The Only Thing We Have to Fear

Reviews by Bill Doughty

Middle Age artist Hieronymous Bosch evoked fear and evil in his art hundreds of years ago.

Fear is corrosive. It eats away at a democracy. It feeds anger and hate. Sometimes it's necessary, but often fear is overhyped and misplaced, according to evidence provided by such critical thinkers as Steven Pinker, George Will, Bill Nye, Tom Hanks and Barry Glassner.

Fear is appealing and easy to access; the amygdala is immediate. The news media are rewarded by hyping fear: "If it bleeds, it leads." Autocrats foment fear to gain support. Fear works. 

Author Glassner reminds us in "The Culture of Fear":

"Samuel Coleridge was right when he claimed, 'In politics, what begins in fear usually ends up in folly.' Political activists are more inclined, though, to heed an observation from Richard Nixon: 'People react to fear, not love. They don't teach that in Sunday school, but it's true.' That principle, which guided the late president's political strategy throughout his career, is the sine qua non of contemporary political campaigning. Marketers of products and services ranging from car alarms to TV news programs have taken it to heart as well."

Glassner's national bestseller, featured in "Bowling for Columbine," is "The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things: Crime, Drugs, Minorities, Teen Moms, Killer Kids, Mutant Microbes, Plane Crashes, Road Rage, and So Much More" (Basic Books/Perseus, 1999). [Note: I pulled this book of the shelf to see how it could add context to the review of "Enduring Ideals," which follows this review; Glassner recently updated his work, and I'm looking forward to seeing his perspective twenty years later.]


Don't Believe the Hype

If people are afraid of the "wrong things," constantly sensationalized in the media and by some self-serving politicians, what are the "right things?" 

In "The Culture of Fear," Glassner tries to answer two questions: "Why are Americans so fearful lately, and why are our fears so often misplaced?" He concludes that instead of worrying about statistically minuscule threats, we should take "decisive action to quash – problems such as hunger, dilapidated schools, gun proliferation, and deficient health care for much of the U.S. population."

"Will it take an event comparable to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to convince us that we must joint together as a nation and tackle these problems? At the start of the new century it ought to be considerably easier for us to muster our collective will and take decisive action than it was for our own parents and grandparents six decades earlier. This time we do not have to put our own lives or those of our children at risk on battlefields halfway around the globe."

It's interesting to read Glassner's perspective, published two years before 9/11 and the subsequent U.S. invasion of Iraq.

He looks back to 1938 and the famous Orson Welles broadcast of an adaptation of H.G. Wells's "War of the Worlds." The broadcast created panic in New Jersey because of it's hyper-realistic presentation of actual "fake news." Glassner contrasts the hyper-fear of a Mars attack with the actual dangers of the rise of fascism in Europe at the time.


Commitment to Freedom

Meanwhile, nearly 80 years ago, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was alarmed – but not fearful – about the rise of Fascism, especially the threat of Nazism to Western democracies, as well as the militarization of Imperial Japan.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

On January 6, 1941, eleven months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR gave his Four Freedoms speech. An examination of the speech's concepts is presented in a stunning coffee-table book, "Enduring Ideals: Rockwell, Roosevelt & the Four Freedoms" (Abbeville Press Publishers, 2018).

The book offers beautiful art by Norman Rockwell and other contemporaries, especially from World War II, as well as photos, sketches, source material and reimagined art inspired by the concepts of liberty that could be guaranteed by democracy.

Along with the finely reproduced art are insightful essays to give context and history.

William J. Vanden Heuvel, former deputy U.S. representative to the United Nations, writes:

"(In) the address to the United States Congress that history knows as the Four Freedoms speech ... the president asked not only his countrymen and women but also the people of the world to understand that the terrible scourge of war could be justified to our children's children only if we in faith and honor determined to create a different world to assure the peace of humankind. That world, Roosevelt proposed, should be based on the Four Freedoms – freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear. In the world of the time of the president's speech, however – beset by war, oppressed by Nazi domination, brutalized by racist thugs – every tenet of democracy was threatened and ridiculed."President Roosevelt's power as a speaker lay in his ability to present profound ideas in simple language."

Clockwise from top left: Freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

Rockwell's power as an artist transformed Roosevelt's words into pictures, even if the artist's paintings were imperfect in capturing the diversity and potential of America then and especially now. Rockwell hired people to pose and painted from staged photographs, so his realism wasn't quite real, and his staging might be considered hokey and corny in a post-Vietnam War and post-9/11 America.

Nevertheless, according to another essayist in this volume, Mark Shulman, "Rockwell translated FDR's lofty language into imagery that appealed to Americans' better angels and inspired the kinds of sacrifice necessary to fund the (Second World) war, to fight it, and to persevere in the face of horrifying adversity." 

In the wake of the First World War and the Great Depression – and in the growing shadow of an approaching WWII – FDR succeeded in coming to the aid of Great Britain.

Roosevelt and his team negotiated the U.S. Navy destroyers-for-bases initiative and lend-lease act while prying Americans, influenced by Charles Lindbergh, away from isolationism in the America First movement. 

Essayist Stephane Grimaldi writes, "Norman Rockwell embodied the American people who had to resign themselves to the need to defend the universal ideals of justice, peace, and prosperity. But President Roosevelt had to convince citizens that a foreign war was necessary. After all, aren't oceans the last bastion against tyranny?" Not really.

Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and other parts of Oahu on Dec. 7, 1941 forced the nation to confront the realities and dangers of foreign threats in the Pacific and Europe. Rockwell's paintings, produced in 1942, were in part a mission statement outlined by Roosevelt for the United States and its Allies.

Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter, part woman, part man.

Essayist Jan Eliasson writes, "...while oceans may separate people, there is not that much that sets hopes and dreams apart."

This book blends history and shows the power of art, including in shaping public opinion. Some surprises included in this book:

• Rockwell's portrait of tough and gritty Rosie the Riveter, literally transgender because Rockwell used a woman's face and a man's body as real-life models; 
• Rockwell turning down a request to paint recruiting art during Vietnam;
• an interview with Ruby Bridges (the black girl in the iconic and powerful 1963 Rockwell painting "The Problem We All Live With") revealing that her father fought and was wounded in the Korean War; 
• the effects of Rockwell's art on Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and the United Nations; 
• how FDR, a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, was inspired by President Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address in developing the four freedoms concept; and
• Eleanor Roosevelt's role in translating FDR's mission statement into a Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Commitment Against Fear

Essayist Allida Black insists we recognize the role FDR's widow, Eleanor Roosevelt, played after WWII in perpetuating the concepts and ideals of the four freedoms. Black shows Ms. Roosevelt's "concrete" achievement in putting the four freedoms into action:

"If FDR gave us the vision that Rockwell immortalized on canvas, ER insisted that American's recognize what it meant. 'It is not only in war ... that we fight for freedom,' she wrote, shortly after Rockwell's paintings appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. 'When the war is over, the four freedoms will not have been won, we shall simply have dominated their more aggressive enemies. At all times, day by day, we have to continue fighting for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom from fear, and freedom from want – for these are things that must be gained in peace as well as in war.'"

"Ultimately," Black writes, "Eleanor Roosevelt's commitment changed the world." The same can be said, to a degree, about Norman Rockwell who confronted fear in various forms before and after the war.

But fear, according to essayist Daisy Rockwell, the artist's granddaughter, "is now threatening all four of the freedoms Norman Rockwell enshrined."

Daisy Rockwell contends, "Since 2001, Americans have in fact been encouraged to live their lives in fear." She says, "A terrorist, by definition, is someone whose goal is to incite fear. Fear leads to chaos."

It can be argued that the attacks of 9/11 and Russian attacks on our political system and culture are forms of terrorism designed to cause fear and division leading to an erosion of freedom and unity.

As usual, the antidote to the corrosion of fear is found in education and critical thinking. So is art. "If you see something, say something" becomes, according to Daisy Rockwell, "see something, paint something.

Bill Nye says, "see something, think something."

Hieronymous Bosch's weird and fearful Vision of Hell.

Norman Rockwell's concept of the Golden Rule, a core concept for the Four Freedoms – universally applied.

Bill Nye Wants Your Help

Review by Bill Doughty

Nye reflects on the "overview effect" in his mind-opening "Everything All at Once," (Rodale, 2017). He offers a cool perspective on how we can help heal the world. That perspective comes from space, from inside the human psyche and the down-to-earth reality of the greatest threat facing our planet.

Nye is another critical thinker who calls for a Green New Deal for current and future generations: infrastructure and support for renewable energy, clean water and internet connectivity. Last month he formally endorsed the idea at SXSW.

"Everything All at Once" is a good Earth Day read with some strong Navy ties and with a fascinating insight on how his father survived as a prisoner of war in WWII.

Bill Nye's mom, Lt. Jacquie Jenkins, served in WWII.

In remarks at the Reason Rally in Washington D.C. in the late spring of 2016 he reminds us what the Second World War generation achieved:

"To those who think we can't get renewable sources in place quickly enough, I give you this response ... Both my parents were in World War II; their ashes are interred across the river from here (the Lincoln Memorial) in the Arlington National Cemetery. My father survived nearly 4 years as a prisoner of war captured from Wake Island. My mother was recruited by the U.S. Navy to work deciphering the Nazi Enigma code. They were part of what came to be called the Greatest Generation, but they didn't set out to be great. They just played the hand they were dealt. In barely 5 years, their generation resolved a global conflict and started building a new, democratic, technologically advancing world. With and emphatic sense of purpose, they embraced progress."The current generation must employ critical thinking and our powers of reason just as they did. This time, the global challenge is climate change. We also must play the hand we have been dealt and get on with it. Together we can change the world."

Self-described nerd, Bill Nye, also offers pun-ishing humor throughout, balancing irony and serious reality. He writes with a light yet respectful touch, open to other voices, always seeking to understand.

Nye shows the power of strong parents instilling core values, including honesty, courage and commitment. He notes, "there are such things as inviolable truth and facts."

His father, Ned Nye, and his dad's fellow prisoners witnessed a sailor "beheaded with a sword in a weird reenactment of a 17th-century Edo ceremony, just to show the prisoners that their captors meant business." 

How did the prisoners deal with physical and mental abuse? He writes, "Every day these guys were subjected to beatings. Every day they were hungry. Every day they were exhausted. In summer, they worked in oppressive heat. In winter, they were chilled to the bone." The prisoners created a fake language they called "Tut" to communicate privately. 

The prisoners found pleasure in recognizing and highlighting the absurdity of their situation, including the actions of a swaggering martinet in their own ranks who tried to impress them by "peppering his sentences with the term 'disirregardless.'" Being able to self-reflect, shift perspective and find humor in any situation helped is dad survive as a POW. The nonword "disirregardless" became an "essential distraction" and part of Nye family lore that lives on to this day for Bill and his sister. When a pompous leader takes himself too seriously and loses humanity he can become the butt of a joke.

But Nye says the threats to our climate are no joking matter.

As far back as the nation's first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, Nye was motivated. "I was convinced that we were headed for trouble as a species," he writes, "unless we could start using our brains more rationally, and it shaped how I approach my own environmental impact and goals for the future."

Bill Nye (The Science Guy) talks about the LC-130 with its navigator, Air Force Maj. Amanda Coonradt, during a visit to Antarctica. (Photo by Katie Lange)

Nye reflects on the global commons, the fact that Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency, Carl Sagan's warning of a "nuclear winter," the human impact to the planet as shown in Kentucky and Greenland, and the fact that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere moved beyond 400 parts per million in 2016.

He calls for shared action to address the dangers of global climate change. "To save the planet for us humans, we have to pay attention to our shared interests rather than stumble into chaos as unconnected, self-interested individuals. We have to harness both knowledge and responsibility," he advises.

"Everybody knows something you don't," he says. It's a profound and humbling concept. And it's a call for cooperation.

Finding answers in a collective consciousness, he says, helps us design practical solutions to face fear and confront challenges, including climate change.

"Instead of running around in circles, waving our arms – or, worse, going about our business in willful ignorance – we could get to work know. We could erect wind turbines off the east coast of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. We could install photovoltaic panels practically everywhere the Sun shines. We could heat and cool a lot of our dwellings, offices, and factories using geothermal sources. We'd create jobs, boost the economy, clean the air, and address climate change. If you really want to make America great (and the rest of the world, too), these are the main things you, I mean we, need to do. It sounds like an enormous undertaking, and it is, but we've seen again and again, the enormous ones begin with small perceptual shifts."

The blueprint for coming together to create and sustain a better world for children and grandchildren occurred in Europe and Asia/Pacific in the last century:

"World War II showed the terrifying possibility of global self-destruction; its aftermath inspired new institutions to promote constructive collaboration on a world-wide scale. Some of it appeared in the form of international treaties. Some of it appeared as networks of related science, technology, and environmental-research programs. The United Nations, despite its limits and shortcomings, provides a forum for international discussion and decision-making. Doctors Without Borders engages physicians from all over to provide medical services to those in need. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and Conservation International work to stop poaching and conserve threatened species. The Conference of Parties in Paris in 2015, known as COP21, produced the most meaningful international agreement yet on reducing greenhouse gases."

Even if progress is not linear or the horizon seems too far, "The longest journey begins with but a single step," Nye says.

How big a nerd is he? Bill Nye gets tied in knots in his excitement about knot-tying, and gives an interesting twist on the joys of physics. He speaks of the joys of the square knot, the square bow, two half-hitches, bowline, clove hitch and sheepshank, among others.

Bill Nye talks with 14-year-ole Joey Hudy about his Extreme Marshmallow Cannon at
a science fair held at the White House on Feb. 7, 2012 (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

This book is a treasure-trove for critical thinkers and nerds, with discussion on the scientific method, Occam's razor, entropy, anti-vaxxers, high school physics, electric vehicles, James Cameron, GMOs, the National Archives, and confirmation bias – "the tendency to confirm our our assumptions as valid and true."

Nye relates a wonderful story about a flight attendant and an unruly passenger; it's another call for shifting perspective and showing respect for one another. He reflects on what it was like working at Boeing, tells how he helped his parents quit smoking (using exploding cigarettes), writes about his grandfather fighting (on horseback) in the World War I, and challenges us to rediscover missions in space, including a possible journey to Europa and continued journeys to Mars.

Curiosity journeyed to Mars. Another more advanced rover is planned in the months ahead. (NASA)

With respect and awe, Nye writes about how the scientists at NASA created previous Mars rovers, especially Curiosity. NASA teams are working to send an "even more advanced rover, currently called Mars 2020. Both rovers are about the size and mass of a Chevrolet Spark automobile. So how are they going to do it?"

"If you have the naive confidence of a budding engineer, you might think, 'It can't be all that hard. We just have to slow down enough to roll or skid to a stop. We land airplanes all over the place every day. We landed all sorts of things on the Moon.. Surely we've got the basics of that figured out by now.' In other words, you'd start with the problem you know ... But it turns out that this business of setting down intact on the surface of Mars is some kinda crazy complicated. On Earth you have a lot of air to work with, and even the fastest fighter jets are dealing with much, much lower speeds. When the probe carrying the Curiosity rover approached Mars, it was moving at more than six times as fast as an F-35, with the throttle at the firewall – going all out. That's a lot of energy to dissipate."

Tackling problems starts with good design, ideals and values. That includes running a government. Nye shows reverence to the canon of our nation in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. Notably, these founding documents are in the Canon of the CNO's Professional Reading Program.

Our founders, he says, put us on a path toward a more perfect union. "Just as science doesn't claim to attain absolute truth, the Constitution does not claim to achieve the utopian ideal of government," Nye writes. "Fortunately, the founders embraced a never-ending search for better ideas and better solutions."

This review of "Everything All at Once" just scratches the surface of what is a fun, thoughtful and compelling read, especially for Earth Day. Highly recommended.



Bill Nye, left, executive director of The Planetary Society, and science educator, gets excited as the Chief of Naval Research Rear. Adm. Nevin Carr presents him with a powered by Naval Research pocket protector during the Navy Office of General Counsel Spring 2011 Conference. (Photo by John Williams)

Navy Taught Isaac Asimov How (Not) to Write

Review by Bill Doughty

What was Isaac Asimov doing around this time, 75 years ago? Writing – in accordance with the Navy style guide – a "report on seam-sealing compounds."

"Every sentence had to be in the passive," Asimov notes (in passive voice) in "It's Been a Good Life" (Prometheus, 2002, edited by Janet Jeppson Asimov.

Working for the DOD: L. Sprague DeCamp, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein

Asimov and Robert Heinlein, among the founders of American science fiction, worked as Navy civilians at the Philadelphia Navy Yard during the Second World War. They were part of homefront support efforts, and in 1944 Asimov had to write that report on seam-sealing compounds.

Describing correspondence and reports written in Navy-style at the time: "There had to be a heading of a certain kind, and then an 'in re' with a coded letter-number entry. Each paragraph had to be numbered," Asimov writes.

"Specifications had to be written Navy style also. Every paragraph had to be numbered; so did every subparagraph and ever subsubparagraph. The main paragraphs were listed as I, II, III, and so on. If anything under a particular paragraph had to be enumerated it was A, B, C ... If A included enumerated items it was 1, 2, 3 ... Under any of these was a, b, c ..., and under these (1), (2), (3)..., and so on. Furthermore, if any on sentence you have to refer to another sentence, you located the referred sentence in its position in the specification, as, for instance, II, C, 3, a, (1). Generally, there weren't too many indentations, or to many references back and forth, and the specifications, while rather tortuous, could be understood – given several hours of close study."

Multi-tasker Asimov at work.

Long and short, Asimov wrote his seam-sealing compounds report "with absolute clarity" and in full compliance with the Navy style guidelines. "I nevertheless managed to break everything down into enumerations, getting all the way down to [(10)] and even [(a)]. I further managed in almost every sentence to refer to some other sentence for which I duly listed a complete identification," he writes.

"The result was that no one on earth could have plunged into it and come out unscathed. Brain coagulation would have set in by page 2." 

Asimov admits the joke was on him; his bosses loved his report and used it as an example for others to emulate.

Fortunately, seventy-five years later, smart Navy leaders embrace simple, clear communication and active voice.

Asimov poses with some of the books he's authored or edited over the years.

Of course, Asimov wrote from both sides of his brain. Asimov, after all, was a Renaissance writer, specializing in fiction, nonfiction, anthologies, poetry and more.

This "found" haiku comes from "Asimov's Guide to the Bible," quoting Exodus 22.21:

Thou shalt not neither vex

a stranger, nor oppress him;

for ye were strangers...

Humility: Asimov sent copies of each of his books, including the Bible book, to his father, who lived in Florida. "He would show it to everyone he knew but would not allow them to touch the books. They had to look at it while he would not allow them to touch the books. They had to look at it while he held it. He must have made himself, and me, so unpopular."

Asimov gave us the blueprint for the AI age. Artificial Intelligence = iRobot.

His fiction may come across as old-fashioned, stodgy and dusty, but his ideas and nonfiction continue to be enlightening. 

There's an interesting revelation in this book about Asimov's confrontation with anti-Semitism, including at the at the Navy Yard and a confrontation with Heinlein. But, in "It's Been a Good Life," he puts prejudice in the perspective of history and his own advantages and privilege.

"It struck me, however, that prejudice was universal and that all groups who were not dominant, who were not actually at the top of the status chain, were potential victims. In Europe, in the 1930s, it was the Jews who were spectacularly victimized, but in the United States it was not the Jews who were worst treated. Here, as anyone could see who did not deliberately keep his eyes shut, it was the African Americans. For two centuries they had actually been enslaved. Since that slavery had come to a formal end, the African Americans remained in a position of near-slavery in most segments of American society. They were deprived of ordinary rights, treated with contempt, and kept out of any chance of participation in what is called the American Dream. I, though Jewish, and poor besides, eventually received a first-class American education at a top American university, and I wondered how many African Americans would have the chance. It constantly bothered me to have to denounce anti-Semitism unless I denounced the cruelty of man to man in general."

Here's a great Asimov quote from this collection: "The whole world seems to live under a banner: 'Freedom is wonderful – but only for me.'"

And here's another, more hopeful, quote from the master: 

"Knowledge is not only power; it is happiness, and being taught is the intellectual analog of being loved."

Read on! Write on!

A White House Insider's Advice

Review by Bill Doughty

Ted Sorensen, Special Counsel to the President, at work in the White House Jan. 25, 1961.
Photo by Abbie Rowe. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

The man who wrote some of the most famous speeches in modern history had plans to join the Navy when he was in high school during the Second World War. But after some soul-searching, he found his calling in a different kind of government service.

As one of the closest advisers to President John F. Kennedy, Ted Sorensen wrote several books that give an insight about leadership at the highest level.

Sorensen analyzed advantages of a "team of rivals" approach in his short book, "Decision Making in the White House: The Olive Branch or the Arrows" (Columbia University Press, 1963).

Some highlights for Navy readers and other critical thinkers:

• An inside look at how the Kennedy administration handled the Cuba Missile Crisis, deciding: "An air strike on military installations in Cuba, without any advance warning, was rejected as a 'Pearl Harbor in reverse.'"
• How, during the Cold War, Kennedy wished to name a nuclear submarine after a famous Indian Chief – Red Cloud – but "the Navy protested that this name had undesirable foreign-policy implications."
• Why the president must understand how his words and expressions can tip the balance in strategy discussions. "... a President must carefully weigh his own words" or risk shutting off "productive debate."
• The hazardous "whirlpools" created by resignations and trouble that can be caused by "the violent resignation of almost any Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense," etc.
• This quote from Alexander Hamilton about a president consulting with advisers: "the Constitution presumes he will consult them ... It must be his own fault if he be not surrounded by men who, for ability and integrity, deserve his confidence."

President John F. Kennedy meets with members of his administration November 24, 1961 regarding the budget for the Department of Defense at the Joseph P. Kennedy residence in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. Clockwise, from top: President Kennedy; David E. Bell, Director, Bureau of the Budget; Roswell Gilpatric, Deputy Secretary of Defense; Jerome B. Wiesner, Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology; Theodore C. "Ted" Sorensen, Special Counsel to the President; McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor; unidentified man; General Lyman Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; General Maxwell D. Taylor, Military Representative of the President; and Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense. (JFK Library)

Sorensen advised openness to new ideas, diverse perspectives and responsible decision-making as intended under the Constitution:

"Unlike the leaders of autocracy, the President of our democracy must contend with powerful pressures of public opinion, with co-equal branches of the government, and with a free and critical press. He cannot allocate resources, or ignore traditions, or override departments in whatever manner he wishes. His allies cannot be treated as satellites, his mistakes cannot be concealed, his critics cannot be silenced."...Great and lasting decisions in human affairs can only be made by those exposed to human value judgments. Consistently wise decisions can only be made by those whose wisdom is constantly challenged. The voluntary unity of free men [and women] and nations is ultimately more solid than the forced uniformity of repression. In the long run, there can be no wisdom without dissent, no progress without diversity, no greatness without responsibility."

In the book's foreword, President Kennedy wrote: "A President must choose among men [and women], among measures, among methods. His choice helps determine the issues of his Presidency, their priority in the national life, and the mode and success of their execution. The heart of the Presidency is therefore informed, prudent, and resolute choice – and the secret of the presidential enterprise is to be found in an examination of the way presidential choices are made."

JFK offered high praise for his speechwriter and special counsel: "Mr. Sorensen, more than any recent American writer, has helped illuminate the scene with skill and judgment," Kennedy writes. "His careful observations have been made with skill and judgment and I am sure his work will become a permanent addition to the small shelf of indispensable books on the American Presidency."

Kennedy and Sorensen

There's a Navy tie linking Ted Sorensen with Navy veteran U.S. presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Carter. 

Jack Rosenthal wrote this about Sorensen in a New York Times review in 2008: "At the age of 17, Sorensen had intended to enlist in the Navy — but he changed his mind the day after World War II ended. He wound up registering as a conscientious objector, a fact later denounced by critics when President Jimmy Carter nominated him, unsuccessfully, to be the director of central intelligence."

Sorensen, a key adviser in Kennedy's inner circle, chose not to continue as part of LBJ's administration as Johnson stepped up the war in Vietnam.

Sorensen receives the National Humanities Medal from President Obama.

According to a profile at the Sorensen Center for International Peace and Justice at the City University of New York School of Law:  "From his pivotal work in crafting President Kennedy’s letter that helped avert nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis to his efforts to shape Kennedy’s civil rights speeches and legislation, Sorensen had a devotion to world peace and justice for all."

This Sorensen quote is featured on the CUNY Sorensen Center website: "We shall listen, not lecture; learn, not threaten. We will enhance our safety by earning the respect of others and showing respect for them."

President Obama presented Ted Sorensen with the National Humanities Medal in a ceremony at the White House on Feb. 25, 2010, eight months before Sorensen's death in New York City.

Sorensen's advice to the Presidency in "Decision-Making" deserves repeating: "In the long run, there can be no wisdom without dissent, no progress without diversity, no greatness without responsibility."

Sorensen is part of a pantheon of scholars-in-service who provided a window to the world and the possibilities – visionaries including Elliot Richardson, Richard Goodwin, Rachel Carson, Grace Hopper, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt and Robert H. Jackson.

President John F. Kennedy and others watch television coverage of astronaut Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn, Jr.'s lift-off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Feb. 20, 1962, aboard Mercury-Atlas 6 (also known as Friendship 7) on the first U.S. manned orbital flight. (L-R) Special Counsel to the President Ted Sorensen (with pencil), Congressman Hale Boggs of Louisiana, Speaker of the House of Representatives John W. McCormack (mostly hidden, with his hand on Congressman Albert's shoulder), Congressman Carl Albert of Oklahoma, Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, President Kennedy, and Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana (with arms crossed at far right). Family Dining Room, White House, Washington, D.C. (JFK Library)