SPAN: August 1973

SPAN 1 THE SOURCES

OF ENERGY

6 THE SEARCH

FOR TOMORROW'S

POWER

by Kenneth F. Weaver

The Struggle to Convert Natural Energy to Electrical Energy Scientists are grappling with a wide variety of nature's power sources (left) and ways to harness them. Many techniques still rely on the turbine generator powe~ed by steam (blue lines), while others convert natural forces directly to electricity (red lines).

Fossil fuels. Lifeblood of the power industry, oil, gas and coal will retain their pre-eminence for years, perhaps decades. Burned today in steam power plants, they may some day fuel more efficient systems, such as magnetohydrodynamics or a remarkable but still experimental home unit, the fuel cell. Involving no moving parts and creating little poll uti on, this device will use hydrogen from natural gas to generate electricity chemically.

Nuclear fission. Despite a slow start, nuclear plants are taking hold. Next will come the amazing breeder reactor which produces more fuel than it consumes.

Nuclear fusion. Man's ultimate power source may lie in harnessing the energy process of the stars. If and when the dream becomes reality, fuel for fusion will be extracted inexpensively from sea water.

Tidal power. The tides' restless energy already spins turbines in France's Rance River estuary.

Hydroelectric energy. With prime sites already harnessed, the United States nears full utilization of this clean resource.

Wind. Free and abundant, energy from the wind involves a serious flaw -unreliability.

Man cannot yet store massive amounts of electricity for use during calms.

Solar power. The sun's stupendous energy could drive civilization forever, if only man could harness it. "Solar farms" offer a possible approach.

Geothermal energy. Intriguing new techniques for tapping the heat in earth's crust make this one of the most appealing of potential power sources.

14 A REPORTER

AT THE SUMMIT

by Hugh Sidey

17 NEW HEAVEN

AND

EARTH

by Joyce Carol Oates

22 EDWARD STEICHEN J 879-] 973

26 A DELHI

POET IN IOWA

by Shrikant Varma

30 FOR WHOM

THE DECIBEL

TOLLS

by Barbara J. Katz 34 THE DEATH

OF CASH

by Mal Oettinger

36 SHOULD

THE UNITED

STATES

RESTRICT

IMPORTS?

by James A. Burke and Jonathan Bingham

40 MAN AND

HIS MACHINE

44 THE ART OF THE AMERICAN

INDIAN

Front cover: A ruby laser beam bores through a piece of aluminum amidst a shower of molten metal. The versatile laser may help solve the world's energy problem by controlling fusion reactions. See pages I-B. Back cover: Mask of a woman with lip plug made by the Tlingit Indians of Alaska. The Tlingit mask displays the rich artistic talent and perception of the maker. See story on American Indian art beginning on page 44.

STEPHEN

ESPIE, Editor;

ALBERT

E. HEMS lNG, Poblisher.

Managing Editor: Carmen Kagal. Editorial Staff: Mohammed Reyazuddin, Avinash Pasricha, Nirmal Sharma, Krishan Gabrani, M.M. Saha. Art Director: Nand KatyaI. Art Staff: Kuldip Singh Jus, B. Roy Choudhury, Kanti Roy, Gopi Gajwani. Production Manager: Awtar S. Marwaha. Photographic Services: USIS Photo Lab. Published by the United States Information Service, Bahawalpur House, Sikandra Road, New Delhi, on behalf of the American Embassy, New Delhi. Printed by Arun K. Mehta at Vakil & Sons Private Limited, Vakils House, Sprott Road, 18 Ballard Estate, Bombay-400001.

Photographs: Inside front cover-Esso Research and Engineering Company. 1--courtesy Rockwell Interna· tional. 2, 6-7-Emory Kristoff, copyright © National Geographic Society. 3 top-James P. Blair, copyright © National Geographic Society. 3 bottom-Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. 4-Copyright © National Geographic Society. 29-Hoyt E. Carrier II. 45, 46, 48-inside back cover--courtesy the Museum of the American Indian. 47 and back cover-Steve and Dolores McCutcheon, courtesy Exxon Corporation.

Use of SPAN articles in other publications is encouraged, except when copyrighted. For permission, write to the Editor. Subscription: One year, rupees five; single copy, fifty paise. No new subscriptions can be accepted at this time. For change of address, send old address from a recent SPAN envelope along with new address to the Circulation Manager, United States Information Service, Bahawalpur House, Sikandra Road, New Delhi-IIOOOr. Allow six weeks for change of address to become effective.

~

THE SOURCES OF ENERGY The world is threatened by a severe energy cnSlS that is serving as a stimulus for scientific research.

Known reserves of petroleum will last for a mere hundred years, and leading scientists of many nations are perfecting new sources of energy such as nuclear fission (left), or experimenting with more efficient ways of using old sources such as oil (far left). Last year the U.S. spent $620 million on energy research. One of the most promising solutions may lie in harnessing thermonuclear fusion reactions by means of laser beams (front cover). Other scarcely tapped sources of energy are magnetohydrodynamics, geothermal power, the heat of the sun and the endless surge of wind and tides, as illustrated in this picture essay.

Fire without smoke jets from a furnace the size of a grapefruit (photo at far left) in the laboratories of the Esso Research •. and Engineering Company. Turbulent mix- . ing of air with oil in this experimental furnace yields more than 99 per cent combustion, thus reducing both fuel waste and pollution. Left: Fissionable fuel materials are melted together in an arc furnace.

(For more on nuclear fission, see page 3.)

Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) Simple in concept though long in name, a phenomenon known as magnetohydrodynamics holds the promise of clean, efficient power. Demonstrating the MHD process, Dr. Arthur Kantrowitz (right) of the Avco Everett Research Laboratory in Massachusetts directs a gas flame between curved electromagnets. Using potassium salt, he "seeds" the flame to increase its conductivity. Suddenly; electrodes and wires leading from flame begin to carry a current to a meter. The ionized gas and magnets have become a generator. In an actual MHD generator (sketch at left), powdered coal burns fiercely in a chamber (1). Squirting through a nozzle (2) at supersonic speed, combustion gases stream between magnets (3), yielding an electric current taken off by electrodes (4).

In volcanic regions, the geothermal energy of the earth's interior can be easily tapped. In other parts of the world man may resort to devices such as Subterrene (right), made of molybdenum metal so hot that it melts rock like ice. Sheathed in a protective pyrex case suspended over two holes it has bored, this electrically heated Subterrene at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico (right) has literally melted its way into the earth, lining its hole with a casing formed from the molten rock. Scientists envision drilling 10,000to 20,000 feet to reach the almost limitless heat of earth's interior. After boring two shafts, they would pump water down one, where it would superheat and be forced up the second, to be then converted into electrical energy.

Conventional nuclear reactors "burn" cores of fissionable material, whose unstable atoms split, releasing an enormous amount of heat. At left, fuel rods withdrawn from a core during refueling glow with radiation at the Yankee Atomic Electric Station in Rowe, Massachusetts. Unfortunately, supplies of fissionable uranium are limited. But nonfissionable uranium abounds; thus the beauty of the breeder reactor (sketch below). The breeder is a miracle machine that creates more fuel than it consumes, and suggests the alchemists' dream because it changes one element into another. Beneficiary of an intensive program of U.S. Govern'ment research, the breeder looms as a likely bridge between fossil fuels and the distant advent of fusion power.

Fuel rods (1) produce the radioactive fires in the core (2) and release large numbers of neutrons. Some of these atomic particles are trapped by nonfissionable uranium both in the core and in the surrounding blanket or rods (3), transforming part of the uranium into fissionable plutonium 239. The reactor creates five pounds of radioactive fuel for every four it consumesenough to sustain itself and help supply another plant.

Liquid sodium (4), circulating through the reactor, transfers the heat to a secondary loop (5), which in turn heats a steam generator (6).

Atoms fuse under tremendous heat and pressure, releasing energy. If man can control fusion reactionswhich exist in uncontrolled forms in the sun. stars and hydrogen bombs-he will have virtually unlimited power at his command. But the technical problems are formidable. The temperature of a fusion reaction is as high as 100 million degrees Fahrenheit, which would vaporize the reactor in which the process took • place. One solution may be to use laser beams (see front cover) to control the reaction. Another solution may be to "compress" and "imprison" the process reaction in a magnetic field. The photo at left, taken at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico, shows a fusion reaction inside a tube of xenon gas compressed bya superpowerful magnet.

NATURE'S ENERGY SOURCES

~ TIDAL ENERGY

CONVERSION

••

MAN'S METHODS

..

THESEAReH FORTOMORROW'S POWER:

by KENNETH

F. WEAVER

Assistant Editor, National

Geographic

This unusual photograph of New York City at night was made from a helicopter, whose motion created the shimmering effect the photographer desired. All of New York State went dark in the great power blackout of 1965, which spurred creation of the New York Power Pool whose control center at Albany (left) now detects early warnings of major power failures throughout much of the American Northeast and Eastern Canada. With the specter of a power famine haunting the future of America and the rest of the world, scientists of all nations are working on a variety of new projects designed to solve the world's energy crisis. Their efforts are described in the article overleaf.

M

inutes ago the lights flickered, went out briefly, snapped on again. It was a warning. The electricity would last only a few moments longer, and then we would be plunged into three hours of darkness.

Now I am writing by the light of candles that my London hotel has thoughtfully provided. Outside, no streetlights glow, no storefronts blaze, no traffic signals wink.

Only the occasional flash of automobile headlights relieves the six o'clock gloom of this winter evening.

I am not the only one beset by darkness.

Probably a million Londoners in scattered districts of this sprawling city share my inconvenience. For the third time today, by official edict, we are taking our turn without electricity. A miners' strike has reduced coal stocks almost to the vanishing point, and most of Britain's electricity comes from coal.

1n the past three days I have covered miles of London streets, seeing what happens when modern man loses the electricity which he so takes for granted, and on which his material civilization is based.

At Battersea Power Station I found furnaces still roaring and generators humming on a reduced schedule, but, outside, frontend loaders were scraping up the last remnants of coal from a pile normally covering an area half as large as a city block.

Along Oxford Street, shops and restaurants had turned off all their display lights for the duration. Inside, candles and pressure lanterns filled in during the blackouts. Impromptu corner vendors offered hard-to-get candles at inflated prices.

Piccadilly Circus, usually a dazzling glitter of advertising signs, lay in murk except for lights over subway entrances.

Theaters managed with diesel-powered mobile generators.

"It's not so bad," said an engineer at Battersea, with characteristic British fortitude. "We make a game of it. Irs rather fun dining by candlelight, you know."

But as the three-hour blackout periods shifted from area to area and back again, people across the land fretted about wheth-

'Americans as a nation no longer feel that we can produce and use energy with total disregard for its effect on the environment.'

er frozen foods would spoil; dairies adjusted to hours when power w'ould be available for milking machines; factories went on part-time schedules.

Now, over my battery-powered radio, I hear a newscaster announcing the end of the strike. But for three tense weeks Britain has faced an inescapable truth: Electricity has become the.very bloodstream of modern life. My encounter with London's blackouts was sobering. Britain's experience was a preview of things that could happen elsewhere. Many industrial nations today are threatened with power shortages.

But the simple fact is that demand is outstripping supply. In the past hundred years, over-all demand for energy of all kinds in the United States has increased twenty-fold. The rate of increase is sharply accelerating, especially for electricity.

Says Shearon Harris, chairman of the Edison Electric Institute: "The utility industry expects consumption of electricity to double between 1970 and 1980, and almost to quadruple by 1990." Such rapid growth will pose enormous problems, for it now takes as much as eight years to get the necessary licenses, build a new power plant, and bring it on line.

The energy shortage is complicated by the problem of pollution, a problem inevitably associated with power plantscorrosive gases, waste heat dumped into waterways, and stack emissions fouling the atmosphere.

S. David Freeman, formerly chief of the Energy Policy Staff at the White House, expresses it succinctly: "Americans as a nation no longer feel that we can produce and use energy with total disregard for its effect on the environment."

The pollution can be controlled, of course-at a price. For example, at the 950,000-kilowatt Bull Run Steam Plant near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, I saw very little ash escaping from the stacks, although each minute the furnaces were gobbling up five tons of coal as finely pulverized as face powder. A giant bank of precipitators trapped most of the fly ash, 950 tons of it a day, to be used for landfill instead of being spewed from the stacks.

But in Chicago, to my dismay, I watched a power plant pouring out thick plumes of fly ash, casting a dirty pall over the sky and coating everything downwind with dust.

Public resentment at such fouling of our air and water took legislative form in the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, which requires that the impact on the environment by nuclear (and some

fossil fuel) power plants must be weighed before licenses are granted. The new rules, added to serious industry miscalculations of how fast nuclear power plants would come on line, have meant a slower growth of generating capaci ty than has been needed.

Of far greater importance, however, in the much publicized energy crisis, is the undeniable fact that we are beginning to see the bottom of the barrel for some fuels.

Many millions of years ago, the earth laid down thick deposits of organic materials that, under heat and pressure, became coal, oil, and gas. In effect, they were stored energy from the sun. These fossil fuel deposits once seemed endless; today, sadly, we know they are far from infinite.

Yet we are depleting them at fantastically increasing rates. In the United States we depend on them for 80 per cent of all our electricity. Only 16 per cent comes from waterpower (a source that is not likely to be expanded much in the U.S.), and two to three per cent from nuclear reactors.

Look at the fossil-fuel picture: NATURAL GAS. Cheapest, most convenient, and cleanest of the fossil fuels, gas provides a third of the United States' total energy and a quarter of its electricity. But we are using up our domestic reserves faster than we are discovering new ones. Most predictions see natural gas steadily declining in importance over the next 30 years.

Already the gas company in the Washington, D.C., area has announced that it will accept no new customers.

A frantic scramble is under way for new sources of gas. Huge ultra-refrigerated tankers are beginning to arrive in Boston Harbor, bringing natural gas from Algerian ports. Kept liquid by temperatures of minus 260 F., the gas occupies only one si'xhundredth of its volume under atmospheric pressure.

Also, a number of private and public organizations are developing plans to gasify coal, producing the same methane that is the basis of natural gas. The first large-scale plant is scheduled for operation 0

in 1976.

But all such substitutes cost several times as much as domestically produced natural gas, and the price for newly discovered domestic gas itself has jumped markedly.

Clearly the day of cheap gas is fading.

OIL. This fuel, on which the United States' 116 million motor vehicles depend almost totally, is only slightly better off than gas. Forecasts of supply and demand

The nuclear power plants in the U.S., either under construction or on order, will add more than 30 per cent to its total power capacity of 370 million kilowatts. indicate that present world oil reserves will last for maybe a hundred years. And domestic reserves may be exhausted sooner than that.

This year wells in the U.S. (except for discovery wells in Alaska) are for the first time in history pumping oil at capacity, and even at capacity they cannot meet demand. Already a fourth of America's petroleum comes from abroad; by the early '80s it will be half, according to estimates of the U.S. National Petroleum Council.

Those responsible for United States' security worry about such heavy reliance on foreign sources, especially the oil-rich but politically volatile Middle East. What if the Arab states should cut off oil shipments?

Even if the United States turns to supplies from other oil fields, economists question its ability to pay the huge annual bill for foreign oil-estimated to run as high as 25 billion dollars additional by 1980. The country's balance of trade is already showing a heavy deficit.

Undeveloped resources that may prove highly significant in time are the vast deposits of oil shale in the west, especially on federal lands in Colorado. At the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in Livermore, California, Dr. Barney Rubin showed me a chunk of oil shale. It was hard and heavy, and its dark surface held a high polish.

He put a match to bne corner, and the rock burned with a heavy, smoky flame.

"There's 40 gallons of oil to the ton in that rock," Dr. Rubin said. "The oil is the plastic that holds the rock together."

We don't know yet how to extract oil from shale economically, and the process could involve destructive strip-mining and leave horrendous piles of debris. But when someone learns how to do it without ruining thousands of square miles of western landscape, we will have tapped a resource many times larger than our present proven oil reserves.

COAL. Of all the fossil fuels, coal is by far the most abundant.

U.S. reserves amount to an estimated 1.5 trillion tons,

3,000 times the 500 million tons we bUJ;ned last year. On the face of it, this substantial reserve should last for hundreds of years.

But coal offers special problems. It is the worst offender for producing sulphur compounds. These, when mixed with moisture in the atmosphere, turn to acid that slowly eats steel, marble, and-more frighteningeven human lungs.

Moreover, getting coal out of the ground without major damage to the environment has become a serious problem, notably with the advent of ruthless strip-mining.

On a recent visit to the Cumberland Mountains in Morgan County, Tennessee, I came to realize just how ugly strip-mining really is.

Along once-lovely ridges, bulldozers have chewed away at graceful curves, creating jagged angles on the skyline. They have diminished noble hills into bulbous knobs; choked valleys with overburden; left massive treeless gashes. On one grand sweep I counted seven parallel scars, each a barren face 30 to 50 feet high.

No effort has been made here to restore the magnificent scenery, one of America's prime treasures. Landslides and washes have added their own disfigurement. Flooding streams, unchecked by vegetation, run foul with mud and silt. Stagnant yellow pools, poisoned by leaching acids, fill hollows that once bloomed with laurel and rhododendron.

It may well be, as many people contend, that no strip-mining should be permitted in mountainous areas that are difficult to' restore; indeed, some U.S. states are beginning to regulate strip-mining, and federal laws are under .consideration. But on flatlands there are new methods of stripping that do not necessarily despoil the land.

One such technique, now used in Germany, involves a mobile machine called a "bucket-wheel excavator."

This monstrous device, 23 stories tall and longer than two football fields, weighs 7,600 tons.

In one day its buckets can scoop up enough dirt to cover 10 city blocks to a depth of three feet.

Shortly after the excavator lays the overburden to one side and takes out the coal, another giant machine brings the soil back. On land thus restored, crops have been harvested only two years later.

These are today's problems.

What about tomorrow? Does the magic of technology hold bright new solutions for our power shortages? Or will the energy crisis grow worse?

The answer is mixed. Most observers agree that, during the next 10 years or so, cities will see increasing brownouts, voltage reductions that cause electric motors to labor and burn out, and lights to dim.

On hot summer days, as demand for air conditioning and refrigeration pushes generating capacity to the limit, interruptions of service and rationing of power may become common. And when utilities can no longer maintain reserve capacity, and a major generator-such as the millionkilowatt "Big Allis" in New York Cityunexpectedly breaks down, large areas may suffer loss of all electricity for hours at a time.

Dr. Herman Kahn, director of the Hudson Institute, sums it up bleakly, "We can confidently predict a crisis five to 10 years from now. There is already a serious power shortage in the northeast."

Observers also agree that large-scale solutions will not come quickly. In fact, John F. O'Leary, former director of the U.S. Bureau of Mines and now head of the Licensing Directorate of the Atomic Energy Commission, predicts that the year 2000 will see 75 per cent of America's total energy and half of its electricity still coming from whatever fossil fuels we have not yet exhausted.

But there are new promises that the energy problem-at least for electricityeventually will be licked. I have seen much evidence of these promises in recent travels around America and abroad. New and more effective nuclear reactors are being developed. I have found scientists enthusiastically seeking to extract energy from the sun, from the tides, from the wind, from the furnace deep inside the earth, even from seawater.

Some-perhaps all-of these schemes will work in time. The U.S. Government spent $620 million in 1972 on over-all energy research.

NUCLEAR REACTORS. The most immediate solution, of course, is the nuclear reactor, which taps the energy released when uranium atoms fission, or split.

Twenty-eight commercial nuclear power plants are already operating in the U.S., including the pioneering plant in Pennsylvania that went on line 16 years ago; 49 additional plants are under construction, and another 67 are on order. When all the new ones are completed, they will add more than30 per cent to the nation's 370-millionkilowatt total capacity.

Nuclear power plants bring their own

problems. Even more than conventional generating plants fired by fossil fuels, they produce large amounts of waste heat. Safeguards must be provided against leakage of radiation from the reactor itself, and also from the radioactive wastes that the process produces.

Finally, there is a scarcity of inexpensive uranium. According to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, relatively low-cost nuclear fuel will probably be exhausted by the end of the century if we continue to build only the types of nuclear power plants operating today.

Fortunately there is a major development in nuclear reactors that may meet some of these problems. It is the liquidmetal fastbreeder reactor. To understand how it works, you need to know something about the conventional water-cooled reactor now in use.

If you could examine the core of a conventional reactor, you would find it made up of thousands of zirconium-alloy tubes, called pins. About twice the thickness of a lead pencil and usually 12 feet long, they are inserted into the reactor in bundles.

Constantly bathed with water, these pins hold a mixture of ordinary uranium 238, which does not fission, and a small amount of the scarcer uranium 235, which is the actual fuel. Heat given off when uranium atoms split is carried away by the circulating water and used to produce steam for a turbine generator, just as in a coal- or oil-fired plant.

One pound of uranium, about the size of a golf ball, stores as much energy as 15 carloads of coal. But in the water-cooled reactor barely one per cent of that energy can be tapped.

That's where the breeder reactor comes in. The alchemist of old, who sought to turn base metals into gold, would have been entranced by the breeder, for it transmutes elements, producing more fuel than it consumes.

Pins holding uranium 238 are placed in a blanket around the core. As atoms split in the core, they give off heavy nuclear particles called neutrons, which bombard

The liquid-metal fastbreeder reactor is America's 'best hope for meeting the nation's growing demand for economical clean energy.'

the uranium in the core and in th~ blanket.

Some of these atoms absorb neutrons and are converted to plutonium 239, which will fission.

The mixture of uranium and plutonium can be used as a nuclear fuel. After its energy is depleted, it can be reprocessed and returned to the breeder, and still more fissionable fuel will be produced. This process can be repeated until up to 40 times as much energy has been extracted from the raw material as can be produced in a conventional reactor. Thus with the breeder there is no longer a shortage of nuclear fuel.

The breeder offers other advantages. It is more efficient than the conventional reactor: It converts more of the nuclear heat to electricity. Thus it produces less heat loss and less radioactive waste, which is difficult and dangerous to dispose of. Also, the breeder operates at much lower pressure, so there is less chance of leakage of radioactive gases.

For these reasons, the Atomic Energy Commission and the power industry in the United States are moving rapidly to develop the breeder for commercial use.

President Nixon, in his energy message in 1971, called the breeder "our best hope today for meeting the nation's growing demand for economical clean energy." He called for a commitment to complete a successful demonstration breeder by 1980.

Commonwealth Edison of Chicago, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and a major contractor, yet unnamed, will build this $500,000,000 plant near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. If it is successful, we may see the first commercial power from breeders by 1985.

Oddly enough, the breeder is not really new. On December 20, 1951, in a lonely laboratory on a windswept plain in Idaho, electricity from a fast reactor with a core not much larger than a two-pound coffee can lighted four 200-watt bulbs.

It was the world's first nuclear reactor to generate electric power-some 200 kilowatts. More than that, it was the first breeder. Within two years it had proved that it could produce more fuel than it consumed.

The program moved ahead, and today that laboratory is empty. But within the steel fence and the locked doors, a huge pile of concrete blocks still shields the tiny core. On the wall a chalked sign notes that the age of atomic-generated power began on that December day nearly 22 years ago. And another sign proclaims

that Experimental Breeder Reactor No. I is a registered national historic landmark.

Some 25 miles away, on another part of that same National Reactor Testing Station, a plume of vapor rises from the watercooling tower of another breeder, EBR-2, that tests fuels and materials for the larger breeders to come.

One problem with breeders is that the metals become weak under bombardment by the fast neutrons necessary for the process.Steel swells and becomes brittle. Learning to cope with such unusual conditions is the reason for prolonged experimentation with ever-larger demonstration breeders before their commercial production is attempted.

FUSIO REACTORS. Beyond the breeder is a far more fantastic devicethe fusion reactor-which would tame the power of the hydrogen bomb for peaceful use. While today's fission reactors split heavy atoms such as uranium or plutonium, the fusion reactor would combine heavy-hydrogen atoms to make helium atoms, releasing nuclear energy at the same time. This is the process by which energy is produced in the sun and the other stars.

It is an idea wondrously simple in its concept, yet so seemingly impossible in execution as to discourage any layman.

To make controlled fusion work, one must heat a very tenuous ionized, or electrified, gas (called a plasma) to temperatures on the order of a hundred million degrees, hotter than the interior of the sun; contain the gas so that it cannot touch the walls of the vessel; and hold it in this condition long enough for a fusion reaction to take place-a few tenths or even hundredths of a second.

No one has yet made controlled fusion produce more energy than it consumes, although scientists have been trying for years, using powerful magnets, lasers, electron beams, and other tools. The latest survey lists nearly 200 controlled thermonuclear experiments in 14 countries. Researchers in the U.S., Western Europe, Japan, and the Soviet Union have steadily inched closer to the goal, and some of them look for a breakthrough in the next five years. Even if it comes, the engineering problems are so enormous that fusion can hardly make an impact on our energy supply before the turn of the century.

Scientists of wide experience have said that man has never tackled a harder engineering problem than that of developing

L

A fusion reactor can use deuterium, and 'there is enough deuterium in the oceans to provide all the energy man is ever likely to need.'

ing at extreme velocities. But because, the gas is so very thin, the heat in the plasma in this experiment would seem less than that in a cup of hot coffee. If you could stick your finger in it, it would put the fire out immediately. Thus the plasma must be kept away from the tube walls so as not to cool it down.

High up in a glassed-in observation room, I watched Scyllac go through its paces.

Dr. Warren Quinn directed the experiment from a control panel behind me, speaking by walkie-talkie to technicians below. First a charge of deuterium gas was fed into the evacuated tube. The correct amount of deuterium represented about IjlO,OOOth the density of the air we breathe.

Then I saw a bright pink glow as an electrical charge was released into this gas, tearing electrons from the deuterium atoms and thus ionizing them.

Now Dr. Quinn watched his gauges closely. Five red needles showed the buildup of kilovolts in the capacitors. As the needles moved slowly, the scientist called out "Twenty ... thirty ... forty .... " All the lights on the board turned yellow. A bell rang, signifying that the charge was ready to be triggered. A second later a loud bang echoed through the building, and a bright blue glow suffused the room.

How well had they done? Dr. Quinn checked the data recorded in the computer.

"We got up to 10 million degrees Kelvin [about 18 million degrees F.]," he reported.

"We need 100 million. The density of the plasma was about 3 x 1016 (30 quadrillion particles per cubic centimeter), which is OK. We kept the plasma contained for five microseconds [five millionths of a second], and what we need is two hundredths of a second."

No one seemed dismayed that the figures had not reached the necessary levels.

This was just a routine experiment, one of thousands that will be run before a sustained fusion reaction can finally be achieved.

As Dr. Roy W. Gould, director of the Atomic Energy Commission's Division of Controlled Thermonuclear Research, says: "It's not whether, but when!"

While we wait and hope for the breeder and fusion to solve our fuel problems, thoughtful men are urging that we explore many other options for clean energy. Here are some of the more interesting proposals:

a fusion reactor.

If and when fusion succeeds, fuel shortages for electric power generation become a thing of the past. A fusion reactor can use for fuel the heavy forms of hydrogen called deuterium and tritium. The tritium can be "bred" in the reactor by neutrons produced in the fusion process. The deuterium comes from water. A gallon contains Ij230th of an ounce, which costs only four cents to extract. Its fusion energy equals the combustion energy of 300 gallons of gasoline. There is enough deuterium in the oceans to provide all the energy man is ever likely to need.

Moreover, fusion would reduce the problems of pollution and radioactive wastes far below the levels of even the breeder reactor.

Fusion experiments bear names as exotic as the technologies behind themTokamak, Stellarator, Heliotron. One of the most intriguing, at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico, is Scyllac, among the world's largest plasma experiments.

Scyllac looks almost as monstrous as its name suggests. Its heart is an aluminum-and-quartz doughnut called a torus, which will eventually be 50 feet round.

At the moment it operates with only a third of the circle.

This tube is all but hidden by a tangled web of thick electrical cables, some 70 miles in all, flowing from a three-story bank of capacitors where enormous electrical charges are stored. When released, the charges flow into heavy magnets surrounding the torus. As the current charges the magnets, an intense magnetic field (60,000 times that of earth's) squeezes the plasma to the center of the tube, away from the containing wall. At the same time it heats the gas to the enormous temperatures required for fusion.

Strange as it seems, there is no problem of melting the walls of the tube, even if the magnetic field releases the plasma. True, the individual particles in the gas are at BURNING TRASH. At the Brookhaven high temperatures because they are mov- National Laboratory in New York State,

Dr. Meyer Steinberg notes that India burns about 100 million tons of cow dung a year for cooking and heat, and suggests that we turn our waste into fuel.

"Each day the U.S. produces five pounds of garbage per person," he told me. "In addition there are 60 pounds per person per day of agricultural wastes-manure and vegetation. This grand total of nearly 2t billion tons of waste a year, if burned in power plants, would produce more than half the electricity we are now generating."

As if in support of Dr. Steinberg's idea, St. Louis in May 1971began burning shredded trash with pulverized coal to make electricity. A fifth of the city's refuse is being converted each day into 300 tons of odorless, clean-burning fuel that resembles confetti. Every ton of trash saves half a ton of coal. A number of European cities are also now turning their trash into electricity.

FUEL CELLS. When the Apollo astronauts go to the moon, their spacecraft uses fuel cells to convert hydrogen and oxygen into electricity. Someday you may get all your power from a similar box in your basement no larger than two low file cabinets, into which you would pipe gas.

In one research project I saw, metal electrodes and plates made of carbonates took hydrogen (which can be extracted from natural gas) and combined it with oxygen from the air to make water and electricity.

A power-generating system based on this experiment would produce little pollution, little noise, and no overhead power lines, and gas would be used more effectively than in a central power station.

MHD. Those initials stand for magnetohydrodynamics, a way of making electric, ity by substituting a hot, flowing ionized gas for the rotating copper coils in an electrical generator.

Dr. Arthur Kantrowitz, director of the Avco Everett Research Laboratory in Massachusetts, and Dr. Richard Rosa built a small MHD device 15 years ago and have been vigorously promoting the idea ever since. Dr. Kantrowitz likes to demonstrate the technique by directing a blowtorch's flame (lightly salted so that it will easily conduct electricity) through the poles of a magnet. Electrodes extending into the flame pick up the current and carry it to a meter, whose needle clearly shows that the idea works.

But will it work on a large scale? Dr. Kantrowitz smiled ruefully.

"The Soviets saw one of our early models in 1964," he said. "They went home and poured money and effort into MHD work. ln 1971 they began shakedown operation of a large MHD generator called 'U-25,' designed to deliver 25,000 kilowatts of electricity into the Moscow grid."

Dr. Kantrowitz points out that any kind of fossil fuel can produce the hot gas for an MHD generator. He calculates that efficiency may reach as high as 60 per cent -It times that of a conventional fossilfueled power plant, because after part of the energy is converted directly to electricity, the hot gases are used to fire a regular boiler-and-turbine generator.

TIDES. Anyone who has ever watched the excursions of the ocean tides has wondered if that rhythmic energy could be harnessed. For example, Canada and the U.S. have studied the possibilities of power plants in various parts of the Bay of Fundy, where surging tides may reach more than 50 feet.

Meanwhile the world's first large-scale tidal power plant operates successfully, although at high cost, on the Rance River estuary in Brittany. There I saw Frenchmen in berets riding their motorbikes across the low dam between St. Malo and Dinard, while, below, submarinelike turbine generators with reversible propellers churned out power at a quite respectable 240,000 kilowatts.

WIND. The windmill, once so common for pumping water on America's western plains, has all but died out, replaced by the electric pump. BUl the windmill as a useful power source, now that fuels are becoming so scarce and costly, has a champion in William E. Heronemus, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Massachusetts.

"Did you know that Denmark back in 1915 had 3,000 windmills producing electricity?" he asked me. "Or that on Grandpa Knob near Rutland, Vermont, a big

Heat from the earth's interior, the largest practical new energy source, can be tapped to generate clean and cheap electrical power.

windmill generated 1,250 kilowatts during World War II?" .

Professor Heronemus seriously proposes that large windmill generators with rotors of glass-reinforced plastic be floated on the open Atlantic or the Great Lakes.

Twenty miles out, he says, they wq~ld catch the strong prevailing winds, yet be invisible from land.

GEOTHERMAL POWER. Using heat from the earth is an old story in countries like New Zealand, Iceland, and Italy. In the Italian province of Tuscany, southwest of Florence, the natural steam field of Larderello has been generating electricity since 1913.

In the United States, I found that geothermal power is being produced in only one place-The Geysers, north of San Francisco, where the Pacific Gas and Electric Company expects to have generating capacity of half a million kilowatts by 1975.

As I drove through green hills of California's Sonoma County, awash with orchards, vineyards, and moss-draped live oaks, I spotted across a ridge what appeared to be a jetliner's contrail. Oddly, it did not dissipate. When I topped the ridge, I found that my "contrail" was a towering column of steam roaring from the earth itself. It was Whistliug Annie, I.argest of a series of such vents that filled the valley with white plumes and my ears with noise.

Steam even oozed from the steel gateposts near the power plant.

At the University of California at Riverside, Dr. Robert W. Rex, America's foremost exponent of geothermal power, assured me that "the largest practical new energy source available to society today is heat from the interior of the earth."

Natural steam such as I saw at The Geysers is limited in the United States, he admitted. But there are many places, like California's Imperial Valley, where hot water can be tapped and used to evaporate freon to drive turbines. With geothermal power alone, Dr. Rex believes, California could meet all its present needs for electricity.

An even more exciting proposal involves intensely hot rock at one to five miles beneath the surface in many parts of the world. This heat could be harnessed by sinking a well, then forcing cold water down to fracture the rock. Hydrofracturing is a well-established technique used by drillers to open up passageways for oil.

Water heated by the rock to 350 F. would rise to the surface by convection 0

through a second shaft drilled nearby. Its energy would be used to drive turbines, then the water would go back into the earth to be reheated.

Dr. Rex argues that geothermal power is cheap, clean, and almost pollution free.

He believes it can be developed at less cost and sooner than the new nuclear sources.

SOLAR POWER. The greatest energy source of all, of course, is the sun itself, which pours onto the earth loo,oao times as much energy as the world's present electric-power capacity. I gained respect for this fantastic power at the world's largest solar furnace, near Odeillo in the French Pyrenees.

In a pastoral setting of chalets, flocks of sheep, and snow peaks, I first glimpsed the furnace as a great shimmering object of astonishing beauty-a parabolic mirror 148 feet high, which turned the landscape topsy-turvy and flung it back at me.

The mirror captures large amounts of sunlight and focuses it into a small area of intense heat-much as a magnifying lens focuses sunlight on a piece of paper and sets it afire. The difference is one of degree.

The concentrated fury of the sun's energy in the furnace reaches more than 6,000° F., enough to melt almost any substance on earth. In only one minute it can burn a 12inch hole through three-eighths-inch steel, melting it into driblets like so much taffy.

While I was in the furnace room examining the crucible used for high-temperature tests, an operator was moving the heliostats on a nearby hillside. These are pivoted mirrors that feed sunlight into' the' parabola. Normally, of course, the 63 heliostats are all turned askew so that the furnace cannot operate until an experiment is ready.

Suddenly one of the turning mirrors caught the sun and momentarily aimed its rays into the parabola and thence into the little furnace room. Even though I was not close to the focal point of the big mirror, the intense flash of light and heat told me all I wanted to know about its awesome power.

Dr. Aden B. Meinel, director of the Optical Sciences Center at the University of Arizona, and his wife, Marjorie, propose one intriguing method of turning this solar energy into power. Their plan is to trap the sun's heat in extensive arrays of steel pipes spread out in panels above the desert floor. Nitrogen flowing through this plumbing would gather the heat and transport it to tanks of molten salts, which can main-

The greatest source of potential power is the sun which pours on to the earth 100,000 times as much energy as the world's present electric-power capacity.

tain operational temperatures for several days. As the heat is needed, it could be used in a conventional boiler-turbine-generator to make electricity.

The secret behind the Meinel plan involves the fact that certain combinations of materials, such as silicon and silver, are excellentabsorbers and very poor emitters.

The Meinels would coat the steel piping with extremely thin films-about a hundred-thousandth of an inch-of these selective materials. When exposed to the sun, the films would allow steel pipes to absorb energy, but not permit significant losses through reradiation. Without cooling, the piping would reach a temperature of 1,500°Fahrenheit.

I had no doubt that the idea would work after Dr. Meinel showed me a small plastic box containing a metal disk, like a black mirror, with optical coatings on one side.

"One day," Dr. Meinel told me, "one of my colleagues tossed this box on the shelf just below the windshield of his car.

The sun hit it before he realized what could happen. Turn the box over and you'll see the result."

A hole melted through the plastic testified to the heat-trapping ability' of¡ these films.

"Eight square miles of cloud-free land, using this technique, could produce a million kilowatts of clean, pollution-free power," said the Arizona scientist. "That is the output of a typical new nuclear plant."

Someday in the next century we may capture solar energy by space satellite, if Dr. Peter E. Glaser of the research firm Arthur D. Little, Inc., in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is an accurate prophet. He envisages huge collecting panels, each as much as 25 square miles in area, covered with the same kind of solar cells already used by many spacecraft to convert sunlight to electric power. The energy would be'beamed to earth by microwave.

The Glaser plan depends on development of a reliable space-shuttle system

Sunshine may be used to generate electricity on a large solar farm in southwestern United States. An artist's concept (above) shows water pipes running' through large coltectors which would produce steam to turn generators.

Working model ola solar farm will soon be built with a U.S. National Science Foundation grant. Engineers at Geothermal field in California (left) study temperature and pressure at one of many natural steam wells. A single field produces 192,000 kilowatts of electricity, enough power to supply a city of90,OOO.

to ferry the solar panels into orbit, and on much cheaper solar cells. Today the cost is about $4 for a cell the size of your thumbnail!

Do we actually need all this energy?

The question is increasingly asked by those who care about the environment and who believe that unlimited growth is not necessarily a good thing. Whatever the answer,

America and the world will undoubtedly have to find ways to save energy.

One of the most powerful forcesimaginable will soon force us to take these steps seriously-the inevitable escalation of our bills for heat and power. As one engineer said to me, "When electricity costs 5 cents a kilowatt-hour instead of 2 cents, you'll turn off a lot of the lights!" 0

A REPORTER AT THE SUMMIT In this article, written specially for SPAN, the chief of 'Time' magazine's Washington bureau offers his personal assessment of President Nixon's recent summit meeting with Soviet Communist Party leader Leonid Brezhnev. The June visit of Mr. Brezhnev to America, widely hailed as the event marking t~e end of the Cold War, made it particularly clear that 'the Soviet Union was ready and eager to welcome Yankee traders.'

There are special memories of the day that J>resident Richard Nixon and his summit caravan arrived in Moscow in May 1972.

Those of ¡us who had gone to Peking with the President three months earlier were still pondering the significance of that meeting with its colq and empty streets, its muted ceremonials in the Great Hall, and the shadowy glimpses of Mr. Nixon and Mr. Chou .En-lai talking philosophy.

In Moscow on that May day a year ago there was pomp and blare, streets jammed with curious spectators, miles of high-rise apartment buildings flanking the route of the Presidential motorcade arid finally the gilt spires of the Kremlin, a reminder (in perfect restoration) of old glories and anguishes.

That night a group of us dined in the National Hotel across from Red Square and the great contrast with China and the nature of this new adventure in the Soviet Union was even more finely drawn. Across the way the walls of the Kremlin were bathed in floodlights, much like the Lincoln Memorial back in Washington.

Up on the stage at one end of the dining room, an overweight blonde sang the theme song from the American movie Dr. Zhivago, a film banned in Russia. In another corner of the room there was the constant popping of champagne corks and then some beautifully exhilarated Georgians jumped between the tables and began dancing. At that moment I looked out through one of the huge windows toward Red Square and down below on the street was a traffic jam-mini-size by American standards, to be sure, out nevertheless a traffic jam with cars piled up, drivers honking i~ their impatience, and stony-faced policemen stalking toward the obstru~tion.

I remember my amazement at having discovered in such textbook fashion that in Moscow and in the Soviet Union the Western appetites were unleashed and growing. Such large and simple observations, plain to others, often have a way of eluding those of us who dwell in the musty thickets of politics and protocol. But there before us in one sweeping tableau from dining table to Red Square were the gnawings for the better life. It all came into clearer focus during the rest of that week, President Nixon's first Soviet summit. The larger purpose of all the talk and all the document-signing was, of course, to reduce fear and tension, to

usher in a generation of peace, to turn down the great arms race and free the energies of both nations to meet the internal demands of the people.

Having set off down that road together a year ago, having proven their mutual credibility and sincerity, Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon in their next meeting-this time on American soil in June 1973-seemed to settle themselves comfortably in the spirit of detente.

At Camp David, Maryland, where he rested his first night in the United States, Mr. Brezhnev found a blue windbreaker with a Presidential seal sewn on it. Next to his bed was a Russianlanguage guidebook on Camp David, a recreational mountain retreat. At Blair House, his official residence in Washington for this visit, Mr. Brezhnev was amply supplied with American specialty items-shaving cream, after-shave lotion and hair spray. When he had finished his conferences he went away laden with more marvels of American consumerism. The largesse for this Communist leader set a record and included a Lincoln Continental valued at $10,000, a Pedersen-Mossberg hunting rifle that retails for $12,000 and an electric golf cart. He seemed as pleased with his new possessions as any American capitalist, which perhaps proves

the point once again that beneath the rough surface most people of this world have immense simiiarities. Indeed, when President Nixon halted one of the meetings and marched Mr. Brezhnev out to see his new car, the latter insisted on taking a spin right there and insisted that Mr. Nixon go along. Apparently the President looked a bit apprehensive as he climbed in beside the Soviet leader.

Mr. Brezhnev smiled and said: "Don't worry, I'm a very good driver. I drive a lot." Replied Mr. Nixon: "I never drive. I haven't driven fOr four and a half years." Whereupon Mr. Brezhnev put the car in gear and zoomed around the roads of the area. (President Nixon later chuckled to his aides that it was a good thing traffic was sparse when they rounded the curves or the summit might have ended abruptly.)

Mr. Brezhnev put the heart of this mission in plain Russian when he talked to American business leaders. "The old Russian merchants used to carry their goods to Persia and sell them there and buy Persian goods and bring them back to Russia. That was. the basis for friendship even in those days between those two countries .... Without trade, no normal relations between any two countries are possible."

With Secretary of the Treasury George Shultz and 49 American bankers and businessmen, he was bent on soothing ancient antipathies that these free enterprisers carried with them. The firms included some of America's largest (see list on page 16). They assembled at Blair House, just across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, and for almost two hours listened to a spirited monologue on the glories of interdependence.

There was hope for new markets, Mr. Brezhnev assured his guests. "We men can use one suit," he said. "But you know women. They want to change their clothes three times a day."

He pumped the hand of each man and made certain he heard his name and the name of his firm. "When you get to Moscow be sUF to come and see me," he told one executive. The man, no stranger to the difficulties of coping with Soviet bureaucracy, suggested that this might be difficult. "Just write me a note and we'll get together," he said, acting more like the chairman of the board than the Gene~al Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. "We have lost 20 years in the Cold War," he lamented at one point in this meeting. "We should have been doing business together." Secretary Brezhnev did not settle the blame on either side, a restraint that mar1~edhis entire visit. He hammered home the point time and time again that all that was past. The Soviet Union was ready and eager to welcome Yankee traders.

To prove it there were some concrete agreements. The two leaders ended double taxation on private citizens and companies of one country living and doing business in the other country. They agreed to create a Soviet-U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to expand embassy commercial counseling in Moscow and Washington, to extend Soviet-U.S. air routes. Ten additional U.S. firms were given accreditation to do business in Moscow.

Mr. Brezhnev recognized the importance of the U.S. Congress in America's scheme of action and invited 25 leading Senators and Representatives for lunch (with five Soviet wines) at Blair House.

From Congress must come the most-favored-nation status which could mean as much as a 50 per cent cut in tariffs on Soviet imports to the United States. Angered by the Soviet policy on Jewish emigration, 77 Senators and 284 Representatives have backed legislation denying the special status to any nation that limits free emigration.

Secretary Brezhnev did not deny earlier abuses. But he took a positive posture, pointing out to his guests that most Jews who had applied to leave the Soviet Union had been given permission.

"We came here to consolidate good things, not to quarrel," he said. While most of the Senators and Congressmen came away

from the lunch with reservations, they, too, seemed impressed by the new face ,of Communism.

For all of its briefcase grey-flannel flavor, this summit was set in traditional diplomatic context, and benefits accrued for a more tranquil ~orld beyond the market place. While none of the agreements signed were monumental, they were a further display of the harmony between the two superpowers. The accords nudged both nations just a little farther from the apocalypse. They signed a mutual forbearance from nuclear war, it kind of code of nuclear ethics. They agreed to complete SALT II negotiations for a permanent limit on offensive nuclear arms by the end of 1974, three years before the end of the .fiye-year temporary "freeze" reached in SALT I last year. Then there were a number of co-operative pledges embracing atomic energy, agriculture, transportation, oceanography, and culture.

It is not the stuff of international spectacle, but it is the stuff which holds people together, that gives nations "a piece of the action," as Henry Kissinger, the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs, likes to put it. "If we all have a stake in this world, then there is less reason to cause trouble."

In the very personal world of Richard Nixon this was the first test of the diplomatic device which he has so carefully constructed in four and a half years. It is designed to run on its own now that it is started. Summitry with the Soviet Union is to become a normal event, something expected and desired by both participants. One of the things that Mr. Brezhnev told those he met in the United States was that he expected President Nixon to come to Moscow next year and that he himself would return to the United States in 1975, when he could become a true tourist and take time to look closely at the country.

It is not that Mr. Nixon expects an end to international trouble or even an end to the threat of war. But if his calculations are correct, these problems can be funneled into the diplomatic channels which have been opened up now, and they can be worked on in a peaceful manner.

All through this summit there were small reminders of how much it contrasts with earlier years, when national anguish was constantly on display and personal enmity ruled the conference chambers. President Eisenhower's "spirit of Camp David" of 1959 disappeared in the acrimony of the Paris summit with Nikita Khrushchev in 1960, following the downing of the American U-2 plane over the Ural Mountains. In 1961 Khrushchev in Vienna again played the part of the bully, hammering the table and roaring at John Kennedy that Berlin was like a bone in his throat which must be taken out.

Even in 1972, when President Nixon was in Moscow, there was tension and Secretary Brezhnev seemed less sure of himself than now. Every decision made then was done by the three-man committee-Messrs. Brezhnev, Podgorny and Kosygin. But this time there was clearly a man who carried with him the full authority of the Soviet Union. Last year in Moscow the agenda was drawn up in advance of each meeting in the morning by Henry Kissinger and Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin and the two men spoke across a green felt-covered table flanked by their aides. This time Mr. Nixon and Mr. Brezhnev carried on the discussions as the spirit moved them, changing from subject to subject sometimes with nothing more than a wave of the hand.

As much as these men are trying to institutionalize summitry, there remains an immense personal increment necessary to assure its success and continuance. They establish first each other's be- . lievability, then they learn the other man's background and outlook, get an assessment of his political dexterity and from this basis they deepen and expand their relationship and, thus, that of the two countries. It has been this way with Mr. Brezhnev and

President Nixon, with the Soviet Union and the United States. It was that way again this June.

In the end, they were two men who seemed very close and very much in a hurry, trying to construct some type of world order and stability for which they would both be remembered. They were convinced, at least for the moment, that the way to do that was not through war but by trade and by cautious trust.

When they met at Camp David, there was the scene of Mr. Nixon and Mr. Brezhnev going to their assigned chairs, then carrying footstools for each other. At every chance the host sought to introduce Mr. Brezhnev to people who were connected with producing or selling. Mter one signing ceremony he walked Mr. Brezhnev over to a Congressman. "Here's Iowa's Bill Scherle," he said. "He's agriculture." For the next five minutes the Soviet engineer wanted to know about corn production in middle America.

When they flew to California, the President's plane, The Spirit of '76, zoomed low oVer the Grand Canyon just at evening. It was a spectacular sightas the sun turned the immense gorge into gold and red. Mr. Brezhnev sat across from Mr. Nixon and they studied the spectacle in silence. When they had passed beyond it, the President spoke: "You thought it was a good scene?"

Secretary Brezhnev answered: "It is certainly very beautiful, Mr. President, very beautiful indeed. But another thought which comes to mind-there are no fields. It's a pity that it's so barren. But all countries have such p'laces."

If buried deep within Mr. Brezhnev there beat the old ideological fervor, it was subdued. For this hour, anyway, there was a grander view of civilization, where deserts bloomed and people were building.

0

Dr. Armand Hammer, chairman, Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Los 4ngeles, California.

Harry Heltzer, chairman, 3 M Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, William A. Hewitt, chairman, Deere Company, Moline, Illinois.

Edward E. Hood, vice president, General Electric Company, New York, New Yotk.

Edgar F. Kaiser, chairman, Kaiser Industries Corporation, Oakland, California.

Stephen F. Keating, president, Honeywell Incorporated, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Donald M. Kendall, chairman, Pepsico Incorporated, Purchase, New York.

E. Douglas Kenna, National Association of Manufacturers, Washington, D.C. Donald P. Kircher, chairman, Singer Company, New York, New York.

George I. Kirby, president, Texas Eastern Transmission Corporation, Houston, Texas.

Jerome W. Komes, president, Bechtel Corporation, San Francisco, California.

R. Heath Larry, vice chairman; U.S. Steel Corporation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. .

Robert McClellan, vice president, FMC' Corporation, Chicago, Illinois.

Brooks McCormick, president, International Harvester Company, Chicago, Illinois.

Charles B. McCoy, chairman and president, E.1. du Pont de Nemours Company, Wilmington, Delaware.' . D.J. Morfee,president, Swindell Dressier, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

William C. Morris, chairman and president, Control Data Corporation, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

William H. Morton, president, American Express Company, New York, New York.

James J. Needham, chairman and chief executive officer, New York Stock Exchange, New York, New York.

Ara Oztemel, president, Satra Corporation, New York, New York.

Peter G. Peterson, vice chairman, Lehman Brothers, Incorporated, James F. Bere, president, Borg-Warner Corporation, Chicago,: Washington, D.C. Illinois.

Milton F. Rosenthal, president, Engelhard Minerals and Chemicals, Howard T. Boyd, chairman, El Paso Natural Gas Company, Murray Hill, New Jersey.

Houston, Texas.

Edward B. Rust, president, Chamber of Commerce of U.S., George R. Brown, chairman, Brown & Root Incorporated, Houston, Washington, D.C. Texas.

Sidney Scheuer, chairman. Intertex International, New York, New Willard C. Butcher, president, Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, York.

NeW!York.

William T. Seawell, chairman, Pan American World Airways Howald F. Carver, president and chief executive officer, Gleason Incorporated, New York, New York.

Works, Rochester, New York.

Fred M. Seed, president, Cargill Incorporated, Minneapolis, FrankT. Cary, chairman, IBM Corporation, Armonk, New York.

Minnesota.

Samuel B. Casey, Jr., chairman, Pullman Incorporated, Washington, William P.Tavoulareas, president, Mobil Oil Corporation, New D.C. York, New York.

E.C. Chapman, vice president, Caterpillar Tractor Company, Maurice Templesman, president, Leon Templesman & Company, Peoria, Illinois.

Incorporated, New York, New York.

A.W. Clausen, president, Cross Company, Fraser, Michigan.

O. Pendleton Thomas, chief executive officer and chairman, B.F. Emilio G. Collado, executive vice president, Exxon Corporation, Goodrich Company, Akron, Ohio.

New York, New York.

Jack Valenti, president, Motion Picture Association of America, Cyrus S.Eaton, Sr., chairman, Chesapeake Ohio Railway, Cleveland, Washington, D.C. .

Ohio. . C. William Verity, chairman, Armco Steel Corporation, MiddleDwight Eckerman, executive vice president, the Economic Club of town, Ohio.

New York.

Charles H.Weaver, president, Westinghouse Electric CorporaNelson W. Freeman, chairman, Tenneco, Houston, Texas. tion, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Michel P. Fribourg, president, Continental Grain Company, Thornton A.. Wilson, chairman, Boeing Company, Seattle, New York, New York.

Washington.

Richard C. Gerstenberg; chairman, General¡ Motors Corporation, WaIter B. Wriston, chairman, First National City Bank, New York, Detroit, Michigan.

New York.

New Heaven And Earth

#J~

!~'c , f:-'~f~-'~'¡,\~' .

,

,.

v

,

;,

,." "u ,

"

'. ;)" ~""

The essay which begins overleaf, on the future of America and the world, marks a new turn in the philosophy of prize-winning author Joyce Carol Oates-from a grim despondency to an aggressive optimism.

She envisions man's evolution into a 'higher humanism, an intelligent pantheism' under which 'our intelligence, our wit, our cleverness, our unique personalities-all are simultaneously "our own" possessions and the world's.' Man's new consciousness, she says, will be unaligned with any ideology. If anything, it will be a 'flowering of the democratic ideal, a community of equals.'

'The U.S. is the first nation to suffer/enjoy the death throes of the Renaissance.

The U.S. is preparing itself for a transformation of being.'

I

nspite of current free-roaming terrors in the United States, it is really not the case that we are approaching some apocalyptic close. Both those who seem to be awaiting it with excitement and dread and those who are trying heroically to comprehend it in terms of recent American history are mistaking a crisis of transition for a violent end. Even Charles Reich's much maligned and much misinterpreted The Greening of America, which was the first systematic attempt to indicate the direction we are surely moving in, focuses much too narrowly upon a single decade in a single nation and, in spite of its occasional stunning accuracy, is a curiously American product-that is, it imagines all of history as running up into and somehow culminating in the United States. Consider Reich's last two sentences: " ... For one almost convinced that it was necessary to accept ugliness and evil, that it was necessary to be a miser of dreams, it is an invitation to cry or laugh.

For one who thought the world was irretrievably encased in metal and plastic and sterile stone, it seems a veritable greening of America."

Compare that with the following passage from Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man, a less historical-nationalistic vision: "In every domain, when anything exceeds a certain measurement, it suddenly changes its aspect, condition or nature.

The curve doubles back, the surface contracts to a point, the solid disintegrates, the liquid boils, the germ cell divides, intuition suddenly bursts on the piled up facts.... Critical points have been reached, rungs on the ladder, involving a change of state-jumps of all sorts in the course of development. " Or consider these lines from D.H. Lawrence's poem "Nullus," in which he is speaking of the private "self" that is Lawrence but also of the epoch in which this self exists: There are said to be creative pauses, pauses that are as good as death, empty and dead as death itself.

And in these awful pauses the evolutionary change takes place.

What appears to be a breaking-down of civilization may well be simply the breaking-up of old forms by life itself (not an eruption of madness or self-destruction), a process that is entirely natural and inevitable. Perhaps we are in the tumultuous but exciting close of a centuries-old kind of consciousness-a few of us like theologians of the medieval church encountering the unstoppable energy of the Renaissance.

What we must avoid is the paranoia of history's "true believers," who have always misinterpreted a natural, evolutionary transformation of consciousness as being the violent conclusion of all of history.

The God-centered, God-directed world of the Middle Ages was transformed into the complex era we call the Renaissance, but the transition was as terrifying as it was inevitable, if the innumerable prophecies of doom that were made at the time are any accurate indication. Shakespeare's most disturbing tragedies-King Lear and Troilus and Cressida-reflect that communal anxiety, as do the various expressions of anxiety over the "New Science" later in the 17th century. When we look back into history, we are amazed, not at the distance that separates one century from another, but at their closeness, the almost poetic intimacy.

As I see it, the United States is the first nation-though so complex and unclassifiable an entity almost resists definition as a single unit-to suffer/enjoy the death throes of the Renaissance. How could it be otherwise, since our nation is sensitive, energetic, swarming with life, and, beyond any other developed nation in the world, the most obsessed with its own history and its own destiny? Approaching a kind of manic stage, in which suppressed voices are at last being heard, in which no extreme viewpoint is any longer "extreme," the United States is preparing itself for a transformation of "being" similar to that experienced by individuals as they approach the end of one segment of their lives and must rapidly, and perhaps desperately, sum up everything that has gone before.

It is easy to misread the immediate crises, to be frightened by the spontaneous eruptions into consciousness of disparate

groups (blacks, women, youth, "the backlash of the middle class"); it is possible to overlook how the collective voices of many of oUTbest poets and writers serve to dramatize and exorcize current American nightmares. Though some of our most brilliant creative artists are obsessed with disintegration and with the isolated ego, it is clear by now that they are all, with varying degrees of terror, saying the same thingthat we are helpless, unconnected with any social or cultural unit, unable to direct the flow of history, that we cannot effectively communicate. The effect is almost that of a single voice, as if a communal psychoanalytic process were taking place.

But there does come a time in an individual writer's experience when he realizes, perhaps against his will, that his voice is one of many, his fiction one of many fictions, and that all serious fictions are half-conscious dramatizations of what is going on in the world.

Here is a simple test to indicate whether you are ready for the new vision of man or whether you will fear and resist it: Imagine you are high in the air, looking down on a crowded street scene from a height so great that you cannot make out individual faces but can see only shapes, scurrying figures rather like insects. Your imagination projects you suddenly down into that mass. You respond with what emotiondread or joy?

In many of us the Renaissance ideal is stilI powerful, its voice tyrannical. It declares: I will, I want, I demand, I think, I am. This voice tells us that we are not quite omnipotent but must act as if we were, pushing out into a world of other people or of nature that will necessarily resist us, that will try to destroy us, and that we must conquer. I will exist has meant only I will impose my will 011 others.

To that end man has developed his intellect and has extended his physical strength by any means possible because, indeed, at one time the world did have to be conquered. The Renaissance leapt ahead into its own necessary future, into the development and near perfection of machines.

Machines are not evil, or even "unnatural," but simply extensions of the human brain. The designs for our machines are

no less the product of our creative imaginations than are works of art, though it might be difficult for most people-especially artists-to acknowledge this. But a great deal that is difficult, even outrageous, will have to be acknowledged.

If technology appears to have dehumanized civilization, this is a temporary failing or error-for the purpose of technology is the furthering of the "human," the bringing to perfection of all the staggering potentialities in each individual, which are nearly always lost, layered over with biological or social or cultural crusts. Anyone who imagines that a glorious pastoral world has been lost, through machines,

identifies himself as a child of the city, perhaps a second- or third-generation child of the city. An individual who has lived close to nature, on a farm, for instance, knows that "natural" man was never in nature; he had to fight nature, at the cost of his own spontaneity and, indeed, his humanity. It is only through the conscious control of the "machine" (i.e., through man's brain) that man can transcend the miserable struggle with nature, whether in the form of sudden devastating hailstorms that annihilate an entire crop, or minute deadly bacteria in the bloodstream, or simply the commonplace (but potentially tragic) condition of poor eye-

sight. It is only through the machine that man can become more human, more spiritual. Understandably, only a handful of AmericanÂť have realized this obvious fact, since technology seems at present to be villainous. Had our earliest ancestors been gifted with a box of matches, their first actions would probably have been destructive-or self-destructive. But we know how beneficial fire has been to civilization.

The Renaissance man invented and brought to near perfection the civilization of the machine. In doing this, he was simply acting out the conscious and unconscious demand of his time-the demand that man (whether man-in-the-world or

A vision of hope from a dramatist of nightmares ...

Fiction is only one of the paths by which a writer can bring us to new worlds. Increasing numbers of historians and scientists have begun to write, in terms that must be called factual, of a human future that will be shaped by great leaps of energy and transformations of consciousness.

Among such books that appeared last year are George Leonard's The Transformation; Arthur Koestler's The Roots of Coincidence; Theodore Roszak's Where the Wasteland Ends; Rene Dubos's The God Within; and Andrew Weil's The Natural Mind.

Add earlier books such as Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, William Irwin Thompson's At the Edge of History, and Charles Reich's The Greening of America, plus a dozen others in the same vein, and you see the formation of what might once have been called a movement.

All these writers challenge readers to take a fresh look at human history and human destiny. Many share the use of terms such as "paradigm shift" and "transformation." Yet this is not a collaborative movement.

The books have appeared almost

simultaneously; few of the authors could have drawn ideas from one another. From what, then? From science, with its shimmering visions of unseen energies, and from art.

These rational men, these sober investigators of fact, urge us to an act that has long stood at the center of all artistic endeavor: They would have us change our perception-thus our definition-of the world.

We are seeing the germination of seeds that have been scattered, unknowing of one another, around the earth. Nothing illustrates that more sharply than an essay we recently received from Joyce Carol Oates, who at 35 is probably America's most prolific published author-and whose work here takes a sudden and startling turn.

In the past Miss Oates has said: "Ail of my writing is about the mystery of human emotions," and, "I am concerned with only one thing ... the moral and social conditions of my generation." In most of her fiction she has portrayed characters molded-by society or by their own emotional environments-into obsessive beings for whom violence has

become the only means of communication and self-expression.

The essay on these pages will no doubt come as a surprise to those familiar with the grim, unrelenting nature of Miss Oates's previous work.

With that in mind, she was asked how her seemingly new-found optimism will affect her future work. She responded: " ... I still feel my own place is to dramatize the nightmares of my time, and (hopefully) to show how some individuals find a way out, awaken, come alive, move into the future. I think that art, especially prose fiction, is directly connected with culture, with society; that there is no 'art for art's sake' and never was, but only art as a more conscious, formal. expression of a human communal need, in which individuals seem to speak individually but are, in reality, only giving voice and form to the intangible that is in the air around them .... Surely the whole era participates in every creative act, an isolated individual's statement of hopelessness, voiced to no one at all, or a writer's published and distributed books. It is really all one event, with a multitude of aspects."

'Men of genius whose training has been rigorously scientific ... are expressing views once considered the exclusive property of mystics.'

man supposedly superior to worldly interests) master everything about him, including his own private nature, his own "ego," redefining himself in terms of a conqueror whose territory should be as vast as his own desire to conquer. The man who "masters" every aspect of his own being, subduing or obliterating his own natural instincts, leaving nothing to be unknown, uninvestigated, is the ideal of our culture, whether he is an industrialist or a "disinterested" scientist or a literary man. In other words, I see no difference between the maniacal acquisitiveness of traditional American capitalists and the meticulous, joyless, ironic manner of many scholars and writers.

It is certainly time to stop accusing "industry" or "science" or the "Corporate State" or "Amerika" of being inhuman or antihuman. The exaggerated and suprahuman potency attributed to machines, investigating them with the power of the long-vanquished Devil himself, is amazing.

It is also rather disheartening, if we observe the example of one of our most brilliant writers, Norman Mailer, who argues-with all the doomed, manic intensity of a latemedieval churchman resisting the future even when it is upon him-that the universe can still sensibly be divided into God and Devil, that there can be an "inorganic" product of the obviously organic mind of man. Mailer (and many others) exemplifies the old, losing, pitiful Last Stand of the Ego, the Self-Against-All-Others, the Conqueror, the Highest of all Protoplasms, NameI' and Begetter of all Fictions.

What will the next phase of human experience be? A simple evolution into a higher humanism, perhaps a kind of intelligent pantheism, in which all substance in the universe (including the substance fortunate enough to perceive it) is there by equal right.

We have come to the end of, we are sati:tted with, the "objective," valueless philosophies that have always worked to preserve a status quo, however archaic.

We are tired of the old dichotomies: Sane/ Insane, Normal/Sick, Black/White, Man/ Nature, Victor/Vanquished, and-above all this Cartesian dualism-I/It. Although

once absolutely necessary to get us through the exploratory, analytical phase of our development as human beings, they are no longer useful or pragmatic. They are no longer true. Far from being locked inside our own skins, inside the "dungeons" of ourselves, we are now able to recognize that our minds belong, quite naturally, to a collective "mind," a mind in which we share everything that is mental, most obviously language itself, and that the old boundary of the skin is no boundary at all but a membrane connecting the inner and outer experiences of existence. Our intelligence, our wit, our cleverness, our unique personalities-all are simultaneously "our own" possessions and the world's. This has always been a mystical vision, but more and more in our time it is becoming a rational truth. It is no longer the private possession of a Blake, a Whitman, or a Lawrence, but the public, articulate offering of a Claude Levi-Strauss, to whom anthropology is "part of a cosmology" and whose humanism is one that sees everything in the universe, including man, in its own place. It is the lifelong accumulative statement of Abraham Maslow, the humanist psychologist who extended the study of psychology from the realm of the disordered into that of the normal and the "more-than-normal," including people who would once have been termed mystics and been dismissed as irrational. It is the unique, fascinating voice of Buckminster Fuller, who believes that "human minds and brains may be essential in the total design" of the universe. And it is the abrasive argument of R.D. Laing, the Freudian/post-Freudian mystic, who has denied the medical and legal distinctions between "normal" and "abnormal" and has set out not only to experience but to articulate a metaphysical "illumination" whereby self and other become joined. All these are men of genius, whose training has been rigorously scientific. That they are expressing views once considered the exclusive property of mystics proves that the old dichotomy of Reason/Intuition has vanished or is vanishing.

As with all dichotomies, it will be transcended-not argued away, not bat-

tered into silence. The energies wasted on the old debates-Are we rational? Are we 90 per cent Unconscious Impulses?will be utilized for higher and more worthy human pursuits. Instead of hiding our most amazing, mysterious, and inexplicable experiences, we will learn to articulate and share them; instead of insisting upon rigid academic or intellectual categories (for instance, that "science fiction" is different from other fiction, or less traditional than the very recent "realistic novel"), we will see how naturally they flow into one another, supporting and explaining each other. Yesterday's wildly ornate, obscure, poetic prophecies evolve into today's calm statements of fact.

The vision of a new, higher humanism or pantheism is not irrational but is a logical extension of what we now know. It may frighten some of us because it challenges the unquestioned assumptions that we have always held. But these assumptions were never ours. We never figured them out, never discovered them for ourselves; we inherited them from the body of knowledge created by our men of genius.

Now men of genius, such as British physicist/philosopher Sir James Jeans, are saying newer, deeper things: "Today there is a wide measure of agreement, which on the physical side of science approaches almost to unanimity, that the stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter. ... " Everywhere, suddenly, we hear the prophetic voice of Nietzsche once again, saying that man must overcome himself, that he must interpret and create the universe. (Nietzsche was never understood until now, until the world caught up with him, or approached him.) In such a world, which belongs to consciousness, there can be no distracting of energies from the need to push forward, to synthesize, to converge, to make a unity out of ostensible diversity.

But too facile optlmlsm is as ultimately distracting as the repetitive nihilism and despair we have inherited from the early part of this century. An absolutely honest literature, whether fiction or nonfiction, must dramatize for us the complexities of this epoch, showing us how deeply related we are to one another, how deeply we act out, even in our apparently secret dreams, the communal crises of our world.

If demons are reawakened and allowed to run loose across the landscape of suburban shopping malls and parks, it is only so that their symbolic values-wasteful terror, despair, entropy-can be recognized. If all other dichotomies are uJtimately transcended, there must still be the tension betweena healthy acceptance of change and a frightened, morbid resistance to change.

The death throes of the old values are everywhere around us, but they are not at all the same thing as the death throes of particular human beings. We can transform ourselves, overleap ourselves beyond even our most flamboyant estimations. A conversion is always imminent; one cannot revert back to a lower level of consciousness. The "conversion" of the I-centered personality into a higher, or transcendental, personality cannot be an artificially, externally enforced event; it must be a natural event. It is surely as natural as the upward growth of a plant-if the plant's growth is not impeded. It has nothing to do with drugs, with the occult, with a fashionable cultivation of Eastern mysticism; it has nothing to do with political beliefs. It is not Marxist, not Communist, not Socialist, not willing to align itself with any particular ideology. If anything, it is a flowering of the democratic ideal, a community of equals, but not a community mobilized against the rest of the world, not a unity arising out of primitive paranoia.

In the 'sixties and at present we hear a very discordant music. We have got to stop screaming at one another. We have got ¡to bring into harmony the various discordant demands, voices, stages of personality. Those more advanced must work to transform the rest, by being, themselves, models of sanity and integrity. The angriest

of the ecologists must stop blaming industry for having brought to near perfection the implicit demands of society, as if anyone in our society-especially at the tophas ever behaved autonomously, unshaped by that society and its history. The optimism of The Greening of America seems to me a bit excessive or at least premature.

There is no doubt that the future-the new consciousness-is imminent, but it may take generations to achieve it. The rapidly condensed vision, the demand for immediate gratification, is, once again, typically (and sadly) American. But, though the achievement of Reich's vision is much farther off than he seems to think, it is an inevitable one, and those of us who will probably not share personally in a transformed world can, in a way, anticipate it now, almost as if experiencing it now. If we are reasonably certain of the conclusion of a novel (especially one we have ourselves imagined), we can endure and even enjoy the intermediary chapters that move us toward that conclusion.

One of the unfortunate aspects of American intellectual life has been the nearly total divorce of academic philosophy from the issues of a fluid, psychic social reality.

There are obvious reasons for this phenomenon, too complex to consider at the moment. But the book that needs to be written about the transformation of America cannot really be written by anyone lacking a thorough knowledge of where we have been and where we are right now, in terms of an intellectual development that begins and ends with the faculties of the mind.

We require the meticulous genius of a Kant, a man of humility who is awakened from some epoch-induced "slumber" to synthesize vast exploratory fields of knowledge, to write the book that is the way into the future for us.

This essay, totally nonacademic in its lyric disorganization, in its bringing together of voices that, for all their differences, seem to be saying one thing, is intended only to suggest-no, really, to make a plea for-the awakening of that someone's slumber, the rejection of the positivist-linguist-"naming" asceticism that has made American philosophy so

disappointing. We need a tradition similar to that in France, where the role of "philosopher" is taken naturally by men of genius who can address themselves to varied groups of people-scientists, writers, artists, and the public itself. Our highly educated and highly cultivated reading public is starved for books like The Greening of America. We have an amazingly fertile but somehow separate nation of writers and poets, living dreamily inside a culture but no more than symbiotically related to it. Yet these writers and poets are attempting to define that culture, to "act it out," to somehow make sense of it. The novel is the most human of all art forms-there are truths we can get nowhere else but in the novel-but now our crucial need is for something else. We need a large, generous, meticulous work that will synthesize our separate but deeply similar voices, one that will climb up out of the categories of "rational" and "irrational" to show why the consciousness of the future will feel joy, not dread, at the total rejection of the Renaissance ideal, the absorption into the psychic stream of the universe.

Lawrence asks in his strange poem "New Heaven and Earth" a question that seems to me parallel with Yeats's famous question in the sonnet "Leda and the Swan." In the Yeats poem mortal woman is raped by an immortal force, and, yes, this will and must happen; this cannot be escaped. But the point is: Did she put on his knowledge with his power, before the terrifying contact was broken? Lawrence speaks of mysterious "green streams" that flow from the new world (our everyday world-seen with new eyes) and asks, " ... what are they?" What are the conversions that await us?

0 About the Author: Joyce Carol Oates, 35, is one of America's most prolific authors. Of her five novels, Them won the National Book Award in 1970. She has also published several collections of short stories, essays and poems. Two of her plays have been produced in New York.

She was such a consistent winner of the O. Henry Prize Awards that in 1970 an Awardfor Continuing Achievement was created for her.

EDWARD STEICHEN 1879-1973 Edward Steichen, who died recently at the age of 94, did more than anyone else to raise photography to the level of art. Originally a painter who regarded photography as an extension of painting, Steichen at 40 renounced the brush and devoted himself to the camera.

His remarkable career then included 14 years as America's top commercial photographer when the world's celebrities sat for him; service in World War II when he pioneered a new approach to military photography; and directorship of the photographic department at New York's Museum of Modern Art, where his rare knack for guiding young talent found a rewarding outlet. His crowning achievement was the "Family of Man" exhibition in 1955, for which he selected 503 photographs from 68 countries designed to "mirror the essential oneness of mankind throughout the world." More than five million people in 35 countries-including lakhs in India-admired them.

Steichen's famous portraits included those of Roosevelt, Churchill, Shaw, Garbo and Chaplin, which were considered by many critics to be the highest point to which photographic portraiture has yet been brought. A Steichen exhibition in 1942 inspired a New York Times critic to write: "Photography has turned a corner." His greatness as photographer did not derive from his techniques though he introduced many innovations and set many trends-but from his highly individual way of seeing and reacting to people. His three great loves were photography, people and flowers, and on the occasion of his 90th birthday he said: "The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each man to himself. That is no mean function. Man is the most complicated thing on earth and also as naive as a tender plant." Steichen performed this mission nobly.

Steichen's famous photograph (righ t) of French sculptor Auguste Rodin sitting near two of his works- "The Thinker" (far right) and "Victor Hugo"-was a favorite of the photographer. He visited Rodin every

Saturday for almost a year before attempting to shoot, then combined two negatives for this print. Photo at top: Edward Steichen with Twirp, a special pet from his Connecticut farm whose gardens attracted many birds.

The climactic moment when Steichen clicked his shutter was often preceded by intricate preparation and strict discipline, as with Gloria Swanson's veilcoveredportrait (above), or the montage of two theater greats, Eugene O'Neill and George M. Cohan (below left). Some of his most famous photos were spontaneous, illustrating Steichen's ability to recognize and capture a fleeting

moment of beauty. Examples are dancer Therese Duncan's worshipful arms amidst the ruins of Greek temples on the Acropolis in Athens (below center). and actress Greta Garbo pushing back damp hair after a hard day's work under hot lights (below right). Facing page: Another Steichen favorite entitled "Maypole"-a photograph of New York's Empire State Building,

Ip.dian writer Shrikant Varma, reliving memories of the International Writers' Workshop in Iowa, describes it as a meeting of minds, nations and cultures that transcends ideology. More than 130 writers from 47 countries, including five from India, have participated so far in this unique annual project, the brainchild of American poet Paul Engle.

The 1971 Writers' Workshop poses on an Iowa farm. Paul Engle (in wide striped tie) is at upper right. Author Varma (wearing long scarf) is at center.

1first met Paul Engle 10 years ago. He was in India to meet writers and acquaint himself with contemporary Indian literature. Seven years later, in May 1970, I received a surprise letter. "J have selected you for this year's International Writers' Workshop," he wrote.

"Please let me know if you will come."

I wondered how he was able to remember, after seven years, a young writer whom he had met just once by chance. I learned later that he had been reading translations of my poems.

That letter led to a memorable experience.

Paul Engle is a leading American poet. But he is more than that. He founded and built Iowa's famous school of letters-the International Writers' Workshop. This is a unique manifestation of the American academic community's willingness to honor the world's literary talent irrespective of ideology.

Year after year Paul Engle brings together writers, poets and playwrights from all continents, provides them with a creative leisure theybadly need, and expects nothing in return save the little pleasure of conversation with creative people, most of whom hardly know English.It is enthralling to watch these writers expressing their sorrow, joy and conflict, sometimes articulating complex intellectual problems, in a language which was alien to them at home.

The workshop does not require its participants to complete any writing project during the eight-month (October to June) session. It merely creates the conditions for writing; it does not attempt to define or arrange the leisureavailable to the writer. Being a creative writer himself, Paul Engle is aware that writing results from an inner compulsion; the best conditions may sometimes be unproductive. As Paul Engle puts it: "You are free to write or not to write anything."

A workshop fellowship is the ideal reward for a writer seeking an escape from the noncreative tensions and the bustle of city life.

Honoring writers is an old tradition in Iowa City, Iowa, once described by British author C. P. Snow as "the most cosmopolitan settlement among small towns in the world."

The city, with a population around 50,000, owesits cosmopolitan and academic flavor to the University of Iowa, which was founded there in 1847. Paul Engle came there in the mid-'thirties to found an American Writers' Workshop for young literary talent. American poets, playwrights and novelists who have learnt or taught at Iowa include Tennessee Williams, William Stafford, Robert Penn

Warren, Philip Roth, Robert Bly, Anthony Hecht, Jane Cooper, Flannery O'Connor, W.D. Snodgrass, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Vance Bourjaily and William Price Fox. Philip Roth, who taught at the Iowa Workshop from 1960 to 1962, said that no matter how much criticism has been leveled at socalled "writers' schools," Iowa had been productive and worthwhile for him. "The workshop did a marvelous job of keeping young writers serious about their work," he said, "and the University of Iowa provided them with a fine environment in which to live cheaply, as well as being away from the temptations of the market place. It always seemed to me that writing students benefited by being around one another, too; that it was a help to have a community of like-minded sufferers."

In his own view, Paul Engle believes that "good writers, like hybrid corn, are both born and made." He feels that what he is striving to create at Iowa is "a community of articulate people who are allowed to run, stumble and jump over the lovely landscape of the imagination."

Encouraged by his success with native writers, Paul Engle founded the International Writers' Workshop seven years ago. Since then, writers from many continents have been going to Iowa to take part in one of the most prestigious literary curriculums of the world.

So far, more than 130 writers from 47 countries have attended the program. They include five from India-myself, Sunil Gangopadya, Sarat Chandra, Sanka Ghosh and, in the present year, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra.

(Mehrotra is working on an anthology of Indian poetry since independence-in all major languages of India-'-which will be published by the University of Iowa Press.)

The 47 nations which have sent writers to Paul Engle's workshop are Argentina, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Ethiopia, France, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Liberia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, the Republic of China, Romania, Singapore, South Korea, South Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, the United Kingdom, the United States, Venezuela, West Germany and Yugoslavia.

Early every October writers start arriving in Iowa. A grant enables them to travel all over America at the end of the term. Paul

Engle reserves apartments for them in Mayflower, a posh residential building on the bank of the Iowa River, which remains frozen during the three winter months.

How does Engle manage to get together writers from as many as five continents? Even the minds of "ministries of culture" would boggle at the task of processing the records of aspiring writers from more than a hundred countries. But Paul Engle has a computer's memory-and a judgment that's sounder. Recommendations do not influence him. The extravagant resumes writers sometimes provide do not awe him. Studying translations, traveling round the world, he keeps an eye on writers who have attained distinction-or merely displayed promise.

The International Writers' Workshop is mainly a creative-cum-translation project.

Round the year, writers work on themes they have in mind. The typewriters in Mayflower are never silent. They yield a number of poems, short stories and novels every year. In the 1970-71 project which I attended, Gerson Poyk of Indonesia and Hector Libertella of Argentina completed their novels. Imre Szasz of Hungary wrote his memoirs. Primoz Kozak of Yugoslavia almost completed his play.

Collections of poems were produced by Adrian Paunescu of Romania, Artur Miedzyrzecki of Poland, Moshe Dor of Israel, Dong Kyu-Hwang of Korea and Gozo Yoshimasu of Japan. Hector Libertella and Gozo Yoshimasu won top awards from their respective countries for works produced while in Iowa.

American teachers and students volunteer to translate works of the visiting writers into English. Some part-time translators also collaborate with the authors. In 1970-71, the Workshop engaged three young American writers, Denis Johnson, John Batki and Elliott Anderson, to collaborate with the visiting writers in translating their works.

Visiting poets work with translators every afternoon in two or three small rooms in the English and Philosophy Building. Most poets give the translators a prose version of their poems for rendering into poetry. The translators try to retain the flavor of the original, and study the sound pattern and rhythm of the poem. Their responsibility is twofold: to do justice to themselves, to do no injustice to the poet.

My own poems were recreated into English ~

by Elliott Anderson. I had with me a draft translation done by my friend Vishnu Khare,

What Engle is striving to create at Iowa is 'a community of articulat,

a young Hindi poet and an excellent translator. This draft could hardly be improved.

However, we decided to re-do it for an audience unfamiliar with "the Oriental sensibility." For days Anderson and I worked together-on the original, discussing phrases and paraphrases. We took care to preserve local color in the poems. The following excerpts from a few of our collaborative translations will illustrate this point.

Children murmur in their sleep. Mothers waken.

Homeless women knock on doors, And when the doors do not open, weep.

My failure makes me bitter, My failure shouts slogans at closed doors: "Meet our demands! Give us bread and ghee!"

-from "Epitaph"

I had won poetry by swayamvara.

Now, the Turks come to take her away.

It is futile to appeal.

There is no code: everything has been destroyed, Even Konarak.

Count the evidence of my existence.

Carry the loot away.

Nothing remains in Somnath.

Ask Survivor Gajnavi, the survivor.

If you can build an eternal city, Build an eternal city.

-from "The Conqueror"

The truth is out (similes Have been abolished Otherwise I might Have said Like grass Springing From Fog) From the year 2000 in the year 2000 Boredom Arrested Everyone Wherever he may have been.

The sorrow of the earth Emerges from its lonely corner Like afox And looking skyward WeepsGive it Shelter.

28 -from "Augury"

From time to time the Workshop held a poetry recital by its participants for an invited audience.

I remember two sessions-an evening of Asian poetry and an evening of European poetry. In June 1971, at the end of our program year, Nelson Arietti of Venezuela brought out a pictorial work based on the poems we had produced or translated in Iowa.

Intellectually, the most exciting feature of the Workshop was the Thursday evening session that discussed trends in contemporary writing. Every week a selected writer presented a paper on the literary scene in his or her country. Most papers were ably written and gave a lucid exposition of the mind of the writer in conflict with himself.

Sometimes general issues were debated. On one occasion a certain writer remarked that Hemingway's understanding of man's predicament is hardly relevant to the contemporary writer. This led to an uproar. The writer who made this remark found at least a dozen writers arrayed against him. To my surprise, Hemingway received the strongest support from East European writers. What better example could there be of international understanding? Often, discussions continued well beyond the formal closure of the meeting.

At another meeting, the absence of tragedy in Indian writing came in for criticism. While even Asian authors failed to understand this phenomenon, Romanian novelist Aurel Dragos Munteanu, who is also a brilliant student of Indian philosophy, rose to explain it.

"India," he remarked, "is not simply a geographical entity. It is also a frame of mind.

The Indian mind does not accept death. Consequently, it banishes tragedy."

The International Writers' Workshop would have been colorless and apathetic without its literary controversies, its burning intellectual battles. These did not create ill-will among the writers present but brought them closer. Once an eminent professor spoke on the making of modern literature. He launched a scathing attack on modern writing. He attacked Becket-who, he said, heralds the age of silence. He was profound, his arguments were sound. But we were partisans of modern writing. We felt compelled to defend it. At the end of his talk the speaker invited questions. The atmosphere was grim. Suddenly I rose and said: "What you have said about modernism in literature may be true. But will you kindly tell us what is the alternative to modern writing?" The speaker faltered and failed to answer. There was applause from fellow-writers, relieved at the speaker's failure to answer the question. Later, I apologized to our guest for having asked him an inconvenient question.

He said: "I appreciate your question. In your place I would ask the same question. A writer must define and defend his position. Unless he does so he has no right to describe himself as

a writer. I am happy you did so."

The weekly Thursday meetings extended into informal late-night discussions at Mayflower. These get-togethers in our apartments were a real education. We talked about sex as an indecipherable symbol in contemporary fiction, about the relevance of Maoism, about a host of other subjects, often generating heat.

Authors most discussed were Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Jean-Paul Sartre, Andre Malraux, Henry Miller, Octavio Paz, Walt Whitman, Albert Camus, Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, Herbert Marcuse, Pablo Neruda, George Lucas, Yukio Mishima, Robert Lowell, Gunter Grass, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Jorge Luis Borges.

Early one December night, Hungarian author Imre Szasz and his British wife Elizabeth invited some of us to their apartment to bid farewell to Miclos Vada, literary editor of the New Hungarian Quarterly, who was to depart the next morning. The night-long poetry session over drinks got so absorbing that Vada almost missed his plane. He would have, but for Elizabeth's presence of mind.

There were several such get-togethers at Mayflower. They enriched the creative personalities of Workshop participants.

Mayflower is in fact a unique experiment in international living. In Paul Engle's words: "The creative imagination is wonderfully alert in breaking down the barriers of nationality and language."

Every Mayflower apartment has a livingcum-study room, with a kitchen and a bath shared with the occupant of an adjoining room. When I arrived in Iowa, I did not like this arrangement of a shared apartment. But I soon became friendly with Gozo Yoshimasu, who shared my apartment. I realized that it is not the apartment we shared but each other's emotions and problems.

Romania's Aurel Munteanu and Ghana's Joseph Abruqua shared another apartment.

They had nothing in common and did not know each other's language, but were good friends. It was similarly difficult to fathom the bond between Korea's Dong-Kyu and Argentina's Hector Libertella. Was it the California wine they guzzled, or their evening stroll?

It isn't mere friendships that developed in Mayflower: at least one romance blossomed.

While in Iowa my friend Gozo Y oshimasu got engaged to Workshop colleague Marilla Parker, a Brazilian beauty. They were married in Tokyo last year.

December in Iowa is a cruel month. Visiting writers .have their first encounter with the snow. For days it snows. Then the university

Polish poet-couple Artur and Julia Miedzyrzecki enjoy a quiet stroll near the Iowa river. A colleague of author Varma at the 1971 Workshop, Artur Miedzyrzecki taught Polish at Iowa.

~

people who are allowed to run, stumble and jump over the lovely landscape of the imagination.'

closes for the Christmas holidays. Life comes to a standstill. With students having departed for their native towns, the city wears a deserted look. Mayflower reminds one at this time of Sartre's play, No Exit. Those who have come with their spouses confine themselves to their apartments. Those living alone train their eyes on television sets.

Even the resourceful Paul Engle feels helpless. It is now that his beautiful Chinese wife, Hua-Ling, comes to everyone's aid. She organizes cocktail parties and other get-togethers.

As a matter of fact it is difficult to conceive of Workshop without Hua-Ling. A writer in her own right, she is a woman of extraordinary oriental charm. She has published a number of books in Chinese and has translated Mao Tse-tung's poems into English. Being codirector of the program, she arranges picnics and excursions throughout the year to the beautiful places around Iowa City-to Ammana and Racine, and to the banks of the Mississippi River. Hua-Ling also serves delicious food. Only those who have lived in international hostels can realize what a prominent part food plays in promoting international understanding. You may not subscribe to the thoughts of Chairman Mao, but you cannot help salivating at the sight of Chinese food.

It is not a coincidence that most writers in Mayflower ate their own national food-partly because they preferred it, partly because

they wanted to introduce others to their food.

The Workshop taught us that every nation has much to offer-by way of food, by way of thought, by way of new insights into hearts and minds. It also taught us to transcend ideology. Politics and ideology may divide the world, but in Iowa City ideological conflicts often evoked warmth among writers. I remember Gelatio Guillermo, a Filipino poet who was the youngest Workshop participant and an admirer of Che Guevara. He was quite vociferous, inviting verbal duels and dubbing everyone who did not agree with him as "reactionary." He would knock at your door at midnight and drag you into a discussion. To many he was an unwelcome guest. Things changed when he read a poem (reproduced in part below) at a symposium. It revealed a troubled mind but a lyrical personality.

From this height I could no longer recognize my father.

The strong wings of the air still beat frantically with his warning.

I hear the waning syllable of my name sobbed for the last time Reminding me that I am of the earth, but I keep rising.

I had always been obedient to the laws phrased by my father.

Together we constructed our country's fables and mythologies

For the fatal instances of transgressions. I marvel at his skill: He shaped these wings for me who was not born a bird.

How familiar this brightness must have been to that God's Brave child, in the olden times. The universe whirled. My wings!

The sky soared stiffly, hurling him down to his childhood sea.

Was it a burning track his father saw from where he in his old wisdom stood?

Distrust the door you open in late evening.

His poem suddenly revealed him to us -a suffering individual dying to share the suffering of others. Soon he became a welcome guest.

The International Writers' Workshop brings about a meeting of minds, a meeting of nations, a meeting of cultures. It creates the conditions that evoke the best in many writers.

Paul Engle's is no mean achievement.

0

About the Author: Shrikant Varma is a special correspondent of Din am an, a Times of India publication. He has publishedfour collections of poems, one novel and two volumes of short stories. Varma's works have been published in several countries including the United States, United Kingdom, the U.S.S.R., West Germany and Japan.

FOR WHOM THE DECIBELTOllS Noise, an inseparable part of everyday living for many people, has damaging physiological and psychological effects.

Robert Alex Baron is a man with a quiet obsession.

For nine years he has fought odds-on, trying to conquer a problem that most people consider inseparable from everyday living. For nine years he has tried to convince industry, government, and the public that they are sitting on a time bomb that every year ticks faster and faster, louder and louder.

Baron is obsessed by noise.

He has been so ever since 1964, when clangorous subway construction outside his Manhattan apartment disrupted his life. Giving UIY a' career as a Broadway theater manager, he founded Citizens for a Quieter City (CQC) and began entreating America to shush up.

Today CQC is one of the nation's leading noise-abatement groups, and Baron is one of the most outspoken of a new breed of reformers: the noise fighter.

That breed-composed of scientists, engineers, legislators, environmentalists, and laymen-is just beginning to make itself heard. Scarcely a day goes by that a new state or local anti-noise program isn't announced, and President Nixon recently signed the most far-reaching noise-control law in America's history.

A revolution of quiet is in progress, fomented by the efforts of Baron and other noise fighters to make Americans aware of the consequences of what has been called "the world's most prevalent pollution." Consider: oise contributes to development of cardiovascular problems such as heart disease and high blood pressure, some researchers say. Dr. Gerd Jansen of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Industrial Physiology compared workers exposed to high and low noise levels. The high-noise group had more circulatory problems, cardiac disturbances, neurosensory and motor impairment, and even more social conflicts at home and at work.

Noise can influence unborn babies, producing malformations in the fetus's nervous system that may affect behavior later in life. Dr. Lester Sontag of the Fells Research Institute in Yellow Springs, Ohio, has found that startling sounds can quicken a human fetus's heart rate and cause its muscles to contract. He found that rats subjected to in utero auditory stress showed disorganized behavior when grown.

Noise can contribute to hypertension, a cause of gastro-

intestinal problems such as peptic ulcers. Soviet studies show that workers exposed to high noise levels had twice the incidence of hypertension and up to four times the incidence of peptic ulcers, 10 times the incidence of impaired hearing, and 12 times the incidence of subjective complaints about their health as did other workers.

Noise reduces the depth and quality of sleep and thus may adversely affect over-all mental and physical health, several studies have shown. Dr. Colin Herridge, a British psychiatrist, found in a two-year study that persons living alongside London's Heathrow Airport have a significantly higher rate of admission to mental hospitals than persons living in socially similar but quieter areas.

The best-established effect of noise, of course, is that it can cause hearing loss and deafness. And it needn't be industrial or other excessively loud noise. Medical experts now believe that our hearing worsens with age partly because of exposure to the typical noises of our industrialized society. Dr. Samuel Rosen, a noted ear surgeon from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, studied the Mabaans, a primitive African tribe living in a quiet environment. He found that Mabaan men of 75 heard as well as the average 25-year-old American man.

Most worrisome of all to many researchers is the subtle, insidious nature of noise-its ability to produce these damaging effects even when we think we are not disturbed, even when we are so accustomed to the noise that we are no longer consciously aware of it. Victor Gruen, an internationally known city planner, no doubt had this quality in mind when he called noise "a slow agent of death."

Noise-control advocates are concerned about noise not only because of its physiological and psychological effects, however. They also worry that the din is seriously damaging America's quality of life.

The average American may be awakened by the grinding whine of a garbage truck or the barking dogs of his increasingly crime-conscious neighbors. He rides to work on a screeching subway or amid the roar of cars, trucks, buses, and motorcycles.

On the streets he is assailed by the cacophony of jackhammers and pile drivers. On the job he is surrounded by clanging machinery or by clattering typewriters, ringing telephones, and intruding conversations.

At home he is faced with the roar of the power lawn mower, the blaring of a neighbor's hi-fi, and, likely as not, the thunder of jets overhead.

Even when he seeks quiet at the beach, his peace is often shattered by racing dune buggies, speedboats, and the ubiquitous transistor radio.

This lack of quiet has a high price. The World Health Organization estimates that noise costs the United States

'The noisemaker is on the defensive,' says America's anti-noise crusader Alex Baron. 'Noise is finally on the agenda.'

more than $4 billion annually in accidents, absenteeism, inefficiency, and compensation claims. No one has estimated the cost of lowered property values near major noise sources, such as airports.

Just what is "noise?" Usually it's defined as unwanted sound or, as a 1968 U.S. Government report termed it, "sound without value." As noise fighters are fond of pointing out, the word apparently derives from the Latin nausea.

Noise is measured by several complex systems, but probably the best-known unit of measurement is the decibel (db). The decibel measures a sound's intensity, or, to the ear, its loudness.

Because decibels progress logarithmically, each jump of 10 db means a lenfold increase in sound intensity. Thus a 30-db sound is 10 times as intense as a 20-db sound and 100 times as intense as a 10-db sound. The human ear perceives each IO-db increase as an approximate doubling of loudness. It is generally agreed that too much exposure to noise above 85 db can damage hearing. Sound causes physical pain at about 130 db.

We may hear leaves rustling at 10 to 20 db, a normal living-room conversation at 50 db, a food blender at 80 db, a subway train or heavy city traffic at 90 db, a snowmobile or power mower at 100 db, a rock band at 120 db (the Rolling Stones hit 136 db in their last U.S. tour), and a jet take-off at 140 db.

While noise has been a problem since antiquity (the racket in Rome's streets so annoyed Julius Caesar that he banned chariot traffic after dark), there is more concern about it today than ever before. Much "anti-noise noise" is hysterical in tone: Some noise-control advocates say noise levels in U.S. cities are increasing one decibel per year and that "every city dweller will be deaf by the year 2000."

Calmer critics of noise concede that it's impossible to make such statements with certainty.

What is certain, as a recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report notes, is that external and internal environments in the United States have become significantly noisier in the past 20 years. So much so, says the EPA, that, "Whereas noise levels sufficient to induce some degree of hearing loss were once confined mainly to factories and occupational situations, noise levels approaching such intensity and duration are today being recorded on city streets, and in some cases in and around the home."

The problem is twofold, says the EPA. First there are more-and louder-noise sources today than ever before.

Second, the noise has spread geographically as America's population has dispersed from city to suburb and beyond.

The post-World War II architectural trend toward lighter and thinner buildings compounds the problem. So there's more noise, in more places, and we hear it better because our homes and apartments transmit noise so readily.

The EPA report says noise adversely affects at least

80,000,000 Americans-40 per cent of the population.

Roughly half the impact represents a potential health hazard in terms of hearing impairment alone, the report says. The other half represents reduced ability to converse in the home. And these figures exclude persons exposed to harmful noise at work, estimated as high as 16,000,000; sources outside the study's scope, such as rock music; or appliances, which the EPA says interfere with the speech and sleep of nearly all Americans at some time.

Ironically, says Dr. Alvin F. Meyer, Jr., director of EPA's two-year-old Office of Noise Abatement and Control: "The technology exists today to reduce almost all types of noise. The problem is that the technology isn't being used. We know what needs to be done; we just need to put our knowledge to work."

The EPA report cites the statistics, but what of the ordinary American whose life has been disrupted by noise?

What does the decibel's toll mean in human terms?

Noise means the misery of sleepless nights. A woman in Manhattan's Lincoln Square area begs for relief from the noise of a beverage-company operation: "They are presently starting to work at 4 a.m. They run the motors of their many trucks to warm them up ....

They load their trucks; the men talk, curse, drop boxes; the trucks zoom, zoom away. This goes on five nights a week, providing the community of workers, children, babies, sickly people, and retired people absolutely no relief. The need for sleep is so great that we cannot take it anymore.

The children cry at night, waking up as if in nightmares.

WE ARE GOING CRAZY." Noise means shutting oneself up in a "big fortress," as David Pierce, a 35-year-old astronomer, says he has done.

After a year of disrupted sleep and being "just generally annoyed about man's inhumanity to man," Pierce gave up his fight with two of his Inglewood, California, neighbors over their five barking dogs. "I wished I had the nerve to get a shotgun and end the problem," he recalls. Instead he moved into a giant housing complex.

Noise means reconstructing one's life around the quiet left in it. Margaret Punke of Sun City, California, says planes from a nearby Air Force base "are flying continuously over the city from early morning till 11:30 p.m.about three minutes apart. ... The noise is so great that one must stop talking while they are overhead. It is also impossible to hear the TV or enjoy the outdoors ....

Sun City and the surrounding area is made up of about 15,000 elderly people, with a good majority being ill, who are in need of rest and quiet, which is now impossible to get."

Noise means trying to live with an intolerable situation over which one has no control. A resident of Pennsylvania, inveighs against the "awful, humming roar" of ventilation fans in a steel sintering plant 10 kilometers away. "It penetrates the very brick walls of the house," he says. "Windows must be kept closed, day and night, and still the noise can be heard above radio and television. Perhaps once or twice a week the fans are not in use, and we enjoy a welcome respite. But then they start up again, and we are 'climbing up the wall' again."

Help may be slow in coming, but there are these reasons to believe that help is on its way:

/

The U.S. Federal Government in 1971 set maximum safe noise levels (90 db for eight-hour exposure) for all workers. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, set up to implement the new law, already has begun citing employers for excessive noise. (Federal inspectors recently found that the presses at The National Observer's headquarters exceed the noise limit. Those presses no longer print The Observer, but they do print The Wall Street Journal. Officials of Dow Jones & Co., Inc., the papers' publisher, say the situation is being corrected.)

The aircraft industry in the U.S. has been building quieter planes since the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), responding to public pressure, set noise standards for new aircraft designs in 1968. In 1972 the FAA suggested that it might require newly built planes of older designs to meet these same restrictions. Citizens living near airports are finding courts more responsive to their complaints now too. Recent rulings, particularly in California, permit citizens to sue airports for both personal and property damages caused by aircraft.

Builders are more conscious of noise, using more sounddeadening materials to, improve acoustical privacy. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in 1971 began requiring that HUD-assisted buildings meet certain noise-reduction standards.

Local and state governments are enacting noise-control laws at a dizzying pace. Chicago scrapped its standards forbidding "unreasonable and unnecessary" noise and set specific db limits on nearly all major noise sources. New York City's building code places noise-transmission limits on apartment buildings. Dozens of smaller cities are enacting tough codes of their own.

U.S. Congress has passed radical new legislation empowering the EPA to set noise-emission standards for construction and transportation machinery, motors, engines, and electrical and electronic equipment. The new law authorizes $21,000,000 to implement the standards over three years. It provides that offending manufacturers and distributors may be fined up to $25,000 per day for violations and sentenced to a year in prison.

Noise critics still aren't assuaged, however. They say the Federal Government's enforcement of occupationalnoise limits has been feeble and that most noisy work environments still exist. They note that most aircraft are older, noisier types, and that noise near airports would be u~comfortable even with an all-new air fleet. And they say that enforcement and funding remain problems even in jurisdictions that have toughened their noise laws.

But a start has been made. Even Robert Alex Baron, who says little substantive noise control has been achieved, admits that much. "The noisemaker is on the defensive," he notes. "And while it looks like we're going to be subject to the torment of undesirable noise exposure for a long time to come, it is now being recognized that it shouldn't last forever. Noise is finally on the agenda."

D About the Author: Barbara Katz, a Washington-based reporter for The National Observer, specializes in articles' on consumer affairs. She turned her attention to the problem of noise after she moved into a neighborhood where 40 dogs were kept as pets.

Nol81 POllUTION IN INDIA Dr. M. Pancholy is another man with a quiet obsession.

As head of the Acoustics Division of the National Physical Laboratory in New Delhi, Dr. Pancholy is obsessed by noise. For years he has been trying to highlight the noise problem, hoping that more people in India would share his obsession and do something aoout it.

Noise, says Dr. Pancholy, is generally defined as unwanted sound. It can be assessed in terms of its physical characteristics such as loudness level on the familiar decibel scale, spectral composition, and whether it is continuous or intermittent. All of these are factors that affect our physical discomfort. The spectral composition, for instance, is of vital importance in the study of the noise problem, he says. "For just as ordinary light is made up of lights of the various rainbow colors, noise is generally made up of comOponents of different pitch mixed in various proportions.

Each component has its own damage potentiality."

Noise is also very subjective. A familiar example is the music from the neighbor's record player or radio. The annoyance is apparently unrelated to any physical parameter of the music and yet the discomfort is genuine. This, adds Dr. Pancholy, "brings us back to the definition that the degree of un wan tedness is a measure of the noisiness of noise."

In India, there has been a rapid growth in the size and activities of cities with the result that noise has reached uncomfortable levels in several of them. It has become a very harrowing part of city and industrial life in the country. To find out the extent of the noise nuisance, Dr. Pancholy and his colleagues at the National Physical Laboratory have conducted a series of syrveys of traffic noise in some of the larger metropolitan cities of India. Their findings, while not startling, are nevertheless revealing. They show that daytime average street noise level in Delhi and Bombay, for instance, is in most cases excessively high, being over 90 decibels in some cases, and seldom falls below 60 decibels.

And what is even more alarming is the fact that more areas in each of these cities are getting close to the 90 decibel level.

But even if the noise problem in India is not quite as acute or as widespread as in some of the larger cities of the world, it is further compounded by our climatic conditions, says Dr. Pancholy~ In India we have to keep our doors and windows open most of the year, with the result that the level of noise inside the house is almost as high as it is outside. This is because sound behaves somewhat like gas in a balloon-even the tiniest opening in the enclosure reduces the enclosure's effectiveness as a barrier.

India, on the other hand, also has a very distinct advantage over the more developed nations as far as unwanted sound is concerned. "Ours is mainly a rural society," says Dr. Pancholy, "and this means that the noise problem in India is primarily confined to cities, larger towns and to industries. For the great number of people who live in the villages noise is not a problem as yet, but might become one in the coming years, if we don't do anything about it now."

THE DEATH OF CASH

by MAL OETTINGER

Credit cards can buy almost anything in America.

Ask Ann Foley who lived for a month in great stylewithout a' cent in her purse.

The newspaper advertisement said simply: "Girl wanted for experimental research project by leading financial concern." Ann Foley was chosen from. dozens of girls who responded because she seemed most enthusiastic about the project. The experiment was being conducted by the Bank of America, one of the largest private banks in the United States. The duties Miss Foley had to per.form: merely live for a month without spending any cash by using the bank's credit card.

Exactly one month and $1,728.98 later, tired but happy, Miss Foley turned in the credit card and claimed complete success.

The only inconveniences she had experienced! were hiring cars instead of taxicabs and" avoiding roads and bridges requiring tolls, and passing up vending machines with soft drinkS or candy.

During her spree, Miss Foley, who ordinarily lives on $275 a month, stayed in top hotels, ate in the best restaurants, went to baseball games several times (but couldn't buy hot dogs), took a trip through Disneyland (one of the largest U.S. amusement parks), went to a dentist, to beauty salons, bought a wig and took dancing lessons. If she had wished, she could have bought flowers or pets or ridden in an ambulance, stayed at'a hospital or flown around the world-all without parting with a penny in hard cash.

A credit card transaction is as simple as paying cash-or perhaps even simpler. This is the scene: Ann has finished a restaurant lunch, and the waiter has presented her bill.

From her purse she takes a small plastic card (about nine centimeters long and five centimeters wide) on which her name and account number are imprinted in raised letters along with the name of the credit card company. The waiter goes off with card and bill and returns momentarily with both, plus

Olf13

SIGN ••.

HERE"

a third item: a simple printed form, in triplicate, onto which he has transferred the information from Ann's credit card and the total from her bill. She writes on the form the sum she wishes to leave as a tip (which the restaurant will pay to the waiter immediately) and signs her name. The waiter gives her back her card and one copy of the formand their business is completed. In a shop or a beauty salon, a hotel or a car r~ntal . agency, the procedure is identical, and Ann would not actually pay the bills involved until they all came in together from the credit card company some time after the first of the following month.

In the United States today, one can use a credit card to cover almost any expense.

Hotels, banks, gasoline companies, retail stores, telephone companies, life insurance companies all issue the wallet-size plastic cards to replace cash. Several credit cards Gover the charges for a wide variety of goods and services.

About 150 million credit cards of various kinds are being distributed in the United States every year. What are the advantages to having these cards that make so many Americans seek them?

Use of credit cards gives people the advantage of being able to make purchases on credit, relieving them of the worry involved in carrying large sums of money or the difficulty of cashing checks. The "all-purpose" card gives them the convenience of paying one monthly bi1l-submitted by the credit card company-instead of separate bills from each of the establishments at which they have charged goods or services during the month.

The credit card system of billing also provides a record of expenditures for tax purposes.

Because the cards can be accepted as readily as cash, they are useful in emergencies-for example, many are accepted by hospitals and ambulances; .nearly all are honored by airlines.

Systems for extending credit continue to grow and play an increasingly ubiquitous role in the life of the average American consumer. The two largest U.S. all-purpose credit card companies are Diners Club Inc. and American Express Company.

The former

EXPIRES 31. AUG. 71

claims some 3,000,000 cardholders and over 500,000 establishments that will honor its cards, while the latter reports over four million cardholders and more than 150,000 participating establishments.

Of course, some people carry both cards. Many millions more persons carry gasoline credit cards, on which the amount that¡ can be charged in anyone transaction is relatively small.

To get a Diners Club or American Express card, a person fills in an application listing his employers for the past three years, his annual income and his bank and other charge accounts. The company checks his references and, if they indicate he is a financially responsible person, issues to hini a rectangular plastic card embossed with his name and a special account number. There is a strip for his signature, which must be affixed to make the card valid. The yearly fee for a Diners Club or American Express card is $15.

Each restaurant, hotd or shop which accepts the card imprints the embossed lettering in it machine, making three Gopies of the charge-one for the establishment, one for the credit card company and one for the customer. The establishment sends a copy to the credit card company, which charges the merchant a fee for the service of billing the customer. The fee may be as high as seven per cent of the bill-or less if the establishment is a large concern doing a considerable volume of business with the credit card firm.

The system of being paid by the business a cardholder patronizes produces the profit of the credit card company. But the merchant IS assured of payment by the company even if the customer fails to pay his credit card bill, and is saved the trouble of checking the patron's credit references himself. Furthermore, the merchant attracts additional business, particularly from travelers, by extending the automatic credit.

The success of the pioneer all-purpose credit card company-Diners Club, which was founded in 1950-has led many other American companies to start simirar credit businesses. Competition in the field is enormously keen and the initial expense and risks of starting such a venture are high. Since the mid '50s, banks have rushed into the field.

More than 3,000 banks issue credit cardsover a thousand getting into the business in the past year.

Most banks charge the cardholder nothing-provided he pays his bills in full within 30 days. After that period, outstanding bills are treated as a bank loan, carrying interest of one to one-and-a-half per cent per month on the unpaid balance. The merchants, many of whom are not as large as the clients of the major credit cards, pay a fee of between three and five per cent on the bills handled by the bank. Banks often feel the term "credit

card" does not do their service justice. One prefers to regard its card as "a new medium of exchange ... a new phase in the constant evolution of money."

The most successful-and one of the firstof the bank credit-card operations is BankAmericard of the Bank of America. One of its officials says: "Our system of exchange of goods began with bartering of property. At a later time, precious objects were used to represent that property and we evolved the system of using coins for exchange. Currency, in time, was used to represent coins, and then checks, for currency. For a variety of reasons, we feel the credit card is the next natural step in evolution."

BankAmericard was started by the Bank of America (despite its name, a privatelyowned bank doing business mainly in California) for Use only in California. Its success led banks in other U.S. states to participate in the use of the card, and there are now over 5,000,000 cardholders and 200,000 co-operating establishments.

If a person's credit card is lost or stolen and he reports it promptly within 24 hours he is not liable for more than $50 worth of charges fraudulently run up on the card in most cases, and sometimes for none. Credit cards are usually delivered by mail and therefore, if someone steals a person's mail, it may be some time before he is aware that an imposter is running up charges against him.

When cards are reported lost or stolen, the companies circulate lists of the numbers to all establishments honoring the card.

The credit card concept has been spreading around the world. Britain 'and France have established systems similar to those of the major U.S. credit cards. Japan is experimenting with vending machines which will accept credit cards for soft drinks, candy and so forth, an idea likely to be adopted by U.S. companies.

American Express, which has travel and banking branches throughout the world, has thousands of establishments in more than a hundred countries which honor its card.

Diners Club extends its agreements on a franchise basis to Europe, Asia, including India, and Africa.

With such wonders as computers and satellite communication now commonplace, it is not impossible to imagine the establishment of a great international charge and credit system which would make coins and currency as quaint and outdated as the wampum of the American Indians or the 'great stone coins of the Yap Islanders seem to us today.

0 About the Author: Mal Oettinger is a Washington writer who contributes articles on various aspects of American lzfe to several popular magazines.

James A. Burke (right), a Democratfrom Massachusetts, is co-author of the Burke-Hartke bill, which would restrict imports to the United States.

Born in 1910, Burke fought in the South Pacific in World War II and was awarded four battle stars and other decorations. After the war, he ' servedfor many years in state political offices and has been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives since 1958.

Jonathan Bingham (left), a Democrat from New York State, is the author of a trade bill designed to ensure fair trade practices in the United States.

Born in 1914, he has had a long and varied career.

He has worked as a correspondent, practiced law, represented the U.S. on the U.N. and has written three books, including Shirt-Sleeve Diplomacy.

He has been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives since 1964.

Like most members of the United States Congress, James A. Burke and Jonathan Bingham are concerned about the dumping of foreign goods on the American market at artificially low prices. While both call for action against unfair practices, they disagree on the methods to be used to ensure fair competition with American goods. Congressman Burke recommends trade legislation to grant quantitative safeguards to provide a fair share for American producers, consumers, workers and communities in meeting the cbanging patterns of international trade. Congressman Bingham, on the other hand, feels that the free flow of goods into the U.S. will engender increased productivity and technological advances.

YES NO

by JAMES A. BURKE

I

nview of the repeated American balance of trade deficits, the U.S. Congress has no alternative but to accept the challenge which confronts the nation's economy. I would not go so far as to liken America's present trade policies to the emperor who wore no clothes, surrounded by multinational trade advisers who continuously reassure him he looked wonderful, but I will go so far as to say that if the emperor has any clothes they are doubtlessly foreign-made.

Critics of the Burke-Hartke bill, which aims to regulate imports to the United States, have made a number of criticisms of the proposal, none of which really, I think, are accurate. Let us take them one by one: No.1: Potential increases in costs to the consumer. The idea is that the tremendous differences in prices between Americanproduced goods and those produced with cheaper foreign labor are passed on to the consumer. Yet what in fact is the case'!

Because of virtually no restrictions on labeling by the U.S. Government, countless goods stamped "Made in U.S.A." are in fact close to lOO-per cent made overseas. In other words, component parts manufactured overseas are shipped to the United States and packaged and assembled. In many cases, the consumer is paying something very close to the American selling price, if not as much, for this cheap foreign product, disguised as it is, for a genuinely American-made product. Even in cases such as shoes or wholly foreign-made electronic items which are identifiable as foreign-made by the consumer, the consumer is paying considerably more than the foreign wholesale or retail selling price and transportation and customs costs.

Again and again, foreign firms have demonstrated an ability to undersell competitors for many years and, in the process, continued

011

page 38

by JONATHAN

BINGHAM

T

oday those who advocate freezing imports and restricting the export of American capital do so out of a legitimate concern for the welfare of the American worker. It is a concern which is shared by many of those who have misgivings about the imposition of such controls on trade.

At the time I became a member of U.S. Congress, hundreds of workers in my congressional district were unemployed.

Hundreds of them are still unemployed. Many more live in fear of losing their jobs. To say that I am concerned about their situation is putting it mildly.

I seek to achieve a middle ground between the positions of consumers and labor, protecting the interests of both groups.

But it must be emphatically stressed that, in America, all workers are consumers and most consumers are workers.

The greater the freedom to trade, the more necessary it is to have effective means of ensuring fair trade. There are foreign firms which seek to gain an unfair competitive advantage by "dumping" their goods on the American market at artificially low prices, attempting to wipe out their American competitors in the process in order to gain a monopolistic control of the market.

Furthermore, some foreign governments seek to subsidize their export industries by paying for losses which those foreign firms sustain by selling their goods below cost on the American market. The danger inherent to the U.S. consumer in this process is that U.S. domestic industries will be dealt a crippling blow which will drive them out of business and, when the . smoke has cleared, foreign interests will have control of the U.S. market and can demand excessive prices for their goods because of the absence of domestic U.S. competition. continued

011

page 39

YIS continued from page 37

sustain losses-some of which are subsidized by their governments-in order to gain a foothold and eventually a significant share of another country's market. Once this share is theirs, previous savings to the consumer disappear; then, far from enjoying low prices and keen competition, the consumer often ends up hostage to prices dictated by foreign manufacturing firms. Insofar as my bill addresses itself to strengthening antidumping provisions of existing legislation, it attempts to address itself to this widespread practice by foreign firms in the U.S. No.2: Future restrictions on buyer selection. I think this also is a false charge. The experience of the past 10 years is that in severalvital industries, American production is phasing out and the consumers are left with no alternative but to buy foreign items.

The American consumer can no longer buy an American baseball or baseball glove or an American-produced umbrella.

Very few ladies' handbags are made in this country today. Increasingly, practically all of the small consumer electronic items suchas hearing aids, transistor radios, phonographs, even radios and televisions are exclusively foreign-made. How this represents greater consumer selection escapes me.

Again, my bill's quota provisions are being grossly distorted.

Its quota provisions would not exclude foreign-made products and thus limit a buyer's selection to American products, but rather allow them to retain their share of the domestic market and even allow for an orderly growth as our domestic market expands, for any given product. In other words, it is the epitome of an orderly market bill, providing for reasonable growth in the market and tying in for the first time foreign imports with market growth. The present policy has seen nothing short of total market disruption in certain key industries underneath the onslaught of a veritable avalanche of cheap foreign goods. I need only refer to our domestic shoe market, electronic goods market, our stainless steel market, and our textile market for this point to be appreciated.

In other words, I seriously challenge whether any nation can afford to allow foreign domination of its domestic market to increase in runaway leaps and bounds and expect that the consumers in the long run are going to be the beneficiaries. Quota legislation would, in fact, guarantee the continuation of buyer selection by insuring the continuation of the present blend of American and foreign made goods.

No.3: Potential retaliation by other governments. My initial reaction is to retort with "Retaliate!" Can they really retaliate any more than they already are? This concern presupposes that we are in fact living in a genuinely free trade world at the moment. Nothing could be further from the truth. Free trade implies a two-way street, with our goods having equally free access to the markets of foreign nations as they have to ours. Such is clearly not the case.

The myriad of trade barriers which has grown up in the last 10to 20 years in both Japan and the European Common Market testifies that the opposite is the case. The free trade lobby likes to point out progress made in the last 20 years in removing tariff barriers, but what has grown up to take the place of such barriers are mechanisms and restrictions which are as effective as they are insidious.

We find, for instance, import licensing requirements a major feature of the trade landscape today in foreign countries, value added taxes with their hidden export subsidies, whopping export tax credits subsidized by the foreign taxpayers, border taxes on imports, governmental restrictions in the name of safety and consumer protection which effectively, for instance, keep out from some countries cars two inches [five centimeters] longer than the smallest cars made in the U.S. In other words, I know of no foreign government which has abdicated governmental intervention in every aspect of the economy in the name of social well-being and economic progress of its citizens. The United States is the only nation that seems to feel that the laissez-faire standards of the 18th century should apply where foreign trade is concerned., Far from encouraging retaliatory action by other governments, I am convinced that our foreign trading partners would begin to seriously negotiate the removal of many of these barriers if they thought for one minute the Burke-Hartke bill was under serious consideration.

I am convinced that much of the progress scored by the Nixon Administration in achieving voluntary agreements with our foreign partners can be traced to the realization by our trading partners that U.S. Congress means business and its patience cannot be taken for granted much longer. I am for free trade, but genuine free trade, not the sham we have today which is positively injurious to United States economic interests.

No.4: We are ignoring the positive contributions of the multinational corporations. I fail to see how we can be too happy with

the much-touted export performance of these firms, when we realize that the bulk of their exports is in the form of machinery.

In a real sense, any nation, 45 per cent of whose' exports are in the form of machinery, is in effect exporting future jobs as wellas these machines are the very ones which will be manufacturing goods to compete with our manufactured goods, with cheap foreign labor making the vital competitive difference.

Pockets of high unemployment exist throughout the United States in the footwear industry, textiles, electronics, steel, and so forth, caused by the flood of imports. Close to one million jobs have been lost in America since 1965. For those who oppose the Burke-Hartke bill, the time has arrived for them to come forward with constructive suggestions on how the problem can be corrected.

0

NO

continued from page 37

In practice, administrative procedures have made the present anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws difficult to invoke.

My plan would simplify and accelerate those procedures.

These changes would assure U.S. manufacturers and workers timely relief in the event of unfair foreign competition. In addition, my bill requires complete disclosure of the origin of foreign-made products and components in all advertising and packaging of those goods. Thus, U.S. consumers would be guaranteed that all producers, foreign and domestic alike, would have an equal opportunity to compete in the U.S. market place with accurately labeled products which reflect true costs and actual competitiveness.

The free flow of foreign products to the U.S. market, given conditions of fair competition, will result in a greater variety of products available to the U.S. consumer at lower prices.

Domestic and foreign producers will be spurred to increase their productivity and to seek technological developments, all to the consumer's benefit.

The present economic problems and attendant unemployment in the United States have given rise to various proposals which,if put into effect, would operate against the over-all, long-term interest both of the American working man and of the American consumer. Two of the approaches suggested are particularly troubling.

In the first category are proposals to institute widespread restrictivequotas and high tariffs on imports.

It is true that restrictions, quotas, and higher tariffs would resultin increased purchasing of U.S.-made products, thus temporarily providing extra employment in the United States.

However, history has shown that unilateral trade actions of this type soon draw retaliatory responses from other nations whichtrigger trade wars, resulting in increased unemployment everywhere.For example, the disastrous results of the 1930 Smoot-Hawleytariff were a major factor contributing to the Great Depression.

Unless we buy goods from abroad, foreign countries will not possess the U.S. dollars needed to finance their purchases of our exports, demand for U.S. goods will drop, and many Americanworkers will find themselves on the unemployment rolls. Similarly, those Americans who owe their jobs to the import trade would find that import restrictions and reductions wouldspell unemployment for them. More than 2.5 million Americansacross the land are directly dependent on imports into the United States for their jobs. Port areas like New York City,which have a heavy employment in foreign trade, both export and import, would be particularly hard hit.

Thus, the short-lived employment gains resulting from drasticrestrictions on foreign trade would soon vanish as foreignretaliatory quotas on American exports were

introduced, available dollars to purchase U.S. goods on world markets dried up, and both imports and exports decreased.

An unemployment picture far worse than the present one would emerge. Now it can't be denied that some U.S. industries are being hit very hard by foreign imports. The legislation which I've introduced reforms our Adjustment Assistance Program to provide increased and improved benefits to workers put out of work by imports. Retraining and relocation help would be generous. Communities whose industries have been adversely affected would be provided with technical assistance to maintain their public services and attract new industrial investment.

The second troubling approach would restrain overseas investment by U.S. firms by completely withdrawing tax incentives. But the U.S. National Association of Manufacturers places at 200,000 the number of people who would be put out of work if all tax incentives for overseas investment were abolished. My plan provides that federal tax incentives, in the form of deferral of income tax on the overseas earnings of U.S. companies, would be granted only if foreign investment and production are necessary to remain competitive with foreign products and if the foreign operation doesn't result in a net loss of U.S. jobs.

High U.S. costs of labor, transportation, and raw materials make some American products uncompetitive abroad. In order to see those particular goods in foreign markets, it is necessary for U.S. corporations to produce them abroad.

Their overseas sale results in more jobs for American workers, increased income for U.S. investors, and greater taxes collected by the U.S. Treasury-provided reasonable tax policies are followed.

An example of this can be found with American citrus products, whose high domestic prices prevented their export to Europe. Ten years ago, Florida orange growers began planting groves in Brazil to capture the European export market.

Today, juice from those Brazilian oranges is shipped to the United States, where it is repackaged for sale in Europe. That processing and packaging in Florida provides jobs for Americans. The Brazilian juice has helped Florida exporters to maintain a share of the European market, the cost of Brazilian orange juice being less than half that of Florida juice.

In the last decade, domestic U.S. employment in multinational U.S. corporations with overseas operations rose by 27 per cent, while total U.S. manufacturing employment grew by the lower figure of 17 per cent.

Thus the solution to unemployment does not lie in widespread trade quotas, high tariffs, or excessive overseas investment restrictions. Better answers are increas'ed productivity and technological advances.

0

Man and his . ,Machine' People'never fall in love with their sewing machines . or television sets. But automobiles are another thing.

Everyone knows about the American love affair with the auto. Psychiatrists have analyzed it and sociologists have brooded upon it. Here, fOTfun and enlightenment, are American artist-philosopher Martin Rubin's observations on the American and his relationship with his automobile.

First, automobiles replaced horses as a means of transportation. Then they replaced public buildings as a measure of national advancement. They replaced dueling as a competition between gentlemen. They replaced the gold watch as an indicator of a person's stature. They made women as powerful as men and became a s'ubstitute home.. They turned space and time into kilometers per hour.

Will another such¡love object ever be foun4? Martin . 'Rubin looks at the record and the shape of things to come-including autom9biles of tIie future that even . environmentalists, ecologists andcon'servationists can fall in love with.

1. The Teakettle. This 1888 steam "car" carried men of means and ladies of courage. No one thought it odd that it looked like a bike.

2. "Look Ma, No Horse." By 1901 the stick-steered, mass-produced Olds had sealed the fate of horses.

But it still looked like a buggy.

3. Silent Mite. In 1902 the well-dressed gentleman could board an electric automobile without bothering to remove his top hat.

4. No More Luxury. By 1911 the car was an American necessity.

The Model-T Ford, or "Tin Lizzie," made every American a driver.

5. The Big Shot. Circa 1930 gangsters abounded and motor cars became ominous and aggressive.

6. Family Car. By 1940 ladies were buying and driving. Machinery, wheels, radiator were camouflaged.

7. War Baby. The nearest thing to a car in 1943 was the Jeep. One could do without a proper road.

8. New Direction. The war over, Studebaker applied the rationality of industrial design to cars.

9. The Family Wagon. It was all steel-half sedan, half truck.

It could carry nine-just in time for the postwar baby boom.

10. Tail Feathers. In 1957 Cadillac brought the tailfin to the ultimate in flamboyance.

11. Compact. By 1960 the attempt to reverse the growth of sedans was taken more seriously by designers.

12. The Beast. After an interlude of self-restraint, the mass producers soon produced Firebirds, Barracudas, Cobras, Mustangs. Cougars and Wildcats.

13. Home Body. The love affair with the auto led in 1964 to a vehicle one never had to leave.

It had beds, stove, sink, toilet.

14. Future Rolling Home. In 1975, the self-contained motorhome will provide its happy owner with a world of pleasure, comfort and mobile togetherness.

15. Waste Not. By 1985, the conservationists and ecologists will dream their tiniest dreams.

16. Back to the Horse. Ecologists and engineers devise the longawaited solution-the metabolic motor car with a fertilizing exhaust.

17. Safety First. Soon motor car designers may give us the ultimate in auto-collision protection.

18. Biodegradable. In 2000 the disposable vehicle turns into mulch, replacing ice cream cone as the perfect container.

THE ART Of THE AMERICAN INDIAN Glowing with color and symbolism, it reflects the rich and ancient nomadic culture of a continent.

From the buffalo-hide shield of the Mandan tribe (right) to the fine silver jewelry of the Navajos (below), from the masks of Alaska's Tlingits to the exquisite beadwork of Florida's Seminoles, the art of the North American Indians reflects their sensitive eye for intricate design and rich color. No longer dismissed as crude and primitive, American Indian art is riding a new crest of popularity in the U.S. today. This is partly the result of the Renaissance of Indian ethnic consciousness. It is also the result of a new interest among all Americans in the culture of the native American. Indian art is now considered in the United States as a national treasure-both historic and esthetic.

The artistic heritage of the North American Indians is not only rich but immensely varied. But despite its rich diversity, American Indian art has one common preoccupation-making everyday objects beautiful. Most Indian artisans went beyond simple realism to depict the spirit or "soul" of their subject matter, bringing a semi-magical character to many of their works. They were not prone to force their materials into their designs. Instead of painting on a squared canvas, for example, they might use a whole buffalo hide (right), thus giving an astonishing feeling of naturalness to their work.

On these and the following pages, SPAN's portfolio of some of the best Indian artifacts now on display in American museums suggests the skill and sophistication of tribal craftsmen, and presents a fascinating glimpse of the power of North America's ancient indigenous art.

A North Dakota buffalo-hide shield (right) is painted with images of a land turtle, a symbol of long life, and dragonflies, which were believed to be links between the upper world and the under world. Below: Two fine examples of silver workmanship by the Navajo Indians of the southwestern United States-a 44-centimeter-long horse bridle (left) and a necklace (right).

'Most Indian artisans went beyond simple realism to depict the spirit or "soul" of their subject matter.'

The wooden rattle (right J. ill the form of a papoose strapped in a cradle. was used in ritual dances by the Salish Indians of the north Pacific coast.

Above: Ceremonial mask of an Oklahoma tribe was carvedfrom one piece

of wood and dates/rom between 1200 and 1600.

Below: This 14th-century vessel, its function unknown, was made by a Mississippi tribe. The macabre figure is holding either a mask or its own decapitated head.

"

. of . efrom some 01'the masks Shown on this. p~g e are Counterclockwls worn kan Indwns. ngry man, the A.lahs ¡ attle maskwith ~f an top ng. tB eyeabrows of copper; with helmet; woman,

II nd copper with abalone she a snail shells; bear mask I with teeth of Id woman I rations; eag e, . ask of an 0 k .I' a human face, m-1 of abalone shel . deco OJ labret maue mas with lip plug or

There is a new 'revival of interest among all Americans in the,culture of the native American.'

Medicine pouch (below) of the Ottawa tribe of Michigan, dating from the 19th century, is made of dyed buckskin and embroidered with quills.

The tail-linked animals are mythical underwater panthers.

Right: Gift basket of the Porno tribe of California,

woven ahout 1900, is decorated with fine headwork. Right below: Tlingit canoe decoration of the 19th century represents the mythological Land Otter Man who guided people back to shore.

Carved of cedar, it has humall hair and eyes of shell,

Raven's head mask (above) wasmade by the Kwakiutl tribe of the northwest coas.! in the late 18th century.

Worn by tribesmen during ceremonial dances, the carved wooden figure is 106 centimeters long, has a movablejaw and a mane

of shredded bark. Below: This 16th-century bowl of the Zuni Indians of New Mexico depicts a mysterious, spiritlike figure with an onion-shaped head. It is typical of much of the early Indian potteryunglazed, and made without the use of the potter's wheel.