There is no textbook template for leadership in difficult times. Lincoln, we are told, suffered through doubt and depression throughout the years of the Civil War, walking the nighttime White House halls like a lanky wraith, agonizing over every decision and adverse turn of events. Truman, on the other hand, reportedly gathered all his facts in front of him, made up his mind, gave his orders, and slept in peace. Eisenhower, we are told, wrote in advance two short speeches to announce the events of the D-Day invasion of the French coast, to cover both possible outcomes. One of them—accepting personal responsibility for the defeat of the Allied forces at Normandy and the deaths of thousands of brave men—stayed in his pocket. Nixon sent Henry Kissinger in secret to China, ending the Cold War world as we heretofore knew it, breaking all our old assumptions with one swift blow like a hammer striking—cracking—shattering rock. Whether we agree with all of their actions or not, these men are remembered as firm, resolute American leaders when the time came for action, guideposts by which all future leaders might be measured. When told by one of his generals following the fall of Richmond that Lee was fleeing west with his command and “if the thing be pressed” the Army of Northern Virginia might be overrun and the long national nightmare brought to an end, Lincoln wrote back a simple, one-line note: “Let the thing be pressed.” One can almost hear the taking of the long breath, see the sad hounds-eyes’ slow blink, before the scratch of pen on paper.
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