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Stevenson’s army, November 26

Charlie writes for Black Friday, an entirely unrelated consideration:

 Like many Americans, I grew to admire Winston Churchill as I learned more about him. Early on, I bought a recording of some of his most famous speeches and marveled at his stirring words.  I happened to be in London at the time of his funeral and felt that I was part of a great historic moment. I have often quoted some of his witty sayings, even though many now seem to be apocryphal. I was thrilled to visit the Churchill War Rooms and see the actual place where so many consequential policies were formulated.

I have just read Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s critical and revisionist biography, Churchill’s Shadow, which adds a lot of negative facts to the ledger assessing Churchill’s legacy.  Wheatcroft savages Churchill’s reputation by quoting from letters and diaries by contemporaries, who point out his flaws — inconsistency, hypocrisy, frequent inebriation,  social isolation, and so forth. He also repeats many statements which Churchill later disavowed or pretended he never said. [And he quotes Churchill as saying of war cabinet meetings, “All I wanted was compliance with my wishes after a reasonable period of discussion.”]

There has been too much hagiography about Churchill. It’s time for a fuller picture of his human qualities, including his failings, as well as his political accomplishments, including their blemishes. Like most successful politicians, he was vain, ambitious,  and self-centered, better at tactical adjustments than consistency or strategy. He was a loving though patriarchal husband, but a poor parent. He drank too much and stayed in power too long.

And he was a racist, demeaning all but white, Protestant, English-speaking people much of the time. Sadly, so were many if not most of his Victorian era contemporaries. Nevertheless, I am not ready to pull his statues down or shatter the busts simply because of those abhorrent views. His political accomplishments were world-historical and worthy of honor despite their flaws.

The most useful correctives I found in Wheatcroft’s books  were on lesser points.

– He was a defender of the Empire to the bitter end.

– His own history books were group-written and fabricated to enhance his roles.

– He had some surprising and consistent policy views, including support for a national health service and other social programs and support for Zionism.

– He exaggerated his friendship with FDR and his areas of agreements with the Americans.

– Many of his wartime strategy proposals were profoundly unwise [Gallipoli, Norway, Greece, Singapore].

– He strongly favored terror bombing in World War  II, despite earlier and later misgivings.

And yet…in 1940 especially he rallied a defeated force and a demoralized nation — and onlookers in America — to fight back and join together in common cause. He did that, and it’s unlikely anyone else could have.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).