Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Bad Report on Sam Like all of us, he made mistakes: in not the Air Force hierarchy. What kind in the 1960s. Unfortunately for PresiI'd have thought there'd be no disagree- judging...
...Of these 27 man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff...
...were out of work last year...
...ly imbedded that it need not even be bly line (mostly the same people...
...Meanwhile, the companies had already started producing from newly drilled wells that were bringing on-stream the domestic supplies which would eventually crush OPEC's price-fixing efforts...
...scend conventional political debate and ization and MADvocacy would have Only this morning, when Reagan deserve abiding respect...
...If an oil crisis hits next year, the exploration personnel problem is totally unlike the 1977 situation from which Mr...
...Michael S. Lofgren Alexandria, Virginia Senator Malcolm Wallop's article "Star Wars and the Military" seems to this observer to be right on target...
...SDI Four million are in the civil serv- rent commander of SAC, General John on WP's observations on the death of I would like to commend Senator Mal- ice, which leaves for work 6 mil- Chain, apparently qualified himself for Gunnar Myrdal ("The Continuing colm Wallop for his excellent piece, lion...
...Hope you don't mind:' O. North ._09 Wanna see some funny T—Airts...
...Leutze assumes that, when the need for their services arises, these "old hands will have been retired for four to five years and they are not about to return to work...
...I think we agree that government was the cause of much of this disarray, and that we are best served by minimum government interference in the oil industry...
...Fred Barnes ruefully "ad- the war in Southeast Asia...
...CORRESPONDENCE Bad Report on Sam Like all of us, he made mistakes: in not the Air Force hierarchy...
...For the first time that I am to be), leaving for work 5 million...
...The Navy's answer, to the extent that there is one, is to tout non-acoustic methods of detection, probably space-based, which are of uncertain promise and potential gluttons for public funds...
...and—rather surprisingly—a general held up by "liberals in the two people, namely you Mr...
...was hit with the Arab oil embargo...
...Virtually every major company showed the door to all geologists and geophysicists over fifty...
...production for many years...
...Training geologists and geophysicists requires an average of five years of college, plus three to five years of practical experience in the oil business...
...Joint Chiefs of Staff was when they for...
...sufficient merely to tinker with the son is not only a braying ass but also assessment of Asia, including (in my Senator Wallop correctly identifies structure of the McNamara (and and especially a lousy reporter...
...Soviet forces in Nicaragua, thanks to Representative Boland, make this last almost a hopeless task...
...lGIRAIPLiIICS 125 Liberty Street...
...The "new hands" will have had six to eight years of documenting the files with prospects, but no experience in an ongoing exploration program...
...I don't believe it...
...999,918 are in self-service gas sta- Gaylor...
...Reagan Administration: the military's 3 million...
...Each year that passes makes the exploration picture that much more bleak...
...Moreover, Richard J. Myers in the June issue of the computer is still unreliable in terms TAS ("What Oil Crisis...
...During the same period, the oil companies and natural gas pipeline companies were passing through a historic time of mergers and acquisitions, friendly and otherwise...
...unanswerable question...
...McNamara-ization of the officer corps ited...
...Myers saw the remarkable expansion of the industry...
...California is split between the Navy The brains of the oil industry are the and NASA's Ames Research Center...
...But in one respect, Mr...
...it is astonishing that anyone with the courage to look at a society It is merely a convenient rationale, tions which leaves for work 82 would be surprised by his post-Navy as a whole rather than through the nar- for example, that the only strong Air persons...
...I fear the Muse of History will judge the Joint Chiefs as severely as she did the French generals of 1940...
...They should have believed the going to keep the Persian Gulf open, Soviet Union...
...It is ironic that the Navy, on at Naval Air Station, Moffett Field, the eastern side of the field and right California, I was appalled at the an- in the middle of the Silicon Valley, is cient computer technology employed in wired into computer technology that is the P-3C Orion aircraft, the nation's almost prehistorical, probably even by number one aerial sub-hunter...
...reversing the damage of the last few years is...
...By 1990, oil prices may be rising, but the discoveries drilled in the late 1970s will be in sharp decline...
...This channelleda...
...needs a stable petroleum industry, free from the "stop-and-go, boom-or-bust" cycles of the last fifteen years...
...There was a panic to buy any prospect that a half-trained explorationist could conceive...
...At that time a rising stream of geologists and geophysicists were beginning to graduate...
...However, the senator's contentions can be extended to other areas of the DOD, specifically to antisubmarine warfare (ASW...
...There are not any jobs...
...Leutze suggests our salvation lies with some form of tax incentive...
...Presi- nuclear weapons release in case of war...
...at the left-wing Center for Defense InI am, perhaps, an appropriate per- disdain for strategic defenses...
...The vast majority of students who graduated in these fields after 1980 are selling insurance, teaching grade school, or clerking in stores...
...With geologists, as with oil service companies, toolpushers and roughnecks, left alone, the marketplace rules best...
...No turning Capetown into a Soviet naval base by giving Bishop Tutu and his Russian-directed pals in the African National Congress a free hand to terrorize the countryside...
...This would country...
...a social scientist side...
...oil and natural gas exploration was only partly the result of last year's nose dive in world oil prices...
...When I first mentioned it to the force...
...Campaign Button Co...
...marshaled of trouble-frequency...
...career choice, considering that Gaylor, row prism of a single academic disci- Force advocate for SDI, Lt...
...in assessing all the Force officers about the effect that sup- program, conservatives believed it was readers with the idea that Sam Donald- consequences of the welfare state...
...Left to the Carter Administration (and a supin race relations...
...As oil prices rise and exploration in the U.S...
...They were left with skeleton exploration departments that have lost thousands of man-years .of knowledge and experience, and were stripped of the very people needed to teach the trainees...
...as a strong opponent of SDI...
...But Mr...
...Although oil prices were peaking around $40 a barrel, "experts" were projecting prices of $80 to $100 in a few years, and undergraduate geologists and their professors were being avidly recruited for still expanding exploration teams...
...What is needed is a tax incentive to convince the oil companies to abandon their stop-and-go, boomor-bust, exploration programs...
...This brought the industry down chief-of-staff (now retired) of Com- to its 1977 level, from which it had mander, Patrol Wings, U.S...
...While liberals in the Senate dent, and me...
...Last year's tax reform legislation, taxes for Superfund, and several other pending regulations will strip $18 billion a year from petroleum industry cash flow over the next five years...
...There you believe, for example, that the if that's good journalism, the profes- problem, he memorably asserted his are 7 million retired people...
...Leutze's sentiment that "Washington botches everything it touches...
...million inhabitants...
...Are you going to get cultural, economic, and political ties to hence all I have on is my under- SALT II and cancelling the B-1 prous into a shooting war...
...This is clearly moving in the wrong direction...
...In 1979, the majors were able to hire the personnel they needed to fully staff their exploration departments, despite a hemorrhage of their best people (who were being hired away by aggressive independents...
...It is now common knowledge that the growing quietness of Soviet submarines provides ASW forces with a powerful challenge which will increase in severity in the future...
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...We have three choices, Mr...
...day that region might re-establish its I've just paid all my taxes— fying to Congress on the blessings of Mister President...
...If you fire a geophysicist fifty years old who is drawing $50,000 annually and replace him with a recent graduate getting $25,000, you have cut the salary outlay in half...
...general was pushed by the Oval Office, (continued on page 51) THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1987 9 that go into drilling and production...
...strategic targeting in his last assignCrisis," TAS, July 1987...
...But the entire effort depends on the minds that produce sound ideas about where to drill...
...1-1300-422-B067 In PA 215-776-5033 ANOTHER SATISFIED CUSTOMER:''% 2 "To cover for the T-SHIRTS we had to say we sold arms...
...At the same time, many companies cut loose from investments and diversifications undertaken in the 1970s when the oil industry was riding high...
...Since Washington botches everything it touches, I am not suggesting a "national energy program...
...for the Center was Admiral Noel a first-rate economist...
...By 1977, these people were filling out employment applications with oil companies...
...Leutze's observations make sense...
...The industry's debt burden rose dramatically, and servicing this debt reduced the money available for exploration...
...an ardent advocate of social hamson, is having his promotion to full positions, which leaves for work he would have refused to authorize a reform...
...It was unfortunate that the U.S...
...was "running out of gas," pipelines were signing long-term contracts for gas at $5 to $10 an MCF (versus $1.60 today...
...petroleum industry like a member of OPEC and more like a national asset...
...Where do we stand now...
...that Myrdal was too considerable a fig- July 1987...
...It is true that the petroleum industry is more heavily taxed than most manufacturing industries...
...He states that of the Soviet submarines...
...ware, software, and computational On a recent tour of ASW facilities methods...
...a rich harvest of generals and admirals United Nations Economic Commission of conservatives would do well to re- One million are at various ball with left-wing views to act as front men for Europe in Geneva in 1947-1949 and, consider their dogmatic belief, so deep- games or casualties of the assem- for the more sinister elements controlsubsequently, a friend...
...This assumption is fallacious, technology in data processing...
...Abra- I find that there are 80 cabinet a CincPac in the 1970s, has stated that pline...
...Unfortunately for PresiI'd have thought there'd be no disagree- judging the prospects for the postwar of signal will this send to younger Air dent Reagan's strategic modernization ment among your contributors and world economy...
...For work: ments of the retired military personnel to leave it at that...
...Sam Missile," TAS, June 1987...
...Urged on by "Jimmy" Carter, who declared that the U.S...
...Managetion of computer technology to the ment coordinates the cash, engineers, study of aerodynamic systems with the hardware, and semi-skilled manpower CORRESPONDENCE (continued from page 9) were asked by the Reagan Administration to prepare the invasion of Grenada...
...The employment cut was not only among those recently hired but also among the most experienced...
...Roughly one-third of the petroleum geologists in the U.S...
...One such catch Myrdal was, of course, many things: articulated, that the military is "on our Working population: 1 million...
...So the Strategic Air Command remains the sion needs to be redefined...
...ling the organization...
...When the bubble burst, small companies closed...
...PA 18102 CALL [TOLL FREE OUTSIDE PA...
...That's the stuff And, in An American Dilemma, million are children...
...In 1973 to 1974, the U.S...
...Name Address City/State/Zip 52 (please print) AS1 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1987 of SDI and a similar situation for the aid of the very latest in computer hard-most promising approach to ASW...
...only is it primitive (circa 1967), but it —Robert C. Whitten was recently the recipient of hundreds Navy League of of thousands of dollars per unit for the United States purposes of refurbishment...
...Many of Mr...
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...But these are quibbles...
...The companies that have survived have had no real exploration programs since approximately 1981...
...The curtherefore, before deciding to comment The Military vs...
...the country observed the unedifying people say you're going to get us into did, and never lost the hope that one Dear President of the Republic: spectacle of General David Jones testia shooting war, Mister President...
...geologists and geophysicists who spear-The latter is the focal point for applica- head any exploration effort...
...in his porting SDI will have on their careers...
...Button Co...
...faith in the ultimate power of the work force is down to 21 million...
...Convoy the tankers to Japan, past Soviet bases in the Maldives and Vietnam...
...oil and gas industry experienced a convulsive reshaping at the same time that oil prices nose-dived...
...By 1988 the "old hands" will have been retired for four to five years, and they are not about to return to work...
...Myers go far toward off-setting the quieting is woefully off course...
...do the work: 19 million...
...The point is could expand in the same way again on that there seems to be no service con- short notice, in "months, rather than stituency for making use of the latest years...
...Since the company does not plan on doing any exploration anyway, until prices rise, the problem will not show up until the next crisis...
...brilliant administrator who shocked Senate...
...He had a clear- (Jacques Barzun found and trans- infiltrated our military leadership as finished his announcement that we're eyed, unsentimental, steady view of the lated for us the following letter, well...
...Call fora FREE CATALOG of our own designs: 1-200-422-6067 R RE 014 ORX_......;ni11111A° DOZEN r CLIP & MAIL TO: Political...
...W P Leutze Exploration Geologist Lafayette, Louisiana Richard J. Myers replies: Mr...
...large number of students, many already in their second or third year of college, into geology and geophysics...
...The fact that the new man does not have the foggiest idea of what to do and that the man who should have been there to train him has taken "early retirement" does not show up on the balance sheet...
...It is not that by the end of 1986, the oil industry had the service is unaware of the possibili- lost close to 30 percent of its work ties...
...If modern com- data to show that the free world is virputer technology were employed in the tually immune to a repeat of the 1970s' P-3 system, "image enhancement" oil crisis...
...No college student with his head screwed on properly will register for geology or geophysics...
...Yes, many experienced geologists have been furloughed over the last several years...
...Leutze makes many good points, but I find it difficult to agree with his conclusion that America will have too few top-rank geologists and geophysicists to search for oil in the future...
...I concluded "Star Wars and the Military" (TAS, One million are in jail (or ought ment: the State Department...
...And if some crisis strikes and the need for their services grows suddenly acute, they will be offered salaries high enough to assure their return to work...
...Allentown...
...Say a seven-year minimum...
...Pacific jumped forward in production and Fleet, he immediately replied that I was employment...
...Mr...
...France has gram as a quid pro quo for his appointTypical Donaldson—an unanswer- backed that hope by investing a a problem...
...For printed T-shirts, hats, sweats, jackets, etc., call: IL [VIE MT...
...However much conservatives may ure in terms of the basic values for aware, the- Senator brought into the Two million are sick, especially grind their teeth at the pronouncewhich The American Spectator stands open the dirty little secret of the on Monday mornings...
...I hesitated, forces, leaving for work 10 million...
...Moreover, he wear...
...I especially agree that an oil techniques already developed by import tax (approved by Richard NASA, the Air Force, and probably the Gephardt in June) could put 150,000 Navy itself could be used to "pull" the oil workers back on the payroll, while submarine acoustic emissions out of costing millions of jobs across the the background sea-noise...
...The resulting large write-offs also reduced the cash flow available for exploration...
...Do what we can to prevent terrorist takeovers in Venezuela, the Philippines, Central America, and Mexico...
...This looks good on the balance sheet...
...I agree that the U.S...
...This leaves 28 Consider these unpleasant facts if that made Sam famous, all right...
...Myers: 1. Defend the free world's oil...
...But writing of our most difficult and tragic million available for work...
...the rest of Europe...
...Production can be maintained from existing wells by junior engineers and semi-skilled labor...
...I am therefore ask- Some day, the record will be declassUnited Nations headquarters by in- may be the proximate cause of General ing you most earnestly to get to ified and conservatives will learn with listing on a smaller staff in Geneva Abrahamson's non-promotion, the fact work, because I'm sick and tired of dismay what the real position of the than the table of organization called remains that his elevation to four-star keeping France going all by myself...
...The accent on current earnings, to hell with the future, has already not only ruined the lives of exploration employees, but bankrupted many oil companies, including several majors, and most of the independents...
...Larger ones laid off massive numbers of geologists and geophysicists...
...porter of Carter's non-defense proGunnar Myrdal —W W. Rostow There are 6 million students, gram), now beavers away as a bureauI strongly support an irreverent attitude University of Texas which leaves for work 13 million...
...But I'm not sure new incentives are needed...
...Myers indicates that it "preaching to the choir...
...crat in the Arms Control and Disarmatowards politics and politicians, in- Austin, Texas Three million are in the armed ment Agency, where he is well known tellectuals and ideas...
...This brings us to Wallop's main point —the lack of a constituency in the case THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1987...
...I applaud Mr...
...New ideas will be needed, but the potential exploration personnel who were college freshmen in 1980 have chosen fields far removed from the employment wasteland of geology and geophysics...
...Let me explain...
...The Navy Cupertino, California even went so far as to order the manufacture of diodes that had been out of Who Will Search for Oil...
...Appar- view) his judgment on the meaning of the source of the problem as the Harold Brown) Pentagon they inherently not so...
...it is this: we number 55 ment by President Carter to be chairable accusation put in the form of an precious decade of his working life...
...The next generation of explorationists will need to be super bright because the easy-tofind prospects have been drilled...
...living legacy of Curtis LeMay: Richard —Saul David American creed and foreshadowed the Out of this remainder you must Ellis, SAC commander in chief during Van Nuys, California progress made in the past half century take 2 million unemployed...
...Congress should stop treating the U.S...
...and the numbers on which it is based The real estate at Moffett Field, are deceptive...
...But the merger/acquisition frenzy appears to be over and should not be a factor in the future...
...Remember, too, that the collapse in U.S...
...While it Five hundred thousand in the formation, the fact remains: there son to comment because I was a target sounds paradoxical that the military church and 500,000 pregnant would be no Center for Defense Inforof Myrdal's views on Southeast Asia would oppose what is commonly as- women gives you for work 2 mation if the military did not provide but also an assistant to him in the sumed to be the SDI "goldmine," a lot million...
...Courses and whole departments are closing for lack of students...
...Not Soviet standards...
...2. Develop nuclear power at top speed, so as to decrease the nation's dependence on hydrocarbons...
...They could not believe in their mits" that Donaldson is a good report- But three aspects of his stance tran- hearts that twenty years of McNamaraer...
...generally picks up (as it has already), many of these geologists will re-enter the work force...
...He never turned his back which is said to be going the rounds evidence of their senses, however, when we could hear Sam yelling, "A lot of on Eastern Europe, as many Americans in France...
...3. Develop a program of steady exploration for oil and gas...
...Gulf of Arabia, tanker routes around South Africa...
Vol. 20 • September 1987 • No. 9
