Notes of Concern…
…Jack Blair
A New Sheriff In Town!
There is a new Sheriff in town.
The town is Washington, D.C.
The Sheriff is President Barack H. Obama.
In his first days in office he announced that he would close the Guantanamo Base Prisoner Camp known as “Gitmo.”
So the Sheriff wants us to know he is closing the jail.
Such an announcement would not normally be met with applause from the townspeople who might then have to face the criminals.
But the Sheriff is mighty popular at the moment and the townspeople are applauding.
Let us look at this situation a bit more closely. The Wikipedia encyclopedia has this to say about the prison:
Since October 7, 2001, when the current war in Afghanistan began, 775 detainees have been brought to Guantánamo. Of these, approximately 420 have been released without charge. As of May 2008, approximately 255 detainees remain. More than a fifth are cleared for release (51) but must nevertheless remain indefinitely because countries are reluctant to accept them.
Let’s do the math.
775 incarcerated.
420 released without charge under President George Bush
255 remain.
20% of the 255, that would be 51, are free to go but no country wants them. I wonder why? Do you want them roaming our streets?
But let’s subtract them for the sake of argument.
We are down to 204
So 204 persons of “high value” to our intelligence gathering efforts, in support of our troops deployed abroad, have become a celebrated cause for people who want them either moved to nicer accommodations or simply released back out into the world, where it could reasonably be argued they would again ply their trade of terror.
Americans in large numbers believe these 204 have been tortured. We see ourselves as the folks wearing the “white hats” and we join with the Sheriff in our distaste for torture.
News columnists have also told us that these people have been denied basic rights under law. They usually go on to state that this denial is symptomatic of what was wrong with Bush and Cheney. If Bush were more like Washington, or Lincoln, or Jefferson, he would never have done this.
If you care to be knowledgeable of how tough Washington was in wartime, check out any of his biographies, especially during his years fighting in western Pennsylvania. Scalping took place in those years by our Indian brethren, often under our watchful eye.
Just recently Sam Allis wrote a column in The Boston Globe where he pointed out that Abraham Lincoln in 1962 had “done away with habeas corpus by then and Stone (Brigadier General Stone) was never charged with a crime despite his attempts to learn what he was alleged to have done. Then one day, without explanation, he was simply let go.”
Maybe President Bush based some of his wartime ideas on those adopted by presidents we revere.
Americans are terribly upset that these Gitmo prisoners have been subjected to questioning techniques that are, let’s say, not great topics for family conversation. But keep in mind we are not speaking here of pulling out finger nails, or shocking private parts of their anatomy, or hanging them from the ceiling until their arms come out of the sockets, or summarily shooting them after a “Kangaroo Court.”
None of the types of torture used in previous wars have been suggested for this one. No, we designed much more horrible tortures. For instance, we play loud music so they cannot sleep. Sometimes we make them stay in rooms that are uncomfortably hot or uncomfortably cold. Once in a while we take away their clothes and make them sit naked for hours. We have even been known to walk some sexy ladies past them when they are trying to do their devotions.
Then there is the infamous water boarding. Without getting too graphic, water boarding gives one the impression that he is drowning. That said, no reports to date of anyone actually drowning.
These complaining citizens are the same Americans who are glued to their television sets weekly to watch agent Jack Bauer get the information from his group of “high value” folks on the TV show “24”. The same Americans, lets say, who cheer Clint Eastwood when he holds a big gun and says, “Make my day!” to the bad guys.
Readers, there are 212 folks down there in Cuba who are considered by our government, whoops, our former government (that would be the one that presided over eight years of no repeat attacks on us by terrorists), as folks who just might have some information that could save hundreds or thousands of American lives. Is it possible there are some who are less guilty than others? Probably.
Well, the International Herald Tribune carried this headline recently:
Guantánamo detainee resurfaces in terrorist group
The story by Robert Worth, published on January 29, 2009 is quite interesting. Here is just a short portion of it. If you want all the sordid details, check it out online.
“BEIRUT: The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order that President Barack Obama signed that the detention center be shut down within a year.
The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen's capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen.”
We are a people with a very short memory.
War is hell.
Trying to keep us safe can be a very difficult task.
Trying to keep us safe by the rules currently recommended seems to me to be a fool’s errand.
How many of you think that when someone from the government walks into a room and asks a prisoner, a suspected terrorist, to tell us about any plans his pals have to attack the United States, he will ask for a pad and pencil so he can write down all the details and then offer to lead us to their hideout?
Those of you who raised your hands, I have a bridge I want to sell you in Brooklyn.
Let me say that if The United States of America had been hit in a significant way two or three times in the last eight years, there would indeed have been impeachment hearings in the Congress. And it would have been George Bush they were impeaching.
All of us would want to know what the president did, or did not do, to prevent these horrible events and whether what he did was sufficient. Then we would throw him out of office for failing to “defend and protect The United States.” This last part is just a little promise our Constitution asked him to make both times he placed his hand on a bible and the Chief Justice didn’t flub the Oath of Office.
So we make him promise to protect us. But we get to punish him if he is successful but we don’t like his methods.
At the same time, if he fails to protect us, we remind him of that oath and then throw him out.
Nice plan. It is a wonder anyone wants the job.
What is a president protecting us from?
I am talking about events like a suitcase nuclear device wiping out a major American city. I am talking about poison gas or biological weapons being placed in the heating vents of a very large building, like the John Hancock Center, bringing every working person to their death.
If things like that had happened, would we be as quick to worry about the niceties of interrogation in time of war?
For everyone who is really upset about the way we treat prisoners in wartime, I would recommend they take a refresher course on what we Americans did in the Revolution, the War of 1812, the First and Second World Wars, the Korean and Vietnam conflicts.
Sir Winston Churchill spoke out about the dangers prior to World War II. Hardly anyone in England would listen. They didn’t want to talk about it, they wouldn’t elect Prime Ministers who believed it, and they refused to even listen to Churchill who spoke largely to an empty Parliament.
Franklin Roosevelt tried to lead a nation that desperately wanted to be neutral into a war to save the world. Americans were furious with him. The war, they said, was across the ocean and none of our business. When Hitler was on the coast of Britain, having taken everything else, Americans continued to believe he would stop there.
Our own John Adams tried to get the colonists to realize where life under George III was leading. He was considered both a war monger and an “in your face” speaker
President George Bush, of whom I have not been a fan, is the first president that received the intelligence briefings after the first attack on our homeland. It was he who every morning was told of what was being planned, what might happen, and how many American lives might be lost. Each morning as he received this information Americans moved further and further away from that awful day when the towers fell and 3000 died.
Years of no repeats of that day have given us a sense of safety. We owe that to the good men and women who worked every day to see that we were kept safe.
George Bush may have many deficiencies. But in his responsibility to keep us safe I would give him an A+. And he did it while many of us were screaming “stop it”!
The leaders of our last government left us with a warning that all is not well in the world, that we are a continuing target, and that only vigilance will provide us the edge we need.
The new Sheriff is just getting familiar with the floor plans at The White House Jail. Perhaps, as he begins to be the recipient of the daily briefings about the “bad and the awful” he will see the world in a way quite different than he saw it as a U.S. Senator and as a candidate for president.
There are a few voices out there now, out in our own wilderness, telling us we need to be crafty, tough and prepared for what is coming.
Information is the currency of espionage. And espionage has been needed in every war fought at any time in the history of man.
Without information we cannot protect ourselves, or our liberties. If we insist on tying the hands of the CIA and the military, we have only ourselves to blame when the next disaster strikes.
None of us knows how many mistakes, errors in judgment, or simply unthinkable things might have been done over the years. It is also true that none of us knows how many thousands of people may have been saved by our attempts to gather information.
Today we have chosen.
We have chosen the path announced by the Sheriff.
Only time will demonstrate whether that choice was wise or foolish. I hope with all my heart that it will prove to be a wise choice. We all win if it turns out that way.
If foolish, it may well be deadly.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
INVESTING WITH NO RETURN
INVESTING CASH WITH NO RETURN
Recently the President-Elect was reported to have said we would spend ourselves back to economic health. This statement appeared in various newspapers about the time we received at our home a check from the government for our daughter who works in England. It was a stimulus check for $600.
Of course, we immediately deposited it in her account, hoping desperately that she would be patriotic and stimulated.
Since she is living in Surrey, England, I have serious doubts that she will be spending her $600 in the good old USA. I have no idea if she is stimulated.
This caused me to wonder how many stimulus checks went to people who either make enough money they don’t need stimulated to spend, or people who would obviously be spending their checks in another country, or people for whom $600 is simply pocket change as opposed to people for whom $600 will make a great difference in their meeting the rent or feeding the kids.
To carry that idea a bit further, suppose all the people in the other categories I mentioned didn’t get stimulus checks but the total amount spent for stimulation remained the same. Would that not mean that the people who really needed the money would get more than $600?
But we live in a democracy and that just wouldn’t be fair, right? Everybody gets the cash, need it or not.
It is important that the Rockefellers, the Morgans, and the Trumps be stimulated. It is simply The American Way.
Since the Obama government is talking to Congress about doing even more stimulating, I assume additional checks will be coming to each citizen regardless of need. There’s that democracy at work again.
Based on his Barak Obama’s own statements, he really does want each of us to go out into the marketplace and spend that money. In fairness, so did George Bush when he sent out the first batch of checks.
Since it would seem sort of unpatriotic not to do so, I anticipate a flurry of purchasing of new Iphones, Blackberry’s, computer games, three-day vacations to Las Vegas, etc.
To the extent that the stimulus checks are spent on stuff made in other countries, the program could be considered a failure.
When they were thinking this idea up they should have taken a look at the automobile industry. If Americans weren’t buying America cars before they got the check, is it realistic to assume they will put the check toward a new Ford?
How about taking the check and investing in some good old American companies on the New York Stock Exchange. Right! That isn’t going to happen any time soon.
For those of you who are not students of history, we have been in the stimulus business for a very long time. We stimulate foreign countries through our foreign aid programs. That great example probably led us to the domestic variant currently in vogue.
Here is the way the foreign aid stimulus effort has worked:
In some cases we stimulate them to pretend they like us.
In other cases we stimulate them and they don’t even pretend to like us. But we keep sending cash anyway.
In yet more cases, we stimulate them and a couple of guys at the head of their government take the money for themselves and hide it in Switzerland to fund their life after they get run out of town. So it would be fair to say that Papa Doc Duvalier, Idi Amin, as well as a couple other leaders of “banana republics” could live pretty well thanks to US Aid even thought their people are starving.
The current year’s give-away in foreign aid will be $39.5 billion dollars.
Here is some information as to this budget right from the website of our State Department (www.state.gov):
Budgets for the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign affairs agencies totals approximately $39.5 billion:
* Foreign Operations and Related Agencies-$ 26.1 billion
* Department of State-$ 11.2 billion
* Other International Affairs-$ 2.2 billion
Highlights of the Budget
Foreign Operations and Related Agencies:
$4.8 billion for foreign military financing to the Middle East, Latin America, Europe and Eurasia, including $2.6 billion for Israel.
My note: we are giving $2.2 billion to the Middle eastern countries (read Arab), all of Latin America, all of Europe, and all of Eurasia.
We are giving $2.4 billion just to Israel.
Now here is a little bit of rocket science:
The Israelis like us. They like us a lot.
The Arabs do not like us. Not one bit.
Everybody else tosses a coin depending on when we need them: say France in World War II, or maybe South Vietnam during that little skirmish, how about Grenada when Reagan invaded, and then there was all the help we got in Iraq. Well, you get the idea.
Surprised?
The famous CATO Institute says we have spent $1 trillion on foreign aid since 1997. They also say what we received in return was “debt, dependence and poverty.”
Our own AID (Agency for International Development) says much aid “disappears without a trace” once it gets to the country.
Brian Atwood, then of US AID is quoted as saying “$2 billion dollars of US Aid to Zaire served no purpose.”
Given the billions we are spending to bail out our non-performing American institutions, and the number of new organizations asking to be included in the bail out program, and the number of people losing their jobs and having their homes foreclosed, I have a recommendation for the president-elect:
Go ahead and stimulate Americans.
Stop all stimulation of other nations
When we have our own house in order, we can revisit sending money desperately needed here at home, money that actually is generated by the tax our government places on each of us, to other countries that by and large seem to expect it and show very little gratitude for it.
If we do go back down the “give away path” internationally after things look a lot healthier at home, could we please just dump the money on friendly nations, the ones we really want to pal around with, the ones that get in the foxholes with us when the chips are down?
In many cases it could be argued that we have given the many nations who hate us the weapons to use against us. If our goal was to change their minds, it hasn’t worked.
Where I studied business, and where I practiced business in my life, you never threw good money after bad.
Somebody call in the auditors. The State Department has a foreign aid policy built on the same premis as Ford’s Edsel. Ford stopped making Edsel’s a long time ago.
Somebody tell Condi Rice and Hillary Clinton.
Recently the President-Elect was reported to have said we would spend ourselves back to economic health. This statement appeared in various newspapers about the time we received at our home a check from the government for our daughter who works in England. It was a stimulus check for $600.
Of course, we immediately deposited it in her account, hoping desperately that she would be patriotic and stimulated.
Since she is living in Surrey, England, I have serious doubts that she will be spending her $600 in the good old USA. I have no idea if she is stimulated.
This caused me to wonder how many stimulus checks went to people who either make enough money they don’t need stimulated to spend, or people who would obviously be spending their checks in another country, or people for whom $600 is simply pocket change as opposed to people for whom $600 will make a great difference in their meeting the rent or feeding the kids.
To carry that idea a bit further, suppose all the people in the other categories I mentioned didn’t get stimulus checks but the total amount spent for stimulation remained the same. Would that not mean that the people who really needed the money would get more than $600?
But we live in a democracy and that just wouldn’t be fair, right? Everybody gets the cash, need it or not.
It is important that the Rockefellers, the Morgans, and the Trumps be stimulated. It is simply The American Way.
Since the Obama government is talking to Congress about doing even more stimulating, I assume additional checks will be coming to each citizen regardless of need. There’s that democracy at work again.
Based on his Barak Obama’s own statements, he really does want each of us to go out into the marketplace and spend that money. In fairness, so did George Bush when he sent out the first batch of checks.
Since it would seem sort of unpatriotic not to do so, I anticipate a flurry of purchasing of new Iphones, Blackberry’s, computer games, three-day vacations to Las Vegas, etc.
To the extent that the stimulus checks are spent on stuff made in other countries, the program could be considered a failure.
When they were thinking this idea up they should have taken a look at the automobile industry. If Americans weren’t buying America cars before they got the check, is it realistic to assume they will put the check toward a new Ford?
How about taking the check and investing in some good old American companies on the New York Stock Exchange. Right! That isn’t going to happen any time soon.
For those of you who are not students of history, we have been in the stimulus business for a very long time. We stimulate foreign countries through our foreign aid programs. That great example probably led us to the domestic variant currently in vogue.
Here is the way the foreign aid stimulus effort has worked:
In some cases we stimulate them to pretend they like us.
In other cases we stimulate them and they don’t even pretend to like us. But we keep sending cash anyway.
In yet more cases, we stimulate them and a couple of guys at the head of their government take the money for themselves and hide it in Switzerland to fund their life after they get run out of town. So it would be fair to say that Papa Doc Duvalier, Idi Amin, as well as a couple other leaders of “banana republics” could live pretty well thanks to US Aid even thought their people are starving.
The current year’s give-away in foreign aid will be $39.5 billion dollars.
Here is some information as to this budget right from the website of our State Department (www.state.gov):
Budgets for the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign affairs agencies totals approximately $39.5 billion:
* Foreign Operations and Related Agencies-$ 26.1 billion
* Department of State-$ 11.2 billion
* Other International Affairs-$ 2.2 billion
Highlights of the Budget
Foreign Operations and Related Agencies:
$4.8 billion for foreign military financing to the Middle East, Latin America, Europe and Eurasia, including $2.6 billion for Israel.
My note: we are giving $2.2 billion to the Middle eastern countries (read Arab), all of Latin America, all of Europe, and all of Eurasia.
We are giving $2.4 billion just to Israel.
Now here is a little bit of rocket science:
The Israelis like us. They like us a lot.
The Arabs do not like us. Not one bit.
Everybody else tosses a coin depending on when we need them: say France in World War II, or maybe South Vietnam during that little skirmish, how about Grenada when Reagan invaded, and then there was all the help we got in Iraq. Well, you get the idea.
Surprised?
The famous CATO Institute says we have spent $1 trillion on foreign aid since 1997. They also say what we received in return was “debt, dependence and poverty.”
Our own AID (Agency for International Development) says much aid “disappears without a trace” once it gets to the country.
Brian Atwood, then of US AID is quoted as saying “$2 billion dollars of US Aid to Zaire served no purpose.”
Given the billions we are spending to bail out our non-performing American institutions, and the number of new organizations asking to be included in the bail out program, and the number of people losing their jobs and having their homes foreclosed, I have a recommendation for the president-elect:
Go ahead and stimulate Americans.
Stop all stimulation of other nations
When we have our own house in order, we can revisit sending money desperately needed here at home, money that actually is generated by the tax our government places on each of us, to other countries that by and large seem to expect it and show very little gratitude for it.
If we do go back down the “give away path” internationally after things look a lot healthier at home, could we please just dump the money on friendly nations, the ones we really want to pal around with, the ones that get in the foxholes with us when the chips are down?
In many cases it could be argued that we have given the many nations who hate us the weapons to use against us. If our goal was to change their minds, it hasn’t worked.
Where I studied business, and where I practiced business in my life, you never threw good money after bad.
Somebody call in the auditors. The State Department has a foreign aid policy built on the same premis as Ford’s Edsel. Ford stopped making Edsel’s a long time ago.
Somebody tell Condi Rice and Hillary Clinton.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
HELEN SUZMAN WORLD HERO
Notes of Concern….
Jack Blair
THE HONORABLE HELEN SUZMAN
Another great one moves on.
While most people do not know the name Helen Suzman, those who knew her were privileged to be in her company. She was a woman who played a major role in ending apartheid in South Africa. And she conducted her fight when it was personally dangerous for her to do so.
Helen Suzman was a woman of considerable courage, an outstanding intellect, and a wonderfully engaging personality.
For a white woman to fight so hard and so openly for a policy change most of her race in South Africa opposed was not only admirable but also very brave.
Anyone who has read anything about that period in South Africa knows that people often died, more often disappeared, and regularly were locked away in prison for any activity resembling a threat to the government or the status quo.
While Helen Suzman was never imprisoned, as a member of parliament she took the incredibly courageous step of actually visiting Nelson Mandela in his prison on Robben Island where he was incarcerated for over twenty years prior to becoming the first black president of the Republic of South Africa.
A white woman visiting a black prisoner was unheard of in South Africa. A wealthy, educated and prominent white woman doing so was mind boggling to many.
For many years I chaired the board of a philanthropic organization in South Africa where my wife and I continue as trustees. The board was composed of a small group of influential South Africans and a smaller group of Americans who were associates of the philanthropist who created the foundation to help young Africans prepare for school and work.
One of the South Africans on this board was Helen Suzman. Since Mrs. Suzman was welcome on the board of any organization in post apartheid south Africa, we felt very fortunate to have her presence. Her reputation and her accomplishments greatly enhanced the work of our foundation.
I want to share three stories with you that I found to be great examples of her way of relating to people and her way of downplaying her own historic role in South Africa.
I was speaking with Helen by telephone and inquiring if she would be attending a meeting we had scheduled. She seemed inclined to miss the meeting so we went on and talked about her position on a number of the issues that were to be discussed.
As we reached the end of our conversation, she told me that she loved good Scotch. Then she asked me if there might be a glass of Scotch at the meeting! I promised that there would be and she accepted the invitation.
I later learned that Helen was well known for her affection for Scotch and that offering it greatly enhanced your chances of having her present. A glass of Scotch for Helen thereafter became a standard plan for meetings of our board.
Helen operated in what was very much a white mans’ world. So her willingness to have a drink with the fellows, to engage in banter about sports, and then to take tough positions, made her incredibly effective in getting her way on projects of great interest to her. Few politicians could work a crowd better than Helen Suzman.
On one occasion in Johannesburg Helen shared with me some of her experiences as a member of the legislature. She enjoyed making the men uncomfortable. Any time they tried to pass a controversial law that would basically adversely affect the blacks in that land, she would use her prerogative to insist that a secret ballot not be cast, that they not be permitted to simply say “yea or nay” but rather that in order to be counted all the legislators in favor of the bill needed to rise and walk to one side of the chamber and those opposed would walk to the other side.
On many occasions, Mrs. Suzman reported she stood alone while her male colleagues were gathered in great numbers on the other side, usually looking quite sheepish.
She described one such occasion this way:
“I looked across the chamber at all the gentlemen and there was a shiver running through the chamber looking for a spine to run up.”
It was her way of letting the people see what exactly was happening. It was a dramatic demonstration of one white woman staring down the rest of the white government.
At a dinner in Cape Town years later we were talking about the American political situation. Mrs. Suzman mentioned that she was an admirer of Senator Hillary Clinton.
I asked her what she found interesting about Senator Clinton and she told me that Mrs. Clinton had invited her to lunch one day a number of years ago and that she found Clinton’s grasp of world political issues to be quite admirable. They dined alone.
I wondered if she had met Senator Clinton in New York or they had dined in South Africa on one of Clinton’s trips to that continent. To this question she responded, characteristically unpretentious:
“No. She had me to her house. The big one in Washington where she lived at the time. The white one.”
It was her way of wording a response, of coining a phrase, of turning a word that made her a wonderful conversationalist and someone with whom world leaders loved to spend time.
Helen fought a long and lonely battle in the South African parliament against government repression of the country's black majority and the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela.
According to the AP, Suzman was recognized with 27 honorary doctorates, including ones from Oxford, Harvard, Columbia, Yale, and Cambridge universities. She was made Dame of the British Empire in 1989 — a rare honor for a foreigner.
I hope some of my readers will do themselves a favor and read more about Helen Suzman.
The world needs more people like Helen, people who make a difference and do so in the most wonderful and pleasant way.
At our next board meeting there will be a glass of Scotch, “neat,” sitting in front of her vacant chair.
Press reports show Suzman became her country's longest-serving legislator, pressing for changes from the benches of the whites-only Parliament for 36 years before she retired from the assembly in 1989.
For 13 of those years, she was the sole parliamentary representative of the Progressive Party, the only party to reject racial discrimination. After stepping down, she created a democracy foundation.
Helen was 91 years of age at her death.
God surely blessed South Africa with Helen Suzman.
Jack Blair
THE HONORABLE HELEN SUZMAN
Another great one moves on.
While most people do not know the name Helen Suzman, those who knew her were privileged to be in her company. She was a woman who played a major role in ending apartheid in South Africa. And she conducted her fight when it was personally dangerous for her to do so.
Helen Suzman was a woman of considerable courage, an outstanding intellect, and a wonderfully engaging personality.
For a white woman to fight so hard and so openly for a policy change most of her race in South Africa opposed was not only admirable but also very brave.
Anyone who has read anything about that period in South Africa knows that people often died, more often disappeared, and regularly were locked away in prison for any activity resembling a threat to the government or the status quo.
While Helen Suzman was never imprisoned, as a member of parliament she took the incredibly courageous step of actually visiting Nelson Mandela in his prison on Robben Island where he was incarcerated for over twenty years prior to becoming the first black president of the Republic of South Africa.
A white woman visiting a black prisoner was unheard of in South Africa. A wealthy, educated and prominent white woman doing so was mind boggling to many.
For many years I chaired the board of a philanthropic organization in South Africa where my wife and I continue as trustees. The board was composed of a small group of influential South Africans and a smaller group of Americans who were associates of the philanthropist who created the foundation to help young Africans prepare for school and work.
One of the South Africans on this board was Helen Suzman. Since Mrs. Suzman was welcome on the board of any organization in post apartheid south Africa, we felt very fortunate to have her presence. Her reputation and her accomplishments greatly enhanced the work of our foundation.
I want to share three stories with you that I found to be great examples of her way of relating to people and her way of downplaying her own historic role in South Africa.
I was speaking with Helen by telephone and inquiring if she would be attending a meeting we had scheduled. She seemed inclined to miss the meeting so we went on and talked about her position on a number of the issues that were to be discussed.
As we reached the end of our conversation, she told me that she loved good Scotch. Then she asked me if there might be a glass of Scotch at the meeting! I promised that there would be and she accepted the invitation.
I later learned that Helen was well known for her affection for Scotch and that offering it greatly enhanced your chances of having her present. A glass of Scotch for Helen thereafter became a standard plan for meetings of our board.
Helen operated in what was very much a white mans’ world. So her willingness to have a drink with the fellows, to engage in banter about sports, and then to take tough positions, made her incredibly effective in getting her way on projects of great interest to her. Few politicians could work a crowd better than Helen Suzman.
On one occasion in Johannesburg Helen shared with me some of her experiences as a member of the legislature. She enjoyed making the men uncomfortable. Any time they tried to pass a controversial law that would basically adversely affect the blacks in that land, she would use her prerogative to insist that a secret ballot not be cast, that they not be permitted to simply say “yea or nay” but rather that in order to be counted all the legislators in favor of the bill needed to rise and walk to one side of the chamber and those opposed would walk to the other side.
On many occasions, Mrs. Suzman reported she stood alone while her male colleagues were gathered in great numbers on the other side, usually looking quite sheepish.
She described one such occasion this way:
“I looked across the chamber at all the gentlemen and there was a shiver running through the chamber looking for a spine to run up.”
It was her way of letting the people see what exactly was happening. It was a dramatic demonstration of one white woman staring down the rest of the white government.
At a dinner in Cape Town years later we were talking about the American political situation. Mrs. Suzman mentioned that she was an admirer of Senator Hillary Clinton.
I asked her what she found interesting about Senator Clinton and she told me that Mrs. Clinton had invited her to lunch one day a number of years ago and that she found Clinton’s grasp of world political issues to be quite admirable. They dined alone.
I wondered if she had met Senator Clinton in New York or they had dined in South Africa on one of Clinton’s trips to that continent. To this question she responded, characteristically unpretentious:
“No. She had me to her house. The big one in Washington where she lived at the time. The white one.”
It was her way of wording a response, of coining a phrase, of turning a word that made her a wonderful conversationalist and someone with whom world leaders loved to spend time.
Helen fought a long and lonely battle in the South African parliament against government repression of the country's black majority and the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela.
According to the AP, Suzman was recognized with 27 honorary doctorates, including ones from Oxford, Harvard, Columbia, Yale, and Cambridge universities. She was made Dame of the British Empire in 1989 — a rare honor for a foreigner.
I hope some of my readers will do themselves a favor and read more about Helen Suzman.
The world needs more people like Helen, people who make a difference and do so in the most wonderful and pleasant way.
At our next board meeting there will be a glass of Scotch, “neat,” sitting in front of her vacant chair.
Press reports show Suzman became her country's longest-serving legislator, pressing for changes from the benches of the whites-only Parliament for 36 years before she retired from the assembly in 1989.
For 13 of those years, she was the sole parliamentary representative of the Progressive Party, the only party to reject racial discrimination. After stepping down, she created a democracy foundation.
Helen was 91 years of age at her death.
God surely blessed South Africa with Helen Suzman.
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