TWO WEEKS AGO, Alvin Bernstein, a close friend, died. Al had been sick and had been recently diagnosed with cancer. Even so, his friends all expected him to wage a battle with the disease and, given his will, win it. But an infection took him suddenly, and many of us were left with the miserable feeling that we hadn’t gotten our good-byes in and our thank yous said.
Al was a remarkable guy. A scholar of ancient history educated at Cornell and Oxford, he taught at Cornell, Yale, and in recent years the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He also headed up some of the government’s most important military educational institutions, chairing the strategy department at the Naval War College, directing the National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies, and leading the Pentagon’s George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, a school for civilian and military officials from the former Warsaw Pact that Al virtually created from the ground up.
But he was far more than an impressive resume. Handsome and athletic, he was, as a woman friend once said, “the walking, talking definition of the word ‘charming.'” He was also the guy who, as a young professor at Cornell in 1969, amidst the chaos of the student uprising and the university administration’s surrender, could be found in the weight room, surrounded by football players and other students, counseling them on the true meaning of “the academy” and the kind of courage required to sustain it.
But maybe more than anything, Al loved good conversation — whether about his family, his friends, or foreign policy.
As the fact of his death sank in, I kept thinking of the last time a group of his friends had gotten together. The occasion was a going-away party for a long-time buddy. We spent an afternoon and evening watching a favorite video (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), eating and drinking, and debating everything under the sun: the state of pro football, the Punic Wars, and Al’s interpretation of the Godfather movies. It was on the ride back into town that evening that he told a story from his graduate days at Oxford in the early 1960s.
It was spring, and the university was closing down for a few weeks. With little money in his pocket to pay for lodging and food, Al decided to drive to Spain, where even the best hotel was relatively cheap and there was plenty of sun. After the long drive through France, he arrived at his hotel late in the afternoon tired and hungry. It was too early for the dining room to open, so Al headed out back to the patio to enjoy the setting sun and unwind with a glass of wine.
Blinded at first by the sun, Al eventually noticed a couple — an older man and a much younger woman — sitting at the other end of the hotel patio. After a bit, Al noticed the woman looking his way every so often. She was striking, he said, but also a bit “hippy.”
Soon the dining room opened, and the couple headed off to eat. Al finished his wine and went in as well. The maitre d’ seated him across the room from the older man, now dining alone. While Al was still eating, the gentleman rose from his table, picked up his glasses, and headed out of the room. Leaving, he passed Al’s table. Al looked up and recognized the famous British actor Alec Guinness.
After Al finished his dinner, he went out to the lobby and asked the concierge for a notepad and a pen. Though not the fawning type, he wrote a short note to the British star saying how much he’d enjoyed his work and thanking him for many hours of entertainment over the years. Al gave the note to the clerk at the desk to pass along to the actor and went up to his room.
The next morning, Al was awakened by a phone call. A voice asked if this was “Alvin Bernstein.” When Al said yes, the voice said, “Well, this is Alec Guinness, and I want to thank you for your kind words.” The actor then went on to explain that he was in Spain shooting a movie but had a day off. Would Al want to join him to go touring?
So Al spent the day with Alec Guinness, knocking around the surrounding villages and visiting Moorish castles. According to Al, Guinness was dignified but not in the least ostentatious; he was easy to converse with and free with a laugh — the perfect companion.
In the final lines of his 1986 memoir, Blessings in Disguise, looking back on a life filled with successes, Guinness wrote: “Of one thing I can boast; I am unaware of ever having lost a friend.” I’m sure Al, had he ever been inclined to boast, could have made that claim as well.
Oh, and the woman at the hotel — it was Kim Novak.
BY GARY SCHMITT;Gary Schmitt is executive director of the Project for the New American Century
