Barbara Frum: Prime Ministers, Political Prisoners & The Vulcan Nerve Pinch

http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/ve/publishers-choice/culture.jsp

Barbara Rosberg, born and raised in Niagara Falls, Ontario in 1937, was the daughter of a Polish Jewish immigrant father and New York City bred mother.  She attended the University of Toronto where she graduated with a BA in 1959.  Married to dentist Murray Frum, the couple had two children and adopted a third.

After graduation, Barbara Frum worked as a freelance writer for the Toronto Star, focussing on social issue pieces.  In 1973, she was hired by CBC Radio to host As It Happens, a newsmagazine program which conducted live interviews.  Frum started to develop a reputation as a "tough, incisive, well informed interviewer" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Frum).

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Leonard Nimoy circa 1969 courtesy http://www.scoopnest.com/user/timkmak/571362161882210305

In 1981, Frum debuted on The Journal, a TV show following The National which delved deeper into the feature stories.  Frum interviewed major political figures such as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.  In 1969, Leonard Nimoy explained the vulcan nerve pinch to the Canadian broadcaster and in 1990, South African political prisoner Nelson Mandela granted her an interview on the very day he was released in 1990 (https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/12/06/nelson_mandela_remembering_one_of_first_surreal_interviews_after_prison_release_burman.html).

Frum was diagnosed with a form of chronic leukemia in 1974.  Eighteen years later she succumbed to the disease.  A predominantly Jewish area of Toronto named its library after Barbara Frum as well as a CBC Toronto atrium.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Frum

Nelson Mandela's Letter from Prison Praises The Power of Positive Thinking

"The Power of Positive Thinking and The Results of Positive Thinking both written by the American psychologist Norman Vincent Peale may be rewarding to read.  The municipal library should stock them...He makes the basic point that it is not so much the disability that one suffers from but one's attitude to it." (Nelson Mandela referring to his wife's heart condition)

Nelson Mandela, imprisoned in 1962 for his anti-apartheid stance, wrote a letter to his wife from prison seven years later.  He had just found out she was suffering from blackouts, likely related to her heart condition, and recommended that she read the book The Power of Positive Thinking.  

I am not surprised that Mandela suggested such a book given that he survived almost 30 years of imprisonment.  It would have been easy for the political prisoner to have become bitter and wasted away in jail.  It would have been easy for him to give up on his family.  It would have been easy for him to give up on his cause.  

However, when Mandela was finally released, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he took up the cause anew.  Within four short years, Mandela won a sweeping victory to become South Africa's first black president.  While in prison, he had written an autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, which he had published soon after his election.  Mandela practised what he preached:  his positive thinking had transported him from a prison inmate to the president of his country.  

Nelson burned his racial pass in 1960, an action which led to his arrest for "high treason" courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela#Arrest_and_Rivonia_trial:_1962.E2.80.9364