This is a business which is defined by chaos, by people losing it, by the inability to impose a very simple, straightforward logic on the chaotic events swirling round. Fred's genius was, first, that capacity to think strategically while everybody around him was thinking tactically, but second, through sheer force of will, to impose that strategic vision on others. Well, these are big, big, larger than life problems. Hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions of people at risk, who, if they're not rapidly and effectively helped, there'll be a huge loss of life. But in most government structures, far from bringing out the best, it brings out the pettiest.
People retreat behind the bureaucratic ramparts and become more process-driven than ever.
Their imagination just can't get itself around the sheer size of the human responsibility that they should be shouldering in a situation like this. People have told me about Fred's idealism but that also just the sheer adventure of this was a big part of what he loved and what drove him. Yeah, I think it was. He was a great, great adventurer, in that sense. And he loved every moment of it.