An exhibition of Churchilliana in New York has reminded Americans why they took the great man to their hearts – and kept him there
Photo: AP
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From The Telegraph
By Andrew Roberts
Americans love Sir Winston Churchill. That much has been obvious since even
before 1963, when President Kennedy gave him the only honorary US
citizenship ever awarded to a living person. Yet, in the half-century since
then, that admiration and affection hasn’t abated; he is one of the only
non‑Americans to have a US warship named after him, and as many books are
published about him in America as in Britain. Indeed, the only bookshop in
the world dedicated solely to selling his books, articles and memorabilia is
the splendid Chartwell Books on Madison Avenue and 52nd Street in Manhattan.
As Churchill’s mother, Jennie Jerome, was born in Brooklyn, Americans
understandably regard Churchill’s extraordinary life as an almost
semi-detached telling of their own national story.
So when the prestigious Morgan Library and Museum in New York decided to stage an exhibition entitled Churchill: The Power of Words, which would include the cream of the America-related items in the Churchill Archives at Churchill College, Cambridge, they knew that it would be popular.
So when the prestigious Morgan Library and Museum in New York decided to stage an exhibition entitled Churchill: The Power of Words, which would include the cream of the America-related items in the Churchill Archives at Churchill College, Cambridge, they knew that it would be popular.
What has astounded them – and me, despite my being a special curator of the
exhibition – is quite what a stir has been created in Midtown. The crowds
have exceeded all expectations, with record numbers visiting the exhibition,
even in the normally quiet summer months. More than 30,000 people in the
first six weeks – at least 50 per cent higher than the library’s initial
expectations.
The concept behind the exhibition was an original one; to show how Churchill
crafted language for his political and world-historical ends. It
concentrates on his intimate relationship with the English tongue, and
traces the way that, from his schooldays right through to his retirement
from the premiership in 1955, he developed his own sublime style of writing
and speaking.
“Our aim was to present Churchill in his own words,” says Allen Packwood, the
co‑curator of the exhibition and director of the Churchill Archives in
Cambridge. “To let visitors hear his voice. To let them read his wartime
speeches and see how they were constructed. We wanted to show the blood,
toil, tears and sweat that went into his compositions. Because those words
mattered. They had a profound effect on Britain, on Europe and on the United
States.”
They still do have a profound effect on people who go to the exhibition, many
of whom are moved to tears by it. “It’s been thrilling to witness the
unprecedented emotional engagement and visceral response of many visitors,”
says Declan Kiely of the Morgan Library, “some of whom emerge openly weeping
after listening to Churchill’s speeches.”
The most powerful insight that this exhibition gives is into the sheer hard
work that Churchill put into his writing and speaking. Here was a man who
could not write or say a boring sentence, but the reason was – as these
documents show time and again – that he would rework and revise with a
perfectionist’s commitment until he got it absolutely right.
The result was ultimately sublime, of course, but it was not without an
extraordinary amount of time spent continually rewriting until he was happy
with the cadences, rhythms and meaning of his words. He respected the power
of words, and this exhibition shows just how much effort he put into making
them live in his readers’ and listeners’ minds.
Among the exhibits are the notes for the speech that Churchill made in the
House of Commons on September 11 1940, two days after the start of the
Blitz, in which he said that Adolf Hitler “hopes by killing large numbers of
civilians, and women and children, that he will terrorise and cow the people
of this mighty imperial city… Little does he know the spirit of the British
nation.”
Americans who see these notes, full of annotations and alterations made by
Churchill himself, have been powerfully struck by the conjunction of that
particular date in the iconic year 1940 and the message that Churchill was
conveying about the use of terror tactics against a great city.
It is rare that a few sheets of paper from an archive that were typed out
seven decades ago can evoke such strong emotions from normally hard-bitten
New Yorkers, but it is happening here day after day. I must admit that I
feel a catch in my throat whenever I see those notes, knowing that they
contain one of the most eloquent roars of defiance that valour ever directed
against evil.
As one enters the exhibition, one first sees Churchill’s 1953 Nobel Prize for
Literature on one side, comprising a gorgeously illustrated book and a large
gold medal, and on the other the grant of his honorary citizenship (courtesy
of Chartwell Manor in Kent, Churchill’s country house), along with the
American passport in his name that he never had the opportunity to use.
Thereafter, the large room is packed with fascinating objects – a painting of
Antibes by Churchill; his secretary’s silent typewriter, protected by rubber
so that the clattering of the keys would not break his train of thought; a
poem by Longfellow signed by both Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt; a
heavily annotated page from the galley proofs of Churchill’s first book, The
Malakand Field Force, showing his extensive handwritten revisions – before
one gets to the notes of his great wartime speeches.
There, too, is George VI’s moving letter on the death of Roosevelt, and an
article that Churchill wrote on the art of oratory (rather presumptuously,
having only delivered one public speech in his life thus far).
And a funny letter written by Otto C Pickhardt, Churchill’s doctor, after he
was nearly killed by a car on Fifth Avenue, between 76th and 77th Street, in
December 1931, which reads: “This is to certify that the post-accident
convalescence of Hon Winston S Churchill necessitates the use of alcoholic
spirits especially at mealtimes.” This at a time when America was in the
grip of Prohibition. “The quantity is naturally indefinite but the minimum
requirements would be 250 cubic centimeters.” (Dr Pickhardt presumably meant
centilitres, but that’s still a third of a bottle.)
There are hand-coloured charts showing the sinkings of British merchant
shipping by U-boats during the Second World War – a tool, along with his
words, to try to influence the American administration – and the original
draft of a telegram urging the Irish premier, Eamon de Valera, to join the
struggle against Nazi Germany the day after Pearl Harbour: “Now is your
chance. Now or never. A nation once again.”
British visitors to the exhibition – of whom there have been many –
particularly appreciate the opportunity to see at least 65 items that are
usually kept in the Churchill Archives’ strongrooms, because there are no
facilities for permanent exhibitions there. It might seem counter-intuitive
to go to see British documents in New York, but until they can be put on
public display in Cambridge, it is actually the best way to view them.
With Mitt Romney promising to ask for the Churchill bust to be returned to the
Oval Office, from where it was unceremoniously expelled by President Obama
in his first week in office, it is clear that the popularity and reputation
of the Greatest Briton is alive and well in America. Is it because people
crave courageous, eloquent leadership in difficult times? Or maybe it is a
simple extension of the classic American Anglophilia we saw with the royal
wedding and Jubilee and are seeing with the Olympics.
'Churchill: The Power of Words’ is at the Morgan Library, New York, until
September 23; www.themorgan.org
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