an underlying motive for that sordid episode, namely anti-Communism.
Throughout the 1930s, Conservative political opinion in Britain mostly saw Nazi Germany as a buffer against Marxism. Such views played as much of a role in “appeasement” as did Chamberlain’s limitations and naïveté. That anti-Communism was a key component of European fascism, alas, is a truth that has long been forgotten.
Gene H. Bell-Villada
Williamstown, Mass.
