'Luck' in the lives of great men

The theme of one of Maugham's short stories relates to the element and impact of luck in an individual's life. A father gives sage advice -- moral and practical -- to his son, who is leaving home briefly for the first time to play in a tennis tournament. Circumstances were such that the son was unable to abide by his father's advice and yet ends up losing nothing, in fact gains by flouting the parental injunctions.The father was perturbed, lest his son be misled by this experience, about life's values and priorities.His friends hasten to reassure him; his advice was without flaw; his son was simply born lucky and this was perhaps paramount over all else.

Maugham may have had a valid point. For the select few who are born "lucky", the normal rules of cause and effect may not always apply. Concepts of morality and immorality are not infrequently functions of time, place and circumstance. Luck, however, is a constant and, especially when combined with high competence and caliber, can scale almost any height.

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Winston Churchill was to the manner born; his was a restless, irrepressible and ebullient genius. He survived the disaster and humiliation of Gallipoli and went on to resurrect his political career. This was merely the resilience in the man. Luck -- which may come in many shapes or forms -- for Churchill came in the monstrous form of World War II. But for the War,he would have been simply an interesting footnote person of British history ; there would have been no prime ministership, no Knighthood of the Order of the Garter and possibly no Nobel prize either.His phenomenal luck defied even the laws of biology ; he ate,drank and smoked his way to ripe old age.

Eisenhower had aspired to nothing beyond a colonelcy someday; luck again in the shape of the same war -- a just war, not just a war. And Field Marshal Montgomery, likewise, would in all probability not have progressed much beyond the command of a Division, but for Rommel and Hitler.

Two celebrated American military icons, almost exact contemporaries, are Generals of the Army MacArthur and Marshall. No two persons, especially in the same profession, could have been more unlike each other; personality-wise, by temperament, in appearance and demeanor. MacArthur topped the West Point class of 1903. Marshall was a product of the Virginia Military Institute, class of 1901. Both were born in 1880.

Marshall had served as Staff Officer to General Pershing and over the years had collected an impressive file of fitness reports. Lt.Col. -- later Major General -- Johnson Hagood paid him the highest possible tribute from a senior to a junior, when asked in 1916 if he would like to have Marshall serve under him: "Yes, but I would prefer to serve under his command". It was not until 1936 though that Marshall got his first Star and that too largely at the instance and insistence of Pershing. Again it was due to the persistence and persuasion of Pershing -- who enjoyed enormous credibility -- that President Roosevelt named Marshall, Chief of Army Staff,the highest position in the army hierarchy -- the office of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not exist at that time -- carrying 4 Star rank, only three years later. There was no looking back for him after that.

During the War, Marshall transformed the office of Chief of Staff into a command post to coordinate strategy on many fronts.He filled the office with "a consistency and fullness of success unmatched by any other commander of the American army in any previous war". Marshall went on to hold high appointive political office -- Secretary of State and Secretary of Defence -- and also won the Nobel prize for peace. As much as anybody else, he helped shape the post-war world order, but with a "supreme talent for anonymity". He has been variously described as "austerely enigmatic", an individual without artifice or military glamour but with a presence that could almost be felt.

If Marshall was the tortoise of the ancient fable, MacArthur was the hare. He got his first Star in 1918 and was named Army Chief of Staff in 1930, the youngest person ever to hold the office. After completion of an extended term as Army Chief in 1935, he went to Manila as Military Adviser to the Philippines government.In 1941, after war broke out, he was recalled to active service as Commander of US Forces in the Far East. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honour, the highest military award for bravery, in 1942.

MacArthur has been described as flamboyant, "perhaps the greatest general in US history", the most gifted "man-at-arms" the US has produced, a person of soaring intellect and a "thundering paradox of a man". British experts, Sir Basil Liddell Hart and Field Marshal Alan Brooke considered him supreme among generals, British and American.

His extended career ended unceremoniously in Korea. Before that, however, he had directed superbly the combined operations strategy in the Pacific theatre of World War II. Later he was equally energetic in the reconstruction of a war-ravaged country -- of which he was the military administrator -- in effect rebuilding the country and putting in place a new ethos.By the time his career came to a close, he was an authentic hero in four countries; his own, Japan, the Philippines and the Republic of Korea.

Marshall and MacArthur were both immensely gifted; both achieved the rarefied rank of 5 Star General. Luck touched and shaped the careers and achievements of both at crucial times.For Marshall, it was in the form of Pershing's persistence and advocacy, without which he might not have gone beyond a possible second Star. For MacArthur it was his recall to command after retirement, a decision taken by two men with whom his relations were never easy; President Roosevelt and General Marshall. To be sure he had much earlier reached the pinnacle of his profession as Chief of Army Staff. I would doubt though that today too many people remember Generals Charles Summerall and Malin Craig, respectively MacArthur's predecessor and successor as Army Chief. But for his recall to arms, MacArthur, like them and so many others, would simply have been a name among the "illustrious obscure".The meridian of MacArthur's skills, deeds and achievements belong to the post-Army Chief of Staff phase of his career. There are other reasons too for him to be remembered.In 1955, the old warrior, then 75, had proposed that armed conflict between nations be outlawed and in 1964, mortally ill and hospitalised, he had pleaded with President Johnson to stay out of Vietnam.

Marshall, at the end of the day, was perhaps the more contented of the two.His one regret could have been that he was never a major theatre commander in the War. MacArthur, who had cherished political ambitions, had more to be disappointed about.

There is another tale of luck helping to shape, unobtrusively and constantly, an individual's life and career, nearer home, in India.The absolute accuracy of every minor detail, I cannot vouch for.The person who related this is, however, knowledgeable enough about such trivia.

A talented young man from South India, belonging to the backward classes, went to the UK to study on a scholarship. He duly returned with a degree and a letter of recommendation from Prof. Laski to Pandit Nehru himself. On the strength of Laski's letter and the need for affirmative action for backward classes, he was appointed to the Foreign Service.Not long afterward, he sought permission to marry a foreigner. Serving in a neighbouring country, he had met a lady whom he wished to wed. Permission in such cases was rarely forthcoming but he argued convincingly that a diplomat's wife had certain inescapable representational functions and it would be difficult to find a suitable bride from his own community. Permission to marry was granted.

Time passed and Laski's former student was appointed Ambassador to China, a post from which he expected to retire.As retirement neared, he broached the possibility of an academic position in Jawaharlal Nehru University; his credentials were excellent and he could contribute meaningfully.He was appointed on retirement, not to a teaching position but Vice Chancellor of JN University. More time passed and Mrs. Gandhi, on returning to office after the Janata regime, appointed the Vice Chancellor of JN University as Ambassador to the US. After a successful stint in Washington DC, he returned home, was elected to Parliament and appointed a Minister of State. For a person well into his 60s, a State Ministership is not normally a prelude to even higher office.In his case this did not apply and he went on to be elected Vice President. Could he move up one more step to the highest office in the country? Political expediency suggested not. The Prime Minister was from the South and given the need for balance, it was unlikely that both the President and Prime Minister would be from South India. Luck, however, intervened yet again. The Prime Minister was unexpectedly obliged to resign and there remained no impediment to KR Narayanan's election as President of India.He held the office with distinction and dignity and stepped down not long ago on completion of his term. Narayanan's career and public life has been "roses, roses all the way".

In ancient Rome, one Publius Syrus had commented: "Against a lucky man even a god has little power". The converse is perhaps even more true.We will never know how many men and women of genius or with potential for high achievement disappeared without trace because the only thing lacking was just -- in the words of Bernard Shaw"s Alfred Doolittle -- a little bit of luck".