IS NEVILLE CHAMBERAIN BEING UNFAIRLY TREATED?

Media columnists and analysts (and some of my email friends) have been quick to compare the Kim-Trump meeting in Singapore to the Hitler-Chamberlain meeting in Munich in 1938. 

Herewith a two-minute history of the events leading up to WWII: 

Hitler had rearmed in violation of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and none of WWI victors challenged that egregious violation. 

In September, 1938, Hitler invaded and swallowed up a piece of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made three separate trips to Germany to meet with Der Fuhrer, the last one on September 15, in Munich. The dictator insisted his invasion was just an effort to reunite with the Fatherland some 3 million Germans who had been placed inside the Czech border by the line-drawing involved in making the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. He pledged he had no interest in further acquisition beyond restoring those Germans to Germany.

Britain's Ambassador to Berlin urged Chamberlain to say nice things in the press about Hitler in order to avoid an immediate war. He wanted to give Hitler "a chance to be a good boy." Chamberlain's military leadership advised that Britain's military establishment was in shambles.

At Munich, Chamberlain agreed Britain would do nothing about the Nazi seizure of the Sudetenland. Chamberlain flew back to England and announced to his citizenry; 
"This means peace in our time.....Go home and have a nice quiet sleep."  He assured his people this was really so because he  said, "Here is a paper which bears Hitler's name and mine." 

Six months later, Hitler swallowed up the rest of Czechoslovakia. 

Again, Chamberlain did nothing. 

Six months later, Hitler invaded Poland and England declared war.

Six years later, the count of people killed in WW II was estimated to be 60 million.

Chamberlain's failure to act regarding Hitler's serial invasions of Czechoslovakia bought England a year's time. But even that likely would have been insufficient to avoid defeat had not the Axis powers miscalculated and dragged the United States into the war: the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and Hitler's unfathomable declaration of war against the United States in December, 1941, decisively reversed the views of an isolationist U.S. Congress.

Now these comparisons:  

Similarities:
1.Kim and his forbears, like Hitler, broke several covenants about arming his nation.
2. Kim, like Hitler, was (and is) a ruthless dictator who enslaves his own people.
3. Kim, like Hitler, was allowed to reach a point where he armed himself with weaponry that became a serious threat to world peace.

4. Trump, like Chamberlain, met the dictator and came home with a piece of paper bearing his Kim's signature and Trump's.
5. Trump, after the meeting, made statements that were remarkably similar to those made by Chamberlain.  Whereas the latter told his citizens he had accomplished "peace in our time" and they could now "go home and have a nice quiet sleep," Trump told us "There is no longer any nuclear threat from North Korea. Sleep well tonight."
6. Trump, like Chamberlain, won no promise or assurance of immediate action; Neither Kim nor Hitler made immediate concessions to disarm, or reduce armaments or military forces.
7. Trump, like Chamberlain, appears to be stalling for time. Chamberlain wanted time to arm Britain; Trump wants time to get to 2018, and then 2020, with a claim of "peace in our time."

Distinctions:

8. Trump, unlike Chamberlain, made military concessions to appease his adversary (cessation of military exercises with South Korea);  Chamberlain made no concessions regarding England's military readiness.
9. Trump, unlike Chamberlain, made obsequious statements about the dictator;  Chamberlain, despite advice to the contrary, did not praise Adolf Hitler as being "very honorable," "very open," and "very worthy." Chamberlain did not tell the world he thought Adolph Hitler was a leader who "wants to do the right thing."
10. Trump, unlike Chamberlain, threatens to upset existing economic sanctions. Chamberlain did not do so because there were no extant international sanctions against Hitler in 1939. But there are extensive sanctions against North Korea and there are now signs that, as a result of the meeting, China and Russia will now increase their evasions of those sanctions.
11. I give Trump a mulligan for saluting the North Korean General.

Question: So is the comparison of Chamberlain to Trump unfair to Chamberlain?  

Answer:  Too close to call.