FINEST HOUR - Winston Churchill

WE STILL HAVE ALONG WAY TO GO ...I am a teacher at McKinley Schoolhere in Racine. I enclose a copy of the"daily update" we receive, this one for30 November last year. In it you willfind the following "Multi-CulturalNote": "Winston Churchill, Britishstatesman ... was born on this date in1874" (four lines). Abbie Hoffman, "politicalactivist, was born on this datein 1936" (and goes for twenty lines, allabout the Yippie movement, theChicago Seven, the antinuclear crusade,etc., etc., at the end of which"Abbie" (too good a fellow to botherwith the last name) dies in 1989.I was so outraged I wrote a letter tothe principal complaining, though I'dspoken with him about such nonsensebefore. I said that if it was intended asa joke it wasn't funny and if it was serioushe had a problem. He said I wasinsubordinate. (Hadn't been calledthat in many moons.) We still have along way to go.ROBERT E. BAGGOT, RACINE, WI, USA... BUT WE'RE GAININGOn Friday May 5th Mrs. CeliaSandys came to our school [which includesher son Alexander among itspupils -Ed.] to talk about her grandfather,Sir Winston Churchill. As I listenedI thought how lucky I was to beliving in modern times. I was fascinated.Schoolboys of Sir Winston's daymust have been strong to survive. Iwouldn't have lasted one minute in aworld where corporal punishment wasas frequent as hot dinners and thecommon cold could be mortal. Whenyou see him in his little sailor's suityou think, "How did this boy rule Britannia?"I enjoyed the pictures ofyoung Winston; it must have felt greatto get out of those girls' clothes!Mrs. Sandys made me realise justhow much times have changed. Theonly real friend he had was the caring,thoughtful, loving Mrs. Everest. Hisexperiences prepared him for when hebecame Prime Minister in 1940. Heseems to be similar to Moses in theway he was prepared. In a way, thewarm-bitterness of his childhood madehim. Britain should be forever gratefulfor his wisdom that saved us. If it werenot for him, I might not be alive ormight be speaking German. Leavingschool was for Winston Churchill notmerely the beginning of the end, butthe end of the beginning.TIM FRANCIS, MARLBOROUGH, WILTS., UKPRESENT AT THE CREATIONLast weekend I had occasion toskim through the entire run of FinestHour from number 1 to 85 in search ofbook reviews and articles relevant tomy book project, Lieutenant Churchill,Fourth Hussars. I did find a good numberof useful items, but I must say Iwas struck by the scale of the achievementof this journal. It is emblematicof all your fine work all these years forthe Society and for the heroic memory.So, while you may not get so manycompliments as you deserve, here isone to which I add my thanks.DOUGLAS S. RUSSELL, IOWA CITY, IA, USAEditor's Response: Many thanks indeedfor the kind words. Kind wordsare always hard to come by.MORE ON ROSE'SUNRULY CHURCHILLI enjoyed reading Churchill, An UnrulyLife by Norman Rose. My generalimpression of it, though, is somewhatmixed. I always find the story onChurchill's early life an interestingone and I liked the account of WW2.But Mr. Rose left me totally confusedwith his narrative on the push to resolvethe Irish problem before the firstwar. So, I set the book aside.Still on my back and after zippingthrough the current bestseller, I returnedto An Unruly Life. While Ithink Churchill can hold up undermuch attack, Rose's critical tone onthe interwar years was, I thought, abit overdone. Mr. Rose adopted theseemingly popular and to me puzzlingconclusion that Churchill was weak inhis objection to the German move intothe Rhineland. On that, Mr. Rosewrote on page 238, "Shorn of itsrhetoric, Churchill's proposals mergedsmoothly into the policy the governmentwas actually pursuing." Shorn ofits rhetoric! How could he so easilyshed Churchill of his rhetoric? As heput so well on pages 214-215, "The idiomsof Churchill's language ... its hyperboleand full-blown rhetoric ... reflectthe essence of the man himself."About then I re-read your review inFinest Hour #84. Although I do notprofess to be an expert, I, too, noticedseveral inaccuracies in this book. (Onpage 298 Mr. Rose wrote, "At Teheran... 'Overlord' was finally settled, itsclosing date fixed for 1 June.") But,you are right. While not perfect, it is agood read. I know that because I wasoften stimulated to read further — inthe companion volumes and in otherbiographies — for more answers.One more thought on An UnrulyLife. On page 307 Mr. Rose says, "Preoccupiedwith the military dimensionDESPATCH BOXof the war, Churchill barely appliedhimself to its political aftermath — atleast not until the late autumn of1944, by which time it was perilouslylate to make amends for previous neglect."Since reading Herbert Feis'sChurchill, Roosevelt, Stalin severalyears ago, I have thought it was justthe opposite: that from early on,Churchill was indeed thinking of thepostwar layout of Europe. And as Mr.Feis wrote, it was the Americans whowished the political issues to "... staybehind the armies." Am I wrong?FRED HARDMAN, SPENCER, WV, USAEditor's Response: I don't think youare, but I am not an expert either.There's a great deal of food for thoughtin Rose, which is why I liked it. HenryKissinger (see FH 87, page 10) did not;neither did an eminent Churchillian,Caspar Weinberger, who panned ithard in Forbes. / think it is one of thebetter interpretive (i.e., non-Gilbertian)biographies; the problem is that weare, variously, uncomfortable withsome of the interpretations. But there'sno harm in that.CHURCHILL ANDMACKENZIE KINGPressure of work has forced me toreview some activities, and I have —reluctantly — decided to keep the MSccourse on Mackenzie King andChurchill in abeyance. This does notmean an end to our interest here inChurchill. The Department of Historyoffers two versions of the MSc degree,the MSc by course work and the MScby research. (In practice, these two arebeing brought closer together.)Mackenzie King and Churchill is inthe course work category. The MSc byresearch emphasises historical training,and allows students to prepare adissertation on any topic for whichqualified supervision is available.Thus there will still be opportunitiesfor students interested in Churchill totake the MSc, in the research option,or to work for a PhD on Churchill.My own Centre, dedicated to CanadianStudies, is a two-person unit. Inthe past year, I have gained as a colleaguea young Canadian scholar whois a historian (my previous colleagueshave been in geography). This hasgiven us the opportunity to consolidateour own teaching into senior Historycourses for Honours undergraduates.The MSc by course work functionsmost efficiently if there is a real classof students taking it — four or five, todivide up seminar topics and sparkFINEST HOUR 88/42