Richard M. Langworth

“And this I would fight for: THE FREEDOM OF THE MIND To take any direction it wishes, undirected.” —John Steinbeck

Desert Island Books: Charles Krauthammer’s “Things that Matter”

25 June 2018 Comments 0 Comments

Charles Krauthammer’s Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics (388 pages, Crown Forum, 2013). In remembering Dr. Krauthammer, I said this book was one of a score I’d take with me if confined to a desert island. Here’s why.

The reader will ask: why am I plugging to a Churchill audience a set of essays by a political columnist? Answer: because many are not political, yet reflect Churchillian thought. Moreover, Dr. Krauthammer’s essay about Churchill is one of the best summaries of the man I’ve ever read. By anybody. Anywhere.

Significantly, in a book of over nearly ninety columns and essays, the Churchill article ranks second—in Part I (entitled “Personal”)—after a piece on the author’s beloved brother, Marcel, who also died young after an heroic struggle.…

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“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster”: Charles Krauthammer 1950-2018

22 June 2018 Comments 6 Comments

“CK,” Churchillian

The best editor I ever had wrote: “There is nothing to be said when a friend dies, even among people whose trade is words.” Much nevertheless is being said about Charles Krauthammer. That is fitting, and it is what we have the Internet for. (Some of the most touching tributes are linked below. Fox News produced a very fine tribute, “Krauthammer in His Own Words” click here.)

My editor meant, rather, that for some, words are inadequate against “a big, empty hole where there was once someone you loved. And all the talk in the world won’t change that.…

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Roosevelt and Churchill: Don Quixote and Sancho Panza?

19 June 2018 Comments 2 Comments

A colleague asks whether Winston and Clementine Churchill’s private name for President Roosevelt was “Don Quixote.” Also, who compared Roosevelt and Churchill to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza? This offers an interesting trawl through the sources.

So far as I can learn, the Quixote – Panza analogy for Roosevelt and Churchill (also FDR and his devoted adviser Harry Hopkins) occurred only during the 1943 Casablanca Conference (SYMBOL). Roosevelt proposed those code names, and I rather think Churchill had different image of them than FDR. (Oxford English Dictionary: “Quixote: Enthusiastic visionary, pursuer of lofty but impracticable ideals.”)…

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The Music Winston Churchill Loved (with audio links)

8 June 2018 Comments 0 Comments

Don Cusic, Winston Churchill’s Love of Music: Churchill Didn’t Have a Tin Ear (Nashville: Brackish Publishing, 2018), 122 pages, $21. Audio links can easily be provided online. Excerpted from a review for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. For the full review, click here.

Music by Cusic

Cusic’s text traces Churchill’s life and career, tracking every reference the author found to music and song. We range from the marches, ditties and Gilbert & Sullivan Churchill loved to the powerfully inspirational. Which lyrics are presented is purely arbitrary, but once chosen, we get every word. Churchill’s youthful encounters with the ’cello and piano are duly noted.…

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Motor On: Churchill Thwarted (Or: For Once, the Authorities Prevailed)

5 June 2018 Comments 0 Comments

The distinguished historian Paul Addison sends along a minor but amusing tale of a Churchill motor car (probably his new Napier). Churchill didn’t get his way, because he himself wasn’t behind the wheel. Had he been driving, he would likely have proceeded to get round the obstruction by driving on the pavement (sidewalk). This perilous endeavor was witnessed firsthand later on by WSC’s bodyguard, Detective-Inspector Walter Thompson.

Turned Back: The Home Secretary and his Motor

Daily Herald, 10 April 1911— Mr. Winston Churchill had a curious experience on Saturday while motoring to Banstead.…

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Churchill, Arthur Harris and Decisions to Bomb Germany

31 May 2018 Comments 9 Comments

Churchill wrote of a visit to blitzed London: "When we got back into the car, a harsher mood swept over this haggard crowd. 'Give it ’em back,' they cried, and, 'Let them have it too.' I undertook forthwith to see that their wishes were carried out; and this promise was certainly kept." On the other hand, alone among Allied leaders, Churchill said, after being shown the results of one particularly gruesome raid, “Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?” He said the decision to bomb Dresden was "a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing."

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Churchill 101: Three Reasons to Learn about Sir Winston

23 May 2018 Comments 2 Comments

Originally written for and published by the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. This is one of several forthcoming articles intended to encourage younger readers to learn about Churchill. Reader comment, suggestions of further points to make, and other articles on the same theme, would be appreciated.

_________

Learn …

Who was Winston Churchill? Why, half a century since his death, is he the most quoted historical figure? Scholars know the answers. Do you? Why does it matter?

It matters because Churchill continues to offer guidance and example today. His indomitable courage, his ability to communicate, his knowledge of history, his political precepts, are as valuable now as they were in his time.…

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Sir Winston Churchill spoke about baseball? Yes, that too…

17 May 2018 Comments 1 Comment

A correspondent and fellow devotee of the game asks if Sir Winston had anything to say about American baseball. Out of fifteen million words over ninety years? Of course he did!

It may seem odd, since baseball is not an English sport, and its closest counterpart over there is rounders. But—ever obedient to the whims of Churchillians—I offer what he had to say on the matter.

The interesting photo above accompanied a nice article, “Churchill on Baseball,” by Christopher Schwarz, which I published a few years ago in Finest Hour 163. I supplied the following Churchill quotes as a sidebar to Mr.…

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Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: Origins of a Famous Phrase

30 April 2018 Comments 0 Comments

Though he gave permanent life to blood, toil, tears and sweat, Churchill’s best-remembered words did not originate with him. Similar expressions date very far back. (Excerpted from my essay for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. To read the full article, click here.)

Quotations scholar Ralph Keyes writes:

Cicero and Livy wrote of “sweat and blood.” A 1611 John Donne poem included the lines “That ‘tis in vaine to dew, or mollifie / It with thy Teares, or Sweat, or Bloud.” More than two centuries later, Byron wrote, “Year after year they voted cent per cent / Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions—why?—for…

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How Churchill Saw the Future: Prescient Essays, 1924-1931

27 April 2018 Comments 2 Comments

"While men are gathering knowledge and power with ever-increasing and measureless speed, their virtues and their wisdom have not shown any notable improvement as the centuries have rolled. The brain of modern man does not differ in essentials from that of the human beings who fought and loved here millions of years ago. The nature of man has remained hitherto practically unchanged. Under sufficient stress—starvation, terror, warlike passion, or even cold intellectual frenzy—the modern man we know so well will do the most terrible deeds...." —WSC

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