Fun_People Archive
22 Jan
Those wild and wacky world leaders

Date: Sat, 22 Jan 94 16:12:35 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: Those wild and wacky world leaders

 From: bostic@vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)

It was '58.  I was driving through Palm Beach with three
friends, enjoying the sights.  I was doing about 5 m.p.h.
when I ran into a convertible at a red light.  It was just
a tap, but the guy got out and said, 'How could you hit me?
There are only two cars on the road!'  I offered to exchange
licences, but he shook his head and said, 'I'm Senator
Kennedy and I'm going to run for president in 1960.  I want
all four of you to vote for me.'  We all agreed to do so."
	-- Talk show host Larry King on meeting John Kennedy

The late Chou En-lai was once invited to speculate on how
the course of history would have been altered if, say Nikita
Krushchev had been assassinated instead of John F. Kennedy.
Chou's austere version of Marxism made him dubious about the
importance of things like sheer accident and mere individuals.
But in this instance he was prepared to allow that things
might have been different.  How different? "Well," said the
mandarin Stalinist with complete gravity, "I hardly think
that Aristotle Onassis would have married Mrs. Krushchev."
	-- Vanity Fair, December 1993

© 1994 Peter Langston