Dinner with Hitler, FDR, and Martin Luther King Jr.

dinner with leaders set the table and lit the candles. The first knock on the door was hard and pounding. I have a feeling who it might be, but nothing could have prepared me to meet eye-to-eye with Adolf Hitler. He saluted me without a word and marched inside, seating himself at the table. No sooner had Hitler unfolded his napkin then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wheeled himself up my driveway. Far friendlier than Hitler was, President Roosevelt shook my hand warmly and asked if I could help him maneuver his chair inside. He seemed to stop breathing when he saw who was sitting at the table but before he could say a word my third invited guest arrived. His commanding presence nearly led me to bow before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But his handshake was so disarming that I could only smile and feel honored to have him in my home. These three men would make the most fascinating dinner party. They share more in common than we think. One could hardly have predicted the eminence of these three leaders by looking at their backgrounds: Hitler was a failed artist; FDR was wealthy upper class American; and Martin Luther King was a man devoted to religion. Nevertheless, all of them rose to power at just the right time, manifesting intrinsic charisma and creative ideas that were put into action. They each impacted the world in unique yet powerful ways and therefore I chose to invite these three leaders to dinner.

Hitler was of course one of the most nefarious men in history. I did not invite him to dinner to hear him rant about enemies to the Aryan people. Rather, I wanted to understand who Hitler was, to recognize what qualities could turn a human being into such a monster. Hitler was enormously successful at his military campaigns too, and I thought it would be interesting to pit him and his foe, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, together. Both impacted the course of World War Two. To Roosevelt I would like to ask more about his disability and about how he felt about the current state of affairs in America.