FINEST HOURJournal of the International Churchill Societies

First Quarter 1993 • Number 78

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THE INTERNATIONAL CHURCHILL SOCIETIESAUSTRALIA • CANADA • UNITED KINGDOM • UNITED STATES

PATRON: THE LADY SO AMES, D.B.E.Preserving the Memory, Keeping the Record Accurate, Teaching the Next Generation

Founded in 1968, the Societies comprise three non-profit charitable and educational organizations registered under the laws of Canada, GreatBritain and the United States; a branch in Australia; and the Rt. Hon. Sir Winston S. Churchill Society, British Columbia, which work

together to to promote interest in and education on the life, philosophy and literary heritage of Sir Winston S. Churchill, KG, OM, CH, MP(1874-1965), and to provide their subscribers with Finest Hour and other 1CS publications. Activities include conferences, addresses by persons

connected with or inspired by Sir Winston; academic symposia; tours of Churchill sites worldwide; special publications and research aids.ICS has helped republish twenty long out-of-print Churchill books, and sponsored completion of the Official Biography with ten final

document volumes covering 1939-1965. 'Teaching the Next Generation" is a specific program of ICS United States, helping students to partakein the above activities. ICS/USA is also developing a Churchill Studies Center at George Washington University, Washington D.C.

Honorary MembersWinston S. Churchill, MPMartin Gilbert, CBEGrace Hamblin, OBERobert Hardy, CBEPamela C. HarrimanJames Calhoun HumesMary Coyne Jackman, BA, D.litt.S.Yousuf Karsh, OCThe Duke of Marlborough, DL, JPAnthony Montague Browne CBE, DFCColin L. PowellWendy Russell RevesAmbassador Paul H. Robinson, Jr.The Lady Soames, DBEThe Rt. Hon. Baroness Thatcher, OM, FRSThe Hon. Caspar W. Weinberger, GBE

Council of Churchill SocietiesJonathan Aitken, MP, Chairman45 Great Peter Street, London SW1P 3LTEngland Tel. (071) 233-3103

ICS AustraliaPeter M. Jenkins, tel. (03) 700-12778 Regnans Ave., Endeavour Hills, Vic. 3802

ICS CanadaRevenue Canada No. 0732701-21-13

Society Office:John G. Plumpton, Secretary-Treasurer130 Collingsbrook Blvd., Agin courtOnt. M1W 1M7 Tel.(416) 497-5349 (eves)

CommitteeG. R. (Randy) Barber, PresidentEdward Bredin, QC; Leonard Kitz, QC

The Other Club of TorontoMurray Milne, President2305 - 4 Forest LanewayNorth York, Ont. M2N 5X8

Sir Winston S. Churchill Society of BCIan Whitelaw, President1110 Palmerston AvenueW. Vancouver, BC V7S 2J6

ICS United KingdomCharity Registered in England No. 800030

Society Office:M. J. Kay, Honorary Secretary'Tympany,' Beckenham PI.Beckenham, Kent BR3 2BS

David J. Porter, Chairman29 High Street, Shoreham,Sevenoaks, Kent TN14 7TDTel. (095952) 3416

UK TrusteesThe Duke of Marlborough, DL, JPThe Lady Soames, DBELord Charles Spencer-ChurchillThe Hon. Celia Sandys PerkinsThe Hon. Nicholas Soames, MPRichard J. J. Haslam-HopwoodDavid J. PorterGeoffrey J. Wheeler

CommitteeDavid Boler, M.J. Kay, Edmund Murray,L. W. Pilgrim, David J. Porter,Michael Wybrow

ICS United States Inc.Internal Revenue No. 02-0365444

Society Office:Derek Brownleader, Executive Secretary1847 Stonewood Dr., Baton Rouge LA 70816

Richard M. Langworth, PresidentPO Box 385, Hopkinton NH 03229Tel. (603)7464433

Merry L. Alberigi, Executive Vice PresidentPO Box 5037, Novato CA 94948Tel. (415)983-9076

William C. Ives, Vice President LawKeck, Mahin & Cate, 49th floor77 W. Wacker Dr., Chicago IL 60601Tel. (312) 634-5034

Norman Shaifer, Vice President77 North Main St., Tappan NY 10983Tel. (914) 365-0414

USA TrusteesAmbassador Paul H. Robinson, Jr., Chmn.The Hon. J. Sinclair Armstrong, CBERichard M. LangworthGeorge A. LewisThe Rt. Hon. The Lord Pym, PC, MC, DLWendy Russell RevesThe Lady Soames, DBEThe Hon. Caspar W. Weinberger, GBE

Academic AdvisorsProf. James Muller, Univ. of Alaska, Chmn.Prof. Keith Alldritt, Univ. of B.C.Dr. Larry Arnn, Claremont InstituteProf. Raymond Callahan, Univ. of Del.Prof. Eliot A. Cohen, Johns Hopkins Univ.Prof. Kirk Emmert, Kenyon CollegeProf. Patrick Powers, Assumption CollegeProf. Paul A. Rahe, Univ. of TulsaProf. Max Schoenfeld, Univ. WI Eau ClairePres. Jeffrey Wallin, Natl. Academy, DCProf. Manfred Weidhorn, Yeshiva Univ.

USA DirectorsMerry L. Alberigi, Marianne Almquist,Derek Brownleader, R. Alan Fitch,Commander Larry Kryske, USNWilliam C. Ives, Richard M. Langworth,George A. Lewis, Dr. Cyril Mazansky,Professor James W. Muller,Norman Shaifer

ICS Stores (Back issues, etc.)R. Alan Fitch, tel. /fax (502) 244-60329807 Willow Brook Cr. Louisville KY 40223

Chapter CoordinatorDr. Cyril Mazansky50 Dolphin Rd., Newton Center MA 02159

ICS AlaskaJames. W. Muller, tel. (907) 272-76461518 Airport Hts. Dr., Anchorage AK 99508

ICS ArizonaMarianne Almquist, tel. (602) 955-18152423 E. Marshall Ave., Phoenix AZ 85016

ICS CaliforniaNorth: James Johnson, tel. (408) 353-210

24595 Soquel-San Jose RoadLos GatosCA 95030

South: Bruce Bogstad, tel. (805) 581-00521059 Rambling RoadSimi Valley CA 93065

ICS IllinoisWilliam C. Ives, tel. (312) 634-5034Keck, Mahin & Cate, 49th floor77 W. Wacker Dr., Chicago IL 60601

ICS MichiganJudge Peter B. Spivak, tel. (313) 963-20703753 Penobscot Bldg., Detroit MI 48226

ICS NebraskaEdward W. Fitzgerald218 So. 94th St., Omaha NE 68114

ICS New EnglandDr. Cyril Mazansky, (617) 296-4000 x500050 Dolphin Rd., Newton Center MA 02159

ICS New YorkHelen Newman, (914) S ^ " 0 ^77 North Main St., Tappan NY 10983

ICS North Texas (Emery Reves Chapter)Ann & Richard Hazlett, tel. (214) 742-54872214 Sulphur St., Dallas TX 75208

ICS Washington DC AreaJon Holtzman, tel. (703) 860-47941954 Barton Hill Rd., Reston VA 22091

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CONTENTS

First Quarter 1993

FINEST HOURJournal of the International Churchill Societies Number 78

10 Elvis Lives:John Charmley's Tabloid Winstonby Richard M. LangivorthSpecial from the Professor: Churchill should have leftoff fighting Hitler after Germany invaded Russia.Special from Finest Hour: Some things are worthfighting for. And if we die, we die.

14 Churchill vs. Gorbachev:The Bout Over the Centuryby Steven LambakisGorbachev's speech at Fulton was not only intellectuallyinsufferable, but psychologically ungratifying. We shouldapproach it as he did Churchill's, by examining "themerits of the speech and the limitations of the analysis."

20 International Conference '93by Michael RichardsFrom Stouffer's Mayflower Hotel to the LincolnMemorial: four days to remember.

23 Never Was So Much Owed...ICS United States proudly acknowledges the peoplewho made its work possible in 1992.

4 Amid These Storms5 International Datelines

30 Churchill in Stamps32 CR Corner33 Woods Corner34 Coming Events35 As Others Saw Him42 Action This Day44 Despatch Box45 Riddles, Mysteries, Enigmas47 Churchilltrivia48 Immortal Words

24 Bric-a-brac:A New Look at Commemorative Churchillianaby Pat PeschkoThe first piece of Churchill bric-a-brac was a teapotproduced around 1900. Souvenir china, metal and glassboomed in 1940 and has been going strong ever since.

26 The Entertaining Mr. Soamesby Graham TurnerWe join Sir Winston's grandson, ICS/UK trustee theHon. Nicholas Soames, on a frantic weekend as he sets •about lambasting foes, "interviewing sheep" andengaging the grouse on a Yorkshire moor.

35 Kathleen Hill, R.I.P.by Martin Gilbert, CBEA devoted secretary who knew (and kept) WSC'swartime secrets passes on aged 92.

36 Book Reviews:Biographer Robert Rhodes James paints a portrait ofBob Boothby's avowedly rebellious career...PaulAddison tells us what Churchill was up to whenthere were no wars to be fought.

Cover: Two pieces of wartimeChurchilliana. Left, the First Lord ofthe Admiralty, maker unknown,1939; issued as part of a series withLord Gort and Neville Chamberlain.Right: the Prime Minister, by BoveyTracey Pottery, Devonshire, 1943;issued as part of the "Our Gang"series also including Roosevelt, Stalinand a representative British soldier.Page 24 begins a new Finest Hourdepartment on memorabilia.

FINEST HOUR 78 / 3

®

FINEST HOURISSN 0882-3715

Richard M. Langworth, EditorPost Office Box 385Hopkinton, New Hampshire03229 USATel. (603) 746-4433

Senior EditorsJohn G. Plumpton130 Collingsbrook Blvd.Agincourt, OntarioM1W 1M7 CanadaTel. (416) 497-5349 (eves)

H. Ashley Redburn, OBE7 Auriol DriveBedhampton, Havant, Hants.PO9 3LR EnglandTel. (0705) 479575

Cuttings EditorJohn Frost8 Monks AvenueNew Barnet, Herts.EN5 1D8 England

ContributorsGeorge Richard, AustraliaStanley Smith, United StatesR. Cynewulf Robbins, CanadaPat Peschko, United States

FINEST HOUR is published quarterlyfor Friends of the InternationalChurchill Societies, which offerseveral levels of support in theirrespective currencies. Member-ship applications and changes ofaddress should be sent to the ap-propriate national offices on page2. Permission to mail at non-profitrates in the USA granted by theUS Postal Service, Concord, NH,Permit No. 1524. Copyright1993. All rights reserved. De-signed and produced for ICSUnited States by Dragonwyck

Publishing Inc.Made in USA.

AMID THESE STORMS

"BRINGING THE CAMERA BACK INTO FOCUS"' 'There are a lot of stones told about famous people, and I find that as timegoes on it is mthei like the lens of a camera coming out of focus: Virtuesbecome faults and faults virtues. Inaccurate statements in some paper orbook are copied lightheartedly, and reproduce themselves all over the place.Few people take the trouble to go back to the source, and find out if thatreally was what happened. I like to hope that the International ChurchillSocieties will, among all the other things they do, regard themselves as theguardians of the true picture, and try always to bring the camera back intofoCUS. '' THE LADY SOAMES. DBE

AS readers of this journal scarcely need to be told, Winston Churchill de-livered, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, forty-seven years

" ago March 5th, one of the defining speeches of the 20th Century.While normally referred to as the "Iron Curtain speech," moresophisticated analysts, like Pamela Harriman (FH #58) have noted itsbroader implications: peace through strength, the UK-US relationship andthe promise of the United Nations.

There's a long, long road awinding between 1972 — when Finest Hour#25 reported the Fulton speech of Sir Winston's grandson ("Twenty-fiveYears After Fulton: A New Balance") and the 1992 Fulton speech of a de-posed Soviet dictator. Never mind that there was by then no longer a SovietUnion, for Mr. Gorbachev would have come in 1991 had he not been busyinvading Lithuania.

Mikhail Gorbachev wasted no time: both sides were to blame for the ColdWar, he said; the Soviets had never threatened the West; nobody won theforty-five-year struggle between freedom and communism, which merelywasted money and scarce resources.

We considered Gorbachev's speech standard Bolshevik fare not worthy ofimmediate reply, until there arrived at Fulton an academic, John Charmleyof the University of East Anglia, to teach for a semester on an endowmentcreated in memory of Churchill. And Professor Charmley, as many readersare aware, has written a new book with the thesis, among others equallybizarre, that Churchill should have backed away from World War n in 1941.

There are no sycophants here. As biographer Andrew Roberts shrewdlynotes, many "love Churchill partly because of his warts." We have pub-lished or cited the work of such responsible critics as Robert Rhodes James,Ronald Lewin and R.W. Thompson. Neither, however, do we equivocate: onthe governing issues of this century we hold Sir Winston Churchill inspira-tional. It follows that we lend no credence to the denizens of the feverswamps. The argument that to take notice of them only adds to their in-come and luster certainly has merit, though we do not delude ourselves inthinking our circulation will add much one way or the other. What we haveis influence, and, as Lady Soames said, responsibility. We have receivedmany calls and letters demanding a response, or asking how individualsmight respond and where letters should be sent. Our first article this issueprovides that response, followed by an analysis of Gorbachev's speech bySteven Lambakis.

We urge readers to register their own opinions by writing the editor of anynewspaper which covers these matters, or to persons we have listed, whowould probably be interested in your views. Please do not forget to copyFinest Hour, for we, too, wish to hear your thoughts.

In the space of a year we have heard now from two very different people,one prominent, one obscure, alike only in the quality of their views, whichin our opinion stand athwart reality. The Churchill Societies have a respon-sibility that transcends the question of merely publicizing the outrageous.That responsibility, as our Patron once put it, is ' 'to keep the memory greenand the record accurate." We do so with alacrity, and with no regrets.

RICHARD M. LANGWORTH, EDITOR

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INTERNATIONAL DATELINESQuote of the Season"We shall only save [Europe] from theperils which draw near by forgettingthe hatreds of the past, by letting national rancours and revenges die, byprogressively effacing frontiers and barriers which aggravate and congealour divisions, and by rejoicing together in that glorious treasure of litera-ture, of romance, of ethics, of thought and toleration belonging to all,which is the true inheritance of Europe, the expression of its genius andhonour . . . " -WSC, THE HAGUE, 7 MAY 1948

CelwynBall, left,leavesafter sixyears ofservice.JonathanAikten,MP,right,chairsinterna-tionalcouncil.

Jonathan AitkenNew Council ChairmanLONDON, JANUARY IST — JonathanAitken, MP, British Minister forDefence Procurement, today ac-cepted nomination as Chairman ofthe Council of Churchill Societies,replacing Celwyn Ball, who is re-tiring after three years in that of-fice. The International ChurchillSocieties of Canada, Australia,USA and UK, and the Sir WinstonChurchill Society of British Col-umbia, are proportionally repre-sented on the Council, whichserves to coordinate their variousactivities, to agree upon the sitesand dates of international con-ferences, and to determine their re-quirements for Finest Hour, theChurchill calendar, and otherpublications.

Unlike the UK, US and CanadianSocieties, the International Coun-cil is an informal body without fi-duciary responsibilities. In askingMr. Aitken to serve, I suggested hecould make the same claim SirWinston made to Adlai Stevenson:' 'I am myself an English-SpeakingUnion!" He is the grand-nephew ofa notable Canadian, WSC's lifelongfriend Lord Beaverbrook; as ayoung man he was privileged toshare the dinner table with thosetwo great figures. He makes fre-quent visits to the United States,

Celwyn Ball RetiresMONCTON, NB, CANADA, DECEMBER31ST—Celwyn P. Ball today announcedhis retirement as Chairman of theInternational Council of ChurchillSocieties and hon. secretary ofICS/Canada. To both organisa-tions he has devoted tremendousamounts of time and talent, usher-ing in revolutionary changes. Re-lieving the ailing George Temple aschairman of ICS/Canada in 1987,Celwyn reorganised its books andrecords. He presided over the de-volution of the old, all-embracingICS into separate Canadian, Britishand American charitable/educa-tional organisations, and worked toease the financial overhead forICS/Australia. Participating in ICStours to England, Scotland, Franceand Australia, he appeared at manycritical junctures to resolve prob-lems with his quiet, friendly diplo-macy. To quote Nicholas Soameson the Prince of Wales: "To me hehas always been the Rock of Gibral-tar." Mr. Ball continues to con-tribute to our work with a newChurchill Stamp Handbook, whichICS hopes to publish in the nearfuture. As Churchill said of F.E.Smith, Celwyn "banks his treasurein the hearts of his friends." Wewish him well, and we shall everbe grateful to him.

-RICHARD LANGWORTH

and is the author of a just-published biography of PresidentNixon. Although he holds an im-portant responsibility in the Brit-ish Government, he is keenly inter-ested in the work of the Societies,and a convivial, encouraging friendto many within them.

"The Chairman," I wrote Mr.Aitken, ' 'presides over the Councilas a kind of Sovereign — with theexception that, unlike HM theQueen, he can table motions."["Table" in the English sense,meaning "put forward" — not inthe American sense, meaning"bury forever!"] We are happy towelcome a distinguished friend,whose acceptance of the position isa considerable hono(u)r to theChurchill Societies. — RML

Grant Award to ICS/USAWASHINGTON, DECEMBER 31ST — T h eInternational Churchill Society ofthe United States is the recipient ofa $5000 grant awarded by the Brit-ish Embassy, Head of ChanceryRichard Ralph informed the Societytoday. The award is from a govern-ment fund, made to American or-ganizations who have come to theattention of the Embassy for theircontributions to Anglo-Americanunderstanding, one of Sir WinstonChurchill's great lifetime themes.

In conveying the news, RichardRalph, Head of Chancery, said theEmbassy would be pleased if theSociety put the award to somespecific purpose, and with that inmind, ICS President Richard Lang-worth suggested that it be used tofinance the next edition of The Pro-ceedings of the Churchill Societies,which includes all addresses to ma-jor ICS Conferences not only in theUnited States but in Great Britain,Canada and Australia.

The Proceedings, too longdelayed by the workload caused byrapid growth and a year-long effortto develop the Churchill Center atGeorge Washington University, isthe editor's next order of businessonce Finest Hour is reasonably onschedule. The published result willproudly bear the words: "Madepossible in part through a grant bythe British Government." > > >

FINEST HOUR 78 / 5

INTERNATIONALDATELINES

Cyril Mazansky isChapter CoordinatorWASHINGTON, JANUARY 23RD —Meeting here this weekend, the Ex-ecutive Committee of ICS UnitedStates appointed Dr. Cyril Mazan-sky national chapter coordinator,relieving Merry Alberigi, who willbe devoting all her time to her jointroles as chairman of the 1993 Inter-national Conference and director ofdevelopment. Dr. Mazansky willmaintain communication with allICS Chapters, provide guidanceand his own local experience tonew Chapters just beginning, andcontinue to develop and expand theICS Chapter Plan, the standardguidebook for Chapter organizers.His address is in the Directory,page 2.

Ives, Shaifer, Vice PresidentsHOPKINTON, NH, USA, JANUARY 1ST —Norman Shaifer of Tappan, NewYork, and William C. Ives ofChicago have been appointed re-spectively Vice President Financeand Vice President Law of ICSUnited States. Mr. Shaifer will bedevoting his considerable experi-ence working with other non-profitorganizations to ensuring properfiscal accounting procedures andmanagement commensurate withICS/USA's vastly increased respon-sibilities. Mr. Ives advises ICS/USA on all legal matters, is devel-oping a formal agreement for theoperation of Chapters, and inves-tigating sources and costs of liabilityinsurance both on the national andlocal basis. Merry Alberigi remainsas Executive Vice President andDirector of Development.

WSC Sweatshirt forPresident ClintonWASHINGTON, JANUARY 25TH — O b s e r V -ing that the President often spendstime jogging around Washington,Merry Alberigi suggested that wepresent him with one of SecretaryDerek Brownleader's sweatshirts:robin's egg blue with an enlarge-ment of the U.S. Churchill 5c com-memorative stamp of 1965. This

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gift was conveyed on our behalf byhonorary member Pamela Harri-man, together with a copy of FinestHour #77 containing the Presi-dent's Churchill Club speech, anda letter saying we would be lookingfor Derek's sweatshirt on the Even-ing News. No reaction from theWhite House at this writing, butMrs. Harriman thought it was"great." This was all we needed topresent her with a pink one . . .Stand by!

WSC: No Jogger"Personally, I find that I obtainample exercise by serving as pall-bearer for so many of my friendswho have exercised all their lives;indeed I tend nowadays to overdoit ." [Approximate quote frommemory,- attribution requested!]

Getting Into the Swing . . .NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 2ND — T h o u g hwe knew [FH #77) that the newPresident was a Churchillophile,we were favorably impressed tofind his wife referring to the Chur-chillian model in today's NewYork Times. Discussing the hugepile of "things to do" upon arrivalat the Executive Mansion, HillaryClinton said: "Sleep has taken aback seat. I told Bill we have abudget deficit, an investmentdeficit and a sleep deficit. I believewith Churchill that naps are arestorative."

Does this mean the First Ladyplans to follow WSC's regimen —breakfast, letters and dictation inbed (8-11AM), bath-dress-lunch(11-2), conversation with guestsand a stroll round the grounds(2-4), full-tilt nap (4-6), anotherbath and dress (7-8), dinner (8-10:30), cinema (10:30-midnight),fill-tilt work (midnight to 4), sleep(4-8) and so on? We don't know,but it can be done. It only requiresa team of secretaries, two footmen,lots of cooks, a valet, a butler,three maids, a team of gardeners, ared poodle, and Lady Churchill tokeep everything on schedule. Tallorder! (One problem: Mrs. Clintonhas banned smoking in the WhiteHouse . . .)

WSC on Smoking BansFAYUM OASIS, 17 FEBRUARY 1945 — (At &

state dinner for King ibn-Saud afterthe Yalta Conference): "I had beentold that neither smoking nor alco-holic beverages were allowed in theRoyal Presence. As I was host atluncheon I raised the matter atonce, and said to the interpreterthat if it was the religion of his Ma-jesty to deprive himself of smokingand alcohol I must point out thatmy rule of life prescribed as an ab-solutely sacred rite smoking cigarsand also the drinking of alcoholbefore, after, and if need be duringall meals and in the intervals be-tween them." — wsc THE SECOND

WORLD WAR, VOL 6

Christina Jones to be HonoredDALLAS, TEXAS, JANUARY 23RD — J a r v i sChristian College freshman Chris-tina Jones, whose speech based onChurchill's "Never Give In" phi-losophy won her an oratory awardand college scholarship [FH #77),will be one of the guests of honor atthe Churchill Society InternationalConference at the Mayflower Hotel,Washington, DC, November 5th to8th. Ms. Jones will be joined by alarge number of students fromWashington, DC high schools, col-leges and universities, who willtake part in debates and paneldiscussions as well as hearing Ms.Jones' speech, which is entitled"Against All Odds."

ICS/UK RepresentedWESTERHAM, KENT, UK, NOVEMBER 3RD —David Boler of the ICS/UK Com-mittee represented his Society at adinner for Lord Amery of Lustleigh,son of Sir Winston's fellow parlia-mentarian and Harrovian LeopoldAmery (who was pushed into' 'Ducker,'' the Harrow pool, by thejunior Churchill during theirschool days — "I did not realiseyou were a senior boy,'' apologizedWSC, "you are so small . . . uh,my father, who is a great man, isalso small!") Lord Amery's amus-ing speech on WSC was well re-ceived in Sir Winston's homevillage.

ICS North Texas: Around the FireDALLAS, NOVEMBER 18TH — The EmeryReves Chapter of ICS United Statesmet at our home tonight to cele-brate, slightly in advance, the

7L-R: Morgan Lewis, Charlotte and EarlNicholson, Richard Hazlett, Dallas, 18 Nov.

118th birthday of Sir Winston.Photos, memorabilia, and a des-cription of the ICS "Churchill'sEngland" tour last June were onthe programme. Afterwards guestsgathered in front of a blazing firefor a delicious evening of food,Champagne toasts and good con-versation. Morgan Lewis, who hadbeen on the ICS tour, flew in fromMyrtle Beach, South Carolina. Hefit right in and was a terrific addi-tion to the evening. — ANN HAZLETT

Lord Pym at the GuildhallLONDON, NOVEMBER 26TH — T h e Rt

Hon Lord Pym, a trustee of ICSUnited States, was kind enough toprovide ICS/UK's David Bolerwith a ticket to the annual Chur-chill Lecture at the English-Speaking Union tonight. The guestof honor was HRH Prince Hassanof Jordan, representing HM KingHussein and giving the Address.David also met Celwyn Ball, rep-resenting the various ChurchillSocieties, who presented an ICSgift to Prince Hassan. Lord Pymwas in the Chair.

Churchill Society of BCVANCOUVER, CANADA, NOVEMBER 28TH —

Professor Keith Alldritt, author of"Churchill the Writer" (reviewedin Finest Hour #77) addressed theAnnual General Meeting of the SirWinston Churchill Society, BCBranch, discussing the genesis ofhis excellent book. It originated,Keith said, in the final year of SirWinston's last Premiership whenhe was a young boy growing up inan industrial town in England. Afavourite aunt (and member of theLabour Party's extreme left wing)had presented him with four booksby Churchill, saying: "This iswonderful English, the best beingwritten today. Nobody on our sidecan write like that."

The books went unread for yearsuntil, as a Professor of English,Alldritt was challenged by graduatestudents with the question: "Whatshould be the canon of Englishliterature in twentieth centurynon-fiction?" He went home andremembered his aunt's Christmaspresent. Was Churchill as great ashis aunt thought? With some skep-ticism he took up My Early Life,fearing he would be swamped bythe sort of English called Chui-chillese. But as he read thevolumes of his old present, Keithdecided that his aunt had been en-tirely correct: "Here was trulywonderful writing." He went on toread everything that Churchillwrote.

Alldritt became convinced thatWSC's great reputation as a states-man had obscured his achieve-ments as a writer of English prose."He belongs in our literary historyas much as in our politicalhistory," he concluded. ProfessorAlldritt was warmly applauded,with everyone present acknow-ledging that his talk ranked amongthe best we have been privileged tohear at our meetings.

—STANLEY H. WINFIELD

The Writing of BooksLONDON, 4 JULY 1950 — "Certainly Ihave been fully qualified so far asthe writing of books about wars isconcerned; in fact, already in 1900,which is a long time ago, I couldboast to have written as manybooks as Moses, and I have notstopped writing them since, exceptwhen momentarily interrupted bywar, in all the intervening period."—WSC

ICS/Alaska: WSC's 118th BirthdayANCHORAGE, ALASKA, USA, NOVEMBER

3OTH — The "Farthest North andFarthest West" Chapter of ICS mettonight at the Hotel Captain Cook,

Errata: Finest Hour #77Page 2: We're still "Hour," as

well as "Finest." A layout error,unnoticed by us, wiped out the"Hour" and masthead banner, butonly temporarily on that issue —we hope!

Page 20: The artist responsiblefor the splendid cover was Bud (notBen) Bradshaw.

Page 35: In paragraph two for"Lord George" read "LloydGeorge"; in paragraph six for"niche or carve" read "niche tocarve."

where twenty-seven people gatheredfor a black tie dinner to celebrateWSC's 118th birthday. An emptyplace was set for Sir Winston at theend of the table.

The Loyal Toasts to the Presi-dent and the Queen were deliveredrespectively by Mrs. James W.Muller and Professor William A.Jacobs of the University of Alaska,Anchorage. Mr. Brooke Marstonoffered a toast to the memory of SirWinston. Two handmade com-memorative covers, postmarkedtoday, decorated with theChapter's playful logo and postedwith World War II commemorativestamps noting events in Alaska,were presented as door prizes.

The speakers were MichaelPaden, who described a marveloustour of Harrow School he and hiswife had enjoyed recently, and Pro-fessor James W. Muller, who spokeon Churchill's fascination with theAmerican Civil War. The programincluded cartoons and songs from

PHI of t-jrv

aspargjus

orn fern the cob

C*sar sjlod

ersnnmon calu-

Program

'When Raleigh Rose" - Jhe (.\inarjwmiss flJjfcfich, punist

Ifldi-oniegrate- "Old Hundredth"

Joasf to the Queen - n\r. ^jcobi

hast to the Fresidinf - Mrs. fflulkr

Joflst to the meraon; of Sir Illinsbn SChurchill ~ fllr. IHjf^fjn

"Jh( Silwr Orroui" - Jh* Cfliwrifs"Frflow Up"- Dlr. Fjdden"Jhe noblest S [cast dwidJble Confli.-h"

- Jllr f i l l e rJhe Bank h^mn of the H^ablw*R?r+y ]Jcors On" ;- "duld land Si/rv"

-Jhe Canaries S-JJIMHJJ Josephs

the Civil War era. Diners essayedall six verses of the Battle Hymn ofthe Republic, which was chosen byWSC to be sung at his funeral. Thecontinued overleaf . . .

FINEST HOUR 78 / 7

INTERNATIONALDATELINES

ICS Alaska . . .evening was animated by the re-turn of The Canaries, who sangseveral of Churchill's favorite Har-row songs, including "WhenRaleigh Rose," "Giants" and "TheSilver Arrow," and coaxed othersto join as they concluded with"Forty Years On" and "Auld LangSyne." Miss Marie Matetich'ssprightly touch at the piano addedimmeasurably to the pleasure ofthe evening.

ANCHORAGE, FEBRUARY 27TH — PrO-fessor Paul A. Rahe, on the Facultyof History at the University ofTulsa and author of Republics An-cient and Modem, spoke at theAlaska Chapter's first meeting of1993. Professor Rahe is also a newacademic advisor to ICS and theChurchill Center. Report nextissue.

Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill, Al Luzie.

ICS/New York:Blenheim RevisitedNEW YORK, DECEMBER 1ST — L a d yHenrietta Spencer-Churchill, prom-inent interior decorator, daughterof hon. member The Duke of Marl-borough, and author of ClassicEnglish Interiors (Rizzoli, 1992)was the featured speaker at theNew York Metro Chapter's annualChurchill birthday reception to-night at Chartwell Booksellers,Park Avenue Plaza — a facilityonce again provided by proprietorand Friend of ICS Barry Singer. Aschairman, this writer led with thetraditional Champagne toast to SirWinston's memory. Lady Henrietta,who exudes the legendary Marl-borough charm, spoke of growingup at Blenheim Palace, and sharedanecdotes about her family. Shediscussed the Palace's history,stressing its architecture anddecoration, which are featured in

8 / FINEST HOUR 78

her book. She also answered manyquestions. Thirty-five Friends ofICS attended. — AL LURIE

President Reagan Shops HarrodsLONDON, DECEMBER 8TH — R o n a l dReagan unpacked at Claridge's andmade for Harrods to pick up anitem for the Churchill paintingsexhibit at the Reagan Library (In-ternational Datelines, FH #77).The former President had askedHarrods chairman Mohamed AlFayed whether he could borrow agreen velvet boiler suit worn byWSC — one of the suits has beenon display at its makers, Turnbull &Asser of Jermyn Street, also ownedby Al Fayed. As he left the Knights-bridge store clutching the suit forits two month loan — plus ahamper of his favourite HarrodsChristmas puddings — a beamingRR stopped to whisper to theliveried doorman: "Nice suit!"— THE TIMES

ICS/CaliforniaSIMI VALLEY, CALIF., JANUARY 18-19TH &

30TH — Merry Alberigi spoke on"Churchill the Painter" beforelarge audiences here, with an of-ficial ICS event on the 30th. Reportnext issue.

ICS/Washington Hosts Jack KempWASHINGTON, DECEMBER 10TH — T h einaugural meeting of the Wash-ington Area (Nation's Capital? -Ed)Chapter was held tonight at GeorgeWashington University's MarvinCenter, at tracting over fiftyFriends of ICS, guests and GWU of-

ficials, despite miserable weather.The guest speaker was the Hon.Jack F. Kemp, Secretary of Housingand Urban Development. In thechair was Jon Holtzman, who ex-plained the Chapter's origins inRichmond, Virginia the previousyear, as he, Ron Helgemo (nowTreasurer) and this writer (nowSecretary/Historian) watched aWashington Redskins footballgame. They had been greatly en-couraged by Friends from Wash-ington and its environs. Messagesof congratulations were read to thedinner guests from Friends andhon. members of ICS/USA includ-ing Lady Soames, Pamela Harri-man, Alexander Haig, CasparWeinberger, Sen. Sam Nunn, Gen.Colin L. Powell and PresidentStephen Trachtenberg of GWUniversity.

Secretary Kemp crafted his re-marks to reflect Churchill's life asa series of episodes with which hepersonally identified. He went onto express his admiration for WSC,and how essential he thought itwas to keep Sir Winston's memoryalive, "to remind us of the need forvigilance to ensure that the evils ofhistory are not repeated." Chur-chill's inspiration and sense of op-timism were a personal inspira-tion, Mr. Kemp said. As a self-declared "progressive conser-vative," he found many aspects ofWSC's life which paralleled hisown experience, which he illus-trated with quotations from Chur-chill speeches: "I cannot think of aday in my life when I haven'tthought of Winston Churchill.There is not a speech I have givenwhere I haven't quoted him . . . Iwas, perhaps, the only HUD Secre-tary ever to have a foreign policy. Ihad Churchill's picture all over thebuilding."

Mr. Kemp humorously notedthat his term at HUD would soonend: "As I prepare to enter myWilderness Years I want to take alook at the way Sir Winston has in-fluenced all of my thinking. Hissense of optimism has stayed withme the longest — that sense ofnever quitting. He always foresawthe victory, never focused on thedefeat. People look at the problemsin the world today, at the short-comings in our society, and be-

come downcast. But these are notdark days — they are great days —days of opportunity."

The Secretary's remarks werevery well received, particularly intheir relevance to the new Chur-chill Center being established atGW University. "I share your con-viction that it is essential that aninstitute for Churchill Studies beestablished here, in this city, abirthplace of democracy, the im-pulse to which he dedicated hislife."

The Washington Chapter willcontinue with regular meetings,and will play a key role in the Inter-national Conference on November5th-8th this year.

—JOHN H. MATHER, MD

ICS/New York StatePOUGHKEEPSIE, NY, USA, JANUARY 3RD —Jonah Triebwasser, Friend of ICSand adjunct instructor at theMarist College here, led a discus-sion following a showing of ' 'Chur-chill and the Generals" starringTimothy West, to a special seniorcitizen adult education seminar.After the discussion, Mr. Trieb-wasser told the group of over fortyadult students about the work ofthe International Churchill Societyand distributed membershipbrochures.

ICS/Nebraska: Evening with WSCOMAHA, NB, USA, JANUARY 23RD —Thirty-five Friends of ICS andguests celebrated "An Eveningwith Winston Churchill" heretonight, somewhat and necessarilyposthumously. The event, organ-ized by Edward Fitzgerald, washighlighted with dinner remarksby Captain Chris Meyers, GreatBritain's attache to the StrategicAir Command headquartered inOmaha. Captain Meyers sharedpersonal recollections as to whyChurchill lost the General Electionin 1945, and ventured someparallels to the current Americanpolitical situation.

Former ICS Chairman WallaceH. Johnson, opened his Churchilllibrary to guests before dinner andspoke briefly about "the literaryChurchill" (see his articles, FH#47 and #52 -Ed.) and the organiza-tion of his collection. The groupthen proceeded to Ed Fitzgerald'shome where military historian and

attorney Ken Bunger "war gamed"the cavalry charge at Omdurman,graphically explaining Churchill'srole and involvement.

WSC on OmdurmanCHARTWELL, 1955 — ' 'I dined with SirWinston alone seventeen evenings,shortly after his retirement . . . Allsorts of curious pieces of informa-tion came out [which] indicate thenimbleness and diversity of hismind, even at the age of 81, whenhe had had two major strokes andwas in some ways bored and per-haps a little sad at what had hap-pened . . . I asked him what he hadthought during his celebratedcavalry charge at Omdurman,when the 21st Lancers had goneheadlong into a gully filled withquite unexpected and extremelybad-tempered dervishes. He said'It was very stimulating, but I didthink, 'suppose there is a spoil-sport in the hole with a machinegun?' "

—ANTHONY MONTAGUE BROWNE, FH #50

ICS/New England:"Language of Leadership"BOSTON, MARCH 6TH — A "Teachingthe Next Generation" event washeld tonight at the famous Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where ICS/USAhonorary member James C. Humesdelivered his address, "Churchilland the Language of Leadership,"before a capacity crowd of Friendsand guests, including studentsfrom Boston area high schools andcolleges and Ian Langworth, age 10,representing the Maple StreetSchool in Hopkinton, New Hamp-shire. Celebrating its annual inter-national week, the Ritz-Carltonwelcomed chefs from London'sSavoy Hotel, who presented ICSwith the Standard Menu of TheOther Club, founded at the Savoyby Winston Churchill and F.E.Smith in 1911 (and still goingstrong). The meeting was organ-ized by the indefatigable Harrietand Cyril Mazansky of NewtonCentre, who rounded the weekendoff by hosting a luncheon for Mr.and Mrs. Humes at their home thefollowing day. James Humes,speech-writer for seven Presidents,had the initial concept for theChurchill Center, and was respon-sible for bringing ICS and George

Washington University together.He was also one of the chiefspeakers at two International Con-ferences: Boston in 1985 and Van-couver in 1986. Further detailsnext issue.

Glen Alberigi HonoredOAKLAND, CALIF., NOVEMBER 6TH — Of-ficer Glen Alberigi of the OaklandPolice, husband of ICS ExecutiveVice President Merry Alberigi, wasawarded his department's Medal ofValor for his actions during the Oc-tober fire in Oakland and Berkeley."At great personal risk, OfficerAlberigi demonstrated conspicuousheroic actions above and beyondthe call of duty," his award reads.

Alberigi arrived on his motor-cycle in the Marlborough Terracearea in time to prevent a fellow of-ficer, Michael McArthur, who hadpicked up two women residentsand their two cats, from drivingdirectly into the advancing flames.The blistering heat and smokemade it hard to see and McArthurwas headed the wrong way. Famil-iar with the area, Alberigi ran 50yards to Marlborough but ' 'couldn'tsee anything. The smoke was toothick. I called McArthur on theradio. He answered and I could tellhe was scared . . . I told him toturn around and come up the hill. . . Soon, I spotted his overheademergency lights and talked himup to the top of Marlborough."

' 'Alberigi sounded so confident Ifelt that if he said it's okay, it mustbe," said McArthur. "I rememberseeing his smile as I crested the hilland turned westbound to safetywith my four passengers." Hecredits Alberigi with saving his lifeand those of the women and theircats. Said ICS honorary memberMartin Gilbert, "This is a featherin the cap for all Friends of ICS."continued on page 46.

FINEST HOUR 78 / 9

Elvis Lives:John Charmley's Tabloid Winston

Special from the Professor: Churchill should haveleft off fighting Hitler after Germany invaded Russia.

Special from Finest Hour: Some thingsare worth fighting for. And if we die, we die.

BY RICHARD M. LANGWORTH

J OHN Charmley is a personable, middle-aged manwhose oratory reminds me of a combination of MartinLuther King, Jr. ("I Have A Dream") and William F.

Buckley, Jr. ("Don't let, ah, them, ah, immanentize the, ah,eschaton.") Being an eloquent fellow with a carefullyrehearsed dialogue, he is fun to listen to, his delivery welltimed and studded with loaded pauses, followed by gasp-ing perorations: "It was perilous, indeed disastrous, to con-tinue fighting...[one strains to catch thewhispered finale]...and leave Europeto the two...great...su...perpow...ers." In case you missed it,he means those two favoritewhipping boys of every grad-uate moral relativist: theEvil Empire, aka the Sovi-et Union (may it rest inpeace); and the GreatSatan, aka the United Statesof America, in other words:us. His book, "Churchill: TheEnd of Glory," raised a furorin England, and though it is notyet out here, it has received con-siderable attention already in theUnited States.

Charmley's presentation is enter-taining. (ICS gave him a respectful hearing at its1992 Conference in England, on which these impressionsare based; a review of his book will come later.) There isno doubt that he will fascinate talk show hosts acrossNorth America, who won't likely know where Scapa Flowis, or Peenemunde, or Belsen—born, most of them, muchtoo late for an appreciation of what such names meant toearlier generations. As filler when hard news is scarce, heis a veritable bonanza. He will certainly earn enough toretire for a spell from teaching, which, come to think of it,is a consummation devoutly to be cherished.

His campaign—currently waged from WestminsterCollege in Fulton, Missouri, home of the U.S. Churchill

Mr. Langworth is President of ICS/US A and editor of Finest Hour.

10/ FINEST HOUR 78

Memorial—is to expose Winston Churchill as destroyer ofBritain's greatness, so power-driven and irrational that hefailed to disengage from World War II after Hitler invadedRussia, condemning his country to bankruptcy, socialistmalaise, loss of Empire and client status to the UnitedStates. Charmley denies he ever suggested making peace

with Hitler, though how Churchill could have "dis-engaged" without a deal of somekind is difficult to imagine. Any-

way, Charmley is convinced ofhis scenario. "Hitler wouldhave invaded Russia and theworld's two nastiest dictatorswould have faced each otherlike two great overweightheavyweight boxers," he toldan interviewer from his Fultonheadquarters, where he isteaching for a semester on anendowment created in memo-ry of Sir Winston.

Though entertaininglydelivered and well if narrow-

' s , ly documented, Charmley'snotions are hardly orig-inal. They amount more

DAS SCHWARZE KORPS, 3 Aug 44"The old grave-digger is growing sus-picious: 'What are those two so pleasedabout? I wonder if they imagine thishole might be for me?'" (Das SchwarzeKorps was the newspaper of the S.S.)

or less to variations onthe themes of pioneerChurchillophobes dat-

ing back to Francis Neilson in the late 1940s, whose shockat the economic and social costs of World War II led themto blame Churchill for them—magnified by a healthy doseof hindsight. Unlike most earlier critics, however, Charm-ley didn't even want to hear from witnesses to those times."I'm probably the first historian to come to Churchill with-out the baggage of memories," he says. He refused tointerview any primary source associated with the waryears—"probably," one British historian suggested,"because he lacks the self-confidence."

Simultaneously Charmley contends that he is no left-winger, calling himself a "Thatcherite Historian," whatev-er that is; one doubts that Lady Thatcher would applaud.

An American academic just returned from England callshim "a reactionary Tory who thinks that Churchill is toblame for the the end of rule by the upper class. There isnot much new in his book, but the press was treating it asa great piece of original, revisionist literature. As you cansee from the enclosed letters from The Times, thoughtfulcitizens were less impressed with Mr. Charmley."

Why do people proclaim such off-the-wall thesesabout Churchill? Philip Ziegler, biographer of Mountbat-ten, suggests that it is an unfortunate requirement of thecurrent book market: "The Churchillian bibliographyswells alarmingly from year to year...To command seriousattention it is now almost essential either to take a chal-lengingly new line or to concentrate on some specialisedaspect of Churchill's career."

Hitler VictoriousLet us assume that John Charmley had been born

early enough correctly to guide Winston Churchill towardthe proper course. Assume Churchill thus convinces Hitlerin the summer of 1941 that Britain will stop fighting him,letting Hitler get on with the invasion of Russia. Everyserious military account of the Second World War showsthat Germany came within a hair of taking Russia out evenas it was. With no enemy at his back, tying up materiel anddivisions in the West; without Britain's campaign inAfrica; without the Americans and British succoring Stalinby sea; without Roosevelt's courting war with Germany inthe Atlantic, Hitler would have thrown everything he hadinto Russia. The siege of Leningrad, the attack on Moscow,the battle of Stalingrad would almost certainly have gonethe other way, if not in 1941 then certainly by 1942. Stal-in's biographers testify to his fear, even as things were, thathe and his commisars would have to flee Moscow. TheGermans were that close.

The occupation of European Russia would have leftHitler in command of Soviet and Ukrainian oil, industry,agriculture, the Baltic and Black Seas, probably in duecourse the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. It isunlikely that Hitler's atom bomb project at Peenemundewould have been disturbed, as it was, by Allied bombers."Then," says Hitler biographer Lord Bullock, "would havecome the reckoning with the Anglo-Saxon powers, Britainand America."

How does Bullock know? Well, for one thing, Hitlerput it in writing! Like Britain's 1930s Prime Minister Stan-ley Baldwin, John Charmley apparently has discountedMein Kampf: the one document Hitler followed almost tothe letter.

A minor irony is that Churchill regarded World WarII and its grim aftermath as easily avoidable—had only hisideas of peace through strength prevailed. If one is goingto attack Churchill for missed opportunities in 1941, one isobliged to point out that they would not even have arisenhad Churchill been heeded five years earlier.

Pass on to the results of those alleged missed oppor-tunities. Continuing the war, says Charmley, led to threeevents Churchill least desired: the end of Empire; the

decline of Britain under smothering postwar socialism;and the relegation of Britain to the role of American clientstate. One of Charmley's apologists actually suggests thatHitler would have never moved from mere ghettoizationof Jews to the Holocaust, had Britain just stopped fightinghim. (To avoid Charmley's great terrors, what are a fewmillion Jews one way or the other?) But let us take the Pro-fessor's three desiderata in order.

Saving the EmpireIn Sir Winston Churchill's view, the British Empire

was too little appreciated. Within it, Churchill wrote in1957, "the British have ended wars, put a stop to savagecustoms, opened churches,schools and hospitals, built rail-ways, roads and harbours, and developed the naturalresources of the countries so as to mitigate the almost uni-versal, desperate poverty. They have given freely inmoney and materials and in the services of a devoted bandof Civil Servants; yet no tax is imposed upon any of thecolonial peoples that is not spent by their own govern-ments on projects for their own good."

"Sofari, sogoody," as Churchill once wrote fromAfrica. When it comes to the British Empire, he andCharmley are of one mind. How then could Churchillhave failed to preserve the Empire, when all he had to do tosave it was stop fighting Hitler?

The answer is that it wouldn't have mattered. "Tothe average Englishman," Churchill remarked long beforethe Nazi era, "nothing is more boring than the BritishEmpire." The Empire was condemned in 1930 by the poli-cies of those statesmen who would later try their best toplacate Hitler: Prime Ministers Ramsay MacDonald andStanley Baldwin, and then-Viceroy of India Lord Irwin(later Lord Halifax). They were leading sponsors of theIndia Bill, which Churchill fought in vain, and whichassured—sooner or later—the end of British India. WithIndia gone and the great Dominions independent by themid-1930s, what remained of the British Empire wasforty-odd colonies that cost more than they earned, a fewvery pleasant holiday islands, and a handful of strategicoutposts like Hong Kong and Gibraltar.

In a larger sense we can see clearly in retrospect thatimperialism was doomed, whatever Churchill did or didnot do, by the decisions of his predecessors and the inex-orable march toward independence by the Dominions,long before Hitler marched on Russia. Fighting Hitler didnot lose the British Empire; it was already lost.

Thwarting SocialismMany would agree with Charmley's point that the

postwar Labour Government adopted policies as damag-ing to Britain in the long run as Communism in Russia,but with more insidious effects, less manifestly obvious.(Leave aside that the election of a Labour government,whether Britain stopped fighting in 1941 or 1945, wasalmost predetermined—not through Churchill's actionsbut those of his Party, which electors rightly held responsi-ble for depression and war.) In his ICS presentation, how-

FINEST HOUR 78 / 11

NEWS CHRONICLE, 25 July 1949"Attlee Get Your Gun"

By 1949, under Beveridge and Butler, the Conservative Party's domestic program hadbecome clearly apparent, and the media had realized that Churchill, if returned to office,would likely follow programs similar to those pursued by Labour since the 1945 election.

ever, Professor Charmley failed to raise two critical points.First, Churchill himself was no laissez-faire capitalist,indeed only nominally a Tory, long distrusted by Conser-vatives. His domestic politics were more consistently Lib-eral (capital "L"); with Lloyd George and the Liberal Partyhe had created the Welfare State before World War I. Pro-fessor Frank Mayer, in a new book about Churchill's"Opposition Years" after World War II, argues that SirWinston played akey role in shapingConservative poli-cies remarkablyclose to those ofLabour. In speech-es and writingChurchill elo-quently arguedagainst socialism;in practice, whenhe returned tooffice, he did notoppose it on abroad front. Wecannot pretend hewas a reactionaryTory in domesticaffairs, because hewas not.

The secondpoint is that Britainadopted socialismas a national faith,and Churchill hadlittle control overthat decision. Asan automotivejournalist, thiswriter could expound at length about how governmentsboth Tory and Labour virtually guaranteed the demise ofthe British motor industry; overregulation and nationaliza-tion in some cases condemned much other industrybesides, until Margaret Thatcher announced that theremust be a better way. "Thatcherite historians" of all peopleshould know that Britain put herself where she was; yetas late as the Sixties, Conservative politicians were insist-ing that socialist Britain had "never had it so good."

Avoiding Subservience to AmericaI do not want to dwell on the implied anti-Ameri-

canism of Charmley's thesis that a Nazi-dominated Europewas preferable to a Europe dominated by the Soviets andAmericans. This argument is blind, Professor DanMahoney wrote, "to what Churchill saw abundantly,namely the liberal and 'European' character of America.Even de Gaulle, for all his seeming anti-Americanism, rec-ognized that America was a child of Europe and aguardian, during a long civilizational emergency, ofEurope's civilization and liberties."

'ANYTHING YOU CAN DOCAN DO BETTER

Charmley's is an accusation that nevertheless playswell. For decades after the war, some Britons envied theUSA's prosperity, spontaneity and enterprise, having beentold since Dickens' time that the Americans were a vulgarrace, insufferable boors, and for the most part cheats andscoundrels. 'To this day," wrote William Stevens in Forev-er England, "the English have never got over Dickens' pic-ture of the United States." It must be added that the USA

has never been aseffective a super-power as nine-teenth centuryEngland—proba-bly because thelatter was con-vinced of her des-tiny and notunduly concernedabout "worldopinion." Ameri-ca, on the otherhand, has rarelymade a major for-eign policy deci-sion that shedidn't agonizeover. But is this afailing, or avirtue?

To America'scredit must belaid a nationalg e n e r o s i t yunmatched byany other country,a generosity thatdefies the rela-

tivists who say that during the Cold War, Americans andSoviets were more or less alike. Churchill recognized this,and praised it as uniquely and typically American.

While Stalin was pillaging half of Europe, commitinggenocide in the Baltic States on a Hitlerian scale, the Unit-ed States was enacting the Marshall Plan: "a vast system ofloans and gifts to battered old Europe," Alistair Cookewrote, "that made possible not only her recovery butalso—as Secretary of State Dean Acheson was wellaware—the healthy growth of a generation of young Euro-peans with lungs powerful enough to exercise a witheringdenunciation of this Secretary [as] an American imperialistwho had spawned the Marshall Plan as a fat insuranceracket."

A Nazi hegemony in Europe, Churchill recognizedin 1938, involved something far worse: "I foresee and fore-tell that the policy of submission [to Germany] will carrywith it restrictions upon the freedom of speech and debatein Parliament, on public platforms, and discussions in thePress, for it will be said—indeed I hear it said sometimesnow—that we cannot allow the Nazi system of dictator-

12/FINEST HOUR 78

ship to be criticised...Then,with a Press under control, inpart directly but more potent-ly indirect, with every organof public opinion doped andchloroformed into acquies-cence, we shall be conductedalong further stages of ourjourney."

What Churchill Knew"Two of the countries

probably the most obsessedwith World War II are Russiaand Britain," writes the jour-nalist Richard O'Mara. "Itwas the last war in whichvery large bands of Britishpeople were involved; it laiddown a stock of folk memo-ries that built on those inher-ited from the first war." Fromthat folklore has emerged anexaggeration, almost as inac-curate as the TabloidChurchill Professor Charm-ley presents to us. Responsi-ble critics are right when theysay Churchill has become analmost mythical figure,endowed with God-like qual-ities he never had norclaimed. This does not entitlethe irresponsible to obfuscatethe great driving forces of hislife and character.

True, by every bodycount available to us today,Stalin was worse than Hitler,his depredations longerlived—on the basis of what isnow known. What was knownat the time was far different.

Through 1939, Stalin'sbestiality had been confinedto his borders. From Lenin'stime the Soviets, though pre-dicting the eventual univer-sality of communism,preached self-determinationamong all nations. Hitler wasdifferent: "Given what wasknown then, which was pret-ty comprehensive," saysChurchill's official biogra-pher Martin Gilbert, "there was no way a British govern-ment could have made peace with Nazi Germany withoutbeing overthrown." That was the reality at the time.

If you wish to express your views on thismatter, here are some peoplewho wouldprobably be interested in your opinion...

James Traer, PresidentWestminster College

Fulton, MO 63251

Gupton A. Vogt, Chairman, Board of GovernorsWinston Churchill Memorial and Library

Fulton, MO 63251

Richard Mahoney, Chairman and C.E.O.Monsanto Company

800 N.Lindbergh Blvd.St. Louis, MO 63167

(Member, ICS and Memorial Board of Governors)

THE DAILY SKETCH: 29 January 1954"Why doesn 't he make way for someone who can make a bigger

impression on the political scene?"(Or: "Why is this fellow so hard to cut down to size?")

Part of Churchill'sgenius was that he recognizedthe implications of Hitler andhis regime long before anyother major figure, and knewHitler could not be ignored."One's political responsibilityis to resist the evils that oneconfronts," Dan Mahoneywrote, "not to adopt thephilosophical levity that pro-claims, 'this too shall passaway.'" Abstract realists areblind to "the deadly threatthat Hitler posed to every-thing decent, everythingEuropean." But Churchillknew that "there can never befriendship between the Britishdemocracy and the NaziPower, that power whichspurns Christian ethics,which cheers its onwardcourse by a barbarous pagan-ism."

It is all too easy to combthe volumes of a great man'sdocuments, carefully laid outfor you by his faithful biogra-pher, culling the nuggetswhich prove your precon-ceived notion that he was afool, or worse. It is harder toperceive in manifestationslike Adolf Hitler the veryessence of evil, harder still tofight them, and perhaps hard-est of all to say, as Churchillsaid in one of the speechesMr. Charmley calls "sublimenonsense":

"Hitler knows he willhave to break us in this islandor lose the war. If we canstand up to him, all Europemay be free, and the life ofthe world may move forwardinto broad, sunlit uplands."

Thanks to WinstonChurchill, Great Britain didstand, and for more than ayear alone. It may have takenhalf a century but nearly allEurope is free, and the broad,sunlit uplands, though

always elusive, still beckon. The Charmleys of the worldcannot understand that some things are worth fighting for.And if we die, we die. •

FINEST HOUR 7 8 / 1 3

ENGLISH SPEAKING AGENDA

Churchill versus Gorbachev:The Bout Over the Century

Gorbachev's speech at Fulton was not onlyintellectually insufferable, but psychologicallyungratifying. We should approach it as he didChurchill's, by examining "the merits of thespeech and the limitations of the analysis."

BY STEVEN LAMBAKIS

Not having understood the transitional character ofthe present international system, with all its inherentcontradictions and conflicts, politicians again riskcommitting errors which would have the most bane-ful consequences for all. The prospect of catastrophicclimatic changes, more frequent droughts, floods,hunger, epidemics, national-ethnic conflicts, andother similar catastrophes compels governments toadopt a world perspective and seek generally ap-plicable solutions. The only alternative would be anintensification of conflicts throughout the world, in-stability of political systems, civil wars, i.e.,ultimately, a threat to world peace.

—Mikhail S. GorbachevFulton, Missouri (May 6, 1992)

A N D they called Churchill an alarmist!The Fulton speeches delivered in 1946 by Winston

S. Churchill, liberal democracy's greatest championand in 1992 by Mikhail S. Gorbachev, for so longdemocracy's enemy, represent two sides of a timelessdebate.1 Rhetorically squaring off against each otherin middle America, the "committed Communist"turned Socialist stood toe-to-toe with the illustriousBritish statesman, battling over the interpretation ofhistory, fundamental political and economic prin-ciples, and, ultimately, the direction of U.S. foreignpolicy.

It is somewhat ironic that the battle over foreignpolicy issues significant to America was waged hereby two eminent, but non-American, political leaders.Even greater irony, however, lies in Westminster Col-lege's choice of Gorbachev to deliver such a symbolic

As appealing in Comparative Strategy, 1993, Vol. 12,issue 2, by Steven Lambakis, Tayloi &. Fiances, Inc.,Washington, DC. Reproduced with permission. Theauthor's Winston Churchill, Architect of Peace willbe published this Spring by the Greenwood Press.

14 / FINEST HOUR 78

speech, the allegorical end to the Cold War, toparallel "The Sinews of Peace" delivered more thanforty-six years earlier. On more than one level, thiswas a dubious selection.

Gorbachev's appearance at Fulton, for one, per-petuated a nasty myth, that the Cold War began afterChurchill accused Stalin of having dropped an "ironcurtain" across Europe, and implied that Gorbachevnow neatly put an end to that history. But here is therub. Why did America choose to listen to the LastSoviet Man for lessons about the Cold War? And sincewhen do the "vanquished" deliver the major postwarorations? The honor should have been reserved forone who had devoted his or her life to the fightagainst communism and the Soviet polity, ratherthan to one who sought so mightly to perpetuatethese forms of oppression and injustice. Thus Gor-bachev's speech not only was intellectually insuf-ferable, it was psychologically ungratifying.

"Fashionable Leftist Causes 101"We therefore should approach Gorbachev's speech

as he promised he would treat Churchill's, by ex-amining "the merits of the speech and the limita-tions of the analysis." Gorbachev brought two dif-ferent yet complementary viewpoints to Fulton: thatof a disgruntled Historicist and a "progressive"political science undergraduate. Through thisideological prism the former Communist Party chair-man projected a number of concepts fundamentally atodds with ideas expressed in Churchill's "Sinews"speech.

For sure, Gorbachev found fault with the orthodoxMarxists, "those who claimed to be know-it-alls andmessiahs," and he seemed to chide himself for havingengaged in such folly. But like a favorite pair ofwellworn shoes, he cannot quite rid himself of his in-tellectual footgear. And so we are treated to such

forceful phrases as — ' 'there has been a radical changein . . . the organization of social life and in virtuallyevery area of human existence"; and, ' 'there has beena change in people's internal world, in how theyvisualize moral values and social ideals." Indeed, hefaulted Stalin for ignoring "the historical logic of theinterwar period," a "major error" that resulted in hismisinterpreting the strength of socialism.

The good Historicist, of course, denies the per-manency and universality of such ideas as right andwrong, good and evil, and justice and injustice. He in-stead chooses to interpret the world through moraland ethical conceptions that evolve in History, at the"end" of which man will have complete knowledgeof self and world. Gorbachev argued before his au-dience that neither the United States nor the SovietUnion rightly could be judged in terms of good or evil,but rather both must be faulted for their commonmisunderstanding of historical development. Failureto pick out "the trends in world development," he at-tested, led to 46 years of tragic rivalry, tragic becauseit retarded "the progress of humanity." For the"heavy atmosphere" of the postwar years, Gorbachevblamed mutual "suspicion, lack of understanding,"and "unpredictability."

By contrast to Gorbachev's historicism, Chur-chill's language borrowed heavily from enduring con-cepts of justice and morality. The real tragedy in 1946was the enforced division of Europe, severed intoparts half-free and half-slave by Stalin's "iron cur-tain." Gorbachev could not bring himself even toacknowledge what Churchill saw as self-evident —that the Red Army occupation force was the primesource of Europe's darkness and despair.

From the time the Bolshevik Utopians first came topower in Russia, Churchill understood communismas an inherently vile system of rule that destroyedpeople's souls and smothered their liberties. Hespoke openly at Fulton about "the principles offreedom and the rights of man." Replete with praisefor democracy's virtues and contempt for the vices ofpolice governments, Churchill's speech illuminatedhis belief that it is often the "design of wicked men"that brings shame and ruin upon a people, and thatthe failure of good governments to take root in theeastern capitals was the final cause of Europe's un-natural separation.

Gorbachev's somewhat sophomoric lecture onissues of global development fashionable in manyuniversities today provided the meat of his remarks.No doubt a few in his very agreeable audience saw vi-sions of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter standingat the podium as Gorbachev rattled off his list ofgrievances, or perhaps even recalled memories oftheir own undergraduate "poli sci" educations,which one might describe as "Fashionable LeftistCauses 101."

Gorbachev's message is that the behavior of statescan be made rational by the actions of "some kind ofglobal government" run by bureaucrats guided by uni-versal values and armed with management expertise.

It may sound fine — but look at the ruin centrallymanaged bureaucracy brought down upon Russia. Wehave seen the future, and it falls to pieces.

For Gorbachev, the "survival of humanity"demands that the attention and resources of the"world community" be "focused on solving prob-lems in non-military areas: demography, ecology,food production, energy sources, and the like."Citing the "authoritative" Club of Rome, he decried"today's major contradiction — between rich andpoor countries, between 'North' and 'South.' " En-vironmental catastrophe, poverty-inspired conflict,the "biological viability of the Earth's population,"and transborder information flow (all popular sub-jects around the coffee tables at the United Nations)also made the list of his pressing concerns.

As one reads his speech, one gets the distinct im-pression that the Gorbachev of Fulton was a manwithout a country, cut loose from his national moor-ings to float around the world preaching apocalyp-tically about the fate of the world and stumping forhighly abstract causes. And in a way, by default, he isa citizen of the world, having lost his beloved USSRin the August 1991 coup.2

This gloomy cynicism was not to be found in Chur-chill's 1946 address, an anxious time to be sure, whencynicism even may have been warranted. Churchilldid not offer a plea to save ' 'mankind.'' Whereas Gor-bachev could speak only of "humanity" and globalinterests, Churchill spoke of protecting men,women, and children from ' 'the two giant marauders,war and tyranny" and focused on the adversities fac-ing the liberal democracies. His steady attention toproblems in the ' 'military area'' reflected the worsen-ing relationship with the Soviet Union and the verydire possibility that the Western alliance (and, hence,the peace) would lapse.

Churchill's statesmanship in America outshoneGorbachev's because he befriended two basicpolitical truths. (1) Policies intended to reverse theslide into tyranny or war cannot be rooted very deeplyin a cynical and uncertain populace. (Consequently,Churchill took time to remind his audience of the

1 Winston S. Churchill, "The Sinews of Peace," 5 March1946; Mikhail S. Gorbachev, "The River of Time and TheImperative of Action," 6 May 1992. Churchill's speech maybe found in his own Sinews of Peace (London: Cassell, 1948;Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949) and Robert Rhodes James,ed. Winston S. Chuichill: his Complete Speeches1897-1963: vol. 7, 1943-1949 (London: Chelsea HousePublishers, 1974), pp. 7,285-93; Gorbachev's speech can beobtained from Westminster College in Fulton, Mo.

2The fact that both Gorbachev and Churchill came toFulton without a political office was a favorite parallel men-tioned by the press. They failed to mention, however, thatthe British electorate welcomed Churchill back as PrimeMinister in 1951. Gorbachev would be too fortunate to fallinto the good graces of the Russian people.

FINEST HOUR 7 8 / 1 5

principles that made them strong and of the certaintyof American power and position in the world.) (2) Astatesman cannot appeal to "mankind" for action,but he can reach his fellow man.

Cold Wai OriginsThe two Fulton speeches mirrored these respective

world views, each opposing the other in a number ofsubject areas, including the origins of the Cold War.Gorbachev explained in his 1987 book, Peiestroika,that the Fulton Speech and Truman Doctrine werelargely responsible for the division of Europe, thedisintegration of the anti-Hitler coalition, and "theCold War against socialist countries." At Fulton,Gorbachev altered this traditional Soviet interpreta-tion of postwar events only by convicting Stalin (hefailed to grasp "historical logic"), along with theWest. Misunderstanding caused both the USSR andUnited States to miss "the chance to establish theirrelationship on a new basis of principle and thereby toinitiate a [new] world order."

The United States was especially foolish, it seems,for its judgment about the probability of Soviet ag-gression. Stalin, Gorbachev chided his American au-dience, "was afraid of war, did not want war, andnever could have engaged in a major war." The coun-try was economically and psychologically exhaustedby the previous war and already had lost "tens ofmillions of people." The Red Army soldiers, he in-sisted, "were dying to get home." Churchill's andTruman's experience was that many were dying notto get home.

While it is no doubt true that many soldiers soughtdesperately to return, Gorbachev failed to point outthat Stalin kept them in East-Central Europe on anextended tour as sentries for the new "people'srepublics" taking root in the region. Irony also lacedthis Gorbachev remark, for hundreds of thousands

of Soviet soldiers still remain west of the oldSoviet borders in Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latviaand Estonia, despite the fact that the USSR no longerexists.

Gorbachev's remarks also did not reflect the realtragedy of the Soviet Union, that while most men,' 'were dying to get home,'' a goodly portion were dy-ing to stay out of their country. Combat was responsi-ble for many of the "tens of millions" killed duringthe war, but Stalin's police state, securely anchoredby his Gulag archipelago, made sure that the"casualties" during the war reached such horrifyinglevels. The vaunted figure of "20 million deaths" is aSoviet figure, unattributed; perhaps counting themillions killed in Stalin's pograms and inducedfamine in the Ukraine, it is rather higher.

Gorbachev also accused the United States of com-mitting "a fateful error" by exceeding "defense suffi-ciency" and "unleashing a monstrous [nuclear] armsrace."3 He insisted that the Soviet Union was besetby exhaustion and internal difficulties and clearly im-plied that had the United States not developed theatomic bomb, the Soviet Union never (yes never)would have ventured to do so. Trust on the part of theWest should have been more forthcoming.

Incredulous people at Fulton may have asked them-selves — did the West really exaggerate the Sovietthreat? What about the occupation of East-Central

3The Yeltsin-Bush agreement to reduce long-range nucleararsenals well below levels agreed upon in the STARTnegotiations (a nine-year undertaking) underscored a truthendorsed by Churchill, that first you must have peace, or"moral disarmament," and only then you shall haveweapons disarmament. Winston Churchill, "To End War,"in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, ed.Michael Wolff, Vol. 1, Churchill and War (London: Libraryof Imperial History, 1976), p. 351.

A Minor But Historic Travesty

What lousy winners we are. We win the Cold War,and how do we celebrate? How do we apply the finalpunctuation mark to the long and noble twilightstruggle? We have Mikhail Gorbachev bring hisWorld Tour '92 to Fulton, Mo., where he declares,to warm applause, that the Cold War was (a) a greatmisunderstanding and (b) as much our fault asStalin's.

This after Truman launched the Marshall Plan,the most generous program of foreign assistance inhistory, while Stalin was colonizing the Baltics,strip mining German industry, deporting entire sub-ject peoples, reducing half a continent to vassalage.How does one say chutzpah in Russian?

Gorbachev's is the language of moral equivalencecirca 1982, when the Western left insisted that theUnited States and the Soviet Union were equally re-sponsible for world tensions in general and nucleartensions in particular. Moral equivalence was merely

contemptible in the 1980s. By now it has been provenfalse as well. It is perhaps a personal advance for Gor-bachev to have progressed from orthodox Marxism-Leninism to the '80s-style trendy leftism. But it isan affront to Churchill's memory that such anideological anachronism should deliver the historicresponse to his great Iron Curtain speech.

Gorbachev was an instrument of history. Benefi-cient, yes, but still an instrument. His objective wasto strengthen communism, to split democraticEurope from the United States and to save the Sovietempire. He failed at everything. It is to his eternalcredit that he resisted the consequences of hisfailure with a minimum of force. For that hedeserves a place in history and some honor — butnot Churchill's podium. It is a measure of Gor-bachev's unworthiness that his retrospective visionof the Cold War is infinitely more opaque than theone Churchill offered before it even began.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

THE WASHINGTON POST, 15 MAY 1992

16/FINEST HOUR 78

Fulton Excerpts"From this tribune Churchill issued an appeal to

the United Nations to rescue peace and progress, butprimarily to Anglo-Saxon unity as the nucleus towhich others could adhere. In the achievement ofthis goal the decisive role, in this view, was to beplayed by force, above all by armed force. . . . Thegoal today has not changed: peace and progress forall. But now we have the capacity to approach itwithout paying the heavy price we have been payingthese past fifty years or so, without having to resortto means which put the very goal itself in doubt,which even constitute a threat to civilization. Andwhile continuing to recognize the outstanding roleof the United States of America, we must not limitour appeal to the elect, but to call upon the wholeworld communi ty ." — MIKHAIL S . GORBACHEV

"The safety of the world requires a new unity inEurope, from which no nation should be permanently

outcast. It is from the quarrels of the strong parentraces in Europe that the world wars we have wit-nessed, or which occured in former times, havesprung. Twice in our own lifetime we have seen theUnited States, against their wishes and their tradi-tions, against arguments the force of which it is im-possible not to comprehend, drawn by irresistibleforces into these wars in t ime to secure the victoryof the good cause, but only after frightful slaughterand devastation had occurred. Twice the UnitedStates has had to send several millions of its youngmen across the Atlantic to find war; but now warcan find any nation, wherever it may dwell betweendusk and dawn. Surely we should work with con-scious purpose for a grand pacification of Europe,within the structure of the United Nations and inaccordance with its Charter. That I feel is an opencause of policy of very great importance."

- WINSTON S. CHURCHILL

Europe? . . . the military footing of Soviet society?. . . the incessant flow of damning propaganda? . . .the spread of communism? . . . Third World adven-turism? Is it any wonder that Churchill feared a warfar more gruesome than the previous one?

Rather than firing the opening salvo of the ColdWar, Churchill came to President Truman's homestate to tell his brothers and sisters across the Atlan-tic "certain facts" about the dark and dangerousforces already at work on the Continent. Stalin, hesaid, had exploited the Yalta Agreement and wasseeking aggressively to establish a sphere of in-fluence. Indeed, the chill in East-West relations maybe traced to a speech delivered by Stalin one monthbefore Churchill's — a speech that stressed thehopelessness of any peaceful relationship among theformer allies. Churchill affirmed Gorbachev's remarkthat the Soviet leaders did not want war, but he addedthat he believed "they desire the fruits of war, andthe indefinite expansion of their power anddoctrines." Gorbachev's objection notwithstanding,the West may rightly claim a Cold War victory for sosuccessfully having executed a strategy to counterthese ambitions.

Gorbachev lamented to his audience that, over thelast forty-six years, the Soviet government restrictedknowledge of the Fulton speech to Churchill's warn-ing about Soviet and Communist expansion but didnot reprint his remarks on war prevention,strengthening the United Nations, and postwarreconstruction. It is indeed strange that Gorbachevreprimanded leaders in the West for refusing to trust aSoviet Government that, according to Gorbachev, didnot even trust its own people.

Fulton's False OracleMikhail Gorbachev paraded himself at Fulton as a

champion of democracy and an oracle of economicprogress. But the facts belie his claim to having a firm

grasp of either of these concepts.Never, for example, did Gorbachev dare to submit

himself to the will of the Soviet electorate. Instead hetoiled to keep democracy away from himself and hiscountry during his tenure as Party Chief and laterPresident of history's most accomplished totalitarianpolity. At Fulton, he did not speak of democracy asthe incorporation of the forms of freedom into a na-tional government, preferring instead to speak ofdemocracy "for the whole of humanity" and "ademocratically organized world community." In-deed, Gorbachev placed his greatest faith in an in-vigorated and more inclusive UN as the world'swatchman.

Instead of speaking to the needs and trials of theRussian people and about their current peaceful strug-gle toward democracy and self-rule, Gorbachev againsteered clear of those tough roads and chose instead tolaunch himself into the celestial void we call "theworld community." From there he could more easilyand comfortably call upon mankind to implement hisglobal policies.

"The Sinews of Peace," conversely, expressedthoughts on democratic government that also guidedthe authors of The Federalist Papers, the SecondTreatise of Government, and The Spirit of the Laws.Churchill observed that a true democracy existedwhere a free people had the protected power "tochoose or change the character or form of governmentunder which they dwell," freedom of speech andpress, and the blessings of independent and unbiasedcourts of justice to administer the laws approved bythe people through their elected representatives.

World democratic government, to Churchill, wasquite a different animal. He believed the UN ought tocomprise "many nations," those that showed a lovefor liberty, rather than a hodge podge of all nations,tyrannies and democracies alike. While Churchilldesired a stronger and more forceful UN, he never in-

FINEST HOUR 78 / 17

tended it to supplant the national sovereignty ofstates. He believed there should be an internationalarmy but cautioned that we cannot "cast away thesolid assurances of national armaments for self-preservation," at least not until all nations shareagreement on fundamental principles of government.Those who listened to his speech attentivelyunderstood that he did not expect this condition tocome about any time soon.

Gorbachev's concept of "economic progress" (read"socialism") suffers equally from lofty abstraction.Wealth is not something to be created and expanded;it is, rather, to be distributed and managed by worldbureaucrats. The national economies, he said, havefavored "intensified international competition,"which has led to trade wars, protectionism, and majorecological disaster. Indeed, there are several countriesin the "South" that are still "treading on the heels ofthe old developed countries." Only "collective ac-tion by the world community" can resolve theworld's problems, including the correction of "thecorrelation between poverty and wealth," (read: ahefty tax on the more industrious nations).

"The Sinews of Peace" alluded to Churchill's firmbelief that sound economy relies upon a systemof private property wherein man is permitted toliberate his energy and ingenuity to harness theearth's bounty. Our economic genius, assisted byscience and technology, lies in our ability to createwealth and improve living standards for all or most.In a 1943 broadcast, Churchill supplied a fittingresponse to Gorbachev: ' 'We must beware of trying tobuild a society in which nobody counts for anythingexcept a politician or an official, a society whereenterprise gains no reward and thrift no privileges."

Insight for Post-Containment StrategySerious attention to both Fulton speeches ulti-

mately leads one to draw conclusions about the pur-pose and direction of U.S. foreign policy — a cur-rently hot topic given the debate in this country overpost-containment policy. Gorbachev spoke outagainst a continuation of the balance of power ar-rangement based on "Anglo-Saxon unity," rejecting

"The genieof the

Lamp."Manches-ter Daily

Despatch,27Dec44:Churchillhad inter-

vened tosave

Greece.

Churchill's argument that peace rested funda-mentally on armed force — or more aptly, U.S. armedforce. While Churchill and he shared similar objec-tives of peace and progress, he said, a heavy price waspaid for resorting to means that themselves "con-stitute a threat to civilization."

The solution to today's international woes —which exist, according to Gorbachev, because coun-tries are "morbidly jealous of their sovereignty" — isfor all countries to disenthrall themselves from theirslavery to "egoistic" policies of national interest. Allpower to the UN and our newly conceived global in-terest! "Man's destiny on earth," said the list-maker,is to "act in concert on the principles of democracy,equality of rights, balance of interests, commonsense, freedom of choice, and willingness tocooperate."

Only the dead have seen the end of war, is the say-ing. The living are condemned by their nature to walkalong the precipice overhanging war — and so Chur-chill understood it. ' 'The history of the human race isWar," wrote Churchill in 1939, "and the records ofthousands of years show only a few uneasy intervalsof peace."4 Policy needs to reflect rather than shunthis fact. Plans to universalize national, andtherewith familial and community interests, will notfare well given the diverse nature of humanity.

"Winston S. Churchill, "Will there be War in Europe — andWhen?" News of the World, June 4, 1939, cited in The Col-lected Essays, p. 436.

"Unwarrantable Self-Abasement""The worst difficulties from which we suffer do

not come from without. They come from within.They do not come from the cottages of the wage-earners. They come from a peculiar type of brainypeople always found in our country, who, if they addsomething to its culture, take much from itsstrength.

"Our difficulties come from the mood of unwar-rantable self-abasement into which we have beencast by a powerful section of our own intellectuals.They come from the acceptance of defeatest doc-trines, by a large proportion of our politicians. Butwhat have they to offer but a vague interna-

tionalism, a squalid materialism, and the promise ofimpossible Utopias?

"Nothing can save England if she will not saveherself. If we lose faith in ourselves in our capacityto guide and govern, if we lose our will to live —then indeed our story is told. If, while on all sidesforeign nations are every day asserting a more ag-gressive and militant nationalism by arms and trade,we remain paralyzed by our own theoretical doc-trines or plunged into the stupour of after-war ex-haustion, then indeed all that the croakers predictwill come true, and our ruin will be swift and final.''

WINSTON S. CHURCHILLSPEECH ON ST. GEORGE'S DAY, LONDON, 1933

18 / FINEST HOUR 78

Churchill's Political Philosophy" . . . The key word in any understanding of

Winston Churchill is the simple word 'Liberty' . . .He intensely disliked, and reacted violently against,all attempts to regiment and dictate opinion . . . Allorganized attempts to dictate to men what or howthey should think, whether by the Nazis in Ger-many or by the Communists in Russia, incurred hispassionate hatred and fell under his anathema. Inthe last resort, this was the mainspring of his ac-tion."

This was a private opinion [by Eric Seal, Chur-chill's Principal Private Secretary, 1939-41]. But inAugust 1944 Churchill himself sent a message to theItalian people which contained, in seven questions,a compact summary of his own philosophy. Themessage contained seven "quite simple, practicaltests," as Churchill called them, by which freedomcould be recognized in the modern world:

"Is there the right to free expression of opinionand of opposition and criticism of the Governmentof the day?

"Have the people the right to turn out a Govern-ment of which they disapprove, and are constitu-tional means provided by which they can make theirwill apparent?

' 'Are there courts of justice free from violence bythe Executive and from threats of mob violence, andfree of all association with particular politicalparties?

"Will these courts administer open and well-established laws which are associated in the humanmind with the broad principles of decency andjustice?

' 'Will there be fair play for poor as well as for rich,for private persons as well as Government officials?

"Will the rights of the individual, subject to hisduties to the State, be maintained and asserted andexalted?

"Is the ordinary peasant or workman who is earn-ing a living by daily toil and striving to bring up afamily free from fear that some grim police organisa-tion under the control of a single party, like theGestapo, will tap him on the shoulder and pack himoff without fair or open trial to bondage or ill-treatment?"

Nearly half a century has now passed, and Chur-chill's sense not only of the importance, but also ofthe fragility, of individual liberty remains a centraltheme of domestic and international life.

MARTIN GILBERT"CHURCHILL'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY" (OXFORD: 1981]

Buoyant initiatives that go beyond the peripheries ofthe state all too often founder on jagged self-interest.

Churchill underscored these points and sought toconvince America of the necessity of a strong yetbenevolent state, or group of states, to preserve inter-national stability. He knew American power to beessentially good and that it, not some universal con-dominium, guaranteed the free world an "over-whelming assurance of security."

No one in any country has slept less well in their bedsbecause this knowledge [of the atomic bomb] and themethod and the raw materials to apply it, are at pre-sent largely retained in American hands. I do notbelieve we should all have slept so soundly had thepositions been reversed and if some Communist orneo-Fascist State monopolised for the time beingthese dread agencies. The fear of them alone mighteasily have been used to enforce totalitarian systemsupon the free democratic world, with consequencesappalling to human imagination.Churchill's visit to Fulton was designed not so

much to tell Americans of the "iron curtain," areality that already was becoming apparent to most.Rather, his mission was to dissuade the United Statesfrom rejecting its global responsibilities as it hadfollowing World War I. Its abiding presence and atten-tion abroad, in Europe especially, would vitalize thecommon defense in the form of an Atlantic securityrelationship and help make the UN a meaningful"force for action." Of equal importance, Churchillheld that America must act as a leading trumpet for"the high and simple causes that are dear to us andbode not ill to any."

It was then and is now (even more so!) the casethat, in Churchill's words, "war can find anynation," vast oceans notwithstanding. Althoughdomestic fiscal pressures and a reduced central threatfrom abroad may induce Americans to turn inward,isolationism is today a delusory option. While an ap-propriate policy for the 1800s, the USA's economicand security interests today are undeniably global.

Because of its primacy of power, the United Statesstill has what Churchill called "an awe-inspiring ac-countability to the future." Pragmatism will not suf-fice; for policy needs more than just management —it needs direction. Russia, still a major nuclear power,is faced with growing dilemmas that demand vi-sionary statesmanship on the part of the UnitedStates. Inaction or ill-conceived policy may con-tribute unwittingly to the reemergence of Russia as ahostile power.

Moreover, the violence that tore apart oldYugoslavia has shown that bold action by multina-tional organizations like the UN or European Com-munity will not be forthcoming without a substantialU.S. commitment to become involved and leadoperations. Similarly, the 1992/93 large-scale, UN-sanctioned military operation to rescue the Somalipeople from starvation probably never would havematerialized without U.S. leadership. Despite thecomplex nature of questions about intervention insuch crises, one thing is clear. Continued U.S. invest-ment in friendly and stable governments in Europeand elsewhere in the world is clearly honorable andstill in America's short- and long-term interest. •

FINEST HOUR 7 8 / 1 9

Teaching the Next GenerationThe Twenty-fifth Anniversary

International Churchill Society ConferenceStouffer's Mayflower Hotel

Washington, DC, USA, November 5th-8th, 1993BY MICHAEL RICHARDS

&•.•>_

START at the finish: Monday, November 8th. Afteran evening tour of the nation's capital, the Chur-chill Societies gather at the Lincoln Memorial.

This month marks the 130th anniversary of the Gettys-burg Address. For ten minutes, honorary memberJames C. Humes presents a summary of "Churchill onLincoln": Sir Winston's appreciation of the SixteenthPresident. Facing the audience, their backs to the samewords on the walls, two orators then recite from mem-ory the Gettysburg and Second Inaugural Addresses.A singer renders all six stanzas of "The Battle Hymn of

20 / FINEST HOUR 78

the Republic," the American hymn Churchill lovedbest. Thus the greatest Conference in ICS history willcome to an end.

"In less than a year," says Vice President MerryAlberigi, "the International Churchill Societies willconvene in the capital of the United States to com-memorate the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of our found-ing with our twelfth international conference — aconference on statesmanship and leadership, showcas-ing our accomplishments as thriving internationalorganizations, and setting the stage for future

achievements. As host to the other Societies this year,ICS United States selected Washington, D.C. as theConference site to support the launching of the newChurchill Center at George Washington University.We intend that the Conference programs and futureplans for the Churchill Center will inspire dignitariesand scholars from around the world to use Churchill'slegacy in shaping the leaders of the next generation."

Before those memorable moments at the LincolnMemorial, the International Churchill Societies will

Tentative ScheduleFriday, November 5th: Check-in and registration all

day, with special displays and videos in the registra-tion room. During the day, a panel discussion: "TheWar Question: 1939, 1940, 1941 - Was There Ever aPoint When Churchill Should Have Stopped Fight-ing?" All ICS academic advisors have been invited totake part. Additional events may include workshopson certain aspects of Churchill-related research, in-cluding books, art and writing. The evening will in-

have convened hundreds of Friends, honorary mem-bers, students, academics and guests for a four-day ap-preciation of Sir Winston's life and work, discussionand debate on the issues he faced (some of them eerilyfamiliar), and a celebration of our twenty-fifth an-niversary. Chaired by Vice President Merry Alberigi,assisted by ICS Chapter directors and volunteers, theConference has evolved from their ideas and input bySociety officers, academic advisors, representatives ofthe British Embassy and George Washington Univer-sity. Through corporate, private and grant sponsor-ship we propose to bring all our academic advisors andup to 100 high school and college students to take partin events.

ICS United States will also present the BlenheimAward for service to the Heroic Memory or to theSociety, and the fourth Emery Reves literary award forcontributions to understanding among the English-Speaking Peoples. A hand-finished oil copy of theSalisbury portrait (FH #71 cover) will be presented inanother award ceremony.

Stouffer's Mayflower room, Presidential suite and lobby.

elude a reception. It is Guy Fawkes' Day, a perfect datefor celebrations.

Saturday, November 6th: "Never Give In: the Inspira-tion of Sir Winston Churchill," by Christina Jones,followed by discussions and questions from the au-dience including student guests of the Society. Afterlunch, a discussion led by Jonathan Aitken, MP,Minister of State for Defence Procurement, UnitedKingdom, and chairman, Council of Churchill So-cieties. This may develop into a debate: "Resolved,that the 'special relationship' between Great Britainand the United States is as valid now as ever."

Saturday evening: the keynote speech, to which wehave invited a person so distinguished that we cannotventure a hint. Dress is black tie, dark suits optional; aband will present patriotic songs of the five nationswhere ICS is organized: Australia, Canada, NewZealand, UK, USA.

FINEST HOUR 7 8 / 2 1

Sunday, November 7th: In the morning, a generalmeeting of Friends of the Society, at which all items ofcurrent business will be discussed, including latestdevelopments on the Churchill Center at GeorgeWashington University. In the afternoon, "ChurchillPursuits" presentations, including (by special requestof local Friends) Merry Alberigi on "Churchill thePainter," and Dr. Cyril Mazansky on Churchill's im-age on cigarette cards. Contemplated: a discussion on"Churchill as Commander in Chief" with an eminentpanel including military experts and officers.

Sunday evening will be marked by a banquet for ourguest of honor, who again cannot be divulged untilmuch closer to the date. Suffice it to say that Mr.Aitken, grand-nephew of Lord Beaverbrook, will pre-sent his personal recollections of the Churchill-Beaverbrook relationship sometime during the Con-ference, and has kindly agreed to serve as "stand by"in the event either of our evening speakers cannot at-tend. The band tonight will play the national anthemsof Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK andUSA; dress is again black tie, dark suits optional.

Monday, November 8th: After a guided tour of thenewly opened United States Holocaust Memorial andMuseum, Martin Gilbert, Churchill's official biog-rapher, will conduct a lecture: "Churchill and theHolocaust" — the two subjects to which he has de-voted his greatest study as an historian. Other ac-tivities will be held during the day. The finale is agrand tour of Washington, with ceremonies at the Lin-coln Memorial described at the start of this article.

Sponsorships AvailableNearly 200 students have been sponsored to attend

ICS events in the two years since we launched ourTeaching the Next Generation program. The Interna-tional Churchill Society of the United States seekspersons, businesses and foundations to sponsorstudents in all aspects of the 1993 Conference. Finan-cial support is tax-deductible. If you or your businessor foundation would like to join this exciting educa-tional effort, please contact Merry Alberigi, PO Box5037, Novato, California 94948, tel. (415) 883-9076.

Executive Committee MeetingThe International Conference was a major topic dis-

cussed by the ICS/USA Executive Committee, whichmet January 22-24th at the Mayflower in Washington.This was the first meeting attended by all committeemembers: President Richard Langworth, ExecutiveVice President Merry Alberigi, Vice PresidentsWilliam Ives and Norman Shaifer, and TreasurerGeorge Lewis. Ambassador Paul H. Robinson, Jr.,

22 / FINEST HOUR 78

Chairman of the Board of Trustees; Professor JamesW. Muller, Chairman of the Academic Advisors; andRon Helgemo, Treasurer of the Washington ICSChapter, attended ex-officio. Honorary memberCaspar W. Weinberger and Dean Maurice East of theElliott School of International Affairs, GeorgeWashington University, visited the meeting to discussacademic matters.

After a Friday night dinner at the Army and NavyClub, where they hosted Richard Ralph, Head ofChancery at the British Embassy, the Committee gotdown to business at 8AM Saturday. They had lunchbrought in, - adjourned briefly for site reviews anddinner, and did not finish until 11PM. Sunday morn-ing, Mr. Shaifer, Ms. Alberigi and Messrs. Muller andLangworth met again at 9AM to discuss the Con-ference. The last three continued conversing untiltheir flights left that afternoon.

Churchill CenterThe Committee reviewed possible buildings in-

cluding 2136 G Street and another detached housebordering on the GW campus which is for sale pri-vately. We want the academic programs in place early,and concern was expressed that the huge outlay forpremises might prevent the academic effort from beingimplemented as quickly as was hoped. Above all, thecommittee agreed that ICS must proceed methodicallyand carefully, so as to deserve the faith and trust of themany people who have financially supported our ef-forts to date, and who have pledged further support ifwe are successful. Considerable time was spent discuss-ing fundraising, and specifically what ICS and theChurchill Center could offer now that would attractthe support required. A fundraising committee co-directed by Ms. Alberigi and Mr. Shaifer, with thePresident as ex-officio member and open to otherdirectors, has been appointed.

Budget for 1993The Committee also addressed the 1993 ICS United

States operating budget and, after considerable discus-sion, proposed a balanced budget to the Board of Di-rectors for the calendar year, which will leave presentinvestment capital intact. This budget provides onlyincidental outlays for the Churchill Center, it beingagreed that additional funds in support of the Centermust be raised separate from ICS funding, and that1992 expenses undergone by ICS on behalf of the Center(about $15,000) must eventually be reimbursed. TheBoard of Directors is now discussing the final budget,which will be available to any Friend from Mr. Ives. •

Out Grateful ThanksThe gratitude of every one of us goes out to those

Friends of ICS who responded so generously to our1992 fund appeal. As ever in the past, you makeeverything we do possible. Your encouragement toeveryone ' 'who works hard and puts a lot into it,one way or the other," as the late Lord Soamesonce told us, is particularly appreciated. TheFriends of ICS are as diverse as their nations, yetthey are united by a feisty affection for a man, anappetite to honor his memory, to maintain the ac-curacy of his place in history, and to aid in"Teaching the Next Generation." Never was somuch owed, by so many, to so many.

Five hundred dollars or moreMrs. Wendy R. RevesAmb. Paul H. Robinson, Jr.Mr. & Mrs. Glen AlberigiMr. & Mrs. Gary BonineMr. Fred FarrowDr. Herbert A. GoldbergMr. & Mrs. Richard HazlettMr. & Mrs. Richard LangworthMr. Michael W. MichelsonMr. David A. PerkinsMr. & Mrs. Stephen D. PossMr. & Mrs. Norman ShaiferMr. Robert M. SprinkleMr. Peter J. Travers

Up to five hundred dollarsMr. J.M. AaronMr. Elliot AbemayorMr. Ronald D. AbramsonMrs. Suzanne S. AkenDr. Graham T. Allison, Jr.Mr. Dominic F. AmorosaDr. Larry P. ArnnMrs. Alyce L. AustMr. John F. BaeschMr. Robert E. Balmat IIIMr. Scott A. BalthaserMrs. Gilbert BarreMr. Leo F. BattagliaMr. & Mrs. Wm. BeattyMr. William W. BeckettMr. Robert W. BeckmanMr. Reed H. BeldenDr. James S. BenedictMr. Herbert P. BennMr. James B. BennettMr. Richard E. BerensDr. Michael A. BerkMr. John Victor BlaiklockMr. Charles K. BobrinskoyMr. Robert E. Boen, Jr.Mrs. Ann R. BoilingMr. E.J. BowldsMr. William N. BoyceMr. Churchill H. BraceMrs. Barbara BrandesMr. Stanley M. BriggsMr. Thomas E. Brinkman, Jr.Mr. Ronald J. BroidaMr. Thomas P. BrooksMr. Charles H. BuddekeMr. Richard H. BurtMr. Myron T. ButlerMr. John R. ButterworthMr. M.J. ByrneMr. Mark T. CaloyerMr. Robert A. CastrodaleDr. Philip M. CatalanoLt. Nicholas L. Cerchio IIIMr. F.W. Channer

Mr. John W. ChapmanMr. Harry H. Chapman, Jr.Amb. Jose1 M. ChavesMr. George S. ChristianCapt. W.G. Churchill, USCG, RETMr. Anthony R. CichantkMr. Harry R. ClamorMr. & Mrs. Dan ClarkMr. Michael J. CloseCol. Robert Coe [RETIMr. Lamont C. ColucciDr. Edward F. ConklinMr. John D. ConnollyMr. James Guy CooperMr. Martin S. CousineauMr. R. Bruce CrelinDr. Russell W. CurrierMr. William R. DavisMr. D. George DavisMr. Gregory DavisDr. Alan H. DecherneyMr. Fred A. DeeringMr. Charles W. DementMr. William DentinoMr. Clifford L. DownenMr. Kenneth DreyerMr. John B. Dunlap, Jr.Mr. Brent G. EilefsonMrs. Muriel A. EisenDr. Gary S. EisenhowerMr. Warrick E. Elrod, Jr.Mr. Juan G. EstevaMr. Marcus J. EzelleMr. Thomas H. FairchildMr. Richard L. FisherMr. William G. FisherMr. Edward W. FitzgeraldMr. James R. FitzpatrickMr. Tranum FitzpatrickMr. Matthew FoxMs. Mollie Frank-JonesMs. Jane FraserMr. Charles T. Frazier, Jr.Mr. Richard G. FreeburgMr. David D. FreemanMr. Steven L. FriedmanMr. Keith FuchserMr. David I. GarfinkleMr. George A. GerberDr. R. Pettibone GilbertMr. John E. GrantMr. Robert R. GranucciMr. & Mrs. Jefferson GravesMr. Robert D. GreenMr. James H. Gressette, Jr.Ms. Lovina GrundenDr. Sidney J. HanishMr. Fred C. HardmanMr. Harry J. HartMr. Robert P. HastingsDr. Gretchen Hayden

Mr. Peter C. HayesMr. James H. HeinemanMr. Royce F. HelgemoMr. Mark HelprinMrs. Ruth Waldron HillMr. Stephen A. HinrichsenDr. Irving HirshleiferDr. J. Brooks HoffmanMr. & Mrs. Oscar Hofstetter, Jr.Mr. & Mrs. Stephen R. HolstadMr. Jon C. HoltzmanMr. Jack P. HugMr. Daniel R. HughesMr. Van G. HuntMr. George M. IveyMr. J. Willis JohnsonMr. Glenn F. JonasMr. Richard A. JonesDr. Russell M. JonesDr. John S. JoseyDr. Thomas R. KainMr. & Mrs. Gerald KambestadMr. Raymond H. KannMr. David S. KaplanDr. Donald J. KasperMr. Norwood H. Keeney IIIMr. W. Quinn KellyMr. Richard L. Kimball, Jr.Mr. Joseph W. KirschbaumMr. Max L. KleinmanCapt. & Mrs. R.H. Knight, Sr.Mr. John Michael KopsMr. Alex J. KramerMr. Gerald J. KreegerMaj. Chris Krisinger, USAFMr. James F. LaneProf. Eugene S. LarsonMr. John Mark LaVergneMr. Raymond A. LavineMr. Richard A. LeahyMr. Paul S.Leavenworth, Jr.Mr. Gerald B. LechterMr. Van Mark LeeMr. Parker H. Lee, IIICol. Merle J. Lee, USAFMr. Richard A. LeechMr. & Mrs. Berwyn LintonMr. J. William LovelaceMr. Richard S. LowryMr. Alfred J. LurieMr. Gerald P. LynchMr. Philip J. LyonsMr. Michael P. MalleyMr. John J. MarekMr. Douglas Paul MarshMr. Frank C. MarshallMr. John David MarshallMr. Peter T. MassaroDr. John H. MatherDr. Frank A. MayerDr. Cyril MazanskyMr. John McCafferyMr. David D. McCookMr. Jack A. McGaugheyMr. Dennis J. McLaughlinDr. Mark S. MeskinDr. Forrest C. MischlerMr. George MitchellMr. & Mrs. John M. MoffattMrs. Ray MooreMr. Coleman W. MortonMrs. Carol L. MuellerMr. & Mrs. Stan Mullin, Jr.Dr. Joseph C. MurenDr. A. Wendell MusserDr. George H. NashMr. Gordon M. NettletonMr. Marvin S. NicelyMr. & Mrs. Earl L. Nicholson

Mr. Martin J. NotoDr. Kenneth S. O'NeilMr. Edward J. OberstMr. Merlin I. OlsonMr. Allan J. PantuckJudge Ronald I. ParkerMr. Michael D. PedersenMrs. Mary Jo PetersonMr. Robert H. PilpelMr. Richard F. PiteMr. Roy M. PitkinMr. Richard F. PotterMr. Ervin R. PritchettMr. Karl S. RichardsonMr. Truman RichardsonMr. Michael RivkinMr. Richard M. RobertsMr. Todd A. RonneiDr. Edwin RothmanMr. John L. RotondoMr. Winston O. RoulierMr. David E. RubinMrs. Phyllis A. RuoffMr. Edwin F. RussellMr. Douglas S. RussellMr. Hillel SamischMr. & Mrs. Charles SandeenMr. Jonathan R. SanfordMs. Jean M. SantoraDr. Stephen M. SaravayMs. Aida Reid SchoenfeldMr. Frank H. ScottMr. Edward W. SegebergMs. Sheila D. SerafineMr. Samuel E. ShapiroMr. Michael J. SheehanMr. William John ShepherdMr. Donald M. ShortMr. David L. Simpson, Jr.Mr. Stanley E. SmithMr. Jeffrey D. SmithMr. John Cash SmithMr: Charles W. SnyderMr. Michael M. StanioMr. Ronald B. SteeseMr. & Mrs. Donald Stephens, Jr.Mr. James D. StewartDr. Richard R. StreiffMr. William E. SwainMr. Reese TaylorMr. Larry L. ThomasMr. Joe F. Thomas, Jr.Mr. William B. ThompsonHon. Jonah I. TriebwasserMr. John B. TuckerMr. Bradford A. TylerMr. Jerome A. UrbikMr. & Mrs. Robert W. VallinaMr. William A. Van OrsdelMr. Calvin F. VoegtleMr. Bernard J. VriezenMs. Mary L. WalkerDr. Allen P. WebbMrs. Eleanor J. WeberMrs. Elizabeth A. WeedMr. Glen R. WeeksMr. Jon T. WellsMr. Charles B. WendelMr. Joseph R. WenderothMr. Milton O. WhitakerMr. Donald A. WilderMr. Richard A. WilliamsMr. David L. WilliamsMr. Robert T. WilsonMr. Donald R. WinslowDr. H. William WinstanleyMr. Alex M. Worth, Jr.Mr. Robert R. ZiemerMr. Richard Zimbert

FINEST HOUR 78 / 23

HEREWITH Finest Hour intro-duces a new department, devotedto commemorative memorabilia —

china, glass, brass, plaster, wood, plastic,and whatever else has been used to capturethe image of the Great Man: the good, thebad, and the ugly. Ronald Smith, author ofChurchill: Images of Greatness haskindly loaned us his collection of profes-sional photographs used in his book, andoffered to help us eventually to produce a"Catalogue of Churchilliana," with ascomplete a list as possible of everythingknown.

It is not our purpose to commercializethese items by attaching prices, though werealize that collectors or appraisers wouldappreciate some idea as to current marketvalues. With this in mind we have made alist of values based on verified recent salesand will supply this list to any Friend of theSocieties. Please write to the editor below,and enclose a self-addressed envelope (with29c stamp if in the USA).

YOU CAbl HELP: send good clearphotographs (prints, not transparencies,black and white preferred), descriptions,articles and comments on this subject to our"Bricabrac" editor: Pat Peschko, 23Camelot Court East, Canandaigua, hlewYork 14424 USA.

I am no fan of them," LadySoames once remarked, referringto a veritable army of china images

of her father which began around1900, peaked in 1940, and havebeen going strong ever since. "But Ido tolerate them. I think they are akind of folk art." Her toleration hasits limits, though. Addressing theNorth Texas Chapter in 1986, SirWinston's daughter said, "The onlytime I've ever fallen out with [theeditor] a little bit was when I saw areally horrible effigy of my fatherbeing advertised in Finest Hour, andI wrote him a furious letter!" Herletter crossed with ours saying"we're not sure of whether we'd likean image like this of our father beingoffered in a journal dedicated tohis memory," and the item wasquickly withdrawn. Later, an ICStour party spotted a kind of egg-shaped mahogany blob in the

24 / FINEST HOUR 78

Blenheim Palace gift shop, slippedthe word to Lady Soames and theDuke of Marlborough, and the itemwas consigned to oblivion!

While we exercise a kind of cen-sorship in these pages over the badones, we do admit that Chur-chilliana is interesting and, as longas you don't take it too seriously,great fun. Indeed some people weknow specialize in collecting theworst examples, in the same way aconnoisseur of classic Bentleys andDuesenbergs also keeps a 1958Buick Limited in his garage. Moreimportant perhaps than the imageis the thought behind it: which is,with the exception of certain Ger-man propaganda pieces, positive.

Cover PhotographRonald Smith's photograph offers

a combination of the familiar andrare in two Churchill figures, eachpart of a series.

The rare item is a caricature ofthe First Lord of the Admiralty, inthe pose of a colossus bestriding acruising warship. In his book (page79) Mr. Smith dates this item 1939,and says it was part of a series ofearly war leaders includingChamberlain and Lord Gort, com-mander of the British Expedi-tionary Force in France. The itemis, however, unmarked, and wewould like to know its manufac-turer and designer.

The figure at right on our cover is

one of the best-known wartimecaricatures, part of the "Our Gang"series issued in 1943 by BoveyTracey Pottery in Devon, aroundthe time of the Teheran Con-ference. The spirit of Allied unity atTeheran brought forth images ofRoosevelt, Stalin and a Britishsoldier as part of the series.Although the Churchill item iscommon, we have seen but one"Roosevelt," and have never laideyes on either "Stalin" or theBritish soldier — photographs ofthese would be appreciated.

Not commonly known is that theBovey Tracey figures come in twofinishes: the creamy rough surfacedand high gloss white.

Centerspread •,Again by courtesy of Ronald

Smith, we offer a fine collection of"Folk Art" which certainly includesthe good, bad and ugly! The item atleft, which could pass for Lincoln ifit were less chubby, was designed byC.H. Brannam in Barnstaple,Devon, 1941. The top hatted figurenext to it is by Kirkland China,1943, and the top hat is removable.The small "First Lord" jug in front,with white naval cap, is by ThorleyChina, and the "First Lord" behindit, in blue Trinity House cap, is oneof the rarest toby jugs, believed tobe Floral China's work.

"Bulldogs": The tall, red jacketedtoby in the rear is a 1940 "Burleigh

Ware" piece by Burgess 6k Leigh,1940. One of the largest tobies, itstands 11 inches high. WSC's legsstraddle the symbolic bulldog, his"seat" decorated with anchor, air-craft and Union Flag. The bottomreads: JOHN BULL - CHURCHILL - 1940 -"WE SHALL DEFEND EVERY VILLAGE EVERY

TOWN AND EVERY CITY." It is initialedE.T. B. [Burgess] and is one of themost desirable wartime pieces. Thisjug was made both in the coloredtype shown, and a rarer, uncoloredwhite china.

Leonard Jarvis Toby: In theforeground ahead of "Bulldogs" isthe most unique Churchill tobyever created, hand-fired, signed andnumbered by Leonard Jarvis in1947. Numbers are typically low,and we doubt that more than a fewhundred were made. This is a tradi-tional toby in the style of Astburyand Ralph Wood, using old fash-ioned, semi-gloss glazes, very thinchina and delicate colors. In keep-ing with the traditional style, Chur-chill wears 18th century dress andhis hair, resembling BenjaminFranklin's, is shoulder length. Hisright hand is raised in a delicateV-sign; by his feet are trowel,inkwell and book; his left handholds pallet and brushes. Thissuperb ceramic of the old school isknown in yellow, blue and greenfinishes. It is a fine likeness as well.Its only drawback is its scarcity andprice, which is well into four figures.

Royal Doulton Tobies: At right arethe three basic sizes of the best-known, longest-running Churchilltoby, first issued in 1941 and still inproduction. First editions of theseceramics are more softly coloredthan more modern versions, andmay be distinguished by a legendon the bottom: PRIME MINISTER 1940.Later versions do not carry this in-scription. ICS/USA SecretaryDerek Brownleader, a longtime col-lector, has pointed out that thereare at least two slight size variationsof each of the three figures. •

FINEST HOUR 78 / 25

ICS PEOPLE

The Entertaining Mr. SoamesIn the ranks of John Major's Government, Sir Winston'sgrandson, Nicholas Soames, is a bird of bright plumage.We join him on a frantic weekendas he sets about lambasting foes,"interviewing sheep," and engagingthe grouse on a Yorkshire moor.BY GRAHAM TURNER

BYE-BYE SA-SA . . . Bye-ByeConchita!'' Nicholas Soames,Britain's Minister for Food,

his ample frame encased in a dis-creet suit enlivened by yellowsocks and a tie decorated with wildducks in flight, is bidding farewellto his secretary and Woman Fridaybefore setting sail for the North ofEngland.

On the way, he will have a con-vivial lunch at Weatherby's, whichruns the racing game for the JockeyClub, and inspect a flock of Anglo-French sheep in the Midlands.Then, duty done, he intends tospend the weekend "engaging thegrouse'' on the snow-speckled York-shire moor of his brother-in-law,Lord Peel.

I offer to carry his gun-case to thecar but, clumsily, knock it over.There is a short but pregnant si-lence, heavy with unspoken exple-tives. How many guns were inthere?, I ask. "Two, till youdropped them," retorts Soamesdrily. "Now, there are probablyone and a half. If that proves to bethe case, you'll be the first toknow, I promise you!''

Once on the road, he soon re-covers his sang-fwid. The previousnight, he says, he'd had dinnerwith the Hurds. (Foreign Minister)

Reprinted by permission of the author,Sunday Telegraph, 15 November 1992.

26 / FINEST HOUR 78

Douglas's wife was ' 'absolutely topegg." In the whole business aboutEurope, it was small countries likeBelgium that caused all the bother.They'd nothing else to worry aboutbut the length of sausages. But thealternative — a free trade agree-ment with the likes of Iceland andCyprus — wasn't "a massively ap-petising prospect.''

He was currently, Soames wenton, at war with the Department ofHealth. They'd been keen to putout something which claimed thatvery few people ate healthily."How the hell do they know?" heroared. ' 'Most of the people I knoweat very healthily." He'd tried toput a stop to it, but the fax hadgone to the BBC anyway. "Thesebrutes" — he indicates his privatesecretary Simon in the back seat —"always outflank you."

Then, just the other day he'dbeen to an event at one of the Forteplaces. The Forte people were — ofcourse — absolutely spotless, butthe pair who'd turned up fromHealth had looked "pallid andunkempt, just like women readersof the Guardian." It simply wasn'tgood enough.

We stop for petrol and Soamescatches sight of a van bearing thelegend Vegetarian Express. Irresist-ibly provoked, he leaps out of theSaab. "What's he going to do?" Iask Simon. "Probably let theirtyres down," replies Simon with agrin. As we leave, we pass two

N.S. (at theraces) cannotgo anywhere

without bring-ing with him a

"gale of goodhumour."

Below, withhis mother,ICS Patron

Lady Soames.

scruffily-dressed women withstraggly hair who are trying, un-successfully, to hitch a lift. "Nodoubt officials of the Departmentof Health on their way to somenannying conference," growlsSoames.

In the grey and earnest tundra ofJohn Major's Tory Party, he standsout as a bird of brightest plumage.If anyone was born to be Ministerof Fun, it is he. He is a Vesuvius ofconviviality and artless indiscre-tion. A loyal Major supporter, henonetheless describes the PrimeMinister's talk of a classless so-ciety as "a load of ullage."Whatever his private sadnesses,Soames cannot enter a roomwithout bringing with him a gale ofgood humour and animal highspirits.

That, as his fellow bon vivemAlan Clark remarks, is why "hehas a social passport to any greathouse in this country. He's im-mensely reclame, always says theright thing, has beautiful mannersand is a thoroughly reliable confi-dant." Hence the fact that he hasbeen a close friend of the Prince ofWales ever since they were bothtwelve, when they met while fish-ing the same stretch of salmonriver in Scotland. They still fishand shoot together regularly.

Soames is also well-nigh uniquein the modern Conservative Partyin that he does not regard politicsas a career. That, perhaps, helps ac-count for his remarks that theWhips "are mice training to berats," from which he — naturally— excludes his chum Richard Ryder.When I ask about his worst mo-ment in politics, the answer is notfailure to achieve some coveted of-fice, or even the time he was firedas Nicholas Ridley's ParliamentaryPrivate Secretary — "is he thePrince of Wales's PPS or mine?"Ridley had exploded, according toClark — but the news that hisfriend Ian Gow had been murderedby the IRA.

His other "bad moment," headds, was being an onlooker at theblood-stained departure of Mrs.Thatcher, even though he has de-cidedly ambivalent feelings abouther. "I didn't vote for her,'' he said,"and I believed she had to go. I justdidn't like the sight of a great beast

of the jungle being cornered andkilled."

As Dennis Skinner, the Left-wing Labour MP observes, Soamesbelongs to the old-fashioned ToryEstablishment, much more out ofthe Macmillan mould. Like Mac-millan, he reckons to have as manyfriends on the other side of theHouse as on his own. Skinner, heremarks, may be a bully, but he'salso "one of the very few peoplewho understands Parliament."

Soames recalls with pleasure theoccasion when he "bowled outGeoffrey Howe middle stump" onsome long-forgotten Middle East-ern issue. "He gave me a typicalForeign Office reply: 'Having re-gard to our interests' and that sortof stuff, and Skinner yelled 'Go on,Bunter, kick him in the goolieswhile he's on t'way down!' "

HE HAS certainly inherited hisfather Christopher's breezyand occasionally mordant

sense of humour. On CharlesForte's first day in the Lords, LordSoames — says Nicholas — leantover his shoulder and, by way ofcongratulation, whispered intoForte's ear one of his favouritecomic verses:

The butterfly has wings ofgauze,

The moth has wings thatflame,

The bed-bug has no wings atall,

But he gets there just thesame!

Alan Clark remembers an occa-sion when Nicholas saw the vet-eran Tory MP, Dame Jill Knight,passing through the Lobby in a furstole in the early hours of the morn-ing. "He put his arm round her,"said Clark, "and told her 'now, gostraight home. I won't have youwandering the streets at this timeof night!' "

Soames, now 44, made a veryearly acquaintance with fun — andfun out of the very top drawer. Hehad, he says, "an absolutely en-chanted childhood." They lived atChartwell Farm, on his grandfatherSir Winston Churchill's estate, andthere were animals everywhere —"and I don't mean bloody ham-sters, I mean proper animals likedogs and horses. No child will ever

learn anything from a hamster ex-cept monumental irritation."

He saw his grandfather every dayuntil he went away to school, andregularly took tea with him in abedroom that contained its fairshare of "proper" animals — "hehad a wonderful marmalade catcalled Tango, a splendid poodlecalled Rufus and a budgie calledToby." Sir Winston, he says, was"very affectionate but quite for-bidding in that we weren't allowedto whistle; he simply couldn'tabide it."

Soames started hunting at theage of three, on a donkey calledSugar, caught his first salmonwhen he was seven — "we learntto cast on the front lawn, on to apiece of corrugated iron twentyyards away, with our nanny Hildaplaying the part of the fish" — andshot his first stag when he wasfourteen.

As if all that were not enough,there were the visitors. "Grand-father was always having peopledown to tea — I remember Montyand Smuts and Bob Menzies com-ing, and one day John Diefenbakerturned up with a marvellous mini-tractor made by Massey-Ferguson,which I've still got. Papa, too, wasalways having people down and,since we didn't have a lower boys'table, we always shared their con-versation, which was priceless. Ireally was deliriously happy."

They were, Soames went on,"quite well off' but — as it seemedto him at the time — no more thanthat. They had always had a cookand nanny but not a butler — onlyan homme de toutes affaires. "Itmight sound very grand but itwasn't — just a traditional Englishcountry upbringing of fantasticstability.'' It was not until he wenton an Outward Bound course at theMoray Sea School and met boyswho had come through Borstal thathe realised there were peoplemarkedly less fortunate. It had, hesaid, never occurred to him before.

By contrast, his years at Etonwere "absolutely disastrous. Icame out with only seven O-levels." Better than the PrimeMinister, I observed. ' 'Not much,''he replied. "The trouble was, I wasjust bloody idle, and mine was thelast generation when people who

FINEST HOUR 78 / 27

An ICS Temembzance on 24th January 1988 at the Churchill gravesite, Bladon. L-R: Nicholas Soames, Richard Haslam-Hopwood, John Smith, Geoff Wheeler, Peter Mclver, the Duke of Marlbozough, Keith Hatch, the late Christine Wheeler,Lady Onslow, Mrs. MJ. Lainchbury, Lord Charles Spencer-Churchill, and MJ. Lainchbury. We remember absent friends.

were either fairly stupid or lazyweren't really pushed."

His father, much disappointed,offered him two stark choices: aCanadian university or the Army.Soames chose the Army, in theshape of the 11th Hussars and, atthe age of nineteen, found himselfin command of three Chieftaintanks and twenty-one men. "Iwas," he confessed, "a very in-competent officer, permanently be-ing pulled out of the mire by thesenior NCOs. They played somemarvellous practical jokes. I wasonce sent to the stores for a can ofPerseverance Oil — and, of course,

I didn't cotton on."When he came out of the Army,

Soames could scarcely believe hisluck when he was asked to beequerry to the Prince of Wales. Forthe next eighteen months, he spenthalf his time at BuckinghamPalace, the other half in the City asa stock-broker. As one of Charles'sclosest friends, he regards the no-tion that "he is dippy because hetalks to the flowers" as an un-speakable travesty of the truth.

"After all, the bar at White's isfull of people who talk to theflowers. They're the ones whohave a proper sense of proportion

"There's little to dampen his natural senseof ebullience. He talks to the Saab as if itwere a horse: "Go on!' . . . 'Whoa!' — and, whendriving alone, likes to play a tape of thePytchley Hunt in full cry, followed by RuleBritannia and Land of Hope and Glory."

28 / FINEST HOUR 78

about life. The truth is that he isthe most rounded man in Europe, areal Renaissance Prince. He's cer-tainly never been anything but theRock of Gibraltar to me."

When he left the Palace, Soameswrote to Jimmy Goldsmith — "oneof papa's friends" — and asked fora job. As a result, he became Gold-smith's personal assistant at a timewhen his empire was really takingoff. Unfortunately, as he says,"that didn't do anything for myself-discipline, because it gave megreat ideas about how easy it wasto become a tycoon." When hetried to copy Goldsmith's example,from a rented office in St. James'sPlace, he was "startlingly unsuc-cessful."

So he went off to America for ayear, where he worked for a Con-gressman called Bonker — "itdidn't have the connotation it doesnow" — and then, after a stint ofinsurance broking, was asked tostand for Clydebank, an impregna-ble Labour strong-hold. Since hecould not afford to fly to Scotland

every weekend, he asked fivewealthy friends for a sub. Threeobliged. In 1983 he was rewardedwith the safe seat of Crawley.

WHEN he arrived in theCommons, he felt — as aChurchill — that he had a

place there. When he stood at thesame Despatch Box as his grand-father and father, he wept openly.

Then everything began to gowrong. Soames was asked to workfor Nicholas Ridley at a time whenhe was trying to sell the poll tax tothe country and his own party, anddid not enjoy the experience."Nick couldn't bring himself to benice to people he, probably rightly,regarded as extremely stupid. But ifyou're trying to sell something asdifficult as the poll tax, there's nopoint in losing your bate and tell-ing them they're a lot of ignora-muses. I'd get ten back-benchers tocome to my flat to be persuaded,and then Nick would just turn upand sulk.

"At the end of the stint, I cer-tainly wasn't devoting enoughtime to the job. Quite frankly, Iwas bored. I wasn't surprised to beasked to go.

"The trouble was, I'd lived anincredibly golden life and I think Icame to believe nothing could evergo wrong. When it does, it's a deeplychastening experience. It's unfairto blame politics, really. I went in-to it with my eyes open, I shouldhave seen the Pooh-traps openingup in front of me, but I didn't. I'mslightly like an untrained labrador;I think everybody's very nice. Itwas a sign of immaturity on mypart."

Sadnesses in his life there may

"One of Soames's anxieties is that the ToryParty now lacks the sense of poetry hisgrandfather gave it . . . he is afraid Britain issinking into the state of mind where its ownpeople believe it is in terminal decline."

Speaking at 1992ICS Conference, Suney.

be, but it has done little to dampenSoames's natural ebullience."Eileen, my little Rottweiler,what's the news?" he greets acaller on the earphone. He talks tothe Saab as if it were a horse —"Go on!" . . . "Whoa!" — and,when driving alone, likes to play atape of the Pytchley Hunt in fullcry, followed by Rule Britannia andLand of Hope and Glory.

By this time we are arriving togive the Anglo-French sheep, andtheir owners, an appreciative going-over. He puts on a cassette ofMozart's Clarinet Concerto —"very soothing before you inter-view a sheep" — and then fieldsquestions from the shepherds witha flawless sense of touch.

"They talk the most frightfulballs for the most part," he mur-murs as we climb back into the car,"but they do like to have some-body come and listen." He windsdown the window to say a lastword to his host. "Thoroughly en-joyed listening to some of yourfriends,'' he booms cordially and, atlast, we are on our way to Gunner-side and the grouse.

One of Soames's anxieties is thatthe Tory Party now lacks the senseof poetry his grandfather gave it.He longs for a Prince Rupert of theRhine to impart "some cavalrydash," because he is afraid Britainis sinking into the state of mindwhere its own people believe it isin terminal decline.

The other thing that worries himis the petty way the Party reactswhenever Anglican bishops arecritical. After all, he said, if theChurch didn't speak up for the dis-possessed, who would? Even "thatJenkins man, who by all accountsis a nuclear-powered berk" andLord Runcie — "who's really akind of Lord Ems worth" were per-fectly right to speak up for socialjustice. It was craven to expectthem not to.

By now, we are arriving at Gun-nerside Lodge. Willie Peel iswaiting for us in the twilight,wearing waders and clutching apair of extremely dead ducks."Been out to shoot something foryour supper," he says. Soames'sspirits lift visibly. He sinks intothe ambience of labradors and stuf-fed badgers as into a hot bath.

Over supper he prods Peel intotelling one of his own favourite,true-life Yorkshire stories — abouta local landowner who was askedby his gardener whether he couldfind a job somewhere else for hisyounger brother. He did and, a fewweeks later, asked the gardenerhow his brother was getting on."Oh sir," the man replied, "I'mafraid he's not made a good start.""Why's that?" "Well sir, he'sdied."

Next morning, as we stand look-ing across the sweeping contours ofthe dale, Soames says simply:"This is a magical place, the ruralequivalent of Champagne. Nowyou can understand why my life isreally in the country, why I can'tbear living in London, why I con-sider time indoors as time wasted.

' 'And the greatest treat any sport-ing gun can have is to take on thedownwind grouse. Last weekend Iwas at Bolton Abbey and a greatpack of them, 700 or 800 birds,came racing straight across theline, very fast and low. It was amost thrilling and beautiful sightand you knew that, if you didn'tget your gun up fast, they'd alreadybe in Honolulu."

The next day, in a snowstorm,he and his companions bagged 124brace between them, and he lovedevery minute of it.

For all his foibles, Soames is thekind of man who adds to the gaiety,generosity and gentlemanliness ofnations, and the Tory Party (if notthe Department of Health) coulddo with more like him. •

FINEST HOUR 78 / 29

Churchill in StampsBY RICHARD M. LANGWORTH

PAGES 169-174: THE WIDENING WAROur last installment (Finest Hour #76) jumped prematurely

into 1941. Those pages are superseded by more coverage of theLondon Blitz. Italy's entry into the war, and the initial campaignin North Africa.

Catalogue numbers are Scott (#) and Stanley Gibbons (sg). Aslash mark (/) indicates a set with a common design from whichany value may be used.

169. I wanted to find a use for the splendid Dighton portrait ofNelson's fall at Trafalgar (Jersey #401). Cayman Islands' QueenMother issue of 1990, showing WSC with their Majesties, offersopportunity to connect Churchill's reverence for the Monarchywith Anderson's line,' 'You spoke for Trafalgar,'' in what is prob-ably the greatest poem written about Churchill. St. Helena #268(sg305) suitably portrays WSC; a Bardsey Island local portraysAdmiral Nelson.

170. Churchill's attempt to keep Mussolini out of the war is il-lustrated with Libya #95/101 (sg 123/30) proclaiming "DuePopoli Una Guerra" ("Two People One War"). Cyrenaica#59/64 (sg 114/119) and Tripolitania #C43^8 represent whatMussolini said was Italy's "small space in the African sun."

171. Italian East Africa #5 (sg 5) is a reminder that Musso sawhis army as a new Roman Legion (the comparison was quicklydisspelled). Greece #493 (sg 647) represents fighting in Albania:#487/88 (sg 617/18) say "No" to Mussolini, #391 (sg 503)shows the Greek king; #494 (sg 648), issued to show Greece's1944 drive into Axis territory, provides a map.

169.

"WITH STERN AND TRANQUIL GAZE"

Churchill commented approvingly over the determination of the King and Queen to remainin London, despite several bombings of Buckingham Palace and imminent threat ofinvasion. "In those days we viewed with stern and tranquil gaze the idea of going downfighting amid the ruins of Whitehall." WSC wrote. "His Majesty had a shooting-range made inthe Buckingham Palace garden, at which he and other members of his family and hisequerries practised assiduously with pistols and tommy guns."

Churchill soon beganto lunch everyTuesday with theKing. Together withtheir Majesties, thePM also frequentlytoured the bombedand shattered aLondon.

"When in the eveningThe Black Wash came

round the islandIn an evil flood.Why do we stand?•What out of all

is secure?"What work is not

worn down.Is not made sand?'

'Then your voicespoke

Out of the heart ofanother century

Reiterating England.

'There in darkness:There in a wash of liesThat eats like acid

at the feet of men.When men said to

each other.There is no answer,'You spoke for

TrafalgarAnd for

the sombre lionsin the square."

Maxwell AndersonIBB!

BSt•ifi

Nstar Winy by E

mH

mm

HUa

11SI111

172. The battle for Crete is represented by Greece #523 (sg 686)and Germany #B263 Overprints at bottom are from Greece#N202/238, for use in Greek-occupied Albania. The Churchill il-lustration is via Burundi, Minkus 292 (sg MS268).

THE RUSH FOR THE SPOILS

Churchill held out little hope that Mussolini would stay out of the war. but he gave It his best."Now that I have taken up my office," he wrote H Duce on 16 May 1940, "I look back to ourmeetings in Rome and feel a desire to speak words of goodwill to you as Chief of the Italiannation across what seems to be a swiftly-widening gulf. Is It too late to stop a river of bloodfrom flowing between the British and Italian peoples?"

173. The Empire's North African campaign is represented byNew Zealand #252 (sg 672) and South Africa #81 (sg 82).Tunisia #163 proclaims "One Aim Alone-Victory." Italy#427/38 (sg 583/91) honored the Italian Army. It having beendefeated, the stamps are slanted downward on this page. The pro-Axis al-Amin, whom Churchill tried to court, is shown onTunisia #288. A French colonial trooper, representing hisnation's divided loyalties, is shown on France #B94/95 (sg659/60).

174. We wrap up 1940 with Churchill's stirring summation of theyear "nothing surpasses," and a foretaste of the Battle of theAtlantic. Convoys are shown on Greece #490 (sg 646) and Nor-way #264 (sg 346); shipping (a Liberty ship) on USA #939 (sg936), and on New Zealand #253 (sg 673). Anti-submarine war-fare is represented by Netherlands #265 (sg 597) showing theDutch cruiser De Ruyter; by Norway #259/66 (sg 341/48); andby Poland's Exile Government #3K8-9 (sg 485-86). At lower leftis a wartime patriotic label.

(To be continued)

170.

Mussolini's reply washard, but as Churchilllater wrote. "It had atleast the merit ofcandour...."

"I remind you of theInitiative taken in1935 by yourGovernment toorganise at Genevasanctions againstItaly, engaged insecuring for herself asmall space in theAfrican sun withoutcausing the slightestinjury to yourinterests andterritories or those ofothers. I remind youalso of the real andactual state ofservitude in whichItaly finds herself Inher own sea... the samesense of honour andof respect forengagementsassumed in theItalian-GermanTreaty guides Italianpolicy today andtomorrow in the faceof any eventwhatsoever."

Mui >llni had indeed,led his fate.

Apogee Apogee

MUSSOLINI ATTACKS GREECE

After occupying Albania, Mussolini was poised to move against Greece, which he did on 28October 1940, after presenting the Greeks with an unacceptable ultimatum. This invokedBritain's guarantee to Greece of the previous year. Churchill wrote: "By the advice of the WarCabinet, and from his own heart, His Majesty replied to the King of the Hellenes, Your causeIs our cause; we shall be fighting against a common foe."

NORTH AFRICA: INITIAL SUCCESSES

The campaign against Mussolini's North African empire began auspiciously. Under GeneralWavell's Army of the Nile, all enemy troops had been driven from Egypt before the end of1940. with 38,000 prisoners taken. Wavell invaded Italian Libya, taking Bardia and Tobrukin January, Commonwealth troops playing an heroic role, especially those from Australia.

171.

Greece sent troops toAlbania in an attemptto help Its neighborresist the ItalianInvasion.

Mussolini fanciehimself a new Romaemperor, as thisItalian East Africanstamp, showing amodem Italiansoldier holding aRoman standard,suggests. Hisultimatum to Greecehad demanded thatthe entire country beopened to Italiantroops.

Greece celebrates Itsfamous one-wordreply to the Italianultimatum: "OXT or"NO." The dale on thestamps Is 28 October1940.

King George of theHellenes

173.

On 18 December 1940Churchill wiredWavell: "St Matthew,Chapter VII. verse 7."I "Ask. and It shall begiven you: seek, and yeshall find; knock andit shall be openedunto you.")

On 19 DecemberWavell wired back:"St. James. Chapter I,verse 17." ["Every goodgift and every perfectgift is from above, andcometh down from theFather of lights, withwhom is novariableness, neithershadow or turning. "3

It began to look as ifthe Axis forces wouldquickly be expungedfrom North Africa, andChurchill madeovertures to VichyFrance and Its ruler inTunisia. al-Amin,hoping to secure theircooperation, or atleast acquiescence.But the North Africancampaign was not toend so soon.

Apogee Apogee

GREECE AND THE IMPORTANCE OF CRETE

"One salient strategic fact leaped out upon us." wrote Churchill of this period--"CRETE! TheItalians must not have it. We must get It flrst-and at once." WSC has received much criticismfor the decision, at this point, to defend Greece and establish a British base n Crete. BothGreece and Crete were overrun by the Germans by the end of May 1941. In fact, both Eden andWavell. asked by Churchill for their opinion, advised him that they were worth fighting for.It paid off in the end by making Greece an ally in the 1944 rolling back of the Axis.

THE END OF THEIR FINEST HOUR

"We may. I am sure, rate this tremendous year as the most splendid, as It was the most deadly,year in our long English and British story...All our latent strength was now alive. The airterror had been measured. The Island was intangible, inviolate...With a gasp of astonishmentand relief the smaller neutrals and the subjugated states saw that the stars still shone In thesky...The flag of Freedom, which in this fateful hour was the Union Flag, would still fly in allthe winds that blew...

172.

Crete was defended byAustralians and NewZealanders as well asBritish and Greektroops. The Germanforces brought to bearby the spring of 1941

formidable than theItalians, however.

Worthy of note is aGerman report basedon examination ofprisoners taken afterthe British evacua-tion of Crete: "It Isworth mentioningthat in spite of themany setbacks to theconduct of the war

generally, absoluteconfidence InChurchill."

Greek stampsoverprinted for thelater Greekoccupation of NorthEplrus (Albania) whenthe Greeks forgedback up theirpeninsula on the sideof the Allies In 1944.

174.

"...But I and myfaithful colleagues,who brooded withaccurate informa-tion at the summitof the scene, had nolack of cares. Theshadow of theU-boat blockadealready cast itschill upon us. Allour plans dependedon the defeat of thismenace.

"The Battle ofFrance was lost.The Battle ofBritain was won.The Battle of theAtlantic had now tobe fought."

CR CORNER

"For Want of a Nail . . . "Turkey #994: a Ship that Altered HistoryDALTON NEWFIELD

IN THE early years of the Twen-tieth Century, Turkey was

known as "The Sick Man ofEurope," torn between rival fac-tions, between the old and the newworlds. On one side was SultanMehmed V and the conservatives.On the other was Enver Pasha'sgroup, the "Young Turks." On onething they did agree: Russia mustbe ousted from the Caucasus. Theyraised money by popular subscrip-tion, ordered two dreadnoughtclass battleships built in England,asked the British to modernizetheir fleet and the Germans tomodernize their army.

In early 1914 Churchill, FirstLord of the Admiralty, was bring-ing England's navy up to fightingtrim. War was imminent, and theTurkish ships were almost com-plete; in fact the crew of one wasalready standing by to take over.Churchill, unsure of Turkey, com-mandeered the ships for the BritishNavy.

War between France and Ger-many was declared. The Turks,divided, were in a quandary. EnverPasha, on his own, signed analliance with Germany — and thenext day, panic stricken, tried tomake an alliance with Russia!Sultan Mehmed stood fast forneutrality.

"CR" or Churchill-Relatedstamps aie issues not depictingChurchill but closely related toevents in his life. Finest Hour hasbeen writing about them to theamusement of readers for twenty-five years.

We offer herewith CR storiesfrom very early issues, with thesuggestion that, if you like this ap-proach, you help by sending ussome new material and loaning usthe stamps to illustrate your own"CR" stories. Numbers are fromScott (#) and Stanley Gibbons (sg)postage stamp catalogues.

» * *'..'"l^li^». -..-•«« - * ••»*«—"•»«•>!•.-*«..« "'JUMP

One of France's best army corpswas in North Africa and had to betransported back to France. To pro-tect the crossing, France had apowerful navy, but the swiftestpowerful ship in the Mediterraneanwas the Goeben, a two-year-oldGerman battlecruiser which hadjust finished refitting in Pola, theAustro-Hungarian navy base on theAdriatic. She was capable of mak-ing mincemeat of the French con-voys. On March 30th, Lord Milne,Commander-in-Chief of the BritishMediterranean fleet, was told hisprimary mission was to protect theFrench crossing from Goeben andnot to let Goeben escape into theAtlantic — a tall order in thatEngland was not at war. Milne senta force of light warships under Ad-miral Troubridge toward themouth of the Adriatic and concen-trated the balance of his forces atMalta, forces which included HMSIndomitable and Indefatigable, twobattleships capable of destroyingthe Goeben.

On August 2nd the Goebencoaled at Messina, and on the 4thbombarded the French NorthAfrican ports of Bone and Philippe-ville. On that day Britain sent anultimatum to Germany: Get out ofBelgium by midnight. At about3PM, west of Sicily, the Goebenpassed within 10,000 yards of In-domitable and Indefatigable, easyprey for the British who could firethree times the metal at Goebenthan she could return.

The British admiral regrettedthat the German admiral's flag wasnot flying, otherwise he wouldhave fired a salute which, in viewof the tense situation, might haveprecipitated war right then. In Lon-don, Churchill and the Secretary ofState for War, Kitchener, beggedthe Prime Minister, H.H. Asquith,to allow the British warships tostrike. Asquith agreed, but theCabinet declared it would not be"cricket" to fire before thedeadline. The German shipssteamed on away from the French

Bl: BizeiteBO: BoneC: Constantple.D: DardanellesM: MaltaME: MessinaN: NovorossiyskO: OdessaPA: PantelleiiaPH: PhilippevillePO: PolaSE: SevastopolSI: Sicily

32 / FINEST HOUR 78

who, on their part had had secondthoughts about crossing the Med atthat time. Inexplicably, they didnot tell the British of this decision!

Then Italy declared herselfneutral and Britain informed Italythat she would respect theneutrality to six miles from Italianshores. Goeben returned toMessina where she topped off herbunkers, and where the Britishcould have sunk her with littletrouble; but, again, it was decidedthat to attack her within the six-mile limit was not "cricket."

The German admiral made outhis will and sailed south out ofMessina to what he was sure wouldnow be the long-awaited British at-tack and his almost certain death.To his surprise, only light cruisersawaited him. Milne's force wasstill to the west, screening the non-existent French crossing!

Then the second inexplicable in-cident occurred: Indomitableneeded coal, but Milne, instead ofsending her to Malta where theoperation would take less time andfrom where she could coverMessina and the Adriatic, sent herto Bizerte, North Africa, where shewas well out of the action! Goebensailed for Pola at the head of theAdriatic with only Troubridge'slight warships in his way.

Suddenly Goeben altered courseto the east-southeast. The Germanadmiral had been advised of thechances of a German alliancewith Turkey, but the British, stillignorant of the situation, werepuzzled. Milne gave Troubridge noorders, so finally he decided to givechase, hoping to get in at least acrippling blow before daylight.Then the thud inexplicable eventoccurred: with sixteen vessels, farmore than Goeben could sink withthe ammunition in her hold, Trou-bridge decided the odds wereagainst him, and turned back to theAdriatic!

Milne, by then, was coming upat flank speed. Then the fourth in-explicable event occurred: A clerkin the Admiralty office, withoutany authority at all, radioed thatwar had been declared againstAustria-Hungary! Milne's orderswere clear. He reversed his courseand headed for Malta.

It was twenty-four hours before

Milne's course was noted and re-versed. Except that the British stillcould not imagine where Goebenwas headed, the chase now lookedhopeless. But was it? In Constan-tinople Enver Pasha and SultanMehmed were still at odds. Foralmost two days Goeben wanderedabout the Greek islands awaitingpermission to pass through the Dar-danelles! Finally she was allowedthrough, and with her big gunscommanding Constantinople, theargument was quickly settled andthe Turkish alliance with Ger-many was sealed.

But the British still did not knowof the alliance, and Churchill pro-tested the presence of the Goebenin a "neutral" port, demanding shebe interned. Germany consequentlyannounced that Goeben had been"sold" to Turkey. It was such ablatant ruse that Churchill orderedher sunk if she came out "regard-less of what flag she flew."

On October 27th Goeben, incompany with the Turkish Navy,steamed into the Black Sea, bom-barded the fortress of Sevastopol,sank a transport, raided Odessa,

torpedoed a gunboat and practi-cally destroyed Novorossiysk, itsoil tanks and all the shipping inport. At last the British declaredwar on Turkey.

"For want of a nail . . . " H a dGoeben not passed the Dardanellesit was very possible Turkey wouldhave remained neutral. With theloss of Turkey, the Allies lost theironly supply route to Russia. Thisloss was so serious that in 1915Churchill felt it imperative toassault Gallipoli. The British Em-pire's defeat in that endeavor wasthe principle reason Churchill wasousted from the Government in1915. Because of Goeben the Rus-sian Armies starved for food andmateriel. The Czar fell and theBolsheviks took over.

But why is a stamp showing theYavuz connected with Churchill?After being mined several times,beached and bombed by HandleyPage bombers, the Goeben wasgiven to the Turks after the war.She was ultimately refitted andrenamed Yavuz. And she served asflagship of the Turkish Navy untilshe was scrapped in 1960. •

WOODS CORNER

Further Addenda to Woods Section D(b)CURT ZOLLER

OUR FIRST compilation of ad-ditions to Woods Section Db(books containing speeches,

letters, etc. by Churchill) was pub-lished in Finest Hour #66. Thefollowing are some of the books inmy collection which I think shouldbe added. Because there are prob-ably more than this list and the

Discussions, addenda and corri-genda to A Bibliography of theWorks of Sir Winston Churchill,KG, OM, CH, by Frederick Woods,second revised (current) edition,St. Paul's Bibliographies, Win-chester, UK: 1975. (Woods conti-nues to be available through theICS New Book Service. Used withthe ICS publication, ChurchillBibliographic Data, it is indispen-sable for any collector, bibliophileor librarian.)

FH #66 compilation, I have not at-tempted to assign tentative' 'Woodsnumbers,'' but simply arranged thetitles chronologically. I hope thiswill prompt further submissionsfrom readers.

The Abdication of Edward VIII,by J. Lincoln White (A record withall published documents), London:George Rutledge & Sons Ltd.,1937. WSC statement to the press(pp55-59); WSC speech to Parlia-ment (ppll5-18).

Recalled to Service, by Gen.Maxime Weygand, London: Heine-mann 1952. Letter, WSC to Wey-gand and Petain (not 1st ap-pearance).

Fear God and Dread Nought:The Correspondence of Admiral ofthe Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilver-stone, by Arthur J. Mardercontinued overleaf . . .

FINEST HOUR 78 / 33

Coming EventsICS United KingdomSPRING 1993: Writes David Boler, "Iam hoping to arrange a Spring func-tion, certainly outside London, be-cause I sent a list of potentialvenues to all Friends of ICS andmany respondents wanted us toventure away from the metropolis.I am thinking of Longleat and havewritten to the Marquess of Bath,whose father's Churchill collec-tion is still on display." (Lastvisited during the 1983 ChurchillTour; see FH #40. Ed.)

LONDON, MAY IOTH — The fifty-second anniversary of Churchill'sassuming the Premiership has ten-tatively been selected as the cele-bration date of the first new Docu-ment Volume, The ChurchillPapers: At the Admiralty, Septem-ber 1939 — May 1940. Edited byMartin Gilbert and sponsored bythe Churchill Societies, this is thefirst of ten volumes which willcomplete the official biography.

ICS United StatesNORTHAMPTON, MASS., APRIL 3RD —

Professor Dan Mahoney of As-sumption College ("The Case forGoing to War," FH #70) will pre-sent a paper on de Gaulle and Pro-fessor James W. Muller (Chmn.,Academic Advisors and ICS/Alaska) will present another onMarlborough here at a meeting ofthe New England Political ScienceAssociation. Churchill will in-evitably figure prominently in bothpapers. For information contactICS /Alaska (Directory, page 2).

DETROIT, APRIL 13TH — A plenarysession has been held with peopleinterested in being active in a newDetroit ICS chapter, and a meetinghas been scheduled at the DetroitAthletic Club tonight on this dateat 8PM. For information pleasewrite to Peter Spivak (Directory,page 2).

NANTUCKET & BOSTON, SEPTEMBER 6TH-9TH — ICS New England is planningto commemorate the Fiftieth An-niversary of Churchill's 1943 Har-

vard Yard Speech, one of the greatclarion calls for Anglo-Americanunity, on Nantucket during LaborDay (the 6th), with a possiblerepetition in Boston during thenext week. If you are interested insponsoring student tables, orassisting in any other way, pleasecontact Dr. Cyril Mazansky, 50Dolphin Road, Newton Centre,MA 02159, daytime telephone(617) 296-4000, extension 5000.

SEPTEMBER 6TH — The AmericanPolitical Science Association's1993 national convention will in-clude a paper entitled "Churchill'sGreat Contemporaries," by Profes-sor Patrick Powers ["Savrola andthe Nobility of Politics," FH #74).Dan Mahoney will present a sec-ond de Gaulle paper, on the latter'sview of Stalin, Roosevelt and Chur-chill. (Despite many a violent dis-agreement, WSC and de Gaullemaintained considerable mutualrespect.) For details contact PatrickPowers, 9 Woods Ave., Worcester,Mass. 01606. •

Woods Corner continued(selected and edited), London:Cape 1953-56-59 (3vols). Severalletters, WSC to Fisher, passim.

Foreign Relations of the UnitedStates, Washington: USGPO 1955.Thirty telegrams and messages byWSC in "The Conferences atMalta and Yalta 1945." Published1960 (2 vols.): Thirty telegramsand messages by WSC in "TheConference of Berlin (Potsdam)1945." Published 1961: Fifty-eighttelegrams and messages by WSC in"The Conferences at Cairo andTehran 1943." Published 1970:Seventy-six telegrams and mes-sages by WSC in "Conferences atWashington and Quebec 1943."

The Arms Race, by Philip Noel-Baker, London: John Calder Ltd.1958 (paperback). Quotes by WSCat pp83, 79, 325, 453-54.

Recognition of CommunistChina1., by Robert P. Newman,New York: Macmillan 1961 (paper-back). Quotes by WSC at pp263,266.

The Balfour Declaration, by

Leonard Stein, London: Vallentin1961. Excerpts from WSC speeches,passim.

Reminiscences, by Gen. DouglasMacArthur, New York: McGraw-Hill 1964. Messages, WSC toMacArthur (pp 175-76).

The Fine Art of Spying, Walter B.Gibson, editor, New York: Grosset&. Dunlap 1965. Contains abbrevi-ated chapter, "How I Escaped fromthe Boers" (reprint), pplO9-125.

Eisenhower and Berlin, byStephen E. Ambrose, New York:Norton 1967 (paperback). Tele-gram, WSC to Eisenhower31Mar45 (pp99-100) and 2Apr45(plO4). Telegram, WSC to FDRlApr45 (pplOO-102).

The Codebreakers: The Story ofSecret Writing, by David Kahn,London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson1967. Memorandum by WSC,8Aug43 re codewords for WW2operations (pp502-03).

Washington at War: 1941-1945,by Scott Hart, Englewood Cliffs,NJ: Prentice-Hall 1970. Speech,

WSC at White House 24Dec4i(pp53-54): not first appearance.

FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny1882-1928, by Kenneth S. Davis,New York: Putnam's 1972. Quota-tion, WSC comment in 1945 refersto FDR speech (p411).

Marshall: Hero of Our Times, byLeonard Mosley, New York: HearstBooks 1982. Letter, WSC to Mar-shall (p421).

The High Walls of Jerusalem: AHistory of the Balfour Declarationand the Birth of the British Man-date for Palestine, by RonaldSanders, New York: Holt, Reinhart& Winston 1983. Excerpt, WSC ar-ticle in The Times, lJanO6(Pp92-93).

Editor's Note: Mr. Zoller is prepar-ing contributions on air-droppedPolitical Warfare leaflets (bothBritish and German) containingChurchill contributions, and hassubmitted additions to Woods Sec-tion D\a] (works containing re-prints) for future Woods Comers. •

34 / FINEST HOUR 78

As Others Saw Him Puzzler: to our knowledge, WSC did not revisit Harrow until 12/40 when he wasalready P.M. Can any reader verify this reference to an earlier visit?

A HARROW VISIT?

"Winston Churchill, then FirstLord of the Admiralty, came downto this strange ceremony which heapparently enjoyed. After the songswere over Mr. Churchill climbedwith difficulty on to the stage. Hecannot have been more than sixty-five years old, but his ancient heademerged from the carapace of his

dinner-jacket like the hairless pateof a tortoise, his old hand trembledon the handle of the walking-stickwhich supported him and hisvoice, when he spoke, was heavilyslurred with brandy and old age. Heseemed to us to be about a hundredand three.

'' 'If they ever put him in chargeof the war,' I whispered to Oliver,'God help us all!'

" 'Oh, they won't do that,' heassured me. 'They'll never do that.Chap in the Government told myMa.' "

— JOHN MORTIMER, AUTOBIOGRAPHY;

"CLINGING TO THE WRECKAGE"MR. MORTIMER IS AUTHOR OF

"RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY."SUBMITTED BY

DOEKE J. OOSTRA, NETHERLANDS

K a t h l e e n Hi l l 1900-1992 BY MAR™ GILBERT, CBE

Mrs Hill at Chequers in 1969: behind heris one of Sir Winston Churchill's paintings

KATHLEEN HILL was brought intoWinston Churchill's life in 1937,as his first resident secretary. Liv-ing at Chartwell and in his flat inVictoria, she was responsible forthe mass of correspondence, andfor the work on Churchill's four-volume A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. With the out-break of war in 1939 she went withhim to the Admiralty and in May1940 to Downing Street. As Chur-chill's tasks grew, she supervisedthe work of several secretaries. Shewas meticulous and self-effacing.She was unbothered by late-nightworking or by the racket of prime-ministerial travel, and in later lifeshe would express indignationwhenever Churchill was unfairlycriticised.

Of life at Chartwell during thewilderness years she recalled thatwhen her master was away ' 'it was

as still as a mouse; when he wasthere it was vibrating.'' In the sum-mer of 1939, as war drew nearer,she noted that "he was pacing upand down like a lion in a cage. Hewas expecting a call, but the callnever came."

When Churchill left his flat inVictoria for the House of Com-mons on the declaration of war,Kathleen Hill was following him(though usually airbrushed out bythose who reproduced the photo-graph). When he entered the Ad-miralty building later that day, hewent with her to a cupboard in theFirst Lord's room. "I held mybreath," she later recalled. "Heflung the cupboard door open witha dramatic gesture. There, behindthe panelling, was a large map,showing the disposition of all Ger-man ships on the day he had leftthe Admiralty in 1915."

It was to Kathleen Hill thatChurchill dictated his glowingtribute to Neville Chamberlain inNovember 1940. [FH 62, p36.)When he had finished he turned toher with the words, ' 'I could havedone it the other way round."

The pace of life at DowningStreet and Chequers, the PrimeMinister's country residence,could be hectic, to say the least.But as another secretary noted,during a particularly tense day,"Mrs Hill was feeling awful andlooked shocking. Poor, poor thing,she is so brave and she won't givein." In 1941 she was appointedMBE. Following Churchill's defeatin the general election of 1945 shebecame Curator of Chequers, a

post she held until 1969.Kathleen Hill was one of the few

members of Churchill's wartimestaff who did not keep a diary or setdown her recollections after thewar. Many of the events that Chur-chill described in his memoirs, inwhich he wrote, "I was alone,"took place, in fact, with KathleenHill discreetly in the room, waitingfor her master's voice to launchdictation. She was with him whenhe learnt of the sinking of thePrince of Wales at the end of 1941,and saw him weep. "When he wasupset," she later recalled, "I usedto try to be invisible."

Mrs. Hill was born KathleenSpratt in 1900, and began hersecretarial work in Portsmouth atthe age of 17 during the First WorldWar. Before joining Churchill, shehad been secretary to the ChiefCommissioner of Girl Guides forAll-India. She also broadcast inIndia as a solo violinist. She mar-ried, while in India, George Hill,later Sir George Hill, ninthBaronet, from whom she wasseparated shortly before she wentto work with Churchill.

© The Telegraph pic,London, 1992.

Rose Ethel Kathleen Spratt,secretary, born 1900, PersonalPrivate Secretary to Winston Chur-chill 1937-46, MBE 1941, Curatorof Chequers 1946-49, married 1924George Hill (succeeded 1980 as SirGeorge Hill 9th Bt. died 1985; oneson; marriage dissolved 1938), diedVirginia Water, Surrey 16 Novem-ber 1992. •

FINEST HOUR 78 / 35

REVIEWS

Churchillian GadflyRICHARD M. LANGWORTH

BARON Boothby of Buchan and Rattray Head, togive him the personally selected peer's title heheld and loved from 1959, was one of the

minor players in the Churchill saga, never ranking withthe three "terrible B's" so dreaded by ClementineChurchill (Bracken, Beaverbrook, Birkenhead), but cer-tainly worthy of note. An outspoken Englishman whospent his entire Commons career representing EastAberdeenshire, Scotland, Bob Boothby becameChurchill's Parliamentary Private Secretary in 1926,and stuck with him until WSC entered his WildernessYears. Then too he was an ally—not over India but oneof the handful of MPs who supported Churchill'sunwelcome warnings about Nazi Germany.

Boothby became estranged from Churchill in 1941and never prospered in his Party, but he found a post-war career in journalism and broadcasting. Gifted witha honeyed voice and a razor wit, he sparred withMichael Foot on brilliant BBC talk shows that wereeventually watered down with lesser lights, becausethey were both too iconoclastic and blunt to be spokes-men for their Parties. He also wrote two excellent auto-biographies and a book of speeches and essays, afterwhich he complained that he "had no private life atall"—quite incorrect, and a good thing too. He was acontradictory amalgam, both English and un-English.He could say such things as, "I hate the English. I hatethem for their moral cowardice, their lack of humour,their lack of imagination and their incredible snobbery.And I hate them for their bovine stupidity." Then hecould turn around and sink into the luxuries of Englishcountry life, which he prized, and for which he wasmuch in demand by aristocratic hosts from theHighlands to the South Downs.

Boothby first damaged his political career in the1920s, by falling in love with Dorothy Macmillan (andshe with him)—a fact politely unreported in the dayswhen the press observed civilized proprieties; heavenknows how long he would last today. Ironically, thismade Harold Macmillan's own career, causing thatlonely, introverted man to turn for solace to politics.Though Boothby married twice and had countless ladyfriends, Dorothy pursued him, torpedoing severalpromising romances. The affair never really

BOB BOOTHBY: A PORTRAIT, by Sir Robert RhodesJames. London: Hodder & Stoughton 1991. Softbound, illus-trated, 476 pages, £8. ICS price $13. See New Book Service,page 39. (Note: we may also be able to supply a few copies ofthe now out-of-print hardback; advise if interested.)

36 / FINEST HOUR 78

ended until the lady died suddenly in 1966. Boothbyand Macmillan, who had remained friends despite all,then burned all the Dorothy-Bob letters by mutualagreement. What gents-there were still some left then.

Boothby was a hedonist who supported first classtravel for Members of Parliament, calling third class"the nearest thing to hell I know." Yet he labored tolearn the East Aberdeenshire dialect and went to thepolitical mat for his constituents, who loved him like anative son. Their affection, says Sir Robert RhodesJames, stemmed from his genuinity and unpretentious-ness. "He never bothered whether someone was an earlor a fisherman; he either liked them or did not. Thepeople of East Aberdeenshire took exactly the sameview. Boothby often overlooked the fact that theEnglish do not." Had Boothby represented some placelike Cheltenham, a friend suggested, "the relationshipwould have been loveless and brief."

On matters political there is little space betweenBoothby and his biographer, who declares that "on thebig issues" Boothby was invariably right. In fact,Boothby is revealed as spectacularly wrong about theSoviets, the Nazi Party, Chamberlain, Hitler, France,

the German army's plans, Lloyd George and themethod of war direction, most within the space of afew years. In 1926 he made his first trip to Russia "tomake a thorough investigation" of Stalin's system, andcame back to write wispy nothings about the shops anddroshkies and "strange, jostling people." In 1939 hedoubted Stalin would do a deal with Nazis, althoughhe thought Chamberlain could. With Poland groundunder in September, he wrote that Britain was in "noposition to reject a peace conference." Then he visitedthe continent and came away "filled with admirationfor the strength and for the spirit of the French nation."

In March 1940 Boothby "very much doubted" thatthe German army would attack in the west that year.As Minister of Food in Churchill's coalition govern-ment, he kept wandering into areas where he didn'tbelong—much as Churchill had done in World War I,but with less savvy, and less to offer. He argued inces-santly for the inclusion of Lloyd George in the Cabinet,failing to grasp the political problems such a move pre-sented, not to mention Lloyd George's position. Hefinally shot himself in the foot by suggesting thatChurchill replace the War Cabinet with a dictatorial"committee of public safety"—a letter which earnedhim a summons to Downing Street, a point-by-pointrejection of this absurd notion, and the suggestion thathe mind his own business.

Rhodes James and Boothby would reject the veryidea, but their biases have led them to misjudge

Churchill, accepting only the ideas that sup-port preconceived notions. When he lost his Ministrythrough a political witchhunt, prompted by a semi-scandal for which he was not at fault, Boothy blamedChurchill for failing to intervene in his behalf. But allChurchill wanted, with his consistent sense ofParliamentary proprieties, was to remain above theproceedings. Boothby misjudged WSC again in 1945,thinking Churchill would retire after the election defeatand laying his political plans accordingly, though henever hit it off with Eden either. His friendships withbrilliant radicals, a product of his own rebelliousnessand Keynesianism, had begun with John Strachey andOswald Mosley before the war and continued with thebrothers Foot, Aneurin Bevan, Emmanuel Shinwell andHugh Gaitskell afterward. Withal, he said the most out-rageous things about Churchill and his own Party, inand out of the Chamber. And then he was shocked—and permanently alienated from Churchill—when hewasn't selected for the 1951 Cabinet. It doesn't makesense, but there it is.

If Churchill had really held Boothby down, onewould expect his political star to have risen afterChurchill's retirement. It only sank lower. On the SuezCrisis in 1956 he was all over the map in his public andprivate statements; Eden never sent for him, norMacmillan afterward. The latter, Rhodes James adds,

liked Churchill even less than Boothby, describingWSC to Boothby as "ruthless...[with] a large touch ofmegalomania and slightly crazy, totally egotistical."The implication is that Boothby agreed.

Churchill, a bad hater compared to Boothby, con-tinued with expressions of friendship and appreciationtoward the latter until he died. Rhodes James does notsee this, preferring to quote the bitter DesmondMorton: "[Sir Winston] demanded partisanship from afriend, or, at the worst, acquiescence" and "wouldnever have a friend who was of no practical use tohim." This ignores such longstanding Churchill friendsas Hugh Cecil, F.E. Smith, Violet Bonham-Carter,Beaverbrook and Smuts, who were often major excep-tions to Morton's formulation.

W SC gets little charity in these pages. Forexample, his remark to Boothby on their lastmeeting in late 1964 or 1965 is quoted: "His-

torians are apt to judge War Ministers less by the victo-ries achieved under their direction than by the politicalresults that flowed from them. Judged by that stan-dard, I am not sure that I will be held to have donevery well." I looked in vain for a few lines pointing outthat by that time WSC was very despondent, or that thecracks in Communism already evident when this bookwas written did not support such a dim view of hiscontributions.

We all have friends we may criticise in private, butabout whom we will hear no ill said in public: thusMacmillan on Churchill. The saying goes, "a friend issomeone who knows all about you, but likes you." Somany selective quotes, designed to prove that this orthat person really loathed Churchill, lead one to take acloser look at the book's balder assertions.

One of Rhodes James' complaints about theChurchill official biography is that it doesn't take anypositions (Finest Hour #64, page 11). Leaving aside themerit of this charge (the position is positive, throughGilbert's selection of material) Sir Robert certainly prac-tices what he preaches. Bob Boothby is full of pro-nouncements: "Boothby and his biographerbelieve"..."Of course I agree"..."On this occasion I donot accept Boothby's version." The author's catechismof exactitudes includes the aphorism that Nobody DoesIt Better. On the first page of his Preface he quotesBoothby on choosing him to write his life, on thestrength of two good little biographies aboutVictorians, "because I think he is the best." Boothby inturn receives genteel code phrases, frequently repeated."Having too good a dinner," for example, means get-ting drunk.

A number of sweeping generalizations occur.General Edward Louis Spears, Churchill's military liai-son to the French, is said to have gone "fromFrancophile to Francophobe" in the space of 1940.Readers of Spears' excellent Assignment to Catastrophe

FINEST HOUR 78 / 37

Last Budget Day for Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1929, with the General Election and the Stock Market crash still to come. Left to right:Detective W. H. Thompson, Parliamentary Private Secretary Robert Boothby, WSC, Clementine, Sarah and Randolph. BBC Hulton Radio Picture Library.

know that his attitude toward France was more that ofa frustrated lover than a hater. Throughout the 1930s,the author says, Churchill "craved power and was bit-terly frustrated at being deprived of it, " equatingWSC's power-cravings after India and after Munich,which were very different. Documentation proves thatBoothby recognized the Nazi threat long beforeChurchill; yet there is nothing on Boothby's reaction tothe Rhineland occupation, which was Hitler's firstovert act of aggression. Indeed, a year later, Boothbybelieved the Hitler danger was over.

The author also gives his man far too much creditfor putting Churchill in office in May 1940. "Much of itwas done at my flat," he quotes Boothby. Well. "Thepeople who put Churchill in power," said AlistairCooke in a 1988 address to this Society, "were threemen in Eastbourne, where the Labour Party was hold-ing a conference: Clement Attlee, Herbert Morrison andErnest Bevin." (They said they would serve a nationalgovernment only under Churchill.)

Like Boothby, Rhodes James holds the 1944Bretton Woods Monetary Conference responsible for

38 / FINEST HOUR 78

postwar economic woes, but neither he nor Boothby (inthis book) give the whys and wherefores. Instead weget Boothbyisms: Bretton Woods was "a calamity and aracket." Readers may wish to consult Professor TedWilson's "The Road to Bretton Woods" (ICSProceedings, 1988-1989), illustrating the complexities ofthe issue for the then-British Government.

T hough Boothby and his biographer treat Keynesas gospel (except over Bretton Woods), thewreckage of Keynesian economic theories lies all

around us. Britain chose in 1992 between NeilKinnock's unqualified commitment to a centralizing,socialist federal Europe and John Major's Thatcheritesupport for a Europe allied to America. Labour failedto notice that Britain had become more entrepreneurial,less class-envious. Thatcherism goes on by differentmeans, and one is not sure whether Boothby or hisbiographer would approve.

Boothby is praised for recognizing the value of theEuropean Community, "the greatest single triumph of

the post-war era," and the EC's Exchange RateMechanism. This book was written before Britain's ner-vous declaration of monetary independence lastautumn. Nevertheless, Milton Friedman (whomBoothby in his later years admired) wrote in 1990 that asystem of fixed exchange rates "offers neither the flexi-bility of floating rates nor the unalterable certainty of asingle currency. It therefore invites speculators to makeeasy money by placing a one-way bet against weak cur-rencies." In last year's run on sterling they just did that,making billions, and costing the central banks billions,by betting against the pound and other weak curren-cies in quick succession. "It would be nice to think thelesson has been learned," wrote John CKSullivan recent-ly. "But since a policy of floating rates doesn't need theconstant supervision of politicians and governmentadvisors, that is probably a forlorn hope."

As for "the greatest single triumph," there is roomto doubt that even Europhile Boothby would approveof the EC's exclusion of post-Communist EasternEurope. Would Boothby today support thoseEuropeans who wish to merge great nations "as if theywere made of Silly Putty," (as one journalist puts it),"corraling all their currencies into one, thus puttingtheir economies at risk for a misconceived symbol thatrequires price-fixing so massive that world financialstability is undermined"? I don't know. If so, "On thisoccasion I do not accept Booth/s version."

Boothby wasn't right on everything, but he wasnever dull: sometimes charming, sometimes sar-

castic, he usually had something interesting tosay, and he maintained an admirable devotion to hisprinciples. His bluntness did him no good politically,but did allow him to stake out positions where themealy-mouthed feared to tread. Rhodes James gives usthis example: "I am amazed at the truculence of somany so called 'pacifists' who are always howling forthe disarmament of this country, and then, when a cri-sis arises, demanding the most extreme measures[with] inadequate forces." Sounds familiar.

And Boothby was right on enough big issues todeserve our study, for we may yet see their like again.Sir Robert shows how he recognized Munich immedi-ately for what it was, and explodes the revisionistnotion that Munich bought Britain an extra year to arm.(Germany, of course, armed even faster.) The authorcomments: "Self-satisfied, over-confident and unawareof the even greater dangers for which they were largelyresponsible, the Chamberlain Government drifted con-tentedly along, deaf to all warnings and entreaties,arrogant and intolerant." He also documents all thatGovernment did to muzzle press reports of Germany'sfrightening offensive power.

Likewise, we might ponder Rhodes James' argu-ment that "Boothby was absolutely right when he later

ICS NEW BOOK SERVICEProviding new books at discount as a sendee to friends of the Society.Shipping: $3 first book, $1 each additional, anywhere in the world(UPS in North America, surface bookpost elsewhere). US dollars orpounds sterling please. Order from Churchillbooks, 181 Burrage Road,Hopkinton NH 03229 USA. (Bookshop price in parentheses.)

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FINEST HOUR 78 / 39

wrote that 'in 1949 Britain could have had the leader-ship of a united Western Europe on her own terms.'"Things might have been different had Churchill been inoffice, to ram through in practice the ideas he floated intheory at Zurich and The Hague.

Rhodes James finishes this readable biography—and he has never written an unreadable one—with amasterful summary: "Boothby's outstanding personalvirtue, in public and in private, was that while he couldbe very funny about others, he was never malicious,although a certain steel would enter his voice whenChurchill's name arose—but, even on this sticky sub-ject, there was far more admiration and praise than crit-icism. But, very unusually, he genuinely did not carewhat people thought of him; he was what he was, takeit or leave it. It was this quality of total frankness andtruthfulness about himself that had been largelyresponsible for his outstanding success on radio andtelevision. The fact that all this was very un-Englishnever seems to have occurred to him."

Late in life, Boothby reflected in a letter to theQueen Mother (who called him "such a jolly

man") on the years they had lived, giving amarvelous picture of the world he (and Churchill) hadknown: "One morning at [Philip Sassoon's] Trent Parklong before the war...I heard the sound of cart-wheelscrunching on the avenue, and went out in pyjamas tosee what was going on. I found the horse-drawn cartscoming up the Avenue, filled with potted flowers of allkinds in full bloom, from Covent Garden, includinglilies for the border round the swimming pool, and anarmy of gardeners to receive them. By lunch-time,when the guests arrived, including the Duke of Yorkand yourself, they were all in; while peacocks andflamingoes, loosed from cages, strolled around thehouse. After lunch the Duke of York and I played around of golf on the Home Course, and I shall neverforget his delight when he holed a long putt on the 17thgreen to beat me by 2 and 1. When we got back wewent for a flight over the grounds in Philip's privateaeroplane. And then when we went into tea we found,amongst others, Bernard Shaw arguing with WinstonChurchill over the tea-cups, Rex Whistler painting inthe corner, Osbert Sitwell and Malcolm Bullock laugh-ing in another corner, Kenneth Clark holding forthabout pictures, and Heaven knows who else.

"When we went up to change—into black tie—fordinner there was a cocktail and a carnation on everydressing-table. And dinner was served by a large fatbutler whose name I forget, and six white-coated foot-men. After dinner we watched a magnificent fireworkdisplay on the lake. And finally Richard Tauber sang tous under the stars on the Terrace outside the house.

"Today it seems like the dream of another world,now gone for ever. And so it is."

40 / FINEST HOUR 78

Home was the HunterPHILIP ZIEGLER

PAUL Addison's study of Churchill's domesticpolicy is well worth reading. For Churchill, homeaffairs were something to be concerned about

when there was no war or prospect of one, but hisprodigious energy and inventive mind ensured thateven so secondary an interest generated great activityand often heat. "The mainspring of Churchill'sRadicalism was generosity; a dislike of Tariff Reform asselfish, and a warm-hearted desire to benefit the poorand oppressed" was A.J.P. Taylor's judgment of hisearly days in politics and, by and large, Addison isequally magnanimous about the whole of his career.

From the earliest days Churchill supported collec-tivist social policies; he was profoundly suspicious ofthe motives and intentions of unbridled capitalism; hebelieved in strong trade unions, high wages, cheaphousing; and in 1919 would have taxed to extinctionthe fortunes accumulated by the hard-faced men whohad done well out of the first World War. (See"Thwarting Socialism," in the article on page 11 thisissue. -Ed.) Socialism alarmed him, but he believed thatfew Labour voters were what he meant by Socialist:'Trade Unions are not Socialistic," he said. 'They arethe antithesis of Socialism. They are undoubtedly in-dividualistic organisations, more in the character of theold Guilds than they are in that of the smooth andbloodless uniformity of the masses."

Yet his reforming zeal had strict limits. He was atheart an authoritarian paternalist, who believed instrong government and was apt to consider that anyopposition to his usually benevolent if often erraticsocial policies must be the work of subversive agitatorswho should be curbed in the interests of the nation atlarge. "He embodied," writes Addison of Churchill'speriod as Home Secretary, "to a remarkable extent,both the reforming and the conservative potential ofthe last Liberal Government."

It is as a conservative rather than a reformer thatChurchill is generally remembered, which is why thisbook is so desirable a corrective. His liberal reputationhas been above all tarnished by two episodes in whichhis urge to strike attitudes and play the man of actionlargely obscured his real performance.

At Tonypandy in 1910 he did not send in the troopsto shoot down the striking miners—on the contrary, hedeferred troop movements until after serious rioting

CHURCHILL ON THE HOME FRONT 1900-1955, byPaul Addison. London: Jonathan Cape. Hardbound, illus-trated, 350 pages, £20/$35. Available from the ICS NewBook Service at $32 (see sidebar on page 39).

had broken out and even then kept their role to a dis-creet presence in the background.

At the time of the General Strike he did not urgeintransigence and bring pressure on Baldwin to abort asettlement which might otherwise have been achieved.But on both occasions the need for dramatic actionwent to his head: he swashed noisily and threatened todo such things that shall be the terror of the earth.There was, Addison admits, "much truth in the left-wing notion of Churchill as the extremist of the GeneralStrike."

In 1943 Churchill dismissed Beveridge as "an awfulwindbag and a dreamer," but though he doubted theeconomic wisdom of Attlee's postwar reforms, henever challenged the concept of the Welfare State. Nor,when he became Prime Minister again in 1951, did hemake any attempt to put back the clock. His apparentrejection of socialist principles while in oppositionproved to have been as much rhetorical as his denunci-ations of the communist influence in the General Strike.He championed free enterprise but never a Thatcheritefree-for-all. Addison concludes that Churchill "wasoften dismissed as an adventurer but it was, of course,this quality of individualism for which, above all else.

He stood. It was in his nature to believe in a land fit foradventurers to live in, and he imagined that his ownconceptions of liberty and progress were shared by themass of the people."

Churchill in 65,000 WordsPHILIP ZIEGLER

K eith Robbins' Churchill is as sensible, well-bal-anced and temperate as its authorship wouldlead one to expect. If you want in 65,000 words

or so a summary of Churchill's career and characteris-tics, this will meet your needs. (Readers please note: thefirst printing of this nicely produced softbound mini-biography is exhausted and Longmans promise thenext printing not later than May. -Ed.

Mr. Ziegler is the biographer of Lord Mountbatten ofBurma, the author of a history of the Battle of Omdurman,and a reviewer for the Weekend Telegraph in London, bywhose kind permission his reviews are published.

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FINEST HOUR 78 / 41

ACTION THIS DAY

Narrow EscapesJOHN G. PLUMPTON

YEARS100AGO

First Quarter 1893 • Age 18While playing hare and hounds,

Winston experienced another mira-cle in his life: he survived an at-tempt to leap from a bridge to thetop of a fir tree, but the twenty-nine foot fall ruptured his kidney.The Times grossly understated theextent of the injury when it re-ported that "he was very muchshaken and bruised." His parentsspared no expense in providing thebest medical care but he was sixweeks in recovery and should havebeen longer. In My Early Life,Churchill related a joke toldaround the Carlton Club at thetime: "I hear Randolph's son metwith a serious accident." "Yes?""Playing a game of 'Follow myLeader.' " "Well, Randolph is notlikely to come to grief in thatway!"

On 20 January Winston heardthat he had once again failed theexamination for entrance intoSandhurst. Lord Randolph con-sidered apprenticing his son withRothschild or Cassel, but was con-vinced by Rev. Welldon that theboy would pass the next attempt.He was sent to the "Blue Ribbon ofCrammers," Captain Walter H.James, who, Churchill later wrote,could predict "with almost Papalinfallibility the sort of questionwhich that sort of person would bebound on the average to ask on anyof the selected subjects."

Winston was a challenge even forCaptain James. On 7 March Jameswrote Lord Randolph: ' 'I think theboy means well but he is distinctlyinclined to be inattentive and tothink too much of his abilities . . .[and] . . . he has been rather toomuch inclined up to the present toteach his instructors instead ofendeavouring to learn from them."Captain James was not amusedwhen Winston told him that heknew enough history and did notwant any more teaching in it!

42 / FINEST HOUR 78

YEARS / D AGOFirst Quarter 1918 • Age 43

Alarmed at the implications of aRussian peace with Germany,Churchill admonished Prime Min-ister Lloyd George for giving prior-ity to Naval recruiting: "The im-minent danger is on the Westernfront: &. the crisis will come beforeJune. A defeat here will be fatal. . .The Germans are a terrible foe, &their generals are better thanours."

In February Churchill visitedFrance. Returning to his old trenchesat 'Plugstreet' (Ploegsteert) hefound only desolation and ruin. Hecould not even recognize thechurch and the ruins of the farm-houses. He commented that "thelittle graveyard has been filled andthen smashed up by the shells."

On a visit to Ypres he found "ab-solutely nothing except a few treestumps in acres of brown soil pock-marked with shell holes touchingone another. This continues inevery direction for 7 or 8 miles."

Despite the carnage on the conti-nent he did not forget the threat athome. He wrote Clementine thatthe full moon increased the dangerof attack on London and asked herto remove herself and the childrenfrom danger.

Churchill's comments about re-storing Germany to respectabilityafter the war left an indelible andunusual impression on Lord Bertie,the British Ambassador to France,who wrote Lord Stamfordham, "Idid not argue with W Churchill forit would have been loss of time . . .Has he a longsighted eye on theleadership of a Labour-PacifistParty with eventually Premier-ship?" Not many accused Chur-chill of pacifism! Indeed, he wasfurious when he heard rumours inLondon that the Allies were con-sidering peace with Germany." . . . I shd greatly fear any settle-ment with them unless and untilthey have been definitely worsted.At present they think they havewon . . ."

On his return to England hewarned his countrymen that "the

German hordes, released fromRussia, must either hurl them-selves in attack upon the Britishand French armies, or must exposethe fact that they are incompetentto launch an offensive." In a seriesof memos to his Cabinet col-leagues he argued that trench war-fare and the British attacks since1915 has been enormously costlyin lives and had gained little. Heproposed a scheme of mechanizedwarfare that would win the war in1919. The British High Command,however, still advocated the tradi-tional artillery and infantry at-tacks.

On 21 March the Germanslaunched a final 'knock-out' blowalong a fifty-mile front beforeAmerican forces could move intoposition. It almost succeeded. Thebattle would eventually decide thewar and would cost the British300,000 casualties. Churchill wasin France, at the Prime Minister'srequest, when the battle began.Unlike Lloyd George, he thoughtthat Haig was the best commanderfor the situation because he wouldstubbornly refuse to retreat. On hisreturn to London, Churchill reas-sured the Prime Minister that theoffensive would loose its force as itproceeded: "It is like throwing abucket of water over the floor. Itfirst rushes forward, then soaks for-ward, and finally stopsaltogether."

As the news from France darkened,Lloyd George asked Churchill toreturn to France to see what theFrench were doing: "Go and seeeverybody. See Foch. SeeClemenceau."

French Premier Clemenceau, the"Tiger," and Churchill were "cutfrom the same cloth" as they jour-neyed into the heart of the battlezone. Fearless within sight andsound of both rifle and artilleryfire, the seventy-six-year-oldFrench leader exhausted Churchill,but convinced him that Britain andFrance would win. Together theywrote U.S. President WoodrowWilson that " . . . whatever hap-pens, we shall contest the groundstep by step . . . "

YEARS 50AGO

First Quarter 1943 • Age 68As he prepared to leave for Casa-

blanca Churchill also consideredhis plans for postwar Britain. Fullemployment, improved education,increased housing, better healthcare with no increase in cost of liv-ing were to be his priorities.

On 12 January he left for Casa-blanca where the leaders of Britainand the United States planned theinvasion of the European continent.Churchill thought that it was essen-tial for them to alleviate the pres-sure on the Soviets in 1943 with anattack on Sicily and then a cross-Channel invasion. The allies alsohad to reassure each other of mu-tual support. The British fearedthat the Americans might givepriority to the Pacific front and theAmericans were concerned thatBritain would pull out of the warafter the defeat of Germany. Frenchunity was also important andGeneral de Gaulle was invited to

Fifty years ago: theconference at Casa-blanca. L-R: Gen.Gimud, Roosevelt, Gen.de Gaulle, WSC in adisplay of cordiality.(Actually getting Giraudand de Gaulle to sitdown together was apiece of diplomacy.)

meet with and hopefully accept theauthority of General Giraud inNorth Africa.

The Conference had been keptsecret until the press conference on24 January. The press, wrote Chur-chill, could hardly believe theireyes and then their ears when theyheard that the Conference had beenmeeting for two weeks. Rooseveltand Churchill had agreed to con-tinue convoys to Russia, send sup-port to American forces in China,begin plans for a June landing inSicily, and build up Americanforces in Britain. They also an-nounced (against Churchill's innerjudgment) that Unconditional Sur-render was the only term whichthe Allies would accept to end the

war. This decision would bring thecriticism that it unduly prolongedhostilities.

The leaders drove to Marrakech,where Churchill showed Rooseveltthe Atlas Mountains and enjoyedhis only opportunity to paint dur-ing the war. Then Churchill flewon to Cairo, where he was advisedby his former research assistant,William Deakin, to support Tito inYugoslavia. He continued up thecoast where he met the Presidentof Turkey. He returned to Cairo viaCyprus where he again met withthe Fourth Hussars, of which hewas Colonel in Chief. Back atCairo he learned of the surrender ofthe Germans at Stalingrad.

He also gave attention to India,once more pressuring Wavell topress the attack on Burma. Wavellresponded that India, two-thirdsthe size of Europe, was stillthreatened from within, as well asby Japanese and German forcesfrom East and West. Gandhi hadbeen arrested and was about tobegin his first hunger strike.

At his final dinner in CairoWinston and his son, Randolph,"snapped at each other," but theparty relaxed when the Prime Min-ister regaled everyone with storiesof his adventures at Omdurman.The voyage home included a visitto Montgomery at Tripoli and Eisen-hower at Algiers. WSC arrived inLondon on 9 February and im-mediately met with the Cabinet toreview the war situation. Thatevening he watched the movie"Casablanca."

The journey of 10,000 miles hadexhausted him and within days hehad a cold and sore throat. LordMoran diagnosed inflammation ofthe base of the lung. Rest wasordered, even his regular meetings

with the King were cancelled, butthe patient was allowed to read anovel. He chose "Moll Flanders."While recovering he felt great anx-iety for the situation in India.Gandhi's fast caused all the Indianmembers of the Viceroy's Ex-ecutive Council to resign andChurchill was worried about theimpact of the fast on public opin-ion in Britain and the UnitedStates, as well as India.

As he recovered in early Marchhe was able to go to Chartwell,where he was visited by the King.The Germans in North Africa werefighting desperately but the 8thArmy was inflicting a severe defeatupon them. On the Eastern Frontthe spring thaw brought the war toa muddy halt.

Stalin still distrusted his allies.He demanded a second front andaccused them of treachery. Thiswas an indication of the postwarproblems that would have to befaced concerning Russia. Churchilltold the Editor of The Times thathe favoured confederations withsmaller states after the war. "I donot want to be left alone in Europewith the Bear."

YEARS 25 AGO

First Quarter 1968Randolph Churchill was becom-

ing gravely ill in his country homeat Stour and was less and less ableto continue work on the officialbiography.

His son, Winston S. Churchill,became a roving correspondent forthe London Evening News. As suchhe covered the visit of Prime Min-ister Harold Wilson to the UnitedStates. Mary Soames and her hus-band, Christopher, were lookingfor a new parliamentary seat tofight after losing his seat in Bedfordin the election of 1966. Sarah, nowLady Audley, was in America.

Clementine was eighty-threeand still very interested in herfamily and politics. She was inclose touch with Sir Winston'sformer constituents and the Con-servative Party in Woodford. Shereceived numerous invitations butaccepted only a few, including arole in a film to raise funds for theLord Attlee Memorial Foundation.

FINEST HOUR 78 / 43

Poem of TributeI am a Londoner who went through

the Blitz and lost my first baby at birththrough the bombing of the hospital onBattle of Britain Day, 15 September1940.1 also lost my husband in the Bat-tle of Arnhem, September 1944.1 wrotea poem to honour Sir Winston at hisdeath which was published in TheNorth Bay Nugget at the time, and justnow in the anthology, "TreasuredPoems of America'' (1992). I am wonder-ing if you may be interested in it.

IVY EMERY-MILLER, ELLIOT LAKE, ON, CANADA

A Londoner RemembersThis gallant English gentleman

to the world has given much,But will historians recall

how he had 'the common touch?'I hope so, for it was this gift

that made us hold him dear,We Londoners who saw him pause

to wipe away a tear.Midst clouds of dust and debris

came this man of great renown,Through the smouldering ruins

of our war-torn London Town.His faced showed honest grief for us,

who stood in shocked despair,Upon the rubble of our homes,

some loved ones buried there.A voice called out "How 'bout it

Winston, do we take this lying down?"He fixed us with his saddened eyes,

chin out, his brow a frown,"I promise you," his voice boomed

this will not go unpaid;' 'I see the devastation that our

enemies have made;"They've pulled the lion's tail too

hard, and with a mighty roar,"We'll give it back to them tenfold,

we'll even up the score."But also," he said, "I see a people

coming forth from out the dust,' 'Eyes aflame with hope, determined,

to destroy a tyrant's lust."The spark within us was rekindled,

he could see we loved him much,As he waved and gave his V sign,

this man with 'the common touch.'This then is how I remember

him of bulldog breed and fame,A tribute to all the finer things

that made old England's name.

DESPATCH BOX

Directions, Please . . .Could you print a map of Churchill

sites in the UK? The article on the 1992Churchill's England Tour [FH #76) wasfascinating but sadly lacked a map.Also, it would be useful for thosevisiting privately. Is Chartwell or Che-quers anywhere near Gatwick, for ex-ample?DR. JOHN MICHENFELDER, ORONOCO, MINN. USA

A point well taken! Below is a mapby me of southeast England to indicateall places on the tour, plus Gatwick andChequers (the Prime Minister's coun-try residence, not open to the public).Official biographer Martin Gilbert is anexcellent map-maker, and I refer you tohis "Churchill: A Life" and biographicvolumes of the Official Biography fornumerous maps. One of which, in-dicating many of the places on Martin'swalking tour last June, is reproduced atright. Mr. Gilbert does have plans for afuture "Churchill Atlas," and ICShopes to reprint his "Churchill's Lon-don, " based on his 1985 address duringthe second Churchill's England tour.

THE SOUTHf\\ WOODSTOCK^™

—' » -\ Blenheim •*-*•

Chequers LONDON

' SANDHURST ,vWESTERH/tM "*•

^PORTSMOUTH

ENGLISH CHANNEL

My Meeting With ChurchillWe were training in Kent with the 53

Welsh Division waiting to go to Nor-mandy, and had been formed from anInfantry Battalion of the Royal WelshFusiliers but converted to L.A.A. Regi-ment for service overseas. I was a TroopCommander, and feeling proud, when Ireceived a summons to report to Div.H.Q. There, at a meeting of Divisional

44 / FINEST HOUR 78

General Ross and Brig. Friedberger, Iwas told to place my guns (Bofors) forthe defence that night of Favershamrailway station,- a V.I.P. was expectedto sleep in a railway siding on his wayback to London from visiting the inva-sion forces. We weren't told who itwas, though I did ask . . .

My guns were in position by nightfalland I prayed fervently there would be

no raid on Faversham that night. In themorning I paraded my two officers withme on the platform and presently thetrain pulled slowly in. A blind went upand there was the PM in the window,flashing his "V" sign and beaming hap-pily, an early cigar already alight!

A few weeks later at Larkhill, myTroop was once more selected forspecial duty: defending the barrack area

for a visit from HM the King. I thoughtthese two honours were worth somespecial mention, so I created a notice-board outside my H.Q.: "A" TROOP, 380BATTERY, 112 L.A.A. REGT: DEFENDERS OF HM THE

KING & THE PRIME MINISTER. Unfortunately itlasted only a few days before beingsummarily condemned by a passingsenior officer. "Jealous blank-blank," Ithought . . . but we had defended thegreat man and received a "V" sign forour pains, and we were justly proud.

PETER COOMBS, SHERBORNE, DORSET, UK

Churchill Stamp HandbookI was pleased to see there will be a

new edition of the stamp guide. I havebeen compiling a computer database ofWSC stamps, and have gone throughthe Scott, Minkus Trucial States andMichel Trucial States catalogs. I havealso corresponded with several otherWSC topicalists regarding new issues. Iam sending some info to Celwyn Ballregarding omissions from his list inFinest Hour #77 (which is fantastic, by

the way!) including issues from Liberiaand an aerogramme from England. Iwould like to offer my services to proofand hopefully to add to the new hand-book.

RICHARD W. CROOKS, WEST BEND, WIS., USA

Robin Lawson Gives the Lion's RoarThe Washington Savings League re-

cently held a convention for the thriftindustry in the states of Washington,Oregon, Montana and Idaho. Our fea-tured after-dinner speaker was RobinLawson, a Friend of the Society, whogave a commanding, one-man perfor-mance on Winston Churchill. The au-dience was spellbound, and Robin had awealth of material. Mr. Lawson askedthat part of his stipend be sent as adonation in his name to the Society,which we enclose. The spirit ofWinston Churchill, his wit, wisdom,courage and example of leadership,lives on through the work of Mr.Lawson.

M. SCOTT GASPARD, OLYMPIA, WASH. USA

RIDDLES, MYSTERIES, ENIGMASWSC's Medical History

Q: I have occasion, about twice ayear, to lecture to some of my medicalcolleagues. I thought I would attempt aspeech on Sir Winston's medicalhistory. I would like it to be as accurateas possible. Are you aware of anytreatises on the subject? Did LordMoran ever write such? Any help youcan give would be appreciated.

—SIDNEY F. LAUTERIA, MD,

1212 BURNING TREE LANE,

WINTER PARK FL 32792

A: We sent Dr. Lautetia a copy of"Atrial Fibrillation and Systemic Em-boli: Anticoagulation Revisited," byFoley & Scheidt (CVR&R. October 1992)which includes "vignettes related tothe case of Sii Winston Chuichill," butwe have seen numerous articles andreferences over the years, and manyMDs have written us of their interest incertain aspects of WSC's medicalhistory. May we ask any MD to com-municate with Dr. Lauteria, who mayperhaps serve as a compiler of knownarticlesl (He is also hoping to establisha Central Florida Chapter of ICS.)

Lord Moron's published Diaries(1966) are only part of his extensivenotes, which are supposedly on file forpublication at some future date, butnot available.

A Lot of BullQ: My copy of the 15 October 1945

British Forces newspaper, Union Jacknotes that Churchill received from

Spain "a bull's head with the letter'V naturally designed in the crown."Spain's best bull-fighter, Manolete,killed the bull in Valencia in 1944, andits owner, Louis Escobar, had the headstuffed. Escobar told the British In-stitute of Madrid that he wanted thehead of the "toro de la Victoria" (bullof Victory) forwarded to Mr. Churchill.Was the head shipped? Did Churchillreceive it? And where is it now?

- L . L . THOMAS, HANTS. UK.

A: Trust Tom Thomas, former chair-man of ICS/UK, to come up with thestumpers. We haven't a clue. Help re-quested!

The Durban Speech, 1899Q: I notice that none of the Chur-

chill speech or quote books carriesWSC's speech at the Town Hall in Dur-ban, South Africa, after his escape fromthe Boers. Does a transcript exist?

A: In Brian Roberts' "Churchills inAfrica" (1970) is a partial transcript:

"This is not the time for a longspeech. We have got outside the regionof words: we have to go to the region ofaction. We are now in the region ofwar, and in this war we have not yet ar-rived at the half-way house. But withthe determination of a great Empire,surrounded by Colonies of unprece-dented loyalty, we shall carry ourpolicy to a successful conclusion, andunder the old Union Jack there will be

an era of peace, purity, liberty, equalityand good government in South Africa. Ithank you once again for your greatkindness. lam sure I feel within myselfa personal measure of that gratitudewhich every Englishman who loves hiscountry must feel towards the loyal anddevoted Colonists of Natal."

Q: I wish to own a two-volumeunabridged edition of The River Warbut am astonished at the prices beingasked. There must be numerous well-read, well-handled copies, poor to fairreading copies — why can I not findthem?

A: The two-volume River War had atotal run of 3000 copies in three im-pressions. Every new edition after thatwas a single, greatly abridged volume,lacking the beautiful folding maps andfine illustrations. Combine the normalattrition of any nearly-100-year-oldwork with the continuing demand forChurchill and you will understand whyvirtually every two-volume copy todaysells for four figures. Battered copiesare the scarcest of all, because they areavidly sought after for leather bindings,at least in England; unfortunately,rebound Churchill is nearly unsalablein North America. At the 1992 BostonBook Fair I found two copies no betterthan my own for well over $4000, andwhen I at last discovered one at $2500it turned out to be a second impression.UK prices are higher; an average copywas recently offered for £3450. My per-sonal copy, which is the finest I haveever seen, was obtained in a swap for aset of the "Collected Works" five yearsago. (It is now worth 50 percent morethan the "Collected Works"!)

The one hope we have of making theoriginal River War broadly availableagain is through republication by a low-volume specialty house. This wouldnot, by the way, permanently affect thevalue of first editions. When the EastonPress reprinted The World Crisis, firstedition prices dropped for awhile, butthey are fast creeping back up. The factis that modern reprints are not equiva-lent to first editions in the minds ofbibliophiles. A reprint means thateverybody wins.

The ideal solution would be a fac-simile first edition, precisely duplicat-ing the beautiful 1899 binding, thelovely heavy paper stock and magnifi-cent maps and drawings. If no commer-cial publisher wants to take it on, thismight some day be done by the Chur-chill Center at George WashingtonUniversity. Of course it could be under-taken by ICS right now — with the aidof a grant by a kind Friend of the Chur-chill Societies. •

FINEST HOUR 78 / 45

INTERNATIONALDATELINES continued from page 9

Election PostmortemsCHARTWELL, 1932 — "After [an Elec-tion] is over, whatever has hap-pened, one can afford to be good-tempered. If you win, you dwellupon the fair manner in which thecontest has been conducted (nevermind what you feel) and expressyour determination to be a fatherto the whole constituency with-out respect to party. If you havelost, you congratulate the victorand say what an ornament he willbe . . . I have seen men very brokenand bitter in these circumstances. . . but it does no good, it onlypleases the other side." -wsc,THOUGHTS AND ADVENTURES

Chi Chisignals to

the. . crowd

afterwinningthe 1991

MurataReunionPro-Am

tour-nament.

Chi Chi'sHero

DALLAS, TX., USA, OCTOBER - G o l f e r ' selder statesman, Chi Chi Rodriguez,says Sir Winston was one of hischildhood role models. (The otherwas John Wayne.) Like WSC,Rodriguez has a special place forchildren. His Foundation runs aschool and golf course for troubledyouths in Clearwater, Florida, andin 1986 the Professional GolfAssociation honored him for con-tributions to junior golf. His popu-larity is such that he signs auto-graphs by the ink barrel, and kidsget advice about life ("Stay inschool and stay away from drugs,you hear?") with his signature. Onreligion, though, Chi Chi partscompany with WSC. He is weigheddown with religious artifacts. Inhis pocket, along with a 560-year-old Indian arrowhead, he carries afive-inch-long silver cross a man ina wheelchair gave him. "He told

46 / FINEST HOUR 78

me the Pope blessed this 125 yearsago," Rodriguez says. (WSC said hewas not a pillar of the church but"a flying buttress — I support itfrom the outside.")

Political Opponents:A Recommended ViewLONDON, 21 MAY 1952: "The spectacleof a number of middle-aged gentle-men who are my political oppo-nents being in a state of uproar andfury is really quite exhilarating tome." — wsc

BRONZE BUSTBENEFITS ICS

DALLAS, TEX., USA, OCTOBER 15TH - I C SNorth Texas Chapter co-directorRichard Hazlett has commissioneda limited edition (150) bronze bustof Churchill by sculptor LawrenceLudtke, NSS, RABS. Richard hasgenerously pledged to contribute$100 from each of the busts sold tothe Churchill Society whence theorder comes (UK, USA, Canada orAustralia). The price is $1500(shipping add $40 in USA, moreelsewhere please enquire; also add$127.05 tax if you live in Texas).American Express cards are wel-come, and terms are available. Al-low 60-90 days for casting and ship-ment. Mounted on a wood and mar-ble base, the head measures 10.5"and carries a 30 day unconditionalguarantee. For information contactRichard's shop, The History Mer-chant, 2723 Routh, Dallas, Texas75201, tel. (214) 742-5487.

Tom Thomas ExhibitsEMSWORTH, HANTS., UK, OCTOBER 3RD/4TH —

Former ICS/UK chairman L.L."Tom" Thomas exhibited hisChurchilliana collection at theEmsworth Maritime and HistoricalTrust this weekend, as he did ear-lier on 22 August. ' 'Because of goodpublicity, posters, newspaper arti-cles and an interview that Eliza-beth and I gave on BBC Radio Solent,the museum had their largest num-ber of visitors recorded, 114 on the

Tom Thomas (light) at Emswoith

October opening," writes Tom."The emphasis was on gramo-phone records, plates, postalcovers, medallions, photographs,picture postcards, etc. Also dis-displayed was one of WSC's suits, anightgown, his hand muff and a 20-inch cigar made especially for himby a company in North Borneo.One item (I'm reminded by themuch-appreciated cover of FH #76)was half of the Lord Warden's flagwhich flew over Chartwell whenhe was in residence, which causedmuch interest." (Like most LordWarden's flags, the standard flap-ped against a chimney and wasquickly damaged; the supplier leftoff supplying them for this reasonprior to WSC's death. -Ed.)

WSC: Famous CanadianVALLEJO, CALIF., USA, OCTOBER 31ST —

The following were listed by 160high school students in Vallejo, whowere asked to name famous Cana-dians: Winston Churchill, FrancoisMitterrand, Jacques Cousteau,Candy Maldonado (Toronto BlueJays outfielder and Puerto Rican),Napoleon Bonaparte and Rocky &Bullwinkle. —DES MONIES REGISTER

Election PledgesLONDON, 6 MAR 1919 - "I never re-member a General Election whichwas not followed by a disagreeable,sterile, bickering over electionpledges." —wsc

Statuary:the nobleNewOrleansstatue atChurchillPlaza,photo-graphedon a recentvisit byDr. GaryStiles,N.C.

Part 19BARBARA F. LANGWORTH

433. What well-known person's as-sistance did WSC seek to helpbring order to the Middle East in1921? (C)

434. How old was Churchill whenhe received the Nobel Prize forLiterature? (L)

435. In his early soldiering dayswhat stellar constellation twiceguided Young Winston in the rightdirection? (M)

436. In 1922 The Churchillsbought Chartwell for £5000. Howmuch did their benefactors arrangeto pay for the house in 1946? (P)

437. In what year did Churchillreceive the Order of the Garter?(S)

438. At the Battle of OmdurmanChurchill used a gun of "thenewest and the latest design" hehad purchased in London. Whatwas the brand? (W)

439. After visiting Britain in 1942,who received a note from the PrimeMinister, saying: "you certainlyhave left golden footsteps behindyou"? (C)

440. What is the title of Churchill'sbook covering the period betweenthe World Wars? (L)

441. How many British monarchsdid Churchill serve? (M)

442. What pseudonym did Chur-chill use when he recuperated inFlorida in early 1942? (P)

TEST YOUR skill and knowledge! Vir-tually all questions can be answeredin back issues of FINEST HOUR orother ICS publications [but it's notcricket to check). Twenty-four questions appear in each issue,the answers in the following issue.Questions fall into six categories:Contemporaries (C), Literary [L],Miscellaneous (M), Personal [P],Statesmanship (S), and War [W).

CHURCHILLTRIVIA

443. Whose neck did Churchillwant to see ' 'on a swivel, so that itcould face the olive branches or thearrows, as the occasion might de-mand"? (S)

444. What was "Operation Sledge-hammer"? (W)

445. In 1942 Churchill met withthe Chairman of the United StatesWar Industries Board. Name thisman, who was a life-long friend.(C)

446. Churchill's writings havebeen translated into at least four-teen different languages. Howmany can you name? (L)

447. Who or what did Winston callthe "flying fools"? (M)

448. Who was Goonie? (P)

449. Churchill changed politicalparties two times. What was hisfinal party affiliation? (S)

450. Hitler and Stalin signed a non-aggression pact in 1939. What hap-pened to it in 1941 that so in-furiated Churchill? (W)

451. In the Thirties, WSC appointedwhat Canadian (codename Intrepid)to head the British Security Co-ordination Service in New York?(C)

452. Many of Churchill's books arecollections of speeches. Which wasthe first to be published? (L)

453. In what year did Clementinebecome The Baroness Spencer-Churchill of Chartwell? (M)

454.During what decade did Chur-chill do most of his paintings? (P)

455. Although he finally acceptedthe Order of the Garter, what othertitled honors did WSC refuse? (S)

456. During WWII what longtimeParliamentary ally from the wilder-ness years did Churchill fail to pro-mote to high office? (W)

ANSWERS TO LAST TRIVIA

(409) Roosevelt thought it "fun tobe in the same decade" with Chur-chill. (410) Churchill's criticism ofLord Kitchener was deleted in sub-sequent editions of The River War.(411) Churchill had the records putinto a vault with the stipulationthat they would not be releaseduntil after his death. (412) Clemen-tine whacked the suffragette withher umbrella to protect Winston.(413) Churchill personally rootedfor the American Democratic Party.(414) ". . . so are the fishes" wassaid in 1940. (415) Eisenhowerpraised Churchill's broad thinking.(416) My Early Life recountsWinston S. Churchill meeting theAmerican Winston Churchill .(417) WSC planted a tree in Vic-toria, B.C. (Beacon Hill Park'sMayor's Grove). (418) "JuniusJunior" was the name Winstonoften used in letters to The Harro-vian. (419) The Massachusetts In-stitute of Technology inspiredChurchill to encourage a similarschool in Britain. (420) TheJapanese sunk HMS Repulse andPrince of Wales. (421) Sir DouglasHaig was the British commanderWSC compared to a surgeon. (422)Churchill said his son would be hisofficial biographer in 1953. (423)The Winston Churchill MemorialTrust (travelling fellowships),together with Churchill CollegeCambridge, comprise Britain's na-tional memorials to Sir Winston.(424) The Churchills paid £5000for Chartwell. (425) Churchillcalled Austria "Germany's idiotally." (426) The Germans occupiedthe Channel Islands, and the me-morial is on Jersey. (427) Sir An-thony Eden was Churchill's For-eign Minister. (428) Savrola leads arevolution in the Republic ofLaurania. (429) On 24 April 1953Churchill was invested with theOrder of the Garter. (430) Winstonwas the best in his division his firstyear in history. (431) "The Truth isincontrovertible. Panic may resentit," etc. (432) Lloyd George ap-pointed WSC to both the War andAir Offices. •

FINEST HOUR 7 8 / 4 7

IMMORTAL WORDS

" T O THE PEOPLE OF CANADA"

To Nazi tyrants and gangsters it must seem strangethat Canada, free from all compulsion or pressure,

so many thousands of miles away,should hasten forward into the van of the battle

against the evil forces of the world.These wicked men cannot understand the deep currents of loyalty and tradition

that flow between the different self-governing nations of the British Empire.The people of Great Britain are proud of the fact

that the liberty of thought and action they have wonin the course of their long, romantic history

should have taken root throughout the length and breadth ofa vast continent

from Halifax to Victoria.But the Canadians are the heirs of another tradition:

the true tradition of France —a tradition of valour and faith which they keep alive in these dark days

and which we are confident will in the endbring back again to life France itself.

I have met many men of the Canadian forces,and I have never seen a finer body of troops.

It has not fallen to them as yet to be engaged with the enemy,[But] when the test comes — and come it may —

I know they will prove that they are worthy sons of thosewho stormed the Vimy Ridge twenty-four years ago..

I speak to you this afternoon from Number Ten Downing Street,here in the capital and the governing centre of this battered but indomitable city

and island.Our people have been through much in the last few months.

They have learned much — and some things they will never forget.But above all they have learned their own strength.

They have tested their resolve under heavy hardship and danger.None of them — none of us — doubts that together,

with the whole Empire together,with the Old World and the New World together —

no one doubts that we can or that we shall see it through;and that when at length we march again back

into the light of happier and easier days,Canada will play her just part

in laying the foundationsof a wider and a better world.

BROADCAST, LONDON, 1 JUNE 1941