April 1982

WHERE HAVE ALL THE ·FORESTS GONE? THE DISEASE DETECTIVES

SPAN 2

Ambassador Barnes Meets the Indian Press

4

Private Capital for Public Projects

by M. Peter McPherson

5

Where Have All the Forests Gone?

From Tree to Super Tree

by Stephen Grover

Agroforestry: Making the Most of Forests

by David Spurgeon

An Indian Experiment in Social Forestry

13

Ocean-Fired Power Plants

by Roger H. Charlier

16

Movies: The Importance of Being Popular

by Bruno Bettelheim

17

High Scores for American and Indian Cinema

by Chidananda Das Gupta

22

The Many-Sided Smithsonian

by Sunil Roy

26

America's Attic

by Michael Weiss

28

George Bush The Handyman of American Politics

by Nick Thimmesch

32

Good News on World Food

by Julian L. Simon

35

On the Lighter Side

36

The Disease Detectives

by Jo Durden-Smith

39

Halfway House on the Way Home From Jail

by David W. Dunlap

40

Tharp Dancing

BY Elizabeth. Kendall

46

Focus. On ...

Editor Managing Editor

Mal Oettinger Chidananda Das Gupta

Assistant Managing Editor

Krishan Gabrani

Senior Editor

Aruna Dasgupta

Copy Editor Editorial Assistant

Murari Saha Rocque Fernandes

Photo Editor

Avinash Pasricha

Art Director

Nand Katyal

Associate Art Director

Kanti Roy

Assistant Art Director

Bimanesh Roy Choudhury

Chief of Production

Awtar S. Marwaha

Circulation Manager

P.N. Saigal

Photographic Service

ICA Photographic Services Unit

Photographs: Inside front cover-courtesy Smithsonian Institution.

3-R.N. Khanna. 4-U.S. Agency for International Development.

5-Loren McIntyre, Woodfin Camp. 6-7-courtesy Mead Corporation.

8-Matt Bradley. 13, 15-courtesy Sea Frontiers. 17 bottom-courtesy United Artists. iZ-27-Smithsonian Institution and International Communication Agency 'except 24 center left and 25 right top by Arnold Newman, and 27 top left by Avinash Pasricha. 32-Marc & Evelyne Bernheim, Rapho Guillumette Pictures. 39-Don Hogan Charles, The New York Times. 40-44-Jack Mitchell. 46-Avinash Pasricha. Inside back cover-top left and bottom-courtesy Visual Merchandising Magazine; center left and right-courtesy Retail Reporting Bureau; center -courtesy Dayton's Department Store, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Back cover-courtesy Bloomingdale's.

Published by the International Communication Agency, American Center, 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001, on behalf of the American Embassy, New Delhi. The opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the United States Government.

Printed by H.K. Mehta at Thomson Press (India) Limited, Faridabad, Haryana.

Useof SPAN articles in other publications is encouraged. except when copyrighted.Forpermission. write to the Editor. Price of magazine, one year's subscription (12 issues) 21 rupees. single copY. 2 rupees 75 paise. For change of address send an old address from a recent SPAN envelope along with new address to Circulation Manager. SPAN Magazine, 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001. See change of address form on page 48b

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WHERE HAVEALLTHE FORESTS GONE'?

THE OCSEASE DETECTIVES

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Front cover: "The Castle," as the original Smithsonian building, founded in 1846, is popularly known. It soon became too small to house the ever-growing collection of paraphernalia from all over the world.

See also pages 22 -27.

Back cover: A rose is a rose is a ... face! This surrealistic window display at Bloomingdale's store in New York City is characteristic of the art of store display todaycreative and eye catching.

See also page 49.

The Mayor of New York City, Edward Koch, has proved himself a popular and durable politician.

His motto, recited frequently before crowds of voters, is "How am I doing?" (It ha s been pointed out that a politician would probably be most unsuccessful if his motto were "What am I doing? ") Like Mayor Koch, we at SPAN get the occasional urge to know how we're doing, what the readers think of the magazine.

We get letters, of course, and are impressed by the literary quality of many of them and the far-out surrealism of a few. We try to acknowledge them, even answer them if the queries are within our ken. But we recognize that the ca sua I letter-tothe-editor author is not necessarily a typica I reader. He or she may be moved by pique or ebullience -- emotions we can hardly a spire to stir in that average reader.

Yet we seek to prompt reactions to SPAN and the articles that appear in it.

We strive for an ingenious mixture of pictures and articles, of news about America and happenings in India, of culture, science, economics and world affairs.

We recognize that a survey solicited from our readers would be less than scientific accord'ing to the exacting professional standards of statisticians and pollsters.

Nevertheless, to those readers who have the time and the inclination to take this issue as typical of SPAN and to send us their candid reactions to its contents, we would be grateful.

This issue begins with a partial transcript of Ambassador Harry Barnes' speech to the Pres s Club of India in New Delhi. Some of his remarks were reported in the daily newspapers and some of the questions and answers were summarized in the press.

We offer a fuller account that gives some flavor of the give-a'nd-take and deals with issues about which the Ambassador is frequently questioned.

The next article, by the director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, outlines some of the administration s proposed goals and methods in foreign aid. Would readers like to see more or less of this kind of current events coverage?

I,n the field of science, SPAN discusses successful reforestatio!1 projects in the United States and India and a new source of energy from the sea; on the medical front, we report the methods of the "disease detectives," the indefatigable scientists of the U . S. Center for Disea se Control. Would you like to read more about science and technology?

If so, which aspects most interest you?

Under the broad umbrella of culture, we present a view of the Calcutta Filmotsav 82: Indian and American films evaluated by SPAN's Managing Editor, the noted critic Chidananda Das Gupta. The eminent psychologist Bruno Bettelheim contributes a philosophica I look a t the popularity of the film medium. We introduce readers to the novel and saucy modern-dance techniques of Twyla Tharp. Everyone likes culture, we assume -- but which of the arts do you most enjoy reading about?

Socia I issues, domestic and international, are covered in articles about t.he world food supply and U. S. convicts being helped a s they re-enter society. A profile of Vice President George Bush, after little more than a year in office, and the story of the Smithsonian Institution, which offers a bit of something for everyone, round out the coverage. Don't forget cartoons. More or less?

An evaluation of this and other issues of SPAN would be of inestimable help to the editors of the magazine. We'd like to know if you find SPAN useful in your work or your studies. How many people read each issue in your circle of family and friends?

If readers would like to send us their opinions, we may be able to summarize suggestions and criticisms in a future issue.

--M.P. I

Ambassador ¡Barnes Meets /

Speaking recently to the Press Club of India in New Delhi, U.S. Ambassador Harry G. Barnes, Jr., (right) stressed that the two countries should make an honest effort to understand each other's viewpoints. In the following excerpt from his address, the Ambassador also answers in detail a question about U.S. military assistance policies.

Before turning to a few comments on relations between the United States and India, I think it is useful to say a few words about my own country. I would start here simply at the obvious place: the beginning. This year we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of our first President, George Washington. And Washington reminds us of our own struggle for independence, of our own determination to achieve our freedom and to maintain it. Washington also reminds us of the fact that in the American character there is a certain realism, a recognition of the limitations on our abilities, but also a determination to reach the goals that we set.

Also this year we celebrate the lOOth anniversary of the birth of our 32nd President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And Roosevelt, both through such statements as¡ the Atlantic Charter and through his own efforts during the war, sought, as you know, not only to restore freedom to countries which had lost it, but also to find ways of extending freedom and independence to countries which did not yet have it. And as you also know, India was a very great concern to him-freedom for India.

No American can pretend that we have always lived up to our ideals. Perhaps we never shall. But those ideals are there and they must be understood as a fundamental factor if one wishes to understand the United States-the two ideals of freedom and democracy.

What has struck me, turning now to the question of relations between India and the United States, is the sort of thing to which Mr. J.D. Singh [of The Times of India] has just referred [in his welcome address]-the expression "two countries which are divided by common ideals."

T

he puzzlement I found both in the United States and here very often takes the form of the question: Why is it that we as Americans, we as Indians, seem to get along so well on a personal level, and yet our countries, our governments, can't seem to do as well? And if one looks at any day's papers, you can see why this impression might be created ....

Some Indian friends have told me that we Americans seem ¡to have an ability to give India what it doesn't want, and not give India what it does. For example, they say, "You give F-16s to Pakistan, we don't want those .... We want fuel for our reactors in Tarapur, but you don't give us that. We want a loan from the IMF, but you don't approve of that."_ In all fairness I must say that if one takes that viewpoint, it does appear that there may be some truth in the statement that is sometimes made-that the United States has an anti-India bias or the United States is tilted against India.

But as you know it is often said that appearances are deceiving, and I think here the appearances of Indo-American relations prove that saying in many respects. One can't understand the sale of American arms to Pakistan at this period without understanding the American reaction to the Soviet invasion and continuing occupation of Afghanistan. One can't understand the dispute over fuel for Tarapur without understanding the depth of feelings

in the United States on the question of nonproliferation. And one can't understand the American attitude toward the IMF loan without knowing something about the economic problems our country is now facing ....

I have been talking so far about problems. And certainly one of my principal responsibilities is that of a person who tries to explain American policies and the reasons for those policies.

But I have other, and I would say equally if not more important, responsibilities as well. I have the job, as I see it, to try to help identify those areas where there are already, or can be, long-term common interests between the United States and India.

Again to take a few examples, I believe that both our countries have a common interest in ensuring that there be a flow of oil coming from the Persian Gulf, certainly so long as each of us is attempting to reduce our dependency on imported oil. Parenthetically, there already is some collaboration between some American firms and India on oil exploration. I expect there will be more.

Or to take another example~both India and the United States, I believe, have an interest in stability in this part of the world and therefore an interest in a stable Pakistan. And both India and. the United States have an interest in developing a world system that meets the needs of developing countries.

I think for all the attention that is properly and rightly paid to the questions on which we have differing approaches, we don't talk as much as we should about those areas where we do continue to work effectively together. I have been in Delhi now just a little over three months and in this relatively short time I have seen convincing evidence of that ability to work well and closely together. And I would cite simply three examples which center around three occasions-in December a meeting of the Indo-U.S. Subcommission on Science and Technology, in early February a meeting of the Indo-U.S. Subcommission on Education and Culture and earlier this week the meeting of the Indo-U.S. Subcommission for Economic and Commercial Relations.

It seems to me, therefore, that we do have common ideals, we do have at least some common interests, and we do have the experience of being able to work well and effectively together.

Therefore, I cannot accept the assertion that the United States is anti-India any more than I can accept the assertion I sometimes hear in my own country that India is anti-United States.

It seems to me, in addition, understandable that the United States might want to have good relations with both India and Pakistan just as India might want to have good relations with both the USSR and the United States. But because we do have important values in common, most important of which is a commitment to a democratic society-neither one of us makes any secret of our preference on that score-it does make it possible for us to try to identify more conscientiously, what interests we also have in common.

To go back to the question or the puzzlement I referred to

the Indian Press

earlier, about the discrepancy, the difference between personal relationships and government-to-government relationships, it is fair to pose a question as to whether we in the governments can come at least somewhat closer to the friendliness, the cordiality of the personal relationships. Can we do it? I think I have to say I don't know yet. but what I do know is that I find a willingness, both in Washington and here, to try ....

Q: Excellency, the observation you were pleased to make in your opening statement, that the supply of arms to Pakistan should be seen in the context of the events in Afghanistan. ... Will it set into motion a process which will culminate in the withdrawal of the Russian troops from Afghanistan?

AMBASSADOR: I think the fundamental thing to bear in mind here is that if it had not been for the Soviet invasion and the continued occupation of Afghanistan, you would not find the American Government engaged in this military supply arrangement with Pakistan.

In our judgment, the Soviet Union through its actions in Afghanistan has moved the Soviet border to the border of Pakistan .... And that I think is a key difference that's got to be borne in mind all the time when one looks at the arms, supply.

Now, as I've had occasion to say other times, I wouldn't expect, I don't think any other American would expect, anybody in India to be enthusiastic about the United States or anybody else supplying arms to Pakistan. I understand that. But it is also important to try to understand why we think there is a particular reason, a particular need of the situation at the moment that has prompted us to act in the way we have.

And I can't prove to you that our policy will work until it has or hasn't. But let me try to sketch for you what we think we're trying to do and why we think it may make some difference. But before I go to that let me just add one other comment. Because of this interest in the stability of Pakistan-and I appreciate your thought too that it is in India's interest as well as ours-we are trying to find various ways to promote that. Please give us credit for being wise enough after, shall I say, many years of experience, to understand that there are limitations on arms: Arms can't do everything. And hence there is a substantial amount of American assistance, mostly through international organizations, to help Pakistan cope with the influx and the continued presence of Afghan refugees in that country. And there also is an economic assistance program designed to provide help to Pakistan in other areas. In addition we have

quite a large program working in Pakistan trying to make some headway on a problem which is important to us, we also think to Pakistan, and that ,is the question of drugs that are produced.

So it's a multifaceted approach, not only one.

But to address your more specific question somewhat more directly, let me try to answer it this way. We have had, perhaps as much as anyone else, for better or for worse, a number of years of experience with the USSR. In our judgment the Soviet Union is a sort of country which will take advantage of situations that look promising from their standpoint, and will take actions which, at least in the judgment of much of the rest of the world, often are extreme. I continue, parenthetically, to find it hard to understand just what it is the Soviet Union wants in Afghanistan. If they were not satisfied with the type of government that existed before Soviet troops went in, what do they need now? But that's a parenthesis ....

But precisely because the Soviet Union does tend to take the sort of interpretation it does about what constitutes its security, that is, whatever is on its border could constitute a threat to its security, we think there is a potential danger that with the border having been removed in effect to the Khyber Pass, an unstable Pakistan could begin to look to the Soviet Union as if that were a complication, a danger to Soviet security. And therefore, what we can do in terms of helping stabilize the situation in Pakistan can, we think, have an effect on the Soviet Union. It can help the Soviets understand that they can't go any farther than they have and ought to begin thinking somewhat more seriously if they should remain in Afghanistan.

Now, we don't pretend, much as has been written about the F-16-as good a plane as it might be-that, say, two squadrons of F-16s are going to defeat the Soviet air force. But we have seen enough of cross-border operations between Afghanistan and Pakistan to recognize that the existence of a greater deterrent force in Pakistan as part of Pakistan's stability, can have a salutary effect on the USSR from our standpoint. In other words, helping Pakistan become somewhat more stable, we think, is one of the preconditions, a necessary but not a sufficient condition, to increase the chances of finding that solution, a political solution, about which we all talk.

Q: I'd like to ask you whether keeping the Soviets in Afghanistan means getting American bases in Pakistan .... We'd like to really know what i••the position? The other is about your own involvement in Afghanistan. It does seem the rebels are getting better equipped, they are doing more fighting and your policy is to keep the issue alive. .

AMBASSADOR: On the first point, I repeat we are not interested in prolonging the Soviet stay in Afghanistan. Second point, we have not and are not seeking bases in Pakistan, for that purpose or any other. Third point, my understanding is that most of the equipment, most of the assistance that the people who are fighting against the regime in Afghanistan is coming from what th.ey are capturing, getting themselves.

Q: A friend in need is a friend indeed. This has been proved

by Russia. Can you cite some example where the United States has really proved a true friend to India' in the international forum?

AMBASSADOR: 1962.

[J

Private Capital for Public Projects

by M. PETER

Getting the U.S. private sector involved in foreign aid projects will enhance the effectiveness of U.S. official development assistance, says the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The private-sector thrust of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). is intended to' increase the benefits of development through economic growth, employment and income generation. Indigenous private enterprises responding to profitable opportunities produce jobs, foreign exchange and a managerial and technical skill base.

These byproQucts of profit-making enterprises are essential to meeting the needs of the poor majority in developing countries.

The mixed economies of most underdeveloped countries today recognize the inability of the public sector to carry out adequately necessary development activities. More and more multilateral institutions such as the World Bank recognize that increased entrepreneurial participation in development is required, utilizing business people whose management skills, willingness to take risks, profit motivations and free-market attitudes make them prime movers in stimulating economic development.

The key goal of USAID's privatesector emphasis is to create an environment of economic opportunity conducive to the development of indigenous private sectors. In such an environment, people can work to improve their standard of living. More specifically, such an environment affords the opportunity for people to produce and consume more food, to provide better health services, the opportunity to provide better housing and schools and to achieve higher levels of employment, earnings and savings. This requires, in many cases, a change to. sounder economic policies within lessdeveloped countries (LDCs). .

In looking at how USAID can achieve the goals set by the U.S. Congress in

McPHERSON

the Foreign Assistance Act, it is clear that the Agency has, in the recent past, tended to view government institutions as the primary instrument for achieving these goals. In doing so, M. Peter McPherson USAID has tended to de-emphasize activities that use the private sector as an instrument for development. It has not appreciated that the objectives of our development efforts would be served best by revitalizing the market economy in less-developed countries. In the developing world, the governments that have adopted and s1,1stainedthe policies and business environment that encourage private initiative at home, private investment from abroad and competitive pricing policies, are those that have enjoyed relatively high rates of economic growth, investment, employment and savings in spite of worldwide recession.

The development history of the past two decades also shows that those LDCs which have grown the fastest have followed market-oriented policies that encourage the growth of private enterprise, with· the public sector playing a complementary, supportive role. It is the examples of the economic successes in Taiwan, Brazil, Singapore and others, plus the experience of our own country, that have led us to emphasize privatesector programs.

After a thorough examination of pertinent development issues, the tools at hand, and direction from the Reagan Administration and the Congress, we have translated our indigenous privatesector development goal into the following objectives: • In association with host country and U.S. private investors, to assist in financing the establishment, improvement and exp~nsion of productive, developmentally desirable private enterprises in priority sectors in developing countries; • To promote investment opportunities in developing countries by bringing together U.S. and host country capital and experienced management, thereby

transferring technical, managerial and marketing expertise from the United States to the developing countries; • To stimulate and help create conditions conducive to the flow of U.S. and host country private capital into productive investment in developing countries.

Based upon USAID experience, and observation of other entities committed to similar objectives, USAID's regional and central bureaus as well "as our new Bureau for Private Enterprise will undertake the following activities in carrying out these objectives: • Facilitate or undertake private-sector project identification, development, promotion, packaging and financing; • Help to establish, finance and improve privately owned development finance companies and other financial institutions that will provide the capital and know-how for the development of the private sector in developiQg countries; • Make investments, in forms appropriate to the situation, in individual productive private enterprises in LDCs; • Encourage the growth of capital markets in the developing countries; • Provide counsel to host countries on how to create a climate conducive to the growth of private investment; • Create in the capital-exporting countries interest in portfolio investments in enterprises located in the developing countries; • Help to establish training institutions and programs, both managerial and technical, to support private-sector development and linkages between the U.S. and LDC private sectors.

We intend to utilize our necessarily limited resources to attract investments from others-whether private U.S.: public U.S. multilateral institutions or local private sector-to meet private-sector investment and development needs in the LDCs. At the same time, we are mindful of the fact that we are responsible for the appropriate use of taxpayer funds. We do not intend to permit private businesses to shift all or even the largest share of their entrepreneurial risk to the United States Government.

USAID's private-sector initiative cuts across all bureaus in the Agency. The (Text continued on page 45)

FORESTS CURRENTLY cover about one-quarter of the earth's land surface. By the end of the 20th century, this figure is expected to drop to one-fifth. While large-scale deforestation is not a recent phenomenon, the specter of massive forest destruction and accelerating soil erosion resulting from unprecedented fuelwood harvesting has begun to trigger worldwide concern. And there are even more important causes of deforestation than the population increases and energy shortages reflected in the need to obtain fuel: Timber operations and the clearing of land for crops and grazing remain the principal forces shrinking the world's forests.

The long-accepted belief that forests are an obstacle to agricultural, mineral and rural development is gradually giving way to the realization that they are a wise and valuable investment. Reforestation programs, besides supplying fuel, pulp and timber for construction, also check soil erosion. Multiple-use forestry projects being promoted around the globe are now slowing the destruction of woodland areas. And genetic research, which is developing faster growing, disease-resistant new trees, promises to aid foresters in their efforts to replace annual tree losses.

In the following pages, SPAN takes a look at the world forestry crisis and some current efforts to alleviate it.

From Tree to Super Tree

T

he proud parents are each 17 on both sides of the road south of Crossett, and their offspring on another years old, and their young offspring have already reached the plantation only kilometers away, are the age of one. They come from the best . first and second generations of a new families, their marriage was arranged with breed of tree that is revolutionizing the American forest-products industry. great care, and the progress of their Known variously as the Plus Tree, the progeny is of concern to major corporaImproved Tree and even the Super Tree, tions.

The pampered parties in question are tqe new breed comes from forebears trees-to be exact, the loblolly species of chosen for superiority in size, height, pine that is native to the southeasterIl- shape and other factors. Crossed with United States. And every stage of the each other, these naturally superior trees produce offspring that yield more and trees' development in a Georgia-Pacific better wood than the average loblolly Corporation forest near Crossett, Arkanpine and are more resistant to disease. sas, is closely monitored. The reason: "In the first generation alone," says The parent trees, growing in plantations Bruce Zobel, founder of the first applied Reprinted with permission of The Asian Wall Street Journal.

U.S. forest genetic program at Texas Š by Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

Agricultural and Mechanical University, "there's been a 10 percent improvement in yield and quality. And down the road we're looking for improvements of 50 percent."

The industry is also looking for ways to grow the same amount of material in less time, according to Zobel. "It shouldn't be too long before we can knock from five to seven years off the average rotation age"-the age, generally 30 to 35 years, at which most loblollies are harvested.

He also foresees the day when "there will be 80 to 90 percent resistance to disease Cloning and crossbreeding is producing trees with better wood, greater resistance to disease and insects, and a lower harvesting age.

in the worst areas." The present rate is 40 to 60 percent.

The loblolly isn't the only species being upgraded; similar genetic work is being done on other varieties of pine and on the Douglas fir, all softwood trees, and on such hardwoods as the sycamore, cottonwood, yellow poplar and walnut.

Tree improvement becomes more important as the amount of land available for forests shrinks. "Less than 40 percent of the continental United States, excluding Alaska, is forested now," says Stanley Krugmah, a geneticist for the U.S. Forest Service in Washington, D.C. "When the Pilgrims came to these shores, it was 75 percent."

Moreover, tree disease is on the rise.

In particular, the incidence of fusiform rust, a fungus that attacks southern pines, has reached alarming proportions. The disease is unusual, says Robert Weir, director of the North Carolina State University-Industry Cooperative Tree Improvement Program, in that it has "an alternate host, the red oak tree. The spores go from the pine to the oak and back again to the pine. The fungus does nothing to the oak, but it is devastating to the pine. The infection can kill a tree or cause cankers that deform the tree and make the wood totally unsuitable for lumber." Richard Williams, a GeorgiaPacific management forester, adds, "Fusiform rust can attack half or more of all pines in some areas."

Pines also have another enemy. "The southern pine beetle can attack whole hectares and destroy everything," Williams points out, "and there's relatively little we can do about it except destroy the infected areas and cut a buffer strip around them and hope for the best."

There are no commercially feasible insecticides or fungicides that can protect mature trees against beetles or fusiform rust. "We just have to live with fusiform rust," Williams says. "Our best hope is to produce a tree that is naturally resistant to it." Similarly, the healthier the tree, the more likely it is to survive a brigade of beetles.

So nearly every U.S. forest-products company, ranging from giants such as Georgia-Pacific to hundreds of small, closely held concerns, is investing in genetic improvement of trees. Such spending exceeds $100 million a year, the U.S. Agriculture Department estimates.

Georgia-Pacific's tree-improvement outlay is about 10 times what it was 10 years

ago. Most American forest-productS' companies belong to various universityoperated cooperatives that collect and analyze such information from individual companies for the benefit of all.

Basically, the process of genetic improvement is quite simple. Foresters begin with a naturally superior tree. In the case of the loblolly, says Leonard Breeman, manager of technical services and systems at Hammermill Paper Company's experimental program at Selma, Alabama, "We look for a tree that's big for its age, and ... straight" -important factors because of the loblolly's use in utility poles. Preferably, its limbs, which are discarded, are small and extend at right angles from the trunk (usually, limbs slant upward toward the sun).

"If a branch is angled," Breeman explains, "you get a knot that's oval instead of round." Knots are undesirable, and oval knots tend to be proportionately bigger. "A big limb at an angle can build up compressed wood (underneath the limb) that leads to twisted lumber and wood that cracks."

Adds Georgia-Pacific's Richard Williams, "We like to find a tree that has a lot of competition from surrounding trees and still does well. A tree that's large may be so only because it's an older trel" Any high-achiever tree located on Georgia-Pacific's more than 283,000 hectares of forest is called a "ham tree" because the forester spotting it is rewarded with a ham. The company normally gives out about 50 hams a year.

The top few limbs of such superior trees which can grow to a height of 23 meters by age 25 are removed, either by a forester who climbs the tree, or by a rifleman who shoots them off from the ground. Shooting is the preferred method, says James McGriff, GeorgiaPacific's assistant management forester, who once dangled helplessly from on high "when a limb broke out from under me."

The small branches are then grafted onto rootstock in carefully planted rows in experimental orchards. The resulting trees, which constitute the so-called first generation, are in effect clones of the superior trees from which they come.

They are the same age, start reproductive aetivity at the same time and have exactly the same characteristics.

When the first such grafting was done at Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University, Bruce Zobel recalls, "there

was only a 25 percent survival rate." Part of the difficulty was caused by improper matching of the cambium layers-the trees' growing tissue lying between the bark and the wood. "But now there's a 95 percent survival rate," Zobel says.

Because cloned trees have the same age as the parent, they begin to produce both pollen (the male element of fertilization) and cones (the female element) relatively quickly-usually in three to seven years. All loblollies produce both, normally at about age 25.

The loblolly's pollen season lasts from late March into early April. Says McGriff, "Our porches and cars are covered under six millimeters of the stuff." Pollen is collected from one family of firstgeneration, or cloned, trees and planted in cones of other families of cloned trees to produce seeds. To keep the cones from being fertilized by pollen from the wrong trees, the cones are covered with sausage casings or plastic bags before and during the pollen season. The cones are left in place until early autumn of the following year, when they each bear an average of about 50 seeds. The seeds are planted in nurseries where they begin their growth as the "progeny generation" of the improved tree.

Partly because the progeny generation is grown on fairly open land, Williams says, these trees also take less than the normal 25 years to reach sexual maturity.

The best of these trees are then crossed once again to produce the "second generation" of improved trees.

And because only the best of each generation is allowed to mate, every new generation tends to be better than the preceding one. Trees that don't survive the culling process are already being cut down and made into lumber or paper products. The value of the improved trees surviving the selection process can be determined by the value of their seeds; while "improved" seed isn't being sold yet in appreciable quantities, it probably. would fetch about $220 a kilogram, 10 times the price of normal loblolly seed.

With tree improvement a recent endeavor and with trees taking so long to mature, the true benefits of the genetic work will not be realized quickly. "It won't be until the year 2000 that we start harvesting improved trees in any real number," Williams says.

0 About the Author: Stephen Grover is a staff reporter for The Asian Wall Street Journal.

Making the Most of Forests

T

survival on 300 million hectares of land. 'he developed countries' current In the past the soil's fertility returned interest in biomass as a substitute to abandoned areas over a period of 25 to for oil highlights a problem poten30 years, as a result of natural processes. tially as serious as the fossil fuel shortage: But as population pressures increased, the gradual disappearance of the world's the cultivators returned to their abantropical forests.

These forests contain the largest con- doned sites much sooner, and the period centration of biomass on the planet. If of natural bush fallow was progressively this were to be used in large quantities as shortened. Today the fallow period in some parts of the developing world has an energy source, the demand on the been cut to as little as a year or two; the forests would be prodigious. To take just a small example, a recent article in The land has no chance to regain its fertility.

It loses its nutrients and thus becomes Economist estimated that "the Brazilians, useless for agriculture. to replace 20 percent of their gasoline One promising method of halting this with plant-based ethanol, require an area the size of Belgium." The article esti- destruction is the practice of agromated that "if the world's entire crop of forestry: the growing of food crops and maize, sugarcane, cassava and sweet sor- trees and the raising of livestock simultaneously on the same piece of land. A ghum was commandeered for ethanol production, this would meet a mere 6 to refinement of the very practices the early shifting cultivators carried out for so 10 percent of the world's oil demand."

Such a diversion of biomass would also many years successfully, agroforestry attempts to rationalize and improve upon compete directly with the developing world's current uses for this vast re- it with modern scientific and technologisource: More than 80 percent of the wood cal knowledge.

At the first Conference on Internationcut in these countries is used for fuel-as firewood for cooking and for warmth. For al Cooperation in Agroforestry, which villagers, forests are also the source of was held in Nairobi, Kenya, in July 1979, delegates from 31 countries and eight wood for the construction of homes; international agencies endorsed the prinfurniture and tools; fodder for livestock; ciples of agroforestry and their promofruits and medicinal herbs.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Orga- tion throughout the developing world. nization (FAO) has estimated that 860 They urged extension of agroforestry sysmillion cubic meters of wood are har- tems and drew up a list of recommenvested annually for fuel and 190 million dations designed to introduce the subject cubic meters for industrial purposes in formally into educational institutions.

In doing so, the delegates were recogdeveloping countries. While this constitutes only a small proportion of the nizing a fact that modern agriculture and potential annual production of the tropi- forestry have largely ignored: In most wet tropical zones there is usually a symbiotic cal forests, there are areas where the rate relationship between trees and agriculof cutting trees exceeds their growth rate. tural crops. Throughout the developing While commercial logging does remove the best trees, the greatest harm to world numerous examples of this simple forests is caused by the practice of shift- fact can be seen: On the small farms ing agriculture. Villagers clear a space in around Nairobi you can see Croton and the forest by cutting trees and burning the wattle trees grown in pastures, and small remaining vegetation. They plant food plots of land with crops like maize, cassacrops in the ashes and sometimes raise va, bananas, pigeon peas and onions interplanted with papaya trees, macadamia animals on the same piece of land. When, after a year or two, the soil's fertility and mango trees. In Costa Rica, Cordia, declines and crop production drops, they Cedrela and Juglans trees are grown in move on to another site and repeat the coffee and cocoa plantations, and the alder tree in pastures. In Malaysia rubber process. This practice annually destroys 10 million hectares of high forest and trees with legumes intercropped become causes a steady decline in the fertility of tappable two years earlier than they the land. An old concept-it was the first otherwise would. The raising of trees, food plants and animals together is found form of agriculture in the wet tropicsshifting agriculture is still relied on by 250 also in Sri Lanka, Bali and Papua New million people in the Third World for Guinea.

The reasons for some of these practices are simple: Trees like the wattle and the alder can "fix" nitrogen from the air in a form that makes it available to crops; they thus serve as natural fertilizers.

Trees also give shade and act as windbreaks; provide fodder for animals through their pods or leaves; condense water from the atmosphere to make agriculture possible in nearly rainless regions; and protect the soil from extremes of sunlight, hot winds and torrential rain. In some cases their long tap roots are believed to pump up nutrients from deep underground, where crop roots cannot reach. The nutrients are later returned to the soil's upper layers through leaf litter.

For the peasant farmer, mixed cultivation also has more direct benefits: It greatly increases the range of useful products his land can provide. In Indonesia, for example, local people use tree fronds for making rattan and sell the fat from the fruit of Shorea trees for the manufacture of lipstick and chocolate. In Kenya they make cheap sturdy furniture from saplings. Forest people in many countries use bark and exudates of trees and plants medicinally.

Beans from the Prosopis chilensis were used for food by American Indians long before Columbus reached America-and they still are. With 9 percent protein, their nutritional value compares favorably with barley. Another variety of Prosop is (tamarugo) can grow on desert land where rainfall is less than 100 millimeters a year, and its leaves and pods support sheep and goats. Third World farmers' property lines are frequently marked with "living fences" -trees planted in a row to serve as fence posts, and sometimes coppiced to provide branches and leaves for fodder or fuel.

Some interplanting practices have advantages that so far have not been well defined. For example, coconut trees are planted widely in the Philippines and Sri Lanka so that cattle can graze beneath them. Beyond the obvious advantage of the dual use of the land, the benefits have never been fully investigated. What is known is that felling tropical forests to make pastures is a wasteful use of resources and often leads to soil deterioration. So research into the combined use of trees and grazing land may well turn out to be worthwhile.

The Nairobi conference revealed that an unexpected amount of agroforestry is already being carried on throughout the world. One of the best examples was a program in Indonesia that aims to develop forests as sources of food, animal feed, honey, medicinal herbs, pine resin and natural silk as well as for wood and cellulose and for environmental protection. The Indonesians have been able to increase paddy production from 0.7 tons per hectare to 1.8 tons per hectare within two years, by growing rice between young forest plants.

Agroforestry research is going on quite extensively also in Central and South America, according to Gerardo Budowski of the Centro Agronomico Tropical de Investigaci6n Ensefianza (CATIE) in Costa Rica. But Budowski emphasizes the need for hard data in the field.

It is this lack of hard data that led to the establishment of the International Council for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF), a cosponsor of the Nairobi conference.

To head the new agency, ICRAF's board of trustees chose Kenneth F.S. King, who was at that time assistant director general of FAO. He was a natural choice. Not only was King a national of a developing country (Guyana), a forester with training in law and an official who knew his way around the international scientific scene, he was also one of the earliest exponents of agroforestry. He called it "agrisilviculture" in a booklet by that name published in 1968 by the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, where he helped establish the department of forestry.

King sees agroforestry as peopleoriented: "Agroforestry conserves the ecosystem and at the same time provides food and other products for the local people. Thus it conserves not only the physical but the human aspects of the ecosystem."

Some years ago King moved from research to policy, and now he has found himself back in research. "I got involved in land use," he said recently. "It intrigued me that many of the land-use systems in practice were not in the books.

No research had been done on them.

There seemed to be a place for research and for research combined with policy."

ICRAF's research will document and

I

Forest companies use helicopters to spray fertilizers and scatter seeds coated ,with rodent repel/ants.

verify what is known about the interactions of trees, food crops and animals, collect scattered information, assemble it and disseminate it. ICRAF will do little research on its own; but it will encourage others to do so, will fund and coordinate research and serve as a clearinghouse for information about agroforestry techniques. It also will spearhead efforts to train professionals, technicians and farmers in agroforestry techniques, and encourage its teaching and research in educational institutions worldwide.

All this will require a considerable change in the traditional attitude of foresters and agriculturalists. They will have to start thinking of land as a resource they share, rather than one they compete for.

An Indian agronomist with ICRAF, P.K. Nair, pointed out another difference between the perspectives of traditional agriculture and forestry on the one hand, and agroforestry on the other. Agricultural and forestry research, he said, has been traditionally production-oriented, the goal being either the same output from fewer inputs or higher outputs from the same inputs, often with scant attention being paid to the social implications.

"Agroforestry research," concluded Nair, "places great emphasis on social accountability for investments in research. The value of research should be assessed more in terms of the social and economic benefits that might accr.ue to the farming community than in terms of mere disciplinary advancements."

The results of such research, many agriculturalists and foresters now believe, can go a long way toward fulfilling the needs of a large and heretofore neglected segment of the world's population-the rural people-and at the same time help conserve the tropical forests.

It seems unlikely that under current conditions it will be possible to rely on biomass to supply a major portion of the world's total energy needs. However, by using agroforestry as a system of land management, the potential energy contribution of biomass could be greatly increased. At the same time the world's tree resource, both within forests and outside them, could be saved from what seems now to be almost inevitable destruction. And this immense resource could then be used much more efficiently in the service of humankind through its contribution of food, medicines and many other products and services.

0 About the Author: David Spurgeon is senior science writer with the International Council for Research in Agroforestry, Nairobi, Kenya.

An Indian Experiment in Social Forestry Money doesn't grow on trees, they say. But where there are trees, there is wealth. The world's forests, if properly exploited, can provide more than just wood and wood products. The concept of social forestry-a term coined by the Indian Government-aims at fully utilizing this vast potential to meet a range of human needs - from housing to health.

Social forestry marks a distinction between the commercial exploitation of forests and the distribution of the produce of the forests directly to the people of the area. The felling and selling of trees by contractors is substituted with a series of projects aimed at helping villagers in the surrounding areas in a variety of ways-as is being done at an Indo-U.S. for~stry project in Madhya Pradesh.

"When the project was initially discussed," says George Belt, forestry officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), "the emphasis was on energywood for fuel. But in their talks with the design team, the villagers said that they wanted more than just fuel wood from the forests. And so the scope of the program was enlarged to provide the villagers with forage for the cattle, timber for housing and agricultural implements, and fruit trees and medicinal herbs.

"It thus became a multipurpose, multiproduct project, much more acceptable to the villagers and of much more practical value to them."

The seeds for the project were sown late last year with the signing of two agreements between the two countries under which the United States will provide a total of $25 million for the project, spread over a period of six years.

The project will help to establish a Social Forestry Directorate in Madhya Pradesh to enable villagers to manage nontraditional forest lands such as village common lands, unused or 'marginal government lands near villages and land parcels along roadsides.

These lands will be used to increase the supply of fuel wood, fodder, small timber and other forestry products, directly benefiting participating villagers. Over the six years, trees of a mixed variety will be planted on approximately 63,000 hectares.

To begin with, the villagers will give up for plantations some common lands and wastelands, most of which are so heavily grazed that they produce relatively little grass or timber.

Simply by making a trench on the boundaries of this land to keep the cattle out, the villagers

will increase their yield by more than 30 percent.

Outlining the project, Belt said, "In the first year we dig the stand or the demarcated area for use and plant the trees. The early crop of grass will be hand-cut. Within three years there will be some trees large enough to crop for the green fodder. In four or five years, there will be additional fodder and grass and some trees will be large enough to provide firewood. In 15 years some of the trees can be used for house construction. This will be a is-year cycle.

"The tree plantations will also have the long-term effect of enriching the soil. We had earlier reco~mended a space of about oneand-a-half meters between the trees-this gives approximately 1,600 trees per hectare.

Now we are recommending a one-meter space-we will cut some down if they are too close together."

Fuel wood, of course, remains a prime need-the project hopes to meet the requirements of 5,000 villages.

Belt describes the program as "innovative-in the sense that we are placing a greater emphasis on the community development aspects." The project will not only make use of land lying waste but also gives the villagers a guarantee that the produce from this land will now come to them in one form or another.

USAID, which is also working with the Maharashtra Government on a similar scheme, will support the project in a variety of ways.

Consultants will contribute expertise in seed production, storage and other allied fields.

There will be research and development programs. "Forestry officials from here will also visit the United States and other countries-not for training but to see firsthand some projects there." "Not for training," Belt emphasizes, "because the existing forestry organization in this country is very competent and professional-that's one of the plus factors of the project."

Most of the USAID money-in loan funds and grant funds-will be spent in the first three or four years. "The intent here," Belt explains, "is that we provide the catalyst and the Indian Government provides the money in the last few years.

"We anticipate that as the villagers see the benefits coming to them they will put in the effort to keep it going. The forestry department's involvement will also decrease with time until the program becomes selfsustaining. "

Ocean-Fir.ed Power Plants

Searching for alternative sources of energy as fossil fuels become scarce, American scientists are using the temperature differential between the oceans' surface and deep wate.rs to generate electricity.

Above: Built on a U.S. Navy barge, the Mini-OTEC (ocean thermal energy conversion) pilot power plant uses the sunheated ocean surface water to vaporize ammonia. The low-pressure

ammonia drives turbines to produce electricity. Cold subsurface water condenses the vapors to begin the closed cycle again. Drawing (above) shows the plant's critical components.

M

Ost of the solar radiant energy that reaches the earth is absorbed by the oceans and atmosphere at an estimated rate of 80,000 million megawatts, which is about 10,000 times that used by the human race. As a result, the surface temperatures of oceans in the tropics are considerably higher than the temperatures of the deep waters.

A hundred years ago, Arsene d' Arsonval first suggested using these temperature differences to develop electric poweran inexpensive, nonpolluting, renewable source of energy.

Since then a number of attempts have been made to put the idea into practice. One of the first, by Georges Claude, used instead of ocean water the hot water discharged by industrial plants into the River Meuse, near Ougree in Belgium. Later, Claude used ocean water off Brazil in his experiments, and in 1930, he reported results obtained at a small power plant off the coast of Cuba. But not until 1942 were plans specified for building the first full-scale operating plant to convert the ocean's thermal energy into electricity, at Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Africa, as a result of the activities of Charles Beau and N. Nizezy, who founded the Societe de l'Energie des Mers.

Actual building of the plant started 10 years later.

A conventional steam plant generating 'electricity uses oil, coal or nuclear fuel to produce the steam at temperatures of hundreds of degrees and at high pressure. Steam at boiler pressure drives turbines as it passes through them to the reduced pressure of the condensers where cooling water converts steam to water.

The difference between surface and deep-ocean water temperatures does not often exceed 22° C. The warm surfacewater temperatures are not sufficiently high to boil water.

Water will boil at such temperatures, however, if the pressure is dropped low enough. This means that part of the power generated by boiling water at low temperatures must be used for driving pumps to maintain a vacuum. Furthermore, the lower efficiency of a heat engine at low operating temperatures necessitates a considerable increase in the relative size of the turbine. The Abidjan plant was finally abandoned because it could not be operated as economically as conventional power plants, and also the great long pipe that brought up cold water for the condensers was continually breaking.

Since 1965 a number of engineers, including J .H. Anderson, C. Zener, Abraham Lavi and William Heronemus, have rekindled interest in the subject, and a considerable amount of money and effort has been expended. A few years ago, the U.S. Government initiated Project OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion). The requirements for a practical OTEC plant are that it must be likely to operate for at least 40 years, be accessible and easily maintained, have minimal technical risk, and generate at least 100 megawatts of electricity at the lowest cost per kilowatt hour. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Energy specified that only existing technology be used. During 1979 a successful experiment, called Mini-OTEC, was carried out by a group consisting of Lockheed Missiles and Space

Company, Dillingham Corporation, Alfa-Laval Incorporated of Sweden, and the state of Hawaii, which shared a cost of about $3 million. It is based upon an alternative system, which uses ammonia, freon or propane instead of steam to drive the turbine. Since these are liquid at the deep-water temperatures and boil at the surface temperatures, they will operate without the need for lowered pressures. Warm surface water is used instead of the fire to heat the ammonia or other fluid-vapor boiler and cold, deep water to cool the liquid-ammonia (or other fluid) condenser.

Mini-OTEC was designed to produce a total of 50 kilowatts. It was built upon a barge and its primary purpose was to test all of the critical components, such as the heat exchangers (boilers and condensers), the 61O-meter-Iong coldwater polyethylene pipe, and to study the various problems of fueling, corrosion and others associated with conditions in the open ocean, while producing about 10 kilowatts of net power.

Altogether a considerable amount of government-financed research has been carried out at university, industrial and institutional laboratories in the United States to find ways to minimize the various problems.

The success of Mini-OTEC has not served to allay all doubts about the feasibility of ocean-powered electricity plants, but it has been considerably encouraging to go a step further. It actually made an operational profit in August 1980. The U.S. Department of Energy has recently refitted a Navy tanker, renamed OTEC-l, in order to carry out further sea tests on the various components of OTEC. It cruised to Hawaii during the summer of 1980 and is working off the state's Kona Coast.

Results of this project may provide sufficient information to design and build a 40-megawatt electric plant. The U.S. Government is also cooperating with the governments of France and Japan. A European industrial group known as Eurocean has been formed to develop an OTEC program as well as other ocean-powered electrical plants.

The requirements in selecting sites for an ocean-power plant are an adequate temperature difference of 22° C, the cold water no more than 1,830 meters-preferably 915 metersbelow the surface. Besides, the plant should be as near land as possible, a power demand should exist reasonably close by and there must exist ocean currents at the site, sufficient in speed'to remove the colder waters as they are discharged and to convey a continuous supply of warm waters to the plant. These requirements limit U.S. sites to the Gulf of Mexico, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and possibly off Miami, Florida. Others exist in the Virgin Islands. But there are numerous sites throughout the world. Australia, France, India, Nigeria and Israel are considering proposals for setting up ocean-powered electrical plants off their coasts. East Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia and East Africa have also been suggested.

The entire tropic belts would constitute suitable sites.

It has been proposed that, since the deep, cold water is rich in mineral fertilizer, an OTEC plant near an island in the

tropics with sizable lagoons could use the cold discharge for large mariculture farms, an additional factor in favor of the plant. It has even been suggested that on the Arctic Ocean the warm source for the boilers could be the seawater, above freezing, and the atmosphere as the cold source, as much as 50 Clower!

The effect upon the environment of a series of OTEC plants in any given area would result in a loss of heat transported by the water currents, which might affect local weather conditions. No serious effects upon living organisms are envisaged. The possible effects of the environment upon an OTEC power plant are numerous, including corrosion, biological fouling and the danger of physical damage from storm and wave action. However, considerable advances in technology have been made in providing against corrosion and fouling and upon damage to the cold intake pipe. The general problem of protecting large structures at sea is similar to the problems of offshore drilling structures, and the state of the art in this respect, after past disasters, is improving.

The costs of building OTEC plants and of operations in generating electricity are of prime concern. A recent report from the Rand Corporation gives estimates for building a 400-megawatt plant 240 kilometers west of Tampa, Florida, at about $1.4 million or $3,430 per kilowatt of electricity. The cost of producing electricity was estimated at 96 mills [10 mills=1 cent] per kilowatt hour. (For new nuclear plants, estimated costs are 35 to 70 mills, and for new coal plants, 55 to 60 mills.)

A more favorable OTEC estimate, assuming improvements in design and performance due to continuing research, works out at 56 mills per kilowatt hour.

Assuming all of the foregoing considerations provide satisfactory answers, the Rand report suggests that as many as three hundred lOO-megawatt electric plants, each with a heatexchange surface of roughly 40 hectares, could be located off the coast of Florida and Louisiana. These would yield 30,000 megawatts of electricity. This is a significant amount when compared with the total demand of the south and southeast of the United States, which is 110,000 megawatts.

When all factors are taken into consideration, it is safe to say that OTEC has grown from just another bright idea to an engineering concept that has been subjected to a great deal of investigation and experimentation. While no single oceanenergy project will take the place of dwindling fossil-fuel resources, OTEC is becoming techniCally feasible and economically possible. As other fuel sources increase in price, the cost of OTEC electricity will become more competitive. Even though it may not be generally competitive with nuclear and coal energy by the year 2000, it may be a preferred alternative in areas where coal and nuclear power cannot be used efficiently.

0 0

A Lockheed naval architect displays the model of a mooring system for a largeocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) power plant.

Supported by three metal rods, the clear plastic represents the ocean surface and the drift circle of the plant moored in 1,300 meters of water.

Lines from the surface OTEC unit symbolize mooring and energy transmission cables that must function under varying sea conditions.

About the Author: Roger H. Charlier is a professor of oceanography at Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago.

The Importance of Being Popular Whether we like it or not-and many may disagree with my thesis because painting, or music, or some other art is more important to them-the art of the moving image is the only art truly of our time, whether it is in the form of the film or television. The moving picture is our universal art, which comprises all others, literature and acting, stage design and music, dance and nature, and, most of all, the use of light and of color.

It is always about us, because the medium is truly part of the message and the medium of the moving image is uniquely modern. Everybody can understand it, as everyone once understood religious art in church. And as people used to go to church on Sundays (and still do), so the majority today go to the movies on weekends. But while in the past most went to church only on some days, now everybody watches moving images every day.

All age groups watch moving pictures, and they watch them for many more hours than people have ever spent in churches. Children and adults watch them separately or together; in many ways and for many people, it is the only experience common to parents and children. It is the only art today that appeals to all social and economic classes, in short, that appeals to everybody, as did religious art in times past. The moving picture is thus by far the most popular art of our time, and it is also the most authentically American of arts.

When I speak here of the moving picture as the authentic American art of our time, I do not think of art with a capital A, nor of "high" art. Putting art on a pedestal robs it of its vitality. When the great medieval and Renaissance cathedrals were erected, and decorated outside and in with art, these were popular works that meant something to all.

Some were great works of art, others not, but every piece was significant and all took pride in each of them. Some gain their spiritual experience from the masterpiece, but many more gain it from the mediocre works that express the same vision as the masterpiece but in a more accessible form. This is as true for church music or the church itself as for paintings and sculptures. This diversity of art objects achieves a unity, and differences in

quality are important, provided they all veyed such VISIOns. In Kagemusha [Akira Kurosawa's latest film], the great represent, each in its own way, the overarching vision and experience of a beauty of the historical costumes, the larger, important cosmos. Such a vision cloak-and-dagger story with its beguiling confers meaning and dignity on our exis- Oriental settings, the stately proceedings, tence, and forms the essence of art. the pageantry of marching and fighting So among the worst detriments to the armies, the magnificent rendering of nahealthy development of the art of the ture, the consummate acting-all these moving image are efforts by aesthetes entrance us and convince us of the corand critics to isolate the art of film from rectness of the vision here: the greatness popular movies and television. Nothing of the most ordinary of men. The hero, a could be more contrary to the true spirit petty thief who turns impostor, grows of art. Whenever art was vital, it was before our eyes into greatness, although always equally popular with the ordinary it costs him his life. The story takes place man and the most refined person. Had in 16th-century Japan, but the hero is of Greek drama and comedy meant nothing all times and places: He accepts a destiny to most citizens, the majority of the into which he is projected by chance and population would not have sat all day turns a false existence into a real one. At long entranced on hard stone slabs, the end, only because he wants to be true watching the events on the stage; nor to his new self, he sacrifices his life and would the entire population have con- .thus achieves the acme of suffering and ferred prizes on the winning dramatist. human greatness. Nobody wants him to The medieval pageants and mystery plays do so. Nobody but he will ever know that out of which modern drama grew were he did it. Nobody but the audience popular entertainments, as were the observes it. He does it only for himself; it plays of Shakespeare. Michelangelo's has no consequences whatsoever for anyDavid stood at the most public place in body or anything else. He does it out of Florence, embodying the people's vision conviction; this is his greatness. Life that that tyranny must be overthrown, while it permits the lowest of men to achieve such also related to their religious vision, as it dignity is life worth living, even if in the represented the myth of David and end it defeats him, as it will defeat all who Goliath. Everybody admired the statue; are mortal. it was simultaneously popular and great Two other films, very different, render art, but one did not think of it in such parallel visions that celebrate life, a disparate terms. Neither should we. To celebration in which we, as viewers, live well we need both: visions that lift us vicariously participate although we are up, and entertainment that is down to saddened by the hero's defeat. The first earth, provided both art and entertainwas known in the United States by its ment, each in its different form and way, English name, The Last Laugh, although are embodiments of the same visions of its original title, The Last Man, was more man. If art does not speak to all of us, appropriate. It is the story of th~ doorcommon men and elites alike, it fails to man of a hotel who is demoted to cleanaddress itself to that true humanity that is ing washrooms. The other movie is Patcommon to all of us. A different art for ton. In one of these films the hero stands the elites and another one for average on the lowest rung of society and exisman tears society apart; it offends what tence; in the other, he is on society's we most need: visions that bind us highest level. In both pictures we are led together in common. experiences that to admire a man's struggle to discover make life worth living. who he really is, for, in doing so, he When I speak of an affirmation of man, achieves tragic greatness. These three I do not mean the presentation of fake films, as do many others, affirm man and images of life as wonderfully pleasant. life, and so inspire in us visions that can Life is best celebrated in the form of a sustain us. battle against its inequities, of struggles, My choice of these three films out of of dignity in defeat, of the greatness of many is arbitrary. What I want to illusdiscovering oneself and the other. trate is their celebration of life in forms Quite a few moving pictures have con- appropriate to an age in which self-

High Scores for American and Indian Cinema

Treat Williams dances on the dining table in Milos Forman's Hair (top); citizens of Ticlaw have blown up part of the freeway in John Schlesinger's Honky Tonk Freeway (center); De Niro's concentrated fury as the boxer La Motta in Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull (above).

discovery may exact the highest possible price. Only through incorporating such visions can we achieve satisfaction with our own life, defeat and transcend existential despair.

What our society suffers from most today is the absence of consensus about what it and life in it ought to be.

Such consensu~ cannot be gained from society's present stage, or from fantasies about what it ought to be. For that the present is too close and too diversified, and the future too uncertain, to make believable claims about it. A consensus in the present hence can be achieved only through a shared understanding of the past, as Homer's epics informed those who lived centuries later what it meant to be Greek, and by what images and ideals they were to live their lives and organize their societies.

Most societies derive consensus from a long history, a language all their own, a common religion, common ancestry. The myths by which they live are based on all of these. But the United States is a country of immigrants, coming from a great variety of nations. Lately, it has been emphasized that an asocial, narcis(Continued on page 18)

"I was going to see Mrinal Sen," recalls Bill Greaves, U.S. filmmaker at Calcutta's Filmotsav 82, "at the studio where he was shooting.

The traffic was terrible, and the pollution so thick you could cut it with a knife. It was depressing. I was in a state of shock when we arrived, so late Sen had already left. I decided to see Mrinal's set if I could not see him. What I saw was another stunning example of the paradox of India. The art director had created a living, extraordinary environment with practically no money. Not so long ago I had been executive producer in a $13 million Hollywood production, and I just looked on in amazement, thinking that this was possible only in India and in the city of Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen." The words were an almost exact echo of what Satyajit Ray had himself said at the inauguration of the Filmotsav a few days before: "I am aware of the assault Calcutta makes on the senses of the foreign visitor."

Many international tourist guides, he went on to say, list Calcutta at the top of the cities to be avoided. "Yet, if you can survive the initial shock, you will find that the people are warm and friendly, and they love good cinema."

Of their love of the cinema, the Calcuttans left no one in any doubt. The retrospective of lean-Luc Godard and Miklos lancso-two of the most difficult directors in the world-were fully booked within a few hours; at the commercial showings of punishing films like Raging Bull in harsh black and white or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, full of long philosophical discussion in endless twoshots, the audience sat in respectful silence, very few people leaving before the end.

Numerous film societies published special numbers of their little magazines full of ambitious articles. They followed not only directors but even film critics around with tape recorders, ready for long interviews in narrow corridors. Many had come from Assam and Orissa, Manipur and Bihar to drink their fill at a fountain of international cinema suddenly springing up before them after seven years.

Good films were not new to them, for film societies have started up even in small towns and remote areas; yet the massing together of nearly 200 features and some 50 shorts with the foreign entries culled from major film festivals, was too good an opportunity to miss.

There were regulars who turned up at the gates of Rabindra Sadan, where press and delegates' shows were held, without passes. A young usher admitting one of the habitual gate-crashers said: "What's the use of film festivals if people who love good films can't see them?"

The ones they loved to see were the (Continued on page 19)

sistic personality has become characteristic of Americans, and that it is this type of personality that makes for the malaise, because it prevents us from achieving a consensus that would counteract a tendency to withdraw into private worlds.

In his study of narcissism, Christopher Lasch says that modern man, "tortured by self-consciousness, turns to new cults and therapies not to free himself of his personal obsessions but to find meaning and purpose in life, to find something to live for." There is widespread distress because national morale has declined, and we have lost an earlier sense of national vision and purpose.

Contrary to rigid religions or political beliefs, as are found in totalitarian societies, American culture is one of great individual differences, at least in principle and in theory. But this leads to disunity, even chaos. Americans believe in the value of diversity, but just because ours is a society based on individual diversity, it needs consensus about some overarching ideas more than societies based on the uniform origin of their citizens. Hence, if we are to have consensus, it must be based on a myth-a vision-about a common experience, a conquest that made us Americans, as the myth about the conquest of Troy formed the Greeks. Only a common myth can offer relief from the fear that life is without meaning or purpose. Myths permit us to examine our place in the world by comparing it to a shared idea. Myths are shared fantasies that form the tie that binds the individual to other members of his group. Such myths help to ward off feelings of isolation, guilt, anxiety and short, they combat purposelessness-in isolation and anomie.

We used to have a myth that bound us together; in The American Adam, R.W.B. Lewis summarizes the myth by which Americans used to live: God decided to give man another chance by opening up a new world across the sea. Practically vacant, this glorious land had almost inexhaustible natural resources. Many people came to this new world. They were people of special energy, selfreliance, intuitive intelligence, and purity of heart. ... This nation's special mission in the world would be to serve as the moral guide for all other nations.

The movies used to transmit this myth, particularly the westerns, which presented the challenge of bringing civilization to places where before there was none. The same movies also suggested the danger of that chaos; the wagon train symbolized the community men must

form on such a perilous journey into the untamed wilderness, which in turn became a symbol for all that is untamed within ourselves. Thus the western gave us a vision of the need for cooperation and civilization, because without it man would perish. Another symbol often used in these westerns was the railroad, which formed the link between wilderness and civilization. The railroad was the symbol of man's role as civilizer.

Robert Warshow delineates in The Immediate Experience how the hero of the western - the gunfighter-symbolizes man's potential: to become either an outlaw or a sheriff. In the latter role, the gunfighter was the hero of the past, and his opening of the West was our mythos, our equivalent of the Trojan War. Like all such heroes, the sheriff experienced victories and defeats, but, through these experiences, he grew wiser and learned to accept the limitations that civilization imposes.

This was a wonderful vision of manor the United States-in the New World; it was a myth by which one could live and grow, and it served as a consensus about what it meant to be an American. But although most of us continue to enjoy this myth, by now it has lost most of its¡ vitality. We have become too aware of the destruction of nature and of the American Indian-part of the reality of opening the West-to be able to savor this myth fully; and, just as important, it is based on an open frontier that no longer exists. But the nostalgic infatuation with the western suggests how much we are in need of a myth about the past that cannot be invalidated by the realities of today. We want to share a vision, one that would enlighten us about what it means to be an American today, so that we can be proud not only of our heritage but also of the world we are building together.

Unfortunately, we have no such myth, nor, by extension, any that reflects what is involved in growing up. The child, like the society, needs such myths to provide him with ideas of what difficulties are involved in maturation. Fairy tales used to fill this need, and they would still do so, if we would take them seriously. But sugar-sweet movies of the Disney variety fail to take seriously the world of the child-the immense problems with which the child has to struggle as he grows up, to make himself free from the bonds that tie him to his parents, and to test his own strength. Instead of helping the child, who wants to understand the difficulties

ahead, these shows talk down to him, insult his intelligence and lower his aspirations.

While most of the popular shows for children fall short of what the child needs most, others at least provide him with some of the fantasies that relieve pressing anxieties, and this is the reason for their popularity. Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Bionic Woman stimulate the child's fantasies about being strong and invulnerable, and this offers some relief from being overwhelmed by the powerful adults who control his existence. The Incredible Hulk affords a confrontation with destructive anger. Watching the Hulk on one of his rampages permits a vicarious experience of anger without having to feel guilty about it or anxious about the consequences, because the Hulk attacks only bad people. As food for fantasies that offer temporary relief, such shows have a certain value, but they do not provide material leading to higher integration, as myths do.

Science-fiction movies can serve as myths about the future and thus give us some assurance about it. Whether the film is 2001 or Star Wars, such movies tell about progress that will expand man's powers and his experiences beyond anything now believed possible, while they assure us that all these advances will not obliterate man or life as we now know it.

Thus one great anxiety about the fuit will have no place for us as ture-that we now are-is allayed by such myths.

They also promise that even in the most distant future, and despite the progress that will have occurred in the material world, man's basic concerns will be the same, and the struggle of good against evil-the central moral problem of our time-will not have lost its importance.

Past and future are the lasting dimensions of our lives; the present is but a fleeting moment. So these visions about the future also contain our past; in Star Wars, battles are fought around issues that also motivated man in the past.

There is good reason that Yoda appears in George Lucas' script for the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back: He is but a reincarnation of the teddy bear of infancy, to which we turn for solace; and the Yedi Knight is the wise old man, or the helpful animal, of the fairy tale, the promise from our distant past that we shall be able to rise to meet the most difficult tasks life can present us with.

Thus, any vision about the future is really based on visions of the past, because that is all we can know for certain. .

As our religious myths about the future never went beyond Judgment Day, so our modern myths about the future cannot go beyond the search for life's deeper meaning. The reason is that only as long as the choice between good and evil remains man's paramount moral problem does life retain that special dignity that derives from our ability to choose between the two. A world in which this conflict has been permanently resolved eliminates man as we know him. It might be a universe peopled by angels, but it has no place for man.

What Americans need most is a consensus that includes the idea of individual freedom, as well as acceptance of the plurality of ethnic backgrounds and religious beliefs inherent in the population.

Such consensus must rest on convictions about moral values and the validity of overarching ideas. Art can do this because a basic ingredient of the aesthetic experience is that it binds together diverse elements. But only the ruling art of a period is apt to provide such unity: For the Greeks, it was classical art; for the British, Elizabethan art; for the many petty German states, it was their classical art. Today, for the United States, it has to be the moving picture, the central art of our time, because no other art experience is so open and accessible to everyone.

The moving picture is a visual art, based on sight. Speaking to our vision, it ought to provide us with the visions enabling us to live the good life; it ought to give us insight into ourselves. About a hundred years ago, Tolstoy wrote, "Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen." Later, Robert Frost defined poetry as "beginning in delight and ending in wisdom." Thus it might be said that the st-ate of the art of the moving image can be assessed by the degree to which it meets the mythopoetic task of giving us myths suitable to live by in our timevisions that transmit to us the highest and best feelings to which men have risenand by how well the moving images give us that delight which leads to wisdom.

Let us hope that the art of the moving image, this most authentic American art, will soon meet the challenge of becoming truly the great art of our age.

0 About the Author: Bruno Bette/heirn, apsychologist and educator, is the author of several books, the latest of which is The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales.

broad, universal humanist films. In this respect, there was good news. Milos Forman's Hair showed that the American musical is alive and well and did not die in the Fifties.

Only a Czech immigrant could have thought it possible. to take this once-popular stage show of hippies making love in America instead of war in Vietnam into a spirited musical today. Hair has all the electric energy and romantic abandon of the Fifties cinema of song and dance. Twyla Tharp's choreography gives the dances a fluency that sweeps all before it and Galt MacDonald's evangelical theater-rock music brings to the songs all the heart-warming glow one could wish for. Treat Williams' bourgeois-defying dance down the banquet table has the appeal of the have-nots socking the haves in the jaw that we can never resist. This is the very stuff of the musical.

Yet it is not without meaning. Forman not only cuts out the nudity of the stage show but gives it a story and a dramatic flow. What is more, he sobers up the play's wild utopianism by showing both the gains and the losses of liberation. After the hippy hero has poured delicious sarcasm on the bourgeois dining table, he is confronted with an abandoned black fiancee (and their child) charging him with callousness and irresponsibility in the song "Easy to be Hard." At the film's climax, the high priest of the antiwar hippies substitutes himself temporarily for a GI to help him meet his girl before leaving; but in the consequent drama of mistaken identities, he himself gets shipped off to Vietnam and death.

Forman was not the only outsider to look over the fence at the United States household.

Britain's John Schlesinger has been in America since Midnight Cowboy (1970), but Honky Tonk Freeway is nevertheless the work of someone who sees the vast openness of American highways for the first time. The citizens of the fictitious Florida town of Ticlaw are so outraged when an exit from the highway into their town earlier promised to them is cancelled that they blow up a portion of the highway to divert traffic (and thus income) to their habitat. Desperate for attention, they paint the town pink. In this riproaring comedy, John Schlesinger sees the workings of grass roots democracy in smalltown America, complete with its indomitable enterprise, its petty corruption, its intense participation in just about everything. Schlesinger creates a fast-moving slapstick comedy without losing his meaning or making fun of the people, but also without the depth of a Midnight Cowboy.

All-American John Huston, whom age seems to have left singularly unwithered at 78, turned to the second most un-American sport of soccer (the first being, of course, cricket).

Escape to Victory has allied POWs deliciously defeating the Nazi master-race team at international soccer in the heart of occupied Paris and had the Bengalis kicking the seats in front and roaring G-O-A-L every time the great

Pele scored, adding black insult to Nazi injury. How can Bengalis resist such a fell combination of soccer and anti-Nazism?

Michael Caine is the master diplomat who exploits a Nazi officer's weakness for soccer to arrange the grandiose match. As an American unused to soccer, he plays goalie, having been a trained catcher in baseball. Made with top-notch professional skill and a knowing finger on the pulse of the audience, the film is close to a musical comedy in its spirited celebration of the greatest good-and-evil myth of our time. It is structured and edited to perfection, with every sentiment, everyexciting moment falling exactly into place. Not another Asphalt Jungle or Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the film yet conveys an infectious enthusiasm.

But guilt, it seems, must hang heavy on some minds. With Raging Bull, Martin Scorsese continues his mission of discovering the depths of sin and redemption, and the beast in all of us. Written by Paul Schrader (writer of Scorsese's Taxi Driver and director of Hardcore), the film is based on the life story of boxer Jake La Motta, middleweight champion, 1949. But of the two hours of the film, only 12 minutes are given to boxing. It is almost as if the fights, shot in killer close-up, deafening us and almost splashing blood on us with every vicious punch, are only an expression of the violence that seethes within the man and have little to do with the contest of power and skill. When La Motta hits, he hits as though his sole aim is to obliterate the existence of the other man in the ring; when he takes the punches, "throwing a fight," he takes his punishment with equal dedication, as though he richly deserves it and the only thing he wants to do is to perish under it.

As in Taxi Driver, Scorsese's bull-headed protagonist is obsessed by a woman of unattainable cool whom he torments with a maniacal jealousy, suspecting her of sleeping with everyone, including his brother. His is a destructive violence perpetually in search of provocation. To stress this point, everybody in the film treats Jake fearfully well; his wife (Cathy Moriarty) is ever-forgiving, his brother puts up with his violence and obduracy for years-both could have left him long before they eventually do. They, like the audience, seem to be fascinated by the spectacle of self-destruction. La Motta does not know what makes him so mad about everything and everybody-why don't they understand that it is not his fault that he is violent? When he is in jail for a morals offense, he goes on hitting his head against the wall (until we start worrying about the state of De Niro's skull) and cries: "I am not an animal." Seldom has a filmmaker been so fascinated by a vision of violence or an actor lived it with such fervid agony ..

To say that De Niro plays La Motta brilliantly would fall short of the mark, because like Scorsese, he too seems to be diving into the character to find out what goes

into the making of violence and how it builds up and erupts. For Raging Bull, De Niro spent months working out in a boxing ring, put on 20 pounds to become a middleweight, then, for the end of the film when La Motta goes to seed, put on another 55 pounds. He had earlier spent weeks drinking with steelworkers to play in Deer Hunter and gone south with a tape recorder to get his accent right in Bang the Drum Slowly; he even learned to play the saxophone for New York, New York.

Naturally, Raging Bull is in black and white. Unglamorous, flat, documentary, the camera style matches the period and the main character. It is a film that punishes you for seeing it and yet one that you would not leave unseen.

India's new cinema, no longer running "parallel" to the so-called commercial variety, is visibly growing in strength. Its "Panorama" program at Calcutta was richer by far than what one had seen in previous years. After many summers since Garam Hava, M.S. Sathyu has redeemed something of the extraordinary promise of that memorable first film. Bara (Drought) sets out to expose and analyze all that defeats the young official's dream of running a clean administration true to its professed objectives. Sathyu skillfully weaves the interrelation of events and forces into a tight pattern. His logic seldom falters, and his craftsmanship has a fine edge to it. In a stark beginning across a desolate landscape, the district commissioner (DC) sits down before a hut to talk to his staff about the conditions in the area. An emaciated old woman is the mute witness to their confabulations. No one notices her until the DC is thirsty and a lieutenant barks orders at her to serve him some water. In reply she silently rolls her brown earthen pot toward him; it spins slowly across the yellowish gray courtyard and comes to a stop at his feet. It is empty.

I wish more of Bara had this tense emotional tone underlying Sathyu's well-structured narrative. But he tends to become, like the district commissioner sitting in the old woman's hut, too engrossed in the events to observe the individuals whose fate is determined by them. We never see the old woman again or know what became of her. Garam Hava's powerful appeal lay in its compassionate understanding of people in a narrative that seemed to flow from it; in Bara, a professionally maturer Sathyu seems to derive his people from the needs of his narrative.

Yet it is the first time that the subtleties and the dynamics of political-administrative reality have been handled with sophistication and conviction. Bara reaffirms Sathyu's place in the front rank of India's "New Wave" cinema.

Allied to Bara in some ways is young and talented Gautam Ghosh's Dakhal (Possession). The film opens grandly, with a small band of ragged people scurrying across a vast landscape. There is a sense of the dispossessed battling against enormous forces threatening to engulf them. The scenes of the hungry, relentless group descending upon a relative who has a roof over her head and a few small

possessions are deeply etched. But, unlike Sathyu's film, the feeling of the story and the craftsmanship in communicating it are both uneven, and lack the support of a strong, coherent structure.

Benegal's Kalyug had already been widely seen before Filmotsav 82, distributors today being ready to pick up any film of his as soon as it is finished. The sheer professional finish of the work makes it stand out. The opulent interiors, the slick camerawork, the expert acting, the assurance of the pace, the distinct identities of the multitude of characters -plus the subject-make one think of Coppola's The Godfather. The parallel to the Mahabharata, sketchy as it is, gives a certain depth to the complexity and ruthlessness of modern industrial warfare. Had Benegal, like Coppola, traced the convolutions of clan philosophy over two films instead of one, he would probably have had to pack it less hard and explored more of its depths. Given the wide scope of his story and its time constraints, he is forced often to pursrre the event at the expense of character, relationship and the drama of detail. Of all Indian directors, Benegal's work today comes closest to Hollywood at its best in its professionalism and its breadth of dramatic appeal. It is capable of bridging the extraordinary gap between art and commerce in Indian cinema.

In contrast to West Bengal, Kerala displays surprisingly little interest in politico-economic problems in its cinema. Its highly literate and politically volatile population has not yet produced a Mrinal Sen or a Sathyu. Its best filmmakers are either poets or philosophers of the changing order or both.

Adoor Gopalakrishnan returns to the scene after the lapse of a few years with Elippathayam (Rat Trap), once again based on a story of his own. Gopalakrishnan's films have always had a sense of the flow of life; Swayamvaram's eloping couple progresses from romantic illusion to hard reality over a long bus ride and what seems ceaseless happy-go-lucky movement, Kodiyettom's hero discovers the joys of responsibility through a long spell of drifting from place to place and people to people. In his latest work, his Oblomovian hero is laden with a monumental laziness, precluding all movement. This extraordinary apotheosis of idleness is established, sometimes with rather heavy symbolism, as decadence so solidified that it can hardly walk. Life for Unni consists largely of ordering his younger sisters about and preventing them from getting married.

Bathing, eating, sleeping and staring at the newspaper make up his unchanging daily routine in which any need for more than minimal movement causes panic. Sharada plays, with her customary excellence, the younger sister sacrificing herself at this imposing altar of idleness. The remarkably original story is filmed with great finesse and has many ~.memorable moment. Amusing in the beginning, the mood of the film slowly darkens as the story progresses, ending in a starkness reminiscent of the ending of Swayamvaram.

Although the film seems to center around

Dnni's idleness, the pivot on which it actually turns is the younger sister.

At a further remove from the obliqueness of Elippathayam's social comment is Pokku Veyil (Twilight), G. Aravindan's latest exploration of the frontiers of poetry in the cinema. In the twilight of his mind, caught between the solace of illusion and the intimidations of reality, a sensitive young man finds life's violations of his sensibility too much to take, and chooses insanity. In the world in which we live, Aravindan seems to say, a poet can only become a madman.

Aravindan's extraordinary visual sense reaches new heights in this film and invests faces and landscapes, even a basketball game, with the twilight glow of a world hidden from all but the poet. Perhaps it is not the poet who is mad but the others, the ones who cannot see.

From Aravindan to Satyajit Ray is a movement from moonlight to the clear light of day.

Ray's severely ordered world, unlike Aravindan's, is visible to all. It is the world of the daily grind, ordinary to all appearances, that slowly takes on meaning, proportion, human warmth, and intimations of mortality. Ray's structures are built the way the Taj Mahal was; detail by detail, they grow into monuments of perfect proportions. Pikoo's routine adultery unfolds without surprises, as if to emphasize the banality of the plot. But the silence of the afternoon in the large house and its garden, the look in the sunken eyes of the old grandfather hovering on the brink of death in one room while the love game is played in another, the young son painting flowers while his mother is engaged with her lover inside invest everything with an infinite sadness and a sense of mystery-the mystery of life and death. Ray's films for children had become the refuge of the qualities of mercy and grace that his adults once had in his early films; Pikoo sees the child hemmed in by corruption, ready to rob him of his innocence.

Sadgati has the same sense of a routine unfolding of the daily event without variation from what we have always known and seen.

Premchand's story is of age-old exploitation of the typical Harijan by the typical Brahmin.

Ray makes no attempt to develop the characters into individuals; if anything, he emphasizes the oldness of the story by underplaying the individuality of the protagonists. It is as if one is tired of its repetition through' the centuries. But for the first time in a Ray film, an extraordinary ending suddenly explodes in a flash of anger within us.

Both Pikoo (27 minutes) and Sadgati (55 minutes) were made for television, French and Indian respectively. Ray displays his control of the short story form once again since the mastery of Teen Kanya (1961). He also shows his awareness of the TV screen without confining himself to claustrophobic close-ups as Ingmar Bergman had in Scenes From a Marriage and works out a middle way suitable for both cinema and TV. Taken together, the two films, with their disparate subjects but not so disparate methods, easily provided the high point of Filmotsav 82. 0

Top; Smita Patil and Om Puri in Satyajit Ray's Sadgati; middle, the waterdiviner inM.S. Sathyu's Bara; bottom, Sharada and Jalaja with Karamana in Adoor Gopalakrishnan's Elippathayam; right, Balachandran Chullikad in G. Aravindan's Pokku Veyil.

T

he Smithsonian Institution in Washington stands out as the world's largest and most distinguished scientific and cultural institution.

Nowhere else is there such a wide range of diverse activities and such an extensive museum complex.

It is unique in almost every way: in the origins of its founder, James Smithson, and the mystery of his massive bequest of $500,000 in gold sovereigns to a country he had never visited; in the nature of the special legislation enacted by Congress so that the United States could legally accept the bequest and the independent trust funding in perpetuity; and in the timelessness and universality of its scientific and humane objectives.

James Smithson remains a mysterious figure though he was acknowledged to be one of the most distinguished scientists of the latter half of the 18th century. The little that is known of his origins and achievements casts light on the social attitudes of the British upper classes at that time. He was born in France in 1765, the son of Elizabeth Macie, widow of James Macie, a country gentleman. His mother, heiress of the wealthy Hungerfords through Charles, Duke of Somerset, was lineally descended from Henry VII. One of her cousins, also named Elizabeth, was married to James' father, Hugh Smithson, who took the name Percy as the first Duke of Northumberland. James was later described in a delicate (but slightly incorrect)

euphemism by then U.S. President John Quincy Adams, as "the ante-nuptial son of the first Duke and Duchess of Northumberland. " When only 15, James Macie was graduated from Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1780 as "a gentleman commoner," and in 1787 was admitted to membership in Britain's Royal Society. At college, James was described as "the best mineralogist of his year" at a time when chemistry was the most exciting science. During his lifetime he wrote 27 scientific papers, and undertook the analysis of substances from artichokes to a lady's tear.

One can assume that he was spurred to achievement by the circumstances of his birth. He continued to use the name Macie until 1802. There is nowhere any explanation of his decision to change to Smithson, when he had already achieved considerable renown in scientific circles.

In the latter part of his life, he evidently cut himself off from his own country with considerable bitterness. His own words provide poignant insight, and may explain the bequest to a country he knew only by repute: "The best blood of England flows in my veins. On my father's side I am a Northumberland, on my mother's I am related to kings, but this avails me not. My name shall live in the memory of man when the titles of Northumberland and Percy are extinct and forgotten." Though his name also "lives" in that of a new are he discovered, the mineral

The Many-Sided

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"smithsonite," it is for the institution named after him that he is remembered. Many years after his death in 1829, his body was brought from the English cemetery in Genoa, escorted by inventor Alexander Graham Bell, a regent of the Smithsonian. It now lies in a small mortuary chapel in the main entrance of the original building.

The Smithsonian Institution came into being in 1846, after eight years of debates in the U.S. Congress to resolve legal problems so that Congress could administer the Trust directly, and to pass the necessary legislation creating a corporate entity, "The Establishment," to take charge of the bequest. The United States accepted the terms of James Smithson's will "to found in Washington under the name of the Smithsonian Institution an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." The Establishment consists of the President of the United States, the Vice President, the Chief Justice and heads of executive departments. Though it continues as a legal entity, it has not met since the Coolidge Administration. Instead, the Institution is governed by a Board of Regents consisting of the Vice President, the Chief Justice, three members appointed by the President of the Senate, three by the Speaker of the House, and nine citizen members appointed by joint resolution of Congress. At the apex of the administration is the Secretary of the Smithsonian (now Dr. S. Dillon Ripley),

One of the most remarkable institutions for the accumulation and dissemination of knowledge in the world, the Smithsonian is engaged in a wide range of scholarly activity in the U.S. and far-flung corners of the globe.

appointed by the regents. The Federal Government agreed to pay 6 percent interest on the bequest to the Smithsonian in perpetuity. Although that is a modest rate by current standards, the commitment to pay it in perpetuity bestows on the Smithsonian a degree of immortality. The first of its numerous buildings-now used as administrative headquarters-was completed in 1855. Known as "The Castle" because of its towers and turrets (see cover photo and below), the building is one of Washington's best known landmarks.

The Smithsonian conducts scientific and scholarly research in the United States and other countries around the world, has responsibility for all the national museums, and performs a variety of other public service functions.

In addition to the income from the Trust, it is supported by gifts, grants and contracts, and funds appropriated by Congress. The total complex includes 11 exhibition buildings in Washington and New York City housing displays relating to science, history, technology and art; a zoological park in Washington, and an animal conservation and research center in Virginia. There are three affiliated organizations: the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the National Gallery of Art, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Each of them is autonomous and administered by a separate board of trustees. The Institution's Anacostia Neighborhood Museum undertakes research and presents community-oriented exhibits created under a production-training program in a low-income area. Other facilities include a building at Silver Hill, Maryland, for preservation, display and storage of aircraft and spacecraft; a conference center at Elkridge, Maryland; two nature preserves, the Chesapeake Bay Center for Environmental Studies and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama; an oceanographic research facility at Fort Pierce, Florida, and astrophysical research stations in cooperation with Harvard University at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Mount Hopkins, Arizona.

The dynamic approach which reaches out to people nationally and internationally in every sphere of the Smithsonian's activities is clearly inspired by Smithson's requirement that it contribute to "the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." The museums combine research programs with training activities and traveling exhibitions, accessibility to the collections with opportunities for scholars, schoolchildren and the public.

They sponsor a wide range of publications. Two of the most popular with the public are the National Museum of Natural History, one of the oldest, which now has nearly.

60 million specimens of animals, plants, fossils, rocks and human artifacts; and the newest, the National Air and Space Museum. The latter is visited by more than 10 million people a year. Its collections include everything from spacecraft and their accessories to historic early aircraft, a wide range of aviation models and art works and a miscellany of related exhibits. In common with all the others, these museums provide educational materials for school programs. Among the latest offerings are 60 film strips on space subjects with taped music and texts for elementary schools, including teaching instructions, charts and background information. Other materials may well include glimpses of India as one of the Air and Space Left: The Castle, the original Smithsonian Institution building. Far left: A youngster peers at a skeleton in the Natural History Museum.

A fascinating collection of memorabilia (left) captures some of the spirit of days gone by-a 17th-century map of New England is surrounded by a Colt revolver, George Washington's compass, a patent model of the Baldwin locomotive, an antique coffeepot and other early scientific curiosities.

Art, history, science ... the Smithsonian is archivist, educator, chronicler of them all. Its impressive art collections include "The Great Warrior of Montauban" (left, below), an 1898 sculpture

by Emile-Antonie Bourdelle.

Some of many creatures that make up our world are assembled under a whale's skeleton in a spectacular presentation (top) at the Natural History Museum.

The diverse specimens-

a huge gorilla, baboon, exotic plants, sculptured human heads, a human skeleton, colorful sea creatures and birdsillustrate biological studies pursued by the museum.

Hirshhorn Museum (with Henry Moore's "Draped Reclining Figure" in foreground)

Museum's major films has six Indian scenes, including a moving one of Varanasi and a superb desert panorama of a camel caravan in Rajasthan.

At a time when changes are sweeping the world, and so-called progress is eroding its sociological and cultural diversity, the activities of the National Museum of Man will become increasingly significant. Currently in the conceptual stages, its central purpose is to record traditionallife patterns before they are submerged in the tidal wave of standardization and conformity. In India, we have numberless groups whose unique cultural development over thousands of years is now erased in the name of progress. A Smithsonian anthropological film unit has captured one such remote group in Ladakh. It has also been active in the Cook Islands, Micronesia and Brazil.

The museums concerned with the arts are naturally oriented to the national public. The Smithsonian National Associate Program, established in 1965, is linked with the Smithsonian magazine started in 1970. This group has a membership of nearly two million. A Resident Associate Program offers local members a variety of lectures, workshops, concerts, film showings, tours and trips. Its monthly newsletter reaches about 150,000 people. It is a

by MICHAEL J. WEISS

They don't call it "the nation's attic" for nothing. Visitors to the Smithsonian Institution's prodigious museums in Washington, D.C., expect to find objects like Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, Jackie Kennedy's inaugural gown, the Hope diamond-and even former astronaut Mike Collins' Apollo 11 underwear. But few pilgrims to the national capital's cultural mecca have seen such wonders as Jimmy Carter's Bible, John Wilkes Booth's shackles [he shot President Abraham Lincoln] and the eyeglasses of Everett Dirksen [the late Senator from Illinois, known for his florid oratorical style].

Like 97 percent of the Smithsonian's "treasures," these are awaiting future exhibits and research in storerooms bulging with uncatalogued miscellany.

Now, thanks to registrar Philip Leslie, 61, and his crew, who embarked three years ago on the first top-to-bottom tally of the Smithsonian's trove, these and other items-from astrolabes to Zuni pots-are emerging from closets, boxes and drawers.

The inventory is still barely more than half done, but Leslie estimates that some 78 million objects will be on the final computerized accoun~ ing of the Smithsonian's holdings.

Republished with permission of Michael Weiss from People weekly. Copyright Š Time Inc.

self-supporting program aimed at developing better understanding of the cultures of other countries. Among the activities is a travel bureau that offers study tours for small groups and charter tours for larger ones, each including preparatory lectures, background materials and reading lists. These activities are supplemented by the Smithsonian Institution Libraries consisting of a central source and 21 subsidiaries which together house some 900,000 volumes. There is continuity in all the organization's operations. The present libraries emerged after the transfer of the original collection to the Library of Congress in 1866 with the name The Smithsonian Deposit.

The Institution has also pioneered environmental studies. The Chesapeake Bay Center has concentrated on watershed and estuarine systems and the impact of change on life systems. Studies include assessments of the effects of land use patterns on runoff, rainfall and groundwater.

The Tropical Research Institute in Panama has a laboratory on the Barro-Colorado Island in the Canal's Gatun Lake marine laboratories on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides, and a study center for visiting scientists from some 80 universities in more than 30 countries. Research on various aspects of ecology, marine and terrestrial prey and

Already enumerated: 4,785 sea sponges, 278 airplanes, 34,146 nests and eggs, and the pickled brains of two former curators. Says Leslie: "If the Smithsonian doesn't have an object, very likely no one else does."

As 5,500 Smithsonian staffers and hundreds of temporaries labor to meet the project's June 1983 deadline, Leslie is far from sanguine.

"God help us, I hope we make it," he says. Unfortunately, one of two sets of George Washington's false teeth discovered during "the great counting" has been stolen. Smithsonian officials also reported the disappearance of 130 silver objects, including a $12,500 Paul Revere pitcher.

Years of neglect have robbed the Smithsonian as well. Withered animal hiqes, unraveled reed baskets, faded paintings and cracked sculptures have been found in storerooms, some of which hadn't been disturbed in more than a century. In the botany department of the Museum of Natural History, a heat wave last summer caused some beetle eggs to hatch unexpectedly, and the offspring consumed some rare plants nearby.

"You never know what you'll find when you open the next drawer," says inventory coordinator Nancy Sinnott. "You might find a spittoon from Speaker [John W.] McCormack or a brick from the Great Wall of China. I found one piece of pottery still wrapped in an 1899 newspaper, when hamburger sold for 34 cents a pound and a man's suit for

4 dollars." Other finds include an original Edison light bulb (it still works), a silver pen used by statesman-author John Hay and skeletons of some African antelopes shot by President Teddy Roosevelt.

For most of the Smithsonian's 135 years, curators recorded acquisitions in handwritten ledgers and placed objects wherever there was room, even in hallways and stairwells. "The earliest curators could keep track of everything in two file cabinets," says Leslie. "Now we have 'eleventy' thousand snuffboxes alone scattered over four or five museums." To inform the right hand of what the left has acquired throughout the Smithsonian's 13 facilities, Lesiie is computerizing the operation. "For the first time, we'll have an up-todate record of everything we own."

When the counting and sorting of the Smithsonian's holdings are finished, many larger pieces will be moved to a new $29-million climatecontrolled warehouse in Suitland, Maryland. Even then, Leslie's job won't be over. Despite the inventory's glacial pace and occasional grumblings from the staff (notably when they were presented with the Institution's 14 million uncatalogued stamps), Leslie is already planning another, more detailed inventory.

"At this rate," he says with a wink, "I'll never be able to retire."

0 About the Author: Michael J. Weiss is a contributing editor of The Washingtonian.

predator behavior, and fluctuations in insect populations helps to explain the diversity of life in the tropics and linked developments. The marine station in Florida is exploring estuarine, marine and fresh water environments in coastal waters and along the continental shelf.

A natural corollary< is the International Environmental Science Program devoted to long-term studies of delicate ecosystems covering oceanography, limnology and ecology. It is also active at locations in New Guinea, Brazil, Venezuela and Nepal.

The activities discussed in these pages, and others too numerous to mention, reflect the extraordinarily broadbased, well-integrated sweep of the Smithsonian's structure and scope.

The aspect of the Smithsonian which is of special interest to India is its universality of approach, which emphasizes the diffusion of knowledge across national frontiers and beyond ideological limitations. By coincidence, the present secretary, Dr. Dillon Ripley, who presides over the Institution like a latter-day Moghul, has extremely close links with India. It would be no exaggeration to suggest that his earliest impressions of our country-from his first adventurous trip here at the age of 13 when, accompanied by his 20-year-old sister, he walked from the Kashmir border to Leh-have shaped a significant part of his life. That experience led to a long association with India and a close friendship with Dr. Salim Ali, one of the world's greatest ornithologists. The commitment of both men to scientific birdwatching took them on innumerable expeditions in an exuberant association that transcended national and cultural differences.

Dillon Ripley, after being graduated from Harvard, decided, he says, "to abandon all thoughts of a prosperous and worthy future" in order to travel to India as an ornithologist. Salim Ali, similarly inspired and also a member of a culturally and politically distinguished family, abandoned "for the birds" all thoughts of an official career despite strong family opposition. With the selfless support of his wife in difficult economic conditions, Salim Ali gradually built a national reputation, leading to his present world renown. The joint efforts of the two men are recorded for posterity in the 10 volumes of A Handbook of Birds of India and Pakistan.

All who know the Smithsonian acknowledge Dr. Ripley's immense contribution to its contemporary expanAboutthe AuthonSunil Roy, aformer-diplomat, is a memoer of the Indian National Committee for Environmental Planning, and a consultant for the u.N. Environment Prof?ramme, the World Tourism Organization and the u.N. Development Programme.

sion. Despite his,energy tic stewardship, he has maintained his interest in India as further reflected in two works, A Synopsis of Bjrds of India and Pakistan, 1961, and The Land and Wildlife of Tropical Asia, 1965. An observation in the latter on a gravely endangered fish species, the Mahseer, requires action to save it from extinction.

"The most important group of Oriental fish are the cyprinoid or carp like fishes .... Most of the important fishes of Southern Asia are in this group, including the famous Mahseer of India and Burma, a giant carp which may reach a weight of 110 pounds [about 50 kilograms] in some of the large Indian rivers and which, if caught on hook and line, fights and flings itself into the air as wildly as any tarpon."

One of the unusual Smithsonian projects illustrates the Institution's breadth of approach: a small-scale arrangement with the Cuban Academy of Sciences for exchange visits by member scientists each year. The Smithsonian is the only Western institution with such a link.

A Smithsonian-supported scholar is working in Burma on "The Court Dialect of the Royal Family in Mandalay."

Dr. Ed1'VardS. Ayensu, a Ghanaian, as director of the Endangered Species Program prepared the authoritative work The Endangered and Threatened Plants of the United States and a similar book on Africa. Dr. Farouk EI-Baz is working out an environmental studies research project in the Sinai in collaboration with Suez Canal University.

In India the Smithsonian collaborates closely with the Bombay Natural History Society on several projects including research on bird migrations and a study of the endangered Lion-Tailed Macaque. Preliminary work has also been done by Dr. Ayensu with the National Botanical Research Institute and the Botanical Survey of India on a project to identify, locate and list Indian plant species, endangered ones and those of economic value.

The Smithsonian Tiger Project in Nepal's Royal Chitawan National Park is ail excellent example of the kind of Institution research that can be a valuable addition to work being done here by a handful of dedicated Indian scientists and wildlife experts. The work at Royal Chitawan can make a significant contribution to India's "Project Tiger'." Here, close association with local specialists has created exceptional expertise for many Nepalese including sponsorship of Kirti Tamang for a Ph.D. in wildlife. He is a former Nepal Forest Service officer and graduate of Dehra Dun Forest Research Institute.

James Smithson could never have imagined the extent to which the Institution he envisaged has been able to fulfill his dreams. Nor could those who accepted his bequest have had any idea that their almost-reluctant response would result in the creation of what must surely be the world's most remarkable organization.

0 Top: Smithsonian's S. Dillon Ripley with ornithologist Salim AU. Right: The offspring of Mohini, the Rewa Maharaja's gift to Smithsonian's National Zoological Park, Washington.

George Bush ~~TheHandyman of American Politics" In 15 years of public life, George Bush has played several roles, each of which has prepared him well for the vice presidency.

George Bush, a Yankee Brahmin with a slight Texas accent, is succeeding famously as Vice President because he has followed that maxim of traditional politics, "To get along, go along." Bush enjoys a warm friendship with President Ronald Reagan, surprising some of Reagan's ardent followers, and has proved to be a solid team player.

Moreover, the President, in tandem with Bush, has enlarged the role and elevated the status of the office of Vice President-an action pioneered by President Jimmy Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale.

This move, executed in the new administration's first weeks, heightened the confidence of the two men in each other. While Bush had known Reagan many years as a politician, he did not know him as a man. Nor did Reagan really know Bush. Once in office, Reagan quickly discovered that Bush is cooperative and loyal. And Bush learned what many other "outsiders" have-that Ronald Reagan is warm, good-natured and sincere.

"Like most people in the United States, I thought I knew where he was coming from, but I didn't know him," Bush related in an interview. "I have great respect for him personally. He's got humor, kindness and commitment to principle.

He's a very easy man to work with. He encourages you to speak up, and he can make decisions and be firm. He has a way of bringing the best out of people."

One quick result of Bush's happy situation is that he has become more palatable politically. Conservatives who once dubbed him "liberal" (which his record disproves) now agree he is doing a first-rate job and serving the President well. There is a residue of skepticism from some on the right, but it is muted for the moment. Given the President's age (71), talk about Bush heading the 1984 ticket is natural, though the Vice President makes it a strictly verboten subject for his staff.

Bush is aptly called "the handyman of American politics."

Since 1966, when he began his publiccareer, he has been a U.S. Congressman; United Nations Ambassador; Chief of the U.S. Office in Peking; Republican National Committee Chairman; Director of Central Intelligence; unsuccessful presidential candidate; and now, Vice President.

"All his jobs seemed like stinkers at the time," said Chase Untermeyer , Bush's young executive assistant and a fellow Texan. "But he took full advantage of them, and by making the best of it, benefited politically. He thinks being Vice President is an excellent job, and he has 'Bushian' enthusiasm for it."

March 30, 1981, is historic because of the attempted assassination of President Reagan. But it was also the day when

the groundwork laid by Reagan for Bush to function in his place paid off.

Bush's plane was rolling for takeoff on the runway at Fort Worth, Texas, en route to his next speaking date in Austin, when Secret Service Agent Ed Pollard got word by radio of the shooting. He passed the news as soon as he could to Bush, and shortly thereafter, a message came from Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig for Bush to return to Washington. Bush and his staff watched the unfolding horror on a television set in the airborne Air Force I, but he did not see the part where Haig suddenly appeared, nervous and breathless, to announce he was in control and was in touch with the Vice President.

After a while, Bush went to his forward cabin and asked Untermeyer, the "journal keeper," to take down his thoughts, because he believed it might be a valuable record one day.

"In doing this," Untermeyer said, "I asked him how he heard the news of the shooting, and he answered that he had no memory of it at all. The detail was lost.

"His reaction was not that of a Vice President learning that the President had been shot. His reaction was that a friend, Ronald Reagan, was smiling one moment on TV and suddenly was cut down."

The Vice President, according to Untermeyer, was sure, even at that moment, that the President's life wasn't in danger because of Reagan's excellent health and the report that he had walked into the hospital. "On that day and on that flight," Untermeyer said, "Bush never felt any imminent possibility that he might have to take over as President."

Reagan, after being nominated in Detroit in July 1980, wasn't sure he wanted Bush for his running mate; after all, Gerald Ford was his first choice. But Republican insiders who had worked with Bush, as well as some of Reagan's closest advisers, told Reagan that if George Bush was anything, he was a team man. Convinced, Reagan, who insists on the team approach to management, asked Bush to run with him.

The two men didn't see each other much during the campaign. The presidential candidate goes one way and his running mate the other in that strenuous effort. Nor did they see each other often during the transition period, because Reagan spent virtually all his time at his ranch while Bush was in Washington. But just before and right after the inauguration, Reagan and Bush worked out the mode by which Bush would serve as Vice President. Interestingly enough, it is modeled in large part after the Democratic team they campaigned so hard against and defeated-Jimmy Carter' and Walter Mondale, who made it an office with clout.

While Reagan-Bush disagreed strongly in the campaign with about everything espoused by Carter-Mondale, it is apparent these four Americans shared similar notions about what the vice presidency should be. Bush has all the prerogatives Mondale enjoyed. All Bush will say about it is, "Mondale and Carter charted the new ground. We built upon it."

Bush arrives in his office in the Executive Office Building (EOB) about 7:30 each morning, meets with Nancy Bearg Dyke, his national security adviser, while his chief of staff, Daniel J. Murphy, a retired admiral, attends the White House staff meeting. Bush eats a bowl of cold cereal, drinks coffee and goes over important mail. By mid-morning, he's in the vice presidential office in the White House.

Bush sits in on White House staff meetings and attends the daily Nationai Security Council (NSC) briefing. "He is not shy at all about offering comments, thoughts or suggestions," Murphy said. "As far as the Federal Government is concerned, he is the most experienced person in the Administration. But he's not at all up front at these meetings, and that's on purpose.

Bush picks up nuances and points of view from leaders, foreign minisAt Andrews Air Force base in ters, heads of state. This is invaluMaryland, Vice President able information to pass on to the George Bush welcomes home President before he sees a head of a former hostage, one state. The President is grateful for of the 52 Americans held in this and so is Secretary Haig." captivity in Tehran for 444 days.

On Tuesdays, by custom, Bush presides over the U.S. Senate. He meets with the Republican leadership, an accepted practice. But _ Bush also sits in on the Republican [Ii Policy Committee meetings, an un. usual practice. Years ago, when Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, a former Senate Majority Leader, tried to sit in on Senate Democratic caucus meetings, he was politely but firmly informed that the meet~;~ ing was for Senators only. Mondale was mindful of the cold reception Johnson got, so he rarely went to such policy meetings. Evidently Bush's time as Republican National Chairman during the ordeal of Watergate won him credentials with Republicans who are now in the Senate.

For a while, he took time to jog on the Chesapeake Canal towpath, but Secret Service men decided that that narrow runway wasn't good from a security standpoint. So Bush now jogs in the safer confines of a nearby army base. He also plays tennis and mixes games of paddle ball in the Senate or House gym with a measure of congressional relations.

When Bush was a presidential candidate, some opponents scoffed that "George runs on his resume," meaning that his varied career made him a jack-of-all-trades but light in all of them. Actually, the experience he had in a dozen fields is serving him well in the vice presidency.

As a businessman for 17 years, Bush became fed up with federal regulations. As a Congressman for two terms, that feeling was compounded. He didn't lose touch with the federal snaggle when he served in other top government jobs. So it was natural for him t( head the Regulatory Task Force set up by the President. !

With.a staff headed by C. Boyden Gray, Bush's counsel, and James C. Miller, a regulatory expert serving in the Office of Management and Budget, Bush's charter is to make the task force operational and not just a study group. Murphy claims there was substantial progress in doing away with many regulations by early summer, but the success of this effort can be better measured after 1982.

Bush also had the responsibility for pulling together the experts in various departments for the Ottawa summit, where Western nations discussed world economic problems. Bush made sure that the President's concerns got onto the agenda for this meeting. While national economic policy can't be set at such a meeting, there is a great venting of common economic problems, and that's why the Ottawa meeting was important.

The President appointed Bush to head the White House crisis management group, which comprises top experts on economic and military matters who have particular knowledge of the region in which the crisis occurs. Most recently, Vice President Bush headed the "special situation" group meeting on the crisis in Poland.

Nearly all Bush's rhetoric these days is conservative support of the President's programs and expressions of loyalty to Reagan. When he spoke at a huge testimonial dinner for Daniel Mahoney, one of the founders of New York's Conservative Party-once the bane of regular Republicans but now sought after-Bush spoke glowingly of how, "Last November, we harvested a great victory for conservatism and the cause of freedom."

Bush's able performance as Vice President and his strong loyalty to Reagan have won him the support of the President's inner circle, including the normally skeptical Lyn Nofziger, former political doorkeeper for the President.

"You never have to worry about the Vice President," Nofziger said. "He is totally loyal. He will never say or do anything that in any way hurts the relation,ship with the President or the White House."

Senator Barry Goldwater is also a Bush fan. "There isn't any real opposition to him from conservatives," stated Goldwater. "He's as good a Vice President as I've seen in my lifetime."

Nofziger and Goldwater are Republican team players. The New Right political force is not, and Richard Viguerie, the New Right's celebrated prophet, remains skeptical of Bush.

"I strongly opposed him being picked for the vice presidency," Viguerie said. "Bush is a traditional, middle-of-the-road Republican, someone who would be basically in favor of continuing government pretty much as it is-favoring established programs by giving them budget increases every year the way Nixon and Ford did.

"He's done what Reagan asked him to do," said Viguerie, "so he's a good Vice President. That doesn't mean he would be a good President. Bush hasn't changed his views. He's moderate, mainstream, for big government and big business.

"Bush is no dummy. He's not going to make moderate-or liberal-sounding speeches like Nelson Rockefeller or Howard Baker. Someday Bush wants to go before the Republican Party, which is becoming more conservative by the hour."

Viguerie talks as though he will wait Bush out and, if he runs for President, pounce on him. But Reagan by picking him, the White House power circle by including him, most conservatives by praising him and the public by liking him demonstrate that

George Herbert Walker Bush, born in Milton, Massachusetts, June 12, 1924, is no fluke as Vice President.

The four parts to his name indicate his old-line Yankee heritage. His hightimbered accent betrays the Ivy League and his family of banking and the U. S. Senate. Bush is as conservative as the run of Reagan cabinet people, but his pin-striped tie and Eastern look cause outlanders After meeting U.S. Congressmen, to regard him as a "moderPresident Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush ate" or, worse, a "liberal." acknowledge greetings from a He graduated from crowd outside the U.S. Capitol.

Phillips Academy, Andover, enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1942 and, at age 18, was the youngest commissioned navy pilot of that time. He flew combat missions in the Pacific, was shot down and rescued by an American submarine in the nick of time and won a fistful of medals.

At Yale, he was Phi Beta Kappa and, as a left-handed first baseman, captained the varsity baseball team. After graduation in 1948, he put the possibility of an Eastern banking career aside, went west to Texas where he swept floors in his first job, learned the oil business, borrowed from his family and cofounded Zapata Offshore Company, which pioneered in experimental offshore drilling equipment. He made millions of dollars.

He had married a strong, pleasant woman, Barbara Pierce of Rye, New York-also from his background-and she was sturdy enough to be cheerful about their first home in Texas: a trailer with a bathroom they had to share with a neighbor.

The Bushes have five children, ranging in age from 20 to 33.

Bush serves on the vestry of St. Ann's Episcopal Church, Kennebunkport, Maine, and is on the board of the Episcopal Church Foundation.

In Houston, possessed of wealth and a buoyant personality, Bush became active in Republican politics. In 1964, an extraordinarily poor year for Republicans in Texas, Bush ran for the U.S. Senate, finishing far ahead of the Goldwater ticket but behind Democratic incumbent Ralph Yarborough, who got 56.5 percent of the vote.

In 1966 Bush became the first Republican to be elected to Congress in Texas since the Civil War, winning 57.1 percent of the vote in a suburban Houston district. Two years later, he ran without opposition.

Bush tried for the Senate again in 1970, and had such diverse support as President Richard Nixon, Vice President Spiro Agnew (both gave speeches for him) and inveterate liberals John Kenneth Galbraith and former Senator Ernest Gruening (both opposed to Lloyd Bentsen, Bush's opponent). Bush was given an even chance to win, but lost, partly because a referendum vote on local option liquor sales drew a heavy turnout of teetotaling, Bible-minded Democrats from rural areas.

Now twice a fallen warrior in senatorial campaigns, Bush was given consolation in the form of the U.N. ambassadorship.

He liked that job. However, Bush's credentials as a team player

were put to the test in January, 1973, when President Nixon asked him to take over the Republican National Committee.

Bush had no idea then that he was walking into hell. Watergate grew like a mushroom and soon became a malignancy.

Bush had to defend Nixon, Republicanism and the two-party system. He remained loyal to all, earning wide applause.

When Nixon, Haig and Kissinger were huddled in the bunker at the end, with heavy artillery pounding relentlessly from Congress, George Bush, a follower and friend of Nixon's, painfully wrote this letter: "It is my considered judgment that you should now resign. I expect in your lonely embattled position this would seem to you as an act of disloyalty from one you have supported and helped in so many ways. My own view is that I would now ill serve a President, whose massive accomplishments I will always respect and whose family I love, if I did not give you my judgment.

Until this moment, resignation has been no answer at all, but given the impact of the latest development, and it will be a lasting one, I now firmly feel resignation is best for this country, best for this President. I believe this view is held by most Republican leaders across the country. This letter is much more difficult because of the gratitude I will always have for you. If you do leave office, history will properly record your achievements with a lasting respect."

It was hard for any Republican regular to fault this assessment and the loyalty going with it. And so President Ford sent Bush to Peking as American envoy, an assignment that gave him time to play tennis, catch up on his reading and think.

Then, when the going got tough for the CIA, Bush was brought home in late 1975 to succeed William E. Colby, who had been fired as director. While approving the move to stop covert actions against U.S. citizens, Bush vainly resisted the congressional campaign to clamp down on the CIA. President-elect Carter was urged to keep Bush in the CIA job, thereby demonstrating bipartisanship, but instead he appointed a friend, Admiral Stansfield Turner. It wasn't long thereafter that Bush began running for President.

In 1978, he toured 42 states, laying down the nourishment at grass roots he hoped would sprout for him in 1980. They sprouted mightily in Iowa, where he upset Reagan-and indeed, he proved to be Reagan's only competition, winning six primaries.

Primaries can get rough, but Bush only cut loose at Reagan twice: He criticized Reagan's proposal to blockade Cuba in retaliation for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; then he called Reagan's tax plans "voodoo" economics.

As for 1984, Bush has stated: "On 1984, my plans are to have no plans. My plan is to be a good Vice President, supportive of the President. I don't discuss it and don't let m.y staff talk about it either. I'm not naive, I know there is speculation. But my view is to be a good Vice President-and that's it."

But it is fair to speculate about George Bush winding up as the Republican candidate for President in 1984. The chances are one in three that any Vice President will become President.

In fact, five of America's last 11 Vice Presidents moved into the Oval Office to sit in the chair of power. George Bush could become the sixth.

0 About the Author: Nick Thimmesch is a columnist with the Los Angeles Times Syndicate

by JULIAN L. SIMON

The prediction that food production cannot keep up with population growth has been made repeatedly for more than a decade. For example, in 1968, Paul Ehrlich declared in his bestselling book The Population Bomb that "the battle to feed all humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines-hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." In 1975, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific predicted "500 million starvation deaths in Asia between 1980 and 2025." The following year, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAa), Edouard Saoma, described the long-term prospects for food production in developing countries as "alarmingly inadequate." In 1975, a full-page advertisement sponsored by the Environmental Fund appeared in leading American newspapers. It¡ stated: The world as we know it will likely be ruined before the year 2000 and the reason for this will be its inhabitants' failure to comprehend two facts: L World food production cannot keep pace with the galloping growth of population.

2. "Family planning" cannot and will not, in the foreseeable future, check this runaway growth.

niew Brzezinski, Malcolm Cowley, Paul Ehrlich, Clifton Fadiman, J. Paul Getty, Henry Luce III, Archibald MacLeish, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, DeWitt Wallace, and Leonard Woodcock, among others.

Over the past 10 years, such pronouncements have multiplied; they seem now to be regarded as facts of life rather than as conjectures. Some people see in these assertions a warrant for triage: the policy of abandoning the least fit in order to concentrate on victims who have a decent chance of surviving. A book by William and Paul Paddock, Famine-1975!, applied this wartime medical concept to food aid and produced the following judgments: Haiti Egypt The Gambia Tunisia Libya India Pakistan

Can't-be-saved Can't -be-saved Walking Wounded Should Receive Food Walking Wounded Can't-be-saved Should Receive Food

A more severe version of triage is the "lifeboat ethic," proposed by the biologist Garrett Hardin who argues against giving food to starving people, on the grounds that such aid abets population growth, and this

will leave future generations worse off.

Despite the popular consensus, buttressed by scientists of various disciplines, that the world is heading toward agricultural ruin, the view of mainstream agricultural economists is quite the contrary. It is an accepted idea among agricultural economists that the trend-as revealed in recent decades by statistics and in the more distant past by historical evidence- has been toward improvement in the food supplies of almost every main population group. For example, in 1973, even before the recent years of bumper harvests, D. Gale Johnson, who teaches agricultural economics at¡ the University of Chicago, told the American Statistical Association that food supply had increased at least enough to match population growth in developing countries for four decades. He discerned a gradual improvement in per capita food consumption for the past two centuries.

The principal evidence for optimism is the record of food production, as represented by data collected by FAa from member countries and by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)' from 104 countries and from American agricultural attaches.

Production of food (as measured by

food's adjusted value on the market in a given year, divided by the world population) was either 28 percent or 37 percent higher in 1979 than in the 1948-1952 base period, according to FAa and USDA, respectively.

The difference arises partly from the inclusion of China in FAa figures, and in any case does not qualify the direction of the trend.

Although the two statistical indexes are far less reliable than one would like (economic data usually are), they are ail that we have. Numbers that show a worsening trend in recent decades simply do not exist.

Nevertheless, people resolutely ignore this silver lining and instead try to find the cloud. Consider, for example, this statement from an article by two demographers in the journal Population and Development Review: "During the last 25 years or so the average annual rate of increase of world food production has steadily deteriorated .... It fell from 3.1 percent in the 1950s to 2.8 percent in the 1960s and 2.2 percent in the first half of the 1970s." I shall leave aside the large question of whether such apparent changes are statistically meaningful. What is interesting for now is the word "deteriorated," which suggests that the world food situation is getting worse.

But the data tell us only that the gain-the improvement-was greater in the 1950s than it was later; they don't say that food production is not increasing.

Similarly, Business Week ran an article on food and illustrated it with a bar graph, comparing population with food per capita from 1954to 1974. It seems at first glance to show population growing faster than food.

That would mean a fall in food per capita, which would be a bad sign. But on close inspection we see that food per capita has incteased-a good sign. It makes no sense to put a total figure (population) next to a per capita figure (food per capita). Why is it done? People apparently want to believe and to tell others that world food supplies are running out even though-statistically, at least-they are improving.

The incidence of famine is a useful clue to changes in the world's food supply over the years. Famine is hard to define and measure, however, because when nutrition is poor many people die of diseases and not directly of starvation. Historical studies therefore count as a famine any event that people living in a particular time referred to as such.

According to Johnson, who has surveyed the documentary history of famine and reports the result in his monograph World Food Problems and Prospects (1973), "It is highly unlikely that the famine-caused

deaths [in the third quarter of the 20th century] equal a tenth of [those for] the period 75 years earlier." He says that "there has not been a major famine, such as visited China and India in the past, during the past quarter century," and he considers the food supply "far more secure for poor people during the past quarter century than at any other comparable period in the last two or three centuries." Johnson states that many, if not most, of the 12 to 15 million famine deaths that have occurred in this century "were due to deliberate governmental policy, official mismanagement, or war and not to serious crop failure."

Accounts such as this by Johnson are not often mentioned in newspapers or in conversation. Instead, one hears the claim that "a lifetime of malnutrition and actual hun-

Notwithstanding the prognoses of the prophets of doom, food grain production has more than kept pace with population growth in most developing countries-even those that were labeled: "can't be saved." ger is the lot of at least two-thirds of mankind," first made by the director of FAa in 1950. Unlike Johnson's assertions, this claim is not based on any data. The U.N. later reduced its estimate of people in "actual hunger" to between 10 and 15 percent of mankind. Even though the original FAa estimate was a guess, .a great deal of research into minimum, or satisfactory, dietary needs, and the diets customary in various countries, has now been done, and disproves it. But the statement comes back again and again in popular discussion as evidence that food is not becoming more plentiful.

Since global trends of food production can mask exceptions, let us consider two countries where food has been short: India and Bangladesh.

Net food grain availability-the amount available for human consumption-in kilograms per capita per year has been rising in India since at least 1950-1951. Throughout the 1970s, food production increased at a faster rate than population. Why has India's food supply improved so dramatically? The cause is not an agronomic miracle but an expectable economic event. Most price controls on food were lifted, and price supports were substituted for the controls. Indian farmers had a greater incentive to produce more, so they did. They increased produc-

tion by planting more crops a year, on more land, and by improving the land they had.

They also introduced higher yield strains and improved fertilizers.

Some people are surprised that Indian farmers could find more land to cultivate.

But in fact the total area of Indian cultivated land increased by about 20 percent between 1951 and 1971. In addition, there was a 25 percent increase in irrigated land between 1949-1950 and 1960-1961, and another 39 percent increase between 1961-1965 and 1978.

When Bangladesh became independent, in late 1971, after a devastating war, Henry Kissinger called the country "an international basket case." Since then, the food supply has at times been so low that some writers have advocated "letting Bangladesh go down the drain," whatever that means.

Other people organized emergency relief operations. But production began to improve in 1975 and has continued to improve steadily over the years. From 1975 to 1980, Bangladesh's population increased at a rate of 2.7 percent; its food grain production increased at a rate of 4 percent.

Nevertheless, even though half of the cultivated 22 million acres are suitable for two crops at a time, and some for three, yields per acre remain low. Only 3.4 million acres are irrigated, and there is no strong incentive to increase that amount. Storage capacity in Bangladesh is limited, and about 75 percent of the farms produce for subsistence rather than for the market.

Why would a subsistence farmer grow more than his family can eat? An urban housewife does not buy so many vegetables for the week that they spoil. Malthus spoke of a "natural want of will on the part of mankind to make efforts for the increase of food beyond what they could possibly consume." Food is produced to meet demand, either of subsistence-farming families or of the market. When demand increases, farmers are encouraged to find ways to produce more crops and improve the land.

Food, like other resources, is .a market commodity. Wherever it is bought and sold, the most sensible measure of scarcity is price (and the cost of production, which is close to price over the long term). But we must keep in mind that price does not tell us everything about scarcity and social welfare. A product may be readily available, as measured by its low price, and there may still be social damage. For example, a daily ration of vitamin A may be cheap, but if people can't find a store that sells vitamin A, or if they don't believe they need it, then their health is nonetheless jeopardized. On the other hand, caviar may be expensive and scarce,

but the lack of caviar has no effect on society's well-being. The price of a week's groceries may be higher now than in a previous year, but there is no harm to society if income also increases. Therefore, though the price of food and the social welfare are often connected, they are not identical.

In the United States, the sharp rise in food prices in 1972-1973 was interpreted by many consumers as the harbinger of an increasing scarcity of food. But the trend in food prices over the long term justifies a more cheerful attitude. Because wheat is important in the diets of so many countries, and because its price tends to move in concert with the prices of other grains, it is an important indicator of world food supplies generally. And U.S. export prices for food grains are reasonably representative of worlQ-market prices. Since 1800, the price of wheat relative to wages has fallen sixfold.

Relative to an estimated Consumer Price Index over the same period, it has fallen by more than a third. From this point of view, the abrupt price jump that took place in the 1970s is seen to be one of many fluctuations that have occurred in the midst of steady decline.

The decline in wheat prices is hard to believe, especially when one considers the great increase in demand resulting from world population increases and world income increases. But production increased even more-enough to overcome these pressures and keep the price down. There is no reason to assume that the future will not be continuous with the past. Thus, from the historical trend toward cheaper and more plentiful food, it is reasonable to conclude that real prices for food will continue to drop as food becoqles more abundant.

Population growth has raised the specter of increased pressure on the land. More people, it is said, make for smaller farms per farmer, and hence a harder struggle to produce enough to eat, until each of us is scratching out three skimpy meals from 18 hours' work a day, on a plot the size of a window box. "More people, less land," the Environmental Fund says.

More people, it is further said, will ruin land, especially in arid areas. Smithsonian magazine has editorialized that in the desert, "traditional, more primitive agricultural techniques using natural ecological cycles are all that will work ... and that means small populations." The head of the Population!

Food Fund, Charles M. Cargille, writes that "overpopulation contributes to ... deforestation and agricultural practices damaging to soil fertility."

Yet the world now eats as well as, or

better than, it did in earlier centuries-even in poor countries. This paradox is explained as follows: Reduction in the amount of land available to the farmer causes little hardship if previously he did not need to farm all the land that was available to him. (However, he may have to change his methods so as to cultivate the land more intensively.)

Furthermore, when farmers need more land they make more land. They build land for cultivation by investing their energy, blood, money and ingenuity in it. The increase in agricultural output as population rises (with or without an accompanying rise in income) has been accomplished, in most countries, largely by increases in the amount of land farmed.

The late Joginder Kumar, a demographer, did an enormous amount of hard work to collect and standardize data on land supply and use throughout the world. The

Food has no long-run, physical limit. Droughts and famines occur; in some countries, even under ordinary circumstances.

But these conditions are not inevitable; with effort they can be reversed. results are reported in his book Population and Land in World Agriculture (1973).

Kumar's finding: There was 9 percent more arable land in'1960 than in 1950 in the 87 countries for which he could find data; these countries account for 73 percent of the world's total land area. Some of the places where the quantity of cultivated land is increasing are surprising - India, for example, where the amount of cultivated land rose from 1,261,001 to 1,379,190 square kilometers between 1951 and 1960.

The trend that Kumar found from 1950 to 1960 continues. FAG has collected data back to the 1960s showing that. there was a rise in "arable and permanent" cropland" from 1,394 to 1,506 million hectares in the world as a whole between 1961-1965 and 1975, an increase of 8 percent. In the developing countries the gain is particularly significant and encouraging.

The fact that the amount of arable land in the world is increasing does not forebode diminishing returns in the long run, with successively poorer land being brought into use, because it is also a fact that average yields per acre are increasing. Improvements in yield per acre and total production can be so great that farmers cultivate less land. Such was the case in the United States, for example, until the 1970s.

In the United States, surplus production has been the problem. The high output has been obtained in large part with huge farm machines that require flat land for efficiency. This combination of increased productivity per acre of good land and increased use of equipment adapted to flat land has made it unprofitable to farm some land that formerly was cultivated. For example, between 1860 and 1974, the tillable area in New Hampshire declined from 2,367,000 acres to 172,000 acres. Although yields have continued to increase in the United States, world demand and changes in government agricultural policies were incentives for farmers to increase their acreage over the last decade. Not only is more pasture and fallow land being cropped now but also new cropland is being created at the rate of 1.25 (or, according to another estimate, 1.7) million acres a year, by irrigation, swamp drainage, and other means. This is a much larger quantity of land than the amount converted to cities and highways each year.

The potential for creating new land has increased as knowledge, machinery, and power sources have improved. At one time, most of Europe could not be planted, because the soils were "too heavy." When a plow that could farm the heavy soil was invented, much of Europe suddenly became arable in the eyes of the people who lived there. In the 20th century, bulldozers and dynamite have cleared out stumps that kept land from being plowed. And in the future, cheap transportation and desalination may transform what are now deserts into arable lands. The definition of "arable" changes as technology develops and the demand for land rises. Hence any calculation of "arable" land should be seen for what it is-a rough estimate without permanent force.

Experts and laymen alike continue to state the "obvious" (though incorrect) view that there is a limit on the amount of food in the world, and that if some countries consume more, others in need will have less. What I have tried to demonstrate here is that food has no long-run, physical limit.

This does not mean that complacency about the food supply is in order. Droughts and famines occur; in some countries, even under ordinary circumstances, some people don't have enough to eat.. But these conditions are not inevitable; they are rarely permanent. I believe that, with effort and with confidence, they can be reversed. 0 About the Author: Julian L. Simon is aprofessor of economics and business administration at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and the author of The Ultimate Resource.

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An epidemiologist in a protective suit examines a virus in a maximum containment laboratory at the Center for Disease Control.

The Disease

Detectives

It is a laboratory of last resort, deluged each year with more than 170,000 specimens from all over the world-diseases in need of diagnosis. It is a zookeeper, riding herd on quarantined cultures of deadly viruses. Some, like smallpox, are virtually extinct, others-the Lassa, Morburg, Ebola, and South American hemorrhagic viruses, for example-are new and threatening. With its massive serum banks containing more than 250,000 samples of every kind of disease, it is our collective memory of recent human afflictions: malaria from Trinidad,

cholera strains from Louisiana, encephalitis from Texas, polio, typhus, influenza-each sample cross-listed under 255 categories and labeled "open stock," "restricted" or "posterity." And it is also, in a very active way, a detective agency, restlessly verifying and quantifying disease statistics from around the world and publishing the latest trends in its extraordinary little blotter, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

It is the Center for Disease Control (CDC), a squat complex of buildings in suburban Atlanta, Georgia, the employer

of 4,000 persons, fully half of whom are scattered across the United States and overseas at anyone time. It is a bureaucracy that seems to know what it is about, but a bureaucracy nonetheless, a stepchild of one of the biggest bureaucracies of them all-the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Center for Disease Control is the family physician to the American body politic. It is also its coroner.

Many Americans first became aware of the Center in 1976 after an outbreak in July of what was labeled Legionnaires'

disease. Centered on an American Legion convention in Philadelphia's Bellevue Stratford Hotel, the disease eventually afflicted 189 persons (most of them men), 29 of whom died.

CDC investigators sent out more than 3,500 questionnaires. They interviewed hundreds of conventioneers, hotel employees, area residents and workers.

They scrutinized weather reports, room assignments, patterns of activity. They tested ice, water, food, street vendors' wares, animals, air conditioners, insects, dust. But they failed to find any common denominator among the many victims except the disease itself. It was the most widely publicized epidemic in modern history, and after more than four months of concentrated work, the world's most vaunted medical researchers didn't even know the nature of the disease: A toxin?

A fungus? A bacterium? A virus? A rickettsia?

And so, on the slow Monday after Christmas 1976, as the inv.estigation continued to wind down ingloriously, Joe McDade of CDC's Leprosy and Rickettsia Branch decided to take another look at his slides.

In his earlier tests, McDade had noted scattered red rods in some of the specimens. Rods are characteristic of certain types of rickettsia, a class of microorganism, usu~llyparasite-borne, that causes such diseases as typhus, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, dengue, and Q fever-the last a disease with symptoms quite like those of Legionnaires' disease. The bacteriology branch having already ruled out a bacterium, McDade believed he was hot on the trail of a rickettsia, his specialty. But the animals he inoculated with the disease-bearing culture became sick too soon to be the victims of rickettsia, which has a long incubation period.

To double-check these negative findings for rickettsia, McDade tested to see if tissue from his sick guinea pigs would infect a batch of eggs specially treated with antibiotics to prevent any merely bacterial reaction. Additionally, he attempted to pass on the disease to a new set of guinea pigs, in this way screening out any bacterial contamination his samples might have incurred after the initial infection. The results: negative. Nothing grew in the eggs. The guinea pigs did not get sick. McDade concluded that the red rods were merely a bacterial infection that preyed upon lung tissue already rendered¡ defenseless by the disease organism still eluding his detection.

But McDade had made a mistake. ,He had taken tissue from the lungs of the guinea pigs, on the assumption that they were the focus of the disease. Pneumonia bacteria, however, concentrate in a guinea pig's spleen. In the tests for rickettsia, the eggs had not become diseased because they were dosed with antibiotics lethal to all bacteria. And in the second test, the guinea pigs had stayed well because their inoculations were of harmless lung tissue instead of spleen tissue where pneumonia bacteria collect.

Reviewing his slides four months later, McDade's attention was drawn once again to those mysterious red rods. This time he would not be testing to distinguish a rickettsia from a bacterium. He simply wanted to develop as potent a culture of the disease organism as he could.

And so, when McDade had infected a new

An elite corps of epidemiologists at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta monitors America's health and battles some of the world's most dangerous afflictions. batch of guinea pigs and they became sick, he drew samples of diseased tissue from their spleens. Then he ordered up eggs uncontaminated by antibiotics and inoculated them with the spleen tissue. Within days, the egg embryos started to die. On examination, they were ridden with McDade's little red rods.

At this point McDade called in the head of his. bran~h, Charles Shepard. In the 1960s, Shepard had revolutionized the study of leprosy by demonstrating that the organism responsible could be grown in the footpad of a mouse.

Together they ordered up from CDC's vast banks samples of serum-blood without red cells-taken from Legionnaires' disease victims. The serum, they argued, would contain antibodies specific to the organism that had caused the disease. If they interacted with the red rods that McDade had discovered, then by all odds the rods were the disease organisms.

Interact they did .. And further tests showed that the interaction was peculiar to Legionnaires' disease serum. Serun~ from patients suffering from viral, rickettsial, fungal and other bacterial pneumonias showed no antibody reaction.

They had found it. And not only that.

In the process, they had also found the cause of two of the most mystifying epidemics in CDC's roster of unsolved cases: a 1965 outbreak of pneumonia at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C.-14 persons killed; and the outbreak in 1969 of a mysterious, nonfatal illness that struck 144 persons in a publichealth building in Pontiac, Michigan.

Eleven-year-old and seven-year-old samples from CDC's serum banks showed that they too were antibody positive for the Legionnaires' disease bacterium, Legionella pneumophila.

At this point a public announcement was made. CDC's other laboratories could now swing into high gear performing sharply focused tests. The animaltransmitted disease laboratory was given the job of seeing which antibiotic would work best on eggs infected with the bacteria. This probably saved the life of a Pennsylvania carbon-plant worker who came down with the disease in March 1977 and was promptly given erythromycin, its efficacy established just in time.

Simultaneously, the special bacteriology section was at work developing a medium in which the recalcitrant bacterium could be grown in large enough quantities to facilitate further research. Meanwhile, the epidemiological section began scouring the rest of the United States for other cases of Legionnaires' disease.

After three years and 11 U.S. outbreaks, CDC lab scientists and epidemiologists had learned a lot. First, Legionella pneumophila is an environmental bacterium. Thrown up by disturbances to its natural habitat in earth and water, it can float in the air to a new habitat in air-cooling towers and be concentrated by air-conditioning systems.

Second, it is the infecting agent for at least two known diseases-Legionnaires' disease and Pontiac fever, a nonfatal but more easily contracted illness. Third, Legionnaires' disease has been with us for a long time. A blood sample from. a 1947 pneumonia victim showed that he, too, had the disease. Fourth, it is much more common than had been suspected.

Six hundred sixty-four cases were rep0fted in 1978, and the true figure for infection may be much higher-perhaps as high as 2 percent of all pneumonias of hitherto unknown cause.

Officers attached to CDC's far-flung Epidemic Intelligence Service are proud to wear two badges: a miniature shoe and a miniature red barrel of Watney's beer.

The shoe represents the footwork and slogging involved in CDC's brand of

epidemiology. The barrel is for the beer served in a London pub called the John Snow. John Snow (1813-1858) is the father of modern epidemiology and the guiding spirit of CDC. "John Snow was an anesthetist who dealt with cholera before there was a germ theory of disease," explains Stan Music, deputy head of epidemiology field services. "In his time, doctors were still talking in terms of miasmas and divine retribution. What Snow did was simple. He looked at the London water supply and saw that the risk of getting cholera was greater if the water was supplied by the Southwark and Vauxhall Company than if it was supplied by the Lambeth Company. He narrowed it down to one pump and, to test his hypothesis, he shut down the pump."

In a sense, ever since John Snow, epidemiology has been in the business of shutting down the pump wherever it appears to be discharging disease or poison into the bloodstream of the human community.

Snow's epidemiological descendant, the U.S. organization that eventually became CDC, was born in March 1942, three months after the United States entered World War II, as the Office of Malaria Control in War Areas. It was based in Atlanta because malaria was endemic to the South, and it was the South that offered the best prospect for year-round military training and wartime production. Little by little, the scope of the fledgling field station grew. Dengue and yellow fever were added to its responsibilities in 1943, followed by typhus in 1945. So was a laboratory specializing in tropical diseases, intended to help in the diagnosis of infections brought back to the United States by returning servicemen.

It might well have been closed down at the end of the war, but the idea of specially trained and equipped scientists fighting related health problems from a single organization was attractive and in 1946 the Office of Malaria Control was renamed the Communicable Disease Center.

Gradually, separate laboratories were set up for the study of bacteria, parasites, fungi, viruses and rickettsias. Plague and zoonoses-diseases of animals transmissible to human beings-were added to its roster in 1947. The Epidemic Intelligence Service, which recruits young doctors, nurses, veterinarians and public health workers for two years' service as

epidemiologists, was founded in 1951. In 1954, CDC did the first field tests on the new Salk polio vaccine. And in 1957-58, even before the Asian flu pandemic, it acted as the World Health Organization's flu center for the Americas, sharing reagents and know-how with labs in 32 countries.

In the years since, the organization that was renamed the Center for Disease Control in 1970 has steadily broadened its purview to include virtually every aspect of American health and health education-from venereal disease to leukemia to smoking to family planning to nutrition, vaccination, and the licensing and regulation of clinical laboratories.

Bill Foege is the director of CDC, a tall, rangy, good-looking man in his 40s who previously headed the U.S. contribution to the World Health Organization's triumphant Smallpox Eradication Program. He talks about CDC's prime motive: "Put at its simplest, our job is to identify and eliminate, as far as possible, unnecessary illness and death. And that means watching¡ the South for equine encephalitis and for dengue and yellow fever, for which our mosquitoes are potential carriers. It means watching the borders and incoming planes and ships. It means watching outbreaks of infectious and respiratory diseases, which kill hundreds of thousands of Americans a year."

Foege picks up a book from the cluttered table in front of him, Will Durant's The Lessons of History, and reads a short passage in which Durant argues his way toward a proper criterion for the advancement of civilization. That criterion, says Durant, is our ability to control our environment. "There," Bill Foege says, shutting the book, "that's really the point. We control our environment more and more, but at the same time lose control over it. Ease of transportation, for example, means widespread flow of infectious organisms, which couldn't travel very far before. Movement into unpopulated areas means irruptions into ecosystems in which unknown viruses may have thrived, away from man, for thousands or millions of years. New developments in technology and chemistry bring their own problems. Our work is at the interface between these two movements, control and loss of control." D About the Author: 10 Durden-Smith, a freelance writer and TV filmmaker, is the author of Who Killed General Jackson?

HALFWAY Between prison and society stands the halfway house where prisoners are looked after while they take a job and await parole (at right, a resident prisoner signs in).

T

he promise of a job brought him to New York City from Connecticut two months ago. Now he works as the sales manager for a concern that manufactures heat exchangers, commuting every day from his Manhattan residence to a factory on Long Island.

What distinguishes this manwho asked that his name not be used-is that he is a federal prisoner, and a resident of the Oxford Project. The project, to which he was admitted after months of waiting, is one of a dozen halfway houses in the city that try to smooth the transition from prison to life . outside for as many as possible of the 750 inmates they can accommodate.

If all goes well, the prisoner hopes to leave the halfway house where he is staying on West 74th Street after a month and move in with his fiancee. He will have finished his federal prison term.

The halfway houses operate inconspicuously-housing, feeding, monitoring and counseling inmates who have taken jobs with private employers while they await parole.

The city and state have their own work-release programs, but the Federal Bureau of Prisons transfers its inmates to private agencies. The largest in New York is the Oxford Project, a division of the Phoenix House Foundation, known for its drug rehabilitation efforts.

The city, state and federal programs work similarly. Inmates are screened by parole officers and officials of the programs. They are supposed either to have jobs awaiting them or to stand a reasonable Copyright Š 1981 by the New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission.

OUSE ON THE WAY HOME FROM JAIL

assurance of finding employment.

The severity or nature of their crimes may exclude them from consideration. They arrive from prison anywhere from a year to a month before they are eligible for parole.

They work outside the houses but reside within, under varying security. With good behavior, they are released at the time they would have left prison.

A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, the inmate who is now working as a sales manager once helped run a commodities firm. He wasarrested in 1978 and convicted in 1979of mail and wire fraud. He has served 18 months of a two-year sentence in prisons around the country, most recently at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut.

"In the last three months," he said, "I methodically went through

want ads in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. I responded to box ads. You don't make collect calls from Danbury.

"I found four jobs while I was inside," he said. "One of my best sales pitches was to say, 'You'll get a tax deduction if you hire me.' 'So what?' they'd say. 'We'll be getting a crook.'

"My job was predicated on my getting into a halfway house," he continued. "I was very lucky. It's a battle to get to the halfway house.

"From the inside, nobody knows who will be selected for the program," he said. "This is a gift if you get it."

Oxford officials spoke of the value of the counseling services they offered, but the inmate found a greater benefit at the house: "You get freedom."

Because he has observed the

rules, curfew has been relaxed for him and he may spend time with his fiancee and his family, although he is not allowed to travel farther than 80 kilometers from the city. He must always be within reach of the house by telephone.

Other than freedom, he has not found much more benefit from the Oxford house than its providing "a roof over your head and a couple of meals a day." But of Oxford's staff, he said, "For the first time in the criminal justice system, I've found people who really care."

Another inmate said, "Do you know what the rents are in Manhattan? And you're coming out of jail with a $20 bill in your hand. The halfway house has helped give me the chance to get a job and look around."

An inmate who was once a white-collar criminal is not the type

likely to worry the neighbors of a halfway house. Moreover, officials of the various programs say that they screen the list of potential inmates to eliminate those convicted of certain crimes.

The city will not, for example, accept those it considers incorrigible or those convicted of violent crimes or major drug offenses. The state will not take those convicted of violent crimes, sex crimes or crimes committed while in possession of deadly weapons. And Oxford will not accept anyone with an extensive prison history, major psychiatric problems or a long record of arson or rape.

"A history of violence does not automatically exclude an inmate in a federal prison from eligibility for a halfway house program," said Linda Lancaster, executive assistant to the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The city maintains one halfway house in Manhattan for about 40 inmates. The state operates a work-release program that can accommodate about 600 inmates, from three centers in Manhattan and one in Queens.

Oxford operates three halfway houses, and the Salvation Army operates two, one for men and one for women, in lower Manhattan.

There are several other programs.

Police officials said they kept no statistics on crimes committed by those who are supposed to be under the supervision of halfway houses and would not comment on their performance.

But the chairman of Community Board 7, Sally Goodgold, expressed no reservation about the presence in the neighborhood of the Oxford house. "In a district where everybody is civic minded, where everybody talks, where everybody knows what's going on," she said, "the Oxford Project is actually invisible, which is mind boggling.

-There has never been a single comment or complaint to our office or, as far as I know, to anyone."

0 About the Author: David W. Dunlap is a reporter on the metropolitan staff of The New York Times.

Tharp Dancing TEXT BY ELIZABETH PHOTOGRAPHS

KENDALL

BY JACK MITCHELL

Whether it is the choreography, music or costumes, Twyla Tharp's innovations are invariably provocative and creative. They exemplify the freedom and experimentation that marks American modern dance, which this irrepressible dancer has done so much to shape.

Every once in a while an artist comes along who is such a mischief maker that he or she ups ts all the unexamined solemnities in an art form. Twyla Tharp is such a figure in modern dance, which was a very solemn art indeed in the 1930s and 1940s when it was inventing itself, and even in the 1950s and 1960s when it was reinventing itself with a new solemnity.

Tharp, as a young choreographer, would have none of this. By her very cockiness, she made people pay attention to herwhether or not they liked her dancing-and she made the media pay attention too.

Twyla Tharp was first discovered in the middle 1960s, working tongue-in-cheek among the modern dance avantgarde. Since then she has been rediscovered every time she does something unexpected-her first piece to old jazz (Eight Jelly Rolls, 1971), her first, and then her second piece for the Joffrey Ballet (Deuce Coupe and As Time Goes By, both 1973), her ballet for American Ballet Theatre (Push Comes to Shove, 1976), her TV shows (1975 and 1977), her dance on ice for skater John Curry (After All, 1976), her choreography for the movie Hair (1979).

In 1980- Tharp's 15th anniversary as a choreographerher company appeared on Broadway for the first time. Here is a phenomenon: a person who begins her career as a modern dancer in Paul Taylor's company, leaves it to make her first experiments in choreography and 15 years later arrives on Broadway with a company of 16 dancers who-unprecedented all on 52-week salaries. in modern dance-are Explaining Tharp's impact means understanding what exactly was new about her when she emerged. It wasn't only that she invaded worlds (like the ballet) where modern dancers hadn't set foot, it was what she did when she got there. When one first saw a piece like Deuce Coupe in 1973, in which her company danced with the Joffrey dancers, one was astonished by two things: the sheer vigor of the dancing and the nature of the mind that would put the rock-and-roll music of the Beach Boys together with classical ballet. The ballet's structure reflected real social moods-duos and trios of dancers acting silly, herds of dancers gently jostling each other across the stage, detachments of dancers hurtling out from the wings-and yet much of the material was truly formal. There to prove it was one lone ballerina in a spotlight, threading her way through all the action, both violent and dreamy, in her little dance-which was a string of classroom steps alphabetically arranged. Thus by formal, physical and humorous means, Tharp expressed the most private and various wishes of a whole generation, and

ended the dance with their public desire, a utopia: the whole crowd, together in a group by the end, stirring the space with different lazy motions-individuals detached and in harmony.

Tharp \\ as one of the first to "digest" the youth phenomenon, and to express it without its politics or sentimentality. For the general culture she was one of the signs of the demise of a Quaker aestheticism of the 1960s and the recovery f wit and urban impatience. This was signaled by her music, not only the best rock music of the moment, but what she used first-the older American jazz of Jelly Roll Morton and Bix Beiderbecke which the rock culture had put out of favor.

And for the dance world, the Tharp style cut through the lingering influences of modern dance of the past. For several years before Tharp appeared, the renegade dancers who called themselves the Judson Church Group had been working on this, patiently undoing that dance theater of crisis, anguish, sex and religion that had been built by Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Jose Limon. They had walked back and forth on the floors of rooms like human numbers, tracing circle and star patterns; they had "manipulated" a host of props, improvised intently and detheatricalized themselves with a vengeance.

Tharp came along and 'brightened this task by refusing to submit to any piety, old or new, and by adding the element of creative impertinence-not just impertinent concepts but impertinent, sudden tempos that woke the audience up. Tharp, in fact, reinvented the audience for her generation by assuming it could receive dance information almost as fast as she could provide it.

And she reinvented that important and elusive item in dancing which transcends categories like ballet, modern and social dancing-a body that is contemporary. Tharp dancers as early as The Fugue (1970), or Eight Jelly Rolls (1971), had the knack of looking the way everybody at that moment would like to look, and moving the way they would like to move. Martha Graham had made this quintessential dancing body for her time, so had Isadora Duncan before her and Merce Cunningham after. Tharp, in the fine old modern-dance tradition, started with herself, her own body as a testament of her time. Its size- her smallness-was unimportant; its proportions, its small base for pivoting, its athletic readiness, its dancer's pliant feet were important.

Tharp dressed this body, discarding the leotards and First by her cockiness, then by the explosive vigor and distinctive style of her dancing, Twyla Tharp (facing page) made the dance world sit up and take notice of her.

tights-without-feet of modern dance, and commissioning costumes for dance after dance-costumes that were mostly stylizations of the layers of loose and tight warm-up clothes dancers put on themselves to rehearse in. Tennis shoes and then "jazz" shoes (modern-dance shoes) appeared on her feet-and 10 and behold, we are now in the era of postmodern dance which is defined by modern dancers wearing shoes like ballet dancers.

But the major reason for Tharp's hold on contemporary dance style is not the shoes and the clothes but the dancers in the company besides her. Tharp in fact never worked alone.

In the transient world of modern dance, it is striking that two dancers from¡ "long ago" are still with Tharp-Sara Rudner, who joined her in 1966, and Rose Marie Wright, who came in 1969-both completely different dancing personalities from Tharp herself. Here was Tharp, sleek, boyish, athletic, efficient and given to sudden jerks and twitches. On one side of her was Rudner, dark, exotic, with no categorizable training but rather a total circulation of movement through her body "I stole itfrom the Apache dancing that seems effortless and yet energized. On the other side was of the 1920s, " says Tharp of one Wright, rawboned, tall and clearly ballet trained, with the long of her newest dances, sinews and the clear placement only ballet training gives Brahms/Paganini (above). In ita dancers. grueling tour-de-force solo for a With Rudner, Tharp could see her every impulse translated man isfollowed by a quartet for into dramatically natural terms; with Wright she could ex- . two mixed couples who hurl themselves through what a critic plore-and has for years-everything you can do in dance, has described as "perhaps the most armed with academic training in ballet. Tharp, Rudner, intricate ense.mble-partnering work Wright-this was the historic cast of Tharp's 1970 The Fugue, ever seen on a modern dance stage." an intricate construction which looks alternately like tap dancing, hopscotch, and Cossacks showing oft.

When Tharp dancing spread around in the early 1970s, it

Country Dances (right) grew out of Tharp's rural childhood. One of her most difficult dances, it marked the debut of several of her dancers, like Christine Uchida (foreground), Shelley Washington (right) and Tom Rawe (left). "If you want to develop dancers," says Tharp, "challenge them and give them things that are unpleasant in the beginning."

"My style," says Tharp (below), "is what I understand physically and what I've been able to steal comfortably. " In Baker's Dozen (left), her inspirations include tangos, one-steps and classical ballet, especially its bravura partnering techniques.

brought certain other dance styles into focus-it brought dancers into focus. The revelation of Tharp's three works for ballet companies was realizing that the ballet dancers in them looked like Tharp dancers-or rather, as Deborah Jowitt, dance critic of The Village Voice, wrote, they looked like themselves, young American people alert and expressive of their culture. Tharp even made Mikhail Baryshnikov, the pride of Russian classicism, look like a twin of her-or else he thoroughly imitated her-both in the ballet Push Comes to Shove, and in Once More Frank, the duet she made for him and herself.

These resemblances were not caused by mysterious worldwide coincidences in dancing so much as by Tharp's choreographic clarity-in style as well as steps. George Balanchine¡ is the only figure in American ballet who has set forth a whole style of dancing, and that means tempos, gestures, projections, manners. American ballet dancers not trained under a Balanchine influence-as well as all the modern dancers nowadays proficient in ballet-tend to look eternally neutral, ready for someone to come along and give them meaning. For some of them, Tharp has. Herself a product of the monumentally eclectic dance training that is possible only in America, she has celebrated this modern, polyinfluenced athletic/balletic body in her dances; she has written it large.

How she did it is first of all a matter of the mechanics of her style and then of the structure of her dances. The Tharp style, simply described, appropriates the mechanics of ballet: the articulation of the feet, insteps and ankles which muscularly permit a clean balletic action ofthe legs, in turns, kicks, traveling steps, jumps and poses.

If Tharp legs are balletic, Tharp upper bodies are not: They speak much more of the inner rhythmic world of social dancing or tap dancing than of ballet projection. Her dancers' arms are quite simply tap arms (or reminiscent of them), with the casual backward and forward swinging that never stops, except when Tharp deliberately puts in a balletic pose which can't help but be read ironically. .

Where Tharp got all the other dancing material is somewhat obvious given her California childhood with all its lessons, which has now become a kind of legend in the United States.

Tharp studied music-harmony, theory, viola-and dancingballet, tap, tap-toe, acrobatic, baton-twirling and ballroom. So did many little girls all over the country, but not all of them got the same explanation for so much activity. The Tharp family probably taught Twyla unconsciously that all the lessons were giving her material with which to construct something later. It was an inventive family that had moved from Indiana to California and done well in the construction business. Twyla's father designed buildings-a car salesroom, a drive-in movie plant, a restaurant, a phenomenal house-and then, according to her, "he got right in there with the mortar" and built them, and then he ran them. They are stunning examples of the old.

American notion that you build something first of all to serve a purpose-in other words, the form follows the function-and the building materials, whether brick, stone or wood, follow the function too.

It is intriguing to think that Tharp translated her parents' traditional construction ethics into art. Tharp's homespun do-it-yourself aesthetics recalls earlier American methods of constructing entertainment. Popular arts of the past-show music, jazz, theater dancing and the exuberant movies of the 1920s and 1930s-were made on this principle: You can throw in anything you want to if the whole structure is sound. In bringing this principle into avant-garde and ballet concert dance, Tharp has opened a clear channel backward-and outward-to dancing's popular origins.

Eight Jelly RoDs, presented in 1971 and set to the wild New Orleans-Chicago 1926 jazz compositions of Jelly Roll Morton, was a landmark work for Tharp- "the first piece 1ever made

for a proscenium stage. " In her early experiments she drew up game plans and squadron actions, not formal dances, and presented them in museums, gymnasIums and parks. "I was rebelling against

Structure, then, is an important term for Tharp. For the dances themselves, or the work, in the case of TV and movies, it means applying the form-follows-function idea. Most of her dances to old jazz take their form from the music. As ensemble works they project an air of spontaneity within the community of the dance-like those great jazz jam sessions where moments of solo virtuosity were part of the very fabric of the ensemble sound. Tharp has freely borrowed and translated jazz and Dixieland wit, the sense that everybody is jumping into a certain mood. She has also used classical music, sometimes in the same piece with jazz, borrowing from it certain compositional techniques like inversion, retrograde, fugue, counterpoint.

Other works have differen.t kinds of structures. Tharp's mind is keen enough to embrace and comment on whatever medium she takes on in a job. Her ice dance for John Curry was all lyric line and glide. Her main television effort, Making

stages and prosceniums." Costumed as a take-off on men's formal evening wear, the dance was choreographed as a mischievous yet serious confrontation of the use of formal display in theater.

Television Dance, used video tricks like multiple images in the very dance material she made for the show. Her dances to Hair were the most rigorous and intelligent presentation yet of so-called hippie culture; by alternating tiny motions under pressure with big, swooping, aggressive moves, she caught the enormous tension and menace of that world, as well as some of the rapture.

But where is Tharp going? The 1980 Broadway season was a feast of her finest ensemble pieces. In addition there was an attempt to realize an old dream of Tharp's-thatof uniting all the forms, all the skills, into one piece of theater that will occupy a full evening. Tharp describes it as something like a narrative ballet, with dancing, with music, but with words instead of mime.

0 About the Author: Elizabeth Kendall is the author of The Phantom Prince: My Life With Ted Bundy and Where She Danced.

bulk of the funding of the Agency's private-sector activities will be provided through the normal programming process under our bilateral country programs.

Our field missions will identify and justify private-sector projects in the same manner as they do now for activities in other sectors. These projects will be formulated within the policy framework that will be issued shortly by the Agency and that will conform to the principles set forth in this statement. We will¡ take special care to ensure that, during project design, these projects will be develop,ed within the new policy framework.

More specifically, in Latin America and the Caribbean region, we have in place or propose programs in 11 countries that stimulate employment opportunities in the rural private sector, develop agribusiness capability, foster basic skills training, stimulate small business development and create rural cooperative enterprises.

In the Africa region, we propose programs that span seven countries. These programs include a farm implements manufacturing project, a livestock program for small business and an agricultural marketing development program.¡ In Asia, we have programs to install credit systems for farmers and other rural entrepreneurs, mobilize the private sector to help develop a national energy technology center and increase employment income and production by the private sector.

In the Near East region, we have a program to install credit systems for small businesses.

Our efforts are not limited to regional bureaus. USAID's Science and Technology Bureau, for example, is working to develop the commercial seed industry, supply the appropriate technology for a multitude of private initiatives and encourage small rural enterprise development. Also, because agriculture frequently constitutes the bulk of privatesector activity in many lesser-developed countries, many of the Science and Technology Bureau's activities will have a private-sector impact as well. Increased agricultural production by small farmers will improve the living standards of the poor majority.

We believe that this new agencywide initiative will be highly complementary to those of other internationally concerned agencies. With respect to the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC),

scale projects. Experience has shown conclusively that the follow"on construction and equipment supply contracts can The Private be influenced as to source country by the Enterprise feasibility study design specifications.

Bureau The Trade and Development Program is designing is also concentrating on the coal and programs other energy sectors. Developing nations to make desperately need to move away from oil-based energy sources to other sources USA/D's funds of energy. TDP is very active in marrying more effective the needs of the developing nations with with private U.S. technology and the U.S. firms which investment in developing countries. can supply this technology. Moreover, by helping a nation to convert its power base from oil to energy sources such as coalthe fit is particularly good. OPIC's investas TDP is now doing in Jamaica-we also ment promotion tools complement the' help open export markets for U.S. coal. various debt instruments which the Agen- TDP is also looking for opportunities to cy will use. And USAID's overseas pre- diversify our sources of such key strategic sence can serve not only the Agency's resources as cobalt in such a way that new needs with respect to this program, but sources are developed with the involvealso OPIC's needs to a greater extent ment of U.S. firms. than at present.

With' past USAID experience as a The Agency's private-sector program guide, the Private Enterprise Bureau is also fits well with the programs of the designing programs capitalizing on the World Bank and its affiliate, the Internafinancial, technological and management tional Finance Corporation (IFC). U.S. expertise of the U.S. and existing indigeinvolvement with the latter can be ex- nous private sectors and multilateral and pected to be more active than in the past host country institutions. We are seeking through our common interest in develop- ways to make USAID's funds more effecing indigenous private enterprises. At the tive with private investment in selected same time, we anticipate that USAID's less-developed countries. efforts will focus on some sectors which The bureau will spearhead the Agenrecently have received a relatively small cy's efforts in drafting innovative ways to percentage of IFC's resources (for ex- . create the policy environment for and promote the development of strong, ample, agribusiness), and, of course, USAID will be concentrating on estab- growth-oriented private sectors. lishing links with the U.S. private sector.

The Bureau for Private Enterprise is being staffed with experts from the pri- .

Finally, USAID's Trade and Development Program (TDP) plays a unique role vate sector as well as career USAID in fostering the development of middle- officers. We have initially targeted our income countries while promoting trade efforts on 10 less-developed countries currently served by our programs. They opportunities for the United States.

TDP's focus is on the U.S. private are Costa Rica, Jamaica, Kenya, Ivory sector and its export opportunities in the Coast, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Indonesia, developing world, which complements Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

USAID's efforts to promote local priThese countries were selected for vate-sector development. TDP assistance several reasons, including host governhelps give the developing countries access ment support for private-sector developto U.S. technology, goods and services ment; strategic importance to the United which they badly need. In return, the States;. attractiveness as a long-term tradUnited States receives the revenue from ing partner; potential for private-sector the sale of such technology, goods and development; and presence of an existing US AID program. services.

TDP plans to use its funds increasingly To develop and implement these and at the critical stage in the planning pro- other projects, the Private Enterprise cess of a development project; this is Bureau has been allocated approximately where U.S. firms, competing with foreign $126 million for fiscal year 1982 which firms, are in the final stages of the feasi- ends September 30, and a similar amount bility study selection process for large- is requested for fiscal year 1983.

0

PORTABLE PLANETARIUM FERTILITRON ROOSEVELT REMEMBERED VOA BIRTHDAY PRIME NUMBERS GALBRAITH'S VIEWS

A young American inventor, Philip Sadler, recently donated a portable, inflatable planetarium to India's National Council of Science Museum.

The planetarium, which has already been exhibited in Bombay, Bangalore, Calcutta, Patna and New Delhi, will be used by the council as part of its mobile science unit to create and cultivate interest in astronomy among Indian students. The gift was made possible through the Indo-U.S. Subcommission on Education and Culture.

Named Starlab, the planetarium is made of a sturdy canvaslike fabric with a silvery coating inside, and it can seat 30 people. "The planetarium allows you to do all the basic things in astronomy education-to learn about the constellations and how they move, study the objects in deep space like galaxies and nebulas, and to know where to look for them," said Alan Friedman. Friedman, who brought the planetarium from the United States to India, is the director of astronomy and physics education at the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California at Berkeley.

In fact, it was Friedman's idea to present a portable planetarium to India.

"In 1980 when I came to India to observe the solar eclipse, I visited science museums and was very much impressed by them," he noted.

"Indian science museums are very advanced compared to most other countries' museums, which have only static exhibits. Museums here have outrea((h programs in which they take some of their exhibits even to villages. Besides," Friedman continued, "look at the new

Nehru Science Centre in Bombay. It has an outdoor science playground which is a series of sculptures, gadgets, machines-all outside for children to come and play with. And as they play, they also learn science. I was most impressed, and in fact I took a lot of pictures and showed them around the United States.

Now a number of American museums are planning playgrounds on similar lines.

"Seeing this tremendous interest in science in India, I asked Sadler if he could give a portable planetarium to India, and he readily agreed. There are about a hundred of these planetariums in use in the United States."

The planetarium costs about $6,000 which would be a lot of money except that the next-least-expensive one costs more than 20 times that. "So for $6,000, this is an excellent way to teach astronomy," noted Friedman.

"The biggest advantage is that you can take astronomy to people even in small towns and villages. Before Sadler invented this contraption, there was really no way to do portable planetarium education. Big planetariums can't be moved. Besides, they concentrate on the very spectacular programs-more like movies with sound effects, light effects and what have you. There is hardly any spectator participation. " In the portable planetarium, however, children can be taught how to do it themselves.

The portable planetarium has a speci;}l giant slide projector, which is actually a bright light in the center. Wrapped around this light is a cylinder that has a map of the stars with lenses for the brighter stars and special attachments for the sun and the moon. It projects the sky in all its splendor onto the dome overhead.

Putting it up is a very simple operation.

According to Friedman, "All you do is set it on the floor, and inflate it with an ordinary electric fan. In five minutes the planetarium becomes like an igloo-a rQund bag with a little tunnel that comes out and you crawl into it. Once you are inside, you are in a dark room, and the projector in the center puts up the stars like any big planetarium. It is very adaptable and can be used in diverse ways."

You can teach not only nighttime astronomy, but also how the sun affects the weather, how stars look different from different places on the earth. You can even teach geography -the planetarium can project the earth, show how the continents moved, how the Himalayas were formed.

In fact, as Friedman concluded, the sky is the limit as far as the teaching potential of this little giant planetarium goes.

â&#x20AC;˘

A wrist watch-sized device that will tell a woman when she can or cannot become pregnant is being developed by an American company. Called the Fertilitron, the device would monitor minute changes that occur in a woman's body when she ovulates.

By pressing the back of the insulated watch against her wrist, the wearer gets a reading from a microcircuit sensor.

The Fertilitron flashes a red or green light, telling her whether she is fertile at the time or not.

"Apparently no one knows why, but a woman's body voltage changes slightly, as does the polarity of the charge," said Richard Lester, president of Intersonics, Inc., which is developing the device.

"Accurate sensors can detect this almost infinitesimal change."

While the Fertilitron is still being tested for its efficacy, the company !:las invented another device which may soon be marketed. Called Safetime, it is a tampon with a microprocessor sensor that reads a woman's body-temperature change when she ovulates.

"It will let a woman know when she can or cannot become pregnant," Lester noted.

The idea for both these devices came from a conversation Lester had with a gynecologist: "He said it would be nice if women had a quick, automatic way to' monitor the changes that occur during ovulation.

Right now they have to take their temperature regularly during the period in question, read it, and so on."

"Daily at this time, we shall speak to you about America and the war. The news may be good or bad, we shall tell y~u the truth." With those words, translated into German, the VOice of America (VOA) went on the air 40 years ago, on February 24, 1942.

Since its beginnings in the dark days of Worl~ War II, the Voice of America has changed and grown. Today, It bIOadcasts its programs in 39 languages-including Hindi, Urdu and Berigali-and is on the air for more than 900 hours. a we~k.

About a quarter of all air ti~e is in r:ngli~h, mcludmg English lessons for Chinese, ArabiC and Pohsh .hstener~. But about 40 percent of VOA's schedule is filled With musIc an.d American culture shows. One of its most successful programs IS "Music U.S.A.," which began in 1955.

In an average week, more than 100 million listehers around the world tune their radios to the Voice of America.

On January 30, the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp to honor the 100th birth anniversary of the 32nd U.S. President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Famous for his New Deal programs to uplift the nation from the economic depression and for the principles of fair dealing that he incorporated into' the Atlantic Charter, President Roosevelt also urged Americans to adopt the Four Freedomsfreedom of speech and of worship; freedom from want and from fear.

Roosevelt was the first American President to break the "no third term" tradition; he was elected an unprecedented four times, serving as Chief Executive from 1933 until his death on April 12, 1945.

AFGHANISTAN DAY

How to determine whether a large number is a prime number, indivisible by any other number except 1 and itself? Now, a solution has been found to this problem which has tantalized mathematicians for centuries.

According to American mathematicians whose earlier work set the stage for this stunning achievement, the method can determine within seconds whether a number formed of as many as, say, 100 digits is a prime number.

The solution has been made possible over the last two years as computer programs to perform the task were improved.

The procedure has most recently been tested on a 97-digit number. The number had figured in research on number theory by John Brillhart at the University of Arizona in Tucson. American mathematicians were almost sure that it was a prime number and sent it to Hendrik Lenstra at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Henri Cohen of the Univet:sity of Bordeaus. In only 77 seconds the two mathematicians were able to demonstrate unequivocally that the number was indeed prime.

With conventional mathematics, it might have taken a century-if not more. With the aid of computers, however, this had been reduced to just over a minute!

According to at least one number theorist, the achievement has raised questions about the so-called public key coding systems, now considered undecipherable. They depend on the apparent impossibility of determining in any reasonable time whether a very large number is a multiple of two prime numbers. However, Leonard Adleman of the University of Southern California doubts if the new method has increased the likelihood of a way being found to decipher the coding system.

In a recent meeting, the European Parliament called for international observance of March 21 as Afghanistan Day to commemorate the struggle of the people of Afghanistan against the continued occupation of their country

by Soviet troops.

In response to unanimous resolutions by both houses of the U.S. Congress, President Ronald Reagan signed a proclamation in which he stated: "Afghanistan Day will serve to recall ... the principles involved when a people struggles for the freedom to determine its own future, the right to be free from foreign interference and the right to practice religion according to the dictates of conscience."

Ever since the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan on December 27,1979, 2.5 million people, more than 15 percent of the population, have fled the country to escape political persecution and suffering.

Noted economist and former U.S. Ambassador to India John Kenneth Galbraith delivered two Rajaji Endowment Lectures in New Delhi last month, under the auspices of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan.

The thrust of Galbraith's first lecture, "The New Nations and the Old: The Lessons of Three Decades," was that "development is a historical process, and all prescription must be in keeping with the stage that a country or people has reached in this process.

"In all national development," Galbraith said, "there is a sequen~e in which, with much overlapping, political, cultural and economic factors are successively important.

"The design appropriate to the late stages of development cannot without waste or damage be transferred to the early stages." In this context, he added that both socialists and capitalists had suffered from this oversight and had erroneously applied to emerging nations measures that were appropriate only to late stages of development.

Tracing the historical sequence of the development of the older industrial countries, Galbraith pointed out th~t "the early emphasis was not on capital investment but on politicaland then-cultural development." In

this process, he continued: "Importance was attached to education as the instrument of progress." Among developing countries, "India has been in singular measure the leader" in laying emphasis on education, Galbraith stated.

In his second lecture, "Economics and Politics of the New Nations and the Old: The Lesson of Three Decades," Galbraith said that there has been a decline in the influence of the political and economic systems of both the United States and the Soviet Union.

This is because of "the unbounded determination of people to govern themselves. " The lesson of three decades, Galbraith emphasized, has been that if the local leadership was strong, effective and well-regarded, it would not tolerate foreign domination. If it was weak, ineffective, unpopular or oppressive, it might accept foreign guidance or domination. But, he added, this would not be tolerated by its own people. There is an "unexpectedly" powerful and comprehensive will toward independence in the new countries.

In an aside Galbraith repeated a joke he had heard in Poland, explaining political systems: "Under capitalism man exploits man and under communism it is just the reverse."

0

Space Odyssey Exploring the new worlds opened by recent discoveries in space, SPAN looks at the achievements of the last decade and scientists' future plans, which may well affect our daily lives.

A report on India's latest space experiments highlights INSA T I, due to be launched this month.

Dar Meets Herblock In a brief encounter, Indian cartoonist Sudhir Dar discovers that Herbert Block, the man who gives American newspaper readers their daily smile and American politicians fits of rage, is a gentle, mild but dedicated man who believes that a cartoon should have "some purpose beyond the chuckle." And for -some meaningful chuckles-a Herblock sampler.

A Living Heritage Ded~cated to preserving part of America's heritage, the Center for Southern Folklore in Memphis, Tennessee, attempts to document every aspect of the folk life of southern America from blues singing to mule trading.

Bedrock of Liberty A. G. Noorani, distinguished legal scholar and social critic, credits the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution with having a strong influence on India's constitutional law. Over some 200 years, judges have broadened and shaped the interpretations of freedom of speech in a series of memorable decisions.

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.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FORESTS GONE? THE DISEASE

i

DETECTIVES

Front cover: "The Castle," as the original Smithsonian building, founded in 1846, is popularly known. It soon became too small to house the ever-growing collection of paraphernalia from all over the world.

See also pages 22 -27 .

Back cover: A rose is a rose is a... face! This surrealistic window display at Bloomingdale's store in New York City is characteristic of the art of store display todaycreative and eye catching.

See also page 49.

Tti~ AI:2T Ut=

()IJVLA~

The artists who create show window designs and displays within retail stores have succeeded in making their purely commercial task of attracting people to come in and buy the goods into a fine art.

Look closely enough and you will see traces of contemporary and venerable movements. Styles range from the chic to the outrageous.

The emphasis is on the stunning, as in the intriguing loungewear display above with a picture within a picture. That little bit of elegant impossibility adds a touch of mystery to a style that is surely influenced by Art Deco. This display at Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company in. Chicago is typical of the glamor and creativity that goes into show windows.

Orbach's in New York used symbolism in the shape of large knitting needles to get its message across. In case you missed the point, the reality too is therewoolens.

Picasso you can't go wrong with and so Picasso it was for Dayton Store, Manhattan. ,Tying in their promotion with an exhibition of the maestro's paintings in Minneapolis,

they had the Picasso signature everywhere-even on handbags.

Display mannequins were vertically painted half red, half blue.

More traditional was the Alexander Department Store in New York City-because the occasion demanded it. For their Valentine's

Day dresses, they used old theater chairs to create a nostalgic setting.

W.J. Sloan's of San Francisco, California, said it simply-with an elegant dining room setting.

From the simple to the surrealistic-Bloomingdale's use of a rose for a face (see back cover)!