Summoning up his life’s impulses (and mine) CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER WROTE: “The catastrophe that awaits everyone from a false move, fatal encounter—every life has such a moment. What distinguishes us is whether, and how, we ever come back.”
“The Art of the Possible” (1): Churchill, South Africa, Apartheid
Excerpts from “Churchill, South Africa, Apartheid” an article for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project, June 2020. For the complete text with endnotes, please click here. This article is dedicated to the memory of Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), whose Churchillian magnanimity was a model for his time—and even more for ours.
Part 1: 1902-1909
In “Apartheid: Made in Britain,” Richard Dowden argued that Britain not South Africa cost black South Africans their rights. His account is factual as far as it goes, but there is more to say about Churchill’s effort to achieve justice in South Africa.…
Case for the defense: “If we allow our monuments and statues and place-names to be torn down because of our present-day views, and claims of people being offended by our built environment that has been around for decades and sometimes centuries, it speaks to a pathetic lack of confidence in ourselves as a nation. We are on the way to a society of competing victimhoods, atomized and balkanized into smaller and smaller communities, which ironically enough is something racists want too.” —Andrew Roberts
A magazine fact checker writes asking if Churchill ever said, “Stalin never broke his word to me.” The short answer is yes. The long answer shows how careful we should be when quoting Churchill.
The source of this quote is the journalist C.L. Sulzberger (1912-1993), in his 1970 book, The Last of the Giants, page 304. In it Sulzberger reports his “five hours with old Winston Churchill” at Chartwell on 10 July 1956.
Churchill, wrote Sulzberger, thought Stalin “a great man, above all compared to Khruschev and Bulganin,” and quoted Churchill as follows:
John Ivison in Canada’s National Post makes the point: “Donald Trump is no Winston Churchill, and the comparison is ludicrous.” He refers to a June 3rd statement by the President’s press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany. (She compared Trump’s appearance at St. John’s Episcopal Church across from the White House to Churchill visiting the blitzed East End in 1940.)
I think from a purely historical point of view we can all agree with him. In 1940, Churchill wrote, “There was a white glow, over-powering, sublime, which ran through our Island from end to end.”…
I’d like to know if you can shed light on Churchill’s use of the word “wizard” for radar scientists and engineers (as in Their Finest Hour, Book 2, Chapter 4 “The Wizard War”)? He first used the term in publication in that book in 1949; is there any indication of his use of the word, to describe what the RAF called “boffins”, during the early days of the war itself?
“Wizard” is of course a grand old Middle English word, and Churchill would have preferred that to the newfangled “boffin.” …
A reader requests recommendations for good books about Sir Winston’s mother, Lady Randolph Churchill (1854-1921). The most rounded and thoroughly sourced is Anne Sebba’s American Jennie (2007). Barbara Langworth published a thorough review and analysis of Jennie’s many accomplishments, below. Scroll to the end for a Bibliography and commentary on other books about Lady Randolph. RML
Egyptians and all that
A.M. in India follows Churchill issues and strives to understand the truth. He questions what Winston Churchill said about the Egyptians….
Good afternoon, I’ve emailed you before. If it’s not too much trouble could you please verify whether Sir Winston actually said this? “If we have any more of [Egyptian] cheek we will set the Jews on them and drive them into the gutter from which they should never have emerged.”
* * *
We may accept this as likely. It is hearsay and the source was not pro-Churchill.…
Readers reacted kindly to my essay on Alistair Cooke. I venture to add some private Churchillian moments at the Mount Washington Hotel at Bretton Woods. I sent these to still-living participants, who urged I publish them—with strategic edits to protect the innocent.
“I’ve been using microphones before you were born”
Commander Larry Kryske USN was our toastmaster for the 1988 Mount Washington Churchill dinners. I remember particularly his naval declaration after dinner: “The smoking lamp is lighted.” (How odd that sounds now! In my experience, group smoking stopped almost dead around 1990.) Larry sends this amusing memory of that night, 27 August:
During his address, Sir Alistair appeared to be having trouble with the mic.…
In the splintering crash of this vast battle the quiet conversations we had had in Downing Street faded or fell back in one’s mind. However, I remember being told that Mr. Chamberlain had gone, or was going, to see the King, and this was naturally to be expected. Presently a message arrived summoning me to the Palace at six o’clock. It only takes two minutes to drive there from the Admiralty along the Mall. Although I suppose the evening newspapers must have been full of the terrific news from the Continent, nothing had been mentioned about the Cabinet crisis.…
My previous note was about Alistair Cooke on Churchill in the 1930s. I here reprise my introduction to his 1988 speech, and a personal epilogue. Sir Alistair’s remarks, at the Mount Washington Hotel, Bretton Woods, 27 August 1988, are available by email. RML
Sir Alistair Cooke KBE
When, in what we must regard as a stroke of brilliance, we thought to invite Sir Alistair Cooke to talk about Winston Churchill, we wrote him with trepidation. We were told he had a reputation for being very hard to get.
