Reflections 2006
Leonard Horwin - Mr. Public Citizen                                                                                                                               

As we celebrate the End of the Year, what Shall I say of my Lifetime?

Well, it is a good idea to make it short, pithy, meaningful and funny (if possible).

First of all, I have been extremely lucky. This is not just an omen, or maybe it is, as luck comes to those worthy of acceptance. And, of course, golden memories. Who can forget my wonderful deceased wife, Ursula Helene Donig who became Mrs. Leonard Horwin born Donig. There has been much beauty in this family and that certainly includes my wonderful wife, Ursula (Ulla).

I was born with a strong sense for the arts. Singing! There is hardly an hour that passes, -day or night- when I am not singing some melody (mostly of European origin) automatically remindful of my mother.

I am thankful for the fact that I was trained not only in law at Yale Law School where I became editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal (1933-1934) after being admitted on a three-year scholarship as a result of having placed number one in the country on a Yale Law School psychological exam for Law School admission prospects. I also studied singing with the legendary Mario Lanza. Besides lawyer, I dealt widely and heavily in real estate and with great success.

Although I was born in Chicago on January 2, 1913, I have lived most of my life in California, but it is a very wonderful thing to have physical connections with places and events widely divided not only in California, Illinois and great associations with Europe, including Spain (where I lived for 5 years) and the United Kingdom where I have so many friends.

I am lucky to be blessed with connections with such a wide variety of world events reaching into wars and peace, into great loves and great danger. For example, concurrent with the Allied victory May 8, 1945 at Berlin, I became the American representative in Spain of the Allied Control Council for Germany. In that capacity, with British General Torr, we took over the German Embassy at Madrid and received incoming surrendering German pilots' flights to Spain.

In that same capacity, I met with Spain's director of foreign exchange (the totally arthritic Blas Huete) and got his okay to let me remove from Spain's secret control, for transfer to the Allied Reparations Fund, about $100 million in gold sterling held by the Spaniards for the Germans.

What am I learning from all of this?

With my habit of reading a world-wide assortment of books, magazines and periodicals, it is a feeling of warmth that has been imparted me, -warmth for the many people who have had an influence on my life and I on theirs.

Shall we say that we have learned to admire and be mutually loyal to a very wide circle of friends.

Summarizing: Teamwork! Loyalty! Collaboration!

I have learned the value of team action. You live for yourself, you die for yourself. You do it for your team, which includes a lot of characters past, but it includes a great deal of warmth and memory and inspiration for a future hopefully as lucky as the past I have had.

Loyalty creates loyalty. On the whole, if people can count on you, you are lucky to be able to count on them.

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