Ralph Wigram was a British civil servant who died on the last day of 1936. He was a young man, only in his mid-40s. Some people said it was a suicide. Others said it was a pulmonary embolism brought on by illness, strain and overwork. Still others, notably Winston Churchill, suggested it was some combination of the two: that poor Wigram had died in his wifeâ??s arms, heartbroken by the sight of the path down which his country and Europe were heading.
Why do we remember Wigram today?
He is known mainly as Churchillâ??s secret informant. It was Wigram who supplied him with many of the official documents demonstrating German rearmament and warned of the danger it posed. Churchill made use of this information in sounding the alarm to Parliament and in the popular press. It did not win him many friends but he, like Wigram, had been right.
Wigram headed the Central European department in the Foreign Office and was known for his mastery of this regionâ??s complexities, and for his perspicacity. He was one of the few people to note the direction of Hitlerâ??s aims in Poland and Czechoslovakia. His fears about the security the Rhineland â?? and its link to Britainâ??s own security â?? proved accurate, as did his estimates of the consequences of German airpower. He even foresaw the Nazi-Soviet Pact.
It is strange to honor such a figure now beside another cult â?? the cult of the leaker. Edward Snowdenâ??s motives are rated honorable by some, traitorous by others. But hardly anybody has said he wants to be unsung.
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