title: Georges Clemenceau

text: In 1880, Clemenceau started his newspaper, "La Justice", which became the principal organ of Parisian Radicalism. From this time, throughout the presidency of Jules Grévy (1879–1887), he became widely known as a political critic and destroyer of ministries ("le Tombeur de ministères") who avoided taking office himself. Leading the far left in the Chamber of Deputies, he was an active opponent of the colonial policy of Prime Minister Jules Ferry, which he opposed on moral grounds and also as a form of diversion from the more important goal of "Revenge against Germany" for the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine after the Franco-Prussian War. In 1885, his criticism of the conduct of the Sino-French War contributed strongly to the fall of the Ferry cabinet that year.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: During the French legislative elections of 1885, he advocated a strong radical programme and was returned both for his old seat in Paris and for the Var, district of Draguignan. He chose to represent the latter in the Chamber of Deputies. Refusing to form a ministry to replace the one he had overthrown, he supported the right in keeping Prime Minister Charles de Freycinet in power in 1886 and was responsible for the inclusion of Georges Ernest Boulanger in the Freycinet cabinet as war minister. When General Boulanger revealed himself as an ambitious pretender, Clemenceau withdrew his support and became a vigorous opponent of the heterogeneous Boulangist movement, although the radical press continued to patronize the general.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: By his exposure of the Wilson scandal, and by his personal plain speaking, Clemenceau contributed largely to the resignation of Jules Grévy from the presidency of France in 1887. He had declined Grévy's request to form a cabinet upon the downfall of the cabinet of Maurice Rouvier by advising his followers not to vote for Charles Floquet, Jules Ferry, nor Charles de Freycinet, Clemenceau was primarily responsible for the election of an "outsider", Marie François Sadi Carnot, as president.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: The split in the Radical Party over Boulangism weakened his hand and its collapse meant that moderate republicans did not need his help. A further misfortune occurred in the Panama affair, as Clemenceau's relations with the businessman and politician Cornelius Herz led to his being included in the general suspicion. In response to accusations of corruption levelled by the nationalist politician Paul Déroulède, Clemenceau fought a duel with him on 23 December 1892. Six shots were discharged, but neither participant was injured.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Clemenceau remained the leading spokesman for French radicalism, but his hostility to the Franco-Russian Alliance so increased his unpopularity that in the French legislative elections of 1893, he was defeated for his seat in the Chamber of Deputies after having held it continuously since 1876.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: For nearly a decade after his 1893 defeat, Clemenceau confined his political activities to journalism. His career was further clouded by the long-drawn-out Dreyfus case, in which he took an active part as a supporter of Émile Zola and an opponent of the anti-Semitic and nationalist campaigns. In all, during the affair Clemenceau published 665 articles defending Dreyfus.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: On 13 January 1898, Clemenceau published Émile Zola's "J'Accuse...!" on the front page of the Paris daily newspaper, "L'Aurore", of which he was owner and editor. He decided to run the controversial article that would become a famous part of the Dreyfus Affair in the form of an open letter to Félix Faure, the president of France.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: In 1900, he withdrew from "La Justice" to found a weekly review, "Le Bloc", to which he practically was the sole contributor. The publication of "Le Bloc" lasted until 15 March 1902. On 6 April 1902, he was elected senator for the Var district of Draguignan, although he had previously called for the suppression of the French Senate, as he considered it a strong-house of conservatism. He served as the senator for Draguignan until 1920.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Clemenceau sat with the Independent Radicals in the Senate and moderated his positions, although he still vigorously supported the Radical-Socialist ministry of Prime Minister Émile Combes, who spearheaded the anti-clericalist republican struggle. In June 1903, he undertook the direction of "L'Aurore", the journal that he had founded. In it, he led the campaign to revisit the Dreyfus affair and to create a separation of church and state in France. The latter was implemented by the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: In March 1906, the ministry of Maurice Rouvier fell as a result of civil disturbances provoked by the implementation of the law on the separation of church and state and the victory of radicals in the French legislative elections of 1906. The new government of Ferdinand Sarrien appointed Clemenceau as minister of the interior in the cabinet. On a domestic level, Clemenceau reformed the French police forces and ordered repressive policies toward the workers movement. He supported the formation of scientific police by Alphonse Bertillon and founded the "Brigades mobiles" (French for "mobile squads") led by Célestin Hennion. These squads were nicknamed "Brigades du Tigre" ("The Tiger's Brigades") after Clemenceau, who was nicknamed "The Tiger".


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: The miners strike in the Pas de Calais after the Courrières mine disaster, which resulted in the death of more than one thousand persons, threatened widespread disorder on 1 May 1906. Clemenceau ordered the military against the strikers and repressed the wine growers strike in the Languedoc-Roussillon. His actions alienated the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) socialist party, from which he definitively broke in his notable reply in the Chamber of Deputies to Jean Jaurès, leader of the SFIO, in June 1906. Clemenceau's speech positioned him as the strong man of the day in French politics; when the Sarrien ministry resigned in October, Clemenceau became premier.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: After a proposal by the deputy Paul Dussaussoy for limited women's suffrage in local elections, Clemenceau published a pamphlet in 1907 in which he declared that if women were given the vote France would return to the Middle Ages.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: As the revolt of the Languedoc winegrowers developed Clemenceau at first dismissed the complaints, then sent in troops to keep the peace in June 1907.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: During 1907 and 1908, he led the development of a new "Entente cordiale" with Britain, which gave France a successful role in European politics. Difficulties with Germany and criticism by the Socialist party in connection with the handling of the First Moroccan Crisis in 1905–06 were settled at the Algeciras Conference.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Clemenceau was defeated on 20 July 1909 in a discussion in the Chamber of Deputies on the state of the navy, in which bitter words he exchanged with Théophile Delcassé, the former president of the Council whose downfall Clemenceau had aided. Refusing to respond to Delcassé's technical questions, Clemenceau resigned after his proposal for the order of the day vote was rejected. He was succeeded as premier by Aristide Briand, with a reconstructed cabinet.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Between 1909 and 1912, Clemenceau dedicated his time to travel, conferences, and the treatment of his illness. He went to South America in 1910, traveling to Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina (where he went as far as Santa Ana (Tucuman) in northwest Argentina). There, he was amazed by the influence of French culture and of the French Revolution on local elites.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: He published the first issue of the "Journal du Var" on 10 April 1910. Three years later, on 6 May 1913, he founded "L'Homme libre" ("The Free Man") newspaper in Paris, for which he wrote a daily editorial. In these media, Clemenceau focused increasingly on foreign policy and condemned the anti-militarism of the Socialists.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: At the outbreak of World War I in France in August 1914, Clemenceau's newspaper was one of the first to be censored by the government. It was suspended from 29 September 1914 to 7 October. In response, Clemenceau changed the newspaper's name to "L'Homme enchaîné" ("The Chained Man") and criticized the government for its lack of transparency and its ineffectiveness, while defending the patriotic "union sacrée" against the German Empire.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: In spite of the censorship imposed by the French government on Clemenceau's journalism at the beginning of World War I, he still wielded considerable political influence. As soon as the war started, Clemenceau advised Interior Minister Malvy to invoke Carnet B, a list of known and suspected subversives who were supposed to be arrested upon mobilisation, in order to prevent the collapse of popular support for a war effort. The Prefect of Police gave the same advice, but the government did not follow it. In the end, 80% of the 2,501 people listed on Carnet B as subversives volunteered for service. In autumn 1914, Clemenceau declined to join the government of national unity as justice minister.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: He suggested transportation of T. G. Masaryk's Czechoslovak Legion from Russia to France s. c. "North trip" (by North sea) as first (the first realization 15 October 1917 from Archangelsk).


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: He was a vehement critic of the wartime French government, asserting that it was not doing enough to win the war. His stance was driven by a will to regain the province of Alsace-Lorraine, a view shared by public opinion. The autumn of 1917 saw the disastrous Italian defeat at the Battle of Caporetto, the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia, and rumours that former Prime Minister Joseph Caillaux and Interior Minister Louis Malvy might have engaged in treason. Prime Minister Paul Painlevé was inclined to open negotiations with Germany. Clemenceau argued that even German restitution of Alsace-Lorraine and the liberation of Belgium would not be enough to justify France abandoning her allies. This forced Alexandre Ribot and Aristide Briand (both the previous two prime ministers, of whom the latter was by far the more powerful politician who had been approached by a German diplomat) to agree in public that there would be no separate peace. For many years, Clemenceau was blamed for having blocked a possible compromise peace, but it is now clear from examination of German documents that Germany had no serious intention of handing over Alsace-Lorraine. The prominence of his opposition made him the best known critic and the last man standing when the others had failed. ""Messieurs, les Allemands sont toujours à Noyon"" (Gentlemen, the Germans are still at Noyon) wrote Clemenceau's paper endlessly.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: In November 1917, at one of the darkest hours for the French war effort in World War I, Clemenceau was appointed to the prime ministership. Unlike his predecessors, he discouraged internal disagreement and called for peace among the senior politicians.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Clemenceau governed from the Ministry of War on Rue Saint-Dominique. Almost his first act as prime minister was to relieve General Maurice Sarrail from his command of the Salonika front. This was the main topic of discussion at the first meeting of the war committee on 6 December, at which Clemenceau stated, "Sarrail cannot remain there". The reason for Sarrail's dismissal was his links with the socialist politicians Joseph Caillaux and Louis Malvy (at that time suspected of treasonable contacts with the Germans)


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Churchill later wrote that Clemenceau "looked like a wild animal pacing to and fro behind bars" in front of "an assembly which would have done anything to avoid putting him there, but, having put him there, felt they must obey".


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: When Clemenceau became prime minister in 1917 victory seemed to be elusive. There was little activity on the western front because it was believed that there should be limited attacks until the American support arrived. At this time, Italy was on the defensive, Russia virtually had stopped fighting – and it was believed (correctly – Treaty of Brest-Litovsk) that they would be making a separate peace with Germany. At home, the government had to deal with increasing demonstrations against the war, a scarcity of resources, and air raids that were causing huge physical damage to Paris as well as undermining the morale of its citizens. It also was believed that many politicians secretly wanted peace. It was a challenging situation for Clemenceau; after years of criticizing other men during the war, he suddenly found himself in a position of supreme power. He was isolated politically, however. He did not have close links with any parliamentary leaders (especially after he had antagonized them so relentlessly during the course of the war) and so, had to rely on himself and his own circle of friends.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Clemenceau's assumption of power meant little to the men in the trenches at first. They thought of him as "just another politician", and the monthly assessment of troop morale found that only a minority found comfort in his appointment. Slowly, however, as time passed, the confidence he inspired in a few, began to grow throughout all the fighting men. They were encouraged by his many visits to the trenches. This confidence began to spread from the trenches to the home front and it was said, "We believed in Clemenceau rather in the way that our ancestors believed in Joan of Arc." After years of criticism against the French army for its conservatism and Catholicism, Clemenceau would need help to get along with the military leaders to achieve a sound strategic plan. He nominated General Henri Mordacq to be his military chief of staff. Mordacq helped to inspire trust and mutual respect from the army to the government which proved essential to the final victory.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Clemenceau also was well received by the media, because they felt that France was in need of strong leadership. It was widely recognized that throughout the war he was never discouraged and never stopped believing that France could achieve total victory. There were skeptics, however, who believed that Clemenceau, like other war-time leaders, would have a short time in office. It was said, "Like everyone else ... Clemenceau will not last long—only long enough to clean up [the war]."


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: As the military situation worsened in early 1918, Clemenceau continued to support the policy of total war – "We present ourselves before you with the single thought of total war" – and the policy of "la guerre jusqu'au bout" (war until the end). His speech of 8 March advocating this policy was so effective that it left a vivid impression on Winston Churchill, who would make similar speeches upon becoming British prime minister in 1940. Clemenceau's war policy encompassed the promise of victory with justice, loyalty to the fighting men, and immediate and severe punishment of crimes against France.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Joseph Caillaux, a former French prime minister, disagreed with Clemenceau's policies. He wanted to surrender to Germany and negotiate a peace, thus Clemenceau viewed Caillaux as a threat to national security. Unlike previous ministers, Clemenceau moved against Caillaux publicly. As a result, a parliamentary committee decided that Caillaux would be arrested and imprisoned for three years. Clemenceau believed, in the words of Jean Ybarnégaray, that Caillaux's crime "was not to have believed in victory [and] to have gambled on his nation's defeat".


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: The arrest of Caillaux and others raised the issue of Clemenceau's harshness, who in turn argued that the only powers he assumed were those necessary for winning the war. The many trials and arrests aroused great public excitement. These trials, far from making the public fear the government, inspired confidence, as the public felt that for the first time in the war, action was being taken and they were being firmly governed. The claims that Clemenceau's "firm government" was a dictatorship found little support. Clemenceau was still held accountable to the people and media. He relaxed censorship on political views as he believed that newspapers had the right to criticize political figures: "The right to insult members of the government is inviolable."


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: In 1918, Clemenceau thought that France should adopt Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, mainly because of its point that called for the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France. This meant that victory would fulfil the war aim that was crucial for the French public. Clemenceau was sceptical about some other points, however, including those concerning the League of Nations, as he believed that the latter could succeed only in a utopian society.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: As war minister, Clemenceau was also in close contact with his generals, but he did not always make the most effective decisions concerning military issues (although he did heed the advice of the more experienced generals). As well as talking strategy with the generals, he also went to the trenches to see the poilus, the French infantrymen. He would speak to them and assure them that their government was looking after them. The poilus had great respect for Clemenceau and his disregard for danger, as he often visited soldiers only yards away from German front lines. The government was worried about the visits of Clemenceau to the front lines, as most of the time he was risking his own life by insulting and threatening the German soldiers in person directly from the trenches. These visits, his speech, and his verbal threats directly to the enemy impressed the soldiers and contributed to Clemenceau's title "Père la Victoire" (Father of Victory).


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: On 21 March 1918, the Germans began their great spring offensive. The allies were caught off guard and a gap was created in the British and French lines that risked handing over access to Paris to the Germans. This defeat cemented Clemenceau's belief, and that of the other allies, that a coordinated, unified command was the best option. It was decided that Ferdinand Foch would be appointed as "generalissimo".


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: The German line continued to advance and Clemenceau believed that the fall of Paris could not be ruled out. Public opinions arose that if "the Tiger", as well as, Foch and Philippe Pétain stayed in power for even another week, France would be lost and that a government headed by Aristide Briand would be beneficial to France, because he would make peace with Germany on advantageous terms. Clemenceau adamantly opposed these opinions and he gave an inspirational speech in the Chamber of Deputies; the chamber subsequently voted their confidence in him by 377 votes to 110.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: As the allied counter-offensives began to push the Germans back, it became clear that the Germans could no longer win the war. Although they still occupied vast amounts of French territory, they did not have sufficient resources and manpower to continue their attack. As countries allied to Germany began to ask for an armistice, it was obvious that Germany would soon follow. On 11 November 1918, an armistice with Germany was signed. Clemenceau was embraced in the streets and attracted many admiring crowds. He was viewed by the French public as a strong, energetic, positive leader who was key to the allied victory of 1918.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: To settle the international political issues left over from the conclusion of World War I, it was decided that a peace conference would be held in Paris, France. Famously, the Treaty of Versailles between Germany and the Allied Powers to conclude the conflict was signed in the Palace of Versailles, but the deliberations on which it was based were conducted in Paris, hence the name given to the meeting of the victorious heads of state that produced the treaties signed with the defeated powers: the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. On 13 December 1918, United States president Woodrow Wilson received an enthusiastic welcome in France. His Fourteen Points and the concept of a League of Nations had made a big impact on the war-weary French. At their first meeting, Clemenceau realized that Wilson was a man of principle and conscience.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: The powers agreed that since the conference was being held in France, Clemenceau would be the most appropriate president. Also, he spoke both English and French, the official languages of the conference. Clemenceau had an unassailable position of full control of the French delegation. Parliament gave him a vote of confidence on 30 December 1918, by a vote of 398 to 93. The rules of the conference allowed France five plenipotentiaries. They became Clemenceau and four others who were his pawns. He excluded all military men, especially Foch. He excluded the president of France, Raymond Poincaré, keeping him in the dark on the progress of negotiations. He excluded all parliamentary deputies, saying he would negotiate the treaty and it would be parliament's duty to vote it up or down, after it was finished.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: The progress at the conference was much slower than anticipated and decisions were being tabled constantly. It was this slow pace that induced Clemenceau to give an interview showing his irritation to an American journalist. He said he believed that Germany had won the war industrially and commercially as its factories were intact and soon its debts would be overcome through "manipulation". In a short time, he believed, the German economy would once again be much stronger than the French.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: France's leverage was jeopardized repeatedly by Clemenceau's mistrust of Wilson and David Lloyd George, as well as his intense dislike of President Poincaré. When negotiations reached a stalemate, Clemenceau had a habit of shouting at the other heads of state and storming out of the room rather than participating in further discussion.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: On 19 February 1919, as Clemenceau was leaving his apartment, a man fired several shots at the car. Clemenceau's assailant, anarchist Émile Cottin, was nearly lynched. Clemenceau's assistant found him pale, but conscious. "They shot me in the back", Clemenceau told him. "They didn't even dare to attack me from the front." One bullet hit Clemenceau between the ribs, just missing his vital organs. Too dangerous to remove, the bullet remained with him for the rest of his life.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Clemenceau often joked about the "assassin's" bad marksmanship – "We have just won the most terrible war in history, yet here is a Frenchman who misses his target six out of seven times at point-blank range. Of course this fellow must be punished for the careless use of a dangerous weapon and for poor marksmanship. I suggest that he be locked up for eight years, with intensive training in a shooting gallery."


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: When Clemenceau returned to the Council of Ten on 1 March, he found that little had changed. One issue that had not changed at all was the long-running dispute over France's eastern frontier and control of the German Rhineland. Clemenceau believed that Germany's possession of this territory left France without a natural frontier in the east and thus, was vulnerable to invasion. The British ambassador reported in December 1918 on Clemenceau's views on the future of the Rhineland: "He said that the Rhine was a natural boundary of Gaul and Germany and that it ought to be made the German boundary now, the territory between the Rhine and the French frontier being made into an Independent State whose neutrality should be guaranteed by the great powers."


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Finally, the issue was resolved when Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson guaranteed immediate military assistance if Germany attacked without provocation. It also was decided that the allies would occupy the territory for fifteen years, and that Germany could never rearm the area. Lloyd George insisted on a clause allowing for the early withdrawal of allied troops if the Germans fulfilled the treaty; Clemenceau inserted Article 429 into the treaty that permitted allied occupation beyond the fifteen years if adequate guarantees for allied security against unprovoked aggression were not met. This was in case the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Guarantee, thereby making null and void the British guarantee as well, since that was dependent on the Americans being part of it. This is, in fact, what did occur. Article 429 ensured that a refusal of the U.S. Senate to ratify the treaties of guarantee would not weaken them.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: President Poincaré and Marshal Ferdinand Foch both pressed repeatedly for an autonomous Rhineland state. Foch thought the Treaty of Versailles was too lenient on Germany, stating "This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years." At a cabinet meeting on 25 April Foch spoke against the deal Clemenceau had brokered and pushed for a separate Rhineland. On 28 April Poincaré sent Clemenceau a long letter detailing why he thought allied occupation should continue until Germany had paid all her reparations. Clemenceau replied that the alliance with America and Britain was of more value than an isolated France that held onto the Rhineland: "In fifteen years I will be dead, but if you do me the honour of visiting my tomb, you will be able to say that the Germans have not fulfilled all the clauses of the treaty, and that we are still on the Rhine." Clemenceau said to Lloyd George in June, "We need a barrier behind which, in the years to come, our people can work in security to rebuild its ruins. The barrier is the Rhine. I must take national feelings into account. That does not mean that I am afraid of losing office. I am quite indifferent on that point. But I will not, by giving up the occupation, do something which will break the willpower of our people." Later, he said to Jean Martel, "The policy of Foch and Poincaré was bad in principle. It was a policy no Frenchman, no republican Frenchman could accept for a moment, except in the hope of obtaining other guarantees, other advantages. We leave that sort of thing to Bismarck."


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: There was increasing discontent among Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Woodrow Wilson about slow progress and information leaks surrounding the Council of Ten. They began to meet in a smaller group, called the Council of Four, Vittorio Orlando of Italy being the fourth, although less weighty, member. This offered greater privacy and security and increased the efficiency of the decision-making process. Another major issue that the Council of Four discussed was the future of the German Saar region. Clemenceau believed that France was entitled to the region and its coal mines after Germany deliberately damaged the coal mines in northern France. Wilson, however, resisted the French claim so firmly that Clemenceau accused him of being "pro-German". Lloyd George came to a compromise; the coal mines were given to France and the territory placed under French administration for 15 years, after which a vote would determine whether the region would rejoin Germany.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Although Clemenceau had little knowledge of the defunct Austrian-Hungarian empire, he supported the causes of its smaller ethnic groups and his adamant stance led to the stringent terms in the Treaty of Trianon that dismantled Hungary. Rather than recognizing territories of the Austrian-Hungarian empire solely within the principles of self-determination, Clemenceau sought to weaken Hungary, just as Germany was, and to remove the threat of such a large power within Central Europe. The entire Czechoslovakian state was seen a potential buffer from Communism and this encompassed majority Hungarian territories.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Clemenceau was not experienced in the fields of economics or finance, and as John Maynard Keynes pointed out, "he did not trouble his head to understand either the Indemnity or [France's] overwhelming financial difficulties", but he was under strong public and parliamentary pressure to make Germany's reparations bill as large as possible. Generally, it was agreed that Germany should not pay more than it could afford, but the estimates of what it could afford varied greatly. Figures ranged between £2,000 million and £20,000 million. Clemenceau realised that any compromise would anger both the French and British citizens and that the only option was to establish a reparations commission that would examine Germany's capacity for reparations. This meant that the French government was not directly involved in the issue of reparations.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919. Clemenceau now had to defend the treaty against critics who viewed the compromises he had negotiated as inadequate for French national interests. The French Parliament debated the treaty and Louis Barthou on 24 September claimed that the U.S. Senate would not vote for the Treaty of Guarantee or the Treaty of Versailles and therefore, it would have been wiser to have the Rhine as a frontier. Clemenceau replied that he was sure the Senate would ratify both and that he had inserted Article 429 into the treaty, providing for "new arrangements concerning the Rhine". This interpretation of Article 429 was disputed by Barthou.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Clemenceau's main speech on the treaty was delivered on 25 September. He said that he knew the treaty was not perfect, but that the war had been fought by a coalition and therefore, the treaty would express the lowest common denominator of those involved. He claimed criticisms of the details of the treaty were misleading; that critics should look at the treaty as a whole and see how they could benefit from it:


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: The treaty, with all its complex clauses, will only be worth what you are worth; it will be what you make it ... What you are going to vote to-day is not even a beginning, it is a beginning of a beginning. The ideas it contains will grow and bear fruit. You have won the power to impose them on a defeated Germany. We are told that she will revive. All the more reason not to show her that we fear her ... M. Marin went to the heart of the question, when he turned to us and said in despairing tones, "You have reduced us to a policy of vigilance." Yes, M. Marin, do you think that one could make a treaty which would do away with the need for vigilance among the nations of Europe who only yesterday were pouring out their blood in battle? Life is a perpetual struggle in war, as in peace ... That struggle cannot be avoided. Yes, we must have vigilance, we must have a great deal of vigilance. I cannot say for how many years, perhaps I should say for how many centuries, the crisis which has begun will continue. Yes, this treaty will bring us burdens, troubles, miseries, difficulties, and that will continue for long years.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: The Chamber of Deputies ratified the treaty by 372 votes to 53, with the Senate voting unanimously for its ratification. On 11 October Clemenceau gave his last parliamentary speech, addressed to the Senate. He said that any attempt to partition Germany would be self-defeating and that France must find a way of living with sixty million Germans. He also said that the bourgeoisie, like the aristocracy before them in the "ancien régime", had failed as a ruling class. It was now the turn of the working class to rule. He advocated national unity and a demographic revolution: "The treaty does not state that France will have many children, but it is the first thing that should have been written there. For if France does not have large families, it will be in vain that you put all the finest clauses in the treaty, that you take away all the Germans guns, France will be lost because there will be no more French".


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Clemenceau's final tenure as prime minister witnessed the implementation of various reforms aimed at regulating the hours of labour. A general eight-hour day law passed in April 1919 amending the French Labour Code, and in June that year, existing legislation concerning the duration of the working day in the mining industry was amended by extending the eight-hour day to all classes of workers, "whether employed underground or on the surface". Under a previous law of December 1913, the eight-hour limit had only applied to workers employed underground. In August 1919, a similar limit was introduced for all those employed in French vessels. Another law passed in 1919 (which came into operation in October 1920) prohibited employment in bakeries between the hours of 10 P.M. and 4 A.M. A decree of May 1919 introduced the eight-hour day for workers on trams, railways, and in inland waterways, and a second of June 1919 extended this provision to the state railways. In April 1919, an enabling act was approved for an eight-hour day and a six-day work week, although farm workers were excluded from the act.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: In 1919, France adopted a new electoral system and the legislative election gave the National Bloc (a coalition of right-wing parties) a majority. Clemenceau only intervened once in the election campaign, delivering a speech on 4 November at Strasbourg, praising the manifesto and men of the National Bloc and he urged that the victory in the war needed to be safeguarded by vigilance. In private he was concerned at this huge swing to the right.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: His friend, Georges Mandel, urged Clemenceau to stand for the presidency in the upcoming election and on 15 January 1920 he let Mandel announce that he would be prepared to serve if elected. However, Clemenceau did not intend to campaign for the post, instead he wished to be chosen by acclaim as a national symbol. The preliminary meeting of the republican caucus (a forerunner to the vote in the National Assembly) chose Paul Deschanel instead of Clemenceau by a vote of 408 to 389. In response, Clemenceau refused to be put forward for the vote in the National Assembly because he did not want to win by a small majority, but by a near-unanimous vote. Only then, he claimed, could he negotiate with confidence with the allies.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: In his last speech to the cabinet on 18 January he said, "We must show the world the extent of our victory, and we must take up the mentality and habits of a victorious people, which once more takes its place at the head of Europe. But all that will now be placed in jeopardy ... It will take less time and less thought to destroy the edifice so patiently and painfully erected than it took to complete it. Poor France. The mistakes have begun already."


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Clemenceau resigned as prime minister as soon as the presidential election was held (17 January 1920) and took no further part in politics. In private, he condemned the unilateral occupation by French troops of the German city of Frankfurt in 1920 and said if he had been in power, he would have persuaded the British to join it.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: He took a holiday in Egypt and the Sudan from February to April 1920, then embarked for the Far East in September, returning to France in March 1921. In June, he visited England and received an honorary degree from the University of Oxford. He met Lloyd George and said to him that after the armistice he had become the enemy of France. Lloyd George replied, "Well, was not that always our traditional policy?" He was joking, but after reflection, Clemenceau took it seriously. After Lloyd George's fall from power in 1922 Clemenceau remarked, "As for France, it is a real enemy who disappears. Lloyd George did not hide it: at my last visit to London he cynically admitted it".


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: In late 1922, Clemenceau gave a lecture tour in the major cities of the American northeast. He defended the policy of France, including war debts and reparations, and condemned American isolationism. He was well received and attracted large audiences, but America's policy remained unchanged. On 9 August 1926, he wrote an open letter to the American President Calvin Coolidge that argued against France paying all its war debts: "France is not for sale, even to her friends". This appeal went unheard.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: He condemned Poincaré's occupation of the Ruhr in 1923 as an undoing of the entente between France and Britain.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: He wrote two short biographies, one of the Greek orator Demosthenes and one of the French painter Claude Monet. He also penned a huge two-volume tome, covering philosophy, history, and science, entitled "Au Soir de la Pensée". Writing this occupied most of his time between 1923 and 1927.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: During his last months, he wrote his memoirs, despite declaring previously that he would not write them. He was spurred into doing so by the appearance of Marshal Foch's memoirs, which were highly critical of Clemenceau, mainly for his policy at the Paris Peace Conference. Clemenceau only had time to finish the first draft and it was published posthumously as "Grandeurs et miseres d'une victoire" ("Grandeur and Misery of Victory"). He was critical of Foch and also of his successors who had allowed the Versailles Treaty to be undermined in the face of Germany's revival. He burned all of his private letters.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Clemenceau was a long-time friend and supporter of the impressionist painter Claude Monet. He was instrumental in persuading Monet to have a cataract operation in 1923. For more than a decade, Clemenceau encouraged Monet to complete his donation to the French state of the large "Les Nymphéas" (Water Lilies) paintings that now are on display in the Paris Musée de l'Orangerie. They are housed in specially constructed oval galleries that opened to the public in 1927.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: Having fought a dozen duels against political opponents, Clemenceau knew the importance of exercise and practised fencing every morning even when he was an old man.


title: Georges Clemenceau

text: He took an interest in Japanese art, especially Japanese ceramics. He collected approximately 3,000 small incense containers ("kōgō" 香合), which are now in museums. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts held a special exhibition of his collection in 1978.


title: SMERSH

text: SMERSH () was an umbrella organization for three independent counter-intelligence agencies in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially announced only on 14 April 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Joseph Stalin. The formal justification for its creation was to subvert the attempts by Nazi German forces to infiltrate the Red Army on the Eastern Front.


title: SMERSH

text: The official statute of SMERSH listed the following tasks to be performed by the organisation: counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism, preventing any other activity of foreign intelligence in the Red Army; fighting "anti-Soviet elements" in the Red Army; protection of the front lines against penetration by spies and "anti-Soviet elements"; investigating traitors, deserters, and self-inflicted wounds in the Red Army; and checking military and civil personnel returning from captivity.


title: SMERSH

text: The organisation was officially in existence until 4 May 1946, when its duties were transferred back to the MGB. The head of the agency throughout its existence was Viktor Abakumov, who rose to become Minister of State Security in the postwar years.


title: SMERSH

text: Joseph Stalin coined the name "СМЕРШ" (SMERSH) as a portmanteau of the Russian-language phrase Смерть шпио́нам (Smert’ shpiónam, "Death to spies"). Originally focused on combating German spies infiltrating the Soviet military, the organization quickly expanded its mandate: to find and eliminate any subversive elements—hence Stalin's inclusive name for it.


title: SMERSH

text: Until 3 February 1941, the 4th Department (Special Section, OO) of the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB)—the most important security body within the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD)—was responsible for the Soviet Armed Forces' military counter-intelligence. On that date, the Special Section's 12 Sections and one Investigation Unit were separated from GUGB NKVD. The official liquidation of OO GUGB within NKVD was announced on 12 February by a joint order № 00151/003 of NKVD and NKGB USSR. The rest of GUGB was abolished and staff was moved to newly created People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB). Departments of former GUGB were renamed Directorates. For example, former Foreign Department (INO) became Foreign Directorate (INU); political police represented by Secret Political Department (SPO) became Secret Political Directorate (SPU), and so on. The former GUGB 4th Department (OO) was split into three sections. One section, which handled military counter-intelligence in NKVD troops (former 11th Section of GUGB 4th Department OO) became 3rd NKVD Department or OKR (Otdel KontrRazvedki), the chief of OKR NKVD was Aleksander Belyanov, Commissar State Security 3rd rank. On 25 February 1941, Viktor Abakumov became NKVD deputy Commissar in charge of supervising this and several other departments.


title: SMERSH

text: The second and most significant part went to the Defense Commissariat Soviet Armed Forces (the NKO) becoming its 3rd Directorate or (3 Upravlenie). The 3rd NKO Directorate took over most of the 4th GUGB Department Sections and was headed by division commissar Anatolii Mikheev, the former and last OO GUGB NKVD chief. The third part of former OO (the 10 Section) became the Navy Commissariat (the Red Fleet) 3rd Directorate. The head of navy KI was Andrei Petrov, a state security captain.


title: SMERSH

text: After the 22 June 1941 German invasion of the USSR, Stalin on 17 July, as Chairman of State Defense Committee, signed special decree №187 / ss, by which military counterintelligence was returned to the NKVD as a Directorate of Special Departments or UOO, with Viktor Abakumov as chief. UOO on every level was given much more power and a freer hand in decision making than at any time since the creation of Cheka. Also on 19 July, by the order of NKVD №00940, the UOO was moved from Moscow to the city of Kuibyshev. Navy 3rd Directorate was still under Navy control, till 11 January 1942 when it was incorporated into Directorate of Special Departments.


title: SMERSH

text: On 2 July 1941, NKGB USSR was incorporated back into the NKVD structure. NKGB did not return as GUGB, but as separate units. The NKVD structure organisation from 31 July 1941 shows that there are independent Directorates as in the 1st: foreign intelligence, 2nd: domestic KI, and so on. There is no GUGB within NKVD after its official liquidation in the beginning of February 1941.


title: SMERSH

text: After the situation on the Russian fronts (known as Eastern front) became more stable, on 14 April 1943, the State Defense Committee (GKO), chaired by Stalin, ordered another split of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD USSR) into three organisations:


title: SMERSH

text: By decision of the Politburo of the CPSU [then VKP(b)] nr. P 40/91People's Commissariat for State Security or (NKGB) was created for the second time. It was based on NKVD's Directorates. The most important of them were: 1st INU (foreign intelligence), 2nd KRU (domestic counterespionage, fighting anti-Soviet organizations, protection of state economy, house searches, and arrests) NKVD 2nd Department (government and party officials protection) was transferred as NKGB 6th Directorate, NKVD Transportation Directorate was absorbed as NKGB 3rd Directorate and NKVD 4th Directorate was moved to NKGB with the same number. For detailed organization see NKGB. "Regulations of the People's Commissariat of State Security" were approved by SNK in order № 621-191ss from 2 June 1943.


title: SMERSH

text: After losing most of the operational units to the NKGB, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) was still a very powerful government apparatus. It was responsible for public order in USSR by using heavily armed police in each corner of the country, running the largest penal labour camps under the Gulag Directorate, POWs camps and NKVD troops with loyal and well-equipped soldiers, that by the end of the war the numbers of NKVD troops were 1½ million strong with their own air force, armored and cavalry units.


title: SMERSH

text: Resolution No. 414-138 ss ordered the NKVD's Directorate of Special Departments to be split into three separate military counterintelligence units, within the NKO, Navy Commissariat and NKVD, respectively, as has been done in early 1941. The same order that created GUKR SMERSH within the NKO created a parallel organisation within the Navy Commissariat, the NKVMF. This organization was known as the Navy "UKR SMERSH" and headed by Peter Gladkov and his two deputies Aleksei Lebedev and Sergei Dukhovich. In reality, Gladkov reported to Abakumov, by then deputy Commissar of the NKO, and Stalin's deputy. Formally Gladkov was subordinate to his superior People's Commissar Nikolay Gerasimovich Kuznetsov, head of Navy.


title: SMERSH

text: OKR SMERSH (Counterintelligence Department) of the NKVD USSR was subordinate to Lavrentiy Beria, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. The NKVD OKR SMERSH was headed by Semion Yukhimovich and later V. Smirnov.


title: SMERSH

text: The GKO officially created SMERSH to ensure the Soviet Union's security from internal political threats and foreign espionage, although it carried out a wide variety of other tasks between 1943 and 1946 as well. SMERSH's counterintelligence operations included seeking and destroying counter revolutionaries, finding and interrogating enemy agents, hunting Soviet agents who had not returned by the appointed date, and evaluating the usefulness of captured enemy documents. SMERSH also took an active role in the affairs of the Red Army by ensuring the good quality of Red Army facilities, improving discipline, eliminating poor leaders, and preventing desertion, self-inflicted wounds, panic, sabotage and poor discipline. Other SMERSH activities included: exposing collaborators in areas recently captured by the Red Army; exposing and punishing economic crimes such as black market activity; protecting secret material and headquarters from enemy agents and saboteurs; and determining the "patriotism" of those captured, encircled, and those who had returned from foreign countries. SMERSH operatives also controlled partisan operations behind German lines and evaluated the partisans' loyalty to the Soviet Union. SMERSH would then arrest and neutralise anti-Soviet partisans, saboteurs, spies, conspirators, mutineers, deserters, and people designated as traitors and criminal elements at the combat front.


title: SMERSH

text: The strategic directorate focused on counter-espionage wet operations and counter-insurgency pacification operations that answered directly to Stalin. In March 1946, SMERSH Chief Directorate was resubordinated to the People's Commissariat of Military Forces (Наркомат Вооруженных Сил, NKVS). The NKVS was later reorganized into the Ministry of Military Forces (МVS) soon thereafter, and SMERSH was officially discontinued 4 May 1946.


title: SMERSH

text: SMERSH activities included "filtering" the soldiers and forced labourers recovered from captivity. SMERSH was actively involved in the capture of Soviet citizens who had been active in anti-communist armed groups fighting on the side of Nazi Germany such as the Russian Liberation Army, the Cossack Corps of Pyotr Krasnov, and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.


title: SMERSH

text: As the war concluded, SMERSH was given the assignment of finding Adolf Hitler and, if possible, capturing him alive or recovering his body. Red Army officers and SMERSH agents reportedly found Hitler's partially burned corpse near the "Führerbunker" after his suicide and conducted an investigation to confirm his death and identify the remains that were secretly buried at SMERSH headquarters in Magdeburg until April 1970, when they were exhumed, completely cremated, and dumped.


title: SMERSH

text: SMERSH fought the Armia Krajowa and post-war organisations participating e.g. in the Augustów roundup.


title: SMERSH

text: A separate attachment to GKO decision No. 3222-ss/ov detailed the organisation of SMERSH and its branches in the Army:


title: SMERSH

text: At the end of the Second World War, American forces examining captured German intelligence sources determined that SMERSH was composed of six directorates, six departments, and three other branches. Directorates conducted operations involving agents on the "frontline" of the intelligence war whereas departments received and interpreted the information coming in from agents and enemy intercepts. SMERSH also ran three other groups: the Komendatura, which guarded and managed SMERSH installations and prisoners; the Troika, which acted as a military court and could administer punishment without defense from the accused; and the Administrative Bureau and Secretariat, which acted as the personal staff of the SMERSH commander.


title: SMERSH

text: Below is the organization of SMERSH based on German Intelligence. The second chart shows another way SMERSH may have been organized.


title: SMERSH

text: GUKR SMERSH directed the work of field directorates, assigned to the fronts. These field organs were referred to as UKR SMERSH (Upravlenie Kontrrazvedki) or Counterintelligence Directorates. The naming distinguished them from the GUKR (HQ) SMERSH headquarters. The difference between GUKR and UKR or OKR was in the status hierarchy in the Red Army Military CI (the same structures were applied in February 1941 to NKO, NKMF and NKVD military counterintelligence units). They were ranked according to their authority. In the case of SMERSH the system of organization was: Main (or Chief) Directorate or "GUKR SMERSH", Directorate of Counterintelligence or "UKR SMERSH", and Department of Counterintelligence or "OKR SMERSH".


title: SMERSH

text: GUKR in Moscow consisted of 11 operational and 3 non-operational departments, a total of 646 men. For comparison, GUKR SMERSH's predecessor, UOO NKVD Directorate of Special Departments within the NKVD () consisted of 225 men in 1942. Not all departments corresponded to their UOO NKVD predecessors. With the new focus on the Germans and other enemies, two departments, the 3rd and 4th, transferred from the NKVD/NKGB.


title: SMERSH

text: The 3rd Department had the task of capturing German spies in the rear and organizing "radio games" with their help, and the 4th Department headed counter-intelligence measures behind the front line.


title: SMERSH

text: The UKR SMERSH (Counterintelligence Directorate) of the front, directed the OKRs Counterintelligence Departments (Otdiel Kontrrazvedki) within the armies and units. There SMERSH officers were attached to each rifle corps. The OKR at the division level consisted of 21 men, including a head, his deputy, a ciphering officer, investigators, commandant, and a platoon of guards. The OKR of each army included 57 men, while the size of the front UKR depended on how many armies composed the front. If the front consisted of five armies, its UKR included 130 officers, if there were fewer armies, the UKR had 112 officers.


title: SMERSH

text: Military Districts had a different structure. For example, the Moscow Military District, the biggest one at the time, had between 109 and 193 officers; they went through special training for filtering POWs. SMERSH units at the fronts were supported by NKVD internal troops for guarding prisoners, for operational work UKR and OKR SMERSH units were supported by regular Red Army servicemen. SMERSH front directorates were provided with a battalion, SMERSH army departments with a company, and SMERSH departments at the regiment, division, or brigade level, a platoon.


title: SMERSH

text: In its counter-espionage and counter-intelligence roles, SMERSH appears to have been extremely successful throughout World War II. SMERSH actions resulted in numerous captures, desertions, and defections of German intelligence officers and agents, some of whom SMERSH turned into double agents. Indeed, the Germans began to consider missions where their losses were less than ninety percent "satisfactory". According to German sources, the Soviets rendered approximately 39,500 German agents useless by the end of the war.


title: SMERSH

text: SMERSH utilized a number of different counterintelligence tactics: informants, security troops, radio games, and the passing of disinformation, ensuring both the reliability of the military and the civilian population. SMERSH set up a system of informants by sending a SMERSH officer to each battalion composed of between 1,000 and 1,500 men. Each SMERSH officer would enlist a number of "residents" who recruited their own "reserve resident" and between six and eight informants. Informants reported those sympathetic to the Germans, desertion, unpatriotic attitudes, and low morale and were authorized to take "immediate corrective action" if the need arose. SMERSH recruited between 1,540,000 and 3,400,000 informants, or about twelve percent of the entire Red Army. However, SMERSH coerced up to half of all of its informants to work for them.


title: SMERSH

text: In order to secure the Red Army's rear, SMERSH evacuated civilians and set up checkpoints so as to assert physical control. Next, agents sought and arrested "suspicious persons" who might be German agents. Finally, SMERSH interrogated those arrested.


title: SMERSH

text: Compared to its predecessor (Directorate of Special Departments – UOO), SMERSH was mostly focused on enemies spies, although Red Army servicemen were still under suspicion.


title: SMERSH

text: Abakumov kept Stalin updated on all high-ranking commanders, and on the behavior of a number of leading military officers.


title: SMERSH

text: To confuse German intelligence with disinformation, SMERSH utilized radio playbacks and played over 183 radio games over the course of the war. Operation "Opyt'" serves as a good example of the effectiveness of these radio games. Between May and June 1943, SMERSH used three German agents to spread disinformation about the Kursk counteroffensive by suggesting the Red Army had begun to dig in rather than prepare for an attack, thus contributing to the success of the Red Army's surprise attack. Before Operation Bagration, the largest Allied operation of the Second World War, SMERSH caught and "doubled" a number of German agents who tricked the German military into underestimating the number of Soviet troops by 1.2 million men.


title: SMERSH

text: SMERSH played a major role in creating and controlling partisan operations behind German lines. After capturing German-held territory and reuniting with the Red Army, SMERSH interviewed partisans in order to determine the partisans' loyalty to the regime.


title: SMERSH

text: SMERSH has been popularized due to the organization's prominence as one of the common antagonists in Ian Fleming's early James Bond novels; however, Fleming's portrayal has been generally criticized as quite inaccurate by historians. In later works Fleming abandoned the use of SMERSH as his chosen antagonists, introducing the purely fictional villainous organization SPECTRE. In the film "The Living Daylights", there is an episode with a balloon having a full inscription 'smiert shpionam' ('death to spies').


title: SMERSH

text: In all Bond films based on Fleming's works that featured SMERSH, the agency was either changed to SPECTRE or omitted altogether.


title: SMERSH

text: In 1968 L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Church of Scientology, began writing that all of the world's governments had been taken over by SMERSH and that the organization was controlling the world through psychiatry, which the Church opposes. Hubbard proposed to defeat the alleged SMERSH infiltration by smuggling Sea Organization members into Switzerland, taking over the World Federation of Mental Health in Geneva, and then discrediting psychiatry by using the front organization to promote eugenics and mass euthanization to the United Nations. Hubbard abandoned the plan after the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health took notice of the Sea Org's plan.


title: Charissa Thompson

text: Charissa Jean Thompson (born May 4, 1982) is an American television host and sportscaster working for Fox Sports. Previously, Thompson worked for ESPN, Versus, as well as for GSN and the Big Ten Network. She was the co-host of "SportsNation" along with Marcellus Wiley until her departure from ESPN for Fox Sports in June 2013. She became the host of "Fox Sports Live" on the new Fox Sports 1 network when it debuted on August 17, 2013 (the first day of Fox Sports 1). She also was one of the American hosts of "Ultimate Beastmaster". From 2014 to 2017, Thompson was a co-host on the syndicated entertainment news show "Extra".


title: Charissa Thompson

text: Thompson was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. The youngest of three children, she knew she wanted to be a broadcaster from an early age. She attended Inglemoor High School in Kenmore, Washington. Thompson moved to California to attend community college and gain California residency. She later transferred to the University of California, Santa Barbara where she graduated with a B.A. in Law and Society in 2004. While "Sports Illustrated" wrote "she left Washington State (WSU) to attend community college in California before transferring to UC Santa Barbara," Thompson has clarified she did not attend WSU.


title: Charissa Thompson

text: Early in her career, Thompson appeared on various college sports shows on Big Ten Network and Fox Sports Net (FSN). Thompson additionally served as a sideline reporter for college football and college basketball games on the two networks. She would continue these roles as she progressed in her sports media and journalism career, as she became a National Football League (NFL) sideline reporter for NFL on Fox.


title: Charissa Thompson

text: For Big Ten Network, Thompson appeared on various Big Ten Network shows, such as "Big Ten's Best" and "Friday Night Tailgate".


title: Charissa Thompson

text: For FSN, she appeared on baseball programs, including "The 2007 MLB All-Star Game Red Carpet Parade" and "The Baseball Report" both on Fox Sports Net (FSN). She also appeared on FSN's "BCS Breakdown" and "The BCS Show". Thompson co-hosted FSN's "The Best Damn Sports Show Period" alongside Chris Rose and John Salley until 2009, due to the show's cancellation. She also hosted FSN's rodeo show "Toughest Cowboy".


title: Charissa Thompson

text: In the fall of 2008, Thompson completed her first run as an NFL sideline reporter. During the season, Thompson dyed her hair black to "rid [herself] of the Barbie thing," as she is notably blond. Her change of hair color drew attention from some sports blogs; "Deadspin" ran an article titled: "Charissa Thompson Continues Down Suicidal Path to Frumpyville". Thompson shortly switched her hair color back to blond. In 2016, she recalled the event in an interview with HBO. Beyond the scope of this incident, Thompson's sex appeal has been touched upon by various media outlets since.


title: Charissa Thompson

text: Thompson also appeared outside of the Big Ten Network and FSN early in her career. She was on the cover of the April 2009 issue of "Access DirecTV" (satellite TV provider DirecTV's monthly "TV Guide"-like magazine) and interviewed Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels for the feature story. Also in 2009, co-hosted "Big Saturday Night" on Game Show Network (GSN), and appeared on "Shaq Vs." as a sideline reporter. In the fall of 2009, she served as a reporter for "NHL on Versus".


title: Charissa Thompson

text: In 2010, Thompson appeared on the NFL Network's "NFL Now Updates". She covered the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games, reporting for Yahoo Sports. She was also recently added as a co-host for the Speed Network's "Fast Track To Fame" alongside now retired NASCAR driver-owner turned Fox Sports analyst Michael Waltrip. In June and July 2010, Thompson covered the FIFA World Cup in South Africa for Yahoo! Sports. In January 2011, she covered the BCS National Championship game for Yahoo! Sports. A week later, she covered the Super Bowl in Dallas, Texas, for Yahoo! Sports and then the NBA All-Star Game for Yahoo! Sports. On January 30, 2011, she covered the NHL All-Star Game for Versus. A month later, Versus dropped Thompson and Lindsay Soto from their ice-level reporting staff after the NBC-Comcast merger; they were replaced by Pierre McGuire, Brian Engblom, and Darren Pang, forming the Inside the Glass team.


title: Charissa Thompson

text: In June 2011, Thompson joined ESPN. With Michael Smith, she co-hosted the show "Numbers Never Lie", which debuted September 12, 2011. Thompson has also filled in as a host on "SportsNation" and "First Take". In July 2012, she replaced Michelle Beadle as host of "SportsNation" after Beadle left for NBC. She left ESPN in June 2013 to return to Fox Sports.


title: Charissa Thompson

text: In 2013, Thompson joined actor Joey Lawrence as a co-host of the ABC's reality TV series "Splash", where star contestants dive from Olympic-style platforms and are scored on their performance by Olympic divers, David Boudia and Steve Foley as well as the voting TV audience.


title: Charissa Thompson

text: Thompson rejoined Fox Sports in 2013 for the launch of Fox Sports 1 (FS1); she began on FS1 as a host on Fox Sports Live. She also became a presenter for "Fox NFL Kickoff". In 2018, she replaced Katie Nolan as the host of "NFL Films Presents" on FS1.


title: Charissa Thompson

text: Thompson hosts "Thursday Night Football" on Amazon Prime, the NFL's first package of games available only via streaming. She hosts pregame, halftime and postgame coverage.


title: Charissa Thompson

text: Thompson has also served various roles outside of sports broadcasting. In 2014, she joined Mario Lopez and Tracey Edmonds as a co-host on the syndicated television show "Extra". She also appeared as the host of the "Barstool Spelling Bee" in May 2015. In 2016, it was announced that Thompson would be a host on the Netflix reality show "Ultimate Beastmaster". Thompson also joined Top Rank's broadcasting team for the Manny Pacquiao vs. Jessie Vargas pay-per-view event.


title: Charissa Thompson

text: Thompson resides in Malibu, California. In January 2020, she got engaged to sports agent Kyle Thousand. She and Thousand married on December 30, 2020. It was announced they were divorcing in April 2022.


title: Charissa Thompson

text: She had a previous marriage when she was 25. She also previously dated ESPN analyst and former Chicago Bulls player Jay Williams. Thompson spoke about her Wikipedia article in 2019, clarifying that she was not a trapeze artist as the article previously mentioned.


title: Charissa Thompson

text: In January 2018, nude photos of Thompson were leaked online after her iCloud account was hacked. Thompson shortly thereafter sought legal action. That June, she spoke about the incident to "The Athletic", stating "When it comes to your physical being and intimate photos between you and your boyfriend and things that you sent to someone when you were in a long-distance relationship and in love, it is your private property. So it felt — the obvious — like such an invasion."


title: H. R. McMaster

text: Herbert Raymond McMaster (born July 24, 1962) is a retired United States Army lieutenant general who served as the 25th United States National Security Advisor from 2017 to 2018. He is also known for his roles in the Gulf War, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: Born in Philadelphia, McMaster graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1984, and later earned a Ph.D. in American history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His Ph.D. thesis was critical of American strategy and military leadership during the Vietnam War and served as the basis for his book "Dereliction of Duty", which is widely read in the United States military. During the Gulf War, McMaster served as a captain in the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, taking part in the Battle of 73 Easting.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: After the Gulf War, McMaster was a military history professor at the United States Military Academy from 1994 to 1996, became a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Consulting Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). He held a series of staff positions in the United States Central Command. In 2004, he took command of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment and fought the Iraqi insurgency in Tal Afar. He became a top counterinsurgency advisor to General David Petraeus before serving as the Director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center. He also served as the Deputy to the Commander for Planning of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and, in 2014, became Deputy Commanding General of the Army Training and Doctrine Command.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: In February 2017, McMaster succeeded Michael Flynn as President Donald Trump's National Security Advisor. He remained on active duty as a lieutenant general while serving as National Security Advisor, and retired in May 2018. McMaster resigned as National Security Advisor on March 22, 2018, effective April 9, and accepted an academic appointment to Stanford University in 2018.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a lecturer in management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: McMaster was born in Philadelphia on July 24, 1962. His father, Herbert McMaster Sr., was a veteran of the Korean War who retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel of Infantry. His mother, Marie C. "Mimi" McMaster (née Curcio), was a school teacher and administrator. He has a younger sister, Letitia. He attended Norwood Fontbonne Academy, graduating in 1976; and high school at Valley Forge Military Academy, graduating in 1980. He earned a commission as a second lieutenant upon graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1984.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: McMaster earned a Master of Arts and Ph.D. in American history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). His thesis was critical of American strategy in the Vietnam War, which was further detailed in his book "Dereliction of Duty" (1997). The book explores the military's role in the policies of the Vietnam War. It harshly criticized high-ranking officers of the era, arguing that they inadequately challenged Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and President Lyndon B. Johnson on their Vietnam strategy. The book examines McNamara and Johnson's staff alongside the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other high-ranking military officers, and their failure to provide a successful plan of action either to pacify a Viet Cong insurgency or to decisively defeat the North Vietnamese Army. McMaster also details why military actions intended to indicate "resolve" or to "communicate" ultimately failed when trying to accomplish sparsely detailed, confusing, and conflicting military objectives. The book was reportedly much read in Pentagon circles and included in military reading lists.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: McMaster's first assignment after commissioning was to the 2nd Armored Division at Fort Hood, where he served in a variety of platoon and company-level leadership assignments with 1st Battalion 66th Armor Regiment. In 1989, he was assigned to the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment at Warner Barracks in Bamberg, Germany, where he served until 1992, including deployment to Operation Desert Storm.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: During the Gulf War in 1991 McMaster was a captain commanding Eagle Troop of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of 73 Easting. During that battle, though significantly outnumbered and encountering the enemy by surprise as McMaster's lead tank crested a dip in the terrain, the nine tanks of his troop destroyed 28 Iraqi Republican Guard tanks without loss in 23 minutes.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: McMaster was awarded the Silver Star. The now famous battle is featured in several books about Operation Desert Storm and is widely referred to in US Army training exercises. It was also discussed in Tom Clancy's 1994 popular nonfiction book "Armored Cav".


title: H. R. McMaster

text: McMaster served as a military history professor at West Point from 1994 to 1996, teaching among other things the battles in which he fought. He graduated from the United States Army Command and General Staff College in 1999.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: McMaster commanded 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment from 1999 to 2002, and then took a series of staff positions at U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM), including planning and operations roles in Iraq.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: In his next job, as lieutenant colonel and later colonel, McMaster worked on the staff of USCENTCOM as executive officer to Deputy Commander Lieutenant General John Abizaid. When Abizaid received four-star rank and became Central Command's head, McMaster served as Director, Commander's Advisory Group (CAG), described as the command's brain trust.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: In 2003 McMaster completed an Army War College research fellowship at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. In 2004, he was assigned to command the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (3rd ACR). Shortly after McMaster took command the regiment deployed for its second tour in Iraq and was assigned the mission of securing the city of Tal Afar. That mission culminated in September with Operation Restoring Rights and the defeat of the city's insurgent strongholds. President George W. Bush praised this success, and the PBS show "Frontline" broadcast a documentary in February 2006 featuring interviews with McMaster. CBS's "60 Minutes" produced a similar segment in July, and the operation was the subject of an article in the April 10, 2006, issue of "The New Yorker."


title: H. R. McMaster

text: Author Tim Harford has written that the pioneering tactics employed by 3rd ACR led to the first success in overcoming the Iraqi insurgency. Before 2005, tactics included staying out of dangerous urban areas except on patrols, with US forces returning to their bases each night. These patrols had little success in turning back the insurgency because local Iraqis who feared retaliation would very rarely assist in identifying them to US forces. McMaster deployed his soldiers into Tal Afar on a permanent basis, and once the local population grew confident that they weren't going to withdraw nightly, the citizens began providing information on the insurgents, enabling US forces to target and defeat them. After hearing of McMaster's counterinsurgency success in Tal Afar, Vice President Dick Cheney invited McMaster to personally brief him on the situation in Iraq and give an assessment on what changes needed to be made to American strategy.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: McMaster passed command of the 3rd ACR on June 29, 2006, and joined the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, as a Senior Research Associate tasked to "conduct research to identify opportunities for improved multi-national cooperation and political-military integration in the areas of counterinsurgency, counter-terrorism, and state building", and to devise "better tactics to battle terrorism."


title: H. R. McMaster

text: From August 2007 to August 2008, McMaster was part of an "elite team of officers advising U.S. commander" General David Petraeus on counterinsurgency operations while Petraeus directed revision of the Army's Counterinsurgency Field Manual during his command of the Combined Arms Center. Petraeus and most of his team were stationed in Fort Leavenworth at the time but McMaster collaborated remotely, according to senior team member John Nagl.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: Based on his date of rank as a colonel, McMaster was considered for promotion to brigadier general by annual Department of the Army selection boards in 2006 and 2007 but was not selected, despite his reputation as one of "the most celebrated soldiers of the Iraq War." Though the Army's rationale for whether a given officer is selected is not made public, McMaster's initial non-selection attracted considerable media attention. In late 2007, Secretary of the Army Pete Geren requested that Petraeus return from Iraq to take charge of the promotion board as a way to ensure that the best performers in combat received every consideration for advancement, resulting in McMaster's selection along with other colonels who had been identified as innovative thinkers.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: In August 2008, McMaster assumed duties as Director, Concept Development and Experimentation (later renamed Concept Development and Learning), in the Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC) at Fort Monroe, Virginia, part of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. In this position he was involved in preparing doctrine to guide the Army over the next 10 to 20 years. He was promoted on June 29, 2009. Of the 978 members of the West Point Class of 1984 commissioned into the U.S. Army, McMaster was the second promoted to General Officer. In July 2010 he was selected to be the J-5, Deputy to the Commander for Planning, at ISAF (International Security Assistance Forces) Headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: McMaster was nominated for major general on January 23, 2012, and selected to be the commander of the Army's Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning. In February 2014, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel nominated McMaster for lieutenant general and in July 2014, McMaster pinned on his third star when he began his duties as Deputy Commanding General of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command and Director of TRADOC's Army Capabilities Integration Center.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: Army Chief of Staff General Martin Dempsey remarked in 2011 that McMaster was "probably our best Brigadier General." McMaster made "Time"s list of the 100 most influential people in the world in April 2014. He was hailed as "the architect of the future U.S. Army" in the accompanying piece written by retired Lt. Gen. David Barno, who commanded U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005. "Major General Herbert Raymond McMaster might be the 21st century Army's pre-eminent warrior-thinker," Barno wrote, commenting on McMaster's "impressive command and unconventional exploits in the second Iraq war." Barno also wrote, "Recently tapped for his third star, H.R. is also the rarest of soldiers—one who has repeatedly bucked the system and survived to join its senior ranks." In 2014, retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, a former Army vice chief, commented, "It is heartening to see the Army reward such an extraordinary general officer who is a thought leader and innovator while also demonstrating sheer brilliance as a wartime brigade commander."


title: H. R. McMaster

text: McMaster requested his retirement from the Army following his March 22, 2018 resignation as President Trump's National Security Adviser, asking that he leave the service "this summer."


title: H. R. McMaster

text: On February 20, 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump nominated McMaster for National Security Advisor following the resignation of Michael T. Flynn on February 13. McMaster said at the time that he intended "to remain on active duty while he serves as national security advisor."


title: H. R. McMaster

text: Because McMaster intended to remain on active duty, his official assumption of the National Security Advisor's duties and responsibilities required a United States Senate vote; lieutenant generals and generals require Senate confirmation of their rank and assignments. On March 6, 2017, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted 23–2 to recommend to the full Senate that McMaster be confirmed for reappointment at his lieutenant general rank during his service as the National Security Advisor. The committee recommendation was referred to the Senate on March 7, and the full Senate confirmed McMaster by a vote of 86–10 on March 15, 2017.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: In early August, McMaster was targeted by what some deemed a "smear campaign" after he fired several National Security Council staff members. White House officials and journalists suspected Steve Bannon of leading these attacks. Attorney Mike Cernovich, radio host Alex Jones and "Breitbart News" were among the foremost promoters of the anti-McMaster campaign; Cernovich's website for the campaign also included a cartoon depicting McMaster, which the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) labeled antisemitic. In addition, the Center for Security Policy criticized McMaster for being insufficiently conservative and for not supporting Trump's agenda. The anti-McMaster campaign prompted dismissive responses by administration officials, and a statement from Trump affirming his confidence in McMaster.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: According to reports, McMaster had called Trump a "dope" in July 2017, which a spokesman for the National Security Council denied saying "Actual participants in the dinner deny that General McMaster made any of the comments attributed to him by anonymous sources. Those false comments represent the diametric opposite of General McMaster's actual views".


title: H. R. McMaster

text: In February 2018, McMaster said that it was "incontrovertible" that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. McMaster, who spoke a day after a federal grand jury indicted more than a dozen Russians in connection with the interference, was addressing an international audience at the Munich Security Conference, including several Russian officials.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: On March 15, 2018, it was reported that Trump had decided to dismiss McMaster from his position at a later, unspecified date. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders denied the reports in a tweet, claiming nothing had changed at the National Security Council.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: On March 22, 2018, McMaster resigned as National Security Advisor after conflicts with Trump, and disagreements with him on key foreign policy strategies, including the administration's approach to Iran, Russia, and North Korea. He said in a statement that he planned to retire from the military sometime in the next few months. According to reports, the military was resistant to promoting McMaster and granting him a follow-on assignment, while McMaster was not inclined to accept the positions that were offered. Trump announced John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, as McMaster's replacement. McMaster's ousting closely followed the departures of several other high-ranking officials in the administration, including Trump's longtime assistant and communications director Hope Hicks, national economic advisor Gary Cohn, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. As with Tillerson's dismissal, Trump first announced McMaster's departure from the administration via a public tweet.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: McMaster's retirement ceremony was held on May 18, 2018. It took place at Joint Base Myer–Henderson Hall, and was presided over by General Mark A. Milley, the Army Chief of Staff. Among the decorations and honors McMaster received was a third award of the Army Distinguished Service Medal.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: HarperCollins published McMaster's memoir, "Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World" in September 2020.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: Positive reviews of the book included one by Cliff May, founder and president of Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), who said of the book "...with H.R.’s thoughtful, substantive, and intellectual approach. Battlegrounds lives up to this expectation, and then some. As a historian, as well as a soldier and strategist, General McMaster explores the development of the complex challenges facing America in the 21st Century." Another positive review was that of Steve Cohen, an attorney at Pollock Cohen LLP in New York and a former member of the U.S. Naval Institute Board of Directors, who said it was "...a sober, thoughtful, intelligent volume that deserves shelf space for anyone serious about U.S. foreign policy in the first part of the 21st century."


title: H. R. McMaster

text: Negative reviews included one by Spencer Ackerman, who said the book "is disinterested in shedding any significant light on the Trump administration...The geopolitical perspective McMaster offers in "Battlegrounds", in keeping with his year as national security adviser, pretends that Trump hasn't happened." Another negative review was that of Gregory A. Daddis, who wrote of the book, "The entire treatise is an advertisement for coercive diplomacy, yet offers little exploration of the potential consequences of constant coercion of others, and of the increased risk of war that follows."


title: H. R. McMaster

text: In September 2018, McMaster began work as a Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He was appointed to the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellowship at Stanford's Hoover Institution and serves as a lecturer in management at Stanford Graduate School of Business effective September 1, 2018, as that institution had announced on July 2 that year.


title: H. R. McMaster

text: McMaster is a member of the Atlantic Council's Board of Directors, and in 2019 became an Advisory Board Member of Spirit of America, a 501(c)(3) organization that supports deployed US personnel. In 2020, McMaster became a board member of Zoom Video Communications , and advisor to Mischler Financial Group Inc. He is Chairman of Ergo's Flashpoints Forum, a consultancy firm. In 2021, McMaster joined Shield Capital's board of Strategic Advisors In September 2021, McMaster joined the advisory board of the geospatial-intelligence corporation Edgybees. At the end of 2021, he joined the advisory board of the artificial intelligence corporation C3 AI. In January 2022, he joined the advisory board of Strider Technologies, a software firm focused on economic statecraft risk vis-à-vis strategic competition with China.


title: Geert Wilders

text: Geert Wilders (; born 6 September 1963) is a Dutch politician who has led the Party for Freedom ("Partij voor de Vrijheid" – PVV) since he founded it in 2006. He is also the party's leader in the House of Representatives ("Tweede Kamer"), having held a parliamentary seat since 1998. In the 2010 formation of the First Rutte cabinet, a minority government of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD)—which he left in 2004—and Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), Wilders actively participated in the negotiations, resulting in a "tolerance agreement" ("gedoogakkoord") between the PVV and these parties. He withdrew his party's parliamentary support in 2012, citing disagreements with the cabinet over proposed budget cuts. Wilders is best known for his criticism of Islam and the European Union (EU); his views have made him a controversial figure in the Netherlands and abroad. Since 2004, he has been protected at all times by armed police.


title: Geert Wilders

text: Raised a Roman Catholic, Wilders left the church at his coming of age. His travels to Israel and the greater Middle East as a young adult helped form his political views. Wilders worked as a speechwriter for the conservative-liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy ("Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie" – VVD); he later served as parliamentary assistant to party leader Frits Bolkestein from 1990 to 1998. He entered the municipal council of Utrecht in 1997. The following year he entered the House of Representatives. Citing irreconcilable differences over the party's position on the accession of Turkey to the European Union, he left the VVD in 2004 to form his own party, the Party for Freedom.


title: Geert Wilders

text: Wilders has campaigned to stop what he views as the "Islamisation of the Netherlands". He has compared the Quran to "Mein Kampf" and has campaigned to have the book banned in the Netherlands. He advocates ending immigration from Muslim countries, and supports banning the construction of new mosques. Wilders was a speaker at the Facing Jihad Conference held in Israel in 2008, which discussed the dangers of jihad, and has called for a hard line against what he called "street terror" exerted by minorities in Dutch cities. His controversial 2008 film featuring his views on Islam, "Fitna", received international attention and extreme criticism. His party was also sued because content was used in his film without permission. He has been described in the media as populist and labeled far-right. Wilders rejects being labeled as far-right and views himself as a right-wing liberal, while saying he does not want to be "linked with the wrong rightist fascist groups". More recently, however, Wilders worked together with Marine Le Pen of the French National Front in an initially ill-fated, but eventually successful attempt to form a parliamentary group in the European Parliament which now includes parties from nine member states, among them Austria's Freedom Party, Italy's Northern League and Belgium's Flemish Interest.


title: Geert Wilders

text: Geert Wilders has been charged in relation to incitement multiple times. Wilders was first accused of criminally insulting religious and ethnic groups and inciting hatred and discrimination. He was found not guilty in 2011. In 2016, he landed in court again and was found guilty of incitement and encouraging discrimination against Moroccan immigrants to the Netherlands, but faced no punishment.


title: Geert Wilders

text: Wilders was born on 6 September 1963 in the city of Venlo, in the province of Limburg. He is the youngest of four children, and was raised Catholic. He was born to a Dutch father and a mother born in colonial Indonesia, whose background was mixed Dutch and Indonesian. His father worked as a manager for the printing and copying manufacturing company Océ, and had hidden from the Germans during the Second World War, an experience so traumatizing that he refused to physically enter Germany even forty years later.


title: Geert Wilders

text: Wilders received his secondary education at the Mavo and Havo middle school and high school in Venlo. Reflecting passions that came to the fore later in his career, Wilders took a course in health insurance at the Stichting Opleiding Sociale Verzekeringen in Amsterdam and earned several law certificates at the Dutch Open University.


title: Geert Wilders

text: Wilders' goal after he graduated from secondary school was to see the world. Because he did not have enough money to travel to Australia, his preferred destination, he went to Israel instead and volunteered for a year in a moshav, Tomer, on the West Bank. With the money he saved, he travelled to the neighbouring Arab countries, and was moved by the lack of democracy in the region. When he returned to the Netherlands, he retained Israeli ideas about counter-terrorism and a "special feeling of solidarity" for the country.


title: Geert Wilders

text: Living in Utrecht, Wilders initially worked in the health insurance industry. His interest in the subject led him into politics as a speech-writer for the Netherlands' People's Party for Freedom and Democracy. He started his formal political career as a parliamentary assistant to the party leader Frits Bolkestein, specialising in foreign policy. He held this job from 1990 to 1998. During this time Geert Wilders travelled extensively, visiting countries all across the Middle East, including Iran, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Israel. Bolkestein was the first Dutch politician to address the consequences of mass immigration for Dutch society, including a sharp criticism of Muslim immigrants. He set an example for Wilders not only in his ideas but also in his confrontational speaking style. Political analyst Anno Bunnik later described Wilders as a "sorcerer's apprentice" to Bolkestein.


title: Geert Wilders

text: On 10 November 2004, two suspected attackers were captured after an hour-long siege of a building in The Hague. They were in possession of three grenades and were accused of planning to murder Wilders as well as a fellow MP, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The suspects were presumed to be members of what the Dutch intelligence agency, the General Intelligence and Security Service, has termed the Hofstad Network ("Hofstadgroep"). Since this incident Wilders has been under constant security protection because of frequent threats to his life. In September 2007, a Dutch woman was sentenced to a one-year prison term for sending more than 100 threatening emails to Wilders. In 2009, a rapper from Rotterdam was sentenced to 80 hours community service and a two-month suspended jail term for threatening Wilders in a rap song. Wilders was listed as the most threatened politician in the Netherlands in 2008.


title: Geert Wilders

text: Wilders is said to have been "deprived... of a personal life for his... hatred of Islam". He is constantly accompanied by a permanent security detail of about six plainclothes police officers, and does not receive visitors unless they are cleared in advance, thoroughly searched, and escorted at all times. He lives in a state-provided safe house which is outfitted to be bulletproof, is heavily guarded by police, and has a panic room. He is driven from his home to his offices in parliament in an armored police vehicle, and wears a bulletproof vest. His office is located in the most isolated corner of the Dutch Parliament building, and was chosen because potential terrorists can get to it through only one corridor, making it easier for his bodyguards to repel an attack. He is married to Krisztina Wilders (née Márfai), a former diplomat from Hungary of Jewish origin. The restrictions on his life, he said, are "a situation that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy".


title: Geert Wilders

text: In January 2010, Karen Geurtsen, a Dutch journalist from the magazine "HP-De Tijd", revealed a painful breach of security. She spent four months working undercover, posing as an intern, for the PVV party. She claimed that she had had unchecked access to Wilders. "I could have killed him", were the first words of the article that she published about this operation. According to her, she had "dozens" of opportunities to take his life. In July 2010, after Wilders complained that his security was inadequate, the Special Security Assignments Brigade, a special unit of Dutch military police, made four attempts to smuggle a firearm into the heavily guarded offices of Wilders' Freedom Party, two of which were successful. Following these breaches, security at the offices was increased.


title: Geert Wilders

text: In June 2011, disclosure of Wilder's personal finances indicated that he had founded a self-administered company one year earlier without reporting this via the public records of the House of Representatives, which he, as a parliamentarian, should have done.


title: Geert Wilders

text: Wilders has been dying his hair since at least the mid 1990s having previously gotten his hair cut at a barber shop near Utrecht Central Station until this was stopped due to security concerns. As a result of aging, Wilders' dark roots no longer show up due to increased graying. Wilders has acquired nicknames such as "Mozart" and "Captain Peroxide" because of his flamboyant platinum blond hairstyle. Radio Netherlands calls him "the most famous bleach-blond since Marilyn Monroe".


title: Geert Wilders

text: Wilders is an agnostic, but he has stated that he thinks Christians "are my allies" and that they fundamentally should want the same thing.


title: Geert Wilders

text: In 1997, Wilders was elected for the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) to the municipal council of Utrecht, the fourth largest city of the Netherlands. He lived in Kanaleneiland, a suburb with cheap social housing and high apartment blocks, which has a relatively high number of immigrants. While a city councilor, Wilders was mugged in his own neighbourhood; some have speculated that this may have catalysed his political transformation. He was not rewarded for his time on the municipal council of Utrecht, for in the following elections he would score well below the national average in the University city.


title: Geert Wilders

text: A year later, he was elected to the Netherlands' national parliament, but his first four years in parliament drew little attention. However, his appointment in 2002 as a public spokesman for the VVD led Wilders to become more well known for his outspoken criticism of Islamic extremism. Tensions immediately developed within the party, as Wilders found himself to be to the right of most members, and challenged the party line in his public statements. He was expelled from the VVD parliamentary party, and in September 2004, Wilders left the VVD, having been a member since 1989, to form his own political party, Groep Wilders, later renamed the Party for Freedom. The crunch issue with the VVD party line was about his refusal to endorse the party's position that European Union accession negotiations must be started with Turkey.


title: Geert Wilders

text: The Party for Freedom's political platform often overlaps those of the assassinated Rotterdam politician Pim Fortuyn and his Pim Fortuyn List. After his death, Fortuyn's impact remained, as more and more politicians sought to gain political mileage by directly confronting topics such as a ban on immigration that were, from a politically correct point of view, considered unmentionable in the Netherlands until Fortuyn came on the scene and upended the Dutch tradition of consensus politics with an anti-immigration stance. Wilders would position himself to inherit Fortuyn's constituency. The Party for Freedom called for a €16 billion tax reduction, a far stricter policy toward recreational drug use, investing more in roads and other infrastructure, building nuclear power plants and including animal rights in the Dutch constitution. In the 2006 Dutch parliamentary election, their first parliamentary election, the Party for Freedom won 9 out of the 150 open seats.


title: Geert Wilders

text: In March 2009, in a party meeting in Venlo, Wilders said "I want to be prime minister", believing the PVV will eventually become the Netherlands' biggest party. "At some point it's going to happen and then it will be a big honour to fulfil the post of prime minister".


title: Geert Wilders

text: Polling conducted throughout March 2009 by Maurice de Hond indicated the Party for Freedom was the most popular parliamentary party. The polls predicted that the party would take 21% of the national vote, winning 32 out of 150 seats in the Dutch parliament. If the polling results were replicated in an election, Wilders would be a major power broker. Under such circumstances, there would also be some likelihood of him becoming Prime Minister of the Netherlands. This has been partially attributed to timely prosecution attempts against him for hate speech and the travel ban imposed on him by the United Kingdom, as well as dissatisfaction with the Dutch government's response to the global financial crisis of 2008–2009.


title: Geert Wilders

text: On 3 March 2010, elections for the local councils were held in the municipalities of The Netherlands. The PVV only contested these local elections in the Dutch towns The Hague and Almere, because of a shortage of good candidates. The big gains that were scored indicated that the party and Wilders might dominate the political scene in the run-up to the parliamentary elections scheduled on 9 June 2010. The PVV won in Almere and came second to the Dutch Labour party in The Hague. In Almere, the PVV won 21 percent of the vote to Labour's 18 percent, preliminary results showed. In The Hague, the PVV had 8 seats—second to Labour with 10 seats.


title: Geert Wilders

text: On 8 March 2010, Wilders announced that he would take a seat on the Hague city council, after it became clear he won 13,000 preference votes. Earlier he had said he would not take up a seat if he won.


title: Geert Wilders

text: In the parliamentary elections on 9 June 2010, the PVV increased its number of seats from 9 to 24 (out of 150), getting 15.5% of the vote. This made the PVV the third party in size. With a fragmented parliament, at least three parties were required for an absolute majority. A coalition of VVD and Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) was negotiated with parliamentary support by the PVV. The PVV did not become part of the government formed by VVD and CDA but actively participated in the negotiations and thus policy decisions and – as part of the outcome agreed that they would not support any motion to dismiss ministers concerning topics listed in a so-called "support agreement" – much like the Danish model where the Danish People's Party plays a similar role. The very fact of the participation of Wilders' party in these negotiations caused fierce discussions in political circles.