“There was about Churchill a faith that nothing was beyond our reach: A DETERMINED OPTIMISM. ‘I confess,’ he said, ‘that like Disraeli I am on the side of the optimists. I do not believe that humanity is going to destroy itself.’” —RML
The Second Atlantic Charter? A Seventieth Anniversary
“We will continue our support of the United Nations and of existing international organizations that have been established in the spirit of the Charter for common protection and security. We urge the establishment and maintenance of such associations of appropriate nations as will best, in their respective regions, preserve the peace and the independence of the peoples living there. When desired by the peoples of the affected countries, we are ready to render appropriate and feasible assistance to such associations.” Eisenhower & Churchill, 1954
Neither the ships nor the dogfight quips are traceable to Churchill. "Red herrings" are everywhere, in digital and print media, with no attribution whatsoever. Coming soon from Hillsdale College Press, my new, expanded edition of "Churchill by Himself”: contains nearly 200 famous remarks which Churchill either never said or denied saying. Fastidious digital searches produce no evidence to authenticate them. (Sometimes it was another bloke.)
Churchill to Grey: "I beseech you at this crisis not to make a mistake in falling below the level of events. Half-hearted measures will ruin all, and a million men will die through the prolongation of the war. You must be bold and violent. You have a right to be. Our fleet is forcing the Dardanelles. No armies can reach Constantinople but those which we invite, yet we seek nothing here but the victory of the common cause." Grey and the Foreign Office "felt as we did. They did all in their power. It registers a terrible moment in the long struggle to save Russia from her foes and from herself.”
The statue dilemma: All those statues on Parliament Square—not just Churchill's—are of people with human faults. During the craze to tear down statues a few years ago, French President Macron boldly announced that no French statues would go. They are part of France's heritage, he said, for good or ill. That was very courageous of him. Statues tell a nation's story. If you object to one, erect one to balance it. There is no virtue in hiding from history.
Churchill said, “Short words are best, and the old words, when short, are best of all.” How would that peerless practitioner of English, would react to the kind of language around us today? We can imagine what he would think about substituting fashionable jargon like “challenges” for “handicaps” or “issues” for “difficulties.” What would he make of that stand-by cliché “reaching out”? Oh dear....
Pamela Harriman was a noble spirit devoted to friends, family and both her countries. Not many people could have journeyed so successfully and far She was grace personified, at home equally in Churchill’s air raid shelter or the Élysée Palace. President Chirac was saddened by her death: “To say that she was an exceptional representative of the U.S. does not do justice to her achievement. She lent to our longstanding alliance the radiant strength of her personality. She was elegance itself...a peerless diplomat.” That old Francophile, her father-in-law, would have smiled.
The great Tucker Flapdoodle: Adolf Hitler was misunderstood, we are told. He invaded Poland only because Chamberlain and Churchill forced him. He never wanted France, dropped peace leaflets on Britain. The Germans were baffled over what to do with millions of Russian POWs because Churchill kept fighting long enough to bring Stalin in. Then Churchill got America involved. Here we consider just one of these unique charges: that in his bloodlust, Churchill firebombed Germany's Black Forest. (We hadn't heard that one before.)
People are still falling for those reproduction Churchill thank-you letters produced by the thousands using a spirit duplicator. "The ultimate thrift shop haul," headlined the Daily Mail in July 2023. "Budget shopper is left STUNNED after buying a 'priceless' handwritten letter signed by Winston Churchill for just $1—after finding it buried in a New York store." Actually, $1 is about what it's worth—plus perhaps $50 for a nicely matted and framed example. Update 2024: Six originals do exist.
The story goes that in the middle of the Second World War, Churchill's son-in-law Duncan Sandys told WSC that “Hitler and Mussolini have an even greater burden to bear, because everything is going wrong for them.” Supposedly Churchill said in reply: Ah, but Mussolini has this consolation, that he could shoot his son-in-law! I will not dignify that with quotation marks because it is nothing Churchill said. Not even about Vic Oliver, a son-in-law he really disliked. What worried Churchill was what might happen "if God wearied of mankind."
"Race: human. But if, as I imagine is the case, the object of this enquiry is to determine whether I have coloured blood in my veins, I am most happy to be able to inform you that I do, indeed, so have. This is derived from one of my most revered ancestors, the Indian Princess Pocahontas, of whom you may not have heard, but who was married to a Jamestown settler named John Rolfe." —Randolph Churchill, way out in fiction, to South African Immigration officers in the days of Apartheid.
