SPAN: September 1974

A SPECIAL SECTION :

INDIANS IN AMERICA

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A LEITER FROM THE PUBLISHER In remarks following his inaugural on August 9, President Ford said: "Our long national nightmare is over."

The drama of the last few months means many things to many people. Some of these meanings are found in "As the Press Sees It" [pages 47-48]. And one of the most momentous meanings of "Watergate" is, of course, the inspiring fact that a slogan which had almost become a cliche has been shown to be alive and well; it is one of the enduring truths about the people of the United States: "Americans believe in a government of laws, not of men."

To the people of other nations, one of the great concerns about any change in American leadership is whether it signals a change in American foreign policy. In his first address to the U.S. Congress [pages 45-46] President Ford assures the world that there will be no major changes in foreign policy. The key word in this speech is "continuity."

He pledges continuity with respect to U.S.-Sov.iet detente and continuity in U.S. efforts to bring peace to the Middle East. And he adds: "To our allies and friends in Asia, I pledge a continuity in our support for their ,security, independence and economic development."

Over the last two years, Watergate has worried all Americans-and many of our friends in India and abroad.

We had good cause to be worried. Today, we have good cause to be more than a little proud.

This issue of SPAN also carries a Special Section on Indians in America.

At left, Mrs. Arjan Brijnath, now a resident of Forest Hills, New York, hugs her daughter, Shaila, to thank her for her gift on the occasion of American "Mother's Day." The gesture, and the gift, are tokens of the Brijnath family's adjustment to life in the U.S. You will find other glimpses of the Brijnaths at home in the picture story on pages 9-11.

A demographic profile of Indians in America [pages 12-16]outlines their regional and linguistic groupings, their professions and incomes. It describes where they come from, where they go and how they live-as students, as jobholders, as tourists.

What do Indians who have lived in the U.S. feel upon . coming home? Anees lung, a young woman who spent .~ almost a decade there, answers that question in this issue.

She finds that her American experience was enriching in a way that added to but did not diminish her Indian identity -a story sensitively told on pages 17-19.

For the rest, this month we offer varied fare. The article on Robert Frost [pages 28-32] is a tribute to the great American poet in this, the centennial year of his birth.

Some of our older readers may remember the era of the Zeppelins, those awesome, ghostly airships of the 1930s.

As the story on pages 33-37 reveals, serious scientists today are predicting-and advocating-the resurrection of these lighter-than-air vehicles in a world short of fuel.

Another shortage, and one that is very much on people's minds today, is that of food-the subject of the story on pages 5-8. This article outlines the growing demand, faIling supply and rising prices of food and suggests some ~ approaches to this basic and ineluctable problem facing our ever-more-populous globe.

SPAN Gerald R. Ford: America's 38th President

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The Economic Side of Detente An lnteryiew With Steven Lazarus

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Front cover: In his own exuberant manner, cartoonist Mario captures the spirit of Indians in America, the ease with which they merge into the U.S. scene while retaining their Indian identity. For a Special Section on this SUbject, see pp,9-19.

Back cover: America's Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776, but the signing ceremony took place at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, August 2, 1776, when leaders of the American Revolution dipped their quills in this inkstand made by Philadelphia silversmith Philip Syng, a friend of Benjamin Franklin.

Managing Editor: Carmen Kagal. Assistant Managing Editor: S.R. Madhu. Editorial Staff: Mohammed Reyazuddin, Avinash Pasricha, Nirmal Sharma, Krishan Gabrani, M.M. Saha. Art Director: Nand Katyal. Art Staff: Gopi Gajwani, B. Roy Choudhury, Kanti Roy, Suhas Nimbalkar.

Chief of Production: Awtar S. Marwaha. Photographic Services: USIS Photo Lab. Published by the United States Information Service, 24 Kasturha Gandhi Marg, New Delhi-I 10001, on behalf of the American Embassy, New Delhi. The opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the United States Government. Printed by Arun Mehta at Vakil & Sons Private Ltd., Vakils House, Sprott Road, 18 Ballard Estate, Bombay-400038.

Photographs: fnside front cover-Frank Wahl.

5-Avinash Pasricha.

38-Construction by Charles Mendez. 41-Courtesy Dow Chemical Company. 44-James A. Sugar. fnside back cover, left-AI Strobl; right top-Tom Hollyman, Photo Researchers. Back cover-David S. Boyer, copyright © National Geographic Society.

GERALD R. FORD America's 38 th President

On August 9, 1974, Gerald Rudolph Ford was sworn in as the 38th President of the United States.

Mr. Ford took the oath of office following the first resignation by an American President in the country's 198-year history.

Only nine months before, he had been chosen Vice President of the United States in a process using, for the first time, the mechanism provided in the 25th Amendment to the American Constitution. (The 25th Amendment provides that if the office of the Vice President falls vacant between elections, the President shall nominate a candidate who will take office after confirmation by majority vote of both Houses of Congress.)

Mr. Ford's ascent to America's highest executive office with these two unusual "firsts" followed an extraordinarily troubled period in American histor~. The final outcome of the turbulent

events of the past two years is regarded in America and the world (see "As the Press Sees It," pages 47-48) as a triumph of democracy in action. As the London Times commented: "It is a tribute to the country and its Constitution that it could work its way through such a traumatic experience with so much dignity .... It is the best possible augury for the future .... " When he became Vice President in 1973, Mr. Ford echoed the sentiments of millions of Americans when he said: "I am proud to be a citizen of a country which can openly debate the legal and moral fitness of the highest government leaders without riot or revolution, without reprisals or repression, and within a constitutional system so strong and secure that its position in the community of nations is undiminished."

"The leadership of America will be in good hands," President

Nixon said as he passed the office of the Presidency to Mr. Ford.

And in remarks at the swearing-in ceremony-which Mr. Ford himself described as "not an inaugural address, not a fireside chat, not a campaign speech, just a little straight talk among friends"-the new President said: "I believe that truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our government, but civilization itself."He appealed to his countrymen: " ... Let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate."

Addressing a joint session of the U.S. Congress (see pages 45-46) on August 12, Mr. Ford said: "I love the House of Representatives. I revere the traditions of the Senate despite my too-short internship there. As President, within the limits of basic principles, my motto toward the Congress is communication, conciliation, compromise and co-operation."

Political observers noted that the address revealed a spirit of humility as well as a calm determination to tackle the tasks ahead. President Ford pledged a drive against inflation, "the public enemy number one," and announced that he would personally preside at a domestic summit to be held early to tackle inflation. He promised to balance the federal budget in 1976; he said he would continue the foreign policy of the Nixon Administration; he assured a tough stand agaInst illegal invasions of privacy in both government and private activities; and sought "unity in diversity" and the support of the people in his endeavors.

President Ford, who is 61 years old, is regarded as eminently equipped to still controversy and unite the country. His colleagues see him as a calm communicator and a ready conciliator.

Both Republicans and Democrats respect him as a person who strives to arrive at a consensus. He explains: "You have to give a little, take a little, to get what you really want, but you don't give up your principles."

In simplicity and likableness, President Ford has been compared to the late President Eisenhower. Indeed, Mr.¡ Ford was one of the most popular members of the U.S. House of Representatives during the 25 years he spent there. After becoming Vice President, he said: "Working with both Democrats and Republicans, I want to try to build a bridge of friendship, a bridge of understanding, a bridge of faith. I think I have an excellent rapport with my colleagues."

President Ford's gift for personal persuasion is well-known.

"It's the damnedest thing," said Joe Waggoner of Louisiana, leader of the conservative Southern Democrats in the House.

"Jerry just puts his arm round a colleague or looks him in the eye and says: 'I need your help'-and gets it."

A well-built, muscular six-footer, Mr. Ford "exudes the kind of confidence I hope to see in a President," says Democrat â&#x20AC;˘ Edward P. Boland of Massachusetts. "He could be the kind of President that Harry Truman became." Senator Robert Griffin, for many years a House colleague of Mr. Ford, remarked: "There were quite a few who said Jerry is too easygoing, but I think he's turned out to be a very strong leader-using his own, low-key techniques."

Among these "techniques" are hard work and dedication.

"Any job I've ever had, I've worked like hell at it," President Ford once said. "In politics, when the train is moving, you've got to get on. It doesn't come around a second time."

Gerald Ford was born Leslie King, Jr., on July 14, 1913, in Omaha, Nebraska. Before he was two years old his parents were divorced and he was adopted by his mother's second

husband, the late Gerald R. Ford, Sr., owner of a paint and varnish company and a Republican Party leader in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Young Ford joined the Boy Scouts and reached the top rank of Eagle Scout. He played football for Grand Rapids South High School, from which he graduated in 1931. His sports ability was conspicuous at the University of Michigan, where he was the center of the varsity football team at a time when that team was one of the best in the country. Ford earned his B.A. degree in political science and economics in 1935-working his way through in those depression years by washing dishes and doing odd jobs.

He then went to Yale University Law School where, in addition to carrying a full academic schedule, he was assistant football coach and freshman boxing coach. He received his law degree in 1941. The young lawyer returned home t~ Grand Rapids, became a member of a reform Republican group and had only a few months to practice law before the United States entered World War II. Attorney Ford joined the Navy, was assigned as a physical fitness lieutenant and eventually beCame an aviation operations officer in the Southern Pacific. He was in the service for 47 months and left as a lieutenant commander.

In 1948, Gerald Ford turned from law to politics. Running against the incumbent Congressman, Bartel J. Jonkman, Mr. Ford attacked Jonkman's opposition to the Marshall Plan for the r~construction of postwar Europe and called for greater U.S. participation in world affairs. Mr. Ford won the election with 60 per cent of the vote. (In 11re-elections to the House, the last time in November 1972, he won by even bigger margins} In another, more personal way, 1948 was a landmark year for Gerald Ford: He married Elizabeth Bloomer on October 15, 1948. Formerly a model in New York City and a student of Martha Graham in modern dance, Betty Ford has green eyes and chestnut hair and was once referred to as "the thinking man's- version of Rita Hayworth."

In 1950, the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce named Gerald Ford one of the 10 outstanding young men in the country.

He was at that time establishing himself in Congress, serving on several committees, and was an acknowledged expert on the military budget. In 1963, he was appointed a member of the Warren Commission that investigated the assassination of President Kennedy. The. same year, he became chairman of the Republican Conference, the body that determines party policy on legislation: In 1965, he became leader of the Republican Party in the House and was regularly re-elected Minority Leader (since the Democrats were the majority party) until he became Vice President.

Higher office beckoned Gerald Ford more than once. Friends pushed him for the party's Vice Presidential nomination in 1960, but it went to Henry Cabot Lodge. In 1968 the situation was reversed when Richard Nixon, the Republican Presidential nominee, twice offered the Vice Presidential slot to Mr. Ford.

Both times he turned it down, preferring his role in Congress as Minority Leader of the House of Representatives. Finally, in October 1973, following the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew, the offer came for a third time and Mr. Ford accepted. He then submitted himself to the most detailed scrutiny ever made of a U.S. public official. With his complete co-operation, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation dug into his finances, his friendships, his correspondence-none of which produced any evidence of misconduct or unfitness for high office.

President Ford describes himself as "a moderate on domestic

affairs, a conservative on fiscal affairs, and a very dyed-in-thewool internationalist in foreign policy." He points out that he took an "internationalist" stance in his very first election. "It's my judgment that a foreign aid program, properly run and adequately funded, is an important ingredient in the implementation of u.s. foreign policy. 1 have not always agreed with every dollar every President has recommended, but I have basically supported that program because We really live in one world, whether you live in the United States or in Southeast Asia or Europe." During the hearings in Congress prior to his confirmation as Vice President, Mr. Ford said: "1 think the United States, whether we like it or not, because of our influence, our assets, our principles, must be a force on a world-wide basis to try and maintain peace, to try to help disadvantaged nations."

A friend of President Ford once described him as a "plain man who loves his family, loves his friends, loves the House."

A devout Episcopalian, he attends church regularly. His private life is as conservative as his public record. The only indulgence he has permitted himself has been a brisk swim each morning in the heated outdoor pool behind his four-bedroom house in the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Virginia.

During Gerald Ford's 25 years in politics, his wife has stayed in the background, devoting mGst of her attention to raising

their four children-Michael, 24; John, 22; Stephen, 18; and Susan, 17. Betty Ford describes her husband as "a man of great vitality, who likes to get up and get going .... I guess I knew when I married him that he wasn't the kind who would sit around and twiddle his thumbs."

The Ford children are all individualists. Michael attends a theological seminary in Massachusetts.

He recently married a girl he met during his undergraduate days at Wake Forest College in North Carolina. John is studying forestry and conservation at Utah State University. This summer he is working in Yellowstone National Park as a forest ranger, a job his father held one summer many years ago. Stephen, who wants to become a dentist, graduated from high school last June. The graduation address was delivered by his father, who said: "Steve is kind of embarrassed by the fact that his old man is the Vice President. Of course, at times the old man is embarrassed by the silly pomp and puffery which some people think should go with the office." Susan is a boarding-school student at Bethesda, Maryland, commuting home on week-ends. Apparently taking after her mother, she has studied modern dance from the age of eight, now takes ballet lessons as well. She dotes on her Siamese cat, Chan.

John says of his father: "He never tried to mold or direct us.

He allowed us room to explore for ourselves, to find ourselves."

Susan exclaims: "He's the perfect father."

-S.R.M.

PRESIDENT FORD'S VIEWS What is President Ford's political philosophy? SPAN has excerpted the sampling below from his testimony before the U.S. Congress in NOl'ember 1973, his confirmation testimony as Vice President, a Florida speech in January, an inteniew he granted to the U.S. Informatiol! Agency in February, and an interview with the London Sunday Times in March. .

Detente. "I strongly believe that detente has been very beneficial .... Detente has given us an opportunity to share with the Russians, and the Russians to share with us, valuable information in health fields and the environment, in space. In addition, I believe that the Soviet Union's relationship with us has helped to avoid some confrontations, such as in the Middle East, and to solve others. I think detente was beneficial in helping to get the Israelis and some of the Arab nations to end the war in the Middle East. ... And I think that the relationship brought about by detente had an impact in expediting the solution to the war in Vietnam."

Developing nations. "Our foreign aid program and our other related bilateral programs, I think, should be aimed at helping developing nations economically, educationally, and otherwise.

We must be of assistance to the degree that we can in the United States, so that they become more viable nations, their people have greater opportunities for education and economic security. The United States should do this for humanitarian reasons, and I think also for the best interests of the world at large."

Defense. "I think it would be ill-advised for the United States to unilaterally withdraw its troops, or some of them, from our NATO setup in Western Europe. On the other hand, I strongly believe that we ought to negotiate mutual and balanced force reductions with the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. " Impressions of China (Mr. Ford visited China in 1972). "The

people of China, we found, were the most industrious, the most conscientious, the most dedicated people that we had seen ....

The Chinese seemed to enjoy work, and they certainly were dedicated to their daily tasks. They were very friendly to us, and we found that the officials in China, from Chou En-lai down, were very anxious to expand and broaden the relationship with the United States."

Presidential leadership. "The President, through his efforts to achieve success at home and abroad, has to give the kind of leadership to the American people that gets their strong basic support. He must have policies, domestic and foreign, that bring support from the people who elected him. Therefore, it is performance on the job, achieving peace around the world to the degree that our country can effect it, achieving a kind of equity and prosperity at home-these policies are really what a President has to work and effectuate and implement."

The U.S. Vice President. "I do not think a Vice President should just rubber stamp what a President proposes or believes.

He ought to have an input of his own and ought to fight for it if he believes differently."

Strength of U.S. values and institutions. "Number one-the stability and flexibility of our form of government. We've been buffeted from the outside and we've had internal problems in the United States, but our form of government has been able to meet those challenges and meet them successfully. Number two-the dedication of Americans as a whole, our citizenstoward freedom, and toward a system of economic free enterprise. These have been, I believe, the important ingredients that have kept America going ahead. Our dedication to freedom, our allegiance to the free enterprise system, have kept America from falling back. And these principles, which are still strongly supported in America, will keep us moving forward in the future."

WORLD FOOD

PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS Next year the world will have 75 million more people to feed. Will there be enough food to go around?

What are the long-range prospects of food supplies keeping up with population growth and changing eating habits? These are some of the critical questions examined by author Mayer in the article overleaf

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nthe years when Americans took cheap food for granted, they could also assume that the trend of food spending could be pretty much taken for granted by anyone making general economic forecasts. But the idea of a bounteous American food supply, which goes back to the first Thanksgiving Day, some 350 years ago, has rather suddenly been called into question. Last year the United States had shortages of many foods-a fact evidenced by soaring prices.

Right now, the short-term outlook for U.S. food prices is not bad. These prices are affected by worldwide currents of supply and demand, and world food supplies are increasing again. In general, crops have been good recently, in America and elsewhere.

And yet a question remains about the long-term implications of the recent explosion in food prices. It is possible that the soaring prices were the result of a number of special, nonrecurring circumstances; it is also possible that those prices were the harbinger of a new era. It is at least clear that the United States, which is by a wide margin the major food exporter, cannot be insulated from price pressures in other countries. In a world where many nations are increasingly dependent on others for food, where the lessdeveloped nations barely produce enough food to keep pace with population growth, and where reserve stocks will be inadequate if harvests turn poor again, there are plenty of reasons to be concerned about price pressures.

Indeed, there are some pessimists around who are concerned about the danger of famines. Lester R. Brown, a senior fellow of the Overseas Development Council, believes, for example, that food production will be limited by inadequate supplies of water, deteriorating soil conditions, floods caused by man-made alterations of nature and long bouts of bad weather.

'It is certain that world demand for food is on a long-term uptrend. It is going to keep rising if only because world population is likely to grow about 2.1 per cent annually.'

Those who argue, hopefully, that the 1973 price rises were a result of nonrecurring special events can, indeed, point to some remarkable events. Some of them trace back to 1972 when total world food production declined by about one per cent, the first dip since World War II. With total population growing by 2.1 per cent each year, the decline meant a shocking drop in food supplies per capita.

The trouble seems to have started with the poor 1972 rice crop.

Rice production was off by five per cent, world rice exports fell by 12 per cent and by late 1973 the world price of rice was up about 150 per cent. The shortfalls in the supply of rice shifted some demand to wheat-but wheat too came up short in many countries.

It is a fact of the world's agricultural economy that a relatively small change in output and trade can generate a relatively large change in price. The reason is that a shortfall in production

means that additional supplies must come from reserves, and world reserves for most foods are badly distributed; grains constitute the basic world food supplies, and the United States and Canada have traditionally held by far the largest stockpiles.

The recent history of wheat is a prime illustration of the relationships between output and price changes. World output dropped three per cent in 1972. Exports, principally from the United States, increased about 30 per cent to make up for the shortfall.

The powerful export demand for wheat depleted existing stockpiles, which declined 40 per cent worldwide. As this drawdown in stocks became apparent, the price of wheat in world markets started to soar. So thin was the supply in 1973, according to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, that wheat reserves in exporting countries were down to a level representing only about four weeks of world consumption.

Another piece of bad luck in both 1972 and 1973 was the wellpublicized failure of the anchovy catch off the coast of Peru. The reduction of the anchovy supply put pressure on soybeans, which are also an important animal feed.

The weather was also a problem in 1972-73. There was a belownormal monsoon that cut India's grain crop in 1972. Last year floods wiped out harvests in Pakistan. And south of the Sahara, the countries in what is known as the Sahelian Belt-Mauritania, Mali, Chad, Senegal, Upper Volta and Niger-suffered their sixth consecutive year of drought, which has severely affected both cattle and crops.

All these events contributed to higher food prices by reducing supply. In addition, prices were bolstered by the great worldwide economic boom, which steadily drove up demands. (Meanwhile, the two devaluations of the dollar made U.S. food abnormally cheap abroad, and Japan, among other nations, loaded up on U.S. supplies.)

Moreover, after the 1972 harvest came up short, the Soviet Union found itself in need of grain. Soviet buyers went into the world market to get wheat for their people and feed grains for the livestock, further increasing demands.

And yet, for all the special circumstances of 1972-73, there are reasons to wonder whether the pressure for higher food prices might not emerge again-and on a permanent basis. It is certain that world demand for food is on a long-term uptrend. It is going to keep rising if only because world population is likely to grow about 2.1per cent annually-a rate that represents about 75 million people a year just now. The over-all growth involves a 1.1 per cent annual increase in the developed countries and 2.4 per cent in the less-developed world.

Furthermore, demand will grow more rapidly than population as people try to improve their diets. The improvement in eating standards will be reflected powerfully in two ways. In the poorer nations the principal improvements are expected to come from adding new varieties or improved strains of cereals. In addition, people are expected to get more proteins from vegetables, including soybeans. In the more-developed countries, the improvements will involve more meat, particularly beef.

Americans' consumption of meat will certainly increase in the future, with the increase centered in the lower income groups.

Perhaps even larger gains in meat consumption will come in Europe, Japan and the U.S.S.R., where per capita consumption is now much lower than in the United States. Western Europeans are apt not only to increase their meat consumption per se, but also to shift to beef from pork and veal. Some of the effects of

the broad ongoing shift to beef have already been seen in beef prices around the world. Although the sharp upward turn of beef prices last year attracted enormous attention, the fact is that they were rising steadily before then-and had doubled since 1963. Japan's beef consumption could increase tremendously, even though virtually all of the beef would have to be imported.

While demand for meat will surely be rising, it is also possible to discern some trends that may ease the pressure. One important trend has to do with the expanding use of soybeans to supply proteins. Soybeans, which have long been used to feed animals, are increasingly entering the human diet directly. In the United States, soybean products are now used in many baked foods, dessert toppings and other prepared foods. There is also greater interest in the use of soybeans as meat extenders. It appears that soybean products used as meat extenders can take the place of quite a lot of meat; depending on the kind of meat involved, the derivatives can "stretch" it by 10 to 30 per cent.

Of all the imponderables that .affect the future demand for food, supply is the most difficult to gauge, for it is affected not only by economic considerations, but by changes in climate and in ecological conditions.

At present, soybean products are still insignificant in relation to all the meat in American diets. But estimates cited by Secretary of Agriculture Earl L. Butz suggest that by 1980 soybeans will be stretching all the pork and beef consumed in the U.S. by eight to 10 per cent.

Meanwhile, the over-all pressure of demand on food supplies would be eased by anything-including higher meat prices-that led consumers to shift from meat to cereal products. Eating meat is a very inefficient way to consume grain; so is eating dairy products and eggs. It is estimated that cattle have to take in about six kilograms of grain in order to put on one kilogram themselves. The ratio for hogs is about four to one, for poultry about three to one. The average American consumes about 730 kilograms of grain a year, but he eats only 68 of those kilograms in the form of bread, cereals, cake and the like. He takes in the balance indirectly by eating a lot of meat. (A consumer in a lessdeveloped country puts away perhaps 180 kilograms of grain, most of it eaten directly.)

For all the imponderables that affect the future demand for food, supply is a good deal more difficult to gauge. It can be affected, not only by economic considerations, but by changes in climate, in ecological conditions and in several different technologies associated with food production.

What about the possibility of expanding soybean supplies?

It seems likely that much of the additions to world soybean out-

put will have to come in the United States-but several problems are involved in increasing output. One is that any rise in the U.S. total, which is around 525,000 hectoliters now, will depend mainly on increases in land use. In the past, farmers have found more hectares for soybeans by shifting out of hay or small grains. But any sizable gains in the future will probably involve diverting land from corn. And the tr;ouble with that is that soybean yields are smaller than corn yields per hectare and increase much more slowly. Consequently, farmers would have to see a lot more profit in soybeans than in corn.

The world's protein supplies might also be expanded significantly by increasing our fishing output. The FAO estimates that the worldwide catch could expand to 83 million metric tons by 1980, a rise of 20 per cent over 1970. This supply estimate is admittedly somewhat conjectural. Even apart from the suddenand fortunately temporary-scarcity of Peruvian anchovies, it appears that the sharp rise in the world fish catch, which went up 75 per cent between 1960 and 1970, has abated.

It is conceivable that this fall-off reflects some strenuous overfishing during the late 1960s in several traditional fishing areasin the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, for example. It is also conceivable that the lower growth rates in the early 1970s are a consequence of cooler water in northern seas, compliance with internationally agreed-upon quotas or attempts to fish only at sustainable rates. Any of these explanations would imply difficulties about reaching that FAO level by 1980.

On the other hand, smaller catches might be offset to some extent by boosting our efforts in aquaculture-the breeding and cultivation of fish. Trout, carp, eel and pike have long been raised in ponds, particularly in Europe. Japan and China have cultivated shellfish and mollusks as well as ordinary fish; turtle farming is flourishing in the Bahamas and elsewhere; and catfish farming has become an American speciality.

Moreover, an FAO conference reported, there are major possibilities in the extension of fishing to waters not yet fully exploited. There are also possibilities in the retention of catches now discarded as "trash fish" because of local prejudices about taste. These two approaches, combined with the fishing of previously neglected species, might yield 35 million to 45 million additional metric tons.

Food supplies might also be increased by the use of some interesting new techniques. Researchers are working on a host of projects to speed the growth or improve the quality of various forms of plant life. There are, for example, efforts to speed up the process of photosynthesis; to produce hybrid strains without conventional bisexual pollination; to make it possible for plants to grow in saline soils rather than to remove the salt; to grow plants hydroponically, i.e. in a liquid nutrient rather than in earth.

Some of these techniques might, in time, help the less-developed as well as the affluent countries to feed themselves more adequately. The new techniques would thus supplement the most publicized agricultural development of our times, the so-called "green revolution" -the application of new seed strains and advanced methods to the growing of food crops in the lessdeveloped countries.

So far the revolution has been limited mainly to two crops, wheat and rice. But it already has some solid gains to its credit.

Cultivation of the new strains helped India build up a stockpile of 4.5 million metric tons of wheat, a savior during recent bouts of bad weather.

Until now, the green revolution has been pretty much confined

to several Asian countries and to Mexico and Cuba. The revolution is only now getting under way in the rest of Latin America and in Africa.

Beyond the particular techniques associated with the green revolution, there are interesting possibilities for expanding supplies of food simply by placing greater emphasis on tropical agriculture. Former Secretary of Agriculture Orville L. Freeman believes that tropical agriculture must be improved if the world is to avoid a serious food squeeze after 1976. Freeman also believes that the tropics have a tremendous productive potential. "I have been in places where test plots, with multiple crops, will produce, three, four and five times as much as the best land in the United States," he observed recently. "When you have 360 days of sunshine to work in and you know what you are doing, then new seeds, pesticides, chemicals and fertilizers can give you an explosion of production."

The U.S. Government, which has served for a number of years as the world's principal storage bin, 'may no longerhave immense backlogs of grain for the world to fall back on in emergencies.'

Secretary Butz agrees, adding that the possibility of growing several crops a year makes the tropics "one of the great untapped agricultural areas of the world." It should be added, however, that some scientists believe the ecological balance of tropical regions to be quite delicate, and warn that development there must be undertaken cautiously.

Aside from the tropics, how much land is available for expansion of the food supply? The statistics pertaining to this important matter are not entirely unsatisfactory, but several points are worth noting.

The total amount of land now under cultivation in the world is estimated to be about 1,400,000 million hectares of which nine per cent is being farmed in the United States. Another 2,800,000 million hectares are being used for grazing. Some of this grazing land could be planted; in addition, another 1,600,000 million hectares or so of "virgin land" might be available.

But these "spare hectares" tend not to be where they are most desperately needed. There are few in Japan, for example, where land is so scarce that to build a new golf course requires the approval of the central government. And in China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia, which together account for more than half of the world's existing population, there is not much opportunity to bring new land under cultivation. "They have no cushion of rangeland and meadows to bring under the plow," says Professor Daniel G. Sisler of Cornell University. Sisler points out that most of the remaining open spaces are in Australia, Brazil or Central Africa, i.e. a long way from where the food is apt to be needed most.

Some additional farmland might be found in the United States. However, the easy part of our expansion-releasing the 21 million hectares set aside two years ago when the Agriculture Department was still concerned about surpluses-has already taken place.

In many ways, American farmers have the problems of American businessmen: There is a powerful demand for their output but they are short of capacity; they have heavy debt charges, have trouble getting raw materials-and now confront a new range of uncertainties and cost pressures related to energy.

The principal raw-material problem these days has to do with fertilizers. Several years ago, world capacity was greatly overbuilt, and many fertilizer plants were taken out of production. Today there is a fertilizer squeeze. Potash is the only major kind of fertilizer in sufficient supply. Demand for phosphates is running ahead of production, while anhydrous ammonia is particularly scarce because its manufacture requires a lot of natural gas, which is itself scarce at the moment. U.S. fertilizer prices had to be decontrolled last autumn because so much of the available supply was being shipped abroad, where prices were well above the domestic ceilings. Domestic prices have since risen as much as 50 per cent.

The long-run prospects for abatement of food price pressures are somewhat different from those in the short run. In the short run, we should get some abatement because harvests are generally expected to be abundant both in the United States and abroad.

World production of wheat and feed grains, which was off 2.8 per cent during the 1973 crop year, is expected to be up 9.5 per cent in the 1974 crop year. It is true that other countries are still buying U.S. grains and also true that worldwide grain stocks are low. Still, if the harvests turn out as expected, the price pressure will be less.

But prospects further out are not so favorable. It seems certain that demand for food will continue to rise-and uncertain that supplies can keep pace. On balance, the demand-and-supply relationship makes it likely that the price of food will go up-perhaps substantially.

Meanwhile, it seems likely that food prices will fluctuate more from one year to another than they have in the past. In the wake of last year's farm legislation, the world can no longer expect the U.S. Government to buy and accumulate excess stocks when prices fall below specific levels. Instead, U.S. farmers will be selling their output of wheat and corn in a free market (they will be reimbursed to the extent that market prices fall below minimums announced by the government). Thus the U.S. Government, which has served for years as the world's principal storage bin, may no longer have immense backlogs of grain for the world to fall back on in emergencies.

Fears of excessive price fluctuations, as well as the threat of famine in some of the less-developed countries, are the reasons given by Addeke H. Boerma, director general of the FAO, in pushing for a world food-reserve plan. Most countries now agree that some such arrangement is necessary because of the change in U.S. farm policy. Boerma's idea is for each country to maintain its own stockpile of cereals. The machinery to co-ordinate stockpile policies, as well as the problems of managing and financing a reserve plan, are among the matters to be discussed at a World Food Conference scheduled to take place in Rome in November 1974.

D About the Author: Lawrence A. Mayer is a member 0/ the board 0/ directors a/Fortune magazine and a specialist in demography and population.

THEBRI ATHS OF FORE ~ lllLLS They're too individualistic to be considered typical, yet in many ways they do represent modern young India. They've adapted easily to life in America, accepting those aspects that they approve, yet feeling no necessity to conform. They're cosmopolitan, yet at the same time "immensely proud to be Indian." They are the Brijnaths of Forest Hills, New York. Head of the family (not shown in picture above) is Arjan Brijnath, 36, representative of the Indian Jute Mills Association.

His wife DiIjit, 34, now handles the myriad roles of the American housewife-cook, shopper, housekeeper, seamstress, chauffeur, host-

ess and educator. And she has done this with her own unique combination of efficiency and grace. Son Sharan Bir, 12, attended school in the U.S. but is now a student of Mayo College, Ajmer. Daughter Shaila, 9, who speaks with an unabashedly American accent, is an honors student at a U.S. public school. For the past year, she has been in an "open classroom," a new teaching method in which children are assigned tasks according to their interests and level of skills. Interviewed in their home by Elizabeth Wohl, the Brijnaths on the following pages express some of their reactions to life in the United States.

Sharan Bir: "I think the American and

Indian educational systems have different strengths-in India the math is more advanced, while here they are ahead in science. My parents decided to send me to school in India because they didn't want me to become a 'cultural misfit.' On the way back recently, I rode a third-class carriage to Bombay to catch a 747 jet-that's a very big jump. My mother says that life isn't all 747s, and that I have to learn to mingle in both worlds."

Diljit: "Caring for a three-bedroom apart-

ment involves a great deal of work, but I prefer a servantless existence. Of course, I use all the mechanical aids available in the United States: dishwasher, blender, refrigerator, freezer, gas stove and electric vacuum. And luckily Arjan, like many American husbands, helps with the household chores when he's at home. My real problem will probably be to cope with servants when I return to

IndieJt,r

"Actually, I don't think there's much difference in the way American and Indian businessmen operate.

The profit motive is the same .... Our goal is to find new volume uses for jute.

This is vitally important for India. Millions depend on jutefor their livelihood-it is the country's largest dollar earner. At the risk of sounding trite, I feel I've taken an enormous amount from India and that I definitely have a responsibility to do something for my country. I think that I'm doing what I'm best qualified to do here in America."

Arjan:

Arjan: "I think that living inAmerica we've

learned to live more as a family. We rely on each other much more than we did before .... We laze around on week-ends and we enjoy it. We spend a great deal of time together playing chess or monopoly or simply talking. We don't feel this need to go away to the beach every week-end ....

"We're out to get as much out of this experience as we can. Unless we're extremely insular people, we cannot help but gain from the experience of living in America ....

One of the most important things here, the thing that fascinates us, is that America still offers one marvelous, magical opportunity-the chance to do your own thing."

U.S. immigration laws are the most liberal in the world-one reason why half of all Indians who migrate go to America.

Though they constitute a small percentage of total immigration into the U.S., they have little trouble adjusting to their new life. This article tells where Indians in America live, what they do, what they earn.

A Sikh gurudwara in California.

A Bharata Natyam performance at Lincoln Center, New York. The aroma of Indian delicacies in a Chicago restaurant. Bullock cart bells and camel belts in Washington department stores. A revival of the Hindi movie Waq! showing to a packed audience in Rochester, New York. The Desais, Shahs and Singhs on the pages of many American telephone directories.

Picturesque rangoli patterns that adorn an Ohio street on Diwali day. All these are facets of India in the U.S.-a presence that is growing, gradually but perceptibly.

The influence of Indians is visible in many fields-science, medicine, philosophy, religion, culture, music. It is seen in the doctoral dissertations on Indian themes in American universities; in the overflowing concert halls at Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan recitals; in the disciplined enthusiasm with which Americans seek to master yoga. To thousands of Americans, India is no longer a land distant and esoteric.

One reason for this is the increasing number of Indians in the U.S. At anyone time, there may be nearly 180,000 Indians in America-about 147,000 permanent residents;¡ 11,000 students and research scholars; and 20,000 tourists.

History of Indian immigration to the U.S.: Indian immigration was only a trickle during the last century-less than a thousand. But the first decade of this century recorded some 5,000 immigrantsmainly Sikh farmers who quit their homes in drought-hit Punjab for America's greener pastures.

In 1924, a U.S. Supreme Court decision (which interpreted an earlier law) imposed curbs on Indian immigration. These curbs were relaxed in 1946-partly a result of American encouragement and support for Indian independence. They were ended in 1965. A new law came into force, which allowed as many as 20,000 immigrants from any Eastern Hemisphere country into the U.S. every year. *The "permanent residents" include those who have acquired U.S. citizenship. Breakdown of the 147,000 is as follows: 75,000 first- and secondgeneration persons of Indian origin listed in the 1970 census; 57,000 who immigrated after the 1970 census; and 15,000 third- or fourth-generation persons of Indian origin.

Indian immigration rose immediately.

Between 1965 and 1973, there were nearly 73,000 immigrants. In other words, there were more immigrants during this nineyear period than in the entire previous 150 years.

Where they come from-and where they go: The majority of Indian immigrantsaccording to data samples compiled by the American Embassy-come from Gujarat, the Punjab, Kerala and Delhi. There is also a fair number of immigrants from West Bengal. Some interesting facts: A majority of the immigrants are married.

Women and children account for about half of all Indian immigration. Most of the Kerala immigrants are nurses.

The Indian immigrants opt for the big cities in the heavily populated states of America. That is, they do not sequester themselves, but live where other Americans live. A 1973 survey of all Indian residents in the U.S., who had not acquired U.S. citizenship, showed that 21 per cent were in New York State; 13 per cent in California; 10 per cent in Illinois; eight per cent in New Jersey; three per cent each in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, with the rest scattered throughout the country.

There is no data on the residence of Indians who have become U.S. citizens.

But we do know that a good many are in California-mostly Sikh farmers who left India early in this century. Unlike presentday immigrants, they settled in rural areas rather than in cities.

How many become U.S. citizens: Immigrants to America can lead a perfectly normal life without becoming U.S. citizens.

A noncitizen does not have the right to

vote, but he has just about every other right.

This may explain why so few Indian immigrants try to become U.S. citizens.

During the decade 1964-73, only about 4,600 Indians acquired U.S. citizenship.

An immigrant normally has to wait five years before applying for citizenship. We do not yet know how many of the thousands of Indians who arrived in the U.S. after 1968 will apply for U.S. citizenship.

What they do-and what they earn: Indians in the U.S. comprise, by and large, a group with high professional skills. The leading occupations are engineering, medicine, nursing, dentistry and science. There is also a fair sprinkling of teachers, pharmacists, accountants and technicians of various kinds.

A small number of Indians are established in business. Others have jobs in many areas of government service, industry and business. Quite a few hold positions of responsibility in hospitals, universities and research centers.

Until 1969, scientists and engineers constituted nearly half of the Indian immigrant population. Since 1969, the proportion of engineers has drastically declined, while that of doctors has risen.

Last year, 1,900 Indian physicians were admitted as immigrants-the largest source of immigrant doctors. Indian doctors help staff the great public and voluntary hospitals of the U.S. But more and more, highly qualified Indian doctors are also taking to private practice.

As a group, Indians resident in the U.S. are fairly affluent. A 1970 study by the U.S. National Science Foundation showed that of scientists and engineers who immigrated between 1964 and 1969, 45 per cent of the Indians earned between .

Unlike immigrants from other countries, Indian bachelors in the U. S. tend to return to India for brides. $10,000 and $15,000 (Rs. 80,000 and Rs. 120,000 approximately) annually; 33 per cent earned between $15,000 and $20,000 (Rs. 120,000 and Rs. 160.000 approximately); and 11.5 per cent earned over $20,000.

A 1974 analysis of a small sample of Indians living in the U.S. showed a median income of $14,380 (about Rs. 115,040).

These figures would place the recent Indian immigrants in a higher income bracket than the average American. (The U.S. median family income was $11,116 or Rs. 88,928 in 1972.) This is not surprising, since their level of education is also above the U.S. national average. (According to the 1970 census, 11 per cent of all Americans above 25 had completed four years or more of college; by contrast, 38 per cent of 1973 Indian immigrants fell into the well-educated class of professional, technical and kindred workers.)

Not surprisingly, a few Indians who have lived in America for a number of years accumulate enough capital to be able to return home and set up a small business.

Hundreds of others send money home, either directly or indirectly. On the basis of some studies, the remittances from Indians in the U.S. may run into tens of millions of dollars a year.

After the Indian population in the U.S. crosses the 300,000 mark, more data will be available on their income patterns.

The U.S. Census will then begin maintaining separate statistics on Indians as a group. It is reasonable to expect that, like the Chinese and the Japanese Americans, the "Indian" Americans will then be seen at the very top of the socioeconomic scale in the United States. (In 1969, the Japanese median family income was $12,515 and the Chinese, $10,610. The American median family income was only $9,318.)

How they live: There are no glaring income disparities among Indians in the u.s.; most of them possess the customary appurtenances of American middle-class affluence. Yet, Indians in the U.S. are a diverse, richly varied community. An Indian you run into in America may be a high-powered economist working for the United Nations in New York; an enterprising Punjabi farmer who owns an orchard in California; a Gujarati engineering student whose wealthy parents in Ahmedabad hope to expand the family business after he returns from America; a slim Kerala nurse who handles the most difficult patients with ease; a Conjeevaram sari-clad Tamil housewife who initiates American neighbors into the delights of rasam and masala dosa and plays M.S. Subbulakshmi's Sri Venkatesa Suprapadam on Saturdays; a Bombay-born Parsi girl writing a doctoral thesis on James Joyce.

Indian immigrants take considerable pride in their country of birth. Most major Indian immigrant centers have a local association in which Indian students are often the driving force. It shows Indian films, organizes cultural events, celebrates such festivals as Holi or Diwali with becoming gaiety, sometimes hosting a big dinner of the choicest Indian dishes-much to the delight of American guests. These associations also raise money for worthy causes in India. K. Balakrishnan, who did a postgraduate course in economics at Rochester and headed the Indian association there, recalled that two years ago the association raised $1,200 for the Prime Minister's Relief Fund. The association was proud to receive a gracious personal thank-you note from Mrs. Indira Gandhi.

Even in the absence of such an association, the Indian in America is not likely to be starved of his homeland's culture, with art galleries and concert halls frequently featuring Indian themes and personalities~paintings

by Indian artists, performances of classical music, dance and drama.

Unlike immigrants from other countries, Indian bachelors tend to return to India for brides, as can be seen from the matrimonial columns of the Hindustan Times,. most women go to America as housewives. It is possible, however, that as Indians in America increase in number, they will marry among themselves.

There is little evidence as yet of active participation by Indians in American political life. However, Indians in America write to Congressmen or state legislators about their grievances-just as in India they might approach an M.P. or M.L.A. In 1971, they used the existing Indian associations and formed new groups to publicize the plight of Bangladesh refugees and collect funds for them.

Some Indians have participated more directly in the American political system.

In 1972, Dr. B. Jayapathy, an eye-earnose and throat specialist who became an American citizen in 1967, led the North Dakota delegation to the Democratic National Convention in Miami. And there is the well-known example of the late Dr. Dalip Singh Saund, a mathematicianfarmer-politician who in 1956 became the first Asian to be elected to the U.S. Congress.

Indian students in America: More Indian students go to the U.S. than to any other country. This is largely a post-Independence phenomenon, replacing the earlier preference for study in the U.K.

Indians constitute the largest foreignstudent group in the United States. They outnumbered Canadians for the first time in 1971-72, and retained the top place in 1972-73,with 11,000 students.

The quality of American education and the wide diversity in curricula are the reasons most often cited by Indian students for study in America. Other influential factors are the availability of scholarships and the encouragement of friends or relatives already in America.

The typical Indian student is a 25-yearold male, unmarried, and hails from a high-income or middle-income urban family. As to origins, Maharashtra and Gujarat send the largest number of students to the U.S. New Delhi, Kerala and West Bengal follow in that order.

A random survey of Indian student visa applications indicates a concentration in New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania in the northeast; Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin in the midwest; and California in the far west. This distribution is not dissimilar to that of the adult Indian population.

Almost half of the Indian students are in engineering. Physical and life sciences account for one-sixth. Another one-tenth are in business administration, with humanitiesand social sciences next, but far behind.

Three-fourths of India's students in the U.S. are enrolled in graduate study.

Indian students in the U.S. live frugally, but are seldom in financial straits. This is because only those go to the U.S. who have adequate means of support-usually from their own sources, sometimes from the host university, occasionally from the U.S. or Indian Government. Many students hope to supplement their resources with part-time jobs. Some resort to informal financial arrangements: A friend or

relative in America helps them with funds.

In return, the student may arrange for rupees to be paid to the donor's family or business in India.

According to random and subjective accounts, Indian students fare very well in America. A research project conducted some years ago by Dr. Keshav Dev Sharma of the University of Wisconsin-Kenosha revealed that more than 80 per cent of the Indian students have above-average grades.

"The ease with which the Indian student adjusts himself to the requirements of a U.S. campus is not accidental-the U.S. system makes him work." On the "transformation" the Indian student undergoes in America he remarks, "The first few weeks are spent in great anxiety-arising out of unfamiliarity with the people and the streets . . . the anxiety increases as soon as he discovers the tremendous difference at school. He is amazed to see students saying to teachers, 'I think you are a

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38,327 37,969 27,358 24,045 19,760 10,885 10,821 9,504 8,465 6,124 5,463 4,392 4,039 4,057 3.609

bit mistaken ... .' But soon things become familiar." According to Dr. Sharma, Indian students have little acquaintance with American farmers and politicians. "Only about four per cent have experienced a real U.S. slum. Their immediate social circle is the university people. Most of them spend their leisure time visiting friends, attending parties or watching TV.... " Swati Bhatt of Bombay, an attractive freshman at George Washington University, says all information about Americaranging from its wealth to the drug problem-had been exaggerated in India.

"We were told that the drug scene involved every teen-ager. I soon found that wasn't true."

Miss Bhatt, daughter of a Reserve Bank officer deputed to the WorId Bank in Washington as an economist, intends to pursue a career either in agriculture or forestry. "I like plants ... the caste from which I come (Khedawal) historically

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Many Indians have risen from humble beginnings to the very top in America's competitive society. has been associated with agriculture."

Shankar Lal of Varanasi, working for a doctorate in physics at the City College of New York, intends to teach in a university on his return to India.

Not all students return. Some of them "adjust status" in America and become immigrants. But those who have returned are found in offices, laboratories and firms all over India.

Indian tourists to the U.S.: The "floating" Indian population of tourists serve as contacts between the Indians resident in the U.S. and their country of birth. In Fiscal Year 1973, nearly 18,000 Indians visited the U.S. as tourists. Many of them went to see friends and relatives in the U.S. Nearly 4,000 went as temporary business visitors, reflecting perhaps the growing trade between India and the U.S. In 1963, there were only 3,028 Indian tourists visiting the U.S. and only 1,473 Indian businessmen.

The future: Indians have immigrated to such countries as Ceylon, Malaysia, Burma and Fiji in larger numbers than to the United States. Most of these "immigrants," however, were recruited by the British Government during the last century as contract laborers to work on railway construction projects, on rubber and tea plantations. In recent years, the only countries to which Indians from professional classes have immigrated in numbers comparable to those going to the U.S., are the United Kingdom and Canada. At present, approximately half of all emigrating Indians go to the United States.

What attracts Indians to the U.S.?

The wider opportunities and higher in-

comes in America are one obvious reason.

Immigrant Indian scientists and engineers surveyed by the National Science Foundation gave the following reasons for going to the U.S.: higher standard of living in America; improved opportunities for their children; curiosity about life in the United States; and a desire to develop their professional skills.

Whatever the reasons, Indians in America have made their mark in American society and are valued by their employers, their neighbors and their communities.

The most eminent of them have made use of the research facilities in America for work that will benefit the whole world.

To cite only two examples: Dr. Har Gobind Khorana, a medical research scientist at the University of Wisconsin, won the Nobel prize for his work on the first complete synthesis of polynucleotides.

Astrophysicist S. Chandrasekhar, considered the outstanding pure theorist of

In contrast to the 147,000 persons of Indian origin in the United States, there were only 2,655 Americans registered as residents in India on January 1, 1973, according to a report of the Government of India's Home Ministry. Of these, 896 were missionaries. Children below 16 are not included in these figures.

The American Embassy estimates. that there are only about 40 American businessmen in India. On the other hand, many more Americans visit India than Indians visit America.

In 1972, 58,885 American tourists came to India.

modern astronomy, has done much to advance mankind's combined knowledge in his field.

A number of humbler Indians have also worked their way to the top in America's highly competitive society through their enterprise and diligence-by importing brass bells, by promoting Indian handicrafts, by selling magazine subscriptions, by setting up small businesses.

Do they return to India? Intentions can change and some immigrants of all nationalities everywhere do return to their home country. There is no doubt that many Indians do return from America; no statistics are available on the number. The Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, has successfully recruited professors from among Indians in America. This indicates that concerted efforts by institutions in India to get back emigre scientists and engineers can prove effective. Such professionals apply the enriched skills and varied experiences gained in America to the tasks of nation-building at home.

What will be the pattern of future Indian migration to the U.S.? Will the flow level off at the present level of about 13,000?Or will it rise to the annual statutory maximum of 20,000? This could happen, for example, if the recent professional immigrants who go to the U.S. become American citizens and petition to bring across their brothers and sisters.

Or, on the other hand, will these immigrants return to India upon retirement and live on pensions from the United States?

These questions are difficult to answer.

There is no doubt, however, on one score: The Indian immigrants in America, by establishing people-to-people contacts, help sustain the natural warmth and cordiality 0 between Indians and Americans.

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hangri-la is a large, beautiful house on the top of a hill. I have returned to it after several years. Its whit~ paint has peeled off, and it has been repainted yellow. The bougainvilleas are as bright and profuse as they used to be. I sit on one of the round terraces and look out rather self-consciously at the city-where I was born, where I grew up and where I learnt to be whatever was to mark me a "Hyderabadi."

In the distance lies the gray-blue familiar tank where as children we were taken for a car ride on Sundays.

And beyond are the big houses that seem small from here, the white minaret of a mosque amid a clump of old trees-all familiar, radiating a warmth and giving me a feeling that nothing has changed. .

I shut my eyes, then open them again. Is it as real as it used to be? I ask myself. I move to another terrace and look out. Just below Shangri-la's stone wall I see a group of mud huts and brick huts, some thatched, others with tin roofs. I do not know who lives in them. When I ask a man who has been a servant at Shangri-la for many years, he tells me they are "poor people."

"When did they build all these huts?" I ask him. "They have been here all the time," he mumbles looking at me with glazed eyes.

I sit up. I now see them. They are men in dhotis and shirts; a few dark women in blue, green and rose-pink saris and a lot of children. They seem to be playing, perhaps it is hide-and-seek. One of them is running behind another throwing stones; another with a bare bottom is treading a mud wall with tiny steps while several others are just roaming in the mud alleys listlessly. I know they are poor people, but they must have names, I tell myself. For the first time I see what the people of my city look like. I had never noticed them before. I want to go down and meet them. But the sun has set. The city in the distance blinks with a million lights but out there in the huts there are no lights. Were it not for the shrieks and shouts of the children I would still riot have known that life existed beyond the stone wall.

The Shangri-la I once knew is not the same. I feel uneasy.

There is about things past a quality of infinitude, a world that has lapsed, a time that is no more. The old servant with the glazed eyes brings tea in gold-rimmed china cups. I offer him a cup. He stares at me, mutters something and withdraws. I have upset his sense of balance, for things like this do not happen in Shangri-la.

At night lying in bed I hear the pigeons coo in the ventilators.

I think of the children playing in the dark alleys, the servant who refused the gold-rimmed cup of tea, and Peggy, a big, black lady who used to do the cleaning every Thursday when I lived with a friend in a small townhouse in Washington. She would come in at eight, fix coffee for me and for herself in identical mugs, sit with me at the kitchen table and chatter away-about her boy friend who worked around Dupont Circle, about the new television set she had acquired and about her plans to visit Atlantic City during her next summer vacation. Peggy seems so unreal while I sleep in Shangri-la. Outside on the verandah snores the servant with the lived-in face. Have I acquired other visions or is it the hour of night, the haze, the sleep ... ?

*

* * * *

But when Air-India's 707 spanned the Atlantic and circled above Bombay's Santa Cruz airport, I looked down at the hot greens and blazing ochers below and wondered if I would belong here again. Have I got dishabituated to the Indian tone and forgotten my Indian instincts? [ asked myself. I had been several years in the U.S., perhaps a third of my life. In the years between I had studied, worked and traveled. I had fallen in love and known friendships. I had done most of the things I wanted to do. People had said that I had become ~esternized and would find the old

life intolerable. Most of them had predicted that I would return to the U.S. within a few months. My emotions were mingled.

There was a sense of excitement coupled with a gnawing fear as I descended on to the hot air strip. I forgot everything for a moment when I recognized the familiar faces of my family in the jostling crowd. It was like old times again. They had not changed-and even though I had, it did not seem to matter to me or to them.

But the things around us had changed. Hyderabad and the life we knew was now a thing of the past. I had returned to a new city, a new home and a country that seized me with its new life. The Indians around me were no more a nameless mass, a mere backdrop to the miniature world I had hitherto known. Though they were all different, they seemed so alike. I saw them singly, found an echo in each of them.

It was bewildering at first-the ugliness of poverty on the streets, the endless time in getting anything done, al1d the nagging odds against discipline and efficiency in day-to-day living. I had forgotten that peeled skins of fruits and garbage can be thrown into a clean city street without a pang. I had forgotten that there were so many stars in the sky and that beaches can be stretches of sand, pebbles and palms. And I had forgotten the feeling of living around so many people. But with time things sorted out. I caught myself throwing a banana skin into a clean wide street. I sat at home and quietly accepted the idea of being served by servants, and I got used to haggling with people-in shops, at ticket offices, in trains, cinemas, offices, everywhere. It all seemed in place for I was home again. If I was to live here and survive, I had to fall in line. And I did not fight it. Though dormant for a while, it was all familiar, it was still a part of my being.

Said my friend at New York airport: , "Wherever you go you will make the same kind of friends. Then we will all hold hands and form a circle around the world." I remember his words for it is really happening.'

There was so much sorrow and struggle here it seemed to mea great land locked in mortal combat with the power and weakness of age and time. And just because of this struggle how real and solid and eternal the cycle of life seemed around me. There was my mother, serene, poised, and complete in her womanhood.

There were my sisters and brothers intensely involved with my return, with my happiness. Distant was the concept of working, earning and living for oneself. Joys and sorrows were shared here and, though alone, one was never lonely. My life was not my own-it had a larger relevance, to my family, to some of my friends, and to a country which was not on the outside but was a part of me. I was drawn to my family. To return to them, which I did, I returned to myself, to the calm center of the land and its life, quietly inherited it and resumed from where I had left off.

The suspense, the anxiety, the need for incessant action which was my American self slowly became less insistent. I was still and at last began to let life occur to me.

* * * * *

"I think of you-demure, tentative, rather frightened, veFy warm but in semi-purdah, asking sophisticated people to tell you what they never will." Thus reads a letter which I receive from a well-known Indian writer. I have been back home for a few years now. I read the letter a few times and wonder about it. Wasn't

that the way I used to be 14 years ago when, wearing pigtails and salwar-kameez, I had sailed offin a big boat to the U.S.? This was a country I had conjured out of dreams and books. Years later it was to turn out and become more real than anything I had yet known beyond my ken.

It was a gray September day-there was a drizzle, a chill breeze and two people to receive me at New York harbor. She was Kris' and he was Paul. She had soft silvery hair and a round pleasant face. He was dressed in a gray-blue suit, wore spectacles and had the kind of look that comes from aging purposefully. They were the Costellos from Philadelphia and they had driven up all the way to receive me. I felt wanted right away. Then came my luggage-a few trunks, a few suitcases, packed with dozens of clothes, silk quilts and pIllow cases, spices and medicines, family albums and souvenirs of home. Without comment, they got together a few porters and had it all carted and freighted by train to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I was to spend my next few years. It was only when I arrived at the student house that I realized that traveling with so much luggage was unheard of in America. A dark-haired girl who was to share the room with me, entered, had one look and shrieked. "Don't tell me you're going to live with all that in this room!" Before I.could gather my embarrassed wits she had decided that it would all go down in the basement. I acceded. The morning after I learnt of other things. I was living in a house which was not aregular dormitory. It was a co-op where like the others I had to work for my living. Within a week I had learnt how to sweep with a long stick broom, how to mop floors, wash pots, plates and pans in a steam machine, and cook meals for 30 people. When I left the co-op three years later I had learnt to use my hands. It was as if I held the whole world in them.

I was to see and experience New York City in the summer that followed-vast, vibrant and a world all its own. During the days I had a summer job at the U.N. and in the rose-tinted summer evenings I would explore the city with a friend-the old townhouses tucked in the side streets, the seals that lazed in the pond in Central Park, the eating places-Plaza's Palm Court, the Russian Tea Room, the many nameless continental cafes, the museums, the gall~ries, the theaters, the meat shops, the bread shops and the people. My friend was a New Yorker and he belonged, I later found out, to one of New York's 400. He wore immaculate clothes, brought bunches of violets when he came to see me, and talked of the insecurity that went with living in New York. He has since emigrated to San Francisco where he sells fresh vegetables in a loudly painted bus. He reminded me, then, in many ways of Holden Caulfield, the young hero of J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. He had spent most of his life away from home, in private schools in upstate New York, then Amherst College in Massachussets and Ann Arbor. He only went home for vacations and he hated it. He talked about his parents as if they were "other" people. He did not criticize them openly but I knew that he did not really love them the way I loved mine. He would often question me about home, marvel at the simplicity of my emotions and tell me that I should never change. "But why do you wear clothes that make you look so bloated?" he would ask. "If you are thin, why hide it? Why not accentuate it and make it an asset? Look at Giacometti's figures," he would say, taking me to see a crowd of them standing in the courtyard of the Museum of Modern Art. This was the first time that a man had made me feel that being thin was also beautiful. In India people had never failed to point out that I was thin and should do something about it. I was painfully aware of this and had tried to hide it behind organdies and starched cottons. They lend full-

ness, I was told. But what kind of fullness no one explained. My friend did in New York.

It was America that was to take away a lot of my fears, doubts and inhibitions. It was to take me out of "semi-purdah" into a world where people related to me as I was, without my organdy frills or the glorious trimmings of my ancient heritage. They listened to me, questioned me and showed an interest in what I had to say. I started talking and while they listened I found myself listening to myself. I was articulating thoughts which r never knew lay somewhere in my mind. And I was neither "tentative" nor "frightened." For people around me seemed open to argument; discussions did not involve fragile tempers or personal insecurities.

People here knew their potential and had the confidence that achievement was possible if one worked for it. They prided themselves on being individuals and welcomed the same trait in others.

They had about them a sense of spaciousness, a mobility, an independence and an incurable optimism. Their generosity and hospitality, which probably flowed from a consciousness of abundance, were overwhelming but casual. There was a persuasive "carelessness" about these people-about their food, dress, speech and manner. They always tried to be themselves and one could not help but be oneself.

One does reflect to a great extent the milieu one lives in. Is that "self" of mine which found its initial flowering in an alien air now totally subdued? For I have left that place and come home again. Have I returned to that state of "semi-purdah," to being demure, tentative and frightened, as my writer friend described me? Probably I have in the context of certain people and a certain environment, both of which have not changed in the manner I have. In what ways and to what degree have I changed or turned "American"? I do not know. I do not wear American clothes nor do I have an American accent. I do not miss rare steaks at dinner nor do I use imported toilet paper like one young Indian I know in Delhi. He has turned more "American" at the University of Delhi than I ever was at the University of Michigan.

I do not go bowling at Delhi's Qutub Hotel nor do I go dancing at the Sensation. I do not know the difference between one rock group and another. I don't own a washing machine, a tape recorder, an electric tooth brush, an automatic toaster or a blender. But you are so "American," they say. They have charged me with introducing American efficiency in the magazine I work for. I have heard whispers that my critical sensibilities and candidness unnerve India's "pucca" circles. My openness and desire to question and learn has been interpreted as aggressiveness, indicating a lack of feminine poise. Yes, I have turned "American," I tell them. But you are so Hyderabadi, they rejoin. They accuse me of being poetic, romantic, unrealistic and even feudal in some ways. Yes, I am all that too, I tell them. I am both-I have inherited one and acquired the other and they are now both a part of me like two siblings, loving, hating, quarreling but finally accepting each other and lending to the whole its own peculiar synthesis and integration.

* * * * * "What will happen when I leave? I have no friends any more back home," I tell my friend who has come to see me off at New York's Kennedy airport. "Don't worry," he says in a slow, deliberate voice. "Wherever you go you will make the same kind of friends. Then we will all hold hands and form a circle around the world." I remember his words for it is really happening .... O About the Author: Anees lung, after her long sojourn in the U.S., now lives in New Delhi and edits the fortnightly magazine Youth Times.

~s/ \1fJR)

PROTICTIIGAIIRICA'S IllDIRNISS A Iittle-heard-of citizens' group in the United States has been working quietly over the years to conserve nature's beauty.

"We are delighted to know that you have a big piece of land for the cougar," read the laboriously neat letter written by a little girl on behalf of her class. "And do-you know what we have saved up? Ten dollars. Is there anything else we can do if that isn't enough?" The letter was addressed to Nature Conservancy, an old (established in 1917), dignified and little-known U.S. organization that for years has taken an activist's role in preserving threatened wilderness.

The schoolgirl's contribution was enough-because it was added to some $1,250,000from other people equally concerned with saving the cougars that inhabit Araviapa Canyon in the Arizona desert. Protecting wildlife, especially those species endangered by encroaching civilization, is one of the main functions of the Conservancy.

Small donations make up the bulk of the $8 million in cash that the organization receives annually. Another $12 million comes in the form ofland gifts; and the Ford Foundation has extended a $6 million line of credit.

The Conservancy's approach is disarmingly simple-it just buys up land that has scenic or ecological value. And it does this quietly so as not to arouse commercial interests and send prices up. This is in strong contrast to the patterns set by other conservation groups which devote major efforts to influencing public policy and promoting research and education. Since 1954, the Conservancy has bought 113,000 hectares of desert, swampland, mountains and forests in 43 U.S. states. Its Wassau Island Preserve alone encompasses 4,200 hectares of salt marsh and beach along the Georgia coast.

As public interest in conservation grows, so does the Conservancy's ambitions. Future plans call for acquisition of 40,000 hectares a year. However, because of the tremendous administrative task, only about 30 per cent of this land would remain under the organization's control. The remainder would be placed in the hands of universities or state agencies to be preserved for future generations.

A nonprofit, 30,000-member corporation, the Conservancy was until recently referred to as "a sort of super-establishment underground." Today the botanists and zoologists who make up a large part of its membership are wondering if there should be a change in policy. They are now seeking nationwide publicity for their activities in the hope of exerting influence by example. The eventual aim, according to a spokesman for the group, is to prod America toward a more comprehensive national land-use policy that will save irreplaceable land from the ravages of the bulldozer.

D

The desert-blooming cactus. the dew-hung web of a spider. a leaf drifting on a frothy stream. moss encrusting the gnarled face of a stump, a heron ( overleaf) poised in a marsh at dawning-all these might one day be considered "endangered species" were it not for organizations such as Nature Conservancy.

'When you defile the pleasant streams And the wild bird's abiding place, You massacre a million dreams .â&#x20AC;¢.. ' -JOHN

DRINKWATER

If Nature Conservancy has its way, more beaches will remain unspoiled, more wildlife will have a home, and man will always have a retreat (overleaf) whcr,e he can escape, "if only for a moment, the cares of his increasingly hectic existence.

On the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Robert Frost, it tion of disaster. Now and then one may want to call him "a terrifywould not be consistent with his own toughness of mind were we ing poet," as did Lionel Trilling, to the consternation of old-line simply to honor his memory without asking ourselves finally what Frostians, on the occasion of Frost's 85th birthday. But he is for he has left us, what still makes us care about him. In doing so, in the most part so anxious not to be terrifying that in far too many trying to place Frost in our cultural history, it is important not to poems terror is speciously provoked only that it may be contained lose sight of the most evident peculiarity of his career: Unlike by his ironies. One of the best clues to his special genius is in a many of his great contemporaries in poetry-Yeats, Lawrence, letter (to The Amherst Student) written at the time of yet another Stevens, and Eliot-Frost was from the start a truly popular poet. birthday, his 60th. He proposes a saving virtue in the very cirBefore he belonged to the profession of criticism, he belonged to cumscriptions of form, poetic or otherwise: the general public. He still does. It would be presumptuous, if it were even possible, to say that the Frost who enthralled readers Fortunately we don't need to know how bad the age is. There is something and listeners across the U.S. was mostly a kind offront, that there we can always be doing without reference to how good or how bad the age is. is a "real" Frost underneath who can be reached only by those There is at least so much good in the world that it admits of form and the making of form. And not only admits of it, but calls for it. We people are able to stand the pressures of supposedly uncharted depths. thrust forward out of the suggestions of form in the rolling clouds of nature.

The general public, however partial its estimate, is no more In us nature reaches its height of form and through us exceeds itself. When wrong about Frost than it was wrong in the last-century about in doubt there is always form for us to go on with. Anyone who has achieved Wordsworth. If, as Frost says in "Hyla Brook," "We love the the least form to be sure of it, is lost to the larger excruciations. I think it must things we love for what they are," then we must assent to some stroke faith the right way. The artist, the poet, might be expected to be the most aware of such assurance, but it is really everybody's sanity to feel it and apparent facts: that Frost is available to us in ways that are more live by it. Fortunately, too, no forms are more engrossing, gratifying, comfortagreeable than disturbing, that he leaves us feeling more, rather ing, staying, than those lesser ones we throw off like vortex rings of smoke, all than less, confident about ourselves and our capacities. By reading our individual enterprise and needing nobody's co-operation: a basket, a him you may make your life more complicated, but you do not letter, a garden,.a room, an idea, a picture, a poem. make it more unmanageable. You are not led to believe that life is unintelligible or that your capacity to make sense of it merely In deciding what Frost has left us, we cannot~ however, depend proves the triviality of your involvement. too smugly on the testament of such a passage as this or on the This is a most generous legacy, but it is entailed, like any legacy. support it lends to popular conceptions of Frost's work. His Excluded from the list of beneficiaries are those who look for popularity can even be a kind of embarrassment to those who reality in the metaphors of the wasteland, who prefer, to any want to claim for him some more exalted literary estimate. It has rough beasts living in New Hampshire, that famous rough beast become difficult, that is, to read him with that intent carefulness' who is presumably still slouching "toward Bethlehem to be born." we have -learned to give to those great poets of our century who So far as Frost is concerned, the very measure of poetic per- never defected to the general public. To read a popular poet is to formance is in the degree to which it can domesticate the imagina- understand him, give or take an inessential quibble, and to have

He was the most popular American poet of the century, for to have read Robert Frost once is to have read him forever. He was never remote.

'There are moments when we touch in talk what the best writing can only come near. We must write with the ear on the speaking voice.' read him once is to have read him forever. Beloved poets are supposed to be familiar. Great poets are supposed to be remote.

The special advantage these days to anyone considered a great poet is that he gets an especially deferential treatment; if anything seems awry or confused it is not his fault but ours. Every coloration, every nuance, every comma is taken for a clue, and the writing is in some degree placed beyond criticism; it becomes instead the subject of something close to biblical interpretation.

It can be said of Eliot or Yeats that though there may be many jewels inaccurately assessed in their oeuvre, very few have gone unnoticed. But to read the Collected Poems of Robert Frost is to come again and again on marvelous poems that have mostly been neglected-"The Subverted Flower" is one, "The Draft Horse" another-this, in the works of a poet who was born, after all, a hundred years ago last March. More significantly, the same can be said for parts of the familiar poems. Everyone knows "The Death of the Hired Man" so well that few bother to read it. Perhaps because it has cropped up in nearly every anthology since childhood, most readers, if they're like me, have taken in far too easy a stride such passages as the silent communion in the moonlight. It occurs during a break in the talk between Warren and his wife and they're about the old man who has come back to stay with them: Part of a moon was falling down the west, Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.

Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw it And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand Among the harp-like morning-glory strings, Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves, As if she played unheard some tenderness That wrought on him beside her in the night. " Warren," she said, "he has come home to die: You needn't be afraid he'll leave you this time."

Notice here how Frost guards against any large embracing gesture, even though his metaphors strain in that direction. There is a kind of magnitude initially proposed in the image of the moon "falling down the west,jDragging the whole sky with it to the hills." Yet looking closer we see that it's only a part of the moon, part only of "a moon," in fact. For these country people, it seems, there has been and will be many another moon. The images are prevented from carrying any melodramatic portent of death by being snatched up into familiarity and domesticity. Thus when she sees the moonlight she spreads her apron to it-receives it, so to speak, into her household with the same quiet generosity and composure with which earlier in the day she had received the returning hired man, old and sick.

What calls for admiration here is restraint. The poetic achievement is at the same time a process of denial, of denying oneself the pretentious magnitude of which Frost was habitually wary.

This kind of restraint has most often been associated with Frost's irony, his famous irony. But that irony, as in "Once by the Pacific," is very often, for me at least, Frost's way of merely exorcising "excruciations" when he has not been able to prevent his poetry from conveying them far more powerfully than he intends. The poetic movement illustrated by the brief passage

above is quite different. It is a way of doing something extraordinarily beautiful in its affectionate precision, its human intimacy, and doing it so as to tame, to discipline, to housebreak, we might say, metaphors that are ready to transform the experience into portentousness.

The attention asked for by these lines is quite alien to the kind of reading we have been habituated to by most 20th-century poetry and by most 20th-century criticism of it. Usually, by close inspection of metaphors or of tones of voice, by recognition of philosophically or psychologically structured images, the reading moves gradually outward, the poem is expanded, techniques are translated into meanings. The line between the poem and mythology gradually becomes blurred; drama and voice become at last little more than a pretext-in a literal sense of that word.

Frost is a poet who obstinately resists that process. It's not too much to say that he writes against the disposition-poetic, critical, human-just described. This reluctance to reward the kinds of attention to which readers of Yeats and Eliot had become accustomed-quite aside from whether it ever gave a good picture of either Eliot or Yeats-would by itself be enough to make him both popular and unfashionable. But to compound the difficulty, the rewards Frost does offer require, I think, an even more strenuous kind of attention. Once you have decided, that is, to look for the remarkable power hidden behind the benign-ironic masks of his personality, you discover that Frost is quite without gratitude for small favors. He makes you work very hard indeed, simply to find out how much he's denying you by way o( large significances. He will not let you have him as a poet in the style of Eliot or of Yeats; he will not let you even discuss him in the same terms. So that while, in the care you lavish upon him, you find yourself resolutely treating him like a very great poet, he is just as resolutely disqualifying the terms normally used to describe one.

One reason it isn't easy to show how and why Frost is a great poet is that the evidences for it are extraordinarily difficult to stabilize for the sake of description. They are located in a highly volatile mixture of sound and sense, in elusive modulations of voice, and in the use of metaphor to explore rather than establish meaning. His poems, as he has remarked, may be taken as only a "momentary stay against confusion." The stay against confusion is for the duration of the poem; it is in the figure the poem makes, the action of the poem in its movement, and not in any attitudes or notions extrapolated from it. If it could be said that his poems are therefore some version of Eliot's "fragments ... shored against my ruins," then one of many differences would have to be that Frost, more than Eliot, is pleased enough with momentariness, with his quite extraordinary satisfaction in the poem as a human performance, in the poem as an exemplification of how to perform in the face of the confusions of life or the impositions of authority, including literary authority.

It is this that makes Frost so unique and his genius so hard to account for. It can only be accounted for by the most precise notation of how he performs, of how he momentarily achieves a stay in particular poems and particular lines, even particular feet. It is as if the world of other people and of things, including again other poets and poems, existed in a sound which is not his and to which he will succumb if he does not fashion a sound of his own. Each poem is an act of such confrontation starting from scratch and with a chance of his losing. In poem after poem, all that is other than himself is identified by sound, either seductive or threatening, either meaningful or brute. There is the sound of the wind and the rain, of trees in their rustling, of the scythe in the field, the cry in the night, the beating on a box by a lonely old man, the movement of a beast, the song of birds, the voice of a lover or her silence.

It is a commonplace of romantic poetry, this obsession with sound arid its possible clues, with silence and its promise of visionary afflatus. But nowhere is the person who is vulnerable to these sounds and silences so often characterized not as a common man but as the common man who is a poet, a "maker" of poetry. The figure shown to be listening is also shown to be making countersounds with language, to be making a poem. The juxtaposition begins early, in A Boy's Will, his first volume, where it is entangled in his poems about love. One of the best of these early poems is "Mowing": There was never a sound beside the wood but one, And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.

What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself; Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun, Something, perhaps, about the lack of soundAnd that was why it whispered and did not speak.

It was no dream of the gift of idle hours, Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf: Anything more than the truth would have seemed too. weak To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows, Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers (Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.

The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.

My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

The rather. comically clumsy question, metrically at least, "What was it it whispered?" the repeated use of "perhaps," and the ascription not so much of communicating power as of reticent good manners to the whispering of the scythe-all of this marks the poet-mower as someone who is to be differentiated from certain poetic antecedents in English poetry of the last century. One is reminded instead of Thoreau in the magnificent chapter in Walden on "The Bean Field." Both workers in the field, as Thoreau says, work "for the sake of tropes and expression," but both are also aware that it is only the "me" who can use these, who can at once be a field hand and an artist of human sounds. The two occupations depend dialectically upon one another. "I was determined to know beans," says Thoreau, however ecstatic he becomes, while hoeing them, about the loss of the self to natural (and therefore artistic) processes; similarly, Frost disowns dreams, fays, and elves for the truth-playing meanwhile, as Thoreau does, on quantitative paradoxes: "Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak/To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows." It is "earnest love" indeed, allowing notice of the little details of "feeble-pointed spikes of flowers," just as Thoreau will not ever let the most mundane of considerations escape his eye. Thus it is that the real dream, the sweet dream, is, not of "easy gold" but of a completed fact-the swale in rows. Facts are nonetheless a dream, too, just as is the "dream of the gift of idle hours"; it is a dream because when it is completed, as in "After Apple-Picking," when the job is_done, then the visual, tactile evidence of a completed work is merely an invitation to think, to dream, as the poet-mower is doing, about the action that brought it about. You can literally make hay while the sun shines; but only a poet can dream of making hay, in another sense, when it is all over with. The pun on "make," evoking the classic image of the "poet as maker," is the high point in the Thoreauvian movement of the poem, recalling as it does Thoreau's comment, again in the bean field chapter, that "he sometimes made a day of it." The same play on "make" occurs even more obtrusively in Frost's "The Oven Bird": "The question that he frames in all but words/Is what to make of a diminished thing." Reuben Brower offers a good comment on "Mowing" when he says: "In feeling reverence and love in the common thing

and act Frost renews the Wordsworthian sympathy between man and his world, but he does so in a decidedly American accent.

The higher value for Frost is pragmatic, the fruit of action is in the moment."

The action in the moment is not only the acting dramatized by the poem but the poem itself as an enactment, an act of "earnest love." Many of the early poems, wherein I think one finds some of the psychological and structural source of all Frost's poetry, are about the relation of love to poetic vision and poetic making, of "making" it in all those senses. And they are also poems about sound and the danger of being silenced by failure in love.

The kind of "earnest love" that most concerns Frost in A Boy's Will-and which appears in poems written in the same period but held for publication until after the death of his wife Elinor in 1930-is, biographically, the passionate and stormy love which he felt for her from almost their first meeting. He was 17, she nearly two years older, and they sat next to one another in Lawrence High School, Massachusetts. From the outset, he exhibited jealousy of her ability as a poet-she stopped writing poems as a result and in later life tried to disguise and disown authorship of poems that appeared in the school bulletin-of her knowledge of literature, her marks in school-they were covaledictorians, but her average was finally higher-of her abilities as a painter, of her suitors at St. Lawrence University at Canton, New York. Her attendance at college meant their separation, he to Dartmouth for a short time, then to teach in the Methuen schools till March, then to act as helper and guardian to Elinor's mother and two of her sisters in Salem, New Hampshire.

He had courted her with the help of Shelley's poetry, especially "Epipsychidion," and Shelley's inducements to the social rebelliousness of lovers, notably against the institution of marriage.

And, of course, he wooed her with poems of his own. Indeed his first volume, strictly speaking, isn't A Boy's Will, of 1913, when he was 39, but Twilight, of 1894, when he was 20, the one surviving copy of which is in the Barrett Collection at the University of Virginia. Only two were printed, one for Frost and one for Elinor.

It included four love poems, full of literary echoes ranging from Sidney to Keats, Tennyson, and Rossetti, and he carried Elinor's copy on an unannounced trip to her college boardinghouse in Canton, New York. Surprised, bewildered, unable to invite him in or to go out herself, she accepted her copy in what seemed a casual but was doubtless a merely preoccupied way and told him he must return home at once. He.did so only to pack a bag and leave immediately for a suicide journey that took him to Virginia and into the Dismal Swamp. The danger was very real. "I was," he was later to say, "trying to throw my life away," and he was at other later times to consider the possibility that he might "throw me down an unconsoledjAnd utter loss." Through subsequent travails, torments, threats, melodramatic scenes, he finally convinced her to marry him even though it meant she couldn't finish school and he couldn't promise any secure means of support. As he was later to say, with tense reminiscent determination, "I broke her to my will."

Such briefly are the biographical elements that inform many of the early poems. But the biographical material doesn't tell us as much about the man as the poetry does. By that I mean that the poetry doesn't necessarily come from the experiences of his life: rather the poetry and the life experiences emerge from the same configuration in him prior to his poems or to his experience. Sex and an obsession with sound, sexual love and poetic imagination partake of one another, are in some sense the same: As he observes in "The Figure a Poem Makes" (again note that sense of the poem¡ as an action, as not merely a "made" but a "making thing"), "The figure is the same as for love." And as he continues, the metaphors,

'Any falling, of leaves, of snow, of man, can be redeemed by loving, and the sign of this redemption is, for Frost, the sound of poetry.'

A man is' all a writer if all his words are strung on definite recognizable sentence-sounds. The voice of the imagination, the speaking voice must know certainly how to behave how to posture in every sentence he offers.

When Frost refers to "the vocal imagination," he makes it synonymous (in the essay "The Constant Symbol") with what he calls "images of the voice speaking." Frost listens for these images as much in nature as in human dialogue. The difference is that only in human dialogue can such images emerge as "sentence sounds" rather than as vagrant noises, the sweep of wind and downy flake, or mere words. His capacity to find these images in nature depends upon human love.

The supreme expression of this complex of feelings, and one of the most beautiful poems in our language, is "Never Again Would Birds' Song Be the Same":

without his even having to intend it, so central is the identification of making love and making poems, assume a peculiarly sexual suggestiveness: "No one can really hold that the ecstasy should be static and stand still in one place. It begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down, it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of lifenot necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion .... It finds its own name as it goes and discovers the best waiting for it in some final phrase at once wise and sad .... " He would declare and could himself believe That the birds there in alhhe garden round The form which is a poem is a display of prowess not easily disFrom having heard the daylong voice of Eve tinguished from the display of prowess which is love. In this light Had added to their own an oversound, we can best understand the passionate commitment by Frost to Her tone of meaning but without the words. certain theories of sound and poetic form. The commitment found Admittedly an eloquence so soft in his later prose is a derivative of the same feelings that inform Could only have had an influence on birds such early poems as "Mowing," "Waiting," "In a Vale," and "A When call or laughter carried it aloft.

Dream Song," and all look forward to so incomparably finer and Be that as may be, she was in their song. later a poem as "Never Again Would Birds' Song Be the Same."

Moreover her voice upon their voices crossed In a letter to the Negro poet-critic-anthologist William Stanley Had now persisted in the woods so long Braithwaite of March 22, 1915, Frost said: "It would seem absurd That probably it never would be lost. to say it (and you mustn't quote me as saying it) but I suppose the Never again would birds' song be the same. fact is that my conscious interest in people was at first no more than an almost technical interest in their speech-in what I used And to do that to birds was why she came. to call their sentence sounds-the sound of sense. Whatever these sounds are or aren't (they are certainly not of the vowels and conSome of the motifs here recur throughout Frost: the comparisonants of words nor even of the words themselves but something son between the sound of birds and human sound; the radical the words are chiefly a kind of notation for indicating and [for] effect upon nature of the quality of that human sound, here a fastening on the printed page), whatever they are, I say, I began to benignly conceived effect due apparently to the gregarious pleashang on them very young. I was under 20 when I deliberately put antness of "call or laughter." But the poem is about Eve and thereit to myself one night after good conversation that there are mo- fore about Eden and the fall, and we know that the effect of Eve's ments when we actually touch in talk what the best writing can "eloquence" was not in every sense "sweet." In its way of aconly come near .... We must go into the vernacular for tones that knowledging the various time elements at work in the poem and haven't been brought to book. We must write with the ear on the in the reading of it, in its harmonizing of the sounds it chooses to speaking voice. We must imagine the speaking voice." This ur- account for: of birds, of Eve, of the adoring Adam, of the speaker gency about imagining the "speaking voice" is initiated by some- as a later Adam, and, by inference, of all of us as later Eves and thing more than a concern for the writing of poetry ; it is compelled Adams-in doing all this, the poem illustrates what Frost means instead by a conviction that love is a prior condition to the hearing by "the constant symbol": "Every single poem written regular is of that form of sound which is human communication in sen- a symbol small or great of the way the will has to pitch into comtences. By sentence sounds Frost means something quite different, mitments deeper and deeper to a rounded conclusion and then be therefore, from the meaning of words in a sentence. A word is a judged for whether any original intention it had has been strongly quite different kind of sound, as he makes clear in a letter dated a spent or weakly lost; be it in art, politics, school, church, business,' little over a year before to his friend John Bartlett, a newspaper- love, or marriage-in a piece of work or in a career. Strongly spent man who had been one of Frost's favorite students at Pinker- is synonymous with kept." In "art ... love, or marriage," you will ton Academy: observe the similarity evoked here. The poem is a marvelous illustration of the creative power of love upon""soundand upon form, I give you a new definition of a sentence: not only in the garden of Eden, not only in the doting pride of A sentence is a sound in itself on which other sounds called words may be Adam, but in the love of the speaker for both of them. strung. " ... To do that to birds was why she came." To do this, he You may string words together without a sentence-sound to string them might say, to a poet, the man who by the personalized tone of his on just as you may tie clothes together by the sleeves and stretch them without relationship to Eve and Adam can still hear these "oversounds" a clothes line between two trees, but-it is bad for the clothes ....

The sentence-sounds are very definite entities. (This is no literary mysticism with love and composure, with complicity and gratitude. Any I am preaching.) They are as definite as words. It is not impossible that they falling, ofleaves, of snow, of man, can be redeemed by loving, and could be collected in a book though I don't at present see on what system the sign of this redemption is, for Frost, the sound and the form they would be catalogued. of poetry.

0 They are apprehended by the ear. They are gathered by the ear from the vernacular and brought into books. Many of them are already familiar to us in books, I think no writer invents them. The most original writer only catches them fresh from talk, where they grow spontaneously.

About the Author: Richard Poirier is Professor of English at Rutgers University and author of The Performing Self and other critical studies.

ANEW OUTBREAK OF ZEPPELIN FEVER

by TOM ALEXANDER

The great age of the Zeppelins, dirigibles and blimps exists only in the nostalgia of those who remember the awesome airships of the '30s. But it is an age that may return if enthusiasts in the U.S. succeed in their effort to get the airships flying again.

P

ractical man has made but a few things -sailing ships and suspension bridges among them-that are soul-stirring all by themselves. And of all the man-made objects ever assembled, the great dirigible airships of the '20s and '30s may well have struck the deepest vein of awe among the greatest number of people. There was even a term, "Zeppelin fever," to describe the peculiar fervency with which groundlings reacted to the passage of the German Zeppelin company's world-traveling Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg.

A lot of the excitement owed simply to the fact that the Zeppelins were the first transatlantic passenger aircraft. More impressive than function, though, were the sheer size and ghostly presence of the things. It's hard now to imagine objects with the dimensions of ocean liners floating overhead. Nor was there anything remote about them; they would swim over a city well below the,tops of the tallest build-

ings, darkening the city canyons. Traffic would stop and work cease. Even over open country, they often moved at altitudes less than their 800-foot lengths. Dogs barked; chickens fluttered in their coops.

The Zeppelin era ended-prematurely, some now contend-in the late '30s when a series of tragedies involving dirigibles culminated in the mysterious and spectacular fire in the hydrogen-filled Hindenburg, the largest airship in the world. ln the last few years, a small number of knowledgeable and otherwise reasonable men in the U.S. and Europe have been carrying out a program to get airships flying againlarger and ghostlier ones than ever before.

On the face of it, there is something about lighter-than-air transportation that seems as right as the wheel-a little righter, in fact, for wheels imply roads and tracks and landscape destruction, and noise and general hassle. As for the airplane, it stirs itself to frenzy to get off the ground and

There is much to be said in favor of lighter-than-air vehicles. Though slower than aircraft, airships produce less noise and pollution, consume little fuel and can deliver, huge cargoes to remote regions without roads or runways.

then flails around against gravity a,t noisy expense. The airship, by contrast, is happiest in the sky. Once released from its tether, the 240-ton Hindenburg was so lightly poised in the ocean of air that a child could shove it about. Loaded with 70 passengers and 13 tons of cargo, it could cross the Atlantic on $500 worth of diesel fuel.

Space was plentiful. The passengers, normally served by a crew of 50, slept in staterooms and ate off white linen in a dining room where the windows were often kept open. They also had a lounge, writing room, library, and bar. And, in contrast to the airplane, the airship can pause and consider. On one occasion in 1935, during scheduled service between Germany and Brazil, the Graf Zeppelin arrived in Brazil to find a minirevolution in progress and the mooring ground closed. The Graf merely stood out to sea and waited three days until the revolution subsided. The worst crisis of the iricident came when stocks of food and beer ran low. The Graf hailed a passing steamer and hoisted up some food; beer could not be had, unfortunately.

While the main role of the old Zeppelins was carrying passengers, they would also stuff into their capacious holds everything from complete airplanes and automobiles to cotton bales and gorillas; Nowadays, it's the airships' potential as cargo carriers that stirs the most interest. They will never be particularly fast; because of the air resistance to their huge bulk, the practical upper .limit on airship speeds appears to be somewhere in the vicinity of 100 to 120 mph. Still, that's a lot faster than surface shipping. Unlike water-borne vessels, furthermore, airships could deliver their goods deep into continental interiors. And unlike their heavier-than-air counterparts, they would not require expensive runways. The old dirigible docked nose-first to a simple mooring mast, but, in principle, such craft ~ could hover while they winched cargoes up or down.

For that matter, there's hardly need to

land at all; old Navy experiments showed that-in principle, again-there is no reason why an airship couldn't remain aloft atmost indefinitely, being loaded, refueled, and recrewed by airplanes, helicopters, or smaller airships flying up to rendezvous.

The American company with more experience in lighter-than-air matters than any other, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, has begun taking a slightly bewildered new look at a subject it had thought pretty much closed. "We've been getting daily inquiries recently from all kinds of people -government agencies, industry, private individuals, foreign countries," says Fred Nebiker, who is in charge of new ventures at Goodyear Aerospace, a subsidiary that used to be named Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation. "Apparently the forcing functions nowadays are things other than simply transportation costs. There's a range of interests in things like moving large, heavy loads; in gaining access to remote regions where you don't want to build a road; and also from the bird and berry people looking for less noise and less pollution. One result is that we've become more active in market research, and our engineering effort is being augmented by about $50,000 for the next few months."

Goodyear built two big rigid dirigibles for the U.S. Navy in the 1930s, and through the years made some 300 smaller blimps. [The terms "dirigible" and "airship" are synonymous and refer to all lighter-than-air craft that are self-propelled and steerable. Zeppelins are rigid, fabricand-girder airships, while blimps maintain their shape through internal gas pressure.]

But the fleet of Goodyear-built airships has dwindled to four little blimps that putter around for advertising and publicity.

Goodyear isn't quite sure just how seriously to take the new wave of interest.

Little in the way of new business has yet to emerge. One exception: a $35,000 contract from the city of Tempe, Arizona, to, work up a preliminary design for a small police blimp that might replace the noisy,

fatiguing helicopter. "We've been answering most of those inquiries, but we need to get some dignity money," says Nebiker.

"If people were willing to cough up a few bucks to get a little program going, it would give the whole effort a little more credibility."

One American company that has approached Goodyear is Combustion Engineering (CE), which manufactures electric power plants. Improving the economics of electric-power generation-both fossil fuel and nuclear-hinges partly upon being able to build bigger plants. But steam boilers and pressure vessels are already at the point of being so large that there is no way-short of major alterations to rail or highway systems-that they can be transported to plant sites except by barge, and, of course, there is a limit to places where barges can go~Assigned to investigate the problem, C.E. engineer Stephen Keating looked over all the possibilities and has about concluded that a huge dirigible might be the best solution-if one existed.'

F

orthe most part, though, the commotion about airships is being stirred up by people who are long on ideas but short on money and responsibility for getting the ships into the air again. There's not even much agreement as to what kinqs of airships should be built. Some believe that they should be made like the old Zeppelins -a filigree of lightweight girders covered over with fabric and containing a number of huge bags of gas. Others favor new designs incorporating, say" a rigid, gastight shell. Still others would put their bets on comparatively simple inflated bags like the Goodyear blimps. Another body of opinion argues that the best approach is the "lifting body" that would get part of its lift from buoyancy, part from aerodynamic flow. On the whole, in fact, the airship underground seems to agree on little except the quixotic desire to see big airships aloft again, no matter what they look like and no matter what they do.

Boston University's proposed passenger Zeppelin would be kept aloJt by 17 gas cells, and might be nuclear powered.

The economic case that has been made for airships to date has a certain diaphanous quality. To queries about how much a research and development program and a prototype would cost, the answers range anywhere from around $22 million to over half a billion. Similarly, estimates of the cost of shipping freight range from around two cents a ton-mile-which is comparable to ocean shipping-to something over 20 cents-which is comparable to airfreight.

Part of the disparity arises from differing assumptions about what kinds of ships would be built and (in the case of ton-mile estimates) how many. But there is also a lot of simple helplessness at the prospect of resurrecting devices and skills so old that they might as well be new.

The men who built and flew dirigibles acquired their arcane knowledge at great cost in lives and equipment-skills like the old sailors' art of piloting a buoyant craft that is very much a creature of air and weather. "Those old Zeppelin pilots relied on experience and judgment," Nebiker says. The most famous of the pilots, Hugo Eckener, "would fly up to a mountain and say, 'Don't worry, the moving air mass we're in will carry us right over it.' If you wanted to see the Federal Aviation Agency shake, put that on your on-board flight recorder."

Even with all that artfulness, the old airships crashed with depressing frequency.

The cost of satisfying all the authorities as to the inherent safety of lighter-than-air flight is one of the larger imponderables.

It's probably not by chance that most members of the airship underground are men of middle age or older who, at one time or another, contracted Zeppelin fever.

The principal activist in the U.S. right now is Gordon Vaeth, an amiable, 52-year-old director of systems engineering for the National Environmental Satellite Service, which is an arm of the Department of Commerce. Vaeth's official chores include the construction of the worldwide system of antennas that receive signals from

weather satellites. But he spends a lot of spare time writing government officials, industrialists, shippers, hotel men; magazine editors, and so forth, with ideas about airships. He estimates that in 1972 alone he wrote close to a hundred letters.

V

aeth has approached scientific and environmental organizations with schemes to use airships as platforms for meteorological and monitoring instruments. He has tried to interest the Marriott and Holiday Inn hotel chains in the idea of leisurely low-level passenger cruises. He has talked to Project Hope officials about building an Airship Hope that could take hospital care to remote inland regions. He tried to stimulate an airship-building program by the 13 original states for the bicentennial celebration in 1976 of America's independence [see "Americans Are Talking About," August '74 SPAN].

"Before Brezhnev arrived on his visit to the U.S.," said Vaeth, "I tried to get Kissinger to mention airships as a possible cooperative venture with the Russians.I also wrote Armand Hammer about it. I suggested airships to Averell Harriman for disarmament inspection. I got a nice letter from him but he felt there were problems with the idea."

Vaeth's main pitch, though, is oriented to people with cargoes to carry. One thing that lighter-than-air craft have going for them is the "square-cube" law-which simply says that if you double the radius of a sphere, the surface area (and therefore weight) will quadruple while the volume increases eightfold. Applied to airships, what this means is that as they get bigger and pigger, they should get better and better in lifting capacity and operating economics. By now, few people in the movement are much interested in airships smaller than the Hindenburg. Vaeth and several other airship enthusiasts seem to think that dirigibles containing around 20 million cubic feet of helium-or around three times the volume of the Hindenburg-

would be about right for starters.

"Take cars," he said. "Two hundred small cars could be loaded in a ship like that right at the factory and delivered anywhere. It would be cheaper and four times faster than surface ships. Among other things, it could eliminate a lot of storage and transshipment costs."

As for how Gordon Vaeth got into all this, he said that he just became concerned that lighter-than-air was not getting a fair shake: "People laugh when you mention airships, so a couple of years ago, I decided to make one last effort to give them respectability. I'm attracted to people or things that I think deserve better than they got." But what Vaeth also seems to have in common with most of the airships underground is a powerful recollection of dirigibles. In Vaeth's case, it dates from his youth in southern New York, where he often saw the Hindenburg and the U.S. Navy's Shenandoah and Los Angeles making for their moorings at Lakehurst.

"Anything three city blocks long, flying 500 feet overhead, is going to make an impression on you," he says. During World War II he served at Lakehurst as a ground officer and picked up a little experience in blimps.

Vaeth is partial to rigid dirigibles, but of a sort vastly different from the old Zeppelins. Instead of fabric and girders, he thinks, they should have a skin of a rigid material-metal or some composite that wouldn't wrinkle in flight and would bear most of the structural loads. He would like the very shape of the craft to be somehow different from the old streamlined cigar shape. While developing such a craft would obviously be more costly than simply improving on the old technology, Vaeth considers novelty itself a virtue. "To catch people's interest, you have to offer a quantum jump," he contends. "We need to propose something spectacularly different, different in appearance and different in function, from what we had in the past."

So far, the case for airships seems to rely more on enthusiasm and nostalgia than on solid engineering calculations. No one has any clear idea of how much a dirigible would cost, and many answers may remain elusive until that first airship somehow gets built.

A man who contributes some of the engineering ideas that Vaeth scatters about so profusely is Kurt Stehling, presently employed as a science and technical adviser to the Office of Coastal Environment of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Right now, Stehling is interested in applying the abundance of new technology to the ancient challenge of lighter-than-air flight, and his ideas sputter forth with mind-numbing rapidity: "Blimps are probably a dead end; with a large soft shape, your ability to distribute loads is limited. As for rigid ships, I think girder work has seen its best day; if you want to come in with a dirigible for less than $100 million, you've got to go to machine processing. I think you could go into mass production with a rigid skinprobably some fiber-metal combinationeliminate a lot of that internal structure and cut labor costs enormously. We got very good at building shells in the Saturn program. You'd need some internal structure to distribute the loads, maybe a keel, some ribbing and hoops. It would be simple."

Instead of the big gas cells that Zeppelins had, Stehling suggests filling the airship with "a lot of plastic balloons, maybe made out of two layers of Mylar with a Dacron mesh in between." Buoyancy would be controlled by compressing the gas or letting it expand.

A number of dirigible crashes were the result of bad weather. Stehling is counting I on devices that weren't available back then -weather radar and computers-for assistance in navigation. To facilitate handling near the ground, a tricky proposition because of unpredictable wind gusts and the lack of maneuvering room, he would have side-mounted, swiveling propellers.

Stehling sees no reason why the airship crew could not make moorings wherever needed-on rescue missions to disaster areas, for example. "To tie down, maybe

you'd have two or three tether points-run out your lines and hammer stakes in the ground. There are drivers now that you could carry that can hammer a four-inch shaft 20 feet in the ground."

One of those who disagrees with Stehling about the respective~ virtues of fabric-covered and rigid-skinned dirigibles is Francis Morse, associate professor of aerospace engineering at Boston University. Morse wrote his master's thesis on the design of a very large ajrship in 1940, a few years after the close of the Zeppelin era. Apparently somewhat sensitized by now to others' reaction to his airship interests, Morse points out the framed aeronautical engineering diploma from Caltech that hangs on his office wall. In the mid-'60s, he and a number of his students carried out what is probably the most extensive airship-design exercise in recent times. They concluded that fabric-andgirder construction is still the lightest and most efficient for ihe purpose. They propose, in effect, to extrapolate from the Hindenburg design, scaling it up by twothirds to achieve an airship of 12.5 million cubic feet. Ideally, Morse thinks, the ship should have a nuclear power plant that would enable it to remain aloft almost indefinitely.

Morse and his students drew up a passenger version that would carry 400 people in hotellike comfort, with, among other amenities, a skylit room in a transparent upper portion of the hull. In answer to doubts about the marketability of 100-mph air travel, Morse points out that travelers generally end up killing a day getting to Europe anyway, while suffering discomforts and jet lag to do it. Wouldn't it make sense, he asks, to get on an airship in the evening, sleep and eat in comfortable surroundings, and arrive relaxed and nicely time-adjusted 36 hours later?

Morse thinks his airship could outperform airplanes in carrying cargoes of fairly high value but fairly low density, which includes most manufactured products.

"When you figure the volume that a car occupies in transport, it comes out to only three or four pounds per cubic foot. But an airplane needs cargo weighing around 11 pounds per cubic foot for economical use of its capacity," Morse says.

"If the airship existed today, there'd be no problem keeping it busy," maintains Goodyear's Nebiker. The problem, as he sees it, is scaring up the money to get that first one built. Corporate and government decision makers are clearly nonplussed by the prospect of raiding the dustbins of the '30s for the next breakthrough in transportation. Nor are they encouraged by the haziness of all the cost estimates. Gordon Vaeth suggests that the first prototype of the super-Zeppelin that he and Kurt Stehling advocate might be built for around $400 million to $500 million. But in the same breath he goes on to say that he and Stehling arrived at that figure one evening over a bottle of wine.

Boston University's Francis Morse estimates that the first of the more conventional models he proposes could be built for around $50 million, with subsequent copies for around $25 million to $30 million apiece, or roughly the price of a Boeing 747. He acknowledges that the 747 can carry almost as much payload and make two or three trips to his airship's one. But this productivity advantage, he says, would be offset by the fact that the 747 burns several times as much fuel per trip and that its maintenance costs are a lot higher to boot.

When the dirigible returns, it may not look like the old silver cigar. Goodyear's "Dynastat" (left, above) would get part of its lift from helium, the rest from its aerodynamic shape.

Mating three small hulls (far left) could ease construction and handling.

NASA's combination dirigible and VTOL (left) would cruise at 180 mph.

in garb and demeanor, Kitterman brims with complicated schemes for all kinds of things besides airships, including proposals for increasing the energy output from nuclear reactions by using the ultraviolet photons that are produced. Now 49, Kitterman was brought up in Indiana, not too far from Akron, where the Navy dirigibles Akron and Macon were built. He has a vivid recollection of standing outside after dusk and spotting one of the ships hovering, painted a brilliant red by the setting sun.

Kitterman calculates that by 1980 the U.S. transportation system will not be able to handle the load, which he estimates at three trillion ton-miles of cargo. He believes that the way to escape the crunch is a coast-to-coast systeJ11 of airships, each three times Hindenburg's volume.

What really stirs Kitterman, though, is the 75-million-cubic-foot airship he's been contemplating. Ten times the size of the Hindenburg, the ship would stretch nearly a quarter of a mile. It would carry 750 tons of payload, and, one imagines, affect the climate over its routes. "Looking at the figures for total North Atlantic air trafficcargo and passenger-for 1972, I figure I could handle it all with 20 airships like that-say, 40 airships, if you figure a 50 per cent load factor," Kitterman says dreamily. "It would work out real fine. I could carry 2,000 passengers at a time at $50 a head. Maybe load in a family plus their car and charge them $100 total. It would open up new markets-think of all those people who would like to go someplace but can't because it costs too much.

Why, the profit from the first year's operations would let me buy several more airships. " Like the helicopter, the airship might have to find its niche in special roles, many of which haven't even been thought of yet and probably won't be until-or unlessthat first dirigible gets built and played around with for a while. Clearly, organizations such as the power-plant manufac-

turers would be willing to pay a lot more than going freight rates to move articles that simply can't be moved any other way.

Airships might be useful as "skyhooks" [see illustration on page 33] on large construction jobs. And it is not unreasonable to imagine that there would be plenty of customers for extended tours of, say, the upper Amazon, or the North Pole, all at leisurely speeds and intimate altitudes.

A

number of the airship enthusiasts are reluctantly concluding that, like the helicopter and most commercial aircraft, airships will probably have to depend on some kind of government funding to get started. So far, most government agencies haven't had much trouble keeping their enthusiasms within bounds.

Bill Kitterman has managed to kindle a flicker of interest 'in the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Formerly a member of a joint NASAABC [Atomic Energy Commission] panel, he persuaded NASA's Office of Applications to recommend an investigation of airship potential. In October 1973 U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater wrote NASA urging it to explore using airships to solve NASA's formidable problem of transporting the space shuttle from the factory in California to the launching site in Florida.

In 1972 a memorandum report emerged from the sobersided U.S. Naval Research Laboratories recommending-in a tentative kind of way-that the Navy spend around $60,000 to analyze the practicality and costs of a rigid-airship program. The Navy used to be big in the airship business.

It owned four big rigids, the Los Angeles, the Shenandoah, the Akron, and the Macon.

The latter two were actually designed as aircraft carriers for launching and retrieving small fighter scout planes. One by one, though, the Shenandoah, the Akron, and the Macon ';ere lost to storms or from structural failure, and the Navy gave up rigids in favor of the smaller, less costly, blimps. In 1961 the Navy discontinued

blimp operations as an economy move, but there still remains a nucleus of old Navy men, active and retired, who are convinced that airships can perform many missions such as radar surveillance and antisubmarine warfare better than anything else.

One of the authors of the recent Naval Research Labs memorandum is engineer George O'Hara, 47, who generally talks the practical language of the shock-andvibration specialist (which is what he is).

Nevertheless, it emerges that O'Hara, too, retains a powerful image from his childhood-the time when he caught sight of the Hindenburg, driven inland by storms at sea, passing down between the ridges of the beautiful Connecticut Valley.

"From a thermal-efficiency point of view, the energy-expended sort of thing," argues engineer O'Hara, "the airship is more efficient than a man on a bicycle, and a man on a bicycle is extremely efficient."

Yet, with all the enthusiasm that has been mobilized in favor of airships and with all their emotional appeal, Vaeth and his fellow believers still have little more to cling to than memories, hopes, and silvery dreams. It might be that some well-placed and fearless official in Washington will figure out how to put together all the pieces and get a project jointly funded by government agencies and potential private users. Lacking such an intrepid bureaucrat, what the airship underground obviously could do with right now is one extremely wealthy man-unaccountable to stockholders or taxpayers, and touched with Zeppelin fever. He'd have to be willing to venture his fortune for nothing more tangible, perhaps, than the opportunity to arouse again that old collective shudder of awe as an airship passed overhead. It would have to be a man, in short, whose sense of style made him contemptuous of small mistakes.

0 About the Author: Tom Alexander is an associate editor of the business magazine Fortune.

THE MAKING OF

spear-fishing and other rugged pursuits. (During a 1951 visit to A JUDGE India, Douglas trekked across the "It reads like the kind of novel Himalayas from Manali to Leh.) one wishes would not end," Co East ... also brings out the said the New York Times of author's large-heartedness and Go East, Young Man, the first sense of fair play. For example, volume of an autobiography by . it describes how, as head of U.S. Supreme Court justice the Securities and Exchange William O. Douglas.

Commission, Douglas attacked Small wonder. Douglas has stock market practices with the lived a fuller, more varied life intention of converting the stock market from a "rich man's than most. His formidable club" to one everyone could store of energy keeps him ever "join." active. While other judges often complain of overwork, he Toward the end of the book, himself needs only four days to Douglas remarks, "A man or complete his responsibilities woman who becomes a justice in court, leaving him the rest should try to stay alive; a of the week to pursue his lifetime diet of law alone turns diverse interests-which include most judges into dull, dry "dissenting, writing, globehusks." Certainly, Douglas has trotting and mountain-climbing." been vigorously alive all his The book covers the period 75 years. Conservative critics before Douglas's appointment to may condemn his liberal the Supreme Court in 1939 at policies, but no one can call the age of 40. (He was the him a "dull, dry husk." youngest appointee in 128 years; he has now been Supreme BIG BUSINESS-NEW Court judge for a record PATRON OF THE ARTS 35 years.) Americans are already speculating about the The long-held notion that potentially more significant and corporations and culture make stormy second volume of strange bedfellows is fast Douglas's autobiography which, disappearing in the United States. they hope, will discuss the Today, the biggest patron of controversial judgments which the arts in America is big won him the reputation of business. Banks, insurance being the court's outstanding companies and industrial firms liberal. commission outstanding Go East, Young Man tells architecture and sponsor public the story of a poor boy who put collections of painting and himself through school, hawked sculpture. They are backing newspapers, clerked in a grocery the theater, dance and music. store and ran a junk shop all They are literally bringing before the age of 21, and then culture to the people.

Eight out of every 10 put himself through a brilliant American corporations now if impecunious career in law.

The book reflects Douglas's zest support the arts in one way or another. In 1973, total for life and his love of nature.

It has many eloquent passages on corporate support for the arts was estimated at $140 million. canoeing, mountain-climbing,

This support comes in all sizes and guises. The nature of a company's activity bears no relation to the arts it will support. A gas company sponsors a ballet. A beer company subsidizes a classical music performance. An airline supports a college theater. A departmental store donates antiquities to a local university.

A bank sponsors outdoor music concerts.

In 1967, a group of businessmen headed by David Rockefeller established the Business Committee for the Arts (BCA) to prod, push and pull business and industry into a larger investment in the performing and visual arts. The persuasive clout of 112 BCA members-heads of some of the country's biggest corporations-has helped create a new climate for arts support.

Though corporate donations as a whole have fallen in recent years because of economic belt-tightening, support for the

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arts continues to grow.

"U.S. corporations are only now discovering what European businessmen have always known," says Goldwin McLellan, BCA's president. "Business is already deeply involved with the arts through product design, packaging, media advertising, public relations, plant architecture and interior design.

All of these require a conscious concern for art and design."

He said the arts are also essential to modern business as a means of attracting top personnel; for they like to live in intellectually stimulating communities where art, music and entertainment thrive.

Further, businesses recognize the public relations benefit they derive from backing an activity that interests a large number of people. The arts can generate tremendous returns in corporate image and goodwill.

Some business leaders are even beginning to study contemporary movements in the arts as important barometers of social conditions. Tensions in society are often first reflected in works of art. Perhaps one day business leaders will learn to study the arts as a prelude to planning the future of their companies.

One of the most art-minded corporations in America is the Ciba-Geigy Corporation of Ardsley, New York, a chemicals giant. More than 15 years ago, when the company moved its headquarters from Manhattan to Westchester County, it hired a noted art critic, the late Georgine Oeri, to add warmth and color to the walls of its buildings and laboratories. The company now has a collection 340 paintings, drawings,

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water colors and lithographs, which enrich the company's total working environment.

Says Otto Sturzenegger, president of the company, "I believe enlightened self-interest dictates that a strong and profitable company should support those activities which assure the strength and vitality of the community. A sick and colorless society will eventually paralyze creativity and productive enterprise." Retail merchants in American cities would agree. They find that the existence of theaters, opera, music halls and museums in and around the city's shopping centers contributes significantly to the volume of business.

To foster greater corporate support for the arts, the BCA and Esquire magazine present annual "Business in the Arts" awards. One of the first winners was the multinational Mobil Oil Corporation which sponsored an art contest in Ghana on the theme of Sankofa or "Retrieval of the Past." More than 300 artists submitted some 500 paintings and works of sculpture portraying Ghana's traditional art and culture. Mobiloil donated the 43 prize-winning entries to the Ghana Arts Council to establish a collection. It held a six-week public exhibition of prizewinners in Accra and other major cities of Ghana. Some 30 of these were later shown in New York and Washington.

The Alcoa Foundation of the Aluminum Company of America recently supported 38 cultural organizations in a single year. Among its grants was SI00,000 to New York City's Museum of Modern Art to present "Four Americans in Paris: the Collections of

Gertrude Stein and Her Family."

Alcoa's grant enabled the museum to assemble more than 250 works of art from a number of countries including masterpieces by Picasso, Matisse and Gris. The exhibit attracted about 300,000-one of the largest audiences in the mus.eum's history.

Says John Harper, Alcoa's chief executive officer, "Many of us in the 20th century seem to feel that being rugged, virile and modern sometimes excludes the need for beauty in our lives.

I believe quite the opposite is true-we must value what is beautiful and innovative or run the risk of becoming Jess than human ....

We should be improving humanity through creative activities, and this is not accomplished merely by providing new and better technology ....

Science seeks to explain, to reassure. But art is made to disturb. It is based not on reality but on dreams and aspirations ....

We cannot have human progress without the inspiration-intellectual, imaginative, disturbingof the arts."

COLLEGE COURSES

BY NEWSPAPER Correspondence courses abound in America, and more and more Americans are learning by television. The latest medium in university education is the daily newspaper. Or rather, more than 260 newspapers all over the U.S., which teach a course in the humanities through weekly essays by a faculty of college professors. (At this rate, some Americans say, it may soon become old-fashioned to attend college.)

The project is run by the University of California at San Diego. Course programs are planned by Caleb Lewis, the university's media specialist who says they will attract people who have been turned off by formal education-and show them that learning can be exciting and rewarding.

Besides the newspaper essays -which deal with history, psychology, sociology, ethics and political science-the full course consists of a $10 kit of supplementary materials. These include 50 additional lectures and articles, a study guide, self-tests and a game called "Future." A newspaper reader who wants academic credit for the course, leading to a formal degree, must enroll with any of 200 colleges and universities.

(Some 5,000 have enrolled.)

These institutions charge a course fee, organize "contact sessions" between students and instructors, and conduct examinations. Each institution has complete autonomy in administering the course.

Financial support for the course comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Exxon Education Foundation (they have together provided funds totaling nearly $300,000). The Copley News Service distributes the "lectures" free of charge to newspapers as a public service. CRM Books is another participant in the project-it publishes the learning kit.

The course has created tremendous enthusiasm all round. The University of Maryland reported a big response among Americans in Europe, where some 600 persons-mostly Army personnel

-enrolled at the university's European centers. The U.S. armed forces newspaper, Stars and Stripes, carries the course.

Newspapers in America doing so include a few of the largest and many of the smallest, and represent all but four states.

Their publishers and editors are proud to be associated with this novel educational venture.

Sample comments: " ... adds a new dimension to the newspaper profession"; " ... should be a valuable asset to the entire newspaper industry"; " ... good both for education and for the newspaper. " The first course, on "America and the Future of Man," appeared between Septem ber and December last year. Twenty scholars of international repute, including economist Henry Wallich and sociologist Daniel Bell, contributed "lectures" on such topics as "Is Science a Hero, Villain or Scapegoat in Today's World?" and "Is Malthus Right in His Warning of Global Overpopulation?"

The second course, "In Search of the American Dream," begins this autumn and will focus on the persistence in America of the early utopian spirit. The third course will deal with the cultural history of the United States.

The courses, says Caleb Lewis, will benefit all involved in it: the newspapers who are able to provide readers with a , .unique public service and stimulate their own circulation; students who can "go to class" at their own time and read at their own pace; and colleges, which can educate large numbers with a minimum of class time and space.

D

THE ECONOMIC SIDE OF DETENTE Closer political relationships between the United States and the Communist countries have opened up new vistas in international economic co-operation. In the following interview, Steven Lazarus, chief of the Bureau for East-West Trade in the U.S. Department of Commerce, discusses the advantages-and problems-of such co-operation with John Harter, a U.S. Information Service staff writer.

HARTER: Why does the U.S. Government favor the development of commercial relations with the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and the countries of Eastern Europe?

LAZARUS: That question has to be answered on several levels. You

are probably aware that in 1972 the United States suffered a balanceof-trade deficit of rather substantial proportions-to the extent of $6,400 million. The U.S. is going to have to develop its export sector aggressively if it is to return the trade balance to a position of equilibrium, not to mention its balance of payments. The trade balance will have to be shifted to a position of large surplus, in order to overcome the deficits we have in the other accounts of the balance of payments. Thus, the U.S. is generally seeking new markets and greater penetration of traditional markets.

Secondly, there is a great deal to be gained from an expanded base of contact between the market-oriented economies and the centrally planned economies-not only economically, but politically and culturally as well. I am not saying that trade axiomatically brings peaceful relationships between nations. But I do believe that expanded, frequent, and well-understood associations among peoples allow for a greater degree of understanding and-as a corollary-can help prevent misunderstanding.

Finally, the great continental economies of the United States and the Soviet Union are very complementary in nature. The U.S. has a highly developed manufacturing economy, and the Soviet Union has vast quantities of raw materials, which the U.S. can usefully employ today, and will need in greater quantities in the future. Therefore, an economic relationship between these two great economies makes a great deal of sense.

HARTER: How inten,sely-and why-are the socialist countries interested in expanding their commercial relations with the industrialized countries of the West?

LAZARUS: Various theories are offered for this development. His-

torically the Soviet Union-and the other countries of Eastern Europe to a lesser extent-followed a policy the economists called "autarchy."

This means they sought self-sufficiency.

I think one has to conclude this policy did not work very well.

The Soviet Union, in particular, suffered a significant slowdown in its economic development during the 1960s. I would speculate that the Soviet leadership saw two choices: to overhaul and radically change its internal economic structure-and I think they find that an unpalatable alternative-or to open their markets to the developed countries of the West, and to seek rather large-scale transfusions of technology and financing. I believe they have adopted the latter strategy.

HARTER: How about the countries of Eastern Europe? Do you see any different motivation on their part for expanding their commercial relationships with'the West?

LAZARUS: One thing I have learned by operating in this area is that

one of the great myths regarding the socialist countries is that the socalled "Communist Bloc" is a monolithic entity. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There are major differences between the economic and commercial approaches of, say, the Soviet Union and Poland-and further differences between the Polish approach and the Hungarian approach.

There are certainly monumental differences between the others and the economic system employed in Yugoslavia. What we find is that the Yugoslavs and the Hungarians are employing economic motivation systems which are very similar to those employed in the market economies, with a great deal of decision-making power decentralized to the enterprise level.

In Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia, there is potential for equity investment-that is, participation by a Western trading partner-up to 49 per cent. There is potential for Western participation in the management of economic enterprises operating in these countries.

I would say in summary that the countries of Eastern Europe are innovating to an increasing extent. We in the West are watching these innovations with great interest because we think they carry with them the prospect of greatly improved commercial and economic relationships between East and West.

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'There is a great deal to be gained from an expanded base of contact between the market-oriented and the centrally planned economies-not only economically, but politically and culturally as well.'

HARTER: What do the socialist countries expect to gain through expanded trade with the United States, in particular?

LAZARUS: The U.S. still has the strongest economy in the world, in many respects. In the first place, we have a great consuming market, which offers the prospect for Soviet sales. U.S. purchases of Soviet goods generate the foreign exchange which the socialist countries need.

Secondly, the United States is still the most technologically advanced country in the world. Technological achievements are available to the socialist countries within a trading relationship with countries like Japan, West Germany, and France, but not nearly to the extent as with the U.S. And finally, the United States is a great financial engine. There are capabilities of generating amounts of capital for a variety of enterprises that are not available elsewhere. While you can find some of these advantages in other countries-to a degree-there is no other country that has them in the totality and in the combination as in the U.S. And finally, I think there is just a general impression-not necessarily articulated, but very strongly felt in these countries-that the United States does it better than the others, and therefore, they would like to have a general relationship with us.

HARTER: Could you say, more specijicaffy, what the socialist countries are interested in importing from the U.S.?

LAZARUS: Their primary interest is in the high technology area: the products of our electronics industry, our computer industry, the broad range of equipment and know-how that propels our petroleum, oil, and gas extraction industry, machine tools, and the products of our aviation industry-not only aircraft, but know-how in the area of air transportation navigation. One could go on and on in the high technology area.

Then, secondly, there are large procurements of our agricultural surpluses, especially in vegetable oils and seeds, feed grains and cereals.

Beyond these two categories of products, there is, I think, a growing interest in the broad range of our consumer goods. But as of yet these countries have not really had the liquid assets with which to purchase large amounts of our consumer goods.

In some cases American firms have provided a complete factorynot only the construction of the building, but equipping the factory and sometimes training the personnel. A number of these projects have already been consummated: food processing factories in Poland and Hungary, fertilizer processing factories in the Soviet Union, and other efforts of this kind.

HARTER: What types of trade arrangements can the United States conclude with these countries?

LAZARUS: The Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe have had some difficulty generating the hard currency-the foreign exchange-with which to procure goods from the West. Their currencies, by and large, are not freely convertible. They attempt to overcome this difficulty by obtaining Western credits, by arrangements which consist of agreement on both sides to be compensated through a transfer of commodities rather than a transfer of currencies, and, in the case of the Soviet Union, by gold sales.

HARTER: What is the U.S. Government doing to encourage these expanding commercial relationships with the socialist countries?

LAZARUS: The Japanese, the West Germans, the British, the French,

and the Italians have been conducting substantial trade with the centrally planned economies for several years. Ours really only began in earnest since the 1972 Summit Meetings.

Nevertheless, we are acting energetically and aggressively. The government recognizes that a greater government involvement is required in the conduct of this trading relationship, because we are dealing with a government-a state trading organization-on the other side.

That's the reason we established the Bureau of East-West Trade within the U.S. Department of Commerce. We are devoting substantial government resources to the development of these trading relationships, and to assisting the U.S. business community to get started in this trade. Hopefully, after the initial work has been done, our government can withdraw a little, and not be so directly involved.

HARTER: How are U.S. businessmen reacting to East- West trade?

Are they interested in pursuing opportunities for doing business in socialist markets?

LAZARUS: I think there have been two distinct periods of reaction.

Immediately after the 1972 Summit Meetings, and the signing of the Soviet-American Trade Agreement in October 1972, there was a period of something close to euphoria. It was frankly a period that worried me, because I recognized that developing commercial relationships with the socialist countries required long, hard, aggravating, frustrating work, and the general economic potential was a long-term potential-not one that was going to yield great windfalls in the near future.

I think we are now in a second period, a period during which the backlash I feared is taking place-to a degree. A number of businessmen are becoming frustrated with the time it takes to consummate a deal. They sometimes perceive the problems of doing business with these countries as reflecting a general intransigence of their business partner in the centrally planned economy. This is not really intransigence, but just a more cathedral pace, that is normally adopted in the development of any decision in a centrally planned economy.

HARTER: Do you believe American businessmen are developing longrange perspectives?

LAZARUS: To a degree. I think we will end up with a core of very knowledgeable, thoughtful and skillful business negotiators.

And those who came into the game thinking it would be easy or quick will drop out. .

HARTER: It has been said that the limited ability of the socialist countries to earn foreign exchange to pay for their imports will be an impediment to increased East- West trade. What exports can these countries expand to earn the means to pay for more imports of goods and technology from the nonsocialist countries?

LAZARUS: Part of the problem is the legacy of the policy of autarchy which I mentioned earlier. When a nation sets about to make itself self-sufficient, it gives little thought to the export sector. The great enterprises within the Soviet Union, for example, are not geared to manufacture for export. Thus, their ability to earn foreign exchange by means of export is limited by an industrial tradition, not to mention the vagaries of the markets they seek to penetrate.

The Soviet Union has uncountable resources. Siberia is probably one of the last great repositories of the earth's riches, and is capable of

producing large amounts of energy materials, such as oil and gas, timber, all kinds of minerals, and agricultural products as well. The United States is now buying substantial quantities of chrome, some quantities of nickel, and comparatively large quantities of platinum and palladium from the Soviet Union. And for some time to come, these are the types of products which will earn foreign exchange for the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union has begun to study world export markets. Within a period of time, I think it will teach itself to manufacture those types of goods deemed desirable by the West, and purchased in the West.

HARTER: What is the export outlook for the countries of Eastern Europe and China?

LAZARUS: Poland has been a traditional exporter to the United States, and to the West in general-Polish gourmet food products, for example. Czechoslovakia has had an industrial tradition, and is capable of manufacturing and exporting industrial goods. The U.S. does not yet give most-favored-nation tariff treatment to imports from Czechoslovakia, and therefore their goods are subjected to higher tariffs than are similar goods from most other countries. This is also true of Hungary and Romania-not to mention the Soviet Union.

China's situation is a degree more difficult, because so much of Chinese labor goes into agricultural production. It takes four Chinese to feed five Chinese. Therefore, 80 per cent of the Chinese labor force is devoted to agricultural production. Until they can start diverting some of that labor to a greater degree of manufacturing-and go through the process of learning about manufacturing for the export market-they are going to have difficulties in generating foreign exchange. The Chinese are generally behind, and it will take them a longer time to catch up.

HARTER: Is the U.S. interested in developing arrangements that would make socialist countries an important source of oil and gasfor American factories and homes?

LAZARUS: The United States is interested in developing and implementing the most thoughtful, the soundest, and the most economic energy policy that can be devised. This means very thorough and detailed examination of a number of alternative sources.

One possibility is a crash campaign to further develop and exploit energy sources within the continental United States and Alaska, not to mention offshore oil drilling. But even the most intense development of

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these sources may not yield an energy supply adequate to meet demand in the United States in, say, the period 1980 to 1990.

One source, of course, is oil from the Middle East-the Persian Gulf. This is not only subject to dramatic cost escalation, but, as recent events have demonstrated, some political jeopardy.

The Soviet Union has large amounts of natural gas. In particular, there's a field in Western Siberia, called the Urengoy, located in the Tyuman region, with large proven reserves. The Soviets have indicated they would be ready to sell their gas to the United States. This region is a barren portion of Siberia. It would be necessary to transport this gas in liquid form. To develop it and build the pipelines, the liquefaction facilities, and the deliquefaction facilities in the United States would require vast financing, to the extent of several thousands of millions of dollars.

Whether or not this is the most attractive and economical foreign source of energy is yet to be decided. If the results of our analyses are positive, then we would probably go forward and initiate such a deal with the Soviet Union. The Russians have demonstrated, with other countries, that they can be reliable suppliers of oil and gas, over time.

HARTER: How would this relate to Japanese interests in this area?

LAZARUS: There is another potential natural gas project in Eastern Siberia, in the Yakutsk region, in which the United States and Japan are both interested, although the reserves in this area have not yet been proven. If they do prove up, there's a potential for the United States, Japan, and the Soviet Union to enter into a tripartite venture, with the Soviet Union supplying energy materials to both Japan and the United States, from a single source.

HARTER: What kind of business opportunities are there for American businessmen in the smaller countries of Eastern Europe? Is the U.S. Government doing anything to call attention to the trade and joint venture possibilities in these countries?

LAZARUS: The U.S. Bureau of East-West Trade has specialists in each of these countries, and a team of trade development assistance experts, who call on a broad segment of the business community. They have planned a series of publications, which will receive wide distribution. Thus we are undertaking certain efforts to call these opportunities to the attention of the U.S. business community. We try to tailor programs to fit both the demand on the one hand, and the potential of the market on the other.

Any firm which wants to enter into a joint-venture type of partnership with the socialist countries 'should be prepared to invest a lot of time, and a lot of developmental money to begin a relationship.'

HARTER: Could you tell us a little more about the "joint venture" as a means of doing business?

LAZARUS: The "joint venture" means different things in different places. In Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia, a Western partner can invest and retain up to 49 per cent of the equity capital and the management in an enterprise located within their boundaries.

This is somewhat contrary to pure Marxist doctrine, which holds that the means of production must remain totally in the hands of "the people." Nevertheless, the governments of these countries have managed to interpret that doctrine in a "modern" context, which allows them to absorb such capital investment in equity participation, and produce some very interesting and profitable results. A great deal of co-operative management takes place in these joint projects.

I should hasten to add that different rules for joint ventures prevail in each of these countries. They are by no means similar.

While there has been extensive participation in joint ventures in Eastern Europe on the part of Western European companies, there has been very little participation on the part of U.S. companies.

About five U.S. companies are active in Yugoslavia, and one in Romania. There is an interesting joint venture between an American agricultural company and a Hungarian farm co-operative-the soBelow: Soviet ship being loaded with grain at Houston, Texas. The U.S.S.R. imported 8860.8 million worth of foodgrains from the United States in '73.

called Babolna Farm-in which Corn Products, Inc., is active. This has proven most successful, from almost every point of view.

But these examples complete a very small list. We have been pressing these countries to make manifest their rules for joint ventures, to make them more logical internally, and more comprehensible to American businessmen, so that more joint ventures can be established.

HARTER: Would you care to make any further predictions concerning thefuture development of commercial relations between the United States and the socialist countries?

LAZARUS: I think I would repeat my earlier remarks about euphoria and backlash. I think the prospect for improved, increased, and more profitable commercial and economic co-operation with the centrally planned economies is good, but not great nor immediate.

Any firm entering into this type of relationship should be prepared to invest a lot of time, and a lot of developmental money to begin a relationship. It should be prepared for few immediate results. It could take as long as two or three years to realize the first revenue.

Really, the kind of decision that needs to be made in this area is a 25-year decision-a decision that carries out to the end of the century.

If a company is prepared to think in this kind of time frame, and is willing to enter this relationship, and is prepared to absorb this kind of initial frustration, I think it can average out to be a very profitable endeavor.

0

PRESIDENT FORD'S FIRST ADDRESS TO THE U.S. CONGRESS On August 12, 1974, President Gerald R. Ford addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress. He pledged a policy of unity in diversity at home, and a continuity in America's foreign policy. 'Successful foreign policy,' he said, 'is an extension of the hopes of the American people for a world of peace and orderly freedom.' Excerpts from his speech follow. . . . My fellow Americans, we have a lot of work to do.

My former colleagues, you and I have a lot of work to do.

Let's get on with it.

I am grateful for your very warm welcome.

I am not here to make an inaugural address. The nation needs action, not words.

Nor will this be a formal report on the state of the union. God willing, [ will have at least three more chances to do that.

It's good to be back in the people's House. But this cannot be a real homecoming. Under the Constitution, I now belong to the executive branch ....

As President, within the limits of basic principles, my motto toward the Congress is communication, conciliation, compromise and co-operation. This Congress will, I am confident, be my working partner as well as my most constructive critic. I am not asking for conformity. I am dedicated to the two-party system, and you know which party is mine.

1 do not want a honeymoon with you. [ want a good marriage.

I want progress and problem-solving, which requires my best efforts and also your best efforts.

I have no need to learn how Congress speaks for the people.

As President, I intend to listen. But I also intend to listen to the people themselves-all the people-as I promised them last Friday. I want to be sure we are all tuned in to the real voice of America ....

The first seven words of the Constitution, and the most important, are these: "We, the people of the United States .... " We, the people, ordained and established the Constitution and reserved to themselves all powers not granted to Federal and State Governments. I respect and will always be conscious of that fundamental rule of freedom ....

I do have some old-fashioned ideas. I believe in the basic decency and fairness of America. I believe in the integrity and patriotism of the Congress .... And while 1am aware of the House rule that one never speaks to the galleries, 1 believe in the First Amendment and the absolute necessity of a free press.

But I also believe that over two centuries since the first Conti-

nental Congress was convened, the direction of our nation's movement has been forward .... Now J ask you to join with me in getting this country revved up and moving.

My instinctive judgment is that the state of the unio"n is excellent. But the state of our economy is not so good.

Everywhere I have been as Vice President, some 118,000 miles into 40 states and through 55 news conferences, the unanimous concern of Americans' is inflation. For once all the polls agree.

They also suggest that people blame government far more than either management or labor for the high cost of everything.

You who come from 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia know this better than I. That is why you have created since J left here your Budget Reform Committee. 1 welcome it and will work with its members to bring the federal budget into balance by fiscal 1976.

The fact is that for the past 25 years that I served here: the federal budget has been balanced in only six ....

Just as escalating federal spending has been a prime cause of higher prices over many years, it may take some time to stop inflation. But we must begin now ....

My first priority is to work with you to bring inflation under control. Inflation is our domestic public enemy number one ....

I began to put my Administration's own economic house in order, starting last Friday.

I instructed my cabinet officers and counselors and my White House staff to make fiscal restraint their first order of business, and save every taxpayer's dollar ....

The economy of our country is critically depende!1t on how we interact with the economies of other countries. It is little comfort that our inflation is only part of a world-wide problem ....

As one of the building blocks of peace, we have taken the lead in working toward a more open and equitable world economic system. A new round of international trade negotiations started last September among 105 nations in Tokyo. The others are waiting for the United States Congress to grant the necessary authority to proceed.

With modifications, the Trade Reform Bill passed by the House

last year would do that. I understand good progress has been made in the Senate Committee. But I am optimistic, as always, that the Senate will pass an acceptable bill quickly as a key part of our joint prosperity campaign.

I am determined to expedite other international economic plans. We. will be working together with other nations to find better ways to prevent shortages of food and fuel. We must not let last winter's energy crisis happen again. I will push Project Independence for our own good and the good of others. In that too, I will need your help.

Successful foreign policy is an extension of the hopes of the whole American people for a world of peace and orderly freedom. So I would say a few words to our distinguished guests from the governments of other nations where, as at home, it is my firm determination to deal openly with allies and adversaries.

Over the past five and a half years, in Congress and as Vice President, I have fully supported the outstanding foreign policy of President Nixon. This I intend to continue.

Throughout my public service, starting with wartime naval duty under the command of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, I have upheld all our Presidents when they spoke for my country to the world. I believe the Constitution commands this. I know that in this crucial area of international policy I can count on your firm support.

Let there be no doubt or misunderstanding anywhere. There are no opportunities to exploit, should anyone so desire. There will be no change of course, no relaxation of vigilance, no abandonment of the helm of our ship of state as the watch changes.

We stand by our commitments and will live up to our responsibilities in our formal alliances, in our friendships and in our improving relations with any potential adversaries.

On this, Americans are united and strong. Under my term of leadership I hope we will become more united. I am certain we will remain strong.

A strong defense is the surest way to peace. Strength makes detente attainable. Weakness invites war, as my generation knows from four bitter experiences.

Just as America's will for peace is second to none, so will America's strength be second to none.

We cannot rely on the forbearance of others to protect this nation. The power and diversity of the Armed Forces, the resolve of our fellow-citizens, the flexibility in our command to navigate international waters that remain troubled-all are essential to our security.

I shall continue to insist ori civilian control of our superb military establishment. The Constitution plainly requires the President to be the Commander-in-Chief, and I will be.

Our job will not be easy. In promising continuity, I cannot promise simplicity. The problems and challenges of the world remain complex and difficult. But we have set out upon a path of reason and fairness, and we will continue on it.

As guideposts on that path, I can offer the following: -To our allies of a generation, in the Atlantic Community and Japan, I pledge continuity in the loyal collaboration on our many mutual endeavors.

-To our friends and allies in this hemisphere, I pledge continuity in the deepening dialogue to define renewed relationships of equality and justice.

-To our allies and friends in Asia, I pledge a continuity in our support for their security, independence, and economic development. In Indochina, we are determined to see the observance of the Paris Agreement on Vietnam and the cease-fire and

negotiated settlement in Laos. We hope to see an early compromise settlement in Cambodia.

-To the Soviet Union, I pledge continuity in our commitment to the course of the past three years. To our two peoples, and to all mankind, we owe a continued effort to live, and where possible, to work together in peace; for, in a thermonuclear age, there can be no alternative to a positive and peaceful relationship between our nations.

-To the People's Republic of China, whose legendary hospitality I enjoyed, I pledge continuity in our commitment to the principles of the Shanghai Communique. The new relationship built on those principles has demonstrated that it serves serious and objective mutual interests and has become an enduring feature on the world scene.

-To the nations of the Middle East, r pledge continuity in our vigorous efforts to advance the process which has brought hopes of peace to that region after 25 long years as a hotbed of war.

We shall carry out our promise to promote continuing negotiations among all parties for a complete, just and lasting settlement.

-To all nations, I pledge continuity in seeking a common global goal: A stable international structure of trade and finance which reflects the interdependence of all peoples.

-To the entire international community-to the United Nations, to the world's nonaligned nations, and to all others-l pledge a continuity in our dedication to the humane goals which throughout our history have been so much a part of our contribution to mankind.

So long as the peoples of the world have confidence in our purposes and faith in our Lord, the age-old vision of peace on earth will continue to grow brighter.

I pledge myself unreservedly to that goal. I say to you in words that cannot be improved upon: "Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate."

As Vice President, I addressed myself to the individual rights of Americans in the area of privacy. There will be no illegal tapings, eavesdropping, buggings, or break-ins by my Administration. There will be hot pursuit of tough laws to prevent illegal invasions of privacy in both government and private activities ....

I once told you that I am not a saint, and hope never to see the day that I cannot admit having made a mistake. So I will close with another confession.

Frequently along the tortuous road of recent months, from this chamber to the President's house, I protested that I was my own man.

Now I realize that I was wrong.

I am your man, for it was your carefully weighed confirmation that changed my occupation.

I am the people's man, for you acted in their name, and I accepted and began my new and solemn trust with a promise to serve all the people, and to do the best I can for America.

When I say all the people I mean exactly that.

To the limits of my strength and ability, I will be the President of the black, brown, red and white Americans, of old and young, of women's liberationists and male chauvinists and all the rest of us in between, of the poor and the rich, of native sons and new refugees, of those who work at lathes or at desks or in mines or in the fields, and of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and atheists, if there really are any ath.eists after what we have all been through.

Fellow-Americans, a final word: I want to be a good President.

I need your help.

We all need God's sure guidance.

With it, nothing can stop the United States of America.

0

The resignation of Richard Nixon and the accession to the American Presidency of Gerald R. Ford evoked editorial comment in newspapers throughout the world. Some common threads of thought were clearly discernible.

Among these were praise for the strength of American democratic institutions, for the smooth transition of power, for the positive qualities of the new Chief Executive. The retention of Dr. Kissinger as Secretary of State was greeted as assurance of continuity in U.S. foreign policy.

U.S. DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS One of the most eloquent comments on the basic strength of the U.S. system appeared in a New York Times editorial which said: "This has been a time of crisis in the history of this nation ... but it is an hour of triumphant vindication as well, an hour in which the strength of the American constitutional system has been proven, an hour in which the American people can take pride because it has demonstrated that in a most critical moment and under the greatest possible strain ... our Constitution works: Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men."

"It is time to reflect with some sense of national pride," observed the Washington Star-News, "upon the testing through which we've just passed as a people ....

The nation simply cannot go forward, some have said, without structural changes -perhaps a whole new modernized Constitution. But we should have remembered that it's all been said before, and much worse, for that matter. 'Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor,' sneered Lord Macaulay more than a century ago ....

And many Americans believed him.

"Well, now we've seen the anchor. We have seen it hold in a hurricane ....

"When Benjamin Franklin left the Constitutional Convention, a woman asked him what kind of a government had been wrought. 'Republic, madam, if you can keep it,' he replied. There should be some thrill for all of us in knowing that this generation is indeed keeping it, with all freedoms intact."

In India much the same kind of sentiment was expressed. The Hindu, for example, pointed out: "If the Watergate scandal

turned the floodlight on the extent of corruption that prevails in high places in Washington ... it has also served to highlight the strength of American democracy.

It has proved that no man, not even the President, can expect to be above the law in the United States. There are not many countries in the world that can lay claim to' such distinction."

In similar vein, the Indian Express paid tribute to "the intrepid American press, the conscientious judiciary, and men of integrity like Judge Sirica" ... for their "unwavering pursuit of truth and justice."

Several other Indian newspapers praised the workings of democracy in America. A sampling: "The tragedy of Mr. Nixon has proved to be the triumph of the American system."

-Hindustan Times "The end of the agony signifies a signal triumph of American democracy."-Economic Times "Americans are entitled to glory and to congratulate themselves on the fact that their Constitution has proved strong enough to drive Nixon out of office.-Tribune "Nixon's resignation has proved that American democracy is a great force."

-Navbharat Times "The sanctity of law has been upheld.

The American judges functioned with a keen sense of duty, without fear of incurring any displeasure from the higher-ups.

This proved that the roots of American democracy have been watered and nourished well. "-Dinamani The Financial Express singled out the U.S. press for special mention. "Nobody will salute Mr. Nixon," it observed, "but the entire world will forever salute those intrepid reporters, those fearless editors, and the uncompromising newspapers which, regardless of transparent threats to their survival, dug deep and ferreted out the facts that finally pushed him out of the White House."

In a column headlined "U.S.: System Proves Sound," Krishan Bhatia, Hindustan Times Washington correspondent, said: "The Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives ... has shown a measure of courage and political independence that legislative bodies in other democtatic societies would find hard to surpass or even match .... But the really important point is that the political system provided for the possibility of a small group of un-

known legislators sternly calling to account one who is not only the most powerful man in the U.S. but perhaps in the world."

Across the world, from Europe to Latin America, the press commented in a similar vein. Some examples: London, The Times: "Watergate has shown the extraordinary resilience of the U.S., its ability to correct its errors, to restore balance among the branches of government, and to renew its faith and its values. It was not forced upon the country from outside. It arose from within and was dealt with by existing institutions under the existing Constitution. No special measures were required, no revolution, no mass demonstrations, no state of emergency."

Geneva, La Suisse: "The Americans have never really questioned that their political system and their almost twohundred-year-old Constitution will survive the storm. Under special circumstances ... it has demonstrated its value."

Turin, La Stan/pa: "America has passed from one tragedy to another, but every time she seems to sink in a destructive crisis she emerges perhaps stronger. After Nixon's fall, in our eyes America is stronger rather than weaker."

Buenos Aires, La Prensa: There is "irrefutable proof of the unparalleled stability of free institutions in the United States. A similar development in another nation is impossible to conceive without dangerous overflow of popular passions, serious street disorders or visible breaks in the normal functioning of public administration."

In addition to comment on the strength of American democratic institutions, there was considerable- comment on the orderly transfer of power.

In Aostralia, the Canberra Times had this to say: "The simple fact that there has been an orderly and universally accepted transfer of the awesome power of the Presidency in the U.S. is a cause for thankfulness in a world where there is ample reason for dejection. There are many countries in which such a momentous change, in the extraordinary conditions that have attended the resignation of Mr. Nixon, could not have taken place without violent dislocation and even bloodshed."

"A feeling of relief comes from the U.S. having effected the transition of p.ower so

smoothly, employing institutional mechanisms laid down for such·a situation," asserted £1 Nacional of Mexico.

And the New York Times stated: "The peaceful transfer of power that has resulted from the convulsion of these last few days has come with a cleansing sense of relief to the American people; and it was accomplished without the slightest trace of disorder and in the most perfect civic tranquillity ....

"No drop of blood has been spilled, no troops called out, no suspension of civil liberties ordered, to effect this transfer of power in what remains the most powerful nation on earth. On the contrary, the instrument of change has been a reaffirmation of the rule of la wand orderly procedure."

CONTINUITY IN FOREIGN POLICY

terms with the Third World, the nonaligned nations have nothing to lose and probably something to gain."

As there was speculation on the shaping of U.S. foreign policy, there was also comment in India on possible changes in IndoU.S. relations. In a column entitled "Better Indo-U.S. Ties Likely," the Hindu's New Delhi correspondent, G.K. Reddy, noted that Dr. Kissinger's retention "is seen here as a sign of his [President Ford's] keen desire to pursue the foreign policies of the Nixon Administration.

And this has encouraged the policy-makers here to look forward to an early era of better IndoAmerican relations."

The Hindustan Times New Delhi correspondent observed: "The feeling here is that his [Nixon's] successor may pursue the objective of putting the relations between the two big democracies on a sound footing with greater zeal than Mr. Nixon had shown." Anq the newspaper's Washington correspondent quoted Ambassador Kaul as expressing the hope that" Dr. Kissinger would devote a little more time to other than 'crisis areas.' " Dinamani was of the opinion that "Ford's assumption of office ... may help improve Indo-U.S. relations further .... "

President Ford's retention of Dr. Kissinger as Secretary of State presages a continuation of existing U.S. foreign policies: This was the almost unanimous opinion of the world press.

Among several Indian newspapers that shared this view was the Times of India which said: "So far as foreign policy is concerned, any sharp break with the immediate past can be ruled out. It is not only Dr. Kissinger's continuance as the Secretary of State which will be a guarantee against a departure from the policy of "Integrity and honesty"-these were the detente."

Reporting from London, the Statesman's key words that characterized comment on Y.M. Nair also felt that "the fact that Dr. the new American President. Here are . Kissinger is to continue as Secretary of some excerpts from voluminous comment State appears to assure continuity of Mr. in the world press: The Sydney Morning Herald: "Mr. Ford Nixon's policies." is still something of an unknown quantity Patriot reprinted a Pravda comment des-but then, so was Harry Truman when he cribing "the new U.S. President as one succeeded Franklin Roosevelt. He starts committed to the policy of detente and with some obvious advantages. He probetterment of Soviet-American relations." videsa presence that embodies a sense of It also said that "Izvestia noted with satishonesty, decency and integrity, and these faction the pronouncements of leading qualities are above all what are needed in U.S. public figures that the lines of Amerithe White House." can foreign policy will be preserved and £/ Siglio, Colombia: "Fortunately pubcontinued. " A somewhat different view was voiced in lic opinion has absolute confidence in the new President, for Gerald Ford has a rethe Indian Express Washington corresponin his professional dent's column entitled: "Changes Inevit- cord of rectitude deali ngs.'· able in Foreign Policy." Correspondent The Daily Mail, London: "Gerald Ford T.Y. Parasuram said: "Whatever assurances Secretary of State Kissinger ... may " .. has the capacities, the support and the give other nations about the continuity of potential to be the exorcist of the national nightmare, to achieve unity and tranquillity American foreign policy it is quite obvious that a change in Administration must result out of neurotic divisiveness .... " in changes in policy or in approaches which In the United States, solid support for make change inevitable."

President Ford was evident in all major Parasuram added: "To the extent that daily newspapers. Thus the Philadelphia the Nixon Administration never came to Inquirer said: "Mr. Ford's reputation is

built on qualities which should serve both him and the country well now. The foremost is personal integrity. Nothing is higher on the national agenda today than the restoration of public confidence .... " "Mr. Ford's new beginning comes with a hopefulness," wrotethe Los Angeles Times, "and we are convinced that it will bring a fresh vitality to the political and social fabric of the nation .... " The Washington Post noted: "At no time in the country's history has the standard of acceptable conduct of the Presidency been so clearly defined .... This standard will now be Mr: Ford's to uphold and enforce. In this particular duty he will have unparalleled and unprecedented public support."

"We would like to tell our new President," said the Baltimore Sun, "that we liked his speech after the oath-taking. We liked its tone, its simplicity, its directness ....

Second, we would like to say that of all the pledges he ever makes to the peoplt:, none will be more important than his pledge of honesty, openness and candor."

The New York Times applauded "President Ford's direct approach to people and problems, his unassuming manner, his candor and openness and, we trust, his willingness to accept objective advice .... " The Indian press likewise welcomed Mr. Ford's assumption of the Presidency.

The Gujarati daily Janashakti pointed out: "During the last few months, it has been observed that Mr. Ford is a man of few words, but when he does speak his words ring true."

And finally, the Hindu catalogued President Ford's "virtues, namely integrity, respect for the law and for the Constitution and its built-in system of checks and balances. He enjoys good relations with the leaders of both the Republican and Democratic parties which should make for smooth sailing for his Administration through Congressional waters."

President Ford's August 12 address to the U.S. Congress received favorable press reaction. Thus, the New York Times said it left the impression "of a leader open J?ot only in manner but in receptivity to new ideas for tackling the nation's problems." The Christian Science Monitor observed that the speech "set a refreshing tone of openness and plain speaking for the new Administration."

And the Washington Star-News commented: The President's "intent was to reassure the nation that a firm hand is at the helm and to assure the Congress of his desire to co-operate. He did it well."

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TOURING AMERICA

Philadelphia "I went to Philadelphia once," said

W.e. Fields, "but it was closed." No such danger confronts the visitor to Philadelphia today-he will find that the city is a vigorous and thriving metropolis.

Behind all the bustle, however, is the deep serenity of an older city which two hundred years ago was the focal point in America's birth as an independent nation.

In Philadelphia, known as the "cradle of liberty," are dignified reminders of a colonial and revolutionary past and of Benjamin Franklin, its most eminent citizen, who left his imprint on innumerable institutions.

Philadelphia's many trees, parks and other open spaces, its quiet pace of life reflect in many ways the genteel Quaker culture inherited from its founder William Penn. But there is another side to Philadelphia-it is also a center of industry, commerce and business. Philadelphia is the fourth largest city in America and its harbor on the Delaware River is the largest freshwater port in the world. The city's many attractions include the Walnut Street Theater (the oldest in America), the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Museum of Art, and Independence Hall. .

More than anything else, the Philadelphia of today is a meeting place which joins together the spirit of America, past and present.

Foremost among the hallowed shrines of America's birth is Independence Hall (above right) where the Declaration of Independence was adopted 0/1 July 4, 1776. Right: A painting showing American soldiers moving the Liberty Bell to safety in 1777, during the Revolutionary War. Above: A restored colonial home.

Back cover: The original Declaration of Independence and the silver inkstand used by leaders of the Revolution.