A chance meting with Darryl Zanuck brought Darrin back to America—at exactly the right time. The custom coachbuilding business was waning, semi-customs were in, and Packard needed a new body style. Continued from Part 1…
Excerpt: For full text and illustrations and a roster of Packard Darrins, see The Automobile, May 2017.
Darrin frequently hobnobbed with the Good and the Great. One day in 1934, at the Paris Polo Club, a club director approached: “There’s an American out on the playground with a horse and polo mallet; please see if you can help him.” Dutch went out and met film producer Darryl Zanuck—who invited him to Hollywood.…
The first commandment of Lady Soames, Winston Churchill’s renowned daughter (1922-2014), was: “Thou shalt not proclaim what my father would do in modern situations.” However, since she enjoyed smoking a good cigar on occasion, she might excuse the suggestion that if he were around, he would probably not object to legalizing marijuana.
Churchill on SmokingThe journalist and broadcaster Collin Brooks wrote a sprightly essay, “Churchill the Conversationalist,” in Charles Eade‘s collection of articles, Churchill by His Contemporaries. (This 1953 book is inexpensive and well worth owning. It’s an evergreen collection of perceptive pieces on aspects of Churchill’s life and character.)…
Dutch Darrin was supremely lucky—and one of the most charming things about him was that he never ceased saying so.
Part 1Excerpt only. For full text and illustrations and a roster of Packard Darrins, see The Automobile, May 2017.
Looking back on the previous century, the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. reflected that individuals do make a difference: “In December 1931 Churchill, crossing Fifth Avenue in New York City, looked in the wrong direction and was knocked down by an automobile. Fourteen months later Franklin Roosevelt was fired on by an assassin….Would the next two decades have been the same had the car killed Churchill in 1931 and the bullet killed Roosevelt in 1933?”…
Written for a colleague who asked various contributors for 300 words on the qualities of Winston Churchill they most admire.
LeadershipFew great leaders are also great writers; none who were both compare with Winston Churchill. In 1940 he saved civilization by keeping Britain in the fight until those “who hitherto had been half blind were half ready.” His historical and biographical eloquence won a Nobel Prize. Uniquely for a politician, he thought and wrote deeply about the nature of man. He hated and tried to prevent war. He fought to preserve constitutional liberty.…
I read your article about busting four myths about Winston Churchill from The Federalist. Here is an article I’d like you to read and hear your feedback: “Apartheid, made in Britain: Richard Dowden explains how Churchill, Rhodes and Smuts caused black South Africans to lose their rights.” (The Independent, 19 April 1994.) —David E., Ohio
Accurate, But Not DispositiveMr. Dowden’s article seems to me broadly accurate, but not dispositive.
It is true that Britain dropped its opposition to making South Africa a “white man’s country” in 1909 by passing the Union of South Africa Act.…
Fateful Questions, September 1943-April 1944, nineteenth of a projected twenty-three document volumes in the official biography, Winston S. Churchill, is reviewed by historian Andrew Roberts in Commentary.
These volumes comprise “every important document of any kind that concerns Churchill.” The present volume sets the size record. Fateful Questions is 2,752 pages long, representing an average of more than eleven pages per day. Yet at $60, it is a tremendous bargain. Order your copy from the Hillsdale College Bookstore.
Here is an excerpt from my account, “Fresh History,” which can be read in its entirety at the Hillsdale College Churchill Project.…
Particularly on the Fall of Singapore (see earlier post), a new critique of Churchill misses the forest for the trees and fails on the facts. Really, Churchill made lots of mistakes worth contemplating. But these aren’t among them.
The article appeared in southwest Australia’s Sun Coast Daily on April 26th. Not exactly The Times, and if you don’t subscribe to Google Alerts you missed it. For the fun of shooting fish in a barrel, however, it’s worth a few minutes of your time.
Critique 1: Self-Interest
“Churchill had a long and varied career in politics, managing to swap parties as his career needs required.” …
This article first appeared as “Churchill and the Fall of Singapore” in The American Spectator, 22 February 2017.
“There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away…people can face peril or misfortune with fortitude and buoyancy, but they bitterly resent being deceived or finding that those responsible for their affairs are themselves dwelling in a fool’s paradise.” —Winston S. Churchill, 1950
On the last day of January, 1942, the British blew up Singapore’s central causeway to the mainland in a vain attempt to stop the onrushing Japanese.…
