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ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Economic turmoil in Europe, slower growth in China and U.S. unemployment are expected to curb business travel growth in the United States through the end of the year, according to the latest GBTA BTI™ Outlook – United States, a report from the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) sponsored by Visa, Inc. With disappointing job gains and the upcoming Presidential election on the horizon, businesses appear to be taking a cautious approach to their investment in travel until there is greater economic certainty.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110609/DC16833LOGO )
GBTA now expects total U.S. business travel spending to grow 2.6% for 2012, reaching $257 billion by the end of the year. While this is a moderate increase since last quarter, when GBTA estimated growth for 2012 at 2.2%, the uptick in spend is largely being driven by rising business travel costs. Total business trip volume is expected to reach 438.1 million for 2012 – a reduction of -1.6% from 2011, when total business trip volume was 445 million.
Looking ahead to 2013, GBTA research forecasts business travel spend will grow 4.9%, reaching $270 billion – which is a slight upgrade from the 4.7% growth in 2013 that GBTA forecast last quarter. Total trip volume is expected to fall -1.1% in 2013.
"Corporations are in a wait-and-see mode and holding back on investment decisions that would help boost the economy," said Michael W. McCormick, GBTA executive director and COO. "While companies aren't cutting their business travel spend and we're still seeing very modest growth, we are cautious about the outlook for the next several quarters. The looming 'fiscal cliff' is causing even more uncertainty, which we are monitoring with real concern. This is an economy in need of some good news to shore up business confidence and encourage more travel."
"While it appears that the current economy is weighing on the minds of travelers, for the first half of this year, we saw U.S. and international travelers increasing their spend on Visa accounts," said Tad Fordyce, head of global commercial solutions at Visa Inc. "From January to June of 2012, international travelers increased travel spend on their Visa accounts by nine percent in the U.S. to $20.1 billion. U.S. travelers were also active for the first six months, increasing travel spend on their Visa accounts by seven percent to $17 billion. 2012 has the ability to be the year of the traveler if we can continue this momentum of business and leisure travel."
For 2012, GBTA now forecasts that transient travel spend will advance by 2.9%, group spend by 2.3%, and international outbound business spend – previously a major driver of overall travel spending growth – by 2.5%. These forecasts are expected to remain constrained unless overall economic momentum increases significantly.
New Jobs Aren't Generating More Travel – So Far
The GBTA BTI™ Outlook has consistently shown that business travel spending is a one to two quarter leading indicator of domestic job growth. However, this report finds that job composition is different in this recovery compared with previous ones, particularly from the perspective of business travel. Job creation has been concentrated in sectors that are less travel prone. New retail, restaurant, and manufacturing workers tend to travel much less than their business service, financial or utility industry counterparts. As a result, business travel is not getting the bounce from employment growth in this recovery that was typical of past expansions.
The darkest cloud on the economic horizon is the so-called fiscal cliff, a combination of more than $500 billion in expiring tax cuts and automatic spending sequestration set to trigger at the beginning of 2013. If nothing is done to soften or delay these actions, the economy will almost certainly backslide into recession. GBTA is currently developing a scenario analysis of the fiscal cliff and its impact on U.S. business travel that will be published soon.
GBTA BTI™ -- Improving Modestly
The GBTA BTI™, a proprietary index of business travel activity, came in at 118 for Q2 2012, one point higher than the projected value in GBTA's previous outlook. The slightly higher value has been driven by slow but growing domestic GDP and corporate profits.
GBTA is predicting continued slow but steady growth over the forecast horizon, with the BTI™ hitting its former peak of 120 by the end of the year. The BTI™ is forecast to grow just over a point per quarter over the next six quarters.
International Travel – Growth Slows as Exports Lag
International outbound travel has been a boon to the U.S. business travel industry over the last few years. However, the projected pace of growth in this sector has been constrained as economic worries in Europe persist and growth in the developing world continues to slow. For example, the volume of both imports and exports to China and the rest of the Far East is projected to slow over the next six quarters, leading to lower levels of business travel to and from the U.S.
GBTA projects international outbound spending to grow 2.5% in 2012, followed by a 7.7% rise in spending in 2013. In comparison, less than a year ago, the forecast was for growth of 5.5% and 11% in international outbound spend in 2012 and 2013, respectively.
Revenue Generating Transient Trips Outpace Meetings and Events
Transient business travel continues to outpace group travel for meetings and events as firms focus on pushing resources towards short-term revenue generating activities given the numerous downside risks in the global economy. GBTA expects total transient spending to grow 2.9% in 2012 and 3.9% in 2013.
In contrast, group spending will grow more slowly in 2012, expanding 2.3%, although the projection is for 5.5% growth in 2013. Although group business travel has bounced back from its bottom in 2009, it has been a much more modest recovery over the last year after robust growth of 8.3% and 7.2% in 2010 and 2011, respectively. GBTA expects growth to pick up as the broader economy recovers, given the more cyclical nature of group and convention travel.
Key Metrics:
The GBTA BTI™ Outlook – United States is available exclusively to GBTA members free of charge by clicking here and non-members may purchase the report through the GBTA Foundation by emailing firstname.lastname@example.com.
About the GBTA BTI™ Outlook – United States
The GBTA BTI™ Outlook – United States projects aggregate business travel trends over the next eight quarters. The report includes key buy-side metrics such as total business travel volume and spending, plus supply-side projections of changes in costs, across both transient and meetings travel. GBTA BTI™ Outlook – United States is the ninth report in the series. Releases are published on the second Tuesday of each quarter.
The GBTA BTI™ Outlook uses an econometric model to better inform the forecast process. The model explicitly relates measures of business trip volume and spending, sourced from D.K. Shifflet & Associates to key economic and market drivers of business travel including: U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and its components, U.S. Corporate Profits and Cash Flow, U.S. Employment & Unemployment, ISM Business Sentiment Index, Key Travel Components of CPI (airfare, lodging, food away from home, rental cars, fuel, transportation), among other components.
About the GBTA Foundation
The GBTA Foundation is the education and research foundation of the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), the world's premier business travel and corporate meetings organization. Collectively, GBTA's 5,000-plus members manage over $340 billion of global business travel and meetings expenditures annually. GBTA provides its network of 21,000 business and government travel and meetings managers, as well as travel service providers, with networking events, news, education & professional development, research, and advocacy. The foundation was established in 1997 to support GBTA's members and the industry as a whole. As the leading education and research foundation in the business travel industry, the GBTA Foundation seeks to fund initiatives to advance the business travel profession. The GBTA Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. For more information, see gbta.org and gbta.org/foundation.
SOURCE GBTA Foundation


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3 Easy Tricks to Teach Your Dog
We tend to think of training as just a means to make our fur-friends well-mannered and keep them safe. But training has another role, in that it provides vital mental stimulation that stops your pet getting bored. Indeed, it's a great idea to 'teach an old dog new tricks' as it's the canine equivalent of doing crosswords, and helps keep the mind sharp. That aside…it's also great fun!
You can teach a dog to do practically anything…within the realms of reason. The knack is to break the trick down into its parts, teach one bit at a time, and add on the next step once the previous ones are mastered.
#1: High Five
Have the dog sit. If he happens to lift a paw slightly from the ground, click and reward. Repeat this until he starts to realize that lifting a paw is a surefire way to get a treat. If the dog doesn't spontaneously lift his paw, then gently raise it with your hand, being sure to click and reward. He'll soon anticipate what you want and start lifting it for himself.
Once he's mastered this, you get sneaky because you only reward when he lifts the paw a bit higher. Once he's got this, and 80% of the time raises the paw a little higher, now only reward when he raises it higher still.
The idea is the clicker (or you can say "Good" in an enthusiastic voice) helps him understand the action you want. Once he's learnt one step, you don't automatically reward each time so he tries a bit harder (lifting higher) to impress and earn that treat. Last but not least, add in a cue word such as "Shake" or "High five", so he performs on demand.
#2: "Bang!" or Play Dead
For the finished trick, you aim a pretend pistol, say "Bang!" and the dog rolls over and lies still as if dead.
First your dog needs a solid "Down". To teach this, hold a treat near the dog's nose, lower it to the floor and move it slightly away from the dog so he sinks to the ground to get it. The dog needs to be able to stay in a down position for a minute or so, before you move onto the next part.
Encourage your dog to lie on his side. You may need to gently push his shoulder to do this. Again, train him to stay quiet whilst lying down. A useful hint to do this is to reinforce this action by saying "Lay" when the dog happens to lie on his side to sleep.
With the dog lying on his side, hold a treat by his nose and move your hand as if drawing part of a circle, connecting his nose to his shoulder. The dog should follow the treat, and in the process roll onto his back. "Bang!" Add in your cue word.
If the dog's standing and you say "Bang!" he may be confused and think you're slightly bonkers. So start with the cue word while he's in a lying position, then when he's got that, go from the down position, and then eventually from standing.
#3: Tidy Up!
Wouldn't it be great if the dog tidied up his toys at the end of the day? Well, it's not as hard as you might think to teach "Tidy up".
First, your dog needs to know how to "Fetch", and does this reliably.
Now, find a box you want the dog to put the toys in. Place the box at your feet (you may as well relax, and do this indoors sitting on the sofa). Have the dog "Fetch", but don't reward him if he gives the ball to you, only if he drops it in the box.
If he ignores the box, then get his interest by putting a small treat inside. That way he'll both drop the toy in and get a reward. Each time he does this, immediately he releases the ball say "Tidy up". Once he releases the toy into the box four out of five times you're ready to move on.
Next, move the box a short distance from your feet. Continue the game of fetch but with the "Tidy up" command. If he's learnt well so far, he'll continue to drop the toy in the box. OK, but this is a moving toy. Now try with a stationary one. Place the toy near the box and give the "Tidy up" cue. Each time he masters a slightly more advanced part of the trick, you add in an extra element, such as a third, fourth, or fifth toy, until Bingo! He puts his own toys away.
Using these principles you can teach your dog to do just about anything, and impress your friends and neighbors. Plus, he'll lap up that one to one attention, and it will do his brain good. What's not to like!
Visit our online pet store with all the products your pets need: www.sweety.pet/petshop

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Broken Boxes Podcast centers Indigenous artists, activist focused artists, Queer/Trans/NonBinary artists, women identifying artists, artists of color and mixed/lost/stolen heritage artists. This project does not support or promote any one human experience above of or instead of any other, and the ap… read more
Broken Boxes Podcast is proud to present this episode as the second installation in a series of interviews featuring participants and their respondents from the socially engaged project #callresponse.
In this episode we get into conversation with Cheryl L'Hirondelle, a community-engaged Alberta-born, Cree/Metis, interdisciplinary artist, singer/songwriter and curator. L'Hiriondelle speaks about two major projects that continue to evolve through her practice and we hear how music and voice act as the primary tools for expressing her work. She shares reflection on her experience as Ursula Johnsons respondent artist for #callresponse and gives insight regarding the evolving life of the artist and the importance of connectivity.
Since the early 1980s, L'Hirondelle has created, performed and presented work in a variety of artistic disciplines, including music, performance art, theatre, performance poetry, storytelling, installation, and new media. Her creative practice investigates a Cree worldview (nêhiyawin) in contemporary time-space. L'Hirondelle has developed endurance-based performances, interventions, site-specific installations, interactive net.art and new media projects and keeps singing, making rhythm, writing songs and telling stories/giving voice whenever and wherever she can. Currently based in Toronto, she has performed and exhibited her work widely both in Canada and abroad, and her previous musical efforts and new media work have garnered her critical acclaim and numerous awards.
Subscribe to Broken Boxes Podcast on iTunes HERE to stream and download this episode
All music featured on this podcast episode provided by the artist Cheryl L'Hirondelle
Catch up on the #callresponse series and listen to Broken Boxes Podcast interview with Ursula Johnson and the projects introduction interview featuring Maria Hupfield, Tarah Hogue and Tanya Willard.More About The Artist:
According to many dictionaries the swallow (aka l'hirondelle) is a "migratory swift-flying songbird." This describes Cheryl L'Hirondelle accurately - though for this award-winning singer/songwriter and multi-disciplinary artist the definition should end with "and so much more." An Alberta born mixed-blood, multi and interdisciplinary artist, singer/songwriter and curator, her creative practice is an investigation of the junction of a cree worldview (nêhiyawin) in contemporary time space.
Caged Bird Sings project. Cheryl L'Hirondelle
Since the early 80's, L'Hirondelle has created, performed and presented work in a variety of artistic disciplines, including: music, performance art, theatre, performance poetry, storytelling, installation and new media. In the early 90's, she began a parallel career as an arts consultant/advisor and programmer, cultural strategist/activist, and director/producer of both independent works and projects within national artist-run networks. L'Hirondelle's various activities have also found her working in the Canadian independent music industry, as well as various educational institutions, the prison system, First Nations bands, tribal councils and governmental funding agencies, at both the provincial and federal levels.L'Hirondelle's performance work is featured in Caught in the Act: An Anthology of Performance Art by Canadian Women (2001), written by the late Âhâsiw Maskêgon Iskwêw, and edited by Tanya Mars and Johanna Householder. L'Hirondelle's 2001 performative activity and corresponding website cistêmaw îyîniw ohci (for the tobacco being) are also discussed in Candice Hopkin's book, Making a Noise: Aboriginal Perspectives on Art, Art History, Critical Writing and Community (2006). In 2004, L'Hirondelle and Hopkins were the first Aboriginal artists from Canada to be invited to present work at DAK'ART Lab, as part of the 6th Edition of the Dakar Biennale for Contemporary African Art, Dakar, Senegal. In both 2005 and 2006, L'Hirondelle was the recipient of the imagineNATIVE New Media Award for her online net.art projects: treatycard, 17:TELL and wêpinâsowina. L'Hirondelle's previous musical efforts have also garnered her critical acclaim with two Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards 2006 and 2007 for her contributions to Vancouver based Aboriginal Women's Ensemble M'Girl. Her own first attempt in producing (and as one half of) the singing/songwriting duo Nikamok was recognized with a nomination from the Prairie Music Awards (now the Western Canadian Music Awards) and many of her songs have been licensed for television, documentary and feature films. In 2011, Cheryl was also nominated for a KM Hunter Award in Music.
Ever the visionary, she continues to come up with new ways music and her other artistic ideas can converge and in 2009 was recognized as an Honoree in the Net.Art category from the Webby Awards for nikamon ohci askiy (songs because of the land), an ongoing and now international sonic mapping and songwriting project now called Sing Land X Song Mark. She was also nominated for a K.M. Hunter Music award in 2011 and since 2008 has been working on co-composing a series of songs with incarcerated women, men and detained youth in federal prisons, provincial correctional institutions and civic detention centres titled Why the Caged Bird Sings. She is also collaborating with various Indigenous language speakers and emerging songwriters on an international songwriting project and operates Miyoh Music, an Indigenous niche music publishing company.
From 2009 to 2011, imagineNATIVE Film + Media Festival invited L'Hirondelle to curate their first three new media exhibitions: Codetalkers of the Digital Divide (or why we didn't become "roadkill on the information superhighway"), RE:counting coup and S-O-S3 (signals of survival). She has also been involved in a variety of media arts initiatives including: Smartlab Associate Researcher, 2005–07; Banff New Media Institute Advisory Committee, 2006; Canada Council Media Arts Advisory Committee, 1997–2001; KIDS FROM KANATA On-line Aboriginal Liaison (with Buffy Sainte Marie), 1995-96; and Drum Beats to Drum Bytes Thinktank, 1994.
Cheryl is currently a member of the OCAD University Indigenous Education Council and has recently begun post-graduate research-creation at UCD, Dublin, Ireland.
Strategically centering Indigenous women as vital presences across multiple platforms, #callresponse is a multifaceted project which includes a website, social media platform, touring exhibition and catalogue. The project brings together five local art commissions by Indigenous women artists from across Canada, including Christi Belcourt, Maria Hupfield, Ursula Johnson, Tania Willard and Laakkuluk Williamson-Bathory. Each artist has invited a guest to respond to their work, including Isaac Murdoch, IV Castellanos and Esther Neff, Cheryl L'Hirondelle, Marcia Crosby and Tanya Tagaq.
#callresponse is co-organized by Tarah Hogue, Maria Hupfield and Tania Willard, and produced in partnership with grunt gallery and generously supported by the {Re}conciliation initiative of the Canada Council for the Arts, the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation and The Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada. Additional presentation partners include BUSH Gallery, Emily Carr University of Art + Design, FADO Performance Art Centre, Kamloops Art Gallery, OFFTA live art festival, the National Arts Centre, and the Native Education College.
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Researchers: New Explanation For Alzheimer's
Researchers: New Explanation For Alzheimer's
There is growing evidence that small clusters of a protein called amyloid beta are what cause brain damage in Alzheimer's disease.
Scientists at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington, D.C., say clusters of just two or three amyloid beta protein molecules can damage synapses, the connections between brain cells.
New research also shows that plaques of amyloid beta — much larger groupings made up of millions of cells — are not nearly as harmful as the small clusters.
Until the past couple of years, amyloid beta plaques were considered the most likely cause of Alzheimer's brain damage.
But Dennis Selkoe, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, said the new findings suggest that hypothesis is wrong.
He presented research using various forms of amyloid beta protein taken from the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. The proteins were injected into the brains of healthy rats.
Selkoe said entire plaques did not affect synapses. Neither did single proteins.
"But you could inject the doublets and triplets into the brain of a healthy rat and show that the rat got forgetful," Selkoe said.
Selkoe's results were bolstered by a Swedish study that found high levels of even larger clusters in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease who had died.
Frida Ekholm Pettersson of Uppsala University in Sweden says her team found no clusters in healthy brains.
Also at the meeting, researchers from Duke University presented new evidence that it's possible to reverse Alzheimer's disease by removing amyloid beta protein from the brain.
Donna Wilcock described an experiment using a new mouse model of Alzheimer's created by a colleague at Duke. The mice develop a memory problem very much the way people with Alzheimer's do.
But when the mice received a vaccine against amyloid beta, their memory improved.
Wilcock says the approach may work because it causes the body's immune system to attack all forms of amyloid beta — including small clusters.
Scientists are trying a similar approach in people.


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This is Part 2 of series of 4 posts about how to use your Instant Pot.
- Part 1 – A Simple Way to Get Started
- And this is Part 2 – Pot in Pot Cooking
- Part 3 – Which Instant Pot to Buy, Features, Accessories and Cleaning Tips
- Part 4 – Instant Pot FAQ
Once you've mastered all the great features an Instant Pot has to offer, you may want to start exploring some of the amazing things you can do with your Instant Pot that maybe you didn't even know about – like pot in pot cooking.
What is Pot in Pot Cooking?
Pot-in-pot cooking, sometimes referred to as PIP cooking, is a technique that allows the user to cook using an oven safe bowl placed on a steam rack inside the Instant Pot. There are several benefits to using this method.
- It allows you to cook multiple dishes in the Instant Pot at the same time, such as a main course and a side dish.
- Foods that have a tendency to scorch when cooked in a pressure cooker – such as oatmeal or tomato sauce — can be cooked safely using the PIP method.
- PIP cooking can be used for baking desserts, such as cheesecakes, in the Instant Pot.
- The PIP technique can be used for pressure cooking foods that don't require a lot of liquid, such as casseroles.
- It's ideal for reheating leftovers.
Special Tools You'll Need for Pot in Pot Cooking
You will need to purchase two additional tools before you try PIP cooking for the first time. Fortunately, these two items are rather inexpensive.
First, you will need a high trivet or rack. Your Instant Pot probably came with its own rack. This is ideal for steaming; however, it's not quite tall enough for cooking two foods at once. You'll need to purchase a trivet that is at least 2.5 – 3 inches tall.
Second, you will need an oven proof bowl. You may already own something that will work. Glass, stainless steel, metal, ceramic and even silicon is perfect as long as it fits inside the insert of the Instant Pot, steam is able to escape around it and the lid can close securely. I love this stackable steamer insert pans.
Additionally, you will need something to help you lift the oven safe bowl from the hot metal insert. You can easily fashion a sling using a long length of aluminum foil folded several times. Place the foil beneath the trivet, folding the ends down so the lid can close. When it's time to remove the oven safe bowl from the insert, simply fold up the end and lift the oven safe bowl out.
How to Cook Foods Using the PIP Method
There are two ways to use the PIP method. The first method is used for steaming and baking. Place at least one cup of water into the bottom of the Instant Pot metal insert. Place the low trivet on top of the water. Arrange the oven safe bowl on top of the trivet. Place your food in the oven safe bowl, secure the lid and cook according to your recipe directions.
The second method is utilized for cooking two foods separately at the same time. Place the food with the longer cooking time in the bottom of the Instant Pot. You will need to add some sort of liquid to the bottom so the Instant Pot can achieve pressure. Arrange a high trivet on top of the food. Make sure the high trivet is level and stable. Place your oven safe bowl on top of the high trivet. Pour your second food item into the oven safe bowl. Depending on what you're cooking, the food in the bowl may or may not require any liquid. Secure the locking lid and cook according to recipe directions. Steam trapped within the Instant Pot during pressurization cooks both foods simultaneously.
What if I'm cooking two foods that have different cooking times?
You'll want to choose two foods that have relatively similar cooking times. Keep in mind, food cooked in an oven safe bowl on top will take a little longer to cook than if it was prepared directly in the metal insert. Rice cooked in an oven safe bowl can withstand a few extra minutes of cooking time without negatively affecting the texture. However, if you are concerned about the outcome of your meal, there are a few solutions.
- Precook the food that requires the longest cooking time. Do a quick release of the pressure, then place your second item on top of the first, secure the lid and continue cooking.
- Wrap the second food item in a double layer of aluminum to insulate it against the heat and slow the cooking time.
- Try cooking with a glass and ceramic bowl, which does not conduct heat as quickly as stainless steel equates to a longer cooking time.
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This article was written by Lisa Bynum for Busy Cooks.


text: Activities Sports & Athletics Oakmont Country Club Pictures Share PINTEREST Email Print Sports & Athletics Golf Golf Courses Basics History Gear Famous Golfers Golf Tournaments Baseball Basketball Bicycling Billiards Bodybuilding Bowling Boxing Car Racing Cheerleading Cricket Extreme Sports Football Gymnastics Ice Hockey Martial Arts Professional Wrestling Skateboarding Skating Paintball Soccer Swimming & Diving Table Tennis Tennis Track & Field Volleyball Other Activities Learn More By Brent Kelley Brent Kelley is an award-winning sports journalist and golf expert with over 30 years in print and online journalism. our editorial process Brent Kelley Updated May 24, 2019 01 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 1 A view from the fairway on Oakmont Country Club's No. 1 hole, with the clubhouse in the background. Justin K. Aller/Getty Images for DC&P Championship Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pa., is regarded as one of the most challenging golf courses in the world. Its membership likes it that way - the USGA actually slows the greens for the U.S. Open. Oakmont has hosted many major championships during its long history. That includes U.S. Opens, PGA Championships, U.S. Amateurs, and U.S. Women's Opens. Each photo in this tour of the course is accompanied by commentary from golf course design enthusiast Christopher Hunt, based on his own playing of Oakmont. Hunt holds a Masters of Science degree from the Edinburgh College of Art in Golf Architecture. Hole 1Par 4 men/Par 5 women Black tees: 492 yardsBlue tees: 441White tees: 423Red tees: 418 Christopher Hunt: "Oakmont is known as perhaps the world's fiercest golfing challenge. The first hole, a par-4, 492-yard monster, does nothing to dispel this assertion. If the fairway is found amongst the eight fairway bunkers, a longish approach remains to a bunkered green that slopes viciously away from the player. An opening par will provide the golfer with some necessary confidence moving to the second." 02 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 2 The 2nd hole at Oakmont Country Club, viewed from behind the green. Fred Vuich/Getty Images Hole 2Par 4 Black tees: 340 yardsBlue tees: 325White tees: 317Red tees: 309 Christopher Hunt: "The second hole lies at the far end of a bridge crossing above the Pennsylvania Turnpike. While only 340 yards, the hole entertains the golfer with thirteen bunkers and a devilish green that is eminently three-puttable. A sure long iron off the tee to the right of a flanking drainage ditch and a precise wedge below the hole will produce favorable results." 03 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 3 Looking over the Church Pews bunker toward the No. 3 green at Oakmont. Fred Vuich/Getty Images Hole 3Par 4 Black tees: 428 yardsBlue tees: 390White tees: 378Red tees: 339 Christopher Hunt: "Oakmont introduces its famous Church Pews bunker at the short uphill par-4, 428-yard third hole. One of golf's most famous bunkers is bisected by a dozen parallel grassy rows and blankets the left side of the landing area. Avoiding the sandy expanse and its neighbors to the right of the fairway leaves the golfer a relatively straightforward uphill shot to a relatively benign putting surface." 04 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 4 The neck, bunkers and green on the No. 4 hole at Oakmont Country Club. Fred Vuich/Getty Images Hole 4Par 5 Black tees: 609 yardsBlue tees: 512White tees: 504Red tees: 467 Christopher Hunt: "The first par-5 (609 yards) at Oakmont is the fourth, running along the other side of the Church Pews bunker. Stay right of it, and avoid the other 16 bunkers on the hole, and you can have a much-needed chance to get under par. The longest of hitters can reach the green with two accurate and mighty thrashes." 05 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 5 The 5th hole viewed from behind the green. Fred Vuich/Getty Images Hole 5Par 4 Black tees: 382 yardsBlue tees: 349White tees: 347Red tees: 275 Christopher Hunt:"The fifth plays to 382 yards, and offers another scoring chance to the accurate ballstriker. The fairway is bunkered on both sides and ends with a vastness of knee-high rough and drainage ditches that must be carried to the green nestled in a bunkered hillside. Courageous putting is required on the heavily contoured surface if birdie is to be achieved, although Sam Snead managed to avoid the trouble by holing out from the hillside above the green on his way to winning the 1951 PGA Championship." 06 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 6 Bunker and green on the No. 6 hole at Oakmont Country Club. Justin K. Aller/Getty Images for DC&P Championship Hole 6Par 3 Black tees: 194 yardsBlue tees: 168White tees: 152Red tees: 143 Christopher Hunt: "The par-3 sixth hole is only 194 yards, and is actually the first hole at Oakmont that tests the golfer with fewer than ten bunkers. A middle iron will get the golfer to the green, which slopes heavily from right to left. Typically, a stray shot at the sixth must be short or left for an up-and-down par possibility." 07 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 7 Looking across the green on Hole No. 7 at Oakmont Country Club. Justin K. Aller/Getty Images for DC&P Championship Hole 7Par 4 Black tees: 479 yardsBlue tees: 370White tees: 357Red tees: 274 Christopher Hunt: "Another brutal par-4 for mortals at 479 yards, the seventh at Oakmont puts the golfer back in survival mode. Bunkers on both sides of the fairway and both sides of the green must be avoided, and the nasty putting surface tilts opposite of the previous green from left to right." 08 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 8 A large bunker guards the greens complex on the long par-3 No. 8 hole at Oakmont Country Club. Fred Vuich/Getty Images Hole 8Par 3 Black tees: 288 yardsBlue tees: 225White tees: 209Red tees: 185 Christopher Hunt: "Maybe the longest par-3 in championship golf awaits the tour players at the eighth tee, checking in at 288 yards. It will be refreshing to see some professionals forced to play a wood on this diabolical hole. The left greenside bunker is 100 yards long itself, and will see plenty of wayward shots during the U.S. Open. Fortunately the putting surface itself is flattish compared to most of its counterparts, so the golfer who hits the green should escape with a par heading back across the Turnpike to finish off the front nine." 09 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 9 Hole No. 9 at Oakmont Country Club. Rick Stewart/Getty Images Hole 9Par 5 Black tees: 477 yardsBlue tees: 462White tees: 459Red tees: 431 Christopher Hunt: "The unique ninth at Oakmont offers an intimidating, long, uphill par-4 of 477 yards for the professionals, but members are given one more stroke to complete the nine with a par. Apart from visibility issues, the hole contests scoring with fifteen bunkers and a ditch left of the fairway. The unique putting green is massive and ties into the practice green, sitting right in front of Oakmont's clubhouse." 10 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 10 Looking back down the fairway on the No. 10 hole at Oakmont Country Club. Fred Vuich/Getty Images Hole 10Par 4 men/Par 5 women Black tees: 462 yardsBlue tees: 440White tees: 436Red tees: 431 Christopher Hunt: "The back nine begins with an intermediate length par-4 at 462 yards for the pros. The tenth and the first sandwich the ninth, and both play toward the turnpike gorge. Also like the first, the tenth putting green slopes away from the player, making it all the more important to find the narrow fairway off the tee and get some spin on the approach shot. The extremely wayward have three ditches to avoid on the hole outside the spread of bunkering." 11 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 11 Hole No. 11 at Oakmont Country Club. Fred Vuich/Getty Images Hole 11Par 4 Black tees: 379 yardsBlue tees: 328White tees: 307Red tees: 271 Christopher Hunt: "The eleventh hole presents subtle difficulty, as opposed to the blunt brutality of some of its predecessors. The short 379-yard par-4 can be attacked with an iron off the tee to a plateau area of fairway between bunkers and another ditch, this one crossing the fairway. A wedge from there to a green bunkered heavily at the right and the player has another chance for glory on the famous Oakmont putting surfaces, this one being of the milder variety." 12 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 12 Hole No. 12, viewed from behind the green, at Oakmont Country Club. Fred Vuich/Getty Images Hole 12Par 5 Black tees: 667 yardsBlue tees: 562White tees: 550Red tees: 466 Christopher Hunt: "The last of the three-shot holes at Oakmont is an absolute bear. The 667-yard twelfth is long, narrow, and full of bunkers. Twenty sand pits populate the hole, most diagonally guarding the landing area for the tee shot and the left portion of the green. Accuracy will benefit the player, as most mortals concede that the green is unreachable in two and desire to remain in the left-to-right sloping fairway. Where the bunkers do not flank the fairway, one is likely to find a drainage ditch, and the treacherous green does not receive shots gracefully, sloping away from the player." 13 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 13 The green on Hole No. 13 at Oakmont Country Club. Justin K. Aller/Getty Images for DC&P Championship Hole 13Par 3 Black tees: 183 yardsBlue tees: 153White tees: 139Red tees: 129 Christopher Hunt: "A moderate par-3 of 183 yards awaits the player at the thirteenth hole. The green is nestled above the tee at the base of a hill, bunkered on all sides except the back. It elbows around the right bunker, diagonally canted from the line of play, making club selection all the more challenging. The back-right pin location is on a slight knoll, making aggression potentially catastrophic as anything above the hole is likely a three-putt." 14 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 14 The sun is just beginning to peak over the greens complex of Oakmont Country Club's No. 14 hole. Fred Vuich/Getty Image Hole 14Par 4 Black tees: 358 yardsBlue tees: 340White tees: 332Red tees: 327 Christopher Hunt: "The short 358-yard fourteenth hole presents some options for the player. The fifteen bunkers on the hole are equitably distributed left and right along the length of the hole. The fairway is accordingly pinched, and some strong players might opt to go for the green if the breeze is favorable. The green is fairly large and full of double-breaking putts." 15 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 15 The 'mini-Church Pews' on Hole No. 15 at Oakmont Country Club. Fred Vuich/Getty Images Hole 15Par 4 men/Par 5 women Black tees: 499 yardsBlue tees: 434White tees: 428Red tees: 421 Christopher Hunt: "The final four holes at Oakmont call up memories of the great players who have won on this course. Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead, Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus and Johnny Miller all managed to best the field and add a win at this impressive venue to their resumes. The fifteenth hole is one yard short of 500 but still a par-4, and features the other Church Pew bunker off to the left of the severely sloping landing area. A par is a victory here and driving accuracy is again pivotal to hold the undulating green that is, of course, heavily bunkered." 16 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 16 A view of Hole No. 16 at Oakmont Country Club. Fred Vuich/Getty Images Hole 16Par 3 Black tees: 231 yardsBlue tees: 211White tees: 189Red tees: 135 Christopher Hunt: "The final short hole on the course must be thoughtfully accounted for, at 231 yards and a side-hill green complex. The miss is right if par will be had, as the large green slopes left to right. Putting is challenging on the sixteenth as hillocks and hummocks abound in the surface." 17 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 17 The elevated green of the short, par-4 No. 17 hole at Oakmont Country Club. Fred Vuich/Getty Images Hole 17Par 4 Black tees: 313 yardsBlue tees: 296White tees: 276Red tees: 259 Christopher Hunt: "Perhaps the most exciting hole on the course and a true risk-reward venture, the seventeenth plays a mere 313 yards. The longest of players might only need 3-wood to reach, but the blow must carry a menacing congregation of bunkers about 60 yards short and another string around the back and sides. Ben Hogan accomplished the feat in his birdie-birdie finish to win the 1953 U.S. Open over Sam Snead. The distance-challenged in the field must play two crisp iron shots to threaten for birdie." 18 of 18 Oakmont Country Club - Hole No. 18 Looking up the 18th hole at Oakmont Country Club, with the clubhouse behind the green. Fred Vuich/Getty Images Hole 18Par 4 men/Par 5 women Black tees: 484 yardsBlue tees: 430White tees: 420Red tees: 412 Christopher Hunt: "The last at Oakmont is certainly not the least - a majestic and fair closing to Pennsylvania's finest golf course. Playing toward the clubhouse, downhill off the tee and uphill slightly from there to the green, 484 yards are traversed. The fairway bunkers must be avoided at all costs if a slim lead is to be kept, as reaching the green from them is often impossible due to their steepness. The putting green when reached is one of the most exciting on the course, rolling intricately down from back to front and creating all sorts of pressure putts. Finishing up this wonderful par-4 on the most rigorous of courses, one often wonders how Johnny Miller's final-round 63 in the 1973 U.S. Open was even possible."


text:
'In politics one should be guided by the calculation of forces.' (Stalin at Potsdam)
Alliance is a thorough, insightful and gripping account of the wartime meetings between 'the Big Three' Allied leaders – Roosevelt and Churchill and Stalin – which determined the course of the Second World War and set the stage for the Cold War which followed it.
In actual fact the three leaders in question only met face to face on two occasions:
- Tehran 28 November-1 December 1943
- Yalta, 4-11 February 1945
The third great power conference, Potsdam July 1945, took place after Roosevelt's death (12 April 1945) and with his successor, former vice-president Harry Truman
There were quite a few meetings between just Roosevelt and Churchill:
- Placentia Bay, Canada – 8 to 11 August 1941 – resulting in the Atlantic Charter
- First Washington Conference (codename: Arcadia), Washington DC, 22 December 1941 – 14 January 1942
- Second Washington Conference, 19-25 June 1942
- Casablanca, 14-24 January 1943 – Roosevelt's first mention of the policy of 'unconditional surrender'
- First Quebec Conference – 17-24 August 1943 (codename: Quadrant)
- Third Washington Conference (codename: Trident), 12-25 May 1943
- First Cairo Conference (codename: Sextant) November 22–26, 1943, outlined the Allied position against Japan during World War II and made decisions about postwar Asia
- Second Cairo Conference, December 4–6, 1943
- Second Quebec Conference (codename: Octagon) September 12-16, 1944 – Churchill strongly disapproved of the Morgenthau Plan, but had to support it in exchange for $6 billion of Lend-Lease aid to Britain
I hadn't realised that Churchill flew to Moscow not once, but twice, for one-on-one meetings with Stalin. which had some very rocky moments.
- Second Moscow Conference (codename: Bracelet) 12-17 August 1942 – Churchill stayed in State Villa No. 7 and, when he told Stalin Britain would not be launching a second front any time soon, Stalin became insulting, asking why the British were so frightened of the Germans. Churchill responded with details of Operation Torch – Anglo-American landings in North Africa designed to open up the Mediterranean, and increased bombing of German cities.
- Fourth Moscow Conference (codename: Tolstoy) 9-19 October 1944 – this was the meeting where Churchill and Stalin discussed percentages of influence in post-war European nations: Russia 90% in Romania, UK 90% in Greece, Yugoslavia 50/50, and so on.
(The First and Third Moscow conferences were meetings of foreign ministers only i.e. not directly including Churchill or Stalin.)
These top level meetings are colourful and interesting, and Fenby covers them in minute detail, giving a blow by blow account of what was discussed at each of the conference sessions, on each of the days, but nonetheless, they are like the tips of the iceberg. Nine-tenths of the book is about the exchanges of messages between the Three leaders, by cable and telegram and phone calls, the texts of various speeches and declarations, and the complex matrix of diplomatic missions and exchanges which took place at a lower level, with special envoys shuttling between the three countries, meeting their opposite numbers or conveying messages from one to the other.
Since almost everyone concerned seems to have left diaries of these meetings, plus official memoranda and press announcements, Fenby is able to quote these liberally in order to recreate the complex web of communications which defined the ever-shifting diplomatic relations between the three powers.
The book sticks closely to a chronological account of all these meetings and messages and slowly I began to realise it might more accurately described as a diplomatic history of the alliance. Or a History of Allied Diplomacy During World War Two. And I came to realise the book can be enjoyed on a number of levels:
Character studies of the big three
The opening chapter is a kind of prelude, giving vivid pen portraits of the Big Three leaders:
Winston Spencer Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain
The stories about Churchill are often funny and loveable. We learn that he liked to go to bed in silk pyjamas. If he had no meetings he stayed in bed till noon reading all the papers. Time and again eye-witnesses describe him as an over-grown schoolboy, insisting on swimming naked off the coast on a trip to visit Roosevelt, on another occasion arriving at an American military display dressed in a romper suit with his topee brim turned up so that he looked like a small boy going down to the beach to dig a hole in the sand. En route to Yalta, Churchill's daughter, Sarah, described him as looking like 'a poor hot pink baby about to cry' (p.351). After the Yalta conference ended, he 'walked from room to room, genial and sprightly, like a boy let out of school' (p.380). Unlike the two other leaders he appeared to have no sex drive whatsoever.
Churchill drank like a fish, sherry for breakfast, wine with lunch, champagne, wine and brandy with dinner. On a striking number of occasions he is naked – swimming in pools naked, on one occasion padding round the bomber flying him back from Moscow naked from the waist down, appearing half-naked in front of the Moscow ambassador (who, memorably, drew a sketch of the naked PM), and once – allegedly – when staying at the White House, being caught by Roosevelt emerging naked from the bath and, unabashed, declaring, 'The Prime Minister of Great Britain has nothing to conceal from the President of the United States.' Driven to the newly liberate area around Remagen, Churchill, surrounded by photographers, was caught short and unzipped to have a pee, telling the gentleman of the press that this particular moment of their great victory was not to be recorded. In his diary Brooke records that he will never forget 'the childish grin of intense satisfaction that spread over his face (quoted page 388). He comes across as the ultimate naughty schoolboy.
Churchill was also given to flights of schoolboy sentimentality; he easily broke into tears, especially about loyal and trusty servants.
- 'I love that man', he told his daughter Sarah, about Roosevelt, with tears in his eyes. (p.224)
- Telling Moran that night of the [Polish diplomatic leader's] request to be dropped into his homeland [to die fighting the Nazis rather than acquiesce in a diplomatic sell-out to the Russians], Churchill had tears in his eyes. (p.330)
And of course reams of magniloquent speech emerged effortlessly from his well-stocked mind. All us Brits have been brought up on the key moments from his wartime speeches. But as the book goes on, you come to realise this could also be a weakness. I watched his 'historic' address to both Houses of Congress on YouTube and realised that, if the spell drops for a moment, it is possible to see Churchill as a pompous old windbag. During the Tehran Conference, at the end of 1943, Roosevelt is reported as tiring of Churchill's verbosity (p.236).
There's lots of behind-the-scenes accounts and one eye witness memorably describes him as a tired old man who keeps going by sheer will power. But the windbag element opens the door to understanding the strong anti-British feeling which was present at all levels of the American administration and society, and grew steadily as the war progressed. In a telling phrase, Fenby says that by the time of Yalta, Britain was much the most junior partner of the alliance and Churchill knew it. Britain had lost its aura of 1940′ (p.353).
Franklin Delaware Roosevelt, President of the United States
It is quite a surprise to read so many of the senior staff who worked with Roosevelt describing him as a heartless SOB – that's not at all how he comes over in the Pathé newsreels where he's always laughing and joshing, but the eye-witnesses are 100% consistent.
The laughing and joshing is connected to another of Roosevelt's qualities, which was his conviction that he could talk round anyone with banter and good humour. This partly explains his relationship with Stalin. a) Roosevelt, being an optimistic, can-do American, couldn't really conceive the depths of evil which Stalin represented, b) Roosevelt believed he could manage Stalin as he had managed so many opponents in his long political career.
'I know you will not mind my being brutally frank with you when I tell you that I think I can personally handle Stalin better than your Foreign Office or my State Department.' (Roosevelt to Churchill)
What he thought he could do was to outwit Stalin as he had done with so many interlocutors. (Walter Lippmann, political commentator)
During the course of 1943 Roosevelt and Hopkins and their entourage became steadily more pro-Stalin and inclined to cold shoulder Churchill. Fenby records that some, more realistic, American diplomats resigned in protest at their boss's wishful thinking about Soviet intentions and readiness to brush the show trials, gulags and famines under the carpet.
Josef Stalin
It's sometimes difficult to believe that a man as monstrous as Stalin ever lived and breathed and walked, let alone shook hands with the other two, made jokes and delivered gracious toasts. All the eye witness accounts confirm that he was extremely practical and factual. He had three demands and he made them right from the start –
- for Britain and America to send more arms & munitions to help the Red Army fighting the Germans
- for Britain and America to open a second front as soon as possible i.e. invade France
- after the war to have a guaranteed security zone or buffer comprising Poland and the Baltic states in Europe (the situation in China/Manchuria was more complicated but Stalin's basic principle was easily applied here, too: he supported whichever solution appeared to give Russia maximum security)
Uncle Joe often had a twinkle in his eye and charmed most of his guests. Only occasionally did the psychopath emerge. At one of the many drinks receptions and dinners accompanying the meetings, a Russian general was showing Kerr how to handle one of their tommy guns, when Stalin seized it and said, let me show you how a real politician behaves, and made a mock gesture of machine gunning everyone else in the room. At Yalta, Roosevelt asked Stalin who the quiet man with the pince-nez was. Stalin saw the president was gesturing towards Beria and laughed, 'Oh that's our Himmler' (p.369). When Churchill explained to Stalin that he might lose the upcoming British general election, as he was only the leader of a particular party, Stalin replied, 'One party is much better' (p.377).
Character studies of their many subordinates
But the book is by no means only about the Big Three. There's a also a huge amount of highly enjoyable gossip about the cohorts of advisers and diplomats and military men the Big Leaders were surrounded by. Here are quick sketches of some of them:
The Brits
- Major Arthur Birse – Churchill's Russian translator
- Field Marshal Alan Brooke – Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) and, as chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, was the foremost military advisor to Winston Churchill. He was nicknamed 'Shrapnel'. In the 1950s his diaries were published which contained scathing criticisms of senior figures of the war, including Churchill. Brooke admired Stalin for his quick grasp of strategy and military reality – but still thought him a cold-hearted, mass murderer. He was a keen birdwatcher.
- Sir Alexander Montagu George Cadogan, Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs from 1938 to 1946, kept extensive diaries which were later published.
- Field Marshal Sir John Dill, May 1940 to December 1941 Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) and in Washington, Senior British Representative on the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Though much admired by Americans as senior as George Marshall, Churchill did not like him, nicknamed him Dilly-Dally, and replaced him with Alan Brooke.
- Anthony Eden, Foreign Secretary 1940-45 – Churchill's loyal lieutenant, principles, vain, self-centred
- Edward Wood, Lord Halifax, 1941 to 1946 British Ambassador in Washington –
- Sir Archibald Clark Kerr – ambassador to China 1938- 1942, where he won the respect of Chiang, then ambassador to the Soviet Union 1942- 1946 where his tough approach and broken nose earned him the nickname, 'the Partisan'.
The Americans
- Averell Harriman – inherited $100 million from his father and was chosen to manage the massive Lend-Lease programme. US ambassador to the Soviet Union from October 1943 to January 24. Had an affair with Winston Churchill's son's wife.
- Harry Hopkins – gangling son of an Iowa saddle-maker who ended up becoming instrumental in Roosevelt's new deal scheme, and moved into the White House to become Roosevelt's adviser throughout the war
- George Marshall – supremely capable Chief of Staff of the US Army, September 1, 1939 – November 18, 1945
- Cordell Hull – the longest-serving U.S. Secretary of State, 1933-44, at daggers drawn with his junior, Sumner Welles, who he eventually got fired in 1943. Hull was the underlying architect of the United Nations. Eden described him as 'the old man'. Cadogan referred to him as 'the old lunatic'.
- Sumner Welles – Under secretary of state 1937-43: 'the age of imperialism is ended'. Hull hated Welles and got him sacked when stories of his gay lifestyle began to leak to the press.
- Henry L. Stimson – Secretary of War (1940–1945), principled grand old man in his 70s, he vehemently opposed the Morgenthau Plan, and kept a diary full of insights.
Americans in China
- General Joseph Stilwell – in charge of some Chinese Nationalist forces, adviser to Chiang Kai-Shek, supervisor of American lend-Lease to the Nationalists. Known as "Vinegar Joe" he despised the British in India and Burma from the start, but came to loathe Chiang as he came to understand Chiang's policies ignored ideas like efficiency and were entirely based on paying bribes to, and keeping in place, administrators and senior soldiers who supported him. This explained the Nationalists' woeful record at fighting. Stilwell took to referring to him as the Peanut (because of the shape of Chiang's shaven skull).
- Claire Chennault – retired from the US Air Force in 1937, Chennault went to China to work as freelance adviser to the Chinese Air Force and after Japan invaded, found himself becoming Chiang Kai-shek's chief air adviser, training Chinese Air Force pilots, and setting up the so-called Flying Tigers.
Roosevelt wanted to replace Stilwell who, by 1943, hated the Chinese with a passion. But Chief of Staff refused to accept the obvious replacement, Chennault, because he was outside the formal command structure and was far too close to Chiang. So nothing was done, one of several reasons why American policy in China was allowed to drift…
The Russians
- Vyacheslav Molotov– USSR Foreign Minister. Molotov is a pseudonym like Stalin, it means 'hammer'. According to witnesses completely inflexible, unbending, unyielding
- Ivan Maisky – USSR Ambassador to Britain 1932 to 1943
- Maxim Litvinov – Soviet ambassador to Washington 1941 – 1943
The French
- Charles de Gaulle – leader of the Free French. A relatively junior officer in the french Army, de Gaulle escaped the German invasion and on 18 June made a radio appeal from London to the French to resist the occupiers. He was a legend in his own mind, remplis with a particuarly Gallic form of arrogance and hauteur, and eventually managed to convince the French nation of his historic uniqueness. But it is very funny to read how powerless he was in the context of the Great Powers, and how he was routinely ignored by all sides as irrelevant. Churchill was, in fact, generally respectful, we had fought side by side the French during the German invasion of 1940. I'd forgotten that Roosevelt hated de Gaulle. He was convinced he was a dictator in waiting in exactly the same mould as Mussolini.
The Americans dislike the Free French Even after the United States declared war on Germany (11 December 1941), it was only the beginning of what turned into a very long haul. Fenby quotes Charles de Gaulle who, on hearing the news of Pearl Harbour, declared (with typically French brio / arrogance) that the war was won, it was only a matter of time. Obviously almost everyone who was going to die over that matter of time was going to be Russian, American and British. It is heart-warming to read how much Roosevelt and the Americans disliked the Free French under de Gaulle. At Yalta, Roosevelt said the Americans would only give the French a sector of Germany to run 'out of kindness'. Stalin concurred. Both men obeyed the well-known dictum:
Bad mouthing the French always has its appeal. (p.358)
De Gaulle was furious at not being invited to the Yalta Conference – despite the fact that the three participants gifted France control of a sector of post-war Germany – and, in a typical high-handed gesture, cancelled a post-conference meeting that had been arranged with Roosevelt. The president really lost his temper and drafted a flaming reply criticising not only de Gaulle but the entire French nation until his translator, career diplomat Charles 'Chip' Bohlen agreed that de Gaulle was 'one of the biggest sons of bitches who ever straddled a pot'. This amused Roosevelt who calmed down and set his diplomats to working on a much toned-down reply.
Like a novel
So this 400-page book is a bit like a 19th century novel. You are formally introduced to each new character, with pen portraits, other people's descriptions. Then settle in to watch the cast assemble, disperse, meet, take notes, observe each other and generally interact. By half way through, when Fenby describes a meeting involving Eden, Hopkins, you have a good idea of what they all looked like
Big ideas
So much for the gossip, but there's also plenty of through-provoking stuff about the geopolitics.
I find it fascinating, reading about any war, to learn how war aims change and evolve during a prolonged conflict. History – the passage of time – simplifies everything to black and white, whereas at the time there was a blizzard of conflicting aims and goals on at least four levels:
- the leaders of the big three nations (USA, Britain, USSR) disagreed among themselves, and as the war progresses, change their minds
- their advisers often strongly disagreed with their leaders, and also amongst themselves
- in the democracies, the opposition political parties and voices in the press & other commentators often strongly disagreed with government policy
- and underlying all this froth is the deep, enduring reality of geography and the geopolitical priorities which that entails
This makes for a fascinating maze, a kind of four dimensional chess, which Fenby confidently steers us through, often with a wry smile on his face.
Stalin wanted arms and Russian security To take the last one first, Stalin knew what he wanted and he largely got it. It is bracing to read the eye witness accounts of the western diplomats who met and admired him. They knew he was a dictator, some were repelled by his history of brutality, but all admired the clarity and conviction of his thinking. When the war was over, Stalin wanted to ensure he had SECURITY in the West and the East. From the get-go he wanted to ensure a geographical buffer from any further attack from East or West. His methods were brutal and disregarded all humanitarian values, but he had the advantage of being absolutely clear about his aims. And he got it. In 1942 he asked for control of the Baltic states and Poland to provide his buffer, and this request caused quite a serious rift between Britain (who wanted to agree in order to pen Russia in) and America (who rejected all plans, pacts and alliances, and was committed to giving every nation 'freedom'). In the event, he extended his buffer zone half way across Europe to take half of Germany.
And in the East, as I've just read in Fenby's history of China, this simple priority – security – explains why Stalin initially allied with the right-wing Kuomintang against Mao's communists. Stalin would deal with whoever seemed able to provide security, and the Kuomintang were, in 1945 anyway, the strongest power in China, once the Japanese had surrendered.
But Stalin's had two more immediate concerns which he hammered away at repeatedly:
- More arms – he wanted the allies to send him much much more arms and munitions to help the Red Army fight the Germans who – be it remembered – advanced up to the outskirts of Moscow, up to the river Don and deep into the Caucasus.
- Second Front – he wanted Britain and America to invade France as soon as possible, a demand he kept up in every conversation and exchange throughout all of 1942 and 1943 and into 1944.
Winston Churchill wanted to preserve the British Empire This threw up all kinds of problems around the economic and political organising of the British Empire which took up a lot of his energy, and of the other conservative politicians around him – concerns about the preferential trading system within the Empire & Commonwealth which now seems as remote as the Corn Laws – as well as the responsibility of policing and trying to secure an extremely farflung set of territories, which beset the British chiefs of staff.
In the end, it was a failure. Fresh in my mind is J.G. Ballard's eye-witness account in his autobiography of the seismic impact the loss of Singapore (15 February 1942) had on the British Empire in the East. It lost face. It was seen as defeatable. Everyone realised its days were numbered. In the event, Britain gave independence to India in 1947 just two years after the war ended, and over the next fifteen years the rest of the British Empire unravelled.
And all this comes to seem increasingly obvious when you read this book and see how utterly, helplessly dependent the British government and empire and, Churchill personally, were on the Americans – and then to read in detail, with extended quotes, Roosevelt's cast-iron opposition to the British Empire.
Arguably, Churchill deluded himself about American intentions. Rather like Kipling, he saw the young United States coming under the tutelage of the wise and mature British Empire to organise a post-war world in which both would exercise the White Man's Burden to tutor the native peoples of the world to democracy and statecraft.
The Anglo nations would need to be united in order to contain a Soviet Union which Churchill early spotted would try to extend its influence deep into Europe; whereas Churchill was rudely dismissive of China, which had displayed nothing but weakness under its despotic but inefficient Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek. (Stalin, it is interesting to note, was just as dismissive of Chiang's regime and insisted he not be invited to the Big Three meeting at Tehran.)
Roosevelt wanted a post-imperial world of free nations If Stalin's central inflexible idea was about gaining SECURITY for Russia, America's was the idealistic notion that, when the war ended, all the old empires and old alliances and old European ideas about 'balances of power' – the kind of complex alliances which had triggered the First World War and failed to avoid the Second – would be abandoned for all time and be replaced by a comity of free nations engaged in free trade under the aegis of global governing bodies (United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund). In this world order about four major states would be the top players – US, Britain, USSR, China – and Britain would be one, but only one among many.
Churchill thought the Brits and the Americans were fighting to overthrow the tyrannies of Germany and Japan, and hoped that afterwards extended American power would mesh with a rejuvenated British Empire to promote Anglo-Saxon ideas of law and justice. But the Americans disagreed: they saw themselves as overthrowing all the European empires and establishing principles of democracy and free trade, and Roosevelt is repeatedly quoted telling trusted advisers (specially Harry Hopkins, also Roosevelt's son, Elliott) that Churchill is wilfully misunderstanding him.
'I can't believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy? The peace cannot include any continued despotism … Equality of peoples involves the utmost freedom of competitive trade.' (Roosevelt to Churchill)
'I've tried to make it clear to Winston – and the others – that, while we're their allies and in it to victory by their side, they must never get the idea that we're in it just to help them hang on to the archaic, medieval Empire ideas … Great Britain signed [sic] the Atlantic Charter. I hope they realise the United States Government means to make them live up to it.' (Roosevelt to his son, Elliott)
The Morgenthau Plan
An issue which emerged during 1944 was how to treat Germany after the war. Fenby goes into great detail about the Morgenthau Plan named after Henry Morgenthau, US Secretary of the Treasury, which planned to hammer Germany, permanently dividing it into smaller states and stripping it of all industrial capacity, denuding the Ruhr industrial heartland, and returning it to a pastoral, agricultural society for the foreseeable future.
Fenby brings out how some of the vengefulness of the plan stemmed from the Jewish ethnicity of Morgenthau and his even more extreme deputy, Harry Dexter White, who was also Jewish. (US Secretary of State Henry Stimson described the Morgenthau Plan as 'Semitism gone wild for vengeance' and 'a crime against civilisation'.) As both men learned more about the Holocaust (initially a top secret known only to the administration) it didn't soften their determination to destroy Germany. (Morgenthau estimated his model of a deindustrialised Germany would support about 60% of the population; the other 40% would starve to death.)
By contrast, Churchill, when he was presented with the plan at the Second Quebec Conference of September 1944, was extremely reluctant to agree with it and fought to water down its provisions. This was because Churchill could already see, with a clarity the Morgenthau backers (including Roosevelt, who told his cabinet Germany should only be allowed a 'subsistence level' of food) lacked, that the immediate post-war problem would be Russia, which was gearing up to conquer half of Europe. In this scenario, Churchill – correctly – predicted that a revitalised and economically strong Germany would be necessary a) to resist Russian encroachment b) to revive the European economy as a whole.
There was another element which is that, when details of the Morgenthau Plan were leaked to the press in September 1944, it had a damaging impact on the war effort.
- Goebbels leapt on it, making much of the Jewish heritage of its author, and was able to depict it as evidence for the global Jewish conspiracy against Germany which he and Hitler had been warning about for a generation (p.319)
- More significantly, US military figures as senior as George Marshall claimed the plan significantly stiffened German opposition, and directly led to the deaths of American soldiers. Roosevelt's son-in-law Lt. Colonel John Boettiger worked in the War Department and claimed the Morgenthau Plan was 'worth thirty divisions to the Germans'.
In the longer term the Morgenthau ideas of reducing German industrial output and deliberately impoverishing the German population turned out to be impractical and counter-productive. During the years of the Occupation from summer 1945 onwards it became clear that Germany was the economic and industrial heartland of Europe and impeding its developing condemned the entire continent to poverty. Plus, preventing the Germans producing their own goods threw the burden of supplying even elementary necessities onto the Americans who quickly realised how impractical this was.
Just a year after the war, the Morgenthau Policy was comprehensively overthrown in a famous speech titled Restatement of Policy on Germany delivered by James F. Byrnes, US Secretary of State, in Stuttgart on September 6, 1946, which became known as the 'Speech of hope'.
After the war it became known that White, never himself a communist, had been passing classified information to the Soviet Union, enough for him to be given a codename by his Soviet 'handlers'. Called before the House Unamerican Activities committee in 1948, he denied being a communist, shortly after testifying had a heart attack, and a few days later died, aged just 55, apparently of an overdose.
Thus his enthusiastic support of the Morgenthau Plan could be reinterpreted as aiding the Soviets by ensuring Germany was rendered utterly powerless after the war. A great deal of debate still surrounds White's role. Stepping back, you can see how the story of the Morgenthau Plan crystallises the complex, overlapping nexuses of geopolitics, economics, ethnicity, conflicts between the supposed Allies, and conflicts within the most powerful of the three, the United States.
Sick men
They were sick men. Several eye-witnesses testify how sick Churchill as and how he kept himself going by sheer willpower. But the facade crumbled after the Tehran Conference. Churchill was exhausted when he flew back to Cairo, and by the time he'd taken an onward flight to Tunis to meet General Eisenhower, he was almost too weak to walk, and was confined to a villa where doctors discovered he had pneumonia. His fever worsened and then he had a heart attack. His personal physician thought he was going to die.
It is amazing that, with rest and injections of the new-fangled drug penicillin, he not only made a full recovery, but after a week was full of energy, firing off messages to the Cabinet in London, to Stalin and Roosevelt and worrying about the next stage of the military campaign to take Italy. And little short of mind-boggling that he went on to live for another 21 years.
And of course Roosevelt was an ill man. In March 1944, shortly after his 62nd birthday, he underwent testing at Bethesda Hospital and was found to have high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, coronary artery disease causing angina pectoris, and congestive heart failure. Fenby explains Roosevelt had a cluster of symptoms nowadays referred to as post-polio syndrome (p.280). He went to the estate of a rich friend in South Carolina and ended up staying four weeks, sleeping a lot, cutting down on his chain-smoking, drinking less. But he lacked his former 'pep'.
The most revealing symptom of this – and typical of Fenby's semi-humorous, gossipy touch – was that the President stopped tinkering with his beloved stamp collection, up till then a favourite way of unwinding last thing at night. His personal physician, Admiral Ross McIntire, created a daily schedule that banned business guests for lunch and incorporated two hours of rest each day. But when he returned to Washington, witnesses testify that from that point onwards he was a good deal more flippant and ill-informed. At meetings he lacked focus, increasingly telling rambling anecdotes about his forebears. Churchill thought him no longer the man he had been.
Choosing the vice-president
It beggars belief that this crippled and deeply ill man determined to run for president a record-breaking fourth time and spent a lot of 1944 criss-crossing his huge nation making election speeches. The election was held on 7 November 1944 and Roosevelt won 53.4% of the popular vote and 432 out of the 531 electoral votes. He had campaigned in favour of a strong United Nations, so his victory symbolized support for the nation's future participation in the international community.
Roosevelt wanted to retain his vice-president, Henry Wallace. A contingent of the Democratic party wanted the Southern Democrat Harry Byrd. Roosevelt was persuaded to nominate a compromise candidate, Harry S Truman from Missouri. Did many people at the time realise what a momentous choice this would turn out to be?
And am I the only person who noticed hat all three contenders for the vice-presidency were named Harry?
One way of thinking about the Yalta Conference in February 1945, is that Stalin dragged a very ill man half way round the world and then, backed by his henchman Molotov, was able to run rings round him. Roosevelt no longer seemed to take in information, or push for solid agreements. His doctor thought his brain was going and gave him only months to live.
Roosevelt clings to Stalin till the last moment
I hadn't realised the Roosevelt administration became so utterly pro-Soviet, and increasingly anti-British. All discussions about helping Britain after the war with loans were tempered by concern that Britain would rise to become a major economic rival of the US. It came as a big surprise to Roosevelt and his economic advisers when Churchill bluntly told them that Britain was broke, and would go bankrupt without major economic assistance (p.305)
In the last hundred pages Roosevelt's administration starts gearing up for the presidential campaign of 1944, and for the first time you really hear about his Republican opponents, and suddenly realise that there was a great deal of domestic opposition throughout Roosevelt's presidency, from Republicans who opposed the state socialism of the New Deal, to isolationists who fought tooth and nail to keep America out of the war, and then to an array of political figures and commentators who accused Roosevelt's Democrats of being far to supportive to the Communist mass-murderer, Stalin, and not being supportive enough of the right-wing Nationalist government of China under Chiang.
In this context Fenby goes into detail of the diplomatic toing and froing surrounding the Warsaw Rising – not the fighting itself, but the increasingly desperate attempts of the Polish government in exile to get the Allies to support the rising, the repeated requests made by Roosevelt and Churchill to Stalin to get the Red Army – which had halted its advance only 50 kilometres from the Polish capital – to intervene, or to get permission to land & fly Western planes from Ukrainian airfields to drop supplies to the Polish resistance. All of which Stalin refused and stonewalled. It suited him to have the entire Free Polish Resistance massacred by the Germans, clearing the way for the puppet communist government he planned to put in place. Afterwards the Americans and Churchill fell in with Stalin's obvious lies that only military shortcomings had prevented the Red Army from intervening. Only the tough-minded George Kennan felt the West should have had a full-fledged showdown with Russia about it.
Same with the Katyn Massacre – in which some 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia were executed by the Soviet Union, specifically the NKVD (the Soviet secret police) in April and May 1940. The Nazis discovered the burial site and publicised it in 1943, but Stalin resolutely denied all responsibility and claimed it was a Nazi atrocity and Britain and America, once again, went along with his lies, for the sake of alliance unity.
The Cold War
Maybe it was appropriate that Roosevelt died just as the war ended. Every day made it plainer that the Soviets were going to ignore all promises and do whatever it took to impose communist governments across Eastern Europe, most notably in Poland whose governance was a running sore between the three 'allies' from the start of 1945. Right to the end Roosevelt hoped that, if he ignored this or that broken promise or atrocity by Stalin, the dictator would adhere to the main agreements.
Maybe it was appropriate that Roosevelt died and a new, simpler but arguably tougher man took over, Harry Truman, who was plunged into managing the future of the world as the greatest war in history came to a close. Truman had no idea relations with Moscow were so rocky. And he hadn't been told about the atom bomb. Can you imagine the awesome burden which suddenly landed on his shoulders!
In some ways the last 20 pages are the most interesting: with the war in Europe over, Churchill – as Roosevelt predicted – became yesterday's man. An exhausted Britain looked to the future and elected the Labour government with a landslide in July 1945. Roosevelt was dead and Truman replaced him as president with a completely new remit, sacking former advisers (e.g. Morgenthau while Roosevelt's most loyal adviser, Harry Hopkins, retired), very much his own man from the start. The Labour Party leader Clement Attlee replaced Churchill. And on August 6 the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. On 14 August Japan surrendered, bringing the world war to an end.
A new era had dawned – but Fenby's highly detailed, fascinating and gripping account helps the reader understand how the outlines of what became known as the Cold War had been established long before the shooting stopped.
Related links
- Alliance: The Inside Story of How Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill Won One War and Began Another on Amazon
Related history books
- The Penguin History of Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the Present by Jonathan Fenby (2nd edition, 2013)
- Iron Curtain by Anne Applebaum (2012)
- Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder (2010)
- Atomic: The First War of Physics and the Secret History of the Atom Bomb 1939-49 by Jim Baggott (2009)
- Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 by Max Hastings (2007)
- Blitzkrieg: From the Rise of Hitler to the Fall of Dunkirk by Len Deighton (1979)
- Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain by Len Deighton (1977)
Related fiction
- Munich by Robert Harris (2018)
- Enigma by Robert Harris (1995)
- Fatherland by Robert Harris (1992)
- SS-GB by Len Deighton (1978)
- Bomber by Len Deighton (1970)
- Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
- Where Eagles Dare by Alistair MacLean (1967)
- The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (1962)
- HMS Ulysses by Alistair MacLean (1955)
Holocaust literature
- Remembering the Kindertransport: 80 Years On @ The Jewish Museum
- The Drowned and The Saved by Primo Levi (1986)
- Moments of Reprieve by Primo Levi (1986)
- If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi (1982)
- The Periodic Table by Primo Levi (1975)
- The Truce by Primo Levi (1963)
- This Way For the Gas, Ladies and Gentleman by Tadeusz Borowski (1948)
- If This Is A Man by Primo Levi (1947)


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What's The Best Beatles Guitar Solo?
15 June 2015, 15:27 | Updated: 2 November 2017, 15:29
It's a question that's long troubled us here at Smooth... Can you help us decide?
Everything's pretty smooth here at Smooth HQ, unless you get into a fiery debate about which Beatles guitar solo is the best! We've counted down five of our faves here - feel free to suggest your own in the comments if they're missing.
1. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
The ultimate classic Beatles track? Of course, the guitar solo wasn't actually played by a Beatle, but one Eric Clapton. Clapton is not formally credited on the album.
2. Let It Be
Let It Be is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful Beatles songs in existence. Written and sung by Paul McCartney, it was the final single before he left the band. The guitar solo on the album, though, is different from the single version.
3. The End
The End is the last song to be recorded by all four Beatles, and features a solo played by all three guitar-strumming Beatles: Paul McCartney, George Harrison and John Lennon. The two-bars each solo follows a drum solo by Ringo Starr.
4. Helter Skelter
Helter Skelter is possibly the heaviest song on the White Album, and legend has it was written by McCartney in reaction to The Who's I Can See For Mlles. McCartney wanted to create the loudest and dirtiest song he could. Rolling Stone ranked Helter Skelter number 52 in its 100 Greatest Beatles Songs.
5. Come Together
Come Together was the opening track of 1969's Abbey Road. It has been described as 'a perfect combination of McCartney's 'sweet' and Lennon's 'sour'. Lennon's guitar chords produce an epic bridge for the track.
So there's our Top 5! Do you agree?


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I first heard about Bitcoin — the mysterious cryptocurrency established in 2008 in order to purchase drugs on the dark web — around 2012, when a friend told me that a dude we'd known in college had made $100,000 off Bitcoin then blown it all on a backpacking trip in Europe. He was really into video games and 4Chan, so he seemed like the exact type of person who would randomly get rich off of some meme. Therefore, I very quickly forgot about Bitcoin, because it was very clearly not going to stick around.
But it did. After years of being sort of a joke to everyone but libertarian internet people and college students, Bitcoin transcended its shady origins to become A Thing. The word "blockchain" slithered into our culture, becoming one of those terms that we all collectively agree to pretend to understand but actually don't. The price of Bitcoin went up, from a couple hundred dollars to a couple thousand, and then people who hadn't sold their Bitcoin suddenly became legitimately rich. And because America has turned into that Mr. Show sketch where it's automatically assumed you're a genius if you have a lot of money, we all had to listen to whatever they had to say, even if all they wanted to talk about was creating a Bitcoin-only city in the desert ruled by robots or how Bitcoin will be very convenient once everyone lives on the moon.
Bitcoin is a cool idea in the abstract. It's imaginary money that lives on the internet. It was created in response to the banking crisis that led to the financial crisis and therefore is meant to explicitly exist outside of government control, which seems pretty neat when someone like Donald Trump is in charge of your government. Its value is derived from its users' shared belief that it's just as good as regular money, which gestures towards the type of collective action we'd need to make the world a better place.
The price of Bitcoin goes up and down a bunch, which means if you buy a tiny little bit of it you're constantly riding a roller coaster, albeit one that mainly goes down very fast. For a moment, it was a new idea, and new ideas are inherently hard to come by. New ideas are often quite fun, as well — they offer opportunities to experiment, to waste time, to reframe your thinking about entire structures. They stop being fun, however, once people figure out ways to exploit them and gain an advantage not in some hypothetical future world but in our current one.
Last year, the cryptocurrency surged in value for several months, hitting a high-water mark of approximately $17,000. I distinctly remember one particularly insane Bitcoin day from that period, when a friend and I met up to do some work together only to have our hypothetically productive afternoon shattered by frantic instant messages from his brother, a finance professional who joyfully updated us as his one Bitcoin gained $3,000 in value in just a few hours.
The potential for dizzying profits begat both a media frenzy and, more importantly, an influx of opportunists, whose bad ideas have systematically sunk any chance ever of Bitcoin being a fun novelty ever again. And when I say "bad ideas," I don't mean the impractical pipe dreams like creating Bitcoin-based utopias in the desert or proposing that we structure our nonexistent moon economy around cryptocurrency. I mean things like former Mighty Ducks star turned crypto-evangelist Brock Pierce leading a band of Bitcoin millionaires on a mission to colonize Puerto Rico with an alarming degree of success, or how the company Blockstream currently has five satellites orbiting the earth, "providing anyone in the world with the opportunity to use Bitcoin," as its website gloats. If we ignore this theory that Bitcoin was given to us by aliens (another crazy and therefore fun idea), do you know how much bullshit we have in space already? Way, way too much. A Republican congressman from Ohio wants to create a cryptocurrency to fund Trump's long-threatened border wall. Oh, and it turns out that prominent members the alt-right, as well as out-and-out neo-Nazis, love Bitcoin because unlike GoFundMe or PayPal, its decentralized nature means supporters can fund those causes without getting kicked off its payment network. While Bitcoin is certainly nifty to play around with and comes in handy if you're a budding psychonaut trying to order psychedelic research chemicals from Canada, the main people who take advantage of Bitcoin's unique functionality seem to by and large only trying to use it for evil or profit (which is also evil).
There is a bunch of infrastructure that now exists around Bitcoin. There are a million other cryptocurrencies, plus a bunch of apps and services and incubators that piggyback off of Bitcoin and those other cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is by no means too big to fail, but it's the exact right size for its probable failure to kind of suck for a bunch of people who bet the farm on it.
As a general rule, things that are practical tend to be neither cool nor fun. This handy-dandy heuristic also provides some insight into why, as Bitcoin became more well-known, as more stuff sprung up around it, and as cryptocurrency in general became a "space" for "innovation," Bitcoin itself went down the drain. It's currently worth around $3,500 per coin, which is $1,000 less than the current electricity cost of mining one on your computer. (Disclosure: I own about $50 worth of Bitcoin because I am dumb as shit.)
Maybe the thing that comes after Bitcoin will be more boring but more useful, and its creators will figure out how to structure it in a way that helps to uplift marginalized people who could use a new way to interact with money without providing opportunities for scammers, assholes, and people who are already rich to profit off of it. Maybe the thing that comes after Bitcoin will be so weird and abstract that it helps someone out there come up with an idea to destroy capitalism and replace it with something better. Maybe nothing will come after Bitcoin, and humanity will focus its collective efforts onto something more productive. But probably not.


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Ferrari, founded in 1947 by former racecar driver Enzo Ferrari, now belongs to the Fiat Group and manufactures around 4,000 vehicles each year.
Ferrari has established itself several times during the company's history in racing. Currently active only in Formula 1, it has been very successful, not least thanks to long-term driver Michael Schumacher.
Enzo Ferrari gained his first racing experience as a test-driver for his former employer, Alfa Romeo, and this tradition is still alive in Maranello, Ferrari's company's headquarters.
Ferrari's current line offers a wide range of impressive and desirable sports cars.
You can rent one of the top models, the Ferrari F430 Spider with 490 hp and a real Ferrari eight-cylinder engine, at Pegasus Exclusive Cars.
The "Cavallino Rampante," or "Prancing Horse," the emblem and trademark of Ferrari, is a black horse on a yellow background, and a number of theories have been forward to explain its origin. The most probable is that Enzo Ferrari's brother Dino Ferrari served in a cavalry regiment in the Second World War, and the "Cavallino" was its emblem. To honor his brother, who died in the war, Enzo not only dedicated an entire series, the Ferrari Dino, but also adopted the logo of his brother's regiment. A logo that to this day adorns every Ferrari from Modena.
The yellow color of the background is in reference to Enzo's hometown of Modena and the classic Ferrari red is the product of the successes in racing – a real Ferrari is therefore yellow!
Without a doubt, the most famous Ferrari is the Ferrari Testarossa, which was built in 1984 and featured prominently in the television series "Miami Vice."
Ferrari models often have numbers in their name, shed light on the engine. A Ferrari 512 Testarossa has "5" liters and "12" cylinders. Then again, there are exceptions such as the Ferrari 360 Modena Spider, with 3.6 liters of displacement and powered by a Ferrari V8 engine.
Unlike its largest German competitor, Porsche, Ferrari doesn't offer a more affordable model. The purchase price of a new Ferrari starts at EUR 170,000, while the Porsche Boxster can be had for the low price of "only" EUR 100,000.
Pegasus Exclusive Cars wishes you much joy with the Ferrari.