Literary Archives - Page 9 of 11 - Richard M. Langworth

Nightmare Scenario by Norman Longmate

1 October 2016 Comments 0 Comments

Norman Longmate, If Britain Had Fallen: The Real Nazi Occupation Plans. Published 1972, reprinted 2012, available from Amazon in hardback, paperback and Kindle editions.

A recent kerfuffle over draping Nazi banners on beloved British icons reminds me that this has been going on a long time and is perfectly acceptable in examining historical possiblities. Take the late Norman Longmate, who offered a gripping pastiche about what might have happened in 1940. As a result, we have a glimpse of a possible alternative.

Longmate’s Yarn on the Worst Possibility

Later that afternoon with the Germans already in Trafalgar Square and advancing down Whitehall to take their position in the rear, the enemy unit advancing across St.…

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Churchill @ Vancouver, 26 July 2015

4 July 2016 Comments 0 Comments

Vancouver

The Churchill Society of British Columbia presents “An Evening with Churchill,” Tuesday 26 July 2016.

Location: Bar Three, The Vancouver Club, 915 Hastings Street West, Vancouver, B.C.

Time: Wine & cheese starts at 5:00 pm, Program from 5:50 – 7:00 pm.

Cost: $25 each for a member of the Society. $35 each for a non-member. $40 for a member accompanied by a spouse, partner or family member. (Includes one ticket per attendee for a glass of wine or beer, or two soft drinks. Additional drinks can be purchased from the bar.)

Dress: Business attire.

Please inform Administrator April Accola of your attendance by email or register online at our website.…

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Marshall: “Noblest Roman of Them All”

14 May 2016 Comments 0 Comments

Johns Hopkins University Press releases this month the seventh and final volume of The Papers of George Catlett Marshall: “The Man of the Age,” October 1, 1949 – October 16, 1959. It was masterfully edited by Mark Stoler and Daniel Holt under the auspices of the Marshall Center. It joins its predecessors presenting the papers of one of the greatest generals and statesmen of his age (1880-1959). I quickly assigned it for review by the Hillsdale College Churchill Project, for its many references to Churchill in George Marshall’s final phase. This and the previous volume are indispensable for anyone wishing to understand the complicated international scene immediately after World War II.…

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Trump on Women: Should’ve Said Something Else

7 May 2016 Comments 0 Comments

Something Mr. Trump said reminded me of a piece Winston Churchill wrote in 1947: The Dream. But he might not entirely relish the reminder. (And this is not, believe me, any attempt to compare Trump to Churchill.)

The Dream is a stylish short story about Churchill’s imaginary conversation with the ghost of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, who died in 1895. In a touching, rather sad conversation, the 73-year-old Winston relates to the 45-year-old Randolph all that has happened since 1895, without disclosing the roles he himself had played.

They discuss elections. Lord Randolph asks, “What is the franchise?”

“Universal,” his son replies.…

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Lehrman on Churchill and Lincoln

24 March 2016 Comments 0 Comments

Lewis E. Lehrman, co-founder of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, offers a compelling two-part comparison of Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill at the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. (To read in entirety, start here.)

Mr. Lehrman is author of Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point (2008) and Lincoln “by littles” (2013). Uniquely among the Lincoln scholars I’ve heard on Churchill, he has as fine a grasp of the English statesman as he does the American president. He tells me he regards each as the outstanding figure of his respective century. No argument there.

1. Lehrman on Preparation for Greatness

Excerpt: President Lincoln and Prime Minister Churchill found themselves challenged by wars of national survival.…

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A.L. Rowse with Chartwell and Churchill, 1955

1 March 2016 Comments 0 Comments

"I left in late afternoon. Beaverbrook was coming down to dine and spend the evening, till then he was going off to bed. Evening sun poured from the west into the front door, upon the flowers, the head of Roosevelt sculpted in wood, the aged bulky figure waving goodbye. I sank back exhausted in the lordly car, thrilled by it all, a last glimpse of the flag over Chartwell—and went back to Oxford to write it all down. It is only today, very many years after, that it occurs to me that he thought I would, and meant me to."

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Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality

13 January 2016 Comments 0 Comments

Per the previous post, I append for reader comment the contents of my next book, Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality: What Churchill Stood For.

I have written on most of these matters in the past; the book recasts it afresh. I also acknowledge and cross-reference the work of experts who know far more than I, particularly in the fields of genealogy and medicine. I would be glad to hear your thoughts; please use the “contact” page.

The historian David Stafford wrote: “Myth only develops and takes hold when the time is right, and the climate has long been ripe for the emergence of myths about a wartime hero who stood firm against a totalitarian foe and smote an evil empire.”…

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Myths about Churchill: Coming Up

10 January 2016 Comments 0 Comments

Winston Churchill: Urban Myths and Reality: Lies, Fables, Myths, Distortions and Things that Go Bump in the Night.

Not a day passes when Sir Winston Churchill, who proved himself indispensable when freedom needed him, is not accused of something, from alcoholism to war crimes—often without serious attribution, or through selective quotes, arranged and cropped so as to advance the preconceived notion.

On that electronic Speakers’ Corner we know as the Internet, Churchill bubbles in a gurgling, digital soup, where he can say anything, or do anything, from hiding his foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor to firebombing Dresden.…

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legacy — Presentation of Churchill’s honorary citizenship, 9 April 1963. L-R: Acting Secretary of State George Ball, Lady Ormsby Gore, British Ambassador Sir David Ormsby Gore, Winston Churchill (grandson), Naval Aide Tazewell Shepard, President Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Randolph Churchill. Photo by Cecil Stoughton.

A Fresh Look at the Churchills and Kennedys by Thomas Maier

4 August 2015 Comments 0 Comments

When Lions Roar: The Churchills and the Kennedys, by Thomas Maier. New York: Crown Publishers, 784 pages, $30, Kindle Edition $11.99. Written for The Churchillian, Spring 2015.

The most touching and durable vision left by Mr. Maier comes toward the end of this long book: the famous White House ceremony in April 1963, as President Kennedy presents Sir Winston Churchill (in absentia) with Honorary American Citizenship—while from an upstairs window his stroke-silenced father, Joseph P. Kennedy, watches closely, with heaven knows what reflections:

Whatever thoughts raced through the mind of Joe Kennedy—the rancor of the past, the lost opportunities of his own political goals, and the tragic forgotten dreams he had once had for his oldest son, could not be expressed.…

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Churchillnomics: The “Stricken Field”

18 May 2015 Comments 3 Comments

Young Winston Churchill’s second speech in Parliament was a bravura performance taking up his father’s theme for economy in the budget.

In Churchill in His Own Words (p 45) I date this quotation 12 May 1901 and cite Churchill’s Mr. Brodrick’s Army, his 1903 volume of speeches (facsimile edition, Sacramento: Churchilliana Company, 1977), 16:

Wise words, Sir, stand the test of time, and I am very glad the House has allowed me, after an interval of fifteen years, to raise the tattered flag I found lying on a stricken field.

The “tattered flag” was Lord Randolph Churchill’s campaign for economy in the late 1880s.…

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