Every day, we get an email from the Smithsonian, frequently special updates about articles in the magazine, but often things that are reserved only for the on-line subscribers.
A few weeks ago, there was a blurb about the length of Queen Elizabeth’s reign (sixty-three years and going strong), and the fact that she had only become queen due to a “fluke”; her uncle had abdicated, and her father had become a most reluctant king. Some one replied that Elizabeth would have become queen eventually in any case. She had ascended 1952 upon the death of her father, but she still would have been crowned when Edward VIII (The Duke of Windsor) died childless in 1972.
I replied that had Edward not abdicated, there probably would not have been an England for Elizabeth to inherit. Edward and Wallis were both deeply sympathetic to the German cause (Remember that film clip of them teaching Elizabeth and Margaret the Nazi salute?) and Edward would have simply turned the country over to Hitler without a shot being fired. Even after his abdication, he was such a thorn in the Royal side that he and Wallis were shipped off to Bermuda to keep them from getting into too much mischief. In retrospect, I suggested that Wallis Warfield Simpson was probably the best thing that ever happened to England.
Well, I posted that once and it disappeared, so I posted it second time, and once more it vanished.
Disgusted, I wrote a third time, questioning the fact that it was apparent the Smithsonian, of all places, was indulging in censorship.
And, blip! The entire article is gone. No amount of searching will enable you to find it. Verrry mysterious. But true.
Tags: censorship, Duke of Windsor, Nazi Germany, Queen Elizabeth II, Smithsonian, Wallis Simpson
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