Book of Obituaries

by Ann Wroe

  His law career was prospering – he specialised in “intellectual property”, such as copyright – and he took an interest in politics at a local level. Nevertheless, in 1961 he was easily persuaded to rejoin Mensa. He had “an easy rapport” with people of high intelligence, he said. By then Mensa had outgrown its infant waywardness. Victor Serebriakoff, who took over from Mr Ware, turned a wobbly membership of about 100, rather than the hoped-for 600, into a national, then an international, organisation.

  Mensa now has about 100,000 members, almost half of them in the United States. Admission is by intelligence test. One reproduced in Mr Serebriakoff’s book would probably not tax any reader of The Economist. But being intelligent, if in fact any test can measure intelligence accurately, does not guarantee wisdom. Some of Mensa’s critics scoff that it is not selective enough. Mr Ware said he was disappointed that so many members spent so much time solving puzzles. “It’s a form of mental masturbation,” he said. “Nothing comes of it.” A Mensa gathering is “a place where eggheads get laid”, said a probably jealous outsider. Mensa has had many rivals, but few have lasted. Some were simply potty, like the Cinque, which aimed to consist of the world’s five brightest people. Mr Serebriakoff concedes that people in Mensa “bicker a lot”, but “we shall survive”.

  Mensans, as they call themselves, take all jibes stoically. The American Mensans see themselves as a brotherhood and sisterhood who laugh and play and “cry on each other’s shoulders”. They display stickers on their car bumpers, proudly announcing their membership of Mensa. The British, as might be expected, tend to be more reticent. The pioneer members wore yellow buttons, but soon discarded the practice. You could never be sure, but some stranger might try to start up a conversation in a train.

  Pierre Werner

  Pierre Werner, father of the euro, died on June 24th 2002, aged 88

  In the end Pierre Werner was mildly surprised that Europeans had meekly abandoned their proud currencies, the franc, mark, lira and so on, and accepted the euro. Perhaps, he suggested, they were weary of arguing. He felt a bit weary himself. He had first suggested a common currency for Europe back in 1960, but had to wait for 42 years before it was launched as real notes and coin six months ago.

  Mr Werner is generally accepted as the father of the euro. The euro’s paternity is probably shared among the pioneers of what eventually became the European Union. A common currency for Europe is hinted at in the Union’s founding treaty signed in Rome in 1957. But Mr Werner became its most public advocate; more than that, a zealot. His European colleagues, who tended to be, in public at least, less zealotish, were content that a scheme they adopted in 1971 that eventually led to the euro should be called the Werner Plan. He would get the credit and, if things went wrong, he could also get the blame.

  Neither credit nor blame appeared to matter to Mr Werner. What mattered was ending Europe’s terrible tribal wars. Economic problems in Germany had led to the second world war, he said. Now economics would be the peacekeeper. In a speech in 1960 he argued for a common currency called the “euror”, a name soon dropped, perhaps because it sounded like “error”. But Mr Werner persisted, and in his 1971 plan proposed that the economies of European states should come under the control of a central authority in perpetuity. Wouldn’t national sovereignty be sacrificed? Of course, he said. That was the idea. A federal Europe? A logical development.

  The simple logic of the Werner proposals has vexed European political leaders that have nationalistic voters. None of the 12 members of the Union that have adopted the euro appears to favour a federal state, certainly not France or Germany, the master-builders of European unity. Its prospect frightens many people in Britain from even contemplating joining the euro. Best then to belittle the Werner Plan. Much had happened since it was nodded through all that time ago. Pierre Werner was a good man, but with limited authority. Did you know he was prime minister of Luxembourg for 20 years? Yes, Luxembourg, an odd country in some ways.

  As a fervent European Mr Werner could not have chosen to be born in a more suitable place. Luxembourg was ruled at various times by many other European countries, among them France, Spain, Austria and even the Netherlands. Sometimes the country was sold or given away: its handy size, only 84km (51 miles) by 52km, made it easy to package as a gift to seal an alliance. Germany ignored Luxembourg’s pleas of neutrality and occupied it during both world wars.

  Mr Werner was brought up bilingually. His father spoke French and his mother German. He set out to be a lawyer and took a law degree in Paris. Then economics took his fancy and at the outbreak of the second world war he was working for a bank in the Luxembourg capital, also called Luxembourg. With memories of the first

  world war still fresh, many people fled to safer places. Grand Duchess Charlotte, the head of the royal family, moved to Canada. Mr Werner, newly-wedded, stayed put with his bride.

  The German occupation turned out to be worse than it had been in the first world war. Many Luxembourgers were conscripted into the German army. Jews were sent to extermination camps. In 1944 Luxembourg was the setting for one of the biggest battles of the second world war when allied forces were nearly surrounded, suffered huge casualties, and came close to defeat in what became known as the battle of the Bulge. The experience of war, the ravaged land, the humiliation of the people, the revenge that followed victory when German collaborators were executed; all this shaped Mr Werner’s view of how Europe had to be changed for the betterment of its people (including his five children).He went into politics, and was elected to his country’s parliament in 1945. He rose swiftly and served two long stints as prime minister. But Mr Werner outgrew Luxembourg. He became close to Jean Monnet and others who were creating the Common Market, the forebear of the Union. In his memoirs Mr Werner wrote, “To awake Europeans to the weakness and division of Europe became an intellectual obligation for me.”

  In those heroic days, no one seemed to question that the central aim of European unity was to prevent war. Economic gain, though useful, was a secondary consideration. Later, Mr Werner noted sadly, economic gain seemed to have become all important for the Union’s members and applicants. Luxembourg itself has become immensely rich, partly as a result of being a founder member of the Union. Britain’s decision on whether to adopt the euro may turn on five economic tests.

  But while Europeans no longer fought each other, many other tribes around the world still did. Mr Werner said there was a road to peace: gradual economic union leading to a single currency for the world. Mondo, he said, would be a suitable name. There may be quite a long wait.

  General William Westmoreland

  William Childs Westmoreland, soldier, died on July 18th 2005, aged 91

  THOUGH many tried to dissuade him, in 1974 William Westmoreland (General, US army, retired) ran for the governorship of South Carolina. He lost, and was not surprised. “I’m used to a structured organisation”, he confessed afterwards, “and this civilian process is so doggone nebulous.”

  That word, for him, summed up the frustrations of a general’s life in a democracy. During his years in Vietnam, as commander of American forces from 1964 to 1968, he had been fighting not only a subtle, nimble enemy hidden in villages and jungle, but a miasma of criticism, hatred and political timidity at home. He was never his own master, but the servant of Lyndon Johnson and his civilian advisers. He could not even choose where to direct the bombing of North Vietnam, since, as he growled in his memoirs, “this or that target was not to be hit for this or that nebulous non-military reason.”

  General Westmoreland himself was the reverse of nebulous: tall, well-eyebrowed, jut-chinned, and with an impressive scar on his left cheek from hurtling through a windscreen as a child. His creed was “Duty, Honour, Country”, as drilled into every cadet at West Point. His approach to strategy was bluntly old-fashioned, not to say heavy-handed. The South Vietnamese army had to be structured as a conventional force, ready for large-scale military operations, even though it was fight
ing guerrillas. America needed to hit North Vietnam “surely, swiftly, and powerfully ... with sufficient force to hurt”, as at Khe Sanh, where B-52s dropped more than 100,000 tonnes of bombs over two months. And troops needed to be poured in. General Westmoreland’s tactics were simple: take the war to the enemy, and kill him faster than he could be replaced. Where possible, apply overwhelming, stunning force. “A great country”, he liked to say, quoting the Duke of Wellington, “cannot wage a little war.”

  On General Westmoreland’s watch, the numbers of Americans in South Vietnam rose from 15,000 military “advisers” in 1964 to 500,000 troops by 1968, and he wanted more. The conflict, he believed, was winnable. A combination of flawed intelligence, book-cooking, random “body-counts” and wishful thinking led to chronic underestimates of the strength of the enemy. He could win the war, he told Johnson early in 1968, if he had 206,000 extra men and if the reserves were mobilised. At this suggestion, Johnson’s advisers sharply drew in breath. If this was what was needed to reach “the light at the end of the tunnel”, America could not do it. Within the year, General Westmoreland had been replaced, the bombing of the North moderated, and the scene set for talks.

  He was blamed for losing the war, America’s only defeat in its history. In his view, however, this “noble” conflict was lost only in the public mind and in the pages of the New York Times. True, in April 1975 helicopters had winched the last Americans from the rooftops of Saigon as the city fell to the Vietcong; but this, in General Westmoreland’s view, was a defeat for the South Vietnamese. American troops had not been bested in any engagement of significance. Instead, in 1973 the politicians had made them stop fighting, like a boxer who, with his opponent on the ropes, suddenly and inexplicably throws in the towel. They would certainly have won, the general insisted, if they had been allowed to expand operations into Laos, Cambodia and the North, disrupting chains of supply and recruitment to the Vietcong. But Johnson, fearing to stir up Russia or China, had never allowed it.

  The chaos and complexities of Vietnam were not what General Westmoreland had been trained for. On his graduation in 1936, as an artillery officer, the big guns he encountered were Model 1897 French 75s with steel-rimmed wooden wheels, drawn by horses. His great-uncle, who had fought for the Confederacy with many other ardent South Carolinians, would have recognised this style of warfare. General Westmoreland, however, came to shape modern ways of fighting, especially with his massive use of helicopter gunships to gain mobility in battle. These, flying in assault formation, became the motif of the Vietnam war.

  In a less controversial conflict, General Westmoreland might have been given more credit. He took care of his men, to the point of parachuting first from aircraft in case the wind was dangerous. He believed in keeping up morale with copious medals and commendations (his commendation of Charlie Company, after its infamous torching and massacre of the village of My Lai, being an unfortunate mistake). But he was not forgiven for his rosy forecasts of how the war would go. He became army chief of staff, but was never promoted to the joint chiefs. As the war dragged on into the Nixon years, he was rarely sought for his advice.

  Reporters sometimes asked what he thought of his “counterpart” on the North Vietnamese side, Vo Nguyen Giap. He bristled at that: not because he thought him a bad soldier or a bad man, but because Giap had been a powerful member of his government, and had been able to impose his wishes on the rest. Not so General Westmoreland, defeated by a cloud.

  Elsie Widdowson

  Elsie May Widdowson, food scientist, died on June 14th 2000, aged 93

  You can, if you have to, live on a very simple diet, Elsie Widdowson said, and said it often. She worked out that bread, cabbage and potatoes contained all the nutrients for healthy survival. For three months she and a number of her companions ate nothing else, and, to test their fitness following this bleak regime, went on a rigorous course of cycling and mountain climbing.

  This was in 1940 when Britain feared that, as the war pressed on and its food ships were torpedoed, it would not be able to feed its people adequately. Miss Widdowson showed that it could, using the humble produce plentifully at hand. If you could come by the occasional egg, fruit and piece of meat, lucky you, but her basic diet would keep you healthy.

  The government gratefully adopted her diet and took credit for its success. She was one of Britain’s bits of wartime luck, like having academics and other brainy people who found ways of breaking the enemy’s military codes. As the codebreakers were, she was driven by Britain’s desperate necessity to survive. The Germans ate well for most of the war, drawing on the resources of the countries they had conquered. The United States had little shortage of food.

  The British remained lean for several years after the war but, as happened in the rest of the rich world, their tummies surrendered to the temptations of the supermarket. Miss Widdowson had a respectful following in the United States, where she occasionally lectured, but never claimed any practical influence on the half of the American population that is overweight. Nevertheless, she lived to see her diet praised by nutritionists as just about the healthiest Britain has known. Children especially used to eat more bread and vegetables than they do now, while most families could not afford the sugary soft drinks popular today. Miss Widdowson shared Jonathan Swift’s observation that bread was the staff of life. The army once called her in, worried that young soldiers were not putting on weight. Were they getting enough red meat? Meat was not the problem, Miss Widdowson said. The soldiers were not eating enough bread, preferring cakes instead.

  There were two sisters, Elsie and Eva, born in south London. Both became scientists. Eva Crane, the younger sister, is a world authority or bees. Everyone who keeps a hive knows her name. But it was diet that fascinated sister Elsie, and in 1933 her researches took her to the kitchen of St Bartholomew’s, a London hospital, where a young doctor, Robert McCance, was checking on the cooking. For the next 60 years, until McCance died in 1993, they worked together on food research. Anything said about Elsie Widdowson’s work inevitably touches on McCance’s. They were one of the great partnerships of modern science. Their book The Composition of Foods, first published in 1940, and regularly updated as new foods come on the market, remains a key reference work for nutritionists. Here is item number 18 in the tables: bread, white, large loaf, with its values in protein, fat, calories and chemicals, which so impressed the Widdowson−McCance couple in their quest for a reliable basic diet.

  The tables were again thumbed through when the couple advised on what food could be tolerated by the victims of the war as they were nursed to health: the starving survivors of German concentration camps; the malnourished populations of the occupied countries; and German children, many of them orphans, in a now destitute country.

  Miss Widdowson was made a Companion of Honour, a rare British accolade, as well as receiving numerous scientific awards. She lived most of her working life in Cambridge. At her cottage on the river Cam she grew fruit and vegetables and had cats for company, and bees provided by her sister. The laboratories of the Medical Research Council and other research organisations were her base. One is named after her. And she could study the composition of the human body in the pathology unit at Cambridge’s Addenbrooke’s Hospital. Miss Widdowson and her partner would sometimes experiment on themselves to judge the effect of certain substances in the body. Miss Widdowson injected herself with solutions of calcium, magnesium and iron and prepared a paper on their effects. They tackled the wartime problem of rickety children, caused by a shortage of calcium in the diet, by getting bakers to mix chalk with the flour.

  Miss Widdowson sought simple solutions; and aimed for clarity in her scientific writing. She said her ideal communicator was Alistair Cooke, a

  broadcaster famous in Britain for his weekly “Letter from America”, and still delivering his elegant prose at the age of 93. Like him, she never thought of retiring. A few years ago she was in Labrador, scrabbling about on the ice floes to study the e
ating habits of seals. Reporters inevitably asked her for the secret of her long and energetic life. Was it to do with diet? She said she had simply inherited good genes from her parents. Her father had lived to 96 and her mother to 107. As for her diet, she ate butter and eggs, which some said were bad for you. And bread, of course.

  Markus Wolf

  Markus Wolf, East German spymaster, died on November 9th 2006, aged 83

  FASCINATING to his fans, odious to his enemies, Markus Wolf embodied the dilemmas and complexities of the cold war in Europe. Seen one way, he was something of a hero: not just a professional but also a patriot and an idealist. Even his ardent communism could be excused: had not his Jewish family found refuge from the Nazis in the Soviet Union? Revealed after the collapse of communism as cultivated, charming, an accomplished cook and, to some, a heart-throb, he was utterly unlike most Soviet-block spymasters – crumpled, podgy men with thick glasses and steel teeth.

  There was a whiff of glamour in the way that Mr Wolf’s spies outwitted their bumbling West German rivals. As head, for 34 years, of the foreign-intelligence arm of the Stasi, East Germany’s Ministry of State Security, he planted agents and recruited informers all over West Germany. Some found their way into the very departments charged with defending democracy, others into the highest reaches of the state, even the chancellery. For those who believed the West to be shamefully materialist or unduly forgiving of the Nazi past, it was tempting to admire the guile of one who so often humiliated it.