Complex ways than i had imagined. And i came to understand him better, i hope and think, and it was a painful process. Host did you approach this book from a fans perspective . Guest well, im a scholar, right . So i dont think that i can write anything down that i cant defend. But i do admire churchill very much. I i think he was a very great man, and i think if you just list the things he achieved, its just very hard to name anybody in all of history like him. Its just a fact. Winston churchill wrote 50 books, and theyre worth reading. And thats just by itself, doesnt that separate him from nearly everybody, politician or not . And then theres this fact, and its a big fact and one of the great turning points of world history, he was there, and he did things, he was there in the place that mattered the most for about three months. And he did things that nobody else there would have done. So he did alter history in major ways whether for good or ill. There are arguments about that. So both those qualities, to be eloquent and to be, and to write as much and as well as he did and to be there at a turning point and then to write all about that and explain what that was all about, thats i dont know anything quite like that. I dont think that i could never keep up with the pace of writing an begin that would be required. And then, look what he did. Churchill was not rich. He made a lot of money, almost all of it writing and speaking. He turned out an enormous amount of dust. Some of that he called them potboilers. It helped with some of them. But some of them are profound. Im teaching a class this term on contemporary george orwell, martha kessler, cs lewis and Winston Churchill. Those people very different people had something similar to say about a tendency in government in modern times totalitarianism. And i say we are reading that stands up to the standard of those people. Host who are his friends . Did he have lifelong friends . Guest yes, he did. He had some really great friends that persisted through life. A man named reggie barnes, a soldier, went to cuba with churchill when they were young old chairs. They later learned to tell what was going on there with the spanish war, with the cuban people. They became friends there. They served into other actions together and they remain a correspondent in 30 sometime. Churchill is closer to man named fe smith worker can hand in the movie chariots of fire. He was a very learned, very powerful man. Ill tell you by the site. An essay is very worth reading. He shown pretty good effect in chariots of fire, that he used to walk along powell now, the famous street in england and london. He would go and the liberal club and use the facilities. By knowing, and board or can head was a member of the club and the porter said to him from excuse me, my lord, are you a member of this club . He said club . I thought this was a public convenience. He and churchill were very close. Churchill wrote a beautiful essay about 10 in which he deployed the phrase commenting on the fact he was not wealthy. He piled up its treasure in the heart of his friends. Then there were a lot of younger people they churchill admired and stayed with him for 25 or 30 years. Brendan bracken, founder of the financial times. Theres a really great man about churchills age in the 30s and gave him a only hard jobs to do and secular world war and he always did it really remarkable man. His grandson is now lord norwich towards the end of his life and job julian norwich who i know is the great historian of venice in the best tour guide have ever seen. There were a lot of people in churchills life there were constant. Host looking back to the british people make the right decision in getting rid of churchill after world war ii . Guest i dont think so and he didnt think so. He gives an explanation of that. First of all, he ran that campaign very hard. First of all, and adlai laid down the strong implication that churchill was a knot sea. Churchill laid down the strong explication that he said in july july 1945 he said the socialist government could not just error phrase. And you laughed at fulton aims with the use of secret police and gestapo but not land. It was not their intention but to get done what they are trying to get done. Said he thought it was a disaster. He got eat by allied. He won and he nearly one in election and 15. He won by a little in fifth in one and in both of those elections he compared the ultimate consequences of socialism to bolshevism, which is of course the totalitarian theme of the day by 50 and 51. So yeah, i think it was a mistake. The labour party as not so much a socialist party as it used to be back then. Maybe they get some agreement with churchill about that. When he gave the socalled speech at Westminster College in 1946, what was he doing . Was he in the wilderness . U. S. Hed only met. Truman once. In the middle of the conference, the votes are counted for the 45 election and adlai took over for him. An enormous change happened in World Affairs between july 1945 in february 1946 in the Truman Administration. Because the Truman Administration made a decision they very much had not thought to truman first came to power that they were going to stand up and contain the soviet union. The fulton speech, so churchill got inside i am there was a poster would a poster would you come to a top. There is a postscript in the hand of henry truman. Its a nice college, please come out and introduce you. Churchill was there in the heart needs and that turned out to be part of a plan by truman and churchill in that speech announces the cold war. Host how many times did he spend in the wilderness throughout his career . Guest oddly enough, only one from 1931 until 1939. A shorter one from 1945 until 1951 and arrested him for three years surrender. The wilderness means two things. And its your party is not in power and it means you are not holding one of the leading positions in your party and light lead to succeed if your party wins. Those were not very long but two of them were longish. Host in your book, you reprint the speech from 1946. I have now stated the two great dangers which menaced the homes of warring tierney. What is the tierney part of this . Guest well, churchill had a sophisticated understanding of politics. I teach aristotle here and read a lot of aristotle. One marveled at how consistent with how the classics thought about categories and churchill thinking was. Tierney three of them were good. Then bad in the secondary way. The good rule is the monarchy and the bad rule is tierney and tierney is the worst and it is a role in the interest of the rulers. Not the rule of. It is all powerful and is one of them. Aristotle in book five, chapter 11, very worth reading. Everyone should read that today. He describes the tyrant has to do to remain in power. Hes repeated a story they sent a messenger to carry under and says how if you stayed in power so long. He doesnt say anything. He starts off being off the tall stocks of grain. The messenger comes back until the untiring she didnt say anything. He just is this and he says i know what it means. So, churchill things and he lives in the birth of totalitarianism, a new word for tierney. First of all, it is certainly different in scale and intensity from anything that could be achieved in the ancient world. Churchill gets a lot of explanation about why that becomes possible in the modern world. Its a mixture of science and ideology. Science makes us richer so we can deploy more people through rule. Other people makes more worse for the same reason and gives new tools for both and ideology, this idea born in the modern world that we could take everything into human hands and perfect it. Churchill feared that. He saw that early in his career. And it would develop into something worse before they turn of the 20th century. It elected its first people. He thought they both been transformed into yet more forces by modern conditions. Your viewers should read 1984 for darkness at noon. One of them is a view of the modern totalitarian state from the bottom point of view, its the dems and one of the view from the top, the point of view of its rulers. If you put the books together you will see the classical teaching, for example is a hero. Its a conversation between appellate and a tyrant hero. One thing that emerges in the dialogue is that hero is miserable. It is actually not good to dominate other people. They dont like it. It doesnt breed happiness. This friction everywhere. You can never turn your back. Bashaw in darkness at noon is the protagonist should be styled as a peep hole in 1919. A photograph taken at the museum now been there other marine. Its a very beautiful home and the germans put the bolshevik leaders into question to destabilize russia. Churchill wrote injected as they poisoned the scylla and a train and they sat in the mec of reveals that they are doing. Like when youre a kid in school if trotsky and bulgar in an burzynski and lenin and stalin and all of them all lined up there. They are making a list of people to kill people and they send people out to kill them. There is a photograph taken and they were all in a line. Linden is in the middle that they are all in a line. Somebody higher or lower lined up and they take a picture. By 1939, every one of them that had not died of natural causes, stalin had killed. And with the one of the last in this work of fiction. The whole book is an explanation. Why did these guys confess to crimes that they have not committed, knowing in public that crimes against a man they hated and feared, why did they confess to those crimes knowing that they would be executed in a few days after it was over . Why did they do that . Darkness at noon explains that. The answer is not torture. The short explanation is they had all done this to other people and it is just pointed out to them that they owed. So it takes over. The tyrant is caught in it to. It is a miserable way of living. And i will repeat it sounded in utopian hopes and it sounded and the power of modern science and those things are among us today. Host here at hillsdale you have a triangulation of statutes. Ronald reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill. All done by hillsdale a loan. Guest one of them is not good one of them is done by our senior scope are here at the college. One of his students and one is done by bruce wolf. Hes doing redrick douglas of course right now. The photograph on Frederick Douglass is visiting card if he gave you his card, the photograph was taken in not building standing right over there. Host isnt the profile picture . Guest no, he said in a chair with his legs crossed. He looks like a million bucks. A striking man with strong features. I hunted down the man who own day. It was sent money. It was moral obligation. They died waiting for the war and her Frederick Douglass taught on one of the occasions at the college. Did she think that photograph belongs here . The man send it to me. He is a photographer for the Maryland Historical society. Still in the back, where you are talking about for modern people, they were all heavily admired here or had a connection. The middle our founders put jefferson and sina has mattis said in another thread or civil war people because we were founded in the civil war. Our soldiers statue in the 1880s by laredo taft is in honor of four were witches unsurpassed very many and probably more than any other except yield. Maybe most of all we are all proud of that. Christian abolitionists. So those three in the back, those are statesmen which we were born of our Office Building where Frederick Douglass picture was dedicated on the fourth of july in the beautiful speech by Edmund Fairfield who helped found the Republican Party was Lieutenant Governor michigander and civil war and the governor. So we are proud of all of that and we think the cause of limited free Constitutional Government is a great cause and the greatest Political Development in history we even think after the founder. So we study out that can come to admire those people. For those who arent familiar, what is the meekness of Hillsdale College . Guest you have to put a few things together. We dont take any money from the government director and direct. Poster that includes student loans. Guest thats right. All of that is voluntary as the days for every college for most of our history which goes back to 184040. We think that is good because we think Higher Learning is a thing to be done by people who really wanted because its not easy to get. Theres lots of learning thats very noble that everybody should have. The highest kind of learning you have to really want to make. But that is unique, that money from the government. The college has always been a loving government that helped found the party of Abraham Lincoln with a big part in the civil war has always rallied to the countrys wars, always taught the constitution here, always had a huge History Department which is the largest in the college right now. So theres that. The colleges interested in in the christian faith. That is interesting because the college has always believed in civil and religious freedom and the first line of the founding Articles Association of the college. Whenever required a statement to come here. On the other hand, nearly everybody is a serious question here. What we do is we have an honor code that requires all these things demand respect from everyone here. Of course you can argue with them, but the institution so theres christianity. And then we are interested in character. We think the moral character of a person is the armor in which the person lives and unable to live well without the armor. Finally ,com,com ma the subject matter of the college is the ultimate thing, the essence of life, the things for which we live our lives and those are things that are identified in the classical and medieval literature as being the things that are good simply for their own sake and theres nothing you could add to them that would make them better. So those are things that identifies happiness is the ultimate guide for human beings and happiness is the sole active in accordance with virtue. That means all the virtues, both doing and thinking virtues and we believe here, i teach aristotles ethics here. The kids love it. All the kids read the first book before they come here for their freshman year. We send them the book. Read this. And then the rest of the four years comes to understand what that meant things like that mean including in the national entree Natural Sciences which are very strong here. So those things make the college in it. Its also true the college makes this singular. Half of the curriculum is the same for every kid here and that means weve got three yeah then played in the nfl right now and weve got three young men who recently clerked on the Supreme Court of the United States and the six young men spend half the time studying all the same stuff. When they get together and their friends, three pairs of friends. They have a lot to talk about. Host when he became president in 2000, what was going on at the college . Guest it was just like it is now except not as good. Youre probably referring to the fact that there is a trouble in the college. What happened was my predecessor, was here for 28 years and his marriage had wrote not and his son and daughterinlaw were living with him for a time and she took her life and left the note is that theyve been having an affair. That was not good and he retired, had to, i personally dont believe he did. What do i know, they are living in a house together. The college of coors couldnt. The colleges judgment was that he couldnt continue. And so they started looking for a president one day. I think its sad that that happens. Soccer george and his family and for the young woman who took her life. If it hadnt happened that way, i doubt if they wouldve approached me about this. I know that i would approach them because i refused them and i didnt want to talk to them about it. By which you want to be a College President. Host what return at the time . If so i was running the Claremont Institute which id helped found. They are people interested in the things ive been talking about in this conversation. So i helped to build that place. I worked for people who are friends of mine, educated by committee. I didnt have a bunch of unruly kids to deal with. Why would i want to leave that . Especially because its the famous thing on college campuses. I said one time to the chairman of the board, i said most of my friends are faculty members. Why would i want to do that . Dont you think i know what they think about these guys . They said you really think so . I know a couple who teach there. What made me change my mind is the document is. Chance. To me a favor. Im not going to do that job. I dont want that job. He said humor me. So they called. They have been sending me a lot of stuff. I said what you said the lawyer said i should read it. I get these articles and they are written by these people and 1840s. They read about the declaration of independence which i happen to love. Theres a pretty little town where its warm. I just had a shiver go through me. Look at that. I flipped to the back and said yeah, that is right. This place is old. I kind of forgotten. Here in 1998 i remember when it was. I said wow, you have a big part in the civil war. If you guys are in a goodacre job, you would at least call me. So i see that its Beautiful People who are smart they cant work for you because youre brilliant. What he learned from lincoln and churchill . Churchill said this beautiful thing. He said in saying that all shabazz and could not ultimately succeed in this essay, he said they are trying to turn this into in facts. It is explosive variations are entirely the bowl. It wants a safeguard in the glory of mankind that it is easy to read and hard to drive. If you can read and you can read and you can way back, you can say well, isnt that how you would like to be governed, how everyone would like to be governed . I saw in that document a way to do that. Its not about me. This is about that. If you dont find that beautiful, what are you doing here . And if you do, once you help me do it and so we do not. Besides writing books and teaching classes, what does the president of the college do . Well, Everything Else you pay for getting those things. I work with fabulous people here very good at the job. Every monday morning for an hour or two, we fit in my office single over everything from. Theres always a long list. We try to keep the college straight. Theres always risks. It is big business as always. Regulatory risk. Theres always all kinds of problems. They just show to appear early in the term. They are all really happy right now. They all look like vampires because they been up too late and they are working too hard and the stress is getting to them and theyve got dark circles under those young, bright eyes. So youve got to cope with all of that. Youve got to watch the budget and i have a fair amount to do with that. A lot of people do. I am running a fickle business. I couldnt do it without people helping me. You ever wish you had taken the Heritage Foundation job . Im not saying i was offered that job, but i like this job a lot. I am on the board here. They are doing very well. Whatever happened about that, the right choices made by everyone concerned. It is fun to watch and help. I am very fond of days. First of all, if your viewers want to be a College President , he probably can be. There were thousands of them. I would urge you not to do it unless you really love young people. Because they are the reward and their potential. One of the things i teach them as aristotle teaches actual is superior. God in aristotle and christianity and judaism. Though potency at all. If you are a potency that means you could change or get better and that would be imperfection. If Abraham Lincoln in his prime as a superior human being to nearly anybody and himself when this was young. Against that and theres a massive delay of growth and the courses through the being that undergoes a period some of my students are grownups now. Many, many of them are very awesome people and they are beginning to tell me what to do. Finally, larry arnn, if you were to write an instinct ebook on the state of the conservative movement, what would you write . Well, it holds great promise. It is divided. The way to cure the division is for it to focus much more intensively on the things that it is to conserve. And in america, that they would be the beginning of the greatest Free Republic in Human History in this appeal to the laws of nature and god in this appeal to the selfevident truths of human equality. Host larry arnn is the president of Hillsdale College in michigan, professor tells cells and the author of this book, churchills trial Winston Churchill and the salvation of free government. This is booktv on cspan2. Now on booktv we want to introde