SUMMER 2003 • NUMBER 119

JOURNAL OF THE CHURCHILL CENTRE

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THECHURCHILLCENTREAND ALLIED ORGANIZATIONS, THE CHURCHILL SOCIETIES OE THE UNITED KINGDOM & CANADA

PATRON: THE LADY SOAME3, D.B.I;. • \WW.WINSTONCIIURCHILLORG

Founded lQuB, The Churchill Centre works to foster leadership, statesmanship, vision and boldness among democraticad freedom-loving peoples worldwide, through the thoughts, words, works and deeds of Winston Son opencer Churchill.

BOARD OF GOVERNORSRandy Barber " David Bolcr • D. Craig HornWilliam C. Ives • Judith Mills Kambe.stad • Nigel KnockerJames F. Lane • Richard M. Langworth • James W MullerCharles D. Platr • John G, Plumpton • Douglas S. Russell

OFFICERSWilliam C. Ivcs, President20109 Sort, Chape! Hill NC 27517Tel. (919) 967-9100 • Fax (919) 967-9001Email: wives@nc.rr.com

Charles D. Piatt, Vice President14 Blue Heron Drive West, Greenwood Village CO 80121Tel. (303) 721-8550 • Fax (303) 290-0097Email: cdp31@earthiink.net

Hon. Douglas S. Russell, Secretary1432 Buresh Avenue, Iowa City SA 52245Tel. (319) 337-4408 • Fax (319) 354-2868Email: airdnel2@hotmail.com

D. Craig Horn, Treasurer8016 McKenstry Drive, Laurel MD 20723Tel. (301) 725-3397 • Fax (301) 483-6902Email: dcraighorn@email.msn.com

BUSINESS OFFICEDaniel N. Myers, Executive Director1 150 Seventeenth Street, N.W, Suite 307Washington, DC 20036Tel. (888) WSC-1874 • Fax (202) 223-4944Email: dmyers@winstonchurchill.org

BOARD OF TRUSTEESRichard M. Langworth CBE, Chairman181 Burrage Road, Hopkinton NH 03229Tel. (603)^46-4433 • Fax (603) 746-4260Email: malakand@conkncr.com

Laurence Geller, Vice Chairman77 West Wacker Drive, Suite 4600, Chicago IL 60603Tel. (312) 658-5006 • Fax (312) 658-5797Email: lgeller@shci.com

Winston S. Churchill • Hon. Jack Kemp • George A. LewisChristopher Matthews • Amb. Paul H. Robinson, Jr.Hon. Celia Sandys • Hon. Caspar W. Weinberger CBE

HONORARY MEMBERSThe Lord Black of Crossharbour OC PC (C)Winston S. Churchill • Sir Martin Gilbert CBEThe Lord Decdes KBE MC PC DLRobert Flardy CBE • William ManchesterThe Duke of Marlborough JP DLSir Anthony Montague Browne KCMG CBF. DFCElizabeth Nel • Colin L Powell KCBWendy Russell Reves • Ambassador Paul H. Robinson, Jr.The Lady Thatcher LG OM PC FRSThe Hon. Caspar W. Weinberger GBE

INTERNET PRESENCEWebsite: www.winstonchurchill.orgWebmaster: savrola@winstonchurchill.orgLisrserv host: jonah.triebwasser@marist.edu

AFFILIATEWashington Society for ChurchillCaroline Hartzler, President, PO Box 2456Merrifield VA 221 16 • Tel. (703) 503-9226

The Churchill Centre is the successor organization to theWinston S. Churchill Study Unit (founded 1968) and tothe International Churchill Society of the United States(founded 1971).

LEADERSHIP & SUPPORT

NUMBER TEN CLUBThe Lord Black of Crossharbour OC PC (C)Laurence Geller • Phillip GordonMichael D. Rose • Anonymous

CHURCHILL CENTRE ASSOCIATESWinston Churchill Associates:

ICS United States • The Churchill CentreThe Annenberg Foundation* David & Diane BolerColin D. Clark • Fred Farrow • Mr. & Mrs. Parker H. Lee IIIMichael &C Carol McMenamin • David & Carole NossRay L. & Patricia M. Orban • Wendy Russell RevesElizabeth Churchill Snell • Mr. & Mrs. Matthew B. WillsAlex M. Worth Jr.

Clementine Churchill AssociatesRonald D. Abramson • Winston S. ChurchillJeanette & Angelo Gabriel • Craig & Lorraine HornJames F. Lane " Barbara & Richard LangworthDrs. John H. & Susan H. Mather • Linda & Charles PlattAmbassador & Mrs. Paul H. Robinson Jr.James R. & Lucille I. Thomas

Mary Soames AssociatesSolvcig & Randy Barber • Gary J. BonineSusan & Daniel Borinsky • Nancy Bowers • Loi.s BrownNancy H. Canary • Dona & Bob DalesJeffrey & Karen De Haan • Gary GarrisonRuth &C Laurence Geller • Frederick & Martha HardmanGlenn Horowitz • Mr. &C Mrs. William C. IvcsJ. Willis Johnson • Mr. & Mrs. Gerald Drake KambestadElaine Kendall • Phillip & Susan Larson • Ruth J. LavineMr. & Mrs. Richard A. Leahy " Cyril & Harriet MazanskyMichael W. Michelson • Mr. & Mrs. James W. MullerWendell & Nancy Musser • Bond NicholsEarl & Charlotte Nicholson • Bob & Sandy OdellDr. & Mrs. Malcolm Page • Ruth & John PlumptonHon. Douglas S. Russell • Daniel & Suzanne SigmanShanin Specter • Robert M. StephcnsonRichard & Jenny Streiff • Peter J. Travcrs • Gabriel UrwitzDamon Wells Jr. • Jacqueline & Malcolm Dean Witter

BOARD OF ACADEMIC ADVISERSProf. James W. Muller, Chairman,University of Alaska, Anchorage2410 Galewood Street, Anchorage AK 99508Tel. (907) 786-4740 • Fax (907) 786-4647Email: af]wm@uaa.alaska.edu

Prof. Paul K. Alkon, University of Southern CaliforniaSir Martin Gilbert CBE, Merton College, OxfordProf. Barry M. Gough, Wilfrid Laurier UniversityProf. Christopher C, Harmon, Marine Corps UniversityCol. David Jablonsky, U.S. Army War CollegeProf. Warren F. Kimball, Rutgers UniversityProf. Paul A. Rahe, University ofTulsaProf. John A. Ramsden, Queen Mary &' Westfield College,University of London

Prof. David T. Stafford, University of EdinburghDr. Jeffrey Wallin, President, The American AcademyProf. Manfred Weidhorn, Yeshiva University

LOCAL ORGANIZATIONThe Churchill Centre is represented by local organizers inAlaska, California (North and South), Chicago, Dallas,Denver, Detroit, Florida, Georgia, New England, NorthCarolina, Ohio and Washington DC; and is allhed withseveral independent Churchill organizations in Canadaand the United Kingdom. Please refer to "Datelines" inthis issue for local news and contact information.

The staff of Finest Hour, journal ofThe Churchill Centre, appears on page 4.

ALLIES

INTERNATIONAL CHURCHILLSOCIETY OF CANADAAmbassador Kenneth W Taylor, Honorary Chairman

Randy Barber, President14 Honcybourne Crescent, Markham ON 1,3P 1P3Tel. (905) 201-6687Email: randy.barber@cbs.gov.on.ca

Jeanette Webber, Membership Secretary3256 Rymal Road, Mississauga ON L4Y 3C1Tel. (905) 279-5169 • Email: jeanette.webbcr@sympatico.ca

Charles Anderson, Treasurer489 Stanfield Drive, Oakvillc ON L6L 3R2Tel. (905) 827-0819 • Email: cwga@sympatico.ca

The Other Club of OntarioNorman MacLeod, President16 Glcnlaura Court, Ashburn ON LOB 1A0Tel. (905) 655-4051 • Email: jeana@idirect.com

THE RT HON. SIR WINSTON SPENCERCHURCHILL SOCIETY OF BRITISH COLUMBIADr. Joe Siegenberg, President15-9079 Jones RoadRichmond, BC V6L 1L7Tel. (604) 231-0940

THE RT. HON. SIR WINSTON SPENCERCHURCHILL SOCIETY OE CALGARYRichard N. Billington, President2379 Longridge Drive, Calgary, ABT3E 5N7Tel. (403) 249-5016 • Email: rscjhomc@aol.com

INTERNATIONAL CHURCHILLSOCIETY OF THE UNITED KINGDOM

Chairman:Nigel Knocker OBEPO Box 1257, Melksham, Wilts. SN12 6GQTel. & Fax. (01380) 828609Email: nigel@icsuksaf.demon.co.uk

TRUSTEESThe Hon. Celia Sandys, ChairmanThe Duke of Marlborough JP DLThe Rt. Hon. Earl Jcllicoc KBE DSO MC PC FRSDavid Boler • David Porter " Geoffrey Wheeler

COMMITTEENigel Knocker OBE, ChairmanPaul H. Courtenay, Vice Chairman & Hon. SecretaryAnthony Woodhead CBE FCA, Hon. TreasurerJohn Gianvil! Smith, Editor ICS UK NewsletterEric Bingham • Robert Courts • John CrookshankGeoffrey Fletcher • Derek Greenwell • Michael KelionBrian Singleton • Wylma Wayne

NORTHERN CHAPTERDerek Greenwell, "Farriers Cottage," Station RoadGoldsborough, Knaresborough, North YorkshireHG5 8NT-Tel. (01423) 863225

INTERNATIONAL COUNCILOF CHURCHILL ORGANIZATIONSAmbassador Paul H. Robinson, Jr., Chairman208 South LaSalle Street, Chicago IL 60604 USA

JOURNAL OF THE CHURCHILL CENTRE

SUMMER 2003 • NUMBER 119

15 Walter Thompson: An Honourable Record • H. W. Thompson

CHURCHILL AND LAWRENCE18 "The only thing that's new in the world is the history you don't know" • Richard M. Langworth20 Lawrence of Arabia • Winston S. Churchill26 WSC & TEL: Nine Letters32 Seven Pillars: Three Appreciations • T. E. Lawrence in 1926, Winston S. Churchill in 1935, Charles W.Anderson in 2003

42 T. E. Notes and the T. E. Lawrence Society

LAWRENCE RECONSIDERED • PaulAlkon30 The Writing of Seven Pillars of Wisdom36 Imagining Scenarios: Churchill's Advice for Alexander Korda's Stillborn Film, "Lawrence of Arabia"43 Why Lawrence Matters

51 Moments in Time: Paris, Armistice Day, 11 November 1944 • Ben and Dominic Winter

BOOKS, ARTS & CURIOSITIES44 David Freeman pronounces John Ramsden's Man of the Century a "must" .... Christopher H. Sterling and TedHutchinson consider the Royal Historical Society's Churchill .... Michael McKernan looks at the latest Australian revisionism.... Jeanette Gabriel asks Winston Churchill how the world feels about his grandfather .... Ampersand lists the publishers ....Curt Zoller makes Churchilltrivia queries easier this time .... Paul Courtenay delivers more Prime Minister's Questions

Despatch Box 4 • @ The Centre 5 • Datelines 6 • Local & National Events 9 • Calendar 11Eminent Churchillians 12 • Around & About 12 • Riddles, Mysteries, Enigmas 13 • Wit & Wisdom 14Action This Day 16 • Ampersand 49 • Churchilltrivia 49 • Prime Minister's Questions 50(Leading Churchill Myths, Inside the Journals, and Woods Corner are again postponed for lack of space.)

Cover: "From amid the flowing draperies his noble features, his perfectly-chiseled lips and flashing eyes loadedwith fire and comprehension shone forth. " —Winston S. Churchill {page 21). Lawrence of Arabia by AugustusJohn, 1919, copyright © The Tate, London, 2003, and courtesy of the artist's estate/Bridgeman Art Library.

Back cover: A collage including Lawrence's dedication to Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Artwork from the coverof Lowell Thomas's best-seller, With Lawrence in Arabia (New York: Century, 1924). Thomas was not thewriter Lawrence was, but hadTKLs full cooperation—a relationship most authors just dream about.

J- !•

* "-

DESPATCH BOX

Number 119* Summer 2003ISSN 0882-3715www.winstonchurchill.org

Barbara F. Langworth, Publisher(b_langworth@conknet.com)

Richard M. Langworth, Editor(malakand@conknet.com)

Putney House181 Burrage RoadHopkinton, NH 03229 USATel. (603) 746-4433

Senior Editors:James W. MullerJohn G. PlumptonRon Cynewulf Robbins

Associate Editor:Paul H. Courtenay

News Editor: John Frost

ContributorsGeorge Richard, Australia;Chris Bell, Canada;Inder Dan Racnu, India;Paul Addison, Winston S. Churchill,Robert Courts, Sir Martin Gilbert,Allen Packwood, United Kingdom;David Freeman, Chris Harmon,Ted Hutchinson, Warren F. Kimball,Michael McMenamin, Chris Sterling,Manfred Weidhorn, Curt Zoller,United States

• Address changes:UK/Europe and Canada: send to UK or

Canada business offices.

Elsewhere: send to The Churchill Centrebusiness office.All offices are listed on page 2.

Finest Hour \s made possible in part throughthe generous support of members of TheChurchill Centre, and with the assistance ofan endowment created by the ChurchillCentre Associates (listed on page 2).

Finest Hour is published quarterly by TheChurchill Centre, which offers various levelsof support. Membership applications shouldbe sent to the apptoptiate offices on page 2.Permission to mail at non-profit rates in USAgranted by the United States Postal Service,Concord, NH, permit no. 1524. Copyright2003. All rights reserved. Designed and editedby Dragonwyck Publishing Inc. Productionby New England Foil Stamping Inc. Printedby Evans Printing. Made in U.S.A.

The Views of Mr. PowellI was married to J. Enoch Powell for forty-

six years, and can assert that, contrary to whatConrad Black writes in his review of JohnLukacs' book, Churchill: Visionary. Statesman.Historian, in Finest Hour #117, page 36, myhusband never held the view "that Churchillshould have made a live and let live deal withHitler." Mr. Powell was a professor of Greekin Sydney when war was declared and flewhome that month (September 1939), joinedthe Army as a private soldier and ended thewar as a Brigadier. I am sure you will wish topublish this letter in your next edition.

PAMELA POWELL, LONDON

Lord Black responds:My comment was based on what Mr.

Powell told me in the presence of his biogra-pher, Simon Heffer, when he came to lunchwith us at the Daily Telegraph. He was, as youknow, extremely antagonistic to the UnitedStates, held that country largely responsiblefor the dissolution of the British Empire, andtold us he favoured a negotiated end to thewar with Germany in 1943, and a postwar al-liance with the Soviet Union rather than theUnited States and Western Europe. He saidhe had written to someone in 1943 proposinga negotiated end to the European war. Wefurther discussed these matters several yearslater at the Conservative Philosophy Groupwhere I described him as "irrationally anti-American" in the midst of a perfectly civilizedexchange. I was in some other respects an ad-mirer of Mr. Powell and enjoyed my meetingsand correspondence with him.

LORD BLACK OF CROSSHARBOUR, OC PC(C)

Tax CuttersKudos to Michael McMenamin's Au-

tumn 2002 "Action This Day" on Churchill'smassive 1927 tax cut proposal. McMenaminaccurately reports that the cuts were paid forby reduction in expenditure, including mili-tary: an example of true leadership in starkcontrast to current politicians who style them-selves conservatives and propose huge tax re-ductions. Today's taxation proposals, unlikeChurchill's, are not paid for with spendingcuts but funded with borrowed money; theywill increase the national debt, and the inter-est on that debt.

BRUCE NORMAN STIER, FT. WAYNE, IND.

Mr. McMenamin responds:Churchill would appreciate and accept

Mr. Stier's gracious compliment, but wouldhasten to explain his economic policies were

more complicated than the limited space of"Action This Day" permits or Mr. Stier's lettersuggests. Churchill didn't attempt, using a sta-tic analysis, to balance tax and spending cutslike a bean counter. To Churchill, tax cuts,spending reductions and even tax increaseswere part of a dynamic mix aimed, especiallyin 1927, at stimulating what we call today thesupply side of the economy. Churchill elabo-rated on this in a newspaper essay in 1939:

My tenure of the Exchequer [1924-1929] raninto quiet and prosperous times. In my fiveyears, I was able to reduce taxation substan-tially...the consuming power of the people wasencouraged, and strong new resources of wealthwere 'left to fructify' in the pockets of the peo-ple. Debt was substantially reduced; our obliga-tions to the United States were punctuallymet....I devised a number of new taxes, allmuch abused at the time, all increased since, onsilk, on petrol, and on motor-cars. I maintaineda sinking fund of over fifteen millions a year ef-fective payment. Unemployment fell to belowthe million mark. I really thought I was myselfentitled to survey this work of five years withsome major satisfaction.

MICHAEL T. MCMENAMIN, CLEVELAND

Artistic LicenseOn page 30 of FH 117

the caption identifies themiddle figure as Rear-Admi-ral Madden, but he is wear-ing the stripes of a Vice-Ad-miral. I doubt that Maddenand Jellicoe were Churchill's"two highest executive officers." I believe thatthese should include the First Sea Lotd.

HENRY V. BOHM, NORTHVILLE, MICH.

Editors' response:The painting and caption are from The

Sphere of 15 August 1914. The painting doesnot picture a real event, just a generalised viewof what may have happened any time in thepreceding ten days. It is highly stylised: I can-not imagine two admirals briefing the FirstLord in his office like this while still wearingtheir caps. On this date, Admiral Sir John Jel-licoe was Commander-in Chief, Grand Fleetand Rear Admiral Madden was his chief ofstaff (but not second in command). Maddenwas not promoted to the acting rank of Vice-Admiral until June 1915 and did not becomesecond-in-command till 1916, so both thepainting and caption are misleading. To referto these two as the First Lords two highest ex-ecutive officers is highly irregular. I doubt ifthe term was known to the Royal Navy andwas probably coined by the caption writer inignorance of official terminology, PHC IS

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@ The Centre: President's Letter

B;y the time you read this, six months will have passed with The ChurchillCentre under the guidance of new officers and professional staff operatingfrom new offices in Washington, D. C. Dan Myers, our new Executive

Director, has assumed his role as the focal point of administrative activities witha high degree of professionalism. He has smoothly engineered the transfer of allmembership and financial records to the Centre's office and is actively managingthese essential functions. Churchill Stores and the Churchill Centre Book Clubhave been combined and transferred to Washington, and Dan will substantiallyincrease their offerings. Through innumerable personal visits, lunches, dinnersand telephone calls, Dan is raising the Centre's profile in the capital city.

The Centre's Executive Committee, consisting of Vice President Chuck Platt, Secretary Doug Russell, Trea-surer Craig Horn, Trustees Chairman Richard Langworth and myself, is actively engaged in the Centre's affairs.When I scheduled monthly Executive Committee conference calls I promised the committee that the calls wouldbe limited to one hour each. That promise was shattered during our first call, which required nearly two hours.The same has been true with subsequent calls simply because agendas are long and discussions intense.

We are carefully reviewing the nature and level of our operating expenses. The procedures used to justifythem are being tightened. Certain categories are being questioned. The Centre's financial status is now scrutinizedon a monthly basis.

It is apparent that commonly accepted prior practices need to be stated in formal Centre policies. We are ad-dressing complimentary memberships; commercial solicitation of Centre members; Governor and Executive Com-mittee participation in planning annual conferences; automatic Centre membership for members in good standingof our allies, ICS-Canada and ICS-UK; proper documentation for expenses, both for outside vendors and Centreleaders. New and challenging management issues appear with surprising regularity.

The groundwork for major fund raising has and is being laid by Richard Langworth and the chairman of theCentre's Campaign D-Day, Laurence Geller. While their plans are indeed ambitious, their enthusiasm and thescope of their efforts will, I'm sure, carry the day.

I have asked two past presidents, Richard Langworth and John Plumpton, along with our Executive Direc-tor, to help me to conduct a top to bottom review of the Centre's governance structure and procedures. The Cen-tre was founded nearly eight years ago and some adjustments, or even wholesale revamping, may be in order.

Drafts of a detailed and comprehensive student outreach program are being circulated among various Centremembers for informal comments. When these comments have been fused into a final draft, it will be presented.

I am pleased that our affiliated local groups throughout Canada, England and the United States are thriving.Established groups are holding more and larger meetings, publishing newsletters and expressing a willingness, evenan eagerness, to do more. The Centre's energetic local coordinator, Judy Kambestad, has just concluded a very suc-cessful foray through the southeast U.S. where core groups for new affiliates have met in Atlanta, Georgia; ChapelHill, North Carolina; Gainesville and Jacksonville, Florida; and Charleston, South Carolina. This rapidly expand-ing network of groups affiliated with the Centre will provide a solid basis for the promotion of our goals.

Much attention is given to the participation in various events—ours and those of others. We will be sponsor-ing with our affiliate, the Washington Society for Churchill, a presentation by Celia Sandys in June in Washing-ton, D.C.; hosting the Third Churchill Lecture in Washington; holding an annual international conference inBermuda November 5th-8th; and assisting the Elderhostel organization in conducting a World War II Churchillconference in Virginia in the spring of 2004. Also in Washington in the spring of 2004 the Centre will be involvedin the dedication of the World War II Memorial and a major Churchill exhibit at the Library of Congress. Not tobe overlooked is the our 2004 International Conference in September, beginning in Portsmouth, England, thenmoving across the channel to the D-Day beaches and on to Berlin. Planning formeetings in 2005 (Quebec City and West Point/Hyde Park, New York), and 2006(Chicago with Lincoln Forum participation) are under way.

I hope this interim report is meaningful to you who support us by your con-tinued membership. We will continue to do all we can to justify your confidence.

FINEST HOUR 119/ 5

DATELINESQUOTATION OF THE SEASON

'[The French] want the best of all worlds—not to fight in the war, but to remain a great power."

—WSC to Sir William Strang, Downing Street, 6 July 1953 (see "Action Tkis Day," 1953, page 17)

Lord Heseltine to Address Bermuda Churchill Conference

When Michael Heseltine became Secretary of Statefor Defence in 1983, he immediately revealed hisChurchillian credentials. Learning that the magnifi-cent George IV bookcase, octagonal table, andQueen Anne grandfather clock which had once fur-nished Churchill's Admiralty were still in storage, hesent for all three pieces and installed them in hisoffice. We pictured him with these trophies on theback cover of Finest Hour 43, Spring 1984.

A graduate of Oxford and an officer in theWelsh Guards, Michael Heseltine helped createHaymarket Publishing Group, one of the largestBritish magazine companies, in the 1960s. He

rejoined the board on leaving government in 1997 and became chairman in 1999.Mr. Heseltine contested the Gower constituency and Coventry North

before being elected for Tavistock, Devon, in 1966. Following the redistribution ofTavistock, he represented Henley from 1974 to 2001. Serving a variety of offices inthe shadow cabinets of 1970-79, he became Secretary of State for the Environment(1979-83). As Minister of Defence (1983-86) he played a central role in defeatingthe unilateral nuclear disarmament campaign of the mid-1980s.

He resigned from the Cabinet in 1986 and four years later challengedMrs. Thatcher for the leadership of the Conservative Party. She resigned and Mr.Heseltine joined John Major's Cabinet, again as Minister of Environment. His posi-tions since include President of the Board of Trade, Secretary of State for Trade andIndustry, and Deputy Prime Minister, a post he held until April 1997. After the1997 election he became chairman of Conservative Mainstream, whose objective itis to stimulate interest in the "centre ground of politics," not very different fromWinston Churchill's approach in his own day. His books are Where There's a Will(1987), The Challenge of Europe: Can Britain Win?(\989) and his political autobi-ography, Life in the Jungle (2000).

The Churchill Centre is proud to welcome Lord Heseltine along withLady Soames and Sir Martin Gilbert to Bermuda in November.

ParaphrasersQATAR, APRIL 29TH— Addressing Americantroops, U.S. Defense Secretary DonaldRumsfeld said: "You have driven arepressive regime from power, ending athreat to free people everywhere, pro-tecting our country from a growingdanger and giving the Iraqi people achance to build a free nation." When

asked by a soldier whether he had beenflooded with apologies from criticsRumsfeld replied, "There were a lot ofhand wringers around weren'tthere?...You know, during World WarII Winston Churchill was talkingabout the Battle of Britain and he said,'Never...was so much owed, by somany, to so few.' A humorist in

Washington...sent me a note in whichhe said, 'Never have so many been sowrong about so much.'"

Now the questions are over whatkind of government Iraq will get. Andto paraphrase Churchill's acerbicdefense of democracy, it might turn outto be the worst system we could devise,except for all the other systems.

Gretchen Unveils WinstonNEW YORK, MAY 15TH— Few FH readersmay subscribe to Elle, a magazine foryoung women who desire to beinstructed in ways and means to exciteyoung men into marriage. (What acommentary on today's youth! Asweater two sizes too small was all thatwas needed when I was young; our girlswere cunning enough to generateparoxysms of desire among boys withno instruction whatsoever, indeed indefiance of instruction from variousbusybodies. But I digress.) The "ElleRecommends" column of the June "Sexand Body issue" contains the following:

"Yale Law School professorGretchen Rubin tackles one of thetwentieth century's most towering andvoluminously written-about statesmenin her inventive Forty Ways to Look atWinston Churchill a biographical col-lage that offers glimpses of the greatman as a brilliant wordsmith, formida-ble military strategist, prodigiousdrinker, closet crybaby, and politicalgenius—and a fascinating distillationof, as Churchill himself famouslydescribed Russia, 'a riddle wrapped in amystery inside an enigma.'" (Rubin hasfallen for Churchill's pretense about hisliquor consumption; and actually, WSCwas a public crybaby.)

This may not be exactly what theCentre's next generation campaign has

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in mind, but we need new forums, freshaudiences. Perhaps we should inviteProf. Rubin to take part in one of ouracademic panels. Might she bring alonga posse of dewy-cheeked Elle readers,eager for instruction in the romanticarts known only to veterans of SternerDays? —Terry McGarry

"The Ultimate Conceit"PLACENTIA, CALIF., MARCH 15TH— Over the

years our Patron, Lady Soames, hasimpressed upon us this rule of conduct:"Thou shah not proclaim what myfather would do in modern situations."She always asks people who presume toknow what Sir Winston would do:"How do you know?"

There has been a great deal of thislately, what with the Iraq business andthe sorry events leading up to it. Todraw lessons from Churchill's experi-ence and apply them to current situa-tions is different from proclaiming pre-cisely what he might do in response tocurrent situations.

The difference is a fine one, oftenmissed. But it is crucial to observe, asProfessor David Freeman said today toa chapter of the Dartmouth AlumniAssociation: "When someone askedAlonzo Hamby, the Truman biograph-er, to speculate on what Truman wouldhave done about a certain current situ-ation, Hamby replied that for a biogra-pher to speculate on what his subjectwould do about something in the pre-sent is the 'ultimate conceit.'"

Professor Freeman's topic was"Churchill the Peacemaker," illustratingwhat WSC had done in various situa-tions to secure peace. "My aim was tomake the talk relevant to current events,but avoid indulging in the 'ultimateconceit.' Although my audiencespanned the political spectrum, Ireceived a positive response. I think thetrick is to explain what Churchill did ina specific situation, leaving it to indi-viduals to decide what conclusions todraw: 'using without abusing.'"

"Gallant and Honourable"LONDON, MAY liTH— Former War

Minister John Profumo CBE, who in1963 was forced to resign from the

Cabinet forlying to theHouse ofC o m m o n sover his affairwith call girlC h r i s t i n eKeeler, may berehabilitated.In a Com-mons motion,five MPs de-clared todaythat the coun-try owed JohnProfumo "a huge debt of gratitude" forvoting against his party in May 1940:the vote of confidence which helpedpropel Chamberlain out of office, andChurchill in.

They said the Tory rebels, amongwhom Profumo is the last survivingmember, ensured "the survival of thiscountry," leading to victory by theAllies in 1945. Churchill's grandson,Tory MP Nicholas Soames, has alsosigned the motion. There is a campaignto get the Prime Minister to reinstatethe Privy Council status Mr. Profumogave up when he resigned, a movebacked by the present Tory leader IainDuncan Smith. Since 1963 JohnProfumo, now 88, has devoted himselfto charity work. —Paul Rowley, BBC

Vituperation is BackNEW YORK, APRIL 29TH— William Safire, inhis op-ed column in The New YorkTimes, welcomed the rebirth of vituper-ation, citing an exchange betweendeputy secretary of state RichardArmitage and former speaker of theHouse Newt Gingrich. "Gingrich,whose ethical decisions I castigatedwhen he was riding high, may wish torespond to the Armitage counterattackwith a cool analysis of institutionalspinelessness at State," Safire writes."Perhaps he can use this example ofinvective without rancor:

'"I remember, when I was a child,'said Winston Churchill in the Thirties,directing his Commons oratory at J.Ramsay MacDonald's Labour govern-ment, 'being taken to the celebratedBarnum's Circus, which contained an

exhibition of freaks and monstrosities,but the exhibit which I most desired tosee was the one described as TheBoneless Wonder. My parents judgedthat the spectacle would be too revolt-ing and demoralizing for my youthfuleyes,' said Churchill, fixing a cherubicgaze at MacDonald, 'and I have waitedfifty years to see the Boneless Wondersitting on the Treasury Bench.'"

Churchill Meets HavurahTUCSON, ARIZONA, MARCH 12TH— D a v i d

Druckman spoke for an hour tonightbefore seventy members of Havurah, aJewish oriented group, touching onWSC's philosophy with a quotationfrom Benjamin Franklin: "The onlyway to secure peace is to be prepared forwar." Churchill's supposed defects werenext on the agenda: Druckman punc-tured the "lazy, cigar-smoking, alco-holic" charges, finally coming to thefamiliar cant that WSC refused to helpthe Jews.

"I showed pictures of Churchill'sJewish friends, including Cassel, Laski,Baruch, Isaacs, Blum, and lastly ChaimWeizmann, who led major Jewish orga-nization in the early 20th century toestablish a Jewish State and was firstpresident of Israel," Druckman says. "Inoted that before World War IChurchill, representing ManchesterNorth West, fought against the AliensBill, which attempted to curtail Jewishimmigration after a Russian pogrom.Moving to WW1 and its aftermath, Idiscussed how Churchill fought theBolsheviks and, as Colonial Secretary,set the borders of Palestine, which even-tually allowed 320,000 Jews to emigratethere before World War II, in spite ofthe 1939 White Paper discouragingsuch emigration."

Most of the presentation -wasabout World War II: Churchill's assetsand liabilities, and how he was con-fronted with anti-semitism; why hecould not get the U.S. Air Force, whichwas responsible in that area, to bombthe concentration camps and rail lines.Churchill's pro-Zionist postwar supportof Israel (in spite of the death of hisfriend Lord Moyne at the hands ofZionist extremists) was mentioned. >>>

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"I related several personal stories, suchas Churchill's near meeting with Hitlerin 1932, quoted Chaim Weizmann'spraise of Churchill, and Churchill'sown remarks to the U.S. Congress in1952, redeclaring his support for aJewish national home," Mr. Druckmancontinues. "Lastly I asked the supportof Havurah to 'keep the memory greenand the record accurate,' to challengethe revisionists, to remember the great-est statesman of the 20th century, andto teach the young. I was asked to pre-pare another talk for later in the year."

Covers Program EndsLAS VEGAS, JUNE 1ST— One of the last linkswith our philatelic origins ended todayas Dave Marcus, who has managed thecommemorative cover program sincethe early 1970s, called an end to hisefforts, which have produced over fiftycovers bearing stamps, postmarks andcover designs marking importantChurchill anniversaries. Diminishedinterest, modern postal practices whichdeface covers in the mail, and theadvent of a similar programme by ICS-UK are the reasons.

The old Churchill Study Unit pro-duced its first cover in 1969 to mark the95th anniversary of Churchill's birth.Bearing a rubber stamp imprint andChurchill commemorative stamps, itwas postmarked at Woodstock,Oxfordshire. After Dave took overcover management in 1971, design andprint quality increased dramatically.

Among notable achievements overthe years was a cover carried to SouthAfrica by David Druckman and post-marked at railway stations along theescape route Churchill had followed ineluding the Boers ninety years earlier.Another cover was postmarked in Iranto mark the 90th anniversary of theTeheran Conference—a project whichcaused Dave to produce a supply of fail-safe covers from a domestic post officein case the Iranians refused to cooper-ate! The final commemorative cover,marking the 50th anniversary ofChurchill's comeback victory in the1951 General Election, was postedfrom Woodford, WSC's constituency,on 26 October 2001. Complete collec-

"View of Chartwell" Oil on Canvasfor Conference Benefactors

Members who register for theBermuda Conference at the Benefactorlevel or above will receive this magnifi-cent oil-on-canvas replica of one ofChurchill's most prized paintings.Benefactor registration is $3000 percouple, $2000 per individual and in-cludes the usual substantial tax deduc-tions for U.S. & Canadian citizens.

Churchill painted "View ofChartwell" in 1938 from his favorite

viewpoint, high on the hill to the left of today's car park, his ponds in the fore-ground and the Weald of Kent behind. "You're a fool if you haven't been upthere," he once remarked to Grace Hamblin.

We are indebted to Wylma Wayne, Minnie Churchill, Churchill HeritageLtd. and Curtis Brown for making this limited edition possible. The paintingmeasures 28 x 32 inches, including a beautiful antique frame, and is producedto the highest quality standards. It comes with a numbered certificate of au-thenticity, and will be shipped from England immediately upon receipt of yourregistration.

Registration packets have been mailed—be ready!

tions from #1 to #54 are few (not tomention numerous variants and "fail-safe" covers produced in case someexotic mailing went wrong). We predictthey will be highly collectible.

Over the years the covers programhas made important contributions tothe revenue of the Churchill StudyUnit, International Churchill Societyand Churchill Centre. Dave Marcus hasheld his job longer than anyone else inour history. He enters well-earnedretirement with the thanks of all. RML

The Nazis Invade (Again)WASHINGTON, MAY 7TH— PBS televisionoffered yet another rehash on the "IfBritain Had Fallen" theme firstexpounded by Norman Longmate inhis historical fiction by the same title(reviewed in Finest Hour 33 in 1982).Two Nazi books, compiled by Germanintelligence officer Walter Schellenberg,were the basis for this effort. The firstwas The Black Book, identifying forelimination 2,820 British governmentofficials, European emigres, and thecream of the intellectual and culturalelite, including Noel Coward, E.M.Forster, and H.G. Wells. The secondwas Schellenberg's InformationsheflG.B.—the blueprint for the domina-

tion of Great Britain. Outlined herewere the rules for how occupyingGerman troops should initially behave(e.g., stand politely in line when shop-ping), what groups are to be coopted,what others killed (by Einsatz deathsquads), and when to begin the depor-tation of Jews back to Europe.

In the telecast "Hitler's Victory,"the Germans invade on 24 September1940. Auxiliary units created in secretby Churchill to harass German troopsare history in two weeks. During fiercefighting in Kent on October 15th, theBritish mount a disastrous counterat-tack. A massive air attack on Londonkills Churchill in his war rooms. Theroyals are evacuated to Canada. ByNovember 1st the Nazis paradethrough London and install the Dukeof Windsor as King; he sits irrelevantlyat Balmoral Castle in Scotland. WithBritain gone, Hitler strikes east in May1941, rather than late June. The weath-er is better and the Soviet Union falls.America is alone, while WernerHeisenberg develops the atomic bomband Werner Von Braun works on rock-ets that eventually will send a Germanto the moon. The interviews with sur-viving members of Britain's "auxil-iaries"—aging citizens organized by

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Churchill who volunteered to murderevery invader they could get close to—interesting adjuncts to the plot.

War Rooms ExtensionLONDON, APRIL 8TH—The official openingto the extension to the Cabinet WarRooms (CWR) was conducted by theRt. Hon. Gordon Brown, Chancellor ofthe Exchequer, who made a remarkablespeech citing Churchill as the saviour ofthe world. Many distinguished guestsattended, including Lady Soames andmembers of the Churchill family.About 250 people were there, includingsix members of ICS/UK. After speechesby Mr. Brown and Admiral Sir JockSlater, Chairman of the Imperial War

Museum Trustees, there was a lunchand a conducted tour of the extension.This includes state-of-the-art educa-tional facilities including video confer-encing which will enable children (andothers) to be given tours of the CWRfrom parts of the world which havethese facilities. More rooms are beinggradually opened up and restored to thestate they were in during WW2. Themuseum is due to open in 2005 anditems are now being collected.

Erratum, FH 118, page 24We stated that Churchill took fly-

ing lessons in 1913, "though already 34years old"; he was actually 39. Thanksto Terry Reardon for this correction.

Local & National EventsEvents are also now covered by our fraternal publication, the Chartwell Bulletin.

Italian TributeBAVENO, LAKE MAGGIORE, ITALY, MAY 18TH—

Nigel and Angela Knocker representedThe Churchill Centre and Societies atthe unveiling of a new Churchill statueat the Lido Palace Hotel. It was herethat Churchill spent part of his honey-moon in 1908. The pro-British ownerof the hotel also has a statue of QueenVictoria in the garden, and displaysmany pictures of the present Queen.

The unveiling was carried out byWinston Churchill, who spoke inItalian. The British Consul from Milanand Col. Knocker also spoke, the latterrelaying a message from Lady Soames.Afterwards there was a lavish receptionwhich most of the town attended,including British and American localresidents and holiday makers: a goodand happy occasion, well run in the

most beautiful setting.Any members visiting the Italian

Lakes would be most welcome to call orstay at the hotel, which is very comfort-able and well run. They should maketheir affiliation known in advance Thedetails are:

Lido Palace Hotel BavenoLago Maggiore28831 Baveno (Vb)S.S. Sempione.30 Italyemail: info@lidopalace.com

UK Annual General MeetingWOODSTOCK, APRIL 12TH— Some fiftymembers attended the A.G.M. of theInternational Churchill Society UK,holding a lively discussion of futureplans. A group of Portuguese wish toopen a chapter. We will, of course, helpthem. James Taylor, Head of Research

and Learning at the CWR, gave aninteresting talk about the CWR devel-opments. I judged this AGM the bestwe have had.

Planning for the 2004 ChurchillConference continues satisfactorily.The notice on the Centre's website ask-ing for an indication of numbersintending to come has produced goodresults. This is particularly useful forthe planning of conference phases 2(Normandy) and 3 (Rhine crossing andBerlin). —Nigel Knocker, Chairman

John Maurer on TeachingWESTON, MASS., MAY 4TH— A score of New

England Churchillians gathered at thehome of Richard and Peggy Batchelderfor a talk by Professor John H. Maurer:"Teaching Churchill: Studies inStatesmanship and War Leadership."Maurer is a member of the Policy andStrategy Department, Naval WarCollege, Newport, Rhode Island. Heteaches an elective course on WinstonChurchill to officers from all branchesof the military, individuals from theState and other government depart-ments, and officers from allied navies.

Military officers need to be awareof strategic and policy factors thatdetermine not merely how to win thewar but how to win the peace. Studentsexamine the strategic and policy issuesChurchill faced, starting with the pre-Great War naval arms race withGermany and ending with the ColdWar. Learning how Churchill faced cur-rent dangers and anticipated futurethreats and changes in warfare gives stu-dents the opportunity to think aboutthe current strategic environment andimagine future environments.

Professor Maurer related how onestudent, a naval officer from a FarEastern country that had only recentlybecome a democratic state, took theChurchill course because he wanted tosee how a great leader directed a democ-racy in a desperate struggle by sustain-ing the people's morale and crafting awinning strategy. It was no surprise tolearn that students come away from thecourse with an enthusiasm forChurchill and appreciation of his con-temporary relevance. >>>

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Maurer on Teaching...Guests enjoyed a buffet supper and

the opportunity to view RichardBatchelder's collection of Churchillbooks and memorabilia. At the host'ssuggestion, attendees contributedbooks and other Churchilliana for asilent auction that raised $200 for TheChurchill Centre and augmented sever-al collections.

Post-War SummitryWASHINGTON, MAY 2isT— For a brief twomonths in early 1953 there was achance that Churchill's push for a Big-Three summit meeting might havesome effect. Stalin had died in Marchand the new Soviet leadership, less sureof itself and more flexible, might havebeen willing to meet with Churchilland newly-elected U.S. PresidentEisenhower. So suggested Dr. KlausLarres in remarks to the WashingtonSociety for Churchill at a dinner onMay 21st. Holder of the KissingerChair at the Library of Congress in2002-03, and taking up the Chair inInternational Relations and ForeignPolicy at London University in thisautumn, Larres is the author of thewell-received Churchill's Cold War. Hespoke to nearly 30 interested listenersabout Churchill's postwar push for con-tinued summitry. A fuller account ofhis remarks will be published in theChartwell Bulletin #4, which willappear this summer.

The Past is BackWESTMINSTER, MARYLAND, MAY 1ST— A f t e r

discovering that they could not teachthe historical fiction books in theirlessons without delving into the historyof World War II, Winfield ElementarySchool language arts teachers RonaHaddaway, Cathy Stephens andMelanie Dorsey produced a WW2USO (United Service Organizations)show with fifth-grade students. Puttingtogether a show that touched on thehistorical figures of the war, the storiesthe classes had read about childrenaffected by the war and the music,advertisements and propaganda of theera would tie the unit together, theteachers said.

They taught students to swingdance, make hand-drawn flags and bat-tleship posters, and write their scriptsafter researching books and the inter-net. The performance was part of aCarroll County elementary school'stribute to war veterans.

The skits and performances told ofa life that may seem almost foreign totoday's elementary school pupils. Theyused puppets to depict the famousradio broadcast speeches of FranklinRoosevelt and Winston Churchill.They used a game show to share factsabout the "victory gardens" that manypeople planted after governmentsencouraged them to grow food,enabling more supplies to be shippedabroad to the troops.

Boys, some in camouflage fatigues,recited by memory a torrent of statisticsabout the size, markings and firepowerof the lumbering battleships and air-craft that took center stage during theSecond World War. Girls wrote a com-mercial in which jeans- and bandanna-clad women who went to work in air-plane factories during the war tried topersuade a group of housewives inkitchen aprons to make sacrifices.

Zack Merritt, 11, said that he"learned about battleships and whathappened back then and what the warwas about. It was about the Germans,Italians and Japanese forming the AxisPowers, and there was a whole lot ofpeople against them because they weredestroying things and killing Jewsbecause the Nazis thought Germanswere better than everybody and Hitlerwas the main guy."

—Jennifer McMenamin, Balti-more Sun.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Churchill WeekendMILTON KEYNES, AUGUST 30TH— Bletchley

Park's Second Annual ChurchillWeekend opens to visitors throughAugust 31st. It commemorates the closelink between Bletchley Park andChurchill, highlighting his support forand enduring reliance on secret intelli-gence. This weekend will also portray

Local Contacts

Contact these regions or independent organi-zations to participate in local events; or ourLocal Coordinator if you wish to start one inan area not listed: Judith Kambestad, 1172Cambera Lane, Santa Ana CA 92705, tel.(714) 838-4741, emailjammpott@aol.com.

ALASKA: Judith & Jim Muller2410 Galewood Street, Anchotage AK 99508Bus. tel. (907) 786-4740. Email: afjwm@uaa.alaska.edu

CALGARY: Rick Billington, PresidentThe Rt. Hon. Sir Winston Spencer Churchill Society2379 Longridge Drive, Calgary, Alberta T3E 5N7Res. tel. (403) 249-5016. Email: rscjhome@aol.com

CALIFORNIA NORTH: Michael Barrington34263 Eucalyptus Terrace, Fremont CA 94555Res. tel. (510) 791-2305. Email: Majb7016@aol.com

CALIFORNIA SOUTH: Jerry KambestadSouthern California Churchillians1172 Cambera Lane, Santa Ana CA 92705Res. tel. (714) 838-4741. Email: GDKamb@aol.com

CHICAGO: Phil & Susan LarsonWinston S. Churchill Friends of Greater Chicago22 Scottdale Road, LaGrange IL 60526Res. tel. (708) 352-6825. Email: parker-fox@>msn.com

DALLAS: Paula RestrepoNorth Texas Churchillians4520 Lorraine Avenue, Dallas TX 75205Res. tel. (214) 522-7201. Email: cunengland@aol.com

DENVER: Hugh B. McCreery6869 N. Hillpark Avenue, Parker CO 80134Res. tel. (720) 747-6050. Email: hmccreery@2-10.com

DETROIT: Gary Bonine3609 Lake George Road, Dryden MI 48428Tel. (810)796-3180

ENGLAND NORTH: Derek GreenwellICS (UK) Northern Chapter, "Farriers Cottage,"Station Road, Goldsborough, Knaresborough,N. Yorks. HG5 8NT. Res. tel. (01423) 863225

FLORIDA NORTH: Robert Chalmers1443 Avondale Avenue, Jacksonville, FL 32205-7820Res. tel. (904) 388-7443. Email: Blchalmers@aol.com

GEORGIA: Gary Garrison2364 Beechwood Drive, Atlanta GA 30062Res. tel. (770) 509-5430. Email: ccsgary@bellsouth.net

NEW ENGLAND: Suzanne SigmanNew England Churchillians42 Dudley Lane, Milton MA 02186Res tel. (617) 696-1833. Email: ssigman@attbi.com

OHIO: Michael McMenamin1300 Terminal Tower, Cleveland OH 44113-2253Bus. tel. (216) 781-1212. Email: mtm@walterhav.com

TORONTO: Norm & Jean MacLeodOther Club of Ontario16 Glenlaura Court, Ashburn ON LOB 1AORes. tel. (905) 655-4051. Email: jeana@idirect.com

VANCOUVER: Chris & Dorothy HebbThe Rt. Hon. Sir Winston Spencer Churchill SocietySte 1700, 1111 W. Georgia St, Vancouver BC V6E 4M3Tel. (604) 209-6400. Email: cavell_capital@telus.net

WASHINGTON-DELMARVA: Caroline HarderWashington Society for Churchill5956 Coopers Landing Court, Burke VA 2201 5Res. tel. (703) 503-9226. Email: Hartzlercr@aol.com

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CHURCHILL CALENDARLocal events organizers: please send upcoming event notices to the editor for posting here.

If address and email is not stated below, look for it on inside front cover.

Summer23 August: New Hampshire picnic and book discussion. New England Churchillians.31 August-5 Sep: Elderhostel Churchill-Roosevelt program, UK. Tel. (617) 457-5422.

29 August: APSA Churchill Panel and black tie dinner. Tel. (888) WSC-1874.30-31 August: Churchill Weekend, Bletchley Park. Tel. (01908) 640404.

Autumn18 September (noon): Fourth Churchill Lecture, George Washington University;(6PM) Churchill Centre opening reception, Hyatt Hotel. Tel. (888) WSC-1874.

* * *.5-8 November: Twentieth International Churchill Conference, Hamilton, Bermuda

Contact David Boler, UK, tel. (01892) 871289, david@boleronline.comorRandy Barber, Canada, tel. (905) 201-6687, randy.barber@cbs.gov.on.ca

Sir Winston Churchill's 129th Birthday: Sunday 30 November:• Anchorage: Annual black tie dinner, Hotel Captain Cook.

• Boston: Annual black tie dinner, venue and speaker to be announced.• Los Angeles: Celia Sandys will speak on her new book, Chasing Churchill.

Local members will be advised by post. For contacts, see page opposite.

200424-29 September: Twenty-first International Churchill Conference, Portsmouth andNormandy, possibly extended a week (to follow the route of Allied armies through

northwest Europe to Berlin). Contact: ICS UK (address on page 2).

the close cooperation betweenChurchill and Roosevelt. New this yearare unique papers from the ChurchillArchives and the Cabinet War Rooms.The International Churchill Society ofthe UK will support the event with aspecial display of memorabilia.

On both days at 14:00, there willbe topical lectures. Dr Brian Oakleywill discuss Churchill and BletchleyPark, while Peter Wescombe (BletchleyTrustee) will speak on how theChurchill-Roosevelt relationship fittedinto Allied Intelligence systems. OnSaturday and Sunday at 12:00 and15:00, Churchill's former footmanJohn Gibson will be available to explainhis exhibition of original memorabiliain a question and answer forum.

Special displays in and around theMansion include the exquisite Darrah-Harwood Churchilliana collection onpermanent display, a painting of thelaunch Havengore, which carriedChurchill's coffin on 30 January 1965,a 1935 Rolls-Royce supposedly used byChurchill to travel between Charrwelland Westminster, a collection ofChurchill stamps, cartoon and artwork

displays, and films on WSC's life andtimes in the Enigma Cinema.

For information contact ChristineLarge, telephone (01908) 640404. Fortickets and parking permits for journal-ists telephone (01908) 647269.

Elderhostel ProgrammeMembers are invited to join

Elderhostel for a remarkable program,"Churchill and Roosevelt: the AtlanticAlliance," on August 31st throughSeptember 5th. Through a specialarrangement with Christ Church,Oxford University. Elderhostel has cre-ated a unique program that examinesthe alliance made by Churchill andRoosevelt as they embarked on theirwartime campaigns.

Participants will explore thedynamic relationship as they attend theAtlantic Alliance conference at ChristChurch. Internationally renownedspeakers include Sir Michael Howard,Dr. Geoffrey Best, Professors DavidReynolds and Warren Kimball. Theprogramme further examines Anglo-American cooperation through fieldtrips and lectures in London,

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Chartwell, Bletchley Park, Blenheim,Bladon, and Oxford.

This program represents an extra-ordinary opportunity. Space is limitedand we anticipate great interest, so callElderhostel at (617) 457-5422, or emailcheppner@elderhostel. org now.

APSA Panel and DinnerPHILADELPHIA, AUGUST 29TH— The annualacademic panel and dinner held by theChurchill Centre as a related organiza-tion of the American Political ScienceAssociation warmly welcomes membersand guests. The panel is tentativelyscheduled at 2:15 p.m. and will last justless than two hours. The subject is"Winston Churchill's Savrola." WSC'sonly novel will be analyzed from vari-ous points of view in anticipation of thenew definitive edition of the book edit-ed by Patrick J. C. Powers.

The panel is chaired by WilliamIves, Churchill Centre President. Thepresentations are "Savrola: An EarlyExpression of Churchill's Philosophyon Life," by Douglas M. Brattebo,United States Naval Academy; "Politicsand Romance in Churchill's Savrola"James W. Muller, University of Alaska,Anchorage: and "Savrola: Churchill'sFirst and Only Novel," by Patrick J. C.Powers, Magdalen College.

The exact location of the panelmay be determined by calling (888)WSC-1874 at or after noon on August28th, or will be sent by e-mail on thatday to those who have subscribed to thedinner following the panel.

The annual academic dinner, withits customary collegial mixture of acad-emic and lay Churchillians, will be heldat the Union League, 140 South BroadStreet, Philadelphia on Friday evening,August 29th. Dinner subscriptions are$75; dress is black tie or coat and tie.Parking is available at a garage adjacentto the club. The program for the dinnerwill be announced on the invitations,which will be mailed to members inPennsylvania and surrounding states,but any other Churchill Centre mem-ber who might like to attend and whowishes to receive an invitation shouldtelephone The Centre at (888) WSC-1874 after July 15th. «

EMINENT CHURCHILLIANS

Jim Lane, Washington StateBoard of Governorsand Finance Committee

FRIDAY HARBOR, WASHINGTON— W h e n he

was a young, up-and-coming partner inthe Seattle public relations firm ofMerry, Calvo, Lane & Baker in 1965,Jim Lane was bitten by the Churchillbug and, among other things, managedto go out and buy a Navy blue andwhite polka dot tie to go with his threepiece, pinstriped Navy-blue suit.

From these origins, rooted primar-ily in respect for literary grace and style,Jim Lane—now a Governor of TheChurchill Centre—went on to a careerwith Hill & Knowlton, the interna-tional public affairs firm, living andworking in Australia, Hong Kong,Tokyo, Chicago and New York. Inevery stopover he haunted local book-shops, seeking to add to his collectionof Churchill first editions and somepassable reproductions of well knownChurchill-on-canvas portraits.

In New York in the early 1990s Jimlearned of the Churchill organizationthrough a chance conversation, and be-came first a member, then a contributorand, finally, a Clementine Churchill As-sociate. At present he is actively en-gaged with Vice Chairman of TrusteesLaurence Geller and the "War Cabinet"

in the Centre's "Campaign D-Day"—atask he happily undertakes from hishome in the San Juan islands, eightymiles northwest of Seattle and six mileseast of Victoria, British Columbia. Here

he paints, writes, does a minimalamount of consulting, collectsChurchill trivia, and adds to his library.

Jim is a former serving officer inthe U.S. Navy, and is presently presi-dent of the local library board, and amember of the Oversight Committee ofthe Daniel J. Evans School of Public Af-fairs at the University of Washington. $&

The Opteron micro-P

AROUND & ABOUTprocessor will bring ^CTB^^BS;

PC economics to even the most expensive servers, AMD Chairman «j^!^^ . 'Jerry Sanders says: "never in the history of Microsoft compatible .AVfe^rJmicroprocessors will so few do so much for so many."

In "Gentle in Victory: The changing image of the Ameri-can Soldier" (National Review Online), Peter Gibbon quotesChurchill's "The story of the human race is War....long before his-tory began, murderous strife was universal and unending." Gibbonadds: "Churchill may be right, but the good news out of Iraq is not only thatAmerica won, but that war is far less bloody than in the past and that many Amer-icans once again consider their soldiers heroes." The quotation, from The After-math (London: Butterworth, 1929, page 451), is accurate, but Gibbon abbrevi-ated. After the first sentence it read: "Except for brief and precarious interludesthere has never been peace in the world; and before history began murderous strifewas universal and unending. But the modern developments surely require severeand active attention."

^ w ^ ^ '•SIn The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust (NewYork: Holt, $35),

CC honorary member Sir Martin Gilbert recounts stories of hundreds of non-Jews during World War II who "risked their lives and those around them to saveJews. These courageous people remind the author of the Jewish saying, 'Whoeversaves one life, it is as if he saved the entire world.'" Followers of Sir Martin's richand copious writings may wish to acquire this latest title.

0 0 0%%

French President Jacques Chirac sent six bottlesof Chateau Mouton Rothschild '89 as a 50th birthdaypresent to British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Theclaret sells for up to £200 the bottle. Last Novemberin Prague, Mr. Blair gave M. Chirac a £300 WinstonChurchill fountain pen for his 70th birthday, to

banish the memory of disagreements over the European Common AgriculturalPolicy. The Churchill Centre gives the same pen to its Number Ten Club sup-porters. Will someone please send us some Mouton Rothschild...

0 0 *1* r& ^David Frum in The Times (London) about his recent visit to Britain: "British

bookstores are daunting places for a North American writer. In the prime spotsnear the cash register stand great piles of books with titles such as Why Do PeopleHate America?, Stupid White Men, and Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Su-perpower. When the British public want to read about the United States, it seems,they want to read about a rapacious country governed by a moronic president....Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, customers are queuing up to buy coffee-tablebooks about Cotswold cottages and defiantly unapologetic histories of the BritishEmpire....The simplest explanation of these transatlantic differences is that we loveyou—but you don't love us back. I'm not sure, though, that this explanation >>>

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QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

RIDDLES,

MYSTERIES,

ENIGMASSend your questionsto the editor

Q: / took issue with a Scottish ladywho referred to Churchill as "infa-

mous'." She replied, "Yes, he was a greatwar leader, but he did also order thetroops to shoot the miners when they wenton strike [in the Rhondda Valley in1910] for better pay and conditions."What is she on about? I can't believe this.

A: Don't. For almost a century it hasbeen accepted socialist dogma

that Churchill as Home Secretary "senttroops to shoot" striking Welsh minersin the Rhondda Valley in 1910. OneOxford undergraduate actually sug-gested that Churchill used tanks, atribute to his acumen since they hadn'tbeen invented then. In fact, the officercommanding the Southern Commanddispatched 400 standby soldiers to beused in the event of strike disorders;Churchill ordered that they not beused unless the Chief Constable ofGlamorgan considered the situation

beyond police control. The Chief Con-stable did not so consider, and notroops were used. Even the left-wingManchester Guardian admitted at thetime that Churchill's action "savedmany lives." It is all in the official biog-raphy, vol. 2, and other good biogra-phies, and Finest Hour 35, Spring 1983.

Qheaho

V It is said that Churchill once slept'with a man. Is this true? Also, was

he a~homophobe?

Qi What newspapers did Churchillread when in Britain?

A: No to both questions. He is alleged to have said he once went

to bed with a man (supposedly IvorNovello) "to see what it was like" and,when asked what it was like, is allegedto have replied, "musical." But there isno evidence that he either said this ordid it. His most devoted private secre-tary for nearly fifty years, Eddie Marsh,was a homosexual; their friendship wasone of the longest in Churchill's life.

A: He chiefly read the ManchesterGuardian,but took them all, in-

cluding the Daily Worker. He wouldread them in bed, one by one, shufflingthe read material onto the floor leftand right, causing protests by his valet,Sawyers, who had to pick them up. In

Around & About...quite gets to the truth of the matter. I very much doubt that it placates readers ofWhy Do People Hate America? to hear that Americans love Winston Churchill, thereconstructed Globe Theater and English country houses. Don't misunderstand: Ilove Britain and I love the British—and I love them just the way they are: blunt,expressive, emotional, highly sexed, indifferent to rules and protocol....I only wishthe British would overcome their prejudices and learn to value Americans as theyare: polite, formal, stiff upper-lipped, sexually restrained, and imbued with theidealistic spirit of reform."

* * * * *The precedents for George W. Bush's dropping in on troops aboard the air-

craft carrier Abraham Lincoln are abundant, writes Wesley Pruden, editor of TheWashington Times: "Lyndon Johnson flew to Vietnam to rally his troops, urgingthem to 'nail that ol' coonskin to the wall.' FDR joined Churchill and assembledsailors in a spirited chorus of'Onward, Christian Soldiers' aboard a warship in theNorth Atlantic in 1941. Lincoln visited Union troops on the battlefield, just asJames Madison did during the War of 1812....George Washington, who insistedon being addressed as 'General Washington' even at the White House, once puton his sword to address Congress, and was no doubt tempted to use it." $S

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Townsman ofWesterham (1969) PercyReid, a newspaper stringer who fol-lowed goings-on at Chartwell, wrotethat he could always tell when WSCwas away: the village newsmonger's rackwould offer the Worker. WSC was theonly regular local reader, so the vendornever stocked more than one copy!

Q[• Who said "Ulster will fight, andUlster will be right, "and when?

A: Lord Randolph Churchill, in aletter to a Liberal Unionist a few

weeks after his famous speech onHome Rule in Belfast on 22 February1886. His grandson wrote in the offi-cial biography of Sir Winston (1:71-72): "This famous slogan became thewatchword of Ulster; it pithily explainswhy Ulster is still part of the UnitedKingdom of Great Britain and North-ern Ireland."

QL- The Kent Downs Area of Out-standing Natural Beauty, purports

to quote Churchill's Gathering Storm:"Nowhere in the world will you find alandscape more ravishing than this. It'sours, to look at and to cherish for the restof our lives. I would die for it. "DidChurchill actually say this?

A: No. In The Gathering Storm (vol. 1of The Second World War)

Churchill uses "landscape" only once,and not in this context, although it istrue that he loved Kent. In My EarlyLife, on page 19 (first edition), he writes:

"I was also taught to be very fondof Kent. It was, Mrs. Everest said, 'thegarden of England.' She had been bornat Chatham, and was immensely proudof Kent. No county could comparewith Kent, any more than any othercountry could compare with England.Ireland, for instance, was nothing likeso good. As for France, Mrs. Everest,who had at one time wheeled me inmy perambulator up and down whatshe called the 'Shams Elizzie,' thoughtvery little of it. Kent was the place. Itscapital was Maidstone, and all roundMaidstone there grew strawberries,cherries, raspberries and plums. Lovely!I always wanted to live in Kent." M

Wit&Wisdom

CHURCHILL OF ARABIA?Among current red herrings is a

line that Churchill supported Arab ac-tivities against Israel, including suchgroups as the PLO. He did believe thatPalestine should have been partitionedin 1946. He chastised the Labour gov-ernment for its inaction. But he wasalso pro-Israel. Prior to his death hehad visits from David Ben-Gurion, andthey amused themselves arguing whowas the greater man, Moses or Jesus,WSC arguing for Moses, Ben-Gurionfor Jesus! Churchill was a humanist,and an optimist. He really did believethat people could get along with eachother once grievances were settled andjustice ruled. Cynics might say it wasone of his fatal flaws. Time will tell.

BURGOYNE, SARATOGA, FDRIn Washington in June 1942,

Churchill was handed a telegram byPresident Roosevelt which revealed thatthe Eighth Army was in retreat and To-bruk had fallen with 25,000 men takenprisoners. According to Kay Halle's Ir-repressible Churchill (Cleveland: World,1966, 200), Churchill responded: "Iam the most miserable Englishman inAmerica since Burgoyne" (the Englishgeneral who surrendered at Saratogaduring the American Revolution).

We amused Doug Lindsay, super-intendent of the Saratoga Battlefield inStillwater, New York with this remark,and he suggests a reason why Churchillchose Burgoyne for this quip, insteadof the more obvious Cornwallis:

"FDR had an intimate connection

with this park, having lobbied for itscreation as a state park site in the1920s; then, when President, seeingthat it was added to the National ParkSystem in 1938. In 1940 he drove upfrom Hyde Park one morning to meetwith the new superintendent and thePark Service architect to pick out thesite for a proposed visitor center. Oneof three possible sites was on a woodedhill overlooking the battlefield. Inorder to get him to the summit, Civil-ian Conservation Corps workers hadcleared a path and constructed a dirtroad in less than twenty-four hours.Roosevelt drove himself to the summit,commenting to the superintendent,who rode along on the running board,'This road appears to have been re-cently constructed.' He decided on thisas the site and that is where our VisitorCenter was built. Imagine a presidenttoday getting involved in the minutiaeof a small federal agency's work!"

ON TRAINING OFFICERSThere is a proposal under study in

the Pentagon to cut back resident pro-fessional military education for manymiddle-grade officers from some tenmonths to perhaps one-third of that.This "efficiency" reminds us to studyanew a speech by Churchill at the Pen-tagon in 1946, when he complimentedthe American officer corps and spokeof its long-term educational needs:

"The United States owes a debt toits officer corps. In time of peace inthis country, as in my own, the mili-tary profession is very often required topass a considerable number of years inthe cool shade. One of Marlborough'sveterans wrote the lines, now nearly250 years ago,

" God and the soldier we adoreIn time of danger, not before;

The danger passed and all things righted,God is forgotten and the soldier slighted.

"...That you should have been ableto preserve the art not only of creatingmighty armies almost at the stroke of awand—but of leading and guidingthose armies upon a scale incomparablygreater than anything that was pre-pared for or even dreamed of, consti-tutes a gift made by the Officer Corpsof the United States to their nation intime of trouble...

FINEST HOUR 119/14

"We now have to choose very care-fully the line of division between theofficers and other ranks upon whichauthority should stand. There is onlyone line in my view, and that is profes-sional attainment. The men have aright to feel that their officers know farbetter than they do how to bring themsafely and victoriously through the ter-ribly difficult decisions which arise inwar. And for my part as far as GreatBritain is concerned, I shall always urgethat the tendency in the future shouldbe to prolong the course of instructionat the colleges rather than to abridgethem and to equip our young officerswith that special technical professionalknowledge which soldiers have a rightto expect from those who give them or-ders, if necessary, to their deaths.

"Professional attainment, based onprolonged study, and collective study atcolleges, rank by rank, and age byage—those are the title deeds of thecommanders of the future armies, andthe secret of future victories."

"WE CUT THE COAL"Student Kristin Elkinton (Kristin_

Elkinton@sil.org) asked us to verify theaccuracy of what Churchill said to im-prove morale among wartime coal min-ers, whose work was so vital in WW2.

Churchill was speaking to theCoal Owners and Miners Conference,Central Hall, Westminster, on 31 Oc-tober 1942. The text of his speech is onpages 6687-92 of vol. VI, Winston S.Churchill: His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, edited by Robert Rhodes James(New York: Bowker, 1974). It was firstpublished on page 204 of The Unre-lenting Struggle (London/Boston: Cas-sell/Little Brown, 1943), and later inThe War Speeches {1952):

"We shall not fail, and then someday, when children ask, 'What did youdo to win this inheritance for us, andto make our name so respected amongmen?' one will say: 'I was a fighterpilot'; another will say: 'I was in theSubmarine Service'; another: 'Imarched with the Eighth Army'; afourth will say: 'None of you couldhave lived without the convoys and theMerchant Seamen'; and you in yourturn will say, with equal pride and withequal right: 'We cut the coal.'" M>

WALTER THOMPSON: AN

HONOURABLE RECORDH. W. THOMPSON

The tall, angular features of Walter H. Thompson arevisible in many photographs of Churchill with good reason.He was one ofWSC's longest-serving bodyguards, firstassigned to protect the statesman by Scotland Yard in the1920s. In answering a question in Finest Hour 111(Summer 2001, page 9) we noted that according to anotherdetective, Thompson left Churchill under a cloud "involvingthe waving around of a firearm" in 1945. This is not thecase, as his son now reveals. —Editor

My father joined the Special Branch, ScotlandYard in 1913 and was bodyguard to LloydGeorge and Churchill among others through

1932. He retired from the Yard in 1936, serving for atime as a private detective, and subsequently ran twogrocery and provision shops in Annerley and Norwood,London. He sold these businesses when he was recalledto serve as Churchill's personal bodyguard fromSeptember 1939 until May 1945. Only the late EdmundMurray had a longer period of service (1950-65).

Churchill held my father in great respect. Theywere of similar character and had great regard for eachother. My father married Mary Shearburn, one ofChurchill's secretaries, after the breakdown of his mar-riage to my mother. He was not disgraced in any wayand certainly did not leave under a cloud; indeed he wasawarded the MBE for his service to the Prime Minister.

The shooting incident referred to in Finest Hour111 occurred during the war, in the flat that my fatherused as a resting place when he was not on duty. Whengetting up to answer a telephone call from DowningStreet, his revolver became dislodged from its holster.My father caught the revolver with his ankle, and as hedid the revolver fired. The bullet entered his right ankleand travelled the full length of his leg, flattening into adisc when it hit his pelvis and causing a very severewound. It was found that the accident was due to afaulty safety catch on the revolver.

"Lord Haw Haw" (William Joyce), the Germanradio propaganda broadcaster, inferred in his eveningbroadcast from Germany that Mr. Churchill's body-guard had attempted to commit suicide. Clearly this wasnot the case; if it were, no doubt he would have aimed alittle higher!

Mr. Thompson is the eldest son of Detective Inspector Thompson,Winston Churchill's bodyguard in the 1920s and in 1939-45.

Inseparables: Inspector Thompson and Churchill at Harvard, 1943,after WSC s memorable speech on Anglo-American Unity.

It has also been suggested that my father was thevictim of an assassination attempt against Churchill, andthat the authorities put out the story that he had beenwounded accidentally to cover the fact that he'd beenshot twice by the assassin. I was on leave in London atthe time, and was with my father at St. Thomas'sHospital within an hour of the accident, and I canassure Finest Hour that this is untrue.

My father was born in December 1891 and diedin February 1978. After leaving the service he still corre-sponded with Sir Winston in connection with the writ-ing of his books and received a special invitation toattend Sir Winston Churchill's funeral.

The reported death of my brother, FlightLieutenant Frederick James Thompson DFC and Bar,Navigator, 7 (Pathfinder) Squadron, based at RAFOakington, was of some concern to the then-Mr.Churchill and he sent my father a telegram of condo-lence while in the nursing home recovering from hisaccident. I still have the telegram in my possession.

A television documentary covering the associationof Detective Inspector Thompson with WinstonChurchill is in the process of being made. $5

FINEST HOUR 119/15

125-100-75-50 YEARS AGO

ACTIONTHIS DAY Michael McMenamin

125 Years Ago:Summer 1878 »Age3"I think the Conservative Party

are gone mad"

The Congress of Berlin took place inthe summer of 1878 in the wake of

the Russo-Turkish War, which at onepoint had threatened to escalate into anAnglo-Russian war if the Russiansseized the Dardanelles Straits or theGallipoli Peninsula. Lord RandolphChurchill had privately opposed Dis-raeli's policy of threatening war withRussia, writing at one point to a LiberalParty friend: "I think the Conservativeparty are gone mad. Their speeches arecalculated to provoke war."

In the event, war was avoided and,in the Treaty of Berlin of 13 July, PrimeMinister Benjamin Disraeli succeededin rolling back many territorial gainsachieved by the Russians. As Disraeli'sbiographer Robert Blake wrote: "Dis-raeli was now at the height of his fameand fortune. The Treaty of Berlin wasregarded throughout the country as amajor victory for British diplomacy.The old Jew was indeed the man."

Churchill's mother Jennie traveledto London that summer to attend the"Peace with Honour" banquet given forDisraeli. She reported her enjoyment athis description of his old adversaryGladstone as being "inebriated with theexuberance of his own verbosity"—acomment strikingly similar to oneNeville Chamberlain would make fiftyyears later about her son Winston.

100 Years Ago:Summer 1903-Age 28"/ can't help admiring

Chamberlain's courage"

The Free Trade/Protection debatewas at the center of affairs in the

summer of 1903 and the youngChurchill was among the most articu-late and effective of the free traders. SirEdward Hamilton wrote in his diarythat Churchill "is taking a very devotedline against C. [Joseph Chamberlain].He is thoroughly in earnest about it andit does him credit, for it is doubtfulwhether he is playing the card best forhimself...It is the fashion to run himdown — but I think there is a great dealin him and that he is bound to win inthe long run."

In a speech to the Commons on 29July 1903, Churchill painted in luridterms the internal political and eco-nomic consequences of protectionistpolicies: "What is the experience of allthe European nations who haveadopted the bounty system? They havereduced themselves to an astonishingposition. Vast industries of poor people,artificially stimulated, exerting consid-erable political power, and using thatpolitical power to maintain and evenincrease that artificial stimulation; gianttrusts enjoying a complete monopoly ofthe home market, making enormousprofits out of the home consumer, andno doubt using the wealth thus ob-tained still further to influence theGovernment machinery. As the result of

FINEST HOUR 119/16

this state of things over-production on aprodigious scale; cut-throat competi-tion between the trusts for the free Eng-lish market; enormous exportations atunprofitable prices, and encouragementby the Government...which increasesyear by year at an astonishing rate."

Churchill then explained that pro-tectionist policies were not necessary formore developed countries to competewith newer countries because "I thinkwe ought to contemplate that evolutionand the transference of our people frombeing, as it were, hewers of wood anddrawers of water to the more elaborateprocesses of manufacture with unmixedsatisfaction. But if we are to find thatoutlet for our strength, energy and skill,it will be only by utilising our resourcesof capital..." The real problem with pro-tectionists, Churchill helpfully sug-gested, was that "They watch the riverflowing to the sea, and they wonder howlong it will be before the land is parchedand drained of all its water. They do notobserve the fertilising showers by whichin the marvelous economy of nature thewater is restored to the land."

Churchill retained respect for hischief Protectionist adversary, JosephChamberlain, writing to his mother inAugust that "I cannot help admiringChamberlain's courage. I do not believehe means to give way an inch, and Ithink he is quite prepared to sacrificehis whole political position and Austen's[his son's] as well, for the cause in whichhe is so wrapped up."

75 Years Ago:

Summer 1928-Age 53"A brilliant wayward child"

Free trade and protectionism werestill splitting the Conservative Party

twenty-five summers later. Leo Ameryurged "protection 'as a remedy for thepresent difficult unemployment situa-tion, giving our industries some mea-sure of shelter in the home market.'"Meanwhile, Lord Derby wrote toChurchill on 25 July that protectionistslike Amery "ruined our party once andthey will ruin it again if they have theirway....Take care that there is not an at-

125-100-75-50 YEARS AGO

tack on Free Trade disguised under avendetta against you."

In August, Churchill wrote to hiswife on the significance of Prime Minis-ter Baldwin's leaving for France and notplacing Churchill in charge of theHouse of Commons in his absence asChurchill had expected: "All this revealshow serious is the handicap I have hadto carry in the party by warning themoff the protectionist question."

In an August 12th letter to LordIrwin, Neville Chamberlain describedChurchill in terms reminiscent of Dis-raeli on Gladstone: "One doesn't oftencome across a real man of genius or,perhaps, appreciate him when one does.Winston is such a man....To listen tohim on the platform or in the house issheer delight. The art of the arrange-ment, the unexpected turn, the masterof sparkling humour, and the torrent ofpicturesque adjectives combine to puthis speeches in a class by themselves.Then as you know there is no subjecton which he is not prepared to pro-pound some novel theory and to sustainand illustrate his theory with cogentand convincing arguments. So quicklydoes his mind work in building up acase that it frequently carries him off hisown feet....In the consideration of af-fairs his decisions are never founded onexact knowledge, nor on careful or pro-longed consideration of the pros andcons. He seeks instinctively for the largeand preferably the novel idea such as iscapable of representation by the broad-est brush....There is too deep a differ-ence between our natures for me to feelat home with him or to regard himwith affection. He is a brilliant waywardchild who compels admiration but whowears out his guardians with the con-stant strain he puts upon them."

50 Years Ago:Summer 1953-Age 78"The French wantthe best of all worlds"

With Anthony Eden unwell andscheduled for surgery in Amer-

ica, Churchill was fulfilling the duties

of both Prime Minister and ForeignSecretary in the summer of 1953,thereby assuming de facto the only cabi-net office he had not held de jure. Butthe strain was showing.

On 23 June, Lord Moran wrote inhis diary: "When I saw the PM todayhe seemed played out—as he was atCairo before the Carthage illness. Ithought his speech was slurred and alittle indistinct. Twice I had to ask himto repeat what he had said. He said theForeign Office was very hard work. Iasked him must he really carry the bur-den of the FO until the autumn? Hesaid he must. I told him I was unhappyabout the strain, that it was an im-possible existence and that I hoped hewould find he could do somethingabout it. He grunted and picked upsome papers."

It was another of the Hinges ofFate that Churchill had written aboutin his war memoirs. That same night,Churchill held a dinner for the ItalianPrime Minister, Alcide De Gasperi,during which he suffered a massivestroke. His condition worsened so that,three days later, his entire left side wasparalysed and Lord Moran toldChurchill's secretary, John Colville, thathe "did not think the Prime Ministercould possibly live over the weekend."But not for the first time WinstonChurchill would defy predictions.

Churchill survived well beyond theweekend but was counseled to postponea summer summit in Bermuda withPresident Eisenhower. Five days hadmade a huge difference. As Colvillerecorded in his memoirs: "By Mondaymorning, the Prime Minister, instead ofbeing dead, was feeling very much bet-ter....He told me that he thought proba-bly that this must mean his retirement,but that he would see how he went on,and that if he had recovered sufficientlywell to address the Tory party at theirannual Meeting in October at Margate,he would continue in office."

Churchill's mental faculties werenot affected by the stroke at all, and on1 July he wrote to both President Eisen-hower and separately to General BedellSmith. To Eisenhower he explained hismedical condition: "I am so sorry to be

the cause of upsetting so many plans. Ihad a sudden stroke which as it devel-oped completely paralysed my left sideand affected my speech....Four yearsago, in 1949, I had another similar at-tack and was for a good many days un-able to sign my name. As I was out ofoffice I kept this secret and have man-aged to work through two GeneralElections and a lot of other businesssince."

To Bedell Smith, he enclosed (atEisenhower's request) all draft chaptersof the last volume of World War IImemoirs which contained references toEisenhower: "The differences cannot bewholly concealed or glossed over. Theybelong to history. And the final judg-ment on them will be made by the his-torians of the future. I hope you willthink that I have handled them fairlyand with no intent to prejudge the ver-dict of history."

On 6 July, Churchill made a for-eign policy observation to a visitor, SirWilliam Strang, about the French in thecontext of European unity which res-onates today: "[the French] want thebest of all worlds—not to fight in thewar, but to remain a great power."

On 7 July, Churchill recited frommemory to Lord Moran a thirty-fourline poem by Longfellow, promptingthe physician to record in his diary: "Heis confiding in no one, but he means tocarry on if he is able, and the questionwhether he will be able is hardly everout of his head. This is his secret battle.There are moments when he does notwant to do anything, when a dreadfulapathy settles on him and he nearlyloses heart. But he always sets his jawand hangs on."

By 18 August, Churchill had fullyrecovered and was back in London pre-siding over the first cabinet meetingsince his stroke. As Norman Brook ob-served to Lord Moran: "Winston letother people talk more than usual per-haps—he certainly talked less himself.No one noticed anything strange in hisspeech, and he walked to his seat muchas he usually does. He had dipped hisfoot in water, and it wasn't cold; hewants to go on. This isn't the momentto make decisions about retiring." M>

FINEST HOUR 119/17

CHURCHILL AND LAWRENCE"The only thing that's new in the world is the history you don't know" —WSC

RICHARD M. LANGWORTH

If the Almightydabbles in thecreation of indi-

viduals, He musthave chortled whenHe conjured upLawrence of Arabia.For here was theideal companion,surrogate, adviser,foil and friend ofWinston SpencerChurchill. To para-phrase Churchill'sfamous quip,Lawrence possessedall the vices WSCadmired, and noneof the virtues he de-plored.

He was indeedas Churchill said un-trammeled by convention, independent of the ordinarycurrents of human action: the fair-haired westerner whohelped lead the Arabs in their finest recent hours, wrestingtheir homeland from the Ottoman Turks in World War I.Then he wrote a book about it, of the same lofty qualityand style as Churchill himself. Like another of Churchill'slongtime collaborators, Louis Spears (and WSC himself),Lawrence combined a noble war record with prodigiouswriting talent. An admiring Churchill leaned heavily onSpears during World War II, and mourned the loss ofLawrence in the years leading up to it.

From the early Twenties until his untimely death in1935, Lawrence was a ranking Chartwell favorite. Likesuch cronies as Clementine Churchill's "three dreadfulBs," Bracken, Beaverbrook and Birkenhead, there was anair of disrepute about Lawrence, which he'd earned byconsistently defying, disappointing and repelling the Es-tablishment. Essentially self-made, he claimed to care nota fig about his reputation, changed his name twice tostop it pursuing him. Yet this was to some extent an af-fectation. Churchill in later life remarked of Lawrence toAnthony Montague Browne: "He had the art of backinguneasily into the limelight. He was a very remarkablecharacter, and very careful of that fact."

Lawrence for his part nursed that unqualified ad-

miration forChurchill whichwas de rigueuramong the greatman's friends, andhis unassuming,gentlemanly wayskept him from be-coming a "dreadfulL" in Clementine'slexicon. Theirdaughter Mary re-members howLawrence would ar-rive of an after-noon, a short, non-descript, sandy-haired airman rid-ing a motorcycle;and then afterdressing for dinnerpresenting himself

in the flowing robes of a Prince of Arabia.God simply couldn't have invented a person Win-

ston Churchill would have liked more.Thomas Edward Lawrence was born in North

Wales in 1888, and began traveling in the Middle Eastwhile still an Oxford undergraduate. After obtaining afirst class degree in history in 1910, he pursued MiddleEast archeology, exploring the Negev Desert before join-ing the Geographical Section of the War Office in 1914.A year later he was in Egypt, serving British military in-telligence. When the Arabs rebelled against the Turks,Britain saw an opportunity to secure a vital ally againstthe Central Powers. Lawrence was seconded to RonaldStorrs as a British representative to the Arabs. He becamesuccessively liaison officer, adviser, friend and promoterof the Emir Feisal, whom Churchill ultimately placed onthe throne of Iraq. Feisal and his son ruled, unenlight-ened but in the main benignly, until the revolution of1958, which ultimately produced Saddam Hussein.

The significance of Lawrence in the Arab revolt is amatter of discussion among historians. What is unar-guable is that Lawrence wrote one of the best books tocome out of World War I, a classic of English literature,Seven Pillars of Wisdom, subtitled A Triumph. Among thetriumphs were his surprise capture of Akaba in July 1917

FINEST HOUR 119/18

and the conquest of Damascus in October 1918.When he sat down to write the book, Lawrence

worked largely from wartime notes; then he lost themanuscript along with many notes, and began writinganew mainly from memory, issuing a private printing toa limited circle of subscribers in 1926 and a commercialabridgement entitled Revolt in the Desert. It wasn't untilafter his death that the full unabridged work was releasedpublicly, achieving posthumously his lasting fame.

Lawrence accompanied Feisal to the Paris PeaceConference in 1919, though he had for some timedoubted Britain's promises of independence if the Arabshelped Britain win the war. Paris did not alter his doubts.Two years later, Churchill persuaded him to return fromseclusion to join the Middle East Department of theColonial Office. In the period of which Churchill firstwrites of him, Lawrence went with WSC to the CairoConference, convened to fix the borders of the MiddleEast as we know them today—including an Iraq com-posed of disparate Shia, Sunni and Kurd elements whocordially detest each other. There Churchill argued vainlyfor a separate Kurdish homeland, "to protect the Kurdsfrom some future bully in Iraq."

The year before, France, feeling entitled to sharethe spoils of victory, had acquired League of Nations"mandates" in Syria and Lebanon. "Mandate" was politeshorthand for opportunistic colony grabbing; yet nationsbled white by the war, as Churchill put it, would toleratenothing less. Britain received mandates in Palestine andIraq. Though she granted Iraq nominal independence in1932, Britain continued to reap the benefit of the vastIraqi oil fields. France, by contrast, ruled her mandateswith her customary iron hand into World War II. Someanalysts of recent French-led resistance to the Anglo-American attack on Iraq traced France's attitude all theway back to the 1920 division of spoils, which had leftFrance with Syria, Lebanon, and no oil.

Though he never lost faith in Churchill, andthought WSC had addressed most Arab demands atCairo, Lawrence was profoundly disappointed by theParis peace conference. Once the new world had dawned,he wrote, "the old men came out again and took our vic-tory to re-make in the likeness of the former world theyknew." Ashamed that he had played their game he re-nounced his past, enlisting in the Royal Air Force as"J. H. Ross" in 1922. A year later he joined the RoyalTank Corps as "T. E. Shaw"; in 1925, still as Shaw, he re-joined the RAF. He retired in 1935, shortly before hisdeath in a motorcycle accident near his bungalow atCloud's Hill, Dorset. Attesting to the romance of hisname and achievement, the cottage is lovingly main-tained as a shrine, and a Lawrence Society exists to keephis memory.

An issue of Finest Hour devoted to Lawrence haslong been in our minds. Paul Alkon, Professor of English

at the University of Southern California, lent not onlyenthusiasm but was instrumental in its scaffolding. Webegin with Churchill's famous essay on Lawrence inGreat Contemporaries, and selections from the Churchill-Lawrence Correspondence. We go on to consider thewriting of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and Churchill's adviceto Alexander Korda for the film version, a project laidaside thirty years until David Lean cast Peter O'Toole asan approximate Lawrence in 1962. Finally, Paul Alkonexplains why Lawrence is worthy of study today. Ourcover carries the most famous portrait of Lawrence, byAugustus John, secured by permission of the Tate Gallerythrough the efforts of Paul Courtenay.

Current events remind us eerily of Churchill andLawrence. I could not help recalling as I readthese manuscripts Churchill's famous remark,

"the only thing that's new in the world is the history youdon't know." Consider for example his recollection of thetime, now 82 years ago, when he and Lawrence set outfor Cairo to settle affairs in the Middle East:

"...we had recently suppressed a most dangerousand bloody rebellion in Iraq, and upwards of forty thou-sand troops at a cost of thirty million pounds a year wererequired to preserve order. This could not go on. InPalestine the strife between the Arabs and the Jewsthreatened at any moment to take the form of actual vio-lence. The Arab chieftains, driven out of Syria with manyof their followers—all of them our late allies—lurked fu-rious in the deserts beyond the Jordan. Egypt was in fer-ment. Thus the whole of the Middle East presented amost melancholy and alarming picture."

Now in 2003, experts estimate that it will cost fortythousand troops and the modern equivalent of thirty mil-lion pounds a year to preserve order in Iraq; strife betweenArabs and Jews regularly takes the form of violence; andArab chieftains, many our late allies, lurk furious in thedeserts. Plus ga change, plus c'est la meme chose.

What can we learn from Lawrence's and Churchill'sardent but ultimately failed efforts to promote MiddleEastern peace? That those who ignore the lessons of thepast are doomed to relive it? That Arabs are not thestereotyped gaggle of lying fanatics some are inclined toview them as today? That they yearn for justice withfervor equal to that of Israelis? That the Twice-PromisedLand—Lawrence to the Arabs, Balfour to the Jews—is aburden history has thrust upon us, with the slimmestchance of resolution, yet which must be resolved if peaceis ever to prevail?

All of these, assuredly. But there is somethingmore. And that is the innate decency and sense of fair-ness which animated Churchill and Lawrence: qualitieswhich will be needed among statesmen of the West andEast, if the lands Lawrence loved are ever to be placid,and prosperous, and free. "%

FINEST HOUR 119/19

LAWRENCE OF ARABIAHe was indeed a dweller upon the mountain tops where the air is cold,

crisp and rarefied, and where the view on clear days commandsall the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them.

WINSTON S. CHURCHILL

Idid not meet Lawrencetill after the First WorldWar was over. It was in

the spring of 1919, whenthe Peace-makers, or at anyrate the Treaty-makers, weregathered in Paris and allEngland was in the fermentof the aftermath. So greathad been the pressure in theWar, so vast its scale, sodominating the great battlesin France, that I had onlybeen dimly conscious of thepart played in Allenby'scampaigns by the Arab re-volt in the desert. But nowsomeone said to me: "Youought to meet this wonder-ful young man. His exploitsare an epic." So Lawrencecame to luncheon.

Usually at this timein London or Paris he worehis Arab dress in order toidentify himself with the in-terests of the Emir Feisaland with the Arabian claims then under harsh debate. Onthis occasion, however, he wore plain clothes, and lookedat first sight like one of the many clean-cut young officerswho had gained high rank and distinction in the struggle.We were men only and the conversation was general, butpresently someone rather mischievously told the story ofhis behavior at an Investiture some weeks before.

Republished by kind permission of the Churchill Literary Estate andWinston S. Churchill. In this chapter for his Great Contemporaries,the author wrote: "Most of this essay has already been published inT. E. Lawrence by His Friends, 1937, and is also drawn from myaddress at the unveiling of his memorial at his Oxford school. It isreprinted here for the sake of completeness."

The impression I re-ceived was that he had re-fused to accept the decora-tions which the King wasabout to confer on him atan official ceremony. I wasSecretary of State for War,so I said at once that hisconduct was most wrong,not fair to the King as agentleman and grossly dis-respectful to him as a sover-eign. Any man might refusea title or a decoration, anyman might in refusing statethe reasons of principlewhich led to his action, butto choose the occasionwhen His Majesty in pur-suance of his constitutionalduty was actually about toperform the gracious act ofpersonally investing him, asthe occasion for making apolitical demonstration,was monstrous. As he wasmy guest I could not say

more, but in my official position I could not say less.It is only recently that I have learned the true

facts. The refusal did in fact take place, but not at thepublic ceremonial. The King received Lawrence in orderto have a talk with him. At the same time His Majestythought it would be convenient to give him the Com-mandership of the Bath and the Distinguished ServiceOrder to which he had already been gazetted. When theKing was about to bestow the Insignia, Lawrence beggedthat he might be allowed to refuse them. The King andLawrence were alone at the time.

Whether or not Lawrence saw I had misunder-stood the incident, he made no effort to minimize it or to

FINEST HOUR 119/20

excuse himself. He accepted the rebuke with good hu-mour. This was the only way in his power, he said, ofrousing the highest authorities in the State to a realizationof the fact that the honour of Great Britain was at stake inthe faithful treatment of the Arabs and that their betrayalto the Syrian demands of France would be an indelibleblot on our history. The King himself should be madeaware of what was being done in his name, and he knewno other way. I said that this was no defence at all for themethod adopted, and then turned the conversation intoother and more agreeable channels.

But I must admit that this episode made me anx-ious to learn more about what had actually happened inthe desert war, and opened my eyes to the passions whichwere seething in Arab bosoms. I called for reports andpondered them. I talked to the Prime Minister about it.He said that the French meant to have Syria and rule itfrom Damascus, and that nothing would turn them fromit. The Sykes-Picot Agreement, which we had made dur-ing the War, had greatly confused the issue of principle,and only the Peace Conference could decide conflictingclaims and pledges. This was unanswerable.

Idid not see Lawrence again for some weeks. It was, ifmy memory serves me right, in Paris. He wore his Arabrobes, and the full magnificence of his countenance re-

vealed itself. The gravity of his demeanor; the precision ofhis opinions; the range and quality of his conversation; allseemed enhanced to a remarkable degree by the splendidArab head-dress and garb. From amid the flowingdraperies his noble features, his perfectly-chiseled lips andflashing eyes loaded with fire and comprehension shoneforth. He looked what he was, one of Nature's greatestprinces. We got on much better this time, and I began toform that impression of his strength and quality whichsince has never left me. Whether he wore the prosaicclothes of English daily life or afterwards in the uniform ofan Air Force mechanic, I always saw him henceforward ashe appears in Augustus John's brilliant pencil sketch [p.32].

I began to hear much more about him fromfriends who had fought under his command, and indeedthere was endless talk about him in every circle, military,diplomatic and academic. It appeared that he was a savantas well as a soldier: an archaeologist as well as a man of ac-tion: a brilliant scholar as well as an Arab partisan.

It soon became evident that his cause was notgoing well in Paris. He accompanied Feisal everywhere asfriend and interpreter. Well did he interpret him. Hescorned his English connections and all question of hisown career compared to what he regarded as his duty tothe Arabs. He clashed with the French. He facedClemenceau in long and repeated controversies. Here wasa foeman worthy of his steel. The old Tiger had a face asfierce as Lawrence's, an eye as unfailing and a will-powerwell matched. Clemenceau had a deep feeling for the East;

he loved a paladin, admired Lawrence's exploits and rec-ognized his genius. But the French sentiment about Syriawas a hundred years old. The idea that France, bled whitein the trenches of Flanders, should emerge from the GreatWar without her share of conquered territories was insup-portable to him, and would never have been tolerated byhis countrymen.

Everyone knows what followed. After long andbitter controversies both in Paris and in the East, thePeace Conference assigned the mandate for Syria toFrance. When the Arabs resisted this by force, the Frenchtroops threw the Emir Feisal out of Damascus after a fightin which some of the bravest of the Arab chiefs werekilled. They settled down in the occupation of this splen-did province, repressed the subsequent revolts with the ut-most sternness, and rule there to this day by the aid of avery large army. [Written in 1935.]

I did not see Lawrence while all this was goingon, and indeed when so many things were crashing in thepostwar world the treatment of the Arabs did not seem ex-ceptional. But when from time to time my mind turnedto the subject I realized how intense his emotions mustbe. He simply did not know what to do. He turned thisway and that in desperation, and in disgust of life. In hispublished writings he has declared that all personal ambi-tion had died within him before he entered Damascus intriumph in the closing phase of the War. But I am surethat the ordeal of watching the helplessness of his Arabfriends to whom he had pledged his word, and as he con-ceived it the word of Britain, maltreated in this manner,must have been the main cause which decided his even-tual renunciation of all power in great affairs. His highly-wrought nature had been subjected to the most extraordi-nary strains during the War, but then his spirit had sus-tained it. Now it was the spirit that was injured.

In the spring of 1921 I was sent to the Colonial Officeto take over our business in the Middle East and bringmatters into some kind of order. At that time we had

recently suppressed a most dangerous and bloody rebel-lion in Iraq, and upwards of forty thousand troops at acost of thirty million pounds a year were required to pre-serve order. This could not go on. In Palestine the strifebetween the Arabs and the Jews threatened at any mo-ment to take the form of actual violence. The Arab chief-tains, driven out of Syria with many of their followers—all of them our late allies—lurked furious in the desertsbeyond the Jordan. Egypt was in ferment. Thus the wholeof the Middle East presented a most melancholy andalarming picture. I formed a new department of the Colo-nial Office to discharge these new responsibilities.

Half a dozen very able men from the India Officeand from those who had served in Iraq and Palestine dur-ing the war formed the nucleus. I resolved to addLawrence to their number, if he could be persuaded. >>>

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The Cairo Conference, 1921. Front row: General Congreve (with cane), Sir Herbert Samuel (High Commissioner for Palestine), WSC, SirPercy Cox (High Commissioner for Mesopotamia), Generals Haldane, Ironside and Radcliffe. Second row: Gertrude Bell (second from left), the fa-mous Orientalist, traveler and writer; Lawrence (behind Cox); General Salmond (above Haldane), Hubert Young (between Ironside and Radcliffe).Extreme top center: Sir Archibald Sinclair (bow tie), Joseph Crosland. Foreground, a pair of lion cubs bound from Somaliland to the London Zoo.

They all knew him well, and several had served with orunder him in the field. When I broached this project tothem, they were frankly aghast—"What! wilt thou bridlethe wild ass of the desert?" Such was the attitude, dictatedby no small jealousy or undervaluing of Lawrence's quali-ties, but from a sincere conviction that in his mood andwith his temperament he could never work at the routineof a public office.

However, I persisted. An important post was of-fered to Lawrence, and to the surprise of most people,though not altogether to mine, he accepted at once. Thisis not the place to enter upon the details of the tangledand thorny problems we had to settle. The barest outlinewill suffice. It was necessary to handle the matter on thespot. I therefore convened a conference at Cairo to whichpractically all the experts and authorities of the MiddleEast were summoned. Accompanied by Lawrence, HubertYoung, and Trenchard from the Air Ministry, I set out forCairo. We stayed there and in Palestine for about amonth. We submitted the following main proposals to theCabinet: First, we would repair the injury done to theArabs and to the House of the Sherifs of Mecca by placingthe Emir Feisal upon the throne of Iraq as King, and byentrusting the Emir Abdullah with the government ofTrans-Jordania. Secondly, we would remove practically allthe troops from Iraq and entrust its defense to the RoyalAir Force. Thirdly, we suggested an adjustment of the im-

mediate difficulties between the Jews and Arabs in Pales-tine which would serve as a foundation for the future.

Tremendous opposition was aroused against thefirst two proposals. The French Government deeply re-sented the favour shown to the Emir Feisal, whom theyregarded as a defeated rebel. The British War Office wasshocked at the removal of the troops, and predicted car-nage and ruin. I had, however, already noticed that whenTrenchard undertook to do anything particular, he usuallycarried it through. Our proposals were accepted, but it re-quired a year of most difficult and anxious administrationto give effect to what had been so speedily decided.

Lawrence's term as a Civil Servant was a uniquephase in his life. Everyone was astonished by his calm andtactful demeanor. His patience and readiness to work withothers amazed those who knew him best. Tremendousconfabulations must have taken place among these ex-perts, and tension at times must have been extreme. Butso far as I was concerned, I received always united advicefrom two or three of the very best men it has ever beenmy fortune to work with. It would not be just to assignthe whole credit for the great success which the new pol-icy secured to Lawrence alone. The wonder was that hewas able to sink his personality, to bend his imperious willand pool his knowledge in the common stock. Here is oneof the proofs of the greatness of his character and the ver-satility of his genius. He saw the hope of redeeming in a

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large measure the promises he had made to the Arabchiefs and of re-establishing a tolerable measure of peacein those wide regions. In that cause he was capable of be-coming—I hazard the word—a humdrum official. The ef-fort was not in vain. His purposes prevailed.

Towards the end of the year things began to gobetter. All our measures were implemented one by one.The Army left Iraq, the Air Force was installed in a loopof the Euphrates, Baghdad acclaimed Feisal as King, Ab-dullah settled down loyally and comfortably in Trans-Jor-dania. One day I said to Lawrence: "What would you liketo do when all this is smoothed out? The greatest employ-ments are open to you if you care to pursue your new ca-reer in the Colonial Service." He smiled his bland, beam-ing, cryptic smile, and said: "In a very few months mywork here will be finished. The job is done, and it willlast."—"But what about you?"—"All you will see of me isa small cloud of dust on the horizon."

He kept his word. At that time he was, I believe,almost without resources. His salary was £1,200 a year, andgovernorships and great commands were then at my dis-posal. Nothing availed. As a last resort I sent him out toTrans-Jordania where sudden difficulties had arisen. He hadplenary powers. He wielded them with his old vigour. Heremoved officers. He used force. He restored complete tran-quillity. Everyone was delighted with the success of his mis-sion, but nothing would persuade him to continue. It waswith sadness that I saw "the small cloud of dust" vanishingon the horizon. It was several years before we met again. Idwell upon this part of his activities because in a letter re-cently published he assigns to it an importance greater thanhis deeds in war. But this is not true judgment.

The next episode was the writing, the printing, thebinding and the publication of his book, SevenPillars of Wisdom. This is perhaps the point at

which to deal with this treasure of English literature. As anarrative of war and adventure, as a portrayal of all thatthe Arabs mean to the world, it is unsurpassed. It rankswith the greatest books ever written in the English lan-guage. If Lawrence had never done anything except writethis book as a mere work of the imagination his famewould last—to quote Macaulay's hackneyed phrase—"aslong as the English language is spoken in any quarter ofthe globe." The Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Gul-liver's Travels are dear to British homes. Here is a tale orig-inally their equal in interest and charm. But it is fact, notfiction. The author was also the commander. Caesar'sCommentaries deal with larger numbers, but in Lawrence'sstory nothing that has ever happened in the sphere of warand empire is lacking. When most of the vast literature ofthe Great War has been sifted and superseded by the epit-omes, commentaries and histories of future generations,when the complicated and infinitely costly operations ofits ponderous armies are the concern only of the military

student, when our struggles are viewed in a fading per-spective and a truer proportion, Lawrence's tale of the re-volt in the desert will gleam with immortal fire.

We heard that he was engaged upon this work andthat a certain number of those whom he regarded as worthyof the honor were invited to subscribe £30 for a copy. Igladly did so. In the copy which eventually reached me hewrote at an interval of eleven years two inscriptions which Igreatly value, though much has changed since then, andthey went far beyond the truth at the time. He refused toallow me to pay for the book. I had deserved it he said.

Winston Churchillwho made a happyending to this show.1.12.26 T.E.S.

W.S.C.And eleven years after we set our hands to making an honest settle-ment, all our work still stands: the countries having gone forward;our interests having been saved, and nobody killed, either on ourside or the other. To have planned for eleven years is statesmanship.I ought to have given you two copies of this work!

T.E.S.

In principle the structure of the story is simple.The Turkish armies operating against Egypt dependedupon the desert railway. This slender steel track ranthrough hundreds of miles of blistering desert. If it werepermanently cut the Turkish armies must perish: the ruinof Turkey must follow, and with it the downfall of themighty Teutonic power which hurled its hate from tenthousand cannons on the plains of Flanders. Here was theAchilles heel, and it was upon this that this man in histwenties directed his audacious, desperate, romantic as-saults. We read of them in numerous succession. Grimcamel-rides through sun-scorched, blasted lands, where theextreme desolation of nature appalls the traveler. With amotor-car or airplane we may now inspect these forbid-ding solitudes, their endless sands, the hot savage wind-whipped rocks, the mountain gorges of a red-hot moon.Through these with infinite privation men on camels withshattering toil carried dynamite to destroy railway bridgesand win the war, and, as we then hoped, free the world. »

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"...our country misses him most of all; andmisses him most of all now. For this is a time

when the great problems upon which histhought and work had so long centred,

problems of aerial defence, problems of ourrelations with the Arab peoples, fill an ever

larger space in our affairs."—W.S.C.

Here we see Lawrence the soldier. Not only thesoldier but the statesman: rousing the fierce peoples of thedesert, penetrating the mysteries of their thought, leadingthem to the selected points of action and as often as notfiring the mine himself. Detailed accounts are given of fe-rocious battles with thousands of men and little quarterfought under his command on these lava landscapes ofhell. There are no mass-effects. All is intense, individual,sentient—and yet cast in conditions which seemed to for-bid human existence. Through all, one mind, one soul,one will-power. An epic, a prodigy, a tale of torment, andin the heart of it—a Man.

The impression of the personality of Lawrence re-mains living and vivid upon the minds of hisfriends, and the sense of his loss is in no way

dimmed among his countrymen. All feel the poorer thathe has gone from us. In these days dangers and difficultiesgather upon Britain and her Empire, and we are also con-scious of a lack of outstanding figures with which to over-come them. Here was a man in whom there existed notonly an immense capacity for service, but that touch of ge-nius which everyone recognizes and no one can define.Alike in his great period of adventure and command or inthese later years of self-suppression and self-imposedeclipse, he always reigned over those with whom he camein contact. They felt themselves in the presence of an ex-traordinary being. They felt that his latent reserves of forceand will-power were beyond measurement. If he rousedhimself to action, who should say what crisis he could notsurmount or quell? If things were going very badly, howglad one would be to see him come round the corner.

Part of the secret of this stimulating ascendancylay of course in his disdain for most of the prizes, the plea-sures and comforts of life. The world naturally looks withsome awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indif-ferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power andfame. The world feels, not without a certain apprehen-sion, that here is someone outside its jurisdiction; some-one before whom its allurements may be spread in vain;someone strangely enfranchised, untamed, untrammeledby convention, moving independently of the ordinary

currents of human action; a being readily capable of vio-lent revolt or supreme sacrifice, a man, solitary, austere, towhom existence is no more than a duty, yet a duty to befaithfully discharged. He was indeed a dweller upon themountain tops where the air is cold, crisp and rarefied,and where the view on clear days commands all the King-doms of the world and the glory of them.

Lawrence was one of those beings whose pace oflife was faster and more intense than the ordinary. Just asan airplane only flies by its speed and pressure against theair, so he flew best and easiest in the hurricane. He wasnot in complete harmony with the normal. The fury ofthe Great War raised the pitch of life to the Lawrencestandard. The multitudes were swept forward till theirpace was the same as his. In this heroic period he foundhimself in perfect relation both to men and events.

Ihave often wondered what would have happened toLawrence if the Great War had continued for severalmore years. His fame was spreading fast and with the

momentum of the fabulous throughout Asia. The earthtrembled with the wrath of the warring nations. All themetals were molten. Everything was in motion. No onecould say what was impossible. Lawrence might have real-ized Napoleon's young dream of conquering the East; hemight have arrived at Constantinople in 1919 or 1920with many of the tribes and races of Asia Minor and Ara-bia at his back. But the storm wind ceased as suddenly asit had arisen. The skies became clear; the bells ofArmistice rang out. Mankind returned with indescribablerelief to its long-interrupted, fondly-cherished ordinarylife, and Lawrence was left once more moving alone on adifferent plane and at a different speed.

When his literary masterpiece was written, lostand written again; when every illustration had been pro-foundly considered and every incident of typography andparagraphing settled with meticulous care; whenLawrence on his bicycle had carried the precious volumesto the few—the very few he deemed worthy to readthem—happily he found another task to his hands whichcheered and comforted his soul. He saw as clearly as any-one the vision of air power and all that it would mean intraffic and war.

He found in the life of an aircraftsman that balmof peace and equipoise which no great station or com-mand could have bestowed upon him. He felt that in liv-ing the life of a private in the Royal Air Force he woulddignify that honorable calling and help to attract all that iskeenest in our youthful manhood to the sphere where it ismost urgently needed. For this service and example, towhich he devoted the last twelve years of his life, we owehim a separate debt. It was in itself a princely gift.

Lawrence had a full measure of the versatility ofgenius. He held one of those master keys which unlockthe doors of many kinds of treasure-houses. He was a sa-

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vant as well as a soldier. He was an archaeologist as well asa man of action. He was an accomplished scholar as wellas an Arab partisan. He was a mechanic as well as aphilosopher. His background of sombre experience andreflection only seemed to set forth more brightly thecharm and gaiety of his companionship, and the generousmajesty of his nature.

Those who knew him best miss him most; but ourcountry misses him most of all; and misses himmost of all now. For this is a time when the great

problems upon which his thought and work had so longcentred, problems of aerial defence, problems of our re-lations with the Arab peoples, fill an ever larger space inour affairs. For all his reiterated renunciations I always feltthat he was a man who held himself ready for a new call.While Lawrence lived, one always felt—I certainly felt itstrongly—that some overpowering need would draw himfrom the modest path he chose to tread and set him onceagain in full action at the center of memorable events.

It was

not to be. Thes u m m o n swhich reachedhim, and forwhich he wasequally pre-pared, was of ad i f f e r e n torder. It cameas he wouldhave wished it,swift and sud-den on thewings of

Speed. He hadreached thelast leap in hisgallant coursethrough life. Cloud's Hill, the Dorset cottage where Lawrence

spent his final days, is still a place of pilgrimage.

All is over! Fleet career,

Dash of greyhound slipping thongs,

Flight of falcon, bound of deer,

Mad hoof-thunder in our rear,

Cold air rushing up our lungs,

Din of many tongues.

King George the Fifth wrote to Lawrence's

brother, "His name will live in history." That is true. It

will live in English letters; it will live in the traditions of

the Royal Air Force; it will live in the annals of war and in

the legends of Arabia. $

More about LawrenceFor keeping up with Lawrence join the T. E. Lawrence Society

and subscribe to T. E. Notes (details on page 42). From the moun-tain of relevant books, here is a highly selective list of good places tostart on what one critic calls the Lawrence Puzzle. Before any of theothers, read Seven Pillars of Wisdom. —Paul Alkon

By Lawrence:T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars ofWisdom: A Triumph (1926, pri-

vately printed "Subscriber's Edition"; first trade edition 1935; manyeditions since). "The Complete 1922 Text" (Fordingbridge: CastleHill Press, 1997) is a limited, finely printed edition of two volumesplus a volume reproducing illustrations from the Subscriber's Edi-tion. Plans are afoot for a trade edition from Castle Hill Press.

David Garnett, ed., The Letters ofT. E. Lawrence (London,Jonathan Cape, 1938, rpt., New York: Doubleday Doran,1939).

Malcolm Brown, ed., T E. Lawrence: The Selected Letters (NewYork: W. W. Norton, 1988).

Biographies and Memoirs:Lawrence James, The Golden Warrior: The Life and Legend of

Lawrence of Arabia (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson,1990); prefer-able is the revised second edition (London: Abacus, 1995). Espe-cially informative on the making of Lawrence's legend between1918 and 1935 and the legend's revisions and rebirths since 1935.

A. W. Lawrence, ed., T E. Lawrence By His Friends (London:Jonathan Cape,1937). Essays by many who knewT.E.L. before,during, and after the war, including Churchill.

John E. Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life ofT E.Lawrence (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1976). Important re-search and a balanced perspective from a psychiatrist.

Jeremy Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized BiographyofT. E. Lawrence (London: Heinemann, 1989). A lucid, thorough1188-page survey of what is known about Lawrence, with ratherbland glances at what is most controversial. For a quick overview,see in the Sutton "Pocket Biographies" series the 113-page bookthat escaped from this fat book: Jeremy Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia(Phoenix Mill, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton, 1998).

Criticism and Commentary:Jeffrey Meyers, The Wounded Spirit: T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pil-

lars ofWisdom (London: Martin Brian & O'Keefee,1973); prefer-able is the revised second edition (London: Macmillan, 1989). Avaluable study focusing on political, military, and literary relation-ships, esp. to Doughty, Tolstoy, Nietzsche, & Xenophon.

Jeffrey Meyers, ed., T. E. Lawrence: Soldier, Writer, Legend(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989) More essays from severalhands, with scope as advertised in the title, including an essay byMeyers on "Malraux's Lawrence," an important French connection.

Philip M. O'Brien, T. E. Lawrence, A Bibliography, 2nd ed.(New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2000). The standard bibliogra-phy, much expanded: 894 pages against 724 of the first edition.

Charles M. Stang, ed., The Waking Dream ofT.E. Lawrence:Essays on His Life, Literature, and Legacy (New York & Houndmills,Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave 2002). The latest collection of es-says from a good cross section of active Lawrence scholars: wherewe are now in Lawrence studies, winding up with a parting shotfrom George W. Gawrych on "T. E. Lawrence and the Art of Warin the Twenty-First Century."

Stephen E. Tabachnick, ed. The T. E. Lawrence Puzzle (Athens,GA: University of Georgia Press, 1984). A superb collection of es-says by Lawrence scholars on many aspects of Lawrence. State ofthe art Lawrence studies as of 1984. $

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CHURCHjI,L AND LAWRENCE

WSC AND TEL: NINE LETTERSSELECTED BY PAUL ALKON

In attempting to capture the flavor of the Churchill-Lawrence correspondence, my inclination has been toinclude entire letters; I prefer fewer letters to cutting

parts of them. An entire letter, even—or perhaps espe-cially—when some of it seems off on a tangent, gives abetter idea of the situation of Lawrence and Churchill atthe time it was written, and of Lawrence's personality andletter-writing style. Though not every one is a master-piece, Lawrence's letters are regarded as literary work, andare ranked high among 20th century correspondence.They form a noteworthy part of his own oeuvre. Onecritic, Jeffrey Meyers, has remarked, "After Seven Pillars ofWisdom, the letters are Lawrence's most extensive and sig-nificant literary production."

In 1923 Lawrence changed his last name toShaw. Consequently some of the letters are from T. E.Lawrence (abbreviated here as TEL) and some are from T.E. Shaw (abbreviated here as TES).

Acknowledgment to Sir Martin Gilbert for sofaithfully compiling those rich treasures the companionvolumes to the official biography (London: Heinemann),from which these are quoted. "CV4/3" is CompanionVolume IV, Part 3, 1977. "CV5/1" is Companion Vol-ume V, Part 1, The Exchequer Years 1922-1929, 1979."CV5/2" is Companion Volume V, Part 2, The WildernessYears 1929-1935, 1979. Some of the shorter letters mayhave been abbreviated from the originals but containevery word published in the companion volumes.

Lawrence's ResignationWinston S. Churchill to Colonel Lawrence(Churchill papers: 17/26, CV4/3 p. 1930.)

8 July 1922I very much regret your decision to quit our small

group at the Middle East Department of the Colonial Of-fice. Your help in all matters and guidance in many hasbeen invaluable to me and to your colleagues. I shouldhave been glad if you would have stayed with us longer. Ihope you are not unduly sanguine in your belief that ourdifficulties are largely surmounted. Still, I know I cancount upon you at any time that a need arises, and in themeanwhile I am glad to know that you will accept at leastthe honorary position of Adviser on Arabian Affairs.

With every good wish,Winston S. Churchill

"Winston's Bridge"T. E. Lawrence to R. D. Blumenfeld*(Lawrence papers, CV4/3 p. 2122.)

11 November 1922If we get out of the Middle East Mandates with

credit, it will be by Winston's bridge. The man's as braveas six, as good-humoured, shrewd, self-confident, & con-siderate as a statesman can be: & several times I've seenhim chuck the statesmanlike course & do the honestthing instead.

*Ralph D. Blumenfeld (1864-1948), journalist and author,founder of the Anti-Socialist Union, chairman of the Daily Expressduring 1933-48.

Churchill's DefeatT. E. Lawrence to Winston S. Churchill

(Churchill papers: 1/157, CV4/3 pp. 2124-25.)

18 November 1922Dear Mr. Churchill

This is a difficult letter to write—because it fol-lows on many unwritten ones. First I wanted to say howsorry I was when you fell ill, and again when you had tohave an operation. Then I should have written to say Iwas sorry when the Government resigned. I meant towrite & congratulate you on getting better: but before Icould do that you were in Dundee and making speeches.Lastly I should write to say that I'm sorry the poll wentagainst you—but I want to wash out all these lost oppor-tunities, & to give you instead my hope that you will resta little: six months perhaps.

There is that book of memoirs to me made notmerely worth £30,000, but of permanent value. Your lifeof Lord Randolph shows what you could do with mem-oirs. Then there is the painting to work at, but I feel youare sure to do that anyhow: but the first essential seems tome a holiday for you.

It sounds like preaching from a younger to anelder (and is worse still when the younger is an airman-re-cruit!) but you have the advantage of twenty years overnearly all your political rivals: and physically you are asstrong as any three of them (do you remember yourcamel-trotting at Giza, when you wore out all your escort,except myself, & I'm not a fair competitor at that!) and in

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guts and power and speech you can roll over anyone barLloyd George: so that you can (or should) really not be inany hurry.

Of course I know that your fighting sense is urg-ing you to get back into the scrimmage at the first mo-ment: but it would be better for your forces to rest & re-arrange them: & not bad tactics to disengage a little. Thepublic won't forget you soon, & you will be in a positionto choose your new position and line of action morefreely, for an interval. I needn't say that I'm at your dis-posal when you need me—or rather if ever you do. I'vehad lots of chiefs in my time, but never one before whoreally was my chief The others have needed help at alltimes: you only when you want it: —and let me say that ifyour tools in the rest of your career to date had been ofmy temper you would have been now too big, probably,for the country to employ! That's a modest estimate ofmyself, but you know it doubles the good of a subordinateto feel that his chief is better than himself*

Yours sincerelyT. E. Lawrence

By the way, I've got keen on the RAF and pro-pose to stick to it for the present.

"Churchill was defeated in his reelection bid for Dundee, wherehe had sat since 1910. He was out of Parliament for two years beforeregaining a seat for Epping, later subdivided as Woodford, where hesat until his retirement in 1964.

The World CrisisT. E. Lawrence to Edward Marsh*

(Lawrence papers, CV5/1, p. 1014.)

10 June 1927Winston wrote me a gorgeous letter. Called his

Crisis a pot-boiler! Some pot! And probably some boil,too. I suppose he recalls that he's the only high person,since Thucydides & Clarendon, who has put his genera-tion, imaginatively in his debt. Incidentally neither T or Cwas impartial! That doesn't matter, as long as you writebetter than anybody of your rivals.

He alarms me a little bit, for I feel that he wantsto go for Russia, and the ex-bear hasn't yet come into theopen. It's hard to attack, for its neighbours, except Ger-many, aren't very good allies for us. We can only get at her,here, through Turkey, or Persia, or Afghanistan, or China,and I fancy the Red Army is probably good enough toturn any one of those into a bit of herself, as the Germansdid Rumania.

*Eddie Marsh (1872-1953) served as Churchill's private secre-tary during 1905-15, 1917-22 and 1924-29. Compare Lawrence's re-marks with WSC's more famous 1941 observation about England:"Some chicken! Some neck!"

The AftermathT. E. Shaw to Winston S. Churchill

(Churchill papers: 8/224, CV5/1, pp. 1446-48.)

18 March 192933871 A/c ShawRAF Cattewater

PlymouthDear Winston,

I've now read it all, with very great care. I like itbest of them all [ The World Crisis volumes]. It is riper, andyour sense of decaying comes uppermost—though thefirst note I made at the end of it was vigour. The buoy-ancy of the writing, and the confidence with which youswim across these broken waters are both wise and en-couraging. Yet it comes back to the moderation & thegenerosity of your presentations of everybody—nearly,(except De Robeck!)* I particularly like your fairness to-ward LI George. The future is going to flaw our genera-tion for its unfairness to him. He's ever so much biggerthan the statesman of the Napoleonic times. He's saidmagnificent things, & his own performances, with thatteam, were marvellous. You give him, not full marks, butmore than's the fashion: and so you do yourself greatcredit. It made me glad, all through 1920 and 1921, tofind him and you so close together. Of course your lateradvantages over him are partly due to your being youngenough to try again: and partly to your greater strength.But LI G has been a very grand figure. He was a big manin Paris.

Of course the Greek business was awful. Venize-los* stole the wits of Harold Niccolson, & so cajoled theForeign Office: and LI George's nasty little Noncon-formist upbringing fell for him. It was the ruin of a Mid-dle East situation that was a clear gift to us. I wonder if wewill ever get much of it back? Not, I suppose, till Turkeyfights Russia and badly wants a friend.

You do President Wilson full justice. A fish-like,clammy hand, he had: and conceit, and terror of givinghimself away. Yet he had the fanatic scholar's power ofholding firmly to an idea or two: partly because he was soafraid of practicalities. House I liked, but couldn't respect,as a brain. Old Clemenceau was wise, and broad-minded(off his hobby) and laughter-loving. He comes out of yourstory with honour. I am glad you say a decent word forMustapha Kemal.*

It is a very fine effort, this book, and it does youmore honour—in all except writing—than the others. I

*De Robeck was the admiral who broke off and never resumedthe naval attack on the Dardanelles. Venizelos was Prime Minister ofGreece, 1910-15, 1917-30, 1928-32 and 1933. Col. House was anadviser to President Woodrow Wilson. Mustapha Kemal led the na-tional movement that replaced the Ottoman Empire with republicanTurkey, and was President of Turkey, 1922-38.

FINEST HOUR 119/ 27

still feel that the first was the finest writing: but there arepatches of delirious humour, here: and the 'Armisticedream' is the real stuff.

Your 'Memo' at the end does more than it de-serves in favour of my particular garden-plot. Yet I willmaintain that it was, in its tiny way, a very good little plot:pitiably small, it looks, doesn't it, in its proper place besidethe great events?

I marked a misprint on page 111: 'Stated that'misplaced: on page 150, line 13, the 'has' should be 'had',I fancy: on page 300, the fresh invitation, of the 19th, issent before the Committee met on the 21st. I suspect thesentence has got twisted. I'm no good at seeing misprintsin a book though. You have EM [Eddie Marsh] who's achampion at that.

The book, as I say, has delighted me. It is not theend of the story either. There is room for more, when theslowness of post-war policy has at length produced some-thing worth writing about. Three years of today makeabout a month of war-time.

If the gods give you a rest, some day, won't youwrite a life of the great Duke of Marlborough? Abut ouronly international general...and so few people seem to seeit. He hasn't had a practical book written about him: andyou are deep enough into affairs to see all round him.

Ever so many thanks for The Aftermath.Yours,

T. E. Shaw

Excuse the rotten letter. There is a sort of dog-fight goingon all over and round me in the hut, and I'm listening totwo of its arguments with half an ear each. They affectme, you see!

"I want him to be PM somehow"T. E. Lawrence to Edward Marsh

(Lawrence papers CV5/1, p. 1474.)

3 June 1929The General election* means that Winston goes

out, I suppose. For himself I'm glad. He's a good fighter,and will do better out than in, and will come back in astronger position than before. I want him to be PM some-how.

* In some ways the General Election of 1929 was a greater blowto Churchill than that of 1945. In the latter, he himself was handilyreelected. In 1929 he was returned with a minority of the vote: hiscombined Liberal and Labour opposition polled about 1500 votesmore than he did. But Labour's Commons majority over the Conserv-atives was only 288 to 260, not as great as 1945. And this electionturned out to be "a blessing quite effectively disguised" (as Churchillsaid of 1945): five months later came the stock market crash and theGreat Depression. Still, given Churchill's unsavory reputation withinhis party, Lawrence's desire seemed very unlikely to be fulfilled.

"You are going to live again by your books"T. E. Shaw to Winston S. Churchill

(Churchill papers: 8/269, CV5/2, pp. 182-83.)

7 September 1930338181 A/c Shaw

RAF Mount BattenPlymouth

Dear Winston,Having finished your book [My Early Life proof;

publication was 30 October] yesterday I took it to Ply-mouth and posted it to the House of Commons, wherethis note will have to go, as I do not know the Chartwelladdress. I hope the House sends letters on, out of sittings.

Your book is complete and rather wonderful. It isbeautifully written, as to manner, and both style and con-tents form a picture of yourself more living than anythingI thought possible. A hundred times as I read it I knockedmy hands together, saying 'That's himself.' I wonder ifthose who do not know you (the unfortunate majoritytoday, and all the future) will see the whole Winston inthe book or not? I rather fancy they will, and that youhave cut away the roots of all biographies-to-be, in doingthe same thing yourself, perfectly and for all time.

Another thing I felt as I read it, and that was howpast is the epoch of your youth. Nothing of the world, orattitude or society you lived in remains. Not even yourself,for the Winston of today is altogether another man. Part ofyour excellence lies in that flawless evocation of a temporisacti. It has gone, yet you can bring it to life, just in time.Your book will become a most precious social document.

The rife & merry wisdom, and the courage andflair and judgement I take rather for granted, having seenyou so much in action: but as your current reputation isnot all made by your friends, the book will do you goodamongst your readers. Not many people could have lived25 years so without malice. On the other hand, you havesucceeded overwhelmingly, so there are grounds for yourfinding life good. Think of your unfair advantages! Youget as much out of today, and out of affairs, as any manalive among the activists: and when you die you are goingto pass over, without a word said, into the ranks of writ-ers, and live again by your books. You will remain an in-dispensable part of the early 20th century.

You'll be rather sick of all this tommy-rot. I feellike going on for hours, though. It is seldom that a read-ing man, who cares for personality & events, gets quite assharp a pleasure as I have had from your book. It is head& shoulders better than all but the high chapters of yourwar-book: also it is so perfect and balanced a whole. Re-ally a work of art.

There is nothing to be done textually. Let no onebut yourself change a line of it.

Yours ever,T. E. Shaw

FIXEST HOUR U9/28

TEL tO WSC, 18 November 1922: "Do you remember your camel-trotting at Giza, when you wore out all your escort, except myself, & I'mnot a fair competitor at that!" Expedition to the Sphinx and Pyramids during the Cairo Conference, 1921. On WSC's right is Clementine; on his

left is traveler and archeologist Gertrude Bell, T. E. Lawrence and Churchill's bodyguard, Detective Inspector Thompson (see page 15).

MarlboroughWinston S. Churchill to T. E. Shaw

(Churchill papers: 8/326, CV5/2, pp. 691-92.)

15 December 1933Thank you so much for your delightful letter

[not published]. I am much interested that you derivedthe impression that Marlborough's ambition was not ahungry one. Apart from the impulse to use his militarygift, he was quite content with family life, making a for-tune and building a home. In this second volume nothingis more striking than his repeated desire to give up hiscommand and retire. And considering that this was ex-pressed in letters to Sarah which he never dreamed wouldsee the light of day—many of which have not seen thelight of day for two hundred years—it is hard to believethat it was all a pose.

I am immensely complimented by what you havewritten and will treasure your letter.

Now why not mount your bicycle and come andspend a day or two here in the near future. Drop me a lineif you can come, but anyhow come.

Last ThoughtsT. E. Shaw to Winston S. Churchill

(Churchill papers: 1/270, CV5/2, pp. 1120-21.)

19 March 1935c/o Sir Herbert Baker

2 Smith SquareWestminster

Dear Winston,I wonder if you can help me? My RAF discharge

happened about three weeks ago, and I've since had torun three times from my cottage in Dorset (where I wantto live) through pressure from newspaper men. Each timeI've taken refuge in London, but life here is expensive, andI cannot go on moving about indefinitely.

My plan is to try and persuade the press people,the big noises, to leave me alone. If they agree to that thefree-lancers find no market for their activities.

What I am hoping from you is a means of ap-proach to Esmond Harmsworth, who is the new Chair-man of the Newspaper Proprietors Association. He usedto know me in Paris, 16 years ago, but will have forgotten.If you could tell him I exist, and very much want to seehim, I could put my case before him in ten minutes andget a Yes or No.

I am writing to you because I fancy, from some-thing you once said, that you are (or were) on good termswith Esmond—who anyway used to be a decent person.If you can get into touch with him, without embarrassingyourself, I would be most grateful.

I'll see Sir Herbert Baker tomorrow and get himto keep for me any message that may arrive during thisweek. I believe his Smith Square house is on the tele-phone, if that simplifies things: though it usually is moretrouble than it is worth.

I'm sorry to appeal in this way; but they have gotme properly on the run. I blacked the eye of one photog-rapher last Sunday and had to escape over the back of thehedge!

YoursT. E. Shaw M>

FINEST HOUR 119/29

CHURCHILL AND LAWRENCE

THE WRITING OF SEVEN PILLARSPAUL ALKON

"/ went up the Tigris with one hundred Devon Territorials, young, clean, delightful fellows....And we were casting them by thousands into the fire and to the worst of deaths, not to win the war

but that the corn and rice and oil of Mesopotamia might be oursAll our subject provinces to me were not worth one dead Englishman."—T. E. Lawrence

Writing Seven Pillarsof Wisdom was forLawrence an ex-

tended effort almost as ex-hausting as participation inthe Arab Revolt itself. Reliv-ing that adventure, whilewriting about it in successivedrafts over seven years, greatlycontributed to his post-waranomie.

The initial manu-script was begun in Paris dur-ing the Versailles Peace Con-ference in 1919 and lost inNovember of that year whena suitcase containing it wasstolen at Reading railway sta-tion—or so Lawrence claimedin one of several versions hegave of the first draft's disap-pearance. He reports that hereluctantly wrote it again"with heavy repugnance in London in the winter of1919-20 from memory and . . . surviving notes."1 Dissat-isfied, he burned this second draft on 10 May 1922—ex-cept, oddly, for one page retained as a kind of souvenir.

Eight copies based on a third draft (the Bodleianmanuscript) were printed by Lawrence at the OxfordTimes press between 20 January and 24 June 1922. Buthe revised this draft so thoroughly while correcting pressproofs that what resulted is really a fourth draft, identifiednow as the 1922 text. After sending its eight copies forcomments to friends, among them George Bernard andCharlotte Shaw, Lawrence revised the 1922 text, cuttingout about fifteen percent, for the lavishly illustrated and

Dr. Alkon is a Professor of English at the University of SouthernCalifornia and a Churchill Centre academic adviser.

handsomely printed 1926Subscribers Edition: a holygrail among bibliophiles.

Only a bit more than200 Subscribers Editions weremade, about 170 with all il-lustrations, perhaps 211 inall. The exact number re-mains in doubt becauseLawrence mischievously de-cided to thwart bibliophiles(and historians) by refusing tonumber the copies, to disclosehow many had been made,even to make any two exactlyalike. To meet printing ex-penses for the SubscribersEdition, Lawrence cut its textby about sixty percent andpublished the resultingabridgement in 1927 as Revoltin the Desert. This best sellerin England and America was

also serialized during December 1926 and January 1927by the London Daily Telegraph.

Omitted in Revolt in the Desert are Lawrence'smost poignant personal statements and most of his gen-eral reflections, leaving a bare narrative of military events.Its popularity enhanced Lawrence's legend while alsocloaking him in further mystery because all but the fewprivileged readers of the Subscribers Edition could onlywonder what Lawrence was holding back from his wideraudience. On George Bernard Shaw's advice, even theSubscribers Edition had appeared without Lawrence's In-troduction. This suppressed chapter was publishedposthumously, first by his brother A. W. Lawrence in a1939 collection ofT. E. Lawrence's essays called OrientalAssembly, and subsequently in Seven Pillars of Wisdom,starting with the 1940 Jonathan Cape edition.

In this Introduction Lawrence explains his

F I N E S T H O U R J 1 9 / 3 0

grandiose intentions on behalf of the Arabs "to make anew nation, to restore a lost influence, to give twentymillions of Semites the foundations on which to build aninspired dream-palace of their national thoughts." But healso confesses his awareness that British promises to theArabs were unlikely to be kept.

He confesses too his entire agreement with Gen-eral Allenby's strategy of waging an Arab Revolt to saveEnglish lives by "turning to our uses the hands of the op-pressed in Turkey." Lawrence states: "I went up the Tigriswith one hundred Devon Territorials, young, clean, de-lightful fellows....And we were casting them by thousandsinto the fire and to the worst of deaths, not to win thewar but that the corn and rice and oil of Mesopotamiamight be ours..The only need was to defeat our enemies(Turkey among them), and this was at last done in thewisdom of Allenby with less than four hundred killed, byturning to our uses the hands of the oppressed in Turkey.I am proudest of my thirty fights in that I did not haveany of our own blood shed. All our subject provinces tome were not worth one dead Englishman."

A source of anguish during and after the war forLawrence was the contradiction between his genuine de-sire to help the cause of Arab nationalism and realizationthat he was unlikely to succeed and, perforce, an agent ofdubious imperial expansion. Hence the bitterness ofLawrence's final disillusionment: "...when we achievedand the new world dawned, the old men came out againand took our victory to re-make in the likeness of theformer world they knew."2

With such despair at heart Lawrence started hiswork as an adviser to Churchill in the Colonial Office. Af-terwards Lawrence added in a footnote to Seven Pillars ofWisdom (as its final revision) that in 1921 "Mr. WinstonChurchill was entrusted by our harassed Cabinet with thesettlement of the Middle East; and in a few weeks, at hisconference in Cairo, he made straight all the tangle, find-ing solutions, fulfilling (I think) our promises in letter andspirit (where humanly possible) without sacrificing any in-terest of our Empire or any interest of the peoples con-cerned. So we were quit of the war-time Eastern adven-ture, with clean hands, but three years too late to earn thegratitude which peoples, if not states, can pay. "3

Eighty-two years after the Cairo Conference, fewwill agree that it straightened all tangles in the MiddleEast. Perhaps, however, Lawrence was right to judge thatWinston Churchill came as close to doing so as anyone.

NOTES1. T. E. Lawrence, "Introductory Chapter,"

Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph (privately printed,1926; published 1935 by Jonathan Cape; reprint, Har-mondsworth, England: Penguin, 1962), 21.

2. Lawrence, "Introductory Chapter," 21-24.3. Lawrence, 283 , note. M>

Cover Story: The John PortraitFrom An IconographyThe Portraits ofT.E. Lawrence by

Charles Grosvenor, The Otterden Press 1988.

" T)artnership's off! Daily Express has torn it: says you failJL completely to express your sitters who use their brains:

but succeed conspicuously in two portraits of men of ac-tion—Col. Lawrence and the Emir Feisal."

So wrote Lawrence to Augustus John, prompted bya review of the artist's 1920 exhibition, at London's AlpineClub Gallery, including several portraits of Lawrence andone of Feisal, painted in Paris during the 1919 Paris PeaceConference. Lawrence and Feisal were several times togetherwith John in the artist's studio, speaking to each other inArabic as John painted. At times they were accompanied byGertrude Bell, who termed Lawrence, attired in his Arabrobes, "the most picturesque figure" at the Conference.

This 23 1/2 x 31 1/2-inch portrait, the mostwidely-known painted image, fascinated Lawrence. Againand again he returned to view the painting. To John he com-plained that the gallery was so full of visitors that seeing allthe paintings was difficult, but frequent returns were morelikely motivated by the draw of this portrait. Christine Long-ford recalled encountering Lawrence "staring long andfixedly" at it. "Friends came in," she told John Mack, "andLawrence would converse with them, but from time to timegazed back over his shoulder, as if he were checking to seethat the painting was still there." To other friends he recom-mended attendance. "A friend of mine," Lawrence wroteJohn, "went to the Alpine Club, and said my larger one was aconscious effort by you to show how long contact withcamels had affected my face! But I explained that it wasn'tmy face which had been in contact with camels."

Lawrence greatly loved this painting and wished toacquire it: but, financially it proved beyond his means. Thesubject wrote the artist: "Really, I'm hotter stuff than Ithought: the wrathful portrait went off at top speed for athousand to a Duke! That puts me for the moment easily atthe head of the field in your selling plate. Of course I knowyou will naturally think the glory is yours—but I believe it'sdue to the exceeding beauty of my face." The "Duke" wasthe second Duke of Westminster, Shortly after purchasingthe work, the Duke donated it to the Tate Gallery.

Years later the work still held a magic for Lawrence.According to Sgt. Pugh, an RAF comrade, Lawrence visitedthe Tate during a leave and stood by the painting. A largenumber of people surrounded it, "some admiring and somedoing the othet, while [Lawrence] stood, looked, listened,smiled broadly and walked away. Such, as he said, is fame."

Besides being exhibited at the Alpine Club Galleryand the Tate, the painting was also displayed at Leeds, atTemple Newsam in July and August of 1946. In 1963 it wassent on extended loan to the Imperial War Museum, where itremains. Also termed by Lawrence "the rebellious" painting,the work is uninscribed.

"John painted two portraits of Feisal. One, included in theAlpine show, went to Birmingham Art Gallery. The other belongedto Lawrence, who used it as the color frontispiece for the Sub-scribers Edition of his Seven Pillars of Wisdom. M>

FINEST HOUR 119/31

CHURCHJLL AND LAWRENCE

SEVEN PILLARS.- THREE APPRECIATIONSTRIUMPH OR BETRAYAL?

"Instead of being proud of what we did together, I was continually and bitterly ashamed. "

T. E. LAWRENCE IN 1926

On George Bernard Shaw'sadvice this "introductorychapter" of Seven Pillarswas suppressed in the edi-tions during and shortlyafter Lawrence's lifetime. Itwas released in 1939 byTEL's brother and has beenincluded in subsequentprintings.

Pillars ofWis-idom was first written

in Paris duringthe Peace Conference,from notes jotted daily onthe march, strengthenedby some reports sent tomy chiefs in Cairo. After-wards, in the autumn of1919, this first draft andsome of the notes werelost. It seemed to me his-torically needful to repro-duce the tale, as perhapsno one but myself inFeisal's army had thoughtof writing down at the

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The most widely published drawing of Lawrence, this pencil sketch byAugustus John was the artist's first depiction of TEL, which led to the magnif-icent portrait on our cover. Lawrence told Charlotte Shaw that John ran thissketch off in "two minutes" as he gazed from the third floor window of John'sborrowed Paris apartment. Lawrence gave it to the Shaws, who in 1944 do-

nated it to the National Portrait Gallery in London. Reprinted by permission.

ful, especially when it istaken into account thatthey had not the motive,the imaginative vision ofthe end, which sustainedthe officers. Unfortu-nately my concern waslimited to this end, andthe book is just a de-signed procession of Arabfreedom from Mecca toDamascus. It is intendedto rationalize the cam-paign, that everyone maysee how natural the suc-cess was and how in-evitable, how little de-pendent on direction orbrain, how much less onthe outside assistance ofthe few British. It was anArab war waged and ledby Arabs for an Arab aimin Arabia.

My proper share wasa minor one, but becauseof a fluent pen, a freespeech, and a certain

time what we felt, what we hoped, what we tried. So itwas built again with heavy repugnance in London in thewinter of 1919-20 from memory and my surviving notes.The record of events was not dulled in me and perhaps afew actual mistakes crept in—except in details of dates ornumbers—but the outlines and significance of things hadlost edge in the haze of new interests.

This isolated picture throwing the main lightupon myself is unfair to my British colleagues. EspeciallyI am most sorry that I have not told what the non-com-missioned of us did. They were inarticulate, but wonder-

Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph has hardly if ever been out ofprint. The current version is by Anchor Paperbacks, 784 pages,$18.95, available from Amazon.com and retail bookshops.

adroitness of brain, I took upon myself, as I describe it, amock primacy. In reality I never had any office among theArabs, was never in charge of the British mission withthem. Wilson, Joyce, Newcombe, Dawnay and Davenportwere all over my head. I flattered myself that I was tooyoung, not that they had more heart or mind in the work.I did my best. Wilson, Newcombe, Joyce, Dawnay, Dav-enport, Buxton, Marshall, Stirling, Young, Maynard,Ross, Scott, Winterton, Lloyd, Wordie, Siddons, Goslett,Stent, Henderson, Spence, Gilman, Garland, Brodie,Makins, Nunan, Leeson, Hornby, Peake, Scott-Higgins,Ramsay, Wood, Hinde, Bright, Maclnow, Greenhill,Grisenthwaite, Dowsett, Bennett, Wade, Gray, Pascoe andthe others also did their best.

It would be impertinent of me to praise them.

FINEST HOUR 119/32

When I wish to say ill of one outside our number, I do it,though there is less of this than was in my diary, since thepassage of time seems to have bleached out men's stains.When I wish to praise outsiders, I do it, but our family af-fairs are our own. We did what we set out to do, and havethe satisfaction of that knowledge....

In these pages the history is not of the Arab move-ment, but of me in it. It is a narrative of daily life, mean hap-penings, little people. Here are no lessons for the world, nodisclosures to shock peoples. It is filled with trivial things,partly that no one mistake for history the bones from whichsome day a man may make history, and partly for the plea-sure it gave me to recall the fellowship of the revolt.

We were fond together, because of the sweep ofthe open places, the taste of wide winds, the sunlight, andthe hopes in which we worked. The morning freshness ofthe world-to-be intoxicated us. We were wrought up withideas inexpressible and vaporous, but to be fought for. Welived many lives in those whirling campaigns, never spar-ing ourselves; yet when we achieved and the new worlddawned, the old men came out again and took our victoryto re-make in the likeness of the former world they knew.Youth could win, but had not learned to keep; and waspitiably weak against age. We stammered that we hadworked for a new heaven and a new earth, and theythanked us kindly and made their peace.

All men dream, but not equally. Those whodream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wakein the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers ofthe day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreamwith open eyes, to make it possible.

This I did. I meant to make a new nation, to re-store a lost influence, to give twenty millions of Semitesthe foundations on which to build an inspired dream-palace of their national thoughts. So high an aim calledout the inherent nobility of their minds, and made themplay a generous part in events; but when we won, it wascharged against me that the British petrol royalties inMesopotamia were become dubious, and French colonialpolicy ruined in the Levant.

I am afraid that I hope so. We pay for thesethings too much in honour and in innocent lives. I wentup the Tigris with one hundred Devon Territorials,young, clean, delightful fellows, full of the power of hap-piness and of making women and children glad. By themone saw vividly how great it was to be their kin, and Eng-lish. And we were casting them by thousands into the fireto the worst of deaths, not to win the war but that thecorn and rice and oil of Mesopotamia might be ours.

The only need was to defeat our enemies (Turkeyamong them), and this was at last done in the wisdom ofAllenby with less than four hundred killed, by turning toour uses the hands of the oppressed in Turkey. I amproudest of my thirty fights in that I did not have any ofour own blood shed. All our subject provinces to me were

not worth one dead Englishman.We were three years over this effort and I have

had to hold back many things which may not yet be said.Even so, parts of this book will be new to nearly all whosee it, and many will look for familiar things and not findthem. Once I reported fully to my chiefs, but learnt thatthey were rewarding me on my own evidence. This wasnot as it should be. Honours may be necessary in a profes-sional army, as so many emphatic mentions in despatches,and by enlisting we had put ourselves, willingly or not, inthe position of regular soldiers.

For my work on the Arab front I had determinedto accept nothing. The Cabinet raised the Arabs to fightfor us by definite promises of self-government afterwards.Arabs believe in persons, not in institutions. They saw inme a free agent of the British Government, and de-manded from me an endorsement of its written promises.

So I had to join the conspiracy, and, for what myword was worth, assured the men of their reward. In ourtwo years' partnership under fire they grew accustomed tobelieving me and to think my Government, like myself,sincere. In this hope they performed some fine things but,of course, instead of being proud of what we did together,I was continually and bitterly ashamed.

It was evident from the beginning that if we wonthe war these promises would be dead paper, and had Ibeen an honest adviser of the Arabs I would have advisedthem to go home and not risk their lives fighting for suchstuff; but I salved myself with the hope that, by leadingthese Arabs madly in the final victory I would establishthem, with arms in their hands, in a position so assured (ifnot dominant) that expediency would counsel to theGreat Powers a fair settlement of their claims.

In other words, I presumed (seeing no otherleader with the will and power) that I would survive thecampaigns, and be able to defeat not merely the Turks onthe battlefield, but my own country and its allies in thecouncil-chamber. It was an immodest presumption; it isnot yet clear if I succeeded; but it is clear that I had noshadow of leave to engage the Arabs, unknowing, in suchhazard. I risked the fraud, on my conviction that Arab helpwas necessary to our cheap and speedy victory in the East,and that better we win and break our word than lose.

The dismissal of Sir Henry McMahon [who firstrepresented British promises to the Arabs] confirmed mybelief in our essential insincerity: but I could not so ex-plain myself to General Wingate while the war lasted,since I was nominally under his orders and he did notseem sensible of how false his own standing was. The onlything remaining was to refuse rewards for being a success-ful trickster and, to prevent this unpleasantness arising, Ibegan in my reports to conceal the true stories of things,and to persuade the few Arabs who knew to an equal reti-cence. In this book also, for the last time, I mean to be myown judge of what to say. continued overleaf

FINEST HOUR n9/33

AN ENGLISH CLASSIC"Forever it will reveal all that is most characteristic of the Arab race. "

WINSTON S. CHURCHILL IN 1935

Churchill's review of Seven Pillarsshows his skill as a reviewer andthus as a sensitive reader of books,a side of him that is relatively un-known compared to his talent as awriter. It first appeared in TheDaily Mail for 29 July 1935, andappeared in The Collected Essaysof Sir Winston Churchill, vol. 3,Churchill and People, London:Library of Imperial History, 1975,pp. 241-42. It is reprinted here bykind courtesy of Winston S.Churchill and the Churchill liter-ary estate. —P. A.

T:

REVOLTIPS THE

DESERTT.E.LAWRENCE

the executors of the lateColonel Lawrence haveacted rightly in giving to

the public the full, unexpurgatededition of Seven Pillars of Wis-dom. The remarkable popularityof its woefully abridged versionRevolt in the Desert was unwel-come to the author. He allowedit to be published only to pay theexpenses of the limited edition of Seven Pillars.

The cost of producing this work was enormous.The author lavished the thought and labours of manymonths merely upon the typography and illustrations. Hereconstructed many of his sentences so that every para-graph should end about half-way through the line.

He gave away a large part of the edition to hisfriends and to persons of high consequence of whom he ap-proved. He chose various beautiful bindings for these copiesand delivered many of them personally on his motor-bicycle.

The few subscribed copies that came on the mar-ket were found to be worth many hundreds of pounds.Even the skeleton Revolt in the Desert brought in suchlarge sums, especially in the United States, that the pub-lisher of Seven Pillars was soon indemnified, and beforeLawrence could stop the sale a surplus of many thousandshad flowed in, which he made haste to assign to Air Forcecharities.

The many who had read Revolt in the Desertclamoured for the full account. The few who possessedcopies of the limited edition could not allow such a pre-cious possession to be spoiled by passing through the

The abridged edition, 1927, was a huge success.

hands of many readers. Thusthere is no doubt that the hand-some volume, now at last liber-ated to meet a pent-up demand,will find an honoured place inevery library, and draw to itselfan immense proportion of thereading public.

Seven Pillars is a tale of warand adventure and a profoundepitome of all that the Arabsmean to the world. It will takeits place at once as an Englishclassic. The richness and energyof the theme, the quality of theprose, the sense of the mystic,immeasurable personality lyingbehind it, raise the work at onceand decisively above the level ofcontemporary productions. Itranks with Pilgrim's Progress,Robinson Crusoe, and Gulliver'sTravels as a model of lucid,forcible, fascinating narrative.

Yet intense as is the interest ofthe story, we feel that many will

study it even more closely for the intimate access which itoffers to a wonderful and still largely inscrutable man, in-different to the ordinary prizes of human life and gifted dif-ferently and far beyond the normal standards of mankind.

We will not say that those who read Seven Pillarswill know Lawrence; but, reading with a sympathetic eye,they will know as much as anyone will ever know. For itwas into this record of his life-effort in the Great War thathe wished to put all that was left in him at its close, andthis book was to be, as it surely will be, a lasting monu-ment of his work.

Careless of life or comfort, scornful of wealth orpleasures, having cut out of himself all ambition, all loveof power and fame, he nevertheless thirsted for recogni-tion from the generations which he would not see. Thathe has achieved his purpose cannot be doubted. His bookwill be read as long as the English language is spoken. For-ever it will revive the memories, aye, and the passions, ofarmageddon; forever it will reveal all that is most charac-teristic of the Arab race and all that is most vital in war.

We have no intention here of even attempting toretell the tale. Its outlines are well known. Its episodes

FINEST HOUR 119/34

must be read in the original. No extract or quotationcould convey the atmosphere which the reader willbreathe. The vastness of the desert, the weight of the sun,the awful weariness of the long camel marches, the scrapsof food and drops of water which taste like feasts of thegods, the fierce, rigid tension of the ambuscades, thecruel, merciless fighting, the great operations of war inwhich this fighting played a notable part, the annihilationof the Turkish column, the rupturing of the Turkish com-munications, the forlorn attempt with a handful of irregu-lars to bar the retreat of a Turco-German army 80,000strong, the triumphant entry into Damascus—all thosepresent an inexhaustible series of pictures arresting to themind and stirring to the soul.

The story is told with unrelenting candour.Nothing in Edgar Allan Poe exceeds in horror some of itspages. The description of Lawrence's torment when he fell

unknown into the hands of the Turks is a terrifying, ashocking, and at the same time a necessary passage whichenables us to realize better than anything else the war in-juries which he sustained, and from which he never com-pletely recovered. We have to think of him in the twentyyears that followed as a man seared in body and spirit bythe sufferings he had undergone for his country's cause.

Still, in the main and for all its shadows, thisbook is a joyous book, and those who read it will not onlybe instructed and startled but also enthralled and de-lighted. Reading it again for the third time, I found theinterest as fresh and everflowing as at the first perusal. In-deed, the more carefully it is read, the stronger and moreinspiring is the impression received.

Lawrence of Arabia is a name that will live in his-tory and in legend. It will never be forgotten during theirlifetime by his Arab or his English friends.

SEVEN PILLARS TODAY"President Bush and Mr. Blair need to read this book"

CHARLES W. ANDERSON IN 2003

The cinema version of Lawrence of Arabia, producedby David Lean and starring Peter O'Toole asLawrence, was a masterpiece, but placed too much

emphasis on the protagonist. Lawrence himself is far morehonest and insightful in his book. Even today much ofhis insight into Arab psychology would help leaders cometo grips with the challenges of the Middle East.

The film leaves viewers with the impression thatLawrence almost singlehandedly forged the Arab allianceagainst the Turks. Lawrence, in chapter XXIX, gives thebulk of the credit to Feisal, who became king of Syria,then, ousted by the French, the first king of Iraq.

One wonders what might have become of Arabiahad Feisal remained in command in Damascus. WithoutFrench and British meddling, it is possible that Feisalwould have united all Arabia into one nation, which washis goal.

One wonders also, now that regime change hasbeen effected in Iraq, whether the present tenuous state ofaffairs will give way to democracy, or rule by ideology, orsimply return to 20th century tribalism. Surely if the Westattempts to impose an inflexible system, all controlledfrom a centralized government, only failure can result.

Mr. Anderson, of Arlington, Virginia, writes reviews for Ama-zon.com. In 1970 he joined the Navy to become a chef, emerging in1980 as a nuclear welding inspector. With $22, he started a magazinethat later won an award from a library journal. He worked as a qualitycontrol and safety manager in Cairo, returned home to become anewspaper correspondent, and is now writing a book about how tostart a bakery on a shoestring—truly a man of endeavor and adven-ture who would, we suspect, have been welcome at Chartwell.

Occupation, even by white knights, is doomed. Lawrencenotes the failures of such a system, practiced by the Turks85 years ago, in chapter XXXIII.

Throughout the book I found tremendousnuggets of wisdom regarding the Arab mind. As a West-erner himself, Lawrence's vision was imperfect. It was,however, the clearest vision among all Westerners of hisday and, likely, more acute than most present-day writers.

This is a must book for those wanting to under-stand Arab psychology and, to almost as great an extent,military history as applied in a hostile environment in aguerrilla fashion. Entrepreneurs could also benefit. It be-longs alongside Clausewitz's On War, Sun Tzu's The Art ofWar, and Machiavelli's The Prince.

Seven Pillars is important today not for the mili-tary campaigns it describes but for the advice it offers con-cerning the governance of Middle Eastern peoples. Thebattle today has turned from conquest to ideas. Greatpowers must assert their position only at critical controlpoints. In that sense, it is Westerners who must fight aguerrilla campaign, not become a fixed target for one.

Some may question comments such as these in abook review, but I am merely summarizing the commentsof T. E. Lawrence himself. That is the beauty of his book,and the contribution of his genius. Lawrence's battlefieldaccomplishments may or may not have been momentous.His literary skill may or not have been the equal ofClausewitz. His insight into the Arab mind, at a timewhen it was already becoming complicated by oil wealth,is of the utmost value. President Bush and Mr. Blair needto read this book. 15

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CHURCHILL AND LAWRENCE

IMAGINING SCENARIOS

Churchill's Advice for Alexander Kordas Stillborn Film,"Lawrence of Arabia"

PAUL ALKON

Accounts ofChurchill's in-volvements with

cinema have not gonemuch beyond anecdotes.Frequently mentioned ishis fondness for movies asa means of late-night re-laxation from wartimetensions during his firstPremiership. Often thespotlight hovers on hisunquenchable appetitefor "Lady Hamilton"("That HamiltonWoman" in the U.S.),Alexander Kordas 1941patriotic epic starringLaurence Olivier andVivien Leigh. Churchill issaid to have seen it seven-

lteen times.

We are invited toadmire the old bulldogbeaming in approval atthis tale of Nelson's defiance of Napoleon and gloriousvictory at Trafalgar. Equally admirable are the tears report-edly shed by Churchill at each reiteration on screen ofNelson's heroic death and Emma Hamilton's subsequentsad neglect by an ungrateful country. There are whispersthat Churchill had some hand not only in urging Kordato make the film in Hollywood as pro-British propagandato counter American isolationism, but even in writing itsscript of Nelson's speech, insisting that "You cannot makepeace with Dictators. You have to destroy them."^ Alas,there is no evidence that Churchill wrote this.3

Rumored too in various pleasing degrees of luridspeculation is Churchill's behind-the-scenes instigation ofKordas shadowy activities in the United States as aBritish agent ferreting out information for MI5, cooper-ating after Pearl Harbor with the OSS, and making dan-gerous wartime transatlantic trips "acting personally as a

Associates: Churchill was ideally qualified to advise Korda, havingknown Lawrence since 1919. "After the Cairo Conference," writes Sir Mar-

tin Gilbert, Churchill and Lawrence "went to Jerusalem where, on 28March 1921, WSC informed Abdullah ofTransjordan "that Palestine was toremain a British Mandate open to a Jewish settlement." Here they visit the

Jewish settlement at Rishon-le-Zion, whose prosperity impressed Churchill.

secret courier betweenBritish and American in-telligence centres" while"allowing his New Yorkoffice in the Empire StateBuilding to be used as aclearing house for intelli-gence information. "^

Whatever the actualextent of Korda's under-cover exploits, and de-spite a disappointing esti-mate by the British Min-istry of Information thathis films "were of littlepropaganda importance,"Churchill certainly expe-dited the award ofKorda's knighthood inJune 1942.5 ButChurchill did not explainwhy he supported "thefirst knighthood ever tobe awarded to a memberof the movie industry."''

For those fond of romantic tales with happy outcomes—and who does not love such stories?—it is better to leaveshrouded in some mystery Korda's dabbling in the worldof James Bond, his rise from immigrant commoner to SirAlexander, and Churchill's role in this real-life romance.There is better documentation of Churchill's less melo-dramatic though equally intriguing role during his 1930swilderness years as a consultant for Korda's studio.

In 1934 Alexander Korda secured film rights to Revoltin the Desert, with the stipulation by Lawrence'strustees that there would be "no departure from histor-

ical accuracy" and "no female characters."'7 Korda had theproject sufficiently in motion by May to announce thatLeslie Howard would play the lead. But then Lawrencesuffered another of his periodic attacks of modesty, and re-quested that no film be made during his lifetime.

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After Lawrence's fatal 1935 motorcycle accident,Korda received permission from the trustees to proceed.On 29 December 1936 they approved a script by JohnMonk Saunders. Lawrence was now to be played byWalter Hudd, who had acted the role of the Lawrence-figure, Private Meek, in George Bernard Shaw's "TooTrue to be Good."

In 1937 a new script by Miles Malleson wastaken as a starting-point for what proved to be a long se-ries of revisions and delays complicated by objectionsfrom the Turkish government, by requests from theBritish Foreign Office to tone down portrayal of Turkishcruelty so as not to alienate a potential ally, by threatsfrom the British Board of Film Censors to withhold cer-tification lest Turkey be offended, and by various legalmaneuvers including sale of the project to New WorldFilms, repurchase of it from them, sale of the rights toParamount Pictures in 1938, and, finally, negotiationswith Columbia that were broken off on 2 June 1939.

Outbreak of the Second World War that Sep-tember ended Korda's efforts to bring to the screen"Lawrence of Arabia" (as the final version of his LondonFilm Productions script was titled). In addition to LeslieHoward, actors considered for the role of Lawrence dur-ing all these vicissitudes included John Clements, Clif-ford Evans, Robert Donat, Laurence Olivier, and (in amasterpiece of miscasting by Columbia) Cary Grant.8

Winston Churchill played two off-stage roles asadviser in this melodrama of Korda's doomedmovie: first as coach to one of the potential

lead actors, and then as script consultant for Korda's stu-dio. In the 20 November 1937 issue of Film Weekly thereappears an interview with Leslie Howard. To dispel wide-spread doubts that the movie would actually be made,Howard announced himself "hard at work on the prelim-inaries of the picture. Everything is signed and sealed. Wehope to start the actual shooting in ten or twelve weeks'time, and have the film edited and ready for presentationby the end of six or eight months."9 Given the unfore-seen obstacles that usually spring up to bedevil film pro-duction, Howard's statement was not so delusional ordisingenuous as it may appear in retrospect. Nor is thereany reason to doubt Howard's veracity when he goes onto remark:

I hope to bring in Winston Churchill to complete thescenario. He is one of the few statesmen of the periodwho saw beyond Lawrence's military importance into thereal complexities of his nature. Already, in a number ofinformal conversations, Churchill has helped me consid-erably to round off my impression of Lawrence.1*^

Hope of bringing Churchill in was not unrealis-

tic because, as Leslie Howard must have known, Kordahad secured Churchill's agreement to serve as a consul-tant on the Lawrence project during the month in whichFilm Weekly published Howard's interview. As far back asSeptember 1934 Churchill had started what proved to bea long and, for him more than for Korda, quite profitableemployment with Korda's studio. The 1934 news releaseannouncing this relationship stated:

Mr Winston Churchill has signed a contract with Lon-don Film Productions to edit a series of films dealingwith subjects of topical interest....Mr WinstonChurchill, in collaboration with Mr Korda, has selectedthe topics which will be comprised in this series....Thefollowing topics have provisionally been decided upon:'Will Monarchies Return?', 'The Rise of Japan,' 'Mar-riage Laws and Customs,' 'Unemployment' and'Gold'....London Films have engaged a special staff oftechnical experts in order to ensure that Mr Churchill'sideas will be presented in the most vivid, novel and en-tertaining fashion. Mr Randolph Churchill (Mr Win-ston Churchill's son) has also been engaged by LondonFilms to assist in the making of this series. * *

Randolph soon faded out of this project, butWinston did much work sketching scenarios for elabora-tion by Korda's "technical experts." In September 1934Churchill also agreed, in a separate contract, "to writeand prepare for London Film Productions Limited a sce-nario of 'the Reign of King George V for the forthcom-ing celebrations of the Twenty-Five Years' Jubilee."Churchill agreed moreover to "be ready as may be founddesirable to introduce and explain the story myself by myown voice and to appear on the screen in this capacity ifnecessary."12

Although Churchill put a great deal of well-com-pensated effort into writing and revising scenarios for theJubilee project as well as conferring about it with Korda'speople, legal complications prevented completion of thefilm. Never one to waste his own considerable brain-power, Churchill then converted his scenarios into a se-ries of essays that were published in The Evening Stan-dard, May 2nd through May 9th, 1935, under the gen-eral title "The King's Twenty-Five Years."

Upon receiving Korda's request to serve duringNovember 1937 as a consultant for revisions of theLawrence script, Churchill seems to have regarded Lon-don Film Productions as a money-tree ripe for the pluck-ing. In a letter dated 22 October 1937 to Korda's assis-tant, David B. Cunynghame, Churchill explained his fi-nancial and literary situation in pressing but not alto-gether heartbreaking terms by noting that he faced a De-cember 21 deadline to finish the last volume of Marlbor-ough, "for which I am to receive £3,500.1 am also writinganother series of twelve articles for the News of the Worldfor which I am to receive £4,500." He continued: >»

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Casting Lawrence: Among actors for the role of Lawrence, Korda considered John Clements, Leslie Howard, Clifford Evans, Robert Donat andLaurence Olivier—and even dabbled with the possibility of Cary Grant! Leslie Howard seemed to have the inside track, and was visually convincing.

If I am to make a strong personal contribution to thisLawrence film, I must derange all my existing plans, andlet the subject play a large part in my thoughts duringthe month of November. I have some ideas upon thesubject, but it will be necessary for me to re-read theSeven Pillars as well as the scenario. I have no doubt Ishall get much interested in it and my other work willfall into the shade. In all these circumstances, of which Iinform you confidentially, I think I should be paid£2,000 for giving my best services....If however my con-tributions should be found of sufficient importance towarrant my name being used with the editing or prepa-ration of the scenario, which might perhaps be of advan-tage to the film, I should then ask for a percentage addi-tional to the foregoing fee....^

Unmoved by this ambitious proposal, Cunyng-hame replied by return mail, in a letter dated that sameday, 22 October 1937, that "Mr Korda hoped you wouldsee your way to assist him by accepting a nominal fee of£250..."14 Churchill resisted the temptation to "derangeall" his "existing plans" by setting everything else aside,nor did he otherwise protract his labors on the Lawrencescenario. Neither did Churchill sulk. On November 3rd,less than two weeks after their exchange concerningmoney, Churchill sent Cunynghame six double-spacedtypewritten pages of comments on the script, which wasreturned therewith.

As he explained at the outset of this communica-tion, Churchill had also—evidently in the same brief in-terval since the correspondence about his fee—"consultedLord Winterton," whose comments he enclosed,Churchill reminding Cunynghame "that he was withLawrence during some of the most important phases inthis story."! 5 jn Seven Pillars Lawrence characterizes Win-terton as "an experienced officer from Buxton's CamelCorps."16 Lawrence had also met and corresponded withWinterton after the war. The crux of Winterton's letter toChurchill, dated 27 October 1937, concerned the script'streatment of Lawrence at the Arab Bureau:

There is one falsification of history to which I do takereal exception, not because I was personally concerned

(because I did not join the Arab Bureau until later), butbecause of the reflection upon friends of mine.

In the early part of the script the people under whomLawrence was working are made to look absolute fools,and he (Lawrence) to be the sole originator of the ideaof the Arab Campaign. Of course this is the most com-plete nonsense as every document of authority, officialand unofficial, shows (e.g. See Ronald Storr's book Ori-entations with its history of how the Arab Revoltstarted); the author has completely missed the realpoint. It was in the execution of the plan that Lawrenceshowed his genius, and where he was undoubtedlythwarted until Allenby arrived on the scene by the ordi-nary stupid type of "brass hat" but never by either hissuperiors or colleagues in the Arab Bureau; they recog-nized his genius from the first.

I think you ought to use your immense influence inthe matter to get this portion of the script altered; thewriter can have a "go" at the "stupid soldiers," if he wishes,by showing the way in which Lawrence was undoubtedlythwarted at first when he had actually set to work. ̂

Churchill did urge revision of the Arab Bureauscenes, but to no avail if we may judge from the final ver-sion of the sctipt, dated "October 4 1938" and creditedalso to Brian Desmond Hurst and Duncan Guthrie.^Nor, judging from other places where that version fails toadopt Churchill's suggestions, was his influence overKorda's people so "immense" as Winterton supposed.

On another matter, concerning verisimilitude nothistorical accuracy, Churchill disagreed with Winterton:

You will see that Lord Winterton likes your comic reliefof the two sergeants riding in the desert. I can well seethe necessity for this feature, but sergeants of the BritishArmy do not talk in this common way. A sergeant is afairly intelligent person who has risen to that positionthrough a great deal of competition. The idea of a con-ventional British Tommy (odious expression!) being aperson whose language is that of a half-boozed coster, isnot in accordance with the facts. I am well aware that onthe screen the idea is that a private soldier or sergeant be-gins every sentence with "Gor Blimey" etc., but I won-der whether in this film you could not afford to shakeoff this rubbish? (3-4)

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(Churchill's rich, antique vocabulary may havestumped the younger Cunynghame. The Concise OxfordDictionary defines "coster" [monger] as "a man who sellsfruit, fish, etc., from barrow in street.")

Churchill's comment on sergeants is most inter-esting for what it reveals about his notions of dramaticstructure. He has no objection to comic relief per se,granting "the necessity for this feature." He is botheredby what he takes to be lack of verisimilitude. Here it isnot a question, as it is in the Arab Bureau scenes, of accu-rately representing history. Churchill accepts introduc-tion of the sergeants as typical characters, and is willingto make these characters a vehicle for comic relief, pro-vided it is achieved via dialogue that doesn't sink to thelevel "of a half-boozed coster." Churchill wants Korda toalter this image in the direction of greater fidelity to ac-tual types as Churchill—and film viewers whose experi-ence of British army life extends beyond the cinema—re-member them.

Some questions of accuracy that attract Churchill'sattention are very minute. Of the word "crusade,"which seems to have been deleted from the final

script in accordance with Churchill's suggestion, he com-ments: "You can hardly talk of arousing the Arabs to aCrusade, which were things instituted to do them in.Jehad is the real word. Anyhow, they have no use for theCross." (2) Of an allusion locating Auda abuTayi's resi-dence somewhere north of Jerusalem, Churchill remarks:"I am quite sure Auda's home did not lie in this place.Was not Auda a desert Arab who had nothing whateverto do with the wretched Palestinian Arabs?" (5)

Most of Churchill's requests for greater accuracydeal with the key issue of geography. Churchill insiststhat the film cannot succeed unless it conveys a clear ideaof the landscape that Lawrence had to master:

It would be a good thing to check this whole story upwith the map. Page 24—What is the distance fromDamascus to Wejd? It is 500 miles. Any ordinary film"fan" reading this would suppose that it was a stepping-stone and quite close to Damascus. As a matter of fact itis hundreds of miles in the opposite direction. I do notthink this tale can be told properly unless the geographyis driven into the minds of the audience early in the day;otherwise they get a wrong impression, and keep onwondering why the hell people turn up here and there,and what it is all about. It is above all important to avoidconfusion of mind in the audience. Unless you can carrythem with you in thought at each stage, with picturesmoving so quickly, they just get blurred, if not bored.Therefore I counsel forcing the audience to know wherethey are at each stage.

Another notable instance occurs on Page 16, whereFeisal and his fellow-conspirators gallop out of the gatesof Damascus, and in less than half of one second are in

an Arab encampment outside the walls of Medina. Anyordinary ignorant person would suppose that Medinawas a few hours' gallop from the gates of Damascus. Ac-tually, it is about 650 miles. (2-3)

In these remarks, as in Churchill's own accountsof military campaigns from Marlborough's day throughthe Second World War, careful attention to geography isa hallmark. As film critic no less than as historian,Churchill's rather narrow military education yieldedunanticipated benefits. In his autobiography he notesthat "At Sandhurst...Tactics, Fortification, Topography(mapmaking), Military Law and Military Administrationformed the whole curriculum." He later adds that inIndia, extending his education by reading widely, he"began for the first time to envy those young cubs at theuniversity who had fine scholars to tell them what waswhat."19 But if Churchill had gone to Oxford or Cam-bridge rather than Sandhurst he would have missed theintensive study of topography that left him with a life-long habit of specifying geographical relationships withthe utmost precision. This habit contributes to those de-scriptive passages that were singled out among otherstriking features of Churchill's writing in the citation forhis 1953 Nobel Prize for literature, given in part "for hismastery of historical and biographical description...."20

Other echoes of his military education and armycareer are apparent in Churchill's response to Korda'sscript. Among "the practical work" at Sandhurst thatChurchill found "most exciting" was a series of field exer-cises in which he "cut railway lines with slabs of guncot-ton, and learned how to blow up masonry bridges."21

Reading Seven Pillars must have evoked happy memoriesof student days spent messing about with explosives.Churchill always enjoyed loud explosions, even when, asduring the Blitz, he deplored their consequences. Korda'sscript afforded an opportunity to share such pleasureswith movie fans, as Churchill makes clear in an enthusi-astic afterthought at the end of his comments:

I forgot to say that the blowing-up of the trainsshould be more emphasized. It lends itself very well toyour technique. Surely you should blow up half-a-dozentrains in different ways!—The approach in the distance;the scene in the railway carriage; the tense excitement ofthe ambush; the terrible explosion; the wreck of thelocomotive, etc., and the fact of the sole communica-tions of an army being cut off—all very pretty! (5-6)

Although urging Korda to repeat such scenes as akind of leitmotif in the film, Churchill gets a grip onhimself and winds up this passage in the more adulttones of a sober historian concerned above all with accu-racy. He stresses the strategic importance of Lawrence'sraids in drawing the Turkish army away from Medinaand explains what is equally relevant to an accurate >>>

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depiction of history in the movie: that the raids were cru-cial to establishing Lawrence's reputation among Arabs,thereby effecting his metamorphosis from alien English-man to their hero "Lurens."

In addition to making him a connoisseur of explo-sions, Churchill's army career enhanced his apprecia-tion of the harsh climate and distances against which

Lawrence had to struggle. Thus after urging proper atten-tion to conveying a sense of the many miles separatingMedina, Wejd, and Damascus, Churchill continues:

These points bring me to what I think should be a fea-ture in the film, viz: the great distances, and the enormousweight of the sun. This was the strongest impression lefton my mind after reading the Seven Pillars. One felt theunending toil of these immense marches by camel; withthe most severe privations; barely enough food and waterto keep body and soul together; on and on each day underbrazen skies, through hot, crisp sand, and over blackjagged rocks. The script fails to give the impression of therigours of the desert in which these strange Arabs live, andto which they are habituated. The words at the top ofPage 52 show that the author has this idea, but I suggest itshould be emphasized more elaborately. (3)

In Churchill's memory, which is to say in hisimagination, his mental visions of Lawrence's experiencesmerge with his own 1898 campaign as a cavalry officerwith Kitchener's army in the Soudan. Looking back onthe Battle of Omdurman in his autobiography, Churchillrecalls how "Batteries of artillery or long columns of cav-alry emerged from a filmy world of uneven crystal on tothe hard yellow-ochre sand, and took up their positionsamid jagged red-black rocks with violet shadow. Over allthe immense dome of the sky...pierced by the flamingsun, weighed hard and heavy on marching necks andshoulders."22 In The River War, published in 1899 barelya year after the battle, Churchill places similar emphasison heat, sand, rocks, and sun:

This is the Soudan of the soldier....Level plains ofsmooth sand—a little rosier than buff, a little paler thansalmon—are interrupted only by occasional peaks ofrock—black, stark, and shapeless. Rainless storms dancetirelessly over the hot, crisp surface of the ground. Thefine sand, driven by the wind, gathers into deep drifts,and silts among the dark rocks of the hills, exactly assnow hangs about an Alpine summit; only it is a fierysnow, such as might fall in hell.... scarcely a cloud ob-structs the unrelenting triumph of the sun.... he whohad not seen the desert, nor felt the sun heavy on hisshoulders, would hardly admire the fertility of the ripar-ian scrub [by the Nile].

In Churchill's memo to London Film Produc-tions, three phrases describing his memories of what

Lawrence says in Seven Pillars match almost exactly thewords Churchill used previously concerning Omdurman.The "enormous weight of the sun" corresponds to "theflaming sun weighed hard and heavy on marching necksand shoulders" {My Early Life) and to "the sun heavy onhis shoulders" (The River War). The memo's "hot crispsand" corresponds to the autobiography's "hard yellow-ochre sand" and The River Wars "hot, crisp surface of theground." Reading or even recollecting Seven Pillars wasfor Churchill thus an almost Proustian experience trig-gering remembrance of his own time past serving as amounted warrior in a harsh desert.

The rest of Churchill's comments to Korda cen-ter on aesthetic issues. He remarks, "I think you shouldmake more of Lawrence's execution of the murderer. It isa terrible story, and a high spot in the story. It is very welldone as it is." (3) Here, of course, "terrible" means terri-fying, awe inspiring, not of inferior quality or poorlydone. Churchill rightly regards the episode as one of themost arresting moments in Seven Pillars and, potentially,in the film. His final two suggestions take up the knottyproblem of achieving a memorable ending that wouldprovide appropriate closure to the story's action whilealso capping off the glorification of its hero.

Churchill first explains the military significanceof a "tense scene" that Lawrence omitted when narratinghis encounter with the retreating Turkish army:

...Lawrence was far out in the desert, and in a posi-tion to ride across the communications of the retreatingTurks. The remarkable episode which should be chroni-cled was that in defiance of all military advice, he tookhis little Arab force of perhaps twelve hundred men, andplanted them in the path of this vast retreating Turkishmass, perhaps two hundred thousand strong....He paidno attention whatever to them, and stood straight in thepath of the avalanche. It was a miracle that he or any ofthem survived. No doubt they killed a lot of Turks andsome Germans, but it was like throwing pebbles at awave. I suggest that this episode requires further studyand recasting. It certainly reveals Lawrence in his mostheroic and Napoleonic aspect. Again, however, the pointcannot be made without the audience having the geo-graphical lay-out in their minds. (4-5)

OfTalal's death ride, of the Turkish atrocitiesthat occasioned it, and of Lawrence's "no prisoners" orderthat figure largely in Seven Pillars and in Korda's script (aslater in David Lean's 1962 film), Churchill says nothing.His concern is only to add the "tense scene" of Lawrenceignoring "all military advice" from more conventionaland less suicidally inclined regular officers.

Here, as in his published essays on Lawrence,Churchill presents material in a way that contributes tothe Lawrence myth of selfless heroism. Arguably, a ma-neuver that ran the risk of needlessly and pointlessly sac-

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rificing a "small valuable force" might easily have beencharacterized as foolish, futile, and selfish bravado. In-stead, Churchill in a conspicuous non sequitur calls it"heroic and Napoleonic," even though it accomplishedno more than "throwing pebbles at a wave" while theArab force's survival (as Churchill describes it here) was alucky chance not ascribed to Lawrence's leadership but to"a miracle." Perhaps Churchill sees Lawrence asNapoleonic in this reckless episode because Napoleonhimself considered luck a legitimate military virtue thatsome commanders were blessed with and others lacked.Elsewhere Churchill does not suggest that Napoleon wasso recklessly quixotic.

Churchill's last idea, to reverse the sequence ofpresentation by starting at the story's end, was not actedupon until David Lean arrived at it independently andput it to effective use in his 1962 movie:

Finally, this film falls away, as they nearly all do, to-wards the end. We have vague galloperaverings of horse-men doing impossible charges, in the style of some ofthe absurdities of "Bengal Lancer." Nearly always the au-dience fails to keep up with the reel under these condi-tions. With horses galloping five time faster than ani-mals' feet ever touched the ground, a sense of flurry isabout all that results in the spectators' minds. "On neregne sur les ames que par le calme." Indeed I feel filmsought to be begun from the end, because that is whatstrikes home, and what the audience take home. I can-not suggest alternatives at the present time, but this end-ing is the weak part of what is in many ways an excellentpiece of work. (5)

If all Churchill's advice had been taken, Korda'sLawrence film, had it been made, would have beenmuch better than the surviving script leads us to sup-

pose. But it was not to be. This unrealized outcome illus-trates in miniature the contingency of human affairs that,apropos more serious matters, Churchill's military experi-ences had impressed upon him while still a young man.

When the twenty-five year old Churchill pub-lished The River Warm 1899 he observed: "We live in aworld of'ifs.' 'What happened,' is singular; 'what mighthave happened,' legion."24 Korda's "Lawrence of Arabia"remains forever in the crowded world of cinematic "ifs."

Notes1. Norman Rose, Churchill: An Unruly Life (London:Simon & Schuster Ltd., 1994), 201.

2. Michael Korda, Charmed Lives: A Family Romance(New York: Random House, 1979), 154.

3. Karol Kulik, Alexander Korda: The Man Who CouldWork Miracles (New Rochelle: Arlington House Publish-ers, 1975), 251.

4. Kulik, Alexander Korda, 257.

5. Charles Drazin, Korda: Britain's Only Movie Mogul(London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 2002), 242.

6. Korda, Charmed Lives, 155.

7. Andrew Kelly, James Pepper, and Jeffrey Richards,eds., Filming T F. Lawrence: Korda's Lost Epics (London& New York: I. B. Tauris Publishers, 1997), 3.

8. Kelly, Pepper, and Richards, Filming, 1-21.

9. Kelly, Pepper, and Richards, Filming, 22.

10. Kelly, Pepper, and Richards, Filming, 24.

11. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Volume V,Companion Part 2: Documents. The Wilderness Years1929-1935 {London: Heinemann, 1981), 869.

12. Gilbert, Volume V, Companion Part 2, 876.

13. Churchill Archives: Char 8/557.

14. Ibid.

15. Churchill Archives: Char 8/557. Subsequent refer-ences to Churchill's letter dated "3rd November, 1937"are cited in the text by page numbers on the letter. Thefull letter is in Volume V, Companion Part 2, 823-26.

16. T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph(Privately printed 1926; London: Cape, 1935; reprintedHarmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1962), 601.

17. Churchill Archives: Char 8/557, items 7, 8, 9.

18. Kelly, Pepper, and Richards, Filming, 29-129.

19. Winston S. Churchill, My Early Life (1930; reprintedNew York: Macmillan/Scribner's, 1987), 43, 111, 113.

20. Nobel Prize Library: Albert Camus. Winston Churchill(New York: Alexis Gregory; Del Mar, California, CRMPublishing, n.d.), 175.

21. Churchill, My Early Life, 43.

22. Churchill, My Early Life, 171.

23. Winston Spencer Churchill, The River War, 2 vols.(London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899), I, 3-4.

24. Churchill, The River War, I, 235. $

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T. E. Notes:The Lawrence Newsletter

A newsletter devoted to T. E. Lawrence andhis world, 77 E. Notes was begun in 1990 by Denisand Mary E. McDonnell and Janet A. Riesman.Thick and erudite, it includes articles about allperiods of Lawrence's intriguing life: his boyhoodgrowing in Oxford, his days working on archaeologi-cal sites in the Near East, his scholarly work (includ-ing a translation of Homer's Odyssey), his role in theArab Revolt, his final years as a mechanic in the RoyalAir Force. Essays cover a broad range of topics: col-lecting books in the Lawrence canon, reminiscences ofpeople who knew Lawrence, accounts of his Arabianexperience, literary analyses of his outstanding writ-ings, reflections on what Lawrence meant to those fas-cinated and inspired by his life and values, questionsabout his ill-understood search for happiness in theRAF, and debates and controversies concerning hischaracter and psychological make-up, to say nothingof the perennial mystery surrounding his untimelydeath in 1935 at age 46 in a motorcycle crash.

Past contributors include Jeremy Wilson, pastPresident of the T. E. Lawrence Society and author ofLawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography, JohnMack, Pulitzer Prize winner for his Lawrence biogra-phy, A Prince of Our Disorder, Malcolm Brown, BBCproducer of films on Lawrence, editor of several col-lections of Lawrence's writings, and co-author withJulia Cave of the Lawrence biography A Touch ofGenius; Maurice Lares, author of a study of Lawrenceand the French, 77 E. Lawrence, la France et lesFrangais; Arab historian Suleiman Mousa; RobertMorris and Lawrence Raskin, who published thedefinitive study of the 1962 David Lean film,"Lawrence of Arabia," starring Peter O'Toole in thetitle role; Harold Orlans, an expert on Lawrence's lit-erary correspondence; and Clifford Irwin, who is cre-ating a database of Lawrence's letters. 77 E. Notes triesto strike a balance between the scholarly and informal,appealing to the broadest number of readers interestedin Lawrence.

77 E. Notes is published by the currenteditors, Suellen J. Miller, Edith J. Steblecki, andElaine A. Steblecki twice yearly at a cost of $20, $25overseas by check or PayPal to tenotes@aol.com. Foroverseas subscribers paying by check, we request inter-national bank checks or international money orders(bearing a U.S. bank on the face of the check) in theamount of $25 U.S. Back issues are also available.

For more information contact: E. Steblecki,77 E. Notes, 17 Shadow Road, Melrose, Massachusetts02176-5109 USA or e-mail tenotes@aol.com. M>

The T. E. Lawrence Society

The Society was formed in 1985, not farfrom Cloud's Hill at Wareham, Dorset, by a group ofenthusiasts who believed that Lawrence's writings andpersonality had much to offer to our present day lives.The Society has grown to 600 members worldwideand is now a non-profit organization registered underBritish tax law as an educational charity with theexpress purpose of advancing the education of thepublic in the life and works of Thomas EdwardLawrence.

The Society's membership receives fournewsletters and two journals per year. Members areencouraged to form regional groups in order to orga-nize lectures, tours and social gatherings, all of whichare reported in the newsletter. Several trips to theMiddle East have already been arranged with mem-bers visiting areas involved in the Arab Revolt.

A key event in the Society's calendar is theT. E. Lawrence Symposium, held biennially inOxford. It brings members together for a weekend toshare in the various aspects of Lawrence's life on botha popular and academic level. Topics have rangedfrom Lawrence's childhood interests, his life as anarchaeologist, the Arab Revolt, his contributions toliterature, his interests in art and music, his work inthe Royal Air Force, his friends (famous and humble),and the myths that have developed around Lawrenceover the decades. Some of the speakers have beenJeremy Wilson (the authorized biographer ofLawrence), Malcolm Brown (a BBC Television pro-ducer), Dr. Rupert Chapman of the PalestineExploration Fund and John Adair, Professor ofLeadership at the University of Surrey.

Most of the talks given at the symposium arepublished in the Journal of the 77 E. Lawrence Societyas well as significant articles published in the past, orin obscure journals, to make them more accessible toSociety members.

To join the T. E. Lawrence Society, write tothe membership secretary for an application form:

Hon. Membership SecretaryThe T. E. Lawrence Society"Langdale", 22 Hillside RoadStorrington, West Sussex, UK RH20 3LZFax from the U.K.: (01903) 743260Fax from overseas: (44) 1903 743260

Or visit the Society's website at www.telsociety.orgThe annual subscription rate for 2003 is £18

for UK members and £23 for overseas. This covers thecost of four newsletters and two Journals, and carriesthe entitlement to a single vote at the Society'sGeneral Meeting, held in September. $i

FINEST HOUR 119/42

WHY LAWRENCE MATTERSPAUL ALKON

Churchill predicted that "Lawrence's name will live inEnglish letters...in the traditions of the Royal AirForce...in the annals of war and in the legends of

Arabia." Churchill's Few have outshone Lawrence, but heretains an honorable place in RAF history for helping to de-velop fast boats for rescuing downed aircrew at sea.

In the annals of war Lawrence remains noteworthyas a warrior-diplomat. While fighting with the Arabsagainst the Turkish army, he became a theoretician of whatwe now call asymmetric warfare: using a small force to tiedown, demoralize, and perhaps ultimately defeat a largerforce. Lawrence did not invent guerrilla warfare, but hissuccess against the Turks earned a wide audience for his ar-ticulation in Seven Pillars of Wisdom of principles governingsuch campaigns—principles studied by the likes of MaoTse-Tung and still included in the curricula of war collegesand military academies in the United States and elsewhere.Though Lawrence never targeted civilians, his theories ofasymmetric warfare remain relevant as we now learn how tocope with horribly expanded versions of that way of war.

Also of enduring relevance is Lawrence's diplo-matic role trying—often vainly—to harmonize the aspira-tions and outlooks of societies with apparently irreconcil-able differences. Lawrence dismissed his campaign as a sideshow of a side show. Whatever its actual importance, thereare few better ways to start getting historical perspective onMiddle Eastern problems—perhaps for us no longer a sideshow—than by study of Lawrence's involvement in a coali-tion war with Arabs, his thwarted advocacy of Arab nation-alism at the Versailles Peace Conference, and his work as anadviser to Churchill preparing for the 1921 Cairo Confer-ence that shaped the Middle Eastern politics with whichwe are now so deeply engaged.

In English letters, Seven Pillars has an enduring butuncomfortable place. In civilian schools it fits neither theold nor the new curricula. It is too much a work of militaryhistory and theory to fit into literature courses. It is toomuch a work of introspective autobiography, too much anartful effort to shape events into a tale with an epic struc-ture redolent of Homer, and too much a travel narrative tofit into history courses. It does not match current pieties ofcultural studies courses because of its oblique and often am-biguous treatment of sexual issues, empire, nationalism,and European perceptions of "oriental" cultures. Neither itsbeautifully lucid though intricate prose nor its imposinglength suit students who live in a world of sound-bites andDVDs. But Lawrence is lucky. He has never been reducedto one more tame item on reading lists. Seven Pillars ismostly read by people who want the challenge of a difficult,disturbing, unconventional text. For those who tackle it therewards are high. The tale is exciting. Lawrence's strange

but compelling per-sonality as depicted inits pages is fascinating.The borderline be-tween fact and fictionsometimes blurs inways that foreshadowour postmodern men-talities. Above all,

Seven Pillars is among the handful of masterpieces that bestreflect the shattering impact of world war that became atragic paradigm of life in the twentieth century.

In the legends of Arabia Lawrence endures, butnot as an Arabian legend. He created a European legendabout Arabia, about how we view our relationship to all thecultures we lump under the term "Arabia." He lives amongour legends of Arabia which, like other legends, do not al-ways provide the most accurate view of reality. But that isnot the purpose of legends. As with all the best legends,Lawrence's varies with the telling and means differentthings to different audiences. He ensured that it emerged inmyriad shapes that could never be altogether reconciled.Artful ambiguities, contradictions, and reticence inform thestyle of Seven Pillars. Lawrence fed different versions of keyepisodes of his life to his early biographers who, like theirsuccessors, added information, inferences, and theories.Around the known facts of Lawrence's life, as around a kindof human Rorshach ink blot, readers and writers have con-structed various figures endowed with a mythic force noless useful for our time than the legends of King Arthur'sfailed Camelot once were. And this is exactly whatLawrence—the student of Crusader castles and medievalliterature who carried with him on campaign a copy ofMallory's Morte d'Arthur—would have wanted.

After World War Is slaughter, people hungered fora romantic, individual hero. From this partly self-createdimage, Lawrence fled into the ranks of the Royal Air Force,thus enhancing the legend and making it more complex bycombining in one figure the fearless, triumphant (British)leader of exotic tribes in desert warfare with the shatteredman no less traumatized and mentally crippled than somany other ruined survivors of the Great War, albeit a tor-mented intellectual who could give voice to his and theiragony by writing a great work of literature.

By fostering this appealing legend, Lawrence be-came a symbol of much that is best as well as much that isleast understood, most confused, and most broken in our-selves and our era. Both the legendary Lawrence of Arabiaand the real Thomas Edward Lawrence will always warrantattention from those who turn for understanding of theirown and the human condition to history, to biography, andto brilliant writing. Among those most willing to do so,surely, are readers of this journal devoted to a kindred butfar greater soldier, diplomat, and author who mastered pol-itics, earned a Nobel Prize in literature, and created the real-ity that has now become an enduring and inspiring legendof his and Britain's finest hour. M>

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& CURIOSITIES

Man or the Century,Book or tne YearMan of the Century: Winston Churchill andhis Legend Since 1945, by John Ramsden.Harper Collins, 652 pp., £25. U.S. editionin October at lower prices; orders taken.

DAVID FREEMAN

WINSTONCHURCHILL

JOHN RAMSDiiN

If you enjoy theFinest Hour

book section,this book is amust: a tourd'horizon of allthings Churchillby the dean ofConservativeParty historians.Only John

Ramsden with his encyclopedicknowledge of twentieth-centuryBritish politics (he edited the stan-dard work on the subject) could haveproduced this magnificent work.Bulging with little known facts andthoughtful insights, it will keep any-one with an interest in Churchilltransfixed for hours.

Mountains of recent Churchillbooks travel well-trod ground; Rams-den shows that there are still un-known facets to the never-endingsaga. He set out to examine howChurchill fashioned his own legend,and how that image has played outand been transformed over time. Thesurvey, however, includes so muchChurchill trivia that enthusiasts willbe absorbed by the scenery alone.

The book begins withChurchill's "GDE" (Greatest DyingEnglishman) period, his death and

funeral, and then works backto chronicle the earlier "GLE"(Greatest Living Englishman)era. Indeed, as Ramsdennotes, these very terms wereused without need for expla-nation, just as Victorians re-ferred to Gladstone as theGOM (Grand Old Man).

Important to the shaping ofthe Churchill image is the fact

that the GLE continued to functionas an active politician long after hisreputation was "made" in the sterndays of 1940-41. This enabledChurchill to shape international de-bate even as Opposition Leader, ashe did at Fulton and Zurich after thewar. At the same time, he was receiv-ing numerous awards and honors.How Churchill dealt with the acco-lades in itself contributed to hisimage. The story of the day the liv-ing legend came to receive in personthe freedom of a city would itself beadded to the legend. Sometimes,long-lived controversies resulted ininstances where the intention to pre-sent an award was badly handled andthe honor refused. Ramsden memo-rably illustrates all of this with caseby case examples which are fascinat-ing tales in and of themselves andmay spark old memories in theminds of some readers.

The bulk of the book examinesin turn Churchill's reputation in theconstituent nations of the predomi-nantly English-speaking world, a finepoint which itself gets explained.There is also a chapter aboutChurchill as the "father" of Europe.Thus, there is something to offer thepersonal interests of anyChurchillian. In fact the ChurchillCentre and Societies are thoroughly

Churchill Centre Book ClubTo order: list titles/prices, add

shipping ($6 first book, $1 each addi-tional in USA; $10 minimum else-where); check to Churchill Centre,Suite 307, 1150 17th Street, NfW,Washington DC 20036. Visa or Mas-tercard: state name, numbers and ex-piration date. Tel. (888) WSC-1874.

discussed and their history related,for they too play an important, mod-ern-day role in shaping the publicperception of the great man's image.Ramsden does the Centre a greatfavor by distinguishing the fact that itdoes not "live to whitewash." Attend-ing his first international Churchillconference (virtually incognito), hewas pleased to find thatChurchillians were willing to listen to"some pretty tough papers" on theman they admire.

But the details, perhaps, morethan the broad themes of the bookreally keep one absorbed. Ramsden'sprose is flawless, nary a split infinitiveto be found. Have you ever won-dered exactly why President Johnsondid not attend Churchill's funeral?The answer is here. Which citiesgranted Churchill their freedom?Which did he accept, and which didhe accept in person? It is all here.

Ramsden also considers howthe past century's major British histo-rians dealt with the Churchill imageand what motivated each member ofthis disparate group. The works ofpopular biographers such as RobertLewis Taylor and William Manches-ter receive due attention, alongsidethe more scholarly works includingthose of the revisionist schools.

Likewise the films, portraits,statues, schools, hospital wings,streets, parks and even natural geog-raphy that have served to commemo-rate the life of Churchill. The storiesabout the actors, artists, sculptors,and all manner of governing authori-ties involved in these tributes are toldwith objectivity and accuracy. If youwant to know the whys and howsof Churchill's image, you must readthis book. $3

FINEST HOUR 119/44

Reassessment in a New CenturyTwo Viewpoints

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Sixth Series, Volume XI. "Churchill inthe Twenty-First Century: A Conference held at the Institute of Historical Research,

University of London, 11-13 January 2001." Cambridge University Press,450 pages, $40, member price $30.

Note: Transactions is the annual collection of historical writings published by the RHS.

It contains essays on subjects ranging from 15th century British politics to 20th century blues and folk

music. This review considers only the Churchill material in the second half of the volume.

1. Spectrum or OpinionCHRISTOHER H. STERLING

To have beenthe prover-

bial fly on thewall at this con-ference! Forwhile this bookpresents editedversions ofeleven papers inan insightful an-thology, the dis-cussions and re-

lated conversations must have been fas-cinating.

After all, here was a remarkablespectrum of opinion—Paul Addison,John Charmley, Chris Wrigley, DavidCannadine, not to mention Tony Bennand Lady Soames—all gathered in thesame place to assess Churchill a halfcentury after the end of his active gov-ernment years. The conference cele-brated the centennial of the beginningof Churchill's six decades in Parliament.

Addison opens with a review of"The Three Careers of WinstonChurchill," suggesting that they can bedivided into the period up to 1915 andhis fall from power, the years to 1940including the Wilderness decade, andthe premierships of 1940-45 and 1951-55). Addison argues that "Churchill'scharacter and opinions, his repertoire ofpolitical roles, and his view of the world,were largely settled by 1915."

Roland Quinault provides arhetorical study of "Churchill andDemocracy," drawing from speechesand writings. We learn that while

Churchill greatly admired and prac-ticed democracy, he also expressedreservations. Quinault also concludesthat Churchill's attitudes were those ofan "essentially late-Victorian" memberof the political elite.

David Reynolds dissects"Churchill's Writing of History: Ap-peasement, Autobiography and TheGathering Storm" to demonstrate thesometimes subtle ways that WSC selec-tively told his story of pre-war appease-ment politics. The Gathering Storm be-came far more detailed than originallyplanned as more information becameavailable. That even more has becomeavailable since helps us better under-stand the book for what it is—a rivetingbut still very personal account. Reynoldsconsulted early drafts in the Churchillarchives and discovers several instanceswhere Churchill had written "counter-factual" history—a rather arch way todescribe at least bias and sometimesclear misrepresentation of the nowknown historical facts.

"Churchill and the British Monar-chy" by David Cannadine exploresWSC's reverence for the throne, butvaried degrees of disagreement with sev-eral of its occupants. Churchill hadsome decidedly difficult times with Ed-ward VII and George V, then stuck withthe ill-starred Edward VIII far too long,leading to a difficult start in relationswith George VI in early 1940. Butwartime exigencies brought out the bestin both of them, as did the 1952 transi-tion to the youthful Elizabeth II.

Chris Wrigley's "Churchill and theTrade Unions" traces a more difficult re-lationship, including many positiveChurchill comments on the role and

value of unions in British society. PeterHennessy assesses "Churchill and thePremiership," focusing particularly onChurchill's second government (1951-55) and the reprise of some who hadserved during the war.

In "Churchill and the ConservativeParty," Stuart Ball reviews that some-times tortured relationship, concludingthat WSC was "a more capable partypolitician and effective Conservativeleader than has previously been ac-knowledged."

The next three papers are revision-ist, focusing on foreign policy and theU.S. relationship. David Carl ton's"Churchill and the Two 'Evil Empires'"disagrees with several respected histori-ans (including some in this anthology)to suggest Churchill was not always infavor of fighting Hitler but always hos-tile to the Soviets. Ted Hutchinson inhis following review elaborates on thepitfalls to this approach.

Those familiar with John Charm-ley's books will not be surprised that his"Churchill and the American Alliance"argues that Britain lost far more thanshe gained from the partnership. ButCharmley pays Churchill tribute for giv-ing history "some regard and great re-spect—which is more than some of ourmodern politicians do." Finally, JohnYoung discusses "Churchill and East-West Detente" by studying WSC's fruit-less postwar quest for a summit confer-ence with the Soviet leadership.

This engaging collection wraps upwith a panel discussion by four peoplewho actually knew Churchill (a fast-dwindling breed): Tony Benn, LordsCarrington and Deedes and LadySoames. Far less formal than the preced-ing papers (no notes!), this section ofthe book provides four sets of variedmemories. All are fascinating and onehopes it won't be lost in this series,where it makes up the "back half" ofthe volume.

While any of us can cite authorswho might usefully have been included(John Ramsden or Martin Gilbert, toname two), what is here is very muchworth reading and pondering. Collec-tively, the authors suggest many new an-gles on Churchill's historical role.

continued overleaf

FINEST HOUR 119/45

REASSESSMENT IN A NEW CENTURY...

2. Not Wi tWtIts Weak LinksTED HUTCHINSON

Other than a broad requirement toconsider "major aspects of

Winston Churchill's career and re-assess his contributions to modern his-tory from the perspective of the twen-ty-first century," there seems little thatbound the writers of these essays, andupon first glance there appears no uni-fying theme. A careful reading, howev-er, suggests that many of the betteressays stress that Churchill is a compli-cated, multi-faceted individual whoconsistently resists simplistic analysesand observations.

The essays that celebrate andinvestigate that complexity, instead ofresist it, are illuminating and wellworth the reader's time. DavidCannadine, for instance, analyzesChurchill's complicated relationshipwith the monarchy. (See ChrisSterling's foregoing review.) Similarlyfine essays are contributed by ChrisWrigley on Churchill's relationshipwith trade unions Stuart Ball onChurchill and the Conservative Party.Wrigley argues that Churchill had asurprisingly cooperative relationshipwith Labour that defies easy explana-tion, while Ball challenges the conven-tional wisdom that Churchill was nota good party man. These essays pro-voke in the best sense, forcing readersto reconsider commonly acceptedopinions.

Other essays also deserve positivemention. Paul Addison delivers astraightforward historiographic essaywith a number of elegant turns.Roland Quinault writes on Democracyand reminds the reader that Churchillactually supported women's suffrage asearly as 1904 before changing hismind, and then changing it again.David Reynolds writes a challengingand engrossing piece on The GatheringStorm. It's an interesting point that fewworld leaders have had the opportuni-ty to write their memoirs and thenassume power for a second time. We

can only imagine how his WarMemoirs would have been differenthad Churchill retired following theelections of 1945.

The collection is not, however,without its weak links. PeterHennessy's article on Churchill andthe Premiership is a mixed bag, and atone point even seems to suggest thatChurchill's quest for an East-Westsummit in the early 1950s was moti-vated primarily by a desire for theNobel Peace Prize. (305) JohnCharmley repeats his usual accusationsthat most students of Churchill can bynow recite by heart. Charmley stillbelieves that Churchill sold out theindependence of Britain to the UnitedStates during the Second World War,and then covered all this up in hismemoirs. Whether Britain's declinewas caused by the American alliance oralready preordained, what goes unsaidis that the alternative to Churchill'scourse was subservience to the Nazis.Neither Churchill nor the vast majori-ty of his countrymen could find thatacceptable.

It says volumes about the qualityof David Carlton's essay on Churchilland the Russians that Charmley's con-tribution is not the least convincing inthis volume. Carlton insists thatChurchill had a consistent andstraightforward (read simplistic) policyof hostility towards the Soviet Unionhis entire adult life! This allowsCarlton to offer an indirect challengeto John Lukacs in arguing that, con-trary to established thought (andCharmley), Churchill seriously consid-ered making peace with the Nazis inMay of 1940, and came within a hairs-breadth of doing so. (In fact Churchilldid consider it—but only for the his-torical equivalent of a millisecond, andhis consideration was owed to manyfactors other than WSC's blind hatredof the Soviets.)

More problematic still are thelater portions of Carlton's essay, wherehe describes an older Churchill, onceagain Prime Minister, as frothing tobegin a nuclear war with the SovietUnion. This portion of the essay servesas a perfect model of how not to dohistorical reporting, as it ignores well-known evidence while greatly privileg-

ing only those documents that supportthe writer's argument.

For example, on pages 345-48,Carlton greatly exaggerates a conversa-tion Churchill had with his doctorwhile lying in bed. At the same timehe nearly or completely ignores com-ments and speeches Churchill made onthe same subject in political settings,including the floor of the House ofCommons. It should not be necessaryto suggest that some evidence is simplymore significant than other evidence,and that offhand comments made by asick man to a medical doctor do notoutweigh major policy statements. It isjudgments like these that color thewhole of Carlton's essay and suggestthat he is far more concerned with hisown personal biases than the accuracyof his evidence.

That being said, these essays are aworthwhile read for the serious scholar.They demonstrate that the academicworld not only still takes the study ofChurchill seriously, but that sometimesthey even get him right. IS

Wkat Else MigktCnurcmll Have Done?MICHAEL McKERNAN

The Politics of War—Australia at War1939-1945: From Churchill toMacArthur, by David Day. Harper-Collins, 750 pp., $49.95. CBC willplace one order; any reader interestedshould notify The Churchill Centre.

It would be easy to think this book isa tract for the times: a timely return

to the story of Australia in World WarII to find out how alliance politicsworks between powerful and less pow-erful friends. But it isn't that, althoughPrime Minister John Howard, who ad-mits to reading Day's prime ministerialbiographies on the long flights to visitGeorge Bush and Tony Blair, mightstill find in it plenty to ponder. >>>

Dr. McKernan, former deputy directorof the Australian War Memorial, has writtenseveral books on the impact of WW2 on Aus-tralian society. His review was sent to us byNeil Coates and is reprinted by courtesy ofthe author and the Sydney Morning-Herald.

FINEST HOUR 119/46

McKERNAN...Day argues that Australian prime

ministers throughout World War IIwere routinely misinformed, ignoredand treated with barely concealed con-tempt by their alliance partners, partic-ularly Churchill. Day reveals, with ex-ample piled upon example, howChurchill simply could not get the ideathat the colonies had grown up. TheAustralian decision to take their re-maining troops from the siege at To-bruk, for instance, caused fury inWhitehall and charges of cowardicefrom the British. In punishment forthis exercise of limited Australian inde-pendence, Churchill and his croniesseemed to delight in thwarting legiti-mate expectations of help in Australia'sdarkest hour, 1942.

Day also shows with what deter-mination Churchill worked to lureAmerica into the war and how assidu-ously he then acted to lock Rooseveltinto the "Germany First" strategy, con-ceding only secondary efforts to the Pa-cific war. Churchill, in Day's view, wasdismissive of Australia's interests andtotally unmoved by Australian fears ofan anticipated Japanese invasion.

It could have been more exciting ifDay had characterised even some of hiscast. We learn about people onlythrough their own words, mainly in ca-bles to one another. But he does not tellus much about who wrote them. Wehear of Churchill, the principal actor, asvariously affected by liquor, diarrhoea,pneumonia or paranoia, infuriatingprissy General Alan Brooke; but Daydoes not tell us how he sees Churchill.There is no authorial viewpoint.

Minor actors, reintroduced whenrequired to play a part with some repe-tition, are virtually name-and-rankonly. Perhaps because The Politics ofWar began life in 1981 as a doctoralthesis, many references to the work ofother historians come from that era.Perhaps Day has missed how even mili-tary historians have lightened up andnow produce racier narratives. This isold-fashioned, cable-based history.

With dulling prose Day charac-terises the Empire Air Training Schemeas a surrender by Australians of the na-tional interest. He brands the retentionof Australian airmen in Europe by

Churchill as extremely dangerous afterPearl Harbour. Alan Stephens, in con-trast, in a recent history of the RoyalAustralian Air Force, cuts to the chase:he writes of the "dilution of nationalidentity" and the "surrender of nationalauthority" involved in the scheme. Hewrites of successive Australian govern-ments "conditioned by decades of sub-servience to Whitehall." This is directand punchy. It is not David Day's style.

But perhaps these are historian'sniggles, so I'll come clean and admitthat my main concern with Day's bookis more fundamental. As I read all thesecables of deceit, of half-truth and ofpoliticking, I simply could not get outof my head the central question: whatelse might Churchill have done?

Britain and her few weak allies hadstood up to Hitler in 1940 and 1941against frightful odds and in the expec-tation of defeat. Only the interventionof America would swing the war in theallies' favour and, naturally, Churchillused every trick he could muster tobring the Americans into it. If thatmeant confusing or possibly deceivingthe Australians, then so be it.

The AIF was fighting magnifi-cently in North Africa and stood be-tween Rommel and victory. Whywould Churchill meekly surrendersuch a force without a fight with its

government, which had generously andwithout limitation offered the troopsin the first place? What else could hehave done but delay, cajole, berate and,possibly, deceive Australian Prime Min-ister Curtin? Of course, Australians willhave sympathy for their PM in the ter-rible dilemma he faced in 1942; but anAustralian perspective was merely oneof the ways that Churchill needed tolook at the world.

War is an unscripted event andmuch of what Churchill was doing in1941 and 1942 was an obvious gamblethat might have failed. Aspects of itdid. Menzies found Churchill arrogantand authoritarian; but wars aren't wonby Boy Scouts. Curtin could assert thatthere was an Australian perspective andthat Australia was at risk. But he couldnot make grand strategic decisions.

Today we would expect to hear anindependent Australian voice in worldaffairs, and we would expect a realisticassessment of the risks and benefits ofany Australian engagement, diplomaticor military, outside our territory. ThePolitics of War describes a time whenAustralia did not have that voice butbecame, however reluctantly andthrough necessity, more self-reliant.Times change and the Australianstrategic dilemma is redefined for eachgeneration. US

"Send for Churchill":1951 Campaign PinFrom theWashingtonSociety forChurchillcomes thisfinely enameledreplica of the pinChurchill's supporterswore in the 1951 GeneralElection—which also happens tobe highly relevant today, or anyday. The craftsmanship is amajor improvement on the origi-nal—crisp, clear and bright. US$ 10 or the equivalent postpaid.Send cheques payable to WSC,c/o Dan Borinsky, 2080 OldBridge Road #203, Lake RidgeVA 22192 USA.

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FINEST HOUR 119/47

THE ORPEN PORTRAITWinston Churchill reflects on thepublic image of his granafatht.xerAN INTERVIEW WITH JEANETTE HANISEE GABRIELCONTINUED FROM LAST ISSUE

Jeanette Gabriel: Let's return to your grandfatherlater on. You knew him intimately. Why do you think peo-ple have such a love for this man, with all his faults, real orimagined? People all over the world feel this way.

Winston Churchill: He was a very lovablehuman being, but what I think it comes down to is this:On the day my grandfather became Prime Minister,Hitler launched his Blitzkrieg against France and the lowcountries, and the British people in their hour of needturned to him. Had it not been for him, I firmly believethat Britain would have surrendered in the summer of1940. The situation on its face was hopeless. By mid-June the huge French Army, many time the size of ours,had surrendered. Hitler was the master of Europe.

With Britain out, Hitler's troops would havegone East, defeated Stalin, since he'd have had all hisforce. Having made a meal of the Russians, he wouldhave come back and devoted his attentions to us, andthe full operations of the Gestapo and the concentrationcamps would have been established here. There wouldhave been no possibility of the United States launching aD-Day type liberation from three thousand miles awayacross the Atlantic.

You talk of the love that people have of him. In1992 I was asked to address the 50th anniversary of theWarsaw Ghetto uprising. After my speech an attractiveelderly lady came up to me, and said, "I was a girl offourteen in the ghetto. Fighting was going on all around.We would listen to your grandfather's broadcasts on theBBC. I couldn't understand English—but I understoodcompletely his sentiments. I knew that if we had anychance of surviving this war, all our hopes focused onhim. I ended up in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Iwas liberated by British troops, in particular by one whois now my husband."

JHG: Was your grandfather aware of what he hadaccomplished?

WSC: He never said as much, but he knew. Buthe did say, in 1954: "It was the nation and the racedwelling all round the globe that had the lion's heart. I

Churchill Centre Associate Jeanette Gabriel is an art historian andcurator. The Orpen painting appeared on last issue's cover.

had the luck to be called upon togive the roar."

JHG: He seemed to have strongfeelings that destiny prepared himfor that role.

WSC: Indeed so. MartinGilbert's In Search of Churchillcites an extraordinary episode, aninterview with my grandfather'sschoolmate, Murland Evans. Itoccurred when they were both six-teen, in 1891. "We frankly dis-cussed our futures," Evans said.

"After placing me in the Diplomatic Service...or alterna-tively in finance, following my father's career, we cameto his own future. 'Will you go into the army?' I asked.'I don't know, it is probable, but I shall have great adven-tures beginning soon after I leave here.'Are you going into politics? Following your famousfather?' 'I don't know, but it is more than likely because,you see, I am not afraid to speak in public...but I have awonderful idea of where I shall be eventually. I havedreams about it. I can see vast changes coming over anow peaceful world. Great upheavals, terrible struggles;wars such as one cannot imagine; and I tell you Londonwill be in danger—London will be attacked and I shallbe very prominent in the defense of London.'

'"How can you talk like that? We are foreversafe from invasion, have been since the days ofNapoleon.' 'I see further ahead than you do. I see intothe future. This country will be subjected somehow to atremendous invasion, by what means I do not know. ButI tell you I shall be in command of the defenses ofLondon and I shall save London and England from dis-aster.' 'Will you be a general then, in command of thetroops?' 'I don't know; dreams of the future are blurred.But the main objective is clear. I repeat—London will bein danger and in the high position I shall occupy, it willfall to me to save the Capital and save the Empire.'"

Such a preposterous remark for a sixteen-year-old! It was the sort of thing you get your ears boxed for.

JHG: It's unbelievable.WSC: It's incredible to me. But this explains

how absolutely reckless and foolhardy he was on the bat-tlefield. He wanted to be noticed, not for vaingloriousreasons. He wanted to make his name, to get medals. Hesought a reputation for courage and heroism in the bat-tlefield because there were only two ways you couldlaunch a political career: One was to have a lot of moneyand the other was to have a name. He didn't havemoney, so he needed a name, and he built it in themuzzle of a gun. He was convinced he was bulletproof.He had a rendezvous with Destiny. $

FINEST HOUR 119/48

AMPERSANDA compendium of facts eventuallyto appear as a reaa

Churchill's Publishers*

Longmans, Green & Co., London & New York 1897-1900Copp Clark, Toronto, 1900-01Arthur L. Humphreys, London, 1903-06Macmillan & Company, London & New York, 1906-45Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1908-15George Doran, New York, 1908-10Thornton Butterworth, London, 1923-40Charles Scribners Sons, New York, 1923 to date

George G. Harrap & Company Ltd., London, 1933-38Ryerson Press, Toronto, 1933-38Georges Newnes, London, 1934-35G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1937-41Cassell and Company, Ltd., London, 1940 to dateLittle Brown and Company, Boston, 1941-46McLelland & Stewart Ltd., Toronto, 1941-46Odhams & Company Ltd., London, 1939-65Simon & Schuster, New York, 1946Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston & New York, 1948 to dateThomas Allen Company, Toronto, 1948-53McGraw Hill, New York, 1948Dodd, Mead & Company, New York

*Limited to UK, USA and Canada. I feel sure this is notcomplete; readers, please help me to round it out. RML M>

CHURCHILLTRIVIA

by Curt Zoller (zcurt@sbcglobal.net)

Qi uestions are about Contemporaries(C), Literary (L), Miscellaneous (M),

Personal (P), Statesmanship (S) and War(W). Answers on page 51-

1327. When did Grace Hamblin, theChurchills' long time secretary, starther employment? (C)

1328. In vol. Ill of The World Crisis,(1927), Churchill writes of the "rigidconstitution" of the United States andcomments on the "safety-valve func-tion of the legislatures of the SovereignStates." How many "Sovereign States"did Churchill assign the U. S.? (L)

1329. Did Churchill own a parrot?(M)

1330. What was the only serious dutyassigned to Churchill as Chancellor ofthe Duchy of Lancaster? (P)

1331. In his talk at the Royal AlbertHall on 18 March 1931, how didChurchill define India? (S)

1332. What did Churchill write in TheWorld Crisis about war and the humanrace? (W)

1333. In what year did WSC putChartwell up for sale because of financialdifficulties: 1921, 1935 or 1938? (C)

1334. How much was Robert Rhodes

James paid for editing the eight volumeWinston Churchill: His CompleteSpeeches 1897-19631 (L)

1335. What did Churchill's grandsonsay about the Hailstone painting onthe cover of Finest Hour 115? (M)

1336. What did the readers of CigarAficionado vote to name Churchill? (P)

1337. On what occasion did Churchillstate, "The British Navy is to us a ne-cessity, and from some point of view,the German Navy is to them more inthe nature of a luxury"? (S)

1338. In a House of Commons speechon 12 March 1901, concerning "theCase of General Colville," what didChurchill say about war and its likeli-hood? (W)

1339. What famous words did LordRandolph Churchill write in a May1886 letter, to a Liberal UnionistMember, concerning the Irish HomeRule bill? (C)

1340. On 29 December 1921,Churchill wrote to his wife, "It is a gtchance to put my whole case in anagreeable form to an attentive audi-ence." To what did he refer? (L)

1341. After the 1910 general election,what position did Asquith offer, andChurchill decline? (M)

1342. What was Churchill's famoussaying about dogs, cats and pigs? (P)

1343. What prophetic memorandumconcerning the anti-Bolshevik war inRussia did Churchill write on 15 Sep-tember 1919? (S)

1344. What anti-radar proposal didProfessor Lindemann make to the AirDefence Command in 1937? (W)

1345. Whom did WSC call a "mischief-making, murderous renegade"? (C)

1346. Concerning whom didChurchill write: "But never have I hadany feeling towards him which de-stroyed the impression that he was agenerous, true-hearted man"? (L)

1347. When did Churchill live in Lul-lenden, his Tudor home in south-eastSurrey? (M)

1348. What is the title of the onlypainting Churchill completed duringWorld War II? (P)

1349. On 4 July 1910 Churchill pro-posed the Shops Bill, an ambitiousproject which was not approved. Whatwere its provisions? (S)

1350. WSC said: "We cannot go on treat-ing the War as if it were an emergencywhich can be met by makeshifts." Towhich war did he refer? (W) Amwm,page5i

FINEST HOUR 119/49

QUESTION TIME

P R I M E M I N I S T E R ' S Q U E S T I O N S

Edited and annotated by Paul H. Courtenay

Question Time is that period in the Parliamentaryweek where Members are allowed to ask the PrimeMinister any question, governed only by decorumand the judgment of the Speaker as to whether theyare genuinely asking questions or (commonly) givinga speech, Churchill was a master of Question Time,as Mr, Courtenay demonstrates.

Retirement NotIn 1953, a Member tried to

provoke Churchill by dropping a hintabout his retirement. Churchill turnedto Captain Christopher Soames, hisParliamentary Private Secretary. WSC: "Bring me myhearing aid. I don't want to miss any of this." Then,with his hearing aid installed but ostentatiously andelaborately turned off: "Would you mind repeating whatyou've just said?"

Out of His DepthOn 18 November 1952 Mr. Lewis (Lab.) asked:

"Is the Prime Minister aware of the deep concern felt bythe people of this country at the whole question of theKorean conflict?" WSC: "I am fully aware of the deepconcern felt by the Hon. Member in many mattersabove his comprehension."

The next day, on reintroducing University seats,which had been abolished by the previous LabourGovernment, Mr. M. Stewart (Lab.) asked: "Will thePrime Minister remember the Greek proverb, 'Muchlearning does not teach sense'?" Mr. Lewis: "May I ask thePrime Minister whether that is above his comprehension?"WSC: "I am sorry to see that I hit so deeply home."

Attack via EireOn 30 September 1942 a Member asked the

Prime Minister whether, in view of raids by armed par-ties from the Irish Free State on Northern Ireland, aneffective boundary under military control would beestablished. WSC: "The primary responsibility for deal-ing with criminal outrages, including those in which thecriminals use arms, rests on the civil authorities, who cancall for the assistance of the military authorities if needarises. Appropriate arrangements have been made inNorthern Ireland for the provision of such assistance ifrequired. I understand the Government of NorthernIreland are satisfied that the situation is well in hand."Further questions were asked on dangers of attack andthe murder of constables in Northern Ireland. WSC: "Ihave never pretended to regard the situation as satisfac-tory, but the arrangements made go a considerable wayto mitigate the danger. I see no reason to withdraw mytrust from the regular process of British justice."

Unaccustomed ShynessOn 18 June 1952, when asked

to define Lord Woolton's ministerialduties, Mr. Churchill is recorded asbeing "singularly uncommunicative."Mr. Emmanuel Shinwell (Lab.): "Willthe Prime Minister tell us why he hassuddenly become so shy? Usually he isvery anxious to add a great deal onsupplementary questions....What is thematter with him?" WSC: "I have to

measure the length of the response to any supplementaryquestion by the worth, meaning and significance of thatsupplementary question."

Summit ConferencesLabour were urging a summit conference on 22

April 1953. Mr. Dodds (Lab.): "Does the Rt. Hon.Gentleman deny that he himself some years ago made astatement as to what he would do [about a SummitConference with Eisenhower and Stalin] if he got thepower? He has had it for eighteen months and he hasdone nothing in that respect." WSC: "I did not get thepower to regulate the way in which the affairs of theworld would go. I only got the power to preside over aparty which has been able to beat the Opposition inDivisions for eighteen months."

On 17 June 1954, after the sensational arrest inMoscow of Russian doctors for the alleged poisoning ofleading Soviet leaders, Mr. Emrys Hughes (Lab.,Glasgow) asked: "Has the Prime Minister forgotten thathe pressed for a meeting with Mr. Stalin?...Why does thePrime Minister now run away?" WSC: "I think we musttry to understand the general position as it moves. We inthis country would feel very severe domestic preoccupa-tions, making it difficult to have conversations withheads of Governments, if, for instance, so many of ourbest doctors were being charged with poisoning so manyof our best politicians."

Mr. Dodds renewed the question. WSC: "Manyanxieties have been expressed recently at the severe char-acter of the course of the Grand National steeplechase,but I am sure that it could not be improved by askingthe horses to try to jump two fences at the same time."

AbolitionMr. I. O. Thomas (Lab.), 27 October 1953:

"Will the Prime Minister indicate if he will consult theconsuming public before he decides to abolish the FoodMinistry?" WSC: "On the whole, I have always foundmyself on the side of the consumer." $

FINEST HOUR 119/50

nrMOMENTS IN TIME

On Armistice Day, 11 November 1944, Churchill wasin Paris, walking the

Champs Elysees with Gen-eral de Gaulle to popularacclaim. This wonderfulphoto appears by kindcourtesy of Ben and Do-minic Winter, Londonauctioneers; it has sincebeen sold. It is signed byEden, Churchill and, justpossibly, Charles de Gaulle(upper left), which makesit indeed a historic piece.

The figures from leftto right: a French official(possibly security—fromother angles he is walkingquite a way behind themain party); British Am-bassador Alfred DuffCooper; Cdr. C. R."Tommy" Thompson,Churchill's Naval Aide;Anthony Eden; [bald manbetween Eden and WSCunidentified]; Churchill;

Rene Massigli, French ambassador to Britain (just visibleright of Churchill's nose); Gen. Sir Hastings Ismay, staffofficer to WSC; de Gaulle's son Philippe, who later becamea rear admiral (just behind de Gaulle in naval uniform,glancing right); and General de Gaulle. $

ANSWERS TO CHURCHILLTRIVIA (page 49)

(1327) 1932. (1328) Churchill wrote in The World Cri-sis of "fifty Sovereign States." (1329) Churchill owned anAfrican Grey Parrot during the 1930s. (1330) The onlyduty of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was to ap-point county magistrates. (1331)"India is no more a politi-cal personality than Europe. India is a geographical term. Itis no more a united nation than the Equator." (1332) "Thestory of the human race is war. Except for brief and precari-ous interludes, there has never been peace in the world."

(1333) 2 April 1938. (1334) £5000. (1335) "...it ismore unattractive than the Sutherland." (1336) "CigarSmoker of the Millennium and the Man of the Century."(1337) 9 February 1912, after the Kaiser's speech announc-ing increases in the German Army and Navy. (1338) "Waris a game with a good deal of chance in it, and, from the lit-tle I have seen of it, I should say that nothing in war evergoes right except occasionally by accident."

(1339) "Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right!"(1340) Churchill referred to The World Crisis. (1341) ChiefSecretaryship for Ireland. (1342) "Dogs are too dependent,cats are too independent. Give me a pig ! He looks you

straight in the eye like an equal !"(Sometimes stated as,"Dogs look up to you, cats look down on you," etc. (1343)"It is a delusion to suppose that all this year we have beenfighting the battles of the anti-Bolshevik Russians. On thecontrary, they have been fighting ours; and this truth willbecome painfully apparent from the moment that they areexterminated and the Bolshevik armies are supreme...."(1344) Scattering packets of tin-foil strips from aircraft,specially cut to simulate bombers on enemy radar screens.In 1942 the idea was successfully tested.

(1345) Irish politician Robert Erskine Childers, accord-ing to The Times (London), 13 November 1922. After hisexecution for treason Churchill wrote in The Aftermath thatChilders "had shown daring and ardour against the Ger-mans....he had espoused the Irish cause with even morethan Irish irreconcilability." (1346) Philip Snowden, hissuccessor as Chancellor the Exchequer, in Great Contempo-raries. (1347) Spring 1917 to November 1919. (1348) "TheTower of Koutoubia Mosque." (1349) A sixty-hour maxi-mum work week; meal intervals for shop assistants; regu-lated overtime; one early closing day per week; specifiedSunday closing times; strengthening of sanitation and venti-lation regulation. (1350) To World War I (in Commons on22 August 1916.) I

FINEST HOUR 119/51

WITHLAWRENCEIN ARABIA

To S.A.

I loved you,so I drew these tides of men

into my handsand wrote my will across the sky in stars

To earn you Freedom,the seven pillared

worthy house,that your eyes might be

shining for meWhen we came.

Death seemed my servanton the road,

till we were nearand saw you waiting:

When you smiled,and in sorrowful envy he outran me

and took you apart:Into his quietness.

Love, the war-weary, groped to your body,our brief wage

ours for the momentBefore earth's soft hand

explored your shape,and the blind worms grew fat upon

Your substance.

Men prayed me that 1 set our work,the inviolate house,as a memory of you.

But for fit monument 1 shattered it,unfinished: and now

The little things creep outto patch themselves hovels

in the marred shadowOf your gift.

Lawrence's dedication of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. True to his nature, Lawrence left "S.A. 's' identity a mystery, but many experts believe he is anidealized version of Dahoum, the Arab boy who was Lawrence's friend and helper at the Carchem^O^mhgica