On Saturday, September 7, 2013 1:32:01 AM UTC-4, Grimsdyke wrote: > > Folks, have any of you seen this?: > http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/churchill_gathering_storm_01.shtml > > I think it is disgraceful that an organisation such as the BBC, with a > venerable reputation (largely unmerited, in my opinion) for unbiased > reporting and for the high standards of its documentaries, should be > peddling this opinion of John Charmley's as the 'official version' of > Churchill and his record. We all know Charmley as one of Churchill's > 'revisionist' detractors; and although he has an historian's credentials, > his work rubs shoulders with outstanding scoundrels of the ilk of David > Irving - whose Nazi views and rabid hatred of Churchill are well known. > Charmley may not have such politically-based grounds for his > barely-dignified satirising of Churchill, but that doesn't alter the fact > that his is decidedly a minority opinion. I have read more than 40 > biographies and histories of Churchill and his times - many by historians > of unquestionable stature. But never have I seen the kind of smearing and > smirching that Charmley launches against WSC; indeed quite the opposite. > > I have written to the BBC protesting against its promotion of Charmley's > views in this way. I think it is a knowingly mischievous attempt to > calumniate Churchill, and to dress the calumny up as 'authorised history'. > Most people who visit the BBC website, who are either of recent generations > who are increasingly losing touch with those times, or belong to lands > whose association with WW2 was either remote or adverse to the Allies. They > can scarcely be blamed if they come to believe - en masse - that Winston > Churchill was a despicable, devious glory-hunter who distorted history for > his own ends: they will have as their warrant the promulgation of precisely > that view of Churchill by what would seem to be one of the foremost British > media organisations for the dissemination of disinterested information. > > The Charmley BBC article is nearly three years old. His thesis is even older. It was exhaustively explored and debated by Larry Arnn, Manfred Weidhorn, this writer, and John Charmley himself in *Finest Hour* 79-81 in 1993 and *FH* 83 in 1994. Those interested may read these entertaining articles, letters and reviews on the Centre website (click “publications”) and draw their own conclusions.
It is well to note that the dispute centered upon only a few pages in his *Churchill: The End of Glory*, where Charmley made mainly the same arguments in his BBC article as reasons for Britain but to back away from the Hitler war (he did not say surrender) when Russia was attacked—which is hardly a view confined to Nazis. Quite a few patriotic Britons held it...and some still hold it. Overall Charmley’s book was well researched and fresh, and he came away, he admitted, with grudging admiration for WSC, even while disputing Churchill’s positions. His second book, *Churchill’s Grand Alliance,* is painfully frank about postwar Anglo-American relations, and deserves serious attention by those interested in the facts. The point is that John Charmley is no Nazi apologist, no Churchill hater, and no regurgitator of long-disproven fantasies or out-of-context quotations--like certain more recent writers who are far more worthy of condemnation. He made a scholarly case for his points of view—but those of us who know better should be confident enough to know why they don't hold water. Incidentally, the empty notion that Churchill changed his tune on Hitler was refuted in “Did Churchill Ever Admire Hitler?,” *Finest Hour* 156 (Autumn 2012), which also published Ronald Cohen's comparative texts of Churchill’s 1935 and 1937 Hitler articles. Of course that appeared eighteen months after Prof. Charmley’s BBC article. For a copy, check the website or contact me offline. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
