But Enough About You: Essays (52 page)

In a medium that depended on brevity, the smallest error could be tantamount to a Freudian blip. The wife of a Hollywood director who was on location with a foxy leading lady received this puzzler:
HAVING A FANTASTIC TIME. WISH YOU WERE HER.
Usually, Hollywood was more direct than that. The producer Walter Wanger cabled the agent Leland Hayward in 1936 after Hayward eloped with his client Margaret Sullavan:
CONGRATULATIONS ON ACQUIRING THE OTHER 90%.

Brief as telegrams were, military cables had to be briefer yet, and sometimes they were witty into the bargain. After firing a string of torpedoes at a Japanese convoy in the Makassar Strait in 1942, Lieutenant Commander John Burnside, commanding officer of the U.S. Submarine
Sturgeon
, memorably cabled,
STURGEON NO LONGER VIRGIN
. When the commander of the U.S. military garrison on Wake Island was about to be overwhelmed by the Japanese on December 23, 1941, he flashed the poignant message
ENEMY ON ISLAND—ISSUE IN DOUBT
. One of the most famous telegrams of the war (
SIGHTED SUB, SANK SAME
), attributed to the crew member of a Navy patrol boat, turns out to be the invention of a Navy public relations officer.

The military does not as a rule try to be funny in its cables, of course; but sometimes it turns out that way. Back in the days of the British Grand Fleet, the commander aboard the admiral’s squadron flagship, wanting to make sure the admiral had fresh clothing and linens
after a tour at sea, cabled to shore:
HAVE ADMIRAL’S WOMAN REPORT TO FLAGSHIP.
This was quickly followed with one saying,
INSERT WASHER BETWEEN ADMIRAL AND WOMAN.

At a critical moment of the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, the greatest naval battle ever fought, a few extra words tacked on to a cable had enormous consequence. Admiral Nimitz and his strategists knew that Admiral “Bull” Halsey had a battle plan to send his Task Force 34 ships to attack Japanese warships under the command of Admiral Ozawa, but as the critical hours wore on and they didn’t hear from Halsey, their anxiety increased. Nimitz resisted sending any cable that his tactical commanders might misconstrue as questioning their authority, but he finally relented to the considerable pressure and gave permission to flash Halsey, asking where his ships were.

The story, as told in John Prados’s book,
Combined Fleet Decoded
:

. . . a radioman caught the emphasis on the question by repeating its operative phrase. Finally the ensign who encoded it added “padding”—words at the beginning and end that were designed to frustrate cryptanalysts. In this case the wording, possibly drawn from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” set during the 1853–56 Crimean War (the charge had also occurred on October 25), sounded too much like an integral part of the message. When the dispatch arrived aboard Third Fleet flagship New Jersey it was handled just that way, and read
WHERE IS REPEAT WHERE IS TASK FORCE 34. THE WORLD WONDERS.

Admiral Halsey was incensed that his tactical judgment should be questioned in this fashion. The Bull tore the baseball cap from his head and threw it on the deck with a few choice words. He had begun activating the battleship unit to pursue Ozawa, but responded to the implied criticism by ordering [U.S. Admiral] Ching Lee back to Philippine waters with carrier groups to follow. That move permitted the escape of Ozawa’s remaining warships.

A good argument for keeping it brief, no matter what the circumstances. General Eisenhower displayed his talent—and genius—for simplicity. The occasion was the end of World War II. He had gathered his SHAEF officers around him for photographs and newsreels. Then it was time to sit down and write the cable informing the Allied commanders that they had at last prevailed in the greatest military effort in history. One by one, Ike’s officers sat down to compose the message, each more flowery and self-consciously historical than the last. Finally, Eisenhower thanked them all and wrote it himself:
THE MISSION OF THIS ALLIED FORCE WAS FULFILLED AT 0241, LOCAL TIME, MAY 7TH, 1945.

But the most concise military dispatch of all time was sent in 1844—the same year the telegraph was invented—by General Sir Charles Napier, after he had successfully captured the Indian province of Sind, now in Pakistan. It was all of one word long:
PECCAVI
. In Latin, that translates: “I have sinned.”

Latin’s not in use much anymore among battlefield commanders, and now we live in a time when machines can transmit the entire text of
Moby-Dick
in less than a second. Who’s got time to be brief? But for a while there, the sending was awfully good.

—
Forbes FYI
, November 1998

Since the Soviet Union folded in 1991, Russia has been tippy-toeing around the dead mouse on the national living room floor, namely Lenin’s embalmed corpse.

Every few years, someone suggests doing something about it. Some weeks ago, Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s minister of culture, said in a radio interview that he thought it was time Lenin was put to use pushing up the daisies. Not his exact words, but that was the basic drift.

When the subject came up in 2009, the Community Party leader, Gennadi A. Zyuganov, went predictably ballistic. These periodic suggestions send Russia’s old hard-line Communists into a spluttering rage. Yes, Russia still has a Communist Party; some myths really do die hard.

“Discussions about removal and reburial are simply provocative,” he declared. “Any attempt to vulgarize or rewrite the Soviet period and diminish the memory of Lenin . . . is an attempt to undermine the integrity of the Russian federation.”

Mr. Zyuganov runs for president on a regular basis, making him the Harold Stassen of Russian politics, only snarly and frightening.

According to an April opinion poll cited by the British newspaper
The Guardian
, more than half of Russians now favor burying the god that failed. In his radio interview, Mr. Medinsky pledged to make it an occasion to remember and to observe all the obsequies.

If nothing else, the prospect of a state funeral poses questions of protocol, like—who gets to represent the United States?

Answer: This is why we have vice presidents. Really, it would be worth it just for the look on Joe Biden’s face as the cortege moves past. And what an opportunity for some unscripted Bidenesque remarks.

I’ve just read a 1998 book called
Lenin’s Embalmers
, by Ilya Zbarsky and Samuel Hutchinson. It’s fascinating, in a horrible sort of way. Over the last eighty-eight years, Lenin’s corpse has had more adventures than most live people. In the words of the Grateful Dead, “what a long, strange trip it’s been.” The author, who died in 2007, was the son of Boris Zbarsky, one of Lenin’s original embalmers. Boris was keeper of the body for nearly thirty years, earning a pretty good living (by Soviet standards) and, better still, immunity from Stalin’s terror.

Dictator Remains Management was not at the time a huge field; more
of a boutique industry. There just weren’t all that many scientists back then who knew how to keep a body fresh and pinkish. Stalin couldn’t afford to toss Boris into the Gulag along with tens of millions of other Russians. Boris wasn’t arrested and thrown into prison—for no particular reason—until 1952, one year before Stalin died. He almost made it to the finish line.

Many sons follow Dad into the family business, but when Ilya Zbarsky entered the mausoleum in 1934, age twenty-one, it was surely a Guinness World Record moment. By the time he ran afoul of the government—like Dad, for no particular reason—he’d been in charge of the remains for almost twenty years. A good run, all in all.

After 1991, Ilya looked up his file in the KGB archives and learned that he and his father had been denounced in 1949 for “counterrevolutionary conversations.” There in the margin of the report he saw Stalin’s handwriting: “Must not be touched until a substitute is found.” That was job security in Soviet Russia, circa 1949.

Soviet history is often indistinguishable from Orwell’s fiction. When Lenin died, Stalin appointed a Committee for the Immortalization of Lenin’s Memory. Immediately there were fierce disagreements as to how, exactly, to immortalize the actual remains.

I’ll spare you the details, but suffice to say the committee gave the job to Ilya’s father and another scientist named Vorobiev. Both recognized that a lot more than their scientific reputations was on the line. Next time you think you’re under pressure at work, consider Comrades Zbarsky and Vorobiev, with Stalin and Dzerzhinsky breathing over their shoulders. How is it coming? Wonderfully! Couldn’t be better! Look—no tan lines! It took them four months, but they got it right.

When World War II arrived in the form of General Heinz Guderian’s tanks, Zbarsky and son were charged with spiriting the body out of Moscow—to Siberia, which seems apt, karmawise.

Lenin had a good war, unlike 25 million other Russians. In far-off Tyumen, the Zbarskys had all the time in the world to attend to Himself’s maintenance. Indeed, by 1945, Ilya wrote, “the condition of the corpse had improved considerably.” You look great! You been exercising?

The saga of Lenin’s remains is a uniquely
Russian
story. His caretakers got drunk on the alcohol used in embalming Lenin’s corpse, and in one instance, one of them was caught groping the other’s daughter. What fun it must have been. There are group photos of them striking jaunty poses, as if they’ve gathered for a picnic.

And here was Khrushchev in 1956, growling, “The mausoleum stinks of Stalin’s corpse.” Stalin was embalmed and laid out beside Lenin between 1953 to 1961, when Khrushchev said enough and ordered him buried beneath the Kremlin wall.

Lenin remains, the Sleeping Beauty from Hell. Perhaps when his heir, President Vladimir V. Putin, is finished shipping combat helicopters to shore up his friend Bashar al-Assad of Syria he’ll have time to consider his minister of culture’s modest proposal.

Footnote: In 1991, when I was editing a publication for Forbes, I engaged in a hoax and briefly persuaded the world that the Russian government was preparing to auction off the body.

The story garnered quite a lot of play. A none-too-happy Russian interior minister denounced me for my “impudent lie” and called it “an unpardonable provocation.” It kind of made my day.

But a number of readers of the magazine apparently didn’t get the memo that it was all a hoax. The Kremlin was deluged with offers.

My favorite came from the head of a Virginia printing company, who accompanied his bid with this note:

“We are in the final planning stages of our new corporate headquarters. We were recently discussing the new lobby and saw the need for an appropriate centerpiece. Our interior designer has agreed with us, and feels that suitable arrangements can be made to house Mr. Lenin’s body here.”

—
The New York Times
, July 2012

The Fine but Tricky Art of Name-Dropping (with apologies and a curtsey to Master Upman Stephen Potter)

THE SURNAME DROP

Many novices ask: When is it appropriate to drop the surname while dropping the name? The surest sign of the amateur is the Superfluous Surname Gambit. Classically:
I ran into Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson.

Many a gambit has come to grief this way. Contrast with the much cleaner:
I ran into Warren and Jack
. (See the Counter Warren Gambit, below.) Note that the Surname Drop should be employed only when the given name is
distinctive
.

THE COUNTER-SURNAME DROP

Our friend B. Conrad, of San Francisco, is an aficionado of this technique.

So you call him David, do you? I’ve known him for twenty years now. We’re close as can be, but I still call him “Mr. Rockefeller.” Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but this first-name stuff these days drives me batty.

THE COUNTER-WARREN GAMBIT

Grandmaster J. Tierney, of New York, New York, introduced this one memorably at a dinner party. The guest, himself adept at the Surname Drop, had been going on at length about his great pal Warren. Tierney let him exhaust himself, then suavely countered:
Oh, you mean the
actor.

“Actor” was pronounced disparagingly, as in “pig farmer.” This was swiftly followed with
I assumed you meant Warren
Buffett.

While the guest was fumbling, Tierney finished him off with:
I wish I had more time for things like movies
.

Grandmaster Tierney will be familiar to readers as the inventor of the famous Out-Box Ploy. The dinner guest is steered into Tierney’s study on some pretext. Lying in the Out tray on his desk is an eight-by-eleven-inch glossy photo of himself, signed in large lettering:
To Bill Gates, Glad I could help
.
Best, JT.

Alternately,
To Meryl Streep,
With deepest affection,
J
.

ROYALS

Extreme caution must be exercised while royal-name-dropping within the United States. The correct stance is that while one is of course delighted to be on intimate terms with the royal families of Europe, one is
always
conscious of the Revolution, Valley Forge, Bill of Rights, etc. This republican imperative can be used to advantage. A variation of it is the Confused Commoner Gambit, which has been used with effect by R. Atkinson, a British subject. He lets it slip that he has just spent some quality time with the Prince of Wales. Then adds:

One minute you’re calling him “Sir,” and the next, you’re stuffing a crumpet down his trousers.

This can be adapted to American usage. P. Cooke of Lakeville, Connecticut, gets the ball rolling by serving his guests Pimm’s Cups, then shrugs:

It’s one thing not to bow. It is our American birthright. But even though he’s asked me to—repeatedly—I just can’t bring myself to call him “Charles.”