OPINION:
CLEMENTINE: THE LIFE OF MRS. WINSTON CHURCHILL
By Sonia Purnell
Viking, $30, 416 pages, illustrated
If all those books on the many aspects of Winston Churchill have definitely demonstrated the contradictory nature of the man and his career, this probing, well-researched and wise biography of his wife proves that she was a veritable mass of contradictions. From her aristocratic but impoverished background to her role as wife, mother and public figure, seemingly everything about her defies easy categorization. And easy was the one thing she rarely was, although it must be said that for more than 55 years, much of her energies went into easing in all sorts of ways her husband’s turbulent, harried, often almost superhumanly pressured life. Starchy yet surprisingly emotional; crisp to the point of sharpness, sometimes loving and caring, but occasionally cold and harsh; steely disciplined and perfectionist, yet given to bouts of self-doubt and diffidence, she is so complex and complicated a figure that she even gives her husband (no slouch himself in those departments) a real run for his money.
Although Clementine could be paralyzingly shy, she could summon up amazing courage when necessary. And she was no respecter of people in positions of authority, whoever they were. Whether she was upbraiding World War I Prime Minister H.H. Asquith for his shabby treatment of her husband in dropping him from his government or, at the center of the maelstrom of power in the next world conflict, not hesitating to criticize her spouse’s high-handed and overbearing treatment of those serving in his administration, she did not pull her punches.
Her meeting with Stalin in his Kremlin study —”the Ogre in his Den” at the end of World War II was a stiff occasion, with the dictator at his most dour, although she was very much on what the British call a “charm offensive” at her husband’s behest and determined to be at her most diplomatic. But angered at Soviet actions in Poland, she later made her views plain.
Sonia Purnell writes, “Thus briefed, Clementine ’rather flew at’ [former Russian ambassador to Britain Ivan] Maisky, who was reduced to beating a ’diplomatic retreat.’Indeed, even while she was still in Moscow, she was more in favor of adopting a tough stance with Stalin than was her husband. Upon her return to London in May, she made plain her view that the West ’should break off diplomatic relations’ with Moscow ’if they did not mend their ways.’ In a handwritten annotation to this line [she wrote] ’Winston would disapprove!’ She appreciated the difference between the enveloping friendliness of the Russian people and what she viewed as their ’sinister’ Soviet government and thought only a tough stance would pay dividends.”
If only she had been at the Yalta Conference earlier that year, as wife and informal adviser (rather than in a more perfect world at the table itself.), how different the history of Eastern Europe — and the world — might have been. This was an Iron Lady when it came to the USSR long before Margaret Thatcher.
When it came to her husband’s other great ally, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, her contradictory nature was definitely apparent. Unlike Winston Churchill who stopped at nothing to join himself to the presidential hip,
“Clementine was disappointed by the man whom her husband so adored. His easy charm usually won over detractors but it had the opposite effect on her. His greatest crime appears to have been the liberty of addressing her as ’Clemmie,’ a privilege normally reserved for the most deserving and long-serving friends. She was incensed at his ’cheek’.it colored Clementine’s opinion of Roosevelt for good. She treated him to a frosty stare.”
Roosevelt was famous for calling everyone by their first names, even royalty, none of whom seemed to mind. So Clementine’s bridling at what she obviously resented as unpardonable overfamiliarity is at best an overreaction — perhaps to all that spousal adoration as well — at worst that starchy side to her character rearing its head inopportunely. Eleanor Roosevelt seems to have brought out her softer side: Clementine’s congratulatory message to her on Nazi Germany’s surrender was signed with “Love from Clementine Churchill,” while the former first lady signed her reply merely with the cooler “affectionately.”
There is one quality Clementine Churchill possessed which is beyond dispute: her beauty. And I can attest from personal experience that she kept it even into her 80s. As a teenager in London 50 years ago, only six months after Sir Winston’s funeral where her dry-eyed but obviously stricken dignity galvanized hundreds of millions, I was astonished to realize that the elderly lady walking toward me with a cane in her hand was no other than Lady Churchill. Her piercing eyes and cameo features were magnificent, exceeded only by what I can only term her presence. Even if you hadn’t known who she was, there was no doubt that this was someone truly distinguished. And I recognize that woman and what shaped her on every page of this book.
• Martin Rubin is a writer and critic in Pasadena, Calif.
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