Churchill Historian UNLOADS on “Biggest WW2 Coverup” | Martin Dugard • 303
Julian Dorey · 20 May 2025 · 2h 53m
Guest: Martin Dugard · Host: Joey Def, Julian Dorey
A historian and author who has written or co-written around thirty books, including many with Bill O'Reilly's 'Killing' series, walks through the life of Winston Churchill and the buildup to World War II. He describes Churchill's chaotic finances, his troubled relationship with his father, his time as a soldier and pilot, and his years in the political wilderness during the 1920s and 30s when he was mocked for warning about Hitler's rearmament. The conversation covers Neville Chamberlain's appeasement, American isolationism and figures like Joseph Kennedy and Charles Lindbergh who admired Hitler, the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, and the uneasy alliance with Stalin. The guest also discusses his research methods, including traveling to the places he writes about (recounting being arrested in Tanzania while retracing Stanley and Livingstone's route through Africa, and flying in a Spitfire for his Churchill book), his daily writing routine, and his collaboration process with O'Reilly and James Patterson. Later sections touch on his experience writing about Jesus's crucifixion and JFK's assassination, his skepticism toward both blanket historical revisionism and reflexive conspiracy-mongering, and his forthcoming book on the 1970s running boom. Throughout, he argues for judging historical figures within their context rather than applying present-day standards wholesale, while acknowledging Churchill's own prejudices.
Ask this show a question Watch on YouTube
What comes up
Timestamps link into the episode on YouTube.
- Author's career path into writing
- Writing process and narrative style for history books
- Relitigating World War II and Churchill's legacy today
- Gallipoli and Churchill's political wilderness years
- Getting arrested in Africa researching Livingstone book
- Hitler's rise, rearmament, and world's isolationism
- American isolationism and Joseph Kennedy's Hitler sympathies
- Roosevelt, Stalin, and the Yalta alliance
- Battle of Britain and the Blitz
- Writing Killing Lincoln, Killing Jesus, and Killing Kennedy with Bill O'Reilly
- JFK assassination theories
- Modern parallels: China, Taiwan, and historical hindsight
Said on this episode
Quoted from the auto-generated transcript, which mishears names and technical terms. podcite.com reports what a show said; it does not endorse or fact-check it.
“He even had like a secret army of spies just kind of reporting back to him about what was going on in Germany trying to make sure that people knew the danger because Hitler told everybody he was a man of peace.”
“So was Churchill a racist? Yeah, you could say that because he was of a and and again I know people who want to attack that.”