One man couldn't see what was right in front of him. The other had vision despite blindness.
Archibald Gillespie, a 19th-century Marine captain, so misunderstood Mexican culture that he triggered a Los Angeles rebellion during the Mexican-American War.
Werner Marti, his biographer, lost his eyesight in high school but graduated from UCLA. He stumbled upon the papers of the detested Yankee Marine as he searched for a dissertation topic in 1949.
It was a turning point in his career and, posthumously, in that of Gillespie, who had pretty much disappeared from the pages of California history. No paintings or etchings of him survive.
Marti's 1960 biography of Gillespie, "Messenger of Destiny," published by John Howell books, was "a fluke," he said in an interview. "A lovely old colonel interested in military history read my dissertation and sent it in for publication. I never would have done that."
Marti, whose upright bearing makes him seem far younger than his 89 years, became head of the history department at Cal Poly Pomona, retiring in 1977.
Gillespie was a secret agent sent to California by President James K. Polk in 1845. His mission: to ensure that California ended up in the United States. But Gillespie's overbearing bullishness worsened relations between Americans and Mexicans and got him run out of Los Angeles.
On presidential orders, Gillespie sailed into Veracruz, Mexico, in late 1845, disguised as a rich merchant. He was 32, with an excellent record as a Marine officer, a command of the Spanish language and a high recommendation from his superior, Marti says.
While traveling across Mexico on horseback, wearing a "serape and Mexican hat," Gillespie sent lengthy dispatches to Washington. He described the bedraggled condition of Mexican forces in anticipation of eventual battles as "the most miserable troops I have ever seen."
In early 1846, Gillespie sailed to California to convey secret orders. First, he met with the U.S. consul in Monterey, Thomas O. Larkin, to advise him of the possibility of war and instruct him not to give Mexico a "pretext for action." Next, Gillespie went to Oregon to deliver the same message to Army Capt. John C. Fremont, the explorer and mapmaker.
