“Not a day passes when Winston Churchill, who proved indispensable WHEN LIBERTY HUNG IN THE BALANCE is not accused of something dreadful, from misogyny to warmongering. My book, Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality, confronts this busy industry.” —RML
Selective Quotes: Churchill on South Africa Prison Camps
“Churchill on South Africa Prison Camps”: excerpted from my essay for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. For the unabridged original, together with endnotes, and WSC’s complete letter to The Times, click here.
1. Same old, same old…
An Indian colleague writes:
I’ve noticed that the same accusations about Churchill repeated frequently. Many writers seem to recycle them on trust. Take for example a new anti-Churchill article which I think needs a thorough debunking. In fairness to the author, it is not all bad; she concedes for instance that Churchill wanted to use tear gas in Iraq, not poison gas.…
The London Daily Telegraph is sponsoring a series of podcasts featuring conversations with historians about attacks on national heroes. On September 1st, Steve Edginton engaged with Churchill biographer Andrew Roberts on the Woke Movement’s number one bogeyman: Winston Spencer Churchill….
Winston Churchill is the man who saved not only Britain but the world from Nazi tyranny. But to some, Churchill represents the evils of the British Empire: racism, colonization and violence.…
I’ve been reading The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam, about how we got into Vietnam. When you’re deciding whether to intervene militarily, he says, you can count on the generals to tell you everything that can go awry and stress the negative part of the picture. But once they’re invested, once it’s their job to create a good outcome through military means, it’s going to be all happy talk. They’re not going to report that they’re failing. They’re going to give you the sunnier side of what’s happening, in this case, in Afghanistan.…
Mr. Paul Bonowicz staged a one-man protest against Churchill in South Ruislip, Middlesex. He denounced “the lies in British books about Winston Churchill. I am Polish and we know he betrayed Polish people.” He added: Churchill “knew about the Holocaust. He knew Jewish people were dying, but he didn’t help. After the war there was a deal between Churchill and Stalin, and the price was Poland. Part of my country went to the Soviets. It was Churchill who decided which part, not the Poles.” —Uxbridge Gazette.
Churchill did know about the Holocaust, and alone among allied leaders, he tried to do something about it.…
…was a theme of Churchill’s, and he often wrote about it. He made many mistakes, but throughout his career he was seldom guilty of lacking consistency. Continued from Part 1…
“Much better if he had never lived”
Churchill maintained friendly relations with Baldwin until Baldwin died in 1947. Nevertheless—which was rare for him—he never forgave and never forgot. In June 1947 he made an astonishing statement: “I wish Stanley Baldwin no ill, but it would have been much better if he had never lived.” Official biographer Martin Gilbert wrote that this was not Churchill’s usual consistency, but exactly the opposite:
In my long search for Churchill few letters have struck a clearer note than this one.…
Graham Robson shared and typified Alistair Cooke's philosophy—and mine. "We shall go on to the end," as Churchill said. And sure enough: Last April Graham wrote me about another book! It was his last message: I am commissioned to prepare a monumental four-part Encyclopedia of Classic Cars 1945-2000." In 2025 he would have been 89. Alas that task must now fall to someone else. But it was so very typical of Graham. He was forever pressing on, oblivious to time and age—on and on, as alive and vital as ever. As a BBC colleague said of Alistair Cooke: "He was always, triumphantly, in touch."
“Churchill’s Consistency,” first published in 2011, is updated with material from my book, Churchill and the Avoidable War. It exonerates, partially, the statements and actions of Mr. Baldwin in the debate of rearmament in the 1930s.
“Politics before country”
A U.S. Congressman, observing America’s spending problem, proposed an elaborate plan to fix it. In the process he didn’t wilt under the assault directed toward anyone who defies the status quo by proposing practical change. Intending to defend his ideas in a speech, his private office asked me to verify what Churchill said on consistency among politicians.…
Reprised below are my small contributions on Churchill and the great Irish statesman and thinker Edmund Burke (1729-1797). It was eclipsed in 2019 in a brilliant speech by Andrew Roberts which the Hillsdale College Churchill Project offers here. Dr. Roberts spoke after receiving The New Criterion 7th Edmund Burke Award for Service to Culture and Society. He also discusses Churchill on Burke in a video interview with James Panero.
2. Churchill on Burke
A reader writes:
I’d like to congratulate you on Churchill by Himself, but I could not find any Churchill comments on Edmund Burke in the index.…
“Business in Bed” is excerpted from the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. For the original text including endnotes, please click here. Subscriptions to this site are free. You will receive regular notices of new posts as published. Just fill out SUBSCRIBE AND FOLLOW (at right). Your email address will remain a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
Q: Did Churchill conduct business in bed?
“I am a criminologist currently researching my next book and I need to know something about Churchill briefing colleagues from his bed. Is this true? Did Churchill work from his bed?…
I just read William Stevenson’s A Man Called Intrepid. One of the centerpieces recounts the “secret war,” including espionage and covert action, was Ultra/Enigma and Bletchley Park’s activities.
Above all, the book states, Churchill meant to keep the Ultra secret. It claims Churchill knew the Nazis’ plan to carpet-bomb Coventry in November 1940—and did nothing. He says Churchill feared giving away the fact the the British were reading German codes. Have you read this account? I think you found that claim to be false. Was Stephenson the British super-spy his biographer insists he was?…
