Can you please advise whether or not Sir Winston Churchill said: “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” Many thanks.—A.S., Bermuda
Cordell Hull (Library of Congress)
It was Cordell Hull, not WSC. I have a slight variation of it in the “Red Herrings” appendix of Churchill by Himself, page 576:
“A lie will gallop halfway round the world before the truth has time to pull its breeches on.” —Although commonly ascribed to Churchill (who would have said trousers, not breeches), this was actually written by Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, Cordell Hull.
Ref.: Hull, Cordell. Memoirs of Cordell Hull. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1948, 220.
