T E. Lawrence
Yardley, Michael
Lawrence had been in the Oxford ing the claims of the Arabs, whom University Officer Training Corps, Lawrence was leading in a fight of sup-belonged to the Rifle Club for Old posed national...
...The Arab tribes could the ranks of the RAF and the Tank historical artifacts...
...of British imperialism, yet some Arab illegitimacy—at the age of 17 while research on the Crusades), vehement* Owners with modems can auto-dial boys of the Shalan clan in Syria are still preparing for entrance into Oxford— ly anti-French...
...Under Boys of Oxford High School, had spent Sykes-Picot, Britain was, essentially, to a great deal of time toughening his will gain control of Mesopotamia, Jordan, and his body, and had worked exten- and Palestine, and France was to be sively taking photos, sketching maps, given Syria and Lebanon...
...He is he ran away and enlisted in the Royal France out of the Middle East and as one storke function key...
...The whole thrust of Lawrence's ac* Records can easily be added, edited tivities in the Middle East—whatever or deleted...
...chemish in Syria in December 1910...
...Lawrence had spent his life Britain saw that its own national inpreparing himself for great things (he told a fellow intelligence officer just after the war that all his life he had THE CONGRESSIONAL wanted to be a hero) and he seems to MAILER have been swept up into the Great T. E. LAWRENCE: A BIOGRAPHY Game almost immediately...
...John Philby, the father of future spy and traitor Kim Philby...
...Lawrence is reviled by and T. E. L. was their illegitimate off- prisingly (for he spoke French fluently processors for mail/merge some Arabs for having been an agent spring...
...He served no more Best Programs, 2700 S. Quincy view of his own fame...
...Lawrence, of course, was especially keen on dispensing with Sykes-Picot and offered the alternative of giving Lebanon to France, while King Feisal would be given the throne in Syria (under British protection), Mesopotamia would be Nothing, however, not even a life least justifiable and politically sound...
...He wanted to keep the representative's office with named "Aurens" in his honor...
...celebrity, change his name to Ross and was just as interested in digging up in- yet always ready to combine against an Monthly, Sent First Class then to Shaw, and seek anonymity in telligence as he was in digging up outside force...
...phone number and party...
...of the man, but yet, at the same time, Chapman and his wife, and ended up ain's position in the region...
...All our subject his thesis at Oxford on Crusader cas- Lord Kitchener and Lawrence, however, provinces to me were not worth one ties, and under the guidance of Dr...
...rr o the dismay of his friends 1 Churchill and George Bernard Shaw, Lawrence enlisted in the ranks of the RAF, where he purported to find the safety, discipline, fellowship, and mental relaxation he desperately needed, but which Churchill and Shaw could only view as an obscene waste of his talents...
...Churchill's main objective was to put Feisal on the throne in Mesopotamia—since Syria now belonged to France—and to withdraw the British army from Mesopotamia—and replace it with, the RAF, which was cheaper to maintain...
...Records contain the full name of the Senator or Congressman with Lawrence's interest was in serving his their complete mailing address, country...
...The British making notes, and reading about the became less and less entranced by history of warfare for his academic Sykes-Picot as the war wore on and as research...
...would remain in a state of political intellectual movement in the In Lawrence's case, the boy made the Hogarth, who was himself an adven- mosaic, a tissue of small jealous prin- world, American Libertarian man...
...When he found out about his and traveled through France for his functions...
...The charges life, but he found the men a little it would crumble when the next war * Plus many other features of fraud emanate because of his "frightening" and was a bit put off by came...
...They eloped, was not only anti:Turk, but also, surformes imported into word ments of him...
...Certainly he felt complex and baffling personality, and the Arabs had been betrayed, but he as to the secrecy surrounding his death had acted on the "conviction that in a motorcycle accident...
...had other ideas...
...than three months before his father got Street, Arlington, VA 22206...
...Lawrence had been in the Oxford ing the claims of the Arabs, whom University Officer Training Corps, Lawrence was leading in a fight of sup-belonged to the Rifle Club for Old posed national liberation...
...He immersed stable too, and were a vital buffer _ saw vividly how great it was to be their himself in the literature of chivalry, did against Russian penetration into India...
...While Lawrence worked feverishly, backed cautiously by the Foreign Office, to promote King Feisal and the Hashemites, the India Office was supporting the enemy of the Hashemites, Ibn Saud, who was advised by Harry St...
...E. Lawrence has been the subject the name Maden—and his father was sympathies he developed for the Tof many biographies, all of which Thomas Chapman...
...But Yardley Arab help was necessary to our cheap poses the questions well, and his and speedy victory in the East, and educated guesses, when he makes them, that better we win and break our are sensible...
...rr he politics of the Middle East were , character—a man who on the one hand At school, Lawrence exhibited his 1 as complex then as they are could speak of the rights of the Arabs, brilliance, his tendency to play with the today—complicated by, if nothing else, NOT FOR feel immense guilt at their betrayal by truth for dramatic effect—he was born the multiple interests of Britain...
...The EVERYONE...
...Lawrence is an exceedingly complex him out...
...Lawrence * Records can be converted to ASCII have come to strongly divergent assess- having an affair with him...
...Rates: ^ Syr...
...and go on to add: D. G. Hogarth, his academic mentor, dependent Palestine would act as a buf"Pray God that men reading [Seven he also read much on military strategy fer between Egypt and the Turks and Pillars of Wisdom] will not, for the love and on modern Arabia...
...It was not Lawrence but Winston Churchill who finally cut through all of the British political infighting...
...frustratingly odd and manipulative their "roughness...
...action that is sometimes portrayed...
...The hero who would renounce his turous figure devoted to the Empire, cipalities, incapable of cohesion and is for you...
...Exhausted by the war and by the even more onerous duties of drawing up the peace, Lawrence arranged for himself to be replaced by his nemesis, Harry St...
...It was Hogarth that Arab nationalism was not to be American Libertarian is not of the glamour of strangeness, go out who sent Lawrence to supervise the feared given that the Arabs, as for everyone...But if you stor inside the appreciate ies to prostitute themselves and their archaeological excavations at Car- Lawrence said, "if properly handled on the liveliest political and talents in serving another race...
...After furious and difficult negotiations, Feisal was put on the Iraqi throne and his brother Abdullah was given sovereignty over Trans-Jordan, a sovereignty he kept only because of Lawrence's intervention when it looked as though he might fall...
...Lawrence was a fascinating word than lose' conviction that, if man and this is a splendid and wellnot entirely honorable, was at researched book...
...And Lawrence was be brought under British guidance, as Name Corps, had, in fact, no real reason to a most suitable pupil and agent...
...Miss Lawrence had, as Yardley points out, age as their liberator, and Islam would City Lawrence was T. E.'s mother—herself "as much, and possibly more, formal be divided against itself, with a Khalifa State/Zip illegitimate, her real name was Sarah military instruction as an average of- in Turkey and a Khalifa in Arabia...
...With the French having already won their claims to Lebanon and Syria at Versailles (by force of arms), Churchill set about organizing the British Middle East under one office—the Colonial Office—where he made Lawrence the special adviser on Arab affairs...
...able—was to protect and enhance Brit- data field...
...48 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1987 terest could best be served by supporting the Arabs' desire for self-determination (because the Arabs were pro-British and anti-French...
...thought by many to have been a fraud Artillery...
...the colonial powers, and then turn on August 16, but often told his school British government in India was proaround and say: "I went up the Tigris chums he was born the same day as foundly opposed to the idea of Arab rwith one hundred Devon Territorials, Napoleon, August 15—and, as one of independence and Arab nationalism, A m e=;.[ young, clean, delightful fellows, full of his schoolmasters described him, he for it believed that the Turks were far L^,' - the power of happiness and making was "one of few words, self-possessed, more reliable than the Arabs, and more 73.g 11 women and children glad...
...of drudgery in the ranks, nor the The Lawrence of Michael Yardley's ritualistic beatings he ordered biography remains a man of mystery—for himself, could ever bury his with questions still unanswered as to hyperactive sense of guilt and shame— what horrors he actually suffered durnot all of which was connected with ing the war, as to what compelled his the Arab campaign...
...Jordan's King Hussein owes his monarchy to Lawrence's rescue of his grandfather...
...703 820-9300...
...It was an imaginative scheme, but as the India Office pointed out, Feisal's brothers had absolutely no claim to govern Mesopotamia...
...By them one purposeful, inscrutable...
...As Yardley CONGRESS, of the entire 34 members on Michael Yardley/Stein and Day/$22.95 notes, "despite opportunities Lawrence a PC disk...
...appears to have taken no active interest H. W. Crocker III in archaeology after the Great War...
...He was coy and obstreperous and made ample use of his friends to obtain special treatment...
...France and Britain and virtually ignorTHE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1987 47 ruled by Feisal's two brothers (also under British protection), and Palestine would go to Britain and be open to Zionist immigrants as long as they were willing to provide political and financial support to Feisal...
...Nor was Lawrence a model recruit...
...kin, and English...
...20 II 2 yrs...
...long as Britain could maintain its im- Address call himself "Lawrence...
...Moreover, the British government was playing all sides in the Arab contest...
...After Ibn Saud defeated the Hashemites in battle, thus disproving Lawrence's slighting disregard for Saud's power, Lawrence's views were given shorter shrift...
...events in the Middle East...
...John Philby, and left public service for a life of celebrity and legend—a status he both sought and from which, evidently sincerely, he wished to escape...
...They noted that an in- 7:7-fq5--5 dead Englishman...
...38 0Back issues $2 Junner, though she had also used ficer passing out of the Military Acad- But further complicating matters Outside N. America, add S5 emy at Sandhurst today, and was by no was the secret Sykes-Picot treaty American Libertarian H. W Crocker III is a writer and editor means the bookish scholar thrown into dividing up the Middle East between 21715 Park Brook Drive Katy, TX 77450 in Washington, D.C...
...Already used to a self- early as 1915 was drawing up plans to * Records can be printed on any size —but there can be little doubt of his imposed Spartan discipline, he had no cut the French off from the region or label, envelope, rolodex card, or courage or of his importance to future trouble with the physical rigors of army at least to weaken their position so that directory listing...
...Miss Lawrence—a Hashemite Arabs, which were consider- * Records can be coded then select/sorted on codes for any have given us roughly the same portrait strict Christian—came to work for Mr...
Vol. 20 • September 1987 • No. 9
