THE CHURCHILL SOCIETY
London.
The Editor
The Times Newspaper
London
October 1st 2004.
Sir
(From France)
'Churchill's tears'
Letter 23rd Sept 2004
Professors Stapleton's account of Churchill's reception of the
Nazi flag presented to him in France in 1944 was moving.
It represented the French nation's tribute to Churchill and all
his comrades in arms who lost their lives and the grief and pain of
their
widows and orphans, plus the many who suffered appalling injuries.
The flag belongs to them and now to the nation.
Where is it now?
Yours faithfully
The Secretary.
Norman Harvey Rogers.
__________________________________
**(Update July 16th 1998).
The Times
Newspaper. London.
The government announce today
that more than 500 British Nazi Holocaust Victims (all over 80 years
of age) are to receive £400 (Four Hundred Pounds) compensation
from the British Government to help "free them from the misery of
poverty".
**(Update July 20th 1998).
The Daily
Telegraph. London.
Why on earth did they want to
sell Winston's top hat, or his carpet slippers for that matter?
I thought the Sotheby's sale a
sorry affair, and no credit to Winston's descendants.
Widows sell their husbands' gallantry awards because they need the
money but this does not apply to the Churchill family.
His gold Victory watch - given to him to commemorate Germany's defeat
in 1945 is something that would be a treasured heirloom to most
families.
. . . . . A sad business
W.F.Deedes. (Lord Deedes).
THE TIMES NEWSPAPER.
London
19th February 1997
By Andrew Pierce & Tom
Rhodes
WINSTON CHURCHILL who spent
most of his life living in the shadow of his glamorous mother Pamela
Harriman, was left $10 million (6.2 million pounds) in her will it
was disclosed yesterday.
But in the will signed only one
month before her death last month Harriman stipulated that he must
share the estate with Minnie, his estranged wife.
Harriman, the former US
Ambassador to France, was the lover of some of the world's richest
men but took a dim view of her son's decision to leave his wife of 31
years for another woman in 1994.
The displeasure of the
thrice-married Harriman was underlined by the decision to leave her
most valuable asset, Van Gogh's White Roses valued at 50 million
pounds to the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
The inheritance comes two years
after Mr Churchill 56, received 12.250,000 pounds of National lottery
funds to secure his grandfather's papers for the nation although most
historians assumed the country already owned them.
It will soften the blow of the
collapse of Mr Churchill's political career which appeared absolute
yesterday. His constituency, Davyhulme, has disappeared in the
boundary changes. Reigate, the last true blue Conservative
association to select a candidate for the general election decided
not to include the grandson of the war time leader on its 15 list
short list. Labour urged Mr Churchill last night to pay back the
lottery millions.
Brian Wilson... a front
bencher, said: "This confirms that Mr Churchill doesn't exactly need
the lottery money. "Perhaps he should examine his conscience."
Harriman's four grandchildren
receive $250,000 (I56,000 pounds ) and Lord Digby, her brother, was
left $100,000. The two gardeners, the butler, the cook and the
chauffeur were bequeathed, as much as $20,000 each in the will. But
Janet Howard, a constant companion and personal assistant since 1980
is left without a cent.
Let faith, not
appetite
guide our steps.
Winston
Churchill
Political
Broadcast
January 21,
1950.
THE GUARDIAN
London
February 19th 1997
Churchill's new fortune from
mother's will
THE Tory MP Winston Churchill
yesterday received yet another windfall thanks to his impressive
lineage after his late mother, Pamela Harriman, left him a multi
million dollar fortune in her will.
Mrs Harriman, the former US.
ambassador to France who has been-described as one the greatest
courtesans of the 20th century, left $10 million (6.2 million pounds)
to her only son which he must share with his estranged wife
Minnie.
Mr Churchill will not however
inherit one of Mrs Harriman's most valuable possessions, a Van Gogh
painting said to be worth 50 million pounds which will go to the
National Gallery of Art in Washington.
It was the only charitable gift
in the will.
Last year Mr Churchill, whose
Davyhulme seat was wiped out by boundary changes, received 12.5
million pounds from lottery money following the controversial sale of
his grandfather's wartime papers. But his latest millions will prove
far more useful than his lottery takings, which his uncle, Peregrine
Churchill, who controls the family trust, forbade him from using to
fund his divorce settlement.
Mr Churchill is said to need
4.5 million pounds to pay off his wife, Mary "Minnie" D'Erlanger,
whom he married in 1964, and set up trust funds for their three
children. He would then be free then to move on and marry his
"Belgian-born mistress, Luce Danielson.
Mr Churchill, whose former
mistress Soraya Khashoggi, the former wife of arms dealer Adnan, and
the American socialite Jan Cushing, has yet to find a new
constituency.
He could have inherited at
least 15 times as much off his late mother had she not squandered her
last husband's estate through a string of unwise investments and
expensive legal battles with her stepdaughters.
Mr Churchill. the namesake and
grandson of Britain's wartime prime minister, was born to Mrs
Harriman by her first marriage to Randolph Churchill. After several
affairs with the rich and powerful Washington, she married Averell
Harriman who died in 1986.
THE DAILY MAIL
London
THURSDAY,
February 20, 1997
By SAM HARRIS
Mrs Churchill and her estranged
husband, Tory MP Winston, are to share the bulk of his mother's
£6.2 million estate. The Inheritance marks the last remnants of
a financial empire which dwindled away during her final years.
Just two years ago, her fortune
was estimated at more than £40 million - money left by her
husband, former New York governor Averell Harriman, who died in 1986.
But Mrs Harriman, America's ambassador to France, who died in Paris
earlier this month, fought a long legal battle with her husband's
children and grandchildren who accused of her of wasting £20
million. Much of the money is said to have gone into bad investments;
support for the Democratic party, lavish parties and the upkeep of
homes.
Two months ago, Mrs Harriman,
76, drew up her last will and testament and decided that most of what
was left would go to the only child from her brief wartime marriage
to Winston Churchill's son Randolph.
Although her son and his wife
separated two years ago, the will specifically grants them joint
ownership of her estates in Virginia Washington and upstate New York,
along with Jewels, clothing and furniture. And as parting gestures
go, it was a very clever one. From one woman to another, it was a
simple sign of genuine affection and regard, but from a mother to a
son it was a gentle rebuke.
She was upset by his decision
to divorce Mary, known affectionately as Minnie, after a 32-year
marriage which had seen her endure the string of her husband's secret
and not-so-secret mistresses.
Mrs Harriman made her
disapproval very clear when her son suddenly left his long- suffering
wife two years ago for a new love, blonde Chelsea jewellery maker
Luce Danielson.
She had always got on well with
merchant banker's daughter Minnie and was said to have taken an
instant dislike to Belgian-born divorcee Miss Danielson.
Now Minnie, the mother of Mr
Churchill's four children, can have the last laugh as he is forced to
share his £6.2 million inheritance with her.
For years she maintained a
dignified silence and was a constant support to her husband, even
though he conducted a string of very public affairs. His mistresses
included Soraya Khashoggi, former wife of arms dealer Adnan, who
revealed in 1980 that she had enjoyed a secret five-year affair with
Churchill.
To add insult to injury, she
made her admiration of his lovemaking abilities very public - calling
him a 'super lover'.
In 1992, he had a ten-month
affair with Jan Cushing, a New York heiress he met at a hall in
Venice.
Then came the final insult when
he finally left her in March last year for the woman he wants to
marry and have by his side at his mother's funeral.
In her will Mrs Harriman also
left her four grandchildren - Randolph, 31, Jack, 21, Jennies, 29,
and Marina, 28 - about £150,000 each. There also bequests to her
chauffeur, cook, and two gardeners. Her most valuable painting, Van
Gogh's White- Roses, worth about £50 million, goes to the
National Gallery of Art in Washington.
__________________________
Fulton Missouri
Winston S. Churchill - Sir
Winston's grandson - was presented by his mother, Mrs Pamela Harriman
with an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree at Westminster College,
Fulton.
_________________________________
PERSONAL papers belonging to Winston Churchill
were the subject of a 25-year legal fight as his grandson, who had
"little money of his own", tried to sell them to the Government,
files released by the National Archive at Kew reveal.
Discreet negotiations to sell the 2,000-box
archive, which included early drafts of the wartime leader's "finest
hour" and "Battle of Britain" speeches, began within six years of his
death in 1965. The Government was offered the pre-1945 papers
&emdash; half of them official papers belonging to the State &emdash;
for £100,000 to £120,000 in 1971. Finally they were bought
with £12.5 million of National Lottery money in 1995.
The collection, the Chartwell Papers, contained
almost everything that Churchill wrote before 1945, including
extensive correspondence with Lloyd George, Edward VIII and George
VI. It also included intelligence on all aspects of the Second World
War, drafts of letters to Stalin, Roosevelt and de Gaulle and Cabinet
papers.
It was in a private family trust, which
Churchill intended to benefit male descendants. The main beneficiary
by 1991 was his grandson, Winston Churchill, then Conservative MP for
Davyhulme. The papers were his most valuable possession.
The papers had been loaned to Churchill College
in Cambridge, but the trustees wished to sell them. Successive
governments wanted the papers to remain together, but they were a
mixture of official and personal documents. Sir Winston had taken
many official documents with him "on permanent loan" when he left
office and had refused to return them. Today's files disclose that
Sotheby's had estimated in 1971 that they would fetch £2
million. The letter then suggests that the Government offer between
£100,000 to £120,000 to buy them.
The purchase by the lottery provoked fury. John
Charmley, the historian, said: "The second jackpot winner is Winston
Churchill Jr. The Government should have called the bluff of the
Churchills when they threatened to break up the collection and sell
it abroad. These papers belong to the State and should never have
been removed in the first place."
John Major's Government refused to hold a public inquiry into the
death of Robert Maxwell for fear of offending Spain, according to
secret papers released today. Ministers also believed an official
investigation into the circumstances in which the Daily Mirror
publisher publisher drowned off the Canary Islands would turn into a
media circus.
Let faith, not appetite, guide our steps.
Winston
Churchill
Political Broadcast
January 21, 1950.