History's Personally Revealing Anecdotes
You can learn great things from small moments.
Any teacher who manages to make history boring has committed a grievous sin. I pity the students who wander out into life with the conclusion that history is nothing but a hazy mix of names and dates.
That’s sad because it is often a tale of heroes, the quietly brave and sturdy, and monsters.
You can read about how Deng Xiaoping sought to reverse the madness of the Chinese Cultural Revolution where students hazed and murdered approximately three million innocent people while exiling many others to labor in the countryside.
That should be taught in American high schools.
And yet it also helps to understand how the Cultural Revolution was perceived in the comfortable settings of Hollywood.
When Deng met actress Shirley MacLaine in a White House receiving line, she told him that a doctor who’d been sent to work in the fields told her that it was the most uplifting moment of his life.
And what was Deng’s beautiful reply?
“He was lying.”
A similar example of candor can be found in accounts of when former Secretary of State Dean Acheson met with President John F. Kennedy about the plans for what would become the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion.
JFK mentioned that the invasion force of 1,500 Cuban exiles might be facing approximately 25,000 troops of Castro’s army. Acheson was surprised that Kennedy was seriously considering the matter. He said, “Well, it doesn’t take Price-Waterhouse to figure out that fifteen-hundred Cubans aren’t as good as twenty-five thousand.”
But Kennedy proceeded with the plan, nonetheless.
Candor has its adversaries. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s sexist opponents in Parliament gravely underestimated her abilities, referring to her as Attila the Hen and The Great She-Elephant. Such attitudes blinded them. Their coarse and heavy-handed approach enabled Thatcher to thrive in the seemingly contradictory role of powerful underdog; one who was bringing some long overdue change.
One of my favorite stories of the subtle nature of leadership is from the dark days of the American Revolution when George Washington was confronted by disgruntled Army officers who were sore about the lack of pay. Washington spoke of the importance of considering posterity.
As historian Richard Norton Smith noted, those words had little effect on the angry group until, in preparing to read a congressional message promising redress, Washington retrieved a pair of eyeglasses, and said, “I have already grown gray in the service of my country. I am now going blind.” The protests immediately collapsed in tears.
The public image of famous figures can lead to significant distortions. Historian Fred Greenstein memorably described Dwight Eisenhower as the Clark Kent of American presidents because Ike was so often underestimated. [Rather difficult to do with the former commander of the Normandy Invasion, but the news media did their best.]
Journalist (and occasional espionage agent) Malcolm Muggeridge had a similar revelation while observing Free French leader Charles de Gaulle during World War II:
“He was like, I decided, one of those circus clowns who ride a bicycle clumsily into the ring, seeming always about to fall off, until you realise that they are in fact consummate riders, who will always recover their balance and end up standing majestically on the saddle and saluting a wildly applauding audience.”
A sense of history can be a healthy shot of reality to those who think people can be quickly summarized and events can be easily predicted. History’s numerous small revelations are important lessons in humility.
While there are some scientists who believe that science is settled and should not be challenged, the best historians don’t hesitate to ask three important questions:
“What is really happening?”
“What is the likely result?”
“And then what?”
That willingness can be very valuable.