Sublime

The Duce’s delusions and confusion of purpose persisted thereafter: he expressed hopes that the British would not make peace until Italy had been able to make some show of contributing to their defeat, and that the Germans would suffer a million casualties before Britain was overrun. He wished to see Hitler victorious, but not all-powerful.

it. Unfazed, Wilson used his power as chief executive to segregate the federal government.

Franklin D. Roosevelt. From the very start, Churchill understood a fundamental truth about the war: that he could not win it without the eventual participation of the United States. Left to itself, he believed, Britain could endure and hold Germany at bay, but only the industrial might and manpower of America would ensure the final eradication of

the Old Guard’s Warren G. Harding was elevated directly from his Senate desk to the White House, in his ears his colleagues’ admonition to “sign whatever bills the Senate sent him and not send bills for the Senate to pass.” Under Harding and Coolidge and Hoover, this “normalcy” was to last for almost a decade—a decade during which, slowly but

At home, Wilson’s racial policies disgraced the office he held.

Each quarter we try to study an admirable company and discuss it with our Operating Group managers and board members. We focus on high performance conglomerates that have demonstrated at least a decade of superior shareholder returns.

The answer, essentially, is that I always tried to run General Motors by a policy of conciliation rather than coercion; and when a majority was opposed to my thinking, I was often disposed to give way. I might add that the top officers of General Motors who were involved in this situation were men of unusual talents and strong convictions, and as