Editor’s note: This article first appeared at Crisis Magazine.

One of the most brilliant, influential Catholic intellectuals of the past half century has died at age 83. He was Michael Novak, theologian, philosopher, and gentleman—truly, a gentle man.

I had the privilege to know Michael well. One of the great, undeserved honors of my life was sharing the stage with him at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio in 2009 as we received honorary degrees together, a shared platform for which I was utterly unworthy. Here was a man who held audiences with John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Vaclav Havel. (For me, this was honorary degree no. 1; for Michael, it was honorary degree no. 25.) That Saturday morning, I gave the commencement address to the graduate class and Michael to the much larger undergraduate class. I was 33 years his junior, but he treated me as an equal. That was no surprise, given Michael’s endemic warmth, humility, kindness. He not only preached the inherent dignity and worth of every individual; he lived it.

Read: A Q&A with Michael Novak

I came to know Michael so well that soon thereafter he asked me to write his biography. It was one of the more difficult requests I ever had to decline. More on that in a moment, but I mention it here because I came to know a thing or two about his many contributions, which are too numerous to do justice to here.

Michael Novak was best known for his 1982 classic The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism. It’s the first thing that pops up when you Google his name. The book helped lead to him eventually receiving the Templeton Prize in 1994, and defined him as one of the leading voices for the morality of a free-market economy that allowed human liberty to flourish. That thinking was in line with, if not (surely) helped influence, seminal Church statements such as Pope John Paul II’s 1991 Centesimus Annus. Michael was at the hub of a vital movement eloquently arguing the case for democratic capitalism, for the virtue of markets, for (as he would put it) the superiority of free-market economies over command economies. Free markets certainly weren’t perfect, but they were far preferable to closed markets. The best way to help people and help societies, Michael Novak insisted, was a freer economy rather than a managed one. You want to help the poor and the lower and middle classes? Well, you’ll help far more of them with a market economy than a socialist one. This was the spirit of democratic capitalism.

That spirit was echoed by colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute (where Michael was a longtime fellow), at the National Endowment for Democracy, at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, at Father Robert Sirico’s Acton Institute—and, of course, by those freed captives in November 1989 smashing champagne glasses off the defeated and defunct Berlin Wall.

And the message hardly ended in 1989. More recently, Michael was one of the softer, smarter voices offering insights into the economic roots and thinking of Pope Francis (published in his columns at National Review).

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He was, of course, a prolific writer. He wrote for publications that he helped start, such as First Things and this publication, Crisis magazine. His books were many—over 40 in all. Among my favorites, which I discussed two weeks ago in my regular spring humanities course at Grove City College, was his superb, On Two Wings, a fascinating look at how the (Protestant) American Founding Fathers harbored a very Catholic understanding and integration of the “two wings” of faith and reason. Another, which I quoted in class just last week, was a fine book on the faith of George Washington, Washington’s God, co-authored with his daughter, Jana. I have a favorite anecdote from that book which I always share with students, one typical of Michael’s approach: The book quotes Gordon Wood, the esteemed historian of the American Founding, making a typically dismissive and derisive remark about Washington and the Founders, stating that they “at best … only passively believed in organized Christianity, and at worst they scorned and ridiculed it. Most were deists or lukewarm churchgoers…. Washington, for example, scarcely referred to God as anything but ‘the Great Disposer of events.’” That Wood passage ends with a gentle Novak endnote directing readers to a four-page-long appendix of Washington’s numerous names for God, listed in stacked columns, one after another. It was a corrective made with charity but clarity, with gentleness but verve, backed with primary-source research.

Those are just some elements of Michael Novak’s prodigious professional life. But there was so much more to the man, especially his personal life. He was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, home of the disastrous Johnstown Flood. The old coal-country town tucked in a valley of the Allegheny Mountains between Pittsburgh and Altoona was forever part of him. Raised by loving, rugged Slavic immigrants, the little boy awoke early in snowy mornings for Mass to serve as an altar boy, bundling up and trudging alone through cold streets to hike to the church.

I traveled through Johnstown recently via train from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. As I stared out the window, getting a good glimpse of the rundown rustbelt city with its steeples protruding from hillsides, I thought of Michael. I pictured him as a little boy plowing through the snow to go help serve Mass. I pulled out my phone and emailed him. He responded right away, touched by the memory, probably as he was looking out the window of a sterile Washington, D.C. office building or warmer climes in Naples, Florida, where he taught for a time at Ave Maria University.

Little Michael’s father would move the family to other blue-collar towns in the region, including McKeesport, the smoky steel town on the Monongahela River where so many tough football players were raised—including Michael Novak. Michael there began his love of football. It will shock many readers to learn that the mild-mannered, soft-spoken theologian was a ferocious football fan. Watching the Steel Curtain defense of the 1970s crushing opponents must have been an inspiration in one of Michael’s most forgotten and yet most interesting and acclaimed books, The Joy of Sports, published in 1976, and hailed even by Norman Mailer (as well as George Plimpton).

Michael wrote about those early days in his 2013 memoir, Writing From Left to Right: My Journey From Liberal to Conservative. The book is filled with moving images from the arc of his life and his sojourn from political left to political right, though Michael never really sought to be either. He sought first and foremost to be a faithful, orthodox Catholic. In fact, he remained a Democrat for a long time, and I don’t know that he ever de-registered his party affiliation, even as he believed (as Ronald Reagan did) that the party had long since left him. He also along the way left a path to the priesthood, primarily because he wanted to marry and have children, which he did (three of them, Richard, Tanya, and Jana) with his beloved wife of many years, Karen, who died in 2009.

That sojourn involved so many intriguing stops along the way. After initially supporting the Vietnam War, Michael spent a month in the country in 1967 visiting students and returned a committed opponent, much like other prominent Catholics of the day from Fulton Sheen to Thomas Merton to the Berrigan brothers. This led him to support Democratic presidential candidates of the period ranging from Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy in 1968 to George McGovern and Sargent Shriver in 1972. But like many theologians of his day, the Democratic Party’s sharp turn to the hard left in the 1970s and 1980s, from economic to social-moral issues, permanently alienated him. Much like his friends Richard John Neuhaus, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Irving Kristol, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Charles Krauthammer, and others, he left the left behind.

That, too, is a journey he describes in his memoir, which brings me back to the biography I mentioned earlier. It seems so stupid and insensitive now, but I turned down Michael’s request to write his biography. It was partly a matter of being impossibly overwhelmed with other commitments, but I also knew he was writing his memoirs. I’d be almost repeating whatever he did, and I knew publishers would balk at a manuscript completed at basically the same time as a memoir. Michael surely knew that, but he also must have known that the time to unload on a biographer, like the time to write memoirs, was running out.

Ultimately, I said no. His response was typically thoughtful and prayerful. He urged both of us to allow for the “Holy Spirit” to work in due course. Like so much of his life, that action, too, would be in God’s hands.

And alas, his final hour came. I’m sure he would have been the first to say that that decision, likewise, was in God’s hands. His death was expected, with a period of hospice care at home. His friend Robert Royal, editor of The Catholic Thing, saw Michael the evening before he died and writes that he was at peace and ready to go and meet his Maker, urging everyone who came to say goodbye, “God loves you and you must love one another, that is all that matters.”

Letting go must still have not been easy, because I’m sure he had so many more powerful writings planned. That’s our loss.

But he was 83, and an accomplished man of staunch faith. He was well-prepared to finally meet his Lord and all those angels and saints and reunite with those loved ones from those snowy mornings long ago in Johnstown. For the author of The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, his spirit now goes to where the spirit finds its only source of perfection.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared at Stream.org.

Thirty-five years ago, on June 7, 1982, Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II met for the first time at the Vatican. The two were of one mind and one mission.

It had been a little over year since both had been shot and nearly bled to death. Now, they talked alone in the Vatican Library. The attempted assassinations were raised right away. Reagan told the pontiff: “Look how the evil forces were put in our way and how Providence intervened.”

Bill Clark, Reagan’s closest aide, said that both men referred to the “miraculous” fact they had survived. And now, “because of their mutual interests,” said Clark, they came together to “form some sort of collaboration.”

What kind of collaboration? One that would truly change history.

The Protestant and Catholic, said Clark, shared a “unity” in spiritual views and in their “vision on the Soviet empire.” That day in Rome, said Clark, they discussed their joint sense that they had been given “a spiritual mission—a special role in the divine plan of life,” and agreed that “atheistic communism lived a lie that, when fully understood, must ultimately fail.”

The two leaders, temporal and spiritual, also had mutual ideas on what should be done to end the Cold War. Reagan told the pope that “hope remains,” most notably in the battleground that was Poland. “We, working together,” he told the Polish pontiff, “can keep it alive.”

They sure did. Pio Laghi, the pope’s representative to the United States, would say of this Reagan-John Paul II meeting: “Nobody believed the collapse of communism would happen this fast or on this timetable. But in their first meeting, Holy Father and president committed themselves and the institutions of the Church and America to such a goal. And from that day, the focus was to bring it about.”

And aside from the singular purpose, the two men held much more in common. Both bravely fought what John Paul II dubbed the “Culture of Death,” affirming what Reagan called “the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning,” and what John Paul II called “the first of the fundamental rights, the right to life.” Reagan said that “every per­son is a sacred reality;” John Paul II said that every person is “a unique and unrepeatable gift of God.” They both insisted upon the interdependence of faith and freedom, the principle of subsidiarity, and the need to speak out unequivocally against evil.

All of which brings me to Donald Trump and Pope Francis.

Such meaningful presidential-papal commonalities—which, for Reagan and John Paul II, enabled them to change the world—is lacking in the case of Donald Trump and Pope Francis. The presidential-papal meeting at the Vatican on May 24, 2017 will be utterly unlike the presidential-papal meeting at the Vatican on June 7, 1982.

Think about it. Regardless of their respective strengths and weaknesses, it’s hard to find a lot of shared outlook between the man in the White House today and the man in the Vatican today. Do they possess a mutual understanding of what currently serves as the great global menace, or how to defeat it? What would President Trump and Pope Francis list as the dominant threats today? Radical Islam? Trump might, but not in the way—or certainly not with the preferred response—that Francis would.

Will Christians Survive in Today’s Secular World? Click here to read the article.

Do their top priorities intersect anywhere? Immigration? Certainly not. “Climate change?” No way. Economic “inequality?” Nope.

Now, that said, this meeting could surprise people, and disappoint those looking for fireworks. Sure, the optics will be intriguing. But as for pundits hoping for a fight, I think they’ll be disappointed.

After all, personality-wise, maybe the two men aren’t terribly dissimilar. Both have strong personalities; they are colorful, outspoken, and infamous for off-the-cuff comments. Neither is afraid to speak his mind, or stick his foot in his mouth. Pope Francis on an airplane with an open mic can be as freewheeling as Donald Trump with his Twitter account unmonitored by Kellyanne Conway, leaving lots of clean-up for spokespeople. The two men both operate with a folksy candor sometimes endearing and sometimes maddening. They might get along better than people assume.

I don’t expect a verbal sparring match over “building walls.” Francis is too winsome to provoke a contentious disagreement. He’s a pope of mercy who preaches forgiveness and decries malevolence. I expect him to treat Trump well. And when Trump is treated well, he usually responds in kind.

Moreover, it’s crucial to realize that there actually is some common ground. One is religious persecution. Both men are concerned with Islamist attacks on Christians, especially in the Middle East and Syria. In the United States, Francis is surely pleased with Trump’s moves thus far to protect religious freedom, particularly his pro-life steps, from banning funding of International Planned Parenthood to seeking to nominate judges who will protect the rights of the likes of the Little Sisters of the Poor.

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And surely, Francis should be heartened that Trump—for his first presidential trip abroad—chose to go to the Vatican. That’s a significant gesture.

As for Trump, the brash New York swagger might be tempered by the sheer majesty of the St. Peter’s environs. As one pundit told me, “trips to the Vatican” change people. They do. So do meetings with the pope.

But again, unlike Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, I don’t perceive a grand historical-spiritual vision among Donald Trump and Pope Francis. I have no lofty historic hopes for this relationship. However, if a lesson can be learned from Reagan-John Paul II, it’s this: When a president and a pope come together with some significant goal in mind, important things can happen. Good things can result. That’s something for this president and his staff to think about very prudently.

Any veteran of World War II can tell you stories. But for Frank E. Bryer, his story—one he could never forget—was a terrible one. It began the moment his ship, called the Rohna, was sunk. When that ship went down on November 26, 1943, Frank’s life changed forever. And very few people beyond the men tossed into the sea ever knew what happened.

The HMT Rohna was an 8,600-ton British troopship carrying mostly an American crew to the Far East theatre. It went down the day after Thanksgiving, in the Mediterranean, off the coast of North Africa, the victim of a German missile. But it was not just any German missile. This was, it seems, the first known successful “hit” of a vessel by a German rocket-boosted, radio/remote-controlled “glider” bomb—i.e., one of the first true missiles used in combat. It was, in effect, a guided missile, and the Nazis had achieved it first.

And the results were immediately destructive: According to the website that today serves as the official online gathering spot for the Rohna Survivors Association, more lives were lost on the Rohna than on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor.

Over one thousand boys lost their lives, and their government kept the entire episode a secret out of fear of information being leaked about the power of the German guided missile. The government feared the effect on the morale of the U.S. military and the wider population.

“The ‘hit’ was so devastating,” states the Rohna Survivors Association, “that the U.S. Government placed a veil of secrecy upon it. The events which followed were so shameful that the secrecy continued for decades until recently, when documents were grudgingly released under pressure of the Freedom of Information Act. The government still does not acknowledge this tragedy, thus most families of the casualties still do not know the fate of their loved ones.”

The German attack was such a terrible success, and the American tragedy so severe, that what happened with the Rohna was completely hushed up during the war and still has not made its way into history books. Only in the last decade or two is it starting to get attention. A Wikipedia page exists, which is better than what existed only a few years ago—which was nothing. History.com has a short entry on the calamity. A search at Amazon yields a few self-published memoirs or small-publisher historical works.

It is very sad that only now, long after the few survivors are even fewer, the Rohna survivors are attempting to hold reunions, over 70 years after the event.

The secrecy was so tight that Frank Bryer’s daughter, Mary Jo Palmer, spent painstaking years with her dad trying to tug out details and piece together what occurred. “Dad was haunted frequently by this,” Mary Jo told me, “but it was not so much the sinking of the ship, but his inability to save many men.”

Remembering Mom and Dad on Memorial Day

Those awful moments of fire remained seared in Frank’s brain. As the ship burst into a giant fireball, Frank manned the ropes of a lifeboat packed with injured soldiers. He was ordered to hold the ropes tight and lower the boat with the soldiers into the water below. This was no simple task, especially in a chaotic, panicked situation. A lifeboat filled with men isn’t light. That was proven quickly as the ropes broke and Frank watched the men below him in his care fall to their death in the sea. The image of those men slipping from his hands into the abyss horrified him.

But the nightmares would come later. In the meantime, Frank, too, was forced to abandon ship, which submerged within merely an hour. For his own crowded lifeboat, he and five other men seized a floating wooden bench. As the darkness slowly enveloped them, with night setting in, and with the fear of still more German missiles, Frank led the group in reciting the Lord’s Prayer.  Frank would later write of this dark evening:

Destroyers were ordered to put thick smoke screens up to help camouflage the area. Other German planes flew over with orders to shoot to kill men floating in the water. I can remember as we floated in the ocean watching other soldiers hanging onto the ship for dear life. We watched as the ship went down to the very end. The back of the ship went down first and the bow (front) was pointed straight up sky. It then just went down slowly until we could no longer see it. It is something that I will never forget.

There were other ships in the convoy that passed by, not seeing or hearing Frank and his crewmates. “It was the worst feeling you could possibly have,” said Frank. “I was sure that it was the end. I told the group of men that we better start to pray…. We were scared, shaking, and moaning.”

Those that had survived the explosion were scattered everywhere, yelling and crying for help. “My mind was on the life boat that fell into the ocean,” said Frank. “All I could do was ask God to take them fast so that they would not have to suffer.” He and his group with their floating wooden bench took turns—four of them would float on the bench and two would hang on the ropes.

They feared not only Germans but sharks, and for good reason. Anyone familiar with the horror story that was the USS Indianapolis knows how the sharks slowly but steadily devoured the boys floating in the water over a course of several long days.

This time alone in the water at night was a “hard time,” said Frank. They ached for their families. They talked about home. Frank told his crewmates about his time in his youth living and working at the Villa Maria convent in Erie, Pennsylvania, where he spent much of his time because of a difficult family life. He later laughed at how the guys “didn’t understand how I could be living with nuns.”

They say there are no atheists in foxholes. And there were none on that wooden bench in the water that night either. “Two of the men didn’t think that they would go to Heaven, but I told them they would if they asked God for His mercy and forgiveness,” said Frank. “We would wrap around each other and I would say the Our Father and Act of Contrition. We just talked to God. It was a long night.”

The crew of six tried to get some sleep while floating in the cold water, but couldn’t. They needed to stay focused on holding on to their floating device—the bench. To their great fortune, they were in the water only for about six hours. Just as the sun started to rise, they spied a rescue boat on the horizon. It was a Minesweep that picked them up.

“I thanked God for saving us,” said Frank. “I asked the men if they thought that our prayers had been answered.”

They were taken to a facility in Algeria to recover. But for Frank, there was little emotional comfort. All he could think about was the wounded soldiers that he could not save: “I thought of the pain they must have endured. A sergeant told me that there was nothing that I could have done. I couldn’t sleep and had bad dreams, sometimes jumping out of bed and yelling for help.”

But worst of all, Frank could not share what he was going through. They were ordered not to write or talk about the Rohna with their family or even among themselves. The military censorship was so strict that they were threatened with court martial if they disobeyed.

And like so many World War II soldiers, Frank’s ordeal did not earn him a ticket home after having experienced enough trauma for a lifetime. He was ordered to heal up and return to the service, which he did through the duration of the war, and then some. He was officially discharged on March 21, 1946 after an endless bout of island-hopping throughout the Pacific theater.

That, too, was no day at the beach.

“I thank God that I am still alive because I should have been dead a hundred times,” he said in his 90s.

Frank Bryer died on January 4, 2016 at age 92, seven decades after the sinking of the Rohna. He now at long last rests in peace. And perhaps only now has he been reconciled with those wounded boys who lives plunged to their death below him on November 26, 1943.

May was a poignant month for those of us who were avid Detroit sports fans in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. Three of our heroes passed on within two weeks of each other: five-time All-NFL and Hall of Famer Yale Lary; his teammate, three-time All-NFL player Wayne Walker; and Detroit Tigers Hall-of-Famer Jim Bunning.

For those of you not familiar with their accomplishments, let me share a few with you, and weave into the narrative a few vignettes that show how different the world of professional sports was then.

Yale Lary played safety for the Lions for 11 years during the Alex Karras era when the Lions had the most dominant defense in the NFL. During his first two seasons, he played minor league baseball in the summer. Then his sports career was interrupted when he served two years as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army. During the latter part of his NFL career, when it was still common for players to hold off-season jobs in order to earn more income, he held office in the Texas state legislature. (After retiring, he went into private business instead of politics.)

On the field, Lary had 50 interceptions in his career (a figure that surely would have been higher if not for his military service)—enough to rank fifth all time at the time of his retirement. He also handled the punting and kick return duties. Younger football fans may not know that there weren’t always kicking specialists in the NFL. Lary, however, was good enough to be a punter in the NFL even today. Three times he led the NFL in punting and when he retired, his career average of 44.3 yards was second all-time. His hang time was so great that in one season the average return of his punts was a single yard. Lary played in nine Pro Bowls.

Wayne Walker led the Lions in scoring in three seasons and once was named the Lions’ defensive player of the year (no small feat when he shared the field with multiple Hall-of-Fame defenders). Walker played linebacker. So how did he lead the team in scoring? He also was the placekicker. Like Lary, Walker wore more than one hat for the Lions. Three times voted first-team All-NFL (what they call “All Pro” today), Walker’s teammates were shocked that he never was elected to the Hall of Fame.

U.S. Senator Jim Bunning, who attended Xavier University on a basketball scholarship and later became the only baseball Hall-of-Famer to serve in Congress, was a tall, slender, red-headed right-handed pitcher. His accomplishments on the diamond were sterling: Over 100 victories and a no-hitter (one of them being one of 23 perfect games in MLB history) in each league; the American League’s starting pitcher in three All-Star games; retiring second only to the immortal Walter Johnson in career strikeouts.

Bunning was one of three starting pitchers who, in the absence of a reliable fourth starter and a decent bullpen, but with the help of sluggers Al Kaline, Rocky Colavito and Norm Cash, kept the Tigers respectable at a time when the Yankees dominated the American League. The other two were Frank Lary (no relation to Yale Lary) and the cagey southpaw, Don Mossi.

Frank “Taters” Lary was the ace, known as “the Yankee killer,” since he was the only one to consistently tame the powerful Yankee bats of Mantle, Berra, and crew. Frank Lary was used frequently as a pinch runner. Can you imagine the Dodgers sending Clayton Kershaw out to run for somebody today? Not a chance. In the ‘60s, even star players were expected to help their team any way they could; today, in the era of mega-contracts and specialization, such double-duty is inconceivable.

As for Don Mossi, I actually met him when I was a boy. My Pop knew George Kell, the Hall of Fame third-baseman who handled TV broadcasts for decades after his playing career, and George took us to the door of the Tigers’ clubhouse and went in to see who he could bring outside to greet us. The next thing I knew, there was Don Mossi, his jersey completely unbuttoned and exposing his undershirt, smoking a cigarette. How’s that for a sign of the times? Mossi was a friendly, gracious man, most famous for his unusual facial hair. I think he held the world’s record for heaviest beard. I’m sure that if he shaved at 7:00 a.m. he would have a 5 o’clock shadow by 8:00. I think he could have grown a short beard over a weekend. Amazing!

Major league sports has a great capacity to touch our lives and give us memories that last a lifetime. Yale Lary, Wayne Walker, and Jim Bunning were all in their 80s at the time of their passing last month. All three were solid citizens who led productive lives after the conclusion of their sports careers. Even though it has been decades since they starred for my hometown teams, I have vivid and happy memories of all three of them.  Thank you, gentlemen. RIP.

Mary Sennholz—a Grove City College legend and the widow of another GCC legend—passed away peacefully in her sleep early Sunday morning. She was 103, she was ready, and she did it her way: She never moved into a nursing home, but lived out her days in the longtime Sennholz home on Pine Street, a block away from the college softball field.

Her passing evokes a flood of powerful memories. She was a special lady, important both to Grove City College and to me personally. I’ll tell you about her significance to GCC first, and then you can decide whether to read the personal anecdotes.

As time relentlessly moves on, the collective memories of giants in the institutional history of Grove City College inexorably fade into the ever-receding mists of the past. The end of Mary Sennholz’s earthly sojourn sunders our strongest link to the Hans Sennholz era. Hans—perhaps GCC’s most famous professor of the 20^th century—was chairman of the department of economics from 1955 to 1991, teaching thousands of GCC students about the wonders of free markets while educating thousands of others by lecturing internationally and writing prolifically. It was ten years ago this very month that Hans left this world, and now his beloved partner in life and in work has joined him.

In addition to the obvious connection to Hans, Mary also served as one of the college’s principal surviving ties to J. Howard Pew, whose four decades as chairman of the board of GCC greatly shaped the college that the current generation has inherited. The ties between Mary and Pew were more than incidental, more than simply being a matter of having known each other for 16 years. It was J. Howard Pew who handpicked Hans Sennholz to come to Grove City with his bride and young son to singlehandedly reverse the slide toward pernicious collectivist errors that distorted and obscured economic truth.

It was Mr. Pew who had the vision to discern that in Hans Sennholz he had found a rare man with the courage, commitment, and scholarly excellence to spark a revival. How ironic that it took a foreigner to remind Americans of the central role that economic liberty played in our country’s emergence as the freest and most prosperous place in the history of mankind. (Don’t ever underestimate the courage that Hans needed. When he started teaching freedom instead of statism, leftist members of the GCC faculty riled up students to the point that they would “buzz” the Sennholz house, speeding their cars down the alley next to it and forcing Hans and Mary to keep their little boy inside for his safety.)

There is more to the relationship of Mary Sennholz and J. Howard Pew: Not only did Mr. Pew change Mary’s life and the college’s profile by bringing the Sennholzes to Grove City, but Mary ultimately became Pew’s biographer. She memorialized him in a book, Faith and Freedom: A Biographical Sketch of a Great American: J. Howard Pew, published in 1975, four years after the great man’s death. This was, by the way, one of four books that Mary authored.

Another way in which Mary Sennholz became a fixture in the GCC community was the tradition of Christmas parties at the Sennholz house. Generations of GCC students and faculty partook of holiday cheer there—a tradition that continued after Hans’ passing and through Mary turning 100. At those parties, Mary reigned supreme, leading the guests in the singing of Christmas carols by playing the piano while Hans took care of the details such as welcoming guests and keeping the punch bowl filled. Mary was a virtuoso at the piano, playing an enormous catalog of melodies without the use of printed scores, just as Hans always lectured without written notes.

For my personal memories of Mary, I hardly know where to begin. I knew her since 1980 when I came to Grove City specifically to study economics with Hans. After meeting my wife and settling here, the friendship between our families was ongoing. My wife, daughter, and I hosted and were guests of the Sennholzes many times over the years, including staying in the hotel they owned in Spring Mills, Pennsylvania near the farm where Mary grew up. She and my daughter (a GCC graduate who co-majored in piano) would take turns playing when Mary was at our house. When my own mother passed in 1994, I gave Mary a little bell that I had given Mom when I was seven, because at that time Mary had a bell collection.

Ten Junes ago, I was visiting relatives in Montana when my wife called to tell me that Mary wanted to talk with me. I immediately phoned her. Hans had passed, and she asked if I would return home early “so we can all be together.” I gladly did so, returning in time for the funeral.

In her last 10 years, I visited Mary every few months. We talked about God, life, death, how she missed Hans, our kids (and her grandkids), etc. She wasn’t sure for what purpose she was lingering on earth. When she turned 100, I urged her to write her fifth book and call it “My First Hundred Years.” She liked the title, but just wasn’t interested, even though the content would have been fascinating. She worked for Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. After that, she worked at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). She and Hans met the Reagans, at which time the future president told Hans that he had been plagiarizing Hans’ material for years whereupon Hans (never a shrinking violet) replied, “You’re plagiarizing good stuff!” She worked for decades as a proofreader for Hans’ writings, and after he retired from Grove City College in 1991, the Sennholzes—both in their 70s by then—worked day and night for five years to reorganize and revitalize FEE. How amazing it was to see this refined lady washing floors and painting walls at age 78. Mary even had the greatest economist of the 20^th century, Ludwig von Mises, as her son’s godfather.

I suppose this was quite natural, since Mrs. Mises had arranged the original meeting between Hans and Mary.

In spite of not wanting to be an author again, Mary by no means became a recluse. She always attended faculty dinners at the college, right up through last December, even playing the piano for several hundred diners a couple of years ago. My wife loved it when I escorted my centenarian lady friend to college events, such as the Hans Sennholz Memorial Lecture in Austrian Economics or the annual scholarship dinner where the recipient of the Hans Sennholz Memorial Scholarship was honored.

Mary experienced multiple physical challenges, but she never lost her mental clarity. She told me on several occasions that people would find out her age and say, “Oh, you’re 103—how wonderful!” to which she would wryly reply, “You think so? Try it sometime—you might change your mind.”

In February, Mary suffered a stroke that made it difficult for her to talk. I visited her nine days before she passed. It was clear that I was saying “goodbye.” She was receiving hospice care. I got close to Mary’s ear and recited a couple of lines from that old Welsh hymn: “Through the love of God our Saviour, all will be well.” Music was always Mary’s favorite language, and she indeed had a strong faith that God would set things right sooner or later. Her beloved daughter-in-law and I talked while I held Mary’s hand for about a half hour. She couldn’t talk with her mouth, but the firm and purposeful grip of her hand let me know that she appreciated a last visit from a long-time friend.

Now Mary has moved on from this world. She would most like to be remembered as a woman who loved her Lord, a devoted wife, a loving mother and grandmother, and a patriotic American. She also will be remembered as one of the all-time grand ladies of Grove City College.

Thank you for being such a dear friend, Mary.

On Monday, August 28, 2017, the Center for Vision & Values lost a friend—a man who is accurately being remembered for his integrity, friendship, and bridge-building between Christians and the media. Michael Cromartie, vice president at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C, died at the age of 67. To help honor Michael’s life and work, we invite you to watch a video of his presentation during our 2008 annual conference “Church & State.” Michael discusses “Red God, Blue God: Is there a God Gap Between the Parties?”

Editor’s note: A version of this article first appeared at The American Spectator.

It was 40 years ago, August 31, 1977, that George Schuyler died. He has been largely forgotten, and that’s a shame. At one point, Schuyler was one of the most recognized and read columnists in America, particularly from his platform at one of America’s great African-American newspapers—the Pittsburgh Courier. He was also one of the nation’s top conservative voices.

My colleague Mary Grabar, who is writing a book on Schuyler and has done some of the best research and public speaking on the man, tells me about contacting two leading modern African-American conservatives about Schuyler. I’ll leave them unnamed, but it pained me to hear that one of them hadn’t even heard of Schuyler. It pains me more to know how many conservatives generally (black or white) have never heard of the man.

Raised in Syracuse, New York, George S. Schuyler would spend a crucial formative period in his 20s in the ideological asylum of New York City, where he devoted some time and energies to the left’s gods that failed: socialism and communism.

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Schuyler was never a communist, which he excoriated with his brilliant, colorful flare. He was especially aghast at vigorous communist recruitment of African-Americans.

“The Negro had difficulties enough being black without becoming Red,” wrote Schuyler in his autobiography, Black and Conservative. He warned fellow African-Americans that “an attempt was being made by Communists to make a dupe out of the Negro which could only end in race war and his extermination.”

That was precisely what happened to Lovett Fort-Whiteman, the leading black American communist in the 1920s, who a decade later—after following his heart to Stalin’s USSR—perished in the Gulag. In the end, Lovett Fort-Whiteman was a black man treated the same way as a white man under Soviet communism: he was killed.

“With Communism bringing only misery to white people,” asked Schuyler, “what could it offer non-whites?” He saw right through communists and how they were seeking “viable tactics for corralling Negroes.”

Schuyler as early as June 1923, even before writing columns exposing communism, was publicly debating the likes of Soviet Comintern lackey Otto Huiswood, who Schuyler dubbed “a Red Uncle Tom always ready to do the Kremlin master’s bidding.” He blasted other black communists, from W.E.B. DuBois to Paul Robeson to Langston Hughes, and even called out (eventual) Obama mentor Frank Marshall Davis. He lit up white socialists like Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, the English Fabians, and John Dewey, founding father of American public education.

“I never had any of the prevalent enthusiasm for the murderous Soviet regime,” explained Schuyler, referring specifically to American leftists/progressives of the day who thrilled over the “Soviet experiment.” He saw the Bolshevik regime “as a combined Asiatic Tammany and Mafia, much less democratic than Czarism had been. Many I encountered saw the Communists as the heralds of freedom, but to me they were a murderous gang, and I hoped they would be suppressed.”

This is good to remember today, as our universities and public schools teach our youth the extraordinary claim that—yeah, sure—the communists may have killed 100 million people or so, but they were good fighters for civil rights. That’s utter rubbish—a red herring. One wishes that George Schuyler were still around to eviscerate such nonsense.

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Schuyler had no use for Bolshevism, but he did early in his formative years (1921) briefly join the Socialist Party. He learned the error of that way. He would soon come to reject “Socialist bilge” as much he spurned “Bolshevist twaddle.” And he didn’t hold back in blasting pro-Soviet leftists.

In response, Soviet sympathizers and “parlor pinks” (as Schuyler called them) teamed up in writing a letter to the Pittsburgh Courier demanding that Schuyler be immediately fired. Schuyler publicly responded to them (“appropriately,” he noted) on April Fools’ Day 1938. There, he marveled at “the stampede to Communism by so-called intellectuals,” which he said was “no more intelligent than a stampede of cattle.” These intellectuals had been “hypnotized by the sonorous and hollow hokum of revolutionary psychopaths” in Moscow who promised to “usher in a world of love by increasing the volume of hatred.” These “goose-stepping ‘intellectuals’ began to yammer the praises of Stalin,” and saw “everything in America as bad and everything in Russia as good.” Said Schuyler, “they are the most disillusioned people in the country.”

Schuyler was particularly scathing in denouncing the Comintern-Communist Party USA efforts to create a separate, segregated African-American state in the South. Yes, that’s right. In 1930, at a Comintern conference in Moscow, a resolution was passed calling for a Soviet-directed and controlled “Negro Republic” among America’s Southern states. The Soviet Comintern, working through American communists, actually crafted plans for a “separate Negro state.” The strategy was to foment an African-American rebellion within the South, which would join forces with a workers’ uprising in the North. As Mary Grabar notes, Schuyler wrote brilliantly against what he dubbed “The Separate State Hokum.”

Schuyler instead preferred African-American voices like the great Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington rather than gushing admirers of Stalin like Paul Robeson and Langston Hughes, the latter of whom had urged his fellow Americans to “put one more ‘S’ in the USA to make it Soviet. The USA when we take control will be the USSA.”

While blasting collectivism, Schuyler extolled the virtues of conservatism, which he spoke of in very American terms, and which he applied to race. He wrote in Black and Conservative:

The American Negro is a prime example of the survival of the fittest…. He has been the outstanding example of American conservatism: adjustable, resourceful, adaptable, patient, restrained…. This has been the despair of the reformers who have tried to lead him up on the mountain and who have promised him eternal salvation. Through the succeeding uproars and upheavals that have attended our national development, the Negro has adjusted himself to every change with the basic aim of survival and advancement…. The ability to conserve, consolidate, and change when expedient is the hallmark of individual and group intelligence.

He said that black Americans “have less reason than any others to harbor any feelings of inferiority.”

Schuyler wrote those words in 1966. Think of all the black Americans who since that time have persevered and truly achieved the American dream. If ever there was a group that survived and thrived with government directly stacked against them—from legalized slavery to Dred Scott—it has been African-Americans. They embody the conservative philosophy of looking to oneself and one’s God rather than to one’s government.

Schuyler affirmed: “I learned very early in life that I was colored but from the beginning this fact of life did not distress, restrain, or overburden me. One takes things as they are, lives with them, and tries to turn them to one’s advantage or seeks another locale where the opportunities are more favorable. This was the conservative viewpoint of my parents and my family. It has been mine through life.”

Schuyler was, in that sense, American above all else.

“The more I read about him, the more I see that Americanism was the consistent element in Schuyler’s thought,” says Mary Grabar. “He did flirt with socialism and even some communist ideas, but he never once entertained the thought that he was less than 100 percent American.”

And throughout that American life, George Schuyler’s columns were read by millions of Americans. He was a leading voice of conservatism, and arguably the top (at least in his time) black conservative. We should pause to remember the man, his mighty pen, and his contributions.

I recently had the privilege of sharing two meals with Marlon “Big Dog” Brown and hearing him tell his life story and describe his work in Memphis, Tennessee. At 6 feet 4 inches and 275 pounds, the former star basketball player is aptly named. Brown works as the construction director for SOS—Service Over Self—a Memphis ministry that seeks to proclaim “the gospel of Jesus Christ in underserved neighborhoods through home repair and leadership development.” Brown also personally ministers to the homeless, drug addicts, gang members, prostitutes, and the mentally ill in Memphis. His life experiences give him an entrée with these individuals and the ability to understand their problems and develop caring relationships with them.

Marlon “Big Dog” Brown

Brown grew up in Millington, Tennessee, in a destitute, dysfunctional family. His mother died from cancer when he was nine, and he was “reared” by his physically and verbally abusive step-father. His step-father told Marlon that he despised the sight of him, that he had no value, and should never have been born. Brown was made fun of at school because of his ragged clothes. To try to gain his classmates’ acceptance, Brown strove to excel in both athletics and academics. Despite his success in both areas, his feelings of abandonment, self-loathing, and worthlessness contributed to his using drugs, drinking, and sexual promiscuity in his early teenage years.

The fall of his senior year Brown was elected the king of Millington Central High School. Racism was so rabid at his high school, however, that his selection produced a riot and prompted six white supremacists to attack him on the way home from school in mid-October. They beat him severely, breaking numerous bones and leaving him for dead. Because of his serious injuries he missed his entire senior year of basketball. The 22 basketball scholarships Brown had previously been offered dwindled to one from Christian Brothers College in Memphis. At Christian Brothers, Brown shone in basketball, but he started using and selling drugs and left the area to avoid drug dealers who threatened his life because of the money he owed them.

Brown transferred to Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, where he used and sold drugs and soon dropped out. Continuing this activity, one day Brown sold dope to an undercover agent. Criminal justice officials gave him a choice: go to jail or join the military. Brown understandably chose the military. While spending three years in the Army, he played basketball, smoked dope, and participated in a fight that led to a dishonorable discharge. Following his stint in the Army, he enjoyed great success on the basketball court at all-black Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee. Again, however, Brown started selling drugs. When the police busted him, Brown had drugs, guns, and counterfeit money in his dorm room. This time he did go to jail. After his release, his life spiraled dramatically downward. Brown became a crack addict, committed crimes to fund his drug usage, and over the next decade was incarcerated six more times.

After being released from jail for the final time in 2002, Brown entered a rehab program at Memphis Union Mission primarily to avoid living on the streets during the winter. He began to read the Bible to prove that Christianity was false, but he also read Lee Stroebel’s The Case for Christ and took four Bible courses at a nearby seminary. His health improved significantly, a woman gave him a car, and SOS offered him a job. What he read and experienced convinced him that God was real and cared about him. At age 41, he committed his life to Christ.

Brown quickly concluded that God expected him to share the gospel with others. He realized that his previous experiences with homelessness, addiction, and prison had equipped him to minister to troubled men and women on the streets of Memphis. Brown started this ministry because he was convinced that Christians should sacrifice their lives to help others.

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For the last 13 years, Brown has worked full time for SOS to arrange and direct crews of college and high school students to renovate and repair the houses of low-income Memphis residents during the students’ summer and spring breaks. In addition, he has spent countless hours befriending and aiding the city’s homeless, prostitutes, drug addicts, and mentally ill. By developing relationships with hundreds of burdened individuals, speaking in dozens of churches, and partnering with numerous agencies that provide food, shelter, medical care, counseling, spiritual guidance, and other services for the downtrodden, Brown has had a substantial impact on the lives of many men and women in his city. He insists that people can find the purpose, fulfillment, and joy they are wrongly seeking through drugs, sex, and crime by, instead, having a personal relationship with Jesus. God has transformed Brown to serve as an agent of His kingdom in Memphis and beyond.

A caring mentor, coach, teacher, or pastor could have made an enormous difference in Brown’s life as he was growing up. Such a person might have been able to compensate for Brown’s loss of his mother and ill-treatment by his cruel, alcoholic step-father. A compassionate adult might have helped Brown develop better self-esteem, avoid drugs, and come to know Christ at an earlier age. Sadly, hundreds of thousands of children are growing up today in situations similar to the one in which Brown was raised. By serving as mentors, tutors, and foster parents and volunteering at organizations that aid troubled youth, we can make a significant difference in the lives of many of them.

In the 11^th Annual Ronald Reagan Lecture, “The Reagan You Didn’t See,” best-selling Reagan biographer and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College, Dr. Paul Kengor, interviews special guest Peggy Grande. Grande is an author and was President Reagan’s post-presidency executive assistant who worked at Reagan’s side from 1989 to 1999 and together created a powerful partnership. Grande was the liaison between Ronald Reagan personally and his staff, the public, local dignitaries, and world leaders. She handled his events, travel, personal and political relationships and day-to-day operations. If anyone knew the president after he left office—it was Peggy.

The lecture was held on October 25, 2017, at Grove City College before more than 700 guests.

Editor’s note: A shorter version of this article first appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

This past week marked the anniversary of the death of Fidel Castro, our hemisphere’s worst dictator for a half century. When we remember Castro’s death, we should remember him for just that: death.

Expressing the depths of Fidel’s destruction is impossible in a short article. But among the corpses under his despotism were the thousands who perished while trying to escape his island-prison by swimming nearly 100 miles to American shores.

A testimony to that desperation was recently provided to my students at Grove City College by a Cuban citizen, who I must leave nameless. In describing her citizens’ surreal lives under totalitarian communism, she noted that only recently have Cubans been allowed to visit their beautiful beaches, and even then only under strict surveillance. That’s a stunning thought for a country literally surrounded by beaches. And yet, Cubans are banned from their beaches because their government fears they’ll dash into the deep water and start paddling profusely for freedom—swimming all the way for Florida.

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Imagine that. Try to conceive the utter despair. Try to wrap your mind around the cruelty of a government not even letting its suffering citizens escape—a regime so repressive that it will not dare avert its gaze for a moment lest its people attempt the physically unimaginable in the agonizing hopes of dashing from this Marxist police state.

We already know that Cuba is a bizarre island without boats. Look at satellite images of Cuba. No boats! There’s also no fishing industry, and people don’t have the luxury of eating fish. (They largely eat chicken, pork, rice, beans.) Why no boats? Why no fishermen? Because fishermen bolt the first chance they get—just like swimmers.

For the record, how many people have attempted the swim since Castro took over in 1959? It’s difficult to say. In 1999, the Harvard University Press classic, The Black Book of Communism, estimated that some 100,000 Cubans had risked the treacherous journey. Of those, perhaps as many as 30,000 to 40,000 died from drowning. As those in the sea bob for breath, the government on occasion has employed the resources of the state to sink them, dropping large bags of sand at them from helicopters hovering above.

Yes, actually dropping sandbags.

As we consider the tens of thousands who’ve drowned, compare it to another glaring number: zero. That’s the total number of Americans who have attempted the swim to Cuba, including all those merry liberals raving about the wondrous “free” education and healthcare awaiting humanity in the Castro collectivist utopia.

Bill Bennett, Ronald Reagan’s secretary of education, speaks of “the gates test.” To wit: when a nation opens its gates, in which direction does humanity flow? Well, when the United States leaves its borders unchecked, the refugees stream in. In the communist world, the apparatchiks had to build a wall in Berlin to keep the captives contained. In Cuba, they can’t even visit their beaches. I imagine the communists in Cuba would earnestly have followed the example of their old comrades in East Germany and built a wall around the beaches—if they could afford it.

Aside from those who drowned, how many others died under Fidel Castro?

Those numbers likewise run into the thousands. There were the more traditional Marxist methods: bullet to the head, deprivation, succumbing to inhumane prison conditions. The numbers vary, but the range of dead from those means is typically between 10,000 and 20,000, whether victims of long-term imprisonment or outright execution by bullets.

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Fidel’s onetime executioner-in-chief, Che Guevara, today an icon to profoundly ignorant college students who sport the cruel psychopath on their t-shirts, is estimated to have overseen as many as 2,000 executions (some of which he personally performed) during the brief period he ran Fidel’s execution pit at the La Cabana concentration camp. Beyond Che’s “bloodthirsty” (he charmingly used that word to describe himself in a letter to his wife) achievement, many more Cubans were liquidated by other state assassins. In all, most credible estimates place the total dead somewhere between 15,000 to 18,000. That’s a lot of people for a tiny island. And again, it doesn’t include those who drowned while attempting an incredible swim.

The late professor R. J. Rummel, an expert on the sordid subject of death by government, estimates that from 1959-87 alone, the grand total of cadavers produced by Fidel ranged from 35,000 to as high as 141,000. How’s that for a resume? Actually, for a communist leader, it’s pretty typical.

As we pause to remember Fidel Castro at the one-year anniversary of his demise, let us remember him for what he achieved the most: tyranny, repression, and death.

2017 has been a fantastic year for The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. We celebrated an all-time high in website traffic, an exponential growth in social media, and a record number of email subscribers. These accomplishments would not have been possible without the thoughtful, charitable, and powerful scholarship from our many fellows and contributors. Each and every article we published and distributed in 2017 was also reprinted by other media outlets across the country and/or world. Many of the articles are reprinted in dozens of media outlets yielding impressive circulation numbers.

To celebrate, we are honored to present the Top 10 posts of 2017. The selection was based on numerous factors including: social shares, likes, media reprints, emails, and comments. We invite you to enjoy some of the Center’s extraordinary scholarship. Thank you for making 2017 a banner year and we look forward to making 2018 even better!

1.) “Where’s Our Outrage?”

by Dr. Gary S. Smith

2.) “Remembering Two Christian College Presidents—Charles MacKenzie and Michael Scanlan”

by Dr. Paul Kengor

3.) “Remembering Mary Sennholz”

by Dr. Mark Hendrickson

4.) “Musical Theory and Musical Judgment—Both Optional at Harvard”

by Dr. Joshua Drake

5.) “Life is Worth Fighting For”

by Dr. Joseph Horton 

6.) “Colorado’s “Half-baked” Decision: The Masterpiece Cakeshop Case”

by Dr. John Sparks

7.) “No Neutral Ground: The Problem of Net Neutrality”

by Dr. Brian Dellinger

8.) “Barack Obama’s Fundamental Transformation”

by Dr. Paul Kengor

9.) “Fake News, Executive Orders, and Immigration”

by Dr. Caleb Verbois

10.) “Grove City College 2017 Commencement — Featuring Distinguished Guest, Vice President Mike Pence”

by Vice President Mike Pence

Thank you for making 2017 a great year at The Center. To help us make 2018 even better we ask that you consider making a contribution to The Center to support our future work and programs. Please click here to make a secure online gift today.

Last Saturday I dropped off my two oldest sons and their friend at the theatre. I planned to kill a couple of hours at the bookstore, on my laptop, at a coffee shop, whatever. When I got out of the car the balmy two-degree temperature in Pittsburgh prompted second thoughts. Instead, I strolled into the theater complex, looked around, and saw a poster for “Darkest Hour.” I vaguely knew it was a movie about Winston Churchill. I bought a ticket and went in.

I was hooked from the opening scene: a grim, dank, colorless House of Commons, nothing like the fun and festive place you see when you click on C-SPAN on Sunday night to watch “Question Time” with the prime minister. This was interrogation time with the prime minister, with Neville Chamberlain in the dock on May 9, 1940, while Labour Party opposition leader, Clement Attlee, barked at him for his failed accommodation of Adolph Hitler.

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Attlee, of course, would one day go on to nationalize everything his Fabian socialists could get their covetous government hands on, and Churchill in this film nicely refers to him as “that wolf in sheep’s clothing, Attlee.” At this moment, however, Attlee was spot-on. Chamberlain had fully earned the evisceration.

It’s after this opening that we see Winston Churchill for the first time—instantly riveting because of the incredible performance by the leading man. I had walked into this movie cold (literally), with no clue of the actors, the writer, the directors, the producers. Not until the credits did I find out who played Churchill. It was Gary Oldman. I would have never guessed it. Oldman was flatly amazing.

There are plenty such kudos to go around for this film. Among the characters and those who played them: Churchill’s wife (Kristin Scott Thomas), Anthony Eden (Samuel West), Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup), Viscount Halifax (Stephen Dillane), King George VI (Ben Mendelsohn), and the young woman (Lily James) who had the lead female role as Churchill’s secretary/typist. The writer was Anthony McCarten, whose script was superb.

McCarten and director Joe Wright delivered so many fine scenes, from the tragedy at Calais to the capitulation of France. As to the latter, in one painful exchange Churchill asks French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud incredulously, “Tell me how you plan to counterattack.” To Churchill’s horror, the leader of France responds: “There is no plan.” Reynaud and one of his lackeys sniff at the Brits for being so “delusional.” Churchill is less delusional than aghast. “France must be saved!” he insists. That, unfortunately, was not the French plan.

“Darkest Hour” depicts all of this so beautifully and so, well, visually, which history books and news reels cannot or could not do.

But above all, the takeaway from this film—and from the Churchill experience—is an enduring historical-moral lesson: you cannot negotiate a just peace with a brutal aggressor. Savages are not appeased. This is poignantly captured when Churchill snaps at Viscount Halifax and Neville Chamberlain: “You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in his mouth!”

What makes that moment and this overall film so valuable is the paramount fact that Churchill is shouting at Halifax and at Chamberlain, both Conservatives, both looking to negotiate “peace in our time” with Hitler, and neither of which had quietly disappeared when Churchill took the helm on May 10, 1940. We tend to have a nice, tidy, black-and-white view of what happened in Britain when Chamberlain stepped aside. We assume that Chamberlain vanished and then Churchill vanquished; there was hence an immediate change in tone, policy, direction, vision.

This film, however, shows what really occurred, namely: Chamberlain and Halifax became part of Churchill’s official War Cabinet and remained tacit leaders of the Conservative Party, while the disrespected Churchill was merely a compromise prime minister leading a precarious coalition government in which the Labour Party accepted him more than his own Conservative Party had. Thus, Churchill still had to deal with intense pressure to settle with Hitler, as Chamberlain and Halifax pushed him relentlessly to “negotiate terms” with the Nazis—with Benito Mussolini their recommended splendid mediator. It was a lousy situation for Churchill, who faced a possible vote of no confidence if he couldn’t keep Chamberlain and Halifax on the reservation.

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That ugly internal battle, which is the core of the movie, went on for an extraordinarily decisive month of May 1940, when Churchill soul-searched, struggled, lost sleep, drank, nearly wobbled, and Britain could have caved. Ultimately, Britain stood strong because Churchill—in his courage—refused to stick his head near the mouth of the tiger. Churchill said “Never!” to the Fuhrer. That course both inspired his people and had been inspired by his people.

And the rest is history.

Churchill’s “Darkest Hour” was, in truth, a series of dark hours that lasted two or three weeks in May 1940, when Western civilization hung in the balance. He was severely tested. He responded with bouts of confidence and doubt, turmoil and inspiration, cigars and (lots of) alcohol—as Oldman shows so vividly. Ultimately, mercifully, he persevered. This powerful film portrays what he was up against and how he prevailed—a rousing lesson from the time and for the ages.

Overstating the significance of Billy Graham is difficult. Arguably the most important religious leader of the 20^th century, Graham presented the gospel to an estimated 215 million people through his many evangelistic campaigns around the world and to hundreds of millions more through radio, television, satellite broadcasts, print, and the internet. The pastor to presidents, Graham served as a spiritual advisor to chief executives from Dwight Eisenhower to George W. Bush. As depicted in an episode of the Netflix miniseries, “The Crown,” Graham also provided spiritual counsel to Queen Elizabeth II of England.

Graham helped launch three major enterprises—the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, “Christianity Today” magazine, and Youth for Christ, a ministry to high school students. He helped shape numerous evangelical colleges, seminaries, and parachurch organizations including World Vision, World Relief, and the National Association of Evangelicals. Graham also worked to bring the global Christian community together and to promote evangelistic efforts through international conferences held in Berlin, Lausanne, and Amsterdam.

Graham was as close being to a national pastor as the United States has ever had. He spoke at Richard Nixon’s funeral in 1994, prayed at the inaugurations of five presidents, at a memorial service following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and at a service in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. for victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and preached to survivors of Hurricane Katrina in 2006.

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Throughout American history revivalists have helped win countless individuals to Christ. Graham followed a pattern established during the antebellum Second Great Awakening by Charles Finney—and continued by Dwight Moody in the Gilded Age and Billy Sunday in the early 20^th century—of holding evangelistic meetings for a week or more in major cities. Modern technology enabled Graham to proclaim the Christian message of salvation to many more people than any other preacher in history. Unlike his predecessors, Graham also held campaigns in metropolitan areas around the world, including many behind the Iron Curtain before the fall of communism. Moreover, Graham spread God’s word through his “Hour of Decision” global radio program and numerous prime-time television specials.

Among the three million converts Graham’s preaching produced are John Guest, a founder of the Coalition for Christian Outreach and the rector of two major Pittsburgh congregations, and Louis Zamperini, the protagonist of the book and movie “Unbroken.”

Many lesser known individuals also came to Christ through Graham’s campaigns. Consider one example. In 2008 my wife and I spent three weeks in Romania volunteering with a ministry called “Least of These,” which had worked for 15 years to help orphans and Gypsies. We stayed with a Romanian couple; the wife, Ramona, directed the ministry, and her husband Ghita, pastored a church. Surprisingly, Nicolae Ceaușescu, one of communism’s most brutal dictators, permitted Graham to hold a week-long crusade in Romania in June 1985. Growing up in Romania, Ghita knew nothing about Christianity, but he was intrigued by a billboard he read advertising the campaign and decided to attend. As he heard Graham preach, God tugged at his heart, and Ghita responded to the altar call and accepted Christ as his savior. His commitment to Christ led him to study at a Bible school and go into the ministry to advance the gospel in Romania.

While financial and sexual scandals rocked the world of televangelists and sexual abuse cases abounded among Catholic priests, Graham stood as a model of integrity. Graham honored his promise never to be alone with a woman other than his wife, and the finances of the Billy Graham Evangelical Association were open for inspection. During his six decades of ministry, he faced no serious accusations of misconduct of any kind.

Graham wrote 34 books including “Peace with God” (1953), “World Aflame” (1965), “How to Be Born Again” (1977), an autobiography “Just as I Am” (1997), and “Nearing Home: Life, Faith, and Finishing Well” (2011). Numerous biographies, most notably Grant Wacker’s “America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation” (2014) and studies of his relationships with presidents analyze Graham’s life and contributions.

In his more than 400 crusades held on six continents from 1947 to 2005, Graham preached the same basic message. He insisted that to have their sins forgiven, enjoy an intimate relationship with God, and go to heaven, individuals must accept Jesus Christ as savior and Lord and be born again. Graham repeatedly asserted that the Bible provided answers to every human problem and satisfied every human longing.

Graham strove to live fully “sold out” to God. While he had flaws, Graham’s life and legacy are impressive. Critics complained that his message was overly simplistic, protested that he did not speak out forcefully enough on issues such as racism and poverty, and denounced his support of the Vietnam War and opposition to feminism. Nevertheless, Graham was regularly ranked near the top of the most admired people in the world and received many honors at home and abroad including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and honorary knighthood from Elizabeth II.

Graham’s influence will continue through the millions of lives he helped transform, the thousands of Christian leaders and evangelists he inspired, and the work of the BGEA. The association still sponsors evangelistic campaigns, trains many evangelists, publishes “Decision” magazine, and sends chaplains to areas recovering from natural disasters.

The evangelist declared, “One day you’ll hear that Billy Graham has died. Don’t you believe it. On that day I’ll be more alive than ever before! I’ve just changed addresses.” As the author of a book about angels and three about heaven, Graham is well prepared to enjoy his new address.

Hallelujah, Thine the glory. Hallelujah, amen. —William P. Mackay, 1863

I am right behind Billy Graham on life’s final lap. My first encounter with the evangelist was in 1953 when the Billy Graham Crusade visited the fairgrounds in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The whole team was there: Cliff Barrows led the singing, George Beverly Shea, accompanied by Grady Smith on the piano, sang about the love of and grandeur of God. In my seventh year, singing “Just as I am,” I answered the altar call.

Television was new and we didn’t yet have one. Movies were great. Errol Flynn, who starred 18 years earlier in “Captain Blood,” reached late career glory in the 1953 technicolor pirate hit “Against all Flags.” I knew, someday, I’d be a pirate. Cinemascope was on the way when, around a year before Billy Graham visited Chattanooga, dad got the born-again-in-the-precious-blood-of-lamb “old-time religion.” It hit like a case of flu that dad needed to share. Bad news for this budding buccaneer because many in the deep south considered movies and TV to be Satan’s toys. Church three times on Sunday, on Wednesday night, and Bible study at dad’s new best friend’s house on Thursday. This blossomed in 1955 when dad deposited mom and me in Florida with my grandparents while he went off to seminary in Dallas, Texas.

My grandma and grandpa were Methodists who not only had a television but owned the first color TV in St. Petersburg, Florida. They also smoked cigarettes and drank Manhattans. I got to watch “Superman,” “Sheena Queen of the Jungle,” and fall in love with Mickey Mouse Club’s Annette Funicello. I shocked the fourth grade class at Florida Christian Day School when my “show and tell” involved a critique of Audie Murphy in his movie, “To Hell and Back.” Saying “hell” got me 10 minutes of standing with my back to the blackboard, in front of the whole class, while holding a paddle at arm’s length and repeating, “I must not say ‘hell.” That old-time religion made me a nine-year-old apostate. Well, at least I got to say “hell” a bunch of times.

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Dad matured. God’s love and grace in Christ Jesus pushed aside the legalism of his immediate conversion experience. On doctor’s orders, dad took up smoking to control his weight. He also enjoyed an occasional beer and sneaked Chianti into the house to wash down mom’s homemade spaghetti. Dad didn’t blanch when I chose the University of Alabama over a plethora of church-related schools. Before I departed home for Tuscaloosa he taught me how to mix dry martinis. Dad was cool.

And through it all was Billy Graham. In April 1965, second semester of my freshman year, the Billy Graham Crusade visited Tuscaloosa. The same crew from Chattanooga a dozen years earlier showed up in Denny Stadium on the Alabama campus. George Beverly Shea had just finished “How Great Thou Art” when rolling thunder exploded into a fierce lightning storm. In the downpour, Billy Graham’s sermon was over in a flash, “God loves you. His son Jesus died for your sins. God bless you and good night.”

Billy Graham returned to Alabama two months later when the Crusade rolled into Montgomery, Alabama. Reverend Graham insisted the service be totally integrated. In George Wallace’s Alabama, as worshippers sang God’s praises they also sat together; for many black and white Alabamians, they were worshipping together for the first time. Alabama quarterback Steve Sloan and sophomore Carol Ann Self, the “Miss Alabama” Million Dollar Band sponsor and future Bama cheerleader, gave their personal testimonies. It was all on national television and it was good.

In the 65 years since the Chattanooga Crusade, I have been a Lutheran, an Anglican, and three varieties of Presbyterian. I married a Roman Catholic without causing the Apocalypse. I enjoy Mass, and while I don’t partake, transubstantiation seems as plausible as virgin birth and resurrection from the dead: all mysteries of faith demanding belief. I’ve heard pre-millennialism versus post-millennialism argued without understanding either and salvation by grace alone put up against salvation by grace with sanctification by works. These arguments make us forget that fundamental things apply as time goes by.

A quarter century ago, right before dad merged with eternity, he asked why I picked the military over ministry. “Dad, in the military you turn your cheek to find your next target.” He smiled, “You got point there, son.”

What I loved about Billy Graham was what I like about the military: focus and simplicity. Billy Graham’s focus was simple yet eternal. God loves us. Jesus died for our salvation. That’s the message that revives us again and again—all of us.

Hallelujah! Thine the glory. Hallelujah, amen!

Why do individuals on a weight-loss campaign often loudly announce this fact to social media friends, and how does this curious phenomenon shed light on Columbus, Indiana’s world-class architecture collection?

The easier part of the question first: individuals announce their fitness plans to raise the cost of quitting. After all, foresighted individuals can accurately predict that the going won’t always be easy or fun. Shamelessly proclaiming one’s goals creates a credible commitment to persevere even when quitting would otherwise become the easier option. Economist Justin Wolfers used the tactic to motivate himself to run the Stockholm Marathon, for instance.

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In 1954, J. Irwin Miller, then-CEO of Cummins Engine Company, headquartered in Columbus, Indiana, also made a credible commitment. That was the year he launched the Cummins Foundation which, in 1957, began paying the architectural fees of world-renowned architects should they design a public building in the small town. The result was that between the mid-1950s and the mid-1980s, the town averaged two new architectural masterpieces annually. Today, the town is home to more than 90 buildings and parks designed by internationally renowned architects and attracts some 50,000 tourists annually. It was featured in the 2017 Sundance film, “Columbus.”

According to official city sources, the architects who have built in the small city comprise a virtual encyclopedia of notable 20^th century architects: Eliel and Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Walter Gropius, Harry Weese, Cesar Pelli, Richard Meier, Gunnar Birkerts, John Carl Warnecke, Robert Venturi, Kevin Roche, and dozens of others. Architectural critic Paul Goldberger comments in Dwell Magazine that, “There is really no equivalent of Columbus anywhere—there is no other place in which a single philanthropist has placed so much faith in architecture as a means of civic engagement.”

All large corporations conduct significant philanthropic endeavors, even if only for tax purposes and to generate goodwill, but how many companies have financed infrastructure development in their communities? Why did Cummins select the unique philanthropic approach that it did?

My answer comes from an unlikely source: the co-winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in economics, Oliver E. Williamson, who argued that one party will often make a credible commitment to convince a potential exchange partner that she has no intention of behaving opportunistically. As Thomas Hobbes remarked: “The bonds of words are too weak to bridle men’s avarice.”

A commitment becomes credible when it’s in the best interests of the committer to follow through. For example, economists have long argued that advertising serves as a credible commitment to long-run quality because fly-by-night, low-quality firms will be driven from the market before they can recoup significant advertising costs. The advertising firm now has an incentive to follow through on a promise to provide quality. Consumers, knowing this, have less to fear when buying. Both parties benefit.

What does this have to do with Cummins turning Columbus, Indiana into the architectural museum it is today? As Aaron Renn comments, “J. Irwin Miller didn’t start his architecture program as an act of charity.” Correspondence between Miller and long-time confidante George Newlin echoes this sentiment. Newlin wrote to Miller that Cummins, “should expect neither appreciation nor applause for doing what is in our best interest,” and that Cummins has “an enormous stake in the quality of this community.”

Miller was concerned that Cummins lacked the ability to attract an elite workforce to a small, unknown city relatively lacking in amenities. The company’s leadership could have selected any myriad of programs to attract high-quality employees. But they chose the architecture program—why?

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Only the architecture program could serve as a credible commitment to maintain the company’s headquarters in the town.

It’s understandable that prospective employees would be hesitant about moving to an unknown Midwestern city, especially with the threat that Cummins might relocate its headquarters to a large city. How could Cummins credibly commit to retaining its headquarters in Columbus? One way was to make costly investments that only pay off if Cummins stays in town. Such is the case for the architecture program—Cummins only derives value from its infrastructure investments by retaining its headquarters in the town. Cummins leadership has, like the individual announcing new weight-loss plans on social media, tied its own hands.

In so doing, Cummins transformed Columbus into a more desirable destination for prospective employees not simply by improving public infrastructure, but by sending a message that they were committed to the town for decades to come. Potential employees could be reasonably certain that the town would continue to flourish—due to Cummins’ commitment—and thus be a low-risk destination to establish a family.

The credible commitment also sends a message to prospective entrepreneurs. In most cases, the prospect of a company town is a risky proposition for small-time business-owners. Should the company fold or leave, the town predictably becomes a ghost. Credible commitments can mitigate one of these risks—the threat of the firm leaving, thus incentivizing entrepreneurs to select the location for opening shop. While this logic is supported by economic theory, it’s more than speculation in the Cummins-Columbus case. Here are the words of a local bakery owner: “[Cummins has] got hundreds of millions invested in the city. They’re not going to leave it. They’re not going anywhere.”

Other philanthropic efforts, while undoubtedly conferring goodwill and tax benefits on the company pursuing them, would have failed to achieve Cummins’ most pressing need: a highly skilled workforce willing to forsake the job opportunities inherent in large cities for the relative risk of an otherwise unknown Midwestern town.

Fifty years ago, on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed when he stepped from his second-floor hotel room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, to speak to Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) colleagues standing in the parking lot below. An assassin’s bullet ended the life of the 39-year-old activist who had helped advance the cause of African-American rights more in 14 years than it had progressed in the previous 350 years.

King’s life and legacy are remarkable. His shrewd strategy of non-violent protest, charismatic personality, electrifying speaking ability, and soaring words mobilized the black community, challenged centuries of oppression, and changed America. Inspired by his faith, the Baptist minister helped direct the Montgomery Bus boycott initiated by Rosa Parks in 1955, helped found and led the SCLC, organized numerous marches and sit-ins, and penned five books. His 1963 “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” and “I Have a Dream” speech delivered to 250,000 people at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in August 1963 detailed the plight of America’s blacks and helped reduced racial discrimination. His sermon “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” preached at the Mason Temple in Memphis, the headquarters of the Church of God in Christ, the night before his death ranks with John Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charity” and Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” as among America’s most famous.

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King had initially planned to speak at Williston Senior High School in Wilmington, North Carolina, on April 4 to support Reginald Hawkins, a dentist and civil rights advocate, who was the first African-American gubernatorial candidate in the state’s history. King then planned to stump in other North Carolina cities on Hawkins’ behalf. Instead King decided to stay in Memphis to support the strike of predominantly black sanitation workers who were protesting their low wages and deplorable working conditions. There he declared in his April 3 sermon, perhaps having a premonition of his death, and paraphrasing Moses, “[God has] allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you.”

On April 5, about 200 black Williston students peacefully marched to the downtown New Hanover County Courthouse to hold a prayer service in memory of King. Another group of students went to nearby New Hanover High School to demand that the white school’s American flag be lowered to half-mast.

Enraged by King’s murder, blacks throughout the nation rioted. Violence erupted in more than 100 cities, killing 40 people and causing extensive property damage. One hundred thousand soldiers and national guardsmen joined local police to battle arsonists, looters, and snipers; thousands of people were arrested.

President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed a national day of mourning on April 7. In response to King’s death, many schools, museums, public libraries, and businesses closed and the Academy Awards ceremony scheduled for April 8 and numerous sporting events were postponed. On April 8, King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, her three oldest children, movie stars, religious leaders, and thousands of other Americans marched in Memphis to honor the slain activist and support the sanitation workers.

King’s funeral service, held the next day at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta where both King and his father served as ministers, was attended by many prominent politicians and civil rights leaders, including Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Robert Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Ralph Bunche. Benjamin Mays, the president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, from which King had graduated, gave the eulogy, declaring that King “would probably say” that “there was no greater cause to die for than fighting to get a just wage for garbage collectors.” After the service, more than 100,000 mourners followed two mules as they pulled King’s coffin on an old farm wagon through the streets of Atlanta.

King’s accomplishments are well known. King’s inspiring books, mesmerizing speeches, creative leadership of the SCLC, and direction of the civil rights movement won him the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize (the youngest recipient to that date). His work also helped pass the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibited racial segregation in employment, schools, and public accommodations and mandated that voter-registration requirements be applied equally to all races.

What is less remembered about King is that his Christian convictions inspired his civil rights activism. The Baptist pastor’s faith played the pivotal role in his fervent quest for political and social change. “Before I was a civil rights leader,” King declared in a sermon, “I was a preacher of the Gospel. This was my first calling” and it “remains my greatest commitment.” Everything “I do in civil rights I do because I consider it a part of my ministry.”

King was especially motivated by the example of Jesus’ selfless love and his charge to love others as we love ourselves. In accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, King asserted, “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” As we remember King’s life and contributions and continue to combat racism, poverty, and violence, may we pray that truth and love prevail.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared at The American Spectator.

Only two women were both wife to a president and mother to a president. One was Abigail Adams, who died 200 years ago, October 28, 1818; the other was Barbara Bush, who died yesterday, April 17, 2018. Mrs. Bush was 92 years old.

Barbara Bush will be remembered as simple and unpretentious, especially following Nancy Reagan as first lady. Mrs. Reagan was known for fancy clothes and fancy friends, as part of the Hollywood set. Mrs. Bush was known for being more homespun, more Texas, even though she was raised a blueblood with much fancier trappings than Nancy. She followed Nancy in many ways, including in death, as Nancy passed away in March 2016.

Still, Barbara humbly accepted the role of the older-looking and less-glamorous first lady. Her husband jokingly called her “The Silver Fox,” and she graciously smiled and accepted the ribbing. She was more Mamie Eisenhower than Jackie Kennedy.

We’ll hear all sorts of things about Mrs. Bush in the next few days. But there’s one story about her that I learned when researching and writing a biography of her oldest son—a story I think is well worth remembering. It’s probably the most human thing about this very human lady.

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It was the fall of 1953. George W. Bush was seven years old. His parents’ green Oldsmobile pulled in front of Sam Houston Elementary School in Midland, Texas. George happened to be strolling down an outdoor corridor with his friend, carrying a Victrola record player to the principal’s office. The moment that he saw the car, he set down the phonograph and sprinted ahead to his teacher. “My mom, dad, and sister are home,” he shouted. “Can I go see them?”

The little sister was Robin. To this day, George W. Bush swears he saw her. He says he caught her small head barely rising above the backseat. His parents had been in New York, where they were tending to George’s little sister. He knew Robin was sick, but had no idea how sick. The 3-year-old was dying from leukemia.

George’s parents returned with an empty back seat and emptier news. “I run over to the car,” said Bush almost half a century later, “and there’s no Robin.” She was not coming home. “I was sad, and stunned. I knew Robin had been sick, but death was hard for me to imagine. Minutes before, I had had a little sister, and now, suddenly, I did not.” Bush says that those minutes remain the “starkest memory” of his childhood. When asked about the incident in an interview, his eyes welled with tears. He stammered his response.

Pauline Robinson “Robin” Bush started to show symptoms in February 1953, just after the birth of her baby brother Jeb. She simply wanted to lie down all day. Mysterious bruises began appearing on her body. The Bushes took her to Dr. Dorothy Wyvell, renowned in West Texas pediatrics. Wyvell was shocked by the test results. She told the Bushes that the child’s white blood cell count was the highest she had ever seen, and the cancer was already too advanced. She recommended they simply take Robin home and allow nature to take its course, sparing all of them the agony of futile treatments.

The Bushes couldn’t do that. George H. W. Bush had an uncle in New York who was president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering cancer center. They agreed to do everything they could in the hope of some breakthrough.

As for Barbara Bush, she was constantly at Robin’s side during the hospital stay. Her husband shuttled between New York and Midland. Each morning of Robin’s New York stay, her father dropped by the family’s Midland church at 6:30 a.m. to hold his own private prayer vigil. Only the custodian was there, and he let him in. One morning, Pastor Matthew Lynn joined him. They never talked; they just prayed.

Barbara was the strong one throughout the affair. When Robin received blood transfusions at the cancer center, her mother held her hand. Her father had to leave the room.

Robin never had a chance. Eventually, the medicine that labored to try to control the evil metastasizing in her frail frame quickly caused its own set of problems, and George H. W. was summoned from Texas immediately. He flew all night to get there, but by the time he arrived Robin had slipped into a coma. She died peacefully.

“One minute she was there, and the next she was gone,” remembered her mother. “I truly felt her soul go out of that beautiful little body. For one last time I combed her hair, and we held our precious little girl. I never felt the presence of God more strongly than at that moment.”

It all happened so fast. By October, Robin was dead, only weeks from her fourth birthday.

“We awakened night after night in great physical pain—it hurt that much,” Barbara recalled.

Alas, it is said that this was the reason Barbara Bush turned prematurely gray. There was a story—quite a story—behind that trademark hair of Barbara Bush. The story’s name was Robin.

May Barbara Bush rest in peace, reunited at long last with that little girl.

Last Saturday was a poignant day for me. Not only was much-loved First Lady Barbara Bush laid to rest, but I received word of the passing of a dear friend, Gerald Hath (always Gerry to me). The parallels between the Haths and the Bushes were striking. Just as former President George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush were nonagenarians who shared more than 70 years of marriage, so it was with Gerry and Betty Hath. (Betty passed away about a year-and-a-half ago.) Both couples were wed when the husbands were home on leave from their service in World War II—the Haths in 1944, the Bushes in 1945.

The Christian faith was important to both the Haths and the Bushes. In an age when Christianity is so often disrespected and the western civilization to which it gave rise is being driven from college curriculums, we should pause and contemplate how the practical Christianity—the goodness and good deeds—of people like Barbara Bush and Gerald Hath touched the lives of so many and made our country a better place. You know many of Mrs. Bush’s contributions to our society. Gerald’s, though less well known, were no less important.

Gerald and Betty raised three daughters who have lived good, solid, productive lives. Gerald had a long career teaching a subject he loved dearly—science—to middle-schoolers.

In fact, it was during my one year of teaching at Northeast Intermediate School in Midland, Michigan that I met Gerry. I got to know him and Betty through the teachers’ bowling league on Thursday afternoons. They graciously invited me to move into their home during the second semester of school (their daughters already having grown and moved elsewhere). Since I had been staying in an unwinterized cabin where frost and ice often appeared on the floor close to the walls, it was an easy decision for me to give up those inconveniences and move into a warm family atmosphere.

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Gerry and Betty expressed their love for others by participating in various church and community activities. Their greatest gift was the founding of Teenage Musicals, Inc.—a community theatre group that they shepherded for over 50 years. They lovingly gave what social scientists call “social capital” in abundance to their community—the kind of generous giving so essential for bringing people together.

Gerry’s passing reminded me of how young our country still is. His grandfather was one of the six Union soldiers who captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis a month after the Civil War ended. Many in the north sought to belittle Davis by charging that he was dressed as a woman when he was caught. Gerry had letters written by his grandpa that attested to the truth: Mr. Davis was ill, and one of his wife’s coats was being used to keep him warm; nothing more. Gerry’s grandpa was a man of integrity, decency, and fairness (like Gerry himself) who was not going to let a vanquished American’s honor be besmirched by scurrilous lies.

A few weeks ago, I received an Easter card from Gerry. This was something new. We would speak a couple of times a year and we always exchanged Christmas cards, so why, after all these years, was an Easter card added to the routine? To me it was obvious: Gerry, fast approaching his 97^th birthday, was embracing the promise of the Resurrection and signaling that it was time for him to close this chapter of his life and rejoin Betty. And now he has. Who knows? Maybe he met Barbara Bush along the way.

A final thought: The ranks of what Tom Brokaw dubbed “the greatest generation” are thinning out on a daily basis. What a blessing it has been to know Barbara Bush as First Lady and Gerald Hath as a friend for over 40 years. They indeed let their “light shine” (Matt. 5:16) in this world.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared at The American Spectator.

The most respected academic authority on the Russian Revolution, 20^thcentury communism, and the Cold War has died. He was Richard Pipes, longtime professor of Russian history at Harvard, and a remarkable man.

Where to start with an adequate tribute to Professor Pipes? I’ll start with some biographical observations and then finish with personal reflections.

Richard Pipes was born in Poland on July 11, 1923. As a 16-year-old Jew at the time of Hitler’s invasion, Pipes mercifully escaped, thanks to a clever and shrewd father. He credited not only his father but also Providential intervention. That experience, and those that followed, taught Pipes several life lessons. In his memoir, Vixi: Memoirs of a Non-Belonger, he wrote: “The main effect of the Holocaust on my psyche was to make me delight in every day of life that has been granted to me, for I was saved from certain death.” Pipes observed: “I felt and feel to this day that I have been spared not to waste my life on self-indulgence or self-aggrandizement but to spread a moral message by showing, using examples from history, how evil ideas lead to evil consequences. Since scholars have written enough on the Holocaust, I thought it my mission to demonstrate this truth using the example of communism.”

Pipes would do exactly that.

Pipes earned a doctorate in history at Harvard in 1950. He spent the next 50-plus years there, as professor of Russian history, director of the Russian Research Center, and principal investigator of the Harvard Project on Cold War Studies. He was well-received at Harvard, with full classrooms, even as one of its few outspoken conservatives. In 1996, he retired, though his association with Harvard continued under emeritus status. Among his most important publications were Russia Under the Old Regime (1974), The Russian Revolution (1990), Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime (1994), The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive (1996), and Communism: A History (2001). The latter is a concise go-to book for understanding communism in theory, practice, and history.

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But among Pipes’ greatest contributions were outside the classroom, as he helped win the Cold War at a practical-policy level. To that end, he joined President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council in 1981, where he was the NSC’s senior Kremlinologist.

He did great work for Reagan, which means he was loathed by the Kremlin.

In January 1982, Pipes was described in Pravda as “one of the ideological mentors of the U.S. administration.” The Moscow Domestic Service excoriated this “odious figure” who “plowed the furrow of ardent anti-sovietism and anti-communism.” He was a “dyed-in-the-wool reactionary, hysterically fighting for nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union.” Pipes was a favorite bogeyman of the likes of the disgraceful disinformation artist Georgi Arbatov. He would confess satisfaction over arousing the contempt of such “vile people.”

Pipes certainly had Ronald Reagan’s respect, and vice versa. He was impressed at how Reagan had “grasped that the Soviet Union was in the throes of terminal illness” at a time when “nearly all the licensed physicians” — academic Sovietologists, the State Department, the CIA, journalists, ambassadors — “certified its robustness.” Pipes said that Reagan “instinctively understood, as all great statesmen do, what matters and what does not.” This quality, said Pipes, cannot be taught: “like perfect pitch, one is born with it.”

Pipes’ most lasting contribution to the Reagan team was his hand in writing one of the most critical documents in the take-down strategy against the USSR: NSDD-75. Released on January 17, 1983, it became probably the most important document in Cold War strategy under Reagan’s and Bill Clark’s NSC. As Pipes put it, the nine-page directive “said our goal was no longer to coexist with the Soviet Union but to change the Soviet system.” Norman Bailey would call NSDD-75 “The Strategic Plan That Won the Cold War.” Bailey’s NSC colleague, Tom Reed, called it “the blueprint for the endgame.”

The Soviets certainly saw it that way, as evidenced by an article in one Soviet publication in March 1983, which carried the telling title, “Pipes Threatens History.” It alleged (correctly) that NSDD-75 “speaks of changing the Soviet Union’s domestic policy. In other words, the powers that be in Washington are threatening the course of world history, neither more nor less.”

They were indeed.

Warnings About Putin

It was two decades after NSDD-75 that I met Pipes in person. It was September 27, 2005, and he came to Grove City College to give our annual J. Howard Pew Lecture. (Click here for our Q&A.) A few things from that day have stuck with me.

I’ve never forgotten Pipes’ assessment of Vladimir Putin, which has stood the test of time. I asked his opinion of Russia’s prospects for a democratic future. Pipes described what he called a “very discouraging picture”:

I had high hopes that after the dissolution of the communist regime, Russia would take the path of democracy — imperfect, but a democratic path nonetheless. Instead, they went right back to autocracy. I have no hopes now…. Russia 10 to 20 years from now will be a kind of a mild dictatorship. If Russians elect their leaders, they will likely do so in skewed elections….

Of course, Russia today is certainly better than it was under the communist regime…. But it is not a democracy. It’s not what we hoped for. It’s an autocracy. Not a tyranny. Not a totalitarian regime. An autocracy….

According to the Russian constitution, the president can only serve two terms, but there is already talk in the Duma that he should be begged to run for a third term, that it is undemocratic to deny the people the right to vote for a man they want just because he has served two terms. Putin repeatedly says that he will not run for a third term, but I would not bet on that.

I argued with Pipes about that. At the time, I had a much more positive view on Putin and Russia, and I was surprised by Pipes’ pessimism. As usual, he was right.

Pipes and Ted Kennedy

Beyond that, two other things really struck me about that Pipes visit in September 2005.

I handed him two things that really piqued his interest: One was that March 1983 article from the Soviet press, “Pipes Threatens History,” which Pipes hadn’t seen. (I found it in Soviet press archives.) He loved it. It made him proud to so rattle the Kremlin.

The other document was unworthy of pride: it concerned Ted Kennedy’s private overture to the Kremlin.

I had been with Pipes all day, from the airport to dinner to the lecture and then getting him back to his room at Grove City College’s Cunningham House. Late that evening I showed Pipes the now-infamous May 1983 Ted Kennedy-KGB document of which I had recently come into possession. I was considering publishing it in my coming (2006) book on Ronald Reagan, but only if I could verify its authenticity. Given his expertise in Soviet archival work, Pipes was a perfect person to examine the document.

I handed Pipes the five-page memo in Russian, followed by an English translation. He sat in a chair in the corner, legs crossed, and began with the Russian version. I waited on the sofa, thumbing through a coffee-table book of Norman Rockwell illustrations. I impatiently headed to the entryway and then the kitchen in search of a piece of paper to jot down his conclusions.

Pipes calmly stared at the document and then muttered a curse word in reference to Kennedy. I immediately wrote down every word that followed. I’ve debated back and forth in writing this tribute whether I should quote Pipes verbatim. His reaction was visceral, and I implore readers to consider it in full:

After studying the document in silence, Pipes looked up at me and shared his immediate emotional reaction, “This is treason.” When I cautioned that it might indeed be close to treason but not necessarily, Pipes nodded, retreated, and reevaluated, speaking more carefully, “Yes, at least very close to treason.” He then provided a rough summation of what he read: “He [Kennedy] was operating behind the back of the president of the United States, reaching out directly to a major head of state, to work against the president.” He paused and added simply, in his typical style: “Terrible.”

I implore people to interpret this in the proper spirit: Pipes’ initial reaction was to curse Kennedy and utter the “T” word. It’s a natural first-reaction I’ve seen many times. But after his initial anger cooled, he stepped back, thought more deeply, and assessed that, yes, at the very least, what Kennedy did was bad. Treason? Maybe, maybe not. Pipes knew that treason was a significant legal, technical, Constitutional matter. He knew that far more information would be needed to level such a formal charge. But it was bad.

I told Pipes my understanding of the provenance of the document. Before I could ask my main question, he affirmed, in his distinctive voice: “I’m sure it’s authentic.” I pressed him (and many others, incidentally) on that, inquiring whether the memo might be a forgery. “Oh, no,” he said. “I have no doubt that this is authentic.”

I told him that I felt history needed to know about the document and what it describes. He completely agreed: “Yes, yes…. I hope you can publish it.”

Click here to read the V&V Q&A with Richard Pipes.

I shared with him my concern that Kennedy and his liberal admirers in the media would tear into me for questioning their vaunted “Lion of the Senate.” Pipes advised me on that and wished me luck. It turned out I had nothing to worry about it. Kennedy and his press sycophants simply ignored the document, and still do to this day.

“Fools and Useful Idiots”

I would remain in touch with Richard Pipes over the years. He was an invaluable expert and eyewitness. I could give example after example.

As I searched my email box today, the most recent Pipes’ email that I hadn’t deleted is dated April 7, 2014. I had asked him his thoughts on the role of the Soviets in the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. He wrote:

Thank you for your letter of April 3 which arrived while I was in Moscow. I certainly was not skeptical about Moscow’s role in the attempt on the life of John Paul II while working in the White House in 1981: I believed then and believe now that the assassination attempt was initiated and organized by the USSR….

I trust you are well. All the best, RP

Like Ronald Reagan, like Bill Clark, like Bill Casey at the CIA, Richard Pipes never had any hesitation in thinking Moscow capable of all sorts of malice and mischief.

Another of my favorites was an email thanking me for exposing what Pipes called “the fools and useful idiots” among the American left who said stunningly ignorant things glowing about Lenin’s and Stalin’s USSR. It reminds me of when I saw Pipes at a Philadelphia Society conference in April 2012. I was speaking on dupes from the 1920s and 1930s, quoting the likes of George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells and Margaret Sanger and their outlandish encomiums for Stalin’s Russia, as well as Malcolm Muggeridge’s bewildered amazement at the spectacle of Western progressives raving about Bolshevism. I lifted my eyes from my text and caught Pipes with an impish grin, loving every minute of the roast.

And then there was a correspondence we carried on over the prospect and possibility that Moscow considered a full-scale invasion of Poland in 1980-81, with President Reagan contemplating a military counter-response, which, as Pipes said dramatically, would have erupted into “World War III.”

Well, those discussions are gone now. In fact, each time I received an email from Dr. Pipes I wondered how much longer they would continue, because his email address included the year of his birth: 1923. Each year that date grew older.

It ended last week, at age 94.

In God’s Image

I’d like to finish with a favorite Pipes’ reflection, which I’ve shared every year with my Modern Civilization course at Grove City College. It deals with what matters most to Pipes now, at this very moment. It concerned keeping rather than losing the faith. Pipes wrote:

Many Jews — my father among them — lost their religious beliefs because of the Holocaust. Mine, if anything, were strengthened. The mass murder (including those that occurred simultaneously in the Soviet Union) demonstrated what happens when people renounce faith in God, deny that human beings were created in His image, and reduce them to soulless and therefore expendable material objects.

As noted, surviving the Holocaust made Pipes delight in every day that God had given him. There would be many such days. He felt a “duty” to defy Hitler by living a joyful and contented life. To be sad and morose and to complain would thereafter strike him as “forms of blasphemy” in light of his Providential gift of survival.

Above all, he would spend the remainder of his long and scholarly life exposing godless ideologies and the totalitarian tyrants who deny that human beings are made in God’s image. Few human beings in the academy did that as nobly and expertly as Richard Pipes.

Full disclosure: I have never seen an episode of the long-running PBS children’s show called “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” The only reason I went to see “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” the documentary about Mr. Rogers and his show, was because we were visiting friends who very much wanted to see it. Thank you, dear friends! The movie was very special—poignant, profound, elegantly understated and brimming with kindness, warmth, and understanding.

In one way, the documentary is like the old show itself: a simple story with cheap production values featuring a plain vanilla un-star-like “star.” In another and fundamentally crucial way, the documentary is different from the show: it is primarily for adults instead of children. Whereas “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” was rated G, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” is rated PG-13. It features adults candidly and sometimes colorfully talking about the adults who made the TV show.

“Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” tells the dual stories of the long-lived TV show (1968-2001) and of Fred Rogers (1928-2003) himself. Along the way, we get to know Mr. Rogers’ real-life family—his wife and two sons—and his TV family. Both families share a lot of love and affection.

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This documentary showed me how often Mr. Rogers used his show to comfort children by courageously and gently addressing such challenges to childhood happiness as the death of a family member (including pets), divorce, scary news stories about war, etc.

The way the documentary makers weave elements of Fred Rogers’ personal life into the narrative about the show is refreshingly original. “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” is definitely not an “everything you ever wanted to know about Fred Rogers” indulgence. The little we learn about his childhood appears late in the documentary. The rumor that I had heard about Mr. Rogers’ military record was debunked. We come to see a man whose work was the embodiment of his life and values.

What surprised me most in this documentary was that Mr. Rogers was the target of denunciations and protests. Some adults vehemently attacked him for thwarting human development through the subversive technique of telling children, “I like you just the way you are.”

Huh? All I can say is that those critics must not have ever had children themselves. One of the most important things a parent can do for children is to help them feel comfortable in their own skin. Mr. Rogers wasn’t telling 5-year-olds that they would never have to grow up and get a job. He was giving them the reassurance that it’s OK to be a child today, and not to feel that they had to have the adult world all figured out while they were still in kindergarten. Fred Rogers had the wisdom to realize that the world can be a very confusing, even threatening, place to children, who lack the emotional and rational maturity to cope with all of life’s challenges. How immensely important, then, was his gentle, comforting voice reassuring kids that despite its bumps and bruises, life can still turn out well.

Others condemned Fred Rogers for not being condemnatory. The documentary makes clear that Mr. Rogers, an ordained Presbyterian minister, upheld Christian standards in his life and on his show, but refrained from blustery denunciations. It becomes clear in the documentary that Mr. Rogers’ saw his ministry as not to sit in judgment and condemn, but simply to love others. He was content to leave the ultimate judgment of individuals to God.

Like many in the cinema where I saw “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” I had some tears in my eyes. I was deeply moved by how beautiful and powerful a loving heart can be. As I left the cinema, I almost felt a sense of culture shock. At a time when Hollywood relies on over-the-top stimulation to entertain us, this low-key documentary about an unpretentious man and his unpretentious show delivered a deeper, more genuine emotional experience. If your faith in the goodness of mankind needs a boost, go see “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

The post “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” — A review of the new Mr. Rogers Documentary appeared first on The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College.