I have read every book there is to learn about Winston Churchill, one of the most inspiring and essential figures in the history of Western Civilization.

This week, I wondered what would have happened to my family and me and the rest of the world if he wasn’t around when we needed him. I need to write about it.

What was it, I wonder, that I loved so much about Churchill, one of the earth’s great leaders? I guess it was his eloquence, his courage, his brilliant ability to see reality and the future, his fantastic sense of history.

Perhaps it was quotes like this: “If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

Earlier this week,  I watched the news on my phone.  I had this dream. At least it started as a dream and then turned out to be more real than I might have imagined, and my mind carried it to a different place.

I see what it was I loved so much about Churchill. I understand now why he was such a great and towering figure in the history of Democracy, the still radical idea of freedom, even here in the birthplace of democracy.

Part of this post is a dream, but the scary part is that so much of it wasn’t. I should say that every one of these quotes are real; they were each spoken by an influential leader.

But Winston Churchill didn’t say them. A different influential leader did in 2019. Most will be familiar to you, but it won’t take long to figure it out in either case.

Here goes:

It was 1939, and Hitler had just invaded Czechoslovakia, and the world was getting darker. Winston Churchill invited Hitler to sit down and talk. They had lunch in Germany. Nobody else was allowed to sit in on their meeting.

When Churchill got back to London, he called a press conference.

“Well,” he said of Hitler, “he is very talented. Anybody who takes over a situation as he did and is able to run it and run it tough – I don’t say it’s nice, but he ran it. Very few people of that age – you can take one of 10,000 probably couldn’t do it.”

Churchill said he was inviting Hitler to next year’s United Nations Conference On Peace and Freedom. “We have a great friendship,” he said. Some of the reporters in the room were shocked.

There were some gasps from the journalists, although the vast crowds listening outside on Trafalgar Square were cheering wildly.

Finally, a leader who told it like it us. Someone to follow.

So what was he like? reporter asked.

“Great personality and very smart, ” said Churchill. “Good combination. He’s a worthy negotiator. He’s negotiating on behalf of his people, a very worthy negotiator, very smart negotiator, absolutely. And we had a terrific day, and we learned a lot about each other and our countries. I learned that he is a very talented man. I also learned that he loves his country very much.”

But what about his invasion and annexation of Czechoslovakia, asked a reporter before Churchill told him to shut up and get out?

“When I went to Berlin for a conference,” Churchill said, “Hitler contacted me and was so nice. I mean, the German people were so fantastic to us … I’ll just say this, they are doing – they’re outsmarting us at many turns, as we all understand. I mean, their leaders are, whether you call them smarter or more cunning or whatever, but they’re outsmarting us. If you look at Czechoslovakia or other places, they’re outsmarting us.”

The Prime Minister said he and Hitler were now friends. “we write beautiful letters to each other. Invading Czechoslovakia isn’t such a bad thing, a lot of people there wanted it. I’d rather have Hiter inside the tent than outside looking in. We’ll make a deal, and it will be the best deal….”

Churchill said all the hysteria about Hitler was just “fake news. Next month, we’re getting together in Munich. It will be the best deal anyone ever made. You reporters probably want me to fail, because you’ll do anything to stop me, you’re disgusting, the real enemy of the people. But I’m a winner, I never fail.”

But, protested one reporter nervously, “what about reports that he means to conquer the world and destroy England, that he sends spies here to interfere with our elections and undermine our democracy;  that he’s slaughtering Jews and innocents and political opponents?”

Churchill rolled his eyes and wagged his finger and took a puff on his cigar: “Every time I see him, he says, ‘I didn’t do that,” and I believe…he means it”

Hopefully, added the Prime Minister, “maybe he’ll be a friend. It could happen, but I don’t know him very well yet. Look, it would be much easier for me to be tough on Hitler, but then we’re not going to make a deal. There are a lot of killers. Do you think our country is so innocent?”

That is the end of my dream, or perhaps it is better described as a nightmare.

___

And here is another Winston Churchill quote that is real:

“Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. There will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.” 

Churchill’s words help me to understand what it means to be tough, what it means to have a tenacity for right and an unyielding and uncompromising contempt for evil, even it makes a good and profitable deal impossible. I have no interest in telling other people what to believe. We all have to get to the truth by ourselves, and by our lights.

I need to understand why I am so grateful it was Churchill who dealt with a dangerous world in 1939, and why I admire him so much. We all have to make up our minds.

I value truth and words; they are my grounding and my guide. His words sing to me of virtue and strength.