Great leaders excite great controversies. They acquire strong friends and bitter enemies. It should be no surprise that different people see the same leader in different ways, or that judgments conflict, or that judgments change.
Always, the leader operates on multiple levels. There is the public persona and the private person, the face that millions see, and the face that the small group through which he governs sees. That group may see the private person or it may not; he often has to make every bit as much of an effort to be persuasive with the inside group as with the mass audience. Allies and adversaries may see different aspects of him, as may the representatives of the many different constituencies he has to reach. The parable of the three blind men and the elephant applies to the ways in which leaders are perceived. Each of the blind men encountered one part of the elephant and extrapolated from that. Similarly each critic, each commentator, each adversary, each ally, encounters one aspect of the leader and tends to extrapolate from that.
Sadat cited an Arab aphorism that says a ruler is naturally opposed by half of his subjects if he happens to be just. All leaders live with opposition. All hope to be vindicated by history. The reputations of some grow after they leave office. The reputations of others shrink. The judgment of history sometimes turns giants into pygmies. And sometimes the men earlier dismissed as pygmies are turned into giants. Harry Truman was scorned when he left the presidency in 1953, but he gets high marks as a leader today.
The final verdict of history is not rendered quickly. It takes not just years but decades or generations to be handed down. Few leaders live to hear the verdict. Herbert Hoover was an exception. No leader in American history was more viciously vilified. Deserted by his friends and maligned by his enemies, he finally triumphed over adversity. In the twilight of his life he stood tall above his detractors. His life illustrates the truth of de Gaulle’s favorite line from Sophocles: “One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been.”
All of the leaders in this book had their successes and failures, their strengths and weaknesses, their virtues and vices. We can only guess how historians will evaluate their respective legacies a century from now. That will depend in part on who wins the world struggle and who writes the histories. But these leaders did not shrink from the battle. They entered the arena. And, as Theodore Roosevelt put it in a speech at the Sorbonne in 1910:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them 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 not effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
THIS BOOK IS a product of study and experience stretching over the better part of a lifetime. What I have learned about leaders and leadership has come from a combination of reading, observation, the advice of expert practitioners, and the experience of doing it.
When I was President, I found that preparing a major speech was a very effective discipline, not only for bringing policy decisions to a head, but also for refining my own thinking. The same was true of writing this book. In the course of delving more deeply into the lives of leaders I have known, I found that I acquired a much richer understanding of what they were up against and how they became what they were. I learned a great deal, some of it surprising, that helped explain to me why and how they sometimes acted as they did, and that taught me more about the nature of those who shaped the world in our time.
Like many political leaders, I have long been an avid reader of historical biographies. Even during the White House years, I made time for this. Since then, I have had more time for it. All of the leaders dealt with in this book are ones I knew personally, and my primary impressions of them are those based on my own observation and experience. But I have also learned much from their biographers. I consulted scores of books in the writing of this one. For those readers who want to pursue more fully the lives of these leaders, among the books I would recommend are the multivolume Winston S. Churchill, begun by Randolph S. Churchill and continued by Martin Gilbert; Lord Moran’s Churchill and Violet Bonham Carter’s Winston Churchill; Churchill and de Gaulle by Francois Kersaudy; Andre Malraux’s Felled Oaks; De Gaulle by Brian Crozier and David Schoenbrun’s The Three Lives of Charles de Gaulle; American Caesar, William Manchester’s biography of Douglas MacArthur; Terence Prittie’s Konrad Adenauer and, by Paul Weymar, the authorized biography of Adenauer by the same title; Edward Crankshaw’s Khrushchev; Chou En-lai: China’s Gray Eminence by Kai-yu Hsu; Mao by Ross Terrill; and Brian Crozier’s The Man Who Lost China.
Those who have contributed to my understanding of leadership include all the leaders profiled here, plus scores of others—particularly Dwight D. Eisenhower, under whom I served as Vice President for eight years. For all that they taught me, wittingly or unwittingly, I am grateful, as I also am to the many persons who contributed their ideas and recollections to this book. I owe a special debt to Dr. Taro Takemi, president of the Japan Medical Association, who served as a trusted adviser and confidant to Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida. He answered many of my questions about Yoshida and provided a number of details that are not generally known in the West.
There are others for whose specific help with this book I am particularly grateful. I relied on Mrs. Nixon, with her keen eye, for help in picture selection, as well as for her memories of many of the events and people. My longtime associate Loie Gaunt was invaluable in searching the archives. Karen Maisa ably supervised the manuscript, together with Kathleen O’Connor and Susan Marone, as well as helped with research.
Two recent college graduates, John H. Taylor of the University of California at San Diego and Marin Strmecki of Harvard, worked long hours and provided immensely helpful research and editorial assistance. Franklin R. Gannon, who had worked with Randolph Churchill before joining my White House staff, was very helpful with the Churchill chapter. Raymond Price, formerly chief of my White House speechwriting staff, served again, as he had for my previous book, The Real War, as my principal editorial consultant and coordinator.
—R.N.
Saddle River, New Jersey
June 21, 1982
Winston Churchill, 1954. A somber Prime Minister strides into St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, for the funeral of a long-time associate. (Wide World)
Churchill as a war correspondent in southern Africa during the Boer War. (Wide World)
Churchill as campaigner seeking reelection to Parliament as leader of the Opposition in 1950, a year before his return to power as Prime Minister. (Wide World)
Churchill riding from the airport to the White House, accompanied by the author, during his 1954 visit to Washington. (United Press International)
Churchill as a child, as an officer of the Fourth Hussars, and as a young member of Parliament. (Wide World photos)
Charles de Gaulle with the author as they walk through the palace of Versailles, 1969. (White House photo)
President and Madame de Gaulle in London, 1960, being driven along Fleet Street in an open carriage en route to a luncheon at the Guildhall. (Wide World)
De Gaulle’s official portrait as President of France. (Wide World)
The many faces of de Gaulle: his expressions as caught by the camera at a presidential press conference. (Wide World photos)
Douglas MacArthur with the author in 1958, on MacArthur’s seventy-eighth birthday. (Wide World photos)
With former President Herbert Hoover in 1957. (Wide World photos)
MacArthur as
a cadet. (Wide World photos)
MacArthur with his mother, who lived near the campus during his years at West Point. (Wide World photos)
As a brigadier general in command of the Rainbow Division during World War I. (Wide World photos)
MacArthur smoking his corncob pipe moments after landing in defeated Japan in 1945. (Wide World photos)
Speaking to a crowd in San Francisco in 1951 after being fired by President Truman. (Wide World photos)
MacArthur testifying during the Senate Korea hearings. (Wide World photos)
MacArthur waves to his troops from his landing barge at Morotai Island, south of the Philippines, 1944. (Wide World)
With General Dwight D. Eisenhower, his former aide, during Eisenhower’s May 1946 visit to Japan. (United Press International)
MacArthur with Shigeru Yoshida in 1954, when the Japanese Premier visited the former supreme commander in New York. (Wide World photos)
Yoshida at home in 1953, dressed in a Japanese kimono. (Wide World photos)
Yoshida meeting Konrad Adenauer in West Germany during Yoshida’s around-the-world trip in 1954. (Wide World)
Adenauer arrives in France in 1963 for his last meeting as Chancellor with his friend de Gaulle. The French President, as chief of state, broke protocol in order to go personally to the airport to greet the West German head of government. (Wide World)
The author with Adenauer in Bonn in 1963.
Adenauer and his wife, Gussi, pay a postwar visit to the cell in Brauweiler prison where Adenauer had been imprisoned by the Nazis in 1944. (Wide World)
Nikita Khrushchev and the author engage in their “kitchen debate” at the American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959; the then little-known Soviet official standing behind the author is Leonid Brezhnev. (Wide World photos)
During a motorboat ride on the Moscow River, Khrushchev pauses so that he and the author can greet a group of swimmers. (Wide World photos)
Brezhnev stresses a point during a discussion in the study of the author’s San Clemente home in 1973. (White House photo)
Also in San Clemente, Brezhnev tapes a televised speech to the American people, to be broadcast at the conclusion of that year’s summit meeting. (Wide World)
Brezhnev and the author contemplating the globe in Brezhnev’s office during the 1972 summit. The portrait above is of Lenin. (White House photo)
Zhou Enlai in 1972, photographed during a break in meetings with Canada’s Foreign Minister. (United Press International)
Arriving in Peking for the first time in 1972, the author reaches out for his historic handshake with Zhou. (United Press International)
Zhou in 1936, returning to Yenan during a break in negotiations with the Kuomintang. (Wide World)
Mao Zedong and Zhou in the late 1950s. (Wide World)
Mao with the author in 1972, at Mao’s home. (Wide World)
Sukarno with one of his six wives in 1947 at a reception celebrating Indonesia’s independence from the Dutch. (Wide World photos)
Sukarno the orator. (Wide World photos)
Khrushchev and Sukarno model sarongs during the Soviet leader’s 1960 state visit to Indonesia. (Wide World)
Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter, Indira Gandhi, with Mrs. Nixon and the author in New Delhi in 1953. (Ed Clark, Life magazine, ©Time Inc.)
Nehru in conversation with the author.
A contemplative Chiang Kai-shek prepares to deliver a speech to Taiwan’s national assembly in 1972; inset: Chiang in 1943, as Acting President of China. (Wide World photos)
Madame Chiang with Mrs. Nixon in Taipei. (Wu Chung-yee)
Alcide de Gasperi announcing that his Christian Democratic party has won a decisive victory over the Communists in the 1948 Italian general elections. (United Press International)
The author talks with Kwame Nkrumah during the 1957 festivities marking Ghana’s independence from Great Britain.
Ramon Magsaysay at the wheel of his jeep in the Philippines in 1956. The author is at left; Mrs. Nixon and Mrs. Magsaysay are in the backseat. (Wide World photos)
An exuberant Magsaysay following his landslide election as President in 1953. (Wide World photos)
Golda Meir as an eight-year-old immigrant to the United States. (Wide World photos)
As Prime Minister of Israel. (Wide World photos)
Meir arriving at the White House for a state dinner in her honor in 1969. (Wide World photos)
With the author during the same state visit. (Wide World photos)
David Ben-Gurion. (Wide World photos)
The author with Ben-Gurion in the former Prime Minister’s cluttered study in 1966. (Wide World photos)
Gamal Nasser, far right, in Cairo with Zhou and Sukarno in 1956. (Wide World)
Anwar Sadat during a press conference in London before making his last visit to the U.S. in August 1981. (Wide World)
Marching in the Shah’s funeral procession in Cairo in July 1980; from left to right: Empress Farah, the Shah’s widow; the author; Crown Prince Reza Pahlevi; President Sadat. (United Press International)
The Shah of Iran with the author during their first meeting in 1953 in Tehran. (Wide World)
The Shah escorts Mrs. Nixon to dinner during his visit to the U.S. in 1958. (United Press International)
King Faisal during the author’s 1974 visit to Saudi Arabia. Alexander Haig, then White House chief of staff, is second from left. (White House photo)
De Gaulle with Faisal at the Elysée Palace in 1967. (Wide World)
Lee Kuan Yew and the author confer in the Oval Office in 1969. (White House photo)
Robert Menzies and Nehru in New Delhi in 1950. (Punjab Photo Service)
Menzies visits Churchill at 10 Downing Street in 1952. (Wide World)
Also by Richard Nixon
Beyond Peace
Seize the Moment
In the Arena
1999: Victory Without War
No More Vietnams
Real Peace
The Real War
RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
Six Crises
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INDEX
Academicians, 325, 331, 335
Acheson, Dean, 102–103, 122, 145
Adenauer, Emma, 154
Adenauer, Gussi Zinsser, 154
Adenauer, Konrad, 133–68, 253, 275, 338. See also Franco-German rapprochement.
age, 36, 157, 161, 341
Catholicism and Christian policies, 147–48, 167, 257
as Chancellor, 142–46
and China, 94, 160
cf. Churchill, 2, 144, 153, 166
death of, 163
and de Gaulle, 160–62
cf. de Gaulle, 69, 162, 166
and Dulles, 151–53, 162
European unity, 134–35, 141, 148–49, 152–53, 160, 164
education and writings, 137, 153
Erhard and, 78, 157–58, 163
and family, 141, 154
and German people, 110, 145–46, 150, 156–57
and German unification, 150–52, 163–64, 167
and Kennedy/Nixon campaign, 159
and Khrushchev, 154–56, 197–98
last years, 133–34, 156–57, 160
leadership style, 156–57, 321, 329, 336–37
and Nazis, 107, 140–41, 250
Nixon friendship with, 136, 153
Nixon meetings with, 153, 159–60, 161–62
personality and character, 135, 138–39, 146, 152–53, 167–68
physical appearance, 138, 146, 161
political background before war, 138–40
use of press, 145, 159
and Prussia, 149–50, 167
&nbs
p; quotes and comments:
defense of Europe, 148
de Gaulle, 60–61, 161–62
Dulles, 150, 153
Erhard, 139
fence-sitting and neutrality, 152
Leaders Page 47
