The move to survey the nation's potentials, initiated during the Kennedy Administration, remained unfinished at the termination of that administration. It is still unfinished today. The participants are not solely to blame; the nation's economy as a whole is also unfinished business. The succession of governments are not to blame any more than the population as a whole, of which the governments are but a small fraction, and no less efficient than the rest. It is simply that, except for a few prophets crying in the wilderness, nobody has taken the trouble to look at the nation as a whole in the same way as a Board Chairman looks at his company.
There are shouts about labor or business, avarice or greed, Russia or Japan causing all our trouble, though proper corrective measures could eliminate any bad effects from avarice, greed, labor, business, Japan or Russia.
Among wilderness-crying prophets who know what corrective measures could or should be taken are Dr. John H.G. Pierson, who has been at it since 1941, Dr. John Philip Wernette; who wrote his first trenchant books about these matters in the mid-forties; Dr. Leon Keyserling, Chairman of the President's Economic Council under Truman; Dr. Melville Ulmer of Maryland U; and Dr. Seymour Harris, senior advisor to the Treasury under Kennedy and Johnson.
Those of us who, under J.F. Kennedy, worked with these matters have been accused of fiddling while our cities burned; and, truly, considering our lack of success, or at least lack of completion, I accept the challenge and urgently call upon capable readers to pick up and complete what we so timidly began. As an incitement, I shall report on our loosely knit group, our tentative plans, our tiny steps. The eager reader cannot help shouting "How much better I could have done!"
John F. Kennedy himself, I think, did not fiddle while our cities burned. He had that urge to stop, look, listen and learn, always, and, particularly, during that last unofficial mission unfolding around him. Not a trace of this effort is found in the flood of books about him, perhaps because it was not completed; possibly, also, because at first sight it appeared not very significant. It wasn't, in his usual style, about the dignity of man or freedom of choice, but simply providing the material development required for those loftier goals. Strictly speaking, it wasn't even that much, but rather showing us and himself - what material potentials we had.
The loosely knit group working with him on these matters was confident that a level of production and enjoyment could be found from which profitable employment would be available for any and all willing to work. Today, this has become more creditable than it was in the Kennedy days. Private firms employing so-called "unemployables" found that these maligned individuals worked even better than the average new employee when given the chance. Our concepts and ideas have been wrong, not the people or the conditions.
Ghettoes, riots, vanishing gold, imbalance of payments, inflation -- are all these mutually incompatible monsters, or may they all be cured sweetly, and simultaneously?
If so, what man, or what group of men, could perform such a miracle?
Nobody would have to. The basic miracle has been performed already by the industry and inventiveness of teeming millions taming a continent. The riches were here though we hadn't noticed.
What this special group around Kennedy planned to do was to set in motion a super-survey that would show us what we really owned.
Don't we know?
There are estimates varying between two and fifteen trillion dollars. All these estimates are only a rough approach to existing land and hardware. What we own, far beyond all that, are the potentials based on the latest scientific discoveries and developments. The great amount of existing surveys, partly overlapping, tell us very little about these real potential riches. Even if the existing surveys were combined, we would not have a reliable measure.
A tentative survey of the Nation's resources was tried under President Herbert Hoover and continued, with additions and adjustments under later administrations. When John F. Kennedy entered the stage, significant new developments -- in science, in general, and in computerdom -- had made such surveys more meaningful, more reliable and pitted for much higher stakes.
Believe it or not, even at this point objections are heard: "It isn't more material goods we need today but better morals, more spiritual values."
This may be true for limited sections of our society, as hinted in previous chapters, but the total body of a nation does not operate well if not everybody is busy working for the nation and himself. The issue is not more material goods but a balanced economy employing all who are able and willing to work. The term "able" to work does not mean conforming to present requirements of employment offices. The giant Lockheed Aerospace Company hired groups of people on the East Coast and on the West Coast who in no sense conformed to the company's employment standards. These people had been on welfare for generations. To the company's surprise they worked better and more steadfastly than the average new employee conforming with the rules of employment on every point.
Also, there is a superstition around that our "highly sophisticated working place requires skills beyond what some unemployed can offer."
On the contrary, the technical revolution has created many more jobs that require no skill at all. The people hired by Lockheed had neither skills nor much education. There is always room for the specialist, of course. At the same time, there is more and more room for the completely unskilled -- or will be, as soon as employment offices have learned the lessons of the latest experiments.
I have been jumping a few years ahead of the Kennedy story. This was to show how right the Kennedy people were in their assumption, and to show how much better prepared we are now, today, for continuing their work.
The economists, industrialists and engineers working unofficially on these matters benefited from the advice and encouragement of Administration officials, scholars and business men all over the nation.
The contemplated survey, one-pointed in composition and aim, may be looked at from five different angles for better understanding of its multipurpose. It may be called five surveys combined and integrated into one.
The first might be called an inventory; inventory, not only of things but of potentials -- what we could have if we wanted, with present capabilities of science and technology. All such resources of this nation would be listed, whether used here or exchanged, through trade, for supplies from abroad. This survey, then, would include the new and amazing gadgets and systems science has been dreaming about that "could be built within the technology but not the money available today". Why touch it at all if we "don't have the money?" First, because this is a list of things, not money. At a later stage in the survey we may even find that the money-bogeyman was not so monstrous as we have been accustomed to thinking.
The second survey is about people, man power. Here "man power" means just the power of a man -- any man. Would not his training, education and life history, including his good record, be featured? Perhaps, but with tongue-in-cheek, for recent experience has shown that our beliefs in these matters have, to a surprising degree, been superstition. Also, the rapid change in today's technology has entirely changed the aspect of training. Often a man's training is obsolete before he is through with his course. Training is still useful for sharpening of the mind, or acquiring good working habits, less and less for learning methods. These, more and more, have to be acquired at work week by week, day by day. This new fact favors the direct employment of any and all without the cumbersome pretraining we thought so necessary a while ago. This pretraining was always a headache, for how could you raise the enthusiasm and cooperation of a man who for years had been unemployed, unwanted -- by suggesting to him that if lie applied himself at training school, he might get satisfactory employment.
A look at today's working place demonstrates the changing character of "training" even up to the most responsible positions. Men without any degrees direct complicated aerospace work at some of our largest companies. They have worked themselves up to become the most versatile experts. Study courses and degrees may still have their meaning but in a changing and possibly reduced sense.
Two valid questions should be asked prospective employees today: First, what does he want to do? Lack of general knowledge on the part of the applicant may make it difficult for him to answer even that question without first learning what choices there are. Second: How decisive an effort is he willing to put into doing what he wants to do? This is one thing a conscientious employer has a right to ask and must ask: Is the employee willing to give all he has? And this is all an employee can ever promise.
The third survey concerns customer desires. This comes close to what is called "market analysis". In this present market analysis, all citizens are customers and all goods are offered. It isn't a question of finding out whether a particular product will sell, but which products, among many, should be produced and in what approximate amount. The task is a bit more complex than a usual market analysis. With present computers it is feasible. The first task of this survey is to inform -- inform all citizens about what they may have: The amazing rather unknown things science has now made available or can make available. This first part will be an information and/or education period.
Among the customers who should be informed and then asked what they want, would also be public bodies such as the Defense Department, the Department of Education and Welfare, the Commerce Department and state, city and county governments.
On the basis of the three preceding surveys the jig-saw puzzle of production, including research and services, would now be put into operation as the fourth survey task. This is more complex than the previous tasks, though the technological aspects are manageable, at least according to Norbert Weiner, the venerable father of computerdom who advised us just before he passed away. What makes this fourth task particularly difficult are the disagreements and quarrels that would arise as to whether we need a new race track or a new super-carrier or new Ghetto enterprises. The people most able to decide wisely, meaning to the benefit of most people, are economists and scientists. They can usually see how each enterprise would affect employment and the total economy. But would these experts be permitted to make the decisions? Hardly. Even if they were, would they always be right? Not always, and not altogether, but they would have a better chance of being closer to the right answer.
There are already at this time general objections to the described surveys. America, it is said, is a country of individualists, each one forging his own fate, not a slave of surveys and mass production.
Beautiful thoughts and true, for a small percentage of citizens, and for almost everybody sixty years ago. Our associations of humans, generally speaking, has become quite different today. At this date almost all of us (and we did not have a choice as to whom) -- are dependent upon united efforts. Our work, our food and shelter, all the things we need and want come to us from work benches and factories over which we have scant, if any, control. We accept the work we are offered if we want to work at all. We see the beautiful cooperative pattern, although we have very little control of it. Nevertheless, there is beauty, there is hope and there is romance in this half-hidden, less-than-half-understood cooperative giant we are working in and with, and which we are exploring a little further in these pages in the hope that we may recognize it for what it is.
So if we are to progress, which today may well mean if we are to survive, we must complete this fourth survey, agree on main principles, map projects in production, services and research in sufficient number to offer employment for all comers including those wanting to change jobs, those seeking a wider scope for their ambition.
What would happen to present enterprises if those who don't like their jobs would quit for more alluring projects?
When a person wants to leave a job the feeling is usually mutual: The job also wants to leave him. He feels and knows he is not really needed; he is not being an essential part of his organization. The company will usually benefit from his leaving as much as he will. The company does not always know this in advance. A situation which may be called a worker's market, a market in which each worker has a wide choice, tends to benefit not just the worker but general management efficiency. Alert management has long suspected this. The final result might prove a pleasant surprise to everybody.
The fifth and final survey would be financing -- of enterprises for which our surveys have determined that we have resources, man power and a reasonable need. These are the criteria for sound financing of any undertaking and it would not be difficult to find solutions -- many solutions. The difficulty would be agreeing on any one solution. There are strong opinions and ugly scare words in the area of money and finance. Prejudice has played the greatest part in preventing sound advance. After care -- fully researching the large field of possibilities, we might possibly end up with a number of solutions and try each one of them for various groups of enterprises. Such a procedure may ensure better overall cooperation than trying to stick to one single solution.
From beginning to end, a preponderance of private companies must take the brunt of this probing research, with governments providing liaison and information. In all cases, so far, in which hard-core welfare recipients, even "unemployables" have been successfully and lastingly employed, private companies have been the employers, particularly from the aerospace industries and banking. Government agencies tried, with the best of intentions, but were hamstrung by rigid rules and red tape. This is to be expected. Any public body is exposed to so much suspicion, criticism and harassment that there is bound to be "overcontrol". For cohesion, government participation in the program is nevertheless necessary.
To many people who consider themselves well informed in a general sense, our entire presentation may give rise to serious questions: We haven't so far had to survey our entire capabilities in order to prosper and be happy. And even if we do, now, how do we know the financing can be scaled up to any desired level as long as there are resources, manpower and a reasonable need? Why is all this necessary and how do we know it will work? Has there been any change in the U.S. material development that warrants such a new approach?
Yes, there has. The change has been decisive and even momentous, but has come along so gradually that many have failed to notice it. There was a time when the United States was a geographically-expanding continent. "Go West, Young Man!" This vast, expanding continent could absorb almost any ambitious scheme, enterprise, idea; almost any number of new, eager immigrant workers.
The geographical expansion has ceased long ago. There is, at present, an even greater field of expansion provided by those miracles: Science, technology, cybernetics. The nature of this expansion is such that it can be demonstrated and exploited through sophisticated surveys using advanced computer systems, thoughtful programming, alternative mathematical approaches -- and only through such approaches can this potential expansion be discovered and utilized. Luckily, in this art the USA is well ahead. Unluckily, we are reluctant to use our fine systems for this essential task. We use these fine systems for trivia and sometimes we use them for tasks that are not at all suited for such treatment; for example, for trying to determine how many people would die in a nuclear attack or which weapons' systems to choose among various alternatives, or how to conduct the war in Vietnam. In these cases, a highly exact method is used for calculating matters that cannot be determined with any degree of accuracy. We begin with crude guesswork which we feed into high-grade machines. Out comes nothing but cruder guess-work. clothed in a false halo of "accuracy".
Some of the Kennedy people took part in these ridiculous exercises. Others, at least, had the good sense for the first time to apply the computer systems to the essential tasks of economic and financial organization as here reported.
What is almost miraculous is that the principles underlying these efforts were understood and even proposed by a succession of American statesmen who lived long before computers were in use. Ben Franklin was perhaps the first. All through his long life he listened and learned, as well as taught. He listened and he gave advice at the court of Louis XVI when France was fighting for its life or its sanity just before the revolution when the vilest crooks were trying to wreck her economy. He compared this intricate game with the simpler patterns at home in the colonies and thus formulated his mature economic philosophy which is available in the Library of Congress. Abraham Lincoln's comprehensive views and sharp analyses are quoted increasingly among modern economists. More recently, banker and Senator Robert L. Owen, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Mariner Eccles and, stretching into the Kennedy era, Alan Sproul, past President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank; and last, but not least, Dr. John Philip Wernette -- have prepared and launched the economic philosophy underlying the effort described here. Among the nation's economists there is now, finally, such general agreement that Dr. Seymour Harris said to me last time we met, "Ninety per cent of U.S. economists now agree."
In addition to economists, almost every trade and profession and the most common and uncommon experiences were represented on the work team. Arthur Schlesinger, the historian, was a live-wire throughout this work. Many of us had actual experience with so-called "unemployables" at home and/or abroad.
The estimates and forecasts of this multi-experienced team have been handsomely firmed up by pertinent experiences in later years.
Some of the people in the Kennedy group had worked on financial developments and recovery after wars in Europe and Asia and thoroughly enjoyed playing the more flexible fields of the larger American economy, which offered so much vaster potentials than did any other nation's. These people were also concerned and surprised at the many Americans who seemed totally ignorant of the resiliency of their own nation's economy. Many Americans, if they looked out over our virgin forests some centuries ago and heard someone propose building what we now have (cities, factories, homes; our America today) would have exploded, "Are you crazy? Where'd the money come from?"
With so many others they think of money as a set sum neatly contained in a jar, while modern money is figures in books. Some fifty years ago there were about fifteen billion dollars so represented. Today there are several hundred billions. Where did the addition come from? Gifts from France or England? Didn't these people ever read Mariner Eccles or John Philip Wernette?
All this additional money was created on the books as and when our material wealth was built, through the established banking practices which enable us to match, in money, any level of expenditure as long as there is balance between output and input -- exactly what our surveys would try to establish. Gauging resources, manpower, needs -- cannot always be done accurately. But mistakes can always be corrected. The fact that we did try, and later corrected, is the reason we have a United States today.
There is nothing strikingly new in all this, though a culmination is just now taking place in a process that has been going on for some years. There was a time in the early history of our nation when enterprises were thrusts into a vast vacuum. Success was almost certain if the effort was sound and sustained. When maturity or completeness approached, it became increasingly difficult to judge the prospects of any new enterprise. Overall planning became, first, desirable and later mandatory in the single enterprises, then industry-wide. Finally, it became necessary to plan nationally. Many look with romantic eyes to the past and doubt the new. But Romance has proved to be with us still, today, as demonstrated in so many surveys through which Americans proved their ability to stick with their expressed intentions and thus bolster and improve the general economy. Just after World War II manufacturers launched surveys to find out what their prospective customers wanted. Then they unleashed their producing giants and found, to their satisfaction, that everybody bought almost exactly as they had indicated.
There is a conviction in certain quarters that full employment equates uncontrolled inflation. One reason for this conviction is that full-employment usually happened during inherently inflationary periods such as major wars, when accelerated production was scheduled regardless of economic considerations, and, notably, production of goods that were not consumed: Weapons and munitions. The full employment issue, including the relationship between full employment and inflation, has been researched for more than thirty years not just from an ivory tower, but by economists thoroughly grounded in national as well as international economic policy, such as Dr. John H.G. Pierson. His findings have been presented in a great number of articles and four books, now classics in this field. Building upon the congressional "EMPLOYMENT ACT" of 1946, Dr. Pierson would have Congress guarantee full employment and the appropriate level of consumer spending every year, with correctional safeguards. This is not only feasible today but would greatly benefit business, labor, and the nation as a whole, as well as the now unemployed. A few quotes from his recent writings would highlight his plan. In the HONOLULU ADVERTISER of March 27, 1970:
"From the over-all economic standpoint guaranteed full employment would make recessions impossible and inflation highly unlikely, paradoxical as that may seem. First, the employment and consumer spending guarantees would have ceilings as well as floors to restrain inflation from the side of demand and prevent the price-wage spiral. Secondly, because the government was offering such guarantees it would be in a position to persuade business, labor and farm leaders to agree to follow some reasonable set of guidelines in establishing their selling prices so that "cost push" inflation would be restrained too.
"Here lies the explanation of that seeming paradox -- the reason why the outright guaranteeing of full employment, far from representing a 'well-intentioned but impractical' goal, would itself provide the best cure for inflation."
In the WASHINGTON POST 14 May 1972, during the Presidential primaries,
"The candidates are setting their economic sights too low." He subsequently quotes the various candidates" statements about wanting to establish full employment. Finally, he includes the Democratic platform of 1968 and comments: 'Without explanation of how it can be accomplished, this does little more than widen the credibility gap.' The Congressional Record 1 March 1972 outlines Dr. Pierson's entire plan and will be submitted as an appendix after this chapter. Here we quote a paragraph that shows the width and breadth and depth of this proposal,
"A word is needed about what is really at stake because the arguments over the full employment issue are often pitched on altogether too-narrow ground. In briefest summary: 1) Involuntary unemployment is destructive of personality; 2) An assurance of continuous prosperity and full employment would weaken the anti-social (usually inflationary) compulsions of business, labor, farmer and other interest groups. 3) Racial peace seems impossible in this country without, universal job opportunity -- the present lack of which is also partly responsible for the alienation of youth, not to speak of the helpless bitterness of many older people. 4) Getting rid of poverty would be greatly simplified as a result of the cash income effects of continuous full employment (more paid labor; less chance of exploiting labor by paying substandard wages). 5) The extra wealth (GNP) which would be created under those full activity conditions -- the staggering amount now wasted through avoidable non-production production -- is needed to help finance programs to meet the problems of the cities, backward rural areas and the environment generally, including again problems of poverty but not limited to them. 6) Internationally, that extra wealth would confirm our ability to extend more generous aid to the world's less-developed countries. 7) More (and more fundamental) than that, confidence in our ability to maintain a market adequate for our own full employment prosperity through domestic policy would substantially deflate our fear of imports and our exaggerated preoccupation with export markets and export surpluses; thus it would enable us to be a "good neighbor" that encourages and helps the less-developed countries to shift 'from aid to trade' as they become ready for it."
Dr. Pierson does not confine himself to writing. He visits Washington, D.C. for long periods of time whenever requested or whenever he sees a chance for implementation.
Shortly after John Pierson's first book, FULL EMPLOYMENT, Yale University Press, 1941, came John Wernette's crystal-clear FINANCING FULL EMPLOYMENT, Harvard University Press, 1945, a different approach to the same general goal. In 1947 came Pierson's FULL EMPLOYMENT AND FREE ENTERPRISE; in 1964 INSURING FULL EMPLOYMENT (Viking Press) and in 1973 ESSAY ON FULL EMPLOYMENT (Scarecrow Press).
All along, Dr. Leon Keyserling, Chairman of the President's Economic Council under Truman, has written and spoken to the same tune and is now working closely with Pierson. Dr. Melville Ulmer of Maryland University has written similarly in current magazines and newspapers, specifically in WASHINGTON POST 2 July 1972. Above all, Dr. Paul Samuelson, Nobel-prize-winning incomparable teacher, has plowed the same field in his classic works with the supreme independence of the proud and also humble scholar. It appears that the deeper a person delves into the Full Employment issue, the more time he spends on it, the more convinced does he become that this is a workable and profitable goal.
Completely inflation-free incidents or accidents are rare. Throughout the first half of this century the fabulous MAH family firmly imposed a placid, stagnant economy with no price fluctuations all over western China. And Sweden, in the general depression years 1930-35, kept price fluctuations within a two per cent limit happily applauded by sundry American economists -- until Gunnar Myrdal came and told us the Swedes had tried their best to expand economic activity even at the expense of possible inflation, for they considered full employment and efficiently running factories more important. Since the Swedes contemplated no such devices as here described, slight inflation might have developed.
The inflation we had in the United States in the late sixties, however inconvenient, was moderate, manageable and did not constitute any forewarning of a debacle such as Germany, Brazil and other countries experienced. Now, today, a more pervasive type has developed which requires attention. Dr. Pierson's proposals, that would provide full employment along with curbing inflation, might be the best alternative to the present course. Also, the multi-surveys described above and the resulting activities would have the same double effect of curbing inflation while providing optimum employment. It would help if the reputed American passion for gadgetry could be directed towards things in surplus rather than in short supply.
In the fall of 1963, a comprehensive meeting, a giant slug-it-out-talkathon was planned, to hammer out basics, when tragedy struck.
An independent effort of the same intent and on an even broader scale, initiated by R. Buckminster Fuller, has been in operation for some years. In this "World Game", the whole globe is the playground, indicated by the term Synergy, promising a greater reach by planning both sources and requirements on a global and cross-professional scale. Another term, Ephemeralization, tells of a built-in principle of change with time, the required inconstancy of needs, preferences, institutions and thought patterns. This World Game reminds one of some specific and profound yoga traditions of the Far East of very ancient origin and holds enormous promise for man on earth.
The Kennedy planned surveys would have formed a link to Buckminster Fuller's broad sweep. A first, sketchy survey would show in a general way what huge resources we actually have to play with and how misplaced are many of the still-prevailing rules (some call laws) inherited from a scarce economy. As a result, new enterprises in the general direction indicated by this first survey would spring up, enrich us and strengthen our resolve to carry on, correct and launch more true and meaningful surveys through coming decades for realization of our visions.
***
This unfinished business is ready to be finished now, through recent efforts in technology and economics. Nationwide, in-depth research has shown that profitable energy systems and production of chemicals from pollutants could employ our entire working force to the utmost advantage of our general economy while providing pollution-free and lasting energy systems. No wonder that our far-seeing and energetic Senator and former Vice President Hubert Humphrey wrote December 9, 1974:
"Thanks for your letter regarding guaranteed full employment and a need to make this a key element in the platform of the Democratic presidential candidates, I completely agree.
"In fact, I am working very closely with Congressman Augustus Hawkins, and a coalition of national leaders, to promote the notion of guaranteed full employment, I recently introduced legislation to accomplish this objective. I have discussed it with Wilbur Cohen, Leon Keyserling, Burt Gross and several other leading economists and social planners. While there may be some problems with the bill as it is currently drafted, I believe that it is an important way of focusing attention on this vital public policy issue.
"I have enclosed a copy of the Equal Opportunity and Full Employment Act of 1946 and my testimony on this legislation before the House Equal Opportunities Subcommittee, for your information, I hope you will find them of interest.
"Again, thanks for writing and reminding me how important it is to achieve the full employment goal, a right of our people for more than a generation.
"Best wishes. . ."
After replying and expressing my happiness about his letter, I wrote the Senator again July 5 1975,
"In today's paper a professional political odds-calculator says you are the only one who can beat the Ford-Rockefeller Presidential team. I have known this for months, so he must be right.
"In addition I have known something more important -- that you are the only possible president who can get the country moving again. You see the flow of economic variables and how to handle them: Through insured full employment, for example. You personally know the experts who can secure successful implementation: John H.G. Pierson, Leon Keyserling, John Philip Wernette, Emile Benoit (of Columbia) all of whom have been at it for thirty years. Paul A. Samuelson, nobel-prize-winning MIT teacher, writes about such an approach in his principal book. He wrote me he had no criticism of Pierson.
"All these have an understanding wider than just economic. In the energy field, I brought from abroad the Ocean Thermal Difference System which was then demonstrated at the National Bureau of Standards and by three plants of different sizes at the University of California. Today, the National Science Foundation sponsors a full-fledged investigation. This one system may replace oil-produced or nuclear energy and would of itself employ every available hand. There are any number of other urgent tasks. The listed economists understand this and how to operate.
"You have a chance (but with narrow odds) of being nominated by the Democrats and becoming President on the old pattern. Nobody could blame you if you chose this path. But I wouldn't be true to myself if I did not remind you of another possibility which seems to me cleaner and more monumental: You could announce your candidacy for the Presidency on your own program of guaranteed full employment, independently of party lines, which are no more politically descriptive. You might, in addition, announce that you were going to run with no money accepted or spent. Newsmen would come eagerly to your side. Some would scoff, but you have weathered that sort before. You could say that a candidate collecting money jeopardized his independence. Money interests do not necessarily represent the best for the country or for the economy. The courts would have a field day evaluating such a kind of running. I have discussed it with two prominent newsmen. Could I come see you about it?"
On August 8 the Senator cagily responded that he was not going to run for President. His ambition was to stay on in Congress and be as good a Senator as possible. To this I replied per 20 October,
"Your letter of August 8, seen along with James Reston's October 19 column "Humphrey - Happy Warrior" -- fits his and Dr. Pierson's and my own dream perfectly. You are even more clever than myself. Sit tight in your Senate seat and let us come to you -- just as Norwegians do and always did when choosing a premier and as the Romans did in the old days: They went out into the fields or factories (and sometimes into the Senate) and found a person who had proven through his life to be the kind of person wanted as a leader. And you, obviously, will manage to do it along with the Democratic Party, and follow all the rules, and have no trouble with judiciary interpretations.
"I see you, also, are favoring the Ocean Thermal Difference Energy System which I brought to this country when it was still "a dream", and now top industrialists and university people tell us it is the system for the future: Unlimited supply of free power, easily extractable, excellently suited to our industrial base, pollution free, would employ practically everybody available, in this and many other countries. The future is ours again. Greetings. . ."
On October 22 I added a note, inspired by James Reston's advice to preside presidential candidates that, rather than rhetorics they should name a tentative cabinet, to show what kind of leadership they intended to offer. So I asked the senator's permission to play a game, realizing it would be a harmless game, since geographical and other considerations determined formation of cabinets. I suggested as Secretary of State an outstanding economist who has worked and written extensively in the international field, since what we need in this vitally important position is not just a smiling face and some tricks up one's sleeve but understanding of the basic link and tool in international relations: economics. The jobs of Secretary of the Treasury, and "Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury" and Chairman of the Federal Reserve System would be filled by the various worthy economists quoted in the preceding pages. The Secretary of Defense would be a retired expert in defense research and advisor to a succession of Presidents who lately has written vitally about how to insure better overall security and to save unnecessary and even harmful Defense costs.
This correspondence, this whole book for that matter, could begin our coming into our own again, more genuinely affluent, more helpful world-wide than ever before -- if the reader joins in enforcing these policies. If not, all Hubert Humphrey's, the National Science Foundation's, the University of Massachusetts', of California's, Lockheed-Bechtel's, Pierson's, Keyserling's, Wernette's, my own efforts shall not finish this unfinished business.
THE END
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