As late as February 1947 Time was questioning the authenticity of the document. At this point I took the copy which had reached London through Alsace to Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Browning, then the Military Secretary at the War Office, and asked him to check its reliability. He promised to pass it on to General Templar, then head of Military Intelligence, and a few days later I received Browning's official reply.

'The enclosed document is authentic,' he wrote. 'It only goes up, in its historical survey, till 1939. It was published by the German Secret Service Agency who were responsible for SS publications. You can rest assured there is nothing phoney about this document.'9

During March Buchman and his team spent time together preparing to return to Europe. One day, on a friend's country ranch near Los Angeles, amid the orange groves with the distant snows of Mount Baldy as backdrop, they talked together of the needs and challenge of that devastated continent which many of them called home. The seven years together in America had altered them. All, Americans and Europeans alike, were more mature. They had been through times of personal testing and had seen many tough situations tackled. Now they were determined, God helping them, to do what they could to prevent the post-war world from being drawn into the cycle of chaos and revenge which had followed the First World War. Buchman put to them his highest hopes. 'You have crossed the divide. You are going back to change the policy of governments with the statesmen. You will upturn the philosophy of government with a practical message simply applied.' They must think in terms of the nation: that was the statesman's responsibility and the Churches were not yet sounding that note.

He could not see far into the future, he said, but of one thing he was sure: 'Labour led by God must lead the world, otherwise Marx's materialism will take over.' Then he added, 'But Marxism may capture the spirit of Christ. Some of you may be working in Moscow one day. We must be ready.'

Buchman decided to sail for Southampton on the Queen Mary in late April 1946. Passages were extremely hard to come by but in March he told John Vickers, who looked after Moral Re-Armament's travel arrangements in America throughout the war, to go to New York and get 100 berths. 'I have only got six places at the moment,' Buchman said, 'and I want to see who I can invite.' Vickers approached the shipping company on arrival in New York with this outrageous request. 'Certainly,' replied the company's representative. 'The ship has been de-requisitioned this morning.'

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