Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Breitman in the New York Times

Our May speaker, Richard Breitman was quoted yesterday in an article in the New York Times, regarding his role as a member of a government-appointed team that declassified war-crime records.

The article, "In Cold War, U.S. Spy Agencies Used 1,000 Nazis," quoted Breitman as saying:
“This all stemmed from a kind of panic, a fear that the Communists were terribly powerful and we had so few assets,” he said."  

Monday, October 27, 2014

Winston Churchill Is Topic of Next Meeting

The next meting of the World War II Book Club will be on Tuesday, November 18, 2014, as usual at the Millburn Library commencing at 7 p.m.

"Churchill V sign HU 55521" by British Government - This is photograph HU 55521 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Churchill_V_sign_HU_55521.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Churchill_V_sign_HU_55521.jpg
From the collections
of the Imperial War Museums.
Our speaker will be Richard G. Osborne. Mr. Osborne is a former classmate of John J. McLaughlin at Columbia High School, Maplewood, New Jersey. Like many high school graduates, they depart school, do not keep in touch, and often do not see each other for many years. Such is the case with Richard Osborne. Recently, John was privileged to be at an event where Richard was the guest speaker. The subject of the lecture was Winston S. Churchill. Richard gave a remarkable speech about Mr. Churchill, without notes, and without the ubiquitous teleprompter, the absence of which render most modern day politicians speechless. 

We learned that after graduation from high school, Richard served a tour in the United States Army with the A.S.A., the forerunner of the N.S.A. He earned a B.A. from Rutgers University followed by a law degree also from Rutgers. He spent 50 years as a professional manager of various privately held companies, traveled extensively and lived for a time in Greece and the U.K. All during this time he read widely in history, and became fascinated with the career of Winston Churchill, becoming as much of an expert about Churchill as many authors and historians.   

He is a founding member of the Churchill Center and a member of the Churchillian N.E. Chapter. Richard maintains a private library of over 3,000 books. By any definition, Mr. Osborne is truly a historian, and we are honored to have him as our guest.  Richard is traveling from Boston to give us this lecture. We look forward to a wonderful evening. Please mark the date.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Boyer Video Available

Barbara Boyer at New Jersey World Word II Book Club, Millburn, NJ
Barbara Boyer
The video recording of Barbara Boyer's September lecture is now available on Youtube, thanks to Jasen Aziz and Ryan Sullivan, Sophomores at Millburn High School, who filmed and edited the lecture.  
Proceed to the video »

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Professor Kay to Speak at Next Meeting

Harvey J. Kaye the Ben & Joyce Rosenberg Professor of Democracy and Justice at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay will speak about his book, The Fight For The Four Freedoms: What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation Truly Great.   Professor Kay is an award winning author of numerous books, including Thomas Paine and the Promise of America.