Profiles in courage, and other virtues

There were three interesting obituaries in today's New York Times:

The first tells the story of William R. Anderson, the Navy commander who in August 1958 led the nuclear sub Nautilus on a historic voyage to the North Pole. "At a time of rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union over who would first send humans into space," the paper says, "the accomplishment was greeted by banner headlines around the world." The Nautilus traveled 8,146 nautical miles in 21 days, "much of the way under the polar ice." The crew charted holes in the ice in case of emergency.

Anderson was a country boy from Tennessee, who later was elected to Congress. There in 1970 he stood up on the House floor to denounce J. Edgar Hoover for attacking Dan and Phil Berrigan for their opposition to the Vietnam War. Hoover's claim that the Berrigans were planning to kidnap a government official, Anderson said, was over-the-top McCarthyism. A Democrat, Anderson had been a supporter of the war, but changed his mind after visiting Vietnam.

The second remembers Henri Troyat, French writer of 105 books, whose name I have heard, whose books I may have, but who I have never read. "A day without writing made him feel like a sinner," remembers one of his comrades. Troyat claimed to have taught himself to write by reading paragraphs from Flaubert, then trying to rewrite them from memory. Then he would compare his version to the original, and "try to understand why what I had written was an affront to what I had read." He wrote mostly novels and biographies, and his style was "above all accessible." He was 95.

The third describes the AIDS-shortened life of Bob Hattoy, an adviser to Bill Clinton on gay issues. Hattoy is remembered as a fighter, someone who was never satisfied. In a televised speech at the 1992 Democratic National Convention, soon after he had learned he had the disease, he addressed himself to President George H.W.Bush: "I don't want to die," he said. "But I don't want to live in an America where the president sees me as the enemy." His words apparently gave many people hope. He was 56 when he died.