August 12, 2013

Finest Hour 118, Spring 2003

Page 12

Judy Kambestad: CC Governor and Local Affairs Coordinator

A native Californian, Judy was conference manager for the San Diego and Leesburg conferences and rounds out a triptych managing the Bermuda conference this year.

After graduating from the University of California, Santa Barbara, Judy taught history, Latin, English and journalism. Later she worked in the oil industry, and recently retired from ARCO. Her memories of Churchill began with her father, who believed that WSC “saved the world.” She remembers thinking that anyone with so fierce a growl could save whatever he wanted.

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While still in school Judy read a paperback biography, then began delving into Churchill’s own books and soon became an admirer.

Today, looking back on Churchill’s career, she admires his tenacity and bulldog determination to save Britain in 1940, which at times seems as if he succeeded with little more than words and bluff. His roar traveled transatlantic to an isolationist America. Roosevelt was one of those who heard and created the Lend-Lease program to provide war material. But it took two more years for the USA to join Britain as an ally. Churchill’s tenacity over this crucial period, Judy feels, is a lesson for future generations.

One wartime cartoon Judy always remembers portrays the Prime Minister, oblivious to danger, sitting on a rooftop during a German air raid, smoking a cigar with bombs going off around him. (This of course shut off the draft, leaving those in the building suffocating from smoke.) She recalls pictures of Churchill visiting troops in Africa, and with Eisenhower before D-Day: “Some of the most touching photos were taken as he scrambled through the wreckage of Londoners’ homes, even Parliament. And of course, there is that great culminating photograph, with the King and Queen on the Buckingham Palace balcony celebrating V-E Day. These vivid images of courage must be relayed to and impressed on future generations, future leaders.”

Because of her love of history, Judy Kambestad admires Churchill’s sense of and references to the past; but believes the most remarkable thing about him is the history he made and wrote over sixty years in the public eye. “Nobody else even comes close,” she says. “His views are timeless. His admonition, ‘Study History, Study History,’ is so important, so needed, and so true.

“World War II is still responsible for the state of the world today. It needs to be studied, understood and interpreted by young people. Churchill was the quintessential historian of the war, and the outflow of books about him continues undiminished nearly four decades since his death. Was anyone surprised to hear Churchill quoted so frequently following September 11th, 2001? His words helped people to rise above the enemy.”

Judy has visited Churchill sites in Europe, America, Madeira, Morocco, and traveled the “Churchill Trail” in Britain: Bletchley, Blenheim, Bladon, the War Rooms; but her favorite is Chartwell: “Walking through its rooms, his presence is very tangible. The round dining table ringed with comfortable armchairs invokes images of long conversations with Lindemann, Beaverbrook, Bracken and others over Pol Roger or brandy. One can picture German informants under assumed names in clandestine prewar conversations; or Vivian Leigh seated next to a speechless, staring Churchill; or Charlie Chaplin or T. E. Lawrence, bringing stories of their worlds. Chartwell’s visitor book holds the names of the great movers and thinkers of the 20th Century.” For Judy, Chartwell is Churchill.