Mayhaps you will care to at least learn of a fallen oak...
EULOGY FOR CONSTANTINE MENGES
by Curtin Winsor, Atlas Economic Research Foundation,
July 16, 2004
Constantine Menges has passed from us -- a great tree fallen in the forest before its time. As in his sunlit clearing, we now gather to honor him and to share grief that has come to linger -- but not to last. Our sorrow for his passing is not for him, but for us. As we were made better by his presence, his passing diminishes our nation and each of us.
Constantine was the child of democratic opponents to Hitler. He was born on the first day of the Second World War, after their flight to safety in Turkey. He once explained to me that he was sent alone to America at the age of four, identified by a tag on his overcoat coat, with other children of refugees in 1943. He was to live with family friends that he had never met for the next three years. He described his childhood memory of the Statue of Liberty as his ship entered New York harbor in the morning light. Its torch infused him with the spirit of democracy. It was a light that would shine forth from Constantine throughout his life and work.
I met Constantine in 1978 and immediately found him to be a kindred spirit, a warm, considerate and true friend, and a rock of principle. He stood strong for democracy when destiny thrust us both into the storm of the Central American Crisis in 1980. He expected no less of his friends, and our friendship, warmed by his positive outlook and broad interests, gave me an opportunity to share the challenges and heartaches that arise from standing on principle…
Constantine's ability to conceptualize and guide political warfare in support of democracy was his strongest contribution to America’s victory in the Cold War and after. He offered a rare combination of analytical ability, idealistic orientation and practical implementation. This balance of talents enabled him to support active freedom movements against communist dictatorships and to encourage transitions to democracy.
Constantine was prescient as an analyst. Many of his recommendations tended to look too far into the future for the reactive "professionals" who comprise much of our foreign policy establishment. Had Constantine’s proposal to then-Vice President George H. W. Bush's Commission on Terrorism been heeded in 1987, problems we now face would be less significant or even absent. He was almost alone in warning that Iran would pose a major threat to post-Saddam Iraq, a year before the Second Iraq War. He long foresaw the dangers to democratic prospects in Latin America from the Foro do Sao Paolo, the alliance of Chavez in Venezuela, Castro in Cuba and Lula in Brazil. He warned us that this dark alliance would endanger the South American continent and Mexico. Evidence increasingly suggests that he was correct. His final work, now at the printer, raises unpopular but increasingly evident concerns about the danger of links between Russian corruption and advanced military technology feeding the capacity and ambitions of the Peoples Republic of China.
Constantine was a kind hearted, cheerful and friendly human being. He strongly believed that most people contained goodness (albeit temporarily impaired in some instances) and that they were inclined to do the right thing if enabled to do so. He listened well at an interpersonal level and was always concerned about the wellbeing of others, even when he was confronting his own mortality.
He was a dedicated family man. He and Nancy were married for 29 years. He was considerate and generous. He was devoted as a father to their only child, Christopher, and as a loving son to his own recently deceased parents. As a family man, he embodied the very principles that he stood for in all aspects of his life. As a friend, he was caring and supportive. His broad interests, positive and articulate nature were uplifting for those so fortunate as to be his friends and he sustained these qualities to the very end.
Constantine was brave. Adversity was his lot. But he was armored by inner light and conviction that his message of optimism and active opposition to evil must be heard.
He was modest without being humble. Although Constantine endured scorn and rejection from some of his peers, such was his nature that these encounters with negativity did not abash him. He was a confident man, fortified by his strong belief in a just God and in the essential link between his work and the summum bonum that must eventually prove God’s will.
Like a giant oak that stood against the wind, alone in a field, where each bough was as great as a full tree, so was Constantine Menges -- scholar, patriot, linguist, humanist, man of ideas, man of understanding, man of action, and warrior in the truest sense.
Today, it is for his friends who are gathered here to carry forward the political vision and ideas that he championed. His chapter has ended - and we who are left behind must find ways to sustain both his unheeded concerns and his transcendent optimism.
We need to sustain his forward looking political vision more than ever in the unfolding battle of Liberal Civilization against the dark and chaotic forces of international terrorism. It will require many of us to take up the duties that he sustained alone -- standing against the wind.
Resqueat en pacem et luce aeternum, Constantine.