April 17, 2015

Finest Hour 121, Winter 2003-04

Page 04

“Forty Ways”

I found the comments of Terry McGarry regarding Elle magazine’s column on Gretchen Rubin’s Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill (FH 119) to be rather unfair and inaccurate. Mr. McGarry attributes to Prof. Rubin things that were actually said by the magazine’s unnamed columnist. For example, he quotes the columnist’s saying Churchill was “a prodigious drinker” and then chides Rubin for this. As anyone who has actually read the book would know, Rubin wrote this only in a “Point-Counterpoint” sort of way. One of the book’s conceits is occasionally to present Churchill from diametrically opposed points of view in successive chapters; for example, “Churchill as Liberty’s Champion” followed by “Churchill as Failed Statesman.” The author’s intent is that the reader discover the truth somewhere in between.

McGarry hopes that, if Rubin were to attend a Churchill panel, she might bring along “a posse of dewy-cheeked Elle readers….” If an Elle columnist had referenced one of Sir Martin Gilbert’s works, would McGarry assume that Gilbert is trailed by a pack of ingenues? Does the mention of an author by Elle imply that the author is shooting for the dewy-cheek demographic?

I am not defending the book itself. While it has a somewhat novel approach, it treads no new ground and will be of passing interest at most to those familiar with the subject. But I find it bothersome that Mr. McGarry appears to be annoyed that a Churchill work is mentioned in a magazine intended primarily for young women. I can only think that this is a good thing.
CHRIS DUNFORD, COLUMBIA, MD.

2025 International Churchill Conference

Join us for the 42nd International Churchill Conference. Washington, DC | October 9-11, 2025

2025 International Churchill Conference

The book is reviewed on page 35. The problem I think is that it often sets reasonable views of Churchill alongside the worst discredited rubbish and implies that they are equally ! worthy of consideration. In such cases, the truth may be in between, but it is much closer to the former than the latter. —Ed.

Churchill Centres New Website

The new website looks fantastic. I’m really, really impressed, not simply because it’s so improved, but that it is probably one of the most intuitively designed and good looking sites I’ve seen on the net. And this is from a student in computer science and cognitive psychology who gives presentations on web design and usability.

I’d also like to point out what the new website lacks, the things that normally ruin websites: Shockwave/Flash, random Java applets, intrusive advertising, and browser-specific features and programming. The site is mostly-valid HTML 4 + CSS, but best of all, it’s compatible. Wow. Great job.
IAN LANGWORTH, NORTHEASTERN UNIV., BOSTON

Thank you, thank you. I’m obviously prejudiced, but I love the look and feel of the new site. Now, to get the rest of the bugs worked out…. —DNM

Misjudging History

I occasionally have the opportunity to speak in public about Churchill. In recent months, I have seen many inaccurate references in the media to the 1930s and appeasement. Thus I decided to deliver my annual talk to the local Rotary Club on Churchill, Chamberlain and appeasement. I also wanted to touch briefly on the tendency, as Manfred Weidhorn once said, to “misjudge history.” Can lessons learned from the 1930s really be applied today?

I prepared a PowerPoint program based on Churchill’s first volume of Second World War memoirs, The Gathering Storm. My timeline began with the Treaty of Versailles and then moved to Hitler’s rise to power and WSC’s subsequent warnings of German rearmament. I used the official biography and companion volumes, along with many books and articles by Churchill’s contemporaries and staff, and a few modern historians, and about forty-five pictures.

As I considered Hitler’s aims for Germany and his early successes, the futility of Chamberlain’s naive and hopelessly optimistic appeasement policy became very clear. I closed with Munich, and two scenes from “The Wilderness Years” documentary starring Robert Hardy as Churchill: Chamberlain’s return to England from Munich bearing “peace in our time,” followed by Churchill’s damning indictment in the House of Commons. The video was very effective and Robert Hardy provided the perfect emotional ending.
FRED HARDMAN, SPENCER, W.V.

Nice going, Fred, hope we’ll see this at a conference some time. —Ed.