A friend asks if there has been a solid refu­ta­tion of Pat Buchanan’s book. I’m sure there has been, and I wouldn’t be sur­prised if it has been pub­lished in Finest Hour, but could you give me the cita­tion? —W.M.

Pro­fes­sor David Free­man at Cal State Fuller­ton wrote the full review in Finest Hour 139, Sum­mer 2008. I ganged up on poor Pat by writ­ing about his selec­tive quo­ta­tion tech­niques in my accom­pa­ny­ing edi­to­r­ial, which I reprise below.

Churchill, Hitler and the Unnec­es­sary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, by Patrick J. Buchanan. New York, Crown, 518 pp., $29.95.

A prob­lem illus­trated by Pat Buchanan’s book is the ram­pant use of selec­tive quotes. No ani­mus toward the author: I have respect for Pat Buchanan and even voted for him in the 1992 New Hamp­shire Pri­mary (the begin­ning of the end for King George I). “I like a man who grins when he fights,” as Churchill said. But selec­tive quo­ta­tions edited to dis­tort the facts and to fit a pre­de­ter­mined mind­set are out of bounds.

To estab­lish Churchill’s “lust” for World War I, for exam­ple, Buchanan quotes him on 28 July 1914: “Every­thing tends towards cat­a­stro­phe & col­lapse. I am inter­ested, geared up and happy. Is it not hor­ri­ble to be built like that?…” (page 28)

But he omits the rest of that pas­sage: “…The prepa­ra­tions have a hideous fas­ci­na­tion for me. I pray to God to for­give me for such fear­ful moods of lev­ity. Yet I w[oul]d do my best for peace, and noth­ing w[oul]d induce me wrong­fully to strike the blow.” (from Mar­tin Gilbert, edi­tor,  Win­ston S. Churchill, Com­pan­ion Vol­ume II, Part 3, page 1989, back in print at Hills­dale Col­lege Press.)

As the war mounts on 10 Jan­u­ary 1915, Buchanan has Churchill exclaim­ing: “My God! This, this is liv­ing His­tory. Every­thing we are doing and say­ing is thrilling—it will be read by a thou­sand gen­er­a­tions, think of that! Why I would not be out of this glo­ri­ous deli­cious war for any­thing the world could give me (eyes glow­ing but with a slight anx­i­ety lest the word ‘deli­cious’ should jar on me).” (page 66)

The lat­ter is pure hearsay from the noto­ri­ously waspish Mar­got Asquith—but assume he said it. To suit his the­sis, Pat trims the rest of what Mar­got reported: “…I say don’t repeat that I said the word ‘delicious’—you know what I mean…..” (Win­ston S. Churchill, Com­pan­ion Vol­ume III, Part 1, page 400.)

Pos­sessed of the words deleted from Buchanan’s quote of Margot’s idle chit-chat, one might ask what Churchill meant by “you know what I mean”? Did he assume Mar­got knew he real­ized what bar­bar­ity war was—that he had been warn­ing of the apoc­a­lyp­tic nature of a Euro­pean war since 1903?

I searched in vain among Pat’s col­lec­tion of lusty war quotes for con­trary expressions—and there are many. Take Churchill’s 1909 remark after watch­ing Ger­man Army maneu­vers: “Much as war attracts me & fas­ci­nates my mind with its tremen­dous situations—I feel more deeply every year—& can mea­sure the feel­ing here in the midst of arms—what vile & wicked folly & bar­barism it all is” (Win­ston S. Churchill, Com­pan­ion Vol­ume II, Part 2, 912).

Buchanan does include an early 1900s remark about the dan­gers of a Euro­pean war, but only to imply that Churchill had changed his tune by 1914. Nowhere do we read excul­pa­tory evi­dence, such as Churchill’s 1911 pro­posal for an Anglo-German “naval hol­i­day” or his plea, at the eleventh hour, for a peace con­fer­ence attended by all the Heads of State of Europe.

Then there is Hitler, on whom Pat has been indus­tri­ous. Under Hitler’s photo we read: “‘If our coun­try were defeated, I hope we should find a cham­pion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.’ —Churchill on Hitler, 1937.”

This sen­tence has often been culled out to be mis­un­der­stood by the unwary. Here is the full pas­sage (Churchill, Step by Step, 1947 edi­tion, 158). Draw your own conclusions:

To feel deep con­cern about the armed power of Ger­many is in no way deroga­tory to Ger­many. On the con­trary, it is a trib­ute to the won­der­ful and ter­ri­ble strength which Ger­many exerted in the Great War, when almost single-handed she fought nearly all the world and nearly beat them. Nat­u­rally, when a peo­ple who have shown such mag­nif­i­cent mil­i­tary qual­i­ties are arm­ing night and day, its neigh­bours, who bear the scars of pre­vi­ous con­flicts, must be anx­ious and ought to be vig­i­lant. One may dis­like Hitler’s sys­tem and yet admire his patri­otic achieve­ment. If our coun­try were defeated I hope we should find a cham­pion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations. I have on more than one occa­sion made my appeal in pub­lic that the Führer of Ger­many should now become the Hitler of peace.

All of which shows yet again that you can use Churchill’s words, vac­u­umed like a gigan­tic Hoover and offered with­out ellipses by the faith­ful Mar­tin Gilbert, to prove any­thing. You only have to pre-select and edit the right ones.

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