Year: 2016

Britain’s Leave Debate: Who’s Churchill? Who’s Stalin?

Britain’s Leave Debate: Who’s Churchill? Who’s Stalin?

The cam­paign to Leave is heat­ing up. Take Grass­roots Out, a “com­bined oper­a­tion” sup­port­ing Brexit—the cam­paign for Great Britain to exit the Euro­pean Union. G-O field­ed a broad spec­trum of speak­ers in Lon­don Feb­ru­ary 19th. Along with UK Inde­pen­dence Par­ty leader Nigel Farage were Con­ser­v­a­tive Sir William Cash, Labour’s Kate Hoey, econ­o­mist Ruth Lea, and a Lon­don cab driver.

The most unex­pect­ed Leave speak­er was the far-left for­mer Labour MP and head of the social­ist Respect Par­ty. Mr. George Gal­loway was imme­di­ate­ly queried about his new colleagues.

“We are not pals,” Gal­loway replied.…

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Vox Non-Populi: More Churchill Mythology

Vox Non-Populi: More Churchill Mythology

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.…

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Churchill on Trial: Washington, 1953

Churchill on Trial: Washington, 1953

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.

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

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“Churchill and his Military Commanders”

“Churchill and his Military Commanders”

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.…

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Last Try to Avoid Hell, 1914

Last Try to Avoid Hell, 1914

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

(Read more at Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project)

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,…

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Churchill Nonsense, Parts #1462-64

Churchill Nonsense, Parts #1462-64

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.…

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Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality

Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality

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.”…

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Myths about Churchill: Coming Up

Myths about Churchill: Coming Up

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.…

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