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A Symbol of Hope
The Last Statesman
Wanted: Dead or Alive
Self-Made Renaissance Man
Destiny's Child
Winston's Folly
A Symbol of Hope

By Michael Perkins, Club Historian
Co-author of The Internet Bubble: The Inside Story of Why it Burst and What You Can Do to Profit Now"

Winston Churchill once said: "Worry is a spasm of the imagination. The mind seizes hold of something and simply cannot let it go." Churchill understood such anxiety, as well as depression-what he called his 'black dog"-because he had to face these things down and conquer them, especially during what historians call his "wilderness years" between the two world wars. Traveling through this political wilderness-ostracized, ignored, isolated, sometimes jeered at in Parliament during his speeches as a so-called backbencher, excluded from the cabinet posts he so richly deserved- Churchill showed a rare courage in the midst of circumstances that would have driven others to despair.

Meanwhile Churchill's imagination, informed by his intuition, gave him a grasp of events that others could not or would not see, and thus allowed him to transcend the myopia of the moment. He approached problems in a fresh way that many of his more jaded contemporaries had long since forgotten-namely with a mixture of innocence and experience that in the genius amounts to a kind of second sight. Churchill put into practice a challenge expressed by one of his literary mentors, Mark Twain, who said: "how can one hope to see if one's imagination is out of focus?"

It was Twain who also said: "Don't part with your dreams. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live." One was not merely to exist, but, whatever one's occupation, one's calling, one's walk in life, to make a difference. "It is no use saying," Churchill stated, "we are doing our best; you have to succeed in doing what is necessary and to strive for nobler causes and make this world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone."

Obviously Churchill is one who practiced what he preached. But it's worth remembering that he was not particularly sexy by current celebrity standards. At the conclusion of WWII, one observer described him as "A short, bald-headed, cigar-smoking man, who was an effusively tender husband, a politician who reveled in battle, and a speaker who was openly infatuated with the English language." In his humanness and his need to overcome the worries and trials of life, Churchill was as ordinary as any of us, yet in his personal triumph over these problems he was as extraordinary as any of us can hope to be.

Copyright October, 2001, Michael Perkins

The Last Statesman

By Michael Perkins, Club Historian

Co-author of the Silicon Valley insider novel/thriller A Cool Billion

"A weaker man than Churchill might have capitulated to the threat [of Hitler]. His refusal to contemplate surrender elevates him to a status unique among champions of freedom. Churchill was the Western world's last great hero," wrote British historian John Keegan. Arguably Churchill was not only the last great hero, but also the last great statesman.

Churchill had genuine principles and the courage to act on them. And even as some politicians today feel compelled to exaggerate, embellish and even lie about their achievements, Churchill's were real. Winston could genuinely claim to have been a soldier, writer, parliamentarian, cabinet member, orator, historian, foreign policy analyst, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, knight, and of course, prime minister. At the outset of his career he took to heart the advice of an early mentor who told him: "What people really need to hear is the truth, so speak the simple truth."

As a master of the English language, Churchill was always clear. While some indulge in techno-speak mumbo jumbo-discursive, pedantic, and abstract-Churchill insisted on getting to the point. Not for him were 200-page policy tomes which according to Winston "defend themselves against being read." As prime minister, Churchill required that all proposals be presented to him on a half-page sheet of paper. If the proposer couldn't do this, then it meant he wasn't clear in his own mind what he was proposing.

And while some politicians are didactic, self-righteous and arrogant, even as they grope toward the obvious, in contrast, Churchill was poetic and inspirational. It's hard to imagine a modern policy wonk talking in terms of "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" or declaring: "We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire...give us the tools, and we will finish the job." Winston spoke to people's hearts; he encouraged and inspired.

Churchill also had the advantage of a rare personality that the psychologist Jung called the "extrovertive intuitive". He had a keen nose for things in the bud and displayed flashes of deep insight. Thus he could act as Cassandra for Great Britain, warning the nation of Germany's growing military might. Yet after taking the reins as prime minister, Churchill could also inspire his fellow-citizens to their "finest hour" in resisting the German threat.

Far from providing a model of public service that is old-fashioned, Churchill's life and career provide an example of a true leader. He had courage, boldness, intellect, shrewdness, and charisma, all grounded on a deep sense of purpose. He was indeed the western world's last statesman.

Copyright December, 2000, Michael Perkins

Wanted: Dead or Alive

By Michael Perkins, Club Historian

Co-author of the Silicon Valley insider novel A Cool Billion

Wanted for arrest: Englishman 25 years old, about 5 ft. 8 in. tall, average build, walks with a slight stoop, pale appearance, red brown hair, almost invisible mustache, speaks through the nose, cannot pronounce the letter "S," cannot speak Dutch. Has last been seen in a brown suit of clothes. 25 pound reward.

In her book Churchill: Wanted Dead or Alive, (Carroll & Graf, 1999) Winston Churchill's granddaughter Celia Sandys recounts the events in 1899 during the Boer War that brought about Winston's wanted poster.

The adventure began when an armored train Churchill was riding on crashed into some boulders placed on the tracks by the Boers. Immediately Winston sprang into action directing, for over an hour, both the defense of the train and the effort to clear the track. Once the engine was freed, Churchill rode it to safety, taking with him about 50 men, most of them wounded. He returned to the crash site to offer more assistance, only to be confronted by some Boer soldiers.

In his memoir, My Early Life, Churchill writes: "My mind retains this impression of these tall figures, full of energy, clad in dark, flapping clothes, with slouch, storm-driven hats, poising on their levelled rifles hardly a hundred yards away." Churchill tried to escape, but eventually, cornered, alone, and unarmed, he had to surrender. He was taken to a prison camp known as the States Model School.

He did not adjust well to prison life, and immediately began plotting his escape. Eventually he made it over the wall. He stowed away on a train to get out of Pretoria. After sleeping for awhile, he jumped from the train into a ravine. He made his way to a village where, exhausted and hungry, he sought help by selecting a house at random that turned out to be pro-British. Churchill was hidden in a mine shaft until he could be smuggled on to a train with a shipment of wool and transported into neutral Portugese-controlled territory.

Having arrived safely, Churchill found his way to the British Consulate and then on to a steamer bound for the British port of Durban. At Durban, Churchill was greeted by a cheering crowd waving flags and a band playing an upbeat tune. An admiral and a general stepped forward to congratulate him. Winston was swept up on the shoulders of the ecstatic crowd and carried to the steps of the town hall where a speech was called for.

The headlines and news stories about Churchill's escape that were published across the British empire marked the beginning of his political career, as he rode the goodwill of the nation into his first seat in Parliament at the age of 25.

Copyright July, 2000, Michael Perkins

Self-Made Renaissance Man

By Michael Perkins, Club Historian

Co-author of the Silicon Valley insider novel A Cool Billion

Churchill the wartime leader was also a self-made Renaissance man. In retrospect, the seeds of the mature statesman were evident even in the pale, frail-looking Harrow schoolboy who took up fencing at age 12. In league competitions he crossed foils with boys from Eton and a number of other prep schools and beat them all. His victories, his school newspaper reported, "were chiefly due to his quick and dashing attack which quite took his opponents by surprise." In spite of such promise, most of Winston's lifetime achievements were not merely a matter of natural talent. Randolph Churchill wrote of his father, "He had to fight every inch of his road through life; nothing came easily for him, not even oratory and writing, in which he was later to excel. To achieve success, he had to develop intense powers of concentration."

Part of Churchill's development process was to put himself through a course of self-education "He read," said his friend Lady Violet Bonham-Carter, "as the hungry eat, neither from habit nor from duty, but from need." And his passion for reading soon turned into a passion for writing that eventually led to a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. Each writing project he undertook consumed him. "Writing a book is an adventure," Churchill said, "To begin with it is a toy and an amusement, and then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then it becomes a tyrant, and the last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling it out to the public."

Eventually Churchill balanced the intense intellectual labor of writing, and the stress and strain of political life, by taking up oil painting at age 40. He brought to it his usual panache, working quickly and decisively, slapping on the oils in a striking impressionist style. "I cannot pretend to be impartial about the colors," Churchill said. "I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns." Likewise his own life was without browns or shades of gray, but largely cast in the brighter palette of a true Renaissance man.

Copyright May, 2000, Michael Perkins

Destiny's Child

By Michael Perkins, Club Historian

Co-author of The Internet Bubble (HarperBusiness)

From an early age Winston Churchill always believed in his own destiny. While serving in the elite Fourth Hussars cavalry regiment in India he wrote to his mother in 1897, "I have faith in my star, that I am intended to do something in the world." The fact that he survived many exposures to enemy fire only reinforced this assumption.

But by the 1920s in the aftermath of the costly Great War (WWI) Churchill was experiencing his "wilderness years" during which he was voted out of office, lost his personal fortune in the 1929 stock market crash, was hit by a car, bickered constantly with his son, and was consigned to political Hades over the India issue. Well into his 40s, it looked as if Churchill's career was over. He had to struggle to hold his depression ("the black dog") at bay. Politically isolated and frustrated, Churchill was regarded by his peers as a gifted eccentric who had never fully lived up to his youthful promise. The highly perceptive British journalist Harold Begbie wrote of Churchill in 1921:

"Here is a man of truly brilliant gifts, but you cannot depend upon him. His love for danger runs away with his discretion...His power is the power of gifts, not character. Men watch him, but they do not follow him...His faults are chiefly the effects of a forcible and impetuous temperament...All Mr. Churchill needs is the direction in his life of a great idea. That is to say to be saved from himself, he must be carried away by some great ideal [and] to face death for its triumph...It must have everything to do with the salvation of mankind."

Indeed this time would come when Churchill became England's Prime Minister in 1940 at age 65. After he accepted the job he wrote: "I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial." Destiny's child had finally come into his full purpose.

Copyright March, 2000, Michael Perkins

Winston's Folly

By Michael Perkins, Club Historian

Co-author of The Internet Bubble (HarperBusiness)

Although known for his command of the English language and Nobel prize-winning works of history, Winston Churchill also had a deep interest in science and technology. In fact, Churchill was the father of the tank-dubbed "Winston's Folly" by his detractors-that would have broken the costly deadlock of trench warfare during World War I had it been implemented godspeed. During World War II Winston promoted several technologies that actually did make a difference in time, including a device called "window" which was used to confuse enemy radar signals, a pipeline under the ocean dubbed "pluto," and the development of artificial harbors deployed at the Normandy invasion at the end of the war. Churchill teamed up with Dr. Frederick Lindemann ("the Prof") to organize a comprehensive aerial defense system utilizing the recently developed radar technology to protect Britain from the air-bombings by the German Luftwaffe. Winston was also on the cutting edge of undersea warfare by exploiting sonar to track German submarines. Once considered a fool, Winston proved to be wiser than the wise. As Churchill said himself,

"Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others."

Copyright January, 2000, Michael Perkins

 
 
           
 
 
 
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