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

Things you might not know about drones

Harry in the 1990s

Recently I read about a trending toy for kids and adults – a modular drone. I couldn’t help but wonder whether the inventors know anything about the history of drones, which I learned only after reading the following article. Harry wrote it in 1991 and filed it (untitled) on his computer. He may have submitted it for Defense Media Review, the newsletter he originated post-retirement. Of course, he would have kept up with the evolution of drones in later years. And, he probably predicted drones as toys.


The SCUDs and the PATRIOTs got the lion’s share of media attention during the Gulf War, with the aircraft, the smart bombs and the tanks getting secondary billing. But there is another weapon that played a vital role – one that seems to have been overlooked by the public. The so-called drones – remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs) – served as a critically important intelligence tool in spotting targets for both aerial bombardment and artillery.

The drone is not generally regarded as a high-tech weapon, but that’s exactly what it is. In earlier versions, it would fly over a target area carrying a camera and bring back pictures that had to be developed and studied by expert photo interpreters before commanders could make tactical decisions. By that time, the target situation on the ground may well have changed. Present-day drones, however, are equipped with sophisticated night-vision sensors and television cameras mounted underneath the fuselage to provide an unobstructed view of the ground. They send back information in real time while overflying the target area, thus enabling commanders to make immediate tactical decisions.

Ironically, considering that Iraq tried in vain to draw Israel into the conflict by lobbing 39 SCUD
missiles into Israeli population centers, the drones used by the American forces were purchased from Israel. IAI (Israel Aircraft Industries) is a world leader in the field. The impetus for the development of its drones came from the 1973 war in which Syria’s Soviet-built SAM missiles inflicted unacceptable losses on Israeli aircraft. Israel decided at that time that it would make better sense to use relatively cheap unmanned planes for reconnaissance, rather than the very expensive manned aircraft, to say nothing about the lives of its pilots.

Beginning in 1974, the Israelis invested substantial resources in developing a pilotless aircraft that could make the best use of the rapidly evolving technologies involved in radio, television cameras, computers and communications. By 1982, during the Lebanese operation, Israel’s drones made it possible for its Air Force to eliminate Syria’s SAMs in the Beka Valley in one day with no Israeli losses, a remarkable performance, which the American military studied with considerable interest.     

The U.S. Army in the 1970s tried to develop its own RPV, but after investing some ten years and around a billion dollars, it gave up. The U.S. Navy didn’t really become interested until the mid-1980s, when it lost two of its planes to SAM missiles in Lebanon. After sponsoring an international competition, which IAI won, the Navy bought Israel’s RPV, called the Pioneer system. Modified by IAI for use from battleships instead of land bases or aircraft carriers, these drones were used for the first time by the U.S. in the Gulf War.

At first they were used to monitor Iraqi deployments and fortifications, both in Kuwait and across the border in Iraq. After the fighting started, they were used as artillery spotters for the big guns on the battleships Missouri and Wisconsin, as well as for Army and Marine batteries. Their transmissions showed the gunners exactly where their rounds were hitting, enabling them to adjust their sights for specific targets with devastating accuracy from a few miles to as much as 30 or 35 miles away.

Two people operate the ground facility controlling the RPV system, one to “fly” the vehicle with radio controls, the other to monitor the camera, the night vision equipment, and the communications gear. The payload technician can zoom in on targets without regard to the direction of the drone’s flight, although the two operators must for the most part coordinate their efforts. The effective range is ordinarily no more than about 125 miles, depending on the altitude of the drone, since radio communication between the drone and the ground controllers is by line-of-sight.

Given the spectacular, though largely unsung success of these drones, it seems most likely that the Army and the Navy/Marine Corps gunnery planners will start acquiring more such systems for future use. The Air Force, on the other hand, seems to have little interest in the notion of planes without pilots.

Copyright 2016, Elaine Blackman

Harry recounts McCarthy-era case in our Greenbelt (Maryland) hometown – Part 2

In 1954, Harry was enjoying an active community life with his family and friends in Greenbelt, MD. He had been working at the Pentagon for only a few years when he stepped up to testify on behalf of fellow Greenbelters.

In my previous post, I shared the first part of Harry’s informal account of a McCarthy-era case in Greenbelt, MD. I left off where Harry was sworn in to testify on behalf of men dismissed by the Navy as security risks. Harry was friends and community volunteers with these men. He wrote this account in February 2010 when he was 88; I found it in his files in 2015, a year after he died.

The first half hour was just chatter, so to speak, when the tape ran out, and then the Assistant Secretary said to me, if you’d like to say anything off-the-record, while the tape machine is not working, feel free. So … this may not be exactly verbatim, but this is pretty much what I said to them – and I have told this to very few people before. …

I told them I felt proud and privileged to be working for the Dept. of Defense, but that I was intensely and profoundly ashamed of the Navy for its action in dismissing these five people as security risks. The fact that they were all involved in organizing the residents of Greenbelt into a cooperative housing group to buy the community from the government should have alerted their investigators. The fact that the accusations of communist leanings or similar vague assertions all came from the same sources – people who were opposed to the sale of the community to residents – should have alerted them. The fact that all of the dismissed persons were Jewish should have given them pause and caused them to ask if there was some anti-Semitism involved – actually there was, but I considered it a minor thing, more of a coincidence than a causal factor. (But for the Navy, it had the appearance of anti-Semitism.) And finally, the Navy investigators had taken the accusations by the accusers, and the Navy Dept. had acted on them, without ever actually investigating and interviewing others in the community to confirm or refute the allegations.

They had branded the newspaper that I was the Editor of, as a communist rag without ever interviewing me and my associate editor as a communist fellow traveler, also without ever talking to me. And I was ashamed of the Navy for having caved in to the witch hunt that Sen. McCarthy was conducting, and I said flat out that anyone who considers my associate editor as a communist sympathizer or a security risk ought to have his head examined. Now the Navy is being subjected to public scrutiny because of the case I mentioned before – the guy who went public – and you need to find a way to back down without appearing to back down. The three guys who aren’t fighting it – that’s moot over with and gone – but these two, you ought to just clear them and let them get back to work. It’s my guess that if you reinstate them, they’ll resign gracefully and disappear from public view. After all, why would they want to continue to work for the Navy after this experience?

About then, the tape recorder guy said the tape is up and running again and the Assistant Secretary called the meeting to order again and said to me, we’re back on the record. Then they asked me a few more questions, touching on the things I had just unloaded on them but not in depth. My feeling was that it was all just a formality, that they had already made up their minds and were just going through the motions. Anyway, it took another year before they announced that the two guys had been cleared and reinstated in their jobs.

So, my associate editor, who was very grateful to me, told me that during that two-year period, he had had several jobs, selling shoes, selling cars, and finally, working for the Park and Planning Commission as an urban planner – and he thought when he was cleared and reinstated he would get all his back pay – two years’ worth. Not true. What he got was all his back pay minus what he had earned in other jobs during that time. It amounted to only a few thousand dollars, most of which went to the lawyer. Both guys, by the way, resigned two weeks after they were reinstated.

After I testified, Secretary Talbott called me in and asked how it went and I told him what I just told you – all I had said at the hearing. He told me that the whole subject of those security dismissals had come up at the weekly meeting of the Service Secretaries with the Secretary of Defense, several times, and he had personally told the Secretary of the Navy about me, that I worked for him and that he fully supported me.

Many, many years later, when Fritz Kramer was a Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Army, he told me that a Navy investigator had come to see him when he was still in Army Intelligence to ask about me and that he had let the guy know in no uncertain terms that the idea that I might be sympathetic to communism was ludicrous. And he asked me what that was all about, so I told him the whole story, too. Well, most of it. The whole story is much too complicated. I have tried to condense it here which necessarily leaves out a lot of pertinent information. It’s ironic, by the way, that Secretary Talbott had to resign under a cloud, so to speak. As I understand it, he had used his office as Secretary of the Air Force for some personal business. Still, I remember him with gratitude for his support when I needed it.

 You can read more on this case and about Greenbelt history in “Greenbelt, Maryland, A Living Legacy of the New Deal” by Cathy D. Knepper. The book includes several quotes from Harry.

Harry in 1951 above, 1953 below (with me)

  Copyright 2015, Elaine Blackman


The (mostly) fabulous '50s

In 1949, the Zubkoff family of three left Buffalo and moved to an apartment near the "Center" in young Greenbelt. In 1953, the family of four moved close by to a row house at 17-H Ridge Rd., where we lived till 1963, when I was 11. I have an early memory of one night watching Harry and a few others working on the newspaper at the dining room table. Maybe they were discussing the outcome of the McCarthy case that had upset the whole community for the past year or more.

 

Despite the turbulence of the McCarthy case, and I'm guessing many more crises to come, Harry often claimed he "had the best job in the world" for 36 years at the Pentagon. Here are a few 1950s-era photos of Harry at work: getting an award; gathering with associates at an event (by the time I worked for the government, alcohol was not allowed on the premises); and posing with a group of young adults, possibly interns or the flying club he taught.

Harry recounts McCarthy-era case in our Greenbelt (Maryland) hometown

In 1952, Harry and his family had settled into the young city of Greenbelt, MD. The next year, he found himself immersed in a political drama involving both his community and his workplace.

Do you know anyone who was accused as a communist sympathizer during the McCarthy era in the early 1950s? “McCarthyism” hit close to home when I discovered the following informal story that Harry wrote for someone (unknown) in February 2010, when he was 88. It was part of a larger historical piece about his Pentagon office, from 1950 to1987. I'm sure Harry's extended family will be awed by yet another experience of his life.

In 1953, I came forcefully to the attention of the Secretary [of the Air Force]. Here’s what happened. This has nothing to do with my Air Force [civilian] career. You may recall that this was the era of Senator Joe McCarthy, who accused the State Dept. and the Defense Dept. of harboring a bunch of communists. Security considerations took precedence over everything else in DOD. Early in 1953, the Navy Dept. fired five people as security risks.

Now, at the time, I was working part-time as editor of a weekly newspaper in Greenbelt, MD, where I was living. I did that from 1950 to 1961, and Greenbelt was a predominantly democratic community of politically aware and activist democrats. It also had a hard core minority of conservatives, mainly centered in the local American Legion Post.

Eleanor Roosevelt, a supporter of Greenbelt, 
visited the new Center School in 1938. I was 
excited to find this original photo in Harry's files.

Greenbelt was a government town, built by the WPA [Work Projects Administration in the New Deal Agency] under FDR mainly for government employees, and managed and administered by government employees. Working on the community newspaper was a volunteer thing. All of the businesses in Greenbelt were cooperatives and, in the eyes of the conservatives, cooperatives and communists were closely related, although the most successful in the country in those days were the big farm cooperatives, organized and run by conservative republicans. The huge agribusinesses of today grew out of those farm cooperatives.

In 1953, the government decided to get out of the housing business. There were three towns in the country built by the government; one in [Greenhills] Ohio, one in Greenbelt just outside of Washington, DC, and the third in [Greendale] Wisconsin. The government offered to sell these towns to the residents if they could organize themselves and put up the money – otherwise, they would be sold to developers. The other two towns were sold to developers.

But in Greenbelt, we were successful in organizing a cooperative housing company and putting up the money, but there was stiff conservative opposition and some of those hardline conservatives accused the organizers of being communists. We were all renters, you see, and many of them did not have the money to put up to buy their homes, and they wanted the town sold to a developer so they could continue paying cheap rent.

Harry with Jeanette and his associate editor friend, 1953

Well, any rumor that someone’s a communist was dangerous in those days. The Navy fired five men as security risks, all of whom lived in Greenbelt and all of whom were among the organizers of the housing cooperative that was planning to buy the town. One of them was my associate editor on the newspaper and all of them were friends of mine. Three of them decided not to fight it. They just left town and moved to other parts of the country and started new lives. Two stayed and fought. One of them went public and became famous, in a way. They made a movie about his case called “Three Brave Men.”

The reporter from The Washington Post who covered the story won the Pulitzer Prize and went to work for The New York Times. The three brave men were: the guy who was fired, his lawyer, and the Assistant Secretary of the Navy who made the final decision to reinstate him, and defy Senator McCarthy. The actor who played the part of the main character was an Academy Award winner. He won the Oscar for “Marty”.

My associate editor fought it, too, but he didn’t go public. The problem for me was two-fold. First, I was associated with him and there was a lot of talk at that time about “guilt by association,” and second, the newspaper itself was accused of being a communist paper and I was the editor. All of which placed me under suspicion. And I had a Top Secret clearance from the Air Force, etc.

The Navy had scheduled a hearing for my associate editor and I offered to testify as Editor of the paper on his behalf along with the Minister of the Community Church and the local Chief of Police. But, before I did, I told my boss, the AA to Secretary of the Air Force, that I was going to do that and if it would embarrass the Air Force I offered to resign. He said let’s talk to the Secretary who, at that time, was Harold Talbott, which we did. Talbott said to me that if there is anything in your background that could lead anyone to believe that you’re a communist or are sympathetic to communism, tell me now, because we will put a special investigation on you and it’s bound to come out. I said I’ve already been investigated and cleared and my life is an open book. But, I said, I plan on being harshly critical of the Navy, and since I work for you, it might hurt you or the Air Force. And he said, if you’re clean I’ll back you all the way, and f--- the Navy.

Well, it took almost a year before a hearing was scheduled and I was called to testify. A guy named Adam Yarmolinsky wrote up a report on several of those security cases, including this one. At the hearing was the Navy’s Assistant Secretary, the Navy Vice Admiral who was the Navy JAG officer, and the Navy’s General Counsel, and a couple other Navy folks whose jobs I didn’t catch, and one person who operated the tape recorder. It was a formal hearing in a formal setting and I was sworn in.

They asked me a few questions about my background, my education, and my service in the army during the war. Then they asked me about my associate editor and about the newspaper, what my job as editor entailed, etc. The first half hour was just chatter, so to speak, when the tape ran out, and then the Assistant Secretary said to me, if you’d like to say anything off-the-record, while the tape machine is not working, feel free. So … this may not be exactly verbatim, but this is pretty much what I said to them – and I have told this to very few people before. …

To be continued next week ...