Tag: Franklin Roosevelt

funeral
Eleanor Roosevelt at the Franklin D. Roosevelt funeral in Hyde Park, New York, 15 April 1945. (FDR Library, public domain)
Why Churchill Skipped the Roosevelt Funeral in 1945

Why Churchill Skipped the Roosevelt Funeral in 1945

The funeral quandary: “...everyone here thought my duty next week lay at home, at a time when so many Ministers are out of the country” (per Martin Gilbert). “P.M. of course wanted to go. A[nthony Eden] thought they oughtn’t both to be away together.... P.M. says he’ll go and A. can stay. I told A. that, if P.M. goes, he must.... Churchill deeply regretted in after years that he allowed himself to be persuaded not to go at once to Washington” (per Alexander Cadogan).

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December 7th
USS Shaw explodes during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 Deecember 1941. (National Archives)
Churchill Quotations for December 7th

Churchill Quotations for December 7th

"In two or three minutes Mr. Roosevelt came through. 'Mr. President, what’s this about Japan?' 'It’s quite true,' he replied. 'They have attacked us at Pearl Harbor. We are all in the same boat now.' I put Winant on to the line and some interchanges took place, the Ambassador at first saying, 'Good, Good'—and then, apparently graver, 'Ah!' I got on again and said, 'This certainly simplifies things. God be with you,' or words to that effect."

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Press
Meeting the press with President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Mackenzie King, Second Quebec Conference, Sepember 1944. (National Archives, public domain)
Winston Churchill and the Art of the Press Conference

Winston Churchill and the Art of the Press Conference

Question on press conferences

I am  com­plet­ing an Eng­lish assign­ment which looks at the speech­es of Win­ston Churchill and would like to read press con­fer­ences or inter­views Churchill gave dur­ing the Sec­ond World War. So far, I have been able to find only speech­es. Please could you advise me whether any such inter­views are in exis­tence? —E.L.

Washington, 1941

Churchill rarely gave interviews—only two that I know of as a young man, and those reluc­tant­ly. Speech­es (live) were his pref­er­ence. How­ev­er, on his 1941 vis­it to Wash­ing­ton, Franklin Roo­sevelt ush­ered him into his first press con­fer­ence.…

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Hull
Any lies galloping here? U.S.. Secretary of State Cordell Hull (right) confers with British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden during the Second World War. (U.S. State Department, public domain)
Galloping Lies, Bodyguards of Lies, and Lies for the Sake of Your Country

Galloping Lies, Bodyguards of Lies, and Lies for the Sake of Your Country

About lies. Can you please advise whether or not Sir Win­ston Churchill said: “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”  Many thanks. —A.S., Bermuda

That one lies with Cordell Hull

It was Franklin Roo­sevelt‘s Sec­re­tary of State, Cordell Hull, not Churchill. I have a slight vari­a­tion of it in the “Red Her­rings” appen­dix of  Churchill by Him­self, page 576: “A lie will gal­lop halfway round the world before the truth has time to pull its breech­es on.”  Although com­mon­ly ascribed to Churchill (who would have said “trousers,” not “breech­es”), this is def­i­nite­ly down to Hull.…

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Pilecki
The show trial of Capt. Witold Pilecki, sentenced to death and executed March 1948. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
Witold Pilecki: A Brave Pole Who Did His Best for Liberty

Witold Pilecki: A Brave Pole Who Did His Best for Liberty

Excerpt­ed from Richard Cohen and Richard Lang­worth: “Witold Pilec­ki: A Deserv­ing Addi­tion to “The Right­eous Among the Nations,” for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. Mr. Cohen is a real estate lawyer based in Lon­don and head of the Essex Branch of the Jew­ish His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety of Eng­land. For the full text and illus­tra­tions please click here.

War aim or by-product?

Jack Fair­weath­er, The Vol­un­teer: One Man, an Under­ground Army, and the Secret Mis­sion to Destroy Auschwitz. (The sto­ry of Witold Pilec­ki.) New York: Harper­Collins, 2019, $28.99, Ama­zon $20.49, Kin­dle $13.99.

By 1 August 1946 the world knew the full truth of the Holo­caust.…

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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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Henry
“The Pool of England”: How Henry V Inspired Churchill’s Words

“The Pool of England”: How Henry V Inspired Churchill’s Words

Excerpt­ed from “Churchill, Shake­speare and Hen­ry V.” Lec­ture at “Churchill and the Movies,” a sem­i­nar spon­sored by the Cen­ter for Con­struc­tive Alter­na­tives, Hills­dale Col­lege, 25 March 2019. For the com­plete video, click here.

Shakespeare’s Henry: Parallels and Inspirations

Above all and first, the impor­tance of Hen­ry V is what it teach­es about lead­er­ship. “True lead­er­ship,” writes Andrew Roberts, “stirs us in a way that is deeply embed­ded in our genes and psyche.…If the under­ly­ing fac­tors of lead­er­ship have remained the same for cen­turies, can­not these lessons be learned and applied in sit­u­a­tions far removed from ancient times?”…

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ideas
Churchill and FDR with the Press, Washington, 23 December 1941. (Bettmann Archive)
Churchill had how many ideas a day? How many were good?

Churchill had how many ideas a day? How many were good?

Q: “Who made the crack that Churchill had a hun­dred ideas a day but only four of them were good?” —Bruce Sax­ton, Tren­ton, N.J.

A: There are sev­er­al can­di­dates and vari­a­tions. Tak­ing them as a group, Churchill had from six to 100 ideas dai­ly, of which between one and six were good. In order of the most like­ly. But it could be one of those all-pur­pose cracks applied to many people.

Roosevelt: fifty to 100 ideas, three or four good.

Pres­i­dent Roo­sevelt is the most like­ly to have said this, since he’s quot­ed more than any­one else.…

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Quotes
So far an unproven quote, re Montgomery: “In defeat, indomitable; in victory, insufferable.” With Monty at the Rhine, 1945 (Brooke is between them). At left, the Daily Mail’s Rhona Churchill (no relation), first female correspondent during the invasion of Europe.
All the “Quotes” Churchill Never Said (3: Lies to Sex)

All the “Quotes” Churchill Never Said (3: Lies to Sex)

A reader suggests that these fake Churchill quotes be subdivided. We should separate quotes he actually said, but borrowed from someone else, from quotes simply invented out of whole cloth. Not sure we have much to learn from that. First, while I try to name the originator of a quotation not by Sir Winston, I don't always succeed. Second, my brief extends only to disproving that the words originated with Churchill.

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Dewey
Governor Dewey with President Truman and Admiral Jonas Ingram, Navy Day, New York, 27 October 1945. Three years later Dewey would run again, and lose again. (United States Navy. Harry S. Truman Library & Museum)
Dewey, Hoover, Churchill, and Grand Strategy, 1950-53

Dewey, Hoover, Churchill, and Grand Strategy, 1950-53

“Dewey, Hoover and Churchill” is excerpt­ed from an arti­cle for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the com­plete text, click here. The lat­est vol­ume 20 of The Churchill Doc­u­ments, Nomandy and Beyond: May-Decem­ber 1944, is avail­able for $60 from the Hills­dale Col­lege Bookstore.

A great joy of read­ing The Churchill Doc­u­ments is their trove of his­tor­i­cal side­lights. Vol­ume 22 (August 1945—September 1951, due late 2018) cov­ers the ear­ly Cold War: the “Iron Cur­tain,” the Mar­shall Plan, Berlin Air­lift and Kore­an War. It reminds us of the polit­i­cal bat­tles swirling around the Anglo-Amer­i­can “spe­cial rela­tion­ship.”…

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RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks


Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
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