Year: 2018

When Presidents and Prime Ministers Would Walk Among Us

When Presidents and Prime Ministers Would Walk Among Us

There was a time, in a long-ago and inno­cent age, when nation­al lead­ers would walk about unac­com­pa­nied by secu­ri­ty. Some­times, they would even walk alone.

Four such episodes came to mind last week which exem­pli­fy this van­ished era. Ques­tions arrived from col­leagues about Churchill: his encoun­ters with Cana­di­an sol­diers and his North Car­oli­na con­nec­tions. Then The New York Times pub­lished a ret­ro­spec­tive on Woodrow Wil­son, dur­ing the 1918 Paris Peace Con­fer­ence. This was remind­ful of a fourth episode, involv­ing Har­ry Tru­man. The sad­ness is that none of these could have hap­pened in, the last fifty years. Maybe longer.

Walk in Paris: Woodrow Wilson, 1918

The Munic­i­pal Coun­cil of Paris gave Pres­i­dent Wil­son the keys to the City, but they neglect­ed to present him with what is far more essen­tial, a good map book, with which to find his way about the city’s intri­cate streets.…

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Churchill had how many ideas a day? How many were good?

Churchill had how many ideas a day? How many were good?

Q: “Who made the crack that Churchill had a hun­dred ideas a day but only four of them were good?” —Bruce Sax­ton, Tren­ton, N.J.

A: There are sev­er­al can­di­dates and vari­a­tions. Tak­ing them as a group, Churchill had from six to 100 ideas dai­ly, of which between one and six were good. In order of the most like­ly. But it could be one of those all-pur­pose cracks applied to many people.

Roosevelt: fifty to 100 ideas, three or four good.

Pres­i­dent Roo­sevelt is the most like­ly to have said this, since he’s quot­ed more than any­one else.…

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Churchill, Canada and the Perspective of History (Part 3)

Churchill, Canada and the Perspective of History (Part 3)

Per­spec­tive of His­to­ry: Address to the Churchill Soci­ety of Ottawa, Ontario, Cana­da, on Sir Winston’s 144th birth­day, 30 Novem­ber 2018 (Part 3). We were kind­ly host­ed at Earn­scliffe by the British High Com­mis­sion­er, Susan le Jeune d’Allegeershecque.

Perspective, 144 Years On

Con­clud­ed from Part 2…. “The great move­ments that under­lie history—the devel­op­ment of sci­ence, indus­try, cul­ture, social and polit­i­cal structures—are pow­er­ful, almost deter­mi­nant,” wrote Charles Krautham­mer.

Yet every once in a while, a sin­gle per­son aris­es with­out whom every­thing would be dif­fer­ent. In recent times, only Churchill car­ries that absolute­ly required cri­te­ri­on: indis­pens­abil­i­ty… Take away Churchill in 1940 [and] Hitler would have achieved what no oth­er tyrant, not even Napoleon, had ever achieved: mas­tery of Europe.…

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Churchill, Canada and the Perspective of History (Part 2)

Churchill, Canada and the Perspective of History (Part 2)

His­to­ry and mem­o­ry: Address to the Churchill Soci­ety of Ottawa, Ontario, Cana­da, on Sir Winston’s 144th birth­day, 30 Novem­ber 2018 (Part 2). We were kind­ly host­ed at Earn­scliffe by the British High Com­mis­sion­er, Susan le Jeune d’Allegeershecque.

Churchill and the Perspective of History 144 Years On

Con­tin­ued from Part 1…. Do you want the good news or the bad news on Churchill today? The bad news is the high lev­el of igno­rance, as mea­sured by that elec­tron­ic Hyde Park Speaker’s Cor­ner, the Internet.

Churchill’s name elic­its 100 mil­lion Google hits, a col­league says, “Some are ques­tions, many of which sim­ply require the answer ‘No’—such as: ‘Was Churchill anti-Semit­ic?

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Churchill, Canada and the Perspective of History (Part 1)

Churchill, Canada and the Perspective of History (Part 1)

Address to the Sir Win­ston Churchill Soci­ety of Ottawa, Ontario, Cana­da, on Churchill’s 144th birth­day, 30 Novem­ber 2018 (Part 1). We were kind­ly host­ed at Earn­scliffe by the British High Com­mis­sion­er, Susan le Jeune d’Allegeershecque.

Churchill and Canada, 144 Years On

I thank Ron Cohen. And return his com­pli­ments. I thank him for his scholarship—especially his great Bib­li­og­ra­phy of the Writ­ings of Sir Win­ston Churchill, which is one of the eight or ten stan­dard works on Win­ston Churchill. And for his prowess as bag man, help­ing me emp­ty the book­shops of Hay-on-Wye, which he has just described to you.…

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All the “Quotes” Churchill Never Said (4: Sexism to Ypres)

All the “Quotes” Churchill Never Said (4: Sexism to Ypres)

Fake Quotes, concluded

Red Her­rings: Quotes not by Churchill (or things he said quot­ing some­one else), con­tin­ued from Part 3.  Com­piled for the next expand­ed edi­tion of Churchill by Him­self. Chap­ter ref­er­ences are to present edi­tions of that book.

Earthy or sex­ist gags were not real­ly Win­ston Churchill’s méti­er. His daugh­ter Mary doubt­ed an alleged crack to Bessie Brad­dock MP, who accused him of being drunk: “And you, my dear…are dis­gust­ing­ly ugly, but tomor­row I’ll be sober….” But I pro­duced the Scot­land Yard body­guard who was stand­ing next to him dur­ing the Brad­dock encounter.…

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Memories: Goldwater and Kennedy: 20 and 55 Years On

Memories: Goldwater and Kennedy: 20 and 55 Years On

A Goldwater Inscription

22 Novem­ber 2018— A pho­tog­ra­ph­er friend sends along praise of Bar­ry Gold­wa­ter (1909-1998). The Sen­a­tor was not­ed por­tray­er of his beloved South­west: “I am read­ing an issue of Ari­zona High­ways devot­ed to his work. The only thing he was more pas­sion­ate about than pol­i­tics was his pho­tog­ra­phy. And he was a great cam­era­man.” Praise of one pho­tog­ra­ph­er for anoth­er is high recommendation.

His note remind­ed me of Peo­ple and Places, Goldwater’s fine book of pho­tographs, from canyons to Hopi. The depth of feel­ing for Arizona’s native peo­ples and nat­ur­al vis­tas in those pho­tos belies the pic­ture his ene­mies tried to paint of Gold­wa­ter when he ran for Pres­i­dent in 1964.…

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All the “Quotes” Churchill Never Said (3: Lies to Sex)

All the “Quotes” Churchill Never Said (3: Lies to Sex)

Fake Quotes continued..

Red Her­rings: Quotes not by Churchill (or things he said quot­ing some­one else), con­tin­ued from Part 2.  Com­piled for the next expand­ed edi­tion of Churchill by Himself.

A read­er sug­gests that the list of “Red Her­ring” fake Churchill quotes be sub­di­vid­ed. We should sep­a­rate quotes he actu­al­ly said, but bor­rowed from some­one else, from quotes sim­ply invent­ed out of whole cloth. Not sure we have much to learn from that. First, while I try to name the orig­i­na­tor of a quo­ta­tion not by Sir Win­ston, I don’t always suc­ceed. Sec­ond, my brief extends only to dis­prov­ing that the words orig­i­nat­ed with Churchill.…

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Churchill’s “Visual Philosophy”: All the Curtis Hooper Prints

Churchill’s “Visual Philosophy”: All the Curtis Hooper Prints

Read­ers please note, Jason Hoop­er, the late Cur­tis Hooper’s son (see his note in com­ments below) is inter­est­ing in sell­ing some of his father’s fine pieces.  He asks me to pass this along to any­one who may be inter­est­ed. He may be reached by email: fortybolts@icloud.com. RML

Exhibited at Hillsdale College

In the 1970s, Sarah Churchill was involved in the com­mer­cial pub­li­ca­tion of a series of twen­ty-eight intaglio draw­ings by Cur­tis Hoop­er enti­tled, “A Visu­al Phi­los­o­phy of Sir Win­ston Churchill.”  The draw­ings were based upon famous Churchill pho­tographs and Sarah sup­plied suit­able quo­ta­tions for each.…

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All the “Quotes” Churchill Never Said (2: Fanatic to Liberty)

All the “Quotes” Churchill Never Said (2: Fanatic to Liberty)

“Red Her­rings”: Fake Churchill Quotes (or things he said quot­ing some­one else), con­tin­ued from Part 1.…  Com­piled for the next expand­ed edi­tion of Churchill by Him­self. Chap­ter ref­er­ences are to cur­rent edi­tions of that book.

“If you’re going through hell, keep going” is the most com­mon coun­ter­feit. Heard by every­one from pres­i­dents to comics, it is sheer fantasy—Churchill wasn’t giv­en to such redun­dan­cy. What’s your favorite among these Red Her­rings? Mine is the one about golf, which I expe­ri­enced per­son­al­ly before I wise­ly gave the game up.

Fanatic – France

Fanat­ic: A fanat­ic is some­one who won’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.…

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