The revolving door bust belongs to the British Embassy. It has twice resided on loan in the Oval Office. Ipso facto, it has twice returned to the Embassy. It is now making its third visit to the White House. Perhaps it should hang on a Zip line between the two buildings to convenience the spirit of the moment.

Whenever the Epstein makes a trip back or forth, the media explodes in speculation. Does this signify the end [renewal] of the Anglo-American Special Relationship? Is it a gesture of disdain [admiration] by the new president? Does this mean there won’t [will] be a trade deal between America and the post-Brexit United Kingdom?

There is much ignorance and confusion over this subject. So here is the latest revision of a story that began in 2009, was amended in 2017 and 2021, and needs amending again.

Tale of two busts

It is necessary to explain that there is more than one Epstein bust. The renowned sculptor cast eight or ten from his original mold. Naturally, they are highly prized. One is at Windsor Castle, another at Blenheim. A few are in private hands. I sold one myself to a collector in Connecticut when I was a Churchill bookseller.

(Epstein himself lived opposite the Churchills in Hyde Park Gate, London. Puttering in his garden, he took delight in answering visitors’ questions about his neighbors: “People thought I was the gardener.”)

Epstein #1: in the White House since 1965

There has been a Jacob Epstein bust of Sir Winston in the Executive Mansion since 1965. It was presented to the Johnson White House by wartime friends of WSC led by Averell Harriman.

This is “Epstein #1,” distinguished by a brass plaque, normally displayed outside the Treaty Room near the family quarters. Angela Baker provided a detailed history of this first Epstein in 2021.

This bust is frequently confused with a second Epstein (see below). In 2009, critics complained that Mr. Obama had replaced it with a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. He responded that had just changed its location, outside the Treaty Room near his private quarters.

Thus President Obama passed Epstein #1 every time he entered the Treaty Room on his way to watch a basketball game. So it can hardly be asserted that he was determined to rid the house of Churchill images.  Indeed, he made a point of showing Epstein #1 to Prime Minister David Cameron on his visit to the White House. (See photo above.) In describing this bust and his daily encounters with it, Obama said of Sir Winston, “I love the guy.”

Epstein #2: the revolving door bust

After 9/11, the British Embassy loaned President George W. Bush its own Epstein Churchill bust as a gesture of solidarity. It is, of course, identical to other Epsteins. The only difference from Epstein #1 is that its plinth bears a white-on-black, not a brass, plaque.

In 2009, before Mr. Obama arrived, Epstein #2 was returned to the Embassy. It was not returned specifically by Obama, although he received blame. There are stories that he rejected the image out of hatred toward the former prime minister, British colonialism, or something. This is incorrect. If he felt that way. he would not have kept Epstein #1 on prominent display upstairs.

In 2017 President Trump asked the Embassy to loan back the second bust—let’s call it “Epstein #2″—which had adorned the Oval Office under George W. Bush (2001-09). Pending its arrival, Trump temporarily moved Epstein #1 downstairs from its previous position outside the Treaty Room. When Epstein #2 arrived from the Embassy, Epstein #1 went back upstairs.

Epstein #2 is on loan

James Barbour, British Embassy press secretary, explained: Epstein #2 was “lent to the George W. Bush Administration from the UK’s government art collection, for the duration of the presidency.” White House curator William Allman said in 2010 that the decision to return Epstein #2 had been made before Mr. Obama arrived. “It was already scheduled to go back.”

It is true that the incoming Obama administration was offered Epstein #2 on extended loan out of courtesy, but wanted to make room for a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. They might well have known the White House had another Epstein Churchill already. Trump did not remove the King bust when he brought back Epstein #2. “I would never do that,” he said, “because I have great respect for Dr. Martin Luther King.”

Now in 2024, the Daily Mail reported:

The bronze bust was removed by “woke” Joe Biden when he defeated Trump in 2020 and was replaced by one of Hispanic union leader Cesar Chavez. Trump, a self-professed Anglophile whose mother was Scottish, has described the wartime leader as his “idol” and called the Oscar-winning 2017 film Darkest Hour, starring Gary Oldman as Churchill, “my favourite film ever.” Last night a source close to Trump said: “One of the first things he will do is bring the Churchill bust back into the Oval Office as a mark of respect. Donald idolises Churchill and believes he’s the greatest leader the world has ever seen. He will restore him to a position of honour.”

All this may be accurate but the Mail seems not to realize that Epsstein #1 has been there all along.

Teapot tempest

I greeted the 2009 return of Epstein #2 to the British Embassy with facts, then with reductio ad absurdum. The Obama White House, I reported, had more Churchilliana than the Bush White House, since Epstein #2 was replaced with Winston S. Churchill, Martin Gilbert’s majestic biography, which weighs almost as much and takes up more space.

In 2012, journalist Jake Tapper blasted out the fact that Epstein #1 had been there all along. Tapper wrote: “How did I figure out what was really going on? I never gave in—never, never, never, never. In nothing great or small, large or petty.” Very droll, Jake.

Some modest proposals…

Now that Epstein #2 is going back on loan to the Oval Office, another kerfuffle has arisen on predictable lines. On which, a few observations:

1) Together with the Official Biography, presented to President Obama by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the White House is brimming with Churchilliana. Churchill admirers must regard this as a fine thing.

2) As to its alleged symbolism for the Anglo-American Special Relationship, I recommend a rather broader perspective offered a few years ago by the American Embassy in London. Click here and scroll to the video.

Totems of their choice

While Churchillians are glad to see WSC’s bust in the Oval Office, all presidents have the right to the totems of their choice. A correspondent with whom I rarely agree about anything hit the nail on the head when he cited Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson in one of the flag salute cases in 1943:

Related articles

“President Obama and the Churchill Bust-Out,” 2009.

“More Obama and the Churchill Bust,” 2009.

“The Great Oval Office Bust Swap,” 2017.

(Updated from 2013.) Mr. Donald Trump’s election victory has had the inevitable result. Just like Churchill, go the comparisons, he made an amazing comeback from write-off to recovery. And like Churchill, he switched parties twice! (Did he? I don’t know. I’m not a student of Mr. Trump’s political pilgrimage.)

Mr. Nigel Farage MP has made such comparisons. Notwithstanding what I think (or you think) of Mr. Trump, I think Nigel is all wet. Not Tory Wet, but Reform Wet. (Is this a new category?)

First, Parliamentary comparisons with the American federal system are non-sequitur. Churchill’s comeback was from rejected Cassandra in 1935 to First Lord of the Admiralty (1939), then Prime Minister (1940); but all that time he was in the ruling party. So he kind of evolved into power. Cynics of the time said that he gradually sank to the top. Rab Butler quipped: “The good clean tradition of English politics, that of Pitt as opposed to Fox, has been sold to the greatest adventurer of modern political history.” That sounds familiar.

Comparisons can logically be made to Grover Cleveland—the only previous U.S. President to return to office after being thrown out. But comparisons to Churchill in 1940 are off.

So are comparisons to WSC returning as PM in 1951 after being dismissed in 1945. His Woodford constituency re-elected him by large majorities in every election from 1945 to 1959. He returned as PM because he was the leader of his party when it won a majority of seats in the House of Commons.

Comparisons, 2013

Churchill comparisons started eleven years ago with President Obama and the use of chemical weapons by Syria. Senators Ted Cruz (R., Tex.), and Rand Paul (R., Ky.), and Rep. Alan Grayson (D., Fla.) complained. Obama, they said, “literally offered no policy and no ideas about how to stop the slaughter of innocent people with chemical weapons.”

A defender of the President said he “made the hard call and proposed the strong action that would take a real stand and make a real difference.” Just like Churchill in the 1930s, “when the Spanish fascists, with support from Hitler and Mussolini. began their attacks against the Republican government of Spain.”

No. For the record, Churchill took no sides and proposed no intervention in the Spanish Civil War. He lamented the bombing of Guernica, which killed about as many as chemical weapons in Syria. But he proposed “no ideas to stop the slaughter.” That was chiefly because his unwavering focus was on the main danger, Nazi Germany.

Stop it now

Really, these Churchill comparisons need to stop. We cannot postulate what Churchill would do today. Or even if he could be elected. It doesn’t seem far-fetched to suggest that in today’s Middle East his focus would be on the main danger. Figure out what that is, and you may find comparisons to Churchill. But, in a larger sense, there is nobody so far in this century who is comparable. Nobody.

Related articles

“Some Thoughts on Churchill’s London Statue,” 2024.

“Myths of Dear Benito: Churchill’s Alleged Mussolini Complex,” 2024.

“Churchill’s Hitler Essays: He Knew the Führer From the Start,” 2024.

“It’s Baaack! The Churchill Bust Furore, Round 3,” 2021.

“May We Proclaim Trump No Churchill Without Slurring the Latter?” 2020.

Thanks for the amusing “Obama, Calhoun and the Churchill Bust-Out.” What do you say however about the Daily Telegraph‘s speculation that Obama’s rejection of Churchill was based on the British jailing and torture of his grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, between 1949 and 1951, “during the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya”?  —R.P.

A: Not even close

First, the Daily Telegraph did not connect Obama’s grandfather’s jailing with the Mau Mau rebellion. The Telegraph report is very careful on this point:

It was during Churchill’s second premiership that Britain suppressed Kenya’s Mau Mau rebellion. Among Kenyans allegedly tortured by the colonial regime included one Hussein Onyango Obama, the President’s grandfather.

Presumably it will now get round that the President’s grandfather was a Mau Mau rebel. But Townhall columnist Diana West explodes the whole business. West explains that the torture allegation stems from an unattributed blogsite. And from Obama’s “Granny Sarah,” who claimed that Barack was born in Kenya. West continues:

In his Dreams from My Father, Obama describes his grandfather’s detention as lasting “over six months” before he was found innocent (no mention of torture).  Whatever the case, Churchill didn’t become prime minister for the second time until the end of 1951. The Mau Mau Rebellion didn’t begin until the end of 1952, one year after Obama’s grandfather’s release.

Mr. Obama, an intelligent man, probably appreciates that the Parliamentary forms finally emerging in Kenya stem from the colonial British, as they do in much of the old Empire, notably India and what Churchill called the “Great Dominions.” To paraphrase Mark Steyn (whose bust will probably never adorn the President’s office either), imagine how Kenya might have developed if it had been colonized by, say, the Germans, Japanese or Russians.

Further reading

“Get Your History Right: Reply to Reader Hasan in The Blade (Toledo),” 2020.

“It’s baaack! The Winston Churchill Bust Furore, Round 3,” 2021.

“President Obama and the Churchill Bust – Out.” 2009.