Winning Is Easy

"Spartan Fighting Words"*

*Persian envoys came to demand surrender
of Leonidas, the Spartan king who led the
death stand at Thermopylae.

"You are fools to resist," they said. "The
Persian archers are so numerous that their
arrows will darken the sun."

"So much the better," said Leonidas,
unmoved, "we will then fight in the shade."

***********************************************

"Winning Is Easy"*

*In 1961, the American government encouraged
refugee Cubans to invade Cuba. There was,
however, egregiously poor intelligence on our
part, and when the Cubans landed in the Bay of
Pigs they were killed or captured to a man.

After the fiasco, there was a great deal of
scrambling among government personalities, who
attempted to implicate others in he misjudgment
while clearing themselves.

President John F. Kennedy (who had found the
matter already in progress when he became
President) rose to magnificent heights of manliness
in stoically accepting the blame, though he could
not withhold a sardonic comment: "It has often
been said that victory has a thousand fathers, but
defeat is an orphan."
Received on Mon May 4 07:09:51 2009