The Legendary Churchill

...I should not speak quite so lightly of the worthy and industrious efforts of academic historians, however...

...It is something the academic historian would find difficult to pin down and therefore irritating, but it has power nonetheless and, very likely, a power greater than all his volumes...

...According to The Alternative: An American Spectator December 1974 5 Orwell, the workers in dockland were convinced that the BBC had censored Churchill's broadcasts, and prevented him from giving free rein to a ribald element in his speech...

...Most reputations go up and down from generation to generation, depending on the political or social mood of the moment, on the prevailing fashion of historians, and on the revelation of new evidence or reinterpretation of old evidence...

...Invariably, they make two remarks...

...The two men discussed a variety of subjects, and Churchill descanted with wisdom and insight on the problems of the world...

...The outburst of indignation when President Giscard d'Estaing criticized President Ford, even more when he continued a series of French nuclear tests, was all the greater because the new President was not thought to be Gaullist—the epithet of criticism as applied to French policy...

...No doubt his role in history will assume different legendary shapes, and a historian in the year 3000—if there are any historians then—who is anxious to make his reputation as a clever fellow, will publish a learned article raising the question of whether Churchill ever existed, just as historians have recently raised the question of whether' Robin Hood ever existed...

...But it is very difficult for the academic historian to grasp or analyze a reputation which very quickly attains the status of myth...

...In this respect he could be unfavorably compared with a great contemporary, General DeGaulle...

...The question of greatness, however, seemed to me to demand another...

...His aides naturally tried, in the midst of panic and confusion, to turn his car and enable the priceless commander to escape, but Churchill refused to depart...

...He cares...

...I do not use the word myth here in its cant sense of a romantic untruth, but rather in its original sense of something essentially true but with inaccurate details...

...I end my book with a quotation about Churchill from General Lord Ismay, who was his closest aide during the war: "I shall be accused of making him out a superman, but that is exactly what he is...

...Or might Churchill's reputation have vanished altogether...

...The people, moreover, tend to ignore academic historical debate (on the whole very sensibly), and as they do not have a very factual grasp now of what precisely Churchill did, of how he saved his country, or of why they should think him great, soare they unlikely to have one in the future...

...It will make no difference to the permanence of his reputation...

...And Lady Longford, biographer of Churchill and Queen Victoria, pointed out that the disparaging works which have already appeared have done little damage to Churchill's reputation...

...As Sir Colin Coote said, there has been little effective or wholehearted criticism of Churchill's general conduct of the war...

...And that place will be enhanced rather than diminished by the difficulties and decline of grandeur that Britain now endures...

...So large does Churchill loom in our imagination that it is inconceivable that any politician could approach him, let alone emulate him...

...Of course I am partisan, but I hope that my work on Churchill has both of the qualities which he wished to see in his own biography of his father, which he aimed to make "both filial and objective...

...I have become accustomed, over a period of four years, to being stopped regularly by middle-aged or elderly folk who exclaim over the dogs...

...Finally, after being blinded by the sustained glare, again flickering, subsiding, just a red filament...

...There is no equivalent abstract in English: a Prime Minister who uses Churchill's rhetoric—as Mr...

...It is not an easy question to answer, whatever the historical figure under discussion...

...It was like watching a very strong light bulb during an electrical crisis: First a faint reddening of the filament, then a flickering, then a glow, and then a brilliant blaze of light...

...They do seek the truth insofar as it can be found, and most of them are conscientious enough in their efforts...

...The second was by another woman who shouted fiercely to him, as German bombs descended, "Give it 'em back, Winston...

...But I did so by analyzing the network of decision-making which lay behind that rhetorical appeal and was for the most part invisible to the people, and by trying to show that, on balance, Churchill's decisions were necessary and wise and the people sensed as much...

...For example, at a time when Parliament is under threat, both from an expanding bureaucracy and from seriously dissident elements in the community, it will become useful to recall how great a parliamentarian Churchill was, and how devoted to the institution...

...But Sulzburger's "final impression was an extraordinary experience of seeing him come alive and then, tired out by the effort, by the walk, our long reading from his work, the conversation, the entire physical and mental effort, to see all that dynamism fade away...

...On one occasion, while he was visiting the East End of London, an air raid occurred...

...then nothing...

...6 The Alternative: An American Spectator December 1974...

...The moderator of the program insisted that I was a partisan of Churchill's, and implied that the conclusion of my book—that, in General DeGaulle's words, "He forged a victory"—was the less to be trusted for that reason...

...And I have now lost count of the number of young people, and especially West Indian young people, who have asked me which of the dogs is called Winston...

...during his last period in office DeGaulle altered French policy in some important respects, and redefined its course in others, so that even today opponents of Gaullism often share established attitudes—e.g., in regard to the French nuclear weapon, or to the Middle East—which have not subsequently been changed...

...There was no doubt of the extraordinary power of Churchill's personality at all stages of his life: as one wartime colleague put it, he could frighten people, and this capacity, which is so hard to bring to life in history books, undoubtedly contributed in large measure to his capacity to galvanize the British war machine...

...I was less sanguine...

...Second, they note the similarity of the dogs to "Winston," who, as is now well known, practiced his bulldog visage in front of a mirror as soon as he heard that he was being compared with the animal...

...Thus, I believe, was born the strategy of bombing German cities...

...In the radio discussion which I mentioned earlier the question of Churchill's greatness was discussed as usual in the abstract...

...and it would be the summation of popular historical achievement to connect the governor, in his most intimate Cabinet decision-making, with the mythical popular hero...

...Certainly, it is thought, the decline was rapid and absolute after his retirement...

...The conclusion of researchers delving into these files is much as I have suggested above: there was a widespread feeling of fierce identification with and love for Churchill, but it was founded less on any precise understanding of his strategy or personality than on a general appreciation of his unique combativeness...

...Thus does a mythic reputation grow through generations and across classes, creeds, and races...

...Nevertheless, there is a certain amount ofevidence about Churchill's popular reputation, and a personal anecdote, moreover, a recurring anecdote, can illustrate its persistency...

...It would have been a far more difficult task, and one that I am not sure can ever be accomplished, to trace a profile of Churchill's popular reputation...

...Wilson did more than once during his first period of government —invites ridicule more than he excites admiration or anger...

...In any case, two observations are recorded of this occasion...

...That decline, however, will only be temporary, for I think Churchill occupies an unshakeable special place in the hearts of the British...

...Sulzberger, an old friend, visited Churchill in retirement at his country home, Chartwell, in Kent...

...Would things have so changed, he asked, that the achievement which looms so large today would have shrunk greatly in size...

...Nonetheless, greatness may also reside in a personality, even apart from action...

...At the present time memory of him merely causes sorrow—a certain pain that we no longer have anything like him...

...His tomorrow will come again...

...However antedeluvian his style looks at the moment, he was, as Malraux said of DeGaulle, "a man of the day before yesterday and of the day after tomorrow...

...It is certainly true that Churchill has lost none of his grasp on the popular imagination in Britain, but I fully expect a later generation of historians to bring about a decline in the standing which he enjoys among his countrymen...

...It is very frequently said in Britain, even by those who admire the historical Churchill, and would not seek to criticize his conduct of affairs during the Second World War, that he is nonetheless a great figure frozen in the past, that he has nothing to say to Britain today...

...He is to the British almost as the Constitution is to the Americans...

...For no country can ever possess a statesman as great as Churchill and not have his impact sunk deeply into its character...

...In July 1956 the distinguished American journalist C.L...

...He understood, to be sure, that he was invaluable to the war effort, and that no leader could command as well as he...

...The attribution of greatness or supremacy in the common mind seems to be associated with the making of correct decisions, and, of course, one cannot call great in action a man who, in leadership, makes all the wrong decisions...

...The Alternative: An American Spectator • December 1974 • Volume 8, Number 3 Patrick Cosgrove The Legendary Churchill SHORTLY AFTER a recent book of mine on Churchill appeared, I took part in a radio discussion about his place in history...

...not just the shreds of a great character and the impeccable courtesy of his personality, but the old flame and wisdom began to emerge...

...One choice anecdote he collected refers to the day when Churchill's body was taken by boat down the Thames, and the London dockers—one of the most bloody-minded of British trade unions—dipped their cranes in tribute to the war leader...

...I have two bulldogs, and I walk them regularly in the area of London in which I live, a racially-mixed neighborhood...

...Fuller and more scientific evidence as to how the British people regarded Churchill in his greatest days may be found in the files of one of the earliest British public opinion poll organizations, Mass Observation...

...For example, in the first volume of my book Churchill at War, I tried to explain how the unrivalled power of Churchill's rhetoric inspired the people of Britain in 1940...

...First, they observe that one rarely sees bulldogs nowadays: for though they are a symbolic British breed, bulldogs are expensive and difficult to keep, and there are not many about...

...Thus,' the celebrated passage about fighting the Germans on the beaches and on the landing grounds was to have been followed by a sentence asserting, "We'll throw bottles at the buggers, because we'll have nothing left...

...The moderator asked us, toward the end of the discussion, how we thought Churchill's reputation in Britain would look a century from now...

...It is commonly thought that Churchill was ailing badly before he retired as Prime Minister in the middle fifties, and it is certainly true that he was nothing like the man he was...

...The point about the story—and Orwell was an acute observer of behavior—was that dockland not only relished Churchill, but also attributed to him some of its own spirit, language, and style...

...this material has been used in a number of studies, notably a recent article by Paul Addison on Churchill and the people...

...George Orwell, the celebrated socialist writer, patriot, and author of 1984, carried out some empirical observations of his own, collecting evidence about the nature of the Churchill myth and its real substance...

...But Churchill was built on such a gigantic scale, with such an extraordinary array of talents, and he was blessed, though only after much travail, with such destiny and fortune, that small forays against his reputation seem to inflict but flesh wounds...

...But this is perfectly understandable...

...Churchill was also appreciated as a leader of his people who insisted on sharing their dangers and suffering as far as possible...

...The first, when Churchill began to weep at the destruction, was by a woman who said, "Look...

...At first Sulzberger observed only Churchill's torpor, but then: "After Lady Churchill had departed, we sat down in the sitting room again, he plonked himself into an armchair, ashes over the front of his siren suit, and suddenly, slowly came alive...

...But, as time passes, as he recedes into the distance and his record and character become more manageable, we shall begin to be able to make use of him, of parts of his record and achievement, for inspection and teaching...

...To be sure, episodes have been picked out and the finger of attack pointed, and this is true of his general career as well...

...Now I expect such remarks from the elderly and the middle-aged, who remember vividly both Churchill and his resemblance...

...The profuse mass of documentation which historians increasingly depend on lends itself more easily to interpreting policy than to describing the popular imagination...

...in 1940—though I would hazard the judgment that his great skill and experience were a crucial factor in the life of one of the best British governments we have seen in a generation...

...But he also understood that, fate having taken him in this difficult moment, he could not rush for safety either, nor would he want to: the whole principle of his nature and leadership was that of standing his ground...

...Indeed, both his doctor, Lord Moran, and such close friends as Lord Bracken tried to keep him in office even after he was not really fit for the job, lest he fall into depression on leaving it...

...In the discussion, however, Sir Colin Coote, an old friend of Churchill, former member of Parliament, and once editor of the Daily Telegraph, was adamant: he argued that if the serious denigration of Churchill had not taken hold by now, then it never would...

...But I am astonished at the attention which the rarity value of a bulldog —and the seemingly extraordinary prodigality of having two—attracts among young people...