October 1983

OCTOBER 1983 RUPEES FOUR

Dance Theatre of Harlem

Cunning Energy Ploys

I

~

Americans are meeting the energy challenge with ingenuity.

While giant firms and the government are battling with the complexities of the problem, individuals and small firms are finding their own solutions.

Above: At a solarheated fish farm in Encinitas, California, fish feed on water hyacinth and algae which in turn feed on the wastes of the tilapia , an African species. The facility by designed was Solar Aqua Farms, Inc. and Aquatic Resources Institute with the help of a government grant. A planned eight-hectare pond is

expected to produce nearly a million kilogram of fish a year.

The farm can save eight liters of fuel oil equivalent per kilogram of fish compared with the energy used to catch fish at sea.

Left: Using a new kind of windmill with blades on a reel to electricity, generate Grant Dohm of Gove County, Kansas, drops the electric wires irtto wells to make hydrogen. Another windmill compresses the hydrogen which Dohm mixes with gasoline to pickup power his truck, doubling the number of kilometers be gets per liter of fuel.

October 1983

SPAN VOLUME XXIV NUMBER

10

2 World Reaction to an Airline Tragedy

4 The Importance of Free Communications

by IV. Sco/1 Thompson

5 Awesome EPCOT

by Mal Oerringer

10

Max Perkins, Editor of the Lost Generation

by Thomas Palake~/

13 From Security to Satisfaction

16 The Knack of Creativity

by Malini Seshadri

19 On the Lighter Side

20

Legislative Labyrinths

by Catlr~rine E.

Rudd~r

24 Dance Theatre of Harlem

by Moira Hodgson

28 Nike Races to the Top

by Lucien Rhodes

32

Rx: Personal Nursing Care

by Natalie Davis Spingum

35

The Quality of Justice An lnUflliew \Vith Chkflusric~ Warren E

Burg~r

38

Creating a Gene Pool

by Jay Richter

40

Beauty in a Sunless Sea

by Sundy Greenberg

45

The Universality of Drama

46

Focus On ...

Publisher Michael Piswr Editor Mal Oettinger Managing Editor Chidananda Das Gupta Assistant Managing Editor

Krishan Gabrani

Senior Ed!tor Aruna Dasgupta Copy Editor Editorial Assistam

Murari Saha Rocque Fernandes

Photo Editor Avinash Pasricha Art Director

Nand Katyal

Associate Art Director Kami Roy Assistant Art Director Chief of Production

Bimanesh Roy Choudhury Awtar S. Marwaha

Circulation Manager P.N. Saigal Photographic Service

USIS Photographic Services Unit

Photographs: Front cover-Jack Va.rtoogian. Inside front cover: topDennis Brack, Black Star; bottom- Vance Ehmke . 6,7 top- Lee Battaglia; Flip and Debra Schulke, Black Star (2). 8 top and bottomLee Battaglia; center-@ Walt Disney Productions. 13-Will Mcintyre.

14-William Franklin McMahon. 15- Bob McCullough. 24 -26-Jack Vartoogian. 27 left- Martha Swope: right- Jack Vartoogian. 28Christopher Springmann (3); top insert-courtesy Nike Inc.; rightRichard Howard. 3D-Christopher Springmann. 32-Sarah Putnam.

41-Ken Dunton. 41 insert, 42-Aian C. Paulson. 43-44-Ken Dunton. 45-Mahendra Kumar (3); Lionel J . Ignatius (2). Inside back cover and back cover-Ed Claycomb.

Published by the United State~ Information Service, American Center.

24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001, on behalf of the American Embassy, New Delhi. The opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Government. Printed by H.K. Mehta at Thomson Press (India) Limited.

Faridabad, Haryana.

Use of SPAN anicles in o ther publications is encouraged, except when copyrighted. For permission write to the Editor. Price of magazine, one year's subscription (12 issues) 2.5 rupees; single copy, Rs. 4. For change of address send an old address from a recent SPAN envelope along with new address to Circulation Manager. SPAN Magazine, 24 Ka!>turba Gandlu Marg. New Delhi 110001. See change of address form on page 4Sb

Front cover: Eddie Shellman and Elena Carter in Swan L..ake, produced by the Dance Theatre of Harlem, a showcase for talented black ballet dancers.

See also pages 24 - 27.

Back rover: Dale Chihuly's

glass creations capture the sheer joy of manipulating a fluid material. See also inside back cover.

A LEITER FROM THE PUBLISHER Keeping current is a challenge for a monthly magazine. The greater part of an issue of SPAN is planned three months in advance. Such "lead time" is necessary to accommodate the process of making color-photo reproductions and to allow editors time to go over each article thoroughly. As perceptive readers have noticed, some of the articles in SPAN deal with major events that have happened within weeks of the magazine's publication. For example, this month we present a compilation of reactions to the shooting down of a Korean airliner, including a record of the event and the discussions held at the United Nations. latebreaking stories appear in our eight-page Focus section.

For the past five years the editor of this magazine-within-a-magazine has been Krishan Gabrani, SPAN's Assistant Managing Editor. While other editors can be more contemplative, Gabrani must get things right quickly. Dealing with crises has become routine for him. Near the end of every month, he can often be found at the printing plant, making sure that last-minute corrections have been incorporated and that the news stories he has shepherded along are accurate and up to the minute as of press time.

Gabrani joined SPAN in 1961 and has been active in most phases of the magazine's editorial operation. He came aboard as a clerk--typing and taking dictation. He had won honors in economics at Delhi University in 1957 and had earned a master's degree in economics in 1959, but had not yet decided exactly how he would use his professional training. "Typing copy every month, I thought I could do as well as some of the writers, maybe better, " he recalls. He asked Dean Brown, then SPAN's editor, for a chance to try his hand at reporting. He quickly showed he could handle routine stories and before long he was on the masthead as an editoria-l assistant, where he proved he could handle more complex--and interesting--assignments.

Over the years Gabrani demonstrated versatility as a journalist, covering stories for SPAN all over India. He learned that a reporter's best equipment is his memory and ingenuity: He had taped a long interview in Gauhati, Assam, but found, after returning to Delhi, that the tape was blank. "Fortunately I had taken notes. too. And I remembered well what we had talked about. I reconstructed the interview and concentrated on what I'd seen and heard. It turned out to be one of my better stories."

He served as Assistant Editor and Senior Editor of SPAN before being promoted to Assistant Managing Editor. He is often called upon to function as the magazine ' s memory bank, recalling with remarkable clarity the hundreds of articles SPAN has run on different subjects. To put together the Focus section each month he pores over dozens of news stories, speeches and articles from American magazines on timely subjects.

"When I see something that has promise of being interesting to the reader, I make note of it." He has an uncanny ability to judge what will appeal to readers and a skill at reporting events concisely. One of his secrets, he. confides, is "to put a piece I have written a side for a while, then read it and see if I would like it if someone else had written it. " As part of his continuing training, Gabrani took a wide-ranging trip to the United States in 1981. "If ound it broadened my horizons generally. There were aspects of the United States I'd been writing about that I could hardly believe myself. For example, one of the experiences I cherish was the chance to ride around for an evening in Washington with a police patrol. The police were amazingly patient and helpful with people. It destroyed the stereotype of dozens of cops-and-robbers stories I had seen."

--M.P.

World Reaction to an Airline This murder of innocent civilians is a serious international issue between the Soviet Union and civilized people everywhere who cherish individual rights and value human life. It is up to all of us, leaders and citizens of the world, to deal with the Soviets in a calm, controlled but absolutely firm manner. We have joined in this call for an urgent U.N. Security Council meeting. The evidence is clear, it leaves no doubt it is time for the Soviets to -PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN account.

The recent shooting down of a Korean Air Line (KAL) commercial jetliner by the Soviet Union, resulting in the death of all aboard the airliner-269 men , women and children from 13 countrieshas evoked strong reaction from around the world.

The jetliner on a scheduled flight from New York to Seoul, South Korea, departed Anchorage, Alaska, at 1400 hours (GMT) on August 31. At 1600 hours, the plane was picked up by Soviet radar over Kamchatka peninsula and Soviet fighter planes tracked the aircraft for two-and-ahalf hours. The jumbo jet strayed into Soviet airspace over the sea of Okhotsk and over the Sakhalin island. At 1710, the Korean jetliner radioed a message to Tokyo's Narita Air Traffic Control saying "We passed safe! y south of Kamchatka."

An hour later, the plane crossed the southern portion of Sakhalin island. At 1812 the Soviet pilot chasing the KAL aircraft reported visual contact with it.

The last comprehensible radio contact between the KAL flight and Narita control was recorded at 1823 hours when the pilot of the ill-fated plane reported: "We have reached 35,000 feet [10,670 meters] .... " Three minutes later, a Soviet pilot reported to his ground control that he had fired a missile and "destroyed the target (the Korean jetliner]."

Commenting on the incident, The Times of India (New Delhi) wrote: "A Soviet fighter pilot has snuffed out 269 innocent lives.... The rhetoric of the Americans need not have been taken seriously in different circumstances. But in this case the evidence is damning, if not for Moscow, at least for a set of unduly tense and incredibly rash pilots of the Soviet air force ....

"A series of ultra enthusiastic decisions seems to have been taken by the commander of the Soviet interceptor squadron. Obviously, he could not make him2

SPAN OCTOBER 198:1

I

self understood to the commander of the South Korean airliner. But if, as is alleged, he then actually asked his men to open fire, he clearly was out of his mind.

Surely he could have forced the 747 to land! The Soviet commander could not have been unaware that the plane was an unarmed civilian aircraft. At worst he could have suspected it of being engaged in some kind of surveillance. But that cannot justify his decision to shoot it down.

Moscow must offer an unqualified apology and adequate compensation for the bereaved. Its silence adds to the crime of its commander ... .It speaks poorly for a superpower that the guardians of its security should act so rashly. It speaks worse for it that its top leadership should lack the courage to own up to their blunder."

In a similar vein, newspapers around the world condemned the downing of the plane: El Pais (Madrid): "The only way to explain this dangerous incident is the strange and perhaps paranoid Soviet preoccupation with security."

Arbeiter-Zeitung (Vienna): "Our world finds itself on the brink of an abyss, with military leaders unable to distinguish between a Boeing and a bomber. " La Presse (Montreal): '¡This incident, it must be emphasized, could gravely affect the always fragile equilibrium of world peace and opens the troubling issue of risks and dangers of war created by Soviet behavior when Moscow was increasing its efforts to convince the West to postpone or renounce the installation of missiles in Europe.

"Against which missiles must we protest now? Those that NATO plans to install at the end of 1983 in Germany and Britain, or those that the Soviets are firing against a commercial carrier off Sakhalin island.... Who is nervously pressing the trigger? Here is a subject for reflection .... " The New Straits Times (Kuala Lumpur): "News journals the world over have been recording, in emotive language, the waves of condemnation that continue to wash up against the stone walls of the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the destruction of Korean Air Lines flight 007. The global outrage, however, has done nothing more than emphasize the true impotence of world opinion in the

I

impassive face of Soviet intractability ....

"For all of the Soviets' basilisk immunity to sanctions and deafness to protest,

j

they must realize that they have dealt themselves a deathly blow in the eyes of the world. No longer can they ever lay claim to credibility in their preaching for global peace; no longer will their deriding of the United States as the true warmonger ever hold any water; no longer wilJ their self-righteousness cut any ice amongst the people of the world who, despite their material ineffectuality, can never be denied the right to feel and to hold opinions. Those feelings and opinions are now overwhelmingly, damningly against the Soviet Union."

Politika (Belgrade): "Even if the jumbo jet was not precisely on course or did not obey the warnings of the Soviet fighter, it is still too severe a punishment to fulfill its own purpose .... " island (Colombo): "What is doubly shocking about the whole tragic episode is the monumental indifference shown by Soviet officialdom ... and the Orwellian blanket of obfuscation which the Soviet authorities seem intent on throwing over the whole issue."

Khaleej Times (Abu Dhabi): "If the Soviet Union is indeed guilty of reacting in an irrational and uncivilized manner ... the fullest possible investigation should be held by an international team of civil aviation experts; if the Soviet Union is, as it claims, innocent of the charge of coldbloodedly shooting down the aircraft, it should welcome such an investigation."

Nawai-Waqt (Islamabad): "Even if for the sake of argument we accept the Soviet plea that the plane was involved in espionage, still there is no justification to kill 269 innocent people who for sure could not all be spying." lorna/ do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro): "Apart from the concrete facts which are known about the incident of the Korean plane, one cannot discard the hypothesis that the U.S.S.R. is provoking incidents which are calculated to cloud the international atmosphere and make more difficult the installation of the new NATO missiles."

Commenting on the Soviet charge that the Korean jetliner had strayed into a Soviet military sensitive area and was engaged in spying and the U.S.S.R. had the right to shoot it down, Time magazine said: "The Soviets had every right of international law to send fighters up to inspect the intruder. Common sense, however, suggests that even the most expert observer flying some six miles [10

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I

I

Tragedy kilometers] high in the dim predawn light is not likely to see anything that U.S. surveillance satellites have not repeatedly !>Crutinized and photographed in far greater detail."

Moreover, Time added, "When an unidentified aircraft appears on the radar screen, fighters are scrambled to intercept and obtain a visual identification.

Even if potentially hostile, an intruder would be let alone as long as it remained outside national airspace, which is the area lying above a country's landmass and coastal waters. . . . If that invisible boundary is violated, international law endorsed by both superpowers prohibits the use of force except under extreme conditions and even then bars excessive force.

"By aviation custom, the interceptor is permitted to escort the intruder out of the airspace or order it to leave or land .... " Time went on to say: "Shortly before the U.S. withdrew Aeroflot's landing rights at New York and Washington in 1981, after the military crackdown in Poland , the Soviet carrier was a notorious offender, frequently entering off-bounds airspace in the U.S. Two Aeroflot planes passed over a New England military installation, including the U.S. Navy shipyards at Groton, Connecticut, where work was under way on a new nuclear submarine. Both carried passengersand possibly spy cameras or electronic eavesdropping equipment. Lot, the Polish carrier, and the Czechoslovak line, CSA, have also wandered into restricted zones. Notes one U.S. Government official tartly: 'We never blasted any one of them out of the sky."'

Addressing the U.N. Security Council on September 12, after the Soviet Union vetoed a proposed resolution caJiing for an impartial investigation into the Korean airliner tragedy, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick said: "Destruction of the civilian airliner, KAL 007, was a deeply shocking act. But even more disturbing than the deed itself has been the behavior of the Soviet Government in the days since it shot down that plane. Had the Soviet Government taken responsibility for the action, admitted that a terrible mistake had been made, offered compensation to the families for the loss of life, and in cooperation with other steps, undertaken a review of the incident to ensure that such a tragedy

would not recur, then the consequences of the event would have been contained and, to the degree possible, minimized ....

"For nearly a week, the Soviet Union refused to admit it shot down flight 007.

Then it admitted to having fired warning shots. Only after the public disclosure of the tape recordings in which the Soviet pilot told Soviet ground control that he had executed the order to destroy 'the target,' did the Soviet Government announce that one of its pilots had, in fact, 'stopped the flight,' as they euphemistically put it.

"In the ensuing days we have heard a tangle of charges from the Soviet Union.

On the one hand, it has been said that flight 007 was itself on a spy mission and therefore invited destruction. But it has also been said that the presence, earlier in the evening, of an RC 135 reconnaissance plane, which had landed more than 1,500 miles [2,400 kilometers] away from the location of the incident, 'caused' the Soviet pilot to mistake the two aircraft, thus acknowledging tacitly that the Korean 747 was not on a spy mission after all ....

"Even assuming for the sake of argument that the Soviet pilot had tried to establish communication with the pilot of KAL 007, but for some reason that we do not know had failed to get through, this would not justify shooting down a 747 civilian airliner.

"What conceivable harm could the plane have done, especially since it was within 60 seconds of leaving Soviet airspace, a fact that renders absurd the statement by one of the Soviet pilots that the 747 might have been carrying 'a bomb that might have fallen, maybe on my house'-presumably located in the Sea of Japan.

"Let us recall for a moment the incident almost two years ago when a Soviet W-class submarine penetrated deep into restricted Swedish waters .near Karlskrona Naval Base and ran aground there. In response to the protest of the Swedish Government, the Soviet Government said: 'It was expected, of course, that the.

Swedish authorities would abide by existing international norms under which if a foreign warship does not even observe the rules of a coastal state regarding passage through its territorial waters, the only thing the coastal state may do with respect to the given warship is to demand that it leave its territorial waters.'

"According to this unique interpretation of international law , if a Soviet warship-a warship mind you-invades the territorial waters of another state, that state cannot even detain the warship but must simply escort it out of its territorial waters. But if a civilian airliner with 269 people aboard happens to stray into Soviet airspace, the Soviet Union is justified in shooting it down, even as it is about to exit that airspace ....

"The Soviet leadership refuses to concede the possibility that a civilian airliner, traveling a scheduled flight , with 269 people aboard, might have strayed accidentally into its airspace- despite the fact that there have been 21 recorded incidents where civilian planes with similar navigational equipment have strayed off course. Here, too, the incident of the Soviet W-class submarine offers an interesting analogy. In its statement to the Government of Sweden, the Soviet Government rejected the Swedish charge that this warship was engaged in 'carrying out impermissible activities,' namely, spying.

"According to the Soviet statement, the submarine 'went off course as a result of the failure of its navigational instruments and resultant mistakes in position finding' and therefore 'entered unintentionally the territorial waters of Sweden .... The Soviet side, taking into consideration the breakdown character of the incident, could rightfully expect at least a manifestation of correct attitude and objective appraisal of what happened.'

"Instead, it charged the Swedish Government with 'distorting facts' and it flatly rejected the Swedish demand 'to prevent the recurrence of such a gross violation,' saying-and I quote-'In this concrete case this sounds like a demand to rule out the very possibility of breakdown situations occurring at sea. This demand,' said the Soviet Union, ' is simply out of tune with common sense.'

"In this context, we would like to ask the Soviet Union: Are the borders of the Soviet Union more sacred than, say, the borders of Sweden, not to speak of the borders of Afghanistan? Are they more sacred than the airspace of the United States, which has frequently been violated by Soviet planes flying off-route over sensitive military facilities, though these planes have not as a result of such violations been shot down?"

-K.G. SPAN OCTOBER 1983

3

The Importance of Free Communications

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scon

THOMI'~ON

As the world enters a new age of communications, the United States firmly believes that the interests of global peace and development will be best served through the unfettered, free flow of information between nations.

To use information-to enjoy it , to profit from it, to learn from it-one must have access to it. And access to information and the technologies that communicate information are not assured rights in many parts of the world. Public policies, for example, will profoundly shape our lives in this new age, and such policies are founded on fundamental philosophical assumptions concerning political freedoms to communicate and receive information. The choice is essentiaUy between efforts to control the flow of information and efforts to encourage it.

In free societies, the presumption is in favor of free flow.

As the world moves into the new age of information, an age in which applied technology is providing more and more channels through which information can be communicated , that choice takes on new importance. Now, governments find that if they are to operate effectively, they must operate in an environment characterized by abundant communications channels. This is not always easy, even for free societies, but it is absolutely essential.

In the 1980s there will be a significant series of international negotiations on telecommunications, as well as on other aspects of communications. The Reagan Administration is committed to seeking cooperative agreements that lend themselves to stable order among nations in the dynamic context of an information and communications revolution. Progress, however, must not come at the expense of principle. The risk of unfettered pragmatism, of course, is that fundamentals can be too easily forgotten.

There are three principles that guide the Reagan Administration in the formulation and implementation of foreign policy with respect to communications and information.

The first principle is the basic human right of every individual to receive and impart information freely.

The United States-and the Reagan Administration in particular-is committed not only to the preservation of the free flow of information, but to the advancement of this principle as a fun4

SPAN OCTOBER 198.1

damental component of any democratic institution. This principle embodies and manifests an unfaltering belief in the notions of pluralism and freedom, which have deep roots in American history.

Because the idea of freedom in general, and the freedom to communicate in particular, is essential to the American way of life, we cannot afford to be indifferent to abuses of that freedom beyond our borders. This, in our view, is neither arrogant nor unjustified, but rather in the common interest of the international community.

The world today is beset with many great issues, but none is more universal than the denial of the right of the individual to participate in the governance of his or her country. When individuals are denied the right to communicate, they are, by extension , denied the right to form free associations, to share ideas, and to have open access to sources of information independent of their government. When governments repress information, they are limiting political participation and perpetuating their monopoly of power.

The United States believes that the interests of peace are best served when full participation in the policymaking process of government is practiced. For this process to work, each and every citizen must enjoy the right to communicate freely. Well-informed political decisions, made with the participation and consent of the governed, are requisite conditions for a world truly at peace.

Concern for safeguarding the principle of free flow of information extends to the new information technologies, as well as to traditional technology. Just as the Founding Fathers of the United States recognized the need to create an enforceable political right to guarantee free access to the pathbreaking invention of the printing press, there is a need now for vigilance to protect the right to communicate through the use of modern means of information dissemination, such as satellites and computerized data banks.

The second principle flows from the principles of free-market enterprise. It is the need for unrestricted international

business information.

The United States believes that efforts to restrict the transborder flow of data should be resisted if we are to efficiently and effectively manage our interdependent economies. Without data communications, the airline industry, the petroleum industry , and the banking industry-to name only a few- would be unable to profitably conduct their international operations. Protectionist data barriers, like protectionist trade barriers, are counterproductive to our shared goal of creating the climate for a vital and dynamic world economy.

The third principle, which also stems from the principles of the free market, is the preference for competitive and open markets in the communications and information field.

In the United States the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is in the process of opening up the American domestic telecommunications market.

The United States has no intention of trying to impose its telecommunications philosophy on other nations. Nonetheless, experience has shown that competition is the best stimulus for innovative technology and improved efficiency. For telecommunications users, it means the highest quality goods and services, at the lowest price.

Given the choice between encouraging the diffusion of innovation and expertise through the marketplace and stifling such diffusion through the rigidity of government regulation , we choose the former.

These are the philosophical principles that guide the Reagan Administration as it formulates its foreign policy on international communications and information issues. They are the principles to which the United States is firmly devoted. to which its energies and creativity will be applied, and to which it attaches its hopes for a world of mutual benefits in the new 0 information age.

Ahout the Author: W. Scott Thompson, associate professor of international polirics on leave from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, is an associate director of the U.S. Information Agency, Washington.

S

Left, top: The Doge's Palace in Venice, reproduced without the paintings. Left, bottom: The twain does meet at Epcot's World Showcase. Right, top: The monorail is the way to travel the many kilometers of Disney World- Spaceship Earth in background. Right: CommuniCore offers computer games and science shows ofa high quality. Below: The aura of various individuals triggers bands of light as they pass through the Rainbow Sensor.

cience fiction made flesh. The World's Fair supreme. Around the world in 80 acres. The world according to Walt Disney. It may depend on how big your mind is, but Epcot Center boggled mine. This Florida wonderland provides a deep massage for that ache that has been there from childhood: wonderful secrets are being kept from me; exciting toys are being withheld. Well, they are all here at Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

To anyone who has been in India, the crowds don' t seem too large. Yes, there are advertisements, commercials, plugs, sponsors' credits and buy-buy-buy signals wherever you turn, but who would you have footing the bill for such an extravaganza?

Not the government, certainly, and without this commercial veneer the admission fee would be beyond my means.

Be not deceived by my prattle: There is an earnest aspect to Epcot. The name is an acronym for Experimental Prototype of the Community of Tomorrow. It was the late Walt Disney's grandest scheme. The redoubtable science writer Isaac Asimov says: "The deeper aim of Epcot Center, to my way of thinking, is to help make possible the survival of civilization. Many of the dangers that affect human survival-growing population and decreasing resourcesaffect all countries and will not yield to corrective action by any one nation. Global problems require global solutions which can be arrived at only through serious international cooperation. One way of fostering international cooperation, it would seem, is to make the peoples of the world more aware of the achievements of others and more tolerant of cultural differences."

"It's a small world after all," sing dozens (maybe hundreds) of droll puppets as one glides through the Eastman Kodak pavilion in the Magic Kingdom in a tunnel-of-love boat. In the companion playground of Epcot Center, one can visit Canada, Mexico, Japan, China, England, France, Germany and Italy in a matter of hours. The People's Republic of China presents a totally awesome 360-degree diorama in a round room, a you-are-immersed film that is educational and somewhat propagandistic at the same time. In a large, neat shop, chinoiserie of all descriptions may be purchased.

At the French pavilion you can eat at a restaurant and a cafe founded by three famous French chefs. At the Rose and Crown, a British pub, you can get lager and bitter, porter and 'alf-and-'alf. Voila! to your left is the Eiffel Tower and beyond

SPAN OctOBER 1983

7

that, the Plaza San Marco of Venice. The streets of Epcot's World Showcase are full of happy, parading, dancing peasants from the above-named countries plus the United States in traditional national dress (Revolutionary War uniforms for the Americans).

The parades are spectacular-as are most aspects of Disney World. Many fireworks and bands heavy with brass.

The American Adventure pavilion in the World Showcase, sponsored by American Express and Coca-Cola, is housed in a

pavilion-and inside, too. The entrance is flanked by a 40-meter-long mosaic depicting a cross section of the land. Above: With catchy tunes and clever lyrics, a cast of incredible edibles explains nutrition¡ in a

moving and appetizing performance. Left: Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain conduct a witty conversation in a theater presentation of the American saga-they're automatons, not actors.

Opposite page: Dinosaurs stalk Exxon's World of Energy.

replica of Independence Hall (the Philadelphia assembly hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed). The incomparable comperes of the 40-minute show are Mark Twain and Benjamin Franklin, represented by automatons so lifelike they should be earning union wages. The show is quite free from commercial taint. patriotic but not jingoistic. The official literature says it is "a theatrical production unparalleled in Disney annals-combining large-screen projection, inspiring music and special effects with performances by the most Lifelike AudioAnimatronics figures ever developed." Sure enough.

The World Showcase is built around a large lagoon that can be traversed by a variety of boats; a double-decker bus plies the sidewalks. Like so much of the entertainment/education universe of which it is part, this international bazaar mixes kitsch and class, handcrafts and gimcracks, too few places to sit for the muchness of the explorers. I loved its pristine public conveniences, where waft strains of "La Cucaracha'· or "Ach, du Lieber Augustine."

It's a paradise for gourmets and gluttons.

One books tables for dinner futuristically on entering Epcot by queuing before a color television screen at the Earth Station in Spaceship Earth. When your turn comes, you press the surface of the TV screen at the indicated spot and a representative of the restaurant you have chosen will take your reservation. You see him or her; I assume you remain invisible, but heard. The World Showcase has eight restaurants. Within the bosom of the Ill-square-kilometer Disney complex dwell no fewer than 40 restaurants, plus a dozen snack centers and nine lounges-breakfast with Mickey and Donald and Goofy; dine on a Mississippi riverboat; hoist a couple in a railway club car; dine while watching a Broadway-type show; eat ethnic! The restaurant in The Land pavilion in Epcot's Future World offers a reasonably priced , carefully prepared meal at booths on a revolving stage.

You can see American barnyards and farmhouses, wheat fields and bayous, canyons and coyotes without leaving your table.

Feed your stomach, feed your mind: courtesy, Kraft Foods.

A Day in the Life at Disney World Imagine you are staying in one of Disney's resort hotels- the Polynesian Village, where you can practically fall out of bed into a swimming pool; the Golf Resort . near three championship courses where armadillos waddle and you can slice into sawgrass which will slice you in return, or the Contemporary Resort (catchy name) where

the monorail runs through the public rooms and myriad shops sell seductive gifties people should neither need nor want. No sybaritic pleasures for you today: face the future, see the world.· Off to Epcot!

You can get to Epcot by monorail , a string of super subway cars packed every 10 or 15 minutes by freshfaced, reasonably authoritarian youngsters wearing Disney World uniforms. Or combine a monorail and ferryboat, bus or motor launch trip.

Travel through miles of land preserved in its pristine, precommerce state as a lesson in environmental care. Monorail trains move noiselessly, slither almost, but usually there is a monologue pointing out attractions below or to come. You are uncertain whether this travelogue is prerecorded and computer-triggered or recited from a script by your host in the front compartment.

When the monorail at last enters the precincts of Epcot Center, dominated by Bucky Fuller's geodesic dome encompassing the Bell System's Spaceship Earth, you are struck by the size and scale of the enterprise. The monorail circles Future World and dozens of children- brandishing souve-

nir balloons, wearing mouse-ear yarmulkes and munching sticky comestibles-clamber out of the compartments toward the admission gates, stampeding their elders, leaving anxious parents in their wakes.

You will encounter long queues at each pavilion, cunningly structured by Disney engineers to give you the illusion that the serpentine line is shorter than it actually is.

Most pavilions feature some kind of conveyance that will transport you through a whimsical but informative history of communications, transportation, energy . agriculture and even imagination. At the Eastman Kodak exhibition you will: • draw colored pictures on a television screen, give the proper commands and a computer will transform them into fabulous shapes and forms; • conduct a symphony orchestra by interrupting light-beam signals with your hands to crescendo or diminuendo the brasses, strings. etc.; • appear as a character in a television drama (watching yourself lm a monitor out

of the corner of your eye as you are eaten by a giant or fired upon by a cowboy gunslinger); • witness a 3-D movie that will have you groping for objects that seem to be within your grasp, and ducking thrown images; • ride through a waterless tunnel of Jove in which a bearded chap named Dreamfinder and his companion dragon. Figment, will explain what imagination is, imaginatively.

In the great CommuntCore halls (1 and II) , you can match wits with witty and witless computers: program a mouse through a maze by voice commands in English, German or French; register your opinion on such burning questions of the day as nuclear disarmament and whether children should be permitted to play video games (after all Epcotgoers have voted , the results will be sent to the U.S. Congress); talk on picture telephones; see a holograph elf dance on a bank of twinkling computers and elucidate their functions: type out messages on a computer which will then voice them (if your name is Oettinger, its pronunciation will be inadequate).

Your fun is just beginning. In a theater run by Kraft Foods you will see a saucy review in which a group of "incredible edibles [their phrase]" sings knowingly about nutrition , and dances, and plays hot music (except for the ice cream, which favors cool jazz). You will be enthralled by a wellscripted documentary on futuristic farming.

If your energy is unflagging, you will meet strange-smelling dinosaurs at Exxon's Universe of Energy, blanch at volcanos and blasting furnaces, ponder the energy needs of society. You will be transported into General Motors' World of Motion where a six-story kaleidoscopic view of the landscape of the future vies with balky mule carts, chug-chug locomotives and automotive designs that may someday be commonplace on the highways.

In the evening the crowds will thin out.

You'll see children sleeping on their fathers' or mothers' shoulders, and the wonders you have beheld will begin to run together in your mind. You will have seen a view of history, the state of the technological art of today and maybe . .. you will have seen the future at work. Impressive creativity has gone into these filmshows and exhibitions and robots and computers. Walt Disney's world is free of disease and sleaze, of poverty and sorrow, of politics and armed conflict. You would have to be jaded indeed not to have been impressed by what you b.:ve seen. And complacent to a fault to accept that that's all there is. But if you weren't thrilled, even a little bit. go into mourning for the child within you who has died.

0 9

路.:

j

1THOMAS PALA KEEL

Thomas Wolf~

Ernest HemingwQy

Fl~rald

recommeuds Hemingway to MartreU Ptrklnl in a kiter wrltun in 1925.

The name of Maxwell Evarts Perkins, 36 years after his death, has come to represent an archetype of the fulfillment of any writer's dream: acceptance 路 and encouragement in the competitive literary world. This spiritual father of a whole generation of American writers, including the great trio Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Wolfe, worked as a fiction editor with the publishing bouse of Charles Scribner's Sons from 1914 until his death in 1947. The number of American classics dedicated to this unassuming New Englander is an index of the role he played as motivator of the authors of such books as The Old Man and the Sea, The Beautiful and the Damned, Of Time 路 and the River.

Max Perkins was a legendary figure in the publishing world when he was alive, and he has remained so even after his death.

Several publishing students at New York University confided to Perkins, after he gave a lecture there, that it was his brilliant example that had attracted them to publishing. As recently as 1978 a new biography appeared entitled Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg. Berg describes Perkins as an editor who worked diligently on manuscripts, yet remained faithful to his credo: "The book belongs to the author." He helped authors structure their books, thought up titles, invented plots, suggested ways to get out of the traps of their imagination. He also served as a psychoanalyst , as marriage counselor, adviser to the lovelorn and as a moneylender. Time and again he boosted the spirits of the authors who were desperate and drunk , egotistic and aggressive, finicky and self-destructive.

John Hall Wheelock, Perkins路 colleague at Scribner's, who edited his letters in 1950, under the title Editor to Author, said of his talents: "To the many aspects of an editor's work he brought a tremendous seriousness, masculine drive and energy, daring coupled with . shrewd judgment, quiet strength and a self-effacement and delicacy of feeling almost feminine in character."

Perkins' sacrifices for the good of his authors certainly took a toll of him. In a way his life was a series of responses to the literary creativity of a romantic age, on which he worked his miracles for a third of the century.

Max Perkins joined Scribner's as an advertising manager before he took up editorial work. His boss, Charles Scribner II, ran the publishing house like an orthodox monarch who was constantly vigilant to prevent out-of-the-way stuff from tainting the reputation of his imprint.

In 1919 a teenaged boy submitted a manuscript, The Romantic Egotist, and all the Scribner's editors promptly rejected it. But Perkins read it with an unusual degree of interest and felt that there was something worth pursuing. He encouraged the boy to revise it. The boy reworked the book in six weeks' time. Scribner's still wouldn' t accept it. When several other publishers also rejected the book the young author met Perkins in New York. He told Perkins that he bad to somehow succeed in selling the book if he were to win his sweetheart. So Perkins suggested a whole scheme for overhauling the manuscript. One suggestion was to switch over to the third person to create some distance between the author and the material. The young man recreated the book a third time with a new title. At the next editorial meeting Perkins became indignant at the insensitivity of the board when they rejected the book for the third time. H e said: "My feeling is that a publisher's allegiance is to talent. If we are going to turn down talents like this, then we may as well go out of business. " So Perkins won his first case. Everyone thought that no more than 5,000 copies would go. But 20,000 copies were sold in a week and the young man did win the hand of his love , Zelda. The young man was

F. Scott Fitzgerald and the book This Side of Paradise.

In 1928, Max Perkins was discussing various manuscripts with the ljterary agent Madeline Boyd. He was instinctively drawn to 0 Lost, one of her favorites. However , she felt doubtful whether it would ever sell and submitted the manuscript to him on condition that every word of it would be properly read. He found the book a gargantuan mass of masterly writing and masterly confusion. Still Perkins could see through the confusion and grasp the strong core hidden beneath the deadwood. The author, who was at that time touring Europe, returned to New York. Immediately they began work on the book. The writer and the editor agreed to chop away an outstanding first scene in the interest of overall unity. Then they withdrew a large chunk of 90-odd pages that followed , because Perkins felt that the whole tale should be unfolded through the memories and senses of the central character, the boy Eugene.

This also was convincing to the author.

Perkins was so responsive to every nuance of human feeling that it was easy for him to pinpoint discrepancies and suggest reasonable alternatives. First he explained the problem to the author and then suggested various solutions which the author skillfully carried out. Perkins as an editor stimulated the creative process of the writer in his editorial discussions with his authors. Finally the book came out in 1929 with a new title-Look Homeward, Angel-and its author, Thomas Wolfe , became a legendary figure in American literature. The success of the book was followed by the defeat of the writer as a human being, who, in the words of Hemingway, was really being "forged in injustice like a sword was forged. " Actually Max Perkins' association with Thomas Wolfe opened up the opportunity for the man and the editor in him to come out and be available to all the irrepressible writers of the time whose great treasures were caught in the bottleneck of complexes, laziness and other problems.

Tolstoy was Perkins' ultimate concept of a writer. He distributed innumerable copies of War and Peace to his writers with the zeal of the Gideon Society handing out Bibles, so that they could acquire the vastness of Tolstoy's vision and the largeness of his canvas. Still Perkins would never try to make a Mark Twain into a Shakespeare. He believed that an editor could get only as much out of an author as the author bad in him .

The third great acquisition of Perkins was Ernest Hemingway , whose short pieces were brought out by Ezra Pound.

Introducing Hemingway to an uninterested editorial board, Perkins said: "l hardly believe he could come into a large public immediately. He ought to be published by someone who believes in him and is prepared to lose money for a period in enlarging his market. " This was part of the publjshing philosophy of this editor who preferred to publish authors rather than books. He viewed it as. a long-term project of nurturing and sustaining an author and his audience . Hemingway was everything the publishing house of Scribner's detested. Even after paying an advance of $1,500 and promising a munificent flat royalty rate of 15 percent, Scribner's board had a tough time accepting H emingway's four-letter words in his first novel , The Sun Also Rises. But this publisher's headache was just one among the many that were fast becoming part of the mood of the new generation- like Scott Fitzgerald's misspellings and Thomas Wolfe:s riotous excellence.

Here are samples of Maxwell Perkins' general advice and specific instructions to Fitzgerald and Wolfe (Hemingway did not need much editing) .

On The Great Garsby : "Now , everything about Gatsby is

more or less a mystery, i.e. more or less vague, and th.is may be somewhat of an artistic intention, but I think it is mistaken.

Couldn't he be physically descril;>ed as distinctly as others? A reader gets an idea that Gatsby is much older than he is. But this would be avoided if on his first appearance he was seen as vividly as Daisy and Tom." Oo The Beautiful and the Damned: "My point is that you impair the effectiveness of the passage by giving a quality of contempt, and I wish you would try to revise it, as not to a ntagonize even the v~ry people who agree with the substance of it. You would go a long way toward this if you cut out 'God Almighty' and put ' Deity. ' " On Of Time and the River: "1. Make the rich man in opening scene older and more middle-aged.

2. Cut out references to previous books and to success.

3. Write out fully and with all the dialogue the jail and arrest scene.

4. Use material from Man bn the Wheel by Abraham Jones for first year in the city and the university scenes.

5. Fill in memory of childhood scenes much more fully with additional stories and dialogue. " ln the same book Thomas Wolfe had injected radical , Marxist views and Perkins objected to ¡this because he felt that such beliefs were Wolfe's personal ideologies ill 1934 and 1935, and not of the character Eugene in the time of the book. So Perkins did not think that they rightly belonged in the book.

Max Perkins also earned the confidence of such writers as Ring Lardner, Van Wyck Brooks, S.S. Van Dine, John Galsworthy, Sherwood Anderson , Erskine Caldwell, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Carolyn Gordon and Nancy Hale. Numerous women writers published by Scribner's found him magnetic and they often invested their ¡ emotions in the father figure of Perkins. Hemingway thought that these women writers would ruin Perkins as well as deny the due of the serious men writers.

Indeed, a few women writers were stubbornly possessive of him .

One is said to have rung him up at his home in the night and cried: "My cat, Johnny Keats, is dying. Send me a vet. " And Perkins did so , at his own expense. However. he felt t.he women authors gave refinement to his life.

They invariably brought their family matters along with their manuscripts. So most of them became like his daughters a nd this element of his relationship with them actually made his life very happy and his work much more than mere editing. His letters to such women writers as Marcia Davenport, Anne

Chidster, Nancy Hale, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and Carolyn Gordon are spiced with the throb of human feeling , of a man living in harmony with his fellow human beings and without any other motives for such a feeling , except the belief that one's existence itself does much good to the existence of others.

The needs of Thomas Wolfe in terms of emotional support, editorial assistance and financial help, were the most challenging things in Perkins' life. Wolfe was also the first writer to enter his home life. His five daughters dreaded the visits of the bohemian who would even preach at their papa.

Wolfe was hypersensitive. What he thought to be unfavorable reviews of Look Homeward, Angel would have finjshed him off but for the support of Perkins. Whenever Wolfe's optimism was at a low ebb , Perkins wrote him long letters telling how the fastidious Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis were thrilled by his book. "If anyone is destined to write, the one is you ," said Perkins expressing an unshaken faith in his art.

Wolfe's response was that Perkins' letter of encouragement had filled him with hop"e and that it was invaluable. The result was

11

MAX PERKINS romi1111ed

12

Of Time and the Ril'er. and it was once again a huge accumulation of an unstaunched flow of all the unrestrained energies and d rives of the times. It is said that novelist Nancy Hale. Wolfe's neighbor. heard a kind of chant from Wolfe's house which grew louder a t 2 or 3 in the morning. It was the author: " I wrote 10,000 words today. I wrote 10,000 words today.'' As usual. Wolfe's second novel also needed editing.

Critic Be rnard De Voto had commented earlier that the most flagrant evidence of Wolfe's incompleteness was the fact that so far. one indispensable part of the artist had existed not in Wolfe but in Maxwell Perkins . This began to traumatize Wolfe mo re and more during this period.

Of Time and the River was dedicated to Perkins, whom Wolfe cited as "a grea t editor and a brave and honest man who stuck to the writer of this book through times of battle, hope lessness a nd doubt. ... " H owever. Wo lfe became ahenated from all he cherished and he wrote a 28-page letter seeking to sever his re lation with Scribner's. Perkins knew that this would happen. yet he wrote on November 18, 1936, "Ever since Look Homeward, Angel, your work has been the foremost interest in my life, and I have never doubted your future on any grounds except, at times. on those of your being able to control the vast mass of material you have accumulated and have to form into books ... . I only did that when you asked my help and then I did the best I could ...

H owever. Perkins understood Wolfe's attitude as the sign of a write r's instinctive and manly determination to free himself from all his bonds and stand up alone. E arlie r Wolfe had brought to Scribner's a carload of his writings with the help of the taxi driver and this scene is said to have tickled the Scribner's people into laughter. This was too painful for the writer. Anyway. T ho mas Wolfe left Scribner"s for Harpe r's.

In 1938 Thomas Wo lfe was in Seattle seriously ill and Perkins was keeping track of the situation. After so much resentment. at the close o f his life. the young author wrote to Pe rkins: "l wanted most desperately to live and still do , and thought about you a thousand times. a nd wanted to see you again ..... I know now I am just a grain of dust. ... " In fact Wo lfe's You Can 't Go Home Again published by Harper's was the story of his struggle to free himself from all bondage . even that of a cari ng editor. So he had rejected the editor who had accepted him against all odds; "to lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lo e the life you have. for greater life: to leave the friends you loved. for greater loving; to find a land m ore kind than home. more large than earth .... ·· H e passed away on September 15. 1938.

The Scott Fitzgerald story was equally eventful a nd desperate, for he had turned into an idle drunkard. and a spendthri ft. whom Pe rkin kept afloat through advances and loans. The challenge before the editor he re was to make the author write-for once he wrote, it was perfect.

Hemingway a lso needed the editor's help because "he wrote as he lived ." The editor had to stop him before he overcorrectecl his writings. before he destroyed their natural qualities.

Hemingway was also a slave to his own ego. Just to avoid his jealousy Perkins did no t a nnex William Faulkner to the Scribner's list. Perkins was a witness to the many desperate things an ego-wounded lle mingway would do.

Tactfulness was the secret of Perkins· success with the unbudgeable H e mingway.

The writers always complai ned about the editor's bias a nd Sherwood Anderson left Scribner's saying that Perkins showed mo re inte rest in the works of other authors. Financial con-

straints also affected Perkins' smooth dealing: Scribner's would not buy a monumental work which Perkins had initially thought out and suggested to Winston Churchill. the classic A History of the English-Speaking Peoples.

Perkins' success Jay in the success of his writers a nd he thought this made life generally peaceful and happy. H is sense of humor often seemed an offshoot of his male chauvinism. To the repetitive questions about not having sons, the father of five daughters would answer: "Oh. yes. we had sons but we a lways drowned them." And if he heard that a married man died, he would immediately say that his wife killed him. Whe n his fifth d aughter was born. his telegram to his mothe r read ANOTHER. He believed that a man who didn't marry was a coward, as was a woman who did. He also teased his wife about he r dream of acting in the theater and her Catholicism.

Perkins also had a Platonic relationship with Elizabeth Lemmon, whose letters were a real emotional support to him.

She was quite an ordinary. lonely woman, living in Middlebu rg, Virginia. She wrote letters frequently and Perkins used to visit her. In a letter to Maxwell Geismer. Perkins writes about Lemmon: '"This very charming woman was motoring us from Washington down to Middleburg to dine at the house her family had lived in for a long time. Its members were deep in the Civil War. I once asked her to go to see the field of Gettysburg with me and she said, 'Do you think I would like to see the scene of my country's defeat?' .. Mrs. Perkins knew very well that her husband had a deep relationship with another woman. but she was very understanding and never questioned him.

F. Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack in 1940. leaving the un fi nished Last Tycoon and a daughter, Scottie, whom Max ma rried off. Many of Perkins· close friends, a uthors like J a mes Boyd , S.S. Van Dine. Van Loon , Arthur Train died o ne by one. H e mingway la mented that writers were dying like flies. He himself was e mo tionally insecure and broke away from everybody. After his father's suicide, he regarded Perkins as his father.

In 1944 Malcom Cowley wrote a profile lionizing Perkins in The New Yorker, titled ··unshaken Friend," which cited him as a n a uthor's oasis. The first thing every author would do on completion of a manuscript was to call on Perkins at Charles Scribner's. J ames Jones' From Here to Etemity, Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country. Joseph Stanley Pennel's Rome Hanks were among the new Perkins discoveries . near the end of his career.

Though he dreaded the process of dying. Perkins had resigned himself to the phenomenon of death. He had lost inte rest in himself and, in the words of William Styron, he was a man born to enjoy suffering. But Maxwell Evarts Perkins' death on June 17. 1947. was more than the death of a book editor. A typical response to it was that of Taylor Caldwell the novelist, who collapsed on hearing the news and had to be hospitalized. Hemingway himself was greatly touched but he tried to bring o ut the irony in it. "No longer," said He mingway. " will he have to wrestle with the executorship of Thomas Wolfe's chickenshit estate or nght to keep women writers from building nests in his hat.''

Once Made line Boyd. seeing Perkins' bold and creative editorial work, asked: "The n why don' t you write yourself? .. ''Because I a m an editor," said Perkins, the artist whose 0 medium was the works of other writers.

About the Aut hor: Thomas Palakeel. a frequem contribwor to SPAN. i.\ a Kerala-based free-lance writer.

AMERICANS ON THE MOVE

From Security to Satisfaction Many Americans today believe they have more freedom of choice than their parents d id. In the past, most Americans were gratefu l just tonave good jobs, and they were reluctant to do anything that might jeopardize their security. Recently, more and more American workers have begun to ask: "Why not?" Why not take a risk C).nd do things they've always wanted to do?

For some, the risk is moving to another part of the country-from a big city to a rural area or a small town, or from the busy East Coast to the more casual Southwest. For others, it is leaving the security of working for someone else and facing the uncertainty of starting businesses of their own. Still others just want to change careers-for a different work environment, a new experience or an opportunity to spend more time with their children. " What is extraordinary about the search for self-fulfillment in contemporary America is that it is not confined to a few bold spirits or a privi leged class," says social researcher Daniel Yankelovich. " Cross-section studies of Americans show unmistakably that the search for self-fulfi llment is instead an outpouri ng of popular sentiment and experimentation, an authentic grassroots phenomenon involv ing, in one wayoranother, perhaps as many as 80 percent of all adu It Americans."

Here are the stories of a few Americans who made daring moves, and are glad they d id.

From Selling Insurance to Making Pottery Clyde Gobble was an insurance agent in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, when he took up pottery "just for fun" 15 years ago, and soon was selling his work at craft shows. With the profits, he built a studio in his back yard. He soon found he was much more interested in pottery than in insurance. Eight years ago he made up his mind: He would spend his days making pottery and sell insurance in his spare time. His wife, Shirley, who makes jewelry, approved wholeheartedly. Now, Gobble earns far less, but the personal freedom and gratification mean more to him than money ever did. "I had no sense of achievement from mailing off insurance forms," he says.

"Now I have something to show for my work at the end of the day."

13

From Time Magazine to the Rainy Lake Chronicle Ted Hall was born in M innesota, but he left w hen he was a young man to see the world.

He ended up in New York City as an editor for Time magazine. Th irty years later, he decided to go back to Minnesota to start his own newspaper, the Rainy Lake Chronicle, in the tiny town of Rainier, population 258. He lives on a houseboat on Rainy Lake, and says there is nothing but woods and water between him and the North Pole. What took Hal l back to Minnesota was the quality of li fe there. " I certainly have been aware in the years ... of being away from Minnesota, and then com ing back. .. , that there:s a kind of. .. Minnesota arrogance, or I like to call it a Mi~nesota confidence," Hall says. "It's kind of as though you had a big savings account back there that could cover any disaster. I think it's a kind of a reaching for the stars, and in this part of the country you have the feeling that a lot of people actually do to•1ch those stars."

From Corporate Executive Suite to Pasta Wagon Three years ago, W illiam DeBord w as earning a handsome salary as an executive with the Caterpillar Tractor Company. However, he was not spending much time with his young son. DeBord quit his lucrative job and took his family back to Peoria, Illinois, his hometown.

He and his wife, Carol, a former systems analyst, set up a food wagon from which they sell spaghetti, macaroni and sausages. They park their wagon near the Caterpillar corporate headquarters, and many of DeBord's former coworkers come by every day. "Some of them think I'm crazy, but a lot of them say they admire my courage," he says. The important thing to DeBord is that he can be near his children, while he and his wife prepare the food. "My father literally worked himse/i to death," DeBord says, "so I believe the most important thing you can give your children is your time." ¡

From the Hectic East Coast to Scenic Santa Fe Reese Fullerton had a successful law career in New York City and Washington, D.C., but he and his wife Anne kept thinking about the slower pace of life in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he grew up. In 1978, the Fullertons made their decision: They and their two sons moved to Santa Fe, where they built a traditional adobe house. Fullerton got a job in the state attorney general's office. Anne has been working as a volunteer teacher at the Sant~ Fe Indian school. The Fullertons also own a commercial building, where Anne oversees a secondhand clothing and toy store that offers items at bargain prices, and Reese rents out workshops to local artisans. "The open spaces, open-mindedness and relaxed atmosphere of this city make everything seem more possible and inviting," says Reese Fullerton.

0

SPAN OCTOBER 1983

15

The Knack

of Creativity,,

MALIN! SESHADRI

A new concept that brings creativity to business management, Value Engineering aims at cutting costs and maximizing resource utilization. Harold Tufty (above, left), a consultant from Washington, D.C., held seminars in India recently to show how it works.

16

Twenty-one young men are gathered together in a tight little group in the center of a conference room in a hotel in Madras.

Some of them are introducing themselves , shaking hands all around. Others are engrossed in studying folders. The murmur of conversation is muted, inhibited. Most of these men are meeting one another for the first time.

The 21 men (no women except me, and I'm only a passive observer) are middle-level managers from about 10 different organizations, involved in the manufacture of goods as varied as compressors, paper, automobile parts and typewriters. They are going to spend several hours together, spread over four days. They will "bounce ideas off one another," discuss their reactions and learn new concepts together at a four-day seminar on Value Engineering (VE).

There is a hush as a tall, imposing man, formally dressed in a dark suit, walks to the front of the room. He is Harold G. Tufty, a Certified Value Specialist (CVS) from the United States. He is the one-man faculty who will initiate the participants into the technique of Value Engineering at this seminar sponsored by the Indo-American Society, a private organization with headquarters in Bombay. The seminar is one

of a series on VE he is conducting for the Society in Bombay, Delhi and Madras.

Tufty is at present a private consultant" in VE, management and design , working out of Washington , D.C. He has been actively engaged in this work since 1966, and has done extensive consulting in Value Engineering for construction-management finns , universities, architect/engineering companies and U.S. Government agencies. He has lectured and conducted seminars on VE in America, Canada, Africa and India. A former vice-president of SAVE (Society of American Value Engineers), he is now president of the recently formed Value Foundation.

Harold Tufty has had a variety of occupations-aeronautical engineer, naval aviator, free-lance writer and European correspondent for The Denver Post. He also worked as an information officer for the United States Information Service in Africa and-25 years ago-in Bombay and Madras, where his youngest son was born.

"Shall we all introduce ourselves?" suggests Tufty. "Why don't we begin over here? Just tell us your name and what you do." The ice begins to crack , and the seminar is launched.

What is Value Engineering? As Tufty tells it with the aid of speci~ l slides, VE is a tested technique for taking a new look at specific engineering problems that bas proved helpful in finding solutions. It is more than value analysis or cost-reduction exercise, though it did stem originally from these concepts. VE is structured, even ritualized, and has a rigid code of rules. It is in the interpretation of these rules that flexibility comes in. so

Jy creative in nature ," I say. "Do you mean one can be creative that each problem can be solved on its own merits.

Who could benefit from VE? Engineering and manufactur- on demand? Can creativity be learned?" "Oh, absolutely!" says ing companies, big and small; all commercial organizations; Tufty without a moment's hesitation. "You can be creative on public utilities; defense services. Today YE is an accepted demand. I learned that as a free-lance journalist in New York discipline in the United States, Tufty says. For instance , any with deadlines to meet. " "I'll tell you what, " he continues. ··Since you' re interested. project of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated to cost $10 million or more requires a VE study by law. tomorrow I'll hold a creativity session. It' ll be fun, I promise Most federal agencies, as well you.·· The next day, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the atmosphere as the Army, the Navy and the General Services Administra- in the room is palpably different. Tufty is in his shirt sleeves, the tion are covered by similar formal coat and tie discarded. A few of the participants are laws, making VE studies man- discussing something animatedly with him. In another group, datory for certain projects. there is a babble of voices, and sudden gusts of laughter. The Who has the requisite VE mood is one of relaxed. uninhibited enthusiasm- just right for know-how and the capacity to a ·'creativity session"? We are soon to find out. impart it? Relatively few perI am promptly co-opted as a temporary participant, and sons, though VE itseif is a Tufty starts us off with a couple of classic problems. These are concept whose popularity is in the nature of paddling in the shallows-the plunge into the snowballing in several coun- depths of creativity is still to come. Soon we are all immersed in tries of the world. There are the problems, turning the papers around for a new look, only about 300 Certified Value nibbling pencil ends, gazing off into space for inspiration. If Specialists in the United you'd like to join us, try this one: You have to complete this States, and a mere five in series logically-OTTFFSS .... (Clut:: an eight-year-old AmerIndia. In addition , there are ican child could answer this one, while a professor with a Ph.D. an estimated 3,000 value en- gave up in despair! So don't worry if you didn't spot it gineers working in some of the straightaway. Try the first letters of the words One, larger industrial undertakings Two ... Ten.) We have learned our first Jesson in creativity: Creativity is in India, and perhaps twice that number in the United genius, but creativity is also simplicity. Essentially , it calls for States. deliberate and ruthless discarding of preconceived ideas that Value Engineering , say may clutter up the problem-solving process. It calls for an the specialists, is not meant to ability to pick the precise tool from your mental workshop,· that be an esoteric art practiced by will be most effective for the problem in hand. One doesn't u~e a select few. In India, VE has a sledgehammer to break an egg. already found acceptance as a And now Tufty wants us to do some "brainstorming"-a valuable tool in achieving very important step in a Value Engineering exercise. " In how cost-reduction and resource-optimization. Workshops and man.y different ways can you separate one thing from another?" seminars on Value Engineering, with faculty from prestigious he asks.

Indian academic institutions such as the Indian Institute of Suggestions come at him thick and fast , and hands are going Management (liM),. Ahmedabad , or visiting CYS personnel up all over the room. "Cutting," says one. "Chop it off," shouts from America. have brought VE into the corporate programs of another, "Distillation," "Filtration," "Heating .... " Some of the several Indian manufacturing concerns. participants are quiet, but Tufty won' t have that. "What about In the darkened room , Tufty's audiovisual lesson on the you, sir , there at the back? May we hear from you?" And he directive principles of VE is well under way. Distilled to their writes all the answers on the blackboard as they come. Soon the essence, these form a sort of VE Panchsheel or five basic pace falters. "Pull ," says one, and after a pause , "Crack up."

Presently, Tufty asks, "Have you finished?" "Yes," we say, principles: • Identification- selection of the problem area (too costly, immensely reli~ved. ''No, you haven't," says Tufty, "so keep those suggestions coming." too cumbersome, too unreliable).

And we do . Some are daft, some plain crazy. But now we're • Brainstorming-throwing everything you have at the probenjoying it all. "Divorce," shouts one participant triumphantly. lem. This is the creative phase.

• Elimination-removing the chaff from what came c.ut of Everyone laughs. The blackboard is full of our suggestions. So many ways to separate one thing from another? the brainstorming process.

We've learned our second lesson in creativity: When you • Speculation-thinking through the remaining solutions and think you've exhausted your ingenuity, you are probably only relating them to known data in an evaluation process.

• Implementation-convincing one's boss, and making beginning the exercise.

Now comes the biggest challenge of all. "Pick out the five adjustments to incorporate proposed changes.

The key words of the exercise are "identification," "func- words you think are the craziest in the list, and least suitable for tion," "worth" and "cost." Have I identified the problem? What the givc:n task. " Tufty asks us to work at this in teams of five or function does this item perform? What is its worth (to my six. "Now," he says, "each team will prepare a project report company, to the customer) ? What should it cost? The answers using those five 'useless' words as your main functional words." to these questions hold the solution to the whole cost-reduction, Groans all around-but there's no time to waste. Our project is to cut a hedge to a height of one meter. We get busy with poster or value-enhancement, or resource-optimization exercise.

Soon we break for coffee, and I try to draw Tufty out on the paper and marker pens. Sketches, plans, budget. special points, subject of "creativity." "You say that brainstorming is essential- we do it all. The others have their project reports ready too, in

17

THE KNACK OF CREATIVITY continued

18

10 minutes flat. What fun we have explaining them and recommendations on cost-reduction of a brush-box assembly. prese nting them! Tufty smiles proudly as if to say, "See, I told The saving envisaged is Rs. 5.361akh a year. G. Kuppuswamy's you you could do it if you try. You can be creative on demand. " team comes up with suggestions which would result in a If you're thinking this whole seminar is fun and games, you Rs. 7.65 lakh saving on a treadle assembly. The team Jed by K.S. couldn't be more wrong. As one participant says, " It's fun most Subramanian of Lucas-TVS Ltd. presents a blueprint for saving ¡ of the time , but it's also pretty hard work." The most important Rs. 3.7 lakh annually on typewriter packaging. And G.N. purpose of the seminar is to carry out VE exercises on real, Radhakrishnan of Best and Crompton presents hiS team's practical, tangible problems, which have actually arisen in the proposals to save Rs. 5 lakh a year on a compressor part.

Other projects worked out by the teams include cost-reducexperience of the participants. One of them shows me a bicycle sprocket. " Right now it costs more than it should. How can we tion exercises on an elevator cam, a bicycle sprocket, a gear cut the cost and yet maintain its function and durability?" pump flange , and a typewriter lever. In each c..:se, substantial Others have brought a typewriter lever, a treadle assembly, a savings are envisaged. compressor part. VE is going to be put to the test. Does it really How do the participants assess the benefits of the seminar? " We've learned a lot, of course," says S . Mani , "but above all work?

Tufty divides the participants into teams of five or six. No we've learned it in a most entertaining way. It was great fun. " two in a team are from the same company; as far as possible, no Another participant says, "What I appreciated most was the two represent the same specialty. Most important of all, the practical aspect: the chance to work on our own rather than participant who has supplied the problem will not be on the being lectured to all the time." Tufty himself describes his role as that of a catalyst in this experiment. team which attempts to solve it.

Actually, to the dispassionate observer, the VE seminar has And so, here we have an intriguing situation. Metallurgists and automobile-parts specialists are applying their minds to the been an excellent exercise in group therapy. The stripping away problem of producing a less expensive, more functional of mental inhibitions, the catharsis of repeated brainstorming, cardboard carton for typewriter packaging. At the next table, a reaching back into the subconscious for answers, turning your college teacher and an elevator manufacturer are among those mind inside out as you dissect the problem to the bone-all busy working out a solution for a problem involving a gear these are surely valuable exercises in self-realization just as pump flange. " If you're fresh to the problem, you're more much as they are required steps in the Value Engineering likely to take a fresh look at it- and maybe find something that approach.

A s for Tufty himself, he says that the Madras seminar has the expert missed ," says Tufty.

They study the data sheets first , to get acquainted with all proved particularly valuable to him, since some of the particithe particulars about the problem area. What is its function? pants had already had an introduction to the concept of VE, What is it worth ? What should it cost? Now the brainstorming is and some were actually heading VE teams in their institutions. on. They pick up the part and peer at it. They gesticulate, they "lt was a challenge ," he says, "and, as I expected, I too learned argue. "Couldn't we replace this brass bit with something Jess a lot. " Now, with the strenuous program over, the certificates expensive?" "No, wait a bit. That won't work. What about performance?" Tufty is quick to put them on track . "Elimina- distributed, and the participants having dispersed, Tufty finds tion comes later. When you're brainstorming, put down every time to relax and share some reminiscences. I can't help asking him, "Does VE work every time? Is it infallible?" suggestion you think of. Don't ask 'why .' Don't say 'but.'"

"Yes, if one goes about it the proper way," says Tufty, and The hours slip by. Each team is filling out its workbook. Specifications, cost break-up, brainstorming suggestions, proceeds to reel out an impressive list of VE's successes. elimination, refining of suggestions- they're all there , and G eneral Electric Company (U.S.A.) spent six years and a detailed project report gradually emerges from the seeming about $2 million inventing and refining Value Engineering technology. The experiment paid off. It saved $40 million in chaos. " We've thought all around the problem," says one partici- just one year. In the U.S. Department of Defense alone, VE pant to me, "and even under and over it. It feels like we've lived savings ran well over half a million dollars .

In Delhi two years ago, a VE exercise supervised by Tufty with it for days. And yet it's only a few hours ago that I saw this came up with an alternative design for a gobar gas plant which part for the first time in my life."

T hroughout this phase, Tufty has maintained a low profile. would cut 30 percent in costs.

Except for occasional guidance, an occasional reminder, Tufty talks about some of the more interesting VE exercises "Gentlemen, don't forget function. It is basic to a Value in which he has been involved. The State of Connecticut Engineering exercise," or "Ask yourselves what it is worth. " effected 15 percent saving on highway construction as a direct "Reach back into your subconscious, go by your gut feeli ng. result of aVE study. In Akron, Ohio, a major hospital invited This isn't in any of the books ," or "Be very careful to fi ll up Tufty to conduct a VE study to determine the priorities in a those workbooks. They're the project reports, and they ought proposed hospital expansion program. Radiology won , but the to be complete in every detail., real victory, says Tufty, was the heightened appreciation on At the end of the actual Value Engineering exercise, we've the part of specialists for each other's points of view. Tufty learned the third lesson in creativity: A team of four or five claims that a VE exercise makes you not only wiser, but more persons is almost always more creative than any single tolerant. individual , because of the "multiplier effect" of ideas-a sort of Value Engineering, say the pundits, can be used not only to relay race , where the baton constantly changes hands. assess new programs , but to revamp, resuscitate and rescue At the valedictory function on the last day of the seminar, existing projects, and to make them more viable and costthe participants are all set to present their project reports and to effective.

0 field questions. These proposals will be submitted to the managements of the participating companies for further action. About the Author: Ma.lini Seshadri, a Madras-based free-lance writer, is K. Srinivasan of Sundaram-Ciayton Ltd. presents his team's a frequent comrinulor 10 SPAN

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

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The United States Congress is unique among democratically elected parliaments in the complexity and extensiveness of its committee system which determines what legislation reaches the floors of the House and Senate.

Legislative Labyrinths

by CATHERINE E. RUDDER

To understand the U.S. Congress, one majority in every committee. reflecting must consider the implications of three the party balance in the House or Senate facts. First, senators and representatives as a whole. In other words, the majority come to Congress because they have party in each body, if it is sufficiently been elected by their constituents. No cohesive. can control legislative action. one goes to Congress under duress . They The President of the United States need want to be there , and usually they had to not be a member of the party that campaign hard to get there in the first controls either or both the House and place. They must also campaign for Senate. re-election-every two years to the The committee system, which deterHouse of Representatives and every six mines what legislation reaches the floors years to the Senate. Thus. the ultimate of the House and Senate, has been power over members comes from their refined over the centuries. Within two constituents, not from lobbyists or party decades of its founding in 1789, the leaders or any powerful official. Conse- House of Representatives had 15 comquently, members' activities on Capitol mittees. By 1925 there were 61 standing Hill are directed to a considerable degree committees in the House. By 1913 the toward their constituents.

Senate had reached its peak of 74 sepaSecond. the House and Senate are rate standing committees. divided into committees, which in turn However, while the committee strucare divided into subcommittees. Most ture took shape early , the committee legislative business in the House and system in the House and Senate today is Senate is initially undertaken by a legisla- quite different in scope, complexity and tive committee in each body before it power from that in the early years of reaches the floor for consideration by all Congress. A number of factors account the members of the House or Senate. In for this development. Senate memfact , Congress is unique among democra- bership increased only as new states were tically elected parliaments in the com- admitted to the Union, but the House of plexity and extensiveness of its commit- Representatives grew in number of memtee structure and staff system . bers as the U.S. population grew, requirThird , members of Congress belong to ing more structure in that body in order one of two political parties-Democratic to consider and act on legislation in an and Republican. The majority party in orderly manner. In the first Congress in each body elects the Speaker of the 1789, for example, there were only 49 House or Majority Leader of the Senate, members of the House and 26 members who oversees floor activity; puts its mem- ofthe Senate. By 1800, there were 142 in bers at the head of every committee and the House. Today there are 435 House subcommittee in that body; and bas a members and 100 senators.

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SPAN OCTOBER 1983

Moreover, the number and complexity of issues facing Congress have grown enormously over the last two centuries.

And there is a continuing shifting and adjusting of power between Congress and the President. Especially since 1947, Congress has developed-through the committee system-a capability to consider issues, determine facts and make independent proposals to the executive branch.

Finally, House membership has be¡ come increasingly stable , especially during the middle third of the 20th century.

This stability is characterized by less turnover of members every two years; by members regarding service in Congress as a career in itself: by the election of political party leaders with a long history of service in Congress. From this stability has emerged a clear pattern of leadership succession and structure, and the development of certain methods of operation (for instance, that members of Congress specialize and become experts in subjects within the jurisdiction of the committees on which they serve). The committee structure developed in the context of this larger pattern of institutionalization.

While committees gradually gained importance in determining the fate of legislation during the 19th century, two key actions since then led to their dominance in the legislative process (of the House in particular): the restriction of the powers of the Speaker in 1910-11 and the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. In the

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Senate, committees have followed a pattern of development parallel to that of the House, but the Senate as a body is much more manageable with only 100 members, and has relied less heavily on the committee system than the House, which is four times larger.

In 1910 Democrats, who were in the minority in the House, teamed up with insurgent Republicans to topple the Republican Speaker, Joseph Cannon , who exercised near-dictatorial power. As Speaker, Cannon made all committee assignments and designated committee chairpersons. He removed chairpersons and members from committees at wilL Through a series of parliamentary maneuvers, the House voted to curtail sharply the powers of the Speaker.

The system of power that evolved in the next decade set the pattern for committee assignments and selection of chairpersons for the next 50 years. In

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choosing committee heads, both parties came to rely on seniority; that is, the member of the majority party who had served on a committee for the longest continuous period of time, automatically became the chairperson of that committee. Similarly, the senior committee member of the minority party was named the top or ranking minority member.

Democrats and Republicans developed somewhat different procedures for appointments to, and removal from , committees. The House Democrats came to rely on their members of the Ways and Means Committee (a House standing committee) to make assignments to all standing committees, in part because the party members on the Ways and Means Committee to some degree reflected a geographical and ideological balance of House Democrats. In 1974, however, this power was transferred to the newly formed Democratic Steering and Policy

Committee, a party setup that is chaired by the Speaker when the Democrats are in the majority (otherwise by the party's Minority Leader) and includes other House leaders, representatives of the Speaker and members selected by House Democrats from all sections of the country.

To make' committee assignments, the Republicans have a Committee on Committees, which reflects the geographical base of House Republicans and is chaired by the House Minority Leader (or by the Speaker when the Republicans are in the majority). The Committee on Committees operates through an executive committee which wields the greatest influence on the party's committee assignments.

In either party, committee assignments usually are made on the basis of availability of seats, members' preferences and the degree of support they can garner from the senior member of their state

SPAN OCfOBER 1983

LEGISLATIVE LABYRINTHS continued

delegation, the head of their geographical region, and the chairperson or ranking member of the committee being sought.

Members are virtually never removed from committees against their will, but requests to change committees are frequently granted.

With the increasing reliance on seniority in choosing committee chairpersons and ranking members, and since no one was removed as a disciplinary measure, chairpersons became powers to be reckoned with, and the balance of legislative power tipped away from party leaders and party caucuses and toward committees.

Moreover, powerful committee chairpersons further strengthened their position by doing substantial favors for their constituents, who were not inclined to vote them out of office. These barons frequently did represent the interests of their districts, if election results are a measure, but not necessarily the interests of the nation as a whole. Congress was charged with being unresponsive to new national developments. This criticism reached a peak in the 1960s when a disproportionate number of congressional committee chairmen from the South attempted to block major legislation, especially civil rights measures.

As a result, the Democrats changed their party rules, and in 1976 House Democrats were able to remove the chairmen of the Banking, Armed Services and Agriculture committees and replace them with less senior representatives. They also encouraged the resignation of the Ways and Means Committee chairman.

Since 1975 , House Democrats have selected committee chairpersons in the following way: The Democratic Steering and Policy Committee designates a chairperson for each committee (usually the most senior party member on a committee is still selected) and then the Democratic Caucus (composed of all House Democrats) ratifies the selection through a secret-ballot vote. If the choice is not ratified by a majority of House Democrats, then votes are taken on other nominees in order of seniority until one receives a majority.

Republicans have not controlled the House since 1953 but have developed procedures for approval by party members of the choice of ranking Republicans on committees. However, Republicans

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SPAN OCfOBER 1983

still rely on seniority as the major criterion.

In the Senate, Democrats have never failed to select the most senior committee member as chairperson although the Democratic Conference (composed of all Democrats in the Senate) could select someone else by majority vote.

Senate Republican committee chairpersons are initially selected by party members on each committee and are subject to ratification by the Republican Conference, composed of all Republicans in the Senate. As with the Democrats, seniority is still the determining factor.

The increased importance of subcommittees can best be understood by examining the effects of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, which was intended to increase the resources of full committees (which it did) but which also led to the proliferation of subcommittees.

The Act reduced the number of standing committees in the Senate from 35 to 15 and in the House from 48 to 19.

Although there has been some reshuffling in both bodies since 1946, the basic committee structure set at that time is still reflected today.

The new law clarified the jurisdictions of committees and increased their staffs so that they could discontinue the then common practice of borrowing executivebranch staff. This change strengthened the independent resources of Congress and its committees by developing congressional staff experts on various subjects.

The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 further increased the size of committee staffs. Over the last three decades, staff members have been selected mere on the basis of ahility and expertise than for political or patronage considerations.

Staffs are not completely apolitical, however; the majority and minority parties of both chambers each appoint some staff members. Senate rules also guarantee committee staff for individual senators.

Adequate committee staffs permit

Committee staffs assist Congress in evaluating proposals on the basis of evidence and objective research.

Congress to evaluate proposals on the basis of evidence and objective research without relying on the executive branch and interest groups. Yet some critics charge that congressional staffs have become too influential in congressional decisionmaking.

The number of subcommittees rose steadily for three decades after the reorganization. Prior to 1946, there were 106 House and 68 Senate subcommittees; by 1959 there were 121 in the House and 100 in the Senate; and by 1975, there were 146 subcommittees in the House and 139 in the Senate.

The House adopted a rule in 1973 that required most committees to have subcommittees with explicit jurisdictions.

This rule was one of several changes adopted in the early 1970s that strengthened subcommittees, diminished the discretion of full committee chairpersons and decentralized power in the House.

Other changes emanated from the reform spirit of the early 1970s among House Democrats in particular: • No member could be chairpers0n of more than one subcommittee at a time.

This spread institutional resources and power, especially to younger, less senior Democratic members, who tended to be less conservative. This reform brought in 16 new subcommittee chairpersons, providing them with a base of power from which to draw attention to particular issues and promote legislative proposals.

• Each subcommittee chairperson was permitted to hire one professional staff member if approved by all Democrats on the full committee.

• The powers and jurisdictions of subcommittees were made more explicit, and they became less subject to the control of full committee chairpersons. For exampi~, rules for determining the selection of subcommittee chairpersons were specified. Subcommittee chairpersons became subject to election by all Democrats on the committee and are now voted on in order of their seniority. Moreover, subcommittees were given the staff and budget they needed to carry out their functions.

• Each Democratic member can now choose one subcommittee before any member is permitted a second subcommittee position.

The trend toward decentralization is reflected in the increasing importance of committee work at the subcommittee

If a bill has sufficient momentum, the level and the decreasing power of chairExcept for matters subcommittee holds a "mark-up" session persons. While each committee makes its involving personnel or during which the bill is considered section own rules within the limits of House and by section and amended according to the party rules, committees operate in si milar national security, all of its members or by majority consensus ways with majority rule as the basis of congressional committee vote . Because the majority party always committee decisionmaking. sessions are open to the retains a majority on each subcommittee, What a committee does and how it theoretically it could always determine operates depend on the type of commitpublic. the fate of legislation. This seldom haptee it is. Permanent standing committees, pens. however. because members of the which report legislation to the full House same party come from different states or Senate, include substantive or authorization committees that create and define senator every two years. They provide an and districts and thus quite often repreprograms such as food stamps, the MX opportunity for members to publicize a sent different interests. A member may missile or student loans. After authoriza- particular point of view or to get a not toe the party line and may disaption legislation has been approved by the particular issue on the congressional point fe llow¡ party members without beappropriate committees, has passed both agenda. For example, Senator Lloyd ing removed from the committee or the House and Senate by majority vote Bentsen, as chairman of the Joint Eco- from Congress; but if a member disapand has been signed into law by the nomic Committee in 1978, effectively used points enough constituents , he or she President, separate legislation is then that committee to focus attention on what may be out of work after the next required to fund authorized programs. he believed to be a shortage of capital for election to Congress.

After subcommittee mark-up, the bill The House and Senate .appropriations private investment in the United States.

In House-Senate conference commit- is considered by the full committee which committees handle this task. In addition, there are two other types of "money tees, subcommittee heads and senior then votes whether to report the legislacommittees": the tax committees (House committee members are appointed speci- tion to the full H ouse or Senate.

Once on the floor, the legislation is Ways and Means and Senate Finance ficaiJy to resolve differences in the House by the chairperson of the managed" " legislaof piece a of versions Senate .and revenueapprove committees) , which be must subcommittee. T he floor or reports committee compromise Their tion. and House the raising legislation; and who speaks on the determines manager he t before chambers both by approved review Senate budget committees, which order, and in what in and legislation White the to sent be can legislation aggregate tax and spending levels. debate. the signature. controls President's effect the for House The House has a special committee The decentralization of power in the The common characteristic of all comthat controls the flow of legislation on the usualand theory in recent years is especially manHouse openness-in is House floor. This rules committee de- mittees involvmatters on the House floor where legislafor ifested Except cides the amount of time for general ly in practice. all security, amended, sometimes in ways is national or tion debate on a measure; whether amend- ing personnel have sessions opposed by a majority of the committee ments will be permitted; which amend- congressional committee early the since that reported the legislation in the first ments are to be allowed, and in some been op en to the public cases the order of amendments. These 1970s. Committee sessions may be closed place. Often these amendments are decisions are then subject to approval by only by an on-the-record vote of the offered by representatives who are not members of the reporting committee. the full House. In the Senate, party committee.

The customary House and Senate com- Prior to the early 1970s, it was quite leaders decide such matters through consultations with committee chairpersons mittee procedure calls for legislation to uncommon for a noncommittee member be assigned to one or more committees to offer an amendment to legislation. and individual senators.

In addition to standing committees. after it is introduced in the House or Such amendments were seldom adopted other types of congressional committees Senate. Once legislation has been refer- by a majority of the House.

At any point in the committee process are: select, joint, conference, special and red to a committee, the bill is subsequentparty committees. Typically, select com- ly sent to a subcommittee under fairly legislation may be halted or transformed mittees, which tend to be temporary , explicit jurisdictional guidelines. Because beyond recognition. The committee sysinvestigate and publicize issues, and their much more legislation is introduced than tem determines the shape and fate of work sometimes leads to legislation that can possibly be considered, sometimes a legislation, most of which does not suris approved by a standing committee. For bill never even reaches the stage of vive to reach the President's desk. This system has been strengthened during the example, the House Select Committee on subcommittee referral.

If there is significant support for the 20th century and decentralized. It operAging has held hearings on Social Security. and some of its proposals have found legislation, the subcommittee chairper- ates in conjunction with the party structheir way into legislation reported out by son schedules hearings to permit the ad- ture and because members must face the Ways and Means Committee and its ministration and interested persons and re-election. it is ultimately, but indirectly, organizations, such as business groups, responsive to the American public. 0 Subcommittee on Social Security.

Joint committees are composed of to comment on the legislation, answer members of both the House and Senate, questions (usually prepared by commit- About the Author : Catherine E. Rudder is the and the chairpersonship usually alter- tee staff) posed by subcommittee mem- assistant director of the American Political nates between a representative and a bers, or make suggestions for changes. Science Association.

SPAN OCTOBER 1%3

Danee Theatre of Harlem

by MO.IRA HODGSON

The Dance Theatre of Harlem has achieved what once seemed impossible: It has brought blacks to ballet and ballet to blacks.

Since the company's inception in 1969, it bas performed to packed houses around the world, from New York to Dublin, from Stockholm to Trinidad. The company's repertoire is carefully balanced between academic classical ballet and modem works.

Whether its program calls for the complex choreography of George Balancbine, or the grandeur of Swan Lake, or the athleticism of Glen Tetley, or the mesmerizing dances of jazz, African ritual, and other ethnic works, Dance Theatre of Harlem has the talent and training to do it all- superbly.

The man responsible is Arthur Mitchell , who at 22 became the first black star of classical ballet. The son of a Harlem building superintendent, Mitchell auditioned for Copyright

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Ambassador International Cultural foundation.

The Dance Theatre of Harlem performs a masterpiece of classical ballet, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. Above: Ballerina Elena Carter. Facing page: Eddie Shellman and Stephanie Baxter.

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DANCE THEATRE OF HARLEM continued

admission to New York City's famous High School of Performing Arts when he was 15.

He was admitted, but the examiners told him he would never be a dancer. "Oh, really?" he said. He immediately resolved to become one.

He won a scholarship to the School of American Ballet (the New York City Ballet school) and was taken into the company in 1955. Ballet master George Balanchine (1904-1983) told him there was no place for him in the corps-he'd have to become good enough to be a soloist. Mitchell did just that. He also became a symbol of black excellence-as company director Lincoln Kirstein put it, "a militant artist instead of a militant activist." In 1962 when the company toured Moscow, he danced Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream; tap-danced in Slaughter on Tenth A venue; partnered Diana Adams in Jerome Robbins' AfternoiJn of a Faun ; and , working with Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), created the adagio pas de deux (duet) in Balanchine's Agon. ln 1968, past his prime as a dancer, Mitchell was on his way to start a dance company in Brazil when he learned of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. "I said to myself, 'Why are you going to Brazil with all

whites. In an astonishingly short period of time he established a company of dancers that displayed the power of pure classical style.

Mitchell began with 30 students and a company of three professional dancers, working out of a garage in Harlem. The door was kept open for air and youngsters would stare in from the street. Soon they were asking to join.

Dance Theatre of Harlem now has a school with more than 600 students. Young people are trained in ballet, jazz, tap, ethnic and modern dance; gymnastics; set and costume design and tailoring; lighting; public relations, and bookkeeping. There are choral and percussion programs, and an instrumental ensemble that performs with the company. The aim, says Mitchell , "is to turn out better human beings through the discipline of the arts. " "The way those dancers take to the stage lets you know they were born to it," dance critic Arlene Croce has written. As she points out, the Harlem company began "as a somewhat shakily experimental division of black dance. Today it is an expression of American ballet, and potentially one of the richest."

this turmoil at home? You're like everyone

The 39 dancers (including apprentices)

else. You sit back and do nothing to help."'

So, with the zeal of a missionary, he set about starting a ballet company and a school to provide much-needed opportunity for blacks. He quickly proved that blacks, given the right bodies and the right training, can dance classical ballet every bit as well as

have the high carriage, quick footwork and cool demeanor of New York City Ballet dancers. The women are tall with long legs, slender necks, elegant heads and expressive torsos. The men are strong, sinewy, sleek and athletic; they are unusually high jumpers-without tension.

"We aim for absolute purity in our technique," says Harlem codirector Karel Shook, a former choreographer for the Netherlands Ballet, who is generally considered one of the world's great teachers.

"Classical ballet," Shook says, "is based on an iceberg of science upon which art is precariously balanced. The body has to be like a crystal through which all kinds of light can pass. If there's a flaw in the crystal, distortion results. We spend an enormous amount of time on port de bras [placement of arms], because if the top of the body isn't right, you can forget the rest. And we pay attention to detail, right down to how the little finger is held. There's great difference between placing a foot or an arm and putting it. " The Harlem school is now so renowned in the dance world that other countries send students there who, once trained, return home to perform or teach.

Classical ballet was exported to contemporary America largely through George Balanchine, who was trained at the Imperial MarJinsky Academy in Russia. He adapted classical ballet to suit American bodies with their long limbs , short torsos and small beads. In so doing he injected into ballet an energy, athleticism and rhythm that were particularly American.

It is fitting , then, that Dance Theatre of Harlem should include in its repertoire many of the best Balanchine ballets . The company now performs Agon with more verve than the New York City Ballet. Harlem's Lydia Abarca, a long-legged beauty,

and Mel Tomlinson are superb in the adagio that Arthur Mitchell used to dance with Diana Adams. The dancers also capture perfectly the moods of Serenade and Allegro Brillante (with the remarkable Virginia Johnson and Ronald Perry), and are magnificent in The Four Temperaments.

Dance Theatre of Harlem does the "white scene" of Swan Lake in a version staged by English dancer-choreographer Frederic Franklin. The company features an eclectic mixture¡ of contemporary works: Glen Tetley's Greening, Robert North's athletic Troy Game and the Afro-Haitian voodoo dances of Geoffrey Holder's Doug/a.

Mitchell also choreographed many works, among them Rhythmetron, which shows the development of black dance from jazz to classical; Holberg Suite, a plotless neoBalanchine work, and the acrobatic Manifestations.

Although Mitchell remains the guiding force of the company, he now avoids the limelight. That is characteristic. When it was time for him to stop dancing, he declined to exploit his good looks by rushing on to Broadway or Hollywood. He went home to Harlem to create his own company. He did not call it the Arthur Mitchell Dance Company. "That's not where it's at for me.''

Instead, Mitchell filled his school with potential losers- kids he noticed lurking on neighborhood corners-and turned them into potential winners. One boy became a leading percussionist. One girl initially was so rebellious that the teachers almost abandoned her. Then she wrote her first musical composition and was so proud of having achieved something that it changed her life.

Mitchell threatened to dismiss dance students with poor high school grades. Schoolwork immediate ly improved. The company gives highly successful lecture-demonstrations to children across the country.

Many of them have never been inside a theater.

In less than 15 years Mitchell has achieved what other companies achieve in 30 or 40. Yet he has not tried to create a company with mass-audience appeal. He is not interested in glamour and money.

He believes in educating as well as entertaining. Thanks to him, many careers have been possible. As Lincoln Kirstein has written, " Dance Theatre of Harlem is a metaphor for all that is hopeful in AmerD ica today."

Abo1â&#x20AC;˘e: Scene from Manifestations. choreographed by the dance company's founder. Arthur Mitchell, and based on the story of the Garden of Eden. Left: Arthur Mitchell with dancers Virginia Johnson and Eddie Shellman. Facing page: The graceful swans of Swan Lake.

About the Author: Moira Hodgson is currently an editor of Vanity Fair.

SPA' O<"TOBF R I<K'

27

2

1. Bill Bowerman, cofounder of Nike, first experimented with an ordinary household waffle cooking pan to develop the revolutionary wafflepattern soles for running shoes. 2. The internationalist, a pair of Nike's new shoes.

3. The proof of the shoe's design is in the winning of foot races. 4. A technician uses a camera-and-amirror device to record the form and structure of a runner's foot. 5. A designer works on a computer to refine the styling of a shoe.

28

SPAN OCTOBER 1983

..

NIKE RAGES TO THE Dp

The zeal of its sports-loving entrepreneurs has made Nike the largest selling athletic shoe in America.

by LUCIEN RHODES

Back in 1965, Phil Knight, cofounder of Nike Incorporated, had no idea he had just launched a company that would shortly become a front-runner on a fast track. Knight, only 27 at the time, was an a uditor with Coopers & Lybrand , a n accounting firm in Portland, Oregon. After work and on weekends, he would load up his station wagon with Japanesemade ¡'Tiger'¡ sneakers, drive to local track meets, and hawk the sneakers from his tailgate.

H e is still a bit bemused by what happened. " 1 hope nobody ever starts thinking this company is some kind of institution," he says.

"We 're still just a bunch of guys selling sneakers. " Back in 1965, Knight's partner, 54-year-old Bill Bowerman , a track-and-field coach at the U niversity of Oregon , also h ad no idea what the future would hold. Bowerman had dug up $500 to finan ce half of Knight's tailgate inventory, a nd would spend his evenings at a kitchen table tinkering with Repnn1ed wnh 1hc permission of INC m.t~alm< .

Copyrtghl ~by INC. Publishmg Company.

the sneakers, a stitch here, a the "sneaker guys from Orelittle more padding there-any- gon" had built a company with thing to squeeze out a few more an annual production of 30 milseconds for future Olympians. lion pairs of shoes of its own Nor was there any way Jeff design , annual sales of $270 milJohnson could have foreseen lion, and a net income of roughly the physical-fitness hysteria $13 million. This was all the more that would soon sweep the impressive because in 1972, the country. In 1965, 23-year-old company's sales were under $3 Johnson, who had recently million . completed graduate studies in Nike is primarily a company anthropology, became Nike's created by athletes for other first e mployee , while toiling full athletes. As a result, the comtime as a social worker for the pany focuses on winning. city of Los Angeles. After Bowe rman , for example, has work , he ran a makeshift retail devoted his life to producing store in his apartment where he winners and even today, at 70sold Knight's Tiger sneakers. plus, is still coaching. When "I belie ved in Knight,' ' he Phil Knight was a middlesays. "I knew I could sell those distance runner on his track shoes and I knew exactly how I team at the University of Orewas going to do it. " gon, Bowe rma n used to yell at The combination of their him to "run faster." Knight individual talents-Knight 's wanted to win and eventually marketing skills, Bowerman 's ran the mile in 4 mincommitment to athletic excel- utes 13 seconds. Nor was Johnlence a nd Johnson's energetic son any slouch. During his salesmanship-with the grow- stude nt days , he once ran the ing national awareness of phys- mile in 4 minutes 14 seconds. ical fitness created a booming All three of these men had company. been winning a nd thinking Whe n Nike sold stock in the about winning for so long that firm on the open market in when tht:!y started out in busil980, Americans learned that ness, they couldn't think any

other way. Winni11g was exalted to a corporate philosophy and has since become something of a tribal ntual vigorously performed by a horde of Nike employees at the aptly named "Annual Beer R elays," where various company departments form teams to race each other.

Phil Knight traces Nike's roots aU the way back to the late Fifties when he was on Bowerman 's track team.

"Bowerma n was totally dedicated to running," Knight says.

"He wanted to do everything he could to help you win. Even then, he was playing with shoes. By today's standards, they were very crude. I mean they were all leathe r and very heavy . lf you wore them in a race today, you'd think you were wearing street shot:!s."

In 1960, Knight e ntered Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. During his second year, he took a course in small-business manageme nt.

The course required that he write a paper on emerging business opportunities. "E verybody was writing about compute rs and electronics," he says, "but

SPAN OCTOBER 1983

29

NlKE RACES TO T H E TOP coJ//inut•d

all I really knew about was running." Knight's research convinced him that the market poteQtial for running shoes was tremendous. At the time, the only companies that were making athletic shoes anything like today's models were Adidas and Puma in the Federal Republic of Germany. A few J apanese companies were in the early stages of shoe design, and they were making rapid progress. Knight concluded that the Japanese could become the dominant market force in athletic shoes.

In the fall of 1962, Knight celebrated his graduation from business school with a trip around the world. An early stop o n ·his schedule was Japan . '·I hadn't gone there with the intention of doing business," he says, "but 1 kept thinking about the paper I'd written and decided to check things out. " through wandered Knight lookstores several department of brands ing at the various the chose running shoes. He Tiger brand as the most attractive and functional.

The next day Knight visited the shoe's manufacturer , Onitsuka, in Kobe, gave the Onitsuka representative $50 for a small order of samples, and continued on his world tour.

Whe n the shipment of samples arrived, Knight took the shoes to Bowerman and asked his opinion. The coach was enthusiastic, and the two men agreed o n a partnership to be called Blue Ribbon Sports.

Bowerman and Knight put up $500 each so they could order more shoes.

In its first year, Blue Ribbon Sports sold 1,300 pairs of Tiger track shoes and tallied up

30

SPAN OCfOBER 1983

$8,000 in revenues. Knight would call up track coaches at local scMols and ask if he could have 20 minutes with the team before a practice so he could tell them about some new track shoes.

After a few runners tried the s hoes in competition and found them vastly superior to the clodhoppers they bad been wea ring, sales began to pick up.

In fact, running in general was becoming increasingly popular in Oregon, largely because of Bowerman's efforts.

B

owerman, in cooperation with a local newspaper, announced a series of jogging clinics that started at the university's track on Saturdays and followed a course around town. "We began with maybe 25 people," he says, ''and it grew steadily. Joggers came up with all kinds of problems, and I tried to help by fixing their shoes a little."

Bowerman started adding more cushioning to the heel of running shoes and ended up creating a full-length midsole cushion that to this day is an essential feature of running shoes.

Blue Ribbon Sports was the first company to use this innovation when, in 1966, it introduced the Tiger Cortez. one of the company's most popular models. It was also the first expression of the company's interest in scientific innovation, a characteristic that became mo re striking in the years ahead. Bowerman also teamed up with a local doctor, Waldo

Harris, and wrote a book on jogging based on his experiences at the clinics. It is one of the seminal descriptions of a sport that some estimates claim now occupies 25 million people nationwide. "I had no idea it would become as popular as it has," Bowerman says. "Anyway, in those days I wasn't thinking about markets o r fortunes. I was making better shoes a foot at a time. I left everything else up to Phil Knight, and believe me, he's a genius."

Jeff Johnson is now Nike's vice-president in charge of research and development facilities at Exeter, New Hampshire.

Johnson and Knight knew each other casually when both were at Stanfo rd but dido 't see each other again until the spring of L964. Johnson was doing graduate work in anthropology at the University of California at Los Angeles and took a break one day to watch a track meet.

After the meet, he was surprised to see Knight strolling across the infield. " I ran over to him.·· Johnson says. ··and asked him what he was doing, and he started telling me something about selling Japanese sneakers. Then he wanted to know if 1 would sell them, too. I told him I'd have to think about it.·· Johnson didn't have to think long. For a few months in 1964.

Johnson had worked in the Los Angeles outlet for Adidas and had seen the demand for modern athletic shoes firsthand.

Most of his early business was mail orders from ads or direct sales. At first, he used his own apartment as a business address, but as word got out that Tiger shoes were worth

Nike cofounder Phil Knight. a middle-distance runner in his college days. still runs daily, often trying ow new Nike slroes.

wearing, more and more runners showed up at his door. "By 1966, it just got to be too much ,'' he says. "So I rented some space.·· Johnson had opened the company's first retail store, and sales responded.

By 1976, Blue Ribbon Sports of almost revenues had $100,000 and was selling 10,000 to 12,000 pairs of track shoes a year.

That spring, it was obvious to Knight that the conclusion reached in his graduate paper had been confirm~d: The market for athletic shoes was strong and growing stronger. He went back to Japan and secured the distribution rights for Tiger shoes for all of North America.

At the same time, he placed a large order and instructed Onitsuka to ship it to New York as proof of his intention to distribute on the East Coast. T hat summer, Johnson opened the company's fi rst East Coast store in a small house in Wellesley. Massachusetts.

By 1969. only five years after Knight and Bowerman had sealed their partnership, sales reached $300,000. Knigh t quit his job to manage the thriving business full time. Blue Ribbon Sports now had 20 employees,

an office, and a warehouse in Beaverton , Oregon. and two retail outlets. one on each side of the country. More important. a flock of independent retailers had been won over to the Blue Ribbon cause, and Tige r shoes began showing up in sporting goods stores. shoe stores and department stores across the country.

T hen, in 1972, the company faced ruin. Blue Ribbon's success had not gone unnoticed by Onitsuka in Japan . Onitsuka set up five regional distributors in the United States. an act that deprived Blue Ribbon of it'> exclusive distributorship and threate ned to eliminate 90 percent o f its roughly $3-million sales base.

The rift between Blue Ribbon and Onitsuka couldn't have occurred at a worse time.

Bowerman had just been appointed head track-and-field coach for the U.S. Olympic team , and the track trials were only months away. The company could lose the marketing chance of a lifetime-selling shoes to Olympic runners. ''One day ,'' Johnson recalls, ''Knight came in and said this problem was really a great opportunity. He said we would simply put out our own line of shoes, under a new name."

Knight hurried to Japan and struck an agreement with Nissho- lwai Corporation, the sixthlargest Japanese trading company, which undertook to find shoe manufacturers in the Far East and provide financing and export-import services to Blue Ribbon Sports. Blue Ribbon. the o riginal corporate entity , would distribute the new shoes.

Knight gave Nissho-Iwai a design for a new track shoe. On

the sides of the uppers was a trademark that today accounts for roughly 35 percent of all athletic shoes sold in the United States, the largest market share of any company in the business, according to Knight. The symbol suggested speed and looked like a rounded lightning bolt.

Three months later, Johnson, who was still on the East Coast, got a call from company headquarters in Oregon. "The Japanese arc making the boxes for the shoes," the caller said frantically, "and we can't decide on a name. We need one by morning. Got any ideas?'"

After a night of fitful dreaming, Johnson wrote down a name on a pad of paper near his bed"Nikc [the Greek goddess of victory J." In 1978, the company formally adopted this brand name as its corporate name.

The first shipment of Nikes wa~ air-shipped from the Far East just in time for the Olympic trials. Knight persuaded several runners to wear the new shoes. In the marathon trials, four of the top seven finishers wore Nikes. By persuading marathoners to wear his product , Knight firmly established the company's "word-of-foot'' advertising policy. "To see name athletes wearing Nike shoes was more convincing than anything we could say about them ," he declares.

Unfortunately, it was a lot easier to get athletes to wear Nikes than it was to sell them to retailers. The company had done such an effective job marketing Tiger shoes that s tores were reluctant to change lines. That year-1972-was the only year that the company lost money. In 1973. the company tackled the problem by

opening four company-owned " Athletic Department" retail stores in key cities across the country. The 4 soon grew to 12, but something dramatic was still needed to close the gap-a new shoe, perhaps , something that would make retailers sit up and take notice. Once again. a Bowerman technological breakthrough did the job.

T~~rrcd

pany was suddenly and swiftly approaching $300 million in annual revenues. In the years that followed the introduction of the waffle. the company gradually broadened its product line to include shoes for basketball , tennis, and other racquet sports. and created shoes for soccer, baseball, softball and football. Many of the new models were designed and manufactured at company-owned plants in New England as part of the company's efforts to decrease dependence on foreign manufacturers.

Johnson talks about Nike·s thrust into Europe and the first company-owned plant outside the United States, which started production in Ireland in September 1981. He describes a new line of hiking and walking shoes featuring the ..air-sole" design and ends up detailing a greatly expanded line of sports apparel. "Some people look at our growth, and think we must be getting burned out ,., he says, ..but , bell. we've only started the third quarter of the game."

A similar sentiment was expressed graphically in the prospectus that announced Nike's first public offering of stock in December 1980. After the obligatory numbers, names, descriptions and caveats. the company signed off o n the last page with a picture. It showed a solitary runner at twilight silhouetted against a lake and the boldface caption : "There is no finish line." That was Nike·s way of e ndi ng the past with a description of the future. As Johnson says. " Winning is a state of mind ." rI

idea originally oe• to him on a quiet Sunday morning 10 1972.

Bowerman was enjoying a plateful of waffles he had just made in a waffle iron. Suddenly the thought struck him that the studded surface of the waffle iron could produce a revolutionary design for the soles of running shoes. "I grabbed the iron and went out to the garage," Bowerman recalls, "and poured some urethane rubber onto the iron and pressed it down. But I forgot to put in a releasing agent and totally ruined the iron. Still, I got a good impression."

Bowerman originally used the "waffle'' sole as a customized feature for selected runners, but in 1975, the company decided to put it into full-scale production . The new shoe became extremely popular with runners. For several years Nike bad the market all to itself, because other companies regarded it as a gimmick. "The waffle," Johnson says, "gave us the credibility we needed in the growing running market." And along with the credibility came About the Author: Lucien Rhodes sales in great. booming bursts. is a staff writer for JNC.. a Boston· By 1980, Knighf s tiny com- based magazine.

SPAN OCTOBER l98)

31

NATALIE DAVIS SPINGARN

...

Josephine Cordischi proudly displays the chart she was given during her previous stay at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston: down the left side, a long list of medicines, along with the dosages and times she was to take them; down the right side, check marks showing that the directions had been followed.

Susan E. Johnson, in white pants and striped shirt, who comes into Cordischi's room to adjust her intravenous tubes, is a far cry from the traditional white-capped nurse. Not only does she administer to her patient. who suffers from chronic asthma. but she also draws up a 24-hour plan of nursing care that she supervises while she herself is on duty and that other nurses follow in her absence.

Johnson , 24 years old, is a "primary nurse," one of a new breed of medical professionals in the United States who have come into being to offset the increasing fragmentation of patient care

32

\P,\N OCI Cllli· R 19gJ

and nursing accountability. Contributing to the need were several factors: the spread of team nursing, wherein each nurse does only one task during an entire shift; the rapid advance of medical technology, and the continuing shortage of nurses resulting from fewer people being

attracted to or staying in a profession which, they feel, does not let them fully practice the healing arts they acquired at nursing school.

While the basics of primary nursing are as old as the nursing profession itself, only recently have they come to be applied on an appreciable scale. In primary nursing. the ideal one-on-one nurse-patient relationship has been broadened to include a considerable amount of decisionmaking and has been extended beyond individual working shifts. Beth Israel , a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital, was one of the first to embrace it hospitalwide, in 1975.

Since then. more hospitals have introduced it. at first in just a few wards, and more recently, as limited experiments have proved successful. throughout a hospital. Recognizing the importance of the growing field. the Division of Nursing of the United States Public Health Ser-

From /he• ,v,,,,. l 'mA rum:' Muxa:rut'. Cop\ I U.:hl ([1 l%·1 hy The New York I imc~ Company Reprintl'd b)

pcrmi~)ion.

vice recently ordered a study of six hospitals practicing at least 50 percent primary nursing. Interest in the concept has spread abroad, with study groups from Europe and Asia coming to Beth Israel to observe the practice, which does not yet have a formal curriculum. The modern principles of continuity of care originated with Lydia HalL chief nurse at the Loeb Center for Skilled Nursing Care at Montefiore Medical Center in New York , in the early 1960s. But it was Marie Manthey, then the vice-president for nursing at Yale-New Haven Hospital and now a leading consultant in the expanding field , who named the concept in the late 1960s and became its doyenne.

Some traditionalists in the medical profession have trouble dealing with the 路'decentralized decisionmaking" aspect of primary nursing, which cuts across established medical-care Jines. If, for example, a primary nurse feels that a patient still reeling from a bolt-from-the-blue diagnosis of cancer needs more time to adjust to the reality of his situation before facing surgery , she will serve as his advocate with his doctors and, unless his condition is critical , the operation will be delayed.

Or if a patient is unduly worried about even a simple procedure, his primary nurse can arrange to accompany him to the treatment room. On a more mundane level , if a patient would rather watch a certain TV show in the morning and postpone his bath to the afternoon, and the primary nurse decides there is no reason for him not to, she does not have to ask a superior for permission to flout hospital routine.

Nor is primary-nursing care confined within hospital walls. For a limited period after patients are discharged, primary nurses remain available, either by phone or through home visits, to help with whatever problems may arise. And before patients are released from the hospital , primary nurses show them bow to avoid tensions that can aggravate their conditions , and may teach them how to walk, climb stairs or lift grocery bags without exerting undue strain on mending limbs and organs.

Primaries. who at Beth Israel are paid no more than other registered nurses, an average of $20,000 a year, also are available to accompany patients going from hospital to nursing home, to ease their way into a new environment and to consult informally with the new caretak-

ers. When I first observed primary nursing at work at Beth Israel , I was astonished at how well it worked on a hospitalwide basis. As a health-care writer, I had known about the concept almost since its inception; two years ago I had attended a seminar on the subject at Alexandria Hospital in Virginia. Meanwhile, as a chronic cancer patient, I had been in and out of hospitals in Washington and New York , and had experienced the kind of care primary nursing was designed to prevent.

Not that the multitude of caretakers I had encountered over the years were not often warmly concerned and efficient. At George Washington University Medical Center last spring, for example, one such nurse made a special effort to know me, talk to me about my work, get me juice when I was thirsty and gerrerally smooth over the rough edges. But after two days, I lost her com_forting presence when she was reassigned to other, all-consuming duties.

Such a ''here-today, gone-tomorrow" system, or nonsystem. can leave a seriously ill patient confused and feeling frighteningly alone. Several years earlier at George Washington, I had struggled to wake up in a recovery room after an operation , anxious to know what had happened to me. Through the haze of the lingering effects of anesthesia, I heard two nurses whose voices I didn't recognize discussing my operation: "She had a mastectomy," one of them said. That's how I got the news.

Clearly. Josephine Cordischi. 48 years old, is delighted with the primary-nursing system, and so is Susan Johnson, who came to Beth Israel in 1980 directly from M assachusetts' Fitchburg State College.

There are many more rewards in primary nursing than in the more prevalent system of team nursing. "It's much better," Johnson says. "to know a whole patient and his family than to know him only as the man down the hall who gets digoxin for cardiac disease. You can find out what his special needs are, and while you treat him physiologically, you get to help him adjust psychologically to meeting any restriction his illness may place on him. " Her hospital's hierarchy seems pleased, too. Nurses are leaving every three to five years instead of every three to six months , as they had been before the introduction of primary nursing at Beth Israel.

E lsewhe re, nurses seem to be displaying their discontent with their traditional handmaiden roles by continually moving from hospital to hospital or dropping out of the profession entirely, creating troublesome shortages-about 80,000 hospital staff positions for nurses are going begging currently in the United States路.

While most hospitals across the country are conducting expensive campaigns to attract, and keep, nurses , Beth Israel, a 452-bed institution , does not even need to hire temporary nurses from staffing agencies. Its own full -time staff of 845 nurses, all but 10 of them registered nurses, is sufficient to cover whatever needs arise. Moreover. the hospital's administrators feel that not only are they providing quality care for patients, but also that their nursing costs, now 29 percent .of the hospital's total budget, compare favorably with those of hospitals without primary nurses; there are not more nurses working per patient, they are just organized in a different way.

When Joyce C. Clifford , Beth Israel's vice-president for nursing, was brought to the hospital in 1973 to improve nursing care, the institution had both the high nursing turnover and an insufficient number of nurses to get the work done.

Additionally , M. Patricia Gibbons, who recently resigned as director of medical nursing at Beth Israel to continue her education , says that with patient care very segmented and task-oriented, one nurse assigned to dispense medications to 42 patients 路'could not possibly know what was wrong with all those patients or understand all those medications."

And , as Gibbons observed, 路'No one was looking at the patient and the family and asking what was happening during his hospitalization.''

Analyzing the situation, Clifford and her management staff asked: How can we improve this? They did not install primary nursing as an end in itself, or as a recruitment tool. They came to their decision because they felt that some fundamental changes had to be made throughout their institution, based on the philosophical premises that patients have a right to care that was planned and evaluated by a registered nurse, that nurses have the right to practice in the way they have been educated to practice and that the hospital has the right to high quality, cost-effective care. After study-

SPAN OCTOBER 1983

33

¡RSONAL NURSING CARE cominued

4

ing the available literature on the subject. in almost every nursing unit,'" points to they decided that primary nursing was a the national nursing shortage as a source good fit for their needs. of difficulty for hospitals attempting to Now, Beth Israel patients are guaran- adopt the concept. And primary nursing, teed their own primary nurse within 24 he says, because it is top-heavy with hours after admission. Nurses like Susan registered nurses , and dependent on Johnson carry one or two primary pa- acceptance throughout the hospital tients at a time, as well as three or four hierarchy , "does not withstand the chalassociate patients. In fact, in the case of lenges of persistent vacancies, significant Cordischi, Johnson was technically the staff turnover, and high intensity of associate while the primary nurse who care." When nurses who are doing well had cared for Cordischi during previous on a certain unit leave, Dr. O'Leary hospitalizations was on vacation. contends, the system dies there .

This pattern prevails throughout the Joyce Clifford , whose experience at hospital, though the details vary with the Beth Israel has been contrary to Dr. location. In Beth Israel's emergency O ' Leary's, does not agree that primary room, for instance , patients are not nmsing is more expensive; good staffing shifted, as they are in most hospitals, is costly, she admits, but so is poor from facility to facility and from caretak- staffing, which generates constant turner to caretaker. Instead , the same over. emergency-room nurse follows a patient Clifford discounts the excuse most from registration to treatment room to often raised by some administrators: X-ray and back again, until it's time to "The doctors will revolt! .. Doctors want leave. In the kidney dialysis unit, to quality care for their patients , she says, which patients may return for years on but you cannot simply tell them about it; end, each is repeatedly cared for by the you have to demonstrate what you want same primary nurse. to do.

It all seems so logical , and so much in That demonstration seems to have tune with what nursing was before the taken place successfully at Beth Israel. days of intensive-care units and respira- Dr. Scott Weiss, a specialist in pulmonary tory therapists , when the same nurse , sometimes private. sometimes not, tended to all of a patient's needs. I have had private-duty nurses after four separate operations-two mastectomies, an ovariectomy and a gall-bladder removal.

They made all the difference, tending to my every need , even breaking through the hospital bureaucracy to obtain extra amenities. But I let them go after one or two shifts, not only because private-duty medicine , who has worked at Harvard's nursing is so costly-around $120 for an two other independent general teaching eight-hour shift-but because I did not hospitals, says that the nursing care at want a nurse hovering over me when J no Beth Israel is better because the nurses longer needed that kind of attention. are more highly motivated to work at the According to Joyce Clifford of Beth bedside. Tllis is in marked contrast with Israel, the reason all hospitals don' t have the more usual situation where the regprimary nursing on all their floors is that istered nurse with the most experience, it takes a total commitment on the part of the team leader, spends all her time on a hospital's hierarchy. It cannot be tried administration and the least-trained in just one or two units, or for a period of nurse gives the patient hands-on care. time, as some hospital administrators Dr. Weiss tells of a thoracic surgeon have done. To do it properly, she says, who says, with some amusement, that his you have to adopt primary care as a total patients always remember their primary conce'pt, with the goals of continuous nurse better than him. It is not difficult to care and nursing accountability in mind. understand why; patients would rememDr. Dennis S. O'Leary , dean for clini- ber the nurse who attended to their every cal affairs at George Washington Univer- need better than a doctor they might have sity Medical Center, which he says has caught only a glimpse of before an primary nursing "in some shape or form operation and seen only briefly a couple

SPAN OCTOBER 1983

of times afterward.

Two of Beth Israel's house staff, Drs. David Leeman and Myles Sheehan. add that they have found patients better prepared to care for themselves when they leave the hospital after primary nursing. And both of them remember a lady who , although quite ilL had insisted-against medical advice-on being rnov~d from an intensive-care unit , only to be dissuaded because of the trust she placed in her primary nurse.

Dr. Sheehan allows that the idea of sharing some responsibility for patients with a primary nurse, and of being challenged by that nurse. might be "scary" to some doctors, as it was at first to him. Now, he says, he finds that primary nurses , "real professionals instead of 9-to-5 workers:¡ are "anxiety relieving. " And he admits that he rather likes to have to think twice when a nurse who has had more experience with a patient tells him, "She's allergic to codeine," and suggests , " Why not try another painkiller?"

Joyce Clifford and Patricia Gibbons take pleasure in such praise from doctors.

But their greatest satisfaction comes from hearing about primary nurses who have moved the system beyond their imagination, such as those who have intervened with fam ilies to save their ailing but not disabled patients from nursing homes while they were still able to manage in their own apartments. Or about the nurse who treated a dying woman with such dignity and skill that her widower was moved to call the hospital administrator's office to be sure Beth Israel was aware of what a superb professional the primary nurse is.

It's easy to see why a nurse with the chance to do primary work prefers it to dispensing pills all day to people whose names she knows only from the charts at the foot of their beds , and why she prefers to move into a more equal, professional relationship with social workers, dietitians and even doctors. And it is easy to see why a repeat patient like myself, who does not want to move to Boston, hopes that more hospitals will move more quickly toward primary nursing as it is practiced at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital.

0 About the Author: Natalie Davis Spingarn is the author of Hanging in There: Living Well on Borrowed Time, published las/ year.

Reprinted from U.S. N•ws & World Report. February 14, 1983, published ot Washington, D.C.

The Quality of Justice The number of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court has increased manyfold in recent years-from 1,463 illl953 to 5,311 in 1981. "No nine people in the world,·· says Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, "can handle that many cases and handle them properly." To maintain the quality of justice, he suggests fundamental changes in the U.S. judicial system-such as creating a second court of fast resort.

haven't been some coronary attacks among the Justices. Five o( the members of the Court are in their 70s.

What steps should be taken to meet the overload problem?

In my annual report to the American Bar Association, I call on Congress to create a commission to look into the whole problem.

We have a great court system in the United States. but it isn't perfect. The commission should look at the court system of every other large, highly industrialized country to see whether we could learn something from then1. The commission should feel free to recommend drastic changes if they seem to be warranted. For example. the Europeans generally have two or three courts of last resort rather than just one.

Which countries are you speaking or?

France , for one, has a nine-member Constitutional Council that resolves only constitutional questions. Another French court is the court of last resort for a ll administrative matters, and there's another court for everything else. In effect, they have three supreme courts. And that is a fairly common pattern throughout Europe, from Sweden on the north down to Italy.

And in Britain, whose common-law traditions prevail here?

The British system is somewhat more complex than ours.

The Lord Chief Justice of England presides over the Court of

QUESTION: Mr. Chief Justice, how serious a problem is the massive and mounting case load of the U.S. Supreme Court?

ANSWER: It is very serious. We are moving toward a time when it will be impossible for the Court to cope with its docket.

If something is not done, the result could become something like a production-line kind of justice that none of us would want to see.

Let me give you an idea of what the case load already is. In 1953. Chief Justice Earl Warren's first year. there were 1.463 filings and the Justices wrote 65 signed opinions. Signed court opinions are the best single measure of our work. ln the 1981 term, there were 5,311 cases on the docket and we wrote 141 signed opinions-more than double the number of such opinions in Chief Justice Warren's first year.

How fast is the case load growing?

If the increase continues at the current rate, within 14 years-my tenure on the Court-we will likely have 7,000 to 9.000 cases a year on the docket. No nine people in the world can handle that many cases and handle them properly.

Is ·the quality of opinions suffering?

No member of the Court is a good judge of that. Lega l scholars who have studied the Court concluded some decades back that 100 signed opinions a year was the maximum that nine J ustices could deal with adequately and with the proper time for reflection. I believe that is true. That is what is so worrisome about the fact that we are now writing 141 opinions a year.

How are the Justices contending with this crush?

By working hours that nobody has the right to expect the Justices to work. I do not monitor my colleagues_, but I would estimate that the Justices are working at least 60 hours a week. and some of them more. My own workweek is 70 to 80 hours.

Perhaps I'm a little slower than the others-and l do have "Considering the overwhelming case load in our nation's judiciary, many duties they do not.

Your Honor, may I suggest you dismiss 1he charges against me?''

In that sense . we are coping. But whether and how long this can continue. r don't know. I have marveled privately that the re Drawin~ by Stevenson ; © 19~3 The New Yorker M"gazmc. In~

35

16

The Quality of Justice Criminal Appeals, and the Master of Rolls- a quaint title in our terms- is the chief judge of a court that deals with all noncriminal appellate cases. Those two courts are very nearly courts of last resort, but the true tribunal of last resort is Parliament-fifteen law lords, nine of them active- available to sit in two panels.

Of 4,434 cases handled in 1981-82 term-

2,980 appeals came from

12 U.S. circuit courts of appeals 94 federal district courts • 28 administrative agencies

How does their case load compare with yours?

The two panels of the lords bear about 65 cases a year- split between them-and they are able to spend a lot more time listening to oral argument on each case than the 30 minutes the Supreme Court normally permits in a case-and more time for discussion and reflection.

Now , while this commission I'm urging Congress to create is looking into these other systems, we ought to conduct an experiment to reljeve the Supreme Court of some of its case load.

What kind of experiment do you have in mind?

I believe Congress should immediately-without waiting for a commission report-set up a special temporary panel made up of perhaps 26 judges drawn from those presently sitting in the vario us circuits, and let seven-member panels of those 26 take some of the cases that otherwise weuld be heard by the Supreme Court.

What sorts of cases would the panel hear?

At a minimum, all cases involving conflicting rulings by circuit courts. About 45 of the 140 opinions or so we write a year deal with such cases , so this would be a big help. We might broaden the panel's jurisdiction a bit more and give it all statutory-interpretation cases, too.

Now , this would be just an experiment. It ought to have a "sunset provision" attached so it would not last beyond five years. It would be an experiment that the commission , looking for long-range solutions, could monitor.

Could the decisions of this special panel be appealed to the Supreme Court?

A ppeals wouldn't be automatic, but litigants could ask for review by the Supreme Court. Now, some will say, " You are just deferring the day when the case comes there. " In fact , the chances are that most of the special panel's decisions would be allowed to stand.

Would a constitutional amendment be needed to make drastic changes in our appellate procedures?

Creation of a new intermediate court under the Supreme Court would not require such an amendment, nor would this special temporary panel.

What about setting up two or three supreme courts?

A great many judges, lawyers and legal scholars would be sure to think it required a constitutional amendment because there is a widely accepted view that Article Ill of the Constitution, which says there shall be "one Supreme Court," means that the Supreme Court cannot sit in divisions o r panels.

Creating several supreme courts would be a drastic solution , but the commission should consider all the options.

Is one possible solution to add members to the Supreme Court, raising the nine to twelve or even more, for example?

No, definitely not. T he case loads of the federal courts of appeals have multiplied and multiplied, as have ours, a nd the solution there has been to appoint more judges. That works because these courts can sit in divisions. T he Supreme Court cannot do that. Nine is as near to the ideal number as there is.

SPAN OCTOBER 1983

131 appeals came from

Specialized federal courts Patent cases • Tax cases

Military cou rts-martial Claims against the U.S. Railroad-reorganization cases

t

1,287 appeals came from

Supreme courts in 50 states and the District of Columbia State and local courts with 27,000 judges

*

Note: The Supreme Court also had "original jurisdiction·· in four cases involving disputes between state governments. In addition, 32 cases came directly to the Supreme Court from federal trial courts, including soma reapportionment and civil-rights disputes.

SOME OTHER JUDICIAL OPINIONS Should the United States separate tribunals for different create a second Supreme classes of appeals. In Japan , 15 Court almost equal in prestige high-court justices split into to the near-sacrosanct institu- panels to hear cases. tion that has carried the name "It would be difficult to for 200 years? transplant these systems to the In raising that question, · United States, but on balance Chief Justice Warren Burger is they are much more efficient," drawing attention to an idea says George Bermann, a law sure to arouse strong opposi- professor at Columbia Unition from many legislators, versity. lawyers and members of the In fact , two U.S. statespublic.

Oklahoma and Texas-for Burger also calls for im- years have had separate high mediate action on a plan that courts for civil and criminal will find more support- easing cases. Most observers believe the Supreme Court's load by that the split system works setting up experimentally a well. Oklahoma Chief Jus,tice lower ranking tribunal.

Don Barnes asserts that Few dispute the need for a "judges need to specialize to study of the Court's crowded keep up with developments in docket. There is little argu- the law. " ment, either, that congestion tS Yet the twin-court concept leaving key issues unresolved. faces strong resistance. Some Still, experts split over what, if say that specialized courts can anything, should be done. cause new problems. Judges A minority agrees with one on the Texas criminal-appeals approach that Burger wants a court ·•tend to get too wrapped special commission to studyup in the niceties of criminal creation of two supreme Jaw and set convictions aside courts, one for criminal cases, on highly technical grounds," one for civil. Many countries, says Charles Alan Wright. among them Britain , France University of Texas law proand West Germany. have fessor.

Supreme Court 210 cases decided (141 opinions) USN&WR- Basocdata: U.S. Supreme COYrt

by TED GEST

The biggest roadblock. however, is a view deeply rooted among Americans that a single Supreme Court is needed to guard basic legal principles.

Representative Robert Kastenmeier (Democrat, Wisconsin), chairman of the panel that handles court-reform legislation, protests that specialized courts would .. run against the grain of American tradition.

We have prided ourselves on the general competence of our Supreme Court.'"

Samuel Conti of the National Center for State Courts believes "the public may demand a final arbiter."' Professor Rudolf Schlesinger of the University of California Law School says that although !.plit courts work well in other countries, the idea is politically unacceptable in the U.S. A subordinate court to aid the Supreme Court is seen as more realistic. Experts say a "national court of appeals" could decide vital disputes that the Supreme Court has no time to hear, including cases in which lower courts have issued conflicting rulings.

The American Bar Association backs such a court, but the Reagan Administration opposes the idea. '"We do not believe a sufficient case has been made for this type of significant alteration of the federal judicial system ," says Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Rose.

Six of the nine Justices have spoken out recently on the case-load burden, but it will take more than that to prod Congress into action. Bills to establish a national appeals court, introduced by Kastenmeier and Senator Howell Heflin (Democrat. Alabama), have made no headway.

Both vow to try again, but say they will need help. Heflin, himself a former state chief justice, warns: "Compared to other issue~ we in Congress deal with , there aren't many lobbyists for the courts. Bar leaders and the Justices themselves w;ll have to work hard to get anything passed." 0 About the Author: Ted Gest is an associate editor with U.S. News & World Report.

When you have more, you have too many people to circu late drafts of opinions and reach a collegial decision.

Justice John Paul Stevens has called for creation of an intermediate court-not to decide cases, as you have suggested , but to scree n the cases the Supreme Court would eventually hear. Would such a procedure be helpful?

I don't think so. One of the most important things the Supreme Court docs is to decide what not to do as well as what to do. With some questions, if it isn't necessary that the particular rule be uniform in all 50 states, we may say: "Yes, there is a conflict between the circuits, but it"s tolerable. We'll wait for several other circuits to give their views, or maybe the problem will go away.,. The decision of what to review and what not to review is a core responsibility. J would agree with Justice [William] Brennan , who has said that this responsibility is too important to be delegated.

Why can ' t the Court r educe its case load-particularly the number of signed opinions-simply by limiting the cases it agrees to hear to perhaps 100 a year?

The Court is already bitterly criticized for declining to hear as many cases as it docs. And sometimes the Justices do not aU agree o n which cases should be taken. That's a manifestation of the o ld proverb that o ne man's meat is another man's poison. If we were to a rbitrarily limit ourselves to 100 cases, we would be leaving unresolved many terribly important questions.

Some legal scholars argue that the Supreme Court, in issuing so many opinions, sometimes makes rulings that are so vague they in effect invite more litigation and hence a more congested docket later onThat's a fair comment on the part of the critics.

Wouldn' t it be better to issue 100 opinions providing clearer guidance than 150 opinions of lesser quality?

Well, in an ideal world, that would be true. But we don't live in an ideal world, and very likely that will never be ach ieved.

You have said in the past that many of the requests the Court receives to review cases are " frivol ous." To what degr ee do such cases add to the problem?

Chief Justice [Charles Evans! Hughes said that 50 years ago. Yes, far too many petitions are utterly frivolous and should never have been filed in the first place. At least 3,000 of the more than 4,500 new fil ings each year fall into this category .

Increasingly , lawye rs have drifted away from the o ld standard that when they put their name on any paper filed with the Court, they vouch that, in the lawyer's best professional judgment, the question warrants review by the Supreme Court.

Can't the Supreme Court somehow crack down on the lawyers who tile frivolous appeals?

We-and Congress-have cr eated this problem , to some extent. Under the various guarantees of the rights of individuals a nd of criminal defendants. a lawyer who doesn't file a petition for appe llate review risks being sued for malpractice. So he or she is o n the horns of a dilemma.

The enormous burden on the Court today also results from the huge increase in people and in government programs over the last century. A hundred years ago, we had 54 million people in the country. Now we have 230 million and government programs that no one even conceived of in 1883. This means more cases for all the courts and very fundamental decisions that must be made.

SPAN OCTOBER 19R3

37

The Quality ofjustice

· To what extent does your job as Chief Justice involve extra duties?

All Chief Justices have not had the same view of this job , and different periods have called for different responses. 1 take literally the title Congress has provided: "Chief Justice of the United States." Numerous statutes for over 100 years have added specific duties for the Chief Justice.

How much time do your extra duties take?

I would estimate that I spend at least 15 hours a week on the problems of the federal courts, working on such things as the assignment of judges from a place where they can be spared to a place where they are needed. By law I am chairman of the Judicial Conference of the United States, the group that oversees the administration of the federal courts. Congress makes the Chief Justice chairman of the Federal Judicial Center, the research arm of the federal judiciary. Each of these jobs takes a substantial amount of time.

Can't you delegate much of that work?

Some, but not all. No Chief Justice had an administrative assistant until I came into office. Congress provided one in 1972. Also. I have tossed out the idea at law-school seminars of asking Congress to add to the Supreme Court a lOth Justicean Associate Justice for administration -who would not take part in cases but would take over many of the administrative burdens of the Chief Justice. It would be helpful to have such a person with the rank of Justice. Many states have something like this.

Are you worried that your call for a commission to address the Court's problems might fall flat with Congress and with the bar? Neither has been quick in the past to get on the bandwagon for reformHistorically, Congress has not found the problems of the courts to be of the highest priority, although many members and chairmen have been very cooperative. Their priorities are understandable when you look at the mass of problems that are before Congress.

Our problems in the whole scheme of things look very , very small. The legal profession has often shown resistance to changes in the court structure or procedures. That isn't necessarily a bad attitude. We shouldn 't change the structure lightly .

So you have your work cut out for you:_ Yes. I have decided to be provocative on this issue of the Supreme Court's workload. The previous messages do not seem to have been heard. I am going to risk having a lot of people throw harpoons-perhaps saying that I'm proposing the destruction of the great majesty of the Supreme Court or something of that sort. The more discussion we have , the better it will be.

But I'm going to do whatever is necessary to get the attention of Congress and the bar and start the debate over what should be done. Because something must be done, or the Supreme Court will have no choice but to handle more and mor:e cases through suml!lary dispositions-that is, without oral argument. That could lead to a decline in the quality of justice.

It could lead to production-line justice , and that would be very unfortunate for the country.

0 Copyright © L983 U.S. News & World Report , lnc.

38

SPAN OCfOB ER 19&3

GRilliNG AGINI POOl

by JAY RICHTER

Plants, like animals, can become extinct.

To preserve them for breeding, American scientists are building a bank of samples of germ plasm.

Collecting and preserving the world's plant varieties is a race against the clock. Experts figure that within the next 10 years, time will have run out on many species if there isn't a concerted effort to save them. Modern scientific plant breeding heightens the urgency for scientists to preserve as wide a genetic diversity in ·crop plants as possible. The ability to produce new and better varieties depends upon the gene pool- or germ plasm- available.

Even if collectio~s of certain species seem adequate for the time being. they may not meet future needs. With such promising techniques as genetic engineering, or gene transfer, on the horizon, breeders may be limited only by the germ plasm- raw "building blocks"-on hand. When breeders can freely transfer genes, they will be able to mix species that cannot be crossed by conventional means.

Why the rush? Isn't plant evolution a natural process? Didn't many varieties of crops undoubtedly disappear before the advent of modern plant breeding?

Genetic erosion has been under way at least since the dawn of agriculture. However, it is "accelerating rapidly," according to Lennart Kahre, chairman of the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR),

which has been sponsored by the United Nations and the World Bank and has 14 member countries, including the United States.

"T here is no way we can get cultivars [cultivated plants] back once they are lost ," says Kahre.

"We can't reconstruct them in the laboratory- they've been evolving over tO,OOO millenniums or so."

Genetic erosion has been hastened by the world's increasing population, modernization of agriculture, changing economies, and, more recently, by felling of tropical rain forests and denuding of semiarid regions. The need for space, food, fuel and material goods is destroying these habitats of primitive crop varieties and their relatives.

Ironically, much of the blame for genetic erosion can be placed on plant breeding itself. The very techniques that gave the world the high-yielding miracle hybrids of the "Green Revolution'' ushered out many traditional varieties. When hybrid seed became widely avail¡ able for the major crops, farmers dropped their time-honored types.

The result in many parts of the world has been unwanted genetic uniformity, which plant scientists have discovered, means vulnerability.

A glaring example of vulnerability was the leaf blight epidemic that struck the 1970 U.S. corn crop. A single source of germ plasm had been used to develop most of the hybrids. When a new strain of the blight fungus evolved, it ate through half the southern U.S. crop and reduced yields 15 percent nationwide.

The lrish potato famine in the 19th century was perhaps the frrst unheeded signal of what can happen when the crop base is too narrow genetically. Brown rice spot in West Bengal caused a similar famine in 1965. In 1972, severe winter weather devastated the Soviet winter wheat crop, which had become dependent on a variety better suited to a milder climate.

National and international efforts are under way to save the endangered species.

Since the 1970s, says Quentin Jones , deputy administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and head of the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS), "there has been a worldwide

awakening to the fact that genetic resources are as important as the three major natural resourcessoil, water, air."

NPGS is a network of private firms , state agencies and the Federal Government. Its mission is to acquire, maintain, evaluate and make readily accessible to crop breeders and others a wide range of genetic diversity. Thanks to NPGS and the work of agricultural scientists, more varieties of wheat and corn are being grown in the United States today than at any time in the country's history. T he new vartetles are highly competitive with the old ones in terms¡ of yield and quality, but differ in genetic makeup to withstand disease and environmental stresses.

The United States has been maintaining plant and seed collections only since the early 1800s. It has been collecting plant varieties the world over. "However, for everything we bring into the country, we send out 20 to 50 times as much," says Jones. A lot of the U.S. effort. according to Jones, has been geared to developing the raw gern1 plasm into useful varieties and then sending them back to the donor countries. in many cases, developing nations.

Collecting the germ plasm has top priority. ''Whatever is lost is lost for all time- there's no second chance," says Jones. "If we want it. we must get it now."

T

hus. the United States is actively sending out its own collecting teams or joining in international efforts. The IBPGR has targeted six crops as having "highest priority": wheat, beans, cassava. sweet potatoes, coffee and tomatoes.

Approximately $55 million is spent worldwide each year on plant germ plasm work.

About 500,000 different samples of germ plasm are stored in the United States. The National Seed Storage Laboratory (NSSL) at Fort Collins, Colorado, is America's only long-term storage facility. The laboratory maintains plant germ plasm as a base collection for the United States and serves as a backup collection for many crops in the IBPGR's global network of genetic resource centers.

The NSSL collection is not intended to meet the day-to-day

needs of plant breeders and other plant scientists. It is a reserve stock to prevent loss of germ plasm and erosion of genetic diversity. Generally, seed samples in the base collection are also held in a "working collection" elsewhere in the United States and are duplicated elsewhere in the world for safekeeping.

Breeders screening for suitable subtropical and tropical wheats rely heavily on the U.S. Small Grains Collection at Beltsville , Maryland .

This working collection is comprehensive, containing more than 90,000 strains of wheat, barley. oats. rice, rye and Aegilops from around the world. Annually, more than 100,000 samples of these are distributed in response to requests.

Storing germ plasm for future generations isn't easy. In working collections, seeds remain viable for 20 years with adequate refrigeration. At long-term centers, they may last much longer, provided precautions are adequate. These involve drying the seeds to a fourto-seven-percent moisture level; vacuum packaging in foil or aluminum cans; storing at -10 to -20 degrees C; and leaving the seeds relatively undisturbed.

Each sample normally contains several thousand seeds. but some must be periodically checked to see if they're keeping well. This is done by planting a few to see how well they germinate. If the performance is unsatisfactory. some of the seedlings are "grown out" for new seed to replenish the old stock .

Crops that are vegetatively propagated, rather than grown from seed, arc more difficult to store.

Also, the nursery may need to be. harvested and replanted each year.

Every time one grows out a seed , there's an opportunity for genetic change. The United States and other countries are working on a low-temperature. liquid nitrogen storage method (cryogenics) that would decrease the number of times seeds needed to be planted and harvested.

Such technology would not only mean quite a savings in the cost of maintaining germ plasm, says Jones, but also that seeds could last 100 years or more.

The problems with storing germ plasm for fruit and nut crops which involve vegetative grafts onto root stocks could be lessened greatly if

"tissue culture" techniques were perfected, Jones says. But such cultures would have to remain genetically constant, he explains, or variability could be as great as if the crops were grown from seeds.

(Delicious apple seeds from the same variety can grow into trees with very different genetic makeup.)

In California , chemist Bernard Finkle has successfully used cryogenics on tissue cultures of date palm trees. He has stored the germ plasm in test tubes, frozen it at extremely low temperatures, thawed it out, and grown it into plantlets. Not only are the cultures genetically reliable. but they take up far less space than the several acres of land now needed to preserve only a few palm tree .varieties.

A

scientist at the University of Wisconsin , Leigh Tovill, has had good results with deepfreezing shoot tips of several potato varieties. Only shoot tips that are free of viruses that commonly reduce potato yields are preserved.

Although collection and storage are vital steps. the germ plasm must be evaluated to be really useful to plant breeders. The breeders must know precisely what samples a center holds and what traits each strain possesses. A breeder may need to know, for example, if any strain of sorghum on hand has resistance to a particular type of virus, or if any potato variety resists a certain fungus.

Evaluation and documentation methods vary greatly, worldwidefrom efficient computers to rough log books or file cards. The United States is currently computerizing its listings, and expects to have a system in place in the near future that any bona fide crop breeder can plug into. "We want to share our breeding programs with everybody-but never give up all of any one sample.'' says Jones.

The ultimate goal of any germplasm system is use. "If it is not used," says Jones, ''its value is only that of a museum collection instead of the vital, dynamic reservoir of living genes that it must be .., 0 About the Author: Jay Richter is chief of the Richter (agriculture) News Service, ¡washington, D. C.

SPAN OCTOBER l98J

39

'fJeapgr 1na

Sunless

by SANDY GREENBERG

Exotic life forms flourish on the seafloor of the frigid Beaufort Sea above Alaska, demonstrating the amazing adaptability of life to even the most inhospitable environmental conditions.

Not many places on earth are as forbidding as the Beaufort Sea above Alaska. In winter, which extends from October until May, the sun barely rises above the horizon , the temperature plummets to 35 degrees Celsius below zero and the open sea water freezes to a depth of more than two meters, and 80-kilometer-an-hour winds whip the icechocked sea. For nine months of the year no light reaches the seafloor. The only respite comes in summer, when the temperature ranges in the 20s , and the sun shines even at midnight.

However, under the seafloor are enormous quantities of oil and natural gas, which make the frigid Beaufort one of the hottest spots for oil companies. According to one estimate, recoverable reserves may amount to 750 million barrels of oil and 1.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

But tapping this precious resource will test human ingenuity and human endurance as never before.

The terror of the Beaufort is ice in motion. In June, when the ice begins to thaw, it breaks into massive floes-some as big as a kilometer-that ply the sea like menacing derelicts. These, and the still bigger ice islands that originate in the Arctic, could crush any ship or a rig, or

40

SPAN OCTOBI- R 198J

rupture an oil pipe that came their way.

Equally punishing for the workers are the endless days of summer and the fearsome dark of the winter. Faced with these two extremes, they find it difficult to do even routine jobs or concentrate fo r long periods of time. In addition, exposed skin freezes in less than a minute at minus 35 degrees Celsius.

This perilous and often tedious work undertaken in the pursuit of energy and commerce on one occasion yielded a grand bonus to science.

In 1978 biologist Ken Dunton of the University of Alaska descended into the icy waters of the Beaufort as a member of a team that was surveying a boulderstrewn patch prior to construction of a gravel island for oil-drilling equipment.

What the young scientist fou nd , instead of the amorphous sea bottom and primitive life forms of most of the waters off Alaska's northern coast, was an undersea rock garden. There were bright colored corals, anemones, sponges, kelp, sea spiders- all of them growing in total darkness.

Talking to Don Dedera of Exxon USA magazine, Dunton said: "Slowly I drifted down through the murky water, leaving only a trail of bubbles behind . Large ,

dark, ghostlike shadows and shapes appeared. becoming more distinct as I descended. I stopped in midbreath at about six meters when silt-covered kelp fronds came into view.

"Then I saw the colors- sta rtling bright pink soft corals, stalked flowers with drooping egglike clusters, waving feathery red tentacles of anemones, pale horns of the trumpet sponges- all clinging to a cluster of boulders and smaller cobblestones, which were covered with a sheen of pink encrusted algae.

"All around, the flat silty seabottom stretched lifeless into the gloom. But this small boulder patch bloomed like a beautiful undersea rock garden. I could scarcely believe my eyes. I turned on my microphone and began to describe the scene to my three companions waiting anxiously in the boat above .... " About 500 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle, the area Dunton discovered-called Boulder Patch-has raised many intriguing questions. How did the boulders get there, and where did they come from? How unusual are the Boulder Patch organisms, and how do they fit into Arctic food chains? What goes on under the winter ice?

Scientists are still seeking answers to

Left: Eight kilometers offshore in the B eaufort Sea, researchers take a midnight walk on the ice pack above Boulder Patch.

Below: As kelp grows in the foreground, an anemone, soft coral, yellow sponges, filamentous red algae and small hydroids thrive on a seafloor boulder.

these questions; a number of theories have been offered. The boulders, pink granite, unlike other rocks in northern Alaska, appear to have come from an area about 1,000 kilometers east in the Canadian Arctic. Theorists suggest that thousands of years ago they were carried west in drifting glacial ice and deposited in the Beaufort Sea when the ice melted .

The effects of erosion in more recent eras distinguished the rocks from the surrounding clay bed in the tOO-squarekilometer Boulder Patch.

Migration of the plant and animal species found in Boulder Patch , designated Dive Site Eleven , appears to be somewhat more complex. The location seems to be a transition area for species found in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Some species are found in one ocean, some in the other, and some are common to both, while a few are specifically Arctic denizens. And of the 300 species counted so far in the region , several are new to scientists. An extraordinary collection of diverse species is surviving in this harsh environment..

Of particular interest to scientists is the Boulder Patch growth cycle-it's upside down! Normally growth occurs when the light is strongest, in the summer. But in this strange underwater garden 90 percent of growth takes place in total darkness, when light is blocked by thick pack ice in late winter and early spring.

The plants apparently break up their growing process into stages. In summer sunlight , they manufacture carbohydrates, their main source of energy. In winter, when nutrients are available in the sheltered water under the thick sheet of ice, they use that energy to grow.

Other Boulder Patch organisms seem to

L eft: To carry out their research at B oulder Patch, scientist-divers (here in a m oat around a gravel island) devised novel wciys to keep their breathing systems [rom f reezing and to combat the numbing effects of the

Beaufort's frigid water.

Below: Looking like a delicate flower, a pale sea anem one displays its myriad tentacles.

follow this growth cycle.

Dunton is working¡ to determine the importance of the area's organisms in the greater Arctic food chain. He is tracing the percentage of carbon atoms, produced by kelp, through the food chain of other Boulder Patch life forms , and following them into the food supplies of

44

SPAN OCTOBER 1983

Boulder Patch, says Dr . David No rton organisms beyond the region. the University of Alaska , "has become of Because of the scientific importance of an experimental opportunity. quite Boulder Patch, researchers are taking great care in mapping and evaluating the Never, to my knowledge , have so many area's biological composition. This in- diverse scientists brought forth so much formation will be useful in minimizing the information and integrated this informaenvironmental damage caused by build- tion for better understanding of a frontier 0 ing gravel islands for drilling equipment. region's puzzles. "

THE UNIVERSALITY OF DRAMA American director Anita Khanzadian believes passionately in the universality of theater. She demonstrated this belief recently in Madras with her staging of Thorton Wilder's 1938 play Our Town.

Wilder had intended Our Town to be any American town. With a talented Indian cast of amateurs and professionals, Khanzadian proved it could be any Indian town as well.

As she told The Hindu: "When you strip away all the external habits, customs, traditions of various people around the world, what you're really left with is the basic aspirations that people have, that is our commonality throughout the world. I don't think people's needs are really different anywhere."

Anita Khanzadian , currently artistic director of the Theater at St. Clement's, New York, began her theatrical career 25 years ago as an actress. Since switching to direction , she has won awards for many of her Off Broadway plays. Her recent Indian program wasn't her Indian debut: as a Peace Corps volunteer here during the Seventies , she directed some plays in Madras.

All the plays Khanzadian chose to direct during this trip to India share an intensity of human relationships that transcend national barriers. Each of them, while demanding that the actors display a broad range of emotions, re-

quires a minimum of sets, costumes and props . In Madras she presented A Difficult Borning, a play with an all-woman cast by the American poet Sylvia Plath.

Autobiographical in nature , it deals with the concerns that led to the poet's suicide. In Calcutta, Khanzadian conducted theater workshops which resulted in productions of Edward Albee's The Zoo Story and Brian Friel's American Welcome. " It is important for the performer to believe what he or she is doing," Khanza-

dian said in an interview describing her directorial techniques for the Amrita Bazar Patrika. "It is the actor's job to bring himself to believing. And that is precisely why I make an actor write the biography of the character he is portraying. You really can't Jearn to act by reading alone. Re-creating a role amounts to experiencing it. I ask my actors to be alive-it's up to them to show how they are alive. One has to depend on the inventiveness of the actors."

She views the theater workshop as a process of serious thinking about drama and observation of the different phases of acting. The goal of her Indian visit went beyond merely directing and presenting a number of performances-even though these were well received by Madras and Calcutta audiences. By inspiring actors and actresses with her approach to the theater and encouraging them to dig within themselves for innovative means of expression, she hopes to have an effect that will remain long after she has left India.

D

Dynamic otT-Broadway director Anita Kbanzadian Oeft) imparted her acting techniques in a Calcutta production of The Zoo Story (top) and Madras performances of Our Town (above) and A Di/ficuU Horning (right).

SPAN OCTOBER 1983

45

Durable Discus Champ Employee-owned Enterprise Promising Projects

Not many athletes can equal, much less excel, AI Oerter's record; he has won a gold medal in four consecutive Olympics in the same event. In 1956, Oerter won his first Olympics by throwing the discus 56 meters. Four years later, he bagged another gold by clearing 59 meters. In 1964, he tossed the discus 61 meters for a third gold. And finally he added another gold medal at the 1968 Olympics by clearing 64.6 meters.

And there is reason to believe that Oerter, who quit the sport in 1969 "to spend more time

Highway and street construction firms, textile mills, trucking companies , fish â&#x20AC;˘ farms , dry cleaning establishments, beauty shops, photographic studios-you name it and women own it. According to a recent report of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, women now own 2.8 million businesses in the United States.

In 1977, they owned only 702,000 business firms.

The leap, says Hattie Dorman of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) , makes women the fastestgrowing group of new entrepreneurs in the country. Most businesswomen, according to SBA, rely on personal savings and loans from family, friends and the local banks for their start-up funds.

To help this new group of entrepreneurs, SBA established an Office of Women's Business Enterprise (WBE) in 1980. Through its national, district and local offices, WBE makes special efforts to assist women to get into business and stay in business.

The agency grants loans, both for starting a venture and to help businesswomen pull through hard times; offers courses and counseling on business opportunities and management; and publishes periodicals on everything from accounting to marketing, with specifics on computing, selling inventions and a host of other topics of special interest to businesswomen.

with my children," may yet claim another gold at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. After a layoff of about 10 years, Oerter has been practicing again.

Last year, Oerter, who is 46, cleared 73 meters at former Olympian Gidian Ariel's sports research center in California. This is 1.8 meters more than the world record held by Wolfgang Schmidt of East Germany. Ariel was not surprised. "Oerter is not 46 biologically," he said.

"Although he has lost some of his velocity and speed," Ariel continued, "he has more than made up for that by perfecting his technique.

He's still the best in the world."

Oerter himself is very modest about his 73-meter throw. "It was a real hot day, and I just guess I got the old bones loosened up," he says.

And if he can loosen up his old ¡bones at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, Oerter may yet claim another gold.

orkers of the National Steel Corporation's Weir¡ ton, West Virgmia, plant will soon vote on whether or not to purchase the facility for $194 million in an effort to save local jobs and maintain economic stability in their small community.

National Steel, until recently the fourth largest steel firm in the United States, decided to sell its Weirton plant, which traditionally has produced $1,000 million worth of highgrade tinplate and galvanized sheet steel a year. However, in the past decade the market for the tinplate declined sharply due to a nationwide switch to aluminum cans and foil-lined cartons, and the company has been accumulatirlg Josses-$41 million in the first eight months of this year.

If the vote is favorable, as many workers now feel it will be, the Weirton plant would become the largest employeeowned enterprise in the United States.

Under the terms of a "definitive agreement" reached be-

W

eople trapped in buildings by fire or other disasters can be brought to safety with the help of this new portable emergency evacuation system, designed by Palladium International Corporation of Tualatin, Oregon. The evacuee goes feet first into the slide tube, which is made of a high-strength fabric containing no circumvential seams. The speed of descent is controlled with bent legs. tween the company and some 7,000 workers, all assets at the Weirton facility--including plant, inventories, receivables and raw materialswould be bought through an employee stock option plan.

However, workers will also inherit about $192 million in current liabilities.

Employees would own stock in the corporation under a trust, which in turn would seek an initial $120 million in financing from a consortium of commercial banks headed by New York's Citicorp.

Of the total purchase price, the employee trust would pay $75 million to National Steel at the time of the final agreement.

The remainder of the $194 million would be payable in two notes over a period of 15 years.

Payment of the principal would not be required until the fifth year of employee ownership, and interest on the notes would not become due until the employee-owned firm--to be known as Weirton Steel Corporation-built up a new worth of at least $100 million.

Until such time as the new

company becomes economically viable once again, workers have agreed to certain cuts in their emoluments. Each hourly employee will have his or her total compensation reduced by about 20 percent, or $4.88 an hour below the 1982 hourly average of $24.91. Other provisions of the tentative labor pact call for elimination of the current annual cost-of-living adjustment. which would be replaced eventually by a profit-sharing plan, and substantial changes in vacation, overtime and supplemental employment benefits.

Present employee pension plans will be retained, and National Steel has agreed to pay the cost of special early retirement benefits for all workers in the event that Weirton is permanently shut down within five years from the date the agreement is signed.

According to National Steel officials and the New York consulting firms that put the package together, the new employee-owned company could become profitable by the end of next year.

On August 30 India and the United States signed an agreement in New Delhi under which the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will provideRs. 66 million in grant funds and Rs. 100 million in loan funds for the first year of a seven-year Indian family planning project.

Over the life of the project, USAID will contribute a total of approximately Rs. 470 million.

The project is designed to increase fertility awareness, promote the small family norm and the usc of safe and inexpensive contraceptives, especially among young married couples since they account for most births.

Earlier. under two other agreements signed July 27 between the two countries. the USA1D committed Rs. 110 million as the third and final installment of Rs. 250 million in project assistance for a Social Forestry Project in Madhya Pradesh and Rs. 500,000 for a Development and Management Training Project.

The Social Forestry Project is aimed at helping Madhya Pradesh villagers manage nontraditional forest lands such as village common lands. marginal government lands bordering villages and parcels along roadsides. Over a period of six years, it is hoped. about 63,000 hectares will be brought under cultivation to increase the supply of such forestry products as fuelwood. fodder and timber.

The Development and Management Training project is designed to strengthen the managerial and technical capabilities of Indian public- and private-sector manpower in high-p-riority areas. An estimated 1,300 Indians will receive training under the project-! ,200 in India and 100 in the United States or third countries. USAID will provide a total of Rs. 62 million in grant funds for the project.

These agreements are part of the United States¡ development assistance, amounting to approximately Rs. 870 million. to India for U.S. fiscal year 1983 (October 1, 1982 to September 30. 1983).

Since 1978. when USAID resumed its program in India, the United States has provided Rs. 5,432 million in development assistance to India.

In our story "The Wings of the Eagle" (SPAN, September 1983), we incorrectly identified the bottom phoro 011 page 21. As several readers have pointed out, the photo was that of the Boei11g 727, and not of the Boeing 757 (shown above).

47

Recently, Tony Coelho of California, a member of the House of Represematives, imroduced a resolution 111 the U.S. Congress seeking to declare October 2, 1983, Gandhi National Day in the United States. Signed by some 120 members of the Congress, the joint resolution (excerpts below) is expected to be adopted before October 2.

Joint Resolution: Designating October 2, 1983, as a national day of recognition for Mohandas K. Gandhi.

Whereas Mohandas K. Gandhi sought to apply those moral values which are regarded as precious in personal life-truth and love-in the difficult domain of political and social action; Whereas Gandhi remained throughout his lifetime a relentless champion of human rights and human dignity everywhere, including those of women and minorities; Whereas Gandhi fought for and won freedom for his people in India and thereby sowed the seeds of freedom and liberation in Asia and Africa; Whereas Gandhi, through his unshakeable faith in the power of nonviolent struggle, inspired the civil rights movement in the United States under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King; Whereas Gandhi proclaimed that all humans are equal and that life is sacred, and treated that belief with an inviolable trust, thus echoing Abraham Lincoln; Whereas Gandhi drew inspiration from America's great thinkers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau in formulating his philosophy of civil disobedience and proclaimed it as the inherent right of a citizen; Whereas Gandhi perceived the race for armaments as an unbearable burden for all of humanity; Whereas Gandhi staunchly supported the claim that no society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom; Whereas Gandhi is one of those truly rare individuals who combined so admirably in word and deed the highest moral aspirations of mankind: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that October 2, 1983, is designated as a national day of recognition for Mohandas K. Gandhi, and the President is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe such day -...I with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

today has more than oneseventh of the human race lived together as one political entity under conditions of freedom. It has never happened before."

Talking about the AmerConstitution, which is ican American Last month the written constituoldest the Pubfor Enterprise Institute Palkhivala world, the in tion lic Policy, a Washingtonfeasalient most its that said based nonprofit research and checks of system its is ture educational body, organized an international conference and balances, which helps on constitution writing. monitor the powers of the Among the participants, executive, legislative and eminent experts and scholars judicial branches of the U.S. in constitutional law, was Government. "India shaped Nani A. Palkhivala, senior the system of fundamental advocate of the Indian Sup- rights in her constitution on reme Court and India's for- America's Bill of Rights," he mer ambassador to the noted.

The future of democracy, United States.

Giving his impressions of according to Palkhivala, will the conference, Palkhivala depend a lot on what hapsaid, "There is always the pens in the United States intellectual benefit that ac- and India. India is to the crues from a conference of this kind. We have extended the boundaries of our knowledge by an exchange of ideas. Perhaps in the years to come, the framers of a nation's constitution might use what they learned in this conference to ensure the stability of their constitutional law."

Such stability, according to Palkhivala, is of the utmost significance. Each country has its own problems and therefore must shape a Third World, what the constitution according to its United States is to the deindividual needs but. the for- veloped nations. "We are mer ambassador empha- trying to preserve freedom. sized, the framers of a coun- If democracy were to perish try's constitution must en- in India, freedom in the sure that it survives long Third World would not surafter a particular administra- vive," Palkhivala noted. tion is out of power. "Consti- And, he added, "If freedom tutional stability is the bed- perishes everywhere else, rock which remains although how could it survive in the a wave of ministers may United States? ''My own feeling is that come and go."

That has been the most there is no greater destiny impressive achievement of for a country than to be the our Indian people and lead- standard bearer of freeers, he said. "The greatest dom." Palkhiwala added experiment in the art of that a country that cherishes democratic living has been freedom must "stick its neck conducted in India since the out" for what it believes is 1950s. Nowhere in the world right.

Convention on Constitutions

HIGHLIGHTS Of THE NEXT ISSUE:

The Wisdom of Erik Erikson Now over 80, the eminent psychoanalyst takes a fresh look at youth, age and the cycle of life. He talks of creativity in the elderly, the compulsions with which people cope and the revived interest in Gandhi after the film Gandhi.

Hospitality "Once upon a time in the rural South, there were farmhouses and farm wives who set tables where almost any passing stranger was welcome .... " A short story by Truman Capote.

Ramanujan, Genius Miscellaneous The second Indian to receive a MacArthur "Genius" grant, A. K. Ramanujan has been teaching for 20 years at the University of Chicago, writing poems in English and Kannada, translating Tamil poems into English-living in America, hugging India inside him.

Isaac Asimov on the Wonders of Biotechnology Drugs to dissolve blood clots that can cause heart attacks; a growth hormone to help severely undersized humans; production of interferon which holds promise of treating cancer-and the common cold.

Biotechnology is making dramatic strides in medicine.

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Young artists like Dale Chihuly are making art connoisseurs aware of the creative potential of glass-a medium that was considered more a craft than an art. Although great thought goes into the planning of the pieces shown on these pages, they are executed with remarkable speed: no piece takes more than 20 minutes. Assistants trained by Chihuly at the Rhode Island School of Design prepare the blown glass forms and separate hot colored glass in spiraling forms . Then a master blower heats, spins, blows and shapes the glass to limits that seem to defy gravity. The critical finishing touches are applied by Chihuly himself. Chihuly, who studied with the famous glass blowers of Venice ltal_v. has been inspired by American Indian !)u\M~rns and designs and by the shapes, colors and textures of marine life , such as shells and sea urchins. Critic Alexandra Anderson says his works "synthesize art and technique; the bravura of their creation fades, and their delicacy, organic harmony and wit come to the fore."