Month: August 2021

On Good News from Generals: Churchill’s Experience and Methods

On Good News from Generals: Churchill’s Experience and Methods

Say what?

A New York Times cor­re­spon­dent writes:

I’ve been read­ing The Best and the Bright­est by David Hal­ber­stam, about how we got into Viet­nam. When you’re decid­ing whether to inter­vene mil­i­tar­i­ly, he says, you can count on the gen­er­als to tell you every­thing that can go awry and stress the neg­a­tive part of the pic­ture. But once they’re invest­ed, once it’s their job to cre­ate a good out­come through mil­i­tary means, it’s going to be all hap­py talk. They’re not going to report that they’re fail­ing. They’re going to give you the sun­nier side of what’s hap­pen­ing, in this case, in Afghanistan.…

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The Polish and the Holocaust: What Churchill Knew

The Polish and the Holocaust: What Churchill Knew

Polish firing squad of one

Mr. Paul Bonow­icz staged a one-man protest against Churchill in South Ruis­lip, Mid­dle­sex. He denounced “the lies in British books about Win­ston Churchill. I am Pol­ish and we know he betrayed Pol­ish peo­ple.” He added: Churchill “knew about the Holo­caust. He knew Jew­ish peo­ple were dying, but he didn’t help. After the war there was a deal between Churchill and Stal­in, and the price was Poland. Part of my coun­try went to the Sovi­ets. It was Churchill who decid­ed which part, not the Poles.” —Uxbridge Gazette.

Churchill did know about the Holo­caust, and alone among allied lead­ers, he tried to do some­thing about it.

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Churchill’s Consistency: Politics Before Country (Part 2)

Churchill’s Consistency: Politics Before Country (Part 2)

Consistency in Politics…

…was a theme of Churchill’s, and he often wrote about it. He made many mis­takes, but through­out his career he was sel­dom guilty of lack­ing con­sis­ten­cy. Con­tin­ued from Part 1

“Much better if he had never lived”

Churchill main­tained friend­ly rela­tions with Bald­win until Bald­win died in 1947. Nevertheless—which was rare for him—he nev­er for­gave and nev­er for­got. In June 1947 he made an aston­ish­ing state­ment: “I wish Stan­ley Bald­win no ill, but it would have been much bet­ter if he had nev­er lived.” Offi­cial biog­ra­ph­er Mar­tin Gilbert wrote that this was not Churchill’s usu­al con­sis­ten­cy, but exact­ly the opposite:

In my long search for Churchill few let­ters have struck a clear­er note than this one.…

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