Category: FAQs

king
The 2011 edition, “Churchill by Himself” (Ebury Press / Random House)
Churchill on the Optimist and the Pessimist

Churchill on the Optimist and the Pessimist

Opti­mist and Pes­simist: Fif­teen min­utes of fame! David Davis MP, Sec­re­tary of State for Brex­it, boots one in his recent speech and I’m final­ly in The Guardian. Prob­a­bly the first and last time, giv­en my opinions. **

Ques­tion: Refer­ring to your posts of quotations Churchill nev­er said, do you know who actu­al­ly did say “A pes­simist sees the dif­fi­culty in every oppor­tu­nity; an opti­mist sees the oppor­tu­nity in every dif­fi­cul­ty”? I find no attri­bu­tion oth­er than to Churchill.

Pessimist: Not Churchill’s Quip

Answer: Sor­ry. I can’t track it; nor can my col­league Ralph Keyes, edi­tor of The Quote Ver­i­fi­er.…

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fish
Angling for Utmost Fish with Roosevelt, Trout Run, Camp David, 1943.
“Utmost Fish”: A Churchill Story that is No Old Cod

“Utmost Fish”: A Churchill Story that is No Old Cod

Q: What can you tell me about Churchill’s order for “Utmost Fish” in 1939. What did this have to do with his role as First Lord of the Admi­ral­ty?” —L.S, Spokane, Wash.

A: It had noth­ing to do with his role. It was char­ac­ter­is­tic of his atten­tion to detail, and will­ing­ness to stray out­side his limits.

“Utmost Fish”

Hills­dale College’s “The Churchill Doc­u­ments,” Vol. 14, for Sep­tem­ber 1939-May 1940, car­ries a rec­ol­lec­tion by Sir Geof­frey Shake­speare. Shake­speare (1893-1980) was a Lib­er­al MP, 1923-45. He served Churchill as Par­lia­men­tary Under-Sec­re­tary of State for Domin­ion Affairs from 1940 to 1942.…

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Smoking
Would Winston Churchill Legalize Smoking Pot?

Would Winston Churchill Legalize Smoking Pot?

The first com­mand­ment of Lady Soames, Win­ston Churchill’s renowned daugh­ter (1922-2014), was: “Thou shalt not pro­claim what my father would do in mod­ern sit­u­a­tions.” How­ev­er, since she enjoyed smok­ing a good cig­ar on occa­sion, she might excuse the sug­ges­tion that if he were around, he would prob­a­bly not object to legal­iz­ing marijuana.

Churchill on Smoking

The jour­nal­ist and broad­cast­er Collin Brooks wrote a spright­ly essay, “Churchill the Con­ver­sa­tion­al­ist,” in Charles Eade‘s col­lec­tion of arti­cles, Churchill by His Con­tem­po­raries. (This 1953 book is inex­pen­sive and well worth own­ing. It’s an ever­green col­lec­tion of per­cep­tive pieces on aspects of Churchill’s life and character.)…

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Churchill Qualities: Leadership, Judgment, Humanity

Churchill Qualities: Leadership, Judgment, Humanity

Qualities

Writ­ten for a col­league who asked var­i­ous con­trib­u­tors for 300 words on the qual­i­ties of Win­ston Churchill they most admire.

Leadership

Few great lead­ers are also great writ­ers; none who were both com­pare with Win­ston Churchill. In 1940 he saved civ­i­liza­tion by keep­ing Britain in the fight until those “who hith­er­to had been half blind were half ready.” His his­tor­i­cal and bio­graph­i­cal elo­quence won a Nobel Prize. Unique­ly for a politi­cian, he thought and wrote deeply about the nature of man. He hat­ed and tried to pre­vent war. He fought to pre­serve con­sti­tu­tion­al liberty.…

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Churchill, Smuts and Apartheid: Questions and Answers

Churchill, Smuts and Apartheid: Questions and Answers

I read your arti­cle about bust­ing four myths about Win­ston Churchill from The Fed­er­al­ist. Here is an arti­cle I’d like you to read and hear your feed­back: “Apartheid, made in Britain: Richard Dow­den explains how Churchill, Rhodes and Smuts caused black South Africans to lose their rights.” (The Inde­pen­dent, 19 April 1994.)  —David E., Ohio

Accurate, But Not Dispositive

Mr. Dowden’s arti­cle seems to me broad­ly accu­rate, but not dispositive.

It is true that Britain dropped its oppo­si­tion to mak­ing South Africa a “white man’s coun­try” in 1909 by pass­ing the Union of South Africa Act.…

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Critique Down Under: Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel

Critique Down Under: Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel

Par­tic­u­lar­ly on the Fall of Sin­ga­pore (see ear­li­er post), a new cri­tique of Churchill miss­es the for­est for the trees and fails on the facts. Real­ly, Churchill made lots of mis­takes worth con­tem­plat­ing. But these aren’t among them.

The arti­cle appeared in south­west Australia’s Sun Coast Dai­ly on April 26th. Not exact­ly The Times, and if you don’t sub­scribe to Google Alerts you missed it. For the fun of shoot­ing fish in a bar­rel, how­ev­er, it’s worth a few min­utes of your time.

 

Critique 1: Self-Interest

“Churchill had a long and var­ied career in pol­i­tics, man­ag­ing to swap par­ties as his career needs required.” …

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Thoughts on National Churchill Day 2017: TheQuestion.com

Thoughts on National Churchill Day 2017: TheQuestion.com

Q: The­Ques­tion tries to pro­vide our read­ers with the most reli­able knowl­edge from experts in var­i­ous fields. As we cel­e­brate Nation­al Churchill Day, April 9th, we would appre­ci­ate your thoughts on three ques­tions. These are cur­rent­ly post­ed with­out respons­es on our web­site: Was Win­ston Churchill real­ly that good an artist? What made him a great leader? What was his great­est achievement?

 

TheQuestion: Churchill as Artist

​Please take a vir­tu­al tour of Hills­dale College’s recent exhi­bi­tion of Churchill paint­ings and arti­facts. Here your read­ers can decide for them­selves. The con­sen­sus among experts, how­ev­er, is that Churchill was a gift­ed ama­teur.…

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racism
Churchill and Racism: Think a Little Deeper

Churchill and Racism: Think a Little Deeper

Q: Anoth­er new movie, A Unit­ed King­dom,  sad­dles Churchill with racism. It’s the sto­ry of Seretse Khama of the Bechua­na­land roy­al fam­i­ly and heir to the throne. After study­ing in Eng­land, he meets and mar­ries a British woman, Ruth Williams. The South African gov­ern­ment, which is adopt­ing Apartheid, is trou­bled by the inter­ra­cial mar­riage. It press­es the Attlee gov­ern­ment in Britain to exile Khama, which they do. Churchill is not a char­ac­ter in the film, but we are told that he sup­ports Khama and will restore him if Churchill’s par­ty wins the 1951 elec­tion.…

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Cockran: A Great Contemporary

Cockran: A Great Contemporary

Q: How impor­tant was Con­gress­man Bourke Cockran’s influ­ence on the young Churchill? 

A: Very. The late Curt Zoller was the first to write in depth about Bourke Cock­ran. This man played a vital but lit­tle under­stood role in form­ing young Churchill’s polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy. In 1895, Zoller wrote, when young Churchill trav­eled to New York on his way to Cuba,

…he was greet­ed by William Bourke Cock­ran, a New York lawyer, U.S. con­gress­man, friend of his mother’s and of his Amer­i­can rel­a­tives. Winston’s Aunt Clara was mar­ried to More­ton Frewen. (The peri­patet­ic “Mor­tal Ruin” would lat­er bad­ly edit Churchill’s first book, Sto­ry of the Malakand Field Force.)…

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Churchill on the Broadcast

Churchill on the Broadcast

The ques­tion aris­es, has any­thing been writ­ten on Churchill’s radio tech­nique? Did he treat radio dif­fer­ent­ly from oth­er kinds of pub­lic speak­ing? How quick­ly did he take to the broadcast?

“The Art of the Microphone”

An excel­lent piece on this sub­ject was by Richard Dim­ble­by (1913-1965), the BBC’s first war cor­re­spon­dent and lat­er its lead­ing TV news com­men­ta­tor. His “Churchill the Broad­cast­er” is in Charles Eade, ed., Churchill by his Con­tem­po­raries (Lon­don: Hutchin­son, 1953). Old as it is, the book remains a com­pre­hen­sive set of essays of the many spe­cial­ized attrib­ut­es of WSC.

Dim­ble­by offers four areas of dis­cus­sion: the tech­ni­cal back­ground, the dra­ma of World War II, the fac­tu­al mate­r­i­al, and Churchill’s meth­ods of delivery.…

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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

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
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