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Randolph Churchill
The White House, 9 April 1963. President John F. Kennedy declares Sir Winston Churchill an honorary citizen of the United States. On steps, front row (L-R): Undersecretary of State, George Ball, British Ambassador Sir David Ormsby-Gore, President Kennedy, Randolph Churchill. Back rows (L-R): Deputy Chief of Protocol William J. Tonesk (mostly behind Ball), Sylvia Ormsby-Gore, Randolph’s son Winston, President’s naval aide Tazewell Shepard. Secret Service agent Art Godfrey is at far right. (Photograph by White House photographer Cecil Stoughton. presented to Richard Langworth, 1988, public domain)
Present at the Creation: Randolph Churchill and the Official Biography (3)

Present at the Creation: Randolph Churchill and the Official Biography (3)

“Ran­dolph Churchill: Present at the Cre­ation,” is from a lec­ture aboard the Regent Sev­en Seas Explor­er on the 2019 Hills­dale Col­lege Cruise around Britain, 8 June 2019. Con­clud­ed from Part 2.

“The Great Work” —Randolph S.C.

After the war, Churchill willed his archive to Ran­dolph. In 1959, impressed by his son’s  biog­ra­phy of Lord Der­by, he invit­ed Ran­dolph to be his biog­ra­ph­er. Ran­dolph devot­ed him­self to the job, know­ing by then that he had wrecked his body, that the process of dis­in­te­gra­tion was advanced. Could he fin­ish in time? Ran­dolph wondered.

He housed the archives in a fire­proof strong room at Stour, his home in Suf­folk.…

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Stelzer
From Cita Stelzer’s book cover.
Secretarial Masterpiece: A Churchillian Reader by Cita Stelzer

Secretarial Masterpiece: A Churchillian Reader by Cita Stelzer

Cita Stelz­er, Work­ing with Win­ston: The Unsung Women Behind Britain’s Great­est States­man. New York, Pega­sus Books, 2019, 400 pages, $28.95, Ama­zon $19.35, Kin­dle $14.99. Excerpt­ed from a review for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the full text, click here.

Grace Ham­blin came to Chartwell in 1932 and served as sec­re­tary to both Churchills. After Sir Winston’s death she became Chartwell’s first Nation­al Trust admin­is­tra­tor. Through all those years she nev­er “wrote.” Nor, with one excep­tion, did his oth­er office sec­re­taries. The excep­tion was Eliz­a­beth Lay­ton Nel. Her love­ly book, orig­i­nal­ly  Mr.…

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Iron Curtain
4 March 1946: Churchill with President Truman on the observation platform of a B&O Special, en route to Fulton, Missouri for Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” Speech. Seated at right is the President’s Military Aide, General Harry Vaughan, who would soon be trimming Churchill at poker. (See http://bit.ly/2ZIUlRN.) (Photograph by Abbie Rowe, National Archives / Public domain)
Churchillian Phrases: “Special Relationship” and “Iron Curtain”

Churchillian Phrases: “Special Relationship” and “Iron Curtain”

"Iron Curtain" has been tracked back to Martin Luther in a 1521 essay, “Concerning the Letter and the Spirit.” The relevant passage is as follows: “The letter [law] does not allow anyone to stand before his wrath. The Spirit does not allow anyone to perish before his grace. Oh, this is such an overwhelming affair that one could talk about it endlessly! But the pope and human law have hidden it from us and have put up an iron curtain in front of it."

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Garfield
From the dust jacket of the First English Edition, Macmillan, 1980.
Garfield, “The Paladin” (or: Christoper Creighton’s Excellent Adventure)

Garfield, “The Paladin” (or: Christoper Creighton’s Excellent Adventure)

The Pal­adin, by Bri­an Garfield. New York: Simon & Schus­ter, 1979; Lon­don, Macmil­lan 1980; Book Club Asso­ciates 1981, sev­er­al tarns­la­tions, 350 pages. (Review updat­ed 2019.)

Garfield’s gripping novel: fictional biography?

The late, pro­lif­ic Bri­an Garfield wrote this book four decades ago, yet I am still asked about it—and whether it could be true.

The sto­ry Mr. Garfield tells seems impossible—fantastic. An eleven-year-old boy named Christo­pher Creighton leaps a gar­den wall in Kent one day. He finds him­self face to face with the Right Hon­or­able Win­ston Churchill, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment. He will lat­er know the great man by the code-name “Tig­ger.”…

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Randolph Churchill
Stour House, East Bergholt, visited on the 2006 Churchill Tour of England. We were the guests of the present owners, who have maintained its stately beauty. Randolph’s strong room, which once housed the Churchill Archives, is behind the blacked-out windows at left. (Photo by Barbara Langworth)
Present at the Creation: Randolph Churchill and the Official Biography (2)

Present at the Creation: Randolph Churchill and the Official Biography (2)

“Ran­dolph Churchill: Present at the Cre­ation,” is tak­en from a lec­ture aboard the Regent Sev­en Seas Explor­er on the 2019 Hills­dale Col­lege Cruise around Britain, 8 June 2019. Con­tin­ued from Part 1.

Randolph Churchill Postwar

Out of the Army and Par­lia­ment in 1945, and divorced from Pamela in 1946, Ran­dolph Churchill led a “ram­pag­ing exis­tence,” his sis­ter Mary wrote. “He always had lances to break, and hares to start.” He was loy­al and affec­tion­ate, but he “would pick an argu­ment with a chair.”

In 1948 he mar­ried June Osborne and fathered his sec­ond child, Ara­bel­la.…

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Kershaw
7 December 1941. Japanese Caption: “Full view of Ford Island gasping under the attack of our Sea Eagles. This distant view of Ford Island immediately after the attack of our assault force shows the enemy capital ships lined up on the opposite side of the Island. in the foreground is the cruiser fleet, including the battleship UTAH. The enemy ships around the island have all become tempting targets for our Sea Eagles. In the upper right clearly appear the outlines of two of our Sea Eagles who are carrying out a daring low-level attack, reminiscent of the performance of the Gods.” (Wikimedia Commons)
Fateful Choices, by Ian Kershaw: Japan, Germany, USA (updated 2019)

Fateful Choices, by Ian Kershaw: Japan, Germany, USA (updated 2019)

Fate­ful Choic­es: Ten Deci­sions that Changed the World, 1940-1941, by Ian Ker­shaw. New York: Pen­guin, 600 pp., $35. At a time when Churchill’s war lead­er­ship is vil­i­fied in lop­sided paeans to Roo­sevelt, Sir Ian’s clas­sic World War II study reminds us that FDR wasn’t per­fect either.

A recent arti­cle sug­gests that Japan’s deci­sion to sur­ren­der in 1945 was by no means unan­i­mous. A few years ago, Sir Ian Ker­shaw said the same thing about Japan’s deci­sion to go to war in the first place. Long before the war, Win­ston Churchill mused:

“What a sto­ry!…

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Johnson Trump
A Boris balloon launched outside Parliament during an anti-Brexit protest, 20 July 2019. The “£350m” refers to the amount Mr. Johnson promised to wrest back from the EU to spend on Britain’s National Health Service. (Associated Press, Boston Globe)
Johnson, Trump…can we stop comparing everybody to Churchill?

Johnson, Trump…can we stop comparing everybody to Churchill?

Politi­cians, like Boris John­son and Don­ald Trump at the moment, are often com­pared to Win­ston Churchill. In a way it’s nice PR for Sir Win­ston. Half a cen­tu­ry since his death, the Great­est Briton still dom­i­nates media. His Google hit count is 100 mil­lion. (Franklin Roo­sevelt, the West’s oth­er great war leader, is at 72 million.)

Right­ly or wrong­ly, every day on the Inter­net, Churchill is praised, lam­pooned, quot­ed and mis­quot­ed. But com­par­isons to mod­ern politi­cians have worn thin. They may emu­late him, but should not be com­pared to him.

Johnson’s Day in the barrel

On 15 June the Wall Street Jour­nal focused on British prime min­is­ter in wait­ing Boris John­son.…

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Ireland
Churchill and Collins. (IrishCentral)
Lectures at Sea (2): Churchill and the Myths of Ireland

Lectures at Sea (2): Churchill and the Myths of Ireland

Churchill and Collins were much alike, William Manchester wrote, “fearless, charismatic, fiercely patriotic, ready to sacrifice everything for principle." Reading Churchill’s book "The Aftermath," the historian Paul Addison pointed out something I hadn't noticed: “The admiration Churchill expresses for the Irish of all kinds.” Ireland excited Churchill’s passion, but mostly in a positive way, for he always respected Irish patriotism and heroism. In the event he proved himself an ally, not an enemy, in Ireland’s quest for peace and freedom.

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Lee
Lee surrenders, 9 April 1865. “He was a foe without hate, a friend without treachery, a soldier without cruelty, and a victim without murmuring.” (Painting by Thomas Nast, 1895, Wikimedia Commons)
Robert E. Lee and the Fashionable Urge to Hide from History

Robert E. Lee and the Fashionable Urge to Hide from History

On the tearing down of statues and symbols, Shelby Foote cited a state senator, who got her fellow senators to disallow the use of a Confederate symbol—not the Battle Flag—by the Daughters of the Confederacy. "I don't understand that," he said. "It's a violation of the Greaat Compromise. It's an arousal of bitterness. Now she, along with a great many others, do not want to be reminded. She has every right to want to hide from history if she wants to. But it seems to me that she's trying to hide history from us—and that's a mistake."

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drunk
“He seems to tolerate this cocktail night.” (Lustige Blätter, Berlin, 23 April 1942; the bottles are marked “Blood” and “Tears”). The Nazis were fond of the bar room image—and no more accurate than modern-day writers. The attitude of the British lion, however, nicely represents British attitudes about the endless Brexit debate.
Memo to Peggy Noonan and the WSJ: Churchill was NOT a drunk

Memo to Peggy Noonan and the WSJ: Churchill was NOT a drunk

On 15 June in the Wall Street Jour­nal opin­ion colum­nist Peg­gy Noo­nan wrote a per­cep­tive piece about the prospects and chal­lenges for Boris John­son as Britain’s new Prime Min­is­ter: “Eng­land Needs a Slap, and So Does Chi­na” (sor­ry, that link car­ries a paywall).

It was a good col­umn, say­ing essen­tial­ly what Britons of all stripes were say­ing to me on a recent visit.

“Talk to me about any­thing, except Brex­it.” “Right, we vot­ed, so let’s get on with it.” “We’re tired of plat­i­tudes and use­less debates.”  “Keep did­dling and we end up with Cor­byn.” “Just do it.”…

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