An Observing Fellow

A peripatetic fellowship which is taking him to "undeveloped areas of the world" now finds Peter Martin 51, former Undergraduate Editor of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, as an official observer in Johannesburg, South Africa. Named by the Institute of Current World Affairs as one of two men to spend two years in evaluating and recording history as it happens in farflung places, Pete Martin first went to Livingston, Northern Rhodesia, then to Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia. Leaving his job as a reporter on the St. LouisPost-Dispatch on short notice and taking with him his new wife, the former Julie Gordon, he was landed by Comet Jetliner into the midst of lively political upheavals. In Martin's words, There was a lot doing in Southern Rhodesia - the country had just federated itself with Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland and politicians for miles around were girding their platitudes in an attempt to get themselves elected to the first Federal Parliament."

Going next to South Africa, Martin observed that steak at forty cents a pound did not lessen the tension between the native groups striving to govern themselves and the Nationalist Government - "strict segregation boys." If the tension builds up to an explosion, he may be too close for comfort to history at the boiling point.

The Institute of Current World Affairs, supported by funds from the Crane and Ford Foundations, requires bi-monthly reports on happenings, with Martin's evaluation of them. When queried by the MAGAZINE, he wrote, "It sounds like fun - and it is.