Churchill, and his Cold War speech, in Fulton, Missouri (PRA e CLP, 2013)

Reproduzo aqui uma parte de meus registros relativos à parada, no meio da viagem através dos EUA, em 2013, em Fulton, Missouri, a pequena cidade onde Winston Churchill pronunciou seu famoso discurso sobre a "cortina de ferro" separando a Europa ocidental, de democracias livres, da Europa central e oriental, dominada pelo comunismo soviético.
Vou tentar localizar as fotos feitas na ocasião, e que ilustravam a minha postagem, feita a cada noite nos hotéis em que parávamos.
O relato completo da viagem está neste link: 
https://www.academia.edu/12251995/Across_the_whale_in_less_than_a_month_USA_coast_to_coast_2013
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Brasília, 15/11/2019

Across the whale in a month 

(3): Churchill's Cold War speech at Fulton, Missouri

Numa segunda-feira em que 99,99% dos museus americanos permanecem fechados, tivemos uma sorte danada ao poder visitar o memorial Churchill, localizado na pequena cidade de Fulton, no coração do Missouri, onde o famoso líder britânico da Segunda Guerra Mundial pronunciou o mais famoso discurso da Guerra Fria, na verdade, inaugurando, antecipadamente, a própria guerra fria.

Depois de sair de Saint Louis um pouco tarde, seguimos pela estrada que segue em direção a Kansas City. Exatamente no meio do caminho, e no meio do caminho entre a estrada principal e a capital do Missouri, uma sonolenta cidade de apenas 50 mil habitantes que responde pelo nome de Jefferson City (em homenagem ao terceiro presidente americano), fica esta pequena cidade que abriga o Westminster College (mesmo nome, talvez, do distrito eleitoral de Churchill, na Grã-Bretanha), que formulou o convite com o apoio do presidente Harry Truman, um caipira do Missouri (existe uma presidential library Harry Truman em Independence, pouco antes de Kansas City). 

Sempre tive curiosidade em saber por que, diabos, Churchill teria ido falar sobre tema tão importante quanto a dominação soviética na Europa central e oriental numa cidadezinha sem qualquer importância no plano mundial como essa aldeia perdida na caipirolândia americana. Pois bem, soube agora como isso foi acontecer, um discurso memorável que colocou no mapa do mundo, e da História (com H maiúsculo) esta pequena cidade dotada de um belo museu dedicado ao maior inglês do século 20, um detestável imperialista, um indefectível colonialista, mas um grande líder militar, um estrategista razoável e um grande mestre das palavras. Ele ganhou os ingleses basicamente pela palavra e pelos escritos, pelas frases geniais, cheias de espírito. 

Relato abaixo como isso foi possível, que soube pelo guia do museu, ou doutorando em História dos EUA pelo Westminster College, e pela informação disponível na internet.

Tenho o prazer de apresentar, portanto, o

National Churchill Museum

no subsolo (ou térreo) desta bela igreja inglesa do século 17 (na verdade, do século 11, mas destruída por um incêndio, e reconstruída depois, em 1677), trazida pedra por pedra de Londres, para figurar nesse memorial construído especialmente para servir como uma espécie de panteão especial para Churchill e toda a sua história de vida, desde a juventude, até seu aparecimento inédito em Fulton.

Na verdade, a história cobre até o final da Guerra Fria, e um pedaço do muro de Berlim figura no pátio da igreja, onde falou Gorbachev, em 1992 (ver foto abaixo).

Transcrevo uma informação sobre o local, retirada da atual "mãe dos burros", a Wikipedia.

The National Churchill Museum, (formerly the Winston Churchill Memorial and Library) located on the Westminster College campus in Fulton, Missouri, United States, commemorates the life and times of Sir Winston Churchill. In 1946, Winston Churchill delivered his famous "Sinews of Peace" address in the Westminster Historic Gymnasium. His speech, due to one particularly famous phrase ("an ‘Iron Curtain’ has descended across the continent"), has come to be known as the "Iron Curtain" speech. One of Churchill's most famous speeches of all time, "Sinews of Peace" heralded the beginning of the Cold War.

The National Churchill Museum comprises three distinct but related elements: the Church of St Mary Aldermanbury, the museum, and the "Breakthrough" sculpture.

Aí estou eu, refletido no vidro da porta da entrada, para uma visita memorável, que me lembrou em algumas passagens as "catacumbas" do gabinete de guerra de Churchill em Londres, que visitamos um ano e meio atrás, quando fui dar uma palestra sobre o Brasil no King's College

Continuo com a informação: 

Beneath the church is the Churchill museum, renovated in 2006. Through interactive new exhibits, the museum tells Churchill's story, discussing his personal and political life and his legacy. Additionally, the Clementine-Spencer Churchill Reading Room houses an extensive research collection about Churchill and his era.

Outside the church stands the "Breakthrough" sculpture, formed from eight sections of the Berlin Wall. Churchill's granddaughter, artist Edwina Sandys, designed the sculpture in order to commemorate both the "Sinews of Peace" speech and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In 1946, Winston Churchill travelled to Westminster College in order to deliver his famous "Sinews of Peace" address as a part of the Green Lecture series. An extraordinary confluence of circumstances conspired to bring Winston Churchill to Westminster. At the time, the College had a unique connection to U.S. President Harry S. Truman's administration—Major General Harry Vaughan, a graduate of Westminster College. College president Franc McCluer asked Vaughan to see what President Truman could do to induce Churchill to come to Westminster. President Truman thought the idea of bringing Churchill to Missouri (Truman's native state) was a wonderful idea. On the bottom of Churchill's invitation from Westminster College Truman wrote: "This is a wonderful school in my home state. Hope you can do it. I will introduce you."

So it was that two world leaders, Winston Churchill and President Harry Truman, descended onto the little campus of Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri.

Churchill arrived on the Westminster College campus on March 5, 1946 and delivered his address. Churchill's "Sinews of Peace" delineated the complications and tensions of that moment in world history—less than a year after World War II and at the dawn of the Cold War. Churchill had been watching the Soviet Union with increasing concern. Churchill feared another war. "A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory," he said; adding, "whatever conclusion may be drawn from these facts…this is certainly not the liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it one which contains the essentials of permanent peace."

Churchill noted the tensions mounting between Eastern and Western Europe. "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic," he said, "an ‘iron curtain’ has descended across the continent." Churchill then predicted what he called the formation of the "Soviet sphere.

Agora uma descrição do museu, em si: 

Winston S. Churchill: A Life of Leadership gallery

Renovated in 2006, in honor of the 60th anniversary of the "Sinews of Peace," the Churchill museum strives to bring Churchill to life for new generations born years after Churchill's death. The objective of the museum is to tell the story of Churchill's life, giving due proportion both to his successes and his failures, and to let visitors make their own determinations about the man and his place in history.

This narrative is presented in the form of a "walkthrough" experience, organized chronologically. The exhibition begins with Churchill's birth and proceeds through the major events of his life, alongside an examination of the critical events of the 20th century. The exhibit relates the story of Churchill's entire life—not only his experiences in World War II—examining his pursuits as a politician, soldier, journalist, family man, and painter.

Some of the highlights of this exhibition include the "Admiralty, Army & Arsenal: 1914-1919" room. This portion of the exhibit is housed within a recreation of a World War I trench—complete with barbed wire, sandbags, and spent ammunition—that gives visitors a sense of a British soldier's experience on the Western Front. A periscope mounted on the trench wall gives visitors a glimpse of a real World War I battlescape from period footage. An accompanying ambient audio track plays the sound of soldiers’ conversations interspersed with distant gunfire and shell bursts. The World War I room also examines Churchill's role in the disasters of the Dardanelles and Gallipoli and his contributions to the technology of warfare.

Another highlight of the exhibition is "The Gathering Storm: 1929-1939" room which discusses Churchill's suspicion of Hitler and the Nazi movement. In this room, five video monitors play excerpts from Nazi propaganda films interspersed with images of the impending war, demonstrating how Nazi rhetoric differed from policy. Against this backdrop, the exhibit examines Churchill's view of the Nazis and his disgust for Britain's pre-war appeasement politics.

Yet another room, "Churchill's Finest Hour: World War II, 1939-1945", portrays World War II and Churchill's pivotal role in that conflict. Here, a sound and light show replicates an air-raid on London during the "Blitz". Simulated rubble surrounds the room and the room reverberates with the sounds of bombs detonating and air raid sirens sounding. Flashes of anti-aircraft fire and the prodding beams of searchlights illuminate the exhibit. Segments of war-time broadcasts add to the atmosphere. After the conclusion of the Blitz demonstration, a short film, narrated by Walter Cronkite, examines Churchill's role as prime minister during the war. Around the walls of his room, more interactive displays describe the war-time skills of code breaking and plane spotting.

Other museum highlights include "The Sinews of Peace" room and the "Winston's Wit & Wisdom" room. "The Sinews of Peace" tells the story of how and why Churchill came to visit Westminster College. Featured in this exhibit are the lectern and chair used by Churchill during his speech and the ceremonial robes he wore. In "Winston's Wit & Wisdom" visitors sit in a simulated British club while listening to an audio presentation of Churchill stories. Visitors to this room may also search through a database of Churchill's most famous quotations and quips on a host of topics.

Foi, até agora, o ponto alto de nossa travessia pelos Estados Unidos.

Carmen Lícia fez várias fotos do museu, e minhas, fora e dentro do museu. Posto aqui uma delas.

Amanhã, ou melhor, hoje, terça-feira, dia 17, tem mais: vamos visitar o Memorial da Primeira Guerra Mundial em Kansas City, onde tem uma exposição especial sobre os dez anos que precederam a guerra.

A viagem continua.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Churchill & Orwell: unidos da defesa da liberdade

Churchill & Orwell

Zahar Editora

A fascinante história de dois homens com posições políticas diferentes, aliados pelo mesmo princípio: a defesa da liberdade individual

Figuras essenciais na luta contra as ameaças do autoritarismo de esquerda e de direita em um momento crítico do século XX, Churchill e Orwell surgem aqui como fonte de inspiração e exemplo para os dias de hoje. Filho de aristocratas, Winston Churchill (1874-1965) era um liberal conservador alinhado ao governo colonialista britânico. George Orwell (1903-1950), que vinha da classe média baixa, era militante socialista e anti-imperialista. 

Escrita pelo vencedor do Prêmio Pulitzer Thomas E. Ricks, essa atualíssima biografia dupla se concentra no período crucial da vida de Churchill e de Orwell: os anos 1930 e 1940, da ascensão dos nazistas até o rescaldo da Segunda Guerra Mundial. Hoje, impressiona testemunhar quão solitária era a posição de Churchill e de Orwell num momento em que a Europa parecia destinada à ditadura, fosse nazifascista ou comunista.

Apresentados como um par complementar, o político marginalizado em busca de redenção e o grande escritor ainda em formação trabalharam pelo mesmo objetivo, embora nunca tenham se encontrado.

"Leitura agradável e compulsiva, Churchill & Orwell impressiona pelo compromisso feroz que ambos tinham com o pensamento crítico." The New York Times Book Review

"Os dois nunca se encontraram, mas suas vidas e suas visões sobre como deveria funcionar a sociedade, noções de liberdade individual e limitações da política convergiam - pensamentos extraordinariamente harmoniosos em lugares diferentes. Realmente muito impressionante."John Le Carré

Churchill: o maior estadista do século XX, talvez de todas as épocas - Joao Carlos Espada

De Londres a Hong Kong (via Hillsdale College, USA)

João Carlos Espada

Observador (Portugal), 17/06/2019

https://observador.pt/opiniao/de-londres-a-hong-kong-via-hillsdale-college-usa/

Na passada sexta-feira, em Londres, teve lugar um jantar Churchilliano, com vários traços peculiares que talvez mereçam a nossa atenção.

Celebrava-se a publicação dos volumes finais (23 e 24) da longa biografia, seguida de correspondência e documentos, de Winston Churchill. O empreendimento fora iniciado ainda na década de 1960 por Randolph, filho de Winston, e pouco depois prosseguido por Martin Gilbert (que fora Assistente de Randolph nos volumes iniciais) e agora completado por Larry Arnn (um americano que fora Assistente de Martin Gilbert em Oxford, e que preside hoje ao norte-americano Hillsdale College).

Um primeiro traço peculiar deste encontro, sobretudo de um ponto de vista europeu continental, é que todo este gigantesco empreendimento de várias décadas não foi suportado por subsídios estatais. Tudo decorreu com base em apoios privados da sociedade civil — de indivíduos, famílias, empresas, colégios e associações voluntárias. No entanto, trata-se de uma obra que diz respeito ao maior estadista britânico do século XX. Sintomaticamente, não havia no jantar qualquer representante oficial do que no continente chamamos “Estado” britânico.

Um segundo traço peculiar deste encontro residiu no facto de a maior parte dos participantes ser americana. Havia certamente distintos participantes britânicos — desde logo Randolph Churchill e Celia Sandys, (bisneto e neta de Winston), bem como vários membros da Câmara dos Lordes, e outros distintos Churchillianos britânicos. Mas os americanos estavam claramente em esmagadora maioria entre os cerca de 300 participantes.

Um terceiro traço peculiar residiu na atmosfera profundamente comovente e comovida do jantar. As intervenções foram comovidas — e havia lágrimas nos olhos de vários intervenientes, bem como na assistência. Foi uma inesquecível demonstração da “relação especial” anglo-americana que Winston Churchill sempre defendeu.

Não deve ser evitada a questão crucial que emerge dessas três peculiaridades: por que motivo estiveram centenas de americanos (e algumas dezenas de britânicos) a celebrar em Londres a memória de um líder britânico (ainda que sua mãe tivesse sido americana), sem qualquer apoio estatal e num ambiente de grande comoção? Estavam comovidos acerca de quê?

Talvez a melhor resposta possa ser vislumbrada através das fotos das gigantescas manifestações que tiveram lugar em Hong Kong, também na semana passada. Desafiando a violência policial e o gaz lacrimogéneo, cerca de um milhão de cidadãos de Hong Kong desceram à rua em dias sucessivos. Protestavam contra uma “lei” recente que permite a extradição de cidadãos de Hong Kong para serem “julgados” na China continental comunista. Qual foi o maior símbolo desfraldado nas ruas pelos manifestantes que desafiavam a ditadura comunista? A bandeira britânica.

Por que motivo desfraldaram os habitantes de Hong Kong a bandeira de um país que não é o seu (e que, segundo a ortodoxia politicamente correcta, foi mesmo um ‘ocupante colonial’)? Por que motivo celebraram centenas de americanos em Londres a memória de Winston Churchill, que não era um estadista americano?

Não tenho dificuldade em sugerir uma resposta a estas perguntas cruciais. Fui ensinado a respeitar a bandeira britânica sempre por não britânicos: as minhas avós e os meus pais, orgulhosos cidadãos portugueses, em primeiro lugar; pelo austríaco Karl Popper, a seguir; e, finalmente, pelo alemão Ralf Dahrendorf. Também por isso mesmo, não fiquei surpreendido — embora tenha ficado comovido — pelo jantar de homenagem a Winston Churchill promovido em Londres na passada sexta-feira pelo norte-americano Hillsdale College. E também não fiquei surpreendido — embora tenha ficado comovido — ao ver a bandeira britânica desfradada pelos corajosos manifestantes em Hong Kong.

Tudo isto é certamente incompreensível pela actual atmosfera intelectual, dominada pelo vazio moral pós-moderno e pós-cristão, de que resulta o culto e a obediência ao poder do (que parece) mais forte. Mas, como recordou incansavelmente Winston Churchill, o poder sem fundamento na justiça e na lei é apenas o poder arbitrário — e por isso não merece obediência. Disse Churchill em 1938, ainda antes do início da II Guerra e da aliança nazi-comunista que lhe deu origem:

“Não temos nós uma ideologia própria — se tivermos de usar essa palavra horrível [ideologia] — não temos nós uma ‘ideologia’ própria, fundada na liberdade, numa Constituição liberal, num Governo parlamentar e democrático, na Magna Carta e na Petição de Direitos?”

===============

Uma palavra final (PRA): 

Se não fosse por Winston Churchill, a Europa, toda a Europa, da península ibérica aos Urais, teria sido reduzida à escravidão nazista provavelmente por um prazo superior a 30 anos. Esse é um chute meu, obviamente, mas um chute baseado nos acasos da guerra entre 1940 e 1942, depois que a França tombou sob o jugo nazista, e antes que a ofensiva nazista fosse interrompida em Stalingrado. Churchill precisou, é claro, do apoio de Roosevelt, caso contrário a Grã-Bretanha não teria resistido, mas ela sequer teria lutado se não  fosse pela vontade inquebrantável de Churchill de lutar até o fim.
Sim, Churchill salvou não só o Ocidente, mas o mundo inteiro da escravidão nazista. Devemos isso a ele. Nunca seremos suficientemente gratos...

Churchill, by Andrew Roberts - book review by Joao Carlos Espada

Mais uma resenha de um livro do qual já li outras resenhas – aqui postadas, por sinal – e vários trechos, a partir do que está livremente disponível na Amazon-Kindle.
Destaco um trecho, sobre os grandes erros de Churchill, para demonstrar que a nova biografia não é uma hagiografia, como destacado pelo resenhista, o prof. João Carlos Espada, um churchilliano português, diretor do Instituto de Estudos Políticos da Universidade Católica de Portugal, a quem conheci pessoalmente no quadro do Estoril Political Forum, do qual participei em 2017 e 2018.

The biographer provides a long list of mistakes throughout the whole book and, just in case the reader has missed any, there is a full page summary of them on page 966. It includes “his opposition to votes for women, continuing the Gallipoli operation after March 1915, rejoining the Gold Standard, supporting Edward VIII during the Abdication Crisis, mismanaging the Norway Campaign,  browbeating Stanislaw Mikolajczyk to accept the Curzon Line as Poland’s post-war frontier, making the ‘Gestapo’ speech during the 1945 general election campaign, remaining as prime minister after his stroke in 1953, and more besides.

Leiam a resenha abaixo.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Brasília, 11 de fevereiro de 2019

Andrew Roberts Takes the Measure of the Populist Aristocrat, Churchill

by Joao Carlos EspadaLeave a Comment

Law and Liberty, February 11, 2019

https://www.lawliberty.org/book-review/andrew-roberts-takes-the-measure-of-the-populist-aristocrat-churchill/

The obvious questions to be asked by the prospective reader of Andrew Roberts’ 1,105-page biography of Winston Churchill: Why another one? Could there be anything that has not yet been said or written about Churchill? If so, could there be enough to fill such an imposing volume?  

These questions are certainly pertinent and ought to be asked. But they ought not to prevent the reader from critically looking at this book. If one does so—and this reviewer frankly began it with a skeptical eye—one can hardly be disappointed. Churchill: Walking with Destiny is a page-turner, and it is full of new material that has not been previously available to Churchill scholars.

As Roberts acknowledges at the outset, he was the first historian to have “the gracious permission of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II . . . to have unfettered access to the whole of her father King George VI’s wartime diaries.” These of course include King George VI’s notes about his weekly lunches with Churchill during World War II. Roberts makes good use of these highly instructive notes and quotes them throughout the narrative.

Another source not previously used by biographers of Churchill is the recently published diaries of the Soviet ambassador to the Court of St. James, Ivan Maisky. It is indeed surprising the amount of relevant information that Roberts manages to extract from Maisky’s account. There are several other sources that the author was allowed to consult, including the visitors’ book at Chartwell (Churchill’s country house) and the minutes of the Other Club, which was founded by Churchill around 1911. 

On top of all this, Roberts manages to mobilize these tremendous sources (and many others, including the diaries of Mary Soames, Churchill’s youngest daughter, which are now at the Churchill Archives at Cambridge) into a well-paced narrative that is full of exciting passages—which matches  perfectly the venturesome spirit of Winston Churchill.

To Walk with Destiny Is Not to be Infallible 

This biography, moreover, does justice to its subtitle: “Walking with destiny.” We are reminded early on that Churchill, born in 1874, “had believed in his own destiny since at least the age of sixteen when he told a friend that he would save Britain from a foreign invasion.” In the Gathering Storm (1948), the first volume of his war memoirs, he wrote that upon his appointment as prime minister, he “felt as if I was walking with destiny.” Then Roberts lays out his intention in this work: to explore “the extraordinary degree to which in 1940 Churchill’s past life had indeed been a preparation for his leadership in the Second World War.”

This is no hagiography, since Roberts means to show that much of Churchill’s preparation came in the form of making mistakes. The biographer provides a long list of mistakes throughout the whole book and, just in case the reader has missed any, there is a full page summary of them on page 966. It includes “his opposition to votes for women, continuing the Gallipoli operation after March 1915, rejoining the Gold Standard, supporting Edward VIII during the Abdication Crisis, mismanaging the Norway Campaign,  browbeating Stanislaw Mikolajczyk to accept the Curzon Line as Poland’s post-war frontier, making the ‘Gestapo’ speech during the 1945 general election campaign, remaining as prime minister after his stroke in 1953, and more besides.” 

Doing things wrong is what somehow allowed Churchill to be right about “all three of the mortal threats posed to Western civilisation, by the Prussian militarists in 1914, the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s and Soviet Communism after the Second World War.” 

Be it noted that the idea of “walking with destiny” could be misleading if it were dissociated from the reasons—moral, political, philosophical—that led Churchill to fight the crucial battles he fought. Some of his contemporaries described him as an opportunist and as one who craved fame. Roberts quotes many of these critical, sometimes very critical, appraisals of Winston from his school days to the very end of his life. Roberts acknowledges the self-regarding adventurer in Churchill; but that spirit of adventure was rooted in something else that gave it substance. This moral anchor, as it were, is described by Roberts as being twofold: Churchill’s defense of the specificity of the political traditions of the British Empire and of the English-speaking peoples; and his aristocratic background.

Roberts argues persuasively that Churchill’s aristocratic background gave him a sense of independence and self-confidence. That background, he says, “sits uncomfortably today with his image as the saviour of democracy, but had it not been for the unconquerable self-confidence of his caste background he might well have tailored his message to his political circumstances during the 1930s, rather than treating such an idea with disdain.”

Churchill, he adds, “never suffered from middle-class deference or social anxiety, for the simple reason that he was not middle-class, and what the respectable middle classes thought was not important to the child born at Blenheim [Palace].”

This immediately reminded me of my first visit to that splendid site (which Queen Anne had ordered built for Churchill’s ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough, as a reward for his military feats in 1705) in the early 1990s. I was struck by the magnificence of the place. And my first thought, which I still vividly remember, was that someone born at Blenheim Palace could not easily do as he was told—especially if the orders came from “that man,” the despicable corporal Hitler (or from Comrade Stalin, for that matter).

In other words, I think Churchill’s British (as contrasted with Continental European) aristocratic background gave him a sense of rebellion against arbitrary commands from centralized powers—though not necessarily against the opinions of the common people. In fact, as Roberts rightly emphasizes, Churchill always recommended that one should “trust the people.” Describing the political philosophy of his father, the statesman Randolph Churchill, Winston wrote:

He saw no reason why the old glories of Church and State, of King and Country, should not be reconciled with modern democracy; or why the masses of working people should not become the chief defenders of those ancient institutions by which their liberties and progress had been achieved.

According to Roberts, Churchill’s aristocratic background gave him also, or perhaps mainly, a sense of duty towards the people and the nation. Writes the biographer:

His political opinions essentially stemmed from Disraeli’s Young England movement of the 1840s, whose sense of noblesse oblige assumed eternal superiority but also instinctively appreciated the duties of the privileged towards the less well off. The interpretation Churchill gave to the obligations of aristocracy was that he and his class had a profound responsibility towards his country, which had the right to expect his lifelong service to it.

“Like a true aristocrat, [he] was no snob,” Roberts sagely points out. Recalling that Churchill’s closest friends were taken from a wide social circle, the biographer draws our attention to the remarkable episode retold in Churchill’s My Early Life (1930) of the visit Winston received at boarding school from his beloved nanny, Mrs. Everest, in 1892. The lad walked with her arm-in-arm throughout the school down to the railway station and “even had the courage to kiss her,” completely ignoring and defying his snobbish contemporaries.

This aristocratic dimension of Churchill was associated with some crucial political and moral ideas that he thought were worth fighting, and even dying, for. Preeminent among these was the man’s belief in a common “history of the English-speaking peoples,” and of course this became the title of his last book, published in four volumes in 1955, but in fact started in 1932. Churchill (whose mother was American, one should bear in mind) defined this common heritage at many occasions that Roberts duly acknowledges.

The Honor that Comes of Serving a Great Cause

Perhaps one of the most telling definitions was offered in the course of an address Churchill made at Harvard University in 1943, when he was awarded an honorary degree:

Law, language, literature—these are considerable factors. Common conceptions of what is right and decent, a marked regard for fair play, especially to the weak and poor, a stern sentiment of impartial justice, and above all the love of personal freedom. . . . If we are together, nothing is impossible. If we are divided all will fail. I therefore preach continually the doctrine of the fraternal association of our two peoples . . . for the sake of service to mankind and for the honour that comes to those who faithfully serve great causes.

A remarkable example of this common Anglo-American commitment to liberty and duty (as Edmund Burke put it) can be found in one seemingly small detail in this massive biography. It comes by way of a  personal letter that Churchill’s wife, Clementine, wrote to him in 1940, in which she said:

It seems that your Private Secretaries have agreed to behave like schoolboys and ‘take what is coming to them’ and then escape out of your presence shrugging their shoulders . . . I must confess that I have noticed a deterioration in your manner, and you are not so kind as you used to be. It is for you to give the orders and if they are bungled—except for the King, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Speaker—you can sack anyone and everyone. Therefore with this terrific power you must combine urbanity, kindness and if possible Olympic calm. You used to quote ‘On ne règne sur les âmes que par le calme’. I cannot bear that those who serve the country and yourself should not love you as well as admire and respect you.

Roberts marvels, and leads us to marvel, that in a moment of great peril for the nation, and all free nations, “the British Prime Minister could be upbraided by his wife for being short tempered.” He adds that it was hardly likely anyone “was saying this to Churchill’s opposite number in the Reich Chancellery.” British ways, at their best, include an accountability that spares no one, however exalted. 

João Carlos Espada is director of the Institute for Political Studies at the Catholic University of Portugal and chairs the International Churchill Society of Portugal. His book The Anglo-American Tradition of Liberty: A View from Europe was published by Routledge in 2016 (paperback, 2018).