Category: Winston S. Churchill

Last Lion
William Manchester in 1967, from the jacket of “Death of a President.” (Wide World, public domain)
Manchester and Reid: “The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm”

Manchester and Reid: “The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm”

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In a flourish suitable to a great work, Paul Reid ends his story on January 30th, 1965 with the best words Lord Moran ever wrote: "The village stations on the way to Bladon were crowded with his countrymen, and at Bladon in a country churchyard, in the stillness of a winter evening, in the presence of his family and a few friends, Winston Churchill was committed to English earth, which in his finest hour he had held inviolate." Bill Manchester would like that.

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Today
Churchill at Harvard, 6 September 1943, with President James Conant. (Imperial War Museum, public domain)
Conant, Churchill, and the Harvard of 1943

Conant, Churchill, and the Harvard of 1943

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James Conant was a liberal. He favored admitting women and minorities, and ultimately Harvard did. I don't think he welcomed anti-Semites, although undoubtedly they existed on his campus. He was, above all, devoted to the free exchange of ideas. "Free speech carries with it the evil of all foolish, unpleasant and venomous things that are said," as Churchill once remarked. "But on the whole we would rather lump them than do away with it."

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Generals
Sacking Wavell also gave Churchill the opportunity to make him Viceroy of India, where he became the person most responsible for relieving the Bengal Famine. Wavell (center) is at the Viceregal Gardens, New Delhi, with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (left) and Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, 17 June 1946. (Imperial War Museum, Wikimedia Commons)
Generals Wavell and Auchinleck, and the Lost Art of Going Quietly

Generals Wavell and Auchinleck, and the Lost Art of Going Quietly

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Leaving quietly was what you did in those bygone days. Lord Halifax in 1940 proposed negotiations with Hitler; rejected by the War Cabinet, he did not offer interviews to air his grievances. Nor would such an act of public disloyalty have occurred to him. George Marshall, a great man, had many disagreements with his civilian chiefs. Offered a million dollars for his memoirs, he declined, saying, “I have already been adequately compensated for my services.”

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Consulate
USAF guardsman presents arms in honor of Foreign Service members killed during attacks on the U.S. Consulate, Benghazi, Joint Base Andrews, 14 September 2012. (USAF photo by Senior Airman Steele C. G. Britton)
2012 Benghazi Consulate: “Sometimes History Rhymes”

2012 Benghazi Consulate: “Sometimes History Rhymes”

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"The Middle East is one of the hardest-hearted areas in the world.... Your friends must be supported with every vigour and if necessary they must be avenged. Force, or perhaps force and bribery, are the only things that will be respected. It is very sad, but we had all better recognise it. At present our friendship is not valued, and our enmity is not feared." —WSC

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Life and Times
The ultimate gift from the very beginning is the signed, limited edition.
Holiday Gifts: “Marlborough: His Life and Times”

Holiday Gifts: “Marlborough: His Life and Times”

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"Marlborough" was originally published in four volumes in England (Harrap) and Canada (Ryerson and Harrap) and six in America (Scribner). Fine first editions are pricey. The current paperback edition is by the University of Chicago Press. Copies is not, but for gift giving, you may want something nicer. There are many alternatives.

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Richard II
Richard II performance in the Slovenian Folk Theater, Celje, Poland. In the photo: Alexander Crohl (Henry IV.), Volodya Peer (Henry Percy), Joze Pristov (Earl of Northumberland). Public domain (Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill’s Memorable Allusions to Shakespeare’s Richard II

Churchill’s Memorable Allusions to Shakespeare’s Richard II

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“Allu­sions to Richard II” is extract­ed from an arti­cle for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the orig­i­nal text, click here.

Richard II and “This Sceptr’d Isle.”

We are asked: “Churchill quot­ed Shakespeare’s famous lines, ‘This scepter’d isle,’ in one of his speech­es. They are the words of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lan­cast­er, from Richard II, Act 2, sc. 1. Could you direct me to the speech?”

Churchill knew his Shake­speare and had a near-pho­to­graph­ic mem­o­ry. Dar­rell Holley’s Churchill’s Lit­er­ary Allu­sions tells us he alludes to Shake­speare more than any oth­er Eng­lish author. King…

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Bevan
Bevan in more jovial form at Park Hospital, Davyhulme, near Manchester, on the first day of the National Health Service, 5 July 1948. (University of Liverpool, Creative Commons)
Trump’s “Vermin” Crack: Nothing New Except the Reaction

Trump’s “Vermin” Crack: Nothing New Except the Reaction

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"We speak of the Minister of Health, but ought we not rather to say the Minister of Disease? For is not morbid hatred a form of mental disease, moral disease, and indeed a highly infectious form? Indeed, I can think of no better step to signalize the inauguration of the National Health Service than that a person who so obviously needs psychiatrical attention should be among the first of its patients." —Churchill on Bevan, 1948

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Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin entertaining the sailors aboard USS Arkansaas, 25 July 1944. (Wikimedia Commons)
Irving Berlin, Isaiah Berlin: Churchill’s Mistaken Identity

Irving Berlin, Isaiah Berlin: Churchill’s Mistaken Identity

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Enthralled by his accounts of American politics from the British Embassy in Washington, Churchill invited a "Mr. I. Berlin" to lunch. The invitee turned out to be Irving Berlin, not Isaiah, which produced a confusing dialogue around the table. ("Tell me, Mr. Berlin, what is your greatest work?" ... "White Christmas.") Later, meeting the real Isaiah Berlin, WSC acknowledged "the grave solipsism I was so unfortunate to have perpetrated."

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Romeo and Juliet
Production of the play “Romeo and Juliet” with Jane Cowl as Juliet and the cowering Nurse at right, 1923. (White Studio, public domain)
Churchill’s Shakespeare: Quoting “Romeo and Juliet”

Churchill’s Shakespeare: Quoting “Romeo and Juliet”

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Darrell Holley offers one citation from "Romeo and Juliet." In his biography of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir Winston writes: “Would he, under the many riddles the future had reserved for such as he, snapped the tie of sentiment that bound him to his party, resolved at last to ‘shake the yoke of inauspicious stars’….?” As so often in that better-read age, Churchill didn’t bother to cite the source, assuming most of his readers would know the source.

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Thucydides
The History of the Peloponnesian War, translated from Thucydides, by William Smith, Rector of Holy Trinity, Chester, and Chaplain to The Earl of Derby. London: John Watts, 1753. (Wikimedia Commons)
Winston Churchill and Thucydides

Winston Churchill and Thucydides

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"Open no more negotiations with Sparta. Show them plainly that you are not crushed by your present afflictions. They who face calamity without wincing, and who offer the most energetic resistance, these, be they States or individuals, are the truest heroes." —Lord Beaverbrook's advice to Churchill, quoting Thucydides, 1942.

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RML Books

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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

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