Churchill Leadership Award Acceptance Speech

June 12th, 2024 at the Guildhall in London

Randolph Churchill: Everybody, Bill Roedy. I will now ask Phil and Julia to present Bill his Churchill Leadership Medal Award.

Bill Roedy: Well, this is amazing. So if you've ever been on Bond street, this is the beautiful sculpture that Julia's husband did. And I always wanted it. It was too expensive for me. And now I have it. Oh, my God. This is my dream right here. Thank you, Julia. Thank you. Wow. How do you top that? Okay, I'm gonna put this over. What a night. What an honor. Oh, my gosh.

Well, first of all, I want to thank the Churchill Museum, obviously the National Churchill Museum. By the way, this is a great operation. It's not only the museum, it's everything. Do everything they do off the museum as well. And thank you, Tim. And thank you, Don. I mean, it's just a great honor for me. I've been involved with the museum for about twelve years now and it's just been a great inspiration for me. But let me go on.

How about those D-Day darlings? Okay. If I was still at MTV, I'd put them in heavy rotation. So what does that mean? You know, you add. You add the track and then you put a. And you figure out how many times you want to play him. Ten times as heavy rotation. They would get a heavy rotation. You know, listening to Don, of course, and Tim and Harry. Where are you? Harry and Randolph. Oh, my new best friend, Randolph. It's very daunting, I must say, to hear the speakers. But in my MTV days, I remember very clearly that you two once opened for the Spice Girls. So it's not without precedent. I'm the Spice Girls, by the way. They are U2.

So I asked both Don and Tim, you know, because this is such an esteemed audience and it's friends and family, really. But still, I asked him, you know, what should I say tonight? You know, this is a lot of pressure. Very impressive group. And they looked at me both in unison and said, you know what? Whatever you don't try to be intelligent, charming or wise. Instead, just be yourself. So then I followed that up with Tim. Where's Tim? And I said, you know, Tim, come on. Me and Churchill, we don't… What do we have in common? So he gave me that sort of studious look, which he does, and he's a very studious person. He said, well, you know, you both lost elections. And then I said, is that the best you can do?

And then he said, well, you both fought on the beaches. Obviously, Miami Beach is a bit of an easier fight. So this is my favorite moment because I just want to say thank you and welcome you here and thanks for coming out tonight. And it's such a wonderful room, and, you know, it's overwhelming, this venue that we're in. Adam said to me that we're going to try and make the temple in Miami Beach as high as this with the next campaign.

And you are wonderful. You are wonderful. And everyone in this room, really, just about everyone in this room is my mentor. And we all have great mentors in our life. I have so many. And whether it's, oh, I don't know, 50 years or 60 minutes, every one of you is my mentor. And I just wanted to say thank you for that.

So at MTV, we like shout outs, and I'm gonna give a few shout outs. The first shout out is my band of brothers. What is my band of brothers? Well, they're my West Point classmates. And we have a pretty good representation here, you know, with the wives and the partners. We have about 30, and there's been over a half century bond. Can you believe it? We can't believe it. It's a bond that is the strongest of any imaginable bond. It's so strong that we can go for years without talking to each other. And we communicate like it was yesterday.

They're all soldiers. All soldiers, first and foremost. We were trained for four years and then went on to training, many of us, and they're all leaders in society. We have such an amazing group of leaders. And, you know, we took the oath. We all took the oath, of course, to support and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign or domestic. We don't check voter registration in the foxhole. It's a hallmark of the military to be apolitical, and that's exactly what they are. So we are together for the 80th anniversary, which we spent last week, and they're all here. And I love you, brothers. You're my mentors and you're my North Star. And you've always been my North Star. Always.

So that's 1st, 2nd. We got Miami. Miami Beach. Oh, my gosh. So even though I grew up in Miami Beach, this is my newest family. And so who is my newest family? This is quite extraordinary. I'm going to start with our Chief Rabbi Pomerantz. Where are you? Where are you? Come on, raise your hand. Let everyone see you. Okay. You may think she's small, but she has the longest arms I've ever seen. When she wraps them around firefighters and police officers, she is amazing. Temple Beth Shalom is the strongest community support system I've ever seen in my life. So we're very happy to have Rabbi Pomerantz and Adam. Adam, raise your hand. Adam, you're here, too. And we got Mark Baranek. Mark, where are you? I can't see you. So Mark is the Chief of Stuff. He does everything that everybody doesn't want to do. Also representing Miami Beach, where are you? The best police force in America. Chris? Chris Bess, your two colleagues.

This is the finest police department in America, no question. What else do we have for Miami Beach? Well, we have the chief global health champion Jay Feinberg and Robin Malek. Where are you, Jay? Raise your hand. Come on. Come on. It's called Gift of Life, and it's quite extraordinary. And you'll hear and read more about it. But what a team. What a team when you think about it. We have spirituality and we have hope, and we have safety. Right. With the police. And by the way, they cleaned up spring break, finally. And then we have saving lives. So what a great team, all from Miami Beach. So there are many others here I want to give a shout out to. Just quickly.

We have, you know, we ran a campaign, and many of our campaign workers are here because we love them and we kept them. And we're going to start with Antoinette Zel. So I worked with Antoinette at MTV. She had no political experience, and she ran a presidential campaign. Unbelievable what she did. And then we have a whole team that still works with us. Linda Alexander, where are you? Raise your hand, Linda. So Linda was the head of our communications and PR, or what I used to say is she's the head of our propaganda! And then we have Beto, Yani, Coumba. And they're still on the team. We love them so much. They're still on the team. And we have Caroline Heinz and Amre Youness. They're both Youness, by the way. They're both married. It's legal.

And she's cheering more than anyone for Winston Churchill. She's an amazing Churchill supporter. And we got the Wennicks. We're the Wennicks. And then we got the Ireland beach. We have Sonia, where are you, Sonia? Come on, raise your hand, Sonia. So they're all working for us.

Which brings me, actually, to my first Churchill quote for the night. And it's probably my most important, which is - he made it early in his adult life - he said, “My most brilliant achievement was to persuade my wife to marry me.” So I had the added benefit that I chose a wife who has very bad eyesight! And Schatzi, raise your hand. She couldn't see me. So, like Clementine, she's been by my side every single day. We've created this tremendous life. She's my best friend. She's my partner. She's mein Schatzi. And by the way, she's probably going to run for Mayor of Miami Beach.

So here's my other quote from Churchill. Actually, it's from Clementine. So when Churchill lost the election in August, I think 1945, he was in a state, a depressed state in the south of France. And Clementine came up to him and said, “You know what? This may be a blessing in disguise.” And Churchill paused for a second. “It seems actually quite well disguised.” So I said that also to my Schatzi when it didn't work out our way. But we had a great time. We had a great time. So I'm also going to say to my favorite mother in law, she's actually my only mother in law, Heidi. Heidi from Austria. My favorite mother in law. You're the only one who stood up, Heidi. Go for it!

My favorite and my only brother in law, Moritz. Now, Moritz has a law degree, but his hobby is mixing cocktails. So here's another Churchill quote, which is, “I've taken much more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.” So Moritz inspires us with that.

And then the last shout out. The last shout out I want to make is to our greatest production. Our greatest production and our most expensive production, actually, which are our children. So we have Noa. Noa Isabella. Now, Noa is actually working tonight, so she's not here. So anytime you have a working child, that's an excuse. We have Liam. Where are you, Liam? Over there. We have Max, Rocky. Max, Rocky Roedy. And then we have Tiger River. Tiger River.

Now, we chose those names because Moonbeam was no longer available. So we are so proud of this team. Try to meet them. They're cool cats. I mean, they are amazing. They are the best of Schatzi and myself, and we love them all dearly, dearly. So. So I'm just going to spend a couple minutes on what this is about tonight. It's about leadership, and it's our theme tonight. And even though tonight's fun, we always have fun last night, for those of you there, you know, but leadership is very serious business. And Winston Churchill, as many of you know, was described and is described as the person of the century. And. And it's quite rare. It's really incredible that one person can make such a huge difference in the world. And that was him.

So tonight we're going to continue to hear a lot about him, but it's also more about the spirit of leadership. And it's including the relevance today of his legacy. And I think that's really the most important thing. So this past month, Schatzi and I - we call each other Schatzi in case we forget our names as we get older. We traveled to three locations that were really ground zero 80 years ago. And we did it in the last 30 days. So we first went to Berlin and went to a house on the lake called Wannsee. And it's where the Nazis met and held their Final Solution meeting. And they identified 11 million, not 6 million, but 11 million people to be targeted in almost all countries in England. We saw the summary page. There's only been 30 copies of that meeting. It was an hour and a half meeting. And it's chilling because the number, when they add all the countries up, again, it was 11 million people.

From there we went to Poland. We had the March of the Living. We started in Krakow and then went to Warsaw. And we walked the Jewish ghettos. You've all heard about them. We stood in the gas chambers and we looked at the showers that were actually gas. We stood in those chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, the forest surrounding Treblinka.

And then we saw direct evidence where the chain of events started with the yellow star, of course, but then went on quickly after the invasion of Poland in September of 1939, very quickly went on to evictions with only one suitcase. Imagine you only have one suitcase to leave your house. The irony is that the suitcase was eventually taken from you. And then we saw the train centers where the deportations happened. And then we saw the cattle cars. You've heard of the cattle cars where 100 would be crammed in one car. And then went to the labor camps. And the labor camps became the death camps. And then the death camps became death marches on and on until 6 million jews and one and a half million children among them died. And many beyond those had starvation to deal with.

It was no question one of the darkest, most horrific, unimaginable periods in human history. Now, what made this trip truly meaningful is that we were led by those who had parents who were survivors, children of survivors. And our leader was Mark Barenek. Mark, I want you to stand up. Stand up right now. So Mark is the son of a survivor. And Mel Mann was with us as well, his partner. And they told us the stories directly from their fathers, what really happened. So it filled everything with much more meaning. We cannot let this happen again. We will not let this happen again. And with Churchillian leadership, it will not happen again. So following that, number three last week, we went to Normandy. What was in Normandy? It was the 80th anniversary.

The 80th anniversary of D Day and the road to victory. And with our band of brothers. I know there's a group here and a group over there, and I love you dearly, brothers. We walked the sands, the beaches, the wind swept beaches of Utah and Omaha, which were particularly difficult. There were five beaches, two American, two British, and one Canadian. We also visited the parachute drop zones and the fierce battles, because it wasn't only the landings, it was the battles afterward and the hedgerows and the cliffs where casualties were up to as high as 70%. And it was the courage that we saw and read about directly and were told about and the bravery and sacrifice all for the cause of freedom and once again, made more meaningful.

As some of us had fathers in these battles, West Point classmates had their fathers. Jon Ekman, where are you? Yes, stand up right now. He's very shy. Come on, John. He's with his wife Kathy. There he is. He's way back there in Siberia. So Jon's father dropped with the 82nd airborne, and it was the bravest. And it was a nighttime jump right before the D Day landings, and it was hard. We also have John Norton, who is no longer with us. His father was with Jon's father. My own father was in Pearl harbor earlier, and he survived the battle. He was fresh out of West Point as well, class of 1940, and as an artillery officer, and he survived. But all during this, there was always Churchill. Churchill.

Inspiring not only the nation, but the world and the Royal Air Force, the RAF, who, through their unbelievable accomplishment, fought back the relentless blitz and stopped it in its tracks, which was the first defeat for Hitler. So we saw in the last month the transformation from evil, true evil, and despair, to hope, victory and liberation. And it was this resilience and toughness and determination to carry the day. Churchill truly understood the importance of the human spirit, often a lone voice, and we can only imagine what it would be like if it turned out differently. This leadership is relevant today. We see a lot of challenges. It's already been talked about. But the lessons of the past can really help us in the future, guide us in the future. So we must have the same courage.

We must have that Churchillian courage, and our courage will carry the day. I promise you. So I would like to end with just ten of my favorite quotes. I'll go through them very quickly. You know, not commonly known, but Churchill, Winston Churchill, was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. It's often said, not because of the books he wrote, which were amazing, but because of his speeches. So let me start.

Number one, “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” I wasn't thinking about that when I was in Vietnam, dodging incoming fire, but - Pete Lilly, where are you? Pete, I want you to stand up. Pete Lilly didn't dodge all the shots. You gotta at least raise your hand, Pete, come on. He’s very shy…. But he took a hit. He took a hit, and it was a very serious wound. And he's still feeling the aftereffects all these years later. Thank you, Pete.

Number two, “There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.” Most of you have heard that before, and we're fighting with allies all the time, depending on what political side you're on. But we learned during the Cold War, commanding nuclear missiles, - which I did, I must say, as part of NATO - that a critical part of our strength was the alliance. And that NATO alliance today is critical, and we're going to keep it.

Number three, “If you are going through hell, keep going.” During Ranger training, we'd all been through hell, right? No matter what experiences we've had during Ranger training, we kept going, even when we lost a classmate to a nighttime jump, a nighttime parachute drop, and were given no explanation. We kept going because we knew we had to.

Number four, “Never give in. Never, never. In nothing great or small…” It goes on. But this was our mantra in building a media operation, launching the most television channels in the history of television. I wanted to be in every household in the world. And I had to add a few more numbers than Winston Churchill.

Number five. “An attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” This one is inspired by Ronald Reagan, which by the way, on June 12, 1987, said, “Tear down this wall.” Today is June 12, so it's the anniversary. And at MTV, I decided to use new satellite technology to create access behind the Iron Curtain with messages of freedom and democracy. Many in my own organization pushed back on me because there was no profit. But I got to tell you, I knew exactly what I was doing.

Number six, “Never was so much owed by so many to so few.” A great quote. And it was talking about the RAF resisting the bombing of the blitz. Really an unbelievable moment in history. So in my work with global health, I have witnessed small groups of health workers in Africa and elsewhere in the world. And part of that is vaccines. We, with Gavi, had billions of vaccines.

This is before COVID. Hundreds of millions of children vaccinated and tens of millions of lives. Now, here's the thing. We have the leader who did this for twelve years, and his name is Doctor Seth Berkeley. You gotta raise your hand, Seth. There he is.

So number seven. “Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.” And our relentless fight against the AIDS pandemic with our own foundation, Staying Alive, which we put on MTV everywhere in the world, saved young lives. And why was that important? Because our country's greatest asset is young lives.

Number eight, and this is tricky. “Now, this is not the end. It's not even the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning.” Now, if you haven't heard that before, it's a bit tricky.

And I tried to do it many times in my speeches. But seeing our massive efforts resulting in the AIDS pandemic trending down in 2005, there was hope. And I use that quote all the time.

Number nine, “Politics are almost as exciting as war and quite as dangerous. But in war, you were killed once. In politics, many times you are killed.” And I'm here to say, especially in Miami Beach, Shatzi, you agree? We had more incoming than I had in Vietnam. But hey, no complaints. We loved every moment. And Bentley, where are you? Where are you, brother? Raise your hand. Because he funded our campaign and helped us. He helped us fight back.

Number ten, “Don't interrupt me while I'm interrupting you.” And Tiger, you can relate to this because it gave meaning to our dinner conversations, as I was always interrupting Tiger and Liam and Rocky. And you've forgiven me since? I hope so.

When Winston Churchill was asked, “What is our aim?” he replied with, “I can answer that in one word. It's victory. Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of terror. Victory however long and hard the road may be. For without victory, there is no survival.”

So I want to end on that. I'm going to make a toast to you. Here is to you. Because you are my heroes and you are all Churchillians. Thank you.