The Fall and Rise of Political Leaders: Olof Palme, Olusegun Obasanjo, and Indira Gandhi

277 Pages·2011·2.181 MB·English

by  Leslie Derfler (auth.)

The Fall and Rise of Political Leaders
PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS
The Dreyfus Affair (2002)
Paul Lafargue and the Flowering of French Socialism, 1882–1911 (1998)
Paul Lafargue and the Founding of French Marxism, 1842–1882 (1991)
An Age of Conflict (1990)
President and Parliament: A Short History of the French Presidency (1984)
Alexandre Millerand: The Socialist Years (1977)
Socialism Since Marx (1973)
The Third French Republic, 1870–1940 (1966)
The Dreyfus Affair: Tragedy of Errors (1963)
The Fall and Rise of
Political Leaders
Olof Palme, Olusegun Obasanjo,
and Indira Gandhi
Leslie Derfler
Palgrave
macmillan
THE FALL AND RISE OF POLITICAL LEADERS
Copyright © Leslie Derfler, 2011.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-10704-5
All rights reserved.
First published in 2011 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-29051-2 ISBN 978-0-230-11724-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230117242
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Derfler, Leslie.
The fall and rise of political leaders : Olof Palme, Olusegun Obasanjo,
and Indira Gandhi / Leslie Derfler.
p. cm.
1. Political leadership—Case studies. 2. Palme, Olof, 1927–1986.
3. Sweden—Politics and government—1950–1973. 4. Sweden—Politics
and government—1973– 5. Obasanjo, Olusegun. 6. Nigeria—Politics and
government—1960– 7. Gandhi, Indira, 1917–1984. 8. India—Politics and
government—1947– I. Title.
JC330.3.D47 2011
303.3(cid:2)40922—dc22 2010019395
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: February 2011
Again, for Gunilla
Contents
Preface ix
Permissions xv
1 O lof Palme: “Moral Duty Is Discontent on
a Large Scale”: Creation 1
2 Olof Palme: Termination 29
3 Olof Palme: Interment 35
4 Olof Palme: Resurrection 55
5 Olusegun Obasanjo: “Look At What Has
Become of This Country”: Creation 71
6 Olusegun Obasanjo: Termination 97
7 Olusegun Obasanjo: Interment 103
8 Olusegun Obasanjo: Resurrection 127
9 Indira Gandhi: “Like a Tigress”: Creation 145
10 Indira Gandhi: Termination 167
11 Indira Gandhi: Interment 191
12 Indira Gandhi: Resurrection 209
Conclusions 227
Notes 235
Works Cited 257
Index 265
Preface
In war one dies only once. In politics, one dies only to rise again.
Talleyrand
T
he political history of the twentieth century takes into account
several former heads of government who achieved the pinnacle
of political power, fell from or relinquished power, and then—
after a period in the political “wilderness”—regained it. Included among
them are Winston Churchill (Great Britain), Charles de Gaulle (France),
Indira Gandhi (India), Juan Perón (Argentina), Olof Palme (Sweden),
Yitzhak Rabin (Israel), Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigeria), and Pierre Elliot
Trudeau (Canada).1 While the careers of all are known to scholars,
three that are less well known to English-language readers, Palme’s,
Obasanjo’s, and Gandhi’s, are those explored here. Not many Americans
(or, for that matter, Swedes) know of the U.S. guarantee given to Sweden
during the Cold War to come to that country’s aid in the event of a
Soviet invasion—and Palme’s willingness to let that guarantee wither
and die. Nor is there any biography of Obasanjo informing us of his two
presidencies and his efforts (largely failed) to reform Nigerian institu-
tions. Nor are many aware of the part played by Gandhi’s younger son
in her fall from power—the massive slum clearance and sterilization
projects that culminated in her electoral defeat—and in her subsequent
rise back to it. I have also selected these three because of their geo-
graphical diversity and because additional information about them has
become available.
Each of the three sections will open with a sketch of the subject’s
earlier career: the climb to and exercise of power. (This part will be
subtitled “creation.”) The next part will discuss the “fall” in terms of
deterioration, calamity, condemnation, and removal—or renunciation
(and be subtitled “termination”). The two remaining parts describe the
time spent out of office (“interment”) and the return to political power
(“resurrection”).
x ● Preface
By placing greater emphasis than that customarily accorded by biog-
raphers not on their stay in, but on the time spent out of, office, on the
“interment” that preceded their political “resurrection,” I will seek
answers to such questions as the following: What did these heads of
government do after their fall from power—because of electoral defeats
or simple decisions to resign—and before they recovered it? Had they
abandoned the idea of staging a political comeback? How did their
“interments” affect their political outlooks? What lessons, if any, were
learned from the “fall”? What accounted for their return to high politi-
cal office, their “resurrections”? To what extent did mistakes made by
their successors facilitate their reentry? I will conclude by comparing
the political “rise,” “fall,” “interments,” and “resurrections” of the three
in an attempt to unearth explanations for their political revivals and for
the course of action taken once leadership was regained.
Most leaders have been the subject of numerous biographies,
although, surprisingly, there is none in English of Palme and only one
(incomplete) of Obasanjo. However, they minimize the time spent and
activities undertaken during the months or years out of office and
before their return to it: in opposition, exile, or (very little if any) in
retirement. Nor is there any comparative biography that places empha-
sis on the space between a “fall” and a subsequent “rise.” Yet much of
what happened during this period, both in terms of the abilities dis-
played by each as well as the shortcomings of their successors, helps
explain their “resurrections.”
In addition, it may be precisely these years out of high office that is
of greatest interest to the biographer more concerned with the subject’s
story than with the political impact generated by the subject’s career;
that is, more concerned with the “life” than with the “times.” Certainly,
these years would contain the meat and drink of the narrative histori-
an’s tale and may appeal to the interests of an audience wider than that
of scholars alone: Palme’s socialism and hostility to superpower domi-
nation, which does much to explain an obsession with neutrality as
prime minister that verged on the ideological, even to the extent of
allowing Sweden’s secret Cold War lifeline to the West to deteriorate;
Obasanjo’s lifelong gratitude toward the military for enabling him to
escape the poverty of his childhood and making a career available; the
extent to which Mrs. Gandhi’s devotion to her son influenced her will-
ingness to accept the “excesses” carried out by her government under
the cover of a declared “national Emergency”, and so on.
I started out with a quest for commonalities among the eight, and
believe I found a few. But as I learned about their lives, I came to
Preface ● xi
appreciate the importance of such things as an African head of govern-
ment’s (Obasanjo’s) rejection of tribal domination and allegiance to the
nation; a mother’s (Mrs. Gandhi’s) guilt for preferring to fulfill her
father’s (Nehru’s, or—as she saw it—the nation’s) requirements rather
than those of her husband and children, as helping to explain both her
“fall” and subsequent “restoration.” Because these things cannot be
quantified or even measured, they contribute little to theoretical con-
cept building. Still, I think they count, perhaps for a lot. The more I
learned, the greater appeared the role of the unforeseen, the contingent,
the uniqueness of the events. Consequently, the three examples offered,
those of Palme, Obasanjo, and Gandhi, describing their respective rise
to and fall from power, interim period in the political wilderness, and
return to high office, not only provide material making for a more gen-
eral level of analysis but reaffirm the individuality of the passage from
rise to resurrection.
This book is designed both for general readers and scholars, and I
have cited sources for most direct quotations and interpretations. Each
account makes use of the latest renditions, which are based on recently
made available archival and documentary sources. For instance, every
reference to Sweden and the Cold War written more than a decade ago
describes that nation as committed to neutrality. They describe the
country’s long-time prime minister, Olof Palme, as defending that neu-
tral stand, as seeking to build bridges from the West to the Soviet
Union, and as harshly criticizing America’s Vietnam policy and wel-
coming its draft evaders. We now know that Sweden was very much
enmeshed in the Western defense system and that the United States
promised to come to Sweden’s aid in the event of Soviet aggression in
return for Sweden’s willingness to allow American submarines armed
with Polaris missiles off the Swedish coast. Palme did his best to con-
ceal this cooperation, even refusing to inform his successor and much of
the military of it, and then allowing it to lapse. The country’s alliance
with the United States and NATO was not officially acknowledged
until almost the end of the century.
What the book is not is a history of India in Indira Gandhi’s life-
time, or of Sweden during Palme’s, or Nigeria during Obasanjo’s,
although historical background is included to provide the necessary
context. Nor does it display any explicit methodological apparatus,
reveal references to the literature on regime change, or offer much in
the way of structural analysis. It is rather the biographical dimension on
which emphasis is placed; on the individual lives, particularly as they
affected the respective rise, falls, and returns. Because the three leaders