In his article "The Most Un-Fact-Checked Column in History", Luskin states:
Referring to the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild post-war Europe, Paul Krugman says in his New York Times column today that "...Truman led this country in what Churchill called the 'most unsordid act in history'..."
Reader Richard A. Rampulla and our friend Bruce Bartlett have both pointed out to me that this statement by Winston Churchill was about the Lend-Lease Act, not the Marshall Plan.
Did Churchill use the word "unsordid" in reference to the Marshall Plan? An article at http://www.earthstation1.com/George_Marshall.html states:
Then Secretary of State Marshall first proposes what was to become known as "The Marshall Plan". When this plan was proposed, Sir Winston Churchill, who had formerly declared the Lend-Lease bill as "the most unsordid act in all of recorded history", changed his mind and declared this plan to be worthy of such description.
However, this is contradicted by an article at http://www.winstonchurchill.org/fh96date.htm which states:
WASHINGTON, JUNE 8TH‹ Geneva Overholster reported in The Washington Post that Churchill Center member and 1995 Conference speaker Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. has struck a blow for accuracy. In a letter to The New York Times, Schlesinger reminds us that what Churchill called "the most unsordid act in the history of any nation" was Lend-Lease, not the Marshall Plan. Nevertheless, reports Overholster, the Marshall Plan non-quote "ricocheted back and forth across the Atlantic, appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Scotsman, the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France Press, CNN, ABC and NPR." Her own paper used it on May 25th, the Times on the 27th. Times editorial writer Karl Meyer tracked the error down, and found it had come from Sketches from Life, a 1960 book by former Secretary of State Dean Acheson. (The exact quote, from his 17 April 1945 Commons speech on the death of Roosevelt, was: "...the extraordinary measure of assistance called Lend-Lease, which will stand forth as the most unselfish and unsordid financial act of any country in all history.")
Hence, it appears that either Churchill used the word "unsordid" in reference to both Lend-Lease and the Marshall Plan or its use in reference to the latter is an ongoing error that has been made repeatedly over the years. In any case, Luskin continues:
In a 1940 speech (listen to it yourself, here), Churchill said that Lend-Lease was "the most unsordid act in the whole of recorded history." So Krugman not only rewrote the quote, he had it referring to the wrong thing.
With a minimal of research, Luskin would have found that this quote is NOT Krugman's invention. If you simply go to www.google.com and search for Churchill "most unsordid act in history", you will get numerous matches. Nearly all of the matches on the first page attribute that exact quote to Churchill in reference to the Marshall Plan. One such match references a Reuters story on September 28, 2003 and another references the September 22, 2003 testimony of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) Administrator L. Paul Bremer. It is very possible that Krugman got his quote from one of these two sources. Among the other matches are the American Forces Press Service, a Lehrer Newshour transcript from June 5, 1997, and an April 16, 2003 article in the UK publication, The Guardian. Following are the links to the abovementioned articles:
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-iraq-usa-marshall.html
http://usinfo.state.gov/usinfo/Archive/2003/Sep/22-774479.html
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May1997/n05291997_9705293.html)
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europe/june97/marshall_6-5a.html)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,937718,00.html)
Luskin concludes his article with:
Rampulla says, "Anyone who has ever read a book on the Second World War knows that. How can a Princeton professor not know that?" Well, this is what happens when the columnist does his own fact-checking (effectively there is no fact-checking, then) and there is little editorial oversight. If this error were made anywhere else in the paper, there would be a correction tomorrow. Not Krugman.
The idea that anyone who has ever read a book on the Second World War should know this particular Churchill quote is just plain silly. In any case, it was fine that Luskin should point out Krugman's possible error. However, he should have done more fact-checking before suggesting that Krugman originated the possible error and manufactured the quote.