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THE C H U R C H I L L CENTERI N T E R N A T I O N A L C H U R C H I L L S O C I E T I E S
r f oUNITED STATES • UNITED KINGDOM • CANADA • AUSTRALIAPATRON: THE LADY SOAMES, D.B.E. • WWW.WINSTONCHURCHILL.ORG
The Cnurcnill Center ia a non-profit organization which encourages study of tne life and tnougnt of Winaton SpencerCnurcnill; fosters researcb about nis speecnes, writings and deeds; advances knowledge of nis example as a statesman; and, by
programmes of teacbing and publisbing, imparts tbat learning to people around tbe world. Tbe Center was organized in 1995 bythe International Cburcbill Societies, founded in 1968 to educate future generations on tbe works and example of Winston
Cburcbill. Tbe Center and Societies jointly sponsor Finest Hour, special publications, aymposia, conlerencea and tours.
JOINT HONORARY MEMBERSThe Lord Black of Crossharbour OC PCWinston S. Churchill • The Lord Deedcs KBE MC PC DLSir Martin Gilbert CBE • Grace Hamblin OBERobert Hardy CBE • Yousuf Karsh CCThe Lord Jenkins of Hillhead OM PC • William ManchesterThe Duke of Marlborough JP DL • Elizabeth NelSir Anthony Montague Browne KCMG CBE DFCColin L. Powell KCB • Wendy Russell RcvesAmbassador Paul H. Robinson, Jr.The Lady Thatcher LG OM PC FRSThe Hon. Caspar W. Weinberger GBE
THE CHURCHILL CENTERBOARD OF GOVERNORSRandy Barber • David Boler • Nancy H. CanaryD. Craig Horn • William C. Ives • Nigel KnockerRichard M. Langworth • John H. Mather MDJames W. Muller • Charles D. Platt • John G. PlumptonDouglas S. Russell
OFFICERSJohn G. Plumpton, President130 Collingsbrook Blvd., Toronto, Ontario M1W 1M7Tel. (416) 495-9641 • Fax. (416) 502-3847Email: [email protected]
William C. Ives, Vice President20109 Scott, Chapel Hill NC 27517Tel. (919) 967-9100 • Fax (919)967-9001Email: [email protected]
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Charles D. Platt, Endowment Director14 Blue Heron Drive West, Greenwood Village CO 80121Tel. (303) 721-8550 • Fax. (303) 290-0097Email: [email protected]
BOARD OF TRUSTEESWinston S. Churchill • The Hon. Jack Kemp • George A. LewisChristopher Matthews • Amb. Paul H. Robinson, Jr.The Hon. Celia Sandys • The Hon. Caspar W. Weinberger GBE
Richard M. Langworth CBE, Chairman181 Burrage Road, Hopkinton NH 03229Tel. (603) 746-4433 • Email: [email protected]
BUSINESS OFFICESLorraine C. Horn, AdministratorDebby Young, Membership Secretary8016 McKenstry Drive, Laurel MD 20723Tel. (888) WSC-1874 • Fax. (301) 483-6902Email: [email protected]
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CHURCHILL CENTER ASSOCIATESWinston Churchill Associates:
ICS United States • The Churchill CenterThe Annenberg Foundation • David & Diane BolerColin D. Clark • Fred Farrow • Mr. 6c Mrs. Anthony E. GillcsMr. & Mrs. Parker H. Lee III • Michael & Carol McMenaminDavid & Carole Noss • Ray L. & Patricia M. OrbanWendy Russell Reves • Elizabeth Churchill SnellMr. & Mrs. Matthew B. Wills • Alex M. Worth Jr.
Clementine Churchill AssociatesRonald D. Abramson • Winston S. ChurchillJeanette & Angelo Gabriel • D. Craig & Lorraine HornJames F. Lane • Barbara &; Richard LangworthDrs. John H. & Susan H. Mather • Linda & Charles PlattAmbassador &c Mrs. Paul H. Robinson Jr.James R. &r Lucille I. Thomas
Mary Soames AssociatesSolveig & Randy Barber • Gary J. BonineDaniel & Susan Borinsky • Nancy Bowers • Lois BrownNancy H. Canary • Dona & Bob DalesJeffrey & Karen De Haan • Ruth & Laurence GellerFrederick C. & Martha S. Hardman • Glenn HorowitzMr. & Mrs. William C. Ives • J. Willis JohnsonMr. & Mrs. Gerald Drake Kambestad • Elaine KendallRuth J. Lavine • Mr. & Mrs. Richard A. LeahyCyril &c Harriet Mazansky " Michael W. MichelsonMr. & Mrs. James W. Muller • Earl & Charlotte NicholsonBob &: Sandy Odell • Dr. & Mrs. Malcolm PageRuth & John Plumpton • Hon. Douglas S. RussellShanin Specter • Robert M. StephensonRichard & Jenny Streiff • Peter J. Travers " Gabriel UrwitzDamon Wells Jr. • Jacqueline & Malcolm Dean Witter
BOARD OF ACADEMIC ADVISERSProf. Paul K. Alkon, University of Southern CaliforniaSir Martin Gilbert CBE, D. Litt., Merton College, OxfordProf. Barry M. Gough, Wilfrid Laurier UniversityProf. Christopher C. Harmon, Marine Corps UniversityCol. David Jablonsky, US Army War CollegeProf. Warren F. Kimball, Rutgers UniversityProf. Paul A. Rahe, University ofTulsaProf. John A. Ramsden,
Queen Mary & Westfield College, University of LondonProf. David T. Stafford, University of EdinburghDr. Jeffrey Wallin, President, The American AcademyProf. Manfred Weidhorn, Yeshiva University
Prof. James W. Muller, Chairman,University of Alaska Anchorage1518 Airport Hts. Dr., Anchorage AK 99508Tel. (907) 786-4740 • Fax. (907) 786-4647Email: [email protected]
AFFILIATEWashington Society for ChurchillCaroline Hartzler, PresidentPO Box 2456, Merrifield VA 22116Tel. (703) 503-9226
Members of The Churchill Center also meet regularly inAlaska, California, Chicago, Detroit, Florida, New England,North Texas, Northern Ohio and Philadelphia.
INTERNATIONAL COUNCILOF CHURCHILL ORGANIZATIONSAmbassador Paul H. Robinson, Jr., Chairman208 S. LaSalle St., Chicago IL 60604 USATel. (800) 621-1917Email: [email protected]
ICS AUSTRALIARobin Linke, 181 Jersey Street, Wembley WA 6014
ICS CANADAAmbassador Kenneth W Taylor, Hon. Chairman
Randy Barber. President4 Snowshoe Cres., Thornhill, Ontario L3T 4M6Tel. (905) 881-8550Email: [email protected]
Jeanette Webber, Membership Secretary3256 Rymal Road, Mississauga, Ontario L4Y 3C1Tel. (905) 279-5169 Email: [email protected]
Charles Anderson, Treasurer489 Stanfield Drive, Oakville, Ontario L6L 3R2
The Other Club of OntarioNorman MacLeod, President16 Glenlaura Courr, Ashburn, Ontario LOB 1A0Tel. (905)655-4051
Winston S. Churchill Society of Vancouver (Affiliated)Dr. Joe Siegenberg, President15-9079 Jones RoadRichmond, British Columbia V6Y 1C7Tel. (604) 231-0940
ICS UNITED KINGDOMChairman:Nigel Knocker OBEPO Box 1257, Melksham, Wilts. SN12 6GQTel. & Fax. (01380) 828609Email: [email protected]
TRUSTEESThe Hon. Celia Sandys, Chairman;The Duke of Marlborough JP DLThe Rt. Hon. Earl Jellicoe KBE DSO MC FRSDavid Boler • David Porter • Geoffrey Wheeler
COMMITTEENigel Knocker OBE, ChairmanWylma Wayne, Vice ChairmanPaul H. Courtenay, Hon. SecretaryAnthony Woodhead CBE FCA, Hon. TreasurerJohn Glanvill Smith, Editor ICS UK NewsletterEric Bingham • John Crookshank • Geoffrey FletcherDerek Greenwell • Michael Kelion • Fred Lockwood CBE "Ernie Money CBE • Elisabeth Sandys • Dominic Walters
NORTHERN CHAPTERDerek Greenwell, "Woodstock"
6 Wilstrop Farm Road, York. YO2 3RY Tel. (01904) 702844Eric Bingham, Car Lane, Hambleton,
Blackpool, Lanes. FY6 9BB Tel. (01253) 701275Email: [email protected]
ICS UNITED STATESBoard of TrusteesAmbassador Paul H. Robinson, Jr., ChairmanGeorge A. Lewis; Wendy Reves; The Hon. Celia SandysThe Lady Soames DBE; The Hon. Caspar W. Weinberger
The staff of Finest Hour, published by The Churchill Centerand International Churchill Societies, appears on page 4.
JOURNAL OF THE CHURCHILL CENTER & SOCIETIES
WINTER 20Q1-02 • NUMBER 113
14 Bracken: "The Fantasist Whose Dreams Came True"The Legacy of "Winston's Chela" Lives On • Charles Edward Lysagbt
20 Churchill for TodayIn Every Sphere He Foresaw the Dangers... • Sir Martin Gilbert CBE
22 The Cartoon That Shocked the P.M.Illingworth's Attack in Punch Rocked Churchillians Tim Benson
24 Glimpses From the "Taxi": HMS Renown, 1943"You Look Like a Gang of Bloody Pirates" • Vic Humphries
28 "Churchill and the Navy" Undaunted by Odds18th International Churchill Conference • Judy Kambestad
32 When Heroes Were UbiquitousWinston Churchill and His Jerome Cousins • Judy Barrett Litojf
34 "I Was Astonished by Morocco"More Travels in Grandfather's Footsteps The Hon. Celia Sandys
BOOKS, ARTS & CURIOSITIES:37 The Editor pronounces Easton Press's Churchill War Speeches a fine buyfor the money ... Lord Jenkins says writing about Churchill was irresistible... Is the abridged Marlborough worth your time? James Muller has mixedfeelings ... Our Irish review was ludicrous, or so Tony McAuley thought...Todd Ronnei observes Churchill in Minnesota ... Paul Courtenay offersmore "Question Time" ... Mrs. Landemare brews up a veal stew ... Britishpolitical parties in Churchill's time are defined by John Ramsden.
Despatch Box 4 • Datelines 5 • Calendar 8 • Riddles, Mysteries, Enigmas 12Wit & Wisdom 21 • Action This Day 26 • Eminent Churchillians 32Woods Corner 41 • Inside the Journals 42 • Question Time 43Recipes from Number Ten 44 • Churchilltrivia 45 • Ampersand 46
Cover: The Lying-in-State of Sir Winston Churchill's coffin, the Palace of Westminster, January1965, by Alfred Egerton Cooper. Reproduced by permission of the Palace of Westminster.
xnr
DESPATCH BOX
Number 113* Winter 2001-02ISSN 0882-3715www.winstonchurchill.org
Barbara F. Langworth, Publisher([email protected])
Richard M. Langworth, Editor([email protected])
PO Box 385, Contoocook,NH 03229 USATel. (603) 746-4433
Senior Editors:James W. MullerJohn G. PlumptonRon Cynewulf Robbins
Associate Editor.Paul H. Courtenay
News Editor: John FrostFeatures Editor. Douglas J. Hall
ContributorsGeorge Richard, Australia;Randy Barber, Chris Bell,Barry Gough, Canada;Inder Dan Ratnu, India;Paul Addison, Winston S. Churchill,Sir Martin Gilbert, Allen Packwood,Phil Reed, United Kingdom;David Freeman, Chris Harmon,Warren F. Kimball, Cyril Mazansky,Michael McMenamin, Mark Weber,Manfred Weidhorn, Curt Zoller,United States
' Address changes. USA: send tothe business office of The ChurchillCenter. UK, Canada & Australia:send to ICS business offices.All offices are listed on page 2.
Finest Hour is made possible in part throughthe generous support of members of TheChurchill Center and Societies, and with theassistance of an endowment created by TheChurchill Center Associates (listed on page 2).
Finest Hour is published quarterly by TheChurchill Center and International ChurchillSocieties, which offer various levels of supportin their respective currencies. Membershipapplications should be sent to the appropriateoffices on page 2. Permission to mail at non-profit rates in USA granted by the UnitedStates Postal Service, Concord, NH, permitno. 1524. Copyright 2002. All rights reserved.Designed and edited by Dragonwyck Publish-ing Inc. Production by New England FoilStamping Inc. Printed by Reprographics Inc.Made in U.S.A.
IMMORTAL WORDSReceived FH 112 and wanted to say how
much I like the Sept 1 lth feature: just the tonic!ROBERT COURTS, WEST MIDLANDS, ENGLAND
"Our Qualities and Deeds Must Burn andGlow" in Finest Hour 112 was beautiful.
ROBERT O. DISQUE, MILFORD, CONN.
I read your stirring essay in FH 112 andmust thank you for it. Your scholarship is im-peccable and you have assembled excellent pas-sages from Churchill. I too had thought of his"You may have to fight when there is no hope ofvictory," from The Gathering Storm. Just as Or-well and Bernard Levin have criticized thosewho say "their system is no worse than ours, weoppress people just as they do," you point outthat there is a pretty big divide between "us" and"them." Really, a most valuable article, writtenwith Churchillian declamation.
MORTIMER CHAMBERS,
PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF HISTORY
UCLA, LOS ANGELES, CALIF.
Great minds think alike! I have been doinga great deal of broadcasting regarding September11th (my first doctorate is in the internationallaw of guerrilla warfare) and I, also, have beenusing the 14 July 1941 quotation, "You do yourworst, and we will do our best."
PROFESSOR KEITH SUTER, SYDNEY, AUS.
You did a magnificent job of selecting sovery many of the exactly right quotes from SirWinston to guide his strength and wisdom tothe minds of today's English-Speaking Peoples.Surely his words clarify the attitude, courage andresolve needed by Americans and others, as wastrue those decades ago. Wouldst but everyone inthe country and the world might hear them, orat least read them.
JOHN C. HASSETT, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF.
Your construct of paralleling current eventswith Churchill's mastery of language and leader-ship is nicely and forcefully done: a fine mes-sage, finely drawn. In the end, you make thewords of Churchill fit a kaleidoscope of evolving(devolving?) situations, and you do it very well.When this is published I would reprint it andmake sure it went to every foundation, potentialdonor and funding source under PresidentPlumpton's signature. People who appreciate themessage and the word should be afforded theclear opportunity to show it—long or shortterm, large or small, restricted or open-ended.
JIM LANE, SEATTLE, WASH.
Thanks for the kind words, I worked veryhard on that. A shorter version was published op-edin the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. A "Special Edi-tion"of FH 112 contains all our September 11th-related articles, including this one, Churchill's
speech, letters, the Giuliani and Winston S.Churchill articles, and Jeff Wallin's interview withJuan Williams of Fox News. It is available free toany Churchill Center Associate, supporter of TheChurchill Center Heritage Fund, or for any dona-tion readers care to make. Checks may be in localcurrency to The Churchill Center (USA), ICS(UK) or ICS (Canada).—Ed.
CHURCHILL AND THE MONARCHYIn the abstract of "Churchill and the
Monarchy" by David Cannadine {FH 111: 14),he states that after the abdication of EdwardVIII, Churchill "remained loyal to the Duke ofWindsor as far as he could without prejudicinghis greater loyalty to the Crown." Professor Can-nadine must know more than I do aboutChurchill's knowledge of the Duke's admirationfor Nazism. But the fact that Churchill sum-moned the Duke back from Spain under aveiled threat of court martial suggests displea-sure, and the Duke's subsequent banishment tothe Bahamas reinforces that suggestion.
JOSEPH R. ABRAHAMSON M.D. ([email protected])
"Loyal" is not the best word—/ think thepoint Cannadine makes is that Churchill wouldnot prejudice loyalty to the Crown in his relationswith the Duke. WSC was certainly concerned overthe Duke's apparent sentiments; and also over theDuke's grim performance as Governor of the Ba-hamas. See also "The Unforgivable David Wind-sor" in "Datelines, "page 7.—Ed.
VANISHING NATIONAL ANTHEMSYour excellent piece on Vanished Anthems
in FH 111 roused memories of an earlier On-tario culture at school. 9AM: call to order, littleboys and girls in early forms of manufactured orhome-made clothing, standing beside little deskswith lift-tops and inkwells (the girl in front ofme had pigtails which I experimented with, try-ing to tip them into the inkwell). 9:05: Oneverse of "God Save the King" followed by asmany verses of "Maple Leaf Forever" as werewritten on the "roily-blind" pulled down overthe chalk board. Sometime in the 1930s, "OCanada" was introduced and "The Maple Leaf"was retired, occasionally to be heard but alwaysmore out of date. "O Canada" (or as my Irishbackground would have it "O'Canada") wasawkwardly worded and was later rewritten to re-flect French Canada. In one of these interim pe-riods another verse of "God Save the Queen"was written to make one anthem do for us:
Our loved Dominion bless,With peace and happiness,
From shore to shore;God let our Empire be,United loyal and free,
True to herself and Thee,For evermore.
JOHN SIBBALD, JACKSON'S POINT, ONT.
continued overleaf...
FINEST HOUR 113/4
IMMORTAL WORDSReceived FH 112 and wanted to say
how much I like the Sept 1 lth feature: justthe tonic!
ROBERT COURTS, WEST MIDLANDS, ENGLAND
"Our Qualities and Deeds Must Burnand Glow" in Finest Hour 112 was beauti-ful.
ROBERT O. DISQUE, MILFORD, CONN.
I read your stirring essay in FH 112and must thank you for it. Your scholarshipis impeccable and you have assembled ex-cellent passages from Churchill. I too hadthought of his "You may have to fight whenthere is no hope of victory," from The Gath-ering Storm. Just as Orwell and BernardLevin have criticized those who say "theirsystem is no worse than ours, we oppresspeople just as they do," you point out thatthere is a pretty big divide between "us" and"them." Really, a most valuable article, writ-ten with Churchillian declamarion.
MORTIMER CHAMBERS,
PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF HISTORY
UCLA, LOS ANGELES, CALIF.
Great minds think alike! I have beendoing a great deal of broadcasting regardingSeptember 1 lth (my first doctorate is in theinternational law of guerrilla warfare) and I,also, have been using the 14 July 1941 quo-tation, "You do your worst, and we will doour best."
PROFESSOR KEITH SUTER, SYDNEY, AUS.
You did a magnificent job of selectingso very many of the exactly right quotesfrom Sir Winston to guide his strength andwisdom to the minds of today's English-Speaking Peoples. Surely his words clarifythe attitude, courage and resolve needed byAmericans and others, as was true thosedecades ago. Wouldst but everyone in thecountry and the world might hear them, orat least read them.
JOHN C. HASSETT, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF.
Your construct of paralleling currentevents with Churchill's mastery of languageand leadership is nicely and forcefully done:a fine message, finely drawn. In the end,you make the words of Churchill fit a kalei-doscope of evolving (devolving?) situations,and you do it very well. W h e n this is pub-lished I would reprint it and make sure itwent to every foundation, potential donorand funding source under President Plump-ton's signature. People who appreciate themessage and the word should be affordedthe clear opportunity to show it—long orshort term, large or small, restricted oropen-ended.
JIM LANE, SEATTLE, WASH.
DATELINESQUOTATION OF THE SEASON
"...tne United States, united as never berore, nave drawn tnesword tor treedom and cast away tne scabbard."
—WSC, CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, 26 DECEMBER 1941
Quotation of the Decade?Gregory Smith offers this Churchill
comment on that great religion we are notfighting against, from The River War,first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (Lon-don: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).
"How dreadful are the curseswhich Mohammedanism lays on itsvotaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy,which is as dangerous in a man as hy-drophobia in a dog, there is this fearfulfatalistic apathy. The effects are appar-ent in many countries. Improvidenthabits, slovenly systems of agriculture,sluggish methods of commerce, and in-security of property exist wherever thefollowers of the Prophet rule or live. Adegraded sensualism deprives this life ofits grace and refinement; the next of itsdignity and sanctity. The fact that inMohammedan law every woman mustbelong to some man as his absoluteproperty—either as a child, a wife, or aconcubine—must delay the final ex-tinction of slavery until the faith ofIslam has ceased to be a great poweramong men. Individual Moslems mayshow splendid qualities. Thousands be-come the brave and loyal soldiers of theQueen; all know how to die; but the in-fluence of the religion paralyses the so-cial development of those who follow it.No stronger retrograde force exists inthe world. Far from being moribund,Mohammedanism is a militant andproselytizing faith. It has already spreadthroughout Central Africa, raising fear-less warriors at every step; and were itnot that Christianity is sheltered in thestrong arms of science—the scienceagainst which it had vainly struggled—the civilisation of modern Europemight fall, as fell the civilisation of an-cient Rome."
FINEST HOUR i i3/5
The Universal ChurchillNEW YORK & LONDON, NOVEMBER 11TH—
Two months since September 11th,Winston Churchill remains the domi-nant historical reference, his quotationson every lip, while cynics take turnscomparing him (and Chamberlain) toGeorge W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Comparing the current Presidentto Churchill, The Economist admittedthat Bush is "a super-fit teetotaler whileChurchill was a cigar-smoking puffballwhose daily alcohol regime included[inaccuracies omitted]. And yet Mr.Bush is marching into battle against ter-rorism with Churchill's ghost by hisside. He has a bronze bust in the OvalOffice and lards his speeches withChurchillian-sounding phrases.
"Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's guidinghand, recently put up a poster ofChurchill in the Old Executive OfficeBuilding. Donald Rumsfeld invokedChurchill in pouring scorn on peoplewho doubt America's will [and quotesWSC's phrase that] 'the truth is so pre-cious that she must always be accompa-nied by a bodyguard of lies'....Thebiggest reason for invoking Churchill, ofcourse, is that he won his war. But Mr.Bush and his men should not forgetthat, for all their gratitude, the Britishpeople then kicked him out of his job."
Across the ideological divide, TheTelegraph Group's senior North Ameri-can columnist Mark Steyn labeled BillClinton "Unfit to be ex-president" in aslashing comparison with Chamberlain:"In 1940, when Neville Chamberlainresigned as prime minister, Churchillasked him to stay on as leader of theConservative Party and to remain in thecabinet...Churchill paid him handsometribute and cried at his bier....In the last
continued overleaf
DATELINES
months [Chamberlain] was lost in in-trospection and wracked with guilt. I'mnot saying Bill Clinton's the designatedChamberlain....But, given his owndesultory responses to Osama binLaden's ever bolder provocations, you'dthink even Bill Clinton could find timefor a little introspection and quiet self-assessment. "
Afghanistan, Steyn concludes, hasno unseemly ex-presidents: "King Zahiris still around, but for his various suc-cessors, their presidencies' expiry datestend also to be their own. Zahir was de-posed in 1973 by his cousin Daoud,who was killed by his successor Taraki,who was suffocated by his successorHafizullah Amin, who was executed bythe Soviets, who installed Babrak Kar-mal, who died in Moscow but in a rarebreak with tradition managed to outlivehis replacement, Najibullah, whom theTaliban wound up hanging from a traf-fic post. I wouldn't wish such a fate onour ex-president, but it seems to methat if Bill really wants to be monarch,he's younger and fitter than King Zahir.Let's install him on the throne in Kabul,and let him get back to working for theAfghan people."
Dear oh dear. Still, we don't mindChurchill's rediscovery by our variousrulers, pundits and decision makers.
The Ascension(New Revised Edition)BOSTON, OCTOBER I5TH— Hostage to For-
tune: The Letters of Joseph P. Kennedy,compiled by his granddaughterAmanda Smith, appears to challengeChurchill's description of his alleged si-lence during the fateful May 1940meeting that decided the premiership.
Kennedy recorded a meeting hehad with Chamberlain three weeks be-fore the latter's death: Chamberlain saidhe had made no secret of his preferencefor Lord Halifax, prompting Halifax tosuggest, "Perhaps I can't do it from theLords." This, Chamberlain continued,had caused Churchill to exclaim, "Idon't think you could." And, Chamber-lain added, "He wouldn't come and thatsettled it." That, writes AnthonyHoward in The Times, "could onlymean one thing. To secure his own ac-
Churchill and Halifax in Whitehall, 29Mar38.Hitler had annexed Austria on the 21st.
cession, Churchill indicated that hewould refuse to serve under Halifax."
Relevant to this is Prof. LarryWitherell's recent paper (we will pub-lish an abstract next issue) suggestingthat Chamberlain was forced out byLord Salisbury's "Watching Commit-tee." (But see Charles Lysaght onBracken's influence on Churchill's strat-egy during the meeting, page 18.)
It occurs to us that Witherell andKennedy may both be right but that itdoesn't entirely negate Churchill's ver-sion. Per Kennedy, Churchill may stillhave remained silent for a long time inthe famous meeting, but then replied,"I don't think you could" when, as hewrites, "at last Halifax spoke." Cham-berlain may have looked upon this asChurchill's way of "not coming along"in a Halifax premiership. Maybe so,though it seems that the big problemwas Halifax not coming along.
Likewise, Salisbury's WatchingCommittee may indeed have been ef-fective in causing the Tory defectionswhich convinced Chamberlain of theneed for a national government in May1940. But had Labour been willing toserve under Chamberlain, could Salis-bury have prevented a coalition? He
was hardly a figure who could com-mand legions; it is inconceivable that hecould have forestalled a Labour-backedcoalition.
The historians give us valuable newinformation, but are they making moreof all this than needs to be made? Whatchanges? Chamberlain realized that acoalition was imperative. He could notcommand a coalition. He sent for Hali-fax and Churchill. Halifax could not orwould not serve from the Lords. ErgoWinston. Are we missing something?
Naming OperationsNEW YORK, NOVEMBER 15TH— C o l u m n i s t
Florence King has taken some punchesat Operation Enduring Freedom, cur-rent label for the Afghan War: "If theBushies put it through the sensitivitygrinder one more time, they'll have tocall it the Inoffensive Offensive." Sev-eral readers drew our attention toChurchill's eminently sensible guide-lines for naming operations, in an 8 Au-gust 1943 minute to "Pug" Ismay, Sec-retary of the Defence Committee:
"Operations in which large num-bers of men may lose their lives oughtnot to be decided by code-words thatimply a boastful and over-confident sen-timent, such as 'Triumphant,' or con-versely, which are calculated to investthe plan with an air of despondency,such as 'Woebetide' and 'Flimsy.' Theyought not to be names of a frivolouscharacter, such as 'Bunnyhug' and 'Bal-lyhoo.' They should not be ordinarywords often used in other connections,such as 'Flood,' 'Sudden,' and'Supreme.' Names of living people—ministers or commanders—should beavoided. Intelligent thought will alreadysupply an unlimited number of well-sounding names that do not suggest thecharacter of the operation or disparage itin any way and do not enable somewidow or mother to say that her son waskilled in an operation called 'Bunnyhug'or 'Ballyhoo.' Proper names are good inthis field. The heroes of antiquity, fig-ures from Greek and Roman mythology,the constellations and stars, famousracehorses, names of British and Ameri-can war heroes, could be used, providedthey fall within the rules above."
FINEST HOUR 113/6
DATELINES
Times Corrupt CitationNEW YORK, DECEMBER 20TH— Time maga-zine, which two years ago played it safeand named Albert Einstein "Person ofthe Century" {FH 105:21), named NewYork Mayor Rudy Giuliani "Person ofthe Year." By Time's own standard ("theperson having the most impact") theircitation should have gone to Osama binLaden, but word on the street is thatTime picked Giuliani because theyfeared the reaction of advertisers andsubscribers to their "honoring" a terror-ist. Which only proves how corruptTime's accolade has become since thedays of Henry Luce, when it reallymeant something. Slandering Churchill,as they did in denying him the obviousin 1999, was a much safer bet. In 1950,Luce's Time faced the obvious andnamed Churchill "Man [Person] of theHalf Century." In 1999, Walter Isaac-son's Time stoned him, and a differentand indifferent world just yawned.
Enemy Even After DeathLONDON, AUGUST 18TH— Columnist AlanHamilton wrote that discreet Britishenquiries established that Eamon DeValera, President of Ireland, would notaccept an invitation to Churchill's fu-neral. Instead he sent a low-grade repre-sentative and made a statement describ-ing WSC as "a great Englishman, oneof the greatest of his time," but adding,"We in Ireland had to regard Sir Win-ston over a long period as a dangerousadversary." De Valera did send a mes-sage of personal condolence to LadyChurchill. In 1945, De Valera had seenfit to tender condolences to the Ger-man Minister in Dublin on the deathof Hitler. We wonder how the GermanAmbassador replied?
Ignoratio ElenchiNEW YORK, OCTOBER 15TH— SomethingAndrew Roberts wrote last issue got usthinking. What do you call the debatestrategy in which you muddy the waterswith a side issue while avoiding a mainissue, where you are on weak ground?
David Irving's latest Churchill vol-ume, Mr. Roberts reported in FH112:46, claims that the present QueenMother supported Hitler's peace offer
Lord Black TakesHis SeatLONDON, OCTOBER31ST— Lord Black ofCrossharbour, 57, proprietorand chairman of The TelegraphGroup and an Honorary Mem-ber of the Churchill Center andSocieties, took his seat in theHouse of Lords today. He fol-lows in the footsteps of twoother Canadian-born newspaperproprietors, Lord Beaverbrookand Lord Thomson of Fleet, inbecoming a member of theLords. TCC/ICS HonoraryMember Lord Deedes, former editor of The Daily Telegraph, held a lunch for Lord Black in the Barry Roomprior to his taking his seat. Attending and shown here: Nancy and Henry Kissinger, Lady Black, Lord Black,Lady Thatcher and Lord Carrington. Photo by Brian Smith in The Daily Telegraph, 1 November.
in 1940 and that the proof is to befound in Box Number 23 of LordMonkton's papers at the Bodleian Li-brary at Oxford. But, Roberts contin-ues, the Bodleian says Irving has neverseen the box, let alone opened it.
This obfuscates the fact that theQueen Mother, like most of the Britishestablishment, had no initial confidencein Churchill; so it's not exactly newsthat many of her class entertained thenotion of "scuttling," as Churchillcalled it, in June 1940. Halifax certainlydid, according to his own diaries. Sowhether the Queen Mum temporarilythought well of a deal with Hitler is in-consequential; and whatever is in themysterious box can hardly be profound.
We put this question to William EBuckley, Jr., who made memorable our1995 Boston conference when he andArthur Schlesinger, Jr. delivered two ofthe greatest speeches on Churchill we'veever heard {Churchill Proceedings 1994-1995)- What is this method of argu-ment called? Mr. Buckley writes: "Yourquery suggests we're talking about igno-ratio elenchi, refuting a different pointwhile ignoring the primary point. Doesthat do it?" Sure does. Remember this ifyou peruse Irving's tome.
Unforgivable David WindsorLONDON, OCTOBER 21ST— Churchill neverforgave the Duke of Windsor for givingup the throne, according to Churchillletters being kept secret at the requestof the Royal Family, wrote Chris Hast-ings and Catherine Milner in The
Times. The letters were originally fromthe archive of the first Viscount Monck-ton, the Duke's lawyer and intimate ad-viser, at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.Removed from two folios of documentspresented to Churchill College Cam-bridge in 1974, they have now been re-classified as top secret for another tenyears.
Academics who have seen them saythe documents reveal great animositybetween Churchill and "David," andprovide further evidence of the Duke'sand Duchess's pro-Nazi views. They areknown to include several angry ex-changes prompted by the Duke's desireto advise Churchill on the conduct offoreign policy. In one letter the PM tellsthe Duke that he cannot accept advicefrom someone who "had given up thegreatest throne in world history." A fre-quent cause of hostility concernedarrangements for the Duke's posting in1940 as Governor of the Bahamas.Churchill "took umbrage at the Duke'salmost endless demands concerningeverything from staffing to dental ap-pointments."
The existence of the letters, Hast-ings and Milner continue, "will surprisemany who had previously assumed thatChurchill was forgiving of the formerKing's decision to abdicate." (Really?Churchill realized and cited his mistakeafter Elizabeth II was crowned.) "It isthought that they are being kept secretat the request of the Royal Family. TheQueen Mother is believed to be partic-ularly sensitive about the events of >»
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1936, and is known to have referred tothe Duchess of Windsor as 'thatwoman and 'the lowest of the low.'"
Churchill did fight for time for theKing to make a decision, hoping to pre-vent the abdication, which surprisedcolleagues. Some said he wanted to usethe crisis to topple Baldwin's govern-ment and form a "King's Party" thoughthis is hotly debated. During one Com-mons speech WSC declared that "noSovereign has ever conformed morestrictly to the letter and spirit of theConstitution than his present Majesty."
The disclosure that documents arebeing withheld surprised Lady Soames,who said she assumed that everythingwas on display: "I thought it was acomplete archive." However, she de-clined to comment on her father's rela-tionship with the Duke. Sir MartinGilbert said: "I have never seen the let-ter about Churchill and the issue of theabdication. If I had I would have pub-lished it." A spokesman for the CabinetOffice said: "The papers are held by thePublic Records Office in Kew. Theirstatus is reviewed every ten years."
DATELINES
Chris HangerAUSTIN, TEXAS, DECEMBER 27TH— Finest
Hour contributor and faithful ChurchillCenter supporter Chris Hanger died ofcancer early this morning, aged 54.Chris was as big a piece of unbridledenthusiasm we ever could have hopedfor. He collected WSC's books with apassion, visited Churchill's haunts, at-tended every Churchill event he couldreach. Only this autumn he and Patty,his wife of nearly 20 years, completed amammoth tour of the "Churchill Trail"in England, meeting with everyone whomattered from Phil Reed and CaroleKenwright at the War Rooms andChartwell to our Patron and otherChurchills. He contributed the series ofabstracts of magazine articles which wepublished in Finest Hours "Inside the
; Journals." He visited schools and lec-tured students on Churchill's life andtimes; he was known and liked byChurchill historians Sir Martin Gilbertand Roger Lewis. Despite his originallegal background, and flurry ofChurchill activity, he had time to studyfor a new career as Registered Nurse in
CHURCHILL CALENDARLocal events organizers: please send upcoming event notices to the editor for posting here.
13 April: Annual General Meeting, ICS (UK), Chartwell, Kent.Contact: Nigel Knocker, tel. (01380) 828609, [email protected]
May: New England Churchillians luncheon and book discussion {The RoyalNavy, Seapower and Strategy Between the Wars, with author Chris Bell).
Contact: Suzanne Sigman, tel. (617) 696-1833, [email protected]
September: 19th International Churchill Conference, Lansdowne Resort,Leesburg, Va. Theme: "Churchill and Intelligence." Contact: Nigel Knocker(above) or Craig Horn, tel. (888) WSC-1874, [email protected]
30 November (Saturday): Sir Winston Churchill's 128th Birthday will be cele-brated with black tie dinners by New England Churchillians (Boston) and
Alaska Churchillians (Anchorage); local members will be advised.
Spring 2003: 20th International Churchill Conference, Hamilton, BermudaCommemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Bermuda Conference.
Contacts: David Boler, tel. 0207- 558-3522, [email protected];Randy Barber, tel. (905) 881-8550, [email protected]
Spring 2004: 21st Churchill Conference, 55th Anniversary of D-Day, 1944:Part A: New Orleans, Louisiana, sponsored by The Churchill Center (March)
Pan B: Portsmouth, England and Normandy, France, ICS, UK (October)
Emergency Medical Services, and wason the verge of being certified.
Chris touched many lives with hisinfectious determination. Paula Re-strepo, of North Texas Churchillians,was typical: "I am filled with grief.Only a few days ago did I read Chris'sand Patty's Christmas letter and so en-joyed the accounts of their travels. I hadshared with him my own fears as I hada surgery December 13th and received abenign report. His unwavering courageand unceasing positive attitude cloakedin genuine humility and gentle spiritmade it easy to be fond of him."
Chris was suffering from throatcancer during the USS Winston S.Churchill commissioning ceremonieslast spring, but despite all the doctors'warnings he seemed to have made amiraculous recovery. "Never Give In"were his watchwords. They pronouncedhis case hopeless; he defied them, sur-vived to make his UK marathon, andeven to attend both 2001 New Englandevents, the picnic and book discussionhere in August and the black tie dinnerin Natick, Mass, on November 30th.Fearing that even his indomitable spiritmight eventually give way, Patty bravelysupported his every wish, and the lastyear of his life was one of his happiest.Until the end he was in good spirits andseemed as healthy as ever, looking morelike 44 than 54. Apparently howeverthe cancer had spread. He was the kindof person we couldn't afford to lose.
Pat Hanger has requested that any-one wishing to remember Chris send amemorial to The Churchill Center,where it will be used to defray costs ofour Speaker's Bureau brochure, inwhich Chris was to participate. Condo-lences may be sent to her at 12904Water Mill Cove, Austin Tex. 78729USA or [email protected] or tele-phone (512) 250-9103. -RML
Rita DarrahLUTON, BEDFORDSHIRE, DECEMBER 10TH— It
was a dreadful shock when Jack Darrahrang today to tell me the tragic news ofthe death of his beloved wife, Rita.Anyone who has visited Jack's wonder-ful Churchill collection at BletchleyPark will remember the warmth of the
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welcome the Darrahs gave them.Jack and Rita would greet one with
broad smiles and open arms makingone's pleasure at being there as great asthat displayed by them. This joyful en-thusiasm which they spread aroundmade everyone feel good and is evidentin the many appreciative letters from somany schoolchildren for whom theyhad brought the story of Winston
Churchill to life. Theirs was a real teameffort, with Rita supporting Jack inevery way. Rita will be greatly missedand all who knew her will sympathisewith Jack at this time.
Readers who may wish to expresstheir sympathies may contact Jack Dar-rah at 9 Cubbington Close, Luton,Beds. LU3 3XY, England, telephone(01582) 561781. —CELIASANDYS
Local and National EventsLord Jenkins LaunchesLONDON, OCTOBER 8TH— Macmillan'slaunch of Churchill by Lord Jenkins ofHillhead OM (see his comments on thebook in this issue) took place at the Na-tional Portrait Gallery. Among thosepresent were CC/ICS Patron LadySoames; honorary member Sir AnthonyMontague Browne; leading political fig-ures such as Sir Edward Heath, LordsHeseltine, Howe, Hattersley andGilmour; diplomats such as SirNicholas Henderson and Sir CrispinTickell; and journalists including MaxHastings, John Grigg (Lord Altrin-cham), Robert Harris, AnthonyHoward and Hugo Young.
Lord Jenkins drew attention toChurchill's multi-faceted life andstressed WSC's devotion to duty beforepleasure; an example was that, despitehis undoubted preference for a joyfulfamily Christmas in 1944, he had flownto Athens on Christmas Eve and hadconsequently saved Greece from fallingto the postwar Communist empire.Lord Jenkins was kept busy signing hisbook, which has had excellent reviews.
MichiganHILLSDALE, MICH., SEPTEMBER 9-13TH— H i l l s -
dale College held a seminar entitled"One of Freedom's Finest Hours:Statesmanship and Soldiership inWorld War II." Nine historians and fiveveterans gave presentations, includingSir Martin Gilbert, Stephen Ambrose,and John Lukacs. An edited collectionof essays from this seminar was pub-lished in December and is available at amember discount of $17.50 by sending
a check or credit card information to:External Affairs, Hillsdale College, 33East College Street, Hillsdale, MI49242-9989. —Dan Myers
Northern CaliforniaSAN FRANCISCO, OCTOBER 28TH— Thirty-eight members of the Bay AreaChurchill Group met at the RadissonHotel. It was agreed that the next meet-ing would be in the spring at FortMason, San Francisco, but the sugges-tion that a smaller group meet periodi-cally to discuss a Churchill book had apositive response. This will be arrangedin the coming months.
Speaker Eroll Mauchlin had tocancel at the last minute and DannyMander kindly agreed to step in atshort notice. In an entertaining address,Danny explained how he volunteeredfor service in March 1940 and, as a mil-itary policeman, spent his early monthsescorting convoys in southern England.He was later assigned to 12th Corpsand General Montgomery's HQ. Fromthere he served in the Middle East, andwas in charge of the bodyguards forChurchill at the Teheran conference.His personal account was both fascinat-ing and informative.
Brad Barber, who had given muchsupport and assistance in putting thismeeting together, then introduced Dr.Tom Barnes, professor of Law and His-tory at UC Berkeley. A prolific writer,Dr. Barnes is currently Vice President ofthe Association for Canadian Studies inthe United States. He has received theAlexander Prize of the Royal HistoricalSociety and has held Huntington Li-
Erratum, FH112Where did the end of Robbins's
article on the Atlantic Charter get to?In my copy the article ends mid-sen-tence on page 23. —EVAN QUENON
@#$°/o!H The missing words are:"one of Beaverbrook's newspapers" andthe last sentence should read: "LikeChurchill, Spring had written for one ofBeaverbrook's newspapers." In transfer-ring files, sometimes the pixels dump aline. This line was there in the proofs,lost in the bluelines, and we didn't no-tice. Sorry. —ED.
brary, American Council of Learned So-cieties and Guggenheim Fellowships. Inan enthralling and riveting presenta-tion, he focused on Churchill in con-text of the current crisis. It was all tooshort and it is our intention to haveTom back at some future event, perhapsin some sort of "town hall" forum.
Sir Winston's 127thCLAREMONT, CALIF., NOVEMBER 30TH— E v e r y
year at this time, the Claremont Insti-tute celebrates the great man's birthdaywith a dinner, speeches, and a toast inhis honor. This year, at a time of war,we are particularly attentive toChurchill's legacy and the lessons wecan learn from him.
Faced with the menace of Germanrearmament in the 1930s, Churchilltraveled England to persuade his coun-trymen of the need to respond to theemerging Nazi threat. Churchill and hiscolleagues called this effort "TheFocus." Today we need an "AmericanFocus," to build new defenses and totake whatever military steps are neces-sary to protect ourselves from all threats.
Churchill warned his countrymenof what could happen if Britain allowedHitler to gain the upper hand in airstrength: "There is time for us to takethe necessary measures, but it is themeasures we want....No nation playingthe part we play and aspire to play inthe world has a right to be in a positionwhere it can be blackmailed." Theyeventually listened, but it was nearlytoo late. —Brian T. Kennedy >»
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Iwo Jima remembered: James C. Humespresents the Lansdowne "Finest Hour" awardto Congressional Medal of Honor recipientHershel Williams.
Lansdowne Churchill DinnerLEESBURG, VA., SEPTEMBER 28TH— T h e Third
Annual Lansdowne Churchill Dinnerwas completely sold out and a greatsuccess. The guest list included threeCongressional Medal of Honor recipi-ents, the Deputy Assistant Secretary ofthe U.S. Navy, four officers of the RoyalAir Force and Royal Navy, and theCommanding Officer of USS Bulkeley.This year's "Finest Hour" award recipi-ent was Hershel "Woody" Williams, theonly living recipient from the state ofWest Virginia and chaplain of the Con-gressional Medal of Honor Society. Mr.Williams receive the medal for hisheroic actions on Iwo Jima. The re-marks by Barney Barnum describingWoody's CMH citation grabbed every-one's attention. Woody himself deliv-ered one of the finest and most patri-otic speeches I have ever heard. A mem-orable toast to Sir Winston was deliv-ered by Craig Horn.
Please mark your calendar to at-tend the next Churchill Dinner whichwill be held on Friday, 27 September2002. —GerardDumont
New England CelebratesNATICK, MASS., NOVEMBER 30TH— Fifty CC
members and friends gathered at Ken-neth Rendell's Museum of World WarII for their annual black tie dinnermarking Sir Winston's birthday. A bril-liant job was done on the invitationsand program by Jilene Thomas: eachhad the appearance of wartime mes-sages from the Cabinet War Rooms.The toasts were made with Pol RogerChampagne, and Mr. Rendell regaledus with a commentary on his breathtak-
AROUND & ABOUT
Winston Churchill was named "the most popu-lar Prime Minister of all time" in a an internet
poll (www.xrefer.com), with 43% of the vote. Secondwas Lady Thatcher at 23%. Tony Blair was fifth be-hind Attlee and Lloyd George. But a Mori poll forthe "most influential" leader had Thatcher at 28%against only 1% for WSC .... In February, SundayTelegraph columnist Christopher Booker attacked theBBC for a radio programme, "Europe and Us," inwhich they allegedly contrived to make Churchill a Europhile: "In four postwarspeeches between 1946 and 1949, in Zurich, London, The Hague and Strasbourg,Churchill., .proposed the setting up of a 'United States of Europe.' But, as he re-peatedly made clear, he did not see Britain as part of this great project." However,Booker erred in claiming that Churchill's famous phrase, "we are with Europe butnot of it," originated in 1953. In fact, that line originated with Churchill's article,"The United States of Europe," in The Saturday Evening Post of 15 February 1930,Woods C147, reprinted in the Collected Essays, 1975 .... In promoting the "Europeand Us" programme, Sue Gaisford of the Radio Times said "History may regardWinston Churchill as the architect of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign or themaker of xenophobic speeches, but tonight we consider him in philanthropic oldage." A cadre of historians piled on to denounce this absurdity. Norman Stone ofOxford said: "They probably don't know what xenophobic means and are tryingto find some way of saying 'patriotic without saying it. It's tosh. You just throwthis sort of thing away." The Mail on Sunday, refused an interview with Ms. Gais-ford, wrote that the comments of "some scurrilous Trotskyite" were not expectedfrom the august Radio Times. "Once, Sir Winston's reputation seemed secure. Butthe modern history syllabus barely mentions him, and the broadcasting media arefull of resentful pygmies who dislike the Britain that Churchill saved and despisethe decent patriotism of the majority who revere him....it is easy to see that suchpeople should not be working for the BBC, which would not exist if WinstonChurchill had not saved the world's liberty" .... In an early 2001 survey, one in sixBritish schoolchildren could not identify Churchill as Britain's wartime primeminister; an astonishing four percent named Adolf Hitler. $
ing collection of World War II artifactsfrom all belligerents, Allied and Axis.
"This is not a public museum, sowe are not bound by law to provideminimum aisle widths or an abundanceof exits; nor are we governed by politi-cal correctness or the need to tell astory," Mr. Rendell said. "We do notallow children, and we are prettychoosy about the adults." The artifacts,which range from children's toys exalt-ing the greatness of the Reich to a tankand a Normandy landing craft, form inthe whole a chilling reminder of thegrim days when Hitler's Nazis domi-nated Germany and Europe. The mate-rial is arranged chronologically: the firstroom is devoted to Germany after Ver-sailles, the exhibit ends with the victory
over Japan. "There are a minimumnumber of signs, and there are no inter-pretations or apologies or explanations.The material speaks for itself."
The German artifacts were assem-bled last, and only over the past tenyears. "I was not anxious to assembleNazi souvenirs," Mr. Rendell said, "butmy son reminded me that the collectionwould be incomplete without them."
The results were amazing: Hitler'sspectacles and personal chinaware, res-cued from the bunker by his retainers;Goering's gentleman's accessories box,which he carried with him to Nurem-berg, where he was tried and foundguilty (but escaped the hangman with avial of cyanide); Patton's ivory-handled
concluded on page 13...
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WORLD WAR II HISTORY PANEL DISCUSSIONCHRISTOPHER H. STERLING
On October 15th at George Wash-ington University, The Washing-
ton Society for Churchill sponsored atwo-hour panel discussion on recentbooks on the Second World War. Fouraccomplished authors provided theirviews and reading suggestions, followedby a reception and book signing. Dr.Chris Harmon, who teaches aChurchill course for Marine officers, as-sembled and chaired the panel.
GW's Dr. Ron Spector began thesession noting the huge number of re-lated books available over the Internet,with Amazon.com alone listing morethan 5,000 on the Second World War.Of the top ten sellers, individual vol-umes of Churchill's war memoirs oc-cupy slots one, two, four, seven, andten, suggesting their lasting impact.Spector noted topics that have not beenas well covered in recent literature (theEastern Front, mainland Asia, socialimpact of the war) as well as reasonswhy America's more positive view of thewar (the U.S. was not bombed or occu-pied, and was the only unqualified win-ner) differs from that of other nations.Describing himself as the only panelmember who was not a "Churchillgroupie," Spector ranged widely overrecent publications on the war.
Dr. David Jablonsky of the ArmyWar College focused on two recent vol-umes he found especially insightful:Warren Kimball's Forged in War on theWSC-FDR relationship, and DavidStafford's Men of Secrets, which reviewedthe uses of intelligence by both leadersthroughout their political lives. Jablon-sky outlined the similarities and differ-ences between the two men (e.g., WSCfocused on details and writing mostthings down, FDR did neither). Hespoke of Churchill's reliance on the sig-nals intelligence "golden eggs" fromBletchley Park, and on the art of mak-ing grand strategy. He also provideduseful contextual commentary, such as
Dr. Sterling is Associate Dean of GraduateAffairs, George Washington University.
was
noting how small government was in1939-40 in Britain and the UnitedStates. He assessed the impact of WorldWar I's trench warfare on bothChurchill and Hitler's later leadership,and how differently A Roving Commis-sion and Mein Kampf ttsA, indicatingmuch about their respective authors.
Dr. Williamson Murray, author ofmany well-received volumes includinghis recent A War to Be Won, focused themost on Churchill himself, stronglycriticizing John Charmley's books (foramong other drawbacks, citing no Ger-man-language sources). He notedChurchill's understanding of historyand the repeating patterns of humandevelopment, drawing from his ownhistorical work (as many have noted,Marlborough says a good deal aboutWSC and provides some precedent forhis role in World War II). Even moreimportant, Murray argued,Churchill's deep under-standing of how politi-cians worked and howgovernments operated.He also reviewed SirMartin Gilbert's land-mark biography, callingthe document volumes"a great pile of evi-dence" for all those whowould assess Churchillin the future. Murraydescribed Churchill's relationship withhis military leaders, noting that whileWSC sacked some, he was workingwith a thin talent pool that limited hisoptions. Finally he noted that while themilitary leadership often fought withthe Prime Minister, at no time didChurchill overrule their advice whenthey were in agreement—while Roo-sevelt most certainly did.
Dr. Eliot Cohen of Johns HopkinsUniversity was an active participant inthe question period, noting that WSC'sreputation is suffering under currenthistorical opinion. He describedGilbert's main biography volumes asmore chronicle than analysis or even bi-ography, but praised Gilbert's Compan-ion Volumes as a "literary treasure," ad-
FlNESTHOUR113/ll
Meeting Of the minds: Above, Murraysaid Churchill was skilled at bringing othersover to his viewpoint. Below from left,scholars Jablonsky, Murray, Harmon andSpector engage in a discussion aboutChurchill's heroism.
mitting that he was one of those "overthe edge" fans who owned every one ofthe 16 companions published.
The panel ranged widely over thevaried roles of political leaders and gen-erals among major combatants; thestrategic vision present in some but ab-sent in others; the relationship of intel-ligence in making wartime decisions;and the widely different political con-texts in which Churchill and Rooseveltoperated. All speakers commented onthe continuing flood of WW2 books,noting that some were superb andadded considerably to our knowledge,while others merely raked over oldcoals. The audience was engagedthroughout, a large number of themposing questions to the panelists. $5
RIDDLES,
MYSTERIES,
ENIGMASSend your questionsto the editor
Was Winston Churchill fond ofturtle soup?
A^ Soup and meat both. Research-• ing Churchill's visits to Virginia
before our 1998 conference, the cater-ing department at the WilliamsburgInn uncovered correspondence follow-ing Churchill's request for MarylandTerrapin. They looked around for asupplier (the war had dried up mostsources) and finally found one. Thesupplier reported that there were threegrades. Grade 3 was "only fed to pigs";grade 2 was "only eaten by [censored]."But grade 1 was probably "all right."Churchill got grade 1!
I m During what period was Win-• ston Churchill Chancellor of
Bristol University?
A From the website of Bristol Uni-• versify, www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/
Churchill/Churchill/Churchill.htm —Churchill Hall, opened in 1956, "isnamed after Sir Winston Churchill,who was Chancellor of Bristol Univer-sity from 1929 until his death in1965." There are 180 matches to"Churchill" on the B.U. website, mostrelated to University activities. —BFL
Q# What did Churchill do about• keeping Parliament in session
when the House of Commons wasbombed during the Blitz?
A:The House of Commons moved..• across the road to Church
House, Westminster, and then back tothe Palace of Westminster, occupyingthe chamber of the House of Lords atthe other end of the building, where itremained till the new House of Com-mons was built after the war. —PHC
How many times did Churchill• visit the United States?
A# Fourteen: 1895, 1900-01, 1929,11931-32, 1941-42, 1943 (twice:
May and August), 1946, 1949, 1951,1952, 1954, 1959, 1961. The hyphen-ated dates mean he stayed over NewYear's. Details are in the official biogra-phy and Robert Pilpel's excellentChurchill in America 1895-1961: AnAffectionate Portrait (NY: Harcourt,Brace, Jovanovich 1976) chronicleseach visit in detail. Mr. Pilpel has re-leased the rights to his book to TheChurchill Center, but we haven't gotround to it yet. Finest Hour would wel-come a good article recappingChurchill's visits to America.
Q^ I keep wondering how• Churchill, let alone Roosevelt,
kept popping up in places such asMoscow, Teheran, Yalta and Moroccoduring the height of the war. I'm as-suming he flew. But at what a risk toBritish morale? The only route fromBritain to Moscow free of potentialGerman air patrols would take him toGibraltar and then across the Saharaand up through the Caucasus. So howwas it done? Would he use many es-corts or try to slip through with as littlefanfare as possible? Any suggestions forfurther research?
A^ Good question. Actually, his• presence at distant locations was
a morale booster, since it underscoredthat he could not be "grounded" by theenemy. Churchill deserved commenda-tion for undertaking, in his mid-60s,so many dangerous flights in badly-heated, slow and uncomfortable air-craft. Although the summit meetingsbetween them were vital to the war ef-fort, neither Roosevelt nor Stalinlogged so many miles so often.
In his "Glimpses" article this issue,Vic Humphries records Sir MartinGilbert s note that during a Mediter-ranean voyage in 1942 Captain Pirn,who ran Churchill's travelling maproom, tallied up his wartime travels todate: "Churchill's total distance by seaand air was, Pim calculated, 111,000miles. He had spent 792 hours at sea,and 339 hours in the air." By war's
"This is your Captain speaking":WSC at the controls of a Boeing 314 FlyingBoat, flying home after his visit to the USAand Canada during the winter of 1941-42.
end, of course, the tally was higher.The best book on the subject is
The Man Who Flew Churchill, by BruceWest (Toronto and New York: Mc-Graw Hill, 1975), based on the recol-lections of the late Bill Vanderkloot,who was selected to command thePM's first flight to Cairo in 1942 in aconverted Liberator named "Com-mando." From then on he flew manyVIP missions, including Churchill'sflight to Moscow for his bleak firstmeeting with Stalin. Churchill provedto be an entertaining and impressivepassenger who enjoyed spending longhours in the co-pilot's seat, havinghimself learned to fly before WorldWar I. Another useful reference is"Dunkirk to Berlin," a large foldingmap showing all of Churchill's travelsaround the world between 1940 and1945 (London: Reprint Society, 1956).
Can anyone tell me when• Churchill ceased to be Lorden of the Cinque Ports?
(Churchill was Lord Warden, until 24 January 1965 (the day
he died). After his death he was suc-ceeded by Australia's Sir Robert Men-zies. Upon Menzies' death in 1978 theLord Wardenship passed to EarlMountbatten of Burma. FollowingMountbatten's murder in 1979 theLord Warden became H.M. QueenElizabeth the Queen Mother. HerMajesty remains the current Lord War-den . —Rafal Heydel-Mankoo
A;
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Riddles Revisited:More on Churchill
and the Atomic Bombby Craig Horn
iddles, Mysteries, Enigmas" in111 carried a question con-
cerning Churchill's attitude toward theuse of the two atomic bombs againstJapan in World War II. We reportedthat he favored the use of both. It wasrecently related to us that then-GeneralDwight Eisenhower was against the useof at least the second (Nagasaki) bomb,which he regarded as unnecessary.Concerning which, some observations.
No End Save Victory: Perspectives onWorld War II, edited by Robert Cowley(G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York 2001),is a collection of essays by distin-guished historians. The very last essay,entitled "The Voice of the Crane," byThomas B. Allen and Norman Polmar,reveals that in spite of the bombs, andHirohito's recorded proclamation ac-cepting President Truman's PotsdamProclamation demanding uncondi-tional surrender, elements of the Japan-ese Supreme Council for the Directionof the War, including KorechikaAnami, Admiral Soemu Toyoda andGeneral Yoshijiro Umezu, supported acoup that would remove the Emperor.They would destroy the surrenderrecording, engage the Allies in a fightto the death on the home islands, andturn American opinion against the war,forcing a negotiated peace.
Hirohito's "surrender" message(which, by the way, never acknowl-edged surrender nor any remorse forany Japanese actions in the war) wasnot broadcast live because he was notan accomplished public speaker anddid not want the Japanese people, mostof whom had never before heard hisvoice, to hear him stumble or stutter.Two readings were completed and twosets of two-record 78 rpm recordingswere made.
The Imperial Japanese Army head-
Mr. Horn, whose special interest is Churchilland secret intelligence, is treasurer of TheChurchill Center and co-chairman of the2002 International Churchill Conference.
quarters sent statements to the newspa-pers after the bombing that the armywould fight on. But the coup, sup-ported by some members of the cabi-net, ultimately failed as we now know.Still, several members of the cabinetand many more military officers com-mitted seppuku. Before the recordingscould be played, members of the coupattempted to take over the NHK radiostudio and prevent the broadcast. Atnoon on August 15, the "voice of thecrane" was heard for the first time by
that generation when Hirohito an-nounced the surrender. This was at 6P.M. the previous day in Washington,in time for President Truman to add tohis address the American people thatthe war was over.
The credentials of the authors areimpressive insofar as they have collabo-rated on seven books. Mr. Polmar, a de-fense analyst, is the author or co-authorof more than thirty books. Of course,as in all things, "believe but verify." Ibelieve, but have not yet verified. M>
REMEMBER WINSTON CHURCHILL
Will future generations remember?Will the ideas you cherish now be sustained therii
Will someone articulate your principles?Who will guide your grandchildren, your faith and your country?
There is an answer.
The Churchill Center Associates (page 2) are people who have committed $10,000or more, over five years, all tax-deductible, to the Churchill Center and Society
Endowment funds earning interest in the United States and Canada.
With their help—and yours—those earnings guaranteethat The Churchill Center will endure as a powerful voice,
sustaining those beliefs Sir Winston and you hold dear.Now. And for future generations.
If you would like to consider becoming a Churchill Center Associateplease contact
Richard M. Langworth, Chairman, Board of Trustees(888) 454-2275 • [email protected]
Datelines concluded from page 10...
Colt revolvers; the huge swastika andeagle podium that once decorated theNuremberg stadium where Hitler heldforth. General Patton, whose papersRendell was asked to dispose of, hadprised the swastika from its place andnailed it to his fence. "There was littleinterest among his family in this stuff,in keeping with the times; today ofcourse some of it is almost priceless."
Certainly in that category is atyped draft of the Munich Agreement,with Hitler's and Chamberlain's pen-ciled notes on it. Ken Rendell bought itfrom the son of Nevile Henderson, thethen-British Ambassador to Germany."He found it lying on a side table after
the final draft had been prepared,picked it up and took it home. That'sthe way things happen sometimes."
Further details on the Rendell Mu-seum of World War II will appear insubsequent issues.
Our 2002 schedule in NewEngland is a book discussion with Prof.Chris Bell in May and a welcome toPhil Reed of the Cabinet War Roomsin April, along with our annual blacktie dinner on Churchill's birthday,November 30th. If you would like tohelp organize future New Englandactivities, please contact SuzanneSigman, tel. (617) 696-1833, [email protected]. $5
F I N E S T H O U R i i 3 / 1 3
THE 2001 BRENDAN BRACKEN MEMORIAL LECTURE, CHURCHILL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
BRACKEN: "THE FANTASIST
WHOSE DREAMS CAME TRUE"
The Legacy or "Winston's Chela" Lasted Far Longer Than He Expected
CHARLES EDWARD LYSAGHT
Editor's NoteFinest Hour 63 reviewed the two biographies of Churchill'slongtime friend and colleague Brendan Bracken: Poor, DearBrendan by Andrew Boyle (1974), andBrendan Bracken byCharles Lysaght (1979). We stated: "Boyle's treatment isrobust, but perhaps Lysaght takes us nearer to Bracken's realcharacter." We are honored to publish herewith biographerLysaght's Brendan Bracken Memorial Lecture on May 9th atChurchill College, Cambridge, which proves our point.
Brendan Bracken was Winston Churchill's closestfriend and Minister for Information in Churchill'swartime government. He was also a benefactor of
Churchill College before it opened its doors. Threemonths prior to his death, in August 1958, he wrote toLord Tedder, Chancellor of the University, offering toprovide furniture, silver and pictures for the Master: "Indistant times the comforts and dignity of the Masters'Lodges encouraged all sorts of useful people to seek theirhospitality. And so I hope the Churchill College will notonly be acclaimed as a house of learning but also one ofdiscerning hospitality."
In his will, Bracken left the residue of his estate to aTrust Fund to stock the Master's cellar and to furnish hisrooms. He also left for the use of the Master his own din-ing room suite, his port railway as well as his silver andseveral paintings, including one by Winston Churchill,and the portrait of Edmund Burke attributed to Romney.
Brendan Bracken shared Burke's reverence for thepast, his conservatism, his love of England. He also sharedBurke's Irish Catholic background. He was born inTemplemore, a small town in Tipperary, in 1901. Hisfather, Joseph Kevin (J.K.) Bracken, a well-to-do builder,was a member of the oathbound Fenian brotherhoodwhich was committed to win Irish independence by forceof arms.
J.K. Bracken died when Brendan was three. A fewyears later his widow moved to Dublin with her four chil-dren and two stepdaughters. Brendan grew into an almostdelinquent if engaging child. He vandalized neighbours'
gardens and threw one schoolfellow into a canal. In aneffort to tame him, his mother sent him to a Jesuit board-ing school, but he ran away. In despair she packed himoff, aged less than fifteen, to Australia, where she had acousin who was a priest. Brendan led a peripatetic exis-tence there, moving between Catholic religious houses,doing some teaching, and reading incessantly.
In 1919 he returned to Ireland, finding that hismother had remarried and moved to the country.Rebellion was raging and his stepfather, Patrick Laffan,was sympathetic to the rebels. Brendan decided to settlein Liverpool. In January 1920, posing as an Australianfour years older than he was and claiming falsely to be aformer head-boy of an Australian public school and agraduate of Sydney University, he got a teaching post atLiverpool Collegiate School.
In September 1920 Bracken turned up at SedberghSchool in Lancashire, applying to be taken on as apupil. He said he was less than 16 when he was in fact
19, and claimed that his parents had died in a bush fire inAustralia but had left him money to complete his educa-tion. He may have claimed some connection withMontagu Rendall, the headmaster of Winchester, for hegave his name as Brendan Rendall Bracken. He wasadmitted and remained one term. He won a history prizeand emerged a public school man.
Next followed a number of small teaching jobs, thelast of which was in Bishop Stortford. "My first impres-sion," recalled one colleague, "was that I was looking at aPolynesian with dyed hair, for he had a large red mop thatstood out like a kind of halo; his features, almost Negroid,were like those of a Papuan." He was pretty idle; the mainimpression he made on his colleagues was as a compulsivename-dropper. He joined the local League of NationsUnion and made pro-imperialist speeches. He moved toLondon and got a post on a periodical called the EmpireReview. This brought him into contact with J.L. Garvin,former editor of The Observer, who introduced him toWinston Churchill in the summer of 1923.
continued on page 16
FINEST HOUR 113/14
In full sail: Leaving Bracken's house at Lord North Street for Parliament and debate on Mussolini's invasion of Albania, 7 April 1939.
FINEST HOUR 113/15
At the General Election in December Churchill, stilla Liberal although alienated from its leadership,, stood unsuccessfully in Leicester West. Bracken
organised his campaign. Four months later, whenChurchill stood as an independent in a bye-election inWestminster, Bracken was again to the fore. NoticingBracken's extraordinary influence with Churchill, peoplebegan to ask, "Who is he?" So emerged the clingingrumour that Bracken was Churchill's natural son, fanned,perhaps, by reports that Bracken was exhibiting Churchillfamily photographs in the flat he had taken in Mayfair.
Mrs. Churchill taxed her husband with this rumourand asked if it was true. "I looked it up," her husbandreplied teasingly, "but the dates don't coincide." Not sur-prisingly Mrs. Churchill was not enamoured of the lessthan couth young colonial, whom she had first encoun-tered when he stayed uninvited, sleeping on the sofa inher drawing room with his shoes on, and who insisted oncalling her Clemmie.
In 1924 Churchill rejoined the Conservative Party,was returned to Parliament and became Chancellor of theExchequer under Stanley Baldwin. "I shall never be sohappy as I was last week," Bracken wrote to his mother."Dear Winston became Chancellor." Churchill wrote to afriend that Bracken "was a brilliant young Australian ofquite exceptional powers and vitality."
Shortly afterwards there was an unexplained riftwhich persisted until 1929. Meanwhile, Bracken made hisway in publishing. He was introduced to Major JohnCrosthwaite Eyre, a director of Eyre and Spottiswoode,and took over a monthly they published called theIllustrated Review that had previously been edited byHilaire Belloc. He renamed it English Life and commis-sioned articles from the famous and well-born.Crosthwaite Eyre and his wife Dorothy, the Eyre heiress,were greatly impressed by the young protege whom theyhoped might wake up their sleepy company. In 1926 theyagreed to his plans to start The Banker and co-optedBracken to the board. He was less than 25.
Over the next three years Bracken persuaded hisemployers to acquire a City daily called the FinancialNews and a half-share in The Economist. To preserve theindependence of the editor of The Economist from theproprietors, it was agreed that he could not be removedwithout the consent of independent trustees. The InvestorsChronicle, The Liverpool Journal of Commerce and ThePractitioner were acquired shortly afterwards.
Bracken set himself up in a town house in NorthStreet, Westminster, later renamed Lord North Street athis behest. There was an outsize knocker that betokenedthe style of life within. He acquired period furniture, oldmasters and handsomely bound books. He held forth tohis guests on architecture, literature and history as well ason contemporary events and personalities. He installed abutler and cook, James and Beatrice Costello, who were to
remain with him for the rest of his life. During his lun-cheon and dinner parties, Costello was primed to informhim that the Prime Minister or some other notable wasasking for him. He also had a country cottage inBedfordshire and a Hispano-Suiza motorcar driven byChurchill's old chauffeur, Alexander Aley. He became aubiquitous and noisy socialite. This is where EvelynWaugh would have met him. Hence Rex Mottram inBrideshead Revisited, a fast talking, social-climbing colo-nial bounder who knows everyone and can fix anything.
Like Mottram there was an air of mystery aboutBracken. His apparent wealth was unexplained. Sowere his origins. They did not feature in his conver-
sation except to mislead. "I was born there," he said to oneacquaintance as they passed Carlton House Terrace. "Mygrandfather wrote that," he remarked when Greenland's IcyMountains by Bishop Heber was played. In the summer of1930 he invited a party of friends to a palazzo in Venice thathe claimed had been left to him by his mother. Nowhere inthese tales of his origins did Ireland ever appear.
But he did not cut himself off entirely from his Irishroots. He plied the mother who had exiled him, butwhom he seems to have loved very deeply, with affection-ate letters, and made forays to Ireland to see her up to thetime of her death from cancer in 1928. When she died, ananonymous tribute appeared in the obituary columns ofThe Times of a Mrs. Laffan of Beauparc (which could havebeen anywhere) reciting her many virtues. It was plainlywritten by Brendan, but for what audience apart fromhimself is difficult to divine.
A brother Peter was a constant thorn in his side.Deeply in debt and threatened with dismissal from hissenior position in the Irish police, Peter once backed hisdemands for a loan by burgling the house in Lord NorthStreet and making off with Brendan's portrait of EdmundBurke. It should be added that Bracken later helped Peterand other needy members of his family in Ireland,although he saw little or nothing of them.
Early in 1929 Bracken got himself adopted asConservative candidate for North Paddington and wasreturned to the House of Commons at the GeneralElection later that year which brought Labour to power.In Parliament he attached himself to Winston Churchill,who resigned from the Front Bench because Baldwin sup-ported the Labour government's plans to give self-govern-ment to India.
When the Conservatives returned to government in1931, Churchill was left outside, campaigning against theGovernment of India Act 1935 and, from 1934 onwards,urging rearmament in face of Hitler. In these yearsBracken was Churchill's sole consistent supporter in theHouse of Commons. Stanley Baldwin, inspired by hiscousin Rudyard Kipling, called him "Winston's faithfulchela"—chela was the Hindustani word for a disciple.
FINEST HOUR ii3/16
"Stanley Baldwin, inspired
by his cousin Rudyard
Kipling, called him
'Winston's faithful chela'—
chela was the Hindustani
word for a disciple."
When Churchill's morale was sagging orthe dreaded "Black Dog" assailed him,Bracken was uniquely able to revive him withhis vitality and outrageous ebullience.Churchill always called him "dear Brendan.""They quarrelled and argued incessantly,"Harold Macmillan recalled, "just like a happi-ly married couple."
Bracken sold Churchill's articles tonewspapers for good money and found him,in Sir Henry Strakosch, a financial backerwithout whose assistance he would have beenseriously embarrassed financially in 1937. ButBracken epitomized to many the erraticunsteadiness of the whole Churchillian world.He was greatly distrusted by ClementineChurchill who told me that she felt he tookher husband away from her. Churchill's only sonRandolph not unnaturally came to resent Brackens placein his father's affections.
7 1 he Financial News, the main newspaper inBracken's group, was hard put to survive in theGreat Depression of the early Thirties. It emerged
as a lively paper staffed by a vigorous corps of young,opinionated journalists. Bracken was a demanding boss,full of ideas, who threw his weight about endlessly. But ifhe was quick to upbraid, he was slow to sack. He had aninterest in high standards of writing for its own sake notshared by many newspaper controllers. He became a closeassociate friend of Lord Beaverbrook, the Canadian pro-prietor of the Daily Express. It was at one of Lord Beaver-brook's parties that he delivered the memorable tirade toNye Bevan, the young Labour politician: "You lounge-lizard Lenin, you Ritzy Robespierre, you BollingerBolshevik, there you sit swilling Max's Champagne andcalling yourself a socialist." But Bracken was sometimes atthe receiving end. "Everything about you is phoney," oneacquaintance told him. "Even your hair, which looks likea wig, isn't."
When it came to girlfriends, Bracken, like his proto-type Rex Mottram, wanted the best in the market. He
Finest hour: Churchill and Bracken leave No. 10 for the House,18th June 1940 after the French surrender. WSC carries the text of his
speech, which would inform listeners that "the Battle of Britain isabout to begin" and implore Britons to make this "their finest hour."
became the suitor of the ethereal Penelope Dudley Ward,whose mother Freda was for years the mistress of thePrince of Wales, later Edward VII. He liked it to bethought that he was single because she turned him down.Others thought that he might be homosexual. There weresmiles about the affectionate terms in which he addressedgood-looking young men in the Financial News. BothAndrew Boyle, who wrote the first Bracken biography,and Thomas Kilroy, the author of a play called DoubleCross about Bracken and Lord Haw-Haw, claimed to haveevidence of Bracken's sexual deviance, but neitherresponded to my requests to produce it.
In the Thirties Bracken's house at 8 Lord NorthStreet became the centre of the fight against appeasement.It was from there that Churchill sallied forth in 1938 todeliver his denunciation of the Munich agreement.When, on the outbreak of war in 1939, Churchill becameFirst Lord of the Admiralty, Bracken accompanied him ashis parliamentary private secretary. While Churchill wasloyal to Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister,
FINEST HOUR ii3/17
Bracken was not and briefed the press incessantly aboutthe pusillanimous way in which Chamberlain ("TheCoroner") and those around him were fighting the war.
Bracken's great moment came in May 1940 when,following the fall of Norway, a large number ofConservatives failed to support the government on
a confidence vote. A national government was imperativebut the Labour party would not serve underChamberlain. If, as was likely, Lord Halifax was calledupon to form a government, Churchill felt that he wouldhave to agree to serve under him. Chamberlain and DavidMargesson, the chief whip, called Halifax and Churchillto a meeting. Before this took place Bracken exacted fromChurchill a promise that he would remain silent if it wasproposed that Halifax should succeed. This he did whenChamberlain and Margesson put forward the name ofHalifax. After two minutes Halifax broke the silence andsaid that he did not think that he, as a member of theHouse of Lords, was in the best position to form a gov-ernment. It was, claimed Lord Beaverbrook who wasclosely involved, the great silence that saved England.
Bracken refused ministerial office, preferring toremain close to Churchill, who overrode the opposition ofthe King and had Bracken made a member of the PrivyCouncil. He moved into 10 Downing Street, and had abig say in choosing members of the government outsidethe small war cabinet. He also interested himself in otherappointments, including bishops and the masters ofCambridge colleges.
At the very center of government at one of the greathistoric moments of British history he was, indeed, inRandolph Churchill's phrase, the fantasist whose fantasieshad come true. Characteristically he used his position todo innumerable good turns for both the great andobscure. He was much better acquainted with the UnitedStates than other British politicians, and he lobbiedAmerican correspondents so that Roosevelt would be per-suaded to send aid. Significantly, when Roosevelt's right-hand man, Harry Hopkins, visited England in the winterof 1940-41, it was Bracken who went to meet him atPoole Airport and to convince him that Britain was ableand determined to fight on.
Meanwhile the Ministry of Information was lan-guishing under the leadership of Duff Cooper. The news-papers were discontented with the censorship and with thesparse amount of information they were getting on mili-tary campaigns. In July 1941 Bracken was conscripted,much against his will, to take over as Minister. He was aspectacular success. He also reorganized the relationshipwith the BBC, and left it free to comment on domesticaffairs while ensuring that propaganda to neutral andenemy countries was efficiently organized. He neversought to emulate Dr. Goebbels, or indeed Duff Cooper,by broadcasting propaganda himself. Ironically, for a man
who had so often laced fact with fiction, he may deservesome of the credit that the mendacities of British propa-ganda in the First "World War were not repeated.
Easily bored, Bracken could not abide the routine ofministerial office and preferred the excitement close toChurchill at the center of events. Here he had an invalu-able role as a go-between, heading off the endless con-frontations between Churchill and those who workedwith him. He enjoyed a special licence, not shared bymany, to tell Churchill he was wrong or behaving foolish-ly. He won the respect and gratitude of Churchill's wifeand most of those who worked with Churchill himself.
As the war moved to a close, minds turned to thefuture of peacetime Britain. Beaverbrook encour.aged Bracken to think of himself as a future Prime
Minister. Both believed that wartime restrictions shouldbe abolished and free rein given to merchant adventurersof the kind that had made Britain great in bygone days.They made bad blood with Labour, so precipitating thebreakup of the wartime coalition.
Bracken became First Lord of the Admiralty in theCaretaker cabinet formed by Churchill to govern until the1945 election. He was a leading Conservative spokesmanat the general election, at which Churchill led the charge,raising scares that Labour would set up a totalitarian state.The Conservatives were heavily defeated, Bracken losinghis own seat in North Paddington. When the Partylooked around for scapegoats, Bracken stood next toBeaverbrook among those blamed.
He quickly got back into Parliament at a bye-elec-tion at Bournemouth. For a few years he applied himselfquite diligently to the business of opposition. Unlikeother leading Conservatives he was not prepared to accepthigh taxation or nationalization, and his hard-hittingopposition to the Bill nationalizing gas attracted muchnotice. But he was out of sympathy with Butler,Macmillan and others who were trying to move the partyto the left. Yet he did not mount open opposition to theirideas. He was content to debunk the "charter-mongers,"as he called them, to Churchill and others.
More progressive Tories probably suspected thatBracken was hoping to climb back into high office onChurchill's coat-tails and were apprehensive of the influ-ence he would wield. But in 1951, when Churchillbecame Prime Minister again, Bracken declined office andannounced his retirement from politics on the grounds ofill health. He became Viscount Bracken of Christchurchin Hampshire, his last constituency, but never took hisseat in the Lords, which he called "the morgue." The onlypreferment that came his way was to be made a trustee ofthe National Gallery. He remained close to Churchill astrustee of the fortune that Churchill made out of hisbooks. He was the instigator of the press conspiracy tocover up Churchill's stroke in 1953.
FINEST HOUR 113/18
Bracken was highly critical of ministers like Butlerand Macmillan, who failed to cut back public expendi-ture. His commentary is contained in spicy correspon-dence to friends. Maynard Keynes, he declared, was "theman who had made inflationrespectable." Even the mildinflation of those days alarmedBracken: "Robin Hood or evenAl Capone," he wrote "was arespectable man compared withthose who created a state ofinflation." The best of Bracken'scorrespondence is very good anda valuable historical source.
Meanwhile he carried on abusiness life as Sir HenryStrakosch's successor asChairman of a South Africanmining house called the UnionCorporation, and of theFinancial News group. In 1945they had bought the FinancialTimes and merged the oldFinancial News into it. It was agreat success story, especiallyfrom the time Gordon Newtontook over as Editor in 1949.
In 1950 Bracken becamechairman of the Board ofGovernors of Sedbergh Schooland made frequent visits there.He gave money to restore its 18th century building as alibrary, over the entrance of which was the message,"Remember Winston Churchill" But it was perhapsindicative of the nature of the relationship that Churchillwas not among his many friends who visited the school.Lady Churchill, having begun by feeling Bracken wasusing her husband, ended up embarrassed that Winstontook all Brendan did for him so much for granted.
In his last years Bracken's health remained indiffer-ent. He used to disappear for weeks on end and, apartfrom a few chosen friends, he had become something of arecluse. He probably drank too much. "I shall die youngand be forgotten," was his constant refrain. Early in 1958he paid the penalty for years of heavy smoking and wasdiagnosed with cancer of the throat. He met death coura-geously although he was not sustained by any religiousbelief. "The blackshirts of God are after me," he told afriend after he had banished an uninvited cleric whohoped to reconcile him to the Catholic Church.
He decreed that his ashes should be scattered onRomney Marsh and ordered his faithful chauffeur to burnall his papers. He had no wish to be the subject of a biog-raphy or to be commemorated . But his friends could notlet go so easily. Harold Macmillan, who had visited him
days before he died, suggested a memorial connected withSedbergh, but the committee led by Sir John Colville andCyril Radcliffe came down in favour of Churchill College.Beaverbrook wrote, dissenting: "His memory would be
overwhelmed by the glory ofChurchill." So, perhaps, it hashappened. But BrendanBracken himself so lovedChurchill that he would nothave minded that.
H
Semper fi: Churchill with Bracken in the blitzed House ofCommons, 1941. Bracken (right) is misidentified as Sir
William Stephenson ("Intrepid") in some books.
ow significant a figurewas he? It is not aneasy question. In poli-
tics he had not the contributionof a man who holds high officefor many years or pioneers anideological crusade, although heshowed prescience and was aprecursor of Thatcherism. Hismain contribution in his owntime was to have sustained, pro-moted and protected Churchill.Without him Churchill mightnot have survived politically, letalone become Prime Minister.He was also a spin doctor parexcellence half a century beforedie term was invented. He wasthe effective founding father ofthe modern Financial Times,
Great Britain's highest quality daily newspaper.The Earl of Longford has written that Brendan
Bracken was the most remarkable man he ever met. Iincline to the view that his significance and interest ismuch more in his personality than in his achievements,however formidable one assesses them: in what he was,rather than what he did. He is like an unforgettable char-acter in a novel. As such he was, I say with gratitude, agreat subject of biography.
It is fortunate that diaries and other contemporaryaccounts as well as his own letters enable one to recreatethe person his contemporaries knew, or thought theyknew. There are, of course, unanswered questions abouthim and his turbulent life. One thing is certain. Heinspired immense affection among a large circle of friends.The room in this college, for which they subscribed abouthalf a million pounds in today's money, is a monument tofriendship and loyalty, two of the central themes of hisown life. In it people can read, as he often did, into thesmall hours, and from their reading, like him, draw inspi-ration for life. I like to think that they will remember withgratitude and reverence, and not without a smile, an earlybenefactor of Churchill College, and an ardent lover ofthis ancient, civilized and heroic nation. ®
FINEST HOUR 113/19
CHURCHILL FOR TODAYIn every sphere or human endeavour,
ne foresaw tne dangers and potential for evil.
SIR MARTIN GILBERT CBE
"W:' hy study Churchill?" I am often asked."Surely he has nothing to say to ustoday?" Yet in my own work, as I open file
after file of Churchill's archive, from his entry into Gov-ernment in 1905 to his retirement in 1955 (a 50-yearspan!), I am continually surprised by the truth of his asser-tions, the modernity of his thought, the originality of hismind, the constructiveness of his proposals, his humanity,and, most remarkable of all, his foresight.
When, in 1919, Churchill called Lenin theembodiment of evil, many people thought it was a typicalChurchillian exaggeration. "How unfair," they exclaimed,"how unworthy of a statesman." In Kiev in 1991, Iwatched the scaffolding go up around Lenin's statue. Thehero of 70 years of Communist rule was about to be takendown, his life's work denounced as evil by the very peoplewho had been its sponsors, and its victims. They knewthat Churchill had been right from the very outset: Leninwas evil, and his system had been a cruel denial of indi-vidual liberty.
From the first days of Communist rule in Russia,Churchill did not doubt for a moment that the Com-munist system would be a blight on free enterprise and aterrible restraint on all personal freedoms. Yet when hewarned the American people in 1946, at Fulton, Mis-souri, that an Iron Curtain had descended across Europe,cutting off nine former independent States from freedom,he was denounced as a mischief-maker.
Nevertheless, Churchill was always an optimistwith regard to human affairs. One of his favourite phrases,a Boer saying that he had heard in South Africa in 1899,was: "All will come right." He was convinced, even duringthe Stalinist repressions in Russia, that Communismcould not survive. Throughout his life he had faith in thepower of all peoples to control and improve their owndestiny, without the interference of outside forces. Thisfaith was expressed most far-sightedly in 1950, at theheight of the Cold War, when Communist regimes werebattening down the people of many capital cities, amongthem Warsaw, Prague, Vilnius, Riga, Budapest, Bucharest,Sofia, Tallinn and East Berlin.
Honorary member Sir Martin Gilbert has been Churchill's official bi-ographer since 1968. This article was first published in Finest Hour73; it is republished because of its particular relevance in 2002.
At that time of maximum repression, atthe height of the Stalin era, these wereChurchill's words, in Boston: "The machin-ery of propaganda may pack their minds withfalsehood and deny them truth for manygenerations of time, but the soul of man thusheld in trance, or frozen in a long night, canbe awakened by a spark coming from Godknows where, and in a moment the whole
structure of lies and oppression is on trial for its life."
Churchill went on to tell his audience: "Captivepeoples need never despair." Today the captive peoples ofEastern Europe are indeed emerging from their longnight. The Berlin Wall has been torn down. Tyrants havebeen swept aside. The once-dominant Communist Partyis now an illegal organisation throughout much of whatused to be the Soviet empire.
Churchill's foresight covered every aspect of ourlives, both at home and abroad. He was convinced thatman could destroy all the evils that raged around him,whether it was the evil of poverty or the evil of mutual de-struction. "What vile and utter folly and barbarism it allis"—such was his verdict on war.
Once a war had been thrust on any nation,Churchill was a leading advocate of fighting it until it waswon, until the danger of subjugation and tyranny hadbeen brought to an end. He was equally certain that, byforesight and wisdom, all wars could be averted: providedthe threatened states banded together and built up theircollective strength.
This is what the Western world failed to do inthe Chamberlain era: Churchill always regarded the Se-cond World War as the "unnecessary war" that could havebeen averted by a united stand of those endangered byHitler. Forty years later, in the Reagan-Thatcher era,Churchill's precept was followed. The result is that undertheir successors the prospects for a peaceful world weremuch enhanced.
Churchill also believed in what he called (in1919) "the harmonious disposition of the world among itspeoples." This recognition of the rights of nationalitiesand minorities is something that, even now, the leadingnations are addressing. One of Churchill's hopes (in 1921)was for a Kurdish National Home, to protect the Kurdsfrom any future bully in Baghdad. Perhaps that is the nextof his visions that will come to pass.
In every sphere of human endeavour, Churchillforesaw the dangers and potential for evil. Many of thosedangers are our dangers today. He also pointed the wayforward to our solutions—for tomorrow. That is one rea-son why his life is worthy of our attention. Some writersportray him as a figure of the past, an anachronism, agrotesque. In doing so, it is they who are the losers, for hewas a man of quality: a good guide for our troubled decadeand for the generations now reaching adulthood. ¥>
FINEST HOUR 113/20
Wit&Wisdom
Q^ I am trying to locate a quota-• tion of Churchill to the effect,
"we will not give up till we are chok-ing on our own blood..." Can youhelp me? —[email protected]
A# On 28 May 1940, as France• was reeling under the German
onslaught, Churchill called a meetingof the full cabinet—extraordinary,since this would normally be dis-cussed by the war cabinet. Churchillmay have wanted the outer cabinet tobe present, knowing that they wouldbolster his determination to fight on.(In the war cabinet, Halifax was stillarguing for exploring, via Mussolini,Hitler's terms for a cease-fire.)
Two versions of Churchill'swords were recorded by Hugh Dal-ton, Labour MP, Minister of Eco-nomic Warfare (not in the war cabi-net). In his memoir, The Fateful Years1939-1945 (London, 1957), 335.Dalton writes that Churchill said:
"We shall go on and we shall fightit out, here or elsewhere, and if at lastthe long story is to end, it were better itshould end, not through surrender, butonly when we are rolling senseless onthe ground."
But Dalton also added a mar-ginal note with a revised quotation:
"If this long island story of ours isto end at last, let it end only when eachof us lies choking in his own bloodupon the ground."
John Lukacs in Five Days in Lon-don: May 1940 (New Haven: Yale Uni-versity Press, 1999), p. 5, speculatesthat Dalton may have later "showedthis diary entry to Churchill, who dienadded or corrected the phrase."
Wisdom from the MalakandThe precision bombing of enemy
strongholds in Afghanistan, which soremarkably minimized non-combat-ant casualties, is a tribute to the tech-nological competence and moral pre-cepts of America and Britain. Never-theless there are interesting thoughtson "collateral damage" in WinstonChurchill's first book, The Story of theMalakand Field Force (1898).
After describing Sir BindonBlood's decision to send a punitiveexpedition against the Mamunds,Churchill wrote:
"In pursuance of these orders,the 2nd Brigade on the 29th de-stroyed all the villages in the centre ofthe valley, some twelve or fourteen innumber, and blew up with dynamiteupwards of thirty towers and forts...."
He then adds: "I feel this is a fit-ting moment to discuss the questionswhich village-burning raises....Manymisconceptions exist on this subjectin England. One member of theHouse of Commons asked the Secre-tary of State whether, in the punish-ment of villages, care was taken thatonly the houses of the guilty partiesshould be destroyed. He was gravelytold that great care was taken. Thespectacle of troops, who have perhapscarried a village with the bayonet andare holding it against a vigorouscounter-attack, when every momentmeans loss of life and increase of dan-ger, going round and carefully dis-criminating which houses are occu-pied by 'guilty parties', and which byunoffending people, is ridiculous.Another member asked, 'Whetherthe villages were destroyed or onlythe fortifications?' 'Only the fortifica-tions,' replied the minister guilelessly.
"What is the actual fact? Allalong the Afghan border every man'shome is his castle. The villages arefortifications, the fortifications thevillages....Throughout these regions,every inhabitant is a soldier from thefirst day he is old enough to hurl astone, till the last day he has strengthto pull a trigger, after which he isprobably murdered as an encum-brance to the community.
"Equipped with these correctedfacts, I invite the reader to examinethe legitimacy of village burning forhimself. A [British brigade]...is at-tacked at night...The assailants retireto the hills. Thither it is impossibleto follow them. They cannot becaught. They cannot be punished.Only one remedy remains—theirproperty must be destroyed. Theirvillages are made hostage for theirgood behaviour. They are fully awareof this, and when they make an at-tack on a camp or a convoy they do itbecause they have considered the costand think it worth while. Of course,it is cruel and barbarous, as is muchelse in war, but it is only an unphilo-sophic mind that will hold it legiti-mate, to take a man's life, and illegiti-mate to destroy his property."
—JOHN CUTCHER
Wisdom of the MomentA selection of Churchillian remarks
compiled by Laurence Geller
"An appeaser is one that feeds acrocodile, hoping it will eat him last."
"His [Lenin's] sympathies coldand wide as the Arctic Ocean, his ha-treds tight as the hangman's noose.His purpose to save the world, hismethod to blow it up."
"There are no people in theworld who are so slow to develophostile feelings against a foreigncountry as the Americans, and thereare no people who, once estranged,are more difficult to win back." 15
FINEST HOUR ii3/21
THE CARTOON THAT SHOCKED THE P.M.TIM BENSON
From July 1949 until May1958, Leslie Illingworthwas responsible for over
90 percent of the political car-toons that appeared in Punch,Britain's famous humour mag-azine. Under the editorship ofE.V. Knox (1932-49), Illing-worth had been allowed lati-tude for controversy in his car-toons. Under Kenneth Bird(1949-52) conspicuousprogress in design was notmatched by editorial pluck.Illingworth was thus increas-ingly restricted to statementsof fact and the journal's notebecame more muffled.
The General Electionof 1950 found Punch hanginguncertainly betwixt parties, aconservative journal in tentativesearch of socialist readers. Illingworth wascalled upon to stay well above the issues andpersonalities. When Kenneth Bird retired aseditor, Malcolm Muggeridge succeeded him, and it issafe to say the proprietors got more than they bargainedfor. During "Mug's" five controversial years Punch be-came more pointed, relevant, and audacious than it hadbeen since its early, radical days under Douglas Jerroldand John Leech. No longer was the cartoon apt to danglefrom a tenuous snippet of news.
The practice of pairing the cartoon with a signedpiece began on 21 January 1953. The question of WinstonChurchill's retirement as Prime Minister was raised gentlyin a cartoon of 4 March 1953, and somewhat less tactfullyseven months later (Alexander at Babylon being pressed byhis officers to appoint a successor, October 7th).
According to Claude Cockburn, a colleague andfriend, Muggeridge was seeking a new market for satire,and saw that "the prerequisite for success was to make aloud nasty noise of the kind nobody associated with
Mr. Benson represents the Political Cartoon Society (www.politicalcar-toon.co.uk). Individual (£20) or family (£25) membership includesquarterly newsletter, cartoon news, ephemera, exhibitions, discountson original art, lectures and seminars. Details from P.C.S., Hille House,132 St Albans Road, Watford, Herts. WD24 4AE England, tel.(01923) 242769, fax (01923) 228110.
Punch." Cockburn met Mug-geridge at the station inLimerick in late January1954. "As he sprang fromthe train [he] remarked withprofound satisfaction thatthe issue of the magazine hehad just sent to the presswas 'likely to get us all in alot more hot water.'" Thiswas the number of February
3rd, with an Illingworthdrawing of the PrimeMinister, listless at hisdesk, the face registeringunmistakable effects ofthe partial paralysis hehad suffered the preced-ing summer, the bookcase
of his writings full—andclosed. The caption was
taken from Psalm 114:"Man goeth forth unto his
work and to his labour until theevening."
On the facing page in an accom-panying editorial entitled "A Story Without an
Ending," Muggeridge ostensibly traced the decline of aByzantine ruler, Bellarius: "By this time he had reached anadvanced age and might have been expected to settle downto an honourable retirement...Instead he clung to powerwith tenacious intensity. His splendid faculties...began tofalter. The spectacle of him thus clutching wearily at all theappurtenances and responsibilities of an authority he couldno longer fully exercise was to his admirers infinitely sor-rowful, and to his enemies infinitely derisory."
Churchill was bitterly hurt by the cartoon: "Yes,there's malice in it. Look at my hands—I have beautifulhands...Punch goes everywhere. I shall have to retire ifthis sort of thing goes on." Churchill's doctor, LordMoran, was also shocked by what he considered a viciouscaricature of the Prime Minister: "There was somethingun-English in this savage attack on his failing powers.The eyes were dull and lifeless. There was no tone in theflaccid muscles; the jowl sagged. It was the expressionlessmask of extreme old age."
According to Cockburn, Illingworth's cartoon im-mediately had the desired effect. Leading conservativepublicists and politicians howled with rage, helping with
FINEST HOUR 113/22
Happier days: IUingworth's earlier cartoons of Churchill were al-most uniformly laudatory, which reminds us of Canning's lines:
"But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send,"Save, save, oh save me from the candid friend!"
their din to notify one and all that Britain had somethingnew in the way of magazines. Inevitably a cartoon of thiskind—a kind that, in relation to the Grand Old Man, hadbeen taboo for years—produced a little friction and head-shaking even inside the office. Muggeridge later recalledthat "Perhaps the biggest row [with the proprietors] cameover a cartoon of Churchill...suggesting that it was time hewent. This was so obviously true, had been so frequentlyremarked, especially among Churchill's closest associates,that it infuriated everyone." It was rumoured that after triepublication of the cartoon in Punch, Muggeridge becameknown in Churchill circles as "Buggeridge."
Angry letters poured in, one from Churchill'sparliamentary private secretary Christopher Soames indefence of his father-in-law. As Churchill later recalled:"Christopher wrote to that awful fellow, Muggeridge. Heknows him, lives in his neighbourhood. Muggeridgewrote back saying that he was a journalist. If he heldopinions, he must express them; said he was one of mygreatest admirers, but that I was no longer up to the job."
unch historian R. Price classified the cartoong the editor's "calculated exhibitions of what
die-hard readers considered bad taste" and reportedthat it cost the magazine "a number of regular, inheritedreaders." He also believed the venture showed that Punchwas once again "a claimant for power." Circulation im-proved, but advertising declined.
Muggeridge and Punch finally parted companyat the end of 1957. IUingworth suspended his associationfive months later and, except for a pair of non-politicaldouble pages in 1959, did not appear for four years.
In 2003, the Political Cartoon Society is plan-ning an exhibition of Leslie IUingworth's Punch drawingsfrom the 1930s and 1940s.
Cartooning in Britain has an unrivalled heritagegoing back over many hundreds of years. From Hogarththrough Gillray through Low and Vicky to the present day,cartoonists have had a major impact on both readers andhistorians. The corrupt New York politician Boss Tweed fa-mously blamed Nast's "damned pictures" for his decline.Low's Col. Blimp, Vicky's drawing of Alec Douglas-Home,Bell's Major with underpants have created images thatburned in the mind.
Today there are more political cartoonists em-ployed by British newspapers and periodicals than everbefore. The Political Cartoon Society mines this rich veinof visual history through the cartoon medium. Our aimis to promote the "political" cartoon in an amusing, in-forming and educating way. ®
IUingworth asFaithful Booster
Above: "We are ready toface it," Daily Mail,20 May 1940.
Left: "Seventy YearsOn," Daily Mail,30 November 1944.
Below: "Member forWoodford," Punch,30 November 1949.
FINEST HOUR i i 3 / 2 3
1AXIC J U M P S E S FROM THE 1AXI
"You Look Like a
or Bloody Pirates"
—WSC, HMS Renown, 1943
VIC HUMPHRIES
On 12 August 1943, as an 18-year-old radar operator, Iboarded HMS Renown in
Scapa Flow. On the 24th we set sailacross the North Atlantic into the teethof a hurricane—my first long voyage inthe Royal Navy. We had no escort,since we were a fast ship.
My cruising station was a sur-face warning radar set atop the mast,95 feet in the air, reached by a steel ladder. Everythingwas secret and we had no idea we were going. When wegot to Halifax, Nova Scotia, the captain told us we wereto pick up a VIP. We were only supposed to stay 24hours, but the Italians had just capitulated, which appar-ently delayed our guest a bit longer; we finally sailed on14 September 1943, with our VIP, Prime Minister Win-ston Churchill.
The PM was returning to Britain from the"Quadrant" conference with Roosevelt, which fixedAnglo-American strategy for the final stages of the war.He had spent over a month in Roosevelt's company atQuebec, the White House and Hyde Park. (See Gilbert,Winston S. Churchill'VI: Chapter 30.)
Mrs. Churchill was with the party; also MaryChurchill, who celebrated her 21st birthday aboard onour return voyage. During the trip, Mary and a naval of-ficer went onto the quarterdeck, which was awash inheavy seas. Here the future Patron of the Churchill Cen-ter and Societies was nearly washed overboard. Her fathertapped her on the arm and told her to use more sense!
The PM came into our recreation area as wewere playing Tombola (Bingo). We all stopped and stoodto attention. Observing our varied types of warm clothes,which we always wore at sea in lieu of uniforms, hesmiled and said, "You look like a gang of bloody pirates."
As we arrived at the entrance to the Clyde in adense fog, we were instructed by the navigation officer
Mr. Humphries ([email protected]) lives in Australia.
Welcome aboard: Behind WSC are Mary and Clementine (possibly separatedby the ubiquitous Inspector Thompson); to Churchill's and the Admiral's left areNaval Aide Tommy Thompson and (at far right) Brendan Bracken, unmistakablewith his mop of red hair (see Charles Lysaght's article on page 16).
that the ship would be under control of radar going upthe river, which we traversed at 27 knots, constantly tak-ing ranges and bearings until we dropped anchor. Radarwas fairly new, and Mr. Churchill, impressed by this per-formance, asked to see the men responsible. The naviga-tion officer and operators including this writer were sum-moned and he congratulated us on a job well done. Heshook my hand. I haven't washed it since....
Before leaving Renown Churchill addressed ourship's company and then attended Divine Service. SirMartin Gilbert quotes Elizabeth Layton (now TCC/ICSHonorary Member Elizabeth Nel), his secretary, whowrote: "I must say I've seldom felt so moved by anything,those dear sailors lined up, the Old Man singing away,the Padre (he was a marvellous man) in his robes, the few(brass) instruments forming a small band which some-how sounded very quiet and touching."
We were destined for another Churchill voyage.On 8 November 1943, Renown sailed for Ply-mouth from Scapa Flow, where she again
picked up the PM and his party, which now included hisdaughter Sarah. This time the destination was Cairo, fora plenary session with Roosevelt before the Big Threemeeting in Teheran. We were accompanied by HMSLondon, a city class cruiser which was transporting someof the PM's staff and Sarah's husband, the comedian Vic
FINEST HOUR I 13 / 24
itedareble
Comings and goings. Left: the Prime Minister is piped aboard at Halifax. Right: Mary Churchill thanks the Skipper for a safe voyage (she was almostwashed overboard!) Below: the family leaving Renown, Grenock, Scotland. The two blokes on the lower deck don't know who is on the upper deck....
We refueled at Algiers andsailed on, arriving atMalta on November 17thto a terrific welcome bythe inhabitants.
Whilst in Malta,Churchill was laid upwith a sore throat, so hesent London on aheadwith some of his staff andwe didn't sail for Alexan-dria until midnight onNovember 19th. As wecaught up to London nearCrete, two German air-craft buzzed the ship, butdid not attack.* We de-cided they were reconnais-
sance planes which might presage a more worrisome visitfrom the Luftwaffe, so Renown slipped into top gear andwas quickly making 32 knots. HMS London did not havethe speed to keep up with us and we signalled to them,SEE YOU IN ALEX. We arrived in Alexandria at noon on No-vember 21st.
After the crew were allowed a run ashore (dread-ful place for innocent young sailors), Renown left Alexan-dria on 23 November and headed for Rosyth dockyard,where the ship was prepared for the British East IndiesFleet based in Trincomolee, Ceylon. Churchill havingbeen on board a couple of times, we were called the"taxi" by the Home Fleet. M>
Oliver, who was with ENSA, the British entertainmentparty which gave shows for the troops.
We sailed from Plymouth at 1830 hours on the12th and once again this was to be a rough voyage. Wewere lashed by heavy seas, the quarterdeck being awash agood deal of the time. Sir Martin Gilbert notes that dur-ing the trip Captain Pim, who ran the travelling maproom, tallied up the PM's wartime travels to date:"Churchill's total distance by sea and air was, Pim calcu-lated, 111,000 miles. He had spent 792 hours at sea, and339 hours in the air."
We arrived at Gibraltar on the 15th. There ithad been arranged for a York aircraft to fly Churchill toCairo, but the aircraft failed to materialise, so the PMsuggested that the journey be continued aboard Renown.
*Gilbert's Volume VII records a buzzing incident earlier,off Pantelleria; evidently there were more than one!
FINEST HOUR ii3/25
125-100-75-50 YEARS AGO
Michael McMenamin
125 Years Ago:
Winter 1876-77-Age 2
"He thought you would
understand..."
Winter found Winston's parentsstill experiencing the aftermath
of Lord Randolph's unfortunate inter-ference in the marital difficulties ofLord and Lady Aylesford, the former aclose friend of the Prince of Wales, andthe latter a former lover both of HisRoyal Highness and, more recently,Randolph's brother, Lord Blandford.
In addition to leaving the countryto serve as unpaid secretary to his fa-ther, the newly appointed Viceroy ofIreland (unpaid so that Randolph couldretain his seat in Parliament), LordRandolph was required as punishmentto tender a formal written apology tothe Prince in language dictated by,among others, Prime Minister Disraeli.
Winston's father having done so("however ungraciously," wrote oneclose observer), the Prince of Wales re-fused to "accept" the apology, appar-ently in a fit of pique. This did not sitwell with Lord Randolph's father, theDuke of Marlborough, who made hisobjections known. So it was that on 10January 1877, the day before Winstonand his mother arrived in Ireland, thePrince of Wales allowed the followingletter to be sent to the Duke on his be-half by Francis Knollys: "The Prince ofWales desires me to say that as he re-ceived and retained your son's 'apologyand retraction' he thought you would
understand he had accepted it....ThePrince having lately heard, however,that some uncertainty and misappre-hension exists in your mind on the sub-ject, directs me to let you know that inaccordance with the above named con-dition, he has received your son's 'apol-ogy and retraction.'"
100 Years Ago:
Winter 1901-02-Age 27
"Before what tribunal and
before what judge?"
During the winter of 1901,Churchill was reading and much
impressed by Seebohm Rowntree'sPoverty, A Study of Town Life. In De-
cember, Churchill wrote to a friendabout the book: "It is quite evidentfrom the figures which he adduces thatthe American labourer is a stronger,larger, healthier, better fed, and conse-quently more efficient animal than alarge proportion of our population, andthis is surely a fact which our unbridledImperialists, who have no thought butto pile up armaments, taxation and ter-ritory, should not lose sight of. For myown part, I see little glory in an Empirewhich can rule the waves and is unableto flush its sewers."
Speaking at Blackpool on 9 Janu-ary, Churchill commented unfavorablyon one aspect of a recent speech by theLiberal imperialist Lord Rosebery.While critical of the current govern-ment—a sentiment with whichChurchill agreed—Rosebery had, inChurchill's words, gone "out of his wayto disparage the House of Com-mons.... When Lord Rosebery told usthat Parliamentary Government is onits trial, and we remember what theHouse of Commons is and what its his-tory is—that at this moment it iselected to represent the enormous massof the thinking people of this country,that it is the only place for certain inthe whole range of the Empire wherethe most unpopular opinions can be ex-pressed with the greatest freedom, thatthe House of Commons more than anyother institution has shaped and di-rected the free constitutions of Europe,that it is the only institution in thecountry which shows that the Govern-ment belongs to the people and not thepeople to the Government, then, I ask,if it is on its trial, before what tribunaland before what judge?" (Cheers.)
Throughout the winter, Churchillcontinued to give speeches on the warin South Africa and the three perma-nent army corps scheme of St. JohnBrodrick, the Secretary of State for War.Brodrick's original proposals had in-cluded a call for conscription. After thatproposal had been dropped, Churchilltold the Commons on 6 March that"my right honourable Friend has finallyand thoroughly abandoned the fataland foolish theory of conscription,which no doubt would be still of some
FINEST HOUR 113/26
125-100-75-50 YEARS AGO
use providing occupation for membersin another place [the House of Lords]who had not got too much to do....Myright honourable friend, in a very elo-quent passage in his speech, said thatconscript soldiers did not fight at Alma,Waterloo, or Delhi. I thought my hon-ourable friend might have said withequal force that it was not conscript sol-diers who had fought the long wearywar in South Africa so steadily and un-flinchingly. I do not wish to say any-thing uncomplimentary to any foreignnation in view of their extremely deli-cate susceptibilities but I should like tosee the conscript soldiers who would dowhat the British soldiers have done inSouth Africa."
75 Years Ago:Winter 1926-27"No Evil Worse"
Age 52
On December 28th, Churchillwrote Beaverbrook: "There arevery great things to be done by
those who reach a certain scale of com-prehension & of power in their earlyprime. As long as health & life are ours,we must try to do them not to be contentexcept with the best & truest solutions."
A civil war in China was the occa-sion in January for sending additionalBritish troops to China to protectBritish lives and property from attacksby bandits. This action had drawn par-tisan criticism on the grounds that itcould lead to an intervention in thecivil war on behalf of Chiang Kai-shekand against the Communists. Writingprivately to Baldwin in January fromthe South of France, Churchill offeredboth his support and a rationale forprotecting British lives against irregulararmed enemies which resonates today:
"There is no evil worse than sub-mitting to wrong and violence for fearof war. Once you take the position ofnot being able in any circumstances todefend your rights against the aggres-sion of some particular set of people,there is no end to the demands that willbe made or to the humiliations thatmust be accepted."
During this period Churchill rarely
let pass an opportunity to express hisopposition to Socialism and its evil twinCommunism. At Manchester on 4 Feb-ruary he said: "The difference is thatthe Communist seeks to achieve hisends by violence, and the Socialist seeksto achieve the same ends by humbug."After the laughter and cheers had faded,Churchill posed a rhetorical questionbased on Lenin's new market-based eco-nomic policy imposed after Russia'splanned economy had faltered: "Who isthe man who had the most expensiveeducation in the world? The answer isLenin. His education cost at least fivemillion lives and involved the exile of atleast three million other Russians."
Earlier that winter, at Malta in De-cember, Churchill had played his lastgame of polo, having written to hisfriends: "If I expire on the ground, itwill at any rate be a worthy end."
50 Years Ago:Winter 1951-52 •"How he loves it!"
Age 77
Issues involving China and the SovietUnion were prominent during the
early days of Churchill's second term asPrime Minister, as he left on 31 De-cember for a visit to America. He wroteto his wife near the end of the tiringjourney: "I have just finished whatseems to be the most strenuous fort-night....! shall indeed be delighted toget home. I never remember 3 weekstaking so long to live, although it hasbeen all kindness & compliments."
Five plenary sessions were heldwith the Americans on NATO, navaland other defense matters, the SuezCanal and Egypt, the Korean War andBritish reaction if China were to launchair attacks across the Yalu River.
It was the last issue which providedChurchill the opportunity for a dra-matic triumph in the House of Com-mons. It came late in February, lessthan three weeks after the death of KingGeorge, and only five days after "an ar-terial spasm" (according to his physi-cian, Lord Moran) left Churchill weak-ened and his close friends and advisers
conferring on ways to persuade him tomove to the relative tranquility of theHouse of Lords while still remainingPrime Minister.
In America, Churchill had told ajoint session of Congress that theBritish reaction, if the Chinese were toescalate the war in Korea, would be"prompt, resolute and effective." TheLabour Party seized upon this and fileda motion of censure in the House ofCommons, charging him with seekingto make war on China to foreshortenthe Korean conflict.
Churchill kept his powder dry and,during the debate on the motion on 26February, dropped his bombshell, re-vealing that, while in power, the Labourgovernment had twice agreed to bombany Chinese bases from which air at-tacks on UN troops in Korean werelaunched: "Her Majesty's Governmentconsider that the decision of our prede-cessors was right and, in my view, inboth cases it justifies the words which Iused in the United States Congress,namely 'prompt, resolute and effec-tive.'"
A newly elected Conservative MP,Nigel Nicolson, described Labour's re-action to Churchill's broadside in a let-ter to his father Harold: "I was sittingdirectly opposite Attlee. He was sittinghunched up like an elf just out of itschrysalis, and stared at Winston, turn-ing slowly white. The Labour bencheshowled—anything to make a noise tocover up the moment of shock. Win-ston sat back beaming. [Aneurin]Bevan—a most charming, dangerousman—did his best to launch a counter-attack, but it was too late. We had
won.In the same letter to his father,
Nicolson, who was unaware ofChurchill's arterial spasm five days ear-lier, described the PM's appearance:"How much better he is in the Housethan on a platform! How he loves it! Heis looking white and fatty, a most un-healthy look, you would say, if he wereanyone else, but somehow out of thissickly mountain comes a volcanicflash." Afterwards, Churchill himselfdescribed the debate to Nigel Nicolsonas "a great day, a great triumph." 15
FINEST HOUR 113 / 27
CHURCHILL AND THE NAVY"im.iemaitioiii.al C^Jkuircliill i^oniereiices Uiidauiifedi by Odkfs
The 2001 San Diego Conference welcomed over 200 members from Britain, Canada and the United States, welldown from expectations but a success throughout. Nobody who booked through September 10th appears to have can-celed except for health reasons, but the hotel received zero registrations after September 11th. Martin Gilbert not onlymade splendid contributions of his own, but took part in the Q&A after the Gallipoli panel, standing in line to askhis questions. But when he got to speak he said he had been ticking off his list of queries as earlier questioners spoke
and realized he had little left to add! Judy Kambestad, to whom we owe much, tells us how it all came to pass.
Seventeenth International Churchill Conference,Alyeska Prince Hotel, Girdwood, Alaska. September2000: Why would we, Judy and Jerry Kambestad, be
invited to a meeting with the Board of Governors? Wequickly find out: Judy is asked to chair the planning com-mittee for the 18th International Churchill Conference.
To be part of the planning committee was on ouragenda; chairing it was not. But some of us southern Cal-ifornia Churchillians had been lobbying for a conferencehere for several years.
The Center's Board responded by deciding to holdthe 2001 conference in San Diego. President John Plump-ton and conference chairman Bill Ives visited San Diego,inspected several hotels and, after consulting with mem-bers in the area, selected the Hotel Del Coronado. Afterextensive negotiations with the hotel, a contract wasdrafted and signed. Now an "on-site" person was neededto run the show. Even though I was the appointed Plan-ning Chairman, it quickly turned into a Judy and Jerryshow along with some expert help from the SoCal Plan-ning Committee.
Develop a budget. Find a committee. Plan andschedule the conference events. Which comes first, thechicken or the egg? In November I meet with JohnPlumpton in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where we are at-tending The Lincoln Forum. The theme is to be"Churchill and the Navy"; Sir Martin Gilbert and MaxArthur will be speakers; Richard Langworth will moderatetwo panels on the Dardanelles and Singapore. We are tobudget for 210 attenders but plan for 300. John gives mea copy of the Williamsburg Conference budget as an ex-ample. The local planning committee will report to BillIves, the Board member chairing this conference.
Armed with the Williamsburg data, I came to the
Judy Kambestad is a Churchill Center Associate who devotedly servedher fellow members by directing events in San Diego.
realization that a great number of activities needed to beconsidered, including registration, printing, posting,tours, hotel liaison, publicity, but especially budgeting.
I also quickly realized that you can't draft a budgetwithout numbers, so we took a trip to the Del, the first ofmany lunches on Jerry. The hotel assigns a representativeto each conference to handle all the details. Ours gave mea tour of our meeting rooms, a list of hotel services withprices and what is called a "function profile": a spread-sheet by date showing the function, room, time and spe-cial requests. All changes were put into the function pro-file. It was the "bible" of the conference.
With Alaska's 2000 conference program as an ex-ample, we obtained bids from various printers for the pro-gram and registration packet. A trip to the Post Officeconfirmed that non-profit bulk mail would save us$1500, even though some recipients received their invita-tions within the week, others a month later.
It was now time for a committee to plan details andfinalize arrangements. Every southern California memberreceived an invitation to assist. The first meeting was asuccess—great ideas were discussed as we planned the per-fect event: "Churchill and the Navy" with a Southern Cal-ifornia flair. Paul and Ellen Alkon were responsible forstudents and authors. Richard and Martha Applegate vis-ited Chambers of Commerce and Tijuana, Mexico togather information, and hosted our lunch meetings intheir hilltop home overlooking San Diego. Ruth Lavineoversaw conference registration. Terry and Marlane Mc-Garry took on the formidable tasks of corporate fundrais-ing and media relations. Bond Nichols handled the golfand tennis arrangements. Bob Sullivan volunteered toarrange the harbor cruise. Jerry Kambestad took on theNixon Library and the selling of Churchill Stores items.Curt and Gert Zoller, who were on the original commit-tee, had to withdraw because of medical situations, buttheir early help was much appreciated. We later added Ted
FINEST HOUR U3/28
Clockwise from top left: Fred Lockwood, Nigel Knocker, David Boler, and the new portrait of Sir Winston for the Queen Mary, commis-sioned by The Churchill Center (much more on this next issue). Conference chairman Bill Ives (center) with Jerry and Judy Kambestad. LorraineHorn gets a buss and a thanks for her long, faithful service as our Administrator. Barbara Langworth holds a silver tray for her long, faithful ser-
vice as our Keeper of the Database. Governors Ives, Horn, Plumpton, Canary, Barber, Russell, Platt and Mather. Chris Bell, JohnRamsden, Richard Langworth, the Singapore Panel. David Boler, Nancy Canary, Bill Ives with mariachis. John Plumpton with Luce Churchill.
FINEST HOUR 113/29
Guests of Honor. L-R: Winston Churchill with Winston Churchill. Lynn Druckman of Tucson, Arizona, holding up "The Sign" in downtownCoronado, California. Official biographer Sir Martin Gilbert, who spoke brilliantly as always (and twice), with David Druckman.
Kagan, who helped at the conference; and Professor RayBenkendorf, who invited students at colleges and univer-sities to the black tie dinner.
Bill Ives came out to meet with the committee. Wedeveloped a calendar and set deadlines: registration copyApril 1st for editing, registrations mailed June 1st, and soon. I worked and reworked the complicated budget.Everything had a contract! Floral centerpieces were a con-tract (and if you noticed, we used the same ones through-out the conference to save money even though some flagshad been snitched). The mariachi musicians at the fiestaevening were a contract. The audio-visual equipment wasa contract. The coaches were a contract. I received con-tracts by fax using an updated machine with a new dedi-cated line. We forwarded contracts to Bill Ives for ap-proval, and every change meant a rewritten contract. Myfiles bulged, the fax machine ran out of paper, my life wasan e-mail screen.
Registration packets were finally mailed by June30th. Lesson #1 (of many): printers do not neces-sarily meet deadlines and it takes a long time to
stuff 2300 registration packets and put them, sorted andbanded, in non-profit bulk mail order—which is not al-ways in consecutive postal code order!
John and Ruth Plumpton's was the first registrationreceived. It was exciting! By mid-July we were receivingfive or more a week. Lorraine Horn at the Churchill Cen-ter business office received the forms and checks, thenfaxed the forms to us. Jerry Kambestad designed a spread-sheet to track the numbers. Sofari sogoody, as Churchillwrote from Africa: our projections were adding up.
Meanwhile, Jerry was busy with the graphic artistand the vendor designing the sale items. The "Action This
Day" post-it note took three months of mailing back andforth to Jim Muller in Alaska, who has an original framedover his desk, to be sure of the right size and color. GailGreenly at Churchill Stores was consulted on each saleitem. Ads for the printed program came in. Jerry coordi-nated these. We soon discovered that no two graphicartists use the same software. Some of the design was stillbeing resolved in early October, facing a mid-month printdeadline.
Terry and Marlane McGarry's work on corporatefundraising paid off. They brought in Mark Burnett (Eco-Challenge), Duvall Hecht (Books on Tape), Altadis (Up-mann cigars), J Wine Company, British Airways and theBritish Consulate. Their news releases were generating e-mails (my e-mail address was in the articles) requestinginformation. We lunched on the Queen Mary and recon-firmed arrangements for the black tie dinner there. Welunched at the Del Coronado. The committee lunched atthe Applegate's and went over every detail. Half of ourblock of hotel rooms were booked. We were on a roll!
Then came September 11 th.We received phone calls later that week inquiring if
we were still holding the conference. Bill Ives sent a "nevergive in" letter (FH112) to all the registrants, and, remark-ably there were only a handful of cancellations for healthreasons. But, although additional registrations came infrom the local area, the number of hotel rooms reservedfor the conference remained virtually the same from thatdate forward.
On October 31st California Governor Gray Davisannounced that the Golden Gate and Bay bridges in SanFrancisco, the Vincent Thomas bridge in Long Beach,and the Coronado bridge (connecting San Diego to thepeninsula with our hotel) had been targeted by terrorists
FINEST HOUR 113/30
between November 2nd and 7th, our conference dates. Ireceived two phone calls and one cancellation, and we hada couple no-shows at the conference. Drivers on the Coro-nado bridge observed armed national guardsmen at eachend, but it would have been easy for a terrorist with atruck full of explosives to drive to the center of the bridge,then press the button. "We are such an open society....
We opened the 18th International Churchill Con-ference with 189 registrants, and with the walk-in regis-trants, students and Daughters of the British Empire wetotaled 200 at the sessions and 243 at the black-tie dinner
to hear Winston S. Churchill. The speakers were excel-lent, people enjoyed the harbor cruise, the singers closedthe conference on an upbeat note and those who regis-tered stood firm. The conference was a success and at lastcount, all the bridges were still standing.
If you were a Del mouse in room 7629 late on theafternoon of November 6th, you would have found thecommittee indulging in cheese and crackers and toast-ing each other with McGarrys' Pol Roger Champagne fora job well done by a group of dedicated SoCalChurchillians.
SPONSORSAND SUPPORTERS
We must not forget how importantconference sponsors are to makingthese events financially viable, andreasonably affordable. It costs a lot ofmoney to put on a Churchill confer-ence because prior conferences haveset a very high bar, and transporta-tion costs for guests from Englandare extremely high. Herewith thanksand a tip of the hat to all those manygenerous people and companies whomade the 18th InternationalChurchill Conference possible.
Queen Mary Seminar SponsorsIntercollegiate Studies InstituteBooks on TapeChurchillbooks.comRobinson Inc.
Program AdvertisersAltadis, H. Upmann CigarsAnonymousRichard and Martha ApplegateRandy BarberBiz2BizWIRE.comBooks on TapeDaniel H. Borinsky, Esq.FSK Realty ServicesMark Burnett ProductionsChurchill Book SpecialistChurchillbooks.comExperienceEngland.comLaurence GellerGlencannon PressHM Consul-General Peter HuntJ Wine CompanyJerry Kambestad
Judy KambestadMoyle Design GroupPol Roger et Cie.John PlumptonRobinson Inc.Strategic Hotel Capital Inc.
Admirals and Commodores(Registrations plus...)David and Diane BolerBeverly and Gary BonineNancy CanaryCraig and Lorraine HornJerry and Judy KambestadRuth LavineRichard and Rose LeahyT.W. and Marlane McGarryAndrew and Christy NessLinda and Chuck PlattRuth and John PlumptonMatching FundsBritish Petroleum
Student SponsorsPaul and Ellen AlkonRichard and Barbara AndrewsCelwyn Philip BallBeverly and Gary BonineDonald and Irene CornRobert H. DunnJonathan HayesJ. Willis JohnsonJerry and Judy KambestadF. Stuart KuhnRaymond LavineRuth LavineFrank and Jean MarshallW. Stuart McKeeEarl and Charlotte NicholsonRichard and Jenny StreiffJacqueline Dean Witter
Planning CommitteeBill Ives, Conference ChairmanJudy Kambestad, Comm. ChairmanEllen and Paul AlkonMartha and Richard ApplegateJerry KambestadRuth LavineTerry and Marlane McGarryBond NicholsJohn PlumptonBob Sullivan
Operations AssistanceLorraine HornProf. Ray BenkendorfRaili and David GarthRuth PlumptonKathie UtzShirley HartmanTed Kagan
Arrangements AssistanceBiz2BixWIRE.comWilliam Faulkner BlackBorders BooksCooper CommunicationsCoronado Chamber of CommerceDaughters of the British EmpireDel DestinationsHarbor ExcursionsBill and Virginia IvesLos Angeles TimesMoyle Design GroupNixon LibraryOld Town TrolleyOscar's Studio Presentation ServicesThe Queen MaryElizabeth Prescott SingersSir SpeedySwank Audio VisualsHotel Del Coronado M.
FINEST HOUR ii3/31
HEROES
WERE UBIQUITOUSChurchill ana His Jerome Relations;
James Jerome or the 10th Mountain Division
JUDY BARRETT LITOFF
"One of the greatest of causes is being fought out, as foughtout it will be, to the end. This is indeed the grand heroic
period of our history, and the light of glory shines on all."—WSC, 27 April 1941
In February 1945 at Yalta in the Crimea, WinstonChurchill met with Franklin Roosevelt and Josef Stalin toplan for the postwar world. As Churchill pressed for free
elections in Poland and the establishment of democratic gov-ernments in other liberated nations, his young Americancousin, 21-year-old Staff Sergeant James Colgate Jerome ofBennington, Vermont, made history of another sort as hefought with the famous 10th Mountain Division in theApennine Mountains of northern Italy.
James Jerome, second son of William TraversJerome, Jr. and Hope Colgate Jerome, was born on 23 Janu-ary 1924 in Yonkers, New York. His great-grandfather,Lawrence Jerome (1820-1888), and Churchill's grandfather,Leonard Jerome (1818-1891), were brothers, well-known fortheir financial prowess, and for making and losing severalfortunes on Wall Street. Lawrence and Leonard married sis-ters, Catherine and Clara Hall; Clara became the Americangrandmother of Winston Churchill. James's grandfather,William Travers Jerome (1859-1934), the crusading NewYork district attorney who courageously stood up to Tam-many Hall, was double first cousins with Jennie Jerome(1854-1921).
Winston Churchill followed the career of his Amer-ican cousin with interest and admiration. He met William inthe 1920s, but no record of their conversation survives.William's son, William T. Jerome, Jr. (1890-1952), a distin-guished Vermont lawyer and states attorney and a secondcousin of Churchill, actually had a closer relationship withChurchill than his father. Whenever Churchill visited theUnited States, he always contacted Jerome, Jr., and their twowives, Clementine and Hope, were also good friends.
Ms. Litoff is Professor of History at Bryant College in Smithfield,Rhode Island, and author often books and more than 100 articles,most of which focus on the Second World War. Readers interested inthe Jeromes may contact TCC member Winston Lindsley of theJerome Family Foundation, 4913 Tydfil Court, Fairfax VA 22030,telephone (703) 273-7189.
James C. Jerome, yesterday and today
Two lettersfrom Churchill toWilliam Jerome, Jr. areknown. The first, fromChartwell on 17 March
1934, expressed "pro-found sympathy on the
loss of your Father....I knewhim in the days when he was
fighting so actively. He seemed tome to be a Roman Figure, and I shall always preserve pleas-ant recollections of the dinner he gave me at the Club inNew York." The second letter, dashed off on 30 December1943 from Marrakesh, Morocco, where Churchill was meet-ing with Montgomery and Eisenhower to plan the invasionof Europe, thanked Jerome, Jr. for writing to him, "as I amalways interested to have news of my relations in America."
By the time William Jr. received the letter from Mar-rakesh, his son, James Jerome, had served with the10th Mountain Division for almost ten months. In
April 1943, following his first semester at Cornell Universityin Ithaca, New York, James had volunteered for the 10th be-cause "I just thought Fd like the ski troops."
He joined an elite group of 13,321 skiers, mountainclimbers, and winter sports enthusiasts, including CharlesMcLane, captain of the Dartmouth ski team; Torger Tokle,the world's greatest ski jumper; even veteran Finnish skiers ofthe Russo-Finnish war. Until June 1944, the Divisiontrained at Camp Hale, Colorado, 9,200 feet high in theRocky Mountains. They endured grueling maneuvers as theylearned to ski, climb, and fight under the most brutal condi-tions. Carrying 90-pound packs, they prided themselves intheir ability to ski across rugged terrain in sub-zero, blizzardconditions. Drifts of 40 to 50 feet of snow were commonnear the summit of the peaks.
Training under extreme conditions afforded the vol-unteers the opportunity to develop an unusually strong senseof camaraderie and friendship that would serve them wellwhen they faced actual combat in the rugged mountains ofnorthern Italy. On 22 June 1944, the 10th was transferred to
FINEST HOUR 113/32
Camp Swift, Texas, where it remained until December 1944,when it was relocated to Fort Henry, Virginia in preparationfor shipment to northern Italy later that month. Arriving inItaly in early January, the Division made its way to the frontlines in the Apennine Mountains by the middle of themonth.
Under the command of World War I Medal ofHonor recipient General George P. Hays, the Division wascharged with overwhelming the German defense line alongRiva Ridge and Monte Belvedere-Monte dellar TorraciaRidge. In American hands these positions would provide ob-servation as far as the Po Valley, some 20 miles to the north.On three previous occasions, 5th Army units had unsuccess-fully attempted the assault.
As darkness fell on the bitterly cold evening of Feb-ruary 18th, expert climbers from the 86th Mountain In-fantry Regiment began the treacherous assault up the 1500-foot, almost perpendicular, cliff to the Riva Ridge. Their rig-orous training at Camp Hale had prepared the men for justthis type of action. German troops manning the ridge con-sidered the cliff impossible to scale; they were unpreparedfor the attack and, despite waging three minor counterat-tacks, were driven out by that afternoon.
On February 19th troops from the 85th and 87thRegiments, including James Jerome, made a bayonet attackup the slopes of Monte Belvedere. Five days later MonteBelvedere and the surrounding peaks were firmly in Ameri-can control. The Germans' northern Italian stronghold hadbeen broken—at a cost to the 10th of 903 casualties, ofwhich 203 were killed.
Recalling those difficult days, James recently re-marked, "That campaign was rough." Then, rememberingthe war games in Colorado, he added that whenever thefighting got a little hard in Italy, the standard joke of men ofthe 10th was that it was "better than Camp Hale."
Fighting continued northward along the ridge lineduring March. For his part, Staff Sergeant Jerome wasawarded the Bronze Star for the "initiative, resourcefulness,and intelligent performance" that he demonstrated, whichresulted in his battalion "beating off many counterattacksand inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy."
The final phase of the war in Italy began on April14th when the 10th Mountain Division spearheaded the 5thArmy drive by leading the attack toward the Po Valley. Fight-ing was fierce and casualties heavy, but on April 23rd, the 10thwas the first division to reach and cross the Po River. Over thenext several days, they moved so rapidly that they sometimesgot ahead of the enemy.
The Division's final combat began on 27 April inthe vicinity of Lake Garda, where it cut off the Germans asthey attempted to escape to the Brenner Pass. On May 2nd,with advance units of the 10th moving northward throughthe Brenner, Nazi forces in Italy surrendered. In 114 days ofcombat, the 10th Mountain Division suffered 992 killed inaction and 4,154 wounded. Among the dead was James'sboyhood friend and beloved cousin from Bennington, DavidColgate Dennis.
The 10th Mountain Division destroyed five eliteGerman divisions. General Hays called their assignment themost important and hazardous in Italy. General Mark Clark,Commanding General of the 5th Army in Italy, looked uponthe action as "one of the most vital and brilliant in the [Ital-ian] campaign." But perhaps the greatest praise for the 10thcame from Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, architect of theGerman defense, when he called the Division "outstandinglyefficient."
In July 1945, the 10th Mountain Division was sentback to America for 30 days of rest and relaxation. Planscalled for the Division to be sent to the Pacific, but thank-fully, the war ended with the dropping of the two atomicbombs in August, and James was spared a second round ofcombat.
After the war, James Jerome, like millions of otherAmerican veterans, took advantage of the G.I. Bill,. using it to finance the completion of his education
at Cornell, where he graduated with a B.S. degree in geneticsfrom the College of Agriculture in 1949. Eventually Jamesmarried, had three children, and became a successful dairyand cattle farmer in Bennington.
Not for some years did James Jerome begin to pon-der the full significance of his relationship to his cousin Win-ston. As he has since said, he didn't give Churchill muchthought during the war because "when you're young, incombat, and faced with unrelenting danger, you get prettyselfish in your thinking."
At the beginning of Churchill's second Premiershipin October 1951, James happened to be traveling in Englandand Scotland to buy cattle for his farm in Vermont. When helearned the results of the election, he sent roses to Mrs.Churchill on behalf of the American Jeromes. Learning thathis American cousin was in Britain, Churchill immediatelyextended an invitation to come to Chartwell. Unfortunately,James had to leave the next day on an air cargo plane to ac-company his recently-purchased cattle back to America.However, the following year, James's older brother, WilliamT. Jerome, III, and his family did visit the Churchills atChartwell.
James Colgate Jerome was the only Jerome cousinof Winston Churchill to participate in combat during WorldWar II. James's older brother William, who later becamepresident of Bowling Green State University in Ohio, servedstateside with Army Intelligence but did not see combat.James and William and their male descendants are the onlyAmerican Jeromes to carry on the paternal family name ofChurchill's mother, Jennie Jerome. After retiring fromthe cattle and dairy business in the early 1980s, JamesJerome, who still lives in Bennington, distributed his cher-ished Churchill mementos to his three children. Today, forexample, a large charcoal drawing of Winston Churchillproudly hangs in the great room of James Colgate Jerome,Jr.'s meticulously restored 1768 farmhouse in Bennington,as a reminder to his son, James, III, of his famous Churchillrelation. $
FINEST HOUR i n / 3 3
"I WAS ASTONISHED BY MOROCCO"*Celia Sandys In Her Grandratner's Footsteps
*Winston Churchill's article ky tkis same title appeared in tke Daily Mail, 6 February 1936 (Woods C286),
reprinted in tke Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, 1975.
My grandfatherfirst went toMorocco in De-
cember 1935. Like all histravels it was a workingholiday, during which hewould paint seven can-vasses, write three chaptersof Marlborough and anumber of newspaper arti-cles, and discuss politicswith Lloyd George andLord Rothermere, whowere also wintering in theNorth African sun. Itwould be the first of sixvisits over the course of 23years. On this occasionmy parents, who had beenmarried just four months,spent some time withhim. He wrote to Clemen-tine, "It is vy nice havingDiana and Duncan here.They are so happy. Theysay it is a second honey-moon." My memories ofmy parents are of lessgood times, so for me itwas nice to visit a placewhere they had been reallyhappy.
His 1936 article inthe Daily Mail shows howquickly Churchill fellunder the spell of whatwas then a French colony:"Morocco was to me arevelation. Reading aboutthe Moroccan question inthe newspapers or officialdocuments affords not theslightest impression of the charm and value of this splen-did territory." Towards the end of some thousand wordshe confesses himself "captivated by Marrakesh. Here in
Sunluc ( rli i .iiul Alexander, Hotel La Mamounia, Marrakesh
these spacious palmgroves rising from thedesert the traveller canbe sure of perennial sun-shine, of every comfortand diversion, and cancontemplate with cease-less satisfaction thestately and snow-cladpanorama of the AtlasMountains. The sun isbrilliant and warm butnot scorching; the aircrisp, bracing but with-out being chilly; the daysbright, the nights cooland fresh." Of course mygrandfather always wentto Marrakesh in the win-ter. When we retracedhis footsteps there in Au-gust it was a good dealwarmer, scorching in thedesert, but we too werecaptivated.
My husband Ken andI set off with our chil-dren, Alexander and So-phie, on the last researchtrip for my book on mygrandfathers travels. Wearrived in Tangier, wherehe had landed in 1935;and also, incidentally,where his ancestor andhero, John Churchill thefirst Duke of Marlbor-ough, had served forthree years when an 18-year-old ensign. Here westayed at El Minzah, adelightful hotel built in
Moroccan style around a central courtyard not muchchanged in appearance since Churchill occupied room146, but modernised and comfortable. The terrace beside
FINEST HOUR 113 / 34
the pool was our favourite place for lunch or eveningdrinks while the courtyard provided a wonderful atmos-phere for dinner. From the city centre, the shops and soukwere within a short walk.
Tangier, like most places in Morocco, is a charmingmixture of the old and the new. Streets bustle withtraffic, but step through one of the arched gate-
ways into the medina and you are rapidly transportedback a couple of centuries as you thread your way throughthe narrow, age-old alleyways lined with the open frontedshops of the souk. Everything anyone might want seemsto be available: carpets, caftans, jewellery for the visitor;scrawny legs of lamb, rice and spices for the housewife.Haggling is meant to be part of the fun. The vendor startsat about double the price at which he may eventually bepersuaded to sell. So one has to begin by offering consid-erably less than the asking price.
We went for lunch to the magnificent Mirage Hotel,right on the coast, looking across the sea to Spain. Thebeach was completely deserted and when we asked theway down to the sea we were told it was off limits becausethe King was staying nearby and might arrive at anyminute. At this point the head waiter told me he hadknown my Aunt Sarah when she had lived in Malaga, andthat he would see what he could do. A telephone call later,we were on our way down a narrow path to an idyllicsandy beach which we had all to ourselves.
The American Legation in Tangier had offered tohelp in my research and we found it through a modestwooden door in a narrow alley between old Moroccanbuildings. Here Thor Kuniholm had set out material re-lating to Churchill's visits. Millions of words have beenwritten about my grandfather but now, on my third book,I am no longer surprised that there is always somethingnew to discover. So it was at the American Legation. Herewere notes dictated by Harry Hopkins just after a break-fast consultation with Churchill who, "in bed, in his cus-tomary pink robe," was drinking red wine because of his"profound distaste for tea with skimmed milk."
There was interesting information about Churchilland the Pasha of Marrakesh, Thami Al Glaoui. This cos-mopolitan head of a great Berber family, known variouslyas The Lord of the High Atlas and the Black Panther, wasChurchill's host on several occasions. A keen golfer, hisplus fours and golf shoes were often glimpsed beneath hisArab robes. He played golf on his private course with mygrandfather and invited him to traditional feasts with allthe grandeur of the feudal ruler he undoubtedly was.
The Hon. Celia Sandys is a Trustee of The Churchill Center and ICS,UK. Following her 1999 tour of South Africa, some asked if she would bedoing any more. She will accompany a tour, "In Churchill's Footsteps," toMorocco in late October, 2002. For information contact Annie Austin atCLM Leisure, fax: (44) (207) 235-3851, telephone (44) (207) 235 0123.
Fez to Casablanca
From Tangier we moved on to Fez. It was here thatThami El Glaoui entertained Churchill during hisfirst visit. The feast included a dance by a hundred
women. Describing it he wrote, "My taste is more attunedto the Russian ballet but the natives seem to have beenthrilled by this for a thousand years." There was no re-search to be done in Fez as my grandfather was there foronly two days, but we thought it would be an interestingdiversion on the way to Casablanca. By road from Tangier,a motorway can reduce the journey to some two and onehalf hours but we stuck to the normal road which, afterrunning along the Atlantic coast, turns inland through therolling hills and wheat lands of northern Morocco.
In Fez we stayed at the Meridian, a comfortable,modern hotel with a magnificent view across the roofs ofthe medina to the hills and kasbah beyond. The medinain Fez is home to some three hundred thousand people. Aguide is virtually essential to any purposeful expedition.Once among the maze of narrow, dark alleyways, wheregoods are transported by mule, one finds one has goneback several centuries. The only obvious concession tomodern time is electric light and the occasional wood ormetal worker using an electric tool which brings one backto the present day.
Our guide took us to a tannery where, in a honey-comb of vats, men trample hides in various mixtures ofdye. We were each given a sprig of mint to sniff to coun-teract the all-pervading and very unpleasant smell. Wewere then led to the carpet warehouse where, over minttea, we had to be quite firm that we did not intend tocarry away a carpet! If we had, the array of choices wouldhave been unbelievable. The pottery, situated outside themedina on account of the black smoke from kilns fuelledwith olive pips, was worth a visit. We left there armedwith a handsome yellow and blue bowl.
From Fez we drove to Casablanca by motorway, athree-hour journey. The modern Casablanca is a commer-cial centre with none of the mystery invested there byHumphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. We were theresimply to visit the Hotel d'Anfa, where Churchill andRoosevelt met in 1943, and to see the Villa Miradorwhere my grandfather stayed, which is now the residenceof the American Consul General.
The Hotel d'Anfa turned out to be no more than anempty shell standing in a quiet residential area. The younggirl caretaking this derelict building had no understandingof its historic significance or the whereabouts of the VillaMirador, where I had arranged to meet Paul Malik fromthe American Delegation. However, as I approached a po-liceman some 200 yards along the road, I found that theimposing set of security gates behind him marked theVillas entrance.
The building, obviously refurbished several timesduring the last half century, has changed little in exterior
FINEST HOUR ii3/35
appearance and the room, just inside themain door, set up in 1943 as my grandfa-ther's map room, has been preserved as asmall museum, the walls covered by pho-tographs taken at the time. We wanderedround the beautiful garden and could eas-ily imagine Churchill and his colleagueswalking between the palm trees discussingthe latest session of the conference.
Following the ten-day conference,Churchill planned to spend a few days inMarrakesh before continuing his month-long tour of the Middle East, while Roose-velt was intent on returning immediatelyto America. Churchill wanted his fellowstatesman and friend to accompany himto the "Paris of the Sahara": "You cannotcome all this way to North Africa with-out seeing Marrakesh," he said persua-sively. "Let us spend two days there. Imust be with you when you see the sunset on the Atlas Mountains."
From Casablanca we took the trainto Marrakesh, travelling much thesame route along which Churchill
and President Roosevelt drove and tooktheir picnic lunch. Marrakesh has spilledinto the countryside well beyond thepink walls which were its limits on mygrandfather's first visit, but the walls andthe city within have hardly changed.Viewed from outside, the medina, fromwhich spring the towers of theKoutoubia and Kasbah Mosques, ap-pears to be just as he painted it in 1936and again in 1943, the one occasion he set up his easelduring the Second World War.
The most popular part of the souk in Marrakesh isless congested than those in Tangier and Fez, and displaysmuch the same wares; but venturing beyond the normaltourist beat brings one into narrow alleyways where awestern face is seldom seen.
The most magnificent sight is the spectacle of thesnow covered peaks of the Atlas Mountains caught by thesetting sun. I had fortunately experienced this on a previ-ous visit, as on this occasion, in July, the mountains wereobscured by haze and dust. I had also made excursions intothe mountains, where Churchill took elaborate picnics andpainted. A short car drive away is the Ourika Valley, withTinerhir somewhat further.
During his wartime visits my grandfather stayed at theVilla Taylor. Legend has it that Mrs. Taylor sold the villaafter the war because, as a staunch Republican, she was in-censed that the Democrat Roosevelt had slept in her bed.
After an intermediate owner, the Comtede Breteuil, the villa was bought by thelate King of Morocco, who intended toturn it into a residence for the CrownPrince. Since then it has remained empty;it became unsuitable because it is over-looked by newer buildings.
We were denied admittance by twoobdurate policemen who were deaf tomy family connections and historical in-terest. At the Hotel de Ville the Head ofGeneral Affairs interrupted his businessto try to obtain permission, but anhour's efforts failed to find anyone will-ing to provide it. The historic villa seemsdestined to deteriorate, like the emptyshell of the Hotel d'Anfa at Casablanca:the two buildings in Morocco whichplayed a significant part in the SecondWorld War.
Soon after their arrival Churchill in-sisted Roosevelt accompany him up thetower of the villa to look over Marrakeshand see the changing colours of thesnow-covered peaks of the Atlas as thesun went down. Two of his staff made achair of their arms and Roosevelt waslifted from his wheelchair and carried upthe winding stairs to the roof-top. Re-clining on a divan, Roosevelt was sotaken by the scene he said to Churchill,"I feel like a sultan: you may kiss myhand, my dear." In his diary Churchill'sdoctor recorded, "We stood gazing at thepurple hills, where the light was chang-ing every minute. 'It's the most lovely
spot in the world,' the PM murmured." Marrakesh hasdeveloped over the years, but the lovely vista out over thecity towards the mountains remains, although it is nolonger possible to appreciate it from the Villa Taylor.
After five days at El Saadi, a very comfortable hotelwhere I had stayed on my previous visit, we moved. for our last night to the grandeur of La Mamou-
nia where apart from his wartime visits my grandfatherhad always stayed. There have been many famous visitorsto this beautiful hotel but the one they take the greatestpride in is Winston Churchill. His association with thehotel is perpetuated by the Winston Churchill Suite andthe wonderful collection of photographs in the corridorleading to it. (See Finest Hour 108.)
We spent our last day lazily splashing around in themagnificent pool in the beautiful garden that my grandfa-ther had painted. Over breakfast on the terrace the nextmorning we all agreed that we wanted to return. $
FINEST HOUR 113/36
itooKs, ARTS
& CURIOSITIES
"The Beacon or theWestern ^ay or lire"Ricnara M. Langwortn
War Speeches1939-45, byWinston S.Churchill.Three vol-umes, 1,622pages, boundin leatherwith gilt pageedges, page-markers,marbled end-papers,
$178.50 plus shipping. Order fromthe Easton Press, 47 Richards Avenue,Norwalk, Connecticut 06857, tele-phone (800) 367-4534.
io were Winston Churchill'sspeechwriters?," a noted
statesman once asked Churchill's offi-cial biographer. "There weren't any,"Sir Martin Gilbert replied—"he wroteall his speeches himself." The assertionwas greeted with incredulous disbeliefby Douglas Hurd, then foreign minis-ter of Great Britain.
That someone other than thepolitician uttering them is responsiblefor the words of politicians seems nat-ural nowadays; yet the hiring ofspeechwriters is a relatively new prac-tice, an outgrowth of the importancevested nowadays in polls, analysts, and
This review is partly an abridgement of an in-troduction to the Easton Press edition whichis included with each set. We are grateful toEaston Press for inserting a Churchill Centerbrochure into each set shipped.
focus groups, manifestations of mod-ern politics that are possibly responsi-ble for the low esteem in which votershold politicians. Do people not enterpolitics to advance certain deeply heldbeliefs, goals or ideals? What happensto them? How serious can they be ifthey have to employ others to enunci-ate their views?
For Churchill, who learned state-craft in the palmy, placid days ofQueen Victoria, it was inconceivablethat anyone but he should craft wordslike those we read in this new Defini-tive Edition of his war speeches. Norwas his practice unique. Every states-man of serious mien, from Gladstoneand Lincoln to Theodore Rooseveltand David Lloyd George, from RamsayMacDonald to Clemenceau and FDR,wrote his own speeches. They wrotethem because they had become na-tional leaders on the premise of somegrand scheme or set of ideas, whichthey knew intuitively how to present.
For Churchill in the 1940s, thegrand scheme was to stand against thegreatest threat to liberty yet known inthe world, until other nations, "hith-erto half-blind, were half-ready." Thiswas not necessarily the approach ofChurchill's colleagues, many of whomwould have preferred to escape the warby a "deal" with Hitler's Germanywhich would leave Britain and her Em-pire intact. Churchill's greatest achieve-ment was convincing them, in thedarkest weeks of 1940, that no accom-modation with Nazi Germany couldever be possible.
Churchill's war speeches, collectedhere by the Easton Press for the firsttime in nearly half a century, have gonedown among the greatest orations inthe English language for multiple rea-sons. There was a rhythm to them,what Robert Pilpel calls a roast beefand pewter robustness, that not only
recalls the urgency of those terribledays but makes the reader proud to bea member of the English-speakingtribe. "Nothing is so exhilarating,"Churchill once wrote, "as to be shot atwithout result." Almost as exhilaratingis to read these speeches, written whenthe very survival of civil society was atstake. Though products of their time,the speeches represent an era we cancomprehend better in the wake of Sep-tember 11th.
A recent Churchill Center debatefastened on why Neville Chamberlainthought it right to step down as PrimeMinister in May 1940, after surviving avote of confidence with an 80-vote ma-jority. Survival is easier today; BillClinton outlasted an equivalent chal-lenge with smaller margins. But this isan era of relative peace and prosperity;not discounting the war against terror-ism, there has been no proximatethreat to liberal democracy since theSoviet Union expired.
"People often forget," Churchill'sdaughter Lady Soames often says, "thatin 1940 there was no guarantee that wewere going to win." Chamberlainstepped down 80 votes to the good be-cause he knew that only a governmentof national unity could prosecute a warlike this. Less than 24 hours later a na-tional government coalesced, by theblessing of Providence, around Win-ston Churchill.
Clement Attlee, the Labour Partyleader who served the wartime coali-tion government as Deputy PrimeMinister and later replaced Churchillas Prime Minister when party politicsresumed in 1945, once said thatChurchill's greatest contribution to thewar was "talking about it." Churchillhimself seemed to agree; after the 1940broadcast in which he had summonedthe resolve to fight the likely Germaninvaders on the beaches and the land-ing grounds, he exclaimed in an aside:"and we shall hit them over the headwith beer bottles, because that's bloodyall we've got." (Incidentally, contrary tothe claims of the late actor NormanShelley, when some of these speecheswere broadcast after delivery in theHouse of Commons, Churchill broad-cast them himself. Careful research »
FINEST HOUR ii3/37
War Speeches, continued...has shown there was never a stand-in,at any time, for any broadcast. Thespeeches were read over the radio bythe Prime Minister, who had first de-livered them in Parliament.)
All the more remarkable is thatWinston Churchill was not a natural,extemporaneous speaker; his son Ran-dolph was much better off the cuff.Throughout his life Churchill sufferedfrom a lisp, an inability to pronouncethe letter "s." By careful application, heturned it into a kind of prop, a per-sonal characteristic which his listenerswarmed to.
He had always committed eachspeech to memory, but after missing aline as a young Member of Parliament,he invariably carried the text, typed in"Speech Form," a kind of poeticarrangement emphasizing the individ-ual phrases and pauses. His impeccabletiming and pace was the result of assid-uous rehearsals. Once he dismissed ananxious valet, who thought Churchillhad summoned him to his bath: "Iwasn't addressing you, I was addressingthe House of Commons!"
These speeches originally consti-tuted seven volumes, one for each
year of World War II and one contain-ing Churchill's speeches in Secret Ses-sions of the House of Commons. Mostof the originals were printed on pulpy,wartime-rationed paper and indiffer-ently bound. Easton Press correctlychose the superior 1951-52 DefinitiveEdition of speeches, also published byCassell, but on much finer paper withtypographically superior text.
Churchill's war speeches need notbe read consecutively. Indeed, thereader may derive more pleasure fromchoosing them at random. For thoseanxious to get to the great ones first,remember that the first 14 speecheswere made before war was declared—but among these, do not missChurchill's reaction to the Munichagreement on 5 October 1938, whenthe rest of his country was praisingChamberlain for having preservedpeace: "We have sustained a defeatwithout a war...and this is only the firststep, the first foretaste of a bitter cup,which will be proffered to us year by
year unless, by a supreme recovery ofmoral strength and martial vigour, werise again to take our stand for free-dom, as in the olden time."
Move then to Churchill's monthsas First Lord of the Admiralty (Septem-ber 1939 to May 1940), particularlyhis famous oration, "The Navy isHere," to the crews of HMS Exeter andHMS Ajax (23 February 1940), whohad hunted down the German battle-ship GrafSpee and liberated hundredsof British seamen aboard the prisonship Altmark. Go on to Churchill's firstspeech as Prime Minister (13 May1940): "You ask what is our policy? Iwill answer in one word: it is Vic-tory..."; then to the finest of them all,on 18 June 1940: "Let us thereforebrace ourselves to our duties, and sobear ourselves that, if the British Em-pire and its Commonwealth last for athousand years, men will still say, 'Thiswas their finest hour.'" Turn to August1940, and his immortal tribute to theRoyal Air Force: "Never in the field ofhuman conflict was so much owed, byso many, to so few...."
The great orations did not end in1940. Perhaps the noblest argumentever made for Anglo-American unitywas delivered by Churchill at Harvardon 6 September 1943. American read-ers will also want to look up his twowartime speeches to the United StatesCongress, on 26 December 1941 ("Ifmy father had been American and mymother British, instead of the otherway round, I might have got here onmy own...") and 19 May 1943 ("I wasdriving the other day not far from thefield of Gettysburg, which I know well,like most of your battlefields....") Andthere are his brief, sad speeches of res-ignation in July 1945, when the Britishelectorate dismissed him "from all fur-ther responsibility for their affairs."
Writing of Churchill's first vol-ume of war speeches in 1941, CecilDriver of The Yale Review suggested:"'Majestic' is, to me, the word thatcomes nearest to indicating Churchill'sessential oratorical quality; it is some-thing that wells up from deep withinthe man himself....Time has beenwhen, to some of his critics, therhetoric seemed more apparent thanthe majesty, and when it seemed that
FINEST HOUR 113/38
he had needlessly adorned the passingepisode with a brocaded panoply ofdiction that ill became its meagre form.But here again the man and the mo-ment have fused into a higher manifes-tation. In Britain's crisis, the grandeurof his manner has matched the gravityof the occasion....
"This book could be analyzedwith profit as an anthology of Englishprose wherefrom one might learnmuch concerning both the orator'stechnique and the Prime Minister'spersonality....More than that, there isin these pages a patriotism which burnsat such intensity that it has tran-scended the boundaries of a state untilit has become the beacon of the West-ern way of life."
All who admire the great man willbe delighted to have these speechesback in print. At just under $180, Eas-ton's set cost less than fine first editionsof the original seven volumes, and lessthan most copies of the three-volumeDefinitive Edition. This represents aliterary service akin to Easton's reprintsof The World Crisis, Churchill's mem-oirs of World War I, and their 12-vol-ume edition of Martin Gilbert's officialbiography, whose later volumes growincreasingly scarce. Everything I saynext must remain subservient to thatoverriding accomplishment.
The faults of this edition are thosecommon to other Easton efforts.
The leather binding is not top quality;heavily varnished, the pigskin cracksaudibly when opened, and the gilt onthe page edges can easily be rubbed offif handled carelessly. In this sense it isnot a "fine binding" in the way thatterm is understood by bibliophiles. Onthe other hand, it doesn't cost $500 ei-ther, and Easton's broad market meansit will reach many people for whom theearlier editions are either unknown orunobtainable.
All credit, then, to the publishers.Now—when can we expect EastonPress to serve humanity (and profits)by a new edition of the ultra-rareCompanion Volumes to Volume V ofthe official biography, Churchill papersfrom 1922 to 1939? The ChurchillCenter will bore them to death withthis request until they acquiesce!
MEMBER DISCOUNTSTo order: list books and prices,
add for shipping ($6 first book, $1each additional in USA; $ 10 mini-mum elsewhere, air more). Mail withcheque to Churchill Center , POBox 385, Contoocook NH 03229USA. Visa or Mastercard welcome;state name, numbers and expirationdate and sign your order.
Writing about
ChurchillLord Jenkins or Hillneao
Churchill: A Biog-raphy, by RoyJenkins. NewYork: FarrarStraus & Giroux,1002 pages, illus.in b&w and color,regular price $40,member price $27
Editors NoteWe would not have thought it possible tolaunch yet another life of Churchill thathad anything new to say, and when Lordfenkins wrote in his preface, "I do not claimto have unearthed many new facts," wewere certain that what followed would bejust another superfluous effort. Not so! RoyJenkins's long and distinguished Parliamen-tary career saw him in many of the officesChurchill once held; his vast experience inthe House of Commons enables him to in-terpret Churchill's life from a well of alliedexperience. His eloquent writing style makesthe book read like a conversation with atrusted and patient friend, explaining allthat we didn't know or failed to grasp. Allthe more remarkable, this accomplished bi-ographer of Gladstone came to change hismind about who was the greatest of primeministers. Finest Hourjr own review will bepublished in our next issue, but we wouldnot be undercutting any praise or criticismit may offer by suggesting that this is a bookyou should not be without. —RML
Lord Jenkins is an Honorary Member of TheChurchill Center and Societies. His remarkswere made at Charrwell on 23 September.
Ipropose to divide my talk into threesections: the shape of the book and
how I came to write it; Churchill andChartwell, which I think is an appro-priate subject for today; and my sum-ming up of WSC and why, at the endof the day, I put him above Gladstone.
Churchill is I fear a long book, athird longer than anything I have everwritten before. I don't like long booksfor their own sake. Indeed in my previ-ous reviewing career I have often com-plained about over-long biographies,mainly American ones, written asthough their value were to be judgedby dead weight on the hoof. ButChurchill's was a long life and covered90 years and two months of which aspan of 64 years was in the House ofCommons and nearly 50 years as a
j minister of one rank or another.
And although it is a big book, Iwould claim that it is not a monstrousbook: first because there are not toomany words on a page (430, which isabout right; anything over 500 greatlyadds to the burden of reading), and be-cause it is printed on such good butthin paper it is of an almost lissomeshape; second because I do not think itcontains much padding. John Grigg, inhis Times review, claimed that it oughtto have been longer, preferably in twovolumes. But I think the day of multi-volume biographies has largely gone,and publishers are certainly not enthu-siastic about them. If the first one isgood, the second is often an anti-cli-max. If the first one is bad, the authorfinds himself with waning enthusiasm,committed to a treadmill.
What I have done is not just toconcentrate on Churchill's period ofgreatest fame and splendour, which isdie best known part of die story, but alsoto deal with bodi die earlier and die laterparts of his life, which as well as havingmuch interest in diem are essential toseeing him and his life in the round.
Nor would I call this an essen-tially political biography. I have de-voted a lot of attention to his life as awriter, with an outpouring of close to
! 50 volumes as well as, particularly inthe 1930s, a flood of newspaper andmagazine articles, some purely pot-boiling but very profitable, and somemore serious and penetrating. I deal in
some details with the complicated butessential and beneficial bargainingwhich accompanied this side of his life.
There was also his painting—ofhigh amateur quality—taken to quitesuddenly, at a moment of heavy set-back when he was 40 years old, havingnever, according to his wife, even beenin a picture gallery before. His art wasa great source of sustenance to him formore than four decades. Some of theresults are reproduced in colour in oneof the picture sections of the book.
I was equally concerned to ex-plore the pattern of Churchill's life,what he liked doing and what boredhim, his reaction to different sorts ofpeople, and some of his extraordinaryeccentricities of behaviour. Althoughthe book is, broadly, extremelyfavourable, it could not remotely bedescribed as hagiographic. I becameconvinced that all really great men havea richly comic side to them, are even tosome extent figures of fun. This wascertainly true of Churchill, as it was ofGladstone, and, to take an off-stage ex-ample, of General de Gaulle. This isbecause they had the self-confidencenot to fear ridicule, which is an impor-tant part of the reason for their beinggreat. But it also makes them some-times behave in a quite ludicrous way.
Why did I decide to writeChurchilP. When it was first suggestedto me I was deeply skeptical. "No, no,"I said, "not my subject and alreadyover-written about." But gradually theidea began to grow on me. After Glad-stone I rather wanted another "big sub-ject." A medium grade one would havebeen like trying to get excited about anamble up Snowdon after returningfrom an Himalayan expedition. OnlyChurchill, clearly the greatest PrimeMinister of the 20th century, couldhold a candle in this respect to Glad-stone, the greatest of the 19th century.And once embarked I never regrettedmy choice, or got remotely bored withChurchill, just as I never had donewith Gladstone.
I now come to the somewhat che-quered history of Churchill andChartwell. Chartwell was purchased inthe summer of 1922. Clementine wasat first in favour, then later turnedagainst on the ground that it would >>
FINEST HOUR ii3/39
Jenkins, continued...involve too extravagant a pattern oflife. Winston bought it cheaply for£5000, say £120,000 at today's values,and £1000 less than he had paid forLullenden, which he had bought in1917 and kept for only a few years. But18 months' work by Phillip Tilden—afashionably light architect of the pe-riod, a sort of Hugh Casson of the1920s—brought the initial cost ofChartwell up to £20,000, nearly a mil-lion today.
Bricklaying for walls and cottagesand the creation of elaborate water-works in the grounds provided almostChurchill's sole physical exertions afterhe played his last game of polo in1927. After his heavy stock marketlosses in the "great crash," the bighouse was closed for the winter of1929-30. But the study was kept openfor WSC's odd writing and proof cor-recting habits, mostly done whilestanding at a high, sloping desk. Bydint of furious journalism and book-writing his fortunes were (a little pre-cariously) restored.
But by February 1937 he had tocontemplate sale. "If I cd. see £25,000I shd close with it. If we do not get agood price we can quite well carry onfor a year or two more. But no goodoffer should be refused," he wrote tohis wife. Then 15 months later furtherheavy losses on the New York StockExchange—the equivalent of a modern£375,000 (he was a singularly unfortu-nate speculator)—forced him to putChartwell more definitely on the mar-ket, and for only £20,000: "five recep-tion rooms, 19 bed and dressing roomsand eight bathrooms occupying a mag-nificent position in a valley on thesouthern slope of the Kentish hills."
Then a white knight in the formof Sir Henry Strakosch* stepped in. Hewas an Anglo-South African financier,but a respectable figure, knighted in1921, a former chairman of The Econo-mist. He did not know WSC very well,and had no motives beyond a firmanti-Nazism and personal admiration.He took over all Churchill's U.S. in-
*For more on Strakosch, and BrendanBrackens role in bringing him in as the saviorof Churchill's fortunes, see Charles Lysaght'spiece on Bracken in this issue, page 17.
vestments at cost—over three timestheir current value—and even paidhim interest upon them. It was a dealwhich would raise eyebrows in thesedays of the Parliamentary Commis-sioner, but it saved Chartwell for an-other eight and one-half years. Curi-ously enough this seemed to make nodifference to Strakosch's relations withChurchill. He was a very occasionalguest at Downing Street and Chequersuntil 1943 when on his death he leftChurchill £20,000.
Chartwell was closed during thewar, with Churchill only visiting it oc-casionally for the inside of a day, togaze rather gloomily at his black swans."I wandered about the valley disconso-lately for several hours," he wrote inJune 1941 at one of the lowest pointsof the war.
The house was re-opened in theearly autumn of 1945, but the financialburden was still oppressive. The wardid not immediately cure the precari-ousness of the Churchill finances.Then in August 1945 Lord Camroseraised from himself and 16 otherdonors a trust to buy and endowChartwell for the National Trust, withthe provision that WSC should live init for the rest of his life and that subse-quently it should be a shrine to hismemory. The sums involved todaysound surprisingly modest: £43,000for the purchase and £35,000 for theendowment.
Ironically, very soon after then,Churchill became far more financiallysecure than he had ever been, as hiswar memoirs began to produce largesums. He bought several adjacentfarms which were however disposed ofin 1957. Chartwell was crucial to hisalmost miraculously complete recoveryfrom his very severe stroke of 1953 andto the early years of his post-195 5 re-tirement. But gradually, with his build-ing and hydraulic works long sincecomplete, with his last book finishedand his agricultural activities aban-doned, there was little left to do exceptgaze at the Weald of Kent. He there-fore used it somewhat less in the finalyears of his life, although he was farfrom abandoning it completely. He lastwent there in October 1964, threemonths before his death.
FINEST HOUR H3/40
A si got deeper into Churchill I_Z\ibund that, presumptuously, I cameto identify with him more than withGladstone. The outstanding feature ofthem both was phenomenal energy, inGladstone's case physical as well as men-tal, in Churchill's mostly the latter cate-gory. I found Churchill's highly ironicalsense of humour (Gladstone's was moreone of boisterous fun) more attuned tomy own. I was also increasingly struckby Churchill's extraordinary combina-tion of an almost puritan work ethicwith a great capacity for pleasure, evenfor self-indulgence. I found that combi-nation very attractive. I illustrate it withtwo examples. On the evening of 1 No-vember 1940, at the height of the Blitz,he told Jock Colville as they approachedChequers: "I should now like to havedinner—at Monte Carlo—and then goand gamble."
But four years later when he, andeven more his family, were looking for-ward to a Chequers Christmas withvictory on the horizon—such a differ-ent prospect from four years before, hearrived late on the evening of Decem-ber 23 rd and immediately announcedthat he proposed to fly to Athens, noeasy journey in those days, at midnighton Christmas Eve, and eat his Christ-mas dinner not in the Bucking-hamshire countryside but in the air be-tween Naples and Athens. By so doinghe probably saved Greece from fallinginto the Communist orbit. It waspartly his high sense of duty, some-times jostling with his liking for plea-sure, but then nearly always winning.But it was also partly his desire alwaysto be at the centre of events, his prefer-ence for danger over boredom, for riskover inertia. The whole expedition, andits moderate success, required hisunique combination of world prestigeand boy scout enthusiasm. It is simplyimpossible to imagine Roosevelt orStalin flying off on such a mission aftermidnight on Christmas Eve.
In the last paragraph of my book,I wrote: "I now put Churchill, with allhis idiosyncrasies, his indulgences, hisoccasional childishness, but also his ge-nius, his tenacity and his persistentability, right or wrong, successful or
I unsuccessful, to be larger than life, asthe greatest human being ever to oc-
Jenkins, continued...
cupy 10, Downing Street."This does not mean that I have
jettisoned Gladstone, the Great OldMan of the Victorian Age. It is a nar-row contest, with Churchill, I nowthink, half a head in front of the other.But it is like asking: "was Mozart or
Verdi the greatest of opera composers?;was Rembrandt or Velasquez the great-est painter?" We are lucky to have allfour of them, just as we are lucky tohave the two political titans, Churchilland Gladstone. Taken as examples ofexuberant, many-sided humanity theyare in a class of themselves amongst the50 British Prime Ministers. $
WOODS CORNERJames W. Muller & Rickard M. Langwortk
Marlborough AbridgedA reader asks, "Is the one-volume
abridged Marlborough worth my time?"The answer is "yes" and "no"....
Churchill's Marlborough is one ofthe great books of the 20th century: it isChurchill's literary masterpiece, and (asLeo Strauss famously said) an inex-haustible mine of political wisdom andunderstanding. I have written about it,chaired an academic symposium on it,and taught it to undergraduates in a sem-inar. It is much to be regretted that it isout of print, and it is one of theChurchill books that The ChurchillCenter is most interested in havingreprinted.
The abridgment by Commager(1968 et. seq.) is much less interestingthan die full version, which appeared infour volumes in Britain and six in Amer-ica, both of these editions seeing severalreprints. In postwar England it appearedagain in a revised two-volume editionwhich is also complete, and the one thatwould be most economical to reprint.
The defects of the Commager edi-tion are two: (1) His introduction doesn'tcapture the full worth of the book, be-cause Commager didn't grasp it; (2) hisabridgment doesn't reflect the full worthof the book, either, because he tilts it somuch toward accounts of battles, whichare exciting and well done, but fail toshow Churchill's mastery of politics.On the other hand, the abridgment is a
good read; it might be used in some col-lege courses, book discussion groups, etc.;
and it would be good tohave the book back inprint in some form. Barnes& Noble seems to do wellby bringing back periodi-
cally the abridgments of Churchill'sWorld War I and II memoirs, and thisabridgment might be enjoy a steady,though probably smaller, sale. But a full-scale edition is better suited to the EastonPress, or to an academic press.
The 300th anniversary of the Bat-de of Blenheim, which is die fulcrum ofMarlborough's story, is coming up on 13August 2004. It strikes me that thatwould be a suitable moment for reprint-ing Churchill's Marlborough. At the sametime, if terms were right, The ChurchillCenter might propose that a universitypress publish the book resulting from ourMarlborough symposium organized atBlenheim Palace in 1998, which broughttogether leading British and Americanscholars to write papers on the book andhas produced a very intriguing manu-script, to be entided Winston Churchill'sLife of Marlborough. —JWM
Woods Corner is a bibliophile's column namedin memory of Frederick Woods, the first biblli-ographer of Winston S. Churchill.
Churchill and IrelandFrom [email protected]
Your website is clearly a huge ef-fort, but there were such glaring errors ona subject I know that I thought I shouldpoint them out: /fh93bks.htm, GeorgeRichard's review of Churchill and Irelandby Mary C. Bromage {FH 93) is litteredwith errors, and an odd bias.
Richard states: "That period sawthe Curragh Mutiny in 1914, whenBritish officers resigned their commis-sions rather than face the possibility ofbeing ordered to fire on the local popu-lace. [After World War I], machinationsrecommenced and in 1920 the Govern-ment of Ireland Act saw partition be-come a fact of life. The following year,the Anglo-Irish Treaty created the IrishFree State. The year after that saw the in-
FINESTHOUR113/41
famous Easter Rising...."The Easter Rising was, rather fa-
mously, in 1916. The Curragh Mutinydescription is misleading—the officers ofthe 3rd Cavalry Brigade said they wouldnot enforce government "Home Rule"policy against the Loyalists; hardly diesame thing, more fascistic than altruistic.
Your reviewer also states: "One ofthe Irish leaders with whom Churchilldealt in engineering the Irish Treaty wasMichael Collins, the Irish RepublicanArmy gunman turned negotiator whowas assassinated shortly afterwards by hisown comrades for his efforts. On hisdeathbed he said, 'Tell Winston we couldhave done nothing without him.'"
This is preposterous. Collins was a"gunman turned negotiator" only in thesense that you might describe Churchillsimilarly. Collins was finance minister ina government elected with overwhelmingsupport, and was the commander-in-chief of the IRA, which at the time couldbe likened to the French Resistance. Thequote attributed to Collins is equally lu-dicrous. Collins's actual quote, on signingthe treaty, was "I tell you, I have signedmy death warrant." And his assassinationoccurred while driving on the road whenhe was shot in the head and died in-standy—no deathbed, no quote.
Editor's response:Collins's remark, "Tell Winston we
could have done nothing without him,"is widely known and often referred to.See for example Martin Gilbert, WinstonS. ChurchillV (1975) p. 894—althoughGilbert is careful to say that this remarkwas made "shortly before his death," not"from his deathbed."
While our website text did misdatethe Easter Rebellion and inaccuratelycharacterize the Curragh Mutiny, thesecomments did not appear in the pub-lished article. Nowadays we post theexact published words, but at that time,much material was posted to our websitein raw form, often before editing, whichis a fairly rigorous process. Most of theparagraph about the Curragh and 1916was edited out before publication. Ourwebmaster has now replaced the postedreview with the actual published version.
We have also changed the descrip-tion of Collins to "revolutionary turnednegotiator." —RML $5
INSIDE THE JOURNALS
Young Winston on the RoadAbstracts by Cnris Hanger
Todd Ronnei: "Churchill in Min-nesota." Minnesota History 57:7, Fall2001, pp. 347-55.
A t the dawn of the 20th century,-tVcitizens desiring nighttime enter-tainment could attend plays, operas,poetry readings, or lectures. Fresh fromhis election to Parliament in 1900,young Winston Churchill agreed to aseries of lectures in the United Statesand Canada before he took his seat inFebruary 1901. He had already em-barked upon a very successful Britishlecture tour, entitled "The War as ISaw It," which recounted his exploitsin the Boer War.
These tours were undertaken forChurchill to generate cash quickly. Atthe time, House members received nosalary for their service in the Com-mons. A member needed to be eitherindependently wealthy, or have an on-going business on which to rely for in-come. Despite the financial success ofhis first books, an unsuccessful Parlia-mentary race in 1899 made his fi-nances precarious. More cash wasneeded quickly. He had just won elec-tion to Parliament and had hoped tobe at least as successful with his lecturesin North America as he had been inBritain. However, because of wide-spread sympathy for the Boers in theirwar against what they felt was Britishimperialism, some lecture receptionswere less than rousing.
The first lecture in Philadelphiawas well received by his audience andthe local press. The next was held atthe Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New YorkCity, where Churchill was introducedby an elderly Mark Twain. Twain pref-aced his introduction with a condem-nation of British and American warswith the Boers and the Spanish respec-tively. However, he gave Churchill awarm welcome to the audience. Al-though Churchill defended his nation'sactions against the Boers, he was
equally respectful toward the Boerfighters, describing them as formida-ble. His sense of fairness toward theBoers, coupled with his wit, readilyconverted any skeptics in the audience.
Churchill encountered roughersailing during his Chicago lecture,which was attended by several Irish-men. But with a slight prevaricationon history, Churchill wove into histalk a story about how the DublinFusiliers had saved the day during animportant South African battle. Thissleight-of-hand history won over hisIrish audience.
Churchill's arrival in Minneapolison 18 January 1901 was met with animmediate request for an interview bya local reporter. Timing was inoppor-tune because Churchill, only justchecked into his hotel, was in his bath.Nevertheless, the interview was con-ducted. Churchill's audience thatevening at the Lyceum Theater wascomplete with the "Microsoft Power-Point" program of its day, the "magiclantern," which used glass slide pho-tographs to give a positive visual effectto his talk. The audience and presswere favorably disposed, with onenewspaper stating that the lecture was,"as absorbingly interesting as it was un-affected and unhackneyed." Anotherpaper noted that Churchill had a drysense of humor; that he had discussedthe positive aspects of the Boer fighterswhile refraining from any negativethoughts he might have harboredabout them.
After the lecture, Churchill visitedthe home of a Mr. Young, a local realestate mogul noted for acquiring in-scribed books for his library. HowChurchill came to be invited, orwhether he inscribed any books for hishost is unknown.
The following night foundChurchill in St. Paul, presenting hislecture to an audience at People'sChurch, selected because it had the
Commemorative Cover #5436(XIC«f B1951 ° 50B1 VTMP.MPV
Issued on the 50th Anniversary ofChurchill's 1951 election victory, with specialWoodford cancellation on Churchill stamps. Freeto members, but you must be on the mailing list.To join the list email or write Dave Marcus ([email protected]) 3048 Van Buskirk Circle,Las Vegas, NV 89121. Extra copies are still avaial-ble from the same address for $3 payable toChurchill Center (or £2 or C$4) payable to ICS.
largest seating capacity in that city.Again, his lecture was well received byaudience and press. Discussed in themedia were Churchill's remarks aboutthe failing health of Queen Victoria. AtYoung's home for dinner the next day,Churchill continued to lament theQueen's condition to a local reporter.To most people then alive, Victoria wasthe only British monarch they had everknown.
Churchill next took his lecture toWinnipeg, after which he again re-turned to Mr. Young's home in Min-neapolis. Discussion continued onwhat effect, if any, the Queen's deathwould have on the integrity of theBritish Empire. Young and Churchill,equally adamant, bet £100, Young wa-gering that the British Empire wouldcease to exist within ten years of theQueen's death. In the event, the Em-pire's demise would take rather longerthan that, but it is not known ifChurchill sought to have Young makegood his bet.
The only unfavorable publicity inMinnesota was caused by two separateincidents. One involved a local widowof an officer who was killed in actionafter being released from a Boer prisonwhich Churchill had helped to liberate.Rebuffed by Churchill, who rudely re-fused to see her, the widow reportedhis insensitivity to the local press. An-other such incident occurred whenChurchill failed to respond promptlyto an invitation extended him by aprominent area family. M>
FINEST HOUR 113/42
QUESTION TIME
P R I M E M I N I S T E R ' S Q U E S T I O N S
Edited and annotated by Paul H. Courtenay
Question Time is that period in the Parliamentary week whereMembers are allowed to ask the Prime Minister any question,governed only by decorum and the judgment of the Speaker asto whether they are genuinely asking questions or (commonly)giving a speech. Churchill was a master of Question Time, andMr. Courtenay provides examples of his wit and command.
Restraint in Public Statements(Or: Donald Rumsfeld's Model)
On 30 September 1942 aMember asked the Prime Ministerto urge all persons with access toinside information to exerciserestraint in public statements orspeculations about Second Frontpossibilities. WSC: "I welcome thisopportunity of again emphasisingthe undesirability of public state-ments or speculations as to the time and place offuture Allied offensive operations, even though suchstatements or speculations are based on inferencesand not, as the question would seem to imply, oninside information."
Invasion WarningsIn 1943, when Churchill announced that
church bells would no longer be reserved for use as awarning of invasion, he was asked what alternativearrangements had been made. WSC: "Replacementdoes not arise. I cannot help thinking that anythinglike a serious invasion would be bound to leak out."
Foot-and-MouthMr. Robert Boothby (Cons., Aberdeen), 6
May 1952, after WSC refused to transfer authorityfor dealing with foot-and-mouth disease in Scotlandto the Scottish Office in Edinburgh: "Is my Rt. hon.Friend aware that there is a torrent of complaintsfrom Scotland at the present time?" WSC: "I amsure my hon. Friend would be fully capable of givingfull vent to any such torrent, but the difficulty isthat we are not sure that foot-and-mouth disease isas well educated on the subject of borders and ques-tions arising out of them as he is." Mr. Boothby: "Ibeg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the
Adjournment." WSC: "I am afraid I cannot under-take to be present when this new red herring isdrawn across the Border."
Gladstone ComparisonsMr. Harold Davies (Lab.),
28 May 1952: "Does the Rt. hon.Gentleman realise the House is get-ting less information on the Koreansituation than his equally great pre-decessor Mr. Gladstone was givingthe House in the Crimean War?"WSC: "I am afraid I have not at myfingers' ends the exact part whichMr. Gladstone took in the CrimeanWar. It was even before my time."
More Red MeatOne of Labour's favourite pastimes was to
imply that the Tories had forsaken the pledges onwhich they were elected. Where, they would ask,was the red meat the Tories had promised? Mr.Gordon Walker (Lab.), 8 July 1952: "Does the Rt.hon. Gentlemen's answer mean that [this] part ofBritain Strong and Free [the Conservative PartyManifesto]...has now been abandoned?" WSC:"Nothing that we set out in our statement of policyhas now been abandoned, and we all look forwardto the moment when we shall be able to ram redmeat down the throats of hon. Members opposite."
UnemploymentMr. Douglas Jay (Lab.), was one of a small
group of Labour economists who had advised theprevious Government on economic projections. On23 July 1952 Mr. Jay asked: "Would we be right ininferring from the Prime Minister's answer [on whatsteps the Government was taking to guard againstunemployment] that he himself has given nothought to this question?" WSC: "That would be arather hazardous assumption on the part of the Rt.hon. Gentleman, who has not, so far as I am aware,at any time in his Parliamentary career distinguishedhimself for foresight." *
FINEST HOUR 113 / 43
Recipes from No. 10:
Blanquette de Veau a I Ancienne
(Veal Stew)
The makings for this flavorful dish are laid out on the chopping board.
££ I "X inner, in peace or war, tended to be the
JL-J longest single event of the day, accompa-
nied by vintage Pol Roger champagne and fine claret
or burgundy....The quality of the food was superb....
Mrs. Georgina Landemare was not only an excep-
tional cook; she could, when required (which was
quite often) put back the time of a meal at short
notice." —Winston & Clementine: The Triumph of
the Churchills by Richard Hough.
BLANQUETTE DE VEAU A L'ANCIENNE(Serves six)3 lbs breast of veal2 pints [40 oz] white stock*
by Georgina
Landemare,
The Churchill
family cook,
1940s-1950s
updated and annotated for the modern kitchen by
Barbara Langworth (b_langworth@ conknet.com)
Rough vegetables [coarsely cut small carrot, 1/2 onion, stalkcelery, 1/2 leek]Bouquet garni [parsley, thyme and bay]3 tablespoons butter3 tablespoons flour2 egg yolks blended with 2 tablespoons creamChopped parsleySalt and pepper112 lb button mushrooms, cooked1/2 lb button onions, cooked
Cut the veal into small pieces, blanch, cool and strain,then cook in the white stock and roughly cut vegetables for1 1/2 hours.
Remove the meat and strain off the stock (you shouldhave about 3 cups). Melt butter in the pot, remove fromheat and stir in the flour. Gently add the stock. Boil for 2 or3 minutes, add the previously cooked mushrooms andonions and replace the meat. Simmer for 5 minutes, and fi-nally add the egg yolks and cream. Do not allow to boilagain. Garnish with the chopped parsley.
*White stock - Recipes are fairly standard and shouldinclude veal and chicken. Freeze in small batches for futurerecipes. This is from A Treasury of Great Recipes by Mary &Vincent Price.
1. Into large kettle put: a 5-lb roasting or stewingchicken, ready to cook, 1 lb veal knuckle bones, cracked, 2carrots, coarsely cut, 1 onion stuck with 3 cloves, 6 pepper-corns, 2 tsp salt, 1 stalk celery with leaves, coarsely cut, 4springs parsley, 1 bay leaf, 1/4 tsp thyme, and 5 quarts coldwater. Bring water to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 3hours.
2. Remove chicken and use for some other purpose.3. Boil the stock rapidly for 30 minutes, then strain
through a sieve lined with cheesecloth. Cool and skim fatfrom surface. Pour into containers and freeze. $
FINEST HOUR I U / 4 4
CHURCHILLTRIVIA
By Curt Zoller ([email protected])
rESTyour knowledge! Most questionscan be answered in back issues of
Churchill Center publications but it's notreally cricket to check. Twenty-four ques-tions appear each issue, answers in the fol-lowing issue. Categories are Contemporaries(C), Literary (L), Miscellaneous (M), Per-sonal (P), Statesmanship (S) and War (W).
1207. On 19 January 1935, Churchillwas unpleasantly surprised by one ofhis son Randolph's rash decisions. Whatwas it? (P)
1208. At the presentation address toChurchill for the Nobel Prize inLiterature, Mr. Siwertz of the SwedishAcademy compared Churchill towhat famous British personality? (L)
1209. When did Churchill learn that hewas selected for the Nobel Prize? (M)
1210. What event allowed Churchill touse the name Sir Winston? (P)
1211. What caused Churchill to order astop to the evacuation of Britishchildren to Canada on 23 Sep40? (S)
1212. On 31 January 1947, what didChurchill say in Parliament about deal-ings with terrorists? (W)
1213. Less than a week after the Wa-vertree election, Randolph Churchillagain caused a violent reaction from hisfather. What was it? (C)
1214. Who was the editor of the 1968Scribner one-volume abridged edition ofChurchill's Marlboroughl (L)
1215. Who were the American andBritish Ambassadors in Tokyo at the out-break of war with Japan? (M)
1216. What financial award came withthe Nobel Prize for Literature? (P)
1217. When did Churchill gave thisearly warning concerning the aerial vul-nerability of the nation's capital? "...thecrash of bombs exploding in London andthe cataracts of masonry and fire andsmoke will warn us of the inadequacy...inour aerial defences. We are vulnerable aswe have never been before." (S)
1218. Whom did Churchill send to Sin-gapore in September 1941 to give him apersonal report on the situation? (W)
1219. Who was British Ambassador to
the United States when Churchill be-came Prime Minister in 1940? (C)
1220. What was the title Churchill origi-nally planned for his only novel? (L)
1221. Who said, "Winston has written ahuge book all about himself and called itThe World Crisis'"? (M)
1222. How old was Churchill when hebecame Prime Minister for the second(or officially the third) time? (P)
1223. At the ARCADIA Conference inDecember 1941, Churchill and Roo-sevelt decided against an immediatebuild-up of American ground forces inBritain. Where did Roosevelt want to putthe American troops? (S)
1224. The English and Austrian Armiesunder the Duke of Marlborough andPrince Eugene defeated the French andBavarians at Blenheim in the War of theSpanish Succession. Was the victory atBlenheim in the 16th, 17th or18th century? (W)
1225. Who commented in 1907 regard-ing Churchill as Undersecretary of theColonies, "The sooner...Mr. WinstonChurchill is sent as an ambassadorto Timbuctoo the better it would be forthe Country and the Empire"? (C)
1226. What is the name of the woman inChurchill's SavroLzl (L)
1227. On 14 June 1928 Churchill spokein the House of Commons about theRevised Prayer Book. What were hiscomments about Church and State? (M)
1228. What in general did Churchill sayabout tyranny when he spoke in Parlia-ment on 14 April 1937 about the Span-ish Civil War? (P)
1229. On 13 May 1901 in his speech onArmy Reform, what did WinstonChurchill prophesy about a future Euro-pean war? (S)
1230. What was "Operation Sledgeham-mer"? (W)
ANSWERS TO LAST TRIVIA (1177 -1206)(1177) The PM's country house is named"Chequers." (1178) Churchill referred to theoutbreak of World War I writing to his wifeon 2Augl4. (1179) The first vessel namedWinston Churchill with WSC's permissionwas a cutter built by Percy Coverdale andlaunched in 1942. (1180) Churchill was notable to retain the Admiralty after Gallipoli be-cause the Tories would not join a Coalition
Government if Churchill remained there.(1181) He recommended compromise andconcessions if the Irish delegates accepted Do-minion status. (1182) The C O . of the USSChurchill is Cdr. Michael T. Franken.
(1183) The estate Churchill inherited wasGarron Towers, County Antrim, Ireland.(1184) WSC's agent for Lord RandolphChurchillvtas Frank Harris, journalist and ed-itor of the Evening News, Fortnightly Review,Saturday Review and Vanity Fair. (1185)Churchill commented on children to his sec-retary Elizabeth Nel when she left to get mar-ried. (1186) Marigold Churchill is buried atKensal Green Cemetery, London. (1187)Churchill wrote on 8Decl 5 to J. L. Garvin:"The Balkans must be left to stew in theirown bitter juice." (1188) Churchill was askedto leave the Admiralty on 27 May 1915.
(1189) The Leader of the House who resignedin 1921 was Andrew Bonar Law. (1190)Churchill commented in Thoughts and Adven-tures: "I would make all boys learn English....But the only thing I would whip them for isnot knowing English." (1191) King George Vwanted Admiralty appointments to be madeentirely on seniority. Churchill insisted thatthey should be made based on qualifications.Churchill ultimately won. (1192) TheChurchill family motto is "Fiel Pero Des-dichado" (Faithful but Unfortunate). (1193)Churchill sent Rear Admiral Arthur Limpusto Constantinople in 1912. (1194) Churchillwas attached to the 2nd Battalion of theGrenadier Guards for training.
(1195) Sir Ernest Cassel gave Churchill £500as a wedding present. (1196) Churchill do-nated his books on Lord Randolph and Marl-borough to the Library of No. 10 DowningStreet. (1197) Louis Mountbatten was ap-pointed Supreme Allied Commander SouthEast Asia Command. (1198) The Epsteinbust of Churchill was cast in 1946. (1199)Operation "Culverin," 1943, was a strategicplan for operations against northern Sumatraand Malaya. (1200) "Moonlight Sonata" wasthe code-name for German air attacks on18Nov40 against targets including Coventry.
(1201) Churchill referred to Kitchener as the"Overburdened Titan" who told him, "...theFleet was ready." (1202) The first book actu-ally started by Churchill was Savrola, but itwas not the first published. (1203) LadyEden had the cats removed from No. 10Downing Street. (1204) Churchill sent one ofhis polo ponies to Sir Archibald Sinclair andkept two for morning rides in Rotten Row.(1205) Churchill's issues as Chancellor werereduction of income tax, widows' pensions,extended old age insurance and cheap hous-ing. (1206) Churchill's comment after the fallof Tobruk was: "Defeat is one thing; disgraceis another. ®
FINEST HOUR 113/45
AMPERSANDA compendium of facts eventually to appear
as a reader's guide.
BRITISH POLITICAL PARTIESDURING CHURCHILL'S CAREERby Prof. Johm Ramsden, Queen Mary & Westfield College
British Union of FascistsFormed by Sir Oswald Mosley in 1932 after he
had left both the Conservative and Labour Parties; asmall fringe group that never won a parliamentary seatand whose violent activities were quickly stopped by theBritish Government in 1934-36. Mosley's later UnionMovement (1948-1979) was even less successful.
Common WealthA fringe group that flourished only during
Churchill's wartime premiership, putting up surrogatecandidates and winning by-elections where no Labourcandidate stood because of the wartime party truce. Itwas largely absorbed by Labour after 1945.
Communist Party of Great BritainFormed in 1920, on an initiative from the
Moscow-run Communist International, and bringingtogether pre-existing leftist groups, it never had morethan a few thousand members or more than a couple ofMPs. It briefly increased its appeal during the 1940s, butwas seriously damaged by the Cold War and was formal-ly wound up after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Conservative Party ("Tories")The party can be traced back to as far as the
Cavaliers (Royalists) of the English Civil Wars of the1640s (which heritage was part of its appeal toChurchill, since his ancestor—an earlier Sir Winston—had fought for Charles I). Reinforced by the growingconcentration of propertied and middle class voters fromthe 1880s, the Conservatives became the dominantBritish Party of the 20th century, and governed Britainfor two-thirds of Churchill's parliamentary career.Monarchist, pro-Empire, socially and politically conserv-ative, it was the principal party of resistance to radicalchange and so prospered in Britain's highly conservativepolitical culture. It was also pragmatic in its political tac-tics, with a strong drive towards winning and holdingpower, notably during the leaderships of Stanley Baldwin(1923-37), Harold Macmillan (1957-63) and MargaretThatcher (1975-90). Both critics and party loyalists con-
tinued to use the label "Tory" as well as the official name"Conservative." Churchill liked to remember his fatheras a leader of "Tory Democracy" in the 1880s, andaccepted the party leadership as a "Tory" in 1940.Churchill was officially a Conservative from the start ofhis career until 1904 (when he became an Independentand soon afterwards joined the Liberals), and again from1924 until his death. He led the Party from October1940 to April 1955. (See also "Unionist.")
ConstitutionalistNot a party but a label adopted by individual par-
liamentary candidates in the early 1920s, mainly ex-Liberals who were on the way over to the Conservatives.Churchill was adopted as a "Constitutionalist" at Eppingin 1924, but joined the Conservatives as soon as he waselected.
Independent Labour PartyFormed in 1893 as a socialist party, it helped
found the Labour Party in 1900, and was thereaftermainly a leftist ginger group within Labour.
Irish Parliamentary Party ("Irish Nationalists")From the 1880s until 1918, between 80 and 86
Irish Nationalist MPs sat in the Westminster Parliament(the Irish Parliament having been abolished in 1801).Led by John Redmond, 1900-1917, the Irish MPs wereimportant supporters of the Liberal Government of1905-15, especially in its quest to restore Home Rule toIreland. The Party was almost wiped out by Sinn Fein inthe 1918 general election after Irish politics had beenradicalised by the war and by the aftermath of the EasterRising of 1916.
Labour PartyFounded in 1900 on the initiative of the Trades
Union Congress, the Labour Party was a federation oftrades unions, small socialist societies and theCooperative movement. Initially allied to the LiberalParty in an electoral pact (1903), it moved out of theLiberal alliance during the First World War and in the1920s replaced the Liberals as the principal party of theLeft in Britain. It formed minority governments in 1924and 1929-31, its first majority government coming onlyin 1945 under Clement Attlee. Though the PartyConstitution of 1918 committed it to the socialist objec-tive of nationalising all the "means of production, distri-bution and exchange," it was never a Marxist Party andrefused all suggestions of alliances with BritishCommunists.
FINEST HOUR 113/46
Munich aftermath: WSC en route to the House debate on Mu-nich, 5 October 1938. Still a Conservative, he had been excludedfrom Tory councils for nine years and today would bring him nocloser to them: "I will, therefore, begin by saying the most unpopularand most unwelcome thing...namely, that we have sustained a total anunmitigated defeat...."
Liberal PartyAlong with the Conservatives, one of the dominant
parties of the 19 th Century, especially when led byWilliam Gladstone (for most of the period 1867-1894).It was however a grouping always liable to fragment overpolicy disputes, and lost much support over its advocacyof Irish Home Rule after 1886. Conservative weaknessand a revived "New Liberalism" with a more advancedsocial programme provided it with an Indian Summer inthe period 1905-1915, when it formed the strongreforming Government of which Winston Churchill wasa Minister.
The Liberal Party was split and deeply damaged byissues arising from the First World War: though LloydGeorge survived as Liberal Prime Minister until 1922,he did so only with Conservative support. From 1924 itrapidly became a minor party. Further splits in the1930s encouraged Churchill to attempt to absorb theLiberals into the Conservative Party after 1945; but theyresisted, hung on through the 1950s and then began a
steady revival in and after the 1960s. Churchill was aLiberal Party member from 1904 to 1923.
Liberal UnionistsA faction which left the Liberals over Irish Home
Rule in 1886, cooperated with the Conservatives there-after, and merged with the Conservatives in 1912.
Lloyd George Liberals (National or Coalition Liberals)A faction including Churchill that supported Lloyd
George against Asquith when the Liberals split in 1916,and backed Lloyd George's coalition with the Tories,1916-1922. Most merged back into the Liberals after1922, but some strong anti-socialists like Churchill con-tinued to move to the right by joining the Conservatives.
Scottish and Welsh NationalistsNeither the Scottish National Party (formed 1928)
nor the Welsh National Party, Plaid Cymru (1932) mademuch impact on British politics during Churchill's life-time, there being just one Nationalist MP elected in1945-55 (by the SNP). Both parties expanded theirappeal and achieved successes in and after the 1960s.
Ulster UnionistsMPs elected for Ulster (Northern Ireland) con-
stituencies, overwhelmingly on Protestant votes, wereopposed to Irish Home Rule. From the 1890s to 1970s,these MPs took the Conservative whip and were practi-cally indistinguishable from other Conservative MPs.When Northern Ireland had its own parliament (1920-1972) it had a permanent Ulster Unionist majority.
UnionistReferred originally to those who supported the
Union of Great Britain and Ireland (after 1921 theUnion of Great Britain and Northern Ireland), hence the"Ulster Unionist Party." When the Conservative andLiberal Unionist Parties merged in 1912, they ofFiciallybecame "The Unionist Party" until 1925, and whenIrish issues subsided somewhat in the 1920s, the Partywas still officially called (until the 1990s) the"Conservative and Unionist Party." In Scotland andsome other places, such as Birmingham,
Conservatives were officially called "Unionists"until at least 1945. As a result of this, NevilleChamberlain, a Birmingham MP who had begun life asa Liberal Unionist, was Churchill's predecessor as Leaderof the Conservative Party (1937-40), but was never actu-ally elected to Parliament as a "Conservative," and hatedthe word as a party label. M>
FINEST HOUR n3/47
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