SPAN: June 1975

DAREDEVIL SPORTS

In America during the last few years, there has been a tremendous surge of interest in daredevil sports. One such "sport" is motorbike hurdling. Here, cyclists Gary Davis ~ and Rex Blackwell set a new record by simultaneously vaulting 21 parked cars. Fot more on daredevil sports, see pages 28-29.

A LEITER FROM THE PUBLISHER One had only to be in India at the time of the recent cricket matches with the West Indies or the World Cup hockey matches to realize that Indians love sports at least as much as any other people in the world. Americans love sports too, and that is why we felt it was time SPAN had a special section on a subject it has never covered in depth in its 15 years of existence: American sports.

It is an issue rich in action photographs-as befits its subject. But it also offers a serious examination of the role of sports in American society by Leonard Koppett of the New York Times (page 10). Koppett sees sports in the United States as helping to "Americanize" immigrants, break down racial barriers, and increase the "upward mobility" of the lower socioeconomic groups in American society. He also makes a brave attempt to explain two strange games-American baseball and American "football."

Because of some similarities between baseball and cricket, both Indians and Americans mistakenly think they automatically ought to be able to understand the other game. In any event, one is reminded of George Bernard Shaw's remark that baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended!

Choosing a profile of a single sports hero was difficult, but we picked Olympic marathon champion Frank Shorter (page 33) because he epitomizes a certain type of intelligent, stoic, thoughtful sports hero whose philosophizing on his relation to his sport may provide us all with some thoughts as to the role of sports in human life. A sample insight: Often; while running the marathon, a kind of numbness comes over Shorter that "feels at times like a trance, at times like a kind of meditation."

Traditionally, sports have meant .competition and winning.

For some time now, however, the "competitive ethos" has been under attack in America by those who feel it should be replaced by a "co-operation ethos." This, plus the fact that more and more physicians and psychologists are worried about the adverse effects of competitive sports on young children, is causing a new look at sports in relation to physical education programs in many American schools. The article "Every Child a Winner" (page 18) is a report on one of the most successful of 'these new "noncompetitive" physical education programs.

For readers who share H.L. Mencken's aversion to the subject of this issue ("I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense"), ,we offer several nonsports articles.

On page 42 we have an unusual feature titled "Visionary on a Golden Shoestring." It's unusual because seldom do we have an article that will appeal, in a professional way, to such a diverse group of people as economists and business management experts, physicians (especially ophthalmologists), family planners, biochemists and everyone in the pharmaceutical business. What's it about? Well, it's about a brilliant biochemist who is also a successful businessman. It's also about an imaginative and daring new American corporation (he founded it) and some of its amazing new products. Finally, it's about a revolutionary new concept in administering drugs to the human body.

A new Indian byliner introduced in this issue is "Ashokamitran," the pen name of short story writer and novelist J. Thyagarajan, who is one of the five Tamil language writers represented in the new (1974) Penguin anthology of "New Writing in India." Ashokamitran writes in Tamil, but usually does his own English translations of his works. We hope his piece about "finding the way" in America will help more Indian-language writers to find their way into SPAN.-A.E.H.

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Front cover: Vida Blue, star pitcher of the Oakland Athletics baseball team, rears back to throw the batter a sizzling fast ball. Photographic effect created by zoom lens conveys the excitement of baseball, which is explained on pages 12 and 13.

Back cover: Symbolic of Americans' love of sports, five thousand runners pour forth for the annuaI12.5-kilorneter race sponsored by the San Francisco Examiner.

Managing Editor: Carmen KagaJ. Assistant Managing Editor: S.R. Madhu.

Editorial Staff: Mohammed Reyazuddin, Avinash Pasricha, Nirmal Sharma, Krishan Gabrani, Murari Saha, Rocque Fernandes. Art Director: Nand Katyal. Art Staff: Gopi Gaiwani, B. Roy Choudhury, Kanti Roy, Suhas Nimbalkar. Chief of Production: Awtar S. Marwaha. Photographic Services: USIS Photo Lab. Published by the United States Information Service. 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi-lID DOl, 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 Arun Mehta at Vakil & Sons Private Ltd., Vakils House, Sprott Road, 18 Ballard Estate, Bombay-400 038.

Photographs: Front cover-Fred Kaplan, Black Star . Inside front cover-John R. Hamilton, Globe.

2 bottom left-R.K. Laxman. 3-R.N. Khanna. ll-Co Rentmeester, Sports lI/ustrated. ©Time, Inc. 14 top-John Dominis, Life, © Time, Inc. 16-Nate Fine Photo. 18-Avinash Pasricha. 20-21 -Bruce Roberts, Rapho-Guillumelte. 22-United Press International, Lee Battaglia. 23-Heinz Kluetmeier, Sports lI/us/rated" ©Time, Inc; Bob East; John Zimmerman, Life. ©Tirne, Inc. 24 left-Richard C. Clarkson. 25 top-John D. Hanlon, Sports lI/ustrated, ©Time, Inc. 26-27 (clockwise from top left}-B. Davisson; R. von Schlegelmilch; Bob Coglianese Photos, Inc; Al Satterwhite; Jon Jacobson. 28-29 (clockwise from top left}- Nathan Benn; Dick Durrance II, © National Geographic Society; National Geographic Society; Eric Schweikardt, Sports lI/us/rated, ©Time, Inc; National Geographic Society; George Koshollek, Jr. 4O-C.P. Gajaraj. 42-Ralph Crane, Fortune magazine, ©Time, Inc. Back cover-Christopher Springmann.

Use of SPAN articles in other publications is encouraged, except when copyrighted. For permission, write to the Editor. Subscription: One year, 18 rupees; single copy, 2 rupees 50 paise. For change of address, send old address from a recent SPAN envelope along with new address to A.K. Mitra, Circulation Manager, SPAN magazine, 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi-lID 001.

NEWS& VIEWS

AMERICAN WHEAT FOR INDIA

u.s. AWARD

FOR R.K.NARAVAN

R.K. Narayan, the celebrated Indian novelist, has won the 1974 "English Speaking Union-Books Abroad" award of the American University, Washington, . D.C., for his autobiography, My Days.

[See John Updike's review of My Days in the April '75 SPAN.] Narayan received the $2,000 award in person at a function in Washington on May 3.

The "English Speaking Union-Books Abroad" award is given annually for the best literary book written during the year by a nonnative speaker of English. The American University award is financed by two organizations-the English Speaking Union of the United States and Books AbroOfl magazine.

The English Speaking Union is devoted to fostering understanding and friendship between the people of the United States and the people of the Commonwealth of Nations. Books Abroad is an international literary quarterly published by the University of Oklahoma.

On hearing about the award Narayan said: "I am, naturally, very pleased."

U.S. grain being distributed in Bombay.

The United States will supply India with 800,000 metric tons of wheat worth about $128 million under a new Public Law 480 Title I credit sales agreement.

This is the first PL-480 agreement the U.S. has signed with India since 1971. â&#x20AC;˘ The agreement provides a long-term low-interest loan to India to finance the purchase of wheat from private U.S. traders. Repayment will be in dollars. The wheat is scheduled for shipment by June 30.

The agreement will boost the total sale of American wheat to India in 1974-75 to an estimated 5.3 million metric tons. India had earlier ordered about 4.5 million tons of grain (worth $700 million) commercially from the U.S., emerging as the biggest buyer of U.S. wheat on straight commercial terms this year.

Announcing the signing of the agreement, J. Phil Campbell, Acting U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, said: "India is a valued customer and friend of the United States. I am pleased that American agriculture is in a position to help India meet its current food requirements."

At the signing ceremony on March 20, Sidney Sober, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asian Affairs, said: "The agreement we are signing today is an important step by both of our governments in the development of a closer relationship which we both seek." He said the figure of 800,000 tons of wheat was "a good deal more than we had originally expected to be able to supply to India this fiscal year."

Sober recalled Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's statement in New Delhi last October that "the interests of India and the United States are compatible and we are only at the beginning of a period of co-operation whose possibilities have only begun to be exploited." Sober added: "Today's agreement should be seen in that context."

G.V. Ramakrishna, Economic Minister of the Indian Embassy in Washington, said at the signing ceremony that India had more than doubled its foodgrains production since independence. "However, we have suffered a marginal shortage during the last two years, partly due to the rise in the prices of oil and fertilizer and bad weather conditions."

Ramakrishna said that India had been building its foodgrain reserves by buying wheat and milo commercially from the U.S. "This agreement for a loan for the purchase of 800,000 tons of wheat will be a useful addition to our commercial purchases. " Ramakrishna added: "It is not the quantity that is important but the spirit behind this agreement. It symbolizes the vast possibilities in the field of economic co-operation between our two great democracies for our mutual benefit."

THE RAMAYANA IN NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON Early this year, Gopal Sharman's Akshara Theatre of New Delhi took its well-known production of the Ramayana [see March '75 SPAN] to New York where it opened at the Barbizon-Plaza Theater in February. With Jalabala Vaidya playing all the roles in Sharman's version of the great Hindu epic, the "play" was a resounding success.

The New York Post's drama critic wrote: "What a woman! And what speaking! Miss Vaidya's voice is an instrument of countless octaves and colorations .... The language is at times very moving."

The New York Times was more detailed in its praise: "Jalabala Vaidya presents us with a formidable range of virtuosity in this one-woman show .... There is much declamation in the style of traditional theater, but Miss Vaidya often comes over more beautifully and effectively in the quieter passages of the piece, where introspection,' even a dram of humor, holds the stage .... This is an honestly fashioned presentation that evokes the illusion of multitudes in a simple bare setting. It will be of particular interest to .. those who wish to broaden their knowledge of a work that has moved tens of millions in the East and is too little known in the West. Mr. Sharman and Miss Vaidya have opened a bridge that could open new roads at either end."

In an interview with the New York

Jalabala Vaidya

Times drama critic Richard Shepard, Sharman said: "There is something special about bringing the play to New York. While the Greek classics are part of the Western tradition, the Indian classic tradition, which predates the Greek, is not part of Western classical theater. That would be what we hope to accomplish in New York. I think there is a tremendous renaissance of the classic Indian tradition becoming available to the West just as the classical tradition of the West went to India. Under British

rule, it was a one-way street .... Now what better place could there be for this Indian tradition to be made known in than New York? I love London, but New York is where the action is."

And to add a personal note, Gopal Sharman writes to SPAN from New York: "The opening night of the play - met every fantasy we have ever had of a Broadway opening. Day-long we had flowers being sent up to our suite-including a gold-wrapped bouquet of cosmetics (which Jalabala won't use in a lifetime) by a Scandinavian firm. There were opening-night telegrams by the dozen. We opened to a full house packed with many luminaries, among them Arthur Miller and¡ Diana Riggs .... In March we played in Washington and this too was a mammoth success with the house sold out days¡ in advance. The Stulls [Lee Stull, formerly Counselor for Political Affairs at the American Embassy in New Delhi] gave a really lovely party for us after the performance in Washington. T.N. Kaul, India's Ambassador in Washington, was extremely friendly and nice. We have many invitations to per'" form again in New York and Washington -including from the United Nations and the Kennedy Center;" It. seems true indeed that Gopal Sharman and Jalabala Vaidya have, as the New York Times said, opened another bridge between India and America.

AMERICAN STUDIES SEMINAR AT UDAIPUR The picturesque Lake Palace Hotel in Udaipur was the setting for a seminar on American Studies last March. Cosponsored by the Department of History of Udaipur University and the U.S. Information Service, the four-day seminar brought together 25 leading Indian professors and teachers of history from various parts ofthe country.

Herbert G. Nicholas, Professor of American History at Oxford University, led the discussion with two lectures on the main theme of the seminar-"The New Deal and the Truman Administration." In the lecture titled, "Was Truman a New Dealer?" Professor Nicholas discussed the legacy that President Harry Truman inherited from Franklin D. Roosevelt. Another distinguished participant was Professor M.S. Venkataramani, chairman of the Centre for American and West European

Studies at the School of International Studies of Jawaharlal Nehru University. Professor Venkataramani spoke on political and social perspectives of the New Deal.

Dr. R.P. Kaushik of Hindu College, Delhi University, talked on "Truman and the Korean War," and analyzed the way in which Truman and the United States met the challenge and responsibility of that war. Dr. Isaac Sequeira of Osmania University, Hyderabad, spoke on "Hemingway, Steinbeck and the Great Depression." This lecture discussed the ways in which American literature of the 'thirties reflected the .mood of the Great Depression and the New Deal era.

One result of the seminar was to provide some insights into the world's present economic problems, many of which are similar to those of the Depression years.

u.s. AGRICULTURAL VISITS INDIA

TEAM

Latest scientific research reveals that most adults need much less protein than people have hitherto believed, and that the world's supply of proteins exceeds requirements, says a four-man team of American agricultural scientists that recently toured India.

How important are proteins for human health? Will vastly increased supplies of protein solve the world's food problem?

Many scientific researchers and expert committees have investigated this subject in recent years. Their conclusions might surprise a lot of people, says Dr. Frederick W. Hill, leader of a four-man team of American agricultural scientists who visited India recently.

Their main conclusion is that for decades the world has been overemphasizing the value of proteins-both for the hum~n system and for dealing with the global food situation. Adults and "older children," new research has shown, require some 20 per cent less protein than what used to be considered necessary. For the world as a whole, the supply of protein actually exceeds the requirements.

By contrast, says Dr. Hill,. the world's total food supply or "food energy" is inadequate, and there is a severe shortage in many areas. "The only way to fight this shortage is to increase die production of cereals-rice, wheat, maize, sorghum and so on-and that's the number one priority of the food problem today." Increasing the quantity and improving the nutritional quality of proteins is no longer the world's paramount need-though proteins are still essential for young children, and pregnant and lactating women.

The new research on proteins and' its relevance to India was one of the subjects discussed by the American team during its two-week study-cum-Iecture tour of India.

Besides Dr. Hill, who is a nutrition scientist, the team included Dr. William Chancellor, an agricultural engineer; Professor Robert Mathews, an engineering geologist; and Dr. Perry Stout, a soil chemist. All of them teach at the Davis campus of the University of California. Together they represent a formidable range of agricultural expertise.

The team visited Madras, Hyderabad, Calcutta, Bhubaneswar and Delhi, and met farm experts, scientists and Indian Government officials. They took part in five agri-

cultural seminars in Delhi.

The main purpose of the Indian tour, the U.S. specialists said, was to explore with Indian experts "optional solutions" to food production problems, and to find ways of raising agricultural productivity. Dr. Hill is optimistic about the world's ability to produce enough food for its growing population-at least in the short run-so long as a proper balance is struck between world resources, land management and advancing technology. But more intensive' agricultural research is essential, he says.

Indian and American scientists, says Dr. Hill, "can engage in mutually advantageous collaborative research in many areas"-in developing new crop varieties, in improving genetic breeding, in developing optimal methods for fertilizer utilization. He adds: "The opportunities are vast."

Dr. Hill said his team had held many stimulating talks with Indian scientists and farm experts of extremely high caliber.

"We were very impressed with the work

being done at the Central Rice Research Institute in Cuttack, at the National Institute of Nutrition in Hyderabad, and at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISA T}-also in Hyderabad-which has developed simple methods for the conservation and best use of limited water resources."

With Indian Government officials, the team discussed oil spills, the availability of world energy resources, the development of nuclear power to help agriculture, and expanding cereal production through mechanization and water technology.

Talking about cereal production, whicli the team emphasized wherever it went, Dr. Hill said that fortunately it was in the area of cereals that agricultural productivity had recorded some of its most significant gains in recent years. "Among the outstanding success stories of modern agriculture have been very large improvements in yield of the major cereals. India has shown the way with the application of the so-called miracle wheat in recent years.

There have been similar developments in rice; and America has had notable success in the production of maize."

Further gains in productivity, Dr. Hill stresses, depend on energy supply. Nitrogen fertilizer, a "must" for higher productivity, is an "energy-expensive" component. Since the world's fossil energy resources are limited, Dr. Hill recommends rapid nuclear power development for the less advanced economies. As new energy resources are made available, a portion should be earmarked and routed directly to the country's agricultural system.

How far is the American agricultural experience relevant to other countries? Dr. Hill says t~at despite the astounding increase in U.S. farm production, the world's food problems cannot be solved merely by transporting elements of American technology overseas. But American techniques in problem-solving research can be applied to tackle problems abroad. "However, there is no conceivable way that food problems can be solved except at local levels."

0

U.S.-SOVIET RElATIONS The antagonisms of the cold war are outdated in today's interdependent world. The article on these pages examines the meaning of detente.

S

ince the dawn of the nuclear age the world's fears of holocaust and its hopes for peace have turned on the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. Throughout history men have sought peace but suffered war; all too often deliberate decisions or miscalculations have brought violence and destruction to a world yearning for tranquillity. Tragic as the consequences of violence may have been in the past, the issue of peace and war takes on unprecedented urgency when, for the first time in history, two nations have the capacity to destroy mankind. 'In the nuclear age, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower pointed out two decades ago, "there is no longer any alternative to peace."

The destructiveness of modern weapons defines the necessity of the task; deep dtfferences in phil~sophy and interests between

the United States and the Soviet Union point up its difficulty.

These differences do not spring from misunderstanding o~ personalities or transitory factors: • They are rooted in history and in the way the two countries have developed.

• They are nourished by conflicting values and- opposing ideologies.

• They are expressed in diverging national interests that pro~uce political and military competition.

• They are influenced by allies and friends whose association we value and whose interests we will not sacrifice.

Paradox confuses our perception of the problem of peaceful coexistence: if peace is pursued to the exclusion of any other goal, other values will be compromised and perhaps lost; but if

unconstrained rivalry leads to nuclear conflict, these values, along our policies, domestic or foreign, enjoys more consistent biparwith everything else, will be destroyed in the resulting holocaust. tisan support. No aspect is more in the interest of mankind.

However competitive they may be at some levels of their relationIn the postwar period, repeated efforts were made to improve ship, both major nuclear powers must base their policies on the our relationship with Moscow. The spirits of Geneva, Camp premise that neither can expect to impose its will on the other David and Glassboro were evanescent moments in a quarter without running an intolerable risk. The challenge of our time century otherwise marked by tensions and by sporadic confronis to reconcile the reality of competition with the imperative tation. What is new in the current period of relaxation of tensions is its duration, the scope of the relationship which has evolved and of coexistence.

There can be no peaceful international order without a con- the continuity and intensity of consultation which it has produced.

Our approach proceeds from the conviction that in moving structive relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. There will be no international stability unless both the forward across a wide spectrum of negotiations, progress in one Soviet Union and the United States conduct themselves with area adds momentum to progress in other areas. If we succeed, then no agreement stands alone restraint and unless they use as an isolated accomplishment their enormous power for the benefit of mankind. vulnerable to the next crisis. We have looked for progress in a Thus we must be clear at the series of agreements settling speoutset on what the term "detente" cific political issues and we have entails. It is the search for a more sought to relate these to a new constructive relationship with the standard of international conduct Soviet Union reflecting the realities I have outlined. It is a appropriate to the dangers of the nuclear age. By acquiring a stake continuing process, not a final in this network of relationships condition, that has been or can with the West, the Soviet Union be realized at anyone specific may become more cons.s;ious of point in time. And it has been what it would lose by a return to pursued by successive American confrontation. Indeed, it is our leaders, though the means have hope that it will develop a selfvaried, as have world conditions. interest in fostering the entire Some fundamental principles process of relaxation of tensions. guide this policy: The United States does not In the late 1940s, the United U.S. President Gerald Ford and Soviet Communist Party chief base its policy solely on Moscow's States engag~d in a great debate Leonid Brezhnev shake hands at the 1974 summit meeting. good intentions. We seek, reabout the role it would play in the postwar world. We forged II gardless of Soviet intentions, to serve peace through a systematic resistance to pressure and con- bipartisan consensus on which our policies were built for more than two decades. By the end of the 1960s, the international enciliatory responses to moderate behavior.

We must oppose aggressive actions, but we must not seek vironment which molded that consensus had been transformed., What in the '50s had seemed a solid bloc of adversaries had confrontations lightly.

We must maintain a strong national defense while recognizing fragmented into competing centers of power and doctrine; that in the nuclear age the relationship between military strength old allies had gained new strength and self-assurance; scores and politically usable power is the most complex in all history. of new nations had emerged and formed blocs of their Where the age-old antagonism between freedom and tyranny own; and all nations were being swept up in a technology is concerned, we are not neutral. But other imperatives impose that was compressing the planet and deepening our mutual limits on our ability to produce internal changes in foreign dependence.

Then, as now, it was clear that the international structure countries. Consciousness of our limits is a recognifion of the necessity of peace-not moral callousness. The preservation of formed in the immediate postwar period was in fundamental flux and that a new international system was emerging. America's human life and human society is a moral value, too.

We must be mature enough to recognize that to .be stable a historic opportunity was to help shape a new set of international relationship must provide advantages to both sides and that the relationships-more pluralistic, less dominated by military power, most constructive international relationships are those in which less susceptible to confrontation, more open to genuine co-operation among the free and diverse elements of the globe. This new, both parties perceive an element of gain.

Americans' aspiration for the kind of political environment more positive international environment is possible only if all the major powers-and especially the world's strongest nuclear we now call detente is not new.

The effort to achieve a more constructive relationship with the powers-anchor their policies in the principles of moderation and restraint. They no longer have the power to dominate; they Soviet Union is not made in the name of anyone administration or one party or for anyone period of time. It expresses the con- do have the capacity to thwart. They cannot build the new intertinuing desire of the vast majority of the American people for national structure alone; they can make its realization imposan easing of international tensions and their expectation that sible by their rivalry.

Detente is all the more important because of what the creation any responsible government, will strive for peace. No aspect of

these principles was signed in ]973. It affirms that the objective of a new set of international relations demands of us with reof the policies of the United States and the U .S.S. R. is to remove spect to other countries and areas. President Gerald R. Ford has as'signed the highest priority to maintaining the vitality of our the danger of nuclear conflict and the use ofl nuclear weapons.

But it emphasizes that this objective presupposes the renunciation partnerships in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Our security ties with our allies are essential but we also believe that recogniof any war or threat of war not only by the two nuclear supertion of the interdependence of the contemporary world requires powers against each other, but also against allies or third countries. In other words, the principle of restraint is not confined to co-operation in many other fields.

One important area for invigorated co-operative action is relations between the United States and the U.S.S.R., it is explicitly extended to include all countries. economic policy. The international economic system has been These statements of principles are not an American concesseverely tested. The Middle East war demonstrated dramatically sion; indeed we have been affirming them unilaterally for two the integral relationship between economics and politics. Clearly, decades. Nor are they a legal contract; rather they are an aspirawhatever the state of our relations with the U .S.S. R., the intertion and a yardstick by which we national economic agenda must assess Soviet behavior. We have be addressed. But the task would never intended to "rely" on be infinitely more complex if we proceeded in a cold war Soviet compliance with every environment. principle; we do seek to elaborate 'The effort to achieve a more International economic probstandards of conduct which the constructive relationship Soviet Union would violate only lems cut across political dividing with the Soviet Union is not to its cost. And if over the long (lines. All nations, regardless of term, the more durable relation~deology, face the problems of made in the name of energy and economic growth, ship takes hold, the basic prinanyone administration or feeding burgeoning populations, ciples will give it definition, one party or for any regulating the use of the oceans structure and hope. and preserving the environment.

One of the features of the one period of time. It At a minimum, easing intercurrent phase of U.S.-Soviet expresses the continuing national tensions allows the West relations is the unprecedented desire of the vast consultation between leaders, to devote more intellectual and material resources to these either face-to-face or through majority of the American people problems. As security concerns dipiomatic channels. for an easing of tensions.' recede, humane concerns come The channel between the leadagain to the fore. International ers of the two nations has proved organizations take on greater its worth in many crises. But significance and responsibility, crisis management is not an end less obstructed by cold war antagonisms. The climate of lesse,ned in itself. The more fundamental goal is the elaboration of a tensions even opens prospects for broader collaboration be- political relationship which in time will make crises less likely tween East and West. It is significant that some of these global to arise. issues-such as energy, co-operation in science and health, and It was difficult in the past to speak of a u.S.-Soviet bilateral the protection of the environment-have already reached the relationship in any normal sense of the phrase. Trade was negliU.S.-Soviet agenda. gible. Contacts between various institutions and between the peoples of the two countries were at best sporadic. There were In the present period, mankind may be menaced as much by international economic and political chaos as by the danger no co-operative efforts in science and technology. Cultural exof war. Avoiding either hazard demands a co-operative world change was modest. As a result there was no tangible inducement structure for which improved East-West relations are essential. toward co-operation and no penalty for aggressive behavior.

Co-operative relations, in our view, must be more than a Today, by joining our efforts even in such seemingly apolitical fields as medical research or environmental protection, we and series of isolated agreements. They must reflect an acceptance of mutual obligations and of the need for accommodation the Soviets can benefit not only our two peoples but all mankind; and restraint. in addition, we generate incentives for restraint.

Since 1972, we have concluded agreements on a common To set forth principles of behavior in formal documents is hardly to guarantee their observance. But they are reference effort against cancer, on research to protect the environment, on points against which to judge actions and set goals. studying the use of the ocean's resources, on the use of atomic The first of the series of documents is the Statement of Prinenergy for peaceful purposes, on studying methods for conserving energy, on examining construction techniques for regions subject ciples signed in Moscow in ]972. It affirms: (I) the necessity to earthquakes, and on devising new transportation methods. of a voiding confrontation; (2) the imperative of mutual restraint; Each project must be judged by the concrete benefits it brings.

(3) the rejection of attempts to exploit tensions to gain unilateral advantages; (4) the renunciation of claims of special influence in But in their sum-in their exchange of information and people as well as in their establishment of joint mechanisms-they also the world; and (5) the willingness, on this new basis, to coexist peacefully and build a firm long-term relationship. constitute a commitment in both countries to work together An Agreement for the Prevention of Nuclear War based on acroS$ a broad spectrum.

independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs); During the period of the cold war, economic contact between (3) to moderate the pace of new deployments; and ourselves and the U.S.S.R. was virtually nonexistent. The period (4) ultimately, to achieve reductions in force levels. of confrontation should have left little doubt, however, that economic boycott would not transform the Soviet system or The SALT agreements already signed represent a major conimpose upon it a conciliatory foreign policy. The U.S.S.R. was quite prepared to maintain heavy military outlays and to contribution to strategic stability and a significant first step toward a longer-term and possibly broader agreement. centrate on capital growth by using the resources of the communist world alone. Moreover, it proved impossible to mount The five-year' Interim Agreement which limited antiballistic missile (ABM) defenses and froze the level of ballistic missile an airtight boycott in practice, since over time, most if not all the other major industrial countries became involved in trade forces on both sides represented the essential first step toward a less volatile strategic environment. with the East.

The question then became how trade and economic contactThe SALT I agreements were the first deli1?erate attempt by in which the Soviet Union is Obviously interested-could serve the nuclear superpowers to bring about strategic stability through¡ the purposes of peace. On the one hand, economic relations cannegotiation. This very process is conducive to further restraint. not be separated fr~m the political context. Clearly, we cannot For example, in the first round of SALT negotiations in 1970-72, be asked to reward hostile conduct with economic benefits even both sides bitterly contested the number of ABM sites permitted if in the process we deny ourby the agreement; two years later selves some commercially profitboth sides gave up the right to able opportunities. On the other build more than one site. In sum, 'International economic hand, when political relations we believed when we signed these begin to normalize it is difficult agreements-and we believe problems cut across political to explain why economic relanow-that they had reduced the dividing lines. All tions should not be normalized danger of nuclear war. that both as well. nations, regardless of ideology, sides had acquired some greater We cannot expect to relax ininterest in restraint and that the face the problems of basis had been created for -the ternational tensions or achieve a energy and economic growth, feeding present effort to reach a broader more stable international system agreement. burgeoning populations, should the two strongest nuclear The goal of the current negopowers c~nductan unrestrained regulating the use of oceans.' tiations is an agreement for strategic arms race. Thus perhaps a IO-year period. We had aimed the single most important comat extending the Interim Agreeponent of our policy toward the ment with adjustments in the numbers and new provisions aimed Soviet Union is the effort to limit strategic weapons competition.

If we are driven to it, the United States will sustain an arms at dealing with the problem of MIRVs. We found, however, that our negotiation for a two- or three-year extension was conrace. Indeed, it is likely that the United States would emerge from stantly threatened with irrelevance by the on-going programs of such a competition with an edge over the Soviet Union in most both sides that were due to be deployed at the end of or just after significant categories of strategic arms. But the political or military benefit which would flow from such a situation would remain the period. This distorted the negotiation, and indeed devalued its significance. We shifted to the IO-year approach because the elusive. Indeed, after such an evolution it might well be that period is long enough to cover all current and planned forces both sides would be worse off than before the race began. but not so long as to invite hedges that would defeat the purpose The American people can be asked to bear the cost and political instability of a race which is doomed to stalemate only if of an arms control agreement. In fact, it invites a slowing down it is clear that every effort has been made to prevent it. That is of planned deployments; further, a period of this length will allow us to set realistic ceilings that represent more than a temwhy every President since Eisenhower has' pursued negotiations porary plateau from which to launch a new cycle in the arms for the limitation of strategic arms while maintaining the military programs essential to strategic balance. race. Further reductions thus become a realistic objective.

The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) became the one With respect to ceilings on strategic forces, we have defined our goal as essential equivalence in strategic capabilities. What means by which we and the Soviet Union could enhance stability by setting mutual constraints on our respective forces and by constitutes equivalence involves subjective judgment.

Because U.S. and Soviet forces are different from each other-in number gradually reaching an understanding of the doctrinal consideraand size of weapons, in technological refinement, in performance tions that underlie the deployment of nuclear weapons. Through characteristics-they are difficult to compare.

SALT, the two sides can reduce the suspicions and fears which fuel strategic competition. SALT, in the American conception, Detente is admittedly far from a modern equivalent to the kind of stable peace that characterized most of the 19th century. is a means to achieve strategic stability by methods other than But it is a long step away from the bitter and aggressive spirit the arms race. that has characterized so much of the postwar period. When Our specific objectives have been: linked to such broad and unprecedented projects as SALT, (I) to break the momentum of ever-increasing levels of detente takes on added meaning and opens prospects of a more armaments; stable peace. SALT agreements should be seen as steps in a pro(2) to control certain qual!tative aspects-particularly multiple

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cess leading to progressively greater stability. It is in that light that SALT and related projects will be judged by history.

Detente is a process, not a permanent achievement. The agenda is full and continuing .

• Restraint in crises must be augmented by co-operation in removing the causes of crises. There have been too many instances, notably in the Middle East, which demonstrate that policies of unilateral advantage sooner or later run out of control and lead to the brink of war, if not beyond.

• The process of negotiations and consultation must be continuous and intense. But no agreement between the - nuclear superpowers can be durable if made over the heads of other nations which have a· stake in the outcome. We should not seek to impose peace; we can, however, see that our own actions and conduct are conducive to peace.

We must never forget that the process of detente depends ultimately on habits and modes of conduct that extend beyond the letters of agreements to the spirit of relations as a whole, This is why the whole process must be carefully nurtured.

In cataloguing the desirable, we must take care not to jeop-

ardize what is attainable. We must consider what alternative policies are available and what their consequences would be.

And the implications of alternatives must be examined, not just in terms of a single issue, but for how they might affect the entire range of Soviet-American relations and the prospects for world peace. We have insisted toward the Soviet Union that we cannot have the atmosphere of detente without the substance. It is equally clear that the substance of detente will disappear in an atmosphere of hostility.

We have profound differences with the Soviet Union-in our values, our methods, our vision of the future. But it is these very differences .which compel any responsible administration to make a major effort to create a more constructive relationship.

We face an opportunity that was not possible 25 years or e'-;.en a decade ago. If that opportunity is lost, its moment will not quickly come again. Indeed, it may not come at all.

As President John F. Kennedy pointed out: . "In the final analysis, our most basic common Ijnk is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future and we are all mortal."

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SOn November 23-24, 1974, in the Soviet Union's Pacific port of Vladivostok, U.S. President Gerald R. Ford and Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev met to discuss a future agreement in the ongoing U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). They agreed that further negotiations will be based on the following provisions: 1. The new agreement will incorporate the relevant provisions of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. interim arms limitation agreement of May 23,1972, which will remain in force until October 1977.

2. The new agreement will cover the period from October 1977 through December 31, 1985.

3. Based on the principle of equality and equal security, the new agreement will include the following limitations: (A) A ceiling of 2,400 on each nation's total number of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles and heavy bombers, and (B) a limit for each nation of 1,320 missiles that can be armed with multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs).

4. The new agreement will include a provision for future negotiations beginning no later than 1980-1981 on the question of further limitations and possible reductions of strategic arms in the period after 1985.

In accordance with the understanding reached at Vladivostok, the American and Soviet delegations to SA LT resumed discussions in Geneva on January 31, 1975.

The two sides-headed

by U.S. Ambassador-at-Large Alexis Johnson and Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Semyonov-are working out technical details of the Vladivostok accords, such as what types of-missiles are covered by the agreement, what restraints will be necessary, how to identify missiles with multiple warheads, how to make sure that each nation is honoring the accord.

The talks, 'still in progress, will result in a new agreement this year on limiting strategic offensive arms through December 31, 1985.

5'S-blL,~ "We all cherish our children'sfuture and we are all mortal."-JOHN F. KENNEDY

In this overview of the U.S. sports scene, the author shows how American sports have evolved two unique institutions. One is the commercialized mass-entertainment 'business' of professional sports. The other is the world of amateur interschool competition. He also discusses the role of sports in the 'Americanization' of immigrant groups, and in breaking down racial barriers.

Of all the aspects of everyday American life that are hard to understand fully unless one has grown up with them,the role of sports is perhaps the hardest to grasp.

In many ways, the activities that come under the heading of "sports" are not very different from their counterparts in other countries. As participants, Americans fish, hunt, swim, ski, sail and play tennis much as people who can afford it do all over the world. Certainly a larger number than elsewhere play golf, on both public courses and in private clubs. They go by the million each year to race tracks to watch-and bet on-thoroughbred horses carrying jockeys and standardbred trotters and pacers pulling light carriages, just as they do everywhere.

In organized competition, Americans are part of the established interna~ional . pattern in track and field, tennis, swimming and diving, skating, rowing, automobile racing, fencing, amateur basketball, skiing and boxing.

But in two respects-the two that get by far the most attention within American society-American sports have evolved unique institutions. One is the highly commercialized, mass-entertainment, maximum-publicity promotion of professional sports, for which hundreds of millions of tickets are sold every year. The other is a system of teams (and individuals) officially representing schools they attend, competing as amateurs but with no less emphasis

on attracting large numbers of spectators.

No other country has a system of professional sports on anything like the American scale. The four most popular spectator games-baseball, football (which is not the game the rest of the world calls football), basketball and ice hockey-have a combined annual income of at least $500 million, from ticket sales and the selling of rights to have the games televised. Hundreds of these games are televised into American homes each year, the more important ones simultaneously across the nation, others on a regional or local basis.

As for individual players, some topranking basketball players earn as much as $500,000 a year (as much as the heads of many businesses or top entertainers make), with all 300 or so major-leaguers averaging more than $50,000; in hockey, a couple of men reach similar top salaries, but the average is around $30,000; and in baseball and football, the highest-paid individuals exceed $200,000 a year while the average is about $30,000 (about what a full college professor might earn).

And no other country has developed so extensive, or so intense, a sense of "school loyalty" toward "varsity" teams. (The word "varsity" stems from the word "university," and means simply the official team of that school in competition with other schools.) Such groupings begin at the high-school level-9th to 12th grade, ages from roughly 14 to 19-and reach

their peak in the largest colleges and universities. The element of local patriotism in such games spills over from the actual student bodies and former graduates to include the emotional involvement of the neighborhood or community in which the school is located. And when a state university, like Alabama or Ohio State, has an outstanding football team, the entire region identifies strongly with its success.

There are sound historical reasons for both these unusual organizational structures, and it is not a coincidence that the three most popular games-baseball, football and basketball-have peculiarly American roots. Some description of their qualities is necessary before the nature of their growth and impact can be traced.

Baseball is the oldest of the three, and evolved gradually from many bat-and-ball games that go back to antiquity. It took on the essential features of its present form between 1845 and 1890. It is played on a large field. There are four bases, one of which is called home, arranged in a square.

Since the batter stands at home base, the square from that point looks like a "diamond," which has become a synonym for the field. The pitcher, or thrower, stands A football player (right) runs with the ball toward the goal line, dodging opposing players. one of whom has fallen to the ground.

If the player safely reaches the goal line with the ball, his team scores six points.

Baseball, says the author, 'was particularly apt for the physical and psychological conditions of 19th-century America. it places enormous emphasis on individual effort and responsibility -the pitcher and the batter-yet it requires a lot of teamwork to score or prevent scores.' in the middle of the square, which is 90 tied after nine, extra innings are played feet on a side, some 60 feet from the batter. until a decision is reached. There are no There are nine men on a team. The time limits.

Such a game was particularly apt for "team at bat" sends its players up, one at a time, to try to hit the ball in such a way the physical and psychological conditions that they can run to each base in turn with- of 19th-century America. It places enorout being put "out," by having the ball mous emphasis on individual effort and caught on the fly or by being touched with responsibility-the pitcher and the batterthe ball between bases. A player may stop yet it requires a lot of teamwork to score "safely" at any base, and wait for the next or prevent scores. Such a blend suited perbatter's .hit to advance. And every time a fectly the attitudes and conditions of an player arrives safely back at home, he has expanding society that placed great emscored a "run" or point. Meanwhile, the phasis on individualism, but lived dailyother team is "in the field." Its pitcher tries especially in areas closer to the frontierto throw the ball so hard, or with such a with the necessities of co-operation. Yet, bewildering trajectory, that the batter can- any member of a team could be replaced not hit it sharply. When he does hit it, the fairly easily, since his tasks were performed pitcher's teammates try to catch or retrieve\ largely through his own skill, and this was it in time to prevent the team at bat from an important factor in a country whose scoring. population lfloved from town to town so Each side is allowed three "outs" in rapidly and endlessly. each "inning," or team turn at bat, and And the game had another quality: each side 'gets nine innings. If the score is Since it didn't require excessive exertion by

Diagram of baseball field shows positions of the fielding team. The "team at bat" sends "batters," one at a time, to face the "pitcher." The batter stands next to home base.

The pitcher (similar to the bowler in cricket) throws the ball. If the batter hits, it, he ru~s toward first base. If a fielder catches the ball in the air, the batter is out. If the fielder catches the ball only after it has hit the ground, he throws it to the first baseman who has run oller to defend first base by placing one foot on it. If the first baseman catches the ball before the batter reaches first base, the batter is out. If not, the batter is safe, and remains at first base while another batter steps up to try to hit safely. (For more details, see the text on this page.)

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anyone player (except the pitcher), and since body-contact was only incidental and occasional, it could easily be played every single day.

In a land whose small towns, large farms and ever westward-moving population had few theaters or other formal entertain-, ments, the baseball game between neighboring town teams became a major social event, a subject of conversation and a recreation easily understood even by those who had little schooling or found themselves still learning a new language.

Especially in the larger cities, where immigrants congregated and where factory workers had little opportunity for participating in outdoor activities themselves, watching experts play baseball became immensely popular., Once the popularity was recognized, ~ntrepreneurs quickly hired the best players, built enclosed grounds, charged admission and began a thriving business. And they found a natural ally: the daily newspaper.

If people were so interested in baseball that they would pay 50 cents to see a game, they would pay a penny or two cents to read about their favorite team or player on the days they couldn't attend the game.

Since anyone person could go to a game only infrequently, the baseball fan was a natural customer for the daily newspaper.'

And in catering to the baseball fan's taste with daily stories, the papers were, of course, creating more and more fans. That process is still strong today, with daily games and daily reportage reinforcing each other.

Such emphasis on the most glamorous and most proficient levels, of course, always stimulated interest at the much broader amateur levels. In baseball, the spectator has an exceptional opportunity to "identify" with the easily isolated efforts of the pitcher or batter; therefore, those playing the game themselves, especially children, can easily pretend to "be" the famous player they admire. Millions of American children, from age eight up, take part in well-organized "little league" baseball games, with uniforms. equipment and instruction supplied; almost every high school and college has a varsity team; vari-

ous CIVIC organizations sponsor town or ball, along with the desire for violent phys- of millions of people, and showed them local teams; and the closely related game ical contact. The players are elaborately the greater proficiency of the professional of "softball" (played on a smaller field padded, from head to thighs, but it is a teams,. did professional football's comwith a larger, less resilient ball, but other- frankly rough game of combat, demanding mercial success blossom. wise identical with "hardball" baseball) is great physical courage and tolerance of Basketball is a different story still. Here a favorite participant sport. The profes- pain. is a game that did not evolve at all, but sional game, then, is a sort of model for This, too, appealed to a part of the was invented by one man at a particular American psyche that felt close to its time and place for a specific purpose: millions of recreational participants.

Football is a very different story. The pioneer roots.

James Naismith, in 1891, in Springfield, game is an adaptation of the English rugby, Football was invented and developed by Massachusetts, was a physical education and essentially unrelated to the "football" students in the larger eastern colleges be- . teacher who sought an indoor atWetic ac(which Americans' call "soccer") played tween 1870 and 1900. The game adopted tivity more interesting than calisthenics, to everywhere else. recognizable rules around 1905, and reach- stimulate his students during the months In American foorball, the essential idea ed its modern form only in the 1940s. By that weather prevented them from playing is for one group, in possession of the ball, permitting substitutes to enter the game at baseball and football. He hung a peach to advance it by carrying or throwing any time between plays, the authorities basket from a balcony at each end of his ("passing") it to a teammate. The field is made it possible to specialize functions, so small gymnasium, took a "soccer" ball, and 100yards long, with a goal line at each end. that on the same team one group plays had each team try to throw the ball into Carrying the ball acrQss the goal line is offense (when their opponents are on the the basket. Because the game had to be worth six points, or a "touchdown." Lesser defense) and a totally different group plays played in a confined space, on a hard scores can be made by kicking the ball defense (when the roles are reversed and wooden floor with no padding on the playbetween uprights and over a crossbar the opposing team has the ball). This ers, certain limitations had to be devised placed at each end of the field. There are specialization doubles the amount of prac- to keep the game from becoming physically 11 men on a team. tice and preparation each group can get destructive. So running and tackling and It is permissible-in fact, desirable-to for the once-a-week actual game, and it blocking were not allowed, dribbling the knock down opposing players, either to vastly increases the possible complexity ball was invented (at first only throwing it clear the way for the man with the ball of tactics. to a teammate was allowed), and the famil(the offensive team), or to stop him (the The disciplined format of football, its iar rules of basketball quickly developed. defensive team). Each time the man with student origin, its relative infrequency (one Its popularity became worldwide in an the ball is "downed"-physically knocked game per week-end for each team), the amazingly short time (Naismith, incidenoff his feet-the play ends, the teams re- sense of danger involved, the premium on tally, was a Canadian). And it became group, and start again from that point of determined, hard-hitting effort rather than especially popular in the large cities, for the field; dependence on the finer-grained skills of obvious reasons: It didn't require a large, In such a game, split-second teamwork ..batting and pitching-all these things help- outdoor clear space, as the other two is absolutely essential. Since every play be- ed make football an ideal rallying point for games did; it didn't need the expensive gins from a standing start, the offensive feelings of school (or town) loyalty. Emo- equipment of football, nor the endless reteam must respond as one man to a start- tionally, as wellas tactjcally, one's football hearsal and analysis; it could be played ing signal. Since simply bumping into an team was a miniature "army'; defending almost anywhere a basket could be put opponent of approximately equal strength the honor of its community against an- up, with a handful of people-even onedoesn't accomplish much for anyone, other. Organized cheerleading squads, on-one, two-on-two or three-on-three.

Because the basket is 10 feet above floor "plays" must be devised to fool the de- organized chants by the spectators, bands fenders or to bring several "blockers" to playing "patriotic" (with respect to the level, the taller player has a built-in advanbear on one point of the defense, so that school, that is) songs-these accoutrements tage, other things being equal-and the a way can be cleared for the ball carrier. to the "big game" college week-end fit na- American population includes a large And if the ball is to be thrown, teammates turally with the atmosphere of the game number of exceptionally tall people. As must protect the passer long enoughon the field. And since the essential ele- young athletes, the taller ones tend to choose, or be directed toward, basketball. about five seconds-for the man who is to ment in success on the field is hard-hitting catch the ball to run downfield and evade physical contact (within the rules, a<>in At the professional level, players shorter some defenders. boxing), the emotional fervor of the player than six feet are virtually unheard of, All this requires tremendous precision, has a greater proportional effect on the re- seven-footers are not uncommon, and the average height of a professional team is which means repetitive practice and care- suit in football than in other games. fully detailed design of every play. If chess In such a context, America's most six-and-a-half feet.

But regardless of players' sizes, basketis an intellectual abstraction of the move- noticed football teams remained highment of armies, football is a body-contact school or college teams until about 1950. ball quickly became the favorite game at manifestation of the same concept.

The best I?layers graduatIng from college the high-school level. Less expensive than Discipline, selfless team feeling and each year were a steady source of supply football, with fewer players to transport to elaborate preparation-by studying films for professional teams, but there was until a neighboring town, it was easily adapted of previous games and analyzing every fairly recently no large following for pro- to the same school-patriotism function conceivable eventuality in advance-are fessional teams. Only after television football performed. The indoor season, in the main characteristics of American foot- brought professional games into the homes Text continued on page 16

'Sports have taken on . a meaning deeper than simply entertainment.

Many a child, whose parents spoke the "old country" language at home, sharpened his reading ability by devouring sports pages and sports magazines, and many a boy has practiced his arithmetic by figuring out baseball batting averages and league standings.'

Right: Lew Alcindor, one of the great names in both collegiate and professional basketball, is about to score for his old team, the University of California at Los Angeles. Alcindor now plays professional basketball. Above: Children learn to play tennis on makeshift tennis court in a New York City street ..

Left: A baseball player prepares to slide into second base, trying to beat the ball. If the ball is caught before the runner's foot touches the base, he is "out." The umpire, in black suit, will watch the runner's feet while he listens for the sound of ball hitting fielder's glove.

'In American football, the essential idea is for one group, in possession of the ball, to advance it by carrying or throwing it to a teammate. The field is 100 yards long with a goal line at each end. Carrying the ball across the goal line is worth six points, or' a "touchdown." , the densely populated northeastern quadrant of the United States, also coincided with the school calendar. And outside of school, basketball became the game of small clubs in big cities. / As spectators all over the world recognize, basketball has great appeal: There is a goal scored every few seconds, and gameend excitement runs high. It takes highly polished teamwork among five players to win games-yet the individual exploits of any player are clearly visible, in a man-against-man confrontation, to the spectators.

While basketball has won worldwide acceptance, baseball has been adopted on a large scale outside the United States only in Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, the Caribbean area and parts of South America. And American football is played nowhere else on a comparable scale, although an altered version of the game is popular in Canada.

The characteristics of these sports have

had much to do with the general attitudes toward sports developed in America over the last century. Since local pride and school affiliation became so large a part of the concern of participants and onlookers, emphasis on victory rather than artistry became the norm. In the school or community context, victory is its own pur-. pose. On the professional level, victory is the measure of success, much as critical acclaim is the measure of an actor's or musician's success.

Artistry and skill, then, are appreciated by all concerned because they usually lead to victory, but not in the abstract. Americans seem to show little intere.st in "perfection" sports, like gymnastics, figureskating or diving, where form is part of the competition. They are oriented almost entirely toward "goal" sports, where a score is made by reaching a certaih goal (home base, touchdown, basket) regardless of form. And team success-victory-always

At the beginning of a "play" if}Americanfootball, each team lines up against the other in formation. The team in black shirts is on the offense (because it possesses the ball), aiming to advance the ball toward the enemy goal line. The team in white shirts is on defense, trying to gain possession of the ball. Each team has 11 men; in the photo below, two men, one from each side, are standing in positions out of the picture. Number 27 is the referee.

Number 56 on black team has the ball. When the play begins he hands it to the "quarterback"

directly behind him who may throw it to a "receiver" (number 87) who will in the meantime have run deep into the enemy territory. Or, the quarterback may hand it to one of the "running backs" (44 and 47) who will attempt to gain territory by running with the ball straight through the enemy line. The play ends when the runner carrying the ball is "tackled" and wrestled to the ground by the defensive players, or when the runner dodges all would-be tacklers and carries the ball across the goal line for a "touchdown," scoring sjx poi(lfjJ.

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takes precedence over individual accomplishment.

It is striking that coaches and players, on every level, usually refer proudly to their tasks as "a job to be done." The job is winning. Professionals see themselves as expert performers whose income and, prestige depend on their ability to produce victory. That the game is to be won within the rules goes without saying; but within those rules, tIre "nice try" or "near miss" are less admired than in many countries with a different tradition.

"Sport for sport's sake," therefore, is a minority view. Sport is accepted as an entertainment medium, in which the entertaining element is competition: the struggle to see who will win. For the onlooker, in' person or through television, the enjoyment comes from strong emotional attachment to one side, and the excitement of seeing its fortunes rise and fall. The vicarious joy of victory, the despair of defeat, are basic to the sports fan's interest.

This and sociological factors that will be examined in a moment have made distinctions between "amateur" and "professional" of relatively little concern to most Americans. In golf and tennis international. competitions, of course, amateurs and professionals now compete together. In the American system, college players must be' amateurs, although it is universally accepted that scholarship funds and certain living expenses may be awarded to proficient athletes, whose efforts will then enhance the prestige and gate receipts of the school. It is fair to say that, by and large, American sports institutions maintain and observe amateur status because a worldwide context demands it; but that if the rest of the world abandoned such definitions, few Americans would feel strong philosophic objection to "open" competition.

None of this, of course, contradicts the fact that truly amateur sports activity-as recreation, not as a livelihood-is engaged in enthusiastically and extensively in all sports. In fact, in those sports where amateur status is essential (such as the Olympic Games) many individuals have made considerable sacrifices to maintain that status.

Furthermore, in the vast majority of games

played, even in well-organized contexts, only amateurs are involved. At every age level, from Little League baseball through tennis tournaments for the over-50 set, the "love of sport" is the entire motivation.

But the styles and techniques exhibited so widely by the professionals are accepted as the norms for amateurs to emulate, and the tendency is to' equate professionalism with high proficiency (in a favorable sense), and "amateur" with less proficiency, rather than seeing a moral judgment between the two.

The sociological factor just mentioned is this: Athletic excellence, with the promise of financial reward, has been one traditional means of climbing the socioeconomic ladder. In a country populated almost entirely by successive waves of immigrants, there was always on hand some group easily identifiable-by its own language, dress, traditions-trying to be - assimilated in "the melting pot," and to improve its position.

This was especially true in the 19th century and early in the 20th. Thus, many of the prominent professional baseball players of the period 1860-1910 were of Irish or German background, and these identities were well publicized. The groups they came from responded to the sight of "one of their own" earning fame, wealth and admiration; they became f'ins, and produced new talented players. Later, in" the period 1920-1950, baseball players of Italian heritage (notably Joe DiMaggio) became prominent. And the blacks, exeluded by explicit discFimination until Jackie Robinson was hired by the old Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team of the National League in 1946, have moved into the forefront during the last 25 years, along with many from the Caribbean area. (So far, only one player from Japan, a pitcher, has played at the top levels of American baseball.)

This "upward mobility" process is most vividly documented in boxing, a story told in many Hollywood movies. In succession, the Irish, the Italians, the Jews, the blacks and most recently the Puerto Ricans produced champions with whom their people could identify.

As a result, sports have taken on a meaning deeper than simply entertainment for a substantial portion of the American public, especially children. Many a child, whose parents spoke the "old country" language at home, sharpened his reading ability by devouring sports pages and

sports 111agazines, and many a boy has ferences or leagues, or larger superstrucpracticed his arithmetic by figuring out tures (like the National Collegiate Athletic batting averages and league standings. And Association). Individual sports, like tennis apart from the "Americanization" funcor golf or skating, are governed by federation, interest in sports has always provided tions that are related to international a common reference point for conversation organizations. in an extremely mobile society which Thus there are no "national teams" as brings strangers or casual acquaintances such. When American teams compete into frequent contact. against other countries, the teams are Organizationally, the traditional pattern either formed especially for the occasion or adopted is that of a "league." A group of chosen as an entity to represent the United teams-schools, clubs or professional orStates. But generally speaking, the most ganizations-bands together to observe talented American athletes in major sports common regulations and adopt a schedule seldom compete internationally because in which each'team plays every other team. they have already passed into the profesThe championship is won by the team with sional context of baseball-football-basketmost victories at the end of the schedule. ball. The rewards for success in these The highest professional leagues are called sports are so great that boys with excep"major leagues," the lower ones "minor tional ability while still in their early teens leagues," and the groups of college teams direct their interest in that direction. are usually called "conferences." In every Organized competition for women, on case, though, a team may play groups outthe other hand, has been minimal in the side its league, the true measure of success American experience. Only in the last 20 is "league standing": the won-lost record -;::"yearsor so have women as a group shown of the team within its league. much interest in competing or watching.

There are two major baseball leagues, Television, undoubtedly, has had a lot to run by a co_-ordinated administration, and do with equalizing the opportunity for their champions meet each October in the interest in what -used to be considered ex"World Series" to determine the profeselusively a "man's world." Except in swimsional baseball champion. All the major ming, tennis and golf, American women professional football teams are in a single have been traditionally less successful in league, with the two top teams battling for international competition, but much more supremacy in the "Super Bowl" in January. effort is being put into women's activities In basketball and hockey, there are two these days. leagues each, independently administered Sports, therefore, occupy a large portion and competing with each other to hire the of the waking thoughts of millions of best players, and in those sports no single Americans. As participants, they do what national champion is decided. their individual life situations allow. But as The importance Americans place on spectators and followers, they become part sports, as they see them, can be measured of a common culture of simultaneous by the extent to which sports terminology interest in intensively reported events. For has passed into everyday language, used by example, in any given week during Decempeople who have no thought of the origins ber, when sporting seasons overlap, a truly of these phrases. Thus, if a project fails dedicated fan may watch on his television soon after.it's begun, we say, "He couldn't set at least two college basketball games, get to first base"; a man whose abilities we two professional basketball games, posadmire "has a lot on the ball" (a phrase sibly one or two college football games applied to a pitcher who can throw the ball and no less than four professional football very hard); a person who is uniformly sucgames, not to mention a major golf match cessful in his activities is "a winner"; a and some sports features which might incostly mistake is a "fumble" (literally, to c1ude surfing in Hawaii, automobile racing drop the football); and any big success is or weight-lifting. The quantity of sporting "a hit," from the baseball term for a batted events in genetal has roughly dou~led in ball on which the batter reaches base the past two decades. And judging by the safely. feverish interest they engender in the citiAll the professional teams are privately zenry, there's every indication sports will owned, as businesses. All the high-school continue to proliferate.

0 and college teams are supported by their institutions, which are administered by About the Author: Leonard Koppett is a veteran sportswriter on the staff of the New York Times. voluntary groupings of schools into con-

For years, American physicians and psychologists have been concerned about the¡ adverse effects of . competitive sports on young schoolchildren. Their concern-plus the growing emphasis in the U.S. on 'co-operation, not competition'-has resulted in the establishment by many elementary schools of new noncompetitive physical education programs like Project HOPE, described in the article below.

SPORTS FOR THE YOUNG

'EVERY CHILD A WINNER' ,

Five years ago, two schools in best about this program is that Irwin County, Georgia, began a it benefits every child, not just a project to design and test ~ model select group with special probprogram in physical education lems or special abilities." for elementary-school children.

Mary Powell, a teacher of 15 At the time, Charlie Gibson, who years' experience, seconds the enthusiasm.

"I've had just taken oyer as principal principals' of Irwin Middle School, one of watched the children from the the two project schools, had no first year of the project, and the inkling of how successful a ven- difference it has made is almost . unbelievable. Children I never ture this was to be.

Irwin, a formerly all-black expected to participate in athschool in an all-black neighbor- letics are actively involved. And hood, was, like many schools in the classroom they're more during those days, still in the pro- attentive and better behaved."

Is this to say that Irwin County, cess of integrating.

"We didn't know what to ex- Georgia, has the best physical pect," he says. "Nobody knew education program in America? how the kids would react to one No such claim is made. But Proanother. Things were a bit touchy ject HOPE (an acronym for at first but nothing serious hap- "Health and Optimum Physical pened. All I can say now is that Education") is being increasingly our discipline has improved tre- studied by U.S. educators. One mendously, and I give much of of the most impressive' indicathe credit to our physical educa- tions of HOPE's impact: the tion program."

U.S. Office of Education desigSuch accolades are not usually nated it as a national demonstradirected at elementary school tion center and training site for physical education programs, elementary physical education. which are all too often thought HOPE began in 1970 as a of as mere safety valves to blow project funded under the U.S. off the excess energy of chil- Government's Elementary and dren. Nor did the project go un- Secondary Education Act. It connoticed by other educators in tinues to operate in the two Irwin Irwin County. schools and involves approxiJack Norwood, principal of mately 1,000 children from kinIrwin Elementary School, the dergarten through sixth grade. other school where the program ,(The elementary school includes operates, declares: "What I like the grades from kindergarten

through the third; the middle Ischool, from the fourth grade through the sixth.) The seedbed for the program had been pre-' pared by Martha Owens, project director, who reminisces: "During the summer of 1968, I was teaching physical education in a summer program in Irwin County.

Our school system, like many schools in the nation, was producing winning football teams, track and basketball stars, yet all the evidence pointed to large numbers of physically unfit boys and girls."

Mrs. Owens wondered whether many of the problems that beset the Irwin County schools and other schools in neighboring districts-high dropout rates, academic underachievement, apathetic children, disruption in the classroom-might not somehow be tied to the fact that these schools had made no provision for planned physical education.

Could it be that a really good elementary school physical education program would help solve some of these problem~?

Envisioning a "really good elementary physical education program" as one that would "make every child a winner" by encouraging the unskilled and the average, while challenging the physically gifted, Mrs. Owens persuaded the Irwin County Board of Education to try such a pro-

gram. Three main goals were listed initially: to improve the fitness levels and motor skills of every child, to enhance academic adjustment, and to plan and implement school health services.

Today, five years after its launching, Mrs. Owens says: "The project has mushroomed far beyond these first goals. Although our evaluation shows that 100 per cent of the children have improved in fitness and motor skills, the most significant and gratifying result is that they also seem to have developed a healthy respect for one another, a love of physical activity, and a more positive attitude toward themselves and their school."

How did a physical education program manage to attain such far-reaching results?

Program planner Susan Rockett has this to say: "The HOPE program is decidedly not the typical physical education program. Traditionally, the emphasis has been on games and competitive team sports, with the gifted athlete receiving much of the attention to the neglect of his less agile friends who develop only a negative attitude about the entire idea of physical activity. Consequently, the physical education experience can be a devastating one for the child who needs it most. The 'I'm a

loser' attitude developed on the playground often carries over into the academic and social life of the child."

The HOPE program seeks to overcome this problem through the medium of "movement education" and a devotion to the project philosophy, "Every Child a Winner."

"Movement education" is a system of techniques that teach each child basic movement patterns (running, throwing, catching, etc.) without the pressure of competition. Mrs. Rockett points out that the only competition a child in HOPE faces is competition with himself. "Each youngster develops movement patterns sequentially," she explains, "moving to more difficult levels at his or her own pace. Children are not asked to compete,in games and sports until they have the necessary emotional and physical readiness to find success and satisfaction."

The lack of emphasis on competition helps each child to experience success every day. Experts believe that this "feeling of success" is a major reason for the improved classroom climate reported by teachers.

Possibly another factor in better behavior is the project's emphasis on respect for one's own "space" and for the "space of others." Long a basic concept of "movement education," the "theory of general and personal space" is one of 'the child's first lessons in HOPE. Each child comes to understand how to move the body with varied force, at different speeds, and in certain levels and ranges within an area -or space-that is his or hers alone. A child quickly learns to honor a neighbor's space, to use personal space efficiently.

Does this concept have carryover value?

According to Allan Smith, HOPE instructor at Irwin Elementary, it does. "Understanding general and personal space helps,the child become more selfdirected," says Smith. "This makes him less dependent on the teacher for organization and direction in all activities."

The space concept also helps the child develop the ability to maneuver in tight situations and

leads to better self-control in crowded halls, buses, waiting lines, and similar situations. As one visitor observed: "I can't get over how orderly these children are. They don't push and shove or run over one another."

In a sports-oriented community like Irwin County which is justly proud of the records of its interscholastic athletic teams at the high school level, there were those who feared that Project HOPE's de-emphasis of competitive sports might weaken the excellent record of Irwin's winning teams. This has not proved to be the case.

"Project HOPE does not conflict with the interests of those who want organized athletics," says Mrs. Rockett. "Just the opposite. When a child has gone through HOPE's sequential program, he or she is much more likely to have the skills needed for competitive sports. And the athletics coach may have an entire class of boys and girls from which to choose teams, rather than relying on the few who just happen to be athletically gifted."

How does HOPE's sequential program operate? . To get a good understanding of this operation, it may be well to follow the development of a particular skill like, for example,

-'2.0 5Nbounces back?" lnvin County schoolchildren Later, the more complex feat participate in noncompetitive of catching a ball thrown by an- "games" such as swinging on other person is developed. Next, horizontal ladder (above) , the child learns to catch while hopping on tire walk (above right), and climbing on a tunnel moving: "Can you catch the made Irom barrels (right) . ball while running toward Jim?" In grades four through six, catching may become rhythmical usual apparatus and equipment and creative; fourth-graders learn developed by the staff are imto throw and catch to music. Or portant elements. All the equipit may become challenging: sixth- ment is economical and practical, 'Project HOPE graders learn to catch a ball with costs ranging from nothing' thrown in front of them while at all to $152 per unit. "One of is helping to build a ball the primary reasons for the sucrunning forward-or a more complete thrown to the side of them by cess of HOPE is the involvement student-emotionally, running sideways. Thus, when of the community in the planning the time comes for a child to play and building of our equipment," physically football or baseball, or just to says Mrs. Owens. and academically.'

Children brought scores of old catch something thrown at him, these early movement experiences tires given them by parents and "catching," from kindergarten will have led to a sound under- neighbors to be used for all kinds through the sixth grade. standing of how to move the body of ingenious apparatus; tire The kindergarten child learns for catching at various speeds. climbs, tire walks, balance beam the basic movements the body The same simple-to-complex supports, standards, hurdles. makes while catching, by first process, with emphasis on under- Local retired citizens built archery sitting and rolling a large ball standing how to move the body standards; civic clubs made bean against a wall so that it rebOUhds efficiently, is the underlying theme bags and yarn balls. High school and rolls back. As the child be- of every lesson in HOPE. To aid art and home economics classes comes proficient in this task, other American schools in imple- made pinnies (used to identify he is introduced to smaller balls, menting the HOPE program, a players on one team) and target varying distances, more demand- booklet called Every Child a baskets. Materials were purchased ing movement problems: "Can Winner Through Elementary Physfrom army surplus outlets; others you throw the ball at the wall, ical Education has been prepared were donated by local firms. keeping it low, and catch it when for classroom teachers and phys"Everything here is designed ¡it bounces back?" "Can you aim ical educators. to help children learn to manage at the wall, high over the Of course, the program itself their b9dies more efficiently," head, and catch the ball when it is the heart of HOPE, but the un- says Mrs. Owens. "The equip:,

is best understood in the light of what is happening to people's attitudes toward elementary school physical education.

J n Irwin County alone, letters from parents requesting that children be excused from physical education are fewer and fewer.

The mother of one fifth-grade 'boy reports: "Jakie begs me not to send an excuse, even when he's had an asthma attack." And now the Board of Education, for the first time in its history, employs two full-time elementary physical education teachers and two aides.

In, the State of Georgia, at least 20 schools are implementing elementary physical education programs after sending staffmembers to train at HOPE. In some instances, these schools serve as models in their own area. One such school is Miller Park Elementary in Gainesville, whose principal, Jack Purcell, writes: "We now have a 'movement program' like FOR MORE ABOUT PROJECT HOPE "-HOPE. Several other schools have already come to see our Readers wanting to know program and playground layout." more on the program deAttitudes of physical educascribed in this article should tion teachers reflect renewed vigor write directly to Mrs. Martha after HOPE training. Jay GassOwens, Director, Project man from Atwater Elementary HOPE, Box 141, Ocilla, School in Thomaston says: "I Georgia 31774, U.S.A. can honestly say I was becoming ing, vision, and dental problems depressed and frustrated with have thus been remedied by be- the way physical education was ing referred to the proper agen- being handled in many school cies through this co-operation systems, almost to the point of with the county health authorities. changing my profession. But no~, Commenting on the impact just by exposure to this project, of HOPE on the health of the I'm sure I'll never surrender." county's youngsters, County Hundreds of requests for inforHealth Nurse Ellen Paulk says: mation on HOPE from through" 'Every Child a Winner' is liter- out the U.S. are answered by the ally true. Project HOPE is help- project staff. Martha Owens sees ing to build a more complete these requests as an indication of student-emotionally, physically, a nationwide trend. "There is an and academically. Many health increasing awareness by educaproblems have been found and tors today of the important contreated, thus allowing the studenttribution 'movement education' to attend school regularly and to makes toward the development gain optimum benefit from the of the total child. The HOPE whole school program." ",.design, though not perfect, anAll the data shows that HOPE swers the need for programs that has succeeded in improving the are noncompetitive and movefitnrss and motor skills of the ment-oriented. HOPE is pracchi*ren in the project. County tical, economical and effective. records indicate an improvement Its true significance lies in its goal in average daily attendance in to help every child become grades one through six since the a winner."

0 project began and teachers and About the Author: Syd Blackmarr principals say that behavior in has been working with Project both schools is better. But per- HOPE, in Irwin County, Georgia, haps the real portent of HOPE since its inception in 1970.

ment provides a challenge and creative play opportunities. But the children love it because it's Jim! That's a giant step toward a lifetime love of physical activity."

All the equipment described, plus many other innovative ideas, are contained in another booklet called Every Child a Winner With Improvised Physical Education Equipment. With detailed drawings and cost estimates included, this booklet describes how school systems-both poor and wealthy -can devise their own play areas.

Building equipment is not the only aspect of Project HOPE in which the people of Irwin County, Georgia, have been involved. The Irwin County Health Department has worked closely with HOPE since the project started, giving necessary treatment to children identified as having certain health needs. Hear-

AMERICAN SPORTS IN THE

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lthough baseball, basketball and "American football" are the most popular spectator sports in the United States today, the American sports scene in the mid-1970's is bewildering in its variety. In "team spor:ts" there is, among others, ice hockey, polo, softball, rugby and soccer (the game the rest of the world calls "football"). There's lacrosse, which dates back to an American Indian contest called baggatway. There's jai alai (see photo on opposite page), which originated in the Spanish Basque country and of which the New York Times says: "It combines elements of handball, squash, dog racing, bullfighting and mountain climbing in a flamboyant blend of continuous action."

There are also scores of "nonteam sports" (though even some of these can be played by teams): golf, roller skating, water skiing, tennis, squash, fencing, sharpshooting, trapshooting, boxing, archery, wrestling, ballooning, bareback riding, surfing and similar water sports. And Americans love all sorts of racing sports (see page 26). Then there are those, "classic" sports that are "played" in the Olympic Games (see page 24). In the last few years, sports that pit man against the elements have become popular-mountain climbing, skydiving and hang gliding (see page 28) are only a few of them. Finally, of course, lest the more sedentary sportsmen take umbrage, most American almanacs also list the following recreational and leisure activities as "sports": bowling, shuffleboard, pocket billiards, snorkeling, fishing, frisbee, contract bridge and even chess!

A sampling of photos depicting this wide, wonderful world of American sports are presented on these and the following pages. Some of the photos convey what sportswriters call the "moment of truth." Every athlete worth his salt knows what this is-the instant before a putt is, sunk, or a goal is scored, or the finish line is crossed. Ernest Hemingway described its successful execution as "grace under pressure," and for the spectator it is a thrilling high point of any competition. For the athlete, it is a personal, grueling tes.t of nerves and stamina.

Every ounce of strength and skill is brought to bear on a single goal. Concentration is fierce. Muscles strain. Emotions ravage the face, as body and mind are pushed to breaking point. It is a supreme moment of tension-it is the moment that makes the difference between winning and losing.

Right: Soccer, called football in the rest of the world, is fast becoming popular in the United States where until recently it was hardly played at all. Right above: Golf

champion Jack Nicklaus faces his moment of truth. Far right: Sheila Young (foreground) cuts out a tenacious rival to win the annual women's race of the Amateur Bicycle League of America.

74

Above: Spills and thrills during an ice hockey match.

Top: Jai alai is a popular sport in Florida's large Cuban community. In structure the game most nearly resembles squash, except that it is played on a gargantuan court-called a fronton52 meters long, 16 meters wide.

OLYMPIC SPORTS T

he glory of ancient Greece, it is often said, was partly due to the emphasis on physical culture-the concept of sports as essential for the development of the "complete human being." This concept was epitomized in the Olympic Games, which were reinstituted in 1896 to promote international understanding. Here, once every four years, national rivalries and jealousies, differences of politics, race, religIon and wealth are all eliminated on the friendly field of amateur sports. American Olympic athletes are not paid. Yet such is the glory attached to the Games that throughout the U.S.-in schools and universities, in gymnasiums, on playing fields-young men and women train hard to attain proficiency in the rich variety of sports that comprise the Olympics. And the efforts of young American athletes have paid off: The United States has won more Olympic medars-I,368-than any other nation since the Games began.

Left: Pole vaulter Steve Smith, holder of world indoor record (5.49 meters) â&#x20AC;˘faces "moment of truth." Left center: Anne Henning, one of America's best women speed skaters, practices in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

She won the SOD-meterspeed skating event at the 1972 Winter Olympics. Far left: Athletes participate in National Steeplechase championship in Eugene, Oregon.

RACING SPORTS

Top right: An unusual Photograp~L:C~\J~ sport I':t:h"fd1 that captures the drama of an greatness is often determined by auto race. Top: A motorcycle racer the inches of horses' noses. Here, hurtles through the air. Above: however, the famous American A racing bareback rider heads .horse Secretariat wins the Belmont for a fall. Right: A swamp buggy Stakes by 31 lengths-almost race in Florida. Far right: Horsethe length of a soccer field.

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mericans have always loved to get things done fast, a love of speed that is reflected in their love of racing sports. It's been said that Americans will race anything and everything-autos, motorcycles, bicycles, sailboats, powerboats, iceboats, swamp buggies, planes, as well as animals of all kinds-including, of course, horses. Indeed, classical horseracing is still one of the most popillar spectator sports in the U.S. The three most famous annual horseraces in the country are the Kentucky Derby (see May 1975 SPAN), thePreakness and the Belmont Stakes. The finest thoroughbreds in America run in these races, and rare is the horse that is able to win all three of them-"the triple crown" -in one year. In 1973, however, a great horse performed that feat for the first time in a quarter century. His name is Secretariat. Most winners of these races win by a narrow margin; it's often a photo finish. But in the '73 Belmont Stakes, Secretariat won by 31 lengths, as recorded in the photograph at l~ft.

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nmost sports,. man pits himself competitively. against other men. But there IS another realm of sports-sometimes seen more as daredevil adventure-in which man pits himself against the elements: against the ice and snow of winter, the treacherous cliffs of mountains, the burning sand of the desert, and against gravity itself by hurling his body into the wind on parachutes or gliders. Many of these sports-such as sandboating, snowmobiling and hang gliding-have come into vogue in America only in the last decade. Others, like mountaineering, are more than a century old. In the case of all of them, however, their practitioners are on the whole people of a more introspective, less competitive nature than those who love to play ~'to win" o~er others. For in these sports, what one "conquers" is oneself and one's fear of nature. The "moment of truth" in these sports is quite different from what it is in the competitive sports described earlier. It is a moment whose feelings might be summed up in the words of Emerson: "Why should we fear to be crushed by savage elements, we who are made up of the same elements?" 0

Above: An amateur skydiver makes her 12th parachute jump over Delray Beach, Florida. Above right: Dressed warmly against the icy winter wind, a snowmobiler drives his vehicle in far-below-freezing temperatures through a snow-covered pasture.

Right: In rough "white water," two boatmen try to keep their craft from being dashed to pieces on the rocks.

Far right: Nearing the summit of an icy peak, a mountaineer walks dangerously near the snow "cornice" which might break off any moment. Far right, center: Sandboating demands tremendous arm strength-and a body toughene,d to withstand the burning desert heat and the skin-scraping, sand-filled winds. Far right, top: A skysurfer( or hang glider) is towed by friends for a take-off.

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64

At\Indian Vle-wo f American sports An overweight Indian writer recalls his student days in the u.s. and his initiation into the mayhem and mystery of American sports, including his near decapitation of a softball player.

Supplementing Rajangam's view of the U.S. sporting scene is cartoonist Mario's view (left).

Autumn 1966 was an interesting time to begin college in America. Students were beginning to stir again after many years of somnolence, but the bitterness that turned many a campus into a battlefield in the late 1960s was way in the future, and academic traditions were still secure enough to make going to college seem worthwhile. The biggest controversy on campus during my first semester at a New York college was whether students should be required to play some game or other . â&#x20AC;˘ Among the sports offered were fencing, wrestling, swimming, athletics, handball and bowling. Bowling! That sounded interesting. Flushed with the excitement of being in the New World, I was eager to try everything American. Weren't the strange men Rip Van Winkle met on the mountain bowling? Wasn't it the crack of their balls striking the pins that sounded like distant thunder? Surely nothing could be more American. The night before my first bowling class, ] read up as much as I could on the sport. It wasn't an American invention (stone age men rolled rocks at sheep joints 7,000 years ago), but it had become very popular in the U.S., so much so, in fact, that once upon a time the authorities banned it.

Apparently too many people were gambling on it. But some clever fellow, reading the small letters of the law, discovered that only the game of ninepins (it was played with nine pins then) had been prohibited, not bowling itself. So he rolled in an extra pin and knocked down the authorities. Such deviousness was delicious, and feeling very satisfied with my choice I presented myself to the coach the next day.

The coach grabbed me and wouldn't let go. For half an hour he pumped me full of arcane bowling lore. The poor man was obviously desperate for someone' to talk to, as, apart from myself, all the others had selected bowling solely because it was the least strenuous sport on the list.

"Count off four and a half steps behind the front line," the coach concluded.

"Make sure your left post is slightly ahead of your right. Keep the ball a bit to the right of your body and support it with your left hand. Then, keeping your eyes on the pins, move forward, beginning your backswing so that the ball is at its peak on the third step. On the fourth step slide a bit, bending slightly forward from the hips and keeping your weight on the right foot. Let the ball go smooth, easy and natural and don't feel bad if it heads straight into the gutter."

Light-headed and dizzy from all this priming, I sloshed about in my too-large bowling shoes to the rank, grabbed a ball and stumbled up to the front line, stopped, swung and let go.

The ball rolled lazily down the lane.

About halfway down it looked gutterbound but it kept going and smashed straight -into the pins. Seven tipped over immediately. The eighth, ninth and tenth wobbled about as if they were uncertain what to do. Finally, they gave up and joined their fellows. A strike!

The coach came up glowering. "You been kidding me, boy?" he growled. I assured him that it was the first time I'd ever bowled. And, as if to make up for the fluke, every ball during the rest of that class went straight into the gutter.

I dropped my bowling ball permanently when I was selected for the freshman tennis team. My college was bad at most sports, including tennis. That's how I made the team. It was a trying year. We lost all our matches including several to high schools. But I remember those days with affection. Every time we played a match we got $5 for supper, and I ate better that year than I ever did.

At most American universities the biggest men on campus-in both size and status-are the athletes. Girls swarm about them. They're always in the college paper.

Even the university president likes to be

.photographed shaking hands with them.

Not so at my university. Here, the campus heavies were the "intellectuals." Understanding, or rather claiming to understand, existentialism or esthetics was considered far superior to scoring a touchdown or sinking a basket. Indeed, the athletes were disparagingly called "jocks." They bit back at their tormentors by calling them "pukes" or "Harvard rejects" (most students, including myself, had to settle for this university because Harvard had turned them down). But that didn't help much.

For the plain fact was that the athletes at my university were a sorry bunch. Like most college athletes they were, on average, not as bright as the average student.

But unfortunately, they weren't very good athletes either. Bad with both book and ball, they were treated like outcasts.

This disdain for athletes existed among the teachers too, and the coaches-who were professors in the department of physical education-never had a pleasant time at the faculty club. There was only one time when the chasm, between the two wa,s bridged. When it looked, for the first time in the university's history, as if the basketball team was going t,o win the championship. It didn't, of course, and after those few heady weeks, everything was back to normal.

Although sports was the great divider, there were many other differences between jocks and pukes. Jocks tended to be traditional and conservative-they wore crew cuts and chewed gum. Pukes wore long hair and were more liberal.

One of the most interesting examples of the jock-puke controversy-and really, the split between American liberals and conservatives-was, ironically, a sportIng event: the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier boxing match of March 1971. Billed as the "Bout of the Century" it ballooned out (with a lot of help from the media) into much more than a fight for the world heavyweight title: It became a symbol of

the clash between the squares and the pointy-heads, the left versus the right.

Liberals, forsaking their long-standing distaste for violent sports, quickly jumped into Ali's corner. Ali, the versifier, the boxer who floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee, the former Cassius Clay who dodged the draft and became a black Muslim, personified for the' liberals all their dislike for the Establishment. They saw in Ali's subtle, effortless boxing style and his flow of doggerel the soul of an artist. With equal inanity, Joe Frazier, the no-nonsense, heavy-handed, sharecropper's son from South Carolina, was built up into the champion of the right.

Because Joe did not care about his looks (even though he won the fight it was his face that was puffy and contorted at the end, his eyes that were half-closed), because he couldn't spin out rhymes, he became the symbol of the prosaic, unartistic, unpretentious, hard-working conservative. And even though both men were Negroes, Ali was, according to the liberals, the "really black" man and Frazier, the "great white hope." It was astonishing how seriously people took this synthetic cultural confrontation.

A few months after the Ali-Frazier fight, I left New York for a job in Missouri. I was' out of America's urban jungle into the country's heartland, out of a city where traditional American virtues were scoffed at; into a¡ small town where they were still revered.

Soon after I arrived in the Midwest, I was invited to play for the office's slow pitch softball team. Softball is similar to baseball except that, since it's played with a large softball, it's much slower. It's a bit like rounders-the game Indian children play with a tennis ball and a cricket stump.

I wasn't too sure whether to play on the team, for I had never played the game and was anxious not to make a fool of myself. Finally, I decided to take the risk.

I had played a lot of cricket in school and that surely would help.

On arriving at the field, I was offered to the opposition which was short oj one player. This, I learnt later, was a deliberate ploy. My captain hoped that I would act as a sort of psychological rotten apple.

My obvious incompetence, he reasoned, together with my unfamiliar cricketing style, would so rattle my new teammates th3;t they would offer little resistance. It was my first brush with the American practice of "psyching out" your opponent. Bobby Fischer, you'll remember, uses it very effectivelY:' When my turn came to bat, I was a little puzzled about where to stand since there were no stumps. But seeing a little plate

on the ground, I stepped on that and crouched down in my most aggressive batting stance, knees bent, eyes on the pitcher, the thick end of the bat tapping the ground impatiently.

I heard titters all around, and the fellow behind me, the catcher or wicketkeeper, said I was supposed to stand by the side of the plate, not on it. It wasn't a very promising beginning.

As the full toss floated up, I swun~and hooked, nearly taking the catcher's head off. The outraged fielders came running up and told me not to play dirty. There was no point hitting the ball behind me because I couldn't make runs that way. , I didn't do too badly after that and had the satisfaction of seeing my own team soundly thrashed. And from then on, whenever we played, I stayed with the team.

Softball was the closest I came to baseball. For life in the little town I lived in

'I'm a sucker for noise and glitter, and I loved the marching bands, the golden girls, the cheerleaders, the acrobatics and what not.' / ---------------was dominated by football. The University of Missouri was in this town and the university football team was one of the nation's best. During the autumn football season everyone watched the university team and during the rest of the year they talked about its performance.

Today, football is the American game.

But this hasn't always been true. In the first half of the century, baseball was more popular. But since the Second World War, especially after television started covering the game in the late 1940s, football has really boomed into the nation's number . one spectator sport-and a multimilliondollar industry.

But football is an acquired taste. I had dutifully trundled to several university football games during my first year in that unathletic New York college. But I soon stopped going. It was too painful to watch "my team" crushed every Saturday.

Watching football, I didn't even have the energy to cheer-I spent it all trying to figure out what was going on. There is little of the fluidity and constant movement that makes the "football" of the rest of the world (which Americans call "soccer") such great fun to watch.

One thing I enjoyed about the game, though, was the half-time show. I'm a sucker for noise and glitter, and I loved the marching bands, the golden girls, the cheerleaders, the acrobatics and what not.

My college's band called itself the cleverest marching band in the world, and during half time they delivered a variety of homilies-from reminding the ladies in the audience to take their birth-control pills to instructing students how to pass exams without studying-all by marching in the appropriate formations that spelled out words. .

I never ceased to be amazed by how football terms are used in America. The entire political process is often compared to a football game with the President as the quarterback. Moves to pass legislation are referred to as plays.

Although at first I saw no purpose, no . pattern in the mayhem of a football game, I gradually began to realize that the players were following very intricate maneuvers, all of which had been plotted in very great detail before the game. One reason why television has swelled football's popularity is that, through the techniques of slow motion projection and instant replay, many of the football tactics that had previously been hidden from the spectators' eyes are now clearly visible.

It's so much easier to see what's happening in these slow -motion replays that most people prefer to watch the game on television than to go see it in the stadium!

Of course, it's warmer and cheaper too.

In football you can see the American mania for specialization. Each team has 22 players-ll when it's on the offensive and 11 when it's defending. Most professional teams even have a man whose sole job is to kick the ball, either at the beginning of the game or to convert a touchdown. The University of Missouri once tried out a Ghanaian soccer player as its kicker. He wasn't very successful, but I always felt a rush of admiration for his small, slender figure as he ran on to the football field, weighed down by all that armor, a midget among the gladiators.

Such are my memories of sports in America. A strange mixture of mayhem and mechanical organization, of pageantry and commercialism, of devotion to sports in most colleges but scorn of sports in some urban universities (like my own, in New York). But keep in mind, dear reader, that this is a distinctly one-sided view. I'm an unathletic, overweight Indian journalist.

0 About the Author: M. Rajangam is the pseudonym of a young and unathletic Indian journalist who spent many years in the United States.

Since returning to India, he has been gaining weight at an alarming rate; he had just begun a calisthenics program when we commissioned him to do this article. Since then he has been neglecting his daily dozen but, he assures us, he is determined to see trimmer days..

THE OBSESSIVENESS lONG-DISTANCE RUNNER OF THE

.

What is it about distance runners that sets them apart from other athletes? Many things, says the author in this profile of Olympic marathon champion Frank Shorter (above). They tend to be articulate and introspective-and they 'seem to 'run for running as dreamers dream for dreaming.'

W

hen a man's work, freely chosen, consists in running the distance of 26 miles and 385yards as quickly as possible, he has to expect an occasional question about his masochism. But Frank Shorter, who is one of the finest distance runners in the world and the first American to win the Olympic marathon [1972] since 1908-not only denies his masochism, he considers its postulation romantic. "I know this one guy says the marathon is like cutting yourself over and over with a razor blade. That's cocktail party talk. There's pain, sure, but it's not so bad. I don't believe anyone can stand that sort of pain so long."

This was on the flats outside of Taos in New Mexico as we prepared one morning to run together. A rather extended silence foHowed because Shorter knew I did not believe him. Stoicism, of course, is a convenient attitude for a distance runner, but Shorter had said some other things that made his denial a little difficult to swaHow. I was thinking of certain phrases that came up whenever he talked about the marathon: "red-lining," for instance, by which he meant maintaining, as long as possible, the fastest pace dne's body could bear; and "going it on mind alone," the task which, as I understood it, confronted a runner when

he had superseded the normal limits of his body.

Beyond these, Shorter had admitted to me that he had never run the marathon without suffering cramps in his liver (the condition, a by-product of the sugar insufficiency called hypoglycemia, is not uncommon in distance runners though Shorter, probably because he is so thin, suffers more from it than most; many doctors might locate his hypoglycemic cramps in the diaphragm, which touches the liver, but Shorter is adamant that they are wrong). When a man describes this sort of pain as "not so bad," one begins to suspect that it is not his tolerance for pain that is unique, but his definition of it. Not only was I skeptical about what Shorter had said, I had a strong feeling that behind his stoicism lay a mind that measured its pleasure in not falling by how near it went to the edge.

"You don't believe me, do you?"

"No," I said, "I don't."

"Well, I tell you what. You work out twice a day for a year and then, when you get up around 15 miles, come back and we'll talk about it again."

At the time, I assumed he meant that when I arrived at that

Frank Shorter says he can never remember what he thinks about when he runs. A kind of numbness comes over him 'that feels at times like a trance, at times like a kind of meditation.' point as a runner, I would have a different attitude toward pain.

Later I understood, however, that it wasn't pain at all he was talking about, but romanticism-the whole treatment that great runners get from lesser runners who have incorporated them into their fantasies. Like most athletes, but more so, Shorter has a mania about intellectualizing. His greatest contempt is reserved for what he calls "the hobbyist runner ... not just anyone who runs, mind you. For the average guy who runs r have nothing but respect. What I can't stand is these guys who make a cult out of it. It ruins the whole thing to take it so seriously."

It is not easy to imagine how anyone could take running more seriously than a man who has done more than 200 miles a week in practice, but then Shorter's definition of "seriousness," like his definition of "pain," diverges a bit from the normal. What he meant by seriousness was roQ1anticism. What he wanted to say was that running deals with the head as much as the body, and that a head full of ideas about it can only slow you down.

Unfortunately, distance running leaves a man with time to think, and distance runners use the time rather well. They are more articulate than most athletes, and Shorter, much to his chagrin at times, is more articulate than most distance runners.

If this seems like a contradiction, when you consider his contempt for intellectualizing, it was not the first he offered me. The day after he made these statements about pain, for example, he asked me, for no apparent reason: "Can you imagine what it's like to ntfrse a cramp in your liver for 20 kilometers?"

Since running, as Frank Shorter defines it, is 98 per cent training and 2 per cent competition, it follows that he is always in training.

In the last five years there have been six days, clearly recalled, when he did not run. Six days. When he wakes up with the flu, which he catches as often as other mortals, he may cut out his morning run, but never the afternoon's. During airport layovers, he changes in the men's room and goes to work on the feeder roads. When it rains, he wears foul-weather gear; in winter, in Taos, he wears thermal underwear, thermal socks, goggles if it's windy and long pants only in extremest cold.

It stands to reason, then, that Shorter's Taos vacation-as much as he's into his family, which lives here, and as much as he loves the time with his wife-fits somewhere into his training plans. Early on, a runner learns to listen to his body, to feel by instinct when he can punish it, when¡he must let it heal; in fact, the healing has to be an integral part of the-work. Even better if it can be done like this, in the landscape you love best, skiing with your wife and family and breathing all this highaltitude, low-oxygen air which, it so happens, is the rage among distance runners these days. ("The minute you come up here," Shorter explains, "your body starts producing more red blood cells. They're the ones that store the oxygen, carry it to the muscles. The more red cells you have, the better you use what you breathe in. When you go down again, your count will stay up for two or three weeks. That's why we trained in Colorado for Munich. And that's why the Finns spent the summer of '72 in the Pyrenees.")

It is not just that Shorter is a fanatic (no one could win the Olympic marathon who wasn't), but that he genuinely loves the work. The idea of,a day off, by his own admission, fills him with dread. "You simply cannot' be a distance runner if you're goaloriented. Most of the swimmers at Munich said they never wanted

to see the pool again once their race was over. The distance runners:on the other hand, were on the trac.k the next day. I did five miles the morning after the marathon, and 20 the day after that."

While Shorter is not infrequently asked .to explain his obsession, his reasoning gets more circular the more he tries. "There is always the feeling of getting stronger," he says. "I think that's what keeps me going."

Getting stronger, then. For what? Not, evidently, for the glory, because, while distance runners are idolized in Europe, they have yet to captivate the United States to any appreciable extent. And certainly not for money: Unlike their European counterparts, who are subsidized by their governments (earning, some say, up to $3,000 a race), American runners are virtually punished for their amateur status. Shorter's "earnings" are restricted to transportation and per diem expenses, the latter on the day of a race or, occasionally, one day before and one day after. Beyond this, Shorter pays his own way. He is on scholarship at the University of Florida Law School, and when he trained for the 1972 Olympics he lived in a borrowed house.

In fact, the more one investigates the way he lives, the more one is convinced that he is telling the truth: He runs to get stronger-presumably, in order to run more. Try to explain'distance running in terms of its goals, and your own redundancy will drown yo~ out. Runners run for running as dreamers dream for dreaming. "It is," says Shorter, "a sensual experience. To tell you the truth, I hate to talk about it."

To accommodate me-a three-mile jogger suffering badly from the altitude-he had agreed to run on the flats rather than in the mountains, at 7,000 rather than 9,000 feet. I offered no protest.

Joggers always feel sorry for themselves, but to run in mountain air when you were plodding already at sea level is to add a bit of weight to an already solid argument.

Shorter's angular face and bright eyes give him alternately a sense of being older or younger than he is. From certain angles he looks like a teen-ager, but there is a toughness about him that makes such an idea absurd. Either way he never looks 27.

O

f all things, what struck me most about him when we ran was that he talked, nonstop, in his normal vo,ice, on any subject that came into his head. You've got to run a bit yourself to appreciate a feat like that. Most joggers fipd it difficult to listen, much less talk: Who knows how many breaths a sentence will cost, much less a conversation? What is more, joggers seldom think when they run. Though one's brain is hardly quiet (there is no trouble with self-pity, for example), motion-if you're out of shape-disorients it. Thoughts come but, breathless like your body, they seem to run separately beside you. No mystery about this either: Your brain needs oxygen like the rest of your body.

The reason Shorter can talk while he runs is that most of the time -anything down-to a 5:30 mile, he says-he runs aerobically, which is to say, without going into oxygen debt, the condition that occurs when you can't take in as much oxygen as you need, either because your breathing is inadequate, your oxygen-usage inefficient or your circulatory system unable to transport enough oxygen to your muscles. (A runner who is out of shape is deficient in all three categories.) Let us, for the sake of gasping joggers everywhere, put that another way: Frank Shorter seems to be as

'There is no fear and much less consciousness of pain than one would think. In fact, a curious blur comes over the mind that makes the race seem shorter than it is, and less eventful.' comfortable when he runs as most people are when they walk.

On a run of, say, 20 miles, he may get tired, his liver may cramp, his feet may hurt, but as long as he keeps his pace above 5:30, he will never be out of breath.

One of the subjects he talked about that morning was dogs, three of which had begun to howl at us as soon as we left the parking lot. The dog, it seems, is the major nemesis of distance runners-dogs' and the sort of guy who likes to drive beside you on the road, going "Hut! Hut! Hut!" Over the years, he said, he had learned to discern almost at once whether a dog's bark was dangerous or only territorial, and had also come to the conclusion that American dogs were meaner than European. As for the human nemesis, there was no comparable insight, only the rueful observation that a runner's response to hecklers is often violent and excessive. "Jack Batchelor is one of the mildest men I know, but I've seen him go berserk when people bother him.

Me too. Once a couple of guys stopped at a red light after bugging us and we ran right over their car, over the top and across the hood, and kept on going. Sometimes it's been worse than that."

Asked to explain this phenomenon, Shorter shrugs: "Maybe it's the adrenalin we generate. We don't bother them. Why should they bother us?"

S

horter's career has been marked by leaps of dramatic proportion. He was a two-miler of no great distinction at Yale until, he began-to experiment----:for the first time in his life-with running twice instead of once a day. The principal effect of this was to cut his recovery time in half. Two weeks later, timing himself for the first time at the distance, he discovered he could do six miles in 29 minutes flat. Soon after, he won the National Collegiate Athletic Association six-mile, again in 29 minutes, an event he would not have bothered to enter two months before.

After this, however, his development' slowed again. He ran badly in Europe the summer after he graduated from Yale. When he entered medical school (at the University of New Mexico) the following autumn, he was Ollt of shape and back to the one-aday, seven-mile workout schedule he'd followed in college. There were other contributing causes, but it was probably a family crisis that took him over the next plateau, not so much for psychological reasons as for the fact that it offered him the largest block of free time he'd ever had in his life: Two years before, his father, Dr. Samuel Shorter, had moved his wife and. 10 children (Frank is the second oldest) from Middletown, New York, to Taos, giving up a sizable general practice for a job in a mission clinic. ("We wanted," says Dr. Shorter, "to be where medicine was needed more.") Taos suited everyone, but the job was a disappointment. Dr. Shorter quit two years later, and for financial reasons-the move to Taos and the mission work had exhausted the family savings-returned to Middletown, alone, for a temporary job at the hospital. Frank, suddenly needed at home, took .a leave of absence from medical school, returned to Taos, andquite incidentally-found himself, he says, with "time at last for my identity crisis." What came out of this crisis was, first, a decision to give up medicine and-when his father returned home-a decision to move to Boulder, Colorado, to be near his girl friend, now his wife, Louise. And second: "This terrible restlessness to see how good I was."

In Boulder he worked out twice a day, 15 miles altogether.

By the following spring he was up to 20, living in Gainesville, Florida, and training with Jack Batchelor, then the class of American distance runners. Subsequently, Shorter enrolled in' the University of Florida Law School. The effect of the collaboration with Batchelor-"Jack taught me that I could work harder than I'd ever thought possible before"-was immediate: In April of 1970, Shorter, whose previous best three-mile time was 13 minutes and 43 seconds, finished second to Batchelor in the Drake Relays in 13:15. "I had never suspected I could run that fast."

The next April he won the three-mile at Drake in 13:06, and followed that the next day with a first in the six-mile in 27:24.

For him, more important than the victories or the time was that the races had happened in succession, without appreciable recovery time. This was marathon strength-the strength to run 26 miles, 385 yards-and it was the first time he'd seen it in himself. Two months later, when Ken Moore (who finished fourth in Munich, thus giving the United States three- finishers in the top 10 for the first time in history) suggested he try the marathon with him in the Pan Am trials, Shorter took him up.

Until then, he had never run farther than 20 miles, but it wasn't distance that bothered him, it was speed. "I was only concerned whether I could stay with Kenny all the way. As it turned out, I made it until the last three miles, but when he made his break, I told him he'd have to go without me. He finished one minute ahead of me, but I knew then he'd never do it again."

A month later, in Cali, Colombia, running at 4,000 feet in 32° C. heat, Shorter won the Pan Am marathon by four minutes (Moore collapsed with heat prostration), in 2 hours, 22 minutes.

After that he ran four more marathons and won them all. Does he still get the feeling he got that day with Moore, when he couldn't make the break? "Yeah, sure, every time. Only now when that happens I'm two minutes ahead."

Shorter ran with me back to the car and then continued his run while I was having breakfast. About IS minutes later, sitting in a cafe in the center of Taos, I looked up from my eggs to see him take a couple of turns around the square, then depart in the direction of the ski valley. He nodded to friends and glanced at shop windows like any citizen out for a stroll. His pace was unchanged, his stride no less mechanical than when he began.

He was a lyrical, solitary sight, and he revived some of the jogger's romanticism I'd brought with me to Taos. In a flash I went through some of my own experience as a runner, from the time when I could barely make a half mile to the first time I'd done three, and in between, all the pain behind those euphemisms about "oxygen debt," all the boredom, the incredible drag that running often became; and then those moments that kept you going, when you stretched your limits, ran beyond a point where you had quit before. No meager joy, that one. Even if it died the next time you went out, even if the boredom and the pain returned, it had just enough religion about it to make the absurd self-punishment, if not pleasant, at least reasonable again. I ~ondered what Shorter would have to say about such things.

As we'd arranged, I picked him up 54 minutes later on the Santa Fe Road. At six-minute pace, that gave him nine miles that morning, in addition to the one he'd done with me. His face was flushed when he climbed into the car, his eyes watering heavily. Several tiny icicles clung to his mustache. His breathing seemed in no way abnormal.

"For some reason," he said, "it seems longer down here than in the mountains. Up there I can go into a trance and it's over in no time, but I'm always thinking on the flats. I don't know why. Maybe it's the dogs."

This was not the first time he'd spoken about trances. Though we tend to think of a runner's endurance as a physical attribute, buttressed, of course, by the mental strength of his motivation, endurance has a temporal component that is, I think, equally important. Since running comes closer than almost any sport to occurring in a sort of real time-with a minimum of game structure to distract the mind-a long-distance runner must have an extraordinary capacity to deal with empty time. Bannister, who did not exactly run sprints himself, said that the idea of the marathon was horrible to him: "The boredom would drive me wild." No accident, then, that distance runners, as a rule, are more internal than other athletes, nor that the one thing they are always asked is: "What do you think about when you run?"

Shorter says he can never remember. A kind of numbness comes over him that feels at times like a trance, at times like a kind of meditation. In either case, time is compressed, the run seems much shorter than it is. And in marathons especially, the tendency is that the worst things are forgotten. The last six miles, by far the most difficult, are almost impossible to remember once the race is over. For instance, Shorter recalls almost nothing about that stretch in Munich except for the pain in his feet.

Taking hairpin curves, we rode on into the mountains. An unabashed chauvinist when it comes to New Mexico, Shorter rhapsodized about the landscape, the great stretch of flats beneath us, the snow-covered peaks ahead, and of course the sky, the enormity, the gigantic sweep that happens in New Mexico as almost nowhere else in the world. He said that one of the things he liked to do best was to get in the car and drive out alone in the mountains. He got into something then, he said. that was unlike anything else he'd ever felt.

"Not even in running?"

"No. Running doesn't gIve me those feelings. Running is something else."

"What?"

"Just something I need to do and want to be the best at."

"Then it has never seemed religious?"

He laughed. "Religious? When I was a kid I went to choir school at St. John the Divine in New York. That was religion.

The feeling you got on Sundays in the cathedral."

"And running? Are you sure it never gave you that sort of feeling?"

He laughed again, looked out the window, and said nothing.

We rode in silence until we reached the ski. valley. Then, just be~ fore we left the car, when I thought he'd forgotten the subject, he said: "Listen. Three times a week I do interval work in addition to distance. That means sprinting, short rest, sprinting again.

Once I did more than I had ever done before: I had done nine six-minute miles in the morning, and then, in the afternoon, a three-mile warm-up. Then the intervals: 15 quarter-miles that averaged around 61 seconds each, with a 50-yard jog in between.

Which is to say, almost no rest at all. Until then I'd never/done intervals with less than 100 yards of rest. Until then, too, I'd never averaged out under 64 seconds. When I got to the 15th quarter that day, I was empty. But suddenly, out of nowhere, God, I still don't know where I got it, I did a 58-second quarter."

He paused and looked at me. There was a kind of intensity that I had never seen in his eyes before. "Fifty-eight seconds-do you understand? After 15 quarters at 61. I don't think anyone's J' ever done that before."

There has never been an adequate explanation of the fact that

marathoners are generally older than other runners. Shorter and Moore are extremely young to be world-class runners at this distance. While the average age of the last 10 Olympic champions at 1,500 meters is 23, and under 20 at 100 meters, the average marathon winner, before Shorter, was over 30. The discrepancy must derive from the nature of the demands the race makes on the body and the mind of a runner, and how his capacity to deal with these demands improves as he matures. It may also relate to that fact which, above all others, may be the most pertinent about the marathon-that, unlike other athletic events, it is never really practiced. One trains for it, to be sure, but few runners (Moore is one exception) actually run 26 miles when they are not in competition.

Shorter has done it several times in his life.

Batchelor, -although he logs more distance than Shorter-l 50 miles a week-seldom does more than 20 miles at a stretch. The goal of training, after all, is maximum return on one's investment, and the marathon distance is rather expensive on those terms. "It wastes the body," Shorter says. "If I did it in training, it would shoot me for three weeks."

Consider, then, the suspense of the race. At shorter distances, a runner has tested himself enough so that, whatever his time, his capacity to finish is not in question. The marathoner never really knows if he can make the distance, much less do it in respectable time. Shorter trains at 20 miles, but he says the real race in the marathon, and the real pain, is between the 20th mile and the 26th.

T

he extreme physical pain of the last six miles may explain why Shorter says: "You never know whether your mind is ready to put your body through it," and why marathoners, when they talk about their race, use a kind of language that sets them apart from other runners, emphasizing the mutuality of their experience, the sharing, rather than the winning or the time. "If you want to win a race," said Emil Zatopek, the great Czech runner who won the 5,000-meter race, the 1O,000-meter race, and the marathon in the 1952 Olympics, "run the mile. Ir'you want an experience, run the marathon." And Shorter, standing at the finish line to embrace Akio Usami, who finished behind him in the Japanese marathon 'in April 1972, told Moore: "My only thought was, 'Here we are, goddammit! We made it! This man has suffered as much as I had. We all had.' " "The marathon," he says, "is a battle against slowing down."

Impossible to run it like the mile or the two-mile, you win by increment rather than surprise. There is no fear and much Jess consciousness of pain than one would think. In fact, a curious blur comes over the mind that makes the race seem shorter than it is, and less eventful.

In Munich, in his battle against slowing down, Frank Shorter averaged 4:45 per mile for the last nine miles. He had never run that fast that far before, yet he knew two things instinctively when he took up the pace: that he could hold it to the end, and that he could not do a second better. When the cramps came in his liver, he slowed for a moment, drank decarbonated soda (to satisfy the sugar insufficiency), and breathed very deeply in order to take the pressure of his diaphragm off his liver. When the cramps receded, he took up the pace again. A mile and a half from the finish line there was a small bridge where he turned left, or perhaps right, and it struck him then that if he made it to the end he was going to win. When he 'finished, there was no feeling of joy, only relief, and a kind of thankfulness.

"Five steps beyond the finish line it hit me what I'd done. I thought: 'My 0 God, it's over. I don't have to do it again for a while.'''

About the Author: Lawrence Shainberg is a well-known free-lance sportswriter and author of One on One, a novel about a basketball player.

FRIBAJ NIGHT AT THE lTABIl1M More than anything else.,high-school foot- exciting game (for more on American football ball captures the essence of American sports see article beginning on page 10). The players -the whole rich spectacle of skill, endurance aren't the only stars at American football and competition, imbued with the natural games. Others also vie for attention. The exuberance of youth itself. The scene is cap- band, for example, practices for two hours tured in the pictures' on these page&-all of after class each schoolday-as much time which were shot at Oakton High School in as the team. And the bouncy cheerleaders Virginia on a series of Friday nights, when gaily waving pom-poms and leading the specfootball games are usually played. The fervor tators in hurrahs for their team are certainly and excitement they depict is typical of high- watched as closely as the players. In many school football anywhere in America. schools in the United States, the Friday-night Friday night at the higl;).-schoolstadium . game is.often the most important soCial event is as nmch a carnival as a sports event, full in the weekly school calendar. It is a time of music, masked revelers, a marching band, for enjoyment and relaxation. It is a time for and pretty cheerleaders encouragiJ;lg tired sports and music--a welcome respite from players-a backdrop of pageantry for an the weekly Toutine of arduous study.

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A LETTER FROM 1111 AMERICA In 1973-74, Ashokamitran (pseudonym oj one oj South India's leading writers, J. Thyagarajan) visited the United States on a grant Jrom the University oj Iowa to participate in the university's International Writers' Workshop. (See "A Delhi Poet in lowa" by Shrikant Varma, August 1973 SPAN.) This was the first time a Tamil writer had participated in the Writers' Workshop.

Using techniques oj the short story; Ashokamitran has written vignettes about life in the United States-impressionistic pieces that Jocus mostly on just one incident, thus giving more sharply etched pictures oj America than can be Jound in the works oj travel writers who try to "tell it all." A good example is the Jollo'Wing vignette. Although it was written aJter Ashokamitran's return to lndia, the idea of it as a "letter" was boi-n in the author's mind on a cold winter morning in Coloradowhich is why we feel justifie.d in including it in our continuing series, "A Letter From America."

I quickened my walk though I knew I was using up my reserves.

But it was only 6:30 a.m. and I would have a full half-hour of the cozy warmth of the station. Then, at seven, off to Greeley!

My last steps before the bus station were actually an impromptu ballet.

In the hazy glow of a not-too-distant street light and dozens of neon signs on either side of the road whose reflections on the sheet glass of the bus station hit my eyes a few at a time at appropriate angles, I fumbled for a dime in my small wallet to try the public telephone just outside the bus station. Of all the buildings in the neighborhood, the station was the only one with no projecting protective structure of any kind on its wall, and even as I stood clingingly to the front door there the wind kept cutting me, punishing, as if my mere standing there was an affront to it.

The bus station was locked. With a bus leaving in less than half an hour that was impossible: All long-distance fares were usually collected and tickets issued at the bus stations well in advance of departure timings. So it now meant that there was no bus at seven a.m. Or if there were it was starting from some other place.

When I set out for the bus station the temperature was 21 C. And I didn't know where. below zero. The coldest of my three mornings in Fort Collins, A few months earlier I would have thought of a hundred real Colorado. Against the gray outlines of the houses, my breath and crazy hazards with every step I took in America and I might condensed into small clouds. For all my heavy boots and thermal have even foreseen this situation. But in four months I had done underwear and layers and layers of clothing topped by an enor- quite a bit of traveling by bus, had spent hours at the bus stations mous coat, I knew I must get to a warm shelter soon. The bus of Iowa City, Des Moines and Kansas City, at different parts of station was only a 15 minutes' walk, but plowing through the the night and early morning, waiting for connections. Kansas snow with two stretchingly stuffed travel bags in my hands, I City, in particular, I had found dizzyingly alive. The bus station should be satisfied if I did it in half an hour. The residential was a huge thing, looked almost like an air terminal, had so many streets of the town had practically no lights on at that. time, but· ,~ifferent kinds of shops and services on different floors, and there there were some on the main road which was two rows of shop- were hordes of people all over, talking, laughing, strolling about, fronts. Not a soul in any of them, and in that entire stretch the dozing off, eating, drinking, watching television fixed to their bus station people were probably the only ones up. I had gone seats in the waiting hall, having pictures taken in a coin-operated there the previous day and they said I should get my ticket to booth, playing a dozen varieties of pin-ball games, and of course Greeley only on the"day of the journey. I was a little angry I boarding and getting off buses. There was an army of janitors hadn't taken a good look at the bus station. I wished I could and shoeshiners and security men and there was always someone be sure there was a coffee-vending machine there. Even if there at the tickets desk. The restrooms had a frighteningly noisy conweren't, I could at least take off my cap and coat for a while. .traption which blew hot air for people to dry their hands in, President Nixon had prescribed 20° C. as the proper energy- ' and even at three in the morning you would find someone tidying saving temperature for indoors, qualifying it with a lot of apol-\i himself a bit, combing or shaving. The dtmouncements of arrivals ogies. But on that January morning, with possibly a 30-minute and departures of buses went on with very few and very short walk in 21° C. below zero ahead of me, I would have been grateful intervals. So after all that it seemed very unlikely that a bus for half of 20° C. station in the U.S. would remain closed anytime, anywhere.

One more block and the bus station. In the joy of anticipation But here in Fort Collins I say good-by to my friend at six a.m .

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and work my way alone in the wind and cold and dark and snow and reach the bus station at 6:30 and I find it not fully lit, not a soul in it, and locked! I had earlier enquired about the bus to Greeley thrice at different places (including the bus station), and at all three places they said there was only one bus and that was at seven a.m. The train westbound passed through Greeley at 11, and I had to be on that train that day to get to San Francisco the following day, where there would be people waiting for me, my hosts arranged by the International Student Service. They knew of me as a dark-skinned, thinly built writer from India, and I didn't know even that much of them. I had left on my trip before I got the final confirmation from the Service, so I didn't know who exactly my hosts were, but they would surely be there.

Were they tall or short, thin, fat, rich, poor, young or elderly, I knew for sure they would be there waiting for me. The Student Servicehad quite an exhaustive literature, a good part of it about the visitors who didn't turn up. An extract from the letter of a disappointed host read: "I wonder if you realize the extreme breach of etiquette you have made .... When an American family is notified about a foreign visitor, many things change in the family's life. If there are children in the family, they all begin to look up and study about the country the visitor represents. They are very excited.... The housewife shops and buys many special foods.... In general the whole family participates in the preparations for their honored guest. ... " Every letter from the Student Service stressed repeatedly: "Don't change your plans, and-if you are forced to, wire or call the host immediately." In my case I didn't know who my hosts were, I was to wear a badge and be identified in San Francisco. Even if I had known my hosts, I might not have called as it requires some special knack to place long-distance calls. I become a different and very restricted person, almost stupid, when I speak on the phone, but whether I call San Francisco or not I must r.each someone here and now, and the only means is the telephone outside. I need a dime to drop in the slot and start the phone, I search for that coin, I feel a mintful of quarter~ and nickels in my wallet, there is even a whole dollar, but not a dime.

For a moment, forgetting the mess I was in, forgetting the cold, the wind, the terribly oversized coat dragging me down, the two heavy travel bags I dare not place down because it was all snow below, the uselessness of a gloved hand in a coin-purse, the utter impossibility of baring the fingers even for a minute without numbing them dangerously, the need for 10 cents as a single coin to activate the telephone with-forgetting all this I looked around.

No sign of life whatsoever at that time, and the town's sleep seemed total. Yards and yards of shopfronts showed their wares in the dull light left burning inside while outside neon signs glowed, winked, wriggled, played hide-and-seek with combination signs and colors and lit up the snow that lay on the ground, on the road, on the sidewalks, on rooftops, on window exteriors, anywhere, everywhere, where there was space to hold the snow.

An American town couldn't look more enchanting.

Back to reality, I find a dime, I stuff'myself and my two bags into the phone booth, take off my gloves and set the phone book in a readable position. I knew enough to look into the yellow pages and I raced to the classification "bus." There it was and I gobbled up the number and, dropping the coin in the slot, dialed. I heard the phone ring once, twice, thrice. It went on and on. I hung up and ding fell the dime in the coin-return hole. I seized it and dialed again. Nothing doing, the phone kept on

ringing. I feverishly went through the phone book again. There was a second number and that kept on ringing too. The phone booth was as cold as the outside, I was freezing and in a panic, and yet my ears picked up a faint sound, very faint. It was clearly a phone ringing somewhere and it stopped when I hung up my phone. I clutched the phone book again and read every letter printed under the word "bus" and in a flash knew where the ring came from. Both the bus lines had the same address, which was the building I was standing outside of. It wasn't exactly a bus station, it was the office of a travel agency which also served as a bus stop for the two bus lines. So whichever number I dialed it was one of the travel agency phones that rang. Had I been able to close the door of the phone booth firmly and if there weren't some small leak somewhere in the walls of the building, I wouldn't have discovered the utter futility of trying to reach any of the bus lines on the telephone at that hour.

I left 1py ba~s in the booth and came out. Snow crackled underneath my feet as I went up to the sidewalk. It would soon be seven, soon morning. Already the sky had acquired a luminous girdle along the horizon. It was now clear, I was a fool, I had taken things for granted, I hadn't tried to find out ahead of time the exact place of departure of the bus. The travel agency obviously kept some specific office hours. It was after all a smaJI town, and probably all the important buses stopped only during the daytime-hadn't I myself arrived in the town at three in the afternQon? Now I wouldn't be able to get to Greeley in time, and the San Francisco train would be gone. My hosts-to-be would be furious and there would be one more name added to the ignominious list of foreign visitors who had asked for hospitality of the Student Service but so unfeelingly kept their hosts waiting, a~d worse still, didn't turn up at all. I felt wretched but strangely I was also very calm-the calm of a man who had nothing to do.

I liked the rhythm of my breathing. The white patch in the sky had begun a slow ascent.

* * * * *

There was a muffled sound of something moving slowly on the snow and coming to a stop. I moved a few yards and saw a panel truck come to a halt on the other side of the building. A man got out of the truck and moved toward the wall. Then I realized he was inserting a key and opening a door. After a while he came out with a couple of fairly large-sized packages. He locked the door and loaded the packages in his truck. Obviously he was a freight service man, but he might know where I should board the bus to Greeley. I walked up to the truck briskly and asked him, "Is there another bus station here?" There was no one with him in the truck.

"Not that I know of," he said.

"When will this place open up?"

"At eight, maybe half past eight." He started his engine.

"God!" "What's the matter?"

"I've got to go to Greeley and they said the bus is at seven."

"It sure is."

"But where do I board it?"

"Right here."

"You mean the bus will come here-now?"

"Bus? This is the bus."

"Beg your pardon?"

"This is the bus. Maybe not exactly a bus. But not many folks go to Greeley, you see. Got any baggage?"

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pill must survive the attack of the digestive enzymes, penetrate the stomach and in~ testinal walls, and pass through that His name is Alejandro efficient filtering plant, the liver. It diffuses through 60,000 miles of arteries, Zaffaroni and his aim is to capillaries, and other tubing, reaching all revolutionize medical sorts of organs to which it is not directed practice by administering and often causing undesirable side effects.

The approach is about as sensible as flooddrugs directly to ing a skyscraper to douse a fire in a wastethe organs of the body that basket. Small wonder that ailments startneed them. At left, Zaffaroni ed by drugs intended as cures are responsible for an increasing number of is shown with his first hospital admissions. product-Ocusert, a novel Zaffaroni believes what society needs drug-filled device used is not more powerful drugs, but better ways of delivering those already in existin treating glaucoma. ence. He has set his mind to developing novel devices that can administer minute amounts of medication as directly as possible .to the affected organ, cutting he major American pharmaceutical down the dangers of side effects and companies have been so successful in greatly increasing the' efficacy and concompounding powerful new medicines venience of therapy. Now, after seven years of work, Alza has won regulatory and protecting their inventions with patents that there would appear to be little approval for its first product and is already marketing it in the U.S. Sometime this opportunity for an individual entrepreyear it will begin selling it abroad. This neur in the U.S. drug business these days. product is a tiny oval reservoir called an But that hasn't deterred Alejandro Zaffaroni, a Uruguayan-born American bioOcusert, which contains an antiglaucoma drug; a patient can wear it under his chemist and busipessman who is building an extraordinary company, called Alza . lower eyelid. A single Ocusert lasts a week, and it controls glaucoma by administering, Corporation, in Palo Alto, California. in a steady flow, about one-tenth the Zaffaroni has raised the phenomenal sum amount of drug normally taken as eyeof $37 million, mainly from institutional investors and wealthy men eager to finance drops four times a day. The quantity is his ideas. He has assembled as unlikely a tailored to a patient's need. team of scientists and engineers as any Another product is a birth-control device, a kind of successor to the Pill. It is drug company has ever seen-polymer chemists, mechanical engineers, physicists, inserted into the uterus, where for an entire year it steadily releases amounts of and other professionals strange to the drug business as normally conducted. progesterone so minute that they equal And he is trying to introduce an entirely the medication contained in just three of new scientific approach to the ancient art the daily birth-control pills. Since the of administering drugs-an approach so progesterone is not circulating in the body, radical that he counts for his success on the side effects associated with the Pill appear to be eliminated. revolutionizing medical practice itself.

Zaffaroni's idea is to seize an opening Born a banker's son in Montevideo, Uruguay, 52 years ago, "Alex" Zaffaroni left by a strange anomaly in the development of medicine. Over the years, espestudied medicine at the university there and earned his doctorate in biochemistry cially since the discovery of the so-called wonder drugs, the pharmaceutical comat the University of Rochester.

As a graduate student he already displayed panies have developed increasingly powerful potions to fight disease. Yet the flashes of brilliance. He developed what methods used to deliver these drugs to has been entered into chemistry textbooks affected organs in the body have not kept as the Zaffaroni System, a method for pace; we still depend predominantly on separating steroid compounds by paper pills, which were being used by the Egypchromatography that served as a steppingtians as long ago as the 15th century B.C. stone toward large-scale production The gap has become dangerous. A pill of steroids. must contain thousands, even millions, of Zaffaroni's' talented investigations attimes more medication than is needed at tracted the attention of Syntex S.A., then the target organ. The drug contain~d in a a tiny firm in Mexico City that was pioneer-

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ing the production of synthetic steroid hormones, which became the basis of oral contraceptives and other drugs. He joined Syntex in 1951 as associate director of biological research and eventually rose to executive vice president, supervising both research and marketing. Over the years he underwent a remarkable metamorphosis: He discovered that he enjoyed business as much as science. He emerged not only as an exceptional organizer of basic research but also as an innovative marketing strategist and clever arranger of unusual financial deals.

It was Syntex's success, in the end, that led to Zaffaroni's departure. By the late 1960s he had helped transform the company into a pharmaceutical house with sales approaching $75 million, created a marketing structure, and established research facilities in Palo Alto, where he had moved from Mexico City. "When all this work was done," he recalls, "I didn't see any other major new task."

All along he had been discussing his ideas about drug delivery with associates at Syntex, but they thought he was ahead of his time. He soon came to realize that he could not put his ideas into practice within the framework of an established drug company.

Such companies, and Syntex was no exception, religiously followed the well-worn chemical route to new products, devoting their resources to the search for new compounds with patentable chemical structures. Besides, he had always been convinced that the best crucible for new technology was a new company created under pressure.

So he left Syntex and formed Alza in 1968. He named the company after himself, combining the first two letters of his first and last names. "I wanted to put my head on the platter," he says. "I was prepared to live and die for it, so to speak." Unlike many other entrepreneurs, he didn't have to look for start-up capital. He had become wealthy, having received substantial stock options at Syntex, and was accustomed to smoothing his way with money.

Zaffaroni started Alza with $2 million of his own-an ideal way to launch a new venture, since initial capital is usually the hardest to get. He sold 575,000 Alza shares to Syntex for $325,000 and other considerations; Syntex distributed these shares to its own stockholders in January, 1970, thus creating a public market for Alza. Meanwhile, Zaffaroni was decorating his board of directors with men whose¡ experience would be helpful and whose presence wouldn't hurt when it came time to raise quite a bit more money.

Zaffaroni rounded up a remarkable cast of scientific advisers. Although he hadn't done any of his own research for years, his ideas and accomplishments led first-rate working scientists to accept him as an equal. Amon~ the men he attracted, he personally knew Arthur Kornberg, a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist at Stanford; Robert Woodward, a Harvard Nobelist in molecular synthesis; Nevin S. Scrimshaw, director of the department of nutrition at M.LT.; Paul J. Flory, chairman of Stanford's department of chemistry; and Hans Selye, the famous student of stress at the University of Montreal.

"I admire not only his extraordinary genius as a chemist," says Selye, "but also his unbelievable talent for organization."

A computerized projection of the company's financial needs from start-up to profitability produced the figure of $30 million-double what most Alza executives had thought they would require.

Zaffaroni and his associates raised even more than that. They began by approaching institutions and some of Zaffaroni's well-to-do friends, including Ewing Kauffman, president of Marion Laboratories, and Lawrence Spitters, president of Memorex. Before any public offering, they raised $21 ,500,000 by selling common stock aner-warrants. A rights offering later brought in $11,400,000, and $4, 100,000 has come in from the exercise of warrants and options.

So having raised $37 million, and with the promise of more to come, Alza began life on a golden shoestring.

Zaffaroni assembled his executive team with equal care. While at Syntex, he became convinced that a company president, or any manager for that matter, can make his biggest contributions, or his biggest mistakes, in selecting the kind of people he will work with. "It may take six months to find a guy," he says, "but you're six months ahead if you've got the' right guy."

It took Zaffaroni longer and it proved much more difficult to find a man of broad vision who could assemble and lead Alza's team of researchers in diverse scientific and engineering disciplines. Zaffaroni needed, after all, a team that could construct miniature drug~delivery machines. He saw precedents for such machines outside the drug industry-for example, in the Polaroid Land process, in which chemicals separated by thin membranes are programed for timed release to produce a photographic print. But in classically constructed pharmaceutical companies there were few scientists and engineers capable

of developing such technologies.

After searching for nearly two years, Zaffaro\1i finally found Alan S. Michaels, a former professor of chemical engineering at M.LT. who was then president of Amicon Corporation in Lexington, Massachusetts. A no-nonsense but frienply man, Michaels, 52, had founded Amicon in 1962 to develop advanced membrane technology for pollution control and other nonpharmaceutical applications.

On his own, he had become interested in applying the polymer membrane technology to medicine, and by the tJme Zaffaroni approached him, he was ready for a new challenge.

To make the job financially attractive to rytichaels, a new company called Pharmetrics was set up. It performed research on contract exclusively for Alza. which had an option to buy it. Meanwhile, Pharmetrics sold stock to Michaels and issued options to many of the scientists

...lIIl-~============!!IIh... ~-----) One of Alza's products is a birth-control device which, when inserted in the uterus, releases in one year amounts of progesterone so minute that they equal the drug in just three of the daily birth-control pills.

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he hired. (The company was not public at this point, but the optionees expected Alza to acquire it eventually-which meant that they would end up with options on Alza shares. In 1972 Alza did buy Pharmetrics. Michaels became second-in-command at Alza, with nearly $1 million in Alza stock, and his scientists got options to buy an average of 778 Alza shares each, at $5 a share.)

The research staff now includes 200 scientists, engineers and technicians (backed up by 63 outside consultants) who have widely varying specialties and perform unusual tasks. Some came from the photographic industry, others from plastics processing, still others from water desalination. "One of the greatest challenges," says Michaels, "was to weld together a group of people with these disparate backgrounds."

A scientist did his doctoral thesis on the freeze drying of orange juice.

Michaels himself has drawn on his expertise in secondary oil recovery and other nonmedical fields to design drug reservoirs. A space scientist trying to build a better contraceptive device took up the study of fluid dynamics in the uterus.

These creative people have a lot of freedom. As one of them puts it, "There isn't any company outside the Metropolitan Opera that functions this way." Zaffaroni places scientific-project leaders above vice presidents when it comes to creating a new product. Operating within an agreed budget, the project leader oversees the design of the product, its preparation for regulatory approval, and marketing. Everyone whose skills he needs reports to him.

The system reflects Zaffaroni's belief that a strong entrepreneurial organization comes first, then technology, and thenfrom the two-come products.

The market place will be Alza's ultimate testing ground, of course. Unlike most consumer products, new drugs and delivery devices-at least those sold by prescription-must first gain acceptance among a relatively small group of specialists. This has its advantages; if the specialists accept the products, their patients will too.

In preparing Ocusertfor the market, Aha has worked closely with ophthalmologists, having them test the anti glaucoma device on patients. There are only about 8,000 ophthalmologists ih the U.S., and Alza is covering them with about 30 salesmen. Even though the market is small ,for antiglaucoma drugs-at the manufacturers' level it amounts to about $10 million a year in the U.S. and $10 million abroad-Alza's strategists feel they have a good chance of snaring a major share fast, and they are expanding the dollar volume by selling the Ocusert at prices higher than those of the eyedrops it is intended to replace. The company is also developing similar products for other eye conditions, such as trachoma.

Alza hopes to tap a much bigger market with its intrauterine contraceptive.

The company may have hard going in the U.S., where the market for oral contraceptives amounts to about $100 million a year. at the manufacturers' level, roughly half of the world total. America is a pill-oriented society; but Zaffaroni hopes that concern over side effects of the Pill will create a market. Outside the U.S., he argues, no more than a small fraction of Women will use oral contraceptives.

He sees particularly good sales opportunities in Japan, where an oral contraceptive has never been officially approved, and in many under-

developed countries, including India.

Other products under development include: • Devices that pass medications through the skin. Patches made of a new multilayer polymer adhesive impregnated with drug molecules are pressed onto the skin. Unlike a pill, the patch transmits the drug through the blood directly to the target organ, and unlike an injection, it releases the drug slowly over a period of hours or days. Important drugs can be administered this way: insulin for diabetes, vasodilators for heart disease, analgesics, and antinausea compounds.

• An aerosol can to dispense antiasthma and other pulmonary drugs without the use of Freon propellant, which is suspected of having caused deaths when it was inhaled with medicines. This dispenser (which is nonexplosive) could also find use in nonmedical products, from hair sprays to shaving cream.

• Polymer drug reservoirs that harmlessly dissolve after they have served their purpose. Implanted in the body, they could be used in cancer therapy. Both injectable and oral vaccines could be put inside these miniature reservoirs for timed release in the body.

• A powdered blood substitute, not yet tested on humans, that could eliminate the need for whole blood in transfusions and do away with problems of blood typing and hepatitis.

• A portable plastic bottle and accessories for the intravenous delivery of drugs. Alza has started clinical trials, and the American Cancer Society is interested in the device for possible use in treating cancer patients without hospitalization.

• A preprogramed pill that uses reverse osmosis, a principle employed in water desalination. When swallowed, this device can deliver a drug, including antiulcer medications, at a constant rate for hours.

Looking at Alza's research, Michaels says: "There's easily five to ten years of produt:t development visible today. My problem is not trying to think of new ideas, but trying to keep the kids [his young scientists] out of the candy store."

The ultimate goal of Alza researchers is to do nothing less than replicate the functions of living organs, such as the pancreas. An ideal drug-delivery device would measure and respond to changes in the body's biochemical milieu, just as many organs do. The body's own indicators of disease would trigger the release of drugs from reservoirs floating in the blood or anchored in the stomach. "Take a patient who has bad circulation 'in his

legs," says Richard Buckles, director of therapeutic-systems development. "He puts out lactic acid. If you had a delivery system that could respond to the level of lactic acid in the blood, you would have a beautiful sys.tem."

Zaffaroni himself plays an important part in Alza technology. For a biochemist, he reads "some crazy things," as he puts it-journals in electronic, aeronautical, and mechanical engineering, for instance, as a source of ideas for drug-delivery mechanisms. He reads in the garden of his house in Atherton on week-ends.

Sometimes he disappears for days into an office he rents near Alza to think without interruption. He may awaken at 5:00 A.M. on Sunday and jot down an idea. Later in the day, excited, he will call Michaels.

That intellectual horizon scanning has already given birth to an idea for another pioneering company, which Alza spun off in 1972. Having read about how hormones act on the surface of a cell, Zaffaroni asked

'The ultimate goal of Alza researchers is to do notbing less than replicflte the functions of living organs.'

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himself why he couldn't manipulate molecules of sugar or artificial sweeteners so that they would do their job at their target organ-the tongue-and then pass harmlessly through the stomach without entering the bloodstream and causing weight gain or side effects. A recent discovery showed that certain sites on the tongue respond to particular molecular structures that impart the sensation of sweetness; it is the structure of the material that gives the sensation. It: the molecules of sugar or an artificial sweetener were tied to the molecules of a bulky, inert substance, the new structure would impart the sensation of sweetness but would not be broken down in the stomach. Zaffaroni asked an Alza scientist to test the theory in the lab, and it looked promising.

To turn that discovery into a business, Zaffaroni raised $6 million from friends and founded a new company called Dynapol, in which Alza retains a two-thirds ownership. Twenty scientists are at work in the company, and their number is growing. Since the technique can also be used to prevent preservatives, food coloring,

and other chemicals from entering the bloodstream, Dynapol has a good chance of benefiting from the growing concern about the possible deleterious effects of these substances. In fact, saccharin, nitrates used as preservatives, and some other substances face the danger of being banned for use in food and drink.

In Zaffaroni's ambitious scheme, Alza and Dynapol are just the beginning. Using technology being developed by Alia, he hopes to spin out new subsidiary companies at the rate of about one every two years-companies specializing in new ways of applying pesticides and fertilizers, dealing with water pollution, processing chemicals, and accomplishing many other tasks.

"I would like to see Alza not necessarily as the heart of the operation," he says, "but as the heart of creations. I think there is no better way to achieve success than to detach yourself from success and to start a new cycle of growth." He thinks of himself as following in business the biological scheme of growth by reproduction-"whereas the process of growth in most corporations is just to grow fat."

Zaffaroni says a new product should be emerging once every six months to a year, and if many catch on, Alza could earn impressive amounts. It's not unusual for a drug company to collect a 50 per cent pretax profit on a high-volume product, and, if all goes well, sales of $50 million a year or more would seem reasonable within the next few years. Some of the more advanced thinkers in the drug industry believe Alza's technology will dominate drug delivery in the years to come. Of course, other companies will wake up to the moneymaking potential in the field, but Alza is way ahead, and the others will have a lot of catching up to do.

In the end, Alza's success depends on how well Zaffaroni and his' associates can communicate their ideas and enthusiasms to the medical profession, a conservative lot, and on timely approval of the products by regulatory authorities. Alza has enough money not to worry about the near future, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration appears highly receptive to the idea of applying drugs at one-thousandth, or even one-millionth, the "normal" rate .. As in any human enterprise, of course, things may not work out as well as Zaffaroni and his cast of renowned directors and scientific advisers expect. But if Alza fails, some very bright minds will have misjudged the promise of a new technology.

0 About the Author: Gene Bylinsky is an associate editor of the business magazine Fortune.

THE KEY TO MODERN MARKETING

'GIVE THE BUYER WHAT For all his brilliance, biochemist-entrepreneur Alejandro Zaffaroni-see article on preceding pages-could have achieved little without marketing skill. In this article, the author shows how aggressive marketing techniques can boost India's exports to America and other countries.

Gone are the days when you could just build a better mousetrap and see the world beat a path to your door. Today you also have to develop a program to promote it. Often, in fact, various brands of a product differ so little in quality that success in selling depends almost entirely on effective marketing.

It is marketing that gets a product to the consumer, that gives point and purpose to the manufacturing process. Wheat stoted in a Punjab warehouse, for instance, is of no use to the Bhopal housewife who has to cook her. family's lunch. And there's a long way to go between cotton at an Ahmedabad gin and the eye-catching apparel that a mod girl wears to a Delhi party.

Economists see a direct connection between the marketing of

goods on the one hand, and industrial productivity and standard of living on the other.

Marketing covers a wide range of functions-market research, sales organization and planning, sales promotion, advertising and publicity, packaging, pricing, et al. It is not a science in the strict sense of the term. It deals less with things than with people -the behavior of people. And that's unpredictable-which is why marketing is such a tricky job.

Effective marketing, therefore, calls for brains and iinagination-and ¡hard work. It starts with understanding the consumer -his needs and secret desires-and then fulfilling them. The marketing concept has come a long way since the time Henry Ford said, "You can have my car in any color so long as it's black." Today's manufacturer is prepared to turn out cars-or soaps or lipsticks-in any color, shape, size or form which the consumer demands.

The motto of the day is: Give the buyer what he wants instead of what the seller wants to sell.

Does marketing boost exports? Indeed, yes-exports can sink or soar depending on how effective your marketing strategy is. Indian exporters are now using more aggressive marketing techniques, and winning the country . rich returns in foreign exchange. In 1973-74, for instance, India's exports rose by 24 per cent over the previous year-to Rs. 3,I04 crores.

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"Gone are the days when you could just build a better mousetrap and see the world beat a path to your door."

How can Indian exporters improve their marketing strategy so as to push exports-to America as well as other

HE WANTS'b'LAXMINARArn countries? Answers were sought in interviews with marketing experts as well as some successful exporters.

"India has the potential to do much better," says Dr. G.R. Kulkarni, Director General of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade in New Delhi. He points out that Indian products are competitive, both in the matter of price and quality. But Indian exports have not fared as well as those of some other developing countries because of inadequate marketing.

Dr. Kulkarni stresses the need for market research, a fundamental tool for today's businessman. It minimizes his risks. It gauges public taste and assesses product performance. In other words, it tells the manufacturer what the consumers want and what they do not; what's wrong with the products in the market; and what improvements can be made upon them.

"Market research is an essential link between the Indian exporter and the foreign buyer," says Dr. Kulkarni. He urges Indian exporters to assess trends of demand in foreign countries, study their competitors and emulate their strong points. Money spent on market research is money well spent.

What are the barriers in the way of Indian exports? Dr. Jagjit Singh, Secretary. General of the Institute of Marketing and Management-a nonprofit body which conducts courses and seminars in marketing-points out a few: poor after-sales service, divergence between sample and product, delays in delivery, inadequate sales promotion.

"The Indian exporter must spend time Elaborating, Dr. Jagjit Singh notes that "the customer is abroad, watching consumer habits and preferences." king" in developed countries. Without a well-organized aftertimes a year. His firm is one of the leading export houses recsales effort that satisfies the customer, the Indian exporter cannot ognized by the Government of India. Criteria for recognition: go far. If it's not possible for him to provide timely after-sales service himself, he should empower a foreign producer or disexperience, ability, export performance.

Currently, his firm is busy executing a huge order for the export tributor to d,? so. If he delays an export consignment or delivers of ready-made shirts with one-piece collars, two-piece collars and a product that differs from the initial sample, he will antagonize the foreign buyer and impair relations with him. If there is a four-piece collars. The three types are aimed at different stores and income groups, and have different kinds of packaging. The compelling reason for delay in delivery-such as inadequate shipping space or a decline in production-he should keep the four-piece collar shirt is stylish, packed beautifully, and is the most expensive: It is meant for a prestige department store. buyer informed. And to push his product abroad, the Indian "After I accepted the order," says Nath, "I visited the United exporter should consider appointing a chain of distributors on commission, who can deploy their know-how and skills effectively.

States to assess the buying habits of people. Where do they buy?

Do they buy in bulk? What kinds of shirts do they buy for office Dr. Singh suggests that Indian exporters should sell the image wea~ and for casual wear? Do they buy in basements where of "India Today." Several foreign buyers are not aware of the consumer products are cheaper than on other floors? What are vastly improved skills and capabilities of Indian industry. The Indian exporter should show prospective buyers aerial and other their incomes?"

The value of attractive pacl~,aging was cited by a.s. Kanwar, photographs of the manufacturing plant, the kind of machinery director, Raunaq International Private Ltd., New Delhi. The used, the warehouses-so that he banishes any misconception in the mind of the buyer. . firm's exports range from pipes to pineapples. It has an affiliate in Los Angeles, California. "In sophisticated markets," says Sri Nath, managing director of Nath Brothers, Exim InterKanwar, "what matters is not only the product but also how it national Private Ltd., makes another suggestion. "The [ndian exporter must spend time abroad, watching consumer habits and is presented. Even the packaging of industrial products should be preferences. He must go from store to store, from floor to floor, , attractive. The product should be easy to handle, easy to load discussing his problems with consumers, marketing and advertisand unload." ing experts. There is no substitute for persOhal visits. No amount Giving an example of the special packaging for industrial products, Kanwar says: "We export steel pipes in specially made of lectures or talks will do." Nath h~mself goes abroad five or six

'The exporter should reckon with the fact that fashions and tastes change very quickly in the U.S. The American buyer feels no sense of allegiance to any manufacturer, domestic or foreign.' hexagonal bundles." Another example: He discovered that in America frog legs are packed in small tins. The rationale behind this is that since frog legs are a delicacy, consumers do not buy them in bulk. Kanwar made use of what he had learnt. When his firm¡got an order from America for tinned frog legs, "we sent them in small tins."

In their export ventures, private entrepreneurs are greatly encouraged and helped by the Government of India. "In promoting Indian exports, the government has extc::ndedall manner of support and assistance," says H.P. Nanda, president of Escorts Ltd. "In fact, export promotion has become a major plank in the government's industrial policy. The Industrial Policy Resolution of the Government of India says that products having a long-term potential must be identified for purposes of extending assistance of all kinds; and it specifically states that the 'government will compensate exporters for the handicaps that stem from transitional difficulties.' "

* * * * .â&#x20AC;˘.

"The United States offers a tremendous potential for exporters," says Dr. Jagjit Singh. The U.S. is a trillion-dollar economy-it can absorb thousands of new products from within the U.S.~nd abroad.

The rapid rate of economic growth in the U.S., the high spending power of Americans and their liking for new things make the U.S. a huge export market for India. India's share in America's total imports has so far been microscopic. In 1972, for instance, India accounted for a bare 0.8 per cent of America's total imports, and earned Rs. 319 crores. Even ifIndia merely doubles its share -a modest goal in the light of its capabilities-it would earn a handsome Rs. 700 crores.

The Indian exporter interested in selling to America should test the market for his product before he invests in sales promotion in a big way. According to a U.S. Department of Commerce

estimate, eight out of every ten new products fail in the test markets. The exporter should also bear in mind that once a product gets accepted in American markets, it will have to be supplied in large quantities.

The exporter should reckon with the fact. that fashions and tastes change very quickly in the. U.S. The American buyer feels no sense of allegiance to any manufacturer, domestic or foreign.

For example, at one time Indian exporters were unable to meet the enormous demand in America for "bleeding" Madras handloom fabrics. During the last few years, this demand has fallen considerably.

The American housewife spends 75 to 85 per cent of the family income, and therefore wields considerable influence in dictatIng the design of consumer products. The Indian exporter should bear this in mind, particularly in selecting advertising media.

Dr. Jagjit Singh cites the example of other Asian countries which have stepped up exports to America by using modern marketing techniques. He points out that Japan, which is not rich in natural resources, is able to import raw materials, maimfacture the product and deliver it at a competitive quality and price. "This is creativity. This is an aggressive marketing approach," he says. Japanese tape recorders, cameras, watches and automobiles have caught the imagination of American buyers.

Further, Japan does not hesitate to send big sales and study teams abroad, Dr. Jagjit Singh says. Most of its reputable compapies have offices in many countries, which regularly compile information about competitive products, product changes and demand patterns there. The companies plan their marketing strategy on the basis of this information, and grant deferred payment facilities to importers.

Korea's sale of wigs to the U.S., says Dr. Jagjit Singh, is another classic case in skillful marketing. South Koreans exported wigs to the U.S. because they had an excellent supply of human hair.

But after. a few years, Americans developed a preference for synthetic wigs-which wore well and were easy to maintain.

Reacting to this shift, Koreans started manufacturing synthetic wigs, though they had to import raw mat~rials for the purpose.

The Koreans kept their grip on the American wig market by changing when the market changed!

Or take the case of ready-made garments from Hong Kong.

Manufacturers there constantly study changing fashions. Before each season, they assess what new products will bein demand, and what designs and fabrics will be appreciated. They design, tailor, stitch and export accordingly.

What lesson does all this hold out? In a nutshell: It is exports that build self-reliance, but it is marketing that builds exports. 0 About the Author: Laxmi Narain, who graduated in journalism from the University of California at Berkeley and took his master's degree in international relations from Columbia University, New York City, is presently an editor with the American Embassy, New Delhi. Prior to this, he was the Assistant Managing Editor of the American Reporter.

FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN AN INTERDEPENDENT WORLD If a nation establishes adequate safeguards, foreign investment will never be a threat but a 'source of capital, technology, management and jobs,' said Robert Ingersoll, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State (photo below) in a recent address in Atlanta, Georgia, excerpted here.

Today international investment in this major official investment in U.S. firms. . A recently completed, extensive Adcountry [the U.S.]~specially investment ministration review of government policy by the oil-rich Arab countries-is the subon private investment calls for prompt ject of intense debate in the nation and in and effective action in each of these areas.

Congress [see "News & Views," May ]975 The basic conclusion of the study was to SPAN]. reaffirm our traditional policy on investForeign investment is not new to ment as stated by President Ford last America. Nor does it generally represent a October: "We continue to believe that threat to our security and integrity. the operation of free market forces will Capital from abroad, especially from direct worldwide investment flows in the England, was essential to the construcmost productive way. Therefore my Adtion of our transcontinental railroad ministration will oppose any new restricsystems in the 1880s. When foreign intion on foreign investment in the U.S. vestment in the United States becomes except where absolutely necessary on visible-it becomes a public issue .... national security grounds or to protect an Investment from abroad is a source of essential national interest." ... capital, technology, management, and With the safeguards required to protect jobs-a welcome input to our economy. established, operate majority interests in It is also a corollary to traditional enterprises in the territory of the other our national interests .already in existence, party is governed by the "national treat- our task is to utilize these measures more American investment abroad ....

Contrary to the popular impression, ment" standard. This means that foreign effectively, not to impede investment.

America is not being inundated with investors should be treated generally on Restrictive policies discourage foreign investment money from oil-producing the same basis as domestic investors. investment in job-creating industries, and nations, although we must recognize the Foreign control does not provide a basis this is particularly inappropriate when the economy is in a recessionary phase .... potential from this source. In the first for discrimination ....

A basic concern of investment policy These treaties and codes are not innine months of 1974 the inflows of longterm investment as recorded in our tended, however, to throw our vital in- is not whether an investor is foreign, but balance of payments from all foreign dustries open to uncontrolled capital whether he is prepared to abide by our investors was $4,200 million, of which flows from abroad. There are federal laws and regulations; to operate in the only $2,900 million was direct-as op- restrictions which limit the amount of American context. This country is not posed to portfolio-investment.

This foreign investment in areas such as prepared to pay a political-or economic figure is slightly below the rate of invest- atomic energy, radio and telegraph com- -price for foreign investment. Business ment in 1973. We do not yet have an munications, shipping and domestic air and capital from abroad are welcome in estimate of foreign direct investment in transport, defense industries and exploi- the United States, but in determining the United States during the fourth tation of government-owned natural re- whether or not to place their assets in this sources. These restrictions are generally country, foreign investors should be quarter of 1974....

For many years, United States policy accepted internationally .. '.. aware, in the President's words, that has consistently been to reduce the A coherent, comprehensive policy on "discrimination is totally contrary to barriers to international trade and invest- national investment must therefore con- American tradition and repugnant to ment; to encourage the free international tain the following elements: (I) An im- American principles." movement of goods and capital.

Foreign investment, of course, is but proved system for monitoring foreign Our commitment to generally non- investment coming into this country. (2) one aspect of the challenge of interrestrictive treatment of foreign invest- Assurance that existing authority to deal dependence. Our response to the energy ment is embodied in an extensive network with abuses by foreign investors is vig- crisis, our policies on food aid, our ap.of treaties of friendship, commerce and orously enforced and that any gaps in proach to the law of the sea, and access navigation. An important incentive for such authority are promptly recognized to commodities are others. Our Trade negotiating many of these treaties is our and steps taken to close them. (3) And Act of 1974 and the multinational trade desire to establish conditions favorable finally, agreement with foreign govern- negotiations now under way in Geneva ments-particularly those with a sub- are foreign policy issues important both to private investment abroad.

Under the terms of many' of these stantial capacity to invest-to insure that to the U.S. and to a mutually dependent treaties, the right to establish and, once they consult with us prior to making world economy.

0

TRADE, AID AND ENERGY On April 18, 1975, William E. Simon, the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, addressed the IndoAmerican Chamber of Commerce in Bombay. Among the subjects he discussed were Indian-U.S. trade, the world energy problem and American aid to India. Excerpts from the Secretary's speech are reprinted below.

My chief purpose in coming here is to find answers to a single question: How can our countries co-operate more closely so that each of us can benefit?' The United States is very interested in finding ways that we can help you to help yourselves, but we are not unaware that in the process we will also be helping ourselves. The benefits of co-operation can and do run both ways....

Too often that which unites us has been obscured by that which divides. By recognizing more clearly the issues in which we share a common interest, we can find the best means of building a sound, constructive relationship.

A central issue in which India and the United States share a common interest is in expanding trade between our two nations .... From 1971 to 1973, average annual Indian exports to the U.S. were about $400 million, or about 15 per cent of total Indian exports. During the same period, annual Indian imports from the U.S. were about $500 million, about 18 per cent of India's total imports. Thus, to highlight the obvious, the U.S. is the most important trading partner for India, even when excluding the substantial shipments of grain that occurred in the mid-1960s and again in the 1974-75 period. For the United States, however, India was not a major trading partner, even when compared with other developing countries. To provide some perspective, Taiwan, with a population of 15 million people and a GNP of just over $9,000 million (one-eighth the size oflndia's GNP), exported in 1973 more than $4,000 million of which $1,700 million went to the United States. In the same year Taiwan imported goods totaling $4,000 million, including $950 million from the United States. Singapore, with a popuiation of only 2.1 million ptjople and a GNP of around $1,500 million, exported $613 million of its products to the U.S. and imported $765 million worth from the U.S. Thus, [in 1973] total

U.S. trade with Taiwan was three times the amount of our trade with India, while American trade with Singapore was substantially more than our trade with India. Surely there is vast room for an increase -in the trade between our two countries which would be mutually beneficial. For India, even a relatively small increase in its share of the U.S. market would be substantial in absolute terms. If, for example, India's share of U.S. imports increased by as little as four-tenths of one per cent, this would mean an increase in Indian exports of approximately $400 million. This sum would be more than the total debt relief India received last year from the Aid-to-India Consortium, and it could be repeated and increased every year ....

To look at the other side of our trade for a moment, it is no secret to anyone in this audience that American businessmen trying to sell their products here in India often report a sense of frustration and discouragement. In seeking ways to bolster the ties between the U.S. and India, the sources of those frustrations must inevitably be one of the subjects that we address.

One of the forums in which we are hopeful. that progress can be made on economic co-operation is the Indo-U.S. Joint Commission ....

With the help of the Federation of the Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry as well as the United States Chamber of Commerce, a Joint Business Council is now being formed in order to improve ties between the two business communities.

The first meeting of the Council is tentatively scheduled for late this year. Other activities taking place under the leadership of the Indo-U.S. Joint Commission are the formation of a joint working group on agricultural inputs, negotiations on a tax treaty, and the promotion of trade missions. We are looking forward to the visit to Washington of an Indian Export Promotion Council trade mission to explore possibilities of selling Indian engineering products in American markets. All of these are positive steps forward.

At the January meeting of the Economic and Commercial Subcommission, we were advised that the Government of India considers foreign investment an important mechanism for acquiring needed industrial technology and for expanding high technology exports. We agree. Yet both of us must face the fact that over the years American firms have not eagerly sought to invest their funds in India. U.S. investments in developing countries around the world now total some $25,000 million.

Of that amount, U.S. investments in India have a book value of only $325 million-less than 2 per cent of the total.

I must emphasize, however, that my government does not play a major direct role in the transfer of industrial technology to India. Industrial technology is the property of private U.S. firms, and as such it must be enticed to come to India through your efforts to create a favorable climate for investment. Our government is prepared to discuss with you our own ideas about the way that climate could be improved but the basic decisions on what should be done remain, of course, in your hands. ~ A second interest which we share together is to overcome the

challenge posed by quadrupling of international oil prices in the past year and a half. Last year the U.S. paid out $25,000 million for foreign oil-more than eight times what we were . paying in 1970. Here in India, the costs of foreign oil last year were double their level of a year earlier, and you were forced to place more severe importation limits on a product that is vitally needed for your industries. While our oil bills are different in size, it is clear that neither of us can long tolerate a heavy dependence upon foreign oil that is so highly priced.

In both of our countries the high cost of oil has also had a major impact upon the cost of fertilizer. In the U.S. the higher cost of fertilizer has driven up farm costs and, in turn, consumers ~ have, been forced to pay a higher price for food. In India, we recognize that the availability and cost of fertilizer is virtually a matter of life and death because the need for increased food production is so vital to feeding the Indian population. We have actively encouraged the World Bank to assist the expansion of the Indian fertilizer industry, and several major loans for that purpose have been made during the past year ....

The present oil cartel, like all other cartels in the past, is subject to the laws of supply and demand. When demand falls, the cartel has no choice but to lower its price or to reduce its production. As worldwide consumption has been reduced in recent months through conservation and through the effects of worldwide recession, we are already seeing this process at work. OPEC [the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries] has now shut in a third of its capacity-over 12 million barrels a day-in order to hold the line of prices. Within a matter of months, OPEC's shut-in capacity may rise to 15-16 million barrels a day. Furthermore, during the last three years, significant discoveries of oil have been -made in some 25-30 areas of the world outside "of OPEC-uncovering reserves estimated at roughly 35,000 million barrels. These new fields could produce some eight million additional barrels a day by the late 1970s, and this does not include new. production coming from the U.S., the Soviet Union, and the People's Republic of China.

India is one of the countries which has greatly intensified its oil exploration and has already found considerable additional

resources, although there is still much potential for further exploration. Your recent progress in locating oil on the Bombay High is a good example of successful Indian co-operation with the U.S. private sector in developing your energy potential. ...

One alternative source that both of us have in abundance is coal. I am told that Indian coal reserves are close to 90,000 million tons, which is about 1,000 times current annual production. Identifiable coal reserves in the U.S. are one trillion, 500,000 million tons, compared to an output last year of 600 million tons.

The dramatic increase in the price of oil makes it vital that both of our countries step up the development and use of this alternative fuel. The price incentives provided us by today's market certainly encourage the rapid expansion of coal production, and in the U.S. that process is already under way. We believe there is also potential for co-operative efforts by our two countries in developing this resource ....

Americans are not blind to the economic problems which affect many of the people in this country. Nothing would please us more than to see your nation overcome these problems and to believe that we have played a helpful role in the process.

Americans believe now, as they have in the past, that all of the people on this planet should have access to adequate diets and at least minimal health and ~ducational facilities.

Since the end of World War II, official development assistance to India from the U.S. has totaled some $9,000 million in concessional loans and grants, quite apart from our assistance which was channeled through international agencies. India has been the largest single recipient of bilateral aid from the U.S. and far more than half of all bilateral foreign aid received by India since Independence has originated in the United States.

I have the impression, however, that some people feel assistance by the U.S. is a matter of the distant past. In fact, during 1975 the United States will again be the largest source of bilateral assistance for India, contributing over $250 million.

Misunderstandings about the level of U.S. aid may stem in part from the fact that in recent years the bulk of our assistance to India has been channeled through international institutions, especially the World Bank and the International Monetary

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Fund [IMF]. India has received $3,000 million in credits from the International Development Association [IDA]-a part of the World Bank family. This is over 40 per cent ofIDA's lending.

And, I might add, the United States has provided over one-third of all oflDA's funds. In January of this year, during the meeting of the Development Committee, I delivered to the World Bank our undertaking to provide an additional $1,500 million to IDA. As part of the international effort to ease the strain of higher oil prices for developing countries, India last year was also a major beneficiary of the IMF oil facility. Under that program, the IMF borrows largely on the basis of guarantees provided to it by the U.S. and other industrialized countries. In our view, the emergency fund should be phased out this year. We also believe, however, that the IMF should be equipped to provide even more resources in future years if they are needed by member nations. We have reached agreement in principle on a one-third increase in IMF quotas, and negotiations are well advanced toward making IMF resources much more fully usable. In addition, the U.S. has proposed a special trust fund to be administered by the IMF to assist those developing nations which may continue to face reduced growth rates because of increases in the prices of energy and other products. Funds for this purpose would be raised in part by sale of some of the gold now sitting idle in the IMF. India might well be the largest beneficiary of higWy concessional loans from this trust fund, if there is international agreement to establish it.

Still another vehicle for easing the adjustment to higher oil prices should be the Development Committee recently set up under the aegis of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.-¡That committee was designed to address all of the problems of the developing nations, but in its first meeting last October, it decided to give highest priority to their problems relating to energy. That Development Committee will meet again this June to consider the nature and dimensions of such economic strains ..By coming here to India, I hope that I will be better prepared to fulfill my responsibilities as head of the U.S.

delegation to that June meeting. I might note that within the Development Committee, Finance Minister Subramaniam, with whom I have been meeting in New Delhi this week, represents India as well as several of your neighbors. My meetings with the Minister have been highly fruitful, and I look forward to working closely with him on energy as well as other critical matters ....

The United States is continuing to be an active partner in providing economic assistance to developing countries. But let us not mislead each other. In the final analysis, foreign assistance can make only a marginal contribution to economic development. The ultimate success will depend upon the energy and initiative of each nation's own people and the wisdom shown by governments in freeing those energies for full realization of their creative potential. In our view, there can be no doubt that a free and growing international market economy offers a powerful vehicle by which the energies of the people in all nations can be mobilized.

A fourth cause which binds our nations together-and the last one that I shail address tonight-is our mutual and lasting interest in preserving peace and freedom.

Both of our countries were born in a struggle for independence.

Both of us have known the yoke of foreign rule. And both of us are committed to the proposition that only by maintaining our independence and freedom can we fulfill our dreams for the future ....

Yet, in recent years, too much has been said to poison the friendship between us. We have allowed our differences to overshadow our common interests .... Let us remember that we share many of the same goals-expanding trade, overcoming the challenge of higher energy prices, ensuring adequate levels of economic assistance, and preserving peace and freedom. In the days and years ahead, let us never lose sight of these mutual interests but instead make them the foundation of a common effort to give our children a world that is secure from hunger and war.

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Pen poised and tongue in cheek, artist-humorist W.B. Park portrays fellow sports fans, finding them a dedicated and lighthearted breed.

"Tennis fans are intellectual, calm, well-mannered and, at game's end, a little stiff-necked,. too."

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'2-13 L?J

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"See-through basketball backboards provide a free show for players."

"At wrestling matches, there is often more action outside the ring than inside it."

"It's possible, at baseball games, to doze, eat or read-and not miss a thing."