Winston Churchill's War Leadership

April 15, 2004
Invited to lecture at the White House in February 2002, Gilbert, known as Winston Churchill's official biographer, hopes this commentary "can be of service" to the leaders of the war on terror. Whether George W. Bush and Tony Blair have been consciously imitating Churchill will be left for future historians to discover; Gilbert, for his part, cautions that "Churchill's war leadership can have no parallel," except during a war conducted on the scale of World War II. Caveat announced, Gilbert proceeds point by point to Churchill's direction of affairs, of which his celebrated speeches and buoyancy in public (depicted in the author's photo album " Churchill at War" [BKL F 15 04]) was only one praiseworthy aspect. Above all, Gilbert credits Churchill's refusal to deal with Hitler in 1940 and rates highly as well Churchill's articulation of the war's aim as the defense of democracy. Beneath the public plane, Churchill's day-to-day activity (such as attending to intelligence and logistical details) was, according to Gilbert, equally integral to his leadership.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)