FINEST HOUR - Winston Churchill

Of Churchill's optimism,James Coward recalls a grim gatheringof VIPs at Chequers after thefall of Singapore. Halifax muttered,"This is just terrible, terrible.Dreadful news." RepliedChurchill: "When you're fighting a15-round heavyweight contest forthe championship of the world, youhave to expect to take some heavyblows in the early rounds. But theman with the willpower and theresources will win in the end, andwe will win."An example of WSC's wit,Coward recalls, involves the nightat dinner when a staff membercame in to say Gen. de Gaulle wason the telephone. "Oh no," groanedWSC, "can't you put him off?We've only started the soup." Butde Gaulle was insistent. WhenChurchill returned, he remarked,"That bloody de Gaulle had the effronteryto tell me that the Frenchlooked on him as the second Joanof Arc. I had to remind him thatwe had to burn the first."*-THE CANBERRA TIMES*Very possibly the origin ofWSC's famous remark that deGaulle "thinks he is Joan of Arc,and the trouble is that my bishopswon't let me burn him." -Ed.PULLING "PLUM"OUT OF THE PUDDINGLONDON, FEBRUARY 13TH — P.G.Wodehouse, creator of Jeeves andWooster, was saved from imprisonmentin France for German collaborationfollowing a personal appealby Winston Churchill, the PublicRecord Office revealed today.Wodehouse had made five whimsicalbroadcasts from Berlin to thenneutralAmerica at the behest ofGoebbels in the summer of 1941;rebroadcast in Britain, the talkscaused an uproar. Put up in styleat Berlin's luxury Adlon Hotel,and later in Paris, Wodehouse continuedto produce his comic writings.German Intelligence was rumouredto use his work for clues tothe British character, andparachuted agents into Englandwearing spats!WSC's plea for "Plum," thensixty years old, was sent to Frenchauthorities via British AmbassadorAlfred Duff Cooper in late1944. If that didn't work, Churchillsaid, he would intervene with Generalde Gaulle.The PM was not motivated bypersonal admiration but by homeopinion: "Wodehouse can comeback to England, live in some secludedplace, then go to hell assoon as there is a vacant passage,"he wrote the Foreign Secretary,Anthony Eden in December 1944.His name stinks here — but heshould not be sent to prison." Theloathing was evidently returned:Wodehouse later called Churchill"one of the few unpleasant personalitiesI have come across."Anxious to please Churchill,the French agreed to releaseWodehouse providing he leftFrance. Malcolm Muggeridge, thenwith British Intelligence, had himmoved to hospital. George Orwellbought him lunch. Muggeridgelater wrote: "Wodehouse's true offencewas to have disinterestedhimself in the war." "Plum" did notgo to hell, at least not immediately:in 1947 he moved to Long Island,New York. He was knightedin January 1975, a month beforehis death at 94.BOAR BUT NOT BOREWASHINGTON, AUGUST 15TH —The KGB's codename for WinstonChurchill was "Boar," it was revealedtoday by the CIA, who releasedfour dozen messages betweenRussian agents in NewYork and their Moscow headquarters.Amusingly, the KGB dubbedWashington "Carthage," San Francisco"Babylon" and New York City"Tyre," names that cynics mightstill like to apply, all being ancientcities which came to ruin. PresidentRoosevelt was "Kapitan."The messages, said an official,were instrumental in leading authoritiesto atom spies JuliusRosenberg ("Antenna" or "Liberal")FINEST HOUR 88/6who, with his wife Ethel, was executedin 1953; and to Klaus Fuchs,who was arrested in 1950.LIES JAMESLOEWEN TOLD MEReaders might be interested inwhat I have noted about Churchillin the recently published book LiesMy Teacher Told Me (New Press,NY, 1994, $24.95) whose author,James W. Loewen, was interviewedon C-Span. His book is supposedto "correct" the lies and halftruthsof the typical history textbook,but in his three-page "chapter"on Churchill, he is repeatedlyguilty of the same thing.Loewen states: (1) Churchillwas wholly to blame for the Dardanellesfiasco in 1915; (2) WSC onlybecame Prime Minister in 1940 becausenobody else wanted the job;(3) Churchill's speeches during1940 were ill received or even ignoredin Parliament and ALL ofthem were delivered over the radioby the actor Norman Shelley (who,it came out long ago, never evendelivered one); (4) WSC was an ardentappeaser like Chamberlain,but smart enough to be so only inprivate while stating his oppositionin public; and (5) Churchill's memoirsof the Second World War libeledChamberlain and all of hissplendid colleagues.-WM. JOHN SHEPHERDITALIAN CONNECTIONDuring August 1944 (I thinkthe 19th), Winston Churchill wasvisiting the Headquarters of Gen.Mark Clark's Fifth Army nearBologna, Italy. While he wasinspecting the U.S. troops onboard a Jeep, he received impressiveovations from the people. Heremarked in a joking tone to thoseaccompanying him that if hisfather had been born in the USAinstead of his mother, he could beelected President by acclamation(the Presidential campaign was onat that time).These words were picked upby a member of Churchill's party,