>> rose: welcome to the program. this evening we talk about winston churchill. there's a new exhibit at theqg5ñ morgan library called "the power of words." we talk this evening with celia sandys, david reynolds, peter clarke and lord alan watson. the man and the legend. winston churchill. >> there's a sense in which churchill is a military leader. he wants to be a military leader. he rises to that challenge in 1940 in a way that none of the other politicians really can do or want to do. of course, what churchill really wants to do is run the whole war. he wants to be general. he's a man of enormous kurnl, he'd love to be in the front line but what's tremendously important is you have a man who understands the power of words but also understands and almost relishes the possibility of a fight. >> his politics writing, as he

always said himself, was his profession. and the two things add up because when he looks back from his 80th birthday and complimented on his great speeches of the war he says to the combined houses of parliament, he says "you must remember, if i found the words, i have always earned my living by my pen and by my tongue." >> whenever he needed money he'd write an article, start a book, do something which is why, at the end of the war, when he hadn't been able to do any of that and there was no pay so he wasn't earning any money at all but he had to put his beloved house up for sale because he was bankrupt. the duke of wellington got number one london. the duke of mortar borrow got glenen palace and he got bankruptcy. >> he had physical guts but he also had an acute awareness of who he was, the family he came from and i always remember some years ago going to blen ham with a group of german

parliamentarians. >> rose: this is the family home. >> where he was born. and the german member of parliament had never been to blenham before and he turned to me and said "if adolf hitler had known winston churchill was born here i don't think he ever would have gone to war." (laughter) >> rose: winston churchill for the hour. next.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose.

>> rose: winston churchill is recognized as one of the greatest stateman of all time. in 1954 edward. are morrow, the cbs newsman said he mobilized the english language and sent it into battle. president kennedy liked the quote so much he used it as his own. that was 1963 when he granted winston churchill honorary citizenship of the united states. new york's morgan library has an exhibition about churchill which runs until mid-september. >> pierpont morgan was a friend of churchill's mother and it's likely that winston on one of his many strips to the united states would have visited this library we're joined by alan packwood, the direct overof the churchill centre. he's got an exhibition called winston churchill, the power of woods. >> what you're looking at are

two images taken by a famous photographer on december 30, 1941. winston churchill had just addressed the canadian parliaments and he was looking for a drink, perhaps also for a cigar and what he found instead a photographer waiting for him. and more than that, because the photographer insisted on removing churchill's cigar and then photographed the ensuing scowl and it's clear that a few moments later the7n$l british pe minister lightened up and smiled for the camera. >> which one due do you think is truest of the real churchill? >> i think they captured two facets of churchill and it's two facets that we emphasize within the exhibition here. you've got the public figure: resolute, defiant. then you've got the private man. the man behind the myth. >> it's just wonderful to be bringing churchill back to new york. this was the city in which his mother was born. this was the american city that he visited more than any other. >> what you're looking at here is the grant of honoring u.s.

citizenship to churchill winston churchill and you've got the citation signed by president clinton... president kennedy and the u.s. passport which winston churchill never used. >> so as much churchill loved america, america loved churchill. >> absolutely and that's what this egs big is all about. churchill was a great reader and writer of history he engaged with history. that's with american history just as much as with european history. >> so& f.d.r. and roosevelt is a great story. >> well, these are lines by abraham lincoln that roosevelt along a wonderful inscription where he's written at the bottom "for winston on his birthday, i would go even to tehran to be with him again." and churchill was someone who

lived by his pen his whole career is underpinned by writing. >> he actually rarely put pen to paper himself so what is the significance of this typewriter you have in the exhibition? >> you're absolutely right. churchill's favorite method of working was by dictationç this is this is what was then a state-of-the-art silence typewrite sore his secretaries could take down this torrent of words without disturbing his flow. >> and that looks like we have the nobel prize. >> this is churchill's nobel prize for literature awarded for the totality of his written and spoken word so we couldn't hope for a better exhibition about the power of words i think one of the most interesting things about churchill is because he was first and foremost a writer, because he had been a war correspondent himself, because he wrote for the newspapers he does have an understanding of how the media works. so while he's using these speeches to rally domestic

morale, he's also simultaneously sending a message of defiance to hitler, a message of hope to occupied europe and in 1940 and 194 11-an appeal for greater support in the united states. >> give us the tools and we will finish the job. >> one of my favorite documents within the exhibition, churchill was in new york in december 1931 and was knocked down by a motorcar on fifth avenue on 76th street. it was the classic mistake of the britain america in that he got out of his taxi, looked the wrong way and was immediately hit by a car from the other direction. what he did was two things. he wrote an article on what it was like to be hit by a motorcar but he also managed to persuade his doctor in prohibition era new york to write a prescription for the use of alcohol at all

meals. >> rose: joining us is winston churchill's granddaughter, peter clarke authored the recently published "mr. churchill's profession" and lord watson of richmond, the a patron of the churchill archives center. i'm pleased to have all of them here at this center. welcome. i have so looked forward to this. i was going to tell a story that i once went to see christophers some and he showed me something he had received and learned from winston churchill was how to diagram a speech in terms of indentation so when you read it you read it with inflection and passion. you know clearly about this. >> sommes styling. so you had a sense to make the reading of it as if it was coming from your heart. >> it's boring to actually do when you set it out, of course, when you don't have a secretary

to do it it's not so easy to make it... it's a lot of work but it's very, very much easier. >> rose: was the love of language and words, did it come early to churchill? >> i think so. he said because, if you like, lam high school dropout in your terminology, he was right at the bottom of the fourth form for years and he said the only thing they did was teach you how to sort out the english language so he said that, you know, the structure of the english sentence was really... got inside my bones. he said it's a noble thing. and i think he had that from an early stage of k capacity. >> rose: he spent all of his life developing it. >> and also to some extent winston churchill was self-taught and i think he therefore had the relationship that people from language have with books which is different from the relationship people are simply taught about books.

he was drawing strength out of these books. >> i think that's a very important point. i think how stupid he was in school is very often exaggerated not least by himself in retrospect. i think his father behaved disgracefully. his father had a very expensive oxford education but purposefully denied it to young winston. >> rose: purposely for what sfln >> well, partly money, i think. he was very conscious of the expense of sending winston to oxford. he suggested the army was a more suitable career and then tried to bargain with him not to go into the cavalry that might be too expensive there. so that wasn't all together an easy relationship. >> rose: but he sold it to his son by saying "buck a great man of the army." >> he did. he... >> but he later discovered that he thought he was too stupid to go to the bar. he was very disappointed where he thought... his father thought he was going to be a successful...

>> rose: he said his father thought he was too stupid to go to the bar. >> his father was dismissive, wasn't he? >> he was horrid to him. >> winston always wanted his father's affection, there's a poignant story late in his life where after the second world war where he's had all these accomplishments where winston had this supposedly dream moment where his father comes back and winston starts to tell him all the things he, winston, has done and his father says "oh, goodness, you've had so many wars in the 20th century" and fades away and there's almost this sense of trying to reach... >> the recognition was still absent. >> one of the things that i found particularly fascinating with the archives actually at cambridge is of course you are brought very close to the actual words that he chose to deploy so that this sentenceakñb about arg the english language and sending him into battle actually was a very literal discipline for

churchill and for example there's one speech he gives after the fall of perhaps and he works on this individual words because he understands that unless you get precisely the right word it's not going to motivate and what he was about was motivating. he wanted to move people at that point. it's quite extraordinary. the crossing out of the words and rewriting. >> rose: this song style you mentioned, churchill developed that because he used in his youth to be an orateor. he wrote out the whole speech, he learned it, he delivered hit in the house of xhons and one terrible moment the house of common he completely froze and after that he said never again. so he wrote these speeches out in this song style which he could carry on a small sheet of paper, he could look at his audience, command his audience but be absolutely sure but he really worked. that was the ensense of the

speech writing. his care with words. >> rose: he also, it is said, understood the power of the pause. >> i'm sure he did and the other point we shouldn't forget is that many of us might write a speech literally, perhaps on our laptop these days, and deliver it. certainly in his later life winston churchill was dictating in the first place so he was dictating it... >> and he would practice in front of the mirror, too. he practiced and people would hear him practicing and think for instance once he was his valet said "you called me, sir?" he said "no, i wasn't calling you i was addressing the house of commons. (laughter) >> so there's the change between the verbal and where t written. >> and that's really rhetorical. you can see hit in the kay dances and you mentioned about the pauses.

he actually managed pauses in the house of commons which is very, very difficult because if you keep silent in the common it's an opportunity for everybody else to dive in and during many of the parliamentary passages of his career, of course he was deeply unpopular and people did not respect him. he was right for... you know so he managed that but he always kept his nerves >> one example of the pause is where he gives a speech to the canadian parliament and he says how the french have said that britain is going to have its neck wrung like a chicken and he starts... he builds up to it. some chicken, some neck. >> rose: back to 39/40, when he had been in the wilderness since 29... you know, and had seen, though, the coming of hitler and

argued passionately between council of government. somehow that received at that time. >> well in the middle of the 30s he was regarded as a real nuisance. he was talking about hitler but he was also making a fuss about other issues like india or the and station on which he was felt to be way out of opinion and the feeling was winston was making a fuss because he wants to get back into the office. by '38/'39 particularly after munich there's a strong sense actually although winston is a nuisance he's right on this fundamental thing and the great advantage for church shill that when war comes he is in a position of not having been tainted, he's not got dirty hands, he has a really clear record, he can speak with authority and there is an overwhelming desire to see him back in government. >> and he manage an extraordinary passage for britain and the british parliament because there was this growing unease,

particularly after munich so many people deep in their gut knew that a terrible mistake had been made and that became then alarm because of the pace of events and he manages to take that and turn it into resolution. and one of the things the speech he made for france the first version of it he isn't precise about... he actually says this makes no difference, words to that effect. he realizes that's absurd and makes a huge difference because britain is isolated. america is not in the the war. soviet union is an ally of the third reich so it makes an enormous difference and then he goes right to the pint. it makes no difference to our resolution. so he's all about resolution. it's turning fear, turning the difficulties such as dunkirk into resolution. >> rose: when was the moment in which some people within the

government were arguing some kind of understanding can be made when w hitler an he made that famous speech to them about our last thought should be choking on our own blood having died on the battlefield? >> that really was when churchill appealed over the head of his own war cabinet churchill only getting support from the two labor members, not the two conservatives. neville chamberlain, lord halifax the foreign secretary who after all had that sort of authority. churchill mounting an argument within the war cabinet. but then in a bold moved a dressing the whole body of ministers and i peeling to them as though it were alreadyn&ñ a foregone conclusion that they would follow his own instincts. and this, of course, cut the

ground from under the feet of the other members of the war cabinet? >> because what they shared was a realization that the british hadn't yet really been tested and the british... their instinct would have been that they wanted to be tested. they wanted to... they want this trial of strength when it came to it and that was part of the resolve >> and halifax and chamberlain, they'd made the mistake so therefore like someone else comes along the do your job you don't want them to do well and they... >> rose: >> i think halifax was... halifax was... who was the foreign secretary what he had said was, look, we have lost... the french army is gone. there are no other allies why

don't we at least see if there's any peace terms or via the italians and halifax is talking more about like an armistice which was the kind of thing that the british had had a lot of times in the wars against napoleon. churchill was absolutely right in saying if you do that it's a slippery slope. one fact becomes known. what is really interesting about churchill in the summer of 1940 is that churchill has no strategy for winning that war. he talks about maybe the americans will comeée basically he is convinced that the important thing for the moment is to show resolution and the future will somehow take care of itself. he says "we fought the germans for newshour years in 1418, we had no idea what was going to happen, we almost gave up on victory and then the germans collapsed." so what's striking about churchill is this man will give

inspiring leadership even if he knows actually we're in a real mess at the moment and i find what's interesting with churchill is this ability to convey public hope when there's... he recognizes that the magnitude of the crisis the country in. >> rose: more than having a plan the most important thing was to rally the country. >> this is a man who believes not only in the power of words but the power of emotional words he knows how to touch the hearts of people in a way that halifax and chamberlain could not dot and they knew it. to their credit halifax could have been prime minister in may 1940, he knows he's not a war leader. people understand that winston is going to be a war leader. he will rise to that that challenge. >> it was churchill's gut instinct as opposed to people who didn't have guts. >> guts is the right word because the bottom line for whatever... you know, personality of the man was such that although he could calculate

and he could estimate the odds and he was in many levels deeply realistic i think he didn't have fear about thebtk test. i think at the end of the day he believed that britain would come through it and he was right. he was absolutely right. >> rose: but here is what he said. if this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground. >> and if one reads that, one inevitably thinks of the way that he deployed his own sense of english history, too. and the way that he applauds way back in english history figures like bodicea as he called the famous queen and others who have resisted tyranny, aggression. it's a view that's perfectly consistent in emotional terms, again, in terms of the gut

instinct to which he's appealing rather than a rational... >> and i'm sure he took a long time to invent that sentence. >> it's not just the power of words, this is also a man who was trained as a soldier in his youth and who actually did fight in battle. he says, you know, i kill people people shot at me and there is a sense in which... there's3é a sense in which churchill is a military leader, he wants to be a military leader. he rises to that challenge in 1940 in a way that none of the other politicians really can do or want to do. of course what churchill really wants to do is run the whole war. he wants to be a general. he's a man of enormous courage and would love to be in the front line. what's tremendously important is a man who understands the power of words but also understands and almost relish the possibility of a fight.

>> i think there's one other active, though. of course he had physical doubt bus he also had an acute awareness of who he was and the family he came from. i always remember some years ago going to blenheim with a group of german parliamentarians. >> rose: this is the family home. >> and where he was born. and the german member of parliament sitting next to me had never been to blenheim before and as we turned in and went up the drive he turned to me and said "if adolf hitler had known that winston churchill was born here i don't think he ever would have gone to war." >> rose: harold evans said only the will of one man saved england from becoming a vassal state under permanent subjugation. he said everything prepared him for the moment he entered 10 downing. my question, was there no one

else? this is a rare moment in history where the only person came together head on with the opportunity he was uniquely suited for. no one else would be suited for it and he was best suited for that circumstance. >> with some professional reluctance i would have to agree with you. professional because i speak as a historian. i'm reluctant to attribute such influence to one person and their intervention. churchill in 1940, it's very difficult to imagine how that sort of leadership and the desperate situation could have been applied elsewhere. and his own sense of his own motion here was i think crucial in holding the situation. >> yeah, we talked about the sense of the power he has in language in mobilizing people's sentiments. there's also this ability to direct war effort. the other thing i think that's striking is the way in which he really kicks into action the

whole of the white hall bureaucracy which has worked quite efficiently under neville chamberlain. chamber lynn was not a food. he was a good administrator. but churchill add had what would be like post-it kind of things that would say "action this day." and if he wanted some minor bureaucrat to get going on an issue, he puts "action this day" on a memo. he's interrogating the whole bureaucracy like john kennedy used to. do don't just take it from the immediate person below you. find out what's going on. and you can see in some of the diaries of civil servant this is sense that suddenly the machine is gearing up at a completely different level. that sense of a dynamo at work is the other thing that's really important. >> it is, of course, a conjunction of him realizing with his position is unique. but also the conjunction is with a nation and a people who are at a unique point! it's very easy now to just

forget the degree of isolation, physical isolation of great britain at that point. of course there was the empire, there was the commonwealth, there was the hope that one day the united states would become actively involved as full ally. but for that period he and britain are alone. and that, i think, comes back to this thing of courage. >> the situation is extremely simple. in politics and international life middle east of the 20th century isc3mãcomplicated for mt countries. in the summer of 1940 it becomes very simple. we are about to be bombed, we could be invaded, there are no other allies, everybody has a sense of gearing up to something special and so as alan said there's a man who sees that and there's a country that's willing to rise to that. if you go two years later, 1952, there's a real sense the war is dragging on. what's going to happen. we haven't got a victory. the popular mood is different

but in 1940 it's a shining moment and when churchill says in the second volume of his memoirs, it's called "their finest hour" it's regarded as his finest hour, the country's finest hour and it's the moment the british like to come back to because of this feeling that at that point, as t.s. elliot said history is now in england. >> he had to believe in himself before he could make other people believ=n >> yes. >> yes. >> rose: he had to believe in himself before he could make other people believe in him. >> and he did believe inv1@ he said "i'm going to be prime minister." and he'd set it twice in his life that i knew. once when he was in india he said "one day i'll be prime minister" to one of his mates he was walking along with. in south africa he was having a drink in this bar and he told the station master of the local station he said "you mark my words, one day i'll be prime minister of england." the man roared with laughter.

>> they had this famous occasion in 1944 when churchill characteristically is determined to go in on d-day with not the forward run with the follow-up troops and the only way he can be dissuaded is by the king formally ordering him not to do so. so by then there is a very close relationship but to begin with they remember very well that winston was not his supporter. >> rose: he wanted to go ahere on d-day? >> he wanted to go with the troops on d-day. churchill is a man of incredible physical courage. josef stalin... stalin is always writing messages saying "sorry, cannot come to conference, too busy with matters at front." stalin is scared of going anywhere near the front. he only does it once and he never gets near the line. churchill is always saying "i want to be where the action is." if there's a battle of britain he won't stay down in the bunker, he goes on the roof tops and sees things firing. churchill would like to be there

on d-day as near as possible to the action. >> rose: when you say all that also i think of the notion that he has said-- and you would know this best-- that he should have died in 1945. did he not? >> well, there's a point in which after the... >> rose: he did say that, didn't he? he was old and suffering and had depression after... yes? >> there were times... >> rose: he basically said "i should have died in 1945. at the height of my... the respect of my country and the height of my power." >> well, i think there are two things. he has a huge depression after losing the election in july 1945 when the labor party,u is brougt in. churchill has huge depression. his wife almost despairs over encouraging him again. the two things that keep him going are first the fact that he wants to be9 voted back as prime minister by the british people. in may 1940 he was not elected

prime minister. it was, if you like, a parliamentary coupe. and churchill has this very moving time where during the election campaign he realizes he hasn't got... the words don't work. the kind of words he's been using during the war. a rung for people who want a piece and reform. i have no message for them. and that's the sense of... but just... so the point is that he wants to be voted backaramhby te people he led through the war and that's part of why he stays on in opposition as leader of the parliament. and that's important. >> but this is also where the united states really comes into the story because churchill has this huge flap and the thing that changes it is truman per swatdz them to come over and he makes a speech about an iron curtain descending on europe and

the reaction in the united states is skeptical to hostile. it takes a little time before people really wake up to what this warning means but as the mood turns and churchill returns 1946 across the atlantic again back to the united kingdom he says of himself that the sap is rising again. he's really engaged butdlo;.t03f and he was the first person really to challenge the stall innis outcome at the end of the second world war. >> those are his second wilderness years i call them after '45. and the great virtue for churchill is he's out of office and he can speak out. now truman wants somebody to say those things. truman, in fact, sits with him at the podium but he can't say it. >> rose: this is the iron

curtain speech. >> he's read that speech. he knows what churchill is going to say. >> an iron curtain has descended upon the continent. behind thati states (inaudible) warsaw, berlin vienna, budapest, belgrade, bucharest the populations around them lie in what are now called the soviet sphere. >> this is a convenient trial balloon for the administration. when there's a lot of complaints and protest in new york truman can stand back and say "it had nothing to do with me" but churchill has helped to change the weather. the other thing about the speech is it's a reminder of the power

of words.8x(x churchill is... coined some of the most important soundbites in modern diplomacy." iron curtain is a phrase not unique to him but he popularizes it. special relationship. that's another churchillian phrase this which has become a general term. and the other one is summit. the term summit is another one churchill uses because, of course, although we think of him as the iron curtain man he also says what we want to to parlay at the summit. he believes in diplomacy. he says war-war. >> rose: was the depression clinical depression or less than that? >> i think it was less than that. there was clearly a bipolar element to it using that term in an innocent descriptive way.

rather than a clinical way. he called it the blog dog. >> rose: he called it the black dog? the black dog has descended. >> the way to throw the black dog off his shoulder was furious activity >> a lot of painting. >> it could be painting, it could be writing politics. but action. >> purposeful action. that is man who whatever he did he did it purposely.aúñ whether laying bricks or painting. >> rose: what do you mean by purposeful? something he was doing and building? >> his grandson, winston, jr., said to me that his father once said everyday in the evening i look in the mirror and ask myself what have i done today. have i written an article? have i added to a speech?

have i made important political decisions? he said this is as important, you must do this, you must interrogate yourself about this it's as important as cleaning your teeth. and that sense of purposeful activity is basic to churchill. >> rose: writing was the way he made his money. >> yes, my mother used to say we lived from pen to mouth. (laughter) and whatever he needs money he'd write an article start a book, do something which is why at the end of the war when he hadn't been able to do any of that and there was no pay so he wasn't earning any money at all. he lad to put his beloved house up for sale because he was bankrupt. the duke of wellington got number one london, the duke of marlborough got blenheim palace and winston churchill got/ bankruptcy. it's called a sign of the times. >> when did you spend the most intimate time with him? >> well, as a child we used to spend our holiday there is but in my sort of more conscious memory when i was 16 i went on a

holiday with him and my grandmother. we went with o onassis to the greek islands and i did a number of journeys with him. i was an available grandchild of an appropriate age. >> rose: he was how old? >> he was 80. more than 80. he was getting old by then but he still had sparks of wit about him he was very affectionate and peaceful. >> did he talk much about the past and politics or not? >> when he spoke about politics was actually when my grandmother would rise to the table and say "shall we leave the men to their brandy and cigars?" it was much more we would be all talking about racing or where we were going to go the next day or what he was going to do. he was very keen on his horses. >> rose: she would be willing to speak to him and say "perhaps

you should not have done this"? >> absolutely. there's one famous letter which i'm sure is in the exhibition where she criticized him and said she said everyone else is criticizing him. he always listened to her. she was a very strong woman. >> when they were living under the same roof she would sometimes write it. >> rose: so even in the same house she would write him? >> she's a remarkable woman. she's extremely accomplished linguist, very good at french, very clever. in other circumstances would have gone to university. she devotes herself to winston. winston is her life's work she says. she believes in free trade, is. so has a real sense of somebody who has in a sense subordinated

her interests and preferences to him. itis a remarkable partnership. there are times when she has to go away because she's so exhausted by the business of dealing with winston but they have this very powerful synergistic relationship >> he believed you could only arrive at truth if it was argued and challenged about. one of the reasons why so many generals found him exhausting was that he applied this process of debate to military decision making and some of them couldn't cope. >> but he also did it late at night when he had a nap during the day they worked all day at 10:00 winston would go in for a strategic discussion when the admirals were ready to go to sleep and it was known as

winston's midnight follies and it was not actually a folly because often then he got his way out of here is exhaustion. >> rose: the naps were essential for him? >> yes. >> he felt completely into his night shirt. >> rose: what time did he do this? >> the afternoon. later in the afternoon snoochlt >> the function of the naps was that it gave him energy for the night work. in the wilderness years of the 1930s, the night work of course was meant for saving his other career as a writer that's when he got these enormous book commissions completed. he carried over exactly the same pattern and activity into the war pretending it was because of reasons of state but it was actually replicating the same pattern he'd already established. >> he worked best after a good meal, well lubricated with good clarity3... claret, then he was

tanked up with several hours of serious work >> help the he took a sleeping foil go to sleep. >> you have to feel quite sorry for the animals and generals. and if you look at the cabinet war rooms in london and there's his chair and the actual geography of this room is extraordinary, the amount of smoke that would fill it. but he would have these unfortunate generals in front of him and he had this chair rather like these here and if you look at them they're ridged on the side because he worec he would actually go like this when he was discussing these thingsqjk energy as well as mental energy to everything he was doing. >> the browbeating there was element of... there was good psychology about it because churchill really7ñj! actually wd to test other people and see how they responded to him. and those who could not take that i think he sensed that

there was a problem and lord halifax, who was not by any means stupid, he said winston hates doormats. you have to argue back. learning how to argue back with winston was an art form around it wasn't clear if he shouted at you you shouted back. but you had to find ways of getting your point of view back and he would respect you if you did that whereas if you either lost your cool or just let him walk over you, you were finished. >> rose: you had to find a way to cleverly make your point. >> you had to make your point and he would listen and respect it the power of words was also the power of words in discussion. okay he would like to get his own way but he would listen to other people and the one who mattered in the second world war was general allenbroke who was his chief of staff. alan brooke was a tough ulsterman. if alanbrook didn't like something churchill said he would say it back. he would often sit there at the

table and smack his pencil with anger if he thought something was stupid and churchill said this is a tough neck ulsterman. if i sn::a at him he shouts back at me. >> he had a reputation for not only courage in people and their ability to stand up to him. i was fortunate when i used to work in the bbc. i did a documentary with the man who... >> rose: father of the idea of europe. >> that is correct. and john money was called into a meeting during the second world war at which churchill was absolutely determined to upbraid a girl who had infuriated and embarrassed him when he was on a visit to washington by the action of taking this island in canada winston was furious and he felt that the translation... eased the passage of all this at

the end of the tirade, apparently de gaulle, who was in full uniform, simply rose and put on his hat and saluted and left the room and churchill who had been absolutely infuriated subsided back into his chair and simply said "magnificent." (laughter) >> rose: magive in tent? applause of... >> >> de gaulle's theater. the response to churchill's tirade was to walk out. >> rose: so he was appreciative of de gaulle's sense of theater? >> there are two people who are famously supposed not to get on and of course they have flaming rows but there was a real sense of mutual respect between them because these were two men who 100% stuck up for their own. >> indomitable spirit against all the odds. >> that's right. and indomitable but strongly patriotic. churchill respected that and defall respected it in churchill even if he felt... >> rose: but churchill respected

f.d.r. greatly in trying to seduce him... >> that was different because of the power relationship between him. churchill at his weakest had much more power than de gaulle. exactly the reverse is true... >> rose: f.d.r. had more. >> always had more. >> that's true. there's a power relationship but also the human relationship. churchill is an immensely+ emotional person and we talked about his respect for military courage. franklin roosevelt shows huge courage of a different sort by fighting against polio. this is a man who has nothing below his'40 waist and churchils deeply moved by roosevelt's courage everyday in being president of the united states when you are so infirm and he says on a couple of occasions after roosevelt's death he stops the conversation and he looks out the window and says "i

really loved that man." and there was something very emotional about that warmth of appreciation. >> it's also very touching the way he wanted him to go and see the pyramids. he took him all the way to marrakech to see the sunírvlñ gg down on the atlas mountains. he wanted to share with him the things he liked... >> special moments. >> absolutely. i think he felt let down at the end but on the other hand the president was so ill that this is these day he is wouldn't have been continuing as president. >> rose: i want to go back to one point because i want to get your own sense of this. he wrote by standing rather than sitting and walking around and they were there transcribing and then they would print it up for him and in the morning he would read it again? he wasn't writing ever. he was simply walking and

talking >> well, in his early days when he wrote his biography of his father he wrote in long hand. >> rose: that a good biography. >> it is a good biography. >> rose: a great biography? >> i don't think it's great because it's so shamelessly partisan. (laughter) and churchill gets his own way by argument both fair and foul and the foul bit is that he's quite shameless in suppressing evidence that >> rose: but i think the writing thing... >> going back to what is actually in the churchill archives and i'm sure if the exhibition, i mean, he... as i mentioned earlier, he would actually alter individual words and alter them in ink. he would scratch out the typewritten word and replace it with another phrase and word so yes he did write but he didn't basically sit down at the desk and... he walks up and down...

>> he's taken to the second floor by his grandson and showed me where he stood and where he walked. >> and so you have the... >> rose: but what he would do also is that he would have everybody... you know this, he would have everybody write their version of what happened in that moment and he would read those and come in and then absorb what they said, add his own sense of it and that's what he would... >> well, it's more a scissors and pasting, i think. the book i wrote was about churchill's memoirs of the second world war and there are produced simply produced by his own research assistance and go in almost verbatim. there are other parts... churchill dictation is particular about those moments only he can comment on so meetings with roosevelt. meets with stalin those are the one he is dictates and those are the most vift passages of churchill's memoirs because they're still in his mind, still moving him so he'll dictate

those to the s.e.c. terrace. that i'll type them down on the typewriters. in the morning when he gets up for his breakfast that script will be in front of him. he will correct it. >> rose: did she time to do this during the war? >> no this is after the war. >> rose: in the war he suspended. ... >> the second advantage of being kicked out of office in 1945 is that he can write his memoirs. he has the time to do that which makes his money, secures his position and helps to secure his place in history. the people who don't write their memoirs will find that their version of history gets lost. >> rose: and most people can't write as well as he could so that becomes the dominant... >> that's right. >> his belief was history is far too important to leave it to other people. >> rose: have we had someone that approaches the nature of this man in public life since he died? >> roy jenkins who i knew very well and was a friend, he said

talking about this that he thought his great book was going to be his biography of gladstone and when he was writing the churchill book he said "i arrived at a moment when i realized i was writing about the greatest of the people i've written about: he recognized the... the qualities you have just described about churchill which were in a way so much bigger than the compass of his power of the role he played. i mean, he was a universal figure and the humanity of the man is one of the most extraordinary aspects of it. at the end of the war he didn't... when he went to berlin pots dam conference and he was taken around and saw this total destruction.

as city totally destroyed and he made a number of quite interesting remarks. i mean, one which was the awareness of just what this destruction meant when he commented "this could so nearly have happened to us. and i think the second thing was-- and it's very controversial-- after the war and the bombing of dresden and all of that he seems to rerecoil from that level of destruction. maybe because the purpose was no longer clear to him. but the fact that he still had that dimension, that capability of sorrow, the sense of tragedy is very, very unusualvni. there was in that sense no brutal triumphalism. >> rose: no brutal triumphalism?

>> the point about his character and power for me is that he's become very much a two dimensional figure. he's a symbol of british defiance, you have him with the cigar in his mouth. what i think is really interesting is the sense of the three dimensional character. a man quite complicated. full of complicated contradictory concerns but really incredibly powerful in all the things he does. i think you see more of his greatness than if you treat him as cotwo dimension. >> rose: and wasn't afraid to cry. >> afrayed to cry or show emotion. >> people said he was crying, they couldn't believe it. he wasn't ashamed to shed a tear. >> he's a larger-than-life character and that's something that needs to be fresh@ed, not just a bulldog stereotype. >> and with larger-than-life talent. s?

>> which is why we're talking about the words again. the fact that in the book that i've just published "mr. churchill's profession" i'm looking at this al termive the career he had not trying to pretend it wasn't soub servient to the politics but writing was his profession and of course the two things add up because when he looks back on his 80th birthday and he's complimented on his great speeches of the war he says to the combined houses of parliament, he says "you must remember if i found the words i have always earned my living by my pen. the whom thing comes together in into the complete picture that way. >> and he continues to shape the world in which we live i've written about the queen in the united states for the diamond jubilee. we've made the point that he coined the phrase "special relationship." the relationship betweenú

united states and great britain is simply inconceivable without the role he played we all ben federate from that enormously. >> rose: thank you very much. i want to recommend books. this is "the queen in the u.s.a." which is "never give in, the best of winston churchill's speeches selected by his grandson." here's david reynolds "in command of history" churchill fighting and winning the second world war which became a bbc television film and "mr. churchill's profession" that peter has mentioned before. "the statesman" is the book that defined the special relationship of good to see you again. thank you so much. as we leave you.,b"? i leave you with a sense, i think, whichpp reflects all tht we have been talking about the quality of the man who used his words and voice and spirit and will to come to many people

believe to have saved the western world. here is winston churchill. there was their finest hour, house of commons. >> the wife of the world may move forward into broad uplands, but if we failaj"b then the whe world including the united states, including all that we have known and cared for into sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister and perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted science. let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties]c

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