Bulletin #147 – Sep 2020

The International Churchill Society (ICS) is pleased to announce that Lady Williams of Elvel and former Prime Ministers Sir John Major and Gordon Brown have all agreed to become honorary members of the Society. They join His Grace the Duke of Marlborough and David Cameron in this capacity. All five of the current honorary members have been actively involved with ICS just this year. The Duke, Mr. Cameron, and Mr. Brown have each contributed a foreword to an issue of Finest Hour in 2020 while Lady Williams and Sir John—having participated in past ICS gatherings—will both be participating in this year’s virtual conference. Read More >

Justin Reash and Allen Packwood OBE

The International Churchill Society (ICS) is pleased to announce the appointment of a new leadership team. The society has undergone a structural change that will enable better coordination between its independent-but-affiliated branches around the world. An international Operating Committee has been created that now functions as the main engine for developing and managing ICS activities while an International Council will oversee coordination of the ICS branches along with the National Churchill Library and Center in Washington, D.C. and America’s National Churchill Museum at Westminster College in Fulton, MO. Additionally, a new Executive Director has been appointed to lead ICS in the United States. Read More >

The Rt. Hon. The Lord Hague of Richmond

Registration is now open for the 37th annual International Churchill Conference. Former Foreign Secretary William Hague, who now serves in the House of Lords as Baron Hague of Richmond, will be one of the featured speakers. This year the conference will take place online on 23 and 24 October. The conference will be based in Britain and will include both live and pre-recorded sessions from various locations around the world. Registration is free. For details on how to register, please CLICK HERE.

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Catherine Grace Katz, Daughters of Yalta, Houghton Mifflin, 2020, 416 pages, $28. ISBN 978–0358117858

Review by Anne Sebba

When Sarah Churchill found herself next to NKVD Chief Lavrenty Beria at a banquet hosted by Stalin at the end of the Yalta Conference, she tried out her best textbook Russian phrases on him, such as “Can I have a hot water bottle please?” In response Beria leered at her and said, with former Soviet ambassador Ivan Maisky translating, “I cannot believe that you need one! Surely there is enough fire in you!” Read More >

This fall will see publication of the full, unabridged text of Churchill’s second published book, The River War, for the first time since the 1899 first edition. All subsequent editions have been based on a text one-third shorter than Churchill’s original. Until now. Read More >

By BARRY SINGER

After publishing his first book in 1898, The Story of the Malakand Field Force, about his self-propelled military adventures on India’s Northwest Frontier, young Winston Churchill became fixated on another seemingly impossible mission. In Egypt, General Sir Herbert Kitchener had been handed a force of twenty thousand men by the British government with instructions to advance south into Sudan and demolish once and for all the power of the Dervishes there. As Churchill later wrote, “I was deeply anxious to share in this.” Read More >

By BRIAN KRAPF

Despite my many long years of collecting Churchilliana, I still find objects that I never before knew existed. This recently discovered hollow brass badge measures two inches long. The caption “Honneur Aux Allies” [Honour to Our Allies] is molded above the raised images of Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Charles de Gaulle. Read More >