Yalta Then and Now: Churchill, Stalin and the Division of Europe

Remarks by Angela Stent at the International Churchill Society.

Angela Stent is Director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European

Studies and Professor of Government and Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

She is also a Senior Fellow (non-resident) at the Brookings Institution and co-chairs

its Hewett Forum on Post-Soviet Affairs. From 2004-2006 she served as National

1999 to 2001, she served in the Office of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of

Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council. From

State.

Edwina Sandys on Her Grandparents Winston and Clementine Churchill

Edwina Sandys reminisces about her grandparents Winston and Clementine Churchill at the International Churchill Conference.

Churchill: The Forgotten Years, 1945-65

A superb documentary covering the last two decades of Winston Churchill's extraordinary life. It focuses on his astonishing defeat in the 1945 election, his political recovery at Fulton, Missouri, and then his political victory in 1951 when he again became Prime Minister. Presented by the ever-excellent Professor David Reynolds, it is first-class material for students of the man and the period.

 

 

 

Gary Oldman Visits Hillsdale College

On December 15, Hillsdale College hosted a special screening of Darkest Hour for over 800 guests. The following day, Dr. Larry Arnn was joined on stage by Gary Oldman and producer Douglas Urbanski for an 80-minute panel discussion. The three men talked about Gary Oldman's preparation for the role of playing Winston Churchill, the significance of Churchill's actions in May 1940, and why a modern audience should watch this film.

On This Day, January 30, 1965: Sir Winston Churchill's Funeral

"So when a great man dies, 

For years beyond our ken, 

The light he leaves behind him lies 

Upon the paths of men."

The Darkest Hour - Trailer and Clips from the New Churchill History Drama

Within days of becoming Prime Minister, Winston Churchill must face his most turbulent and defining trial: exploring a negotiated peace treaty with Nazi Germany, or standing firm to fight for the ideals, liberty and freedom of a nation.

The following is a trailer and film clips from the Darkest Hour, a new history drama starring Gary Oldman, Lily James and Ben Mende.  The film opens in theaters on December 22.

‘Darkest Hour’ Gets Endorsed by Churchill Family and Experts

“Darkest Hour” is getting some key endorsements as it revs up its awards season campaign.

The historical drama about Winston Churchill’s efforts to rally the British people in the bleakest days of World War II has been embraced by members of the prime minister’s family and by Churchill experts. They believe that the film, with a few dramatic embellishments, is a good faith effort to capture a vital period in Churchill’s prime ministership — a time when he was being pressured to sign a peace agreement with Adolf Hitler and did not yet have the popular and political support he needed to wage the war.

“My take is overwhelmingly positive,” said Michael Bishop, executive director of the International Churchill Society and the director of the National Churchill Library at George Washington University. “It’s a great opportunity to spark renewed interest in Churchill.”

Read more at Variety >> 

Why the People of Alberta, Canada, Name Everything After Winston Churchill

Churchill Square in Edmonton, Canada. (Photo: Traveler100/WikiCommons CC BY 3.0)

Smack dab in the middle of Edmonton, Alberta, is a large, concrete public plaza named Sir Winston Churchill Square. Kitty corner from that is the Churchill Wire Centre, a heritage building and former home of Edmonton’s telephone exchange. Take the light-rail train from Churchill station for one stop and you can see the remains of Churchills, a beloved British-style underground pub that has yet to be replaced. A bit further away, in the nearby suburb of St. Albert, chances are you’ll make use of Sir Winston Churchill Avenue, one of the city’s main thoroughfares.

 Sir Winston Churchill is an iconic British politician and military commander, to be sure. And there is no shortage of things that have been named after him, all around the world—from nuclear-powered fleet submarines to entire mountains in Antarctica and Alaska. But nowhere on earth has Churchill’s name wormed its way into public nomenclature quite the way it has in Alberta. And nobody seems to know why.

Churchill loved Canada, but he visited Alberta only once, in August 1929, as part of a month-long, cross-country railway trip. While on Mountain Standard Time Churchill gave a few speeches, toured some oil fields, and remarked, upon arriving in Calgary, “I’ve heard so much about this wonderful province of Alberta that I don’t want to miss anything.” That’s about it. Yet nearly a century later, his influence subtly but doggedly lives on through maps and signage.

Read more at Atlas Obscura >>

Winston Churchill and Statesmanship: A Six-Week Online Course Taught by Larry P. Arnn

We could not recommend more highly the superb, online, six-week course on Winston Churchill, taught by Hillsdale College President Larry P. Arnn.  Arnn is a protege of renowned Churchill scholar Sir Martin Gilbert.  These lectures convey the subject's brilliance and complexity through the prism of a very wise scholar and ardent admirer.

The following is the first in the weekly series.

Duchess Unveils Churchill Memorials

Sir Winston Churchill's legacy as wartime leader, statesman and a man was remembered as a sculpture and stained glass window were unveiled to mark the 50th anniversary of his death. 

 

Sir Winston Churchill's legacy as wartime leader, statesman and a man was remembered as a sculpture and stained glass window were unveiled to mark the 50th anniversary of his death.

In the quiet parish church of St Martin in the Oxfordshire village of Bladon where Churchill was buried, the Duchess of Cornwall unveiled a new window that depicts elements of his life in stained glass.

The former prime minister received the rare honour of a full state funeral following his death on January 24 1965.

Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and the Fragility of Freedom

From The Daily Signal
By Justin D. Lyons

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Sir Winston Churchill and the 150th anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln—two men whose lives and achievements shed light on the fragility of freedom and the statesmanship necessary to preserve it.

As noted in my recent essay, “Champion of Liberty: Winston Churchill and His Message to America,” both were leaders of democracies in wartime and had to make the case their causes were worth fighting for, resistance was both sensible and praiseworthy, and citizens should prefer struggle and sacrifice over capitulation. Both men connected the life of their regimes compellingly to a noble cause.

Churchill Bust Donated to Pentagon by UK Ministry of Defence

From The Churchill Centre

On 6 May a new bust of Winston Churchill was unveiled at the Pentagon by United States Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work and General Sir Nicholas Houghton, Chief of the British Defence Staff. The finished bronze, created at 1 1/2 times life-size, was crafted by British sculptor Vivien Mallock and is a gift from the British Ministry of Defence to the permanent collection of the United States Department of Defense.

The unveiling ceremony was held in the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes and was attended by senior military officers of both nations, including Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph  Dunford, the recently nominated Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with the Chiefs of Staff of the Army and Air Force and the Chief of Naval Operations, as well as the British counterparts. In addition to Executive Director Lee Pollock, The Churchill Centre was represented by Trustees Elliot Berke and Paul Brubaker.

In presenting the bust, Sir Nicholas remarked: “How delighted Churchill himself would be to see we are following the final piece of advice that he ever gave to his ministers upon leaving Downing Street for the final time in 1955—‘Never be separated from the Americans.’” The alliance between the United States and Britain is more than just shared national interests, he continued, “it is shared human ideals and a profound trust in democracy.”

In accepting the bust, Secretary Work said: “It is a most appropriate time to celebrate the legacy of Winston Churchill as this Friday we mark the seventieth anniversary of VE-Day, Victory-in-Europe day. Churchill did so much to make that victory possible—along with the British people, who truly gave their blood, sweat, and tears during that titanic struggle of the twentieth century.”

Centre Executive Director Lee Pollock expressed the appreciation of the Churchill family and the artist for the placement of the bust and thanked both Departments, as well as donors Alan Spence and John Michaelson, for making it possible. After noting that Churchill was a graduate of Sandhurst and that his first profession was that of army officer, Pollock concluded: “In years to come, as you walk through this corridor, pause for a moment and think of Winston Churchill. He still has much to say to all of us today, civilian and military alike.”

The Day the World Mourned Sir Winston Churchill

From Country Life

By Clive Aslet

 

Overseas statesmen and a freezing British public alike came to pay their respects at Sir Winston Churchill's funeral, 50 years ago this month.

It was television’s finest hour. The broadcast of Sir Winston Churchill’s funeral, which took place on January 30, 1965, united the nation, just as the Coronation had done 12 years before. Many readers will remember the grainy pictures on small screens, accompanied by Richard Dimbleby’s voice, as resonant as a funeral bell. Others will have been at the event itself. It was remarkable how many young people could be seen among the crowd lining the route from Westminster Hall to St Paul’s, in, as Dimbleby put it, the new haircuts, fashions and styles.

Sir Winston Churchill

This is an excellent, semi-autobiography of Sir Winston Churchill, the greatest world leader of the twentieth century.

New Churchill Museum Director Shares Vision

James Williams, formerly the director of the Albert Gore Research Center in Tennessee, was recently appointed as the director of the National Churchill Museum.

From Fulton Sun

By Brittany Ruess

When asked his vision for the National Churchill Museum, newly-appointed Director James Williams couldn’t give a short answer. His long list of ideas all possessed a common theme — extending the words and lessons of Winston Churchill to as many people as possible.

“There are so many people out there who admire — even love — Winston Churchill and we need to find ways to connect with them,” Williams said.

On This Day in 1940 Winston Churchill is Appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

From British History

Winston Churchill watches a Boeing Fortress Mk I giving a flying display RAF bomber station, 6 June 1941

On 10 May 1940, hours before the German invasion of France by a lightning advance through the Low Countries, it became clear that, following failure in Norway, the country had no confidence in Chamberlain's prosecution of the war and so Chamberlain resigned. The commonly accepted version of events states that Lord Halifax turned down the post of prime minister because he believed he could not govern effectively as a member of the House of Lords instead of the House of Commons. Although the prime minister does not traditionally advise the King on the former's successor, Chamberlain wanted someone who would command the support of all three major parties in the House of Commons. A meeting between Chamberlain, Halifax, Churchill and David Margesson, the government Chief Whip, led to the recommendation of Churchill, and, as constitutional monarch, George VI asked Churchill to be prime minister. Churchill's first act was to write to Chamberlain to thank him for his support.

On This Day, 68 Years Ago, Sir Winston Churchill Delivered His "Sinews of Peace" (Iron Curtain) Speech at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri

From The Churchill Centre

This speech may be regarded as the most important Churchill delivered as Leader of the Opposition (1945-1951). It contains certain phrases- "the special relationship," "the sinews of peace " - which at once entered into general use, and which have survived. But it is the passage on "the iron curtain" which attracted immediate international attention, and had incalculable impact upon public opinion in the United States and in Western Europe. Russian historians date the beginning of the Cold War from this speech. In its phraseology, in its intricate drawing together of several themes to an electrifying climax- this speech may be regarded as a technical classic. – Robert Rhodes James

I am glad to come to Westminster College this afternoon, and am complimented that you should give me a degree. The name "Westminster" is somehow familiar to me.

I seem to have heard of it before. Indeed, it was at Westminster that I received a very large part of my education in politics, dialectic, rhetoric, and one or two other things. In fact we have both been educated at the same, or similar, or, at any rate, kindred establishments.

It is also an honour, perhaps almost unique, for a private visitor to be introduced to an academic audience by the President of the United States. Amid his heavy burdens, duties, and responsibilities-unsought but not recoiled from-the President has travelled a thousand miles to dignify and magnify our meeting here to-day and to give me an opportunity of addressing this kindred nation, as well as my own countrymen across the ocean, and perhaps some other countries too. The President has told you that it is his wish, as I am sure it is yours, that I should have full liberty to give my true and faithful counsel in these anxious and baffling times. I shall certainly avail myself of this freedom, and feel the more right to do so because any private ambitions I may have cherished in my younger days have been satisfied beyond my wildest dreams. Let me, however, make it clear that I have no official mission or status of any kind, and that I speak only for myself. There is nothing here but what you see.

Mandela, Churchill and the War for the Future

By Patrick J. Buchanan

By their heroes shall you know them.

In his eulogy, President Obama put Nelson Mandela in the company of three other heroes: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Abraham Lincoln.

What did these men have in common? Three were assassinated, and all four are icons of resistance to white rule over peoples of color.

Lincoln waged the bloodiest war in American history that ended slavery. Gandhi advanced the end of British rule in India. King led the civil rights struggle that buried Jim Crow. Mandela was the leader of the revolution that overthrew apartheid.

Obama's heroes testify to his belief that the great moral struggle of the age is the struggle for racial equality.

For the neocons, the greatest man was Winston Churchill, because he stood up, almost alone, to the great evil of the age -- Nazism.

Thus, to neocons, Munich was the great betrayal because it was there that Neville Chamberlain, rather than defy Hitler, agreed to the return of the Sudeten Germans to German rule. [To the Old Right, Yalta, where Churchill and FDR ceded Eastern Europe to Stalin, a monster as evil and more menacing than Hitler, was the greatest betrayal.]

But what did Churchill think of Obama's hero Gandhi?

"It is alarming and nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the east, striding half naked up the steps of the Viceregal Palace ... to parlay on equal terms with the representative of the Emperor-King."

What did Churchill think of ending Western white rule of peoples of color? Here he is in 1937:

"I do not admit ... that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia ... by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race ... has come in and taken its place."

Here is Churchill during World War II:

"I have not become the King's first minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire."

In short, Dunkirk defiance aside, Churchill's convictions about the superiority of some races and civilizations, and their inherent right to rule what Kipling called "the lesser breeds without the law," was and is the antithesis of what Obama believes.

Any wonder Obama shipped that bust of Churchill that "W" kept in the Oval Office back to the British embassy. Any surprise Obama failed to show up at the funeral of Margaret Thatcher, a Churchillian who sent the fleet to retake the Falkland Islands from Argentina.

The point: Obama's vision of an ideal world and Churchill's are irreconcilable.
Second, not only is Churchill dead, his empire is dead, his world is dead, and his ideas on superior races and civilizations would be censured and censored if spoken in any international forum.

We are in Obama's world now. It is a world where not only are all races, religions and civilizations equal, but within nations the greater the diversity of races, religions, cultures and ethnic groups the better.

And not only should all have equal rights, but more equal rewards.

Inequality equals injustice. Income inequality is the new enemy.

But though Obama's world is today, it is looking less like tomorrow.

Across the Middle East and Africa, Islamists are murdering and persecuting Christians as they do not regard Christianity as equal.

Ethnonationalism unites Chinese against Tibetans and Uighurs and propels a confrontation with the Japanese who have never been forgiven for the Rape of Nanking.

Vladimir Putin is in the crosshairs of Western secularists for seeking to revive and restore Orthodox Christianity and its moral precepts to primacy in Russian law, which likely means no Gay Pride parades in Red Square any time soon.

In a Christmas card to this writer, the Washington Post's Harold Meyerson brings up my late father's support of Spain's Gen. Francisco Franco -- to reveal the son's suspect motives.

In a civil war from 1936-1939, Franco ran off a Christophobic regime of Socialists, Stalinists and Trotskyists as their comrades of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion got waxed at Jarama River and ended up on the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations.

Sorry about that, Harold.

Across Europe, globalism and transnationalism, as represented by the eurozone and EU, seem in retreat, as nationalism is resurgent. Now it is the UKIP, a new British independence party, which seeks to secede from the EU that is surging -- at the expense of the Tories.

Let France be France! Let Britain be Britain! Let Scotland be Scotland! These are the cries coming from the hearts of Europeans rejecting mass immigration and the cacophonous madness of multiculturalism.

All men may be equal in rights. But most prefer their own faith, country, culture, civilization, and kind. They cherish and wish to maintain their own unique and separate identities. They do not want to disappear into some great amalgam of the New World Order.

Whether globalism or nationalism prevails, the big battle is coming.

On This Day in History: When Winston Churchill Met Mark Twain

From The Claremont Institute

By Joseph Tartakovsky

Mark Twain

On the evening of December 12, 1900, in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, 26-year-old Lieutenant Winston S. Churchill arrived to speak about his adventures as a war correspondent in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War. He had already been an officer in the army, serving in Sudan and Egypt, but came to South Africa as a journalist. Shortly after arriving, a train carrying him was attacked, and Churchill the journalist led a brave but futile defense against the well-armed burghers. Churchill was captured and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp, but within a month he made a daring escape. Hunted through Pretoria with a bounty on his head, he hid in mines and railway cars, eventually to return to England a hero.

"The grand ballroom was crowded to the doors," said the December 13, 1900 New York Times. Churchill's gift for language was already known--he had books to his credit--but some of the attendees, at least, must have been drawn by his introducer, Mr. Mark Twain.

Mark Twain, now 65 and internationally famous, began:

Winston Churchill

Mr. Churchill and I do not agree on the righteousness of the South African war, but that is of no consequence.... For years I have been a self-appointed missionary, and have wrought zealously for my cause--the joining together of America and the motherland in bonds of friendship, esteem and affection--an alliance of the heart which should permanently and beneficently influence the political relations of the two countries. Wherever I have stood before a gathering of Americans or Englishmen, in England, India, Australia or elsewhere, I have urged my mission, and warmed it up with compliments to both countries and pointed out how nearly alike the two peoples are in character and spirit. They ought to be united....

...yet I think England sinned in getting into a war in South Africa which she could have avoided without loss of credit or dignity--just as I think we have sinned in crowding ourselves into a war in the Philippines on the same terms.

Mr. Churchill will tell you about the war in South Africa, and he is competent--he fought and wrote through it himself. And he made a record there which would be a proud one for a man twice his age. By his father he is English, by his mother he is American--to my mind the blend which makes the perfect man. We are now on the friendliest terms with England. Mainly through my missionary efforts I suppose; and I am glad. We have always been kin: kin in blood, kin in religion, kin in representative government, kin in ideals, kin in just and lofty purposes; and now we are kin in sin, the harmony is complete, the blend is perfect, like Mr. Churchill himself, whom I now have the honor to present to you.

"Mr. Churchill was greeted cordially by the audience," said the New York Times. "He showed nervousness at first, but soon forgot himself in his subject, and held the attention of his listeners by a clear recital of some of the most striking episodes of the struggle between Boer and Briton. A touch of humor, introduced half unconsciously, lightened up the lecture considerably."

Churchill returned to England, became a renowned politician, was appointed the empire's Home Secretary, and held a number of high posts during World War I. Twenty years later, he would save Western civilization. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. In 1930 he published a biography, My Early Life: 1874-1904, in which, three decades after his speech in New York, he recalled his encounter with Twain:

Throughout my journeyings I received the help of eminent Americans¦and my opening lecture in New York was under the auspices of no less a personage than 'Mark Twain' himself. I was thrilled by this famous companion of my youth. He was now very old and snow-white, and combined with a noble air a most delightful style of conversation. Of course we argued about the [Boer] war. After some interchanges I found myself beaten back to the citadel 'My country right or wrong.' 'Ah,' said the old gentleman, 'When the poor country is fighting for its life, I agree. But this was not your case.' I think however I did not displease him; for he was good enough at my request to sign every one of thirty volumes of his works for my benefit; and in the first volume he inscribed the following maxim intended, I daresay, to convey a gentle admonition: 'To do good is noble; to teach others to do good is nobler, and no trouble.'

And there you have it: Twain on Churchill, and Churchill on Twain. We celebrated both their birthdays yesterday. But more celebrating needs to be done. Tomorrow night, almost exactly 105 years later, in a hotel's grand ballroom, at a dinner convened on Winston Churchill's account, another Mark--like Twain, a renowned and witty man of letters, and, like Churchill, a man who has sounded the alarm against our age's totalitarian aggressors--is to speak. This is Mark Steyn. And his introducer? The parallels amaze: a fellow dedicated to preserving the memory and legacy of both great men: Bruce Sanborn.

Winston Churchill, An All-American Hero

This week, a bust of Britain’s greatest leader was installed at the heart of the Capitol building. So why does the cult of Winston still hold Washington in thrall? 
 

Inside the Freedom Foyer: 'We shall get the Americans in by showing courage and boldness and prospects of success and not by running ourselves down,’ Sir Winston Churchill said of winning US assistance in the war Photo: Getty Images

This week, the elite of American politics gathered in Washington DC to unveil a bust of Winston Churchill at the Capitol building. The rotunda where he now sits immortalised in bronze, and looking a little perplexed, was renamed the Freedom Foyer for the occasion. John Kerry, the Secretary of State, listened as John Boehner, the leader of the House Republicans, gave a passionate speech of dedication. “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Mr Boehner, “this is one of history’s true love stories. Between a great statesman and a nation he called 'The Great Republic.’ ” The famously sentimental Republican wiped tears from his eyes as the crowd listened to a recording of Churchill addressing Congress following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Afterwards, Roger Daltrey of The Who sang Stand by Me – a tribute, Mr Boehner said, to “the best friend the United States ever had”.

All in all, it was a very American ceremony to celebrate the life of a very British icon. So why do our transatlantic friends love a foreign former prime minister so much? 

Read more at The Telegraph >>