It is an admittedly easier task to criticize the work of an off-beat crank than that of someone who has many redeeming qualities and resonant opinions. I certainly like much of what Patrick Buchanan has said and done over the years - from those long-ago days as a Nixon staffer, to his work for Ronald Reagan, to his various media incarnations. So, I found myself mildly dreading the arrival of his latest book: CHURCHILL, HITLER, and THE UNNECESSARY WAR: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World.
I was right to be concerned in advance. The book didn’t let me down, and it certainly didn’t lift me up.
In the interest of full disclosure and complete candor, I need to say up front that I am, and have been as long as I can remember, an unreformed and unapologetic Churchillophile. Therefore, I tend to recoil when confronted with Buchanan’s broadsides like:
“There has arisen among America’s elite a Churchill cult. Its acolytes hold that Churchill was not only a peerless war leader but a statesman of unparalleled vision whose life and legend should be the model for every statesman.”
I guess I should at least find some comfort in the idea that I may now be considered part of America’s elite.
You don’t have to plunge too deeply into Pat’s prose to figure out that there’s some not-so-subtle psychological projection going on in the book. Here’s the interpretive key: when he says WINSTON CHURCHILL, he really means GEORGE W. BUSH. It’s that simple.
Have you seen the news about recent grave-flipping? Well, it should be in all the papers, because some great men who helped Pat Buchanan along and mentored him, men no doubt still admired by him, have been slightly quickened six feet under. They are eternal card-carrying members of the Churchill cult.
Richard Nixon gave Mr. Buchanan his start in national politics. He plucked the young journalist from a newspaper job in St. Louis to become part of the embryonic presidential campaign team in 1965 working out of the former Vice-President’s New York law firm.
Nixon admired Winston Churchill very much. In fact, during the early days of the Nixon-Buchanan relationship, RN was himself being inspired by the mysterious wonders of Winnie’s cult. Years after leaving the White House, he wrote of his own wilderness years – those between the 1962 California gubernatorial loss and his eventual election to the presidency in 1968 – and of how he identified with Mr. Churchill: “After eight years of wandering in the wilderness – at the age of sixty-five, when most men were contemplating retirement – he was called back into office to lead Britain in its darkest hour. His brilliant leadership in World War II prompted Isaiah Berlin to acclaim him ‘a mythical hero who belongs to legend as much as to reality, the largest human being of our time.’”
Then there’s Ronald Reagan, another restless sleeper these days. Pat Buchanan was a big fan of the Gipper and he constantly applauded the 40th president for his Cold War bravado. Well…sorry Pat, but Reagan was another big fan of the man from Chartwell. He regularly drew strength from Churchill’s wisdom and wit and often told stories like the one he shared during a speech in 1987:
“Winston Churchill was once asked, ‘Doesn’t it thrill you, Mr. Churchill, to know that every time you make a speech, the hall is packed to overflowing?’ ‘It’s quite flattering,’ Winston replied, ‘but whenever I feel this way, I always remember that if instead of making a political speech I was being hanged, the crowd would be twice as big.’”
Of course, as that piece of self-deprecating humor indicates, Mr. Churchill was not admired by all during his life, and his modern-day cult does not boast universal membership. He was a polarizing figure throughout his storied career. He frustrated any attempts to put him – or keep him – in any political box.
But the one thing that hindsight tells us is that he was the right man, at the right time, for the right job. And he knew it long before most others caught up to the idea. Patrick Buchanan reminds us that some remain enduringly behind that curve. Usually though, Churchill’s critics tend to be from the left side of the political spectrum. His status as a conservative icon is rarely challenged by insiders. This is one aspect of the book I found to be very disappointing. Continued... |