Tag: Winston S. Churchill

tours
Churchill’s England VI tour party with the flag of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, loaned by John Moir of Dover District Council, Walmer Castle, Kent, 16 June 1992. There are many absent friends here, so I want to remember them all. More or less left to right: George and Barbara Lewis, Richard Hazlet, Ron Helgemo, Helen O’Dell, Barbara Langworth, Ann Hazlet, Morgan Lewis, Alan Laufman, Don Cohn, Pat Laufman, Irene Cohn, John Utz, Beverly Bonine, Merry Alberigi, Kathleen Utz, Bill & Lorraine Beatty, John Smith, Virginia & Norm West, Fenton & Mary Cunningham, Irene Costas, Addy & Brock Comegys, Marianne & Karl Almquist, Elliott Costas, Don & Barbara Stephens, John David Marshall, Dave McCook, Charlote & Earle Nicholson, Carol Robson, Gary Bonine.
The Churchill Tours, 1983-2008: A Certain Splendid Memory

The Churchill Tours, 1983-2008: A Certain Splendid Memory

"Garry, check this Churchill tour, and the price. To think that you and we used to deliver two weeks and places these people never heard about for a third the money not so long ago" .... "Richard, just think back to the people we met with Churchill connections who are no longer with us. And in many cases our tours visited their homes. Quite unique when you think about it—in fact impossible to be repeated. We definitely had the best.”

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Martin Gilbert
Sir Martin (Photo: Lady Gilbert)
Sir Martin Gilbert on Churchill and the Holocaust

Sir Martin Gilbert on Churchill and the Holocaust

Why so little of the Holocaust in Churchill's war memoirs? There were many reasons. Intelligence restrictions were still in place, war crimes trials were occurring. Churchill had an understandable reluctance to criticize American officials who had blocked his order to bomb the railway lines to Auschwitz. Churchill was never never one to open a quarrel with allies over the past. Also, as Lady Gilbert pointed out that it wasn't actually known as the Holocaust for years later.

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Latvians
House of the Blackheads, Old Town, Riga, Latvia. (Photo by Jorge Franganillo, Creative Commons)
The New York Times on Those Repressive Lativans

The New York Times on Those Repressive Lativans

"You should have fought them in 1945," the Mayor of Liepaja said. "Think of all the trouble you would have saved yourselves—not to mention us.” As we stood to leave, he pulled up his shirt, showing scars across his stomach. As a boy, he and his mates would visit the barb-wired beaches after curfew, walking backwards into the water to simulate an invasion. He'd been strafed by Soviet guards. How you think about these things often depends on how you grew up.

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Rhineland
The Rhineland neighborhood in 1936. (Map by Soerfm, Creative Commons)
Churchill and the Rhineland: “Terrible Circumstances”

Churchill and the Rhineland: “Terrible Circumstances”

Churchill would have backed French reoccupation of the Rhineland, but he soon gathered that the League of Nations was toothless. Churchill’s theme did not dramatically change in 1936; it merely evolved. As early as 1933 he had declared:  "Whatever way we turn there is risk. But the least risk and the greatest help will be found in re-creating the Concert of Europe." The failure of a concerted response over the Rhineland was to be repeated. Each time western statesmen hoped the latest Hitler inroad would be his last.

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Churchill and Palestine
A frail Roosevelt with King Ibn Saud aboard USS Quincy, Great Bitter Lake, Egypt, 14 February 1945 with interpreter Col. William Eddy, USMC. Fleet Admiral William Leahy, the President’s Chief of Staff, is at left. Remarkably, King Saud did not believe religion was the main Palestine problem. It was “immigration from Eastern Europe of people who were technically and culturally on a higher level than the Arabs, [who] had greater difficulty in surviving economically. [That these] energetic Europeans are Jewish is not the cause of the trouble. It is their superior skills and culture.” (Naval History & Heritage Command, Wikimedia Commons)
“Churchill and Palestine”: Richmond, California, February 10th

“Churchill and Palestine”: Richmond, California, February 10th

Churchill and Palestine had a long association spanning two world wars and thirty years. It began when Arthur Balfour declared Britain's objective of a "Jewish National Home" in Palestine. Almost simultaneously, T.E. Lawrence was promising the Arabs sovereignty over lands in the Middle East ruled for nearly half a millennium by the Turks. A reluctant Britain accepted responsibility for the Mandate of Palestine after the war. East Palestine became Arab-ruled Jordan. West Palestine became the source of conflict that has now lasted over a century.

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Today
Churchill at Harvard, 6 September 1943, with President James Conant. (Imperial War Museum, public domain)
Conant, Churchill, and the Harvard of 1943

Conant, Churchill, and the Harvard of 1943

James Conant was a liberal. He favored admitting women and minorities, and ultimately Harvard did. I don't think he welcomed anti-Semites, although undoubtedly they existed on his campus. He was, above all, devoted to the free exchange of ideas. "Free speech carries with it the evil of all foolish, unpleasant and venomous things that are said," as Churchill once remarked. "But on the whole we would rather lump them than do away with it."

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Generals
Sacking Wavell also gave Churchill the opportunity to make him Viceroy of India, where he became the person most responsible for relieving the Bengal Famine. Wavell (center) is at the Viceregal Gardens, New Delhi, with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (left) and Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, 17 June 1946. (Imperial War Museum, Wikimedia Commons)
Generals Wavell and Auchinleck, and the Lost Art of Going Quietly

Generals Wavell and Auchinleck, and the Lost Art of Going Quietly

Leaving quietly was what you did in those bygone days. Lord Halifax in 1940 proposed negotiations with Hitler; rejected by the War Cabinet, he did not offer interviews to air his grievances. Nor would such an act of public disloyalty have occurred to him. George Marshall, a great man, had many disagreements with his civilian chiefs. Offered a million dollars for his memoirs, he declined, saying, “I have already been adequately compensated for my services.”

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Consulate
USAF guardsman presents arms in honor of Foreign Service members killed during attacks on the U.S. Consulate, Benghazi, Joint Base Andrews, 14 September 2012. (USAF photo by Senior Airman Steele C. G. Britton)
2012 Benghazi Consulate: “Sometimes History Rhymes”

2012 Benghazi Consulate: “Sometimes History Rhymes”

"The Middle East is one of the hardest-hearted areas in the world.... Your friends must be supported with every vigour and if necessary they must be avenged. Force, or perhaps force and bribery, are the only things that will be respected. It is very sad, but we had all better recognise it. At present our friendship is not valued, and our enmity is not feared." —WSC

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Life and Times
The ultimate gift from the very beginning is the signed, limited edition.
Holiday Gifts: “Marlborough: His Life and Times”

Holiday Gifts: “Marlborough: His Life and Times”

"Marlborough" was originally published in four volumes in England (Harrap) and Canada (Ryerson and Harrap) and six in America (Scribner). Fine first editions are pricey. The current paperback edition is by the University of Chicago Press. Copies is not, but for gift giving, you may want something nicer. There are many alternatives.

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Richard II
Richard II performance in the Slovenian Folk Theater, Celje, Poland. In the photo: Alexander Crohl (Henry IV.), Volodya Peer (Henry Percy), Joze Pristov (Earl of Northumberland). Public domain (Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill’s Memorable Allusions to Shakespeare’s Richard II

Churchill’s Memorable Allusions to Shakespeare’s Richard II

“Allu­sions to Richard II” is extract­ed from an arti­cle for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the orig­i­nal text, click here.

Richard II and “This Sceptr’d Isle.”

We are asked: “Churchill quot­ed Shakespeare’s famous lines, ‘This scepter’d isle,’ in one of his speech­es. They are the words of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lan­cast­er, from Richard II, Act 2, sc. 1. Could you direct me to the speech?”

Churchill knew his Shake­speare and had a near-pho­to­graph­ic mem­o­ry. Dar­rell Holley’s Churchill’s Lit­er­ary Allu­sions tells us he alludes to Shake­speare more than any oth­er Eng­lish author. King…

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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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