2016 - Page 4 of 4 - Richard M. Langworth

Vox Non-Populi: More Churchill Mythology

20 February 2016 Comments 0 Comments

Winston Churchill was no saint; it is a disservice to pretend he was. But he is too complex to be pigeonholed by writers who criticize selectively. Hillsdale College’s Churchill Project responds to the mythology. Read full article.

Excerpt

Winston Churchill is in the news, as is often the case. On February 11th, Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders had words of praise for Churchill’s war leadership. Vox Media has criticized him and Churchill in sharp language. Are the criticisms of Churchill true?

During the Democrat debate on 11 February 2-16, candidates were asked to name two leaders, one American and one foreign, who would influence their policy decisions.…

Read More Read More

Churchill on Trial: Washington, 1953

19 February 2016 Comments 1 Comment

In early 1953, Winston Churchill was placed on trial by his peers, with President Truman the presiding judge, for complicity in the use of atomic bombs. To anyone who may write to say that he and Truman were making light of events causing thousands of deaths, the answer is twofold: 1) How do you know they were making light?; and 2) This is in answer to a historical query. Sources: Clark Clifford, recollection, to Richard Langworth, 1988. Margaret Truman, “After the Presidency,” in Life, 1 December 1972, 69-70. Also recorded in her book, Harry S. Truman.

__________________

Margaret Truman wrote: “During our last weeks in the White House, Prime Minister Churchill arrived for a visit.…

Read More Read More

“Churchill and his Military Commanders”

10 February 2016 Comments 0 Comments

Part I: “War Statesmanship,” in “Churchill and his Military Commanders,” by Eliot A. Cohen. Read in full on the Hillsdale College Churchill Project.

“The generals had in mind a concept of civil-military relations to which many still, amazingly, pay lip service: a world in which civilians provide resources, set goals, and step out of the way to let professionals do their work. War statesmanship, in Churchill’s view, focused at the apex of government an array of considerations and calculations that even those one rung down could not fully fathom.”

Eliot A. Cohen is professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and has served as Counselor of the Department of State.…

Read More Read More

Last Try to Avoid Hell, 1914

22 January 2016 Comments 0 Comments

“Saving the Nations from Hell”: The “Kingly Conference,” 1914 (Excerpt)

Churchill’s faith in personal diplomacy—solving intractable problems by meetings at the highest level—was famously expressed during World War II.

Less widely known is Churchill’s 1914 proposal for a conference of heads of state (including, it seems, French President Raymond Poincaré) in an effort to head-off World War I. The scheme failed, but not for Churchill’s lack of trying.

There is little on Churchill’s “kingly conference” in the literature. There is no reference in Churchill’s The World Crisis, Asquith’s memoirs, or biographies by Manchester, Jenkins, Rose, Charmley and Birkenhead, though Sir Martin Gilbert includes in the official biography an excerpt from a cabinet member which records Churchill’s words in the cabinet of July 27th:

Churchill said we were now in a better than average condition, & the fleet was at war strength….Churchill,…

Read More Read More

Churchill Nonsense, Parts #1462-64

15 January 2016 Comments 1 Comment

Nonsense #1462: Yachts

The Irish novelist George Moore originated the tale that Sir Winston’s mother Jennie, Lady Randolph Churchill, slept with 200 men. Assuming she did so, say, between ages 20 and 60, she averaged five per year, a ten-week average affair (if she had them one at a time, with a couple days’ break in between). Which is a lot of lovers to maintain, given the state of Victorian and Edwardian locomotion.

However ridiculous, the claim stuck, and is regularly trotted out and embellished on a medium poor Jennie never anticipated: the Internet. It occurs so often because it’s so easy to rattle off, and prurient enough to raise a website’s Google Analytics—never mind whether it is even feasible.…

Read More Read More

Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality

13 January 2016 Comments 0 Comments

Per the previous post, I append for reader comment the contents of my next book, Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality: What Churchill Stood For.

I have written on most of these matters in the past; the book recasts it afresh. I also acknowledge and cross-reference the work of experts who know far more than I, particularly in the fields of genealogy and medicine. I would be glad to hear your thoughts; please use the “contact” page.

The historian David Stafford wrote: “Myth only develops and takes hold when the time is right, and the climate has long been ripe for the emergence of myths about a wartime hero who stood firm against a totalitarian foe and smote an evil empire.”…

Read More Read More

Myths about Churchill: Coming Up

10 January 2016 Comments 0 Comments

Winston Churchill: Urban Myths and Reality: Lies, Fables, Myths, Distortions and Things that Go Bump in the Night.

Not a day passes when Sir Winston Churchill, who proved himself indispensable when freedom needed him, is not accused of something, from alcoholism to war crimes—often without serious attribution, or through selective quotes, arranged and cropped so as to advance the preconceived notion.

On that electronic Speakers’ Corner we know as the Internet, Churchill bubbles in a gurgling, digital soup, where he can say anything, or do anything, from hiding his foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor to firebombing Dresden.…

Read More Read More