“Pancho Villa’s Air Force”

It is amazing who you meet at the beach. Learning I had written “Dos Gringos,” a book set in The Mexican Revolution, a nice woman introduced me to her friend saying the friend’s father was involved with building an air force for Pancho Villa.  The father was Frank Wallace, one of those adventurous aviation pioneers during the wild days before, during, and after WW I. Wallace’s story is full of thrills and survival. His first flight was at the age of eleven when his foot caught in the rope of a hot-air balloon which hauled him up, ankle first over Bellingham, Washington. They pulled him into the basket, but the crowd thought it was part of the show and so he continued to do it, for money.

No, Pancho Villa never had an “air force” as badly as he wanted airplanes to bomb the Federáles. But, there was no shortage of money for this after all the banks were robbed.  It was Frank Wallace who was involved to get these planes, but it all fell through as much seemed to do for all sides, and the money into various pockets. Villa had an American or two flying reconnaissance for him at times, but neither the airplanes or the pilots lasted for long. That’s a bigger story. The photo above is of the famous Curtiss JN-4 “Jenney” used by the fledging American forces to chase Villa after he invaded New Mexico.

In his flying life Wallace knew them all– Glenn Curtiss, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, Howard Hughes, and Henry Ford and was a member of the esoteric Quiet Birdmen society. He soloed at Curtiss’ North Island School in March, 1911, then barnstormed and flew in Mexico, South America, Italy, Poland, and Costa Rica.  His story, and voluminous notes are compiled in a draft by his daughter JoAnne Rowan who shared the stories with me.

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

The Politics of Russian Business

One thing you have to understand is that Russia is a politi­cal country. You can’t do things alone.  Never mind about the Kremlin. That is another ocean you probably won’t have to challenge. But, even at the daily business level, it can be like crossing a big pond in a small boat. Or, as in the famous Repin painting above, like pulling the boat upstream. It is better to know you may need help on the oars and to prepare by choosing your crew yourself. In Russia they call it a “roof” which means political relationships that hopefully will be there to help when you need it. Also you hope they will leave you alone to manage your business and not interfere. In my company, we were fortunate to have trustworty and friendly connections which did just that. Some roofs leak in a storm; others are overwhelming and starve you of sun to grow in. Choose carefully.

It’s like getting married. Be careful to pick the right one as you may be with them a long time. So often I found Americans who had made some initial contacts, came to Moscow for a week and went home thinking they had made a deal. It doesn’t happen that way. Again, here is where patience pays. Patience is strength.

Buy here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

A Forgotton War: Warsaw 1920

A friend of mine, originally from Krakow, Poland recommended this book to me. I had never heard of this war—at this critical time and place in European history. In this book, Warsaw 1920: Lenin’s Failed Conquest of Europe  by Adam Zamoyski reminds us about an obscure war that had great ramifications. Coming as it did between the World Wars the Soviet-Polish war of 1919-1921 was pivotal in stemming the Soviet advance into Europe and in saving the Versailles peace conference and a reconstructed Poland. Zamoyski believes that this Polish victory saved Western Europe from being overrun by the Russians, with consequences that would have created Communist states in Germany, other Eastern European states, and possibly even as far West as France.

The new Soviet state was a mess after their brutal civil war, and the best way of ensuring its survival appeared to be to export the revolution to a ruined Germany. As usual, geography dictates. Between Russia and Germany lay Poland. Egged on by Trotsky, Lenin launched a massive westward advance under the flamboyant Marshal Tukhachevsky and the Russians were only a few kilometers from Warsaw, and Berlin was less than a week’s march away. Then the Miracle of the Vistula occurred: the Polish army led by Jozef Pilsudski regrouped and achieved one of the most decisive victories in military history and Lenin was forced to settle for Communism in one country—for a time. What a mess it was, hundreds of thousands of men fought and died and a look at the maps seemed to me like four football teams on one field with no set boundaries or goals. So many mistakes, such a big victory.

Pushkin was right!

“To the orders of God or muse be obedient.

Don’t be afraid of insult,

don’t demand the laurel wreath.

Slander and praise receive

with equal indifference.

     And never argue with a fool.”

This is from a poem Alexander Pushkin wrote in 1836. The epigraph is from Horace – “Exegi Monumentum”

Maybe if he had taken his own advice, he would not have lost in life in a senseless duel in St. Petersburg not long after he wrote this. Nevertheless the advice is not to be ignored. I gave these words in a calligraphic poem, framed, as a gift to my teenaged grandchildren for their home or college room walls. It is advice we all should follow.

Buy here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

“The Usual Suspects” and the Glorious Sunset

Many nights I walk to Inspiration Point overlooking the Pacific and sit on a concrete bench and watch the orange ball of sun setting over the ocean. Every night it is different. The small crew that meet there, men and some women, ages 40s to 90s, are from all over the US, a few from Iran, Poland, Prague, and some exotic place called New Jersey. Well traveled and conversant on many important topics, foreign and domestic,  including the timing of the grunion run, we watch, like a bunch of Druids, the sun go down. I call them. “The Usual Suspects,” borrowing from the last lines of  “Casablanca.”  

It is a popular place for walkers with babies and all sorts of dogs, large and tiny. The languages heard include much of Europe, Asia, Russian, The Middle East, and even New York and Boston. Corona del Mar is a great place to live. So much is within walking distance, especially the ocean. It is, in its own way, a small village in a giant metropolis of Orange County and greater LA

The Cossacks are Coming

Recently I was introduced to a Russian lady here in California who soon informed me she was in fact a Cossack. In my interest in Russian history and culture I know about the Cossacks, but hard facts are elusive as to who they really are.  I knew them from the dramatic pictures and wild stories and that they chased Napoleon out of Russia in 1812. A few questions from my ignorance brought her answer, “Cossacks are a nation.” The origin of the name “Cossack” is from an early Turkic word meaning “free man”—anyone who could not find his appropriate place in society and went into the steppes, where he acknowledged no authority.  An independent people they have always been.

Olga told us of her family, its terrible treatment under Stalin, the “disappearance” of most of the men, Meeting Olga encouraged me to do a little research and I find their identity goes back the 16^th century in that southern steppe lands of Eastern Europe and Asian Russia, around the Dnieper and Don rivers—that geographic location destined to be forever in the way of invading armies going south or north, with  the Cossacks allying with one side or the other, or both.

As I underline in “Walking on Ice, an American Businessman in Russia,” I am always amazed at the determination and strength of many of the Russian women who come here for a new life. To meet a Cossack woman, here only three years, with a good job, and hear her decent English and resolve to better herself in this totally different culture, is admirable. The Cossacks are coming, but maybe only one at a time.

The Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan of Turkey, the painting by Ilya Repin shown above is in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg

About Leadership

There is so much talk and teaching about “management” in these changing times. However, there is a difference between “management” and “leadership.” My own world experience has taught me that under good leadership, a good team manages to get the job done. Yesterday I visited the Milken Institute to hear a talk entitled “Defining Great Leadership” by Warren Bennis and Joel Kurtzman, both experienced and celebrated writers and speakers on this subject. It was a full house.

Bennis, in describing the start of his life-study of leadership related his experience during World War II as a fresh Lieutenant in a combat hardened infantry unit in France. His discussion rang a bell with me as that was so similar to my first leadership experience. In Korea in 1955 I was transferred from a non-combat assignment to a tank regiment on the front lines. Bennis and Kurtzman stressed one is only a leader when there are loyal followers and they both agreed the Army was the best training ground for this. When I was placed as a tank platoon leader, it was the “loyal followers” who trained me to be a leader. The sergeants, all veterans of chasing Rommel across Africa and Italy, showed me how to be part of the team, and lead.

Today, those companies with outstanding and responsible leadership, with the professional and social skills needed to inspire and harness creativity in the high-tech world, will be our heroes of this century.

Bennis’ book Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership and Kurtzman’s Common Purpose: How Great Leaders Get Organizations to Achieve the Extraordinary are available from Amazon and book stores.

Buy here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

Coco Chanel and WHO? Rasputin??

No, they were not lovers. Really!! But there is a connection, albeit a long thin one. Grand Duke Dimitri was one of the handful, led by Prince Felix Yusupov, who murdered Rasputin in Saint Petersburg in December, 1916. Czar Nicholas II sent the conspirators far out of town and Dimitri was sent to a military unit in Persia. In the next year, 1917, it was all over for Czarist Russia and the Grand Duke never returned. Like many other fleeing Russians he ended up in Paris. And who do you think took notice of the aristocrat’s arrival? Coco Chanel. She was eleven years his senior but that didn’t stop either one.

 The French perfume business was booming because the scents didn’t last past eleven in the evening. So they bathed in the stuff. (Can you imagine!) But, as I heard the story, Dimitri said to Coco that she should not sell big bottles of perfume for cheap prices, but small bottles for high prices. He introduced Coco to Ernest Beaux, a successful Russian-born perfumer from St. Petersburg, whose French employer, Coty, would not follow his suggestions. Beaux insisted that the addition of deer musk would make the perfume last the night. Coco hired Beaux, added dear musk to the eighty-some other ingredients and voilà- Chanel No. 5 was born—that was 1920. The Coco-Dimitri affair was in 1921 and while she moved on to others, the relationship in indeed historic. You may have seen the film “Igor and Coco” about her affair with Stravinsky. It seems she liked Russians – famous Russians.

In my next book, “The Lady with the Ostrich Feather Fan” you will learn more about Rasputin’s murder, but it is really about the “life” of two Rembrandts that were the pride of the Yusupov collection and now hang in the National Gallery of Art. More on that later. This perfume story is just one of the many side-stories that emerge when writing.

To read more about all this read “Chanel” by Edmonde Charles~Roux.

Getting the Microstory of the Mexican Revolution

 I have been asked to join a panel discussion on October 30 at The El Paso Central Library, part of their celebration of the Mexican Revolution centenary. The host of the discussion will be David Dorado Romo and that is what this post is about. He is a very interesting man, author of “Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juarez, 1893-1923.”

The fascinating thing to me is Romo’s approach to uncover the underside of the Revolution, the characters who made a difference, but seldom make it into the history books. That is what I like to do and what my book, “Dos Gringos” does in its own way. And Rome focuses on El Paso, my hometown, and its critical role in the happenings in Mexico. I very much look forward to the meeting and the panel discussion.

 For more on the book and the author see http://www.sergiotroncoso.com/essays/eptimes/05-1113/index.htm and a youtube NPR interview  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGm61qvnAI0

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

To the Met she goes, Hooray for Danielle

It is a wonderful feeling when someone you know and admire moves up the ladder to a well deserved success and place in life. Danielle Pizzorni is doing just that. For the past years this charming and beautiful soprano has been a soloist in our church in Newport Beach. Now she has been called to The Metropolitan Opera in New York. Of course that was her goal. Three years at Julliard, a degree in Music Business from USC, and into her Masters in Voice at Cal State, Fullerton, this Orange County young woman is well prepared. She has such a compelling voice, a charming personality, and beautiful. Her last hymn in our church was “The Lord’s Prayer” and there was not a dry eye in the church, me included.

 She is a natural for the Met. Of course we will all miss her in Newport Beach, but are so thrilled her voice will be heard by the world. That is what The Met is all about. She deserves every clap of applause she will get.