1 - Winston Churchill

almost singlehandedly campaigned for Winston Saturday. The trolley tour explored Boston sites related toChurchill's — • •'" ' honorary American * :~- «: onri and clip the cruise rmicp Cl-mrrhill's Churchill's three visits (1901, 1943, 1949), nicely narratedby Mike Ryan, the Richard Batchelders Sr. &c Jr. andship "Spirit of Boston" gave us a fine opening night dinner-danceon Boston Harbor. It is superfluous to describe Cyril Mazansky. It ended at the Kennedy Library for thethe reaction of our delegates to all these exciting aspects, Honorary Citizenship exhibit, then returned to thebut a sampling of their thoughts will be found on page 5.Copley for the afternoon events. These comprised threeTo all who came we say: thanks for the memories. A specialthank-you goes to the individuals and corporations"Churchill Initiatives" presentations: by Coach JohnnyParker of the New England Patriots ("Churchill aswho contributed financially — without you, we couldInspiration" [in this case to football players]); DouglasRussell ("Lt. Churchill, 4th Hussars"); and Fred Farrownot have sponsored so many young people, nor provided("Personal Memories of the General Strike") — threeall that we did for everyone present.unique aspects of what Lady Soames calls "The Saga."IN THE glittering Venetian Room headquarters, visitorsfound a well-staffed registration desk peopled byvolunteers efficiently briefed and organized by chiefof staff Parker Lee; a selection of Churchilliana offered byAlan and Pat Fitch of ICS Stores and their helpers; andwhat must be the world's finest collection of World WarII memorabilia and autographia, displayed by KennethRendell. Next door in the Oval Room, Cynthia Newberryand Cyril Mazansky introduced our Thursday studentspeakers, led by Steven Mitby of Harvard, whose deliverywas as impressive as his paper. Mr. Buckley, who did notwitness Steve's speech but read his paper, repeatedlyreferred to it at dinner Friday night and got up to congratulateMitby after himself delivering the keynotespeech, "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men."Buckley's remarks capped a very full day onFriday the 27th, which had begun with the book discussionof Triumph and Tragedy by visiting professors organizedby academic chairman, Prof. Jim Muller. This wasfollowed by Celia Sandys, who related her experiences inwriting The Young Churchill (reviewed in issue 85), andher plans for the sequel, covering WSC's adventures fromSandhurst to the Boer War. The academics were backafter lunch with a spirited discussion of Churchill,Roosevelt and the End of World War II, described elsewherein these pages by Don Feder, and a seminar on"Teaching Churchill" for high school teachers and parents,arranged A long-Qistance Una distance uy bv iProfessor Patrick Powers,The crowning event was, of course, dinner, in theCopley Ballroom. After the national anthems, sung bySolveig Barber, came William Buckley's fine speech, and around of questions fired at him, National Press Clubstyle. ("What would have become of you had you beeneLed Mayor of New York in 1965? ... That wouldhave signified that the voters of New York had soreordered their thinking as to make my election redundant."The faint aroma of fine cigars permeated theCopley ground floor after dinner, for we had managedsomething that has eluded us for a few years: after-dinnergatherings for both smokers and non-smokers.We were clearly on a roll, which continuedINTRODUCING our Saturday speaker (above, onright), William Manchester was as fine as we expectedfrom the author of that literary masterpiece, The LastLion. Arthur Schlesinger's speech, on Churchill and therevisionist historians, was a humdinger that will beremembered a long time. Both spoke before dinner, sincethe Harvard Glee Club arrived afterward for an hour-longrendition of Churchill's favorite Harrow Songs, intowhich MC Jim Muller managed to insert "Fair Harvard"for a remarkable number of Harvard Alumni to join in.The Conference ended Sunday with a farewell breakfast,where Ambassador Paul Robinson expressed thanks to allon behalf of ICS/USA and David Boler and RandyBarber announced plans for the next two InternationalConferences (England in 1996; Toronto in 1997). It washard to believe the 12th ICS Conference was history.ICS set out to produce a zero-defects event, andby and large it succeeded. The nearest thing to a majorincident occurred Thursday night, when BarbaraLangworth received a communicator call from Parker Lee,down on the street (thank heaven for those communicators):"We ordered five trolleys to take us to the waterfrontand only three are here." The decision was instantaneous:fill the three and send them off, with instructionsto come right back for a second load. No sooner had theyleft than five more trolleys showed up — from a differentFINEST HOUR 89/21