April 6, 2024
Dear Kitty,
How are you? I hope you are well. We discussed my sending Coco some notes about Tommy’s side of her ancestry. So, here are a few memories.
Alex, of course, is Coco’s grandmother, and, I believe, her namesake. Alex’s family is from Great Britain, especially Scotland and England. Alex’s father grew up in a very small town, Prescott, in a southern state called Arkansas. Her grandfather was a businessman and his main business was supplying movie theaters and owning property. Her father grew up in a strict household but enjoyed sports and also mathematics and the history of the Civil War (which, of course, was begun in South Carolina).
His name was Dale Denman, Jr., after his father, who was also named Dale Denman.
Alex’s father studied very hard so that he could do well on the exam that allowed him to enter the U.S. Military Academy. That was extremely important in those days because times were hard. There was a Great Depression going on, which meant that people were far poorer than people in our era could imagine. Entry into USMA, also called “West Point” because of its location on the Hudson River north of New York City, was a great bonanza because its costs were completely nil.
Alex’s father specialized in artillery, which is the use of cannon to attack and defend. Dale Denman, Jr. graduated on June 6, 1944, the exact same day that “The Allies,” mostly the USA, Canada, and Britain, invaded Nazi occupied western Europe to free the people there from Nazi occupation. (Most of the fighting was considerably east of Germany. The enemy there were the Russian Communists, who were also tough, homicidal people.)
Alex and I have been married since June 23, 1968 and to me she is still the superstar of mankind.
The Nazis, as I am sure you know, were horribly cruel people. They were led by an insane mass killer named Adolf Hitler. They were EXTREMELY tough fighters. Dale Denman, Jr. fought in some horribly bloody battles against them. At first he was a Lieutenant, but he rose rapidly in rank as his leadership and courage were recognized. He was awarded the Silver Star for an especially daring act. His unit was pinned down by a Nazi machine gun nest. His men were getting shot. Alex’s father ran through Nazi machine gun fire that hit so close that it knocked off both of his boot heels. But he was unhurt. He climbed up to the top floor of a nearby house carrying a heavy radio. He called in American artillery fire to knock out the Nazi machine gun position. It was for this that he was awarded the Silver Star. The Silver Star is the second highest medal awarded to American soldiers. It is very rarely awarded. For Alex’s father to win it was an amazing honor.
The Nazi commanding officer surrendered to Alex’s father. But he spat in Alex’s father’s face. Many would have shot the Nazi on the spot but Alex’s father was a Christian and let the man live.
When I met him, he was a Colonel in the U.S. Army, a rank which is just below General. (Colonel is pronounced KER-NEL.)
Col. Denman also fought in the Vietnam War from 1965 to 1966. That was also a bloody and difficult war. Col. Denman hated that war.
He was in deadly actions in the jungles and rivers of that country. In one action, he and his men had to hide under water and breathe through bamboo sticks. For his amazing bravery and skill and leadership, he was awarded the Bronze Star, and the Distinguished Service Medal, also very high medals.
Alex’s masseuse and manicurist, Mickey, is a refugee from Vietnam. She is a devout Christian although Vietnam is an atheistic Communist country.
He was a warrior for America. But he was a peaceful man and extremely polite like a Southern Gentleman should be. When I first met him, he told me something brilliant. I asked him about the Vietnam War. I asked him how he felt about the Vietnam War, which was extremely unpopular among students, which Alex and I then were. Did the military keep us in the war? I asked him. (A stupid question.) “No,” he answered. “We hate war. We’re the ones who get killed.”
He urged us to march and demonstrate against the war. “It’s useless,” he said. “It’s a meat grinder. You’re doing the Army a favor by ending the war on any terms.”
Alex, your fabulous grandmother, and I accordingly marched and demonstrated against the war in Washington, D.C. and in New Haven, Connecticut, which is where I was going to law school at Yale. We had some scary moments with the police and the National Guard shooting tear gas at us. Believe me, tear gas hurts.
Your chest hurts and you cannot breathe for a short time. VERY scary.
At the time, my father, Herbert Stein, was a high official in the White House, and I will tell you more about him later.
He (my father) was also against the war.
Col. Denman was the handsomest man I ever met, and a stupendously kind man. My father was also as kind and brilliant a man as God ever made.
Col. Denman left the Army in about 1970. But he never stopped loving the Army.
My father was born in Detroit, Michigan. At that time, it was a gigantically important industrial center. It was the world center for making cars and trucks. Mass production was really invented and put into practice in Detroit. Now it is crime ridden. Don’t ever go there.
My father’s father worked at Ford Motor. It was owned by a great genius named Henry Ford. My grandfather was a “skilled tool and die” maker. That meant that he created machines that made car parts. At the time there were no computers, so he used an amazing tool called a “slide rule.” No one today even knows what they are.
Henry Ford was a terrible anti-Semite. But my grandfather was treated all right at Ford Motor, or so my Pop always said.
My father’s father and mother moved to Schenectady, New York along with my father and his sister in about 1931. In Schenectady, he worked at General Electric.
At the time it was a huge maker of railroad locomotives. Railroads were the main movers of people and freight.
They still are for freight. By the way, one of the two largest railroads in America is Burlington Northern Santa Fe. Its chairman and largest stockholder is a very smart and pleasant man named Warren Buffett.
Alex and I have become friends of Mr. Buffett. We have had dinner with him in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.
He particularly loves Alex, your grandmother. He has good taste. He is one of the richest men on earth, but lives modestly. In fact, he often has meals at McDonald’s.
My father went to Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It is often called the best small college in the nation. My father came from lower middle-class circumstances at best and went to Williams with rich kids. But my father was an authentic genius and he graduated second in his class, right after Richard Helms, who became the first head of the CIA. I have met him many times.
My father had to work at several jobs including as a dishwasher at a fraternity that did not admit Jews. He did not complain about it, though. He was just happy to be able to attend Williams in the middle of the Great Depression. The hardest times ever for most Americans.
After Williams, my father worked as an economist for the federal government. Then when World War II came along, he joined the Navy to fight the Japanese.
His main task was planning the invasion of Taiwan. It was a large island off the coast of China. At that time, it was occupied by the Japanese.
But the invasion never happened because the Japanese surrendered after we dropped the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After the war, my Pop was an economist, writing and speaking about the economy. (My mother was also an economist. She attended Barnard College, then a part of Columbia, and got a BA in economics. After college, she went to graduate school at the University of Chicago. It was there she met my father, also a grad student in economics. She was a brilliant woman, and a thorough patriot. She only briefly worked as an economist because my sister came along and, like most housewives of that era (my parents were married in 1937), she stayed home with my sister and then with me.
My father was considered one of the two or three leading conservative/Republican economists. When Richard Nixon was elected President in 1969, my father became an economist in the White House. In 1971, he became Mr. Nixon’s chief economic advisor. That was and is a Cabinet level position. My Dad had a White House limo pick him up at home every morning and take him home at night with a bodyguard with a gun. When Richard Nixon left office in 1974 the next President was Gerald Ford — no relation to Henry Ford, but a great man, and very kind to me while I continued to write speeches at the White House.
He worked very long hours in an office so big it had a large fireplace. He had a staff of about one hundred. Unfortunately, my father smoked heavily. It was commonplace for him to smoke three packs a day — not that uncommon in those days.
Alex and I both smoked heavily when we met. I stopped about forty years ago and Alex stopped about ten years ago.
My father was the kindest man I ever met. Alex’s father was a great, great man. My sister and I are on very different wave lengths about politics but are otherwise close.
I met Alex when I was between college and law school at Yale. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever met. I literally gasped when I saw her at a black-tie dinner dance for July 4 in 1966.
Alex and I have been married since June 23, 1968 and to me she is still the superstar of mankind. I really cannot adequately praise her. She is a lawyer by training and was extremely successful at that profession in D.C. and in Hollywood. She is also a saint of love and kindness. She is the only woman I have ever wanted to be married to.
Your mother is the most beautiful young woman I have ever known and you are a super beautiful very young woman.
This has gone on long enough, so I will close now and write more soon.
God bless you, super beautiful Coco.
Love, Ben and Alex
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