Historians clash over Churchill 'anti-Semitism'; Gilbert says article written by ghostwriter
Winston Churchill's views on anti-Semitism were at the centre of a row last night after Cambridge University claimed to have discovered a 70-year-old document in which the future Prime Minister wrote that Jews may 'have been partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer', inviting terms of abuse such as 'Hebrew bloodsucker'.
Dr Richard Toye, a Cambridge historian, said he chanced on a typed article, written by Churchill in 1937 but unpublished, among proofs and press cuttings at the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge. The university issued a press release trumpeting, 'Uncovered: The "lost" paper Churchill kept from publication,' and promoting a book by Toye which is to be published later this month. [Dr Toye's book, 'Lloyd George & Churchill: Rivals for Greatness' will be published by Macmillan on March 16.]
But when The Observer contacted Sir Martin Gilbert, the eminent historian and Churchill biographer, the implication of anti-Semitism began to unravel. Gilbert, who also has a book out this summer, said the article was not written by Churchill at all, but rather his ghost writer, Adam Marshall Diston. He added that Churchill's instructions for the article were different in both tone and content from what Diston eventually wrote, and pointed out that Diston was a supporter of Oswald Mosley, the notorious fascist and anti-Semite. Churchill had stopped its publication in a newspaper.
Read entire article at Observer
Dr Richard Toye, a Cambridge historian, said he chanced on a typed article, written by Churchill in 1937 but unpublished, among proofs and press cuttings at the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge. The university issued a press release trumpeting, 'Uncovered: The "lost" paper Churchill kept from publication,' and promoting a book by Toye which is to be published later this month. [Dr Toye's book, 'Lloyd George & Churchill: Rivals for Greatness' will be published by Macmillan on March 16.]
But when The Observer contacted Sir Martin Gilbert, the eminent historian and Churchill biographer, the implication of anti-Semitism began to unravel. Gilbert, who also has a book out this summer, said the article was not written by Churchill at all, but rather his ghost writer, Adam Marshall Diston. He added that Churchill's instructions for the article were different in both tone and content from what Diston eventually wrote, and pointed out that Diston was a supporter of Oswald Mosley, the notorious fascist and anti-Semite. Churchill had stopped its publication in a newspaper.