WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO CHARISMA?

WHERE have all the leaders gone?

"Name me a leader in America today," demanded Congressman Adam Clayton Powell recently, and for once Powell may have said it right. Nearly everywhere, the places of power seem occupied by faceless and forgettable bureaucrats, technocrats or nonentities. "Charisma," one of the dominant cliches of the '60s, is clearly on the wane. Charles de Gaulle has left the Elysee Palace to his former lieutenant, Georges Pompidou, a banker and lover of poetry who, however, shows little poetry in his political style. West Germany has not had an inspirational leader since Adenauer, or Britain since Churchill; a contest between Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Tory Leader Ted Heath would involve a choice of Yorkshire pudding or boiled potatoes. Mrs. Golda Meir has more panache--at least for those who appreciate Jewish mothers --than her predecessor, Levi Eshkol, but she can hardly match that prophet-politician David Ben-Gurion. Revolution has unseated the egomaniacal Nkrumah of Ghana and Sukarno of Indonesia --no loss to the world, except in drama. Egypt's Nasser and Cuba's Castro still have the messianic leader's power to move his people, although familiarity and failure are beginning to breed contempt. Perhaps the national leader who has the greatest claim to genuine charisma is China's Mao Tse-tung, but Mao is 75 and, despite allegations to the contrary, is not immortal. Nikita Khrushchev, the closest thing to an eccentric the Red world has yet produced, is but dimly remembered in the day of those dreary committee types, Kosygin and Brezhnev. In America, where Richard Nixon seemingly glories in his "low profile," the bland are leading the bland. As New York's Senator Jacob Javits acidly puts it, "We may have reached a balance of mediocrity."

Except in art and conversation, blandness is not a mortal sin; and even in politics, charisma is not always a virtue. Nkrumah and Sukarno stirred the blood of their countrymen, but they very nearly ruined their countries. Two of the most persuasive leaders of the 20th century were also two of its greatest monsters--Hitler and Mussolini. Particularly in advanced nations, the leader who governs by emotion and style is apt to be regarded as a dangerous indulgence, one that people with stable institutions should not hanker for.

Charisma,* as defined in political terms by Sociologist Max Weber, refers to a leader who has a special grace or extraordinary power to rule by the force of personality alone. In more primitive lands, such a ruler was frequently revered as a father figure with magical capacities. Peasants in Turkey, for example, believed that Dictator Kemal Ataturk was impervious to bullets. Even in relatively sophisticated societies, there is a deep-rooted need for magic. The fact that the magician may not really have talent or wisdom is less important than the popular belief that he has.

Lenin was conceivably the only man who could have held Soviet Russia together in the chaos that followed World War I. Franklin Roosevelt may not have been the only American who could have rallied the U.S. in 1933, but it is certain that Herbert Hoover could not have done it. The history of Southeast Asia would be vastly different if South Viet Nam had had a leader like the North's Ho Chi Minh.

Just as he can call forth strengths that people would be reluctant to entrust to anyone else, the inspirational statesman is capable of reconciling deep differences. In 1968, Robert Kennedy--who evoked, partly because of his brother's legacy, even deeper feelings than J.F.K. himself--was the only political figure who had strong followings among two otherwise hostile groups, the blacks and lower-middle-class whites. Many of Kennedy's blue-collar supporters subsequently voted for George Wallace.

But unless the leader with power and grace makes himself a dictator, he is usually doomed to a relatively short career in power. Nothing is so fatiguing as greatness--to the nongreat. People become numbed by excitement and sacrifice, grow weary of the grand view from the mountaintop, and long for a return to normalcy. When people give total trust to one man, they willingly suspend disbelief; it involves a "rediscovery of innocence," as Yale Political Scientist David Apter puts it. Eventually cynicism, otherwise known as political realism, returns, and the leader who had beguiled a nation is rejected. The classic case occurred when, after the perils of World War II, Britain turned out Winston Churchill in favor of the dull, bureaucratic, but quintessentially normal regime of Clement Attlee.

The dramatic leader either evokes the hope of unborn glory or creates the living illusion of a grandeur that is dead. De Gaulle was twice called to take charge of his country at moments of extreme crisis; but his reliance on a rhetoric that recalled France's past grandeur was no substitute for the reconstruction of its social system. With his unique sense of history, De Gaulle seems to have accepted the inevitability of his most recent severance from power. "It must be understood, and I do understand," he reportedly wrote to a friend, "that the march toward and on the heights cannot be endured without some respite. We are now, therefore, on the road-down." Richard Nixon's election victory last year was based in part on his shrewdness in recognizing a national yearning for political respite and a cool, low-keyed leader--a "peer group" figure rather than a pop hero.

Eloquence is not enough to uphold a charismatic leader indefinitely. That is especially so when the foe of a nation is not visible and external but a host of interior and undramatic "enemies": outdated or inadequate institutions, a national sense of malaise, economic or racial turmoil. In a world where many complex problems are capable of technical solution, the need may be for lesser mortals who understand the issues and are capable of applying the painstaking energy needed to solve them. Does this mean that the charismatic leader is obsolete? Hardly. Almost without exception, powerful leaders are the product of great national crises, and sometimes the solution to them; needless to say, the world is not through with crises. Somehow, the most efficient and businesslike leadership is not enough in moments of major tribulations.

Perhaps it is the nations on the brink of economic and political maturity who might benefit most from quiet, competent management, while the advanced nations will soon again be in need of soul-stirring leaders. True, the acceptance of a savior figure implies a certain distrust of the normal means and instruments of government. In stable countries, what is needed today is a new kind of political giant who can make his compatriots realize that explosive social problems are more dangerous to a nation than an armed enemy beating at the gate. Walter Lippmann, among others, believes that Nixon is the unglamorous kind of leader necessary to reduce the overextended American military presence abroad; withdrawal, Lippmann notes, is an unexciting job. But it can be argued with equal logic that a man of extraordinary persuasion may be needed to make a Viet Nam settlement that is short of victory palatable to a proud nation.

By definition, a leader leads; but even the charismatic leader is himself led, in the broadest sense, by those he governs. He is molded as much as he molds, and cannot be too far ahead of, or too far away from, the popular will. It is beyond argument that the U.S. today has no definable popular will, no clear sense of purpose. The time may come when it will have, or need to have, one. Before there can be a crusade, there have to be, after all, crusaders. Before there can be a Moses, adds Political Scientist Sidney Hyman, "there must be a people of Israel who want to get out of Egypt." What ever happened to charisma? It is waiting--not for the man, but for the purpose.

* From the Greek verb charizesthai, "to favor," the term was originally applied to religious prophets who could demonstrate their favor in the eyes of God or Providence.

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