A tale of two busts: Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King Jr.

Charles sent me an email about Nigel Farage (the leader of BKip or Independent Party) suggested President-elect Donald Trump to take Churchill Bust back to the White House and Trump thought that was a good idea.

We have read so much news about the coming and going of Churchill Bust over the years and it is getting difficult to tell the truth from the fake news.  I’ll try to tell the story as I think it right.

The Bust of interest is the one that came to White House Oval Office in 2001 when George W. Bush took office; it was supposed to be a loan from Tony Blair’s government during Bush’s presidency, which lasted for 8 years.  If it were true, then no one can blame Obama to return it to the owner.

Obama went to Britain to urge British not to leave E.U. saying it would be a mistake; this irked many Brexit promotors, especially Boris Johnson (then London Mayor, now Foreign Minister, and almost Prime Minster) who said the reason why the Bust was removed from the Oval Office is because it is “a symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire—of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.”

During a news conference Obama said there is a Churchill bust in the door entering his upstairs private office, called Treaty Room, and he sees it every day.  He also said his predecessor had a Churchill bust on the desk in the Oval Office.  He exchanged it to a Martin Luther King Jr. bust, without whom, Obama said, he wouldn’t have the privilege to hold the office.  Obama said it would clutter with so many busts on desk; he didn’t say whether the bust was a loan or a gift.

The Churchill bust upstairs Obama referred to was obviously given to White House in 1965.  We read a diary entry of Lady Bird on Oct. 6, 1965,

“Upstairs was quite a different party—one I had looked forward to for oddly sentimental reasons.  It was the acceptance of the Jacob Epstein bust of Winston Churchill being presented to the White House by his war time friends.”

It happens that both busts are the work of Sir Jacob Epstein.

Being an anglophile and a Churchill admirer, I like to see Churchill bust in the Oval Office, not just in the White House.  One may say that America rescued U.K. from ruin under the Nazi’s yoke.  But if Britain didn’t stand alone and went under, one cannot imagine how much more American blood had to be shed and how many millions American youths had to be sacrificed if America were to survive or beat Nazi alone, one may even see the blitz in New York city or Boston.

Besides Churchill is truly an American, not that his mother was an American, but he, like Lafayette, is the honored American citizen; he has every right to sit on the desk in the Oval Office.  If the bust was indeed loaned to Bush, then let’s move the bust from upstairs private office to the Oval Office.

Now let’s hope Trump will not remove the Martin Luther King Jr. bust from the Oval Office.  He deserves to be there, too.