“Who’s that man on the horse?”…

…I asked my father at a young age. “That’s Lee—he led a Southern army in the Civil War.” He gave me a book I still have, Illustrated Minute Biographies, by William DeWitt. Published 1953, it is utterly non-judgmental. Opposite the page on Lee (“Leader of a Lost Cause”) is a page on Lenin (“Father of the Russian Revolution.”)

Among DeWitt’s 150 personalities, Lee fascinated. I’ve always had a soft spot for underdogs. The moral injustice which the Civil War ended didn’t initially register. Nor did the enormity of Lee’s decision over which side to support. Civil War themes were popular. We kids wore replica Yankee and rebel soldier’s caps, not really knowing much about why they fought.

But the New York City public school system taught serious history in those days, and soon corrected our ignorance. Our teachers introduced us to the great wrongs of slavery and secession. They showed us the genius of Lincoln; the skill of Grant; the valiant, brilliant resistance of Lee.

As a child of that time I was saddened over the recent rush to pull down memorials to him—“less about understanding the past than a contest to divide us,” as Dan McLaughlin wrote. A better response is to erect more statues, as Hillsdale College did for Frederick Douglass—replying to history with more history.

Allen Guelzo’s new Lee biography is unmatched as an example of history taught with balance and understanding, as it was when I went to school. George Will thinks its timing couldn’t be better: “In today’s blizzard of facile, overheated, and grandstanding judgments about the past, this unsentimental biography illustrates the intellectual responsibility that the present owes to the past.”

Woke villain

Of course the first question one asks is: Why Lee? Especially now, when he’s a leading villain of the Woke Movement? Dr. Guelzo explained in an illuminating podcast with former Speaker Newt Gingrich. He actually began in 2014, before the advent of national distemper. Fired up, he had just published a best-seller on Gettysburg.

He focused on Lee because, compared to giants like Lincoln, Grant and Sherman, he was relatively underwritten. True, there were early hagiographies, and a Pulitzer-winning four volumes by Douglas Southall Freeman in the 1930s. But otherwise the field was relatively open.

Admittedly, it’s a challenge to write about someone many consider a traitor. Guelzo, a “northern Yankee,” defines the job as “difficult biography, like writing about Neville Chamberlain.” That is part of the fascination of his book—amplified by his skill in exposing Lee’s true character, the great impulses that drove him, and the decisions which placed him athwart the nation he loved and had sworn to protect and defend.

Truant Virginian

It takes 200 pages to get to that point, and the build-up is anything but dull. Lee last saw his father at the age of six. Washington’s famous cavalry general, Light-Horse Harry Lee, onetime Virginia governor, went through several fortunes and ruined himself, spending his last years in the West Indies. That left Robert with two powerful compulsions: perfection, to make up for his father’s shortcomings; and security, which his father’s profligacy had denied him.

Only in his last five years, as the unlikely president of a small college in Lexington, did Lee achieve those goals; remarkably, he was as effective a fundraiser as a military strategist. He raised what became Washington and Lee University from bankruptcy to prominence.

Lee commanded no troops in the field until he served under Winfield Scott in the Mexican War (1846-48). He was educated at West Point, America’s premier engineering school before the Civil War. He returned later as superintendent (1852-55), hating every minute of it, for he despised paperwork and interfering politicians.

The work he most enjoyed was building things: Savannah’s Fort Pulaski and improvements at other Army installations. In 1839 he changed the course of the Mississippi River and rebuilt the St. Louis waterfront.

Ironically, between West Point and Brooklyn’s Fort Hamilton, Lee spent more early adult years in New York than in Virginia. Arlington House in Alexandria County, the Lee home for 30 years, was part of the District of Columbia until 1846, and Lee never even owned it. Yet it was Virginia which commanded his loyalty in 1861.

The hinge of fate

Lee’s fateful decisions were threefold. In February 1861, seven states seceded to form the Confederacy. On 18 April Lee turned down Lincoln’s offer to command the Union Army. “If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South,” Lee exclaimed, “I would sacrifice them all to the Union: but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native State?”

Scott and Lincoln assured him there was no chance of this, but the next day Virginia seceded and joined the Confederacy. Tearfully Scott begged: “For God’s sake, don’t resign.” “I am compelled to,” Lee cried. “I can’t consult my feelings in this matter.”

“There is no glimpse of Lee thinking his way through the contradiction slavery posed to the American founding or the natural rights of the enslaved,” Guelzo writes. Though he freed Arlington’s slaves, to Lee they were “personally invisible, despite their presence all around.” Late in the war, he favored offering freedom to slaves who would fight with his army, and some did. The reaction of the army was “at best ambivalent.”

Lee’s thinking began with family: All his children possessed lay in Virginia. “They will be ruined if they do not go with their State. I cannot raise my hand against my children.” If he had, the state militia might have seized Arlington (in the event, the Union did). But remaining neutral would have made him a traitor in the eyes of both sides. So Lee could only hope that Virginia would not secede. “Save in her defense there will be one soldier less in the world than now.”

Save in her defense…. A day later found Lee in Richmond, where he hoped to mediate a peaceful settlement. There was none, and on 22 April he placed himself “at the service of my native state.”

Strategist and tactician

The accounts of Lee’s campaigns are brisk and revelatory without dunning us with detail. (Unfortunately, detail is sometimes lacking in the accompanying maps.) Twice taking the war to Union territory was the right strategy, Guelzo says.

We see the agate points at which, had things gone otherwise, Lee might have forced an armistice. Guelzo discounts the rumor that Lee and McClellan, neither defeated after Antietam, considered marching jointly on Washington, confronting Lincoln and compelling a settlement.

McClellan didn’t have that much imagination. He failed to press Lee at Antietam, as Lee had anticipated. “Some day,” Lee cracked, “they’re going to have a general I don’t understand.” (Some day they did.)

Lee was overly romanticized after the war, but contrary to recent criticisms, we see an audacious strategist whose attacks when he was expected to retreat won battle after battle. Tactics he usually left to subordinates, who were not always of the first caliber. When they were, the results were astonishing.

Norman Schwarzkopf, says the author, overwhelmed Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard in the 1991 Gulf War with the same sweeping flanking movement of Chancellorsville, where Lee allowed Stonewall Jackson to attack with his whole corps, risking everything—and ultimately losing Jackson himself.

Even at Gettysburg, Guelzo suggests, Lee’s strategy on day three was not all wrong. Union General Meade, broadly beaten the first two days, was actually preparing to retreat when George Pickett charged Cemetery Ridge. The rebels failed through the valor of Union troops who, though badly mauled earlier were determined not to yield. Pickett was asked later why he failed. “The Yankees fought,” he drawled.

Was Lee a traitor?

At Hampton Roads in January 1865, Lincoln met with Confederate plenipotentiaries inquiring about an armistice. There would be none, he declared, short of reestablishing “our one common country” and abolishing slavery. One asked whether that meant “we of the South have committed treason.” Lincoln replied, “You have stated the proposition better than I did.”

Dr. Guelzo is thoughtful on this question as applied to Lee. He meets the constitutional definition: “levying war against [the United States] or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” At the same time the author cites serious constitutional obstacles to convicting Lee (he was indicted, but never tried).

First, Grant had paroled Lee and his top officers at Appomattox, and a paroled prisoner-of-war cannot be classified legally as a traitor. Even Lincoln insisted that the Confederacy had no standing as a nation. It was an enemy, but not a foreign enemy. America’s greatest convulsion was a family affair—a war not only between states, but between households, kinsmen, brethren.

Conscious of his parole, Lee gave no encouragement to his indictors. He discouraged Jubal Early from a guerrilla movement which would “prolong bitter feeling and postpone the period when reason and charity may resume their sway.” He opposed a monument to Confederate war dead, which “would have the effect of retarding, instead of accelerating,” peaceful recovery.

Well, Dr. Guelzo says, he didn’t say that monument might not be deserved; and he took “no positive steps to cooperate with Reconstruction.” Given Lee’s devotion to his troops, for him to say no monument was deserved was inconceivable. And his last five years at Washington College were reconstructive. He never spoke at die-hard rallies, or gave encouragement to bitter-enders. But perhaps doing nothing is not enough.

“Absorbing society’s defaulters”

The nation-state with all its faults, Guelzo concludes, provides “a frail but workable insurance against the kinds of incessant dynastic, ethnic and religious warfare that used to be the common lot of the human race…. To wave away treason as a crime is to put in jeopardy many of the benefits the nation-state has conferred.”

That is a valid observation, but the author continues: “…perhaps the reluctance to pin [treason on Lee] is a token of an instinct, running back to the Constitutional Convention, to err on the side of absorbing society’s defaulters, rather than arching them to the scaffold.” He quotes the abolitionist Wendell Phillips: “We cannot cover the continent with gibbets. We cannot sicken the 19th century with such a sight.”

No, or the 21st century likewise.

Most of Lee’s class owned slaves, yet he told Confederate President Jefferson Davis that slavery was a curse that must go. But he didn’t think about when and how—nor did quite a few people, North and South. A century hence, if there are still historians, will they marvel over some of our slipshod thinking today?

Modern scolds may be outraged that Allen Guelzo has written this majestic biography. He will be called names for his trouble. But Dr. Guelzo quotes the literary critic John Gardner: “No true compassion without will, no true will without compassion.” The two have to meet, he says.

“Malice toward none; charity for all.” In their interview, Speaker Gingrich observes that Lincoln has affected him. “Yes,” says our author, “I believe so.”

Further reading

“Churchill’s Fantasy: If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg”

“Robert E. Lee and the Fashionable Urge to Hide from History“

22 November 2018— A photographer friend sends along praise of Barry Goldwater (1909-1998). The Senator was noted portrayer of his beloved Southwest: “I am reading an issue of Arizona Highways devoted to his work. The only thing he was more passionate about than politics was his photography. And he was a great cameraman.” Praise of one photographer for another is high recommendation.

His note reminded me of People and Places, Goldwater’s fine book of photographs, from canyons to Hopi. The depth of feeling for Arizona’s native peoples and natural vistas in those photos belies the picture his enemies tried to paint of Goldwater when he ran for President in 1964.

The book’s frontispiece is an impromptu snap of President Kennedy, gone fifty-five years November 22nd. The anniversary went almost unremarked. And after all, for half those now alive, the day so many of us will never forget must seem as ancient as the blue distance of the Middle Ages.

The photo is inscribed: “For Barry Goldwater – Whom I urge to follow the career for which he has shown such talent—photography! From his friend – John Kennedy.”  In his preface, Goldwater writes that while they had certain political disagreements, he thought that photo captured the effervescent spirit that he knew.

I have one of these framed. To me it represents the political respect and cordiality of a time long gone. It is unlikely to return in the foreseeable future.

Friends and Colleagues, Regardless…

It was an astonishing relationship. Goldwater was chairman of the Republican Senate Campaign Committee when then-Senator Kennedy began showing interest in running for President. In his travels on behalf of Republicans, Goldwater recalled, he would inevitably learn what voters thought of Kennedy. This he would impart to his friend Jack! “You’re not doing so well in rural Iowa, but things are looking up in Des Moines.”

After Kennedy became President in 1960, they both realized that the next election might pit them against each other. They  actually considered campaigning together—against each other—in 1964. It would have been a kind of whistle-stop Lincoln-Douglas debate series.

Then came Dallas, November 1963. We lost the President, Goldwater his friend.  He ran anyway, and was smeared. A mad bomber and a philistine, he’d return us to the Stone Age. It was the beginning of the end for the style of politics Goldwater and Kennedy espoused and exemplified.

I cast my first presidential vote for Barry Goldwater, but he was an awful campaigner and by November I could barely bring myself to pull the lever. Maybe I’m naïve, but in retrospect I’ve often thought that neither he nor Jack Kennedy would have stood for 58,000 dead in Vietnam. They would have ended it long before that happened. One way or the other. This is no reflection on those who, according to their lights, wound up with the task of making the decisions.

Without too much argument, we may date 22 November 1963 as the beginning of the end of postwar innocence and absolute faith in our destiny: the grim prelude to Vietnam and Watergate, to the politics of personal destruction.  An old friend said to me at a high school reunion: “That’s when the rot began.”

Note

This article was published in The American Spectator.

Donald Healey’s Dolomite

In 1977 I wrote the pre-World War II chapters of Triumph Cars, now reappearing in an expanded new edition, thanks largely to my co-author Graham Robson (blatant plug, please order).

At the time, though, there was little to describe about Triumph’s most impressive failure, the legendary straight-eight Dolomite. The only one built by the factory had come to grief (along, almost, with Donald Healey) at a railway crossing on the 1935 Monte Carlo Rallye. Donald of course contributed what he knew, and we put in what we gleaned from contemporary press reports and factory documents. All we could conclude was that that a car with so much promise remained “The Big One That Got Away.”

Graham soon helped us to learn more. Prominent collectors restored both Dolomites. Now, Jonathan Wood produces The Big One’s history.  Here is a legend none of us will ever own, only two of which were built, only one by Triumph. (There were three chassis, and parts for six engines.) The book exists through the efforts of the two current Dolomite owners. Anyone who loves Triumphs will be grateful to both publishers and author.

The straight-eight Dolomite was the prewar company’s finest hour. Never again would there be a Triumph like it. In its time, a two-liter car that could do 110 mph bid fair to be the quickest touring sports car in England. It was a Triumph in the generic as well as the specific sense. Driving it was to experience the classic prewar English sports car in its most highly developed form. It was a Donald Healey masterpiece.

Dolomite lore

False stories about the Dolomite circulated for years. Some said Triumph built six, maybe eight. We heard of sedans and coupes. An old fellow had one in a barn but wouldn’t let anyone see it. Alfa Romeo sued Triumph for copying their 8C 2300 roadster. (Reminds me of Churchill’s supposed peace offers to Mussolini in World War II. They’re in a waterproof bag at the bottom of Lake Como, and if you can’t find them you just haven’t looked hard enough.)

Jonathan Wood has looked hard enough. He puts paid to all those rumors. He delivers exhaustive details on both cars—one built by the works, one from parts. Nothing escapes his net. The result is a cleanly designed 10×12” coffee table book, laden with large-format illustrations and authoritative text.

Methodically, Wood conducts the narrative. The prelude is 1931 when Bentley, Britain’s premier sporting car, stopped racing and entered receivership. Several companies vied to fill the void: Riley, MG, Squire. At Triumph, experimental manager Donald Healey was taking a look, encouraged by auto writer Tommy Wisdom. Their eyes fell upon Vittorio Jano’s Alfa Romeo 8C 2300, one of the most beautiful prewar sports cars. It was the Dolomite’s inspiration.

Triumph’s saga

The prelude spans eighty pages of Triumph history: origins of the company under Siegfried Bettmann, its revival under Claude Holbrook, its impressive rallying successes; its lovely production cars, like the Gloria and Southern Cross. Plentiful illustrations include maps showing one-time works locations.

The Dolomite was styled by Triumph body engineer Frank Warner. Who was Frank Warner? In one of his extensive sidebars, Wood provides Frank’s life story. Likewise Bettmann, Holbrook, Wisdom, Jano, designer Walter Belgrove, and of course the great Donald Healey.

The straight-eight program officially ended in April 1935, but in Triumph Cars we showed a 1936 advert for a “very special ‘Continental’ sports saloon” related to it. Jonathan Wood has tracked that story down too. This beautiful long wheelbase saloon by Walter Belgrove (since vanished) was part of an extended line of cars planned around the Dolomite’s Alfa-like double overhead cam straight eight engine. Walter Belgrove’s renderings of a body styles show what could have been “Triumph’s flagship line.”

Recent History

We next delve into the Dolomite’s subsequent history: Tony Rolt’s and Robert Arbuthnot’s acquisitions of Healey’s car, rebuilt after its collision; parts sufficient for a second complete car; the racing career of the rebadged HSM (High Speed Motors); Giulio Ramponi, whose Corsica body betimes graced a chassis. Profuse photos show both cars in their various guises and appearances through the years. The best of these are double page color portraits of both cars today, restored to perfection. The endpapers of the book are color close-ups of their beautiful engines.

The last third of the book is a chronological, account of the history and known ownership both cars: DMH1 (Donald Healey’s, now owned by Jonathan Turner), and DMH2 (Tony Rolt’s ex-HSM, now owned by Tim Whitworth). It is amazing how many people actually knew about the cars over the years; it took Wood to put their tale together.

Wood reprints driving impressions from 1935 on, but Patrick Blakeney-Edwards, who restored DMH1, probably knows the Dolomite as intimately as anyone. “On the road it just feels fantastically competent,” he says—“it’s as good as any prewar car I’ve driven. The brakes are stupendous, the steering light and the ride excellent. It’s perfect for unstressed high-speed motoring….For me it feels as though it was built for competition, particularly around a circuit such as Le Mans….”

Above all this book is a tribute to Donald Healey, whose grandson Peter contributes the Foreword. Writing Triumph Cars, I had the fun of knowing him, and bugging him about his years with the company. An advanced autoholic, Donald liked nothing more than reliving old times, the good, the bad and the ugly. A kinder, more generous and talented man never existed. He’d love this book.

Vintage Triumph Register 2016 Convention, Friday 7 October 2016.

Guest speaker: Richard Langworth 

Location: Tanglewood Resort,Pottsboro, Texas.

Triumph Memories

Synopsis: Reflections on fifty years of messing about with Triumphs: “I’d never say this if I were not among friends, but Ferraris bore me. Just unaffordable excellence. My fun derives from funky vintage British cars.”

Speaker: Richard Langworth has been an automotive writer since 1969. After a freelance article in Automobile Quarterly, he joined AQ as associate and later senior editor. In 1975 he left to freelance. He has since written or co-authored more than fifty books and 2000 articles on automotive history. Richard and Barbara have owned ten Triumphs from a 1938 Dolomite to an assortment of Mayflowers, Renowns, TR3s, and TR4s. In 1975, he and some friends met in a Detroit bar and founded the Vintage Triumph Register. The time had come, they declared, for an club devoted to every car Triumph built. In 1979, Richard teamed with Graham Robson to write Triumph Cars: The Complete History, from Tri-Car to Acclaim. The book was in print thirty years it was republished in a fine new edition in 2018.

“I started with a TR3—a new 3A. Bought in 1962 for a king’s ransom. Most of the $2365 was a loan from my dad. It was red on red, a rare combination. I stupidly didn’t specify the $35 optional Michelin tires, and the stock Dunlop Gold Seals wore out in 7000 miles. It was hit in the rear and after that was stolen. (You know how easy it is to hot-wire a TR3?)”

The 2016 Hillsdale College cruise of southwest Alaska aboard Crystal Serenity (27 July-3 August) provided an impressive visit to a spectacular state. Accompanying the fine dining and entertainment was a crew which could not have done more. Crystal Cruises seems to own all the highest ratings in the business, and it’s easy to see why. There’s no separate bar bill, and they’ll deliver up to two bottles a day to your stateroom. No one could drink this much! Tips are included, nobody duns you for handouts, and you’re not presented with a list of “estimated gratuities” on your last day aboard.

Crystal ships offer more than average public space. We had only 1000 passengers (much less than capacity), aboard an 820 foot, 69,000-ton ship), so it never felt congested. As they used to say at Brooklands racing circuit: “the right crowd and no crowding.” More passengers are usual, however. On 16 August Serenity set sail to Alaska again with 1700 customers on a 28-day cruise from Vancouver to New York via the Northwest Passage. She is the largest ship ever to navigate that course.

Fun Afloat

Aside from the attentive staff and perfect organization, there was nightly entertainment at four or five different venues. Bar room piano player Perry Grant kept us at the Avenue Saloon 9:30-12:30 every night, as he played, sang and interviewed guests. Perry has a touch: never too bawdy, always fun. He seems to know hundreds of tunes, hardly ever repeats one. For those of “a certain age,” it’s a memorable combination. We understand he has a small army of followers, who sign on wherever he goes. Here’s Perry’s version of “My Way.”

(We couldn’t get enough. This one’s for you, and you know who you are….)

The route began from Vancouver to Juneau, Alaska’s capital. There was a sea voyage the Hubbard Glacier, then to the Alaska towns of Hoonah, Skagway and Ketchikan. We reentered British Columbia via Nanaimo, and ended in Vancouver. Well organized excursions (extra cost) were available, but you could easily pass a day walking around a town, or just relaxing on the ship.

We aren’t cruise folk. Viking’s Danube River cruise, with 180 aboard, is more our style. We confess to hankering for a canal barge for twelve, a big ketch for six, or the Claymore II, supply ship for Pitcairn Island, which takes three days to float six passengers to the storied hideaway of Fletcher Christian and a handful of rebels after the Mutiny on the Bounty. That we enjoyed a “big” cruise speaks volumes of Crystal quality and Hillsdale’s organizing.

Hillsdale Seminars

The College’s educational program is a great way to while away days at sea. Our speakers were an eclectic mix. Hillsdale President Larry Arnn always has worthwhile things to say to thoughtful people. Worrisome things these days, with so many uncertainties facing America and the world. Victor Davis Hanson spoke about Athens and Sparta, eloquently and well, not without parallels to modern problems. John Steele Gordon, the historian and columnist, spoke about his illuminating book on the Washington Monument and other obelisks.

Screenwriter Michael Walsh said movies don’t really start off to be liberal or conservative. If you want to write one of those, you’re on the wrong track. What matters—despite Hollywood’s reputation as a hotbed of wealthy lefties who can bear any tax burden levied on the rest of us—is the story line: “The Godfather could have been set a million years BC and would still have been a success because of the story line.”

Walsh incidentally wrote a great prequel/sequel to Casablanca called As Time Goes By, which all Casablanca fans should read. The prequel explains why Rick Blaine(who grew up in New York as Itzhak Baline) could not return to his home town. The sequel describes how Elsa, Victor, Louie, Sam and Rick  helped to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, “the Butcher of Prague.”  So now you know how that happened.

David Goldman was so riveting on the demographics of Islam and the Middle East that I bought his book. Prompted by a Turkish waiter, I also asked him about Turkey, which is worthy of a separate post.

For information on future Hillsdale cruises, click here.

“If a man is coming across the sea to kill you, you do everything in your power to make sure he dies before finishing his journey. That may be difficult, it may be painful, but at least it is simple. We are [today] entering a world of imponderables, and at every stage occasions for self-questioning arise. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.”  —Winston S. Churchill, 18 February 1945

It was recently asserted that Churchill doesn’t have much to say to us today, and that the only people who use Churchill as a guide nowadays are “over-testosteroned American neocons.” Let me say this about that.

I don’t particularly care what “American neocons” think. Given the money raised and spent, the successes attained, and the enthusiastic reception of Churchill seminars, symposia and teacher institutes over the last forty years on what we can learn from Churchill—by Hillsdale College, the Churchill Centre, Ashland University, the College of William and Mary, George Washington University and the Churchill Museums in London and Fulton, to name a few—such a declaration seems incomprehensible.

The Soames Commandment

Churchill’s daughter’s famous commandment, “Thou shalt not say what my papa would do today,” is broadly misunderstood. She was referring to doctrinaire pronouncements about specific policies: because Churchill did W about X in 1935, he would do Y about Z today. Such a pronouncement is alike futile and foolish.

In a broader sense, however, Lady Soames agreed that his precepts, his principles, can be applied today. For example, her father talked about the primacy of conscience in his eulogy of Neville Chamberlain. He would follow that primacy if he were alive now.

Learning is so essential

Every turn of events has its unique features. Understanding them, and applying principles to them today, is still the challenge. The study of history depends upon finding truths that persist and are understandable across time.

The challenge for leaders today is to judge whether discretion should take priority over boldness, whether diplomacy is a feasible option, and when and where to deploy a bluff. In these areas, Churchill’s experience is an invaluable guide, because human nature is unchanging.

Was Churchill right that the Second World War was preventable? The answer, I think, is yes—at one juncture in particular—but with great difficulty.

Was he right that it is foolish to put off unpleasant reality “until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong”? Undoubtedly. There is nothing that dates that advice.

The sad story of Churchill’s failed attempt to prevent the greatest of wars reminds us once again of a maxim by someone other than he: The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

________

Excerpted from the preface to my book, Churchill and the Avoidable War, an examination of his stance on the issues in the run-up to the Second World War from 1930 to 1939.

Further reading

“Conant, Churchill, and the Harvard of 1943,” 2023.

Churchill by Himself is different from all other Churchill quote books through “correctibility.” It offers a reference to each quotation, and a method by which corrections may be sent in, verified, and made available digitally to readers.

Producing any work as complicated as this is a constant running battle between conflicting sources, experts who disagree with each other, and inexorable deadlines. For instance, one expert offered corrections based on the 1974 Complete Speeches (not complete and scarcely free of errors) that contradict the texts of earlier volumes by Churchill himself—which to me take priority. Nevertheless the process of revision is endless.

Accordingly, publishers were chosen who keep books in print with frequent reprints, allowing continual revision. The Second Edition, extensively corrected down even to ellipsis points, will be published by Public Affairs in 2010. The Third Edition will be improved again, and so on.

For readers who own First Editions I offer below the most important corrections—the ones I’d dearly like to have back, and sometimes alter by hand when inscribing copies personally! A master list containing many more corrections is being prepared for the Second Edition, and I welcome being advised of any that my readers should find.

Although many persons helped compile this list, my special gratitude is owed to Professor David Dilks, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hull, not only for his fastidious note-taking, but for his lack of pedantry and understanding in improving the book—qualities which, I have come to learn, are rare. —RML

Note: “106/1” means page 106, column 1.

1. Corrections to British and American Editions

Page 1 caption, line 2 should read: With Sir John Anderson on Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945.

16/1 Difficulties, “Don’t argue the matter”: for “1941” read 1942.

23/1 Personnel. For date “1941” read 1942

25/2 Right and wrong: For date “26 May” read 27 May. In the note, lines 1-2, revise to read: WSC to Clement Davies, who ventured to suggest that President Truman meet privately with

32, third paragraph, last two lines should read: for a traitor. According to his last Private Secretary Churchill called John Foster Dulles “dull-duller-Dulles,” and it was just like him.

82/2 first note, penultimate line: for “House of Commons” read Guildhall after the war

100/1, first note, line 4, replace to read: Sidney (1622-1683, son of the Earl of Leicester)

3-8, revise to read: division of power has lain at the root of our development. We do not want to live under a system dominated either by one man or one theme. Like nature we follow in freedom the  paths of variety and change and our faith is  that the mercy of God will make things get better of we all try our best.

101/1 first entry, replace as follows: …elections exist for the sake of the House of Commons and not…the House of Commons…for the sake of elections. 1953, 3 November.

106/1, first editor’s note should read: Churchill was referring to Lord Rosebery (Prime Minister 1894-95), whose horses, Ladas II and Sir Visto, won the Derby in 1894 and 1895….

106/2, line 2: for “New York University” read the University of the State of New York

118/1 second quote should run before the first quote, and its dateline should read: 1940, 20 August.

130/2, second note, last sentence should read: Britain and the Commonwealth contributed $6 billion in “Reverse Lend-Lease” such as rent on airbases.

144, caption should read: WSC with Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta, February 1945.

155/2, third date from top, for 1919 read 1929.

254/2, Ribbentrop meeting credit line should read: 1938, MARCH. (GUEDALLA, 271-72.) Revise the note to read: The Cabinet had asked Churchill to join them for lunch to bid farewell to Hitler’s Ambassador Joachim von Ribbentrop, while Austria was being absorbed by Germany. The quote is…

321/1, “Attlee,” first entry date: for “1935.” read 1940.

328/2, Brodrick note, last line: for “1860-1907” read 1890-1907

329, last line: for “Conservative” read Liberal

359/1 last note, last line: for “Duncannon” read: Dunconnel

369/2 first note should read: Conversation at a luncheon thrown by Chamberlain for the German Ambassador to Britain, Ribbentrop, 11 March 1938, at the time of the Anschluss with Austria…[etc.]

518/1, top line: for “WSC’s private secretary” read Liberal MP

527/1 second note, line 2: for “9 May” read 10 May.

544/1 second entry: For “Nazim” read Nazimuddin. For the date “1941” read 1953

556/1 “Practice,” note, line 2: for “Moseley” read Mosley.

561 footnote line 1: for “1954” read 1945.

570, paragraph 4 line 1: revise last sentence to read: For example, “The heaviest cross I have to bear is the Cross of Lorraine” is so well established that I was surprised to learn that someone else said it.

573: delete “Dull, duller, Dulles” which has been attributed.

575: delete “Grace of God” and “Impromptu remarks” which have been attributed.

2. Corrections to the First British Edition only.

(All of the following have been made in the American edition)

11 caption line 2 should read: In a tommy’s helmet visiting the defences at Dover, 1943.

132/2 top entry: for 27 read 28 June.

380 caption, line 2: delete “in Woodford”

532 caption: For “study” read bedroom.

3. Addenda

I have found two instances where Churchill’s words were incorrect (or, more likely, his transcribers were): On page 528, column 2, line 7, Churchill said “sixteen years later” but should have said “six.” On page 553, column 2, “Interruptions, answering,” Churchill is recorded as saying “abrogated,” but almost certainly he said “arrogated.”

Page 20, column 2, first entry: Manfred Weidhorn brings to my attention a previous occurrence of almost the same words, in Churchill’s essay, “A Second Choice” (1931, March. Strand Magazine; Thoughts, 11): The journey has been enjoyable and well worth making—once.”

Page 322, Stanley Baldwin: A distinguished historian has suggested to me that Churchill’s attitude toward Baldwin was not as uniformly critical as the quotes here listed. He quoted WSC’s praise of SB at the Party Conference in October 1935 and in private letters, and noted that Churchill visited Baldwin’s home in 1950, after SB’s death. I believe however that Churchill was singularly critical of Baldwin, per Martin Gilbert’s In Search of Churchill, as quoted here, and outlined my reasons in “How Churchill Saw Others: Stanley Baldwin,” Finest Hour 101, Winter 1998-99.

Page 360, Marshall, note 2: It has been suggested to me that Churchill met Lazare Carnot (see under Trotsky, page 375), but I am not sure. Sadi Carnot was a reconciler, Lazare a revolutionary. Though the latter was known as “the organizer of victory,” I am not sure Churchill thought of Marshall in quite those terms.

Page 573 (main entry), also 32, 570: “Dull-duller-dulles” (with the hyphens) has been attributed, by Sir Anthony Montague Browne (Long Sunset), 126.’’ Thanks to Jim Lancaster for digging out this and several other attributions in Sir Anthony’s book.

Page 576, column 2: Leise Christensen has advised me that when the Duke of Northumberland said “A living dog is better than a dead lion,” he was himself quoting from Ecclesastes 9:4.

Page 579, “Best of Everything”: Thanks to Robert Pilpel for reporting that George Bernard Shaw preceded both F.E. Smith and Churchill with this line in his play, “Major B” (1905), when Lady Britomart says (act 1, scene 1): “I know your quiet, simple, refined, poetic people like Adolphus—quite content with the best of everything!”