"Is this the end? Is it to be merely a chapter in a cruel and senseless story? Will a new generation in their turn be immolated to square the black accounts of Teuton and Gaul? Will our children bleed and gasp again in devastated lands? Or will there spring from the very fires of conflict that reconciliation of the three giant combatants, which would unite their genius and secure to each in safety and freedom a share in rebuilding the glory of Europe?" —WSC
Performance may be described as “comfortable.” Zero to 60 must take 20 seconds, and we've not pushed her over 70. But at 60, 1950 Eight is just cruising. Gas mileage averages about 15 mpg. But hey, remember, this is 1950, and gas is only 15 cents a gallon. (A fun feature at gas stations: Packard’s “whistling gas tank” stops whistling when you’re nearing full, captivating locals. Nothing like that on an Audi A6.)
"I tried to rally him. I spoke of the extraordinary life he had enjoyed...all he had said and done, of how he was almost universally popular and admired. In Germany in 1956, as he drove through the streets he was cheered. It astonished him. After all, it was not very long after the end of the war....How, I concluded, could he be so downcast? I noted his reply verbatim: 'Yes, I worked very hard all my life, and I have achieved a great deal—in the end to achieve nothing.'"
"Then it may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a stage in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation.…The [atomic] deterrent does not cover the case of lunatics or dictators in the mood of Hitler when he found himself in his final dug-out. That is a blank…."
Churchill's reputation as a warrior tends to obscure his efforts for peace. Of peace he sometimes despaired, especially toward the end of his life. Herewith are some of Churchill’s words on war and peace from "Churchill by Himself." Part 3 will consider why he regretted, in his final years, that despite all his efforts, peace still did not prevail in the world.
When Churchill referred to Christian civilization, he did not mean to exclude Jews or Buddhists or Muslims. Just as, to him, the word “man” meant humanity, his allusions to Christianity embodied principles he considered universal. He meant the Ten Commandments (a “judgmental” set of moral imperatives now expunged from certain public places). He meant the Sermon on the Mount and the Golden Rule. He meant charity, forgiveness, courage.
"Churchill's style of tossing ideas around with his companion, often to test their effect, mistakenly inclined Moran to give these half-formed thoughts and suggestions a status of hard fact." And not just Moran. Bridges and King were certainly taken aback sufficiently to record Churchill's contemplation of nuclear war.
Churchill did have an astonishing capacity, and most historians grant him a decided preference for lubrication. But Lockhart is no more reliable than others. from Alan Brooke to Bessie Braddock, who attributed to alcohol a Churchill who worked and harangued 18 hours a day and was often exhausted…. Yet apparently not drunk enough to debate Empire Free Trade—or to spark Lockhart’s imagination.
Churchill only used "artist - invalid - sybarite" twice, and very early on. Evidently it didn't "stick" as well as others he repeated decades apart. If it had, he might have applied it to Morocco or the South of France, where he was all three of those things from time to time. He found both to be perfect for convalescing, painting, or enjoying the luxuries of life. (Of course, he knew where to stay!)
The reader now has the context, and may decide whether Churchill's remark was an expression of imperialist racism, or the fashionable Darwin-Reade philosophy prevalent at that time. In the words of Mark Twain and several showmen before him: "You pays your money and you takes your choice."
