More Than a Name

When the young man introduces himself, people tend to chuckle at his little joke, then fumble sheepishly for words when they realize that he is, indeed, Winston Spencer Churchill II, grandson of Sir Winston. Despite such complications, Churchill has never felt constrained to change his name. It was largely because of his byline that his recent series of articles on the Nigerian war helped focus rising British discontent over Britain's role in the fighting, and sent Prime Minister Harold Wilson to Nigeria for a firsthand look last week. At 28, one of Britain's most promising young reporters is off to a heady start.

There is a trace of boyishness in Churchill's sandy hair, freckles and blue-eyed charm, but he is neither naive nor gullible. He doggedly pursued both sides of the confused and rumor-fed struggle in Nigeria, checked federal claims in Lagos against observable fact in Biafra. He carefully outlined his own clear conclusions in a long four-part series for the London Times. Churchill had started with the impression that starvation was exaggerated, bombing of civilians a myth and a federal victory imminent. He wound up appalled at the extent of the Ibo people's suffering and amazed at their ability to hold off the better-armed federal troops. Moreover, he blasted Britain for supplying those arms.

Unattached Feet. Churchill's style is less graceful and literary than that of his grandfather, whose own career was similarly launched in journalism. Young Winston writes more directly, though not as well.* He described hunger victims in Biafra: "Their bellies were as large as a pregnant woman's, their limbs like matchsticks, and some had testicles swollen to the size of a large grapefruit." His ear is attuned to the poignant quote, such as the plea of a starving boy who approached a priest and asked: "Father, what is happening to my body?" He lets unadorned facts convey his anger. After a Nigerian plane bombed a civilian marketplace, Churchill noted that "there were so many unattached feet, hands, legs and arms that it was impossible to tell to which body they belonged."

That kind of detail, plus the fact that Churchill placed much of the blame on the British government, touched feelings of guilt in England. "It is British policy to keep Nigeria one and to keep it one by force of arms," he wrote. "Because the British government have never publicly disassociated themselves from these wanton and deliberate bombing raids--as they felt compelled to do in regard to the American bombing raids on North Viet Nam--Britain must bear a very grave responsibility."

While his Biafra series finally established Churchill as a respected professional, his words have seen print ever since he graduated from Eton in 1959 and took a summer job in New York writing headlines for the Wall Street Journal. He earned a modern-history degree from Oxford, then joined an expedition through the Sahara. That trip led to his first bylined story, which appeared in the London Sunday Express.

Look magazine sent Churchill in 1966 to Viet Nam, where he flew in air strikes against the Viet Cong, shared trenches with U.S. infantrymen and concluded: "More than ever I am convinced that Britain must stand behind the U.S. in Viet Nam." With fortunate timing, he arrived in Israel just before the war with the Arabs broke out in 1967 and he covered it for the London Evening News. He also got a wire from his father, Randolph: SUGGEST WE DO JOINT RUSH BOOK. WHAT DO YOU SAY? Their book, The Six Day War, sold 170,000 copies in Britain, even though it was needlessly dull and Winston's chapters were only a shade more impressive and less preachy than his father's. Churchill also managed to be in Prague just before the Soviet invasion and in Chicago when police and protesters clashed.

Churchill speaks with understatement about his grandfather. Winston, he says, "suffered from being put down as Sir Randolph's boy. He had to carve out his own little niche. It wasn't so little." Churchill is certain his own niche also will be carved in politics. He ran for Parliament in 1967, lost narrowly, intends to try again. He, too, sees a certain compatibility between politics and journalism. "An M.P. has to be well informed," he says, "and journalism is one of the best ways of informing oneself." Journalism is also, as Winston Spencer Churchill well knows, a handy way to make a name for himself, while drawing on the magic of his namesake.

* Covering the Boer War in 1900, Winston Churchill reported the death of a Major Childe: "Old and gray as he was, the call to arms had drawn him from home, and wife, and comfort as it is drawing many of all ages and fortunes now. And so he was killed in his first fight against the Boers. He had a queer presentiment of impending fate, for he had spoken a good deal to us of the chances of death, and had even selected his own epitaph, so that on the little wooden cross which stands at the foot of Bastion Hill--the hill he himself took and held--there is written: "Is it well with the child? It is well!" "

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