On August 7, 1974, a twenty-five year old man named Philippe Petit walked across a 200 foot wire between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, 1,350 feet above the ground, something that even the policeman who arrested him described as a once in a lifetime event.
Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris, site of Philippe Petit’s 1971 coup
On the night of June 25th and the early morning of June 26th ,1971 Philippe Petit and his associates ascended the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral. Blondeau tossed a fishing line attached to a tennis ball to Petit in the other tower. A thicker rope was attached to this initial line and then pulled across the gap between the two towers, this process repeated with thicker ropes until the heavy metal cable was attached to a rope and pulled across the open space. Petit and Blondeau worked all night, securing the wire until the early morning hours of Saturday. Then, to the amazement of the ever increasing group of tourists that gathered in the plaza in front of the cathedral, Petit, dressed in his typical all black clothing walked on to the cable and for three hours, juggled balls and pins, walked rapidly back and forth and even lay on his back as the crowd applauded below.
Sydney Harbor Bridge, with pylons, site of Petit’s 1973 coup
Assisted by some local Australians he met in Nimbin, he persuaded a local wire distributor to give him the requisite cable in exchange for a performance of magic and juggling for the company’s employees. With huge padlocked doors impossible to pick or penetrate, Petit hacksawed his way in through barred gaps high above the ground and, with his newfound friends, reconnoitered both pylons at night. Eventually they were able to rig the bridge in preparation for the crossing scheduled to occur on June 3, 1973. At rush hour on the morning of June 3, Petit ascended the wire and crossed several times, pausing again to perform his trademark move of lying on his back for several minutes, supported only by the thin cable, almost three hundred feet above the ground.
Petit at the Academy Awards
It was three weeks before Petit took the subway downtown and, for the first time, got a look at the Twin Towers in person. Even he was humbled by the magnitude of both buildings, recalling later that the same word kept unconsciously repeating in his mind: Impossible! But, even on this first attempt at reconnaissance, Petit would access forbidden stairwells, avoid police and, when encountering construction workers, act as if he belonged. Although it took an hour, he finally emerged, alone on the top of one of the Twin Towers. Far from complete, the building did not even have a guardrail. It was 1,350 feet high and eventually contained 110 stories. Petit was still so intimidated that when he got to the edge of the structure he could barely look down and focused instead on the distance between the two towers.
The World Trade Center, twin towers enveloped by fog.
It is approximately 7 AM, soon the entire area will be crawling with workers and security. Petit knows it is now or never. He is utterly exhausted and has gotten virtually no sleep for two consecutive days. Later, Blondeau would call the wire the worst they had ever rigged together. Both he and Jean Francois Heckel were also terrified, believing that it was very possible that Petit could fall. But Petit had already made up his mind.
“I had to make a decision of shifting my weight from one foot anchored to the building to the one foot anchored on the wire. This is possibly the end of my life, to step on that wire, but on the other hand something that I could not resist, I did not make any effort to resist, something called me on to the cable. And death is very close.”
On August 7, 1974, a twenty-five year old man named Philippe Petit walked across a 200 foot wire between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, 1,350 feet above the ground, something that even the policeman who arrested him described as a once in a lifetime event.
Philippe Petit, entertaining the police who arrested him on August 7
After Philip and Jean Francois are booked and fingerprinted, they were handcuffed to chairs while paperwork is composed that specifically defines the charges of Criminal Trespass and Disorderly Conduct. In the details of the complaint, the headline reads “Man on Wire.” It only takes Petit a few minutes to charm most of his captors by balancing a policeman’s hat on his nose and flipping it on to his head repeatedly.
Jean Francois Heckel, under arrest, August 7
. It is ultimately decided that both men are to be conveyed to a downtown hospital where Philippe is to be given psychiatric examination. The doctor in charge quickly pronounces him sane. He is taken back to a precinct house, where he is told that his sister is on the phone, a ruse to allow Annie to attempt to speak with him. An hour later, in front of a judge, the deal is made official. Ultimately, this little show will turn into a October 29 high wire walk across Central Park’s Turtle Pond, in front of 5,000 spectators. Both Jean Francois and Philippe are released and their cuffs removed. They are free to go, however Jean Francois was eventually officially deported.
Barry Greenhouse
Merely walking through the lobby, he heard his name being called and turning to the source of the voice he saw a very well dressed man with a striking handlebar moustache. The man ebulliently explained that he saw Philippe performing in Paris while the stranger was on vacation. He introduced himself, also responding to Philippe’s already probing questions telling the aerialist that he works on the 82nd floor of the South tower. His name is Barry Greenhouse, employed by the New York State Insurance Department and most importantly his office is on an upper floor. When Barry asked Philippe again what he is doing in the World Trade Center, Philippe invited him to dinner, realizing that Greenhouse may be the most valuable accomplice in his entire crew. At dinner, with Annie participating, Petit wheeled out his photo album scrapbook of his antics in Paris and Sydney and, thinking, based on Greenhouse amused reaction that the streetwise New Yorker probably has figured out what he is up to, Petit spells out his plan exactly, asking for the older man’s help. After asking some general questions, probably to see how serious Petit was, Greenhouse offered to assist in any way that he can.
Annie Allix
On the street below, Annie Allix was much more effusive. “I saw Philippe up there, it was extraordinary, it was so, so beautiful…It was like he was walking on a cloud.”
Jean Louis Blondeau, 2009
Jean Louis and Jean Francois have already flown home, Heckel’s excited anticipation over potential future coups dampened by Jean Louis’ admonition that he will never work with Petit again and he believes that their friendship is irrevocably broken.
On November 14, 1959, two petty criminals, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, crossed Kansas, murdered the Clutter family in the tiny hamlet of Holcomb, Kansas and unwittingly enabled a New York City writer named Truman Capote to achieve immortality for all three of them.
Capote, as he would have dressed while visiting Holcomb and Garden City Kansas
When Truman Capote arrived in Kansas, Smith and Hickock were not yet on law enforcement’s radar. Capote’s initial intent was to write about the reaction of the town and its inhabitants but he had at least enough self awareness to understand that it would be next to impossible for someone with both his New York and blatantly homosexual persona to ingratiate himself to the appropriate degree.
Harper Lee, 1960, photo taken by Truman Capote
Capote enlisted Harper Lee as his partner in journalism and set about trying to induce the locals, both law enforcement and private citizens, into sharing any valuable insight. His initial wardrobe of a pillbox style hat, long sheepskin coat and scarf that hung all the way to his feet did him no favors but Harper Lee seems to have helped him win over his most productive source and access to important information. Alvin Dewey, as a member of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation or KBI, the state agency with jurisdiction over the investigation and a resident of Garden City, was logically designated to coordinate the investigation with other assigned members of the KBI. Initially repelled by Capote, Dewey eventually was charmed especially by Harper Lee, who also became friendly with Dewey’s wife Marie, and it wasn’t long before Capote and Lee were getting regular invitations to dinner.
Clutter house, 2009, much like it appeared in 1959
Arriving shortly after midnight on the morning of November 15, a full moon completely illuminated both the Clutter home, and the expansive series of barns, which Smith said excited Hickock, Dick thinking the proprietor of such a spread had to possess a great deal of money. With no need for headlights, Hickock shut them and the car engine off and parked behind a tree, allowing the two men to appraise the situation.
Hickock mug shot
Richard Eugene “Dick” Hickock was born on June 6, 1931 in Kansas City, Missouri. His parents, Walter and Eunice, were typically devout, hard working lower middle class Kansas Midwesterners who raised their family on a 44 acre farm in the small town of Edgerton. Walter Hickock worked as a mechanic by day and farmed his acreage during off hours. Industrious, he built the farm’s main family residence by himself. His oldest of two sons, Dick was popular in high school and lettered in several sports but Dick’s parents were unable to provide the financial means to send Dick to college after his graduation in 1949. Instead, he went to work for the Santa Fe Railroad and pursued another interest, women. Many surmise that the critical event in Hickock’s life was a serious car accident in 1950, in which he was almost killed, spent days in the hospital and emerged with disfigured facial features and possibly permanent brain damage. Married at age 19 to his 16 year old girlfriend who produced two children, Hickock seems to have undergone a personality change in which he suddenly began gambling, kiting checks and living beyond his means. He also managed to conceive a child with another woman, prompting a divorce from his first wife. Saying that he wanted to “do the right thing,” he married the mother of his third child but continued to subsidize menial jobs, mostly as an auto mechanic, with petty crime. Whether it was for writing bad checks or stealing a rifle from a private residence, Hickock finally caught his first five-year jail sentence in 1956 for “cheating and defrauding.” He was paroled from Kansas State Penitentiary on August 13, 1959.
Smith mug shot
Perry Edward Smith was born in Huntington, Nevada on October 27, 1928, perhaps appropriately, his birthplace is now a ghost town. His father John “Tex” Smith and mother Florence “Flo” Buckskin were rodeo riders who performed in small towns across the northern great plains. Described as a full blooded Cherokee by Capote, Flo was in fact Shoshone-Paiute. In 1929, Smith’s parents moved to Juneau, Alaska, where Tex hustled a living as a bootlegger. Both parents were alcoholic, Tex violently abusive to both his wife and his four children and frequently absent for lengthy periods of time. During these absences, Flo engaged in numerous adulterous affairs, eventually precipitating an especially violent beating at the hands of Tex in 1935, behavior that convinced Flo to flee to San Francisco. Usually in an alcoholic haze, she was unable to care for her children, who were eventually placed in a series of institutions and Catholic orphanages, Perry already arrested by the age of eight. Subjected to repeated physical abuse, especially at the hands of the nuns he frequently encountered, Smith evolved into an angry and aggressive loner, constantly in conflict with others. Eventually, his father intervened, removing Perry from San Francisco and taking him throughout Nevada and Alaska, settling in the latter state until Perry’s enlistment at age 16 in the Merchant Marine. After that, in 1948, he enlisted in the US Army, serving in both Japan and Korea and receiving the Bronze Star for action as a combat engineer during the pivotal Battle of Inchon. But, despite his honorable discharge, he frequently fought with other soldiers and civilians and spent lengthy periods in the stockade. He intended to return to Alaska and live with his father but, most likely because of their tempestuous relationship, he moved to Washington State in the summer of 1952 and there he suffered a serious motorcycle accident that almost forced the amputation of both legs and left him with a permanent limp, constant pain and an aspirin addiction. While in Washington he also fathered an illegitimate son, who was raised by an Army buddy as his own child. Smith then spent a year convalescing in a hospital before returning to Alaska, where he hoped to reunite with his father. They built a hunting lodge together in a remote part of the state, called the Trapper’s Den Lodge but had a serious and violent falling out in 1955, when the lodge failed. Smith drifted across the Midwest and with a partner, broke into an office in Phillipsburg, Kansas where they stole anything of value. Arrested after a traffic stop, Smith and his accomplice broke out of jail, stole a car and it was New York City before Perry was apprehended by the FBI and taken back to Kansas to face the music. In 1956, he received five to ten years for the previous burglary and interstate flight. It is at the Kansas State Penitentiary that he met Dick Hickock, at some point sharing a cell.
Robert Blake in the 1967 film as Perry Smith, an uncanny likeness
The 1967 film reproduction of the book only added to Capote’s celebrity runway. While some have attributed the author’s downward spiral to the emotional trauma of his involvement with Hickock and Smith, Capote’s thinly concealed eagerness for the two men’s execution and his alcoholism and drug abuse were only enabled by the ability to coast along on his reputation, his great wealth allowing a lifestyle of indulgence and artistic inactivity.
Truman Capote, in front of the motel he frequented in Garden City, Kansas. Next door was one of the few “wet” restaurants in the city.
By the time the two suspects were returned to Garden City, Capote had so ingratiated himself with Alvin Dewey that he was granted a privilege denied to every other journalist covering the Clutter case; interview access to Hickock and Smith. This would not be the only benefit granted by Dewey but it was extremely significant. The egotistical, verbose Hickock was an easy subject for Capote who drained him of as much information as possible but Perry Smith was initially wary. Ultimately fascinated by Capote and, insecure about his lack of formal education, that a man of letters would be interested in conversing with him, Smith also established a close relationship. After getting this exclusive access, Capote then returned to New York with Harper Lee, as there was nothing for him to do but wait for the trial, scheduled for March 22, 1960.
On November 14, 1959, two petty criminals, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, crossed Kansas, murdered the Clutter family in the tiny hamlet of Holcomb, Kansas and unwittingly enabled a New York City writer named Truman Capote to achieve immortality for all three of them.
The stolen license plate spotted by Las Vegas police that led to Smith and Hickock’s arrest.
This arrest was most likely the result of the efforts of KBI investigator Harold Nye, who, in the interim after the Wells revelation, had traveled to Las Vegas to question individuals who might have encountered Perry Smith while Smith stayed in the city prior to returning to Kansas. Nye also met extensively with members of the Las Vegas Police department and impressed upon them that Smith especially was known to frequent the city and that Smith and Hickock’s apprehension was extremely important. While the attentive Las Vegas patrolmen who spotted the stolen plate and vehicle deserve credit, most likely they were focused as a result of information transmitted throughout the department, the result of Harold Nye’s diligence.
Reproduction of the bloodstain from Smith’s boot and the boot itself, on display with the license plate, Finney County Sheriff’s Department exhibit.
Hickock and Smith, not wanting to drag a lot of miscellaneous items with them when they returned from Mexico and had to resort to hitchhiking, mailed a box to Post Office General Delivery in Las Vegas containing, among other things, the boots they wore the night they killed the Clutters. Their arrest occurred only a few minutes later and had the police nabbed them sooner these critical items that physically linked them to the murder scene might never have been recovered.
Replacement gravestone, Dick Hickock, Mount Muncie Cemetery, original purchased by Truman Capote was stolen and is now in the custody of Kansas State Historical Society archives but not publicly displayed out of deference to the Clutter family.
Hickock went first although no one was really sure how that was decided, perhaps alphabetically. He made a brief statement; “I don’t have any hard feelings. You’re sending me to a better place.” He then thanked the KBI agents for being there and was helped by guards up the thirteen steps of the gallows. There, while the 23rd Psalm was intoned by the prison chaplain, a hood was placed over his head, a noose tightened around his neck and the long hood. At 12:19 AM he was positioned exactly on the wooden platform and then the hangman, paid six hundred dollars for his effort, pulled a lever opening a small trap door, Hickock falling straight down until the rope snapped taut breaking his neck. A doctor present for this official purpose took 22 minutes to pronounce Hickock dead, after his heart stopped beating.
Perry Smith grave next to Hickock’s, Mount Muncie Cemetery, also a replacement, original now in the archives of the Kansas Historical Society
Smith was next, driven to the gallows and arriving a little after 1 AM. In Capote’s book, he is supposed to have issued an apology but his last official words actually were: “I think it is a hell of a thing that a life has to be taken in this manner. I say this especially because there’s a great deal I could have offered society. I think capital punishment is legally and morally wrong. Any apology for what I have done would be meaningless at this time. I don’t have any animosities toward anyone involved in this matter. I think that is all. Then Smith ascended the steps to the gallows, underwent the same process as Hickock, dropped through the trap door at 1:07 AM and was pronounced dead 12 minutes later.
Capote, 1980, four years before his death.
Capote’s fall from grace was so complete that he exiled himself to California and published only fragments and short pieces, Answered Prayers remaining unfinished. In August of 1984, having not published anything of substance for almost twenty years and while apparently living at the home of his newest best friend Joanne Carson, talk show host Johnny’s second wife, Capote died of liver cancer. Gore Vidal, who successfully sued Capote over accusations of drunkenness at the White House and also famously claimed that Capote’s voice was audible only to dogs called it a good career move.
The books and journalism used in this podcast included:
“Capote: A Biography,” by Gerald Clarke
“Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career,” by George Plimpton
“And Every Word Is True,” by Gary MacAvoy
“In Cold Blood,” by Truman Capote
Also journalism about “In Cold Blood,” which appeared in the Wall Street Journal by Kevin Helliker, chiefly, “Capote Classic, ‘In Cold Blood,’ Tainted by Long Lost Files,” published on February 8, 2013.
The intro in both Parts One and Two was “Three Wise People,” by Jammy Jams. The outro in Part One was “Blue Mood,” by Robert Munziger and the outro in Part Two was “Cruiser,” by Magic In The Other
In 1942, the Czech government in exile decided to parachute two commandos into the former Czechoslovakia to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, considered the most brutal and sinister Nazi in Occupied Europe. Code named Operation Anthropoid, this suicide mission remains one of the most heroic and remarkable stories of World War II.
Himmler and Heydrich, Vienna, 1938
Nazi lore has it that Heinrich Himmler, appointed in 1929 as the head of the newly formed SS, was intent on developing a unit consigned with obtaining and organizing intelligence on both internal party members and external individuals of political and social interest, essentially an elite domestic spying apparatus. Heydrich’s dossier was given to Himmler by a Von Osten connection and the Reichsfuhrer was impressed enough to summon the former officer to headquarters in Munich. However, at the last minute the interview was cancelled, a development that Heydrich and Lina perceived as a sign that he had been eliminated from consideration. Heydrich, encouraged by Lina, decided to keep the appointment anyway and when he got to Munich, managed to wangle a 20 minute interview. As it turned out, the appointment was cancelled merely because of Himmler not feeling well and he was doubly irritated by having to deal with an official matter during his illness. Initially resolved to quickly dispense with this annoyance, the Reichsfuhrer brusquely informed the candidate that he had twenty minutes to describe how Heydrich would organize a potential internal party intelligence agency. It probably did not hurt that the six foot, blonde haired, blue eyed candidate exactly fit the Aryan physical prototype of the perfect SS man. Himmler was so surprised and impressed by Heydrich’s thoughtful and detailed response that he hired him on the spot. Reinhard Heydrich, 27 years old, was now the head of what eventually became known as the Sicherheitsdienst or SD, literally, in English, the Security Service.
Heydrich as a Naval Cadet
Reporting to the German naval port city of Kiel, Heydrich quickly was perceived as an outsider, especially when he showed up for training with a violin. This possession differentiated him from his lower class compatriots as pompous and even effeminate. His high-pitched voice, tall, gawky demeanor and lack of self confidence did little to endear him to his fellow cadets, another native of his hometown did him no favors by repeating the rumor that he was actually Jewish. A lesser individual might have crumbled under this type of adversity but instead Heydrich thrived on his loner status, becoming technically proficient in wireless operations and passing language exams in French, Russian and English. He completed his initial training, received promotions and excelled in athletic competitions that included fencing, horse riding and even membership in the naval pentathlon team. Heydrich’s naval career progressed positively during the twenties and resulted in a promotion to sub-lieutenant, an officer’s rank.
Edvard Benes, President of Czechoslovakia
To maintain his personal profile and also the national relevance and autonomy of his organization, Eduard Benes resolved that some bold and decisive action must be undertaken, even if it was symbolic, to reassert, even conceptually, the existence of the Czech resistance. He also hoped that the operation was so bold as to serve as a catalyst for a massive uprising of the Czech population. This concept precipitated the specific plot to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, code named Anthropoid.
Jan Kubis
Secret commando agents had parachuted into the former Czechoslovakia already, with very limited success. Most were rounded up and executed after only a few weeks of operation. But these agents came from an ongoing initiative, assisted by the British Special Operations Executive, to continue to infiltrate Czech operatives into the Protectorate. From this operation two commandos were selected, Josef Gabcik and Jan Kubis, for the specific purpose of killing both Heydrich and Karl Herman Frank.
Martin Gabcik
It was not until December 28, 1941, that the British Air Command provided a long-range Halifax bomber to transport all nine of the Czech agents to three separate drop zones. The flight, with sixteen men total, including crew, and a full load of fuel did not allow for any evasive maneuvers in the event of detection, but the bomber made it across France and Germany without incident. Unfortunately, short summer nights meant that the darkness necessary for such an operation was only possible in the dead of winter. Thus, freshly fallen snow removed any opportunity to note landmarks identifying appropriate drop zones, nevertheless Gabcik and Kubis went out first the other two teams jumping shortly thereafter.
Karl Hermann Frank
Heydrich used information provided by Karl Herman Frank, another Nazi official in the Protectorate administration, to aid in this process. Frank believed that should Von Neurath be pushed aside, he would be appointed as the replacement. On September 21, 1941, all interested parties met at Hitler’s East Prussian bunker headquarters to discuss this situation. First, Frank met with Hitler to enumerate issues and complaints concerning Von Neurath and even was afforded the privilege of eating lunch with the Fuhrer.
Kurt Daluege and Himmler, Poland
Karl Herman Frank was again denied a promotion, the SS General Kurt Daluege was appointed as temporary Reichsprotector. Himmler sent his personal physician to take charge of Heydrich’s treatment, Goebbels wrote in his diary that “such an attack could set a precedent if we do not counter it with the most brutal means.”
In 1942, the Czech government in exile decided to parachute two commandos into the former Czechoslovakia to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, considered the most brutal and sinister Nazi in Occupied Europe. Code named Operation Anthropoid, this suicide mission remains one of the most heroic and remarkable stories of World War II
On the evening of June 26, 1942, Heydrich hosted a concert featuring classical music composed by his father. Twelve hours later he would be fighting for his life after one of the two parachutists successfully detonated an anti-tank grenade near his limousine.Heydrich’s convertible Mercedes-Benz limousine after the commando attack.
But Kubas had also approached the car, undetected and he hurled the grenade towards the open interior of the vehicle. He missed badly, the device skittering against the rear right tire and exploding against the side and undercarriage of the Mercedes. Although inaccurate, the blast was intense enough to shatter the tram’s windows and send shrapnel into a group of passengers exiting the streetcar.
St. Cyril and Thelonius Cathedral, where the commandos made their final stand against overwhelming Nazi force.
It is not known where exactly Kubis and Gabcik hid in the first days after the assassination. But, understanding that it was only a matter of time before they would be located, Jan Zelensky arranged for seven of the fugitive commandos to be hidden in the expansive crypt of the Saint Cyril and Methodius Cathedral, Prague’s most prominent Czech Orthodox church.
Heinz Pannwitz, Gestapo investigator
Heinz Pannwitz, the local Gestapo official in charge of the investigation and manhunt decided that a change of strategy was in order. He got Frank to agree to announce that an amnesty would be provided to any citizen who provided valuable information about the assassins, as long as this occurred before June 18. If an arrest was not forthcoming by then, 30,000 Czechs would be detained and executed.
Vent that led to the crypt at St. Cyril and Thelonius cathedral, bullet holes were made during the final standoff.
The only other access was through a narrow opening leading to the exterior of the church, essentially for ventilation. Not wanting to instigate another mass suicide, Pannwitz attempted to reason with the remaining commandos inside. Announcements via loudspeaker blared that the defenders would be treated as POW’s if they surrendered. Petrek, and even Karol Curda, was sent up to the narrow opening, hoping to induce a peaceful conclusion. Upon hearing Curda’s voice, one of the defenders let loose with gunshots and yelled that they would never surrender. Pannwitz then tried having the city fire department flood the crypt, jamming large fire houses down the vent and releasing hundreds of gallons of water a minute as well as tear gas into the crypt, to no avail. The hoses were pushed out by the defenders, who also hurled Molotov cocktails at the firemen.
Horst Bohme, ranking officer at Lidice, with Karl Hermann Frank and Himmler.
The ranking officer on the scene in charge of the Lidice massacre, Horst Bohme, disappeared at the end of the war and was declared legally dead in 1954, most likely a suicide.
Lidice, after initial German demolition.
Even before Heydrich’s state funeral in Berlin concluded, on the evening of June 9, upon hearing the details of Lidice’s defiance, Hitler ordered the village to be completely destroyed. At 9:30 at night, the village was sealed off, men over the age of fifteen were separated from the town’s women and children, and in groups of ten were placed against a wall and shot. At midday on the tenth, all 173 men were dead. They were buried in a mass grave dug by concentration camp inhabitants from Theriesiensdtadt. 203 women were placed on an armed transport to the women’s concentration camp facility at Ravensbruck. Although brutal, this was not an extermination camp, 143 of these deportees survived their imprisonment. As many as 105 children were detained, the exact number unclear based on their ultimate fates. Only a handful of these victims were determined to be suitable for “Germanization,” several eventually murdered in German orphanages. The rest were consigned to the Chelmno extermination camp. Only seventeen made it home after the war.
Lidice memorial to the child victims of the Nazi massacre.
In 1961, an unemployed cab driver, Kempton Bunton, pulled off one of the most remarkable art thefts of the 20th century. Or did he?
Kempton Bunton, 1965
Bunton’s mother named him Kempton Cannon Bunton after a British jockey, Kempton Cannon, who won the Epsom Derby only days before her son’s birth, June 14, 1904, a victory she financially backed. When asked about his unusual name, Bunton also always replied, “It’s Kempton as in Kempton Park racecourse,” as if to underscore his interest in such an edgy activity.
Francisco De Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, the First Duke of Wellington, became one of the most prominent military and political leaders of the British Empire during the first half of the nineteenth century. Despite spending approximately fifteen years in military posts that included the Netherlands and especially India, Wellesley remained an obscure commanding officer until his 1808 assignment to the Peninsula War, an extended conflict on the Iberian Peninsula combating Napoleonic occupation. This grueling struggle, combined with Napoleon’s disastrous 1812 invasion of Russia, depleted French military strength, and lead to France’s eventual capitulation. One of the key moments of the Peninsula War occurred when Wellesley, then the Earl of Wellington, achieved a decisive victory at Salamanca, which lead to the liberation of the capital, Madrid and the flight to Valencia of Joseph Bonaparte, titular king of Spain, and brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. The Earl entered the capital on August 12, 1812, at the head of his troops, the British hailed as liberators by Madrid’s grateful inhabitants. The Peninsula War dragged on laboriously until 1814 and the final collapse and abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte, but after Salamanca, Madrid was never reoccupied by French forces.
Francisco De Goya
As a celebrity, Wellington, in the capital, crossed paths with Francisco de Goya, the Spanish Court Painter and a prominent member of official society in his own right. Goya was able to get the British commander to sit for a sketch and two other eventual paintings, an equestrian study and a remarkable portrait of Wellington, in scarlet uniform, festooned with numerous colorful decorations and a remarkably lifelike expression. Over time, as the historical prominence of both men grew, this portrait achieved a special stature denoting the interaction of one of Europe’s greatest artists with one of the continent’s most accomplished statesman and military leaders, a truly rare collaboration.
Britain’s National Gallery, London
The initial controversy and subsequent national retention of such a uniquely British artifact generated massive publicity and anticipation when it was announced that the painting would be placed on display at London’s National Gallery, beginning August 2, 1961. For two and a half weeks, crowds averaging well over five thousand patrons daily, an unusual increase over the normal number of the museum’s visitors, flocked to see the newly acquired painting. To accentuate the stature of and to insure maximum accessibility for the throng of visitors eager to see the portrait, Goya’s Duke of Wellington was displayed on a portable easel, not in one of the museum’s rooms with other paintings but by itself, in a common area, in the North Vestibule of the Gallery. It also was loosely secured on the easel to allow for immediate removal in the event of fire or some other calamity. Then, on August 21, the painting vanished.
