Books: Excerpt

" He did not like to be told what to do. He was climbing into a cockpit, puffing on a cigar, when his flier reminded him that when they became airborne the cigar would be extremely dangerous. He scrambled down, flung the butt on the airstrip, and stamped on it. One evening in France he and [his secretary] Eddie Marsh were driving to his chateau in a Rolls-Royce. It was a trying journey, as Marsh described it in his diary: 'First a tyre burst with one of those loud bursts which make one think one has been assassinated—and then ... Winston...

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