October 29, 2022

Garry Kasparov Addresses 2022 International Churchill Conference

By TIMOTHY S. RILEY

As part of the first day of the 39th International Churchill Conference, America’s National Churchill Museum at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri welcomed more than 300 guests to hear the 36th Enid and R. Crosby Kemper Lecture by Garry Kasparov. The former world chess champion, author, and outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin was inducted as a Churchill fellow of the college before delivering an address he called “New Sinews of Peace,” which echoed Winston Churchill’s famous 1946 warning about an iron curtain descending across the continent of Europe and the start of the Cold War. To read the text and watch the video, please CLICK HERE.

Kasparov published his prescient book Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must be Stopped in 2015. During his lecture this year, Kasparov declared, “Winter is here.” He continued his Churchillian assessment of the war in Ukraine by saying, “This is not chess, but we must look more than a few moves ahead. Our strategy must go beyond Ukraine, beyond Russia, and to building a secure and free world. It must be based on values, the values of human life and human freedom.”

“In 1946,” Kaparov continued, “Churchill did not have to remind his audience what that meant. They had lived through that most horrible war against true evil. No one could doubt that evil existed or that it had to be fought. Now we are seeing images from Ukraine that remind us of true evil, of civilians slaughtered on a madman’s whim. We said, ‘never again,’ and we cannot let those words ring hollow.”

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Kasparov received a standing ovation inside the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, where the Enid and R. Crosby Kemper Lecture has been delivered annually since it was established in 1979 by a grant from the R. Crosby Kemper Foundation of Kansas City, Missouri. It is intended to provide for lectures by authorities on history, Winston Churchill, and his legacy in today’s world.

Timothy S. Riley is the Sandra L. and Monroe E. Trout Director and Chief Curator of America’s National Churchill Museum at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri.