The Churchill Bust Dedication Ceremony in the United States Capitol

"So when a great man dies, 
For years beyond our ken,
The light he leaves behind him lies   
Upon the paths of men."

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Historic Churchill Ceremony to be Available for Live Online Viewing

"The Best Friend America Ever Had"

The historic ceremony to dedicate a bust of Winston Churchill being donated by The Churchill Centre to the U.S. Capitol will be available for free online viewing, beginning at 11:00 AM Eastern Time on Wednesday, October 30, at the website of the Speaker of the House of Representatives. No login or other credentials are required. The ceremony will also be archived for later viewing on the Speaker's YouTube channel and on C-Span's video archive page.  If possible, we will also stream the ceremony live, here at Sunlit Uplands, or make a video available as soon as possible afterwards.
  

The Churchill Centre to Donate Bust of Sir Winston Churchill to the U.S. Capitol

Historic Work to Join Prestigious National Collection

The Churchill Centre has announced that it has been invited to donate a bust of Winston Churchill to the U.S. Capitol for permanent display in the Congressional art collection, alongside images of great figures from American history. Very few non-Americans are represented in the Capitol building and this will be the most significant recognition accorded to Churchill by the United States government in many years. 

The donation is made at the invitation of the Speaker of the House of Representatives pursuant to House Resolution 497 approved on the 70th anniversary of Churchill’s historic address to a joint session of Congress shortly after America’s entry into World War Two. The Resolution noted Churchill’s status as an Honorary Citizen of the United States and recognized that his “persistence, determination and resolve remain an inspiration to freedom-fighters all over the world.”

A Kind of Dignity and Even Nobility: Winston Churchill’s “Thoughts and Adventures”

Amid These Storms: Thoughts and Adventures, by Winston Churchill [1]

This material progress, in itself so splendid, does not meet any of the real needs of the human race…. No material progress, even though it takes shapes we cannot now conceive, or however it may expand the faculties of man, can bring comfort to his soul. It is this fact, more wonderful than any that Science can reveal, which gives the best hope that all will be well. – “Fifty Years Hence”

Winston Churchill wrote the essays gathered in Thoughts and Adventures while his generation was “in its twelfth lustre,” and with the passing of years his book is now almost as old. First published in 1932, while he was out of the government in what his biographer Martin Gilbert calls his “wilderness years” (the book is now available here, ed.). Despite this modest revival, Thoughts and Adventures stands, with many of Churchill’s works, as an undiscovered classic of twentieth-century prose.

Read more at The Imaginative Conservative >>

Churchill’s First War: Young Winston and the Fight Against the Taliban, by Con Coughlin

“Morally it is wicked . . . politically it is a blunder”: does Churchill’s verdict on making war in Afghanistan still hold true?

From The Irish Times - Books
By David Murphy

Mark Twain once allegedly stated that “history does not repeat itself but it does rhyme”. For historians, politicians and military commanders it is very tempting to make comparisons between historical military campaigns and modern conflicts. This can be an inherently dangerous practice but perhaps nowhere offers more potential for such comparison than the former North-West Frontier region of British India, which now forms the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Since 2001 we have seen the conflict in Afghanistan develop in ways that bear startling similarities to previous conflicts in that troubled land. A key factor for successful campaigning in this region is establishing control of the North-West Frontier, an objective that remains as elusive for modern armies as it did for the forces of the British Empire in the late 19th century. 

Immortal Words Uttered 73 Years Ago: Churchill’s “Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat”

From The Water's Edge

By James M. Lindsay

Former British prime minister Winston Churchill is featured on a new banknote alongside his famous declaration "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat" (Bank of England/Courtesy Reuters).

You finally land the job you have long coveted. But many of your colleagues dislike you, and the task you have been given may be undoable. That’s the situation that Winston Churchill found himself in seventy-three years ago today. He responded with a speech that is regarded as one of the greatest ever delivered in the English language—and one that helped rally his country at one of its darkest moments.

Churchill was offered the prime ministership on May 10, 1940. His predecessor, Neville Chamberlain, had resigned after it became clear that he had lost the confidence of his fellow Conservative Party members. Chamberlain had championed the appeasement policy that was supposed to preserve peace in Europe. It had the opposite effect, emboldening rather than satisfying Adolf Hitler.

Churchill had been a biting critic of Chamberlain’s appeasement policy, even though he too was a Conservative. Churchill’s unrelenting criticism had angered many of his fellow Tories. They were not celebrating his elevation to prime minister; some privately expected (and perhaps hoped) to see him fail.

But Churchill’s domestic political difficulties paled in comparison to Britain’s foreign policy problems. The so-called Phony War that had prevailed in Europe since Germany invaded Poland the previous September had ended in April. Denmark and Norway had fallen to the Nazis. On May 10 the German army invaded France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.

Faced with this peril, Churchill addressed Parliament for the first time as prime minister on May 13. He spoke for just five minutes. His speech included these riveting lines:

I would say to the House as I said to ministers who have joined this government, I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and suffering.

You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.

You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs – Victory in spite of all terrors – Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.

Let that be realized. No survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge, the impulse of the ages, that mankind shall move forward toward his goal.

If Hollywood had staged the scene, Churchill’s defiant words would have been met with thunderous applause. But life seldom follows Hollywood scripts. Few MPs clapped. Many of Churchill’s fellow Tories grumbled. They still preferred Chamberlain.

No one outside of Parliament heard the speech live; BBC reports merely summarized it. Churchill’s first radio address to the nation would not come until May 19. It would take days for word of the speech to seep out into the broader public. A version of the speech was eventually recorded for broadcast. Disagreement exists as to whether Churchill recorded the speech himself. Some experts argue that Norman Shelley, a BBC actor, taped the speech because Churchill was too busy to do it himself.

Historians note that the line about “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” wasn’t entirely original. Churchill likely took it from Giuseppe Garibaldi, the nineteenth century Italian revolutionary who once rallied his troops by saying he could only offer them “hunger, forced marches, battles and death.” But genius often lies in borrowing from the past and reinventing it for today. That gift may be why Churchill remains the only politician ever to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Churchill’s promise that he could offer only “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” was sadly accurate. As he was speaking, the German army was crossing the River Meuse into Sedan. France fell just six weeks later. With the United States still clinging to its neutrality, Britain was left to battle Nazi Germany alone. In the Battle of Britain that lasted throughout the summer of 1940, the Luftwaffe devastated many British cities. Blood and tears flowed freely.

But Britain survived its darkest hour, in good part because of Churchill’s determination. So it is fitting that last month the Bank of England announced that the “blood, toil, tears and sweat” quote will appear alongside the portrait of Winston Churchill on Britain’s new five pound notes.

Winston Churchill Beats Jobs as CEO's Most Admired Leader

Former British prime minister Winston Churchill was known for his uncompromising leadership style, as well as his penchant for cigars.

Wartime prime minister Winston Churchill has topped a poll of leaders most admired by chief executives, edging out Steve Jobs and Nelson Mandela. 
 
The survey of some 1,300 business leaders, carried out by financial services giant PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), saw "Iron Lady'' Margaret Thatcher as the only woman in the top ten, at seventh.

Jobs was second on the list and fellow business tycoon Jack Welch, who led General Electric for 20 years, came in fifth.

Read more at All News Australia >>

Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech: Still Relevant, 67 Years On

From Huff Post Politics (UK)

By Philip White

This week marks the 67th anniversary of Winston Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' address (actually named 'The Sinews of Peace'), which he called "the most important speech of my career". And he'd given one or two of those. 

Dr. Larry Arnn on Sir Winston Churchill

Center on Winston Churchill to be Created in D.C.

From The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

By Tracie Mauriello / Post-Gazette Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON --Christopher Sterling has made numerous trips to the United Kingdom to visit Sir Winston Churchill's former home in Kent, the Cabinet War Rooms in London and Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, where British code breakers deciphered Nazi secrets during World War II.

Soon, Mr. Sterling, a George Washington University dean and former president of the Washington Society for Churchill, won't have to travel 3,600 miles to study the mercurial prime minister whose wartime leadership helped save Western civilization from the Nazis.

That's because the Chicago-based Churchill Centre and George Washington University are teaming up to create the only major Churchill facility in the United States outside the National Churchill Museum in Fulton, Mo., site of the prime minister's famous 1946 Iron Curtain speech.

The National Churchill Library and Center will be created on the GWU campus, just blocks from the White House, in the Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library. It is expected to be both a museum for the general public and a major academic research center on par with similar facilities in the United Kingdom. The center will make source material available to academic researchers -- and celebrate the achievements and personal history of Churchill, son of a British statesman and an American socialite.

"Winston Churchill is a part of the story of Britain but also the story of the world and of America becoming a great world power. He's as much a part of American history as British," said Churchill Centre director Lee Pollock.

Churchill: The Power of Words on Exhibit at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City

For history buffs, Anglophiles, and all appreciators of resonant, meaty language, Churchill: The Power of Words, now on exhibition at the lovely, under-visited-by-us Pierpont Morgan Library (which, by the way, features some of the most beautiful New York City Architecture), is pretty much a must-see. Because even if Winston Churchill wasn't an extremely influential figure in the story of our planet in the 20th-century–which, of course, he was–Churchill's peerless understanding of how words, when chosen carefully and assembled together in a certain sequence, can be even more persuasive, more potent, more lasting than any spectacle, or action, remains nothing short of astonishing. Through a combination of fascinating original documents written and/or edited in Sir Winston Churchill's hand, and a terrific multi-media mini-theater, the Morgan Library's Churchill: The Power of Words does an excellent job of bringing that awful, thrilling, monumental era of the 1930s and 1940s to life. 

 

Sir Winston Churchill Exhibition at the Morgan Library NYC

Churchill: The Power of Words at the Morgan Library and Museum offers visitors a small but remarkable selection of Churchillian memorabilia, as it were, including hand-written letters (our favorites were his Victorian-era childhood missives to his parents from boarding school, above), drafts of many of Sir Winston Churchill's most famous public speeches, as well as official correspondence (but with a personal touch, naturally) to and from the world leaders of the day, including his country's King, General and President Eisenhower, and, of course, his cherished friend and comrade in arms, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But it's not all weight and war here. We loved seeing Churchill's actual Nobel Prize medal, and a doctor's note, which he received after being hit by a car in Prohibition-era New York City, written by a certain Otto C. Pickhardt, M.D., saying that Winston Churchill's "post-accident convalescence" required "the use of alcoholic spirits especially at meal times…. The quantity," Dr. Pickhardt allowed, "is naturally indefinite." 

 

Winston Churchill Speeches on Display at the Pierpont Morgan Library

But the centerpiece of the Morgan Library's Churchill exhibition has to be the multi-media presentation of excerpts from several of his most stirring addresses. The "theater" has three screens. As the Churchill speech plays–and there's no escaping the power of that voice–the middle screen typographically lays out the words as they're spoken, while historic photos of war and peace slideshow by on its flanks. It's a simple, extremely effective display, one that instantly recalls a time when the words spoken by our leaders really mattered. As Edward R. Murrow said: "He mobilised the English language and sent it into battle." And just a note about the Pierpont Morgan Library itself: this place–and by "this place" we mean the sun-drenched, high-ceilinged addition–is simply lovely, an exceptionally pleasant spot to sit and enjoy some treats from the cafe. If you've never been, Churchill: The Power of Words makes for a great excuse to check out the Morgan Library New York. 

 

Churchill: The Power of Words, at the Morgan Library and Museum Details

The Morgan Library's Sir Winston Churchill exhibition will be on view through September 28. The Pierpont Morgan Library is located on Madison Avenue between 36th and 35th Streets and is open Tuesday through Thursday from 10:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., on Friday until 9:00 p.m., on Saturday from 10 to 6, and on Sunday from 11 until 6. For more information about Churchill: The Power of Words and the Morgan Library New York, please see the library's website, here.

Winston Churchill: Father of the Anglosphere

From The Telegraph

By Daniel Hannan

The man who mentioned Churchill's role at Gallipoli

In many conservative circles, particularly in the United States, Winston Churchill is beyond criticism. Mention his errors – the Gallipoli debacle, the return to gold at the pre-1914 rate, the contracting out of domestic policy to the Left after 1940, the second premiership – and you provoke a Bateman cartoon scene.

Fair enough. Winnie got the big calls right. His popularity on the other side of the Atlantic is appropriate, for he is perhaps the supreme Anglosphere politician – apostle, champion, exemplar and historian of English-speaking unity.

What makes the Anglosphere special? I'm taken with Mark Steyn's observation that the list of countries on the right side in both the world wars and the cold war is short, but it contains the main English-speaking democracies. What made them all pile in? Was it linguistic solidarity, an identification with kith-and-kin? Yes, partly. But that's not all it was. Those mighty struggles were not simply ethnic conflicts, bloodier versions of the Hutu-Tutsi wars. The Anglosphere peoples believed, because their institutions had taught them to believe, that individual liberty, limited government and the rule of law were worth preserving – with force of arms if necessary.

Churchill played a brave role in all three great twentieth century conflicts, fighting in the first, leading the democracies to victory in the second and defining the third. The transition from victorious leader to Cold Warrior can be traced to one speech, delivered on 5 March 1946 at Fulton, Missouri. That speech, the subject of a newly published book by Philip White, is remembered for this sentence:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. 

White conjures atmosphere beautifully. Here is a detailed account of the place where the speech was given, and the timbre of the times. The USSR, so recently an ally, had occupied the countries for which Britain had gone to war in the first place, and any hope that the United Nations would be a guarantor of a peaceful post-fascist world had been dashed.

Books of this kind depend upon prose and pacing, and White has produced a gloriously readable account. What struck me most, though, at this distance, was that Churchill's chief preoccupation was not with the Soviet menace, but with the unity of the English-speaking peoples. It would be another half century before the term Anglosphere was coined, but he put the idea before his audience without restraint:

I come now to the crux of what I have travelled here to say. Neither the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world organisation will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples. This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States of America. Ladies and gentlemen, this is no time for generality, and I will venture to the precise. Fraternal association requires not only the growing friendship and mutual understanding between our two vast but kindred systems of society, but the continuance of the intimate relations between our military advisers, leading to common study of potential dangers, the similarity of weapons and manuals of instructions, and to the interchange of officers and cadets at technical colleges. It should carry with it the continuance of the present facilities for mutual security by the joint use of all Naval and Air Force bases in the possession of either country all over the world. This would perhaps double the mobility of the American Navy and Air Force. It would greatly expand that of the British Empire forces and it might well lead, if and as the world calms down, to important financial savings. Already we use together a large number of islands; more may well be entrusted to our joint care in the near future.

The United States has already a Permanent Defence Agreement with the Dominion of Canada, which is so devotedly attached to the British Commonwealth and the Empire. This Agreement is more effective than many of those which have been made under formal alliances. This principle should be extended to all the British Commonwealths with full reciprocity. Thus, whatever happens, and thus only, shall we be secure ourselves and able to work together for the high and simple causes that are dear to us and bode no ill to any. Eventually there may come – I feel eventually there will come – the principle of common citizenship, but that we may be content to leave to destiny, whose outstretched arm many of us can already clearly see.

Winston Churchill: patriot, hero, Anglospherist avant la lettre. Read the book. You'll enjoy it.

(Editor's note: This book is not yet available in the United States.  Please check our Amazon widget for future availability.)

5 Writing Tips from Winston Churchill

From Ragan's PR Daily

By Clare Lynch

I’ve talked before about Winston Churchill’s gift for language. Here’s a great example of an inspiring speech he gave to get Great Britain behind its leader:

“The news from France is very bad, and I grieve for the gallant French people who have fallen into this terrible misfortune. Nothing will alter our feeling towards them or our faith that the genius of France will rise again.

“What has happened in France makes no difference to British faith and purpose. We have become the sole champions now in arms to defend the world cause. We shall do our best to be worthy of that high honor.

“We shall defend our island and, with the British Empire around us, we shall fight on unconquerable until the curse of Hitler is lifted from the brows of men. We are sure that in the end all will be well. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

“But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.

“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.”

Here’s why it works:

1. He gets straight to the point.

“The news from France is very bad.” Imagine if every corporate writer with bad tidings was as upfront as Churchill.

More typical is the CEO whose email announces 1,400 redundancies and begins with this cheery bit of corporate speak:

“Today we announce a multi-year program that will enhance service excellence and innovation, help achieve greater operating efficiencies and position us for accelerated growth.”

Lesson: If you have to deliver bad news, don’t warm up to your theme. The wait only makes things more painful. Worse, never try to make the news seem good.

Sir Winston Churchill Day

Sir Winston Churchill

Today, April 9, is Sir Winston Churchill Day in the United States.  It was on this date, in 1963, that President Kennedy named the former British Prime Minister an honorary citizen of the United States.  President Kennedy spoke eloquently of the great man's enormous contribution to the modern world and his powerful use of the language:

We meet to honor a man whose honor requires no meeting -- for he is the most honored and honorable man to walk the stage of human history in the time in which we live.

Whenever and wherever tyranny threatened, he has always championed liberty.

Facing firmly toward the future, he has never forgotten the past.

Serving six monarchs of his native Great Britain, he has served all men's freedom and dignity.

In the dark days and darker nights when Britain stood alone -- and most men save Englishmen despaired of England's life -- he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle. The incandescent quality of his words illuminated the courage of his countrymen.

Given unlimited powers by his citizens, he was ever vigilant to protect their rights.

Indifferent himself to danger, he wept over the sorrows of others.

A child of the House of Commons, he became in time its father.

Accustomed to the hardships of battle, he has no distaste for pleasure.

Now his stately Ship of Life, having weathered the severest storms of a troubled century, is anchored in tranquil waters, proof that courage and faith and the zest for freedom are truly indestructible. The record of his triumphant passage will inspire free hearts for all time.

By adding his name to our rolls, we mean to honor him -- but his acceptance honors us far more. For no statement or proclamation can enrich his name -- the name Sir Winston Churchill is already legend.

May his memory live forever in the hearts of all freedom-loving people.

On This Date in History

On this date in 1946, Sir Winston Churchill traveled to Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri with President Harry S Truman and delivered his "Iron Curtain Speech."  Here is another giant in freedom's cause, Margaret Thatcher, commemorating in 1996 the fiftieth anniversary of that landmark event.

Remembering the Death of a World Hero on This Day in 1965

Sir Winston Churchill

On this day in 1965, the great Sir Winston Churchill died in his ninetieth year.  Soldier, statesman, author and painter, his Olympian gifts and personality were fitted to one of the greatest crises the world has ever known.  He led his nation, the British Empire and Commonwealth, indeed, all freedom loving people through the storm to "broad, sunlit uplands."  Western civilization will be forever in the debt of this great champion of freedom.

The following photos and reflection by Norman Phillips on Sir Winston Churchill's State Funeral were published in the Toronto Star.

Silent mourners pace slowly by the catafalque in Westminster Hall.

Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson and his wife Maryon leave Westminster Hall.

In Trafalgar Square the gun carriage rolls past the monument to Lord Nelson.

Lady Churchill on the arm of son Randolph, followed by daughter Sarah

The escorted launch Havengore bears Sir Winston Churchill up the Thames.

At the grave in the village churchyard at Bladon was a tribute from his widow.

110 Nations mourn at St. Paul's
by Norman Phillips, The Toronto Star staff writer

LONDON  In the magnificent service at St. Paul's  -- a service never before attempted and impossible of repetition --Winston Churchill's name was not once mentioned.

The unspoken praise came from the multitude representing 110 nations.

From my seat in the cathedral nave I watched the two-hour ceremony as the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Earl Marshal assembled a great cast of international figures for the state funeral.

As I entered the cathedral at 9 a.m. an almost blind light bathed the scrubbed stone walls of the ancient building.

Ushers with gold-tipped purple batons directed the early members of the congregation to their seats.

Mute television monitors hung from the wall recording events outside and two miles away where the funeral procession was assembling.

Directly beneath the 365-feet-high dome stood the waiting catafalque, its dull black velvet cross-hatched with silver.

6 candles, 3 gilt chairs

Beside it stood six black candlesticks with dull-gold beeswax candles and in front of it three red upholstered gilt chairs for the Queen, the Queen Mother and Prince Philip.

A workman in open-necked shirt mounted a 12-foot ladder to light the tapers, and a powerful vacuum cleaner sounded throughout the building as it removed footprints from the bright blue carpeting.

In the midst of these last-minute preparations, Lord Moran, Churchill's family doctor, walked down the aisle behind Apostolic Delegates in magenta robes. African diplomats in brightly-colored togas and bewigged legal officers.

It was like the stage setting for an extravaganza as characters were added one by one while the coffin rolled on inexorably from Westminster Hall.

By 10 minutes to 10 the scarlet-clad aldermen and high officers of the City of London filed through the south door and took their seats in the choir stalls.

Speaker follows mace.

The speaker of the House of Commons in gilt-embroidered black robes followed the mace bearer to his place under the dome and one minute later the Lord Chancellor preceeded by his mace took his seat along side the speaker.

Attendants waited with dark velvet cloths with which the maces must be covered in the presence of the Queen.

Gold-emblazoned officers of chivalry with lacy black mourning sashes over their scabards entered bearing Sir Winston's sword, crest and spurs, while the Lord Chamberlain went out of the cathedral to greet heads of state and royal representatives at the foot of the steps.

Among these President Charles de Gaulle and Russia's Marshal Ivan Konev, both in magnificent military uniforms, dominated the groups with whomthey entered.

The lord mayor of London was the last to arrive before the Queen.  Carrying a four-foot, two-inch black mourning sword, he stood at the cathedral entrance greeting the royal party and leading them to where the Archbishop stood in the vestibule.

As the seldom-opened huge west doors swung on creaking hinges, the throb of the drums from the great procession mingled with the gentle organ music within the cathedral.

Finally, on the television screens, the gun carriage could be seen drawn up in the forecourt of St. Paul's and the bare-headed guardsmen stood the burden of the coffin on their shoulders.

At a signal from the earl marshal the procession entered the great west door at 10:49 and paced slowly up the nave followed by the pallbearers, officers bearing the Churchill banners, his orders and decoration, and his achievements, and place them on a black velvet covered table to the east of the catafalque. Then, the traditional Church of England service began with the choir chanting "the sentences" beginning "I am the resurrection and the life."

When the coffin was placed upon the bier, the whole congregation sang "Who Would True Valor See, Let Him Come Hither."

The 30-minute service ended with the Archbishop of Canterbury standing on the altar steps facing the congregation with his cross of office in his hand and offering a benediction.

Trumpeter high in dome

Then came the national anthem, and as it ended a trumpeter, high in the galleries of the dome, sounded the Last Post. As the last notes died away a bugler silhouetted against the narrow windows over the west door replied with reveille and the service was ended.

The bearer party, their faces bathed with perspiration from their heavy burden, led the procession out of the cathedral followed by the heavily-veiled Lady Churchill accompanied by her only son, Randolph.

In the cathedral forecourt, the family party mounted the five state carriages for the next stage of the procession, to Tower Hill and the waiting launches on the Thames.

Led by the lord mayor, the Queen walked to the great west door where the dean and chapter, the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury took formal leave of her. She then watched the great procession move off to the beat of the shrouded drums.

Royal Artillery men fired a 19-gun salute as the procession gathered momentum and at Tower Hill 60 massed pipers began the lament as the state funeral proper ended with the transfer of the body to the river launch Havengore for the voyage upriver.

Out of the pale noon clouds, there suddenly streaked 16 Lightning fighters of the Royal Air Force in a final service tribute.

Churchill Library to Be Created in DC

From APNewsBreak

By Brett Zongker

Sir Winston Churchill

An international group seeking to preserve the legacy of Winston Churchill is announcing plans Thursday to create the first U.S. research center devoted to the longtime British leader.

The new National Churchill Library and Center will be established between 2013 and 2015 at George Washington University with an $8 million pledge from the Chicago-based Churchill Centre. Rare books and research materials will be transferred to the university's library and housed in a new street-front center with exhibit space, officials told The Associated Press. 

In Praise of… Poetry in Politics

Editorial from The Guardian

If new year's resolutions are about self-improvement then politicians should surely be making longer lists than most, and somewhere on those lists, below rekindling the spluttering flame of the economy, should be embracing the English language. Like a sculptor's chisel or a fisherman's net, language is the statesman's essential tool, yet many aspiring leaders are content to spew out dry management-speak that has become the stale norm. In 2012's re-election bid, even President Obama seems unlikely to indulge in the soaring rhetoric and rich cadences that captured the hopes of the world in 2008. In times of crisis, should politicians be more timid in their language or more bold? Replace the word "language" with "leadership" and you have the answer. Crises require leadership, leadership requires oratory. As JFK said of Winston Churchill, "when Britain stood alone … he mobilised the English language and sent it into battle". Churchill had the two gifts that great orators need: the ear and the heart of a poet. He even exchanged poems with FDR during one of the bleakest periods of the war (Roosevelt sent Longfellow, Churchill responded with Arthur Hugh Clough). Consider the deep, textured prose of Gladstone, the fiery energy of Lloyd George or the imagery of Martin Luther King, whose I Have a Dream speech was poetry plain and simple. Politics must lift people's sights to greater things. The English language is equal to the task. Politicians should resolve to use it to better effect in 2012.

Churchill and Roosevelt: A White House Christmas 70 Years Ago

Hat Tip to Rafal Heydel-Mankoo

Seventy years ago, Prime Minister Winston Churchill undertook a dangerous and secret journey only days before Christmas to meet with his collaborator in "a very great cause." Pearl Harbor had been attacked only weeks before, and now the two great leaders of Christian civilization were to spend three weeks planning for the war that lay ahead.

It has been said that when it is dark enough, one can see stars.  At that perilous hour, these two great leaders knew to the marrow of their bones that at its very essence they were engaged in a great spiritual battle -- a battle to save Christian civilization.  There was no concern about the "separation of church and state" in their remarks.  They were humbled by the enormity of their task and knew that without God's help "the watchman waketh but in vain."

Isaiah proclaims that “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light,” and the Gospel of John says “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it,”  Churchill and Roosevelt prayerfully reminded America that The Everlasting Light triumphs over time and darkness.  On Christmas morning 1941, the two great leaders went to Church together and like the humble shepherds on that night so long ago, adored the The Word made flesh, the Prince of Peace.

 

US House to Vote on Churchill Statue for Capitol

Prime Minister Winston Churchill Addressing a Joint Session of the US Congress in 1941.

The U.S. House of Representatives will vote today on a resolution to honor Sir Winston Churchill with a bust or statue in the U.S. Capitol.  The honor, proposed by Speaker John Boehner, would commemorate the 70th anniversary of the great wartime leader's address to a Joint Session of Congress on December 26, 1941.  Speaker Boehner's resolution recognizes the enduring admiration Americans have for Churchill and recognizes the special relationship between the United States and Great Britain that is Churchill's legacy.

It is also a fitting rebuke to our current President who returned the Churchill bust that had occupied a place of honor in the Oval Office.

House Resolution 497 states:

To provide for the placement of a statue or bust of Sir Winston Churchill in the United States Capitol.

Whereas Sir Winston Churchill was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 through 1945 and from 1951 through 1955;

Whereas the United States and the United Kingdom led the Allied Powers during World War Two;

Whereas President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Sir Winston Churchill formed a bond that united freedom-loving people throughout the world to defeat tyranny in Europe and Asia;

Whereas, on December 26, 1941, Sir Winston Churchill addressed a Joint Session of Congress;

Whereas during that speech, Sir Winston Churchill said, `Sure I am that this day--now we are the masters of our fate; that the task which has been set us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our cause and an unconquerable will-power, salvation will not be denied us. In the words of the Psalmist, `He shall not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.' Not all the tidings will be evil.';

Whereas December 26, 2011, is the 70th anniversary of this speech to a joint session of Congress;

Whereas Sir Winston Churchill was made an Honorary Citizen of the United States by an act of Congress in 1963;

Whereas Sir Winston Churchill was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1969;

Whereas Sir Winston Churchill's persistence, determination and resolve remains an inspiration to freedom-fighters all over the world;

Whereas the United Kingdom remains and will forever be an important and irreplaceable ally to the United States; and

Whereas the United States Capitol does not currently appropriately recognize the contributions of Sir Winston Churchill or that of the United Kingdom: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Architect of the Capitol place an appropriate statue or bust of Sir Winston Churchill in the United States Capitol at a location directed by the House Fine Arts Board in consultation with the Speaker.