St John's College - Reasoning and Articulation!

This was sent to me by Chris Nelson, President of St John's College - Annapolis Campus and on whose Board of Visitors I served for nine years.

I did not attend St John's but wish I had.

For those who may not know, St John's teaches the "Great Books" begun by Maynard Hutchins and Professor Adler at the Univ. of Chicago, as its course curriculum,. The school is the third oldest college in America and has two campuses. The second is in Santa Fe. Students can interchange at their will because the same curriculum is taught at both campuses.

St John's enrollment is in the 400 plus range at each campus. SAT's are not required, a visit is useful and self-selection is how most students find their way there. A love of reading and discourse is a plus. The Socratic method of teaching is employed and seminars are a prime example of their style of imparting knowledge.

The professors are called Tutors because they too learn from the Johnnies and discussions. Though many faculty write, St John's is not a publish or perish school.

St John's is not for everyone but if their academic philosophy and methods were more widespread we would have a better educated and a more reasoning society and I daresay, those currently protesting on Wall Street would either not be there or would at least know why they were there and be more articulate in making their case.

Johnnie graduates mostly go into teaching and law but their post college career interest runs the gamut.(See 1 below.)
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This response to my previous memo for a friend and fellow memo reader: "
Dick: I've been recruiting C-suite execs and board members for almost 30 years, and your take is spot on. My real concern surrounds the lack of real 'skin' most CEOs actually have in today's game. We're encouraged by the increasing utilization of claw back clauses, and the more rational eye being used to evaluate/hire board members. However, given a sip from the golden chalice, these folks are universally disinclined to return to a Styrofoam cup.
Larry"
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This also sent to me by a dear friend, solid investor and fellow memo reader. It is ironic that what my friend has sent is about Jobs on jobs! (See 2 below)
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The perfect Republican candidate would have the charm of Romney, the humor of Cain, the feisty pugilism of Perry, the common sense of Paul , the fertile mind and ability to articulate of Gingrich, the decency of Santorum and the tenacity of Bachmann.

That said any of the above would be preferable to what we have in Obama - arrogance, self-pity, childish, churlish, disingenuos and incompetent.
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No sooner had I written about corporate executives, directors, and their outrageous compensation in my previous memo then I came upon and read this article. (See 3 below.)
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Another very dear friend, fellow memo reader and Sharon's cousin sent this article to me. (See 4 below.)
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One more response from a very bright and well informed family member and memo reader re my latest writing: "Agree with your comments on corporate America. The transition happened as you outlined.

In nearly all cases they were to counter new legislation some of which was necessary but when the regs. were written they were totally affected by the ABA or Individual politically protected interest groups not in the interest of the country as a nation.

We can all agree in life there is one thing which is constant...Change. Totally agree Obama must be defeated for the sake of the America the majority of its citizens believe in. Also the well being of the population of the world.

I had read the Ron Paul article it makes sense to me but I don't know enough about the other side of the argument..."
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Dick
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1)The Worden Report
Markets, Politics, Ethics, and Religion

Thinking Outside the Box: St. John’s College

St. John’s College, in Annapolis, Maryland, is a counter-example swimming up-stream against the American proclivity toward every greater specialization, even in academia. Dr. Anthony Grafton, president of the American Historical Association evinces this approach in observing, “There’s no question that people are becoming more specialized—it’s natural for scholars to cover a narrow field in great depth rather than many at the same time.” Yet at the same time, he says he admires the approach of St. John’s.


As the college’s president, Chris Nelson, castigates specialization in noting that if the faculty members “were cubby-holed into a specialization, they’d think that they know more than they do. That usually is an impediment to learning. Learning is born of ignorance.” Indeed, I have suffered many a scholar in the grips of his or her specialization displaying superciliously (like a female peacock) the ease with which they know everything in a carefully-delimited (or truncated) topic. Their tone is typically that of infallibility—meaning that it is simply not possible for them to learn anything more about their specialty. Dr. Nelson may have been onto something, even if it seems so counter-intuitive to the typical American scholar, but this is perhaps the point—namely, that specializing effectively turns a scholar into a technician of sorts, rendering him or her as typical, banal, and perhaps even dreadfully boring.

St. John’s College turns specialization on its head, as any given professor could be teaching a course that he or she had not studied since high school or the “gen ed” requirements in college. As Alan Schwarz remarks in his piece in The New York Times, “As much of academia fractures into ever more specific disciplines, this tiny college still expects—in fact, requires—its professors to teach almost every subject, leveraging ignorance as much as expertise.” While adding a little ignorance to the mix facilitates motivation in teaching (after all, who wants to come off as an idiot?), I think the operative dynamic is not one of ignorance or expertise.

I contend that while disciplines may seem disparate (unrelated), connections can nonetheless be made between them in a way that adds intellectual depth and beauty to knowledge. In his article in the Times, Alan Schwarz provides some fodder. Specifically, he points out that in a course on Euclid, a discussion of “halves of equals are equals themselves” evoked the U.S. Supreme Court’s logic in Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but equal). The eventual braiding of the two seemingly disparate disciplines of geometry and jurisprudence was well on its way in that class discussion. In a physics course, students discussed Newton’s shrinking parabolic areas as though they were voting districts, and the limits of curves as social ideals. Schwarz observes that a “harmony of Tocqueville was being laid over Newton’s melody.” Schwarz’s use of terms from music theory reminds me that when I theorize a piece stretching over seemingly disparate disciplines of theory, the essay almost resembles the quality of a symphony wherein strains of different length can simultaneously be heard yet they are related. Wind, string and percussion retain their own distinctive sounds and melodies (of various lengths) while altogether these instruments evoke something in line with the harmony of the spheres (i.e., Plato’s justice—mathematical/musical harmony within and between the heavenly spheres, polis’s and psyches—and between the three). It is not surprising, therefore, that Dr. Michael Dink, a philosopher at St. John’s, has taught a course on planetary movements and another on atomic theory. Plato would say, Right on! That’s my theory of justice you are studying!

To make connections that would be missed by scholars teaching only in their respective disciplines, it is necessary for the scholar to have undergone a curriculum of a sufficient broadness and of a sufficient duration. This is a tall order, for the scholar must also have studied his or her own discipline sufficiently to see the forest for the trees. The pedestrian academic, particularly in the American tradition wherein specialization (from labor) is sacrosanct, is not apt to be able to make the connections necessary to fruitfully teach outside his or her discipline. Beyond the quantity of knowledge a scholar has learned is the matter of intellectual perspective that invariably must inform a scholar’s pedagogical approach. For example, in Dr. Sarah Benson’s course on Euclid, “discussion centered not on examples and exercises, but on the disciplined narrative of Euclid’s assertions, the aesthetic economy of mathematical argument.” I would wager that the vast majority of college instructors, lecturers and professors in the U.S. are oriented to rote examples and exercises, possibly even conflating work with study (e.g., a grade as compensation for effort rather than as a measurement of knowledge). This last point itself can be taken as illustrating the link between trans-discipline connections and disciplines one has studied (i.e., the need for breadth and that the connections seen depend on the specific disciplines studied).

Because I have studied the fields of business and society and pedagogy, I can view them as intersecting at the problem of conflating work (from business) with study (distinctly academic). To make this connection from the education side, my study of pedagogy must have gone beyond the repetitive exercise of constructing one lesson plan after another. Similarly, my study of business & society must have gone beyond stakeholder management to gain a sense of how values in business have encroached on societal values—remaking them in their own image. From this background, I could teach a course on pedagogy even though I have no degrees in education. Even so, having gone beyond one own discipline in one’s studies is not sufficient to make trans-discipline connections; one must also have been exposed to what academics call the “so what” question applied to one’s field. In other words, the professors at St. John’s were probably taught in a certain perspective that can be summed up as: Don’t sweat the little things that most scholars in your field take as vital. To get this insight, one cannot go to just any university for graduate school. You’re not going to get it at a regional public university in Illinois, for instance, as those schools are punctuated by pedestrian academics who regard themselves as good simply by virtue of having specialized the most (assuming infallibly that specialization is a virtue, by the way).

I remember the standard Calculus courses I struggled through in pursuing my first college degree (at a state’s flagship university, which, in retrospect, was very pedestrian yet haughty nonetheless). The regime in the math courses was that of learning formulas by doing exercises. I finally got the formulas down, but this did not include understanding what a derivative means. To this day, I cannot answer why a given change in acceleration is worthy of being mapped on a graph or how it looks in watching a car, but I know that the derivative of x2 is 2x because I remember the formula decades later because I had done the exercises, over and over. Did I learn mathematics? I’m not so sure. More likely, I was self-disciplined and mastered the routine. Is mathematics simply the manipulation of symbols according to rules? One might ask, moreover, whether understanding itself is just the manipulation of symbols according to rules. If so, then computers are capable of understanding, but if not, then learning by relating seemingly disparate disciplines may be more academic—meaning being in line with understanding—than is beating a specialty to death.

In his article, Alan Schwarz emphasizes the collaborative-learning model, which he claims is served by mitigating the professor’s knowledge in a given course. Interlarding a professor with ignorance has the effect of introducing equality, and thus discussion in place of lecture. This interpretation is faulty, however, as it risks obfuscating teacher with pupil, with the class sessions groping along as if in the dark because the transfer of knowledge is practically vitiated. While some student-led exploration of knowledge is of value in any class, the collaboration should give way to the professor, who is still—by virtue of his or her more-practiced use of reason and further extent of studies (including some breadth)—better able to pull together the symphony of connections, This is, after all, what makes St. John’s approach viable. It is not that knowledge springs just as well out of ignorance; rather, it is a sort of macro knowledge that is sought: the making of—and the content of—connections between seemingly disparate disciplines in the faith that adding depth to any given knowledge is of value intellectually. This, in a nutshell, is or should be the core of St. John’s College. A number of cautions or caveats should be mentioned.

First, the approach is not something that most academics (and students) can accomplish, given their educational backgrounds (i.e., from having had mediocre teachers). I would say St. John’s approach is on the high end of higher education, and so it is not advisable to apply it much further down the food chain. Secondly, the connections should not be allowed to eclipse the knowledge in the field being taught (i.e., don’t put the cart before the horse). Relatedly, the professor (and students) should take care to focus on connections that involve disciplines they have studied. Even in teaching a course on a subject that the professor must learn right along with the students, the professor can steer the ship by leveraging connections having to do with subjects he or she has studied. My main areas of study, for example, have been in business (bus ethics, IB, org’l studies, leadership, corp governance, bus & govt, CSR, accounting, bus history, finance), political theory, historical ethics, philosophy of religion, historical theology, and religious studies (which is itself informed by various social sciences and the humanities), as well as (i.e., less so) history, European studies, U.S. constitutional law, and education. Were I to teach a course in math at a college with St. John’s College’s approach, I would definitely be looking to those areas I have studied, rather than to others, such as engineering (which I am allergic to). Relatedly, in selecting news articles on which to write essays for my blog, I screen with the disciplines I have most studied being very much in mind, rather than simply opining on any news article I happen to see. Within my areas, I still hold back until I have a distinctive insight (rather than merely repeating more of the same that’s out there). The same applies to teaching at the college level, at least ideally, which is why students take professors rather than subjects per se.

The classrooms at St. John’s College need not be reduced to exchanges of opinions in the absence of anchoring knowledge. At the very least, the professors there teaching even well outside their native fauna can guide the anchoring, if not suggest some strong connections based on what they have studied. In other words, St. John’s College evinces the adage that in signing up for a course, one is really taking the professor. This adage is academia at its finest, if the professor is fit to transcend “examples and exercises” and can see (and value!) the forest while having a solid knowledge of the fauna. The higher level involved reflects the professor having a strong desire to learn based on a love of knowledge (philosophia)—theory having its own, sui generis, sort of beauty whose value lies in being constructed and admired rather than necessarily used. Ultimately, college is about being in that world, wherein its sort of insight can naturally percolate up to the surface. This is why the best scholars would not resist teaching outside their native fauna; the best simply enjoy learning, simple as that. Moreover, college is not about trying to turn its own distinctive realm (and its values) into another, such as business. St. John’s College runs little risk of losing its way.

Source:

Alan Schwarz, “College’s Faculty Is Packed With Scholars, but Experts Need Not Apply,” The New York Times, October 17, 2011.
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2) Jobs' Meeting With Obama

Jobs, who was known for his prickly, stubborn personality, almost missed meeting President Obama in the fall of 2010 because he insisted that the president personally ask him for a meeting. Though his wife told him that Obama "was really psyched to meet with you," Jobs insisted on the personal invitation, and the standoff lasted for five days. When he finally relented and they met at the Westin San Francisco Airport , Jobs was characteristically blunt. He seemed to have transformed from a liberal into a conservative.

"You're headed for a one-term presidency," he told Obama at the start of their meeting, insisting that the administration needed to be more business-friendly. As an example, Jobs described the ease with which companies can build factories in China compared to the United States , where "regulations and unnecessary costs" make it difficult for them.

Jobs also criticized America 's education system, saying it was "crippled by union work rules," noted Isaacson. "Until the teachers' unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform." Jobs proposed allowing principals to hire and fire teachers based on merit, that schools stay open until 6 p.m. and that they be open 11 months a year.

Aiding Obama's Reelection Campaign

Jobs suggested that Obama meet six or seven other CEOs who could express the needs of innovative businesses -- but when White House aides added more names to the list, Jobs insisted that it was growing too big and that "he had no intention of coming." In preparation for the dinner, Jobs exhibited his notorious attention to detail, telling venture capitalist John Doerr that the menu of shrimp, cod and lentil salad was "far too fancy" and objecting to a chocolate truffle dessert. But he was overruled by the White House, which cited the president's fondness for cream pie.

Though Jobs was not that impressed by Obama, later telling Isaacson that his focus on the reasons that things can't get done "infuriates" him, they kept in touch and talked by phone a few more times. Jobs even offered to help create Obama's political ads for the 2012 campaign. "He had made the same offer in 2008, but he'd become annoyed when Obama's strategist David Axelrod wasn't totally deferential," writes Isaacson. Jobs later told the author that he wanted to do for Obama what the legendary "morning in America " ads did for Ronald Reagan.
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3)Dennis Kozlowski Talks Jail, Pay
By JOANN S. LUBLIN


As convicted hedge-fund manager Raj Rajaratnam gets ready to enter the prison system, L. Dennis Kozlowski, a poster child for the last wave of corporate scandals, is hoping he'll soon get out.

In a wide-ranging exclusive prison interview, former Tyco International CEO L. Dennis Kozlowski described his next job following his possible parole in April and missteps that caused his 2005 conviction. Joann Lublin has details on The News Hub.
.The former chief executive of Tyco International Ltd. was found guilty in 2005 of looting his employer and sentenced to as much as a quarter century behind bars. Now, he's suing New York state to win work release and awaiting his first parole hearing in April.

Meanwhile, Mr. Kozlowski looks out—across razor wire made by Tyco—at a world where the stumbling economy and scorn heaped on big business have a familiar feel.

Once one of America's highest paid CEOs, the 64-year-old felon acknowledges he got "piggy" when it came to his pay. And he says he shares the outrage over corporate greed expressed by the Occupy Wall Street protesters, many of whom wonder why the recent financial crisis didn't send as many executives to prison as the scandals of a decade ago. "I understand their frustration," Mr. Kozlowski said in an interview in a visitors' room here at the Mid-State Correctional Facility.

Kozlowski On: Jail food: "Everything is bad about the food. It's mysterious. By the time it gets to us, it's cold.''

His expected salary during work-release: "I would be satisfied with minimum wage.''
Why rich men's toys no longer appeal to him: "I have learned how little I can live with…. There are no shower curtains here.''

The former executive, who pulled in a pay package worth more than $105 million in fiscal 2000, criticized ailing financial firms for paying out sizable executive bonuses after they were helped by taxpayer bailouts. "That's indefensible," he said.

Mr. Kozlowski also discussed his post-prison plans, his meetings with General Electric Co. CEO Jeff Immelt about possibly combining their companies, and the missteps that led him to prison.

Mr. Kozlowski was found guilty in June 2005 on 22 of 23 counts, including grand larceny, conspiracy and securities fraud, stemming from giant bonuses and other improper compensation he got as Tyco's CEO.

He received a sentence of 8 1/3 years to 25 years, compared with 25 years for former WorldCom CEO Bernard J. Ebbers and 24 for former Enron President Jeffrey Skilling. In seeking the maximum sentence, Assistant District Attorney Owen Heimer called Mr. Kozlowski's crimes "unprecedented" and said he made Tyco a "symbol of kleptocratic management."

Mr. Kozlowski hopes to take a work-release job with Access Technologies Group Inc., a small company in New Canaan, Conn., whose services include job-search training for ex-convicts. But New York state has turned down his request for work release four times.

He's suing to overturn the decision and chafes that Mark H. Swartz, the former Tyco finance chief convicted of similar crimes, already has such a job. The New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision confirmed that Mr. Swartz started a Manhattan work-release assignment in late September but declined to comment on Mr. Kozlowski's request. An attorney for Mr. Swartz declined to comment.

Dennis Kozlowski, shown on the left in 2001 near the height of his success at Tyco, and, right, in a visitors' room Monday at the Mid-State Correctional Facility where he has been since 2006.
.If his suit fails, Mr. Kozlowski will become eligible for parole in August, with a first hearing in April. Lucy Baney, who heads Access, said Mr. Kozlowski can take his senior-management post at the company during work release or on parole.

Mr. Kozlowski said he believes he was treated more harshly than other convicted former executives. "My sentence is the same as people who brought down Enron and WorldCom," he said. While those companies disappeared, "Tyco investors have enjoyed living off a lot of the assets that were accumulated by the management team that I had in place."

Some ex-prosecutors believe shareholders benefit from convicted executives' harsh sentences. Lengthy sentences "act as a deterrent because people don't want to face the possibility of going to jail," said Bart Schwartz, a former criminal-division chief in the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan who now chairs Guidepost Solutions, a corporate compliance, monitoring and investigations firm.

As Tyco chief, Mr. Kozlowski lived well. His opulent, company-funded apartment, with its $6,000 shower curtain, became synonymous with corporate excess. He said it was also where he and GE's Mr. Immelt conferred in November 2001 and January 2002. An investment banker arranged the meetings for the CEOs "to talk about the possibility of putting Tyco and GE together," Mr. Kozlowski said.

The chats about the unlikely combination never got beyond the exploratory stage, Mr. Kozlowski said. A GE spokesman declined to comment.

Mr. Kozlowski pursued a freewheeling acquisition strategy during the 1990s, estimating he completed nearly 200 takeovers. Less aggressive growth would have been a wiser course, he said. "We were running too fast."

The deposed Tyco chief also wishes he had chosen more seasoned people for his top team. "The lack of documentation was the key" in his conviction for taking unauthorized compensation, he said. "We needed somebody to rein us in and say all these things need better documentation."

Mr. Kozlowski's lack of remorse bothers Wendy Lane, a Tyco director from April 2000 to March 2003. "It continues to amaze me that he doesn't accept responsibility for his crimes," Ms. Lane said Thursday.

Tyco is still fighting in court to claw back money doled out to Mr. Kozlowski. The company had sought disgorgement of at least $505.8 million, and a judge last year ordered him to forfeit compensation and benefits awarded over nearly seven years starting in September 1995. Paul Fitzhenry, a Tyco spokesman, said the precise figure the company has sought is under seal. Mr. Kozlowski failed in his attempt to appeal the ruling immediately.

When he headed Tyco, Mr. Kozlowski owned three pricey houses, two aircraft and the classic racing yacht Endeavor. He sold everything except his Florida residence, he said, to cover the $90 million in restitution he paid to Tyco and a $70 million fine levied by New York state.

In prison, the former CEO has worked his way up from serving food and cleaning bathroom floors to picking up, doing and delivering laundry. He makes 80 cents a day. "There's no pay for performance here," he joked, clad in green fatigues and nearly 25 pounds lighter than during his Tyco days.

His 8-by-10-foot cell, previously used for solitary confinement, contains a steel shelf, mattress, sink and toilet, and 24/7 lights, which makes sleep difficult. "The food is awful," he said. Mr. Kozlowski is allowed to venture outside briefly each day to a small caged area, but he avoids it because other inmates' cigarette smoke bothers him.

Once he leaves prison and joins Access, the former CEO hopes to set up a manufacturing facility that would mainly employ former convicts and military veterans. He said he has sounded out several former Tyco colleagues and others about investing in a New York-area plant.What would it produce? "Inexpensive shower curtains," he quipped.
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4)Six Years After a Debilitating Stroke, Sharon Remains Responsive, His Son Says
By ETHAN BRONNER

Ariel Sharon, who suffered a debilitating stroke nearly six years ago while serving as prime minister of Israel and remains in a coma-like state, responds to some requests and, despite being fed intravenously, has put on weight, according to his son Gilad Sharon.

“When he is awake, he looks at me and moves fingers when I ask him to,” Mr. Sharon said in a telephone interview. “I am sure he hears me.”

Details of Mr. Sharon’s health and status have been closely guarded by the family. His son agreed to discuss the matter as he prepares to publicize a biography of his father that he has finished after four and a half years.

Titled “Sharon: The Life of a Leader,” and due out Tuesday in Hebrew and English, the book says of the famously stout former general: “He lies in bed, looking like the lord of the manor, sleeping tranquilly. Large, strong, self assured. His cheeks are a healthy shade of red. When he’s awake, he looks out with a penetrating stare. He hasn’t lost a single pound; on the contrary, he’s gained some.”

A year ago Mr. Sharon, who is 83, was transferred from a hospital outside Tel Aviv to the family ranch in southern Israel. But Gilad Sharon said that the stay was brief and that his father was returned to the hospital, where he had remained. He hopes that in the coming year his father will come home permanently.

“The problem is Israeli bureaucracy,” Mr. Sharon said. “I think it would be better for him to be at home.” He added that his father had been visited every day since his stroke either by him, his wife, Inbal, or his brother Omri. “We haven’t missed a single day,” he added.

He said that in recent times there had been no improvement in his father’s condition.

The book asserts that doctors and nurses urged the family to let Mr. Sharon die after his stroke in January 2006 because, as it paraphrases one doctor as saying, “Based on the CT scan, the game was over.” The Sharon brothers would not hear of it and insisted on an operation and other efforts to keep their father alive.

“I told them about a dream I had had many years ago,” Mr. Sharon recounts in the book, speaking of his discussions with the medical staff of Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem. “In that dream I was with my father in the hospital. He was lying in bed, surrounded by medical staff, and they had all either given up or lost hope and were about to leave, and my father didn’t say a thing, but he stared at me with this look, with those green-gray eyes of his, and I knew I would never give up, and that I simply would not leave him. This was a dream I had when my father was healthy and strong and the scenario was completely divorced from reality. I did not tell a soul about the dream at the time, but now I shared it with them and my fear that it was happening now and that I would never be able to forgive myself if we did not fight to the end.”

While it has long been assumed in Israel that Mr. Sharon was kept alive due to his sons’ insistence, the book offers the first public acknowledgment and detail of the decision. Mr. Sharon was widowed twice, and his sons are in charge of his farm and his care.

Gilad Sharon adds in the book that while he insisted on not letting his father die more out of instinct and sentiment, it turned out he also had medicine on his side: the CT scan had been misread. Doctors acknowledged after the operation that his father was healthier than they had realized, according to Mr. Sharon.

Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister in 2001 and was at the height of his power when he had the stroke. Having spent his career as a hawk and a champion of the settler movement — amply documented in the new biography — he shocked his political base by removing Israeli settlers and soldiers from Gaza only months earlier, in the summer of 2005. He then left his political home in the rightist Likud party and established the centrist party, Kadima.


In the book, Gilad Sharon says he gave his father the idea of Israel’s unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza, saying that it had become impossible to protect the Jewish settlers there adequately and that most Israelis did not want to pay the price to keep the territory.

Two months after Mr. Sharon’s stroke, his deputy, Ehud Olmert, was elected prime minister.

Gilad Sharon, who was a confidant of his father’s and had access to his private papers, is not kind to his father’s longtime rival Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister and Likud leader. Mr. Sharon says in the book that in 1997 Mr. Netanyahu promised to make his father finance minister but then reneged.

“Netanyahu summoned my father to a meeting in his office,” he writes. “Standing at the entrance to the room and putting an end to the shortest meeting in the history of the prime minister’s office, my father said to Netanyahu, ‘A liar you were and a liar you have remained.’ ” (Mr. Netanyahu’s office denied that Mr. Sharon said that.)

Recounting his father’s decision to withdraw from Gaza, Mr. Sharon says that Mr. Netanyahu — who was by then his father’s finance minister — hesitated and demanded that the withdrawal be subject to a referendum. Mr. Sharon refused, and Mr. Netanyahu walked out of Parliament as the vote on the withdrawal was taking place. At the end, according to the book, Mr. Netanyahu returned to the floor and voted in favor.

“This was a true manifestation of Netanyahu’s character,” Gilad Sharon writes. “Not only was he subversive, but he was also a coward.”

A spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu’s office said, “Gilad Sharon has a long history of being highly critical of Prime Minister Netanyahu, and these charges are neither new nor surprising.” The spokesman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, added that the parliamentary vote in question was a procedural one and that when the real decision about the Gaza withdrawal took place the following summer, Mr. Netanyahu voted against it and left the government.

Gilad Sharon joined the opposition Kadima Party last year and is thought to be interested in entering politics. He said, however, that having just finished the book, he was still contemplating his next step.
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