Vic Socotra

26 January 2009

Sending Winston Home

(Jacob Epstein Bust of Churchill- 1946)

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.”
- Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

You don’t have to forgive me, and I wouldn’t ask for it anyway, but I confess I am slipping my moorings. There are whispers in the paper this morning that we are about to nationalize the banks. The flurry of Executive Orders is impressive.

The new President is empowering the States to go their own way on vehicle emissions, since they are more progressive than what the federal government can offer. We appear to be on the brink of enshrining the fight against carbon dioxide as a foe at least as significant as al Qaida, even as troubling analysis of climatic data suggests the famous “hockey stick” graph of global warming could be bunk.

In fact, we could be headed for a new Ice Age. I am confused and uncertain.

Winston Churchill is being cast out of the Oval Office, to, and that troubles me.
There is a story going around that the new President is doing it because Winston was responsible for imposing martial law in Kenya, during this last stint as Prime Minister. Putting down the Mau Mau rebellion was a priority; the rebels took it personally, and even wrote a letter threatening the life of Winston’s wife Clementine.

President Obama is connected to the struggle through his paternal grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama. He had been an imperial soldier, serving in the China-Burma-Indian Theater during the second war, when Winston was Prime Minister for the struggle against Fascism. As with many veterans, he returned home with aspirations of the end of empire. The British showed no signs of leaving East Africa, even as they quit India.

The people can be fickle. In the moment of triumph, Winston was turned out of 10 Downing Street as Britain confronted a peace that was thin and hungry. Winston had famously observed in 1942 that he “(had) not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.”

The Labour Government of Clement Attlee was elected in 1945 to deal with the dislocation of British society, and was prepared to do exactly that.

The President’s grandfather became involved in the Mau Mau independence movement, and was arrested as early as 1949, probably on charges of membership of a banned organization and sedition. He was held in a camp for two years, right up to Winston’s return to power in 1951, the year I was born.

Maybe that accounts for my fondness for the old man. His second stint as Prime Minister can be called the last thousand days of the Empire, and culminated in the rise of Nasser in Egypt. He was in retirement for the Suez Canal Crisis that effectively ended it.

The last unashamed Imperialist is not universally beloved. It is said that he is more popular here in the United States than he is at home in Britain for precisely that reason. I know he is reviled in parts of the old Empire; the Aussies will never forgive him for the slaughter of the ANZAC brigade at Gallipoli, which was Churchill’s folly. A trip to the War Museum in Canberra will show you why.

The figure of the indomitable Winston leading a Britain that stood alone is the one we hold here in America, that and his speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, that announced the falling of Iron Curtain “from Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste, on the Adriatic” and the effective commencement of the Cold War.

That may account for President Bush’s admiration for Mr. Churchill. Obviously, the President took a personal interest in modeling himself on the PM, and it started long before the 9/11 attacks that defined his presidency. That is how the controversy began.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is at the heart of it. George Bush, a fan of Churchill, who once described him as “the best example of how individuals can shape history.”

Describing the Oval Office a couple years ago, as best as Mr. Bush can remember, he “casually mentioned to the Ambassador, right after my swearing-in, that I lamented the fact that there was not a proper bust of Winston Churchill for me to put in the Oval Office. He's a man of great action.”

The request was passed along to Whitehall, where Labour PM Tony Blair decided that he had just the answer. A bust of Winston sculpted in 1946 by expatriate American Jacob Epstein was dispatched on his authority and the Department for Culture, Media & Sport, In July of 2001, the bronze bust was enshrined in the Oval Office near where the President liked his fresh flowers and favorite West Texas paintings.

If it had not been for the 9/11 attacks, and the Iraq war, the appropriation of the mantle of Churchill would probably not have come up. You can understand why. Tony Blair was among the most popular of Prime Ministers right up through the start of the Iraq War, but once he joined President Bush in solidarity, his ratings plunged.

Dark stories began to circulate about his relationship with the Americans, and he was termed the “President’s lap dog.” The bust became a part of a political rugby match, in which he was seen to be giving away Britain’s national heritage in subservience to the cowboy President.

In point of fact, there had been no precedent for the loan of cultural objects to foreign heads of state, though there is apparently no prohibition, either. The loan of the bust is subject to a loan agreement between the DCMS and the Curator of the White House. Under the terms of this agreement, the bust was lent for the term of office of President G.W. Bush. When the President was elected for his second and final term, the loan was extended until January 2009. Legal title to the bust remains with the Queen throughout the period of its loan to the White House. The loan agreement dictates that the bust will return to what remains of the United Kingdom in January 2009, the end of President Bush’s term of office.

So, in brief, the President's Grandfather has nothing to do with the dismissal of Winston’s latest service in Washington. It might be an issue if President Obama were to decide to ask for it to stay, and adopt the mantle of the bulldog against adversity. It appears that the long coat of Mr. Lincoln is a better fit for the new President, and the matter is moot.

There is a plaque in the west entrance to Westminster Abbey. I have walked by it several times; my comings and goings to the great capital city have sometimes come when the city was still sleeping, and the great church and its grounds were the only things open.

The stone is dedicated to Winston, but he is not under it; you will find him in the Bladon churchyard near Blenheim Palace, where he was born. The green marker was dedicated on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Battle of Britain, the finest hour of a man and a nation.

The text is simple, in accordance with the wishes of the Queen and Parliament:

REMEMBER
WINSTON
CHURCHILL

He is leaving by the end of the month. The Mau Mau’s have nothing to do with his latest travel. He is just going home, where circumstances may warrant his presence. Winston had many quotations, but the one that seems to apply the best this morning is one that President Obama might find useful:

“If you are going to go through hell, keep going.”

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