name	Leo Tolstoy
birth name	Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
birth date	September 09, 1828
birth place	Yasnaya Polyana, Russian Empire
death date	November 20, 1910
death place	Astapovo, Russian Empire
occupation	Novelist, short story writer, playwright, essayist
language	Russian, French
nationality	Russian
period	1852–1910
notableworks	''War and Peace''''Anna Karenina''''A Confession''
spouse	Sophia Tolstaya
children	14
signature	Leo Tolstoy signature.svg }}

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (, ; known in the West as Leo Tolstoy) (September 9, 1828November 20, 1910) was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels ''War and Peace'' and ''Anna Karenina'', are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist fiction. Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world's greatest novelists. Tolstoy is equally known for his complicated and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, which he adopted after a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became noted as a moral thinker and social reformer.

His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as ''The Kingdom of God Is Within You'', were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Biography

Tolstoy was born in Yasnaya Polyana, the family estate in the Tula region of Russia. The Tolstoys were a well-known family of old Russian nobility. He was the fourth of five children of Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy, a veteran of the Patriotic War of 1812, and Countess Mariya Tolstaya (Volkonskaya). Tolstoy's parents died when he was young, so he and his siblings were brought up by relatives. In 1844, he began studying law and oriental languages at Kazan University. His teachers described him as "both unable and unwilling to learn." Tolstoy left university in the middle of his studies, returned to Yasnaya Polyana and then spent much of his time in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. In 1851, after running up heavy gambling debts, he went with his older brother to the Caucasus and joined the army. It was about this time that he started writing.

His conversion from a dissolute and privileged society author to the non-violent and spiritual anarchist of his latter days was brought about by his experience in the army as well as two trips around Europe in 1857 and 1860–61. Others who followed the same path were Alexander Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin, and Peter Kropotkin. During his 1857 visit, Tolstoy witnessed a public execution in Paris, a traumatic experience that would mark the rest of his life. Writing in a letter to his friend Vasily Botkin: "The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens ... Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere."

His European trip in 1860–61 shaped both his political and literary transformation when he met Victor Hugo, whose literary talents Tolstoy praised after reading Hugo's newly finished ''Les Miserables''. A comparison of Hugo's novel and Tolstoy's ''War and Peace'' shows the influence of the evocation of its battle scenes. Tolstoy's political philosophy was also influenced by a March 1861 visit to French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, then living in exile under an assumed name in Brussels. Apart from reviewing Proudhon's forthcoming publication, ''La Guerre et la Paix'' (''War and Peace'' in French), whose title Tolstoy would borrow for his masterpiece, the two men discussed education, as Tolstoy wrote in his educational notebooks: "If I recount this conversation with Proudhon, it is to show that, in my personal experience, he was the only man who understood the significance of education and of the printing press in our time."

Fired by enthusiasm, Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana and founded thirteen schools for his serfs' children, based on the principles Tolstoy described in his 1862 essay "The School at Yasnaya Polyana". Tolstoy's educational experiments were short-lived, partly due to harassment by the Tsarist secret police. However, as a direct forerunner to A. S. Neill's Summerhill School, the school at Yasnaya Polyana can justifiably be claimed to be the first example of a coherent theory of democratic education.

Personal life

On September 23, 1862, Tolstoy married Sophia Andreevna Behrs, who was 16 years his junior and the daughter of a court physician. She was called Sonya, the Russian diminutive of Sofya, by her family and friends. They had thirteen children, five of whom died during childhood. The marriage was marked from the outset by sexual passion and emotional insensitivity when Tolstoy, on the eve of their marriage, gave her his diaries detailing his extensive sexual past and the fact that one of the serfs on his estate had borne him a son. Even so, their early married life was ostensibly happy and allowed Tolstoy much freedom to compose ''War and Peace'' and ''Anna Karenina'' with Sonya acting as his secretary, proof-reader and financial manager. However, their latter life together has been described by A. N. Wilson as one of the unhappiest in literary history. Tolstoy's relationship with his wife deteriorated as his beliefs became increasingly radical. This saw him seeking to reject his inherited and earned wealth, including the renunciation of the copyrights on his earlier works.

Novels and fictional works

Tolstoy is one of the giants of Russian literature. His most famous works include the novels ''War and Peace'' and ''Anna Karenina'' and novellas such as ''Hadji Murad'' and ''The Death of Ivan Ilyich''. His contemporaries paid him lofty tributes. Fyodor Dostoyevsky thought him the greatest of all living novelists. Gustave Flaubert, on reading a translation of ''War and Peace'', exclaimed, "What an artist and what a psychologist!" Anton Chekhov, who often visited Tolstoy at his country estate, wrote, "When literature possesses a Tolstoy, it is easy and pleasant to be a writer; even when you know you have achieved nothing yourself and are still achieving nothing, this is not as terrible as it might otherwise be, because Tolstoy achieves for everyone. What he does serves to justify all the hopes and aspirations invested in literature."

Later critics and novelists continue to bear testament to Tolstoy's art. Virginia Woolf declared him the greatest of all novelists. James Joyce noted that, "He is never dull, never stupid, never tired, never pedantic, never theatrical!". Thomas Mann wrote of Tolstoy's seemingly guileless artistry: "Seldom did art work so much like nature". Such sentiments were shared by the likes of Proust, Faulkner and Nabokov. The latter heaped superlatives upon ''The Death of Ivan Ilyich'' and ''Anna Karenina''; he questioned, however, the reputation of ''War and Peace'', and sharply criticized ''Resurrection'' and ''The Kreutzer Sonata''.

Tolstoy's earliest works, the autobiographical novels ''Childhood'', ''Boyhood'', and ''Youth'' (1852–1856), tell of a rich landowner's son and his slow realization of the chasm between himself and his peasants. Though he later rejected them as sentimental, a great deal of Tolstoy's own life is revealed. They retain their relevance as accounts of the universal story of growing up.

Tolstoy served as a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment during the Crimean War, recounted in his ''Sevastapol Sketches''. His experiences in battle helped stir his subsequent pacifism and gave him material for realistic depiction of the horrors of war in his later work.

His fiction consistently attempts to convey realistically the Russian society in which he lived. ''The Cossacks'' (1863) describes the Cossack life and people through a story of a Russian aristocrat in love with a Cossack girl. ''Anna Karenina'' (1877) tells parallel stories of an adulterous woman trapped by the conventions and falsities of society and of a philosophical landowner (much like Tolstoy), who works alongside the peasants in the fields and seeks to reform their lives. Tolstoy not only drew from his own life experiences but also created characters in his own image, such as Pierre Bezukhov and Prince Andrei in ''War and Peace'', Levin in ''Anna Karenina'' and to some extent, Prince Nekhlyudov in ''Resurrection''.

''War and Peace'' is generally thought to be one of the greatest novels ever written, remarkable for its dramatic breadth and unity. Its vast canvas includes 580 characters, many historical with others fictional. The story moves from family life to the headquarters of Napoleon, from the court of Alexander I of Russia to the battlefields of Austerlitz and Borodino. Tolstoy's original idea for the novel was to investigate the causes of the Decembrist revolt, to which it refers only in the last chapters, from which can be deduced that Andrei Bolkonski's son will become one of the Decembrists. The novel explores Tolstoy's theory of history, and in particular the insignificance of individuals such as Napoleon and Alexander. Somewhat surprisingly, Tolstoy did not consider ''War and Peace'' to be a novel (nor did he consider many of the great Russian fictions written at that time to be novels). This view becomes less surprising if one considers that Tolstoy was a novelist of the realist school who considered the novel to be a framework for the examination of social and political issues in nineteenth-century life. ''War and Peace'' (which is to Tolstoy really an epic in prose) therefore did not qualify. Tolstoy thought that ''Anna Karenina'' was his first true novel.

After ''Anna Karenina'', Tolstoy concentrated on Christian themes, and his later novels such as ''The Death of Ivan Ilyich'' (1886) and ''What Is to Be Done?'' develop a radical anarcho-pacifist Christian philosophy which led to his excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901. For all the praise showered on ''Anna Karenina'' and ''War and Peace'', Tolstoy rejected the two works later in his life as something not as true of reality. Such an argument is supported in ''The Death of Ivan Ilyich'', whose main character continually battles with his family and servants, demanding honesty above the water and food needed to sustain him.

Tolstoy on Shakespeare

During his life, Tolstoy came to the conclusion that William Shakespeare was a bad dramatist and not a true artist at all. Tolstoy explained his views in a critical essay on Shakespeare written in 1903: "I remember the astonishment I felt when I first read Shakespeare. I expected to receive a powerful aesthetic pleasure, but having read, one after the other, works regarded as his best: "King Lear", "Romeo and Juliet", "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," not only did I feel no delight, but I felt an irresistible repulsion and tedium...". He goes on:

Several times I read the dramas and the comedies and historical plays, and I invariably underwent the same feelings: repulsion, weariness, and bewilderment. At the present time, before writing this preface, being desirous once more to test myself, I have, as an old man of seventy-five, again read the whole of Shakespeare, including the historical plays, the "Henrys," "Troilus and Cressida," the "Tempest," "Cymbeline," and I have felt, with even greater force, the same feelings,—this time, however, not of bewilderment, but of firm, indubitable conviction that the unquestionable glory of a great genius which Shakespeare enjoys, and which compels writers of our time to imitate him and readers and spectators to discover in him non-existent merits,—thereby distorting their aesthetic and ethical understanding,—is a great evil, as is every untruth.

Understanding that his conclusions contradict popular opinion, Tolstoy supported his opinion by detailed analysis of ''King Lear''. George Orwell wrote a well-known response to this: Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool.

Religious and political beliefs

After reading Schopenhauer's ''The World as Will and Representation'', Tolstoy gradually became converted to the ascetic morality upheld in that work as the proper spiritual path for the upper classes: "Do you know what this summer has meant for me? Constant raptures over Schopenhauer and a whole series of spiritual delights which I've never experienced before. ... no student has ever studied so much on his course, and learned so much, as I have this summer" In Chapter VI of ''A Confession'', Tolstoy quoted the final paragraph of Schopenhauer's work. It explained how the nothingness that results from complete denial of self is only a relative nothingness, and is not to be feared. The novelist was struck by the description of Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu ascetic renunciation as being the path to holiness. After reading passages such as the following, which abound in Schopenhauer's ethical chapters, the Russian nobleman chose poverty and formal denial of the will:

But this very necessity of involuntary suffering (by poor people) for eternal salvation is also expressed by that utterance of the Savior (Matthew 19:24): "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Therefore those who were greatly in earnest about their eternal salvation, chose voluntary poverty when fate had denied this to them and they had been born in wealth. Thus Buddha Sakyamuni was born a prince, but voluntarily took to the mendicant's staff; and Francis of Assisi, the founder of the mendicant orders who, as a youngster at a ball, where the daughters of all the notabilities were sitting together, was asked: "Now Francis, will you not soon make your choice from these beauties?" and who replied: "I have made a far more beautiful choice!" "Whom?" "''La poverta'' (poverty)": whereupon he abandoned every thing shortly afterwards and wandered through the land as a mendicant.

Tolstoy's Christian beliefs centered on the Sermon on the Mount, particularly the injunction to turn the other cheek, which he saw as a justification for pacifism, nonviolence and nonresistance. Various versions of "Tolstoy's Bible" have been published, indicating the passages Tolstoy most relied on, specifically, the reported words of Jesus himself. Tolstoy believed being a Christian required him to be a pacifist; the consequences of being a pacifist, and the apparently inevitable waging of war by government, made him a philosophical anarchist.

Tolstoy believed that a true Christian could find lasting happiness by striving for inner self-perfection through following the Great Commandment of loving one's neighbor and God rather than looking outward to the Church or state for guidance. His belief in nonresistance (nonviolence) when faced by conflict is another distinct attribute of his philosophy based on Christ's teachings. By directly influencing Mahatma Gandhi with this idea through his work ''The Kingdom of God is Within You'' (full text of English translation available on Wikisource), Tolstoy has had a huge influence on the nonviolent resistance movement to this day. He believed that the aristocracy were a burden on the poor, and that the only solution to how we live together is through anarchism. He also opposed private property and the institution of marriage and valued the ideals of chastity and sexual abstinence (discussed in ''Father Sergius'' and his preface to ''The Kreutzer Sonata''), ideals also held by the young Gandhi. Tolstoy's later work derives a passion and verve from the depth of his austere moral views. The sequence of the temptation of Sergius in ''Father Sergius'', for example, is among his later triumphs. Gorky relates how Tolstoy once read this passage before himself and Chekhov and that Tolstoy was moved to tears by the end of the reading. Other later passages of rare power include the crises of self faced by the protagonists of ''The Death of Ivan Ilyich'' and ''Master and Man'', where the main character in the former or the reader in the latter is made aware of the foolishness of the protagonists' lives. Tolstoy had a profound influence on the development of Christian anarchist thought. The Tolstoyans were a small Christian anarchist group formed by Tolstoy's companion, Vladimir Chertkov (1854–1936), to spread Tolstoy's religious teachings. Prince Peter Kropotkin wrote of Tolstoy in the article on anarchism in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica:

Without naming himself an anarchist, Leo Tolstoy, like his predecessors in the popular religious movements of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Chojecki, Denk and many others, took the anarchist position as regards the state and property rights, deducing his conclusions from the general spirit of the teachings of Jesus and from the necessary dictates of reason. With all the might of his talent he made (especially in ''The Kingdom of God is Within You'') a powerful criticism of the church, the state and law altogether, and especially of the present property laws. He describes the state as the domination of the wicked ones, supported by brutal force. Robbers, he says, are far less dangerous than a well-organized government. He makes a searching criticism of the prejudices which are current now concerning the benefits conferred upon men by the church, the state and the existing distribution of property, and from the teachings of Jesus he deduces the rule of non-resistance and the absolute condemnation of all wars. His religious arguments are, however, so well combined with arguments borrowed from a dispassionate observation of the present evils, that the anarchist portions of his works appeal to the religious and the non-religious reader alike.

During the Boxer Rebellion in China, Tolstoy praised the Boxers. He was harshly critical of the atrocities committed by the Russians, Germans, and other western troops. He accused them of engaging in slaughter when he heard about the lootings, rapes, and murders, in what he saw as Christian brutality. Tolstoy also named the two monarchs most responsible for the atrocities; Nicholas II of Russia and Wilhelm II of Germany. Tolstoy also read the works of Chinese thinker and philosopher, Confucius.

In hundreds of essays over the last twenty years of his life, Tolstoy reiterated the anarchist critique of the state and recommended books by Kropotkin and Proudhon to his readers, whilst rejecting anarchism's espousal of violent revolutionary means. In the 1900 essay, "On Anarchy", he wrote; "The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without Authority, there could not be worse violence than that of Authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require the protection of governmental power ... There can be only one permanent revolution—a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man." Despite his misgivings about anarchist violence, Tolstoy took risks to circulate the prohibited publications of anarchist thinkers in Russia, and corrected the proofs of Kropotkin's "Words of a Rebel", illegally published in St Petersburg in 1906.

In 1908, Tolstoy wrote ''A Letter to a Hindoo'' outlining his belief in non-violence as a means for India to gain independence from British colonial rule. In 1909, a copy of the letter fell into the hands of Mohandas Gandhi who was working as a lawyer in South Africa at the time and in the beginnings of becoming an activist. Tolstoy's letter was significant for Gandhi who wrote to the famous writer seeking proof that he was the real author, leading to further correspondence between them. Reading Tolstoy's ''The Kingdom of God is Within You'' also convinced Gandhi to avoid violence and espouse nonviolent resistance, a debt Gandhi acknowledged in his autobiography, calling Tolstoy "the greatest apostle of non-violence that the present age has produced". The correspondence between Tolstoy and Gandhi would only last a year, from October 1909 until Tolstoy's death in November 1910, but led Gandhi to give the name, the Tolstoy Colony, to his second ashram in South Africa. Besides non-violent resistance, the two men shared a common belief in the merits of vegetarianism, the subject of several of Tolstoy's essays.

Tolstoy also became a major supporter of the Esperanto movement. Tolstoy was impressed by the pacifist beliefs of the Doukhobors and brought their persecution to the attention of the international community, after they burned their weapons in peaceful protest in 1895. He aided the Doukhobors in migrating to Canada. In 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, Tolstoy condemned the war and wrote to the Japanese Buddhist priest Soyen Shaku in a failed attempt to make a joint pacifist statement.

Death

Tolstoy died in 1910, at the age of 82. He died of pneumonia at Astapovo train station, after falling ill when he left home in the middle of winter. His death came only days after gathering the nerve to abandon his family and wealth and take up the path of a wandering ascetic, a path that he had agonized over pursuing for decades. He had not been at the peak of health before leaving home; his wife and daughters were all actively engaged in caring for him daily. He had been speaking and writing of his own death in the days preceding his departure from home, but fell ill at the station not far from home. The station master took Tolstoy to his apartment, where his personal doctors were called to the scene. He was given injections of morphine and camphor.

The police tried to limit access to his funeral procession, but thousands of peasants lined the streets at his funeral. Still, some peasants were heard to say that, other than knowing that "some nobleman had died," they knew little else about Tolstoy.

In film

A 2009 film about Tolstoy's final year, ''The Last Station'', based on the novel by Jay Parini, was made by director Michael Hoffman with Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy and Helen Mirren as Sofya Tolstoya. Both performers were nominated for Oscars for their roles. There have been other films about the writer, including ''Departure of a Grand Old Man'', made in 1912 just two years after his death, ''How Fine, How Fresh the Roses Were'' (1913), and ''Leo Tolstoy'', directed by and starring Sergei Gerasimov in 1984.

There is also a famous lost film of Tolstoy made a decade before he died. In 1901, the American travel lecturer Burton Holmes visited Yasnaya Polyana with Albert J. Beveridge, the U.S. senator and historian. As the three men conversed, Holmes filmed Tolstoy with his 60-mm movie camera. Afterwards, Beveridge's advisers succeeded in having the film destroyed, fearing that documentary evidence of a meeting with the Russian author might hurt Beveridge's chances of running for the U.S. presidency.

Gallery

Bibliography

See also

Anarchism and religion

Christian vegetarianism

Confirmation bias, a psychological phenomenon of which Tolstoy was an early informal observer

References

External links

Audiobooks of Tolstoy at LibriVox

Category:1828 births Category:1910 deaths Category:Christian anarchists Category:Christian writers Category:Georgists Category:People excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church Category:Russian Christians Category:Russian Christian pacifists Category:Russian Esperantists Category:Russian anarchists Category:Russian anti-war activists Category:Russian writers Category:Russian essayists Category:Russian fabulists Category:Anarcho-pacifists Category:Russian novelists Category:Russian short story writers Category:Russian vegetarians Leo Tolstoy Category:Converts to Christianity from atheism or agnosticism Category:Members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Category:19th-century theatre Category:Russian dramatists and playwrights Category:Russian historical novelists Category:Russian children's writers Category:Russian educators Category:Russian military personnel of the Crimean War Category:Russian letter writers Category:19th-century novelists

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Simon Parke (born 8 October 1972, in Oakham, Rutland, United Kingdom) is a professional squash player from England.

Parke won the World Junior Squash Championship title in 1990.

As a professional player, he broke into the world's top-20 in 1991, and the top-10 in 1995. He was then diagnosed with testicular cancer in December 1995, and underwent surgery in January 1996, followed by treatment which included chemotherapy. He returned to the professional squash circuit just four months after his surgery.

Parke won the US Open title in 1999. He also helped England win two World Team Squash Championships titles, and won the British National Championships in 1998.

Parke reached a career-high world ranking of World No. 3.

References

Profile at Squashinfo.com

Page at Squashpics.com

Article at Squashtalk.com

Squashsite article on Parke's retirement

Category:English squash players Category:1972 births Category:Living people Category:People from Oakham

birthname	Karl Christian Rove
office	White House Deputy Chief of Staff
term start	February 8, 2005
term end	August 31, 2007Served with Joe Hagin and Joel Kaplan
president	George W. Bush
predecessor	Harriet Miers
successor	Joel Kaplan
office2	Senior Advisor to the President
president2	George W. Bush
deputy2	Barry Jackson
successor2	Barry Jackson
term start2	January 20, 2001
term end2	August 31, 2007
birth date	December 25, 1950
birth place	Denver, Colorado
occupation	Political Consultant
spouse	(divorced) (divorced)
children	Andrew Madison Rove
party	Republican
website	http://www.rove.com|rove.com
alma mater	University of UtahUniversity of Texas-AustinUniversity of Maryland, College ParkGeorge Mason University }}

Karl Christian Rove (born December 25, 1950) was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives. Since leaving the White House, Rove has worked as a political analyst and contributor for Fox News, ''Newsweek'' and ''The Wall Street Journal''.

Prior to his White House appointments, Rove was a Republican political consultant and strategist. He is credited with the 1994 and 1998 Texas gubernatorial victories of George W. Bush, as well as Bush's 2000 and 2004 successful presidential campaigns. In his 2004 victory speech Bush referred to Rove as "the Architect". Rove has also been credited for the successful campaigns of John Ashcroft (1994 U.S. Senate election), Bill Clements (1986 Texas gubernatorial election), Senator John Cornyn (2002 U.S. Senate election), Governor Rick Perry (1990 Texas Agriculture Commission election), and Phil Gramm (1982 U.S. House and 1984 U.S. Senate elections).

Early years

Family, upbringing, early education

Rove was born in Denver, Colorado, the second of five children, and was later raised in Sparks, Nevada. His biological father left the family when Rove and his older brother were children. His mother, Reba Louise (née Wood), was a gift shop manager, and his mother's second husband, Louis Claude Rove, Jr. (1928–2004), who adopted him and whom Rove knew as his father, was a geologist whose ancestry was Norwegian.

In 1965, his family moved to Salt Lake City, where Rove entered high school, becoming a skilled debater. Rove described his high school years as "I was the complete nerd. I had the briefcase. I had the pocket protector. I wore Hush Puppies when they were not cool. I was the thin, scrawny little guy. I was definitely uncool." Encouraged by a teacher to run for class senate, Rove won the election. As part of his campaign strategy he rode in the back of a convertible inside the school gymnasium sitting between two attractive girls before his election speech. While at Olympus High School, he was elected student council president his junior and senior years. Rove was also a Teenage Republican and served as Chairman of the Utah Federation of Teenage Republicans.

Entry into politics

Rove began his involvement in American politics in 1968. In a 2002 ''Deseret News'' interview, Rove explained, "I was the Olympus High chairman for (former United States Senator) Wallace F. Bennett's re-election campaign, where he was opposed by the dynamic, young, aggressive political science professor at the University of Utah, J.D. Williams." Bennett was reelected to a third six-year term in November 1968. Through Rove's campaign involvement, Bennett's son, Bob Bennett — a future United States Senator from Utah — would become a friend. Williams would later become a mentor to Rove.

In December 1969, the man Rove had known as his father left the family, and divorced Rove's mother soon afterwards. After his parents' divorce, Rove learned from his aunt and uncle that the man who had raised him was not his biological father; both he and his older brother Eric were the children of another man. Rove has expressed great love and admiration for his adoptive father and for "how selfless" his love had been. On September 11, 1981, Rove's mother committed suicide in Reno, Nevada.

College and the Dixon campaign incident

In the fall of 1969, Rove entered the University of Utah, on a $1,000 scholarship, as a political science major and joined the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. Through the University's Hinckley Institute of Politics, he got an internship with the Utah Republican Party. That position, and contacts from the 1968 Bennett campaign, helped him land a job in 1970 on Ralph Tyler Smith's unsuccessful re-election campaign for Senate from Illinois against Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson III.

In the fall of 1970, Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat Alan J. Dixon, who was running for Treasurer of Illinois. He stole 1000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead, printed fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing", and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, with the effect of disrupting Dixon's rally. (Dixon eventually won the election). Rove's role would not become publicly known until August 1973. Rove told the ''Dallas Morning News'' in 1999, "It was a youthful prank at the age of 19 and I regret it." In his memoir, Rove wrote that when he was later nominated to the Board for International Broadcasting by President George H.W. Bush, Senator Dixon did not kill his nomination. In Rove's account, "Dixon displayed more grace than I had shown and kindly excused this youthful prank."

College Republicans, Watergate, and the Bushes

In June 1971, after the end of the semester, Rove dropped out of the University of Utah to take a paid position as the Executive Director of the College Republican National Committee. Joe Abate, who was National Chairman of the College Republicans at the time, became a mentor to Rove. He enrolled at the University of Maryland in College Park in the Fall of 1971, but withdrew from classes during the first half of the semester.

Rove traveled extensively, participating as an instructor at weekend seminars for campus conservatives across the country. He was an active participant in Richard Nixon's 1972 Presidential campaign. A CBS report on the organization of the Nixon campaign from June 1972 includes an interview with a young Rove working for the College Republican National Committee.

Rove held the position of executive director of the College Republicans until early 1973. He left the job to spend five months, without pay, campaigning full time for the position of national chairman of the organization, for the 1973-1975 term in the same years he attended George Mason University. Lee Atwater, the group's Southern regional coordinator, who was two months younger than Rove, managed Rove's campaign. The two spent the spring of 1973 crisscrossing the country in a Ford Pinto, lining up the support of Republican state chairs.

The College Republicans summer 1973 convention at the Lake of the Ozarks resort in Missouri was quite contentious. Rove's opponent was Robert Edgeworth of Michigan (the other major candidate, Terry Dolan of California, dropped out, supporting Edgeworth). A number of states had sent two competing delegates, because Rove and his supporters had made credentials challenges at state and regional conventions. For example, after the Midwest regional convention, Rove forces had produced a version of the Midwestern College Republicans constitution which differed significantly from the constitution that the Edgeworth forces were using, in order to justify the unseating of the Edgeworth delegates on procedural grounds, including delegations, such as Ohio and Missouri, which had been certified earlier by Rove himself. In the end, there were two votes, conducted by two convention chairs, and two winners — Rove and Edgeworth, each of whom delivered an acceptance speech. After the convention, both Edgeworth and Rove appealed to Republican National Committee Chairman George H. W. Bush, each contending that he was the new College Republican chairman.

While resolution was pending, Dolan went (anonymously) to the ''Washington Post'' with recordings of several training seminars for young Republicans where a co-presenter of Rove's, Bernie Robinson, cautioned against doing the same thing he had done: rooting through opponents' garbage cans. The tape with this story on it, as well as Rove's admonition not to copy similar tricks as Rove's against Dixon, was secretly recorded and edited by Rich Evans, who had hoped to receive an appointment from Rove's competitor in CRNC chairmanship race. On August 10, 1973, in the midst of the Watergate scandal, the ''Post'' broke the story in article titled "GOP Party Probes Official as Teacher of Tricks".

In response, then RNC Chairman George H.W. Bush had an FBI agent question Rove. As part of the investigation, Atwater signed an affidavit, dated August 13, 1973, stating that he had heard a "20 minute anecdote similar to the one described in the ''Washington Post''" in July 1972, but that "it was a funny story during a coffee break". Former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean, who was implicated in the Watergate break-in and became the star witness for the prosecution, has been quoted as saying "based on my review of the files, it appears the Watergate prosecutors were interested in Rove's activities in 1972, but because they had bigger fish to fry they did not aggressively investigate him."

On September 6, 1973, three weeks after announcing his intent to investigate the allegations against Rove, George H.W. Bush chose Rove to be chairman of the College Republicans. Bush then wrote Edgeworth a letter saying that he had concluded that Rove had fairly won the vote at the convention. Edgeworth wrote back, asking about the basis of that conclusion. Not long after that, Edgeworth stated "Bush sent me back the angriest letter I have ever received in my life. I had leaked to the ''Washington Post'', and now I was out of the Party forever."

As National Chairman, Rove introduced Bush to Atwater, who had taken Rove's job as the College Republican's executive director, and who would become Bush's main campaign strategist in future years. Bush hired Rove as a special assistant in the Republican National Committee, a job Rove left in 1974 to become executive assistant to the co-chair of the RNC, Richard D. Obenshain.

As special assistant, Rove also performed small personal tasks for Bush. In November 1973, Bush asked Rove to take a set of car keys to his son George W. Bush, who was visiting home during a break from Harvard Business School. It was the first time the two met. "Huge amounts of charisma, swagger, cowboy boots, flight jacket, wonderful smile, just charisma - you know, wow", Rove recalled years later.

The Texas years and notable political campaigns

1977–1991

Rove's initial job in Texas was as a legislative aide for Fred Agnich, a Texas state representative, in Agnich's Dallas office. Later in 1977, Rove got a job as executive director of the Fund for Limited Government, a political action committee (PAC) in Houston headed by James A. Baker, a Houston lawyer (later President George H.W. Bush's Secretary of State). The PAC eventually became the genesis of the Bush-for-President campaign of 1979–1980.

His work for William Clements during the Texas gubernatorial election of 1978 helped Clements become the first Republican Governor of Texas in over 100 years. Clements was elected to a four-year term, succeeding Democrat Dolph Briscoe. Rove was deputy director of the Governor William P. Clements Junior Committee in 1979 and 1980, and deputy executive assistant to the governor of Texas (roughly, Deputy Chief of Staff) in 1980 and 1981.

In 1981, Rove founded a direct mail consulting firm, Karl Rove & Co., in Austin. The firm's first clients included Texas Governor Bill Clements and Democratic congressman Phil Gramm, who later became a Republican congressman and United States Senator. Rove operated his consulting business until 1999, when he sold the firm to take a full-time position in George W. Bush's presidential campaign.

Between 1981 and 1999, Rove worked on hundreds of races. Most were in a supporting role, doing direct mail fundraising. A November 2004 ''Atlantic Monthly'' article estimated that he was the primary strategist for 41 statewide, congressional, and national races, and Rove's candidates won 34 races.

Rove also did work during those years for non-political clients. From 1991 to 1996, Rove advised tobacco giant Philip Morris, and ultimately earned $3,000 a month via a consulting contract. In a deposition, Rove testified that he severed the tie in 1996 because he felt awkward "about balancing that responsibility with his role as Bush's top political advisor" while Bush was governor of Texas and Texas was suing the tobacco industry.

1978 George W. Bush congressional campaign

Rove advised the younger Bush during his unsuccessful Texas congressional campaign in 1978.

1980 George H. W. Bush presidential campaign

In 1977, Rove was the first person hired by George H. W. Bush for his unsuccessful 1980 presidential campaign, which ended with Bush as the vice-presidential nominee.

1982 William Clements, Jr. gubernatorial campaign

In 1982, Bill Clements ran for reelection, but was defeated by Democrat Mark White.

1982 Phil Gramm congressional campaign

In 1982, Phil Gramm was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a conservative Texas Democrat.

1984 Phil Gramm senatorial campaign

In 1984, Rove helped Gramm, who had become a Republican in 1983, defeat Republican Ron Paul in the primary and Democrat Lloyd Doggett in the race for U.S. Senate.

1984 Ronald Reagan presidential campaign

Rove handled direct-mail for the Reagan-Bush campaign.

1986 William Clements, Jr. gubernatorial campaign

In 1986, Rove helped Clements become governor a second time. In a strategy memo Rove wrote for his client prior to the race, now among Clements's papers in the Texas A&M; University library, Rove quoted Napoleon: "The whole art of war consists in a well-reasoned and extremely circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and audacious attack."

In 1986, just before a crucial debate in campaign, Rove claimed that his office had been bugged by Democrats. The police and FBI investigated and discovered that the bug's battery was so small that it needed to be changed every few hours, and the investigation was dropped. Critics, including other Republican operatives, suspected Rove had bugged his own office to garner sympathy votes in the close governor's race.

1988 Texas Supreme Court races

In 1988, Rove helped Thomas R. Phillips become the first Republican elected as Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court. Phillips had been appointed to the position in November 1987 by Clements. Phillips was re-elected in 1990, 1996 and 2002.

Phillips' election in 1988 was part of an aggressive grassroots campaign called "Clean Slate '88", a conservative effort that was successful in getting five of its six candidates elected. (Ordinarily there were three justices on the ballot each year, on a nine-justice court, but, because of resignations, there were six races for the Supreme Court on the ballot in November 1988.) By 1998, Republicans held all nine seats on the Court.

1990 Texas gubernatorial campaign

In 1989, Rove encouraged George W. Bush to run for Texas governor, brought in experts to tutor him on policy, and introduced him to local reporters. Eventually, Bush decided not to run, and Rove backed another Republican for governor who lost in the primary.

Other 1990 Texas statewide races

In 1990, two other Rove candidates won: Rick Perry, the future governor of the state, became agricultural commissioner, and Kay Bailey Hutchison became state treasurer.

One notable aspect of the 1990 election was the charge that Rove had asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigated major Democratic officeholders in Texas. In his autobiography, Rove called the whole thing a "myth", saying:

The FBI did investigate Texas officials during that span, but I had nothing to do with it. The investigation was called "Brilab" and was part of a broad anticorruption probe that looked at officials in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Los Angelele, and Washington, D.C., as well as Texas. ... An official for the U.S. Department of Agriculture spotted expenses claimed by Hightower's shop that raised red flags ... enough to indict some of Hightower's top aides; they were later found guilty and sent to prison.

The myth that I had something to do both with spurring the investigation and with airing all of this has stuck around because it is convenient for some to blame me rather than those aides who ran afoul of the law.

1991 Richard L. Thornburgh senatorial campaign and lawsuit

In 1991, United States Attorney General Dick Thornburgh resigned to run for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania, one made vacant by John Heinz's death in a helicopter crash. Rove's company worked for the campaign, but it ended with an upset loss to Democrat Harris Wofford. Rove subsequently sued Thornburgh alleging non-payment for services rendered. The Republican National Committee, worried that the suit would make it hard to recruit good candidates, urged Rove to back off. When Rove refused, the RNC hired Kenneth Starr to write an amicus brief on Thornburgh's behalf. After a trial in Austin, Rove prevailed. ''Karl Rove & Co. v. Thornburgh'' was heard by U.S. Federal Judge Sam Sparks (who had been appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1991).

1992 George H. W. Bush presidential campaign

Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist Robert Novak about dissatisfaction with campaign fundraising chief Robert Mosbacher Jr. (''Esquire Magazine'', January 2003). Novak provided some evidence of motive in his column describing the firing of Mosbacher by former Senator Phil Gramm: "Also attending the session was political consultant Karl Rove, who had been shoved aside by Mosbacher." Novak and Rove deny that Rove was the leaker, but Mosbacher maintained that "Rove is the only one with a motive to leak this. We let him go. I still believe he did it." During testimony before the CIA leak grand jury, Rove apparently confirmed his prior involvement with Novak in the 1992 campaign leak, according to ''National Journal'' reporter Murray Waas.

1993–2000

1993 Kay Bailey Hutchison senatorial campaign Rove helped Hutchison win a special Senate election in June 1993. Hutchison defeated Democrat Bob Krueger to fill the last two years of Lloyd Bentsen's term. Bentsen resigned to become Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration.

1994 Alabama Supreme Court races In 1994, a group called the Business Council of Alabama hired Rove to help run a slate of Republican candidates for the state supreme court. No Republican had been elected to that court in more than a century. The campaign by the Republicans was unprecedented in the state, which had previously only seen low-key contests. After the election, a court battle over absentee and other ballots followed that lasted more than 11 months. It ended when a federal appeals court judge ruled that disputed absentee ballots could not be counted, and ordered the Alabama Secretary of State to certify the Republican candidate for Chief Justice, Perry Hooper, as the winner. An appeal to the Supreme Court by the Democratic candidate was turned down within a few days, making the ruling final. Hooper won by 262 votes.

Another candidate, Harold See, ran against Mark Kennedy, an incumbent Democratic justice and the son-in-law of George Wallace. The race included charges that Kennedy was mingling campaign funds with those of a non-profit children's foundation he was involved with. A former Rove staffer reported that some within the See camp initiated a whisper campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile. Kennedy won by less than one percentage point.

1994 John Ashcroft senatorial campaign In 1993, according to the ''New York Times'', Karl Rove & Company was paid $300,000 in consulting fees by Ashcroft's successful 1994 Senate campaign. Ashcroft paid Rove's company more than $700,000 over the course of three campaigns.

1994 George W. Bush gubernatorial campaign In 1993, Rove began advising George W. Bush in his successful campaign to become governor of Texas. Bush announced his candidacy in November 1993. By January 1994, Bush had spent more than $600,000 on the race against incumbent Democrat Ann Richards, with $340,000 of that paid to Rove's firm.

Rove has been accused of using the push poll technique to call voters to ask such things as whether people would be "more or less likely to vote for Governor Richards if [they] knew her staff is dominated by lesbians". Rove has denied having been involved in circulating these rumors about Richards during the campaign, although many critics nonetheless identify this technique, particularly as utilized in this instance against Richards, as a hallmark of his career.

1996 Harold See's campaign for Associate Justice, Alabama Supreme Court A former campaign worker charged that, at Rove's behest, he distributed flyers that anonymously attacked Harold See, their own client. This put the opponent's campaign in an awkward position; public denials of responsibility for the scurrilous flyers would be implausible. Rove's client was elected.

1998 George W. Bush gubernatorial campaign Rove was an adviser for Bush's 1998 reelection campaign. From July through December 1998, Bush's reelection committee paid Rove & Co. nearly $2.5 million, and also paid the Rove-owned Praxis List Company $267,000 for use of mailing lists. Rove says his work for the Bush campaign included direct mail, voter contact, phone banks, computer services, and travel expenses. Of the $2.5 million, Rove said, ''"[a]bout 30 percent of that is postage"''. In all, Bush (primarily through Rove's efforts) raised $17.7 million, with $3.4 million unspent as of March 1999. During the course of this campaign Rove's much-reported feud with Rick Perry began, with Perry's strategists believing Rove gave Perry bad advice in order to help Bush get a larger share of the Hispanic vote.

2000 Harold See campaign for Chief Justice For the race to succeed Perry Hooper, who was retiring as Alabama's chief justice, Rove lined up support for See from a majority of the state's important Republicans.

2000 George W. Bush presidential campaign and the sale of Karl Rove & Co.

In early 1999, Rove sold his 20-year-old direct-mail business, Karl Rove & Co., which provided campaign services to candidates, along with Praxis List Company (in whole or part) to Ted Delisi and Todd Olsen, two young political operatives who had worked on campaigns of some other Rove candidates. Rove helped finance the sale of the company, which had 11 employees. Selling Karl Rove & Co. was a condition that George W. Bush had insisted on before Rove took the job of chief strategist for Bush's presidential bid.

George W. Bush Administration

When George W. Bush was first inaugurated in January 2001, Rove accepted an appointment as Senior Advisor. He was later given the title Deputy Chief of Staff to the President after the successful 2004 Presidential election. In a November 2004 speech, Bush publicly thanked Rove, calling him "the architect" of his victory over John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.

In April 2006, Rove was reassigned from his policy development role to one focusing on strategic and tactical planning in anticipation of the November 2006 congressional elections.

Rove resigned from his position effective August 31, 2007. Bush hugged his old friend saying, "Karl Rove is moving on down the road ... I'll be on the road behind you here in a little bit."

Activities since leaving the White House

Shortly after leaving the White House, Rove was hired to write about the 2008 Presidential Election for ''Newsweek''. He was also later hired as a contributor for the ''Wall Street Journal'' and a political analyst for Fox News. Rove was an informal advisor to 2008 Republican Presidential candidate John McCain, and donated $2,300 to his campaign. His memoir, ''Courage and Consequence'', was published in March 2010. One advance reviewer, Dana Milbank of ''The Washington Post'', said of the book that Rove "revives claims discredited long ago". The controversial book has inspired a grassroots rock and roll compilation of a similar name Courage and Consequence that was released a week before the memoir.

Rove has also spent significant time on the road giving speeches to schools and other groups. Rove was scheduled to give the commencement address at Choate Rosemary Hall, a New England boarding school, but canceled after protests from students and faculty. He instead made a private appearance at the school on February 11, 2008.

On March 9, 2008, Rove appeared at the University of Iowa as a paid speaker to a crowd of approximately 1,000. He was met with hostility and two students were removed by police after attempting a citizen's arrest for alleged crimes committed during his time with the Bush administration. Near the end of the speech, a member of the audience asked, "Can we have our $40,000 back?" Rove replied, "No, you can't."

On May 22, 2008, Rove was subpoenaed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers to testify on the politicization of the Department of Justice. However, on July 10, Rove refused to acknowledge his congressional subpoena citing executive privilege as his reason.

On June 24, 2008, Rove said of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, "Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone."

Rove agreed to debate one-time presidential candidate and former Senator John Edwards on September 26, 2008, at the University at Buffalo. However, Edwards dropped out and was replaced with General Wesley Clark.

Rove, who was hired by Fox News to provide analysis for the network's election coverage, defended his role on the news team to the Television Critics Association.

On November 3, 2008, Rove spoke on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis on the eve of Election Day.

On February 23, 2009, Rove was again required by Congressional subpoena to testify before the House Judiciary Committee concerning his knowledge of the U.S. Attorney firings and the alleged political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman but did not appear on this date. He and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers later agreed to testify under oath before Congress about these matters.

On July 7 and July 30, 2009, Rove testified before the House Judiciary Committee regarding questions about the dismissal of seven U.S. Attorneys under the Bush Administration. Rove was also questioned regarding the federal prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegleman, who was convicted of fraud. The Committee concluded that Rove had played a significant role in the attorney firings. No conclusions were made public regarding Siegleman's prosecution. Siegleman's supporters have claimed that Rove was behind Siegleman's prosecution, although Siegleman's defense made no such claim either at his original trial, or at his appeal before the 11th Circuit Court which upheld his conviction on the bribery and fraud counts, but dismissed two counts of mail fraud. The 11th Circuit handed down its decision March 6, 2009.

In 2010, Rove became an advisor to ''American Crossroads'', a Republican 527 organization raising money in competition with the Republican National Committee.

Also, Rove made appearances at a number of campuses, including UC Merced on October 8 as conservatives students, in the College Republicans at UC Merced, sought to provide an alternative perspective since First Lady Michelle Obama and Former President Jimmy Carter spoke at the young campus.

Rove was the guest host of The Rush Limbaugh Show on Monday, August 9, 2010., marking his first time hosting a radio talk show.

In a profile which appeared in the December 15, 2011 issue of ''The New Republic'', Rove, with his hands-on involvement with American Crossroads, is described as one of the shrewdest navigators of the political climate after the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision which exempted political broadcasts funded by corporations and unions from campaign finance limits. "Rove had no role in creating this new legal environment...but if Rove and his allies did not invent it, they certainly were adroit at exploiting it."

Personal life

Rove married Houston socialite Valerie Mather Wainwright, on July 10, 1976. He moved to Texas in January 1977. His sister and father still remembered "the wedding [that] was so extravagant that [we] ... still recall it with awe". Rove and Wainwright were divorced in early 1980; she was 26 and he 29. He attended the University of Texas at Austin in 1977; he still lacked a degree. In July 1999 he told ''The Washington Post'' that he did not have a degree because "I lack at this point one math class, which I can take by exam, and my foreign language requirement."

In January 1986, Rove married Darby Tara Hickson. She is a breast cancer survivor, a graphic designer, and former employee of Karl Rove & Co. Their son, Andrew Madison Rove (b. 1989), is an undergraduate at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

In December 2009 it was reported that Rove and Hickson had been granted a divorce in Texas. Dana Perino, Rove's spokesperson, said: "Karl Rove and his wife, Darby, were granted a divorce last week. The couple came to the decision mutually and amicably, and they maintain a close relationship and a strong friendship. There will be no further comment and the family requests that its privacy be respected.".

Rove left Texas after Bush was elected President in late 2000. He currently resides in Washington, D.C.

References

External links

Karl Rove -- The Architect, Frontline documentary on PBS

{{U.S. Cabinet Official box |office = Senior Advisor to the President |president = George W. Bush |before = New office |after = Barry Steven Jackson |years = 2001-2007}}

Category:1950 births Category:Living people Category:American adoptees Category:American political consultants Category:American political pundits Category:American political writers Category:College Republican National Committee chairs Category:Dismissal of United States Attorneys controversy Category:George W. Bush Administration personnel Category:Leadership Institute alumni and associates Category:Members of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President Category:People from Denver, Colorado Category:People from Salt Lake City, Utah Category:People from Sparks, Nevada Category:Senior Advisors to the President Category:Texas Republicans Category:United States presidential advisors Category:University of Texas at Austin alumni Category:University of Utah alumni

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