2012 - Richard M. Langworth

Did Churchill Ever Admire Hitler? 3/3

4 December 2012 Comments 1 Comment

Part 3: Pleasing No One …continued from Part 2

Churchill was correct when he said his writings about Hitler satisfied neither Hitler’s defenders nor Hitler’s critics. One of the former was Lord Londonderry, a pro-Hitler peer who complained that Churchill’s Evening Standard piece would prevent a decent understanding with Germany. On 23 October 1937, Churchill replied to Lord Londonderry (Gilbert, Churchill: A Life, 581):

You cannot expect English people to be attracted by the brutal intolerances of Nazidom, though these may fade with time. On the other hand, we all wish to live on friendly terms with Germany.…

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Did Churchill Ever Admire Hitler? 2/3

3 December 2012 Comments 3 Comments

Part 2: “Friendship with Germany” ,,,continued from Part 1

Churchill’s critics sometimes quote sentences which they think came from his original Hitler article or Great Contemporaries, among which this is the most common:

One may dislike Hitler’s system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.

In fact this passage is from Churchill’s article in the Evening Standard, 17 September 1937: “Friendship with Germany” (Cohen C548), subsequently reprinted in Churchill’s book of foreign affairs essays, Step by Step (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1939, Cohen A111).…

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Did Churchill Ever Admire Hitler? 1/3

30 November 2012 Comments 0 Comments

Part 1: “Government by Dictators”

The Hitler chapter in Churchill’s book Great Contemporaries, like the rest of the volume, was derived from a previous article. In this case the original was “The Truth about Hitler,” in The Strand Magazine of November 1935 (Cohen C481). Ronald Cohen notes in his Bibliography that Strand editor Reeves Shaw, who paid WSC £250 for the article, wanted Churchill to make it “as outspoken as you possibly can…absolutely frank in your judgment of [Hitler’s] methods.” It was.

Two years later, when Churchill was preparing his Hitler essay for Great Contemporaries, he characteristically submitted it to the Foreign Office, which asked that he tone it down.…

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The Lion is Back

31 October 2012 Comments 2 Comments

“Then out spake brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate.” William Manchester’s inscription, quoting Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome, a Churchill favorite, on my second volume of his Last Lion, reminds me that Bill was himself for many of us “Captain of the Gate”; and that his death in 2004 bid fair to deprive us of finale of the most lyrical Churchill work ever written.

Not quite. Twenty-four years on, Little Brown has published the third and final volume of this famous biography, subtitled Defender of the Realm 1940-1965 (1232 pages, in hardbound, Kindle and audio editions).…

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“Remember the past”: Santayana, but never Churchill

5 October 2012 Comments 0 Comments

I am a librarian and I have a patron who inquired about famous quote by George Santayana (in The Life of Reason, 1905): “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We know the quote was originally Santayana’s, but our patron would like to know when Mr. Churchill first used it. Unfortunately, my colleague and I have not been able to locate the the time or context of quote as it relates to Mr. Churchill. —D.J., New York

I searched Churchill’s 15 million published words (books, articles, speeches, private papers) but could find no occurrence of Santayana’s remark.…

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Churchill & the Bombing of Coventry

27 September 2012 Comments 2 Comments

The Weider History Group replied to a query. “Did Churchill allow Coventry to be burned to protect his secret intelligence?” Their answer was somewhat equivocal:

There certainly have been a variety of different accounts, even supposedly by eyewitnesses, that contradict each other as to how much Winston Churchill had learned from the Boniface (later Ultra) decoders as to the main target for the German “Moonlight Sonata” air raid on the Midlands in November 1940, and when did he ascertain it. Whether he mistook it for a feint, with London the actual target, of whether he knew of Coventry and left it to its fate rather than compromise Britain’s ability to crack the German Enigma codes seems to depend on one’s feelings toward Churchill.……

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9/11/12: Ambassador Murdered, Consulate Burned

13 September 2012 Comments 0 Comments

Over the last forty-eight hours I have been asked for the same two Churchill quotations by several persons in the news media or in politics. The quotations are in my book, Churchill By Himself, newly published as Churchill in His Own Words:

“Leadership” chapter, page 490, “Inertia”:

When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure. There is nothing new in the story. It is as old as the Sibylline books. It falls into that long, dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind.…

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Churchill and the Kilkenny Cats

3 August 2012 Comments 0 Comments

Or: “Is the U.S. Senate like the Kilkenny Cats?”

A Churchillian friend who has written to her Senators emails:

This brief video by Senator Rand Paul is a good example of why the United States Congress has only a 10% approval rating. Isn’t Senator Reid in charge in the Senate? The video explains why the Senate is an insult to the American people.

I’ve given up on the U.S. Senate, myself. I’m glad somebody is still writing them letters.

Will any reader advise whether Senator Paul won on his July 29th point of order, attempting to get extra time to read a 600-page Senate bill due for a vote in six or eight hours?…

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Baseball: The Amazin’ Nats

28 July 2012 Comments 0 Comments

In 2012’s greatest baseball success story, the Washington Nationals went 60-40 on July 28th, having won more games as they won all year in 2008 and 2009. In the National League they’re first in pitching, tied for second in fielding, and seventh in hitting, although in the last month their batters have been on fire.

Tied with the Yankees for the best record in baseball, the precedents fall weekly. 2012 is supplanting 2005 as the best year since baseball returned to Washington. The Nats are now about five games better than they were at this time in 2005, when they dove from first to last place in the second half.…

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Straitjacketing Churchill (and the Truth)

19 July 2012 Comments 0 Comments

LONDON, JULY 19TH— In what were described as “guerrilla raids,” BBC Channel 4 “straitjacketed” the statues of four widely admired Britons: Churchill and Florence Nightingale in London, Charles Darwin in Shrewsbury and Samuel Johnson in Lichfield.

Each figure was “restrained” in a bespoke strait-jacket which had the mental illness they are reputed to have had stamped across it. Churchill’s was labeled DEPRESSION.

The straitjacketing was carried out to promote Channel 4’s season of prime-time programming challenging mental health stigma and discrimination, “4 Goes Mad,” which started on Monday 23 July. The stunt was also captured as part of a short film aired on Channel 4’s “Random Acts.”…

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