Category: FAQs

Bust
Prime Minister Cameron and President Obama admiring “Epstein #1,” the Churchill bust that’s been in the White House since 1965. (Official White House photo.)
It’s Baaaack! The Epstein Churchill Bust Kerfuffle, Round 4

It’s Baaaack! The Epstein Churchill Bust Kerfuffle, Round 4

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Since 1965 has been an Epstein Churchill bust at the White House, uninterrupted now for six decades. Current media confusion surrounds the SECOND Epstein, which makes regular visits on loan from the British Embassy, where it is in the Embassy’s art collection. Epstein #1 is part of the permanent White House collection. Epstein #2 is an “optional extra” at the White House, depending on the whim of the occupant. Every President is entitled to the totems of his choice.

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Diesel
Meeting of great minds: Rudolf Diesel (left) with Thomas Edison (seated) in Edison’s Menlo Park laboratory, with (from left) Ellen Rice, Edison engineer J.W. Lieb Jr. and Martha Diesel, 1912. (U.S. National Park Service, public domain)
Unanswered Questions: Churchill and Rudolf Diesel

Unanswered Questions: Churchill and Rudolf Diesel

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It is known that Rudolf Diesel boarded the “Dresden” that fatal October in 1913 intending to meet with the British about licensing his invention. By then Churchill and Fisher were well along on the conversion from coal to oil for capital ships, and WSC had secured an oil supply through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. How far Diesel developments had affected designs for submarines or Churchill’s “landship” (the tank) bears further investigation. 

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Second World
Pickering, Yorkshire, 31 March 1944: WSC inspects “Blenheim,” a Cromwell Mk IV tank of No. 2 Squadron, 2nd (Armoured Reconnaissance) Battalion, Welsh Guards. With him is Squadron Commander Major John Ogilvie Spencer, who was killed in Belgium on 9 September 1944. (Photo by Capt. Horton, War Office, public domain)
Questions on Books: The Second World War

Questions on Books: The Second World War

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Not all translations spanned the complete six volumes. The Turkish Edition contained only the first two volumes. Wendy Reves, wife of Churchill’s literary agent, Emery Reves, told me that the publishers refused to pay for the rest! The first Russian edition (1956-58) contained only the first three volumes, though Ronald Cohen also lists a later, complete Russian edition published in 1997-98. There were also eight translations of Churchill’s one-volume abridged edition, first published in 1959.

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Young
Detail from the cover of Levenger’s “The Happy Warrior,” 2008.
Best Churchill Books for Young Readers

Best Churchill Books for Young Readers

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Fiona Reynoldson’s “Leading Lives: Churchill,” is targeted at the young (ages 8-15). Now a quarter century old, it is still the best “juvenile” ever published, anywhere, by anybody. The “Leading Lives” series mixes Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and Arafat with Roosevelt, Kennedy and Gandhi. I know nothing about the others, but Reynoldson’s Churchill is a masterpiece. So much wisdom and fair understanding is attractively wedged into sixty-four pages.

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charter
The White House, 25 June 1954. L-R: Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, WSC, President Eisenhower, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. (Photo by Thomas O’Halloran, Library of Congress)
The Second Atlantic Charter? A Seventieth Anniversary

The Second Atlantic Charter? A Seventieth Anniversary

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“We will continue our support of the United Nations and of existing international organizations that have been established in the spirit of the Charter for common protection and security. We urge the establishment and maintenance of such associations of appropriate nations as will best, in their respective regions, preserve the peace and the independence of the peoples living there. When desired by the peoples of the affected countries, we are ready to render appropriate and feasible assistance to such associations.” Eisenhower & Churchill, 1954    

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Greeks
“Was there no ancestral spirit to conjure up before this unfortunate Prince, the downfall of his House, the ruin of his people—the bloody cellar of Ekaterinburg?” L-R: Olga, Maria, Nicholas II, Alexandra, Anastasia, Alexei, Tatiana at Livadia, Crimea, 1913. (Photo by the Levitsky Studio, public domain)
Russians and Greeks: “Falling Below the Level of Events”

Russians and Greeks: “Falling Below the Level of Events”

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Churchill to Grey: "I beseech you at this crisis not to make a mistake in falling below the level of events. Half-hearted measures will ruin all, and a million men will die through the prolongation of the war. You must be bold and violent. You have a right to be. Our fleet is forcing the Dardanelles. No armies can reach Constantinople but those which we invite, yet we seek nothing here but the victory of the common cause." Grey and the Foreign Office "felt as we did. They did all in their power. It registers a terrible moment in the long struggle to save Russia from her foes and from herself.”

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statue
(Photo by Tim Buss, Creative Commons)
Interview: Some Thoughts on Churchill’s London Statue

Interview: Some Thoughts on Churchill’s London Statue

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The statue dilemma: All those statues on Parliament Square—not just Churchill's—are of people with human faults. During the craze to tear down statues a few years ago, French President Macron boldly announced that no French statues would go. They are part of France's heritage, he said, for good or ill. That was very courageous of him. Statues tell a nation's story. If you object to one, erect one to balance it. There is no virtue in hiding from history.

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facsimile
Those Infamous Facsimile Churchill Holograph Letters

Those Infamous Facsimile Churchill Holograph Letters

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People are still falling for those reproduction Churchill thank-you letters produced by the thousands using a spirit duplicator. "The ultimate thrift shop haul," headlined the Daily Mail in July 2023. "Budget shopper is left STUNNED after buying a 'priceless' handwritten letter signed by Winston Churchill for just $1—after finding it buried in a New York store." Actually, $1 is about what it's worth—plus perhaps $50 for a nicely matted and framed example. Update 2024: Six originals do exist.

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V-sign
Whoops! Oblivious to the difference, Churchill flashes the V-sign wrong-way out, Bradford, 4 December 1942. (Photo by Capt. Horton, War Office, pubic domain)
Churchill’s V-Sign (both ways) and the Peace Symbol

Churchill’s V-Sign (both ways) and the Peace Symbol

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It is virtually certain that Churchill was unconscious of the meaning of the palm-in V-sign. Former secretary Elizabeth Layton Nel told me he was "astonished" when (with some embarrassment) she told him what it meant. This moment is humorously reenacted in the great film "Darkest Hour, "with Gary Oldman as WSC and Lily James as Elizabeth. 

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Signatures
The real thing: inscribed to secretary Lettice Marston on a copy of “The Gathering Storm,” 1949. The most prized form of an inscription is one made out to someone in particular. (Photo: Mark Weber)
Literary Queries: Churchill Signatures and Inscriptions

Literary Queries: Churchill Signatures and Inscriptions

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Is the signature genuine? Yes, it seems so. From your photo it looks suitably aged and seems to have been there a long time. Inscribed books or photographs with the signatures pasted in or added to the matte are sometimes encountered. They are not, of course, as valuable as books the author personally inscribed, particularly if he named the recipient (such as the example above).

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RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks


Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

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