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(More customer reviews)The name Leo Cherne is not universally known, but though he was never elected to public office, the man was enormously influential. His work can be found all through American endeavors in the last century; he was an advisor to nine presidents. He did remarkable humanitarian work for refugees with his International Rescue Committee. He died in 1999, and his life story reads like a history of the Cold War. His first biography is now out, _Rescuing the World: The Life and Times of Leo Cherne_ (State University of New York Press) by Andrew F. Smith. Smith first met Cherne the year before he died, because Cherne supposedly needed advice about writing his autobiography. Cherne was an accomplished writer, and had started the autobiography a few times. He certainly had plenty of material. But it never happened; "In the end I concluded that the apparently gregarious, outgoing Leo Cherne simply could not write a book about himself because it was unseemly for him to do so." This is a biography of his public life; Cherne refused to discuss stories others told of his private life, so subjects such as his marriage are barely mentioned, and will have to be included in the inevitable future biographies. Cherne was sufficiently busy in the public sphere to make this first attempt a valuable chronicle.
Cherne was born in 1912 of first generation Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. In high school, after a hurricane devastated Puerto Rico, Cherne appointed himself the head of a "Hurricane Committee," addressed a special student assembly on the issue, and started collecting the food and money that poured in afterwards. It was a model for future years: "... quick intervention in seizing the public platform, altruistic motives, positive responses of others, and record-breaking results." After law school, he began advising businessmen on taxes and governmental issues, and became a consultant to companies and to Congress. He advised business how to gear up for war, and gear up for a consumer economy afterward. He became interested in working with refugees after the war. He had humanitarian interest, to be sure, but he also thought of the refugees as political weapons against totalitarianism. If the regime was so perfect, he would point out, why were refugees fleeing? Cherne chaired the International Rescue Committee for forty years, seeing the organization through many financial problems and often personally taking part in relief efforts for refugees from Hungary, Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Cuba. Cherne was able to unite diverse talents to support the aims of his International Rescue Committee, and through the book wander helpful volunteers like Rock Hudson, Liv Ullmann, and Joan Baez. Cherne got to speak up on behalf of Hungarian refugees on the Ed Sullivan Show, not a likely forum for humanitarian efforts. He was also a songwriter, and achieved fame as a sculptor. His busts of Kennedy, Lincoln, Churchill and other famous people are known all over the world.
_Rescuing the World_ is a record of remarkable public service. Cherne never had a fortune, and he never held office, but he had passion for freedom and an insistence on liberty for others. He was able to inspire others to good efforts for the world's refugees. Read this book and if you ever hear people bemoaning the world's woes and asking, "What difference can just one person make?" you can ask if they have heard of Leo Cherne.
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