There’s so much happening in America. Today’s essay is not about the nineteenth anniversary of 9-11, it’s about a much more recent tragedy. But 9-11 remains important – here’s what I wrote a year ago Eighteen Years Ago. And this is one of my favorite posts from over three years ago – Shanksville.
Mom
My mother was British, born during some of the worst days of World War I and raised in the suburbs of London. She was educated in the best English traditions, sent to boarding school near home and then to Belgium for “finishing school”. When she returned to England (and for her, it was always England) she enrolled in the University of London to study British Literature.
Her twenty-first birthday party was in June of 1939, two months before World War II began. Of the twenty boys who attended that party, all would be dead within two years: most killed fighting in the Battle of Britain. My mom, fluent in French from her Belgian schooling, looked to avenge their loss. She joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s private spy organization. She spent much of World War II behind enemy lines, taking the battle to Nazi-occupied Europe (More on her story – Mom’s War).
Mom was lucky. Most members of the SOE didn’t survive the war. Of the ninety in her particular unit, only six made it through to the end.
The Table
While Mom married my Dad, a US Army Warrant Officer stationed in London, and came with him to the United States; she never gave up her British citizenship. And at our dinner table, where discussions were wide ranging and invigorating, there were two topics not open for discussion. One was religion: Mom was an ex-communicated Catholic (for marrying my Jewish father) but still maintained her faith. Others at the table could believe what they wanted, but it wasn’t a “topic” for debate.
The other was the Royal Family of Great Britain. Mom looked to King George VI for his solid leadership in World War II. The Royal Family was as an example for all of the English people during the War, serving the nation with honor and sacrifice. Perhaps it was made even more poignant, as King George was never supposed to be on the throne. His brother, the popular Edward VIII, quit the job in 1936 to marry “the woman he loved”, a divorced American. George was a man “buggering through” the greatest crisis his nation faced. He, and his family, especially his daughter Queen Elizabeth II, weren’t open to criticism at our table.
Looking back, there was a third topic that no one even thought to broach. Prime Minister Winston Churchill was only spoken of in revered tones. Mom actually knew him, spent time in his War Rooms as part of her service. While the Royal Family was an example of service and strength during the War, it was Churchill who was the glue that held Great Britain together.
Leadership
Great leaders find a way to reach their followers. While Franklin Roosevelt was born and raised in privilege, the tragedy of his paralysis to polio, and the courage of his return to national prominence, gave him empathy towards others who struggled. That empathy came through during the Great Depression and onto the struggle of World War II.
Churchill was also the son of privilege. And Churchill had tasted early success, and dramatic failures. He was outcast from the government for almost a decade before World War II, another “failed” leader of the First World War. So when he returned after the start of the Second War, it was a man who understood failure, and success. He knew England was going to suffer. Bombs would rain down, casualty lists mount, and invasion seemed inevitable. He did not sugarcoat the danger, and after the miracle of the Dunkirk evacuation he spoke to the British people. He told them the truth:
“…We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”
And after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States’ long awaited entry into the War, Churchill didn’t tell his staff to “stay calm”. That was a poster on the wall. What Churchill did say was “keep buggering on”. And that’s what they all did, to the end of the war and final victory.
After the War the British wanted to move onto peace, and Churchill was dramatically voted out of office. A few years later he returned to leadership once again, serving as Prime Minister in the early 1950’s. But his service of leadership during World War II would be his “shining” moment; never forgotten.
Failure
Yesterday, President of the United States Donald Trump invoked Churchill and Roosevelt to defend his own lying to the American people about the danger of the COVID pandemic. Mr. Trump said:
“As Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’ We’re doing very well. As the British government advised the British people in the face of World War II, ‘Keep calm and carry on.’ That’s what I did…When Hitler was bombing London, Churchill, a great leader, would oftentimes go to a roof in London and speak. And he always spoke with calmness. He said we have to show calmness. No, we did it the right way. We’ve done a job like nobody.”
Churchill and Roosevelt were honest with their people. Both spoke frankly about the dangers they faced. They did not “pretend” that the Depression or the War would “go away”. And they did not sow dissension in their own peoples: they both worked to unify their nations in a common cause of sacrifice and purpose.
Donald Trump knew that the pandemic would be “the greatest crisis of his Administration” in January of 2020. He spent the next six weeks telling the American people that there wasn’t a problem. It wasn’t a Churchillian “keep buggering on”, or even a poster slogan “keep calm”. And it wasn’t FDR’s “only thing to fear”. It was pretend: pretend that the nation wasn’t facing an existential crisis. That pretense cost thousands of American lives.
Mom and Dad
Leadership is not hiding problems, or pretending they will go away. Leadership is preparing for the challenge, and raising the nation to respond to crisis. It is exactly what Churchill and Roosevelt did. And precisely what Donald Trump failed to do.
Mom and Dad passed away a few years ago. But if we were all around the dining room table once again, with Dad at one end and Mom at the other, we would absolutely be discussing our national crisis. But no one would dare put Winston Churchill and Donald Trump on the same level.
If they did, the SOE Agent might rise up and strike again.
