In his autobiography, Brian Urquhart reflected on his failure in 1944 as chief intelligence officer of the British Airborne Division to prevent what he saw would be the disaster of the allied operation at Arnhem, in the Netherlands. He accepted that as a young man he could not expect to change a plan approved by political leaders and the military top brass, trusting too much that a rational argument supported by facts would carry the day.
“This, of course, is nonsense. Once a group of people have made up their minds on something, it develops a life and momentum of its own which is almost impervious to reason or argument.”
The experience made him sceptical about leaders: “I never again could quite be convinced that great enterprises would go as planned or turn out well, or that wisdom and principle were a match for vanity and ambition.”
It also perhaps contributed to his subsequent determination to be an effective UN peacekeeper.
