Letter to the Editor, WSJ (if anybody sees it in print, let me know; not holding breath)
FYI: Noonan's article is at https://www.wsj.com/articles/england-needs-a-slap-and-so-does-china-11560465724 ---------- A fine writer like Peggy Noonan should not blithely repeat such empty canards about Winston Churchill as she offered on June 15th ("England Needs a Slap, and So Does China.") Churchill had flaws, but he did not write "a masterpiece of the English language while drunk." Nor is it true that he "went to war hung over." His alcoholic capacity was considerable, and he fanned the image. But his legendary highball was a tumbler of water with an ounce of of whisky, "Scotch-flavored mouthwash." His champagne was diluted by stretching his habitual pint over a three hour dinner. One doesn't conduct 900 meetings of the War Cabinet and Defense Committee drunk. In forty years of research I found just one instance where anyone found him the worse for drink. That was at Teheran in 1943, when a bodyguard helped him back to the British Embassy after a late night of toasts with the Russians. Even then, he said, "the PM was still walking, and upright." Ms. Noonan is right to say that Boris Johnson is not Churchill. (Perhaps there should be an article, "Stop Comparing Churchill to *Everybody." *No one else served in four wars and wrote five books by age 25, held all but one major office of state, was twice prime minister, wrote 50 books and won a Nobel Prize.) That makes him quite *incomparable*, despite the ignorant plaints of muckraking authors and social media. Ms. Noonan is not among those. Respectfully Richard Langworth Richard M Langworth CBE Senior Fellow, Hillsdale College Churchill Project winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu Moultonborough, New Hampshire richardlangworth.com -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/churchillchat/fa1289ae-3c9e-4b1d-9644-3800af6bc4e5%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
