1948

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Those of you interested in the international relations and standing of our nation in the geopolitical world in which we live will be pleased that 48's Undersecretary of State for Management, Ron Spiers, was the cover subject of the February issue of the Foreign Service Journal, the monthly Washington professional magazine issued for the State Department and related U.S. Government agencies. Additionally, Ron is the featured subject in the issue's main interview, in which he is closely questioned about official procedural and management policy with which he has dealt since assuming his current position under Secretary of State George Schultz in Foggy Bottom.

Ron, who has worked for Uncle Sam in foreign trouble-shooting, diplomatic, and ambassadorial posts since his Hanover graduation with Highest Distinction in International Relations in 1948, was certainly remembered with fondness and pride by his late teacher, Professor John Pelenyi.

The article delves rather deeply into the managerial problems faced by Ron in attempting to operate Uncle Sam's diplomatic and consular posts all over the world in a manner to provide the greatest help to our nation and people. This objective, however, is obviously not easy to attain, made doubly difficult by Congress's having cut the Department's budget by about one-third in the current fiscal year.

As we write this in April Ron must believe the world has fallen on him. The State Department is facing tremendous pressure from the media and from The Hill in connection with apparent breaches of security in State's posts in Moscow and Leningrad, breaches that are making the headlines each day here at home. Fortunately, Ron, a loyal and effective servant to his country in many sensitive posts since he left Hanover, is not the point man in this one. We can all be sure, however, that he seeks his '48 classmates' support and understanding in bringing to bay the current security problem in Uncle Sam's sensitive outposts, a matter in which we all are deeply interested. We wish Ron the greatest success in his difficult job in which each of us, his fellow Americans, has a huge stake.

In calling Ken Saunders in Chicago we tapped a mine of information about fellow '48s that was a real treasure chest for this reporter. Ken grew up in Park Ridge, a Chicago suburb where both he and Don Ryan were classmates and friends. After receiving Eleazar's diploma in '49, Ken entered the world of insurance and has followed this profession ever since, first in Michigan and since 1962 back in the Windy City, where old buddy Ev Wilson lives nearby.

Ken recalled with nostalgic pleasure some of his Hanover experience in a wellloved little town he hasn't seen since his last departure in '49. He recalled the wartime summer of 1944 when he and Ev, plus Dick Donahue, Woody DeYoe, John Parker, and Dean Rathbun, held down the third floor of Crosby while they waited for Uncle Sam's draft boards to catch up with them. Then he recalled a hilarious two years on their return from service beginning in the fall of '46 when Ken, Ev, Don Gile '46, Ed Leede '49, Joe Marple, and the late John Scully '47 knocked a door down to make a huge suite at the end of the hall on the third floor of Richardson, a suite that saw more than its share of laughter, monstrous practical jokes and just plain close comradeship while this tightly-knit group held together. Ken says Ev was the tough disciplinarian, while the continual and irritating furniture shortage faced by the group was finally solved by the ingenious Leede, who somehow located a secret hoard one night outside town at Colby Jr.

Ken continued by remembering that three years ago the Joe Luyckses, the Ev Wilsons, the Rog Zorns and the Saunders planned a holiday in Bermuda for golf and to test the beaches. At the last minute, however, Joe and Ev and wives reluctantly had to back out. Ken says they were sorely missed around the greens, but that it's probably lucky they weren't there as the island ran out of vodka while the Saunders and Zorns were on hand.

Rog, says Ken, recently retired from the machine tool business but is now earning more than ever before as a consultant to the industry. Bill, a son of Rog and Mary Helen, graduated as a Dartmouth '75.

The most compulsive golfer Ken has ever seen is Joe Luycks, a guy who demands to be on the links in any weather, in any season, fair or foul, going as far as playing with a phosphorescent red ball in the snow. Joe retired from Ford five years ago after 30- plus years, but his new job is "like a kid being forced to eat ice cream." Joe is now the course rating supervisor for the Michigan Golf Association. As such he must play every single course in the state—and free!

Gang, please give a lift to Bud Elliott in the tough but thankless job he's carrying our for '4B in your College's 1987 Alumni Fund drive. And take note that your master organizer, Bud Gedney, is setting up parties for '48s next fall at the Harvard game in Boston and the Yale game in Hanover!