forHealths f ,

Vitality

WINTER 2003-04 • NUMBER 121

JOURNAL OF THE CHURCHILL CENTRE & SOCIETIES

III

• • " •

QUEEN OF THE SEASby WINSTON CHURCHILL

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THE CHURCHILL CENTREAND CHURCHILL SOCIETIES OF CANADA AND THE UNITED KINGDOM

PATRON: THE LADY SOAMES, D.B.E. • WWW.WINSTONCHURCHILL.ORG r Si

Founded in 1Q68 to foster leadership, statesmanship, vision and boldness among democratic and freedom-loving peoplesworldwide, through the thoughts, words, works and deeds of Winston Spencer Churchill.

BOARD OF GOVERNORSRandy Barber • David Boler • Chris Hebb • Craig HornWilliam Ives • Judith Kambestad • Nigel KnockerJames Lane • Richard Langworth • James MullerCharles Platt • Douglas Russell " Suzanne Sigman

OFFICERSWilliam C. Ives, President20109 Scott, Chapel Hill NC 27517Tel. (919) 967-9100 • Fax (919) 967-9001Email: wives@nc.rr.com

Charles D. Platt, Vice President14 Blue Heron Drive West, Greenwood Village CO 80121Tel. (303) 721-8550 • Fax (303) 290-0097Email: cdp31@earthlink.net

Hon. Douglas S. Russell, Secretary1432 Buresh Avenue, Iowa City IA 52245Tel. (319) 337-4408 • Fax (319) 354-2868Email: airdriel2@hotmail.com

D. Craig Horn, Treasurer8016 McKenstry Drive, Laurel MD 20723Tel. (301) 725-3397 • Fax (301) 483-6902Email: dcraighorn@email.msn.com

BUSINESS OFFICEDaniel N. Myers, Executive Director1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Suite 307Washington, DC 20036Tel. (888) WSC-1874 • Fax (202) 223-4944Email: dmyers@winstonchurchill.org

BOARD OF TRUSTEESAmb. Paul H. Robinson, Jr., Chairman Emeritus

Richard M. Langworth CBE, Chairman181 Burrage Road, Hopkinton NH 03229Tel. (603) 746-4433 • Fax (603) 746-4260Email: malakand@batelnet.bs

Laurence Geller, Vice Chairman77 West Wacker Drive, Suite 4600, Chicago IL 60603Tel. (312) 658-5006 • Fax (312) 658-5797Email: lgeller@shci.com

Winston S. Churchill • Hon. Jack KempChristopher Matthews " Hon. Celia SandysHon. Caspar W. Weinberger GBE

HONORARY MEMBERSThe Lord Black of Crossharbour OC PC (C)Winston S. Churchill • Sir Martin Gilbert CBEThe Lord Deedes KBE MC PC DLRobert Hardy CBE • The Lord Heseltine CH PCWilliam Manchester • The Duke of Marlborough JP DLSir Anthony Montague Browne KCMG CBE DFCElizabeth Nel • Colin L. Powell KCBWendy Russell Reves • Ambassador Paul H. Robinson, Jr.The Lady Thatcher LG OM PC FRSThe Hon. Caspar W, Weinberger GBE

AFFILIATEWashington Society for ChurchillCaroline Hartzler, President, PO Box 2456Merrifield VA 22116 • Tel. (703) 503-9226

LOCAL ORGANIZATIONSThe Churchill Centre is represented by local organizers inAlaska, California (North and South), Chicago, Dallas,Detroit, Florida (North Central and Northeast), Georgia,New England, New Orleans, North Carolina, Ohio andWashington, DC; and is allied with several independentChurchill organizations in Canada and the UnitedKingdom. Refer to "Datelines" for contact information.

INTERNET SERVICESWebsite: www.winstonchurchill.orgWebmaster: dmyers@winstonchurchill.orgListserv host: jonah.triebwasser@marist.edu

The Churchill Centre is the successor to the Winston S.Churchill Study Unit (founded 1968) and to theInternational Churchill Society of the United States(founded 1971).

LEADERSHIP & SUPPORT

NUMBER TEN CLUBThe Lord Black of Crossharbour OC PC (QLaurence Geller " Phillip GordonMichael D. Rose • Mick Scully • Anonymous

CHURCHILL CENTRE ASSOCIATESWinston Churchill Associates

The Annenberg Foundation* David & Diane BolerColin D. Clark • Fred Farrow • Mr. & Mrs. Parker H. Lee IIIMichael & Carol McMenamin • David & Carole NossRay L. & Patricia M. Orban • Wendy Russell RevesElizabeth Churchill Snell • Mr. & Mrs. Matthew B. WillsAlex M. Worth Jr.

Clementine Churchill AssociatesRonald D. Abramson • Winston S. ChurchillJeanette & Angelo Gabriel • Craig &C Lorraine HornJames F. Lane • Barbara & Richard LangworthDrs. John H. & Susan H. Mather • Linda & Charles PlattAmbassador & Mrs. Paul H. Robinson Jr.James R. & Lucille I. Thomas

Mary Soames AssociatesSolveig & Randy Barber • Gary J. BonineSusan & Daniel Borinsky • Nancy Bowers • Lois BrownNancy H. Canary • Dona & Bob DalesJeffrey & Karen De Haan • Gary GarrisonRuth &C Laurence Geller • Frederick & Martha HardmanMr. & Mrs. William C. Ives • J. Willis JohnsonMr. & Mrs. Gerald Drake Kambestad • Elaine KendallPhillip & Susan Larson • Ruth J. LavineMr. & Mrs. Richard A. Leahy " Cyril & Harriet MazanskyMichael W. Michelson • Mr. & Mrs. James W MullerWendell & Nancy Musser • Bond NicholsEarl & Charlotte Nicholson • Bob & Sandy OdellDr. &c Mrs. Malcolm Page • Ruth &c John PlumptonHon. Douglas S. Russell • Daniel & Suzanne SigmanShanin Specter • Robert M. StephensonRichard & Jenny Stretff • Peter J. Travers • Gabriel UrwitzDamon Wells Jr. • Jacqueline & Malcolm Dean Witter

BOARD OF ACADEMIC ADVISERSProf. James W. Muller, Chairman,University of Alaska, Anchorage2410 Galewood Street, Anchorage AK 99508Tel. (907) 786-4740 • Fax (907) 786-4647Email: afjwm@uaa.alaska.edu

Prof. John A. Ramsden, Vice ChairmanQueen Mary & Westfield College, University of LondonEmail: john.a.ramsden@btopenworld.com

Prof. Paul K. Alkon, University of Southern CaliforniaSir Martin Gilbert CBE, Merton College, OxfordProf. Barry M. Gough, Wilfrid Laurier UniversityProf. Christopher C. Harmon, Marine Corps UniversityCol. David jablonsky, U.S. Army War CollegeProf. Warren F. Kimball, Rutgers UniversityProf. Paul A. Rahe, University ofTulsaProf. David T. Stafford, University of EdinburghDr. Jeffrey Wallin, President, The American AcademyProf. Manfred Weidhorn, Yeshiva University

The staffof Finest Hour, journal ofThe Churchill Centre 6V: Societies, appears on page 4.

THE CHURCHILL SOCIETIES

INTERNATIONAL CHURCHILLSOCIETY OF CANADAAmbassador Kenneth W. Taylor, Honorary Chairman

Randy Barber, President14 Honeybourne Crescent, Markham ON L3P IP3Tel. (905) 201-6687Email: randy.barber@cbs.gov.on.ca

Jeanette Webber, Membership Secretary3256 Rymal Road, Mississauga ON L4Y 3C1Tel. (905) 279-5169 • Email: jeanette.webber@sympatico.ca

Charles Anderson, Treasurer489 Stanfield Drive, Oakville ON L6L 3R2Tel. (905) 827-0819 • Email: cwga@sympatico.ca

The Other Club of OntarioNorman MacLeod, President16 Glenlaura Court, Ashburn ON LOB 1A0Tel. (905) 655-4051 • Email: jeana@idirect.com

INTERNATIONAL CHURCHILLSOCIETY OF THE UNITED KINGDOM

Chairman:Nigel Knocker OBEPO Box 1257, Melksham, Wilts. SN12 6GQTel. & Fax: (01380) 828609Email: nigel@icsuksaf.demon.co.uk

TRUSTEESThe Hon. Celia Sandys, ChairmanThe Duke of Marlborough JP DLThe Rt. Hon. Earl Jellicoe KBE DSO MC PC FRSDavid Boler • David Porter • Geoffrey Wheeler

COMMITTEENigel Knocker OBE, ChairmanPaul H. Courtenay, Vice Chairman & Hon. SecretaryAnthony Woodhead CBE FCA, Hon. TreasurerJohn Glanvill Smith, Editor ICS UK NewsletterEric Bingham " Robert Courts • John CrookshankGeoffrey Fletcher • Derek Greenwell • Michael KelionBrian Singleton • Wylma Wayne

NORTHERN CHAPTERDerek Greenwell, "Farriers Cottage," Station RoadGoldsborough, Knaresborough, North YorkshireHG5 8NT • Tel. (01423) 863225

ALLIES

THERT. HON. SIR WINSTON SPENCERCHURCHILL SOCIETY OF BRITISH COLUMBIADr. Joe Siegenberg, President15-9079 Jones Road, Richmond, BC V6L IL7Tel. (604) 231-0940

THERT. HON. SIR WINSTON SPENCERCHURCHILL SOCIETY OF CALGARYRichard N. Billington, President2379 Longridge Drive, Calgary, AB T3E 5N7Tel. (403) 249-5016 • Email: rscjhome@aol.com

THE RT. HON. SIR WINSTON SPENCERCHURCHILL SOCIETY OF EDMONTONRobert Dunn, PresidentBox 2, Site 208, RR2, St. Albert, Edmonton, AB T8N 1M9Tel. (780) 973-5549 • Emal: rolana@shaw.ca

JOURNAL OF THE CHURCHILL CENTRE & SOCIETIES

WINTER 2003-04 • NUMBER 121

8 Third Churchill Lecture • William C. Ives & Christopher C. Harmon13 Notable Churchillians: George Lewis • Richard M. Langworth

16 Churchill Afloat: The Liners He Rode • Christopher H. Sterling23 Queen of the Seas • Winston S. Churchill

29 Last Farewell • John Malcolm Brinnin30 Churchillian Traveler: Madeira • Terry Reardon

32 Glimpses: First Citizen of the World,My Encounters with the Charismatic Churchill • Henry A. Laughlin

BOOKS, ART|& CURIOSITIEf

41 Richard LangwortH\ reviews "Two Weddings andk Funeral," the funeral Bei.ftf the television d|['Xirrurchill which put J

sleep ... JuKambestad worries jfiat

Gretchen Rubins $orty jraysto Look at WinstbnSZh^rchill

will enter the literature asestablished truth ...

Christopher H. Sterlingrecommends Matthew Wills's

A Diminished President forthose who search for explana-

tions of what happened atYalta ....Wit and Wisdomsearches for the last speechWinston Churchill gave inUnited States. The answer

0 Wk. may surprise you.

Despatch Box 4 • @ The Centre 5 • Datelines 6Local & National 10 • Calendar 11 • Chapters 11

Riddles 13 • Around &: About 13Action This Day 14 • Churchillian Traveler 30

Churchilltrivia 32 • Wit & Wisdom 46Ampersand 47 • Moments in Time 48

From the Journals and Question Time return next issue

Cover: "Sweeping the ocean aside in great crestedarrowheads," in John Malcolm Brinnin's phrase, the

RMS Queen Mary artwork is adapted from the cover ofThe Strand Magazine, May 1936, which contained

Churchill's "Queen of the Seas," published on page 23.

DESPATCH BOX

Number 121 • Winter 2003-04ISSN 0882-3715www.winstonchurchill.org

Barbara F. Langworth, Publisher(b_lan gworth@conknet.com)

Richard M. Langworth, Editor(malakand@conknet.com)

Putney House181 Burrage Road

Hopkinton, NH 03229 USATel. (603) 746-4433

Senior Editors:Paul H. CourtenayJames W. MullerRon Cynewulf Robbins

News Editor:

John Frost

Contributors

George Richard, Australia;Chris Bell, Canada;

Inder Dan Ratnu, India;Paul Addison, Winston S. Chutchill,Robert Courts, Sir Martin Gilbert,

Allen Packwood, United Kingdom;David Freeman, Chris Harmon,Ted Hutchinson, Warren F. Kimball,Michael McMenamin, Chris Sterling,

Manfred Weidhorn, Curt Zoller,United States

• Address changes:UK/Europe/Africa and Canada: send

to UK or Canada business offices.

Elsewhere: send to The ChurchillCentre business office.

All offices are listed on page 2.

Finest Hour is made possible in part throughthe generous support of members of TheChurchill Centre, and with the assistance ofan endowment created by the ChurchillCentre Associates (listed on page 2).

Finest Hour is published quarterly by TheChurchill Centre, which offers various levelsof support in various currencies. Membershipapplications should be sent to the appropriateoffices on page 2. Permission to mail at non-profit rates in USA granted by the UnitedStates Postal Service, Concord, NH, permitno. 1524. Copyright 2004. All rights reserved.Designed and edited by DragonwyckPublishing Inc. Production by New EnglandFoil Stamping Inc. Printed by Evans Printing,Inc. Made in U.S.A.

"Forty Ways"I found the comments of Terry Mc-

Garry regarding Elle magazine's column onGretchen Rubin's Forty Ways to Look atWinston Churchill {FH 119) to be ratherunfair and inaccurate. Mr. McGarry attrib-utes to Prof. Rubin things that were actu-ally said by the magazine's unnamedcolumnist. For example, he quotes thecolumnist's saying Churchill was "a prodi-gious drinker" and then chides Rubin forthis. As anyone who has actually read thebook would know, Rubin wrote this onlyin a "Point-Counterpoint" sort of way. Oneof the book's conceits is occasionally to pre-sent Churchill from diametrically opposedpoints of view in successive chapters; for ex-ample, "Churchill as Liberty's Champion"followed by "Churchill as Failed States-man." The author's intent is that the readerdiscover the truth somewhere in between.

McGarry hopes that, if Rubin were toattend a Churchill panel, she might bringalong "a posse of dewy-cheeked Elle read-ers...." If an Elle columnist had referencedone of Sir Martin Gilbert's works, wouldMcGarry assume that Gilbert is trailed by apack of ingenues? Does the mention of anauthor by Elle imply that the author isshooting for the dewy-cheek demographic?

I am not defending the book itself.While it has a somewhat novel approach, ittreads no new ground and will be of pass-ing interest at most to those familiar withthe subject. But I find it bothersome thatMr. McGarry appears to be annoyed that aChurchill work is mentioned in a magazineintended primarily for young women. I canonly think that this is a good thing.

CHRIS DUNFORD, COLUMBIA, MD.

The book is reviewed on page 35. Theproblem I think is that it often sets reasonableviews of Churchill alongside the worst discred- \ited rubbish and implies that they are equally !worthy of consideration. In such cases, the \truth may be in between, but it is much closer \to the former than the latter. —Ed. ,

Churchill Centres New WebsiteThe new website looks fantastic. I'm i

really, really impressed, not simply becauseit's so improved, but that it is probably oneof the most intuitively designed and goodlooking sites I've seen on the net. And thisis from a student in computer science and

cognitive psychology who gives presenta-tions on web design and usability.

I'd also like to point out what the newwebsite lacks, the things that normally ruinwebsites: Shockwave/Flash, random Javaapplets, intrusive advertising, and browser-specific features and programming. The siteis mostly-valid HTML 4 + CSS, but bestof all, it's compatible. Wow. Great job.IAN LANGWORTH, NORTHEASTERN UNIV., BOSTON

Thank you, thank you. I'm obviouslyprejudiced, but I love the look and feel of thenew site. Now, to get the rest of the bugsworked out.... —DNM

Misjudging HistoryI occasionally have the opportunity to

speak in public about Churchill. In recentmonths, I have seen many inaccurate refer-ences in the media to the 1930s and ap-peasement. Thus I decided to deliver myannual talk to the local Rotary Club onChurchill, Chamberlain and appeasement.I also wanted to touch briefly on the ten-dency, as Manfred Weidhorn once said, to"misjudge history." Can lessons learnedfrom the 1930s really be applied today?

I prepared a PowerPoint program basedon Churchill's first volume of Second WorldWar memoirs, The Gathering Storm. Mytimeline began with the Treaty of Versaillesand then moved to Hitler's rise to powerand WSC's subsequent warnings of Germanrearmament. I used the official biographyand companion volumes, along with manybooks and articles by Churchill's contempo-raries and staff, and a few modern histori-ans, and about forty-five pictures.

As I considered Hitler's aims for Ger-many and his early successes, the futility ofChamberlain's naive and hopelessly opti-mistic appeasement policy became veryclear. I closed with Munich, and two scenesfrom "The Wilderness Years" documentarystarring Robert Hardy as Churchill: Cham-berlain's return to England from Munichbearing "peace in our time," followed byChurchill's damning indictment in theHouse of Commons. The video was veryeffective and Robert Hardy provided theperfect emotional ending.

FRED HARDMAN, SPENCER, W.V.

Nice going, Fred, hope we'll see this at aconference some time. —Ed. M>

FINEST HOUR 121/4

@ The Centre: Presidents Letter

c aping yawns greet most efforts to write about changes in an organiza-. tion's formal structure. Yet that structure, usually set out in a "consti-

tution" or by-laws, has a direct and decisive impact on an organization's gov-ernance, which, in turn, contributes much to the perceptions of its statureand effectiveness held by members and non-members alike.

It is for this reason that I run the risk of glazed eyes and chasing youon to the next page by discussing in this space several significant by-lawchanges recently adopted by our Board of Governors.

The Board in September created positions for two new Governors beginning January 1st, 2004.These new Governors are, to be appointed by the President for one-year terms. Appointed Governors arenot eligible for reappointment until three years have elapsed after the conclusion of their appointed terms.They would, of course, be eligible at any time for election to the standard three-year term. (Each year, twoGovernors are elected for three-year terms.)

This appointment approach makes it possible to expand the demographic (and geographic) makeupof The Churchill Centre's Board while creating an ever-widening pool of new leadership from whichfuture elected Governors and officers can be drawn.

Prior to the September amendments, the President of the Churchill Society of Canada and theChairman of the Churchill Society of the United Kingdom were ex-officio on The Churchill Centre Boardas voting Governors without any election by the Board, without any term limits and with little or no account-ability. All other Governors were (and remain) elected for specific terms with the resultant accountability.Most fortunately, the Canadian President and UK Chairman currently on the Board are valuable contribu-tors to the Centre and the Board, which would be much poorer without them. But it cannot be assumed thatthis will always be the case. Thus the by-laws were amended, requiring that at all times there be on the Boardat least one Governor nominated by the Churchill Society of Canada and one by the Churchill Society ofthe UK, and electing such nominees annually for one-year terms.

These amendments accomplish three things. First, they ensure at least one Board seat each forthe Canadian and United Kingdom organizations. Second, they inject a degree of accountability intothe selection process. Third, they give each organization maximum flexibility over whom each nominatesfor the Board; e.g., their nominees no longer have to be their President or Chairman, and they can changeannually.

One other significant by-law amendment was the creation of a College of Fellows. This is an additionto our Board of Academic Advisers. The College of Fellows will consist of up to twenty-four persons whohave made important contributions to the understanding of Winston Churchill and his times. The Collegewas created primarily to recognize the work and importance of scholars, but also others, who, because ofother professional responsibilities, would not be in a position to accept appointment to the Board ofAcademic Advisers. The college will greatly enhance our academic stature.

At the very last minute before the Bermuda conference in November, the Board adopted a recom-mendation by our editor for a Finest Hour Journal Award, to recognize the outstanding contribution toour print publications in the past year. The 2003 FH Award was presented at Bermuda to Professor PaulAlkon, for his brilliant contribution to our educational mission through hisT. E. Lawrence features in Finest Hour #119 (Summer 2003). This award wasmost richly deserved and we are honored by Professor Alkon's contributions.

FINEST HOUR 121 / 5

DATELINEQUOTATION OF THE SEASON

"If democracy and Parliamentary institutions are to triumph in this war, it is absolutely necessarythat Governments resting upon them shall be able to act and dare, that the servants of the Crownshall not be harassed by nagging and snarling, that enemy propaganda shall not be fed needlessly

out of our own hands and our reputation disparaged and undermined throughout the world."—WSC, House of Commons, 2 July 1943

Ypres RememberedYPRES, AUGUST 15TH— For four long, grue-some years beginning in 1914, whenGerman troops roared across Belgiumon the way to France, this city was allbut surrounded by the fetid trenchesand desolate no man's land of the YpresSalient, a critical bulge in a battle linethat stretched almost all the way fromSwitzerland to the English Channel.Near-ceaseless shelling and three majorconfrontations obliterated the townand forced its inhabitants to flee. Exhi-bits at the museum describe theGerman introduction of chemicalweaponry; daily life behind the frontlines; the carnage at field medical sta-tions; and the miraculous Christmastruce of 1914, when, without leavefrom their officers, German and Alliedsoldiers met in no man's land to cele-brate Christmas together.

For much of the war, the Ypressalient was occupied by the Allies, espe-cially the British, whose troops camefrom all over the empire: Scots,Jamaicans, Indians and Canadians,along with English, Irish and Welsh.More than 400,000 of them died here,which has made Ypres a place of specialmeaning to the British. "I should like usto acquire the whole of the ruins ofYpres. A more sacred place for theBritish race does not exist in the world,"Winston Churchill said in 1919-

About 200 Great War cemeteriessurround the town, including Tyne Cotjust northeast of Ypres. To honor thealmost 100,000 unidentified Britishdead from the Ypres salient, the Englishbuilt a massive stone gate by the canal

Poems Churchill Loved

In Flanders fields the poppies blowBetween the crosses row on row,

That mark our place, and in the skyThe larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amidst the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days agoWe lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved,and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:To you from failing hands we throwThe torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who dieWe shall not sleep,

though poppies growIn Flanders fields.

Lt. Col. John McCrae MD RCMC(1872-1918), 1915

on the east side of town. There I sawwreaths of red paper poppies placed bypeople who haven't forgotten the signif-icance of the Great War.

—SUSAN SPANO, LOS ANGELES TIMES

Unsordid Correction, Part IIWASHINGTON, OCTOBER 6TH— In GeorgeMason University's History NewsNetwork (hnn.us/articles/1712.html),Professor James Lachlan MacLeod ofthe University of Evansville, Indiana,offered a good article explaining howwidely Churchill's remark, "the mostunsordid act...in history", was ascribedto the postwar Marshall Plan, when infact it referred to the wartime Lend-Lease Act.

Prof. MacLeod rightly correctedFinest Hour for suggesting (in "Date-lines," issue 96) that Churchill's firstreference to the "unsordid act" was in1945, when it was really in 1941, andwe have corrected this on our website.But he incorrectly stated that FinestHour"p'ms the blame" for attribution tothe Marshall Plan on Dean Acheson's1960 book, Sketches from Life. (We sim-ply reported that the New York Timeshad so ascribed the error.) If any readercan direct us to a writer who credited"Unsordid Act" to the Marshall Planbefore Dean Acheson in 1960, wewould be pleased to know about it.

Sordid CorrectionORLANDO, FLA., OCTOBER 28TH— "News for

Tuesday," in the Orlando Sentinel favor-ably mentions Bodyguard of Lies, byAnthony Cave Brown (1975), which,they said, "details the massive misinfor-

FlNESTHOUR 121 ib

DATELINES

mation campaign waged by the Allies towin World War II. The book titlecomes from Winston Churchill's re-mark, 'In war time, truth is so preciousthat she should always be attended by abodyguard of lies.' The good achievedby the World War II deception is unde-niable. But there is a cost. Any timegovernment is less than candid, it cre-ates a tiny doubt that can bloom into aconspiracy "

The Churchill Centre website hasa rapid response section for nonsense inthe media, where the Orlando Sentineljoins a distinguished list of perpetrators.FH wrote the editors:

"'News for Tuesday,' 28 October2003, praises a book about 'good'World War II deception, Bodyguard ofLies. Good lies there may be—but youshould know this is a discredited work.Among other things, it floats the ridicu-lous myth that Churchill let Coventryburn in a German air raid to protect hissource of secret intelligence. (In fact,Churchill was headed for the countrythat afternoon; misinformed that theraid would be over London, he turnedhis car around and headed for the capi-tal, to await the bombers that nevercame.)" See also "Leading ChurchillMyths (3)" in Finest Hour 114.

"Churchill and the Baltic"Bonnie L. Randall found the editors

two-part article "Churchill and theBaltic" (FH 53-54) on our website, andwondered about the absence of footnotesand the author's credentials. The replymay interest readers. The back issues areavailable from our Washington office.

(To Ms. Randall.) Thanks for thekind words about my articles, which asprinted contain eighty-two footnotes. Iwas surprised to learn they were not onthe web version and asked our webmas-ter to add them to it.

My credentials to write about theBaltic are only those of a layman. I amof part-Latvian descent and own about100 books on Latvia and the BalticStates, which I visited in 1992 and1995. My Churchill studies led me toexplore his attitude toward the Baltic; Iconcluded that Churchill comes in formore criticism than he deserves.

In 1995 with three colleagues Ibicycled Latvia south to north, from theLithuanian to the Estonian border,under Churchill Centre auspices. {FH87, page 27.) The purpose was to com-memorate the ongoing battle, post-VE-Day, for Baltic freedom, which contin-ued into the mid-Fifties. We metPresident Ulmanis and several localofficials. When we said "Churchill"they often replied, "Yalta," accompa-nied by hard stares. Churchill was ahard sell. They regarded the 1945 YaltaConference as a sell-out of Baltic inde-pendence. The Mayor of Liepaja told usthat it would have been best all-round ifwe had nuked the USSR in 1945. Wesaid the Anglo-American public wouldhave never stood for that. He replied,"Just think how much trouble it wouldhave saved you, not to mention us." Asa boy, he had been strafed and wound-ed by Soviet beach guards for violatingcurfew. He was lucky to have escapedwith his life. It all depends on your per-spective.

At Yalta, what little influenceChurchill had was directed to rescuingPoland, which proved a forlorn hope.There was no chance to save the BalticStates, surrounded by a sea of RedArmy divisions, though the resistancewas still holding out in Courland whenpeace was declared on 8 May 1945. ButI've always believed that in their heartsas well as officially, Churchill and Attleefully supported the Baltic cause.Postwar British Prime Ministers pre-served the independent Baltic embassiesand safeguarded their gold reserves. AsLarry Arnn once put it, Churchill'sactions at Yalta were "the best he coulddo with the situation at hand." —RML

History Channel VideoWASHINGTON— Steve Goldfien advisesthat he ordered a History ChannelDVD on Churchill which is portrayedas a "new" offering in mail-order videocatalogues. However, this is the A&EBiography series narrated by Sir MartinGilbert, marketed by the HistoryChannel. This was not apparent fromthe catalogue. Steve and the editor, whomade the same mistake, wish to warnthat this is not "new."

Livadia Palace Library BuildingWASHINGTON, NOVEMBER 2ND— T h e

Churchill Centre is helping to provide acomplete set of Churchill's books forthe Churchill Room at Livadia Palace,Yalta, where Lady Soames asked ourhelp in holding the Churchillian endup against a massive exhibit dedicatedto Roosevelt. Laurence Geller, CraigHorn, Devoy White, and RichardLangworth contributed books or fundsto the project; Churchillbooks.comprovided a large number of titles theycould not locate individually.

The only titles we still need are:River War, World Crisis, UnrelentingStruggle, End of the Beginning, Onwardsto Victory, War Speeches, Stemming theTide, History of the English-SpeakingPeoples, Unwritten Alliance, AmericanCivil War, Young Winston's Wars,Complete Speeches, and Collected Essays.

Lady Soames is designing a book-plate which will bear the name of thedonors. If you wish to donate anybooks, please contact the editor.

Scarecrow ExtremesWASHINGTON,

O C T O B E R

28TH— As the

quadrennialA m e r i c a nPresidential

campa ignsheat up withonly (arrgh!)a year to go,the current in-cumbent is being compared to WinstonChurchill by his supporters and AdolfHitler by his opponents: which puts usin mind of Churchill's 1946 remarks tothe General Assembly of Virginia:

"I read the other day that anEnglish nobleman, whose name is newto me, has stated that England wouldhave to become the forty-ninth state ofthe American Union. I read yesterdaythat an able American editor had writ-ten that the United States ought not tobe asked to re-enter the British Empire.It seems to me, and I dare say it seemsto you, that the path of wisdom liessomewhere between these scarecrowextremes." continued overleaf...

FINEST HOUR 121/7

DATELINES

The Third Churchill LectureIn the Middle East, is Anyone Ever Satisfied?

On the Atlantic Coast, Will the Hurricanes Ever Quit?

WILLIAM C. IVES & CHRISTOPHER C. HARMON

ABOVE. "Mr. President: can you tell us now if you will accept a second term?" Chris Matthews (r.) shoots a hardball query at CC President Ives,flanked by Lady Manning, wife of the British Ambassador, and Celia Sandys...."Inscribed to Chris Matthews, who does most of the talking." Win-ston Churchill (right) signs a copy of Never Give In!, his collection of his grandfather's speeches, for our Master of Ceremonies. BELOW. CC Trea-surer Craig Horn, Professors Fromkin and Muller, CC Secretary Doug Russell....Bermuda conference manager Judy and Jerry Kambestad (right).

A s Hurricane Isabel churned its way-/~\.up the East Coast, ChurchillCentre governors were told that theirboard meeting for September 19-20thwould be held "come hell or highwater." Isabel brought the high water;hell was avoided, at least temporarily.

Concurrently, nearly 125Churchillians and at least that manyGeorge Washington University stu-dents who had planned to attend theThird Churchill Lecture and a recep-tion celebrating the CC's opening inWashington were confidently remindedthat those events would go forward"even if only the Board of Governorsappear." Alas, that's just about whathappened. The University simply shutdown. Fourteen hardy souls includingthree Trustees—Celia Sandys, ChrisMatthews and Winston Churchill,

attended the reception; the latter wasable to join us for dinner later, hisspeaking engagement in Petersburgcalled off after the Governor of Virginiashut down the state! Twenty-two stal-warts heard David Fromkin's lecture,"Churchill and the Middle East." ACD recording is in the process of beingoffered for those who missed it.

The Board meeting proceeded asscheduled for a very full day and a half,but not without logistical challenges.Isabel either prevented or hindered theattendance of the Board's two Britishand two Canadian members. Jim Lane'sbroken hip restricted him to his homenear Seattle, but he joined the boardmeeting via conference call at 5AM histime! Richard Langworth was with hiswife Barbara in New York City at thefuneral of her mother; he too joined in

FINEST HOUR 121/8

by telephone. In spite of these naturaldisasters, the Board meeting was highlyproductive. Many positive and neces-sary actions were taken (see page 5).

While coping with Isabel's fury theCentre also had to deal with the after-math of Hurricane Fabian's descent onBermuda, site of our 20th InternationalConference, several weeks earlier.Cochairman David Boler and confer-ence manager Judy Kambestad made allthe time-consuming adjustments neces-sary to ensure that this excitingConference would proceed as planned.Looking to Winston Churchill forinspiration, we recalled that whenadvised that owing to the weather heshould not fly to France in June 1940to stiffen the spines of waveringFrenchmen, the PM responded: "Tohell with that. This is too serious...to

DATELINES

BELOW: Chris Harmon, Bill Ives. RIGHT: DavidFromkin. BELOW CENTER: Chris Matthews.

bother about the weather." So it was,and so it is.

Considering the buffeting theCentre and its events have taken sincethe 9/11 attacks scarcely six weeksbefore our 2001 San Diego conference—followed by terrorist alerts three daysbefore the event which involved themain bridge to the conference site—one must wonder whether some greaterpower is testing our mettle. If so, wehave not been found wanting.Churchill himself provides our watch-words: "Never flinch, never weary,never despair." We won't. —WCI

"Churchill and the Middle East"WASHINGTON, SEPTEMBER 18TH— D a v i d

Fromkin, one of Americas foremostwriters, delivered the Third ChurchillLecture under the auspices of TheChurchill Centre and The GeorgeWashington University. A professor ofinternational relations at BostonUniversity, Fromkin is the author of abestseller: A Peace to End All Peace: TheFall of the Ottoman Empire and theCreation of the Modern Middle East.

With the end of the Great War in1918, Britain's coalition governmentfaced unnumbered and difficult ques-tions of war and peace: the disappear-ance of the Ottoman Empire; the rise ofSoviet Bolshevism; the indignation ofSyria under French occupation; divi-sions among Arab rulers; and the chal-lenge of assembling a state of Iraq fromseveral diverse provinces, all in turmoil.At the same time, Britain's great army inthe region was "melting" (to useWinston Churchill's word) and few inLondon had good policy ideas. Prime

Minister David Lloyd George turned toChurchill, his Secretary of State for theColonies, and said: "You deal with it,"according to Fromkin. In his view,Churchill satisfactorily resolved theissues he had been handed, "which inpolitics should be enough."

But in the Middle East, is anyoneever satisfied? Even Churchill did notget all he wanted, from London or fromthe region, David Fromkin explained.He worked hard for a Jewish "home-land" but did not call outright for aJewish state. Nor did he expect the"Trans-jordan" to become sovereign asit did. He considered a Kurdish statebut had to settle for folding the Kurds'Mosul province into the mix with Basraand Baghdad, yielding modern Iraq.Sherif Feisal, ejected from Syria by theFrench, became King of Iraq, which hasproven more durable than critics of thetime thought, according to Fromkin.Iraq even survived a protracted warwith much-larger Iran in the 1980s.

The Master of Ceremonies,MSNBC host Chris Matthews; WSC'sgrandchildren, Winston Churchill and

Celia Sandys; Professor James Muller,and others followed the formal lecturewith a dozen questions. Was monarchyreally the solution for Iraq? What wasknown then about oil in the region?What effect had President Wilson onthe region's settlement? Was Whitehalltoo concerned about creating a barrieragainst the rising Soviet state?

One of the best replies went toWashington member Bob Hartland,who asked about the scholar's critiqueof T. E. Lawrence. Mr. Fromkinanswered that Seven Pillars of Wisdom

was unreliable as history: Lawrence, hesaid, admitted as much, and describedhis book as in line with the great novels,more than the great histories. In aninterview before the lecture, Fromkincomplimented Finest Hour's summerissue, which was devoted to Lawrence.

David Fromkin's A Peace to End AllPeace is a detailed and profound studyof a few short years in which, truly, his-tory was being made. Its historical nar-rative is draped around the imposingfigure of Winston S. Churchill—thenas later clutching multiple portfoliosand fascinated by politics and foreignaffairs. The book has appeared in fourlanguages including Arabic, never goingout of print in English since its 1989release. Renewed interest appeared afterSeptember 11 th, 2001. Another wavecomes now: a historian just back fromIraq reports that Marine Corps officersserving there often discuss the volume.

In a similar spirit of earnest con-versation, Churchillians moved slowlyfrom the GWU auditorium and intothe initial rains of Hurricane Isabel, justthen bearing down on WashingtonD.C. They had been given much toconsider by a strong interchange.

Holder of a University of Chicagolaw degree, David Fromkin continuesto teach and to write. His seventh bookwill appear in 2004 under the title:Europe's Last Summer: Who Started theGreat War in 1914?— CCH > >

FINEST HOUR 121/9

DATELINES

Local & National EventsEvents are also covered by our fraternal publication, the Chartwell Bulletin.

Enigma Conference in AprilWASHINGTON— The Churchill Centre hascombined with The Bletchley ParkTrust, Christ Church Oxford and theInternational Spy Museum in Washing-ton, DC to sponsor an exciting pro-gramme, "Enigma and the Secret Intel-ligence War," on April 25th-28th.Registration deadline is at the end ofDecember, so act fast to join.

The programme is based on amemorable conference held in 2002 atChrist Church, Oxford, in conjunctionwith The Bletchley Park Trust. Speakersinclude Trever Rowley of KellogCollege Oxford; Christine Large,Bletchley Park's director; Dr. DavidKahn, author of The Code Breakers;Michael Smith, defence correspondentfor The Daily Telegraph, David Hamer,visiting research scholar at Bletchley;and Barbara Eachus, who worked atBletchley's codebreaking operationsbeginning in 1939. The breaking of theincreasingly sophisticated GermanEnigma codes is the major topic.

The conference begins Sundayafternoon April 25th with a wind-upbreakfast on Wednesday the 28th.There is an optional excursion to theInternational Spy Museum, and thehost hotel is the Hilton AlexandriaMark Center in Virginia, six miles fromWashington. For anyone interested inChurchill and wartime code-breaking,this is a fine opportunity.

Conference registration costs$1185 per person and includes the fullprogram, three breakfasts, two privatedinners, one lunch and opening andclosing drinks receptions. Hotel accom-modation costs $249 and the SpyMuseum excursion $48. A deposit of$600 plus one nights's room and tax isrequired. Cancellation penalties applyafter 28 February.

To register or request further infor-mation please contact USA HostHousing Services, 1055 E. Tropicana,Suite 530, Las Vegas NV 89119, tele-phone (877) 584-6787, fax (702) 597-0264 or consult their website,www.usahosts.com/housing.

WashingtonBURKE, VA., AUGUST loTH— The Washing-ton Society for Churchill, a CC affili-ate, held its annual summer picnicagain at Oaks Community Center.Marking the 100th anniversary of pow-ered flight, George Washington Univer-sity faculty member Chris Sterlingspoke on Churchill's aviation pioneer-ing including his quest for a pilot'slicense, starting the Royal Navy Airarm, his time at the Air Ministry, thefirst steps toward regular airline opera-tions, and his famous wartime andpostwar air travels. Churchill's air careerwas truly expansive, covering every-thing from the earliest fragile biplanesto jetliners. Sterling's presentation fea-tured a display collecton of photos,documents and books.

Churchill and SandysNEW YORK, NOVEMBER 10TH—Winston

Churchill and Celia Sandys provided a"family reading" from their two newbooks, Ms. Sandys' Chasing Churchilland Mr. Churchill's collection of hisgrandfather's speeches, Never Give In!(both reviewed last issue), at ChartwellBooksellers on 52nd Street, Manhattan.Champagne by Pol Roger enlivened theoccasion.

Sandys and Churchill are travelingthe United States promoting theirbooks. Celia Sandys is making threetrips, involving many appearances in-cluding several before Churchill Centreaudiences: Washington, New York,Boston and Fulton, Mo., in November;San Francisco and Los Angeles inDecember; Charleston, South Carolina,Gainesville and Miami, Florida inJanuary.

New EnglandBOSTON, NOVEMBER 12TH/30TH— A m o n g

Celia Sandys' stops was SuffolkUniversity Law School, where she spokeabout her grandfather's travels at a freelecture open to the public. There fol-lowed a reception for the author and adinner with New England Churchlliansat the Union Club on Park Street.

A busy autumn for New Englanderscontinued on Sir Winston's 129th birth-day, November 30th, when they wereinvited to "The Republic of Laurania" tomeet "Savrola," Churchill eoponymoushero of his only novel, in the person ofPatrick Powers of Magdalen College inWarner, New Hampshire, editor of theforthcoming new edition of Savrola tobe published in association with TheChurchill Centre. Traditional black tiewas observed as usual, although businessattire was optional.

Minterne and Portsmouth, UKMINTERNE, DORSET, MARCH 29TH— Twenty-

two members and guests of ICS(UK)visited this Dorset home, residence ofthe first Sir Winston Churchill and laterof his third son, General CharlesChurchill (whose eldest brother had tomake do with Blenheim). The party wasshown round by the owner, Lord Digby,brother of the late Pamela Harriman,whose childhood home it had also been;her son is today's Winston Churchill. A

visit was paid to the village church to seethe grave of John Churchill (grandfatherof the 1st Duke of Marlborough).Thanks are due to Elizabeth Snell, whohas an apartment on the Minterneestate, for making the arrangements.

PORTSMOUTH, MAY 16TH— U S S Winston S.

Churchill spent a few days here foressential maintenance on her way homefrom the Iraq war; her CommandingOfficer, Cdr Holly Graf, and theMaster Chief Holliday were taken tolunch at the nearby Emsworth SailingClub by ICS(UK) Vice Chairman PaulCourtenay and Committee member

FINEST HOUR 121 /10

DATELINES

CHURCHILLCALENDAR

Local events organizers: please send upcomingeventnotices to the editor for posting here or in The

Chartwell Bulletin. If address and email are notstated below, see inside front cover.

20044 February: Opening of "Churchill andthe Great Republic," an exhibit at the

Library of Congress, Washington,D.C., in association with the ChurchillArchives Centre Cambridge and The

Churchill Centre, Washington. Furtherdetails will be mailed shortly.

February-June: "Churchill and theGreat Republic" exhibit, Library ofCongress. The Churchill Centre issponsoring two seminars and the

Fourth Churchill Lecture, and is partic-ipating in the dedication of the WorldWar II Memorial. Full details on events

and times will be mailed soon.

27 March: ICS (UK) Agm, Harrow

24-29 September: 21st InternationalChurchill Conference, Portsmouth andNormandy, possibly extended a week(to follow the route of Allied armies

through northwest Europe to Berlin).Contact: ICS UK (address on page 2).

2005September: 22nd International

Churchill Conference,Chateau Frontenac, Quebec.

200623rd International Churchill

Conference, Chicago.

John Crookshank. It was interesting tohear at first hand about the ship's firstoperational deployment.

New CC GovernorsDECEMBER 2ND— Churchill Centre Presi-dent Bill Ives announced the appoint-ment of two new Governors, SuzanneSigman of Milton, Mass, and ChrisHebb of Vancouver, BC, in accord withrecent by-law changes (see "@ TheCentre," page 5). The Board also re-elected Ives and Charles Platt to three-year terms while expressing thanks toretiring Governor John Plumpton forhis long service.

Suzanne Sigman rebuilt and revital-ized CC New England activities with a

Local OrganizersContact these to attend or assist in your area.

Local Affairs Coordinator:Judy Kambestad (jammpott@aol.com)1172 Cambera Lane, Santa Ana CA 92705tel. (714) 838-4741; fax (714) 838-8899

Alaska: Judith & Jim Muller (afjwm@uaa.alaska.edu)2410 Galewood St., Anchorage AK 99508tel. (907) 786-4740

California North: N. California ChurchilliansMichael Barrington (Majb7016@aol.com)34263 Eucalyptus Terrace, Fremont CA 94555tel. (510) 791-2305

California South: SoCal ChurchilliansJerry Kambestad (gdkamb@aol.com)1172 Cambera Lane, Santa Ana CA 92705tel. (714) 838-4741

Chicago: Churchill Friends of Greater ChicagoPhil & Susan Larson (parker-fox@msn.com)22 Scottdale Road, LaGrange IL 60526tel. (708) 352-6825

Dallas: North Texas ChurchilliansJohn & Paula Restrepo (cunengland@aol.com)4520 Lorraine Avenue, Dallas TX 75205tel. (214) 522-7201

Detroit: Gary Bonine3609 Lake George Road, Dryden MI 48428tel. (810) 796-3180

England North: ICS/UK Northern ChapterDerek Greenwell, "Farriers Cottage," Station Rd.,Goldsborough, Knaresborough, N. Yorks. HG5 8NTtel. (01432) 863225

Florida North Central: Richard StreifF(streifTr@bellsoudi.net)81 N.W. 44th Street, Gainesville FL 32607tel. (352) 378-8985

Florida Northeast: Robert Chalmers(Blchalmers@aol.com) 1443 Avondale Avenue,Jacksonville FL 32205-7820tel. (904) 388-7443

Georgia: Gary Garrison (ccsgary@bellsouth.net)2364 Beechwood Drive, Marietta GA 30062tel. (770) 509-5430, fax (770) 565-5925

New England ChurchilliansSuzanne Sigman (ssigman@anbi.com)42 Dudley Lane, Milton MA 02186tel. (617) 696-1833

New Orleans: Hill Riddle(HilIRiddlejr@hotmail.com)2715 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans LA 70130tel. (504) 895-5102

North Carolina ChurchilliansGary L. Snyder (Glsnyderl8@nc.rr.com)228 Winterberry Ridge Dr., Durham NC 27713tel. (919) 593-0804

Ohio: Northern Ohio ChurchilliansMichael McMenamin (mtm@walterhav.com)1300 Terminal Tower, Cleveland OH 44113tel. (216) 781-1212

Washington Society for ChurchillCaroline Hartzler (Hartzlercr@aol.com)5956 Coopers Landing Court, Burke VA 22015tel. (703) 503-9226

Toronto: Other Club of OntarioNorm & Jean MacLeod (jeana@direct.com)16 Glenlaura Ct., Ashburn ON LOB 1AO,tel. (905) 655-4051

The Rt. Hon. Sir WinstonSpencer Churchill Society

Calgary: Rick Billington, Pres. (rnbill@telus.net)2379 Longridge Drive, Calgary AB T3E 5N7tel. (403) 249-5016

Edmonton: Robert Dunn (rolana@shaw.ca)Box 2, Site 208, RR2,St. Albert, Edmonton AB T8N 1M9res. tel. (904) 388-7443; bus. tel. (780) 973-5549

Vancouver: Chris & Dorothy Hebb(cavell_capital@telus.net) Suite 1700,1111 W. Georgia St., Vancouver BC V6E 4M3tel. (604) 209-6400

host of successful events over the pastseveral years and was instrumental inmaking the first attempts to coordinatethe activities and communications offar-flung local groups of CC members.The former proprietor of a bookshopspecializing in children's books, shedevotes herself to advancing SirWinston's message in the Boston area.

Chris Hebb, like his father beforehim, is a key leader of the Sir WinstonS. Churchill Society of British

Columbia, which in 1986 played confer-ence host to the Churchill Conferenceand to our guest William Manchester.The Society has an education fund, sup-porting its mission of acquainting youthwith the Churchill story.

Suzanne and Dan Sigman andDorothy and Chris Hebb have regularlyattended International Churchill Confer-ences, and we look forward enthusiatical-ly to their participation on the Board ofGovernors. $i

FINEST HOUR 121/11

NOTABLE CHURCHILLIANS: GEORGE LEWIS

Left: "So, gentlemen—where are we going to get the money?" Right: With the editor at registration, 1995 International Conference, Boston.

George Lewis became treasurer ofthe then-International Churchill

Society following the death of DaltonNewfield in 1982. At the time, ourworldly wealth was $389.64.

I often recall our conversations inthe early Eighties, just before I wouldsend each 12- or 16-page issue ofFinest Hour to press. George wouldcall to give the green light—meaningthat he could actually write a check topay the printing bill without beingarrested: "Well, we have $1503.40 inthe bank, and we haven't sent out thisquarter's renewal notices yet. So if thebill is under $2000, we can probablycover it by the time it arrives, and thepostage along with it, and even have alittle bit left over!"

George held the treasurer's jobfor a record fifteen years until 1997,after the old ICS had been folded intothe new Churchill Centre. When heleft, the treasury was substantiallyhealthier. George became a foundingmember of The Churchill Centre andcontributed, over the years, generousgifts to its endowment fund. He alsoserved for more than his five yearterm as a Churchill Centre Trustee, aposition from which he has justretired; and here again his advice andideas were always welcome.

The Churchill Centre BlenheimAward is presented for notable ser-

vices to the Centre or to the memoryof Winston Churchill. At Toronto in1997, we presented it to GeorgeLewis, "for his dedication to thecause, his steadfast loyalty throughgood times and bad, for sharing inour triumphs, and helping us shrugoff our tragedies. Nobody deserves itmore."

George had joined the old ICS inthe 1970s and was one of our longestparticipating members. When I methim he was just retiring from a longand fruitful career, and had the time—that most precious commodity!—to devote to our affairs. He couldn'thave arrived at a more opportunemoment. The sudden loss of DalNewfield had been a blow to every-one. We were forced to scramble inmany directions to find substitutes forthe myriad positions Dal had filled.

Always with George, the treasurywas in good hands. He and his wifeBarbara were frequently present atevents, and several times hosted meet-ings of the Board of Governors attheir home in Westiield, New Jersey.They carried betimes during manyyears a difficult burden, following aserious and debilitating car accidentsuffered by their daughter, which pre-occupied them for a long time.

I am always surprised, because ofwhat I think is its relative insignifi-

cance, to find the organizationattracting the occasional personwhose Churchill interest proves sec-ondary to personal interests or per-sonal ego. George was never one ofthese. We could always count on himto place the interests of the organiza-tion first, even when it was not per-haps the preferred course from hispersonal standpoint. He was the kindof leader we have needed so often overthe years—who, fortunately for us,have always been there.

Another former Governor, CyrilMazansky, had a way of summarizingpeople in a few deft remarks thatalways went to the heart of things.Once at a particularly garrulous andsoul-searching meeting, after we hadwrestled with and disposed of our lit-tle problems for the time being, Cyril,South African by birth, remarked: "Ican't help but think of George as thetype of character who built this coun-try—reliable, trustworthy, solid,always willing to look on the brightside. Those people are a dying breed."

For the sake of his country, onehopes George's breed is not disappear-ing. But none of those who workedwith him, who appreciate his knowl-edge and enjoy his comradeship, willnever forget the contributions ofGeorge Lewis, among which is his oldfriend. —Richard Langworth M>

FINEST HOUR 121 /12

RIDDLES,

MYSTERIES,

ENIGMASSend your questionsto the editor

I I've been set what I thought was• an easy research question about

Churchill, but despite looking at web-sites and books I've been unable to findout the exact dates he was PrimeMinister.

A % Blow your teacher away by• reporting that he was techni-

cally Prime Minister three times. Theextra one was when the wartimecoalition broke up and he formed a"caretaker" government ofConservatives until the 1945 elec-tion. The exact dates are: CoalitionPrime Minister, lOMay 1940 to 23May 1945; Conservative PrimeMinister, 23 May 1945 to 26 July1945; Conservative Prime Minister:26 October 1951 to 5 April 1955.See also "Timelines" in FH 116.

I In its obituary of Lord, Shawcross, The Times of July

'vehemently denied that, as attor-ney-general in the post-World War IIgovernment, he ever said, "We are themasters now." I have always believedhe did. Moreover, I understood that thethen-Leader of the Opposition,Winston Churchill, retorted, "Oh no

you're not. The people put you thereand the people will put you out again."Can anyone provide the definitive ver-sion? (Alistair Cooke has already cor-rected two factual errors in this sameobituary.) —James Bell, Scotland

A# Shawcross always defended• himself over this matter by

saying that the famous quote was notcomplete and that what he said was:"We are the masters at the moment,and not only at the moment, butfor a very long time to come." I sus-pect that the Churchill comment isapocryphal. —PHC $5

AROUND & ABOUT

Crown Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia was born inSuite 212 at Claridge's Hotel in London, recalls

the Los Angeles Times. "Yet for the heir to thethrone ever to lay claim to his kingdom, justvacated by the Nazis, he had to be born onYugoslav territory. Luckily for King Peter II andhis wife, Princess Alexandra of Greece, Churchill cameto the rescue, declaring the luxurious hotel room in central London a sliceof Yugoslavia." Can anyone confirm this?

The originator of the campaign to recall California Governor GrayDavis, Congressman Darrell Issa, told CNN that one of the leadingRepublican contenders, Tom McClintock, had promised him months agothat he would abort his candidacy if it would split the Republican votewith Arnold Schwarzenegger. McClintock replied that WinstonChurchill would call this Issa's comment a "terminological inexactitude,"because the word "lie" was disallowed in parliamentary debate.

00000Straddling the fence? Authorities in Central India feted prominent

personalities by naming 802 water tanks after them. Saddam Hussein, BillClinton, George Bush, Voltaire, Jawaharlal Nehru and WinstonChurchill figure among the names given to water tanks in villages inMadhya Pradesh. Hitler, Mao and Stalin have thus far been passed over.

00000Football mania comes every autumn to

North America. Wisecracking DetroitLions coach Steve Mariucci on MinnesotaVikings wide receiver Randy Moss: "Youcan't stop him, you can only hope to con-tain him, huh? Who made that up,Winston Churchill?" Chris Dunfordwrites: "Worthl000.com is a websitewhere very inventive people who obviouslyhave too much time on their hands apply adigital magic to photographs, drawings,and paintings. Footballers might enjoy oneentitled "Winston Ditka." (Mike Ditka isa famous coach. We told you, we can't getaway from all this.)**r *$ =»$* Sjr *$T

On the second anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 11 September2001, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, whose leadershipin the days after the attacks won him a place in many hearts, paraphrasedChurchill to look forward: "Repair the waste. Rebuild the ruins. Heal thewounds. Crown the victors. Comfort the broken and broken-hearted.There is the battle we have now to fight. There is the victory we have nowto win. Let us go forward together." $

FINEST HOUR 121/13

125-100-75-50 YEARS AGO

Michael McMenamin

125 Years Ago:

Winter 1878-79-Age4

"Lord Randolph was mute"

After Lord Randolph's scathing at-tack on the President of the Local

Government Board earlier in the year,nothing more was heard from LordRandolph on the political front. AsWinston wrote in his biography of hisfather, "For the rest of the ParliamentLord Randolph was mute. Scarcely amention of his name occurs in the 'De-bates.' He was absent from many im-portant divisions. His relations and feel-ings towards the Government seemsomewhat to have improved as theRussian war crisis receded, and he re-mained an impassive spectator of theirdoings in Afghanistan, in Zululand,and the Transvaal."

Meanwhile, Churchill's parentscontinued during the winter their ex-tensive travels throughout Ireland. AsLord Randolph wrote to his mother,"This weather is certainly very wintryand does not seem to lend itself to any-thing congenial, while anything moreodious or unfortunate for fishing can-not be well imagined. I fished for twodays in the Suir and never moved a fish,nor did anyone else. However, I haveadded another Irish county (Tipperary)to my peregrinations in this island."

Winston's brother Jack was born inDublin on February 4th. The familynow prepared to return to London toface a general election, in which LordRandolph would manage to hold on tothe family seat, Woodstock.

100 Years Ago:Winter 1903-04-Age 29"Governments have nothing to

give but what they have first

taken away"

BOURKECOCKRAN

Ln Decem-.ber, Chur-

chill wrote along letter tohis friendBourke Cock-ran, the Amer-ican Congress-man and ora-tor: "I believethat Chamber-lain will be de-

feated at the General Election by anoverwhelming majority....Feeling is get-ting much more bitter on both sidesthan when you were here last and Ithink there are very stormy times ahead....I have had all sorts of rows and trou-bles in my own constituency and I amthinking of trying my luck in pasturesnew....I have never received a copy ofyour speech at the Liberal Club. I wishI had been able to get hold of it. Itwould be very useful....I wish youwould send me some good free tradespeeches that have been made in Amer-ica, and some facts about corruption,lobbying, and so forth...."

Since their first meeting in 1895,Cockran had played a formative role inChurchill's political thought and was

the person after whom Churchill pat-terned his speaking style. (See"Churchill's American Mentor," FH115.) The Liberal Club speech to whichChurchill referred was one Cockranhad given in London on 15 July 1903,titled "The Essential Conditions of Na-tional Prosperity." An excerpt from thatspeech by Cockran compared with onegiven by Churchill on 11 November1903 at Birmingham illustrates howclosely aligned the two men were politi-cally and oratorically.

Cockran: "Since Government of it-self can create nothing, it can havenothing of its own to bestow on any-body. It cannot, then, be both just andgenerous at the same time, for if it begenerous to some it must be oppressiveto others. If it undertake to enrich oneman, the thing which it gives him itmust take from some other man. If ithave a favorite, it must have a victim;and that Government only is good, thatGovernment only is great, that Govern-ment only is just, which has neither fa-vorites nor victims."

Churchill: "You may, by the arbi-trary and sterile act of Government—for, remember, Governments createnothing and have nothing to give butwhat they have first taken away—youmay put money in the pocket of one setof Englishmen, but it will be moneytaken from the pockets of another set ofEnglishmen, and the greater part will bespilled on the way. Every vote given forProtection is a vote to give Govern-ments the right of robbing Peter to payPaul, and charging the public a hand-some commission on the job."

Churchill's reference in his letter toCockran of "troubles in my own con-stituency" was borne out on 8 January1904, when the Oldham ConservativeAssociation nearly unanimously passeda resolution of no confidence in himbecause of his outspoken views on freetrade. Churchill's reference to "tryingmy luck in pastures new" was in retro-spect a foreshadowing of his coming de-cision to leave the Conservatives and"cross the floor" to join the Liberals.

Cockran undoubtedly honoredChurchill's request to send him "somegood free trade speeches" for, in Febru-

FINEST HOUR 121 /14

125-100-75-50 YEARS AGO

ary, 1904, Churchill made a speech atthe Free Trade Hall in Manchesterwhich The Times described as "one ofthe most powerful and brilliant he hasmade." Churchill said, "It is the theoryof the Protectionist that imports are anevil. He thinks that if you shut out theforeign imported manufactured goodsyou will make these goods yourselves,in addition to the goods which youmake now, including those goods whichwe make to exchange for the foreigngoods that come in. If a man can be-lieve that he can believe anything.[Laughter.] We Free-traders say it is nottrue. To think you can make a manricher by putting on a tax is like a manthinking that he can stand in a bucketand lift himself up by the handle.[Laughter and cheers.]"

75 Years Ago:Winter 1928-29-Age 54

"You will be very sorry after

the Socialists are returned"

In the latter part of November,Churchill wrote to the press baron

Lord Rothermere, warning of the con-sequences to follow if he and his fellownewspaper owner Max Beaverbrookabandoned the Conservatives: "Ofcourse, if you and Max rock the boat itwill do a good deal of harm and I amsure you will be very sorry after the So-cialists are returned. Certainly every-thing you have stood for, friendshipwith France, breach with Russia, econ-omy in expenditure, reduction of taxa-tion, will be violently overthrown....However, this is a free country andeveryone may try to make his own bedso long as he is ready to lie in it after-wards...."

Over the Christmas holiday,Churchill continued work on The After-math, sending chapters to Arthur Bal-four, Neville Chamberlain and StanleyBaldwin. In a letter to Baldwin accom-panying the chapters, Churchill gavehis views on the general theme of thecoming election: "I am sure that every-thing should be done to confront theelectors with the direct choice between

Socialism and modern Conservatism.The more blunt and simple the issue,the better for our cause. The world tidesare favourable. They set in every coun-try towards Conservatism, co-operationand continuity of national policy."

Churchill warned in a speech on12 February that a Socialist governmentwould "bring back the Russian Bolshe-viks, who will immediately get busy inthe mines and factories, as well asamong the armed forces, planning an-other general strike....If a Socialist Gov-ernment came into power, they mightwell have a facade of well-meaning andrespectable Ministers who were movedhere and there like marionettes in ac-cordance with the decision of a smallsecret international junta."

Privately, Churchill was pessimisticabout the election, but not so his cabi-net colleagues, who were busy dis-cussing, if not plotting, behindChurchill's back to move him out of theExchequer in a new government.

50 Years Ago:

Winter 1953-54* Age 79"This old carcass of mine is abloody nuisance"

Churchill was in Bermuda for asummit conference with the Amer-

icans and the French. "I don't feel old,though I have some of the disabilities ofold age." he told Lord Moran. "My out-look on things has not changed. It is ex-actly what it was. In the mornings I feelthe same as I always did, but I have be-come torpid in the middle of the day....This old carcass of mine is a bloodynuisance."

Churchill's purpose in coming toBermuda was to persuade the newAmerican administration that the deathof Stalin offered an opportunity to ex-plore detente with the new Soviet lead-ership. Lord Moran asked Churchill ifRussia wanted war, to which he replied,"I believe it is not in her interest tomake war. When I meet Malenkov wecan build for peace." Who was makingit difficult?, Moran asked. "Ike,"Churchill said. "He doesn't think any

good can come from talks with the Rus-sians. But it will pay him to come alongwith us. I shall do what I can to per-suade him. I might stay longer herethan I meant, at any rate if I could per-suade Ike to stay too."

At Bermuda Churchill told Eisen-hower: "If this gathering were beingheld to find ways to reduce our de-fenses, that would be an extreme act ofcriminal folly, but if we were resolved tocontinue our preparation with the ut-most vigor and perseverance...then thissecond question whether there was anyreality in a Russian change was one thatcould be examined within limits and itshould find its part in a general surveyof the scene, once we had convincedthem that there was no hope of divid-ing the allies."

But Eisenhower characterized theSoviet Union as a streetwalker. As JohnColville records his words, "If we un-derstood that under this dress was thesame old girl, if we understood that de-spite bath, perfume or lace, it was stillthe same old girl on that basis then wemight explore all that Sir Winston hadsaid....Perhaps we could pull the old girloff the main street and put her on aback alley. He did not want to approachthis problem on the basis that there hadbeen any change in the Soviet policy ofdestroying the Capitalist free world byall means, by force, by deceit or by lies."

The most Churchill could do wasto persuade Eisenhower, in his forth-coming speech to the United Nations,to substitute "reserve the right to use theatomic bomb" in place of "free to usethe atomic bomb." Colville recordsEisenhower's comment on the differ-ences between him and WSC: "WhereasWinston looked on the atomic weaponas something entirely new and terrible,he looked upon it as just the latest im-provement in military weapons."

Back in London, Churchill learnedon 21 January of the death of RichardMolyneux, a fellow soldier who hadbeen wounded at Omdurman and hadreceived a skin graft from Churchill atthat time. Whistling past the graveyard,WSC observed "He will take my skinwith him, a kind of advance guard, intothe next world...." &

FINEST HOUR 121 /15

CHURCHILL AFLOATLiners ana trie Man

CHRISTOPHER H. STERLING

The majestic Queen Mary, aboard which Churchill sailed more often than any other liner, leaving New York harbor for Southampton, England.

Throughout his long life, Winston Churchill was aprolific traveler. He enjoyed a variety of modes oftransport, including on one notable and pho-

tographed occasion, a camel.1 Of the many ships onwhich he took passage, Churchill is most closely identi-fied with the Cunard liner Queen Mary, on which hesailed numerous times (more than any other single vessel)during and after World War II—and about which hewrote the tribute published in this issue.

Churchill sailed on at least fifteen different linersover nearly six decades.2 His trips varied considerably inlength and the conditions under which he sailed, but fewsources detail them. Passing reference is often made("Churchill sailed..."), offering no information on theship involved. What follows is culled from a wide varietyof sources on ships and Churchill.

Dr. Sterling is on the faculty of The George Washington Universityand is editor of The Churchillian, published by the Washington Soci-ety for Churchill. His "Churchill and Air Travel" appeared in FH 118.

Serving the EmpireChurchill's first ocean voyages took place on vessels

of the three most important British shipping lines linkingvital Empire routes. The Cunard Line had served theNorth Atlantic route to Canada and the United Statessince 1840. The Peninsular & Oriental (P&O), formed in1839 and responsible for adding the term "posh" to thelanguage (which originally stood for the way to avoid thehot sun by dwelling on the "port [side] out [and] star-board home"), pioneered service to India and Australia.The Union-Castle line (the result of a 1900 merger)served South Africa.3 At this stage, Churchill was but oneof many young men traveling by sea to serve Britain'sworldwide interests. The entertainment and excitementhe sought, of course, was not found aboard ship.

Perhaps fittingly, his initial sea voyage took him onhis first of more than a dozen trips to the United States. InNovember 1895 Churchill sailed with his friend ReggieBarnes from Liverpool to New York on the CunarderEtruria. It was an inauspicious beginning to a life of travel

FINEST HOUR 121 /16

RMS Etruna (1884-1909)

by sea for, as he wrote to his mother near the end of thevoyage, "I do not contemplate ever taking a sea voyage forpleasure and I shall always look upon journeys by sea asnecessary evils which have to be undergone in the carry-ing out of any definite plan."4

While his cabin was"not uncomfortable," theship lacked a "comfort-able place to sit down andan interesting occupa-tion" while on board—though it was his fellowpassengers that were mostv e x i n S- " T h e r e a r e n 0

nice people on board tospeak of—certainly none to write of...There is to be aconcert on board tonight at which all the stupid peopleamong the passengers intend to perform and the stupiderones to applaud. The days have seemed very long & un-interesting."5 After an exciting time in both New YorkCity and Cuba (where he turned 21 and came under firefor the first time), Churchill returned to England early in1896 on the same ship.

The next four voyages—on four different P&Oships—all carried Churchill either to or from Bombay,India, by way of the British-operated Suez Canal. InSeptember 1896, he sailed from Southampton with manyof his army compatriots on the Britannia, which had beenchartered to carry troops. Clearly this second experiencewas more agreeable—largely because of his fellow passen-gers. As he wrote to his mother, "I play Picquet...&chess...& in the afternoons and evenings our string bandplays—adding to the agreeableness of the voyage. Everyonehere pretends the weather is very hot—sleeps on deck, etc.But I remain comfortably in the deserted cabin which as Ihave it to myself at nights is perfectly cool. We make a verycheery party ourselves—and as there are nearly a hundredofficers on board there is no lack of company."6

In May 1897, and very much against his mother'sadvice on what would be good for his career, Churchilltook leave and sailed home on P&O's Ganges fromBombay for Brindisi, from which he journeyed by train toBritain. Under three months later he made the same tripin reverse, reaching Brindisi by rail, and sailing on P&O'sRome to Bombay. An eventful nine months later, in

Winston Churchill with Christine Lewisaboard the Carthage, 1899.

March 1899, he leftIndia for the last time,returning from Bom-bay on P&O's Carthage,along with, amongothers, Sir BindonBlood.

Christine LewisConover, then a youngAmerican whomChurchill met aboardthe Carthage, provides

a glimpse of young Winston at the time: "...a freckled,red-haired young man in a rumpled suit carrying animmense tin cake box. [In it was his manuscript for TheRiver War, his book on the Sudan campaign, which he hadjoined as a correspondent during another Indian leave inthe summer of 1898.] We found him a most amusing fel-low traveler, full of fun, with a delightful sense ofhumor.. ..Every day he sat beside us on the deck, workingintensely on his book. He paid no attention to the gaychatter of young people on the adjoining chairs as hewrote and rewrote in that particular small hand. His con-centration was an example to us all."7

Arriving in Cairo, Churchill holed up there for afew weeks to work on his book, keeping brief companywith Miss Lewis. Churchill sailed to and from Egypt onsmall French packet ships of little importance—and lesscleanliness, from surviving accounts.

On his subsequent voyage down to South Africa,on the other hand, he was on board a first-class vessel.With some 1,500 British soldiers, he sailed on 14 October1899 to Cape Town on the Castle Line's government-chartered Dunottar Castle. The first shots in what becamethe Boer War had been fired just two days earlier. Againhe complains—this time in a dispatch to the MorningPost—of "what an odious affair is a modern sea journey!"He was clearly bored with the inaction of a trip of morethan two weeks along the coast of West Africa. Or, as heoften said, quoting Dr. Johnson's line, "Being in a ship isbeing in jail, with the chance of being drowned."

Churchill was especially bothered about being cutoff from news, since only a handful of ships were thenequipped with wireless. But perhaps the real problem thistime was mal de mer, as he wrote to his mother: "We have

1. For a survey of his early interest in and travel on airplanes, see the au-thor's "Churchill and Air Travel," Finest Hour 118:24-29 (Spring 2003).

2. We describe here only WSC's use of ocean liners, not yachts, cargo orriver craft, of militaty vessels (e.g., the Admiralty yacht Enchantress). FotChurchill on the battleship Renown see "Glimpses from the 'Taxi': HMSRenown 1943" by Vic Humphries, Finest Hour 113:24-25, Winter 2002-03.

3. Numerous excellent histories exist for these three shipping lines and theirvessels. For Cunard see Francis E. Hyde, Cunard and the North Atlantic, 1840-1973 (London: Macmillan, 1975), and Neil McCart, Atlantic Liners of the CunardLine from 1884 to the Present Day (Wellingborough: Patrick Stephens, 1990). Forthe P&O line, see Boyd Cable, A Hundred Year History of the P&O (London: Ivor

Nicholson and Watson, 1939), and David Howarth and Stephen Howarth, TheStory of P&O (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987). For the Union-Castle andpredecessors, see Marischal Murray, Union-Castle Chronicle, 1853-1953 (London:Longmans, 1953), and C.J. Harris and Brian D. Ingpen, Mailships of the Union-Castle Line (Vlaeberg, South Africa: Fernwood Press, 1994).

4. Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill I: Youth, 1874-1900(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966), p. 257.

5. Ibid.6. Ibid, p. 280.7. Correspondence: Winston S. Churchill to Christine Lewis Conover, 1899-

1943 (Washington: Churchill Centre, 1996), pp. 20-21.

FINEST HOUR 121/17

had a nasty rough passage & I have been grievously sick.The roll of the vessel is still very pronounced...."8 But aweek later he was "having a cool & prosperous voyage, andalthough the ship is crowded and ill-found, I cannot say Ihate it as much as I expected to."9 In July 1900, Churchillreturned to England on the same ship, by now a war hero.

Churchill's second trip to North America was alecture tour about his experiences inthe Boer War. In December 1900,he sailed for New York on Cunard'sLucania, by far the largest andfastest liner he had yet used, the bestof the British merchant marine atthe time, though no longer a recordholder. After dozens of lectures and£10,000 richer, an exhaustedChurchill embarked in February1901 from New York on Etruria—the very liner that had first broughthim to America six years before.

Interval: Two DisastersFor almost three decades, Churchill apparently did

not sail on a passenger ship. These were, of course, thefrantically busy years of his striking political growth. Theyincluded two of the worst British passenger liner disastersof the century, in one of which he was indirectly involved.

The sinking of the White Star liner Titanic on herApril 1912 maiden voyage to New York, with the loss ofsome 1,500 lives, horrified the world.10 Writing to his wifejust days after the loss, Churchill reflected that "the strictobservance of the great traditions of the sea towardswomen & children reflects nothing but honour upon ourcivilization....I cannot help feeling proud of our race andits traditions as proved by this event. Boat loads of womenand children tossing on the sea—safe and sound—& the

rest—silence."11 As soon became known, however, the real-ity was quite different: a host of women and children insecond and third class lost their lives while many FirstClass (and other) male passengers were saved, includingthe chairman of the line, J. Bruce Ismay, who never livedit down and died a broken and despised man.12

The torpedoing by the German submarine U-20of the Cunard Line's Lusitania offthe south coast of Ireland just overthree years later was almost as bad.The large liner went down in justeighteen minutes, taking hundredswith her. Many more died beforerescue ships reached them hourslater. Some 1,200 lives were lost—including many women and chil-dren and 129 Americans.13

Churchill was then First Lord of theAdmiralty, and it was underAdmiralty orders that Lusitaniasailed. A host of accusations wereraised then—and in some later

books—arguing that Churchill or the Admiralty weresomehow behind the sinking of the ship in an attempt tobring America into the war.14

Already under fierce political pressure over theGallipoli venture that would (seemingly) soon end hiscareer, Churchill said little about the Lusitania at thetime—merely one brief response to a question in theHouse of Commons. He devoted three pages to the eventin The World Crisis, and wrote a more expansive newspa-per piece fifteen years later. In all he was defensive—"Noone can say the Admiralty were remiss" as he put it in the1937 article. In the same piece he also writes of two tor-pedoes (when even then it was known that only onestruck the vessel), that "no panic broke out" (which was

Left: "RMS Titanic: The Completed Voyage," by Bill Judson, certainly one of the eeriest Titanic paintings, shows the great liner arriving safely inNew York after her maiden voyage, April 1912. © Titanic Historical Society Inc. Right: Jack Churchill, Winston Churchill and the Captain on thebridge of Empress of Australia en route to their two-month holiday tour of North America, 1929. (Churchill-Gernsheim, Life in Photographs, 131.)

FINEST HOUR \2\ /18

clearly not the case), and of blunders made by CaptainTurner (whom some officers at the Admiralty had tried toframe for the disaster). Churchill also suggests the U-20remained nearby on the surface when at no time had itsurfaced. Nor does he comment upon the Admiralty'sconfusion over the sending of rescue vessels, which sadlycontributed to the death toll.15

Traveling First ClassIn the 1920s Churchill held high office, including

Chancellor of the Exchequer. When Baldwin's governmentfell in 1929, he was ready for a substantial change of scene.Over the next three years he would sail extensively and loy-ally on British lines (Cunard, White Star, Canadian-Pacific), unless a foreign liner got him around faster.

On 3 August 1929, joined by his brother, nephewand son Randolph, Churchill boardedthe Canadian Pacific's Empress ofAustralia bound from Southampton toQuebec. Used to good service and facil-ities, the group traveled First Class."What fun it is to get away fromEngland and feel one has no responsi-bility for her exceedingly tiresome andembarrassing affairs," he wrote LordBeaverbrook.16 Perhaps ironically inlight of that comment, he also notedthe benefit of being in wireless connec-tion with those back home. TheChurchills spent nearly three monthsin Canada and the United States beforesailing in October from New York onCunard's Berengaria, just days after thestock market crash. The huge FirstClass public rooms and the sense ofspace on a liner of more than 50,000 tons was unlike any-thing Churchill had enjoyed before.

Now out of office, Churchill embarked two yearslater on a lecture tour of the U.S., his fourth trip there. InDecember 1931 he, Clementine, daughter Diana, and a

bodyguard sailed on the North German Lloyd's speedyEuropa for New York. Choosing other than a British liner(especially on the line that had taken the "Blue Riband"or Atlantic speed record from Britain's Mauretania twoyears before) was unusual, caused by some late debate onthe pending India Bill in Parliament.

Arriving in New York, Churchill held a press con-ference on the Sun Deck reception saloon and posed forpictures.17 The planned speaking tour was delayed forweeks when Churchill was struck by a car on Fifth Avenueand had to recuperate in a hospital. For a three week restin the Bahamas, the family traveled to Nassau on WhiteStar Line's huge Majestic, which offered warm water cruis-es to fill empty cabins during the Depression. Originallyplanning to take White Star's Olympic (sister to theTitanic) back from New York two weeks later, they

extended their stay and returned fromNassau on another cruising liner, theHolland American Statendam. After abelated and exhausting speaking sched-ule, the Churchills sailed home fromNew York in March 1932, again on theMajestic, to find a handsome newDaimler, a gift from more than onehundred friends.

This was Churchill's last oceanliner trip until the war. His heavy writ-ing commitments, as well as ongoingParliamentary debates on India, theAbdication, and German rearmament,kept him fully involved save for shortEuropean vacations. But he stayed intouch with liner developments and in1936, on trie entry into service of thenew Cunard-White Star flagship, the

Queen Mary, wrote a description for the Strand Magazine.He concluded: "Never in the whole history of Atlantictravel has so lavish provision been made for those whotravel 'tourist.'"18 Little did he then know how importantthat phrase—or diis ship—would prove to be. »

8. Randolph Churchill, op cit, p. 440.9. Ibid., p. 441.10. There are countless books on the Titanic story. For sheer drama, Wal-

ter Lord's A Night to Remember (New York: Holt, 1955) can't be beaten; it hasremained in print for nearly half a century. But one of the most balanced ac-counts is the harder-to-find Geoffrey Marcus, The Maiden Voyage (New York:Viking, 1969), complete with a large fold-out deck plan. Technically, Titanicwas American-owned, as White Star was then part of J.P. Morgan's Interna-tional Mercantile Marine combine, though she flew the British flag.

11. WSC to his wife, 18 April 1912, in Randolph S. Churchill, ed., WinstonS. Churchill: Companion Volume II, Part 3: 1911-1914(Boston: Houghton Mif-flin, 1969), p. 1542.

12. For details on how Titanic's passenger and crew death toll varied bygender and class, see, for example, Daniel Allen Butler, "Unsinkable": The FullStory of RMS Titanic (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1998), p. 239.

13. Two quite different recent analyses are Diana Preston, Lusitania: AnEpic Tragedy (New York: Walker, 2002), and David Ramsay. Lusitania: Saga and

Myth (New York: Norton, 2002).14. For an analysis of this controversy, see Harry V. Jaffa, "The Sinking of the

Lusitania: Brutality, Bungling, or Betrayal?" in Statesmanship: Essays in Honor of Sir

Winston S. Churchill (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1981), pp. 255-73.15. For the remarks to the House of Commons, see Robert Rhodes James,

ed., WintonS. Churchill: His Complete Speeches 1897-1963,111: 1914-1922 (NewYork: Chelsea House, 1974), "Loss of the Lusitania," p. 2376. Churchill's laterwords are found in his The World Crisis: 1915 (New York: Scribner, 1923), pp.347-8; and the later "Tragedy of the Torpedoed Lusitania," News of the World(13 June 1937), reprinted in Michael Wolff, ed., The Collected Essays of Sir Win-ston Churchill, IV: Churchill at Large (London: Library of Imperial History,1976), pp. 362-74.

16. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill V: The Prophet of Truth, 1922-1939 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977), p. 338.

17. Robert Pilpel, Churchill in America, 1895-1961 (New York: HarcourtBrace Jovanovich, 1976), p. 99.

18. "Queen of the Seas," Strand Magazine (May 1936); see this issue.

FINEST HOUR 121 /19

Churchill on the Queen Mary. Left: WSC is cheered as he disembarks from the Mary at Staten Island, New York, en route to Washington and awartime conference in 1943. Right: Clementine and Winston after returning from the Quebec Conference aboard the liner, September 1944.

Rising tensions in Europe led Churchill to suggestthat another liner on which he had sailed several yearsbefore be preserved for possible wartime use. In late 1938Cunard's Berengaria was headed for the Scottish breakerswhen Churchill, among other MPs, urged the House ofCommons to retain her for the duration of the Europeancrisis for possible troop transport. While antiquated, hercapacity would have been invaluable. But unfortunately,no action was taken.19

Queens at WarAs First Lord of the Admiralty in March 1940,

Churchill was in a position to order action to preserveBritain's newest and biggest liner, Cunard-White Star'sQueen Elizabeth, then completing her fitting out on theClyde: He ordered her to sail to New York to get beyondthe reach of German bombers.20 Painted a dull navy greyinstead of her usual livery of black hull with white super-structure, the Elizabeth sailed with a skeleton crew andmany construction workers still on board. For less than aweek, the worlds three largest liners lay moored side-by-side at Hudson River piers—the grey Mary and Elizabeth,and the French Line's doomed Normandie, exiled whilestill in her peacetime livery. (See page 23.)

As Prime Minister, Churchill made three transat-lantic round-trips on the Queen Mary, traveling by war-ship or airplane for his other journeys: May 1943 (NewYork and the "Trident" conference with the Americans);July 1943 (Halifax for the "Quadrant" conference inQuebec); and September 1944 (Halifax again for the"Octagon" conference, again in Quebec). Churchill andthose traveling with him always boarded at Gourock,Scotland, near the mouth of the Clyde, in evening hours

to lessen the chances that his movements would becomeknown to the enemy. The Queen Mary most often trav-eled alone rather than in a slower convoy, as her top speed,over 30 knots, was far faster than convoy vessels—or theGerman U-boats.21

While wartime travel on the Mary was under aus-terity conditions for most passengers (who ranged fromthousands of prisoners of war heading west to even moreCanadian and American soldiers traveling east), Churchilland key members of his party occupied First Class suiteson the main deck. These were furnished in the line's bestpre-war fashion, right down to fresh flowers daily.

Whenever the Prime Minister traveled, structuralalterations were required. His suite had to be sealed offfrom the rest of the liner; staff offices, dining quarters, amap room and conference room were needed. Cabins andstaterooms were restored to something like their prewarstate of comfort. Guarded by Marines, the PM Suite hadlaws of its own. The ship, then ferrying American troops,was "dry." When Churchill heard of this he pulled what isdescribed as "a very glum face," so his accommodationhad its own licensing laws and drink could be served!22

The PM's party also enjoyed a higher level of cuisine, butthese after all were working journeys with extensive staffwork to do. Churchill would usually appear on the bridgeat least once daily to chat with the Queen's officers aboutthe ship and her navigation.

Churchill's final passenger ship during the war wasthe older and smaller Cunard liner, Franconia. For theYalta conference of early February 1945, the liner wasmoored off Sebastopol for accommodation and commu-nications by the British delegation. After the conference,Churchill and many of his entourage spent February

19. Les Streater, Berengaria: Cunard's "Happy Ship" (Charleston, SC: Tem-pus, 2001), p. 118.

20. Neil Potter and Jack Frost, The Elizabeth (London: George G. Harrap&Co., 1965), p. 50.

21. See, for example, Gerald Pawle, The War and Colonel Warden (Lon-

don: Harrap, 1963), and Sir James Bisset, "Part Three: The Second Great Warat Sea," Commodore: War, Peace and Big Ships (New York: Criterion Books,1961), pp. 293-464. Bisset captained the Queen Mary on the second and thirdof Churchill's wartime voyages.

22. Potter & Frost, op. cit., pp. 164-65.

FINEST HOUR 121/20

They Sailed with Churchill(Includes all liners cited, listed alphabetically)

Berengaria (1912-1938, 52,226 tons, 883 feet, three fun-nels, quadruple screws, and top speed of 23.5 knots),served briefly as Hamburg American's Impemtor, laid up inGermany during the war, became a Cunarder in 1919. SeeLes Streater, Berengaria: Cunard's "Happy Ship"(Charleston, SC: Tempus, 2001). Paul Knapp, The Beren-garia Exchange (New York: Dial, 1972) details the transat-lantic trip immediately preceding the one on whichChurchill sailed.

Britannia (1887-1909, 6,525 tons, 465 feet, two funnels,single screw). With Victoria and Oceania, part of the "Ju-bilee" class liners, then P&O s fastest and largest vessels,built to honor the Queens golden jubilee. This and otherP&O ship information is found in Duncan Haws, Mer-chant Fleets in Profile 1: The Ships of the P&O, Orient andBlue Anchor Lines (Cambridge: Patrick Stephens, 1978).

Carthage and Rome (1881-1903/12, 5,013 tons, 430 feet,two funnels, single screws). First P&O ships over 5,000tons. Rome became the cruise ship Vectis, 1904-12.

Dunottar Castle (1890-1915, 5,625 tons, 420 feet, twofunnels, single screw) is an earlier ship than that mistak-enly shown on die second page of photographs in CeliaSandys's Churchill: Wanted Dead or Alive (1999) which is a1936 vessel. Casde Line merged with the competingUnion Line to create Union-Casde a few months afterChurchill's voyage. See also The Cruise of the Royal MailSteamer Dunottar Castle Round Scotland on Her Trial Trip(Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, 1890) for more infor-mation on the vessel.

Empress of Canada (1914-52, 21,800 tons, 588 feet, threefunnels, twin screws, 19 knots). Built as Hamburg Amer-ica's Tirpitz, but laid up unfinished during World War I,she became a part of postwar reparations. Completed forCanadian Pacific operation, she carried the King andQueen for their Royal Visit to Canada in 1939, and servedas a troop ship during World War II.

Etruria (1885-1909, 8,120 tons, 500 feet, two funnels,single screw). One of a fast pair of Cunarders (the otherwas Umbrid), held the Blue Riband for several years,recording the fastest passage from Queenstown (nowCobh) Ireland to Sandy Hook (the mouth of New Yorkharbor). These were the last Cunarders designed to usesails as auxiliary power.

Europa (1930-61, 49,746 tons, 890 feet, two funnels,quadruple screws, 28 knots) with her sister Bremenmarked the German comeback on the Nordi Atlantic. Thetwo ships briefly traded Blue Riband honors. Europa be-came the French Line's smart Libert/faker the war.

Franconia (1923-57, 20,175 tons, 601 feet, one funnel,twin screws, 16.5 knots) sailed North Atlantic (with a

I black hull) and warmer cruising routes (in a white hull tohelp cool her interior) for Cunard until 1939, when die

, British government took her over for trooping duties. She| resumed her commercial career after full refurbishment in

1948-49, primarily on the run to Canadian ports.

! Ganges (1881 -89, 4,168 tons, 390 feet, two funnels, single; screw). Destroyed by fire in Bombay a year after Churchill

sailed on her, luckily while few were on board. One of a| class of five vessels dubbed "The River Class."

Lucania and her sister Campania (1893-1910, 12,950tons, 600 feet, two funnels, twin screws, 22 knots) werehandsome liners which for several years held the BlueRiband for the fastest Adantic crossing. For a wonderfulsense (including photos and plans) of the public roomsand traveling in style at the turn of the century, see MarkD. Warren, The Cunard Royal Mail Twin-Screw Steamers'Campania' and 'Lucania'(S^zr\dorA: Patrick Stephens,1993), reprinting a special issue of Engineering from 1893.

Majestic (1921-36, 56,551 tons, 915 feet, three funnels,quadruple screws, 24 knots). Designed as Hamburg Amer-ica's Bismarck, she never sailed under diat name. Throughthe 1920s and early 1930s she was advertised as the largestship in the world. Began cruising in die ofF-season in anattempt to fill her huge passenger capacity. Withdrawn in1936, she briefly became the Admiralty training shipCaledonian, but was gutted by fire in September 1939.

Queen Elizabeth (1940-68, 83,600 tons, 987 feet, twofunnels, quadruple screws, 31 knots) was the world'slargest liner until the huge modern cruise ships of the1990s. For a pictorial account of die Churchill 1946 voy-age, see "Life Crosses the Atlantic on the ' Queen Eliza-beth'," Life (11 February 1946), pp. 93-97.

Queen Mary (1936-67, 80,774 tons, 1,018 feet, threefunnels, quadruple screws, 30 knots) was perhaps the mostfamous 20di century passenger vessel. She held the BlueRiband for most of the period 1936-52 (when the newUnited States entered service). There are many books onher design, furnishings and long career—among the mostuseful are Neil Potter & Jack Frost, The Mary: The In-evitable Ship (London: Harrap, 1961); and James Steele,Queen Mary (London: Phaidon, 1995).

Statendam (1929-40, 29,511 tons, 698 feet, three funnels,twin screws, 19 knots) was under construction for eightyears with many stoppages, due in part to changes inAmerican immigration laws, which forced design changes inher passenger spaces to eliminate steerage. As with manyother Depression-weakened lines, she began off-seasonCaribbean cruises in 1930. She was destroyed by fire inthe German invasion of Holland in May 1940. $

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11th-13th on board "this most com-fortable ship with its Queen Marystaff."23 He was not, however, happywith noise from adjacent rooms andseveral had to be closed. All aboardwere "comfortable to the point ofluxury and wonderfully over-fed" bythe Queen Mary chef, whose whitedinner rolls "take one back to times ofpeace." To George Baker, the chiefcommissary officer, Churchill ex-pressed special appreciation with anautographed copy of Great Contem-poraries.^

Twilight VoyagesDuring the first postwar decade Churchill traveled

to or from America by ocean liner on six occasions. Hesailed on one or the other of the Cunard Queens, whichwere from the late 1940s to about I960 in their passen-ger-carrying heyday, offering the two-ship Atlantic expressoriginally intended in the 1930s.

In January 1946 Churchill, now leader of theOpposition, and his wife sailed—two of only 134 civil-ians—aboard the Queen Elizabeth to New York, thenheaded south by train for a holiday in Florida. This washis first time aboard the Elizabeth which, save for her twofunnels repainted in Cunard orange and black, was still inwartime grey livery and filled with standee bunks for thetroops—more than 12,000 returning Canadians. BothQueens remained under government control to shift thethousands of troops back across the Atlantic.

Churchill spoke to them over the ship's publicaddress system toward the end of the voyage, concluding:"Yesterday, I was on the bridge, watching the mountain-ous waves and this ship, which is no pup, cutting throughthem and mocking their anger. I asked myself, why is itthat the ship beats the waves, when they are so many andthe ship is one? They just flop around, innumerable, tire-less, but ineffective. The ship with the purpose takes uswhere we want to go."25

After considerable travel, many visits, and thefamous "Iron Curtain" speech in Missouri, the Churchillsreturned in late March 1946 aboard the Queen Mary, alsostill in wartime grey, continuing to ferry thousands of sol-diers westbound and small commercial loads eastbound.

Three years later, Winston and Clementine, alongwith Mary and Christopher Soames, two secretaries, adetective and a valet, boarded Queen Elizabeth, now in herpeacetime finery, for a March 1949 voyage to New

York—Churchill's twelfth visit toAmerica (see back cover). After aseven-month refurbishment in 1946,the ship had been restored to the lux-ury form originally intended, withservice to match. Churchill noted in aletter to a Cunard official that it hadbeen more than a half century sincehis first trip on one of the company'sliners—"which is a long time ashuman lives go."26 The Queen, morethan ten times the size of those firstvessels, arrived at Pier 90 to be met bya horde of 200 journalists, for whomChurchill answered questions in the

liner's theater. The ensuing trip included extended visitsto New York, Washington, and Boston (his famous Mid-Century Speech at MIT), and then a return to New Yorkand a voyage home on the Queen Mary early in April. Ina note to his grandson he described the ship as "a floatinghotel which rushes along at 33 miles an hour, and is agreat credit to our country."27

In December 1952, now Premier again, Churchillset off on his penultimate liner voyage, to New York onthe Queen Mary, to see President Truman and President-elect Eisenhower. Lunching and dining in the posh, extra-cost Verandah Grill, he spent New Year's Day in mid-Atlantic. After an impromptu press conference on arrival,his party transferred to Bernard Baruch's apartment and ameeting with General Eisenhower. He flew to Washing-ton in President Truman's plane, then on to a vacation inJamaica. Two weeks later, he was back in New York for aflight home.

In 1954, Churchill flew to New York. His last voy-age on an ocean liner would occur in June when RMSQueen Elizabeth carried him home. It was less comfortablethan usual: floating ice forced the poorly ventilated ship'strack farther south, and into warm and humid conditions.It also became politically uncomfortable when, still at sea,he telegraphed a summit meeting offer to the SovietUnion without prior Cabinet (or U.S.) knowledge orapproval. Considerable uproar ensued on his arrival inEngland.28

Two years later, for the first time in history, morepassengers crossed the Atlantic by airliner than by ship.Within five years, both of the great Queens were losingmoney. In just over a decade, both had been withdrawn,the Queen Mary to become a hotel-museum in California,the Queen Elizabeth to be destroyed in a fire in HongKong harbor. An era had ended. $

23. WSC to his wife, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Winston S. ChurchillVlhRoad to Victory, 1941-1945 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986), p. 1217.

24. Moran, Churchill: The Struggle for Survival 1940-45 (London: Con-stable, 1966), p. 233. Details on Great Contemporaries from Churchillbooks.com.

25. Quoted in Neil Potter and Jack Frost, The Elizabeth (London: George

G. Harrap & Co., 1965), p. 84.26. Martin Gilbert, WinstonS. ChurchillYlW: "NeverDespair," 1945-1965

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988), p. 463.27. Ibid., p. 469.28. Ibid., p. 1012.

FINEST HOUR 121/22

COVER STORY

MAGAZINE

The building of the Queen Mary rep-resents the decision of GreatBritain to regain the Blue Ribbon

of the Atlantic passenger service. This deci-sion has been long delayed and many cir-cumstances most vexatious to Britishminds have obstructed it.

After the Great War was over, as part ofthe conditions of peace, Germany wasobliged to yield up her transatlantic liners

in replacement of the far greater volume of tonnage sunkby the U-boats. We therefore received the two prewarGerman liners, Imperator and Bismarck, which were

"Queen of the Seas" was published in The Strand Magazine for May1936 (Woods C299) and reprinted in The Collected Essays of Sir Win-ston ChurchillW: Churchill at Large (ICS A145), London, 1975. It ispublished here, for only the second time in article form, by kind per-mission of the Churchill Literary Estate and Winston S. Churchill.

renamed respectively the Berengariaand Majestic. These vessels hadbeen built as long ago as 1912.They belonged to the epoch beforemen's minds had been stretched bythe terrible convulsions of the war.They were magnificent ships, theequals in many respects of theircontemporaries, the Mauretania,Lusitania and Aquitania. But thepossibilities of science, the modernideas of comfort, convenience andluxury, rendered it possible todesign and construct after the warvessels which were finer and faster.

Great tales have been told of thecruel hardships inflicted upon theGermans by the war indemnitiesexacted from them under the PeaceTreaty. They proved in the end to bethe gainers from every point of view.Out of the large sums of moneywhich die Germans borrowed fromAmerica and Britain, tliey were ableto build in 1929 two great ships, theEuropa and Bremen, which were thelast word in magnificence, luxuryand modernity, and which eclipsedall rivals by three or four knotsspeed. Germany thus re-enteredupon die transadantic passengertrade in the most favourable circum-stances, competing with her own oldships, now in British hands, withbrand-new vessels built on moneyborrowed from the Allies! Great

Britain, weighed down with debt, smitten by the econom-ic blizzard, and disappointed in German repayment,found herself unable to put contemporary vessels in thewater to meet this new challenge.

There for a time the matter rested in a most lament-able plight. Meanwhile other countries, particularly Italy,built great and splendid ships of die very latest type. Sincethe Aquitania was built no transadantic liner of the firstorder had been laid down in British yards. Nearly a quarterof a century passed without any opportunity being givento our designers to construct the mammoth vessels, in thelight of the knowledge of new tastes and requirements ofthe travelling public, which have developed since tlien.The glory of the Aquitania and Mauretania is diat theyhave, for all this period, been able to make head againstthe tremendous State-aided competition of ships verymuch younger than themselves. It is from this fact that wemay draw good hopes for the future. »

FINEST HOUR 121/23

In all questions of re-equipment on a large scale,whoever can afford to wait till the last has the oppor-tunity of going from the bottom to the top of the class.Such was the position when Great Britain began torecover from the world slump of 1930 and 1931. Theordered and orthodox system of our finances enabledboth public and private enterprise to look forward to anew and successful effort to reestablish our industrialand maritime supremacy. The decision to build theQueen Mary, which must of course carry with it thebuilding of a sister ship, was the result of this revival.Her launch by Her Majesty Queen Mary in 1934 was anoccasion of national rejoicing. Her entry into thetransatlantic passenger service signalized and symbolizedthe resolve of British industry and the British nation toassert their long-undisputed preeminence on blue waterand to be worthy of their old and sure renown.

It is, however, very necessary to understand theconditions which must govern the carrying through ofthis brilliant and spacious enterprise. The history of theBritish transatlantic passenger service is not a series of"stunt ships" giving satisfaction only to megalomaniaand record-breaking or ostentation. The policy underly-ing the construction of the Queen Mary is a sober tale.For every trade route in the world, from the NorthAtlantic service to the coastal service, there is at anygiven time a ship of exactly the right size and exactly theright speed. As naval architecture and marine engineer-ing progress, that right size and right speed tend toincrease on the majority of routes, especially on theNorth Atlantic, where there is no check on conditions atports of call or en route. The depth of water in the SuezCanal imposes definite limitations on the developmentof our Oriental lines. But New York, Southampton andLiverpool enable the largest vessels ever built by man tobe planned and operated. History records that during itsninety-six years' existence in the so-called Atlantic ferry,the Cunard Company has always succeeded in placing inservice ships of the right size and right speed for thework they were required to do.

The first Cunarder, the paddle-steamer Britannia,was but 207 feet in length with a gross tonnageof 1,154 tons. In 1840 this ship inaugurated the

first regular steamship, mail and passenger service acrossthe North Atlantic. She was exactly suited to the serviceof her day; that is to say, in seaworthiness, safety, com-fort and speed she formed the highest harmony of eco-nomic relations for which the public of those times wasprepared and able to pay. The Umbria and Etruria in1884, the Campania and Lucania in 1893, and theLusitania and Mauretania in 1907, each in their turn,carried out this new principle. When they were commis-sioned they embodied the latest developments of navalarchitecture and marine engineering. They were especially

itGermany thus re-entered upon the t

favourable circumstances, competing wit

with brand-new vessels built on

designed for the service for which they were intended,and they were an immediate success both scientificallyand financially. Indeed, the Lusitania and Mauretaniawere in many respects ahead of their time, and the latterheld the Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic for nearly twenty-two years.

It would none the less be wrong to suggest thatthe laying down of the Queen Mary is the reply to theGerman Europa and Bremen. The aim of the builders ofthe Queen Mary has not been a reply to any particularship, but rather the designing of a vessel which wouldmeet the exact conditions, natural and financial, uponwhich a sound and sure policy would be based. For fouryears before the Queen Mary was ordered in 1930, thewhole problem was considered from every possible angle.

For the first time in the history of Atlantic travelit was found possible, owing to the amazing develop-ments in naval architecture and marine engineering, fortwo vessels of sufficient size and speed to maintain a reg-ular weekly service between Southampton, Cherbourgand New York. This had hitherto been maintained bythree ships. If it could be achieved by two, it was evidentthat large economies in the cost of the services could besecured, which could be distributed between the share-holders in the Company and the travelling public. Thespeed of the Queen Mary, and her contemplated sistership, is not designed for mere record-breaking. It is dic-tated by the time necessary for her to perform the jour-ney regularly at all seasons of the year, so as to give the

AGING CHAMPION: HMS Aquitaniawns the longest serving of Cunard's BlueRiband-holding sisters {Mauretania and Lusitania), lasting until 1950. Here sheleaves New York Harbour early in her career. (Steamship Historical Society.)

FINEST HOUR 121/24

' transatlantic passenger trade in the most

ith her own old ships, now in British hands,

n money borrowed from the Allies!

Inumber of hours required in port on both sides of theocean. Size has been dictated by the necessity for provid-ing sufficient passenger accommodation to make a two-ship service pay.

The Queen Mary and her sister ship have notsought to be the largest and fastest which can be con-structed. That would have been comparatively easy.Although in fact they will be the largest and fastest inthe world, they are at the same time the smallest andslowest which could fulfill the necessary conditions foraccomplishing a regular two-ship service. They are asinevitable to the Atlantic ferry as was their predecessorBritannia ninety-six years ago.

Almost any fool can build a ship at a loss. TheQueen Mary is designed, naturally and properly, to makea profit for her owners. But it is impossible to disassoci-ate the larger questions of national aspirations andnational prestige from an enterprise of this kind. ToGreat Britain, the centre of Empire and world-widecommerce, the pioneer of modern manufacturing indus-try, shipping is a symbol of strength and security. We areproud—and justly proud—of our long record ofachievement as seafarers and shipbuilders. To a greatextent we judge ourselves, and we are judged by others,by our ships. It is especially on the North Atlantic thatshipping and shipbuilding reputations are made or lost.That is why the general public attaches so much impor-tance to the purely mythical Blue Ribbon of theAtlantic. It is an assurance that all is well in many vital

GERMAN RENAISSANCE on the North Atlantic occurred when Germanybuilt brand new, fast ships like the Europa to compete with pre-WWl vessels.After WW2 Europa became the French Liberti (Steamship Historical Society.)

departments of the national economy. To hold the BlueRibbon is a triumph at once of naval architecture, ofmarine engineering, of shipbuilding technique, and ofshipping management and control.

These are factors which it is impossible to ignore.And there is a real commercial advantage in the captureof this coveted distinction. North Atlantic history hasproved time and again that it is the finest ship in thetrade which gets the cream of the traffic, not only for theoperating company but also for its country.

Figures prove this conclusively. In the year 1931the German liners Bremen and Europa, joint holders ofthe Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic, carried between them atotal of 85,548 passengers, as compared with the aggre-gate of 35,400 of their two British competitors,Aquitania and Berengaria.

There are certain other considerations which havemade the Queen Mary and her contemplated sister shipnecessary. They will carry mail as well as passengers. Inmodern business the element of time is of paramountimportance, and those who have commercial correspon-dence to send across the Atlantic are anxious to dispatchit at once by the fastest ships. So in recent years we havewitnessed the sorry spectacle of foreign-owned expressliners carrying British mails to New York because no fastBritish mail liner was making the crossing at the time.

Equally or perhaps more important is the factthat the character of transatlantic passenger traffic haschanged in a very radical way. Before the war, therepoured across the North Atlantic a steady stream of emi-grants seeking fortune, or at least work, in the NewWorld. The United States was the Golden Land ofOpportunity to millions of poor people throughoutEurope. They looked wistfully across three thousandmiles of ocean and dreamed of the day when they wouldbe able to join the relatives or friends who were alreadymaking good under the Stars and Stripes. Today emigra-tion has practically ceased. It has been killed by thequota system. In place of the emigrants is the great armyof tourists. Pleasure, change, adventure, rather than workor wealth, are the magnets that draw an increasinglylarge number of men and women across the dividing sea.

This is an age of travel. There are countless thou-sands to whom a holiday means not merely rest fromlabour, not merely an opportunity of recreation, but achance to gain new experiences and taste unfamiliarmodes of life under foreign skies. For a time theContinent satisfied this hunger for change, but morerecently the holiday adventurers have been going fartherafield. The tourists have discovered America.

To the already huge army of Atlantic holiday-makers the Queen Mary will add new thousands. She hascatered for them specially. Her passenger accommoda-tion, or a large part of it, is expressly designed to attractthis class of traveller. This again is an inevitable deve- >>

FINEST HOUR 121/25

I like the way in which the tourist-class passengers have been provided

for....Never in the whole history of Atlantic travel

has so lavish provision been made for those who travel 'tourist.'

lopment. It was necessary that a ship should be builtwhich would take into account more fully than everbefore the needs of the tourist, essentially different fromthose of the emigrant. To the latter, the voyage was anecessity, and though as a rule he travelled comfortablyenough, he was apt to attach more importance to cheap-ness. To the tourist, the sea trip is part of the fun. He isprepared to pay more than the emigrant, but he has a farhigher standard of comfort. And he demands muchmore in the way of facilities for sport and amusements.He will get all these things in the Queen Mary.

She is also the first British ship to bring a holidayin America within the reach of the millions of men andwomen who have only a fortnight off duty. By leavingSouthampton on one Wednesday and returning fromNew York the next she makes it possible for passengersdoing the round trip to return home within fourteen days.

This is a sound business proposition. But again itis something more. I can imagine no surer way ofcementing Anglo-American friendship than exchange ofholiday visits by people of both nations. In the pastmany more Americans have spent vacations in "the OldCountry" than Englishmen have crossed to America forpleasure. The balance is now being righted and theQueen Mary will enable the rectification to proceed morerapidly. In that I see a very great advantage to both theUnited States and ourselves.

The other day I visited the Queen Mary. I talked tothe men who were preparing her for her maidenvoyage and to some of those who will sail her

across the Atlantic. I was shown the marvels of the greatship. I walked for miles upon miles exploring her. Butthere was so much to be seen and of so absorbing aninterest that it was only after I had said "good-bye" andstarted on the homeward journey that I became con-scious of fatigue.

One of the things that particularly impressed mewas the gracefulness of her lines. To me a ship is a beau-tiful thing and the Queen Mary challenges comparisonwith any vessel I have seen. She gives an impression ofstrength, power, and speed that is unforgettable.

The hull, I was told, is the result of over 7,000experiments with a variety of models, which Messrs.John Brown & Co Ltd., the shipbuilders, carried out intheir experimental tank at Clydebank before the work ofconstruction started. In this tank every possible type of

Atlantic weather can be—and was —reproduced, andthe models travelled, in all, over a thousand miles inorder that their seaworthiness and performance in everyconceivable set of circumstances should be noted andcompared.

The length on the waterline of the great ship is1,004 feet; the beam is 118 feet. From keel to top super-structure her height is 135 feet; from keel to top forwardfunnel, 80 feet; and from keel to masthead, 234 feet.

I was shown a number of pictures, drawn accu-rately to scale, which give a vivid idea of the QueenMarys size. One of them shows what would happen ifthe liner were set down in Trafalgar Square. The NelsonColumn is on her starboard beam, the crown of theAdmiral's hat reaches to about the boat deck. Her sternhas pushed in the walls of the Garrick Theatre inCharing Cross Road; her port side just fits alongside St.Martin-in-the-Fields and South Africa House; theNational Gallery has sustained serious damage and theliner's stem protrudes into Whitehall.

Another of these pictures shows the Statue ofLiberty in New York Harbour drawn against the back-ground of the Queen Mary. The upraised hand of thefamous figure, which has typified America for so long inso many millions of minds, comes to just above thebridge. The towers of Westminster Abbey do not reachto the top of the mainmast. There is a promenade deckthat is twice as long as the facade of Buckingham Palace.The head of Sphinx is well below the main deck at thestern. And if the Queen Mary were stood on end along-side the Eiffel Tower in Paris, she would overtop it bynearly twenty feet.

Everything that ingenuity can devise is beingdone to ensure the comfort of passengers. The threelarge funnels will be raked in such a way as to ensurefreedom from funnel gases on the promenades of theupper decks. The public rooms are unusually large. Itwould be possible, for instance, to put nine double-decked passenger buses in one lounge and then to placethree Royal Scot locomotives on top of them. An area ofnearly two acres will be available for promenading anddeck games.

I like the way in which the tourist-class passen-gers have been provided for. From time to time theQueen Mary has been referred to in the Press and else-where as a "luxury" ship. If the term is used to suggestunnecessary and useless extravagance, it is entirely inac-

FINESTHOURI2I/26

curate and misleading. But it is a "luxury" ship in thesense that the passenger accommodation includes everymodern improvement likely to attract and please thetraveller. The standard of comfort in the modern homeis higher today than ever before. Compared with prewarstandards, it might well be called luxurious. It is onlynatural, therefore, that the Queen Mary should offer herpassengers far more than ships which were built beforethis general advance in the art of living; that it should,in this as in other respects, set a new standard in theworld of shipping. Yet actually the decoration of the pas-senger accommodation represents only a very small per-centage of the total cost of the liner.

Never in the whole history of Atlantic travel hasso lavish provision been made for those who travel"tourist." Their stateroom accommodation extends overfive decks. Each stateroom is being supplied with hotand cold water and has its own individual ventilationsystem, which passengers will be able to control forthemselves. The main tourist lounge will have a parquet

to a very great number of people that would have beenimpossible—undreamt of—even a few years ago.

In going over the ship, I thought of these people,the future passengers of the Queen Mary, to whom shewill open new vistas. But I thought also of the manythousands of others, some of whom may never even seethe ship, but to whom she has already meant the dawn-ing of better days.

The contract for the construction of the vesselcame at a time when the shipbuilding industrywas in a distressed state. The building of the

Queen Mary has ensured that the art of constructinggreat liners shall not be lost. It has involved the employ-ment, among others, of large numbers of apprentices,who have thus had the opportunity of learning a tradeand craft peculiarly British and for which, I hope,brighter times now lie ahead.

Actually, about 7,000 men have been working onthe Queen Mary in John Brown's shipyard. What that

UNIVERSAL LUXURY: Visitors aboard the Queen Mary had some difficulty deciding at a glance how the public rooms differed between classes.Left to right: the First Class Verandah Grill, the Cabin Class starboard gallery, and the Tourist Class dining room. (Hotel Queen Mary)

dance floor, and there will be a cinema for those whocannot imagine a holiday without films. But I think thefeatures which will appeal most of all are the amazingamount of deck space allowed for outdoor exercise andrecreation and the large indoor swimming-pool andgymnasium. All these are exclusively for the use oftourist passengers. But even the third-class accommoda-tion, which again includes a film theatre, is planned onspacious lines and constitutes a veritable revolution inthe standards for this class of travel.

If I have devoted so much space to this aspect ofthe Queen Mary, it is because, to my mind, it is of veryreal importance. The man of wealth has always beencatered for by the great liners, as he is in the QueenMary, but here we have a recognition of the develop-ment of the travel habit among ordinary men andwomen, with all that this implies for internationalunderstanding and friendship in the future. It is a recog-nition that travelling for pleasure—and travelling that ispleasure—must be brought within the financial reach ofthose who, with only a limited amount to spend, wantto get the most and the best for their outlay. It means,very definitely, an enlargement of the possibilities of life

work has meant to many of them in the rebirth of hopeand the renewal of self-respect is beyond computation.And behind the 7,000 there looms the great multitudeof those who have contributed in other ways to thebuilding of the vessel.

The Queen Mary is an epitome of Britain. Thereis hardly an industry in the country which cannot claimto have some share in her. This great enterprise hasmeant the placing of orders with nearly two hundredfirms in Great Britain and Northern Ireland; it has givenemployment, in one way or another, to approximately aquarter of a million people. Under the smoky skies ofthe Potteries workmen have moulded 200,000 pieces ofchina and glassware for her equipment. The skilled arti-sans of Sheffield have fashioned her cutlery. In London,in Cheltenham, in Bath and in Glasgow craftsmen haveput heart and soul into the work of making furniturethat carries on, in our modern times, the traditions ofChippendale and Sheraton. Northern Ireland,Lancashire and Yorkshire have seen their looms busywith the manufacture of linens and woollens of thefinest qualities. From Darlington have come the sternframe and rudder—the latter the largest ever con- »

FINEST HOUR 121/ 21

The Queen Mary is an epitome of Britain....the symbol of our renaissance,

of the new hope and new vigour that have at last overcome the weariness of

the postwar years and set our feet on the old high paths once more.

structed for any ship. It weighs over 140 tons, and thejob of hoisting it into position involved many days ofintricate work. London, Rugby and Manchester unitedto supply the electrical equipment, with its 4,000 milesof cable and 30,000 lamps. The great anchor came fromStaffordshire.

So one could go on. All over the country men andwomen have been giving of their best to the QueenMary, with the result that when she is commis-

sioned she will be a floating British Industries Fair, dis-playing to the cosmopolitan world that will travel in hernot only the marvels of British shipbuilding and marineengineering, but a widely representative selection of theproducts of British industry and British craftsmanship attheir highest.

And even beyond the borders of Britain there arethose who have given to the Queen Mary and benefitedby her building. The Empire's forests—the world'sforests, indeed—have been searched for the fifty-six vari-eties of beautiful woods used in the decorative schemes.

Of one thing I am sure after my tour of the ship.All those who have, in whatever way, contributed to hermay be proud of the work they have done. The Queen

Mary stands in my mind as a conquering symbol ofBritish enterprise, finely conceived, nobly planned, andmagnificently carried out.

She is to sail from Southampton on her maidenvoyage on 27 May. The wishes of the whole country willgo with her across the Atlantic; the eyes of the wholeworld will be upon her. She is a Cunard White Starliner, latest of a long line of splendid vessels, but she isalso OUR ship, the symbol of our renaissance, of thenew hope and the new vigour that have at last overcomethe weariness of the postwar years and set our feet on theold high paths once more.

Greatest of all the pathways for Britain is thesea—the sea that has been our highway to Empire and towealth, and across which we draw, from the four cornersof the world, the daily bread by which we live. And oncemore, as the Queen Mary sets out, we feel confirmed inour ancient dominion over the wide waters—that domin-ion of whose peaceful purposes she is again a symbol.May she win back the Blue Ribbon that the Mauretaniaheld for over a score of years—and may she retain itagainst all comers as long as did her great predecessor.

Good luck to her—and to all who have had ahand in her making, and to all who will sail in her. $

FINEST HOUR 121/28

1967: LAST

FAREWELLJOHN MALCOLM BRINNIN

Rarely photographed together, the Queen Elizabeth(right) and Queen Mary in wartime livery, with France'sNormandie, which soon burned and capsized, NewYork, 1940. (Steamship Historical Society)

Transportation writers hold a handful of passagesin special respect: Ken Purdy's sketch ofTazio Nuvolari, thegreatest racing driver who ever lived; Lucius Beebe's paeanto The 20th Century Limited, greatest train in the world;Don Vorderman's tribute to Simon Templars Hirondel, thegreatest car in all fiction. Churchill's long association withthe Cunard-White Star Queens suggests that another suchpiece by John Malcolm Brinnin, reprinted by permissionfrom his book, Sway of the Grand Saloon (NY: Barnes &Noble, 2000), is not out of place here. —Editor

Twelve-ten AM, 25 September 1967. The RoyalMail Ship Queen Elizabeth, largest ship in theworld, twenty-seven years old, is bound west-

ward. At some point in the early morning she will meetand pass the Queen Mary, the next-largest ship in theworld, thirty-one years old, bound east. This will betheir final meeting, their last sight of one another, ever.

For more than two decades they have been theproudest sisters on the ocean, deferential to one another,secure in the knowledge that they are the most celebrat-ed things on water since rafts went floating down theTigris and Euphrates.

Notices of this encounter have been broadcastand posted throughout the ship. But as usual at thishour most passengers have gone to bed, leaving only afew individuals strolling and dawdling on thePromenade Deck. Most of these have chosen to bealone; and they are a bit sheepish, a bit embarrassed, asthough ashamed to be seen in the thrall of sentiment,even by others equally enthralled.

As the appointed moment draws near, theybegin to disappear from the Promenade Deck, only toreappear in the darkness of the broad, glassed-in observa-tion area on Boat Deck Forward. They stand apart fromone another and do not speak, their eyes fixed on thevisible horizon to the east as the vibration of the shipgives a slightly stroboscopic blur to everything they see.

The mid-Atlantic sky is windless, a dome ofhard stars; the ocean glows, an immense conjunction of

inseparable water and air. Entranced, the late watcherstry to pick out some dot of light that will not turn outto be a star. Hushed, the minutes pass. These ten ortwelve of the faithful in their shadowy stances might bepostulants on a Vermont hillside, waiting in their gownsfor the end of the world.

Then the light of certainty; almost as if she wereclimbing the watery slopes of the globe, the oncomingQueen shows one wink at her topmost mast, then two.

Spotted, she grows quickly in size and bright-ness. In the dim silence of the enclosure there are mut-ters, the clicks of binoculars against plate glass, an almostreverential sense of breath withheld. On she comes, theMary, with a swiftness that takes everyone by surprise:together the great ships, more than 160,000 tons ofsteel, are closing the gap at 60 mph.

Cutting the water deeply, pushing it aside ingreat crested arrowheads, they veer toward one anotheralmost as if to embrace, and all the lights blaze on, scat-tering the dark. The huge funnels glow in their Cunardred, the basso-profundo horns belt out a sound that hasless the quality of a salute than one long mortal cry.

Standing to attention on the portside wing ofhis flying bridge, the Elizabeth's captain doffs his hat; onthe starboard wing of the Mary her captain does thesame. As though they had not walked and climbed therebut had been somehow instantly transported to the top-most deck, the few passengers who have watched theMary come out of the night now watch her go.

All through the episode, mere minutes long,have come giggles and petulant whimpers fromsequestered corners of the top deck. Indifferent to themoment, untouched by the claims of history, youngstersnot yet born when the two Queens were the newest won-ders of the world cling together in adolescent parodies ofpassion and do not bother even to look up. As the dark-ness closes over and the long wakes are joined, the senti-mentalists stand for a while watching the ocean recoverits seamless immensity. Then, one by one, like peopledispersing downhill after a burial, they find their way totheir cabins, and close their doors. 15

FINEST HOUR 121/29

CHURCHILLIAN TRAVELER

CHURCHIIXS MADEIRA"^/arm, PaintaLle, Batkable, Comfortable, Flowery" —WSC

TERRY REARDON

Exploring Madeira

FrviiAi is rut: NINO'S CAI'ITAI and the only town ofany size. This is where most of the museums and

historic buildings are to IK* found, as well a.s the IxrMholds, restaurants and shops. Most of Madeira's agri-cultural crops are grown along the sunny, prosperoussouth coast. 'Hit* cooler, wetter north side has fewersettlements and more cattle. Many pans of the moun-tainous and volcanic interior remain wild, ami someare accessible only on f<K>t. Pico Kuivo, the highest

...-ij pwik on the island, is afavourite destination

for walkers

PORTO

unfrnt

SANTO ©

* Ulffl

'mom

in mfxo

UCIIA

SIGHTS AT A GLANCE

Callu-la 0

Madeira s rnu- international airport san<^iiarina. is at Santa Cm/, 18 kin f 11 mik-s> northt-aM ol luiwiwl lht.H-̂ otx-nite lo all i omt-rs of the i.*UnOfrom Vuiuhal but arc not jst-ared to tourists Taxis tanIx" useil. l«n for OL-XIIMIIIV var litre is Ix-st from northto south thi- islam! is 19 km < \l mik-st wick- and fromcast to vu-st jusi Vi km *.^ mik-s! lony l-:vfn so. tra\ •

imes .iff matimfR-d by the motimainous U'rratnTo a-ath thi- nt-artis island of Pono Santo. yiKt can citherfly from Sania Cm/ or take the- fc-rry from tunehal toI'ono Al>ricjo (near Vila lialnra)

Winston Churchill first visitedthe island of Madeira on 17October 1899. He was sail-

ing on the Dunottar Castle to SouthAfrica as a newspaper correspondentcovering the Boer War. Also on board

Mr. Reardon is a Toronto member of theInternational Churchill Society of Canada.

was the Army Commander-in-Chief,Sir Redvers Buller. Churchill writes inMy Early Life that there was no wire-less in those days and for the durationof the voyage they "dropped complete-ly out of the world." While in Madeirahe wrote to his Mother, "We have hada nasty rough voyage and I have beengrievously sick." (See also page 17.)

He was not to visit the island foranother fifty years; in the interveningyears, however, he enjoyed the fruits ofMadeira vines and once commentedwhen drinking a vintage from the late1700s, "My God, do you realize thisMadeira was made when MarieAntoinette was still alive?"

In A History of the English-

FINEST HOUR i2i /30

CHURCHILLIAN TRAVELER

Opposite. Funchal, Camara de Lobos and Cabo Girao are all on the southcoast. Above: Churchill at his easel. Right. A plaque where he painted. Farright: Reid's Hotel, 1950. Below right. Madeira Wine Museum

Speaking Peoples Churchill refers to thedeath of the Duke of Clarence, brotherof King Edward IV, who, according tolegend and William Shakespeare in hisRichard III, was drowned in a butt ofMalmsey, a sweet Madeira wine.Churchill states, "Why should it notbe true? At any rate no one hasattempted to prove any different tale."

In November 1949, Churchilltelegraphed Bryce Nairn, the Britishconsul in Madeira, and enquired about"warm, paintable, bathable, comfort-able, flowery, hotels etc. We are revolv-ing plans. Keep all secret." His inten-tion was to spend a few weeks there torecoup; to work on The Hinge of Fate,fourth volume of his war memoirs;and, of course, to paint. He was inMadeira for the New Year of 1950accompanied by Clementine, hisdaughter Diana, his literary assistantBill Deakin, secretaries Jill Sturdee andElizabeth Gilliatt, and two SpecialBranch detectives. But his vacation wascut short by Prime Minister Attlee'sannouncement of a General Electionto be held on February 23rd. Hedeparted for London on January 12th,although Clementine stayed on inMadeira—he telegraphed her on the16th, "Hope all has been pleasant,here nothing but toil and moil."

Madeira offers many historicsites to the determined Churchillian...

The Madeira Wine Company(Blandy's, Leacock's, Miles etc.). In thewine museum are letters from well-known people, including three fromChurchill, expressing thanks for giftsof wine.

• The Madeira Wine Lodge:Located in the capital of Funchal, in a17th Century Franciscan Monastery.Home to the largest Madeira producer,

• Reid's Hotel: Owned by theBlandy wine family and located inFunchal, Reid's is recognized as one ofthe great hotels of the world. As wewould expect from someone "easilysatisfied with the best," this was theHotel Churchill chose for his paintingholiday in 1950. A committedChurchillian would want to stay in theChurchill Suite, although there is onelittle drawback: the price is 1,700euros ($2,000/£1200) per night, notincluding breakfast. Ornately beauti-ful, its bathrooms in rose-pink marble,Reid's is truly a beautiful retreat.

• Camara de Lobos is is a smallcoastal town where Churchill painted.Practicinggood mar-keting, theownersaffixed a

plaque on the wall of the "ChurchillRestaurante," which shows exactlywhere he worked. Plans are said to beunderway to build a hotel, but thename has not been chosen. This writerwill chance a guess at the eventualtitle: "The Churchill Hotel"!

• Cabo Girao: At580 meters, this is thehighest sea cliff inEurope. A small photo-graphic museum islocated at the site andthe largest photographis one of Churchill painting at Camarade Lobos, Detective Sergreant EddieMurray adjusting his umbrella.

Madeira is a favorite holiday spotfor Europeans but not for NorthAmericans. This is a good time for thepeople of the New World to rediscoverthis idyllic spot in the Old. $

FINEST HOUR 121/31

CHURCHILLTRIVIA

by Curt Zoller (zcurt@sbcglobal.net)

J uestions concern Contemporaries (C),'Literary (L), Miscellaneous (M), Per-

sonaT(P), Statesmanship (S) and War (W).Answers on page 47.

1375. In 1914, what Hyde Park speak-er did Churchill call a "LilliputNapoleon—a man with an unbalancedmind, an egomaniac whose oneabsorbing thought was personal vin-dictiveness towards Ulster"? (C)

1376. In 1958, Sir Winston wrote theforeword to a history of a companytrading in furs and skins. What wasthe book? (L)

1377. On 30 June 1919 Churchill atthe Savoy Hotel, London, presentedthe Daily Mail prize to Captain Alcockand Lt. Brown. What was the prizeawarded for? (M)

1378. What school did youngWinston attend after St. George'sSchool, Ascot and before enrolling atHarrow? (P)

1379. In Parliament on 17 June 1914,Winston Churchill begged to move"that it is expedient to authorise theissue, out of the Consolidated Fund, ofsuch sums, not exceeding in the wholetwo million two hundred thousandpounds, as are required for the acquisi-tion of share or loan capital of theAnglo-Persian Oil Company." Whatwas the main strategy behind thismotion? (S)

1380. At the First Quebec Conferencein August 1943, who was namedCommander-in-Chief of the AEAF(Allied Expeditionary Air Force)? (W)

1381. Where was Mrs. ElizabethEverest, Churchill's beloved nanny,born? (C)

1382. Who wrote, "Mr. Churchill isquite correct. I backed him up till Iresigned. I would do the same again!He had courage and imagination! Hewas a War Man!"? (L)

1383. Churchill was Secretary of Statefor Air from 1919 to 1921. When didthe first scheduled daily internationalair service begin? (M)

1384. Winston Churchill showed anearly interest in aviation, taking flyinglessons as early as 1913. Did he everfly solo? (P)

1385. When did Churchill say, at theLondon Opera House: "We enteredupon the war reluctantly after we hadmade every effort, comparable withhonour, to avoid being drawn in....Theway will be long and sombre. It willhave many reverses of fortune andmany hopes falsified by subsequentevents "? (S)

1386. Churchill, who often accuratelypredicted future political strategies,was dead wrong when he spoke inMay 1912 to the Shipwright'sCompany on the horrors of war. Whatdid he erroneously predict? (W)

1387. When were Churchill andClementine Hozier introduced? (C)

1388. In The River War, Churchillidentifies the Mahdi's father incorrectlyas a "humble priest." What was hisactual occupation? (L)

1389. Did Churchill recommend gov-ernment subsidies for commercial airservice? (M)

1390. When Churchill was appointedSecretary of State for War and Air, hisappointment was approved by whichFirst Lord of the Admiralty? (P)

1391. In his Cabinet resignationspeech in the House of Commons on

1913: Churchill is in thecockpit; with his back to thecamera is his instructor, Cap-tain Wildman-LushingtonRM, just a few days before hisdeath in a flying accident.

15 November 1915, Churchillreminded Parliament: "Take it byships if you can; take it by soldiers ifyou must...." What was "it"? (S)

1392. The battleship Audacious wassunk in a German minefield off thecoast of Ireland on 27 October 1914.Churchill left the Admiralty on his wayto the House of Commons to announcethe loss, "when he was cajoled, threat-ened, and browbeat to keep the losssecret." Who cajoled him? (W)

1393. On 11 May 1953, duringEden's illness, Churchill spoke in theHouse of Commons on foreign affairsand commented " [he] may well bedeemed the wisest German statesmansince the days of Bismarck." To whomdid Churchill refer? (C)

1394. In 1940, Churchill wrote theforeword for a new edition of speechesby a former prime minister "whoheartened the British people in theirbattle for freedom." Who was he? (L)

1395. Churchill used a gold-headedwalking stick most of his life. Whogave it to him? (M)

1396. What American relative ofWinston Churchill was part owner ofThe New York Times] (P)

1397. In the House of Commons,Churchill claimed that he couldcompare Hitler and Napoleon in onlyone characteristic of their war strate-gies. What was it? (S)

1398. Which naval action did SirMartin Gilbert describe as "Theonly serious [British] naval defeat ofWorld War I"? Answers, page 47...

FINEST HOUR 121 /32

GLIMPSES

FIRST CITIZEN OF THE WORLDMy Encounters with the Charismatic Churchill

HENRY A. LAUGHLIN

Henry Alexander Laughlin was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1892 and attended Princeton University. After distin-guished artillery service in World War I, he joined Houghton Mifflin Company's Riverside Press as an editor. By 1939 he hadbecome president of Houghton Mifflin, and began to make a series of highly controversial decisions that eventually made the

publishing company stronger both financially and in prestige. The first of these decisions was to publish Mein Kampf, by AdolfHitler, because he felt it could be used to demonstrate the true nature of the man who led Germany. The second was to securethe war memoirs of Winston Churchill. Many inside Houghton Mifflin, and in the greater publishing world, thought it fool-

ish to assign a statesman to write his war memoirs so soon after the war was over, while others believed that war memoirswould not sell well to a war-weary public. But Churchill's The Second World War became one of the best-selling books of alltime. Laughlin continued to publish great works from distinguished authors, including Bernard De Voto, John Kenneth Gal-braith, Rachel Carson and]. R. R. Tolkien. He ended his long stewardship in I960 and lived in pleasant retirement with hiswife Rebecca until his death in 1978. His memoir of Churchill, read at the January 1965 meeting of the Massachusetts His-torical Society, just before WSC's stroke and death, is probably the last speech about Sir Winston delivered in his lifetime. It

was brought to our attention by Ted Hutchinson, and is published here by kind permission of the Society.

So much has been said and writ-ten about Sir Winston, somany anecdotes told, actual or

legendary, that you may wonderwhy I should feel justified in addingto the list. The only reason I can putforward is that, while I have no newbreathtaking revelations to offer, Ihave been with him a good numberof times, and after each, I sat downand put on paper everything I couldremember of what had happened orwhat I had seen. I have had to makeselections and omit many details,even on the limited number ofglimpses I shall tell you of, butwhatever I do say comes to you atfirst hand.

I must acknowledge oneother bit of presumption. Who amI to talk in open meeting about oneof our own Members? I will remindyou that Sir Winston has been an Honorary Member ofthis Society since 1943 and now in his 91st year may, Ibelieve without fear of contradiction, be thought of as ourmost distinguished Member.

When in the late spring of 1947 I went to Lon-don for the formal signing of Houghton Mifflin's contractto publish The Second World War, I was invited by Mr.Churchill to call on him at 28 Hyde Park Gate. I shall

CHURCHILL ARCHIVES CENTRE, CAMBRIDGE

henceforth call him "Sir Winston"throughout except when I am quot-ing someone else, although he wasnot made a Knight of the Garteruntil 1953. I shall call his wife LadyChurchill rather than Mrs.Churchill. She is usually addressedas "Clemmie" by Sir Winston andby her host of friends.

Instead of giving you brief ac-counts of all the times I have seenSir Winston I am inclined to pickout eight and tell about each insome detail.

My First Visit to LondonIt was on the 24th of July in

1947 that I first saw Sir Winston. Ihad sat next to Lady Churchill at adinner the night before, given formy wife and myself by our oldfriends Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Agar.Sir Winston had not been there as

he was recovering from an operation and was not allowedto go out at night.

At eleven o'clock in the morning I appeared atHyde Park Gate, which is a short dead-end street, theopening of which, on Kensington Road, faces Hyde Park.On the outside it is a modest house—actually two housesmade into one—in a line of block houses in an agreeablebut not particularly impressive part of London. It is at-

FlNESTHOUR 121/33

tractive inside. I saw very little of it then, but years laterwhen my wife and I had luncheon on a beautiful sunnyday, we had a chance to see how charming it was.

I rang the bell and was admitted by a maid andshown into a room on the right. Inthe room I was in there were gay,light-colored curtains at the win-dows and antique furniture onwhich the brasses shone. Two sofascovered in what I think was yellowdamask were facing each other, infront of the fireplace, with small ta-bles at each end of them. It was abright room giving the impressionof having a lot of flowers around.There were oil paintings on thewalls. Over the fireplace was one ofthe House of Commons in session.

Lady Churchill came in al-most immediately and said thatWinston would be down in just aminute. One of the most winningthings about Lady Churchill is thatshe invariably refers to her husbandin talking to you as "Winston." Wetalked mostly about the evening be-fore, and then Sir Winston burstthrough the doorway. Lady Churc-hill and I both got up, and she in-troduced me. At once she said she had to go along andthat she would meet Sir Winston at lunch at one fifteen.He then kissed her goodbye, and she said something niceto me and was off. They were a striking couple in thedoorway. Lady Churchill was conservatively and tastefullydressed. She has a kind and refined face—very distin-guished looking, and, in my opinion, with her silver hairreally beautiful. Sir Winston was in a siren suit, all of onepiece, made of blue jeans material, which zips up the mid-dle. He was pudgy, with a red face and pinkish, moist eyes;he exuded vitality in spite of his 72 years and recent opera-tion. So many years ago....We've all grown older since, andnow that I too am 72, it doesn't seem so old as it did then.

Sir Winston suggested to me that I sit with himon the sofa to the left and asked me if I would have acigar. I said I would smoke a cigarette if he didn't mind.He asked me then if I would have a glass of port or awhisky-and-soda. I said I would have a whisky-and-soda ifhe were going to have one—although I often get well be-yond eleven o'clock in the morning before I have my firstwhisky-and-soda. He jumped up, hurried out of theroom, and called a man—his valet as I later learned—whoplaced a silver box of cigarettes and a box of matches on asmall table, which he put in front of me, and a silver boxof toothpicks and a box of matches on a small table infront of Sir Winston, who asked him to bring in two

28, HYDE PARK GATE

whiskies. He disappeared and in a few minutes came backwith a tray, and Sir Winston poured from a JohnnyWalker Black Label bottle a drink for each of us, and thenwe individually put in the soda.

He pulled out a long, very fatcigar. He took a toothpick from thebox and stuck it up the mouth-endof the cigar to make it draw, butthat appeared to be a failure, for itkept going out and being relightedall during our conversation, andwhen I left it was not half smoked.

All the time, he was talking en-thusiastically, telling me how deeplyinterested he was in his book, thathe had already produced more thana million words, that it took all histhoughts, and that he had lost inter-est in the House of Commons—and even in his painting.

He said he wanted me to be asexcited over his book as he was;that there never had been one likeit. He had got his idea of the formof it from two sources—Napo-leon's Chronicles and Marlborough'sReports, but his would be differentin this respect: everything in hisbook would be a direct statement

of the facts as they were—or as he saw them—put downat the time; that they would be the actual instructions hegave which controlled Britain's fighting of the war. Hesaid he did not have the position of Commander-in-Chiefof all the Armed Forces as President Roosevelt had, nordid he as Prime Minister have the authority Stalin had.But all of the men in command of the Army and Navyand Air Force trusted him and he trusted them, and hehad a War Cabinet which he could call together on veryshort notice and which would support him in everythinghe did, on every appointment or removal he wanted tomake. He didn't mean by that that he always did what hewanted to do, for he was often dissuaded from undertak-ings by his Generals, Admirals, and Cabinet Colleagues,sometimes unwisely—he said with a sort of sly smile-but,in fact, he had the full conduct of Britain's war in hishands and accepted full responsibility for it.

Each morning at an early hour, he said—actualtime not mentioned—he got all his despatches and readthem in bed. He either wrote in longhand or dictated toone of his secretaries his definite instructions for that day.Those instructions were immediately set in type and eachday's lot was bound as a secret document.

All this was to show me that, unlike other writersof memoirs, he was not relying on his memory as to whathe thought and did—or should have thought and done—

FINEST HOUR 121 /34

but on what he actually did think and do. He said he iswilling to be judged by history—and that is very impor-tant to him—on the basis of his day-by-day decisions.

At ten minutes past twelve, I looked at my wrist-watch and figured I had better go, so I got up. He walkedinto the hall with me, I got my hat, and he followed me tothe door. He asked where I was going, and I said to Clar-idge's. He asked then how I was going to get there, and Isaid I'd take a taxi. He insisted on my getting in his car,which was at the door, and having his chauffeur drive meto Claridge's. As we started to move, he suddenly calledand ran after the car. We stopped, and he said through theopen window that he was sorry not to have met my wife,that his wife had enjoyed seeing her so much the eveningbefore, and he hoped he would meet her on our next visit.He has an extraordinarily winning personality.

Luncheon in BostonPerhaps the most exciting of my times with Sir

Winston was on 1 April 1949, when he was in Boston.He had accepted an invitation to speak to the Massachu-setts Institute of Technology at their Mid-Century Cele-bration. I had written him asking if Houghton Mifflincould give a luncheon for him, and we were delightedwhen he said we could and that he would like to meetmore of our people. He suggested he would be with us theday after the speech and hoped the luncheon would befairly small and informal.

Of course, everyone we knew wanted to be asked,and that presented a problem. This was solved by our de-ciding to have it at the Club of Odd Volumes in Boston,where we could seat only fifty, and by confining the gueststo members of our company and their wives or husbands.

I had been advised by one of Sir Winston's secre-taries, Miss Sturdee, whom I had gotten to know early inour negotiations, that it would be wise not to get in touchwith Sir Winston in Boston until after he had made hisspeech at M.I.T., for he spends all his time before an im-portant speech first writing it, then correcting it, and fi-nally committing it to memory. He is always in great agi-tation over a speech until it has been delivered. So on themorning of our luncheon I had had no direct communi-cation with him. I didn't get to my office until 9:30. Justas I reached my desk the telephone rang. I picked it upand said "Hello," and the voice came over: "This is Win-ston Churchill." I made no smart retort for I thought itvery well might be he! It was. He asked if I would come tothe Ritz and see him. I went at once. He was in bed. Inthe sitting room which I first entered was a large cake.Miss Sturdee said it was Lady Churchill's birthday.

Sir Winston offered me at once a whisky-and-soda. He was drinking one himself. We talked of his nextvolume, of his speech the night before, and of the plansfor the luncheon to come in a couple of hours. In themidst of this the telephone rang. It proved to be Ran-

dolph Churchill, who had been on hand for the speechbut he had taken the "Owl" sleeper to New York. SirWinston motioned me to stay where I was and askedRandolph how he had liked it, what the New York papershad said, and had he talked with London? The New Yorkpapers were enthusiastic, and in London it was favorablymentioned by The Daily Telegraph, The Times, and TheDaily Mail. Sir Winston was greatly excited, for it was thefirst time he had ever appeared on live television and hewanted to know not just how he sounded but also how helooked. Seasoned warrior that he was, he was as much in-terested about the success of his speech and his appear-ance—and as pleased, as it turned out—as a boy in col-lege after his first notable exploits in a football game.

When I had outlined plans for the luncheon, Itold Sir Winston that we would have to have the usualcocktails—which I knew he abominated—and askedwhether he would prefer sherry or tomato juice. He said,"tomato juice." When Sir Winston and Lady Churchillarrived at the Club of Odd Volumes accompanied by Mr.Bernard Baruch and Col. Clark,* my wife, Becky, and Imet them as they got out of their motorcycle police-es-corted car, and we walked up the path and into the Clubwith them. The gentlemen went to the second floor, Mr.Baruch in the elevator and Sir Winston up the stairs, puff-ing, but game. I took Lady Churchill's coat on the firstfloor and waited for her, so we were a few minutes behindthe others when we walked up. All the guests had arrivedand were having cocktails. My eye immediately lit on SirWinston, who was being handed a cocktail by my friendand co-director, Gus Loring, who was acting as host andmaster of ceremonies. I dashed over and said, "Mr.Churchill doesn't want a cocktail; he wants tomato juice."Sir Winston took the cocktail, gave me a withering glance,and started sipping at it. I decided he liked to make hisown decisions, and change them whenever he wished.

We had an excellent lunch with Sir Winston'sspecial choice for Champagne, Pol Roger '34—1928would have been his real choice but that wasn't procur-able. An amusing incident took place due to our efforts toprovide what we thought he would most like at the lun-cheon. I had been told that when he made a speech it wascomforting for him to have a small glass of brandy at hisplace. Gus Loring was a connoisseur of wines and liquors,and I thought it well to enlist his services in the selectionof an excellent brandy. I had two cognacs of reputationmyself and Gus had one he was glad to recommend.

Accordingly we had met at the Club of Odd Vol-umes at about 11:30 in the morning of the lunch for ablindfold testing of the three brandies to determine whichwas suitable for our distinguished guest. We got threeglasses and numbered them and Mrs. Gardner, who man-

* A Canadian industrialist who often hosted Churchill. In 1946 WSChad stayed at Clark's house in Florida before die "Iron Curtain" speech.

FINEST HOUR 121/35

aged the club, handed them to us, we all unwitting. Shekept the record. We were very serious about it and, as luckwould have it, we both selected the same one.

At the end of the lunch Sir Winston made a de-lightful and gracious speech saying how much he likedour edition of The Gathering Storm, and he won ourhearts when he ended with the words, "When I take it inmy hands it opens like angels' wings."* As he sat downthere was a burst of applause. He reached for the smallbrandy glass and polished it off in one gulp. Gus and Ilooked at each other. It might just as well have been Hen-nessy's Three Star. Lady Churchill left shortly after lunchto see Mrs. Charles Francis Adams and tried to take SirWinston with her, but he stayed until 4:30, chatting witha number of us and enjoying that excellent brandy.

A Family GatheringLater that same year I had told Sir Winston that I

expected to be in London and hoped I might see him. Ourhouse in Ireland was being renovated after its hard treat-ment during the war, when itwas occupied by the IrishArmy, and we were living in asmall cottage lent us by afriend of ours in the little vil-lage of Ballyduff, County Wa-terford. We had no telephone,so quite a sensation was createdwhen a message was sent upfrom the Post Office that Mr.Laughlin was wanted on thetelephone by Winston Churc-hill in London and would Iring him up. I did, and heasked if my wife and I wouldhave lunch with Mrs. Chur-chill and himself at 28 HydePark Gate on a day about aweek later. A day or so before, we arrived at Claridge's.We—and particularly Becky, who had never been to theirhouse—were quite excited, and we both took unusualpains to be appropriately and conservatively dressed. I re-member I put on a blue suit and sent a pair of black shoesdown to be polished.

At about 12:45, we got into a taxicab and wereoff. Just as we got to Hyde Park Gate I looked down andsaw to my horror that I had on a pair of light tan shoes,which I felt was not quite the thing in London, especiallywith a dark suit. It was too late to turn back but I was un-happy about it; Becky was even more unhappy.

On our arrival Lady Churchill talked to my wife

Sarah Churchill married Antony Beauchamp on 18 October 1949.

new husband, Tony Beauchamp, whom none of theChurchills had ever seen. Their aircraft from New Yorkwas late but arrived, and they were on their way fromNortholt. I went into another room and talked with SirWinston for a few minutes. I recall that he was greatlypleased because he had just hit upon a title for his fourthvolume—The Hinge of Fate. He told me that in the firstthree books Fate had appeared to be against us, but thisfourth one was the story of the hinge swinging from unin-terrupted disaster to unbroken success. He then said witha smile to show what a scholar he was that the Latin forhinge was "cardo" and the word cardinal is derived fromit—one who acts as the hinge on the door through whichtrue believers get into heaven.

Lady Churchill said we would go down to lunchwithout waiting longer. I should mention that whenever Ihad dined with Sir Winston we had delicious food, attrac-tively served. There were two other guests, a cousin ofLady Churchill's whose name I forget, and Lord Cherwell,who had been Professor Lindemann, Sir Winston's scien-

tific adviser during the war,known by all as "the Prof."

The dining room is onthe ground floor and looks outon the garden. It is a charmingroom, relatively large, with agallery above ending in a stair-way on one side and wide win-dows on two sides. The gardenwas full of flowers, the win-dows leading out on it wereopen, and yellow curtains wereblowing gently. On the wallswere oil paintings, I think ofMarlborough's battles. At anyrate, they were pictures ofwhich we have all seen repro-ductions in our schoolbooks.

On the table were place-mats of pewter with a coat ofarms on each, and in the center of the table were lovelybright flowers. It was a gay setting.

Becky sat on Sir Winston's right, and a place wasleft for Sarah on his left. The conversation went easily andwas general. One of Sir Winston's secretaries came in withan open box in which there were fourteen copies of TheGathering Storm in fourteen different languages. Theywere passed around. Sir Winston was boyishly excited andwas particularly taken with the one in Persian,* whichread from back to front.

When Sarah and Tony arrived they were wel-comed, but Lady Churchill told us to remain seated. Sarah

and said they were waiting for her daughter Sarah and her kissed her parents and then introduced Beauchamp. It was

* Churchill said the same of the Cassell edition of A History of the Eng-lish Speaking Peoples, which opened even more like angels' wings. —Ed.

* Perhaps some were proofs: no Persian edition was published. Arabicand Hebrew editions, which read back to front, arrived in the 1960s.

FINEST HOUR 121/36

almost uncomfortably informal and undemonstrative as awelcome to a new son-in-law. They sat down, and we wenton with our conversation after a few words about the flightfrom New York. There was a long story about the timeduring the war when Sir Win-ston and the Prof, after dinnerat Downing Street, wentdown to compliment thecook, and with bombs drop-ping decided that they oughtto get the cook out of thekitchen into a shelter. Theyhad no sooner done so than abomb fell on the kitchen anddemolished it.

Prof, Beauchamp,and I stayed with Sir Winstonover port, cigars and brandy,and we had a genial conversa-tion. But there was no at-tempt to put Beauchamp at ease or to include him in theconversation. Eventually, the Prof drove my wife and meback to Claridge's. We felt we had had a memorable day.

A Men's Lunch at Hyde Park GateIn 1951, I had a noon appointment at 28 Hyde

Park Gate to talk with Sir Winston before a small lun-cheon he was having. I found him smartly dressed withblack short morning coat and bow tie. We talked abouthis proofs, schedules, and all until he said suddenly thathe would give me a briefing on the three others who wereto be with us at lunch. The first, he said, was a very youngchap who had won the Victoria Cross on the beach atAnzio. He had secured a seat in the House, and was abright hope of the Tory Party. But alas his father had died,and he had just succeeded to the title of Lord De Lisleand Dudley and gone to the Lords. Very distressing!

"The second," he continued, "is a compatriot ofyours—you may know him, Henry Ford" (grandson ofFord's founder). I said I did not, but that my son-in-lawhad been a friend of his at Yale. The third guest, he told me,was a kind of relation of his: "No, not quite a relation," hewent on, "but a connection. He is the Duke of Alba andwas the Spanish Ambassador, but he got into some sort ofrow with Franco and is out, but his best friend is now theAmbassador, and he still is on very good terms with theGovernment. He's a connection of mine, for the sister ofmy great, great, great, great grandfather was the mistress ofhis great, great, great, great grandfather."*

It was a gay and stimulating luncheon with every-one taking part in the conversation led on by Sir Win-ston—something I think that was somewhat unusual with

Chartwell: The vine-clad upstairs verandah is in the foreground.

* Alba's ancestor was the Duke of Berwick, the illegitimate son ofJames II and Arabella Churchill and a Marshal of France.

him as he likes to do most of the talking as a rule. Towardthe end Sir Winston asked Henry Ford and me if wewould like to go to Question Time in the House of Com-mons. We said of course. I was amazed to find how hard

our visit was to arrange atshort notice, even for theLeader of the Opposition,but it was managed throughvarious telephonings andsendings for Miss Sturdee. SirWinston was going himself,but for us to get in at all wehad to be there early. Just aswe were leaving, in Henrylord's car, Sir Winston saidIK1 would "try to make it in-iciesting." He did, asking theSocialists a couple of contro-versial questions from thefloor, but they had not been

put in the Question Box and no reply was made tothem—he was offering trouble but there were no takers.

My First Visit to ChartwellBy the time I visited Chartwell, the Churchills'

country house in Kent about twenty-five miles from Lon-don, he was once more Prime Minister. I expected to havea short lunch with him and then be on my way. I arrivedat Chartwell at 12:45 as invited.

The red brick house, comfortable looking withvines growing on it here and there, is almost on the road,and the driveway is a short one. Not only were the gatesopen, but the front door as well. There was a man in darkblue uniform near the gate opposite the one I entered.The drive makes a short half-circle. I was driven up to thedoor. I got out and rang the bell. The maid, whom I rec-ognized as having seen before—no doubt at Hyde ParkGate—came at once, holding out her hand. Thinking shewas one of the secretaries I reached out mine to shake it,but she simply wanted to take my hat! We did shakehands, both knowing my mistake, which amused ratherthan embarrassed us, and I followed her into the hall. SirWinston's secretary, Miss Sturdee, then appeared, alsoholding out a hand which I also shook: "Mr. Churchillwill be a little late; he has already left Ten Downing Streetand should arrive at one." Miss Sturdee and I went out onthe lovely brick terrace, well above the ground, like an up-stairs verandah. There was a beautiful wisteria vine in fullbloom against the wall, comfortable porch chairs and atable, and a border of petunias. All the French windowswere open. The property is an extensive one, giving theimpression of field upon field, mostly golden and brownwith grain crops at that time of the year. Two ponds wereto be seen, with black swans on one of them; cows grazedin the foreground.

FINEST HOUR 121/37

Sir Winston arrived from London in "blue battledress"—that is, his zip suit. We started out on an easyconversation about volume six of The Second World War,which he told me was going to be called Triumph andTragedy, because it described the tragedy brought aboutby what we gave away at Potsdam and by the incrediblyshortsighted removal of our troops from Europe at a timewhen Britain and America could still have dominated it.

Although he did not say so at the time, I knewthat he thought also of his own personal triumph and thesense of tragedy he felt when the electorate repudiatedhim in 1945. We had a great deal of talk about bothBritish and American politics, and then we discussed atlength his own writing, the success of the first five books,and our plans for the final volume.

You may be interested in the lunch.* We beganwith hors d'oeuvres of sardines, olives, stuffed eggs, cucum-bers, and chopped greens of some kind. Sir Winston in-sisted on my putting vinegar on the sardines, saying itgreatly improved them. Then he noticed I had only takenone sardine. He reached over and put three more on myplate—or tried to—and dropped one on the mahoganytable in the process. This I retrieved. Then, the vinegar. Itdid improve them.

With the hors d'oeuvres we had a bottle of PolRoger '28, which we discussed. He told me that OdettePol-Roger (the family namecarries a hyphen and is pro-nounced "Rozhay") sends it tohim especially. "She is acharming woman."

There followed lambchops, mashed potatoes, andcabbage—on which we bothpoured vinegar without fur-ther comment—followed bywhat I would call an ice—asort of very cold, creamy rasp-berry soup, which he called acustard. I liked it, and he moreso. I think he had a second—at least we talked about it,though I declined. Meanwhile he had the maid get somemeat to feed Rufus, his small grey poodle. He called thedog "sweetheart" as he fed him. Rufus was friendly andappreciative, and followed us around all afternoon.

We finished with cheese and bread (bread andbutter had been on all along) and by that time we were onour second bottle of Pol Roger '28. He said I must haveport with the cheese—there was nothing like it. We werethen served fruit. I think I didn't take any. Then we hadcoffee and brandy, and on we went with our conversation.

* For a very similar account of lunch with Churchill, see A. L. Rowse,"A Visit to Chartwell," Finest Hour 81:9 (Fourth Quarter, 1993).

Churchill with Rufus, 1950s.

The maid came in, and Sir Winston asked her toget a bottle of Cointreau. He said it was a pleasant lightfinisher and poured my glass himself. A little later we hada second light finisher, which he also poured.

Meanwhile, the cigars. There were a couple ofboxes on the sideboard, but he had the maid bring the"specials," which he said were sent by his friend Col. Clark,whom I had met both in Boston and at Mr. Baruch's inNew York. They were Super-Churchills in size and quality.We each took one. We didn't leave lunch until I hadsmoked my Super-Churchill down to an inch, but I don'tthink he had gone an inch and a half on his.

We went from the dining room to a room whichcontained six large tanks of small fish and then wanderedoutside and looked at his fishpond, containing goldenorfe. A rivulet works down from the house, with falls andpools, clear to the pond where the swans are.

A man walked up while we were sitting in chairslooking at the fish. Sir Winston introduced him as his de-tective, Mr. Murray, and asked him if he would get some-thing to feed the fish. While he was gone Sir Winston toldme that Mr. Murray corresponded to our Secret Service.He was not in uniform. Eddie Murray and I had a pleas-ant chat about the weather and the beauties of Chartwell.He then strolled casually away.

Sir Winston and I sat on a bench on a lower ter-race under the one describedearlier and discussed politics,the party system in America,the end of American isola-tionism, and the need forBritain and America to standtogether no matter what hap-pens. Then we wanderedthrough the two gardens, end-ing in a brick arbor which hehad built with his own hands.

I suggested leavingthen, but he asked if I wouldlike to see his pictures. I said Iwould. We went into a roomalmost completely hung with

his own paintings, and there were a great many morestacked in a sort of bicycle rack along the length of theroom opposite to where most of his pictures were hung.In the center was a very good portrait of Lady Churchill,though not by Sir Winston. He told me he could not doportraits. Finally I said I must go. We looked at WilliamOrpen's famous portrait of him from long ago in 1916—very good I thought (cover, Finest Hour 118, Spring2003), and a black and white by Sargent just two weeksbefore the latter died.

He asked me to take another cigar, and I showedhim I already had one in my pocket. He shook my handand we drove off. He waved. I looked at my watch. It was

FINEST HOUR 121/38

just five minutes to five. I had been with Sir Winston fourhours, absolutely fascinated. The uniformed guard was atthe gate. Mr. Murray was nowhere to be seen.*

A Luncheon at ChequersThe only time I was ever at Chequers, which is

the country residence of British Prime Ministers, was inthe autumn of 1954. While in Ireland I had received atelegram from Sir Winston asking my wife and me tohave lunch with Lady Churchill and him at Chequers onSunday, September 19th. I will notdescribe the lunch, as I have coveredone of these in detail.

Having returned to Londonwe drove to Chequers, thirty-sixmiles from Marble Arch and ex-tremely difficult to find. It is amaz-ing how few people seem to knowwhere it is or how to get there.There are of course no road mark-ings. My wife, fortunately, had beensent a map with special instructionsby Lady Churchill. There is noguard or policeman at the gate, andnot until you get up a fairly long av-enue—almost to the house—doesanyone come out to ask your busi-ness and then only in a perfunctoryand unobtrusive way*

Inside we were greeted byAnthony Montague Browne, SirWinston's Private Secretary. Heseems invariably to be called by histhree names. There were ten forlunch. It was a bright warm day, andwe sat on the terrace and had achoice of sherry or tomato juice. SirWinston had not come downstairsbut we indulged in a general conver-sation. Lady Churchill told AnthonyMontague Browne he would neverguess the name of the guest comingto stay next week, about whom shehad just had a note. "John FosterDulles isn't coming back, is he?""Oh no," she replied, "not as bad asthat; it is the Lion of Judah—HaileSelassie." There was general laughter.

Above, Chequers: admiring the rose garden, 3 August1953. Below: Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, duly

came to call, Downing Street, 22 October 1954.

and debonair. His color was good, and there was a generalair of freshness about him. Lunch was easy and pleasant.Talk was for the most part general, but Sir Winston is not

interested in general conversation; he likes to talk to oneor two people, and to do most of the talking. After lunch,when the ladies had left, we sat and talked animatedlyover brandy and cigars.

Then Sir Winston, his solicitor Mr. Moir, and Iwent into a small room and discussed his future writingplans, including an abridgement of The Second World War.He told me he wanted to make much better provisionthan he had already made for "Mrs. Churchill." (To oth-ers, he always referred to her by that name.) He talked

very freely, and without the slightestreluctance, about what was going tohappen to his papers after he died.He said I should talk with Mr. Moirabout that, for all his papers wouldbelong to the Churchill Trust, ofwhich Mr. Moir was one of thetrustees. All his papers are nowbeing edited by Randolph Chur-chill for the official biography,which Houghton Mifflin will even-tually publish.

At almost five o'clock we joinedLady Churchill and my wife, whohad been having tea. We all wentout and walked over the croquetground and the garden. LadyChurchill told us how easy it was togo to Chequers for weekends; but itwas absolutely impersonal, she con-tinued: there was no feeling that theplace was one's own. The house-keeping was beautifully done byMrs. Hill, who had managed it dur-ing the war, and of whom LadyChurchill was very fond: the prop-erty cared for by Mr. Gardner. Bothof them were guests at lunch. Therewas an attractive garden of sorts,but Lady Churchill said it was im-possible to take an interest in a gar-den for which the Governmentbuys the seeds and the various pub-lic gardens send their surplus bulbsand plants.

The Chequers staff includedeleven members of the Women'sAuxiliary Air Force, who liked the

Shortly after that Sir Winston appeared, looking bright job; there was much competition for it. They waited on

* The light security Churchill enjoyed, at Chartwell and even Che-quers, is sadly a remnant of history for today's Prime Ministers.

tables and did all the housework. Sir Winston told me hecalled them all "Corporal," with the exception of the onlyone who is a Corporal. He calls her "Flight," bearing akind of relationship in his mind—and possibly hers—to"Flight Lieutenant." Chequers after Chartwell, we gath-ered, was agreeable, if not comfortable and delightful.

FINEST HOUR 121/39

Cinema at ChartwellWhen Becky and I were in London in August,

1957, while I was just getting around after breaking myleg, my wife got a note from Lady Churchill asking us tocome to Chartwell for Sunday lunch. We were particu-larly pleased because Becky had never been to Chartwell. Ialso had had a letter from Sir Winston saying he wantedto see me while I was in England.

At nine o'clock that Sunday morning AnthonyMontague Browne telephoned to say that Lady Churchillwas ill with lumbago and would we be able to postponecoming to lunch until Monday? We were up against it, forwe had timed our stay in Londonto end with the Churchill lun-cheon. We had made our plans ac-cordingly, had people coming tostay with us at Castle Hyde the fol-lowing Tuesday, and had air ticketsback on Monday morning. At thattime, just at the close of the Lon-don season, impromptu trans-portation is difficult to arrange.

I therefore told AnthonyMontague Browne that I was verysorry but we couldn't go on Mon-day, but I wondered if, forgettingthe luncheon, Sir Winston mightlike to see me sometime during theday for just a few minutes. In a fewminutes Anthony rang back sayingthat Sir Winston wondered if wewouldn't come to dinner that even-ing instead, and if Lady Churchillwere able she might join us briefly.Becky and I were delighted, for wehad planned nothing, although werealized that it would mean ourchugging back to London in oursmall self-drive English Ford aftermidnight.

We put on our "black ties" and appeared at eight.Sir Winston's nephew Johnny Churchill, his niece LadyAvon (Clarissa Eden), and Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Mon-tague Browne were the only other guests. Sir Winstontalked with Becky about my broken leg while I parked thecar and on my arrival said he wanted me to make thecocktails the way I liked them. We had a pleasant chat;Lady Churchill sent down a note saying how sorry shewas she couldn't join us but she was helpless.

Sir Winston insisted on pushing me into the liftto go up to dinner, sending Anthony running up the stairsto pull me out at the upper end. Becky and I were seatedon either side of Sir Winston, Anthony on Becky's right,and Mrs. Anthony on my left. Johnny Churchill was onthe opposite end. Sir Winston talked quite spiritedly both

The wonderful photograph by Philippe Halsman, 1950, chosenby Houghton Mifflin for the dust jacket back face on Closing

the Ring, vol. 5 of the war memoirs, published 1951.

to my wife and to me. We had the full treatment, butnothing fancy; sherry with soup, Pol Roger '34 with thecold chicken, port after the sweet, our choice of brandy orCointreau with the coffee.

Then we all went into the cinema to see a film.The staff was obviously waiting for us, for they too wereinvited: the valet, butler, three maids, and three or fourother unidentifiables.

We sat in front on either side of an aisle, Beckyand Sir Winston in armchairs with their feet on an ot-toman; Anthony on Becky's left; Mrs. Anthony, myself,and Johnny Churchill on a sofa. The staff was in chairs be-

hind us. The film was "The Laven-der Hill Mob," a semi-comic gang-ster picture starring Alec Guinness.It was on a large, rounded screen,and the sound was at a high pitchto compensate for Sir Winston'sdeafness. It overcompensated formine, but I at least got used to it. Ithought it was a good picture.

Afterwards—it was almost mid-night—-Sir Winston brushed thecigar ashes off his dinner jacket—it and his trousers were completelygrey from them—and we saidgoodnight. We hit the road forClaridge's, which we reached atjust about one.

Last EncounterI still get too excited about my

recollections of Sir Winston. Mytrouble, you see, is that I find ithard to hold myself down to a fewwords. I shall stop though, afterone more fleeting glimpse ofhim—my last—in 1963, just afterhe had been made, by resolutionof the Congress, the first Honorary

Citizen of the United States. (He called my attention tothe fact that he was the first Honorary Citizen. Lafayettehad been made a Citizen but not an Honorary Citizen.)

Sir Winston appeared much older, but still hisface lit up from time to time with enthusiasm, especiallywhen he said to Mr. Montague Browne, "Show Laughlinmy passport." Anthony brought in a passport, the samesize as mine, only bound in dark green leather with theSeal of the United States in gold on the cover. Inside, in-stead of the usual unflattering picture and informationabout birth and nationality, there was the exact wordingof the resolution of the Congress. Here was the documentcertifying him as the first Honorary Citizen of the UnitedStates. I go farther than that. To me Sir Winston Chur-chill is the First Citizen of the World. M>

FINEST HOUR 121 /40

ifooits, ARTS

& CURIOSITIES

Two Weddi La a Funeralmgs ana a runeraJRICHARD M. LANGWORTH

The blistering volume of Churchillpublishing—print, digital, and

video—continues apace, straining ourresources to keep up. Among the offer-ings this season are a fine new cata-logue of Churchill paintings producedby the literary marriage of DavidCoombs and Minnie Churchill; anoth-er attempt at marrying WinstonChurchill to the "brief life" treatment;and a three-hour television opus whichmight have better served as an obitu-ary, except for its length. Togetherthese productions remind me of thetitle of a 1994 Hugh Grant film. Let'stake the funeral first.

Very Nice, and. Very Dull

Churchill, a three-hour documentaryproduced by TWI (UK) and PBS(USA). Narrated by Sir Ian McKellen.

"Nf"o runs, nohits, no

errors," the Americanbaseball expression foran inning in whichnothing happens, wellsummarizes this three-hour lullaby. In Britain

it runs in three separate parts, whichmay keep more people watching.

To its credit, this latest attempt tocapture Winston Churchill for a TVaudience avoids perpetuating mythspopularized by chic writers for TheAtlantic and other arbiters of whatpasses for reality. Churchill's fatherdoes not die of syphilis; his motherdoes not sleep with 400 men; WSChimself is not an alcoholic. There are afew minor clangers: Lord Randolph at

forty was not "losing his marbles";Churchill never said naval traditionswere "rum, sodomy and the lash" (aremarkable gaffe, since Sir AnthonyMontague Browne, part of this produc-tion, who asked WSC about that quoteand got a denial, was apparently notconsulted on the script). The producersdon't try to tell us that Churchill senttroops to quell the striking miners atTonypandy—they tell us he sent troopsto battle the anarchists at Sidney Street.(Neither is true.)

All the more regrettably, the rawmaterial was there. The producersfound some very interesting people:the grandson of WSC's great colleague,David Lloyd George; the son ofAndrew Dewar Gibb, who wroteabout Churchill in the trenches ofFlanders; the grandson of WSC's long-time colleague Archibald Sinclair; tele-phone censor Ruth Ive; and GeorgeElsey, who ran FDR's White HouseMap Room. Former secretariesElizabeth Nel and Patrick Kinna, andSir Winston's daughter and grandchil-dren, always provide keen insights.(Lady Soames pointedly wonders: whatif Clementine Churchill had beenbored by politics?) But the rest mainlyrecite platitudes and appear stiff, asThe New York Times put it, "as if theyhave recited their Churchill-relatedmemories One too many times."

The right props were there too.The portrayal of young Winston atHarrow, alone and neglected, rangedagainst imposing school walls and thehaunting Harrow song "Five HundredFaces," is superb. But the scenes soondegenerate to lengthy, repeated pans ofstill-life photos, half-full whisky glasses,

Churchill Centre Book ClubTo order: list titles/prices, add

shipping ($6 first book, $ 1 each addi-tional in USA; $10 minimum else-where); check to Churchill Centre,Suite 307, 1150 17th Street, NW,Washington DC 20036. Visa or Mas-tercard: state name, numbers and ex-piration date. Tel. (888) WSC-1874.

and empty benches in the House ofCommons, while Sir Ian McKellenmanfully struggles to capture history'sflickering flame against a script inwhich even "Fight on the Beaches"sounds hollow.

The story is mainly all there, butbumps along with some clumsy transi-tions. In 1929 Churchill sets out forNorth America to earn money on thelecture circuit; in the midst of this wejump two years to his 1931 lecturetour, skipping the Wall Street crash,his financial collapse, and the onset ofhis political wilderness. His warningsabout Nazi Germany begin...then theIndia Act intrudes, as if the producerssuddenly realized they've skipped it. Inthe Munich era, Churchill's true finesthour, many think, all the best perora-tions are absent. Throughout, there isnext to nothing about his painting, orhis books except My Early Life.

And the plot crawls. "To say it isslow moving is a gross understate-ment," writes one of our members. "Itis hard to conceive of the fall ofFrance, the attack on the French fleetat Oran, or the Battle of Britain asboring, but they are....If the producersintended a pictorial synopsis of aWorld Book encyclopedia, I suppose itsucceeds. If the intent was to do morethan that, it fails dismally. Over andover I found myself saying to the tele-vision, 'you missed the point,' or, 'youfailed to do justice to that.' It is hardto appreciate what this man accom-plished without some statement aboutwhat was going on around him. Asense of urgency or desperation ismissing....The program could not havegained Churchill many new fans."

Fragments of the great warspeeches do emerge briefly, but arepoorly selected and even altered: in the"Mighty Mississippi" speech aboutAnglo-American cooperation, >>

FINEST HOUR 121/41

VERYNICK..."benignant" becomes "benign," whichdestroys the rhythm—Churchill wouldhave furiously blue-lined that one.Since they cover 1874-1940 in the firsthour, they had plenty of time to leadinto and cover World War II, so there'sreally no excuse for not getting it right.One wishes such producers wouldcome to The Churchill Centre, orsome other source of expertise, to vetthese productions ahead of time. Ohfor plenary powers and a willingscriptwriter!

Celestial Delights

Sir Winston Churchill's Life ThroughHis Paintings, by David Coombs withMinnie Churchill. Levenger Press, 256pages, 600+ illustrations, limited editionof 1500 is now sold out. A UK tradeedition by Pegasus is now published and

a U.S. edition willfollow.

David Coombs's1967 cata-

logue, Churchill:His Paintings, haslong been the"bible" for everyoneinterested in track-

ing and authenticating WinstonChurchill's more than 500 oil paint-ings—and has long been out of print,and out of date. To rectify the situa-tion Coombs teamed with MinnieChurchill, Director of ChurchillHeritage Ltd., who supervises thereproduction rights to the paintingsand is herself an expert on them. Theirlabors have given us a superb newcatalogue based on volumes of newinformation: a wonderful, albeitexpensive, limited edition by Levenger.(A trade edition is planned but is notyet published.)

In the interest of full disclosurethis writer assisted in very minor waysover the years. I recall conveying toDavid Coombs the news that a paint-ing of the Italian Dolomites in the1967 book was actually Lake Louise,Canada: Derek Lukin Johnston of the

Vancouver Churchill Society, had rec-ognized the sand traps Churchillpainted in the distant golf course,"having spent a lot of time in them!"More recently, thanks to John Kopsand Bill Benjamin in Florida and CeliaSandys in England, we published oneof the few photos of Churchill paint-ing with his wife observing {FH116,Autumn 2002), which forms a lovelydouble-page frontispiece to the newbook. The list of those who helped infar more significant ways is long, andtestifies to the years of research MinnieChurchill and David Coombs put inbefore they were ready to publish.

The genesis of their project wasdescribed by Levenger Press editorMim Harrison in the previous issue ofFinest Hour. Compared to the original,the scope of the new book is vast. Themajority of paintings are now repro-duced in faultless color—some areregrettably small, but there's none ofthe brassy color often seen in cheaperbooks. Here are celestial delights fromChurchill's palette that only privateowners had glimpsed before. Includedare some of the sketches he made orthe photographs he used as aids: evenpictures of the canvasmaker's labelsthat help identify a genuine work.

The text consists of an eruditeforeword by Lady Soames, an intro-duction by David Coombs, five thickchapters, a bibliography, catalogue andindex. The chapters combine descrip-tions of Churchill's artistry with ayear-by-year background of worldevents, allowing the reader to compareWSC's subjects and techniques withwhat might have been on his mindwhile he worked—although Churchillhimself claimed that painting largelyreleased him from worldly cares.

A bibliographic masterpiece, thechapter entitled "Painting as aPastime" describes Churchill's essayson his avocation, from their originalperiodical appearances through hisstand-alone book, providing both atextual history and the full text.Another fascinating chapter is"Discoveries and Mysteries." Here welearn how David Coombs authenti-cates a Churchill: what he looks forand what disqualifies a contender. And

there are thirty-odd new paintingswhich have never before been seen orcredited to Churchill. Fabulous.

The rear catalogue lists everyknown Churchill painting. Original"Coombs numbers" have beenretained; new numbers were assignedto the new discoveries. The catalogueis printed in eye-straining small type,one of the book's few flaws. (Couldthey have spared another spread andtwo larger point sizes?) Since the origi-nal "C" numbers were not chronologi-cal, these are not either —anotherminor fault. But they were wise toretain the original numbers to avoidconfusion, and the new catalogue ispainstakingly complete, detailing theownership where known of each paint-ing through the years.

It remains only to pronounce theLife Through His Paintings as one ofthe "must-have" books everyChurchillian needs on the proverbialdesert island— along with such classicsas Lady Soames's Clementine Churchill,Sir Martin Gilbert's In Search ofChurchill, Urquhart's CartoonBiography, and Colville's Fringes ofPower. Granted, it's not cheap—butyou have to expect to pay for all thosecolor separations. It's not about poli-tics, war, biography or history;Churchill was not renowned for hisart, and always held himself an ama-teur artist. But arguably he cannot beunderstood without considering hispaintings. This book is the last wordyou will ever need on the subject.

/f\ /J\ If* fg*

Brier Lire Bonanza

Winston Churchill, Statesman of theCentury, by Robin H. Neillands 216pp., $19.95 Member price $15.

How many "brieflives" of

Winston Churchillhave there been? Ata guess, at least ahundred fifty. Theybegan with hagio-graphic World WarII potboilers, contin-

FINESTHOUR 12] 142

ued with postwar valedictories andnon-English works, moved throughmore balanced treatments in theSixties and Seventies and, lately, aration of juveniles and whingy biogra-phies from the Feet-of-Clay-School.They are legion!

The brief life has peaked againover the past few years. We have hadadult-market ones by Humes, Keegan,Haffner, Lukacs, Best, Wood, andBlake; juveniles by Reynoldson,Ashworth, Rodgers, and Severance;even a student textbook by Heywood.While there are enormous qualitativedifferences, all have the same pro-claimed goal: marrying all you need toknow about Winston Churchill with ashort page count so you won't bebored to tears or kept up late. Yet italmost seems that every one of thesebooks has proclaimed itself an end-alland be-all: the latest and greatest.

Take Robin Neillands, whoseStatesman of the Century informs us onhis jacket: "All books on Churchillmake the point that he was a greatman. This book explains the course ofevents and the quirks of character thatmade him a great man.. .and why hislife therefore provides useful lessons forlater generations."

Reading this in a vacuum, onemight be forgiven for thinking thatnobody had ever done that before. But600 books exist about Churchill, andmost of them try to explain in one wayor another made WSC a great man.What then does this book add?

Some canny observations, at least."One of the most curious aspects ofWinston Churchill's early career is howshort these various, dramatic episodesthat marked his life actually were,"Neillands writes. That gets you think-ing. He spent only a few months eachin the Malakand, the Sudan, andSouth Africa. Given the delay in com-munications in those days, it is all themore amazing that he crammed somuch into the experiences.

Neillands gets most of his factsright, for which we must be grateful.He notes, for instance, that Churchillnever sent troops to put down strikingminers, as lightweight writers andsocialists always insist. But he also

gives evidence of too little steeping inthe literature—too facile an acceptanceof cant and popular misconception.

For instance, Neillands swallowswhole Churchill's proven fancifulaccount of his Harrow entrance exam(not even Lord Randolph's son couldhave got in merely with an ink blot onan exam paper). His treatment of theDardanelles/Gallipoli episode lacksinterpretation or perspective; his viewof Churchill's defense of Antwerp inWorld War I is cliche-ridden and with-out substance; he somehow attributesthe 1915 shell shortage on the WesternFront as a factor in Churchill's dis-missal, "protesting wildly," from theAdmiralty. Where is all the interpreta-tion showing how WSC became great,and the lessons for future generations?

And Lord Randolph dies ofsyphilis again—for the 173rd time inpopular mythology. I sometimes thinkthe depth of any Churchill biography

might be judged at a glance from howit treats the death of Lord Randolph.

There are some niggling littletypos and minor errors: "Lady Jenny"for Lady Randolph, "taxicab" for "car"when Churchill is knocked down inNew York in 1931, "Mary Soames" forDavid Rose as author of Churchill: AnUnruly Life. And curiously, Neillandsseems to think Germany lost EastPrussia at the Versailles conference.

The errors are few and farbetween, and the book is well written.The point is that there's nothing hereeither to fulfill the promise of the dustjacket or to make this brief life standout above the pile. It is modestlypriced, and certainly should beacquired for those who pride them-selves on an extensive library. But thereare better short texts than this: Blake,Severance, Keegan, Reynoldson. Thisbook is not in their league and can

j hardly be deemed essential reading. M>

Reality and Rubbish JuxtaposedJUDITH MILLS KAMBESTAD

WINSTONCHURCHILL

Forty Ways to Look at WinstonChurchill, A Brief Account of a LongLife, by Gretchen Rubin. Ballantine,308 pages, $22.95. Member price $16.

GretchenRubin

teaches at YaleLaw Schooland School ofManagement.She has minedthe work ofother authorsto compile thisbook and pre-sent her case in

a "Churchill vs. Churchill," pro vs.con format. In paired chapters, a posi-tive, admirable, likeable Churchillemerges, only to be dashed by a pursu-ing chapter of negative rancor.

If you read the jacket of thisbook, you may be inclined to buy it. It

Ms. Kambestad is a Churchill Centre Gover-nor and director of local affairs.

has an intriguing title, and declares itis for 21st century readers. Rubin'sonly other work, Power Money FameSex: A User's Guide—a very 21st centu-ry title reminding one of supermarketcheck-out stand headlines—mayexplain the author's inclusion of lurid,attention-grabbing headings such as"Churchill the Drinker," "Churchillthe Spendthrift," "Churchill and Sex,"and "Churchill as Husband." I wasreminded of Celia Sandys's remarkquoted in The Los Angeles Times(Calendar, July 27th): "People think,'Ah, if I write a book with Churchill inthe title it'll sell a few copies. But if Isay something nasty about him itwill—shock, horror—sell more.'"

The table of contents lists fortychapters. Why forty? Rubin tells usthat historically, "forty meant many."Some chapters are only a page or two,and some give the impression that astretch was needed to meet therequired forty.

In the introduction, the authorstates this is a "biography of my »

FINEST HOUR 121 / 43

REALITY AND RUBBISH...Churchill." The book is casual read-ing—not for anyone looking fordepth, power, strength or leadership,or the aura and mystique of the Manof the Millennium. Instead we have a20th century Churchill written in 21stcentury-light. The "inconclusive" biog-raphy includes only the subjects thatinterested the author: "Dark and light,blame and praise, must both beincluded: only one with a thoroughknowledge of Churchill's character,even his faults, can appreciate hisgrandeur; only one who sees his incon-sistencies can understand his hardcore." Therein lies the raison d'etre forGretchen Rubin's work.

The book has easy-to-read dou-ble-spaced type, some good pictures,informational lists such as peopleChurchill knew, quotations, a timeline, a good notes section listed bypage, and an extensive bibliography.

The first chapter is an excellentsummary of Winston Churchill's polit-ical accomplishments, matter-of-factlywritten with no embellishments andno critiques, a good valedictory sum-mary. The second and rebuttal chapter,"Churchill as Failed Statesman," callsWSC a "crossbreed" in the first sen-tence. Rubin gives his mother, LadyRandolph, no redeeming qualities, andRandolph few, which is commonamong authors. She dwells mostly ontheir disappointments, criticisms andfailures. Rubin says Churchill assuredthe British Empire's liquidation bythrowing every possible resource intothe World War II effort, leavingBritain less than a great power. Whatkind of a great power Britain wouldhave been after coming to terms withNazi Germany is not considered. Thechapter closes with the dysfunction ofChurchill's family, beginning withClementine, and then his children.

Rubin's chapter, "Churchill'sDecisive Moment, May 28, 1940,"starts with her description of the pro-tagonist: "short, fat, bald, with a for-ward stoop and jutting jaw drankconstantly, cried frequently, paintedpictures, didn't get out of bed until latemorning and recited poetry " Amultiple statement, and partly true;

but without clarification it misleads anuninformed reader. Still, it does makegood copy.

"Churchill's Genius with Words:His Greatest Strength," followed by anumber of quotes, and "Churchill inSymbols: Metonymy"are both goodreads. Rubin concludes that "his powerof expression was his greateststrength," an innocuous argumentwith which most would agree.

The author uses mystery writerMargery Allingham's summation inThe Oaken Heart for her three-pagechapter, "Churchill, True: In a SingleWord' for another way to look atWSC. Quoting from Shakespeare'sKing John, "Naught shall make us rue,if England to itself do rest but true,"Allingham writes: "That is the basicrock, the ultimate secret belief of theinstinctive Briton..." Churchill savedthe country "and all was safe and true

again [He is] the living incarnationof true Briton in fighting After halfa century the country has got into thetrue with him, but it is its fighting notits normal angle." Allingham's idea wasthat the "hour" has risen to Churchillas a "fixed compass." I found this to bethe only chapter with an interestingconcept—and that borrowed from amystery writer!

In "Churchill's Desire for Fame,"Rubin says he "lusted for honors,medals, offices, the respect of kings, aplace in history he whipped up strifebecause he knew that being the objectof attack made him a largerfigure An official at the TeheranConference commented dryly on theextravagant number of generals, admi-rals, and air marshals who accompa-nied Churchill, solely to make thePrime Minister appear more grand."Without a corresponding chapter inrebuttal, this chapter comes across asabsolute truth and bears a close resem-blance to contemporary political mud-slinging.

A 21 st century light mustinclude "Churchill the Spendthrift: AWeakness' (guilty), "Churchill and Sex:Too Interesting to Ignore" (undersexed,faithful), "Churchill as Husband: AHappy Marriage" (had, had not),"Churchill as Father: A Good Parent?'

(was, was not), and "Churchill theDrinker: An Alcoholic?' (was, was not).In the latter Rubin summarizes:"...given Churchill's extraordinaryaccomplishments...it's difficult tocredit that dependence on alcohol inany way impaired his health or abili-ties." Why bother to state what ispatently obvious?

The last chapter, "My Churchill:Judgment," reveals Churchill in "brilliantcolor.. .on the quarterdeck of HMSPrince of Wales, cigar in his hand.. .hispowers, too strenuous for peacetime, atlast suit the hour." That's it—no sum-mation of previous arguments.

It is not the intention of thisbook to be accurate, nor has theauthor attempted to do much researchfor accuracy. Two-thirds of it treatsChurchill as a man from a family witha great history, famous parents and noinherited money; as a warrior, politi-cian, orator, writer and statesman. It isthe other third that I did not like. Myconcern is the precedent Rubin pre-sents. Written words, right or wrong,compiled in a style presenting them allas fact, with little effort to differentiatethe settled opinion of historians fromthe wild accusations of sensationalists,will become a permanent part ofChurchill lore. M>

FDR AgonistesCHRISTOPHER H. STERLING

FDR in 1944: A DiminishedPresident, by Matthew B. Wills. IvyHouse, 192pp., illus., $22.95. Orderfrom the publisher, (800) 948-2786.

here seemsto be a

growing fasci-nation withand trendtoward issuingstudies of greatpersons in thecontext of theirpersonal histo-ries—medicaland matrimoni-

al. Recent studies of John Kennedy

FDK» 1944

FINEST HOUR 121 /44

and Princess Diana are but two exam-ples. This privately-published volumeis such a book—a warm and feelingdescription of the last full year ofFranklin Roosevelt's life as his healthworsened, though this vital fact waswithheld from all but a tiny handful ofclose aides. Wills's focus is on theimpact of that disastrous decline onAmerican policy as the war turnedsolidly in the Allies' favor.

The author practiced law for athird of a century in Colorado beforeretiring and turning to his love ofAmerican history. He had a publishedstudy of the many wartime missions ofHarry Hopkins to his credit beforeundertaking this analysis of the com-plex tale of Roosevelt's decline. Not amedical man himself, Wills seems tohave sought good advice from othersas he pored over papers from the FDRLibrary and other resources better tounderstand and relate how thePresident's declining faculties affectedpolitical and military decision-makingin Washington, and with the BigThree, including Churchill. Onlywhen FDR reported to Congress earlyin 1945, just after returning from theYalta conference, was his obviousdecline on public display for all to see.He died just three months later.

In part this is a study of deliberatedeceit. Not that there was no prece-dent—Woodrow Wilson's wife anddoctor had conspired to keep his par-lous state from the public eye in 1919-20. In those now long-vanished days,reporters and editors treated the WhiteHouse with a distant respect and gen-erally accepted what they were told.Little had changed a generation later asFDR was in decline, and a smallcoterie of aides could readily keep thetruth from prying eyes—especiallywhen wartime secrecy was an acceptedmode of operation.

And in part Wills's study revealsthe very different press performancestandards of the era. While we've allheard the stories of the informal agree-ment not to portray the President'sparalysis in photographs (and, indeed,only two or three such pictures areknown to exist), readers in the early21st century will find it hard to believe

At Yalta, President Roosvelt's decline was shockingly apparent. (Mary Soames, Family Album)

(and perhaps to understand) how edi-tors could so limit what they reportedabout the President's health. Givenwhat we now know about present andmany past political leaders—whetherwe want to know or not—the seemingtrust of the public in what they read in1944 helps to explain the widespreadworldwide shock when the Presidentdied in April 1945.

Wills's approach is chronological.He tells us the story of Roosevelt in1944, from wartime decisions todomestic politics (including, of course,the 1944 national reelection cam-paign), to family relationships. Makinggood use of judicious quotes from con-temporary observers, Wills focuses onthe growing concerns of those aroundthe President, the choice of Truman asVice-President (and, as many expectedto be the case, President sooner ratherthan later), the changing relationshipbetween Harry Hopkins and thePresident, Churchill and Roosevelt, the

sacrifice of General "Vinegar Joe"Stilwell in China in favor of retainingChiang Kai-shek in power, the declineof American foreign policy underSecretary of State Cordell Hull (him-self infirm), and a brief epilogue.

The chapter on Churchill andRoosevelt, while not adding much towhat is already known of that famousrelationship, is interesting nonetheless.Wills demonstrates some of the grow-ing differences between the two men,especially concerning the future of theBritish Empire and the timing andlocation of attacks on German-occu-pied Europe. He concludes thatRoosevelt treated Churchill inconsis-tently (at best), but that his declininghealth is probably the explanation.

Wills's book is engagingly written,taut and to the point. It helps to shedlight on a critical period in bothRoosevelt's and Churchill's lives, mak-ing clearer the health-driven changesthat few understood at the time. $

FINEST HOUR 121/45

¥it&Wisdom

Last Speech in AmericaOur executive director and editor

daily answer Churchill questions fromall over the world, which are oftenfamiliar, but occasionally intriguing. InSeptember we had an urgent requestfrom the Kenton County, KentuckySheriff's Office for information onChurchill's last speech in America, andwhether he used his famous Harrowquote, "never give in."

Do you know the answer? Wedidn't until we referred to the excellentchronology in volume 8 of RobertRhodes James's Winston S. Churchill:His Complete Speeches 1897-1963(New York: Bowker, 1974). Knowingthat Churchill last spoke to Congresson 17 January 1952, we worked for-ward from there. There is only onelater entry, from a press conference inWashington on 25 June 1954:

"I have come with Anthony Edento talk over a few family matters, andto try to make sure that there are nomisunderstandings. The English-speak-ing family—or brotherhood—is arather large one, and not entirely with-out a few things here and there. If wecan work together, we may get alongall right ourselves and do a lot to helpour neighbours in the world, some ofwhom, on both sides of the IronCurtain, seem to face even greaterproblems than we do ourselves."

The next day Churchill met thepress at the Statler Hotel in Washing-ton. Whether this was a "speech" isdebatable, but Robert Pilpel's Churchillin America (NY: Harcourt, 1976)records some of what James Restoncalled "the largest news conference inthe history of this capital."

"I'm sure you will consider,"Churchill began, "that you must begenerous, as you always are, and ten-derhearted to an aged guest." But hethen demonstrated as quick a tongueas ever. Asked about "the temperature"of the Anglo-American friendship, hereplied, "Normal!" Asked if he saw anyprospect for Arab-Israeli peace he said:"I am a Zionist. Let me make thatclear. I was one of the original onesafter the Balfour Declaration I thinkit a most wonderful thing that thiscommunity should have afforded arefuge to millions of their co-religion-ists who had suffered so fearfully underthe Hitler, and not only the Hitler,persecution." But he did not predictan Arab-Israeli peace...

When a reporter asked Churchillif "larger Conservative and Republicanmajorities" in Parliament and Congressrespectively might improve Anglo-American relations, Churchill repliedwith a quip that grew famous: "I refuseto choose as between Republicans andDemocrats. I want the lot!" But it wason east-west relations that he spoke thelongest, and here his disagreementswith the Eisenhower administrationwere evident:

"I am of the opinion that weought to have a try at peaceful coexis-tence, a real good try for it I amvery much in favour of patient, cool,friendly examination of what theRussian intentions are You maysome day hear that I have done some-thing or other which looks as if I weregoing to become a Communist, but Iassure you that I have been all mylife...fighting this I even remembermaking a speech at Fulton six years

ago [sic; he meant eight] at which Ididn't get a very warm welcomebecause it was so anti-Russian andanti-Communist I am not anti-Russian. I am violently anti-Communist. But I do beg you to makesure that no stone is left unturned inthis period to give them a chance tograsp the prospects..."

"Never give in" might well be thetitle of these remarks, and the ellipsesindicate we don't have all the words, sohe may well have said as much; wewould welcome the full transcript.

Referring again to Pilpel, we finda brief impromptu speech on 4 May1959, when Churchill arrived inWashington for a private visit withPresident Eisenhower. WSC wasresponding to the President's welcome.This too follows the theme of "nevergive in," though he clearly didn't saythose words: "Mr. President, ladies andgentlemen, I am most happy onceagain to set foot in the UnitedStates—my mother's country I alwaysthink of it and feel it. I have comehere on a quiet visit to see some of myold comrades of wartime days "

His very last public words inAmerica came when he responded tothe President's toast at a White Housedinner on May 6th: "It resounds in mymind, a precious and happy thought

the union of the English-speakingpeoples. I earnestly hope that an effortwill be made, a fresh and further effortforward, to link us together "

On May 8th he left Washingtonfor the last time, and two years later,on 14 April 1961, he flew home fromNew York, where Onassis had broughthim aboard Christina: his last visit tothe USA. On this occasion he saidnothing, merely lifted his hat to well-wishers at Idlewild Airport. He did, ofcourse, make a "speech" at his hon-orary citizenship ceremony in 1963(one of the few he did not write him-self; the author was private secretaryAnthony Montague Browne). But hewas too infirm to be present and it wasdelivered by his son Randolph.

Whether "never give in" was partof his text on any of these final visits isstill undetermined. But its sentiments,real and implied, he certainly expressedin 1954 and 1959. %>

FINEST HOUR 121/46

AMPERSANDA compendium of facts eventuallyto appear as a reader's guide.

Cnurcnili s LettersThe Rt Hon Sir Winston Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD,

PC, FRS, MP had several other "letters," often represented bythat most coveted citation, "the Order of Etcetera." Here are theusual letters attached to his name, in the order of precedence:

Rt Hon: Right Honorable, a prefix denoting peers andpeeresses below the degree of Marquess/Marchioness, all mem-bers of the Privy Council, and Lord Mayors of certain principalcities. Churchill became a Rt Hon by becoming a PC in 1907.

KG: Knight of the Garter. The highest honour for mili-tary and civil service a Briton may receive. Selection is madepersonally by the Sovereign and is given in only one class,knight. Membership is limited to the Sovereign and twenty-fiveknights. Churchill was invested with the Garter on 24 April1953 and was formally installed at Windsor on 14 June 1954.As a knighthood, it takes precedence in the titles after his name.

OM: Order of Merit. Created in 1902 by King EdwardVII, personally awarded by the Sovereign for distinguishedachievement in the arts, literature, and science, or for war ser-vice. Churchill was appointed to the civil division of the Orderof Merit in the New Years Honours list of 1 January 1946.

CH: Companion of Honour. Created by King George Vin 1917, often considered a junior class of the OM. Churchillwas appointed to the Order on 19 October 1922 in recogni-tion of his services as a minister of the King's government.

TD: Territorial Decoration. Awarded to Volunteer offi-cers in the Territorial Army after twenty years' service (full-timewar service counting double). Churchill qualified in 1924, hav-

ing first joined the Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars in 1902.PC: Privy Councillor. The principal council of the Sov-

ereign, composed of the cabinet ministers and other personschosen by the King or Queen. Peers and peeresses correctly usethese letters since they already have the Rt Hon prefix becauseof their rank. Churchill became a PC in 1907.

FRS: Fellow of the Royal Society, a learned societyfounded in 1660 and given a Royal Charter by Charles II in1662, through which the government has supported science.Churchill became a Fellow in 1941.

MP: Member of Parliament. Churchill was elected in1900 and, save for brief interludes in 1908 and 1923-24, re-mained one until he retired from Parliament in 1964. $

WHO WILL REMEMBER?

Will future generations remember?Will the ideas you cherish now be sustained therii

Who will guide your grandchildren, and your country?There is an answer:

The Churchill Centre Associates(page 2) have each committed $10,000 or more, over five

years, all tax-deductible, to The Churchill CentreEndowment. Its earnings guarantee that The Churchill

Centre will endure as a powerful voice, sustaining beliefsWinston Churchill held dear.

Now. And for future generations.

To become an Associate please contactRichard M. Langworth,

Chairman, Board of Trustees(888) 454-2275 • malakand@batelnet.bs

TRIVIA ANSWERS (from page 37)

(1375) Lord Charles William de la PoerBeresford, Unionist MP for Portsmouth.(1376) The History of the Hudson's BayCompany. (1377) The prize was for fly-ing a Vickers-Vimy bomber on a directtransatlantic flight from Canada toIreland. (1378) The Misses ThomsonPreparatory School at Hove, Sussex.(1379) The strategy was Churchill's planto convert the fleet from coal to oil.(1380) Air Marshal SirTrafford Leigh-Mallory was named Commander-in-ChiefofAEAFin 1943.

(1381) Chatham, Kent. (1382) Admiralof the Fleet Lord Fisher, who wrote thecomments in his Memories in 1919.(1383) 25 August 1919, from Londonto Paris. (1384) Churchill never soloed.(1385) In his speech, "Call to Arms," 11September 1914. (1386) Churchill stat-ed, "It is much more likely, I say it withsincere conviction, that war will nevercome in our time and perhaps will havepassed from the world, at any rate for

the period which our most adventurousimagination enables us to foresee."

(1387) They were introduced by LadyRandolph Churchll at a dance given byLady Crewe in 1904. (1388) TheMahdi's father was a boat-builder.(1389) Churchill initially denied govern-ment subsidies for commercial air ser-vice. Subsidies were granted in 1921 forcompetitive reasons, because the Frenchand Dutch governments provided themfor their airlines. (1390) The First Lordapproving Churchill as Secretary for Warand Air was Walter Long. (1391)Constantinople. (1392) The First SeaLord, Admiral Lord Fisher.

(1393) Dr. Konrad Adenauer. (1394)The third edition of The War Speeches ofWilliam Pitt, the Younger. (1395) Thewalking stick was a wedding presentfrom King Edward VII. (1396)Winston's American grandfather,Leonard Jerome. (1397) "Both thesemen [Hitler and Napoleon] were tem-peramentally unable to give up the tini-

est scrap of any territory to which thehigh watermark of their hectic fortuneshad carried them." (1398) The "onlydefeat" was of Rear Admiral SirChristopher Craddock off Coronel,Chile, by the German Far East Squadronunder the command of Admiral Countvon Spee. $

"Send for Churchill":1951 Campaign Pin

From theWashington

Society for Chur-chill comes this fine-

ly enameled replica ofthe pin Churchill's sup-

porters wore in the 1951General Election—which also happens tobe highly relevant today, or any day. Thecraftsmanship is a major improvement onthe original—crisp, clear and bright. US$10 or the equivalent postpaid. Sendcheques payable to WSC, c/o DanBorinsky, 2080 Old Bridge Road #203,Lake Ridge VA 22192 USA.

FINEST HOUR 121 /47

Moments in Time: March 1949

Above: Acknowledging dockside cheers while arriving in New York aboard RMS Queen Elizabeth,March 24th: Christopher and Mary Soames, Winston and Clementine Churchill. (International News

Photo.) Below: Winston Churchill with Henry Luce, proprietor o/Time, Life and Fortune, at a dinnergiven for Churchill by Luce at the Ritz Carlton, March 25th. (Life magazine).