Opinions on change, criticism and clarity

After a 36-year career in the federal government, Harry walked away in 1986 as an expert in his field, the media. But he never stopped writing about the media. I uncovered these 1991 essays in a collection on his computer. They may interest media folks and government communicators, as well as entertain his friends and family. I think he would have liked that.

Change

America will be a great place – if they ever finish it. Comedians used to say that every now and then, and it would invariably get a laugh. Sometimes, driving through almost any city in the country, and seeing all the construction going on in office buildings, apartment houses, shopping malls, new roads, etc., that line comes to mind again. It’s what is called an inverted truism. The truth is, of course, that America will never be finished. We will be building it, building upon it, and rebuilding it forever – and not only its physical structure, but its institutions, its values, its very culture, as well.

Our society is constantly evolving and the pace of change is rapidly increasing. In earlier generations, say fifty or sixty years ago, changes were coming much more slowly and people were able to adjust, to adapt to change, to get used to things for a while before they phased into something else. Not anymore. Changes in our lives and in our environment and society are coming so fast that we are having trouble coping with them. They frighten us. We wish, sometimes, that we could slow down the world for a while, till we catch our breath.

Sixty years ago, in the 1940s, an eighth-grade education was enough to qualify people for most jobs in our society. Fifty and forty years ago, in the 1950s and 1960s, a high-school education was enough. In fact, only about 15 percent of our youth graduated from high school in the immediate post-World War II period and less than 10 percent of them went on to college. But the evolving needs of science and technology have changed all that. Today, most jobs in our society require a college degree in order to earn a living wage with any hope of advancement to positions of responsibility and authority. In fact, a large proportion of the worthwhile jobs require advanced degrees. As a consequence, some 75 to 80 percent of our youth today graduate from high school and some 60 percent of them go on to college. That alone represents a great sea change in American society.

Criticisms

Military public affairs officers, whose business involves dealing with the media on a daily basis, are frequently critical for what reporters regard as the wrong reasons. For example, the media has come under attack for writing about the erosion of benefits for service men and women, such as cutting back on commissary and Base Exchange privileges, or making changes in the retirement system. Not only do articles like that make the recruiting job more difficult, but they are bad for the morale of those who are already in the service, and they discourage people from reenlisting when their tours are up. But surely, reporters respond, the military cannot seriously expect the media to refrain from reporting such developments, simply on the grounds that to do so would have a negative effect on recruitments or reenlistments. Such criticisms are grossly unfair, they charge, since the very nature of the reporter’s job is to purvey the news to the public.

* * *

It is a cliché among meteorologists that there is no such thing as bad weather; there are merely different kinds of weather. The same thing is true of news; there is no such thing as bad news, merely different kinds of news and, in journalism, all the news is fit to print. That’s the simple view, the simplistic view. The truth is that in journalism, as in any other business, someone makes decisions a hundred times a day or more as to what to do and what not to do, what to write and what not to write, what to include and what not to include, etc. And everything that reaches the public through the media is going to impinge on the public consciousness and influence the public behavior. 

Clarity

Here are two examples of how communications can miss the mark. The first is a directive put out by the White House – by one of those bright young presidential aides, no doubt – during World War II:  “Such preparations will be made, as will completely obscure all Federal buildings and non-Federal buildings occupied by the Federal Government during an air raid for any period of time from visibility by reason of internal or external illumination. Such obscuration may be obtained either by blackout construction or by termination of the illumination. This will, of course, require that in building areas in which production must continue during the blackout, construction must be provided that internal illumination may continue. Other area, whether or not occupied by personnel, may be obscured by terminating the illumination.”

When the President saw it he blew his stack, according to some eyewitnesses. Exasperated, he wrote the following correction in the margin: “Tell them that in buildings where they have to keep the work going, to put something across the window. In buildings where they can afford to let the work stop for a while, turn out the lights.” In other words, use plain English!

The second example is about the plumber who wrote to the National Bureau of Standards to tell them how useful hydrochloric acid was for cleaning out clogged drains. The Bureau wrote back: “The efficacy of hydrochloric acid is indisputable, but the corrosive residue is incompatible with metallic permanence.”

The plumber replied that he was happy that the Bureau agreed with him. So the Bureau tried again, writing: “We cannot assume responsibility for the production of toxic and noxious residue with hydrochloric acid, and suggest that you use an alternative procedure.” And again the plumber expressed pleasure that he and the Bureau saw eye to eye.

Finally, a sharp young secretary at the Bureau sent a message that got through: “Don’t use hydrochloric acid,” she wrote, “it eats hell out of the pipes.” 

Copyright 2016, Elaine Blackman

Reflections on the military-industrial complex

On June 30, 1994, Harry last edited this document in his computer files. I would think he wrote it for a publication. Similar to other essays on this blog, he talks about lessons from World War II.

Ever since President Dwight D. Eisenhower left office in January 1961, critics of military spending have cited his comments about the “military-industrial complex” to challenge the cost of national security. By quoting him they lend a measure of dignity and authenticity to their critical comments, even though they distort his intent by quoting him out of context. It is important to understand the context.

From the time the United States entered World War II in December 1941, it took more than two years of all-out effort to gear up our ill-prepared military and industrial resources. The whole country became what President Roosevelt called the “arsenal of democracy”. The production record achieved by industry in providing the weapons for the armed forces enabled the United States and Allies to forge a winning team.

There was an important lesson in that experience, one that George Washington had enunciated so clearly in the dawn of our nationhood. If we would prevent war, he said in effect, we must be prepared for war. We forgot this lesson after the war. Demobilization became the name of the game and the great arsenal of democracy not only fell into disrepair, it was substantially dismantled. When the Korean war started in June 1950, we found ourselves largely unprepared to conduct extended combat operations until our industrial resources could once again be geared up to produce the needed weapons. We must never be caught unprepared again.

President Eisenhower, tempered in the crucible of war and by eight years in the crucible of presidential pressures, brought wisdom, insight and perspective to his farewell address. Ponder these words, delivered in January 1961:

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of ploughshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. …

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, and even spiritual – is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.         

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. ...

Author Harry M. Zubkoff

There is, indeed, a warning in these words, but it does not constitute a condemnation of the military-industrial complex, as the critics charge. On the contrary, it constitutes recognition of the essential nature of this new phenomenon in the American experience. President Eisenhower understood, better than most, the absolute necessity for military preparedness in today’s world and for the industrial base upon which preparedness rests. Implicit in his warning is the acknowledgment that the military-industrial complex is a necessary element of American life in our times, brought about by the nature of the world we live in.

So, to the men and women who inhabit that military-industrial complex, whose daily efforts insure that the United States will always be ready to defend its interests, this country owes a profound debt of gratitude.  

Copyright 2016, Elaine Blackman

Are the media doing their job?

Author Harry M. Zubkoff

As readers of this blog know by now, writing was a huge part of Harry’s life, and he saved a lot – letters, emails, articles, poems, stories, novels and more. Much of what I’ve posted in the past year, I found in his paper files, organized neatly in about a dozen boxes and in folders on his shelves. Starting in the 1990s, he also saved writings in computer files. Those documents, too, wow me with more about my dad – his interests, knowledge, experiences, and feelings from both professional and personal aspects of his life. I hope you continue to enjoy these discoveries, too.

Harry wrote this piece on Dec. 6, 1996, likely for a publication. I was especially struck with his comments on our environment, Vietnam, and gun control. See what you think.

The American Constitution begins with this statement: We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.    

These purposes are listed not in descending order of importance, but rather as matters of equal importance. This paper will concentrate on the fourth listed goal – to provide for the common defense. (The American spelling of “defense” has superseded the British spelling.) Surely this is among the most important purposes of the Union, and the “common defense” in modern parlance has come to be known as the national security.

Most Americans have only a vague idea of what is meant by “national security”. They know that we have an Army, a Navy, an Air Force, and a Marine Corps, but informal surveys disclose that fewer than one in a million knows what the roles and missions of these armed forces are. Which of them, for example, is responsible for defending the nation against a surprise attack by submarine launched ballistic missiles? Or by land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles? Or which of them, if any, is responsible for the research and development of nuclear weapons, or of laser weapons?

And how many would recognize the different uniforms the military services wear or the various insignia they display? According to random questions asked on college campuses just after the Gulf War, I would guess that fewer than one in ten million Americans – that’s one in ten million – would know the difference between an Army officer and a Marine Corps officer, or between an Air Force officer and a Naval officer, if he saw them all walking down the street in their respective uniforms. And that, I submit, is a sad state of affairs.    

This level of ignorance extends to some of the most important public policy questions confronting our nation today. What size military forces should we build and what should the proper numbers of men and women allocated to each of the services be? What kinds of weapons systems should we develop and procure? What is the nature of the threat confronting us over the next ten years, and how should we prepare to meet it? How much of our national budget should we spend on military preparedness? Of course, these are complicated questions, and even the experts can disagree on the answers, but if there is one thing we all agree about in this country, it is that the people must be participants in the policy-making process. The problem is that they cannot participate if they have no foundation of knowledge on which to base their decisions.    

And there’s the rub. Who’s at fault here? Is it the government for failing to disseminate the necessary information on which informed decisions can be taken? Partly, although the government is constrained in many ways from providing more than the most basic information to the people. The main source of information for the public at large is the giant industry collectively known as the media. And the media, or the one small piece of the media that any individual looks to for information about public policies, is inadequate for the task.   

I don’t know how to solve this problem, though I have some suggestions. To begin with, the public policy quandaries and dilemmas confronting the country are extremely complex, and no single element of the media has the resources to cover them all and to explain them all to the public – not the wealthiest of the newspaper conglomerates, not the weekly news magazines, or even the broadcast networks with all the facilities at their disposal. I have stated many times and still believe that the major responsibility for keeping informed about public affairs lies with each individual; that only by reading widely in the various elements of the media – newspapers, magazines and broadcasts – could you be well enough informed to make decisions on public policies. But study after study has shown that the great majority of individuals in this huge, diverse society of ours spends less than 30 minutes a day on the news, and most of that time is spent on television news, which may be entertaining but is only marginally informative.   

What to do about it? I believe public policy studies should be incorporated in the teaching curricula of all public schools, elementary through secondary through college levels, so that all Americans will have a solid grounding in the public policy questions that the various levels of our government must deal with. And foremost among those questions is the provision of national security.    

So, what is national security? 
In my view, the national security embraces three major aspects of national activity: first, the nation’s military and defense policies; second, the nation’s foreign policies; and third, the nation’s economic policies. These three components are inextricably intertwined; you can’t have one without the other.                

The military and defense policy component of national security is covered only superficially by the media. The recruiting of men and women for military service, for example, once a subject of national concern and debate because of the draft, has subsided in the national consciousness since the draft ended in the mid-1970s. To this day, however, the implications of the all-volunteer service are not well understood in all their ramifications, and their devastating effect in terms of isolating our “mercenary” forces from the mainstream of our society is never discussed in the media. If the public truly understood what is happening, how a wholly new and culturally different element of our society is taking root in our midst, I suspect there might be a renewed effort to reinstitute conscription in order to maintain a genuine citizen’s army that would more nearly reflect our societal values.

Yet, the only media discussions about manpower and personnel problems take place when a cheating scandal emerges at a military school or a sex scandal at a military base, which places a skewed picture of military life before the public and further distances the military from the general public. News coverage of foreign policy matters is scanty, at best, unless an international crisis occurs. Unfortunately, international crises emerge quite often, but for a citizenry that needs to stay informed, the only time international affairs receive intense coverage is when a crisis develops and surprises the public. But crises do not develop and explode overnight. Every international event that assumed the proportions of a crisis since the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War was foreseeable.

What’s worse, not only were they foreseeable, they were actually foreseen and predicted. And, more to the point, they could very possibly have been averted or blunted had the media been more aggressive in informing the public, and had the government been more willing to act before public opinion could be mobilized instead of waiting for the full-fledged crisis to emerge.

The economic component of national security is even less well-covered than is defense or foreign policy. It is generally recognized that international trade agreements are important elements of our economy, but how many are aware of the impact of such agreements on the security of our country? For example, for decades the Defense Department tried to control the export of sensitive technologies, but only after Iraq invaded Kuwait did the public suddenly become aware of the need to prevent some countries from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

Even today, with the world’s expanded awareness of the danger involved in allowing Saddam Hussein, or any of the other rogue states such as Libya and Iran, to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, there seems little doubt that he and they continue to pursue them clandestinely. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait exposed still another aspect of our economic national security – our increasing dependence on the Middle East sources of energy. In fact, a great many other countries around the world are even more dependent on Middle East oil supplies, which make the integrity of the entire region a matter of international security. 

A huge and complex problem
There are other elements of national security seldom mentioned in the media, but which will surely affect us all in the coming years. There is a problem confronting us so huge and so complex that its dimensions are almost impossible to describe – the management of our planetary environment.  We are, without a doubt, poisoning the planet, and the consequences will ultimately be disastrous, but the media are doing very little to keep the public apprised of the steady erosion of the environment. The destruction of our tropical rain forests is taking place at an ever increasing pace with a foreseeable impact on the ozone layer. The explosion of the world population is a phenomenon to which no attention is paid. 

From the beginning of history to 1830, we reached the one-billion mark. The second billion took 100 years, from 1830 to 1930. We added 3 billion more in the next 60 years, from 1930 to 1990.  The next billion will be complete only 11 years after that, in 2001. The pressures generated by an expanding world population can be predicted, with the developing countries competing with the developed countries for a larger share of the increasingly scarce natural resources. And, not the least of the international environmental problems facing humanity, the widespread distribution of toxic and nuclear waste materials is slowly rendering substantial areas of the planet uninhabitable.
 
If you don’t think that’s a national security problem, you’re living in another world with the media, which seem completely oblivious to this growing catastrophe.

More media failures
Let’s just mention a few other areas of enormous importance in which the media are failing to keep the public informed. Take the question of arms control and disarmament; the public generally believes that, since the Cold War has ended, arms control is no longer a priority consideration and may even be a moot question. The fact is, however, that missiles with nuclear warheads are still aimed at targets in the United States and the process of dismantling them is on hold. Moreover, the nuclear materials and other essential components of warheads are disappearing from Russian storage, with their ultimate destinations the subject of considerable speculation. Surely there is a threat to our national security involved.    

Take the question of our national defense industries: With the end of the Cold War, the need for new weapons systems has understandably declined, and as procurement contracts shrink, the industrial arsenal of democracy also shrinks. In order to stay afloat, defense industries are realigning themselves, and mergers are the order of the day. Where once we had dozens of large corporations and hundreds of smaller concerns in the defense business, today there are only a half dozen major corporations and a few dozen smaller ones left.

Hundreds of thousands of skilled workers have lost their jobs in this industry in the last five years. That’s the bad news. The good news is that many of these industries and skills are becoming engaged in other enterprises that are changing America’s lifestyles even as we speak. But how much of the media and of the public are truly aware of the tremendous technological revolution taking place right now? And how many are aware that the explosion of electronic wizardry, from computers to the Internet, is the direct result of the military research and development process?     

Look at just one weapon – the B-2 Bomber: Study after study has confirmed the fact that the public derives most of its news from television, so how have the networks covered the B-2 Stealth bomber? This case provides an illustration of how the networks distort the news and paint a curious picture of events. The public roll-out took place in November 1988, on the 25th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. All three major networks focused on the cost of this airplane, varyingly described as ranging from 250 million dollars to 500 million dollars. Not a word was mentioned about the capabilities of the plane or the purpose it was meant to serve. When the plane carried out its initial taxiing tests in July 1989, the networks again fixated on the cost and spoke derisively about its ability to travel six miles on the ground at a cost of a half billion dollars. They were all uninterested in discussing any substantive issues involving the advanced technology represented. 

Indeed, television will not or cannot talk about complicated events or problems unless it can present pictures to accompany the discussion. This means that no intelligent discussion reaches the great mass of the public on one of the most potent weapons systems ever developed. The fact is, this bomber, and the F-117 Stealth fighter, are together rewriting the rules of air warfare with technological advances that are fully as impressive in the field of aeronautics as the nuclear warhead is in the field of physics. But the media, and consequently the public, are completely unaware of the developmental marvels involved.                 

Do the media influence public policy?
There is more than one answer to that question. The first answer is one that the media do not like but that I believe to be mostly true. I believe the media has little or no impact on the formulation of public policies. Let’s look at a little history to document my view. The military and a substantial segment of the public believe that the media was responsible for losing the Vietnam War. They look at the news reports and they truly believe that the media was against the war from the start and in the end persuaded the public to turn against the war which, in turn, forced the government to settle for a phony peace and get out.    

Every objective study of the media’s performance during those years, however, proves differently. Actually, the media supported the war, from the time President Eisenhower first sent Americans to Vietnam in the mid-1950s, after the French were defeated and left. It was not until the American public turned against the war and began mass demonstrations on campuses all over the country and in Washington in the late 1960s that the media began opposing the continuing war effort. Helping to turn the public and the media against the war was the opposition of a number of congressmen and other prominent public figures. And while it is true that the government bowed to the pressure of public opinion in getting out of the war, it is not true that the media played a significant role in shaping that public opinion. Indeed, it was public opinion that shaped the media’s performance. 

Of course, other factors were at play, as well. One was the fact that President Johnson’s role in escalating the war was based on a lie – the incident in the Tonkin Gulf never happened and the lie was subsequently exposed. Another was the increasing number of casualties we were suffering. Still another was the failure to enunciate a clear declaration of policy by the President, and the seemingly incomprehensible conduct of the war itself under the leadership of Secretary McNamara.

Only in the last two or three years, two decades after the war ended, has McNamara finally confessed to the fact that the war was unwinnable under the rules he himself laid down. But it was widely known from the early days of the war that it could not be won under the conditions imposed by him and the President. The lessons drawn from that sad experience were directly reflected in the successful conduct of the Persian Gulf War five years ago, when victory was the goal, clearly stated, and the forces assigned to the task were adequate to carry out the strategic and tactical actions involved.    

There is plenty of other evidence to support my contention that the media has little effect on the formulation of public policies. To put it another way, the policy makers at the top levels of our government make their decisions based on other considerations, not on media support or opposition. The media, for example, was generally opposed to sending ground troops into Bosnia. The President did it, anyway. The media, too, was generally opposed to the NAFTA agreement; the government entered into that agreement, anyway. The Democratic President acted despite strong opposition from his own party and succeeded only with the support of the Republicans in the Congress. And take the elections of 1992 and 1996; despite a drumbeat of media comment about the President’s character, and poll after poll showing that the public did not fully trust him, he was still elected. I can only conclude that the media has little effect on the public itself, as well as on the policies that the government adopts.   

Measuring media performance
But let’s go on to another way of looking at the media’s impact. This involves looking at how the government’s policy makers view the media and measure the media’s performance. While it is true, as I noted earlier, that the public gets most of its news and opinions from television, this is not true for the decision makers. Most high-level officials cite CNN reports, which has emerged since the Persian Gulf War as a major source of news on breaking stories, but they rely on the print media for in-depth coverage. Now this is an interesting twist on the impact of the media on public policies. The CNN and television news reports often break a story, which is to say that they report on a news event with whatever pictures are available, thus providing a sort of headline service. Then the print media go after the story in a sort of feeding frenzy to obtain every possible scrap of information and conjecture they can get. Thus, TV has a multiplier effect by provoking the print media to pursue stories in ways that TV cannot. And it is the print media that the decision makers read and reread as they examine all the ramifications of the policy options open to them before they come to a final decision.

To be sure, they take public opinion into account in the decision-making process, and it is true that they would like to have public support for their decisions, but it is not the major consideration in the momentous decisions of our times. Sometimes, Presidents or Administrations or even the Congress will do what they think is “right” for the country, despite contrary public opinion.

Gun control is a case in point. Both the electronic and the print media have strongly supported gun control for the last 30 years, ever since President Kennedy’s assassination. What’s more, every poll taken since 1968, when both Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were killed, has indicated that as much as 70 percent of the public favored gun control. Yet, every Administration and every Congress voted against gun control, despite public opinion and media pressure, until President Clinton and the 1992 Congress enacted the crime bill and the Brady bill. In fact, the 1994 Congress started agitating against gun control and wanted to repeal the Brady bill and the part of the crime bill prohibiting the sale of certain weapons, despite growing public and media support for those measures. And the 1996 Congress is again threatening to take these actions, despite public opinion and the certainty of a Presidential veto. So, I repeat, where’s the impact?                            

Power of the media
The real impact, I submit, lies in the power of the media to spark a national debate and to stimulate a national discussion about the problems confronting our country and our policy makers. This, actually, is what the media is supposed to do – to report on governmental activities and other current events and thus to keep the people informed. The real debate and discussion takes place in the Congress, which, through its system of conducting hearings in order to obtain information leading to legislation, keeps the media occupied in conveying that information to the public.

So, information takes a circular path; the media breaks a story usually with a minimum of information to start, followed by other media pursuing the story and obtaining additional information, followed by governmental pursuit of the story in its deliberations, followed by media elaboration of the story based on information disclosed by the government, and so forth and so on ad infinitum – or until the media in its wisdom decides that the story has been milked dry and goes on to repeat the cycle with another story. The life-cycle of a “big front page story” varies from a few days to a few weeks at most for 99 percent of them; only once in a great while will a story last longer.

Copyright 2016
Elaine Blackman

'The System Approach' -- a short story

Author Harry M. Zubkoff

A setting in the following story brought me back some 55 years – to the North Parking lot at the Pentagon. I remember going to work with my dad, and walking, and walking, and walking from his space in the lot, far from the building entrance. (By the time I grew up, he parked in the VIP lot close to the entrance.) I’ll bet most of you will relate to a timeless problem in Harry’s story – how to approach someone for a date. You’ll also pick up on vintage details, like a secretary taking shorthand and bringing coffee, which, of course, help us define when he wrote it. I suspect he based the military-related scenarios on historical truth as well.

“I wish I’d spent more time chasing girls when I was younger,” Terry reflected ruefully. “Then maybe I’d have some ideas on how to approach her.”

“Listen to the old man,” Andy chuckled. “Why don’t you just ask her for a date?”

“I can’t do that,” Terry objected. “She’d probably call a cop.”

“Are you kidding?” Any snorted. “Why, the prettiest music to a girl’s ears is hearing some good-looking young bachelor like you ask her for a date.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Terry muttered automatically, his eyes riveted on the row of doors. “Now shut-up, here she comes.”

They focused their attention as she came through the door on the left, closest to the bench on which they were sitting. Terry made a move to stand, but Andy’s hand on his arm held him back. “Down boy,” he murmured in Terry’s ear. “I got to admit,” he added, “she’s a real doll.” As she walked down the ramp, not only the two men, but a hundred other pairs of eyes in the area followed her every move. Terry’s eyes were fixed on hers as she approached to within arm’s length. They were a deep blue-green, and he felt as though he could drown in them. She seemed to be looking through him, lost in thought, but at the last moment they met his squarely for a fleeting instant and the faintest hint of a smile appeared on her perfectly shaped lips. Then she passed by, and their heads swiveled to follow appreciatively the movement of her retreating hips as she walked gracefully up the ramp and out of the building.

“I repeat, kid,” Andy said, “why don’t you just ask her for a date?”

“No,” Terry declared firmly. “She’s got too much class for so crude an approach. I have to figure out something original. Now come on, let’s go.”

“A genius,” Andy muttered as they rose to walk to the parking lot, “he’s a genius, and geniuses can never do anything the simple way. They have to complicate everything.”

Terry squirmed, remembering the article in the newspaper two weeks ago which had described him as the “young genius” who had just been hired to do an analysis of strategic weapons requirements for the Pentagon. Genius my foot, he fumed inwardly, I’m already stuck on an insoluble problem. In fact, two of them, he thought – one for the office and one for myself – her!

“Do you know her name?” asked Andy on the way out to the Pentagon’s huge North Parking lot.

“No,” said Terry. “All I know is that she comes out this way every night about five o’clock.”

Suddenly Andy stopped. “Terry, my boy,” he laid a hand on Terry’s shoulder, “I am about to arrange for you to meet your lady love and to put her in your debt, all at the same time.”

“What?” Terry looked at him, and past him, and saw her at the same time. She was standing in front of the car next to Andy’s, looking helplessly down at the most beautiful flat tire Terry had ever seen.

Andy walked up to her, unabashed. “Excuse me, Miss,” he touched his hat brim in a curiously old-fashioned gesture, “you seem to be having some trouble.”

Her eyes took him in, glanced at Terry, and came back to him, twinkling. “Yes,” she said, “I seem to have a flat tire.”

“Not only seems flat,” said Andy peering at the tire, “I believe it actually is flat. But fear not, fair lady, I happen to have with me the best portable tire-changing machine in circulation.” He grabbed Terry’s arm and pulled him forward. “This,” he added brightly, “is known as a Dr. Terrence Laughlin. It is, you will note, about six feet of pure brawn, manufactured specifically for the purpose of changing tires, and I will be happy to lend it to you. For a little while, that is. By the way,” he went on blithely, “my name is Andrews.”

“So nice to meet you,” she replied gravely. “My name is Dolores Oliver, and yes, I would welcome the loan of a Dr. Laughlin for a few minutes. How do you make it work?”

“Well,” Andy laughed, “you just …”

“Never mind,” Terry shrugged his arm loose, “Let me have the key to your trunk, Miss Oliver.

“See what I mean?” said Andy. “A regular tire-changing machine!”

But Terry was lost in the radiance of her smile and did not hear a word they said as he put the spare on. When he had finished, she turned from an animated conversation with Andy and regarded him thoughtfully.

“Thank you very much, Dr. Laughlin,” she said.

“That’s all right,” he could think of nothing to say. “You’d better have that tire looked at. I couldn’t see what caused the flat – it may have a slow leak.”

“Yes, I’ll do that. I wish I could repay you some way.”

“No need for that,” said Andy magnanimously. “Glad to do it, anytime.”

“Just the same, you were very nice to do it for me.” She calmly came up to Terry, stretched up on her toes and kissed his cheek. He felt his face burning and put an exploratory hand up to feel the spot her lips had touched.

“You’d better wipe the lipstick off,” she admonished, “before your wife sees it.”

“But I’m not married,” he replied promptly.

She said nothing more as she got into her car, but the dazzling smile she gave him was enough.

* * * * *

Dr. Frank Riordan, former professor of mathematics at MIT and a widely acclaimed authority in cybernetics and computer technology, was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Definition, a post especially created to utilize his unique talents. He was robust, though not tall, with a bulging forehead which housed an over-sized brain, and he had assembled a small group of highly talented men to help him reduce the uncertainties inherent in the military decision-making processes. Now he sat behind his paper strewn desk and regarded Dr. Terence Laughlin, the most recent, and most prized, addition to his staff.

“Terry,” he sighed, noting the tall, rugged good looks of the man standing before him. “Maybe you should have become a professional football player. You’ve certainly got the build for it. Now why on earth can’t you do a simple analysis on our strategic aircraft and missile requirements over the next five years? We’ve given you the ground rules, you have a finite range of possibilities and clearly defined limitations for your frame of reference. So what’s bugging you?”

“What’s bugging me,” said Terry moodily, “is the validity of your basic assumptions. What’s bugging me is the artificial restraints you’ve imposed on me. Hell, Chief, do you want me to think, or do you just want someone to add up a column of figures?” He walked over to the window and stared unseeing at the Washington skyline. “I can’t work at something that doesn’t feel right,” he added earnestly. “If you want me to do a job, then give me the freedom to start from scratch, to reexamine the whole program, to … to …” he searched for the right words, “to do a genuine analysis and to come up with a defensible conclusion.” He did not see the smile of satisfaction on Dr. Riordan’s face behind him, but there was no smile in the voice.

“All right,” the voice sounded irritable. “If that’s what you want, go ahead. But it means you’ll have to go out and talk to a lot of people, from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense on down. And it means you’ll be working twenty hours a day or more, if you expect to get it done on time.” He consulted the calendar on his desk. “You have exactly sixteen days,” he added, “so get moving.”

When Terry had left, he swiveled his chair around, reached for the squawk box on the table behind him and pushed the button marked Chairman, JCS.

“Hello, Bob,” he said when the voice answered, “I think he’ll be coming to see you one of these days. And listen, Bob, that boy’s got a mind like a razor. I wasn’t kidding when I said he’s a genius. The problem is to give him enough freedom to work things out for himself.”

He listened to the other’s voice for moment. Then he interrupted. “Bob,” he said, “I don’t know what answers he’ll arrive at, but this is only the beginning of his education. By the time you and I are through with him, he’ll be telling us what we need.”

* * * * *

Her voice was cool and impersonal on the phone, but it sounded like music in his ear.

“Dr. Laughlin,” she said. “I’m calling in regard to your request for an appointment with General Roberts. The Chairman can see you at 10:30 this morning.”

“Did you tell him I’d like to take about an hour of his time?” he asked.

“The Chairman can give you a half hour,” she replied firmly. Then, softening, “He has a meeting at 11:00,” she added, “so you’d better have all your questions ready.”

“Well, okay, I guess,” he was reluctant to hang up. “I’ll see you later, then.”

She opened the door to the general’s office and stuck her head in.

“Dr. Laughlin will be here at 10:30,” she said, “for a half hour. You have a luncheon meeting at the White House, scheduled to start at 11:30. You’ll be leaving here at 11:00.”

“Where’s that biography you dug up on him?” the general asked, rummaging among the papers in his in-basket. “Riordan thinks he’s the answer to our prayers. But judging by all the geniuses I’ve seen around the Pentagon, I’ve got my doubts.”

She came all the way in, the door closing silently behind her, and gently took the in-basket away from the general.

“He has a very impressive background,” she said. “Graduated from MIT at 19, Master’s Degree from Yale at 21, PhD from Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth at 23. Then he was drafted, spent a year in Vietnam and a year setting up a computerized intelligence system at the National Intelligence Agency. After he got out of the Army, he went back to MIT and designed a new computer system that got national attention. Twenty-six years old,” she mused, “and he has a national – in fact, an international – reputation as one of America’s authentic young geniuses.”

The general looked at her quizzically. “Always the perfect secretary,” he said. “Have you met him?”

“Yes,” her eyes looked inward, remembering.

“What’s he like?”

“He’s beautiful,” she said simply.

“I see,” the general said dryly. “Beautiful.” Then, seeing the color rise to her cheeks, he spoke more gently. “Dolly,” he said, “don’t tell me you’ve finally found a …”

“No,” she interrupted. “That is …” she hesitated, “he doesn’t even know I exist.”

“Are you kidding?” the general snorted. “What kind of a genius is he?”

“I guess he’s just too occupied with his work,” she shrugged her shoulders resignedly.

“Hmmm,” the general looked at her appraisingly. “We’ll have to see what we can do about that.”

* * * * *

He came in, dressed casually in sport coat and slacks and looking so handsome that her breath caught in her throat. But, despite the pounding of her heart when his incredibly gray eyes met hers, her voice was cool and reserved.

“The Chairman’s expecting you,” she said. “Go right in.”

He looked at her, wordless, for another moment before he strode in to the inner office. The general rose to shake hands, then waved him to a chair.

“Do you want to take notes?” He asked.

“No, sir,” said Terry.

“Do you mean to say that you’ll remember everything we say?”

“Yes, sir,” he was uncomfortably aware of the general’s penetrating gaze.

“Well,” the general remarked after a pause, “my memory is not that good. I’d like my secretary to sit in and take notes.” He pressed the buzzer and she came in immediately, shorthand book in hand, and took a seat beside the general’s desk.

“Dr. Laughlin, this is my secretary, Miss Oliver,” the general introduced them. “Everybody calls her Dolly,” he added.

“We’ve met,” they both spoke at the same time, then laughed self-consciously.

“Okay,” the general smiled, “fire away.”

* * * * *

Throughout the interview, while part of his mind wrestled with the general’s views on strategic requirements, he was wondering how to ask her for a date. Afterwards, sitting in his office and thinking, the inspiration struck him. At a quarter to five, just before the rush-hour exodus, he went out to the parking lot, found her car, and, feeling almost like a criminal, let the air out of her left, front tire. Then he got into his own car, just two spaces removed from hers, and waited.

She got there about five-fifteen, and he saw the look of consternation on her face when she caught her first glimpse of the flat. He got out of his car and walked over.

“Hello,” he said brightly, “I see you have a flat tire.”

“Yes,” she smiled, and his heart contracted.

“May I help you?” he asked.

“Yes.” She put the trunk key in his outstretched hand and he silently proceeded to put on the spare. All the time he was working, he was mentally rehearsing how to ask her, but when the words came out of his mouth they surprised him.

“Look,” he blurted, “would you have dinner with me?” She hesitated and he rushed on, “I mean, after all, we both have to eat, don’t we?”

“Yes,” she said.

“And why shouldn’t we eat together?”

“Yes,” she repeated.

“You mean, you will?”

“Yes,” she said once more.

“Good,” he said. “We’ll take my car, and then come back for yours after we eat. Okay?”

“Yes,” she said.

It was a dream dinner. By the time they got to the dessert, neither of them could remember the entree. They even forgot that her car was still in the Pentagon parking lot. He drove her home, a twenty-minute ride in which he drove with one hand and held her hand with the other. It was not until she opened the door of her apartment that they both remembered, and then they laughed delightedly.

“The heck with it,” she said airily. “I’ll take the bus tomorrow and pick up the car in the evening.”

Then he remembered the bulging briefcase in the back seat of his car. “I have to go do some homework,” he said sadly as they stood in her doorway.

“Oh, no,” she was stricken. “Why don’t you bring it in and do it here? I’ll make some coffee and I promise I won’t bother you. I’ll just sit and watch TV.”

“I was hoping you’d ask!” Then, suddenly, he was kissing her. It was a most satisfactory kiss, and afterwards she gently led him inside, took his coat and seated him in the easy chair which dominated one corner of the living room. He concentrated on the reports, occasionally sipping from a cup of coffee, which she kept constantly replenished, while she curled up on a corner of the couch and watched TV. For almost three hours they exchanged not a half dozen words, though every now and then they glanced up to meet each others eyes. It was almost midnight when he put down the last report.

“You know,” he said, standing up, “you’re beautiful.”

“That’s funny,” she beamed at him, “I was just going to say the same thing about you. In fact,” she added, “I told the general this morning that …” she almost bit her tongue.

“That what?” he prompted.

“Tell me,” she said changing the subject adroitly. “How fast do you read? I was watching you for a while and you were turning those pages awfully fast.”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “it depends on what I’m reading. Some things, easy things, maybe 2,800 to 3,000 words a minute. These things,” he waved a hand at the pile of reports on the floor, “are a little tougher, maybe 1,800 to 2,000 words a minute.”

“Holy mackerel,” she gasped. “You really are a genius, aren’t you?”

He grinned down at her, then kneeled before her on the couch. “Genius enough,” he said seriously, taking her hand, “to know that you’re suddenly very important to me, and that I … well, I … want to see you again; I want to keep on seeing you.”

She leaned forward and kissed him tenderly on the lips, and then on the cheek. “I know,” she murmured in his ear, “me, too.” She moved back and looked deep into his eyes. “You’d better go now,” she said, her voice suddenly husky, “it’s getting late and you’ve got some hard days ahead.”

“Yes.”  He rose slowly to his feet. “See you tomorrow.” It was half statement, half question.

“Yes,” she said softly.

* * * * *

For the next two weeks he was as busy as Dr. Riordan had predicted. He arrived early each day and stayed late each night, and though he saw Dolly every day, they were unable to spend another evening together. Both understood, however, that when the project was over, they had some unfinished business between them. When the deadline for his final report arrived, he was almost exhausted. But he was ready.

There were just the three of them, Dr. Riordan, General Roberts and himself, in the Chairman’s office.

“You’ve got the floor, Terry,” said Dr. Riordan.

“Gentlemen,” Terry began, “I was asked to come here and take a fresh, unbiased look at our strategic requirements, unimpeded by previous positions or commitments, and then to draw up a new definition of our requirements. In order to do that, I have had to study the historic development of requirements to date, to examine the past decisions, and to establish the validity of our present positions. I am sorry to say,” he licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry, “that you are living in a dream world,” he went on quickly, “that you are bound to a series of bad decisions and that your presently stated requirements are completely unrealistic.”

He paused, trying to gauge their reaction but unable to discern anything from the blank faces and hooded eyes. Then he plunged ahead.

“The military,” he looked at General Roberts, “have been less than honest in stating their requirements, scaling them down to what they probably thought they would be able to get. As a result, they have requested less than half the absolute minimum number of weapons this nation requires. The Secretary,” he glanced at Dr. Riordan, “has been even less honest, scaling down the military requests to about one third the absolute minimum, for reasons which I’ll talk about later. If you want to attain the necessary minimum, you will have to triple, and in some cases quadruple, your annual requests for each of the next five years. At the end of that time, you will still only be marginally secure, depending, of course, on what the potential enemies do in the interim. Now, here are the figures.”

He recited the figures, all in his head, without referring to notes, outlining his reasoning as he went along. When he had finished, he came back to his one unfinished point.

“Let’s talk about the reasons for previous decisions,” he said. “I realize that they’re political decisions, in reality made by the President and the Congress, not by you. But I was asked to make my study in a purely military context, without regard to outside factors. My point is that you should be presenting your requirements in that same context. If there are going to be political considerations, let them be imposed from without, not from within. The military should be asking for what it needs, not for what it thinks it can get.”

There was absolute silence in the room when he finished speaking. He did not resume his seat, but walked to the door and left.

* * * * *

He was waiting there when Dr. Riordan came bustling into his office, humming absently to himself, and stopped short at the sight of him.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you,” said Terry.

“Well, what do you want?”

“I don’t know. Sympathy maybe. I guess I blew it, didn’t I?”

“You did what I asked you to do. That’s all.” He was decidedly not sympathetic.

“Well, that’s it then,” Terry said abruptly. “I guess I better start looking for another job.”

“Terry,” Dr. Riordan sat down behind his desk, “a guy like you doesn’t have to look for a job. All you have to do is whisper that you’re available and the offers will start pouring in. Hell,” he snapped his fingers, “you could get a dozen offers just like that for four or five times as much as you get here. And you probably will.”

“Then I’m through here, right?”

“Well, I didn’t hire you on a long-term contract, you know. It was just for a specific job.”

“Well,” said Terry, “I guess I better go and start whispering.”

“By the way,” Riordan said, “the Chairman wants to see you.”

“Me? What for?”

“How the hell would I know what for? Maybe he wants to punch you in the nose.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll go see him now.”

When he had left, Dr. Riordan punched the Chairman’s button on the squawk box.

“Hello, Bob,” he said, “he’s on the way. And you better treat him right.”

* * * * *

She noted the fatigue lines around his eyes and the despondency of his mood, and her heart went out to him. “The Chairman’s waiting for you,” she said.

“Okay, I’ll see you later,” he went on in.

The general greeted him with a handshake and called to Dolly to bring in some coffee.

“That was quite a presentation you gave.”

“I’m sorry, General,” Terry replied, “I didn’t really mean to be so critical.”

“Oh, that’s all right. We need to be shaken up once in a while. What I want to know is how sure are you that your figures on strategic requirements are right?”

“Sure? Well, I’m sure about the figures. That’s the only thing I’m sure about.”

Dolly came in with two cups of coffee and silently left.

“You mean you’re not sure about the validity of political decisions?” the general asked, smiling slightly.

Terry grinned in return. “I don’t know, General,” he said. “I guess I got a lot to learn.”

“Hmmm,” the general sipped from his cup. “What are you going to do now?”

“Look for another job, I guess,” Terry shrugged.

“Would you consider working for me?”

“For you?” Terry was incredulous. “Doing what?”

“The same sort of thing. We still have to study our tactical requirements, our mobility requirements, our logistics requirements, and so on. You see,” he was warming up to the subject, “we’re in the same box in all these other areas as we are in the strategic area. And we have to come up with some new definitions of our requirements, arrived at in a purely military context, of course.” He chuckled. “There’s no guarantee that we’ll get what we need or even what we ask for, but at least we have to know what we need, and that’s what you did for us in the strategic area. You told us what we need, but you didn’t tell us enough because you don’t know enough.”

Terry looked at him, wonderingly.

“There’s still a bigger problem,” the general went on, “and this one’s not easy to explain. You see, we used to look upon each weapon as a complete system. An airplane, for example, with its crew and its maintenance team and its armament and its spare parts, and so forth, was all a system. Then we expanded our view to regard a whole category of weapons as a complete system. Strategic weapons, for example, including aircraft, missiles, submarines, air bases, and all the personnel involved, all together comprise one strategic system. The next step is take all the systems – strategic, tactical, logistics, and so forth – put them together and treat them as one complete defense system. When you do that,” he continued, scarcely pausing for breath, “you can adjust and juggle the various individual pieces of the system without impairing the performance of the whole. But it takes men of vision and men of absolute intellectual honesty, to be able to take such a broad view. I think you could do it.”

Terry’s mind was opening up to look at the possibilities. Of course, he thought, treat the whole works as one complete defense system. Bring all the component parts – air, sea, ground – into one coherent system with fully defined interrelationships. Beautiful.

“If you can tie it all up in one package,” the general was still talking, “you may find that you can substitute tactical for strategic capabilities in some cases, or vice-versa, and that you can meet your commitments even though you reduce your requirement in one area or another. You may even be able to get some appreciation for the political aspects of decision making – whether you agree with them or not,” he added wryly. “In any event,” he concluded, “the object is to formulate a complete defense system approach. What do you say; are you interested?”

“Interested? Yes, sir, I’m interested.”

“Good,” the general stood up. “It won’t be easy,” he warned. “Your work will be cut out for you. But it’ll at least keep you busy for a year or two. So starting right now, you’re on my payroll. Now,” he waved his hand in dismissal, “take the rest of the day off. And take Dolly with you; she’s no good to me moping around here.”

* * * * *

All the way to her apartment he was absorbed in his thoughts, his mind already ranging ahead to the problems and the possibilities he would encounter in setting up a model defense system. The idea intrigued him, stimulated him. The complete system approach, he though, takes in everything.

“Hey,” she said when they got there, “remember me? I’m the girl you came with.”

He sat down on the couch with her, still deep in thought. The complete system approach, he reflected, and suddenly the idea took on new meaning for him. Of course, he thought, the flat tire was what you might call the tactical approach, a simple maneuver, really. The dinner, now that was the strategic objective, but it really didn’t mean too much unless you had the really long-range objective in mind. And what was that? The answer was simple and natural. The ultimate and complete system approach, which rendered all other things meaningless by themselves, and meaningful when put together.

But the system approach calls for complete honesty, he told himself.

“Honey,” he said, savoring the word.

“Yes?” softly.

“Honey,” he repeated, “I have a confession to make.”

“Yes?” still softly.

“You remember that flat tire?” he said, “the second one?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m afraid I did it. That is, I let the air out of it. I couldn’t think of any other way to get you in a situation where I could ask you to go out with me.”

She stirred in his arms, then turned her lips up to him and kissed him.

“That’s all right, dear,” she said, “I’m glad you did it.”

“Dolly.”

“Yes.”

“Will you marry me?”

She pulled away from him gently and looked deep into his eyes.

“I love you, you know,” he added quietly.

“Yes,” she said. “And I love you, Terry, and I want to marry you.”

They kissed again.

“Honey,” she said.

“Yes?”

“I have a confession to make, too.”

“Yes?”

“Remember that flat tire, the first one, I mean?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I did it. I let the air out of it.”

He looked at her, astonished.

“Well, I couldn’t think of any other way to meet you,” she said.

He laughed and took her in his arms again. “I love you,” he said, and kissed her once more till she was breathless. This is it, he thought, the complete system, in which everything makes sense.

THE END

Copyright 2016

Elaine Blackman