Tag: Archibald Wavell
Petition Response to Churchill High School: Please Keep Your Name
This is a reply to a July petition to rename Winston Churchill High School, Bethesda, Maryland. Founded in 1964 as Potomac High School, its name was changed the following year to mark Sir Winston’s passing. It is a distinguished school whose alumni include two sons of the late Jack Kemp, both of whom pursued their famous father’s sport. Jeffrey Allan Kemp (’77) was an NFL quarterback; his brother Jimmy Kemp (’89) played in the CFL and is president of the Jack Kemp Foundation. State Senator Cheryl Kagan (’79) serves in the Maryland legislature.…
Churchill Quotes: “Action vs. Inaction….Religion of Blood and War”
N.B. We do not see Churchill in Woodville’s dramatic painting above. He had drawn his pistol not his sword, in deference to his weak right shoulder. For the skill and dexterity it took to sheath his sword and aim his pistol, see my review of Brough Scott’s Churchill at the Gallop (with Ben Bradshaw’s painting of Churchill in the charge.)
Action and inactionQ: Could you verify the correct wording for the Winston Churchill statement: “I never worry about action, but only inaction.” There are various iterations among the sources. —S.D.
From Churchill by Himself, page 190 (note he placed quotemarks around “worry”): “I never ‘worry’ about action, but only about inaction.”…
Fake Churchill Calumny: Subsidiary Emissions from the Odd Crater
Crater eruptions: “Isn’t it enough to have this parent volcano continually erupting in our midst? And now we are to have these subsidiary craters spouting forth the same unhealthy fumes!” —Churchill’s reply to the son of a harsh critic, freshly elected to Parliament, who immediately began attacking him.
From one crater to anotherNo sooner does the campaign for Churchill’s memory quell emissions from one crater than another one erupts. The campaign to delegitimize Churchill as Hero continues, but the main volcanos have already erupted. Now we have the odd subsidiary crater spouting the same old stuff.…
Mr. Ivison: May we proclaim Trump no Churchill without slurring the latter?
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.”…
Churchill Derangement Syndrome: A is for Aryans, R is for Racism
In our electronic Speaker’s Corner (the Internet), Winston Churchill is beset by haters. Their knee-jerk spouts are laced with out-of-context quotes and preconceived notions. Call it Churchill Derangement Syndrome. Where is the truth? Perhaps we need a Derangement Index. Click on “A” for Aryan Supremacy, “B” for the Bengal Famine, etc. A handy reference to every derangement you can access with a couple of clicks.
An e-zine called This is Local London, describing its offerings as “quality local journalism,” is a standard example. Well, maybe not so standard. “The Problem with Glorying Winston Churchill” was written not by a historian or researcher, but a student at Wallington County Grammar School.…
Roosevelt and Churchill: Don Quixote and Sancho Panza?
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.”)…
Frederick Lindemann: Churchill’s Eminence Grise?
Revisionist History, Season 2, Episode 5, “The Prime Minister and the Prof [ Frederick Lindemann ],” podcast by Malcolm Gladwell.
A popular weekly half hour podcast, Revisionist History takes aim at shibboleths, real and imagined. This episode is Churchill’s turn in the barrel.
Scientific NemesisThe villain, aside from Sir Winston, is his scientific adviser, Frederick Lindemann, later Lord Cherwell, aka “The Prof.” You’ve probably never heard of him, says narrator Malcolm Gladwell. You should have. It was Lindemann who made Churchill bomb innocent German civilians and starve the Bengalis.
Ironically, the program begins with an ad for its sponsor, Chanel Perfume.…