Richard Nixon
Highlights
He liked it there, in that restless mind. It was where, in the unhappy times of his boyhood, he had fled. He was a daydreamer, a cloud counter, a bookworm as a youth, and at night he would lie in bed listening to the train whistles, conjuring the marvelous places he would go. He could be there with you without being there, seem like he was listening while his thoughts were far away.
Ditto.
The drive to fill emotional voids, win parental approval, and bask in public acclaim has motivated many a corporate and political chieftain. Some go further along the continuum, meeting the description of a narcissistic personality offered by the twentieth-century psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut. Their lives are marked by “hyperidealistic” drive and adulthoods in which grandiose goals and rich romantic visions are substitutes for meaningful relationships.
A lot of Silicon Valley falls into this trap, too.
In politics, however, strengths can double as weaknesses. Boldness is perceived as ruthlessness. Genius lacks the common touch. Steadiness is square.
The concept of leadership implied adherents. “Without allies and associates the leader is just an adventurer like Genghis Khan.”
“Policy emerges when concept encounters opportunity,” Kissinger would recall, sounding more than a little like a fortune cookie.