But Enough About You: Essays (57 page)

The speech marked the high point of transatlantic relations. These days, German politicians tend to run
against
the United States—and win. But in 1987, Ronald Reagan gave West Berliners a pep talk that turned out to sound the first death knell for Soviet communism.

“Mr. Gorbachev,” he said, looking uncharacteristically grave, “tear . . . down . . . this . . . wall!”

Leni Riefenstahl died this September at age 101. Her 1934 film
Triumph of the Will
documented the twentieth century’s most ominous pep talk—Hitler’s, at Nuremberg. Hitler was by all accounts one of the most powerful speakers of the twentieth century. Even before he got to “in conclusion,” the audience was reaching for the keys to the Panzers and the Baedeker guide to Poland. And yet—can you quote a single thing he said, other than “Is Paris burning?” Hitler is a paradox: the great orator who left no memorable quotes.

It’s similarly difficult, poring over the pep talks of other twentieth-century monsters, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, Castro, Saddam Hussein—and not much fun, really—to find notable lines. Perhaps it’s that pep talks given by dictators are organically flawed: They lack sincerity. Dictators don’t have to bring their crowds to their feet. The audience will do that automatically.

Say it’s you sitting there in Row 3 at the Eighteenth Party Congress, into the fourth hour of Stalin’s speech about how you, comrade, can increase tractor and hydroelectric output under the new
Five Year Plan. Are you inspired? See the guy sitting at the end of the row, in the KGB-issue black leather raincoat, checking to see how loudly you’re applauding? You bet you’re inspired.
Boy, the Boss is really cooking tonight!

Dictators not only give Potemkin pep talks, but also Trojan Horses. In 1957, Chairman Mao Tse-tung gave an uplifting speech in which he urged—demanded—that the Chinese express themselves freely, no matter if it was contrary to the party line. “Let a hundred flowers bloom,” he said, “and a hundred schools of thought contend.” Harvard professors cheered! What followed was the Cultural Revolution, in which all the free-thinkers found themselves being dragged through the streets wearing dunce caps, on their way to being reeducated, or worse.

Saddam Hussein’s inspirational style is somewhat harder to characterize. Last March 20, on the eve of Shock and Awe, he appeared on television to stiffen the doubtless quavering spines—and sphincters—of his followers. He called the Iraqi people “Dear friends.” Under his rule, an estimated quarter of a million people were detained or murdered. As a rule, the more of his own people a dictator has murdered, the more affectionately he addresses them in public.

“We love peace,” he said. He urged Iraqis to “Go use the sword. Draw your sword, and I’m not afraid. Draw your sword. The enemy is making a fuss.” (This may have sounded more inspiring in the original Arabic.) Like FDR and Churchill, he told it straight, telling the “brave” Iraqi people what they were up against: “the criminal junior Bush” and “the criminal Zionists . . . who have agendas.” Well, who doesn’t have an agenda these days? He signed off, “Long live jihad!” This gets my vote for the year’s Worst Cheerleading Routine.

But it was Saddam’s information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, who showed himself a true master of the pep talk. “Baghdad Bob,” as he was nicknamed, had Americans cheering for him. He was the ur-cheerleader, the Super Pangloss, Anthony Robbins on LSD.

“Today we slaughtered them at the airport!” he announced on TV, even as U.S. troops were taking smoke breaks in the control tower.

“The infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates
of Baghdad!” he said, with so many U.S. tanks rolling through that MPs had to direct traffic.

“As our leader Saddam Hussein said, ‘God is grilling their stomachs in hell!’ ” If I’d been a “brave” Iraqi soldier, cowering in the basement of a hospital or orphanage and I’d heard that on the TV, I like to think I’d have rushed right out and shot some woman in the back.

On a cheerier note, if the killing of whales can be called that, are the pep talks given by the three mates in
Moby-Dick
to their respective crews as they pull—pull!—at their oars. Here’s Stubb, the second mate, urging on his crew:

Pull, pull, my fine hearts-alive; pull, my children; pull, my little ones . . . Why don’t you break your backbones, my boys? What is it you stare at? Those chaps in yonder boat? Tut! They are only five more hands come to help us—never mind from where—the more the merrier. Pull, then, do pull; never mind the brimstone—devils are good fellows enough. So, so; there you are now; that’s the stroke for a thousand pounds; that’s the stroke to sweep the stakes! Hurrah for the gold cup of sperm oil, my heroes! . . . Pull, babes—pull, suckings—pull, all . . .

Wouldn’t you break your back for a coxswain like that? Chief mate Starbuck, whose name has now become synonymous with “grande nonfat mocha latte with an extra shot,” urged on his crew more economically. All he said was, “Pull, pull, my good boys.” Whereas Flask, the
Pequod
’s third mate and its most eager whale hunter, could barely contain himself:

Sing out and say something, my hearties. Roar and pull, my thunderbolts! Beach me, beach me on their black backs, boys; only do that for me, and I’ll sign over to you my Martha’s Vineyard plantation, boys; including wife and children, boys. Lay me on—lay me on! O Lord, Lord! but I shall go stark, staring mad: See! See that white water!

As for the whaleboat management secrets of Captain Ahab, Melville was coy: “But what it was that inscrutable Ahab said to that tiger-yellow crew of his—these were words best omitted here; for you live under the blessed light of the evangelical land.” But Ahab knew how to incentivize. Want to improve your third quarter? Try nailing a gold doubloon above the water cooler. Business schools could use these four disparate styles of pep-talking as case studies on how to motivate employees, though it’s possible that human resources might have a problem with “Pull, sucklings!”

Then there’s what might be called the Anti-Pep Talk, which seeks to inspire by scaring the bejeezus out of the audience. One of the most memorable of this genre was surely delivered by the late Herb Brooks, the U.S. Olympic hockey coach whose team performed the “Miracle on Ice” by beating the Soviets in 1980. On that occasion, the famously abrasive Brooks went into the locker room and told his men, “You’re meant to be here. This moment is yours. You’re meant to be here at this time.”

Very calm, almost Zen-like. And boy did it work. Before the next game, with Finland, he told them, “If you lose this game, you’ll take it to your f—g grave.” He turned to leave, pausing at the door to add, “Your f—g
grave
.”

Vince Lombardi, legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, inspired by evincing contempt for anything less than total victory. “There is a second-place bowl game,” he said, “but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win.”

This American will to win is most grandiloquently showcased in the opening scene of the movie
Patton
—a pep talk to the troops on the eve of the invasion of Europe. George C. Scott strides out on stage, exquisitely accoutered in chrome helmet, ivory-handled .45s, riding crop, and breeches.

“The Americans love a winner,” he says, “and cannot tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win—all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war, for the very thought of losing is hateful to an American.”

The above is from the actual speech Patton gave in the spring of 1944. Historians call it “The Speech.” It was carefully rehearsed and staged, and he gave it four or more times on the eve of invasion. In contrast to the quiet invigorations of Ike and Omar Bradley, Patton’s is pure trumpet, the Mother of All Pep Talks. The movie version—written in part by a young Francis Ford Coppola—is actually less profane than the real article: “An army is a team. It lives, sleeps, eats, fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is a lot of crap. The bilious bastards who wrote that kind of stuff for the
Saturday Evening Post
don’t know any more about real battle than they do about f—g.”

It ends on a high-comic note: “There is one thing you all will be able to say when you go home. You may all thank God for it. Thank God that at least thirty years from now, when you are sitting around the fireside with your brat on your knee, and he asks you what you did in the great World War Two, you won’t have to say that you shoveled s— in Louisiana.”

Contrast that with the pep-talk scene in the war movie
A Bridge Too Far
. Allied troops are about to embark on the ill-fated Operation Market Garden mission in Holland. Lieutenant General Brian Horrocks of the British Army, played by the excellent Edward Fox, tells them, “Gentleman, this is a tale you will tell your grandchildren—and mightily bored they’ll
be
!”

On the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the forty-two-year-old commander of the First Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment gave a remarkable talk to his men. It’s worth quoting nearly in entirety:

The enemy should be in no doubt that we are his nemesis and that we are bringing about his rightful destruction. There are many regional commanders who have stains on their souls and they are stoking the fires of hell for Saddam. He and his forces will be destroyed by this coalition for what they have done. As they die they will know that their deeds have brought them to this place. Show them no pity.

There are some who are alive at this moment who will not be alive shortly. It is my foremost intention to bring every single
one of you out alive, but there may be some among us who will not see the end of this campaign. We will put them in their sleeping bags and send them back. There will be no time for sorrow.

Those who do not wish to go on that journey, we will not send. As for the others, I expect you to rock their world. Wipe them out if that is what they choose. But if you are ferocious in battle, remember to be magnanimous in victory. It is a big step to take another human life. It is not to be done lightly.

I know of men who have taken life needlessly in other conflicts. I can assure you they live with the mark of Cain upon them. If someone surrenders to you, then remember they have that right in international law and ensure that one day they can go home to their family. The ones who wish to fight, well, we aim to please.

If you harm the regiment or its history by overenthusiasm in killing or in cowardice, know it is your family who will suffer. . . .

We go to liberate, not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. . . . Iraq is steeped in history. It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham. Tread lightly there. . . .

You will see things that no man could pay to see . . .

Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins is from Belfast. The Irish, North and South, are known for their gift with the spoken word. His speech to his troops became a sensation—which ended up being ironic, as he was subsequently accused of pistol-whipping an Iraqi civil leader and shooting at the feet of civilians. He was cleared by the Ministry of Defence, but his battalion is being investigated for other incidents. The colonel, whose nickname is “Nails,” is on his way to Pattonization.

Perhaps the most inspiring speech in history was given by a soldier. They are the few short words spoken two and a half millennia ago in a tent by the mountain pass of Thermopylae, in Greece.

The entire Persian army was about to come through the pass, defended,
as you well know, by a small unit of Spartans. Herodotus tells the story:

. . . one man is said to have distinguished himself above all the rest, Dieneces the Spartan. A speech which he made before the Greeks engaged the Medes [Persians] remains on record. One of the Trachinians told him, “Such was the number of barbarians, that when they shot forth their arrows the sun would be darkened by their multitude.” Dieneces, not at all frightened at these words, but making light of the Median numbers, answered, “Our Trachinian friend brings us excellent tidings. If the Medes darken the sun, we shall have our fight in the shade!”

Now go out there and kick ass.

—
Forbes FYI
, November 2003

I
. Convalescing from his wounds in an Italian hospital during World War I, Ernest Hemingway met a British soldier who wrote out a line from
Henry IV, Part II
. The words became Hemingway’s mantra. He quoted them in his short story “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” The line is spoken in the play by a character named Feeble: “By my troth, I care not: a man can die but once; we owe God a death . . . and let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next.”

II
. Legend has it that this translates literally as “I am a jelly doughnut,”
ein Berliner
being a local pastry, and
Berliner
being an inhabitant of the city. Maybe, but the Berliners who heard Kennedy speak knew perfectly what he meant. As I type, today’s
New York Times
carries the obituary of Robert H. Lochner, eighty-four, Kennedy’s translator on that day.

Many of the essays here were originally published in
The New York Times
,
The New Yorker
,
The Atlantic Monthly
,
The Wall Street Journal
,
The Washington Post
,
The Daily Beast
,
Time
,
Newsweek
,
National Review
,
New Republic
,
Bloomberg/BusinessWeek
,
Smithsonian
, and in the magazine that was my happy professional base for almost twenty years,
Forbes FYI
, now
ForbesLife
.