2012 - Page 2 of 11 - Richard M. Langworth

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).…

“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.…

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.……