Month: September 2020

Hull
Any lies galloping here? U.S.. Secretary of State Cordell Hull (right) confers with British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden during the Second World War. (U.S. State Department, public domain)
Galloping Lies, Bodyguards of Lies, and Lies for the Sake of Your Country

Galloping Lies, Bodyguards of Lies, and Lies for the Sake of Your Country

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About lies. Can you please advise whether or not Sir Win­ston Churchill said: “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”  Many thanks. —A.S., Bermuda

That one lies with Cordell Hull

It was Franklin Roo­sevelt‘s Sec­re­tary of State, Cordell Hull, not Churchill. I have a slight vari­a­tion of it in the “Red Her­rings” appen­dix of  Churchill by Him­self, page 576: “A lie will gal­lop halfway round the world before the truth has time to pull its breech­es on.”  Although com­mon­ly ascribed to Churchill (who would have said “trousers,” not “breech­es”), this is def­i­nite­ly down to Hull.…

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Pilecki
The show trial of Capt. Witold Pilecki, sentenced to death and executed March 1948. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
Witold Pilecki: A Brave Pole Who Did His Best for Liberty

Witold Pilecki: A Brave Pole Who Did His Best for Liberty

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Excerpt­ed from Richard Cohen and Richard Lang­worth: “Witold Pilec­ki: A Deserv­ing Addi­tion to “The Right­eous Among the Nations,” for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. Mr. Cohen is a real estate lawyer based in Lon­don and head of the Essex Branch of the Jew­ish His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety of Eng­land. For the full text and illus­tra­tions please click here.

War aim or by-product?

Jack Fair­weath­er, The Vol­un­teer: One Man, an Under­ground Army, and the Secret Mis­sion to Destroy Auschwitz. (The sto­ry of Witold Pilec­ki.) New York: Harper­Collins, 2019, $28.99, Ama­zon $20.49, Kin­dle $13.99.

By 1 August 1946 the world knew the full truth of the Holo­caust.…

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Thatcher
Barbara Langworth with Lady Thatcher, Washington, 1993.
Margaret Thatcher 1923-2013: A Churchillian Remembrance

Margaret Thatcher 1923-2013: A Churchillian Remembrance

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Margaret Thatcher: Excerpted from a tribute, 2013

Every­one is famil­iar with Mar­garet Thatcher’s career. Every­one depend­ing on their pol­i­tics will have their own vision. It is left to say here what she meant to the mem­o­ry of Win­ston Churchill, the prime min­is­ter she revered above all. More than any­one who lived at 10 Down­ing Street, she had real appre­ci­a­tion for him. She read his books, quot­ed him fre­quent­ly, even host­ed a din­ner for his fam­i­ly and sur­viv­ing mem­bers of his wartime coalition.

In 1993 she was in Wash­ing­ton to coin­cide with a Churchill Con­fer­ence host­ing 500 peo­ple, includ­ing 140 stu­dents, a dozen lumi­nar­ies, and ambas­sadors from Britain and the Com­mon­wealth.…

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Annexe
Almost unnoticed today, Downing Street Annexe occupied the ground floor offices on Horse Guards Road, facing St. James’s Park. Here is where Churchill ran most of the war when in London. One may still see the filled-in square holes which once held hinges for the steel air raid shutters. Today this is expensive commercial real estate. (Photo by Don Greater)
Downing Street Annexe and Churchill Secretary Ellizabeth Layton Nel

Downing Street Annexe and Churchill Secretary Ellizabeth Layton Nel

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Excerpt­ed from “Down­ing Street Annexe and War Rooms,” answered in full on the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project.

Who were John Evans and Tom Leonard?:

Ques­tion: In the 2017 film Dark­est Hour, on Churchill in May 1940. I am puz­zled by two char­ac­ters. There is a young man who is seen near Churchill at Chartwell and the under­ground War Rooms. The Dark­est Hour cast names him “John Evans.” The name of anoth­er man in the cast, “Tom Leonard,” sug­gests noth­ing. He is the dri­ver of Churchill’s car when the PM abrupt­ly bolts and heads for the Under­ground.…

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Lawrence
Colonel T.E. Lawrence, 1919, painted by Augustus John OM 1878-1961, presented to the Tate Gallery by the Duke of Westminster, 1920. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain). Modestly priced posters of his famous painting are offered by redbubble.com, https://rdbl.co/2GUrHJQ
Churchill and Lawrence of Arabia: A Conjunction of Two Bright Stars

Churchill and Lawrence of Arabia: A Conjunction of Two Bright Stars

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Excerpt­ed from “Great Con­tem­po­raries: T.E. Lawrence,” writ­ten for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the com­plete text and more illus­tra­tions, please click here.

Churchill and Lawrence

If the Almighty dab­bles in the cre­ation of indi­vid­u­als, He must have chor­tled when He con­jured up Lawrence of Ara­bia. For here was the ide­al advis­er, foil and friend of Win­ston Spencer Churchill. To para­phrase WSC’s apoc­ryphal quip, Lawrence pos­sessed none of the virtues Churchill despised, an all the vices he admired.

He was “untram­meled by con­ven­tion,” Churchill wrote, “inde­pen­dent of the ordi­nary cur­rents of human action.”…

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Redburn
“It was such a happy day.” Owermoigne, Dorset, 28 September 1995. L-R: Jaime Snell Mendoza, Ashley Redburn, Elizabeth Snell, Gert Zoller, Richard Langworth, Margaret Redburn, Garry Clark, Curt Zoller. (Photo by James Snell)
Absent Friends: Ashley Redburn 1914-1996: “England Hath Need of Thee”

Absent Friends: Ashley Redburn 1914-1996: “England Hath Need of Thee”

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This trib­ute to an extra­or­di­nary Churchillian was writ­ten twen­ty-three years ago in 1997. Please par­don ref­er­ences to con­tem­po­rary events no longer in the news, though it would seem that some oth­er Red­burn thoughts are star­tling­ly relevant.

Ashley Redburn, Anglo-American

Cyn­ics some­times sug­gest that West­ern Civ­i­liza­tion needs a war every few gen­er­a­tions to main­tain its sense of val­ues and faith in itself. Ash­ley Red­burn was a man who believed it. “Eng­land,” he declared grim­ly, “needs to be con­quered in war and occu­pied by a venge­ful ene­my before its spir­it can be revived. Ger­many and France between them have ruined Europe for two cen­turies.…

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

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