The revolving door bust belongs to the British Embassy. It has twice resided on loan in the Oval Office. Ipso facto, it has twice returned to the Embassy. It is now making its third visit to the White House. Perhaps it should hang on a Zip line between the two buildings to convenience the spirit of the moment.

Whenever the Epstein makes a trip back or forth, the media explodes in speculation. Does this signify the end [renewal] of the Anglo-American Special Relationship? Is it a gesture of disdain [admiration] by the new president? Does this mean there won’t [will] be a trade deal between America and the post-Brexit United Kingdom?

There is much ignorance and confusion over this subject. So here is the latest revision of a story that began in 2009, was amended in 2017 and 2021, and needs amending again.

Tale of two busts

It is necessary to explain that there is more than one Epstein bust. The renowned sculptor cast eight or ten from his original mold. Naturally, they are highly prized. One is at Windsor Castle, another at Blenheim. A few are in private hands. I sold one myself to a collector in Connecticut when I was a Churchill bookseller.

(Epstein himself lived opposite the Churchills in Hyde Park Gate, London. Puttering in his garden, he took delight in answering visitors’ questions about his neighbors: “People thought I was the gardener.”)

Epstein #1: in the White House since 1965

There has been a Jacob Epstein bust of Sir Winston in the Executive Mansion since 1965. It was presented to the Johnson White House by wartime friends of WSC led by Averell Harriman.

This is “Epstein #1,” distinguished by a brass plaque, normally displayed outside the Treaty Room near the family quarters. Angela Baker provided a detailed history of this first Epstein in 2021.

This bust is frequently confused with a second Epstein (see below). In 2009, critics complained that Mr. Obama had replaced it with a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. He responded that had just changed its location, outside the Treaty Room near his private quarters.

Thus President Obama passed Epstein #1 every time he entered the Treaty Room on his way to watch a basketball game. So it can hardly be asserted that he was determined to rid the house of Churchill images.  Indeed, he made a point of showing Epstein #1 to Prime Minister David Cameron on his visit to the White House. (See photo above.) In describing this bust and his daily encounters with it, Obama said of Sir Winston, “I love the guy.”

Epstein #2: the revolving door bust

After 9/11, the British Embassy loaned President George W. Bush its own Epstein Churchill bust as a gesture of solidarity. It is, of course, identical to other Epsteins. The only difference from Epstein #1 is that its plinth bears a white-on-black, not a brass, plaque.

In 2009, before Mr. Obama arrived, Epstein #2 was returned to the Embassy. It was not returned specifically by Obama, although he received blame. There are stories that he rejected the image out of hatred toward the former prime minister, British colonialism, or something. This is incorrect. If he felt that way. he would not have kept Epstein #1 on prominent display upstairs.

In 2017 President Trump asked the Embassy to loan back the second bust—let’s call it “Epstein #2″—which had adorned the Oval Office under George W. Bush (2001-09). Pending its arrival, Trump temporarily moved Epstein #1 downstairs from its previous position outside the Treaty Room. When Epstein #2 arrived from the Embassy, Epstein #1 went back upstairs.

Epstein #2 is on loan

James Barbour, British Embassy press secretary, explained: Epstein #2 was “lent to the George W. Bush Administration from the UK’s government art collection, for the duration of the presidency.” White House curator William Allman said in 2010 that the decision to return Epstein #2 had been made before Mr. Obama arrived. “It was already scheduled to go back.”

It is true that the incoming Obama administration was offered Epstein #2 on extended loan out of courtesy, but wanted to make room for a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. They might well have known the White House had another Epstein Churchill already. Trump did not remove the King bust when he brought back Epstein #2. “I would never do that,” he said, “because I have great respect for Dr. Martin Luther King.”

Now in 2024, the Daily Mail reported:

The bronze bust was removed by “woke” Joe Biden when he defeated Trump in 2020 and was replaced by one of Hispanic union leader Cesar Chavez. Trump, a self-professed Anglophile whose mother was Scottish, has described the wartime leader as his “idol” and called the Oscar-winning 2017 film Darkest Hour, starring Gary Oldman as Churchill, “my favourite film ever.” Last night a source close to Trump said: “One of the first things he will do is bring the Churchill bust back into the Oval Office as a mark of respect. Donald idolises Churchill and believes he’s the greatest leader the world has ever seen. He will restore him to a position of honour.”

All this may be accurate but the Mail seems not to realize that Epsstein #1 has been there all along.

Teapot tempest

I greeted the 2009 return of Epstein #2 to the British Embassy with facts, then with reductio ad absurdum. The Obama White House, I reported, had more Churchilliana than the Bush White House, since Epstein #2 was replaced with Winston S. Churchill, Martin Gilbert’s majestic biography, which weighs almost as much and takes up more space.

In 2012, journalist Jake Tapper blasted out the fact that Epstein #1 had been there all along. Tapper wrote: “How did I figure out what was really going on? I never gave in—never, never, never, never. In nothing great or small, large or petty.” Very droll, Jake.

Some modest proposals…

Now that Epstein #2 is going back on loan to the Oval Office, another kerfuffle has arisen on predictable lines. On which, a few observations:

1) Together with the Official Biography, presented to President Obama by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the White House is brimming with Churchilliana. Churchill admirers must regard this as a fine thing.

2) As to its alleged symbolism for the Anglo-American Special Relationship, I recommend a rather broader perspective offered a few years ago by the American Embassy in London. Click here and scroll to the video.

Totems of their choice

While Churchillians are glad to see WSC’s bust in the Oval Office, all presidents have the right to the totems of their choice. A correspondent with whom I rarely agree about anything hit the nail on the head when he cited Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson in one of the flag salute cases in 1943:

Related articles

“President Obama and the Churchill Bust-Out,” 2009.

“More Obama and the Churchill Bust,” 2009.

“The Great Oval Office Bust Swap,” 2017.

Frederick N. Rasmussen of the Baltimore Sun, an admirer of Sir Winston, told a story years ago, which has just floated back. Rasmussen wrote:

Experts in the field of spectral phenomena claim that Maryland and Washington are rich in sightings…. A ghost story dating to the Civil War that has persisted through the years is that of repeated appearances of Abraham Lincoln, who has been seen standing in a window of the Executive Mansion staring toward Virginia, as he had done often during the war. Even Churchill, who thought nothing of taking on Hitler and Mussolini, was not happy when assigned to the Lincoln Bedroom. Quite often, he was found in a vacant bedroom across the hall the next morning.

There are endless Lincoln ghost stories. Churchill’s encounter would have occurred during one of his stays in the White House during the Second World War.

Naked encounter?

Lincoln Bedroom

Eleanor Roosevelt arranged for Churchill to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom. It was “the favorite of most male guests,” recalled J.B. West, the chief usher. But upon his arrival on 22 December [1941], the Prime Minister rejected the bed, so he wandered the second floor, “tried out all the beds and finally selected the Rose Suite,” where SDR [Sara Delano Roosevelt] and the Queen [Elizabeth the Queen Mother]  had resided.  —Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume III, 409.

***

Mrs. Roosevelt had arranged for [Churchill] to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom, then located off the West Hall, the favorite of most male guests. However, he didn’t like the bed, so he tried out all the beds and finally selected the Rose Suite at the end of the second floor.  —J. B. West & Mary Lynn Kotz, Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies.

***

When Eleanor showed Churchill to the Lincoln Bedroom (not then as famous as it was to become during the Clintons’ occupancy of the White House), he turned it down, claiming the bed did not suit him. Making himself at home from the start, Churchill then looked over the other available rooms. Alert as ever to opportunities, he chose a bedroom across the hall from Harry Hopkins’ almost permanent rooms, the Rose Room on the second floor, where Queen Elizabeth had slept on her on her 1939 visit with King George VI. —Cita Stelzer, Dinner with Churchill: Policy-Making at the Dinner Table.

Reality

“It is true,” writes Mr. Lehrman,

that Harry Hopkins had been occupying the so-called Lincoln Suite.  Mr. Churchill was happy with the Rose Suite, as it was directly across the hall from Hopkins. It would seem that the powers that be thought Mr. Churchill very important they showed him the Lincoln Bedroom out of deference, Hopkins notwithstanding. Fortunately, it seems Mr. Churchill did not like the bed, thus no cause for disturbing Hopkins. Churchill was more than satisfied with the Rose Suite, immediately across the hall from Hopkins, primarily because it gave him immediate access to Hopkins, with whom he already had a very special relationship.

So, unless the ghost of Mr. Lincoln was in the habit of switching rooms, he is unlikely to have appeared in Churchill’s bedroom. Even less likely did the apparition appear as Churchill was emerging from his bath. By the way, his baths though frequent did not occur late at night. The Lincoln Bedroom wasn’t so named until 1929. Before then it was the “Blue Suite.” Lincoln used it as a study, not a bedroom. According to the White House Museum the bedroom furniture was moved in by President Truman in 1945.