1963

It was the night of the Academy Awards, and Bob Finney, the vice president for development at Dartmouth College, had decided to take a short nap so that he would be able to remain wide awake long enough later in the evening to find out whether The Deer Hunter or HeavenCan Wait had garnered the ultimate Oscar. Thus, he was somewhat groggy when he was awakened from a sound slumber by a telephone operator claiming to be the operator at the White House in Washington.

Finney's first instinct, born of long experience as a resident of Hanover, was that a prank was being perpetrated at his expense, and he suggested to the young woman on the line that he was not amused. But she persisted, claiming that Mike Cardozo, assistant counsel to the President of the United States, was desirous of speaking with Finney.

Now nearly convinced that the call was authentic — or at least deciding to play along — Finney exchanged greetings with Cardozo, who then explained that the person he really wanted to speak with was the president of the College, John G. Kemeny. Did Finney know his number? Finney, still somewhat testy at being awakened from his pre-Oscar nap, inquired as to whether the White House communications specialists had considered calling information? Cardozo responded with an epithet. Finney, Cardozo implied, had been a last resort when it turned out that Kemeny's listed phone didn't answer. And after all, what good is a classmate if you can't wake him up from a nap in a real emergency?

Finney, now realizing that his country did indeed need him, sprang into action. He remembered that Kemeny had a special device on his phone that enabled the college president to turn off the phone at night and during mealtimes. (This prevented the intrusion into meditative or family moments by inebriated undergraduates seeking to give the president a piece of their minds, which few of them can spare.)

Anyway, to make this short story even a little longer, Finney then got President Kemeny's secret "hot line" number for Cardozo, who called the president and explained that he, Cardozo, was on a White House search committee that was trying to line up members for a special presidential commission to investigate the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. Kemeny's name had come up as a possible member of such a commission - would Kemeny be interested?

Cardozo made his report. A few days later John Kemeny was appointed chairman of the commission. The rest, as they say, will be history.

So what have the rest of you been doing for your college and country lately?

Actually, it turns out that not all of the fallout from Animal House has been of benefit to class members. Jeff Lapic has taken time out to send along an item from The Wall StreetJournal regarding the fact that Tim Kraft has been dropped from the Green Book (the Washington social register, not the Dartmouth freshman yearbook). Jeff airily dismisses the reason given in the WSJ story, which made a vague reference to unspecified "marital troubles." (Another Carter advisor, Hamilton Jordan, was also dropped, allegedly for similar reasons.) Jeffs theory was that "Washington hostesses were afraid to serve Jell-0 (at occasions where Tim might be present) for fear Tim would act like Bluto." The Journal, for the record, didn't think the omissions were all that worrisome. "Presidential aides probably go to too many parties as it is," the paper editorialized.

In other news, Richard Clarey has joined the school of business faculty at the University of Southern Maine, where he will teach a course in entrepreneurship. He had been at Colby College and had earned a Ph.D. from Cornell's school of industrial and labor relations after getting an M.B.A. from Tuck.

Jim Lower has been appointed senior director in the corporate business analysis office of the Singer Company, for whom he has worked since 1965. Evan Lasky has been named president of Budget Tapes and Records of Denver, succeeding his father, who starts chairing the board of the family business. Brent Cromley is now practicing law in Billings, Mont., and volunteers to handle any legal difficulties any classmate encounters anywhere in eastern Montana, but he suggests that if you run afoul of the law in western Montana you should contact Shelton Williams, who is practicing in Missoula. Brent, who was married in 1967, not long after a Peace Corps stint in India, has two sons and a daughter. He's president of the Montana Alumni Club. Chris Harvey is practicing radiology in Baltimore and for the past year has chaired the peer review committee of the medical association there. John L. Huber has become a principal in his Atlanta financial counseling firm, which henceforth will be known as Church, Gregory and Huber Inc.

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