Robert Watson, Ph.D. Lynn University

November 1, 2009

Robert Watson, Ph.D.
Lynn University
3601 North Military Trail
Boca Raton, Florida 33431

RE: Is it time for an Amazon Brigade? Some comments on your article bemoaning the absence of a female Sherman or progesterone maddened Churchill in this morning’s Sun-Sentinel.

Professor Watson,

You chided me a bit back about being “condescending” and, horrors, “wrong”. I hope you take the enclosed as a well intentioned primer on pulchritudinous power.

#1 – Queen Maeve [Mdeb in Erse] was not someone to be taken lightly particularly when it came to her cattle. Bodacia, her role model, had shattered that glass ceiling before there was glass.

#2 – The original Queen Elizabeth had, Deo gratias, grandes cojones. If she didn’t they’d still be speaking Spanish in Solihull. I have read Juan de la Cruz in Spanish and English. Imagine if Spanish were Wordsworth’s first language. I can’t

#3 – As a Jersey guy I am very proud of Molly Pitcher. It is, as Churchill said in his “History of the English Speaking Peoples”, a story too good not to be true.

#4 – Fast fading down the memory hole of 20th century warfare is Golda Meir’s leveling of several Egyptian cities by artillery fire. She ordered the pursuit and killings of the Munich murderers. Bubbe Golda lived by “Nolo me tangere cum impecunis”. I just know that you will throw up your modern American Liberal hands in horror but her favorite President was Richard Nixon.

#5 – Mrs. Gandhi developed and tested nuclear weapons. She then told the world not to worry because she loved peace. [If Hindus had graves rather than bonfires the Mahatma would still be doing back flips.] The Chinese and the Pakistanis didn’t think much of her irenic protestations and reacted accordingly.

You may want to assign one of your more adventuresome students to investigate the role of the Loral Corporation and its Chairman Bernard Schwartz [a frequent Lincoln bedroom occupant in the glorious days of the Clinton Presidency] and how he affected the balance of nuclear power vis-à-vis China, India, and Pakistan.

#6 – If, as Hillary Clinton’s ads said, “The phone rings at 3:00 AM”, and as Douglas MacArthur said, “When the war tocsin sounds” who would better serve the interests of Western Man [Man? Ironic, no?] than Margaret Thatcher?



Lady Thatcher assessed the Argentineans correctly. In almost 2 centuries the only permanent contribution that they made to the Western Canon was the tango. It must be noted that they stole that from the Italians. The American Navy told the Brits that if you sank one Argentinean ship you sank them all. The Belgrano was sunk on the express orders of the Prime Minister. The rest of the fleet retired to its home ports. Her action saved lives. That they turned out to be good pilots shouldn’t have come as a surprise considering their abilities as polo players and race car drivers. They weren’t flying John McCain’s A-4 Skyhawk against some small frigates; they were flying against Nelson and Drake. A walkover, as they say in the UK. She “hit them for a six”.

That’s what war time leaders, male or female, androgynous or epicene, transgendered, cross gendered or non-gendered are supposed to do.

She did it.

#7 – Coco Chanel spent World War 2 in Paris. She, and let’s be charitable, “entertained” the German General staff. If we could have parachuted her into Berlin the war may have ended in 1944.

The girls use the weapons they have.

I have one other point of contention.

You say, “Moreover, Kennedy was dedicated to disarmament”.

As Casey Stengel, “the old perfesser”, used to say, “You could look it up”. Senator Kennedy ran on several themes.

#1 – There was a “missile gap”. To suggest that Dwight Eisenhower, a man who led 10,000,000 men in combat, a man who defeated the Germans 11 months and 2 days after his troops landed in Europe, would let his country fall into mortal peril is a bit of rhetorical incontinence. Thanks to a late count in Cook County it worked. [Don’t we have gall in saying that Afghanistan elections are not on the up and up?]

#2 – He would defend Quemoy and Matsu. These were two outpost islands garrisoned by Formosan troops. Both islands were in sight of mainland China. To show their humanitarian side the Chinese Communists bombarded them every other day. Senator Kennedy said. “Any place is defensible if free men so desire”.

#3 – He advanced the career of General Curtis Lemay. Lemay had said in 1945 that America had to win the war with Japan or he would be tried as a war criminal.

The Polaris submarine launching platforms were greatly enhanced on his watch. He agreed to share it with the British Navy.

The run up in Vietnam was begun in his administration. No amount of Monday morning quarterbacking, particularly among sympathetic revisionist Historians, can change that.

#4 – He vowed to get the country “moving again”. His weapon of choice was huge cuts in the personal income tax rates, greatly quickened rates of depreciation, the use of investment tax credits, and the dropping of several nuisance Federal excise taxes. It worked until Johnson fought two wars. The one in Vietnam was fought on the cheap. At least that one ended. The one against poverty is still going on 45 years later with no “exit strategy” evident. Both were financed by Treasury bills. Unlike other American wars where previous “surges” have worked this one appears to be immune.

Hell still has no fury like a broad scorned.




Kevin Smith