Lloyd George and Churchill: How Friendship Changed History

They met in 1901, the day of Churchill's maiden speech in the House of Commons, and remained fast friends until Lloyd George's death in 1945. As prime minister, each in turn led the British nation to victory in a world war, David Lloyd George in 1916-1918, Winston Churchill in 1940-1945. They were sneeringly referred to as the Heavenly Twins by political colleagues who hated them and envied their power and charisma. Rintals, who teaches European politics at Boston College, probes the dynamics of their political and personal partnership and relates how they supported each other in times of stress. In a masterful exposition, he compares their formative years, the development of their oratorical and writing skills, their sex lives (Lloyd George, according to the author, was a lecher; Churchill's sexual requirements were modest) and the character of their mental depressions. (Mar.)