Albert Schweitzer once observed that any biographer of Jesus ends up seeing himself in the face of Christ. The same has been true of American presidents and Winston Churchill when it comes to war leadership: they long to see the Last Lion looking back in the mirror.
Who would not want to be the Churchill of myth? In the popular imagination, he stood alone against Hitler, detecting dangers other men chose not to see until, finally, on Friday, May 10, 1940, he became prime minister. "I felt as if I were walking with Destiny," he recalled, "and that all my life had been but preparation for this hour and for this trial." It is goose-flesh stuff, genuinely moving—and true. Winston Churchill was one of the most important human beings who ever lived. If you think that is overstated, consider only this: in less than six years of active warfare, with the great democracies of the world allied against him, Hitler massacred millions in mechanized genocide and presided over an era of utter terror. What might he have done had he received, however briefly, diplomatic sanction in the form of a truce with Britain after the invasion of France?
The question we pose on our cover occurred to us as the presidential campaign seems to return often to the language of appeasement on issues such as Iraq, Iran, Hamas and North Korea. "What Would Winston Do?" is answerable only by studying What Winston Did (and Said, and Thought)—and the lessons from such study suggest that war leadership is about much more than just being tough. The Churchill example offers no prescriptions, but it does give us perspective—and, when you think about it, the past is the only thing that can.
And so, as Evan Thomas writes, the issue is not whether we should use historical analogies but how we should use them. The best way—perhaps the only way—is to know a lot of history so that we can evaluate the argument on its merits. (For a case study in how to evaluate an argument, I commend Christopher Hitchens's review of Pat Buchanan's best-selling book arguing that World War II was "unnecessary.")
Churchill never despaired, but he did doubt. He changed parties not once but twice, noting that anyone could rat, but it took real character to "re-rat," and while he hated communism, he spent long nights with Stalin, convinced that he could, with world enough and time, bring the dictator around. (His drinking bouts with Stalin were so epic that once Churchill could only breakfast on aspirins on the trip home.)
To "jaw-jaw," Churchill once said, is better than to "war-war." After a certain point, he recognized there was no profit in jaw-jawing with Hitler. He was, however, a politician who kept his options open and, with the large exception of Nazi Germany, always knew that allies could become enemies and enemies allies. (He also dismissed the Munich analogy when the Americans invoked it over Southeast Asia in the 1950s.) "Those who are prone by temperament and character to seek sharp and clear-cut solutions of difficult and obscure problems, who are ready to fight whenever some challenge comes from a foreign power, have not always been right," Churchill wrote of Munich. "On the other hand, those whose inclination is to bow their heads, to seek patiently and faithfully for peaceful compromise, are not always wrong." In other words, diplomacy and toughness are not mutually exclusive; neither are subtlety and strength.
History, politics and spirited debate: this issue has all the things Tim Russert, who died last Friday, would have loved. He was a man of parts, a fearless journalist and a loyal friend. My appreciation of his life and career begins on page 30. May light perpetual shine upon him.