1956

Two of our classmates who have dedicated much of their working careers to the government have been heard from and I am delighted to share their comments with you. Peter Kolar, who is acting director to the mission in Guyana with the Agency for International Development, brings us up-to-date:

"I have been with A.I.D. since 1962 and have spent since that time only three years in the United States. My overseas assignments, in addition to Washington, D.C., have included Colombia, Vietnam, Bolivia, Jamaica, and, at present, Guyana. I am finding my career with that Agency very satisfying, at times even fascinating. Along the way I acquired a Colombian wife. Pilar, and my two sons, Alexander, eight, and Christian, five, were born in Bolivia. Since Spanish has long ago become my first language I have to do something about this and am expecting to assume an assignment in Washington soon. Have not run across anyone from our Class in years."

Thank you for bringing us current, Peter. Now to Clem Malin's letter entitled "Some Less Than Serious Thoughts Upon Leaving Government." As you may remember, Clem was the assistant administrator of the Federal Energy Administration and I asked him to highlight a few of his humorous experiences for us. He has graciously complied with a recent family dinner conversation which discussed the request. Those present included his wife Ann and his sons, Hank and Tommy. The dialogue begins:

"The business of government, I mused, like all other activity, is part form and part substance. Substance is important and should be taken seriously. Form, however, sometimes assumes unjustified prominence, generally because ego is involved, and, therefore, should not be taken seriously. When ego is not at stake, form is often humorous and generally supportive of substance.

" 'You're right,' I said, rejoining the family dinner conversation. 'I could do a gossip column parody on what to wear and where to eat. Do you remember when we went to the Soviet Embassy, dressed to the nines, in our rusty '69 Valiant, and parked it between a Rolls and a Caddie? And then the lavishness of the party and the room, all gold paint. Nothing like the proletariat party to throw a bourgeois party!' I paused. . . . Nobody laughed. No sense of humor, this younger generation.

" 'You might do something with that time in Cairo,' encouraged Ann, 'when you and ----- came through the lobby of the hotel in your diplomatic pin stripes, and ----- wearing his blue sneakers because the bags had already left for the airport.'

" 'That was funny. You should have seen the look on the faces of the secret service guys and the captain of the Egyptian security detachment. They were determined not to embarrass -----, and he was determined not to let them think that there was anything unusual about wearing blue sneakers with a dark suit. We laughed all the way to Athens.

"There was also the time when the Deputy Secretary of showed up at a Sunday evening meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in a green and white rugby shirt. Old T. R. would have loved it, although F. D. R. would not.

" 'Hey, I ought to be able to do something with that night----- and I had Chinese food in Riyadh. There's got to be something incongruous about eating Chinese food in Saudi Arabia. At least, I nearly cracked up when the secret service guy came out of the restaurant before he would let us in, and reported with noticeable relief, "Looks okay. As far as I could see, there were no Chinese in there at all, either Nationalist or Communist.' "

"Security precautions constantly provided humorous incidents. It took about an hour to unscramble a mix-up in Tehran when the Iranian secret service latched on to me instead of -----, with whom I was travelling, simply because he had sat in the back left-hand seat of the official car from the airport, leaving me to the back right, which is the spot traditionally occupied by the senior personage. Another time, replacing my ID in my wallet, I discovered that I had just got in the State Department by flashing my Master Charge. Still another time, an Ambassador from a Middle East country and I were to appear on a television talk show. We arrived at the studio at exactly the same moment, he with his two body guards. I had taken the precaution of bringing my own and my deputy's secretary, both of whom are attractive young women. 'Now, why didn't I think of that?' observed the Ambassador.

"Status, real and imagined, went with the job, not the person in it. 'Do you remember, Ann,' I lauighed, 'down at the Air Force War College, when 600 majors and colonels stood up when I came in the lecture hall? No former PFC ever had it so good.' Then there is the peculiar newspaper practice of referring to 'a senior State Department official' when you know full well, it's the Secretary.

"When you're out, you are really out. When Hank was having his wisdom teeth extracted, sitting in the waiting room, filling in his own medical forms was the recently resigned Secretary of ----- In early February of this year, a former ambassador stood on a Washington street corner trying to hail a taxi. When we visited him at his overseas post, his armour-plated car and two 'follow cars' were the only practical (i.e., safe) means of transportation.

"It hasn't been all form, however. Why just last week the polls reported that less than fifty per cent of the American public know that we import oil. And in July, I was slated to give a speech to the annual national conference of our church. I was dropped because 'Energy's not big this year, Clem.'

" 'You could wrap it up,' Hank interjected, 'with the time your own staff pulled you out of a baseball game because they didn't want to see you hurt.'

"Sic transit gloria."

Peter Kolar '56 (right) explains progress on an A.I.D.-financed road project in Guyana toAndrew Young during the ambassador's recent tour of the Caribbean.

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'56's Dartmouth FreshmenFather Son or Daughter Stephen Brand Anthony Frederic Chang Douglas John Crowley Richard Robert Danziger Joan Gordon Davenport Gordon Crile Doscher James Abner Oakes Abner Alan Rauch Bradley George Robison Margaret George Sherman George David Tonneson Beth William Zales Steven