Where Have All the Leaders Gone? (6 page)

“Geez,” I said, “is that legal?” I thought I’d better check, so I called President Clinton’s chief of staff, Mac McClarty. I’d been friendly with Mac for years because his father had been my Ford dealer in Hope, Arkansas.

“You can go,” Mac told me. “Just don’t spend any money there. It’s against the law.”

The Frenchmen had their own jet, a Falcon, and one of them was a pilot. When my friends picked me up in California, their plane was loaded with food from Provence—chickens, hams, pastries, bread, cheeses. There was hardly room for my bag, or me.

I’d been to Havana a few times as a young single man. Went to the Tropicana. Saw Carmen Miranda. Smoked cigars. Raised hell. I had fond memories of my times there. But as we drove through Havana in 1994, the old playground looked a little shabby. There weren’t that many cars on the road, and most of them were clunkers from Russia or old Fords and Chevys that dated back to the pre-Kennedy era. But the Tropicana was still going strong. Havana’s nightlife and gorgeous beaches still attracted tourists from all over the world—except the U.S.

Castro seemed pleased to have this American car guy visiting, and the whole time I was there he treated me like royalty. He told me he’d read both my books. Frankly, I liked the guy. He was well read and as sharp as a tack. He explained that he’d had lots of time to read in jail.

Castro asked me, “When were you last here?” I told him in the final year of Batista’s rule.

He laughed dismissively. “Oh, yes, you mean when Cuba was America’s speakeasy. It was all being run out of Miami, with Meyer Lansky and his gang. Drugs, gambling, prostitution, corruption. That is why we needed a revolution.”

Castro was a good host, and he arranged a couple of excursions. The most memorable was a pigeon-hunting trip. We were awakened at five
A
.
M
. one morning, given camouflage uniforms, and asked to assemble in the dining room for a five-thirty
A
.
M
. breakfast. I wondered for a moment,
Are we being recruited for Castro’s army
?

Surprise! At breakfast we were informed that we were going on a pigeon shoot. Our destination was a sparsely inhabited island, well known for its huge influx of pigeons. Castro apologized that he couldn’t accompany us, but he sent his younger brother Raúl (now the acting President of Cuba) to see us off, and his top general accompanied us. At six
A
.
M
., we boarded a massive Russian helicopter, which bore the Cuban flag. The helicopter had a crew of six, which included two stewards, two pilots, and two copilots. It was the biggest helicopter I’d ever seen. It was more like a troop carrier!

When I expressed my amazement, Raúl smiled and said, “This is a great helicopter, but we have a very difficult time getting spare parts from Russia anymore.”

That made me a little nervous. During the flight, my mind was on prayers, not pigeons.

Castro also threw a dinner in my honor, and I was surprised to see that our own food was served to us at the dinner. The basic French staples, such as caviar, foie gras, and champagne are hard to come by in Cuba. I sat across from Castro, and he regaled us with stories. We had an interpreter, but he understood a lot of English. I’d never thought of Castro as being a lighthearted guy, but I remember laughing a lot.

As the dinner was ending around eleven
P
.
M
., Castro motioned to me and said that he wanted to talk to me alone. I followed him out to a big Mercedes with a driver and we got into the backseat. We took off into the night, and I was thinking,
Holy shit, I’m in a car with Fidel Castro, driving through the dark countryside at breakneck speed
. For all I knew they were kidnapping me. We finally reached his place in the country, and sat down outside on the patio for a talk. We were joined by an extremely beautiful young woman who was our interpreter. A young man stood to the side. I wasn’t sure if he was a guard, an aide, or the cigar valet. Every time my cigar went out, he’d rush forward and give me a fresh one. Castro explained that you
never
relight a cigar. When it goes out, you throw it away. I told him, “Easy for you to say. You own the factory.”

Castro no longer smoked cigars. He told me that after the UN gave him an award for saying that tobacco wasn’t healthy he’d felt he had to quit to set a good personal example. “Don’t you ever cheat?” I asked, a little amazed. He assured me he did not cheat.

The Cohibas I was smoking were his personal brand. They were short and thick Robustos. “You Americans like long, Panatella-type cigars,” Castro said. “Don’t you know that sucking in all that air through a super-long cigar is bad for your health?”

What did Castro want to talk about? Politics and business. What else? The guy was hungry for intelligent conversation about the state of the world.

It was obvious he was pissed off at the Soviets. They’d screwed him. They’d left him to twist in the wind. It was lonely being one of the only Communist countries left in the world. But Castro had some very interesting observations about the transition from Communism to the free market. In his opinion, the Soviet Union went about the process backward, but China was getting it right.

“Gorbachev did it wrong,” he told me. “The Soviets should have done the economics first and then thrown out the commissars. Now Russia has nothing but corruption and chaos. In China the Communists still have a strong hold. They are maintaining power while they gradually transition to open markets.”

“You’re talking like a bloody capitalist, Fidel,” I said. “You’re saying, fix the economy first, and the social order will follow.”

Castro was a very provocative guy. “Do you want to bring democracy here, or do you want to bring some of your prosperity?” he asked. “Tell me how to do the last one. I don’t want to hear about the first one.”

What could I say?
Yeah, but you’re a dictator? If people get in your way you can knock them off?
I kept
that
thought to myself, but I didn’t believe a prosperous, free market could coexist with a dictatorship.

“Didn’t you pick the wrong side?” I asked.

He said maybe, but the revolution kind of got out of hand.

“Well, what did you expect from the revolution?”

“I didn’t expect it to be so easy,” he said.

I didn’t want to overstep my bounds, but I was curious. “Fidel, I’ve been here a couple of days now, and I visited the sights. I see your picture in all the offices and on all the buildings. But it always looks to me like Che Guevara’s picture is above yours—and it’s bigger than yours.”

Castro shrugged. “To the young people, he is like a cult hero. A born revolutionary.”

“You knew Che well,” I said. “You were close to him. Can I ask you a question?”

He nodded.

“Why did Che go to Bolivia? To export revolution, right?”

Another nod.

“And as soon as he got there he was assassinated. Did you have anything to do with that?”

I suppose Castro was surprised at my boldness. Hell,
I
was surprised at my boldness. “Lee,” he said, “we’ve been talking openly, but if you’re interested in that kind of thing, why don’t you check with your own CIA?”

We talked until two-thirty in the morning, and I enjoyed it. I thought we’d made a real connection.

As we left Cuba, with a supply of Cohiba cigars (a
gift
) packed in my bag, I hoped it wouldn’t be my last visit. When I got back to the United States, I called McClarty. “Mac,” I said, “Castro is ready to talk.”

“Maybe he brainwashed you,” Mac said.

“No,” I said, “he leveled with me. Look, our policy is hurting young kids and old people. It’s doing a lot of damage—over what? Ideology?”

I was so frustrated that for a while after my visit I thought I might volunteer for the job of unofficial diplomat to Cuba. But no one was interested. And thirteen years after my visit, we’re
still
not talking. What a missed opportunity! What is it going to take to convince our leaders that the road forward starts with a conversation?

A TIP FROM DALE CARNEGIE

Ever since I took the Dale Carnegie course when I was twenty-five, I’ve kept his book
How to Win Friends and Influence People
on the shelf. I still have my original copy, and it’s pretty tattered. I must have referred to it hundreds of times in my life. Do you know what Dale Carnegie’s first rule was? “If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.” That’s pure common sense—something we are often lacking these days.

Dale Carnegie also had some good advice about being a leader, and he made a point of saying that it applied to presidents and kings as well as to ordinary businesspeople. Although he wrote
How to Win Friends and Influence People
seventy years ago, Carnegie’s principles are just as relevant today.

Sometimes we forget that government officials and heads of nations are human beings. The greatest impediment to getting along is having preconceived notions that someone is all-holy, all-evil, or made of stone or steel. In my life I’ve been amazed by how often my negative ideas about people are proven wrong when I actually meet them. For instance, in 2005, when I was invited to a dinner party hosted by Prince Charles and his bride-to-be Camilla at Highgrove, the prince’s personal residence, I was
sure
I knew what they’d be like—very stiff and proper. I got ready for a dull evening of protocol and pomp. Was I ever wrong! Camilla greeted us at the door with a warm smile, and insisted, “Please call me Camilla.” Charles was relaxed and talkative. They both had great senses of humor. It was one of the most enjoyable evenings I’d had in a long time.

The point is, people are people. Even the mighty have feelings and pride. Just like everyone else, they appreciate a pat on the back or a way to save face when they’ve dug a hole for themselves. When it comes right down to it, being a leader in the world is just a matter of winning friends and influencing people with a spirit of hope.

I
may be getting old, but there’s nothing wrong with my memory or my attention span—at least not yet. The folks from the Bush administration would like us to forget that we went to war in Iraq because they falsely claimed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. They’d like us to forget their phony campaign to connect Saddam Hussein to 9/11, so they could do what they’d wanted to do all along. If I live to be a hundred (which I hope to do), I’ll never understand how we got so duped.

We went to war on a lie. Congress didn’t debate it. The press didn’t challenge it. It got trumped up in secret meetings. The generals weren’t allowed in the room. Secretary of State Colin Powell even got fooled. And now that we’ve made a mess of things, the only way out is to start telling the truth.

The generals finally came forward to do just that, although it took them three years. If anyone doubts how much trouble we’re in, just listen to the generals. They say that the
rhetoric
of the White House hasn’t been matched by either
resources
or
resolve
. The drumbeats have drowned out common sense. They say we are bankrupt in leadership.

Iraq is a war nobody wanted—unless you count Iran, who has watched us accomplish what
their
eight-year war with Iraq could not. Unless you count the Taliban in Afghanistan, whose narcotics trade is thriving. George Bush says our enemies “hate us for our freedom.” They really hate us for our arrogance. But they
love
it when we get stupid. And, folks, we’ve been stupid. Big time.

THE LESSONS OF HISTORY

One of the qualities that made Winston Churchill a great leader was his historical imagination. “The longer you look back,” he wrote, “the farther you can look forward.” He once complained to a friend, “We live in the most thoughtless of ages. Every day headlines and short views. I have tried to drag history up a little nearer to our own times in case it should be a guide in present difficulties.” Good idea!

The war in Iraq is a failure of historical imagination. Didn’t we learn any lessons from Vietnam? Vietnam was also a failure of historical imagination, which showed that we learned nothing from Korea.

Many years ago, Joseph Califano, who was a member of Lyndon Johnson’s and later Jimmy Carter’s administration, told me this story. It was right after Johnson had been elected in 1964, and Johnson and Califano went to visit General Douglas MacArthur, who was retired and living in the Waldorf Towers in New York City. MacArthur said to Johnson, “Sonny, never get involved in a land war in Asia.” When they left his apartment, Johnson was furious. “Did you hear that?” he asked Califano. “The son of a bitch called me Sonny. I’m the President of the United States, and he called me Sonny!” He couldn’t get over it. Unfortunately, Johnson missed the real message—the one about the ground war in Asia. Kennedy missed it, too, because I understand that MacArthur told him the same thing. I wonder if he called JFK
Sonny.

When the Bush administration said we would be greeted as liberators, I knew right away we were in trouble. The lessons of history would have told a different story, but history was never consulted.

TRAGIC CONSEQUENCES

When I talk to John Murtha, he says he feels personally betrayed. In his heart Murtha is still a marine. You never stop being a marine. He feels responsible for the guys we’ve placed in peril without a plan for winning. Murtha spends his weekends visiting the wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He describes their injuries as
horrible.
Those who survive roadside bombings—the most common injury—usually have massive head injuries and loss of limbs. Their families are crying,
begging
Murtha to do something. They believe their kids have become nothing more than targets, driving around in poorly armored Humvees and getting blown up. For
what
?

Have you noticed that we never hear much about the wounded? The media keeps a running count of the dead, but why not the wounded? Where do you even
find out
how many have been wounded? Let me tell you something. It’s not easy. The Pentagon doesn’t publish that information unless it is specifically requested by the media. Why do you think
that
is? Could it be because the number is so
big
? I challenge the media to do just that. Put the number in bold print, right next to the number for those killed. (For your information, the official number of Americans wounded in action in Iraq is currently around 24,000, but that doesn’t account for thousands of non-combat injuries.)

And where is Bush, the Commander in Chief? For a guy who loves photo ops so much, there’s one photo op you never see: the President in Dover, Delaware, standing next to a flag-draped coffin. He doesn’t want to be identified with coffins. For the first time in memory, cameras have been banned from Dover. The coffins arrive in the deep of night, when nobody can see them. Hell, they don’t even
call
them coffins. They call them “transfer tubes.”

IS IT REALLY WORTH IT?

The cost of human life is the greatest tragedy of Iraq, but don’t forget the other costs. Let’s look at it from the perspective of a CEO. When you decide to launch a project—whether you’re building a car or starting a war—one of the first things you do is look at the cost/benefit picture. That is, what are we
getting
for the money?

As of this writing, the cost of the war is estimated at about half a trillion dollars. But according to some experts, the true cost could be as high as $2 trillion, when you factor in lifetime disability and health care for the wounded, the interest on our debt, and the rising oil prices.

On the ground, it’s been kind of hard to keep track of how much we’re spending, because the accounting is extremely loose in the new Iraq. It’s like the Wild West over there. At one point, $1.5 billion was floating around in cash, to be used to hire workers and pay off mullahs, and God knows what else. Paul Bremer, who was in charge of the rebuilding effort for a while, kept $600 million in
cash
on hand. I guess he put it in his sock drawer.

Don’t forget. That’s
your
money they’re spending. Do you want to throw it into an Iraqi sinkhole, or do you want to provide health care? Do you want to hand it over to Halliburton, or do you want to make sure American kids go to college?

To give you an idea of the magnitude of the amount we’re pouring into Iraq, let’s look at the conservative estimate of what half a trillion dollars would buy here at home:

• We could hire 8 MILLION SCHOOLTEACHERS.
  

• We could give FREE HEALTH CARE to everyone for one year.
  

• We could provide 25 MILLION COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS.
  

• We could give every American FREE GAS for one year.
  

• We could build 3 MILLION AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNITS.
  

• We could hire 8 MILLION POLICE, FIRE, AND EMT WORKERS.
  

We could put a dent in some of the most pervasive problems we face as a nation. So, the next time someone in government says we can’t afford health care or education or border security, just remember, it’s all about
priorities.

FACTS ARE STUBBORN THINGS

Ronald Reagan once said, “Facts are stubborn things.” He actually got that quote from John Adams. The Bush administration doesn’t really believe in facts. It believes if you tell a lie often enough it becomes true. But those inconvenient facts keep getting in the way. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none. They said the war would take six months tops. It’s been four years. They said Saddam Hussein colluded with Al Qaeda on the 9/11 attacks. That never happened.

I could go on, but the lies get boring. The administration likes to call their mistakes “faulty intelligence.” There was no faulty intelligence. Let’s call a lie a lie. Can’t we believe
anything
these guys say?

It takes courage to face the truth, but I believe we must. Not only about the disastrous course of the war, but about our nation’s mixed history with Saddam Hussein’s regime. Don’t forget that we
backed
Saddam in his war with Iran. (There’s a famous photograph from 1983 that shows Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam Hussein’s hand. Everyone is smiling!) The Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations provided Iraq with over $15 billion in loan guarantees. When Saddam sprayed chemical gas on the Kurds, he used
U.S. helicopters
sold to him for crop dusting. With Saddam now in his grave, the whole truth may never be told. But one thing is clear: Nobody’s hands are clean in this one—especially not ours.

THE COALITION OF THE DWINDLING

Can you call it a coalition when it’s just you and one other guy? Let’s compare Bush senior’s coalition in 1990 with his son’s. The phrase “go it alone” takes on new meaning with Bush junior.

In March 2003, as we were gearing up for war, the White House published a list of forty-eight nations that were participating in the Coalition of the Willing. Forty-eight seems like a big number, until you look at the list and the troops numbers. Most of them contributed fewer than a hundred soldiers. Now, even that coalition has become the Coalition of the Dwindling. We’re down to twenty-three nations, totaling less than fifteen thousand troops—half of those from Great Britain. And the dwindling continues. Here’s the
real
picture (as of this writing):

You might call that a coalition. I call it an American war.

If you want an example of what an actual coalition looks like, take a look at the Persian Gulf war. Bush’s daddy had it right:

One thing you notice right away—in addition to the sheer numbers—is that the gulf war coalition drew its strength largely from the Arab world. They were our allies. Name one Arab nation that signed on for the current Iraqi war. Instead of bringing the Arab world together, the war has sparked a rise in violence across the region, our intelligence agencies report. The best recruiting tool for the jihadists is the war in Iraq.

DOESN’T ANYBODY HAVE A PLAN?

Bush and company had a fantasy that we could bring democracy to Iraq and it would cause a domino effect in the Middle East. Suddenly every Arab nation would embrace democracy. What were they
smoking
?

Condi Rice said the problems are “the birth pangs of a new Middle East.” Well, it’s an awfully long time to be in labor.

Today, they don’t even talk about establishing democracy anymore. Mostly they talk about how we can pull our finger out of the dike without causing a tsunami.

The war in Iraq has already exceeded World War II in the length of the conflict. Where’s the plan?

After the 2006 election, Bush fired Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, but you have to wonder if it was in recognition of the mess we were in or just political expediency. How many
fired
people do you know who are given elaborate ceremonies praising their years of service?

Before he left office, Rumsfeld leaked the contents of a memo he’d sent the President several weeks earlier, perhaps anticipating the need to shore up his legacy. In the memo he called for a new direction, then gave a laundry list of alternatives. It was too little, too late.

The long-awaited report of the Iraq Study Group, led by Bush senior’s old pal James Baker, left the President with the choice of embracing it and admitting failure, or ignoring it and doing nothing. Can you guess which he chose? This is a President incapable of admitting failure.

Let’s apply some common sense here. If the head of a car company was losing money like crazy on its latest model, you wouldn’t hear the CEO say, “The solution is to build more cars. We have to support our investment.” Not if he wanted to keep his job. He’d better have a new plan—and I mean
now
.

Remember Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn rule, “You break it, you own it”? Boy, that’s pretty bad news. The way things are going in Iraq these days, we own a pile of crockery. There is no electricity, no infrastructure, no security for citizens, the government is a joke. What there seems to be plenty of is
violence.
I heard there was an update on the Pottery Barn rule: “
We
broke it,
you
own it.”