Finest Hour - Winston Churchill

Transcription

“GOOD VOYAGE — CHURCHILL”
THE JOURNAL OF WINSTON CHURCHILL
SUMMER 2011 • NUMBER 151
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CONTENTS
The Journal of
Winston Churchill

Number 151
Summer 2011
COVER
Packwood, 10
Churchill, 14
Admiralty Christmas card, 1941, showing HMS Prince of Wales returning Churchill from the
Atlantic Charter conference with Roosevelt, August 1941. Flying from the masts are the signal flags
PYU (international code for “Good Voyage”) and CHURCHILL. We cannot prove, but are fairly
certain, that the PM is standing on the portside wing. From a painting by William McDowell,
probably commmissioned by the card producer Raphael Tuck. Reproduced by kind courtesy of the
Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge, Sir John Martin Papers (MART-3). Story on page 18.
ARTICLES
Theme of the Issue: “The Special Relationship”
8/ What Is Left of the Special Relationship? • Richard M. Langworth
10/ The Power of Words and Machines • Allen Packwood
12/ Why Study Churchill? The American Alliance, for One Thing • Martin Gilbert
14/ Reflections on America • Winston S. Churchill
16/ What He Saw and Heard in Georgia • William L. Fisher
18/ Cover Story: “Good Voyage—Churchill” • H.V. Morton
19/ The Meeting with President Roosevelt, August 1941 • Winston S. Churchill
20/ Hands Across the Atlantic: Edward R. Murrow • Fred Glueckstein
22/ “All in the Same Boat” • Ambassador Raymond Seitz
27/ Is This the Man? • Charles Miner Cooper
28/ William A. Rusher 1923-2011 • The Editor with Larry P. Arnn
29/ “The Truth is Great, and Shall Prevail” • William A. Rusher
55/ Churchilliana: The Potted Special Relationship • Douglas Hall
Randolph S. Churchill Centenary 1911-2011
32/ “The Beast of Bergholt”: Remembering Randolph • Martin Gilbert
34/ Randolph by His Contemporaries • Compiled by Dana Cook
36/ Washington, 9 April 1963: Randolph’s Day • Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

38/ Churchill on Clemenceau: His Best Student? Part II • Paul Alkon
44/ “Golden Eggs,” Part III: Intelligence and Closing the Ring • Martin Gilbert
Seitz, 22
Onassis, 36
BOOKS, ARTS & CURIOSITIES
50/ Former Naval Persons and Places • Christopher M. Bell:
Historical Dreadnoughts, by Barry Gough and Churchill’s Dilemma, by Graham Clews
51/ Winston Churchill: Walking with Destiny • Film Review by David Druckman
52/ Winston Churchill: War Leader, by Bill Price • Max E. Hertwig
53/ Pol Roger Champagne: Another Look • Daniel Mehta
56/ Harold Nicolson and His Diaries • James Lancaster
60/ Education: Finding Answers for National History Day • The Editor
DEPARTMENTS
2/ The Churchill Centre • 4/ Despatch Box • 5/ Around & About • 6/ Datelines
6/ Quotation of the Season • 8/ From the Editor • 14/ Wit & Wisdom • 27/ Poetry
30/ Action This Day • 37/ Riddles, Mysteries, Enigmas • 43/ Moments in Time
55/ Churchilliana • 62/ Churchill Quiz • 63/ Regional Directory
FINEST HOUR 151 / 3
DESPATCH BOX
CASABLANCA LETTERS:
IT WAS WEYGAND!
Number 151 • Summer 2011
ISSN 0882-3715
www.winstonchurchill.org
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Barbara F. Langworth, Publisher
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Richard M. Langworth, Editor
rlangworth@winstonchurchill.org
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Moultonborough, NH 03254 USA
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Editorial Board
Paul H. Courtenay, David Dilks,
David Freeman, Sir Martin Gilbert,
Edward Hutchinson, Warren Kimball,
Richard Langworth, Jon Meacham,
Michael McMenamin, James W. Muller,
John Olsen, Allen Packwood,
Terry Reardon, Suzanne Sigman,
Manfred Weidhorn
Senior Editors:
Paul H. Courtenay
James W. Muller
News Editor:
Michael Richards
Contributors
Alfred James, Australia
Terry Reardon, Dana Cook, Canada
Antoine Capet, James Lancaster, France
Paul Addison, Sir Martin Gilbert,
Allen Packwood, United Kingdom
David Freeman, Fred Glueckstein,
Ted Hutchinson, Warren F. Kimball,
Justin Lyons, Michael McMenamin,
Robert Pilpel, Christopher Sterling,
Manfred Weidhorn, United States
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Finest Hour is made possible in part through the
generous support of members of The Churchill
Centre and Museum, the Number Ten Club,
and an endowment created by the Churchill
Centre Associates (page 2).
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Published quarterly by The Churchill Centre,
offering subscriptions from the appropriate
offices on page 2. Permission to mail at nonprofit rates in USA granted by the United
States Postal Service, Concord, NH, permit
no. 1524. Copyright 2011. All rights reserved.
Produced by Dragonwyck Publishing Inc.
I was intrigued by whether Rick’s
“Letters of Transit” in Casablanca (FH
150: 49) cite Darlan, not de Gaulle, as
the French authority in the European
version. We have a DVD sold in
France with English and French subtitles. My wife easily found the passage
with Peter Lorre speaking about the
signature on the Letters of Transit with
his exaggerated German accent. We
heard neither “de Gaulle,” nor did we
hear “Darlan,” although the English
subtitles read “de Gaulle.” I thought it
sounded more like “Weygand,” not
realising this would lead us to the
correct track. My wife then found the
answer on the Internet Movie Database
(http:// imdb.to/mJvlBS):
“Incorrectly regarded as goofs: It
is widely believed that Ugarte [Lorre]
clearly says that the Letters of Transit
are ‘signed by General de Gaulle.’ This
would have rendered them useless in
Casablanca, as de Gaulle was the leader
of the Free French forces which were
actively fighting against the Nazibacked Vichy regime that controlled
Casablanca. De Gaulle's name is shown
on the English and Spanish DVD/BluRay subtitles. However, Peter Lorre
actually names General Weygand
(Vichy Minister of Defence, whatever
that means in an occupied country).
The French subtitles have it correct.”
ANTOINE CAPET, ROUEN, FRANCE
SENATOR BYRD
In Winchester, Virginia, I visited
Senator Harry Byrd, who spoke at our
1991 conference in Richmond. He is
in fine form and enjoys Finest Hour.
We talked at length about Churchill’s
two visits to Richmond; his stories of
the 1929 visit are as funny as ever. He
expressed the view that Churchill was
“saved” for the great task that befell
him in 1940.
Sen. Byrd expressed appreciation
for Celia Sandys’s visit to Winchester
several years ago. We also talked of his
famous uncle, Admiral Richard Byrd,
whose Boston home at 9 Brimmer
Street I had visited a week before.
Other than Lady Soames, I
cannot think of anyone with an “older”
FINEST HOUR 151 / 4
memory of Sir Winston than Harry
Byrd. It goes back eighty-two years.
RICHARD H. KNIGHT, JR., NASHVILLE, TENN.
Senator Byrd and Richard Knight
VON MANSTEIN
In FH 150 I read “How Guilty
Were the German Field Marshals?” As
a schoolmaster who helps sixth formers
with their coursework, I admire your
attempt to steer people away from
Wikipedia. It’s fine for checking basic
things like birth dates, but not for
much more. Any of my pupils who rely
on it as their sole source for information will get very short shrift from me
(and poor marks for research).
I like to point students towards
specific books. For Manstein there is an
outstanding new biography, Manstein:
Hitler’s Greatest General, by Mungo
Melvin, a serving British general
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson), now in
paperback. Two chapters cover his
postwar life, particularly his trial. This
would be ideal for any A-Level (or
equivalent) student. Incidentally, it has
the best maps of any military history
book I’ve read in years.
Other sources are von Manstein’s
memoirs, Lost Victories (Methuen,
1958, abridged from the German original); Erich von Manstein by Robert
Forczyk (Osprey, 2010); the Manstein
essay by Field Marshal Lord Carver in
Hitler’s Generals (Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, 1989); Liddell Hart: A Study
of His Military Thought, by Brian
Bond (Cassell, 1977, useful for L-H’s
contribution to the trial); Alchemist of
War: The Life of Basil Liddell Hart, by
Alex Danchev (Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, 1998); and Liddell Hart’s
AROUND & ABOUT
The Other Side of the Hill (Cassell,
1948). I am sure a similar list for
Kesselring could be constructed.
ROBIN BRODHURST, READING, BERKS.
FOND MEMORIES
Thank you for the review of
Heather White-Smith’s My Years with
the Churchills. Barbara Langworth’s
comments are entirely fair. The stories
it contains are domestic ones, as they
occurred, and were written into her
diary. However, contrary to the review,
pages 21-22 do indeed discuss WSC’s
1953 stroke and how it was kept quiet.
Heather, Grace Hamblin and Jo
Sturdee (later Lady Onslow) used to
lunch together regularly. The last time
Grace went to Chartwell was when we
took her to hear Roy Jenkins at the
launch of his biography. We often saw
Jo, as she lived near Heather’s daughter
in Oxfordshire. We miss both of them.
The saddest thing was that when the
three were together so many tales were
regaled, only to be forgotten and lost
to posterity. I just so wish I had taken a
tape recorder on those occasions!
You might also be interested to
know that Heather has given several
talks, based on her book, for which she
was helped with her presentation skills
by Robert Hardy.
Conservative radio talk-czar
Rush Limbaugh ran this doctored
Churchill photo on his website. New
Jersey Governor Chris Christie looks
like hes ordering two pizzas. If he could lose that
double chin he would poll 10% more favorably.
Accompanying the photo was a transcript with a
caller, lamenting that Christie, unlike Churchill, refuses
to run for president when hes needed. Limbaugh praised Churchill for stepping forward for his country in World War II.
But Churchill didnt exactly step forward. Hed always been available. It
was the government that wasnt having him—until the chips were down and
there was no one else. Nor was Churchill, per Limbaugh, alone in opposing
Hitler. There were Anthony Eden and Alfred Duff Cooper, among others.
The caller had a point that there is no Churchill among candidates for
President (or indeed for Prime Minister, nor has there been since the war,
with the possible exception of 1979). Every four years we see people proposing to run who bring to mind Denis Healys comment that being attacked
by Sir Geoffrey Howe was akin to being savaged by a dead sheep.

Daily Telegraph political correspondent James Kirkup reports that
another would-be Churchill has bitten the dust: Defence Secretary Liam
Fox was criticized for taking members of his staff to a Whitehall pub after
the British intervention in Libya. “Dr. Fox, a sociable type, pointed out that
he had not drunk alcohol during Lent, only breaking his fast over Libya. I
dont think it was unreasonable, he said. Its a bit like asking Churchill if he
regrets having a drink during World War II.”
Labour MPs quickly homed in, Kirkup wrote: Shadow Defence Minister
Kevan Jones said, “This is yet another demonstration of the over-inflated
opinion Liam Fox has of himself.” Michael Dugher, his colleague, added,
“Liam Fox is no Winston Churchill.” Ah well, better men than you, Fox. 
HENRY WHITE-SMITH, SUNNINGDALE, BERKS.
Editor’s response: Thank you for
the gracious comments, under the circumstances! We were wrong about the
1953 stroke; see Errata, page 7. Those
interested in Mrs. White-Smith’s talks
should email henry@woosier.co.uk.
.
DR. WHO
Although not especially a Dr.
Who fan, I have seen the Cabinet War
Rooms episode and “The Making of
Dr. Who.” So I found the Dr. Who
exam answer (FH 150: 8) a refreshing
amusement. This web page describes
“River Song” and near the end,
Churchill's role in getting the Van
Gogh painting, and the “Pandora
Opening”: http://bit.ly/hxyt02.
GRACE FILBY, REIGATE, SURREY
Dr. Who has always had a special
love for Britain and the Monarchy. In
the David Tennant series, Churchill
calls him on a phone in the Tardis and
he flits back to World War II to help.
He's rumored to have had an affair
with the Virgin Queen Elizabeth,
revealed when he meets Elizabeth X (a
gun-toting gal who saves his bacon).
But I believe the Van Gogh painting
Churchill gives Dr. Who is in a later
series which ended in December 2010,
and is only seen as part of a flashback.
This is cool to read!
CHARLOTTE THIBAULT, CONCORD, N.H
DISLOYAL TOASTS
At the March Charleston meeting
it came to my attention that several
present refused a request to give the
Loyal Toast to the President of the
United States, and one even admitted
it. The context of that rejection was
clearly intense personal dislike (stronger
FINEST HOUR 151 / 5
words were used) for the incumbent.
Rude behavior is not limited to
the present. I understand that in 1986
a prominent member was heard to
toast “The Presidency,” while in 1998
there were shouts of “No!” and a few
years later “Bush lied!” Perhaps 1986
was forgivable: the toast is to an Office
of State. But not so the other instances.
I leave it to readers’ imaginations
to speculate how Churchill would have
characterized such behavior. He had no
truck with petty personal politics.
Loyalty to the office—monarch, prime
minister, president, whatever—was a
hallmark of his character and style.
Lacking his way with words, I will
simply say that, if these stories are true,
I am ashamed of the persons involved,
and of their disgraceful and fundamentally unpatriotic action.
WARREN F. KIMBALL, JOHN ISLAND, S.C. 
DAT E L I N E S
CHURCHILL ON THE ROYAL WEDDING
LONDON, OCTOBER 22ND, 1947— “I am in
entire accord with what the Prime
Minister has said about Princess
Elizabeth and about the qualities
which she has already shown, to
use his words, ‘of unerring graciousness and understanding and
of human simplicity.’
Quotation of the Season
“A
ll these schemes and crimes...are
who belong to his system a retribution
King,” he told Anthony
Montague Browne in 1953:
“And now we have this
splendid Queen.”
The road has indeed
been hard these six decades
of her reign, but “unerring
graciousness” and “human
simplicity” have marked her
every step along the way.
We wish the couple a happy
life and a sense of responsibility. Live long, and
prosper. RML
which many of us will live to see. The
story is not yet finished, but it will not be
so long. We are on his track, and so are
our friends across the Atlantic Ocean....
If he cannot destroy us, we will surely
destroy him and all his gang, and all their
works. Therefore, have hope and faith, for
all will come right.”
—WSC, BROADCAST TO THE FRENCH PEOPLE,
FALSE ALARM AT
33 ECCLESTON SQUARE
He is indeed right in declaring that
these are among the characteristics of
the Royal House. I trust that everything that is appropriate will be done
by His Majesty's Government to mark
this occasion of national rejoicing.
‘One touch of nature makes the whole
world kin,’ and millions will welcome
this joyous event as a flash of colour
on the hard road we have to travel.
From the bottom of our hearts, the
good wishes and good will of the
British nation flow out to the Princess
and to the young sailor who are so
soon to be united in the bonds of holy
matrimony. That they may find true
happiness together and be guided on
the paths of duty and honour is the
prayer of all.”
—WSC (HIS QUOTATION IS FROM
SHAKESPEARE’S TROILUS AND CRESSIDA)
LONDON, APRIL 29TH, 2011— If the Great
Man woke up from his “black velvet—
eternal sleep,” perhaps to enjoy a cigar
and a cognac during the pageantry in
London, he might have felt a sense of
satisfaction, and invoked his favorite
Boer expression, Alles sal reg kom—
“All will come right.” The words he
spoke sixty-four years ago at another
Royal Wedding have stood the test of
time. “We could not have had a better
bringing upon him and upon all
Stefan
Buczacki, author of Churchill and
Chartwell (FH 138), left home to give
a talk on Churchill’s homes to a civic
society. “I returned to find an alarming
email sent a few minutes after my
departure to the effect that Churchill's
former London house at 33 Eccleston
Square had been destroyed by fire
during the day. The London Fire
Brigade confirmed that there had
indeed been a major fire in Eccleston
Square but the neighbouring house to
Churchill’s former home at Number
33 was the one affected; terrible for
the owners, but a relief for historians.
“Churchill took over 33
Eccleston Square in March 1909 after
selling his first home at 12 Bolton
Street. The Square was created in 1835
by Thomas Cubitt, who took a lease
from the Duke of Westminster to
provide rather grand neo-classical
houses for the aristocracy and successful professional classes. Number 33
is a typical property, a gracious family
home on four floors. The cost to
Churchill was £200 per year with the
option of purchasing a 65-year ground
lease for £2000. It played a most
important part in his life and he
owned it for seven years. It was to
Eccleston Square that he returned in
the evening of 3 January 1911 after
LONDON, FEBRUARY 21ST—
FINEST HOUR 151 / 6
LONDON, 21 OCTOBER 1940
personally observing the famous Siege
of Sidney Street (last issue, page 34)
in his capacity as Home Secretary.
“From early 1913 the house
was leased to the Foreign Secretary,
Sir Edward Grey, when the
Churchills moved to the First Lord of
the Admiralty’s official residence at
Admiralty House. They returned to
the Square in late 1916 and finally
disposed of the lease in late May
1918—rather surprisingly to the
Labour Party, who wanted it as
offices and paid Churchill £2350 for
the lease and £50 for his carpets.”
The escape of 33 Eccleston
Square leaves 2 Sussex Square as the
only one of Churchill's former homes
to have been destroyed. It was
damaged beyond repair in an air raid
on the night of 9 March 1941.
PRAETORIAN GUARDS?
Prime Minister
David Cameron has started to keep
tabs on backbench Tory MPs by
joining them for roast beef in the
House of Commons Members’
Dining Room every Wednesday
lunchtime. But the schmoozing has
its limits, reports the Daily Mail:
“When voluble troublemakers such as
Bill Cash or [Sir Winston’s grandson]
Nicholas Soames loom, a praetorian
guard of young Cameroons forms a
circle around the PM so he can
munch his Yorkshire in peace.”
LONDON, APRIL 1ST—
A PORNY ISSUE
TERRY McGARRY
Another faux
Churchill “quote” cropped up on the
blog of columnist Jonah Goldberg,
writing about “A Thorny Porn-y Issue”
(http://bit.ly/j7RZ7t). For collectors of
Churchillian red herrings, here’s the
alleged exchange:
WSC reportedly says to a woman
at a party, “Madam, would you sleep
with me for £5 million?” The woman
stammers: “My goodness, Mr.
Churchill. Well, yes, I suppose.…”
Churchill interrupts: “Would you sleep
with me for £5?” “Of course not! What
kind of woman do you think I am?”
Churchill replies: “We’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about
the price.” Cute, but no cigar.
Like the equally fictitious
encounter with Nancy Astor (“If I were
married to you, I’d put poison in your
coffee”…“If I were married to you, I’d
drink it”—actually between Astor and
Churchill’s friend F.E. Smith, who was
much faster off the cuff—this putdown cannot be found in Churchill’s
canon or memoirs by his colleagues
and family. This hasn’t prevented it
working its way into spurious quotation books, and, of course, the Web.
Sir Winston usually treated
women with Victorian gallantry. He was
so dazzled by Vivien Leigh, star of Gone
with the Wind, that he became uncharacteristically tongue-tied. When he met
actress Merle Oberon on a beach in the
South of France after WW2, he turned
somersaults in the water. Prurient jests
were not in his make-up.
Terry
McGarry, 72, died today of a rare brain
disease. A longtime
Churchillian, Los
Angeles Times editor
and former UPI
foreign correspondent, he was a
raconteur extraordinaire, who loved
nothing better than
traveling cross country to Churchill
conferences with his wife Marlane on
their BMW motorcycle, only to don
black tie for the formal dinners. The
McGarrys served on the 2001 San
Diego conference committee, a challenging operation in the wake of 9/11.
Steve Padilla of the Times wrote
that Terry was “one of those old school
journalists who covered just about
everything—wars, the assassination of
President Kennedy, the trial of Jack
Ruby.” Terry was in the room in Dallas
when Ruby shot Kennedy’s killer, Lee
Harvey Oswald.
Terry was a keen follower of
Finest Hour. His last letter to the
editor commented on the “Some Issues
about Issues” in FH 133: “It needed to
be said and was said quite well.”
“We will also remember that
Terry could make a reader laugh,”
Padilla wrote. He left UPI in 1983
saying that reporting is “like sex: it’s
worth doing well, but sooner or later
you have to stop and eat.” Our sympathies to Marlane and his family. As
WSC wrote of Joseph Chamberlain:
“One mark of a great man is the power
of making a lasting impression on the
people he meets.” RML
NEW YORK, APRIL 26TH—
Nelson Peltz, Jeffrey Immelt, Rabbi
Marvin Hier and Larry Misel with award.
WIESENTHAL HONORS
NEW YORK, MARCH 30TH— The awards that
pursued Sir Winston during his lifetime continue. Tonight about 500
supporters of the Simon Wiesenthal
Center presented the Center’s Medal of
Valor posthumously to Sir Winston
Churchill, Hiram Bingham IV and
Pope John Paul II. The Humanitarian
Award was given to General Electric
chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt.
At a pre-dinner reception at the
Mandarin Oriental hotel, Churchill
Centre chairman Laurence Geller
accepted the medal on behalf of the
late Prime Minister: “Accepting an
award on behalf of Winston Churchill
can only make me feel like a midget.”
Accepting on behalf of the late
Pope, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, Papal
Nuncio to the United States, said, “I
feel a little bit at home when I am
among Jews. I know their history, their
beliefs and their hopes for the future.
They have given humanity the idea for
a spiritual God which has elevated the
human spirit.” “What about their
bagels?” a reporter asked. “Well,” he
said, “As a good Italian, I always prefer
Italian food.”
Robert Bingham accepted the
award for his father, a U.S. diplomat
who enabled more than 2500 Jews to
escape the Holocaust. He attended
with his wife, sister and brother-in-law,
all wearing Hiram Bingham pins.“My
father placed humanity above career,”
he said. “He believed that there was
that of the divinity in every human
being. And he left us a lesson, and that
is to stand up to evil.”
—LIZZIE SIMON, WALL STREET JOURNAL;
FULL ARTICLE: HTTP://ON.WSJ.COM/FFROZI
GETTING THE BOOT
LONDON, APRIL 2ND— It’s been a hallowed
custom for years, but now MPs have
been ordered to stop rubbing the foot
of the imposing bronze statue of
Winston Churchill as they enter the
Commons Chamber. It
wore a hole in the great
man’s left foot. It has
now been restored and a
strict instruction has
gone out to MPs to
keep off.
—DAILY MAIL; FULL
ARTICLE AT
http://bit.ly/lsw1it.
FINEST HOUR 151 / 7
ENCINO, CALIF., APRIL 26TH—
ERRATA, FH 150
Paga 47: At the end of “Dev’s
Dread Disciples,” for “diffuse” read
“defuse.” Thanks for this catch to
Sidney Allinson of Victoria, B.C.
Page 50: Barbara Langworth
wishes to note that her review of My
Years with the Churchills incorrectly
stated that Churchill’s 1953 stroke was
omitted (see “Fond Memories,” page
5). It was the editor (as usual) who
misunderstood and added this note to
her text. Sorry. 
What Is Left of the Special Relationship?
RICHARD M. LANGWORTH, EDITOR
W
hen the 2011
London Churchill
Conference organizers
asked for an issue of Finest
Hour devoted to their
theme, my first reaction was
superficial. What is left of
the Special Relationship for
which Churchill strove, at
the expense of British power
and independence, believing
there were greater things at
stake than the Empire?
Confined to the area of
foreign relations, not a lot.
Forget the extremists
who say America is the only
country to have gone from
barbarism to decadence
without an intervening period
of civilization; or that Britain
has done nothing for
America except to require
rescue from two cataclysms.
Forget the symbolism of an
American president
returning a Churchill bust
loaned to his predecessor—
which in fact was perfectly
understandable (Finest
Hour 142: 7-8).
Forget all that.
Churchill rejected such
superficial musings in
Virginia in 1946, when
he quoted an English
nobleman, who had said
Britain would have to
become the forty-ninth
state; and an American
editor, who had said the
U.S. might be asked to
rejoin the British Empire. “It
seems to me, and I dare say it
seems to you,” Churchill
told the Virginia Assembly,
“that the path of wisdom
lies somewhere between
these scarecrow extremes.”
Scarecrow extremes are
one thing, facts another. In
the main, U.S. policy since
the war has been to downplay the British
connection, or even the
idea that Britain matters:
not only to encourage
the “Winds of Change”
which swept away the
Empire, but the devaluation of everything from
sterling to British independence of action.
The recent thrust of
American foreign policy
has been to nudge Britain
into a European federation,
no form of which Churchill
ever endorsed. Oh, the U.S.
has been quite willing to
count on its “closest friend”
when invading Iraq in 1991,
or Afghanistan ten years
later, or in the operations,
whatever they are, in Libya
at the moment. But reciprocal support of London by
Washington has been fairly
uncommon.
The only period since
the war when the intergovernmental Special
Relationship seemed to
resume its wartime intiFINEST HOUR 151 / 8
PAGE OPPOSITE: Roosevelt and Churchill at Casablanca, Morocco,
February 1943; John F. Kennedy and Harold Macmillan aboard the
Presidents yacht Honey Fitz, Washington, April 1961; Ronald Reagan
and Margaret Thatcher at Camp David, December 1984.
macy was when the respective heads of government were
Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher; when America
abandoned traditional anti-colonialism and backed Britain
in the Falklands war. The British Prime Minister repaid that
gesture in August 1990, as Iraq was invading Kuwait, when
she sent her famous message to Reagan’s successor: “George,
this is no time to go wobbly.”
B
ut the Reagan-Thatcher years fade into the blue distance
of the Middle Ages, America reverts to earlier policies, and
the State Department now calls the Falklands the “Malvinas.”
When Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited the White
House in 2009, there was no trip to Camp David, no state
dinner, no joint press conference. In London, an aide to the
U.S. administration thought it right to explain to the Daily
Telegraph: “There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just
the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You
shouldn’t expect special treatment.”
The President and Prime Minister seemed to improve
the atmosphere in London this May by giving the relationhip
a new name: “Ours is not just a special relationship, it is an
essential relationship.” (“An” or “the”? Is it more essential
than others, i.e., special? They didn’t elaborate.)
The 2011 Churchill Conference has able critics to
document the one-sided Special Relationship between governments. Piers Brendon’s Decline and Fall of the British
Empire tracks the end of a domain that once spanned a
quarter of the world, a process welcomed by Washington.
Our main argument with John Charmley, years ago (FH
79-81-82-83), was over a very brief section of his Churchill:
The End of Glory, suggesting that Britain should have
backed away from the Hitler war. His sequel, Churchill’s
Grand Alliance, on Washington’s postwar effort to dismantle British power, drew few quibbles from us. Confined
only to inter-government relations, we would come not to
praise the Special Relationship, but to bury it.
Is it dead then?
No.
T
imes change. Presidents and Prime Ministers come and
go. None can change the fundamentals, observed by
Churchill at Harvard in 1943: “Law, language, literature—
these are considerable factors. Common conceptions of
what is right and decent, a marked regard for fair play, especially to the weak and poor, a stern sentiment of impartial
justice, and above all the love of personal freedom, or as
Kipling put it: ‘Leave to live by no man’s leave underneath
the law’—these are common conceptions on both sides of
the ocean among the English-speaking peoples.”
Perhaps there is less love of personal freedom, as Mark
Steyn argues: “A gargantuan bureaucratized parochialism
leavened by litigiousness and political correctness is a scale
of decline no developed nation has yet attempted.” But if
that is so, the decline is equally precipitous.
B
y circumstance of history—more than through any specific actions of Churchill or Attlee, Roosevelt or
Truman—international leadership after the war passed to
the United States. As Raymond Seitz asserts herein, the
world (though it doesn’t always accept it) “is incapable of
serious action without the American catalyst.” This changes
nothing about the congruence of heritage, culture, politics
and commerce central to America and Britain.
You see this congruence in all manner of public policy,
Ambassador Seitz writes, “from welfare reform to school
reform, and from zero-tolerance policing to pension management…in every scholarly pursuit from archaeology to
zoology, in every field of science and research, and in every
social movement from environmentalism to feminism. You
see it in financial regulation and corporate governance…at
every point along the cultural spectrum…You see it in the
big statistics of trade and investment.” And you see it—if
we may digress to our own sphere—in the combination of
British and American expertise that is developing the
massive Churchill Archives into an unprecedented tool for
researching Sir Winston Churchill’s life and times.
The real Special Relationship remains. “The United
States and United Kingdom influence each other’s intellectual development like no other two countries,” Seitz adds.
“And it is here, I suspect—where the old truth lies—that we
will discover answers about our joint future in a changing,
global world.”
A thing to be avoided at the coming Conference is
concentrating exclusively, or even too deeply, on the relationships between British and American governments.
There is much more to the Special Relationship than that.
Churchill saw this in the early 1900s. We see it still in the
early 2000s. We would be fools to ignore it.
Many of these affinities Churchill limned long ago at
Harvard, telling his American audience that it would find in
Britain “good comrades to whom you are united by other
ties besides those of State policy and public need.” Seven
decades on, no Churchillian with experience on both sides
of the Atlantic would gainsay him. 
FINEST HOUR 151 / 9
THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
The Power of Words and Machines
In the 21st century Churchills hope, as expressed at Harvard in 1943 and at M.I.T. in 1949,
has the potential to be realized by technology he never knew, but knew would come.
ALLEN PACKWOOD
________________________________________________________
Mr. Packwood is Director of the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge
and Executive Director of The Churchill Centre United Kingdom. A
longtime contributor to Finest Hour, he is chairman of the October
2011 International Churchill Conference in London.
CHURCHILL AT 33: Already the author of nine books, Churchill was
soon to hold his first Cabinet position, President of the Board of Trade,
when he addressed the Authors Club in February 1908. He spoke of
the freedom and power of the pen—or today perhaps the keyboard.
S
ir Winston Churchill is justly celebrated as a master of
the written and spoken word. His own career was
launched and sustained by his pen, which gave him an
incredible freedom and power. As early as 17 February
1908, addressing the Author’s Club of London, he chose to
emphasise the freedom of the writer: “He is the sovereign of
an Empire, self-supporting, self contained. No-one can
sequestrate his estates. No-one can deprive him of his stock
in trade; no-one can force him to exercise his faculty against
his will; no-one can prevent him exercising it as he chooses.
The pen is the great liberator of men and nations.”
What is generally less well known is that he was also
passionate about the potential of science and technology.
He lived in an age of great technological change, and he
embraced it. As a young man, he not only learnt to drive,
but even took flying lessons, taking to the cockpit at a time
when to do so was both pioneering and dangerous. In his
early political life he helped to develop the Royal Naval Air
Service, pushed through the modernisation of the British
Fleet and its conversion from coal to oil, and sponsored
research into the land battleships that would become the
tank. Once convinced of the value of a particular project, he
would often assume the role of its most passionate advocate.
On 31 March 1949, he spoke at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology on “The 20th Century: Its Promise
and Its Realization.” The theme of his speech was the contrast between the promise of scientific discoveries and the
terrible weapons and wars they had actually delivered. Yet
even after the carnage of two world wars, and when faced
with the horrors of atomic annihilation, he refused to be
too pessimistic, seeing science as the servant of man rather
than man as the servant of science, and advocating stronger
Anglo-American relations within the new United Nations as
the best way of securing the benefits of scientific progress
and guaranteeing peace.
He predicted that the Soviet regime would be unable
to sustain its grip on its people forever, and that while
“Science no doubt could if sufficiently perverted exterminate us all,…it is not in the power of material forces in any
period which the youngest here tonight may take into prac-
FINEST HOUR 151 / 10
tical account, to alter the main elements in human nature
or restrict the infinite variety of forms in which the soul and
the genius of the human race can and will express itself.”
This was a message of hope, a statement of belief in the
possibility of progress through technological advance.
We cannot presume to know how Churchill would
respond to the world today, but we can be confident that he
would want his words to be heard, and the lessons of his era
to be studied, and that he would look to new technology as
a means of reaching the widest possible audience. This after
all is the man who said, upon accepting his Honorary
Degree at Harvard University in September 1943: “It would
certainly be a grand convenience for us all to be able to
move freely about the world—as we shall be able to move
more freely than ever before as the science of the world
develops…and be able to find everywhere a medium, albeit
primitive, of intercourse and understanding.”
It is interesting to note that at the beginning of the
21st century, Churchill’s hope has the potential to be
realised through the development of the Internet, which
uses English as its main language and allows truly global
communications. I am not crediting Churchill with foreseeing the World Wide Web, but he did end this section of
his Harvard speech with the observation that “the empires
of the future are the empires of the mind.”
The challenge facing The Churchill Centre, and the
Churchill museums, archives and foundations with which it
works, is to harness new technology to ensure that
Churchill’s words and actions are presented to the next generation in a form relevant to them. There will always be a
place for conferences and lectures, for the cut and thrust of
debate; there will always be magic in seeing treasures like
the final page of the “finest hour” speech; the actual sheet
Churchill had in his hand in the House of Commons on 18
June 1940, annotated with his own last-minute changes. Yet
now there is also the ability to capture and present such
Churchill exhibitions, events and resources to a huge potential audience, over a longer timescale, using the Internet.
To do this properly will not be cheap or easy. It will
require professional partnerships, with educators who know
how to tailor and present the content for use by students,
and with digital designers and publishers who know how to
develop and present on-line resources. It will require networking, branding, marketing, publicity and constant
innovation to make sure that the right Churchill sites are
accessible and visible, and able to act as beacons in a jungle
of information. But we should take our lead from Sir
Winston, the Victorian cavalry officer who embraced new
technology, and like him we should use the power of both
words and machines. 
“The outstanding feature of the 20th century has been the enormous expansion in
the numbers who are given the opportunity to share in the larger and more varied life
which in previous periods was reserved for the few and
for the very few. This process must continue at an
increasing rate....Scientists should never underrate the
deep-seated qualities of human nature and how,
repressed in one direction, they will certainly break out
in another. The genus homo—if I may display my
Latin...remains as Pope described him 200 years ago:
Placed on this Isthmus of a middle State,
A being darkly wise and rudely great,
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled;
The glory, jest and riddle of the world.”
—WSC, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,
BOSTON, 31 MARCH 1949
THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
Why Study Churchill?
The American Alliance, for One Thing
Churchills modernity of thought, originality, humanity, constructiveness and foresight find
no better expression than in his lifelong quest for close relations with the United States.
MARTIN GILBERT
“W
hy study Churchill?” I am often asked.
that most foolish, futile and fatal of all wars—a war with
“Surely he has nothing to say to us today?”
the United States.”
Yet in my own work, as I open file after file
Churchill held his last Cabinet fifty-four years later,
of Churchill’s archive, from his entry into Government in
on 5 April 1955. In his farewell remarks to his Ministers, he
1905 to his retirement in 1955 (a fifty-year span), and my
said: “Never be separated from the Americans.” For him,
present focus on completing the 1942 Churchill War Papers
Anglo-American friendship and cooperation, of the closest
volume, I am continually surprised by the truth of his assersort, was the cornerstone of the survival, political, economic
tions, the modernity of
and moral, of the
his thought, the origiWestern World.
nality of his mind, the
Although
constructiveness of his
Churchill was never
proposals, his
blind to American
humanity, and, most
weaknesses and misremarkable of all, his
takes with regard to the
foresight.
wider world, his faith
Nothing was
was strong that when
more central to
the call came, as it did
Churchill’s view of the
twice in his lifetime,
world than the imporfor America to come to
tance of the closest
the rescue of western
possible relations with
values and indeed of
Chris check
the United States. “I
western civilisation, it
delight in my
would do so, whatever
FH122 files for
American ancestry,” he
the initial hesitations.
high-def .jpg
once said. Not just his
His foresight
American mother, but
covered every aspect of
his personal experiour lives, both at home
CHRISTMAS 1944: Several Canadian firms commissioned this calendar artwork,
ences in traveling
and abroad. He was
which appeared in color on the cover of Finest Hour 122, Spring 2004.
through the United
convinced that man
States, starting in 1895
had the power—once
when he was just twenty-one, gave him a remarkable sense
he acquired the will—to combat and uproot all the evils
of American strength and potential.
that raged around him, whether it was the evils of poverty
On 13 May 1901, when Britain and the United States
or the evils of mutual destruction. “What vile and utter
were on a collision course over the Venezuela-British Guiana
folly and barbarism it all is”—such was his verdict on war.
boundary, Churchill told the House of Commons, in only
Once a war had been thrust on any nation, Churchill
the third time he had spoken there: “Evil would be the
was a leading advocate of fighting it until it was won, until
counselors, dark would be the day when we embarked on
the danger of subjugation and tyranny had been brought to
________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Rt. Hon. Sir Martin Gilbert CBE, the official biographer of Sir Winston Churchill since 1968, has published
almost as many words on his subject as Churchill wrote, and has honored Finest Hour with his contributions for nearly thirty
years. This article, first published in FH 60 in 1988, has been revised and expanded in accord with the theme of this issue.
an end. He was equally certain that, by foresight and
wisdom, wars could be averted: provided threatened states
banded together and built up their collective strength. This
is what he was convinced that the Western world had failed
to do in the Baldwin-Chamberlain era, from 1933 to 1939.
Churchill always regarded the Second World War as
what he called the “unnecessary war,” which could in his
view have been averted by the united stand of those endangered by a tyrannical system. Forty years later, in the Cold
War, Churchill’s precept was followed. The result is that the
prospects for a peaceful world were much enhanced.
Churchill also believed in what he called (in 1919)
“the harmonious disposition of the world among its
peoples.” This recognition of the rights of nationalities and
minorities is something that, even now, the leading nations
are addressing. One of his hopes (1921) was for a Kurdish
National Home, to protect the Kurds from any future threat
in Baghdad. In 1991 and again in 2003, Britain, along with
the United States, took up arms against that threat; and in
2011 the two countries are a leading part of the coalition to
protect the people of Libya from another tyrant.
Democracy was Churchill’s friend; tyranny was his
foe. When, in 1919, he called the Bolshevik leader Lenin
the “embodiment of evil,” many people thought it was a
typical Churchill exaggeration. “How unfair,” they
exclaimed, “how unworthy of a statesman.” While I was in
Kiev in 1991, I watched the scaffolding go up around
Lenin’s statue. The icon of seventy years of Communist rule
was about to be dismantled, his life’s work denounced as
evil by the very people who had been its sponsors, and its
victims. They knew that Churchill had been right from the
outset: Lenin was evil, and his system was a cruel denial of
individual liberty.
From the first days of Communist rule in Russia,
Churchill did not doubt for a moment that the Communist
system would be a blight on free enterprise and a terrible
restraint on all personal freedoms. Yet when he warned the
American people in 1946, in a speech at Fulton, Missouri,
that an “Iron Curtain” had descended across Europe,
cutting off nine former independent States from freedom,
he was denounced as a mischief-maker.
Whatever Britain’s dispute or disagreement with the
United States might be, Churchill was firm in refusing to
allow Anglo-American relations to be neglected. In 1932 he
told an American audience, in words that he was to repeat
in spirit throughout the next quarter of a century: “Let our
common tongue, our common basic law, our joint heritage
of literature and ideals, the red tie of kinship, become the
sponge of obliteration of all the unpleasantness of the past.”
Churchill was always an optimist with 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 during the Stalinist
repressions in Russia, that Communism could not survive.
Throughout his life he had faith in the power of all peoples
to control and improve their own destiny, without the interference of outside forces. This faith was expressed most
far-sightedly in 1950, at the height of the Cold War, when
Communist regimes were denying basic human rights to
the people of nine capital cities: Warsaw, Prague, Vilnius,
Riga, Tallinn, Budapest, Bucharest, Sofia and East Berlin.
At that time of maximum repression, at the height of
the Stalin era, these were Churchill’s words, in Boston:
“The machinery of propaganda may pack their minds with
falsehood and deny them truth for many generations of
time, but the soul of man thus held in trance, or frozen in a
long night, can be awakened by a spark coming from God
knows 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: “Captive
peoples need never despair.” Today the captive peoples of
Eastern Europe have emerged from their long night. The
Berlin Wall has been torn down. Tyrants have been swept
aside. The once-dominant Communist Party is now an
illegal organisation throughout much of what used to be the
Soviet empire.
I
n every sphere of human endeavour, Churchill foresaw
the dangers and potential for evil to triumph. Those
dangers are widespread in the world today. He also
pointed the way forward to the solutions for tomorrow.
That is one reason why his life is worthy of our attention.
Some writers portray him as a figure of the past, an
anachronism with out-of-date opinions. In portraying him
thus, it is they who are the losers, for Churchill was a man
of quality: a good guide for our troubled decade, and for
the generation now reaching adulthood.
One of the most important and relevant lessons that
we can learn from Churchill today is, I believe, the importance of our democracies and democratic values, something
that we in the West often take for granted. On 8 December
1944, when the Communist Greeks were attempting to
seize power in Athens, Churchill told the House of
Commons: “Democracy is no harlot to be picked up in the
street by a man with a Tommy gun. I trust the people, the
mass of the people, in almost any country, but I like to
make sure that it is the people and not a gang of bandits
from the mountains or from the countryside who think that
by violence they can overturn constituted authority, in some
cases ancient Parliaments, Governments and States.”
I would like to end with the seven questions Churchill
first asked publicly in August 1944, when he was in Italy,
watching the former Fascist country grappling with the
challenges of creating a new government and framework for
its laws and constitution. Churchill set out seven questions
to the Italian people that they “should answer,” in his
words, “if they wanted to know whether they had replaced
fascism by freedom.” The questions were: >>
WHY STUDY CHURCHILL?...
“Is there the right to free expression of opinion and of
opposition and criticism of the Government of the day?
“Have the people the right to turn out a Government
of which they disapprove, and are constitutional means provided by which they can make their will apparent?
“Are their courts of justice free from violence by the
Executive and from threats of mob violence, and free from
all association with particular political parties?
“Will these courts administer open and well-established laws, which are associated in the human mind with
the broad principles of decency and justice?
“Will there be fair play for poor as well as for rich, for
private persons as well as for Government officials?
“Will the rights of the individual, subject to his duties
to the State, be maintained and asserted and exalted?
“Is the ordinary peasant or workman, who is earning a
WIT AND WISDOM
Reflections on America
C
hurchill never criticized America publicly. Asked in
1944 if he had any complaints he replied, “Toilet
paper too thin, newspapers too fat.” With close associates he was less reticent, yet he always maintained a decent
respect for the motherland which claimed him as a son.
His prescription for a fraternal relationship “between
the two great English-speaking organizations” was regularly
expressed, and he never lost faith in America’s destiny or
capacity for good. His greatest disappointment in old age,
one of his closest colleagues confided, was that the “special
relationship” never blossomed as he had wished. Surely he
would be cheered by the recent Anglo-American collaborations—and those of the broader “Anglosphere” with
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and, in the 21st century,
India as well.
Robert Pilpel, writing in Finest Hour, expressed the
belief that Churchill’s American affinity began the day he
first arrived in New York in 1895: “…a life which before
1895 seemed destined to yield a narrow range of skimpy
achievements became from 1895 onwards a life of glorious
epitomes and stunning vindications. Credit Bourke
Cockran, New York’s overflowing hospitality, the railroad
journey to Tampa and back, or the rampant vitality of a
nation outgrowing itself day by day. Credit whatever you
will, but do not doubt that Winston’s exposure to his
mother’s homeland struck a spark in his spirit. And it was
this spark that illuminated the long and arduous road that
would take him through triumphs and tragedies to his rendezvous with greatness.”
living by daily toil and striving to bring up a family, free
from the fear that some grim police organization under the
control of a single Party, like the Gestapo, started by the
Nazi and Fascist parties, will tap him on the shoulder and
pack him off without fair or open trial to bondage or illtreatment?
“These simple, practical tests,” he added, “are some of
the title deeds on which a new Italy could be founded.”
After the war, Churchill was to repeat these same
seven questions whenever he was asked on what freedom
should be based, and on how a truly free society could be
recognised. They are questions that we should learn by
heart, and ask of each country that struggles to build
freedom. In an ideal world, they are questions that every
Member State of the United Nations should be able to
answer in the affirmative. It is for the generation entering
into adulthood today to try to make that happen. 
T
his is a very great
country my dear
Jack. Not pretty or
romantic but great
and utilitarian. There
seems to be no such
thing as reverence or
tradition. Everything
is eminently practical and things are judged from a matter
of fact standpoint. (1895)

I have always thought that it ought to be the main end
of English statecraft over a long period of years to cultivate
good relations with the United States. (1903)

England and America are divided by a great ocean of
salt water, but united by an eternal bathtub of soap and
water. (1903)

Deep in the hearts of the people of these islands…lay
the desire to be truly reconciled before all men and all
history with their kindred across the Atlantic Ocean, to blot
out the reproaches and redeem the blunders of a bygone
age, to dwell once more in spirit with them, to stand once
more in battle at their side, to create once more a union of
hearts, to write once more a history in common. (1918)

I felt a strong feeling of sentiment when I saw...that the
Coldstream Guards and the United States Marines were
standing side by side. It looked to me as if once again the
great unconquerable forces of progressive and scientific civilization were recognizing all they had in common and all
they would have to face in common. (1927)
We have slipped off
the ledge of the precipice
and are at bottom. The
only thing now is not to
kick each other while we
are there. (1932)

I wish to be Prime
Minister and in close and
daily communication by
telephone with the
President of the United
States. There is nothing
we could not do if we
were together. (1933)
[None who took part in church services aboard HMS Prince of Wales in 1941] will forget
the spectacle presented that sunlit morning on the crowded quarterdeck—the symbolism of the
Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes draped side by side on the pulpit; the American and British
chaplains sharing in the reading of the prayers; the highest naval, military, and air officers of
Britain and the United States grouped in one body behind the President and me; the closepacked ranks of British and American sailors, completely intermingled, sharing the same books
and joining fervently together in the prayers and hymns familiar to both. I chose the hymns
myself....We ended with “O God Our Help in Ages Past.”
…Every word seemed to stir
the heart. It was a great
hour to live. (1950)

The British Empire and the United States will have to
be somewhat mixed up together in some of their affairs for
mutual and general advantage. For my own part, looking
out upon the future, I do not view the process with any
misgivings. I could not stop it if I wished; no one can stop
it. Like the Mississippi, it just keeps rolling along. Let it
roll! Let it roll on full flood, inexorable, irresistible, benignant, to broader lands and better days. (1940)

Prodigious hammer-strokes have been needed to bring
us together again….Still, I avow my hope and faith, sure
and inviolate, that in the days to come the British and
American peoples will for their own safety and for the good
of all walk together side by side in majesty, in justice, and in
peace. (1941)

The experience of a long life and the promptings of my
blood have wrought in me conviction that there is nothing
more important for the future of the world than the fraternal association of our two peoples in righteous work both
in war and peace. (1943)
Neither the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous
rise of world organisation will be gained without what I
have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking
peoples...a special relationship between the British
Commonwealth and Empire and the United States. (1946)

It is not a matter of whether there is a war with
China or not, but whether there is a rift between Britain
and the United States or not. (1951)

I have never accepted a position of subservience to the
United States. They have welcomed me as the champion of the
British point of view. They are a fair-minded people. (1951)

Let us stick to our heroes John Bull and Uncle Sam. They
never were closer together than they are now.... (1953)

The British and American Democracies were slowly and
painfully forged and even they are not perfect yet. (1954)

Never be separated from the Americans. (1955)


Great Britain and the United States all one? Yes, I am all
for that, and you mean me to run for President?
(1943)...There are various little difficulties in the way.
However, I have been treated so splendidly in the United
States that I should be disposed, if you can amend the
Constitution, seriously to consider the matter. (1932)
There is not much left for me to do in this world and I
have neither the wish nor the strength to involve myself in
the present political stress and turmoil. But I do believe,
with unfaltering conviction, that the theme of the AngloAmerican alliance is more important today than at any time
since the war. (1956)


There is no halting-place at this point. We have now
reached a stage in the journey where there can be no pause.
We must go on. It must be world anarchy or world order.
Throughout all this ordeal and struggle which is characteristic of our age, you will find in the British Commonwealth
and Empire good comrades to whom you are united by
other ties besides those of State policy and public need. To a
large extent, they are the ties of blood and history. Naturally
I, a child of both worlds, am conscious of these. (1943)
I am, as you know, half American by blood, and the
story of my association with that mighty and benevolent
nation goes back nearly ninety years to the day of my
father’s marriage. In this century of storm and tragedy I
contemplate with high satisfaction the constant factor of the
interwoven and upward progress of our peoples. Our comradeship and our brotherhood in war were unexampled. We
stood together, and because of that fact the free world now
stands. (1963) 
What He Saw and Heard in Georgia
Churchills travels in the American South were not widely
reported, but his 1932 message received receptive ears—
juxtaposed with news of future wartime antagonists.
W I L L I A M L. F I S H E R
GEORGIA TECH: Churchill (center) reviews cadets, 24 February 1932.
“I
have always made my living by my pen and by my
tongue,” Churchill once remarked, and, following his
losses in the 1929 stock market crash, he labored
double overtime. In February 1932 he arrived in Atlanta, on
a nineteen-city lecture tour which would earn him £7500
(then $35,000).* Churchill the writer, no less than the
Churchill the orator, was always inspired by America: this
trip produced his famous essay “Land of Corn and
Lobsters”; his previous journey in 1929, though ostensibly a
holiday, had led to twelve articles under the title “What I
Heard and Saw in America.”
The Atlanta visit, and the rest of Churchill’s life,
almost never came to pass. The previous December, in New
York City, he’d been struck by a car while attempting to
find Bernard Baruch’s apartment. Again WSC found grist
for his pen: recovering in Manhattan and Nassau, Churchill
dictated “My New York Misadventure” (FH 136) and “My
Happy Days in the ‘Wet’ Bahamas” (FH 145).
Resuming his lecture tour at the end of January
Churchill took as his topic “The Destiny of the EnglishSpeaking Peoples.” His Atlanta appearance was set for the
old Wesley Auditorium on the evening of February 23rd.
The Atlanta Constitution promised he would bring “a
_______________________________________________________
Mr. Fisher is treasurer and the immediate past-president of the
Winston Churchill Society of Georgia.
*Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life (London, 1991), 504-05.
message of hope and encouragement to the American
people” and, given the economic climate, advised that ticket
prices had been “set as low as possible consistent with
meeting essential expenses.”
Accompanied by his daughter Diana, Churchill
checked into a suite at the Biltmore Hotel (now urban condominiums). The Constitution covered his lecture the next
day, noting his concerns about the growing armaments and
armies in Europe. “In the days of Augustus,” Churchill told
Georgians, “the Roman Empire maintained the peace of the
world with a force of 800,000.” But now, “on the morrow
of the War to End War, armies totaling over twenty million
jealously guard the frontiers of Europe.” Eventually, he contemplated, “there must come a form of unity to Europe. Yet
that may not be an unmixed blessing to the world.”
Returning to his main theme, Churchill admitted that
“we have quarreled in the past.” But even then, he continued, “great leaders on both sides were agreed on
principle. Let our common tongue, our common basic law,
our joint heritage of literature and ideals, and the red tie of
kinship, become the sponge of obliteration for all the
unpleasantness of the past.” After all, he told his audience,
“it is sometimes much safer to quarrel with a man who
doesn’t understand your language….”
The next day Churchill and his daughter went a few
blocks north to Grant Field, on the campus of Georgia
Tech, to review Army and Navy Reserve Officer Training
Corps cadets and offer words of inspiration. The student
newspaper reported his support of American military preparedness, and compliments to Georgia for its part in the
American Civil War. (Since 1929, when he had toured the
old battlefields of Virginia, Churchill had been preparing to
write his History of the English-Speaking Peoples.)
From Atlanta the Churchills went to South Carolina,
where they relaxed several days at the plantation home of
financier Bernard Baruch. This friendship was explored at
the Churchill Conference in Charleston last March.
Archival Discoveries
Included here are perhaps the only two extant photos
documenting Churchill’s Atlanta visit, both taken at
Georgia Tech. The March edition of the student newspaper
On the front page of the February 23rd Constitution
was a headline: HITLER TO OPPOSE VON HINDENBURG IN
GERMAN RACE. (Hitler would lose this race for President,
but would then be appointed Chancellor.) This was accompanied by an article headlined CHINESE AIR BASE TOTALLY
WRECKED BY JAP BOMBERS.
The next day came a Constitution article entitled,
It described how
Josef Goebbels, later Hitler’s propaganda minister, had been
expelled from the legislature kicking and screaming, for
insulting President von Hindenburg. Goebbels had shouted
at the delegates, “You do not represent Germany,” and “The
man of tomorrow is coming!”
To put an exclamation point on my feeling of “six
degrees of separation,” I found yet another odd item, probably “filler,” buried on a back page of the February 24th
Constitution, listing recent U.S. Army postings. The U.S.
Army numbered only about 100,000 at this time, so it was
a short list. And in it was the posting of Major George S.
Patton, Jr. (cavalry) to Ft. Myer in Virginia.
Churchill, Hitler, Goebbels, Patton: all four were in
the Atlanta newspapers on the same two days in 1932—
over seven years before the beginning of World War II.
From Churchill there was a message of hope and encouragement, and a plea for Anglo-American unity. In the then
seemingly unrelated other articles we find a yet-to-be understood forecast of mighty battles to come.
What other seemingly disconnected headlines in
tomorrow’s paper (or iPad) will converge in future years?
Ponder this over your morning coffee. 
HITLERITE OUSTED FROM REICHSTAG.
JUST VISITING: With Diana at Georgia Tech. Churchill had told his
Atlanta audience, “Let our common tongue, our common basic law, our
joint heritage of literature and ideals, and the red tie of kinship, become
the sponge of obliteration for all the unpleasantness of the past.”
covered his ROTC comments, and I found the photos quite
unexpectedly on a photography website. Mike Connealy of
New Mexico discovered the negatives among the papers of
his father-in-law, an engineering student at the time, who
probably snapped them for the student newspaper.
Portents of Armageddon
Poring through microfilm archives of the Atlanta
Constitution and Atlanta Journal, I found the Churchill
coverage interesting—but several other events reported in
the same days’ papers were nothing short of eerie and, in
hindsight, prophetic.
“Good Voyage — Churchill”
Handpicked to represent the press on Churchills Atlantic Charter summit with Roosevelt in
Newfoundland in August 1941, a famous British travel writer produced a renowned wartime
book: Atlantic Meeting. This is an excerpt from his account of the voyage home.
H. V. M O R T O N
M
r. Churchill was
longing to see a
convoy. He used to
go down to the Map Room
time after time and measure
the distance of the nearest,
and so keen was his desire to
see the life blood of Britain in
circulation that the Captain
and First Sea Lord knew that
sooner or later his wish would
have to be gratified. It happened on August 15th.
There was a magnificent
convoy of seventy-two ships
ahead of us and, as we rapidly
overhauled them, Mr.
Churchill pointed out that a
slight deflection from our
course would take us into
them. A wireless warning to
the corvettes was accordingly
sent out.
The first I knew of it was when I met the signal
officer poring over a code book and he seemed rather
worried. He explained his problem.
“The signal I’m to make to the convoy is ‘The Prime
Minister wishes you the best of luck.’ But there’s no signal
for Prime Minister in the International Code. The nearest is
“Chief Minister of State,” which doesn’t sound a bit right.”
“Is there a flag for church?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And hill?”
“I see the idea—Churchill.” He came back later with
the message changed to “Good Voyage, Churchill.”
“I shall spell out Churchill,” he said. “There can’t be
any mistake then.”
It was not until 8:30 that evening that we ran into the
convoy. I was in the wardroom studying American magazine
advertisements at the time. The telephone rang and George
Ferguson spoke from the bridge, telling me to go out on the
quarterdeck at once.
I ran out and saw an
amazing sight. We were
racing through the middle of
the convoy. There were
tramps, tankers, liners and
whalers, salty old tubs and
cargo boats of every type, age
and size on each side of us,
the nearest only 200 yards
away, the crews clustered on
decks and fo’c’sles, waving
their caps in the air and
cheering like mad.
Never had I seen anything like it in my life. After
days on a lonely ocean, to
come into this fleet of
seventy-two ships travelling
in long lines and covering
many square miles of the
Atlantic would have been
exciting even in peacetime. It
was like meeting a town at sea, Blackburn or Oldham, with
all the chimneys smoking.
Now and again a siren tried to give us the V-sign in
Morse, but came to grief on the dots. Men in shirt sleeves,
sailors, a few passengers, stood clustered wherever they
could see us best, waving away, laughing and shouting at
the top of their voices.
Guarding this mighty fleet were eight little grey
corvettes lifting on the swell, snapping round the flanks of
the convoy like sheep dogs, scurrying up in rear to hurry on
a laggard, and dashing off into the open as if they had smelt
the big bad wolf.
We went through with our destroyer screen at twentytwo knots. The convoy was doing eight. If they were
thrilling to us, we must have been equally thrilling to them
as we shot ahead with our painted guns levelled and twelve
coloured flags and a pennant flying from our main foremast. The pennant at the lower yard showed that the signal
was made in the International Code. A three-flag hoist
above it read, PYU—GOOD VOYAGE, and a nine-flag hoist
on the port side spelt CHURCHILL.
As each ship read the message we could hear the
sound of cheering as we came level with them, we could see
skippers laughing inside wheelhouses, trying to wave with
one hand and touch off the siren with the other; and upon
our bridge Churchill waving his hand in the air, making a
“V” with the forefingers of his right hand, was cheering as
madly as any of the men who were cheering him.
As he looked over the sea from the altitude of the
bridge, the Prime Mnister could see the whole convoy
moving towards England. He saw it spread out for miles
over the Atlantic, moving in columns. He saw ships with
aeroplanes tied to their decks, he saw cargo-boats wallowing
to the Plimsoll line with food and munitions, liners deep in
the water with every kind of war material and tankers heavy
with petrol—a stupendous and heartening sight for the
leader of an island at war.
Having passed through them, we turned and saw our
white wake streaking backward, and we saw the ships
tossing in the tidal wave of our wash. Then, to our surprise,
the Prince of Wales with her destroyers began to describe a
circle, and we raced back behind the convoy. Why? What
had happened? This had happened. The Prime Minister
insisted on seeing it all over again!
So on we came a second time, the bright message still
at our masthead, our grey guns levelled; the sea curving in
two white lines from our bows; and they saw in us the
majesty of British sea power as we saw in them the gallantry
of the Merchant Navy. It was a grand meeting on the high
seas in wartime. I doubt if there has ever been a finer. It
symbolised the two great forces which have made Britain
and her Empire great and powerful in the world; the two
forces we must thank when we eat our bread in freedom at
this hour. As I watched those merchant ships so heavily
loaded pass by, I wished that everyone at home in England
could have seen them too. No one, seeing those brave ships
loaded with help for us passing through the battlefield of
the North Atlantic, could ever again waste a crust of bread
or think it smart to scrounge a pint of petrol.
Again the cheers sounded as the Prince of Wales went
past. “V” flags were hoisted by tramps and tankers, the deep
sirens of liners and the shrill yelps of tramps sent out one
dash and three misguided dots into the air of evening; and,
once again, we saw the tiny cheering figures on decks and
fo’c’sles as we raced across the grey sea on our way. And,
looking back at them with pride and gladness in our hearts,
we saw the convoy fade in the growing dusk to black dots
on the skyline; then they disappeared and there remained
only a smudge of smoke to tell that seventy-two ships were
going home to England.
Mr. Churchill watched them until the dusk hid them
from view. “A delectable sight,” he said. 
The Meeting with President Roosevelt
Winston S. Churchill, House of Commons, 24 August 1941
W
e had a Church parade on the Sunday in our
Atlantic bay. The President came on to the quarterdeck of the Prince of Wales, where there were
mingled together many hundreds of American and British
sailors and marines. The sun shone bright and warm while
we all sang the old hymns which are our common inheritance
and which we learned as children in our homes. We sang the
hymn founded on the psalm which John Hampden’s soldiers
sang when they bore his body to the grave, and in which the
brief, precarious span of human life is contrasted with the
immutability of Him to Whom a thousand ages are but as
yesterday, and as a watch in the night....
When I looked upon that densely-packed congregation of fighting men of the same language, of the same
faith, of the same fundamental laws and the same ideals,
and now to a large extent of the same interests, and certainly in different degrees facing the same dangers, it swept
across me that here was the only hope, but also the sure
hope, of saving the world from measureless degradation.
And so we came back across the ocean waves, uplifted
in spirit, fortified in resolve. Some American destroyers
which were carrying mails to the United States marines in
Iceland happened to be going the same way too, so we
made a goodly company at sea together.
And when we were right out in mid-passage one afternoon a noble sight broke on the view. We overtook one of
the convoys which carry the munitions and supplies of the
New World to sustain the champions of freedom in the Old.
The whole broad horizon seemed filled with ships; seventy
or eighty ships of all kinds and sizes, arrayed in fourteen
lines, each of which could have been drawn with a ruler,
hardly a wisp of smoke, not a straggler, but all bristling with
cannons and other precautions on which I will not dwell,
and all surrounded by their British escorting vessels, while
overhead the far-ranging Catalina air-boats soared—vigilant,
protecting eagles in the sky. Then I felt that, hard and terrible and long drawn-out as this struggle may be, we shall
not be denied the strength to do our duty to the end. 
Hands Across the Atlantic
HOW EDWARD R. MURROW PROMOTED TELEVISION AND FILM SALES FOR
CHURCHILLS LAST GREAT WORK, A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES
FRED GLUECKSTEIN
R
EDWA
I
D R. M
W
URRO
“Dear Sam: Sir Winston
....asked me, in his usual
gracious fashion, to
enquire whether there
might be any interest...
—Ed”
SAMU
EL GO
LDWY
N
“Dear Sir Winston:
My friends...seem to
feel that they lack
either the skill or
the financial resources to turn
it into a movie.
I think they
are wrong,
but then I
am not a
producer.
—Ed”
n
Churchill:
A Life,
Martin Gilbert
wrote that by
the end of
October 1932,
Churchill had
completed half of
the first of his
Marlborough
volumes and had
begun to think
about his next literary work, A
History of the
English-Speaking
Peoples.1
On 22 February 1933, The New York Times published details about the new project: Churchill had
contracted with the English publisher Cassell to write a
400,000-word history, and would receive £20,000 (then
$68,000, equivalent to $1.75 million today)—an amount
believed to be the highest sum paid for the rights to any
book in the previous twenty years.2
During the summer of 1938, Churchill finished his
final volume of Marlborough and completed the first
chapter of his new History. On August 20th, as the Munich
crisis was building, he wrote to Lord Halifax that “he was
horribly entangled with the Ancient Britons, the Romans,
the Angles,
Saxons and
Jutes all of
whom I
thought I had
escaped for ever
when I left
School.”3
On the first
of December, the
day after his sixtyfourth birthday,
Churchill completed his first
volume, ultimately
subtitled, The Birth
of Britain.
Writing to his
former research assistant Maurice Ashley in April 1939,
Churchill spoke of his proposed theme: “…the growth of
freedom and law, of the rights of the individual, of the subordination of the State to the fundamental and moral
conceptions of an ever-comprehending community. Of
these ideas the English-speaking peoples were the authors,
then the trustees, and must now become the armed champions. Thus I condemn tyranny in whatever guise and from
whatever quarter it presents itself. All this of course has a
current application.”4
But this last great multi-volume work would not be
published until 1956, long after the coming war, as
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Mr. Glueckstein is a Maryland writer and Finest Hour contributor. His previous articles were “Winston Churchill and Colonist II” (FH 125), “The
Statesman John Kennedy Admired Most” (FH 129), “Churchill’s Feline Menagerie” (FH 139), and “Ed Murrow’s Churchill Experience” (FH 144).
Churchill would ultimately explain in his preface:
It is nearly twenty years ago that I made the arrangements
which resulted in this book. At the outbreak of the war about
half a million words were duly delivered. Of course, there was
still much to be done in proof-reading when I went to the
Admiralty on September 3, 1939. All of this was set aside.
During six years of war, and an even longer period in which
I was occupied with my war memoirs, the book slumbered
peacefully. It is only now when things have quietened down
that I present [it] to the public….5
Of The Birth of Britain, Harold Nicolson wrote in
The New York Times: “This book is intensely, entrancingly
personal. We have the author’s simple faith, his romanticism, his irony, his deep compassion, his scorn, his
boyishness and his pugnacity…a memorable history, illuminated by flashes of genius, character and style, and one that
is bound to prove an ever-enduring record of our common
race.” In the Manchester Guardian Geoffrey Barraclough
added: “The story of men’s efforts at all times to grapple
with the problems and challenges of their own day—that
story plain and unembellished stirs and exalts us too.”
Churchill’s further volumes, which followed in 1956, 1957
and 1958, were The New World, The Age of Revolution
and The Great Democracies.
Inevitably the author was interested in the sale of the
television rights of the book in the United Kingdom and
United States. To determine the American market, he
turned to the American broadcaster Edward R. Murrow,
whom he had met in London after Murrow was appointed
chief of the Columbia Broadcasting System’s European
Bureau in 1935. Murrow had asked Churchill, who had
been warning of Germany’s remilitarization, for a broadcast
interview to the United States. In 1940, when Air Ministry
censors tried to deny Murrow permission to send live
broadcasts to the U.S. from London rooftops during the
Blitz, Churchill as prime minister interceded and approved
the request. The two men’s professional and personal relationship was cemented when their wives, Janet Murrow and
Clementine Churchill, became close friends while working
on relief efforts in war-torn London.
On 20 May 1958, Anthony Montague Browne, Sir
Winston’s private secretary, wrote Murrow:
I discussed with Sir Winston the matter of the sale of the television rights of A History of the English-Speaking Peoples
which came up at luncheon. He quite agrees that it would be
very helpful if you could take discreet soundings and let him
know if there is any market for it. Sir Winston himself could
not, of course, appear to assist in any way—it would be
merely a straight sale of the television and/or film rights.
Two weeks later Churchill himself cabled Murrow at CBS
with one of his legendary “prayers”: “Pray inform me if you
have been able to ascertain whether any market exists.”6
Murrow, who had by no means been inactive after
Montague Browne’s letter, responded next day, saying there
was “no active interest,” and that the general impression
“seems to be it’s more suitable for large screen cinema.”
Churchill quickly thanked his friend and for “the trouble
you are taking.”7
Murrow, thinking Hollywood, now turned to his
friend Samuel Goldwyn, writing on July 21st:
I think I mentioned to you that when I talked to Sir Winston
Churchill in London last May he asked me, in his usual gracious fashion, to enquire whether there might be any interest
in this country in the television or movie rights to his
“History of the English-Speaking Peoples.” I have pretty well
determined that there is no interest in television and I am
wondering what you would think of the possibility of developing any interest in the movie world.8
Alas a week later Goldwyn said he would not be interested.9 It is unknown who else Murrow may have
approached in Hollywood, but certainly he had started at
the top. He must have been disappointed to advise Sir
Winston on September 8th: “My friends in Hollywood are
of course lavish in their praise of the literary merit of the
work but seem to feel that they lack either the skill or the
financial resources to turn it into a movie. I think they are
wrong, but then I am not a producer.”10
Murrow’s efforts were extraordinary on the face of
it, and Sir Winston clearly appreciated it. On 17
November, after Churchill returned from a holiday at Lord
Beaverbrook’s villa La Capponcina at Cap d’Ail in the
South of France, Anthony Montague-Browne wrote
Murrow a letter expressing Sir Winston’s “very warm
thanks for the trouble you have taken,” adding, “It was
most useful to us to have the views of someone of your
standing on this matter.”11
Although Churchill was unsuccessful in having the
book made into a television series or film in America, he
had better luck in England. At considerable expense, the
BBC developed and filmed an epic titled Churchill’s People,
which consisted of twenty-six fifty-minute episodes based
on A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. 
Endnotes
1. Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life (London: Pimlico, 2000; first
published 1991), 509.
2. “Churchill to Write Book,” The New York Times, 22 February
1933, 22.
3. Gilbert, Churchill: A Life, 605.
4. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Companion Volume V, Part
3, The Coming of War 1936-1939 (London: Heinemann, 1982), 1445.
5. Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking
Peoples, vol. I, The Birth of Britain (London: Cassell, 1956), vii.
6-11. Collections and Archives, The Edward R. Murrow Center of
Public Diplomacy, The Fletcher School, Tufts University, Medford,
Massachusetts.
“All in the Same Boat”
Neither Britain nor America could replicate
their relationship with any other country.
AMBASSADOR RAYMOND SEITZ
I
am especially pleased to give this first Churchill Lecture
in Williamsburg, which takes us back to the English
roots of American history. The complicated AngloAmerican relationship may actually have started when
Queen Elizabeth I commanded Sir Humphrey Gilbert, halfbrother of Sir Walter Raleigh, to sail the Atlantic and “seize
the heathen and barbarous land.” This is the first recorded
reference to Washington, D.C.
I was born in 1940, so my life began almost at the
same moment as America’s real birth as a world power. I
don’t think these two events were connected. But they coincided, and as a result, most of my years, both personal and
professional, fitted snugly within a clearly delineated, historical epoch that ran for exactly fifty years.
For this half-century the United States engaged in a
great global struggle, first combating fascism in a hot war
and then resisting communism in a cold war. This immense
epoch ended in December 1991 when the Soviet Union,
with its perverse ideology and corrupt institutions, succumbed to its own spiritual gangrene. The end of the era, in
fact, came with a whimper.
But for Americans, it had started with a bang. On
Sunday, December 7th, 1941, just a day before my first
birthday, Japanese aircraft flew out of the morning sun of
the Pacific Ocean and attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. For
America, this marked the beginning of World War II: the
great defining shock in the history of our country. With a
single jolt, the news electrified the national psychology.
For my parents’ generation it was common to ask,
“Where were you when you heard about Pearl Harbor?” My
family liked getting the where-were-you question because
we were actually at Pearl Harbor.
My father was a captain of infantry stationed at
Scholfield Barracks. When the attack came, he took his
company of young soldiers down to the beaches to dig in
and await the land invasion that never came. The rest of the
family was hustled into a station wagon and taken into the
leafy fields of a pineapple plantation to hide. Of course I
remember none of this, but it was so much a part of our
family lore that I sometimes think I can see it all.
OR, “ALL IN THE SAME SLEDGE”? Churchill despised the editorials in the
Chicago Tribune (whose Joe Parrish here lampoons him and FDR over
Poland, 16 October 1944). It was probably not entirely accidental that he
assigned the serial rights to his Secret Session Speeches to the Tribunes
rival, Marshall Fields Chicago Sun. The Trib just kept on whinging.
New Collides with Old
History rarely moves at right angles. But for a new
country, which for generations had happily ignored the farflung troubles of the world, Pearl Harbor marked a
shattering of American innocence. After all, this was a
country founded on the rejection of the Old and the value
of the New. Throughout its history, millions of people have
come to its shores expecting a new life, breaking with the
past: a personal act of liberation.
America was not just another place. It was a new
world, a planet away from the past where original sin was
forgiven and a new Eden bloomed. Americans called places
“New England” and “New Hampshire” and lived in cities
called “New York” and “New Orleans.” Their politicians
have always promised a starting-over newness—the New
Freedom, the New Deal, the New Frontier, the New World
Order—because they think “new” is better.
American popular culture explains that a new and
improved soap is appealing simply because to be new is to
be improved, and its music and literature are about change
and movin’ on—a new car, a new road, a new town, a new
mate, a new life. In fact, it still seems that anything can be
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Raymond Seitz was the first career diplomat in modern history to be Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s (1991-94), which is usually a political
appointment. His book, Over Here, should be read by every American in Britain and every Briton in America. This article is excerpted from the First
Churchill Lecture, Williamsburg, Virginia, 7 November 1998. It remains so applicable now that it is hard to believe it is thirteen years old.
made new in America, including its people—eat right, exercise right, cap those teeth and straighten out that nose, tuck
up a droop here and vacuum out a bulge there and, with a
variety of chemical compounds from Prozac to Viagra, you
can shoot up with the Syringe of Youth into a perfect Zenlike state of permanent, forever newness.
But in those fifty years of global struggle, 1941 to
1991, America learned a lot. It learned that while it may be
different, it is not unique. It learned, I hope, that the world
is as old as the human condition, and it is very much a part
of it. It learned that many of the old verities apply to it, just
as they do to all others. There are good and bad, right and
wrong, the world turns and the sun also rises.
The American fascination with the new is nonetheless
a great strength: our search for answers, our willingness to
experiment, our ability to regenerate. We are excited by
what lies just over the next hill or just around the next
corner. But getting the balance right between the old and
the new, between the superficial and the enduring, between
the image and the reality is still a challenge for our social
politics. When Bill Clinton was making his first run for the
presidency, his theme song was “Don’t Stop Thinking about
Tomorrow,” and I used to mutter to myself, “Don’t stop
thinking about yesterday, either.”
This is one purpose of The Churchill Centre—not
just the study of the great, jowly bulldog and his many
myth-making accomplishments; not just the rotund
“JUST PERFECT HARMONY”: Even though there wasnt exactly perfect
harmony after Teheran, Churchill, a fan of cartoons, would have approved this
portrayal by the British artist Tom Webster in the Courier, Winter 1943.
Anglophilia that rolls around in American discourse; not
just the nostalgia for the glory days of wartime collaboration. Churchill, I suspect, would scoff at a lot of
that—while using it to advantage. But it seems to me that
the goal of the Centre must be to take the experiences and
principles of the past, which were so dynamically represented by this supreme figure, and heave those lessons
forward into new generations. And certainly an essential
lesson for America is an old one: You can’t go it alone.
National Destinies Converging
If someone put that famous question to Sir Winston
Churchill—“Where were you when you heard about Pearl
Harbor?”—he would say that he was spending a Sunday
evening at Chequers, the prime minister’s country home,
dining with two Americans, his old friend Averell Harriman
and the U.S. ambassador, John Winant. The record of the
evening is not exact, but everyone agrees what occurred in
substance. On the question of how Churchill got the news,
it seems the butler did it.
Churchill had been in a glum mood—the news from
the desert war in North Africa was not good—and when he
switched on a radio to listen to the BBC nine o’clock bulletin, the report about a Japanese attack was garbled and
there was confusion around the table. But the butler, Frank
Sawyers, who had been listening to another radio in the
pantry, rushed back into the dining room—insofar as any
English butler rushes—and confirmed the news.
Churchill leapt from the table and, followed by his
two American guests, went to an office and put in a call to
President Roosevelt. “What’s this about Japan?” the Prime
Minister shouted down the line. “It’s quite true,” Roosevelt
replied. “They have attacked us at Pearl Harbor.” And then
the President added, “We are all in the same boat now.”
Can you imagine this exchange by transatlantic telephone? Imagine, in those days, the hollow, tinny sound of
voices separated by three thousand miles of underwater
cable, the rasping static that must have scratched at their
simple words, and somewhere along that long line the
muffled sound of two national destinies converging.
Churchill later confessed that he was exhilarated by
the news of Pearl Harbor when he went to bed that night.
He lamented the loss of life, but America was finally in the
war. Victory was assured—the war was over and only the
manner of its ending was left to be concluded. The United
States and the United Kingdom were truly in the same boat.
And there they remained, with the water right up to the
gunwales, for the next fifty years.
Roosevelt and Churchill
The modern paradigm of the Anglo-American partnership comes down from Winston Churchill and Franklin
Roosevelt. In many ways they were the kind of match for
each other that only the serendipity of history could >>
“America and Britain share an accumulation of historical
concepts given body over generations—human and civil rights,
liberty, the common law and the rule of law, forbearance and
equity, private property, the basic freedoms, simple dignity. We
may practice these imperfectly, but all of them mixed up together
mean that we think about things in a similar fashion, and on one
issue or another we are as likely as not to arrive at the same
conclusion. This is not always true, but it is often true.”
“ALL IN THE SAME BOAT”...
produce. Both were patrician with long family histories, and
Churchill’s mother was conveniently born in Brooklyn.
Both were eloquent and witty in a time before God
invented speech-writers. In their political intrigues and
public relations, each was as manipulative as the other. And
both were warriors.
They did not always agree. After all, one was a dyedin-the-wool Tory and the other a visionary liberal
Democrat. Their world views were distinctly different.
Churchill loved the British Empire and understood
European history better than any American was likely to do.
Roosevelt, for his part, had no intention of fighting a war to
preserve British colonialism and thought European history
was misbegotten.
Military strategy was a contentious bone between
them and they often exasperated each other. If it suited
Roosevelt to distance himself from the prime minister when
meeting with “Uncle Joe” Stalin, he did so. When it suited
Churchill to agree with Stalin on a mathematical carve-up
of the Balkans, he did so too.
The danger of looking back at this pair of leaders is
the cloud of romance that envelops their memory. Still,
these two remarkable people—wrapped in lap rugs on the
deck of a battleship in the North Atlantic or watching a
desert sunset from a Moroccan tower—cast a spell over
Anglo-U.S. relations through all the years that followed.
Coin from the Churchill Mint
This came to be known as the “special relationship,”
another durable coin from the Churchill mint. For many
years, on both sides of the Atlantic, the phrase carried the
reassuring resonance of wartime triumph and captured the
spirit of an exceptional alliance between two countries
which did not take naturally to alliances. The “special relationship” implied a steady rhythm of cooperation between
the United States and United Kingdom that was unaltered
by political change in either capital. It was a transatlantic
code which promised that things would probably turn out
all right in the end, and usually they did.
When I returned to Britain as Ambassador in 1991, I
was leery of this catch-phrase, and never used it. I thought
it had become a little shopworn and sounded too much like
a knee-jerk jingle. The end of the Cold War, I thought, was
no time for clichés. Europe was changing fundamentally. So
was the bilateral relationship. So was the world.
After all, for those fifty years, the Anglo-American
relationship had taken its principal shape from a single
strategic fact. Concentrated in the center of Europe, and
extending well to the east, stood a large military force controlled by a hostile, totalitarian regime—first Nazi and then
Soviet—which wished neither of our countries well. The
official Anglo-American relationship wasn’t only about this,
but it was largely about this.
And then, suddenly, the Berlin Wall came down,
Eastern European nations were liberated, Russian forces
streamed back to their Eurasian hinterland, the continent
was effectively de-nuclearized, Germany was united and the
Soviet empire collapsed in a colossal, shuddering mass. This
was a breathtaking epic, and almost entirely peaceful. In
fact, I cannot identify another period in modern European
history when such sweeping historical forces were let loose
across the continent without a precipitating war.
Vertical to Horizontal
The apparent triumph of political democracy and
open-market economics—both of which are essentially
Anglo-American concepts—was so complete that one
enthusiastic observer declared the phenomenon “The End
of History,” meaning the ultimate resolution of ideological
division. But it also meant that the strategic perspective of
the U.S. and Britain was much less likely to overlap.
And, sure enough, today it seems that instead of the
vertical political world of the cold war, with a dividing line
running from top to bottom, we instead have a horizontal
economic world with a division running crosswise like a line
of latitude. This is just another way of saying “globalization,” but parts of each society in the world today
participate in an international economy and parts of each
society really don’t.
The dividing line today has less to do with geography
than it does with whether you are citizen of the knowledgebased Information Age and all the technological and
computerized wizardry that implies. And it is the effect of
economic globalism rather than political ideology which
produces the serious tensions in the world today.
You can argue, for example, that someone with a university degree in Seattle has more in common with a
well-educated executive in Edinburgh than with many of
the below-line individuals in his own country. I recall a
recent study which showed that the top 20% in America
received almost 50% of the national income, and it was
growing; and the bottom 20% received about 5% of the
national income, and it was declining. The difference had
nothing to do with race or region or religion. The simple
dividing line was a university degree—which meant access
to the Information Age.
And, therefore, someone without much education in
Manchester faces the same limited prospects as his counterpart in, say, Chicago. In fact, there is probably more social
alignment between the United States and the United
Kingdom today than ever. Much more than before we hold
up a social mirror to each other. Such in-or-out parallelism
is more or less true around the world. And so the social
agendas between the United States and Britain today—and
even our political moods—are strikingly similar.
Globalization’s Challenge
I think globalism is a good thing, though its implications are just emerging. Over the last years nations have
geometrically enriched themselves through a progressively
more liberal free-trading system, financed by an increasingly
more fluid capital market. In 1950 international trade was
valued at some $70 billion; last year it reached $4 trillion.
The value of international financial transactions on any
given day is in the neighborhood of $12 trillion, give or
take a trillion.
The high-speed, on-line, internetted, gigabyting electronics which lubricates this massive global exchange
demonstrates an interconnection in the world economy so
fleet and so sensitive that events somewhere in the world
have instantaneous ramifications everywhere in the world.
But what globalism lacks is the political framework to
understand it. Our international institutions such as NATO
or the IMF—both of which were essentially put together by
the British and Americans—are looking a little dysfunctional these days. There is no Churchillian concept to pull
all this together. In fact, there seems to be a disconnect
between the globalization of economic development, on the
one hand, and the de-globalization of political leadership on
the other.
Moreover, “globalization” often sounds like a euphemism for Americanization. Americans especially need to be
careful that too many Microsoft programs, too many Big
Macs, too many cruise missiles, too many Sylvester Stallone
movies do not lead to a cultural reaction against an international system largely identified with the United States.
For Britain, too, these are confused times. Dean
Acheson’s famous statement that Britain had lost an empire
but not yet found a role seems much more relevant now
than when he said it. Today the question of how Britain fits
into this global world presses down on the nation like a
heavy political weight, and for the most part, the response is
ambivalent.
The country, for many understandable historic reasons
and genuine misgivings, cannot bring itself to make the
necessary psychological commitment to the grand European
enterprise. It can’t quite come up with a credible alternative
either. This is probably the most important strategic issue
Britain has faced since the end of the Second World War.
But in this political twilight zone, the UK sometimes seems
to have retired to the psychiatrist’s couch to ask: Who am I?
Where am I going? Is God really not an Englishman?
Over the last century, the role of international leadership has increasingly fallen to the United States. For better
or worse, the world has become accustomed to American
leadership, or put another way around, the world is
incapable of serious action without the American catalyst.
Yet American politics seem fractious, petty, unilateralist, self-absorbed, strident and media-obsessed, and the
current global financial challenge, for example, coincides
with a moment in United States history when the country,
at least to outside observers, seems bent on pulling itself
apart and squandering its moral energy. The result, I think,
is that the federal capital of this remarkable republic has
been diminished, and will remain so for a long time.
The Real Special Relationship
When you look around the world today, I think it is
safe to say that we do not have the structure nor the vocabulary nor the leadership to describe where we are. Perhaps
this is why the political Churchill seems to loom so large
today. Less his fullness than our inadequacy.
If I could put a priority item on today’s AngloAmerican agenda, this would be it: a fresh focus on national
security in an unnational world, and a reconciliation
between economic globalism and social responsibility. What
I learned as ambassador is that today the genuine “special
relationship”—the unique part of Anglo-American affairs—
really exists outside the official body of government
intercourse and well beyond the headlines and photo ops.
You see this in all manner of public policy, from
welfare reform to school reform, and from zero-tolerance
policing to pension management. You see it in every scholarly pursuit from archaeology to zoology, in every field of
science and research, and in every social movement from
environmentalism to feminism. You see it in financial regulation and corporate governance and trade union >>
“ALL IN THE SAME BOAT”...
interchange, and you see it at every point along the cultural
spectrum from the novel to the symphony and from the
movies to pop music.
You see it in the big statistics of trade and investment,
and in the tiny statistics of transatlantic tourism (six million
visitors a year); or transatlantic flights (40,000); or transatlantic telephone calls (three and one-half billion minutes).
You see it in the work of The Churchill Centre.
Here is the thick, rich texture of the relationship at its
most creative, most energetic, and most durable. The truly
special relationship is this: the United States and the United
Kingdom influence each other’s intellectual development
like no other two countries. And it is here, I suspect—
where the old truth lies—that we will discover answers
about our joint future in a changing, global world.
Plus Ça Change...
America and Britain share an accumulation of historical concepts given body over generations—human and civil
rights, liberty, the common law and the rule of law, forbearance and equity, private property, the basic freedoms, simple
dignity. We may practice these imperfectly, but all of them
mixed up together mean that we think about things in a
similar fashion, and on one issue or another we are as likely
as not to arrive at the same conclusion.
This is not always true, but it is often true, and the
relationship emerges from the natural repetition of this
pattern. One thing is sure: neither nation could possibly
replicate this relationship with any other
country.
Visiting Tunisia,
my wife and I went to
a house which
Churchill had used as
a headquarters. You
could almost smell the
cigar smoke. More
recently we saw,
hanging on the wall in
a Scottish castle, an oil
study of the great man,
for the famously evaporated Graham
Sutherland portrait,
presented to him by
Parliament on his 80th
birthday but subsequently destroyed
because he hated it so.
You simply can’t
get away from the
man. I often pass
Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square, where he leans into
the House of Commons and scolds MPs as they emerge. In
another statue I saw again just yesterday, Churchill supervises the traffic on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington. A
bust of Churchill was recently unveiled in the great FrenchCanadian city of Quebec.
And on a little pedestrian cross-walk in London,
sitting on a park bench, are the bronze figures of Churchill
and Roosevelt. Symbolic perhaps of my opening thoughts
about Pearl Harbor, it is at the junction of the two Bond
Streets: New and Old. It’s a unique sculpture, the only one
of them both, the work of Lawrence Holofcener, like
Churchill a joint British-American citizen.
Churchill is sporting a jaunty bow tie and wearing his
zippered shoes. Roosevelt is in a rumpled, double-breasted
suit and you can see the metal leg braces sticking out
beneath his trouser cuffs. They are both looking on the
decidedly paunchy side of life.
Both are smiling. Churchill is leaning towards
Roosevelt to catch a word, and Roosevelt has his left arm
slung across the top of the bench. They seem to be enjoying
the day and simply shooting the breeze.
They may be talking about where matters stand and
how to handle things. They may be doing in someone’s reputation. Or maybe they’re remembering that day a long
time ago when they heard about Pearl Harbor and strapped
their nations together in joint harness.
And maybe they’re saying that, even if today the
ocean is different, we’re still in the same boat. 
Is This the Man?
London, 12 April 1945: “The Prime Minister was found at his desk with wet eyes”
I
s this the man
who rigid stood
with bulldog
mien
and shoulders
hunched,
feet wide apart,
bluntly to tell
with throaty growl
his island folk:
“There’s nothing left;
gone are our guns,
gone are our tanks,
gone our allies,
gone the spearhead
of our attack.
the horses champ.
The whetted swords
whine in their sheaths.
With lightened heart
girded, I wait.”
Is this that man
he who now sits,
with wet red eyes,
pallid and limp,
image of woe,
deep in his chair?
Winston Churchill at the grave of Franklin Roosevelt, 12 March 1946.
as hungry hawks,
blood of our blood,
“There’s nothing left bone of our bone,
will guard our skies,
to offer you
and
in their zeal
but blood and toil
and tears and sweat. will give their all,
and, giving, win
“There’s nothing left the world’s acclaim
and its intent
but our grim will
to pray and work
to battle on
while our breath holds. for truth and right.
‘twixt East and West?
Is this the man
who quick as
thought,
when the mad Hun
sprang at the Russ,
told the Red chief
he’d stay with him
through thick and
thin
to the war’s end;
“We shall not flag,
“In this mold cast
and as of old
we’ll build in mass,
guns, tanks and arms we’ll hew our way,
with pit dog grit,
of new design,
through all our ills
more deadly far
than those we’ve lost: to our set goal.”
a new offense
Is this the man
of greater thrust.
who had the nerve
to strip his land
“While thus we toil
to make secure
our valiant fleet
Suez Canal,
ever our shield,
will guard our shores. the Empire’s bridge
and vital link
Our airmen keen
Who sent his ships,
despite great loss,
through icy seas
bearing supplies,
guns, tanks and
planes
to bleak Murmansk
for use against
the common foe?
Is this the man
to whom there came,
in a dark hour
across the sea,
a whisper from
his only peer
in all the world,
one brave as he,
whose crippled frame
did but enhance
his smile serene
and serve to lend
to his sound mind
wings to aspire—
“From this day forth,
come weal or rue,
I’ll share the load
and ride with you,
knee touching knee,
in this crusade.”
Is this the man
who slept in spurs,
who sent back word
in quick response:
“Our church bells ring
as God we praise.
Within their stalls
Yes, it is he.
Hush! Let him weep.
Such grief as his
must find a vent,
or chance the toll
of clot or stroke.
He has just learnt
his gallant friend
from cross the sea
who rode with him,
knee touching knee,
so unperturbed
through risks untold,
who was to him
as David was
to Jonathan,
will ride with him
no more,
no
more.
BY CHARLES
MINER COOPER,
physician to President
Harding. First published
in volume form by John
Howell, San Francisco,
1945. 
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Is This The Man” appeared in FH 14 (1970), FH 60 (1988) and the 1995 Boston Conference Program. Knowing as we do the bumps and scrapes
of the famous relationship—knowing that things weren’t always quite this way—the poem yet has a way of turning up, and sounding right.
CLAREMONT INSTITUTE
William A. Rusher
1923-2011
He told us how an all-American boy,
growing up in the 1930s, found in a
distant English voice crackling across
the ether, the hero of a lifetime.
R I C H A R D M. L A N G W O R T H
W I T H L A R R Y P. A R N N
B
ill Rusher came to our aid in a
pinch. Back in the Nineties, we
were striving to “balance” our
political speakers, and the 11th
Churchill Conference in Calgary and
Banff was the conservatives’ turn. We
had welcomed the Liberal Roy Jenkins
on our Scottish tour that summer, and
had lined up Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and
William Manchester to address our
1995 Boston conference. So to Banff we
invited Milton Friedman, to explain
why Churchill was right (yes!) to put
Britain back on the gold standard in the
Twenties.
Alas, Dr. Friedman took ill, and
we scratched around for another conservative who could take his place on short
notice. Milton Friedman’s own home
town, San Francisco, produced Mr.
Rusher, longtime publisher of National
Review and friend of William F.
Buckley, Jr. “After all,” I told the organizers, Randy Barber and John
Plumpton, “his initials are WAR, so
nobody can think him a peacenik.” Bill
duly arrived and delivered a charming
speech, excerpts of which are on the
next page. All of it can (and should) be
read on our website.
We held a Q&A at Banff because
we wanted to ask Mr. Rusher why his
friend Buckley wrote such dreadful
things about Churchill in 1965. We
were actually trying to get Buckley to
address a Churchill conference but he
was resisting. And so we cornered his
colleague. “You
will have to
remember,” Bill
Rusher replied
in his crisp staccato, “that the
Buckleys were
America Firsters
before the war; a
streak of libertarianism always
ran through
them. They were
not fans of
European entanglements. And of course,
as you know, they were Irish!”
But lo, with the help of Larry
Arnn, we actually did get Buckley, in
Boston, though alas we couldn’t get
both him and Arthur Schlesinger
together on the same night!
In remembering the learned,
charming man that was Bill Rusher,
Finest Hour can do no better than to
quote Larry Arnn’s tribute to him in
National Review, which described him
as “Churchillian”:

“If we mean by that a man who
had a natural ear for good words in
prose and poetry…then Bill Rusher was
Churchillian. If we mean by that a man
who distilled a wide reading into truths
that could be remembered and applied
to his own choices, then Bill Rusher was
who learned from Churchill all his life,
who saw into his character as a gentleman would see, then Bill Rusher was
whose wit was biting but never unkind,
whose sense of humor was hilarious to
the place of danger on formal occasions,
then Bill Rusher was Churchillian....
“There are differences between Bill
Rusher and Churchill. Churchill would
not, if he offered you a drink in his
home, hand you a printed menu, accurate as to inventory, that he had prepared
himself….Churchill, said his wife, was ‘a
sporting man who liked to give the train
a chance to get away.’ Rusher would
speak sharply to Churchill about that, as
he did to me.
“Like Churchill’s work, that of
Rusher lives because it gives us a model
and a chance today. We owe him a debt,
to be paid in love and memory.” 
11th International Churchill Conference, Banff, Alberta, 25 September 1994
“The Truth is great, and shall prevail,
When none cares whether it prevail or not”
W I L L I A M A. R U S H E R
Excerpted from Churchill Proceedings
1994-1995 (published 1998). For the
complete text of this speech please see:
http://bit.ly/mF8Aeo.
A
lthough only in my teens in the
late Thirties, I was politically
aware, watching the developments in Europe as war approached. I
found an early hero in Mr. Churchill.
The first thing I remembered about him
was in an article by Vincent Sheehan,
who wrote: “When you see him coming
he reminds you of an army with banners
fluttering. Your first impulse is to get
out of his way.”
When I was sixteen, I remember
my mother dashing into my room one
morning and saying, “Bill! Wake up!
Hitler’s invaded Poland and the dirty
devil’s on the radio. Come and listen.”
It was September 1st, 1939. I was
soon able contemporaneously to listen
to liberty's reply—those great wartime
broadcasts by Winston Churchill, over
the inadequate shortwave of those days.
I can’t tell you how they lifted the spirit.
Fast forward to 1946, when I was
waiting to enter a Harvard Law School
class for returning veterans, and met a
fellow Churchillian, Henry Anatole
Grunwald, an Austrian immigrant
working as a copy boy at Time. He later
became editor-in-chief of Time and
U.S. Ambassador to Austria. In 1965 he
edited one of the finest tributes,
Churchill: The Life Triumphant, published by American Heritage.
Henry Grunwald intrigued me
with a discovery of his: an unpublished
despatch filed by the Time correspondent in Athens in December 1944,
when Churchill had arrived there to try
to set up a democratic government
under the Greek Orthodox Archbishop
Damaskinos, uniting the disparate
fighting elements.
Met on arrival by LieutenantGeneral Sir Ronald Scobie, the British
officer commanding, Churchill began
asking questions. According to Time’s
man, Churchill asked: “Who is this
Damaskinos? Is he a man of God, or a
scheming prelate more interested in the
combinations of temporal power than in
the life hereafter?”
Scobie replied, “I think the latter,
Prime Minister.”
Churchill said, “Good, that’s just
our man.”
Archbishop Damaskinos was duly
named premier and Churchill, of
course, met him during that visit to
Greece. Gerald Pawle, in The War and
Colonel Warden, recounts an episode
which occurred right before their
meeting. It is a tradition in the Royal
Navy that on Christmas Eve members
of the crew dress up and go around the
deck japing and joking, and occasionally, at random, tossing a colleague into
the sea. They wear very strange costumes. On this occasion one of them
was dressed up as a hula dancer, with a
grass skirt and brassiere with red and
green lights that blinked on and off.
They had been isolated from the VIP
area, but nonetheless they wandered a
little close just as official party including
the Archbishop arrived on board.
Now Damaskinos stood well over
six feet, and of course he was wearing a
miter that reached a good foot or more
above that. He had a long, flowing black
cloak and a huge, bushy grey beard. The
sailors looked at him and beheld a
fellow celebrant! Massing happily, they
advanced on the Archbishop with every
intention of tossing him into the sea.
They were deterred with difficulty,
and the Archbishop went on to Mr.
Churchill's cabin, where it was politely
explained to him who these people were
and what the tradition was. It is said
that he looked as if he had fallen among
a group of lunatics.
Churchill, like all heroes, has his
detractors, but I don't worry about this
at all. If there is anything certain in
history, it is his place and stature. For
one thing, his career was simply so long!
Let me give you an example.
After World War II, Attlee's
Labour government wanted to curb the
power of the House of Lords. Attlee had
the poor judgment to quote what
Churchill, as a member of the 1911
Liberal cabinet, had said when the
Liberals had first curbed the Lords’
powers. Churchill had called the Lords
“one-sided, hereditary, unpurged, unrepresentative, irresponsible, absentee.”
Churchill replied: “Really, I do
believe there ought to be a statute of
limitations on my remarks. I'm willing
to be held responsible for anything I've
said for the past thirty years, but before
that I think a veil should be drawn over
the past.” How many politicians last
long enough to make that particular
request?
As long as humanity admires
courage, eloquence and tenacity,
Churchill will be remembered and
honored—and these are virtues which
will come into fashion again, ladies and
gentlemen.
I know we have a tendency to be
discouraged about how things are
going—although in our time, you know,
they haven't gone all that badly. The
Soviet Union lies in ruins. Free market
economics, which I wouldn't have given
you a plugged nickel for at the end of
World War II, is now so popular that
even Red China calls its policy “Market
Socialism,” whatever that is. These are
big victories. Still there is much that is
worrisome. I'm sure Churchill, if he
were here, would encourage us to “never
despair” and “never give in.” That is
why I think he would enjoy a little
quatrain by the 19th century British
poet Coventry Patmore, with which I
like to end my talks, because it is
upbeat, optimistic and true.
For want of me
the world's course will not fail.
When all its work is done
the lie shall rot.
The Truth is great and shall prevail,
When none cares
whether it prevail or not. 
by Michael McMenamin
125 Years Ago
Summer 1886 • Age 11
“A little cash would be welcome.”
T
he summer of 1886 saw the beginning of Lord Randolph’s short-lived
tenure as Chancellor of the Exchequer
and Leader of the Conservative Party in
the House of Commons. It was to end
barely six months later. In the general
election, the Conservatives won 316
seats which, combined with the Liberal
Unionists’ 78, gave the ConservativeUnionist coalition a majority of 118.
Winston was aware of his father’s
political activities. After his father had
been reelected but before the Tory
margin was known he wrote to his
mother: “I am very glad Papa got in for
South Paddington by so great a majority.
I think that was a victory! I hope the
conservatives will get in, do you think
they will?” In a letter to his mother on
13 July, he showed surprising political
sophistication for an eleven-year-old:
“Do you think the conservatives will get
in without any of the unionist liberals?”
In this letter he importuned his mother
to allow him to learn to play the cello: “I
want to know if I may learn the
Violoncello or if not The Violin instead
of the Piano, I feel that I shall never get
on much in learning to Play the piano,
but I want to learn the violoncello very
much indeed and as several of the other
boys are going to learn I should like to
very much, so I hope you will give sanction. I would be delighted.” He closed
his letter with a not untypical plea: “I
am very sorry to say that I am bankrupt
and a little cash would be welcome.”
In a letter to his mother on 27
July, two days before Lord Randolph was
appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Winston inquired as to his future: “I
received Papa’s letter this morning, it
was so kind of him to write to me when
he was so busy. Do you think he will be
Secretary of State for India, or that he
will have a new post.” His mother had
written to him following his 13 July
letter and its cello plea but, as Winston
pointed out in this letter, “you have not
said anything about the Violoncello in
your letter.”
100 Years Ago
“Perhaps the time is coming.”
T
he summer of 1911 was one of the
hottest, and labor strikes began
among the dock workers in June, followed by partial strikes by railway
workers and food shortages in London,
Liverpool and Manchester. As with the
strikes at Tonypandy, Churchill as Home
Secretary was in the middle of things.
The King himself was concerned,
telegraphing Churchill on 16 August
1911: “Accounts from Liverpool show
that the situation there more like revolution than a strike. Trust that Govt while
inducing strike leaders and masters to
come to terms will take steps to ensure
protection of life & property.”
As he had during the miners’ strike
in Tonypandy and elsewhere, Churchill
called upon local authorities to make the
fullest use of police before calling in
troops. Troops were requested by local
authorities on several occasions, however,
when civil order had broken down. The
railway strikes ended on 20 August after
Chancellor of the Exchequer Lloyd
George persuaded employers to recognize and bargain with the unions. On 20
August the King wrote to Churchill:
“Your telegram informing me that the
Railway strike has been declared at an
end has given me the greatest satisfaction. I feel convinced that prompt
measure taken by you prevented loss of
life in different parts of the country.”
The season was more significant to
Churchill in that he began to reconsider
his view that Germany was no threat to
Britain, prompted when the Germans
sent the gunboat Panther to the port of
Agadir in Morocco. Winston being
Winston, he did not hesitate to share his
thoughts with Prime Minister Asquith,
Foreign Secretary Grey, Chancellor of
the Exchequer Lloyd George and First
Lord of the Admiralty McKenna (whom
he eventually replaced). In a memorandum to the Committee of Imperial
Defence on 23 August, Churchill foretold with uncanny precision how a
German attack on France would
develop, and what Britain should do in
response to aid Belgium and France in
that eventuality.
On 30 August, Churchill wrote
Grey: “Perhaps the time is coming when
decisive action will be necessary. Please
consider the following policy for use if
and when the Morocco negotiations
fail.” He went on to recommend a triple
alliance with Russia and France to “safeguard the independence of Belgium,
Holland and Denmark,” provided those
three resisted any German invasion.
On 13 September, Churchill wrote
McKenna on naval policy in the event of
war: “The British government should
guarantee to pay full indemnity for all
British or neutral ships sunk or captured
by the enemy in the course of bringing
necessaries of life and manufacture to
this country.” The same day, Churchill
wrote Asquith criticizing naval policy:
“Are you sure that the ships we have at
Cromarty are strong enough to defeat
the whole German High-Seas fleet? If
not they shd be reinforced without
delay….Are you sure that the admty
realise the serious situation of Europe? I
am told they are nearly all on leave at
the present time.” Churchill repeated
this same criticism of the Admiralty the
next day in a letter to Lloyd George.
75 Years Ago
“It has not been a pleasant task.”
H
itler’s foreign policy had changed
the face of Europe. The acquiescence of France and Great Britain to
Germany’s remilitarization of the
Rhineland, coupled with Germany’s
being the only major power to support
Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia, the countries of southeast Europe knew they
would have to make their peace with
Germany since France and Britain would
not keep them out of Germany’s orbit.
In Britain, Churchill’s cousin
Frederick Guest warned him that though
“Baldwin is tired,” if he wished to be
Prime Minister he must temper his criticisms of the government. Churchill had
remained quiet over the Rhineland, but
ignoring Guest’s advice, he attacked the
government the next day for “half measures and procrastinations,” and being
weak, careless and seemingly incapable
of realizing the awful degeneration
which is taking place….At any rate my
conscience is clear. I have done my best
during the last three years and more to
give timely warning of what was happening abroad, and of the dangerous
plight into which we were being led or
lulled. It has not been a pleasant task. It
has certainly been a very thankless
task....I have been mocked and censured
as a scare-monger and even as a warmonger, by those whose complacency
and inertia have brought us all nearer to
war and war nearer to us all.
They were closer to war then even
Churchill knew. While German propaganda was touting (as some historians do
today) Hitler’s “economic miracle,”
Germany’s economy was in bad shape.
Hitler had engaged in massive deficit
spending in order to rearm. While
unemployment had been reduced from
six to 2.5 million, 14% of the workforce
was still unemployed, not including
another million in labour service camps
populated largely by communists, socialists, Jews and other declared enemies.
Reserves of the Reichsbank had been
reduced from 973,000,000 reichsmarks
to only 72,000,000 by 1936.
Stephen Roberts, an economic historian from Australia who spent 1936
studying in Germany, concluded: “The
MARCH 1936: As Churchills concerns
mounted, Lloyd George visited Hitler at the
Berghof, and returned singing his praises.
Nazi state is being financed by short
term loans....She can get nowhere until
she returns to normal economic conditions, but she is afraid to try to get back
to those, because she fears economic collapse and social upheaval if she does so.”
Knowing this, Hitler realized that
war was the only way out of the box,
which is what he had intended all along.
Hermann Göring’s four-year plan in
1936 was designed to facilitate a series of
short contained conflicts, after each of
which Hitler would digest his conquest
and move on to the next. Churchill was
afraid of this. He wrote to a friend on 2
July: “I fear that by the summer of next
year, the Germans will be so strong as to
dominate all our thoughts.”
Churchill supported Austen
Chamberlain’s request for a secret
session of Parliament to discuss defense
issues, but Prime Minister Baldwin
refused. He did agree to receive a parliamentary deputation led by Austen, Lord
Salisbury and Churchill, on 28-29 July.
At the conclusion of the first day,
Churchill said: “Permit me to end upon
this thought which preys upon me. The
months slip by rapidly. If we delay too
long in repairing our defences we may be
forbidden by superior power to complete
the process.”
On the second day, Churchill
addressed Baldwin’s excuse that the
country was not ready to support all that
Churchill wanted to improve national
defence. Baldwin said he did not believe
Germany was rearming in order to fight
Britain. He even suggested circumstances
under which he would throw France
under the bus—as his successor was to
do with Czechoslovakia: “I am not going
to get this country into a war with
anybody for the League of Nations or
anybody else or for anything else. There
is one danger, of course, which has probably been in all your minds—supposing
the Russians and Germans got fighting
and the French went in as the allies of
Russia owing to that appalling pact they
made; you would not feel you were
obliged to go and help France, would
you? If there is any fighting in Europe to
be done, I should like to see the Bolshies
and the Nazis doing it.”
Baldwin would get his wish in
three years, when the Bolshies and the
Nazis joined to carve up Poland.
50 Years Ago
“He is a wonderful boy.”
C
hurchill spent much of June at the
Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo,
where Anthony Montague Browne wrote
to Lord Beaverbrook, “I think Sir
Winston is bored. There is nobody
about at all.”
He returned to London early in
July and, with Clementine, entertained
Lord Beaverbrook and Lady Dunn at
Chartwell on the 16th. On August 12th
they had a visit from Lord Montgomery,
who paid many such calls on the fastaging Sir Winston. Monty managed to
elicit from Churchill his opinion that
Balfour had been “the best leader we
have had in this century”—better than
Lloyd George, who “had not been as
good.” Churchill said that Baldwin had
been a poor leader and that Chamberlain
had been better. “But then you see I am
prejudiced. The first thing [Neville
Chamberlain] did when the war started
was to ask me to join his government.”
Later in August, his son Randolph
and the American Kay Halle—who had
wanted to marry each other thirty years
earlier but were dissuaded by their
respective parents—were lunching at
Chartwell when Churchill rose and proposed a toast to John F. Kennedy: “Kay,
let us drink to your great President.”
In late August, Churchill returned to
Monte Carlo, accompanied by his
grandson Winston. In a letter to
Clementine he wrote, “I am daily astonished by the development I see in my
namesake. He is a wonderful boy. I am
so glad I have got to know him.” 
M
y employment with Randolph Churchill, as a
research assistant on the official biography of his
father, began in October 1962 on my twentysixth birthday, at his beautiful home Stour, in East Bergholt,
Suffolk. Given Randolph’s reputation for drink and anger,
my friends and I assumed that my engagement would be of
short duration. I was still there, as part of his team of
“young gentlemen,” or “ghosts,” four and a half years later.
Randolph made many enemies by his often violent
conduct, but he could be kind, considerate and generous.
On my first working day he somewhat shyly handed me a
gift: a copy of his book Fifteen Famous English Homes,
inscribed “Martin Gilbert from Randolph S. Churchill.” A
month later he gave me another of his books, The Rise and
Fall of Sir Anthony Eden, inscribed “Martin from
Randolph.” I had been accepted as part of his team.
Work could begin at any time of the day, or night: in
mid-morning, after lunch, before dinner, or after dinner.
Randolph never tired of asking the questions, and was
always eager to hear the answers. “Why have you taken so
long, dear boy?” was a frequent complaint, even when it
seemed to me that I had been extremely quick.
In the course of his Churchill work, Randolph would
ask for notes and outlines for things that he was preparing
outside the biography. One such effort, on which I worked
quite hard, was a film script on the life of Hitler which was
commissioned by Granada Television. The scheme, under
which he would be the presenter, and which he looked
forward to enormously, was abandoned after he quarrelled
with the producer the first time they met, in a Granada
studio in London. “I refuse to work with a woman,” he
said, and walked out—to the Café Royal.
In March 1964 I spent thirteen consecutive days with
Randolph. Several of my friends wondered whether I could
possibly survive unscathed, that is to say, without being
sacked, but I did.
Randolph was an exacting taskmaster and at the same
time a generous employer. At a time when he was paying
me a good salary, he wrote to me in Oxford from Stour:
“Looking at my salary book I see that you are being scandalously underpaid.” He proposed a generous increase.
When a research assistant had angered him and was sacked
at midnight, the next morning on the breakfast table was a
blank cheque signed by Randolph for the young man to fill
in. Kindness and anger were inextricably mixed up in his
brain, the first warm and encouraging, the second sometimes frightening in its intensity.
A source of constant amelioration was Randolph’s
friend Natalie Bevan. The colourful, animated pottery
figures that she made, some of which (including four large
trumpeting elephant candle-holders) graced Randolph’s
table, reflected her own colourful character. When storms
brewed, her presence could avert the worst dramas. Her
arrival at Stour was something much to be looked forward
RANDOLPH CHURCHILL CENTE
“The Beast of Bergholt”
Sir Martin Gilbert Remembers Randolph S. C
“Research at Stour was as far from any dry-as-dust archive
or ivory tower as one could imagine. On the outside of the
house, overlooking the terrace, Randolph affixed a plaque:
I am come to a determination to make
no idle visits this summer,
nor give up any time to commonplace people.
I shall return to Bergholt.
—John Constable (1776-1837)
“Were we, Randolph's researchers, ghosts and paid
hacks, among the commonplace people when storms
raged? We certainly felt as much. It was Natalie Bevan
who, on so many occasions, raised both our spirits and his;
or, in raising his, raised ours.” —MG
EAST BERGHOLT: His father loved Chartwell, Randolph loved Stour
(above). Sir Martin Gilbert (right) paid an emotional return visit, the first
since Randolphs death, to greet us on the Tenth Churchill Tour, 22 May
2006. Our hosts, Paul and Birte Kelly, have impeccably maintained
Randolphs 1957-68 home. Photographs by Barbara Langworth.
ENARY
Churchill, 1911-1968
to. She was always ready with words of comfort for us
researchers when Randolph made life difficult.
In the summer of 1964 the work load was lightened
by the arrival of an enthusiastic young American, George
Thayer, who later wrote a book on extremist right-wing
groups in Britain, and worked for a Congressman on
Capitol Hill. His career was cut short by his early death
from cancer.
In September 1964 all four researchers (Michael
Wolff, Andrew Kerr, George Thayer and myself ) and the
four secretaries on the payroll at the time received a collective exhortation, one of Randolph’s (and his father’s)
favourite verses:
The heights of great men reached and kept,
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upwards in the night.
Randolph’s personality, with its exhortations and
eccentricities, kept the team on its toes. On one occasion a
telegram arrived in which the address was given not as East
Bergholt but Beast Bergholt. He announced at once, with a
broad grin, that he was now “the Beast of Bergholt.”
Research successes were not always enough to avert
Randolph’s anger. One day when I was at Oxford, a
telegram reached the College Lodge informing me that I
had been sacked. The reason for my sacking had nothing to
do with my researches. Some grouse had reached Stour, by
rail, as a gift from the Secretary of State for War, John
Profumo. Having probably been shunted onto a siding for
too long during their journey, they were no longer edible;
this only became clear when they were at table. At the end
of a letter to Profumo, thanking him for some historical
material he had sent (the fifty-year rule for public documents meant his permission was needed to see government
archival material even for 1914), I mentioned the fact that
the grouse were off. On receiving my letter he had telephoned Randolph to offer some more.
Profumo’s call revealed that I had, unwittingly, broken
a house rule, unknown to me at the time. As Randolph
explained, in furious tones: “I cannot have people who are
working for me and who come to my house complaining
about the food behind my back to people who had sent it. I
cannot abide the idea that anyone staying and working in
the house does not have his primary loyalty to myself. If
you blab about the food in a mischievous way you might,
for all I know, blab about graver matters.” If I wanted to
work on research in Oxford and elsewhere at a reduced
salary, he suggested that I should contact Michael Wolff.
“But I do not wish you to come back here.”
Advice came that same day from Andrew Kerr:
“Suggest you write groveller.” I did so, and received a
telegram from Randolph in reply: “Thank you for your >>
“THE BEAST OF BERGHOLT”...
letter. The matter is closed.” When I next returned to Stour
he greeted me: “Welcome back. I am sorry about what happened. We won’t speak about it again. Now tell me, dear,
what have you brought me to read?”
There was a sequel to this episode six months later
when Profumo resigned. Randolph was shocked by the virulence of the newspapers, and by the way in which the
Profumos were to all intents and purposes besieged in their
own home. In strictest secrecy, so that it never reached the
ears of any journalist or the lens of any press photographer,
he offered Stour as a sanctuary. I still have the instructions
we were all given, headed with the codename OPERATION
SANCTUARY, marked SECRET, and explaining how we were
to look after “OGs” (Our Guests).
Randolph would leave the country to be with his
father on board Aristotle Onassis’s yacht Christina. “Our
friends will seek to come here to Stour unobserved.” If they
were observed, “admission of the Press to the house or
garden will be denied.” If interlopers broke into the garden
“they will be requested to leave.” If they refused, the police
would be called, “during which time our guests will retire
upstairs. We will not stand any rot.”
The Profumos were to be treated as if they were in
their own home. Randolph’s staff was instructed not to
“blab” in the village. If the Profumos wished to go abroad
“they should fly from Southend to Dieppe and should
charter a car on arrival on the continent and ‘disappear
none knows whither.’” In fact there was never any idea in
the Profumos’ mind that they would go abroad, despite
newspaper speculation. Randolph, as usual, was trying to
cover all possibilities.
I was impressed by Randolph’s gesture, one of real
affection and goodness. I knew that, as a young MP,
Profumo had been one of the Conservative Members who
voted against Neville Chamberlain on 8 May 1940, making
possible Winston Churchill’s premiership two days later. At
that time Profumo was the youngest MP. He had entered
the Commons at a by-election only two months before the
decisive vote and had not yet made his maiden speech.
When I reminded Randolph of this, he urged me to write it
down and to send it not to one newspaper but to all of
them. I did so, and about a dozen papers published it. It
was my very first published foray into public life.
Randolph’s generous nature, like his father’s, could be
stirred by a tale of injustice. One afternoon a pupil of mine
at Oxford was pictured in a London evening newspaper,
and pilloried, for a drug-related offence. I brought
Randolph the newspaper that same afternoon. As soon as I
had told him the young man’s story, he telephoned the
newspaper editor and demanded the removal of the offensive photograph. It was taken out in the later editions.
I learned at Stour that history was concerned with character and humanity, as well as with facts and achievements. 
Randolph by His Contemporaries 1927-1968
A young Apollo, golden-haired,
Stands dreaming
on the verge of strife,
Magnificently unprepared
For the long littleness of life.
Oxford, 1929: Botticelli Angel
Randolph…had just come up and I
“enjoyed”—if that is the right word—his
friendship for a few months. Though he was
nearly five years younger than me, he established a spirited relationship that was equally
balanced between flirtation and rudeness. I
tended to patronize him, though secretly
dazzled by his extraordinary youthful beauty:
thick golden hair, enormous blue eyes and a
sugar-pink complexion….He looked like a
Botticelli angel.
—Elizabeth Longford, writer, The Pebbled Shore (1986)
—RUPERT BROOKE
COMPILED BY DANA COOK
London, 1927: Winstons Pride
[Winston’s] son Randolph [was] a handsome stripling of
sixteen, who was esurient for intellectual argument and had
the criticism of intolerant youth. I could see that Winston was
very proud of him.…
—Charlie Chaplin, actor, My Autobiography (1964)
_______________________________________________________
Mr. Cook (danacook@istar.ca) compiles literary and political encounters
for numerous newspapers, magazines and journals, including FH 147
and FH 150. The last two entries herein were added by the editor.
Bosnia, 1943: Deceptive Forms
Randolph was all that has been said and written about
him—irrepressible, arrogant, rude, argumentative—and much
more. He had a natural eloquence, a deeply inquisitive intelligence and a retentive memory; he was a marvellous story-teller,
and—when he wished to be—one of the most charming men I
have ever known. he had courage that went beyond bravery,
because he had to force himself to the front, and he did so
consistently….an object lesson that human greatness and
WAR AND PEACE:
< Randolph parachuted
into Yugoslavia with
Fitzroy Maclean and
Evelyn Waugh. An emotional Tito greeted the
Prime Ministers own
son as a fellow fighter.
Nearly a decade later >
he donned Court Dress
for the Coronation of
Queen Elizabeth II on 2
June 1953, he was photographed proudly with
his father and his son
Winston. Photo by
Helmut Gernsheim from
RSCs Churchill:A Life
in Photographs (1955).
goodness may reside in deceptive forms not always recognized
by those who are looking for them.
—Sir Fitzroy Maclean, soldier, statesman,
in Kay Halle, ed., The Grand Original (1971)
Naples, 1944: “You Have Sent Us Your Son”
On 12 August I met Winston Churchill in Naples. He
said that he was sorry he was so advanced in years that he
could not land by parachute, otherwise he would have been
fighting in Yugoslavia. “But you have sent us your son,” I
replied. At that moment tears glittered in Churchill’s eyes.”
—Josip Broz (Tito) in The Grand Original
London, 1945: Political Ambition
Dined with Randolph. He was quite meek. Said he
wants to get into politics as a career and is only continuing his
newspaper work because he needs the money. Says it is difficult for him sometimes to reconcile his “dignity” as an
Englishman and a Churchill with his reporting. He hopes to
be Prime Minister some day.
—C. L. Sulzberger, journalist, A Long Row of Candles (1969)
many could get along with Randolph himself. “Well,” he said,
“I always promise him I won’t have any Americans around.”
—J.K. Galbraith, economist, A View from the Stands (1986)
London, 1950-51: Still Trying
In White’s Club ran into Randolph whom I hadn’t seen
for more than ten years. He was very genial—now immensely
bloated and rather absurd-looking, laying down the law to a
little circle of fellow drinkers about politics, etc.: not any edifying scene, but, all the same, I like him in a way…. (1950)
Looked in to see Randolph in the London Clinic, where
he’s having his Korean wound attended to—immense figure
propped up in bed, drinking and smoking, writing letters to
newspapers, telephoning etc.; a sort of parody of a man of
action; of his father, indeed. We talked about politics. Poor
Randolph, who looks almost as old as Winston, still trying to
be the wild young man of destiny. (1951)
—Malcolm Muggeridge, journalist, Like It Was (1981)
London, Mid-1950s: Under the Burden
The famous names of the time paraded through
Information Please [quiz show]. Randolph...was supposed to
be an authority on the geography of the United States. When
he was asked to name a river that divided two New England
states, he replied with great authority, “The Delaware.”
—Oscar Levant, pianist, Memoirs of an Amnesiac (1965)
Another character writing for the [Evening] Standard at
the time was Randolph Churchill, who labored under the
burden of being the son of his famous father. He was not a
popular figure, given to booze and bluster, and earned part of
his considerable upkeep by writing articles for Beaverbrook, as
Winston had done when out of office in the 1930s. Also like
his father, he wrote well, but he lacked the authority of any
substantial achievement in his own life.
—Anthony Westell, journalist, The Inside Story (2002)
London, 1950s: Managing Waugh
London, Late 1950s: Prep for Provocation
Los Angeles, 1950s: Quiz Bust
[Evelyn] Waugh was not only anti-black but also antiSemitic, anti-French and, with the rarest exceptions,
anti-British. Once, years ago, I asked Randolph Churchill how
he managed to get along with him, having in mind that not
For a television interview with Randolph Churchill…
everyone, including TV critics next morning, said how relaxed
and calm I had been with Randolph, in spite of his attempts at
provocation, at which he was not untalented. In fact I had >>
RANDOLPH BY HIS CONTEMPORARIES...
spent a number of hours that day and the previous day being
grilled by some of my sharpest colleagues in Gray’s Inn Road. I
got them to fire questions at me, the kind of questions they
thought I would be asked.
—Roy Thomson, press baron, After I Was Sixty (1975)
London, 1958: Anti-Disarmament Serenade
On one [disarmament] march, Randolph greeted the
marchers with a wind-up gramophone on which he was
playing patriotic music, but the din was so great he was taken
to be a supporter and then, when his furious gestures made his
position clear, invited to join us and have his mind changed.
— Doris Lessing, novelist, Walking in the Shade (1997)
1950s-60s: Multiple Remembrances
One has a montage of memories. Randolph arguing with
a Georgetown cop who had dared stop a car he was driving
rather drunkenly down 29th Street sometime in the Fifties;
Randolph red-faced and exultant at the Democratic convention in Los Angeles in 1960, rejoicing over the nomination of
Jack Kennedy, whom he adored as extravagantly as he despised
Jack’s father; Randolph boasting of a Hollywood dinner given
by Otto Preminger, at which he successfully insulted so many
guests that eight of them, he claimed, left the table; Randolph
on a hilarious riff about the Munich crisis in which he gave
leading characters Joycean names—Chamberpot and Holyfox
and Mountbottom....
—Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., historian, A Life in the
20th Century, vol. 1, Innocent Beginnings (2000)
London, 1967: Happier Than Ever
Randolph, looking old and grey, like a haggard hawk,
has been on the brink of death for three years. The other night
he told me that he was now happier than he had ever been. He
was at last doing something that justified his life—his book on
his father, the best thing he had ever done, his contribution to
the world; the fact that he was no longer restless was balm to
him. I am sure he was being sincere, but it is hard to believe.
His eyes looked so abysmally sad.
—Cecil Beaton, photographer, The Parting Years (1978)
Pennsylvania, 1968: On Stamps
I wrote him to ask for help identifying portraits on
Churchill stamps, for what was then the philatelic Churchill
Study Unit. I knew little about him, but what I knew I liked.
I knew of his volcanic personality. (“I am an explosion that
leaves the house still standing.”) I had read of the famous
exchange at White’s, after Randolph survived an operation for
a benign tumor: “Have you heard the news?” Evelyn Waugh
thundered to the bar: “Leave it to modern medical science to
cut out of Randolph the only thing that was not malignant.”
And I knew of Randolph’s response, his Easter card to the
devout Catholic Waugh: “Wishing you a Happy Resurrection.”
I knew of his failure on TV’s “$64,000 Question,”
failing to identify the man who gave his name to the word
“boycott”—and how he then named his favorite pug “Captain
Boycott.” And of his lawsuit against the gutter press, who had
called him a “paid hack,” described in a book published by
himself, under the imprint, “Country Bumpkins.”
I knew of how, incensed over a South African landing
card asking his race, he had written: “Human. But if, as I
imagine is the case, the object of this enquiry is to determine
whether I have coloured blood in my veins, I am most happy
to be able to inform you that I do, indeed, so have. This is
derived from one of my most revered ancestors, the Indian
Princess Pocohontas, of whom you may not have heard, but
who was married to a Jamestown settler named John Rolfe.”
Moreover, I had read his two volumes about his father—
and they are the reasons I am writing here, in this place, today.
My request was inconsequental and I expected no reply,
but back it came: “I regret to record that I know nothing
about stamps, but if you will send along your questions I shall
be pleased to try to answer them.” Martin Gilbert remembers
my letter. Scarcely a fortnight later, Randolph was dead.
Over the years I collected all his books, and books about
him, and I think I know some of his pathos, his driving forces,
and the vindication of his final triumph: the biography. When
he died a friend spoke of him as his father had of Brendan
Bracken: “Poor, dear Randolph.” I liked that, too. Every
admirer of Sir Winston is grateful for Randolph’s life.
—Richard M. Langworth
Washington, 9 April 1963: Randolphs Day
I remember Randolph, on a
spring day after rain, with the
afternoon sun streaming into
the Green Room. It was the day
Jack had proclaimed Sir
Winston Honorary Citizen of
the United States. Now the last
guest had wandered out, and we
had gone to sit in the Green
Room to unwind together.
Jack had cared about this
day so much. We met in his
office. Randolph was ashen, his
Finest Hour 80, 3rd Qtr., 1993
voice a whisper. “All that this
ceremony means to the two
principals,” I thought, “is the gift they wish it to be to
Randolph’s father—and they are both so nervous it will be a
disaster.”
The French windows opened and they went outside. Jack
spoke first but I couldn’t listen. Then the presentation.
Randolph stepped forward to respond: “Mr. President.”
His voice was strong. He spoke on, with almost the voice of
Winston Churchill. He sent his words across the afternoon,
that most brilliant, loving son—speaking for his father. Always
for his father.
But that afternoon the world stopped and looked at
Randolph. And many saw what they had missed.
After, in the Green Room—the happy relief—Randolph
surrounded with his loving friends—we so proud of him and
for him—he knowing he had failed no one, and had moved so
many. I will forever remember that as Randolph’s day.
—Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in The Grand Original 
RIDDLES, MYSTERIES, ENIGMAS
Tracking Churchill’s Motorcars
A friend and I are a keen owners of Morris Oxford VIs similar to one
Qowned
by Sir Winston (reg. no. 6000KP) before his death. We are writing
a book forty years since they ceased production and wish to include his car,
which in the 1990s was still in Kent. We also understand that both 777SKE
and 6000KP are still around and wonder how we verify this?
—GEORGE WEATHERLEY, ENGLAND (GEORGEWEATHERLEY @BTOPENWORLD.COM)
Morris
Oxford VI
A
s an automotive writer, I have long
planned to write about Churchill’s
cars, or those used by his staff. Yes, the
Morris Oxfords you mention do exist,
though I can’t believe he owned two;
perhaps one was a staffer’s car? In
2005, 6000KP was sold by Christie’s
(see http://bit.ly/mNZvyV). On the
tracking of British cars by number
plate, I asked my colleague and sometime co-author, Graham Robson.
• Mr. Robson replies: If Mr.
Weatherley is a motoring enthusiast—
and if he proposes to write a book
about Morris Oxfords he will have to
be!—he might know that the British
car licencing authority (DVLA) has a
small section for “do they still exist?”
queries. Visit www.dvla.gov.uk, find the
Press Office section, and ask for their
help. It is regularly provided, but do
not expect it to be done in a trice.
A book about Morris Oxfords is
unlikely to be a best seller, so the
authors should find themselves a publisher before they do a lot of work. I
was recently approached for advice by
someone who spent five years writing
165,000 words of self-aggrandising
hagiography about BMC’s Sir Leonard
Lord, and now expects publishers to be
queueing up for it.
As author of a book on Humbers
(a friend told me his Super Snipe gave
him a case of mal de mer one summer’s
eve), I certainly endorse Graham’s
comments about finding a publisher.
But how can they resist 165,000 words
on Leonard Lord? —Ed.
THEY SPOKE IN FRENCH?
Q
What can you tell me about
Churchill’s Secret Agent, a new
book by Reno residents Max and Linda
Ciampoli, alleging that as a young man
in World War II, Max was a secret
agent who took orders directly from
—BRIAN DUGGAN,
Churchill?
NEVADA APPEAL, CARSON CITY, NEV.
A
Some descriptions say this is a
“novel based on fact.” Whatever it
is supposed to be, we find no mention
of Max Ciampoli in the Churchill
papers and Martin Gilbert has never
heard of him; nor has the official historian of MI5, whom Professor Kimball
approached on our behalf. It sounds
fanciful, like a similar novel, The
Paladin, by Brian Garfield, reviewed in
FH 139: 24. (A man claiming to be
Garfield’s protagonist surfaced a few
years ago but wasn’t taken seriously.)
Our novels reviewer, Michael
McMenamin, adds: “Churchill speaks
to Ciampoli only in French and, so far
at least, gives him all his assignments
directly, many of which are pretty
mundane.” You can’t say that about
The Paladin, which is a page-turner.
BRODRICKS ARMY
Q
Early in Winston
Churchill’s
Parliamentary career
(1901), he opposed
Secretary of War St.
John Brodrick’s initiative to increase military
expenditures by 15%,
arguing that the Navy
BRODRICK
should be Great
Britain’s primary military concern.
Churchill went on to collect his speeches
on the subject in Mr. Brodrick’s Army
(1903), but I understand that the debate
continued for three years. The Elgin and
Send your questions to the editor
Norfolk Royal Commissions,
along with the Esher
Committee, resulted in
Brodrick’s political isolation
and reassignment as Secretary of
State for India. I assume that
Churchill’s efforts ultimately won
the legislative battle, but is there a reference—and where can I find information
on the Esher Committee or the Elgin
and Norfolk Royal Commissions?
—K.T.P. LONARD, VIA EMAIL
A
A. Maccallum Scott, author of the
first biography of Churchill in
1905, wrote that WSC was ultimately
victorious: “In the first division on Mr.
Brodrick’s army scheme he was the sole
Conservative to walk into the lobby
against it. Two years later he had gathered round him a party and destroyed
the scheme.”
But young Churchill’s efforts
“meant more than the gaining of a
Parliamentary reputation,” as WSC
wrote in My Early Life: “It marked a
definite divergence of thought and
sympathy from nearly all those who
thronged the benches around me.”
Winston, his son wrote in the official
biography, was already complaining to
his mother about “a good deal of dissatisfaction in the Party, and a shocking
lack of cohesion. The Government is
not very strong....The whole Treasury
bench appears to me to be sleepy and
exhausted and played out….”
Churchill and a few dissident
young Tory members added to the disarray by outrageous Parliamentary
manners and criticism of many senior
Conservatives. Critics dubbed them the
Hughligans (or Hooligans), after one of
their members, Lord Hugh Cecil.
Randolph Churchill concludes: “It was
a modest attempt at a latterday Fourth
Party. They began to meet for dinner
on Thursday evenings; occasionally
they asked leading political personalities of the day, maybe a Tory, maybe a
Liberal, to join them at dinner.”
For a rather disjointed discussion
of the Esher Committee and the Elgin
Commission reports, see the following
web page: http://bit.ly/lWRvPf. 
Churchill on Clemenceau:
His Best Student? • Part II
Churchills entire career as a writer demonstrates that the past must be studied even
though it does not neatly offer rules and models to follow. Clemenceau was such a model,
and we have no better student of Frances Tiger than Britains Lion, Winston Churchill.
PAUL ALKON
T
he final version
large revisions.
of Churchill’s
Here as elsewhere,
second essay
the future Nobel
on France’s Tiger,
laureate shows
entitled simply
himself to have
“Clemenceau,” was
been very much a
published in 1937
professional writer,
in his book Great
intent on polishing
Contemporaries.
style as well as subThe first version,
stance.
“Clemenceau—the
Churchill’s
Man and the Tiger,”
metaphors are
appearing in 1930,
expressive.
included a cartoon
Clemenceau is a
satirizing in a
ghost of the 1789
friendly way
French Revolution,
Clemenceau’s postcome to haunt
retirement big game
tyrants of the
hunting in India. It
present time in
shows the great
France. But only
Frenchman with
the 1936 text
THE TIGER AT PARIS: Principals of the Paris Peace Conference and the Versailles settlement that followed set the stage for rest of the century. From left, in the words of historian
pith helmet, rifle
includes an explaGeorge Lamb:“David Lloyd-George (whose greatest fear was political disaster in Britain),
and bandolier, connation of how
Vittorio Orlando (who tried to get massive compensations for Italys suffering), Clemenceau
fronting a tiger; the
Clemenceau’s atti(driven by his determination forever to end the threat of a strong Germany) and Woodrow
caption reads “Both
Wilson, who would concede anything to get the League of Nations started.” A decade later
tudes were shaped
Churchill reflected to Beaverbrook:“What a ghastly muddle they made out of it.”
(together): Tiens! Le
by his upbringing
Tigre.”5
and first experience
An interim version, published by a newspaper in
of political tyranny when his father was wrongly imprisoned
1936, was a historical workshop, wherein Churchill tried to
by Napoleon III.
define the essential nature of France, with its own unique
In the 1930 Strand and 1937 Great Contemporaries
beginning: “Whenever I hear the Marseillaise, I think of
versions, Churchill begins by praising Clemenceau’s much
Clemenceau. He embodied and expressed France.”6 For
criticized Grandeurs et Misères de la Victoire, his posthuChurchill, the man and the nation were symbolically intermously published reply to the posthumously published
changeable.
General Foch: “We are the richer…that Foch flings the
All three versions, and their surviving manuscripts in
javelin at Clemenceau from beyond the tomb, and that
the Churchill Archives, reveal that Churchill lavished great
Clemenceau, at the moment of descending into it, hurls
care on this biographical sketch, making many small and
back the weapon with his last spasm.”7
Despite Churchill’s comic tone here, he argues more
soberly in Clemenceau’s defense that history is best served
by showing great men as they really were, even in their
petty moments, rather than as mere monuments, “upon
which only the good and great things that men have done
should be inscribed” (GC, 301). In The Strand and Great
Contemporaries, Churchill retains but greatly amplifies and
complicates his equation of Clemenceau with France:
He represented the French people risen against tyrants—
tyrants of the mind, tyrants of the soul, tyrants of the body;
foreign tyrants, domestic tyrants, swindlers, humbugs,
grafters, traitors, invaders, defeatists—all lay within the
bound of the Tiger; and against them the Tiger waged inexorable war. Anti-clerical, anti-monarchist, anti-Communist,
anti-German—in all this he represented the dominant spirit
of France. (GC, 302)
This list of tyrannies fought against is also a catalogue
of what Churchill regards as characteristic and mainly
admirable French attitudes. These stemmed ultimately from
the French Revolution “at its sublime moment” (not, of
course, the reign of terror that followed), when defining
new ideals for its country and the world.
Always a student of political symbols, Churchill also
added to the expanded passage an image of the elderly
Clemenceau as a more appropriate symbol of his country
than the Gallic cock. After asserting that Clemenceau “was
France,” he writes that “the Old Tiger, with his quaint,
stylish cap, his white moustache and burning eye, would
make a truer mascot for France than any barnyard fowl”
(GC, 302).
Emblematic Imagery
As Churchill must have known, cartoonists enjoyed
putting Clemenceau’s head satirically on a tiger, just as they
had long depicted him (not always fondly) as an English
bulldog.8 Neither tiger not bulldog ever displaced the cock
or lion, though in the 1940s the bulldog became the
symbol of Britain and its best qualities.
A less pleasing parallel came in 1945 when Churchill’s
wartime achievements did not prevent a wounding ejection
from office. Of Clemenceau’s similar fate Churchill noted,
without premonition: “When the victory was won, France
to foreign eyes seemed ungrateful. She flung him aside and
hastened back as quickly as possible to the old huggermugger of party politics” (GC, 312-13).
The essay as a whole, however, portrays the Tiger triumphant by outlining a career that, only eight years after
his death, had in Churchill’s opinion made it “already
certain that Clemenceau was one of the world’s great men”
(GC, 302). His outline of Clemenceau’s life provides a clear
though far from easy model for imitation, and is evidently
designed partly as such. Great men were never far from
Churchill’s thoughts.
In his Great Contemporaries sketch of Clemenceau,
Churchill creates another emblematic figure, France’s victorious general, Marshal Foch, representing the aristocratic
virtues of pre-revolutionary France. Churchill’s explanation
of the aristocratic strain of French history symbolized by
Foch is among his most memorable set pieces. Its romantic
eloquence rivals in effect—some might say in excess—
Edmund Burke’s famous recollection of Marie Antoinette at
Versailles during the height of her glory.9
In his Clemenceau essay, however, Churchill prudently
picks Joan of Arc as a more acceptable 20th century
emblem of ancient French virtues. Supplementing the
France embodied by Clemenceau, Churchill writes, “There
was another mood and another France”:
It was the France of Foch—ancient, aristocratic; the France
whose grace and culture, whose etiquette and ceremonial has
bestowed its gifts around the world. There was the France of
chivalry, the France of Versailles, and above all, the France of
Joan of Arc. It was this secondary and submerged national
personality that Foch recalled….But when [Foch and
Clemenceau] gazed upon the inscription on the golden statue
of Joan of Arc...and saw gleaming the Maid’s uplifted sword,
their two hearts beat as one. (GC, 303)10 >>
_________________________________________________________
5. Winston Churchill, “Clemenceau—the Man and the Tiger,”
The Strand Magazine, December, 1930: 582-93. Subsequent citations to
this work will be documented in endnotes with the abbreviation SM.
6. CHAR 8/542: manuscript, and News of the World, 15 March
1936: 5 (with slightly different paragraphing), part of Churchill’s series
on “Great Men of Our Time.” Subsequent citations will be documented
parenthetically as CHAR 8/542 & NOTW.
7. Winston S. Churchill, “Clemenceau,” Great Contemporaries
(London: Thornton Butterworth, 1937), 301-02. Subsequent citations
will be documented parenthetically with the abbreviation GC.
8. See back cover for Henri Guignon’s American World War II
poster “Holding the Line,” which depicts Churchill as a bulldog guarding
the Union flag.The first bulldog caricature was in Punch, 29 May 1912.
For other examples see Fred Urquhart, W.S.C.: A Cartoon Biography
(London: Cassell, 1955), 105, 121, 131, 242; and Churchill in
Caricature (London: The Political Cartoon Society, 2005), 44. Bulldog
Churchill cartoons are memorable not because there were many, but
because the image stays in mind with its simplicity and aptness.
9. Burke’s passage was likely in Churchill’s mind when he paid his
nostalgic tribute to old France. In his essay on George Bernard Shaw for
Great Contemporaries, he engaged in a literary flourish by announcing
that he would “parody Burke’s famous passage,” by substituting his first
memory of Lady Astor for Burke’s of Marie Antoinette (GC, 54).
10. Churchill invokes an imaginary moment when Clemenceau
and Foch view Fremiet’s statue of Joan and either read the inscription on
its base or, more likely (as Danielle Mihram has suggested to me), recall
that famous phrase, which had achieved the status of a proverbial saying.
It was sometimes attributed to Joan’s vision of Saint Michael telling her
about the distressed state of France and expressing compassion, which of
course she too was to feel as motivation for her mission.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Alkon is Leo S. Bing Professor Emeritus of English and American Literature at the University of Southern California. This is a
condensed text of his original paper, which will appear in full in Finest Hour Online, and is also available by email from the editor.
CHURCHILL ON CLEMENCEAU...
Here Churchill’s nostalgia is in full flood: his sentimental yearning for the “grace and culture” of old
aristocratic eras, viewed through very rose-colored glasses
indeed. But Churchill the historian knew better than most
the sordid realities that were also a big part of those days.
Even Churchill’s paean to ancient France includes a
reminder of “the blood-river” it engendered. He also
reminds us of a conflict
only temporarily set
aside between
Catholicism, as exemplified by the devoutly
religious Foch, and
fierce anti-clericalism,
exemplified and often
led by the skeptical
Clemenceau who, as
Churchill explains,
“had no hope beyond
the grave” (GC, 312).
In Churchill’s
survey of Clemenceau’s
career there is only
realism, which suggests
his considerable knowledge of French history
in Clemenceau’s time.
Starting with his courageous action trying to save generals
Thomas and Lecomte from execution while he was “Mayor
of Montmartre amid the perils of the Commune” in 1871,
Churchill portrays Clemenceau as politician and journalist
with equal displays of moral and often physical courage:
over French colonies, the Grévy affair, arguments over
Boulanger, the Panama frauds and accusations that
Clemenceau was implicated, and not least the Dreyfus
Affair, in which “Clemenceau became the champion of
Dreyfus,” having consequently “to fight, to him the most
sacred thing in France—the French Army” (GC, 303, 309).
“All the elements of blood-curdling political drama were
represented by actual facts…which find their modern parallel only in the underworld of Chicago” (GC, 305).
Clemenceau led “a life of storm, from the beginning
to the end; fighting, fighting all the way” (GC, 303). The
key word that fascinates Churchill to the point of repetition
is “fighting.” It was not only Clemenceau’s combative
nature, but some of his rhetorical methods that appealed to
Churchill, who later adapted them to his own purposes at a
crucial moment.
They became friends while Churchill was Minister of
Munitions, just as the French reluctantly turned to
Clemenceau at “the worst period of the War….He returned
to power as Marius had returned to Rome; doubted by
many, dreaded by all, but doom-sent, inevitable” (GC, 309-
10). Churchill, who in 1940 thought of himself as “walking
with destiny,” here uses the phrase “doom-sent” in a way
that shifts the latter part of his biographical sketch toward
the mood, though not the denouement, of a Greek tragedy.
Churchill from this point on is eye-witness and commentator. He approves of Clemenceau’s way of dealing with
an unfriendly parliament chamber:
To do any good you have got to get down to grips with the
subject and in human touch with the audience. Certainly
Clemenceau seemed to do this…He looked like a wild
animal pacing to and fro behind bars, growling and glaring;
and all around him was an assembly which would have done
anything to avoid having him there, but having put him
there, felt they must obey. (GC, 310-11)
The importance of projecting the right mood in a
crisis was certainly a lesson learned by Churchill. He
remembered too some particular words that had served
Clemenceau to good effect. By trying them out on
Churchill before using them in the French Assembly,
Clemenceau provided a kind of private tutorial for what
proved to be his most apt pupil:
He uttered to me in his room at the Ministry of War words
he afterwards repeated in the tribune: “I will fight in front of
Paris; I will fight in Paris; I will fight behind Paris.” Everyone
knew this was no idle boast. Paris might have been reduced
to the ruins of Ypres or
Arras. It would not have
affected Clemenceau’s
resolution. (GC, 312)
Here of course is
a model for Churchill’s
speech about Dunkirk to
the House of Commons
on June 4, 1940: “We
shall go on to the end,
we shall fight in France,
we shall fight on the seas
and oceans…we shall
fight on the beaches, we
shall fight on the
landing grounds, we
shall fight in the fields
and in the streets, we
shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender.”11
In adapting Clemenceau’s trope, Churchill amplified
it, hammering home his point by widening and also particularizing its geographical scope to provide a memorable
vignette of future war, waged relentlessly on sea, on land
and in the air. Churchill also evidently took to heart
Clemenceau’s explanation of how in war’s most perilous
time he cast away the axioms of party politics in favor of
pragmatism:
“By trying [his words] out on Churchill before using them in the French Assembly,
Clemenceau provided a kind of private tutorial for what proved to be his most apt
pupil [when he said], ‘I will fight in front of Paris; I will fight in Paris; I will fight
behind Paris.’ Here of course is a model for Churchill’s speech about Dunkirk on
3 June 1940: ‘...we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans…we
shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in
the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender.’”
One day he said to me, “I have no political system, and I have
abandoned all political principles. I am a man dealing with
events as they come in the light of my experience,” or it may
be it was “according as I have seen things happen”….
Clemenceau was quite right. The only thing that mattered
was to beat the Germans. (GC, 311-12)
Later, when beating the Germans was again all that
mattered, Churchill’s inspired and energetic muddling
through must surely have been fortified by recollection of
Clemenceau’s approach in equally dire times.
Churchill’s sketch winds down with recollection of
visits to Clemenceau during his retirement and, in the final
version, with part of a letter from Clemenceau’s daughter
correcting a legend: that although Clemenceau wanted to be
buried upright, his wish was not honored. In the 1930 and
1936 essays Churchill had accepted and recounted this tale
as fact, and stoutly ended with a ringing declaration: “If I
were a Frenchman, I would put it right—even now.”
Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire took no umbrage
at this, but did kindly inform Churchill that her father had
left no such wish. In his final version Churchill quotes her,
ending with her description of the simple unmarked grave
“where one only hears the wind in the trees and murmuring
of a brook in the ravine,” where at last The Tiger “returned
alone to his father’s side, to the land whence his ancestors
came, les Clemenceau du Colombier, from the depths of
the woodlands of La Vendée, centuries ago” (GC, 313).
These haunting words, selected from an English translation of the letter Madeleine had written in French, nicely
evoke the long and important sweep of French local history
and Clemenceau’s place in it.12
Madeleine’s letter had ended with a matter-of-fact
statement that “the old manor house close by is there to
bear witness.” By deciding to omit this rather flat sentence,
Churchill heightens the evocative quality of his conclusion.
Likewise, he keeps in French within the quoted sentence, rather than translating into English, the phrase “les
Clemenceau du Columbier.” Here, as in the very few other
bits of French that are sprinkled in his essays on
Clemenceau, Churchill adroitly heightens the local color
and French flavor appropriate to his topic without either
flaunting his French (such as it was) or creating problems
for those whose French is rusty or non-existent. That
Churchill gave such careful thought to stylistic issues is one
more indication of his superb skill as a writer.13
Churchill’s last verbal image of Clemenceau comes “a
year before he died” in his unheated library-sitting room in
Paris on a winter day:
The old man appears, in his remarkable black skull-cap,
gloved and well wrapped up. None of the beauty of
Napoleon, but I expect some of his St. Helena majesty, and
far back beyond Napoleon, Roman figures come into view.
The fierceness, the pride, the poverty after great office, the
grandeur when stripped of power, the unbreakable front
offered to this world and to the next—all these belong to the
ancients. (GC, 313)
Without retracting his equation of Clemenceau with
revolutionary France at its best, Churchill turns finally to a
more vague but equally laudatory displacement of
Clemenceau into the far more remote past—a modern whose
true place is now in the pantheon of admirable ancients. >>
_________________________________________________________
11. Winston S. Churchill, Blood, Sweat, and Tears (New York:
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1941), 297.
12. CHAR 8/548. Madeleine Clemenceau-Jacquemaire’s letter,
dated 12 November 1936, was apparently prompted by the News of the
World version of Churchill’s essay (the only one to mention the
Marseillaise) because she includes her hope that whenever Churchill hears
the Marseillaise he will continue to think of her father. Churchill’s reply,
on 13 January 1937, ends with the hope that England and France will
remain united to avert the new peril facing civilization.
13. Another example: I have mentioned where, in the final
version, he proposes the tiger as a better mascot than the cock (GC, 302).
In the 1930 version, Churchill wrote that the tiger “would make a truer
oriflamme…” (SM, 584). “Oriflamme” is a word redolent of French
history, though hardly familiar to English readers, or even many French
readers, in the 1930s. It refers to the ancient banner of French kings from
the 12th to the 15th centuries. Churchill was fond of antique words, a
hallmark of his style; but he displayed sound professional judgment by
replacing “oriflamme” with “mascot.”
“Churchill heightens the evocative quality of his conclusion. Likewise, he keeps in
French within the quoted sentence, rather than translating into English, the
phrase ‘les Clemenceau du Columbier.’ Here, as in the very few other bits of
French that are sprinkled in his essays on Clemenceau, Churchill adroitly
heightens the local color and French flavor appropriate to his topic without either
flaunting his French (such as it was) or creating problems for those whose French
is rusty or non-existent. That Churchill gave such careful thought to stylistic
issues is one more indication of his superb skill as a writer.”
Summary
In The World Crisis, Churchill’s World War I
memoir, Clemenceau receives only brief, laudatory comments. Except for Churchill’s account of the peace
conference, Clemenceau’s actions are remarked only in connection with military events. Churchill’s visit to the front
with Clemenceau is described in just one sentence.14
Clemenceau’s resolve to fight in front of Paris, in
Paris, and behind Paris is quoted to illustrate not primarily
his temperament, as in Great Contemporaries, but the
importance of his support for Foch—who was willing to
lose Paris if necessary to win the war—rather than for
Pétain, who wanted to defend Paris at all costs even if it
meant allowing a potentially fatal gap to open between the
British and French armies. And thus, wrote Churchill, “we
found the path to safety by discerning the beacons of truth”
(WC, II, 449).
Clemenceau’s only other wartime comment in The
World Crisis has for us now a very Churchillian ring that
again illustrates his affinity with The Tiger: “The spirit of
Clemenceau reigned throughout the capital. ‘We are now
giving ground, but we shall never surrender…’” (WC, II,
456). Clemenceau’s credo here could certainly pass for
Churchill’s in 1940.
Churchill as Prime Minister would probably have
acted and spoken as he did even if he had not known or
studied Clemenceau. Many other aspects of his experiences,
studies, and psychology pointed him in the same direction.
It was their affinities that prompted Churchill to study
Clemenceau, and not the study of Clemenceau that
prompted those affinities. Nevertheless Churchill’s instincts
as leader, and occasionally the very words of his public pronouncements, were surely fortified by his deep and abiding
understanding of Clemenceau’s career.
Of course Churchill also studied many other people
who offered examples relevant to his own career. His histories and biographies are replete with such exemplary figures,
as is Great Contemporaries—so much for the canard that
he cared nothing for others. Perhaps the most important of
these is his ancestor John Churchill, First Duke of
Marlborough, to whom he devoted four volumes of
eminent biography. In Marlborough, Churchill insists, “the
success of a commander does not arise from following rules
or models….every great operation of war is unique.”15
Winston Churchill’s entire career as a writer demonstrates that the past must be studied even though it does not
neatly offer rules and models to follow in the future.
Clemenceau was such a model. Although more detailed
biographies are available in English, none are from authors
whose experiences equipped them as well as Churchill to
understand and to parallel Clemenceau’s achievements. The
English-speaking peoples have no better student of The
Tiger than Sir Winston. 
________________________________________________________
14. Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1916-1918, 2 parts,
(London: Thornton Butterworth, 1927), II, 470-71. Subsequent citations
to this work are cited parenthetically with the abbreviation WC.
15. Winston S. Churchill, Marlborough: His Life and Times, 2
vols. (London: George G. Harrap, 1947), I, 105.
“The city was empty and agreeable by day, while by night there was nearly
always the diversion of an air raid. The spirit of Clemenceau reigned throughout
the capital. ‘We are now giving ground, but we shall never surrender.…’”
—WSC, The World Crisis 1916-1918, II: 456
MOMENTS IN TIME
Recrossing the Rhine, 26 March 1945
< 26 MARCH 1945: Col. Slator (earphones),
WSC and Brooke; seeming to lean on WSC is
Gen. Sir Miles Dempsey, Commander, British
Second Army, part of the 21st Army Group. A
Life photo on the same occasion (above)
shows Cdr. Thompson (naval cap under gun
barrel), Brooke and Dempsey (behind muzzle),
WSC and Montgomery (far right).
v FIRST CROSSING, 25 MARCH: Churchill,
in raincoat (below) with Montgomery. Others in
the photograph are American soldiers.
T
his spectacular photograph, sent to us
by Christopher V. Taylor, shows
Churchill plunging into the Rhine
aboard a Buffalo amphibian, on his way
back to the French side after his second
crossing into Germany on 26 March
1945. In command, wearing earphones
(see also the photo at above right, of the
same occasion by Life magazine) is Mr.
Taylor’s late uncle, Lt. Col. Richard F.
Slator, 11th Royal Tank Regiment.
In what must have been a gratifying moment, Churchill first crossed
the Rhine on 25 March 1945, only days
after Eisenhower’s armies, as he wrote in
The Second World War (VI: 365):
The Rhine—here about four hundred
yards broad—flowed at our feet. There
was a smooth, flat expanse of meadows
on the enemy’s side. The officers told us
that the far bank was unoccupied so far
as they knew, and we gazed and gaped at
it for a while….Then the Supreme
Commander had to depart on other
business, and Montgomery and I were
about to follow his example when I saw
a small launch come close by to moor.
So I said to Montgomery, ‘Why don't
we go across and have a look at the other
side?’ Somewhat to my surprise he
answered, ‘Why not?’ After he had made
some inquiries we started across the river
with three or four American commanders and half a dozen armed men.
We landed in brilliant sunshine and
perfect peace on the German shore, and
walked about for half an hour or so
unmolested.
Always eager to be in on the
action, Churchill omitted to note that
he was being naughty. Eisenhower had
had no intention of putting him in
harm’s way—which of course he immediately suggested after Eisenhower had
left! To Churchill’s disappointment, no
German barrage greeted the party,
which wandered about in what might
have been rural England.
The March 25th crossing is shown
in a famous photo (below right) but
Slator’s photograph, is obviously a different occasion, with British soldiers.
Churchill says he crossed the Rhine
again on the 26th—but on a Jeep over a
pontoon bridge.
Gerald Pawle’s The War and
Colonel Warden, based on the diaries of
Churchill’s naval aide Commander
“Tommy” Thompson, answered our
question. Slator’s photo is of the March
26th return trip. Pawle, pages 367-68:
Before we returned to England [wrote
Thompson] we made a second crossing
of the Rhine, General Dempsey taking
us in his Jeep over a pontoon bridge
which had just been completed at
Xanten. On the far side we saw a large
number of very woebegone and dishevelled German prisoners who had been
herded into a barbed-wire enclosure.
Some of them recognized the P.M., and
they gaped at him in absolute astonishment….Eventually we went back across
the Rhine in one of General Hobart's
tracked amphibious craft, and then
began one of the most hair-raising drives
I can remember. Keen to get rid of us by
this time, Monty was determined we
should reach the airfield at Venlo before
dark. In the leading car he set a furious
pace, and as the sun went down we went
faster and faster, the convoy often
reaching 80 mph. Even so it was almost
dark when the Dakota took off.
This was Churchill's last visit to
the battlefield. Eisenhower, after he
heard of the PM’s crossings, quickly
made sure Churchill got back to where
he was supposed to be.
THE BUFFALO
Designed by Donald Roebling,
grandson of the Brooklyn Bridge builder,
the Landing Vehicle Tracked was introduced in the U.S. in 1941. The British
Buffalo (“Water Buffalo” to Americans),
evolved in 1942, with an improved powertrain from the M3A1 light tank.
Though mainly used in the Pacific
theatre, LVTs did feature in European
river operations toward the end of the
war, including the Rhine crossing
(“Operation Plunder”). Their descendants are still part of the armed forces,
the latest version being the AAV, formerly LVT-7. 
CHURCHILL AND INTELLIGENCE
Golden Eggs:
The Secret War,
1940-1945
Part III: Closing the Ring
Again and again, before and during
© MARTIN GILBERT, 1983
the desert battles and landings in
Europe, Enigma decrypts monitored
by Churchill gave precious clues
that saved Allied lives.
MARTIN GILBERT
The Western Desert
During each phase of the war in the Western Desert,
Enigma revealed German strengths and weaknesses,
including Rommel’s fuel shortages, and the dates and routes
of the despatch of fuel oil by ship across the Mediterranean.
The army, navy and air commanders-in-chief were thus
notified when and where the enemy was weak, and what
advantages could be taken. On 4 May 1941, for example,
Churchill drew the attention of General Wavell,
Commander-in-Chief Middle East, to a decrypt that had
just been sent him, with the note: “Presume you realize
authoritative character of this information.”
Churchill, asking Brigadier Menzies, head of the Secret
Intelligence Service, for a translation of the actual decrypt
rather than the usual summary, added: “Actual text more
impressive than paraphrase showing enemy ‘thoroughly
exhausted,’ unable, pending arrival 15th Panzer Division and
of reinforcements, to do more than hold ground gained at
Tobruk…also definitely forbidding any advance beyond
Sollum, expert for reconnaissance, without permission.”1
Enigma would reveal if that permission were given.
Churchill sent General Wavell the unsummarized
translated text of an Enigma message decrypted three days
earlier. Normally, to protect the source of the information,
only summaries or paraphrases were sent, but Churchill
judged it crucial for Wavell to know precisely what the
Germans were planning. OL (Orange Leonard), the prefix
to the message, was a typical digraph used to transmit messages from an individual spy: anyone other than Wavell who
saw this reference would assume that it was an agent and
would be unaware of the true source.
Wavell’s successors, Generals Auchinleck and
Montgomery, were each regular beneficiaries of the daily
flow of decrypted German messages. On 6 November 1941,
Churchill in one of his first telegrams to Auchinleck wrote:
“I presume you are watching the constant arrival of antitank guns upon your front, both as observed by road and as
reported in our most secret by air.”2 The “most secret” were
Enigma messages from the Luftwaffe. In the second week of
November Churchill informed Roosevelt that two Axis
convoys on their way to Benghazi with fuel oil and military
supplies for Rommel had been sunk.3 The destruction of the
convoy had been possible because of intercepted messages
which, when deciphered, had given their precise routes and
timings of the convoys.
Churchill was worried lest the secrecy of his Signals
Intelligence be endangered. When he asked Menzies about a
British naval signal from Malta giving details of the convoy,
Menzies reassured him: “The Malta signal was sent out as a
result of an aircraft sighting, which quite naturally corresponded with our Most Secret information. The signal,
however, was based on the aircraft sighting and not on our
material. No security, therefore, was disregarded.”4
A day after Auchinleck launched his November offensive in the Western Desert, Enigma revealed a setback to his
troops in a sudden flash flood. Churchill ensured that
Auchinleck noted this “special information.”5 Churchill was
even able to follow Auchinleck’s advance through Enigma,
telegraphing on November 21st: “From what I learn from
special sources which you know, I have formed a favourable
impression of your operations.”6
On the fifth day of the battle, concerned to maintain
the secrecy of the Enigma-based information during the
inevitable ebb and flow of troops and armies, Churchill
telegraphed: “C is sending you daily our special stuff. Feel
sure you will not let any of this go into battle zone except as
statements on your own authority with no trace of origin
and not too close a coincidence. There seem great dangers
of documents being captured in view of battle confusion.
Excuse my anxiety.”7
Two days later Churchill repeated his concern: “Please
burn all special stuff and flimsies while up at the Front.”8
Churchill’s scrutiny of Enigma was continuous. Also
on November 23rd he informed Auchinleck that he had
asked Brigadier Menzies “to emphasise to you the importance of our MK 9.” Churchill hoped this information
would encourage Auchinleck to run “quite exceptional
risks.”9 Drawing Admiral Cunningham’s attention to this
same Enigma, Churchill telegraphed:
I asked the First Sea Lord to wireless you today about the
vital importance of intercepting surface ships bringing reinforcements, supplies and, above all, fuel to Benghazi. Our
information here shows a number of vessels now approaching
or starting. Request has been made by enemy for air protection, but this cannot be given owing to absorption in battle
of his African air force. All this information has been
repeated to you. I shall be glad to hear through Admiralty
what action you propose to take. The stopping of these ships
may save thousands of lives, apart from aiding a victory of
cardinal importance.10
What Churchill called “our information here” was the
summary of a decrypt giving details of the German air fuel
cargo on board two oil tankers, Maritza and Procida, destined for Benghazi and the German airfield at nearby
Benina.11 Within twenty-four hours of Churchill’s telegram,
both ships had been sunk, and Rommel’s aircraft fuel
supply drastically curtailed.
Enigma determined the British decision to take the
offensive in the Western Desert. On 15 March 1942,
Churchill explained to Auchinleck: “A heavy German
counter-stroke upon the Russians must be expected soon,
and it would be thought intolerable if the 635,000 men on
your ration strength should remain unengaged preparing for
another set-piece battle in July.”12 If no earlier offensive was
possible in the desert, Churchill added a day later—
knowing from Enigma the German strategic plans—it
might be necessary to transfer fifteen air squadrons from the
Western Desert “to sustain the Russian left wing in the
Caucasus.”13
One crucial Enigma message on 2 May 1942 revealed
that by June 1st, Rommel would have enough fuel for a
thirty-eight day tank offensive.14 Rommel launched his
offensive on May 26th. Knowing the date, Churchill had
urged Auchinleck to strike first, but Auchinleck had felt
unable to do so.
On 20 August 1942, Churchill, then in Egypt, visited
the forward positions at Alam Halfa across which, it was
already known from Enigma, Rommel’s attack would come.
Enigma also indicated that Rommel might launch his attack
on 25 August. Churchill immediately appointed General
Maitland Wilson to establish a defensive line for Cairo and
the Suez Canal. Further Enigma decrypts gave five days’
respite: the attack came on the night of August 30th.
While in Cairo, the Prime Minister was allocated a
Special Communications Unit to provide direct access to
the Enigma decrypts. His wireless operator was Edgar
Harrison, who was later seconded to him on his visits to
Turkey, Nicosia, Teheran and Yalta.15
Enigma decrypts continued to expose Rommel’s fuel
supply. When one signal reported the sailing of a convoy
from Italy to North Africa on September 6th, Churchill
wrote to the naval and air chiefs, Sir Dudley Pound and Sir
Charles Portal: “This is evidently an occasion for a supreme
effort, even at the risk of great sacrifices by the Navy and
Air Force. Pray inform me tonight what action you are
taking.”16 The action was to attack the convoy. Three of its
four merchant ships, laden with aviation fuel, were sunk.
A decrypt on 8 October 1942, a message from the
Western Desert to the German High Command, revealed
Panzer fuel stocks would soon be down to four and a half
days’ battle supply, and that only three days’ worth of this
fuel was located between Tobruk and Alamein. This
message was decrypted at Bletchley at virtually the same
moment it was read in Berlin. The decrypt was sent to
Menzies, then immediately to Churchill, the chiefs of staff
and Montgomery. The decrypt continued that as a result of
this fuel shortage, the Panzer army “did not possess the
operational freedom of movement which was absolutely
essential in consideration of the fact that the British offensive can be expected to start any day.”17
A series of October decrypts had enabled the RAF to
pinpoint and to sink the “vitally needed tankers” bringing
tank and aircraft fuel across the Mediterranean to the
German and Italian forces in North Africa. Further decrypts
revealed “the condition of intense strain and anxiety behind
the enemy’s front,” giving the Defence Committee “solid
grounds for confidence in your final success.”18
On the evening of November 2nd, Rommel sent an
emergency situation report to the German High Command:
His forces were exhausted, and no longer able “to prevent a
further attempt by strong enemy tank formations to break
through, which may be expected tonight or tomorrow.” On
the other hand, Rommel told Berlin, an “ordered” withdrawal of his troops was impossible in view of the lack of
motor vehicles. Rommel added: “The slight stocks of fuel
do not allow for a movement to the rear over great dis- >>
“[Rommel] deserves the salute which I made him—and
not without some reproaches from the public—in the
House of Commons in January 1942, when I said of him,
‘We have a very daring and skilful opponent against us,
and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general.’ He
also deserves our respect because, although a loyal German
soldier, he came to hate Hitler and all his works....”
—WSC, The Grand Alliance, 1950
THE SECRET WAR...
tances.” On the “one available road” his troops would certainly be attacked “night and day” by the RAF. In this
situation, he warned, “the gradual annihilation of the army
must be faced.”
The decrypt of this message reached Churchill on the
night of November 2nd, when a copy was also sent to Cairo
for Alexander. Three other decrypts that same day testified
to the imminence of a German retreat, and the exhaustion
of the German army. “Presume you have read all the
Boniface,” Churchill telegraphed to Alexander on
November 4th.19
Following the Allied victory at El Alamein,
Montgomery advanced westward. After landings in
Morocco and Algeria, the Americans under Eisenhower
advanced eastward. Tunisia became the battleground of
both forces against a determined enemy. Enigma decrypts
over a ten-day period showed Churchill and the Combined
Chiefs of Staff the extent to which Hitler was determined to
hold Tunisia, and alerted them to strong Axis reinforcements, including several formations of high quality: 10,000
German and Italian troops in the second week of
November, with 15,000 more to follow.20 When military
setbacks took place—disturbing Allied public opinion—the
detailed reasons for them could not be explained publicly,
for fear of disclosing the source of the knowledge.
A month later, Enigma decrypts showed the effect of
Allied air and sea attacks. “Boniface shows the hard straits
of the enemy,” Churchill telegraphed Eisenhower on
December 16th, “the toll taken of his supplies by submarines and surface ships, and especially the effect which
our bombing is having upon congested ports.”21
Churchill did tell Eisenhower that the naval attacks were
particularly successful because Enigma regularly revealed
sailing dates, routes and cargoes.
As Alexander set the assault on Tripoli for 14 January
1943, Churchill telegraphed to him on December 27th:
“Reading Boniface, after discounting the enemy’s natural
tendency to exaggerate his difficulties in order to procure
better supplies, I cannot help hoping that you will find it
possible to strike earlier….”22
On 5 January 1943, as Alexander and Montgomery
planned their Tunisian offensive, Churchill drew the Chiefs
of Staff Committee’s attention to decrypts from which he
was “pretty sure that the Germans in Tunisia are very short
of transport and have not the necessary mobility for a largescale deep-ranging thrust.” This being so, on noting “in
Boniface” the anxiety of the Commander of the Fifth
Panzer Army, General von Arnim, about an attack in the
southern sector, Churchill asked that the possibility of a
southern operation should not be excluded, especially as it
would force von Arnim to divert forces to the south, and
thus give “the relief we seek” in the northern sector.23
Churchill was alarmed on February 17th to read two
reports about the success of Allied supplies entering Tripoli
harbour, and an Enigma message exhorting Rommel to
bomb the harbour. Churchill at once urged the Chiefs of
Staff Committee to send “remonstrances” to Admiral
Cunningham, adding:
He is the best fellow in the world, but he ought not to have
said the passage marked in red, which is directly contrary to
our policy of minimising the use of Tripoli harbour, and
which is calculated to deprive Montgomery of the element of
surprise expressing itself in an unexpectedly early attack with
greater strength. On the advice of the Chiefs of Staff
Committee I purposely lent myself to a very discouraging
view of the Tripoli unloadings. But all this is undone.
Boniface shows that this is Hitler’s view.24
Churchill was always alert to the dangers of discovery.
“You will I am sure,” he telegraphed to Montgomery on
March 1st, “Tell even your most trusted commanders only
the minimum necessary.” One of the two decrypts to which
Churchill had drawn Montgomery’s attention that day
showed that, at that point in the battle in northern Tunisia,
one of von Arnim’s units, the 21st Panzer Division, had
“only 47 serviceable tanks.”25
A single division at Medenine guarded Montgomery’s
supply lines. No extra troops seemed to be needed, but on
February 28th a decrypt revealed Rommel’s intention to
attack Medenine with three Panzer divisions, thus encircling
the British forces in front of the Mareth Line. Further
decrypts showed that Rommel would deploy 160 tanks and
200 guns.26 Montgomery responded at once, rushing up the
New Zealand Division, 400 tanks and over 800 field and
tank guns 200 miles along the single tarmac road, switching
the balances of forces in Britain’s favour. The RAF, too,
alerted by Enigma, was able, just in time, to increase its
forward strength, building it up to double that which it was
known was available to Rommel.
Rommel, unaware that he had lost both surprise and
superiority, launched his attack against Medenine on March
6th. In fierce fighting, the trap was sprung; of 140 German
tanks, 52 were counted derelict on the battleground on the
following day. Not a single British tank was lost. The
German assault infantry, their protective shield itself
assaulted, were pinned down and depressed by “a devastating volume” of fierce and medium gunfire. At seven
o’clock that evening, Rommel intervened personally,
ordering “an immediate cessation of the battle.”27
Rommel’s decision to call off the battle of Medenine
was decisive. Had he succeeded in driving back the Eighth
Army, which he might indeed have done without his Enigma
messages being read, all the Anglo-American plans for
Operation “Husky” could have been set back, and a landing
on Sicily might even have proved impossible in 1943.
This success for Britain’s most secret source came at a
time of sudden fear that the secret was about to be exposed.
Churchill’s March 1st warning to Montgomery had been a
timely one. Eight days later, on the 9th, the Enigma
decrypts themselves revealed that the Germans were suspicious of Britain’s impressive Intelligence. Only later did it
become clear that they still did not imagine that their
Enigma machine ciphers were vulnerable.28
By March 28th the German and Italian forces were in
full retreat, and Churchill sent Montgomery a summary of
the recent Enigma decrypts: General Messe’s 164th
Division “has lost nearly all its vehicles and heavy weapons,”
the 21st and 15th Panzer Divisons “are regathering on
heights south-east of El Hamma,” and the Italian commander-in-chief of the Mareth garrisons had asked the 15th
Panzer Division “to cover his retreat.” “You should have
received all this through other channels,” Churchill wrote,
“but to make sure, I repeat it.”29
The battle to drive Axis forces out of Africa was hard
fought and prolonged. But following Montgomery’s capture
of the Tunisian port of Sfax on April 10th, with more than
20,000 prisoners taken in three weeks, Enigma revealed that
the opposition was finally weakening. The next day
Churchill telegraphed Alexander: “‘Boniface’ shows clearly
the dire condition of the enemy, particularly in fuel.”30
On April 25th Alexander commented: “Enemy is
unlikely to be able to stand our prolonged pressure, but he
will continue to offer bitter and most stubborn resistance
until his troops are exhausted.”31 What Alexander sensed in
the war zone was confirmed by what Churchill learned from
the decrypted German messages. “Boniface,” he telegraphed
to Alexander on April 26th, “clearly shows the enemy’s
anxiety, his concern over his ammunition expenditure, and
the strain upon his air force.”32
On May 12th, German resistance in Tunisia came to
an end. An Enigma signal from General von Arnim to
Berlin—decrypted at Bletchley—stated curtly: “We have
fired our last cartridge. We are closing down for ever.”33 Von
Arnim himself was captured and 150,000 of his soldiers
taken prisoner.34
Sicily and Normandy
The planning for the Sicily and Normandy landings
involved two major deception plans. Both depended upon
Enigma for the Allied knowledge that the Germans had
fallen for them.
The first deception, using the body of a recently
dead Briton and forged documents, swapped Sicily—site
of the actual landing—for Greece. German troop movements to defend Greece against the expected attack were
seen in the Enigma orders. In the words of a member of
the deception staff—the London Controlling Section,
located just below Churchill’s above-ground rooms in the
Board of Trade building—“Enigma told us that the
Germans were falling for it.”35
On May 14th, only two weeks after the body had
floated ashore off the Mediterranean coast of Spain, a “most
secret” message sent from the German High Command to
Naval Group Command South pinpointed the “possible
starting points” for Allied landings in Greece, specifically
Kalamata and Cape Araxos, both of which had been mentioned in one of the bogus letters washed ashore with the
body. The German High Command message went on to
order reinforced defences at Kalamata and other Greek
ports, minelaying and installing operational U-boat bases.36
An Enigma decrypt of this German message reached
London that day.37 To Churchill, who was in Washington,
Brigadier Hollis at once telegraphed: “‘Mincemeat’ swallowed rod, line and sinker by right people and from best
information they look like acting on it.”38
By autumn 1942, planning had begun for a landing in
Northern Europe within the following two years.
Churchill’s knowledge of what would be involved in such a
landing gained immeasurably from Enigma when, on 30
September, Bletchley Park broke the German “Osprey”
cypher used by the Todt Organization. This gave an important window into a massive German construction project:
the anti-invasion preparations of the West Wall. >>
THE SECRET WAR...
Under the expert cryptographic skills of Colonel
Tiltman (see Part I, Finest Hour 149, Winter 2010-11, 23),
Japanese diplomatic messages whose code had been broken
were scrutinised for clues about German coastal defences. It
could be time-consuming and frustrating work. In
November 1943 the Japanese Military Attaché in Berlin
sent a detailed thirty-two-part report to Tokyo about a tour
he had just made of the coastal defences in northern France.
Eleven parts of this report were solved by the end of
December, but the remaining twenty-one parts were not
fully decrypted until June 1944. By contrast, a report about
the German coastal defences sent to Tokyo by the Japanese
Naval Attaché in Berlin on 4 and 5 May 1944, was fully
solved and translated by 13 May.39 This gave Churchill and
the planning staff valuable insights about what to bomb
from the air as soon as possible, and, on D-Day, what to
bombard from the sea.
As Normandy planning continued, Churchill was
warned that without a series of deceptions, including some
in which Stalin would have to participate, no landings
would be possible in 1944. On 30 January 1944 the head
of British deception operations, Colonel John Bevan, and
his American counterpart, Lieutenant-Colonel William H.
Baumer, flew to Moscow to explain to Stalin the essential
threefold Soviet dimension in the Normandy deception
scheme. They made three requests of the Russians:
1) To time their summer 1944 offensive to occur after
the cross-Channel landing, in order to confuse the Germans
as to which of the two offensives would come first, and to
make it impossible for them to withdraw forces from the
still-dormant, but imminently active, Eastern Front once
Normandy was invaded.
2) To help fake an Anglo-Soviet landing in northern
Norway as the first phase in an Allied military advance
through Sweden, an essential component of a second front
landing in Denmark, and striking southward to Berlin.
3) To appear to be about to mount their own
amphibious landing against the Black Sea coast of Romania
and Bulgaria.
On 6 March, Stalin agreed to carry out these three
deceptions. In the months that followed, as Berlin ordered
men and materials to the apparently threatened areas,
decrypted Enigma messages revealed that Germans had
fallen for them. Without Enigma, there was no way that
Churchill could have known that Stalin had either believed
in, or carried out, these crucial deception plans.
Integral to the Soviet deceptions was the need to convince the Germans that Calais, not Normandy, was the
objective of the Allied armies training in Britain in early
1944. From the moment Enigma revealed the Germans
were sold on Calais, the final stages of the Normandy landings could go ahead. Even after D-Day, German Intelligence
was convinced that the main thrust would still come at
Calais, and held back considerable forces, which Rommel
had urgently wished to send to Normandy. Rommel’s
appeals, and the High Command’s refusals, were known to
Churchill and Eisenhower—and much appreciated by
them—through Enigma.40
On May 13th the Joint Intelligence Committee
warned Churchill and Eisenhower that, on the basis of
Enigma decrypts, and reports from agents in France, up to
sixty German divisions would be available to oppose the
Allied landings in three weeks’ time. After further study of
the decrypts, the Committee was able to reassure Churchill
and Eisenhower that their estimate fell just below the upper
limit that had been set for calling off the landings.41
Again and again during the preparations for D-Day,
during the June 6th landings, and during the advance
inland, Enigma decrypts, monitored closely by Churchill,
gave precious clues that saved Allied lives. One example: on
June 1st an urgent request from Rommel for German Air
Force attacks on American positions before a German attack
scheduled for 3 pm that day was signalled to the First
United States Army with nearly two hours to spare.42
The Bombing of Dresden
Like British help for the Yugoslav and Greek partisans,
the bombing of Dresden was also Enigma-driven. Towards
the end of January 1945 a series of Enigma messages
revealed a German plan to send reinforcements to the
Russian front then in Silesia from as far away as the Rhine,
Norway and northern Italy.43
On February 1st, through Enigma decrypts, three
German infantry divisions from the Western Front were
identified on the Eastern Front. “Reports indicate,”
Churchill and the Chiefs of Staff were told that day, “that
further divisions may be on their way.”44
Two days later the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Soviet
forces, General Antonov, asked for urgent Allied action “to
prevent the enemy from transferring his troops to the east
from the Western Front, Norway and Italy, by air attacks
against communications.” On the 4th this Soviet request
was presented to the Big Three at Yalta,45 along with a
Soviet Intelligence assessment of the thirty-one German
divisions believed to be in transit from the West to Silesia:
twelve from the Western Front, eight from the interior of
Germany, eight from Italy and three from Norway.46
The Anglo-American Combined Chiefs at once agreed
to divert some of their bomber forces—then on crucial missions attacking German oil reserves—to attack German
Army lines of communication in the Berlin, Dresden and
Leipzig region. Nine days later, the Anglo-American
bombing began. In the resulting firestorms, tens of thousands of the city’s inhabitants were killed: the direct
consequence of information provided through Enigma. (See
also Chartwell Bulletin 24, page 9; and “Leading Churchill
Myths: Dresden”: http://bit.ly/miyrYK.)
End of the War in Europe
Enigma gave Churchill and his inner circle of military
and Intelligence advisers crucial insights until the very end.
Sometimes, Churchill had to be reminded of them. On 17
April 1945 he read of a bombing raid three days earlier on
Potsdam. He wrote at once to the Secretary of State for Air,
Sir Archibald Sinclair and the chief of the Air Staff, Sir
Charles Portal: “What is the point of going and blowing
down Potsdam?”47 Portal replied that it was a report of the
Joint Intelligence Committee—based on Enigma—that had
noted the shift of German Air Force operational headquarters from Berlin to Potsdam, making it very much a target.48
On April 29th, an hour before midnight, as Soviet
tanks battled inside Berlin, Hitler sent an Enigma message
seeking reinforcements from General Wenck, who was
southwest of Berlin facing the British army. The message
read: “Where are Wenck’s spearheads? Will they advance?
Where is Ninth Army?”49 Thus, even in his final hours,
Hitler inadvertently betrayed his thinking and his plans
through his own most secret system of communications.
This enabled British troops to surround and immobilize the
one last hope of a continued fight inside Berlin. On the following afternoon, Hitler committed suicide.
On May 3rd, as the war in drew to an end, a German
Enigma message, one of the last of the war, revealed that
German moves were being taken to try to forestall a Soviet
parachute landing and military advance along the Baltic
coast into Denmark. Churchill took immediate action to
prevent Soviet forces entering Denmark, ordering
Montgomery’s forces to divert from their eastward advance
and drive northward to the Baltic. They did so, entering the
port of Lübeck with, as Churchill noted to Eden, “twelve
hours to spare.”50
Thus the last use of Enigma in the war in Europe was
not to help Stalin, but to forestall him. 
Endnotes
1. Decrypt OL211 of 4May41. Churchill to Wavell: Churchill
papers, 20/38.
2. Telegram of 6Nov41: Churchill papers, 20/44.
3. “Personal and Secret,” 9Nov41: Churchill papers, 20/44.
3. “Most Secret,” C/8035, 12Nov41: Cabinet papers, 120/766.
4. “Secret and Personal,” 19Nov41: Churchill papers, 20/45.
5. “Personal. Most Secret,” 21Nov41: Churchill papers, 20/45.
6. “Personal and Most Strictly Secret,” 23Nov41: Churchill
papers, 20/45.
7-10. Ibid.
11. The message was preceded by a two-letter (digraph) prefix, in
this case MK, chosen to imply to any eavesdropper that it was an individual British agent (usually indicated by such a digraph) rather than the
German Air Force’s secret radio signals transmitted by Enigma.
12. Prime Minister’s Personal Telegram (hereinafter PMPT) 383
of 1942, 15Mar42: Churchill papers, 20/88.
13. PMPT 393 of 1942, 16Mar42: Churchill papers, 20/88.
14. CX/MSS/945/T12 of 2May42.
15. Geoffrey Pidgeon, Edgar Harrison: Soldier—Patriot and Ultra
Wireless Officer to Winston Churchill (Los Angeles: Arundel, 2008), 178.
16. Boniface 1371, T.10, Prime Minister’s Personal Minute (hereinafter PMPM), M.350/2, 6 September 1942: Churchill papers, 20/67.
17. “Personal and Secret.” “Clear the Line,” PMPT 1305 of 1942,
23Oct42: Churchill papers, 20/81.
18. “Bigot,” “Most Secret,” PMPT 1392 of 1942, 29Oct42:
Churchill papers, 20/81. “Bigot” was a prefix informing the recipient that
the telegram contained material of the utmost secrecy. The decrypts mentioned by Churchill in his telegram to Alexander were QT/4474, 4592,
4599, 4642, 4644 and 4682.
19. PMPT 1420 of 1942, 4Nov42: Churchill papers, 20/82.
20. Enigma decrypts CX/MSS/1698/T.
21. “Private, Personal and Secret,” telegram of 16Dec42: Churchill
papers, 20/85.
22. Telegram of 27Dec42: Churchill papers, 20/85.
23. PMPM D.4/3, 5Jan43: Cabinet papers, 79/88 (Chiefs of Staff
Committee, 5Jan43, Annex).
24. PMPM D.22/3, 17Feb43: Churchill papers, 4/397A.
25. Decrypt VM 5207.
26. The decrypts were VM 5007 of 0342 and VM 5207 of 1646,
28Feb43: CX/MSS/2190/T14: F.H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in
the Second World War, vol. 2 (London: HMSO, 1981), 593-95.
27. Major-General David Belchem, All in the Day’s March,
(London: Collins, 1978), 147. Belchem was head of Montgomery’s
Operations Staff from 1943 to 1945.
28 Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War, 596.
29. PMPT 391 of 1943, 28Ma43: Churchill papers, 4/396.
30. PMPT 498 of 1943, 11Apr43: Churchill papers, 4/289.
31. MA/342, “Personal and Most Secret,” 25Apr43 (received 4
a.m., 26Apr43): Churchill papers, 20/110.
32. PMPT, T.592/3, “Most Secret and Personal,” 26Apr43:
Churchill papers, 20/110.
33. David Dilks, ed., The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan
(London: Cassell, 1971), 530. Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the
Foreign Office, Cadogan had been privy to Enigma since June 1940.
34. The second highest-ranking German prisoner of war after
Rudolf Hess, von Arnim was held in Britain until 1947. Many of his soldiers were taken as prisoners of war to Canada and the United States.
35. Lady Jane Bethell, in conversation with the author, 17Jun85.
36. The German General sent to the Peloponnese to prepare for
the non-existent assault was Rommel. In the first week of June, a group
of German motor torpedo boats was ordered from Sicily to the Aegean;
this fact was likewise revealed through Enigma.
37. CX/MSS/2571/T4 of 15May43: published in full, in its original translation, in Michael I. Handel (editor), Strategic and Operational
Deception in the Second World War (London: Cass, 1987), 79-80,
source, U.S. Army Military History Institute (Reel 127, 5-13May43).
38. “Alcove” No. 217, 14May43: Cabinet papers, 120/88.
39. Secret Intelligence Service archive, series HW.
40. See Martin Gilbert, D-Day (New York: Wiley, 2004), passim.
41. Secret Intelligence Services archive, series HW1.
42. KV 7671 and 7678, quoted in Ralph Bennett, Ultra in the
West: The Normandy Campaign of 1944-45 (London: Hutchinson,
1979), 77.
43. Joint Intelligence Committee (45) 31(O), rev. final, 25Jan45.
44. Chiefs of Staff papers, 1Feb45.
45. Transcripts: “Minutes of the Plenary Meeting between the
USA, Great Britain, and the USSR, held in Livadia Palace, Yalta, on
Sunday, 4 February 1945, at 1700.”
46. This assessment had been transmitted via Bletchley and the
British Military Mission, Moscow, to Soviet Intelligence. The message as
sent, and the decrypt on which it was based, is in the Secret Intelligence
Service archive, series HW/1.
47. PMPM 362 of 1945, 19Apr45: Premier papers, 3/12, folio 3.
48. “Top Secret,” 20 April 1945: Premier papers, 3/12, folio 2.
49. Bennett, Ultra in the West, 234.
50. “Top Secret,” PMPT 771, 5May45: Churchill papers, 20/217.
Books, A rts
& Curiosities
Churchill Centre Book Club
Managed for the Centre by Chartwell
Booksellers (www.churchillbooks.com),
which offers member discounts up to
25%. To order please contact
Chartwell Booksellers, 55 East 52nd
Street, New York, NY 10055.
Email info@chartwellbooksellers.com
Telephone (212) 308-0643
Facsimile (212) 838-7423
FORMER NAVAL PERSONS AND PLACES
CHRISTOPHER M. BELL
Two Bulls in a Naval Shop
Historical Dreadnoughts: Arthur
Marder, Stephen Roskill Writing and
Fighting Naval History, by Barry
Gough. Seaforth, hardbound, 320
pages, illus., $34.20 on Amazon.
T
he history of the Royal Navy during
the first half of the 20th century has
been shaped to a remarkable degree by
the writings of two prolific and highly
influential historians, Arthur J. Marder
and Captain Stephen W. Roskill, dubbed
“our historical dreadnoughts” by A.J.P.
Taylor. These two figures, and the
famous rivalry between them, are the
subject of Barry Gough’s newest book.
Marder and Roskill came to naval
history from very different backgrounds.
Roskill, a retired Royal Navy officer, is
best known for The War at Sea (195461), the four-volume official history of
naval operations during the Second
_____________________________________
Professor Bell teaches history at Dalhousie
University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
World War, although readers of Finest
Hour are more likely to know him from
his later critique, Churchill and the
Admirals (1977). Marder, an American
academic, established his reputation with
a monumental five-volume history of the
navy during the Fisher era, From the
Dreadnought to Scapa Flow (1961-70).
These volumes provided the first detailed
coverage of Churchill’s initial tenure as
First Lord of the Admiralty. (In a 1972
essay, “Winston Is Back,” published as a
supplement to the English Historical
Review, Marder offered a lively, and generally favourable, account of Churchill’s
1939-40 stint at the Admiralty.)
Drawing on a wide range of
sources, including the voluminous
papers left by his subjects, Barry Gough
has created a fascinating portrait of these
two gifted historians. The Harvard-educated Marder found his early career
hindered at times by anti-Semitism, but
his unrivalled ability to coax documents
from the British Admiralty gave his work
an air of authority and quickly established his reputation as a formidable
scholar. Roskill enjoyed a more privileged access to Admiralty documents at
the beginning of his historical career—
one of the advantages of working as an
official historian for the Cabinet Office.
The War at Sea was one of the most successful of the official British histories and
immediately established Roskill’s
standing within the historical community. But Gough reveals how difficult the
role of official historian could be.
Any criticism of Churchill’s
wartime leadership was bound to be
controversial, but Roskill’s task was
further complicated by the fact that
Churchill was again Prime Minister
when the first volume of The War at Sea
was nearing completion. Churchill
objected to Roskill’s treatment of naval
operations during the Norwegian campaign of 1940, and to his account of the
decision to dispatch the Prince of Wales
and Repulse (Force Z) to Singapore on
the eve of the Pacific war (see Churchill
Proceedings, FH 138-39).
Under pressure from above, Roskill
eventually softened his criticisms, but his
revised account still left the impression
that Churchill had interfered excessively
with subordinates and that his poor
grasp of naval strategy had led to the loss
of Force Z in December 1941. Two
decades later, Roskill, now free from any
form of official censorship, developed
these charges in Churchill and the
Admirals, a provocative and seeminglyauthoritative work that detailed many
other criticisms of the Prime Minister.
Gough also reveals the behind-thescenes story of the Marder-Roskill feud.
Their relations soured rapidly in the late
1960s after Roskill was appointed official biographer of the first Lord Hankey,
the former Cabinet secretary. Marder
had previously examined Hankey’s diary,
and Hankey’s son had agreed that he
might publish excerpts from it. Roskill,
however, successfully blocked Marder
from quoting this source in his work.
The two men were soon trading barbs
publicly over a range of issues.
The breach between them was
never as complete as might have been
thought, but the historical community
was left in no doubt that the two leading
historians of the 20th century Royal
Navy had fallen out. Their best-known
dispute involved Churchill’s second
tenure at the Admiralty. Drawing
heavily on postwar testimony from Sir
Eric Seal, who had been Churchill’s
principal private secretary as First Lord,
Marder challenged Roskill’s view that
Churchill had meddled excessively in
naval operations during the Norwegian
campaign. Marder painted a much more
flattering portrait of both Churchill and
Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, the First Sea
Lord, provoking a sharp rebuke from
The Goods on the Dards
Churchill’s Dilemma: The Real Story
Behind the Origins of the 1915
Dardanelles Campaign, by Graham
Clews. Hardbound, 344 pages, illus.,
$44.95, Kindle edition $36.
T
here is every reason to be skeptical
about the need for a new book on
one of the most frequently scrutinized
episodes of World War I, and of
Churchill’s role in it. Is there really more
to be said on the subject? This detailed
new study shows that there is.
Churchill’s part in the Dardanelles
campaign has always been controversial,
but over the years a consensus has
emerged. It is generally agreed, for
example, that Churchill, a dedicated
peripheral strategist, embraced the naval
assault on Turkey to avoid the bloody
stalemate on the Western Front. Once
committed, it is said, he became
obsessed. His enthusiasm for a strictly
naval attack on the Dardanelles is commonly attributed to the initial
Roskill. The dispute went on for several
years without either historian ceding any
ground.
Barry Gough brings these controversies to life in a way that will captivate
both the general reader and the specialist. His book is recommended, not
only as an entertaining biography of two
of the most colourful and important
naval historians of the last century, but
for its account of the ways in which
they shaped our understanding of the
modern Royal Navy—and Churchill’s
long and complex relationship with it. 
unavailability of troops, while his later
determination to obtain support from
the army is seen as a belated acknowledgement that the naval attack had
failed. But none of these assumptions
should be taken for granted.
Clews takes a slightly different
approach from other historians.
Churchill, he writes, always preferred
seizing an island off the German coast,
even after the Dardanelles attack was
approved. The capture of, say, Borkum,
offered the best means of getting around
the stalemate and defeating the primary
enemy. But the monitors and other specialised craft needed for a Borkum
operation were not ready, so he threw his
support behind the Dardanelles, strictly
as an interim measure. It seemed to offer
the prospect of a major victory at little
risk, one he thought could be wrapped
up quickly, and resources shifted to one
of his northern schemes.
Unlike many books that claim to
tell the “real story,” Churchill’s
Dilemma actually delivers the goods.
Remarkably, nearly all the evidence
Clews deploys has been available in
published form for years, but this in no
way diminishes his achievement. His
analysis of the origins of the campaign is
thorough and insightful, paying careful
attention to all the major decisionmakers: Kitchener, Asquith, Lloyd
George, Balfour, Hankey. But since
Churchill’s role is the most frequently
misunderstood, Clews naturally gives
WSC the most attention.
It is hardly surprising, given the
impact of the Dardanelles on
Churchill’s subsequent reputation, that
historians have tended to assume
Churchill was more committed to it
than he actually was. But by shifting the
lens slightly, Clews brings Churchill’s
actions into sharper focus. It is clear
now, for example, why Churchill clung
so stubbornly to a “ships alone” operation in January 1915, even though
troops could have been found for a
combined assault, and again in March,
when the naval attack had faltered.
Churchill does not necessarily
emerge from this reinterpretation with
his reputation enhanced. Many of the
standard criticisms of the First Lord for
ignoring the advice of his professional
advisers are reinforced by Clews’s study.
But the book shows that there was a
logic and a consistency to Churchill’s
actions that are essential to understanding the origins of this controversial
campaign. 
Worth Seeing, and Worth Going to See
DAVID DRUCKMAN
Winston Churchill: Walking With Destiny, written
and produced by Marvin Hier and Richard Trank,
directed by Richard Trank. Running time 1:41.
A
t the urging of The Churchill Centre and several
emails, my wife and I made a point to see this new
film when it arrived at the Loft Cinema in Tucson. This
small fine arts theater showed it for four days; Lynn and
I picked the fourth, figuring it would not be crowded,
and it wasn’t. The theater seated about two hundred
and there were several dozen to view the film. >>
_______________________________________________
Mr. Druckman, a longtime and frequent Finest Hour contributor, divides his time between Tucson and Chicago.
WALKING WITH DESTINY...
The newest production from the
Moriah Films Division of the Simon
Wiesenthal Center, the film was sponsored locally by the Tucson International
Jewish Film Festival. Written and produced by Rabbi Marvin Hier (Dean of
Simon Wiesenthal Center) and Oscar
recipient Richard Trank (Oscar winner),
it was narrated by another Oscar
winner, Ben Kingsley. Winston
Churchill (grandson), Celia Sandys,
Walter Thompson (bodyguard), and Sir
Martin Gilbert partially narrated and
added to its authenticity.
The story concentrates on
Churchill’s finest hours in 1939-41, but
overlaps at both ends. It begins in the
“wilderness years,” with his early warnings about Adolf Hitler and his support
for Jews under threat by the Nazi
regime. As Charles Krauthammer, John
Lukacs and others have noted, Churchill
may not have won World War II, but
without him it would almost certainly
have been lost. The film’s historical consultant, Sir Martin Gilbert, believes that
had Churchill’s words about Nazi racial
policies been heeded, the Holocaust
might never have occurred. The film,
say its producers, “examines why
Winston Churchill's legacy continues to
be relevant in the 21st Century and
explores why his leadership remains
inspirational to current day political
leaders and diplomats.” The production
is slick, and aims frankly to convince
those unknowledgeable about Churchill
that he was the savior of the 20th
century.
Seasoned Churchillians will find
little to complain of, aside from the lack
of criticism. No footage, for example, is
devoted to the Russian invasion of
Finland or the Anglo-French debacle in
Norway. Much time is spent on the
Blitz and the Dunkirk evacuation.
During the latter episode, the producers
slip in an old clip of a soldier carrying
another soldier through the World War
I trenches. An odd piece of trivia is the
suggestion that Churchill’s famous brick
walls at Chartwell were often rebuilt
after Churchill left off for lunch—not
entirely new information!
The film powerfully highlights
Churchill’s warnings about the Nazi
threat to the Jews, which are often lost
in descriptions of his warnings about
German rearmament. It shows how his
speeches influenced American opinion,
and how his personal appearances and
radio broadcasts boosted the morale of
British civilians in bombed areas.
As a Churchillophile I gave “Walking
with Destiny” eight of ten, but my wife,
interestingly, gave it nine. If you know
Churchill, see the film. It will confirm
everything you’ve believed about him,
and it’s not boring. If you are a novice,
be entertained, and learn. 
Somewhat Short of Reliable
MAX E. HERTWIG
Winston Churchill: War Leader, by
Bill Price. Pocket Essentials,
Harpenden, Herts., UK, softbound,
160 pp., £7.99.
D
espite its subtitle, this 45,000-word
pocket softback is not about
Churchill as war leader, although ninety
pages are devoted to the two World
Wars. It’s a biography: clinical, with few
quotations and only fourteen footnotes.
There are only a handful of inaccuracies of any significance. Contrary to
Price, Churchill did not formally favor
“the eventual creation of a Jewish state,”
although he supported it once created.
Churchill’s mistake in crossing Fifth
Avenue in 1931 and Hitler’s partition of
Czechoslovakia are inaccurately
described, and no one has yet found the
naval signal “Winston is Back” when
WSC returned to the Admiralty in
September 1939. Churchill had not
“danced at the news” of Pearl Harbor,
although he might have liked to. But
these minor errors of fact are less important than some of the odd conclusions.
Price provides a new take on the
World War II Second Front argument.
The British military chiefs, he says, had
concluded that “If battles were fought in
which the opposing forces were
equal...the Germans would likely win, so
they advocated the use of overwhelming
force to guarantee victory.” Hence
Churchill’s proposals for attacking the
“soft underbelly” of Europe.
One wonders where he got this.
General Mark Clark, speaking to the
Western Canada Churchill Societies in
1970, admitted that he found the soft
underbelly to be “one tough gut”—but
neither Clark nor his fellow generals are
on record as believing the Germans
would win any battle of equal forces.
Covering the final year of the war,
Price is completely accurate about the
strategic bombing of Germany. He notes
that Churchill argued against continuing
to raze German cities, and his treatment
of Dresden (a Soviet target, confirmed
by Attlee) proves that he has read Martin
Gilbert or Finest Hour. But a few pages
later he says that Churchill “inexplicably” skipped Franklin Roosevelt’s
funeral—a fraught and contentious
claim. Roosevelt died with the war about
to end; could the prime minister dart off
in the midst of imminent victory to
attend a funeral? Despite Churchill’s
initial impulse to attend, Eden and
others dissuaded him.
At the same time we read that the
wartime coalition was breaking up, in
part because Churchill “had alienated
many of the other members of the coalition...by appearing to favour the
opinions of his circle of cronies, principally Lord Beaverbrook, Brendan
Bracken and Professor Lindemann”
(139). The coalition broke up because
Labour wanted a general election.
There are a few other peculiar
statements. Price contends that
Churchill was sent to the Admiralty in
1911 because Asquith wanted “a safer >>
pair of hands” to deal with the trade
unions after the Welsh strikes, which at
least needs qualification. The official
biographer and others say the move was
made because Asquith wanted a spirited
pair of hands at the Admiralty and
admired Churchill’s pluck during the
1911 Agadir Crisis, which had threatened war with Germany.
Price recounts early naval losses in
World War I—but not victories, like the
Falkland Islands; he is fair and balanced
on Gallipoli and Churchill’s political
eclipse in 1915.
Between the wars, Churchill’s
decision as Chancellor of the Exchequer
to put Britain back on the Gold
Standard is given the standard
Keynesian interpretation. The author is
certainly wrong that Chamberlain
joined Halifax in arguing for peace talks
with Hitler in 1940; or that the shift in
power to America occurred at the
Atlantic Charter meeting in August
1941. In Churchill’s second premiership, Price seems to rank defeating the
uprisings in Kenya and Malaya among
the major foreign policy initiatives,
though he does mention WSC’s quest
for a Big Three summit conference.
The best part of this little book is
the end. The Churchill who emerges
from the diaries and memoirs of his colleagues, Price says, “is of a man who
often bore the immense responsibility
with which he was charged much more
heavily than he showed in public. Such
descriptions provide a glimpse of the
real man which had previously been
covered up by the mythology surrounding him, and which Churchill
himself made little effort to dispel....
But, in the end, his reputation surely
rests on those months between March
1940 and December 1941 when Britain
fought on alone against the tyranny of
Nazi Germany.”
He should have said May 1940
and June 1941, but no one can argue
with his final sentence: “In those
months of adversity he proved himself
with words and actions which can only
be described as heroic.”
This is a nice little book, but lays
enough eggs and false trails as to fall
somewhat short of reliable. For those in
need of a brief life, the winner and still
champion is Paul Addison’s Churchill:
The Unexpected Hero (in print at $13,
$10 in Kindle)—which is still, in the
late John Ramsden’s words, the best
brief life of Churchill ever published—
”and by a long way.” 
Pol Roger Champagne: Another Look
“TOO MUCH OF ANYTHING IS BAD, BUT TOO MUCH CHAMPAGNE IS JUST RIGHT”
—MARK TWAIN
DANIEL MEHTA
A
London wine merchant, sent to
appraise the Chartwell wine cellar,
determined that almost the only thing of
value in it was a large supply of vintage
Pol Roger champagne.1 A champagne
drinker for most of his adult life,
Winston Churchill was a Pol Roger
devotee for over fifty years, receiving it
with compliments in later life. He often
quoted the words of Napoleon, whose
biography he had once hoped to write:
“I cannot live without champagne. In
victory I deserve it; in defeat I need it.”2
An extant order for a case of the
1895 vintage, purchased in 1908 when
he was President of the Board of Trade,
provides evidence of Churchill’s early
affection for Pol Roger. It also docu____________________________________
Mr. Mehta, an English writer based in
Singapore, is a long-time member of TCC with
an interest in Churchill’s recreational side
(properties, art, hobbies). See also “Still Verve
in the Veuve,” FH 63: 15; Pol Roger by
Cynthia Parzych and John Turner, FH 107: 27;
and “Odette Pol-Roger,” FH 109: 8.
ments the £4/16 he paid for it.
After World War II, Odette PolRoger, grande dame of the champagne
house, kept Churchill well stocked with
cases, most commonly (until it ran out)
the 1928 vintage. By 1965, WSC had
worked his way through to the 1934
vintage and was beginning to enjoy the
’47. He had often promised Odette he
would visit Epernay, where he hoped to
“press the grapes with my feet”3—a startling image, though he never made good
his intention.
Pol Roger, a Champenois from Ay,
established the Epernay champagne
house in 1849. The company’s first shipments to England were in 1876, inspired
perhaps by the outstanding vintage year
of 1874, the year of Churchill’s birth. It
was the beginning of a long association
with England, which would result in its
name becoming better known there than
in France.
Upon Pol Roger’s death, his sons
Maurice and Georges were given >>
POL ROGER...
permission to use their father’s first and
last name together, as the family and
company name (the family name is
hyphenated). Under their leadership, by
the end of the century, the champagne
house was one of around 20 GrandesMarques, which would define quality
levels through the present.
Currently, a fifth generation of
Pol-Rogers produces around 125,000
cases annually from 85 hectares of vineyards. The house is renowned for having
the deepest (and therefore the coldest)
cellars in Champagne. The tunnels hold
an approximate 7.5 million bottles and
the company states that every bottle is
riddled (turned) by hand. Even their
non-vintage brut, better known as
“White Foil” because of its neck
wrapper, spends at least three years in
these cellars before going out on the
market.
Maurice Pol-Roger was the fatherin-law of Odette Pol-Roger, who ran the
company at the height of Churchill’s
fame, and with whom he became close
friends. Odette did not follow her
father-in-law’s flamboyant business
management when she took over the
firm as unofficial head in the 1940s,
while active in the French Resiastance.
She devoted her energy to a role she saw
as simply “to encourage people to enjoy
champagne,” said The Daily Telegraph.4
Famous for her beauty, grace and
vitality, she also managed to charm
Churchill from the beginning. She
remains the most widely recognised
ambassador of the firm to date.
Pol Roger today produces six
champagnes, from non-vintage brut
through to their flagship Sir Winston
Churchill Cuveé. The company devotes
some 30% of its production to
premium vintage champagne, against an
industry standard of 6%, and enjoys a
long association with the UK.
Their premium vintage brand,
first named after Churchill in 1984, can
only be produced in the very best years,
from 100%-rated villages, and only
those areas under the vine in Churchill’s
day. After his death in 1965, searching
for a suitable tribute for their Englishmarket White Foil, they began
bordering its label in black, and have
COMPLIMENTS: Christian Pol-Roger with
Churchills great 1945 testimonial.
only recently changed to navy blue,
honoring the “Former Naval Person.”5
Churchill’s life is punctuated by
references to champagne. He would
name his favourite racehorse after
Odette, although she was heard to
remark, “Oh that mare—we had such
trouble with her.”6 In 1915, dismissed
from the Admiralty at the nadir of his
fortunes, Churchill wrote to his brother
Jack from Hoe Farm that he and the
family were well equipped with all the
essentials of life: “hot baths, cold champagne, new peas and old brandy.”7
Later, when working on the renovations to the lake at Chartwell in the
1930s, he would write to the absent
Clementine that the working party was
taking champagne at all meals.
The House of Pol Roger bridles at
the suggestion that they instigated the
association with Churchill. In fact, at
the World War II victory party at the
British Embassy in Paris, Alfred Duff
Cooper introduced Churchill to Odette
Pol-Roger. WSC was immediately
smitten, and a friendship began which
would endure through the rest of his
life. He declared that Odette should be
invited to dinner whenever he was in
Paris and pronounced her home in
Epernay “the world’s most drinkable
address.”8 She was close enough to Sir
Winston to be on the short list of personal friends invited to attend his state
funeral in St Paul’s Cathedral.
Hanging in the company’s headquarters is a framed thank-you note
from Churchill, dated from 1945. It
reads “I thank you so much for this
most agreeable token of your regard,
which I have received with pleasure, and
also with the kind expression with
which it is accompanied.”9
Long before then, Churchill’s
brand loyalty was well established, and
because it showed no signs of waning,
Pol Roger was assured of a continued
association with their most famous and
revered customer.
Paraphrasing Churchill’s words,
current managing director Christian
Pol-Roger frequently remarks: “My idea
of a good dinner is good food, good
company, and champagne from beginning to end.”10 
Endnotes
1. Finest Hour 62, First Quarter, 1989,
“Riddles, Mysteries, Enigmas”: “…a London
wine merchant, sent to appraise the cellar at
Chartwell, pronounced it a ‘shambles,’ the
only items of value being a large supply of
vintage Pol Roger Champagne (regularly
topped up by shipments from Madame Odette
Pol-Roger in Epernay); Hine brandy; and some
bottles of chardonnay which Churchill had
bottled with Hillaire Belloc and which WSC
forbade anyone to touch. The merchant pronounced the chardonnay undrinkable, along
with the rest of the cellar.”
2. Apparently adapted from Napoleon
Bonaparte: “In victory, you deserve champagne. In defeat, you need it.”
3. Obituary of Odette Pol-Roger, Daily
Telegraph, 30 December 2000; FH 109.
4. Ibid.
5. See www.polroger.co.uk: “In 1990
the black band of mourning on ‘White Foil’
was lightened to navy blue, recalling Winston
Churchill's ‘loyalties to the Senior Service’ as a
former First Lord of the Admiralty.”
6. Obituary Odette Pol-Roger, Daily
Telegraph, op. cit.
7. WSC to his brother Jack, Hoe Farm,
Godalming, Surrey, 19 June 1915.
8. www.polroger.co.uk
9. WSC to Odette Pol-Roger, British
Embassy, Paris, 14 November 1945.
10. WSC to Odette Pol-Roger,
Christian Pol-Roger to the author, 27 February
2010.
CHURCHILLIANA
The Potted Special Relationship
What began in 1941 was quickly celebrated by British
potteries—and thereby hang several tales.
DOUGLAS HALL
Above right: a lovely little earthenware loving cup from Wade, Heath of Burslem. Roosevelt and Churchill form handles; the body represents the North
Atlantic, with convoys of mirror-glazed ships and aircraft streaming from the U.S. to Britain. Below left: plates by A.J. Wilkinson, Royal Staffordshire
Pottery, using the sepia portrait transfers, and by Alfred Meakin, using a colour transfer of the two leaders facing the Statue of Liberty, encircled by
flags and captioned, “Champions of Democracy.”Furled flags border an unusually colourful piece of wartime tableware. Bottom left: a sweet dish by
Grimwades Royal Winton Pottery. Nice captioned line drawings of the two leaders are under crossed national flags and a floral garland.
A
n impressive amount has been
written about the ChurchillRoosevelt relationship: Warren
Kimball’s Forged in War (1997) has a
seventeen-page bibliography! British
potteries were not slow to mark the
event with a flood of commemorative
china. Much was produced under
wartime restrictions which prohibited
elaborate decoration, but these pieces
of very nice quality have become quite
highly collectible in recent years.
The Mystery Mug
At an auction in Leicestershire I
spotted a novel coffee mug in brown
salt-glazed stoneware. The caricature
portraits on either side were the same
as on a white mug I owned, but instead
of a large “V,” this one was inscribed
“J-Le-S | Oct | 1941” between the
portraits. It is backstamped “TG Green
& Co Ltd, Church Gresley, England.”
A Derbyshire pottery established in
1864, it is still in business, best known
for its popular blue and white-banded
“Cornish” kitchenware.
The inscription intrigued me.
Who was “J-Le-S”? What was being
commemorated in October 1941? It
was, after all, two months after the
Atlantic Charter meeting and well
before Pearl Harbor. Churchill was in
fact in a funk, thinking America
would never join the war.
I had to own this little mug.
Unfortunately, another bidder had the
same idea, and I had to bid high to
secure my prize. I telephoned T.G.
Green for help identifying the initials.
They could not assist, but did advise
that they formerly did a considerable
trade in personalised pottery—from
complete tableware services to individual pieces—much of it with barges
which plied the nearby canals.
Whether “J-Le-S” was a barge
person we’ll never know. Did he (or
^ CURIOSITY: T.G. Green made this brown
glazed mug above. Around the foot is the line:
“Lets drink to victory, lets drink to peace.” But
who is “J-Le-S”? Below: the white version, with
a “V” instead of a monogram, from the collection of Matt Wills, appeared in Finest Hour 96.
she) order a single mug, or several
dozen? What connection was there
with Churchill and Roosevelt? Was
there any significance to the date
October 1941? And is there an
American or Canadian connection?
Chambers’ Biographical
Dictionary lists one Jean Le Sage, a
French-Canadian who became Prime
Minister of Quebec in 1960. He
would have been 29 in 1941. Was he,
like many of his countrymen, in
Britain at the time? Did he stop off in
Church Gresley and commission a
supply of personalized coffee mugs?
Perhaps a reader can help throw some
light on this “riddle wrapped in a
mystery inside an enigma.” 
OLD TITLES REVISITED
Harold Nicolson and His Diaries
“FOR US THEY SHINE HAPPILY TODAY AS MYRTLE
FLOWERS AMONG THE HEAVY WREATH OF BAY”
JAMES LANCASTER
H
arold Nicolson met Winston
Churchill in the spring of 1908,
when Nicolson was an undergraduate
at Oxford and dined periodically with
his Balliol friend Arthur Bertie at
Wytham Abbey, a few miles from the
city. This “grim gray building in a
lovely park” was the country estate of
Arthur’s father the 7th Earl of Abingdon. Nicolson described Churchill as
“a young man with reddish hair who
stooped and slouched [and] who
talked a great deal, only thirty-three
and already a member of the Cabinet.”
The account of this first meeting is
not in the Nicolson diaries but in
Nicolson’s “A Portrait of Winston
Churchill,” in Life magazine for April
1948. Nicolson kept only a very occasional diary during his Foreign Office
career (June 1909-December 1929), so
it is not until 1925 that we find his
first diary entry about WSC.
• 7 June 1925: Dine and sleep with
the Churchills at Chartwell. Winston is
delighted with his house, which he considers a paradise on earth. It is rather
nice. Only Goonie [WSC’s sister-in-law
Lady Gwendoline Bertie] there, and a
red-headed Australian journalist called
Bracken. A most self-confident and, I
should think, wrong-headed young
man. We talk about Curzon. Winston is
nice about him. June 8: Motor up with
Winston. A rather perilous proceeding.
We break down two or three times on
the way.
___________________________________
Mr. Lancaster provides the “Churchill Quiz”
in Finest Hour and on winstonchurchill.org.
He has provided a copy of Nicolson’s 1948 Life
article, available from the editor by email.
• 27 Apri1 1961 [letter from Harold
to his wife, Vita Sackville-West]: I went
to the Academy Banquet and enjoyed it
very much. I watched [Winston’s] huge
bald head descending the staircase, and I
blessed it as it disappeared. “We may
never see that again,” said a voice
behind me. It was Attlee.
These are the first and last entries
on Winston Churchill in the diaries of
Harold Nicolson, who had many interesting things to say about people
and events during thirty-five eventful
years. He was a prolific writer, and
many of his observations, kind and
critical, concern the life and times of
Winston Churchill. This is why the
Nicolson diaries are of such interest to
Churchillians, and why they are
quoted frequently in the last four volumes of the official biography, and in
many books about Churchill.
Three volumes of the diaries, edited
by Harold’s son Nigel, were published
between 1966 and 1968. A fourth volume was published in 2004, incorporating extracts from the pre-1930
diaries held at Balliol, entries from
Nicolson’s Peacemaking: 1919 (published in 1933), plus letters to friends
and family.
Harold Nicolson was born in 1886,
the son of Sir Arthur Nicolson, later
Lord Carnock, who was Ambassador
to Russia in 1905-10 and Permanent
Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in
1910-16. Churchill had great respect
for Sir Arthur, whose despatch written
in 1910 he quoted at length in The
Eastern Front: “The ultimate aims of
Germany are…to obtain the preponderance on the continent of Europe,
and when she is strong enough…she
will enter into a contest with us for
maritime supremacy.”
In 1909 Harold passed the Foreign
Office exams, one of only two candidates accepted that year. His first
diplomatic posting was in Constantinople, where he spent two and onehalf years between 1912 and 1914.
Back in London he was assigned to the
newly created War Department at the
Foreign Office. He distinguished himself with a succession of insightful papers on the Balkans, and later played a
major part in the drafting of the Balfour Declaration in 1917.
In the spring of 1919 Nicolson was
sent to the Paris Peace Conference. Between October 1919 and May 1920 he
was seconded to Woodrow Wilson’s
nascent League of Nations, shuttling
between the League’s offices in London and Paris. In 1922 he accompanied Lord Curzon to Lausanne to
settle the differences between Turkey,
Italy and Greece. His next posting was
in 1926-27 as Counsellor to the Legation in Teheran, followed by two years
in Berlin, where he served through December 1929.
He then made a fateful decision,
prompted primarily by his wife’s re-
fusal to follow him any more from
post to post. Vita Sackville-West,
whom he had married in 1913, declared she was a writer, not the “wife of
a diplomat.” Encouraged by her friend
Virginia Woolf, she persuaded Harold
to give up his promising career at the
Foreign Office and make his way, like
her, by writing and journalism.
Towards the end of 1929 Beaverbrook signed him up to write the “Londoner’s Diary” for the Evening Standard.
He turned up for his first day on Grub
Street as “Londoner” on 1 January 1930.
Hitherto his diary entries had been occasional, in pen and ink; on New Year’s
day he switched to a typewriter.
His son Nigel writes: “Having once
started the diary afresh he maintained it
without a single break until 4 October
1964 when the emptiness of his days left
him too little to record. He typed it
every day after breakfast on both sides of
loose sheets of quarto paper….The entire diary is some three million words
long.” In an entry for 23 August 1938
he explains to his sons Ben and Nigel
that “this diary, of which they know the
industry and persistence, is not a work
of literature or self-revelation but a mere
record of activity put down for my own
reference only.”
Here we see some convergence between the careers of Churchill and
Nicolson. By 1930 they were both out of
office, each living by their writings.
Nicolson wrote his autobiographical
Some People in 1927, Churchill’s My
Early Life appeared in 1930. Winston
had written the life of Lord Randolph in
1906, Harold wrote the life of his father
Lord Carnock in 1930. Both authors
were very proud of their filial biographies. The literary output of both men
was colossal, a mix of serious works and
profitable journalism.
There was also a convergence of
views as the decade darkened. Both supported the League of Nations and resisted appeasement, Nicolson influenced
by his firsthand knowledge of German
and Italian methods of diplomacy. His
fluency in German gave him an advantage. On 12 June 1936 he was seated
next to a German woman who told him
he should visit Germany: “You would
find it all so changed.” He replied: “Yes,
I should find all my old friends either in
prison, or exiled, or murdered.”
On 10 May 1938 Nicolson tells us:
“On afterwards to Randolph Churchill’s
flat. He is editing a book of his father’s
speeches which show how right he has always been.” Later in the Telegraph, he reviewed the book—Arms and the
Covenant (While England Slept in U.S.):
The ordinary reader.…will be
amazed at the prescience of Mr.
Churchill and at the blind optimism
of his critics. He will be encouraged
by the blend of realism and idealism
which renders Mr. Churchill’s
present theory so far above the
jangles and tangles of party controversy. And he will delight in the
brilliance of one of the greatest
orators of our time.
Nicolson was prescient himself. In his
biography of his father he reminds us of
German foreign minister (and later
chancellor) Prince Bülow’s speech on 11
December 1899: “The times of our political anaemia and economic humility
must not recur. In the coming century
the German people will be either the
hammer or the anvil.”
Participating as he did in the Paris
Peace Conference negotiations in 1919,
Nicolson agreed with Foch’s comment,
“This is not Peace. It is an Armistice for
twenty years.” During his posting in
Berlin, October 1927 to December
1929, he reported to London about the
growth of the Nazi movement, German
nationalism, the demands for “Lebensraum,” and the clamant calls for the abrogation of treaty obligations.
There is plenty of gossip, folly and
wisdom in these diaries, much more
than “a mere record of activity.” Here is
a pot-pourri of Winstonian items:
• 6 July 1930 at Wilton, the Earl of
Pembroke’s house in Wiltshire:
[Winston] goes for a long walk with
Vita….He spoke of his American tour.
The difficulty of drink and food. One
never got real food, only chicken. He
had been given a dozen champagne by
Barney Baruch and paid it back to him
at a cost of £30. He was happy there.
• 17 March 1936, meeting of the
Foreign Affairs Committee of which
Nicolson is Vice-Chairman:
Winston gathered a group together in
the smoking-room and talked about
funk versus national honour and our
duty to generations yet unborn.
• 4 November 1936, letter from
Harold to Vita (Hadji to Viti) about
seconding the Address at the opening
of Parliament:
My constituency [West Leicester]
which, maybe in a moment of blindness,
refrained from electing the Right Honourable Member for Epping…. Winston
at this flashed out, “They also refrained
from electing the Right Honourable
Member for the Scottish Universities
[Ramsay MacDonald].”
• 8 December 1937, breakfast with
Lord Baldwin:
He talked about Winston Churchill
and said he lacked soul. I suggested that
Winston is very sympathetic to misfortune in others. He answered, “I don’t
deny that Winston has his sentimental
side. And what is more, he cannot really
tell lies. That is what makes him so bad a
conspirator.”
• 22 February 1938, HN to Vita
after his speech on Eden’s resignation:
Winston comes up and says, “That was
a magnificent speech. I envy you your gift.”
• 2 March 1938, Harold to Vita on
a meeting of WSC’s “Focus Group”:
Winston was enormously witty. He
spoke of “this great country nosing from
door to door like a cow that has lost its
calf, mooing dolefully now in Berlin and
now in Rome—when all the time the tiger
and the alligator wait for its undoing.”
• 5 December 1938, in the House,
remarking on Churchill fumbling his
notes when attacking Hore-Belisha:
[Churchill] certainly is a tiger who, if
he misses his spring, is lost.
• 14 June 1939, dinner with Kenneth Clark of the National Gallery,
the Walter Lippmans and Churchill:
Winston is horrified when Walter
Lippman tells him that the American >>
THE NICOLSON DIARIES...
Ambassador, Joe Kennedy, thinks that
war is inevitable and Britain will be
licked. “No, the Ambassador should not
have spoken so, Mr Lippman….Yet supposing (as I do not for one moment suppose) that Mr. Kennedy was correct in
his tragic utterance, then I for one would
willingly lay down my life in combat,
rather than, in fear of defeat, surrender to
the menaces of these most sinister men.”
• 17 September 1939, diary:
Chamberlain must go. Churchill may
be our Clemenceau or our Gambetta.
• 26 September 1939, WSC speaking on the Navy’s successes to date:
The effect of Winston’s speech was
infinitely greater than could be derived
from any reading of the text. One could
feel the spirits of the House rising with
every word.
• 8 May 1940, Norway debate:
On the one hand he has to be loyal to
the Services; on the other, he has to be
loyal to the Prime Minister….he manages with extraordinary force of personality to do both these things with
absolute loyalty and apparent sincerity,
while demonstrating by his brilliance
that he really has nothing to do with this
timid gang.
• 4 June 1940, “Never Surrender”:
This afternoon Winston made the
finest speech that I have ever heard. The
House was deeply moved.
• 4 July 1940, attack on the French
fleet at Oran:
The House is saddened at first by this
odious attack but is fortified by Winston’s
speech. The grand finale ends in an ovation, with Winston sitting there with tears
pouring down his cheeks.
• 14 July 1940, after Churchill’s
BBC broadcast:
Imagine the effect of his speech in
the Empire and in the U.S.A….Winston’s best phrase was “We may show
mercy—we shall ask for none.”
• 5 November 1940, WSC makes a
statement after Question Time:
AT HOME: Harold and Vita later in life at Sissinghurst, Kent, now a National Trust property. The
mansion, whose magnificent garden is situated in the midst of a ruin of an Ellizabethan manor
house, was lovingly tended by the Nicolsons from the time they arrived in 1930. Sissinghurst
Castle, as it is known, may be combined with a visit to Chartwell, only thirty miles away.
He is rather grim. He brings home to
the House the gravity of our shipping
losses….It has a good effect. By putting
the grim side forward he impresses us
with his ability to face the worst.
• 23 December 1940, WSC’s
broadcast to the Italian people:
He read out his letter to Mussolini of
May last. It was tremendous. He read
out Mussolini’s reply. It was the creep of
the assassin.
• 7 May 1941, vote of confidence
carried by 447 to 3:
[Churchill] stands there in his black
conventional suit with the huge watchchain. He is very amusing. He is very
frank….As Winston goes out of the
chamber… there is a spontaneous burst
of cheering….Members are a bit defeatist. But Winston cheers them up.
Yesterday it was rather like a hen-coop of
wet hens; today they all strutted about
like bantams.
• 23 April 1942, Secret Session on
the fall of Singapore:
He tells us of our present dangers….
It is a long and utterly remorseless catalogue of disaster and misfortune. And as
he tells us one thing after another,
...gradually the feeling rises in the
packed House....members begin to feel
in their hearts, “no man but he could
tell us of such disaster and increase
rather than diminish confidence.”...The
House gives him a great ovation.
• 12 March 1943, dinner with the
cartoonist and critic Osbert Lancaster
the diplomat Charles Peake:
Charles tells me about the latest de
Gaulle row. De Gaulle had decided to go
to Syria, and Charles had been instructed
to say No. “Alors,” he had said, “je suis
prisonnier.” [“So, I am a prisoner.”] He
[de Gaulle] retired to Hampstead. Winston had telephoned Charles saying, “I
hold you responsible that the Monster of
Hampstead does not escape.”
• 8 May 1945, Victory in Europe:
As Big Ben struck three, there was an
extraordinary hush over the assembled
multitude, and then came Winston’s
voice....“The evil-doers,” he intoned,
“now lie prostrate before us.” The crowd
gasped at this phrase. “Advance Britannia!” he shouted at the end, and there
followed the Last Post and God Save the
King which we all sang very loud indeed. And then cheer upon cheer.
• 10 August 1945, on Churchill’s
attitude toward his electoral defeat on
July 26th:
Not one word of bitterness; not a single complaint of having been treated
with ingratitude; calm, stoical resignation—coupled with a shaft of amusement that fate could play so dramatic a
trick, and a faint admiration for the electorate’s show of independence.
• 19 December 1945, at the French
Embassy; WSC talking about dealing
with the Russians:
“…one is not sure of their reactions.
One strokes the nose of the alligator and
the ensuing gurgle may be a purr of affection, a grunt of stimulated appetite,
or a snarl of enraged animosity. One
cannot tell.” Winston then comments
on the younger Conservative MPs:
“They are no more than a set of pink
pansies.” His passion for the combative
renders him insensitive to the gentle gradations of the human mind.
• 12 December 1946, diary entry:
Jack Churchill tells me that somebody had asked Winston why Attlee did
not go to Moscow to get in touch with
Stalin. “He is too wise for that,” replied
Winston. ”He dare not absent himself
from his Cabinet at home. He knows
full well that when the mouse is away
the cats will play.”
• 17 August 1950, in conversation
with Paddy Leigh Fermor:
Somebody said, “One never hears of
Baldwin nowadays—he might as well be
dead.” “No,” said Winston, “not dead.
But the candle in that old turnip has
gone out.”
• 19 August 1955, Chartwell:
Winston told Viti that at his last audience with the Queen she had said to
him, “Would you like a Dukedom or
anything like that?”
These extracts from Nicolson’s diaries date from many years ago, long before the days of live television in the
House of Commons. It will never be
possible to reproduce the sight and
sound of Churchill as “a child of the
House of Commons.” Nicolson writes
that many of the studio recordings of his
speeches unfortunately fail to reproduce
the flavour of the live performance. Was
it ever thus.
However, more than any other observer, Harold Nicolson often conveys
the sensation in the House when Winston was “up” and at his best. Here is an
example. On 29 November 1944
Churchill spoke about “The tasks which
lie before us.” The text of this speech in
The Dawn of Liberation includes the
words: “Youth, Youth, Youth….there is
no safer thing than to run risks in
youth… A love of tradition has never
weakened a nation….Let us have no fear
of the future. We are a decent lot, all of
us, the whole nation.”
These simple words will have been
enjoyable to read in The Times the following day, Churchill’s 70th birthday.
But the Hansard text can never convey
the way these words were delivered.
Nicolson tells us what it was like to be in
the House that day. In his letter to his
sons Ben and Nigel dated the 29th:
By the time I reached the Chamber,
Winston was about to rise. When
he came back from his Italian visit,
we had all been horrified by his
apparent exhaustion. But Moscow
did him good, and the snow-drifts
of the Vosges did him even more
good. He is, or seems, as fit as he
ever was, even in his best days. It is
incredible that he should be seventy,
all but a day. He made a lovely
speech. He spoke of tradition as the
flywheel of the State. He spoke of
the need of youth—“Youth, youth,
youth, and renovation, energy,
boundless energy”—and as he said
these words, he bent his knees and
pounded the air like a pugilist—
“and of controversy, health-giving
controversy. I am not afraid of it in
this country,” he said, and then he
took off his glasses and grinned
round at the Conservative benches.
“We are a decent lot,” he said,
beaming upon them. Then he
swung round and leant forward over
the box right into the faces of the
Labour people: “All of us,” he
added, “the whole nation.”
It read so mildly in the newspapers
next morning. Yet in fact it was a perfect
illustration of the Parliamentary art.
Churchill’s contemporaries have left
enough memories of the Old Man to fill
several bookshelves, but Nicolson’s are
especially valuable. From his first meeting with the young Winston in 1908 to
his obituary broadcast on BBC television
in January 1965, Nicolson has described
superbly many of the memorable, as well
as some of the forgettable, moments of
Churchill’s long life:
“It is salutary to be reminded how
bitter were the animosities, how dark the
lies, how almost unendurable the injustices which, until 1940, he had constantly to endure,” Nicolson said. “He
may have been wrong in the attitude he
took over the India Act or the Abdication; but his defiance of contemporary
opinion on such occasions was not due
to any egoism or self-advantage but to
an overpowering loyalty to lost causes
and stricken friends. For us they shine
happily today as myrtle flowers among
the heavy wreath of bay.” 
EDUCATION
Finding Answers for National History Day
FINEST HOUR OFFERS ADVICE FOR STUDENTS IN ACADEMIC COMPETITION
ON TEHERAN, TURKEY, POSTWAR GOALS, STALIN VS. HITLER,
AND THE BRITISH ATTACK ON THE FRENCH FLEET AT ORAN
N
ational History Day, usually in
November, is an American academic competition for students in
grades 6-12. Each year, more than half a
million students construct both individual and group entries in one of five
categories: Documentary, Exhibit, Paper,
Performance or Website. Students then
compete in a series of regional and state
contests to proceed to the national
contest. The mission of National
History Day is to provide students with
opportunities to learn historical content
and develop research, thinking and
communication skills through the study
of history, and to provide educators with
resources and training to enhance classroom teaching.
The theme for 2011 is “Debate and
Diplomacy: Successes, Failures, and
Consequences of History”—a rich field
for Churchill studies. For more information see http://bit.ly/ifr5tb.
Teacher Barbi Binnig at Nimitz
High School in Houston made a stimulating request on behalf of her students:
“I have a few questions for the Teheran
Conference and the attack at Oran. My
students have done extensive research
and would like to have different historical perspectives on their projects. Can
you help?” We could certainly try.
Note to readers: This is one of
scores of questions from teachers or students we try to answer, necessarily
quickly, over the course of the year. It
affords an interesting view of the material they run into. Omitted are many
references to books and websites. We
want students to draw their own conclusions on what they discover.
Turkey as Ally
“Was there much debate or discussion
about Turkey joining the Allies, or was
it a brief topic of discussion?”
Teheran Conference
“We’ve read that at the Teheran
summit in 1943, Churchill said that he
felt like a ‘poor little donkey’ when
sitting next to Stalin and Roosevelt. Did
Churchill feel Britain was not as much
of a ‘superpower’ when compared to
America and Russia at the Teheran
Conference? If so, why?”
• Yes. By late 1943, the U.S. and
Soviet Union had the preponderant military forces and were in a military
position that enabled them to exert
greater influence over war strategy.
Churchill referred to Britain as the
“poor little English donkey” and “the
only one...who knew the right way
home” because he was convinced his
proposals for future operations were the
best ones on the table. There is much
debate about this, of course. For
Churchill’s view explained concisely see
Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life, available in paperback. This is really a
standard reference for anyone interested
in Churchill. It provides the full story
and is entirely reliable with its facts.
• There was no debate among the
Allies, but it was Churchill's initiative to
persuade the Turks to join them. Turkey
did not declare war officially until very
late in the war, but as Martin Gilbert
points out, they rendered an important
service by cutting off their export of
chrome, a strategic war material, to
Germany. See the article “Churchill in
Turkey 1943” in Finest Hour 126.
Postwar Goals
“We’ve read that Churchill wanted
the world to be safe for at least fifty
years, whereas Stalin aimed for fifteen or
twenty years of peace. Do you think
Churchill was optimistic, or did he formulate his goal after much thought and
planned strategy?”
• If anyone was counting, it might
have been only rhetorically. It would be
wrong to assume that Stalin contemplated a war with the West a few years
after Germany was defeated (although
he declared to his foreign minister,
Molotov, that he would fight if attacked,
even if it meant “losing the revolution”).
Churchill said in his “Iron Curtain”
speech at Fulton in 1946: “I do not
believe that Soviet Russia desires war.
What they desire is the fruits of war and
the indefinite expansion of their power
and doctrines.”
Your students might enjoy reading
or hearing this famous and important
speech. The text is on the Churchill
Centre website and there is a link to the
audio version from the BBC Archives:
http://bit.ly/i19Afp.
Stalin and Hitler
“We’ve read that Churchill saw
Russia in an almost similar way to the
way he saw Hitler, the Allies’ common
enemy. Why did he decide to have
diplomatic relations with Stalin even
though he viewed Russia negatively?”
• Churchill was a pragmatist. Before
the war he saw Russia as a potential ally
and Germany as the chief threat to
other countries and the peace of Europe.
Stalin’s regime was equally tyrannical,
but until the war it had confined itself
within its borders. While it had tried to
export communism, it had not done so
militarily until 1939.
In August 1939 the Soviets signed a
non-aggression pact with Hitler, and
used it to gobble up the Baltic States
and part of Poland. They congratulated
Hitler for his victories and were still
shipping vast quantities of goods to
Germany when Hitler invaded Russia in
June 1941. Thus Stalin had helped
bring about the war in the first place.
Once Russia was attacked Churchill
nevertheless welcomed Stalin as an ally
and promised all possible aid to defeat
what he saw as the greater threat. He
hoped at Yalta that something good
would come of the arrangements with
Stalin, and something did: Stalin abided
by his commitment not to undermine
Greece, which he and Churchill had
arranged at the famous “spheres of
influence” talks in Moscow in 1942.
Both before and after the war,
Churchill did not believe it accomplished anything to refuse diplomatic
recognition. Over communist China in
July 1952, for example, he said: “I was,
I think, the first in this House to
suggest, in November 1949, recognition
of the Chinese Communists….I
thought it would be a good thing to
have diplomatic representation. But if
you recognise anyone it does not necessarily mean that you like him.” (He
then added an amusing reference to his
political arch-enemy, Aneurin Bevan:
“We all, for instance, recognise the Rt.
Hon. Gentleman, the Member for
Ebbw Vale.”)
Poland
“Once Poland lay in the RussianCommunist grip after WW2, did
Churchill feel his relations with Stalin at
the Teheran Conference were a mistake?
Or did he expect Stalin to set up puppet
governments?”
• It wasn’t so much Teheran as
Yalta, which Churchill left believing he
could trust Stalin, who had promised
free elections in Poland. By the Potsdam
Conference in July 1945 he had come
to the conclusion, based on events in
Poland, that Stalin had no such intention. He wrote in his memoirs that he
would have had a “showdown” over
Poland when he returned to Potsdam
after the July 1945 British election; but
his party lost that election, he was no
longer Prime Minister, and he did not
return to finish the conference.
Oran
“In your opinion was the Royal
Navy’s attack on the French fleet at
Oran in July 1940 necessary?”
• Yes. See the review in Finest Hour
150, by Earl Baker, of a recent Oran TV
documentary. Much more on this is in
Martin Gilbert's Churchill: A Life.
“What were the greatest successes
resulting from Churchill’s order to
destroy the French fleet?”
• Depriving Hitler of critical
surface vessels and convincing the
world, particularly the United States,
that Britain was in the war to the death,
and would never surrender.
“What were some failures?”
• Not putting the rest of the French
fleet out of commission! (Of course
there was a huge uproar in France, but
after victory was won, most thoughtful
Frenchmen forgave him.)
“There is debate regarding the claim
that Churchill may have ordered the
securing of the French fleet for political
or ulterior motives. For example, some
have claimed that Churchill needed aid
from Roosevelt and ordered the attack
to ‘impress’ Roosevelt.”
• Remember first that Churchill
approached this problem hoping to
avoid attacking his former ally. He
instructed his admiral on the scene to
offer a variety of peaceful means to keep
the fleet out of German hands. The
French admiral refused them all. Once
an attack was the only alternative, he
naturally hoped that it would impress
Roosevelt. But his primary aim was to
maintain naval superiority.
On sound military advice, he was
convinced that Britain must secure the
cream of the French Navy. The only
place where Britain was not on the run
in 1940 was at sea, and even there the
shipping lifeline was precarious. Britain
had to import half her food and much
of her arms; without command of the
seas she would starve.
“After the attack, the Conservative
Party rallied around Churchill. Others
have claimed that Churchill ordered the
attack to gain political support.”
• It is true that the House of
Commons roared its approval when he
explained the reasons for the attack on
the French fleet (see James Lancaster’s
excerpt from the Nicolson diaries for 4
July 1940, page 58, lefthand column).
But the Conservative Party and most
others had rallied round him before
then. The Conservative establishment
was doubtful when he succeeded
Chamberlain, whom most of them had
admired and supported. But Churchill's
refusal to surrender or agree to an
armistice after the fall of France, the
“miracle” of Dunkirk, and the speeches
he made to the country, put a large
section of his party behind him by the
end of June. 
2. Who lost the General Election in July
1945, only ten weeks after the surrender
of Germany? (S)
3. Who was Churchill writing about in
The Strand in 1935, whose career had
been borne upwards “by currents of
hatred so intense as to sear the souls of
those who swim upon them”? (C)
4. WSC wrote in 1945: “I felt as if I
had been struck a physical blow. My
relations with this shining personality
had played so large a part in the long,
terrible years we had worked together....I
was overpowered by a sense of deep and
irreparable loss.” Who was the shining
personality? (C)
5. Which edition of The World Crisis
has a foreword reading: “Our tale therefore recounts the greatest of human
catastrophes since the decline and fall of
ancient Rome”? (L)
6. Who told Lord Riddell in 1913: “In
both parties there are fools at one end
and crackpots at the other, but the
great body in the middle is sound and
wise”? (C)
Level 3
7. WSC to Violet Bonham Carter, 1953:
“It kept me off the air for eleven years. It
is run by reds.” What was it? (M)
8. Who called for the songs “Ol’ Man
River” and “Carry Me Back to Old
Virginny” at the Thanksgiving dinner
in Cairo on 25 November 1943? (M)
9. “Democracy is no harlot to be
picked up in the street by a man with a
—— gun.” Fill in the blank. (S)
11. In what month and year did
Churchill broadcast that the German
battleship Graf Spee had blown herself
up? (W)
12. What was Winston trying to do
when he described in My Early Life
how he “grasped the larger hope”? (P)
Level 2
13. Of which day in September 1940
did Churchill later write: “The odds
were great; our margins small; the
stakes infinite”? (W)
14. In a review of which book did the
Evening News write in November
1931: “No greater writer of the English
language exists today. Mr Churchill is
our modern Macaulay; or rather
today’s Thucydides”? (L)
15. Winston to Clementine, September
1929: “…I went out & of course I
caught a monster in 20 minutes.”
What did he catch? (P)
16. When, at the Admiralty, did WSC
tell his colleagues: “Gentlemen, to your
tasks and duties”? (W)
17. In which book did Churchill write:
“After all, a man’s Life must be nailed
to a cross either of Thought or Action.
Without work there is no play”? (L)
18. Churchill often used the biblical
phrase “In my Father’s house are many
mansions.” Give the book in the New
Testament. (M)
22. Who died on 11 June 1900 at
Diamond Hill, South Africa, described
in Ian Hamilton’s March as “an officer
of high and noble qualities, beloved by
his friends, and honoured by the men
he led”? (W)
23. Who told John Colville, after a
couple of adventurous days on the
other side of the Rhine in March 1945:
“Sleep soundly. You might have slept
more soundly still”? (M)
24. Which is the most profusely illustrated edition of Churchill’s account of
World War II? (L) 
Answers
Level 1
19. To his mother in November 1896
Winston wrote: “I must say that she is
the most beautiful girl I have ever
seen.” Who was she? (P)
20. Who wrote: “Dear Winston,
Thank you so much for sending me a
copy of your latest book. I have put it
on the shelf with all the others”? (C)
(1) Her father, Leonard Jerome. (2) The
Conservatives. (3) Hitler. (4) Franklin
Roosevelt. (5) The Great War, published by
George Newnes in 1933. (6) Churchill.
Level 4
1. Who wrote Jennie Jerome in 1873
indicating that she was free to marry
whom she wanted “provided always that
he is not a Frenchman or any other of
those continental cusses”? (P)
21. Smuts to Churchill, 30 January
1944: “Following immediately on your
courageous mission …” What was the
mission? (S)
(7) The BBC. (8) Churchill. (Roosevelt
called for “The White Cliffs of Dover.”) (9)
Tommy; in Churchill’s speech on the
Greek crisis, 8 December 1944. (10)
Addressing the U.S. Congress, 26
December 1941. (11) 18 December 1939.
(12) Persuading himself to like whisky.
Each quiz includes four questions in six
categories: contemporaries (C), literary
(L), miscellaneous (M), personal (P),
statesmanship (S) and war (W), easy
questions first. Can you reach Level 1?
10. When did WSC end a
speech thusly: “Still, I avow
my hope and faith, sure and inviolate,
that in the days to come the British
and American peoples will for their
own safety, and for the good of all,
walk together side by side in majesty, in
justice, and in peace”? (S)
(13) Sunday 15 September, now Battle of
Britain Day. (14) The Eastern Front. (15)
A 188-pound marlin off Catalina Island,
California. “‘Tis better to have hooked and
lost, than never hooked at all.” This is a
play on Tennyson’s lines in In Memoriam:
“‘Tis better to have loved and lost / Than
never to have loved at all.” (16) 3 September 1939, the outbreak of World War II
(17) My Early Life. (18) John XIV, 2.
JAMES LANCASTER
(19) Pamela Plowden. (20) The Duke of
Windsor. (21) Churchill’s flight to Athens
on Christmas Day 1944, successfully to
mediate the Greek civil war. (22) Lieut.Colonel the Earl of Airlie, 12th Lancers,
mentioned in despatches, uncle of
Winston’s future wife Clementine. (23)
Churchill. (24) Editions le Sphinx,
Brussels, 1951-1954, in French. In these
three volumes alone there are about 2300
photographs, many unique, and hundreds
of specially drawn maps and charts.
Churchill Quiz
REGIONAL AND LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS
Chapters: Please send all event reports to the Chartwell Bulletin: news@winstonchurchill.org
Rt. Hon. Sir Winston Spencer Churchill
Society of Alaska
Judith & Jim Muller (afjwm@uaa.alaska.edu)
2410 Galewood St., Anchorage AK 99508
tel. (907) 786-4740; fax (907) 786-4647
England: TCC-UK Chartwell Branch
Nigel Guest (nigel.guest@ntlworld.com)
Coomb Water, 134 Bluehouse Lane
Limpsfield, Oxted, Surrey RH8 0AR
tel. (01883) 717656
North Carolina Churchillians
www.churchillsocietyofnorthcarolina.org
Craig Horn (dcraighorn@carolina.rr.com)
5909 Bluebird Hill Lane
Weddington NC 28104; tel. (704) 844-9960
Society of Calgary, Alberta
Mr. Justice J.D. Bruce McDonald
(bruce.mcdonald@albertacourts.ca)
2401 N - 601 - 5th Street, S.W.
Calgary AB T2P 5P7; tel. (403) 297-3164
England: TCC-UK Woodford/Epping Branch
Tony Woodhead
(anthony.woodhead@virginmedia.com)
Old Orchard, 32 Albion Hill, Loughton
Essex IG10 4RD; tel. (0208) 508-4562
Churchill Centre Northern Ohio
Michael McMenamin (mtm@walterhav.com)
1301 E. 9th St. #3500, Cleveland OH 44114
tel. (216) 781-1212
Society of Edmonton, Alberta
Dr. Edward Hutson (jehutson@shaw.ca)
98 Rehwinkel Rd., Edmonton AB T6R 1Z8
tel. (780) 430-7178
Rt. Hon. Sir Winton Spencer Churchill
Society of British Columbia
Christopher Hebb
(cavellcapital@gmail.com)
30-2231 Folkestone Way, W. Vancouver, BC
V7S 2Y6; tel. (604) 209-6400
California: Churchillians-by-the-Bay
Jason Mueller (youngchurchillian@hotmail.com)
17115 Wilson Way, Watsonville CA 95076
tel. (831) 722-1440
California: Churchillians of the Desert
David Ramsay (rambo85@aol.com)
74857 S. Cove Drive, Indian Wells CA 92210
tel. (760) 837-1095
Churchillians of Southern California
Leon J. Waszak (leonwaszak@aol.com)
235 South Ave. #66, Los Angeles CA 90042
tel. (818) 240-1000 x5844
Churchill Centre Chicagoland
Phil & Susan Larson (parker-fox@msn.com)
22 Scotdale Road, LaGrange Park IL 60526
tel. (708) 352-6825
Churchill Society of Connecticut
Roger Deakin (khouchin@sbcglobal.net)
85 River Road (M-7)
Essex, CT 06426; (860) 767-2817
Colorado: Rocky Mountain Churchillians
Lew House (lhouse2cti@earthlink.net)
2034 Eisenhower Dr., Louisville CO 80027
tel. (303) 661-9856; fax (303) 661-0589

England: TCC-UK Northern Branch
Derek Greenwell (dg@ftcg.co.uk)
Farriers Cottage, Station Road, Goldsborough,
North Yorks. HG5 8NT; tel. (01432) 863225
Churchill Society of South Florida
Rodolfo Milani
(churchillsocietyofsouthflorida@gmail.com)
7741 Ponce de Leon Road, Miami FL 33143
tel. (305) 668-4419; mobile (305) 606-5939
Churchill Centre North Florida
Richard Streiff (streiffr@bellsouth.net)
81 N.W. 44th Street, Gainesville FL 32607
tel. (352) 378-8985
Winston Churchill Society of Georgia
www.georgiachurchill.org
Joseph Wilson (joewilson68@hotmail.com)
1439 Vernon North Drive, Dunwoody GA 30338
tel. (404) 966-1408
Winston Churchill Society of Michigan
Richard Marsh (rcmarsha2@aol.com)
4085 Littledown, Ann Arbor, MI 48103
tel. (734) 913-0848
Churchill Society of Philadelphia
Bernard Wojciechowski
(bwojciechowski@borough.ambler.pa.us)
1966 Lafayette Rd., Lansdale PA 19446
tel. (610) 584-6657
South Carolina: Bernard Baruch Chapter
Kenneth Childs (kchilds@childs-halligan.net)
P.O. Box 11367, Columbia SC 29111-1367
tel. (803) 254-4035
Texas: Emery Reves Churchillians
Jeff Weesner (jweesner@centurytel.net)
2101 Knoll Ridge Court, Corinth TX 76210
tel. (940) 321-0757; cell (940) 300-6237
Churchill Centre Houston
Chris Schaeper (chrisschaeper@sbcglobal.net)
2907 Quenby, Houston TX 77005
tel. (713) 660-6898
Churchill Centre South Texas
thechurchillcentresouthtexas.com
Don Jakeway (churchillstx@gmail.com)
170 Grassmarket, San Antonio, TX 78259
tel. (210) 333-2085
Churchill Round Table of Nebraska
John Meeks (jmeeks@wrldhstry.com)
7720 Howard Street #3, Omaha NE 68114
tel. (402) 968-2773
Sir Winston Churchill Society of
Vancouver Island • www.churchillvictoria.com
Mayo McDonough (churchillsociety@shaw.ca)
PO Box 2114, Sidney BC V8L 3S6
tel. (250) 595-0008
New England Churchillians
Joseph L. Hern (jhern@fhmboston.com)
340 Beale Street, Quincy MA 02170
tel. (617) 773-1907; bus. tel. (617) 248-1919
Washington (DC) Society for Churchill
Chris Sterling (chriss@gwu.edu)
4507 Airlie Way, Annandale VA 22003
tel. (703) 256-9304
Churchill Society of New Orleans
J. Gregg Collins (jgreggcollins@msn.com)
2880 Lakeway Three, 3838 N. Causeway Blvd.
Metairie LA 70002; tel. (504) 799-3484
Churchill Centre Seattle
www.churchillseattle.blogspot.com
Simon Mould (simon@cckirkland.org)
1920 243rd Pl., SW, Bothell, WA 98021
tel. (425) 286-7364
New York Churchillians
Gregg Berman (gberman@fulbright.com)
Fulbright & Jaworski, 666 Fifth Ave.
New York NY 10103; tel. (212) 318-3388

Britain’s Bulldog, France’s Tiger
They had more in common than cartoon caricatures. See page 38.
Although Churchill as bulldog first
appeared in Punch in 1912, the
American cartoonist Henry Guignon
was first to revive the image in World
War II. This poster, issued in 1940,
after Franklin Roosevelts reelection,
was intended to alert isolationist
Americans that Britain and Churchill
were the best bulwark against tyranny.
The drawing later appeared on a British
postcard, and ran on the cover of Finest
Hour 106, Spring 2000, with an article on
the evolution of the bulldog image by the
late Douglas Hall (see also page 55).
“Le Vieux Tigre” (The Old Tiger) by
Joseph Sirat in La Griffe, Paris, 26
January 1917. Clemenceau was
drawing ministerial blood (“SANG
MINISTERIEL”) in political wars at the time:
“Oh!...de ma dernière dent, mordre,
mordre encore...et mourir!” (Oh!...in my
last tooth biting, biting...and die!) But by
November 1917 he had won and was back
again as Prime Minister, calling for unity
and “total war.”He represented France at
Versailles and remained in office until 1920.
“Whenever I hear the Marseillaise,” wrote
Churchill, “I think of Clemenceau.”

Finest Hour - Winston Churchill

Transcription

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