I’m a research librarian for The Washington Post, currently based in the paper’s New York City bureau. A reporter has asked me to source a quote attributed to Winston Churchill and I’m having some difficulty in doing that. I was wondering if you might be able to help me.  The quote is: “Americans can always be relied upon to do the right thing — after they have exhausted all other remedies.” —R.D.

The wording usually quoted is, “The Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.” It is all over the Internet, but without reliable attribution.

I included this quotation in the “Red Herrings” appendix of Churchill by Himself because I have been unable to track it to date. First, Churchill would never never said it publicly; he was much too careful about slips of private opinion involving close allies. Second, though I have been told that it came from Sir John Colville’s memoirs, I can’t find it there, nor did Sir John mention it to me in our conversations. Nevertheless it may well have been said in some private moment, for Churchill did have those sentiments from time to time in World War II. Bottom line: still in doubt.

A similar remark we can establish came oin 9 December 1941, when a colleague urged a cautious approach to the Americans after Pearl Harbor and American entry into World War II. From Churchill by Himself, page 118:

Oh! That is the way we talked to her while we were wooing her; now that she is in the harem, we talk to her quite differently!

Reference is Arthur Bryant, ed, The Turn of the Tide 1939-1943, from the diary of Lord Alanbrooke (New York: Doubleday, 1957), page 231.

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