Winston S. Churchill Archives - Page 52 of 64

Bombing Japan: Churchill’s View

19 April 2016

Scott Johnson of Powerline (“Why We Dropped the Bomb,” 13 April) kindly links an old column of his quoting an old one of mine with reference to President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima and the atom bombing of Japan.

Johnson links a lecture by Professor Williamson Murray, which is worth considering, along with Paul Fussell’s classic essay in The New Republic, “Thank God for the Atom Bomb,” which makes you think, though some consider it a rant. Fussell wrote:

John Kenneth Galbraith is persuaded that the Japanese would have surrendered surely by November without an invasion.…

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cruz churchill — Ted Cruz (L). Maybe if he’d smoke a cigar? (Daily Telegraph)

Senator Cruz: Minor Misquote, Major Misinterpretation

16 April 2016

Ted Cruz, speaking on 5 April, “sparked an outcry” by misquoting Churchill: “If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, Cruz intoned, “we risk the future.”

The London Daily Telegraph reported: The references drew a swift—and fierce—reaction from social media.” Social media is not a likely place to contemplate the fine points of history. It wasn’t in this case, as you can read in the newspaper article.

What Cruz said was “…risk the future.” For Churchill it was more than risk. In his “Finest Hour” speech, 18 June 1940, Churchill told Parliament: “If we open a quarrel between the past and the present we shall find that we have lost the future.”…

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Lehrman on Churchill and Lincoln

24 March 2016

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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Ty Cobb: Inconvenient Truths

10 March 2016

Leerhsen set out with the typical view of Ty Cobb, only to encounter scores of inconvenient truths missed or ignored by earlier biographers, whose work inspired the sick portrait in Ken Burns's documentary, Baseball. Cobb was no saint—Leerhsen documents his flaming temper and readiness for brawls—but most of the other allegations are either vastly exaggerated or demonstrably false. Cobb was 180 degrees from the popular image of a racist, murdering, spike-flying, child-hating misanthrope, who steamed stamps off the envelopes kids sent him for his autograph.

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A.L. Rowse with Chartwell and Churchill, 1955

1 March 2016

"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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Britain’s Leave Debate: Who’s Churchill? Who’s Stalin?

22 February 2016

The campaign to Leave is heating up. Take Grassroots Out, a “combined operation” supporting Brexit—the campaign for Great Britain to exit the European Union. G-O fielded a broad spectrum of speakers in London February 19th. Along with UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage were Conservative Sir William Cash, Labour’s Kate Hoey, economist Ruth Lea, and a London cab driver.

The most unexpected Leave speaker was the far-left former Labour MP and head of the socialist Respect Party. Mr. George Galloway was immediately queried about his new colleagues.

“We are not pals,” Galloway replied.…

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Vox Non-Populi: More Churchill Mythology

20 February 2016

Winston Churchill was no saint; it is a disservice to pretend he was. But he is too complex to be pigeonholed by writers who criticize selectively. Hillsdale College’s Churchill Project responds to the mythology. Read full article.

Excerpt

Winston Churchill is in the news, as is often the case. On February 11th, Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders had words of praise for Churchill’s war leadership. Vox Media has criticized him and Churchill in sharp language. Are the criticisms of Churchill true?

During the Democrat debate on 11 February 2-16, candidates were asked to name two leaders, one American and one foreign, who would influence their policy decisions.…

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Churchill on Trial: Washington, 1953

19 February 2016

In early 1953, Winston Churchill was placed on trial by his peers, with President Truman the presiding judge, for complicity in the use of atomic bombs. To anyone who may write to say that he and Truman were making light of events causing thousands of deaths, the answer is twofold: 1) How do you know they were making light?; and 2) This is in answer to a historical query. Sources: Clark Clifford, recollection, to Richard Langworth, 1988. Margaret Truman, “After the Presidency,” in Life, 1 December 1972, 69-70. Also recorded in her book, Harry S. Truman.

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Margaret Truman wrote: “During our last weeks in the White House, Prime Minister Churchill arrived for a visit.…

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“Churchill and his Military Commanders”

10 February 2016

Part I: “War Statesmanship,” in “Churchill and his Military Commanders,” by Eliot A. Cohen. Read in full on the Hillsdale College Churchill Project.

“The generals had in mind a concept of civil-military relations to which many still, amazingly, pay lip service: a world in which civilians provide resources, set goals, and step out of the way to let professionals do their work. War statesmanship, in Churchill’s view, focused at the apex of government an array of considerations and calculations that even those one rung down could not fully fathom.”

Eliot A. Cohen is professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and has served as Counselor of the Department of State.…

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Last Try to Avoid Hell, 1914

22 January 2016

“Saving the Nations from Hell”: The “Kingly Conference,” 1914 (Excerpt)

Churchill’s faith in personal diplomacy—solving intractable problems by meetings at the highest level—was famously expressed during World War II.

Less widely known is Churchill’s 1914 proposal for a conference of heads of state (including, it seems, French President Raymond Poincaré) in an effort to head-off World War I. The scheme failed, but not for Churchill’s lack of trying.

There is little on Churchill’s “kingly conference” in the literature. There is no reference in Churchill’s The World Crisis, Asquith’s memoirs, or biographies by Manchester, Jenkins, Rose, Charmley and Birkenhead, though Sir Martin Gilbert includes in the official biography an excerpt from a cabinet member which records Churchill’s words in the cabinet of July 27th:

Churchill said we were now in a better than average condition, & the fleet was at war strength….Churchill,…

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