Thorsten Overgaard

The inspections led by Hans Blix had actually, all considered, been going fine for the four months the resolution 1441 had been in effect. The type of inspections (going to any location in a country to inspect sites, papers and interview scientists) would have been unheard of in the 80ties or earlier. No nation would ever allow any other nations that type of access. But this was actually what Iraq was asked to allow, and which they did more or less volunteering. Considering that there were no real weapons of mass destruction, the inspectors being allowed to sites but not finding any ‘smoking gun’ was actually working well.

Which was not what was called for by ……. [you fill in the dots] why they engaged in a war instead.

Anyhow. You must get that book and read it. It gives insight on a power-level that you will be glad you got. It helps understand how top government is not that far from the way teenage girls operate when they want something.

At the Faroe Islands Bill Clinton started his speech with saying that it was an honor for him speaking at the same event as Hans Blix. And he noted that, “if Hans Blix had been allowed to continue his work in Iraq, we would not have had the Iraq war.”

So, there’s where he belongs in history. The man that prevented the Iraq war.

Why he was removed so we could get the war.

In my book he is the one who had the integrity to say what he believed and knew as a fact from his own observations (that there was not found any weapons of mass destruction and that their inspections did not indicate such weapons would be found), in spite of great pressure to keep quiet or even say the opposite.

Of course it would have been better if he had had both the integrity, the power and the network to actually prevent that war.

He’s retiring these years. He still has one foot in the UN but born in 1928 in Uppsala in Sweden, he’s reaching the retirement age.

But there’s something refreshing about retired people. They may speak free without repercussions, they’re not running for any office, and they have a lifetime of experience to draw from.

Hans Blix has that freedom and that knowledge. He was so kind to fetch a copy of his book “Disarming Iraq” from his hotel room and sign it to me. So I’m reading his book now and … well, it’s just heartbreaking how suppressive and antisocial people are allowed to run the world.

Something can be done about that.

I’ll get back to that in the end as I just came to think of another retired person, Ted Sorensen (Theodore C. Sorensen), who was JFK’s speechwriter and JFKs personal assistant for 13 years. During JFKs presidency they were known to think alike, like one and same person. Ted Sorensen was Special Counsel to the President.

I met Ted Sorensen in 2003 and I basically had two questions for him. One was “Did you ever meet Marilyn Monroe” which he – as the excellent diplomat he is – answered with “No, but I met her publicist.”

That was my clumsy attempt to find out if JFK really did Marilyn or not, and he recognized that without a blink. I mean instantly. Good on him.

And I didn't ask about her publicist.

I was with him for several days so it was kind of natural to ask his opinion and advice, as well as the above, else indiscrete, question. I didn’t just bump into him and asked him about Marilyn as the first and only thing. I warmed up for several days.

What is also interesting about him, and which will be revealed when he publish his life story in 2008 or 2009, is what he did after 1963 when JFK died.

The first two years he spent writing his book "KENNEDY", which is JFK’s life story. But after that he worked as a lawyer, consulting the leaders of countries and major corporations. You come up with any world leader in the period since 1965, and he’s been there. All over the map from Nelson Mandela over Fidel Castro to Bill Clinton. Some were crooks and dictators; some were brilliant people and brilliant leaders.

He met them all.

So my other question was a bit above the waist level, “With all the leaders you have met in your life, what distinguish a good leader from a bad?”

I really wanted to know. I thought it was an interesting question.

The master of words, Ted Sorensen, thought for a long while, I would estimate two seconds, then answered with one single word:

“Judgment.”

He didn’t elaborate on it. No need, really.

I’ve had a couple of years to let it sink in, and the more I discover and the more I think with it, it’s simply brilliant. Judgment.

According to another writer and philosopher with a quite bright mind, judgment is defined as: “How many urges in life or existence a person can simultaneously compute on” (L. Ron Hubbard, 1954).

So, the great leader is one who, like Kennedy did with the Cuban Missile Crisis, can simultaneously see a situation from the viewpoint of nations, children, housewives, his father the Ambassador, Wall Street, the Norwegian elks – as well as from the viewpoint of his enemy, and decide for the greatest good, what to do, how to solve the problem.

Because that is how he – together with Ted Sorensen – handled the Cuban Missile Crisis so a global atomic war was prevented. You can see how in the movie Thirteen Days with Kevin Costner, which, by the way, is a great movie, I’ve seen five or six times.

A key element in this was not listening to the generals.

Had the generals, with their limited judgment (limited to their own career and the military defense with the rules of engagement, an eye for an eye and all that) had their will, as they often have had in government, it would have been World War III, and the final one.

No sequel.

Another key element was having Ted Sorensen draft a letter to Nikita Khrushchev, the Russian leader, acknowledging him and hand him a solution where nobody would loose face. Essential little detail in dealing with a Russians leader…

I mean, that’s judgment. Brilliant thinking.

(Another element in this, byt the way, was that the letter was drafted in a way so that Khrushchev was stabilized as the leader of Russia. During the crisis, JFK sensed that Khrushchev felt like JFK [on not destroying the planet], but also that Khrushchev was about to be ousted by other leaders in the Russian government. So by adressing him, and in the way it was done, he made sure Khrushchev was kept in position and was able to take the decisions called for).

Brilliant.

The title of this blog, MAD refers to the official term Mutual Assured Destruction, which covers the cold war strategy of having sufficient atomic weapons to destroy an enemy, in case he sends his nukes at you.

See, not only did someone believe in such a massive destruction strategy, they or he even dreamt up an abbreviation for it to make it sound as a scientific proven way to survive war as a nation or as race.

An eye for an eye, first strike strategy and all that. Really the works of mad men.

Taste the word "destruction" for a bit.

Then try "mutual destruction." for a bit.

Totally insane.

Kennedy didn’t think that was such a great idea why he pursued any other idea, the advisory board he set up, later known as “the chosen few,” could come up with. He talked to a lot of experts and was very careful not to promise any of them to follow their advise. In the end, he was his own advisor.

Here's a picture of a cabinet meeting from back then. You can almost see how Robert Kennedy (far left almost lying down in his chair) and Ted Sorensen (with glasses, in the front with his back to the viewer) stick out. Those two were in the "chosen few" group JFK had working 24/7 on finding alternate solutions and probabl, together with JFK, had some other solutions in mind than the ones discussed officialy at that meeting:

Okay, I kind of got myself onto a track of events and people that is very interesting to me. I’ll get back to photography in a moment.

To finish the Ted Sorensen and John F. Kennedy thing, JFK wrote the book “Profiles in Courage” in 1956 for which he won the Pulitzer price. Some say Ted Sorensen was the writer and I’m sure he had a hand in it. Nevertheless, that book is in fact a hall of fame of people of courage, integrity and judgment.

So there it is.

Photography. As for Blix, I asked him for five minutes of his time for a portrait and he agreed. We were in a hotel and in between television interviews and I didn’t want to use their light and setup.

So I had found a spot in the restaurant upstairs, where they were still serving brunch, with a black door as background and the breathtaking panoramaview over Torshavn serving as available light for the photo.

So I asked Hans Blix to sit down and just hang out with his recent book, the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” from 2006, which he had with him.

I don’t know how, but I most often ask people to hang out and then I’ll be ready with the camera in a minute. What mostly happens is that they do hang out and relax and fall in character as them self.

What I never want is somebody getting into any other character than himself or herself. I think portraiture is to some degree a matter of capturing a person’s soul. Or “take it,” as some ‘primitive’ tribes is rumored to have said.

Apparently not that ‘primitive,’ as they seem to have figured out the essence of photography long before anybody else.

Hans Blix is Swedish.

Now, I know many Swedish people who seldom smile. They tend to take things serious and if you tell a joke, most of them will try to reason with it (and as humor is mostly about things that does not add up, they won’t succeed).

Hans Blix is an international Swede with a quite good sense of humor. Yet a serious man who has dealt with matters of mass destruction for many years.

Further, he is a man who said things were OK, was ousted, and then some years and thousands of killings later, we all know he was right. Things were in fact OK.

How does a man like that look?

I think he looks like this.

A minor detail in the setup, I just came to think of this, is that Hans Blix is sitting in a Danish designed Wegner chair. A rather famous photo of John F. Kennedy exist where he is sitting in the same chair on a television set, prior to the 1960 election.

Coincidence.

In celebrity photography, and sometimes in portrait photography, “eye contact” is essential. In fact, when we submit pictures to WireImage, Getty Image, etc. there’s a button you tick for “eye contact” if there is eye contact with the person.

I think the one without direct eye contact is the best portrait and was done with my digital Leica.

But I also did one on slide film, and here’s one with eye contact.

(Leica R8 with 80mm F/1.4 for those of you who like to examine EXIF-files but can’t find it on this one. 100 ISO Sensia, Imacon scan)

He could have looked down at his folded hands and I could have focused on the hands. Would make a strong picture.

But well.

What I actually really wanted to share in this blog was that I heard about The Elders, which is a foundation that was founded by Nelson Mandela in the summer of 2006. The group consists of 13 senior (retired) statesmen who attempt to use their networks and experience to deal with the world’s most pressing conflicts.

Darfur, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, etc.

To the best of my knowledge neither Ted Sorensen nor Hans Blix is involved in The Elders, but they might as well be or become.

So far The Elders count Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Ela Bhatt, Graça Machel , Lakhdar Brahimi, Desmond Tutu, Aung San Suu Kyi, Li Zhaoxing, Muhammed Yunus, Mary Robinson, Fernando H Cardoso and Kofi Annan

There’s a Yoda-feel to it I think. (Yoda is the old wise teacher in Star Wars)

They even invite for your views on their website theelders.org.

It’s an initiative beyond words, really. What a bright idea to utilize former world leaders in solving today’s problems, without them having to answer to anybody other than their own conscience.

It’s a new approach, and perhaps an approach of our time. You see the Internet where everybody can have a say alongside the editor of Washington Post or George Bush. It’s really out of control, it’s almost as free speech has taken over.

Same with The Elders, judging from media reports I don’t think world leaders or leaders of mass medias (to name a few) like the idea that much. You try to run the world and then these retired guys come and try to fix things and make peace.

It’s a hard one to swallow. It’s like being told by your mother how to do things. How do you discredit Nelson Mandela for trying to make peace in the Middle East. That’s a thought one for even the brightest spin doctor.

But that seem to be today’s reality, that those elderly leaders want to set things straight.

I hope they mean it and I hope they succeed in their efforts. Check it out at www.theelders.org and tell them what you think.

Also, there’s a trend like that in what Bill Clinton says. When president he had the organization and the official lines. Since then he has developed a network of NGO’s, including his own Clinton foundation, and from listening to him speaking in Faroe Islands and a few other places, I kind of get a picture of Hillary as president of the official lines and Clinton as head of “United NGO’s.” Or even without Hillary as president I see Clinton as head of a sort of united NGO. That is the way he might go.

NGO is exactly Non-Governmental-Organizations, which mean it’s not governments, not corporations, but ideally the people who organize themselves in groups to do something about things.

It’s interesting, actually vital, that people come forward whom genuine want to help others and want to solve problems. Not only leaders, anybody.

The world is a nice place and we can do something about problems.

We can find solutions and we can help other people.

But don’t wait for someone else to do it. Do it yourself, and start today. Produce art, produce life, produce happiness, produce sanity, produce hope, produce understanding, produce tolerance, produce ideas.

Be industrious.