SPAN: July 1968

F\LE COpy MORGUE-U S I S \ND'~

SPAN OF

SPAN VOLUME

IX

NUMBER

EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE the death of a world figure evokes an almost personal sense of loss among those they have never seen or met.

This is how many received the news of Helen Keller's death last month, shortly before her eighty-eighth birthday. Millions the world over are familiar with the story of her life-the little deaf-blind girl's rebellious childhood, her meeting with Anne Sullivan who taught her to read and write and eventually helped her graduate from Radcliffe College, her work on behalf of the blind of America and elsewhere, and her travels abroad.

July 1968

7

Thumba: World's New Window into Space

by A.M.

Raja

'Ashram' of Indian Art and Archaeology

8

by Carmen Kagal

The Mystery of the First Fourth

12

by Frank Donovan

The Price

18

by Arthur Miller

Family Planning: Progress Report

After 1955 visit to India, during which she met Prime Minister Nehru, Helen Keller wrote to a friend: "The tears come to my eyes as I think of the warm-hearted letters of sympathy I have received/rom India." Below, Frank Hobi's photograph of Helen Keller with Rabindranath Tagore. At right, walking in the garden of her country home in Westport, Connecticut.

42

by V.S. Nanda

De Witt Clinton's "Fabulous Folly"

46

by Laurence P. Dalcher

Front cover Striking composition is formed as Stars and Stripes flutters before the austere Washington Monument.

Story on pages 12-17 describes the first U.S. Independence Day, whose anniversary is observed this month.

W.D. Miller. Publisher;

Back cover Health Minister S. Chandrasekhar and President Johnson in conversation at the WhiteHouse. A progress report on India's family planning programme, and American support for it, appears on pages 42 to 45.

Dean Brown, Editor;

V.S. Nanda, Mg. Editor.

Editorial Staff: Carmen Kagal, Avinash Pasricha, Nirmal K. Sharma, Krishan G. Gabrani, P.R. Gupta. Art Staff: B. Roy Choudhury, Nand K. Katyal, Kanti Roy, Kuldip Singh Jus, Gopi Gajwani. Production Staff: Awtar S. Marwaha, Mammen Philip. Photographic Services: USIS Photo Lab. Published by the United States Information Service, Bahawalpur House, Sikandra Road, New on behalf of the American Embassy, New Delhi. "printed by Ai-u ehta at Vakil & Sons Pv td., Narandas Building, Sprott , 18 Ballard Estate, B y-l.

Manuscripts and photographs sent for publication must be accompanied by stamped, self-addressed envelope for return. SPAN is not responsible for any Joss in'transit. Use of SPAN articles in other publications is encouraged except when they are copyrighted. For details, write to the Editor, SPAN. Subscription: One year, rupees five; single copy, fifty paise. For change of address, send old address from a recent SPAN envelope .along with new "address to A.K. Mitra, Circulation Manager. Allow six weeks for changยง'o of address to become effective.

The U.N. sponsorship has made Thumba the only rocket range where space scientists of the East and--West-w-ork-side by side. ed from the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS). Of these, forty-seven including eighteen two-stage Nike-Apache rockets to study the wind patterns inthe upper atmosphere and twenty-nine single-stage Judy-Dart meteorological rockets were supplied by NASA. The Indian Space Committee participated in the Indian International Ocean Expedition and the International Quiet Sun Year meteorological programmes when over twenty rockets were launched from the Thumba range. The data collected in the equatorial regions were furnished to the world meteorological agency in the U.S. which was coordinating the programmes. During 1965, TERLS participated in the world synoptic launchings when rockets were fired from ten countries including Japan, Australia, France and the United States.

At the dedication of the Thumba range to the United Nations earlier this year, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi said: "I see in this ceremony the timeless endeavour of man to reach out farther and farther into the great unknown.

This station is a tiny part of the vast programmes of space exploration which have already carried rockets to the moon and to Venus. All the previous talk of a shrinking world is meaningless, as we witness in amazement the phenomenon of a shrinking universe in which our human habitation, the earth, is indeed a single 'United Nation' in the planetary membership of the larger universe."

The TERLS project received warm tribute from a NASA administrator when he represented the U.S. at the dedication ceremony. Two factors distinguish Thumba from new ranges elsewhere in the world, Mr. Arnold W. Frutkin, NASA Assistant Administrator for International Affairs, said. The first is the philosophy of striving for indigenous capabilities as rapidly as possible. The second is the U.N. sponsorship which has established a broad content for bilateral and other arrangements and enabled the technicians and scientists of the East and West to work side by

side in exploring the newest dimension of man's life.

Another important milestone in India's march towards space exploration was the launching of the first Indian-made rocket, Rohini-75 late last year. The Rohini was designed and developed at the Space Science and Technology Centre (SSTC) at Thumba. Ten Rohini rockets have so far been flight-tested with good results.

According to TERLS Director H.G.S. Murthy, Thumba is now almost a self-contained unit. It is well equipped with facilities to operate rocket launchings. Under a three-phased programme, the Indian rocket station plans further development in its mission to sail the sea of space.

Under the first phase, Indian rockets have been successfully flight-tested. In the second phase, nearing completion, TERLS plans manufacture of the French Centaure rockets under licence. The third phase, now begun, envisages design and development of all systems required for space research using sounding rockets and satellites at SSTC. Director Murthy and senior members of his team received training at the NASA rocket launching facility at Wallops Island, the Goddard Space Flight Centre and other American installations. NASA provided most of the electrical equipment now in use at Thumba. This includes a telemetry trailer, a DOVAP (Doppler Velocity and Position) trailer, radar and computer vans and two rocket launchers, one for Nike-Apache and the other for Judy-Dart.

The Indian space capital today hums with activity as scientists from Japan, West Germany, the U.S.S.R. and the United States planrurther rocket experiments. The U.S. has programmed three flights with NASA-instrumented payloads while two Japanese payloads astride NASA-provided rockets probed the skies in April and May. Thumba also expects to cash in on the ambitious Apollo moon project. It proposes to launch two rockets with vapour clouds to be photographed by astronauts when their Apollo spacecraft makes its first manned orbital flight.

The one-time fishing hamlet, Thumba, still serene and tranquil with tall sun-kissed palms standing as silent sentinels on the water's edge, is the nerve centre of Indian rocket science and bids fair to become the Cape Kennedy END of! ndia.

Indian art and archaeology PHOTOGRAPHS BY RAGHUBIR

SINGH

poseful tyranny which had brought the colonists to the point where they had to either throw off the yoke or submit to slavery. For free men there could be but one choice.

In 1823 Timothy Pickering, a staunch Federalist, sought to belittle Jefferson's contribution to independence and "to show how little was his merit in compiling" the Declaration. In a Fourth of July speech he quoted a letter from John Adams concerning the Declaration in which the latter said: ... THERE IS NOT AN IDEAin it, but what had been hackneyed in Congress for two years before. The substance of it is contained in the Declaration of Rights and the violation of those rights, in the Journal of Congress in 1774. Indeed, the essence of it is contained in a pamphlet, composed by James Otis. v'f

A committee of five members, headed by Thomas Jefferson, was appointed to draft the Declaration. Left to right: Jefferson, Sherman, Franklin, Livingston and Adams. tion ... between us and the people or Parliament of Great Britain/' they simply declared that the colonies were "absolved from all allegiance to the British crown."

Congress also changed the title from Jefferson's" A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America; in General Congress assembled," to "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America." Officially, there is no such thing as "The Declaration of Independence."

The purpose of the document was not to declare independence-that had been done two days before it was adopted. Rather, it was to proclaim and justify the act to the world.

Jefferson expresses this purpose in the strikingly beautiful and solemn first paragraph, ending with the words: "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

There was a two-fold reason for having a momentous manifesto to announce the act of independency. One was its emotional impact on the people of the colonies. The other-and perhaps the primary purpose in the minds of Congress-was its effect on prospective allies in Europe. This was the "candid world" to which Jefferson submitted facts concerning the tyranny of George III in a series of impressive paragraphs starting with the reiterative "He has."

Jefferson directed his charges at the King to prove that George III had deliberately) and with malice aforethought, tyrannized the colonies to an extent that they were justified in

taking action to escape his despotism. Historically, Jefferson's point of view was not correct.

There were instances to support every charge that he made, but they were not all attributable to George III. Many were the result of carelessness, stupidity or ignorance on the part of British colonial officials in America and abroad.

But Jefferson was not concerned with writing history-he was making it.

It was hard to justify the right of rebellion against any monarch to the sovereigns of Europe, who believed that all kings ruled by divine right. Jefferson sought to do it by setting up, in the beginning of the second paragraph of the Declaration, a political philosopfiy under which a people have a right to overthrow their government when it seeks "to reduce them under absolute despotism" by suppressing their natural rights as free men. The theory of natural rights is the sole basis under which Jefferson sought to make this rebellion respectable.

He did not present the charges against the King as justifications for rebellion, but to prove the malevolent purpose of George to suppress the inalienable rights of the colonists.

Finally, Jefferson sought to convince the world that the colonists had suffered patiently as martyrs under this oppression-they had "petitioned for redress in the most humble terms" until the situation became unbearable.

Obviously, he did not mention the unpopular stamp officials who were tarred and feathered

by Sons of Liberty, the tea that was dumped in Boston harbour, nor the rocks that were thrown at Lobsterbacks. His list of charges claimed that it was solely George's deliberate and pur-

Jefferson commenJed on this in a letter to James Madison: PICKERING'S OBSERVATIONS, and Me. Adams' in addition, "that it contained no new ideas, that it is a commonplace compilation, its sentiments hackneyed in Congress for two years before," may all be true. Of that I am not to be the judge. Rich. H. Lee charged it as copied from Locke's treatise in government. Otis' pamphlet I never saw, and whether I had gathered my ideas from reading or reflection I do not know. I know only that I turned to neither book or pamphlet while writing it. I did not consider it as any part of my charge to invent new ideas altogether.

Two years later Jefferson wrote to R.H. Lee that he was only trying to express the ideas of men who all agreed on the principles embodied in the Declaration. The important thing, wrote Jefferson, was: NOT TO FIND OUT new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of; not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, [in] terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we [were] impelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind ....

The attempt to criticize Jefferson's creation on the grounds that the ideas on which it was based did not originate with him was patently ridiculous. He could not possibly have justified continued

WALTER:Seriously. I'm in a strange business, you know. There's too much to learn and far too little time to learn it. And there's a price you have to pay for that. I tried awfully hard to kid myself but there's simply no time for people. Not the way a woman expects, if she's any kind of woman. He laughs. But I'm doing pretty well alone!

of the musketeers.

Out of the drawer where he earlier found the ice skate, Victor takes a pair of emblazoned gauntlets.

VICTOR:Here they are! What do you know!

ESTHER,reaching her hand out: Aren't they beautiful!

VICTOR:How would I list an amount like that on my income tax?

WALTER:Well ... call it a gift.

Victor is silent, obviously 'in conflict., Walter sees the emotion.

Not that it is, but you could list it as such.

It's allowed.

VICTOR:I see. I was just curious how itWALTER:Just enter it as a gift. There's no problem.

With the first sting of a vague resentment, Walter turns his eyes away.

Esther raises her eyebrows, staring at the floor. Walter lifts the foil off the table-clearly changing the subject.

You still fence?

VICTOR,almost gratefully pursuing this diversion: No, you got to join a club and all that.

And I work weekends often. I just found it here.

WALTER, as though to warm the mood: Mother used to love to watch him do this.

EsTHER,surprised, pleased: Really?

WALTER:Sure, she used to come to all his matches.

ESTHER,to Victor, somehow charmed: You never told me that.

WALTER:Of course; she's the one made him take it up. He laughs to Victor. She thought it was elegant!

VICTOR:Hey, that's right!

WALTER,laughing at the memory: He did look pretty good too! He spreads his jacket awayfrom his chest. I've still got the wounds!

To Victor, who laughs: Especially with those French gauntlets sheVICTOR,recalling: Say ... ! Looking around with an enlivened need: I wonder where the hell ... He suddenly moves towards a bureau.

Wait, I think they used to be in ...

ESTHER,to Walter: French gauntlets?

WALTER:She brought them from Paris.

Gorgeously embroidered. He looked like one

VICTOR:God, I'd forgotten all about them.

He slips one on his hand.

WALTER:Christmas, 1929.

VICTOR,moving his hand in the gauntlet: Look at that, they're still soft ... To Walter-a little shy in asking: How do you remember all this stuff?

WALTER:Why not? Don't you?

ESTHER:He doesn't remember your mother very well.

VICTOR:I remember her. Looking at the ,gauntlet: It's just her face; somehow I can never see her.

WALTER,warmly: That's amazing, Vie. To Esther: She adored him.

ESTHER,pleased: Did she?

WALTER:Victor? If it started to rain she'd run all the way to school with his galoshes.

Her Victor-my God! By the time he could light a match he was already Louis Pasteur.

VICTOR:It's odd . . . like the harp! I can almost hear the music . . . But I can never see her face. Somehow. For a moment, silence, as he looks across at the harp.

WALTER:What's the problem?

Pause. Victor's eyes are swollen with feeling. He turns and looks up at Walter, who suddenly is embarrassed and oddly anxious.

SOLOMON-entersfrom the bedroom. He looks quite distressed. He is in his vest, his tie is open. Without coming downstage: Please, Doctor, if you wouldn't mind I would like to ... Hr: breaks off, indicating the bedroom.

WALTER:What is it?

SOLOMON:Just for one minute, please.

Walter stands. Solomon glances at Victor and Esther and returns to the bedrpom..

WALTER:I'll be right back. He goes rather quickly up and into the bedroom.

A pause. Victor is, sitting in silence, unable to face her.

ESTHER,with delicacy and pity, sensing his conflicting feelings: Why can't you take him as he is?

He glances at her.

Well you can't expect him to go into an apology, Vie-he probably sees it all differently, anyway.

He is silent. She comes to him.

I know it's difficult, but he is trying to make a gesture, I think.

VICTOR:I guess he is, yes.

ESTHER:You know what would be lovely?

If we could take a few weeks and go to like ... out-of-the-way places ... just to really break it up and see all the things that people do. You've been around such mean, petty people for so long and little ugly tricks. I'm serious-it's not romantic. We're much too suspicious of everything.

VICTOR,staring ahead: Strange guy.

ESTHER:Why? VICTOR:Well, to walk in that though nothing ever happened.

ESTHER: Why not? What about it?

way-as

can be done

VICTOR-slight pause: I feel I have to say something.

ESTHER,with a slight trepidation, less than she feels: What can you say?

VICTOR:You feel I ought to just take the money and shut up, heh?

ESTHER:But what's the point of going backwards?

VICTOR,with a self-bracing tension: I'm not going to take this money unless I talk to him.

ESTHER,frightened: You can't thought that he's decent.

bear

the

He looks at her sharply.

That's all it is, dear. I'm sorry, I have to say it.

VICTOR,without raising his voice: I can't bear that he's decent!

ESTHER:You throw this away, you've got to explain it to me. You can't go on blaming everything on him or the system or God knows what else! You're free and you can't make a move, Victor, and that's what's driving me crazy! Silence. Quietly: No\y take this money.

He is silent, staring at her.

You take this money! Or I'm washed up.

You hear me? If you're stuck it doesn't mean I have to be. Now that's it.

Movements are heard within the bedroom. She straightens. Victor smooths down his hair with a slow, preparatory motion of his hand, like one adjusting himself for combat.

WALTER-enters from the bedroom, smiling, shaking his head. Indicating the bedroom: Boy

interpret that. Slight pause. His tension has increased. He braves a smile. Now about this tax thing. He'd be willing to make the appraisal twenty-five thousand. With difficulty: If you'd like, I'd be perfectly willing for you to have the whole amount I'd be saving.

Slight pause.

ESTHER:Twelve thousand?

Pause Esther slowly looks to Victor.

-we got a tiger here. What is this between you, did you know him before?

You must be near retirement now, aren't you?

VICTOR:No. Why? What'd he say?

ESTHER,excitedly: He's past it. But he's trying to decide what to do.

WALTER:He's still trying to buy it outright.

He laughs. He talks like you added five years by caning him up.VICTOR:Well, what's the difference, I don't mind.

open embarWALTER:Oh. To Victor-near rassment now: It would come in handy, then,

ESTHER:You seem altogether different!

WALTER:I think I am, Esther. I live differently, I think differently. All I have now is a small apartment. And I got rid of the nursing homesVICTOR:What nursing homes?

WALTER,with a removed self-amusement: Oh, I owned three nursing homes. There's big money in the aged, you know. Helpless, desperate children trying to dump their parents -nothing like it. I even pulled out of the market. Fifty per cent of my time now is in City hospitals. And I tell you, I'm alive. For the first time. I do medicine, and that's it.

Attempting an intimate grin: Not that I don't soak the rich occasionally, but only enough to live, really. It is as though this was his mission here, and he waits for Victor's comment.

wouldn't it?

Victor glances at him as a substitute for a reply.

VICTOR, with a certain thrust, matching Walter's smile: I am a little confused, Walter ... yes.

VICTOR:What for?

WALTElt, seizing on this minute encouragement: Vie, I wish we could talk for weeks, there's so much I want to tell you .... It is not rolling quite the way he would wish and he must pick examples of his new feelings out of probably the air. I never had friends-you

WALTER-suddenly, with a strange quick laugh, he reaches and touches Victor's knee: Don't

He moves, sitting nearer Victor, his enthusiasm flowing. It all happens so gradually. You start

WALTER:Why is that?

be suspicious!

out wanting to be the best, and there's no question that you do need a certain fanaticism; there's so much to know and so little time. Until you've eliminated everything extraneous-he smiles-including people. And of course the time comes when you realize that you haven't merely been specializing in something-something has been specializing in you. You become a kind of instrument, an instrument that cuts money out of people, or fame out of the world. And it finally makes you stupid. Power can do that. You get to think that because you can frighten people they love you. Even that you love them.And the whole thing comes down to fear. One night I found myself in the middle of my living room, dead drunk with a knife in my hand, getting ready to kill my wife.

WALTER,registering the distant rebuke: No, that's fine, that's all right. He sits. Slight pause. We don't understand each other, do we?

Come on, we'll all be dead soon!

VICTOR:All right, I'll give you one example.

When I called you Monday and Tuesday and again this morningWALTER:I've explained that.

VICTOR:But I don't make phone calls to pass the time. Your nurse sounded like I was a pest of some kind ... it was humiliating.

WALTER-oddly,

he is over-upset: I'm terribly

I don't need it, that's all, Vie. Actually, I've been about to call you for quite some time now.

VICTOR,grinning: I'm just trying to figure it out, Walter.

WALTER:Yes, good. All right. Slight pause.

I thought it was time we got to know one another. That's all.

Slight pause.

VICTOR:You know, Walter, I tried to call you a couple of times before this about the furniture-must be three years ago.

WALTER:I was sick.

sorry, she shouldn't have done that.

VICTOR,surprised: Oh ... Because I left a lot of messages.

VICTOR:I know, Walter, but I can't imagine she takes that tone all by herself.

WALTER:I was quite sick. I was hospitalized.

WALTER, aware now of the depth of resentment in Victor: Oh no-she's often that way. I've never referred to you like that.

ESTHER:What happened?

WALTER-slight pause. As though he were not quite sure whether to say it: I broke down.

Slight pause.

Believe me, will you? I'm terribly sorry. I'm overwhelmed with work, that's all it is.

VICTOR:Well, you asked me, so I'm telling you.

WALTER:Yes! You should! But don't mis-

VICTOR:I had no idea.

WALTER:Actually, I'm only beginning to catch up with things. I was out of commission for nearly three years. With a thrust of sflccess: But I'm almost thankful for it now -I've never been happier!

know that. But I do now, I have good friends.

ESTHER:Good Lord!

WALTER:Oh ya-and I nearly made it too!

He laughs. But there's one virtue in going nuts-provided you survive, of course. You get to see the terror-not the screaming kind, but the slow, daily fear you call ambition, and cautiousness, and piling up the money. And really, what I wanted to tell you for some time now-is that you helped me to understand that in myself.