January 1, 1970

William F. Buckley, the great American political commentator, in his ‘Let Us Now Praise Famous Men’, gave us one of the definitive overviews of Churchill:

‘Mr. Churchill fought to save the Empire, which dissolved. He fought socialism, which prevailed. He struggled to diminish totalitarian rule in Europe, which increased. He struggled to defeat Hitler, and he won. It is not, I think, the significance of that victory that causes the name of Churchill to make the blood run a little faster….it is the roar that we hear when we pronounce his name. It is simply mistaken that battles are necessarily more important than the words that summon men to arms, or who remember the call to arms. The battle of Agincourt was long forgotten as a geopolitical event, but the words of Henry V, with Shakespeare to recall them, are imperishable in the mind, even as which side won the battle of Gettysburg will dim from the memory of those who will never forget the words spoken about that battle by Abraham Lincoln. The genius of Churchill was his union of affinities of the heart and of the mind, the total fusion of animal and spiritual energy’.

Read the full article here: ‘Let Us Now Praise Famous Men’ by William F. Buckley, Jr., Churchill Proceedings 1994-1995.