“Above all, Sir Winston carried about him a certain JOYOUS HUMANITY. Asked what he most admired about him, Marshal Tito, a most perceptive man, said: ‘His humanity. He is so human.’ On that at least I agree with Marshal Tito.” —RML
Churchill at 150: A Certain Splendid Memory

Churchill at 150: A Certain Splendid Memory

“I pondered what had made this dynamic but gentle character so beloved and respected. First of all that there was courage. He had no fear of anything, moral or physical. There was sincerity, truth and integrity, for he couldn't knowingly deceive a cabinet minister or a bricklayer or a secretary. There was forgiveness, warmth, affection, loyalty and, perhaps most important of all in the demanding life we all lived, there was humour, which he had in abundance.” -Grace Hamblin

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Lenin as Typhoid Culture. Or: To Russia With Love

Lenin as Typhoid Culture. Or: To Russia With Love

The German plan, Churchill wrote, “worked with amazing accuracy. No sooner did Lenin arrive than he began beckoning a finger here and a finger there to obscure persons in sheltered retreats in New York, in Glasgow, in Bern, and other countries, and he gathered together the leading spirits of a formidable sect, the most formidable sect in the world, of which he was the high priest and chief. With these spirits around him he set to work with demoniacal ability to tear to pieces every institution on which the Russian State and nation depended. Russia was laid low. Russia had to be laid low. She was laid low to the dust.”

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It’s Baaaack! The Epstein Churchill Bust Kerfuffle, Round 4

It’s Baaaack! The Epstein Churchill Bust Kerfuffle, Round 4

Since 1965 has been an Epstein Churchill bust at the White House, uninterrupted now for six decades. Current media confusion surrounds the SECOND Epstein, which makes regular visits on loan from the British Embassy, where it is in the Embassy’s art collection. Epstein #1 is part of the permanent White House collection. Epstein #2 is an “optional extra” at the White House, depending on the whim of the occupant. Every President is entitled to the totems of his choice.

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Tim Benson and the Cartoonists’ Churchill

Tim Benson and the Cartoonists’ Churchill

Benson devotes himself mainly to the Second World War. The uplifting spirit of British cartoonists in the black days of 1940-41 is at once evident. A glow of resolve swept Britain; there were no carping media midgets such as we hear from today. That was a time, as Churchill put it, “when it was equally good to live or die.” The pace picks up as Hitler invades Russia. The Daily Sketch pictures Roosevelt leading a sailing race in a boat marked “Lend-Lease.” Melbourne’s Herald adds Aussie humor: Tojo being fed a cigar (lit end first), and wrestler Churchill putting a toe-hold on a screaming Mussolini. This is a first-class work of scholarship in addition to high entertainment.

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Stop the Churchill Comparisons! (Part #1,234)

Stop the Churchill Comparisons! (Part #1,234)

Really, these Churchill comparisons need to stop. We cannot postulate what Churchill would do about any issue or problem today. It doesn't seem far-fetched to suggest that in today's Middle East. his focus would be on the main danger. Figure out what that is, and you too can may find comparisons Winston Churchill. But, in a larger sense, there is nobody so far in the 21st century who is comparable to WSC. Nobody.

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Unanswered Questions: Churchill and Rudolf Diesel

Unanswered Questions: Churchill and Rudolf Diesel

It is known that Rudolf Diesel boarded the “Dresden” that fatal October in 1913 intending to meet with the British about licensing his invention. By then Churchill and Fisher were well along on the conversion from coal to oil for capital ships, and WSC had secured an oil supply through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. How far Diesel developments had affected designs for submarines or Churchill’s “landship” (the tank) bears further investigation. 

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Questions on Books: The Second World War

Questions on Books: The Second World War

Not all translations spanned the complete six volumes. The Turkish Edition contained only the first two volumes. Wendy Reves, wife of Churchill’s literary agent, Emery Reves, told me that the publishers refused to pay for the rest! The first Russian edition (1956-58) contained only the first three volumes, though Ronald Cohen also lists a later, complete Russian edition published in 1997-98. There were also eight translations of Churchill’s one-volume abridged edition, first published in 1959.

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How Olaf Stapledon Inspired Churchill’s Vision

How Olaf Stapledon Inspired Churchill’s Vision

Of Stapledon’s “Last and First Men” Churchill wrote: “A race of beings was evolved which had mastered nature. A state was created whose citizens lived as long as they chose, enjoyed pleasures and sympathies incomparably wider than our own, navigated the interplanetary spaces, could recall the panorama of the past and foresee the future.” But “without an equal growth of Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love, Science herself may destroy all that makes human life majestic and tolerable....”

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Best Churchill Books for Young Readers

Best Churchill Books for Young Readers

Fiona Reynoldson’s “Leading Lives: Churchill,” is targeted at the young (ages 8-15). Now a quarter century old, it is still the best “juvenile” ever published, anywhere, by anybody. The “Leading Lives” series mixes Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and Arafat with Roosevelt, Kennedy and Gandhi. I know nothing about the others, but Reynoldson’s Churchill is a masterpiece. So much wisdom and fair understanding is attractively wedged into sixty-four pages.

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The Second Atlantic Charter? A Seventieth Anniversary

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    

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