What makes a great leader? Throughout history, who qualifies? TIME asked a variety of historians,
writers, military men, businessmen and others for their selections. MORTIMER ADLER, U.S. philosopher: In Aristotelian terms, the good leader
must have ethos, pathos and logos. The ethos is his moral character,
the source of his ability to persuade. The pathos is his ability to
touch feelings, to move people emotionally. The logos is his ability to
give solid reasons for an action, to move people intellectually. By
this definition, Pericles of Athens was a great leader. Winston Churchill, Thomas Jefferson, or almost any of the founding
fathers —Adams, Madison, Washington. Perhaps Lincoln, Franklin D.
Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson as well. GIOVANNI AGNELLI, Italian industrialist: There are at least two kinds of
leadership. One is leadership that cannot be challenged, the other is
democratic leadership. The most representative leader of the first kind
is the Shah of Iran, who rules over a country where he has absolute
powers and has transformed his country into a modern state. At the
opposite extreme is the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, whose
opposition has reached 50%. His country represents the maximum of
social evolution. RAYMOND ARON, French historian: If you want to name a great conqueror,
Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great. If you want a legitimate king who
was at the same time a statesman and a military commander, Frederick II
of Prussia . CORRELLI BARNETT, British military historian: Greatness has nothing to do
with morality. A leader gets people to follow him. Napoleon led the
French to catastrophe, but they followed him almost to the end.
Marlborough and Wellington had greatness. And Hitler, unfortunately. Al
Capone was a leader in a primitive environment. LUIGI BARZINI, Italian author: Three Italian leaders, fused into one
man, could be useful today. The greatest is Julius Caesar, penniless
patrician, demagogue, traitor to his class, brilliant lawyer, writer,
invincible general, creator of an empire. After him, Lorenzo de'
Medici, banker, merchant, poet, who ruled Florence with a firm hand. He
invented the balance of power to keep the quarrelsome Italian states at
peace. Then Camillo Benso di Cavour, farmer, financier, journalist,
businessman, who turned tiny Sardinia into the kingdom of Italy in a
matter of months. OMAR BRADLEY, U.S. general: George Marshall. He had the imagination and
foresight and leading genius to prepare this nation for war. Franklin
Roosevelt —a great President. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln,
Charles de Gaulle—he pulled France through. I did not agree with him
on many points, but he was all Frenchman. WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, U.S. columnist and editor : Lincoln
comes always to mind, because with all that we know now about his
flawed historical perspective, the rhythms of his spirit took the
soldiers and the poets through the crises of a Civil War. I wish we
had, too, some of the Whiggish optimism of Theodore Roosevelt. It may
not be our manifest destiny to conquer Khe Sanh, but it ought to be
ours to cultivate liberty and subdue the state.
