The Teachings of Don B. Read online

  MR. CARTER: He who tampereth with peanut futures not only hath not Love in his heart but tampereth also with God’s grand design and insulteth also the memory of that great American George Washington Carver, who I always include on my Great Americans list when I am north of the thirty-ninth parallel.

  MR. FORD: Now, our other four new initiatives in the domestic area, the first of these—actually, the second if you think of the one I just spoke about as the first—the second one has involved giving the bottom half of the country, what has become known as the Sun Belt, to Governor Reagan to be President of, or, as I think he calls it, Shah of. I think that’s working out very well, and we will continue to enjoy very good relations with that part of the country, especially if our current negotiations to pay them an additional one-hundred-and-twenty-five-percent-per-barrel royalty at the wellhead are successful, as I think they will be.

  MR. CARTER: If a man hath the entire Sun Belt and two Disneylands also and hath not Love, then it may be said he hath the moola but heedeth not the call of the mullah, which is Love.

  MR. FORD: Moving along, because I see by the clock that we don’t have very much more time for these very important matters, I want to point out that since I have been President we have achieved a nine percent reduction in—I think the figure is nine percent or approaches nine percent—a nine percent reduction in the No Frills Fare to the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area, to sixty-six dollars, which is five dollars and sixty-seven cents, roughly, for every man, woman, and child in America who happens to be traveling to that area. And I think we can promise similar reductions in the near future for travel to other points our citizens might be interested in traveling to. This rate does not apply, by the way, during these periods: southbound, April 12 through 22, and May 27. Northbound, April 19 through 29, and May 31 through June 1.

  MR. CARTER: In every person there is something fine and pure and noble and good and he that sayeth that there is not in every person something fine and pure and noble and good fiddleth with the truth, but I will never fiddle with the truth, on my honor as a nuclear physicith.

  MR. FORD: Let me make one further point tonight, and I know that it is an important point that all of you are vitally interested in. Certain individuals in this government, your government—not in the present Administration, because we wouldn’t permit this sort of thing in the present Administration, but in former or bygone Administrations—certain individuals in these former Administrations have from the best and highest motives frequently, such as patriotism, which is usually defined as love of one’s country—

  MR. CARTER: Love of God, Love of country, Love of home, Love of wife, Love of children, Love of aunts and uncles, Love of cousins, Love of second cousins twice removed, Love of neighbor, Love of nature, Love of Love—he that hath not these things in his heart hath in his heart those things which are not these things.

  MR. FORD: These individuals, with the best will in the world, have in the past from time to time initiated certain actions which might be construed, from the most favorable point of view, as revolting. This is not to say that they were not, and are not, in many cases, dedicated public servants, who . . . I refer to the—and of course it’s been well publicized in the media, to a fare-thee-well—to these plans and initiatives developed by certain of our agencies, agencies of your government, for the—and I would like to underline the fact that none of these plans or initiatives were initiated, to my knowledge, by the present Administration or any of the Administrations which preceded it; in fact, they seem to have been, and especially the plan involving Prime Minister Wilson or former Prime Minister Wilson and the banjo strings—boy, somebody was really off the wall there—and I want to assure you that this Administration has taken the firmest possible measures to insure that this type of activity will never happen again, if it ever, in fact, happened in the first place. And therefore I would like to leave you tonight, if I may, with one thought—

  MR. CARTER: God is Love and Love God, and the two are One, so that when a man sayeth unto you Gove, he meaneth that God is Love and Love God. Therefore when such a man comes before us saying Gove, Gove, Gove, we must raise up that man and exalt him in the simplicity of our hearts and the simplicity of our minds and the purity of our . . . of our purity.

  MR. FORD: Swine flu very much.

  MR. CARTER: Gove.

  SNAP SNAP

  Such a claim is ridiculous,” Quynh snapped . . . (Time, June 4) . . . Rusk snapped, “I don’t know how one draws the line . . .” (Time, June 4)

  Snapped Canadian Heavyweight George Chuvalo: “It’s a phony, a real phony.” (Time, June 4)

  Harvard Law School Professor Charles Haar snapped . . . (Time, June 4)

  “We’re not playing Mickey Mouse with this thing,” snapped Christopher Kraft, Gemini 4’s mission director. (Time, June 11)

  Barry [Goldwater] snapped: “Frankly, I don’t know enough about John Lindsay to give you the time of day.” (Newsweek, June 14)

  . . . snapped London’s Economist. (Newsweek, June 14)

  “I don’t have to wait for revelation to know that I am the natural head in Nigeria,” snaps [Mormon Anie Dick] Obot. . . (Time, June 18)

  “Ridiculous!” snapped Hollywood’s Peter Lawford . . . (Newsweek, June 21)

  “Goddammit, Bundy,” snapped the President, “I’ve told you that when I want you I’ll call you.” (Time, June 25)

  “Adolescent,” snapped Author Ralph Ellison. (Time, June 25)

  Snapped [Walter] Hallstein: “The obstinate maintaining of divisive internal antagonisms could make Europe the Balkans of the world.” (Time, June 25)

  Americans are “abominable,” [Lord] Russell snapped . . . (Time, June 25)

  “Oh, you have, have you?” snapped [Professor Daniel] Berman. (Time, July 2)

  [Algerian Official Spokesman Si] Slimane snapped . . . (Time, July 2)

  [Peking Foreign Minister] Chen Yi snapped: “That’s not serious.” (Newsweek, July 12)

  Snapped one MP: “Philip is a very highly paid civil servant. . . who is expected to keep his nose out of politics.” (Time, July 16)

  Snapped Kenya’s Foreign Minister Joseph Murumbi. . . (Newsweek, July 19)

  In another speech he [Ludwig Erhard] snapped that . . . (Time, July 23)

  Snapped Spahn: “First, I’m a pitcher. Then I’m a coach.” (Time, July 23)

  “A complete diplomatic sellout,” snapped a conservative. (Newsweek, July 26)

  [Robert] Kennedy snapped: “I’m shocked . . .” (Newsweek, July 26)

  “I want you,” snapped the President. “Bring Mrs. Goldberg right over to the office.” (Time, July 30)

  The difficulty is with my style. That much is clear. My style pure, unadulterated mouse. Mouse all the way. Gray movements along the baseboards of corridors of power. When what is wanted is mousetrap style. Snap-snap. Trigger-quick. Incisive. Decisive. Snapper knows what’s what. Lashes out. Got the facts. Tip of the tongue. Snap-snap.

  Twenty-three years in Bureau of Hatcheries and what to show for it? Nothing. Not a thing. Since the day in 1944 when they entrusted me with the pike. Clitterhouse, they said, a chance to show what you can do. And then decades of neglect. A GS-10 with no hope of 11. Not even allowed a framed photograph of the President for my wall. Make do with framed photograph of little beagle. Because I am soft-spoken. Because I am slow to anger. Because I mull, think through. What has it got me? Watery sauerkraut in the cafeteria every Wednesday. Eyes-only memos passing me by. The pike respects me, perhaps. How is one to know?

  Perhaps even now it is not too late. Change style. Learn to snap. Leave government service, plunge into jungles of commerce. Then one day surface in the pages of Time, for instance, where I am seen to be doing my job with spectacular competence:

  For shareholders of giant U.S. Python, long one of the hemisphere’s three top-rated producers of industrial snake musculature, there was good news last week: engorgement of two-hundred-year-old Pantages Plantfood, Inc., flourishing Chilean phosp
horus concern. Acquisition of Pantages will give Python, already active in Christmas cards, calorie counters, and cut glass, a stranglehold on the booming international fishmeal market, solidly enhance its sly sidestep into rubber overshoes (through fast-climbing International Buckle, Java-based subsidiary whose 1964 year-end profits totaled $2.5 million]. Behind the move was U.S. Python’s shrewd, snappish Charles Clitterhouse III, forty-four, who came to Python three years ago after a hitch with Midwest Trace & Bit. Clitterhouse, a loner who scorns computers (“window dressing!” he snapped on one occasion) and programs the entire Python operation in his head, has guided the once-ailing colossus back to health with an unorthodox combination of brains, drive, and peevishness. “Asperity,” he snaps, “is the key to greater profits in the current economic climate,” and stencils the company motto (“Mala Gratia”) on Python trucks, water coolers, and junior executives. An exotic who lives in a bank vault with his three wives, one child, Clitterhouse relaxes on rare days off by trading tartnesses with a few close friends, snapping Polaroid photos of company installations. “Let the other guy be civil,” snaps he, “I’ll . . .”

  But this is fantasy, Clitterhouse. The problem remains. How to impinge upon consciousness of superiors? How to reach hearing aids of the mighty? Cry and warn. And urge. The newsweeklies a cacophony of crying and warning, and urging. Not just snapping. Rounded Top Person style includes snapping, crying, warning, urging. Vigor. The raised voice. No murmurers need apply.

  Consider the month of June. Syrian Strongman Amin Hafez cried that Egyptian Strongman Gamal Abdel Nasser was soft on Israel. “Cried Hafez: ‘What is he waiting for?’” (Time, June 11) Brazilian Politico Carlos Lacerda cried that Brazilian Economics Minister Roberto Campos was soft in the head. “‘Campos,’ cried Lacerda, is ‘a mental weakling . . . ’” (Time, June 11) Dominican Insurgent Colonel Francisco Caamaño Deñó cried that elections for his strife-torn country were out of the question. “‘First,’ cried Caamaño, ‘the revolution’s goal must be fulfilled. After that we can talk about elections.’” (Time, June 11) Cuban Strongman Fidel Castro cried that this was a decisive year. “‘This was a decisive year,’ cried Castro.” (Time, June 18) Strongman Castro cried again (Time, June 25), discussing whereabouts of Henchman Che Guevera. “‘If the Americans are puzzled,’ cried Castro . . . , ‘let them remain puzzled.’” Strongman Castro nearly always cries in newsweeklies. Sometimes roars. Has been heard to snort. But mostly cries.

  Others cry too. Humorist Harry Hershfield cried (Time, June 25). “O.K., cried Hershfield, so maybe [New York City Council President and Mayoral Candidate and Strongman Paul R.] Screvane is of Italian-Irish descent and married to Limerick-born Bridie McKessy—but ‘he has a Jewish heart.’” An extended cry. Dominican Politico Rafael Tavera cried (“There will not be peace until the last invader is destroyed and the last Yankee property is seized”). An army general cried (“I thought you were going to play all the instruments, Mr. President”). Theodore Roosevelt cried (“By Jove! I’ll have to do something for that young man”). Marcel Carné cried (“Parties!”). British Bridge Expert Ralph Swimer cried. Joseph Tronzo, sports editor of Beaver Falls, Pa., News-Tribune, cried. An old lady cried. Old pensioners cried. A Ferrari mechanic cried.

  And there were warnings. Conservative French Novelist Michel de Saint Pierre warned (“We encounter Marxist infiltration at every step in our Christian lives”). Caamaño warned. Campos warned. Many economists warned. Meller & Co.’s John Amico warned darkly (“Smart money is leaving the market”). One Washington policymaker warned. And urgings. Sargent Shriver urged. The President urged. Senator Fulbright urged.

  Clitterhouse, do you get the message? Pay attention to speech. Basically, you’re not a bad fellow, but you have this terrible habit of . . . saying everything. Don’t say. Snap, cry, urge, warn. Otherwise you stand in grave danger of being thought a relic of nineteenth century, a muted cough along the tapped wire of history.

  Consider July. July, in newsweeklies, a shrill, clamorous, fateful month, cantanker, distemper everywhere, snappings, cryings, urgings, warnings. French Foreign Minister Couve de Murville cried (“Too much has been asked of France!”). Disc Jockey Murray the K cried (“Sarge, baby, you’re a real swinger”). Missouri Democrat Paul Jones cried (“This is the damnedest thing I’ve seen in all my life”). Critics of India’s Prime Minister Shastri cried (“sellout”). Painter Marc Chagall cried (“Divorce!”). British Deputy Prime Minister George Brown cried. Canadian Opposition Leader John Diefenbaker cried. Roger Rappenceau cried. Pakistan’s President Ayub took up the cry. The Democrats cried. Walter Flallstein cried. Painter Bernard Buffet cried twice, once in Time (“Au secours!” July 16), once in Newsweek (something to the effect that a Swede was cutting up his refrigerator, July 19). Philosopher George Picht warned. British Chancellor of the Exchequer James Callaghan (“among others”) warned. The President warned. White House and State Department spokesmen warned. The pastor of Cologne’s powerful St. Ursula’s Church warned. Brookfield (111.) Zoo authorities warned. Dodger Physician Dr. Robert Kerlan warned. CORE’s James Farmer warned. U Thant warned. Robert Kennedy warned. Boumedienne warned. Papandreou warned. The government of Sarawak urged. Clitterhouse, can you hear met Open wide, Clitterhouse, open wide!

  MING

  We had a conversation the other day with Ming the Merciless, one of the preeminent villains of modern times, whose half-century-long struggle with his opposite number, Flash Gordon, has helped generations of Americans conceptualize the fearsome enchantments of space. We caught up with the veteran malefactor at the Volney, where he greeted us in a turquoise-and-gold dressing gown, a black skullcap setting off his striking yellowish pallor. We immediately put our foot in it by addressing him as “Mr. Ming.”

  “I don’t want to be stuffy,” he said pleasantly, “but that’s Emperor Ming, if you don’t mind. I’m here working in a show we call Defenders of the Earth. It’s a TV deal for children, and you can catch it locally at 7:30 in the morning on Channel 5. It’s basically me against three other legendary figures, Flash Gordon, the Phantom, and Mandrake the Magician. I am, as ever, the threat, the heavy.”

  After noting that the Emperor was created by Alex Raymond in 1932, we asked him if he would hazard a comparison between the page and the small screen.

  “They’re very different. The first difference is not animation, as you might think, but the quality of the draftsmanship. I mean it’s wonderful to be able to lift your arms and have death-dealing rays emanate from your fingertips and the rays actually pulsating right there on the screen—all that stuff is great. But you pay a price. The draftsmanship, the way the costumes hang, the way the swords clash, the way the castles tower, was just flat better in the old days. TV has very high costs, as you know, and they cut corners. You don’t have a guy sitting at his drawing board inking in those extra lines, giving you those extra little frissons—

  “Being merciless, while not exactly easy, is finally a job like any other. It’s theater. It’s got nothing to do with my private life. Still, sometimes when I used to yell at my kids, I wondered if I was maybe . . . putting a little too much into it. They’re grown now, so the question is moot. They seem OK. Roderick is at Harvard and Betsy is married and has a couple of kids of her own.”

  We suggested that he had a lot on his plate in Defenders of the Earth—his opponents include not only Flash, the Phantom, Mandrake and Lothar, but also assorted sons and daughters of these distinguished folk.

  “There used to be just Flash, Dale and Dr. Zarkhov. There’s a tendency now to gang superheroes—you get a bit more dramatic impact by having three or more together, each one with his own shtick, Flash with his all-purpose machismo, Mandrake with his hypnotic powers, the Phantom with his rather vague African magic, all that. I rather like having three of them contending with one of me. Makes me feel I haven’t lost my touch altogether. On the other hand, it’s not what you’d call fair, is it? Strictly speaking?”

  We said that we had
noted that the show credits two clinical psychologists as consultants.

  “That’s right. They’re both very good, give us a lot of input. We’re trying to explore issues, within the context of entertainment. For instance, we recently did a show which centered on the drug problem. Flash’s son, Rick, was a user, just dabbling, of course, but when my robots or whatever were putting the pressure on pretty good, and he was manning the defenses, he clutched because he was in a dope fog. There’s a pretty strong message for young people there, I think.”

  We then inquired as to the Emperor’s view of the President’s Strategic Defense Initiative, something we felt he was uniquely qualified to comment upon.

  “Of course, just because someone has been knocking about the galaxies for fifty some-odd years doesn’t make that person an expert,” he said. “Still, I can tell you this: SDI is a dumb idea. Look, we can’t even do airplanes right. I was making some personal appearances in the Denver area last summer and I don’t want to tell you how many hours I sat on the tarmac at the Denver airport, inside the plane with two hundred other people, waiting for these clowns to get the equipment in order. Two guys who appeared to be all of twenty with their screwdrivers inside the panels in the roof of the cockpit—the cockpit door was open—and I said to myself, Where are the old mechanics? Sent a chill down my spine, believe me.

  “The general point is, I’ve always been a technology freak, as everybody knows, but this SDI thing just hasn’t been thought through. I don’t want it in space. Space is already full of our junk. The Times had a piece the other day that said we’re monitoring something like seven thousand man-made objects the size of baseballs or larger in space, and there are an estimated forty thousand smaller objects floating out there, any one of them capable of inflicting mortal hurt on a satellite or an astronaut. They’re talking now about slowing down some of these objects with clouds of foam, which would cause them to reenter the atmosphere and be incinerated. Well, lots of luck, guys.