Month: January 2020

secondhand
Churchill debating for the negative on the resolution “That in the opinion of this House the present Government is unworthy of the confidence of the country,” Oxford Union, 1 March 1907. Secretary Hallett is seated at far left, President Talbot on the raised dais, Viscount Wolmer in the chair to his left. (This fine framed print from the Illustrated London News is offered by Media Storehouse. See http://bit.ly/2S1JlNE)
Secondhand but Valid: “If you can speak in this country…”

Secondhand but Valid: “If you can speak in this country…”

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The Eng­lish-Speak­ing Union posed a ques­tion which illus­trates the prob­lem of sec­ond­hand quotes. That is, some­thing Churchill said which is not in his pub­lished canon. The quote is: “If you can speak in this coun­try [Britain], you can do any­thing.” It was a con­cise cel­e­bra­tion of the British right to free speech. The ESU has it on their web­site. But is it verifiable?

In 1966, the ESU Philadel­phia Branch host­ed an exhib­it of my Churchill bio­graph­i­cal stamp col­lec­tion at the Philadel­phia Nation­al Bank. It was the first pub­lic appear­ance of what­ev­er lim­it­ed Churchill knowl­edge I then had, my “awak­en­ing” as a Churchillian.…

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Addison
The Addison Corpus: see list and links below. (Montage by Barbara Langworth)
Paul Addison, 1943-2020: What Matters is the Truth

Paul Addison, 1943-2020: What Matters is the Truth

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29 October 1994 A fond and fun­ny mem­o­ry of Paul Addi­son is one which few know about. It came dur­ing a Wash­ing­ton sym­po­sium on “Churchill as Peace­mak­er,” lat­er pub­lished as an out­stand­ing book. Dur­ing a break, we walked over to the White House, which Paul want­ed to see. We stood at the iron fence, gaz­ing at the seat of pow­er across the lawn. . As we chat­ted, Paul remarked on how close we were to the build­ing itself. “The secu­ri­ty seems pret­ty light,” he said. “It’s not hard to visu­al­ize some stray lunatic stand­ing here and spray­ing the walls with bullets.”…

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wrong pig
“In the name of humanity; Broke the staff over them. Too much talking.” Not sure about the precise translation, but the Nazi message is clear: FDR and Churchill, with Stalin’s help, executing liberty. (Der Stürmer, Berlin, June 1943.)  
Not Churchill, re Germany: “We butchered the wrong pig”

Not Churchill, re Germany: “We butchered the wrong pig”

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Digital scans of 80 million words by and about Churchill, including his books, articles, speeches and published papers, offer no instance of this phrase, either with the word “slaughtered” or the word “butchered.” Neither did I find any statement of his suggesting Britain had “fought the wrong enemy.”  One of Churchill's virtues was to recognize the main threat to peace at each juncture in his career. From 1933 to 1945, he was certain that Nazi Germany was not the "wrong pig." He did begin to think, late in the war, that one mortal foe had given rise to another. But he always kept things in perspective.

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Marcus Peters
The Underground Scene: Marcus Peters (Adé Dee Haastrup) with Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman). (Focus Features)
“Darkest Hour” Myth-Making? Don’t Mess with Marcus Peters

“Darkest Hour” Myth-Making? Don’t Mess with Marcus Peters

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Cue Left: Marcus Peters, May 1940

Mar­cus Peters (Adé Dee Haas­trup) is a neat­ly dressed West Indi­an rid­ing the Lon­don Under­ground on 28 May 1940. Whom should he meet but Prime Min­is­ter Churchill (Gary Old­man)! The scene (fic­tion) forms a dra­mat­ic moment in Dark­est Hour, Joe Wright’s great film on Churchill in 1940.

Churchill, per the movie, has entered the Under­ground for the sec­ond time in his life. (The first was in the 1920s, when he couldn’t find his way out and had to be res­cued.) He goes there as the Ger­mans are rolling up Europe.…

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Fleming
Professor Alexander Fleming, who first discovered the mold Penicillin Notatum, in his laboratory at St Mary’s, Paddington, London, 1943. (Imperial War Museum – public domain)
Urban Myths: “Alexander Fleming Twice Saved Churchill’s Life”

Urban Myths: “Alexander Fleming Twice Saved Churchill’s Life”

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Fleming as rescuer…

The Flem­ing myth is updat­ed from an arti­cle orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in 1998.

Is it true that Lord Ran­dolph Churchill financed the edu­ca­tion of Alexan­der Flem­ing, the dis­cov­er­er of peni­cillin, as a result of Flem­ing (or his father) res­cu­ing Churchill from drown­ing in a swamp when young Win­ston was a youth—and a Flem­ing dis­cov­ery, peni­cillin, saved Churchill’s life years lat­er in 1943? A friend of mine has sent me this email regard­ing it and I want­ed to ver­i­fy . —L.M.

This ques­tion comes up reg­u­lar­ly, but both parts of the sto­ry are untrue. Nei­ther Alexan­der Flem­ing nor his father were with Churchill at the times sug­gest­ed.…

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At the Cairo Conference, 1921. Front, L-R: M. Stevenson, Gen. Walter Congreve (Commander Egyptian Expeditionary Force), Sir Herbert Samuel (Palestine High Commissioner), Winston Churchill (Colonial Secretary), Sir Percy Cox (Iraq High Commissioner). 2nd row, L-R: Gertrude Bell (advisor who favored Arab kings in Iraq and Jordan), Sir Sassoon Eskell (Iraq Finance Minister), Gen. Atkinson, Jafar Pasha al-Askari (Iraq Defense Minister), T.E. Lawrence (Middle East Dept.) Public domain, Beaugosses at the English Wikipedia.
Avaricious Imperialists or Nation Builders? The Middle East, 100 Years On

Avaricious Imperialists or Nation Builders? The Middle East, 100 Years On

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Middle East, Made and Unmade

“A Cen­tu­ry Ago, the Mod­ern Mid­dle East Was Born,” announced The New York Times in Decem­ber. A col­league asks: “Are you not struck by how dif­fi­cult (impos­si­ble?) it is to encap­su­late his­to­ry in an op-ed? Is that real­ly how and when the mod­ern Mid­dle East was born?”

Good ques­tions. The Times’s idea is that after World War I, avari­cious impe­ri­al­ists moved in to enslave Turkey’s for­mer slaves. This famil­iar theme will dom­i­nate through the cen­te­nary of the Cairo Con­fer­ence in March 2021. It’s been around at least since 2001, when Osama bin Laden referred to 9/11 as pay­back for what he then called “eighty years of injustice.”…

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

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Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
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