CHURCHILL, Winston S.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Typed letter signed, to Lord Beaverbrook, angered by a scurrilous account of a private conversation. Churchill writes angrily to his old friend, the press magnate Lord Beaverbrook, after reading a private account of a meeting with one of Beaverbrook's journalists. In a wide-ranging letter, Churchill also addresses criticisms of his recently published Great Contemporaries and remarks on the fall of the US stock market. Beaverbrook was a formidable figure in British politics and a close ally of Churchill, providing him crucial press support throughout his career; Churchill appointed him Minister of Aircraft Production during the Second World War. Beaverbrook had sent Churchill an account by one of his young journalists, Frank Owen, describing an evening spent with him. Beaverbrook claimed "you will treat it with laughter, because it is good fun" (cited in Young, p. 124). Overall, the account portrayed Churchill as an eccentric, quarrelsome agitator desperate for war.Churchill replies furiously. "I return you Frank Owen's note of our very private and informal after-dinner conversation, which certainly gives a loose and sloppy impression of what I said, or did not say. I think it is a pity that he took the trouble to put it down, and it would certainly be a gross offence if it were ever published". He adds by hand, "It gives a very much better picture of F.O. than it does of me". Beaverbrook replied, "I hoped Frank Owen's report of your conversation would amuse you. I thought it

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