On Pete Hegseth and John Tower; the Crusades and ‘God wills it’; a late Michigan great; and more
The nomination of Pete Hegseth to be secretary of defense, and the controversies surrounding that nomination, have made some of us think back to the Tower nomination. John Tower was a very different person from Hegseth. I don’t think we had the word “infotainment” in those days. Tower was no cable-news personality. He had been a U.S. senator and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He had been the nation’s chief arms-control negotiator with the Soviet Union. He had led “the Tower Commission,” which looked into the Iran–contra affair.
Anyway, the first President Bush, newly elected, nominated Tower to be secretary of defense. Tower was rejected by the Senate 53 to 47. The main allegations against him were that he drank and fooled around. Paul Weyrich, a leading social conservative, testified that he had seen Tower inebriated and in the company of women other than his wife. It all seems so damn quaint now.
The year after he was rejected, Tower remarked to the New York Times, “Have I ever drunk to excess? Yes. Am I alcohol-dependent? No. Have I always been a good boy? Of course not. But I’ve never done anything disqualifying. That’s the point.”
I wish there could be some middle ground between purity and “anything goes.” Between purity and “lol nothing matters.”
• Pete Hegseth has lots of tattoos, and there have been lots of articles about those tattoos. He likes Crusader symbols. This is interesting in that MAGA is usually anti-crusade: Stay at home, mind your own business. Don’t go around the world trying to reshape it.
Before I continue, let me note that John Tower had no tattoos, so far as I’m aware — but George Shultz did: A Princeton alum, he had a tiger tattooed on his butt. (According to news reports.) (I don’t think any photos ever emerged.)
One of Hegseth’s tattoos is a Crusader slogan: “Deus vult,” “God wills it.” This was the cry under which men went off to slaughter and be slaughtered. I thought of Élie Ducommun.
Who? Ducommun was a Swiss peace activist who lived from 1833 to 1906. He was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1902 (the second year of the Nobel prizes). I got to know him, so to speak, when writing a history of the peace prize. His Nobel lecture was titled “The Futility of War Demonstrated by History.” In my book, I wrote that the speech was
an elegantly rip-roaring refutation of the notion that war ever did any good: that it ever contributed an iota to civilization. The lecture was a survey and dissection of war from ancient times up to the lecturer’s own day. It is a minor masterpiece of learning, sarcasm, invective, and argument.
Let’s listen in:
And the Crusades? That absurd epic, which originated in 1096, declared its aim to be the deliverance of the lands of the Holy Sepulcher from the Turks. There were seven Crusades, which cut down the flower of Europe’s nobility and annihilated innumerable poor serfs for a period of more than 150 years until 1270. At this time the Greeks, having thrown off the Crusaders, revived the Eastern Empire, and eleven years later, the Turkish Empire came into being. The Crusades, it is claimed, brought to the people of the East the civilization of the West. It is more probable that they bestowed upon the West the vices of the East. In any case, it is certain that the peoples of Europe who had taken part in the Crusades were even more ignorant at the end of these distant expeditions than when they had first heard the cry of Peter the Hermit: “God wills it! God wills it!”
This has the ring of truth, you may find.
By the way, Peter the Hermit was a French priest and a kind of mascot for the Crusades. He is also infamous for his involvement in pogroms, i.e., massacres of Jews. Some people call him “Blessed Peter the Hermit.”
Maybe we can state a principle: When someone cries or says, “God wills it,” beware. (Do al-Qaeda and ISIS think any differently? Do they not think, and cry, that God wills it?)
• A pointed, and accurate, headline: “Biden pardons his son Hunter despite previous pledges not to.” (The article, from the Associated Press, is here.) I think a president — and a leader, and a man — ought to keep his word. (And if you go back on your word: you better have a very good explanation.)
• The Czech Philharmonic came to Carnegie Hall. (Under the baton of Semyon Bychkov, with Yo-Yo Ma as cello soloist.) My review is here. The New York Philharmonic was guest-conducted by Kazuki Yamada, with Yunchan Lim, the South Korean sensation (age 20), as piano soloist. My review is here. Filippo Gorini, an Italian pianist, played a recital: that review is here.
• Maybe I could share one photo — of Central Park, autumnal as the light fades in mid-afternoon:
• In 2016, National Review published a collection of my writings: Digging In. Its dedication reads, “To Ed Klum: scholar, athlete, musician, teacher, coach, gem.” I know that many of my readers will be interested in the below, from last week:
Ed Klum was a beloved, multi-talented, extraordinary man. He passed away at 97 on November 25. His life deserves a whole book. Here are a few highlights.
He was born on August 7, 1927 (when the New York Yankees were having their fabled year). His town was Benton Harbor, Michigan. He had one brother. The family was very musical, involved in jazz, classical music, and so forth.
Ed had an uncle who played in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Once, Ed was attending a rehearsal and Maestro Artur Rodzinski asked him to come up and conduct. Ed was about seven at the time.
Young Ed Klum was musical, scholarly, and athletic. He always would be. At Benton Harbor High, he excelled in at least three sports. One of his classmates and teammates, Jack Forestieri, was legendary. Jack went on to play professional basketball. He and Ed made a formidable high-school pair.
Important as Jack Forestieri was, he was not Ed’s most important classmate. That was Janet Maxham, whom he would soon marry.
Ed went to the University of Michigan and played on the basketball team. One year, Michigan and Holy Cross met in the national tournament. “I held Bob Cousy scoreless,” Ed used to say, with a smile. Cousy is one of the greatest players of all time. Did Ed really hold him scoreless? Yes.
The Michigan player guarding Cousy fouled out with 27 seconds to go. Ed went in and was assigned to cover Cousy. In the remaining 27 seconds, Cousy did not score.
A little later in life, Ed served as an assistant coach to the U of M’s head coach, Bill Perigo — who had been Ed’s coach in high school.
Ed would make his career in high schools. He taught and coached in two Michigan towns — Decatur and Fremont — before returning to Ann Arbor, to work at Ann Arbor High and then Huron High. He was a history teacher, basketball coach, athletic director, and more. He was a real all-around man.
And a natural teacher. Whether in the classroom, explaining and reliving history, or on the golf range, he was a natural, superb teacher. This was a calling of his: to teach. In his mind, teaching and coaching — whatever your subject or sport — were practically inseparable.
He and Janet had three children: Jeff, Phil, and Margot. (Their beloved daughter Margot passed away in 1992.) They have three grandchildren.
They traveled near and far. They had very good friends in Germany. For a special occasion, Ed memorized a toast, in German. Ed and Janet had a keen interest in Native American cultures. Also in colonial history. Year after year, they would go to Williamsburg, Virginia, for a little history, and, for Ed, a little golf.
Ed was an assistant coach of the University of Michigan golf team for many years. He and the head coach, Jim Carras, were good friends.
Ed Klum loved freedom, democracy, and civil rights. He valued and understood the American founding. He was open to any and all people. Music was always a big part of his life — music of all types, as long as it was good. He loved Mel Tormé. And George Shearing. And many others.
He played and composed music himself. He also wrote short stories. He was a creative, ever-inquisitive personality.
Janet passed away in 2008. Eventually, Ed moved to Chelsea, where he was beloved of the staff at Uptown Coney Island — “the Coney,” he called it. The staff, and most other people, called him “Coach.”
He was one in a million, or 10 million: humane, warm, interesting, bright, amusing. One can hardly imagine a better companion or friend. He has countless friends, who will think of him forever.
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