Friday, June 19, 2020

Les parapluies du Texas


Just recently, the term “Umbrella Man” has popped up again, once more in a mysterious context, but with no reference to Neville Chamberlain.  E.g.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2020/05/30/who-is-umbrella-man-mystery-vandal-at-minneapolis-riot-spurs-conspiracies/

Examples of earlier American use, where Chamberlain was the allusion:
Lyndon Johnson running against Coke Stevenson for Senator, in 1948:

Isolationist” was another word he [i.e., LBJ] drummed into his listeners -- until he started using a stronger word:  appeaser”.   Stevenson, he said, “is an umbrella man. … He talks Chamberlain talk … He wants another Munich.”
-- Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent (1990), p. 254

[The above is the latest footnote  to the following light-hearted exercise:

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