Churchill Worship
Maybe this is his finest hour. He is dead and buried in his home country, a venerable figure of history. But in the US, Churchill is alive and well, reborn as an American idol, the most powerful role model for the neo-cons. On January 21, President Bush issued a letter offering "greetings to all those observing the 40th anniversary of the death of Sir Winston Churchill". Not that the president's acolytes need much encouragement. The more discerning neo-cons have been celebrating Churchill's birthday for years. James Mann's portrait of Bush's foreign policy team, Rise of the Vulcans, describes how Leo Strauss, their ideologue-in-chief, turned Churchill-worship into a central tenet of neo-conservatism as early as the 1950s. Mann describes how every year the leading Straussians, including deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, convene in Washington to sip brandy and smoke cigars on Churchill's birthday. But their celebrations are as nothing compared with the Winston Churchill Society, which recreates the wartime premier's decadent habits. Their annual dinner was held last autumn in the Lansdowne Resort in Virginia - a recreation of Churchill's 88th birthday meal at London's Savoy, where beef Wellington, oyster bisque with Devon cream, cracked pepper-seared turbot and Pol Roger Champagne were served.