The Best Of Them

Charleston, SC

Ted Sorensen is dignity personified. Seeing Jack Kennedy's speechwriter and brilliant voice of intellect and honesty here at Renaissance Weekend is a joy. It seemed only appropriate that Sorensen's colleague and fellow Kennedy hand, the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., reminded us in yesterday's New York Times that for great leaders and great nations a "sense of history is a moral imperative." The tragic folly of Iraq bears witness to people in leadership positions today who either don't know history or arrogantly choose to ignore it.

Of my two years at The Kennedy School, the most impressive, thought-provoking course was the "Uses of History" taught by Dick Neustadt and Ernie May. Such a course should be required for any candidate for the U.S. Presidency. Indeed, greater awareness of history among media and the citizenry would equip us to challenge candidates and officeholders who abuse history for their own narrow purposes.

In 1961, Sorensen wrote and Kennedy spoke powerfully to the special, historically balanced role of a superpower. "We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent or omniscient -- that we are only six percent of the world's population; that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind." This is the leadership of wisdom embodied by Sorensen and Schlesinger and abused by too many others.