1940
Except for their by-lines, newsmen usually remain anonymous, shadowy figures on the fringes of where the action is; but news columnist Tod Braden seems recently to be getting some of the treatment usually reserved for headline makers.
The Washington Post in February gave page one treatment to a blue-chip party held by the Bradens at their home in honor of Richard Helms, then closing out his career as head of CIA. Next New York magazine devoted nine pages of a recent issue to Tom and his wife and their "Washington Salon." A subhead sought to entice the reader by noting that they "are not household names, but the nation's powerful assemble for them at the drop of an invitation."
With all three of their youngsters having flown the coop, as it were, Powell and DorthyHolbein have moved "across town" from their large colonial house in Syracuse to a smaller home on four acres of land ten miles east of the city. They made their move to "casual living" after their youngest son Gordon had matriculated at Dartmouth last fall in the Class of '78 - 38 short years after his Dad and all of us did the same. Even with our "35th" already behind us and the 40th not so far away, it still doesn't seem possible that we've been out nearly twice as long as the 17 to 18 years we lived preparing to go to Dartmouth.
"In January," Powell reports, "we went to London and then on to Paris to visit the parents of the French boy who stayed with us for a year two years ago under the American Field Service Program. This was a wonderful experience for us, for they turned out to be generous, warm, and thoughtful people." Powell wrote that the parents of their "French son" showed them parts of Paris and a sense of French life that they could have experienced no other way.
When he's not traveling, Powell says he's still active in real estate in the Syracuse area, but chafing under high costs of construction and borrowing. Still, he says, he's not complaining and manages enough golf, cross-country skiing, and paddle tennis in season "to keep the bloom on our cheeks." At the time of writing, he was looking forward to returning to Hanover for Freshman Parents Weekend in mid-April.
Meanwhile, Herb Landsman, executive vice president of Federated Department Stores, Inc., has earned the special thanks of President Kemeny for arranging a luncheon in Cincinnati for corporate executives there to introduce them to the Dartmouth Institute. The Institute is a month-long, highly intensive program of continuing education in the liberal arts and sciences, modeled somewhat after Alumni College, but especially designed to provide business and professional leaders with a mind-stretching experience in mid-career. The idea for the Institute was proposed by President Kemeny who saw that modern demands on leaders had made such "mini-sabbaticals" highly useful as a way of intellectual retreading and restructuring a sense of purpose. The fourth session is going to be held this July.
In long luncheon replete with reminscences of epée duels in the hallways of Topliff under the tutelage of Grafton Burke, I found out about Larry's unsung but important contribution to the American offensive against Japan during World War II - from laboratories and test planes and ships back in the states. Working as an electronic specialist on radar countermeasure problems for the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, Larry, during lunch hour experimentation on his own, found the key to identifying true enemy radar frequencies from the myriad of spurious signals that had been "fooling" early detection equipment. Thus, his work made possible the production of radar-jamming devices precisely keyed to enemy frequencies. With that equipment jamming Japanese radar "eyes," U.S. planes and ships regainregained the advantage of surprise on the attack.
Larry also had a role in pinpointing blind spots in Japanese radar defenses for Tokyo and helped to plot the glide path that enabled the U.S. bombers in their big raid on Tokyo to come in within a quarter of a mile of the city before they were detected. The surprise, it may be remembered, was devastating, as the big planes made their bomb runs at virtually tree-top level, sharply reducing the effectiveness of Japanese antiaircraft batteries.
Back to present "battles" and opportunities, may there be no jamming of the signal from ArtOstrander, who as head agent has put the Class out front at the first marker in the Alumni Fund Green Derby for 1975. He's said it all, and big or small, your gifts this year are crucial to the strength of Dartmouth in the years ahead.
Secretary, 4 Parkhurst Hall Hanover, N.H. 03755
Class Agent, 360 Runstick Point Rd. Barrington, R.I. 02806
