When Perspective, Restraint, and Character Intersected

This does not represent a broad character defense for for John F. Kennedy. But upon completing ONE MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT Kennedy, Kruschev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War (Michael Dobbs; Vintage Books; 2008), character shines through - particularly exercising leadership with the long-term welfare of others at the center of his thinking. Dobbs' compelling look at the Cuban missile crisis and the unfolding events of those tumultuous 13 days portrays the intersection of perspective, restraint, and character in President Kennedy as he wrestled with the momentous decisions facing his administration resulting from the placement of Soviet R-12 nuclear missiles in Cuba. The placement of these missile with an effective range covering both the Nation's Capital (and my boyhood home...) and New York city forced Kennedy and the U.S. to act. The pressing question of those days - not quite two full weeks - brought the world perilously close to the onslaught of the unthinkable. Nuclear war.
       The major American players included the hawkish Joint Chiefs, the ambiguous younger brother Robert Kennedy, the ever-analytical Robert McNamara, the ever-analytical, but unimpressive C.I.A., and a host of others. In the end, JFK understood, and understood deeply, one man or two men, or even a group of men, should not decide the fate of the world for generations. Add to the tension of confrontation the random or haphazard event or decision by a pilot or ship or field commander which could itself ignite a powder keg.
Consider the following.

       "Mistakes were an inevitable consequence of warfare, but in previous wars, they had been easier to rectify. The stakes were much higher now, and the margins for error much narrower. 'The possibility of the destruction of mankind was constantly on Kennedy's mind,' according to Bobby. He knew that war is 'rarely intentional.' What troubled him most was the thought that 'if we erred, we erred not only for ourselves, our futures, our hopes, and our country,' but for young people all over the world, 'who had no role, who had no say, who knew nothing even of the confrontation, but whose lives would be snuffed out like everyone else's.'"
       Kennedy's perspective went beyond his able counselors and he appeared to consciously make effort to force his thinking out as far as it would go - to consider the consequences and implications of decisions upon all who would bear them. He thought historically, noting in his own crude way, "There is always some sonofa..... who doesn't get the message." Wars can start unintentionally. Mistakes happen because communication will fail. Given the voice and experience of history, he walked carefully.
       He exercised restraint when so many called for swift action. Nuclear missiles aimed at the U.S. sit 90 miles from our coast. Action would be justified, A Soviet SA-2 downed a high-flying U-2 spy plane. Action would be justified. But what comprised justifiable action? Where would the responsive actions lead? How far would the responses go? Would West Berlin be targeted - an isolated city, surrounded by the communist East Germany? Would the NATO missiles in Turkey become targets - justifiable to Russian reasoning? Kennedy understood that actions would lead to reaction. Events could easily and quickly spiral out of control.
       He demonstrated the character of keeping himself in perspective. What if he had yielded to the temptation to see the confrontation as personal? If he had seen it as an affront to his leadership? He could have spun the story in national terms, even international terms and donned the sheriff's white hat while responding militarily. He chose instead to look for ways to resolve and settle the issue knowing history would judge those 13 days and the men who found themselves on the brink of unleashing events which would have devastating and world wide consequences beyond calculation or analysis. His perspective, restraint, and character, whatever other flaws he may have exhibited, worked to bring a reasonable and peaceful result to the Cuban missile crisis.

Great Discernment

Some men tickle ears while others speak truth. Ear-tickling men act as though they make history and act as though they are discerning while, in fact, the opposite is true. Great leaders discern the times and speak the often unpopular truth in effort to serve the greater cause - that is the cause which is greater than "self." Ear-tickling men serve only themselves while putting on the guise of public service. These men do not stand the test of time and disappear when history demands greatness.

Consider the words of Mr. Churchill from 25 November 1936: "Europe, and it might well be the whole world, is now approaching the most dangerous moment in history. (Gasp! Ear-tickling man cannot believe the audacity of this comment!) The struggle which is now opening between rival forms of dictatorships threatens to disturb the internal peace of many countries and to range them against each other. That alone would bring us into grave danger. Yet I feel that danger can be surmounted and kept within bounds if it were not that in this self-same, ill-starred epoch men had learned to fly. The aeroplane (sic) has put all countries and all parts of every country simultaneously at the mercy of sudden blasting attack."

Please note that at this point no large-scale air operation had been conducted in wartime and the idea Churchill expounded existed only in the minds of military planners - and those were few. This radical idea was not widely accepted as a viable military strategy in 1936. Of course, this is inconceivable to men of this current generation - but the prophetic insight of Mr. Churchill is astounding. England would experience the "Blitz" -  Germany's effort to bring England to her knees through air attack - within five year's time.

A great leader offers direction - and so Churchill added later in the speech the following encouragement. (While times change and circumstances change - issues seem to remain the same.) "...we are bound to support all well-considered necessary measures to enable the country to defend itself and bear its part in a combined defensive system against aggression. We view with strongest reprehension activities like those of Mr. Lansbury and Canon Sheppard, who are ceaselessly trying to dissuade the youth of this country from joining its defensive forces, and seek to impede and discourage the military preparations which the state of the world fores upon us.

His seemingly lone voice sounded the cry of alarm in the face of steady opposition - that is, until it was nearly too late and the truth about Hitler was painfully obvious to all. Churchill stands as a great example of a man who did not cave in to fear and stood fast in the face of both the times and the men of the times.

Expedient or Principled?

One doesn't have to listen long to the current president before one is told to "Listen..." or "Hear me..."  It should make one nervous when one is always having to be the one listening. This puts the "listener" (if one actually agrees to listen) in the position of one instructed - like a student or possibly small child.
      When someone is always saying, "Listen..." it comes across as, well, arrogance. It seems clear a leader, especially, must be willing to "Listen..." and to understand, and to weigh, and to contemplate in order to be an effective leader.

      I am not totally sure I have the word I want but expedient comes to mind when thinking about the agenda being pushed upon America. The word carries the meaning of speed and has positive meanings with respect to making right decisions and when speed is appropriate. But it also carries the meaning of serving "one's own purpose." That's the meaning which is close to the mark.  Is it right for a leader, particularly a president, to act with determined haste and, in that haste, with disregard for others trying to be heard, and with such a feel of "one's own purpose" at the center of the talking and activity?
      Compare expedience with what William Lee Miller calls Abraham Lincoln's moral leadership. "The dominant mode of expression of his mind was not quickness, speedy analysis, rapid-fire response. He did not use his extraordinarily good memory to reproduce what he remembered with eclat. He did not characteristically do what Samuel Johnson tried to restrain himself from doing: "talking for victory" - scoring points on others, displaying what he knew, winning contests of knowledge. He did not aim to be, and never became a learned man... Lincoln's mind instead cut deeply, perhaps slowly or at least with effort and concentrated attention, into a relatively few subjects. It was purposive -  personally, politically, morally. 

     Lincoln was not facile or glib, nor could he call up an immense range of knowledge. Faster talking products of a later urban world would have interrupted him while he was pausing for his first semicolon. 
     He would become a thinker in particular about moral ideals as they intersect with politics. And his qualities mind meant not only that facts and ideas, once acquired, stayed with him, but that political and moral positions, once he worked them out, would not be lightly abandoned. (Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography; Vintage; 2002; p. 13-14
     He once responded to a public charge brought by Frederick Douglass, calling Lincoln "slow and vacillating." In effect - he told Douglass it was fine to call him "slow". But with respect to vacillating, Lincoln could not bear that charge. He told Douglass it was an unsubstantiated charge and did not believe it could be shown where he had retreated from a position which he had taken the time to reason through.

      This is an outstanding quality of a fine leader - arriving at positions not by speed and a course which best serves one's own interests - but digging to the moral marrow of the matter. Arriving at principles which are substantial, proven, timeless, and perhaps slow-moving under-gird a reasonable, careful, thoughtful, effective leader.

Substance Over Style

Much was made of comparisons to Abraham Lincoln in the last Presidential election. One wonders why. Abraham Lincoln boasted an unseemly image - not one preferred by the careful crafting of political media experts who do things like make sure the candidates sleeves are rolled up just so to create a "let's roll up our sleeves," "problem-solver" image. They craft the image - knowing that image and sound bite define the man in the public's perception. And they bombarded us with images and words. So many words. The bombardment continues.

As I said, Lincoln would not be well-served by the camera - and we would not be either. The camera could not define Abraham Lincoln. His image does not fit our current definition of presidential image. If Nixon wore the wrong suit in his famed television debate with Kennedy, Lincoln got everything wrong. Descriptions of him by friends included words like gawky, lanky, homely. One of his closest friends, Joshua Speed, described him as "a long, gawky, ugly, shapeless man." His clothes did not fit his unusual frame. His pants ended well north of the tops of his shoes. He apparently cared not about his appearance - even when tailored clothes fell easily within his means.

The human tendency to make judgments on appearances drives those crafting images. Images deceive. Lincoln's looks communicated "intellectual ordinariness" (at best). This man was not an ordinary man. Would we miss someone of Lincoln's stature because he was ugly and awkward? Would anyone take him seriously? What would SNL do to him in a skit?
Would we hear the depth of the man in this "sound bite" world? Would his moral fiber stand out and attract us or be torn apart by the hazing of a late-night pundit or blogging know-it-all?

A man of thoughtful and substantial insight, Abraham Lincoln towers above any on the political landscape today. No human agency crafted his character, his leadership skill, his power to persuade and convince. Consider the words of a fellow legislator, Robert Wilson, observing Lincoln at about age 25. "He was, on the stump, and in the Halls of Legislation a ready Debater, manifesting extraordinary ability in his peculiar manner of presenting a subject. He did not follow the beaten track of other Speakers, and Thinkers, but appeared to comprehend the whole situation of the Subject, and take hold of its first principles...his memory was a great Store house in which was Stored away all the facts, acquired by reading but principally by observation... Supplying him with an inexhaustible fund of facts, from which he would draw conclusions, and illustrating every Subject however complicated with anecdotes drawn from all classes of Society, accomplishing the double purpose, of not only proving his Subject by the anecdote, that no one ever forgets, after hearing Mr. Lincoln tell a Story, either the argument of the Story, the Story itself, or the author. (Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography; William Lee Miller; Vintage Books; 2002)