Year: 2009

“The Bank of Observance”

“The Bank of Observance”

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I am in the final stages of writ­ing a book on the reli­gious beliefs of post-World War II Pres­i­dents. In the chap­ter on Dwight Eisen­how­er, I wrote that although Eisen­how­er asked for the “bless­ing of Almighty God” on D-Day, few assess­ments of him would dwell on his reli­gious char­ac­ter: “In fact, Eisenhower’s faith might be more accu­rate­ly described by Win­ston Churchill’s remark that he had made “so many deposits in the Bank of Obser­vance” as a youth that he had been con­fi­dent­ly with­draw­ing from it ever since. Can you con­firm the quo­ta­tion? —D.H., Virginia

Hap­py to assist.…

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135 Years: Raise a Glass

135 Years: Raise a Glass

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“A few cur­mud­geons have flam­boy­ant­ly abstained from join­ing in this birth­day greet­ing; but they are so few that their action mere­ly empha­sis­es the fact that per­son­al respect and friend­ship habit­u­al­ly sur­vive and tran­scend polit­i­cal con­flict in the Moth­er of Par­lia­ments. It is par­tic­u­lar­ly appro­pri­ate that these all-par­ty trib­utes on his birth­day should be paid to one, the out­stand­ing fact of whose char­ac­ter and career is that he has nev­er been hap­pi­er than when lead­ing men of all par­ties and men of no par­ty in some great nation­al cause. He has nev­er ceased to com­bine zeal for reform with rev­er­ence for tradition.…

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Errata & Addenda to “Churchill by Himself,” First American and English Editions

Errata & Addenda to “Churchill by Himself,” First American and English Editions

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Churchill by Him­self is dif­fer­ent from all oth­er Churchill quote books through “cor­rectibil­i­ty.” It offers a ref­er­ence to each quo­ta­tion, and a method by which cor­rec­tions may be sent in, ver­i­fied, and made avail­able dig­i­tal­ly to readers.

Pro­duc­ing any work as com­pli­cat­ed as this is a con­stant run­ning bat­tle between con­flict­ing sources, experts who dis­agree with each oth­er, and inex­orable dead­lines. For instance, one expert offered cor­rec­tions based on the 1974 Com­plete Speech­es (not com­plete and scarce­ly free of errors) that con­tra­dict the texts of ear­li­er vol­umes by Churchill himself—which to me take pri­or­i­ty.…

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“Winston” Olbermann and the Healthcare Debate

“Winston” Olbermann and the Healthcare Debate

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N.B.: If Mr. Olber­mann had done more research, he would know what Churchill did say about nation­al health­care, which is more to the point: see Churchill and Healthcare.

MSNBC com­men­ta­tor Kei­th Olber­mann is for the pro­posed Amer­i­can health­care reform bill, which is nei­ther here nor there.

What is inter­est­ing to Churchillians is his use of Win­ston Churchill’s words to sup­port it—from both 1945 (when Churchill was cam­paign­ing against social­ism), and 1936 (when Churchill was urg­ing rear­ma­ment in the face of Nazi Germany).

In 1945, Olber­mann says, Churchill

equat­ed his oppo­nents, the par­ty that sought to intro­duce “The Nation­al Health,” to the Gestapo of the Ger­mans that he and we had just beat­en just as those oppos­ing reform now have invoked Nazis as fre­quent­ly and false­ly as if they were invok­ing Zom­bies.…

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Churchill as Motorist

Churchill as Motorist

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Could you tell me if Win­ston Churchill drove an auto­mo­bile?  I’m inter­est­ed in estab­lish­ing whether the major World War II lead­ers, on both sides, could dri­ve a car.  So far, I know only that Franklin Roo­sevelt drove his own Ford at Hyde Park (hand con­trols but he was his own dri­ver when he need­ed to be).  This may seem an odd line of inves­ti­ga­tion, but I think it might be illu­mi­nat­ing. —P.C., New Hampshire

I have a long-sim­mer­ing arti­cle about Churchill and auto­mo­biles; he owned quite an assort­ment, from  Mor­ris­es and Land Rovers to a big Daim­ler giv­en him by his friends in 1932.…

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debate
Pat Buchanan leads off for the Affirmative (C-Span)
The Un-great Non-debate Neither Buries nor Lionizes Churchill

The Un-great Non-debate Neither Buries nor Lionizes Churchill

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The Great Debate: “Resolved, that Win­ston Churchill was more a lia­bil­i­ty than an asset to the free world.” Spon­sored by Intel­li­gence Squared, view­able on C-Span.

LONDON, 3 SEPT 1999— It was avid­ly await­ed but fell flat. Tabling a tru­ly ridicu­lous motion, Intel­li­gence Squared (“the only insti­tu­tion in town aside from Par­lia­ment to pro­vide a forum for debate on the cru­cial issues of the day”) com­bined with C-Span to bring us this spec­ta­cle. It would have been more inter­est­ing to debate whether Hitler or Churchill was the bet­ter painter.

I will spare you wise­cracks about Intel­li­gence Squared.…

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Was Churchill an Alcoholic?

Was Churchill an Alcoholic?

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The ques­tion fre­quent­ly aris­es, was Churchill an alco­holic? Cer­tain­ly his own accounts of his prowess (“I have tak­en more out of alco­hol than alco­hol has tak­en out of me”), and his fre­quent depic­tion as a red-nosed drunk by ene­mies from Goebbels to mod­ern­day scoffers, lends one to believe that he drank heavily.

The truth, as Richard Geshke puts it in a com­mu­ni­ca­tion on ChurchillChat, is that he was “a con­stant sip­per: “I nev­er heard any sto­ries of a drunk Churchill.”

There is just one val­i­dat­ed sto­ry: Dan­ny Man­der, one of WSC’s body­guards at Teheran, recalls escort­ing a well-lubri­cat­ed Churchill and Antho­ny Eden home after a lengthy series of toasts with the Rus­sians.…

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“Duly Inscribed” by Winston Churchill

“Duly Inscribed” by Winston Churchill

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I have a first Amer­i­can edi­tion of Churchill’s Boer war book, Lon­don toLady­smith via Pre­to­ria (New York: Long­mans Green, 1900, now part of The Boer War).On the inside cov­er, there is a label with a sig­na­ture of Win­ston Churchill.Do you think that it is an orig­i­nal sig­na­ture or is it a label that was print­ed in quan­ti­ties? —L.C., Que­bec, Canada

The first line reads, “duly Inscribed” and the sig­na­ture looks like his (suit­ably aged ink), but I have nev­er encoun­tered “duly Inscribed” on anoth­er book signed by Churchill. How­ev­er, since this is a card obvi­ous­ly past­ed in, I sup­pose it’s possible.…

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Vonage: Don’t Let This Happen to You

Vonage: Don’t Let This Happen to You

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In May 2009, we signed up with Von­age in order to escape the greedy clutch­es of our local tele­phone provider, Fair Point Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, which charges out­ra­geous prices for turn­ing our phones on and off while we are away, and a large pre­mi­um for “wide area” dial­ing any­where out­side one sliv­er of Car­roll Coun­ty, New Hamp­shire. My advice is: the dev­il you know is bet­ter than the dev­il you don’t.

It seemed so easy. Von­age quick­ly signed us up for $9.95 a month for three months and then only $25 a month for free calls to every­where but Mars, and sent a $25 modem which they want­ed us to plug into our sys­tem.…

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

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