Year: 2022

Happy New Year: “May we all come through safe and with honour”

Happy New Year: “May we all come through safe and with honour”

Churchill entered the dining carriage amid cheers and applause, raising his glass to the company. “It was with no illusions,” he wrote, “that I wished them all a glorious New Year.... 'Here’s to 1942, here’s to a year of toil—a year of struggle and peril, and a long step forward towards victory. May we all come through safe and with honour.'"

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Churchill, Wells, and Government by “Experts”

Churchill, Wells, and Government by “Experts”

Churchill shared Wells’s faith in science, but he never lost his reservations about experts. Four months after they met, he declared in Parliament: “It was a principle of our Constitution not to employ experts, whether business men or military men, in the highest affairs of State.” Four decades laster he reiterated: “Expert knowledge, however indispensable, is no substitute for a generous and comprehending outlook upon the human story with all its sadness and with all its unquenchable hope.”

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Bull in a China Shop: John Foster Dulles? Not Churchill’s Line

Bull in a China Shop: John Foster Dulles? Not Churchill’s Line

"This fellow preaches like a Methodist Minister, and his bloody text is always the same: that nothing but evil can come out of meeting with Malenkov. Dulles is a terrible handicap. Ten years ago I could have dealt with him.... I have been humiliated by my own decay."

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Telling Off the Prez: “Love Actually” Still Sings

Telling Off the Prez: “Love Actually” Still Sings

"I love that word 'relationship.' Covers all manner of sins, doesn't it? I fear that this has become a bad relationship.... We may be a small country, but we're a great one too—the country of Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter—David Beckham's right foot. David Beckham's left foot for that matter." Hugh Grant at his best.

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Why Churchill Skipped the Roosevelt Funeral in 1945

Why Churchill Skipped the Roosevelt Funeral in 1945

The funeral quandary: “...everyone here thought my duty next week lay at home, at a time when so many Ministers are out of the country” (per Martin Gilbert). “P.M. of course wanted to go. A[nthony Eden] thought they oughtn’t both to be away together.... P.M. says he’ll go and A. can stay. I told A. that, if P.M. goes, he must.... Churchill deeply regretted in after years that he allowed himself to be persuaded not to go at once to Washington” (per Alexander Cadogan).

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Churchill Quotations for December 7th

Churchill Quotations for December 7th

"In two or three minutes Mr. Roosevelt came through. 'Mr. President, what’s this about Japan?' 'It’s quite true,' he replied. 'They have attacked us at Pearl Harbor. We are all in the same boat now.' I put Winant on to the line and some interchanges took place, the Ambassador at first saying, 'Good, Good'—and then, apparently graver, 'Ah!' I got on again and said, 'This certainly simplifies things. God be with you,' or words to that effect."

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A Battle of Britain Memory on Churchill’s Birthday

A Battle of Britain Memory on Churchill’s Birthday

"The British Empire and the United States will have to be somewhat mixed up together in some of their affairs for mutual and general advantage. For my own part, looking out upon the future, I do not view the process with any misgivings. I could not stop it if I wished; no one can stop it. Like the Mississippi, it just keeps rolling along. Let it roll. Let it roll on full flood, inexorable, irresistible, benignant, to broader lands and better days."

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Winston Churchill’s Washington Humor

Winston Churchill’s Washington Humor

Washington, December 1941 press conference: A Texas reporter asked (getting his title wrong): “Mr. Minister, can you tell us when you think we may lick these boys?” There was a pause while someone explained to WSC the meaning of the American slang, “lick.” Then Churchill said: “If we manage it well, it will take only half as long as if we manage it badly.”

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Scaffolding Rhetoric: Churchill in Congress, 1941

Scaffolding Rhetoric: Churchill in Congress, 1941

"When we look at the resources of the United States and the British Empire compared to those of Japan; when we remember those of China, which have so long valiantly withstood invasion and tyranny—and when also we observe the Russian menace which hangs over Japan—it becomes still more difficult to reconcile Japanese action with prudence or even with sanity. What kind of a people do they think we are?" With these words the Senators and Representatives stood roaring approval. He had them in his hands now.

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Princess Elizabeth’s Nazi Salute: Must We Know Everything?

Princess Elizabeth’s Nazi Salute: Must We Know Everything?

"Most people will see these pictures in their proper context and time. This is a family playing and momentarily referencing a gesture many would have seen from contemporary news reels. No one at that time had any sense how the salute would evolve."

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