anti-poverty and other necessities of the burgeoning

Great Society It cannot be created overnight, but Mr.

For sixty of his ninety years, Winston Churchill was
Johnson shows his good intentlolls by spending $2.7
a controversial figure, dlvisive in histendencies, a
billion for education, up from $1.2 billion, while antiman more apt at yonfusing his enemies than at leadpoverty is up to $1.3 billion. Yet he has kept the first
ing his friends.,
commandment, as Newswceh says: Thou shalt not
Then Hitlers panzers struck into France,
and this
spend morethan one hundred billion dollars a year.
man OF squabbles became a m a p of battle Overnight
But what will he do to keep the commandment-or
he made hlmself not only the leader of Great Britain
more accurately appear to keep it-next year? The net
but the symbol of England. He,commanded the greatest
rksult of the spending and tax changes, so his advisers
rhetoric of111s age, and in thosk days he used speech to
estimate, is $8.5 billion worth of stimulus to the natrumpet a defiance that or perilous months was suptional economy, nearly all of it in !the latter half of
ported by little else. He abashed ,the ,Germans when
1965. This stimulus supplied by the budget, while not
he could not beat them.
as large as in 1964, is still sizable. The economy should
. grow $38 billion m -the year. But even so, this will just
Churchills greatnessconsidted of one thing-he
was a patnot in the old, now suspect,ringing overmanageto keep unemployment at 5 per cent. At this
tones of the word. In the past: some of his own words
rate the Great Society 1s likely to remain a mirage for
and deeds contributed to the uneasinesswithwhich
many millions of Americans To cutunemployment
we today regard patrlotlsm, but in 1940 it was the one
from 5 to 4 per cent-the so-called full-employment 1
weapon England had and Churchill forged it. Out of, rate-national output would need to be $25 to $30 bila cigar, the V slgn, a particular way of pronouncing
lion largerthanthe
projected goal for 1965. If the
Nan and three lor four phrases, he created thevision
Presidentmeansbusiness
and all this talk about
of mvmclbihty. It was a work of superb imagination.
the American ethos is not so much gas, tens of bilNot for his books, not for his political views, bu,t for
lions must be spent on welfareand education, ahd
the image of himself in a tin hat, Churchill lays claim
the only place where money like that can be obtained
to being one of the superlative artists of the century.
without a sharp increasein thebudget is from the still
swollen militarybudget. Even then, it will not-be
enough for a Great Society, or even a haIfway great
DirectionalSignals
one.
and the dread symbol of the $100 bilpon b a F e r
The commentators on President Johnsons adminiswiil
have
to be breached. But thelpresent budget repretratlve budget are filled with awe by his, skill in gimsents
more
than a skillful piece of gimmickry; the
mickry, legerdeman, sleight of :hand, tricky
President
has
given a new direction to public spendbookkeeping and other ,,bndget-making magic. Thereis
ing.
more
in
the
cjvilian sector, less on themilitary
some basis for this admiration, not unmixed with envy,
side.
He
may
not
succeed m correcting the gross imbecause in the American democracy budget-making 1s
balance
unforeseen
events may intervene - but his
an art that requires the dekterity of a surgeon aEd the
i s clear.
,
intention
coolness of a space pilot. These days the. Chief Executive must start with the universally recognized psychoR&D Can
Useful
logical necessdy of not brei$ing the supersonic barrier
of $100 billion, a sacred figurebeyond which lies po,A cold look is being taken by both industry and govlitical disaste?. To stay within this limit requires some
ernmentat things heretofore regarded as sacred. In
doing.
the January Fortune (Harnessing theR & D Monster)
First, the Chief Executive,. calling on the maxims of
Hubert Kay quoted a leadingresearch executive as
thrift which he learnedat hismothers Xnee,ruthlessly
predicting the explosion of the centralmyth of induscuts departmental requests by $111 billion or so. Inthe trialresearchand
development--that if you spend
way of mathematical jug,gliag, theRural
Electrifienough money somethingwonderful
will happen.
cationAdministration canbeput
a,revolving-fund
SecretaryMcNamara
isturningthe
screws onthe
basis, and other things ca+ be done sd that financial
lethal industries. President Johnson has been ,the foreorthodoxy may sleep at night, ,hpwever restlessly.
most patron of space research, but NASAs ceiling is
Yet the budget maygive clearsighsof a future, trend, likely to remain at $5 billion a year, For all governandthe
Johnson budget; essentially an I n a u q r a l
ment-sponsored research,therecentannual
growth
budget, does Just that. Mr. Johnsons opportunity caine
#of10-20 per cent has plummeted to 3 per cenlt, and in
from Mr. Kennedy, who boosted the military half (and
the next fiscalyear may not increase atall.
more) of the budget by seveial billions. This excess,
Had it not been for the general business boom and,
piled on ,earlier excess, made a1,plateau in military
the messianic delusions of the cold war, there,would
spending look hke a declivity. (To t a l l attentlon to this
have been cutbacks in research and development before this. In a total yearly outlay of $15 billion by govfeature, Mr. Johnson did actudly hiake a $300 million
cut.) Thus he y a s able, to shigt, fdnds to education,
ernment (more than 85 per cent for defense) and $6

Vision, QB Invincibility

Be

billion by industry, there must be a great deal of i~1.

Peopleworking 111 basiclesearchshould
1101 be deprived-they have been getting the smallest sllce right
along. In defense R & D, onthecontrary.smne
b1G
academlc personages and mstltutlons have been rldmg
the gravy tra111 Theirprotwtsagainstcontrnctlon
111
R & D. as presently cunstltuted, deserve nelthel mGre
nor less conslderatlon than those of labor or chambers
of commerce when a navy yard IS closed or a company
suffers a contract cancellauon
Thc generally wrongheaded character o i much government-sponsored R & D 1s illustrated by Lhe rather
pleasant pllght of the Boenlg Company Boelngs 1964
profltsreached
a record of $42 mllhon,butmanagement is uneasy, because these profits came largely
from clvlllan busmess in jet air l ~ n e r s ,whlle govemment sales fell from $1 6 billion m 1963 to $1 25 blllion in 1964. Tradltlonally, sir liners have been civlllarl
versions or adaptatlons of mllltary alrcralt, and there
is still another benefit thata corporatlon does not want
to lose. The stimulus of a new weapons system, says
Boelngs president. Wllllam Allen, is of great value in
itself.Part of this stimulus IS the fallout of yovernment-financed R & D Wlthout 3 wide base of governmentcontracts. a company like Boemg cannotkeep
its engmeers and sclentlsts together, nor malntaln the
financial resources to compete for blg prolects, such as
the proposed750-passengelmilitary-clvlhanalrcraft
Someconslderation has recently been glven to occupational conversmn of research people If the federal
government gave out contracts to further useful technologlcal
developments,
there
would he howls of
soclallsml Nevertheless, the state of Callfornia. beset
by slackenlng aerospace activity and resulting unemployment, 1s undertaking a pilot p r o p t that may prove
significant
The
state
has
asked
aerospace
companies wlthln Its borders to put somc of thelr sclerltlsts
and engineers to work on 11rgent stateproblems One
slx-monthcontract has aheady been asslgnedtothe
Acrojet-General Corporatlon for plans to manage waste,
lncludmg alr and water pollulion The amount, $100.000 1s ;L mere speck on Aero;ct-Generals balance sheet,
but Dan A Klmball, its prcwdcnt, has assigned to the
proJect the compmys best systemsteam-theteam
thal worked on the dcvcloprnell~oT Polarls and 1Cl11lutcman-and says he
r e g - ~ l d s11 a b one o l the most slgnlilcant econon11c developments 111 the country ~ o t l a y.
Whether or notanyth~ng comes of 11. somcbody 1s
making a first attempt to cll\ert It & D Irom Its acceplccl
preoccupation wllh dcath and dest~ucllon.

Fields of Friendly Strife

As a htlerateur, Ge11cr:~lD4acArthur n c v c ~1r.L one
word do the work of two. 50 whereas the Duhe o l Wclllngton had declared that the battle
of Waterloowas
won on the playing fields
of Eton. the General. when
he was superintendent of the U S h11111ary Acadcmy at
West Polnt. lnscrlbed over thc gates o f the stadium a
typicallyMacArthurlansentence
On theFlclds
of
Friendly Strife Are Sown the Seeds that on Other Days
126

and Other Flrlcls Will Bear Lhc Frulls o L V l c l o t ~

Then. 111 1951. ninety cadets, includlng almosl the
cntlrr footballteam.wereexpelled
111 a11 a c : ~ d ~ n ~ c
cheatingscandal
And now. a slmllar s c a n d ~ lh a s
erupted at the Air ForceAcJdemy 111 Colorado Sprinw
I
Agzm the toothall team 1s mvolved some thirty members of the Alr Force teamappear to be lmpltcated,
compared wlth thirty-elght Army players 111 1951
Are footballplayerscongenitallyimmoral)
That IS
obvious nonsense Broadly. the situation is that chcat~ n gIS rlfeatmanylnstllutlons
of hlghel I e a t n l n g
I
Athlotcs Jrc even more academlcally pressed than
the
run of students.andthemorethesport
1s emphaslzcd.
1
thegreaterthetemptationItisntfriendlystrlfe
at
all, the drive is to beat the other team at any cost Concentrating on thw barballcobJective.footballheroes
arenot.as
a rule,themostbrllllantstudentsThey
are engaged in a iorm of moonlighting one lob 1s to
win glory for old Slwash.theother
to quahfyfor a
degree If a little cheatlng will keep the hero off the
lnellghle list, does anyone expect hnn to refram?
There is no reallstlcdlvldlng 11ne betweenprofessional sportsandthean~ateurs
whoplay
forthe
greatunlversltles andtheservxeacademles
A hstclass college quarterbackmay be worth $400.000 when
1
he turns pro, and even whlle he retalns his vlrtuous
amateur standing he
is subsldlzedalmost an) where
wlth room, board, tultlon, spending money. etc , worth
$2,000 to $3,000 a year. Ii your son 1s lust il good
student, It m a y cost you $10.000 or more to pul h m
through college, If he 1s Igood footballplayer. you
have n o worries At theservlceacademlesstudents
are educated at public expense, but the recrultmg
IS
even more reckless than at civilian schooIs One Justliicatlon IS thatathletesaresupposed
to bc supcrmr
officermalerlalPerhaps
so, but Rep Samuel S S t r a t to11 IS also correct when hc says that athietic proicssionalism 1s rampant in a11 threeservice academws
It 15 all part of the generally degraded atmosphcrc
of American hfc The cheatlng athletes are no w o ~ s ~
than a great many respec!ablc b ~ s l n e s s m ~ perhal)s
n.
thclrownfathersEconom~calIvandculturally,
thls
wholc way of lllc 1s lopstded, and I t secms nornlal 10 u s
o ~ l yIxxause we are used 10 I t ChcJtlngat ex.1mln.lLlolls 1s o ~ l y
cmc symptom

McGovern versus Nixan

andhe has plenty of co-workers in the Johnson Ad- .

mimstration -- proposes to extend the war. The
accepted Washington term escalate has palled *even on
him; he wantsto quarantine the war, using theNavy
and Air Force to seal off guerrilla supply lines by
bombing along the routes and at the staging areas in
Laos and North Vietnam. Except f,or bombardment of
targetswithinNorth
Vietliam, thereisnothingnew
here. Nison Eroposes to punish the North Vietnamese
within their own borders put, with humanitarian restTamt; he does pot advocate the use of nuclear weapons. He concedes that eyen TNT involves risks, but the
alternative to carrymg the warto the NorthVietnamese
is to make the Pacific aRed sea.
Senator McGovern, backed up by SenatorsFrank
Church and Ernest Gruenmg, suggests a settlement to
include Bve minimum teqd-which, it may be remarked, The Nation has been advocating for @e past
three years. The first is a cease-fire and association or
confederation betweeq-North and South Vietnam, with
each government retai1;ing full autonomy. Both Vietnams would be neutralized. General de Gaulle wants
to neutralizetheentire
Indo-Chinese peninsulaand
nothing else really makes sense, but a beginning must
be made somewhere The North Vietnamese would not
accede to aeutralization immediately, but it is a talking pointand, if a stable peace were achieved, the
chances arethey would not object. They wpre subjected
to Chiqese oppressign f p r centuries, and tbelr alliance
with the Chinese Qeds is even more a marriage of convenience, than are nqxt
alliaqces between nations. Another McGpvern proposal isthat a Ur\T unit should
police the peace-not nearly as difficult a prpject as in
the Congo, what with sensible statesmen like Sihanoukof Cambodia to give support
The remaining McGovern suggestions are for constructive measures-renewed trade and rail links betweenthe severed halves o Vietnam and a,cooperative
Mekong Rder development t o provide flood - c.qntro1
and hydraelectric power. Gnly a vestige of gQod sense
is needed to show the practjcabhty of these measures
and the coqtrast they offer f-o an indefinite prolongation of bloodletting and humiliatlol1, or to a turn of
events whicl1 might make our position completely untenable. We mtervened in a civil war which arose out
of a protracted antl-colonial struggle, and ohr fate has
been the usual reward of foreign interlopers. We must
recognize our mistakes (not necessanly admit themno Great Power does that) zyd retrieve what y e can by
negptiatlon.
Senator
McGovern has shown the way.
\ -

Jererpiai-rs aqd Ppcifiers

All within a few days of one anpther, Look comes out
with a story on Automation-We CanHandle It,
The New York T m e s Magazine with Autolnatioa Is
Not the Vlllairi, Fortune wit11 Techpology andthe
Labor Market, the first of a series on The-Real News
+bout Automation. Th,e Lopk piecg tells abopt a 35yemold metalworker who was displaced by automation
at a Loclaeeii plant, ,whereupon he studled the hell

out .of titanium, in themeantime working-as an analytical chemist. Full of titanium, he was rehired by Loclheed, where he is now studying the hell out of cryogenics and working with a company subsidy towa;rd a
E.S. in metallurgy at UCLA. Is he exceptional? The
writer answers with a one-word sentence: ,Hogwash.
In the Tzlnes, Peter F. Drucker quotes President Kennedys statement that machines aredisplacing 1.8 million workers a year, but shows that this figure represents the numberof jobs that disappear h m all causes
and that, for the present, new
jobs are being created at
the rate of 2.5 to 3 5 million, a year. That there.is a
grievous p-oblem of unemploymentamong
theuns w e d Drucker does not deny, but hetoo relies on technicaleducation
to solve It.Cl~arles E. Silbermans
Fortune article is largely gevoted to rebutting wi1,dly
and irresponsibly exaggerated warnings by. social scientists and a few businessmen. He accuses paxticularly
Donald M. Michael, Charles C. Killingsworth, John
Snyder, Alice Mary. Hilton, W. H. Ferry and the selfappomted:! ,Committee on the Triple Revolution. Hiwever, he also concedes that the rate of unemployment
i s too high; furthermore, he anticipates that itwill
rise
,
,
still higher.
What Fortunes Bupiness Roundup aptly calls
government policy focgsed on the forced feeding of
consumption via tax redpction has had a beneficial
effect on employment, but will the nextshot i n the arm
be equally efficacious? And if federal taxes are cut
ellough to produce an expanding deficit, what about
inflation, whichis always just Found the corner in a n
economy run on Keyn,esian principles?
,
The Nction has never emphasized automatipn
per
se as a cause of unemployment and economic distress.
In the foreword to Robert Theobalds Abundance
!Threat or Propise? (May 11, 1963), which iisp+ed
much of the culzent discussion, the editors said, ,-. .
attention has been focused on the wrong threat. it 1s
not autpmaticm tliat. meqaces us. . . . The real threat is
qbundance. Thatabupdanceis
so badly distributed
that relief re,cipiplitsnow nyrpber almost8 million and
have increased more than 40 per cent in the lastdecade, or twice as fast as population; nor does,that figure
include the millions of social security pensioners living in penury. The dispossessed are not peimitted to
starve andthey have roofs of asort over.their Ilea&,
bgt present measures,give not the
slightest promise that
tlleir numbers will di,mmish or that they will receive a
decent share of the benefits of the Great Society.
Writers like those ci.ted are eager to allay the widespread fear of automation and its consequences, which
was characterized at a meeting of the Natlonal Industrial Conference Board last year as perhaps the single
most important forceGI employee motivation, management persoqnel polives, union bargy@ng obltctlves
and government domestic economic problems. But
better that the short-term conseqyences should be exaggerate4 than that they should be ignored or, worse,
as jp this hsfapce, that the long-term consequences
should~begiven a spprious gloss.
.. . -.

I.

Feb7uar.y 8, 1985

127
I

I8