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For much the same uplift have people always foraged for the small, personal glimmers in the lives of the powerful. Several U.S. Presidents endeared themselves to the public through their pastimes: Ike's golf, Kennedy's touch football, Truman's piano playing. Hoover took to fishing and throwing a medicine ball, though not at the same time. Nixon had no hobbies to speak of, unless one counts the knotting of one's ties. The most interesting pastimes were those of Calvin Coolidge, who reportedly took pleasure in the mechanical horse and pitching hay. The former probably delimited the demands of the latter.
Dictators' pastimes are far more striking because they often contrast with the rulers' normal behavior. Nero, no fiddler incidentally, did play the lyre and sing to vast, appreciative audiences. Hitler was a painter who started out doing postcard-size works of art and, as his career improved, worked his way up to large water-colors of wartime destruction: rubble, crumbled walls, caved-in roofs. Eventually he created his own subjects, a rare chance for an artist. According to his lackey, the featherbrained Putzi Hanfstaengl, Hitler also adored whistling. His best numbers were Harvard fight songs, which Putzi, a Harvard alumnus, would thump on the piano whenever the Fiihrer was in a frisky mood. After the war, whenever Putzi was asked what Hitler was like, he never failed to marvel how that man could whistle.
Sometimes a leader's pastimes imitate the way he governs. In his great biography of Stalin, Adam Ulam surmises that Stalin's sadism and recreation were allied. Stalin reveled in all-male, all-night banquets populated by middle-aged cronies drinking themselves witless and engaging in practical jokes. Among Stalin's favorites were placing a tomato on a chair about to be sat in and pushing friends into ponds. One can only imagine the hilarity and camaraderie at such occasions. One can also imagine the recognition on the faces of Stalin's former drinking buddies when at the purge trials they beheld the old zany spirit dancing in their master's eyes.
Among modern leaders, Muammar Gaddafi is called a man of simple tastes who spends days alone in meditation on the desert, when he is not threatening to blow up the world. What Indira Gandhi does for fun is not generally known. As for the absent Idi Amin, his pastimes were said to run to the wild side, what with his peculiar way of making enemies an internal issue. Amin has been known to show a light heart, however, and has played the accordion at dances. It would be a sad end to so carefree a hobby if Amin were now discovered because someone happened to overhear Lady of Spain. Still, the mind is cheered by the image of Amin on his accordion, Nero on his lyre, Hitler whistling away. Where a band like this would play offers problems, but its repertoire would surely include I've Gotta Be Me.