Month: December 2018

Walk
The Common Touch: With sailors (and the towering Detective Sgt. Thompson) aboard HMS Ajax, which had helped pursue the Graf Spee to her ultimate scuttling in 1939.
When Presidents and Prime Ministers Would Walk Among Us

When Presidents and Prime Ministers Would Walk Among Us

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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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ideas
Churchill and FDR with the Press, Washington, 23 December 1941. (Bettmann Archive)
Churchill had how many ideas a day? How many were good?

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

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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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chicken
Addressing the Canadian Parliament, 30 December 1941. (Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill, Canada and the Perspective of History (Part 3)

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

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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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History
One of seven photographs by Yousuf Karsh after Churchill’s speech to the Canadian Parliament, 30 Decembler 1941, this one with Prime Minister Mackenzie King. (Karsh, Ottawa)
Churchill, Canada and the Perspective of History (Part 2)

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

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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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Canada
With Churchill Society board members at the Library of Parliament, Ottawa. L-R President Ronald Cohen, Treasurer Stephen Adler, Richard Langworth, Secretary Ian Smillie, Barbara Langworth, Hon. David Collenette, Bob Plamondon, Kyle McRobie, Ambassador Chris Westdal, Membership co-chair Pamela Reynolds, Colin Smith, Ambassador Bob Fowler. Absent board members are Andrew Cohen, Colin Robertson and Charlotte Gray, who were with us at other times on the day. The Library was the sole survivor of a devastating fire in 1916.
Churchill, Canada and the Perspective of History (Part 1)

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

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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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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

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