Historian named to Winston Churchill association board

Raymond Callahan, professor of history and associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Arts and Science, has been invited to join the Board of Governors of the Association of Churchill Fellows of Westminster College.

The Fulton, Mo., college is home to the Winston Churchill Memorial and Library in the United States, founded in 1969 to honor the life and legacy of one of the greatest world leaders of the 20th century.

Churchill's best-remembered words were uttered not in England, but at Westminster College in an address entitled "Sinews of Peace," when he said, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent..."

The memorial is housed within the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, a 12th-century church from the middle of London, redesigned by Sir Christopher Wren in 1677, that has been relocated to Fulton. The undercroft of this beautiful and historic Wren church is a museum filled with a priceless treasury of artifacts and information relating to the life and times of Churchill.

Callahan was inducted as a fellow of the Winston Churchill Memorial and Library in March, at the annual Fellows Weekend.

As a member of the Board of Governors, he will serve in an advisory capacity to the president and board of trustees of Westminster College in matters relating to the operation, support and overall management of this historic resource.

Educated at Georgetown and Harvard, Callahan has been a member of the University of Delaware faculty since 1967 and holds an excellence-in-teaching award from UD.

He also has been John F. Morrison Visiting Professor of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and has lectured at the United States Marine Corps Command and Staff College, as well as the Army and Air War Colleges.

A past member of the U.S. Army's Historical Advisory Committee, Callahan also is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and past president and life fellow of the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs. His research and publications have centered on Churchill as a war leader, work summarized in his Churchill: Retreat From Empire, published in 1984. Currently, he is contributing articles to the New DNB and finishing work on Churchill's Generals for the University Press of Kansas.

"I am delighted," Callahan said, "to be named to the board of this memorial and library which is intended to be a center for scholarship on Churchill and his times. In view of the number of historians working on this area, I am particularly honored to have been selected."

–Ed Okonowicz