(Updat­ed from 2009, 2017, 2021 and, prob­a­bly, again in the future.) 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. It is about to make a third vis­it to the White House. 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. Does this sig­ni­fy the end [renew­al] of the Anglo-Amer­i­can Spe­cial Rela­tion­ship? Is it a ges­ture of dis­dain [admi­ra­tion] by the new pres­i­dent? Does this mean there won’t [will] be a trade deal between Amer­i­ca and the post-Brex­it Unit­ed Kingdom?

There is much igno­rance and con­fu­sion over this sub­ject. So here is the lat­est revi­sion of a sto­ry that began in 2009, was amend­ed in 2017 and 2021, and needs amend­ing again.

It is nec­es­sary to explain that there is more than one Epstein bust. The renowned sculp­tor cast eight or ten from his orig­i­nal mold. Nat­u­ral­ly, they are high­ly prized. One is at Wind­sor Cas­tle, anoth­er at Blenheim. A few are in pri­vate hands. I sold one myself to a col­lec­tor in Con­necti­cut when I was a Churchill bookseller.

(Epstein him­self lived oppo­site the Churchills in Hyde Park Gate, Lon­don. Put­ter­ing in his gar­den, he took delight in answer­ing vis­i­tors’ ques­tions about his neigh­bors: “Peo­ple thought I was the gardener.”)

Epstein #1: in the White House since 1965

There has been a Jacob Epstein bust of Sir Win­ston in the Exec­u­tive Man­sion since 1965. It was pre­sent­ed to the John­son White House by wartime friends of WSC led by Averell Har­ri­man.

This is “Epstein #1,” dis­tin­guished by a brass plaque, nor­mal­ly dis­played out­side the Treaty Room near the fam­i­ly quar­ters. Angela Bak­er pro­vid­ed a detailed his­to­ry of this orig­i­nal Epstein in 2021.

This bust is fre­quent­ly con­fused with a sec­ond Epstein (see below). In 2009, crit­ics com­plained that Mr. Oba­ma had replaced it with a bust of Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. He respond­ed that had just changed its loca­tion, out­side the Treaty Room near his pri­vate quarters.

Thus Pres­i­dent Oba­ma passed Epstein #1 every time he entered the Treaty Room on his way to watch a bas­ket­ball game. So it can hard­ly be assert­ed that he was deter­mined to rid the house of Churchill images.  Indeed, he made a point of show­ing Epstein #1 to Prime Min­is­ter David Cameron on his vis­it to the White House. (See pho­to above.) In describ­ing this bust and his dai­ly encoun­ters with it, Oba­ma said of Sir Win­ston, “I love the guy.”

Epstein #2: the revolving door bust

After 9/11, the British Embassy loaned Pres­i­dent George W. Bush its Epstein Churchill bust as a ges­ture of sol­i­dar­i­ty. It is, of course, iden­ti­cal to the oth­er Epsteins. The only dif­fer­ence from Epstein #1 is that its plinth bears a white-on-black, not a brass, plaque.

In 2009 before Mr. Oba­ma arrived, Epstein #2 was returned to the Embassy. It was not returned specif­i­cal­ly by Oba­ma, although he received blame for the act. There are sto­ries that he reject­ed the image out of hatred toward the for­mer prime min­is­ter, British colo­nial­ism, or some­thing. This is incor­rect. If he felt that way. he would not have kept Epstein #1 on promi­nent dis­play upstairs.

In 2017 Pres­i­dent Trump asked the Embassy to loan back the sec­ond bust—let’s call it “Epstein #2″—which had adorned the Oval Office under George W. Bush (2001-09). Pend­ing its arrival, Trump tem­porar­i­ly moved Epstein #1 down­stairs from its pre­vi­ous posi­tion out­side the Treaty Room. When Epstein #2 arrived from the Embassy, Epstein #1 went back upstairs.

Epstein #2 is on loan

James Bar­bour, British Embassy press sec­re­tary, explained: Epstein #2 was “lent to the George W. Bush Admin­is­tra­tion from the UK’s gov­ern­ment art col­lec­tion, for the dura­tion of the pres­i­den­cy.” White House cura­tor William All­man said in 2010 that the deci­sion to return Epstein #2 had been made before Mr. Oba­ma arrived. “It was already sched­uled to go back.”

It is true that the incom­ing Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion was offered Epstein #2 on extend­ed loan out of cour­tesy, but want­ed to make room for a bust of Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. They might well have known the White House had anoth­er Epstein Churchill already. Trump did not remove the King bust when he brought back Epstein #2. “I would nev­er do that,” he said, “because I have great respect for Dr. Mar­tin Luther King.”

Now in 2024, the Dai­ly Mail reports:

The bronze bust was removed by “woke” Joe Biden when he defeat­ed Trump in 2020 and was replaced by one of His­pan­ic union leader Cesar Chavez. Trump, a self-pro­fessed Anglophile whose moth­er was Scot­tish, has described the wartime leader as his “idol” and called the Oscar-win­ning 2017 film Dark­est Hour, star­ring Gary Old­man as Churchill, “my favourite film ever.” Last night a source close to Trump said: “One of the first things he will do is bring the Churchill bust back into the Oval Office as a mark of respect. Don­ald idolis­es Churchill and believes he’s the great­est leader the world has ever seen. He will restore him to a posi­tion of honour.”

All this may be accu­rate but the Mail seems not to real­ize that Epsstein #1 has been there all along.

Teapot tempest

I greet­ed the 2009 return of Epstein #2 to the British Embassy with facts, then with reduc­tio ad absur­dum. The Oba­ma White House, I report­ed, had more Churchilliana than the Bush White House, since Epstein #2 was replaced with Win­ston S. Churchill, Mar­tin Gilbert’s majes­tic biog­ra­phy, which weighs almost as much and takes up more space.

In 2012, jour­nal­ist Jake Tap­per blast­ed out the fact that Epstein #1 had been there all along. Tap­per wrote: “How did I fig­ure out what was real­ly going on? I nev­er gave in, nev­er, nev­er, nev­er, nev­er. In noth­ing great or small, large or pet­ty.” Very droll, Jake.

Some modest proposals…

Now that Epstein #2 is going back on loan to the Oval Office, anoth­er ker­fuf­fle has arisen on pre­dictable lines. On which, a few observations:

1) Togeth­er with the Offi­cial Biog­ra­phy, pre­sent­ed to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma by Prime Min­is­ter Gor­don Brown, the White House is brim­ming with Churchilliana. Churchill admir­ers must regard this as a fine thing.

2) As to its alleged sym­bol­ism for the Anglo-Amer­i­can Spe­cial Rela­tion­ship, I rec­om­mend a rather broad­er per­spec­tive offered a few years ago by the Amer­i­can Embassy in Lon­don. Click here and scroll to the video.

3) While Churchillians are glad to see WSC’s bust in the Oval Office, every pres­i­dent has the right to the totems of his choice. A cor­re­spon­dent with whom I rarely agree about any­thing hit the nail on the head when he cit­ed Supreme Court Jus­tice Robert H. Jack­son in one of the flag salute cas­es in 1943:

Related articles

“Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and the Churchill Bust-Out,” 2009.

“More Oba­ma and the Churchill Bust,” 2009.

“The Great Oval Office Bust Swap,” 2017.