Russia-Ukraine-United States and the West

“There’s Plenty Of Blame To Go Around—Now Is The Time for Mature Leaders

To Step Forward To Take The Right Action For The Future”

April 2014

The most recent turn in the “up and down” relationship among Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the West has been a dismaying sight over the past month or so.  It is the culmination of a number of decisions that might have been different and some historical realities that won’t change.  And, as I reflect how this current situation might have been avoided, there is, I believe, “plenty of blame to go around.”

It is vital to view the situation from the perspectives of all sides, bearing the historical realities and current circumstances of all parties in mind.

Looking back at the almost 25 years of involvement I have had in Russia and the ex-Soviet Union since 1989, there have been many times when I believed the United States could have done things differently.

During the challenging ‘90s, we could have provide greater financial, technical and moral support.  We could have gone further in recognizing Russia as a partner.   We never did anything approximating what is now being offered to Ukraine ($27 billion; I only hope that it will happen; similar “promises” have gone wanting) or what we did in the Marshall Plan.  As then-Ambassador Jack Matlock reflected on the United States’ role in the reconstruction of Russia’s economy*:  “My point is not that the Bush administration, or the Clinton administration that followed it, is responsible for the mistakes that were made as the Soviet Union abandoned the command economy and Russia subsequently created a market economy.  They are not.  However, it is clear that most of the assistance and advice given by the West was not particularly helpful.  It was based more on a free-market fundamentalism than on the real problems of creating a market economy out of a collapsed command economy, much of the initial advice was not only useless, but sometimes actually damaging.”

Following that, the West moved to expand NATO into the bordering regions around Russia, including Poland (1999), the Baltics (2004) and Romania (2004) and Bulgaria (1994).  Then, and of greatest concern to Russia, we advanced the idea of extending NATO to Ukraine and Georgia as well as installing ABM launchers in Poland and the Czech Republic.  With the animosity still overhanging from the Cold War era, this might have been seen in the U.S. as akin to the Soviet Union’s earlier extending the Warsaw Pact to Cuba or Central America. 

*”Superpower Illusions” (pg. 110)

Yes, the expansion was done with a benign intention (defensive) but, to a country that had been attacked many times, it looked to many like a surrounding effort.   At a minimum, it fueled the animus of those who wanted to interpret it that way.  It fed the worst fears and allegations of those who wanted to “go back.”

As former Secretary of War, Robert Gates, says in his new book, “Duty:  Memoirs of a Secretary of War”:   “When I took office in 2007, I had shared with the president my belief that from 1993 onward, the West, and particularly the United States, had badly underestimated the magnitude of Russian humiliation in losing the Cold War and then in the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which amounted to the end of the centuries-old Russian Empire.  The arrogance, after the collapse, of American government officials, academicians, businessmen, and politicians in telling the Russians how to conduct their domestic and international affairs (not to mention the internal psychological impact of their precipitous fall from superpower status) had led to deep and long-term resentment and bitterness.” 

Gates continued:  “What I didn’t tell the president was that I believed the relationship with Russia had been badly mismanaged after Bush 41 left office in 1993.  Getting Gorbachev to acquiesce to a unified Germany as a member of NATO had been a huge accomplishment.  But moving so quickly after the collapse of the Soviet Union to incorporate so many of its formerly subjugated states into NATO was a mistake.  Including the Baltic states, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary quickly was the right thing to do, but I believe the process should then have slowed.  U.S. agreements with the Romanian and Bulgarian governments to rotate troops through bases in those countries was a needless provocation (especially since we virtually never deployed the 5,000 troops to either country).  The Russians had long historical ties to Serbia, which we largely ignored.  Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching.  The roots of the Russian Empire trace back to Kiev in the ninth century, so that was an especially monumental provocation.”

It was also natural for Putin to view the West’s strong support for Kosovo’s separating from Russia’s long-supported ally of Serbia as violating the rights of the Serbian state.  (To be clear, in my view, Kosovo’s achieving independence was the right outcome.)  And especially in hindsight, Russia viewed the invasion of Iraq as an unsanctioned act by the United States and by some Western countries to overthrow a sovereign leader based on weak, if not manufactured, allegations that Saddam Hussein was in the final stages of developing weapons of mass destruction. 

These realities were combined with enormous and, for me, overblown sensitivity on Putin’s part, grown in part, I suspect, from his career in the KGB.  To say that he became paranoid about the intentions of the United States would not be an over-statement.  And he surely saw it as a means of strengthening his own popularity at a time when it was declining.

More recently, I believe Putin has greatly exaggerated the mistreatment of Russians in Ukraine, including Crimea.  Characterization of the folks who went into Maidan Square as “Russia-phobes and Neo-Nazis” has been hyperbolic.  Surely there were some such people there, but to define the entire group in these terms in ludicrous.  Most of them surely simply wanted release from a corrupt and ineffective government.

Finally, we should not be surprised at the reaction that Putin and others in Russia had to the overturning of the agreement that had been reached on February 22 by Yanukovych and other Western countries before the ink was scarcely dry.  This agreement would have probably led to an election by the end of the year which would have voted Yanukovych out of office.  If one believes, as Putin certainly does (and there are reasons for this belief), that the movement in Maidan Square which led to the ouster of Yanukovych was incited to some degree by the West, one could take it as license to act.

And that’s exactly what Putin did.  I believe he seized on this as an “excuse” to move into Crimea.  It is obviously a purely personal judgment, but I don’t believe if that agreement had been allowed to unfold through the end of the calendar year, Russia would have moved to have the referendum for independence in Crimea or have absorbed it as they have. 

What’s more, I believe, Putin’s/Russia’s absorption of Crimea will prove to be a costly mistake for Russia and its people.  It will be a financial drain in its own right.  It has already produced sanctions, capital flight, a weaker ruble and it will, at least for a time, dampen foreign direct investment.  Nevertheless, we are where we are.

Stepping back, Russia has always had and always will have different interests than the United States and the West; some geographical, some ideological in nature.  For example, Russia is far more dedicated to the preservation of existing governments—to very strong governments--that are more autocratic than we believe is right.  The United States acclaims much greater allegiance to individual democracy, to individual rights, to everyone speaking up.

But, with all that, there are two things that are of paramount importance:

1.     There are many critical issues such as nuclear proliferation, combating terrorism, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, on which it is absolutely critical that Russia, the United States and the West and the entire world work together on cooperatively. 

2.     Alienating and isolating Russia will significantly impede that cooperation.

********

So, what now? 

1.     We need to clearly define what we will not tolerate (e.g., any incursion into Ukraine or other independent country).

2.     We should recognize that Russia’s annexation of Crimea is not going to be overturned.

3.     We need to try to agree on what is in the common interest of our countries and the world.

4.     We need to identify the specific agenda items which we need to work together.

5.     We need quiet, tough-minded, no-nonsense, respectful interchanges among leaders in Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the West—leaders who understand each other’s history, culture and contemporary realities.⁽¹⁾

I would like to add here the excellent perspective provided to me by a Professor of Russian History at the University of Cincinnati, Willard Sunderland.

“The only point I’d suggest adding to your piece is that we should do everything we can to de-emphasize the neo-Cold War rhetoric and casual anti-Russian prejudice that has crept into the way our politicians and journalists/pundits tend to describe Russia.  There are too many simplifications in the way we are representing things, and there’s the risk that our simplifications will work against us.

Russia today is not the Soviet Union.  We are not on the edge of a titanic global contest between “our way” and “their way.”  You are absolutely right – we have nothing to gain from isolating the country.  Likewise, though Putin is most definitely not a Western liberal or conservative, as all our TV talking heads are telling us, he’s also not a Brezhnev or an Andropov.  I see him as a Russian statist conservative in the mold of the last great tsarist premiere Petr Stolypin.  He wants a strong Russian state and a stable international neighborhood, while also supporting Russia’s full engagement with the world.  I do not think that there’s a plan afoot to gather up the lands of the old USSR motivated by some sort of imperial nostalgia.  He’s not interested in a lot of difficult and costly border changes.  He is a pragmatist more than he is an ideologue.  And he’s also, in my view, far from in charge of everything we’re seeing.  He’s hardly a grand master poring over a would-be chess board, moving every piece exactly where he wants it.  I think he and the Russian power establishment were as shocked by Yanukovich’s flight from Kiev as anyone else.  Much of what’s happened since then has been more opportunism than master strategy.  Putting all of this together, I see a situation in which there is every reason to work with Putin rather than to double-down against him.  To that end, I think your last point is dead on:  firm engagement is the key.  Quiet, persistent, firm engagement.”

That is what we need now!

 ⁽¹⁾ I’d note this is the kind of interchange that in times past was conducted by leaders like

George Schultz and Eduard Shevardnadze.  I believe former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Jack Matlock, was absolutely right in crediting the cultural sensitivity of certain U.S. leaders as a key factor in establishing good relations with their Russian counterparts:  “One of the keys to the success that Reagan, Schultz, Bush and Baker had in engaging the Soviet leaders,” Matlock writes, “was their attention to this factor [culture].  Reagan may not have mastered every detail of every arms control negotiation…but he spent as much time trying to understand Gorbachev’s thinking and the political constraints on his behavior as he did studying the ‘substance’ of the issues.  George Schultz was acutely aware that Eduard Shevardnadze, a Georgian, was immensely proud of this cultural heritage.  By showing interest in it and respect for it, Schultz was able to establish a degree of personal rapport with the Soviet Foreign Minister that helped them come to terms on issues that had resisted solution for decades.  James Baker picked up where Shultz left off and continued the relationship that benefitted both countries.”*

*”Superpower Illusions” (pg. 74)

RussiaUkraineUS_PlentyofBlame032814

"Days on Fire": Bush and Cheney in the White House: Sobering Lessons

“DAYS OF FIRE:  BUSH AND CHENEY IN THE WHITE HOUSE” BY PETER BAKER

This is, at once, an extremely well-written, mind-opening and horrifically sad book.  Perhaps more than any Administration other than Lyndon Johnson’s, George Bush’s was defined by what, in hindsight and, indeed, “foresight” for many, was the ill-chosen and ill-fated decision to enter Iraq. It offers sobering lessons for us in our daily lives. 

The natural response to attack Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, from where the 9/11 attack was launched, was extended, with a pre-meditated intention almost from the start, to Iraq.  As Dick Cheney said well after the attack on Iraq and with its already being apparent how long the war would be--the decision to enter Iraq was pretty well made with the 9/11 attacks.

It was an “idée fixe” from the start in Bush’s and Cheney’s minds that Saddam Hussein was involved with the attack even though there was no evidence of linkage with Al Qaeda.  Richard Clark, at the time Bush’s Counter-Terrorism Chief, was “greatly disturbed” when, right after 9/11, Bush told him to “see if Saddam Hussein did this.” When Clark responded that, “Mr. President, it was Al Qaeda,” Bush told him to dig deep.

The movement to the decision was enormously influenced by the combination of Dick Cheney, Wolfowitz, his buddy, and Rumsfeld.  Wolfowitz, with no evidence, said that there was a “10-50% chance of Hussein being involved.”  Rumsfeld said that, “Even if there is a 10% chance, Saddam Hussein is involved,” our objective “should focus on eliminating him.”

Cheney never believed that there was any point in relying on the investigators to examine the case that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. 

There were people who clearly saw the risk.  The Republican House Majority Leader, Dick Armey, told Bush:  “It will be such a burden on your presidency, you’ll never be able to complete your domestic agenda.”  In the end, Armey felt he had no choice but to go along.  “It was a fateful decision.”   If the Republican Majority Leader had opposed the authorization of force, it would have freed other nervous Republicans and given cover to Democrats to oppose it as well.  Cheney “had accomplished his mission” in talking to Armey.  He had been showing photographs of aluminum tubes and satellite images of structures he called “weapons facilities” with no evidence that they were involved with building a nuclear capability.  In fact, the CIA had warned the British (who initially put forth the idea that the aluminum tubes were related to gaining nuclear capacity) that that was unlikely to be the case. 

Secretary of State Powell and National Security Advisor Rice were both opposed to moving ahead.  George Trent, the head of the CIA, grossly overstated the CIA findings when he said, “According to the British government, the Iraqi regime could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order were given.”  His own organization greeted that with skepticism, but no one spoke up.  The “conclusions were based on poor tradecraft, mistaken assumptions and over-interpretation,” per Peter Baker; that was a precise analysis of the situation.

The basic issue of whether to go in or not was predetermined, in an important sense, by deeply felt feelings that were not tested by fact.  Just prior to the launch, in discussions with Tony Blair, “Bush made clear he had decided to go to war regardless of what the inspectors found with the Security Council decided.  Indeed, he told Blair he had already set a launch date.”

There is a lot of speculation as to why Bush has this conviction.  Did it involve an over-hanging disappointment that his father had not taken out Hussein the first Gulf War?  Certainly his father never held such a concern.  Cheney and Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, all joined at the hip for years, had a black view of Hussein and saw this as an “easily achieved” opportunity to do something much bigger than Afghanistan, to take out a tyrant. 

Clearly, there are lessons from this for all of us.  No aspect of this looms larger than the failure to examine the history of Iraq when the British went in the early 1920s.  Powell had it right when he said you’ll own it and you’ll have to take care of it.  That’s why George H.W. Bush did not continue to overthrow Hussein.

The estimates that Cheney supported of the number of troops that would be required proved grossly wrong.  Cheney’s misjudgment on the cost and length of the war was vividly conveyed in an interview on Meet the Press with Tim Russert.  When Russert asked:  “Do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, bloody battle with significant American casualties?”  To this, Cheney responded:  “Well, I don’t think it’s likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators.”  How sad to read that today; how mistaken Cheney was.

In the early days following the overthrow, there was an atmosphere of almost bliss.  Everyone was agreeing that we had ridden America of a terrible enemy and we had created the hope of a genuine ally in the heart of the Middle East.  Bush and his team felt the war was about all but over.  That was before Bremner went in and made his ill-fated decisions which unleashed a Sunni-Shiite civil war that continues to this day.  It was becoming clearer and clearer that no one had a strategy for winning this new war.

The problem had been greatly aggravated by the fact that Bremner, who went in following the overthrow of Hussein, did pretty much exactly what Bush said should not happen, i.e., disperse the army, which turned hundreds of thousands of people on to the street.  Bush saw he was not following his advice but he did not override it. 

If I were to assess the failure of Bush’s leadership (and he’s not unique in what I’ll describe here), he did not bring all the players to the table and have a truly open-minded debate.  He didn’t allow the voices of Powell and Rice to be heard loud and long enough or to demand more evidence of the possibility they were right.  Nor did he follow what he believed, correctly, was the right path ahead after the overthrow of Hussein. 

There is a broader failure in Bush’s leadership here that is a lesson to us all, certainly me.  And that is that he did not bring his cabinet together to openly share views and stop back-biting.  The animosity between Rumsfeld and Powell and between Rice and Rumsfeld was classic. 

Bush’s lack of focus on resolving issues within his own cabinet were well-described by Baker.  One aspect of it was the tremendous relationship Rice had with Bush.  She was serving as National Security Advisor.  She communicated beautifully with Bush but, as Baker says, “She was a figure of great frustration to other members of the team who though she was too eager to raise differences and create false consensus rather than bring difficult choices to the President.  She had not been able to manage the sharp rivals within the War Cabinet.” 

At one point, during the second term, a good friend of Bush, Clay Johnson, described the White House structure as a “cluster fuck,” a jumble of crossed lines.  Bush apparently didn’t address this.  Rumsfeld did as he talked to the Chief of Staff Andy Card, saying: “You don’t know how to be Chief of Staff.  You’re failing the President in your job,” as Card later recalled.  In the end, however, that really was Bush’s job. 

I reflect on this and the “rivalries” which existed within our top team that I did not fully resolve. It’s not that I didn’t get into them; I did.  But, in hindsight, I did not resolve some of them as effectively as I should. 

Another “odd” aspect of Bush’s conduct was that he was not willing to personally tell cabinet leaders whom he was firing.  He did not go Colin Powell as he was being removed from Secretary of State.  He had Cheney go to Rumsfeld when he finally decided to replace him as Secretary of Defense with Bob Gates.  Really incredible.

*****

As Bush prepared for a second term inaugural, he called together a group of historians to gain input on what theme he should strike.  He was not well-served.  One of them was from Yale, John Lewis Gaddis.  Gaddis said it was a time for Bush “to think like Wilson, Roosevelt and Reagan.”  So he proposed that the President set the goal, “It will be the objective of the United States, working with the United Nations…to ensure by the year 2030…that there will be no tyrants left, anywhere in the world.” 

What a grandiose, all-knowing proclamation.  One more example, and there have been many, where our nation’s sense of exceptionalism took us to grounds where we did not deserve to be.  Note, the emphasis wasn’t even on bringing democracy.  It was getting rid of tyrants.  An objective, on one hand, you couldn’t argue with.  But can you imagine if we had undertaken that during the Soviet era and had said we were going to get rid of Khrushchev by force, or Mao Tse Tung in China?  The truth is that sometimes, a “tyrant” may be the best the country can have at a given point in time and we need to let history take its course.  That may have been the case in Egypt with Mubarak.  A decent dose of humility doesn’t hurt in matters like this.

As the second term got underway, you could almost feel Bush’s disillusionment in a statement he made to another member of his team:  “This is not working.  We need to take another look at the whole strategy.  I need to see some new options.”  The response:  “Mr. President, I am afraid you’re right.”

Not to carry the story on in any great detail, following from this came Bush’s singularly independent decision (other than Cheney) to mount the “surge,” the insertion of another 30-40,000 troops to bring security to help Iraq gain stability.  For a while it worked.  Casualties dropped precipitously.  It was, indeed, a brave decision; remarkable in that regard.  Bush was going against the judgment of the outgoing commanders in Iraq, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Congress, the public and his Secretary of State and closest advisor.  With him, of course, were Cheney and also John McCain.

As Baker reports, when Bush felt sorry for himself in those days, Laura reminded him that he chose to run for President.  “Self-pity is the worst thing that can happen to a presidency,” Bush told a writer.  “I’ve got God’s shoulders to cry on, and I cry a lot.  I do a lot of crying in this job.”  But he made the call.

This book shows that the belief that “Cheney ran Bush” was, in many ways, wrong and it was very definitely wrong in the second term.  Bush opposed Cheney on the bailout of the auto industry and on TARP; both extraordinarily brave and correct decisions in hindsight.  He opposed Cheney in making the decision to replace Rumsfeld.  And there were many other cases as well.

Bush’s was a tragic presidency, though history, as always, will tell the real tale; though what that “telling” is may change over time as it often has.  Tragic because he could have done good, but he was trapped in this personal view that it was right to take out Hussein because he was a tyrant and because he “might do bad things.”  He had his CIA so primed to find evidence that it delivered reports that, while balanced, lent themselves to misrepresentation.  I don’t believe Bush would have gone into Iraq if it had not been for the strength at that time of Cheney’s position.  And, of course, Cheney was being supported by others who were strong-minded, particularly Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.

Reflections on Doris Kearns Goodwin's Marvelous Book: "The Bully Pulpit"

File Memorandum

December 10, 2013

“THE BULLY PULPIT:  THEODORE ROOSEVELT, WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT, AND THE GOLDEN AGE OF JOURNALISM" BY DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN

This was one of the most thought-provoking books which I have read in a long time.  In the study of Taft and Roosevelt, the author presents a remarkably clear perspective on leadership qualities, pro and con.  It presents numerous illustrations of how the challenges we face today in government corruption and splintering of the country into partisan groups are, by no means, new. 

I have chosen to develop some summary thoughts on a few themes* which I think are relevant to my own life and to life in general below:

Theme #1 -- Roosevelt’s Character and Vision

The first point that impressed me was how he had grown up in a life of privilege; as did Taft.  No better example of this than when Roosevelt was 14, the family spent an entire winter in Egypt; three weeks in Palestine; two weeks in Lebanon and Syria; three weeks in Athens and Smyrna and Constantinople; and five months in Germany.  They had a two-month journey along the Nile in a private vessel with a 13-man crew. 

A characteristic of Roosevelt (much like my own) is that he never left anything to the last minute; preparing far ahead “freed his mind” from worry and facilitated fresh, lucid thought.  At one point, Taft marveled:  “I never knew a man who worked this far in advance of what has to be done.  Perhaps I value this virtue more highly because I lack it myself.”

I also came to appreciate Roosevelt’s love of his family.  He remarked when he was in college that he doubted if there was anyone “who has a family that loved him as much as you all do (writing to his Father).”  And “I am sure there is no one who has a Father who is also his best and most intimate friend, as you are mine.”

It’s hard to know how much future strength Roosevelt drew from as horrible a sequence of blows as one can imagine.  At the age of only 22, his wife, whom he had pursued as aggressively as I pursued Francie, died; on that same day, his Mother died.  She was only 49. 

He went on to marry a childhood friend, Edith Carow.  His affection for her was signaled early in their relationship as, in only a period of five weeks of being separated, he sent her 17 letters and she wrote almost as many in return.  I can identify with that. 

I can identify, too, with the strength he drew from being with his family.  One of his friends observed:  “His wife and children gave him the kind of spiritual bath that sent him back to the city refreshed and ready for what might come.” 

*In many portions, I have redacted phrases directly from DKG’s magnificent book.

It wasn’t a singular picture, however, of “family comes first.”  While his wife was very sick, indeed not knowing “whether she would live or die,” Roosevelt “could not forego the opportunity to go to Cuba” to serve with the Rough Riders.  “You know what my wife and children mean to me,” he told one of his supporters, “and yet I made up my mind that I would not allow even a death to stand in my way; it was my one chance to do something for my country and for my family…I now know that I would have turned from my wife’s deathbed to have answered the call.” 

That, I can assure the reader, would not have been my choice.

The combative nature of Roosevelt comes through loud and clear.  He was always ready for a fight.  As Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he insisted that he would “rather welcome a foreign war.  The victories of peace are great; but the victories of war are greater…every man who has in him any real power of joy in battle knows that he feels it when the wolf begins to rise in his heart; he does not shrink from blood and sweat, or deem that they mar the fight; he revels in them, in the toil, the pain and the danger, as but setting off the triumph.”  He was looking forward to a war with Spain over Cuba. 

I can only say that Roosevelt had not tasted the true trauma of war; too young to have experienced the Civil War firsthand; not in office when the horrors of World War I hit.  I don’t believe he would have waxed so enthusiastically about war today.  One would hope not. 

I was especially taken by Roosevelt’s pointed view on the role of corporate responsibility and the importance of the Republican Party adopting a progressive stance.  He came down hard on “monopolistic constructions that impeded the consumer interest.”  He firmly believed that the Republican Party “should be beaten and badly beaten, if we took the attitude of saying the corporations should not, when they received great benefits and make a great deal of money, pay their share of the public burdens.”  Advocating “the adoption of what is reasonable in the demands of reformers” as “the surest way to prevent the adoption of what is unreasonable,” Roosevelt hoped to propel “the party of property” toward a more “enlightened conservatism.”

Again and again he returns to this theme, struggling as the author notes, “to reconcile Party allegiance with the drive to address social problems, a balancing act that became more difficult as the troubling aspects of industrialization intensified.  While he considered himself conservative in relation to the Populists, he believed that his party was in thrall to reactionaries who so ‘dreaded radicalism’ that they ‘distrusted anything that was progressive’.” 

As President, he worked hard to take action “on the single economic issue of the day:  the trust” and his desire to establish the Department of Commerce “with the power to demand information and determine necessary regulation” was effectively opposed by Republicans.

“I pass my days in the state of exasperation,” Roosevelt told his son, Kermit, “first with the fools who do not want any of the things that ought to be done and, second, with the equally obnoxious fools who insist upon so much that they cannot get anything.”  He lamented what we see today, letting legislation “fall between the two stools of the House and the Senate.”  He was referring here particularly to antitrust legislation. 

He continued to talk about what the Republican Party needed to do in terms that apply today.  As DKG writes, the cost to both his party and the country would be immense, he believed, if “the people at large” perceived “that the Republican Party had become unduly subservient to the so-called Wall Street men—to the men of mere wealth, the plutocracy.”  It would result in a “dreadful calamity,” Roosevelt told a conservative friend to see the nation “divided into two parties, one containing the bulk of the property owners and conservative people; the other the bulk of the wage workers and the less prosperous people, generally; each party insisting upon demanding much that was wrong, and each party sullen and angered by real unfancied grievances.” 

What better summation could there be of the situation we face today?

Running as the Presidential candidate of the Progressive Party in 1912, Roosevelt said this:  “We Progressives believe that human rights are supreme over all other rights; that wealth should be the servant, not the master, of the people.”  “Unless representative government does absolutely represent the people, it is not representative government at all.”  At this point, he was arguing for direct primaries and for federal laws to regulate child labor and women’s working conditions, to establish an income tax and to establish workman’s compensation.   

One of his favorite maxims on leadership was this:  “Don’t hit until you have to; but, when you do hit, hit hard.”  And this:  “It is never well to take drastic action if the result can be achieved with equal efficiency in less drastic fashion.”  And this, most famous of all:  “It is not the critic who counts,” he had famously preached upon his return from his African safari, “not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause.”

Elihu Root, a leading Republican, captured Roosevelt’s essence very well in this observation:  “He is essentially a fighter and when he gets into a fight, he is completely dominated by the desire to destroy his adversary.”  That was aptly demonstrated as he turned on Taft, a man whom he had said was more qualified to be President than anyone in history during the nomination battle to be the Presidential candidate for the Republican Party in 1912.

In a way, I found nothing more descriptive of Roosevelt’s character than how he reacted to being shot.  With the extent of the wound unknown, he demanded that he continue to be taken to where he was speaking and he spoke for an hour and a half, then telling his associate that he was ready to go to the hospital.  What they discovered was that the bullet had fractured his ribs, only missing his heart because it had hit the wadded speech which he had put into his pocket.

I believe the best summation of Roosevelt’s commitment to relentlessly pursuing a great cause is contained in this statement:  “Perhaps once in a generation there comes a chance for the people of a country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the age-long warfare for human rights.  We know that there are in life injustices which we are powerless to remedy, but we know also that there is much injustice which can be remedied.”  Referring to the Progressive Party, he pledged that it would harness “the collective power of the people through their governmental agencies.  We propose to lift the burdens from the lowly and the weary, from the poor and the oppressed.  We propose to stand for the sacred rights of childhood and womanhood.  Surely there never was a fight better worth making than this.  Win or lose, I am glad beyond measure that I am one of the many who, in this fight, has stood ready to spend and be spent.”

Theme #2 -- How Times Remain the Same

It was striking; indeed it brought a smile to my face to read that William Howard Taft’s mother, Louise, served as the first President of the Cincinnati Free Kindergarten Association.  As DKG writes, in the 1880s, Ohio laws had forbidden public funding of education for children younger than six.  Public kindergartens would eventually be established but, meanwhile, Louise and a group of her friends helped raise money to open a series of charity kindergartens.  “If the little ones who wander neglected in our streets are to be reached,” she proclaimed, “private benevolence must come to the rescue.  We, therefore, appeal to the friends of education and humanity to help us in this effort.”  The first kindergarten was established in 1880, followed by others, including one in which William Howard Taft’s wife, Nellie, taught.  Today, we are seeking to provide quality pre-K for all children.

There is also the continuing effort of each party to profit from holding office.  Theodore Roosevelt focused heavily on civil service reform.  As Roosevelt said, “Each party profited by the offices when in power, and when in opposition each party insincerely denounced its opponents for doing exactly what itself had done and intended again to do.” 

Roosevelt had long been aware of the corruption that was endemic in the country’s political and judicial systems, but he was sustained by what DKG says was his “sometime overweening belief in the right of his cause and the prospect of arousing struggle.”  “For the last few years, politics with me has been largely a balancing of evils and I am delighted to go in on a side where I have no doubt whatever and feel absolutely certain that my efforts are wholly for the good; and you can guarantee I intend to hew to the line and let the chips fly where they will.”

So, too, the split in the nation which we lament today is not new, though I doubt if it’s been more exaggerated than it is now.  Going back to the mid-1890s, the candidate who opposed Roosevelt in running for the mayor position in New York, Henry George, observed:  “We girdle the land with iron roads and lace the air with telegraph wires; we add knowledge to knowledge and utilize invention after invention.”  (Yet, despite such progress) he declared, “It becomes no easier for the masses of our people to make a living.  On the contrary, it is becoming harder.” 

DKG notes that a mood of rebellion began to spread among the laboring classes with an unprecedented number of violent strikes.  The combination of meager wages for 12-hour working days in unsafe, unsanitary conditions has spurred millions of workers to join unions.  In the year 1886 alone, more than 600,000 workers walked out on strike.

Citing the mindset of Walter White, a fabled correspondent, “he (White) began to understand the profound inequities that had produced the Populist uprising; how the growth of colossal corporations strangled competition in one field after another; how these corporations blatantly wielded their power through venal politicians, widening the gap between the rich and the poor.  Belatedly, but surely, he (White) came to recognize that (William Jennings) Bryan’s platform in 1896 ‘was the beginning of the long fight for distributive justice, the opening of a campaign to bring to common man…a larger and more equitable share in the commonwealth of our country’.”

DKG also shines a sharp light on the fact that corruption about which we complain so much today in other countries was alive and well in the United States.  Lincoln Steffens, one of the leading so-called “muckraker” journalists committed to social reform, conducted a series of interviews to determine why, when gambling enterprises and houses of prostitution were illegal, did the police officers of law allow them to exist?  Why were some saloons permitted to stay open beyond the designated hours while others were not?  “With astonishment,” Steffens learned that pervasive, systematic bribery allowed these businesses willing to pay Tammany Hall’s substantial monthly charge to operate unmolested, while those who refused to furnish protection money were closed down.  That’s the way it was. 

The practice extended all the way to the Senate, this in a day when senators were not elected through open elections but through backroom deals.  A scathing editorial from The New York Times said it well, suggesting that a millionaire could buy a senate seat “just as he would buy an opera box, or a yacht, or any other luxury in which he could afford to indulge himself.”  In some instances, The Times reported:  “The sale takes the form of open bribery of the legislators”; more often, the senate seat was “simply the satisfaction of a ‘claim’ acknowledged by the leaders of the party and created by large contributions to the party treasury.” 

Who could fail to hear an echo today from these words in a New York Times editorial on October 2, 1904 in the midst of the presidential campaign:  “The steady advance and the influence of money in our public life (works) as a poison on the minds and hearts of men.”  The editorial was launching out against Theodore Roosevelt, lamenting that “when a man of Mr. Roosevelt’s native scorn for corruption can be the willing, the eager, beneficiary of funds paid into his campaign chest through his former secretary and former cabinet officer with the undisguised hope that it will be repaid in favors to the subscribers.”

In happy contrast to this, DKG describes the demise of the Cox machine in Cincinnati and the “Young Republicans in Cincinnati” who formed a new club with a progressive agenda.  It was led by Howard Hollister (a founding member of the current law firm carrying that name).  At Hollister’s request, both Taft and Roosevelt accepted honorary memberships in the “Roosevelt Republican Club.”  Only such clear disassociation from corrupt and self-serving elements in the Republican Party, Hollister argued, could “disabuse the public mind of the growing feeling of domination of the party by the corporations and money-making commercial politicians.”

Theme #3 – The Character and Accomplishments of William Howard Taft

The most illuminating part of this book for me was the light it cast on the character and accomplishments of William Howard Taft.  I had known really little about him, and I came away from the book feeling that he was underrated both as President and as a human being.  His accomplishments were remarkable in many ways:  as the Governor of the Philippines; as President; as a judge throughout his life; and, finally, in what for him was the best job of all, as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  There are certain aspects of his character, at least as viewed from outside, that are akin to my own.  And some that were very different, particularly, at least as described in this book, his tendency to delay doing things.

Taft’s affection for his wife is embodied in words much like I would use.  Describing her to a friend, he said:  “You know what a constant source of comfort and strength she is to everyone who seeks it from her.  She has already made me a better man--my ideals of life are higher and I believe my purpose to attain them is stronger.  Certainly there could not be given to a man a stronger motive for upright, consistent, hard-working and kindly living than the approval and intelligent sympathy of such a wife.”  And this which he wrote in a letter to his young wife:  “We can be happy as long as we live, if we only love each other and the children that come to us.”

One of the characteristics attributed to WHT that has much in common with my own character and even more perhaps what is described as my character, was his conciliatory nature and, sometimes, too great a need for approval.  Doris Kearns Goodwin describes this in many different dimensions.  One was the way in which he sought approval from his father:  (DKG) “Years later, Taft would credit his father’s indomitable will and lofty aspirations in prompting his own achievements.”  Or, as his father was dying, he described this spirit to his wife, Nellie, “I have a kind of presentiment that Father has been a kind of guardian angel to me and that his wishes for my success have been so strong and intense as to bring it, and that as his life ebbs away and ends, I shall cease to have the luck which has followed me thus far.”

A telling comment came from Taft’s mother, Louise, as she described her son’s level of needing  approval as a “besetting fault.”

In contrast to Roosevelt, Goodwin describes Taft as a “conciliator by nature; Taft was never comfortable when called upon to deliver ‘partisan diatribes and political rallies.’  He was reluctant to stir controversy or give avoidable defense.”  I can identify with that description.

At the same time, and I’d put myself in the same camp, Taft was not ready to “compromise his principles for approval or expediency.”  Goodwin describes Taft’s “quiet courage in his fight” against his political opponent “and his refusal to fire conscientious workers simply because of their political preferences.”  As Goodwin writes, “Taft had been willing to resign his post as revenue collector rather than bow to demands that he fire the best men in his department due to their political affiliations.”  (This brought me back to my admiration for my son John’s decision at Boloco.)

As President, Taft brought on a great deal of controversy in a debate over who should be leading the Department of the Interior.  Unwilling to let a controversial figure (Ballinger) go, the President said:  “Life is not worth living and the office is not worth having if, for the purpose of acquiring popular support, we have to do a cruel injustice or acquiesce in it.”  He generally believed that the press was “unjustly persecuting” a good man.

Taft’s sense of honor also emerged when Roosevelt asked him to assume a position on the Supreme Court.  “All his life,” his wife, Nellie, recalled, “his first ambition had been to attain the Supreme Bench.”  However, because the invitation came in the midst of great “religious excitement, monetary crises” and cholera in the Philippines, where he was serving as Governor, his response was, “Great honor; deeply appreciated; but must decline.”

*****

There were those who felt Taft’s personality was ill-suited to the commanding role of President.  I suppose a few people felt that way about me, too, as the CEO.  Reporters described Will Taft as “the kindest man they (had) ever known in public life.”  Goodwin states that:  “The politics of personal destruction held no relish for a man ‘born with an instinct to be personally agreeable.’”

His mother Louise Taft understood the strengths and weaknesses of Taft.  “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,” she warned him when he declared his candidacy, knowing that Roosevelt would also throw his hat in the ring.  “Roosevelt is a good fighter and enjoys it, but the malice of the politicians would make you miserable.”  A reporter said it this way:  “The country respects and trusts his ability and integrity, but his attitude is that of passive recognition and approval, not the headlong affection that brings power to a political leader of the first rank.”  But, from my perspective, that was overcome by the sense of responsibility and opportunity he brought to the task once in office.  No matter what it was.

There is no doubt that, at some points, Taft was too deferring; and perhaps, on occasion, so was I.  An example, shortly after his election, and with his administration still being formed, he told an audience that Elihu Root “ought to be President-elect and I ought to be a prospective member of his cabinet because I know how to serve under him.”*  (That I can never imagine saying having been appointed to a senior position.) 

Goodwin asserts that “such sentiments cannot be simply construed as extravagant humility or a nod, self-disparaging honor.  Rather, like his chronic procrastination, they connote tentativeness, a want of confidence arising from underlying insecurity.” 

There were points along the way when I probably deferred too much to some of the pronouncements and decisions of Durk Jager.  I finally came to grips with this, but in hindsight I took too long on some issues.  And the reason I did, I think, traces to some of the points that are made about Taft’s temperament, ones I share.

             *Elihu Root served as Secretary of War and Secretary of State.

           

Perhaps the most striking blow to Taft’s leadership image was the deferential approach he took to the Speaker of the House, Joseph Cannon.  His original intent (and the desire of many) was to oust him.  But he backed away from doing that.  This dispirited the reformers a great deal and caused them to lose confidence in his leadership.  Goodwin goes on to say that:  “Perhaps it was inevitable that Taft’s temperament – his aversion to dissension and preference for personal persuasion – would ultimately lead him to work within the system rather than mobilize external pressure from his bully pulpit.  But his conciliatory approach left his administration and the American people at the mercy of Joseph Cannon ‘the most sophisticated’ politician in the country and ‘the most familiar with every subterranean channel of politics, the most cunning in its devious ways, the most artful in the tricks of the craft.’”

*****

I greatly admire Taft’s attitude toward the Filipinos when he was the Governor.  There was a great deal of discrimination shown against them at the time.  His wife shared Taft’s dismay:  “It is a great mistake to treat them as if they were inferiors and it really surprised me that the powers that be do not insist upon a different policy.”  Taft’s view was very contrary to Arthur McArthur’s* who “considered Taft’s desire to provide education and involve the populace in government as both wrong-headed and ultimately hazardous.”  This was influenced by the strong abolitionist beliefs of his father.

One aspect of Taft’s character which is unlike me (and may be over-characterized by Goodwin) was his unwillingness “to accept honest criticism.”  He had what is described as a “defensive, even paranoid stance toward the press.”  Rather than accept that “criticism may spring from an honest difference in principles,” Taft, per Goodwin, sought to discredit the publications, implying that their critiques sprang from self-interest or malice.  How sad.

*****

In many ways, I believe that Roosevelt “failed Taft.”  He did not support him in the end.  He looked for opportunities to disagree with him. How ironical this was given the incredible praise and support Roosevelt had given to Taft.  At one point he said this:  “You are of all the men in this country the one best fitted to give the nation the highest possible service as President.”  His confidence was expressed again and again.  He brought him back from the Philippines to be his Secretary of War and regarded him as by far the most important man he could turn to, in the Cabinet.  He, per DKG, “admired Taft above any other figure in public life.”  And no wonder, based on what he had done.

Yet, after returning from Africa, and as the battle for the 1912 nomination unfolded, Roosevelt could not have been more negative.  His (Taft’s) problem, Roosevelt said, was not that he had “gone wrong,” but that he had stayed put while the country was moving ahead.  “He never thinks at all of the things that interest us most; he does not appreciate or understand them.  As for my ever having any enthusiasm for Taft again, it is utterly impossible.”

            *Military Governor of the Philippines; father of General Douglas McArthur.

Then, there was this assault in the final moments of the 1912 campaign:  “Taft has not only been disloyal to our past friendship, but he has been disloyal to every cause of decency and fair play.”  He only discovered I was dangerous to the people when I discovered he was useless to the people.”

Happily, they reconciled before they died.  Roosevelt first in January 1919; age only 61.

FM_TheBullyPulpit121013

Reflections on the Movie: "12 Years a Slave"

By far, the most authentic, visceral portrayal I have ever seen of the horror of slavery in its treatment of Blacks and the worst instincts in human nature, as well as a few of the best, e.g., courage, persistence and love of family.

 

At the most fundamental level, it shows an horrific setting, the ease with which people can separate themselves from the “other,” regarding them as virtually “inhuman,” not worthy of respect, “property” in the literal sense of the word. 

 

You don’t reach my age without realizing that all of us are a mixture of instincts, good and bad; we all need to fight against that instinct to develop our own sense of worth by negating someone else’s worth and finding that easier to do by differentiating the “other” by color or appearance or something else that, in the end, comes down to “caste.”

 

I choose the word “caste” with an upcoming trip to India in mind, where, by most counts, there are upwards of 12 million people still in some form of slavery:  bonded labor or sexual trafficking.  When one wonders (as I do) how this system of slavery could continue so long, you come back to the element of caste which this movie suggests to me is what Negroes had become to so many White people, particularly those with economic gain to be had and a mode of living that was dependent on their subservience.

 

There was an acute comment made by one of the members of the audience (I believe Bernadette Watson) that Solomon’s stamina and his never being willing to let go of freedom took strength from the fact that he had at one time experienced freedom.  In contrast, many of the slaves on the plantations had been in that condition, probably since birth and, while I’m sure they felt the horrible constraint of slavery, they could not proceed with the “hope” and vision of “what was possible” which Northup did.

 

The takeaway from that perspective for me is the need to give people hope.  That, above all, is what a good parent does; what a great teacher can do; what a mentor can do; what a person can do in any relationship which conveys trust and high expectations to another person.

 

*****

 

Anyone has to have a sense of sadness in seeing how the Bible and various extracts from it were used by slavers to support the institution that was so diabolically opposed to any view of God that sees “love of others” as its foundational point.  But that happened and it continues to happen all too often today. 

 

For me, life in its essence gets back to something pretty simple.  And that is to try to make the life of everyone around you better.  It brings me back to two words which, if I could only name two in defining human relationships, it would be these:  “everyone counts.”

 

I hope this movie will help people understand not only the horrific nature of slavery but the fact that this tendency of ours to view and discount and to sometimes malign those who are different than we are still exists and to try as best we can to overcome that instinct and rather as one writer, Matthew Kelly, expressed it:   “…see ourselves in others and others in ourselves—that is wisdom!”

 

*****

 

The movie poses moral issues of courage and integrity which remind of situations that we face today and which personally raise the question of what I would have done in similar circumstances.

 

There is the chilling scene of Northup, hanging with a noose around his neck, the tips of his toes barely touching the muddy ground just sufficiently to ward off his death, hanging there for a seeming eternity in the film.  Around him, you see the White overseer and the plantation mistress, looking on, turning away, conscious surely of the man’s agony but also that they will not lose their property to death.  Around Northup also are fellow slaves, going about their lives, almost not wanting to notice him; kids playing, certainly not noticing him.  No one even considering, it would appear, to come to his rescue, except one soul who comes up to give him a sip of water. 

 

What would I have done if I were an enslaved man or woman in this situation?  Would I have had the courage to go up and cut him down, knowing that I was risking my life and certainly bringing on a whipping?  Perhaps it wasn’t even a question in the minds of most of the slaves; they had become so conditioned to this way of life.

 

Today, there are situations that bear at least a remote resemblance to this.  We read about a shooting, with the victim on the ground, and many people staying clear for risk of their own lives.

 

At a wholly different level, we encounter a poor person on the street with a “homeless” sign around his or her neck and we go by, feeling that they are undeserving, that our help wouldn’t be of real help in the end, feeling that they are “some other” somehow.

 

There is the horrific scene of the whipping of the young slave girl, Patsey, the most brutal part of the film for me; a girl already brutally treated sexually by Eps.   Solomon is ordered to do the whipping.  He is told that, if he doesn’t do it, he will be shot in the head.  He commences the whipping with as little force as he could.  Then, following the threat that if he doesn’t do it with more force, he would be killed, he does it, being compelled, as I saw him, to do so fiercely because of his disgust at himself for doing it at all.

 

What would any of us have done?  What would I do if ordered to whip or maim a fellow associate with the knowledge that, if I didn’t, my own life or body was at risk?

 

During the Holocaust, of course, Jews were ordered to guide fellow Jews to their deaths.  All over the world today and throughout history, there are circumstances where family members are ordered to maim or kill other family members. 

 

No doubt, the instinct for survival is second to none; it’s human nature.  Northup acknowledged his own deep commitment to not only survive but to “live.”

 

Yet, what price in honor is too great to survive, to live?

 

One never knows, I would never know, for sure until the moment was at hand. 

 

*****

 

There is much more to this film.  There are counterpoised scenes which capture brilliantly what I have long thought of as the best and worst in life.

 

We see the joy of being with one’s family at the beginning of the film and at the end.  (Interestingly, we see no joy in family life on the plantation.)  These scenes are interspersed with the demeaning, joyless lives of the Negroes and the unremitting, demeaning treatment imposed on them by the Whites.

 

We see beautiful, inspiring scenes of nature--of landscapes and of skies--counterpoised against scenes of drudgery, of hopelessness, of day-to-day survival.

 

There are also scenes of hope.  I refer particularly to the Negroes’ singing spirituals.  Northup is initially intentionally detached but then, almost despite himself, he becomes deeply engaged with full voice.

 

*****

 

There are three thoughts which I ponder, having reflected on the film hours after seeing it:

 

1.      I am reminded of how badly we can treat each other when we are not at our best.

2.      I am reminded that this has happened throughout history as people have used power and position to advantage and justified this by the instinct of defining “others” as unworthy and, in some cases, sub-human.

3.      I return to the thought expressed earlier:  “The greatest barrier to loving people, to cherishing people, to accepting people is our inability to see ourselves in them.  Take a closer look. We are one.  To see ourselves in others and others in ourselves—that is wisdom.”

 

Acting in accord with “The Better Angels of our Nature,” a task to which, with God’s help, we are always called.

 

*****

 

(11/18/13)  I re-read these reflections on “12 Years a Slave” shortly after returning from my ten-day trip to India.  It is sobering, indeed chilling, to contrast the searing content of “12 Years a Slave” with what I witnessed in India:  a red-light district in Kolkata in which 10,000 women are entrapped due to poverty or sheer enslavement in prostitution; millions of men and women entrapped in bonded labor.  As I reflected in my notes on “12 Years a Slave,” I had seen, once again, how people have used power and position to their own advantage, justifying it by the instinct of defining “others” as unworthy and, in some cases, sub-human.  That was the situation with the Negroes; as it is today for millions in India as they are looked on as a lower caste.  In both these situations, I witnessed how people came to view those they treated brutally as not deserving human treatment.   

Reflections on Human Motivation

ERNEST BECKER:  “ESCAPE FROM EVIL” and "THE DENIAL OF DEATH"

Ernest Becker's "Escape from Evil" is one of the most sobering, humbling  and mind-opening books I’ve read in a long time. It is a companion to Becker's Pulitzer Prize winning book, "The Denial of Death", which I re-read after many years just following my first reading of "Escape from Evil". My notes below include some modification of my reaction to "Escape.." based on the subsequent reading of "Denial of Death".

This may be the most profoundly illuminating descriptions of human motivation which I have ever read. I identify with it again and again.. There is however a a central assertion and conviction of Becker's with which I disagree, at least as I understand Becker.  More below.