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Winston S. Churchill
The Churchill Project - Hillsdale College > Winston S. Churchill
Contasino Meets Churchill, 1931: “A World Aglare”
13
Mar
2016
By FRED GLUECKSTEIN
Mario Contasino will forever be connected with the story of an event that almost altered history. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. once asked: “Would the next two decades have been the same had the automobile killed Winston Churchill in 1931 and the bullet killed Franklin Roosevelt in 1933?"
“There was Once a Man”: A Visit to Chartwell, 1955
29
Feb
2016
3
Vox’s Churchill Myths: There They Go Again
19
Feb
2016
By THE CHURCHILL PROJECT
Winston Churchill was no saint, and it is a disservice to pretend otherwise. But he is too complex a figure to be pigeonholed by writers who criticize without considering the full picture. As William Manchester wrote, Churchill “always had second and third thoughts, and they usually improved as he went along. It was part of his pattern of response to any political issue that while his early reactions were often emotional, and even unworthy of him, they were usually succeeded by reason and generosity.”
Churchill Quotes Others Without Credit
05
Feb
2016
1
1914: Churchill’s Try for Peace
22
Jan
2016
By MAX E. HERTWIG
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.
Great Contemporaries: Richard Meinertzhagen
15
Dec
2015
1
Churchill and the Loss of Eastern Europe
15
Dec
2015
Missing the Mark: Purnell’s Life of Clementine Churchill
03
Nov
2015
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Sonia Purnell's new book on Clementine Churchill is replete with well established facts masquerading as fresh material, unsubstantiated allegations, and historical inaccuracies. Perhaps the best response to this book is Sir Martin Gilbert's oft repeated remark in the face of dubious information, "Perhaps not!"
Great Contemporaries: Ralph Wigram and His Death
02
Nov
2015
2
By THE CHURCHILL PROJECT
Ever since the producers of “The Wilderness Years” television documentary (1982) took liberties by suggesting that Wigram was a suicide, it has been broadly accepted as fact. Indeed recently another myth was layered on to this one: that Wigram’s parents didn’t attend his funeral in Sussex because suicide was proscribed by the Church.
Churchill and the Presidents: Herbert Hoover
27
Aug
2015
Churchill and the Presidents: Woodrow Wilson
05
Aug
2015
1
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Woodrow Wilson was the kind of president we Americans elect from time to time, out of idealism or sentiment or wishful thinking, who proves inexperienced or unqualified—who fails, as Churchill put it, to “rise to the level of events.” Biographer Arthur Link described Wilson as “a virtuoso and a spellbinder during a time when the American people admired oratory above all other political skills.” But he was a party, not a national, leader.
Winston Churchill and the Use of Chemical Warfare
05
Aug
2015
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Anyone who believes that Churchill was an enthusiast of lethal gas must produce better evidence than we have seen so far—and some acceptable explanation for the many instances when, faced with its possible use, Churchill and his commanders demurred.
While he never advocated the first use of lethal gas, Churchill's main aim in both world wars was victory. To that end he would consider almost anything. Describing the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 he had written similarly: "At the Admiralty we were in hot pursuit of most of the great key inventions and ideas of the war.... all were being actively driven forward or developed. Poison gas alone we had put aside—but not, as has been shown, from want of comprehension."