Word: charm
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Only last year Indonesia's handsome, personable President Sukarno came to Washington, talking largely of Abraham Lincoln, the rights of man, and his devotion to democracy and the West. Overwhelmed by his sentiments and his charm, Washington's National Press Club gave him a standing ovation. Last week Sukarno was displaying his devotion to the West by energetically trying to boot out of his country all Westerners of Dutch citizenship, with never a backward thought for their rights or their properties...
Other editors noted the same quality. "Before I graduated," Robert W. Ruhl '03 said, "I talked with the other editors who had executive positions and they said Franklin had a lot on the ball and the nerve of a brass baboon... The man could, if he wished, charm the birdies right out of the trees...
F.D.R.'s alienation from the aristocracy at Harvard should not be exaggerated, however. Most members of his social class still accepted him. Herbert Burgess, a Fly Club brother, remarked that "his charm and ease of manner were apparent in those early days." And while he may have been disappointed in not making the "Porc," the Fly, then as now, was considered one of the better clubs...
There are some indications that Roosevelt was not only remote, but was actually considered a queer youth. William Roscoe Thayer, a class behind T. R., could see none of the "charm that he developed later ...he was a good deal of a joke... active and enthusiastic and that was all." A contemporary Boston debutante noted that he was "studious, ambitious, eccentric--not the sort to appeal at first...
Lumps in the Throat. Arguing that diamond production should be held back during the Depression rather than let their value, in price and prestige, depreciate in a cheap market, he outtalked opposition directors, was elected chairman. De Beers became his. He still had to argue, cajole, charm, browbeat rivals, but he survived all challengers. At his direction, the cartel held diamonds off the market to keep prices up; it forced dealers to take lots (up to $50,000) or get none at all. But Oppenheimer successfully fought off a U.S. Government antitrust suit in 1945 on the ground that...