On September 3, 2009, a debate sponsored by IntelligenceSquared, at the Methodist Central Hall Westminster, in London,considered the question: “Resolved: Churchill was more a liability thanan asset to the free world.“
Speakers for the motion: Pat Buchanan, Nigel Knight, politicalscientist and economist at Churchill College, Cambridge, and NormanStone, historian and professor of International Relations at BilkentUniversity, Ankara.
Speakers against the motion: Antony Beevor, historian and author of the best-selling book Stalingrad;professor Richard Overy, historian, author of many books and articleson the Second World War and the Nazi regime; and Andrew Roberts,historian, who has spent 20 years writing, researching, andbroadcasting about Churchill and the Second World War.
We publish below Pat Buchanans opening statement:
To borrow from Mark Antonys funeral oration, we of the affirmative are not here to praise Mr. Churchill but to bury him.
But, first, let us concede the greatness of the man.
In that finest hour of the British nation, 1940, Winston Churchill wasindomitable, an inspiration to men everywhere. He was the Lion whogave Britains roar of defiance in the face of Hitlers Germany. Forthat, he will be honored by peoples everywhere and forever.
And if we judged him on that year alone, there would be no debate. There would be unanimity.
But Churchills career did not last a single year. It lasted half acentury. And, over that half century, no other career of a Westernstatesman was more calamitous for his country and his civilization than that of Winston Spencer Churchill.
More than any other British leader, in 1914 and 1939, Churchill lustedfor war and pushed his country to turn two European wars into worldwars, so Germany might be destroyed.
Both times, he succeeded.Â