evidence: Ask anyone to name Winston Churchill’s best-known speech and nine times out of ten they will answer: [...] Few people, when they hear the speech on radio or TV documentaries, are aware that they are listening to Churchill speaking not in 1940 but nine years later.Strangely, though, there is a popular myth that the speech was broadcast at the time, not by Churchill himself, but by an actor, Norman Shelley. Shelley did make a phonograph recording of a different Churchill speech in the aftermath of the 1942 victory at El Alamein although what use was made of it, if any, is unknown. He never claimed to have impersonated the Prime Minister over the airwaves, and though many historians have pointed out that the story is false, it seems impossible to kill it. [...] In fact there was a compelling reason for him to make this statement, which was that the American government wanted him to. The USA of course was still neutral at this stage – Churchill’s initial draft included a reference, which he later deleted by hand, to its ‘strange detachment’ in the face of the Nazi menace. However, President Roosevelt made clear via secret channels that he wanted a commitment from Britain that even if she were defeated she would not surrender her fleet but would send it to South Africa, Australia, Canada and other parts of the Empire. If this were done, American intervention could be expected to follow quickly, he promised. So Churchill was giving him the message that he wanted to hear – a message that is now largely forgotten.