BY JAMES C. HUMES
4.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting portrait of “The Largest Human Being of Our Time"
The author served as speech writer for Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and Reagan. He had shaken the hands of Winston Churchill in May 1953 when he was an exchanged scholar in London. Churchill told him “Young man, study history, study history. In history lie all the secrets of statecraft.“. The author also claimed that he had a dance with the Queen.
It is a pleasant surprise that, to this reader, there are no shortage of new materials about Winston Churchill just in the author’s Introduction. Among them:
- When Churchill swore his oath as a Member of Parliament in 1900, it was under Queen Victoria. When he decided not to stand again for his constituency in 1964, Queen Elizabeth II expressed her regret. In between, there were four monarchs: Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, George VI.
- As an author, he has had more words published than Dickens and Sir Walter Scott combined.
- He originated the concept of “artificial harbor” in World War I. These were built and used on D-Day in World War II.
The book was organized into five parts: Observations and Opinions, Orations and Perorations, Coiner of Phrases, Saints and Sinners, and Escapades and Encounters. Orations and Perorations were excerpts of some of his speeches, each with a brief note about the date and the occasion that it was given. It included the first and the last of Churchill’s public speeches, his famous oratories during World War II as well as the Iron Curtain Speech, which was actually titled “Sinews of Peace“ by Churchill. The Saints and Sinners section was about his opinions on the various people he met over his long and active life on the world stage, including US Presidents, statesmen of several countries, military generals, writers, and a few celebrities. The section on Coiner of Phrases was interesting and refreshing, as it opened our eyes to the not well-known fact that several commonly used words were coined by Churchill. When he was First Lord of Admiralty in World War I, he changed “aero-plane” to airplane, “hydroplane” to seaplane, “light search and destroy vessel” to destroyer. The word “summit” and the phrase “business as usual” were also coined by him.
Escapades and Encounters was about anecdotes, mostly amusing, which illustrated the fun and satire loving side of Churchill. In one example, a younger member of Parliament once sought the great orator’s advice on speaking. “Mr. Churchill,” he began, “you heard my talk yesterday. Can you tell me how I could have put more fire in my speech?” “What you should have done,” replied Churchill “is to have put your speech into the fire.”
The section Observations and Opinions contained the quotes of Churchill. According to author Humes, next to the Bible and Shakespeare, Churchill is the most frequent source of quotations. In this section, the quotes are arranged in alphabetical order in terms of topic, beginning with “Action” and ending with “Zionism”. This is the longest section, 109 pages long. Below are several witty but perhaps not well-known ones:
- “It’s an extraordinary business this way of bringing babies into the world. I don’t know how God thought of it.”
- “Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.”
- "Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, it’s also what it takes to sit down and listen."
- "It is wonderful how well men can keep secrets they have not been told."
I was surprised that two of my favorite Churchill quotes, one amusing and one serious, are not included in this book. They are:
- On New York City: “Newspaper too thick, toilet paper too thin.”
- On religion: “You can believe or not to believe, but it is wicked to take away the hope
of people”.
The book had a forward by President Richard M. Nixon. He stated that:
“James Humes has selected close to a thousand excerpts of Churchill’s insight and wisdom. With the voice and authority of his experience, Churchill offers invaluable and indispensable lessons….
Any student of politics, aspiring world leader, or lover of history will find this wit and wisdom of Churchill both a pleasure and an education, and will come to a clearer understanding of why Churchill was the ‘largest human being of our time.’"
Nixon was not my favorite President, but I will say: “Well said, President Nixon.”
Link to Amazon Review:
Top among 241 ratings 4/5/23
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