Harry weighs in on scandals, in letter to old friend

We continue to learn more about Harry’s professional life and relationships through the following letter he wrote in 1997 to a long-time co-worker and journalist. He comments on scandals in the military and a scandal of sorts related to his government publication. And he gives a few updates on his personal life.


10 February 1997
Dear Ben:

By now you must realize that I am the world’s worst correspondent. For some reason I just can’t bring myself to sit down and write letters. I mean to write. I want to write. I keep composing letters in my mind to various friends scattered around the world. I just can’t seem to actually write them. In your case, I’ve been writing mental communiques to you for the past year or so, but today it came to me quite forcibly that time is slipping away and I better stop procrastinating and start writing. So – here goes with a number of things I’ve wanted to tell you.

1.  Of course, I read your article on the sexual harassment problem in the Army when it appeared in the Outlook section of The Washington Post just before Christmas. I wanted to tell you then, and I’m telling you now, that you hit the nail on the head. Since then, I’ve heard that the scuttlebutt around the Pentagon is that they’ve uncovered the tip of the iceberg, and that a lot more is going to be breaking in the next few months – not only in the Army, but in all the services, especially the Navy again. 

My own opinion is that as long as men and women are thrown together in stressful situations, there will be problems; and as long as they are thrown together in non-stressful situations, there will also be problems. There simply is no getting away from it – men and women will get together somehow, no matter what the circumstances are, and more often willingly than not. I don’t see how it can be avoided without complete separation of the sexes in the military, and of course, that’s no longer possible. So, from now on and forevermore, incidents are going to occur and recur, from time to time, just like cheating scandals at the military academies. These things are, in a manner of speaking, inevitable. 

So, the question is, how do you handle them when they arise? Like you said, the last thing we need is another committee to start an investigation. What they need is a top ranking General, three or four stars, to go out and look at the situation and then take some decisive action. Unfortunately, nobody asked me what to do.

2.  Remember Fred Hiatt about whom I wrote a critical piece that you were good enough to publish in the magazine? After he left the Pentagon beat, the Post sent him to Russia; they even gave him some language training and other schooling to prepare him to be a foreign correspondent. (Too bad they don’t give young Pentagon reporters some schooling, too.) Anyway, he’s now back in Washington and occasionally writes a piece for the Op-ed page. Obviously, he has matured into a respectable commentator and has written some very fine and thoughtful articles in recent months. So I wrote him a letter to tell him so, and got a nice response from him. I thought you’d be interested.

3.  Regarding the Current News files that were decimated by Maitre at Boston U., the final resolution of that problem was that the remaining files were shipped down to the Air University archives at Maxwell AFB in Alabama. Dr. Silber paid the freight, which I believe cost somewhere around ten grand. I think I mentioned to you that Dick Kohn, former Air Force historian and now a professor at North Carolina got into the act and helped make those arrangements. 

Meanwhile, Maitre turned out to be...well, as W.C. Fields said when he met Mae West, “There is less here than meets the eye.” You might say that all’s well that ends well, but every time I think of Maitre I get furious all over again.

[Note: Harry was referring to the Current News, a daily publication he managed during his Pentagon career. Other letters in his files show that the Defense Department turned over the Current News archives to a communications director at Boston U., after much research and requests from other organizations to keep the files for scholarly research. It turned out that the Boston U. director later disposed of them, infuriating Harry and others. Certain individuals eventually retrieved the archive.]

4.  I read your review of Colin Powell’s book with considerable interest. I know him, not well, but reasonably well, and there are some things about his book that “give me pause.” You did a masterful job with that review, and some of what you said echoed my own reservations. It should have been printed in the mainstream press, where it could get much wider circulation, but even so, enough Washington insiders saw it so that it made an impression. Have you had any comments?

5.  I celebrated my 75th birthday last June and my 53rd anniversary last August – in fair health. Did I tell you that for the past seven or eight years I have been taking courses at the University of Maryland – one or two each semester? (I’ve also been teaching English there.) Last semester I took a course in the political process for journalists, taught by two people; one is a former Maryland State Senator, a Republican lady, and the other is the former Democratic Governor of Maryland, William Donald Schaeffer. Both were a joy to listen to – fascinating, really. This semester I’m taking a course taught by Hodding Carter: Professional Seminar in Public Affairs Reporting. It should be interesting; certainly, as in all the other courses I’ve taken, I’m bound to learn something. I must say, Ben, the older I get, the more I realize how little I know, or, to put it another way, how little I’ve learned along the way.

Copyright 2016, Elaine Blackman

A personal update to friends everywhere

When my dad was about to turn 70, he wrote the following letter to a number of his friends. He gave typical updates on his life, probably of little interest to people who didn’t know him; however, it will fill in gaps for those who did. If you like Harry’s writing style, it’ll entertain you. And, it might encourage you to write a letter or email to old friends. Or, make a phone call.






28 May 1991 
To Friends Everywhere:

I have become one of the laziest people around. Even though I have spent the best years of my life in writing – so many hundreds of thousands of words – and still write a fair amount almost every day, I just can’t seem to find the energy to sit down and write letters. Those of you who send out annual letters, usually but not always around Christmas time, just to keep all your friends up to date on your families and your activities, put me to shame. I never even acknowledge receiving them. It’s not that I don’t love them. I read and reread every word. I enjoy them. I savor them. I just don’t acknowledge them.

Now, suddenly, the pangs of conscience are overwhelming me. The spirit moves me. The urge is upon me. So here I am, trying to put into words the things that have happened to me in the last five years since I retired. Retired from the government, that is, since I have never really fully retired, though I’m getting closer to it all the time. The fact that I will be 70 in a couple of weeks, and the realization that I am mortal, after all, is probably one of the factors that impels me to write this letter – that and a guilty conscience.

I retired in June 1986, at the age of 65, but my replacement, Herb Coleman, who was the Editor at Aviation Week, couldn’t get away from there until October, so I stayed on as a retired annuitant until he came aboard. Then, after lining up financing and people and other things, I started my newsletter, the Defense Media Review, in which I got a chance to do what they would never let me do for publication in the Pentagon (I did it for eyes only for a few selected officials) – namely, I got to comment on media performance in their coverage of national security affairs. I had two very bright young men working with me.

Everything went along swimmingly, as they say, for a couple years. Jeanette and I even got to do some traveling – to Israel in 1987, to Hawaii in 1988 – not as much as she wanted to do, but I still had commitments and deadlines. Then, on August 30, 1988, the day after we got back from a month’s vacation, two weeks in Hawaii and two weeks doing California, I had a heart attack. Well, not exactly a heart attack. It was diagnosed as severe angina, which, technically speaking is a warning signal that a heart attack may be imminent, and you better do something about it.

After an angiogram, which determined that one of the main arteries going to the heart was 90 percent blocked, they decided to do the angioplasty procedure, rather than a bypass operation. In the angioplasty procedure, they simply insert a “balloon” into the artery and press the blockage (cholesterol) against the wall of the artery, thereby clearing the passageway for the flow of blood to the heart. It’s much simpler and easier than a bypass, but it’s not feasible for everyone; it depends on exactly where the blockage is. There is no guarantee, of course, that the blockage will not return. Mine did, some six months or so later. That was in March 1989, just after we got back from a cruise in the Caribbean (six islands in eight days). 

I keep telling Jeanette that traveling can be hazardous to your health. So I got a second angioplasty and, according to the prevailing medical view, the odds are that the second one will last much longer. It’s now a little more than two years later, and it’s still holding, so maybe the doctors are right. Of course, an important element in recovering and staying healthy is exercise – aerobic exercise, to be precise. And, it goes without saying, I really don’t do enough of that.

By the way, an important factor in bringing on heart problems in the first place is smoking. And everybody knows that I smoked too much. In fact, from the time I was fifteen years old until the time I was sixty seven, well over fifty years, I smoked – two to three packs a day. Not only did it help bring about the coronary problem, it also did irreparable damage to my lungs. Looking back on it, it’s hard for me to believe that I was so dumb for so long. Knowing what we know now, it’s idiotic for smokers to continue smoking and it’s moronic for young people to start smoking. Anyway, I quit on August 30, 1988, in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and, though I still miss it now and then, I have no real desire to start again.

By the end of 1988, the newsletter was becoming a burden that I didn’t want to carry too much longer. As it happens, shortly after I retired from the government, the College of Communication at Boston University established a Center for Defense Journalism and the Dean of the College invited me to serve on their Advisory Board. He also wanted the Center to start producing a newsletter. What he had in mind was very much like the one I was already producing – a commentary on media coverage of defense matters. So, for a very modest sum that did not involve a profit for me, I sold the newsletter to Boston University. It is now the flagship publication of the Center for Defense Journalism, and I am listed as a Contributing Editor, which means that I write an article now and then for them, and give them some ideas on what I think they ought to write about – all for free, of course.

For money I’ve been doing some free-lance writing and a little consulting for people who want to start newsletters or newspapers. I’m also trying to get into the fiction field, short stories mostly. The trouble is that I’m not hungry enough, as they say in the trade, which means that the motivation to try hard is lacking. Fortunately, you see, my government pension is quite generous, after almost 40 years of service (including Army time in WWII).

Last year I started taking some courses at the University of Maryland. One of the advantages of being over 65 is that you can go to school free here. One course in particular sounded intriguing – a course in modern military history, which starts in 1494 and extends to the present time. I found it fascinating and exciting. Also, humbling. There is so much I don’t know. As it happens, the professor used to work in the Army Historian’s office, and we knew each other slightly. I was truly impressed with the depth and range of knowledge he displayed.

When we got to the WWII era, about which I thought I knew a lot, I displayed my ignorance on occasion. He was very patient with me. Of course, most of the other students didn’t realize how truly ignorant I was. They thought that just because I was there that I knew more than I did. So, like the old saying goes, it’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. I tried to keep my mouth shut most of the time. One thing, though, that really impressed those young people, an attitude that was expressed very well by one when he said:  “You fought in World War II? Wow! My grandfather fought in World War II.”

Nowadays, when I’m out walking with my grandchildren, the young pretty girls never mistake me for their father. It used to be easy to start a conversation with them in the presence of the children, but now they got me pegged. “You must be the grandfather,” they say. I can’t imagine why, since I look as young and handsome as I always did.

That’s about all there is to the continuing story of my life. I’m now tapering off the work ethic and beginning to enjoy the retired life, especially the ability to yield to sudden impulses to take off and go where we want or do what we want.

With love and best wishes to all of you,
HZ

Copyright 2016, Elaine Blackman

'Picture of a Man' -- a WWII story

The address at the top of the stale, typewritten story in Harry's files reads: H.M. Zubkoff, 192 Crestwood Ave., Buffalo 16, New York. It means he wrote it before he moved to Maryland in 1949, and before he turned 29. We can assume he was back from his post-war stint with the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps. He served in France and Germany on a mission to hunt down Nazi war criminals and gather evidence for the Nuremberg Trials. Harry spoke little about those years, vowing silence because, he would say, "If I tell you, they'll kill me." He stated for the WWII Veteran's History Project, however, that he had spoken extensively with Holocaust survivors in internment camps. Writing fictional stories may have given him an outlet to “reveal” his observations and experience. The top photo in the graphic below is Harry in Germany, 1946. We can only guess about the other two -- one looks like a mass gravesite; the other a soldier with a whip. Did he confiscate these during his mission?

                                       

The little man worked silently, his blunt, efficient little fingers moving as of their own volition. He was a mild looking man, with greyish hair, thinning at the top, and watery blue eyes looking out of a face on which many hardships had etched deep lines. Now and then he glanced furtively up at the uniformed guard, standing so rigidly at the end of the aisle.

Around him, the noises of mass-production in an underground factory swelled in a discordant volume of sound, the vibrations causing the air itself to almost visibly palpitate in the deafening, maddening din.

On balconies, circling and crisscrossing the huge cavern, other guards stood or leaned against the wood railings, peering intently into the inferno below, some even using binoculars.

The sudden, unearthly shriek of a whistle cut through the clamor like a knife. Within thirty seconds the almost unbearable noise was replaced by an even more unwelcome, deadly silence. Every man stood stiffly at attention by his machine, eyes downcast. The measured tramp of two highly polished pairs of boots resounded through the silence as they made their way in unison to a spot two aisles away. Then that hated voice spoke in metallic tones over the loudspeaker.

“Maurice deWitt, for inefficiency in the performance of his work. Twenty lashes!”

Not a face lifted, not a muscle twitched, not an eye blinked, and yet the already tense atmosphere of the underground cavern was suddenly surcharged with electricity – the electricity generated by the soul-consuming hatred of a thousand slave laborers. The guards must have sensed it, for they became even more watchful, alert for the slightest indication of an outbreak.

The little man had not moved a muscle. Like the rest, he had given no sign that he had heard. But behind the impassive mask of his face he knew, from bitter experience, only too well what those words meant. His body still bore the scars from the twenty lashes he had received months before. And beneath his thinning patch of greyish hair, his thoughts boiled and seethed with all the concentrated fury of his terrible hatred.

Outwardly, he gave no sign of the turmoil within. For he must not give his thoughts away. He must wait and bide his time. His day would come. And when it did, let those Nazi pigs beware.

They had led the offender away to the “Area of Punishment” and now, as he stood motionless at his bench, he could hear the whip whistling as it slashed its way through the air to cut its victim’s back into ribbons. But no shrieks of agony. No, these poor, tired, broken slaves no longer cried out with pain. They knew how the Nazi beasts loved the sight of their suffering, how they licked their chops like hungry dogs at the prospect of inflicting pain and torture on these defenseless slaves. And they had long since ceased crying out at their beatings. Not out of bravery, but rather out of spite. Now their silence in their torment was even more terrible than their screams.

The Nazis were baffled by this awful silence in the face of their brutality. Bewildered and angry, they continued to heap more and more abuse on these “stupid slaves”.

The sudden unearthly shriek of a whistle cut through the silence like a knife. Within thirty seconds, the deadly silence was replaced by the almost unbearable noises of mass production in an underground factory. Life resumed its maddening monotony to a thousand slave laborers as they again took up the routine of production.

The little man worked silently, his blunt, efficient little fingers moving as of their own volition. But they turned out less than half the amount of work of which they were capable. His heart was heavy as he performed the mechanical motions of his job. How could he, how could they ever throw off the yoke of this tyrannical oppressor? How could they ever again attain their freedom, their hopes, their happiness? Their only possible hope lay with the American Armies advancing from the West. God grant that they would arrive soon. Neither he nor his people could last much longer under these conditions. And the Nazis had a way of dealing with men who have outlived their usefulness.

That night, as he rested fitfully on a filthy straw mat, he could hear the intermittent rumbling of the big guns to the West. They kept time with the tom-tom beating of his heart and he almost slept well.

In the morning the guns sounded considerably closer and the Nazi guards were visibly nervous as they herded their captives toward the yawning hole in the ground that was the entrance to the hated factory.

Once again the utterly meaningless routine of production absorbed his attention, while the air resounded to the vibrations of the infernal machines.

But as he glanced surreptitiously around the huge hall, he noted that there seemed to be many guards missing from their posts. So, they were worried! And they had good cause to be, too.

It was late in the afternoon when he discovered that the guards had all disappeared. The corners of the aisles, the balconies circling and crisscrossing above, all were deserted. Fearful lest it be another of their fiendish tricks, he continued his methodical output of work.

Gradually others became aware of this curious phenomenon of the missing guards. But it was not until after dark, not until the first American patrol cautiously advanced into the tunnels with leveled guns, that they realized that their days of slavery were over, that their dim, half-forgotten hopes of freedom were at last being realized.

* * *

Two days had passed, two eventful days in which the Americans had consolidated their position and in which the slaves, once more restored to the rightful state of free humanity, had celebrated. Many were on their way home, if their homes were still standing. Many had elected to stay and work their machines voluntarily to produce for their newfound allies. And so, the third day found the underground factory once more in the full swing of production.

The little man worked silently, his blunt efficient little fingers moving as of their own volition. He was a mild looking man, with greyish hair, thinning at the top, but his bright blue eyes looked out of a face on which many hardships had etched deep lines. Now and then, he glanced absently up at the uniformed guard, lounging at the end of the aisle. Occasionally, the guard winked at him, a simple act which caused his heart to beat warmly in him.

Around him the noises of mass production in an underground factory swelled in an harmonious volume of sound, a huge symphonic arrangement as the machines beat out their pattern of music, producing weapons for victory.

He would stay here and work till his job was finished, till the beasts of nazidom were wiped from the face of the earth. Then, and only then, would he feel free to go home, to take up the threads of his shattered life and rebuild all that had been destroyed in the brief days of the tyrant.

The little man worked silently, his blunt efficient little fingers moving as of their own volition.

THE END

Copyright 2016

Elaine Blackman  

Harry's blizzard ballad

My brother took this photo of our house in Silver Spring, MD. I believe it was the 1966 blizzard.

Who remembers the Blizzard of January 1966? (This news video might spark your memory.) As snow began falling, my dad left work at the Pentagon to drive a few staffers home in Virginia suburbs before heading back to Maryland. However, by the time they arrived at the first residence, conditions worsened, leaving four women plus Harry stranded in an apartment. 

We kids were home from school for a week or more (yay!), while our dad called daily with an update. Once the train was up and running, he traveled back to Maryland, but left his car snowed in. What I didn’t know until my recent discovery -- Harry wrote a poem about his little, winter adventure and attached it to the Feb 3, 1966, edition of the Current News, his Defense Department publication.
 

The Ballad of Harry and Four

Here and there the snow lay fallen,

Evening nigh and home was calling.

Work was finished, labors over,

They all began to run for cover.

On Saturday.

Ursula, Carol, Jean and Harry,

Hied to supper, stayed to tarry.

And onward, upward piled the snow,

So far as Jeannie’s could they go.

On Saturday.

There stayed Harry, Top Banana,

Urse, Carol, Jean and Anna!

Stayed the evening, spent the night,

The five of them – and all was right.

Till Sunday.

Sabbath came – true paradise,

With Harry center of all eyes.

The four fair maids and Harry rested,

Made helpless by the snow invested.

On Sunday.

There our Harry stayed and dreamed,

While the fair maids pampered, preened.

What mortal has the luck of me,

Who hasn’t dreamed this reverie?

On Sunday.

So passed the night; a new day dawned.

The dreamer’s dream was over.

There may be snow upon the ground,

But Harry was in clover.

Then came Monday.

Alas the news: the road is clear!

Elysium fields turn brown and sere.

Serene, we hope, our Harry slumbers,

Chaste not by virtue, but by numbers.

Seminars and such, also in rhyme

Occasionally my dad was away on other (pre-planned) work-related trips. He attended seminars, conferences, and speech-writing expeditions with the Secretary of Defense -- you know, the usual. And, what did I recently discover? Right! He documented each event with a poem. However, I'm not sure I found a poem for one particular seminar. You see, in November 2013, Harry and my husband were watching a TV program commemorating the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination. "I know that guy," said Harry, nonchalantly, pointing to the Dallas police chief in the 1963 video. He explained to my husband that shortly after the assassination, the pressure of the investigation got to the chief, so his department sent him to training for a few weeks. Harry and the chief were partnered as roommates. I imagine they had interesting talks!

Here's an example of a poem from a different seminar:


Executive Seminar Center
Kings Point, NY
February 1965 

Sunday, February 7

So the students came together,
On a grey and rainy day,
Summoned here despite the weather
Some from very far away!

Harry at a mid-'60s work-related event

So they hearkened and they listened
To DeVore and Beck (his boss),
Marked their words with eyes that glistened,
Some were at a total loss.

Gathered and recalled past glories,
Met and got acquainted, too,
Swapped some yarns and told some stories
Learned to know just who was who!

Monday, February 8 

First, the furnace clanged and pounded,
Through the night, before the dawn,
Then the bugle loudly sounded
Like a banshee on the lawn.

Came two speakers here to see us,
Tried to get their message through,
Coffee breaks were timed to free us,
But we grasped a thought or two.

Toured the campus, hit the club,
Found the bar and did some loops,
Then, confound it, here's the rub,

Presenting a retirement poem in 1975

Organized five working groups.

Tuesday, February 9

Now we know who runs the Center,
Who administers the works,
Not DeVore or Beck, his mentor,
They are just the working jerks.

Mrs. Lester, first name Mabel,
She heads up the Center staff,
Rose and Pamela, they're able,
They cut donuts up -- in half.

Listened to a rousing lecture,
On the people "in the know",
Made us think and then conjecture
What would happen if we "go".


The poem goes on to chronicle each day of the two-week seminar, plus a lengthy goodbye poem that mentions all attendees. Another of his "poetic journals" goes for three weeks! Now I understand yet another reason Harry was dubbed the Pentagon Poet Laureate.

Copyright 2016
Elaine Blackman