Man in the Middle

CLARK KERR ’32 RECOUNTS STEWARDING THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY.

Clark Kerr, The Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California, 1949–1967: Volume 1, Academic Triumphs, University of California Press, 2001

Those of a certain age or younger will remember Clark Kerr as the dapper, balding man in black-and-white films who, we thought, failed to understand the consequences of the free speech movement in Berkeley and then, perversely, was fired by Governor Ronald Reagan for failing to contain student demonstrations. His role as the decent, classic “man in the middle” at the beginning of the tumultuous period of student activism and university response began in the mid-1960s and lasted, in its acute phase, through 1974. The images are indelible and wholly inadequate.

This volume, the first of two written by nonagenarian and Swarthmore alumnus Kerr, deals not with the political battles that raged around his stewardship of the University of California at Berkeley as its first chancellor but with the academic struggles and triumphs that led to the creation of the greatest university in the world—the combined intellectual power of the campuses of the University of California. It was in the post–World War II era of prosperity and institution building that the University of California, founded in 1868, came to the prominence of world influence.

Through Kerr, the emerging forces of technical research and innovation, government financing, and near-universal higher education reshaped the arts-and-letters–focused universities of the prewar era. This volume concentrates on the building of Berkeley into a powerhouse of both science and technology as well as the broader range of intellectual endeavors.

Although the book is first and foremost an institutional history, it is also an autobiography. In a forthright and modest way, Kerr describes his childhood and personal history to the time of his appointment as chancellor in 1947 at age 37. Swarthmore graduates will recognize his self-description and identify with his hymn of praise for what the College meant to him.

Kerr recounts his learning curve as the new head of what was then already a complex and daunting university. One of his first lessons was that power in a complex system is shared, unless and until the decision is “no”; that is, when the final say is final. He introduces the reader to this in two utterly different spheres: his quick decision not to erect maintenance yards on an attractive piece of property because of its scenic beauty (it is now a park); and, ultimately much more important, his decision against granting tenure to certain faculty of less than certain promise. Both of these spheres of decision—one administrative, one academic—are fraught with personal and political dangers. Woe be to the new president who is timid about making the choice; woe be to the president who makes the decision too quickly; but greatest woe be unto the president who makes the wrong decision. From the evidence of his own words, Kerr appears to be, like the final bed in Goldilocks and the Three Bears, “just right.” Decisive but not abrupt, calm and deliberate, he grew with the university, and beyond.

Although Kerr has left for the second volume the story of the political issues that threatened to swamp his work at the beginning and succeeded in doing so in the end, this recounting of his administrative accomplishments describes, in the most profound sense, the record of a great political career within a great political institution. From the perspective of higher education, Kerr’s book is the equivalent of Churchill’s memoirs or those of any other leader in a republican form of government. The Chancellor’s Office was like No. 10 Downing Street or the White House, the seat of secular power in a system of shared governance.

Not only did Kerr serve as an executive by virtue of the appointment of the Board of Regents of the University of California, but he also needed the assistance or at least the compliance of the powerful faculty, both in its more or less organized form of the faculty and its less formally organized but much more potent cliques, departments, or coalitions. The temperament that led him to work as a labor negotiator and the skills he honed in his early career as a faculty member and practitioner of a very pragmatic art both served him well.

—Nancy Bekavac ’69, President of Scripps College

OTHER RECENT BOOKS

John Bartle ’79 and J. White, Evolving Theories of Public Budgeting, Elsevier Science, 2001. This volume examines seven theoretical perspectives of public budgeting: incrementalism, budget process model, organizational process model, median voter model, the “greedy bureaucrat” model, postmodern model, and transaction cost model.

Ann Abramson Berlak ’59 and Sekani Moyenda, Taking It Personally: Racism in the Classroom From Kindergarten to College, Temple University Press, 2001. This account offers possibilities for fighting racism in our schools, chronicling two teachers and their own educational progress.

Joan Jessop Brewster’46, with photographs by William Grade, The Stained Glass of All Saints’, Sim’s Press, 2001. Photographs of the 26 stained glass windows of All Saints’ Parrish in Peterborough, N.H., are accompanied by text describing the layout, symbolism, and evolution of each window.

Roane Lovett Carey ’82 (ed.), The New Intifada: Resisting Israel’s Apartheid, Verso Books, 2001. This collection of essays on the Israel/Palestine conflict includes work by Edward Said, Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk, and others.

Jill Coleman ’52, WaterYoga: Water-Assisted Poses for Posture, Flexibility and Well-Being, 2nd ed., Eglantine Press, 2002. This edition includes reports of scientific research—confirming the author’s positive experience of immersing the body in water—and new poses designed for home pools, spas, and hot tubs to increase flexibility and range of motion, improve posture, and manage pain.

Deborah (Smith) Cumming ’63, The Descent of Music: Stories, Plum Branch Press, 2002. These tales about women at the advent of the Peace Corps and the civil rights movement are colored with references to art and music.

David Kennedy ’80 et al., Reducing Gun Violence: The Boston Gun Project’s Operation Ceasefire, U.S. Department of Justice, 2001. This research publication describes the Boston Gun Project’s Operation Ceasefire, which Kennedy designed and directed.

Ethan Knapp ’88 The Bureaucratic Muse: Thomas Hoccleve and the Literature of Late Medieval England, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001. The author investigates the autobiographical poetry of Hoccleve and his life as a clerk of the Privy Seal, providing insights into the early 15th century and Middle English literature.

Rolfe Larson ’77 Venture Forth! The Essential Guide to Starting a Money-Making Business in Your Nonprofit Organization, Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, 2002. This practical step-by-step guide offers ways to negotiate the nonprofit world for assistance in launching sustainable ventures.

Catherine Lutz ’74, Homefront: A Military City and the American Twentieth Century, Beacon Press, 2001. Through the experience of the people in Fayetteville, N.C., neighbors to Fort Bragg, this story focuses on the blurred boundaries of civilian and military worlds.

Christopher LeRoy Maloney ’93, The Uniter Arises, Unlimited Publishing, 2001. For young adults, this Fairyland story is about a girl—who isn’t just a girl but thinks she is—and a dog that is an ogre.

Daniel Mont ’83, A Different Kind of Boy: A Father’s Memoir on Raising a Gifted Child With Autism, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2002. In this memoir, the author describes the emotional roller-coaster ride of raising an autistic son, the impact on his family, and the lessons he has learned about life.

Yongsoo Park ’94, Boy Genius, Akashic Books, 2002. This odyssey of a boy seeking to avenge the wrongs perpetrated by the South Korean government on his parents continues as he rebels against all symbols of authority when he is banished to America.

Bruce Robertson ’76 and Kathryn Hewitt, Marguerite Makes a Book, the Getty Museum, 1999. This children’s book, the story of a young French girl who carries on her father’s book-painting tradition in 15th-century Paris, was named one of the 10 best by the Los Angeles Times last year.

Peter Kimuyu, Bernard Mbui Wagacha ’73, and Okwach Abagi (eds.), Kenya’s Strategic Policies for the 21st Century: Macroeconomic and Sectoral Choices, Institute of Policy Analysis and Research, 2001. This reprinted work, first published in 1999, explores macroeconomic and sectoral decisions in Kenya.

Eric Wasserman ’79 et al. (eds.), Handbook of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, Arnold Publishers, 2001. This handbook explains the science, principles, and procedures of this technique.

Eric Arnould, Linda Price, and George Zinkhan ’74, Consumers, McGraw-Hill, 2002. This textbook, with supporting material for instructors and students on the Web, includes information on consumer behavior, consumption, purchase and acquisition, and postacquisition.

CALENDAR

Jeremy Simes Schomer ’76 contributed the poem “Dove Call” to the United Nations’ 2002 Calendar for Peace. Free copies may be obtained by contacting Ruth Steinkraus-Cohen at (203) 227-2253 or info@uno-connecticut.org

SCREENPLAY

Asbed Pogharian84, Swallow Got Canned. This comedy, a second screenplay, was optioned by a director who has a two-picture deal with MGM.

WEB SITE

Ben Fritz ’99 and Brendan Nyhan ’00 have helped launch a Web site called spinsanity, which Fritz says “deconstructs spin in political media with daily posts and weekly columns.” Get the story behind the story at www.spinsanity.org.

Two Memoirs

I sometimes dream of projects I will undertake when I retire. I’ll go back to painting. I’ll set up the model trains again. My garden will grow better with more attention. I’ll travel. Maybe I’ll write a book—everyone’s thought of that. Fortunately for us, Kenneth Brown ’47 and Peter Karlow ’41 have used their retirements well.

Brown’s Marauder Man: World War II in the Crucial but Little Known B-26 Marauder Medium Bomber (Pacifica Military History, Pacifica, Calif., 2001) is explained by its subtitle. His love affair with the sturdy twin-engine Martin bombers that carried him over German-occupied Europe in the last year of the war makes his book an important history of that aircraft—as well as the story of a young Quaker who decided that the fight against fascism outranked his pacifist beliefs.

At the climax of the European war, Brown served as bombardier and navigator with the 391st Bombardment Group. He flew 43 missions—more than half of them as a lead navigator for a flight of six planes.

Feb. 24, 1945, was particularly memorable. Brown’s bomber group was to attack a railroad bridge deep in German territory. Heavy antiaircraft fire over the target brought down three of the bombers, with heavy loss of life. After bombing a secondary target, Brown’s flight of seven B-26s endured 45 minutes of relentless German flak as they zigzagged back to Allied territory. Several planes were badly damaged, and two—including Brown’s—crash-landed at the air base. Of the 27 planes that had participated in the attack, 7 were destroyed and 14 damaged.

In Marauder Man, Brown relates tales of great danger with a cool confidence, but it is clear that the mayhem and destruction all around him were deeply affecting. At the end of the book, he writes: “When I reflect now upon World War II, my mind still floods with feelings. I well remember how the blood ran rich and full, and every moment was cherished, an oft-remarked reaction to death seeming imminent...;. I am overwhelmed with humility and gratitude, to whatever powers rule our lives, that I survived the war intact.”

A brush with death is also a turning point in Peter Karlow’s memoir Targeted by the CIA: An Intelligence Professional Speaks Out on the Scandal That Turned the CIA Upside Down (Turner Publishing, Paducah, Ky., 2001). Karlow held a Navy commission during the war but was actually an intelligence operative with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In February 1944, he was off the coast of Italy, delivering a radar set to an intelligence outpost, when his PT boat struck a mine. It cost him his left leg.

After the war, Karlow helped write the operational history of the OSS and joined the CIA almost at its inception, rising through the ranks in analytical and operational jobs. In 1963, at the height of the Cold War, he became the target of a “molehunt” within the agency. A Russian defector, Anatoly Golitsin, had hinted that there was a KGB agent within U.S. intelligence whose last name began with “K.” Although a four-month investigation proved nothing, he resigned from the agency. It took him more than 25 years to clear his name. (The story of his vindication, as previously told in the December 1992 Bulletin, can be found at www.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/mar02/books.html.

Karlow’s defense of his integrity—and his indignation at having it questioned—is only part of a warm, expansive memoir of an extraordinary life. He and Ken Brown are the real thing. Reading about their lives makes me think that if I ever get around to writing my own memoir, I probably ought to try fiction.

—Jeffrey Lott