October 2020 - Richard M. Langworth

Paul Courtenay 1934-2020: No Better Definition of a Pro

29 October 2020 Comments 3 Comments

It’s a shopworn phrase, but Paul Courtenay was a walking encyclopedia on Winston Churchill. We worked together on conferences, seminars, books and articles for thirty years. He was a major contributor to Finest Hour, the Hillsdale College Churchill Project, to books and biographies. Paul was indispensable. And he is irreplaceable.

As editor over those years I was constantly grateful that he was there. I had only to press his Heraldry button, his Smuts button, his Military button, his Foreign Affairs button, his Book Review button, for exactly what I needed. I never discovered how many such buttons he had.…

Winston Churchill on the “Unconquerable Welsh” and David Lloyd George

26 October 2020 Comments 0 Comments

An apposite quotation at this moment, with Wales locked down in the face of Covid…

Question: I have unsuccessfully searched the web for a speech Winston Churchill gave to Parliament referring to the Welsh as “the undefeatable race.” Do you know the speech? I believe it was in Churchill’s address following the death of David Lloyd George in March 1945. —S.D.

“Unconquerable Welsh”

It did occur in that speech, but Churchill’s word was “unconquerable,” not “undefeatable.”

In his Lloyd George tribute, Churchill spoke of the Welsh as “that unconquerable race.” I have emailed you the full text of “The Death of Earl Lloyd George,” in 1945.…

“Winston S. Churchill”: The Triumphant Story of the Official Biography

19 October 2020 Comments 0 Comments

This history of the Official Biography was first published in Finest Hour 190, Fourth Quarter 2020

“We go back a long way,” Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn recently reminded me. “I knew Dal Newfield.” He realized that would invoke a fond memory. A few still remember the man responsible for where some of us are today.

Dalton Newfield was a Sacramento army veteran who had admired Winston Churchill since he saw him live during World War II. In 1970, I shrank away from Finest Hour after the first eleven issues. I was clearing the decks for an automotive writing career in New York City.…