Year: 2009

“The Bank of Observance”

“The Bank of Observance”

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

“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

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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