Prime Minister Churchill Quotes

Millard! Who's the prime minister?" "Winston Churchill," he said. "Have you gone daft?" "What's the capital of Burma?" "Lord, I've no idea. Rangoon?" "Good! When's your birthday?" "Will you quit shouting and let me bleed in peace!

The POSITIVE THINKER sees the INVISIBLE, feels the INTANGIBLE, and achieves the IMPOSSIBLE.

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 of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, 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 terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; In “Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat,” his first speech as Prime Minister to the House of Commons May 13, 1940 quoted by Jeffrey R. Holland in “However Long and Hard the Road” BYU Devotional 18 Jan 1983

Solitary Trees if they grow at all, grow strong.

Churchill was in the lavatory in the House of Commons and his secretary knocked on the door and said: Excuse me Prime Minister, but the Lord Privy Seal wishes to speak to you. After a pause Churchill replied: Tell His Lordship: I'm sealed on The Privy and can only deal with one shit at a time

Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy.

Lady Astor was also said to have responded to a question from Churchill about what disguise he should wear to a masquerade ball by saying, "Why don't you come sober, Prime Minister?" (Reported exchange with Winston Churchill)

The machinery of propaganda may pack their minds with falsehood and deny them truth for many generations of time. But the soul of man thus held in trance, or frozen in a long night, can be awakened by a spark coming from God knows where, and in a moment the whole structure of lies and oppression is on trial for its life.

Well, in war, you can only be killed once. But in politics, many times.

And he despised pedants. A junior civil servant had tortuously re-worded a sentence to avoid ending with a preposition. The Prime Minister scrawled across the page, "This is nonsense up with which I will not put.

It is only possible to succeed at second-rate pursuits - like becoming a millionaire or a prime minister, winning a war, seducing beautiful women, flying through the stratosphere or landing on the moon. First-rate pursuits - involving, as they must, trying to understand what life is about and trying to convey that understanding - inevitably result in a sense of failure. A Napoleon, a Churchill, a Roosevelt can feel themselves to be successful, but never a Socrates, a Pascal, a Blake. Understanding is forever unattainable. Therein lies the inevitability of failure in embarking upon its quest, which is none the less the only one worthy of serious attention.

The Government simply cannot make up their mind or they cannot get the prime minister to make up his mind. So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful for impotency. And so we go on preparing more months more years precious perhaps vital for the greatness of Britain for the locusts to eat. - Speaking in the Address in Reply debate, after giving some specific instances of Germany's war preparedness

Why don't you come sober, Prime Minister? [The answer she gave to Churchill when he asked about what disguise he should wear to a masquerade ball]

In extraordinary circumstances and against the odds, Churchill became Prime Minister instead of Halifax, and that one decision changed the course of history.

Keep calm and carry on.

They were following their prime minister, matching their government's mood.

When Winston Churchill became prime minister in May 1940, Great Britain was alone. The British had won no meaningful battles and had no important allies.

It might be unpalatable in our more egalitarian era to admit it, but Churchill became prime minister by a process that was far from democratic.

One of the reasons why Churchill became prime minister in 1940 was that, although few had heeded his speeches, many others remembered that he had made them.

We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France. We shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight with growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.

David Lloyd George had been to Germany, and been so dazzled by the Führer that he compared him to George Washington. Hitler was a ‘born leader’, declared the befuddled former British Prime Minister. He wished that Britain had ‘a man of his supreme quality at the head of affairs in our country today’. This from the hero of the First World War! The man who had led Britain to victory over the Kaiser!

There was much talk about why the prime minister had brought back such a troublesome and unpredictable colleague, and the consensus was that he preferred to have Churchill inside the tent spitting out.

Yet in all the anxiety of these days Churchill never lost his sense of humour. When an MP asked him on 8 June to ensure that the same mistakes over reparations were not made after victory that had been made after the Great War, the Prime Minister assured him that ‘That is most fully in our minds. I am sure that the mistakes of that time will not be repeated. We shall probably make another set of mistakes.

the Home Secretary, a young man of thirty-seven, impossible to ignore, who, from his inappropriate post, had pelted the Prime Minister during the crisis with ideas on naval and military strategy, all of them quite sound, had produced an astonishingly accurate prediction of the future course of the fighting, and who had no doubts whatever about what needed to be done. The Home Secretary was Winston Churchill.

This historic general election, which showed that the British are well able to distinguish between patriotism and Toryism, brought Clement Attlee to the prime ministership. In the succeeding five years, Labor inaugurated the National Health Service, the first and boldest experiment in socialized medicine. It took into public ownership all the vital (and bankrupted) utilities of the coal, gas, electricity and railway industries. It even nibbled at the fiefdoms and baronies of private steel, air transport and trucking. It negotiated the long overdue independence of India. It did all this, in a country bled white by the World War and subject to all manner of unpopular rationing and controls, without losing a single midterm by-election (a standard not equaled by any government of any party since). And it was returned to office at the end of a crowded term.

Asked in 1952 by a Labour MP if he, the Prime Minister, was aware of the deep concern felt by the British over the question of the Korean conflict, WSC answered, 'I am fully aware of the deep concern felt by the Honourable Member in many matters above his comprehension.

You aime lots of stupid crap." While Hassan worked to make God hates baguettes Colin's mind raced like this: (1) baguettes (2) Katherine XIX (3) the ruby necklace he'd bought her five months and seventeen days before (4) most rubies come from India, which (5) used to be under control of the United Kingdom, of which (6) Winston Churchill was the prime minister, and (7) isn't it interesting how a lot of good politicians, like Churchill and also Gandhi, were bald while (8) a lot of evil dictators, like Hitler and Stalin and Saddam Hussein, were mustachoied? But (9) Mussolini only wore a mustache sometimes, and (10) lost of good scientists had mustaches, like the Italian Ruggero Oddi, who (11) discovered (and named for himself) the intestinal tract's spinchter of Oddi, which is just one of several lesser-known sphicnters like (12) the pupillary spinchter.

ONE OF THE MOST DISTINCTIVE aspects of Churchill’s approach to leadership was his ability to switch tracks in an instant and focus earnestly on things that any other prime minister would have found trivial. Depending on one’s perspective, this was either an endearing trait or a bedevilment.

His unpunctuality was to be a lifelong trait; even as prime minister he would arrive late or with only minutes to spare for meetings with Cabinets and monarchs and for debates in Parliament. As his exasperated wife was to say, ‘Winston always likes to give the train a sporting chance to get away.

Portentously, one of Obama’s first acts on entering the White House was to replace a bust of Winston Churchill, America’s unflagging World War II ally, with that of Abraham Lincoln. Netanyahu reentered the Prime Minister’s Office and promptly hung Churchill’s photograph on the wall behind his desk.

His unpunctuality was to be a lifelong trait; even as prime minister he would arrive late or with only minutes to spare for meetings with Cabinets and monarchs and for debates in Parliament. As his exasperated wife was to say, ‘Winston always likes to give the train a sporting chance to get away.’47

Under pressure from the Zionist movement and with support from British prime minister Winston Churchill, a Jewish Brigade Group of the British army was formed in 1944, providing the already considerable Zionist military forces with training and combat experience, offering a vital advantage in the conflict to come.

We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle, nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. “Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.” — THAT WEEKEND KING GEORGE came to a new realization. In his diary he wrote, “I could not have a better Prime Minister.

What could a Prime Minister at that time and in such desperate conditions say that was not pathetically inadequate—or even downright dangerous?” To Battersby, it typified “the uniquely unpredictable magic that was Churchill”—his ability to transform “the despondent misery of disaster into a grimly certain stepping stone to ultimate victory.

The two often sheltered from air raids in the room of another resident, Australian prime minister Menzies, whom Pamela had come to know well because of her connection to the Churchills. Menzies occupied a large suite on the Dorchester’s much-coveted first floor. The women spent nights on mattresses laid out in its windowless entry alcove. Now

There is something rather wonderful about the fact that, at a particularly perilous point in a war for the continued independent existence of the nation, the British Prime Minister could be upbraided by his wife for being short tempered; we can be fairly certain that no one was saying this to Churchill’s opposite number in the Reich Chancellery.

My own experience of the First World War, and my readings in history,’ he was later to write, ‘had convinced me that the Prime Minister should be a man who knew what war meant, in terms of the personal suffering of the man in the line, in terms of high strategy, and in terms of that crucial issue – how the generals got on with their civilian bosses.

The outside world now had proof of industrial-scale murder. Whether the world would or could act on the knowledge remained to be seen. Allied response to the reports was inadequate, on the whole. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill conceded that the persecution of Jews in Hungary ‘is probably the biggest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world.’33

Not long before her death, Mary Soames, Churchill’s last surviving child, said about her father, ‘The thing to remember is that he was a journalist.’ So he was, and in his double career as politician and journalist, the writing enriched him, with earnings far larger than even the prime minister’s salary, while also tempting him to play his habitual role as a lone wolf, free of party loyalty.

As he neared his close, he reprised the speech he had made one year earlier in his first address to the House as prime minister. “I ask you to witness, Mr. Speaker, that I have never promised anything or offered anything but blood, tears, toil and sweat, to which I will now add our fair share of mistakes, shortcomings and disappointments and also that this may go on for a very long time, at the end of which I firmly believe—though it is not a promise or a guarantee, only a profession of faith—that there will be complete, absolute and final victory.” Acknowledging that one year, “almost to a day,” had passed since his appointment as prime minister, he invited his audience to consider all that had occurred during that time. “When I look back on the perils which have been overcome, upon the great mountain waves in which the gallant ship has driven, when I remember all that has gone wrong, and remember also all that has gone right, I feel sure we have no need to fear the tempest. Let it roar, and let it rage. We shall come through.” As Churchill made his exit, the House erupted in cheers, which continued outside the chamber, in the Members’ Lobby. And then came the vote.

Winston Churchill lived here for many years. Have you heard of him?” “Wasn’t he some fat guy who owned a sweet shop?” Her eyes widened in definite horror. I laughed. “Just joking. I’m not an idiot. He was your prime minister during the Second World War. He was the one who brought in the eight-hour working day and minimum wage, and he said cool things like ‘The price of greatness is responsibility.

Back in Cairo for dinner at the Embassy with the two SAS heroes David Stirling and Fitzroy Maclean, he challenged Smuts to see who could recite the most Shakespeare. After a quarter of an hour Smuts lost, as Churchill churned on. A few minutes later, Smuts realized that his opponent was once again producing cod-Shakespeare verses that owed nothing to the Bard and everything to the Prime Minister’s imagination.

When Averell Harriman tried to console Churchill by saying that under the proportional representation system he would still have been prime minister, of a Conservative–Liberal coalition, he indignantly rejected the idea, saying, ‘I will fight against the evils of proportional representation with all my strength,’ and explained that democracy could succeed only if the people knew which party was accountable and responsible for the decisions taken in government

Stanley Baldwin, then deputy prime minister, gave the House of Commons a forecast of what was to come: “I think it is well for the man in the street to realize that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed. Whatever people may tell him, the bomber will always get through.” The only effective defense lay in offense, he said, “which means that you have to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves.

Churchill. Langdon needed a moment to realize she was referring to none other than Winston Churchill himself, the celebrated British statesman who, in addition to being a military hero, historian, orator, and Nobel Prize–winning author, was an artist of remarkable talent. Langdon now recalled Edmond quoting the British prime minister once in response to a comment someone made about religious people hating him: You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something!

On November 10, 1932, Stanley Baldwin, then deputy prime minister, gave the House of Commons a forecast of what was to come: “I think it is well for the man in the street to realize that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed. Whatever people may tell him, the bomber will always get through.” The only effective defense lay in offense, he said, “which means that you have to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves.

Neville Chamberlain's politics of appeasement were, as far as we can judge, inspired by good motives; he was probably less motivated by considerations of personal power than were many other British prime ministers, and he sought to preserve peace and to assure the happiness of all concerned. Yet his policies helped to make the Second World War inevitable, and to bring untold miseries to millions of men. Sir Winston Churchill's motives, on the other hand, were much less universal in scope and much more narrowly directed toward personal and national power, yet the foreign policies that sprang from these inferior motives were certainly superior in moral and political quality to those pursued by his predecessor. Judged by his motives, Robespierre was one of the most virtuous men who ever lived. Yet it was the utopian radicalism of that very virtue that made him kill those less virtuous than himself, brought him to the scaffold, and destroyed the revolution of which he was a leader.

Later that afternoon with the Germans already in Trafalgar Square and advancing down Whitehall to take their position in the rear, the enemy unit advancing across St. James 'Park made their final charge. Several of those in the Downing Street position were already dead... and at last the Bren ceased its chatter, its last magazine emptied. Churchill reluctantly abandoned the machine-gun, drew his pistol and with great satisfaction, for it was a notoriously inaccurate weapon, shot dead the first German to reach the foot of the steps. As two more rushed forward, covered by a third in the distance, Winston Churchill moved out of the shelter of the sandbags, as if personally to bar the way up Downing Street. A German NCO, running up to find the cause of the unexpected hold-up, recognised him and shouted to the soldiers not to shoot, but he was too late. A burst of bullets from a machine-carbine caught the Prime Minister in the chest. He died instantly, his back to Downing Street, his face toward the enemy, his pistol still in his hand.

In his essay on Clemenceau in Great Contemporaries, Churchill had commended the way the Frenchman was ‘fighting, fighting all the way’ through life.254 Over the next five months Churchill had to fight the Government whips, the Prime Minister, the press (especially The Times), Conservative Central Office, his backbench colleagues, the Security Services and his own constituency association. In some parliamentary divisions he led a party of three, and sometimes two. Yet in that same desolate period he showed the greatest moral courage of his life, and laid the foundations of his future wartime leadership.

department rejected, he claimed, because it was too simple and too much fun. It provides a schema for analyzing every story ever written, whether fiction or nonfiction. A vertical axis represents the continuum from good fortune to bad, with good at the top, bad at the bottom. The horizontal axis represents the passage of time. One of the story types that Vonnegut isolated was “Man in a Hole,” in which the hero experiences great fortune, then deep misfortune, before climbing back up to achieve even greater success. It struck me that this was a pretty good representation of Churchill’s first year as prime minister

Dwight Eisenhower, who watched Churchill at work in operational planning. “Completely devoted to winning the war and discharging his responsibility as Prime Minister of Great Britain, he was difficult indeed to combat when conviction compelled disagreement with his views. . . . He could become intensely oratorical, even in discussion with a single person, but at the same time his intensity of purpose made his delivery seem natural and appropriate. He used humor and pathos with equal facility, and drew on everything from the Greek classics to Donald Duck for quotation, cliché and forceful slang to support his position.

I conceive myself entitled to repeat, now that the results are known, the opinions which I put on record before all these battles were fought. I wrote to the Prime Minister on December 29, 1914, as follows: ‘I think it quite possible that neither side will have the strength to penetrate the other’s lines in the Western theatre… Without attempting to take a final view, my impression is that the position of both armies is not likely to undergo any decisive change.’ And in June, 1915: ‘It is a fair general conclusion that the deadlock in the West will continue for some time and the side which risks most to pierce the lines of the other will put itself at a disadvantage.

Albert Einstein, considered the most influential person of the 20th century, was four years old before he could speak and seven before he could read. His parents thought he was retarded. He spoke haltingly until age nine. He was advised by a teacher to drop out of grade school: “You’ll never amount to anything, Einstein.” Isaac Newton, the scientist who invented modern-day physics, did poorly in math. Patricia Polacco, a prolific children’s author and illustrator, didn’t learn to read until she was 14. Henry Ford, who developed the famous Model-T car and started Ford Motor Company, barely made it through high school. Lucille Ball, famous comedian and star of I Love Lucy, was once dismissed from drama school for being too quiet and shy. Pablo Picasso, one of the great artists of all time, was pulled out of school at age 10 because he was doing so poorly. A tutor hired by Pablo’s father gave up on Pablo. Ludwig van Beethoven was one of the world’s great composers. His music teacher once said of him, “As a composer, he is hopeless.” Wernher von Braun, the world-renowned mathematician, flunked ninth-grade algebra. Agatha Christie, the world’s best-known mystery writer and all-time bestselling author other than William Shakespeare of any genre, struggled to learn to read because of dyslexia. Winston Churchill, famous English prime minister, failed the sixth grade.

A big blow came in June 1962, when Churchill slipped and fell in his suite at the Hôtel de Paris. While drifting in and out of consciousness, Churchill told Montague Brown that he wanted to die in England. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dispatched an RAF Comet to bring the Great Man home. The press expected the worst. Montague Browne believed he would have to instruct the Duke of Norfolk to set Operation Hope Not—Churchill’s state funeral—in motion. On the flight to London, Churchill, heavily sedated, awoke, and muttered to Montague Browne: “I don’t think I’ll go back to that place, it’s unlucky. First Toby, and then this.” Montague Browne had forgotten Toby, the budgerigar, but Churchill had not. The body was frail, but not the wit.

First Churchill and company went to the city’s Grand Hotel. The building had survived the night’s raid unscathed, but prior raids had inflicted considerable damage. “It had a sense of lean to it, as if it needed shoring up in order to stay in business,” wrote Inspector Thompson. Churchill requested a bath. “Yes, sir!” the desk manager said brightly, as if this posed no challenge whatsoever—when, in fact, prior raids had left the hotel with no hot water. “But somehow, somewhere, in but a few minutes,” Thompson said, “an amused procession of guests, clerks, cooks, maids, soldiers, and walking wounded materialized out of some mystery in the back part of the building, and went up the stairs with hot water in all types of containers, including a garden sprinkler, and filled the tub in the Prime Minister’s room.

A socialist member from Glasgow, John McGovern, delivered the most pointed attack of the day, going so far as to criticize Churchill’s practice of visiting bombed cities. He said, “When we have got to the stage when the Prime Minister has to parade himself through every bombed area in the country, and has to sit on the back of a wagonette waving his hat on a stick like a ‘Doodles’ at the circus—well, it has come to a very sad state of affairs when representatives of the Government are not so sure of the opinions of the people of the country.” McGovern professed to have no confidence in the war or the government, adding, “And, while I have a tremendous admiration for the oratorical powers of the Prime Minister, who can almost make you believe that black is white, I have no faith in his achieving anything of lasting benefit to humanity.

Nazi aggression, one might think, should have lent support to Winston’s candidacy. At this, of all times, it seems inconceivable that Baldwin would pick a weak man to supervise the defense of England. Nevertheless, that was what he did. Baldwin said outright: “If I pick Winston, Hitler will be cross.” In his biography of Chamberlain, Keith Feiling writes that the Rhineland was “decisive against Winston’s appointment”; it was “obvious that Hitler would not like it.” As the prime minister’s heir apparent, Chamberlain encouraged Baldwin to think along these lines. He suggested that Baldwin choose a man “who would excite no enthusiasm” and “create no jealousies.” The prime minister agreed. On Saturday, March 14—exactly a week since German troops had crossed the Rhine—he announced that he was establishing, not a ministry of defense, but a ministry for coordination of defense. Its leader, the new cabinet member, would be Sir Thomas Inskip.

To the north, Winston Churchill was warning that Hitler wanted to take over the world. The new British prime minister had been saying it for years. No one had listened. Now der Führer was on the march, and France was not ready. Not the people. Not the politicians. Not the press. Not even the generals. In Paris, they said the Germans would never dare to invade France. They said the Nazis could never penetrate the Maginot Line, the twenty-five-kilometer-thick virtual wall of heavily armed and manned guard posts and bunkers and concrete tank barricades and antiaircraft batteries and minefields and all manner of other military fortifications designed to keep the Germans at bay. They’d convinced themselves Hitler would never try to move his panzer divisions through the forests of the Ardennes. Those forests were too thick, too dense, too foreboding for anyone to move tanks and mobile artillery and armored personnel carriers and other mechanized units through.

As Allied forces moved into Hitler’s Fortress Europe, Roosevelt and his circle were confronted with new evidence of the Holocaust. In early 1942, he had been given information that Adolf Hitler was quietly fulfilling his threat to “annihilate the Jewish race.” Rabbi Stephen Wise asked the President that December 1942 to inform the world about “the most overwhelming disaster of Jewish history” and “try to stop it.” Although he was willing to warn the world about the impending catastrophe and insisted that there be war crimes commissions when the conflict was over, Roosevelt told Wise that punishment for such crimes would probably have to await the end of the fighting, so his own solution was to “win the war.” The problem with this approach was that by the time of an Allied victory, much of world Jewry might have been annihilated. By June 1944, the Germans had removed more than half of Hungary’s 750,000 Jews, and some Jewish leaders were asking the Allies to bomb railways from Hungary to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. In response, Churchill told his Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, that the murder of the Jews was “probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world,” and ordered him to get “everything” he could out of the British Air Force. But the Prime Minister was told that American bombers were better positioned to do the job. At the Pentagon, Stimson consulted John McCloy, who later insisted, for decades, that he had “never talked” with Roosevelt about the option of bombing the railroad lines or death camps. But in 1986, McCloy changed his story during a taped conversation with Henry Morgenthau’s son, Henry III, who was researching a family history. The ninety-one-year-old McCloy insisted that he had indeed raised the idea with the President, and that Roosevelt became “irate” and “made it very clear” that bombing Auschwitz “wouldn’t have done any good.” By McCloy’s new account, Roosevelt “took it out of my hands” and warned that “if it’s successful, it’ll be more provocative” and “we’ll be accused of participating in this horrible business,” as well as “bombing innocent people.” McCloy went on, “I didn’t want to bomb Auschwitz,” adding that “it seemed to be a bunch of fanatic Jews who seemed to think that if you didn’t bomb, it was an indication of lack of venom against Hitler.” If McCloy’s memory was reliable, then, just as with the Japanese internment, Roosevelt had used the discreet younger man to discuss a decision for which he knew he might be criticized by history, and which might conceivably have become an issue in the 1944 campaign. This approach to the possible bombing of the camps would allow the President to explain, if it became necessary, that the issue had been resolved at a lower level by the military. In retrospect, the President should have considered the bombing proposal more seriously. Approving it might have required him to slightly revise his insistence that the Allies’ sole aim should be winning the war, as he did on at least a few other occasions. But such a decision might have saved lives and shown future generations that, like Churchill, he understood the importance of the Holocaust as a crime unparalleled in world history.*

The insensitivity of Roosevelt’s reply startled Churchill. The subtext seemed clear: Roosevelt was concerned only about assistance that would directly help sustain the safety of the United States from German attack, and cared little whether the Middle East fell or not. Churchill wrote to Anthony Eden, “It seems to me as if there has been a considerable recession across the Atlantic, and that quite unconsciously we are being left very much to our fate.” Colville noted how the accumulation of bad news that night left Churchill “in worse gloom than I have ever seen him.” Churchill dictated a reply to Roosevelt in which he sought to frame the importance of the Middle East in terms of the long-range interests of the United States itself. “We must not be too sure that the consequences of the loss of Egypt and the Middle East would not be grave,” he told Roosevelt. “It would seriously increase the hazards of the Atlantic and the Pacific, and could hardly fail to prolong the war, with all the suffering and military dangers that this would entail.” Churchill was growing weary of Roosevelt’s reluctance to commit America to war. He had hoped that by now the United States and Britain would be fighting side by side, but always Roosevelt’s actions fell short of Churchill’s needs and expectations. It was true that the destroyers had been an important symbolic gift, and that the lend-lease program and Harriman’s efficient execution of its mandate were a godsend; but it had become clear to Churchill that none of it was enough—only America’s entry into the war would guarantee victory in any reasonable period of time. One result of Churchill’s long courtship of Roosevelt, however, was that now at least the prime minister felt able to express his concerns and wishes with more candor, directly, without fear of driving America away altogether.

Germany’s rearmament was first met with a “supine”134 response from its future adversaries, who showed “little immediate recognition of danger.”135 Despite Winston Churchill’s dire and repeated warnings that Germany “fears no one” and was “arming in a manner which has never been seen in German history,” Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain saw Hitler as merely trying to right the wrongs of Versailles, and acquiesced to the German annexation of the Sudetenland at Munich in September 1938.136 Yet Chamberlain’s anxiety grew as Hitler’s decision to occupy the remainder of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 indicated his broader aims. Chamberlain asked rhetorically: “Is this the end of an old adventure, or is it the beginning of a new? Is this the last attack upon a small State, or is it to be followed by others? Is this, in fact, a step in the direction of an attempt to dominate the world by force?”137 France, meanwhile, as Henry Kissinger explains, “had become so dispirited that it could not bring itself to act.”138 Stalin decided his interests were best served by a non-aggression pact signed with Germany, which included a secret protocol for the division of Eastern Europe.139 One week after agreeing to the pact with Stalin, Hitler invaded Poland, triggering the British and French to declare war on September 3, 1939. The Second World War had begun. Within a year, Hitler occupied France, along with much of Western Europe and Scandinavia. Britain was defeated on the Continent, although it fought off German air assaults. In June 1941, Hitler betrayed Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union. By the time Germany was defeated four years later, much of the European continent had been destroyed, and its eastern half would be under Soviet domination for the next forty years. Western Europe could not have been liberated without the United States, on whose military power it would continue to rely. The war Hitler unleashed was the bloodiest the world had ever seen.

From the Author Matthew 16:25 says, “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  This is a perfect picture of the life of Nate Saint; he gave up his life so God could reveal a greater glory in him and through him. I first heard the story of Operation Auca when I was eight years old, and ever since then I have been inspired by Nate’s commitment to the cause of Christ. He was determined to carry out God’s will for his life in spite of fears, failures, and physical challenges. For several years of my life, I lived and ministered with my parents who were missionaries on the island of Jamaica. My experiences during those years gave me a passion for sharing the stories of those who make great sacrifices to carry the gospel around the world. As I wrote this book, learning more about Nate Saint’s life—seeing his spirit and his struggles—was both enlightening and encouraging to me. It is my prayer that this book will provide a window into Nate Saint’s vision—his desires, dreams, and dedication. I pray his example will convince young people to step out of their comfort zones and wholeheartedly seek God’s will for their lives. That is Nate Saint’s legacy: changing the world for Christ, one person and one day at a time.   Nate Saint Timeline 1923 Nate Saint born. 1924 Stalin rises to power in Russia. 1930 Nate’s first flight, aged 7 with his brother, Sam. 1933 Nate’s second flight with his brother, Sam. 1936 Nate made his public profession of faith. 1937 Nate develops bone infection. 1939 World War II begins. 1940 Winston Churchill becomes British Prime Minister. 1941 Nate graduates from Wheaton College. Nate takes first flying lesson. Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. 1942 Nate’s induction into the Army Air Corps. 1943 Nate learns he is to be transferred to Indiana. 1945 Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan by U.S. 1946 Nate discharged from the Army. 1947 Nate accepted for Wheaton College. 1948 Nate and Marj are married and begin work in Eduador. Nate crashes his plane in Quito. 1949 Nate’s first child, Kathy, is born. Germany divided into East and West. 1950 Korean War begins. 1951 Nate’s second child, Stephen, is born. 1952 The Saint family return home to the U.S. 1953 Nate comes down with pneumonia. Nate and Henry fly to Ecuador. 1954 The first nuclear-powered submarine is launched. Nate’s third child, Phillip, is born. 1955 Nate is joined by Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Peter Fleming and Roger Youderian. Nate spots an Auca village for the first time. Operation Auca commences. 1956 The group sets up camp four miles from the Auca territory. Nate and the group are killed on “Palm Beach”.

I suppose the Party machinery will carry everything before it, and, as heretofore, the Extremists on both sides, whether progressive or reactionary, will set the tune and collar the organization, and all we wretched, unorganized middle thinkers will either be destroyed between the contending forces, or compelled to serve in support of one disproportionate cause or the other.

Or we reference Winston Churchill, who was famously reported to have written “This is the kind of tedious/arrant nonsense up with which I will not put,” in response to an overweening staffer having removed a preposition from some of his writing. (However, as with many quotes that are purported to have originated with the former prime minister of Great Britain, the author was someone other than Churchill).*

Madam, At the conclusion of the first decade of your Reign, I would like to express to Your Majesty my fervent hopes and wishes for many happy years to come. It is with pride that I recall that I was your Prime Minister at the inception of these ten years of devoted service to our country.

Yet, some things do not change. Overall, designers have stayed with techniques that work—in different countries and historical periods. Flagg’s 'I Want You for U.S. Army' design in World War I, with 'Uncle Sam' looking directly at the viewer and pointing a finger at him, was derived from a British poster produced three years earlier; in the British poster, Secretary of State for War Lord Kitchener is pointing a finger at British males, with the words 'Wants You, Join Your Country’s Army! God Save The King.' Other countries—Italy, Hungary, Germany, Great Britain, Canada, France, the Irish Parliamentary Party, the Red Army in Russia, and later, the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War—designed similar posters. The British applied the same design idea in World War II, featuring Prime Minister Winston Churchill, instead of Kitchener, in the same pose; the U.S. Democratic Party resurrected Flagg’s Uncle Sam image, including it in an election poster for Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the decades that followed, however, anti-war protest groups issued satires of Flagg’s 'I Want You' poster, with 'Uncle Sam' in a variety of poses: pointing a gun at the audience; making the 'peace sign,' bandaged and accompanied by the slogan 'I Want Out'; as a skeleton, with a target superimposed on him; and with the 'bad breath' of airplanes dropping bombs on houses in his mouth.

During World War II pets were allowed aboard British war ships and Blackie was the HMS Prince of Wales's ship's pet cat. . In August 1941 he became famous after the ship carried Prime Minister Winston Churchill across the Atlantic to Canada where he net Franklin D. Roosevelt to agree on the Atlantic Charter. After the declaration of the Charter, as Churchill prepared to depart from the ship, Blackie approached him at the gangway and bid Prime Minister Churchill farewell. In honor of that moment Blackie was renamed Churchill. Later Blackie survived the sinking of Prince of Wales by the Imperial Japanese Naval Air Service later that year, and was rescued and taken to Singapore with the other survivors

His two brief trips to attend the party congresses in Stockholm and London in 1906 and 1907 were, by the way, his first exposures to foreign life, and it is doubtful that he spent much time outside the meeting-halls. A six-week sojourn in Cracow and Vienna at the beginning of 1913 was his only other known venture abroad before he traveled to Teheran in 1943 to confer with Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt on the war against the Axis.

Shortly before Christmas 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, at considerable personal risk, crossed the Atlantic in great secrecy to meet with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. On Christmas Eve, from a balcony at the White House, the two leaders spoke to a crowd of 20,000

Grain for the Tommies, bread for home consumption in Britain (27 million tonnes of imported grains, a wildly excessive amount), and generous buffer stocks in Europe (for yet-to-be-liberated Greeks and Yugoslavs) were Churchill’s priorities, not the life or death of his Indian subjects. When reminded of the suffering of his victims his response was typically Churchillian: The famine was their own fault, he said, for ‘breeding like rabbits’. When officers of conscience pointed out in a telegram to the prime minister the scale of the tragedy caused by his decisions, Churchill’s only reaction was to ask peevishly: ‘why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?

The British cryptographers, stationed at Bletchley Park, a Victorian redbrick, white-trimmed, and copper-roofed complex north of London, called the machine “Enigma.” Each day the enemy reset the code and each day the men at Bletchley tried to break it, often without complete success. But the Bletchley crowd decrypted enough messages often enough to give Churchill an over-the-shoulder look at German plans (except U-boat plans, for which a slightly different and more complex encoding machine was used). The Bletchley wizards tended to be young and bearded, with long hair, dirty fingernails, and disheveled clothing. When the prime minister first saw them, he remarked to their chief, “Menzies, when I told you to leave no stone unturned, I didn’t mean you to take me quite so literally.”25

He would make plans, Jock Colville recalled, but was “inclined to forget to tell any of us and then to forget himself.” He once called his military chiefs to No. 10 for a 4:00 P.M. meeting. They arrived at the appointed hour; Churchill did not. Aides were sent off to locate the prime minister. They found him “enjoying a whisky and soda in the smoking room at the House.

France was about to fall to the Germans, and Neville Chamberlain was about to resign as Prime Minister of Great Britain. He called Winston Churchill and Lord Halifax into his office. He said, “Well, one of you two will have to replace me. Who’s it going to be?” Churchill wrote, “I knew no Englishman could ever say ‘Give it to me’. So whoever spoke first would be the loser. It was the longest 30 seconds of my life, but nothing would induce me to speak.” Eventually Halifax couldn’t bear it any longer. He cracked. He said, “Well, I suppose you’d better give it to Winston.” Churchill accepted, and became Prime Minister. Imagine the course of history if Churchill had spoken first.

We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us. —Sir Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Prime Minister and painter

Winston Churchill’s own daughter Mary served on a gun site in Hyde Park, about which the prime minister remarked, “A gunner is a gunner.

The Leckwiths were excited about the Beveridge Report, a government paper that had become a bestseller. “Commissioned under a Conservative prime minister and written by a Liberal economist,” said Bernie. “Yet it proposes what the Labour Party has always wanted! You know you’re winning, in politics, when your opponents steal your ideas.” Ethel said: “The idea is that everyone of working age should pay a weekly insurance premium, then get benefits when they are sick, unemployed, retired, or widowed.” “A simple proposal, but it will transform our country,” Bernie said enthusiastically. “Cradle to grave, no one will ever be destitute again.” Daisy said: “Has the government accepted it?” “No,” said Ethel. “Clem Attlee pressed Churchill very hard, but Churchill won’t endorse the report. The Treasury thinks it will cost too much.” Bernie said: “We’ll have to win an election before we can implement it.

FOR MONTHS FOLLOWING THE AMERICANS’ DEAL WITH DARLAN, European exiles gathered at the White Tower, York Minster, and other favored restaurants and pubs in London to smoke endless cigarettes and discuss the agreement’s implications. The Free French were the ones most directly affected, of course. But the other émigrés—Norwegians, Poles, Czechoslovaks, Belgians, and Dutch—were also worried about what the deal might mean for the future. The Nazis had invaded and occupied their countries, too. When the time came for those nations to be liberated, would the Americans cooperate with traitors like Darlan? Most of the Europeans meeting over wine-stained tablecloths that winter had escaped to London in the chaos-filled spring of 1940, when German troops conquered Norway and Denmark, then rolled through France and the Low Countries. Every other day, it seemed, George VI and Winston Churchill had been summoned to one of the city’s train stations to welcome yet another king, queen, president, or prime minister. As the only country in Europe still holding out against Hitler, Britain was, as Polish troops put it, the “Last Hope Island” for émigrés who wanted to continue the fight. And London, which housed de Gaulle’s movement and six governments-in-exile, had become the de facto capital of free Europe. The

1943, it had become clear to the British, though not to their prime minister, Winston Churchill, that they would have to leave India. The only question was how soon. This was a major factor in the appointment of Taylor’s successor, an ICS officer called C. D. Deshmukh who, incidentally, occupied 1, Safdarjung Road for a while in 1950. This house, which was allotted to Indira Gandhi, in 1964, is now a museum.

Sir Winston Churchill was born into the respected family of the Dukes of Marlborough. His mother Jeanette, was an attractive American-born British socialite and a member of the well known Spencer family. Winston had a military background, having graduated from Sandhurst, the British Royal Military Academy. Upon graduating he served in the Army between 1805 and 1900 and again between 1915 and 1916. As a British military officer, he saw action in India, the Anglo–Sudan War, and the Second South African Boer War. Leaving the army as a major in 1899, he became a war correspondent covering the Boer War in the Natal Colony, during which time he wrote books about his experiences. Churchill was captured and treated as a prisoner of war. Churchill had only been a prisoner for four weeks before he escaped, prying open some of the flooring he crawled out under the building and ran through some of the neighborhoods back alleys and streets. On the evening of December 12, 1899, he jumped over a wall to a neighboring property, made his way to railroad tracks and caught a freight train heading north to Lourenco Marques, the capital of Portuguese Mozambique, which is located on the Indian Ocean and freedom. For the following years, he held many political and cabinet positions including the First Lord of the Admiralty. During the First World War Churchill resumed his active army service, for a short period of time, as the commander of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. After the war he returned to his political career as a Conservative Member of Parliament, serving as the Chancellor of the Exchequer where in 1925, he returned the pound sterling to the gold standard. This move was considered a factor to the deflationary pressure on the British Pound Sterling, during the depression. During the 1930’s Churchill was one of the first to warn about the increasing, ruthless strength of Nazi Germany and campaigned for a speedy military rearmament. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty for a second time, and in May of 1940, Churchill became the Prime Minister after Neville Chamberlain’s resignation. An inspirational leader during the difficult days of 1940–1941, he led Britain until victory had been secured. In 1955 Churchill suffered a serious of strokes. Stepping down as Prime Minister he however remained a Member of Parliament until 1964. In 1965, upon his death at ninety years of age, Queen Elizabeth II granted him a state funeral, which was one of the largest gatherings of representatives and statesmen in history.

I'm looking forward tomorrow to a peaceful Sunday spent in bed with Churchill's 'Life Of Marlborough'. Funny that he should be Prime Minister at last.

Winston Churchill was once asked to deliver a commencement speech to the boys of an old private school,” he continued, “and his message was memorable for both its truth and its brevity. The great British prime minister approached the podium, faced his audience and said: ‘This is the lesson: never give in, never give in—never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

The President certainly did not take amiss Churchill’s excitement over Mediterranean operations, or even the Prime Minister’s loyalty to a decaying British empire. Churchill was, he felt, merely misguided — the product of high Victorian imperialism

The war had left 160,000 young English widows and 300,000 fatherless children. The flower of England’s youth, its university students and recent graduates, had joined Kitchener’s armies and crossed to France, most of them as infantry lieutenants. The number of those who fell is incalculable, but some figures are suggestive. In his mindless Passchendaele offensive, Haig lost 22,316 junior officers, compared to only 6,913 Germans of similar rank. We shall never know how many potential prime ministers, cabinet ministers, poets, scientists, physicians, lawyers, professors, and distinguished civil servants perished in the mud of France and Belgium, but the conclusion is inescapable: an entire generation had lost most of its ablest men.

You know what Stanley Baldwin said about Churchill?” Baldwin, a Conservative, had been prime minister before Chamberlain. “When Winston was born, lots of fairies swooped down on his cradle with gifts—imagination, eloquence, industry, ability—and then came a fairy who said: ‘No person has a right to so many gifts,’ picked him up, and gave him such a shake and a twist that he was denied judgment and wisdom.

Before dinner each night the two leaders, Hopkins, and various other members of the president’s official family gathered for cocktails in the Red Room. Roosevelt sat by a tray of bottles and mixed the cocktails himself. This was a cherished part of the president’s daily routine, his “children’s hour,” as he sometimes called it, when he let the day’s tensions and stresses slip away. “He loved the ceremony of making the drinks,” said Churchill’s daughter Mary Soames; “it was rather like, ‘Look, I can do it.’ It was formidable. And you knew you were supposed to just hand him your glass, and not reach for anything else. It was a lovely performance.” Roosevelt did not take drink orders, but improvised new and eccentric concoctions, variations on the whiskey sour, Tom Collins, or old-fashioned. The drinks he identified as “martinis” were mixed with too much vermouth, and sometimes contaminated with foreign ingredients such as fruit juice or rum. Churchill, who preferred straight whiskey or brandy, accepted Roosevelt’s mysterious potions gracefully and usually drank them without complaint, though Alistair Cooke reported that the prime minister sometimes took them into the bathroom and poured them down the sink.

If Sunny had died without begetting an heir, Churchill would have become Duke of Marlborough, and would never have sat in the House of Commons, let alone become prime minister. As it was, he entered the Commons, where he would sit for more than sixty years.

During that century the two countries nearly went to war again at least three more times. As prime minister in the 1840s, Sir Robert Peel was acutely conscious of the American threat to Canada, and warned Parliament of possible war. This was the age of ‘manifest destiny’, which for many Americans meant their country’s destiny to rule the whole of North America, including Canada. At the 1844 presidential election James Polk and the Democrats campaigned on a bellicose platform, demanding the territory which would become the Canadian province of British Columbia, the Pacific coast from Oregon north to the 54th parallel and the border with Russian America, now Alaska: hence the unwieldy slogan ‘Fifty-four forty or fight!’ When Polk was elected, he backed off and found an easier target to the south, embarking on the Mexican–American War of 1846.

I believe in Winston’s capability if only he were a bit more steady. But you never know what kite he is going to fly next.” More bluntly, a future prime minister said of Churchill: “I think he has very unusual intellectual ability, but at the same times he seems to have an entirely unbalanced mind.” Churchill himself said, “I like things to happen, and if they don’t happen I like to make them happen.” He might have developed the point a bit further: he liked to make dangerous things happen. Fighting danger, coping with a crisis, served as a tonic, the best medicine for his internal crises—the “black dog,” the moods brought on by chronic depression. The resultant behavior made Churchill seem to many an impulsive and erratic romantic in a depressed and matter-of-fact world whose inhabitants wanted jobs and social security rather than swordplay and glory.

According to Eden’s personal secretary, Oliver Harvey, his master was ‘horrified’ by Churchill’s plan and tried to talk him out of it. He failed. In despair, he rang the US ambassador, John Winant, who, similarly taken aback, advised that such a visit would not be appropriate until the New Year at the earliest. Harvey too was appalled, noting, ‘I am aghast at the consequence of both [Churchill and Eden] being away at once. The British public will think quite rightly that they are mad.’ If Eden called off his Moscow mission, however, it would send the wrong message entirely to the Kremlin, since ‘it would be fatal to put off A.E.’s visit to Stalin to enable PM to visit Roosevelt. It would confirm all Stalin’s worst suspicions.’20 Eden persisted. He phoned the deputy prime minister, Clement Attlee, who agreed with him wholeheartedly and undertook to oppose the prime minister’s scheme at Cabinet. His objection had no effect: nothing would divert Churchill from his chosen course. When Cadogan spoke to him later that evening, to explain that Eden was ‘distressed’ at the idea of their both being out of the country at the same time, Churchill brushed him aside, saying, ‘That’s all right: that’ll work very well: I shall have Anthony where I want him.’21 Though he did not put it quite so bluntly when discussing this personally with Eden, Churchill left him in no doubt that ‘a complete understanding between Britain and the United States outweighed all else’.22 This conviction was reinforced by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and, according to the new CIGS, Brooke, the pressing need ‘to ensure that American help to this country does not dry up in consequence’.23 Eden’s opposition to Churchill’s visit had genuine diplomatic validity, but neither was he entirely disinterested, for, as Harvey put it, the prime ministerial trip would ‘take all the limelight off the Moscow visit’.24 The unfortunate Foreign Secretary was not only unwell but also disconsolate as HMS Kent set off into rising seas and darkening weather. The British party of Eden, Cadogan and Harvey, accompanied by Lieutenant General Sir Archibald Nye (the newly appointed Vice Chief of the Imperial General Staff) and a phalanx of officials, set foot on Russian soil on 13 December. Their arrival gave Cadogan (who was not a seasoned

Never give in. Never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” ~ Sir Winston Churchill Prime Minister of Great Britain during WWII

The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the Feeble-Minded and Insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate. Winston Churchill in a letter to Prime Minister Asquith, advocating the forced sterilisation of disabled people

Roosevelt, according to a story told by Hopkins, was once wheeled into Churchill’s bedroom just as the prime minister was emerging from his bath, stark naked. The president, flustered, told his attendant to back him out of the room, but Churchill theatrically declared, “The Prime Minister of Great Britain has nothing to conceal from the President of the United States.

As Prime Minister, I instruct you to proceed with all speed with the development of this excellent weapon. As First Lord of the Treasury, I authorise expenditure of £5,000 on this work to tide you over until proper financial arrangements are made.

In two or three years time, you will have completed the most sweeping change this country has seen in decades and your place in history will be rivalled in this century only by Churchill. Thus writes Charles Powell, Thatcher's private secretary after her third election victory in June 1987, a feat which, to this day, no other British Prime Minister has accomplished.  

Churchill privately expressed his doubts about the Prime Minister. In particular, he wrote, he worried over Asquith’s nighttime drinking.

and Winston Churchill, who succeeded Chamberlain as prime minister, was perhaps the most ardent Zionist in British public life.

In both World Wars Britain had powerful and self-willed Prime Ministers in Mr. Lloyd George and Sir Winston Churchill. It is to their credit that they selected equally powerful and capable Army Chiefs in Generals Robertson and Lord Alanbrooke. Alanbrooke is the beau-ideal of a great Chief of Staff and is the type of man and officer required to shield the Army from any misuse of the temporary power bestowed on the political head, or to resist the imposition of impossible military tasks. Churchill and Alanbrooke worked that most misused term Civil Supremacy in the correct and healthy way, although their personal relations were not always cordial. They led Britain from the despondency of Dunkirk in 1940 to the final Allied victories in 1945.

The prime minister’s daughter, Violet Asquith—now Violet Bonham-Carter after marriage—later

In 1942 and 1943, as India produced food and manufactured goods for the British war effort, food shortages emerged. Food imports could have alleviated the crisis, but Prime Minister Winston Churchill refused to allow it. Why? “Much of the answer must lie in the Malthusian mentality of Churchill and his key advisors,” concludes historian Robert Mayhew. “Indians are breeding like rabbits and being paid a million a day by us for doing nothing about the war,” Churchill claimed, falsely. Partly as a result of his decisions, three million people died in the Bengali famine of 1942 to 1943, which was three times the death toll of the Great Irish Famine.55

What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who live in it after we are gone? —Winston Churchill, former prime minister of the United Kingdom