Category: In the News

Fulton
WSC and President Truman, flanking Truman’s military aide General Harry Vaughan, arriving at Fulton after a long night of poker (see http://bit.ly/2ZIUlRN), 4 March 1946. (US National Archives, public domain)
Churchill’s Consistency: The Fulton Warning Continues

Churchill’s Consistency: The Fulton Warning Continues

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Excerpt­ed from “Churchill’s Steady Adher­ence to His 1946 ‘Iron Cur­tain’ Speech in Ful­ton,” writ­ten for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the Hills­dale post with end­notes and more images, please click here. (Part of the text is tak­en from “Iron Cur­tain 75 Years On,” while adding rel­e­vant timelines.)

Fulton then and now

Ini­tial­ly con­demned as a war­mon­ger for telling the truth about Sovi­et inten­tions in his 1946 “Iron Cur­tain” speech, Churchill was soon acknowl­edged as a prophet—sometimes by the same indi­vid­u­als and media who exco­ri­at­ed him. Churchill him­self nev­er backed off.…

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Fulton
When Churchill spoke at Fulton in 1946, The Iron Curtain extended “from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic.” Vienna was then behind the Curtain, since northeast Austria was under under Soviet occupation. (BigSteve, Wikimedia Creative Commons)
Iron Curtain 75 Years On: Churchill on the Fulton Flak

Iron Curtain 75 Years On: Churchill on the Fulton Flak

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The 75th Anniver­sary of Win­ston Churchill’s “Iron Cur­tain” speech at Ful­ton, Mis­souri, was cel­e­brat­ed this week with due cer­e­mo­ny. One need look no fur­ther than his lead­ing recent biog­ra­ph­er Andrew Roberts for an emi­nent­ly read­able account of the speech and its after­math in the Dai­ly Express.

Read­ers inter­est­ed in fur­ther details may wish to watch or read three per­ti­nent pre­sen­ta­tions, the first being the speech itself, the oth­er two pro­vid­ed by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project:

Sir Win­ston Churchill’s Ful­ton Speech, “The Sinews of Peace,” West­min­ster Col­lege, 5 March 1946 (audio; speech begins at minute 8:40) Sir Mar­tin Gilbert, “The Endur­ing Impor­tance of the ‘Iron Cur­tain’ Speech,” Hills­dale Col­lege, 22 Octo­ber 2004.…

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Social Dilemma
A modern railway station anywhere, any time. (Rawpixel.com, Wikimedia Creative Commons)
“The Social Dilemma” and Churchill’s “Mass Effects in Modern Life”

“The Social Dilemma” and Churchill’s “Mass Effects in Modern Life”

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“The Social Dilem­ma” is excerpt­ed from an Essay on Win­ston Churchill’s 146th birth­day, 30 Novem­ber 2020, pub­lished by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the orig­i­nal post, please click here.

“The Social Dilemma”: Netflix, 2020, 90 minutes.

“Is not mankind already escap­ing from the con­trol of indi­vid­u­als? Are not our affairs increas­ing­ly being set­tled by mass process­es? Are not mod­ern conditions—at any rate through­out the Eng­lish-speak­ing communities—hostile to the devel­op­ment of out­stand­ing per­son­al­i­ties and to their influ­ence upon events: and last­ly if this be true, will it be for our greater good and glo­ry?…

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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 Winston Churchill Bust Furore, Round 3

It’s Baaaack! The Winston Churchill Bust Furore, Round 3

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N.B. The Epstein sto­ry is expand­ed in The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor, 30 Jan­u­ary. 

It seems that every four or eight years we must have a Great Media Hoe­down over a bust of Win­ston Churchill by Jacob Epstein arriv­ing at, or depart­ing, the White House. The revolv­ing door bust belongs to the British Embassy. It has twice resided on loan in the Oval Office. Ipso fac­to, it has twice returned to the Embassy. Per­haps it should hang on a Zip line between the two build­ings to con­ve­nience the spir­it of the moment.

When­ev­er the Epstein makes a trip back or forth, the media explodes in spec­u­la­tion.…

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papers
“The largest single private repository of recent British history”: Churchill Archives Centre and dining hall, Churchill College Cambridge. (Cmglee, Creative Commons)
Old Kerfuffles Die Hard: The Churchill Papers Flap is Back

Old Kerfuffles Die Hard: The Churchill Papers Flap is Back

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“Boris John­son, who has sought com­par­i­son with Win­ston Churchill, denounced spend­ing nation­al lot­tery mon­ey to save the wartime leader’s per­son­al papers for the nation,” chor­tled The Guardian in Decem­ber. (The Churchill Papers cov­er 1874-1945. Lady Churchill donat­ed the post-1945 Chartwell Papers to the Churchill Archives in 1965.)

In April 1995 John­son, then a colum­nist for the Dai­ly Tele­graph, deplored the £12.5 mil­lion pur­chase of Churchill Papers for the nation. The lot­tery-sup­port­ed Nation­al Her­itage Memo­r­i­al Fund, said John­son, was frit­ter­ing away mon­ey on point­less projects and ben­e­fit­ing Tory grandees. John­son added: “…sel­dom in the field of human avarice was so much spent by so many on so little …”

The Memo­r­i­al Fund replied the Churchill Papers were a nation­al heir­loom under threat of being sold out­side the coun­try.…

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Mather
“With his only grandchild Maggie Sue. She is 9 now, but it shows the joy they had in each other.” —Alexandra Mather Bourne
He Never Doubted Clouds Would Break: John H. Mather 1943-2020

He Never Doubted Clouds Would Break: John H. Mather 1943-2020

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“Why are you buy­ing expen­sive pills over the counter?” asked Dr. John Math­er. We were in an ele­va­tor dur­ing a 2001 Churchill Con­fer­ence. “Don’t you have an hon­or­able dis­charge from the Coast Guard?” He was then a Com­man­der in the U.S. Pub­lic Health Ser­vice and Assis­tant Inspec­tor Gen­er­al at the Veteran’s Admin­is­tra­tion. I’d nev­er thought my four years with the USCG wor­thy of any­thing spe­cial, but I did have my DD-214. Math­er said I was enti­tled: “We issue cheap pills.”

In the lift with us was Luce Churchill, mar­ried to Sir Winston’s grand­son.…

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Pocahontas
“Pocahontas Saves the Life of Captain John Smith,” painting by Johann Friedrich Engel, 1921. (Wikimedia Commons)
Pocahontas: Randolph Churchill’s Jibe at the Race Question

Pocahontas: Randolph Churchill’s Jibe at the Race Question

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Pretend Indians

We all know how a cer­tain Amer­i­can politi­cian was nick­named “Poc­a­hon­tas,” years after claim­ing to be, with­out foun­da­tion, a native Amer­i­can. This has often been tried. Some­times, how­ev­er, it back­fires. “A friend got his son into a bet­ter pub­lic school by declar­ing he was trib­al,” a col­league writes. “Unfor­tu­nate­ly, they didn’t tell the boy, who was then invit­ed to an after-school meet­ing for those inter­est­ed in Indi­ans. My friend attempt­ed to cor­rect him­self, but he found that in that city, you can change your racial iden­ti­fi­ca­tion only once.” (Who writes these rules?)

Dur­ing a recent encounter with the med­ical world I received a ques­tion­naire with the inevitable ques­tion, “Race.”…

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Aryan
Winston Churchill, 1904, shorty after his interview with Gustavus Ohlinger. (Imperial War Museum, public domain)
Churchll’s “Aryan Stock” Quotation: Principles, Facts and Heresies

Churchll’s “Aryan Stock” Quotation: Principles, Facts and Heresies

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An essay on Churchill’s 146th birthday.  “The Aryan stock is bound to triumph”

Suf­fer­ers from “Churchill Derange­ment Syn­drome” hold “Aryan stock” high among Win­ston Churchill’s appalling utter­ances. The remark rose again in cor­re­spon­dence with a jour­nal­ist. I dug out for him the back­ground of that remark, but his report omit­ted it. Out of con­text the quote is mis­lead­ing, so I guess that’s just as well. But rather than write off sev­er­al hours’ research, the facts might here serve to advance reality.

Wales in its Welsh Wis­dom is think­ing of mov­ing stat­ues of Churchill, Nel­son and Gand­hi to a muse­um, the Dai­ly Tele­graph informs us.…

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Official Biography
At 31 volumes, eight narrative and 23 of documents, the Official Biography, “Winston S. Churchill,” is the longest on the planet. (Photo: Hillsdale College)
“Winston S. Churchill”: The Triumphant Story of the Official Biography

“Winston S. Churchill”: The Triumphant Story of the Official Biography

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This his­to­ry of the Offi­cial Biog­ra­phy was first pub­lished in Finest Hour 190, Fourth Quar­ter 2020

“We go back a long way,” Hills­dale Col­lege Pres­i­dent Lar­ry Arnn recent­ly remind­ed me. “I knew Dal New­field.” He real­ized that would invoke a fond mem­o­ry. A few still remem­ber the man respon­si­ble for where some of us are today.

Dal­ton New­field was a Sacra­men­to army vet­er­an who had admired Win­ston Churchill since he saw him live dur­ing World War II. In 1970, I shrank away from Finest Hour after the first eleven issues. I was clear­ing the decks for an auto­mo­tive writ­ing career in New York City.…

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

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Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

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