Queen Elizabeth II once wrote a speech that, thank God in heaven, she never had to deliver.
It was a speech noting the outbreak of World War III, to have been delivered in 1983.
It was a dress rehearsal for disaster, as the link here notes.
Here is a portion of what Her Majesty the Queen wrote:
“Now this madness of war is once more spreading through the world and our brave country must again prepare itself to survive against great odds.
“I have never forgotten the sorrow and pride I felt as my sister and I huddled around the nursery wireless set listening to my father’s inspiring words on that fateful day in 1939. Not for a single moment did I imagine that this solemn and awful duty would one day fall to me.”
She was noting, of course, the outbreak of World War II, when Adolf Hitler’s forces invaded Poland and sent the world plunging into its bloodiest conflict. Elizabeth hadn’t yet ascended to the throne.
These are the kinds of documents that are worth preserving for all time, if only to remind us that foresight does exist in the highest places.
Still, when I read those remarks I couldn’t help but think of another great individual’s remarks about the consequence of a world war in the nuclear age.
They came from Albert Einstein, one of the fathers of the atomic bomb.
He said: “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”