Dave Cullen's "Columbine" is a chilling page-turner, a striking accomplishment given that Cullen's likely readers almost certainly know how the tragic story ends. Twelve students and one beloved teacher died at the suburban Denver high school on April 20, 1999, the worst school shooting rampage until two years ago, when Cho Seung-Hui slaughtered 32 classmates at Virginia Tech....

In "Columbine," Cullen is surprisingly but appropriately modest (appropriately, because it makes the book better) about his own role in exploding trite Columbine myths. You'll read his book and learn that the smartest crime investigators were frustrated and bedeviled by national and local media jumping on specious favorite theories about the killers and their victims — theories that investigators knew from the beginning weren't true. The killers weren't part of the Trench Coat Mafia, they weren't gay, they didn't target jocks or minority students. Eric Harris was a psychopath, but Dylan Klebold was a depressive who'd shown little capacity for hatred and violence.

Maybe most explosive, against the backdrop of the strong suburban Denver evangelical culture, was the story that student Cassie Bernall was killed because of her Christian faith, after she said "yes" when Dylan Klebold asked if she believed in God. The tale simply wasn't true, despite the fact that Bernall's mother, Misty, and the girl's evangelical church launched an campaign around Cassie's martyrdom that culminated in Misty Bernall's moving memoir, "She Said Yes," which wound up on the New York Times bestseller list and won her interviews with "Larry King Live" and "The Today Show."

One hundred years ago today, a black man was the first to reach the North Pole, but it took a while for Matthew Henson to get the credit for that feat.

“I was in the lead that had overshot the mark a couple of miles,” Matthew Henson told a reporter in March 1955, relating the moment when, 46 years earlier, he knew he had conquered the world. “We went back then, and I could see that my footprints were the first at the spot.”

“The spot” was the geographic North Pole, the literal roof of the planet. Achieving that distinction had long been the Holy Grail for explorers, adventurers and scientists. Henson’s claim to being the first human to set foot on the Pole on April 6, 1909, has been a sore point with others inclined to believe, as has been insisted for generations, that superstar Arctic explorer Robert E. Peary was the first to reach the Pole.

Over the last century, a growing body of credible evidence has come to the conclusion that 100 years ago today, Henson, not Peary, reached the Pole first. Still the Peary myth remains. That lingering distortion of fact is the result of the combination of the early bloom of our celebrity culture and the persistence of 20th century racial bias. Peary was a star and Henson was black; those two factors merged to virtually eclipse Henson’s role in conquering the top of the world.

Henson’s relatives and others are marking the occasion of Henson’s and Peary’s not-quite joint achievement. Centennial observances of just about anything are a lock for media attention in today’s culture. But honors for Henson, who died in March 1955 at the age of 88, are a tribute to his own longevity and a quiet celebration of the idea that eventually the truth will take hold.

The White House announced this weekend that President Obama would soon lift restrictions on family travel and remittances to Cuba. A bipartisan group of 20 senators has gone further, introducing legislation to repeal the nearly half-century-old ban on travel to Cuba -- a first step toward lifting the U.S. embargo on the communist island. Before proceeding, lawmakers ought to consider the words of Ricardo Alarcón -- a top official in the Castro regime and longtime leader of Cuba's National Assembly of People's Power.

In 1998, I had a revealing meeting with Alarcón in Havana. I was working for Sen. Jesse Helms -- then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a household name in Cuba thanks to regime propaganda -- and had gone to the island with my colleague Roger Noriega for the visit of Pope John Paul II. As the price of admission to Cuba, we had to endure a meeting with a low-level functionary in the Cuban National Assembly.

About 30 minutes into that meeting, Alarcón came into the room unexpectedly and announced: "I will now answer your questions." Alarcón had been quoted in U.S. media indicating his desire to succeed Fidel Castro, so we said point blank: "We hear you want to be president of Cuba." He waved his cigar dismissively, saying that all he had told the reporter was that if the revolution needed him, of course he would answer the call. We pressed: "But didn't Fidel just announce at the Communist Party conference that Raúl will succeed him?" Alarcón shot up in his seat: "No!" he declared. "All Fidel said was what is in the Cuban constitution -- that in the absence of the president, the first vice president assumes the duties of the president." But, he added with a smile, "the president serves at the pleasure of the National Assembly of People's Power" -- which Alarcón heads. He then held forth on the future of the revolution, referring to Raúl as a "brother of lesser historical significance," and named several individuals who would be better choices to serve as Fidel's successor, including rising stars such as Carlos Lage and Felipe Pérez Roque. (Raúl, if you need confirmation, check Cuban state security's recording of the exchange.)

After the meeting, which had not been on our official schedule, we stepped out of the Assembly building. A throng of reporters, including from Cuba's official Prensa Latina news agency, was waiting -- and asked about our discussions with Alarcón. We walked past them without comment. Moments later, Alarcón stepped out. He told the assembled reporters: "I am not going to exaggerate the affair. I do not believe it is easy to change people of a conservative formation. . . . But it has been a very respectful dialogue." The Associated Press reported: "A top Cuban official held a 'respectful dialogue' Tuesday with aides to U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, one of the communist island's fiercest critics."

This story -- the details of which have not been publicly shared before -- holds important lessons for today. First, Raúl Castro's position as Fidel's successor is by no means assured. That Alarcón would speak so openly and dismissively about Raúl to representatives of the enemy -- Helms -- speaks volumes about the lack of respect for Raúl within the Cuban hierarchy. Many Cubans told us that Raúl is hated within the ranks of the military and is blamed by them for the execution of the beloved Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa -- who led Cuban forces in Angola and whose popularity Raúl saw as a threat. Were it not for Fidel's protection, we were told, he would have been eliminated long ago. Raúl is trying to consolidate his position, eliminating rivals such as Lage and Pérez Roque, but once Fidel goes, the knives could come out for the "brother of lesser historical significance."

This continuing coverage and reaction arising from the just-released book, Nazi Nexus: America's Corporate Connection's to Hitler's Holocaust (Dialog Press).

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Since the publication of the book IBM and the Holocaust, I as a long-time IBM employee and now an IBM retiree, have been trying to get IBM to face its past and apologize for its complicity in helping Germany commit genocide. The best offer I have received thus far was the willingness for Samuel J. Palmisano, the IBM CEO, to meet with me and apologize verbally in private for the company’s role in providing the technology for Germany to perfect the round up of European Jewry and their final annihilation. Included in these round ups were my father and most of my family in Poland. It was not until recently that I came across a listing, which without question came directly from punch cards, of the registration of my family by the Germans. All vital information was included in this list, which also listed me. If for instance the Germans wanted a list of all males over fifty or children under ten, they would insert the cards and sort by the relevant fields. In minutes they could produce a list with the information needed to send children and all males over fifty to Auschwitz.

I was moved to write about this after reading the chapter on IBM in Edwin Black’s latest book Nazi Nexus, which provides the reader with an array of American corporate facilitator of the Holocaust. Chapter 5 offers a clear precise picture of IBM’s role in helping Germany eliminate Jews and other so-called subhumans or “untermenschen.” Unfortunately, neither Black nor Nazi Nexus provides any ideas of how IBM can be made to face their actions during the Third Reich. There is no question that there is enough circumstantial evidence to prove that IBM, with prior knowledge, supplied technology to Germany used to accomplish “The Final Solution.”

Since the statue of limitations does not apply to murder or genocide, it is time for the company to be indicted for complicity in murder. Since the decisions to supply the Third Reich with technology originated in New York, I think the US Attorney in New York should seek an indictment of IBM. I am convinced that a jury would find IBM guilty. IBM’s actions are a pure example of “profit over everything.” Actually it sounds better in German, “gewinn uber alles.”

By sidestepping the genocide issue -- a key tension point between Turks and Armenians and a rallying cry among Armenian-Americans -- President Obama says he is trying to be as "encouraging as possible."

President Obama on Monday declined to repeat his claim that the deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians during World War I was a "genocide," stepping back from his campaign pledge to Armenian Americans that the "widely documented fact" would be fully commemorated during his presidency.

During a joint news conference alongside Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Obama said he did not want to "focus on my views" or in any way interfere with delicate negotiations between Turks and Armenians on what the president called "a whole host of issues."

When asked if his views had changed or he was tempering them in light of the fragile Turkish-Armenian talks, Obama said he is not interested in "tilting these negotiations one way or another while they are having useful discussions."

Later during a speech to the Turkish parliament, Obama said he supports a full "normalization" of relations between Turkey and Armenia.

During the campaign, Obama was emphatic about the history of Turkish aggression against Armenians from 1915-1923 as the Ottoman Empire was collapsing and the bloodshed from World War I -- in which the Ottomans allied with the Germans -- spread across the continent.

The Armenian Assembly of America said Obama did nothing to reverse his position, quoting the president saying that "my views are on the record and I have not changed views." It added that the assembly expects a solid statement of support from Obama on April 24, the day Armenians commemorate the "genocide."

The earthquake in Abruzzo did not spare the region’s artistic patrimony, though government officials said Monday that it was too soon to determine the extent of the damage to historical buildings or works of art.

In L’Aquila, the regional capital, the earthquake caused “significant damage to monuments,” said Giuseppe Proietti, secretary general of the Italian Culture Ministry. The rear part of the apse of the Romanesque basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio, much of which was restored in the 20th century, collapsed and cupolas in at least two churches in the historic center had cracked open.

The third floor of the 16th-century castle that houses the National Museum of Abruzzo was also affected by the quake, though officials have not been able to verify the damage to the art collection there. The news agency ANSA reported that the Porta Napoli, built in 1548 in honor of the Holy
Roman Emperor Charles V, was destroyed in the quake.

“The situation is very serious,” but findings are at a preliminary stage, Mr. Proietti said. He added that only after firefighters and civil protection teams had concluded their rescue efforts and search for survivors would the state’s art officials be allowed to enter into the rubble-strewn cities to calculate the material losses to Abruzzo’s cultural heritage.

Monday’s earthquake, with a 6.3 magnitude, was not the first to strike the central Italian city. In 1703, a quake destroyed much of the medieval historic center, which was then rebuilt in the Baroque style, according to Alessandro Clementi, who has written several books on the history of L’Aquila, which was founded in the 13th century and had its moment of greatest socioeconomic importance in the Renaissance.

Officials in Rome said that the quake had also damaged the Baths of Caracalla, one of the most imposing ancient Roman ruins in the Italian capital, some 60 miles west of the epicenter of the quake, and there was significant damage reported in the villages around L’Aquila as well.

You might not expect the arrival in Munich of a retired auto mechanic from Cleveland, Ohio, to excite much attention. But when John Demjanjuk finally lands in Germany, the nation's press will be waiting for him. Sentenced to death over 20 years ago by the Israeli authorities as a Nazi war criminal but later freed when fresh evidence undermined the basis of his conviction, Demjanjuk again expects to face charges, this time alleging that he helped to murder many thousands of Jews at a Nazi death camp. If the case proceeds, with Demjanjuk now 89 and remaining witnesses also elderly, this could be the last such prosecution for crimes committed during the Holocaust.

Police said the protests, attended mostly by leftist parties and trade unionists, were peaceful. Three demonstrators were detained.

"We will not allow the NPD to misuse this place with its disgusting ideology," said Green Party chairwoman Claudia Roth, standing in front of the town hall.

Further protests are expected after a regional administrative court ruled on Friday that the City of Berlin could not block the neo-Nazi group from holding its party convention in the Reinickendorf town hall.

A menu, due to be auctioned this month, has revealed Churchill’s dissatisfaction with the breakfast provided on board a BOAC flight to the United States, in June 1954. It was Sir Winston Churchill’s last flight to the United States as Prime Minister and he was accompanied by his Foreign Secretary Sir Antony Eden.

Unhappy with the existing menu, Churchill initially tried to write over the printed menu. His amended menu was too long, however, and he consequently wrote his own new menu on the back of the printed one.

It went unnoticed amid Thursday's media hullabaloo over designation of more wilderness lands, but Congress has reinvigorated battlefield preservation.

As part of the gigantic public-lands bill the U.S. House of Representatives passed this week, legislators reauthorized the American Battlefield Protection Program. The bipartisan measure awaits President Obama's signature at the White House on Monday.

Congressional renewal of the ABPP is crucial to local, state and federal work to save some of the nation's remaining Civil War sites from compromise or destruction, supporters said yesterday.

Russ Smith, superintendent of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, cheered the action on Capitol Hill.

"Here in the Fredericksburg area alone, this program has facilitated the preservation of hundreds of acres of battlefield land, including Slaughter Pen Farm and Day One Chancellorsville," Smith said.

A Nazi death camp guard accused of helping to kill some 29,000 Jews during World War II has won the right to remain in the United States for now, an immigration judge has ruled.

A Virginia judge said late Friday that John Demjanjuk, 89, who faces expulsion to Germany on war crimes charges, can remain at his Ohio home while the case is further examined.

One of the most senior politicians in Europe, Javier Solana, said history is history and should be analyzed by historians when asked if some European national parliaments' resolutions on the Armenian "genocide" had helped the reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia.

Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union and High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana gave one of his rare interviews to Today's Zaman hours before the crucial NATO summit kicked off and days before new US President Barack Obama's historic visit to Turkey. A former Spanish foreign minister and former NATO secretary-general, Solana has been one of the pivotal leaders of the EU known for his strong support for Turkey's EU bid.

A political figure who knows Turkey and her politics very well, Solana, commenting on the recent rapid rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia, said it was very good news. Asked whether he thought some European national parliaments' resolutions and laws on the Armenian "genocide" had contributed to reconciliation between the two embattled neighbors, Solana said history was history and should be left to historians to be analyzed. "I don't think we need to put the past every day on the table," he said, hailing President Abdullah Gül's visit to Yerevan last September.

Humans were dying of anthrax in North America much earlier than thought - perhaps after scavenging the remains of infected animals while migrating from Asia during the Ice Age-a new study says. "We've always thought that anthrax was an Old World disease that was brought to the New World by Europeans" around 1500, said study coauthor Paul Keim of Northern Arizona University. But the new report suggests that ancient humans entering the continent thousands of years earlier imported the disease after crossing the Bering land bridge, which once connected present-day Alaska and eastern Siberia.

Heads of state have been exchanging gifts since the beginning of recorded time. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt presented stone vessels emblazoned with the royal cartouche, a kind of monogram, to the neighboring Hittites in the second millennium BC. Gift exchange had become a ritualized part of diplomatic contact by the Middle Ages: During the Third Crusade, an emissary of Richard the Lionheart presented a flock of birds to the representative of Saladin by formally noting,"It is the custom of princes when they camp close to one another to exchange gifts." (In modern times, live animals are inappropriate diplomatic gifts, as President George W. Bush learned the hard way.) A 14th-century Muslim scholar also noted,"Very often, sovereigns linked by proximity exchange gifts involving that which is rarest in their respective lands." (He likely would have joined the chorus critiquing President Obama's choice of the ubiquitous iPod as a gift for the queen.)

Americans have never been particularly comfortable with this tradition. When Louis XVI gave Benjamin Franklin a snuffbox adorned with hundreds of diamonds in 1785, Franklin accepted the gift to avoid an ugly scene. The same year, John Jay accepted a horse from King Charles III of Spain in the process of negotiating a treaty. Congress recognized that returning the two gifts might cause a diplomatic row at a sensitive moment and so approved them retroactively.

Based on this experience, the Framers at the Constitutional Convention decided that full disclosure, rather than outright prohibition, was the appropriate course. President Washington appears to have taken this provision quite literally. When an emissary of the French Republic presented its new flag to Washington, he replied,"The transaction will be announced to Congress, and the colors will be deposited with [the] Archives." Thomas Jefferson refused to keep any gifts other than books, even if Congress approved. He auctioned several items and deposited the proceeds in the treasury.

In the world of international diplomacy, small missteps can cause big problems. When George W. Bush gave German Chancellor Angela Merkel a quick shoulder rub—in what he thought was a friendly gesture—he was mercilessly pilloried for weeks. Hillary Clinton's embrace of Suha Arafat dogged her for years. One of the most important tests of a globe-trotting president: picking out just the right gift for your foreign counterpart. Barack Obama is learning this the hard way.

Only a few weeks on the job, Obama created a minor diplo-mess when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown came to the U.S. for a visit. Obama's historic Oval Office desk, a gift from Queen Victoria to Rutherford Hayes, is made from the timbers of the HMS Resolute. Brown proudly presented Obama with a pencil holder carved from its antislavery sister ship, the HMS Gannet. Classy! Obama lamely reciprocated with a DVD set of Hollywood movies, including "Psycho." When Brown got back home, he discovered they didn't work in his European player. "At a minimum you don't want to give offense," says a former White House official who helped orchestrate foreign visits for a previous president. "That was really phoning it in." (The official, like others quoted here, asked not to be named disparaging a sitting president.) Apparently it was a rookie mistake. According to a person close to the situation, Obama hasn't yet appointed a chief of protocol and his staffers, still unpacking, didn't realize that the State Department has an entire office dedicated to foreign visits.

Ever the quick study, Obama did a little better last week when he welcomed Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd with a rare original copy of the sheet music for "The Star Spangled Banner." Classy! (Brown, clutching his worthless DVDs, must have been like, "What the …?") But before Obama starts raiding the National Archives whenever a world leader doorsteps the White House, he might take a hint from a few of his predecessors, who had a knack for picking out a little something for the man who has everything.

Tic-Tac-Toe, No Tradebacks

1963: Kennedy to Lemass
Camelot style: No surprise that John and Jackie Kennedy were excellent at picking out gifts. One of the best: the president won over Irish Prime Minister Sean Lemass when he presented the P.M. with a velvet-lined, mahogany box. Inside: a precise replica of Gen. George Washington's ceremonial sword.

Medieval knights hid and secretly venerated the Shroud of Turin for more than 100 years after the Crusades, the Vatican said today in an announcement that appeared to solve the mystery of the relic’s missing years.

The Knights Templar, an order which was suppressed and disbanded for alleged heresy, took care of the linen cloth, which bears the image of a man with a beard, long hair and the wounds of crucifixion, according to Vatican researchers.

The Shroud, which is kept in the royal chapel of Turin Cathedral, has long been revered as the shroud in which Jesus was buried, although the image only appeared clearly in 1898 when a photographer developed a negative.

Barbara Frale, a researcher in the Vatican Secret Archives, said the Shroud had disappeared in the sack of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade, and did not surface again until the middle of the fourteenth century. Writing in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Dr Frale said its fate in those years had always puzzled historians.

However her study of the trial of the Knights Templar had brought to light a document in which Arnaut Sabbatier, a young Frenchman who entered the order in 1287, testified that as part of his initiation he was taken to “a secret place to which only the brothers of the Temple had access”. There he was shown “a long linen cloth on which was impressed the figure of a man” and instructed to venerate the image by kissing its feet three times.

The former Iraqi dictator's palatial boudoir is being offered to newlyweds for £150 a night.

Some might think it macabre but Iraq is offering honeymooners the chance to spend their wedding night in Saddam Hussein’s bed.

As the country gingerly begins to revive a war-ravaged tourism industry, the former dictator’s bedroom is on offer for £150 a night in a presidential palace that is undergoing renovation in the town of Hillah, some 60 miles south of Baghdad.

With its Roman columns, chandeliers and gargantuan bathrooms, the palace is a striking example of excess, and one of several reserved for the exclusive pleasure of the dictator, who was deposed in 2003 and executed in 2006.

Perched on top of a man-made hill overlooking the Euphrates, the building has seen better days: even the lavatories were removed in the orgy of looting that followed the allied invasion of the country in 2003. Until 2005, it was occupied by American troops, who have left their mark in the stonework with a variety of graffiti such as “Brian loves Brandy”.

Hussam Kadhim, 44, the manager, hopes that proximity to Baghdad, as well as to the biblical city of Babylon, will lure tourists. Already the palace attracts 1,000 locals a day. They pay a small fee just to look at the building and picnic in the grounds. One attraction is Saddam’s date tree, which is surrounded by a concrete wall; only the dictator was allowed to eat its fruit.

Iraqis expressed mixed feelings about the honeymoon offer, however. “I don’t think it would be an easy thing for newlyweds to sleep on the bed of a dead person,” said Khalid Al-Lizan, an Iraqi who recently went on his honeymoon to Syria.

In the past week, Egypt marked the historic 30-year anniversary of its peace treaty with Israel without any public celebration and only the barest public mention.

It is not surprising, really, that there was no cheering here. The timing could hardly have been worse, with memories still fresh of the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

But mention of the anniversary also served as a reminder of promises unfulfilled. Egyptians were told that the treaty would lead to a comprehensive peace, and it did not. They were told that it would allow the government to focus on political, social and economic development, instead of war. But they still live in an authoritarian state, defined for many by poverty.

Egyptians were told that the treaty would give them a voice to advocate for the Palestinians. But few see it as having turned out that way.

“Today Egypt is not influential in anything,” said Osama Anwar Okasha, a leading Egyptian television writer. “It is a third-class country in this region. Egypt was the leading country and it gave up this leading role. Now it is like a postman, delivering messages.”

The public mood is dark all around right now, and the sentiment points to the treaty as the start of Egypt’s decline and diplomatic impotence.

“Of course the treaty is not the cause of all of this, but it was the initial seed,” said Fahmy Howeidy, a writer and political analyst in Cairo.

The peace treaty between Israel and Egypt is a bedrock of the Middle East peace process, positioning Egypt as a key player in every international diplomatic effort to resolve the Palestinian conflict. It is a pillar of Egypt’s foreign policy, as well, and an institutional given among Egypt’s governing class. President Hosni Mubarak has demonstrated that he is committed to the treaty, and to the diplomatic process and political system that built and supports the treaty.

“This peace treaty is not good for Egypt,” said Ashraf Maged, 22, a business student at Cairo University. “What did we ever get from it, in 30 years? I don’t think the peace treaty is useful because in reality there is no peace; war is what we see.”

Mr. Maged’s sentiments are widespread but also reflect a generational divide. Many among the older generation, men and women who lived through or fought in three wars with Israel, often say they see the peace treaty as a necessary evil, an end to fighting that sapped the country of its resources and left many dead and bloodied. They say it was not so much about normalizing relations, which has never happened. It was just about ending the wars.

“Young people who say the peace was a bad thing don’t understand how it was in those days,” said Amir Muhammad Ragab, 58, who fought in the 1973 war and now owns a furniture shop. “They think war is like in movies. They think with their hearts, not their head. They don’t understand the price we paid for peace, the blood and effort it took. We don’t want to go back to this.”

It's been 147 years since the sounds of cannon and rifles echoed through the woodlands surrounding a little whitewashed church in southern Tennessee in what would become one of the bloodiest battles during the Civil War.

This weekend, visitors to Shiloh National Military Park can get a glimpse of what life was like for soldiers in the Battle of Shiloh.

Park ranger Joe Davis said about 150 re-enactors dressed in Civil War attire will help the living history programs.

"The re-enactors will be demonstrating battlefield maneuvers and firing rifles; we will have a campsite and other demonstrations so our visitors can get a taste of the battle," he said.

Davis expects more than 8,000 people.

A mushroom cloud half a century ago has helped clear up a vital medical question: Can the heart make new cells and repair itself?

"I would say that in the heart field, that this is one of those important studies that is going to change the way that we think for a very long time," said Dr. Richard T. Lee, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

Scientists solved the mystery by going back in time.

Until it was banned in 1963, nuclear weapons testing above ground produced slightly radioactive carbon dioxide gas all over the planet. It entered the food chain. So if you were alive then, the radioactive material ended up in your DNA.

Today's study found that - over time - the amount of radioactive carbon in the heart decreases, suggesting old muscle cells are being replaced by new ones. They estimate that by the time you reach 50, almost half the muscle cells in your heart have been replaced by new ones.

Thursday’s jury verdict in Ward Churchill’s lawsuit against the University of Colorado has given rise to a mystery: How is it that a jury could rule that the university had acted illegally in firing Mr. Churchill, and yet still award him only $1 in damages?

Five of the six members of the jury have told court officials they do not wish to speak with reporters about their thinking. But a sixth, Bethany Newill, called a local radio station, KHOW, last night and said the $1 judgment was the product of a compromise between a single holdout juror who believed Mr. Churchill should not receive any damages and five others who believed he should be awarded some significant amount, according to today’s edition of the Colorado Daily. Helping shape the jury’s verdict was Mr. Churchill’s decision to have his lawyers not specify how much money he wanted, as well as his insistence throughout the proceedings that all he wanted was to get his job back.