Richard M. Langworth | Senior Fellow, Hillsdale College Churchill Project, Writer and Historian

“Among his many qualities over fifty years of political prominence was CHURCHILL’S CONSISTENCY. He might not agree with every position, biographer Martin Gilbert wrote: ‘But there would be nothing to cause me to think: How shocking, how appalling.’” —RML

“Darling Monster”: Diana Cooper and Her Remembrances of Churchill

24 May 2019 Comments 0 Comments

Darling Monster: The Letters of Lady Diana Cooper to her Son John Julius Norwich 1939-1952, Chatto & Windus, 2013, 520pp.

Lady Diana Duff Cooper had a penetrating mind and brilliant pen, capable of capturing a time when women considered the world laden with opportunity for fulfillment.

She proved this with her famous seven-year performance in Max Reinhardt’s “The Miracle.” Her “Winston and Clementine,” first published in The Atlantic just after Sir Winston’s death, was as fine a tribute to the Churchill marriage as we are likely to encounter.Her collaboration with her husband’s ambassadorship to France was notable.…

Kaiser-Frazer and the Making of Automotive History, Part 2

20 May 2019 Comments 0 Comments

Transcript of a speech to the Kaiser-Frazer Owners Club, 30 July 2015. Continued from Part 1. Delving in

While I received no extra pay for writing the Kaiser-Frazer book, I did have the use of an expense account for travel. That was where Bill Tilden came through again. He helped me track down and interview many of people responsible for the cars Kaiser-Frazer built. Others were located through the deep tentacles of Automobile Quarterly, its many contacts in the industry. We also searched for archives, large and small.

Our greatest archival find was at Kaiser Industries in Oakland, California: the Kaiser-Frazer photo files, placed on loan for AQ’s use.…

Current Churchill Contentions: “The Invasion of the Idiots”

17 May 2019 Comments 5 Comments

“Current Contentions” was delivered at Hillsdale College’s Center for Constructive Alternatives seminar on “Churchill and the Movies,” 27 March 2019. For the video, please click here.

Edited transcript: The original speech included certain subjects covered earlier and elsewhere. These are summarized below, and provided with links to the original texts. The video, which is unabridged, includes questions and answers with the audience.

Churchill’s World of 1932

Eighty-seven years ago, Churchill was here in Michigan, in Detroit, Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor, on a U.S. lecture tour. East, west, north, and south he rode the rails, “living all day on my back in a railway compartment and addressing in the evening large audiences.” He concluded, startlingly for someone with his background, that it was the hardest work he’d had in his life.…

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