About
Leo Cherne
demonstrated that one person can make a world-wide political and humanitarian
difference. A biography of one of America's leading humanitarians who, as an
advisor to nine presidents, also had a lasting effect on American foreign
policy.
Considered by
some a Renaissance man and by others a light-weight gadfly, Leo Cherne’s life
brimmed with paradox and improbability. Born in the Bronx into a poor,
immigrant, secular-Jewish family, Cherne rose to the pinnacle of economic and
political power in WASP America. While trained as a lawyer, he left the practice
of law to launch a business venture in the midst of the Depression. With his
business thriving, Cherne devoted his time and talents to humanitarian causes,
particularly rescuing political refugees. While Cherne was never elected to
governmental office, he had more influence on American foreign policy than did
most elected officials, or so President Ronald Reagan proclaimed when he gave
Cherne the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Leo Cherne was an intelligent, creative, talented man who exuded confidence and
charisma. He was a consummate networker with the uncanny ability to attract and
cultivate talented people before they became prominent, such as William Casey,
Ronald Reagan, Patrick Moynihan, Tom Dooley and John F. Kennedy, John Whitehead,
Claiborne Pell, and Henry A. Kissinger. Simultaneously, Cherne befriended a
diverse set of prominent Americans, including Liv Ullmann, Bayard Rustin,
Eleanor Roosevelt, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Nelson Rockefeller, James
Michener, Albert Schweitzer, Joan Baez, Richard Nixon, Elie Wiesel, William
Buckley, and Marilyn Monroe.
When Cherne died in January 1999, his memorial service was attended by Henry A.
Kissinger, Liv Ullmann, Henry Denker, and many other prominent Americans. As
Elie Wiesel said in his tribute, Cherne “gave homes to the homeless and hopes
to the hopeless.” Senator Moynihan said in his remarks published in the
Congressional Record: “I think it is safe to say Leo Cherne’s life helped to
redeem the 20th century.”
Excerpt
I first met Leo Cherne in May
1998. I had heard about him for years, but our paths had not crossed. This
meeting had been arranged by John Richardson, a mutual friend, who had confided
that Cherne had wanted for years to write his autobiography and needed advice. I
was dubious about what advice, if any, I could offer, but I jumped at the chance
of meeting Leo Cherne, whose reputation was filled with paradox. He was
considered variously as a Renaissance man, a dynamic orator, a lightweight
gadfly, a behind-the-scenes power broker, a thoughtful advisor to nine
presidents, a flamboyant economic futurist, a playboy closely connected with the
nation’s rich and famous, a high-level fundraiser for humanitarian causes, a
master spy in the employ of an American intelligence service, a highly
successful businessman, and a powerful conservative Cold Warrior.
When I first met him, the eighty-six year old Cherne was physically immobile,
had difficulty seeing and hearing, and was suffering from a host of medical
complications; I’m sure he was in pain. Yet, his eyes danced and his smile
flashed when he remembered a particular event or a person. He was clearly upset
with his deteriorating physical condition and occasional memory lapses, but
courage and confidence exuded from him.
One meeting led to another. On the surface, his life presented a mystifying
facade filled with improbability. He had been born into a secular Jewish family
of newly arrived immigrants from Russia, yet he rose quickly to the pinnacle of
economic and political power in WASP America. He was educated as a lawyer, but
left the practice of law to launch a business venture in the midst of the
Depression. With his business thriving, Cherne devoted considerable time and
talent to humanitarian causes, particularly the rescuing of political refugees.
Although not a trained economist, he enthralled America’s business elite by
prognosticating economic trends annually for fifty years. In his spare time,
Cherne became a self-trained sculptor, and his works graced the Cabinet Room at
the White House, the Smithsonian Institution, and numerous museums around the
world.
About
What do tomatoes, politics,
diploma selling, chickens, Mormons, assassination, polygamy, free love, citizen
militias, and surgery have in common? John Cook Bennett is what--one of those
wildly colorful characters that flourished as never before in nineteenth-century
America. Overbaked in the mold of P.T. Barnum, Bennett earned himself the title
"the Man the Mormons love to hate," among other, unprintable
designations, and mixed respectability with shady dealings in a manner unmatched
by few Americans.
Here is the first biography of one of this nation's most outrageous
scalawags and intriguing scoundrels, whose roles included mayor of Nauvoo,
confidant of Joseph Smith, chicken breeder, surgeon, quartermaster general,
promoter of the tomato, and diploma salesman. Brilliantly told by an author who
spent nine years uncovering and piecing together the true story, The Saintly
Scoundrel reveals Bennett as one of the nineteenth century's most enterprising
and entertaining humbugs.
Excerpt
My first encounter with John
Cook Bennett's name was in 1987. While perusing Isabella Beeton's Book of
Household Management, published in London in 1861, I happened upon a reference
to a Dr. Bennett, who believed that ingesting tomatoes promoted health and
combated disease. Since I was under the impression that everyone during that
period viewed tomatoes as poisonous, I was surprised Bennett believed that
eating them was a "virtue."1 Beeton offered no further information
about Dr. Bennett.
Because Beeton was English, my odyssey to locate information about Bennett began
at the British Library in London. Unfortunately, Beeton offered no first name or
other identification for Dr. Bennett. Many Bennetts were listed in the library's
catalogue. After several hours of futile investigation, I gave up. This initial
failure, however, piqued my curiosity. I began to examine British gardening,
agricultural, and medical works in hopes of locating information about the
illusive Dr. Bennett.
Diligence and luck triumphed. Beeton probably borrowed Bennett's statement from
the Gardener's Chronicle, a periodical published in London. It in turn cited the
Victorian Agricultural and Horticultural Gazette in Australia. The Victoria
State Library in Melbourne sent me a copy of Bennett's statement. The Gazette
had lifted it from an American periodical.2 A systematic examination of all
gardening and agricultural journals published in the United States eventually
turned up hundreds of letters and essays written by or about Dr. Bennett. These
revealed that Bennett was a professor of midwifery and the diseases of women and
children in the Medical Department of Willoughby University of Lake Erie in
Chagrin, Ohio. The Ohio Historical Society provided articles written by the
medical historian Frederick C. Waite about Willoughby University and other
midwestern colleges with which Bennett had been connected. From Waite's articles
I located Bennett's books and several additional essays published about his
links to the Masons. I examined regional histories and newspapers in all
communities in which Bennett was known to have resided and turned up more
information.
-
"The Saintly Scoundrel is the most interesting Mormon
biography this decade, and written by an outsider who liked Bennett but
is not a Mormon--no predetermined conclusions either way (thus its title).
"I disagreed with many of his interpretations (for example,
"spiritual wifery" and Mormon sincerity), but I thought the
biographical research methodology to be as good as any in the Mormon historical
community."
--- John Hajicek lds-mormon.com
The book received the John Whitmer Historical Society 1997 Award for the Best
Book
the Mormon History Association’s Ella Larsen Turner Award for Best Biography
in 1997.
