FINEST HOUR - Winston Churchill
FINEST HOUR - Winston Churchill
FINEST HOUR - Winston Churchill
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
-<br />
J*&<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong><br />
Summer 1997 • Number 95<br />
Journal of The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center and The International <strong>Churchill</strong> Societies
THE CHURCHILL CENTER<br />
PATRON: THE LADY SOAMES DBE<br />
INTERNATIONAL C H URCHILL " SOC I F TT F S<br />
" " " ^ S T A T E S UNITED KINGDOM. CANADA- AUSTRALIA<br />
The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center is an international academic institution which encourages shiHv nf tv, re JlL u (,«• , c<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>; fosters research about his speeches, writings and deeds; advances knowleovJ ofZ ? d th ° Ught ° f Wmst J on l. S -<br />
grammes of teaching and publishing, imparts that learning to men, women and young peoSeaS * * ^ " T ' r I<br />
Y F°~<br />
sponsors Finest Hour, special publications, international conferences and tours The Cent I *<br />
the International<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Societies, , which were founded in 1968 to p preserve interest in and knowledge of of t thl rf^ Tf I<br />
Rt.<br />
m Hnn<br />
Hon.<br />
^ir<br />
Sir<br />
<strong>Winston</strong><br />
<strong>Winston</strong><br />
S.<br />
S.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>,<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>,<br />
and<br />
and<br />
are<br />
are<br />
independent<br />
independent<br />
non-nrnfit<br />
non-profit affi1i<br />
affiliates afP « of<br />
of<br />
rt,o<br />
the<br />
rL^_<br />
Center<br />
, A , , , P niloso P n y and heritage of the<br />
e: www:winstonchurchill.org.<br />
THE CHURCHILL CENTER<br />
A non-profit corporation, IRS No. 02-0482584<br />
TRUSTEES<br />
The Hon. Celia Sandys, Fred Farrow, George<br />
A. Lewis, Ambassador Paul H. Robinson, Jr.<br />
BOARD OF GOVERNORS<br />
(1996-1997)<br />
William C. Ives, Richard M. Langworth,<br />
Parker H. Lee III, Dr. John H. Mather,<br />
Dr. Cyril Mazansky, James W. Muller,<br />
John G. Plumpton, Douglas S. Russell,<br />
Jacqueline Dean Witter<br />
OFFICERS<br />
Richard M. Langworth, President<br />
181 Burrage Road, Hopkinton NH 03229<br />
Tel. (603) 746-4433, Fax. (603) 746-4260<br />
William C. Ives, Vice President<br />
77 W. Wacker Dr., 44th fir., Chicago IL 60601<br />
Tel. (312) 634-5034, Fax. (312) 634-5000<br />
Parker H. Lee, III, Executive Director<br />
117 Hance Road, Fair Haven NJ 07704<br />
Tel. (908) 758-1933, Fax. (908) 758-9350<br />
E-mail: PHLeeIII@aol.com<br />
EXECUTIVE COMMIITTEE<br />
William C. Ives, Parker H. Lee in,<br />
Richard M. Langworth, Dr. Cyril Mazansky,<br />
John G. Plumpton<br />
ACADEMIC ADVISORS<br />
Professor James W. Muller (Chairman)<br />
University of Alaska Anchorage<br />
1518 Airport Hts. Dr., Anchorage AK 99508<br />
Tel. (907) 786-4740 Fax. (907) 786-4647<br />
E-mail: afjwm@uaa.alaska.edu<br />
Prof. Keith Alldritt, Univ. of Br. Columbia<br />
Dr. Larry Arnn, Pres., Claremont Institute<br />
Prof. Eliot A. Cohen, Johns Hopkins Univ.<br />
Prof. Kirk Emmert, Kenyon College<br />
Prof. Barry Cough. Wilfrid Laurier Univ.<br />
Prof. Warren F. Kimball, Rutgers University<br />
Prof. Patrick Powers, Assumption College<br />
Prof. Paul A. Rahe, University of Tulsa<br />
Dr. Jeffrey Wallin, Pres., National Academy<br />
Prof. Manfred Weidhorn, Yeshiva Univ.<br />
DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE<br />
Garnet R. Barber, Colin D. Clark,<br />
Max L. Kleinman, James F. Lane,<br />
Richard M. Langworth, Parker H. Lee III,<br />
Michael W. Michelson, Alex M. Worth, Jr.<br />
Consultant: Anthony Gilles<br />
THE CHURCHILL CENTER, contd.<br />
INVESTMENT COMMITTEE<br />
John M. Mather, Douglas S. Russell,<br />
Parker H. Lee, III<br />
ONLINE COMMITTEE<br />
Homepage: www.winstonchurchill.org<br />
Listserv: <strong>Winston</strong>@vm.marist.edu<br />
John Plumpton, Editor, Savrola@ican.net<br />
Moderator: Jonah.Triebwasser@marist.edu<br />
Books and FH: Malakand@aol.com<br />
Associate: Beverly Carr, bcarr@interlog.com<br />
Assistant: Ian Langworth Catrap32@aol.com<br />
CHURCHILL STORES<br />
(Back Issues and Sales Dept.)<br />
Gail Greenly<br />
PO Box 96, Contoocook NH 03229<br />
Tel. (603) 746-3452 Fax (603) 746-6963<br />
E-mail: greengail@aol.com<br />
INTERNATIONAL CHURCHILL SOCIETY<br />
HONORARY MEMBERS<br />
The Lady Soames, DBE<br />
The Duke of Marlborough, JP, DL<br />
The Rt Hon the Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, FRS<br />
The Hon. Caspar W. Weinberger, GBE<br />
William Manchester • Colin L. Powell, KCB<br />
Wendy Russell Reves • Paul H. Robinson, Jr.<br />
<strong>Winston</strong> S. <strong>Churchill</strong> • Sir Martin Gilbert, CBE<br />
Grace Hamblin, OBE • Robert Hardy, CBE<br />
James C. Humes • Yousuf Karsh, OC<br />
Anthony Montague Browne, CBE, DFC<br />
COUNCIL OF CHURCHILL SOCIETIES<br />
The Rt. Hon. Jonathan Aitken, Chairman<br />
45 Great Peter Street<br />
London SW1P 3LT, England<br />
ICS AUSTRALIA<br />
Subscriptions and renewals: Robin Linke,<br />
181 Jersey Street, Wembley, WA 6014<br />
ACT Representative: David Widdowson<br />
167 Chuculba Crescent, Giralang, ACT 2617<br />
ICS CANADA<br />
Revenue Canada No. 0732701-21-13<br />
Ambassador Kenneth W. Taylor,<br />
Honorary Chairman<br />
Garnet R. Barber, President<br />
4 Snowshoe Cres., Thornhill, Ont. L3T 4M6<br />
Tel. (905) 881-8550<br />
ICS Canada, continued<br />
John G. Plumpton, Executive Secretary<br />
130 Collingsbrook Blvd,<br />
Agincourt ON M1W 1M7<br />
Tel. (416) 497-5349 Fax. (416) 395-4587<br />
E-mail: Savrola@ican.net<br />
Jeanette Webber, Membership Secretary<br />
3256 Rymal Road, Mississauga ON L4Y 3P1<br />
Tel. (905) 279-5169<br />
Bill Milligan, Treasurer<br />
54 Sir Galahad Place, Markham ON L3P w<br />
Tel. (905) 294-09523<br />
The Other Club of Ontario<br />
Bernard Webber, President<br />
3256 Rymal Rd., Mississauga, Ont. L4Y 3C1<br />
Leslie A. Strike, President<br />
701-1565 Esquimalt Av.,<br />
W.Vancouver BC V7V 1R4<br />
ICS UNITED KINGDOM'<br />
Charity Registered in England No. 800030<br />
David Boler, Chairman (through 6Jul97)<br />
PO Box 244, Tunbridge Wells, KentS 0YF<br />
Tel. and Fax. (01892) 518171 " C1INJOYF<br />
UK TRUSTEES<br />
The Hon. Nicholas Soames MP (Ch^m ^<br />
TheDukeofMarlboroughjyDL<br />
Bo.er Richard C. G. J ^ ^<br />
COMMITTEE<br />
Lt Col. Nigel Knocker; Dominic Waltersothers<br />
to be appointed at AGM, 6 July!<br />
f"miTEDslATEsTmc~<br />
A non-profit corporation, IRS No. 02-0365444<br />
Ambassador Paul R Robinson Jr<br />
Chairman, Board of Trustees '<br />
George A. Lewis, Treasurer<br />
°ad, Westfield NJ 07090<br />
5, Fax. (908) 518-9439
CONTENTS<br />
£••<<br />
Summer 1997<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong><br />
Journal of The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center and Societies Number 95<br />
5 <strong>Churchill</strong> Center Associates Programme Launched<br />
Endowment Campaign Hits $460,000<br />
Lady Soames authorizes the naming of three levels of<br />
Associates; Canada and UK represented on Board.<br />
8 Founding Members of The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center<br />
From Wendy Reves, the first to express faith in us, to<br />
the hundreds who joined her: our grateful thanks.<br />
compiled by Barbara F. Langworth & Parker H. Lee, III<br />
17 The 1997 Manard E. Pont Seminar:<br />
A Triumph for the <strong>Churchill</strong> Center<br />
Sixteen American and Canadian students assembled<br />
with faculty to discuss "Thought and Action in the Life<br />
of <strong>Winston</strong> S. <strong>Churchill</strong>." The result: brand new<br />
insights into My Early Life and Thoughts and Adventures<br />
20 The <strong>Churchill</strong> Portraits of Alfred Egerton Cooper<br />
One of Sir <strong>Winston</strong>'s most prolific portrayers, Cooper<br />
succeeded where many failed: WSC liked all his works.<br />
by Jeanette Hanisee Gabriel<br />
26 From the Canon: The Maiden Speech, Bath, 1897<br />
Young <strong>Winston</strong> envisioned profit sharing, long before<br />
it was widespread.<br />
by <strong>Winston</strong> S. <strong>Churchill</strong>, Aged 22<br />
28 <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong> and the Litigious Lord<br />
How Lord Alfred Douglas libeled <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>,<br />
lived to regret it, and survived to repent it; and<br />
How <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong> was Magnanimous in Victory<br />
by Michael T. McMenamin<br />
BOOKS, ARTS & CURIOSITIES:<br />
38 There are at least twenty-seven <strong>Churchill</strong> portraits<br />
on "display," sort of, notes Douglas Hall, though it<br />
might take a Cabinet Minister to get to see some of<br />
them....There's a good book out on <strong>Churchill</strong>ian leadership,<br />
says The Editor....The <strong>Churchill</strong>-Conover<br />
Correspondence has novel virtues, thinks Chris<br />
Bell....Barbara Langworth interprets Georgina<br />
Landemare's Recipes From No. 10 for modem kitchens<br />
equipped with Cuisinarts....Cyberspace <strong>Churchill</strong>ians<br />
debate who really were Honorary American<br />
Citizens....Cecil King's memoirs, With Malice Toward<br />
None, are never dull....You won't believe the latest<br />
computerland breakthrough, says Woods Corner.<br />
41 <strong>Churchill</strong>iana<br />
Commemoratives Calendar, Part 5:1951-64<br />
A relatively lean time for bric-a-brac: the quiet period<br />
before the flood of memorabilia to come.<br />
by Douglas }. Hall<br />
4 Amid These Storms<br />
5 <strong>Churchill</strong> Center Report<br />
11 International Datelines<br />
14 Local & National Events<br />
16 Riddles, Mysteries, Enigmas<br />
25 Despatch Box<br />
36 Action This Day<br />
43 <strong>Churchill</strong> Online<br />
44 Woods Corner<br />
45 <strong>Churchill</strong>trivia<br />
46 Immortal Words<br />
47 Ampersand<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> in Stamps resumes in FH 96.<br />
y.<br />
ERRATUM<br />
Fastidious readers will notice that the Cooper work study<br />
on the cover of this issue (Finest Hour #95) has been printed in reverse.<br />
Our apologies to our readers, the author, and Mr. Peter C. Cooper.<br />
The Editor<br />
Cover: Found in a Chelsea bookshop loft,<br />
Alfred Egerton Cooper's 1947 work study for<br />
a finished portrait of <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong> at<br />
Chartwell set Jeanette Gabriel on a quest for<br />
information about the artist. This led to her<br />
research on one of the most prolific<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>ian artists, a dapper painter whose<br />
work was invariably appreciated by its greatest<br />
sitter. A <strong>Churchill</strong> contemporary, "Fred"<br />
Cooper died at the same age as WSC, with<br />
much the same outlook: "Do not tell them<br />
how old I am....They might not give me any<br />
more commissions." Story on page 20.
AMID THESE STORMS<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong><br />
ISSN 0882-3715<br />
Barbara F. Langworth, Publisher<br />
Richard M Langworth, Editor<br />
Post Office Box 385<br />
Hopkinton, New Hampshire<br />
03229 USA Tel. (603) 746-4433<br />
E-mail: Malakand@aol.com<br />
Senior Editors<br />
John G. Plumpton<br />
130 Collingsbrook Blvd.<br />
Agincourt, Ontario<br />
M1W1M7 Canada<br />
E-mail: Savrola@ican.net<br />
Ron Cynewulf Robbins<br />
198 St. Charles St.<br />
Victoria, BC, V8S 3M7 Canada<br />
News Editor<br />
John Frost<br />
8 Monks Ave, New Bamet,<br />
Herts. EN5 1D8 England<br />
Features Editor<br />
Douglas J. Hall<br />
183A Somerby Hill, Grantham<br />
Lines. NG31 7HA England<br />
Editorial Assistant<br />
Gail Greenly<br />
Contributors<br />
Sir Martin Gilbert, United Kingdom<br />
George Richard, Australia<br />
Stanley E. Smith, United States<br />
James W. Muller, United States<br />
David Boler, United Kingdom<br />
Wm. John Shepherd, United States<br />
Curt Zoller, United States<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> is published quarterly for<br />
The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center and the International<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Societies, which offer several levels<br />
of support in their respective currencies.<br />
Membership applications and changes of<br />
address should be sent to the appropriate<br />
national offices on page 2. Permission to<br />
mail at non-profit rates in the USA granted<br />
by the US Postal Service, Concord, NH,<br />
Permit no. 1524. Copyright 1997. All rights<br />
reserved. Designed and produced for The<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Center by Dragonwyck Publishing<br />
Inc. Production by New England Foil<br />
Stamping Inc. Printed by Reprographics Inc.<br />
Made in U.S.A.<br />
WASHED up for reading matter in February, I read Eminent <strong>Churchill</strong>ians<br />
by Andrew Roberts, which /"//panned back in issue 85. I concluded that<br />
there is more to recommend it than I had imagined. The author is<br />
biased—who isn't—but not so much anti-<strong>Churchill</strong> as anti-Tory-establishment. His<br />
book records the Royal Family's devotion to Appeasement, to the point of meddling<br />
in areas where they did not belong, and their aversion to <strong>Churchill</strong> in 1940;<br />
Mountbatten's long skein of failures, culminating in the disastrous result when he<br />
arbitrarily selected a premature date for Britain's exit from India; the postwar Tories<br />
who continued the economic damage that Labour had commenced in 1945; Arthur<br />
Bryant's decade of testimonials to Nazism before his overnight conversion to an<br />
English patriot; Walter Monckton's deals to placate the unions during <strong>Churchill</strong>'s second<br />
premiership. Roberts's claim is that mistakes were made by people who have<br />
tended to be beyond reproach. I will unsay none of the things our observant reviewer<br />
said: Eminent <strong>Churchill</strong>ians has many typos and a frustrating number of footnotes<br />
that read "private information." I did find it thoughtfully devastating of several icons<br />
If <strong>Churchill</strong> can suffer revision, why not George VI? So few people today are willing<br />
to call a spade a spade. Roberts at least has the courage of his convictions.<br />
* A recent issue of the American TV Guide "cheered" <strong>Churchill</strong> for his supposed<br />
retort to Lady Astor about drinking poison if she were his wife. Evidently this line<br />
was used in the sitcoms "Home Improvement" and "Fraser" on NBC and ABC<br />
respectively. It received a lot of laughs on the former but fell flat on the latter, as duly<br />
reported via our E-mail listserver (<strong>Winston</strong>@vm.marist.edu).<br />
We should not be surprised that indicators of the popular taste like "F<br />
and "Home Improvement" fall for such canards. After all, the popular media have<br />
variously conjectured that <strong>Churchill</strong> arranged to sink the Lusitania, engineered the<br />
1929 Wall Street Crash, kept secret his prior knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack,<br />
murdered Sikorski, offered peace to Mussolini, sacked the British Empire, laid the '<br />
groundwork for the Red Chinese revolution, and rescued Martin Bormann from the<br />
Berlin Bunker to set him up as a Sussex squire. And he did all this in between reeling<br />
off one-liners to Nancy Astor. What a man—er, person!<br />
* Members of ICS United States will be interested to know that a consolidation<br />
plan has been adopted by its directors, and those of The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center that will<br />
see ICS/USA consolidated into the Center in 1998. No changes in any of'the programs<br />
of either organization will occur, but present "Friends of ICS/USA" will<br />
become "Members of the <strong>Churchill</strong> Center." The word "members" was deemed much<br />
more appropriate and suitable, since everbody uses it anyway. The changes will have<br />
no effect on the <strong>Churchill</strong> Societies in Canada, the UK or Australia, which will be<br />
esteemed affiliates or The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center (see opposite).<br />
This consolidation will reap many advantages by combining two parallel<br />
administrative and managerial structures, yielding considerable savings in operating<br />
costs and time spent by volunteers and staff. In fact, many improvements have<br />
t7n y iS beginning t0 C ° nduCt P revious ^tions of<br />
ICS/USA such as academic events, seminars and publications. The final step in the<br />
process will be the consolidation of budgets, financial statements and transfer of<br />
assets, followed, finally, by the opening of the Center's office in Washington D C<br />
The celebration of all these accomplishments will occur at the l 5 th International"<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Conference at Williamsburg, Virginia on 5-8 November 1998 Please save<br />
that date and plan on being there with us. "<br />
RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center: S ummer 1997<br />
The mission of the <strong>Churchill</strong> Center is to encourage international study of the life and thought of Sir <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>; to foster<br />
research about his speeches, writings and deeds; to advance knowledge of his example as a statesman; and by programmes of<br />
teaching and publishing, to impart that learning to men, women and young people around the world. Programmes include<br />
course development, symposia, standard and electronic libraries, CD-rom research, an annual <strong>Churchill</strong> Lecture, visiting professorships,<br />
seminars, publishing subventions, fellowships, and publications.<br />
»<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Center Associates Programme Launched<br />
Endowment Campaign Hits $460,000<br />
THE <strong>Churchill</strong> Center Associates Programme, which<br />
will build the <strong>Churchill</strong> Center, is now in place.<br />
Fifteen Associates joined in the first three weeks, including,<br />
to date, eight of the <strong>Churchill</strong> Center Governors.<br />
Together with major contributions by ICS/USA and the<br />
Center itself, Associates have pledged $460,000, which<br />
will build to a seven-figure endowment and create—at<br />
long last—our dream.<br />
The Associates programme is designed<br />
expressly for members of ICS who wish to be<br />
part of this exciting project. Over the next<br />
year, many ICS members who have expressed<br />
interest in supporting the Center in the past<br />
will be contacted by members of the Board of<br />
Governors or Development Committee.<br />
They will be able to view our new video, narrated<br />
by Gregory Peck, along with relevant<br />
printed materials. If you wish to do this but are<br />
unsure whether you are on the list, please contact the<br />
Center's Executive Director, Parker Lee. A toll-free number<br />
has been established for this and any other questions<br />
involving the Associates programme: (888) WSC-1874.<br />
Success breeds success. A strong commitment from<br />
our Associates will allow principals of the Center to<br />
approach high-level donors of named,gifts, and foundations,<br />
with the backing of hundreds of <strong>Churchill</strong>ians. A<br />
successful Associate campaign is the key to achieving the<br />
high-level support necessary fully to endow the Center. If<br />
we ever needed you, we need you now!<br />
THE ASSOCIATES PROGRAMME<br />
Our Patron, Lady Soames, has authorized the naming<br />
of three Associates levels. All Associates will have their<br />
names engraved on a plaque in the reception room of the<br />
Center, to commemorate their faith and generosity:<br />
• Mary Soames Associates. (Gifts of $10,000 to<br />
$24,999). Their names will appear at the Center, as<br />
described above.<br />
• Clementine <strong>Churchill</strong> Associates. (Gifts of $25,000 to<br />
C.C. BROCHURE<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95 / 5<br />
$49,999). Their names will appear at the Center and on<br />
all publications of the Center, forever.<br />
• <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong> Associates. (Gifts of $50,000 and<br />
up; from the $100,000 level up are many named gift<br />
opportunities, including a large variety of programmes;<br />
the library, conference room and other rooms; and the<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Center building itself.) Their names will<br />
appear at the Center, on all publications of the Center,<br />
and on the programmes of all events sponsored<br />
by the Center, forever.<br />
Associates are already pledged at all<br />
three of these levels, including one<br />
Clementine <strong>Churchill</strong> and five <strong>Winston</strong><br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Associates. ICS members who generously<br />
responded to the 1997 Annual Report<br />
with gifts of cash will be pleased to know that<br />
100% of their contribution, some $8,000, has<br />
been transferred to the Endowment<br />
Campaign, and may be credited against the cost of their<br />
Associateships.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Center Associates may remit their chosen<br />
amount in self-determined installments over four years,<br />
and it is possible, now and in the future, to move to a<br />
higher level through an additional gift. Those pledging<br />
more than $10,000 may defer any amount over $10,000<br />
through a bequest or later gift. For example, one may<br />
become a <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong> Associate with a gift of<br />
$10,000 in the 1997-2000 period, and a bequest of<br />
$40,000, substantiated in a memorandum of understanding,<br />
and a copy of the applicable bequest. Associate<br />
names may include the name of a spouse.<br />
The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center is a registered non-profit institution<br />
in the United States and contributions to the<br />
Endowment Fund are 100% tax deductible. Canadians<br />
may contribute at similar tax-deductibility through the<br />
International <strong>Churchill</strong> Society, Canada, which is handling<br />
the Canadian Endowment Campaign. The person<br />
in charge is John Plumpton, Executive Secretary of ICS,<br />
Canada (address on page 2). continued >»
METHODS OF GIVING<br />
Aside from outright gifts, there are methods in place<br />
to ease payment by completing it in installments, the installments<br />
set by yourself, through 31 December 2000.<br />
You may also become a <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong> or a Clementine<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Associate now by pledging $10,000 or<br />
more spread over the next four years and the balance in a<br />
future gift or bequest. This has the advantage of raising<br />
you to the upper levels immediately, assuring you of all<br />
the commemorations those benefactors receive.<br />
A method of giving which surprisingly few people<br />
consider is appreciated securities. For American citizens,<br />
the full current value of appreciated securities is tax-deductible,<br />
whereas, if sold outright, sellers would be subject<br />
to high capital gains taxes on the appreciated amount.<br />
The Center can provide information on its account and<br />
broker, to which appreciated securities can be transferred<br />
directly for an immediate tax deduction.<br />
We have on retainer a planned giving consultant who<br />
can advise you on other, truly brilliant alternatives, such<br />
as the charitable remainder trust. By donating, say, a piece<br />
of property to the Center, a couple or single person may<br />
receive an annuity for life, leave the property's full value to<br />
their heirs, and that same value to the Center. This in effect<br />
doubles your legacy, free of federal tax: a remarkable opportunity<br />
that should appeal to many.<br />
"WE SHAPE OUR HOUSES, AND AFTERWARD<br />
OUR HOUSES SHAPE US. " -WSC<br />
WHAT YOUR SUPPORT MEANS:<br />
NOW AND FIFTY YEARS FROM NOW<br />
The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center's goal is aggressively to project<br />
<strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>'s thought, word and deed deep into<br />
the next millennium. You can share in Sir <strong>Winston</strong>'s immortality<br />
by helping to provide the wherewithal to make<br />
these activities continue as far as the eye can see.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> said of the House of Commons: "We shape<br />
our houses, and afterward our houses shape us." That<br />
same philosophy governs The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center: an institution<br />
that, fifty years on, will still be doing the things it<br />
is doing today.<br />
A question many donors put to us is: "How do you<br />
mean to assure me that ten or twenty or fifty years from<br />
now, The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center won't have become just another<br />
wishy-washy academic establishment, paying no<br />
more than lip service to its titular hero, dispensing grants<br />
and benefits to a constituency which cares and knows little<br />
about <strong>Churchill</strong>?" Given the number of institutions<br />
founded in someone's name, now doing things that<br />
would never have their namesake's blessing, this is a legitimate<br />
question.<br />
The answer in The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center's case is twofold:<br />
1) By having the right people in charge, and 2) By having<br />
the right programs in place.<br />
• Having the right people in charge: "Time, the churl, is<br />
running." Changes in personnel are inevitable and,<br />
frankly, desirable. New people will always have to be<br />
found "to keep the memory green and the record accurate,*<br />
in our Patron's words. Thus The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center<br />
has a very clear and firmly fixed understanding of what<br />
we are and do, and what we aren't and don't do—together<br />
with a fierce resistance to being budged from it. The key<br />
personnel provision is that the Board of Governors—the<br />
sole management authority—chooses its own. The people<br />
now in charge will choose their successors, in installments<br />
of three Governors annually, ad infinitum. Each Governor<br />
serves for a three-year term, and three terms end each<br />
year. There are also term limits: twelve years maximum.<br />
The Board of Governors is solely entrusted with choosing<br />
new Governors to fill new terms. (And we have had a lot<br />
of past experience to guide us.)<br />
• Having the right programmes in pla.rp- Specific programmes<br />
have often been outlined in these pages, and are<br />
set out in detail in The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center brochure that is<br />
now available. In supporting documents for these activities,<br />
our plans and purposes are being drafted as guidance<br />
for the years ahead. Academic symposia must be built<br />
around some aspect of <strong>Churchill</strong>'s career or thought. Student<br />
seminars must discuss <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong> not<br />
something that somebody believes might have interested<br />
him were he alive today. Publications and publishing<br />
grants must relate to our namesake, and serve to further<br />
interest in his life and thought.<br />
In choosing like-minded collaborators on these and<br />
other programmes, many of whom we will welcome, we<br />
rorge a tight circle around our fundamental purposes and<br />
direction, so that we aren't pushed off course by current<br />
feshions-or personal ambitions—at variance with the<br />
Center s purpose. We welcome critics as well as champions<br />
of <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>. What we don't welcome are<br />
deviations from our course.<br />
If we think of the ways that the foundations set up by<br />
many prominent persons have, insensibly but dramatically<br />
departed from the purposes expected by their<br />
rounders, we must admit that this problem is not imaginary<br />
The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center chooses to address this problem<br />
directly now, while those who have launched this institution<br />
are still here, still active, still situated and still<br />
committed.<br />
We have often listed things that The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center<br />
can usefully do. We say equally what it is for, and why w<<br />
we<br />
want to do those various things. The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center is<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/6
not founded out of hero-worship. It exists because <strong>Winston</strong><br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> stands for something. He exemplifies certain<br />
critical human possibilities that are always worth<br />
bringing to the attention of thoughtful people, in order<br />
to perpetuate what <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong> held dear: respect<br />
of country; the fraternal relationship of the Great Democracies<br />
and the English-speaking peoples; their common<br />
heritage of law, language and literature; and above all the<br />
love of liberty. All of these are summed up in his words,<br />
"Withhold no sacrifice. Grudge no toil. Seek no sordid<br />
gain. Fear no foe. All will be well."<br />
These guiding principals ensure that the Founders<br />
have done as much as is humanly possible to see that<br />
what we launch lasts.<br />
Canada and UK Representatives to<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Center Board of Governors<br />
The Executive Committee of The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center,<br />
meeting in Boston last May, moved to invite representatives<br />
of the International <strong>Churchill</strong> Societies of Canada<br />
and the United Kingdom to attend the annual Board of<br />
Governors meeting, scheduled this year for Washington.<br />
The persons appointed are left to the Societies, and are<br />
additional to citizens of either country (such as John<br />
Plumpton) who may actually be serving as Governors already.<br />
In this way, two key affiliates of The <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
Center will continually be kept informed, and be able to<br />
contribute to, decisionmaking at the highest level. I<br />
THE CHURCHILL CALENDAR<br />
Local event organizers are welcome to send entries for this calendar; owing to our quarterly schedule, however, we need copy at least three months in advance<br />
1997<br />
6 July: Annual General Meeting of ICS United Kingdom, Chartwell, Westerham, Kent.<br />
26 July: Centenary of <strong>Churchill</strong>'s Maiden Political Speech, American Museum, Claverton Down, Bath, Somerset.<br />
27-28 August: Combined meeting of <strong>Churchill</strong> Center Board of Governors and Development Committee, Washington, D.C.<br />
28 August: Launch of the book <strong>Churchill</strong> as Peacemaker, (papers from the first <strong>Churchill</strong> Center Symposium), Washington.<br />
29 August: <strong>Churchill</strong> Panel at the American Political Science Association Convention, Washington.<br />
September: Inauguration of the course, "<strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>: The Making of a War Leader,"Edinburgh University, Scotland.<br />
16-19 October: 14th International <strong>Churchill</strong> Conference, hosted by ICS, Canada at Toronto and Niagara Falls, Ontario.<br />
1 November: Annual General Meeting of The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center Board of Governors, Army & Navy Club, Washington, D.C.<br />
30 November: Sir <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>'s 123rd Birthday Anniversary.<br />
1998<br />
1-2 May: Executive Committee meeting of The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center, Chapel Hill, North Carolina<br />
15-16 May: Third <strong>Churchill</strong> Center Symposium, "<strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>'s Life of Marlborough," Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire.<br />
15-27 May: Ninth International <strong>Churchill</strong> Tour: Blenheim, Lake District, Edinburgh, Scottish Lowlands, Yorkshire.<br />
15 June: International <strong>Churchill</strong> Society Thirtieth Anniversary (founded at Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, 1968).<br />
5-8 November: 15th International <strong>Churchill</strong> Conference & First Annual <strong>Churchill</strong> Lecture, Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.<br />
1999<br />
August: "<strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>'s Escape Into Fame," Tenth International <strong>Churchill</strong> Tour: Republic of South Africa.<br />
Spring: Second Student Symposium<br />
Autumn: 16th International <strong>Churchill</strong> Conference.<br />
2000<br />
Spring: Fourth <strong>Churchill</strong> Symposium '. 14-17 September: 17th International <strong>Churchill</strong> Conference, Anchorage, Alaska.<br />
2001<br />
14 February: Centenary of <strong>Churchill</strong>'s Entry into Parliament Autumn: 18th International <strong>Churchill</strong> Conference.<br />
2003<br />
Twentieth International <strong>Churchill</strong> Conference and 50th Anniversary of the Bermuda Conference, Hamilton, Bermuda<br />
Forthcoming Books Produced with the Aid of The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center<br />
August 1997: <strong>Churchill</strong> as Peacemaker: Papers from the First <strong>Churchill</strong> Center Symposium (Cambridge Univ. Press)<br />
Autumn 1997: <strong>Churchill</strong> Proceedings, 1994-1995.<br />
1998: <strong>Churchill</strong>'s "Sinews of Peace": Papers from the 50th Anniversary Sinews of Peace Conference, Fulton, Mo.<br />
1998: Connoisseur's Guide to the Books of Sir <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>, by Richard M. Langworth (Brasseys UK Ltd.)<br />
1998: <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong> in the Postwar Years. Papers from the Second <strong>Churchill</strong> Symposium.<br />
1999: The River War Centenary Edition (the 1899 unabridged edition, the 1902 additions and a critical appraisal).<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95 / 7
Founding Memhers of The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center<br />
From Wendy Reves, tke first to express faitk in us ty underwriting<br />
tke <strong>Churchill</strong> War Papers, to tke kundreds wko joined ker to found tke<br />
Ckurckill Center: our grateful tkanks.We are forever in your debt.<br />
"... We in it shall be remember 'd; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.<br />
And gentlemen in England now a-bed<br />
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,<br />
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin 's Day. "<br />
-Henry V, Act 4, Scene 3<br />
' I 'he origins of The <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
_L Center can be traced to our<br />
Founding Members. It is they<br />
who put up Si00, or the equivalent,<br />
or more—some $8000 in<br />
all—which covered the cost of<br />
developing the Associates<br />
Programme now launched. We<br />
honor them for the commitment<br />
we share, that <strong>Winston</strong> Spencer<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s thought, word and<br />
deed shall never be forgotten by<br />
those who come after us.<br />
$1.000 plus<br />
M. Emery Reves &<br />
Mme. Wendy Reves, France<br />
Fred Farrow, USA<br />
Amb. Pamela Harriman, USA<br />
John F. Hawkridge, II, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Richard Leahy, USA<br />
Ethel Maisler Pont, USA<br />
Robert M. Sprinkle, USA<br />
Aequus Institute, USA<br />
The Edelman Foundation, USA<br />
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, USA<br />
Philip Morris Companies, USA<br />
$101-$999<br />
In Memory of Walter Percy<br />
Abott, England<br />
Larry P. Arnn, USA<br />
Randy & Solveig Barber, Canada<br />
Marquis Henri Costa de<br />
Beauregard, Austria<br />
Herbert Peter Benn, USA<br />
In Memory of James &C<br />
Lavina Bonine, USA<br />
Leslie Bradshaw, Erie<br />
Mr & Mrs C.C. Brown, England<br />
Harry Fisher, England<br />
The Rt. Hon. Sir <strong>Winston</strong><br />
Spencer <strong>Churchill</strong> Society<br />
(Calgary), Canada<br />
In Memory of Dan Clark, USA<br />
Brendan J. Conkling, USA<br />
Peter Coombs, England<br />
Major J. A. Dure, Canada<br />
Thomas Faesi, Switzerland<br />
J. C. Fleury, France<br />
In Memory of Donald Logan<br />
Forbes, CBE, FCA, JP, England<br />
Harry R. Freer, Canada<br />
Mr & Mrs Anthony Gilles, USA<br />
Dr R. W. Gillmann, USA<br />
M. Pierre Godec & Mme. Marie<br />
Godec, England<br />
MrTeddR. Haas, USA<br />
The Rt. Hon. The Earl Jellicoe, -<br />
KBE, DSO, MC, FRS, England<br />
Eric R. Jones, MBE, Wales<br />
L. J. Jouhki, Finland<br />
Mr & Mrs Gerald Drake<br />
Kambestad, USA<br />
Dr G. Donald Kettyls & Mrs<br />
Barbara Kettyls, Canada<br />
D. Barry Kirkham, QC, Canada<br />
Diana M. Kropinska, Canada<br />
In Memory of Richard A.<br />
Lavine, USA<br />
Dr C.J. Maats & Mrs H. C.<br />
Maats-Holm, Netherlands<br />
Dr/Mrs A. MacDonald, Canada<br />
Drs. John & Susan Mather, USA<br />
T. W. McGarry &<br />
Marlane McGarry, USA<br />
Dr Forrest C. Mischler, USA<br />
Dr A. Wendell Musser, USA<br />
Marvin S. Nicely, USA<br />
John W. Parke, USA<br />
Robert G. Peters, Canada<br />
John & Ruth Plumpton, Canada<br />
M. & Mme. Christian<br />
Pol-Roger, France<br />
Ueli Prager, England<br />
Mr & Mrs R.W.J. Price, England<br />
Ambassador & Mrs Paul H.<br />
Robinson, Jr., USA<br />
Serge Roger, Canada<br />
Frederick S. Rutledge & Jane A.<br />
Rutledge, USA<br />
In Memory of Patrick James<br />
Schneider, USA<br />
Dr J. Stewart Scott, Scotland<br />
Mr Claude Sere & Mrs Yoshino<br />
Sere, England<br />
Jack Shinneman, USA<br />
L.Neal Smith, Jr., USA<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/8<br />
Mr &C Mrs Donald L.<br />
Stephens, Jr., USA<br />
Roger John Thomas, England<br />
George Touzenis, France<br />
Peter J. Travers, USA<br />
William G. Underhill, USA<br />
Lodewijk J. Hijmans Van den<br />
Bergh, England<br />
Bernard & Jeanette<br />
Webber, Canada<br />
Mr & Mrs Geoffrey J.<br />
Wheeler, England<br />
In Memory of Ralph Follett<br />
Wigram, USA<br />
Mr Si Mrs William E.R.<br />
Williams, Canada<br />
Mr &c Mrs Kenneth J.<br />
Yule, Canada<br />
Mr&Mrs Richard Zimbert, USA<br />
$100<br />
George W. Abel, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Thomas Abert, USA<br />
Mr &c Mrs Conrad<br />
Abrahams-Curiel, England<br />
Ronald D. Abramson, USA<br />
William B. Achbach, USA<br />
Mr &: Mrs Christopher<br />
Adams, USA<br />
Sam F. Adams, USA<br />
Sharon Agee, USA<br />
Ian A. Aitchison, USA<br />
Jonathan Aitken, England<br />
Timothy L. Alexson, USA<br />
Professor Paul Alkon, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Karl W.<br />
Almquist, USA<br />
Miles Alperstein, Anne Alperstein<br />
& Zaccary Alperstein, Canada<br />
Mr & Mrs Joseph C.<br />
Amaturo, USA<br />
Dr Arnold E. Andersen, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Charles<br />
Anderson, Canada<br />
George D. Anderson, Canada<br />
The Annenberg Foundation.USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Richard D.<br />
Applegate, USA<br />
Randall Abbott Baker, USA<br />
Scott A. Balthaser, USA<br />
Dr Richard N. Baney, USA<br />
Mary Stuart Barnhart, USA<br />
Major & Mrs J. W. Frank<br />
Battershill, Canada<br />
Danforth Beal, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Wm. E. Beatty, USA<br />
Brant Scott Beaudway, USA<br />
Stephen Allen Becker, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Robert W.<br />
Beckman, USA<br />
James B. Bennett, USA<br />
Rev. Msgr. William Benwell.USA<br />
Dr Michael A. Berk, USA<br />
Donald A. Best, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs David Randolph<br />
Billingsley, USA<br />
Eric & Hilda Bingham, England<br />
Mr & Mrs Ronald W.<br />
Birmingham, USA<br />
Stephen F. & Anne M.<br />
Black, USA<br />
L. J. Blackwell, England<br />
Gordon Bloor, England<br />
Charles K. Bobrinskoy, USA<br />
Mary Anne Bobrinskoy, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Robert E.<br />
Boen, Jr., USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Bruce Bogstad, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Henry Bohm, USA<br />
David & Diane Boler, England<br />
Charles S. Price, Esq., USA<br />
Bruce F. Bond, USA<br />
Daniel &c Susan Borinsky, USA<br />
Dorothy M. Boyden, USA<br />
Arthur Bray, Canada<br />
Mr & Mrs Herman L.<br />
Breitkopf, USA<br />
Dr & Mrs John M. Briggs, USA<br />
Alec W. Brindle, USA<br />
Thomas E. Brinkman, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Ronald Broida, USA<br />
Captain Thomas P. Brooks, USA<br />
David B. Brooks, USA<br />
J. Mayo Brown, USA<br />
Andrew Brown, USA<br />
John S. Bunton, USA<br />
Dr & Mrs James W.<br />
Burkson, USA
Graham J. Butler, England<br />
Hon. Harry F. Byrd, Jr., USA<br />
Mike Byrne, USA<br />
Dr & Mrs Douglas Cairns, USA<br />
Thomas M. Campbell, USA<br />
Robert S. Campbell, Jr., USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Arnold Carter, USA<br />
Robert T. Castrey, USA<br />
John R. Chace, USA<br />
In Memory of Jeffrey<br />
Van Vleet, USA<br />
Mr/Mrs W. Chapman, England<br />
Harry Chapman, Jr., USA<br />
Dr Yong-Min Chi, USA<br />
Colonel & Mrs Forrest S.<br />
Chilton, USA<br />
George E. Christian, USA<br />
Dr John William <strong>Churchill</strong>, USA<br />
<strong>Winston</strong> S. <strong>Churchill</strong>, England<br />
Captain &C Mrs <strong>Winston</strong> G.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>, USCG, USA<br />
Lt. Col.John P. Chutter, Canada<br />
Dr Michael W. Clare, USA<br />
Colin D. Clark, USA<br />
Norman & Irene Clark, Canada<br />
Michael & Nancy Close, USA<br />
Colonel &C Mrs Robert Coe, USA<br />
Dr & Mrs Gordon Cohen, USA<br />
Michael G. Comas, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Brock Comegys.USA<br />
Michael D. Connole, Australia<br />
John D. Connolly, USA<br />
Alistair Cooke, USA<br />
Dr & Mrs Chester Cooper, USA<br />
G. R. Cooper, England<br />
Charles C. Cornelio, USA<br />
Elliott H. Costas, USA<br />
Martin & Ruth Cousineau, USA<br />
John Cox, USA<br />
John J. Crabbe, USA<br />
Norman D. Crandles Canada<br />
Henry E. Crooks, England<br />
Dr Philip T. Crotty, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Fenton S.<br />
Cunningham, III, USA<br />
Brig. General Dick Danby (Ret),<br />
OBE, DSO, CD, Canada<br />
Roy &; Janet Daniels, England<br />
D. George Davis, USA<br />
Gregory Davis, USA<br />
G. Kevin Davis, USA<br />
Dr Alan H. DeCherney, USA<br />
Evelyn deMille, Canada<br />
David Devine, FCA, Canada<br />
James Doane, USA<br />
Steven A. Draime, USA<br />
Ken Dreyer, USA<br />
Mr/Mrs David Druckman, USA<br />
Richard A. C. Du Vivier,England<br />
Hon. Stephen M. Duncan, USA<br />
Robert H. Dunn, USA<br />
Alan Durban, England<br />
William N. Durkin, USA<br />
Donald Easton, Canada<br />
Richard Eaton, England<br />
Michael V. Eckman, USA<br />
In Memory of John Galbraith<br />
Edison, Canada<br />
Tom Edwards, USA<br />
Mr/Mrs Simon Eedle, Singapore<br />
Timothy C. Egan, USA<br />
David W. Eisenlohr, USA<br />
D. C. Elks, USA<br />
Mr & MrsTony Ellard, England<br />
Warrick E. Elrod, Jr., USA<br />
Kirk & Elizabeth Emmert, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs John S. Evans, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs William Evans, USA<br />
In Memory of Mr William D.<br />
Faulhaber,Jr.,USA<br />
Mr & Mrs C. Fenemore, Canada<br />
Dr Ronald A. Ferguson, USA<br />
DrJohnA. Ferriss, USA<br />
Dr Edwin J. Feulner, Jr., USA<br />
In Memory of Don Lipsett, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Wm. S. Field, USA<br />
Dr Joseph J. Fins, USA<br />
Richard L. Fisher, USA<br />
Edward W. Fitzgerald, USA<br />
James R. Fitzpatrick, USA<br />
Tranum Fitzpatrick, USA<br />
Dr & Mrs J. Will Fleming, USA<br />
Edward R. Flenz, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Matthew C. Fox, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs J.A. Houghton, England<br />
Jane Fraser, USA<br />
Dr & Mrs Alfred Fratzke, USA<br />
Lars E. Frieberg, England<br />
David Fromkin, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Angelo J. Gabriel, USA<br />
John R. Garner, USA<br />
Dr Patrick J. Garrity, USA<br />
Richard Arthur Gaunt, England<br />
Walter J. Gavenda, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Laurence Geller, USA<br />
George A. Gerber, USA<br />
John L. Gibson, USA<br />
Sir Martin Gilbert,CBE, England<br />
Robert S. Gillan, Canada<br />
Roger M. Gold, USA<br />
Dr Russell Golkow, USA<br />
Jay S. Goodgold, USA<br />
Norman & Evelyn Gordon, USA<br />
Dr & Mrs Nicholas Gotten, USA<br />
Michael J. Gough, Canada<br />
Mr & Mrs John E. Grant, USA<br />
David Grant, Canada<br />
Derek John Greenwell, England<br />
B. J. Greenwood, USA<br />
James Hill Gressette, USA<br />
Frauke Grundel, Germany<br />
Andrew J. Guilford, USA<br />
Marie B. Haas, USA<br />
Matthew Walsh Haggman, USA<br />
Alfred W. Hahn, USA<br />
Douglas J. Hall, England<br />
H. Robert Hamilton, USA<br />
David A. Handley, USA<br />
Sidney & Marilyn Hanish, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Warren Hanscom, USA<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/9<br />
Frederick C. Hardman, USA<br />
David E. Harlton, Canada<br />
Dr Christopher C. Harmon.USA<br />
The Keepers & Governors of<br />
Harrow School, England<br />
Stuart B. Hartzell, USA<br />
Caroline R. Hartzler, USA<br />
John E. Harvey, CBE, England<br />
Dr & Mrs William Hatcher, USA<br />
John T. Hay, USA<br />
Drs Lonnie & Karen Hayter.USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Richard Hazlett, USA<br />
Duvall Y. Hecht, USA<br />
Sue M. Hefner, USA<br />
Anthony B. Helfet, USA<br />
Ron & Jean Helgemo, USA<br />
Mark Helprin, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs J. D. Henry, USA<br />
Dr & Mrs John Herring, USA<br />
Robert J. Hewitt, Jr., USA<br />
Dr John R. Hewson, Canada<br />
James L. Hill, USA<br />
Douglas Hilland, QC, Canada<br />
C. Paul Hilliard, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Thomas Hirsch.USA<br />
Dr & Mrs Brooks Hoffman, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Oscar Hofstetter, USA<br />
Derek Hollingsworth, Australia<br />
Mr & Mrs Stephen Holstad, USA<br />
Jon C. Holtzman, USA<br />
Robert Randall Hopper, USA<br />
D. Craig Horn, USA<br />
Joseph O. Horney, USA<br />
Dr Lee S. Hornstein, USA<br />
Glenn Horowitz, USA<br />
Daniel R. Hughes, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Nathan Hughes, USA<br />
James C. Humes, USA<br />
Van Garlington Hunt, USA<br />
Robert R. Hunt, USA<br />
J. Jeffrey Hutter, Sr., USA<br />
Intl. <strong>Churchill</strong> Society, Canada<br />
Intl. <strong>Churchill</strong> Society, UK<br />
Intl. <strong>Churchill</strong> Society, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs K. Ikeya, Japan<br />
Mr & Mrs Gilbert H. lies, USA<br />
William C. Ives, USA<br />
Geo. M. Ivey, Jr., USA<br />
Dorothy Jackson, BEM &<br />
Dennis Jackson, OBE, England<br />
Dr Harry V. Jaffa, USA<br />
Wm. & Beatrice Jennings, USA<br />
David A. Jodice, USA<br />
Dr Tom M. Johnson, USA<br />
J.Willis Johnson, USA<br />
John R. Johnson, USA<br />
Mr &c Mrs Corbett Johnson and<br />
Drew Johnson, USA<br />
Donald R. Johnson, USA<br />
Allan W. Johnson, USA<br />
Peter Johnson, England<br />
Derek Lukin Johnston, Canada<br />
Dorothy Jones, England<br />
Johnie Jones, USA<br />
Dr Russell M.Jones, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Joseph Just, USA<br />
Alexander Justice, USA<br />
Dr Thomas R. Kain, USA<br />
Raymond H. Kann, USA<br />
Dr William J. Kay, USA<br />
Dr Yvonne F. Kaye, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs John H. Keck, USA<br />
Senator Tim Kelly, USA<br />
The Hon. Jack Kemp, USA<br />
S. J. Kernaghan Family, Canada<br />
David H. Keyston, USA<br />
Dr & Mrs David King, Canada<br />
Charles Graham King, Canada<br />
Dr Henry A. Kissinger, USA<br />
Hersch M. Klaff, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Max Kleinman, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Richard Knight, USA<br />
John Michael Kops, USA<br />
Robert Kraff, USA<br />
George Kropinski, Canada<br />
Allan Kruse Nielsen, Denmark<br />
Mr & Mrs Hollis Lane, Canada<br />
Mr & Mrs R. Langworth, USA<br />
In Memory of Harriet and<br />
Michael Langworth, USA<br />
Eugene Larson, USA<br />
"Raymond A. Lavine, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Robin Lawson, USA<br />
Paul S. Leavenworth, Jr., USA<br />
C. A. Lebsanft, Australia<br />
Mr & Mrs Parker Lee, III, USA<br />
Terrence & Mary Leveck, USA<br />
Dave Levering, USA<br />
Laurence B. Levine, USA<br />
Victor B. Levit, USA<br />
George A. Lewis, USA<br />
Morgan Lewis, USA<br />
Ulf Lindeborg, Sweden<br />
Dr & Mrs Roy Lindseth, Canada<br />
Walter P. Linne, USA<br />
Andrew L. Lluberes, USA<br />
Amb. John L. Loeb, Jr., USA<br />
Mr & Mrs J. Wm. Lovelace, USA<br />
Richard S. Lowry, USA<br />
Mr & Mrs Jas. Lukaszewski, USA<br />
Gerard P. Lynch, USA<br />
Philip J. Lyons, USA<br />
George Macintosh, QC, Canada<br />
Sir Fitzroy Maclean of<br />
Dunconnel KT, Scotland<br />
J. Alexander MacMurtrie, USA<br />
Tamara Madai, USA<br />
Gordon Maggs, QPM, England<br />
Mr & Mrs Rafe Mair, Canada<br />
William Manchester, USA<br />
Dorothee Ryfun Senich, USA<br />
Count & Countess Guagni Dei<br />
Marcovaldi, England<br />
Mr & Mrs John J. Marek, USA<br />
Mark Edward Marhefka, USA<br />
The Duke of Marlborough,<br />
England<br />
David Marriott, England<br />
In Memory of Mr George C.<br />
Marrs, Canada
Richard said that in 1969!" (As WSC<br />
remarked, "I have often had to eat my<br />
words, and have found them a wholesome<br />
diet.") John aims to index every<br />
issue from #1 to #100. The Index will be<br />
published with special commemorative<br />
issue #100, appearing for the <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
Conference in Williamsburg, Virginia in<br />
November 1998.<br />
MAJOR SUCCESS AT BLETCHLEY<br />
BLETCHLEY PARK, BUCKS.— Over 1300<br />
schoolchildren have toured Jack Darrah's<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Rooms Exhibition at<br />
Bletchley Park (featured in FH 85 and<br />
91) in the last six months alone—a titanic<br />
contribution by Jack and his wife Rita<br />
toward "keeping the memory green<br />
and the record accurate"—for as visitors<br />
to the Exhibition know, Jack is a<br />
stickler for accuracy. This is a great<br />
effort and Jack is to be congratulated for<br />
this outstanding educational endeavor.<br />
To help support the <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
Rooms fund, readers are invited to purchase<br />
a special edition designer tea<br />
towel, shown here with Rita Darrah<br />
and ICS/UK and <strong>Churchill</strong> Center<br />
Trustee Celia Sandys, with her son<br />
Alexander. Designed by Rita and her<br />
granddaughter Clare, the 30xl9-inch<br />
Rita Darrah, Celia Sandys and her son<br />
Alexander with the Bletchley tea towel.<br />
100% cotton tea towel is English-made,<br />
and printed with a view of the Mansion<br />
and <strong>Churchill</strong>'s famous tribute, "...My<br />
geese that laid the golden eggs but<br />
never cackled." Aside from its practical<br />
uses, the tea towel makes a wonderful<br />
display item. Order several!<br />
Cost including airmail postage<br />
worldwide is £6 per towel provided<br />
payment is made by sterling cheque or<br />
International Money Order. This is the<br />
way to go, because payment in US dollars<br />
has to be $25 per towel to cover the<br />
INTERNATIONAL DATELINES<br />
(shocking) conversion charges. Cheques<br />
and IMOs should be made payable to<br />
J.E. Darrah and should be sent to 9<br />
Cubbington Close, Luton, Bedfordshire<br />
LU33XJ, England. -DRH<br />
THATCHER ARCHIVES GIFT<br />
LONDON, MARCH 18TH— Baroness Thatcher<br />
announced today that she is permanently<br />
loaning her personal and political<br />
archives to <strong>Churchill</strong> College Cambridge,<br />
allowing scholars to study the<br />
longest premiership of the 20th century.<br />
More than 1000 boxes of documents,<br />
videos, photographs and personal<br />
effects will be handed over for safekeeping<br />
in the college strongrooms,<br />
where they will join the archive of Lady<br />
Thatcher's hero, Sir <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>.<br />
Lady Thatcher said that she wanted her<br />
papers always to remain in Britain: "I<br />
hope they will be a valuable source for<br />
students and scholars who wish to<br />
study the great changes brought about<br />
by the governments that I had the privilege<br />
to lead."<br />
OPJB: TRUTH OR FICTION?<br />
TORONTO, JUNE 12TH— Norman Crandles<br />
of ICS, Canada, wrote to us of a new<br />
spy book, Op JB: The Lost Great Secret of<br />
the Second World War, by "Christopher<br />
Creighton," allegedly a personal spy<br />
recruited by <strong>Churchill</strong> (codename "Tigger")<br />
to perform extraordinary top<br />
secret missions assigned directly by the<br />
Prime Minister. Op JB was described in<br />
some quarters as factual, and Mr. Crandles<br />
wonders if anyone has read it and<br />
can comment?<br />
In Finest Hour #48 (1985), we<br />
reviewed The Paladin by Brian Garfield<br />
(Macmillan:1980), a supposed novel<br />
starring "Christopher Creighton," who<br />
hops a Kentish garden wall and finds<br />
himself face to face with <strong>Churchill</strong>, who<br />
recruits him as a master spy. At a tender<br />
age Christopher unmasks the Belgian<br />
plan to surrender in 1940, sabotages<br />
a Dutch ship bringing news of the<br />
Japanese fleet headed for Pearl Harbor<br />
(thus to get the Americans into the<br />
war), murders his girlfriend to prevent<br />
her from spilling the beans, blows up<br />
secret U-boat pens in Eire, and tricks<br />
the Germans into expecting the D-Day<br />
invasion at Calais. The stories make for<br />
an entertaining yarn. Garfield tantalizes<br />
readers by saying, "The hero is a real<br />
person. He is now in his late fifties. His<br />
name is not Christopher Creighton."<br />
It seems more than coincidental<br />
that "Christopher Creighton" has now<br />
surfaced to recount the war's "last great<br />
secret." We sent this information to the<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> internet community, suggesting<br />
that Op JB and its "author" are<br />
products of the imaginative Brian<br />
Garfield, author of The Paladin. Professor<br />
David Stafford of Edinburgh University,<br />
author of the forthcoming (and<br />
factual) <strong>Churchill</strong> and the Secret Service<br />
(due in October from John Murray Publishers,<br />
London), replied as follows:<br />
"I felt obliged at least to glance at<br />
this book, despite extreme skepticism<br />
induced by media-hype. When, on the<br />
first page, my eye fell on an egregious<br />
factual error that even a cursory reading<br />
of Martin Gilbert's short biography<br />
would have prevented (I now forget<br />
what), I decided it was pure fiction.<br />
Nothing that I have read or heard of<br />
since persuades me otherwise, and<br />
your comments reinforce this. <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
did on one occasion employ a personal<br />
secret agent behind the back of 'C/ the<br />
head of the Secret Intelligence Service.<br />
But this was before the First World<br />
War, when he was still young, impetuous,<br />
and unschooled in the ways of the<br />
secret service. More details can be<br />
found in my book!"<br />
Readers may query Professor<br />
Stafford personally at the International<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Conference in Toronto this<br />
October, where he is one of the participating<br />
faculty.<br />
CHURCHILL GRAVE TRUST<br />
LONDON, JULY 23RD— Mr. <strong>Winston</strong><br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> has founded a Trust, Charity<br />
Registration no. 1049202, whose object<br />
is to refurbish and maintain the<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Graves at Bladon, which have<br />
become run down over the years and<br />
are urgently in need of improvement.<br />
The Trustees are the Duke of Marlborough,<br />
Lady Soames, Rev. Humphreys<br />
(Rector of Bladon and Woodstock) and<br />
Mr. <strong>Churchill</strong> (chairman).<br />
Some five years ago Peregrine<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> (WSC's nephew) and <strong>Winston</strong><br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> commissioned a >»»<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/12
INTERNATIONAL DATELINES<br />
Grave Trust, continued...<br />
distinguished architect, William<br />
Bertram, who has done work for the<br />
Prince of Wales and the Prince's Trust,<br />
to draw up a plan to deal with the twin<br />
problems at Bladon: an enormous volume<br />
of visitors (two or three coach- »<br />
loads at a time is common), and the<br />
fact that the graves, situated on a slope,<br />
are slowly but perceptibly sliding<br />
downhill.<br />
The provisional estimate of cost is<br />
$500,000, of which Mr. <strong>Churchill</strong> hopes<br />
to provide a significant amount.<br />
All Friends of Sir <strong>Winston</strong> who<br />
wish to donate to this cause are most<br />
welcome to do so. The editor will be<br />
pleased to send a copy of the plans and<br />
problem analysis to anyone in North<br />
America who wishes to review them;<br />
elsewhere (and, if you prefer in North<br />
America), please contact Mr. <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
at 4 Belgrave Square, London SW1X<br />
8PH, tel. (0171) 245-9534. 8<br />
ICS United Kingdom Report<br />
by David Boler, Outgoing Chairman (1994-1997)<br />
The Annual General Meeting of the<br />
International <strong>Churchill</strong> Society,<br />
United Kingdom, occurred at Chartwell<br />
July 6th; the results will be reported in<br />
the next issue of Finest Hour.<br />
The past twelve months were dominated<br />
by the International Conference<br />
which the UK Society had the honour<br />
and privilege of hosting in October<br />
1996. I am delighted that this was the<br />
largest and most successful Conference<br />
ever held by the Society on this side of<br />
the Atlantic and I am extremely grateful<br />
to all those who gave so generously of<br />
their time and, more importantly,<br />
expended so much energy and hard<br />
work, to ensure ICS UK a major triumph.<br />
It was pleasing to see so many<br />
UK Friends at the various events.<br />
I have reached the end of my three<br />
year term as Chairman, which has been<br />
enormous fun and involved a steep<br />
learning curve in all aspects of the Society's<br />
affairs! I have found that the<br />
increasing workload, including ever<br />
more foreign travel for Lloyd's, is such<br />
that I cannot give the time and effort<br />
that the Society deserves or expects,<br />
and therefore I am standing down to<br />
allow others to take the Society forward<br />
into the next millennium.<br />
In this regard, Nigel Knocker, who<br />
was coopted onto the Committee earlier<br />
this year, has very kindly allowed his<br />
name to be considered for the position<br />
-©3<br />
David Boler<br />
presents the<br />
ICS Blenheim<br />
Award to<br />
Miss Grace<br />
Hamblinfor<br />
her years of<br />
service to the<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>s<br />
and as Chartwell's<br />
first<br />
Administrator,<br />
April.<br />
of Honorary Chairman by the new<br />
Committee. Nigel has the support and<br />
warm wishes of both the Trustees and<br />
members of the <strong>Churchill</strong> family for<br />
offering his services in this way.<br />
Dominic Walters, son of Celia Sandys<br />
and great grandson of Sir <strong>Winston</strong><br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>, was also coopted onto the<br />
Committee during the year, and both of<br />
them are being formally elected to the<br />
Committee at this AGM. I am sure all of<br />
you welcome this commitment by<br />
Dominic, as a member of the <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
family, to our Society. Anyone who is<br />
interested in serving on the new Committee<br />
is most welcome to apply. I must<br />
stress that the Committee will have<br />
much hard work to do and I urge only<br />
those prepared to offer a lot of time and<br />
energy to consider serving.<br />
I was honoured to be asked by the<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/13<br />
Trustees at their May meeting to serve<br />
as a Trustee of the Society, and I am<br />
delighted to accept this responsibility.<br />
The Society faces a paradox in<br />
financial terms: on the one hand the<br />
doubling of cost of Finest Hour over the<br />
last three years, against a static basic<br />
subscription of £20 for individual membership,<br />
has now resulted in an annual<br />
loss of some £2,000 on the Society's<br />
ordinary income and expenditure. The<br />
good news is that the surplus generated<br />
by the various major events we have<br />
held in the last three years, notably the<br />
V.E. Day Dinner and 1996 Conference,<br />
has more then compensated for this.<br />
However, despite reserves now<br />
totalling several thousand pounds, the<br />
Society must not rely on profits of<br />
events such as these to survive, and we<br />
must have a subscription charge that<br />
covers annual expenditure leaving surplus<br />
from functions to be distributed<br />
for charitable and other purposes. Consequently<br />
as a matter of urgency the<br />
July 6th meeting considered an increase<br />
of £10 in the annual subscription. (This<br />
writing June 20th).<br />
Also retiring from the Committee<br />
are Mark Weber, Dennis Jackson, and<br />
Vice Chairman Wylma Wayne. Wylma<br />
has been indefatigable in her devotion<br />
to ICS and we are all eternally grateful<br />
to her for her work on the V.E. Day<br />
Dinner and the Blenheim Banquet for<br />
last year's Conference. My thanks to all<br />
those who have served on the Committee<br />
with me over the last three years.<br />
I cannot conclude my remarks<br />
without giving heartfelt thanks to Joan<br />
Harris for her wonderful work as Secretary<br />
to ICS. She is the focal point for all<br />
members in their dealings with the<br />
Society, and has worked way above<br />
and beyond the call of duty on many<br />
occasions, notably during the Conference,<br />
when, despite suffering a broken<br />
ankle, she continued organising events<br />
and, as many of us saw, attended the<br />
Conference on crutches, whilst in<br />
severe pain. Joan deserves all our<br />
thanks.<br />
I also pay tribute to my wife Diane<br />
and to my family who so often allowed<br />
me to put ICS before them.<br />
CONTINUED OVERLEAF >»
INTERNATIONAL DATELINES<br />
Local and National Events<br />
TORONTO<br />
Randy Barber with speaker Hugh Segal.<br />
JANUARY 29TH— The Other Club of<br />
Ontario held its annual Tribute Dinner<br />
at the Albany Club, welcoming Albany<br />
Club members in recognition of their<br />
interest in the International <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
Conference next October. The result: an<br />
exciting event for 167 people, the largest<br />
so far in the Other Club's history.<br />
Club President Bernie Webber<br />
"emceed" an interesting program featuring<br />
a tribute to <strong>Churchill</strong>'s memory<br />
by Other Club member Bill Williams<br />
and a fond look at Sir <strong>Winston</strong>'s continuing<br />
relevance by guest speaker Hugh<br />
Segal, former chief of staff to Canadian<br />
Prime Minister Mulroney and advisor<br />
to former Ontario Premier William<br />
Davis. ICS Canada President Randy<br />
Barber introduced Mr. Segal who, after<br />
a knowledgeable address as one of<br />
Canada's foremost political affairs commentators,<br />
was thanked by Other Club<br />
member Henry Rodrigues. Randy also<br />
outlined plans for the conference,<br />
announcing that Mr. Segal will be one<br />
of the featured speakers. This drew an<br />
enthusiastic response from the gathering<br />
and the evening was a fine kickoff<br />
to the Conference Year. -Bernie Webber<br />
To liand as we go to press are a series<br />
of summer dinner proposals from The Other<br />
Club, no fewer than four of them, all<br />
intriguing: "A Picnic en Provence," as<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> might Ixave enjoyed on a painting<br />
trip in King City; a "<strong>Churchill</strong>ian Dinner"<br />
hosted by the Watts and Weatheralls in<br />
Rosedale; a 1930s Patriotic Dinner in<br />
Brampton; and a "Sail Around the Harbour"<br />
from the RCYC city station. Tlie cost<br />
for each event is C$75, of which $50 is a<br />
charitable deduction to support the educational<br />
work of ICS, Canada. We are anxious<br />
to know the outcome of these fascinating<br />
proposals and wish we could attend each.<br />
Toronto area members should contact<br />
Bernie Webber (address on page 2).<br />
DALLAS<br />
FEBRUARY 16TH— A sherry reception at<br />
the home of Mr. & Mrs. David Willette<br />
preceded a lecture by Dr. Dorothy<br />
Rushing to North Texas <strong>Churchill</strong>ians.<br />
Her discussion, "A Great American Citizen,"<br />
highlighted the many American<br />
influences on <strong>Churchill</strong>'s early life and<br />
light-hearted anecdotes about his<br />
encounters with America. Dr. Rushing,<br />
an award winning history instructor at<br />
Dallas Community College, compared<br />
some of <strong>Churchill</strong>'s characteristics with<br />
those of Washington, Jefferson, Edison<br />
and other prominent Americans. Following<br />
the presentation, the group<br />
enjoyed high tea with cucumber sandwiches,<br />
scones and trifle. The speaker is<br />
shown third from right with other<br />
members of the Dallas support group.<br />
Dr. Dorothy Rushing (3rd from right)<br />
with members. Dallas <strong>Churchill</strong>ians meet<br />
regularly. For details contact Nathan<br />
Hughes, 1117 Shadyglen Circle, Richardson<br />
TX 75081, tel (972) 235-3208.<br />
OHIO<br />
MAY nth— Northern Ohio <strong>Churchill</strong>ians<br />
met this evening to discuss the new<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Center publication, The<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>-Conover Correspondence (see<br />
book review this issue). These letters<br />
were a gift to The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center<br />
from the estate of my law firm's client,<br />
David Conover. While the entire correspondence<br />
and accompanying photographs<br />
have indeed been turned over<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/14<br />
ERRATA, Finest Hour 94:<br />
Page 7: Contrary to our statement,<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> was still only 22<br />
when he delivered his maiden political<br />
speech, turning 23 in November.<br />
Thanks to Fred Hardman.<br />
Page 47: The answer to trivia<br />
question #747 states that <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
was knocked down by a New York<br />
taxi in December 1931. According, to<br />
the official biography, Volume 5,<br />
page 421 footnote, <strong>Churchill</strong> was hit<br />
by a private motorcar, not a taxi.<br />
Thanks to Nick Gotten.<br />
to The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center, I maintained<br />
photocopies of all the materials and had<br />
reproductions made of the photographs.<br />
These were all on display,<br />
and I gave a brief background on how<br />
the archive came to the attention of our<br />
firm, the appraisal process, and our<br />
decision to bequeath it to ICS, and ultimately<br />
to The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center, as the<br />
best way to carry out our client's wishes.<br />
We also have a discussion of topics<br />
for presentation at forthcoming meetings.<br />
-Michael McMenamin<br />
Northern Ohio events are frequent.<br />
Anyone in the area interested in the latest<br />
plans should contact Michael McMenamin<br />
at 1300 Terminal Tower, Cleveland OH<br />
44113, telephone (216) 781-1212 (days).<br />
NEW ENGLAND<br />
MAY 19TH- A handsome sum of $2,985<br />
was donated to The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center<br />
Endowment Fund today by Dr. Cyril<br />
Mazansky. This represents proceeds on<br />
events held by New England Friends of<br />
ICS over the past three years. The<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Center is deeply grateful to<br />
Dr. Mazansky and all the friends of the<br />
Center and Society in New England.<br />
EDINBURGH<br />
SEPTEMBER- "<strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>: The<br />
Making of a War Leader" is the new<br />
course being offered for Msc. students<br />
at the Centre for Second World War<br />
Studies, University of Edinburgh. The<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Center has promulgated two<br />
scholarships for American or Canadian<br />
students registering for this course,<br />
which will be taught by Drs. Paul Addison<br />
and David Stafford, both closely<br />
associated with the <strong>Churchill</strong> Center<br />
and Societies. continued opposite >»
"In spite of <strong>Churchill</strong>'s enduring<br />
fame/' states the course description,<br />
"few University courses have ever<br />
sought to analyse the nature of his<br />
achievement and his strengths and<br />
weaknesses as a war leader. This course<br />
will provide a unique opportunity for<br />
an intensive study of his war leadership,<br />
set in the context of his life and<br />
career as a whole. Extensive use will be<br />
made of primary sources and students<br />
will have access to all the primary<br />
printed materials on <strong>Churchill</strong>'s life.<br />
"The first term will be devoted to<br />
studying <strong>Churchill</strong>'s character and multifarious<br />
career from his birth in 1874 to<br />
his appointment as Prime Minister in<br />
May 1940. The second term will focus<br />
on his conduct of the war as grand<br />
strategist, military leader, diplomatist,<br />
Prime Minister and historian, along<br />
with the myth, controversy and debate<br />
that have sprung up in the wake of this<br />
period. In the third term, students will<br />
begin a dissertation on an aspect of<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s career of their own choice<br />
relevant to the main themes of the<br />
course." The reading list includes<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s war memoirs and wellknown<br />
works by Addison, Charmley,<br />
Gilbert, Rhodes James and Rose.<br />
For an application to this course<br />
and consideration for <strong>Churchill</strong> Center<br />
scholarships, please contact Mrs. Kate<br />
Marshall, Postgraduate Admissions,<br />
University of Edinburgh, Faculty of<br />
Arts Office, David Hume Tower,<br />
George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JK,<br />
telephone (0131) 650-3578.<br />
VANCOUVER<br />
The Rt. Hon. Sir <strong>Winston</strong> S. <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
Society of British Columbia's essay contest,<br />
which stemmed from an earlier<br />
Scholarship Foundation and student<br />
debates programme, has been in place<br />
since 1993, when it replaced the previous<br />
debating competitions. The contest<br />
is open to British Columbia university<br />
undergraduates taking coursesJn History,<br />
International Relations or Political<br />
Science. Although essays on any important<br />
topic of contemporary political relevance<br />
are eligible, preference is given<br />
to essays related to <strong>Churchill</strong>'s life and<br />
times or essays on issues with which he<br />
INTERNATIONAL DATELINES<br />
was especially concerned.<br />
Stanley Winfield of the BC Society<br />
has sent Finest Hour a copy of the 1996<br />
winning essay, "The Diary of Felix Bartmann,"<br />
by Lucy Harrison, a 31-year-old<br />
history major at Langara College in<br />
Vancouver. Her account is historical fiction,<br />
based on research and interviews<br />
with her mother, who was a Kindertransport<br />
child, evacuated to England<br />
from Vienna in 1938. Comprehensively<br />
researched and footnoted, the essay in<br />
part consists of diary entries, and<br />
describes the situation of an Austrian<br />
Jewish family in Vienna from the time<br />
of the Anschluss (13 March 1938) until<br />
the end of that year, when the children<br />
arrived via Kindertransport in England.<br />
"100,000 children from Austria, Germany<br />
and Czechoslovakia wanted to<br />
leave via Kindertransport," Ms. Harrison<br />
footnotes. "Only 10,000 children<br />
actually arrived in Britain between<br />
December of 1938 and August of 1939,<br />
while this service was in operation."<br />
Finest Hour will make copies available<br />
to anyone who would like to peruse<br />
this fine essay.<br />
LONDON<br />
CALL 1-800-WINSTON<br />
MARCH 12TH— Here's a hopeful sign that<br />
children are not entirely forgetting the<br />
Man of the Century: "One 2 One," a<br />
mobile phone company, ran a national<br />
poll asking who people would most<br />
like to have a mobile phone conversation<br />
with. The top three choices were<br />
Richard Branson (Chairman, Virgin<br />
Airways), Nelson Mandela and <strong>Winston</strong><br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>. Not bad! (At the bottom<br />
of the list were Oasis's Liam Gallagher,<br />
just under Pamela Anderson.)<br />
HASTINGS SALE NETS £50,000<br />
LONDON, JUNE 6TH— Christie's sale of the<br />
Robert Hastings <strong>Churchill</strong>iana collection<br />
netted the <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
Foundation £50,000, according to our<br />
good friend, WCF President Ambassador<br />
John Loeb, Jr. Bob Hastings,<br />
inveterate collector in Pasadena, California,<br />
willed the proceeds of the sale to<br />
the Foundation, which provides scholarships<br />
for <strong>Churchill</strong> College Cambridge.<br />
We are very pleased that Bob's<br />
fine collection went to a good cause.<br />
ABSENT FRIENDS<br />
DICKDANBY<br />
VANCOUVER, APRIL 1ST- I am sorry to<br />
report the death of a dear friend of the<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Societies, Brigadier General<br />
(Ret.) Ernest Deighton Danby, DSO,<br />
OBE, CD, aged 81.1 told his wife Jean<br />
that I was letting Finest Hour know, and<br />
she spoke warmly of the <strong>Churchill</strong> Tour<br />
we all shared, and Dick's moving tribute<br />
to Sir Fitzroy Maclean (ICS Proceedings<br />
for 1987, p. 31). I know little of<br />
Dick's army career; he rarely spoke of<br />
himself. I do know he was awarded his<br />
DSO during the Italian Campaign, in<br />
the fighting for the Hitler Line. He was<br />
wounded at this time but returned to<br />
the war in Northern Europe. A service<br />
of celebration of his life was held at<br />
West Vancouver United Church. Their<br />
many friends may like to write Jean<br />
Danby at 1007 - 195 21st Street, West<br />
Vancouver, BC, Canada V7V 4A4. We<br />
are the poorer for his loss. -Don Kettyls<br />
JACKFISHMAN<br />
LONDON, APRIL<br />
23RD— Jack Fishman,<br />
the famous<br />
journalist friend of<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>s and<br />
author of My Darling<br />
Clementine (the<br />
first CSC biography,<br />
on best-seller lists for a year) has<br />
died aged 76. Fishman wrote many<br />
best-sellers and popular songs; he also<br />
had a hand in the exposure of Kim Philby<br />
as a Soviet spy. For his Men of Spandau<br />
(1954), he was threatened with<br />
imprisonment by the British Government<br />
for breaking the Official Secrets<br />
Act. He went on to write songs for thirty<br />
feature films and became music<br />
supervisor for Cannon/MGM, overseeing<br />
more than 100 feature films. In 1966<br />
he edited a posthumous <strong>Churchill</strong> work<br />
using Sir <strong>Winston</strong>'s writings on the<br />
theme, /// Lived My Life Again, Fishman<br />
was to have been honoured this year at<br />
the Cannes Film Festival for his contributions<br />
to film music. He had attended<br />
every festival since its inauguration fifty<br />
years ago. Jack Fishman married, in<br />
1944, Lillian Richman; they had two<br />
sons. -The Times<br />
M<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/15
QI am trying<br />
to find<br />
the video "The<br />
Finest Hours."<br />
Living in a<br />
rather remote<br />
part of Canada,<br />
I am having a<br />
hard time locating<br />
it.<br />
AWrite to:<br />
Electronic<br />
Publishing<br />
Corporation,<br />
Ltd., 68-70<br />
Wardour<br />
Street, London<br />
W1V3HP,<br />
England and<br />
be sure to ask them for a NTSC version.<br />
-Jonah Triebwasser<br />
OFrom Ma]. Gen. Ken Perkins in England<br />
comes a telephone request from<br />
wifeCelia, lecturing in London on her<br />
grandfather: What commercial brands of<br />
cigars and spirits did Sir <strong>Winston</strong> prefer?<br />
ACigars: a lot were specially made<br />
up for him, bearing his name on<br />
the wrapper with no brand indicated.<br />
But his favorite commercial brands<br />
were Camacho and Romeo y Julieta,<br />
both Havanas, and therefore for the<br />
time being unavailable, legally, to<br />
denizens of the USA. (Wm. F. Buckley,<br />
Jr., speaker at the ICS1995 Conference,<br />
wrote recently that he was told that the<br />
Dunhills he received from ICS were<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s favorites, earning an E-mail<br />
riposte from the editor that Dunhill's<br />
man must have been smoking something<br />
other than tobacco.)<br />
Scotch: Johnny Walker Red (Sir <strong>Winston</strong><br />
was a personal friend of Sir<br />
Alexander Walker, judging by the fine<br />
jacketed copy of Into Battle inscribed to<br />
Walker, which I have just added to my<br />
collection.) He apparently did not have<br />
any special preference for single malts.<br />
Brandy: Vintage Hine. An early<br />
Send your questions (and answers) to the Editor<br />
Riddles, Mysteries, Enigmas<br />
issue of Finest Hour recalls that a London<br />
wine merchant, sent to appraise<br />
the cellar at Chartwell, pronounced it a<br />
"shambles," the only items of value<br />
being a large supply of vintage Pol<br />
Roger Champagne (regularly topped<br />
up by shipments from Madame Odette<br />
Pol-Roger in Epernay); cases of Hine<br />
brandy; and some bottles of chardonnay<br />
which <strong>Churchill</strong> had bottled with<br />
Hillaire Belloc and which WSC forbade<br />
anyone to touch. Despite its Belloc association,<br />
the merchant pronounced the<br />
chardonnay "undrinkable"!<br />
QOffered at a recent art auction was a<br />
pencil sketch of <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
done and signed by Sarah <strong>Churchill</strong> that<br />
was entitled "Iron Curtain." I believe that<br />
tlie bottom part of the piece also had some<br />
words from that speech and was embossed<br />
with a seal. The price of the piece started at<br />
$650 and it sold to a local banker for $750.1<br />
opened the bidding and wish now that I had<br />
continued with a bid, but presumably the<br />
purdiaser would liave prevailed. Can you<br />
tell me about this artwork, what tlie "going<br />
price" elsewhere is, and where I might find<br />
another one like it? It was new to me and I<br />
found it a very attractive rendering.<br />
A Sarah<br />
•^^•<strong>Churchill</strong> published<br />
a number of<br />
intaglio sketches of<br />
her father signed by<br />
her, but apparently<br />
not all done by her,<br />
in large quarto size. The sketches also<br />
exist in a smaller format, about 8x10.<br />
The large ones, of which yours is one,<br />
often attract bids of $500, but some collectors<br />
tell us that they are not worth<br />
that much singly. The complete set is of<br />
course of considerable value. We<br />
recently were asked to appraise one of<br />
the large ones (WSC riding to hounds,<br />
c.1947). The owner attached an<br />
appraisal of $5000! We had to advise<br />
that this figure was a "terminological<br />
inexactitude." Comments from readers<br />
would be appreciated.<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/16<br />
Q<br />
l have seen a quote attributed to<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>, "History is what the winners<br />
say it is," and I am wondering when<br />
and where he said it. -Joe Just, Chicago<br />
A Our references fail to turn up that<br />
z~\.quote—can any reader help?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> certainly held that sentiment;<br />
he remarked to Ismay during the<br />
Nuremberg Trials that it was a good<br />
thing they had won, lest they be standing<br />
in the dock. He often told critics to<br />
leave the past to history, especially<br />
since he planned to write that history<br />
himself. But we suspect the line you<br />
quote is one of those bon mots that could<br />
have been said by many people.<br />
Q<br />
l am looking for information about<br />
Sir <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>'s fondness of<br />
cats. I am particularly interested in the<br />
names of his pet cats (if he ever liad any,<br />
which I understand he did) and some rescuable<br />
anecdotes.<br />
AAll we know are the conventional<br />
things, viz...that he had a particular<br />
fondness for animals, although he<br />
considered cats aloof. ("Dogs look up to<br />
you, cats look down on you, pigs look<br />
you in the eye and treat you like an<br />
equal.") His private secretary, Jock<br />
Colville, presented him with a marmalade<br />
cat which he duly named<br />
"Jock." Jock HI today lives at Chartwell.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> owned several cats. Honorary<br />
member Grace Hamblin, private<br />
secretary from 1932 and first Chartwell<br />
Administrator, told us in 1987 of an earlier<br />
pet cat which she fed and cared for.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> said, "Good morning, Cat,"<br />
but "Cat made no effort to be near him.<br />
He slashed at it with his papers and the<br />
cat ran from the house. Cat didn't<br />
return the next day or the next or the<br />
next. Finally he said, 'Do you think it's<br />
because I hit him?' Of course I said,<br />
'Yes, definitely.'" Sir <strong>Winston</strong> was contrite<br />
and made Grace put a card in the<br />
window saying, "Cat: come home, all is<br />
forgiven." Miss Hamblin continues:<br />
"Cat did come home several days later<br />
with a wire round his neck. Given<br />
cream and the best salmon and so on,<br />
he did recover, I'm glad to say." (Reference:<br />
Proceedings of the International<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Society 1987.)<br />
m
The 1997 Manard E. Pont Seminar:<br />
A Triumph for The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center<br />
Sixteen outstanding American and Canadian students assembled with faculty to<br />
discuss "Thought and Action in the Life of <strong>Winston</strong> S. <strong>Churchill</strong>." The result:<br />
brand new insights into <strong>Churchill</strong>'s My Early Life and Thoughts and Adventures<br />
WHAT stood<br />
out about the<br />
Manard Pont<br />
Seminar was the vibrant<br />
experience sixteen outstanding<br />
students<br />
derived from what was<br />
for most of them their<br />
first reading of <strong>Churchill</strong>.<br />
Said one of our professors,<br />
Paul Rahe: "I<br />
remember Adam Ake of<br />
West Point addressing<br />
questions of military<br />
strategy, and Kathryn<br />
Shea of Harvard suggesting<br />
something wonderful:<br />
that, in a sense,<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> had two families—an<br />
aristocratic family,<br />
made up of his parents,<br />
and a democratic<br />
family, in Tocqueville's<br />
sense, constituted by<br />
Nanny Everest. Daphna<br />
Renan, our only<br />
1997 Manard E. Pont Fellows. Top row: Jeffrey Metzger, Adam Ake, Scott Watson, Rohit<br />
Khanna. Third roiu: Caleb Richardson, Mahindan Kanakaratnam, Micah Schwartzman,<br />
Alicia Mosier. Second row: Jeffrey Giesea, Dark Spiers, Mark Pickup. Front row: Kathryn<br />
Shea, Julie Johnson, David Raksin, Daplma Renan. Not pictured: Kevin Wack.<br />
freshman, held her own without trouble, commenting on<br />
the theme of magnanimity as it evidences itself in My Early<br />
Life...! had fun with the animal imagery in the early part of<br />
My Early Life: horses to ride, elephants that march, a mother<br />
who is compared with a panther—all animals with a<br />
certain grandeur. And I made much of WSC's spiritedness<br />
(and of the spiritedness of the animals which he admired)."<br />
The 1997 Manard E. Pont Seminar, a project of The<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Center, was held at the Hoover Institution, Stanford<br />
University, on 18-19 April. This inaugural seminar<br />
brought together sixteen outstanding undergraduate students<br />
and six faculty members to talk about two of<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s most evergreen books. Our students, the 1997<br />
Manard E. Pont Fellows, were nominated by faculty at<br />
thirteen leading North American colleges and universities.<br />
They ranged from freshmen to graduating seniors. Each<br />
Fellow received a grant to cover books, transportation, and<br />
lodging for the seminar, as well as an honorarium of $100.<br />
Faculty members for<br />
the seminar were Paul<br />
K. Alkon, Leo S. Bing<br />
Professor of English at<br />
the University of Southern<br />
California; Mark N.<br />
Blitz, Professor of Government<br />
at Claremont<br />
McKenna College;<br />
James W. Muller, Professor<br />
of Political Science<br />
at the University<br />
of Alaska, Anchorage;<br />
Paul A. Rahe, Jay P.<br />
Walker Professor of<br />
History at the University<br />
of Tulsa; and Peter<br />
Stansky, Frances and "<br />
Charles Field Professor<br />
of History at Stanford<br />
University.<br />
TiHE <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
Center named<br />
this seminar<br />
after the late Manard<br />
E. Pont, M.D., a distinguished neurosurgeon who had an<br />
abiding interest in <strong>Churchill</strong>. It was made possible by a<br />
generous gift from his wife, Ethel M. Pont, with additional<br />
funding by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. It was one<br />
of the events recognized by the British Consulate General<br />
in San Francisco as part of their spring program, "Britain<br />
Meets the Bay."<br />
Fellows and faculty gathered on Friday, 18 April,<br />
at the Stanford Park Hotel in Menlo Park, California. After<br />
a brief orientation, they met several dozen Friends of The<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Center and the International <strong>Churchill</strong> Society at<br />
a reception, followed by an address on "<strong>Churchill</strong> the Writer"<br />
by Professor Muller, who connected Sir <strong>Winston</strong>'s long<br />
literary career to his lifelong endeavor to educate himself<br />
about politics. Fellows and faculty had a chance to talk<br />
with their benefactress Ethel Pont afterwards over dinner.<br />
Gerald A. Dorfman, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution,<br />
welcomed them as host. continued overleaf >»<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/17
Above (L-R): Ethel Pont, the lady who made it possible,<br />
toasts the memory of Sir <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>; at the Saturday<br />
banquet, Dr. Mark N. Blitz reviews the statesmanship of<br />
The Gathering Storm; Adam Ake of West Point toasts<br />
Mrs. Pont. Left; Singing Harrow Songs at the Hoover<br />
Institute. Below: Our talented organizers: <strong>Churchill</strong> Center<br />
Executive<br />
Director<br />
Parker Lee<br />
presents a gift<br />
of thanks to<br />
the Center's<br />
Academic<br />
Chairman<br />
James. W.<br />
Muller.<br />
THE seminar discussion began the next morning on<br />
Saturday 19 April, in Stauffer Auditorium at the<br />
Hoover Institution. In addition to the faculty and<br />
Fellows, about thirty observers were present for an invigorating<br />
day of thinking about <strong>Churchill</strong>. It was interesting to<br />
watch some of the best college students in America and<br />
Canada grappling with Sir <strong>Winston</strong>'s screed. When faculty<br />
members called on them by name, they remembered,<br />
quickly found, read aloud, and talked about particular passages<br />
in the books. "Now then, Mr. ," asked Professor<br />
Rahe, "what did <strong>Churchill</strong> say about horses?" With the<br />
rapidity of a Nexis survey, the student found and quoted<br />
that famous advice to fathers in My Early Life to give their<br />
sons horses, not money. It was a bravura performance<br />
which left many listeners amazed. "It was fascinating to<br />
hear <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>, about whom we all know so<br />
much, interpreted and analyzed by young people who had<br />
mostly not read his books before," said Parker Lee.<br />
Both morning sessions were devoted to My Early<br />
Life. Professor Rahe led the first session, a lively discussion<br />
of <strong>Churchill</strong>'s perspective on life in which Fellows argued<br />
over his moral education, his viewpoints on war, and his<br />
relations with his parents. After the singing of the Harrow<br />
School song "The Silver Arrow" and a break, Professor<br />
Stansky led the second session, offering his thoughts on the<br />
social and historical context of <strong>Churchill</strong>'s early years.<br />
After luncheon on the terrace and a chance to tour<br />
an exhibit of British posters organized by Professor Stansky's<br />
students, seminar participants returned to the auditorium<br />
for a presentation by Paul Rahe on "The River War:<br />
Nature's Provision, Man's Desire to Prevail, and the<br />
Prospects for Peace."<br />
THE afternoon sessions considered Thoughts and<br />
Adventures. Professor Alkon asked the Fellows<br />
about some of <strong>Churchill</strong>'s literary devices, and they<br />
argued over whether <strong>Churchill</strong> was wise to use so many<br />
counter-factual hypotheses in its writing—to ask what else<br />
would have been different if a given thing had happened<br />
otherwise. After a break, Professor Muller led the discussion<br />
of <strong>Churchill</strong>'s reflections on the threats to twentiethcentury<br />
statesmanship posed by mass democracy and<br />
modem science. The seminar ended with the singing of the<br />
Harrow School anthem "Stet Fortuna Domus," including<br />
the special verse written in honor of <strong>Churchill</strong> in December<br />
1940. Afterwards many of the Fellows enjoyed the view<br />
from the top of the Hoover Tower.<br />
The Saturday evening banquet at the Stanford<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/18
Above (L-R): Ethel Pont congratulates Daphna Renan<br />
(Harvard), who had also proved adept at air traffic control;<br />
and Mahindan Kanakaratnam (University of Toronto), who<br />
will next appear at the Toronto panel on WSC's "The<br />
Dream"; Constance Reid pays tribute to Manard Pont.<br />
Right: Lively interchange at Hoover Institute, 19 April. Left:<br />
Parker Lee<br />
presents Pol<br />
Roger to<br />
fellow<br />
organizer,<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong><br />
Center<br />
Governor<br />
Jacqueline<br />
Dean Witter.<br />
Park Hotel was a salute to Manard Pont, featuring warm<br />
reminiscences of the man by two associates, his student<br />
and associate Jeffrey B. Randall, M.D., and his teacher Constance<br />
Reid. Master of Ceremonies Parker H. Lee, III, Executive<br />
Director of the <strong>Churchill</strong> Center, thanked Ethel Pont<br />
for her generosity as benefactress of the seminar. He presented<br />
her certificate as a Founding Member of The<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Center and an Oscar Nemon <strong>Churchill</strong> bust.<br />
The after-dinner speech, "What <strong>Churchill</strong>'s Gathering<br />
Storm Teaches about Statesmanship," was delivered by<br />
Professor Blitz. Afterwards Ethel Pont presented each of<br />
the Fellows with a certificate. Adam Ake of West Point,<br />
chosen class marshall by his peers, replied by thanking her<br />
on behalf of the Fellows. Just before the Fellows withdrew<br />
for their photograph on the hotel stairs, Ethel Pont ended<br />
the formal proceedings by proposing a toast, in his favorite<br />
Pol Roger Champagne, to the memory of Sir <strong>Winston</strong>.<br />
The seminar committee—Jacqueline Dean Witter,<br />
Parker Lee, and Jim Muller (all Governors of The<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Center)—fine-tuned the seminar to perfection;<br />
the faculty launched the discussion with pointed<br />
questions; but what really brought it to life were the intelligence<br />
and high spirits of the Fellows, who warmed to<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s example as they argued over his books.<br />
In the beautiful surroundings of Stanford University<br />
and a first-class hotel, the Fellows enjoyed above all the<br />
chance to meet each other and to talk over their own plans<br />
and dreams in the shadow of the exuberant <strong>Winston</strong>. Fellows,<br />
faculty, and observers all left looking forward to the<br />
next chance to come together to talk about <strong>Churchill</strong>.<br />
One small postscript by Paul Rahe testifies to the<br />
resourcefulness of the Pont Fellows: "American<br />
Airlines kept Daphna Renan and me sitting at JFK<br />
for something like seven hours, parading us on and off the<br />
plane, retaining our tickets (which they had collected when<br />
we first boarded), and telling us repeatedly not to worry,<br />
the repair work was almost done. Finally, they confessed<br />
that they no longer had a pilot and crew to fly the plane. At<br />
that point, I headed for the main desk in the hope of finding<br />
another flight. While I did so, Daphna located a flight<br />
& talked the desk agent into letting us on it...without tickets<br />
(which we could not get back from the desk agent for<br />
our original flight). In short, my presence at the gathering<br />
was a consequence of the moxie displayed by an exceedingly<br />
capable undergraduate. You can say that I was rescued<br />
from passivity by an intrepid freshman!" ®<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/19
COVER STORY<br />
The <strong>Winston</strong><br />
<strong>Churchill</strong><br />
Portraits of<br />
Alfred Egerton Cooper<br />
One of the most prolific portrayers<br />
of Sir <strong>Winston</strong><br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>, Cooper succeeded<br />
where many others failed: the<br />
Great Man liked all his works.<br />
By Jeanette Hanisee Gabriel<br />
WHILE searching for bargain books and autographs<br />
in London two years ago, my husband<br />
and I happened upon an old Chelsea bookshop.<br />
Already we had looked up, telephoned or visited every<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>iana dealer we could find, but had bought only a<br />
signed 1901 photo. Entering the ancient premises, we<br />
asked if they had any autographs. "Maybe up on the<br />
fourth floor," the clerk replied. Following his pointing finger,<br />
we found and panted up a steep, narrow, Dickensian<br />
staircase. At the topmost level we emerged and, turning,<br />
saw hanging high above us in the stairwell an oil portrait<br />
of Sir <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong> at Chartwell, gazing at us with a<br />
sweet, pensive expression.<br />
It was the consummate serendipitous experience. Had<br />
we set out to find such a portrait we would never have<br />
looked in an out-of-the way antiquarian bookshop. Those<br />
who have encountered Destiny in her boldest garb will<br />
know what we felt: this portrait was meant for us.<br />
The proprietors knew little of the artist or the history<br />
of the work. In fact, a continuing mystery is the number<br />
"59" affixed in the upper left corner—perhaps a sale or<br />
inventory number. On the back is painted "Chartwell<br />
1947." Only after returning to the United States and scram-<br />
Ms. Gabriel is writing a book on <strong>Churchill</strong> portraits and sculpture,<br />
and would be most grateful to know of their location and owners. Please<br />
write to her at 1341 Stanford Street, Santa Monica, CA 90404 USA.<br />
bling for information did an outline emerge of the artist<br />
responsible: the prominent portraitist A. Egerton Cooper<br />
(1883-1974). We were especially fortunate to reach (via<br />
Finest Hour) the artist's son, Peter. C. Cooper, who is Director<br />
of the Grosse Pointe Art Gallery near Detroit, Michigan.<br />
The impetus behind the 1947 portrait is not known,<br />
but there is an anecdote connected to it, related by a former<br />
owner. It is said that during his first long sitting for the<br />
study, <strong>Churchill</strong>, bored with inactivity, fell to bedeviling<br />
poor Cooper. Raconteurs tend to embellish their <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
stories, and it's quite likely that the exchange went two<br />
ways, with a deal of good-natured joking, since <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
had sat for Cooper before. In fact, Cooper had painted one<br />
of the Prime Minister's favorite portraits, the famous "Profile<br />
for Victory" (cover, Finest Hour 75).<br />
Our present cover portrait is unusual in that it shows<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> at home in a familiar and informal setting: a<br />
sunny corner of Chartwell. Behind him is a large model of<br />
a ship, inventoried today as "an eighteenth or nineteenth<br />
century three-masted sailing barge" and housed in<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s Chartwell studio.<br />
Cooper's portrait is 30 by 24 inches unframed, and<br />
executed in a very loose, painterly style akin to that adopted<br />
by <strong>Churchill</strong> in his own paintings. Sir <strong>Winston</strong> was<br />
influenced by the impressionistic brushwork of Sir John<br />
Lavery and Richard Sickert; Cooper was of the same gener-<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong><strong>HOUR</strong>95/20
PAGE OPPOSITE: Cooper with the final version of the our cover portrait (OPPOSITE RIGHT), presented to the Junior Carlton Club in 1950; it hangs<br />
at the Carlton today, along with Cooper's famous "Profile for Victory" (ABOVE RIGHT), which graced the cover of Finest Hour 75. ABOVE LEFT:<br />
The final Cooper portrait, begun 1953, completed 1965, owned by Schweppes. Photos courtesy Schweppes Cadbury Ltd. and Peter C. Cooper.<br />
generation. One can see the similarity in execution of<br />
Cooper's portrait to <strong>Churchill</strong>'s own 1928 painting, "Tea at<br />
Chartwell" (Coombs #35, plO3), which portrays the Sickerts,<br />
Diana Mitford, Eddie Marsh, Diana <strong>Churchill</strong> and<br />
Clementine <strong>Churchill</strong> seated around the table with <strong>Winston</strong>).<br />
The face of <strong>Churchill</strong> looking over his shoulder at the<br />
viewer bears an uncanny resemblance to Cooper's portrait,<br />
particularly the bold planes of light on the face.<br />
Our cover portrait is actually the first version of a lifesize<br />
oil which would be created later at Egerton Cooper's<br />
studio. Being a preparatory work for a more formal painting,<br />
is called a "study," but it has all the substance and<br />
merit of a finished work of art. The final, full-scale portrait<br />
is shown in the photo opposite, loaned by Peter Cooper,<br />
with his father standing beside the completed painting.<br />
One can see that it is more technically refined and realistically<br />
detailed than the earlier study. This larger painting<br />
was completed in 1950 and given to the Junior Carlton<br />
Club, whose records, unfortunately, are not sufficient to<br />
reveal the donor. It is illustrated in Gentleman's Clubs of<br />
England, in the Club dining room, and was pictured in<br />
color on a Christmas card issued by the Club in the Fifties.<br />
The Carlton and Junior Carlton merged in 1977, and the<br />
painting now hangs at the Carlton Club building at 69 St.<br />
James's Street. Adjacent to it, on the same wall, hangs a<br />
portrait of Lord Randolph <strong>Churchill</strong>.<br />
Both Lord Randolph and his son were members of the<br />
Carlton, certainly the most famous political club of modern<br />
times. Formed in 1832 by opponents of the Reform Bill, its<br />
tables have traditionally been crowded with Members of<br />
Parliament and Cabinet Ministers. <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong> was<br />
elected to membership in 1925, after he had "re-ratted," as<br />
he put it, returning to the Tories following twenty years as<br />
a Liberal.<br />
THE Carlton Club actually has two Cooper portraits<br />
of <strong>Churchill</strong>, the second being the aforementioned<br />
"Profile for Victory." According to Cooper's son, the<br />
"Profile" was acquired through the generosity of Sir<br />
Edward Mortimer Mountain (1872-1950), Chairman of<br />
Eagle Star Insurance Company, who donated the portrait<br />
in 1948. Sir Edward was a member of the Carlton Club and<br />
the Royal Auto Club (where Cooper's portraits of the<br />
Dukes of Connaught and Kent hang), and had himself<br />
been painted by Cooper, a close friend who often joined<br />
him for salmon fishing in Scotland.<br />
Cooper's "Profile" had a curious inception. One<br />
evening in 1942, Cooper was at the Arts Club in Dover<br />
Street playing billiards with a group of members. Among<br />
these was the distinguished sculptor William Reid Dick,<br />
King's Sculptor in Ordinary for Scotland and President of<br />
the Royal Society of British Artists. Dick had done busts of<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/21
George V and the model for his memorial at Westminster<br />
after the King's death. His later subjects would include the<br />
Duke of Windsor, George VI, Queen Elizabeth The Queen<br />
Mother, Princess Elizabeth, a model for Kitchener Memorial<br />
in St. Paul's, and the statue of President Roosevelt in<br />
Grosvenor Square.<br />
In the midst of shooting billiards, Dick related that he<br />
had been commissioned to sculpt a bronze of <strong>Churchill</strong>,<br />
who had protested that he didn't have the time, but the<br />
King had prevailed upon WSC to meet the sculptor. Dick<br />
said he would soon be going to Downing Street to take<br />
preliminary measurements. Cooper became excited at this<br />
and, eager for a chance to see the great man firsthand,<br />
asked if he might accompany Dick in the capacity of an<br />
assistant. Dick agreed, the arrangements were made, and<br />
on the assigned day the two departed for Number 10.<br />
The meeting came off without a hitch. <strong>Churchill</strong> sat<br />
while Dick took his measurements and read them off to<br />
Cooper, who quickly recorded them as he rapidly sketched<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s profile. What had come to Cooper's mind was<br />
ABOVE LEFT: "Tea at Chartwell, 29 August 1927" by <strong>Churchill</strong>, 1928 (The National Trust). Seated around the table from left to right are Therese<br />
Sickert, Diana Mitford, Eddie Marsh, <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>, Frederick Lindemann, Randolph <strong>Churchill</strong>, Diana <strong>Churchill</strong>, Clementine <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
and Richard Sickert. The face of <strong>Churchill</strong> bears a resemblance to Cooper's cover study. ABOVE RIGHT: The painting now at Lloyd's (see also the<br />
article in FH 67). BELOW: Dinner at Lloyds, 1948: Clementine <strong>Churchill</strong>, Lloyd's Chairman Sir Eustace Pulbrook, WSC and Lady Pulbrook.<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/22
a series of "Profile" biographies of prominent persons in<br />
the Observer. After finishing his sketch, Cooper wrote<br />
below it, "Profile For Victory." Then, taking a calculated<br />
risk, he showed it to <strong>Churchill</strong>. After some small talk and a<br />
reasonable interval, he asked if he might paint the PM's<br />
portrait in that pose.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> grumbled and puffed, remarking that Cooper<br />
was not a sculptor and must have therefore come under<br />
false pretenses to make this request. Nonetheless he soon<br />
calmed down and must have admired the sketch, for he<br />
did indeed consent to sit for Cooper. The resulting portrait,<br />
considered by Cooper to be his finest work, was exhibited<br />
at the Royal Academy in 1943 and later published as a<br />
morale-boosting poster for the general public. The painting<br />
itself was purchased by Cooper's friend Sir Edward Mountain,<br />
who, according to Cooper's son, commissioned several<br />
signed reproductions of the painting from Cooper for<br />
"important persons in the UK and overseas."<br />
MANY eminent artists have executed portraits of<br />
<strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>, but few if any artists have<br />
painted more than A. Egerton Cooper. Like<br />
most painters of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries,<br />
little documentation is available on Cooper, but it is<br />
worthwhile from the perspective of art history to record<br />
something about this talented artist, born the same year as<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> himself.<br />
Cooper showed artistic talent early, exhibiting (for the<br />
first of forty times) at the Royal Academy at eighteen and<br />
graduating on a scholarship from London's Royal College<br />
of Art in 1911. While still a student, Cooper entered a competition<br />
for which John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) was one<br />
of the judges. Sargent was perhaps the most celebrated<br />
artist of his generation, called by Rodin "The Van Dyck of<br />
our times." Impressed by the young artist's work, Sargent<br />
voted for Cooper, who came in second. Fortuitously, Sargent<br />
asked' Cooper to work with him at his studio, the<br />
famous 31-33 Tite Street in Chelsea which had belonged to<br />
James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). Cooper spent about a<br />
year there as Sargent's assistant, doing backgrounds and<br />
details for his paintings. What the master passed along to<br />
his disciple is evident on our cover.<br />
When the Great War came, "Fred" Cooper joined the<br />
famous 28th County of London Volunteer Regiment, the<br />
Artists Rifles. At the end of the war he was made official<br />
artist to the R.A.F. He became an expert in the art and technique<br />
of large scale aerial camouflage, sketching and painting<br />
landscapes from a variety of aircraft. Some are now at<br />
London's Imperial War Museum.<br />
One of Cooper's R.A.F. friends was Dr. Barnes S. Wallis,<br />
a leading British aircraft designer after World War I,<br />
and responsible for the famous Wellington bomber. Wallis's<br />
most famous invention was the "bouncing bomb,"<br />
popularly known as the Dam Buster, which wrought<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/23<br />
havoc on German dams of the Ruhr River. A 1954 motion<br />
picture called "The Dam Busters" starred Michael Redgrave<br />
as Wallis. It was filmed at the Wallis house, where<br />
some of Cooper's paintings can be seen hanging on the<br />
walls.<br />
WHILE training Army recruits in 1917 near Romford,<br />
Essex, Cooper met his future wife. Her<br />
parents entertained local officers at their home.<br />
After getting to know the young man and learning he was<br />
an artist, his future father-in-law referred to him as 'Teter<br />
the Painter," and Cooper was "Peter" to his friends and<br />
family the rest of his life.<br />
An odd link lies behind this anecdote. One morning in<br />
early 1911, <strong>Churchill</strong>, then Home Secretary, was called<br />
dripping from his bath to the telephone and informed that<br />
a gang of anarchists were surrounded at 100 Sidney Street,<br />
Whitechapel. Their leader, apparently absent, was the infamous<br />
Peter Piaktow, aka "Peter the Painter," so-named<br />
because he, like Hitler, had once been a house painter.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> despatched the Scots Guards and, throwing on<br />
his clothes, soon arrived in person. It was a scene of intense<br />
tumult, with barrages exchanged between the rebels,<br />
Guards and police. William Manchester believes that<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s inspiration for the tank came at this moment, as<br />
he speculated whether to storm the hideout using metal<br />
shields. In the end, the house caught fire and the anarchists<br />
were incinerated. This historical drama so imprinted itself<br />
on the public mind that seven years later it inspired the<br />
nickname of Cooper, who ironically was also destined to<br />
play a role with <strong>Churchill</strong>.<br />
Cooper's career progressed and his reputation spread;<br />
he was primarily a portraitist, but also painted landscapes,<br />
coastal and harbor views, and racing scenes including the<br />
Derby and Ascot. His contact with the Royal Family came<br />
in the 1920s when an American painter friend was asked to<br />
portray George V's horses. Since he painted only horses, he<br />
asked Cooper to paint the backgrounds. On Sunday mornings,<br />
the two of them would confer with the King, who, it<br />
is said, used their meetings as a reason to avoid attending<br />
church with Queen Mary. Instead the three of them would<br />
hold a pleasant rendezvous at Buckingham Palace, leisurely<br />
drinking Black Velvets (half Guiness, half Champagne)<br />
while they discussed the work in progress!<br />
Over the course of his career Cooper painted countless<br />
notable persons, including two portraits of George VI commissioned<br />
in 1939. One depicts the King in Naval attire, the<br />
other in uniform of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. They<br />
hang respectively in the Sea Cadets Barracks and Hounslow<br />
Barracks. After his preliminary study of George VI at<br />
the Palace, Cooper worked on the portraits in his studio at<br />
27 Glebe Place, Chelsea. The King's military medals and<br />
decorations were delivered for him to copy at a time when<br />
the Blitz was in full swing, and Cooper was in a state of
nervous anxiety lest they be blown to bits, not to mention<br />
himself.<br />
Another Royal commission took place at the 1954<br />
Light Brigade Ball, a centennial celebration honoring the<br />
Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava in the Crimean<br />
War. His large canvas, entitled "The Queen and The<br />
Queen Mother at the Light Brigade Ball," depicts the Hyde<br />
Park Hotel ballroom filled with whirling figures, the<br />
Queen and Princess dancing with their partners. The<br />
Queen examined the developing painting and chatted with<br />
Cooper, who was working in white tie and tails at his easel<br />
alongside the orchestra. His son, who owns a second copy<br />
of this painting,* relates that Cooper generally looked more<br />
like a retired British Colonel than an artist, and always<br />
dressed to the nines, even in his studio.<br />
LLOYD'S of London owns the penultimate Cooper<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> portrait. <strong>Churchill</strong>'s connection with<br />
Lloyd's originates with his father-in law, Colonel<br />
Henry Montague Hozier (1838-1907), an army officer and<br />
pioneer in military intelligence. Like <strong>Churchill</strong>, Hozier was<br />
a military correspondent: he covered the Austrian-Prussian<br />
War for The Times and was a prolific writer of military history.<br />
In 1874 Hozier left the army to become Secretary of<br />
Lloyd's, a position he held for thirty-two years. One of his<br />
most significant innovations was setting up wireless stations<br />
to monitor sea traffic, a system which in 1911 put<br />
Lloyd's in touch with First Lord of the Admiralty <strong>Winston</strong><br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>. From that time, Lloyd's shipping information<br />
was routinely passed to the Admiralty, where it played a<br />
vital intelligence role during the First World War. (See also<br />
"<strong>Churchill</strong> and Lloyds" by David Boler, Finest Hour 67.)<br />
In 1944 Lloyd's elected <strong>Churchill</strong> an Honorary Member<br />
of their Society, the fifth so honored after Marconi,<br />
Admiral Beatty, Lord Haig and Admiral Sturdee. Too busy<br />
at the time to attend the ceremony, the PM later made a<br />
public appearance at Lloyd's in 1948 for a dinner in the<br />
Captains' Room. A press photo of the dinner shows Mrs.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>, Sir Eustace Pulbrook (Chairman of Lloyd's),<br />
<strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong> and Lady Pulbrook.<br />
Anticipating the approach of his eightieth birthday in<br />
1954, Lloyd's commissioned a portrait of <strong>Churchill</strong> by A. E.<br />
Cooper. It was one of several commissioned by various<br />
artists for that occasion, not all of which had happy repercussions.<br />
But of Cooper's work Lloyd's said with relief, "he<br />
actually liked it!" This portrait was again sited at<br />
Chartwell, <strong>Churchill</strong> seated tranquilly beneath an old oak,<br />
symbolic perhaps of his own evolutionary status in life.<br />
The painting hangs at the entrance to the famous company<br />
restaurant, the Captains' Room, situated below the Under-<br />
* Mr. Peter Cooper says he would like to sell this painting. Anyone<br />
interested may contact him at 36231 Grand River Ave., Apt 203,<br />
Fdrmington, Michigan 48335 USA.<br />
writing Room at Lloyd's 1 Lime Street headquarters. The<br />
Captains' Room had its beginnings in a seventeenth-century<br />
coffee house owned by Edward Lloyd, where the firm<br />
had its inception.<br />
THE final Cooper portrait of <strong>Churchill</strong>, owned by<br />
Cadbury Schweppes, is displayed in the firm's executive<br />
directors offices, which since 1992 have been at<br />
25 Berkeley Square, London. This painting was purchased<br />
by Schweppes from the artist in 1967 when the firm was at<br />
2 Connaught Place—another site with significant <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
connections.<br />
From 1883 to 1892, during <strong>Winston</strong>'s formative schooldays<br />
at Brighton and Harrow, Lord and Lady Randolph<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> lived at 2 Connaught Place. <strong>Winston</strong> was his<br />
father's epigone, pasting press cuttings and cartoons of<br />
Lord Randolph in scrapbooks. To Connaught Place <strong>Winston</strong><br />
addressed his admiring, yearning letters to his father,<br />
who in 1886 reached his political pinnacle as Chancellor of<br />
the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons, only<br />
to resign abruptly before the year was out. In 1893, expenses<br />
forced Lord, Randolph's family to sell Connaught Place<br />
and move in with the dowager Duchess of Marlborough at<br />
50 Grosvenor Square.<br />
Begun in 1953, the Schweppes portrait was set aside<br />
when <strong>Churchill</strong> suffered a stroke, and was only completed<br />
after Sir <strong>Winston</strong>'s death in 1965. <strong>Churchill</strong> here appears in<br />
stem visage, in full evening dress with decorations, seated<br />
in an armchair, the ubiquitous cigar in his left hand.<br />
There is at least one copy of the Schweppes portrait in<br />
the United States. Beginning in the 1960s, Cooper made<br />
annual excursions to the American midwest, where Carl<br />
Weinhart, Director of the Minneapolis Institute of Art<br />
(whose secretary, Gloria, was married to Cooper's son)<br />
brought him numerous clients. Robert Naegele, head of a<br />
Twin Cities advertising firm, and his wife both sat for<br />
Cooper. Being admirers of <strong>Churchill</strong>, they ordered a copy<br />
of the Schweppes portrait. The Naegeles later gave it to<br />
Lord Fletcher's Restaurant in Minnetonka, Minnesota,<br />
where it still hangs today.<br />
Like <strong>Churchill</strong>, Alfred Egerton Cooper lived a long<br />
and productive life, working until he died at age ninety.<br />
Some of his last words might equally have been appropriate<br />
to <strong>Churchill</strong>: "Do not tell them how old I am," he<br />
would say with a smile: "They might not give me any<br />
more commissions." $<br />
For kind assistance in research the author wishes to thank<br />
Mr. Peter C. Cooper, Director of the Grosse Point Art Gallery in<br />
Michigan; Mrs. Gloria Cooper; the Carlton Club; Cadbury<br />
Schweppes Ltd.; Mr. David Bolcr of Lloyd's of London; Mrs. Jean<br />
Broome; Mr. Richard Langivorth; and Mr. Alan Bell, manager of<br />
Lord Fletcher's Restaurant.<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/24
PONT<br />
SEMINAR<br />
(Letters to<br />
Parker Lee)<br />
l<br />
B*W<br />
am writing<br />
•^"^ to thank you<br />
once again for inviting me to be a Pont<br />
Fellow. As I mentioned to Professor Tarcov<br />
upon my return, the conference on<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> was simply exceptional. I left in<br />
awe of <strong>Churchill</strong>, and in some ways<br />
believe that his life will always be in the<br />
back of my mind. The best part of the conference<br />
was interacting with the students,<br />
all of whom were very impressive. In<br />
sum, I enjoyed and profited from the<br />
experience tremendously and now hold<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> as one of my heroes along with<br />
Lincoln and Gandhi.<br />
ROHTT KHANNA, CHICAGO<br />
I found the seminar fascinating and<br />
have the impression that for most of the<br />
students it was effective in awakening<br />
them to <strong>Churchill</strong>. They were certainly an<br />
impressive group: the superb people one<br />
always dreams of having but never gets in<br />
such concentrated doses in ordinary classes<br />
or even most honors sections. My chief<br />
regret is that we did not have more time<br />
for discussing the readings in greater<br />
detail, pursuing points brought up, and<br />
for talking informally. There are so many<br />
more things to say about the two books,<br />
and <strong>Churchill</strong>. I hope there will be more<br />
such seminars. [There will!]<br />
PAUL ALKON, PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH<br />
UNTV. OF SO. CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES<br />
ABSENT FRIENDS<br />
Returning to Nova Scotia I plucked<br />
issues 92 and 93 out of the pile and was<br />
deeply saddened to read of the death of<br />
your mother. Jaime and I had breakfast<br />
with her that last morning in Boston and<br />
we thought her the finest lady. She spoke<br />
so proudly of her family. As you write so<br />
movingly, words don't help—not at this<br />
time; they do later. And then H. Ashley<br />
Redburn, a gentleman of the old school,<br />
such a lovely, lovely man. My post contained<br />
a Christmas card from him which<br />
said he was delighted to have met my<br />
"charming daughter." More correctly, she<br />
had the opportunity of meeting a delightful,<br />
dedicated person. Thank goodness he<br />
received the Blenheim Award in time.<br />
And Edmund Murray, whom Jaime and I<br />
DESPATCH BOX<br />
met at the 1992 Conference in England. By<br />
the time I reached the 1996 tour article I<br />
was in floods. But thank you for the kind<br />
words.<br />
ELIZABETH SNELL, HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA<br />
During a visit to Chartwell in 1987,<br />
my wife and I were joined by a charming<br />
man who offered to show us round. He<br />
clearly had an intimate knowledge of<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> and the house. He was, of<br />
course, Ed Murray. We had a fascinating<br />
insight into many of the things that only<br />
he could have known and was happy to<br />
relate, including the way the house had<br />
changed over the years, and what each<br />
room contained and meant to Sir <strong>Winston</strong>.<br />
At the end of our "guided" tour, I asked<br />
what his relationship had been to the big<br />
man, whom I had read could be quite difficult<br />
to work for. He replied, "I loved that<br />
man. I would have died for him." This, I<br />
now know, was typical of Ed, a comment<br />
expected of him. As a result of that visit I<br />
learnt about the ICS and joined. I also<br />
bought a copy of his book, which he subsequently<br />
inscribed. He was a lovely man.<br />
MAKTIN SMITH, PENN, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE<br />
WINKLE PHOTO<br />
• The photograph<br />
on page 33<br />
of FH 87, for<br />
which you had<br />
requested identification,<br />
was taken<br />
in Hastings on 7<br />
September 1955, when Sir <strong>Winston</strong><br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> became a member of the Winkle<br />
Club. There is a very good painting of the<br />
presentation in the Hastings Museum, on<br />
what is known as the Stade (the fish market,<br />
where fishing boats are drawn up on<br />
the beach). In the painting, "Dear Murray"<br />
is standing beside the Humber Staff car<br />
and to the left of Field Marshal Montgomery.<br />
Recent letters drew my attention to<br />
the problem of travelling to Chartwell<br />
where one of our members was misled<br />
into taking a train to East Croyden, a long<br />
taxi drive away. I have found that the best<br />
route is by train to either Oxted (Surrey) or<br />
Edenbridge (Kent) from Victoria and a<br />
taxi from either station. I hope this information<br />
will be of assistance to members<br />
who travel by rail.<br />
W. S. OSBORNE, CH3CHESTER, W. SUSSEX<br />
Editor's response: Many thanks. Per Finest<br />
Hour 67, page 6, the Hastings Winkle Club,<br />
whose badge is a replica winkle shell, is an<br />
exclusive men's club whose members must<br />
shell out a fine (to charity) if they fail to produce<br />
their winkle at the command, "Winkle<br />
Up!" Prince Philip and Montgomery were<br />
longtime members. Chartwell rail tactics were<br />
discussed in "Despatch Box" (FH 91, page 5),<br />
where Oxted seemed to be the best choice; your<br />
advice is a timely reminder.<br />
WOODFORD CAMPAIGN, 1945<br />
(To Derek Brownleader) You may be<br />
interested to know that as a 17-year-old I<br />
actively campaigned for <strong>Winston</strong><br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> during the 1945 General Election.<br />
He represented our Parliamentary<br />
constituency of Woodford & Wanstead.<br />
Although, of course, he won handsomely,<br />
his party lost the election. I have still not<br />
recovered from the shock! He was then,<br />
and still is now, in my 69th year, the<br />
supreme inspirational influence in my life.<br />
All continued success in your efforts to<br />
make The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center viable for the<br />
21st Century.<br />
PETER BROWNE, ESCONDIDO, CALIFORNIA<br />
KARSH COVER OF FH94<br />
Your cover photo last issue reminds<br />
me of an experience twenty-odd years<br />
ago. I was on the sleeper train from Chicago<br />
to Los Angeles and was reading a book<br />
about <strong>Churchill</strong> in the lounge car. It had a<br />
cover with one of the famous 1941 pictures<br />
of WSC on it. The man to my left<br />
said, "I took that picture." It was Yousuf<br />
Karsh! He told me how he got the "angry<br />
lion" photo by removing the PM's cigar.<br />
We had a good chat!<br />
CHARLES R. BERGH, BREWSTER, N.Y.<br />
Last issue's cover of the<br />
dynamic, dauntless lion, an<br />
excellent selection, recalls a<br />
matter that has long troubled<br />
me: the statue of <strong>Churchill</strong> in<br />
Parliament Square. I have<br />
always been appalled that<br />
such a monstrosity could be erected. My<br />
senses are assaulted each time I see it. It<br />
does not conjure up the dynamics and<br />
vivaciousness of the great man, but<br />
instead shows an stooped, infirm old man<br />
leaning on his cane. What will future generations<br />
think of the man who led Britain<br />
through one of its most perilous crises?<br />
Cannot the <strong>Churchill</strong> Societies undertake<br />
an effort to replace that "object" with a<br />
proper remembrance?<br />
JOHN GALLAGHER, MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C M)<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/25
FROM THE CANON<br />
The Maiden Speech,<br />
Bath, 1897<br />
"At the present time it is<br />
exceedingly difficult to find<br />
anything to talk about/' But<br />
Young <strong>Winston</strong> envisioned<br />
profit sharing, long before<br />
it was widespread<br />
By <strong>Winston</strong> S. <strong>Churchill</strong>, Aged 22<br />
IF it were pardonable in any speaker to begin with the<br />
well worn and time honoured apology, "unaccustomed<br />
as I am to public speaking," it would be pardonable in<br />
my case, for the honour I am enjoying at this moment of<br />
an audience of my fellow-countrymen and women is the<br />
first honour of the kind ever received. (Cheers.) I can<br />
assure you that it was a very great pleasure able to accept<br />
Mr. Skrine's invitation to come down to the ancient city of<br />
Bath and to do what little I can to forward the great work<br />
of the Primrose League. (Cheers.)<br />
But every pleasure has its corresponding drawback,<br />
just as every rose has its thorn, and the corresponding<br />
drawback in my case is that at the present time it is<br />
exceedingly difficult to find anything to talk about. Everyone<br />
has been feeling so loyal and patriotic during the last<br />
few weeks that now all is over and the Jubilee is dead and<br />
done, a sort of reaction has set in, and people do not want<br />
to get enthusiastic about anything for quite a long time to<br />
come.* (Laughter.) Even Parliament is affected by a general<br />
dullness, for the truth is politics are extremely dull, no<br />
exciting debates, no close divisions, no violent scenes ruffle<br />
the serenity of the House of Commons, no violent agitation<br />
disturbs the tranquility of the country—all is rest and<br />
sleepy, comfortable peace. (Laughter.) In fact in the words<br />
of the popular song you might have heard:<br />
Every eyelid closes,<br />
All the world reposes,<br />
Lazily, lazily, drowsily, drowsily,<br />
In the noonday sun.<br />
But sleepy, comfortable peace, I must remind you,<br />
involves sleepy, comfortable progress, and leads eventually<br />
to comfortable prosperity. So that, although bad for the<br />
speaker, this rest is good for the people. And though Parliament<br />
is dull, it is by no means idle. (Hear, hear.) A mea-<br />
*Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee was celebrated in early 1897. The<br />
actual anniversary of her accession was 20 June. This speech is published<br />
by kind permisison of the copyright holder, <strong>Winston</strong> S. <strong>Churchill</strong>.<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95 / 26<br />
sure is before them of the greatest importance to the working<br />
men of this country. (Cheers.) I venture to hope that, if<br />
you think it presumptuous in one so young to speak on<br />
such a subject, you will put it down to the headstrong<br />
enthusiasm of youth. (Hear, hear and laughter.)<br />
THIS measure is designed to protect workingmen in<br />
dangerous trades from poverty if they become<br />
injured in the service of their employers. (Hear,<br />
hear.) When the Radicals brought in their Bill and failed,<br />
they called it an Employers' Liability Bill. Observe how<br />
much better the Tories do these things. (Hear, hear.) We<br />
call the Bill the Workmen's Compensation Bill, and that is<br />
a much nicer name. (Laughter and hear, hear.) This Bill is<br />
a great measure of reform. It grapples with evils that are<br />
so great that only those who are intimately connected with<br />
them are able to form any idea of them. (Cheers.) Every<br />
year it is calculated that 6,000 people are killed and<br />
250,000 injured in trades in this country. That is a terrible<br />
total, larger than the greatest battle ever fought can show.<br />
(Hear, hear.) I do not say that workmen have not been<br />
treated well in the past by the kindness and consideration<br />
of their employers, but this measure removes the question<br />
from the shifting sands of charity and places it on the firm<br />
bedrock of law. (Cheers.) So far it is only applied to dangerous<br />
trades. Radicals, who are never satisfied with Liberals,<br />
and always liberal with other people's money (laughter),<br />
ask why it is not applied to all. That is like a Radical—just<br />
the slapdash, wholesale, harum-scarum policy of the Radical.<br />
It reminds me of the man who, on being told that ventilation<br />
was an excellent thing, went and smashed every<br />
window in his house, and died of rheumatic fever. (Laughter<br />
and cheers.)<br />
That is not Conservative policy. Conservative policy<br />
is essentially a tentative policy—a look-before-you-leap policy;<br />
and it is a policy of don't leap at all if there is a ladder.<br />
(Laughter.) It is because our progress is slow that it is sure
and constant. (Hear, hear.) But this Bill might be taken as<br />
indicating the forward tendency of Tory legislation, and as<br />
showing to thousands of our countrymen engaged in<br />
industrial pursuits that the Tories are willing to help<br />
them, and besides having the inclination, that they also<br />
have the power (hear, hear), and that the British workman<br />
has more to hope for from the rising tide of Tory<br />
democracy than from the dried-up drainpipe of Radicalism.<br />
(Laughter and cheers.)<br />
I am sorry to say that what is being done in one<br />
direction is being undone in another. I allude, of course, to<br />
the great strike of engineers. (Hear, hear.) A great war<br />
between capital and labour has broken out, and it can not<br />
fail to leave a most dreadful desolation behind it (hear,<br />
hear), and must bring misery on thousands. Whoever is<br />
right, masters or men, both are wrong, whoever might<br />
win, both must lose. (Hear, hear.) In the great economic<br />
struggles of nations no quarter is ever shown to the vanquished.<br />
Every individual and every community has, no<br />
doubt, a right to buy the best goods in the cheapest market,<br />
and if the British manufacturer can not produce goods<br />
for export-at the lowest price in the market of our trade—<br />
the pride of England and the envy of the foreigner—would<br />
simply go to the German Emperor or some other equally<br />
unattractive individual. (Laughter and applause.)<br />
ONE of the questions which politicians have to face<br />
is how to avoid disputes between capital and<br />
labour. (Hear, hear.) Ultimately I hope that the<br />
labourer will become, as it were, a shareholder in the business<br />
in which he works, and would not be unwilling to<br />
stand the pressure of a bad year because he shares some of<br />
the profits of a good one. But this is a solution which can<br />
be only reached in the distant future, and in the meantime<br />
it is the duty of everyone who has influence and opportunity<br />
to do what he can to bring these continual disputes to<br />
an end. It is still more the duty of any political Organisation<br />
to do this, and it is no more the duty of any such<br />
Organisation than it is the duty of the Primrose League.<br />
The League has indeed set itself many hard tasks in<br />
the past fifteen years. It has been teaching the people of<br />
Great Britain the splendour of their Empire, the nature of<br />
their Constitution, and the importance of their fleet. But<br />
more remains to be done. (Cheers.) We must carry out the<br />
work of popularising those institutions which have made<br />
this country what it is, and by which we can alone maintain<br />
our proud position. (Cheers.) It is a heavy task, but we<br />
are not without encouragement. All this Imperial sentiment,<br />
this desire for unity, this realisation of Empire<br />
which has characterised and glorified the sixtieth year of<br />
The Queen's reign (cheers), is in entire harmony with the<br />
principles and sentiments of the Primrose League.<br />
(Cheers.) I do not go so far as to say it is entirely the outcome<br />
of it, because that would be an exaggeration, and<br />
when you have a good cause there is no need for exaggeration.<br />
(Hear, hear.) But we might fairly claim to have<br />
afforded the rallying point for all who sympathise with the<br />
Imperial movement, a sphere of action for all who are<br />
enthusiastic about it; we have, as it were, collected public<br />
opinion throughout the country and concentrated it for a<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/27<br />
definite end. And as we have home our share of work, we<br />
might claim our share of the credit. (Hear, hear.)<br />
Those reflections are not unpleasant to many of<br />
those who, like Mr. Skrine and Colonel Wright, our Ruling<br />
Councillor, have watched the Primrose League from its<br />
early humble commencement. At first regarded merely as<br />
a trick of the Fourth Party, viewed with contempt by the<br />
Radicals and with suspicion by the Tories, the League had<br />
a narrow shave of existence at all. But it grew, in the face<br />
of ridicule and opposition, and extended its ramifications<br />
into almost every town and village in the land (cheers);<br />
and its influence pervaded all classes, until we see it in one<br />
of the most complicated arrangements of political machinery,<br />
and one of the most tremendous monuments of Constitutional<br />
power that the world has ever seen. (Cheers.)<br />
IN 1880 the Tory party was crushed, broken, dispirited.<br />
Its great leader, Lord Beaconsfield, was already<br />
touched by the finger of Death. Its principles were<br />
unpopular; its numbers were few; and it appeared on the<br />
verge of extinction. Observe it now. (Cheers.) That struggling<br />
remnant of Toryism has swollen into the strongest<br />
Government of modern times. (Cheers.) And the great Liberal<br />
party which in 1879 was vigorous, united, supreme,<br />
was shrunk to a few discordant factions of discredited faddists,<br />
without numbers, without policy, without concord,<br />
without cohesion, around whose neck is bound the millstone<br />
of Home Rule. (Cheers.)<br />
In all this revolution of public opinion the Primrose<br />
League has borne its share. (Cheers.) It has kept pegging<br />
away, driving the principles of the Tory party into the<br />
heads of the people of this country, and, though the task<br />
has been heavy and labour long, we have had in the end a<br />
glorious reward. (Cheers.) The Radical party has been<br />
knocked out of time. It is flat upon the ground, and it is<br />
the business of the League to see that it never gets up<br />
again. (Laughter.) The Primrose League has stood the test<br />
of ridicule, it has borne defeat, it remains now to see<br />
whether it can stand the higher test of victory. We must<br />
not rest. We have three years before the next election. Let<br />
us select our quarry—some stalwart Radical—run him<br />
down, hold him until the moment comes to take him in triumph<br />
to the poll, and then the election of 1901 will be as<br />
glorious for the Empire as the election of 1895. (Cheers.)<br />
THERE are not wanting those who say that in this<br />
Jubilee year our Empire has reached the height of<br />
its glory and power, and that now we shall begin to<br />
decline, as Babylon, Carthage, Rome declined. Do not<br />
believe these croakers but give the lie to their dismal<br />
croaking by showing by our actions that the vigour and<br />
vitality of our race is unimpaired and that our determination<br />
is to uphold the Empire that we have inherited from<br />
our fathers as Englishmen (cheers), that our flag shall fly<br />
high upon the sea, our voice be heard in the councils of<br />
Europe, our Sovereign supported by the love of her subjects,<br />
then shall we continue to pursue that course marked<br />
out for us by an all-wise hand and carry out our mission of<br />
bearing peace, civilisation and good government to the<br />
uttermost ends of the earth. (Loud cheers.) $
Vvinsfon an o. one [IOTULS JL^OFO.<br />
How Lord Alfred Douglas libeled. vVinston<br />
.Lived to regret it, and survived to repent it°, and<br />
flow <strong>Winston</strong> C^niircliiM was JVILagnaniiniioiis in<br />
ry,<br />
ly Mickacl T.<br />
2 June 1916:<br />
T A T<br />
Accordingly, Balfour was pleased and gratified to<br />
hear that <strong>Churchill</strong> was not taking a critical view of<br />
the recent North Sea encounter. Rather, <strong>Churchill</strong> had<br />
taken the longer and more optimistic view that the<br />
battle was at best a draw which exposed the inferiority<br />
of the German Fleet; removed any lingering doubts<br />
that the Germans had naval surprises in store; and left<br />
the British Navy with the same margin of superiority<br />
it had enjoyed before the battle. This latter point was<br />
key. Worldwide control of the oceans was critical to an<br />
island people like the British, and their dominions<br />
scattered throughout the globe. Without it, survival<br />
was in peril. Not so with Germany, a land-based<br />
l/\/ <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
V V was surprised,<br />
perhaps even<br />
a little flattered.<br />
Advisers to Arthur<br />
Balfour, <strong>Churchill</strong>'s<br />
successor as First<br />
Lord of the Admiralty,<br />
had asked him to<br />
their offices to offer<br />
his views on the Battie<br />
of Jutland, so they power in the center of Europe.<br />
could be released to<br />
the public. The press<br />
had widely reported<br />
the encounter in the<br />
North Sea between<br />
the British Grand<br />
Fleet and the German<br />
High Seas Fleet<br />
as a defeat for the<br />
British Navy, with<br />
fourteen ships sunk<br />
and 6,000 lives lost,<br />
compared to eleven<br />
ships and German<br />
losses of 2,000 to<br />
2,500.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> still<br />
received grudging<br />
admiration, even<br />
from his many political<br />
enemies, for his<br />
role in building up<br />
the British fleet in the<br />
years leading up to<br />
the outbreak of war<br />
in August 1914.<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/28<br />
<strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong> said as much in a communique<br />
the Admiralty issued over his name the next<br />
day. Stock in British companies on the New York<br />
Stock exchange, which had suffered dramatic drops<br />
after the first reports of Jutland, bounced back after<br />
the release of <strong>Churchill</strong>'s report. <strong>Churchill</strong> probably<br />
never noticed. He was more keenly aware that the<br />
Commander-in-Chief of the British Fleet, Admiral<br />
John Jellicoe, was the one man in the world who<br />
could "lose the war in an afternoon." Faced with that<br />
opportunity on 31 May 1916, in the North Sea, Jellicoe<br />
had not lost. If Jellicoe had not been as aggressive as<br />
some would have liked, <strong>Churchill</strong> knew he had been<br />
following previously agreed upon grand strategy<br />
crafted while <strong>Churchill</strong> was at the Admiralty helm.<br />
Little did <strong>Churchill</strong> realize that the simple act of<br />
preparing, at his government's request, a favorable<br />
postmortem of the Battle of Jutland would lead him<br />
seven years later into playing a major role in two<br />
prominent libel trials within a six-month period.<br />
The trials would involve Lord Alfred Douglas, a<br />
notorious British literary figure, son of the Marquess<br />
of Queensbury, who was to accuse <strong>Churchill</strong> of plot-<br />
Mr. McMenamin is a partner with Walter, Haverfield,<br />
Buescher & Chockley in Cleveland, Ohio. This article is condensed<br />
from the first publication, in Litigation, Winter 1995.
ting with Jewish financiers to manipulate stock<br />
exchanges through issuance of false communiques on<br />
Jutland. The two trials would involve identical fact situations<br />
but entirely different legal standards which,<br />
inadvertently but presciently, illustrate how presentday<br />
American and English libel law would deal with<br />
the same defamation action involving the same public<br />
figure.<br />
The Publication<br />
26 April 1923:<br />
LORD Alfred Douglas was angry. This was not an<br />
unusual condition. A convert to Catholicism and<br />
something of a puritan in later life, he was still best<br />
known for his scandalous affair with Oscar Wilde as a<br />
young man just before the turn of the century. His<br />
relationship with Wilde had played a prominent role<br />
in the latter's conviction and imprisonment for gross<br />
indecency and procuring—a conviction brought<br />
about through a campaign waged by Lord Alfred's<br />
outraged father, the man who had formulated the<br />
modern rules of boxing. According to Lord Douglas's<br />
biographer, the British barrister and historian, H.<br />
Montgomery Hyde, the notoriety from the Oscar<br />
Wilde scandal left Lord Alfred, now in his early fifties,<br />
"a man with a permanent chip on his shoulder,<br />
aggressive, quarrelsome and apt to take offense easily."<br />
And when Douglas took offense, he frequently<br />
ended up in court as a libel plaintiff or defendant.<br />
Douglas was angry today because the Conservative<br />
newspaper, The Morning Post, a paper with<br />
whose politics he agreed, had published an article<br />
containing the following sentence: "It must no longer be<br />
a paying proposition for men like Mr. Crosland and Lord<br />
Alfred Douglas to invent vile insults against the Jews."<br />
Douglas believed he had been defamed. Along<br />
with the Yorkshire journalist T. W. H. Crosland, he<br />
had been a major contributor to an anti-Semitic weekly<br />
journal, Plain English. Douglas pursued editorial<br />
policies at the publication designed to illustrate his<br />
belief in international financial conspiracies led by a<br />
"clique of rich Jews."<br />
The "inventions" to which The Morning Post<br />
referred were a series of articles in Plain English which,<br />
according to Hyde, "purported to show the sinister<br />
influence exercised by the Jews in recent world<br />
events, notably the death of Lord Kitchener and the<br />
Battle of Jutland ..." Kitchener had died a few days<br />
after Jutland, when his warship, bound for Russia,<br />
sank after hitting a mine. Douglas claimed that Kitchener<br />
was murdered by a Jewish conspiracy to keep<br />
him from reaching Russia and preventing the Bolshevik<br />
revolution.<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/29<br />
The stories about <strong>Churchill</strong> were equally far<br />
fetched. According to Douglas, <strong>Churchill</strong> had caused<br />
an initial false report to be issued about the Battle of<br />
Jutland at the behest of a group of Jewish financiers,<br />
thus producing a decline in the stock markets.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> then issued a more optimistic report a day<br />
later; the financiers profited: and so, did <strong>Churchill</strong>,<br />
receiving a check for £40,000 (over £1,250,000 or<br />
$2,000,000 in current value) from his friend, Sir Ernest<br />
Cassel.<br />
Douglas instructed his solicitors to sue for libel.<br />
He had not "invented" anything. He had sources for<br />
his stories. He believed them. His pleadings alleged<br />
that the plain meaning of the words in The Morning<br />
Post were that he knew the articles to be untrue but<br />
published them anyway in order to make money.<br />
The First Trial<br />
17 July 1923:<br />
Trial commenced before Mr. Justice Salter. Arthur<br />
Comyns Carr represented Douglas. The famed barrister<br />
Patrick Hastings—called by some "the finest crossexaminer<br />
seen in the courts in this century"—represented<br />
The Morning Post.<br />
According to Hyde, Douglas testified in direct<br />
examination that he had no personal prejudices<br />
against Jews and had many friends among them....It<br />
was simply a question of evidence. All the articles<br />
were based on information received by him or in his<br />
possession, and he believed them to be true. Douglas<br />
identified his primary source as a former British<br />
Secret Intelligence Service officer, Captain Harold<br />
Spencer, who had unsuccessfully stood for Parliament<br />
in 1918. Spencer was an American of uncertain mental<br />
stability who had been invalidated out of the service<br />
by an army medical board in September 1917. He<br />
claimed to have talked about Jutland with <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
at a luncheon in Dundee in 1919, and that <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
had confirmed "We did it to get the money out of the<br />
Yanks." Another source was the prominent physician,<br />
Sir Alfred Fripp, who Douglas claimed told him that<br />
Sir Ernest Cassel had given <strong>Churchill</strong> £40,000 in one<br />
check after the Battle of Jutland.<br />
The major portion of Hastings's cross-examination<br />
of Douglas (and the most readily accessible<br />
source for testimony in the first trial) appears in<br />
Hyde's biography of Douglas:<br />
Hastings: Your article says, "It may also be said<br />
that the Cabinet Minister who drew up and issued the<br />
false report about the Battle of Jutland which produced<br />
this fall in stocks had spent the week-end with<br />
one of the most powerful members of the financial
group, Sir Ernest Cassel." Who was the Cabinet Minister<br />
referred to there?<br />
Douglas: Mr. <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
Hastings: Do you happen to know that Mr.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> had not been First Lord of the Admiralty for<br />
twelve months before the Battle of Jutland?<br />
Douglas: That has been explained as being a slip of<br />
the pen.<br />
Hastings: Do you know that Lord Balfour has<br />
stated in his evidence taken on commission that the<br />
only person who drew up the so-called false report<br />
was himself?<br />
Douglas: I know, but I don't believe it.<br />
Hastings: You suggest that he has committed<br />
perjury?<br />
Douglas: He has either committed perjury or his<br />
memory failed.<br />
Hastings: Do you suggest now that Mr.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> drew up mat report?<br />
Douglas: Certainly.<br />
Hastings: What information have you on the<br />
point now?<br />
Douglas: The same information as I had then. It was<br />
told me by Captain Spencer.<br />
Hastings: You say later on in reference to Mr.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: "It is true that by most subtle means and by<br />
never allowing him more than a pony ahead, this<br />
ambitious and brilliant man, short of money and<br />
eager for power, was trapped by the Jews. After the<br />
Jutland business his house was furnished for him by<br />
Sir Ernest Cassel." Do you mean to say that Mr.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> was financially indebted to the Jews?<br />
Douglas: Yes, certainly.<br />
Hastings: Do you want to persist in that now?<br />
Douglas: Of course 1 do.<br />
Hastings: Who were the Jews in whose clutches<br />
he was?<br />
Douglas: Chiefly Cassel.<br />
Hastings: What justification had you in your<br />
own mind for making that charge against Mr.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>?<br />
Douglas: I had the evidence of what was told me by<br />
men at the Admiralty, and Sir Alfred Fripp told me that<br />
Cassel had given Mr <strong>Churchill</strong> £40,000 in one cheque.<br />
Hastings: Was it after the Battle of Jutland he<br />
got a cheque for £40,000?<br />
Douglas: Certainly.<br />
Hastings: Do you realise that Mr <strong>Churchill</strong> is<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> were true. Instead, he claimed that his client<br />
had acted honestly and in good faith in publishing<br />
them. Accordingly, after the plaintiff's case had been<br />
concluded, he advised the Court that he would<br />
decline to cross-examine any defense witnesses about<br />
the truth of the articles on Jutland and Kitchener.<br />
first defense witness was Lord Balfour, who<br />
appeared by deposition. Balfour testified that<br />
TiI HE<br />
he himself had drawn up the first communique<br />
on Jutland. Minor alterations were made, and it was<br />
issued on 3 June. <strong>Churchill</strong> had absolutely nothing to<br />
do with it. Balfour admitted that the next day he had<br />
shown <strong>Churchill</strong> the telegrams received from the fleet<br />
and asked him to write his own analysis of the battle<br />
to rebut "the misleading statements issued by the<br />
German Admiralty." Comyns Carr declined to read<br />
his cross-examination of Balfour into evidence, whereupon<br />
his client, Lord Douglas, stormed out of the<br />
court room in protest.<br />
With Douglas absent, the stage was set. Hastings<br />
called <strong>Churchill</strong> as his next witness. <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
flatly denied the accusations about Jutland and Cassel,<br />
calling them "an absolute lie":<br />
Hastings: When you first saw these articles, did<br />
you consider the advisability of prosecuting the man<br />
who wrote them?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: I sent the articles to the Law Officers, and<br />
the Attorney General gave a great deal of attention to the<br />
matter. He most strongly advised me against instituting a<br />
prosecution either personally or through the Director of<br />
Public Prosecutions. His view was that the status of the<br />
paper was so obscure and contemptible that it would only<br />
give it a needless advertisement and notoriety if a State<br />
prosecution or an action for libel were started. Lastly, he<br />
considered that the character of Lord Alfred Douglas made<br />
it unnecessary for me to take any notice at that stage of<br />
these very gross and cruel libels, but he assured me that if,<br />
at any time, the question was raised why I had not taken<br />
action to clear my honour, he would himself testify to the<br />
advice he had given me and the reasons for doing so. That<br />
was the reason I abstained from prosecuting.<br />
Hastings: Between the date when you left the<br />
Admiralty and the date of the battle—just over a<br />
year—did you have any share or part in the direction<br />
of the Admiralty?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: None whatever, except that I was a memcoming<br />
here and can be asked questions financial and ber of the Cabinet and had an opportunity of discussing the<br />
otherwise, which it is desired to ask him?<br />
Douglas: Of course I realise it.<br />
Douglas's barrister, Comyns Carr, had no intention<br />
of arguing to the jury that the articles about<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/30<br />
Admiralty.<br />
Hastings: Had it [<strong>Churchill</strong>'s analysis of Jutland]<br />
anything to do with any manipulation of stocks<br />
in any market in the world?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: Such an idea never entered my mind.
Hastings: Did you make a penny piece of Republication<br />
money in any way out of it?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: No. 3 August 1923:<br />
Lord Alfred Douglas was angry again. He told a<br />
After <strong>Churchill</strong> stepped down, without being Mend in a letter that he had "won a great victory in<br />
cross-examined by Douglas's counsel, Hastings called spit e of the miserable cowardice of my counsel" He<br />
only one more witness, W. D. Geddes, who had been i ate r elaborated on this in an incredible post-trial letter<br />
Cassel's business secretary. Cassel had died in 1921, to Patrick - • Hastings: --<br />
and Geddes testified that Cassel neither bought nor<br />
sold stocks for months before or after Jutland.<br />
HASTINGS rested and the case was sent to the<br />
jury. As Hyde tells us, the issue before the<br />
jury was identical to The New York Times<br />
"actual malice" standard in public figure libel cases:<br />
The question which the jury had to determine...<br />
was not whether the stories about the Jews were<br />
true.or not but whether in publishing them Lord<br />
Alfred Douglas had acted in good faith or whether<br />
he had "invented" them—in other words, as the<br />
judge told the jury, whether he neither knew nor<br />
cared if they were true or false.<br />
It is tempting to say that Comyns Carr outlawyered<br />
Hastings on this occasion. After having<br />
received fair warning from Comyns Carr that he was<br />
not going to prove the truth of the Jewish conspiracy<br />
articles but would instead focus on the good faith<br />
belief of Douglas, Hastings made no attempt to attack<br />
the sources Douglas relied upon, especially the unstable<br />
Captain Spencer. Instead, he put on an abbreviated<br />
defense, designed to prove the articles false as to<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>.<br />
In less than a day of deliberations, the jury<br />
returned a verdict for the plaintiff, but it was Hastings,<br />
not Comyns Carr, who left the courtroom with a<br />
smile. The jury only awarded damages of one farthing<br />
to Douglas and, as a consequence, the judge<br />
suspended the rule that the prevailing party receive<br />
his costs and attorneys fees, and directed each side to<br />
pay their own costs.<br />
Hastings had instinctively understood what<br />
present-day American media defense lawyers have<br />
discovered in defending public figure libel trials: try<br />
the case on the truth. The jury won't forgive you if<br />
your client got the story wrong. Save that actual malice<br />
standard for your appeal. Unfortunately for Lord<br />
Douglas, his jury did understand the actual malice<br />
standard on which his counsel tried the case but<br />
didn't forgive him for getting the story wrong. The<br />
contemptuous award of one farthing reflected this.<br />
But, as we shall see, Douglas learned nothing from<br />
the experience.<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/31<br />
Your delightful clients and the gang behind them,<br />
including "dear <strong>Winston</strong>," may make the best of<br />
the fact that I was done out of the heavy damages<br />
which were my due, because my counsel had not<br />
the pluck to use the ample material with which I<br />
supplied him for cross-examining <strong>Churchill</strong>, and<br />
because he and you between you succeeded in<br />
keeping Balfour's cross-examination out. But you<br />
can tell them with my compliments that this action<br />
is only the first round-<br />
Now, standing in Memorial Hall on Farringdon<br />
Street in London, Douglas addressed a meeting organized<br />
by "The Lord Kitchener and Battle of Jutland<br />
Publicity Committee." He repeated his accusations<br />
against <strong>Churchill</strong>'s receiving a large sum of money<br />
from Sir Ernest Cassel after issuing a false account of<br />
the Battle of Jutland. He then dared <strong>Churchill</strong> to sue<br />
him for libel:<br />
.... I have always taken it to be fairly well established<br />
that if you bring a serious accusation against<br />
a man involving his honour, and if you bring that<br />
accusation in the most public manner possible,<br />
and if that man ignores your accusation and takes<br />
no proceedings against you, you are entitled to<br />
believe that your accusation is true....If the positions<br />
were reversed, if Mr. <strong>Churchill</strong> were editing<br />
a paper and if he printed in his column one-half,<br />
one-quarter, one-fifth of what I printed about him,<br />
I would have him round at Bow Street magistrates'<br />
court with his nose hanging over the edge<br />
of the dock to answer a charge of criminal libel. I<br />
promise you.<br />
GHURCHILL didn't rise to the bait. He was<br />
probably unaware of the speech before such<br />
an obscure anti-Semitic forum. Douglas was<br />
undaunted. <strong>Churchill</strong>'s biographer, Martin Gilbert,<br />
tells us that Douglas had the speech printed as a pamphlet<br />
and distributed over 30,000 copies in London,<br />
one of which he sent to <strong>Churchill</strong> with the following<br />
note: "I challenge you to show your face in the witness<br />
box & answer the questions I shall put to you."
BIG mistake. Or, as Douglas's biographer<br />
Hyde—and also the biographer of Patrick Hastings—more<br />
gently put it:<br />
Taking the most charitable view of [Douglas's]<br />
behaviour, it was due to his ignorance of the law<br />
and his counsel's tactics that he reacted as he did.<br />
[His counsel] was quite justified in not-crossexamining<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> or any of the other defendant's<br />
witnesses, the reason being that such tactics<br />
would not have helped his client's case. There was<br />
no point in attempting to prove the truth... .The<br />
only question at issue was not whether the allegations<br />
were true or false but rather whether [Douglas]<br />
regarded them as being true when he made<br />
them, although they were in fact not so....Brilliant<br />
as he had shown himself as a witness in earlier<br />
cases, this time he had brought his pitcher to the<br />
legal well once too often. The result was a warning<br />
which he chose to ignore with what were to prove<br />
tragic consequences to himself.<br />
The consequences were swift. Douglas was<br />
arrested on 6 November 1923 on a warrant charging<br />
him with criminal libel. Hyde tells us that it was<br />
unusual publicly to prosecute a libel case involving<br />
someone like <strong>Churchill</strong>, who was no longer a government<br />
official. He reports that the Attorney General, Sir<br />
Douglas Hogg, believed that the libel was directly<br />
related to work <strong>Churchill</strong> had done for the government<br />
at its request and that <strong>Churchill</strong> should not have<br />
to bear the expense of a private prosecution.<br />
The Second Trial<br />
20 December 1923:<br />
At long last, Lord Alfred Douglas had <strong>Winston</strong><br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> just where he wanted him—in the witness<br />
box to undergo cross-examination. Douglas's counsel,<br />
Cecil Hayes, a junior barrister, was much more likely<br />
than his predecessor, Comyns Carr, to follow his<br />
client's precise instructions on the questions to put to<br />
the well-known, 49-year-old politician.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> was the second witness for the prosecution.<br />
Hogg asked him about the first communique<br />
which admittedly had caused a drop in the market for<br />
stock of British companies (the most readily accessible<br />
source for transcript excerpts from this trial is Hyde's<br />
book, Their Good Names):<br />
Hogg: Did you know anything about the communique<br />
of June 2nd before it was issued?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: Nothing wliatever.<br />
Hogg: Were you consulted as to its issue?<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/32<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: In no way.<br />
Hogg: Did you know anything about it until it<br />
appeared in the Press?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: Nothing whatever.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> then described the process by which,<br />
at the government's request, he had come to write his<br />
"appreciation." Typical of <strong>Churchill</strong>'s writing style, he<br />
had dictated the communique to an Admiralty<br />
stenographer. Thereafter, he had taken it to Lord Fisher,<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s First Sea Lord when he was at the<br />
Admiralty. Now retired, Fisher told <strong>Churchill</strong> that his<br />
appreciation was "exactly right." <strong>Churchill</strong> said he<br />
then telephoned the Admiralty and authorized it to<br />
issue the communique over his name.<br />
next explored <strong>Churchill</strong>'s friendship<br />
with Sir Ernest Cassel, a German and natu-<br />
Hi"OGG<br />
.ralized British subject who had been knighted<br />
and appointed a Privy Councillor. <strong>Churchill</strong> admitted<br />
to his close friendship with Cassel, who had long<br />
been a friend of the <strong>Churchill</strong> family, including Lord<br />
and Lady Randolph <strong>Churchill</strong>. Upon his father's<br />
death in 1895, <strong>Churchill</strong> had turned to Cassel to invest<br />
his literary earnings as a foreign correspondent in the<br />
Boer War, as the author of several books and as a<br />
speaker on the lecture circuit. The amount given to<br />
Cassel to invest (apparently at no charge to <strong>Churchill</strong>)<br />
was substantial—£12,000 (over £125,000 or $800,000 in<br />
current value). None of this had come out in the first<br />
trial, although <strong>Churchill</strong> insisted that "There was not<br />
the slightest secrecy about it."<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> had earlier in his testimony denied<br />
that Cassel had given him a gift of furniture or anything<br />
else after the Battle of Jutland. But there was an<br />
element of truth hidden in the charge, which Hogg<br />
brought out on direct examination:<br />
Hogg: Did Sir Ernest Cassel give you any furniture?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: The foundation for this was that in 19051<br />
took a small house in South Bolton Street, and Sir Ernest<br />
asked Lady Randolph wliether fie could furnish a library for<br />
me. She consented.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> also volunteered that Cassel had<br />
given him a wedding present in 1908 of £500 (over<br />
£20,000 or $35,000 in current value). None of this had<br />
come out in the first trial either. None of it was especially<br />
scandalous, and perhaps not even uncommon,<br />
for politicians like <strong>Churchill</strong> who did not have inherited<br />
wealth. But it was previously unknown by the<br />
public, as was Cassel's management of <strong>Churchill</strong>'s literary<br />
earnings. It is a tribute to Hogg's lawyering that
all of this was brought out on direct examination, not<br />
on cross, where it could have appeared more sinister.<br />
To his client's dismay, young Cecil Hayes was<br />
no match for <strong>Churchill</strong> on cross-examination:<br />
Hayes: Did you know that Sir Ernest Cassel was<br />
born in Germany of German parents?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: I knew that.<br />
Hayes: He came to England a German subject?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: Certainly.<br />
Hayes: He became naturalized in England.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: He did.<br />
Hayes: And in due course was made a knight<br />
and a Privy Councillor?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: Yes.<br />
Hayes: You know he started in the City of London<br />
as a clerk at £2 a week?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: Is that very much against him?<br />
Hayes: In your book The World Crisis, you said<br />
that in 1907 you first met Lord Fisher and that you<br />
stayed with him as guest of a common friend. That<br />
common friend was Sir Ernest Cassel?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: Yes, he had a villa in Biarritz.<br />
Hayes: You did not mention the name of your<br />
host in your book?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: No.<br />
Hayes: In your book are the words, "We [Fisher<br />
and I] talked all day and far into the night."<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: We did not talk continuously for twentyfour<br />
hours, but we had some conversations in the daytime<br />
and some at night. Sir Ernest Cassel was not present on<br />
any occasion. All these talks were secret conferences on confidential<br />
matters and were talks between ourselves alone, as<br />
I have said.<br />
Hayes: Did you send your host to bed to get<br />
him out of the way?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: The point never arose.<br />
Hayes: It was rather lonely for the poor man,<br />
was it not?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: No, he had other guests.<br />
Hayes also asked <strong>Churchill</strong> about his trip in<br />
June of 1914, as the guest of the Kaiser at the Kiel<br />
Regatta, followed by a series of questions about Cassel's<br />
influence over <strong>Churchill</strong>:<br />
Hayes: Had you any idea that the Emperor was<br />
humbugging you with that hospitality at Kiel?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: I do not think he was. I do not think that<br />
at the time of the Kiel Regatta there was any intention of<br />
going to war on the part of Germany, but the whole situation<br />
was altered by the murder of the Archduke.<br />
' Hayes: We do not know the cause of that murder.<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/33<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: I had nothing to do with it!<br />
Judge: Is all this supposed to show the domination<br />
of Sir Ernest Cassel over Mr. <strong>Churchill</strong>?<br />
Hayes: I suggest that Mr. <strong>Churchill</strong> was influenced<br />
as a young man and dominated by Sir Ernest<br />
Cassel.<br />
Judge: Why don't you ask him?<br />
Hayes: I put it to you that you were influenced<br />
by Sir Ernest Cassel in these German overtures and<br />
dominated by his personality?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: Certainly not. I was not at all. I was influenced<br />
by an earnest desire to prevent a breach between England<br />
and Germany.<br />
Hayes: You were the First Lord of the Admiralty,<br />
and I suggest that owing to your blunders in the<br />
war there was great loss of life and that it was therefore<br />
to the public benefit that the words which are the<br />
subject of the alleged libel should be published.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: It would be most important that I should<br />
be punished if such foul charges were true.<br />
Hayes: I suggest that throughout the war you<br />
were a wholly discredited person.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: I repudiate your suggestion. I do not<br />
believe it is true; if it were it would be undeserved.<br />
Hayes: I will put some questions to you to show<br />
that you were.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: I shall be delighted to answer them.<br />
Hayes followed this up a short while later with<br />
a question about <strong>Churchill</strong>'s Achilles' heel,<br />
the failed attempt in 1915 to force the Dardanelles,<br />
which led to the defeat of British, Australian<br />
and New Zealand forces on the Gallipoli Peninsula:<br />
Hayes: Would it be right to say that the attempt<br />
to rush the Narrows was a reckless enterprise without<br />
any possible hope of success?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: It would be wholly incorrect to say so.<br />
Some people hold that view; but, as I have said, some of the<br />
highest and best naval authorities, including Admiral<br />
Keyes, believed that it could be done, and I believe that the<br />
best opinion is steadily focusing on that view.<br />
Later, Hayes returned to The World Crisis:<br />
Hayes: I suggest that the book is really what<br />
happened to <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong> and not to the nation.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: No. I think that would be a very inadequate<br />
appreciation of the book.<br />
Hayes: Would it surprise you to know that in<br />
thirteen lines there are thirteen "I"s?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: It would be a great pity if there were, and<br />
if you will show me the passage I will endeavour to cut out<br />
a few in the next edition.
Hayes: You had a considerable sum of money<br />
out of it?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: Yes<br />
Hayes: £20,000?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: No.<br />
Hayes: £15,000? [over £300,000 or $500,000 in<br />
current value]<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: Yes.<br />
Hayes: And that money goes to you privately.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: Yes.<br />
Hayes: And you are not spending any of it on<br />
this prosecution?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: Thanks to the decision of the Attorney-<br />
General I am not.<br />
Finally Hayes questioned <strong>Churchill</strong> about his attendance<br />
at the civil luncheon given for Lord Haig in<br />
Dundee in 1919, when Captain Spencer claimed that<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> had made damaging admissions about the<br />
Jutland incident:<br />
Hayes: Did you say to him "Hello, Spencer,<br />
what are you doing here?" and the captain replied,<br />
"Oh, I am going to turn you out at Dundee"?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: I don't remember that at all.<br />
Hayes: You said, "What is your grouse?"<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: I never remember using that expression.<br />
Hayes: He said, "That Jutland business was<br />
pretty thick, wasn't it?" Do you remember that?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: No.<br />
Hayes: And you said, "What do you care anyhow?<br />
We got the money out of the Yanks"?<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>: I am sure I did not.<br />
Shortly thereafter, with <strong>Churchill</strong> having been in the<br />
witness box for approximately one and a half days,<br />
Hayes concluded his cross-examination. After calling<br />
several Admiralty witnesses, including Lord Balfour's<br />
Assistant Private Secretary, Sir Edward, Packe, as well<br />
as Cassel's Private Secretary, W. D. Geddes, the prosecution<br />
rested.<br />
IN his opening statement for the defense, Cecil<br />
Hayes attempted to make the case a credibility<br />
contest between <strong>Churchill</strong> and Douglas. Perhaps<br />
to draw attention to the fact that <strong>Churchill</strong>'s mother<br />
was American, he asked the jury in his opening statement<br />
to consider whether <strong>Churchill</strong>, like George<br />
Washington, was incapable of lying, conceding that if<br />
that were so, the defense would have no case. He then<br />
tried to put <strong>Churchill</strong> and Douglas on the moral scale:<br />
Hayes: Historically, and by lineage, Lord Douglas's<br />
family is perhaps the premier family of Scotland.<br />
Mr. <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong> is descended from the<br />
great Duke of Marlborough. Therefore both men<br />
stand before you as members of the same caste and<br />
class. Nobody in the world can ever say that anything<br />
Lord Alfred Douglas has ever done in any journal<br />
was for pay or money. He is an honest man and was<br />
once called an honest fool. It is through his honesty<br />
perhaps that he has been brought to his present position,<br />
and everyone must come to the conclusion that<br />
he believes everything he has written.<br />
Lord Alfred was Hayes's first witness and<br />
proved to be less than temperate on the stand as evidenced<br />
by the following exchange with the judge:<br />
Judge: Your attention has been called to the<br />
issue of Plain English of March 19th, 1921, which contains<br />
a letter to the Home Secretary. Did you write it?<br />
Douglas: Yes.<br />
Judge: Did you write the article?<br />
Douglas: Yes. I wrote it.<br />
Judge: Including this passage? "We are not in<br />
the least afraid of the Public Prosecutor, because even<br />
that official, backed up by the evil forces which control<br />
the present Government, has no power to dispense<br />
with a jury. We take the liberty to tell him that if<br />
he fondly imagines he will be able to obtain a conviction<br />
against us by prosecuting us in the absence of the<br />
person whom we have accused [Mr. <strong>Churchill</strong>] he is<br />
making even a bigger mistake than the Government<br />
made when they put up Mr. Justice Darling in a vain<br />
attempt to secure the conviction of Mr. Pemberton."<br />
Did you write that?<br />
Douglas: I did. I wrote that about Mr. Justice Darling<br />
because I was present in court when the case was tried,<br />
and by the evidence of my own senses saw that Mr. Justice<br />
Darling was very anxious to get Mr. Pemberton Billing<br />
convicted and used every possible art.<br />
Judge: You wrote that he had been put up by<br />
the Government to secure a conviction?<br />
Douglas: These things are done. I have not been<br />
allowed to put my case before the court at all. I have been<br />
treated grossly unfairly. Every time I tried to present my<br />
case to the jury I have been prevented from doing so. I have<br />
never been able to tell the jury why I did it or where I got<br />
tlie information, and everything has been stopped. It is the<br />
most abominable piece of unfairness I have seen in my life.<br />
After the testimony of Lord Douglas, Hayes's<br />
case lay in shambles. Hayes had bluntly suggested in<br />
his opening statement that <strong>Churchill</strong> was a liar: "You<br />
have seen his charm of personality and exquisite<br />
manners, but I trust you will not be led away by<br />
them. Stripped of the kudos of Right Honourable and<br />
the solemnity of high office, Mr. <strong>Churchill</strong> is nothing<br />
but a professional politician...."<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/34
But <strong>Churchill</strong> had been backed up by<br />
Balfour, a former Prime Minister, while Douglas<br />
had come off as something akin to a raving<br />
paranoid. The cross-examination of<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> which Douglas had meticulously<br />
engineered through his counsel had come to<br />
nothing. The rest of the case was anticlimactic.<br />
Douglas's main source, Captain Harold<br />
Spencer, was the next witness. He confirmed that he<br />
had supplied Douglas with the alleged conversations<br />
about the Battle of Jutland. He also testified that Sir<br />
Edward Packe had told him on the evening following<br />
the Battle of Jutland that <strong>Churchill</strong> had been responsible<br />
for the issuance of the false report. [Packe had<br />
already rebutted this in the prosecution's case.]<br />
In Hogg's relatively brief cross-examination,<br />
Spencer admitted that in September 1917, an Army<br />
Medical Board had examined him and certified<br />
that he was insane and unfit for further service. On reexamination<br />
by Hayes, Spencer dug an even deeper<br />
hole for the defense. According to Hyde:<br />
Spencer was asked about his war service and he<br />
retailed a fantastic story of how he had compiled<br />
an intelligence report when in the Balkans forecasting<br />
the assassination of the Russian royal family<br />
and that the report had eventually reached the<br />
Prime Minister, then Lloyd George, in Downing<br />
Street. He denied that the doctor who examined<br />
him at this time had said he was insane; the doctor<br />
told him he merely had "a touch of the sun."<br />
After a summation from the Judge, the jury<br />
deliberated for only eight minutes before rendering a<br />
decision of guilty.<br />
Lord Alfred Douglas had prevailed before a<br />
jury on the same libel for which he was now convicted.<br />
The first jury had believed he had not acted in<br />
"reckless disregard" of the truth. The second jury<br />
wasn't so constrained. While the second jury did not<br />
have to judge Lord Douglas by an actual malice standard.<br />
Mr. Justice Avory stated in passing sentence<br />
that, based upon the evidence, Douglas would not<br />
have prevailed even under such a lenient standard:<br />
"Alfred Bruce Douglas. It is to be regretted that<br />
your undoubted literary abilities should have been<br />
degraded to such purposes as these. If I could have<br />
taken the view that you have been honestly deceived<br />
into believing the truth of these accusations, I should<br />
have taken a different and more lenient course. In<br />
view of the fact that in the action tried in the High<br />
Court against Vie Morning Post you had full notice<br />
that these accusations were untrue, and in view of the<br />
fact that the only person upon whom you apparently<br />
sought to rely in support of this plea of justification<br />
was a person like Harold Spencer,<br />
whom you yourself had denounced in your<br />
own paper as unworthy of belief, I must act<br />
on the view that you have deliberately persisted<br />
in this plea of justification without the<br />
slightest excuse, or without the slightest<br />
ground for believing that you are now telling<br />
the truth in this plea..."<br />
Douglas was sentenced to six months in jail,<br />
most of which was spent in the prison hospital.<br />
Two cases over the same libel involving the<br />
same public figure were tried in entirely different<br />
ways. One focused more on the journalist's conduct<br />
and good faith belief than the truth, and the public<br />
figure "lost." The other focused entirely on the truth,<br />
and the public figure "won." Yet far more embarrassing<br />
information about dose financial ties between<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> and Cassel came to light in a trial based on<br />
the truth than had emerged in the earlier trial.<br />
The Aftermath<br />
4 July 1941:<br />
Lord Alfred Douglas was no longer angry. He looked<br />
down at his copy of the Daily Mail and found, prominently<br />
featured, a sonnet he had recently submitted,<br />
entitled <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>:<br />
Not tliat of old I loved you over-much<br />
Or followed your quick changes with great glee<br />
While through rough paths or harsh hostility<br />
You fought your way, using a sword or crutch<br />
To serve occasion. Yours it was to clutch<br />
And lose again. Lacking the charity<br />
Which looks behind Hie mask, I did not see<br />
TJie imminent slwdow of "the <strong>Winston</strong> touch."<br />
Axe for embedded evil's cancerous roots,<br />
Wlien all the world was one vast funeral pyre,<br />
Like genie smoke you rose, a giant form<br />
Clotlied with the Addisonian attributes<br />
Of God-directed angel. Like your sire<br />
You the rode the whirlwind and out-stormed the storm.<br />
DOUGLAS'S nephew sent an advance copy of<br />
the poem to the 66-year-old <strong>Churchill</strong>, who<br />
had been Prime Minister since May 1940, rallying<br />
the British people against German air attacks in<br />
what <strong>Churchill</strong> called Britain's "Finest Hour." In<br />
responding to this gesture, <strong>Churchill</strong> lived up to his<br />
lifelong motto: "In victory, magnanimity":<br />
"Thank you very much for the sonnet you sent<br />
me which I shall keep and value. Tell [Lord Douglas]<br />
from me that Time Ends All Things.'"<br />
g<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/35
One hundred years ago:<br />
Summer 1897 • Age 22<br />
Seeking Blood...<br />
On July 26th <strong>Churchill</strong> made his<br />
maiden political speech, which is published<br />
on pages 26-27 in this issue. He<br />
was pleased with the press reports.<br />
On the same day an uprising<br />
began on the Indian frontier. Sir<br />
Bindon Blood had offered to let him<br />
join future expeditions in the area,<br />
and <strong>Churchill</strong> left England so quickly<br />
that he had no time to say goodbye to<br />
his brother and mother. Aboard the<br />
SS Rome, near Aden, he wrote of the<br />
conditions to his mother:<br />
"We are just in the hottest part of<br />
the Red Sea. The temperature is something<br />
like over 100 degrees and as it is<br />
damp heat it is equal to a great deal<br />
more. Several people who have been<br />
about 20 years in India tell me that<br />
they have never known such heat. It is<br />
like being in a vapour bath. The<br />
whole sea is steamy and there-is not a<br />
breath of air—by night or day."<br />
It was so hot, he said, that his<br />
views on a new novel he had just read<br />
(Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure)<br />
had melted.<br />
While he waited in Bangalore,<br />
India for word from Blood, he worked<br />
on his own novel, subsequently published<br />
as Savrola. When word did<br />
come, it was disappointing news:<br />
Blood was unable to get "his pals"<br />
appointed to his staff. He advised<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> to come to the frontier as a<br />
war correspondent and, as soon as<br />
possible, he would have him appointed<br />
to the staff of the Malakand Field<br />
Force.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> sent his brother the following<br />
comments on India: "Nothing<br />
can impress one with the size of this<br />
country so much as to take a journey....!<br />
asked how far my destination<br />
was. Two thousand and twenty seven<br />
miles. Nearly as far as across the<br />
Atlantic. It is a proud reflection that all<br />
this vast expanse of fertile, populous<br />
country is ruled and administered by<br />
Englishmen." In a letter to his mother<br />
he reflected on the irony of risking his<br />
ACTION THIS DAY BYJOHNG. PLUMFTON<br />
life in a profession which he soon<br />
intended to discard: soldiering.<br />
"I feel that the fact of having seen<br />
service with British troops while still a<br />
young man must give me more<br />
weight politically—must add to my<br />
claims to be listened to and may perhaps<br />
improve my prospects of gaining<br />
popularity with the country. Besides<br />
this—I think I am of an adventurous<br />
disposition and shall enjoy myself not<br />
so much in spite of as because of the<br />
risks I run."<br />
Upon arrival at the Malakand<br />
camp, he began writing a series of letters<br />
for the Daily Telegraph on the<br />
adventures of the Malakand Field<br />
Force. He told his mother not to worry<br />
about him. "A philosophical temperament<br />
should transcend all human<br />
weaknesses—from fear or affection."<br />
Seventy-five years ago:<br />
Summer 1922 • Age 47<br />
Chartwell and Mary...<br />
The Patron of the <strong>Churchill</strong> Center and<br />
Societies, 1922. Many happy returns!<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> was consumed by the Irish<br />
situation during the summer. The Provisional<br />
Government and the Irish<br />
Republicans engaged in armed struggle<br />
which led to a civil war. In<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s words "the Irish labour in<br />
the rough sea." He supported Michael<br />
Collins and wrote him these encouraging<br />
words:<br />
"...I have a strong feeling that the<br />
top of the hill has been reached, and<br />
that we shall find the road easier in<br />
the future than in the past....there is<br />
nothing we should like better than to<br />
see North and South join hands in an<br />
all-Ireland assembly without prejudice<br />
to the existing rights of<br />
either....The prize is so great that other<br />
things should be subordinated to<br />
gaining it. The bulk of people are slow<br />
to take in what is happening, and<br />
prejudices die hard. Plain folk must<br />
have time to take things in and adjust<br />
their minds to what has happened.<br />
Even a month or two may produce<br />
enormous changes in public opinion."<br />
Collins asked for the support of<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> and the British Government<br />
in opposing the Local Government<br />
Bill for Northern Ireland. He argued<br />
that it would "oust the Catholic and<br />
Nationalist people of the Six Counties<br />
from their rightful share in local<br />
administration." His pleading was<br />
unsuccessful. The cause of peace<br />
received two serious blows in August<br />
with the loss of two signatories to the<br />
Irish Treaty. The first was Arthur Griffith,<br />
whom <strong>Churchill</strong> described as "a<br />
man of good faith and good will."<br />
Eight days later Michael Collins was<br />
assassinated in County Cork.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> had just received this message<br />
from Collins through an intermediary:<br />
"Tell <strong>Winston</strong> we could never<br />
have done anything without him."<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> now feared his greatest<br />
problem would be in dealing with "a<br />
quasi-repentant De Valera. It may<br />
well be that he will take advantage of<br />
the present situation to try to get back<br />
from the position of a hunted rebel to<br />
mat of a political negotiator."<br />
While Michael Collins was being<br />
ambushed, <strong>Churchill</strong> was returning<br />
from a holiday in France which was<br />
marred by cold and wet weather. On<br />
their fourteenth wedding anniversary<br />
Clementine wrote:<br />
"...if only we could get a little country<br />
home within our means and live<br />
there within our means it would add<br />
great happiness and peace to our<br />
lives." Unknown to his wife, on the<br />
next day he offered to buy Chartwell<br />
Manor near Westerham in Kent for<br />
£4,800. It would bring him great happiness<br />
and peace but not his wife,<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/36
"A little place within our means," as interpreted by <strong>Winston</strong>, 75 years ago. (Family Album).<br />
principally because they could not<br />
maintain it "within our means."<br />
On that very same day, however,<br />
another event occurred which<br />
brought great and lasting peace and<br />
pride to them both: the birth of their<br />
daughter Mary, now Lady Soames,<br />
Patron of The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center and<br />
the International <strong>Churchill</strong> Societies.<br />
Fifty years ago:<br />
Summer 1947 • Age 72<br />
"Cast care aside..."<br />
As <strong>Churchill</strong> went into surgery for<br />
a hernia operation he told the doctor:<br />
"Wake me up soon, I've got lots of<br />
work to do." In addition to his political<br />
duties, he was eager to get on with<br />
his six-volume war memoirs (and he<br />
still had to publish his four-volume<br />
History of the English-Speaking Peoples).<br />
Back at Chartwell, the bedridden,<br />
recuperating patient received enough<br />
visitors to tire a healthy middle-aged<br />
person. He was 72! At the same time<br />
he was concerned with the health of<br />
Clementine. "Cast care aside," he<br />
wrote her. "What we may have to face<br />
cannot be worse than all we have<br />
crashed through together."<br />
Before he could return to London,<br />
backroom politicians plotted to create<br />
a Coalition Government led by Bevin,<br />
but Eden and Macmillan killed the<br />
plan. Some Conservatives wished<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> to retire as party leader but<br />
none was willing to suggest it directly.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s summer was spent<br />
working on his memoirs with a team<br />
of researchers led by Bill Deakin.<br />
Denis Kelly's recollections of this phenomenal<br />
effort are told in Sir Martin<br />
Gilbert's "Never Despair." Despite this<br />
busy schedule he still had time for<br />
relaxation, according to one of his<br />
detectives, Ronald Golding. While<br />
rabbit hunting on his farm:<br />
"Mr. <strong>Churchill</strong> clambered slowly<br />
out of the Jeep. Just as he got his feet<br />
on the ground there was a shout from<br />
the others and a rabbit darted from<br />
the centre of the field. In a flash Mr.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> raised his gun and fired one<br />
barrel. The rabbit keeled over dead. It<br />
was a wonderful shot, and the usual<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> luck. The others had been<br />
waiting hours for the opportunity."<br />
Twenty-five years ago:<br />
Summer 1972<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> at Fulton (2)<br />
Finest Hour #25<br />
reported a<br />
speech given<br />
by <strong>Winston</strong> S.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>, Sir<br />
<strong>Winston</strong>'s<br />
grandson,<br />
upon receiving<br />
an Honorary<br />
Doctor of Laws<br />
degree from Westminster College,<br />
Fulton. He was presented the degree<br />
by his mother, Pamela Harriman.<br />
Finest Hour Editor Dalton Newfield<br />
had recently visited <strong>Churchill</strong> College,<br />
Cambridge, and quoted Sir <strong>Winston</strong><br />
on the college named for him: "Technological<br />
progress is of vast significance<br />
not only to our Commonwealth<br />
and Empire, but also to the United<br />
States. It is a theme on which the<br />
English-speaking peoples can and<br />
must work together, disregarding<br />
national boundaries and seeking unity<br />
in the benefits their joint efforts can<br />
offer to all men."<br />
Dal was most impressed by what<br />
he saw at Cambridge. How pleased<br />
and proud he would have been to<br />
know that his early efforts laid the<br />
foundation for The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center.<br />
Finest Hour noted that Sir <strong>Winston</strong><br />
had no compunction about drinking<br />
German wines during the war. It was<br />
reported that he said, before downing<br />
a glass of hock: "I think anything German<br />
should be interned."<br />
And then there was this nugget,<br />
gleaned by the ever-watchful Dal,<br />
from David Niven's new book, The<br />
Moon's A Balloon:<br />
"Guy Gibson, the master bomber,<br />
spent a weekend with us just after he<br />
had been awarded the Victoria Cross<br />
for blowing up the Eder and Mohne<br />
dams. He was in a rare state of excitement<br />
because <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong> had<br />
invited him to dinner at 10 Downing<br />
St. on the Monday. Guy made a date<br />
with us for luncheon at one o'clock on<br />
the following day so he could report<br />
everything the great man said.<br />
"Primmie [Mrs. Niven] and I were<br />
at the Berkeley sharp at one—no Gibson.<br />
Two o'clock—no Gibson. We<br />
were just finishing our ersatz coffee<br />
around three o'clock when he came<br />
tottering in, looking ghastly.<br />
"How was it?" we asked.<br />
"Marvelous—fabulous!" he<br />
croaked. "God! I'm tired. That was the<br />
best yet!"<br />
"What did he say?"<br />
"Who?" said Gibson.<br />
"<strong>Churchill</strong>," I said with a touch of<br />
asperity.<br />
Gibson looked stricken, then he<br />
clutched his head. "Jesus Christ! I<br />
FORGOT!" ¥><br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/37
Correspondence:<br />
<strong>Winston</strong> S.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> to Christine<br />
Lewis<br />
Conover1899-<br />
1943. With a Foreword<br />
by Sir Martin<br />
Gilbert. Washington:<br />
The<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Center,<br />
1996.36 pages in card wrappers,<br />
illustrated. Available for $15 (US)<br />
from <strong>Churchill</strong> Stores, PO Box 96,<br />
Contoocook NH 03229.<br />
letters, printed here for the first time,<br />
do not by themselves make for particularly<br />
interesting reading, being<br />
invariably brief and largely confined<br />
to trivial matters. The first missive is<br />
typical. "Many thanks for your letter,"<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> wrote from the Savoy<br />
Hotel in Cairo. "I should like to go for<br />
a drive this afternoon & if you will<br />
come with me I will call at Shepheards<br />
hotel at a half past four."<br />
Readers should not, therefore,<br />
pick up the <strong>Churchill</strong>-Conover Correspondence<br />
expecting any literary<br />
nuggets or important new information.<br />
Nor should they expect<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s letters to form a rich and<br />
detailed narrative, as they did so<br />
effectively in an earlier ICS publication,<br />
The Chartwell Bulletins. In fact,<br />
the full story of <strong>Churchill</strong>'s long association<br />
with Conover only emerges<br />
from Sir Martin Gilbert's introduction<br />
(revealing what <strong>Churchill</strong> was doing<br />
when he heard from Christine 37<br />
years after their last correspondence)<br />
and an engaging memoir by Christine<br />
herself, written in 1943. Gilbert provides<br />
the flesh and bones to the story,<br />
while Christine gives the tale a spark<br />
of life with its charming and intimate<br />
portrait of the young <strong>Churchill</strong>—and<br />
his photographic memory when,<br />
while visiting Washington in 1943, he<br />
instantly remembers her from the distant<br />
past.<br />
This minor reservation should<br />
not be taken as a criticism. The story<br />
is a fascinating one, and the volume is<br />
in all respects a first-rate production,<br />
for which much credit must go to the<br />
editor and The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center. The<br />
letters themselves are not only expertly<br />
annotated and clearly laid out, as<br />
one would expect, but they are also<br />
reproduced in facsimile, along with<br />
their envelopes! This attention to<br />
detail pervades every page of this<br />
small booklet and makes it a delight<br />
to read. The only significant error to<br />
mar the work is the unfortunate misdating<br />
of the letter mentioned above<br />
(see sidebar).<br />
Sir Martin Gilbert has also included<br />
two appendices to provide the reader<br />
with further background information.<br />
The first is <strong>Churchill</strong>'s speech of 1<br />
June 1899 to the Midland Conservative<br />
Club in Birmingham, which<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> alluded to in one of his letters<br />
to Conover when he complained<br />
that The Times—"a vy pompous<br />
paper, but with tremendous<br />
power"—was not paying sufficient<br />
attention to him. This early speech,<br />
the full text of which was not printed<br />
in Rhodes James's Complete Speeches,<br />
provides a fascinating glimpse of the<br />
young <strong>Churchill</strong>'s world view and<br />
shows how strongly it had been<br />
shaped by the social Darwinism so<br />
typical of the late-Victorian era:<br />
"I do not hesitate to say that if<br />
the idea of brute force as an ultimate<br />
possibility were removed from the<br />
minds of men, much that is essential<br />
to human improvement would be<br />
removed as well."<br />
"The second appendix is a report<br />
of this speech from the next day's<br />
Morning Post, a paper which<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> was happy to note did<br />
devote adequate space to his "performances,"<br />
calling him "a fresh strain in<br />
political life." British understatement.<br />
By making these forgotten<br />
pieces of <strong>Churchill</strong>iana available to<br />
the public, The <strong>Churchill</strong> Center has<br />
performed a valuable service, one for<br />
which this non-profit institution is<br />
uniquely qualified. There remains a<br />
vast amount of material written by<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> which has never before<br />
been published—and still more<br />
which has been published and is now<br />
all but forgotten—none of which is<br />
viable for commercial publishers. It<br />
can only be hoped that The <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
Center will continue to unearth this<br />
material and bring as much of it as<br />
possible into print. $<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/40<br />
Conover Correspondence:<br />
Errata<br />
Chris Bell, in reviewing the<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>-Conover Correspondence<br />
(now available to all readers of<br />
Finest Hour), and Ron Cohen (who<br />
is writing a <strong>Churchill</strong> bibliography)<br />
have found errors in our booklet of<br />
a nature that makes the editor<br />
reach for his GOD! rubber stamp,<br />
except that he doesn't have one for<br />
E-mail.<br />
The first letter published,<br />
dated 4 February 1899, was in fact<br />
written on 2 April, since on 4<br />
February <strong>Churchill</strong> was still in<br />
India, which he did not leave until<br />
March, spending only two weeks<br />
in Cairo, Egypt.<br />
That <strong>Churchill</strong> would use<br />
American dating in this letter to<br />
Miss Conover, while using British<br />
dating on all the others, simply<br />
never occurred to the editor or Sir<br />
Martin. Accordingly, the letter on<br />
page 10 of the Correspondence is not<br />
the first -but the fourth letter from<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> to Miss Conover, following<br />
the one on page 13.<br />
Also, in the letter of 30 March,<br />
we have mistranscribed the word<br />
"dine" (line 9 of the holograph letter)<br />
as "drive." Clearly in the<br />
evening <strong>Churchill</strong> would be<br />
proposing to dine, not drive.<br />
In announcing the book in<br />
Finest Hour 93, I stated (bottom of<br />
page 19, on to page 20) that a brief<br />
excerpt of <strong>Churchill</strong>'s speech to the<br />
Midland Conservative Club in<br />
1899 appeared in Robert Rhodes<br />
James's Complete Speeches. This is<br />
incorrect; no part of the speech<br />
occurs in the Complete Speeches and<br />
its publication in the Conover<br />
booklet is therefore its first appearance<br />
in volume form.<br />
Sir Martin Gilbert took these<br />
discoveries with his usual aplomb,<br />
and cheered us up: "One can only<br />
console oneself in the face of<br />
inevitable errors with <strong>Churchill</strong>'s<br />
marvellous comment: 'The man<br />
who makes no mistakes makes<br />
nothing.'"<br />
RML
DOUGLAS HALL'S CHURCHILLIANA<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Commemoratives Calendar Part 5:1951-64<br />
CHURCHILL'S second term as<br />
Prime Minister and the final<br />
years of his life did not see the<br />
issue of too many noteworthy commemorative<br />
pieces, but the steady<br />
flow of volumes of his two blockbusters,<br />
The Second World War and A<br />
History of the English-Speaking Peoples,<br />
and various compilations of speeches,<br />
ensured that there was always plenty<br />
to interest his followers.<br />
Harry Fenton's trio of Royal<br />
Doulton tobies remained best sellers<br />
throughout their second and third<br />
decades. John Beswick's "We shall<br />
fight on the beaches..." toby remained<br />
in production until 1954.<br />
The 1951-54 period saw a number<br />
of cheap plaster caricature figures in<br />
various shapes and sizes (top right).<br />
Most were fairly crude and poorly<br />
painted but there were exceptions—<br />
the figure on the left with medal ribbons,<br />
Garter Sash and Star, and the<br />
dimunitive, three-inch-tall figure in<br />
the front centre.<br />
Commemorative medals were<br />
struck in Italy, Venezuela, Germany,<br />
Australia and Holland between 1951<br />
and 1964 but the only British one,<br />
available to the general public, was<br />
the Eightieth Birthday Commemorative<br />
medal issued by the Conservative<br />
Association in 1954. These 1 1/2-inch<br />
diameter medals, in silver or bronze,<br />
carried a not-entirely-successful portrait<br />
of <strong>Churchill</strong> on the obverse. On ,<br />
the reverse was the inscription: "1874-<br />
1954. To commemorate the 80th birthday<br />
of the Right Honourable Sir <strong>Winston</strong><br />
S <strong>Churchill</strong> KG OM CH. Britain's<br />
wartime leader. Never was so much<br />
owed by so many."<br />
Throughout the period, china<br />
plates, dishes, beakers, mugs and like<br />
items, carrying the same portrait<br />
transfer, came from a great number of<br />
potteries. Many were unmarked but<br />
among the backstamps can be found<br />
Conway Ridgway, Harleigh, Vogue<br />
Tarns, Rydalra and Royal Imperial.<br />
Quality varies. During the early 1950s<br />
most of the pieces were in plain white<br />
ABOVE: Plaster caricatures from the early 1950s. BELOW LEFT: A popular transfer on 1950s and<br />
1960s chinaware; fine engraved glass goblets by Royal Brierley and Webb Corbett, both rare.<br />
or cream china, but in the 1960s the<br />
transfer was used on some nicely decorated<br />
plates. A selection is shown in<br />
the centre photograph.<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s retirement in 1955 was<br />
also marked by a fine pair of bookends<br />
in the form of waist-length<br />
creamware portrait busts modelled by<br />
Jon Douglas (above right, from<br />
Ronald Smith's <strong>Churchill</strong>: Images of<br />
Greatness). The edition was very small<br />
and the book-ends are rarely seen on<br />
the secondary market—value £100+.<br />
The Worshipful Company of Makers<br />
of Playing Cards produce a special<br />
commemorative pack every year; in<br />
1955 they marked <strong>Churchill</strong>'s retirement<br />
with a pack of cards bearing his<br />
portrait and depicting him wearing<br />
the insignias of the Order of the<br />
Garter and the Order of Merit.<br />
Jon Jones's superb engraved crys-<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong><strong>HOUR</strong>95/41<br />
BELOW: One of the most delectable pieces<br />
of <strong>Churchill</strong>iana for bibliophiles is the<br />
book-end set by Jon Douglas, which both<br />
Mr. Hall and the editor desire desperately.<br />
Alas they appear to be as rare as For Free<br />
Trade, which would look wonderful sandwiched<br />
between. PHOTO BY RONALD SMITH<br />
lEisaf<br />
tal glass goblet by Royal Brierley<br />
(lower photo) is actually dated 1964. It<br />
was originally commissioned to celebrate<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s award of Honorary<br />
Citizenship of the United States, but<br />
his death intervened and most of the<br />
goblets in the limited edition of 500<br />
had an additional line engraved<br />
recording the death date. They sold<br />
originally for £31.50 but are very rare,<br />
valued at £130 in the UK and much<br />
more in the USA. Illustrated alongside<br />
the Royal Brierley goblet is another, of<br />
an entirely different shape, from<br />
Webb Corbett. It has an engraving of<br />
Big Ben on the reverse and was issued<br />
to celebrate the <strong>Churchill</strong> Centenary<br />
in 1974. A limited edition of 1,000, it<br />
came in a blue leatherette box with<br />
brass fittings and blue and white satin<br />
lining. It is fairly rare: about £75 in the<br />
United Kingdom. $5
RECIPES FROM NO. 10<br />
Edited and Annotated for the Modern Kitchen by Barbara F. Langworth<br />
AS MUCH interest surrounds<br />
<strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>'s taste in<br />
food as in cigars and spirits,<br />
but much less information is available.<br />
The best source is Georgina Landemare's<br />
Recipes From No. 10 (Collins:<br />
1959), based on her experiences as the<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> family cook from 1939<br />
through 1954.<br />
I recently spent a delectable afternoon<br />
with Lady Soames, leafing<br />
through Mrs. Landemare's book. She<br />
would chortle with delight when she<br />
recognized an old favorite recipe, and<br />
had nothing but praise for Mrs. Landemare's<br />
culinary skills. She also<br />
reminded me how much has<br />
changed: prepared foods are available<br />
in today's markets which weren't<br />
there for Mrs. Landemare, who had<br />
little choice but to start from scratch.<br />
I thought it would be fun to<br />
update Mrs. Landermare's recipes for<br />
modem usage, and with Lady -<br />
Soames's guidance, offer herewith the<br />
first installment.<br />
Introduction to<br />
Recipes From No. 10<br />
by Clementine Spencer-<strong>Churchill</strong><br />
republished by kind permission<br />
of Lady Soames<br />
Ihave all my life had a taste for<br />
cooking, having inherited this interest<br />
from my Mother and Grandmother.<br />
I have known Mrs. Landemare for<br />
a long rime—in fact since the early<br />
Twenties. Her husband, with whom<br />
she had worked for many years, was<br />
a renowned chef; and when he died<br />
she decided to do temporary work.<br />
She used to visit Scotland in the<br />
Autumn, Newmarket during racing<br />
weeks, and in London she cooked<br />
delicious dinners and ball suppers.<br />
Mrs. Landemare used to come to<br />
Chartwell for week-end parties,<br />
because in those days I had eager but<br />
inexperienced young cooks, and to<br />
them she would impart as much of<br />
her knowledge and skill as they were<br />
able to absorb. And so, when at the<br />
Collins<br />
outbreak of<br />
War in 1939,<br />
Mrs. Landemare<br />
came to<br />
see me and<br />
offered us her<br />
full-time services,<br />
I was<br />
enchanted<br />
because I knew<br />
she would be<br />
able to make<br />
the best out of<br />
rations and<br />
that everyone<br />
in the household<br />
would be<br />
happy and<br />
contented. She<br />
then remained<br />
with me for fifteen<br />
years, and<br />
when in 1954<br />
she retired, I<br />
was at a loss.<br />
Mrs. Landemare's<br />
food<br />
is distinguished.<br />
She is an inspired intuitive<br />
cook, and it is I who encouraged her<br />
to write a book. I hope her readers<br />
will find it of value, but I expect they<br />
will have to try again and again<br />
before they get the magic touch.<br />
-C.S.C.<br />
Gateau Hollandaise<br />
"""phis gateau makes a delicious hot<br />
X sweet if the layers are sandwiched<br />
with raspberry jam. It should<br />
then be served with hot raspberry<br />
sauce and whipped cream.<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/42<br />
RECIPES<br />
FROM NO.10<br />
GEORGINA LANDEMARE<br />
With an Introduction by Lady <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
2 sticks softened butter (7oz)<br />
2 cups flour (7oz)<br />
1/2 cup dark brown sugar ("2 oz<br />
dark foot sugar")<br />
large jar of good marmalade<br />
Cream butter and sugar; blend in<br />
flour to form a soft dough. Divide<br />
into six equal pieces. (You may need<br />
to refrigerate dough if you have used<br />
a food processor.) Roll each piece into<br />
a 6" circle (a small plate can be used<br />
as a guide) on a lightly floured surface<br />
or between two pieces of waxed<br />
paper. Place two at a time on a well<br />
greased baking sheet and bake at 350°<br />
for 10-12 minutes. They will be like<br />
large cookies. Carefully loosen with a<br />
spatula. Slip one carefully on to a flat<br />
plate. Spread with marmalade while<br />
still warm; repeat with the second.<br />
Continue until all six are baked and<br />
layered with marmalade. Sprinkle<br />
confectioner's (icing) sugar on top. $
CHURCHILL ONLINE<br />
INTERNET EXCHANGES ON SIR WINSTON<br />
The <strong>Churchill</strong> Home Page: http://www.winstonchurchill.org<br />
THE CHURCHILL WEBSITE:<br />
Aim your web browser at the above<br />
Internet address and the <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
Page should appear. Press any of the<br />
red buttons to be led to the latest<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Center - <strong>Churchill</strong> Society<br />
information. The "Finest Hour" button<br />
produces the earliest publication of the<br />
next issue. If you experience any difficulty<br />
please email John Plumpton:<br />
Savrola@ican.net<br />
HONORARY<br />
AMERICAN<br />
CITIZENSHIP<br />
From: tronnel9@IDT.NET<br />
(Todd Ronnei)<br />
I conducted an Internet search for the names of persons<br />
granted Honorary U.S. citizenship. Multiple<br />
sources agreed that there have been five honorary citizenships<br />
granted by acts of Congress: Sir <strong>Winston</strong><br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> (1963), Raoul Wallenberg (1981), William<br />
and Hannah Penn (1984) and Mother Teresa (1996).<br />
Neither Lafayette nor Solzhenitsyn were mentioned by<br />
any source. Any comments?<br />
From: awjm@uaa.alaska.edu (James W. Midler):<br />
I had always heard that Lafayette was the first<br />
honorary citizen of the United States, <strong>Churchill</strong> the<br />
second, and Solzhenitsyn the third. Wallenberg was<br />
added later, and there may now have been others. But<br />
I have recently been told that those researching the<br />
Lafayette precedents in the early Sixties, when it had<br />
been proposed to honor <strong>Churchill</strong>, found Lafayette's<br />
situation different and that <strong>Churchill</strong> was therefore the<br />
first honorary citizen of the US. I don't know the<br />
details, and it would be worthwhile for someone to<br />
sort them out.<br />
From: savrola@ican.net (John Plumpton)<br />
My understanding (as a Canadian looking down<br />
from the far north) is that <strong>Churchill</strong> was the first to be<br />
LISTSERV "WINSTON":<br />
Subscribe free to the <strong>Churchill</strong> Internet<br />
community: send the E-mail message<br />
"SUBSCRIBE WINSTON" to:<br />
Listserv® vm.marist.edu —you'll<br />
receive confirmation and may then<br />
send and receive all messages to the<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Online community by E-<br />
mailing to: WINSTON@VM.Marist.<br />
edu. In case of problems, E-mail<br />
Tonah.Triebwasser@marist.edu<br />
hono(u)red by Congress. If so,<br />
Lafayette's must have come via<br />
Presidential edict. I think that is evidence<br />
enough to change the name of<br />
the park across from the V/hite House<br />
to <strong>Churchill</strong> Park! -<br />
From: SHEPHERW@CUA.EDU<br />
(W?n. John Shepherd)<br />
This topic continues to bemuse. My understanding<br />
was that Lech Walesa was also made an Honorary<br />
Citizen a few years back.<br />
From: 104335.2371@compuserve.com<br />
(Frederick C. Hardman)<br />
I have recently been reading through some issues<br />
of the Nezv York Times from 1954, around the time of<br />
Sir <strong>Winston</strong>'s 80th birthday. Among the many stories<br />
about him, I came across an editorial that also said<br />
this:<br />
"...we have an illustrious precedent for honorary<br />
citizenship for Sir <strong>Winston</strong> himself. In 1784 the<br />
General Assembly of Maryland passed a law bestowing<br />
citizenship on the Marquis de Lafayette. It would<br />
take a law of Congress now, but Congress is a<br />
sovereign body and could do it if it were deemed<br />
proper."<br />
Despite all of the above, we are still not satisfied<br />
that we have a definite list of all Honorary American<br />
citizens, nor do we believe we have all the facts on the<br />
Marquis de Lafayette. Enlightenment requested! $3<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/43
WOODS CORNER<br />
A BIBLIOPHILE'S COLUMN NAMED FOR THE LATE BIBLIOGRAPHER, FRED WOODS<br />
Newspaper<br />
magnate<br />
Cecil<br />
King<br />
WTHMAUCETOWARDNONE<br />
Cecil King's war diary (London:<br />
Sidgwick & Jackson 1970) is a<br />
useful book for the <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
library. During the war King directed<br />
the policies of the Daily Mirror and<br />
Sunday Pictorial, two popular papers<br />
whose circulation had reached<br />
7,000,000 by 1945. King's papers were<br />
among the few that had backed<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> during the 1930s, but the<br />
relationship cooled during the war:<br />
King thought <strong>Churchill</strong> was not<br />
tough enough in chucking the Neville<br />
Chamberlain crowd that he held<br />
responsible for Britain's dangers.<br />
King writes about many encounters<br />
with the Prime Minister, not all<br />
friendly but every one fascinating, if<br />
only for the height of King's misjudgement.<br />
For example, he describes<br />
one of <strong>Churchill</strong>'s broadcasts as "a<br />
few stumbling sentences to the effect<br />
that the situation was disastrous, but<br />
all right..it was the poorest possible<br />
effort on an occasion when he should<br />
have produced the finest speech of<br />
his life." King was referring to the<br />
"Finest Hour" speech!<br />
An impressive demonstration of<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s political philosophy<br />
comes early in the book, when King<br />
urges the new PM to "clean house"<br />
and rid the government of the "Men<br />
of Munich"—and WSC flatly refuses.<br />
According to King, <strong>Churchill</strong> said "it<br />
was all very well to plead for a Government<br />
excluding elements that had<br />
led us astray of recent years, but<br />
where was one to stop? They were<br />
everywhere, not only in the political<br />
world, but among the fighting service<br />
chiefs and the Civil Service chiefs. To<br />
clear these out would be a task<br />
impossible in the disastrous state in<br />
which we found ourselves. In any<br />
case, if one were dependent on the<br />
people who had been right in the last<br />
few years, what a tiny handful one<br />
would have to depend on."<br />
As to Chamberlain, <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
was "very glad to have him. He was<br />
clearheaded, methodical and hardworking,<br />
and the best man he had—<br />
head and shoulders over the average<br />
man in the administration, who was<br />
mostly pretty mediocre." (This incidentally<br />
defies the revisonist notion<br />
that <strong>Churchill</strong> chose a mediocre Government—by<br />
suggesting that he<br />
didn't have much to choose from!)<br />
Of particular relevance today is<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s reaction to King's argument<br />
that he would be justified in<br />
sacking Chamberlain because public<br />
feeling against Chamberlain was very<br />
strong. <strong>Churchill</strong> replied that "he<br />
didn't see that the public had any<br />
right to take such a line. They had<br />
voted for Chamberlain when he was<br />
making these blunders: why should<br />
they seek his blood when he (and<br />
they) were proved wrong?"<br />
Technically they hadn't voted for<br />
Chamberlain, who succeeded to the<br />
Premiership on the retirement of<br />
Baldwin without an election. But can<br />
you think of any political leader<br />
presently in office who would so<br />
thoroughly stick to a discredited predecessor,<br />
on the ground that he was<br />
"head and shoulders over the average,"<br />
and refuse to accept "that the<br />
public had any right to take such a<br />
line"? The President of Estonia,<br />
maybe. Lennart Meri happens to be a<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>ian...<br />
That steadfast loyalty to principle<br />
and colleagues, which refused to<br />
bend to public opinion when in his<br />
judgment the public was wrong—so<br />
regularly displayed by <strong>Churchill</strong>,<br />
often to his political disadvantage—is<br />
a characteristic that continues to distinguish<br />
the great man. RML<br />
INTERNET BREAKTHROUGH!<br />
Announcing the new Built-in Orderly<br />
Organized Knowledge device (B.O.O.K.):<br />
It's a revolutionary breakthrough<br />
in technology: no wires, no electric<br />
circuits, no batteries, nothing to be<br />
connected or switched on. It's so easy<br />
to use even a child can operate it. Just<br />
lift its cover. Compact and portable, it<br />
can be used anywhere—even sitting<br />
in an armchair by the fire—yet it is<br />
powerful enough to hold as much<br />
information as a CD-ROM disk.<br />
Here's how it works: Each BOOK<br />
is constructed of sequentially numbered<br />
sheets of paper (recyclable),<br />
each capable of holding thousands of<br />
bits of information. These pages are<br />
locked together with a custom-fit<br />
device called a binder which keeps<br />
the sheets in their correct sequence.<br />
By using both sides of each sheet,<br />
manufacturers are able to cut costs in<br />
half.<br />
Each sheet is scanned optically,<br />
registering information directly into<br />
your brain. A flick of the finger takes<br />
you to the next sheet. The BOOK may<br />
be taken up at any time and used by<br />
merely opening it. A "browse" feature<br />
allows you to move instantly to<br />
any sheet, and move forward or backward<br />
as you wish. Most come with<br />
an "index" feature, which pinpoints<br />
the exact location of any selected<br />
information for instant retrieval.<br />
An optional "BOOKmark" accessory<br />
allows you to open the BOOK to<br />
the exact place you left it in a previous<br />
session—even if the BOOK has<br />
been closed! BOOKmarks fit universal<br />
design parameters; thus a single<br />
BOOKmark can be used in BOOKs by<br />
various manufacturers. Each BOOK is<br />
instantly understood by either Macintosh<br />
or Windows users.<br />
Portable, durable and affordable,<br />
the BOOK is the entertainment wave<br />
of the future. Many new titles are<br />
expected soon, due to the surge in<br />
popularity of its great new programming<br />
tool, the Portable Erasable Nib<br />
Cryptic Intercommunication Language<br />
Stylus $5<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/44
BY CURT ZOLLER<br />
TEST your knowledge! Most questions<br />
can be answered in back<br />
issues of Finest Hour or other<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Center publications, but it's<br />
not really cricket to check. 24 questions<br />
appear each issue, answers in the following<br />
issue. Questions are in six categories:<br />
Contemporaries (C), Literary<br />
(L), Miscellaneous (M), Personal (P),<br />
Statesmanship (S), War (W).<br />
793. About whom did <strong>Churchill</strong> comment:<br />
"We know that he has more than<br />
any other man the gift of compressing<br />
the largest amount of words into the<br />
smallest amount of thought"? (C)<br />
794. How much was <strong>Churchill</strong> paid for<br />
his articles from Cuba? (L)<br />
795. Whom did the Germans try to use<br />
to contact the Duke of Windsor and<br />
ask him if he would assume the throne<br />
after German victory? (M)<br />
796. In 1943 on a drive with President<br />
Roosevelt to Shangri-La, (now Camp<br />
David), <strong>Churchill</strong> recited a famous<br />
poem by an American poet. Can you<br />
name the poem and the author? (P)<br />
797. How did <strong>Churchill</strong> characterize the<br />
statesman in his speech at the<br />
unveiling of the monument to The Earl<br />
of Oxford and Asquith? (S)<br />
798. Who replaced Vice-Admiral<br />
Sackville Hamilton Carden as<br />
Commander-in-Chief of the<br />
Dardanelles Naval Forces? (W)<br />
799. What was Malcolm Muggeridge's<br />
opinion of <strong>Churchill</strong> as writer and<br />
orator ? (C)<br />
800. Roosevelt included a poem in an<br />
introductory letter to <strong>Churchill</strong>. Whom<br />
did the letter introduce, and what was<br />
the poem ? (L)<br />
801. In May 1961 Sotheby's sold<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s painting "The Olive Tree."<br />
What was the price? (M)<br />
802. When was <strong>Churchill</strong> made an<br />
Honorary American Citizen? (P)<br />
803. What was the famous comment<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> made regarding the liquidation<br />
of the British Empire? (S)<br />
804. What was <strong>Churchill</strong>'s first military<br />
award? (W)<br />
805. Who wrote "The Malakand is one of<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s most literary works,<br />
CHURCHILLTRIVIA<br />
in its striving after 'poetic' effects, its<br />
many epigraphs, allusions, and<br />
quotations, and its references to historical<br />
events...."? (L)<br />
806. When <strong>Churchill</strong> met Miss Christine<br />
Lewis on board the Carthage, which<br />
book was he working on? (L)<br />
807. What was <strong>Churchill</strong>'s favorite card<br />
game? (M)<br />
808. Who owned Chartwell when<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> purchased it? (P)<br />
809. In what reference did <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
declare, in a speech on 23 May 1939:<br />
"...I could not stand by and see solemn<br />
engagements into which Britain has<br />
entered before the world set aside for<br />
reasons of administrative<br />
convenience...."? (S)<br />
810. Who coined the phrase: "Now the<br />
hour had come for him [<strong>Churchill</strong>] to<br />
mobilize the English language and send<br />
it into battle"? (W)<br />
811. Where did <strong>Churchill</strong> comment, "To<br />
gain one's way is no escape from the<br />
responsibility for inferior solutions"? (L)<br />
812. About what book did <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
comment, "I have consistently urged my<br />
friends to abstain from reading it"? (L)<br />
813. In what reference did <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
comment, "Why do you have to have<br />
all these committee meetings"? (M)<br />
814. What was the paternal name of<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s grandfather? (P)<br />
815. Which speech ended: "....if all<br />
British moral and material forces and<br />
convictions are joined with your own in<br />
fraternal association, the high-roads of<br />
the future will be clear, not only for us<br />
but for all, not only for our time, but for<br />
a century to come"? (S)<br />
816. Who became First Lord of the<br />
Admiralty when <strong>Churchill</strong> became<br />
Prime Minister? (W)<br />
Answers to last issue's questions:<br />
(769) Air Vice Marshal Sir Arthur<br />
Tedder was named Deputy Supreme<br />
Commander by <strong>Churchill</strong>. (770)<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> did not meet with Hitler in<br />
Munich in 1932. (771) In My Early Life<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> described a typical day while<br />
in service in India. (772) During the discussions<br />
on Home Rule, Clementine<br />
reminded <strong>Winston</strong> to go along with<br />
Lloyd George. (773) <strong>Churchill</strong> believed<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/45<br />
the League of Nations failed because its<br />
principles were deserted by the States,<br />
because the governments feared to face<br />
the facts, and act while time remained.<br />
(774) Colville was Private Secretary to<br />
three PMs: Chamberlain, <strong>Churchill</strong> and<br />
Attlee. (775) <strong>Churchill</strong> commented in<br />
1929 to his son Randolph that he was<br />
leading a perfectly useless existence.<br />
(776) <strong>Churchill</strong> gave his last Parliament<br />
speech on 3 Marchl955. {777) "Great<br />
peoples are always groping for the<br />
truth" was written by <strong>Churchill</strong> in 1906<br />
in the Preface to For Free Trade.<br />
(778) His comments on the Policy for<br />
the Unionist Party was made in favor of<br />
Free Trade in response to Joseph<br />
Chamberlain's Tariff Reform and<br />
Imperial Preference proposal in May<br />
1903. (779) Prime Minister Menzies of<br />
Australia wrote to Neville<br />
Chamberlain, "....if <strong>Winston</strong> got into the<br />
Government it would not be too long<br />
before it were at war." (780) Lady St.<br />
Helier, aka Lady Jeune, convinced Sir<br />
Evelyn Wood to get <strong>Churchill</strong> to the<br />
Omdurman campaign and in March<br />
1908 held a dinner party where<br />
<strong>Winston</strong> devoted all his attention to his<br />
beautiful neighbor, Clementine Hozier.<br />
(781) <strong>Churchill</strong> addressed Miss Violet<br />
Asquith when he identified himself as a<br />
"glow-worm." (782) Major Desmond<br />
Morton, Industrial Intelligence Centre;<br />
Michael Creswell and Ralph Wigram,<br />
Foreign Office; Squadron Leader<br />
Charles Torr Anderson; and Group<br />
Captain Lachlan Maclean helped<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> with intelligence data. (783)<br />
"Hambone" was the name used by<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong>'s children to address Grace<br />
Hamblin. (784) Averell Harriman<br />
accompanied <strong>Churchill</strong> to Moscow.<br />
(785) The British Gazette was published<br />
by the presses of The Morning Post. (786)<br />
The Garron Tower estate brought £4000<br />
a year income. (787) During the Cairo<br />
Press Conference, 1 February 1943,<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> made the statement regarding<br />
prophesy. (788) General Montgomery<br />
did not allow <strong>Churchill</strong> to address the<br />
troops. (789) <strong>Churchill</strong> characterized<br />
General Montgomery: "In defeat<br />
indomitable; in victory unbearable."<br />
(790) Neville Chamberlain was Lord<br />
President of the Council in <strong>Churchill</strong>'s<br />
1940 Government. (791) Hastings,<br />
Romney, Hythe, Dover and Sandwich<br />
were the original Cinque Ports. (792)<br />
ARGONAUT was the codeword for the<br />
Big Three at Yalta; <strong>Churchill</strong>'s headquarters<br />
was the 100-year-old<br />
Vorontsov Villa, located in Alupka. $5
"WE HAVE COME THROUGH"<br />
I am often asked to say how we are going to win this war.<br />
I remember being asked that last time very frequently,<br />
and not being able to give a very precise or conclusive answer.<br />
vwe kept on doing our best; we kept on improving.<br />
We profited by our mistakes and our experiences.<br />
We turned misfortune to good account.<br />
\rJe were told we should run short of this or that,<br />
until the only thing we ran short of was Huns.<br />
We did our duty.<br />
We did not ask to see too far ahead, but strode forth upon our path,<br />
guided by such lights as led us<br />
and then one day we saw those who had forced the struggle<br />
upon the world cast down their arms in the open field<br />
and immediately proceed to beg for sympathy,<br />
mercy, and considerable financial support.<br />
Now we have to do it all over again.<br />
Sometimes I wonder why.<br />
Having chained this fiend, this monstrous power of Prussian militarism,<br />
We saw it suddenly resuscitated<br />
in the new and more hideous guise of Nazi tyranny.<br />
We have only to face once more the long struggle, the cruel sacrifices,<br />
and not be daunted or deterred by feelings of vexation.<br />
With quite a little forethought, a little care and decision,<br />
and with rather a greater measure of slow persistency,<br />
we need never have had to face this thing<br />
in our lifetime or in that of our children.<br />
However, we are all resolved to go forward...<br />
A year and three months ago we found ourselves absolutely alone....<br />
Every country in the world outside this island and the Empire<br />
to which we are indissolubly attached had given us up,<br />
had made up their minds that our life was ended<br />
and our tale was told.<br />
out by unflinchingly despising the manifestations of power<br />
and the threats by which we were on all sides confronted,<br />
we have come through that dark and perilous passage,<br />
now once again masters of our own destiny.<br />
The Guildhall, Hull, 7 November 1941<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95/46
AMPERSAND<br />
-< •<br />
The Things<br />
They Say:<br />
Part 1,790<br />
ALONDON PR firm named<br />
Wolf-Ollin has volunteered<br />
some tips for upgrading the<br />
image of the United Kingdom, beginning<br />
with a change of name. "UK,"<br />
they say, "sounds like a radio station"<br />
(don't radio call signs contain three or<br />
four letters?), so "UK" goes in the<br />
dustbin. And England is too limiting.<br />
What about "Great Britain"? Ah,<br />
but "if we're great, and know we're<br />
great, we don't have to proclaim it, so<br />
let's drop 'Great' and call it simply<br />
'Britain.'" (Isn't "Great" as used here a<br />
geographic collective for an island<br />
containing England, Scotland and<br />
Wales?)<br />
As for the Union Flag ("stodgy,<br />
and captured now as a symbol of the<br />
radical right"), Wolf-Ollin wants "a<br />
simple, red and blue banner with the<br />
word 'Britain' in white letters, flying<br />
over Buckingham Palace." The<br />
National Anthem also has to go: "It's<br />
all very nice and emotional," says a<br />
Wolf-Ollinperson, "but of course<br />
obsolete." "Would you change just the<br />
words or the music too?," asked the<br />
clearly impressed American interviewer<br />
on "The People's Radio"<br />
(NPR). "Oh, the whole thing," said the<br />
agency's representative-"Why not?"<br />
Why not indeed? As a modest<br />
contribution to this new, with-it<br />
image, Finest Hour respectfully offers<br />
additions to the Wolf-Ollin programme.<br />
Since the national flag does<br />
not fly over Buckingham Palace when<br />
HM The Queen is in residence, they<br />
need also to revise the Royal Standard:<br />
dump all those lions and wotnot<br />
for a simple red and gold banner<br />
with white letters reading "queen."<br />
(Lower case, notice—we don't want to<br />
be too assertive. In fact "britain" is<br />
much better than "Britain.")<br />
To take this a step further,<br />
Clarence House could have a powder<br />
blue flag reading "queenmum," while<br />
The Duke of Edinburgh could have a<br />
personal banner of Scots plaid reading<br />
"edinburra," teaching tourists correctly<br />
to pronounce his title. Speaking of<br />
lions, those obsolete statues in Trafalgar<br />
Square would bring a pretty price<br />
at Christie's, helping to support the<br />
cost of these important changes.<br />
Finally, since Coca-Cola recently<br />
scrapped its long running slogan,<br />
"Just for the fun of it, Diet Coke," this<br />
outstanding motto is there for the taking.<br />
So why not replace "Dieu et Mon<br />
Droit" with "Just for the fun of it,<br />
quiet britain?" This is exactly the ticket<br />
as britain quietly becomes the 51st<br />
state (of "europe").<br />
RML<br />
Wit and Wisdom:<br />
Score One for<br />
Arthur Balfour<br />
WE should start compiling<br />
the bons mots attributed to<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> which he never<br />
said. The most famous are: "If I were<br />
married to you I'd drink it [poison]"<br />
(F.E. Smith to Nancy Astor) and the<br />
one about "The only traditions of the<br />
Royal Navy." (There are several<br />
earthy variations of the rest of this<br />
quote, but this is a family magazine.)<br />
The Navy quip was mentioned to Sir<br />
<strong>Winston</strong> in 1955 by Anthony Montague<br />
Browne; WSC said he hadn't<br />
said it, but wished he had.<br />
But there are many more. A<br />
Washington law firm recently asked<br />
us to confirm an alleged <strong>Churchill</strong><br />
quote they had paraphrased in a brief<br />
they were about to file: Their opponents'<br />
brief "contains much that is<br />
obviously true, and much that is relevant;<br />
unfortunately, what is obviously<br />
<strong>FINEST</strong> <strong>HOUR</strong> 95 / 47<br />
true is not relevant, and what is relevant<br />
is not obviously true."<br />
Unfortunately, neither the quote<br />
nor the attribution was accurate. This<br />
was not said by <strong>Churchill</strong>, but<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> quoting Arthur J. Balfour<br />
(Prime Minister, July 1902-December<br />
1905), in Great Contemporaries (London<br />
& New York, 1937, last reprinted 1990,<br />
page 250 of the first edition): "...'there<br />
were some things that were true, and<br />
some things that were trite; but what<br />
was true was trite, and what was not<br />
trite was not true'..."<br />
A Man of the<br />
Century Nomination<br />
by Ryan Thornburg<br />
(To Parker Lee)<br />
I just wanted<br />
to get back<br />
to you about<br />
my 7th grade<br />
son who was<br />
working on the<br />
book report<br />
about <strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Churchill</strong>. You were<br />
kind enough to send him some material<br />
and information from The<br />
<strong>Churchill</strong> Center. We received the<br />
package and used most of the pictures<br />
for the poster part of the report. You<br />
will be glad to know that he received<br />
a 100% on his work! I will send a copy<br />
of his report with a picture of Ryan<br />
and the poster as soon as he gets it<br />
back from the teacher. All the work<br />
was displayed in the classroom.<br />
You asked if Ryan chose his subject.<br />
Yes, he did. The children could<br />
have chosen anyone from any field—<br />
past or present. You can imagine the<br />
range of subjects. This was an English<br />
assignment, and not a History project<br />
as you might think. Ryan will send<br />
you a personal thank you note along<br />
with a contribution to the Center. We<br />
appreciate all your help.<br />
MARY KAY THORNBURG,<br />
TOPEKA, KANSAS<br />
Readers will enjoy Ryan Thornburg's<br />
excellent "Man of the Century" poster on<br />
our back cover. M>
WANTED:<br />
THE MAN OF<br />
THE<br />
CENTURY<br />
LOOKING FOR THE MAN WHO:<br />
CAN LEAD HIS COUNTRY TO VICTORY AGAINST<br />
ALL ODDS.<br />
IS AN ENGLISHMAN WHO NEVER QUITS.<br />
CAN INSPIRE A NATION AND'THE WORLD WITH<br />
HIS WORDS.<br />
ENTERTAIN ALL PEOPLE WITH HIS WTT.<br />
IS AN HISTORIAN. WRITER AND STATESMAN.<br />
ACCEPTS DEFEATS. FAILURES AND SETBACKS<br />
AND CARRIES ON ANYWAY.<br />
MTNOft CHARACTER FLAWS THAT ARE ACCETT*<br />
SOMEWHAT EGOTISTICAL AND ARROGANT<br />
NOT ALWAYS WFLUNG TO NEGOTIATE<br />
I BE CRITICAL OF NEARLY EVERYTHING. BUT ALMOST I<br />
ONLY ONE PERSON NEED APPLY:<br />
SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL<br />
POLITICAL CABTOON IM6<br />
o! : the Centurv Nomination: Poster hv Ri.m T;<br />
iy VM-'f paged/;.