Tag: Churchill Archives Centre

Churchill Misquotes: The Red Herrings Now Number 175

Churchill Misquotes: The Red Herrings Now Number 175

Quotes and Misquotes

Churchill by Him­self, my ency­clo­pe­dia of Win­ston Churchill’s most quotable remarks, is to be repub­lished. (If the pub­lish­ers can ever agree about what form and sub­stance they will allow each oth­er to pro­duce.) To the the orig­i­nal 4000 quotes I’ve added so far 600 new ones.

The “Red Her­rings” appen­dix of mis­quotes has also grown apace. That, how­ev­er, is always kept up to date online. You can look it up:

All the “Quotes” Churchill Nev­er Said

Mis­quotes Part 1: Accept­ing Change to Euro­pean Union

Part 2: Fanat­ic to Liberty

Mis­quotes Part 3: Lies to Sex

Part 4: Sex­ism to Ypres

A trove of misquotes

The orig­i­nal “Red Her­rings” appen­dix (2008) con­tained about 80 mis­quotes.…

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Paintatious – Paintaceous – Paintacious: What Was Churchill’s Word?

Paintatious – Paintaceous – Paintacious: What Was Churchill’s Word?

Paul Rafferty’s mag­nif­i­cent Win­ston Churchill: Paint­ing on the French Riv­iera is being trans­lat­ed for a French edi­tion by Dr. Antoine Capet. The author and trans­la­tor posed an inter­est­ing ques­tion. How did Win­ston Churchill spell “painta­tious”?

(Any read­er bored by pedan­tic, picayune, obscure mean­der­ings about noth­ing of impor­tance should stop read­ing now. For my review of Paul’s book see: “Book of the Year.”)

“Painta­tious” was artist Churchill’s word for a scene wor­thy of his brush. He found many such venues on the French Riv­iera, which Paul explores so well. But this is a tricky ques­tion because “painta­tioius” not a real word.…

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Researching the Atlantic Conference, Argentia, Newfoundland, August 1941

Researching the Atlantic Conference, Argentia, Newfoundland, August 1941

 A Question about Argentia

I am research­ing events and indi­vid­u­als at the first “sum­mit” between U.S. and British lead­ers. This was the “Atlantic Con­fer­ence” at Argen­tia, New­found­land on 9-12 August 1941. Most his­to­ries focus on the sum­mit meet­ing, con­se­quent­ly exclud­ing crit­i­cal meet­ings between oth­er high rank­ing indi­vid­u­als. Argen­tia was cer­tain­ly also a mil­i­tary meet­ing. Strat­e­gy, tac­tics and materiel were like­wise dis­cussed. Can you help me devel­op a list of the indi­vid­u­als who involved? Sir John Dill, Admi­ral Ernest J. King, Lord Beaver­brook and Sir Alexan­der Cado­gan were not there to sim­ply to attend din­ners.…

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Churchill as Anti-Semite: Rubbish

Churchill as Anti-Semite: Rubbish

A life­long sup­port­er of Zion­ism and the Jews, Win­ston Churchill is some­times labeled an anti-Semi­te. The prof­fered evi­dence, an alleged arti­cle of his, has made the oblig­a­tory rounds of the Internet.

A 1937 arti­cle draft in the Churchill Archives sup­pos­ed­ly proves that Churchill’s off-expressed sym­pa­thy for the Jews was hypocrisy. Churchill was, if this arti­cle is to be believed, a clos­et anti-Semite.

Origins of a Slur

The alle­ga­tions began with a 2007 arti­cle in Britain’s The Inde­pen­dent: “Uncov­ered: Churchill’s Warn­ings About the ‘Hebrew Blood­suck­ers.’”

The 1937 draft, “How the Jews Can Com­bat Per­se­cu­tion,” had “appar­ent­ly lain unno­ticed in the Churchill Archives at Cam­bridge since the ear­ly months of the Sec­ond World War,” stat­ed The Inde­pen­dent:

Churchill crit­i­cised the “aloof­ness” of Jew­ish peo­ple from wider soci­ety and urged them to make the effort to inte­grate themselves….Churchill…

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Zürich +70: Churchill on Europe

Zürich +70: Churchill on Europe

Zürich, 19 September 1946

Scarce­ly more than a year since fight­ing had end­ed in Europe, Churchill spoke at Zürich Uni­ver­si­ty. There he stunned his audi­ence with words that per­haps only he was able to say at that time:

I am now going to say some­thing that will aston­ish you. The first step in the re-cre­ation of the Euro­pean fam­i­ly must be a part­ner­ship between France and Ger­many. In this way only can France recov­er the moral lead­er­ship of Europe. There can be no revival of Europe with­out a spir­i­tu­al­ly great France and a spir­i­tu­al­ly great Germany. Zürich, 19 September 2016 Sev­en­ty years to the day after Churchill’s Zürich speech, Zürich Uni­ver­si­ty spon­sored a dis­tin­guished sem­i­nar.…

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Churchill: Not Much to Say Today?

Churchill: Not Much to Say Today?

If a man is com­ing across the sea to kill you, you do every­thing in your pow­er to make sure he dies before fin­ish­ing his jour­ney. That may be dif­fi­cult, it may be painful, but at least it is sim­ple. We are now enter­ing a world of impon­der­ables, and at every stage occa­sions for self-ques­tion­ing arise. Only one link in the chain of des­tiny can be han­dled at a time. 

—Win­ston S. Churchill, 18 Feb­ru­ary 1945

It was recent­ly assert­ed that Churchill doesn’t have much to say to us today, and that the only peo­ple who use Churchill as a guide nowa­days are “over-testos­teroned Amer­i­can neocons.”…

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Churchill’s Brandy? Not Really….

Churchill’s Brandy? Not Really….

Brandy Ban­ter: The Evening Stan­dard described ArArAt Armen­ian brandy, once reserved for Com­mu­nist par­ty elite. It was “the brandy that Stal­in served Churchill” accord­ing to con­sumer busi­ness edi­tor Jonathan Prynn:

The prime min­is­ter enjoyed ArArAt brandy when it was served by Stal­in at the Yal­ta con­fer­ence in Feb­ru­ary 1945. After the Sec­ond World War, the Sovi­et leader arranged for Churchill to be sent 400 bot­tles every year.

This seems high­ly doubt­ful. There is no record in the Churchill Archives Cen­tre of even a bot­tle of brandy being sent to Churchill—although he did com­pli­ment Stal­in on an Armen­ian brandy served at Yal­ta.…

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