BIOGRAPHY

Praise for the first authorized
biography of Leo Cherne:

"In the Jewish religion, it is said that at any point in time, God preserves the world because there exist ten just men who, without claiming themselves that they are just, give Him a motive for leaving the world intact. Leo Cherne was surely one of those ten just men."

— from the Foreword by Henry A. Kissinger

"Leo Cherne's story reminds us what one man can do—though to do that much, one has to be Leo Cherne. How fortunate he has this biographer."

— William F. Buckley Jr.

"Leo Cherne's life was devoted to helping the uprooted. Their religious affiliation or ethnic origin mattered little to him. All victims of dictatorships found in him an address, an ally, a friend. In his tireless work ... he brought honor to humanity."

— Elie Wiesel

"A fitting biography of an extraordinary man: Leo Cherne ... He was a true hero for freedom and the optimism of the human spirit during the long Cold War."

— Steve Forbes

"This book simply but cogently tells the story of one of the twentieth century's least known and yet most influential men."

— Peter F. Drucker

"I have never known what made Leo Cherne such a stunningly good prophet ... This book comes closer to explaining the phenomenon than anything I've read, and it details the enormous humanitarian impulses Cherne had throughout his life. It's likely there's a connection."

— Hugh Downs

ISBN 0-7914-5379-0

9 780791 453797

90000>

## Foreword

In the Jewish religion, it is said that at any one point in time, God preserves the world because there exist ten just men who, without claiming themselves that they are just, give Him a motive for leaving the world intact. Leo Cherne was surely one of those ten just men.

I met Leo in the 1950s before I was Henry Kissinger, when I was still writing short books. He had read one of them and invited me to visit him at the Research Institute of America in New York. He thought that what I had written about foreign policy was important and I should devote myself to it. He gave me a copy of the bust of Abraham Lincoln, which he had sculpted, and he asked, of course, nothing for himself except my best performance.

To me he was a mythic figure, because he had been at the Hungarian border the year before I met him. And having been a refugee myself before there was an IRC, I knew how much it meant to have individuals who looked after refugees, not as an act of charity, but as an act of inner necessity. And Leo, in those days, was dedicated, above all, to the care of the downtrodden. He opposed Communism, not on the grounds of a foreign policy strategy, but as a contribution to the liberation of the human spirit—as a necessity for the liberation of the human spirit.

Every once in a while he would give me a call and give me some assignment which he thought needed to be done in the field of the humane impact of foreign policy, or express some concern he deeply felt. And he became an important fixture of my life.

It was one of these curious phenomena that I, as time went on, became involved in so many struggles and in so many concerns on the more sheer political side that I felt I could always come and take Leo for granted, because he would know when I needed to hear from him. And indeed he did.

I served in government in a very tragic period of the American spirit, when American perfectionism turned on itself and conceived the idea that

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## Foreword

we had to be humiliated before we could be worthy of conducting foreign affairs. Leo never made this assumption. Leo always believed, as I believe, that America has a duty to stand for freedom and to make sure that the weak can be secure and the just can be free.

In the tragic period when the helicopters lifted off the roofs in Vietnam in 1975, we thought, above all, of the hundreds of thousands that were being left behind. It was a slight solace to know that there was Leo, who would worry about them and make sure that whoever could be saved would be saved.

When I was secretary of state, my friend Liv Ullmann honored me at one point by saying that she had been asked to do something for the International Rescue Committee and she wanted to know whether it was a CIA agency. Of course if there was any person who could not have told her the truth, it was I. But I knew she was going to be in the care of Leo, and he removed any doubts about what the IRC was about. And what the issues of our period were about.

I admired Leo's intensity, his passion, his faith, his unselfishness, his nobility, and the purity of his soul. To be active in the political arena; to be head of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, where I had the privilege of working with him; to know the tactics but never to be submersed by them; never to raise any question about his motives; never to be engulfed in the discussions of the short term, so characteristic of our political life. And to do this for over half a century is a record that has ennoble all of us who had the privilege of knowing him.

At one point, Liv told me I had to call Leo, that he wasn't very well. And so I did. But he didn't want to speak about his problems. He didn't want to hear my commiseration. He talked about what moved him. The causes in which he believed. And he honored me by thinking I might play a small role in supporting them.

Surely there is one less just man in the world today, and none of us can claim his mantle. But perhaps if all of us try a little harder, maybe we'll help fulfill his mission which will continue as long as there are free people and suffering humanity.

Henry A. Kissinger

I have thought, don't have the sequence of events the active and

I first met Leo Chernov, our paths had crossed. I wanted for years to meet him. I attended a meeting Leo Chernov considered variously gadfly, a behind-the-scenes, a flamboyant the nation's rich and causes, a master spy. highly successful businessman.

When I first met him, I was an immobile, had difficulty of medical complication. his smile flashed when was clearly upset with memory lapses, but could.

One meeting led to a tifying facade filled with the family of newly arrived. the pinnacle of economics as a lawyer, but

Continued on back flap