Winston S. Churchill Archives - Richard M. Langworth

Questions on Books: The Second World War

30 October 2024 Comments 0 Comments

Not all translations spanned the complete six volumes. The Turkish Edition contained only the first two volumes. Wendy Reves, wife of Churchill’s literary agent, Emery Reves, told me that the publishers refused to pay for the rest! The first Russian edition (1956-58) contained only the first three volumes, though Ronald Cohen also lists a later, complete Russian edition published in 1997-98. There were also eight translations of Churchill’s one-volume abridged edition, first published in 1959.

Read More Read More

The Second Atlantic Charter? A Seventieth Anniversary

15 October 2024 Comments 0 Comments

“We will continue our support of the United Nations and of existing international organizations that have been established in the spirit of the Charter for common protection and security. We urge the establishment and maintenance of such associations of appropriate nations as will best, in their respective regions, preserve the peace and the independence of the peoples living there. When desired by the peoples of the affected countries, we are ready to render appropriate and feasible assistance to such associations.” Eisenhower & Churchill, 1954

Read More Read More

Russians and Greeks: “Falling Below the Level of Events”

5 October 2024 Comments 0 Comments

Churchill to Grey: "I beseech you at this crisis not to make a mistake in falling below the level of events. Half-hearted measures will ruin all, and a million men will die through the prolongation of the war. You must be bold and violent. You have a right to be. Our fleet is forcing the Dardanelles. No armies can reach Constantinople but those which we invite, yet we seek nothing here but the victory of the common cause." Grey and the Foreign Office "felt as we did. They did all in their power. It registers a terrible moment in the long struggle to save Russia from her foes and from herself.”

Read More Read More

Interview: Some Thoughts on Churchill’s London Statue

30 September 2024 Comments 0 Comments

The statue dilemma: All those statues on Parliament Square—not just Churchill's—are of people with human faults. During the craze to tear down statues a few years ago, French President Macron boldly announced that no French statues would go. They are part of France's heritage, he said, for good or ill. That was very courageous of him. Statues tell a nation's story. If you object to one, erect one to balance it. There is no virtue in hiding from history.

Read More Read More

Churchill on Jargon: “Let Us Have an End to This Grimace”

26 September 2024 Comments 1 Comment

Churchill said, “Short words are best, and the old words, when short, are best of all.” How would that peerless practitioner of English, would react to the kind of language around us today? We can imagine what he would think about substituting fashionable jargon like “challenges” for “handicaps” or “issues” for “difficulties.” What would he make of that stand-by cliché “reaching out”? Oh dear....

Read More Read More

Pamela Beryl Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman 1920-1997

20 September 2024 Comments 0 Comments

Pamela Harriman was a noble spirit devoted to friends, family and both her countries. Not many people could have journeyed so successfully and far She was grace personified, at home equally in Churchill’s air raid shelter or the Élysée Palace. President Chirac was saddened by her death: “To say that she was an exceptional representative of the U.S. does not do justice to her achievement. She lent to our longstanding alliance the radiant strength of her personality. She was elegance itself...a peerless diplomat.” That old Francophile, her father-in-law, would have smiled.

Read More Read More

Myths and Heresies: “Firebombing the Black Forest”

15 September 2024 Comments 0 Comments

The great Tucker Flapdoodle: Adolf Hitler was misunderstood, we are told. He invaded Poland only because Chamberlain and Churchill forced him. He never wanted France, dropped peace leaflets on Britain. The Germans were baffled over what to do with millions of Russian POWs because Churchill kept fighting long enough to bring Stalin in. Then Churchill got America involved. Here we consider just one of these unique charges: that in his bloodlust, Churchill firebombed Germany's Black Forest. (We hadn't heard that one before.)

Read More Read More

Those Infamous Facsimile Churchill Holograph Letters

10 September 2024 Comments 0 Comments

People are still falling for those reproduction Churchill thank-you letters produced by the thousands using a spirit duplicator. "The ultimate thrift shop haul," headlined the Daily Mail in July 2023. "Budget shopper is left STUNNED after buying a 'priceless' handwritten letter signed by Winston Churchill for just $1—after finding it buried in a New York store." Actually, $1 is about what it's worth—plus perhaps $50 for a nicely matted and framed example. Update 2024: Six originals do exist.

Read More Read More

Churchill said — WSC with Lt. Gen. Stone and his daughter Sarah (whose husband he did not wish to shoot), on a visit to his old regiment, the 4th Hussars, Cairo, 3 December 1943. (Imperial War Museum, public domain)

Churchill Quips: God, Santayana, Musso & Not Getting Scuppered

5 September 2024 Comments 0 Comments

The story goes that in the middle of the Second World War, Churchill's son-in-law Duncan Sandys told WSC that “Hitler and Mussolini have an even greater burden to bear, because everything is going wrong for them.” Supposedly Churchill said in reply: Ah, but Mussolini has this consolation, that he could shoot his son-in-law! I will not dignify that with quotation marks because it is nothing Churchill said. Not even about Vic Oliver, a son-in-law he really disliked. What worried Churchill was what might happen "if God wearied of mankind."

Read More Read More

Chief Great Leader: The Myth of Churchill’s Iroquois Ancestors

30 August 2024 Comments 0 Comments

"Race: human. But if, as I imagine is the case, the object of this enquiry is to determine whether I have coloured blood in my veins, I am most happy to be able to inform you that I do, indeed, so have. This is derived from one of my most revered ancestors, the Indian Princess Pocahontas, of whom you may not have heard, but who was married to a Jamestown settler named John Rolfe." —Randolph Churchill, way out in fiction, to South African Immigration officers in the days of Apartheid.

Read More Read More