CHURCHILL, Winston S. - WALLACE, Edgar.

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Typed letter signed, from Edgar Wallace to a journalist, arranging an interview with Winston Churchill. The novelist Edgar Wallace schemes to return Churchill to high office through a meeting in a Turkish bath, suggesting that he could give a newspaper interview to re-establish his credentials for government. Churchill was then in a political wilderness after the Gallipoli debacle, but the Asquith government was nearing its end and opportunities were arising.The failure of the Gallipoli campaign, which Churchill spearheaded, led to his demotion from First Lord of the Admiralty in May 1915. He took the lesser role of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster through to November 1915, whereupon he resigned from government. He fought on the western front in early 1916, and on his return continued to manoeuvre for high office.Edgar Wallace writes to J. Booth, of 21 Ashbourne Avenue in Golders Green, evidently a journalist, though one whom we could not trace. He writes that "K.J." - Kennedy Jones, newspaper magnate who helped found the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror - "wants you to do a punk interview with Winston Churchill. It need not necessarily be punk but he wants you to do the interview. The idea is that Winston must get back. He doesn't care how he gets back so long as he makes it".He continues to scheme, noting that Churchill, F. E. Smith (the Attorney-General), and John Redmond (leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party) "meet in the Turkish Bath at the Royal Automobile Club very f

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