Women in parliaments

For a long time, Sweden was the leader of the Inter-Parliamentary Union's ranking of women in parliament. But, in the latest survey of June 2004, Sweden no longer boasts the highest percentage of female MPs. At 45.3%, Sweden still ranks first among highly-industrialized nations. It is followed by its fellow Nordic states: Denmark 38%), and (37.5%), the Netherlands 36.7%) and Norway (36.4%). Although many people would automatically point to the United States as the leading country in terms of historic achievements for women's liberalization, it lags behind in electing women to political office. With 62 women holding legislative seats in the 435-member House of Representatives, the United States ties for 58th place with Andorra at 14.3%. Cuba just misses a top-five ranking by a narrow margin. It boasts 36% of women in Parliament, while Norway ranks just above with 36.4%. Still, Cuba has the highest percentage of women in legislative seats among the countries in the entire Americas region. Costa Rica (35.1%) and Argentina (34%) follow Cuba as the next countries from the Americas with the highest percentages. With 219 women in a Lower House seat out of 609, Cuba also boasts the highest total number of women in parliament behind China. There, women claim 604 out of a total of 2,985 seats. Women are also numerous in the parliaments of sib-Saharan Africa RH: These figures are surprising. That the number of women representatives is high in Scandinavian countries and low in Muslim countries was to be expected, but what about the high number in China, Cuba and black Africa?

Poverty in the US

From Paris, Carmen Negrin sends a Reuters article in Spanish saying that there are 36 million poor in the US, and she comments: "Don't you think that a discussion about this sort of matter as well as on the cost and consequences of G. W. Bush's irresponsible and illegal foreign policy is far more important than discussing Mrs- Kerry's personal life? Contrary to what G. W. says in his propaganda, the world is not safer, nor is the US stronger (tremendous unprecedented debts and the poor mentioned in the article), nor are we any freer than before the Patriot Act": RH: Both are important. The number of poor is a matter of great concern. We need to study the background and ideas of Mrs. Kerry, since, if Kerry is elected, she will have a great influence.  That is of course a big IF.

Maria Teresa Thierstein Simoes-Ferreira Heinz

Regarding the name Maria Teresa Thierstein Simoes-Ferreira Heinz, John Wonder correctly says: " In Brazil, at least, the patronymic does not come first as in Spanish".  RH: We made the correction: Thierstein was her mother's name-  Her father was Simoes Ferreira.

Re: The Overseas View of the US presidential race . . .

John Heelan from the UK and Christopher Jones from France  both sent messages titled "The overseas view of the US presidential race".  Paul Davis adds. "If WAISers haven't seen the excellent "This Land" parody on www.jibjab.com, they are missing out. While extremely funny, it satirises the puzzling triviality of the race as viewed from outside; by myself at any rate".

Your comments are invited. Read the home page of the World Association of International Studies (WAIS) by simply double-clicking on:   http://wais.stanford.edu/
E-mail to hilton@stanford.edu. Mail to Ronald Hilton, Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA 94305-6010. Please inform us of any change of e-mail address.

Re: The Politics of Terrorism

I asked "Were American Minute Men terrorists?". John Heelan replies: "It depends from which viewpoint they are being regarded, that of the British of the time or that of latter-day Americans.  If they killed civilians (not armed militia)- then they would have had a"terrorist" tinge.  To broaden the historical picture of American combatants- were the Native Americans "terrorists" when they killed civilians  in the Indian Wars or "freedom fighters"?  Perhaps it would not be politically correct to term "terrorists" the ancestors of today's Native Americans. While driving the blacktops in New England I found many plaques describing individual and multiple massacres of settlers and their families; was that "terrorism" or "freedom fighting"?   Which of those terms would one use to define the "Trail of Tears"- or would one say "ethnic cleansing and/or genocide"?  The combination of slippery semantics and histories written by victors confuses the picture".

Your comments are invited. Read the home page of the World Association of International Studies (WAIS) by simply double-clicking on:   http://wais.stanford.edu/
E-mail to hilton@stanford.edu. Mail to Ronald Hilton, Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA 94305-6010. Please inform us of any change of e-mail address.

HAAKON CHEVALIER

Christopher Jones asked if anybody knows when Haakon Chevalier died.  RH: He died in 1985.  Here is his bio: Born  1902, in Lakewood, NJ; died 1985, in Paris, France; son of Emile and Therese (Roggen) Chevalier; married Ruth Bosley, 1922 (divorced, 1931); married Barbara Lansburgh, 1931 (divorced, 1950); married Carol Lansburgh, 1952; children: (first marriage) Jacques Anatole; (second marriage) Suzanne Andree, Haakon Lazarus; (third marriage) Karen Anne. Education: Student, Stanford University, 1918-20; University of California, A.B., 1923, A.M., 1925, Ph.D., 1929. Memberships: P.E.N., Authors League of America, Association Internationale des Interpretes de Conference, Association des Traducteurs Litteraires de France.University of California, Berkeley, Calif, professor of French, 1929-46; French interpreter, United Nations Conference, San Francisco, CA, 1945, War Criminals Trials, Nuremberg, West Germany, 1945-46, United Nations, Lake Success, NY, 1946; full-time translator and author, beginning 1946.
Publications:
The Ironic Temper: Anatole France and His Time, Oxford University Press, 1932.
For Us the Living, Knopf, 1949.
The Man Who Would be God, Putnam, 1959.
Oppenheimer: The Story of a Friendship, Braziller, 1965.
The Last Voyage of the Schooner Rosamond, Deutsch, 1970.

Translator:

Andre Malraux, Man's Fate, Smith & Haas, 1934, reissued, Random House, 1961, 1968.
Malraux, Days of Wrath, Random House, 1936, McGraw, 1964.
Louis Aragon, The Bells of Basel, Harcourt, 1936.
Aragon, Residential Quarter, Harcourt, 1938.
Salvador Dali, The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, Dial, 1942, 3rd edition, Vision Press, 1968.
Vladimir Pozner, The Edge of the Sword, Modern Age Books, 1942.
Pozner, First Harvest, Viking, 1943.
Gontran de Poncins, Home is the Hunter, Reynal & Hitchcock, 1943.
Andre Maurois, Seven Faces of Love, Didier, 1944, reissued, Doubleday, 1962.
Dali, Hidden Faces, Dial, 1944.
Joseph Kessel, Army of Shadows, Knopf, 1944.
Denis de Rougemont, Devil's Share, Pantheon, 1944, published as The Devil's Share: An Essay on the Diabolic in Modern Society, Meridian Books, 1956.
Maurois, Franklin: The Life of an Optimist, Didier, 1945.
Vercors, Three Short Novels by Vercors, Little, Brown, 1947.
Simon Gantillon, Vessel of Wrath, Putnam, 1947.
Dali, 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship, Dial, 1948.
Dali, Dali on Modern Art: The Cuckolds of Antiquated Modern Art, Dial, 1957.
(And editor) Stendhal, A Roman Journal, Orion Press, 1957.
Rene Grousset, Chinese Art and Culture, Orion Press, 1959.
Michel Seuphor, The Sculpture of this Century: Dictionary of Modern Sculpture, Zwemmer, 1959, published as The Sculpture of This Century, Braziller, 1960.
Louis Aragon, Holy Week, Putnam, 1961.
Seuphor, Abstract Painting: Fifty Years of Accomplishment, From Kandinsky to the Present, Abrams, 1962 (published in England as Abstract Painting from Kandinsky to the Present, Prentice-Hall International, 1962).
Henri Mixchaux, Light Through Darkness, Orion Press, 1963, published as Light Through Darkness: Explorations among Drugs, Bodley Head, 1964.
Seuphor, Abstract Painting in Flanders, Arcade (Brussels), 1963.
Robert Descharnes and Jean-Francois Chabrun, Auguste Rodin, Macmillan, 1968.
Bob Claessens and Jeanne Rousseau, Our Breugel, Fond Mercator(Antwerp), 1969.
Pierre Galante, Malraux, Cowles, 1971.
Jerzy Szablowski, Sophie Schneebalg-Perelman, and Adelbrecht L.J. van de Walle, The Flemish Tapestries at Wawel Castle in Cracow: Treasures of King Sigismund Augustus Jagiello, Fond Mercator (Antwerp), 1972.

Contributor to various magazines. See The New York Review of Books, July 2, 1970.

Obituary notice:

Born September 10, 1901, in Lakewood, NJ; died July 4, 1985, in Paris, France. Educator, translator, and author. Chevalier was a professor of French at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1929 until 1946, when he resigned under political pressure. In 1942 Chevalier was reportedly asked by George Charles Eltenton to obtain details, presumably for the Soviets, of secret atomic research then being conducted at Berkeley's radiation laboratories. Chevalier allegedly approached his friend, nuclear scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, with the proposal, but was rebuffed by Oppenheimer, who termed the scheme "treasonable." Oppenheimer's delay in reporting the incident was to later contribute to his own difficulties in obtaining security clearances vital to his work. The revelation resulted in Chevalier's becoming one of the first persons to be investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Though Oppenheimer later withdrew his allegation, Chevalier was subsequently pressured to resign from his teaching post. He then worked as a translator for the United Nations for several years before moving to France in 1950. Chevalier translated numerous books, including Andre Malraux's Man's Fate, Louis Aragon's The Bells of Basel, and Salvador Dali's The Secret Life of Salvador Dali. He was also the author of several novels, including For Us the Living and The Man Who Would Be God, and a 1965 memoir, Oppenheimer: The Story of a Friendship.

RH: He was at Berkeley when I was there. Since I started out as a professor of French, I knew the French department well, but I saw and spoke to Chevalier only a few times. He moved in a different circle, primarily left wing physicists like Oppenheimer, with whom he had a strange relationship.  Although an active communist, he cut a dashing figure in his open car. His married life was clearly not stable.  Since he was an interpreter at Nuremberg, I wonder if Siegfried Ramler met him there. His list of publications and translations gives a good idea of the circles he frequented. Although he was of French ethnicity, he was active in promoting the independence of North Africa, which was part of the communist agenda.  I wonder what the French think of him.

RE: Portugal: Salazar and Africa

Christopher Jones writes: "Salazar is inseparable from the African colonies, and he was no mere "front man", to use Marxist language.  He correctly recognized that Portugal in the community would be just a small, poor country on the edge of Europe.  And that is exactly what it is today: a poor backwater on the edge of Europe with incredible social tensions.  Instead, Salazar wanted to maintain Portugal's historic colonial relationships and went so far as to keep up the image of Goa and Dao long after Indian troops had taken back these towns.  For him, the Portuguese empire was the only way to prevent Portugal from becoming a small, poor country on the edge of Europe.  This idea was even picked up in Portugal e o Futuro by General Antônio de Spínola, who advocated the transformation of the empire into a sort of strengthened commonwealth.  Even Spínola, the man who was chosen by the radical Marxist officers of the MFA (Movimento das Forças Armadas) saw that Portugal without her colonies and integrated in Europe would become even more dependent on the big families.  What has become of Portugal?  It is now a playground for the wealthy, sporting some of the continent's best golf courses.  it also has grinding poverty, an almost non existent social welfare system and stratospheric real estate prices that in Lisbon means that many Portuguese can no longer afford the rent".

RH:  This ties in with Mrs. Heinz Kerry's denunciation of the Portuguese dictatorship, I wonder what she thought in the decades of chaos following the "liberation" of the Portuguese African colonies.  What does she think of  the Soviet destabilization  of the continent and Castro's armed intervention there?  While Angola and Mozambique fell into chaos, Portugal itself seems to be doing better than Christopher suggests.

COLOMBIA: FARC & the Politics of Terrorism

Jon Kofas says: "Colombia's FARC is not made up boyscouts, but neither are the right-wing death squads, going back to the era of La Violencia. The question is what gave birth to and what sustained FARC all these years? Was it adventurism on the part of young men and women? Was it the belief that Colombian society historically is made up of a few families that enjoy privileges in the same manner as the French aristocracy before 1789, while the masses endure hardships?
WAIS may wish to take up the issue of social justice and explore it further.
Is social justice the same to all societies and all cultures?
Is social justice gender neutral?
Is social justice based on religious foundations, or secular?
Are there common philosophical foundations of social justice?
Is social justice a vague concept that is so subjective that it is meaningless, or is it universally recognized from the jungles of Colombia to Yonkers, New York, to Paris, to Moscow, to Lagos, Nigeria?" 

RE: ZOROASTER:

Randy Black quotes this: "ZOROASTER c.630 - c.550 BC. Persian Prophet.  Zoroaster, also called Zarathustra, was an ancient Persian prophet who founded the first world religion - Zoroastrianism. According to the Zend Avesta, the sacred book of Zoroastrianism, he was born in Azerbaijan, in northern Persia. He is said to have received a vision from Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, who appointed him to preach the truth. Zoroaster began preaching his message of cosmic strife between Ahura Mazda, the God of Light, and Ahriman, the principle of evil. According to the prophet, man had been given the power to choose between good and evil. The end of the world would come when the forces of light would triumph and the saved souls rejoice in its victory. This dualism was part of an evolution towards monotheism in the Middle East. Zoroaster's teaching became the guiding light of Persian civilization. After Alexander the Great conquered Persia, Zoroastrianism began to die out in Persia, but it survived in India where it became the basis of the Parsi religion".

RH: This raises two questions.  That Zoroaster was born in Azerbaijan is "a legend. Modern scholarship does not support this legend".  See P, M. Sykes, History of Persia. The Azeri language is Turkic, whereas the Zend AAvesta is written in Persian. It is commonly  said that the Arabs crushed Zoroastrianism, which however declined after the conquest by Alexander the Great.  The history of that period is very confused, but presumably Alexander brought the Greek religion with him.  An expert on the Persia of that period may  have some comment.

Teresa Heinz Kerry, Ken Lay and Enron

Randy Black says "Despite the fact that the Kerry campaign criticized Dubya for his personal friendship with Ken Lay (Enron), Mr. Seeley is obviously not familiar with the fact that Mrs. Kerry invited Mr. Lay to serve on the Board of Directors of the Heinz Foundation prior to his fall from grace. Further, John and Teresa Kerry owned $250,000 of Enron stock dating to the late 1990s. Even after the Enron scandal, Mrs. Kerry served on a different charity board with Mr. Lay. Additionally, John Kerry accepted campaign donations, never returned, from Enron executives.  Lay stayed on the board (of the Heinz Foundation) after Enron's collapse and a Heinz Foundation spokeswoman defended Lay in news reports amid the fraud accusations as having “a good reputation in the environmental community.”
 
Source: http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=34958
 
As far as Bill Clinton’s speech, he is the only man in America who can convince the 50 percent of the American taxpayers who pay no taxes that the Republicans have stolen their tax payments".  RH: What about those who do pay taxes?
 

Farm subsidies: cotton

Randy Black says: "Christopher Jones  Jones may not be aware that the USA does not have a monopoly on farm subsidies when it comes to cotton. In fact, Greece and Spain subsidize cotton production at a rate that is five times than the US. Seven countries that together account for one-half of world cotton production offered direct income and price support in 2002/03, including the USA, China, Mexico, Greece, Spain and Turkey. During this period, the USA subsidized cotton production at the rate of 22 cents per pound while Greece and Spain offered subsidies of $1 per pound. Further, while the US is a major exporter of cotton, more than 70% of cotton fabric used in clothing in the US is imported from other countries.  The venue for the negotiation of reductions in government measures that distort cotton production and trade is the World Trade Organization (WTO). An agreement to reduce subsidies that distort production and trade in agriculture will not be easy. Cotton is important to the history and culture of the USA, and cotton production is also important to farmers in Greece and Spain. Within the USA, cotton farming occurs in some of the lower-income states and counties, often in areas where economic alternatives are not attractive. The impacts of farm spending on the regional economies of low-income states are substantial".
 
 
 

---

From: Ronald Hilton [mailto:hilton@stanford.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 5:58 PM
To: hilton@stanford.edu
Subject: RE: Laws of History: Economic Determinism
 
Christopher Jones writes: "I couldn't disagree more with the opinions on globalization expressed by Robert Crow.To date, globalization's greatest success stories are the illegal trade in narcotics, al-Qaida and military hardware including landmines, not to mention some other, even more lethal "exports."  The effects of at least one of these sterling products of the global economy has been documented in a Michael Moore style documentary called "Supersize Me!"  The film examines the effects of one month of "fast food" consumption -- from McDonald's -- on the human body.  Director Morgan Spurlock volunteered to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at McDonald's and ended his 30 day investigation with stratospheric cholesterol values (+62 points), 25 additional pounds, bad skin and an insipient heart problem.  On top of that and just to confirm the "pusher" mentality of the global economy, Spurlock suffered "withdrawal" pain when his experiment came to an end. 
 
The first duty of any government is to protect its own people from perceived danger.  This is the essential raison d'être of the state.  It is government's primary duty to preserve jobs at home.  Any political system that tolerates the export of prosperity to please plutocrats is doomed.  Finally, while Americans whine about "Free Trade" they continue covert "protectionist" measures at home like massive farm subsidies in agricultural products like cotton.  Historically, the US has never had a good trading record and always ran a trade deficit.  Rather than promote true "free trade," America follows a "one way" free trade policy designed to keep foreign money rolling into the US to finance its deficits. When that ends, it will resemble the economic collapse of the Roman empire"

RH: Mohammed  boasted that he was the last of the prophets.  Obviously he was wrong..

Your comments are invited. Read the home page of the World Association of International Studies (WAIS) by simply double-clicking on:   http://wais.stanford.edu/
E-mail to hilton@stanford.edu. Mail to Ronald Hilton, Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA 94305-6010. Please inform us of any change of e-mail address.

Re: The Politics of Terrorism

I asked "Were American Minute Men terrorists?". John Heelan replies: "It depends from which viewpoint they are being regarded, that of the British of the time or that of latter-day Americans.  If they killed civilians (not armed militia)- then they would have had a"terrorist" tinge.  To broaden the historical picture of American combatants- were the Native Americans "terrorists" when they killed civilians  in the Indian Wars or "freedom fighters"?  Perhaps it would not be politically correct to term "terrorists" the ancestors of today's Native Americans. While driving the blacktops in New England I found many plaques describing individual and multiple massacres of settlers and their families; was that "terrorism" or "freedom fighting"?   Which of those terms would one use to define the "Trail of Tears"- or would one say "ethnic cleansing and/or genocide"?  The combination of slippery semantics and histories written by victors confuses the picture".

Your comments are invited. Read the home page of the World Association of International Studies (WAIS) by simply double-clicking on:   http://wais.stanford.edu/
E-mail to hilton@stanford.edu. Mail to Ronald Hilton, Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA 94305-6010. Please inform us of any change of e-mail address.

HAAKON CHEVALIER

Christopher Jones asked if anybody knows when Haakon Chevalier died.  RH: He died in 1985.  Here is his bio: Born  1902, in Lakewood, NJ; died 1985, in Paris, France; son of Emile and Therese (Roggen) Chevalier; married Ruth Bosley, 1922 (divorced, 1931); married Barbara Lansburgh, 1931 (divorced, 1950); married Carol Lansburgh, 1952; children: (first marriage) Jacques Anatole; (second marriage) Suzanne Andree, Haakon Lazarus; (third marriage) Karen Anne. Education: Student, Stanford University, 1918-20; University of California, A.B., 1923, A.M., 1925, Ph.D., 1929. Memberships: P.E.N., Authors League of America, Association Internationale des Interpretes de Conference, Association des Traducteurs Litteraires de France.University of California, Berkeley, Calif, professor of French, 1929-46; French interpreter, United Nations Conference, San Francisco, CA, 1945, War Criminals Trials, Nuremberg, West Germany, 1945-46, United Nations, Lake Success, NY, 1946; full-time translator and author, beginning 1946.
Publications:
The Ironic Temper: Anatole France and His Time, Oxford University Press, 1932.
For Us the Living, Knopf, 1949.
The Man Who Would be God, Putnam, 1959.
Oppenheimer: The Story of a Friendship, Braziller, 1965.
The Last Voyage of the Schooner Rosamond, Deutsch, 1970.

Translator:

Andre Malraux, Man's Fate, Smith & Haas, 1934, reissued, Random House, 1961, 1968.
Malraux, Days of Wrath, Random House, 1936, McGraw, 1964.
Louis Aragon, The Bells of Basel, Harcourt, 1936.
Aragon, Residential Quarter, Harcourt, 1938.
Salvador Dali, The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, Dial, 1942, 3rd edition, Vision Press, 1968.
Vladimir Pozner, The Edge of the Sword, Modern Age Books, 1942.
Pozner, First Harvest, Viking, 1943.
Gontran de Poncins, Home is the Hunter, Reynal & Hitchcock, 1943.
Andre Maurois, Seven Faces of Love, Didier, 1944, reissued, Doubleday, 1962.
Dali, Hidden Faces, Dial, 1944.
Joseph Kessel, Army of Shadows, Knopf, 1944.
Denis de Rougemont, Devil's Share, Pantheon, 1944, published as The Devil's Share: An Essay on the Diabolic in Modern Society, Meridian Books, 1956.
Maurois, Franklin: The Life of an Optimist, Didier, 1945.
Vercors, Three Short Novels by Vercors, Little, Brown, 1947.
Simon Gantillon, Vessel of Wrath, Putnam, 1947.
Dali, 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship, Dial, 1948.
Dali, Dali on Modern Art: The Cuckolds of Antiquated Modern Art, Dial, 1957.
(And editor) Stendhal, A Roman Journal, Orion Press, 1957.
Rene Grousset, Chinese Art and Culture, Orion Press, 1959.
Michel Seuphor, The Sculpture of this Century: Dictionary of Modern Sculpture, Zwemmer, 1959, published as The Sculpture of This Century, Braziller, 1960.
Louis Aragon, Holy Week, Putnam, 1961.
Seuphor, Abstract Painting: Fifty Years of Accomplishment, From Kandinsky to the Present, Abrams, 1962 (published in England as Abstract Painting from Kandinsky to the Present, Prentice-Hall International, 1962).
Henri Mixchaux, Light Through Darkness, Orion Press, 1963, published as Light Through Darkness: Explorations among Drugs, Bodley Head, 1964.
Seuphor, Abstract Painting in Flanders, Arcade (Brussels), 1963.
Robert Descharnes and Jean-Francois Chabrun, Auguste Rodin, Macmillan, 1968.
Bob Claessens and Jeanne Rousseau, Our Breugel, Fond Mercator(Antwerp), 1969.
Pierre Galante, Malraux, Cowles, 1971.
Jerzy Szablowski, Sophie Schneebalg-Perelman, and Adelbrecht L.J. van de Walle, The Flemish Tapestries at Wawel Castle in Cracow: Treasures of King Sigismund Augustus Jagiello, Fond Mercator (Antwerp), 1972.

Contributor to various magazines. See The New York Review of Books, July 2, 1970.

Obituary notice:

Born September 10, 1901, in Lakewood, NJ; died July 4, 1985, in Paris, France. Educator, translator, and author. Chevalier was a professor of French at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1929 until 1946, when he resigned under political pressure. In 1942 Chevalier was reportedly asked by George Charles Eltenton to obtain details, presumably for the Soviets, of secret atomic research then being conducted at Berkeley's radiation laboratories. Chevalier allegedly approached his friend, nuclear scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, with the proposal, but was rebuffed by Oppenheimer, who termed the scheme "treasonable." Oppenheimer's delay in reporting the incident was to later contribute to his own difficulties in obtaining security clearances vital to his work. The revelation resulted in Chevalier's becoming one of the first persons to be investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Though Oppenheimer later withdrew his allegation, Chevalier was subsequently pressured to resign from his teaching post. He then worked as a translator for the United Nations for several years before moving to France in 1950. Chevalier translated numerous books, including Andre Malraux's Man's Fate, Louis Aragon's The Bells of Basel, and Salvador Dali's The Secret Life of Salvador Dali. He was also the author of several novels, including For Us the Living and The Man Who Would Be God, and a 1965 memoir, Oppenheimer: The Story of a Friendship.

RH: He was at Berkeley when I was there. Since I started out as a professor of French, I knew the French department well, but I saw and spoke to Chevalier only a few times. He moved in a different circle, primarily left wing physicists like Oppenheimer, with whom he had a strange relationship.  Although an active communist, he cut a dashing figure in his open car. His married life was clearly not stable.  Since he was an interpreter at Nuremberg, I wonder if Siegfried Ramler met him there. His list of publications and translations gives a good idea of the circles he frequented. Although he was of French ethnicity, he was active in promoting the independence of North Africa, which was part of the communist agenda.  I wonder what the French think of him.

RE: Portugal: Salazar and Africa

Christopher Jones writes: "Salazar is inseparable from the African colonies, and he was no mere "front man", to use Marxist language.  He correctly recognized that Portugal in the community would be just a small, poor country on the edge of Europe.  And that is exactly what it is today: a poor backwater on the edge of Europe with incredible social tensions.  Instead, Salazar wanted to maintain Portugal's historic colonial relationships and went so far as to keep up the image of Goa and Dao long after Indian troops had taken back these towns.  For him, the Portuguese empire was the only way to prevent Portugal from becoming a small, poor country on the edge of Europe.  This idea was even picked up in Portugal e o Futuro by General Antônio de Spínola, who advocated the transformation of the empire into a sort of strengthened commonwealth.  Even Spínola, the man who was chosen by the radical Marxist officers of the MFA (Movimento das Forças Armadas) saw that Portugal without her colonies and integrated in Europe would become even more dependent on the big families.  What has become of Portugal?  It is now a playground for the wealthy, sporting some of the continent's best golf courses.  it also has grinding poverty, an almost non existent social welfare system and stratospheric real estate prices that in Lisbon means that many Portuguese can no longer afford the rent".

RH:  This ties in with Mrs. Heinz Kerry's denunciation of the Portuguese dictatorship, I wonder what she thought in the decades of chaos following the "liberation" of the Portuguese African colonies.  What does she think of  the Soviet destabilization  of the continent and Castro's armed intervention there?  While Angola and Mozambique fell into chaos, Portugal itself seems to be doing better than Christopher suggests.

COLOMBIA: FARC & the Politics of Terrorism

Jon Kofas says: "Colombia's FARC is not made up boyscouts, but neither are the right-wing death squads, going back to the era of La Violencia. The question is what gave birth to and what sustained FARC all these years? Was it adventurism on the part of young men and women? Was it the belief that Colombian society historically is made up of a few families that enjoy privileges in the same manner as the French aristocracy before 1789, while the masses endure hardships?
WAIS may wish to take up the issue of social justice and explore it further.
Is social justice the same to all societies and all cultures?
Is social justice gender neutral?
Is social justice based on religious foundations, or secular?
Are there common philosophical foundations of social justice?
Is social justice a vague concept that is so subjective that it is meaningless, or is it universally recognized from the jungles of Colombia to Yonkers, New York, to Paris, to Moscow, to Lagos, Nigeria?" 

Farm subsidies: cotton

Randy Black says: "Christopher Jones  Jones may not be aware that the USA does not have a monopoly on farm subsidies when it comes to cotton. In fact, Greece and Spain subsidize cotton production at a rate that is five times than the US. Seven countries that together account for one-half of world cotton production offered direct income and price support in 2002/03, including the USA, China, Mexico, Greece, Spain and Turkey. During this period, the USA subsidized cotton production at the rate of 22 cents per pound while Greece and Spain offered subsidies of $1 per pound. Further, while the US is a major exporter of cotton, more than 70% of cotton fabric used in clothing in the US is imported from other countries.  The venue for the negotiation of reductions in government measures that distort cotton production and trade is the World Trade Organization (WTO). An agreement to reduce subsidies that distort production and trade in agriculture will not be easy. Cotton is important to the history and culture of the USA, and cotton production is also important to farmers in Greece and Spain. Within the USA, cotton farming occurs in some of the lower-income states and counties, often in areas where economic alternatives are not attractive. The impacts of farm spending on the regional economies of low-income states are substantial".
 
 
 

---

From: Ronald Hilton [mailto:hilton@stanford.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 5:58 PM
To: hilton@stanford.edu
Subject: RE: Laws of History: Economic Determinism
 
Christopher Jones writes: "I couldn't disagree more with the opinions on globalization expressed by Robert Crow.To date, globalization's greatest success stories are the illegal trade in narcotics, al-Qaida and military hardware including landmines, not to mention some other, even more lethal "exports."  The effects of at least one of these sterling products of the global economy has been documented in a Michael Moore style documentary called "Supersize Me!"  The film examines the effects of one month of "fast food" consumption -- from McDonald's -- on the human body.  Director Morgan Spurlock volunteered to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at McDonald's and ended his 30 day investigation with stratospheric cholesterol values (+62 points), 25 additional pounds, bad skin and an insipient heart problem.  On top of that and just to confirm the "pusher" mentality of the global economy, Spurlock suffered "withdrawal" pain when his experiment came to an end. 
 
The first duty of any government is to protect its own people from perceived danger.  This is the essential raison d'être of the state.  It is government's primary duty to preserve jobs at home.  Any political system that tolerates the export of prosperity to please plutocrats is doomed.  Finally, while Americans whine about "Free Trade" they continue covert "protectionist" measures at home like massive farm subsidies in agricultural products like cotton.  Historically, the US has never had a good trading record and always ran a trade deficit.  Rather than promote true "free trade," America follows a "one way" free trade policy designed to keep foreign money rolling into the US to finance its deficits. When that ends, it will resemble the economic collapse of the Roman empire"

RH: Mohammed  boasted that he was the last of the prophets.  Obviously he was wrong..

Your comments are invited. Read the home page of the World Association of International Studies (WAIS) by simply double-clicking on:   http://wais.stanford.edu/
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Teresa Heinz Kerry, Ken Lay and Enron

Randy Black says "Despite the fact that the Kerry campaign criticized Dubya for his personal friendship with Ken Lay (Enron), Mr. Seeley is obviously not familiar with the fact that Mrs. Kerry invited Mr. Lay to serve on the Board of Directors of the Heinz Foundation prior to his fall from grace. Further, John and Teresa Kerry owned $250,000 of Enron stock dating to the late 1990s. Even after the Enron scandal, Mrs. Kerry served on a different charity board with Mr. Lay. Additionally, John Kerry accepted campaign donations, never returned, from Enron executives.  Lay stayed on the board (of the Heinz Foundation) after Enron's collapse and a Heinz Foundation spokeswoman defended Lay in news reports amid the fraud accusations as having “a good reputation in the environmental community.”
 
Source: http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=34958
 
As far as Bill Clinton’s speech, he is the only man in America who can convince the 50 percent of the American taxpayers who pay no taxes that the Republicans have stolen their tax payments".  RH: What about those who do pay taxes?
 

RE: Teresa Heinz Kerry

I pointed out that Thierstein, the name of Mrs. Heinz Kerry's father, is not is not Portuguese. Randy Black says: "Does the "Thierstein" in Mrs. Kerry's maiden name indicate that she is descended from the secret Jews or Morranos of Portugal? From the Guardian: The daughter of a prominent Portuguese doctor, Heinz Kerry, née Maria Teresa Thierstein Simoes-Ferreira, grew up in Mozambique. She attended a school run by British nuns, and later studied Romance languages at senior school in South Africa, where she became involved in the nascent anti-apartheid movement of the late 1950s. At university in Geneva, she was a classmate of Kofi Annan at the city's School of Interpreters. Now fluent in five languages, she graduated and went to New York to become an interpreter at the United Nations, before marrying Heinz in 1966.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1130650,00.html

I also found this: Teresa Heinz Kerry’s maternal grandfather, Albert Thierstein, was born in Malta. He spoke five languages and upon finishing his schooling at the age of 21, left Malta to seek his fortune. His parents had died when he was a small child, and he was raised by his French grandmother. As a young man, Albert was forced to figure out how to make his own way in the world. He put three names in a hat: Africa, America and Australia, and vowed to go to the place he picked out. He picked Africa and left for South Africa to work for a French company. When the Boer War broke out, Albert Thierstein was forced to leave because he was a British citizen. He went into exile in Mozambique, where he met his wife Maria (Teresa's grandmother). They had three daughters. One was Teresa's mother. He fell in love with Mozambique and never returned to South Africa.

Teresa was born in Mozambique in east Africa. She often says the wildness and beauty of Africa made her an environmentalist because it taught her respect for the natural order. But her country had a dark side. Its people lived under the oppressive thumb of Portuguese dictators. There was no civic life and no one dared talk of politics outside the privacy of home. Her father, a highly regarded doctor, did not vote until he was 71 years old. This experience left her with a deep and abiding appreciation for democracy and freedom. Ms Heinz Kerry recalls that her late mother visited a cousin in Malta, Maria German. Maria was one of many children of Ernest Thierstein and a countess. Another child was Roberto who was a young major in the British Army during World War II and fought in the African front .
http://www.maltastar.com/news.asp?newsitemid=11837&date=

RH: One daughter of Albert Thierstein was the mother of Teresa, which was therefore her mother's name. Was the father Simoes Ferreira, which is a Portuguese name?
 
 

Stephen Schmidheiny

WAIS is happy to welcome Stephen Schmidheiny to WAISdom. I believe I caught his attention when I issued a note to the association recently about the AVINA Foundation started by Mr. Schmidheiny in 1994. Not knowing him      personally, I speculated that the name sounded Hungarian. This guess was off the mark.   In fact, this very successful entrepreneur, author, and expert on sustainable development is Swiss German by origin, although the ending -heiny seems unusual.

He is part of the fourth generation of a successful family that owned globally important cement and asbestos cement holdings. After graduating in law from Zurich University in 1976 - planning never to practice law but curious to see how law and its associated institutions work - he quickly took over the asbestos cement part of the family business. Realizing that he did not want to be associated with this material, he exited the asbestos industry and diversified into a number of business activities, which included being a founding investor in the Swatch watch company, owning Leica Instruments, and serving on the boards of companies such as Nestlé, ABB, and UBS. In 1995 he decided to focus business interests on Latin American forestry, building materials, and water systems companies.

In 1990, Maurice Strong, secretary general of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (the Rio “Earth Summit” of 1992) appointed Stephan as his principal adviser for business and industry. Schmidheiny established the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), now with over 175 members from among the planet’s most important companies. Today he is its honorary chairman. In 1992, he published the best-selling Changing Course: a Global Business Perspective on Development and the Environment (MIT Press). Other (co-authored) books include Financing Change: the Financial Community, Eco-efficiency and Sustainable Development (MIT Press, 1996) and Walking the Talk: the Business Case for Sustainable Development (Greenleaf Press, 2002). Yale University has awarded him an honorary doctorate for humane letters.

Stephan has loved Latin America since he worked in Brazil in his early 20s as a trainee foreman. In 1994, he established the AVINA Foundation to encourage civil society and business leadership for sustainable development in Ibero-America. (AVINA stands for "acción, vida y naturaleza," or "ação, vida e natureza.")   Stephan Schmidheiny has always favored V's, perhaps because it is the universal sign for victory.)

In 2003, Mr. Schmidheiny retired from formal positions with corporations and other organizations and donated his stock in the GrupoNueva holding company he founded to a trust called VIVA (standing for Vision and Values). He added other stock to bring the value of the gift up to $1.1 billion. In its ownership of GrupoNueva, VIVA makes sure that the company is a leader in corporate social responsibility.  VIVA also uses the resource stream from GrupoNueva to fund AVINA, as long as AVINA lives up to its mission.  VIVA thus is an unusual philanthropic structure that creates checks and balances for both NUEVA and AVINA.  This was Mr. Schmidheiny’s innovation, which by their reckoning does not exist elsewhere in the philanthropic world. Stephan also hopes that if it passes the tests of time, it might serve as a model.

RE: Springtime for Hitler FOOTNOTE

Randy's Russian wife said that "she was never told that Americans were a danger to the USSR and that she does not recall any Soviet-era movies that vilified the USA. "The USSR never produced a movie named, "The Americans are coming, The Americans are coming." ( cf. "The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming," the 1966 US comedy involving a Soviet submarine and some folks in Maine). Since Soviet propaganda was so anti-American when I was in the USSR, I asked if Cameron Sawyer in Moscow could verify what Randy's wife said. Randy counters: "Cameron Sawyer was not born, was not raised, nor educated in the Soviet Union in the 60s-80s as was my wife. I have learned one thing about my wife's word: She does not embellish or exaggerate events in her life experiences. If she states that the Soviets were not taught that the US was the villain planning attacks on the USSR, you can go to the bank and borrow money on her word. On the other hand, she states that they were always prepared for invaders from any sources, the US included among many. In her schooling, she was definitely not taught to fear America. Many other nations attacked or attempted to invade the USSR, from the Finns and Germany in the 1930s to the Chinese in the 1960s".  RH: The way to solve this issue would be to look at Soviet textbooks of the period. I have on my desk Dana Lindaman and Kyle Ward, History Lessons. How textbooks from around the world portray US History. Russian sources are included, but I assume they are of the post-Soviet period. The authors may have some comments. I have also a copy of International Textbook Research, published in Germany. I am copying this to the editor, Dr.  Wolfgang Höpken.  I would be most grateful for any comments he wishes to make. Has his journal published any articles on the subject? Since there is a reference to movies, perhaps someone familiar with Soviet films has a comment.  As for Cameron Sawyer in Moscow, he has many friends who lived through the Soviet period.  They may have comments. "The Russians Are Coming" was a farce which I did not take seriously.

Re: Springtime for Hitler

Randy Black provides the lyrics from "Springtime for Hitler"

Germany was having trouble, what a sad, sad story
Needed a new leader to restore its former glory
Where, Oh where was he? Where could that man be?
We looked around and then we found
The man for you and me.
And now it's..

Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Deutschland is happy and gay
We're marching to a faster pace
Look out, here comes the master race.

Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Winter for Poland and France
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Come on, Germans, go into your dance.

I was born in Dusseldorf, and that is why they call me Rolf
Don't be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Nazi party.

Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Goosestep's the new step today
bombs falling from the skies again
Deutschland is on the rise again.

Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Uboats are sailing once more.

Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Means that soon we'll be going
We've got to be going.  You know we'll be going to WAR!

http://www.ladyofthecake.com/mel/prod/prsounds.htm

Your comments are invited. Read the home page of the World Association of International Studies (WAIS) by simply double-clicking on:   http://wais.stanford.edu/
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RE: Springtime for Hitler FOOTNOTE

Randy Black says he "watched James Bond movies on Russian television in the mid-90s; it always used only one translator for all the parts to do a voice-over translation of the English language adventures. Can you imagine one man doing all the parts, whether male or female. It was especially funny when Bond was romancing a female, listening to him profess love and then her responding, in the came, gravely, Soviet male voice.
 
Randy's Russian wife points out that "she was never told that Americans were a danger to the USSR and that she does not recall any Soviet-era movies that vilified the USA. "The USSR never produced a movie named, "The Americans are coming, The Americans are coming." (in difference to "The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming," the 1966 US comedy involving a Soviet submarine and some folks in Maine".

RH: Can Cameron Sawyer verify what Randy's wife says?

Nazi jokes:

Siegfried Ramler says: "Christopher Jones in his latest posting follows in the footsteps of Julius Streicher, Nazi publisher of the infamous Der Stürmer, in which pages were filled with what he calls "jokes." Spare us this type of humor!  It has no place in a civilized dialogue and stretches the limits of good taste".

Your comments are invited. Read the home page of the World Association of International Studies (WAIS) by simply double-clicking on:   http://wais.stanford.edu/
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Re: Springtime for Hitler

Daryl DeBell writes: "I have to agree with Christopher Jones that "phoney (sic) Hollywood" i.e. Chaplin, created a parody of Hitler, but, to me at least, at the time Hitler was a parody of himself. My understanding at the time was that Americans generally could not take such a strutting, grandiose figure seriously. To their regret perhaps, neither could Chamberlain and other statesmen at the time. The great difficulty with international relations is that totalitarianism and the power that is implicit in it is intoxicating not only to the leaders but also to the followers. It creates a pathological, pernicious fantasy of purity and perfection, with idealization of those false virtues and virtual dehumanization or 'others'. I am willing to call Hitler a monster along with Stalin and Saddam Hussein, to keep it a short list; unfortunately they are all still human. So were Calvin and the perpetrators of the Inquisition. Zeal and self-righteousness are fairly good predictors of monstrosity. North Korea appears to be following an eerily similar path, minus the racial features so far as I'm aware, but they are small potatoes compared to Germany. Christopher Jones's report sounds suspiciously like an effort to initiate an apology for Hitler; with me that will not wash".

RH: "Phoney" also spelt "phony" is sad to come from Forney, the name of a man ho made cheap jewelry. Calvin is an interesting case. He was very scholarly and led a virtuous life.  However, the two tubs of wine which the city of Geneva gave him in addition to his salary did not have a mellowing effect, He exiled or executed his critics such as the Unitarian Michael Servetus. I never heard this discussed in Geneva,  Calvinists, i.e.also Presbyterians, try to excuse this by saying it was part of the mores of the time.  Horrible as it was, the Inquisition has been blown up by Spain's Black Legend.  When I was a small boy in England, in school we read a short story by Edgar Allan Poe (was it "The Pit and the Pendulum"?) which gave a ghastly account of the tortures of the Inquisition. No wonder the English and Americans subscribed to the Black Legend.  The Inquisitors undoubtedly drank more tubs of wine than Calvin.  I suppose wine brings out the basic character of an individual.  If I impress you as being  hopelessly mild, attribute it to the red wine I got into the habit of drinking in countries where the water is unsafe.

Re: Springtime for Hitler

David Crow comments on Christopher Jones' piece "Springtime for Hitler":  "We would be remiss if we didn't recall the portrayal of Hitler as an effeminate flower child in Mel Brooks's wonderful satire "The Producers".  Probably not historically accurate, but it did give us the wonderful song:  "Springtime for Hitler und Germany.  Winter fur Poland und France ..." RH: I suppose that is the origin of "Springtime for Hitler".

RE: Springtime for Hitler

Randy Black lived in Omsk and married a Russian. They and her mother now live in Texas.  He writes: "Mr. Jones’ post almost causes me to feel sorry for Adolph Hitler and the Germans. How could I have ever disliked “good old Adolph?” The man that directly caused the deaths of millions of Europeans for no other reason that the God whom they worshipped is certainly to be pitied. I suppose I should tell my mother-in-law to revise her thoughts on “the phenomenon Adolph Hitler.” She and her parents survived by eating tree bark, boiling grass and hiding in a hole in the ground for weeks in their region of western Russia after the Germans destroyed everything in their path during the invasion. I’ll tell her it was not really an invasion but simply the Germans in search of a new vacation destination.
I’ll run downstairs right now and tell her that Hitler was “a sympathetic person.” Thanks for correcting my misconceptions of “the phenomenon Hitler,” Mr. Jones".
 
 

RE: Springtime for Hitler FOOTNOTE

Christopher Jones described attempts to understand Hitler as a human, saying "It is not a revision to rehabilitate, it is revision to be able to understand the phenomenon Adolf Hitler". I commented "Will there be a revision so that we can understand the phenomenon Joseph Stalin?"  Christopher replies: "Cameron Sawyer in Moscow is far better qualified to answer about Stalin, but I should add that the story of Hitler's last days is based solely on the memoirs of Traudel Jung, one of his young secretaries.  As Joachim Fest pointed out, in our collective effort to convert Hitler from a flawed human into Godzilla, most historians lost the chance to interview others who were in the Berlin bunker when they were released from Russian captivity. (I saw one interview in a film made by SMERSH with an SS general who described his last meeting with Hitler, the death of the Goebbels family and the attempt to broker a surrender after their deaths -- impossible.  SMERSH then found the body of Blondie -- the dead pooch's picture was included)  In fact, Fest is behind both docu-films, acting as historical consultant, on "The Downfall" which is based on his latest book.  Curiously, it seems that again it was Fest who was instrumental in getting Albert Speer to start talking after the war and played again his editor.  This is one of my prime preoccupations with the history of this period.  Historians were/are just too politically correct to even talk to the right people. Another interesting personality who never talked much was Arno Breker, the sculptor of the Nazi Reich, who did all those classic figures in "Olympia" and the famous bust of Hitler.  Reportedly, the artist Hitler did not get along with Breker, although the sculptor spent the war working at Albert Speer's side"

RH:An ignoramus, I checked Google to find out about Godzilla.  From 628,000 (!) entries I chose this: "It was a peaceful and productive forum; lively, congenial and a bounteous source of useful information. Then one day, completely without warning, Godzilla arose from the depths and blew his scalding breath on everything in his path. A phalanx of Warriors mobilized to attack the monster, only to be crushed like so many toy tanks under Godzilla's mighty feet. Godzilla soon reduced the forum to searing and consuming flames. Just as abruptly, he rumbled back beneath the waves, leaving all to tremble in fear of his return. Net life would never be the same. Sadly, many netizens who survive a Godzilla attack will become Xenophobes". I could not download the picture of the dragon Godzulla, who is clearly very unWAIS. Turn WAISers into xenophobes?? Never!!!

As for SMERSH, here is a note on Ian Fleming's James Bond series: "Smersh (short for Smert' Shpionam ( ), or "Death to Spies") was formed during the Great Patriotic War The Eastern Front was the primary theater of combat between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II. It was somewhat separate from the other theatres of the war, not only geographically, but also for its scale and ferocity. In Russia, the war is referred to as the Great Patriotic War (Velikaya Otechestvennaya Voyna in Russian), a name which alludes to the Russo–Napoleonic Patriotic War on Russian soil in 1812. Some scholars of the conflict use the term Russo-German War, while others use Soviet-German War or German-Soviet War.
.
Smersh was also used to punish those with in the NKVD The NKVD, or Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del ( )­People's Commisariat for Interior Affairs, was the name for the political (or "secret") police in the USSR in one of the stages of its development.  it was allowed to investigate whomever it wished within the NKVD structure, department and directorate heads were not immune from it, and if it found even the slight bit of evidence that they were somehow involved in whatever plot it was that week, they would be arrested, and tortured by Smersh, forced to sign fake confessions, put on a show trial .Typically, show trials were used to deal with the political opponents of the current government or of the Church.

One of its most notorious moments was when they slaughtered many Polish officers in the Katyn massacre The Katyn Forest Massacre occurred in the Soviet Union, in a forest near Gnezdovo village, a short distance from Smolensk. Many Poles had become prisoners of war following the invasion and defeat of Poland by the Nazis and the Soviet Union in September 1939. The Soviets filtered out any army and police officers and gathered them in three camps: Kozielsk, Ostaszkowo and Starobielsk. In addition, an atrocity that was later blamed on the Germans. Smersh was also used by INO (the NKVD's later KGB The KGB, short for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Russian: ; English: Committee for State Security), was the name of the main Soviet Security Agency and intelligence agency, as well as the main secret police agency from March 13, 1954 to November 6, 1991. The KGB's domain was roughly comparable to that of the American Central Intelligence Agency combined with the counterintelligence and internal security divisions of the FBI.    FCD, First Chief Directorate, responsible for foreign intelligence operations outside of the USSR) to hunt down "enemies of the people" outside of Soviet territory. Eventually Smersh's activities were slowed down, but they never really ceased. Its name may have changed as the NKVD changed, but its duties always remained the same".

RH: Can Cameron Sawyer tell us if James Bond is known in Russia?  There is obviously plenty of material here for the suggested explanation of Stalin as a human being.

19th century British poeta

Poetry is not dead. Glenye Cain said: "I would suggest that anyone interested in modern English poetry also try Edward Thomas, who died at in World War I at Arras, and, from an earlier time, John Clare. They both wrote extraordinarily beautiful poems about the countryside and rural life, among other things".  John Heelan comments:
"Don't stop there!  If you are interested in the "Georgian poets", you should also read Housman, W.H.Davies, Walter de la Mare, as well as Masefield, Hodgson, James Stephens plus the "war poets".  Add D.H Lawrence to the list as well. [However, be aware that the "Englishness" demonstrated by the poets was derived mainly from observing the Southern shires only and  were often written non-English poets (albeit British ones)- e.g. Edward Thomas was Welsh.  Thus the attractive picture drawn is somewhat misleading, rather like paintings of the period used for Christmas cards.  The  England of the "townee poets", such as Drinkwater and Edward Thomas, idealised the countryside with hints of "England Immemorial" divorced from the hurly-burly of the commercial world. The more realist England of a rural poet, such as Blunden, showed it devoid of human activity, with the late 19C drift to towns, the enclosure movement leading to rural poverty and the decay of rural trades and crafts. Better views are given by more modern poets such as Ted Hughes".

I said: "To boost the Scottish tourist industry and thus its economy,  I suggest that the clan wars be revived, with all the bloodshed possible. Modern tourists would love it.  Far more exciting than the frozen music of cathedrals". John comments: "They do already, Ronald.   Two large tribes meet a couple of times a year to do bloody battle, although they call them the Rangers-Celtic soccer matches!" RH: Sissy stuff, unworthy of the clans!

Your comments are invited. Read the home page of the World Association of International Studies (WAIS) by simply double-clicking on:   http://wais.stanford.edu/
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Teresa Heinz Kerry

Edgar Knowlton writes: "Re Teresa Heinz Kerry, she mentioned living under a dictator in Mozambique--I was not even sure who the dictator was, didn't Salazar stay pretty much in Portugal?--but gave more attention to her experience as a student in South Africa where she saw, and marched against apartheid. I met Maria Pia, illegitimate daughter of King Carlos, on a train in southern France and rode with her in a train compartment to Lisbon--she was bitter against Salazar who had even tried to destroy evidence of her birth. Like Mrs. Kerry, she was a proficient linguist. Both women seem(ed) to me to be able and likeable. Speaking of First Ladies, didn't Lou Hoover also have merit (as a LatIn scholar) and courage (inviting a woman of color socially to the White House before the impressive days of Eleanor Roosevelt)?"

RH: Here is what the Kerry/Edwards campaign says about Teresa Kelly: "Born in Mozambique, fluent in several languages, she has combined compassion and common sense to become a force for innovation and social progress as leader of one of the nation's large private foundations. After studying at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and the University of Geneva, she moved to the United States and got a job working for the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations. In 1966, she married Senator John Heinz whom she met when they were graduate                    students and with whom she had three sons. Shortly after celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary in 1991, she lost her husband in a plane crash. Turning down offers to seek election to her husband's Senate seat to take care of her sons, family and professional responsibilities, she became chairman of The Howard Heinz Endowment and the Heinz Family Philanthropies. Under her leadership, the Heinz foundations are widely known for developing innovative strategies to protect the environment, improve education and the lives of young children, reduce the                   cost of prescription drugs, promote the arts and help women achieve financial economic security. She established the Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement in 1996 to educate women about pensions, savings, and retirement security.

Their mutual interest in environmental issues brought Teresa and John together. She was first introduced to John Kerry by Senator Heinz at an Earth Day rally in 1990. In 1992, she met Kerry again at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro when President George H. W. Bush appointed her as part of a State Department Delegation  representing U.S. non-governmental organizations. She and Senator.Kerry were married in the presence of her three sons and his two daughters on Memorial Day weekend in 1995. Teresa has received numerous awards and 10 honorary degrees for her many works. In September of last year, she was presented with the Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal for Humanitarianism, for her work protecting the environment, promoting health care and education and uplifting women and children throughout the world.  She was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and  Sciences in 2001.

RH: I am glad to have this information about her. The media had mentioned only her abusive dismissal of an abusive right wing journalist. Another source said she met Senator Heinz when she went with him as an interpreter toan earlier Rio summit.  I have seen no explanation as to who her father was. Perhaps he was exiled to Mozambique as an enemy of the Portuguese dictatorship.  Portugal was ruled from 1928 tp 1968 by Salazar, who treated the Portuguese African colonies as integral parts of Portugal.  I attended a session of the Portuguese legislature at which they were represented. In Mozambique his regime was viewed as an imperial dictatorship.

As for Maria Pia, King Carlos of Portugal was murdered  in 1908.  His successor Manoel II abdicated in 1910, and Portugal became a republic. The upper classes still favored the monarchy.  I remember in 1935 at a diplomatic luncheon in Madrid, the Portuguese ambassador kept saying that everyone in Portugal wanted a monarchy, which was patently untrue. I know nothing about the claims of Maria Pia.

Lou Henry Hoover was indeed a remarkable woman. She translated from the Latin Agricola's De Re Metallica (1556). Herbert Hoover, a mining engineer, provided technical advice.  The translation was attributed to both of them. Georgius Agricola was the Latin pseudonym of Georg Bauer (1495-1555), the German  founder of modern mineralogy. De Re Metallica appeared posthumously.








                                                                           

RE: What's in a name?

Randy Black reports: "Rommel Pacheco is one of Mexico’s greatest young athletes. From Merida in the Yucatan, the 18-year-old athlete has a proven record of achievement in international competition over the past four years. Rommel seems to be a fairly popular name across Latin America. I seem to recall that the national stadium in Panama is named Rommel Fernandez Stadium".  RH: One more proof of where some Latin American sympathies lay in World War II.

RE: What's in a name?

Christopher Jones writes: "And you mentioned the name Siegfried as a Wagnerian name that Jews used.  In fact, I suspect the use of Siegfried had more to do with their desire to integrate into Victorian/Wilheminisch society than a Jewish fascination with the Germanic Sagen.  Speaking of German names, it is now time for an authentic Jewish joke from the Nazi period.
 
After the 1935 Nuremburg Racial laws, it was Verboten for German Jews to change their names into more Aryan sounding ones.  Nevertheless an intrepid Jewish fellow finds the right civil servant (Beamter) responsible for this.  He harangues endlessly the Beamter that he simply MUST change his name and that he cannot go on living with his name in its present form.  finally, just to get rid of this Jewish pest, the Beamter takes off his pince nez and snarls:
 
Ok well what is this awful name of yours that you want to change?
 
ADOLF STINKFUS (stinky feet for non German speaking Waisers) he answers.
 
The Beamter is aghast. He starts to think and talk to himself. "Now that really is bad."  He turns to the Jew and says that yes, maybe in this one special case, with a name like that maybe he can arrange it.  And he finally asks: "And what do you want to change it to?"
 
"Yitzak Stinkfus."

Springtime for Hitler

Christopher Jones reports: "Beginning in September, two films are being released in Germany that upset the conventional picture of Adolf Hitler as Chaplin's comical "Great Dictator" or the embodiment of evil banality, both cherished characterisations in phoney Hollywood.  Two top actors in German speaking Europe, Bruno Ganz and Tobias Moretti have taken on the role of the Führer and both admit to portraying the Nazi chieftain as "a person" and not "a monster."  In Bernd Eichinger's saga "The Downfall" (scheduled for September 16) about Hitler's last days in his bunker, Bruno Ganz, an excellent Swiss actor who is part of Vienna's Burgtheater ensemble portrays Hitler so well that a few nights ago at a preview, the guests confessed to a certain "pity" or "sadness" regarding Hitler.  Suddenly, God forbid, the Führer was a person.  Sometime in 2005, "The Devil's Architect" will be seen.  In Heinrich Breloer's film, Tobias Moretti plays the Führer in a biography of Albert Speer, the garrulous Nazi armaments minister who was also Hitler's chief architect.  Moretti who always plays heroes, listened to the famous Finnish tape recording of Hitler, where the Nazi dictator talks normally.  It is the only document we have where Hitler talks like you and me.  To study up for his part Moretti listened over and over to this tape and recently told the FAZ newspaper, "As paradoxical as it sounds, when I play Hitler, I must defend him."
 
The FAZ's Frank Schirrmacher wrote that these two films "are the most important historical projects in Germany in many years," while others openly fret that the portrayal of Hitler as a member of the human race could engender some sympathy for him.  So what?  The reason that this mild "revision" has occured is that almost every major figure of the Second World War is dead and Hitler like his Third Reich has passed on into history.  It is not a revision to rehabilitate, it is revision to be able to understand the phenomenon Adolf Hitler".

RH: Will there be a revision so that we can understand the phenomenon Joseph Stalin?
 

Re: Robert Graves, Siegfried and George Sassoon, Harold Munro

Talk about stirring up a hornets' next!  I was not sure whether Glenye Cain's ancestors has fought with or against the Campells.  Her reply clearly indicates I owe her an apology: "I'm not sure what use of the word "with" you meant in "fought with the Campbells," but, good heavens, I can't imagine my MacGregor ancestors would have fought alongside the Campbells! If I have it correctly, the Campbells stirred up some trouble between the MacGregors and their enemies, the Colquhouns, which ultimately led to some dramatic marching around with bloody shirts on spearpoints (the Colquhouns did this, protesting the MacGregors having killed some of their menfolk), and this in turn led to the MacGregor clan being actually banned. My MacGregor ancestors changed their names to McGeehee and moved to the U.S. But I defer to George Sassoon's far superior knowledge of the clans to tell this story better and more accurately! (My sister has added a new dimension to the family's Scottish history by marrying a Lumsden; there is a town in Scotland named Lumsden as well)

Regarding various Sassoons, I heartily second your recommendation of the two Siegfried Sassoon books. My reintroduction to Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man coincided with my acquisition of a new field hunter, whom I ultimately named Sassoon. I discovered that this name tends to separate the literary from the fashionable in the hunt field; the former get the reference immediately, and the latter, perplexed, invariably ask why I named my horse after a hair stylist. (Incidentally, do I vaguely remember that there was a town named Sassoun or Sasoun, or something similar, that was the scene of some terrible occurrence in the Armenian genocide early in the 20th century?)

Your story about Graves was interesting, and, on reflection, I think it might be quite nice to be buried in my own garden. At any rate, it would mean someone else was having to do the mowing, for once.

Harold Munro was indeed the founder of the Poetry Bookshop; does anyone know how he died? I recommend Officer's Mess  highly, and, while I'm at it, I would suggest that anyone interested in modern English poetry also try Edward Thomas, who died at in World War I at Arras, and, from an earlier time, John Clare. They both wrote extraordinarily beautiful poems about the countryside and rural life, among other things".

RH: To boost the Scottish tourist industry and thus its economy,  I suggest that the clan wars be revived, with all the bloodshed possible. Modern tourists would love it.  Par more exciting than the frozen music of cathedrals.

Your comments are invited. Read the home page of the World Association of International Studies (WAIS) by simply double-clicking on:   http://wais.stanford.edu/
E-mail to hilton@stanford.edu. Mail to Ronald Hilton, Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA 94305-6010. Please inform us of any change of e-mail address.

What's in a name? Caesar, Napoleon

One of my many projects which I shall never complete is a history of Latin America as reflected in first names. The famous Mexican writer Josè Vasconcelos, about whom I have written, was accused of being pro-Axis in World War II. The same may be said of the parents of this also.ran diver about whom Alejo Orvañanos reports: "Today, in the diving finals, a Mexican competitor came in 10th. His name?: Rommel Pacheco.  Rommel might have done better in the Beach Volleyball, at least that is played on sand". Here are the final scores:

1. Bo Peng (CHN)            787.38
2. Alexandre Despatie (CAN) 755.97
3. Dmitri Sautin (RUS)      753.27
4. Feng Wang (CHN)          750.72
5. Fernando Platas (MEX)    704.25
6. Troy Dumais (USA)        701.46
7. Alexander Dobroskok(RUS) 697.29
8. Ken Terauchi (JPN)       690.00
9. Cesar Castro (BRA)       662.97
10. Rommel Pacheco (MEX)     642.69
11. Dmytro Lysenko (UKR)     629.64
12. Robert Newbery (AUS)     620.34
Note also the Brazilian names Cesar, a first name similar to Napoleon and also common in Latin America.  No wonder Latin American history is studded with military dictatorships. And what about the American Troy Dumais? Not a winning name.

Your comments are invited. Read the home page of the World Association of International Studies (WAIS) by simply double-clicking on:   http://wais.stanford.edu/
E-mail to hilton@stanford.edu. Mail to Ronald Hilton, Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA 94305-6010. Please inform us of any change of e-mail address.

Robert Graves, Siegfried and George Sassoon, Harold Munro

Glenye Cain writes: "I recently rediscovered my old college-days interest in World War I-era poetry and was intrigued by your mention of Robert Graves (actually I prefer his prose to his poetry). May I ask how you met him? I'd be interested in your impressions of him. It is perhaps worth noting, in light of your recent note about George Sassoon (who I hope will recover, and recover speedily), that I went back to my old books of World War I poetry several years ago after stumbling across his quite accurate--in my experience!--assessment of  the Campbells. His post reminded me that I had liked his father's work when I was studying British literature, and, indeed, when I went back to it I found I still do. Another favorite: Harold Munro, whose poems from the time include the achingly moving "Officers' Mess" and who, unfortunately, died rather young in 1932".

RH; About forty years ago, a Majorcan friend whom I had known at the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid drove me around the island. We stopped at the house of Robert Graves overlooking the sea (he died in 1985 and is now buried in the garden).   He received us most cordially and gave us tea.  We had a long conversation. Although he achieved great popular success, he iwas a serious classical scholar.  His isolation in Majorca allowed him to be extraordinarily productive; he wrote 135 books!

George Sassoon, one of the most beloved WAISers, is at home recovering, All WAISdom wishes him good health.  It was Wagner who made the name Siegfried popular, Siegfried Sassoon was Jewish, sas is Siegfried Ramler. It was only after the Nazis came to power that Wagner became suspect. As an addict of autobiography, I commend Siegfried Sassoon's Memoirs of a Fox.hunting Man and Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, as well as Robert Graves Goodbye to All That. Glenye is of Scottish ancestry, I gather that her ancestors fought against the Campbells, or was it with them?

Harold Munro is less well-known.  Was it he who founded the Poetry Bookshop, which published works by Robert Graves?  See Joy Grant, Harold Munro and the Potery Bookshop.

Your comments are invited. Read the home page of the World Association of International Studies (WAIS) by simply double-clicking on:   http://wais.stanford.edu/
E-mail to hilton@stanford.edu. Mail to Ronald Hilton, Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA 94305-6010. Please inform us of any change of e-mail address.

Re: T-34 tanks abd Cuba

I said that Cuba must cannibalize its Soviet tanks to keep them going.  Alberto Gutiérrez comments: "Cannibalization is a normal procedure in Cuba. Most machinery there is old or neglected. I read some short accounts of the maintanance problems with civilian aviation, but I don't have an update of the military lack of spare parts. According to my sources of information, once Cuba had more tanks than Brazil. A disproportionate number, not related to the size of the country and its defense. A few Cuban tanks ( made in Russia, of course) ended up in Africa".      

CUBA T-34 tanks and automobiles

Dwight Peterson says: "If the Cubans can keep all of those beautiful 1950 & 1960 automobiles running smoothly on their roads all these years, one can only assume that  their T-34 tanks are in mint mechanical condition". RH: A TV program took us on a tour of Havana. There were vintage cars everywhere, but I did not see a single poster of Castro. It may have been a coincidence. And, of course, no tanks.
 

Your comments are invited. Read the home page of the World Association of International Studies (WAIS) by simply double-clicking on:   http://wais.stanford.edu/
E-mail to hilton@stanford.edu. Mail to Ronald Hilton, Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA 94305-6010. Please inform us of any change of e-mail address.

Professor Percy Ernst Schramm, a distinguished medievalist

Regarding Professor Percy Ernst Schramm, the distinguished German medievalist who was Donald Detwiler's dissertation adviser, Rob Gaudet asks "I wonder if Prof. Schramm, a medievalist working for the German High Command, had anything to do with spinning Hitler's notion that his people were tied to the chivalric traditions of King Arthur.  Was Shramm approached in this capacity...ie to advise the Nazis on medieval history in order to
construct such a history or somehow tie the Aryans to King Arthur and his roundtable?"  RH: Donald Detwiler can answer this.

WAISer Donald Detwiler

WAIS has some impressive Germanists, including Jim Tent, who, as I informed you. is undergoing a serious operation.  Another is Donald S. Detwiler, Professor Emeritus of History, Southern Illinois University.  In response to my inquiry about his academic background, he writes: "In 1954 I graduated from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., my home town, with a baccalaureate in history and a reserve commission through ROTC. In 1954, the Air Force sent me to Germany, where I served until 1957, when I separated from active duty in Germany, having decided to begin my graduate work there rather than returning immediately to the USA.  By the end of my second semester at Goettingen, however, I dropped the idea of returning to the USA for my doctorate. I had come to realize that for me, an American studying European and German history, I was gaining something in Goettingen that could not be duplicated in the finest American university: a  fundamentally new understanding of German language and culture. I had studied enough German in college to qualify as an Air Force intelligence language officer, but until I started living in a village outside Goettingen and attending the university, I had involuntarily regarded German
essentially as a kind of code. I was translating German words into real words and then thinking through the result and reflected on it in English. What gradually dawned on me during that first year was that German was actually a way of thinking, of shaping one's ideas and perceptions. It was similar to English, to be sure, yet very different. In fact, I found that, like the second lens of a stereoscopic camera, it afforded a kind of depth perception, adding a third dimension where I had taken a two-dimensional view for granted.

But there was also a second and no less important reason for deciding to stay at Goettingen. I had the good fortune of being able to work under Professor Percy Ernst Schramm, a distinguished medievalist who during World War II had served as the war diary officer of the High Command of the German Armed Forces (the OKW, Hitler's headquarters). He served as my mentor and directed my dissertation on Spanish-German relations during the war and, when my veteran's allowance under the Korean GI Bill (for which I was eligible, having been called to active duty in 1954) ran out, he arranged for me to complete my dissertation, "Hitler, Franco und Gibraltar," with a research fellowship at the Institute of European History in Mainz, which published it in 1962 (as noted on the bio-bibliographical notes appended as a postscript).

In 1971, I published a volume with two of my Doktorvater's studies of Hitler-his introduction to a scholarly edition of Hitler's table conversations, 'The Anatomy of a Dictator' (that had been serialized in the German newsweekly Spiegel) and 'Hitler as a Military Leader' (his introductory essay to his scholarly, multi-volume edition of the OKW War Diary)-entitled Hitler: The Man and the Military Leader. Initially brought out by Quadrangle, it was issued in England by Allen Lane - Penguin Press, and was reprinted in 1999 by Academy Chicago Publications. In 1976, the press at Southern Illinois University, to which I had moved in 1967, brought out my short history of Germany, published in its third (post-unification) edition in 1999. Although now retired (as a twentieth-century historian, I met my last class in mid-December 1999), I remain active as chairman of the World War Two Studies Association and vice-chairman of the Comite international d'histoire de la deuxieme guerre mondiale, with which the WWTSA and
corresponding national committees in some two dozen other countries committees are affiliated".

RH: Donald Detwiler was visiting research professor of history, in 1987, at National Taiwan University; and director,
from 1979 through 1982, of the SIUC-USICA German-American History Textbook Project, the records of which have been deposited in the Detwiler Collection at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, California. (For the final report on the project, see Donald S. Detwiler, Ilse E. Detwiler, & John Anthony Scott, "The Distorting Mirrors of History: Final Report on the SIUC-USICA German-American History Textbook Project," Tamkang Journal of American
Studies, Vol. IV, No. 1 [Tam-kang University, Kinhua Street, Taipei 10637, Taiwan, R.O.C.: Fall, 1987, pp. 149-157.])
In 1984 he was president and subsequently permanent board member, Association for the Bibliography of History; since 1997, editorial board member, H-War (Military History Network of H-Net-The Humanities & Social Sciences OnLine). 

BOOK PUBLICATIONS:

Hitler, Franco und Gibraltar. Die Frage des spanischen Eintritts in den Zweiten Weltkrieg "[Hitler, Franco, and Gibraltar: The Question of the Spanish Entry into the Second World War]. Publications of the Institute of European History, Mainz, vol. 27. Edited by Martin Goehring. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1962. Pp. xi, 185 (my Goettingen doctoral dissertation)

Translated, edited and annotated, and wrote the introduction to Hitler: The Man and the Military Leader by Percy Ernst Schramm. Chicago: Quadrangle,  1971; London: Allen Lane, Penguin Press, 1972; repr., Malabar, Florida:
Robert E. Krieger, 1986; repr., Chicago: Academy Chicago Publ., 1999. Pp. x,  214 (studies of Hitler's character and of his military leadership by my Doktorvater [mentor], former war diary officer of the High Command of the German Armed Forces [OKW]).

Germany: A Short History. 3rd ed., rev. Carbondale and Edwardsville:Southern Illinois University Press, 1999. Pp. xiii, 342 (the first edition having been published in 1976, the second in 1989).

Edited & annotated Der Krieg in Italien und im Heimatkriegsgebiet vom 1. Januar - 31. Maerz 1944. Nachtrag zum Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht (Wehrmachtfuehrungsstab)" [The War in Italy and on the Home Front, 1 January - 31 March 1944: Supplement to the War Diary of the Operations Staff of the High Command of the Armed Forces (Armed Forces Operations Staff)]. Munich: Bernard & Graefe, 1979. Pp. 85 (a segment of the war diary missing when the rest of it was published in the 1960s by Prof. Schramm,  printed with a subvention from the German Ministry of Defense).

Edited (with Charles B. Burdick & Juergen Rohwer, associate editors), with introductory essay, World War II German Military Studies. 24 vols. New York: Garland Publ., Inc., 1979. Ca. 13,500 pp. in archival facsimile.

Edited (with Charles B. Burdick, joint editor), with introductory essay, War in Asia and the Pacific, 1937-1949: Japanese and Chinese Studies and Documents". 15 vols. New York: Garland Publ., Inc., 1980. Ca. 8500 pp. in archival facsimile.

Advisory editor, The Holocaust: Selected Documents, edited by John Mendelsohn. 18 vols. New York: Garland Publications, Inc., 1982. Ca. 4200 pp. in archival facsimile

Authored (with Ilse E. Detwiler as joint author), "West Germany: The Federal
Republic of Germany", World Bibliographical Series, vol. 72. Oxford,
England, Santa Barbara, California, Denver, Colorado: Clio Press, 1987. Pp.
xv, 355 (an extensively annotated and indexed bibliography with over 1200
citations)

PUBLISHED ARTICLES AND REVIEW ESSAYS (SELECTED):

'The State and the University: The West German System',  Bulletin of the Committee on Science and Freedom,
 No. 18 (Manchester, England: March 1961), pp. 16-23 (an account of the German university, in historical context, as experienced it as a doctoral student)

'Spain and the Axis During World War II', Review of Politics, Vol. 33, No.1 (Jan. 1971), pp. 36-53, based on my dissertation

'Percy Ernst Schramm, 1894-1970', Central European History, Vol. 4, No. 1 (March 1971), pp. 90-93, my mentor's obituary

With Ilse E. Detwiler as joint author, articles on Dr. Joseph Mengele and Raoul Wallenberg for the  Encyclopedia of World Biography, supplemental vols. 2 and 3, resp. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987 & 1988, resp.), pp. 487-88
and 512-13, resp.

'Review Essay: Two Major Publications from the Republic of China', with Chu Shao-kang as co-author, Journal of Military History, Vol. 6, No. 4 (October 1992), pp. 669-684, on two dozen volumes of documentation on the World War II era

RH: Göttingen University, which I once visited briefly, was founded by George II of England in 1737. In the 19th century it attracted many students from England and the US, and it greatly influenced the development of graduate schools in those countries. It was closed when Hitler came to power and reopened after 1945.

William Benton

I had forgotten about William Benton, who played an important role over half a century ago, until I received this bio of him from John Gehl: The American businessman and politician William Burnett Benton (1900-1973) was assistant secretary of state from 1945 to 1947 and a United States senator from Connecticut from 1949 to 1953. Prior to entering public life, Benton had a successful career in advertising and educational administration. In 1929 Benton teamed up with Chester Bowles, later to be governor of Connecticut and ambassador to India, to found what turned out to be the highly successful Benton & Bowles Advertising Agency. In 1936 Benton sold his interest in the agency to become vice-president of the University of Chicago, a position urged on him by his Yale classmate Robert M. Hutchins, who was the university's president. In 1943, Benton added the responsibility of serving the university as publisher and chairman of the board of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. (Benton had convinced the Sears, Roebuck Company, EB's previous owners, to donate the publishing enterprise to the university, but had to put up his own money as working capital before the trustees would accept the donation.) In 1945 Benton left the university to join the U.S. State Department, until he was appointed to a vacant U.S. Senate seat in 1949. He finished his public service as a member of the executive board of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), which he joined in 1963.

Benton was born in Minneapolis, the descendent of Connecticut farmers, educators, and ministers. He grew up in Minneapolis and in Montana, where his widowed mother had become a homesteader. After a year at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, Benton transferred to Yale University, where he excelled academically, becoming chairman of the Yale Record and graduating in 1921. For the next eight years Benton worked in New York and Chicago advertising agencies, striking out on his own with Chester Bowles in 1929.  His life thereafter was a series of successful accomplishments. By 1935 he had turned Benton & Bowles into the sixth largest advertising agency in the world, mostly by writing innovative advertisements for the radio entertainment programs so popular during the Great Depression of the 1930s. When he moved to the University of Chicago, he used his advertising and radio background to develop the "University of Chicago Round Table" into an extremely popular national radio forum.

When Benton was secretary of state for public affairs, he converted for peacetime use the U.S. Information Service, the cultural exchange programs, and the Voice of America. He also lobbied the Fulbright Scholarship Act and the Foreign Service Act of 1946 through Congress, and succeeded in organizing U.S. participation in the establishment of UNESCO, on whose board he would later serve. While in the Senate, Benton supported Truman's foreign aid and Point Four programs and was active on behalf of civil rights. He was also among the first to decry the tactics for which Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin was eventually censured. Benton's lifetime interest in "the high significance of the media communications" to education and citizenship is reflected in the ongoing activities of the Benton Foundation, which focus on the Internet's potential as an "open university" devoted to helping ordinary citizens become more civically engaged, leading to the enrichment of the entire community. The Foundation is now chaired by its founder's son, Charles Benton, chairman of Public Media, Inc., and a longstanding champion of public
broadcasting, public information and public debate.

See
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0226365484/newsscancom/ref=nosim

Re: Madame Curie

In response to the mention of Madame Curie, Edgar Knowlton comments: " I am reminded of the film on the Curies with Greer Garson and Walter Pigeon. On their honeymoon voyage, Walter invited her into the bedroom, but she declined, with her profile set against the moon, as she said with determination: "I must discover the secret of radium" An extraordinary couple!".  RH: An extraordinary story, which demands a scholarly footnote. What is happening to history when a scholar like Edgar is thus impressed?

AVINA

We thank Peter Cleaves for this information about AVINA, of whichj he is Executive Director: "AVINA stands for "acción, vida y naturaleza," or "ação, vida e natureza." Stephan Schmidheiny has always favored V's, perhaps because it is the universal sign for victory. Stephan is an optimist about the possibility of improving the world's condition.  That is, if everybody does his or her part.  The "v's" thus appear frequently in institutions Stephan has created.
NUEVA is the name of the tubing, forest and agriculture companies he donated to VIVA.  In turn, VIVA stands for Visión y Valores or Visão e Valores.  Consistent with Stephan's whole business career, the NUEVA companies follow commendable corporate social responsibility practices and have won numerous prizes. VIVA is the trust that owns NUEVA, makes sure that it is a leader in corporate social responsibility, and in turn finances AVINA -- as long as AVINA lives up to its mission.  VIVA thus is an unusual philanthropic structure that creates checks and balances for both NUEVA and AVINA.  This was Stephan's innovation, which we believe does not exist elsewhere in the philanthropic world -- and, with the test of time, might serve as a model.

Stephan himself is Swiss German, rather than Hungarian although that was an interesting guess.  Brizio Biondi-Morra, the new AVINA President, is of Italian descent and served many successful years as Rector of INCAE, the
Central American business school.  Coincidentally, he was a member of the Jesuit order before beginning his own business career and then going into academia.  However, AVINA's collaboration with the Jesuits relates to your
comment on the Jesuits' good deeds, particularly in education, and not because of religious affinity with the AVINA founder or current president, who is not a Catholic.  Currently AVINA has nearly 500 funded projects in
Iberoamerica, and only two of them are with the Jesuits.

Like Ashoka -- whose name was reported on separately by Margaret and Christian Leitz -- AVINA places stress on personal leadership, ethics and initiative.  Before we speak about a project, we go through a long process of getting to know the individual.  This approach is similar to an investor who is putting their money in the hands of an entrepreneur to achieve an ambitious purpose.  Our ambitions are for greater opportunities for the less advantaged, democratic and transparent governments, respect for nature, more social responsibility and increased human dignity.  It takes special people to struggle day after day for such goals -- given all the obstacles -- so we work hard to locate them.  Once we do find them, we then speak about how we might help them increase their impact -- often working with other AVINA-supported leaders.

We also stress greater cooperation between civil society organizations (NGOs) and the business community, particularly business people who are distressed about the direction of their society (including poverty, crime,
poor education, and corruption, none of which is good for business).  We are betting that cooperation between enlightened business and social sector leaders can represent a new force for change in Latin America.  This task
is not easy, because of historical mistrust between the two groups -- but we are making progress and results are beginning to show.

So -- Ronald -- thank you for your careful reading of the AVINA annual report -- and making in known to other WAISers.  If any others wish to have copies, we would be pleased to send them one (by e-mailing <julie.nordskog@avina.net>.