Page 67 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

THE LESSONS

memorial service at the Stanford Memorial Chapel. The officiant called for
a moment of silent reflection about John Gardner. “Shortly after the organ
music began, the sun burst through the thick layer of clouds, shone through
the stained-glass window, and suddenly a marvelous bright multicolored
aura lit up the Memorial Chapel,” Nemerovski recalled. “Some of us talked
about it after the ceremony, and we joked that God probably knew that
John would have liked his friends to have some cheer on that gray day, so
He ordered the sun to shine through a break in the clouds.”
Reflecting further on that memorial service, Nemerovski recalled
another vital aspect of Gardner’s complex yet straightforward philosophy.
“John’s generosity was balanced by a conviction that there is no free lunch
and that all of us have duties to others if we are to have a civil society. There-
fore, it was fitting and moving that the front page of the memorial service
program contained a frequent saying of John’s: ‘Liberty and duty, freedom
and responsibility. That’s the deal.’ And that’s the essence of John Gardner.”

Somehow Gardner instinctively knew that if he was going to live a happy
life, he’d have to achieve some sort of equilibrium among all his compet-
ing interests. That instinct helped him attain great personal and profes-
sional success, and he passed his wisdom on, either directly or indirectly,
to hundreds of young people through his association with the White House
Fellows program. I think he would have been particularly pleased to hear
the story of how Mimi Ghez (WHF 00–01) achieved greater balance in
her life by developing a spiritual foundation during her Fellowship. Ghez’s
mother is Catholic, and her father is Jewish. As a compromise, they pledged
to not “impose” their religions on their children. Thus, Ghez grew up with
very little exposure to any religion. However, as time went by, she noticed
that many of the country’s greatest leaders were influenced strongly by reli-
gion. Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were the two who most
intrigued her.
When Ghez became a White House Fellow, she was surrounded for the
first time by people who discussed religion and talked about the varieties of
services they attended. She became especially close to one classmate whose
values and character she had come to admire over the course of the year.
“Of all the people in the class, he struck me as the most upstanding and the
person with the most natural charisma and people-person skills—the only
person who made it a policy not to gossip about others,” Ghez said. “In one

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