Tag: Joseph Stalin

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)
Origins of Churchill Phrases: “Special Relationship” and “Iron Curtain”

Origins of Churchill Phrases: “Special Relationship” and “Iron Curtain”

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Pregnant Phrases

The his­to­ri­an Christo­pher Har­mon capa­bly answers a ques­tion on the ori­gin of these famous expres­sions, and kind­ly asks me to con­firm his find­ings. They are right as usu­al. (Dr. Har­mon wrote a fre­quent­ly cit­ed mono­graph, “Are We Beasts?” Churchill on the Moral Ques­tion of World War II “Area Bomb­ing.” His five books include the grad­u­ate-lev­el text­book Ter­ror­ism Today .)

Special Relationship

Chris Har­mon writes:

“Spe­cial rela­tion­ship” appears sev­er­al times (and in sur­pris­ing ways) in Churchill’s 1946 Ful­ton speech, “The Sinews of Peace.” It is impor­tant nev­er to say that it was coined there. …

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Kiss
Churchill with General de Gaulle during an inspection of French troops at Marrakesh in Morocco, January 1944. (War Office – Wikimedia Commons)
Origins: “I’ll kiss him on all four cheeks”

Origins: “I’ll kiss him on all four cheeks”

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Q: Churchill’s Kiss: A Cheeky Affair

I found myself using an alleged Churchill wit­ti­cism I have long known, but could not find in your book, Churchill’s Wit: The Defin­i­tive Col­lec­tion (2009). As I have it, Churchill was prepar­ing to meet Mar­shal Stal­in, and a diplo­mat­ic advi­sor said, “He will prob­a­bly expect to kiss you on both cheeks.” “Oh, that’s all right,” said Churchill, “as long as he doesn’t want to be kissed on all four.” Can you ver­i­fy this one?

My own main area of schol­ar­ly research is Samuel John­son, anoth­er sub­ject often mis­at­trib­uted. Good quote col­lec­tions more than just the quo­ta­tion and its source.…

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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

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“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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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

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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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