A LEITER FROM THE PUBLISHER Defining human rights, as President Jimmy Carter has recently pointed out in a newspaper article, is a hazardous business. There is, he has noted, the danger of leaving out something essential, and the equal danger of including things that, however desirable, are not rights at all. President Carter has nevertheless sought to define human rights as best he may. He has emphasized the classic American statement that Thomas Jefferson embodied in the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776. Jefferson enunciated three "unalienable," i.e., fundamental human rights: to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness . .. President Carter interprets the first right, to life, as meaning, the right to the integrity of the person. All people, he asserts, are entitled to live free of arbitrary imprisonment, torture or execution. Liberty, he says, guarantees the rights of the individual as a citizen: notably, freedom of conscience, with its corollaries of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The third right Jefferson couched in new language. The usual formulation of his time, that of the English social philosopher John Locke, was the right to "the pursuit of property." Jefferson changed it to the "pursuit of happiness." He did this not because "happiness" has a less materialistic ring than "property," but because "property" refers only to things privately owned. What Jefferson was talking about were the basic economic and social benefits to which every human being is entitled, whether or not he owns property: food, shelter, health care and education. How to achieve these fundamental human rights? President Carter, who has been trying since he assumed the Presidency to advance human rights domestically and in American foreign policy, readily recognizes that they cannot be the only goals. He points out that the world is imperfect, no country's power is limitless, the results of the actions of even the strongest power are bound to be mixed, even when the country's motives are not. There has been progress, but we cannot expect quick or easy results. The struggle for human rights has been going on for many centuries. But, President Carter concludes, there is no reason to despair. The best way to advance the cause of human rights abroad is to do all one can to advance it at home. That is where the pursuit of human rights, like charity, must begin. Two articles in this issue of SPAN illustrate the traditional American concern for human rights at home that President Carter is reasserting. One article, "The Judge and the Coffee Vendor," is based on a real happening: a judge who has insulted a coffee vendor in court is sued by the vendor on the ground that he has damaged the vendor's business reputation-and loses his judgeship! Not merely does justice triumph, but human rights are vindicated-the coffee vendor's right to happiness by way of an honest livelihood. The second article is an appraisal of the New Deal era films of moviemaker Frank Capra, who appears on the cover of this issue. The author, Chidananda Dasgupta, makes the important point that these movies had one thing in common: In all of them the hero-a plain, ordinary person-finds himself on the brink of defeat by powerful, corrupt interests. But .in each case he digs deep within himself and finds the moral courage to overcome, in the name of the people. The value of freedom of conscience is reasserted anew. The warm reception of Frank Capra's New Deal films shown recently in India surely points to some of the values shared by the Indian people and the American people, and a mutual conviction that the cause of human rights is, indeed, a vital one. -J.W.G.
SPAN 10 14
What Are We to Do About Deserts?
16
Why Man Explores Space
by Harold E, Dregne
Dorothy Crook Interviews Isaac Asimov
20 28
Frank Capra's New Deal Comedies by Chidananda Dasgupta
32 34
40 44 45 46 49
Human Rights and the U.S. Congress by Robert F. Buckhorn
Front cover: Frank Capra, one of Hollywood's top directors, made a series of films after the Depression of the 1930s in which he achieved a rare combination of entertainment with a message, For a discussion of these New Deal comedies, see page' 28. Back cover: A girl from Arizona, which has by far the largest number of American Indians in the United States. They own 21 million acres, or more than a fourth of the state. See page 49. JACOB SLOAN, Editor; JAY W. GILDNER, Publisher. Managing Editor: Chidananda Dasgupta. Assistant Managing Editor: S.R. Madhu. Editorial Staff: Moha=ed Reyazuddin, Avinash Pasricha, Nirmal Sharma, Krishan Gabrani, Murari Saha, Rocque Fernandes. Art Director: Nand Katyal. Art Staff: Gopi Gajwani, B. Roy Choudhury, Kanti Roy. Chief of Production: Awtar S. Marwaha. Photographic Services: USIS Photo Lab. Published by the United States Information Service, 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001, on behalf of the American Embassy, New Delhi. The opinions expressed in .this magazine do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the United States Government. Printed by Aroon Purie at Thomson Press (India) Limited, Faridabad, Haryana. Photographs: 3-Kapoor Studios, Lucknow. 10 bottom-courtesy Joseph Stein. 12-Avinash Pasricha except top by K.B. Singh and center by B.N. Sharma. 14-Š 1977 Grant Heilman. 16-19-Suzanne Anderson. 35-courtesy Sperry Rand Corporation. 37-John Marmaras. 49 top left-Avinash Pasricha; right-William Belknap Jr., National Park Service; bottom right-J.R. Eyerman, Life. Back cover-Roben Stark, courtesy The Lamp.
Use of SPAN articles in other publications is encouraged, except when copyrighted. For permission,. write to the Editor. Price of magazine: one year's subscription (12 issues), 18 rupees; single copy, 2 rupees 50 paise. For change of address, send an old address from a recent SPAN envelope along with new address to A.K. Mitra..Circulation Manager, SPAN Magazine, 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001.
BOWOPIIIS TBI U.S.• IBIIT' The United States is the world's most open market, particularly for developing countries, says a distinguished econo,mic consultant. Elaborate laws ensure that domestic demands for protection from foreign competition cannot be made lightly. Import curbs are difficult to obtain, limited in scope, and apply only in case of real injury to domestic interests. In the United States, the government has been philosophically committed to a liberal, open trading world since 1934. Both major political parties have supported this policy orientation, as have all the U.S. Presidents during this period. The United States imports about half the total exports of manufactures from all developing countries today (aside from nonferrous metals or tni.llerals). The European Community takes only about one-third of such trade from developing countries, and Japan only about 10 per cent. Canada, the principal trading partner of the U.S., imports only a tiny amount 'of manufactures from developing nations. Thus, while the United States may at times appear restrictive in particular product situations, overall it is the most open market in the world for products of developing countries. The United States, like every other nation, has periodically been confronted with domestic dem&nds for import protection. When business firms or groups of workers find themselves in trouble, they often blame the difficulties on outside causes, especially on imports of foreign products. Each government learns to deal in its own way with the special political pressures that result. The U.S. response has been to develop, over the years, an elaborate set of official, public procedures through which complaints must be channeled. The thinking has been that particular business or labor interests should not ,prevail over the broader national interest, and that complex precautions are necessary to ensure that restrictive action is (1) difficult to obtain; (2) limited in scope and tailored very precisely to the problem which gave rise to complaint; (3) possible only if there is real injury or major disruption to domestic interests, or if the problem arises from market intervention by foreign governments. The most recent updating and revision of the legal framework is embodied in the Trade Act of 1974-the same law that provided authority to grant generalized
tariff preferences for developing countries, and to negotiate further liberalization of trade in the Multilateral Trade Negotiations now going on in Geneva. The law' in general distinguishes two types of problems: (1) injury to domestic interests caused by imports and (2) problems arising from "unfair" trading practices. In the first case, if an industry or group of workers feel threatened by the growth of imports of a particular product, they may file a petition with the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC). This Commission will then hold extensive public hearings, and undertake a basic economic analysis of the domestic and import situation, to determine whether the problems of the industry are traderelated or due to other causes. What the Commissioners must decide is whether imports are a cause of injury which is not only important, but one which is at least equal in significance to any other problems the industry is coping with. If a majority of the Commissioners find injury, they must then vote on a recommended remedy. They can: recommend higher tariffs, import quotas, or more complex tariff quotas. Then the U.S. President makes a separate determination, based on further analyses and discussions within the Executive Branch of the Government. The President can accept the advice of the USITC, or he can reject that advice, or he can choose a different type of action. To make this whole process even more complex, the U.S. Congress can under the law object to any action the President takes-including inaction-and the Congress can vote to override the President and enforce the USITC recommendation. While the procedure may seem frighteningly complex to the outsider, it has several important safeguards against special pleading: • The procedure is public, with ample opportunity for scrutiny by the press, consumer interests, and representatives of foreign exporters as well as domestic
importers. • By taking time and requiring elaborate presentations, the law ensures that complaints are serious and not just frivolous and that decisions are taken in a cool, deliberate manner. • Economic evidence of injury must be demonstrated. Over the years very few such complaints have succeeded. The only significant recent cases involved imports of television sets from Japan, specialty steel from Japan and the European Community, and imports of shoes from developing countries. The provisions of the law relating to unfair trade practices are different. Philosophically, American economic thinking has traditionally distinguished between problems that arise from normal market forces and problems that derive from unfair behavior on the part of some competitors or on the part of other governments. Most important in this philosophic distinction are cases where foreign governments provide subsidies to aid the sale of exports from their countries. American workers and producers see this as a matter of a small private business having to compete with national treasuries-a competition widely considered to be unfair. U.S. law regarding foreign subsidies was drafted in 1897. It is very simple. It requires the Treasury Department •to apply "countervailing duties" against any net subsidies found to exist on imports. For a short period, while the United States is engaged in' the Multilateral Trade Negotiations in Geneva, the present U.S. law allows the Treasury to waive application of countervailing duties pending the satisfactory completion of these global negotiations and the development of new world trade rules on subsidies. Another type of "unfair trade practice" that is specifically dealt with at length in the U.S. trade law is dumping. When a foreign producer or trader sells his product abroad at a lower price than he does in his home market (taking into account reasonable transportation ahd
selling expenses), this is generally described as "dumping." Dumping can sometimes be a boon to consumers. But dumping can be a problem if it is practiced in a predatory manner, to drive out other competitors. It can be bad if it results in injury or disruption to domestic producers and workers. Therefore, the U.S. law lays out formal procedures and guidelines for dumping actions. Domestic firms or workers may make a complaint. If they do, a preliminary review is undertaken by Treasury to see whether the complaint is frivolous or serious. The U.S. International Trade Commission also makes a preliminary judgment as to whether there is any evidence of potential injury. Only after these tests have been met is an investigation-very elaborate and extensivestarted. Only if the Commission finds injury, can action against imports be taken.
On the whole, the possibilities for U.S. action against foreign products are strictly limited. The President and his Executive Branch have very limited authority and how they proceed, in public view, is carefully prescribed by the law. Indirect, hidden action to limit imports by bureaucratic decision is not legally possible (as it is in so many other nations). Arbitrary decisions are subject to appeal. The processes of decision are elabonite, and their purpose is to ensure fairness and to seek out the truth. Even when the ultimate effect is a decision to restrict imports, the action is kept limited. Thus, in the case of shoes, the USITC recommended 'raising tariffs on shoes from all countries. The President decided to negotiate limitations on exports bilaterally with key exporting nations. It is, in other words, easy to say the United States is protectionist when a specific action is ultimately taken. Very
rarely does anyone analyze the whole process which led to a decision, or compare the action with the many requests for action which fail in the very elaborate legal processes of the American system. And even less oftep is there a comparison with other nations, where a decision to redirect trade can be taken without such elaborate procedures, and even sometimes with no publicity or explicit action. The U.S. market may sometimes seem incredibly complex-but the complexity is there for a purpose, and that is to ensure fairness and to protect everyone's interests, including the interests of importers and foreign producers. 0
About the Author: Harald B. Malmgren was a key trade negotiator for the U.S. during' the Johnson, Nixon and Ford Administrations. He .is now a consultant. He has written numerous books and articles on international trade policy.
WHEN ECONOMISTS MEET A Report of the Lucknow Seminar on International Economic Relations "I ,welcome you to this city of warm hearts, Kathak, Urdu poetry, Moghlai food and takalluf," said Professor V.B. Singh, head of the department of economics, Lucknow University, inaugurating the recent Lucknow seminar* on "Current Issues in Internationa.l Economic Relations." The seminar room-on the ninth floor of the Clarks Avadh Hotel-overlooked the Gomti River flowing serenely through the town. Competing for attention with the Gomti for a good part of the seminar were two American economistsDr. William R. Cline, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and Dr. Mordechai R. Kreinin, Professor of Economics at Michigan University. Cline was staid, well-reasoned, persuasive. Kreinin was witty, flamboyant, provocative. Both stimulated lively discussion . among the 45 delegates, who included Professor B.R. Shenoy of the Economics Research Centre, New Delhi; Dr. J.D. Sethi of the Delhi School of Economics; Dr. D.K. Ghosh of the Department of Company Affairs, Governm~nt of India; Dr. R.S. Nigam of the Delhi School of Economics ; Professor Rasheduddin Khan of Jawaharlal Nehru University; M.C. Bhatt of the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India. Bycommon consent, the seminar's two most useful sessions were those on inflation and on trade bet~een the industrialized and the developing countries. What follows is a report of these two sessions. *The seminar was sponsored jointly by the Department of Economics, Lucknow University, and the U.S. Information Service.
Professor Kreinin responds to questions at the Lucknow seminar. This ses~ion was chaired by M.C. Bhatt (center). At right: Dr. D.K. Ghosh.
Delegates made copious notes as Dr. Cline delivered his fact-packed address on "Impact of World Inflation on Developing Countries." (Appropriately enough, this part of the seminar was chaired by Professor B.R. Shen9Y, an authority on'inflation. Dr. Anand P. Gupta, Director of New Delhi's Institute for Public Policy Analysis, was the discussion leader.) Cline presented to the delegates some findings of the Brookings Institution's studies on world inflation. Perhaps the most significant finding of the Brookings investigation was that spiraling oil prices have been the principal force behind the deterioration in terms of trade of developing countries between 1970 and 1975. To elaborate: Most developing countries whose terms of trade had been deteriorating during
this period would have improved their terms of trade if the oil price-hike factor were absent. Another interesting finding concerned the causes of inflation in developing countries. In the sixties, Cline said, domestic factors were mainly responsible for the inflation; in the seventies, the inflation was "externally generated" -transmitted from other countries. Domestic inflation was higher than "imported inflation" in 90 per cent of the developing countries in the early sixties; but in the seventies, imported inflation has been higher than domestic inflation in 60 per cent of these countries. Cline mentioned two of the lesser known aspects of inflation. One is that in advanced countries, a low GNP (gross national product) lowers inflation; in poor countries, on the other hand, a low GNP aggravates inflatron as it is often the result of a bad harvest (which precipitates food shortages). Another littleknown fact is that world inflation erodes the value of debts, and thus represents a "windfall gain" for developing countries, whose debts to industrialized countries have been swelling. Analyzing inflation in India (on the basis of studies prepared by Surjit Bala, Cline's colleague), Cline said that between 1971 and 1973, the source of inflation was mainly domestic-the Bangladesh war, drought, fiscal policy. External shocks were imported in 1974-the increase in the prices of oil, imported food and fertilizer. However, a strong response by the Indian Government in 1974-the imposition of fiscal and monetary restraints-brought inflation way down. 1975 and 1976 were lowinflation years, the rates being 1.7 per cent and - 2.7 per cent. This was a record unequaled by any major country, Cline said. Taking a longer time-span, inflation in India rose by 73 per cent between 1970 and 1975, as against 23 per cent over a corresponding period in the previous decade. Oil prices played a major role in this steep rise. Cline posed the question: How can a developing country . avert international inflationary shocks? One method is to ensure a stable food price policy that prevents rapid swings caused by short-term gluts and shortages of food. Another method is to devise an exchange rate policy that doesn't tie the country's currency blindly to a traditional currency like the pound. Still another method is to dismantle some protection controls and allow a freer inflow of goods. In the discussion following Cline's speech, one delegate¡ disputed his argument that world inflation erodes the debts of developing countries- and gives them a "windfall gain." This gain is illusory, it is a paper gain, he said. Another delegate pointed i')ut that inflation erodes the value of foreign exchange reserves and that is a loss. Professor Shenoy made the point that inflation can be divided into two categories: a rise in the prices of individual commodities, and a general price rise. Commodity prices rise on account of nonmonetary factors (such as shortages). But the causes of a general price rise are monetary in nature (an expansion of money supply). The monetary and nonmonetary phenomena operate simultaneously. ' Professor Kreinin's speech on "North-South Trade Problems" was notable for its forcefulness, wit and candor. He reeled off facts, figures, anecdotes and witticisms in endless profusion. Kreinin said that the "mon\lmental" literature spawned by the New International Economic Order contained barely a footnote about what developing countries should do internally. "We all know that though contact with the outside world is important, the essential process of economic development is one
of internal transformation .... This is not to downgrade issues of trader and aid, but they are secondary to the need to have a stable political environment, a stable society and an environment in which economic entrepreneurship can establish itself." Thus Kreinin said, 'Today's global dialogue deals with issues of secondary importance to the development process." The Michigan professor said that in the area of trade, the main aim of developing countries is to boost the exports of manufactured products to industrialized countries. They have been demanding tariff preferences for these exports: specifically, they wish to be charged no duty on their exports, while they retain the right to impose import duties on products from industrialized countries. This concept has come to be known as the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). Western Europe and Japan introduced their GSP in 1971-72, while the American GSP became effective on January 1, 1976. Candidly evaluating the usefulness of the GSP for developing countries, Kreinin said that the European GSP was full of qualifications and restrictions. The American GSP was more liberal than the European but had its own limitations. It excluded some commodities of particular export interest to developing countries; it imposed ceilings on their exports covered by the GSP; it excluded certain categories of developing countries. Detailed studies of the GSP show, Kreinin said, that it could boost developing countries' exports by $100 million to $200 million a year. This is not a big sum, Kreinin said: in fact, tariff reductions under the Kennedy Round have benefited developing countries 10 times as much. He expressed the view that there is no likelihood of any liberalization of the GSP in the near future. Kreinin suggested that developing countries should switch their emphasis away from the GSP in their approach to Western markets, and enter the Multilateral Trade Negotiations as active participants- "rather than sit on the sidelines as they have done so far." After solid staff work to identify their common interests, they should press for tariff cuts on as many products as possible which they can export. They should also offer industrial countries reciprocal concessions. This give-and-take strategy would boost the exports of developing countries far more than the GSP, he said. Kreinin also advocated the strategy of "regional integration" among developing countries. Trade among developing countries has immense possibilities for mutual benefit, he said. Kreinin concluded: "I do not suggest that developing coun- . tries should give up the asp; they should de-emphasize it .... " Commenting on Kreinin's speech, many delegates felt that developing countries might have to continue pushing the GSP despite its limitations. The scope for trade concessions that developing countries could offer to industrialized countries was rather narrow. Further, when even the rich found it necessary to resort to protection, wasn't it unrealistic to expect the poor to liberalize imports from the rich? Dr. R.K. Agarwal (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) stressed the need for a political climate in developed countries to ensure that the GSP was liberalized and made a permanent feature of the international economic system. The seminar's two final sessions debated the Tokyo Round and financial ~ssues raised by the New International Economic Order. How did delegates react to the seminar? "Excellent in parts" was a typical reaction. The seminar's discussions extended into the coffee break and into lunch and dinner and represented, to quote one delegate, "a North-South dialogue in microcosm." 0
ANAMERICAN
ARCHITECT IN INDIA PHOTOGRAPHS
by KRISHNA CHAIT ANY A BY AVINASH PASRICHA
For 25 years, Joseph Stein (far right) has lived in India, designing some of the country's most interesting buildings. Keenly aware of India's climate, people and traditions, and sensitive to its ecology, Stein designs buildings that are modern and Indian at the same time. 'Beauty and grace based upon simplicity,' says the distinguished architect, 'are potential in India, and India's best traditions tend in that direction.'
I
ndiaInternational Centre, modern in conception and yet blending in quiet harmony with an old-world garden and the tombs of the Lodis, who ruled Delhi till Babur defeated them to found the Moghul empire in the 16th century; Triveni, open and airy like a wickerwork basket, with an exquisite inset of a small open-air theater where you sit on terraced tiers of grass; the American Embassy School, where the buildings seem like organic growths closely hugging the undulating terrain with its sensuous swells and falls: these are some of the finest gifts to Delhi by American architect Joseph Allen Stein. The buildings serve important social functions, all of them educative, both in the obvious and the profounder sense of the term. Triveni has become a live center for the promotion of the arts, and the Triveni ballet has had several successful tours of foreign countries. India International Centre, originally set up with a Rockefeller grant, has been a venue for the discussion of the more important problems of the contemporary world. Top talent in every discipline, from both developed and developing countries, has participated in the conferences and seminars held at the Centre over the years. This too is significant, for Stein is deeply concerned with the humanistic functions of architecture. Tall, spare, active, joseph Stein at 65 must feel younger than I do at 58. He was born in Nebraska and had his education under Eliel Saarinen in the Cranbrook Academy of Arts and Architecture, Michigan. After his studies he practiced for a while in San Francisco, and his office was right opposite that lovely gift shop which I regard as one of the best things Frank Lloyd Wright ever did. In 1952 he came to India to join the architecture faculty of the Bengal Engineering College, Calcutta. In 1956 he shifted to Delhi and has been working here ever since. And if his friends have anything to do with it, he will continue to be here. Stein's work illustrates what¡ happens when concern for human scale, regional character and ecological balance motivates a modern architect-especially when the architect is dedicated to the classical design values of proportion, rhythm and harmony with site. There has been an evolutionary continuity in all the phases of his career. In the early phase in California, his response to working in such a beautiful
landscape was a determination to carry with sheltered loggias. This style seems to out the architect's work of adding more have been congenial to Stein's temperabuildings to an increasingly crowded earth ment. The Bay Region style of California, without spoiling it. Over the years, Stein which too had a direct approach to says, this has become a passion with him; structural and design solutions of funche currently shares his time between his tional requirements, also attracted him. practic~ and various activities pertaining Stein believes that the Pacific littorals to the conservation of environment. His show a fascinating convergence in outlook concern is particularly acute in regard to in spite of the vast spread of ocean between mountain environment, and especially them, and cites the similarity in simplicito the speed with which many areas of the ty and forthrightness between the Bay Himalayas are being denuded of their Region style and Japanese traditional precious ground-cover of topsoil and architecture-both, incidentally, being reduced to mountain desert. predominantly of wood. But if Japanese Basic to this evolution and all its architecture is simple and direct, especially facets is a deep faith that man should live in the use of the standard-sized floor mat in harmony with the earth. Stein has or tatami to derive the dimensions of totally rejected the concept of man as doors, windows and sliding shutters, it is lord and master of nature with full also extremely elegant. It has managed to freedom to exploit it as much as he likes. make geometrically regular forms esthetiThis exploitation, which has been going cally shapely too, recovering the intuition on merrily since the Industrial Revolution, of Pythagoras, who harmonized matheis now running into difficulties because the matics and music. life support resources of the planet are This esthetic concern is always there in rJInning out. But there is in Stein's outlook Stein's creations, though it is unobtrusive, here something more than the prudence never declamatory. He tidily segregates of an intelligent conservationist. As the and deploys the main masses and volumes critic-naturalist Joseph Wood Krutch once of his buildings, and relates them through said, prudent exploitation will still be passages that ideally aid circulation and exploitation. What we perhaps need, he movement and at the same time help to added, is some sort of poetic and affective complete the esthetic form. Elegant sensing that man does not stand apart organization of structures and surfaces is from nature but belongs with it in a of course a basic feature of all modern harmonious order and therefore should architecture that has by now become love nature for its own sake. The Vedic classic. The creations of Mies van der concept of Rita and the Chinese concept Rohe exemplify them best, whether they of Tao embody these intuitions. are conceived on a grand scale like the With Stein the intuition is as much Seagram building in New York or in esthetic as metaphysical. And it has found miniature like the Farnsworth house in a fine expression in the American Embassy Illinois. But I feel that Stein's creations School. It is probably the first building show some additional features that recali in Delhi to be erected on a site that was the reticent grace of Japanese architecture. not leveled but was allowed to retain its Like the Japanese, Stein refrains from original contour. The main blocks straddle accenting his portals and main entrances, the ridge that was there like a saddle on a takes great care to ensure smooth contihorseback. The interior corridors as well nuity of interior and exterior space. Even as the exterior pathways rise and fall and in the Ford Foundation building in New meander like footpaths on a hill, yielding Delhi which is highly compact and does varying perspectives at every turn, while not open up outward, communication the domes repeat the swell and fall of between the main functional areas within the undulating terrain. The campus is skirt a garden which seems an extension dotted by rock clusters. Warmed by the of the lawns with their fountains outside. winter sun, they warm not only your Likewise, in the school building that is now body but your whole being when you coming up in Greater Kailash in New Delhi, he has maintained a regular scansion rest on them. with a spacious open balcony after every When Eliel Saarinen came to Cranbrook from Finland, he shed the romanticism two classrooms. At the India International of his Helsinki station and developed a Centre, he has separated the restaurant forthrightly articulated style, adopting block from the Lodi Garden with a Wright's characteristic use of horizontals free-shaped pool, obviating the need for a
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high boundary wall that would have isolated the building from the ambience of nature. The quiet elegance with which Stein integrates the values of economy, functional adequacy, nearness to nature and beauty comes out in the elementary school section of the American Embassy School. From a circular audio-visual room in the center, the wedge-shaped classrooms radially open up outward. Inside, no further space has been wasted for passages; the kids can use the audiovisual room itself for this purpose, and this will mean no disruption as they commute between the rooms only in between class sessions, not when the sessions are on. The wedge shape has proved ideal for arranging furniture and seating the kids separately or in groups. The classrooms open up without noticeable transition of level into pergolas rimmed at the outer arc of the periphery by low, curving stone benches and informally separated from the open ground beyond by screens of shrubbery. Some of the boulders of the original site have been retained in the open area under the pergolas. They remind me of the Zen gardens in the courtyards of the Ryonji and Daitokuji temples in Kyoto. There, of course, you have a deep symbolism which needs to be meditated upon. Here they bring the feel of open country right outside the classroom, in fact right into it, for the flow of space is continuous between classroom and pergola. Stein has the rare type of integrity that allows him to be unswervingly true to himself and at the same time appreciate totally different styles. I dislike all additive decoration, but when I recall Sullivan's restrained and elegant decorations in the Wainright Tomb in St. Louis and the Getty Tomb in Chicago, I begin to see that it is a good thing to be able to like things done by others that you wouldn't do yourself. Stein has great admiration for Sullivan's handling of additive decoration, but he himself prefers the reticent beauty yielded by the streamlining of functional form. The stairwell in the Ford Foundation building is beautiful. But structurally it is very simple, being a (Text continued on page 10) Water, curves and textured surfaces give the Triveni Kala Sangam (above and left), an important art center of New Delhi, a sense of openness in spite of its modest proportions.
Above: The graceful curves and the gentle stretch of water at the Australian High Commission in New Delhi are characteristic of Stein's style of. architecture. Right: The curved corridors of the India International Centre in New Delhi are well lit by the translucent material on the right, achieving privacy without claustrophobia.
Above: Functional and yet elegant lines mark the Ford Foundation building in New Delhi. Left: The stairwell at the Ford Foundation, simple and graceful.
Above: The Kennedy General Education Centre, Aligarh Muslim University, one of Stein's earliest works in India. Right: ,A grillwork screen at the India International Centre, characteristic of Stein's effort to combine the traditional and the modern.
stair hung from above on four rods. Currently, Stein is designing an international.conference complex to be built on the shore of the magnificent Dal Lake in Kashmir. It is intended to raise Kashmir tourism from the level of personal services offered by largely untrained and disorganized small-scale entrepreneurs to a large-scale, state-sponsored capability to compete for convention tourism against international conference facilities already established in Europe and the Far East. Stein sees this project as an important stone in the edifice of conservation of the Kashmir valley. He hopes that its architectural aspects will serve as a useful example of how to relate modern commercial activities with functional architecture and respect for regional environment. This leads us to Stein's larger vision regarding the humanistic role of architecture. In concert with his partner, RV. Doshi, founder of the School of Architecture and Planning at Ahmedabad, and in common with many architects today, Stein is deeply concerned with the direction of urbanism. Both Stein and Doshi share the belief that there are architectural alternatives to the disastrous concentrations of impoverished workers and job seekers that are now overwhelming the urban centers of the developing world. Stein sees the modern function of the city as "Information" -in all its phases, including government, entertainment and tourism; in a word, cultural interchange. He maintains that the countryside is the proper venue for manufacturing, as well as for agriculture, and that in a really modern society, one member of a family could work on the land, another in a nearby factory, and a third could commute to his job in the adjoining city, via a high-speed rapid transit system, such as the monorail. Stein often calls¡ attention to the pioneering vision of the great American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, and his broadacre city concept which, he says, offers many constructive ideas still waiting to be researched and put into' practice. Impelled by his ecological concerns, Stein, along with Dr. Klaus Lampe, director of agricultural assistance in the West German Agricultural Organization for Economic Cooperation, and Aspi Moddie, well-known Indian conservationist, persuaded the West German Government to sponsor an international conference on mountain environment in Munich, in
1973. The conference was an occasion for experts from many disciplines and from many parts of the world to highlight the gravity of ecological degradation of mountain areas and its serious threat to the agriculture and prosperity of the plains below. Illustrating this situation, Stein points out, are the floods that have devastated Bihar and laid waste its riverine cities, now an annual phenomenon, directly caused by overcutting of trees in the nearby Himalayas as increasing populations destroy the last remaining forests. This represents a futile .effort to extend agriculture to marginal land and to take firewood from nature, instead of planting it. Stein's current architectural and environmental activities include work in Kashmir, where the state government is trying to preserve the beauty of the world-famous valley in the face of rapidly increasing population and expanding industrialization, intensified by the phenomenal growth of its tourist industry. However, Stein sees the task as too big and too complex to be affected substantially by individual efforts, even with sponsorship and concern at high levels. As a technician, he sees the technical necessities inherent in making constructive proposals practicable. He feels that the operation of saving the Himalayas from ecological disaster must be divided into two phases. The first is a holding operation, based upon working out a system of priorities planned to slow down the damage and protect the most
I first came to India in 1952 as Professor of Architecture and Town Planning at the Bengal Engineering College. It was such a genuine and lovely experience-really very exciting. The students in those days were full of idealism nurtured by love for such figures as Gandhi and Tagore. Why do I continue to live and work here? I think India offers the great possibility of beauty with simplicity. This is a rare and little understood thing in the world today; yet one sees it here in so many different ways. In spite of the poverty, sickness and all the other social problems which confuse the issue, you still see it underlying things-this coming together of beauty and simplicity. India is a very flexible place, a very
unique and valuable areas. This con- author of Small Is Beautiful, can be seen sists largely of identifying specially in the background in Stein's personal threatened and specially valuable areas, philosophy of a humanistic architecture. and adopting ad hoc measures for their While acknowledging this, Stein says that protection. To reverse what is happening the main inspiration has been Mahatma will require, he stresses, education and Gandhi's thinking. "The possibility of the development of new institutions. He combining simplicity and science, industry sees some grounds for optimism in the and agriculture," he told me, "presents an possibility of an enlightened and con- opportunity for true progress that was structive contribution by the tourist long ago glimpsed by Gandhi. Although a industry, which has a large economic vast distance separates Gandhi's luminous stake in the preservation of the beauty it beliefs from today's despair, his genius wishes to exploit. Lastly Stein feels that perceived that the elements of a life of resolute efforts are required to build beauty and grace, based upon simplicity, only those industries and buildings that are potential in India, and that India's are appropriate to the places where they own best traditions tend in that direction." are situated. Stein is not hostile to technology, any Stein has for years been advocating the more than Gandhi was. But he wants establishment of an international center technology to change from the crudities for mountain environment in which highly of early industrialism to a humanistically experienced experts could teach and study purposeful level where science, art and the development of ecologically sound nature may yet be reconciled into a techniques for fitting larger populations harmony. And here architecture has a into fragile mountain areas in developing primary role to play, for it builds the sites countries and devising means of protecting where men work to meet the needs of such areas from excessive exploitation, their body, and the homes where they whether by tourists or local inhabitants. can proceed to realize themselves fully as He wryly confesses to little success in the persons. 0 creation of such an institute, and is now concentrating his efforts on what he can About the Author: Krishna Chaitanya, a versatile do as an architect, including teaching, writer on a wide range of subjects, is author of a and hopes to infect some of the architects . nine-volume history of world literature, several and planners who will work in the future books on Indian culture, and three volumes of a with a concern for regional values and five-volume work on freedom. In 1964, he was conservation of environment. invited as a "Critic of Ideas" for a six-month tour The ideals of Lewis Mumford, Buck- of the United States by the Institute of Interminster Fuller and E.F. Schumacher, national Education, New York.
open society. There is enormous scope and need for good architecture here. There is also a great deal of choice. Ancient values still obtain; yet India has this tremendous capacity to absorb science. It is a country in transition with many interesting possibilities of making a meaningful synthesis between modern science and technology and an ancient value system. The continental fcope of the problem is very intriguing to an architect. Any good piece of architecture requires a considerable input beyond that of the architect. First there has to be some action, shall we say interface, with the environment. There has to be something in the environment that the architect responds to. Secondly, in the world of affairs, a really successful building is a
collaboration between the client and the architect. Now, there is an intellectual liveliness in India which is very valuable, even though it is confined to a relatively small number of people. We have been very fortunate to have someone like Dr. C.D. Deshmukh as our client in building the India International Centre, or like Sheikh Abdullah, for whom we are building a large conference complex in Kashmir, many times the size of the India International Centre. People like them are far-seeing and do not hesitate to assume responsibility. I have been lucky to come across a whole generation of people of that order in India. And lucky also to have a very capable and happy group .of colleagues to work with. Perhaps that is why I live and work in India.
The Central Soil Salinity Institute at Kamal in Haryana has done pioneering research in reclaiming salt- and alkali-affected lands in India (see page 14). Photographs on thispage show the package of practices evolved by the institute for restoring such lands. First, samples from barren land (top) are taken to test their alkaline content (above). After the soil is analyzed, the land is plowed, leveled and "bundetf' (above, center), and then treated with gypsum (above, far left). Potted cultures of different soils in the institute lab (far left) help determine appropriate quantities of various inputs to achieve optimum crop yields, such as this green lushpaddy (left).
.,HAT ARE.,E TO DO ABOUT¡
, •
The recent United Nations conference on desertification in threatened areas. Another significant outcome of the conference Nairobi, Kenya, has adopted an integrated plan of action to halt will be a satellite monitoring system to keep watch on the the march of man-made deserts by the turn of the century. It has expansion of deserts. advised governments to earmark areas vulnerable to desertificaIn the following article, Dr. Dregne, senior consultant to the tion.. ensure public participation in combating the spread of the u.s. delegation to the Nairobi conference and a leading authority desert.. evolve a sound water resources management policy .. on the subject, discusses the lessons learned from the desertiprotect existing vegetation.. and conserve flora and fauna in fication experience in the United States.
Desertification of the arid lands of the world is a serious problem for the 680 million people who live in those regions. The loss of productivity that the spread of deserts causes has severelyreduced crop yields and livestock production and, most importantly, has adversely affected the well-being of the people who depend upon the land for their livelihood. At the same time that a rapidly increasing population requires more food, much of the land that must supply the food is steadily deteriorating in productivity. This is a worldwide problem that affectsthe poor as well as the rich countries. Where the difference liesis in the greater ability of the rich nations to mobilize resources to cope with the problem. The spread of deserts is not a new problem. It has its thousandyear-old roots in the semi-arid fertile crescent of the Middle East, in the Loessial Hills of Northern China and in the North African granary of Imperial Rome. There, uncontrolled erosion of overgrazed and cultivated rands forced the abandonment of onceproductive fields. Abandonment was followed by migration for some people and increased poverty for those who remained behind. The Mesopotamian plain experienced another kind of desertification-salinization and waterlogging-whose effects are still felt in modern-day Iraq. For Iraq, it has been estimated that as many as 20 million people once lived in a region where there are only 10 million today. The spread of deserts exacts a heavy toll. The unhappy Old World experiences with the spread of deserts were repeated in the New World, and for the same reason: the belief that land was inexhaustible. To the early settlers, the vast plains of North and South America seemed limitless. They simply picked up and moved on to new lands when the old land became unproductive after a few years. That attitude toward land began to change in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. By that time it had become apparent that land resources were limited and that desertification could no longer be ignored. The great drought of the 1930s made the United States aware that land destruction not only reduced productivity, it also led to human misery. "Dust Bowl" conditions affected five states in the southern Great Plains of the United States. Wind erosion damage was so great that a mass abandonment offarms and an exodus of
families resulted. Never before had the tragedy been so great in terms of the human misery it caused. The devastation associated with that drought contributed strongly to the impetus for establishing the U.S. soil conservation service in 1934. The tragic events in the dust bowl triggered the movement to protect the soil resources upon which America'sand a major part of the world's-food supply depends. It was finally realized that desertification in the arid regions did not affect only a few individuals, it affected the entire nation, one way or another. In America, of all the lessons that have been learned from the desertification experience, probably the most significant is the realization that it is easy to destroy but difficult to restore land productivity. Arid lands have fragile ecosystems, with low resilience after disturbance. Exploitation during a drought at the same level that was acceptable during a wet period can have disastrous effects on plants, soil, and people. Good land stewardship must be practiced continually. Range lands were the first to face the problem of large-scale desertification in the West. Widespread overgrazing in the latter half of the 19th century had caused moderate to severe loss to desert of over 200,000,000 hectares of range land. Attempts to find solutions to the problem began in earnest in the early part of the 20th century, but had little effect on land management practices until the beginning of the 1940s. Experience in the United States shows that rotational grazing (grazing different pastures in a controlled sequence during the year) is the simplest method for increasing forage production and should be put into practice first. Deferred grazing of pastures in order to build up a supply of forage also is effective and relatively cheap. Under some circumstances, however, undesirable shrub infestation or land disturbance is so great that more expensive measures must be taken. Techniques for controlling undesirable shrubs include spraying with herbicides, controlled burning, knocking them down with large tractors, cutting the extensive roots with a tractor-mQunted knife, and plowing the land. Reseedingwith grass on the ground or from the air is frequently required after shrub removal and major land disturbance. All of these measures can be effective in stopping and reversing
WHY MAN EXPLORES SPACE AN INTERVIEW WITH ISAAC ASIMOV
One of the world's foremost science writers discusses the benefits of space exploration for mankind and the significance of current and future space projects. Dr. Asimov is interviewedby Dorothy Crook, editor of 'Economic Impact.' CROOK: Dr. Asimov, my first question is a very practical one. Why should we, in the United States, spend thousands of millions of dollars a year for such space activities as reaching the planet Mars? I have seen estimates that reaching the Moon cost $25,000 million over a nine-year period, and that the U.S. space effort is currently budgeted at about $ 3,000 million. Why do we do it? ASIMOV: We do it for a number of reasons. In the first place, because people are curious. In the second place, we obtain knowledge, and based on all past experience in human history we can be fairly certain that with increased knowledge we are going to be able to increase the efficiency with which we can feed and make secure the human species. All through history man's ability to control his environment and to secure his own safety has grown with the growth of knowledge. For instance, if we should find life on Mars, we could learn a great deal about life in general; it would be the first example of life that originated indep~ndently of Eartn. And if we learn
more about life in general, we may learn more about our form of life; so going 'all the way to Mars to discover a little bacteria in the soil might end up by giving us knowledge that could help us understand what it is that goes wrong in the human being that causes cancer. CROOK: What if we never find any traces of life? ASIMOV: Even if we don't find any organic material in the soil, we are explor-
ing a planet that rotates about its axis in almost the same time that the Earth does, but which lacks an ocean. Now, atmospheric turbulence is a very complex thing here on Earth and we do our best to understand it; but we might be helped by studying the simpler atmospheric movements on Mars, given the same speed of rotation virtually as Earth's but without an ocean. We might end up being able to better predict and even control weather on Earth because we had studied Mars at
close quarters. Then, too, if we study the geology of Mars we may learn things that are perhaps obscured here on Earth, because Mars is a little colder, it has a much thinner atmosphere and is without active life or moving water. We have less change taking place than on Earth. We may be able to deduce more clearly the early stages of planets, and this can be added to our knowledge of Earth with who knows what application for the prediction and control of earthquakes. It is the essence of man's exploration of the unknown that it is difficult to foresee in just which directions knowledge will be applied. Let me give you an example from the past. Back in the 1670s and 1680s Anton van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch optician, studied microscopic forms of life through little lenses that he built himself. He was the first to detect microscopic life forms, and toward the end of his career he detected what we now know to be bacteria; they were just within the limits of what he could see. One might have said: What good is it to look;through microscopes at these little life forms, except to satisfy curiosity? People no doubt asked, what possible return can there be from this type of research to warrant the expenditures of time and money? Yet two centuries later Louis Pasteur was able to construct the first workable theory of infectious disease, which, he discovered, was caused by some of these microscopic creatures. The direct result of his germ theory of disease was the doubling of the life expectancy of man. The average man through much of the world now lives 70 years instead of 35. This doubling is directly traceable to Pasteur, and can, in turn, be traced to van Leeuwenhoek. If it had taken a thousand million dollars to get him to do his experiment, it would have been worth it; as a matter of fact, of course, it took much less. CROOK: That's a. vivid illustration. Still, people often question the economic benefits of space exploration. They cannot~' of course, be measured in dollars and cents. However, I have seen the estimate that for every dollar spent on space there will be a six-dollar return in real wealth here on Earth. Is that possible? ASIMOV: Yes, it is. You have to remem-
ber two things. In the first place, money spent on space is not delivered to space. In other words, if we spend a thousand million dollars on sending Viking to Mars, Viking has not carried the money with it and then buried it under the soil of Mars. All that money went to people on Earth to prepare for the trip. It remains here on Earth. It made jobs and stimulated our economy. Second, we must also remember that the space program is a lot more than the exciting events of reaching the Moon or Mars. It is also a matter of sending up navigational satellites, weather satellites, communications satellites and so on, which are tools that are of direct value here on Earth. There are satellites that study Earth resources, giving us information that we couldn't get in any other way; they can detect diseases in plants, locate minerals, give us new facts about the circulation of the atmosphere and about
more practical objective because it is closer, far closer. It is a constant 400,000 kilometers away, whereas at the closest Mars is 56 million kilometers and at its farthest it's about 240 million kilometers away. So we can reach the Moon at relatively small expenditures of time, effort and money, whereas Mars is going to be for the foreseeable future a very borderline neighbor. We can establish bases for farther space exploration on the Moon, we can use the Moon as a source of raw materials for the building of space habitats, and so on. However, Mars can be the' greater bargain in the sense that it is much closer to Earth in its structure than the Moon. The Moon is a small world which is without an atmosphere and is virtually dead, not only biologically, but geologically as well. Mars, on the other hand, has enough of an atmosphere to create polar icecaps, which we now know are mainly water. Its crust appears to be geologically alive; it has canyons and volcanoes, so in a sense we can study Mars and find elements that are more immediately applicable to the study of the Earth's geologic past. In that sense, Mars is the better bargain. One astounding aspect of the landing on Mars of two unmanned spaceships in the U.S. Bicentennial Year was that so few people seemed excited about the achievement, despite the relaying by both spaceships of an enormous amount of information to us here on Earth. People seemed almost bored with it all. How has the scientific community reacted, and what was your own personal reaction? ASIMOV: The fact that the Viking findings didn't make great scare headlines is the penalty of success. The space program has been so successful in attaining almost everyone of its objectives that people have come to expect success, so there is a minimum of suspense. But scientists were very excited. Mars, of all the objects in the sky. has loomed largest in legend and in early science. It's Mars which is our planetary neighbor most like us; it's Mars where we thought we saw canals-where for nearly one hundred years many people were convinced there was an advanced technological civilization. For anyone like myCROOK:
the weather, offer us methods for pinpointing positions on Earth more accurately than ever before. All these and many other discoveries are of direct, practical use to us. I don't know how easy it is to calculate value but I'm sure these findings are, or will be, more valuable than the expenditures. Do you think the Moon is a better bargain-a more practical objective than Mars? ASIMOV: Yes and no. It depends on which way you look at it. The Moon is a CROOK:
The space program isn't just a matter of reaching the Moon or Mars. It is also a matter of sending up satellites that study Earth resources, detect diseases in plants, locate minerals, give us new facts about the weather ....
some bacteria could survive and adapt to Martian conditions, and the negative conclusion is as yet not certain. We haven't located organic materials but, on the other hand, there is all sorts of activity in the soil that will have to be explained somehow-and, if it isn't life, if it's some novel variety of chemistry, that might be almost as exciting to chemists as life would be to biologists. So the thrust now, I think, is to send ever more complicated machinery to Mars, hoping that, in¡decades to come, human beings may land there. CROOK: This must be extremely interesting to you as a former professor of chemistry. ASIMOV: Yes, even barring life, I would certainly like to know what is going on in the soil.
self who has written science fiction stories it is so exciting we can hardly sit still. Of all the planets in the solar system, Mars was the one on which we'd most likely find life. Venus was a long shot, the clouds hid the surface. We didn't know what was underneath -and, then, in the 1950s we discovered it was far too hot for life as we know it. But we believed Mars had an atmosphere, a little bit of water, icecapspossibly canals. It had a visible surface, there were high hopes. Little by ;little those hopes have been diminished with the findings about Mars, but we still keep hoping for bacteria in the soil, because
CROOK: I find very exciting the telecommunications involved. The idea of having people on Earth able to give commands to an instrument millions of kilometers away isfantastic. ASIMOV: That's right. People often say, if we can fix mechanisms on Mars, why can't we fix things right here on Earth. Well, the device on Mars is comparatively simple. And talking about telecommunications, this is another way in which space may revolutionize human society. We have communication satellites up in space now. It is possible to communicate from continent to continent via those satellites in a much simpler way than ever before. And if laser beams, which have a capacity for holding millions of times as many channels as radio waves, could be used, people could communicate even more simply. In fact, if we could have laser beams in space and optical fibers on Earth, it is not impossible to suppose that every person could have his own private television channel assigned to him, just as he has his own telephone number, and any person could reach 'any other person on Earth very easily. Once you use communication satellites, distance is no longer a factor. The Earth could be turned into a truly global village. This is not necessarily a panacea; I don't say that there would be peace on Earth just because you could talk directly to other people, but it certainly would help. Throughout history there has always been hatred
between people when there was some sort of illusion on the part of one concerning the other, but if better communications could destroy those illusions, they might help get rid of some of the hatred and suspicion. You can't destroy misconceptions unless you can communicate in the first place. CROOK: I have read that there are about 740 space satellites now in use, including not only communication satellites, but also Earth resource and weather satellites, and others. This seems like an extraordinarily large number. ASIMOV: Actually, space is littered not only with these working satellites, but also with nonworking ones and fragments of others. I imagine there are many thousands of artificial pieces of matter circling Earth now, and I imagine that already there is a problem of overcrowding. CROOK: How soon do you think it will be before we Earthlings have space habitats? ASIMOV: From a purely technological standpoint we can have them now, if we could get all the money that is necessary to build them. The difficulty is not technological but political and psychological. Is the human race willing to devote enough of an effort and enough of its money to the project? CROOK: Whyshouldwe? ASIMOV: I'll give you two reasons. To build a space colony might take $2,000 million a year for 50 years, let us say. In the United States we spend more than $2,000 million a year on a variety of human activities that are not particularly beneficial to us, on alcohol, tobacco, maintaining war machines and things like that. In fact, I would like to think that if we made up our minds to build space habitats and it turned out that, because we had to build them, the various nations were not able to afford their military machines-that alone would be a good result. And then, secondly, if we do have people living in space, we will have a base for making use of space techniques for the benefit of both the inhabitants of the space vehicles and ourselves. We could use zero gravity, for example, to
manufacture perfect ball bearings which cannot be made on Earth because gravitational forces distort them, and we could perform many other services. We could build small devices or use biochemical techniques that require very low temperatures and very weak gravitational fields. And if we are going to go out into space to do these things it would be most economical if we had a habitatsometimes called a colony-out there. I have a vision of people in space in the 21st century specializing in all kinds of small things that can be made in space more accurately than on Earth. They could also be the ones to explore the Moon; they could be the ones to man the astronomical and other observatories. CROOK: What about using space habitats as a source of power? ASIMOV: Ah! That is another and very important thing. Earth may find that the only possible way of getting sufficient energy is from solar energy. It may be that nuclear fusion may not work out. Solar energy, scientists know, will work out; there is now only the question of coilecting it. Solar energy is so dilute, spread out over the Earth, that if it were collected over thousands of hectares of the Earth, questions would arise of where to put the collectors; would they harm the environment, and so on. But if collecting devices were built in space and put in stationary orbit about the Earth 25,000 kilometers up, they could be virtually forever absorbing and collecting energy from the Sun and beaming it down in the form of microwaves to collecting stations on the Earth. It would be nice if there was a base out in space that could build such stations-in fact, the very first use of a space habitat would be to build solar energy stations. In fact, the solar energy station might be built at the same time as the habitat, and even be finished first because it would be simpler, and it would represent an enormous instantaneous profit. CROOK: Another question about power
-because it is going to be so needed in any future life here on Earth, if it is to be a better life-what about the oceans as a source of thermal power? ASIMOV: The oceans have been dreamed of as a source of power for quite a
while, in several ways. The tides, for instance, represent an almost endless source of power-as does the temperature difference between the surface layers of the ocean and the depths. These are absolutely workable and practical ways of getting power as soon as we can invest enough to overcome the engineering difficulties. The problems are all engineering in nature, and they are much simpler than building solar power stations in space, of course. There is the feeling that we must make choices between nuclear power or tidal power or geothermal power or solar or wind power, and the truth is that almost always a mixed strategy is better than any pure strategy. I would suspect that all these sources of power have to be kept in the purview of mankind, and in the end there will be a variety of energy sources, some of which are more efficient than others for particular uses. The only thing we can say about the future is that all these energy sources are going to be replacing fossil fuel, which is either running out or, as in the case of coal, getting harder to obtain.
supply than water in general and which is, unfortunately, too often contaminated. Now, if scientists and engineers can develop practical methods for desalting ocean water on a large scale, then mankind will be forever free of any shortage of fresh water, assuming that the world's population does not go out of control altogether. The only thing we must remember is that to desalt water takes energy, so if energy becomes more and more expensive, then desalination becomes less and less practical. This is another example of how everything is interconnected. If solar power in space can be developed, for instance, it can be used to desalt ocean water cheaply, so if you talk about space exploration or ocean utilization as an either-or proposition, you are wrong. You have to realize that both together will be better than either one separately. Is it possible that the ocean could give the world's people limitless source of energy from deuterium? ASIMOV: Yes, if nuclear fusion ever works, the basic fuel, at least to start with, will be deuterium. This is a relatively small component of the ocean water, but there is so much ocean that there is enough deuterium to last us literally for thousands of millions of years, or likely for as long as the Earth-or the human race-will last. CROOK:
a
In your wildest dreams, do you see space habitats as possible means of escape for people in case the world ever does become polluted from nuclear wastes, or explosions? ASIMOV: Yes, the space habitats are a kind of Noah's Ark, but I hate to think of that. I would like to see mankind keep the Earth in the same state of wonderful utility for life that we found it in. I think It would be a sin against the universe if we were to destroy the world that we were born into. 0 CROOK:
Do you see desalination of ocean water as a promising possibility in meeting the growing demands for clean water? ASIMOV: Yes, there is not and cannot About the Interviewee: Isaac Asimov is one of be a shortage of water in the world America's most famous science fiction writers. because the water supply is, if anything, But his expertise extends to numerous other superabundant. The world is forever in fields as well: mathematics, Biblical language, danger of having catastrophic floods of biology, Shakespeare and physics-to name only water-especially if the polar icecaps some of the nonfiction subjects on which he has should melt. Where the shortage comes is written. He has published more than 175 books in fresh water, which is in much shorter and innumerablearticlesfor magazines. CROOK:
A SHOWCASE
FOR AEROSPACE TEXT BY EDWARDS PARK PHOTOGRAPHS BY ERNST HAAS
The Smithsonian's brand-new National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., is so modern, so much a celebration of the age of flight, that it is hard to imagine it as being haunted. Ghosts rustle and whisper here, nevertheless. Open the front door-the entrance to the great central hall, and here they all are: Orville and Wilbur Wright, Charles A. Lindbergh, Dr. Robert H. Goddard, the pioneer' of rocketry; Professor Samuel P. Langley, former secretary of the Smithsonian; and, although not the ghosts, certainly a bit of the spirit of brave pilots and astronauts who wrote history, and the vehicles they rode: the X -I, first aircraft to surpass the speed of sound; the X-15, first to go six times the speed of sound; the Mercury spacecraft, in which John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth; Gemini IV, from which Ed White made the first American space walk; and Apollo II, which took man to the moon. The devices come together in the entrance hall, called the Milestones of Flight. The Wrights' "Flyer:" seems to sail right at you at about the height it maintained at Kitty Hawk for 12 momentous seconds, 74 years ago. And on the carpeted floor beneath it stands Apollo II, 66 years younger and seeming a thousand years wiser. Thirty years in the planning and dreaming, four years in the building, the National Air and Space Museum is one of the finest buildings of its kind ever erected. With huge display areas and an extensive use of glass, the museum presents its exhibits as though they were in their natural element. Many of the air- and spacecraft seem to fly in midair. On the ground floor, a broad concourse links three major halls, each 19 meters high and with a ground area more than three times the size of a basketball court. These are roofed with multiple domes of glass specially tinted to filter out damaging ultraviolet rays. The front walls are glass also. The two great halls flanking the Milestones of Flight are devoted to air transportation and space. The former is rich with nostalgia for the good old days of open cockpit mail planes in which the pilot in helmet and goggles followed the railroad tracks from one town to the next; the days of primitive airliners in which daredevil
You can touch moon rock, learn about the history of flight, gaze at the world's finest collection of airplanes -all at the spectacular National Air and Space Museum in Washington. passengers tasted adventure by strapping themselves into fragile seats on a sharply sloping floor. A DC-3 of Eastern Airlines' "Great Silver Fleet'" hangs here too, a prime example of the most famous and durable airliner the world has known, seemingly indestructible, dependable in peace, gallant in war, still in use around the world. The DC-3 weighs some eight tons, so how is it hung from a ceiling that lacks columns and props cluttering up the open space? The answer: tubular steel trusses, triangular in cross section, spanning the ceiling and supported by pylons of the same construction. This technique, appropriately similar to that used in aircraft construction, bears the weight: Yet the trusswork is open and so unobtrusive that the halls remain visually airy, and the aircraft seem to hang magically within them. The largest item in the museum stands in Space Hall, the third of the great halls. This is the Skylab Orbital Workshop, a massive cylinder covered in gold foil. One of its solar panels stands beside it, a great rectangle containing some 150,000 solar cells. You can enter the Skylab from the balcony and picture yourself living and working here for a month or two while in orbit around the earth. Nearby, on the floor, stand an Apollo spacecraft and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft, twins to those in which U.S. astronauts and Russian cosmonauts met and shook hands in space in 1975. Rocketry commands your attention in Space Hall, since four great monsters soar upward to the ceiling from a pit specially excavated in the floor to receive them and to let them fit under the roof. Among rockets,
these are relatively small. The Saturn V that hurled Apollo spacecraft toward the moon was four times as tall. It is hard to believe that such giants are the progeny of Dr. Goddard's little devices, and also of the tiny air-to-air missiles developed by the Germans during World War II and now hanging above the balcony over Space Hall. So much is packed into. the three great halls that many visitors could usefully spend the entire day exploring all they have to offer. Yet around them, on both floors, are 17 special galleries and two exhibition areas at the ends of the building. Here are the artifacts that fill out the story of flight. Balloons, for example, are now nearly 200 years old. They are celebrated in a charming second-floor gallery with memories of the Montgolfier brothers, whose hot-air balloon rose from the Bois de Boulogne on November 21, 1783, and sailed above Paris with the two daring balloonists aboard, waving to the cheering multitudes-and also putting out occasional fires in the envelope. Airships are represented by a model of the ill-starred dirigible Hindenburg, which .burned in 1937 after establishing high standards of aerial luxury. A reconstruction of her control gondola stands nearby. Aviation took a great stride forward during World War I. A gallery is devoted to the war years. Postwar flight, in the twenties and thirties, was a time for setting new records, extending old boundaries. In the Special Exhibits Gallery stands a bulky monoplane in which pilots of the United States Army Air Service, in May 1923, made the first nonstop transcontinental flight. This plane, the Fokker T-2, took just under 27 hours to fly from Long Island to San Diego. Here also is a Douglas World Cruiser, a single-engine biplane with a fuselage large enough to walk around in. This is one of three of these aircraft which were the first to circumnavigate the world, taking 175 days in 1924. Other famous individual planes are scattered in the galleries. In the Air Traffic Control Gallery hangs a red Lockheed Vega in which Amelia Earhart became the Man's conquest of the moon (facing page) is depicted in this futuristic mural by space artist Robert T. McCall. It dominates one end of the museum's main lobby.
first woman to fly the Atlantic solo. A big float plane among the special exhibits is the Lockheed Sirius in which Charles and Anne Lindbergh explored airline routes "north to the Orient." Space flight takes up three galleries exclusively. You trace the story of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo-the steps to the moon, the goal of dreamers for hundreds of years. The recorded voices of those dramatic moon missions are gathered here, along with such "space hardware" as the lunar roving vehicle, the world's first extraterrestrial car. Apollo 15 was the first lunar mission to use this vehicle, traversing an area of the moon's surface in July 1971. This was
well after. the excitement of Apollo 13, when the spacecraft was wracked by an explosio~, and all the world tuned in to sweat down the resourceful-and still surprisingly cheerful-crew who used the undamaged landing craft as "lifeboat." The Albert Einstein Spacearium puts you under a domed ceiling for a close scrutiny of the heavens. The planetarium instrument which projects this show is a Bicentennial gift from the Federal Republic of Germany. Satellites and sounding rockets have their own gallery, where they festoon the dark ceiling and remind us that they still do their jobs in telecommunications, weather forecasting and other scientific fields. A gallery
of rocketry goes into their history and application. Finally, the Life in the Universe gallery answers those old questions of what exists beyond our ken. A mosaic of photographs taken of Mars gives an idea of what that barren landscape is like on the red planet. A film commentary theorizes about the origin of the universe. Weird creatures that might inhabit some alien planet are displayed. Entertaining, awe-inspiring and educative, the new showcase for aerospace has become Washington's major tourist attraction. About the Author: Edwards Park is a member of the board of editors, Smithsonian magazine.
Left: A touch of the moon-a visitor feels a sliver of lunar rock brought back to the earth by American astronauts.
Above: 'This model of a Gemini IV astronaut preparing to walk in space figures in an exhibition on "Milestones of Flight" at the entrance hall. Facing page: Visitors take a close look at the Skylab "airlock module." It is identical to the one placed in orbit in May 1973 that enabled astronauts to leave their Skylab workshop.
Next page: Suspended from tubular steel trusses is a convoy of pioneering aircraft that commemorate the history of flight. Counterclockwise from foreground: The Ford Tri-Motor; Douglas DC-3; Boeing 247-D; and Northrop Alpha.
Above: "Columbia," the Apollo 11 command module that carried astronauts into moon orbit in July 1969, is a major attraction at the museum. Right: Visitors examine a display of models of modern air transport planes, like the one silhouetted above them.
Right: A view of the Space HaU. Rockets clustered at right are sunk in a 4.5-meter pit to keep them below the roof. In the background is the Skylab Orbital Workshop, which visitors can walk through and examine.
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Of all Hollywood film directors, no one celebrates the American way of life more lustily than Frank Capra (left). During the New Deal period, Capra was able, through his comic flair and his realism, to make entertaining films with a genuine message. Frank Capra was born of poor peasants in Palermo, Sicily, and emigrated to America at the age of six. "I hated being poor," Capra says in the opening lines of his autobiography, "hated being a peasant. Hated being a scrounging newskid trapped in the sleazy Sicilian ghetto of Los Angeles. My family couldn't read or write. I wanted out. A quick out. I looked for a device, a handle, a pole to catapult myself across the tracks from my scurvy habitat of nobodies to the aftluent world of somebodies." Film directing was that pole; it also catapulted Capra into the heart of the American dream and gave him an abiding faith in a society in which anybody who had the wits could make it to the top. The very basis of his comedies written during the 1930s is laid in this faith in the justice that the individual can find if he tries hard enough. Of all American film directors, no one celebrates the. American way of life more lustily than Frank Capra. Only the successful immigrant could evoke the patriotic spirit from the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol Dome the way Capra does in his film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. "He was the most insistently American of all directors," says John Raeburn, coeditor of a collection of essays on Capra, "the most obsessively concerned with American myths and American states of consciousness." Capra's world is a iniddle-class world, and his films Gelebrate the characteristic institutions of that class: marriage, the family, the neighporhood, small business, the virtues of si;mplicity, innocence, thrift, faith.
Serving up this mix with rare skill and vigor, Capra made a series of remarkable films stretching from the Depression to the early years of World War II that won the acclaim of the audience, the critics and filmmakers themselves. Indeed, there is in America today a renewed interest in Frank Capra among the younger generation. Especially his films beginning with the Platinum Blonde in 1931,followed by others like American Madness (1932), Lady for a Day (1933), It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Lost Horizon (1937), You Cdn't Take It With You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and Meet John Doe (1941) are being revived today in U.S. campuses and film clubs, catching the imagination of students who had never seen them before and rousing nostalgia among people who had. The films were derived from maudlin novels of little literary merit. It Happened One Night was based on a serialized novel in Cosmopolitan magazine called Night Bus by Samuel Hopkins Adams; Mr. Deeds Goes to Town came from the American Magazine serial Opera Hat by Clarence Buddington Kelland-both typical products of popular formula fiction. In the first film, brash reporter-hero meets rich runaway girl in flight from her glittering wedding ceremony and weds her himself, with wealthy father finally succumbing to his charm. In the second, a genial small-town tuba player inherits twenty million dollars, refuses to be taken in by the city slickers, shows up New York's corrupted values and defeats its wily schemes to steal his millions. In Lost Horizon, made from James Hilton's novel of the same title, a group of people, including a Foreign Secretary-elect, are kidnapped from a Chinese town and taken to a Himalayan mountain top where age does not wither mankind and utopia is at hand in a lamasery in Tibet that looks like a film star's estate on Beverly Hills. Young Mr. Smith, another solid citizen of a small town, is appointed U.S. Senator to fill an unexpired term, takes on all the corruptions of the Senate single-handed, and, in fairy tale fashion, wins.
The stories, capsuled in this way, add up to a philosophy that some critics have dubbed Capra-corn. Class conflicts melt away in the warmth of human affection, virtue triumphs, familiar myths are reinforced. There {s¡a touching faith in the power and freedom of man. As Capra himself defines his philosophy: Someone should keep reminding Mr. Average Man that he was born free, divine, strong; uncrushable by fate, society, or hell itself; and tliat he is a child of God, equal heir to the bounties of God; and that goodness is riches, kindness is power, mid freedom is glory. Above all, every man is born with an inner capacity to take him as far as his imagination can dream or envision, providing he is free to dream and envision. Capra does not see man as fettered by compulsions of time and space handed to him at the moment of his birth. His heroes are untrammele9 by the Fates of the Greeks or the tragic flaw of Shakespearean .protagonists. No archetypal Oedipus enters inexorably into his predetermined sin or expiates for it in his own life and in that of succeeding generations of humanity. No Hamlet, born to set things right when times are out of joint, marches to a doom decreed by inner conflict. Capra stays severely limited to the utopian visions of the small-town mind, unaware of the rest of the world, unshaken by the doubts that knowledge engenders. By contrast, Charlie Chaplin, with all his clowning, remains the sad figure receding into the distance; somewhere in that walk, there is a¡sense of the age-old inevitability ofthings. John Ford, Capra's contemporary and another very American director, remains aware of the flux of life and the inexorability of death in the midst of all the action of a Western; his love for his fellow being has a mellowness and charm inseparable from the knowledge of sorrow. Unlike Capra's work, Ford's is full of poetic resonances, of undertones of ambiguity which haunt the perceptive audience. Capra's meaning never operates at more than¡ one level;
it stays clear of undertones or overtones in search of the powerful simplicity of poster art. If Capra has none of the profundity of Chaplin or the poetry of Ford, why is O' it that people find it refreshing to. see \ Deeds or Smith or Doe today, nearly haIr" a century after they were made? On examination, it is the absoluteness of Capra's faith, his naivety itself, that turns out to be his strength instead of his weakness. His optimism is powerful because it is unsullied by doubt. When Deeds faces the court which is to decide whether he is a lunatic, he is as sure of himself as he was when he went to New York to see what this twenty-miUion-dollar inheritance of his was all about. The idle rich are bad; wealth acquired by hard work is not. Deeds becomes wealthy by accident, so he does the moral thing-he gives away his money. Smith is ready to' throwaway his Senatorship, coveted by so many, in order to expose corruption in high places. Deeds is sure that what his' fellow millionaires call his foolishness would not lead him toa bad end, because moral actions never do. Smith, too, is sure that moral actions lead to more love and kindness among people, and make for a better world. At no time was the need for this faith greater in America than in the years after the Depression .which make up the golden age of Capra. Banks had crashed, the hard-earned savings of hundreds of thousands of people had been wiped out. Unemployment stalked the land. Army veterans were marching against the government; radical political ideologies were growing in popularity; Americans' faith in their country was crumbling under economic pressures at home and the ascent of totalitarianism abroad. Capra brought before them exactly what people .wanted to believe, at such a time, when Roosevelt had just aroused some hope with his New Deal. It Happened One Night was a big hit and had the unique distinction of winning all the five Academy awards; Deeds, Smith, Doe, Lost Horizon played to full houses, made money and won awards. This is a kind of enthusiastically positive and constructive attitude which has hardly ever been the stuff of art. Optimism is always a little suspect. It does not promote profound analyses of society. The task of making it credible, warm and human no one has performed better than Capra. He threw himself so wholeheartedly into it as to make Jefferson Smith speak that famous monologue at Lincoln Memorial, orating all the patriotic phrases
that the more sophisticated would shudder to say aloud. It was idiosyncratic, but the idiosyncracies of his heroes turned into lovable traits by the very force of the faith they had in their way of life and the justice that they knew must ultimately trjumph. It is optimism and simple courage which moved people then, and still give his films a lovable, and at the best moments, a childlike quality. It is not, as S0me have argued, merely a case of American nostalgia for a past when everything was simple. It is the moral faith of an immigrant to a new country which is yet to become weary of its own weight of history-and with its pace of technological change, may never be. The renewed interest in Capra's films in America today may also be due to a fresh search for moral values in public life, and to the revival of a hope that good men can still change the world. It has been said, both by Capra and his critics, that his New Deal films sugar-coat the moral-patriotic pill with comedy to make it palatable. It seems more likely, however, that Capra had that shrewd gut-feeling that his sermon (he himself calls it "a sort of sermon on the mount") would strike people as naIve and implausible if it was not at the same time funny. The do-gooder is a funny man to mO,st.people because he is foolish enough to take on the impossible. The lone moral crusader in a corrupt world is a Don Quixote charging the windmills. Dostoevski's moral. man is The Idiot. In Capra's films, laughter dissolves away all implausibilities and generates a warm sense of fellowship whose inebriating charm makes nothing seem impossible any more. The millionaire of It Happened One Night gets converted to the poor news reporter's thinking, the corrupt Senator of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington confesses at the right moment. Capra's comedy is never satirical; it is full of geniality and good humor and makes us believe that the world is not such a bad place after all, that if we all assert our rights as individuals we can make it much better. Longfellow Deeds, Jefferson Smith and John Long Willoughby of Meet John Doe are all simple, honest men who are catapulted by circumstances into seats of power-Deeds suddenly inherits twenty million dollars, Smith is appointed Senator to fill an unexpired term, Doe is made to fit into an invention of unscrupulous media men. In each case, the growing sense of responsibility thrust upon them brings out their inner moral strength and turns them into heroes. Their near-comic innocence makes their
heroism plausible; had they been hardheaded practical men, they would probably have been too cynical to embark upon impossible ventures. They are, in a sense, extensions of Harry Langdon for whom Capra wrote a number of stories and gags during his years with Mack Sennett. As he himself says: Chaplin thought his way out of tight situations; Keaton suffered through them stoically ..Lloyd overcame them with speed. But Langdon trusted his way through adversities, surviving only with the help of God, or goodness. At the end of Deeds' lunacy trialsociety always regards the determinedly moral man as a mad man, at least until he is proved a saint-the judge remarks that the man they were trying to prove insane was the only sane one in that crowded courtroom. Capra's humor is hardly ever separated from the sentimental and the endearing: The man whom the lawyers are chasing in order to bring him his sudden and fabulous inheritance is discovered playing the tuba in the midst of his home town band. He is so lost in happiness over his music and his fellowship with his band while others are on a frenzied search for him that he seems mad. In Mr. Smith, the Vice President presiding over the Senate looks on with amusement as Smith .carries on his greenhorn crusade of 'honesty against the seasoned but corrupt Senators' wiles. It is as if the Vice President is saying to the audience that Smith, who seems mad, is the only sane man in this Senate.' , There is another important way in which what was derided as Capra-corn becomes, even to this day, credible and full of warmth and humanity. This is Capra's great sense of realism and the thoroughly professional way in which he creates it. The Senate in Mr. Smith and the courtroom in Deeds, the newspaper office in Doe, are all accurate to the last detail. More importantly, Capra stripped his actors of make-up and fancy clothes-he is said to be the first director in America to have made an actor wear an unpressed suit and chew gum-and made them speak and behave as the characters would have done in real life. Such realism was not only new in its day but is still effective in Capra's films, and helps to make the achievements of the hero credible. Besides, by cutting the films himself-Capra was one of the handful of directors in Hollywood to win this right - he made sure of a fast rhythm, "pushing the acting pace one-third above normal" by using over-
During India's first international film festival in 1952, Capra visited India as the official American delegate. Here he is seen with a Calcutta film group, which includes (far background, wearing spectacles) the author of this article.
lapping dialogue, rejecting long shots in favor of medium shots and medium close shots, dissolves and fades in favor of cuts and wipes, and nature in favor of people. As he himself points out, he kept the pace very fast so that the audience would not have time to think. However, in the final analysis, it is comedy-fast paced and realistic-that makes Capra tick. The film that makes this clear by contrast is the one in which Capra approaches his philosophy frontally, without the benefit of comedy. The philosophical content of Lost Horizon is sheer drivel, bearing no relation to any known philosophy of the Eastern World and based entirely on popular notions. Except for the brilliant opening, the film is remarkable only for its naked Capracorn, stripped of the garb of comedy. Capra's genius for realism deserts him the moment he steps out of his familiar setting. The Tibetan lamasery looks not only improbable but esthetically outrageous, and the lama is no less than a Belgian priest with an ungainly make-up. Ronald Coleman, singularly miscast by a director so well known for his casting, suggests no trace of the spiritual quest which Shangri-La is supposed to generate in him. As Graham Greene, a great admirer of Capra's other films, points
out: "Shangri-La must be counted among the less fortunate flights of the imagination." Yet the concept caught the imagination of a world hovering on the brink of a war, and the term "Shangri-La" found a permanent place in the English language. The innocent ardor of Deeds and his victory over his tormentors in the brilliant courtroom scene make it the finest among Capra's optimistic New Deal comedies, the purest and the most integrated. In comparison to it, It Happened One Night (1931), though reflecting some tenets of Capra's faith, is delightful entertainment without the moral preoccupation of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936). In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Capra's comic genius and the professionalism of his filmmaking are again superb, but the moral fervor has begun to face inner problems. Although Smith wins his point in Senate, we do not know whether any action will be taken against the transgressors. Will Jim Taylor have his dam or Jeffer:son Smith have his boy's camp? We do not know. It is in Meet John Doe that Capra's unifying philosophy reaches its impasse. His perception of evil has by now become too deep to admit of any Pollyanna philosophy. The cynicism of media and the brutal exploitation of the common man by politicians are so
starkly brought out that Capra cannot award a victory to John Doe. True to the ways of the world, John Doe's goodness must bring him its punishment-in this case, death by suicide. But here the inexorable Hollywood machine steps in. "You just don't kill Gary Cooper," says Capra. "It's a hell of a powerful ending, but you just can't kill Gary Cooper." So, Cooper lived, but something in Capra died. To this day, Capra broods over the ending of the most powerful film he ever made. His conscience is too 'strong not to trouble him over this capitulation to the box office formula, to the humiliating premise that the cinema can't tell the hard truth. The remarkable unity of art and entertainment in the heyday of Hollywood reached its breaking point in John Doe. With war foreboding disaster for mankind and his own country getting ready to brave the fires, Capra's faith was shaken, and he could not find a unifying ending in a world so divided. It was impossible to continue the strains of the small-town tuba; the small town had suddenly become the world, and one that was no longer amenable to persuasion. Capra's next film was the delightful Arsenic and Old Lace, a straight comedy, brilliantly made, but without a trace of the New Deal. Only the war gave him a renewed raison d'etre. Here was an attack on the very values he cherished. In the Why We Fight series of documentaries, Capra rose to a spirited defense of his faith in America. On his return after the war, Capra tried to go back to where he had left off. It's a Wonderful Life tries hard, but does not quite succeed in recapturing the spirit of Deeds. Rather like Meet John Doe, it dips into the world of evil too deep to redeem it by fantasy. At the ending, its hero is again ready to commit suicide, but is persuaded to abandon it when he is shown a picture of his world as it would be without him. But we are not persuaded, because the realism is again too strong for the fantasy to succeed and because, secretly, Capra has himself ceased to believe in it. This failure of his unifying philosophy practically ended the Capra chapter of Hollywood history. Although he made five films after It's a Wonderful Life, two of them were remakes, and the rest never recaptured the significance which had informed his New Deal films. "Thank you, America," Capra had said at the peak of his success, "for giving me the opportunity." At their best, his New Deal films reverberated with this enthusiasm, and became the high watermark of the American dream as expressed in the cinema. 0
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Not you, lean quarterlies and swarthy periodicals with your studious incursions toward the pomposity of ants, nor you, experimental theatre in which Emotive ,Fruition is wedding Poetic Insight perpetually, nor you, promenading Grand Opera, obvious as an ear (though you are close to my heart), but you, Motion Picture Industry, it's you I love! In time of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love. And give credit where it's due: not to my starched nurse, who taught me
how to be bad and not bad rather than good (and has lately availed herself of this information), not to the Catholic Church which is at best an oversolemn introduction to cosmic entertainment, not to the American Legion, which hates everybody, but to you, glorious Silver Screen, tragic Technicolor, amorous Cinemascope, '. stretching Vistavision and startling Stereophonic Sound, with all your heavenly dimensions and reverberations and iconoclasms! To Richard Barthelmess as the 'tol'able' boy barefoot and in pants, Jeanette MacDonald of the flaming hair and lips and long, long neck. Sue Carroll as she ~its for eternity on the damaged fender of a car and smiles, Ginger Rogers with her pageboy bob like a sausage on her shuffling shoulders, peach-melba-voiced Fred Astaire of the feet, Eric von Stroheim, the seducer of mountain-climbers' gasping spouses, the Tarzans, each and every one,of you (I cannot bring myself to prefer Johnny Weissmul1er to Lex Barker, I cannot I), Mae West in a furry¡ sled,
her bordello radiance and bland remarks, Rudolph Valentino of the moon, its crushirig passions, and moonlike, too, the gentle Norma Shearer, Miriam Hopkins dropping her champagne glass off Joel McCrea's yacht and crying into the dappled sea, Clark Gable rescuing Gene Tierney from Russia and Allan Jones rescuing Kitty Carlisle from Harpo Marx, Cornel Wilde coughing blood on the piano keys while Merle Oberon berates, Marilyn Monroe in her little spike heels reeling through Niagara Falls, , Joseph Cotten puzzling and Orson Welles puzzled and Dolores del Rio eating orchids for lunch and breaking mirro.rs, Gloria Swanson reclining, and Jean Harlow reclining and wiggling, and Alice Faye reclining and wiggling and singing, Myrna Loy being calm and wise, William Powell in his stunning urbanity, Elizabeth Taylor blossoming, yes, to you and to all you others, the great, the near-great, the featured, the extras who pass quickly and return" in dreams saying your one or two lines, my love! Long may you illumine space with your marvellous appearances, delays and enunciations, and may the money of the world glitteringly cover you as you rest after a long day under the kleig lights with your faces in packs for our edification, the way the clouds come often at night but the heavens operate on the star system. It is a divine precedent you perpetuate! Roll on, reels of celluloid, as the great earth rolls on!
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FROM BREWERYTOW How does a man rise through the corporate hierarchy to the chief executive's office? It is a fascinating process, and there are no guidelines for success. In the case of Paul Lyet, it was a combination of hard work and determination plus a quick and retentive mind, an outgoing personality-and a bit of luck-that took him to the top of Sperry Rand Corporation. Paul Lyet (pronounced Lee-A Y) likes to describe his rise to the chairmanship of Sperry Rand Corporation as "sheer luck." And he hastens to add that he is not being entirely facetious. For one thing, it actually was luck that brought him to the corporation in the first place. He started working for the New Holland division-named for the town in Pennsylvania where it is based-a few years before the old Sperry Corporation appeared out of the blue and offered to buy the business. Lyet went on to do a fine job in a succession of administrative positions at New Holland. While luck may have played an important role, Lyet can take plenty of personal credit for his own success. Indeed, he has as much right as anyone to consider himself self-made. A poor boy from a broken home, he spent many years struggling to create opportunities and take advantage of them. He brought to the struggle a quick and retentive mind, and a remarkable knack for dealing with"people. His colleagues, without exception, describe him as an extraordinarily likable man-warm, sincere, humble, even-tempered-who wins over anyone he meets. Lyet says he learned early in his career that "the rewards would come if you worked hard." Hard work, he explains, not only impressed his bosses, but also added immensely to his competence. He recently compared notes on the subject while dining with Felix G. Rohatyn of Lazard Freres & Co., who has been so prominent lately in the efforts to put New York City's finances in order. Lyet found that Rohatyn had gone through a similar experience. "I mentioned that most people I was competing with over the years were not willing to work hard. Rohatyn said he also had noticed th~t most people were only putting in a standard workday. By spendIng a few extra hours each day, and one day a weekend, he was able to get more facts and knowledge. If your objective is to get your head above the pack and be seen, one way is to work like hell." In his early youth, Jean Paul Lyet seemed less likely to rise above the pack than to be trampled beneath its feet. He was born in Philadelphia 60 years ago, the only child of Louis F. Lyet, whose parents had migrated here from France, and the former Elizabeth Fortune, whose parents came from Wales. As an infant, he underwent a mastoid operation that rendered him permanently deaf in his left ear. And when he was eight, his parents were divorced. His father, a trumpeter in a traveling dance band, never came to visit Paul after that, nor did he contribute anything to the family's support. Elizabeth Lyet took a job as a telephone operator, and she and Paul, together with her widowed mother, rented an apartment in a rundown section of North Philadelphia. The neighborhood was called Brewery town, in recognition of the Bergdoll brewery, which dominated the landscape. Juvenile delinquency was almost the accepted form of
behavior in Brewerytown, but Elizabeth Lyet, a devout Episcopalian, kept her son rigorously in line. On Saturday nights, the residents of Brown Street, where Lyet lived, would gape in fascination as teen-agers roared by in stolen cars, often with the police in hot pursuit. Many of Lyet's contemporaries wound up in the penitentiary, and at least one was shot to death. Even some of the better bred boys would filch coal from parked delivery trucks-especially during the Depression, when many parents were out of work. But Lyet refused to join them. "He was revoltingly honest," complains a childhood friend. Occasionally he would be goaded into battle with the neighborhood toughs, but he was strong enough to cope with most of them. He recalls that in one particularly bellicose year he had 31 major fistfights. Lyet finally found a healthy escape from this grim environment. At the age of 12, he joined a boys' club sponsored by the Big Brothers Association, and he spent much of his free time there until he turned 21 and was no longer eligible for membership. He signed up for the club's swimming team, and, although he was not a natural athlete, through incessant study and practice he made himself one of the two or three best backstroke swimmers in Philadelphia. "He studied the whole thing like a science," says Edward J. Kelly, a friend and teammate of Lyet. "I would just be flailing my arms and legs to get to the end of the pool faster, but Paul was talking about whether tipping your hand or bending your elbow would be better. At swimming meets he talked to the other team and asked them all sorts of questions." His swimming team was one of the best in the state, and Lyet says he took particular delight whenever they trounced the Pennsylvania Athletic Club-"all Main Line kids" from the best part of town. Lyet's favorite subject at high school was English, and for a¡ time he thought seriously about becoming a journalist. He joined the staff of the club newspaper and, as the best and most enthusiastic of a dozen writers, wound up doing half the work. Eventually he became the editor, and later he edited a second club newspaper, aimed at older boys. By the time he graduated from high school in 1935, Lyet had given up any notion of writing for a living, and had decided instead on a career in business. The choice was made with reluctance. "It was really in the heart of the Depression," he remarks. "I don't think I would have chosen business on my own, but after I got involved and got the scent, I really came to like it. I wanted not to be poor, and I'm still very much interested in making certain that my family is not. To that extent I've been scarredI'll never shake ,it." He worked during the day, and attended classes at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Evening School of Accounts and Finance, where he majored in accounting. He graduated in 1941.
N TO SPERRY RAND estate offices. He was strongly tempted, but his mother vetoed the idea. It wasn't a matter of being bitter. She was on good terms with Uncle Paul, but opposed nepotism on principle. "She said absolutely don't work for any family member," he recalls. "She said, 'If you succeed, you won't know whether it was on :your own ability.' " Since they were to be competitors, the uncle asked the nephew to add "II" to his name, so there would be less confusion, and young Paul readily agreed. "Fellas with rich families were all named John Pennington Smith III, and that might have affected my decision," he confides. He finally dropped the numerical appendage eight years ago-long after his uncle had died. Lyet left Jardella in 1939 and went to work for another realestate agent, Charles M. Miller, in North Philadelphia. In addition to peddling houses, he was assigned to keep the firm's books, and was paid the munificent sum of $18 a week. But after a year with Miller, and with his graduation from Penn imminent, he decided it was time to try his hand at accounting. He got a job with the Ernst & Ernst office in Philadelphia. "You'd go out as an auditor, and get into all sorts of businesses. It was exciting, and I liked the variety. You had a professional status too. When I was a bookkeeper, I would watch the auditor come in, do a few little checks, talk to the proprietor, and out he'd go. It was a class thing." After graduating, Lyet was assigned to the Ernst & Ernst office in Reading, Pennsylvania. He was assigned to audit corporations-no mean task, since the office had some sizable corporate clients. He was studying for his c.P.A. (Certified Public Accountant) examination, and the senior accountant in the office, Edward G. Everist,. offered to coach him. Everist, who has long since retired and still lives near Reading, found In his first job out of high school, Lyet wrapped suitcases Lyet a remarkable student. "I never met anybody who had the eagerness to learn that he did. Hours meant nothing to Paul. for 20 cents an hour at a factory operated by Crescent Leather Goods, a small Philadelphia manufacturer. He performed with He was a nice boy, very friendly, and everybody liked him. He his customary gusto, and after a few months his boss raised had it upstairs- had a brain. I knew Paul was gonna go places." his salary to 22} cents an hour, and suggested that he ought Everist recalls that Lyet came to Reading shortly before the to make this his career. But Lyet felt that all he was getting out U.S. Congress passed the wartime excess-profits tax. The tax was a maze of technicalities, and many accountants had no of the jo b- besides the money - were painful cuts from handling idea how to advise their clients. But Lyet grappled with the law the wrapping paper. He quit and went to work for a real-estate agent named Jerome B. Jardella, in South Philadelphia. His and managed to decipher it. "He took to it like a duck to water," starting salary was $8 a week, which worked out to slightly Everist remarks. "We had all those problems facing us, but Paul fathomed 'em out." less than he had been getting from Crescent Leather Goods, but he considered the new job a worthier challenge. One of the least prominent clients of Ernst & Ernst's Reading office was the little New Holland Machine Co. Founded in He was assigned to collect rents and to escort potential customers through the houses Jardella listed for sale or rental. 1895, it was in financial distress from the 1920s onward. By But he also did a lot of work on his own initiative. He would the late thirties, its sales of farm machinery totaled less than roam Philadelphia, looking for houses that appeared to be $150,000 a year-down from an all-ti:roe high of $268,000-and vacant. Then he would check the names of the owners at City it was a chronic money loser. . Hall, and would approach them to ask if the agency could help In 1940, the company was taken over by three ambitious find a buyer or a tenant. Jardella was delighted, and raised young entrepreneurs, George C. Delp, lrl A. Daffin, and R.D. Lyet's salary to $10 a week. An elderly man without children, Buckwalter. They began marketing a new machine called the he suggested that he might leave the business to Lyet, and Automaton, which had been invented by Ed Nolt, a Pennsylurged him to drop his studies. "Why are you going to night vania Dutch farmer. The Automaton was a sensational improveschool?" Jardella would growl. "That's silly. Why are you. ment on the machinery of the day. It gathered hay, compressed studying accounting? You can hire accountants." it into bales, and automatically bound it with wire, permitting While working for Jardella, Lyet got another job offer, a single operator to do a job that formerly had required three at nearly double the salary, from one of his father's brothers workers. -also named Jean Paul Lyet-who ran two thriving realThe automatic baler was a prompt success, and New
One old-timer recalls that Lyet cut a slightly comic figure with his derby, cigar and satchel full of account books, but once he began to deliver his report, the snickering soon stopped. Holland's sales and profits began to jump. But unfortunately, none of the three partners were adept at handling corporate finances, and this was sometimes a source of embarrassment. Lyet recalls that he once prepared an income tax form for New Holland, and found that the company owed $50,000. But there was only $5,000 in the treasury at that particular moment, so the officers had to rush out and borrow the remainder from a local bank. On another occasion, New Holland wanted to float a $150,000 loan from a Philadelphia bank, and an officer asked to see the company's budget. The partners not only had no budget, they didn't know how to prepare one. They turned to Lyet, who hammered out a budget that satisfied the bank. George Delp, who served as general manager of New Holland, decided he could use Lyet full time, and he tried to lure him away from Ernst & Ernst. He offered to make Lyet the controller and a director and to pay him $5,200 a year, plus a percentage of the profits. Lyet, who was making only $120 a month with Ernst & Ernst, at first refused, thinking that he might rise to even greater heights with the accounting firm. After he passed his C.P.A. examination, however, all he got was "a nice note from the firmnot even a raise." So in mid-1943, he succumbed to Delp's blandishments. By the end of that year, Delp had to persuade him to renegotiate the terms of his contract. New Holland was doing so well that Lyet, under his profit-sharing plan, would have been paid $65,000 the first year-$15,000 more than any of the three proprietors were getting. And he seemed likely to receive multiples of that figure in succeeding years. Lyet agreed to a $35,000 ceiling. Not long after he joined New Holland, the partners cut him in for a small portion of the stock-for which he paid a nominal sum. He also took a position in some of their side enterprises, among them an automobile dealership, a construction-equipment distributorship, and a homebuilding firm. Lyet began to fancy himself as-in his own words- "a swinging wheelerdealer." His bosses, however, regarded him not as a swinger, but as a talented and conservative professional, who could be relied upon to save them from their own excesses. In a curious twist on an old theme, the New Holland partners, all of them raised 0]1 farms, enjoyed teasing their earnest young financial man, who had grown up on the mean streets of the big city. The chief object of their humor was Lyet's car, a wheezing, decrepit Model-B Ford, which he had bought for $50. Once, one of his colleagues suggested that Lyet ought to change the air in his tires, since it probably had grown stale. Lyet took the suggestion seriously until the joke was explained. But today Lyet has the last laugh. He rides between his office near Rockefeller Center and his home in Bronxville, New York, in a chauffeured Cadillac limousine. In 1945, when its revenues reached $7.5 million, New Holland suddenly encountered some troublesome competition. International Harvester began marketing its own automatic hay baler that year, and the next year two other large companies entered the field. New Holland found itself forced to offer installment terms. The company continued to sell all the balers it could make, but could no longer generate enough cash to expand its operations. It became clear that the owners would either have to go public with New Holland stock, or sell out to some cash-rich company.
In 1946, New Holland received an unsolicited letter from a broker who said he represented "a large company" interested in buying the business. The large company turned out to be Sperry Corporation, which had accumulated a huge pile of cash during the war as a major defense contractor. Sperry agreed to pay the owners $7.6 million in cash and Sperry stock, with more to follow in later years if New Holland's profits surpassed certain targets. As things worked out, New Holland far surpassed those targets, and by the time the final payments were made in 1952, the former shareholders had receiv-, ~d a grand total of $13.6 million. Lyet's share of the bounty was 'nearly $600,000. Sperry was naturally delighted with New Holland's success and gave the division considerable autonomy. "We made our own decisions about spending on things like advertising or research and development," Lyet remarks. "They were very fair with us." As chief financial officer, Lyet would visit Sperry Corporation headquarters once a month to report on the division's progress. One Sperry old-timer recalls that the stocky young man from New Holland cut a slightly comic figure with his black derby hat, his black cigar, and his huge, heavy satchel full of account books. But the same observer says that once Lyet sat down to deliver his report, the snickering ceased. "He did a very thorough job of preparing. He was always respected in those meetings. He developed a tremendous respect among the Sperry management." An anxious shudder ran through New Holland in 1955 when Sperry began negotiating a merger with Remington Rand. "The Sperry people had come to understand us at New Holland," Lyet recalls. "We had built :up credibility. With the merger, we didn't know who was going to end up on top." As the details of the agreement began to unfold, New' Holland's anxiety increased. The imperious General Douglas MacArthur, then chairman of Remington Rand, was to continue as chairman of the newly merged Sperry Rand Corporation, while James H. Rand, who had been president of Remington, would serve as vice-chairman. But the worries turned out to, be groundless. MacArthur was largely a figurehead, and Rand confined himself almost exclusively to the Remington side of the business. The real power resided with Harry F. Vickers, who had been running Sperry, and who was named chief executive of the merged corporation. On the one occasion when Remington executives tried to meddle in New Holland's affairs, Vickers rebuffed them. Remington, whose chief product was business machines, had demanded that New Holland replace its I.B.M. punch-card equipment with the Remington Rand model. "They complained that we were an embarrassment to them," Lyet recalls. "But we said, 'You'll have to demonstrate that you're better,' and Vickers ruled in our favor. We were obstreperous, I guess. We knew we were making money, and felt we could hold out better than some other division." Vickers, a stern, imposing man with a deep, rumbling voice, had sought the merger primarily to get his hands on Remington's Univac division. At the time the merger took place, I.B.M. had not yet outdistanced the other computer makers. There seemed reason to hope that Univac could seize a commanding position in a fantastic growth market.
Ordered to cut short his vacation for a board meeting, Lyet rushed back to New York to be told by his boss that he not only would be meeting the board but joining it as a member. But within a few years it became clear that Univac had bungled its opportunity. By the early sixties, Univac was losing huge sums of money, and Vickers was besieged with demands from shareholders, employees, and his fellow directors to get out of the computer business. â&#x20AC;˘ Vickers refused to drop Univac. In 1964 he assembled a task force of experts from other Sperry Rand divisions, and directed them to investigate Univac and find a cure. To head the task force, he chose J. Franklin Forster, the man who was destined to succeed him as chief executive. Lyet, who had long been a favorite of Vickers, was assigned to study Univac's finances. Vickers, now 78, says he had identified Lyet as someone he would like to see rU!1ningthe corporation. "He was an outstanding talent-very alert, very smart, very warm-a very competent manager." At Vickers' instigation, Lyet was thrown together with Forster in a number of special assignments. Nine years Lyet's senior, Forster was a tough, no-nonsense professional. He came up through the Vickers division, a hydraulic-equipment manufacturer that had been founded by Harry Vickers in the twenties, and had later been merged into Sperry. At the time the task force was appointed, Forster was serving as head of the division. Lyet had come to know Forster quite well a couple of years earlier, during another task-force assignment. They had spent several weeks visiting Sperry Rand's operations in South America, trying to figure out why the corporation was losing money there. From this trip there had evolved a mutual understanding and respect. "He and I felt the same way about a lot of things," Lyet recalls. "We both were interested in strict financial controls, and put a heavy emphasis on planning." Lyet and Forster were markedly different in temperament, however. Although Lyet prefers not to stress the fact, other people at Sperry Rand attest that Forster was a volatile man, given to angry outbursts. During their long association, the mild-mannered Lyet remained a trifle intimidated by his colleague. Before the Univac task force was appointed, Lyet had been among those clamoring for Sperry Rand to drop the computer business. But once he got a chance to know the situation intimately, he reversed himself. "I decided that this was going to be a dynamic thing, with great opportunities. But of course major changes were going to have to be made. There were certain obvious expenditures they were making-big hunks-that, if we got rid of them, could bridge the profitability gap." In the midst of the investigation, the president of the Univac division, Louis T. Rader, suddenly quit to become a vice president of General Electric. Vickers asked Forster to take over as head of Univac, and Forster agreed, though not without severe qualms. He confided to Lyet that he thought Univac might damage his career, and that he would have preferred to remain with the profitable Vickers division. But, in fact, his stewardship at Univac simply underscored his value to the corporation. He followed most of the task force's recommendations, cutting costs here and overhauling management there, and in a couple of years he turned the division around. In 1965, Vickers made Forster president of Sperry Rand-on top of his duties at Univac-and in 1967 he named Forster to succeed him as chairman and chief executive.
One of Forster's earliest acts as chief executive was to give Lyet a promotion. He summoned Lyet one day in the spring of 1967 and said, "Look, we're thinking about succession down the road. Do you want your hat in the ring, or don't you?" Lyet replied: "I sure as hell do!" Shortly afterward, Forster drove down to New Holland and had a candid talk with George Delp, who was now 60 years old and had run New Holland for more than a quarter century. "It's time some of your guys had a chance for new opportunities," Forster told Delp. He then proceeded to reorganize New Holland, separating its North American operations from its international operations, and giving Lyet the position of vice president and general manager for North America. Another New Holland executive was put in charge of international operations, while Delp remained president of the divisionthough with his authority diluted. "It was an awkward period for me," Lyet recalls. "I was enormously in George Delp's debt." Lyet looked upon Delp almost as a surrogate father. They were executors of each other's wills, and trustees for each other's children. They rode to and from work together, and their wives were close friends. But Lyet had turned 50, and he was still ambitious, "Time was running out on me," he says, "and Frank Forster saw that." Then, in December 1968, when Lyet's mother was on her deathbed, Forster approached him and said, "I want you to know this, and you might want to tell your mother-you're gonna be president of New Holland." Delp was retained as a vice president of Sperry Rand, but his duties were to be "consultative and advisory." "He rose above it," Lyet remarks. "He has never let it affect our relationship." In 1970, after Lyet had served as head of New Holland for a little more than a year, Forster promoted him again-to executive vice president of Sperry Rand. The same title was held by two other heirs presumptive- Robert E. McDonald, who was two years older than Lyet, and Merrill A. Hayden, four years Lyet's senior. Early in 1971, Forster told Hayden that he no longer was a candidate for chief executive. Hayden took the hint and left to become Deputy U.S. Postmaster General. A few months after he was named executive vice president, Lyet was on vacation in Quebec City when he got an urgent call from Forster. "I want you to come back for the board meeting this week," the boss declared mysteriously. Lyet rushed back to New York, where Forster, with an impish smile, told him that he not only would be meeting with the board, but would be joining it as a member. Then, in July 1971, Forster appointed Lyet president of Sperry ,Rand. When the appointment was announced soon afterward at the annual meeting, Bob McDonald, in a public display of sportsmanship, put his arm around Lyet and shook his hand. But Lyet insists that even after being named president, he couldn't be certain that he would succeed Forster as chairman and chief executive. He was not given the title of chief operating officer, and the authority for operations continued to be divided between himself and McDonald. In fact, McDonald retained authority over the Univac division, which accounts for over 40 per cent of Sperry's revenues. "I was president but I wasn't president" is the way Lyet describes it. In retrospect, Lyet thinks that Forster wanted to make sure
that McDonald would stay with the corporation. An engineer by training, McDonald had a deeper understanding of technology than Lyet, and he knew the Univac division inside out. But Lyet suspects that there also was an irrational side to Forster's behavior. He says that Forster, who would be required to step down in 1973, when he turned 65, was struggling against the notion that his career at Sperry would have to end. Lyet thinks he became an unwitting victim of this struggle one day in May 1972, during a meeting at headquarters with Forster and several other high-level executives. Lyet had spent the entire weekend preparing for it. "I really worked that weekend," he recalls, "and I came in loaded for bear. The meeting opened up, and we were moving along, and I started to really move in. I had analyzed the turnover of inventories. I was saying we've gotta do this and we've gotta do that. Suddenly, I found that I had irritated Frank. He cut me down right at the ankles---,verbally-at that meeting. I didn't understand it. And I felt it was wrong to do in the presence of these other fellas." Lyet went home that evening totally crushed, and told his wife that he didn't think he had a future at Sperry Rand after all. Two days later, Forster strode into Lyet's office and said, "Paul, I've decided definitely now-you're going to succeed me." After he had recovered from his astonishment, Lyet grasped what the earlier drama had meant. "Frank had been wrestling with this decision, and suddenly he had seen his successor. Fight it as he would, he finally had to come to grips with the reality of the situation." Forster said he had begun telling the directors about his decision, and that he would announce it formally at the annual meeting in July. He said the change would become effective at the following year's annual meeting-in July 1973. But the change became effective sooner than anyone had anticipated. Just two weeks after Forster broke the good news to Lyet, he was struck by an automobile while crossing the street near his home. His head hit the pavement, and his skull was fractured. Forster was confined to his hospital room without visitors, and the weeks rolled by while his doctors kept promising that he would recover. After consulting with the board of directors, Lyet took charge
"Miss Kent, I want that researched, analyzed, verified, encoded, translated, extrapolated, condensed, and typed in triplicate."
at Sperry Rand. He was concerned about how Forster would react to this, so' he prepared a little memo that he planned to give his boss at the first opportunity. "I said, 'Frank, here's the way I'm going to run this thing. I can't talk to you now, but any decisions that can be postponed without hurt to the company, I'll postpone. But anything else, I'll decide.' " Forster never got to read the memo. He died five weeks after the accident, on July 1, 1972. The directors promptly elected Lyet chairman and chief executive, while McDonald became president and chief operating officer. Lyet continued to be haunted by the memory of his predecessor. "I would find myself saying, 'How would Frank handle this?' He was a tough act to follow. When I took over, I felt that all eyes were upon me. My first year was a year full of firststhe first meeting with the Society of Security Analysts, the first shareholders' meeting, the first meeting with the press, the first meeting with our divisional people. If Frank had lived, he would have been able to tell me what to expect in certain areas." Eventually he began to develop his own approach. "I found within myself feelings about management that were not in harmony with Frank's," he remarks. "It was a question of emphasis, mainly. I felt he had been too restrictive about sharing financial information among the managers of the various divisions. I also felt we ought to tell the investing public more about Sperry. Frank used to say he didn't look at the stock market. I felt the investors were looking at me to get the stock price up-fair and square, of course." Since he took over, the corporation's revenues have risen about 75 per cent, while its net income and earnings per share have more than doubled. Lyet has enjoyed considerable success in his efforts to eliminate the tension that pervaded Sperry's headquarters during the administrations of Vickers and Forster. Reflecting on this recently, he said: "When I used to come here from New Holland, I was in awe. You always had the feeling that Vickers carried an invisible pistol, and if he said so- Boom! You were finished, and there was no appeal. Things did get somewhat better under Forster." Throughout his career, Lyet had repeatedly demonstrated his skill at handling new ideas and new people, and he worked hard at creating a spirit of openness at Sperry once he reached the top. "What I wanted," he remarked, "was to have headquarters a place where division presidents could talk about their mistakes. My purpose was very selfish, really. If you've got a that comes up atthe end of the year, and suddenly you have a write-off-that wasn't a surprise to somebody. Somebody in the organization knew you had that problem right along. I felt people should be able to come in and warn us about their problems without being upbraided. "I like to feel there's an ease of communication. I like to feel that the division presidents can come in here, and their mouths aren't dry. You don't dress people down in front of other people, you don't treat executives like your children-you don't even treat your children like that." Lyet paused for a few moments, and then added diplomatically: "I'm anxious not to convey that we had a bad tone. You just shouldn't make the same mistakes your predecessor made. There ought to be an improvement, or else you'll end up going backwards. As with athletes, the businessmen of 20 years ago would be lost today. It's a different world. The management style under Frank was different from when Vickers was here, and when I leave there will be a change again." D
INDO-U.S. JOINT VENTURE
VEISATILE TOOLS rOI IIDDSTIY AN INTERVIEW BY MALINI SESHADRI PHOTOGRAPHS BY AVINASH PAS RICH A
The making of a cast tool at SECALS. Left: A metallic pattern of the tool is made on a die-sinking machine. A ceramic mold is later made from this pattern, using a special American process. Below: The ceramic mold is ignited to drive out alcohol. Facing page: Molten metal alloy is poured into a ceramic mold to make a casting.
Using the latest American technology, SECALS of Madras makes cast tools and dies and precision castings for a wide range of Indian industry-both large and small units. Bapty Seshasayee, general manager of the Madras operation, is interviewed here.
SESHADRI: Mr.
Seshasayee, your group has been associated with the promotion of a number of business ventures over the years. But isn't this the first time that you have launched a company dealing with sophisticated metallurgical technology? I mean, this area seems to be so far removed from what your group has been involved with till now. How did this come about?
SESHASAYEE: Well, the main reason is, I suppose, that I am a foundry technologist with a background in metallurgical sciences. I had been working on spheroidal graphite iron and malleable iron - I realize that sounds technical but other foundry technologists would know what I mean-and I wanted to go into more sophisticated lines of manufacture in the area of alloy steels. We thought we should manufacture some cast dies for the forging industry which could also be used by all other metal-working and automobile industries.
SESHADRI: That's fine, the way you came up with this idea. But how did you decide whether the project would be workable in India? Was there a ready market for cast tools? Did you hire consultants to survey the market for this product?
SESHASA YEE: Actually, this was one of the difficulties. You see, there were no precise demand data available with either the financial institutions or the consultants, and we had to do some spadework ourselves. These cast tools replace conventional tools, as you know, so it would have done no good to go around asking who used them. So, I had discussions with the representatives of several established heavy engineering firms like Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company
The cast tools made by SECALS are a useful alternative to conventional tools. They are manufactured with the help of the world-famous Unicast ~eramic Molding Process, developed by a New York company, and the metallurgical know-how of Latrobe Steel Company, Pennsylvania. (TELCO), Guest Keen Williams, Ashok Leyland and Bharat Heavy Electricals. They were all enthusiastic about the idea and were sure it would be a useful alternative to the conventional tools. As a result of all these discussions, we decided we could set up a project to manufacture about 150 tons per year of cast dies and tools, and this could be absorbed by industries in India.
giving us a 15 per cent free subsidy on our assets and advancing a term loan. Ranipet is about 70 miles out of Madras, and presently there is quite a bit of activity in the industrial complex coming up there. The cost of the project, about Rs. 70 lakhs, was determined by stockholders' equity, subsidy from SIPCOT and term loans from the two financial institutions TIIC and SIPCOT.
SESHADRI: Mr. Seshasayee, once you had established the viability of this project, how did you set about putting it into operation? The question of know-how must have been at the top on the list of priorities. SESHASAYEE: Yes. Know-how obviously was most important. Since it was not available in India, we had to look for it abroad. We corresponded with many firms in Europe and in the United States and finally came to an agreement with Latrobe Steel Company of Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
SESHADRI: To get back to the question of technical collaboration, what are the terms of the agreement between SECALS and the Latrobe Steel Company? SESHASAYEE: Latrobe Steels do not hold any equity in our company. We have paid them an initial "know-how fee," and the agreement is that we pay them royalty for the first five years of commercial production. The Government permitted us to enter into a collaboration agreement with Latrobe because their terms were favorable. We were SESHADRI: Now that you have bought this able to convince Latrobe of the market patent license from Unicast, does it follow potential, and also that we had the infra- that you have to import the refractory materials structure to put up the project and to absorb for the ceramic mold from them? the technology. The agreement was signed in SESHASAYEE: Right now we are buying October 1971, and trial production started in the ceramic raw materials from Unicast, 1974 after approval from the Government of because they are of very precise gradations India. The project went on stream within and combinations, and we cannot very readily 10 months of breaking ground, which is develop sources of supply in our country. But the license itself is only for the process something of a record. of mold making, so we are free to indigenize SESHADRI: Mr. Seshasayee, would you the raw material supply over a period of tell us a little more about Latrobe Steel time-and in fact we are already taking steps to do so. As to the technical aspects of Company itself. SESHASAYEE: It is a medium-sized com- ceramic mold making, I have myself spent some time in the developing and processing pany with its headquarters in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, about 70 miles from Pitts- laboratory of Unicast where they demonburgh. The company has highly specialized strate the manufacture of ceramic molds. technical know-how in aircraft steels, missile We intend sending' some of our engineers steels, vacuum melted steels, high-speed there over the next couple of years. steels and tool and die steels. Latrobe supplies SESHADRI: What about your agreement special alloy st~els to the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and with Latrobe Steel Company? Is the technical is proud that its steels are out there in space. collaboration on a continuing basis? Actually the company has different divisions, SESHASAYEE: Very much so. In fact our such as the speciality products division, agreement provides that as and when we have operating from various mid-western states. problems their technical experts will come But we, of course, are primarily associated down here to give us advice. Even without specific problems cropping up their experts with their "Alloy Steels and Cast Masters" pay us periodical visits. 'Charles Yonkin, division. the chief metallurgist at the international SESHADRI: Going through your brochure, division of;Latrobe Steels, visited SECAI,;,S too will visit Ifind the name of anotherforeign collaborator some time agQ. OUf engineers ,
SESHADRI: I notice from your company's brochures that Latrobe Steel Company of the United States does not hold any equity in SECALS. Is SECALS a closely held company? SESHASAYEE: Not at all. Actually, we started as a private limited company in 1970, but the next year we converted to a public limited company. We have about 1,400 shareholders from all over the country, so it is actually a widely held company. The chairman of the company's board of directors is R.P. Aiyer, who is very well known in industrial circles and is on the board of several companies. On the. board we also have two nominees, one from the Tamil Nadu Industrial Investment Corporation (TIIC) and one from SIPCOT (State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu Ltd.). SESHADRI: How do these corporations come into the picture? Are they promoters of SECALS? SESHASAYEE: SIPCOT has been actively associated with our project in the sense that they 'have encouraged us to go over to Ranipet, a recognized backward area, where wecould avail ourselves of all the concessions and benefits offered to units set up in a backward area. They have also assisted us by
associated with SECALS-the Unicast Development Corporation of the United States. What is the role of this corporation in SECALS? SESHASAYEE: Well, it's like this. Unicast Development Corporation is a company in New York headed by a very dynamic engineer, Ron Greenwood, who has developed the Unicast Ceramic Molding Process for manufacturing precision castings and cast tools. He has patented this process and Unicast has licensees all over the world. Latrobe Steel Company over the years has developed a very sophisticated technology to manufacture end products like precision castings, tools, etc., adopting the Unicast Ceramic Molding Process. Latrobe advised us to take a patent license from Unicast. This is how Unicast came to be associated with SECALS.
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TELCO and Bharat Heavy Electricals. We. also supply cast tools and precision castings to a number of large and small industries dealing with glass, rubber and plastics. Then there are the automobile industries and the forging industry. That's quite a wide spectrum, isn't it? It just goes to show how versatile a cast tool is!
In the case of a cast tool, any number of castings, that is, any number of tools, can be produced from one basic pattern. This is a tremendous advantage where you have repetitive tooling such as in the glass industry, or in the manufacture of cutting tools. SESHADRI: May I take you back, You must remember that costly alloy steels Mr. Seshasayee, to something you mentioned like tool and die steels and high-speed steels at the very beginning of this conversation. are mostly imported, so it is better to miniYou said that cast tools could very well mize the waste of these raw materials. Also, replace the conventional tools in many indus- in the casting process, we can control many tries. What are the advantages? parameters of the alloy and alter the basic SESHASAYEE: I think SECALS have alloy wherever required. For instance, we fairly well established by now that cast tools can alter the composition by altering the relative content of tungsten, molybdenum, perform at least as well as conventional tools-if not better than them-in most nickel or carbon to get certain desirable operations. But the main saving to the user. characteristics in the end product, or to would be in terms of time, effort and material. eliminate certain undesirable characterisTo make a tool the conventional way, you tics. We can do this at the "melt" stage, take a large enough piece of the alloy you that is, when the alloy is in the molten state. want, and then machine it and grind it to the You obviously can't do this in conventional shape you want. Obviously, a fair amount of tooling. If something goes wrong during this expensive alloy steel is wasted in the the casting and the tool is not acceptable, machining process. If the tool is very precise we can always remelt it and recast it. and complicated, you need long hours of machining and great skill to turn out each SESHADRI: Who are the major customers tool. And if you need many of a kind, you of SECALS? go through this process many times. SESHASAYEE: Well, industries like the American company's foundries to gather experience and clear up some of the technical problems we come across here. So this two-way traffic of personnel is bound to continue for some time. /
SESHADRI: Mr. Seshasayee, as your foundry superintendent was showing me around the factory, he introduced me to some of the metallurgists and foundry technologists you employ. I noticed that most of them are very young. Is this a company policy, or is it rather that a young general manager like yourself prefers to gather young.people around him? SESHASAYEE: Yes, it's true that many of the engineers at SECALS are young, but they have wise heads on young shoulders, let me tell you. It's not exactly a company policy, but we've found in practice that we are able to get a better response from the youngsters who come fresh from engineering colleges. They are adaptable and enthusiastic, and of course we arrange to give them thorough training in their line of work. We are a young industry, employing 120 workers so far. SESHADRI: Just one last question, Mr. Seshasayee. When do you expect that SECALS will reach the target of capacity production, and thereafter what future do you envisagefor SECALS? SESHASA YEE: I'll answer the last part of your question first. I personally think SECALS has a very promising future, because it supplies a service that Indian industry needs and can use to advantage. Our licensed capacity is 350 tons of alloy steel castings and 145 tons of cast tools per year. We expect to reach this target in the next two years. Thereafter we hope to expand further. Meanwhile, we are examining the market for other types of special castings which SECALS may diversify into. It is a challenge we have taken up, but nothing succeeds like success, they say. So, once we have est~blished oar name and our products, it should be smooth sailing from then on. 0 About the Interviewer: Malini Seshadri is a freelance writer and afrequent
contributor to SPAN.
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With this issue of SPAN we start a new feature-SPAN of People. The names of 11 people are hidden in the maze of letters-people who are mentioned in this issue. How many can you find by consulting the brief clues? The names read forward, backward, up, down or diagonally, are always in a straight line and never skip letters. We have started you off with LYET, the solution to 1 in the diagram. Answers on page 48.
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8. Big Mac 9. The man with a pocketful of miracles 10. Deserts of vast eternity 11. His pictures really fly
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THE JUDGE AND THE COFFEE VENDOR A vendor in Long Island, New York State, was brought to a judge's chambers handcuffed, and
given a stern rebuke-because he had served bad coffee. The judge lost his job, the coffee vendor, won $141,000. A SPAN correspondent in Washington tells how ifhappened. Everyone likes to read a story about a diligent citizen of modest circumstances who wins out after suffering an indignity, inflicted with either casual indifference or willful malice, at the hands of a personage of power. Such a tale of justice triumphant, of a wrong punished and a right upheld, was related by The New York Times recently on the front page. The story shared premiere news space with national and international events: President Jimmy Carter was "optimistic" regarding a Geneva conference after talking with the Israeli Prime Minister-the President would make an address on U.S.-U.S:S.R. relations-the U.S. Congress was expected to face the problem of alien workers, and so forth. Readers of the Times no doubt scanned these developments with the thoughtful consideration they merited. But they surely gave word-by-word attention to the simple drama that unfolded under this three-line heading: Vendor Abused By L.I. Judge Given $141,000 The "L.I." referred to Long Island, just across the East River from New York City, a narrow sword ofland pointing 200 kilometers. into the Atlantic Ocean. The Judge in the case presided in Long Island's Suffolk county. Charitably, he shall be known here only as "Judge Harry." Thomas Zarcone was the name of the itinerant vendor, a 37-year-old resident of Nesconset, L.I., who purveyed coffee and sandwiches from his truck. What follows is the story reported by the Times, much of it on the basis of testimony at the trial and earlier hearings. Judge Harry was sitting in traffic court in Hauppauge, New York, one evening when he sent a deputy sheriff to buy coffee
incident. " Judge Harry was required to testify about the incident before the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct. For having given "false testimony" to â&#x20AC;˘ the Commission, the appellate division of the New York State Supreme Court on July 9, 1976, removed Judge Harry from the bench, a $40,990-a-year post. Judge Harry's troubles, however, were not over. Zarcone sued him. In July this year, then, the vendor's case against the former Judge, now in private law practice, was,presented during from Zarcone, whose truck was parked near the courthouse. His emotional reac- a seven-day trial in the U.S. Federal tion to the taste of Zarcone's coffee was Court in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City located on Long Island. The instant and explosive. The Judge forthwith dispatched not day before the jury returned its verdict, only the deputy sheriff but two police- the ex-Judge and his insurance company men to the vendor's truck. He was told offered Zarcone a settlement of $205,000. "to come to the Judge's chambers to see The vendor, although now subsisting on welfare benefit payments, rejected it. about the coffee, because it was terrible." Next day, July 20, the jury decided "You must be joking," Zarcone rethat Zarcone had been deprived of his sponded. The officers were not joking. The vendor was handcuffed and marched civil rights. . The jury assessed $80,000 in compensainto the courthouse and into the Judge's tory damages against the former Judge chambers. According to Zarcone, Judge Harry and the deputy sheriff, and an additional screamed at him and insisted that his $60,000 in punitive damages against the coffee had been watered down. At the former Judge and $1,000 against the trial, the Times said, the Judge explained deputy-a grand total of $141,000. (Punithat he had berated the vendor because tive damages, the Times explained, are "I was irritated by the quality of the to punish a defendant for intentional coffee, and I felt it was an injustice to misbehavior, and generally are not all of the people who had to go to court covered by insurance. Compensatory that evening and buy the product." damages, in Suffolk county, are covered The confrontation in the Judge's by insurance.) Zarcone told the Times that he did chambers had occurred on the evening of April 20, 1975. For the next year, not regret his refusal of the higher settlecourthouse employees boycotted Zar- ment figure. cone's truck, eventually obliging him to go "I am very relieved," he said. The Times story was accompanied by out of business. He contended, the Times a photograph of Zarcone- in his home, reported, "that he had been humiliated and had suffered financial, emotional toasting the jury's decision-naturally, and marital problems as a result of the with a cup of coffee. 0
HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE The U.S. Congress expressed its. concern for human rights even before Jimmy Carter became President, and has kept up pressure on the White House for an ever stronger government policy. A well-known journalist discusses the record of the Congress on the human rights issue.
President Jimmy Carter has made the human rights issue an integral part of his diplomatic dialogue with foreign nations, but it was the U.S. Congress that spoke out on the issue first and loudest. In recent years, particularly the last four, Congress has put increasing pressure on the White House to move faster on human rights issues. At times the lawmakers and the White House have been able to work in tandem, but the two arms of government have not been without their battles. Most of the controversy has centered on the demand by American Presidents for flexibility in dealing with foreign nations on the human rights issue in a period when Congress "has had growing success in writing mandatory human rights provisions into foreign military and economic assistance legislation. "If the United States in its diplomacy and international negotiations does not stand up for human rights, there is little prospect that nations whose governments are based on the denial of fundamental rights will make even a minimal effort to comply with their human commitments," is the way s.enator Henry M. Jackson sees the issue. Senator Jackson has been one of the most vocal supporters of human rights in the U.S. Senate. He thinks "as a people Americans have been committed to human rights all along. But as a government we were too often too. timid to speak out." . If there is a benchmark in the Congressional human rights movement, it would have to be the passage of the controversial Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Trade Reform Act of 1974. In essence, the amendment states that if the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc nations want U.S. trade concessions and special subsidies, they will have to moderate their restrictive policies on emigration. The Senate vote on the amendment was 88 to 0, but the Soviet Union rejected the trade concessions, claiming that the JacksonYanik amendment was an attempt to interfere with its domestic policies. Jackson has termed the Soviet stand "nonsense." He says, "the governments of the world have made the right to emigrate a matter of justified international concern." The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948 affirmed the right of an individual to leave any country; more recently, at the Helsinki Conference, the 35 signatories, including the Soviet Union, agreed to act in. conformity with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Jackson notes. The controversy over the Jackson-Vanik amendment has helped clarify for many Congressmen this issue: Should another government's treatment of its own people be an important factor in U.S. foreign policy? If the answer is "yes," theni what
should be the role of the U.S. Congress? So far the role of Congress has been nothing if not varied. Over the past three years, Congressional action has ranged from creating a coordinator for human rights and humanitarian affairs in the Department of State to cutting off economic aid to some nations accused of human rights violations. During the last two sessions of Congress, the House Subcommittee on International Organizations, one of the most active human rights groups in the Congress, conducted a total of 40 hearings' relating to human rights problems in 18 different nations. Representative Donald M. Fraser, chairman of the committee, says: "There is a worldwide growing abuse of human rights, with violations of international standards so widespread that we are facing a global human rights crisis." Fraser says the cause of the human rights crisis is not hard to find. In the spring issue of Foreign Policy magazine, he w~ote: "Communist governments based on mass, highly ideological movements pay lip service to human rights, but maintain tight control. In the newly independent nations of Africa, single-party dominance has been accompanied by constraints on the political activities of other parties and organizations. In Latin America, increasing polarization between the right and the left has led to higher levels of violence with rightist governments sanctioning torture and killing. In some countries, regression in the observance of human rights is occurring as rulers seek to perpetuate their power. In other countries, tensions arising from racial, religious, or linguistic differences often lead to increasing repression on the part of the government."
President Carter himself has helped coalesce the human rights movement in Congress simply by virtue of his own strong stand on the issue. Even before his election, but after his nomination, Carter had sent Senator Jackson a letter saying, "I share your deep concern over the protection of human rights." In the first few months after he took office, Carter spoke out about human rights abuses in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. He wrote a letter to Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov and met . in the White House with the exiled Vladimir Bukovsky. In a speech to the United Nations on March 17, he called for a strengthening of the U.N. Human Rights CommissiQn and the J
About the Author: Robert F. Buckhorn has worked for Time and Fortune magazines and the American Broadcasting Company. He is an adjunct professor of journalism at American University in Washington, D.C.
.S. CONGRESS establishment of an independent U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights. Human Rights reports on 82 nations were submitted to Congress by the U.S. State Department. (In protest against these reports, five Latin American nations, El Salvador, Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala, and Uruguay, renounced U.S. military aid.) In May 1977, the President, speaking to European television interviewers, proclaimed what he termed an "undeviating commitment to human rights everywhere." His policy, he said, did not relate "just to the Soviet Union" but "to our own country and all those with whom we trade or with whom we communicate." In June of the same year, the Carter Administration issued a statement saying that it would not be dissuaded from its public campaign for human rights by the harassment of individual dissidents in foreign countries. But Congress also has maintained its pressure for an ever stronger policy on human rights. Since 1973, the list of Congressionally passed legislation has grown; it has grown larger with each passing session. In the Foreign Assistance Act of 1973, Congress said "it is the sense of Congress that the President should deny any economic or military assistance to the government of any foreign country which practices the internment or imprisonment of that country's citizens for political reasons." In 1974, another section was added to the Act urging the President to reduce or terminate security assistance to any government that consistently violates internationally recognized human rights. The International Development and Food Assist-
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llllce Act of 1975 also provided that economic assistance may not be given to any country which consistently violates internationally recognized human rights. In June 1976 Congress approved the creation of a human rights coordinator for the State Department who would be appointed by the President. Congress also has enacted legislation directed at problems in specific countries. For example, in 1974 Congress put a limit on military assistance to South Korea for fiscal year 1975 "until the President submits a report to the Congress ... stating that the Government of South Korea is making substantial progress in the observance of internationally recognized standards of human rights." In June of 1976, Congress approved the creation of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. The job of the Commission was to monitor actions of the signatories to the Helsinki Accords. Headed by Congressman Dante B. Fascell and Senator Claiborne Pell, the Commission in Augu'st 1977 issued a 254-page report singling out human rights as the most critical issue. During 1976 Congress also tied financial dealing with foreign nations to the human rights issue. The lawmakers directed U.S. officials of the Inter-American Development Bank and the African Development Fund to "vote against any loan, any extension of financial assistance, or any technical assistance to any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges, or other flagrant
denials of the right of life, liberty and the security of personsunless such assistance will directly benefit the needy people of such country." This year, the House went even further by approving an amendment requiring U.S. officials of all international financial institutions to vote against extending financial assistance to any country that consistently commits gross violations of human rights. The Senate defeated the amendment, however, and a conference committee of House and Senate members-set up to resolve this and other differences in the bill-drafted compromise language that retained expressions of concern over human rights violations, but allowed the U.S. to support loans if humanitarian or nafional security considerations prevailed. The White House has argued all along that Congress shouid allow U.S. officials to use their votes in international financial institutions as a lever to move violating countries toward compliance with international human rights criteria, as well as to channel aid to countries with strong human rights policies. But the split over financial assistance for nations violating human rights typifies President Carter's problem with Congress. Basically, he has been attempting to prevent Congress from taking an inflexible stand on the issue. Congressman Fraser acknowledges that President Carter faces a tough job, but he feels the President can make good on his commitment to infuse American foreign policy with a deeper concern for human rights. Fraser urges, however, that the United States must be careful not to impose U.S. values in raising the human rights standard, and it must avoid "moralistic impulses impelling us into direct involvement in the affairs of other societies." Fraser says there is no single prescription for an American human rights policy, but he adds there are obvious choices. The most obvious is "to let the offending country know that human rights violations will cost them something in their relationship with the United States." This could be a reduction
of aid, a protest filed with international organizations, or a removal of some U.S. troops-or a combination of any of these steps, he says. The entire question of human rights may be a tangled one, but it certainly is not new to Americans. Both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution speak of human rights. The United States has supported the Universal Declaration of Human Rights-which is one of most widely accepted statements identifying basic human rights. The United States also has obligations under the U.N. Charter to both promote and protect human rights. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance has used this long history of involvement in explaining the Carter Administration's human rights policy. "The human rights issue is really grounded in the fundamental values which lay at the root of the founding of this country," Vance has said. "The dignity of the individual and the protection of those rights is a very sacred right that is of great importance to Americans." 0
SPAN OF PEOPLE Answer to Puzzle on Page 44. 1. LYET 2. MACARTHUR 3. LINDBERGH
4. LOUIS
5. STEIN 6. WRIGHT 7. GODDARD DONALD
8. MC-
9. CAPRA
10. DREGNE11.
HAAS
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TOURING AMERICA
Arizona
There is no better place to know and admire the beauty of America's Southwest than Arizona, with its awesome and unique spectacle-the Grand Canyon (top right), its Spanish missions (above)-and its colorful American Indians (top left and back cover). Picturesque and immensely varied in character, Arizona is richly studded with monuments of history. Crumbling ruins tell of cliff dwellers who had a thriving civilization as late as 600 years ago. Several Arizona communities have grown around
Spanish missions of the 17th and 18th centuries. The mountains of Arizona tower a mile or more; its rivers like the Colorado have cut deep into multicolored rocks. Here also are colorful deserts and the largest ponderosa pine forest in the world. A large section of Arizona is Indian land with reservations for the Navajo and the Hopi tribes. The varied beauty of Arizona has been an element in the religion of the Navajos: the first words a Navajo child hears are the prayer, "May he walk in beauty."