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I have a confession.

Despite my claim that modern television is worthless and despite the fact that we do not have television, there is a television show I watch. Regularly.

This show is called “The West Wing,” and it aired on NBC from 1999 to 2006. We’re currently watching season 5 of 7.

This television show follows the eight White House years of Democratic President Jed Bartlet and his staff. Of course, being a television drama, President Bartlet has an incredibly interesting presidency (the details of which I won’t divulge in case you are intrigued and care to watch the show).

The most intriguing part of this show is watching and learning about political processes. I don’t know how accurate the portrayals are of the West Wing, White House, and Congressional debates, working situations, and characters. But with each episode, I wonder what the real political situation is for the subject.

For example, in season five, after President Bartlet named his second and third justices to the Supreme Court, I found myself researching the current justices (how long they’ve been there, which president named them to the court) and wondering how likely it would be for one president to name three of them (one-third of the entire court). (FYI, in the past 50 years, Truman, Nixon, and Reagan all named three to the court and Eisenhower named four. I was surprised.)

Because I have been so absorbed by this fictional political situation, I decided to read about the real thing. I really enjoyed reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Einstein a few months ago, and I was eager to read another of Issacson’s biographies: this time a biography of Henry A. Kissinger, national security adviser to Nixon and later Secretary of State to Nixon and Ford.

I’ll begin my review by saying that I don’t recommend this book, although I am glad I read it.

It’s not that Isaacson did a poor job. In fact, I think his analysis and portrayal of Kissinger is incredibly well researched and thorough. He does a great job of avoiding his own commentary and opinion. The problem is that Henry A. Kissinger was a man without morals. He was not a likeable man for me.

While Einstein was a delightful, playful genius-celebrity, Henry Kissinger was a two-faced, tricky genius-celebrity. Yes, I believe Kissinger was a genius: he was a genius of negotiation, a genius of tricking people, and an expert in being two-faced. (For example, he would mock the Israelis to the Syrian leaders and mock the Syrian leaders to the Israelis.)

Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin said: “He didn’t lie. He would have lost credibility. He didn’t tell the whole truth” (p. 554). He was tricky, and that was the essential element behind his success. For example, Isaacson summarizes:

In the Vietnam negotiations, [Kissinger] devised murky wording regarding the DMZ and South Vietnamese sovereignty so that both sides could claim what they wanted; in the SALT talks, he left vague the limits on silo size changes and later dropped the word ballistic from limits on air missiles so that the Americans and Soviets ended up interpreting the meaning differently. Likewise, on the Middle East, Kissinger tried to fudge many of the theological disputes that stood in the way of practical disengagement accords. (p. 556)

Kissinger, a Jewish refuge to the U.S. from Nazi Germany at age 15, embraced the European notion of realpolitik, which is defined as “politics based on practical and material factors rather than on theoretical or ethical objectives” (m-w.com). In other words, he did whatever he felt was necessary, even if morals had to be abandoned. That is why I found myself disliking him: “Kissinger never had an instinctive feel for American values and mores” (p. 764).

In reading this book, I got what I wanted: a realistic look into the West Wing and the political environment around the White House. And I don’t like it. President Nixon was a sneaky, lying man. And Henry Kissinger believed in doing whatever was necessary to get the end result he wanted.

I renewed this book twice, which means it was checked out for three check-out periods. At four weeks for each check out, I had this book on my “What I am Reading” shelf for three months. I’m not surprised: it was more than 750 pages and I could only handle so much of it every day.

As I became more appalled with each new political situation, I kept wondering why I was still reading it. I think the reason I kept reading was because I was learning so much about the political environment from 1968 to the late 1970s, particularly in terms of international relations. The analysis of power was fascinating to me, as appalling as it was.

“Kissinger was such a liar,” I told my husband, more than once.

“Rebecca,” he said once, with a tone that suggested I should have known that. “Of course he was. He was a politician.” (Although my husband denies saying these words, this is the impression I got from him.)

“Well, I want to read about a politician that has morals. I want a Jed Bartlet.”

Yes, I know Jed Bartlet doesn’t really exist. He gets emotional in every episode in which an American soldier dies. Can a President let himself get that involved? I don’t know, but I don’t like how Ford and Kissinger didn’t have any concerns when “only” 18 soldiers went down in a successful mission (p. 654).

I intend to read about other political situations and time periods in order to find the reality of U.S. political and international relations, as depressing as it may be.

I think I’ve been watching fictional politics for too long.

Even at his death, Albert Einstein was regarded as someone with an incredible brain: the pathologist performing the autopsy decided, without asking permission, to embalm Einstein’s brain. For years, he kept the brain and drove around the United States touring with it. A few studies were done on the brain to try to determine what made Einstein a genius, but little has been proven scientifically. Eventually, in the late 1990s, Einstein’s brain was returned to the Einstein family (see Epilogue, p 544-551).

In reading Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson, I’ve likewise been intrigued by Einstein’s genius. Why is it we equate “Einstein” with “genius”? What made him so smart? It seems clear to me that, as Isaacson opines in his conclusion, Einsteins genius was in his mind and not necessarily his brain.

Albert Einstein was a very bright student. He excelled in elementary school classes and consistently got top grades as he grew up. However, he had contempt for authority, which led to leaving high school early — it is uncertain whether he left of his own accord or was encouraged to leave. Regardless, he was a high school dropout (p 23). He tutored himself to be able to enter the academy (p 24). Then, once he entered the Zurich Polytechnic, he again acted impudently. For example, he felt the mathematics professor was disappointing. He didn’t hide his disdain and he often missed classes (p 34). Einstein was fourth in his graduating class of five (p 48), partially due to his poor attendance in his classes.

Ironically, because of his contempt for authority, he may have been better prepared for his “thought experiments.” Because he thought things through on his own so much (outside of a teacher’s structured lectures), he was able to see the world in a different way than had been accepted by the scientific community. Also, because his poor performance and poor recommendations hindered his job prospects, he was working in a patent office and brainstorming theoretical physics during his free time; had he been working as a professor, he may have been forced to tame his ideas to fit the temper of the university at which he was working. Einstein’s young impudence provided him with a setting in which to question the world.

His former mathematics professor later said to him, “You’re a very clever boy. But you have one great fault: you’ll never let yourself be told anything” (p 34). While youthful insolence certainly is not enviable, the ability to freshly question others and the world certainly aided Einstein to greatness.

When the already-famous Einstein visited the United States in 1921, Thomas Edison was an old man. Edison was a practical man, and he believed colleges were too theoretical. He had produced a 150 question test as a job application, which contained questions such as How is leather tanned? and What country consumes the most tea? (p 299).

When Einstein arrived in New York, a reporter presented him with a question from Edison’s test: What is the speed of sound? Einstein, of course, could easily understand the speed of sound. His response to the test, however, was that he did not “carry such information in my mind since it is readily available in books.” Einstein recognized that genius was not “the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think” (p 299). He didn’t spend his time memorizing things he could look up: he spent his time thinking. His willingness to think led him to his observations of the world that opened up new branches in science.

Why did this make him famous? When Einstein’s son Eduard was young, he asked his father just that.

“When a blind beetle crawls over the surface of a curved branch, it doesn’t notice that the track it has covered is indeed curved,” Einstein replied. “I was lucky enough to notice what the beetle didn’t notice” (p 196).

Einstein’s response simplifies the concept that gravity curves the fabric of our world, a concept for which he was famous. However, it is also a good explanation of what made him a genius: he was able to comprehend concepts that had never been contemplated before. He was able to ponder concepts that challenge our understanding of the very nature of the universe, laws of nature that had been accepted widely since Newton.

I imagine that studying his brain further will not have revealed much difference from other human brains. In reading about his life and learning about the science he put voice to (much of which I still don’t quite understand), I believe that his physical brain was probably nothing special. What made Albert Einstein a genius was his unwillingness to simply accept what was given him (his resistance), his willingness to think rather than simply memorize, and his ability to comprehend new concepts. Indeed, an open mind created his greatness.

It’s not often that observations by one person change our understanding of the world, as Einstein’s observations changed physics. However, I believe that as others emulate Einstein’s open mind, they too may find their genius.

Surely, there is, to some extent, genius within each of us as well.

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