"What is it Onassis and Churchill find to talk about? Shares? Art? History? Whatever it is, they have one thing in common, says JOHN WADDELL."

Daily News (London) - Wednesday 16 March 1960

"Is this the secret of one of the world's oddest friendships?" 

As the sleep bows of the 1,750 ton yacht Christina slice through the Atlantic swell the chances are that Sir Winston Churchill, brandy glass in hand, yachting cap jaunty on his wispy hair, is addressing his favorite audience. 

Sitting, pixie fashion, cross legged and attentive not far away will be Mr Aristotle Onassis, one of the worlds richer tycoons - hanging on to every word. It is a scene that with various settings, has been repeated time after time in the past four years.   

Sometimes it is Onassis, the short bouncy Greek with the agile mind and the grin of a 54-year-old street urchin under his thick spectacles who drives down to Chartwell for dinner. More often it is Sir Winston, 85, and the World's Elder Statesman, who flies off with the eagerness of a doting father to stay near Onassis in Monte Carlo or on his yacht. 

They appear arm in arm at airports. In the South of France they are apparently inseparable, whether it be at a table in the Casino or a dinner party in the Press lord's villa. 

Any host who invites one inevitably invites the other. 

Now they are in the Atlantic for an uninterrupted month of each other's company on a cruise to the Caribbean. 

There is little doubt that their company is remarkably good for both of them. 

With Onassis, Sir Winston seems to shed years and his host ignores thinking and talking the business of shipping.

It seems hard to believe, seeing them together, that when the 17 year old Onassis was a night telephone operator in Buenos Aires in the 'twenties, Churchill had already climbed the political ladder of Ministries and was soon to become Chancellor of the Exchequer. Or now that it is the 53 year old Onassis, dancing attendance on Sir Winston, who is the owner of the luxury yacht, which costs £1,000 a week to maintain. 

MOSIAC POOL 

That he, not Sir Winston, employs the crew of 40 to run the millionaire's plaything with its amphibious aircraft slung aboard, its eight last-word-in-luxury state rooms, its beamed club-room bar decorated with whales tooth footrests and its Cretan mosaic dance floor which converts, at the touch of a switch, to a swimming pool.

Onassis manages always to convey a subtle deference to his guest without any hint of subservience. There is no trace of his natural impatience when he is with Churchill. 

One imagines him standing before El Greco's "The Annunciation" for which he paid £30,000 to decorate his shipboard study with much the same mixture of familiarity tempered with admiration. 

And yet he is capable of behaving very much like his contemporary - and an equal contemporary at that. 

RARE TOKEN 

Who else but Onassis could get away with pulling a cigar from his pocket and sticking it into Churchill's mouth? 

Sir Winston has bestowed one token of his friendship on the ship-owner which is as rare as it is valued. He seldom parts with his paintings to anyone outside the family. But Onassis has one. It hangs on the saloon of the Christina. It says as clearly as any plaque on the wall could say; "Sir Winston Churchill slept here." 

Onassis has never made any secret of his admiration for Churchill. 

When they first started to meet in the South of France in January, 1956, at dinner parties they clicked immediately with each other. 

"I was never sure why he liked me and I never liked to ask" says Onassis. "I am just happy that he does like me. Of course I am glad to do what I can to entertain him. He has given us all an extension of our lives". 

From the beginning Sir Winston liked to talk at length to him: sometimes for hours with Onassis just putting in a word now and again. 

Onassis also explains how he, normally so busy that even his executives find it difficult to see him, will fly to London at the drop of a hat to see Sir Winston. As usual, he puts it picturesquely. "There are people who will travel thousands of miles and will spend a great deal of money to look at a piece of marble. They read books about it. They gawk at it. They go home and talk about it all their friends. Just a piece of marble commemorating somebody who died 300 years ago and was probably not worth their attention anyway." 

WORTH MORE 

He sounds disbelieving. 

"When you have a living thing, and he is worth so much more..." Mr Onassis gives a typical shrug. 

For Sir Winston's part he will not accept unlimited hospitality. When he stayed for over a month at the Onassis owned Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo this year he insisted on a bill. 

If Onassis, who wanted him to be a guest, did not cheat a little, it must have come to near £3,000 for Sir Winston, family and staff. 

It is said with a touch of jealousy, in Monte Carlo that Onassis ("Didn't he invite Nye Bevan down to take over Churchill's empty suite?") is a celebrity who collects celebrities. 

TOUCH OF ENVY 

It is suggested, with a touch of envy in London, that Sir Winston's shares have been more shrewdly handled since he met Mr Onassis. 

Both claims might be true. 

They do not over-ride the fact of what one friend calls "a marvellous natural affinity". Sir Winston always appreciated the challenge of a mind as shrewd as his own. There are not too many of them about. 

Perhaps the clue to their remarkable friendship is to be found in their most frequent meeting place: Monte Carlo. 

At heart both men are gamblers: not with the celluloid currency of the Casino, but with life. In very different fields both have staked their own confidence and strength of character and ability against very great odds. 

Both have won mightily. 

That alone could be bond enough to start with.