Every generation struggles with the fact that in the centuries to come, their own members will populate the rosters of history. Glancing around the table, it was hard for us to imagine that any of the bright-eyed twenty-year-olds here, smart and motivated as we were, would ever achieve the stature or impact to rival the thick-jowled guest before us. Kissinger to us was one of the last Great Men, a museum exhibit come to life. We scrutinized him for the duration of the two-hour meeting, like astronomers crowded around a fallen bit of debris from outer space. Afterward we each shook his hand. Most of us found that we towered over him and that there was nothing intimidating about his grip or his labored octogenarian shuffle. The most scandalous moment came after the group photograph, while we were pulling on our coats and chatting quietly. Someone spotted Kissinger standing in the corner talking on his cell phone. How could Henry Kissinger have a cell phone? Don't Great Men communicate by telepathy, divine courier, or some sort of Hegelian FedEx dialectic?

It turns out that colossal decisions, choices that shaped the course of history, were made by a small round human being who pays a monthly bill to Verizon or Sprint and waves his phone up and down in search of a clear cellular signal, just like the rest of us. Hands around the room secretly felt for the small squarish bulge in back pockets and purses, all thinking, perhaps I could be Great too.

Molly Worthen, The Man on Whom Nothing Was Lost: The Grand Strategy of Charles Hill
Copyright © 2005 by Molly Worthen. All rights reserved.

Posted 2 April 2006

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