September 2014 - Richard M. Langworth

Benjamin Netanyahu on #Churchill

17 September 2014 Comments 0 Comments

Prime Minister Netanyahu pays Sir Winston Churchill a compliment (and this writer a smaller one), in his thanks for a gift of an inscribed copy of my book, Churchill In His Own Words, a collection of 4000 annotated quotations (which Churchill really said), along with a short appendix of the popular aphorisms he never said but which are frequently credited to him (Churchillian Drift).

The Prime Minister is not new to Churchill; he is one of those few statesmen who pay more than routine lip-service to Churchill’s role in history. Unlike most leaders who invoke his name, Mr.…

“Squeeze Germany until the Pips Squeak”

14 September 2014 Comments 6 Comments

Writing in the Arizona Republic, Clay Thompson properly corrects a reader. It was not Churchill who coined the phrase, “we shall squeeze Germany until the pips squeak.” Mr. Thompson correctly replied that the author was likely Sir Eric Campbell-Geddes, First Lord of the Admiralty in 1917-19. No sooner had Geddes uttered it than the line was ascribed to Prime Minister David Lloyd George. It worked well in the 1918 British general election, which Lloyd George handily won.

Lloyd George was personally not revenge-minded. But as a politician he was all too ready to adopt the popular cry “Hang the Kaiser.”…