Winston Spencer Churchill Honorary Cartier Dinner Program Signed.

CHURCHILL, Winston S.

Item Number: 100108

Rare original Cartier-printed program from the dinner held in honor of Winston S. Churchill at the Waldorf Astoria on Friday, March 15th 1946. Quarto, gilt embossed coat of arms of the United Kingdom to the front panel, the first page features a full-page photogravure of Canadian photographer Yousef Karsh’s iconic portrait of Churchill, “The Roaring Lion” which in May 1945 was featured on the cover of Life magazine. Signed by Churchill beneath his famous likeness, “Winston S. Churchill.” In 1941, after Churchill’s address to the Canadian Parliament, Karsh had but a moment to photograph him and daringly removed the cigar from Churchill’s mouth, memorializing the staunch leader’s stern expression with the image he captured at that very moment. Churchill later said to Karsh, “You can even make a roaring lion stand still to be photographed,” which led Karsh to name the portrait “The Roaring Lion.” Containing two excerpts from two of Churchill’s most memorable speeches: his first speech as Prime Minister and his June 4th 1940 speech following the evacuation of Dunkirk. In fine condition. Rare and desirable, signed only ten days after Churchill delivered his famous ‘Iron Curtain Speech’ in Fulton, Missouri declaring: “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere.” In fine condition.

Churchill’s speeches “constitute a contemporary history of the war which is as lively as it is authoritative; and, so far as contemporary history is of value, they may be said to be the last word upon the war” (Randolph S. Churchill). Regarded as perhaps the most important speech Churchill delivered as Leader of the Opposition between 1945 and 1951, The Sinews of Peace, or Iron Curtain Speech attracted immediate international attention and had an immense impact upon public opinion in the United States and in Western Europe. The speech has come to be regarded by many as the beginning of the Cold War and has been praised for its intricately woven thematic and powerfully climactic style.