Tag: Martin Gilbert

Reves
Churchill with Emery Reves at Le Bourget Airport, Paris. Behind them is an Imperial Airways Handley Page “Horatius” airliner, used in the Croydon-Paris service. (From the book jacket and Martin Gilbert Papers at Hillsdale College)
Winston Churchill and Emery Reves: Correspondence, 1937-1964

Winston Churchill and Emery Reves: Correspondence, 1937-1964

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Win­ston Churchill and Emery Reves: Cor­re­spon­dence, 1937-1964, edit­ed by Sir Mar­tin Gilbert. Austin: Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas Press, 1997, 415 pages, Ama­zon $8.95. This updat­ed review was first pub­lished by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project.

Emery Reves, from the ground up

Admir­ers of Sir Mar­tin Gilbert were pleased and touched to see his chron­i­cle appear, now over twen­ty years ago. But few expect­ed it would amount to much more than a use­ful research tool. We were wrong, and quick­ly real­ized why Sir Mar­tin and Wendy Reves were so keen to get it published.…

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Fleming
Professor Alexander Fleming, who first discovered the mold Penicillin Notatum, in his laboratory at St Mary’s, Paddington, London, 1943. (Imperial War Museum – public domain)
Urban Myths: “Alexander Fleming Twice Saved Churchill’s Life”

Urban Myths: “Alexander Fleming Twice Saved Churchill’s Life”

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Fleming as rescuer…

The Flem­ing myth is updat­ed from an arti­cle orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in 1998.

Is it true that Lord Ran­dolph Churchill financed the edu­ca­tion of Alexan­der Flem­ing, the dis­cov­er­er of peni­cillin, as a result of Flem­ing (or his father) res­cu­ing Churchill from drown­ing in a swamp when young Win­ston was a youth—and a Flem­ing dis­cov­ery, peni­cillin, saved Churchill’s life years lat­er in 1943? A friend of mine has sent me this email regard­ing it and I want­ed to ver­i­fy . —L.M.

This ques­tion comes up reg­u­lar­ly, but both parts of the sto­ry are untrue. Nei­ther Alexan­der Flem­ing nor his father were with Churchill at the times sug­gest­ed.…

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White Russians
Admiral Kolchak and Anna Timiryova (his lover, seated to his right), with head of the British mission General Alfred Knox and English officers observing military exercises on the Eastern Front of the Russian Civil War, 1919. (Public domain, Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill and the White Russians: The Russian Civil War, 1919

Churchill and the White Russians: The Russian Civil War, 1919

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Extract­ed from “Churchill: A Mil­lion Allied Sol­diers to Fight for the White Rus­sians?” for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project, Novem­ber 2019. For the orig­i­nal text click here.

A read­er refers us to The Polar Bear Expe­di­tion: The Heroes of America’s For­got­ten Inva­sion of Rus­sia 1918-1919 (2019). It repeats a mis­un­der­stand­ing about Churchill’s role in aid­ing the White Rus­sians against the Bol­she­viks. By the spring of 1919 in Rus­sia, we read:

…the cat was out of the bag: whether its allies—English, French, White Russians—liked it nor not, the U.S. was pulling out. On March 4, the British War Cab­i­net decid­ed to fol­low suit, ignor­ing the argu­ments of the vir­u­lent­ly anti-Bol­she­vik Win­ston Churchill, who as sec­re­tary of war had pro­posed increas­ing the Allied com­mit­ment in Rus­sia to one mil­lion men.…

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Randolph Churchill
The White House, 9 April 1963. President John F. Kennedy declares Sir Winston Churchill an honorary citizen of the United States. On steps, front row (L-R): Undersecretary of State, George Ball, British Ambassador Sir David Ormsby-Gore, President Kennedy, Randolph Churchill. Back rows (L-R): Deputy Chief of Protocol William J. Tonesk (mostly behind Ball), Sylvia Ormsby-Gore, Randolph’s son Winston, President’s naval aide Tazewell Shepard. Secret Service agent Art Godfrey is at far right. (Photograph by White House photographer Cecil Stoughton. presented to Richard Langworth, 1988, public domain)
Present at the Creation: Randolph Churchill and the Official Biography (3)

Present at the Creation: Randolph Churchill and the Official Biography (3)

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“Ran­dolph Churchill: Present at the Cre­ation,” is from a lec­ture aboard the Regent Sev­en Seas Explor­er on the 2019 Hills­dale Col­lege Cruise around Britain, 8 June 2019. Con­clud­ed from Part 2.

“The Great Work” —Randolph S.C.

After the war, Churchill willed his archive to Ran­dolph. In 1959, impressed by his son’s  biog­ra­phy of Lord Der­by, he invit­ed Ran­dolph to be his biog­ra­ph­er. Ran­dolph devot­ed him­self to the job, know­ing by then that he had wrecked his body, that the process of dis­in­te­gra­tion was advanced. Could he fin­ish in time? Ran­dolph wondered.

He housed the archives in a fire­proof strong room at Stour, his home in Suf­folk.…

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Randolph Churchill
Stour House, East Bergholt, visited on the 2006 Churchill Tour of England. We were the guests of the present owners, who have maintained its stately beauty. Randolph’s strong room, which once housed the Churchill Archives, is behind the blacked-out windows at left. (Photo by Barbara Langworth)
Present at the Creation: Randolph Churchill and the Official Biography (2)

Present at the Creation: Randolph Churchill and the Official Biography (2)

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“Ran­dolph Churchill: Present at the Cre­ation,” is tak­en from a lec­ture aboard the Regent Sev­en Seas Explor­er on the 2019 Hills­dale Col­lege Cruise around Britain, 8 June 2019. Con­tin­ued from Part 1.

Randolph Churchill Postwar

Out of the Army and Par­lia­ment in 1945, and divorced from Pamela in 1946, Ran­dolph Churchill led a “ram­pag­ing exis­tence,” his sis­ter Mary wrote. “He always had lances to break, and hares to start.” He was loy­al and affec­tion­ate, but he “would pick an argu­ment with a chair.”

In 1948 he mar­ried June Osborne and fathered his sec­ond child, Ara­bel­la.…

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Randolph Churchill
RSC, ca. 1933 (by kind permission of Mary Soames)
Present at the Creation: Randolph Churchill and the Official Biography (1)

Present at the Creation: Randolph Churchill and the Official Biography (1)

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“Ran­dolph Churchill: Present at the Cre­ation,” is tak­en from a lec­ture aboard the Regent Sev­en Seas Explor­er on the 2019 Hills­dale Col­lege Cruise around Britain, 8 June 2019.

Most every­body has an inkling of who Win­ston Churchill was. But how many know of his son Ran­dolph? How many British school­child­ren do you think have heard of him? Do they know that Arthur Conan Doyle cre­at­ed Sher­lock Holmes, who some think was a real per­son? They should, Sir Arthur was a great writer. Like Ran­dolph Churchill, who found­ed the longest biog­ra­phy ever writ­ten. In the words of Dean Ache­son, he was “present at the creation.”…

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fiction
This one has the distinction of muffing every quote on the cover: five out of five, with one narrow miss. A new record?
Churchillian Fiction Continues to Roll off the Presses

Churchillian Fiction Continues to Roll off the Presses

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Churchill quotes in the realm of fic­tion are a well-known fea­ture of the pop­u­lar cul­ture. So good an apho­rist was Churchill that even posthu­mous­ly, he con­tin­ues to “man­u­fac­ture” quote fic­tion. Some­times it’s the work of an obscure fig­ure, pinned on Churchill to make it more interesting.

The schol­ar Man­fred Wei­d­horn has an expla­na­tion for what we call Churchillian (or Yogi Berra) Drift: “You do not find your­self the tar­get of Churchillian Drift unless, like Churchill, you are already a fine apho­rist. Part of the rea­son it’s so easy to mis­at­tribute bril­liant say­ings to great apho­rists is that they have already coined so many bril­liant say­ings themselves.”…

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escape
The escaped desperado: Durban, Natal, 1908.
Churchill’s Escape from the Boers, 1899

Churchill’s Escape from the Boers, 1899

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Escape from the Boers, 1899:

Please can you com­ment on, the “Dutch­man, Bur­gen­er by name,” men­tioned by Churchill in his account of his escape from the Boers in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, My Ear­ly Life? Is he one and the same per­son as the Charles Burn­ham men­tioned by Sir Mar­tin Gilbert in Churchill: A Life? Per­haps the sur­name was changed to pro­tect Mr Burnham`s posi­tion in South Africa? Yet thoughthree decades had elapsed by the pub­li­ca­tion of My Ear­ly Life. It seems cer­tain that Churchill knew of Burn­ham and the role that he had played.…

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movies
Olivier as Henry V, 1944.
“Churchill and the Movies”: Hillsdale Lecture Series, March 24-28th

“Churchill and the Movies”: Hillsdale Lecture Series, March 24-28th

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The Movies

In 1927, Win­ston Churchill wrote to his wife Clemen­tine, “I am becom­ing a film fan.” He had pro­jec­tion equip­ment installed at Che­quers, the coun­try home of British prime min­is­ters, in 1943, and at his fam­i­ly home Chartwell in 1946. “Churchill and the Movies” is the fourth and final event of the Cen­ter for Con­struc­tive Alter­na­tives in the 2018-19 aca­d­e­m­ic year. We will view and dis­cuss two films wide­ly regard­ed as Churchill’s favorites, and two Churchill bio­graph­ic movies in their his­tor­i­cal context.

Hillsdale’s Cen­ter for Con­struc­tive Alter­na­tives (CCA) is the spon­sor of one of the largest col­lege lec­ture series in Amer­i­ca.…

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Recordings
Ron Cohen in his massive Churchill library, from which the recordings are drawn.
Hillsdale College Acquires Cohen Churchill Recordings Collection

Hillsdale College Acquires Cohen Churchill Recordings Collection

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Hills­dale Col­lege has acquired the world’s most com­pre­hen­sive col­lec­tion of Churchill record­ings. Many are very rare because they reach back over a century.

The col­lec­tion was gen­er­ous­ly donat­ed by col­lec­tor and bib­li­og­ra­ph­er Ronald I. Cohen of Ottawa, Ontario. Among the 300 record­ings are 100 speech­es and 24 read­ings from Churchill’s war memoirs.

Hills­dale Col­lege has a long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to lead­er­ship stud­ies through The Churchill Project. We encour­age schol­ar­ship in, and com­ple­tion of, the remain­ing vol­umes of The Churchill Doc­u­ments, a series in Churchill’s offi­cial biog­ra­phy. The final vol­ume 23 arrives in 2019, and so com­pletes a 31-vol­ume epic Ran­dolph Churchill began in 1962.…

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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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