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THE CHURCHILL CENTERTHEINTERNATIONALCHURCHILLSOCIETIES
AUSTRALIA • CANADA • UNITED KINGDOM • UNITED STATES • www.winstonchurchill.orgP A T R O N : T H E L A D Y S O A M E S , D . B. E.
The Churchill Center is a non-profit organization which encourages study of the life and thought of Winston S. Churchill; fosters researchabout his speeches, writings and deeds; advances knowledge of his example as a statesman; and, by programmes of teaching and publishing,imparts that learning to men, women and young people around the world. The Center also sponsors Finest Hour, special publications, sym-
posia, seminars, conferences and tours. The Center was created by the International Churchill Societies, founded in 1968 to inspire and educatefuture generations through the works and example of Winston Churchill.
THE CHURCHILL CENTERA non-profit corporation, IRS No. 02-0482584
TRUSTEESThe Hon. Celia Sandys, Fred Farrow,George A. Lewis, Amb. Paul H. Robinson, Jr.,The Hon. Caspar W. Weinberger
BOARD OF GOVERNORSGarnet R. Barber, David Boler,William C. Ives, Nigel Knocker,Richard M. Langworth, Dr. John H. Mather,James W. Muller, Charles D. Platt,John G. Plumpton, Douglas S. Russell,Jacqueline Dean Witter
BUSINESS OFFICELorraine C. Horn, Administrator8016 McKenstry Drive, Laurel MD 20723Tel. (888) WSC-1874, Fax. (301) 483-6902Email: [email protected]
OfFICERSRichard M. Langworth, President181 Burrage Road, Hopkinton NH 03229Tel. (603) 746-4433, Fax. (603) 746-4260Email: [email protected]
William C. Ives, Vice President77 W. Wacker Dr., 43rd fir., Chicago IL 60601Tel. (312) 845-5798, Fax. (312) 845-5828Email: [email protected]
Dr. John H. Mather, Secretary12144 Long Ridge Lane, Bowie MD 20715Tel. (202) 565-8312, Fax. (202) 565-8476Email: [email protected]
Douglas S. Russell, TreasurerPO Box 2416, Iowa City IA 52244Tel. (319) 351-5610, Fax. (319) 351-6409Email: [email protected]
Charles D. Platt, Endowment Director14 Blue Heron Drive West,Greenwood Village, CO 80121Tel. (303) 721-8550, Fax. (303) 290-0097Email: [email protected]
Derek Brownleader, Membership Secretary1847 Stonewood Dr., Baton Rouge LA 70816Tel. (225) 752-3313
CHURCHILL STORES (Back Issues & Sales Dept.)Gail Greenly, PO Box 96, Contoocook NH 03229Tel. (603) 746-3452, Fax (603) 746-6963Email: [email protected]
INTERNET COMMITTEEHomepage: www.winstonchurchill.orgListserv: [email protected]
John Plumpton, Webmaster, [email protected]: [email protected]: Beverly Carr, [email protected]: Ian Langworth, [email protected]
Churchill Center...CHURCHILL CENTER ASSOCIATES
Winston Churchill Associates:ICS United States, Mr. & Mrs. Matthew B. Wills,The Churchill Center, Mr. & Mrs. Parker H. Lee III,Alex M. Worth Jr., Fred Farrow, Colin D. Clark,Michael & Carol McMenamin,David & Diane Boler, Ray L. & Patricia M. Orban,The Annenberg Foundation, David & Carole Noss,Mr. & Mrs. Anthony E. Gilles
Clementine Churchill Associates:Barbara & Richard Langworth, James F. Lane,Drs. John H. & Susan H. Mather,D. Craig & Lorraine Horn, Linda & Charles Platt,Dr. John B. Thomison,Ambassador & Mrs. Paul H. Robinson Jr.,Ronald D. Abramson, Jeanette & Angelo Gabriel,James R. & Lucille I. Thomas
Mary Soarnes Associates:Mr. & Mrs. William C. Ives, Jacqueline & MalcolmWitter, Mr. & Mrs. John G. Plumpton,Gary J. Bonine, Mr. & Mrs. James W. Muller,Frederick C. & Martha S. Hardman,Douglas S. Russell, Elizabeth Churchill Snell,Mr. & Mrs. Richard A. Leahy, Richard & Jenny Streiff,Mr. & Mrs. Gerald Drake Kambestad,Daniel & Susan Borinsky, Robert M. Stephenson,Michael W. Michelson, Dona & Bob Dales,Dr. Jeffrey T. De Haan
CHURCHILL CENTER ACADEMIC ADVISERSProf. James W. Muller, Chairman,
University of Alaska, Anchorage1518 Airport Hts. Dr., Anchorage AK 99508
Tel. (907) 786-4740 Fax. (907) 786-4647Email: [email protected]
Prof. Paul Addison, University of EdinburghDr. Larry P. Arnn, President, The Claremont InstituteProf. Kirk Emmert, Kenyon CollegeSir Martin Gilbert, CBE, Merlon College, OxfordProf. Barry M. Gough, Wilfrid Laurier UniversityProf. Warren F. Kimball, Rutgers UniversityProf. Patrick Powers, So, New England School of LawProf. Paul A. Rahe, University ofTulsaDr. Jeffrey Wallin, President, The American AcademyProf. Manfred Weidhorn, Yeshiva UniversityProf. John A. Ramsden, Queen Mary & Westfield Col.
AFFILIATE:Washington Society for ChurchillRon Helgemo, President. Tel. (703) 476-4693PO Box 2456, Merrifield, VA 22116
INTERNATIONAL COUNCILOF CHURCHILL ORGANIZATIONSAmbassador Paul H. Robinson, Jr., Chairman208 S. LaSalle St., Chicago IL 60604 USA
ICS AUSTRALIARobin Linke, 181 Jersey Street, Wembley WA 6014ACT Representative: Lee Deegan,12/63 Tindery Circuit, Palmerston ACT 2913
ICS CANADARevenue Canada No. 0732701-21-13Ambassador Kenneth W. Taylor, Hon. Cliairman
Garnet R. Barber, President4 Snowshoe Cres., Thornhill, Ont. L3T 4M6Tel. (905) 881-8550
John G. Plumpton, Executive Secretary130 Collingsbrook Blvd,Agincourt Ont. M1W 1M7Tel. (416) 497-5349 Fax. (416) 502-3847Email: [email protected]
Jeanette Webber, Membership Secretary3256 Rymal Road, Mississauga Ont. L4Y 3C1Tel. (905) 279-5169
Charles Anderson, Treasurer389 Stanfield Drive, Oakville Ont. L6L 3R2
The Other Club of OntarioBill Williams, President1 Ridgewood Rd., St. Catharines, Ont. L2R 3S2
Winston S. Churchill Society of Vancouver (Affiliated)Robert W. Gourlay, President300 - 744 W. Hastings StreetVancouver, B.C. V6C 1A5
ICS UNITED KINGDOMCharity Registered in England No. 800030
Nigel Knocker, ChairmanPO Box 1257, Melksham, Wilts. SN12 6GQTel. & Fax. (01380) 828609Email: [email protected]
TRUSTEESThe Hon. Celia Sandys, Chairman;The Duke of Marlborough; David Boler;David J. Porter; Geoffrey J. Wheeler;The Rt. Hon. The Earl Jellicoe
COMMITTEENigel Knocker, Chairman;Wylma Wayne, Vice Chairman;Paul H. Courtenay, Hon. Secretary;Fred Lockwood, Hon. Treasurer;John Glanvill Smith, Editor ICS UK Newsletter;Michael Kelion; Dominic Walters; Ernie Money
ICS UNITED STATESA non-profit corporation, IRS No. 02-0365444
Ambassador Paul H. Robinson, Jr.Chairman of the Board of Trustees208 S. LaSalle Street, Chicago IL 60604
TRUSTEESRichard M. Langworth; George A. Lewis;Wendy Russell Reves; Hon. Celia Sandys';The Lady Soames; Hon. Caspar W. Weinberger
Cfc^l/ieA &££/"_
WINTER 1998-99 JOURNAL OF THE CHURCHILL CENTER AND SOCIETIES
11 Personality of the CenturyHis Genius Had a Philosophical Foundation
Ron Cynewulf Robbins
13 Special RelationshipChurchill Conference XV: November 5th-8th, 1998
As Seen by Various Eyes
20 International Tour and Conference XVIThe Bath Connection, July 17th-22ndThe Churchill Conference, July 22nd-25thNigel Knocker
22 "The First Time I WSC'd..."
Our members got to talking one day about what
attracted them to Winston Churchill...
25 Glimpses: Count Xavier PuslowskiRafal Heydel-Mankoo
26 What to Do About Iraq? A DebateCharles Montgomery and Robert Shepherd
4 Despatch Box5 Datelines7 The Churchill Calendar12 Riddles, Mysteries, Enigmas28 Recipes from No. 1034 Action This Day42 Inside the Journals44 Churchill in Stamps46 About Books50 Churchilltrivia51 Wit & Wisdom51 Ampersand
29 How Churchill Saw Others: Stanley BaldwinHow could such a magnanimous man say of him,"It would have been better had he never lived."?Richard M. Langworth
32 Thanks! To All Who Helped Us in 1998
BOOKS, ARTS & CURIOSITIES:36 The new Churchill Proceedings are a cornucopia ofopinion, says Michael Richards....Raymond Seitz's Over
Here, the Editor says, ought to be requiredreading....The History Channel has gone over the top onPearl Harbor, Ron Helgemo reports....Michael Smithwrites that if you were good at crosswords in WW2 youmight end up working at Bletchley....Churchill Onlineconsiders Devolution and Hi tier.... John Plumpton'sabstracts reveal quite different scholarly and public per-ceptions....Churchill in Stamps nears the end of itsjourney....Colin Coote's The Other Club gets a latereview... Members consider good books for young peo-ple.... Britons of the Millennium: Shakespeare andChurchill are juxtaposed by Douglas J. Hall
Cover: "Portrait of Sir Winston Churchill," anoriginal oil by Frank Mason, never previously
published, reproduced by kind permission of theartist and Joseph Van Goethem of Van GoethemFine Art, where the painting is offered for sale.
Size: 48x42 in., 62x56 in. with frame. Mr.Mason kindly agreed to a generous donation from
the proceeds of this sale to The Churchill Center.For details please contact Mr. Joseph Van
Goethem, Goethem Fine Art, Regency at McLean,1800 Old Meadow Road, Suite 619, McLean,
Virginia 22102, tel. (703) 790-1430.
FINEST HOUR 101 / 3
DESPATCH BOX
Number 101 • Winter 1998-99ISSN 0882-3715www.winstonchurchill.org
Barbara E Langworth, PublisherRichard M. Langworth, EditorPO Box 385, Hopkinton,NH 03229 USATel. (603) 746-4433Fax. (603) 746-4260Email: [email protected]
Senior Editor: John G. Plumpton130 Collingsbrook Blvd.Agincourt Ont. M1W 1M7 CanadaEmail: [email protected]
Senior Editor: Ron Cynewulf Robbins198 St. Charles Street, VictoriaB.C., V8S 3M7 Canada
Features Editor: Douglas J. Hall183A Somerby Hill, Grantham,Lines. NG31 7HA England
News Editor: John Frost
Editorial Assistant: Gail Greenly
Contributors
Sir Martin Gilbert, Nigel Knocker, UK;George Richard, Australia;James W. Muller, Manfred Weidhorn,Curt Zoller, Dr. John H. Mather,Michael McMenamin, USA.
Finest Hour is made possible in partthrough the generous support of mem-bers of The Churchill Center andSocieties, and with the assistance of anendowment created by The ChurchillCenter Associates (page 2).
FINEST HOUR is published quarterly byThe Churchill Center and InternationalChurchill Societies, which offer various levelsof support in their respective currencies.Membership applications and changes ofaddress should be sent to the appropriateoffices on page 2. Permission to mail at non-profit rates in USA granted by the US PostalService, Concord, NH, permit no. 1524.Copyright 1999. All rights reserved. De-signed and edited by Dragonwyck PublishingInc. Production by New England FoilStamping Inc. Primed by Reprographics Inc.Made in U.S.A.
CONFERENCE 1998[To Prof. Muller] I want to express grati-
tude for the many things I gained from havingbeen a part of the Churchill Conference. Thestimuli offered from the lectures to the lunchconversations will not be easily forgotten. I havereceived some gracious letters that seal this expe-rience for me in a way I had not expected. It wasan honor and a pleasure, and I hope to be in-volved in the future. Thank you for the phonecall asking me to rise to a challenge that wouldenable me to learn more about WinstonChurchill, individuals who revere his leadership,and the opportunity to discover more about my-self, and what it takes to be a leader.MARY KEMPER, COLLEGE OF WILLIAM & MARY
THE THANKS ARE TO YOUI am greatly indebted for your "care and at-
tention" to the layout and impressive illustra-tions for my piece, "Unswerving Resolution,Glinting Intellect" (FH 97). The op-ed enterpriseyou outline in your editorial in the same issue isablaze with opportunities that will handsomelybenefit The Churchill Center. Bonne chance.
I would like also to say how I admired yourforthright comments about "terminological in-exactitudes" concerning the Churchill Center vs.Societies (FH96, p. 4), on necessary consolida-tion and future advantages which must be seizedby managing change. I have never understoodthe dismal philosophy that contemplates essen-tial change as metaphorical blood-letting, espe-cially when applied to institutions.
RON CYNEWULF ROBBINS, VICTORIA, B.C.
FINEST HOUR 100In the last paragraph of Robert Pilpel's ex-
tract on Theodore Roosevelt, WSC did notspeak to President Kennedy who invited him toWashington (from New York) in 1961—I did.WSC never spoke to Kennedy. It was not ill-will, just circumstance. (See my book, Long Sun-set, pages 289-90.)
ANTHONY MONTAGUE BROWNE, CBE, DFCREADING, BERKS.
SEPARATIZING MACKENZIE KINGWhat a beautiful day it was supposed to be:
French and English Canada paying tribute tothe two great leaders of the West during WorldWar II, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roo-sevelt. For this day, a memorial was built tocommemorate their meetings in Quebec City in1943 and 1944. On Rue Saint-Louis, sculpturesof FDR and Churchill faced each other with ex-pressions of interest and determination.
But the day was spoiled by ultra-nationalistCanadians and the Prime Minister of Canada,Jean Chretien, who gave a political affiliation tothe event that it should never have had.
Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada in1943-44, had hosted the Quebec Conferenceand they were offended that a statue of King wasnot displayed with Churchill and FDR.
French and English Canadians should beproud of this memorial because it wasChurchill's wit and boldness that saved Englandand helped win the war. I am not an admirer ofRoosevelt, but I think that these Quebec Citymeetings between Churchill and Roosevelt wereimportant to the war effort. A statue could bebuilt of Mackenzie King to commemorateCanada's war effort, but does it have a relation tothese meetings, did he fully participate to thediscussions? And is it so important to spoil animportant commemoration just for partisan-ship? Could an expert on WW2 or Churchillgive his opinion on this matter.
B. GAREAU, MONTREAL, QUEBEC
At the Quebec Conference, Churchill feltthat King was using the event for his own politi-cal advancement. What better photo opportu-nity than to be photographed with Churchilland FDR? But their relationship goes back fur-ther than that. King met Churchill during thelatter's tour of Canada in the early 1900s. Kingcalled Churchill "an arrogant pup" (althoughthey were born three weeks apart!). When Kingwent to England soon after their initial en-counter and was told to meet Churchill, hereplied: "Anybody but Churchill. I've met himand he's the last man in England I want to see."RAFAL HEYDEL-MANKOO, OTTAWA, ONTARIO
Editor's response: Fm no expert, but I suspectMackenzie King would be quite satisfied with thestatuary at Quebec. He had no plenary role in theQuebec conferences and complained privately thathe felt himself an "errand boy. "Nonetheless he rec-ognized the paramountcy of the two leaders, felt lit-tle insult over the arrangements and, though hehad many policy disagreements, always praisedFDR and Churchill alike.
CHURCHILL OR CONGRESS?Did you know that Herman Kahn, who
wrote the classic tome On Thermonuclear War,was at Rand Corporation, and later founded theHudson Institute, said that he would havetraded the entire United States Congress forWinston Churchill at 65?
LARRY HINDS <[email protected]>
Editor's Response: No I didn't, and herewith Ipass on Mr. Kahn's delightful quote, which remindsme of William Buckley's celebrated remark that hewould prefer to be governed by the first 535 namesin the Boston telephone book than the entireUnited States Congress (including, I presume, the
present one). $j
FINEST HOUR 101 / 4
DATELINESQUOTE OF THE SEASON
"when the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand we apply too
late the remedies which then might have effected a cure. There is nothing new in the story. It is as old as the
sibylline books. It falls into that long, dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed un-
teachability of mankind, want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of
clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong—
these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history. "
-WSC, HOUSE OF COMMONS, 12 April 1935
PARIS REMEMBERSPARIS, NOVEMBER 11TH— Following a salute,
the Union Flag and Tricolour which veilthe statue slide to the ground and arequickly folded by four cadets, two fromSandhurst, two from Saint-Cyr. To theChurchill statue that she has just un-veiled, Elizabeth II gives an emotionalsmile. On this Armistice Day 1998, HerMajesty is Parisian. And she has just un-veiled, with President Jacques Chirac, amonument by sculptor Jean Cardot, ded-icated by France to the most famousBritish Prime Minister of the century: achoice which owes nothing to chance.The Queen underlines it by saying thatChurchill "would also have wanted to re-mind me that this same date, 11th No-vember fifty-four years ago, he and Gen-eral de Gaulle walked down the Champs-Elysees together, at the end of the secondgreat conflict which tore into the veryheart of Europe."
The Queen said Churchill, her firstPremier, "who guided me with such wis-dom and humour through the earliestyears of my reign," had a sometimes diffi-cult relationship with de Gaulle, butwould have been delighted with the hon-our bestowed by France, a country he"loved all his life." Churchill is only thesecond Briton honoured with a Parisstatue, after Edward VII, in honour of hisefforts to improve Anglo-French under-standing at the beginning of the century.
Lady Soames, Sir Winston's daugh-ter, was acknowledged first since it was ather initiative that, on 22 June 1993, HerMajesty The Queen Mother inaugurateda fund for a statue of General de Gaullein London. In return, France chose
Armistice Day 1998 to erect beside theSeine, opposite a bronze statue ofClemenceau, Father of Victory in 1918, amonument to the man General de Gaullecalled the Father of Victory in 1945. Afterthe ceremony at Churchill's statue, HerMajesty placed other flowers at the statueof Clemenceau, where Churchill had laidthem on this day in 1944.
Arriving in Paris the evening before,the Queen began the day by laying awreath under the Arc de Triomphe. The
ceremony, on the 80th anniversary of theArmistice that ended World War I, carrieda special solemnity. Marne taxis, a batteryof artillery, vintage Renault carriages andde Dion Bouton trucks evoked the GreatWar. At the 11 th hour of the 11 th day ofthis 11 th month, the President of Francegreeted The Queen as she arrived at thehead of the Champs Elysees, among ranksof a cavalry regiment of the Guard. To-gether the Heads of State bowed beforethe flame of the unknown poilu, eachwearing symbols of the battles in whichthe two allies fought. Elizabeth II greeteda delegation of former soldiers, amongthem General Bourgeois, 102 years old,who voluntarily enlisted at age 17 in 1914as a defender of Verdun.
Among the guests who gathered for aluncheon at the Elysee Palace were PierreMesmer, head of the honorary committeefor the Churchill statue, Lady Soamesand Sir Winston's grandson who bears hisname. The toasts between Her Majestyand President Chirac were made with PolRoger Champagne, cuvee Sir WinstonChurchill 1988. This was a fitting cere-mony to mark the new statue of a manwho first incarnated resistance to theThird Reich by announcing, on 4 June1940: "We shall never surrender."
Later in the day, The Queen was re-ceived in Wevelgem, Belgium by King Al-bert II and Queen Paola. With the IrishPresident, Mme. McAleese, the Royalsvisited the Irish memorial of Messines.Their Majesties then travelled on to Ypreswhere, each evening, the horn sounds forthe Allied soldiers who fell.
-Antoine Michelland in Paris Match,Translated by Gail Greenly >»
FINEST HOUR 101 / 5
DDG-81 sCaptain, Cdr.
Mike Franken,sends us the
beautiful ship'screst, which
will appear incolor in our
next issue.
USS WINSTON S. CHURCHILLBATH, MAINE, JANUARY 7TH— T h e U . S .
Navy's newest guided missile destroyer(see Datelines in recent issues) will be in-volved in ceremonies this spring. Thelaunching will be at 2:50 PM SaturdayApril 17th at Bath Iron Works. LadySoames and Mrs. William Cohen, wife ofthe Secretary of Defense, will officiate.The launch is open to the public andmembers are cordially invited. Informa-tion will be mailed to all members inNew England and anyone else who re-quests it by telephoning the editor.
There may be a separate christeningceremony at Bath or Portland on FridayApril 23rd, marking the 50th anniversaryof the North Atlantic Treaty Organiza-tion, attended by various NATO heads ofstate and government, and Lady Soames.However, the Navy is not sure at thiswriting whether this event will come off.They are, however, certain that a launchwill occur on the 17th. For those too faraway to attend both, you should grasp thesure thing and plan to be in Bath April17th in plenty of time for the launchwhich, the Navy says, will definitely occurat high tide, 2:50 PM.
HOUSEKEEPING NOTESAs FH commences its second hun-
dred issues, a moderate redesign is uponus. Our title changes to script and incor-porates the "V" logo formerly used byICS/USA (and still used by ICS/UK), aregistered trademark.
"Amid These Storms" has beendropped, freeing the editor to contributemore articles. The Churchill Center Re-port has been folded into "Datelines,"since the Center is intrinsic to all we do.You will inevitably notice adjustments incoming issues as we settle into our newsuit of clothes. Thanks to David Eisen-lohr and Bev Carr for the title design
DATELINES
work, and to Chris Petersen for making itall work.
SHAKESPEARE FIRSTLONDON, JANUARY 2ND— Churchil l ran a
close second to playwright WilliamShakespeare in a BBC poll of its listenersfor Britain's greatest personality of thepast 1,000 years. Shakespeare polled11,717 votes, Churchill 10,957, andWilliam Caxton (publisher of the firstprinted book in the English language)
7,109. Charles Darwin was fourth in thepoll with 6,337. Not a bad start for theMillennium sweepstakes; proves BBC lis-teners a fairly erudite lot, too.
YOUNG MEMBERS WANTEDNot everyone who joins The
Churchill Center or Societies gives an age.Among about 1000 American memberswho do, five percent are under thirty. Amore encouraging statistic is that >»
ARMISTICE DAY: 80 YEARS ONOn Armistice Day we welcome the dedica-
tion of a statue in Paris to the only man who heldhigh office in both World Wars. Lady Soames leftpromptly at the close of the InternationalChurchill Conference in Virginia in order to at-tend this event, made possible by many generousFrenchmen, including The Churchill Center'sgood friends at Champagne Pol Roger. Ten yearsago while visiting Epernay we had the honor torecall the words that meant so much to embattledFrance in 1940:
"Francais! Pendant plus de trente ans, en tempsdepaix comme en temps de guerre, j'ai marcbe avecvous etje marche encore avec vous aujourd'hui, sur la meme route.... "
"Frenchmen! For more than thirty years in peace and war I have marched withyou. I am marching with you still along the same road. Tonight I speak to you at yourfiresides, wherever you may be, or whatever your fortunes are. I repeat the prayer uponthe Louis d'or, 'Dieu protege la France.' Here at home in England, under the fire of theBoche, we do not forget the ties and links that unite us to France....Here in London,which Herr Hitler says he will reduce to ashes...our Air Force has more than held itsown. We are waiting for the long-promised invasion. So are the fishes...
"Good night then: Sleep to gather strength for the morning. For the morning willcome. Brightly will it shine on the brave and true, kindly upon all who suffer for thecause, glorious upon the tombs of heroes. Thus will shine the dawn. Vive la France!Long live also the forward march of the common people in all the lands towards theirjust and true inheritance, and towards the broader and fuller age."
On Armistice Day 80 years on, we remember above all those who never returned,of whom Winston Churchill spoke on 14 July 1940: "This is no war of chieftains orof princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes.There are vast numbers, not only in this island but in every land, who will renderfaithful service in this war but whose names will never be known, whose deeds willnever be recorded. This is a war of the Unknown Warriors; but let all strive withoutfailing in faith or in duty, and the dark curse will be lifted from our age."
Reviewing the film "Saving Private Ryan," (FH99), Dick Feagler of the ClevelandPlain Dealer describes a scene during the invasion of Normandy in 1944: "A squad ofAmerican Rangers is sent behind enemy lines to save a man whose three brothers havebeen killed in battle. Higher headquarters wants him shipped home to spare hismother the agony of having all her sons killed in combat. So eight Rangers risk theirlives for one man. And when one of the Rangers is mortally wounded, he asks PrivateRyan to bend over so he can whisper to him. 'Earn this, he says.
"And that is the request of all the young men who have died in all the wars, fromthe Somme to Normandy to the Chosen Reservoir to Da Nang to the Gulf:
"Earn this."
FINEST HOUR 101/6
DATELINES
THECHURCHILLCALENDARLocal event organizers are welcome to send entries for this calendar; owing to our quarterly schedule, however, we need copy at least three months in advance.
19992 April: Annual General Meeting, ICS/UK, Cabinet War Rooms, London
17 April, 2:50 PM: Launch of USS Winston S. Churchill, DDG81, Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine17-22 July: Churchill Conference Mini-Tour, London to Bath, England
22-25 July: Sixteenth International Churchill Conference, Bath, England26 July-8 August: "Churchill's South Africa" Tour, Cape Town to Pretoria (sold out)
24-26 September: Theme Conference, "Churchill & Eisenhower at Gettysburg," Gettysburg, Pennsylvania18 October: Promised publication date of The Churchill War Papers III: The Ever-Widening War, 1941
200014-17 September: Seventeenth International Churchill Conference, Anchorage, Alaska
200114 February: Centenary of Winston Churchill's Entry into Parliament
Autumn: Eighteenth International Churchill Conference, Ottawa, Ontario2002
Spring: Nineteenth International Churchill Conference, London2003
Twentieth International Churchill Conference and 50th Anniversary of the Bermuda Conference, Hamilton, Bermuda
the average American member age is only48, and the average age of those joiningthrough the Internet (now our largestsource of new members) is 44. WEWANT YOUNG MEMBERS! If you arenot a member already, or know someonewho should be, remember that USA stu-dent membership costs only $20; and ifeven that is a hardship, mail or Email uswith your situation and let us see what wecan do. For example, there are plenty ofregular members who will gladly subsidizesubscriptions of young people who aregenuinely interested. Similar student dis-counts are also offered by ICS UK andCanada. Write to the national officeslisted on page 2.
ANOTHER MUSICALPASADENA, NOVEMBER 6TH— From tonightthrough December 20th the PasadenaPlayhouse (State Theatre of California)produced "Only a Kingdom," whichmarked the second appearance ofChurchill in a musical production. (Thefirst was Robert Hardy in the title role of"Winnie," some years ago in London.)"Only a Kingdom" was about the Abdica-tion of Edward VIII. The actor playingWSC, John Connolly, bore a remarkablephysical likeness and had mannerismsthat looked Churchillian. In the play,Churchill was portrayed as spokesman forthe Royal Family, specifically the QueenMother, who were all strongly againstKing Edward's abdication. [She was in-
deed, but in the real-life episodeChurchill took the King's part against themajority of Parliament. -Ed.] I do notknow if this play will ever reach the eastcoast. It was well acted; Stan Chandler asEdward VIII had a great voice; but as the-ater, I've seen better. -David Crone
LOST AT SEASYDNEY, DECEMBER 28TH— T h e Australian
sailing sloop Winston Churchill (FH 100,p. 6) sank during a raging storm in theTasman Sea during the annual Sydney-to-Hobart race, broken up by 90 mph windsand seas as high as 35 feet which arrivedalmost without warning. The race endedwith six dead and numerous yachts lost.Winston Churchill was abandoned at sea.Of her nine-man crew, seven includingskipper Richard Winning and 19-year-oldMichael Rynan (at sea for the first time)were rescued from life rafts while twocrewmates were swept off the rafts some95 miles from shore.
Winston Churchill put up a gamefight, but after hours of battering a hugewave broke to leeward, ripping loosechain plates, breaking planks and, per-haps, driving her mast through her hull.The boat rapidly filled with water. Win-ning cast off his raft as the stern was sink-ing. He turned to help a mate and whenhe looked back the mast was disappear-ing. The lashes parted and the rafts weresoon separated and out of sight of one an-other. Winning's raft capsized twice,
which required some survivors to go over-board to right it. The rafts were conicalwith a shallow pointed top; with threepeople inside all their weight is below thewater line so they are theoretically impos-sible to capsize—they capsized twice. Inthe aftermath, Richard Winning vowednever to race again.
Our thanks for this report to the Syd-ney Herald and Clarence Martin. FinestHour extends deepest sympathy to familymembers and survivors.
STATUS OF WAR PAPERS IIILONDON, JANUARY 17TH^ Sir MartinGilbert has kindly advised us that TheEver-Widening War: 1941, his third vol-ume of Churchill War Papers and the final"Companion Volume" to Biographic Vol-ume 6 of the Official Biography, is to bepublished Monday 18 October by Heine-mann. He is "on a crash schedule" tocomplete all final editorial work in Febru-ary. (Sir Martin turned the manuscript forthis book in to the English publisher,Heinemann, in December 1997.)
During 1998 Heinemann's parent,Reed Consumer Group, was bought byRandom House. The takeover was, inwords of a most reliable source, "the mostalmighty mess and the Reed records were,and are, less than adequate." Sir Martin'snews makes us cautiously optimistic, andwe congratulate him (in Churchill'swords) for "continuing to pester, nag andbite." continued >>>
FINEST HOUR 101/7
DATELINES
We also hope the new managers get real,and reconsider the ridiculous £95 percopy UK price—the identical Norton USedition lists at $75 (our price $58)—andthat they stop scrapping remainder copiesof the Official Biography (if there are anyleft) rather than distributing them toneedy schools and libraries.
Alas the previous Heinemann man-agement has put virtually all the bio-graphic and companion volumes out ofprint—including, now, Volume I of theWar Papers. Their press runs of the Vol-ume 5 Companions (1922-1939) were sosmall that the books now cost over $300on the secondhand market; even Sir Mar-tin lacks one of them. Given that record,things can only get better. Had primaryresponsibility for editing and producingthe War Papers been given to the Nortonpublishers years ago when this projectbegan, we would probably have four orfive volumes in print by now. New man-agement is good news. -RML
NOT REALLY "OFFICIAL"Incidentally, the name "Official Biog-
raphy" is somewhat misleading, as SirMartin Gilbert noted in a 1991 interviewwith Brian Lamb on C-Span's "Book-notes": "I'm called the official biographer,though to the enormous credit of theChurchill family they've never asked tosee a single word of what I was writinguntil the books were printed and boundand ready for sale to the public. Theynever asked me to delete a word or to skirtaround a particular issue. So 'official' is amisnomer if it's thought to mean a cen-sored or restricted biographer."
THE VIRTUAL CENTERBecause our website and other places
say, "The Churchill Center, Washington,D.C.," we occasionally get communica-tions from people who want to visit ourbuilding. Of all possible answers we likeDr. Mather's the best: The CC is a "virtualcenter." It certainly exists, as its many ac-tivities show, but it does not own or oc-cupy a building. This is not to say it does-n't plan to—a building fund is part of itsextended endowment.
Meanwhile, for anyone with ques-tions about membership, joining, giftmembership or other business, you haveonly to telephone our toll-free number,
WSC-1874, to find the cheery
voice of administrator Lorraine Horn,who will be pleased to answer questionsor direct to you someone who can.
"WSC": PRO AND CONA reader has suggested that we
should not use the initials "WSC" in ref-erence to Winston S. Churchill becauseusing the initials, like, say, JFK, FDR andso on, isn't British practice. We have ac-cordingly diminished our use of "WSC,"but we haven't abandoned it. True,Britons do not refer to people by theirinitials as often as Americans do (thougheveryone knows who EIIR is, and StanleyBaldwin was always "SB" to his col-leagues). But for editorial practicality (inlieu of repeating "Churchill" all too often)"WSC" cannot be bettered.
"Sir Winston" is usually too formal(and he wasn't that until 1953). "WinstonSpencer Churchill" rarely fits. "Winston"is too familiar, and we are informed thathe despised "Winnie." "WSC" has itsfunction and we don't think WSC wouldmind too much. He wore the initials onhis carpet slippers, penned them on offi-cial documents, even had a "WSC" tem-plate so he could "sign" his paintings.Also, his daughter and biographer bothuse "WSC" freely. Good enough for us!
CHURCHILL POSTERSICS Canadaand our In-ternet teamhave pro-duced superbposters, car-rying themost famousphotographof Churchill,kindly au-thorized for
"Study History!Study History!"
www.winstonchurchill.org
use by Yousuf Karsh. The posters adver-tise the Churchill Home Page, www.win-stonchurchill.org, and are designed to in-terest teachers and students in Churchilland our organizations. Hundreds have al-ready been distributed free of charge toschools in Canada, the U.S.A. and GreatBritain. Most posters are 18x24" but afew were printed in a more compact12x18" and either is presently available.For the time being, they come in a tubewith the 1995 Conference poster mark-ing "Churchill, Roosevelt and the end of
World War II."Posters are free to teachers, students,
schools and colleges. Please Email or mailus with the name and address of theschool, the teacher or department head towhom they should be addressed. (Limittwo to a customer.)
Posters are also free to current mem-bers. In U.S.A., please send $5 payable to"Churchill Center" to the editor, to coverthe cost of postage and packing. InCanada send C$5 payable to "ICS" toJohn Pumpton. In UK send £2 payableto "ICS" to Nigel Knocker. (Addresses areall on page 2.)
YOU COULD OWN ONENOVEMBER HTH— In case you have yourheart set on obtaining a 1941 Enigmamachine, one was being auctioned at:<www.breker.com/english/index.htm>.The catalog description said it was com-plete except for "Birnen," so I loggedonto the LEO German-English onlinedictionary and found out this wordmeans "pears" in English! Well, I guessthe light bulbs are sort of pear-shaped. Es-timate DM 12.000-18.000. The previousone went for DM 24.034 ($13,400 or£8,000). -Jim Kirk <[email protected]>
CAROL SUZUKISANTA MONICA, JUNE 4TH— A regular andlongtime attendee at Churchill confer-ences and tours and beloved wife of PeterSuzuki, Carol died in her sleep after a two-year battle against cancer. Born and raisedin Wheeling, West Virginia, Carol JeanBonar worked for the US State Depart-ment while pursuing her history degree atthe George Washington University. In1970 she moved to Wiesbaden, Germany,to study German. Here she met Peter,who was teaching for the University ofMaryland in the same city. They weremarried in January 1972, honeymoonedon the island of Djerba, Tunisia, andmoved to Omaha, Nebraska. Here theyremained, with Peter pursuing his teach-ing career at the University of Nebraska.
Everyone who knew Carol Suzuki re-joiced in her friendly and outgoing man-ner and her deep knowledge of theChurchill saga. Peter Suzuki's manyfriends in The Churchill Center and Soci-eties send their heartfelt sympathy. Ourgrief, though not so great as his, is deeplyfelt. -RML continued >»
F I N E S T H O U R 1 0 1 / 8
DATELINES
ERRATA,/-//100Page 8: caption under Randolph
Churchill's photograph should read 22February (not July) 1968.
Page 40: words are missing at topleft column: "This interruption of inno-cence in politics is the strangest thingimaginable. It would seem to..."
Page 46, last paragraph, it was An-thony Montague Browne who spokewith Kennedy, not Churchill.
Page 62: A flying hyphen has en-tered Alistair Cooke's correction.
Page 63: dates for Lady Churchillshould read 1968-1977, not 1968-1979.
ON THE MAPWASHINGTON, OCTOBER 27TH— National Ge-ographic maps have been an important re-source for world leaders, scientists, ex-plorers, academics, travelers, and millionsof readers of the renowned yellow-bor-dered magazine. During World War II,NG's 1944 map, "Germany and Its Ap-proaches," became Churchill's personalbriefing map. Half a century later duringthe Gulf War, National Geographic re-ceived 10,000 additional requests fromthe public for a map of the Middle East.A new map was created and included inthe February 1991 issue of National Geo-graphic. The Society donated 50,000copies of the map to U.S. military unitsthroughout the Persian Gulf.
THE THINGS THEY SAY, cont'd...LONDON, OCTOBER 30TH— W i n s t o n
Churchill has demanded a retraction of aslur in a Daily Mail gossip column, whichrepeated the old story that his grandfatheronce slept with actor/playwright IvorNovello, describing the experience as"musical." Apparently this was picked upfrom Ted Morgan's biography of SomersetMaugham, and a Novello biography byJames Harding. The Mail asserted thathistorian Andrew Roberts (EminentChurchillians) backed up the lie in his re-view of Clive Ponting's (dreadful)Churchill biography. But what Robertssaid was that this was just about the onlylie about Sir Winston which Ponting didnot include!
EU HONOURS "VISIONARIES"BRUSSELS, NOVEMBER 28TH— Sir Winston is
one of nine "visionaries from the past"
honoured by European Parliament build-ings in Brussels, Strasbourg or Luxem-bourg named for them. The other eight:Italian anti-fascist Altiero Spinelli andpostwar premier Alcide De Gasperi; post-war German Chancellor Konrad Ade-nauer; French feminist Louise Weiss;Spanish diplomat Salvador de Madariaga;Belgian statesman Paul-Henri Spaak;Czech-born Nobel peace prize winnerBertha Von Suttner; and French states-man Robert Schuman. -Daily Mail
THE OLD GAS BAGLONDON, NOVEMBER 2ND— Wins ton
Churchill considered unleashing poisongas on Germany in the last year of WorldWar II, The Guardian reports. Citing amemo discovered in Britain's publicarchives, the newspaper said Churchillcontemplated a mustard gas attack thatwould "drench the cities of Ruhr andmany other cities in Germany in such away that most of the population would berequiring medical attention."
Churchill's comments were made in
the letter to General Sir Hastings Ismay,secretary of the War Cabinet, on 6 July1944, the newspaper said. Churchill saidthe only reason that Germany had notused gas on the Allies was because "theyfear retaliation...Not certainly out ofmoral scruples or affection for us." ButChurchill added that he would not usethe gas unless it could be shown it was"life or death for us" or that "it wouldshorten the war by a year," The Guardiansaid. "In the meanwhile, I want the mat-ter studied in cold blood by sensible peo-ple and not by that particular set ofpsalm-singing uniformed defeatists whichone runs across now here now there,"Churchill continued. After some study,Ismay told Churchill the military chiefsthought a gas attack would not have a"decisive" effect on the war and Churchillaccepted their decision.
We are sure to see eventually awarped version of this report from somemodern-day psalm-singing uninformeddefeatists to illustrate WSC's ungodliness.Remember, you read the truth here. >»
AROUND AND ABOUT
Addition to your useless information file: Cover Magazine quotes Mission Pharmacal,which has determined that the average volume of Churchill's snore was 35decibels....Finest Hour's 1999 Samuel Hoare Award for the Most Unchurchillian Par-liamentary Behaviour was won outright the first week of January. Despite a close runby US Congressman Gephardt, who called for a return to collegiality while wagsplayed recordings of his speeches branding colleagues child-starvers, the Award wentto the gentleman who pie-bombed the Dutch Finance Minister, announcing the re-placement of Holland's guilder by the euro. The Minister was wiping off the first piewhen splat, he took another one.... 1998 Award went to Russia's Vladimir Zhiri-novsky, for flinging glasses of water at his critics in the Duma.... Her grandfather's His-tory of the English-Speaking Peoples is recommended by Telegraph Magazine's EmmaSoames: "If there was a fire I'd go for all the books I haven't read...I'd probably getburned as I tried to pick it up." (No, it's light.)....Churchill battled to receive duty-free cigars, the Daily Mail reveals, bucking postwar Labour duties as high as 150 per-cent....Worse, Churchill commissioned a military investigation, Operation Unthink-able, considering a preemptive war by the Anglo-Americans against the Soviet Unionstarting in July 1945, according to secret documents released by the Public RecordOffice. Look for disapproving additions to the Feet of Clay Collection soon....28Hyde Park Gate, the Churchills' London home from 1945 to 1965, was offered forrent at £10,000 a week by actor Anthony Andrews; for longer term leases he will set-tle for only £7,000.... 11 Downing Street, once occupied by WSC and Lord Ran-dolph Churchill, has been opened to visitors for the first time as part of a series of se-lected "Heritage Open Days"...."Can you describe Churchill in one sentence?" theSunday Telegraph challenged Sir Martin Gilbert, who has spent about eight millionwords on the official biography. Sir Martin replied: "He was a great humanitarianwho was himself distressed that the accidents of history gave him his greatest power ata time when everything had to be focused on defending the country from destruction,rather than achieving his goals of a fairer society." Game, set and match? M
FINEST HOUR IOI / 9
LOCAL AND NATIONAL NEWSBRITISH COLUMBIAVANCOUVER, NOVEMBER 30TH— Les l ie
Strike, outgoing President of our es-teemed colleagues, The Sir Winston S.Churchill Society of British Columbia,reports many successful 1998 events forthe Society. March 6th: an "Evening withChurchill" addressed by the Hon. JayBurns, United States Consul General, onthe new role of NATO; May 19th: blacktie dinner for Vice Chancellor of the Uni-versity of Hull (U.K.) David NevilleDilks, who spoke on "Churchill, Edenand Canada"; November 30th: black tiedinner marking Sir Winston's 124thbirthday, addressed by Dr. John Matheron "Medical Myths and Truths."
The Churchill Scholarship Founda-tion continues to receive donations underthe able Chair of Stan Winfield. The stu-dent winner of the 1998 first prize wasMr. David Gossen. Anyone in B.C. whois not a member of the Society shouldjoin. The new President is Robert W.Gourlay, QC (address on page 2).
ENGLAND: FINCHERCOLLECTION TO BLETCHLEYLONDON, DECEMBER i oTH— Finest Hour haspresented the late Robert Fincher'sChurchill stamp collection to the Interna-tional Churchill Society of the UK, fordisplay at the Churchill Rooms, BletchleyPark—the wartime codebreaking centrewhere Jack Darrah has created his marvel-lous Churchilliana display (see FH 91, p.18). Mr. Fincher presented the stamps toFH in 1989, asking us to use them wherethey would best advance interest in SirWinston. In 1992, key pages were pub-lished in Finest Hour 77.
The collection was appraised on be-half of ICS/UK by prominent philatelistCelwyn Ball, former President of ICS,Canada. Fincher's specialty was what phi-latelists call "forerunners"—stamps de-picting Churchill issued before Sir Win-ston's death, after which numerous com-memoratives appeared. His detailed studyof the 1945 Colombia "Big Three" over-prints is the standard work on this sub-ject. Members visiting Bletchley shouldnot fail to have a look. Or, obtain a copyof Finest Hour 77 from your local Societyor Churchill Stores.
WASHINGTON SOCIETYIS CC AFFILIATEWASHINGTON, SEPTEMBER 25TH— The Wash-ington Society for Churchill (WSC) be-came the first Affiliate of The ChurchillCenter by unanimous vote of the CCBoard of Governors. CC Affiliates are or-ganizations whose aims are substantiallythe same as the Center, but do not in-clude the International Churchill Soci-eties of Canada or the UK, which are in-dependent associated organizations. TheWashington Society, founded five yearsago, is one of the largest groups meetingregularly, with a broad array of activities,student programs, and support for majorChurchill conferences—both Washington'93, and Williamsburg '98, which ithosted. Speakers have included JackKemp, Caspar Weinberger, WilliamsonMurray and members of the CC Board ofGovernors. The Society has also hostedEdwina and Celia Sandys, and assisted atChurchill Center symposia held in Wash-ington in 1994 and 1996. Members inthe District of Columbia and the sur-rounding tri-state area wishing to beaware of upcoming WSC events maycontact the Society (address on page 2).
TENNESSEECOOKEVILLE, TENN., MARCH 31ST— CC
member John David Marshall gave the1998 Phi Kappa Phi Lecture at TennesseeTechnological University today: "TheChurchill Wit." Marshall is professoremeritus, Todd Library, Middle TennesseeState University in Murfreesboro.
NORTH TEXASDALLAS, SEPTEMBER 19TH— T w e n t y - t w o
members and guests met at the Dallas In-ternational Cultural and Social CircleClub for a wine and cheese social before apresentation by Nathan Hughes, whosetopic was a critique of Brian Walden's"Churchill as a Hero," shown on BBCtelevision last year. (See FH 97, p. 33.)Walden considered that Churchill was ahero because he gave the war meaningand moral greatness, and that Britain'sstand from the time of Dunkirk to PearlHarbor ensured the survival of humanrights. But Walden was critical ofChurchill's early life and considered him
an old-fashioned, blimpish reactionary.These views were refuted by a number ofthose present and an interesting discus-sion ensued. For latest on North Texas ac-tivities contact Nathan Hughes, 1117Shadyglen Circle, Richardson TX 75081-3720, tel. (972) 235-3208.
NORTHERN OHIOCLEVELAND, NOVEMBER 3RD— N o r t h e r n
Ohio members gathered at the GreenbrierSuite, where Marshall Wright spoke on"Winston Churchill and Jacky Fisher atthe Admiralty." Members were offeredsumptuous fare by the Wall Street Deli.
If you live in or near Cleveland, con-tact our Northern Ohio friends to beplaced on the mailing list. TelephoneAlexis at (216) 781-1212 or write MichaelMcMenamin, Walter & Haverfield, 1300Terminal Tower, Cleveland, OH 44113.
1999 UK ARCHIVES EXHIBITIONS• May-July 1999: "Churchill and
Horseracing" exhibit, National Museumof Horseracing, Newmarket, Suffolk. Thissmall display focuses on WinstonChurchill's ownership, late in his life, ofracehorses such as "Colonist II" and "PolRoger." It is hoped to complement mater-ial from the Churchill Archives Centrewith a number of artifacts.
• June-October 1999: "Churchill:The Evidence," a large cradle-to-grave ex-hibition at the National Library of Scot-land in Edinburgh. This display will useoriginal documents and photographsfrom the Churchill Archives Centre to tellthe story of Churchill's long life and ca-reer, but will highlight his Scottish con-nections: his long tenure as MP forDundee, his command of a Scottish bat-talion during WW1, and his acceptanceof the Freedom of Edinburgh in 1942.
• November and December 1999:"Churchill and the Boer War," a displayat the Empire and Commonwealth Mu-seum, Bristol, marking the centenary ofChurchill's celebrated capture and escape.Members visiting England at that timecould combine a visit to the Newmarketdisplay with a trip to us here at theChurchill Archives Centre. We would bedelighted to entertain you and show yousome more of our treasures.
-Allen Packwood, Churchill ArchivesCentre, Churchill College, Cambridge
CB3 0DS, tel. (01223) 336087. M>
FINEST HOUR IOI /10
JnergQualify 01 iJiie C^eninuury \7)
His vjreiums Had a Jr JiilosopJiical JKRON CYNEWULF ROBBINS
THE ancient philosophers owed theirgreatness to an iron-clad conviction thatwe must never retreat from reality.
Churchill's words and deeds in perilous timesprovide incontrovertible evidence that his ge-nius had a philosophical foundation. The follyof his recent detractors is painfully apparentwhen they choose to ignore the metaphysicalvirtues empowering his leadership. They prefer to workfrom the arid assumption that they understand him betterthan the people who joined his crusade to preserve civi-lization.
Although Hitler was the instinctive exploiter ofTeutonic mass psychology, his philosophy soon causedhim to lose touch with reality, and humanity suffered oneof the bloodiest periods in history. Churchill held ontightly to reality, while coping daily with the flux of hisideas and a visionary gift central to his effective guardian-ship of freedom. Some critics refuse to recognize thestrength of his philosophy and its overwhelming appealto those who cherish freedom.
The opinion of Isocrates the Athenian (436-338B.C., pupil of Socrates) is supremely relevant: "I hold thatman wise who can usually think out the best course totake and that man a philosopher who seeks to gain thatinsight." Churchill eminently conforms to Isocrates's de-scription of a genuine philosopher. He was dedicated touniting the Greeks against Asia—Greece resembling aDavid confronting a despotic Goliath. Boasting that heclung to reality, Isocrates was castigated (mark well!) forover-elegance of style.
Churchill was ever sensitive to the unending antag-onism between good and evil—another parallel with theAthenian truth seekers. He reacted to threatened or actualevil by leaping instantly into battle. The intransigence ofhis latter-day traducers often has roots in wilful misinter-pretation and shameful cupidity; there is in their analysesrarely a leavening of humour, a charge it would be impos-
Commencing in Finest Hour 97, "Personality of the Century" is an on-going series of op-ed pieces designed to qualify Churchill for Timemagazine's designation by the end of the century. Selected articles willbe targeted to op-ed sections of major newspapers and compiled forpresentation to the editors of Time. Ron Cynewulf Robbins, a journal-ist who covered Churchill in the House of Commons, is a FH senioreditor living in Victoria, B. C.
© KARSH, OTTAWA
sible to bring against Churchill. But if onemakes the mistake of resorting to malice, thereis indeed no room left for laughter. Accordingto classical tradition tragedy and farce shouldhave a foot in each other's camp. Unfortunatelywriters trying to topple Churchill's reputationare generally so swamped by theatricality thatthey offer nothing beyond the tragedy of their
own dreary limitations. Inaccuracy has always been paltryapparel for scribes clamouring for recognition. Too manyof the so-called new school of historians delude them-selves if they believe obfuscation of facts and lamentablelapses into fiction will prove them right, and Churchillwrong. Gross sensationalism and shock tactics cannotguarantee that today's public, or posterity itself, will be-stow credibility on unethical practitioners.
One of the most inane notions put forward is thatChurchill would have handled things better had he cometo peace (or at least not prosecuted the war) with Hitlerafter the fall of France in 1940. "Fight on!" was his policy.Had he thought otherwise, the British would have thrownhim out of office. Anyone alive in Britain during thosecrucial days can confirm that Churchill, and the vast ma-jority of his compatriots, were adamant in their refusal toturn traitor to freedom. They strove on valiantly together.
In his customary forthright fashion Churchill ex-plained what a wartime leader is compelled to face in ademocracy: "Power in a national crisis, when a man be-lieves he knows what orders should be given, is a bless-ing....The loyalties which centre upon number one areenormous....If he is no good, he must be pole-axed."
By contrast it is easy to summon up condemnatoryquotes from the oratory of Adolf Hitler. A comparativelymild example: "For the good of the German people, wemust wish for a war every fifteen or twenty years." Hitlersaid that in 1941, the year he repeated the colossal error ofSweden's Charles XII and France's Napoleon by invadingRussia.
Churchill's abiding concern for the fate of Greeceduring and after the war demonstrates how firmly loyaltyand honour were embedded in his philosophy. The plightof Britain's old ally following her invasion by Italy, andlater Germany, demanded swift action and he provided it.Postwar criticism of the sacrifices Churchill's policy en-tailed frequently clouds fundamental issues, continued >»
FINEST HOUR IOI /11
PERSONALITY OF THE CENTURY...There have been suggestions that he was motivated
chiefly by glowing romanticism. It is true that he takessecond place to no one in his admiration for Greece. Hepraised the Greeks and Jews with equal fervour by point-ing out that their "endless struggle for life stretches backto the fountain springs of human thought. No other tworaces set such a mark upon the world." He lauded the in-heritance of "...genius and wisdom" they have left us: "Notwo cities have counted more with mankind than Athensand Jerusalem. Their messages in religion, philosophy, andart have been the main guiding lights of modern faith andculture."
It is abundantly clear, however, that he was entirelyrealistic in dealing with the Italian-German attack onGreece. It must be borne in mind that the country imme-diately invoked the guarantee Neville Chamberlain hadgiven before Churchill succeeded him in the premiership.Pledging all possible assistance to the beleaguered Greeks,Churchill sent them a heartening message: "We will fighta common foe and we will share a united victory."
Britain's army, fleet and air force were spread dan-
gerously thin over huge distances when Italy struck in Oc-tober 1940. What Churchill called "The Torment ofGreece" was long and savage until his promise of eventualtriumph was fulfilled. The complications in the Mediter-ranean arena soared to horrendous heights. Undeterred,Churchill stayed the course, telling Eden how importantit was for the government to show that their word wastheir bond "lest the whole Turkey position is lost throughproof that Britain never tries to keep her guarantees." Axisconquest forced the Greek government to take refuge inLondon, and on appropriate occasions Churchill dis-played his well-known fondness for American poetry byciting the words "the glory that was Greece" from Poe's ToHelen.
Fifty and sixty years on, we alive today are theinheritors and beneficiaries of Churchill's achievement.The existence and success of The Churchill Center andSocieties, Churchill College, Cambridge, The Memorialat Fulton, the Churchill Societies of Canada and the Win-ston Churchill Memorial Trust all bear testimony to ourgratitude, and are vital to the safeguarding of a pricelessinheritance. $?
RIDDLES,
MYSTERIES,
ENIGMASSend your questions tothe Editor
S Whileston," 1'Could
| While watching the film "Young Win-' I heard a reference to his brother
JadzT Could someone give me a thumbnailsketch of him?
AJohn Strange Spencer Churchill,.1880-1947, known as Jack, a stock-
broker. Wounded in action in the BoerWar, 1899. Married Lady GwendelineBertie (1884-1941), daughter of the 7thEarl of Abingdon, 1908. Major, Queen'sOwn Oxfordshire Hussars 1914-18.Served at Dunkirk, 1914; on Sir JohnFrench's staff 1914-15; on Gen. Sir IanHamilton's staff at Gallipoli, 1915; onGeneral Birdwood's staff 1916-18. Ac-companied Winston on his lecture tour ofNorth America, 1929, with WSC's sonRandolph and Jack's son Johnny. His sur-viving son, Peregrine, is a vigorous octo-genarian. The rumor that Jack was notLord Randolph's son, begun by biogra-pher Ralph Martin, was put down when
Martin lost a slander lawsuit, but occa-sionally still surfaces. Jack and Winstonwere very close; their descendants still are.
Please identify Churchill's London res-^ idences, and indicate with an asterisk
(*) which carry the blue historical plaque .
A35A Great Cumberland Place (1874-1900, Lord and Lady Randolph's);
105 Mount Street (1900-1905, his firstbachelor flat); 12 Bolton Street (1905-09), the first house ever of his own); 33Eccleston Square* (1909-13); 41Cromwell Road (1915-?, shared with hisbrother Jack and their families); SussexSquare* (post-WWl); 12 Morpeth Man-sions (1930s); 28 Hyde Park Gate*(1945-65).
Q How many fictional works have beenwritten in which Churchill figures
prominently in the story?
AThere are several; one the most grip-ping to me is Brian Garfield's The
Paladin (NY: Simon & Schuster 1979,London: Macmillan 1980), said to be"fiction based on fact." Its protagonist isChristopher Creighton, engaged by WSCat a very young age to act as WSC's per-sonal spy. Christopher has quite a war. Hewarns of Belgium's plans to surrender intime to save the BEF at Dunkirk; blows
up secret German U-boat pens in Ireland;sabotages a friendly Dutch submarine andsends its crew to the bottom after it re-ports the Japanese battle fleet en route toPearl Harbor (because Churchill doesn'twant to warn the Americans in order toget them into the war—an old, old saw).Back in London, Creighton finishes thejob by murdering the only cypher clerkwho has read the sub's message—and sheis his girlfriend! He engineers the assassi-nation of Darlan, and tips the Nazis ofthe Dieppe taid to convince the Ameri-cans it's too soon for a cross-channel inva-sion. Finally, when the invasion is on, hesteers the Germans into reinforcing Calaisover Normandy.
Fast-forward to the 1990s: someonenamed "Crichton" surfaced a few yearsago claiming to have been just such a spy,relating much of the same stuff—was hethe person who inspired Garfield? We'vetried off and on to contact Brian Garfield,but he has eluded us. The book was re-viewed FH 48, mentioned in JanetDaniels's "Churchill as Fictional Charac-ter," FH 79; both are available fromChurchill Stores (contacts, p. 2).
Stores also sells The Boer Conspiracy,by John Woods ($10): how SherlockHolmes foiled a plot against WSC's lifeduring the 1901 Oldham election—te-lated of course by an aged Dr. Watson in1940. A great tead! $
FINEST HOUR IOI /12
SPECIAL RELATIONSHIPChurchill Conference XV: November 5th-8th, 1998
Colonial Williamsrmrg, Virginia
AS SEEN BY VARIOUS EYES
VIEW FROM THE TOP
After nine months of intense activity, six o'clock FridayNovember 5th was a click away and the 15thChurchill Conference would be up and running. As I
waited for silence from the audience gathered for the open-ing session, it seemed that the Planning Committee's hardwork was either going to come to fruition or I would beholding the bag for considerable misdirected energy, ex-pended by a lot of dedicated people. Any anxiety I did haveat that moment was quickly dispelled as the conferencegained full momentum with its theme of "The Special Rela-tionship: The End of the Beginning," played out in the stu-dent seminar, various presentations and the First ChurchillLecture delivered by Ambassador Raymond Seitz.
The Planning Committee, including James Muller,John Plumpton, Ron Helgemo and Craig and LorraineHorn, worked as a team with the added benefit of telecon-ferencing and email. This may be the first Churchill Confer-ence when the planners met together in one room only twiceduring the course of a nine-month preparation. The eventualsuccess of the conference was a remarkable testimony to theeffectiveness of modern modes of communication: the logis-tics and organization involved in the planning could nothave been achieved otherwise in the constrained time avail-able. An added factor in our favor was the marvelous cooper-ation of the staff of the Williamsburg Foundation, especiallyits Archivist, Stephen E. Haller.
The planning of a Conference requires a high level ofcooperation and coordination and a strong spirit of mutualsupport, in order to achieve a smooth operation where theregistrants can really enjoy themselves without distractions.It was a great benefit to be able to have this Conference atthe Williamsburg Lodge with its superb facilities. Theweather also cooperated, affording the opportunity to enjoythe amenities of the historic capital of Colonial Virginia.
It is probably inappropriate for me to wax lengthilyon the feeling of satisfaction we have, and of how the dele-gates enjoyed the sessions and themselves. So I will quotefrom a letter I recently received from Lady Soames:
"Now I am sitting down quietly and casting mymind back to the tremendously successful and enjoyable pro-gramme over which you presided at Williamsburg. May I,through you, thank The Churchill Center's committee for
ABOVE: Nigel Knocker and Ron Helgemo demonstrate professional18th century techniques as they step out with Colonial dames.BELOW: Curt Zoller with Lady Soames, Bond Nichols at right.
your generous hospitality. I do think you and your colleaguesdid a marvelous job in the detailed preparations, and the se-ries of seminars and presentations and functions were so wellplanned: I got the feeling that everyone was really enjoyingthemselves and there was such a nice atmosphere.
"I thought a great feature of the Conference was thepresence of students from so many different colleges anduniversities. Their input was very stimulating and I'm surethey all profited from the seminar themselves a great deal.Another highlight was being able to celebrate Richard's CBE,so well deserved personally and also a compliment and acco-lade to the whole Society. And finally Ray Seitz's thoughtfuland riveting analysis of the special relationship really sparkedoff the Churchill Lectures at a very high level. I hope youhave all had some days off, as running the Conference andattending all the events must have been a marathon." >>>
FINEST HOUR IOI /13
Typically, Lady Soames has caught the "note and tick"of the Conference; and what more can a Planning Commit-tee ask than that our Patron be enthused over its outcome. Ithink her comments are echoes of the thoughts, spoken andunspoken, of many who were there with us. Don't miss thenext one in Bath, England 22-25 July, 1999. Once again thetorch has been passed to our colleagues of the InternationalChurchill Society, United Kingdom.
John H. Mather, M.D.Chairman, Planning Committee
THE WILLIAMSBURG JOURNEY
It is nearly 6 PM when the phone rings in my car. Mywife, Lorraine, is calling me from Williamsburg, and Iam on the Washington Beltway headed to Dulles Airport
to pick up Winston Churchill's daughter and granddaughter,coming in from London. Lorraine is anxious: "Where areyou and how soon will you be to Dulles? Celia just called.They have been waiting since 3:30 and no one has yet ar-rived for them."
I panic. The traffic is terrible; a stray loony is trying tojump off the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and the entire west-side Beltway is at a crawl. "What are they doing here al-ready?" I reply. "You told me to pick them up at 6:30 PMand it's not even 6." (Maybe I'll just go back home and pre-tend this is not happening.)
At 6:20 PM I arrive at Dulles to find Celia Sandyswaiting outside the terminal and Lady Soames sitting quietlyand patiently inside. I am near suicide. But not to worry.They are not only warm, but apologetic for the inconve-nience they have created for me on a busy conference week. Ithought they would be ready to throw me to the lions! In-stead we quickly pack their bags into the trunk (boot), LadySoames climbs into the back seat with the overflow luggage,and we are off.
Three hours later we arrive in Williamsburg. It isnearly 10 PM and the lighting is dim. Street lighting likethis is carrying the 18th Century too far. I proceed to get losttrying to find a hotel which I have never visited on roadwaysbuilt 250 years ago, with precious few signs to guide me.
Think about it. I have been late picking up the onlysurviving child of the Man of the Century, as well as hisgranddaughter. They have been traveling for nearly tenhours. I have packed them into an overloaded car for an-other three hours, through Washington rush hour traffic. Iam now depositing them in a hotel that I only inadvertentlystumbled upon. On top of that, I don't know whether myguest should be addressed as Lady Soames, The LadySoames, Mrs. Soames, Lady Mary or Honorable Lady. (I'mfrom Iowa; I only work in outer space.) And there is Celia,strong and determined, who sizes you up quickly and takesno quarter. Dressed in jeans and a jacket, she is already plan-ning her next seven activities. What does one say: "Greet-ings, Mrs. Sandys, and how are all the little ones?" Well no—
ABOVE: Williamsburg Lodge's Tidewater Room was a hub of activityfor registration, displays, Churchill Stores, book signings and website
demonstration. BELOW LEFT: The 1998 Blenheim Award to DavidBoler (John Mather at right). BELOW RIGHT: Lorraine Horn, Ruth
Plumpton man Registration desk. (Craig was still out on the road.)
she is officially Mrs. Perkins. Or is she the Honorable Celia?I think about joining the nut on the bridge.
In fact, of course, we had a great time. They wereboth warm and understanding. Although tired from an ex-hausting trip, to say nothing of two-plus hours waiting forme at Dulles, they could not have been more agreeable. Theyquickly put me at ease, and despite my trouble finding thehotel, all was in readiness at Williamsburg. Lady Soames wasexactly what we have all come to expect and to know. As"Thomas Jefferson" said at the Friday night banquet, we nowsee why she is called Lady Soames." She attended every pro-gram, sat attentively through every speech and participatedwith aplomb in every event. Celia Sandys showed herChurchill fortitude and perseverance as repeatedly we im-posed upon her last-minute changes in schedule and unex-pected duties regarding presentations and acknowledgments.Strong stock, those Churchills.
On the return trip to Dulles, things went moresmoothly. They wanted to see some of the Virginia country-side and I was happy to oblige. Leaving 1-95 at Falmouth, weheaded toward Warrenton. I was reasonably sure that therewas some road or another that would take us up to Dulles,and there was. We drove through the gentle rolling country-side of "Mosby's Confederacy" as I related stories of this orthat Civil War battle or skirmish. Next came >>>
FINEST HOUR IOI /14
ABOVE: Twelve students from William & Mary, Queen Mary & West-field College, Universities of Virginia and Tennessee, Butler, George-town and American Universitities and Berry College made up ourpanel on Churchill's The Age of Revolution. BELOW LEFT: Fred Farrow(1.) and Jim Muller (r.) flanking Farrow Award winner Manfred Weid-horn. BELOW RIGHT: Laura and Chris Harmon with Lady Soames.Chris is a prolific writer for FHand other journals, and teaches atUS Marine Corps Command and Staff College, Quantico, Virginia.
Catlett and the Confederate raid that resulted in a YankeeGenerals jacket being captured for display in Richmond.Then Manassas, where Stonewall Jackson got his name. Ifonly I could just shut up and let them enjoy the quiet of thecountryside....
We reached Dulles Airport spot on schedule: a mostwonderful time with our two guests. Until we meet again...
D. Craig HornTransport-R-Us
SCHOLARLY PERSPECTIVES
Attending the 15th International Churchill Confer-ence were eleven Williamsburg Fellows of TheChurchill Center, who came together to discuss the
third volume of Churchill's History of the English-SpeakingPeoples, The Age of Revolution, with three faculty members.The Fellows, chosen for their academic promise, were under-graduates at colleges and universities in the eastern UnitedStates, ranging from freshmen to seniors; one was an ex-change student from the British Isles.
The Williamsburg Seminar, "Winston S. Churchillon the Modern Revolutions," began with a presentation bythis writer and continued the next day with a fast-paced,three-hour discussion of The Age of Revolution by the Fel-lows, with conference-goers looking on. John Ramsden, Jef-
frey Wallin, and I, who moderated the sessions, had only topose the questions about the book. The Fellows, who hadread it with great care, tackled the three modern revolutionsthat Churchill describes in his history: the Glorious Revolu-tion of 1688 in Britain, the American Revolution of 1776,and the French Revolution of 1789, as well as the revolu-tions in science and industry that helped to create the mod-ern world. They also considered the distinctive features ofChurchillian history, wondered about his omissions andidiosyncrasies, and debated the accuracy of his accounts ofsuch leading figures as Marlborough, Madison, Hamilton,and Napoleon.
The Williamsburg Fellows were conspicuous duringthe Conference through the First Churchill Lecture, whichthey attended. Each received a certificate from Celia Sandys,and they selected one of their number, Brian Sayers, as theclass marshall, who conveyed eloquent thanks to LadySoames for what they had learned from the work of her fa-ther. Costs of the seminar were partly defrayed by contribu-tions from members, who signed on to be student sponsors.
James W. MullerAcademic Chairman
STORES-EYE VIEW
With forty-seven boxes filled with Churchill Storesinventory and strategically placed throughout mydaughter Lisa's motor home (the posters were in
the shower stall), we set out from Manchester, New Hamp-shire on November 3rd at 4 PM. Our goal was a Pennsylva-nia campground five hours away where we would spend thenight before moving on to Williamsburg the next day.
From our family pool Lisa received the "organized"gene. She is the plan-aheader who wants to know, needs toknow, and knows in advance the route, the elapsed time,where we will stay, and so on, ad infinitum. So my onlywork, packing twenty-seven boxes (the other twenty werepre-packed ICS mugs), was done for the time being. I wasjust along for the ride.
A beautiful ride it was. Sunset across the Mass Pikewas spectacular and we arrived as planned at the camp-ground on the Pennsylvania border at exactly 9 PM. A coldsnap was upon us but the motor home was cozy. Since I wassharing my bunk with boxes of coffee mugs I felt buttressedon all sides.
Before the sun rose, we were up complaining aboutthe cold, but ready to go; and eight hours later, precisely asLisa had forecast, we pulled up to the Williamsburg Lodge.(A little too closely, I might add. Our first souvenir was anexchange of paint between the motor home's top edge andthe Lodge's metal canopy.) We were greeted with friendlysmiles, which waned somewhat as we explained that we had"about fifty" boxes to be taken to the Tidewater Room. In avery short time, however, they and we were ensconced in ourrespective quarters. continued >»
FINEST HOUR 101/15
FAR LEFT: Lisa, Gail and Churchill Stores. LEFT: RedcoatFred Lockwood, ICS UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, re-
views Colonial Redcoats on November 6th. BELOW: Amassive array of Churchilliana and memorabilia aided the
cause and kept bidders hopping and sales soaring.
John Mather, Ron Helgemo, Craig and LorraineHorn and others had done a great deal to ease our fear of"where-will-we-put-all-this-stuff"; the Tidewater Room wasample with a bank of tables for Stores items and plenty ofroom for the various activities that would occur there. Ourhard-working organizers provided whatever we needed withgood humor and grace.
The next day as we were unpacking and organizingour wares, we were delighted to have volunteers Michael Pin-tavalle and Caroline Hartzler come on board to lend effi-ciency to the setting-up process. We also met a wonderfulduo from Canada, Raili and Dave Garth, who were invalu-able throughout the weekend. During very chaotic times,when it seemed as though every one of the 250 attendees wasmaking a purchase, Dave and Raili were there, always cheer-ful, friendly and helpful. Without them Lisa and I wouldhave been swamped and some Conference-goers might stillbe waiting for their sales slips to be written and their mer-chandise to be bagged.
It was hectic, it was exhausting, it was great fun andnow that the memories of fatigue have faded, we're ready togo again. Thank you Lisa, Raili and Dave and all the othervolunteers. Thank you, Conference organizers. And thankyou, delegates and customers. Your overwhelming supportmeant that we didn't have to sleep with the mugs on the tripback. And yes, we drove exactly eight hours to the samecampground in Pennsylvania where we had stayed on theway down, then arrived home after exactly five hours fromthe campground to New Hampshire. That Lisa will do it
every time!Gail Greenly
Churchill Stores
TRIBUTE TO A LADY
My colleagues and I have gathered here today to ex-tend our gratitude to you, Lady Soames, but I feelbeing able to accomplish this is equally as daunt-
ing a task for me as that of your father's during the Battle ofBritain. For it is difficult to give gratitude to those who pro-vide us with a sense of vision, a sense of purpose. It is diffi-cult to give gratitude to those who altruistically give theittime, efforts, and their commitment for the betterment of ayounger generation. Moreover, it is difficult merely to givegratitude to a lady who has inspired all of us to face theworld with a sense of optimism; to stay strong in time ofdoubt; to serve when people are most deprived.
Lady Soames, your father stood at the despatch boxmany times to remind the British people, and people inevery nation, that we depend on a younger generation tobuild a greater world. During my days at Oxford, we wouldsing about building a Jerusalem among the "dark satanicmills." Your father, Lady Soames, gave us this hope.
Today, you are not only a living reminder to us. Yourdevotion to this organization and to its younger generationhave built a pillar which the Churchillian dream may be
built upon. We are, indeed, indebted toyou, and of course, words of gratitudecannot possibly capture the endless con-tributions you have made to our presencehere today. So rather than attempt to saymerely, "thank you," allow me to say"God bless you," for your time, your ded-ication, your support.
Brian SayersFor the WilliamsburgFellows >»
F I N E S T H O U R 101/16
A NEW FOCUS IN AN UN-NATIONAL WORLDFrom The Churchill Lecture
by Ambassador Raymond Seitz
Am e r i c a ' sreal birth as, a world
power started witha bang. On Sun-day, December 7th1941, just a daybefore my firstbirthday, Japaneseaircraft flew out ofthe morning sun ofthe Pacific Oceanand attacked PearlHarbor, Hawaii.For a new country,which for genera-tions had happilyignored the far-flung troubles of the world, Pearl Harbormarked a shattering of American innocence. After all, thiswas a country founded on the rejection of the Old and thevalue of the New. America was a new world, a planet awayfrom the past, where original sin was forgiven and a newEden bloomed.
But I think in those fifty years of global struggle thatbegan at Pearl Harbor and ended with the dissolution of theSoviet Union in 1991, the country did learn a lot. It learnedthat while America may be different it is not unique. Itlearned, I hope, that the world is as old as the human condi-tion, and America is much a part of it.
The American fascination with the new is nonethelessa great strength too—its search for answers, its willingness toexperiment, its ability to regenerate. Americans are excitedby what lies just over the next hill or just around the nextcorner. But getting the balance right between the old andthe new, between the superficial and the enduring, betweenthe image and the reality, is still a challenge for Americanpolitics. I remember when Bill Clinton was making his firstrun for the presidency in 1992. His theme song was fromFleetwood Mac: "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow,"and I used to mutter to myself, "But don't stop thinkingabout yesterday either."
Surely this is one purpose of The Churchill Center:not just the study of the great, jowly bulldog and his manymyth-making accomplishments, not just the rotund An-glophilia that sometimes rolls around in American discourse,not just nostalgia for the glory days of wartime collabora-tion. Churchill, I suspect, would scoff at a lot of that—andalso use it to advantage. But it seems to me that the impor-tant goal of The Center must be to take the experiences andprinciples of the past, which were so dynamically representedby this supreme figure, and heave those lessons forward into
new generations. And certainly an essential lesson for Amer-ica is an old one: you can't go it alone.
If I could put a priority item on today's Anglo-Amer-ican agenda, this would be it: a fresh focus on national secu-rity in an un-national world, and a reconciliation betweeneconomic globalism and social responsibility. And it is thistype of exercise, I think, that one finds at the heart of Anglo-American relations anyway. What I learned as Ambassador isthat today the genuine "special relationship"—the uniquepart of Anglo-American affairs—really exists outside the offi-cial body of government intercourse and well beyond theheadlines and photo ops.
You see this in all manner of public policy, from wel-fare reform to school reform, and from zero-tolerance polic-ing to pension management. You see it in every scholarlypursuit from archaeology to zoology, in every field of scienceand research, and in every social movement from environ-mentalism to feminism. You see it in financial regulation andcorporate governance and trade union interchange, and yousee it at every point along the cultural spectrum from thenovel to the symphony and from the movies to rock 'n' roll.You see it in the big statistics of trade and investment, and inthe tiny statistics of transatlantic tourism (6 million visitorseach way last year); or transatlantic flights (41,000 last year);or transatlantic telephone calls (three and a half billion min-utes of talk last year). You see it in the work of The ChurchillCenter and Societies.
Here is the thick, rich texture of the relationship at itsmost creative, its most energetic, and its most durable. Thetruly special relationship is this: the United States and theUnited Kingdom influence each other's intellectual develop-ment like no other two countries. And it is here, I suspect—where the old truth lies—that we will discover answers aboutour joint future in a changing, global world.
America and Britain share an accumulation of histor-ical concepts given body over generations—human and civilrights, liberty, the common law and the rule of law, forbear-ance and equity, the manners of property, the basic freedoms,simple dignity. We may practice these imperfectly, but all ofthem mixed up together mean that we think about things ina similar fashion, and on one issue or another we are as likelyas not to arrive at pretty much the same conclusion. This isnot always true, but it is often true, and the relationshipemerges from the natural repetition of this pattern. Onething is sure: neither nation could possibly replicate this rela-tionship with any other country.
This past spring, my wife and I visited a house inTunisia which Churchill had used as a headquarters.Not a month ago we saw, hanging on the wall in a
Scottish castle, an oil study of the great man—a study for thefamously evaporated Graham Sutherland portrait. You sim-ply can't get away from him. I often pass Churchill's statue inParliament Square where he leans into the House of Com-mons and scolds the MPs as they emerge, and in >»
FINEST HOUR IOI /17
CHURCHILL LECTURE...
another statue I saw again just yesterday in Washington,Churchill supervises the traffic on Massachusetts Avenue. Abust of Churchill was recently unveiled in the city of Quebec.
And on a little pedestrian cross-walk in London,where Old Bond Street turns into New Bond Street, there—sitting on a park bench—are the bronze figures of Churchilland Roosevelt. Churchill is sporting a jaunty bow tie andwearing his zippered shoes. Roosevelt is in a rumpled, dou-ble-breasted suit and you can see the metal leg braces stickingout beneath his trouser cuffs. They are both looking on thedecidedly paunchy side of life. Both are smiling. Churchill isleaning towards Roosevelt to catch a word, and Roosevelt hashis left arm slung across the top of the bench. They seem tobe enjoying the day and simply shooting the breeze.
They may be talking about where matters stand andhow to handle things. They may be doing in someone's repu-tation. Or maybe they're recollecting that day a long timeago when they heard about Pearl Harbor and strapped theirnations together in joint purpose. And maybe they're sayingthat, even if today the ocean is different, we're still in thesame boat.
A TIME TO SAY THANKS
The Editor with his most munificent conference gift, a handmadecigar humidor, and friends Tommy Brooks, Bond Nichols, specialfriend Barbara Langworth, Kathy Nichols and Patricia Orban.
The telephone rang October 29th: it was the BritishAmbassador, Sir Christopher Meyer. I was sure hewas calling about the upcoming Conference, but the
Ambassador had other things on his mind:/ am delighted to confirm that Her Majesty the Queen
has been pleased to confer upon you the honorary award of Com-mander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire(CBE). The award is in recognition of your many years as Presi-dent of the International Churchill Society and Churchill Centreand the contribution you have made thereby to Anglo-American
understanding. It gives me particular pleasure to be able to giveyou this news shortly before your valedictory conference as ICSPresident. I expect to receive the insignia of your CBE soon andwill then arrange a date for an investiture here in Washington.
To say I was floored would understate the case consid-erably. But writers are never long lost for words, and by No-vember 3rd I had recovered sufficiently to write the Ambas-sador, relying for copy on the greatest Commander theBritish Empire ever had:
Your Excellency: In accepting honorary American citi-zenship in 1963, Sir Winston wrote to President Kennedy: "Inthis century of storm and tragedy I contemplate with high satis-faction the constant factor of the interwoven and upwardprogress of our peoples. Our comradeship and our brotherhood inwar were unexampled. We stood together, and because of thatfact the free world now stands." He would surely approve of ourmore recent combined operations in the pursuit of liberty.
The Churchill Center and Societies strive to assure thatChurchill's concept of a "fraternal relationship" among the Eng-lish-speaking Peoples survives to be considered, debated andevolved to meet mutual requirements in the next century, as ithas in this. That my efforts in this regard should come to the at-tention of Her Majesty, and that she should see fit to confer uponme the honorary award of Commander of the British Empire, isan honour which can only cause me to redouble those efforts,and to refer again to the great man's words, when he offered"my solemn and heartfelt thanks for this unique distinction,which will always be proudly remembered by my descendants."
It remains to thank my friends on the ConferenceCommittee, and John Plumpton in particular, for the all-too-generous Power-Point presentation "Richard's Dream"on Friday night, and the beautiful hand-carved cigar boxwhich they produced to mark my thirty years' involvementin our mutual enterprise. I am grateful beyond imaginings tomy wife Barbara, my son Ian, and everyone reading thesewords, for sustaining that enterprise through their faith andcontributions, spiritual and tangible, all these many years;and many of them know there have been moments when itneeded sustaining. Writers may only perform if they have anaudience, and to paraphrase the Great Man, it was theChurchillians dwelling round the globe who had the lion'sheart; I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.
When I was a boy I was fascinated by flags and theirsymbolism. I am probably one of few who know that the Lat-vian flag represents a warrior holding a stone bandage to hisbleeding body. I still feel a thrill at the Stars and Stripes orUnion Flag or Maple Leaf, and the National Anthems we sing.In them I see all the forebears who gave us what we have. And,notwithstanding the depression I feel over the decline of moralstandards, individual responsibility and political integrity,there is still Churchill's example, recalled through this enter-prise, always ready to inspire the young people we reach andinfluence through our work. continued »>
F I N E S T H O U R IOJ / 1 8
To clear up any confusion, by "valedictory conferenceas ICS President" the Ambassador does not refer to any im-minent departures. Churchill Conference XV marked thetransition from ICS/USA to The Churchill Center. But mycolleagues have transitioned me to President of TheChurchill Center, and they themselves comprise a fine andable Board of Governors who bring divers skills in critical
fields. Meanwhile, and as long as I am required, I will remaineditor of Finest Hour.
Kind words are always hard to come by. To the manywho have written and spoken so many kind words, my deep-est thanks. I can only hope that I may continue to deservesuch confidence, and such friends.
Richard M. Langworth
Thanks for the Memories: Delegates to International Churchill Conference XVDelegates were mailed full addresses. If you've mislaidany you require, please contact the Administrator,Churchill Center, 888-WSC-1874.
Ellen & Paul Alkon, Rolling Hills Estates, Calif.Laura Bainbridge, Alexandria, Va.Paul Bainbridge, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.Dick Banks, St. Matthews, S.C.Solveig & Randy Barber, Thornhill, Ont.Eve &c Dick Barton, New Orleans, La.Ronald Berg, Norfolk, Va.Donald Best, Los Angeles, Calif.Carol & David Billingsley, Union, Ky.Diane &c David Boler, Bidborough, KentBeverly & Gary Bonine, Detroit, Mich.Susan & Dan Borinsky, Lake Ridge, Va.Nancy & Stan Bowers, Howell, Mich.Carol &C Michael Breckenridge, Shaker Hts., Oh.Margaret & Tommy Brooks, Sarasota, Fla.Lois Brown, Westland, Mich.Mayo Brown, Upperville, Va.Sally Browne, Gillingham, KentJ. B. & Susie Burtch, Richmond, Va.Nancy Canary, Lakewood, Oh.R. Paul Carlson, Park Ridge, 111.Bonnie & Robert Castrey, Huntington Beach, Calif.Al Cleghorn, Vienna, Va.Lorraine & Don Cline, Salisbury, N.H.Addie Comegys, Wenham, Mass.Carol & Jim Cotton, Ft. Bragg, Calif.Aline & Donald Cousens, Unionville, Ont.Betty Cox, Sedalia, Colo.Margaret & John Cox, Mashpee, Mass.Phil Crotty, Brighton, Mass.Mary & Fenton Cunningham, Asheville, N.C.Amy Cyr, Applegate, Mich.Lorraine & Tony Czamecki, Cortlandt Manor, N.Y.Dona & Bob Dales, Santa Fe, N.M.Shirley & George Davis, McLean, Va.Dr. Gordon Davis, Fulton, Mo.Ann & William Dean, Dunwoody, Ga.Elizabeth & Kirk Emmert, Gambier, Oh.Rosemary & David Farmer, Richmond, Va.Fred Farrow, Farmington Hills, Mich.Martha &C Tranum Fitzpatrick, Montgomery, Ala.G. J. Fletcher, Rhode-St-Genes, BelgiumMargot & Adam Foster, Washington, D.C.Katherine & Harry Freer, Osoyoos, B.C.Gilbert Frimet, Southfield, Mich.Raili & Dave Garth, Markham, Ont.Walt Gavenda, Annandale, Va.Tony Gilles, Knoxville, Tenn.June Gills, Washington, D.C.Rachel & Thomas Gladden, Washington, Pa.Alma & Tom Goldner, Clarkston, Mich.Gail Greenly, Contoocook, N.H.Julia & Hugh Hadley, Columbus, Oh.
Carol & Roger Hall, Manassas, Va.Kathleen & George Halsey, Norwalk, Calif.Martha & Fred Hardman, Spencer, W.V.Laura & Chris Harmon, Alexandria, Va.Dorothy & Bob Hartland, Chevy Chase, Md.Caroline Hartzler, Burke, Va.Steve Hayward, Arlington, Va.Duvall Hecht, Costa Mesa, Calif.Ron Helgemo, Reston, Va.Billie & J. D. Henry, Gainesville, Fla.Lorraine &C Craig Horn, Laurel, Md.Lew House, Louisville, Colo.Kathy &L Jeff Hutter, Cumberland, Md.J. Willis Johnson, San Angelo, Tex.Patsy Rankin Jopling, Augusta, Ga.Judy & Joe Just, Burr Ridge, 111.Dorothy & Quinn Kelly, Kalamazoo, Mich.Jill Kendall, Portage, Mich.Elaine Kendall, Portage, Mich.Warren Kimball, Newark, NJ.Tweet Kimball, Sedalia, Colo.Linda & Dick Knight, Jr., Nashville, Tenn.Frances & Dick Knight, Sr., Nashville, Tenn.Nigel Knocker, Melksham, Wilts.Barbara & Richard Langworth, Hopkinton, N.H.Susan & Philip Larson, La Grange Park, 111.Raymond Lavine, Half Moon Bay, Calif.Ruth Lavine, Los Angeles, Calif.Posey & Dick Leahy, Norwell, Mass.Parker H. Lee III, Lynchburg, Va.Connie & David Levering, West Lawn, Pa.Levy Armand, Norfolk, Va.Fred Lockwood, Tunbridge Wells, KentMolley & Richard Lowry, San Francisco, Calif.Jennifer Mariner, Bowie, Md.Jean & Frank Marshall, Birmingham, Ala.John David Marshall, Murfreesboro, Tenn.Richard & Susan Mastio, St. Joseph, Mo.Susan & John Mather, Bowie, Md.Alex & Stephen Mather, Bowie, Md.Maureen McCann, W Vancouver, B.C.Billie & John McFadden, Rocky River, Oh.Charles McLaughlin, San Diego, Calif.Jack Meeks, Jacksonville, Fla.John Mino, Gates Mills, Oh.Jill & Phil Mitchenall, Chevening, KentJaney & Patrick Moores, Lexington, Ky.Forbes Morse,-Costa Mesa, Calif.Myree & Ragnwald Muller, Thetford, Vt.Judith & James Muller, Anchorage, Ak.Andrew Ness, Lafayette, Calif.Dea & Marvin Nicely, Seaside, Calif.Kathy & Bond Nichols, Long Beach, Calif.Charlotte & Earl Nicholson, Dallas, Tex.Betty & Charlie Northen, Birmingham, Ala.Sandy & Bob Odell, Lempster, N.H.Patty & Ray Orban, Quincy, 111.
Madge, Malcolm & Anita Page, Augusta, Ga.Owen Palmer, Gillingham, KentGreg Peete, Richmond, Va.Guest & Robert Pilewski, Oil City, Pa.Amy & Michael Pintavalle, Exton, Pa.Linda & Chuck Plan, Greenwood Village, Colo.Ruth & John Plumpton, Toronto, Ont.Patrick Powers, Worcester, Mass.Julia & Jack Proctor, Richmond, Va.John Ramsden, LondonLouise Rankin, Anderson, S.C.Doug Reed, Pittsburgh, Pa.Hill Riddle, New Orleans, La.Richard Roberts, West Palm Beach, Fla.Betty Rogers, Bradenton, Fla.Mary Ruth Rudd, San Diego, Calif.Phyllis & Howard Ruoff, Broomall, Pa.Yvonne & Charles Salloum, Brooklyn, N.Y.The Hon. Celia Sandys, Marlborough, Wilts.Raymond G. H. Seitz, LondonSondra Shader, West Palm Beach, Fla.Carol Shankes, Louisville, Colo.Kevin Shanley, Troy, N.Y.Fred Sheehan, Weymouth, Mass.Genie Sherard, Ann Arbor, Mich.Barbara & John Sibbald, Jacksons Pt., Ont.Jean & Brian Singleton, Baslow, DerbyshireElizabeth & James Snell, Halifax, N.S.The Lady Soames, LondonBetty & Gene Soper, Walla Walla, Wash.Michael Sorensen, Bowie, Md.Lisa Southwick, Pittsfield, N.H.Christiane & John Stoffer, Bloomington, 111.Jenny & Richard Streiff, Gainesville, Fla.Les Strike, W. Vancouver, B.C.Marcie & Bob Thedinger, St. Joseph, Mo.Lucille & Jim Thomas, Allendale, N.J.Tish & Jerry Thompson, Charlotte, N.C.Kathie & John Utz, Green Lane, Pa.Laura & JeffWallin, Washington, D.C.Brad Walters, Chapel Hill, N.C.Spencer Warren, Annandale, Va.Leon J. Waszak, Los Angeles, Calif.Anne & Eric Waxman, Setauket, N.Y.Jeanette & Bernie Webber, Mississauga, Ont.Avril & Mark Weber, Tucson, Ariz.Phyllis & Manfred Weidhorn, Fair Lawn, N.J.Jerald Welch, Cheverly, Md.Damon Wells, Houston, Tex.Virginia & Norm West, Vienna, W.V.Sarah Williams, Washington, D.C.Julia & Matt Wills, Colorado Springs, Colo.Sue & John Wilston, Southampton, HampshireLind & Marshall Wright, Bretenahl, Oh.Petty & Mitt Younts, Richmond, Va.Robert Ziemer, Leawood, Kan.Gert & Curt Zoller, Mission Viejo, Calif.
FINEST HOUR 101 /19
INTERNATIONAL CHURCHILL TOUR AND CONFERENCE XVITHE BATH CONNECTION: LONDON TO BATH MINI-TOUR, 17-22 JULY 1999
CHURCHILL CONFERENCE XVI • BATH, ENGLAND, 22-25 JULY 1999Registration Packets will be in the mail. To be sure of a place, register with this information now1.
THE BATH CONNECTION (Speaker: Anthony Montague Browne, CBE, DFC)
W re have scheduled this tour to encour-age as many as possible to attend the
Bath Conference. We have planned it withfirst-time visitors in mind, and have kept itsimple to hold costs to a minimum. This isan attractive option to traveling to Bath onyour own, adding enjoyable dimensions tothe Conference itself.
•Note: the tour is not available toanyone not attending the Conference.Price includes all Conference fees includ-ing extras, but not accommodation at theFrancis Hotel, which we reserve for you.
Led by Barbara and Richard Lang-worth and Garry Clark, hosts of eight previ-ous Churchill Tours, you will be accom-modated in two fine hotels en route toBath. As usual, you may expect those spe-cial entrees, not available to the generalpublic, that make Churchill tours unique.
Friday 16th July:Flying day to London.
Saturday 17th July:Our hotel is the Strand Palace (up-
graded club class rooms) convenient tothe theatre district, and we can book playtickets for Saturday night. A welcomingreception and dinner will be held at 5PM.Retire early if jetlagged!
Sunday 18th July:Thames River cruise to Greenwich
aboard the Havengore, which had thehonour of bearing Sir Winston's coffin upthe Thames in 1 965. Lunch and a visit tothe Royal Observatory and the famousclipper ship Cutty Sark. Dinner tonight ison your own and we will be pleased to di-
rect you to inter-esting Londonrestaurants.
Monday 19th July:Early morn-
ing visit to theCabinet WarRooms, WinstonChurchill's WW2bunker; then by
motor coach to Chartwell, which will beclosed to the public for our private enjoy-ment. View the many improvements in-cluding the excellent exhibit ofChurchill's life and times and the Nemonstatue of WSC and Clementine. Dinnertonight at our hotel, the historic Bell atHurley, on a lovely stretch of the Thameswhere yachts, canoes and motor launchesperambulate.
Tuesday 20th July:By special arrangement, a visit and
lunch at RAF Uxbridge: the "the hole inthe ground" where, on 17 September1940, Churchill saw all aircraft aloft atthe height of the Battle of Britain, a mili-tary museum not open to the public. Af-ternoon in Windsor with its famous cas-tle. At dinner tonight, Anthony Mon-tague Browne will relate his experience asSir Winston's private secretary, 1952-65.
Wednesday 21 st July:To Woodstock, Blenheim Palace and
the restored Churchill graves at Bladon.Our route takes us through the Cotswolds,the traditional heart of England, with theirgolden villages and beautiful countryside.
Thursday 22nd July:Departing the Bell, we visit the "con-
noisseur's stone circles" at Avebury andthe "tourist's version" at Stonehenge, ar-riving at the 1728 Francis Hotel by teatime. Rates: single rooms £90 ($150),doubles or twins £120 ($200). From theFrancis, it is an easy walk to the confer-ence and center of Bath, a city we con-sider the most beautiful in England.
Sunday 25 th July:The Tour includes your return to
central London after the conference ends.
HOW TO REGISTER FORTHE TOUR (Including Conference)
Cost for the Bath Mini-Tour, includ-ing full Conference registrations, dinnersand optional extras (but not accommoda-tion in Bath on July 22nd-25th) is $1995per person (single occupancy surcharge$400). This includes, on July 17-21st, allhotel accommodation, transportation,gratuities, entry fees, full English break-fasts, four dinners, four lunches, expertiseof the tour hosts, local guides and speak-ers, a welcome packet, tour bulletins,reading lists and maps, and return trans-port to London after the tour ends atmid-day July 25th.
Personal checks to Specialist Tours,P.O. Box 385, Contoocook, NH 03229.A deposit of $500 is due upon registeringand is returnable in full if you cancel be-fore 31 March 1999.
Not included are: dinner July 18th,any lunches when the group is not to-gether, beverage bills (excluding wineserved at dinners), room and valet service,passport fees, any expenses we incur inmaking individual arrangements, andother items not specifically included. Air-fare to London and airport transfers arealso not included. Members find thispreferable, enabling them to make theirown arrangements from any departure lo-cation. The tour reserves the right tomake adjustments in the itinerary.
Churchill Tours always book uprapidly and sell out fast—especially whenthey are connected to a Churchill Confer-ence. We have a limit of 45, so we adviseyou to book early. To reserve places or forinformation contact the Churchill CenterNH offices. Telephone Barbara Lang-worth toll free on weekdays: (888) 454-2275, fax (603) 746-4260.F.mail: [email protected] >>>
FI\I:~T Hoik IOI /20
INTERNATIONAL CHURCHILL CONFERENCE XVISpeakers: Major General Arthur Denaro, Lord Deedes, Robert Hardy CBE,
Sir Henry Beverley, William Tyler and Officers of The Churchill Center
Jr he International Churchill Society ofthe UK invites you to attend the 16th
International Churchill Conference in theWorld Heritage site and beautiful City ofBath. The Conference Centre is the historicGuildhall in the centre of Bath, where TheRight Honourable Winston SpencerChurchill, OM, CH, MP, as he was then,lunched on the 20th offuly 1950.
Registration Packets will be posted tomembers shortly. The fees are modest, of-fering a great deal for the money.
Thursday 22 July:Afternoon: registration at the Guild-
hall, Bath, the Conference Centre. Intro-duction to the conference. Evening: May-oral reception, Roman Baths, followed bygala Dinner Dance in the Pump Room
Friday 23 July:Morning Lectures: Major General
Arthur Denaro, Commandant, RoyalMilitary Academy, Sandhurst:"Churchill's Emerging Leadership at theRoyal Military College and in the 4thHussars." Lord Deedes: "The Impact ofChurchill as a War Correspondent." Af-ternoon is free for your personal enjoy-ment of Bath. A guided tour is available.
Evening: Robert Hardy declaimsChurchill's first political speech, made on26 July 1897 at Claverton Manor, site ofthe American Museum. This event on thevery site includes a reception with drinksand canapes and a walk round the mu-seum if desired.
Saturday 24 July:Morning: Richard Langworth, Presi-
dent, Churchill Centre, describes thework and progress of the Centre to date.Sir Henry Beverley, Director General ofthe Winston Churchill Memorial Trust,describes its work as "a living Tribute toSir Winston Churchill." Churchill's Lead-ership in South Africa to be discussed bya leading Parliamentarian. Afternoon:The annual book discussion by promi-nent historians, this year's title being Ion-don to ladysmith via Pretoria.
Evening: A cruise on the Kennet andAvon Canal, including supper, on boardthe narrowboat, Pride of Bath.
Robert Hardy, CBE
Sunday 25 July:Morning: William Tyler's address:
"An Enduring Model of Leadership."James Muller introduces the 2000 AlaskaConference. Conference ends by noon.
HOW TO REGISTERFOR THE CONFERENCE ONLY(For Conference and Tour, see opposite. The
following fees may be adjusted before theregistration pack is issued.)
• Master Registration Fee for all fourdays of the Conference is £180 (US$306)per person, including all Conferenceevents and lunch on July 23rd, 24th and25th. A single day Registration Fee is alsoavailable for the second and third days at£66 (US $112.)
• Optional Extras: The following eventsare individually optional at a total cost of£97 (US$165.):
Thursday: Roman Baths Reception£7 (US$12)
Thursday Dinner-Dance at thePump Room £44 (US$75)
Friday: Bath Guided Tour £3 (US$5)Friday: Robert Hardy at American
Museum, drinks, canapes £20 (US$34)Saturday: Kennet & Avon Dinner
Cruise on Pride of Bath £23 (US$39)
• Total cost per person for Master Regis-tration including all optional extras is
only £277 (US$471). Accommodationextra (see below). Your personal cheque inUS or Canadian dollars is all that isneeded to register—no complicated cur-rency exchange. Make payable to "ICS"and airmail to ICS, PO Box 1257, Melk-sham, Wilts. SN12 6GQ, England.
• REGISTER SOON! Registrationforms will be in the mail shortly, but youhave enough here to register now. Anyquestions? Please contact the Chairman,Nigel Knocker, at the above address, or byEmail to [email protected] or bytelephone; from North America dial01144-1380-868609. In UK dial(01380) 868609.
BOOKING ACCOMMODATIONYou are responsible for your own
hotel arrangements unless you are comingwith the Tour Party. (In that case the tourwill book your Bath accommodation atthe Francis Hotel, but you will registerand check out individually.) If you arenot coming on the Tour Party, you mustmake your reservation individually at oneof several hotels which are holding roomsfor delegates. You will receive a list by re-turn when you register, or in the forth-coming registration pack.
Excellent rates are available in a widerange of hotels and guest houses. Sincethe Conference Centre is the Guildhall,delegates have the opportunity of stayingin accommodation of their choice. Hotelprices range from £208 (US$353) for adouble room at the handsome Bath Spa,to £54 (US$93) at the convenientlyplaced Parade Park. Costs at the Stakis,alongside the River Avon, are in the re-gion of £115 (US$195). Guest houses,inns and farmhouse prices start from £28(US$47) for a double room and run to atypical average price of £46 (US$78). Ac-commodation in Bath is at a premium inJuly so you are recommended to book asearly as you can. For a list of modestlypriced Bed & Breakfast accommodations,please contact the Tourist InformationCentre. From North America dial 01144-1225-477101. In UK dial (01225)477101. M>
F I N H S T H O U R IOI / 2 1
IO
7?
The First TimeI WSC'J...
Our members got to talkingone day about what attracted
them to Sir Winston Churchill.The comments proved fascinating.
O ne of the most interesting exchanges of 1998 on ourInternet Forum (Listserv Winston) was a charmingcommentary from young and youngish members on
what attracted them to Winston Churchill. Most were not oldenough to remember World War II, so the origin of their aware-ness is diverse and interesting. Since these accounts had a hugeresponse, we will gladly publish more of them, whatever the ageof the respondent, who may contact us by mail or email. -Editor
Graham Taylor, Toronto (age 18):My first taste of Churchill, five years ago, was his His-
tory of the English-Speaking Peoples. Of course I must havehad some interest in British history to begin with, but thosefour volumes did much to expand my interests, as well asmy knowledge.
Rob Curry, via Internet:My first memory of him was during 1967-68 when
my father had a year's sabbatical at Cambridge. I recall thaton a tour of Blenheim I saw young Winston's collection oftoy soldiers. For a boy of 9 or 10 there seemed to be caseafter case filled with them. After that, most of my allowancewas spent buying Britains model knights and soldiers. I stillhave a set of Guards with sentry boxes in a box.
Walt Linne, Indianapolis, Indiana:I was hooked as soon as I could read (circa 1948). My
father was killed in action during World War II at Germer-sheim-on-the-Rhine...I grew up reading WW2 history andnovels, specifically aviation, though my Dad was a Tanker. Iread Churchill's name everywhere, and have continued myfascination to this day.
Charlie Montgomery, Monroeville, Alabama:My father was a Napoleon buff, so as a boy I was too.
But in college during the early sixties, I found a copy of TheGathering Storm. I think anyone who lived the Cold Warknows how one felt upon reading TGS. I can still remember
thinking, "How can we be making the same mistakes again?Churchill has already told us to be aware, and what has to bedone." I never went back to Napoleon. WSC became myhero. Besides that, my birthday is 30 November. Whatchoice did I have?
Greg Smith, Phoenix:Born in 1937, I grew up during WW2, with my fa-
ther in the Navy. As a math major I had little exposure tohistory even though I attended a liberal arts college. I readShirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich the year it was pub-lished, which began a lifelong fascination with history, andChurchill in particular. In 1962 my mother, knowing of myinterest, gave me a first edition of Marlborough, Vol. 2 thatshe found in a Chicago book store, and I began collectingChurchill's works. I invited a lady friend over yesterdayevening to split a bottle of Pol Roger and watch the video"Young Winston." I hope the thought counted. She likedthe Champagne.
Dr. Thomas J. Brueckner, via Internet:I was a little kid, riding home on a Saturday morning
from the YMCA in our station wagon, with my big brotherand my dad driving. We heard about Churchill's death onthe car radio. I remember it was snowing that day, the firsttime I heard about Winston Churchill.
Michael Olesen, St. Paul, Minnesota:My first recollection of a historical event was also the
Churchill funeral. I was seven at the time, but I >»
FINEST HOUR IOJ /22
remember a distinct sense of sadness and gratitude, and thatsomething more than a life was ending. I remember so wellthe black and white image of the cranes along the Thamesbeing lowered as the launch Havengore carrying his bodypassed. Of all the events I have since watched, his funeral isstill the most vivid.
Sally Browne, Chatham, England:The funeral also brought my husband, Owen Palmer,
and me to Churchill, for we are restoring Havengore. [SeeFinest Hour 97 -Ed.] The physical restoration is extremelydemanding and thankfully I have often had the more inter-esting task of researching the vessel. I have immersed myselfin the archives at Churchill College, the Port of London Au-thority, the Museum of London and national newspapers. Ihad the pleasure of interviewing the warrant officer and thecommander of the Grenadier Guards, the bearer party fromthe Palace of Westminster to Waterloo Station; and listeningto the personal memories of the 1965 skipper and crew. Re-liance on secondary sources has not reduced the impact ofChurchill's passing; the sadness, loss and gratitude; the con-templation and wonder of what the future held without him.
Richard Dixon, Missoula, Montana:My first experience was when a friend gave me a copy
of My Early Life. Since then I have bought every book byChurchill that I can find (and afford). I've always been areader rather than a collector, so my collection is a mixture ofpaperbacks to some fine first editions, all of them read atleast once. I always buy used copies of My Early Life to giveto young people (and some old ones for that matter) to getthem started reading Churchill. I recently gave a speech onChurchill and gave out three copies to fellows who are 15 to20 years my senior (I'm 55). Think I may have hooked oneand hopefully CC membership is next. I need someone toraise a toddy with on November 30th.
Ron Cohen, Ottawa, Ontario:In London, aged 21, the huge media fuss drew me to
Kensington Gardens across from the cordoned-off entry toHyde Park Gate. The curious and concerned from aroundthe world (judging by dress, appearance, language) had gath-ered there as Sir Winston's life gradually ebbed. Later I mar-velled at the queues waiting to attend the lying-in-state. Onthe morning of the funeral, I stood in crowds outside West-minster Hall waiting for the catafalque to proceed up White-hall toward St. Paul's. What struck me at the time was thehuge popular outpouring of love and reverence, the symbolicacknowledgments of state and private enterprises and au-thority (including the silencing of Big Ben, the attendanceby the Royal Family, the dipping of the Thames cranes) andthe recognition by world leaders and the media. (The Econo-mist said, in roughly the following terms: "We will boast toour grandchildren that we lived when Churchill was alive.")When I returned to Canada, I joined the Book-of-the-
Month Club, purchased The Second World War, then the His-tory of the English-Speaking Peoples, read Ralph Martin's Jen-nie, and then first realized (to my great surprise) that SirWinston's writings antedated 1948. I started collectingChurchill's writings at age 26, heard about ICS, and washooked. As evidence of the dangerous psychological condi-tion which may result, I am now fifteen years into the prepa-ration of my Bibliography of the Published Writings of SirWinston Churchill.
Robert A. Gazzola (via Internet):My first and most memorable experience was also at
Hyde Park Gate prior to his death. About a dozen peoplestood across from his home for ten or fifteen minutes ofsilent homage, then were replaced by others. There was al-ways a small group present. The scene was simple and volun-tary. No one organized it. No one invited people to attend. Alone guard in civilian dress stood before his door. No onespoke and all showed a marked respect and reverence. Thismade quite an impression upon me and has never left mymemory.
Rafal Heydel-Mankoo, Ottawa, Ontario (age 23):I was 11, and my family deserves full credit for fu-
elling my interest. During the Second World War my great-uncle was A.D.C. to the President of Poland [See"Glimpses," page 25. -Ed.] Based in London, he naturallymet Churchill on many occasions. My family was also veryfriendly with Count Edward Raczynski, Polish ambassadorto London and later President of the government-in-exile.Being so close to these two men and hearing them speak sohighly of Churchill was without doubt the single greatestfactor encouraging me to delve deeper into his life.
Brandon R. Sanders, Ft. Worth, Texas (age 29):Being so much older than Rafal, I fall just under the
age 30 barrier. At age 14, I engaged upon the happy task ofreading a biography of every United States President, startingwith Reagan and working back. I kept noticing these greatmen quoting someone named Winston Churchill. Theyseemed to quote him or discuss meeting him with such rev-erence that I began to wonder who exactly this person couldbe. Pausing my reading at Kennedy, I started the RandolphChurchill/Martin Gilbert biography of Winston Churchill. Iwas amazed. This man had lived a thousand "crowdedhours." I couldn't help but think that if we consider just onegreat event from his life and nothing else, his place in historywould be secure. But here he was, year after year, doing theseamazing things. Thus at the ripe old age of 29,1 still find outnew things about him. I read and re-read all I can. "Hero" isa term thrown loosely in this day and age, but anyone whoknows his story, and has faith in high ideals can call himthat. When nature removes so great a man, people explorethe horizons for a successor. But none comes and none will,for his class is extinguished with him. continued >»
FINEST HOUR 101/23
THE FIRST TIME I WSC'D...
Andrew Rogers, Seattle (age 30):What attracted me was looking through my father's
book club edition of The Second World War, when I was in el-ementary school in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Dad was acareer Navy officer, and we had lived (and would soon liveagain) in Hawaii; so I was very interested in the attack onPearl Harbor. Expecting Churchill's book would be a con-ventional history of World War II, I was surprised to readhow little attention he paid to the details of the attack, as op-posed to his personal reaction and how well he slept thatnight. I remember wondering whether all six volumes wereas focused on the author as the Pearl Harbor episode was,and that anyone who could fill so many pages with personalrecollections and first-person narrative must have led a prettyinteresting life. Or have a pretty huge ego. Or both. I read alot more by and about Sir Winston in high school and col-lege, and in college I started to collect his books, and reallybegan to develop a more rounded picture of the Great Man.
Marc David Miller, New York City:Like several others, I was fascinated by Napoleon at
the age of 15. After learning what I could about Napoleon, Idrifted eight decades on to Churchill. I bought many booksabout and by Churchill, watched "Young Winston," "TheWilderness Years" and "The First Churchills." Twenty yearslater (January 1998) I saw the Cabinet War Rooms, and Ihope to see Chartwell and Blenheim in the future.
Joseph Sramek, Binghamton, N.Y.:I am 22 now but have been a Churchillian since the
sixth grade. My class was assigned a project: research and im-personate a famous person! I obtained a frock coat, Homburghat, cane and cigar. Doing it correctly for my teacher, whowas old enough to be of the WW2 generation, required a lotof research. I don't exactly know why I chose Churchill, butit might have something to do with family discussions. Earlyon, I was aware of Hitler, Stalin, and the valiant man who re-sisted them and (singlehandedly in my family's eyes) "saved"civilization. My grandmother, now 75, told me she criedwhen Churchill died. She gave me newspaper clippings tohelp me and I was hooked to the study of history. Churchillcontinues to remain prominent as I pursue a PhD programin European History. While many historians dismiss ordoubt the Carlylean and Macaulayite notion of "the GreatMan in history," there is one leading candidate. His majorcontribution, aside from saving the free world in 1940, is asone of the best historians of the century, for Marlborough hasconsistently been cited among the best biographical works.
Richard H. Knight, Jr., Nashville, Tenn.:My parents bought a Time-Life photo history of
World War II in the late Forties. The text was actually anabridgement of the early volumes of Churchill's war mem-
oirs. Well thumbed, this book served us well over thedecades, often flattening stamps we had soaked from covers,when it was not propping open doors. In the mid-Fifties,when Movietone Newsreels began running pieces onChurchill's birthday, I knew how old he was. Sir Winstonseemed to have a birthday about every three months. Oneday in 1958 I asked my Dad (a career Naval Person) for hisopinion on the Man of the Century. He replied, "WinstonChurchill." It made perfectly good sense to me. Dad stillholds to this view. So does Junior.
Clarence Martin, via Internet:I was born in New Orleans in 1930. My father re-
quired that every Saturday morning I copy, by hand, an arti-cle from one of the magazines to which we subscribed andexplain to him its significance. The bad part was that hepicked out the article. The good part was that if I "passed" Ireceived 15 cents. As early as 1938 the articles I was assignedwere largely about the coming of war, and Churchill. Duringmy reward sessions at the movies during the war, Pathe Newswould light up the giant screen with a bigger-than-life Win-ston Churchill, walking through the burning ruins of Lon-don. I felt he was someone I knew—not as exciting as FlashGordon, but real. I found myself following his exploits. Ineed not explain to this group where it went from there.
Melchior de Wolff, Rotterdam, Holland:It was my grandmother whom I recall as the first per-
son to speak to me about Churchill. It must have been dur-ing a visit to Amsterdam, she being about 66 years old, Ibeing about nine. I remember distinctly her voice, in Dutch:"Listen: if he [WSC] wouldn't have been there, you wouldn'thave been there." A second recollection is that several mem-bers of my family pronounced WSC's name as: "Sjorzel."
Ricardo Munro, Arvin, Calif.:I was born in 1955 just after Sir Winston retired.
Both my grandfather and father had strong memories. I re-member my grandfather telling me that Churchill had beena Liberal in Dundee, highly respected by the Scots. Althoughmy grandfather had Labour Party sympathies as a youngman, like many Scots he had great respect for Churchill'scourage and integrity. During the 1930s, after he emigratedto America, he broke with friends from the Red Clydeside,many of whom were pro-Communist. Incredible as it mayseem both left- and right-wing Americans supported theRusso-German pact in 1939. Although my father and grand-father became naturalized American citizens in 1936, theyremained staunchly pro-British. Hearing Churchill on theradio (and later Edward R. Murrow) was inspirational. Peo-ple in my family still talk about it. My father carried withhim a copy of Blood, Sweat, and Tears throughout the war.My grandfather gave me an LP of Churchill's speeches whichwe heard together many times. I still have the book, with a1941 June rose pressed in, and the record. $
FINEST HOUR IOI /24
Glimpses:CountXavier
PuslowskiRafal Heydel-Mankoo
The death a year ago of my 92-year-old great-uncle,Count Xavier Puslowski, struck a personal chordwhich transcended the void experienced by the loss
of a loved one. Having been actively involved in some ofthis century's most tumultuous events, Count Puslowki be-came in my eyes a larger-than-life figure. Against the back-drop of his sparkling grey eyes one could almost see thegreat spectacles of the past being replayed. Naturally such alife led to encounters with Winston Churchill.
The son of Count Ladislas' Puslowski and PrincessChristina Pignatelli d'Aragon, Xavier was born on 29 Sep-tember 1905 in northeast Poland, present-day Belarus. HisEnglish connections included his grandmother, IdaCavendish, first cousin of the 7th Duke of Devonshire, andgrand-daughter of Sir William Rumbold. The Puslowskisendured many tragedies in the early years of the century,not least of which were the Russian Revolution and the FirstWorld War.
On the outbreak of war in 1939 Xavier fought as anofficer in the cavalry and in an armoured battalion. Withthe defeat of Poland, he and his wife, Zofia Puslowska, fledto London, leaving behind their 600,000-acre estate. Hesoon joined the Polish government-in-exile and becameA.D.C. to Polish President Raczkiewicz. Remaining in thisposition for the duration of the war, he was able to meetChurchill on numerous occasions.
An amusing incident occurred early in the war. ThePrime Minister was walking along a corridor followed by anentourage of aides and officials, including Field MarshalAlanbrooke. Approaching an elevator, Puslowski turned toChurchill and said, "You must be getting tired, sir." ThePM turned and snapped: "Me, tired? No—they! They arethe ones that are always tired!" With that he made a broadgesture towards Alanbrooke and company.
Xavier was also friendly with General Sikorski and
Mr. Heydel-Mankoo is studying Law at the University of Ottawa andhas been an ICS Canada member since age 14; he is now 23. He isexecutive director of the National Capital Chapter of theMonarchist League of Canada.
The author with his great-uncle.
especially with the Polish Am-bassador to Great Britain,Count Edward Raczynski. Thelatter died only a few yearsago, having passed the centurymark. A marvellous monocledcharacter (he married his secre-tary when he was inhis late nineties) he held thedubious honour of being the
first person to inform Churchill that the Second World Warhad started, telephoning the First Lord at Chartwell to no-tify him that the Germans had crossed the border (seeGilbert's Volume 6). He later wrote a book about Churchill:Od Narcyza Kulikowskiego do Winstona Churchilla, pub-lished in London by the National Polish Cultural Founda-tion in 1976. I had the honour of meeting Count Raczynskiwhen I was a child. Only later would I discover this greatman's accomplishments.
Before my uncle died, he gave me a letter I cherish,from Downing Street and signed by Anthony Bevir, one ofthe PM's private secretaries. Alas it remains the only physi-cal link attesting to Count Xavier's connection to Sir Win-ston.
The last link between my uncle and Churchill israther indirect. At my Count Xavier's funeral I met hiscousin, Sir Henry Rumbold, great-grandson of The Rt.Hon. Sir Horace Rumbold, a legendary Ambassador whosebiography was written by none other than Sir MartinGilbert.
Sir Horace, who was British Ambassador to Ger-many from 1921 to 1933, stands with Churchill, DuffCooper, Harold Nicolson and a handful of others, the fewwho spoke out against Hitler before the war. References toRumbold abound in any decent Churchill biography. Ac-cording to William Manchester, "Sir John Reith at the BBCcontinued to gag Hitler's critics—Sir Horace Rumbold andHarold Nicolson were denied airtime because they were'anti-German.'" After the First World War, when my uncle'sestates were overrun by the Bolsheviks in the Soviet invasionof Poland, my uncle and his family escaped to Warsaw andwere accommodated at the British Legation by Sir Horace.
Many people regarded Sir Winston Churchill asthe last of the Victorians. I like to view my uncle as one ofthe last Edwardians.
*The correct spelling in Polish is Wladyslaw (pro-nounced Vwadiswav); since Polish names are difficult fornon-Poles to pronounce, his name is usually spelt "Ladislas"in France or England. M>
FINEST HOUR 101/ 25
Exploring Churchill s Canon
Wkat to Do ALout Iraq? A DebateWe often seek in Churchill's experience the answers to modern problems he never had to consider, but on which hemay have left some guidelines. This thoughtful exchange occurred on our Internet forum a year ago, during one ofthe periodic Iraq outbursts. We filed it for publication after the next outburst, which involved the recent Anglo-
American action over that country, the results of which are suggested on page 5 in our "quote of the season." -Ed.
THE FUTILITY OF SANCTIONSCharles Montgomery <[email protected]>
Churchill's Arms and the Covenant (London: 1938)offers many comments relative to the Iraq situa-tion—not all of them by Churchill. For instance,
on 18 May 1934, in the wake of Mussolini's invasion ofAbyssinia, Stanley Baldwin commented about sanctionsused against aggressor states: "There is no such thing as asanction that will work that does not mean war." (146)
Sanctions without war were as unsuccessful againstMussolini as they were later against Hitler: on 18 June1936 the British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, said inthe House of Commons:
Whatever view we take of the course of action whichthe League should follow [upon German aggression]there is one fact upon which we must, of course, beagreed. We have to admit that the purpose for which thesanctions were imposed has not been realized. (345).
Sanctions are an easy alternative to serious action,which appeal to politicians who base their decisions onopinion polls, or who refrain from applying more seriouscorrectives out of fear of public or press reaction. A pas-sage showing Churchill's commitment to principle, re-gardless of political or press attacks, occurs in this book inhis speech of 20 July 1936. He was speaking of course ofhow Britain should deal with an aggressive Nazi Germany.Let us admit at the outset that Saddam Hussein is noHitler; but Churchill's political philosophy is no less wor-thy of reflection in respect to the Iraq problem today:
I believe that in dangerous times, once public dangeris made known, we should be found not less worthy ofthe handling of confidential matters than were the ruggedgenerations which built up this island's greatness. Noth-ing would give me greater pleasure than to be absolutelystultified...and proved to be an alarmist. I would endurewith patience the roar of exultation that would go upwhen I was proved wrong, because it would lift a load offmy heart and the hearts of many Members. What does itmatter who gets exposed or discomfited? If the countryis safe, who cares for individual politicians, in or out ofoffice? (354)
In contrast to this attitude was Baldwin's responseto Churchill's speech on "The Locust Years" on 12 No-vember 1936, which will be familiar to readers of thenews in 1998:
My position as the leader of a great party was not al-together a comfortable one. I asked myself what chancewas there...of that feeling being so changed that the coun-try would give a mandate for rearmament? Supposing Ihad gone to the country and said that Germany wasrearming and that we must rearm, does anybody thinkthat this pacific democracy would have rallied to that cryat the moment? I cannot think of anything that wouldhave made the loss of the election from my point of viewmore certain. (385-86)
Baldwin was saying that the loss of an election was moreimportant than the safety of the nation. In all the Parlia-mentary exchanges over rearmament, that was certainlythe most damning of any speaker.
How often in reading books like Arms and theCovenant I am reminded that politicians learn little fromhistory, continuing to make decisions based on polls andself-aggrandizement; and even in some cases self-preserva-tion. One of the things that made Churchill great was thathe was committed to principle. He continued to speakout when he saw his country heading towards trouble,even in the face of terrible "ratings" or negative opinionpolls. As Alistair Cooke remarked, recalling those years: "Iimagine that most of us here would like to think that, hadwe been in Britain in say 1934-36, we should certainlyhave been on Churchill's side. We'd have said, 'Yes, it'strue about the German air force.' In fact I don't think tenpercent of us would have been with him." (Proceedings ofthe Churchill Societies, 1988-89).
George F. Will, a longtime Churchill Center mem-ber, wrote in his column on 16 February 1998:
If Saddam's arsenal is as dangerous as the [American]Administration's hot rhetoric asserts...the Administrationshould be making the case for commensurate measures,meaning measures designed to remove him. Such mea-sures could include indicting him as a war criminal, rec-ognizing a provisional government in exile and funding itwith Iraq's frozen assets, stripping his regime of its >>>
FINEST HOUR I O I / 2 6
UN seat, and most important, using ground forces to oc-cupy sparsely populated southern Iraq, which includesthe nation's largest oil field....During four decades of ColdWar, the United States, while waiting for the Sovietregime to change, largely deterred and contained thatregime, which was potentially far more dangerous thanIraq is. Granted, Saddam's Iraq can be more regionallydestabilizing than the Soviet Union was, and chemicaland biological weapons have terrorist applications that itis all too easy to see him countenancing. Still, Saddamwas deterred from using such weapons in the Gulf War byU.S. threats of massive retaliation.
SANCTIONS HAVE THEIR PLACERobert Shepherd <[email protected]>
George Will's formulations are the first I've seenwith a Churchillian cast: military containment onthe ground as well as the air, coupled with the
threat of massive retaliation should doomsday weapons beused by the enemy. (Churchill once remarked that theirony of the hydrogen bomb was that its very terror madeArmageddon less likely.) Unfortunately, bringing democra-tic nations around to Will's recommendations requiresleadership and persuasive diplomacy of the kind thatseems in short supply at present. Air strikes which accom-plish nothing permanent are a cheap way out, and will nodoubt be confirmed through government-by-focus-group.It seems that "leaders of great parties" do worry aboutbeing "exposed or discomfited"; or fear to act lest theymake the loss of elections more certain.
But what about South Africa? We did not have togo to war in that case, over apartheid, nor was there anyserious use of a threat of war—none at all! The world usedeconomic sanctions, which some would say were a weakslap on the wrist. But the fact is, those sanctions (divest-ment, etc.) represented a strong, steady, potent pressureagainst a determined regime that ultimately accepted thewill of the world.
Other cases of an international cold shoulder haveled to such successful outcomes as the political "relax-ation" of the former dictatorships in Portugal and Greece.Both those countries were eager to join the EuropeanCommunity. The "carrot and stick" in these instanceswere economic—and they worked without the use of anythreat of war whatsoever.
As for remaining indifferent to the opinion of thosewho lack our principles, we certainly honor Churchill forthat (at times). But isn't being indifferent to the opinionof others with contrary principles the whole problem wehave with Saddam Hussein to begin with? We praiseChurchill's indifference to political and press attacks onhis beliefs (amazing, isn't it—a politician who truly be-
"/ would endure with patience theroar of exultation that would go upwhen I was proved wrong, because itwould lift a load off my heart andthe hearts of many Members. Whatdoes it matter who gets exposed ordiscomfited? If the country is safe,who cares for individual politicians,in or out of office?"
—Winston S. Churchill, 20 July 1936
lieved in a cause and purpose for his country?). But theexperience of the West with Iraq involves a man with re-markable indifference to (western) military, political andpress attacks on him or his regime.
We can certainly stand in a respectful awe ofChurchill for his perseverance, even stubbornness, in theface of united opposition. Yet it is not his stubbornnessalone that merits respect, but also his values and ideals onbehalf of which that stubbornness was expended. After all,the bad guys can be stubborn, too.
REBUTTALS
Mr. Montgomery:The examples you give for cases where sanctions
worked without threat of war all involve countries(Greece, South Africa, Portugal) that had not engaged inwarlike activities. The quotes from Arms and the Covenantreferred to Mussolini after his invasion of Abyssinia. Iraq/Saddam has previously shown it/he was predisposed towar and would be stopped by nothing less. Sanctions did-n't work against Japan (which had invaded Manchuria inthe 1930s), or against Red China or the USSR duringmajor incidents in the Cold War. The most drastic sanc-tions, such as total blockade and declaration of war, hadno effect on Germany in 1914 or 1939, or for that matteron the Southern Confederacy in 1860.
Peaceful countries engaged in domestic wrongdo-ing are susceptible to sanctions. But can you show onecase where sanctions caused a country which had invadedanother, or previously engaged in warlike behavior, to giveup or withdraw from conquered land or to radicallychange its behavior? continued >»
FINEST HOUR I O I / 2 7
WHAT TO DO ABOUT IRAQJ...
Mr. Shepherd:If I follow the argument correctly, countries suscep-
tible to sanctions would have to include mostly, or at leastcharacteristically, peaceful countries with a tendency to orleaning toward democracy; or without an entrenched pre-disposition to war, or readiness to fight; or regimes en-gaged in domestic wrongdoing (but excluding the Con-federacy in I860 and Hitler's Germany in the 1930s)? Ibelieve there is a danger in being too dismissive of thepower of economics. Some of America's "founding fa-thers" wrote about the power of commerce and economicself-interest in moderating the effects of a fanatical or war-like spirit. A generation later, Alexis de Tocqueville saidsimilar things in greater depth.
As an example of the success of sanctions against awarlike country, consider the evolution of Vietnam sincethe mid-1980s, which has been more favorable, from theWestern standpoint, than during the wars fought to pro-mote that evolution from the 1940s to the mid-1970s.Vietnam reminds me of Aesop's fable of the Sun and theWind, arguing who was the stronger—which could makethe man remove his coat. The Wind blew and blew andonly made the man clutch his coat tighter. The Sun be-nignly shone his mild, mellow warmth and the man tookoff his coat. The moral was that fierceness and belliger-
ence are sometimes less effective than patience and steadi-
ness.With Vietnam, according to some commentators,
there has indeed been a radical, though gradual, change inbehavior, despite its previous predisposition to war andconquest, whether in self-interest and self-determination(as when they invaded Cambodia to stop the KillingFields of Pol Pot in the late 1970s). The Vietnameseproved not immune to the profit motive, and their desirefor prosperity ultimately outlasted their Communist fun-damentalism.
Now we are seeing similar discussions about Cuba.They didn't mind being outcasts and pariahs as long asthe Soviet Union was doling out largesse. Today it's a dif-ferent story. The Pope was allowed to come and lectureand scold, and he was still thanked profusely for just com-ing. Maybe even the Cuban rulers were acknowledging,however obliquely, the truth of the Pope's criticisms.
Editor's note: If we may now play the devil's advocate: sowould the Churchillian policy with respect to Iraq be simplya period of "benign neglect," in Kissinger's phrase? And whatif that gives them enough time to develop a missile filled withtyphus, and the means to deliver it? Reader comment is in-vited. $
Recipes from No. 10by Georgina Landemare (the Churchill Family Cook, c. 1940s-50s)
Updated and annotated by Barbara Langworth <[email protected]>
13 OCTOBER 1940...As the raid continued and seemed to grow in intensity we put on our tin
hats and went out to view the scene from the top of the Annexe buildings.
Before doing so, however, I could not resist taking Mrs. Landemare and
the others from the shelter to see their kitchen. They were upset at the
sight of the wreck, but principally on account of the general untidiness1.
—WSC, Their Finest Hour
Tournedos Montpensier (serves six)6 short paste' tartlets, pie crust dough tartlets, or purchased tarts6 beef fillets (tenderloin) about 2 1/2 lbs total1 bundle of small asparagus6 pats of green butter
Cut off the points of the asparagus and cook in salted water,strain and put in a little melted butter. Place a few of these tipsin each tartlet.
Melt 2 Tb butter and 2 Tb oil. Tie each fillet with a piece ofstring to prevent spreading. Cook for 3 minutes each side, andthen place one in each tartlet. Top with green butter.
Mrs. Lande-mare's shortpaste:1 1b plain flour(about 4 cups)12 oz butter(3 sticks)
saltsqueeze oflemon juice
Rub the butter well into the flour, mix with a very smallamount of water and lemon juice. Form into a past.e.
2- Green ButterMix 6 Tb (3 oz) softened butter with a generous Tb offinely chopped parsley, a little lemon juice and salt andpepper. For a more decorative garnish use a large star tipand pipe in a circle. |
FINEST HOUR IOI /28
Baldwin with his Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1929
How quickly a single thread leads us "In Search ofChurchill," to quote Sir Martin Gilbert's appo-site book title from a few years ago. Recently on
our Internet forum we were asked for the source ofChurchill's famous recommendation about what to dowith a certain famous corpse: "Embalm, cremate andbury," WSC replied—"take no chances." This led methrough an instructive journey that defined the vast extentof Churchill's generosity towards his colleagues—and itslimits.
I first heard the "embalm" remark cited (diplomati-cally, without identifying the corpse in question) by An-thony Montague Browne, Churchill's private secretary(1952-65) in a marvelous speech to a Churchill Societydinner at London's Savoy in 1985 (see FH 50). Stephen P.Johnson of the University of Washington tracked it toWilliam Manchester's The Last Lion, Vol. 2 "Alone"(Boston: Little Brown 1988), which stated in a footnotethat it referred to former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.Manchester cited Kay Halle's Irrepressible Churchill(Cleveland: World 1966), pages 131 and 133, and I wasoff. The result was a diverting two hours reading whatChurchill had to say about Stanley Baldwin.
Contrary to Manchester, Halle does not mentionthe "embalm" quote in her references to Baldwin, but shedoes offer a broad collection. Taken chronologically, theyshow the development of Churchill's thought on his long-time Parliamentary colleague and sometime chief.
How ChurchillSaw Others:Stanley Baldwin
What could have impelled
so magnanimous a man
to say of his former chief,
"It would have been much
better had he never lived"?
Richard M. Langwortn
Winston Churchill's collegiality, evenfriendship, toward those with whom he vio-
lently disagreed was one of his noblest characteristics.There are many evidences of it in the Official Biographyand elsewhere—and one case where it was not extended inits usual effusiveness. Churchill was not a hater and wasquick to forgive; but toward one Parliamentary colleaguehe did not in the end grant forgiveness.
Stanley Baldwin was elected to Parliament in 1908but remained a backbencher until 1921, when he rose toCabinet rank under Andrew Bonar Law. After Law's deathin 1923 he became Prime Minister, only to be thrown outby Labour in January 1924. He returned to DowningStreet following the December 1924 election and re-mained Prime Minister until Labour was returned in thespring of 1929.
Churchill, who had come up the hard way in poli-tics and almost always amid controversy, found Baldwin'ssuccess difficult to fathom. Musing later on Baldwin's rise,Churchill called him "a countrified businessman whoseemed to have reached the Cabinet by accident."1 ButChurchill happily accepted the Chancellorship of the Ex-chequer in Baldwin's government, probably offered tohim, most historians agree, on the theory that it was bet-ter to have Winston fulminating from the inside thanfrom without.
In 1931, as the Depression deepened, Baldwinbrought the Tories into coalition with Labour Prime Min-ister Ramsay MacDonald, Baldwin himself serving asLord President of the Council. Churchill shared few polit-ical positions with either; he referred to them as "twonurses fit to keep silence around a darkened room."2 >>>
FINEST HOUR IOI /29
"Baldwin took the view that Germany planned to strike east, not west;that a showdown between the Nazis and Bolsheviks wouldn't be a bad thing;
that rearmament would only frighten a peace-loving nation and, perhaps,cause it to elect somebody else. Such realpolitik is not unknown today... "
Speaking before the Royal Academy in 1932, WSC re-ferred to his fellow artist: "[Mr. Baldwin] is still quite adistinguished painter in our academy. If I were to criticisehim at all I would say his work lacked a little in colour,and was also a little lacking in the precise definition ofobjects in the foreground. He too has changed not onlyhis style but also his subjects...Making a fair criticism, Imust admit there is something very reposeful about thehalf-tones of his twilight studies."3
In the general election of 1935 the Conservativeswon a huge majority and Baldwin became Prime Ministeragain. But no Cabinet post was offered Churchill, whohad parted from Baldwin in 1931 over the question ofDominion status for India, and now began to differ onwhether Britain should rearm in the face of Hitler's Ger-many. Baldwin took the view that Germany planned tostrike east, not west; that a showdown between the Nazisand Bolsheviks wouldn't be a bad thing; that rearmamentwould only frighten a peace-loving nation and, perhaps,cause it to elect somebody else. Such realpolitik is not un-known today...
Churchill's politics were based on principle, notpolls or public mood. He seethed in frustration, thoughhis early parries turned on humor. During one debateChurchill remarked of Baldwin, "The Lord President waswiser than he is now; he used frequently to take my ad-
"4vice.By 1935 the German threat was nakedly apparent;
yet Baldwin still resisted a vigorous response. Churchill'sconsternation now gave rise to stronger words: "Occasion-ally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himselfup and hurried on as if nothing had happened".... "He isno better than an epileptic corpse." (This is perhaps theroot of attribution of the "embalm" quote by Manchester.)In 1937, when Baldwin appeared in the House of Com-mons Smoking Room, having been succeeded as Premierby Neville Chamberlain, Churchill remarked, "Well, thelight is at last out of that old turnip."5
Compared to some exchanges we've heard more re-cently in Congress or Parliament, such remarksseem tame. The difference is that a collegial at-
mosphere prevailed in Churchill's time: a friendship orkinship that survived the rancor and asperity of Parlia-mentary debate. Indeed Churchill was more collegial than
most. His tribute to Philip Snowden, the Labour Chan-cellor of the Exchequer with whom he disagreed violentlyon every conceivable subject, is a typical example. AfterChurchill's generous tribute to Snowden following the lat-ter's death,6 Lady Snowden, an active socialist and teeto-taler, wrote to Churchill: "Your generosity to a politicalopponent marks you for ever in my eyes the 'great gentle-man' I have always thought you. Had I been in troublewhich I could not control myself, there is none to whom Ishould have felt I could come with more confidence that Ishould be gently treated."
Sir Martin Gilbert, who reprinted this note in hisIn Search of Churchill, comments: "There are rather few ofwhom this can be said, even outside the political fray. Itmarks a quality which, by its very nature, would remainlittle known beyond those who were its beneficiaries. Inall the venues of my search, finding this characteristicseemed to me the most rewarding."7
Nor was Churchill's generosity strictly a peacetimephenomenon. Once World War II was on, when wemight have expected an embattled Prime Minister to de-mand uncritical support, Churchill at least publicly borehis critics with equanimity and humor. At a low point in1941 he responded to a particularly strong attack: "I donot think...any expression of scorn or severity which Ihave heard used by our critics has come anywhere nearthe language which I have been myself accustomed to use,not only orally, but in a stream of written minutes. In fact,I wonder that a great many of my colleagues are on speak-ing terms with me."8
Stanley Baldwin had remarked in the 1930s that inthe unlikely event of war, "we must save Winston to >>>
Kay Halle, Irrepressible Churchill, Cleveland and
New York: World Publishing Co. 1966, p. 181.2 Ibid., p. 117.3 Ibid., pp. 119-20.4 Ibid., p. 129.5 Ibid., pp. 133, 131, 134.° Winston Churchill, "Philip Snowden," Sunday Pictorial,
London, 12 August 1931 (Woods C170/II); reprinted in Great Con-
temporaries, London: Cassell 1937 et. seq.
' Martin Gilbert, In Search of Churchill, London: Harper-Collins 1994, pp. 221-22.
8 Halle, op. cit., p. 181
FINEST HOUR IOI /30
London hoarding posted by unknown supportersafter Munich wondered what price would have tobe paid before Churchill could join the Cabinet.The price when it was paid was high indeed.
be our fighting Prime Minister." Churchill never publiclyrepaid the compliment, if compliment it was. He heldBaldwin responsible for Britain's lack of preparednesswhen the crisis inevitably came. During the Blitz, wheninformed that a German bomb had fallen on Baldwin'shouse, Churchill quipped, "What base ingratitude."9 Yet ayear later, the fair-minded Prime Minister tried to preventthe churlish confiscation for scrap metal of the artisticiron gates around Baldwin's country home. (They werebeing requisitioned out of spite. Baldwin had become pre-eminent among the "Guilty Men" whom the fickle publicnow believed had brought on the war.) "Lay off Baldwin'sgates," Churchill said without effect: the gates were con-fiscated. 10
In 1943 they renewed personal contact, Churchillasking Baldwin's views over a speech he was thinking of giv-ing to condemn Irish neutrality. Baldwin read WSC s noteswhile Churchill sipped brandy. Finally Baldwin opined, "Iwouldn't give that speech," and Churchill didn't.11
Some of his biographers believe that Stanley Baldwinhad served to bring a nation united into war; thatwithout his caution, Britain would have split over
rearmament; and that even as one of the "Guilty Men," heprovided Britain with something it needed besides its heroChurchill: a scapegoat.12 There is much to be said againstcritics who are wise after the fact. If Stanley Baldwin hadprevented Britain from rearming soon enough to forestallHitler, he certainly had plenty of company. As Churchillonce remarked of Chamberlain, the British public had noright to condemn him for the war, having backed his poli-cies to the hilt almost up to the last days of peace.
What Churchill knew and Baldwin didn't was thata Britain so anxious for peace would "never give in" oncebattle was joined. "Going back a long time to 27 March1936," WSC recalled in 1951, "[Mr. Baldwin] said, ac-cording to the Daily Herald, 'We shall have to give up cer-
tain of our toys—one is Britannia rules theWaves'....As has been often pointed out, it isBritannia rule the Waves—an invocation,not a declaration of fact. But if the ideaRule Britannia was a toy, it was certainlyone for which many good men from timeto time have been ready to die."13
Churchill's final view of Baldwin, whodied in 1947, was atypical of his usual magnanimity. In-deed it was much more severe than the Parliamentarybarbs Kay Halle recorded—severer, in fact, than biogra-pher Martin Gilbert has noticed toward any other ofChurchill's contemporaries, including Samuel Hoare andAneurin Bevan.
"Shortly after the war," writes Gilbert, "when hewas asked to send Baldwin, then aged eighty, a birthdayletter, [Churchill] declined to do so, writing to an inter-mediary: 'I wish Stanley Baldwin no ill, but it would havebeen much better had he never lived.'
"In my long search for Churchill," Gilbert con-cluded, "few letters have struck a clearer note than thisone. Churchill was almost always magnanimous: his trib-ute to Neville Chamberlain in 1940 was among the high-points of his parliamentary genius. But he saw Baldwin asresponsible for the 'locust years' when Britain, if differ-ently led, could have easily rearmed, and kept well aheadof the German military and air expansion, which Hitlerhad begun in 1933 from a base of virtual disarmament.Churchill saw Baldwin's policies, especially with regard toRoyal Air Force expansion, as having given Hitler the im-pression, first, that Britain would not stand up to aggres-sion beyond its borders, and second, that if war cameBritain would not be in a position to act effectively evento defend its own cities."11*
In the end, that was enough to damn Stanley Bald-win perhaps as no other contemporary Briton inChurchill's eyes. $
9 Ibid., p. 131.
P. Howard, Beaverbrook, p. 120, quoted by Middlemas &Barnes, Baldwin: A Biography, NY: Macmillan 1969, p. 1021.
Middlemas & Barnes, Baldwin, op. cit. pp. 1065-66.12 Ibid., p. 1067.13 Hall, op. cit., p. 188.
!* Gilbert, op. cit., pp. 105-6.
FINEST HOUR 101 /31
Thanks!To all wno aided Tne Cnurcnill Center in 1998
So many members have helped us inso many ways during 1998 that wewould like to acknowledge them
here, all in one place, many repeatedly.Nothing would exist without you. Everyperson who spends the money of this or-ganization promises to use it to best ad-vantage in "keeping the memory greenand the record accurate." We care aboutone thing: that Winston Churchill's witand wisdom, his intense optimism, hiscontinued relevance and sound philoso-phy, be impressed as strongly upon the21st Century as it has been in this.
SUBSCRIPTIONS...are the one thing every member mustpay once a year. The basic subscriptionrate of $35 ($20 for students or libraries)has been unchanged since 1994, which isa miracle. Not only is today's $35 worthless than in 1994; but we have been ex-panding publications, our website, andour various services and activities furi-ously. Not only is the $35 you paid in1994 worth only $28.50 today; it's buy-ing roughly twice the product. In effectyou're getting what cost $35 in 1994 foronly $14.25!
That's only part of the story.One-third of our members renew at lev-els higher than $35—and they accountfor two-thirds of our subscription in-come. These memberships are Con-tributing ($75), Sustaining ($125), Sup-porting ($250), Benefactor ($500) andFellow ($ 1000). Every amount over thebasic $35 (less the value of small tokensof thanks we send the larger donors) istax-deductible by U. S. citizens. Many ofthese folks renew at their chosen levelyear after year, regardless of what theycontribute to our other appeals. We're notgoing to list all of you here because thereare over 500. You know who you arefrom the thank-yous we send you. Wejust want you to know how deeply weappreciate your steady generosity.
Over and above membershiprenewals are the Heritage Fund, Confer-ence Sponsorships, and the ChurchillCenter Endowment Fund. All of theseare strictly optional; yet they receive sup-port from hundreds of members.
THE HERITAGE FUND...is our annual drive for contributions toour operating budget. The ChurchillCenter is a non-profit organization. Thisis a good thing, because we never make aprofit! Indeed, if we relied strictly onmember subscriptions, even includingthe high level ones, we could financeonly about a fifth of our present output.
The 1998 Heritage Fund ap-peal was mailed to members in October.We are happy to report that nearly$16,000 has been received, and dona-tions are still coming in. In 1998 we didsomething we had not done before: weoffered no gifts of thanks to contributors;100% of what they sent was tax-de-ductible. The hundreds of people whoresponded are listed below. Whetheryour gift was a dollar or a thousand dol-lars, we are deeply grateful that you caredenough to support the Churchill Center
CONFERENCE ANDSTUDENT SPONSORS...are those people who send more thantheir basic Conference registration tohelp support the event. For 1998,twenty-two Conference Sponsors (eightcouples, six singles) contributed over$37,000 while twenty-nine StudentSponsors contributed $2,900—nearly$40,000 in all. It is also appropriate tothank our three corporate sponsors. TheHouse of Raeford Farms and the PhilipMorris Companies made major contribu-tions; and Champagne Pol Roger con-tributed their prize product for a recep-tion to thank our Conference Sponsors.
And how important these spon-sors were! When all the bills were paid,the 1998 Conference was in the black tothe tune of about $7,000 (all of whichwas plowed back into our operating bud-get). It is not hard to calculate where wewould be if you had not been there forus. We would be issuing a truncatedFinest Hour, among other things.
THE CHURCHILLCENTER ASSOCIATES...are those who have contributed and/orpledged from $10,000 to $200,000specifically to The Churchill Center En-
REMEMBERWINSTON CHURCHILL
Will future generations remember?Will the ideals you cherish now be sus-
tained theril Will someone articulateyour principles? Who will guide your
grandchildren, your faithand your country?
There is an answer.
With your help, The Churchill Centerwill endure as a powerful voice, sustain-
ing those beliefs Sir Winston and weheld dear. Now.
And for future generations.
for more information contact:The Churchill Center AssociatesRichard M. Langworth, President
454-2275
dowment Fund. Our Endowment isnever spent, but invested to produce in-come that protects the principal againstinflation and supplements our income.In 1998, the Endowment was responsiblefor 7.5% of our budget. Some day it willbe paying 50%.
The way it works is simple: aChurchill Center Associate pledges aminimum of $10,000 cash (tax-de-ductible) in any installments he or shewishes, over a four-year period. Muchlarger amounts may be and have beenpledged, but $10,000 is the cash mini-mum. In addition to contributions ofcash, an Associate may add a bequest or agift of property. An Associate's total com-mitment—cash and otherwise—deter-mines membership in one of three levels:Mary Soames ($10,000), ClementineChurchill ($25,000) and WinstonChurchill ($50,000+) Associates. Manyof us have reached for the higher levelsby the combination of a basic gift plus abequest. For example, many of us be-came Clementine Churchill Associatesby combining $10,000 cash over fouryears with a bequest of $15,000.
ANNUITY PLAN FOR INVEST-MENTS OF $1000 UPNot everybody can afford $10,000. Sowe are developing an Annuity Planwhich, through investments from as >>>
FINHSTHOUR IOI / 3 2
low as $1000, you may provide for TheChurchill Center while benefiting your-self and your heirs, and providing your-self with income for life while saving agreat deal of income tax.
Tony Gilles, one of our Associ-ates who is an expert on "planned giv-ing," is available to consult with you atno charge on the plan that will best meetyour personal, family and tax needs.Please call Tony for a copy of our bookleton the subject, or for answers to anyquestions you might have in this area:(423) 974-7396.
ENDOWMENT CONTRIBUTORS...We also want to mention also
the eight people to date who have given asmuch as $2,000 directly to the Endow-ment Fund, whose names also appearherewith. Actually this list used to belarger—but many have since decided tobecome Associates. All contributions tothe Endowment can be credited to a$10,000 Associates commitment anytimewithin four years. Other Endowmentcontributors also may become Associates.
We remember in early 1997when there were four Churchill Center
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F l N l ^ T I lOt'R 101 / 3 3
100-75-50-25 YEARS AGO
ACTIONTHIS DAY
Michael McMenamin
One hundred years ago:Winter 1898-99 • Age 24Polo and The River War
Early in December 1898, Churchill re-turned to India to play in the annual
Inter-Regimental Polo Tournament. Onboard ship, he worked on his manuscriptfor The River War, writing his mother on11 December: "I have however madegood progress with the book. Three vylong chapters are now almost entirelycompleted. The chapter describing the fallof Khartoum Gordon's death etc is I thinkquite the most lofty passage I have everwritten." He offered as an example onesentence about the Mahdi who had beenorphaned as a child (Martin Gilbert sug-gests that this may have been based onChurchill's own experience with his fa-ther): "Solitary trees, if they grow at all,grow strong: and a boy deprived of a fa-ther's care often develops, if he escape theperils of youth, an independence and avigour of thought which may restore inafter life the heavy loss of early days."
Churchill had strong feelingsabout Kitchener and his destruction ofthe Mahdi's Tomb, writing in The RiverWar. "By Sir H. Kitchener's orders, theTomb has been profaned and razed to theground. The corpse of the Mahdi was dugup. The head was separated from thebody, and, to quote the official explana-tion, 'preserved for future disposal'....Ifthe people of the Sudan cared no more forthe Mahdi, then it was an act of vandal-ism and folly to destroy the only finebuilding which might attract the travellerand interest the historian."
On 9 February 1899, one weekbefore the Polo Tournament, Churchillfell down some stairs, spraining both an-kles and dislocating his right shoulder. Itwas this dislocation, rather less prosaicthan grabbing at a quayside ring on arriv-ing in India, as stated in My Early Life,which long caused him discomfort. [SeeBarbara Langworth, "Churchill andPolo," FH'72. -Ed.] He wrote his mother:"I fear I shall not be able to play in theTournament as my arm is weak and stiff& may come out again at any moment. Itis one of the most unfortunate things thatI have ever had happen to me and is a bit-ter disappointment." In the event,Churchill played in the Tournament, withhis right arm strapped to his side. He ledhis team to victory in the finals where,bound arm and all, he scored three of histeam's four goals.
Churchill left India in lateMarch, never to return. Christine Lewis,a young American girl he befriended onthe voyage from India to Egypt, describesChurchill's typically late arrival: "Thegangplank was about to be raised whendown the wharf ran a freckled, red-hairedyoung man in a rumpled suit carrying animmense tin cake box.... We found him amost amusing fellow traveler—full of fun,with a delightful sense of humor....Everyday he sat beside us on the deck, workingintensely on his book. He paid no atten-tion to the gay chatter of young people ashe wrote and rewrote in that peculiarsmall hand....Perhaps his one fault at thistime was being a little too sure abouteverything, which the other young peopledid not always appreciate." [See theChurchill-Lewis Correspondence, availablefrom Churchill Stores. -Ed.]
Seventy-five years ago:Winter 1923-24* Age 49Fighting for a Comeback (1)
On 6 December 1923, Churchill lostthe West Leicester by-election, his
last campaign as a Liberal free trader, theissue over which he left the Tories in1904. Churchill pulled no punches in thecampaign, belying the claim of his ene-mies that he was currying favor with theConservatives in order to foster a returnto their ranks by attacking personally theTory Leader Stanley Baldwin. In a speechgiven 26 November 1923, he comparedBaldwin to "the March Hare and the MadHatter" and ridiculed Baldwin's self-char-acterization as "a plain, blunt man," call-ing him "as rich as any man in Leicester."When not engaging in personalities,Churchill enhanced his reputation as themost effective political defender of freetrade in his time: "What is the use of pre-tending that this greatest of all exportingnations has got to lie down pusillani-mously behind a network of tariffs, cow-ering in our own markets, living by tak-ing in each other's washing, feeding like adog on its own tail? [Laughter.]"
Like many before and since,Baldwin overestimated the electoral ap-peal of protectionism. The Conservativesreturned to office with a reduced margin,having lost 88 seats. But Churchill's di-vided Liberal Party was busy arranging itsown demise. Former Prime Minister Her-bert Asquith made clear on 12 Decemberthat his wing—the larger wing—of theLiberals would support Labour over theConservatives, ensuring Britain its firstSocialist government. Churchill signaledhis disagreement in a letter to The Timeson 18 January 1924: "The enthronementin office of a Socialist Government will bea serious national misfortune such as hasusually befallen great States only on themorrow of defeat in war." On 21 January1924, the Liberals voted with Labour tooust Baldwin, and Ramsay MacDonaldformed his government. That same daymarked the beginning of Churchill'seventual return to the Conservative Partyof his youth.
In March Churchill campaignedat a by-election in Westminster as "an In-dependent Anti-Socialist Candidate," >»
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100-75-50-25 YEARS AGO
claiming that "I have been fighting So-cialist candidates in every election I havefought since 1908." In a speech on 11March 1924, Churchill's prescient attackon socialism highlighted its inherent con-tradictions and foreshadowed its intellec-tual collapse 65 years later:
"It is an absurd delusion that theindustries of this country can be con-ducted through committees of electedpoliticians. One-tenth of the dose of So-cialism which ruined Russia would killGreat Britain stone dead....[M]en withpedant and pedagogic minds and doctri-naire views, men with a desire to rule outexactly what every one of their fellow-citi-zens was to do and was not to do fromdawn to dusk, from one year's end to an-other, in pursuance of their goal, have inthe history of the world brought untoldmiseries upon millions. [Cheers.]"
Churchill described in Thoughtsand Adventures the Socialists who op-posed him in that election: "Of coursethere are the rowdy meetings...shoutinginterruptions...and every kind of nastyquestion carefully thought out and sentup to the Chair by vehement-lookingpasty youths or young short-hairedwomen of bulldog appearance." In vividcontrast, Churchill writes that he received"...all kinds of support. Dukes, jockeys,prize-fighters, courtiers, actors and busi-ness men all developed a keen partisan-ship. The chorus girls of Daly's Theatresat up all night addressing the envelopesand despatching the election address. Itwas most cheering and refreshing to seeso many young and beautiful women ofevery rank in life, ardently working in apurely disinterested cause, not uncon-nected with myself."
Fifty years ago:Winter 1948-49 • Age 74Fighting for a Comeback (2)
Twenty-five years later saw Churchillas Leader of the Opposition making
the same attacks on Socialists, speakingagainst a bill to nationalize the iron andsteel industries: "I say this is not a Bill, itis a plot; not a plan to increase produc-tion, but an operation in restraint oftrade. It is not a plan to help our patientstruggling people, but a burglar's jemmy
to crack the capitalist crib. [Laughter.]"The Rt. Hon. Gentleman
laughs, but he lives on the exertions of 80percent of industries still free and all hishopes are founded on their activities.Those free industries constitute practi-cally the whole of our export trade...butstill they are carrying the whole burden ofour life and represent our only solventeconomic earning power."
While complimenting Labour'sstand against the Soviet Union's blockadeof Berlin, he was critical of its refusal torecognize the new state of Israel, forwhich he blamed the anti-semitism ofForeign Secretary Ernest Bevin:
"Whether the Rt. Hon. Gentle-man likes it or not, and whether we like itor not, the coming into being of a JewishState in Palestine is an event in world his-tory to be viewed in the perspective, notof a generation or a century, but in theperspective of a thousand, two thousandor even three thousand years....I say thatthe Conservative Party has done a greattask over twenty-five years, with Parlia-ments which had a Conservative major-ity, in trying to build a Jewish NationalHome in Palestine, and now that it hascome into being, it is England that refusesto recognize it, and, by our actions, wefind ourselves regarded as its most bitterenemies. All this is due, not only to men-tal inertia or lack of grip on the part ofthe Ministers concerned, but also, I amafraid, to the very strong and direct streakof bias and prejudice on the part of theForeign Secretary. I do not feel any greatconfidence that he has not got a prejudiceagainst the Jews in Palestine."
In the same address, respondingto the criticisms that Palestine could notaccommodate the explosive growth of theArab and Jewish populations—more thandoubling in the previous 25 years—Churchill conveyed his optimistic visionof people as a resource and an asset ratherthan a liability: "The idea that only a lim-ited number of people can live in a coun-try is a profound illusion; it all dependson their co-operative and inventivepower. There are more people today liv-ing twenty storeys above the ground in
i New York than were living on the groundin New York 100 years ago. There is nolimit to the ingenuity of man if it is prop-erly and vigorously applied under condi-tions of peace and justice."
Twenty-five years ago:Winter 1973-74A Portrait by Giugiaro/ Hnest Hour would publish only two is-
JL sues in 1974, for it was having editortroubles. Dalton Newfield, declaring that"no working man could hold successfullyboth the offices of President and editor,"had recruited Stephen King (not thatStephen King) as editor, but King hadbeen unable to complete an issue. WearilyDal gathered up the makings of issue#30, sixteen pages long, and produced an-other edition full of interest.
The coverwas a favorite of Dal,who wrote: "There isSir Winston! There isthe rotundity of hislater life and thehumor of which he isso justifiably famousdominating the por-trait—yet there is
also the wide brow of his exceeding intel-ligence, the furrows of his concern for theworld and even that shrewdness that en-abled him to effect his dreams despite op-position from every quarter. Surely theartist must have steeped himself in theChurchill Story ere he drew the first lineof this exceptional portrait?
"Not so! Giugiaro writes, 'Atthat time I liked to make pictures of thatkind as a hobby, taking the inspiration formost of them from the most famous per-sonalities in the political, movie and showworld.' But Sr. Giugiaro has claims to su-premacy in his field, which is the designof automobiles. He has been with Fiatand Bertone, and now is a principal at ItalDesign. A few of his many credits includeAlfa Romeo's Sprint Speciale, Alfasud,Canguro and Giulia GT; Iso's Rivolta,Fidia and Grifo; Ferrari's 250GT; Fiat's850 Spyder; de Tomaso's Mangusta;Maserati's Ghibli; Porsche's Tapiro andLotus's Esprit." Coincidentally, Giugiarohad come to the notice of America's auto-motive press when Automobile Quarterlypublished a feature on his designs (Spring1971, Vol. 9, No. 3)—the same issuewhere Dai's successor as editor of FinestHour published his first automotive arti-cle, "The Glorious Madness of Kaiser-Frazer".... Ms
FINEST HOUR IOI /35
ZtooKS, ARTS
& CURIOSITIES
Exploring the "Churchill Myth"Michael Richards
Churchill Proceedings1994-1995, edited byRichard M. Langworth.Published by TheChurchill Center,Washington, D.C. 144pages, softbound, illus-trated, $10 postpaidfrom Churchill Stores,
PO Box 96, Contoocook NH 03229 USA
Winston Churchill, leadingTime magazine's poll for "Per-son of the Century," is the
most revised and reinterpreted figure in20th Century history. The "Churchillmyth"—which Sir Winston forthrightlypromoted through his books and speechesas "my case"—has lately been broadlychallenged, especially since the release ofonce-secret wartime documents inBritain, America, Russia and Germany.
During 1994-95, Churchill wasaccused of wishing to sterilize mental in-competents, backing appeasement in the1930s, promoting the use of poison gasin World War II, destroying the Empire,engineering the Pearl Harbor attack andthe 1929 Wall Street crash, spying on theSoviet Union, and harboring "a lifelongantipathy toward coloured people."
As Churchill once said in an-other context, "there is surely some happyground between these scarecrow ex-tremes." And there is no need for irre-sponsible critics, when we have so manyresponsible ones—over thirty of whomcontribute to Churchill Proceedings 1994-1995, published by The Churchill Cen-ter in Washington.
The book comprises speeches orpapers at 1994-95 Churchill Centerevents by speakers including William F.Buckley, Jr.; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.;
William Manchester; William Rusher;Roy Jenkins; a dozen scholars; and collegestudents who delivered papers at Chur-chill Center conferences or seminars.
A non-profit educational orga-nization, The Churchill Center is notaverse to negative viewpoints. "On bal-ance, naturally, our view of Churchill ispositive," says the editor, "but we try notto paper over Churchill's faults. His bestfriend, Lord Birkenhead, once remarked,'When Winston is right he is superb.When he's wrong, well, oh my God...'"
Among the debates in this vol-ume is one between Larry Arnn of theClaremont Institute and Professor WarrenKimball of Rutgers. "Churchill was aBritish statesman whose goal was to ad-
vance the interests of Great Britain," saysKimball. "Churchill was a British states-man whose goal was to advance liberty,"replies Arnn, who goes on to contrastBritish "interests" with those of the SovietUnion. Similar diversity is offered (be-tween Kimball and Buckley) overChurchill's professed trust of Stalin, and(between Arnn and Lord Jellicoe) over thevalue of Churchill's Arctic convoys toRussia. Lord Jenkins, a onetime Labourfoe, says there is no need to whitewashChurchill's record: let it stand.
There are pieces here that reachback—David Stafford on Churchill andSecret Intelligence; Lord Jellicoe's mar-velous retrospective on Churchill and Jel-licoe's father, who commanded Britain'sGrand Fleet in World War I and aboutwhom Churchill said, "He was the onlyman who could lose the war in an after-noon." There are pieces that look for-ward—Arthur Schlesinger on howChurchill will survive revisionist history;Coach Johnny Parker on how he usesChurchill to inspire nothing less than theNew England Patriots football team.There are intimate views of young Win-ston, by his granddaughter Celia Sandys;and the old, by his daughter LadySoames. All in all, it's a fine mix. Sir Win-ston, who was always in the thick of de-bate, would be delighted with it.
Special Relationship PlusRichard M. Langworth
OVERHERE
RAY M O N DS E I T Z
Over Here, byRaymond Seitz.London: Weiden-feld & Nicolson,hardbound, 376pages, regularprice £20/$35,CC/ICS memberprice $24. Alsoavailable in paper-back
w°Hnston Churchill was alwayscareful never to criticize Amer-ica publicly. When reporters
asked if he had any complaints, he wouldoften reply, "toilet paper too thin, news-papers too fat."
Privately Churchill was less reti-
cent, although he always maintained a de-cent respect for the two kindred countrieswhich in the end both claimed him as acitizen. In 1945 he said he had heard aBritish peer state that Great Britain wouldhave to become the forty-ninth State ofthe American Union, while an Americancongressman was saying that Americashould not be asked to reenter the BritishEmpire. "It seems to me," he remarked,"that the path of wisdom lies somewherebetween these two scarecrow extremes."
Churchill went on to recite hisfamiliar prescription of "a fraternal rela-tionship between the two great English-speaking organizations." He worked hardto establish that relationship, succeedingonly partially. But it is probably reason-able to conclude that Churchill was rightwhen he said that if Britain and Americaare together, they are usually in the right,and if they are divided, one of them is al-most always wrong! continued >»
FINEST HOUR IOI /36
We were fortunate to have withus at the November Churchill Conferencea keen practitioner of Anglo-American re-lations. Ambassador Seitz delivered theFirst Churchill Lecture, excerpted in thisissue and published in full on our web-site. His book should be read by everyAmerican in Britain—and every Britonwho wishes to delve beneath the stereo-types and really understand Americans.
Seitz is very careful about thatover-used term, "special relationship"; notbecause it is wholly invalid but because,he suggests, it is barely adequate. "WhenI think about official relations," he writes,"I find the term doesn't begin to capturethe breadth and depth of what otherwisegoes on between us." Churchill at Har-vard in 1943 mentioned the high points:law, language, literature. Seitz fills in thedetails: Britain is the largest foreign in-vestor in America. Six million Americansand British visit each others' country peryear, and in the same amount of timethere are 3 1/2 billion minutes of Anglo-American telephone conversation.
There is another important as-pect to his book, and that is its value inthe realm of statesmanship. RaymondSeitz is, uniquely, the only career foreignservice officer ever appointed to the StateDepartment's top Ambassadorship, theCourt of St. James's, where he served twoPresidents of opposite parties. He is frankand appealing on the implications of sucha role, how it affects one's performance.He offers almost a textbook course onwhat an Ambassador to London doeswhen confronted, say, by an Ambassadorto Dublin who declares that her turf in-cludes Northern Ireland.
Over Here acknowledges earliercommentators on Anglo-America, mostof them much more biased than its au-thor. Harold Nicolson, Seitz recalls, saidthat an American is "not the sort of per-son we like." Samuel Johnson was "will-ing to love all mankind, except an Ameri-can." Anglophobe James Russell Lowell,by contrast, commented that Americansare "worth nothing except so far as wehave disinfected ourselves of Anglicism,"and the American drama critic JohnMason Brown, responding to a tactlesstoast proposed by an English host, said:"Mr. Chairman, you have observed thatwhile you don't care for Americans in themass, individual Americans are delightfulpeople. With the British, I find the re-verse is true." But, Raymond Seitz adds,
"Neither country knows as much aboutthe other as it pretends to."
Over Here is, I think, the bestAmerican view of Britain since RobertDeindorfer's Life in Lower Slaughter, a 25-year-old book by a friend of mine, gonenow, God bless him, a copy of which Ipresented to the Ambassador. Bob Dein-dorfer moved in 1973 from large, filthyNew York to Lower Slaughter, Glouces-tershire, and charmingly noted, in a dif-ferent sphere of course, many of the samethings as Mr. Seitz: the blase British atti-tude toward antiquity and one-trackroads, the soft beauty of an Englishspring, the sound of an English choir, thepulse-quickening sight of a spire above acountry village. He compared these to thelarge scale, wholesale-sized Americancountryside and eight-lane throughways,the can-do attitude that nothing is impos-sible and the best is yet to come.
Both the Deindorfers and theSeitzes made the same decision, as theformer put it in 1974: "to stretch our for-eign assignment a bit longer, while won-
dering how long, psychologically if nottactically, bone-deep Americans can re-main abroad before renewing their sub-scription." But Ray Seitz can't fool us.He's hooked, like many before and nodoubt after him, by British ways, Britishscenes, British politics, British manners,British life. He gives himself away on theflyleaf of his book, which pictures him ina suit of English cut before a Regencyfireplace on a flowery carpet, surroundedby three large dogs. He's a goner.
Alvin Toffler, the author of Fu-ture Shock, had a comment about BobDeindorfer's book which amused Ray-mond Seitz:
"If there's one thing I can'tstand it's an Anglophile, but unfortu-nately, I love the British. Which is why Ifound this book a lovely, insidious at-tack on my precarious certainties. Any-one who has dreamed of hiding out inEngland during the decline and fall ofWestern civilization will enjoy thisbook—and deserve what he gets whenthe barbarians knock."
Opium for the PeopleRon Helgemo
Betrayal at Pearl Harbor: A TelevisionDocumentary aired on the HistoryChannel (USA), December 7th
On the anniversary of Pearl Har-bor, the History Channel, whoseprograms vary between solid his-
tory and opium for the people, ran aBBC-produced documentary claimingthat President Roosevelt knew all aboutthe surprise attack and allowed it to hap-pen to get the United States into the war.The program, as Arthur Balfour mighthave said, contained much that is triteand much that it true, but what was truewas trite, and what was not trite was nottrue.
That "Betrayal at Pearl Harbor"should not be taken seriously is mani-festly evident. Examples of why it should-n't begin with its interview of RobertOgg, which approaches dishonesty. Theproducers fail to inform the audience that
Mr. Helgemo is President of the WashingtonSociety for Churchill, a CC Affiliate.
Mr. Ogg is the infamous "Seaman Z" im-mortalized by John Toland, an early con-spiracy theorist who wrote that Pearl Har-bor was plotted by Franklin Roosevelt.
"Seaman Z," whose story hashad a nasty habit of changing over theyears, claimed he heard "queer signals"which could have been the missing Japan-ese aircraft carriers. But he could onlyhave been hearing the carriers if the carri-ers were broadcasting.
The Japanese themselves claimtheir fleet (Kido Butai) never sent a singlemessage. They say they dismantled thetelegraph sending devices so a messagecould not be sent. After the war, theStrategic Bombing Survey found theJapanese military's own after-action re-port, which credits the success of the at-tack to the fact that secrecy was main-tained.
Among the reasons why secrecywas maintained, radio silence comes first.How could it be, for example, that Sea-man Z in San Francisco picked up signalsfrom the Japanese fleet but Hawaii, muchcloser and lying between California andthe fleet, never heard it? continued >»
FlNI-STMOUR 101/ 37
BETRAYAL AT PEARL HARBOR...
The producers of "Betrayal" alsointerviewed Eric Nave, a British cryptolo-gist who worked on the Japanese JN-25naval code. Nave, with the late JamesRusbridger, wrote Betrayal at Pearl Har-bor, a book claiming Churchill hid whathe knew about the attack from Roosevelt.The producers might have mentionedthat Nave left Singapore in February1940, had no further involvement withJN-25, and could not have known of theJapanese change to the JN-25B code inDecember 1940—and the resulting lackof anyone's ability to read the code afterthat date. There are a couple of sceneswith Pacific Fleet cryptologist JoeRochefort, the hero of Midway, who issaid to have read JN-25B intercepts. Butthey fail to mention Rochefort's claimsthat he was reading only five to twentypercent of any message in JN-25B priorto Midway and could not have been read-ing more before then.
The "Winds Code," which issupposed to have been an attack signaldisguised in a Japanese weather report,surfaces again in the History Channelpresentation. I have yet to hear an expla-nation of how the "Winds Code" toldanybody anything about Pearl Harbor.Once again Ralph Briggs is dragged outas evidence that the Americans inter-cepted this message. How Briggs, inCheltenham, Maryland, heard the codedweather report and no one else did hasnever been explained; it was supposed tobe, after all, a regular mid-day, Japanesetime, CB radio broadcast. Nor does theHistory Channel explain either why theJapanese sent it, since the failure in com-munications that would have necessitatedthe "Winds Code" did not occur.
Tucked into the "Betrayal" pieceis Mr. Joe Lieb's claim that Secretary ofState Hull told him of the coming attackand named Pearl Harbor as the target.The trouble here is that Mr. Lieb and Mr.Hull were the only ones present at theiralleged conversation, and Mr. Lieb didnot see fit to tell anyone of this conversa-tion until after Mr. Hull died. Thus thereis no way independently to verify hisclaim.
An even more preposterous no-tion presented by the film is that GeneralMarshall (he of course was also in on theplot) went horseback riding on a Sundaymorning in order to be "unavailable" for
questioners concerned about Japan's nextmove, thus assuring the success of theJapanese air raid. Really! "Betrayal at PearlHarbor's" case against General Marshallhinges on this, and the fact that he sentan alert warning to Pearl Harbor withoutsufficient priority. Surely it is easier toconsider the latter act one of bureaucraticincompetence rather than a purposefulplot to delay an attack warning? If Pearlwas being set up, why send a warning atall? To cover himself? But the warningwas kept secret for fifty years!
Geostrategy and codebreakingtake up a great deal of the film, which
major concern throughout. Indeed, whilethe West may have focused primarily onthe Japanese during the Pacific war, theJapanese continued to focus more onChina. Even at the war's end the Japanesehad 1.9 million men and nearly 10,000aircraft there. It made little sense to Japanto defeat the U. S. if that meant giving upChina.
"Betrayal at Pearl Harbor" isvery wise after the fact. The imminenceof war, it tells us, should have been clearto American planners. Japan's JN-25Bcode had been broken. The orders to sailthe Japanese Fleet from the Kuriles to a
"The reason why this kind of garbage passes for histo-ry is that standards for evidence have disappeared."
uses them to document accusations ofprior knowledge of the coming attack byAmerican authorities. The producersbegin by alleging that the United Statesknew the Japanese attack force was in theKurile Islands. If it did, then the U. S.had to expect an attack either in Alaska,Hawaii, the west coast or Panama. Ofthese possible targets, the film says, theonly one that made any sense was Hawaii.
But the documentary oversim-plifies: having its fleet in the Kuriles didnot reduce Japan's choices of where to at-tack. Admiral Yamamoto needed to bringthe fleet together for an attack in themost secure place possible, regardless ofdirection. The "southern strategy," whicheventually won out, required the JapaneseNavy to neutralize the Philippines (then aU. S. territory), which crossed its sealanes. This required Yamamoto to go afterthe U. S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.That the Japanese had trouble making uptheir minds (Japanese Army-Navy politicswas at work here too) served them, in thesense that it helped disguise their eventualchoice. The "northern strategy" (attackingAlaska) was also seen as a distinct possibil-ity to Westerners. As late as 15 October1941 Roosevelt wrote Churchill, "I thinkthey [the Japanese] are headed north."(See Kimball's Churchill and Roosevelt:The Complete Correspondence.)
Clearly the Japanese had a variety ofstrategic choices in the monthsprior to Pearl Harbor. The key to
their Greater East Asian Co-ProsperitySphere was China, and that was their
rendezvous point in mid-Pacific weretransmitted. The Dutch claimed to haveintercepted them, so presumably theBritish and the Americans should havebeen able to do the same.
Certainly the imminence of warin the Pacific was obvious to any reason-ably intelligent person at the time, butthe Pacific did not get the attention it de-served. To understand why, we must putourselves in the shoes of leaders at thattime—not laboratory analysts of the pre-sent. And at that time, the British wereup to their eyeballs with Germans and theAmericans were fighting an undeclaredwar with the German Navy in the NorthAtlantic. Hindsight, of course, is always20-20. But on whatever the British andAmericans "should have been able to do,"let me quote a direct source. DuaneWhitlock, unlike Mr. Nave, was there, onCorregidor, working on the Japanesecodes. "I can attest from first-hand expe-rience that as of 1 December 1941 the re-covery of JN-25B had not progressed tothe point that it was productive of anyappreciable intelligence," stated Whit-lock—"not even enough to be pieced to-gether by traffic analysis....It simply wasnot within the realm of our combinedcryptologic capability to produce a usabledecrypt at that particular juncture."
In the early 1990s the U. S.Navy transferred all its cryptologicarchives from Crane, Indiana to the Na-tional Archives in Washington. This in-cludes 26,581 JN-25 intercepts from 1September to 7 December. All of theseare available for public review. >»
FINEST HOUR IOI /38
Frederick Parker, who studied 2,413 ofthese intercepts, argues in the film thathad they been read at the time, theywould have provided clear evidence of theimpending attack on Pearl Harbor. Rus-bridger and Nave, in their book, claimthey were read, but offer no evidence.
Well, here is the evidence: The2,413 pre-Pearl Harbor intercepts hadbeen decrypted by Navy cryptologists afterthe war while they were waiting to bemustered out of the service. While Parkermakes a strong circumstantial case that theattack would have been discovered hadthese messages been read, cryptologists atthat time would not have been lookingjust at the 2,413 intercepts; they wouldhave been looking at all 26,581. Wouldthey have been able to discern the relevantinformation from all that noise?
I could go on: the "bomb plot,"the Popov questionnaire, Hull's "ultima-tum" to Japan, etc., all old news, mislead-ingly presented. Readers may recall thatNave and Rusbridger tried to turn all thisaround a few years back (just in time tocash in on the 50th anniversary of PearlHarbor, actually) by claiming it wasn'tRoosevelt after all, it was WinstonChurchill who hid the knowledge of theattack in order to draw the United Statesinto the war. As Professor Kimball wrote:"It seems to me that to brand WSCand/or FDR as conspirators requires thatthey be seen as evil geniuses. But for themto allow the U.S. Fleet to be clobberedmeans they were stupid. That doesn'tcompute."
Allow me to vent for a moment.The reason why this kind of garbagepasses for history is that standards for evi-dence have virtually disappeared. Not allevidence is equal and there is an obliga-tion to weigh evidence against some rea-sonable standard. The standard is not ex-actly rocket science; remnant evidence isbetter than tradition-creating evidence;corroborated testimony is better than un-corroborated testimony; forensic evidenceis better than hearsay. Our inability to beskeptical, to think critically, to ask ques-tions, to compare and contrast, leads tothe perpetuation of one urban legendafter another, be it Churchill and Coven-try, Churchill and the Lusitania,Churchill (or Roosevelt) and Pearl Har-bor, etc., etc., etc. Hard thinking, criticalanalysis, and skepticism are the only waysto challenge this rubbish. I sometimes de-spair. Vent off.
How the Telegraph Put One Across HitlerMichael Smith
Mr. Smith's new book, Station X: TheCodebreakers of Bletchley Park (Channel4 Books) is available for £14.99 postfree in UK, from Telegraph Books Di-rect, 24 Seward St, London EC1V 3GB,tel. (0541) 557222 quoting ref PA557.
The ability to solve The Daily Tele-graph crossword in under 12 min-utes was used as a recruitment test
for wartime code-breakers. Good chessplayers and those skilled at crosswordpuzzles were viewed as having the poten-tial to turn their abilities to crackingcodes. The Daily Telegraph was asked toorganise a crossword competition to helpidentify potential recruits. After the com-petition, each of the participants was con-tacted and asked to undertake "a particu-lar type of work as a contribution to thewar effort." Those who agreed foundthemselves sent to the Government Codeand Cypher School at Bletchley Park, thehome of Britain's wartime code-breakers.
Bletchley Park had employedseveral hundred eccentric academics tobreak the Nazi Enigma codes early in thewar, but by the end of 1941 it was desper-ately trying to expand its operations. Theneed for fighting men was so great thatno one in Whitehall was prepared to re-lease people to work at an obscure For-eign Office department that could not tellanyone what it was doing. Four of the se-nior code-breakers, Alan Turing, GordonWelchman, Stuart Milner-Barry andHugh Alexander, wrote to WinstonChurchill, who was obsessed with thecode-breakers and had recently visitedthem, describing them as "the geese thatlaid the golden eggs but never cackled."
The letter warned Churchill,"We despair of any early improvementwithout your intervention." No oneseemed to understand "the importance ofwhat is done here or the urgent necessityof dealing promptly with our requests."Churchill minuted to his chief of staff:"Make sure they have all they want ex-treme priority and report to me that thishas been done," he wrote, scrawlingacross it the warning: "Action this day."
Shortly afterwards, clever youngmen and women from the universities
began arriving at Bletchley. But they werenot enough and, spurred on byChurchill's minute, military intelligencechiefs looked for new ways of finding re-cruits. When the publication of the5,000th Daily Telegraph crossword puzzleled to a spate of correspondence on thepaper's letters pages, military intelligencespotted a useful source of talent.
Stanley Sedgewick, a Telegraphcrossword fan, entered a competition tosolve the daily puzzle in less than 12 min-utes. The first to complete the crosswordwas a Mr. Chance from Orpington, Kent,who handed it in after 6 minutes, 3.5 sec-onds, but unfortunately he had spelt aword wrong and was disqualified. Fourother people completed the puzzle within12 minutes, the fastest being F. H.W.Hawes of Dagenham, Essex (7:58). Theyincluded Vera Telfer of Maida Vale, northLondon (10:39). Sedgewick was oneword short when the 12-minute bell rang,"which was disappointing as I had com-pleted that day's puzzle in the train toWaterloo in under 12 minutes.
"Imagine my surprise when sev-eral weeks later, I received a letter marked'Confidential' inviting me to see Col.Nichols of the General Staff 'on a matterof national importance.'" (Nichols wasthe head of MI8, the military intelligencedepartment concerned with BletchleyPark, which was referred to by those inthe know as BP or Station X.) "I was told,though not so primitively, that chaps withtwisted brains like mine might be suitablefor a particular type of work as a contri-bution to the war effort."
After passing the interview,Sedgewick was sent to Bletchley Park'straining base in Bedford, known locally as"the Spy School," and then appointed"Temporary Junior Assistant" at the"Government Communications Centre."He worked in the Air Section, on Ger-man weather codes which were used toprovide weather forecasts for BomberCommand. He was unaware until shortlyafter the end of the war that their mostimportant use was as a means of breakinginto the Enigma system used by the Ger-man Navy. The work made a crucial con-tribution to winning the Battle of the At-lantic and ensuring that vital sea lineswith the U.S.A. were protected. Mi
FINEST HOUR IOI / 39
CHURCHILL ONLINE
h t t p : / / w w w . w i n s t o n c h u r c h i l l . o r gRecent Discussions on Listserv "Winston"
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SCOTTISH AND WELSHDEVOLUTION
71 yfany Churchillians tend to believel \ / l that Winston Churchill would
-L. T JL. have opposed the development ofseparate Scottish and Welsh Parliaments,which they see as spelling the beginning ofthe end of the United Kingdom. "ListservWinston" enraged in some of this banter inDecember. Professor Paul Addison of theUniversity of Edinburgh and Allen Pack-wood of the Churchill Archives Centre putthe List straight on this matter, proving onceagain that what is widely believed ofChurchill is not always what Churchill be-lieved...
From: [email protected](Prof. Paul Addison)
A word or two in response tothe gentlemen summoning up the ghostof Winston Churchill when attackingTony Blair's proposals for Parliaments inScotland and Wales. Churchill himselfbefore 1914 was a supporter of HomeRule for Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Ifhis proposals for Irish Home Rule hadbeen implemented before the First WorldWar, the twenty-six counties might stillbe a part of the United Kingdom today.There was so little demand for Scottishand Welsh home rule after 1918 that the
Finest Hour happily publishes interestingsnippets from "Listserv Winston," but youreally need to subscribe. See box above.
question of devolution disappeared forthe rest of Churchill's life, but some of hiscomments suggest that he continued tofavour a federal UK including regionalParliaments in England.
The main reason for the resur-gence of Scottish nationalism in the1980s was the determination of Mrs.Thatcher not only to reject Scottish homerule but to impose on Scotland policieswhich the majority of Scots plainly andrepeatedly rejected at the polls. She be-haved, in other words, more like an Eng-lish nationalist than a custodian of amultinational Union. By the time TonyBlair came in the damage was done and itmay now be too late to save the Union.But Home Rule offers a last chance ofholding it together and it may just work,as Churchill hoped it would work in Ire-land.
From: [email protected].(Allen Packwood,Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge)
I was very interested to readabout Churchill's hypothetical reaction tocurrent political developments within theUnited Kingdom. I have been selectingmaterial for an exhibition on Churchill tobe staged next summer at the National
THE CHURCHILL WEBSITE:
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Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. One ofthe items I am proposing to feature is thefollowing speech, delivered by Churchillin his Dundee constituency on 9th Octo-ber 1913:
"Another great reason for thesettlement of the Irish question in thepresent Parliament and for disposing ofthe Home Rule controversy now, whilewe have the full opportunity presented, isthat the ground is thereby cleared for theconsideration of claims of self-govern-ment for other parts of the United King-dom besides Ireland. You will rememberhow, last year, I addressed a meeting inDundee on this subject. I made it per-fectly clear that I was speaking for myself.I made it clear that I was not speaking ofthe immediate future, but dealing withthe subject which lay for the momentoutside the sphere of practical politics andraising a question for reflection and dis-cussion rather than for prompt action.
"I spoke of the establishment ofa federal system in the United Kingdom,in which Scotland, Ireland and Wales,and, if necessary, parts of England, couldhave separate legislative and parliamen-tary institutions, enabling them to de-velop, in their own way, their own life ac-cording to their own ideas and needs inthe same way as the great and prosperousStates of the American Union and thegreat kingdoms and principalities andStates of the German Empire."
Just a few years earlier Churchillhad been advocating reform of the Houseof Lords. And who says politics does notgo in cycles? continued >»
F I N E S T H O U R IOI / 4 0
CHURCHILL ONLINE
DID CHURCHILLMISUNDERSTAND HITLER?
From: [email protected](Karl-Georg Schon):
Let me see whether I can startsomething with three theses (for the sakeof the argument I will oversharpen them):
1. Churchill completely misun-derstood Hitler. For instance he calledWW2 "the unnecessary war." This iswrong because Hitler wanted war forwar's sake (vide his saying in August1939: "Hopefully there won't be someoneto turn up with a mediation plan" orsomething to this effect; vide his disap-pointment that he was unable to crushCzechoslovakia by military force but hadto do it with Munich). War was for Hitlerthe ultima ratio of life itself. Perhaps (onlyperhaps) war could have been avoidedthrough military intervention during theRhineland crisis—when Churchill wasconspicuously silent. From then on Eu-rope was doomed. Another example isthat Churchill saw in Hitler the (or atleast some) embodiment of Prussian mili-tarism. The reverse is actually true. Hitlercrushed Prussian militarism forever. Itwas no historical accident that it was thetruly Prussian element of the German of-ficer corps who staged several attempts onHitler's life. Hitler, indeed, established(albeit in a perverted way) civilian controlover the military.
2. Churchill's greatness lies inhis defeat—if you measure defeat or vic-tory in terms of the declared aims of anindividual statesman. He said, "I have notbecome the King's first minister in orderto preside over the liquidation of theBritish Empire," yet he precisely did so.But in the way of doing it he defeated themost evil system of modern times andthus gave to the "liquidation of theBritish Empire" (one is tempted to say tothe Empire itself) a noble meaning. Liq-uidation became "Their Finest Hour."There is an element of tragedy in this.But is there greatness without tragedy?
3. Churchill did not and per-haps could not recognize that the BritishEmpire was doomed anyway—doomedfrom what Paul Kennedy calls over-exten-sion. As an aside: it was doomed for thisreason from its very beginning.Churchill's empire-mindedness preventedhim from doing Britain the perhaps great-
est service he (and at the time probablyonly he) could have done, i.e. to prepareBritain for integration into Europe.Churchill came, in my view, close todoing so in 1946-48, but he dropped hiseffort when he realized the implicationsof such a step for the fading empire.
From: [email protected] (Editor)1. Did Churchill's term "the un-
necessary war" have anything to do withwhether or not Hitler was bent on war?Didn't Churchill argue that by timely ac-tion, through about 1936, France andBritain could have prevented war (what-ever Hitler wanted) by preemptive action,e.g. over Germany's rebuilding the Luft-waffe? Was he as noncommital on theRhineland as is commonly held?
2. Chinese, Ukrainians, Baitsand central Asians might dispute whetherHitler's was the most evil system of mod-ern times, although it was unmatched ingenocidal precision. But to the point,which is very valid, William F. Buckley Jr.makes some parallel comments in our1994-1995 Proceedings, words which Iput among the twenty or thirty best pas-sages about Churchill I've ever read:
Mr. Churchill had struggled to di-minish totalitarian rule in Europewhich, however, increased. He foughtto save the Empire, which dissolved.He fought socialism, which prevailed.He struggled to defeat Hitler, and hewon. It is not, I think, the signifi-cance of that victory, mighty and glo-rious though it was, that causes thename of Churchill to make the bloodrun a little faster....It is simply mis-taken that battles are necessarily moreimportant than the words that sum-mon men to arms, or who rememberthe call to arms. The battle of Agin-court was long forgotten as a geopolit-ical event, but the words of Henry V,with Shakespeare to recall them, areimperishable in the mind, even aswhich side won the battle of Gettys-burg will dim from the memory ofmen and women who will never for-get the words spoken about that battleby Abraham Lincoln. The genius ofChurchill was his union of affinitiesof the heart and of the mind. Thetotal fusion of animal and spiritualenergy...
3. It was Clement Attlee, in thefirst phase, and Harold Macmillan, in thesecond, who presided over the dissolutionof the Empire. But we often judge pasthistory by present-day standards, not tomention hindsight. It is very clear todaythat Churchill failed to understand thestrength of the anti-colonial movement;the desire of colonial peoples to be gov-erned by their own rascals, even if the lat-ter turned out to be worse than theBritish civil service; and the endgame ofthe Europe Unite movement. FromWSC's point of view in the 1940s and1950s, Britain and the Commonwealthwere a viable Fourth World, and based onthat mindset he took the view that Britainwas "of" Europe, but not "in" it—abenevolent, interested partner, but not aparty; and that European Unity dependedprimarily on the continental powers re-solving "the ancient quarrels of Teutonand Gaul." Yet some historians continueto remark over how, with a remarkablelack of foresight or comprehension, oreven perhaps a sense of self-preservation,Britain herself—not simply Churchill,but the whole governing establishment—allowed her moral and political force todecline. This is to a certain extent JohnCharmley's argument in his Churchill'sGrand Alliance.
From: [email protected](Dr. Robert J. Caputi)
I enjoy the intelligence and col-legiality of the Listserv. In reply toMalakand's statements: It is offered howBritain's "whole governing establishment"allowed her moral and political force todecline in the postwar period. I submitthat the two awful world wars and thecrippling Depression era led to the un-avoidable losses of both tangible and in-tangible overseas assets and had much todo with the "decline" of that moral andpolitical force. I do not believe the BritishLion relinquished anything willingly; in-stead it was forced into a reactive ratherthan proactive role after V-E and V-JDays. Economics, sadly, played a criticalrole. The enduring greatness of "TheirFinest Hour" was that those immense sac-rifices, the dissolution of the Empire andBritain's great power status, in the longrun, was worth it to secure the defeat ofthe beasts from Berlin. M>
FlNliSTHOUR 101 / 4 1
ABSTRACTS
INSIDE THE JOURNALSJohn G. Plumpton
One of the missions ofYmest Hour is tobring its readers the best and latest inChurchill scholarship. This is usually donethrough feature articles and book reviews.Some scholarship is first published inscholarly and even popular journals, andto cover that area John Plumpton renewshis former column of article abstracts, In-side The Journals, last seen in FinestHour 84. Most often we will feature ma-terial directly about Churchill but we willalso consider Churchill-related topics orthemes in the broadest sense of the mean-ing of that term. We will include book re-views of Churchill and Churchill-relatedbooks if they say something new or signifi-cant about the topic.
Scholarly Perceptions
Adelson, Roger and Sikorsky,Jonathan: "Churchill in the 1990s,"The Historian, 1995 (58) 1: 119-23.
T he Historian considered thestate of Churchill scholarship inthe 1990s by looking at recent
books by two historians who representopposite schools of historiography:Martin Gilbert's Churchill: A Life andIn Search of Churchill, and JohnCharmley's Churchill, The End of Gloryand Churchill's Grand Alliance: TheAnglo-American Special Relationship,1940-1957.
Winston Churchill, who haslong stirred controversy on both sides ofthe Atlantic, was the subject of most ofan issue of the Historian in Summer1958. The then-editor wrote that"Churchill virtually invented the tank,laid the foundations for the Union ofSouth Africa, the Irish Free State, andthe Zionist home of Israel, out-drankthe Russians, out-talked President Roo-
The Churchill of the RevisionistsRAY DRIVER FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
sevelt, out-guessed Corporal Hitler, andindubitably saved the free world fromdestruction in 1940." A less heroic viewof Sir Winston was presented in the ar-ticles that focused on him as historian,politician, reformer and strategist.
In London on 11 July 1995,Churchill's role during World War IIwas debated in the great hall of ChurchHouse, Westminster. John Charmleyand Lord Clark held that Churchill hadsold out Britain to the United States, aproposition opposed by Lord Blake andAndrew Roberts. The anti-Churchilland anti-U.S. proposition was defeatedby a substantial majority of the capacitycrowd.
In reviews published in TheNew York Times Book Review that samemonth, Gertrude Himmelfarb andHenry Kissinger expressed regret overthe way Conservative revisionists have
been debunking Churchill. Historiansin the 1990s who want to understandChurchill will find it easier than did hiscontemporaries earlier in the twentiethcentury who had to contend with thegreat man's own writings. Despite hisdefense of himself, Churchill was stig-matized with irresponsibility by suchbooks as Robert Rhodes James:Churchill, A Study in Failure, 1900-1939.
To understand Churchill dur-ing and after World War II, the histo-rian's job is more difficult because ofChurchill's global influence as PrimeMinister during the war, as the media'sleading statesman of the English-speak-ing world and as the legendary figure ofEnglish liberty. This reputation wassupported by Churchill's best sellingmemoir of World War II and his His-tory of the English-Speaking Peoples. Inaddition to this was the massive andmasterly biography of RandolphChurchill and Martin Gilbert. Gilbertalso wrote a single volume Churchill: ALife "for readers to judge for themselvesChurchill's actions and abilities."
If the readers are the jury,Gilbert is Churchill's chief defense at-torney. Gilbert takes Churchill's ownwords more seriously than do recenthistorians. He deals sympatheticallywith controversial parts of Churchill'scareer. As for the man's private life,Gilbert passes over some of the chargessome of Churchill's contemporarieshave made in print. The biographer is,in this incidence, taking precedenceover the historian. Gilbert is always re-spectful of the man whose finest hour,like that of Britain, was in 1940.
Other historians have askedtough questions about Churchill's longpublic life. One such historian is JohnCharmley, who is one of the group ofhistorians who wear Conservatism ontheir sleeves. Charmley's Churchill, TheEnd of Glory made a splash only after areview by Lord Clark, a rich and out-spoken former junior ConservativeCabinet Minister, asserted thatChurchill should not have rejected >»
FINEST HOUR IOI /42
ABSTRACTS
Hitler's peace terms in 1940 becausethey would have protected Britain's sta-tus as a world power far more than hisselling Britain out to the United States.Clark's review upstaged Charmley's gen-eral theme that Churchill was a roman-tic imperialist whose views hardlychanged since the 1890s.
The last part of The End ofGlory and Churchill's Grand Allianceblames Churchill's "Atlanticism" forpreventing Britain from being more as-sertive. While Charmley appreciatesthat the actions of statesmen must bejudged by the exigencies of the situa-tions they faced, he remains indignantover Churchill's sacrifice of so manyvital British interests to the UnitedStates. Charmley's grasp of politics inLondon is better than his understand-ing of Anglo-American policymakingand the enormously complicated scenein Washington. He is a partisan Britishnationalist who degenerates into uncrit-ical anti-Americanism.
Public Perceptions
Price, Thomas: "Popular Perceptionsof an Ally: the Special Relationship inthe British Spy Novel," Journal ofPopular Culture 1994, (28) 2: 49-66.
Historians of the English-speak-ing world during the first halfof the twentieth century will
continue to run into Churchill becausehe had a greater opportunity than anyother person to do both good and badthings. Because Churchill injected hispersonality into almost everything hedid, said and wrote, he has invited thepraise and blame of historians in the1990s, as he did with his contempo-raries.
Churchill's call for a "specialrelationship" between Britain andAmerica after Germany was defeatedwas motivated by a desire for a closer,more intense connection in order tocounter the Soviet threat. On the level
of grand politics, that relationshipculminated in the Thatcher-Rea-gan partnership which expandedbeyond merely an anti-commu-nist barricade to an ideologicaleconomic challenge to the entiresocialist world. The Churchill-Roosevelt and Thatcher-Reaganspecial relationships were at thegrand politics level, but leadersneed followers just as followersneed leaders. Public opinion inBritain and America generallysupported their leaders because publicperceptions—its images and stereo-types, "pictures in our mind" as WalterLippmann said—were created that sup-ported the special relationship concept.These pictures can be categorized asfour disparate images of allies: Perfidi-ous Albion, Crusader, CorporateTakeover and Corporate Merger.
Historians played an impor-tant role in developing public percep-tions, but the public's conditionedmood was also significantly created byone of the most popular genres of fic-tion: the spy story. Three spy novelists,all immensely popular in both Britainand the United States, wrote bookswhich created pictures in the publicmind of the special relationship: IanFleming, John le Carre and LenDeighton.
The Perfidious Albion image,such as affected the relationship be-tween Charles de Gaulle and Britainover NATO, might have been JohnCharmley's view of the British-Ameri-can relationship, but it was not one ofthe images portrayed by these novelists.The other images, however, can beidentified in their stories.
In most of Fleming's storiesabout James Bond, there is little discus-sion of the policy connections betweenBritain and the United States. It is usu-ally unspoken, showing up in the jointoperations between allies. The strongestallied relationship is personal, betweenBond and C.I.A. agent Felix Leiter.Both Bond and Leiter are crusaders;their cause is right and the enemy is
CHEER UP!THEY WILL FORGET YOUBUT THEY WILLREMEMBER ME ALWAYS
DAVID LOW FOR THE EVENING STANDARD, 31JUL45
evil. However, in his last novels, Flem-ing shows an uneasiness with the spe-cial relationship and a suspicion that aCorporate Takeover is imminent.
In le Carre's novels the Ameri-cans seem so vastly different from theBritish in societal mores and actionsthat they might have appeared from an-other planet. The resentment to Ameri-can control of their British counterpartsis never far from the surface in le Carre.There are few Americans whose per-sonal relationships with the British caneven be remotely characterized asfriendly and exhibiting respect. Theimage of America as ally in le Carre isone that goes from non-entity in theearly novels to an unfriendly CorporateTakeover in the later ones. The threatto the British way of life ceases to beCommunism; it is now the threat fromthe Americans.
Len Deighton's heroes spendconsiderable time in America or withAmericans, but he says very little aboutAmerican society and values. Americansare there to work with, and then get onwith life. Deighton's image of theAmericans as an ally appears muchclose to the friendly Corporate Mergerthan to the hostile Corporate Takeover.
Churchill's call for a "specialrelationship" to embark upon a crusadeagainst Communism created many pic-tures in the public mind. Some werepainted by historians; others werepainted by novelists. All had a variety ofconsequences, many unintended, andmany still influential today. $
FINEST HOUR 101/43
Churchill in Stamps:The World's TributesPages 271-276: STATE FUNERAL AND EULOGIESCatalogue numbers are Scott {#) or Stanley Gibbons (sg). Aslash mark (/) indicates a set with a common design from whichany value is usable. Carus and Minkus catalogue numbers aresometimes used, and are identified by name.
We are nearing the end of our philatelic biography, whichbegan its serialization back in Finest Hour 43 in 1984.
Although there are a few pages of appendices that may be ofinterest, one or two more installments will see us at the end."Churchill in Stamps" will be retained as a philatelic column.
271. The funeral cortege is depicted on a common design forthree Maldive Islands stamps: #201/3/5 (sg 204/6/8). The Lying-in-State, previously illustrated by other stamps, is here repre-sented by Antigua #351 (sg 410), which also carries theChurchill Coat of Arms. Aden-Kathiri Seiyun overprinted eightstamps for "World Peace" in 1967, including four for Churchill;two values, overprinted in red WORLD PEACE I WINSTONCHURCHILL, Minkus 102/108 (sg 100/106), are used here.
272. A set of Ajman "famous people" stamps which includesChurchill also happen to include King Baudouin of the Belgiansand Charles de Gaulle of France, who attended the Churchillfuneral; they are shown here in a page on the Congregation at St.Paul's Cathedral. King Baudouin is depicted leading a group ofRoyals (Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, Grand Duke Jeanof Luxembourg and King Constantine of Greece) on a Churchillset issued by Ras al Khaima, Minkus 17A/20A, Carus 29/32.
273. Thirty-three Commonwealth countries produced 132stamps to a common design by Jennifer Toombs to markChurchill's passing. (Other Commonwealth members producedindividual designs.) The Omnibus set illustrates the pages oftributes to Sir Winston in 1965. We're not going to bore you withthe lot; the four pages shown here contain the most importantquotes. This first page, with Antigua #157/60 (sg 170/3) andAscension #96/99 (sg 91/94) carries The Queen's message to theCommonwealth.
274. Bahamas #224-27 (sg 267-70) and Barbados #281-84 (sg236-39) illustrate Prime Minister Harold Wilson's remarks—certainly among the finest Churchill eulogies I've ever read.
275. President Johnson's tribute is juxtaposed with that ofPremier Kosygin (who said as little as he could get away with)on this page illustrated by Basutoland #105-08 (sg 102-05) andBechuanaland #206-09 (sg 194-97).
276. Bermuda #201-04 (sg 189-92) and B.A.T. #16-19 (sg 16-19) accompany Charles de Gaulle and Ludwig Erhard.
(To be continued)
FINEST HOUR IOI / 44
271.
VALLLIJTION
T.-i." P-.CCESSION
Lh-::.i on -'•. r-'ilny Z^-zurcih;; ncrr.irifr the state funeral began. To theica1: r;.1' r.-.; L:'i'-.:i ': rum.-, a rr.ilf;-lsr:g procession moved forward with•̂.'- ::o:':"I:; '.-.hro'̂ h London ;'rorr. Westminster to the cathedral. Outi:i-i'i-J .•-•en'; San-'lr fir.a banners, trumpeters and guardsmen, mounted>r.:i pl^-wi. -iritain w-;;; p.'iyinf-' its last full measure of tribute.
" M R would naveli'A'jJ 1,3 beth^re, ' sale:
an :•'.:-. andI'ullow Harrovian.''How -Jet!.T.r.ir.fi-J
no v;as nov-r cc-
happening."
Ih<: {'/in cCLrriar,efui;ier: by thn:ioy-il V.r.vj- Our,Crew wu3 normallyrsrerved ."orroyalty. On abla-':k pillowover ihc.
272.
pli.,r; ir. "'.. i-.JiU':; -"y.hedral was a remarkable creationdi;;lor'.i •'.•;.•, Cns: won nor.- what wa;i running through the
• •. 'i *,nr.-l: "•.::---':n-j th':ro were m a n y — a s friend and foe sat••: 'luri.ifi :.'r,c -'unnral -rrvice for the great man.
273.
VALEDICTION
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN
"I know that it will be the wish of all my people that the losswhich we have sustained be met in the most fitting manner, andthat they should have an opportunity of expressing their sorrowat the loss and their veneration of the memory of that outstandingman who, in war and peace, served hie country unfailingly for morethan 50 yearsj and in the hours of our greatest danger was theinspiring leader who strengthened and supported us all...
"...Confident thatI can rely uponthe support of myfaithful Commonsand upon theirliberality inmaking suitableprovision for theproper dischargeof our debt ofgratitude andtribute of na-tional sorrow, Ihave directed thatSir Winston's bodyshall lie in statein WestminsterHall, and thatthereafter thefuneral serviceshall be held inthe cathedralchurch of St.Pauls.'1
—EIIR
C 0 mmon we althOmnibus:Antigua,Ascension
275.
VALEDICTION
HISTORY'S CHILD
"When there was darkness in the world, and hope was low in thehearts of men, a generous Providence gave us Winston Churchill.As long as men tell about that time of terrible danger and ofthe men who won the victory, the name of Churchill will live.Let us give thanks that we knew him. With our grief, let therebe gratitude for a life so fully lived, for service so splendid,and for the joy he gave by the joy he took in all he did. He ishistory's child, and what he said and what he did will never die."
—President Lyndon Johnson, United States
"The tirelessefforts of SirWinston duringthe war againstHitleriteGermany areremembered inthe Soviet Unionand the grief ofthe Britishpeople in thisbereavement isshared here."
—PremierAlexeiKosygin,U.S.S.R.
CommonwealthOmnibus:Basutoland,Bechuanaland
274.
VALEDICTION
A GOOD HOUSE OF COMMONS MAN
' (He ana his legend) are the possession not of England or Britain,but or.1 the world; not of our time only, but the ages. For now thenoise o:" hooves thundering across the veldt, the clamour of thehustings in a score of contests, the shots in Sidney Street, the•̂ n̂ ry guns of Gallipoli and Flanders, Coronel and the FalklandIslands, the sullen feet of marching men in Tonypandy, the urgentwarnings or the Nazi threat, the wnine of the sirens, the dawnbombardment of the Normandy beaches—all these are now silent...
",..There is astillness, and inthat stillnessechoes andmemories..,
"...Each of urhas his ownmemory, for inthe tumultousdiapason of thetributes, all ofus hero at leastknow the epitaphhe would havechosen for him-self: 'He wasa good House ofCommons man.'"
-Prime MinisterHarold Wilson
Co rr.rr.on w e 3 1 1 hOmnibus:Bahama 5,
V/ •• I yj - : 1
276.
VALEDICTION
IN THE GREAT DRAMA
''For everyone in my country, as for myself, Sir Winston Churchillis and will remain the one who, in directing the admirable Britishwar effort to victory, contributed powerfully to the wellbeing ofthe French people and the liberty of the world. In the great dramahe was the greatest."
—President Charles De Gaulle, France
"His servicesto his fatherlandand to the freeworld will assurehim a high rankin world historyafter his long,strenuous life,richly blessedwith success."
--ChancellorLudwigErhard,GermanFederalRepublic
CommonwealthOmnibus:Bermuda,3r. Antarctic
ABOUT BOOKS"Neither FulsomeNor Fulminating":Colin Coote's The Other Club
The Other Club, by Sir Colin Coote.London: Sidgwick &Jackson Ltd., 1971, hard-bound, 156 pages, illus-trated with cartoons. Fre-quency: rare. Currentrange on the secondhandmarket $50-100/£30-60.
Difficult to find, but alwaysworth the search, is ColinCoote's jolly history of the din-
ing club founded by Winston Churchilland F. E. Smith in 1911 (and still goingstrong). Sir Colin knew Sir Winston forover forty years and compiled some ofthe earliest books of Churchill quotes.
The death of the last of its two"pious founders" caused some to believeThe Other Club might pass out of exis-tence, but Members decided otherwise.Coote was assigned to write the Club'shistory "because I was the second seniorMember and practically the wholemembership wanted the Club to con-tinue. Lord Longford, an Irish Earl, wasa Member and also chairman of Sidg-wick & Jackson, who were the originalpublishers of certain famous authorssuch as Rupert Brooke, who was theson of my contemporary Housemasterat Rugby School. Lord Longford will-ingly agreed to publish my account,which the Club had commissioned, andhaving been a frank friend of Sir Win-ston from my 'teens upwards, I tried toproduce something neither fulsome norfulminating. The book never aimed at avast circulation, though it achieved amodest success among the Club's Mem-bers and friends."
Sir Colin's remarks come fromcorrespondence, laid into Finest Hour's
copy of The OtherClub, with former edi-tor Dalton Newfield,who was trying to ob-tain enough copies tosatisfy demand (a prob-lem we still have). "Ican well understandthat it was not intendedfor vast circulation,"Newfield wrote SirColin. "My desire fortwenty-four copies wasbased on the idea that ifit is difficult to findnow it would be moreso in future. Of courseI also have your Max-ims and Reflections, SirWinston Churchill: ASelf-Portrait, Wit andWisdom and A Chur-chill Reader, and even though there isoverlapping, I feel that each is a valuedpart of my collection. How fortunateyou were to have known him so well."
Christopher Ford's review inThe Guardian of 13 November 1971nicely illuminates this literary gem.
Touch of the OtherChristopher Ford
Imagine: The Club, exclusive, im-memorial, resonant with the noisesof gentlemen dining. Imagine,
though, two splendid braggadocios,quite thinly disguised under the pseu-donyms of Churchill and F. E. Smith.Our heroes suspect the pitter-patter ofblack balls. So what do they do? Theystart The Other Club. Here, too, gen-
The Co-founders of The Other Club in Punch, 2 November 1910.(Monypenny's Life of Disraeli had just been published).
Mr. F. E. Smith: "Master of epigram—like me!"Mr. Winston Churchill: "Wrote a novel in his youth—like me!"
Together: "Travelled in the East—like us. How does it end?"
tlemen may dine, insulated from hoipolloi; and, if the members seem to bemainly of a political or military voca-tion, then where else would you lookfor gentlemen except landed on thegrouse-moor?
This, then, is the backcloth,nay, the stage itself, for Sir ColinCoote's latest literary adventure. Andwith such gusto does he ring up thecurtain: "Nineteen Hundred andEleven! What a year in which to beborn! The Edwardian era, so like theSecond Empire in France, was lying inthe ashtray of history, like the last cigarpuffed on his deathbed by itsfounder..."
Sir Colin was ever a fantasist,except perhaps in his days as managingeditor of the Daily Telegraph. He per-sonally wrote a book called Sir WinstonChurchill: A Self-Portrait"; and he is >>>
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ABOUT BOOKS
RULES OF THE OTHER CLUBThese are the original Rules, though some have altered. Rule 3 was immediately and fre-quently violated. As for Rule 6, "the Club is not immune from inflation; and these figuresare variable"— but imagine what £2 bought for dinner in 1911. Rule 7 had the clearpurpose of altering no vote in Parliament. Although Rule 11 remains unchanged, therehas been no Executive Committee since 1970 and its powers are exercised by the honorarysecretaries. The Rules are read aloud at every meeting and graduate Members have longknown them by heart:
1. The Club shall be called the Other Club.2. The object of The Other Club is to dine.3. The Club shall consist of no more than fifty Members and not more than
twenty-four Members of the House of Commons.4. So long as this number is not exceeded, any Member may propose a Candidate
for election to the Committee, and the Committee may circulate thename of any other Candidate or Candidates (but not singly) to the Clubfor election at such time as they think fit.
5. The Club shall dine on alternate Thursdays at 8.15 punctually, when Parlia-ment is in session.
6. There shall be an entrance fee of £5 and an annual subscription of £7 10s. £2shall be charged for each dinner.
7. The Members of the House of Commons shall be paired from 8 o'clock until10.30 p.m. unless they arrange to the contrary through the co-secretaries.
8. The Executive Committee shall setde all outstanding questions widi plenary powers.9. There shall be no appeal from the decision of the Executive Committee.10. The names of the Executive Committee shall be wrapped in impenetrable
mystery.11. The Members of the Executive Committee shall nominate the Secretary, who
shall receive no remuneration and shall be liable for all unforeseen obligations.12. Nothing in the rules or intercourse of the Club shall interfere with the rancour
or asperity of party politics.
a sort of Coalition Liberal. But now, atlast, Sir Colin has found a subject wor-thy of a former Times leader-writer.How like matadors do his characters be-stride their political ring. Modestly hekeeps on denying that his Other Club ismerely a group of Churchillian syco-phants; but the great man, togetherwith that Smith among Smiths, are hereas Oliver Twist and the Artful Dodger.
Their coruscating wit shinesthrough these pages of history. Here'sChurchill replying to a speech bySmuts: "I have known him long, verylong; I remember the first time I sawhim. It was in the Colonial Office in1906." (Factually, remarks a footnote,this happens to be wrong.) Smith—who once, when a judge called him of-fensive, said, "As a matter of fact weboth are; the difference is that I'm try-ing to be and you can't help it"—isgiven personal credit for The Other
Club's twelfth and final rule: "nothingin the rules or intercourse of the Clubshall interfere with the rancour or as-perity of party politics." It was once saidof a famous England cricketer thatthere was only one bigger head in theNorth: Birkenhead.
Where Sir Colin most excels isin his character-drawing. With howdeft a twitch of the pen does he de-scribe Lord Goddard, who was "asforthright about hooligans as aboutport." (Coote can't have been an igno-rant tippler himself, in the great days.The Club ran short of brandy duringthe War: "After considerable research, Idiscovered an excellent 1875, a passable1904, and an undated concoction witha kick like a mule. Churchill unhesitat-ingly chose the mule.")
Like a sack of marbles on a hottin roof the names drop. There was"Lord Tweedmuir, better known"
"Winston in the Pinafore Room," sketched bya Member. (WSC: "All babies look like me.")
(surely not?) "as John Buchan, whowrote tremendous adventure stories...with the pen of an angel," and AlfredMunnings, "whose portrayal of horseswas divine." Don't think, though, thatthe club isn't democratic. "One of thedistinctions which his command in Iraqwon for Sir John Salmond was a mem-bership of The Other Club." J. H.Thomas, railwayman turned CabinetMinister, was a member, too, even if"he was rather inclined to call mere ac-quaintances 'real pals.'"
Rejections? "The only candi-date I recall being repulsed was SirSamuel Hoare, who shared with SirJohn Simon an extraordinary capacityfor getting himself disliked, coupledwith a fervent desire to get himselfbeloved. But he probably did not knowthat he had been a candidate." Onlytwo Prime Ministers, Baldwin andMacDonald, were not Members. Nei-ther was ever proposed. Harold Wilson,though elected, never attended: "He isan agreeable table companion. He wasnot kept out, nor did he deliberatelystay out."
Oswald Mosley joined, pro-posed by Churchill and the Hon. Es-mond Harmsworth. The profession ofletters has been decently represented,not least by the author and by P. G.Wodehouse, who wrote to Sir Colin: "Itmust have been at my first dinner that Isat next to F. E. Smith. Conversationwas a bit sticky at first, but when Iasked him why he didn't get his RuggerBlue in 1893, he never stopped talkingand we got on splendidly."
continued»>
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ABOUT BOOKS
The attorney general, a "great captain" and a "risen minister" leaving the Savoy.
THE OTHER CLUB...Sir Colin was ever a man of
fine sensibility and delicate feelings. Hissketch of Frederick Lonsdale is of one"who wrote Wildish plays without hav-ing Wilde's habits." One is allowed tosuspect a telescope to a Nelsonian eyewhen he writes of a distinguished mem-ber: "Another problem is why he nevermarried...probably he was not really in-terested in women as women andacutely disliked the prospect of sharinghis privacy with anybody. In life, as ingrammar, there is a neuter gender."And, indeed, in literature.
Brendan Bracken's lively imag-ination of himself is affectionately re-garded: "Most of us when childrenplayed a game of 'Let's pretend.' Wefancy ourselves to be Horatius, orLeonardo, or Napoleon. It does nobodyany harm, and is less pitiable than fan-cying in our second childhood that weare a poached egg." It's the author's oneslight error of tact, maybe, thatChurchill gets mentioned three timeson that page.
Sir Colin's own final words cansafely be left to speak for this richpanoply, this veritable "War and Peace"of our time: "And if even the trappings
of companionship, the cadence of goodtalk, the contacts of fine minds, theclash of verbal conflicts, should be tem-porarily swamped by banality orbrutishness, the theme and refrain ofcivilization will break through againand be heard. For the song was word-less, the singing will never be done."
Books forYoung People
Thank you for sending a Churchill posterto my son David for his history class reportat Fork Union Military Academy. L'll en-roll him as a student member. Would youhave some book title suggestions he mightfind at the local library? Due to time con-straints he will need to look there first.
-Billy Belcher
Among Churchill's works thefirst one I always recommend to youngpeople is My Early Life, primarily be-cause it remains so relevant. Churchillhad a tough time growing up. Few be-lieved in him and he had to earn every-thing he received. Besides that, it's agreat read.
Also of possible interest, de-pending on your son's interest in his-tory, is The Gathering Storm, the firstvolume of the Second World Warmemoirs. Unlike the later volumes ofthis six-volume work, this is a combina-tion of highly personal experience andbroad-sweep history, showing how theWestern democracies went from com-plete triumph in 1918 to the greatestthreat to their existence in just twentyyears—a lot of lessons for today. As tobiographies for young people, RobertSeverance's Soldier, Statesman, Artist is anicely illustrated, well-written work foryoung people recommended byChurchill's daughter Lady Soames. Ifnot available in libraries, the ChurchillCenter new book service sells it for $15.
-Editor
If your son is interested inWorld War II, but not enough to takeon The Second World War, consider Stepby Step: 1936-1939. This is a collectionof "fortnightly letters" written for news-papers by Churchill in the years leadingup to the War, which compresses manyof the ideas of The Gathering Storm (thefirst book of that volume, at least) intofar fewer words.
-Graham Taylor, Toronto
As to Churchill's own books Icertainly concur with My Early Life as astart. It would be hard to write fictionthis exciting and full of adventures.Also, while some of it is covered in MyEarly Life, I would also recommend TheStory of the Malakand Field Force. AndMy African Journey gives us another ad-venture not covered in My Early Life.
-Rob Curry, Listserv Winston
One of my very earliest TVmemories was Churchill's funeral. Itmade an impression on me, though I'msure I had no idea who Churchill was.Then in my mid-teens I read Shirer'sRise and Fall of the Third Reich, whichled me to Churchill, and I read The Sec-ond World War. But I'm not sure eitherof those could be recommended to thevery young reader as places to start.
-Evan Quenon, Austin, Texas IS
FINEST HOUR IOI / 48
ABOUT BOOKS
Apposite Aphorisms:The Seven Ages of ManDouglas J. Hall
In a recent BBC poll forBritons of the Millennium,Shakespeare and Churchill
finished first and second (seeDatelines, page 6). Darrell Holleywrote in Churchill's Literary Allu-sions (New York: McFarland &Company 1987), "There is noEnglish author whom Churchillalludes to as often as to WilliamShakespeare. Both by formal quo-tations, some quite lengthy, andby well-known phrases almosthidden in his text, Churchillmakes allusion to many of Shake-speare's plays....[He] uses the linesof Shakespeare in various capaci-ties: as illustrations in his historyof England, as embellishments inhis other historical works, and assupport in speeches to Parliament.In various ways he borrows theartist's words to ornament his ownideas."
The Seven Ages of Man fromAs You Like It are probably amongthe most quoted lines written byWilliam Shakespeare. They werewritten between 1596 and 1600and I thought it might be amus-ing to compare them with a selec-tion of apposite aphorisms, max-ims and opinions taken from the20th century speeches and writ-ings of Winston SpencerChurchill.
My choices may, of course,not entirely be "as you like it." Ifnot, why not take time to put to-gether a selection of your ownchoosing?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
All the world's a stage,And all the men and women merely
players:They have their exits and their entrances;And one man in his time plays many
parts,His acts being seven ages.
At first the infant,Mewling and puking in the nurse's
arms.
And then the whining schooolboy,With his satchel and shining morning
face,Creeping like a snail unwillingly to
school.
And then the lover,Sighing like furnace with a woeful balladMade to his mistress's eyebrow.
Then a soldier, full of strange oaths,And bearded like the pard,Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in
quarrel,Seeking the bubble reputationEven in the cannon's mouth.
And then the justice,In fair round belly with good capon
lin'd,With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,Full of wise saws and modern instances;And so he plays his part.
The sixth age shifts into the lean andslipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on noseAnd pouch on side,His youthful hose well sav'd a world
too wideFor his shrunk shank;And his big manly voice turningAgain towards childish treble,Pipes and whistles in his sound.
Last scene of all,That ends this strange eventful history,In second childishness,And mere oblivion,Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans
everything.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
I have always taken the view that thefortunes of mankind in its tremendousjourney are principally decided for goodor ill—but mainly for good, for thepath is upward—by its greatest menand its greatest episodes.(9 January 1941)
There is no finer investment for anycommunity than putting milk into ba-bies. (21 March 1943)
How I hated this school, and what alife of anxiety I lived there...I madevery little progress at my lessons, andnone at all at games.(My Early Life, 1930)
...until September 1908, when I mar-ried and lived happily ever afterwards.(My Early Life, 1930)
In making an army, three elements arenecessary—men, weapons and money.There must also be time....What are we fighting for? If we left offfighting you would soon find out.(1 December 1948....30 March 1940)
It is desirable that persons concernedwith the administration of justiceshould carefully acquaint themselveswith the nature and character of anypunishment which they may be autho-rised to order. (24 February 1910)
The prospect of attaining extreme oldage, of living beyond threescore yearsand ten, which is the allotted span ofhuman life, seems so doubtful andremote to the ordinary man, when inthe full strength of manhood, that ithas been found in practice almostimpossible to secure from any verygreat number of people the regular sac-rifices which are necessary to guardagainst old age. (23 May 1909)
We have to organize our lives and thelife of our cities on the basis ofdwelling under fire and having alwaysthis additional—not very seriouschance—of death added to the ordi-nary precarious character of humanexistence. (8 October 1940) M>
FINEST HOUR 101/49
CHURCHILLTRIVIABy Curt Zoller ([email protected])
Test your knowledge! Most ques-tions can be answered in back is-sues of Finest Hour or other
Churchill Center publications, but it'snot really cricket to check. 24 questionsappear each issue, answers in the follow-ing issue. Questions are in six categories:Contemporaries (C), Literary (L), Miscel-laneous (M), Personal (P), Statesmanship(S) and War (W).
913. How many Prime Ministers didJohn Colville serve? (C)
914. Frederick Woods wrote about"Churchill's Method of Writing." Wherecan you find this piece? (L)
915. How did Churchill compare theAmerican Constitution with the BritishSocialist Parry? (M)
916. When did Churchill buy Chartwell?(P)
917. At the Casablanca Conference withChurchill and FDR, what key issue waspresented by a slip of the tongue? (S)
918. In WSC's comment on the PolishFighter Squadron, how many Frenchmenwas one Pole worth? (W)
919. Nellie Hozier, ClementineChurchill's sister, served in World War I.What was her position? (C)
920. What was the title of the despatchesChurchill sent to the Daily Telegraphwhen attached to the Malakand FieldForce, and how did he sign them? (L)
921. What was the name of the architectof Blenheim? (M)
922. Where is Sir Winston buried? (P)
923. What was Churchill's position onthe use of bacteriological weapons? (S)
924. What was Sir Roger Keyes's positionduring the Dardanelles affair? (W)
925. After Neville Chamberlain metHitler he was asked to bring Churchillinto the Government. What was his re-sponse? (C)
926. What was WSC's pen-name whenwriting to The Harrovian in 1891 ? (L)
927. When did Churchill have his firstheart attack? (M)
928. When did Sir Winston receive theWilliamsburg Award? (P)
929. Which military leader defined lead-ership as "The capacity and the will torally men and women to a common pur-pose, and the character which inspiresconfidence"? (S)
930. What was Operation "Felix"? (W)
931. Who was "Goonie" Churchill? (C)
932. Where did Churchill quote "PrettyPolly Oliver"? (L)
933. What happened to his Insignia ofthe Garter after Churchill's death? (M)
934. How many of Churchill's speecheswere broadcast from the House of Com-mons? (P)
935. Where did Churchill utter, "Nevergive in, never give in..."? (S)
936. Whom did Churchill characterizewhen he said, "It was by men like him inwhom fire and force of valiance burnt,that our Island was guarded during per-ilous centuries"? (W)
Answers to Churchilltrivia in FH 100:
(889) Admiral David Beatty was ap-pointed by Churchill as his Naval Secre-tary in 1911. (890) Churchill received theNobel Prize for Literature on 16 October1953; he was 79 years old. (891) King Al-bert of the Belgians commented on theAntwerp and Gallipoli campaigns. (892)Clementine's mother's maiden name wasBlanche Ogilvie. (893) The moral andpolitical virtues are justice, courage orstrength of soul, prudence, perseverance,imagination and self-restraint. (894) LordMountbatten replaced Admiral RogerKeyes, DCO.
(895) Churchill called Sir John Cunning-ham "Dismal Jimmy." (896) RobertRhodes James was the editor of Winston
Churchill: His Complete Speeches. (897)Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Poundwas First Sea Lord. (898) The Williams-burg Award was created "to serve as acontinual reminder that there are today,as there were yesterday, vigorous, coura-geous and eloquent leaders, and is pre-sented to a person who has made an out-standing contribution to the historicstruggle of men to live free and self-re-specting in a just society." (899) WhatChurchill said about the House of Lordswas: " This second chamber as it is—one-sided, hereditary, unpurged, unrepre-sentative, irresponsible, absentee." (900)On 30 January 1919, 5000 Britishtroops, who had just arrived from Eng-land, mutinied and demanded to be sentback at once.
(901) Marigold Churchill died on 24 Au-gust 1921. (902) The first volume ofMarlborough: His Life and Times was pub-lished in London in 1933 by Harrap.(903) The Churchill Porch is at the Na-tional Cathedral, Washington, D.C.(904) The car sold for £66,400, formerlyowned by Churchill, was kept at Chartwellwhere it was engaged in staff errands. Itwas an Austin Ten saloon, license numberEYH 409. (905) Sir Stafford Cripps,British Ambassador to the Soviet Union,held up the Churchill message for abouttwo weeks, because he felt that it wouldbe interpreted as an attempt to embroilthe Soviets with Germany. (906) Opera-tion "Catherine" was the proposed fleetaction by specially strengthened surfaceships in the Baltic, in the winter of 1939-1940, to isolate Germany from Scandi-navia, and particularly to cut the supplyof Swedish iron ore.
(907) Churchill referred to Sir StaffordCripps, British Ambassador to the SovietUnion, as "...a lunatic in a country of lu-natics..." (908) Churchill commented,"Personally I like short words and vulgarfractions." (909) Churchill's parents weremarried on 15 April 1874. (910) IsaiahBerlin quotes Churchill in Mr. Churchillin 1940. (911) No; Churchill favored thetruce with Sinn Fein because he consid-ered "that our forces are stronger and bet-ter trained." (912) Churchill blamedGeneral Montgomery in using ItalianPOW statements too often as coversource for intelligence information. $5
FINEST HOUR I O I / 5 O
Wit&Wisdom
UNIQUE PRESCRIPTIONMDs in the audience may like
to tell us whether this note from theAmerican doctor who treated Churchillafter his New York City car accident inthe winter of 1931-32 is unique in itsprescription. (Courtesy Warren Kimball,from the Churchill Archives).
January 26, 1932This is to certify that the post-accident con-valescence of the Hon. Winston S. Churchillnecessitates the use of alcoholic spirits espe-cially at meal times. The quantity is natu-rally indefinite but the minimum require-ments would be 250 cubic centimeters.A/Otto C. Pickhardt, M.D.
I seem to recall a 1929 account ofChurchill's encounter with another Amer-ican doctor on his lecture tour, who toldhim he would have to stop smoking cig-ars to maintain his voice. Indicating aglass containing his usual weak highball,Churchill asked, "What about that?""That," said Pickhardt, "must be left toyour conscience." WSC replied, "I thinkyou and I shall get along fine."
ENCOUNTERS WITH LADYASTOR/ am writing a paper about Mr.
Churchill and I keep hearing jokes aboutLady Astor. Who is Lady Astor and whatwas the relationship? -Gordon Jones
Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Vis-countess Astor, b.1879, first womanMember of Parliament (elected 1919,
served to 1945), married Wal-dorf Astor, of Greenwood, Vir-ginia. Although a Conservative,like Churchill after 1924, sheclashed often with him overDominion Status for India andrelations with Germany andRussia. She was a strong backerof the appeasement policies ofPrime Ministers Baldwin andChamberlain. The famous ex-change between them, during aweekend at Blenheim Palace, isapparently not apocryphal, aswe had previously believed:"Winston, if I were married toyou I'd put poison in your cof-fee"... "Nancy, if I were marriedto you I'd drink it."
Another reported encounteroccurred in the House of Commons asChurchill was orating about Mankind,saying "Man" this and "Man" that. LadyAstor continually kept interjecting"...And Woman, Mr. Speaker...AndWoman!" Finally Churchill is supposed tohave exclaimed, "In this context, Mr.Speaker, the understanding is that ManEMBRACES Woman." This did not im-prove his relations with the Noble Lady.
PRAISE FOR HITLER?A reader question was prompted
by the film "Judgment at Nuremberg," in
which Churchill is said to have "praisedHitler" in The Times in 1938. Ron Cohenprovides the documentation:
Regrettably, Woods notes onlyone letter to The Times in 1938. In allthere were nine letters, statements andmemoranda by Churchill published inThe Times in 1938. Of these, one state-ment may contain the text referred to. Is-sued on 6 November and published at p.12 of The Times of 7 November 1938, itmay also be found in Companion Vol-ume 3 to Volume V of the Official Biog-raphy, at pp. 1259-60:
"Herr Hitler ought to under-stand this mood and respect it. I have al-ways said that if Great Britain were de-feated in war I hoped we should find aHitler to lead us back to our rightful posi-tion among the nations. I am sorry, how-ever, that he has not been mellowed bythe great success that has attended him.The whole world would rejoice to see theHitler of peace and tolerance, and noth-ing would adorn his name in world his-tory so much as acts of magnanimity andof mercy and of pity to the forlorn andfriendless, to the weak and poor....Let thisgreat man search his own heart and con-science before he accuses anyone of beinga warmonger....If Herr Hitler's eye fallsupon these words I trust he will acceptthem in the spirit of candour in whichthey are uttered." $3
AMPERSANDA fitting close to this issue is this note of thanks to JohnMather, Chairman of the 15th International ChurchillConference (below with Nigel Knocker), who took on anunexpected big job when urgently needed and "madehimself useful at a critical moment. "Many thanks, John.
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![WORD OF THE DAY #37 Candor [ kan-der ] n. Honesty; frankness Outspokenness, forthright, straightforward](https://img.pdfslide.us/doc/110x75/5a4d1ada7f8b9ab059974564/-word-of-the-day-37-candor-kan-der-n-honesty-frankness-outspokenness.jpg)
