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He combined two qualities: generous loyalty to those he loved, and an acid tongue and pen for those he didn’t. Most of the latter, I tend to think, richly deserved what they got. Randolph Churchill’s public persona was based on the latter quality. In the mid-1950s, surgery revealed that a tumor on his lung was benign. His friend Evelyn Waugh burst into the bar at White’s Club: “They’ve cut out the only part of Randolph that isn’t malignant!”

A popular weekly half hour podcast, Revisionist History takes aim at shibboleths, real and imagined. This episode is Churchill’s turn in the barrel. The villain, aside from Sir Winston, is his scientific adviser, Frederick Lindemann, later Lord Cherwell, aka “The Prof.” You’ve probably never heard of him, says narrator Malcolm Gladwell. You should have. It was Lindemann who made Churchill bomb innocent German civilians and starve the Bengalis. Accompanied by background music, uplifting or ominous as required, Mr. Gladwell unfolds his case. He claims to have read six books on Lord Cherwell (whose title he mispronounces). But his only two quoted sources are the British scientist C.P. Snow (very selectively; Snow admired Churchill); and Madhusree Mukerjee, author of a widely criticized book on the Bengal Famine. There are no contrary opinions or evidence.

In 1911, a time of great political division, Churchill and F.E. Smith founded The Other Club, a collegial dining group for members of both parties. It's still going strong.

Despite political differences, Beaverbrook and Churchill enjoyed a long friendship that survived its share of ups and downs. “Some people take drugs,” Churchill said. “I take Max.”

Irish self-determination is something Churchill is alleged to have opposed. The truth is quite different. Readers will do well to understand the nuances.

"Churchill welcomed me with old-fashioned Victorian courtesy, bade me sit down, and we at once embarked on history, paying me the compliment of taking me for the professional, himself the amateur."

Churchill’s faith in personal diplomacy—solving intractable problems by meetings at the highest level—was famously expressed during his World War II meetings with Stalin and Roosevelt. It surfaced again in 1953-55, when he strove unsuccessfully to promote what he called “a meeting at the summit” with Eisenhower and Stalin’s successors. Less widely known, however, is Churchill’s 1914 proposal for a “conference of sovereigns” or heads of state (including, it seems, French President Raymond Poincaré) in an effort to head-off World War I. The scheme failed, but certainly not for Churchill’s lack of trying.

Q: In review­ing the 1940-45 vis­i­tors books at Che­quers, I was struck by how often Pro­fes­sor Freder­ick Lin­de­mann was there—far more than any­one except Churchill fam­ily and staff, more than Bracken and Beaver­brook, let alone the Chiefs of Staff. Lin­de­mann prac­ti­cally lived there and was present when­ever Churchill was. What do you make of him and what's best to read on him?