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Winston Churchill prophesied, made, and recorded history. In the chronicles of world events, it is difficult to think of others-besides Churchill-who qualify for this singular distinction.
As a young subaltern, he rode in one of the last cavalry charges, in the Sudan in 1895. As a British prime minister, he was consulted when the United States launched the hydrogen bomb in 1953. He served in the cabinet in two world wars. When he first took his seat in Parliament in 1900, he took his oath to Queen Victoria. When he resigned his seat in Parliament in 1964, Lyndon Johnson was U.S. President.
The number of years Churchill served in Parliament and high office outdistances anyone in history. Yet the number of words he created and drafted as author, historian, and journalist, as well as speaker in the House of Commons and for radio addresses and public occasions, also exceed that of almost any writer in this century.
Churchill is one of the few statesmen who occupied both the world of thought and the world of action.
Most of Churchill's observations carry with them both the dimensions of actual experience and the knowledge of history.
Churchill once wrote of Prime Minister Lord Rosebery that he was a great man in an era of small events." In an era of momentous events, Churchill was a giant.
Richard Milhouse (Tricky Dick) Nixon
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