4 Tuesday, March 10, 1959
MAIL TRIBUNE, MEDFORD, ORE.
"Everyone it Southern Oregon
Reads The Mail Tribune"
Published Daily except Saturday by
MJ.DFORD PRINTING CO.
33 North Fii St Ph SP 2-6141
ROBERT W RUHL. Editor
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Managing Kditor
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RICHARD JEWETT Sports Editor
OLIVE ST ARCHER Women's Editor
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Entered as second class matter at
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March 3 1897
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Flight 'o Time
Medford and Jackson County
History from the files of The
Mail Tribune 10, 20, 30, 40
and 50 years ago.
10 YEARS AGO
March 10, 1949 (Thursday)
Circuit Judge Orval Millard
lays down the law in the Ash
land mayor-council controver
sy but says it is up to the
citizenry to decide whether
those involved acted capri
ciously or in good faith.
A total of 223 persons at
tended an orientation course
for Camp White Domiciliary
volunteer workers.
20 YEARS AGO
March 10. 1939 (Friday)
A U.S. Army observation
plane noses over when it
lands in a muddy section of
Medford airport, but the only
injury entailed is slight.
From Arthur Perry's "Ye
Smudge Pot" column: "Mole
hills are plentiful on residen
tial lawns, with no engineer
ing genius handy to make
mountains out of them."
30 YEARS AGO
March 10. 1929 (Sunday)
"Wild flowers are in bloom
In the hills.
Oak Grove residents plan a
meeting to 'form a water dis
trict. 40 YEARS AGO
March 10. 1919 (Monday)
Prosecutor Roberts orders
the jitney line to stop using a
16-year-old boy as a driver.
Grants Pass plans to pay a
call on the Medford Commer
cial club.
50 YEARS AGO
March 10. 1909 (Wednesday)
Southern Pacific railroad
pays the county its annual
taxes, in the amount of over
48,000.
Ashland citizens, reinforced
with some from Medford, plan
to visit the Legislature and
defend the perpetuation of the
normal school.
Whal's Your I.Q.?
Nine or ten eorreet is superior;
leven or eight is excellent; five or
six is good.
1. Which famous French
actress was called "The Divine
Sarah"?
2. At what school is the
well known Flirtation Walk?
3. What animal is popularly
said to have "nine lives"?
4. The distance between
the earth and the moon var
ies: true or false?
5. Name the fictional Negro
character created by Joel
Chandler Harris.
6. Exclusive of ties, what
is the largest number of games
that can be played in the
World Series?
7. What is the antonym of
synonym?
8. Correct the following:
"He is smarter than any man."
9. Is bourbon whisky named
for a Royal family, a special
type of bottle, or a county in
Kentucky?
10. Was it Harold Ickes,
Henry Clay. Daniel Webster
or Herbert Hoover who said,
"I would rather be right than
President"?
Answers: 1. Sarah Bern
hardt. 2. U.S. Military Acad
emy. 3. Cat. 4. True. 5. "Uncle
Remus." 6. Seven. 7. Antonym.
8 He is smarter than any
other man. 9- County in Ken
tucky, lnenry Clay.
The site of Pittsburgh, Pa.,
Vhosen in 1753 by oeorge
was chosen fa
Wasmngi""--
. tv there.
Billboard Law Needed
The Oregon Roadside council is about the
only Oregon organization which is making it its
business to lobby in favor of legislation which
would regulate (not eliminate) the use of bill
boards along Oregon's highways.
There are two such bills already introduced
into the legislature, one in the house and one in
the senate. Either would serve as a basis for rea
sonable regulation.
Up to this point, the legislature has shown
little disposition to do much of anything about
either of them.
"THE Roadside council needs the help of anyone
who believes that tax-built highways should
not provide a captive audience for the billboard
advertisers particularly when ' the billboards
create a blot in front of an otherwise scenic vista.
(Billboard lobbyists argue against such regu
lation by saying the industry will "police" itself.
Anyone who has watched the steady encroach
ment of billboards on the Baldock freeway be
tween Salem and Portland will know that this is
a lot of hot air.)
Those who agree that reasonable regulation
of billboards, in conformity with the federal law
which would grant Oregon a bonus in highway
construction funds for such regulation, is im
portant, should let his representatives in the leg
islature know about it.
TPHE measures will not end billboard advertis
A ing. They apply only to interstate highways
(Nos. 30 and 99). They would permit informa
tional signs, and signs advertising roadside bus
inesses. But they would also protect one of Oregon's
greatest resources, its unmatched sceneiy, which
is one of the biggest attractions to Oregon's No.
3 industry, the tourist trade to 'say nothing of
the enjoyment of those of us who already live
here and have watched billboards blot out more
and more of our state's beauties. E.A.
Letters From Japan
For some reason with which we are not fa
miliar, letters have been arriving at an increasing
pace in this country from young people in Japan.
The Mail Tribune has received three in the
past week or so. One of them was published in
our "Communications" column a couple of weeks
ago.
TWO of the three letters were identical even
to gramatical errors and misspellings except
for the name and address of the writer. One of
them was from Kyoto, the other from Nagaoka.
All three were addressed to the "Mall Tribune."
The identical ones both made reference to
the "Youth Council for International Contact,"
which presumably is the reason for the increased
number of letters, and perhaps which even sup
plied a "form" letter for youngsters to copy.
The two each solicited letters from young
people in this country because "I always wanted
to make some friends in your country through
letter-writings. But I did not know how to do it."
ARE all for international correspondence,
" and see no harm, even in the rather remote
possibility that the "Youth Council for Interna
tional Contact" has ulterior motives. We know
nothing about that organization, but assume it to
be a perfectly bona fide one.
Here are the addresses of the two would-be
pen-pals:
Toyotake Imai
355 Sakasita-sho, Nagaoka-shi
Nugata-ken, Japan
(A 14-year-old boy)
Teruko Hasegawa
54 Saikaishi-cho
Awata, Higashiyama-ku
Kyoto, Japan
(A 17-year-old girl)
If any Jackson county young people wish to
correspond with' them, it would make an inter
esting hobby.
TTHE third letter is in a different class, although
x it also is from a youngster, and also was ad
dressed to the Mall Tribune. She wants to come
to the United States. Her letter follows:
Dear Sir:
I am a Japanese girl, age 16, studying in the girls
high school and which is the most well-known mission
school here and the new Japanese Princess Michiko
graduated from this grade school.
I am so much interested to be educated in your
country. But alas! We Japanese are not allowed to
change yen to dollar for the regulation even we have
enough yen. So please forgive me to ask you such a
selfish, might-be rude for you, request. That is this.
If you could ever help me to find such a kind person
who will let me study in state, and will take care of
least expense for instance, tuition and boarding.
Of course I'll work some side job and will earn
some pocket money. Because, I have a teaching license
of Japanese flower arrangement and Japanese em
broider. Just as I expressed my desire before," I would like
to go to America for study, even in a short period.
If you ever ask to somebody and ever find such a
kind and generous person, I'll be very, very happy.
Thanks again, if you read my such letter from the
my heart.
I can hardly wait for your answer.
Very Sincerely,
- Miss Hina Ishii
7-1051 Hiratsuka
Shinagawa-ku
Tokyo, Japan.
We find these letters appealing and just a
poignant, and pass them along for whatever
J . , 1 JJ 4.1 T? A
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oui reauus may wish
cu iuciac ux uiem.
Dennis the
DCfrJT WORPy 'BOOT
CHA9IN" YA. 1 WONT
Matter of Fact
THE MAMMOTH COOKCUT
Washington-The scene was
the beach of Santa Rosa Is
land, off the California coast.
The time was
about 29,000
years ago. The
people on the
beach were
probably pret
ty nasty, brut
ish and rude,
at least by our
modern deo
dorized stand-
a An xu
4ospb AJsop aras. .fin uie
same, they were already in
dulging in an authentic Amer
ican pastime.
They were having a cook-out-that
awful pleasure un
avoidable in their era, but still
strangely popular in our own.
As in the best Texas cookouts,
moreover' ' the thing being
cooked was big game. Several
eons earlier, the rising seas
had trapped a race of ma-
moths on Santa Rosa. Time
and short rations on the island
had dwarfed the race. So this
was a dwarf mammoth cook
out. As in all cookouts, the
method of cuisine was impor
tant. In brief, the dwarf mam
moth was torn into bits; and
the flesh was entirely remov
ed from the larger bones. The
flesh was left, however, on
the ribs, vertebrae and other
small bones, which were too
difficult to strip with flint
tools. The resulting primitive
filets and spare-ribs were then
grilled in a big fire area pre
pared on the beach.
EVEN a dwarf mammoth
was a sizable animal,
standing six feet at the shoul
der. Unless the tribe was very
large, everyone could eat to
repletion. Repletion, in turn,
no doubt produced the usual
results. No one bothered to
clean up the mess.
Hence the mess was still
there until just the other day,
waiting to be examined by Dr.
Philip Orr, of the Santa Bar
bara Natural History Museum,
Dr. Wallace Broecker, of Co
lumbia, and Dr. George Car
ter, of Johns Hopkins.
The creatures nature kills
are not naturally disarticulat
ed. Forest fires do not char
just ribs and vertebrae, and
leave thigh bones untouched.
Animals do not build fire
areas for their feasts. In com
bination, therefore, the sever
al peculiarities of the mess on
Santa Rosa Island's beach
spelled Man to the assembled
doctors. Dr. Broecker took
some of the charred bone and
charcoal back to Columbia.
He got a radio-carbon date be
yond 27,000 B.C. for the very
early Americans who so con
siderately left their mess be
hind, to announce their for
mer existence to their succes
sors in this age of anxiety.
Most of the curious and
agreeable facts were a sort of
by-product of a gloomy in
quiry about radioactive fall
out. The inquiry was address
ed to Dr. Willard Libby, as a
sort of farewell before his ex
pected departure from the
Atomic Energy Commission.
Dr. Libby is the inventor of
Carbon-14 dating-the method
of measuring the age of an
cient organic remains by test
ing for radioactive carbon. It
turned out that Dr. Libby
much preferred talking about
Carbon-14 instead of Stronti-
um-90. Running on Carbon-14,
the talk revealed what ought
to be major news, at any rate
to those Americans who are
as untutored as this reporter.
TN BRIEF, American history
- is now getting longer and
longer. Until quite recently
the experts would not allow
a single day more than 10
millenia for the story of Man
in America. Some scholarly
curmudgeons even said that
mankind only came to our
hemisphere about 5,000 years
ago. Ours was a short, short
story, in fact, until the expert
calculations first began to be
upset by the discovery of the
flint weapons known as Fol-
Menace
THAT OL CAT ,
TBIL AfflBODS
Ev Joseph Alsop
som points. And now our his
tory's time-corset has abso
lutely come apart at the
seams, because of Carbon-14
dating.
The date for the dwarf ele
phant cookout is only one
among several that have burst
the time-corset-many of them,
it must be added, violently
disputed. There is the Tule
Springs ite, with its Carbon
14 date of 23,800 years ago.
There are the new Mojave
Desert campfire sites, discov
ered by Dr. Ruth Simpson of
the Museum of the Southwest
in Los Angeles. Dr. Simpson
says firmly that the flints in
tese sites are "typologically
closely similar to the Euro
pean Lower Paleolithic peri
od." There is the Sandia Cave
discovery, with a date a little
earlier than Tule Springs.
There are the hearths of a
camel-eating people (strong
stomachs they must have had!)
that were found near Dallas.
Texas being Texas, the Hum
ble Oil companys' laboratories
made those particular tests,
and got a date more than 38,
OOOyears before our era. Final
ly, there are the campfires
and the seeming-tools found
by Dr. George Carter in the
middle of San Diego City,
which have a date a couple of
thousands years earlier still
than the hearths of the camel
eaters. THE more conservative
J- scholars in the field .are
not all happy about all this
Although most of them cannot
absolutely reject Sandia Cave
and the hearths of the camel
eaters, they do not fully ac
cept even these dates; and
they sternly reject most of the
other early dates. They cling,
indeed, to the short, short
American story they have al
ways believed tn. As Dr. Rob
ert Heiser of Berkeley sadly
but typically put it, "A quite
new interpretation of Ameri
can pre-history needs more
evidence."
All the same, this reporter
is against Dr. Heiser. Prome
theus-Man has now invented
weapons that can conceivably
bring this end of our history,
the H-bomb end of history as
you might call it, to a loud,
sudden, dead stop.
In this situation, it is oddly
consoling to think that our
history is constantly growing
at the other end, the flint
chopper end, when Man began
his bold adventure on this
continent.
(Copyright 1959. New York
Herald Tribune, Inc.)
Communications
Sunday Ride
To the Editor: As mention
ed in Sunday's Mail Tribune
of the still popular chicken
dinner for that day, ours we
were invited to was young
turkey, not much larger than
a big chicken, but with the
usual toothsome stuffin',
mashed potatoes'n gravy and
other dishes endeared to
American ways of life as was
the following Sunday ride
that the MT reported as be
coming a memory in some
large cities
It is, as mentioned, so easy
here to quickly leave the city
environs, and we were doing
a roller-coaster by the Charley
Hoover lakes where fair
catches of cat fish were being
obtained till a breeze rippling
the water stopped cat fish
fishing pronto. It seemed odd
that all this was just a part
of flat table-land from moun
tain range to mountain range
but for 'better-grass" Hoo
ver's imagination and exten
sive work.
But just eastward, we drop
ped into the rough land and
twisting road of Antelope
creek, through the two old
covered bridges 'and on to
where our host pointed out
the home of old-time Yankee
Creek Smith whose fog-horn
voice carried a mile and a
half and much more when the
air was right. The general di
Munich, Once Hitler's Shrine,
Prosperous City of One Million
By PHIL NEWSOM
UPI Foreign News Editor
Munich, Germany. - (LTD -
The bricks show through
where the stucco finish has
fallen away
from the
walls of the
jeer hall
made famous
A Adolf Hitler.
The build
ing is empty
now, although
over the stone
archway lead
to the court
ftin isewsom
yard you still can read the
word "Buergerbraukeller."
The tables have been re
moved from the courtyard
where brown-shirted youths
drank beer and became en
slaved to a mustached man
with a heavy forelock who
raved of a Hitler Germany
that would live forever. The
only thing standing in the
courtyard now is a portable
cement mixer.
A mile or so away, the sun
shines brightly on the broad
Ludwigstrasse. On each side
are the substantial buildings
of Munich University. Near
the end is a fountain where
students lounge and at the
far end is a victory arch.
The arch commemorates the
German victory over France
in 1870.
At the other end is the
Feldherrnhalle, or "Marshals
Han." -
It is uncovered and at the
stairway leading to tne en
Drummond
S.ffVSU'ifW' v-
(Walter Lippman is again traveling in Europe. Roscoe Drummond
reports from Washington in his absence.)
TO BREAK THE GENEVA
DEADLOCK
Washington While our
eyes are fixed on the Berlin
crisis and on whether a meet
ing of Foreign Ministers can
liquidate the Berlin danger,
the real test of whether there
can be productive negotia
tions with the Sovets on any
issue will very likely come
sooner at Geneva.
The issue is a three-power
agreement to end nuclear
weapons testing with inspec
tion. The stumbling block is the
classical Soviet position that
they must have the right to
veto when, where and wheth
er the inspectors shall be al
lowed to inspect.
The Geneva conference has
been deadlocked for long,
fruitless weeks over the veto.
The breaking point,' for good
or ill, seems to be at hand.
The reason is that the United
States and Britain have just
advanced their farthest con
cession, their last best offer,
rection was mentioned of the
homes of Seven Boy Smith,
Sidehill Smith, Sticky Smith,
and other expressive names of
old time cattlemen our host
knew so well in his own stock
raising and range riding days.
Many of them are gone but
herds of range cattle were
seen on every hand. One place
they were roping, branding
and dehorning calves. When
mention was made of such
painful but necessary range
practices our host replied,
"Yes, it's true, but when an
onery bull jumped you for no
reason at all, rips your sad
dle horse's shoulder open and
rips his belly open on the
other side so he had to be
killed, you wish the critter
had been dehorned and which
I proceeded to do with grim
pleasure."
A real old-time note was
added to our Sunday ride by
the sight of a sizable bear
hide stretched and nailed to a
barn side, real proof that days
of long ago are still here in
Rogue River Valley if you
don't mind traveling some
primitive roads to enjoy them.
F. J. Clifford,
Rt 2, Box 200-F,
Central Point
Credit to Mining
To the Editor: In March
Oregon State Game Bulletin
on page 3 is an article titled
"Counting Our Chips" by Her
bert Lundy, editor of the edi
torial page ofthe Oregonian.
A condensation of soil, furs,
grass, timber, water, game
and fish, but no chips were
mentioned for mineral re
sources for the early history
that was so vital to the eco
nomic conditions of Oregon
after the discovery of gold in
Jackson county in 1851.
In the Centennial History
of Oregon, 1811-1912, Volume
1, by Joseph Gaston, the au
thor has given due credit to
discovery of mineral such as
gold mining as one of top
priority of natural resources.
Ten years later, 1861, a new
gold discovery in eastern
Oregon was made and mining
activity has continued up to
1942 when all gold operations
were curtailed as World War
II conditions made the recov
ery impossible by inflation
ary times.
Bert Kissinger,
520 Boardman,
Medford
trance two stone lions stand
guard.
It was between these two
lions on Nov. 9, 1923, that Hit
ler stood, marching toward
him from the victory arch
were his brown-shirted Nazi
followers. That was the day
of the ill-fated beer hall
putsch.
For that, Hitler went to
jail and wrote his book
"Mein ' Kampf," which con
tained the blueprint of Nazi
conquest.
Near at hand, is a huge
square which became the site
of a Nazi shrine. Many of
Hitler's earlier followers fell
there and the square became
their honored grave.
All the outward signs that
made the square a shrine
have been removed now.
Few Signs Of War
The residents .of Munich
wish that all signs of Hitler
ism could be removed.
The Munich of 1959 shows
few signs of the war that
Hitler unleashed, and, 14
years ago, lost. It is a pleas
ant city in which the new
U.S. consulate, glassed and
standing on a modernistic
stilt-like foundation, blends
perfectly with the new, mod
ernistic business architecture
around it.
Last year, the birth of a
son to a chimney-sweep made
Munich a city of one million
persons. Foreign buyers come
here for textiles, gloves, op
tical and precision instru
ments. Reports
to provide a way to end this
deadlock.
"DEFORE looking at the U.S.
British compromise on the
veto and trying to measure
its fairness, it is well to look
at the broad picture as it has
unfolded at Geneva and see
where it fits.
Both sides have said they
want to end the testing of
nuclear weapons.
Both sides have said they
want a dependable system of
inspection in order to make
sure the agreement is faith
fully carried out.
Both sides have agreed sub
stantially on the scope and
technical methods of inspec
tion which would be neces
sary. BUT, would the inspectors
be free to inspect whenever
and wherever they found evi
dence of an unexplained ex
plosion? The Soviets said no, that
each nation .must have the
right to decide for itself
whether the evidence is
enough to justify investiga
tion and to veto investigation
if it chooses.
The Americans and British
said yes, there must be no bar
rier to prevent the control
commission from seeing that
any suspicious explosion is
investigated, for if the sus
pected violator can block in
vestigation then there is no
dependable guarantee against
violation.
THAT'S
the deadlock at
Geneva.
Is there a way
around it?
The Soviets have argued
that one reason they need a
built-in veto over the control
commission is that the West
has a built-in majority (the
U.S. and Britain vs. Russia)
on the commission and thus
the West could dictate all de
cisions automatically.
That is a fair and realistic
argument and it is at this very
point that the U.S. and Brit
ain have now offered to cre
ate a control commission
which will have no veto for
the Soviets and no built-in
majority for themselves.
The proposal is that the j
control commission should do
its work by majority vote
and should comprise seven
members as lollows:
Three permanent members
the U.S.S.R., Britain and
the U.S. i
Two additional members
one selected by each side j
one by Russia, one by the U.S.
and Britain.
Two neutral members mu-
tually agreeable to both sides.
Thus, while there would be
no veto, there would also be
U.S.-British majority without
neutral backing. In other
words, at least one neutral
nation would have to agree
that the suspicions of an un
natural explosion were ade
quate to justify investigation.
MOSCOW has shouted loud
and long that it wants
nothin so much as to end nuclear-weapons
tests and that
it supports "dependable in
spection." The U.S. and Britain are
convinced that their present
offer at Geneva is fair to Rus
sia, fair to themselves, that
anything less would be un
workable and independable.
The next move is Moscow's,
(c) 1959, New York Herald
Tribune Inc.
By German standards, Mu
nich is not considered a boom
city. But it is a prosperous
one which still, in the midst
of growth, has been able to
retain much of its tradition.
The great beer halls, each
capable of holding thousands
of customers, are one sign.
Here the German couples
come, some with their own
sandwiches, and for less than
a dollar can spend the even
ing, with all the beer they
can drink.
Close to Munich is one of
largest U.S. Army Bases in
Europe.
There are no "Yankee go
home" signs here, although
Washington Report
By WILLIAM
POLITICIANS NEEDED
Washington The cherish
ed legend that any and all
large public affairs are best
1 directed "by
b u sinessmen
with business-
like methods"
jtt iq nmlrrcinfT
y f"'0
before our
eyes.
The notion's
bankruptcy is
being shown
in ' thf vprv
WilliamS. r,
white agency which
is the largest buyer and af
fords the greatest opportunity
for a certain managerial skill.
But it is a skill quite differ
ent from that required in
business, and this is where
the rub comes.
This agency is the Depart
ment of Defense. In spendmg
$40 billion a year it dwarfs
our biggest private corpora
tions. And on its proper
functioning rests the physi
cal survival of the United
States.
The second of the big busi
nessmen to head Defense in
the Eisenhower Administra
tion, Neil McElroy, has given
notice that he is unlikely to
last out the Administration's
own tenure. He ' is under
stood to feel that he must
fairly soon return to private
life unless he is to sacrifice
an income to six figures for
the $25,000 pay of the Secre
tary of Defense.
1!R. McELROY has been
one of the country's great
business success stories soap
and allied products, in his
case. So, too, was his pre
decessor here, Charles E.
Wilson, the former president
of General Motors.
Much has been soundly said
that handing the Defense post
about from one corporation
executive to another is a poor
way to run a railroad. There
is special point in this obser
vation since this particular
railroad, the Defense Depart
ment, is so immense that any
body needs at least two years
simply to know his way about
in the labyrinths, literal and
otherwise, of the Pentagon.
It seems to this observer,
however, that there is an
even more basic point: the
Pentagon, though superfici
ally the government depart
ment mosts nearly compara
ble to the great industrial
corporations, is actually the
department most clearly illus
trating w h y businessman
methods will not work in
most governmental affairs.
The great trouble, in a
word, is not simply a too
rapid turnover in the busi
nessman heads of Defense. It
is that these are not the right
heads in the first place.
THE relationship between
running the Pentagon and
running an industrial con
cern is more apparent than
real. The fundamental prob
lems of industry are produc
Counsel With . .
Mr. Insurance Fred Brennan
Fred Brennan
Or Call
Mr. Friendly
Bill Fish
Phone SP 3-7343
MEDFORD
INSURANCE
AGENCY
27 NORTH HOLLY ST.
Now Is
People
there is occasional resentment
that the Americans in World
War II bombed' Munich.
However, if an American
soldier visits a Munich beer
hall, he usually is advised to
wear civilian clothing.
A Munich newspaper col
umnist wrote recently that
the sight of German uniforms
at an annual carnival ball
annoyed him. The result was
a minor controversy, but in
the end the columnist seem
ed the winner. One reader
wrote:
"We have had enough. We
don't want to see any more
uniforms, not only at carni
val bans."
S. WHITE
tion and sales. The proper
method is prudence for ulti
mate profit. The fundamen
tal problems of the Defense
Department are the uses of
production. These uses are
not and cannot be prudent;
indeed they are essentially
imprudent that is, daring
and full of costly innovations.
What are required are un
avoidably wasteful and con
sciously competitive and
overlapping production sys
tems, the ultimate goal of
which is not profit or even
order as such, but simply mil
itary strength.
By law we cannot, and we
should not, have a Secretary
of Defense who is a profes
sional man. All the same, the
Secretary of Defense must
have at bottom the same sin
gle overmastering concern of
any field commander: to have
plenty of weapons to shoot
and trained men to shoot
them in the most efficient,
but not necessarily the least
costly and most prudent, way.
It is at this vital point that
no typical big businessman,
however honorable and able
in his own field, can ever
quite humanly mesh as Sec
retary of Defense with the
military professionals. And
it is their fighting and com
mand skills that in the end
are the truly vital factors in
national security. Business
is one thing and a good thing.
Security is quite another
thing. It is not useful to at
tempt to compare a pear and
a porcupine.
POR while "the brass" have
the highest respect, in
theory, for private enterprise,
they are like all professionals
everywhere. It is the art that
comes first and last, too
and in this case it is the art
of war. Not even the most
sound of normally business
like considerations must get
into the way of this.
The real job of a Secretary
of Defense, in short, is this:
(1.) To get the services the
money they really need, or re
sign in the attempt. (2.) To
crack down on them constant
ly when they try to intrude
beyond their own profession
al sphere. (3.) But to stay out
of their way on matters of
strategy and tactics and the
employment of weapons,
which these professionals
have devoted lifetime careers
to learning.
It is a job not for a busi
nessman but for a master pol
itician. A politician who can
lead and persuade; keep a
hard grip upon policy but
a very relaxed grip upon op
erations. Good politicians are
no more and no less noble
than businessmen. It just hap
pens that they don't care
much about money but are
endlessly interested in power
and policy. This is the kind
of drive that is needed at the
civilian top in the Pentagon.
(Copyright. 1959, by United
Feature Syndicate, Inc.)
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