In the News Archives - Richard M. Langworth

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

20 November 2024 Comments 0 Comments

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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Stop the Churchill Comparisons! (Part #1,234)

10 November 2024 Comments 0 Comments

Really, these Churchill comparisons need to stop. We cannot postulate what Churchill would do about any issue or problem today. It doesn't seem far-fetched to suggest that in today's Middle East. his focus would be on the main danger. Figure out what that is, and you too can may find comparisons Winston Churchill. But, in a larger sense, there is nobody so far in the 21st century who is comparable to WSC. Nobody.

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Myths and Heresies: “Firebombing the Black Forest”

15 September 2024 Comments 0 Comments

The great Tucker Flapdoodle: Adolf Hitler was misunderstood, we are told. He invaded Poland only because Chamberlain and Churchill forced him. He never wanted France, dropped peace leaflets on Britain. The Germans were baffled over what to do with millions of Russian POWs because Churchill kept fighting long enough to bring Stalin in. Then Churchill got America involved. Here we consider just one of these unique charges: that in his bloodlust, Churchill firebombed Germany's Black Forest. (We hadn't heard that one before.)

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Coming: New Churchill Phrase Index in My Next Quotebook

30 June 2024 Comments 0 Comments

Coming from Hillsdale College Press, the new edition will carry a brand new title in keeping with its far larger content. Earlier editions contained 3500 quotations; they now total over 5000. Many new ones derive from The Churchill Documents, 1942 to 1965, also published by Hillsdale. The preliminary proofs total 736 pages, but that's without the indexes. These are being compiled by the award-winning lecturer Do Mi Stauber.

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The White House, 9 April 1963. President John F. Kennedy declares Sir Winston Churchill an honorary citizen of the United States. On steps, front row (L-R): Undersecretary of State, George Ball, British Ambassador Sir David Ormsby-Gore, President Kennedy, Randolph Churchill. Back rows (L-R): Deputy Chief of Protocol William J. Tonesk (mostly behind Ball), Sylvia Ormsby-Gore, Randolph’s son Winston, President’s naval aide Tazewell Shepard. Secret Service agent Art Godfrey is at far right. (Photograph by White House photographer Cecil Stoughton. presented to Richard Langworth, 1988, public domain)

D-Day+80: National Celebrations, Eighty Years On

5 June 2024 Comments 2 Comments

And so on 6 June 1944 we launched the great crusade, as Eisenhower put it (today perhaps politically incorrectly). Western civilization was saved. Yet it was not, William F. Buckley Jr. argued, “the significance of that victory, mighty and glorious though it was, that causes the name of Churchill to make the blood run a little faster....It is the roar that we hear, when we pronounce his name….The genius of Churchill was his union of affinities of the heart and of the mind, the total fusion of animal and spiritual energy."

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Musical Interludes: Churchill and the Violin, 1886, 1928

20 April 2024 Comments 0 Comments

"It is not widely known that Churchill once bought a cheap violin and essayed to prepare himself for the concert stage. The fancy passed. Unlike bricklaying, the musical art was tougher than it looked. About all he got out of it was a witticism from Philip Snowden, a government opponent, who said, 'I understand that Winston has taken up a new pastime—fiddling, and very appropriate, too.'" —Robert Lewis Taylor

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Black Swans Thrive at Churchill’s Chartwell

5 April 2024 Comments 0 Comments

"Mr. Churchill frequently engaged the birds in 'swan-talk,' in which he claimed exclusivity. In fact, the swans would cry out to anyone who approached within a certain distance. Some time after this discovery that I was walking down to the lake with Mr. Churchill. I was a little in front, and watched carefully for the critical spot. I then called out in 'swan-talk' and the birds dutifully replied to me. Mr. Churchill stopped dead. I turned round and he looked me full in the eye for a moment or two. Then the faintest suspicion of a smile appeared and he walked on in silence. No comment was ever made that this secret was shared." —Ronald Golding

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Get Ready for Churchill’s Anti-Sesquicentennial

25 March 2024 Comments 1 Comment

"Don't worry about attacks on Churchill. He is alive and kicking and haunts the British imagination like no other. He will always be caricatured, as he was in his lifetime. But freedom of speech and expression was one of the things he fought for, and in his time he gave as good as he got. The more provocative comments about him are a backhanded tribute, as they work on the assumption that most people admire him." —Paul Addison

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Nye — Churchill broadcasting on VE-Day, 8 May 1945. On national health he earlier told Lord Moran: “The doctors aren’t going to dictate to the country, they tried that with Lloyd George.” (Imperial War Museum, public domain)

Gotcher in the Nye: Winston Churchill on the National Health

20 March 2024 Comments 0 Comments

Winston Churchill was fighting for national health services when Nye Bevan was still in short pants. After July 1945, national health policy fell to Labour, Robert Colville writes: "In other words, we owe to Bevan not THE National Health Service but THIS National Health Service—the one that turned the existing profusion of provision into something regimented, standardised, centralised and nationalised.... Bevan’s role in persuading America to enter the war is grossly overblown; his enthusiasm for Soviet Russia completely unmentioned. In John Bew’s biography of Attlee, Bevan’s index entry starts with 'tries to undermine Attlee and his supporters,' and goes on from there."

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Vanishing National Anthems: Do We Still Know the Words?

10 March 2024 Comments 1 Comment

There’s always been something faintly concerning to important or fancy people about national anthems. Early on, the disenchantment was relatively trivial. During Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1897, Lady Randolph Churchill arranged for a young man with a music box to play God Save the Queen whenever Her Majesty sat down in her Jubilee dress. When she rose, the song stopped, only to recommence when she sat down again. Nowadays, the critics are more frantic, and most lyrics have been forgotten.

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