A CONVERSATION WITH BILGEWATER
Kelley, John L.
A Conversation with Bilgewater John L. Kelley Inasmuch as "publish or perish" summarizes the requirements for advancement in the academy, I was most anxious, recently, about finding a publisher...
...We are even taking on Jerry Rubin as our consultant on 'Repression in American History.'" "But surely Rubin has no credentials as a historian...
...Endowed with a new feeling of purpose, and with head high, I thanked Bilgewa-ater for his inspiration, handed him my manuscript, and departed, all the while planning my next Magnum Opus: a computer study of the socio-economic makeup of Terre Haute's bordelloes...
...John L. Kelley as Warren Gamaliel Harding Professor of History at Iberia College, Iberia, Ohio...
...So we must tool up for greater pulp production than we ever thought possible...
...Wait...
...Don't crowd me, boy...
...Then I recalled the number of blurbs and mentally calculated that the reviewer would have been required to read at the rate of 4947.26 paragraphs per minute...
...Always considering myself something of a chauvinist, I inquired what could possibly be unpatriotic about my refusal to publish...
...Besides, who is more repressed than Rubin...
...pay them a stipend for writing something . innocuous or pleasant...
...We are only supplying what the market demands...
...Nonsense," Bilgewater shot back...
...I observed...
...A Conversation with Bilgewater John L. Kelley Inasmuch as "publish or perish" summarizes the requirements for advancement in the academy, I was most anxious, recently, about finding a publisher for my doctoral dissertation, "The Influence of the Peanut on American Foreign Policy, 1783-1812...
...snorted Bilgewater, grabbing for his dog-eared copy of Becker...
...They considered the welfare-intellectual complex and all sorts of variations but settled on a P-E-P Complex...
...Voila...
...After long deliberation I decided to sign with Trivia Press (an off-shoot of one of the new educational conglomerates: General Animated Motor Skills) which offered me a complete set of John Kenneth Galbraith's cardigans and Arthur M. Schlesinger's bow ties in lieu of royalties...
...I'll have none of it...
...I was astonished by my editor's non sequitur...
...Where do scholarly monographs like mine fit into your scheme...
...I laughed...
...he replied...
...Well, that's not exactly surprising-it's all been very hush hush...
...All in good time...
...Already hints of a slowdown in government contracts have prompted many leading government contractors such as Raytheon, Xerox, RCA and Bell & Howell to move into the publishing and educational industries...
...My mind boggled at Bilgewater's conception, but I was beginning to see the beauty, and the necessity, of the new complex...
...My blood boiled...
...Then you can issue a book of readings on recent critiques of American foreign policy culled from the pages of Ramparts, American Opinion and the New York Review of Books...
...Hell...
...Wait a minute," I demanded...
...Wait a minute Bilgewater," I menaced...
...How are you going to guarantee the stability of such an alliance...
...The Saturday Evening Club Proudly Announces: Appointment of Dr...
...he insisted that the federal government curry the favor of the rich to guarantee their support of the new national government...
...Certainly you aren't suggesting," I interjected, "that book publishers are capitalizing on the munificence of the public purse...
...I assured him that I hadn't...
...What on earth is a P-E-P Complex...
...Today's climate of opinion is violent...
...P-E-P stands for Politicians, Education, and Publishing...
...Keynesian economics have taught us that the United States can't survive without a complex...
...Astonished at this magnanimity, I aked my editor, a Mr...
...24 hours a day to read the number of books he claimed to review...
...Are you going to associate my research with the secretions of Jerry Rubin...
...I indicated that I was aware of the Report...
...We collided at the door...
...We'll call it 'American Foreign Policy Decisions in a Nutshell.' " Warming to his subject, Bilgewater spoke as though inspired...
...Who the hell needs credentials...
...my second chapter, "Peanut Reciprocity Negotiations and the U.S.-Tangiers Crisis of 1792," scattered on the floor...
...Have you heard of the Report From Slippery Rock...
...We must stop this travesty on American scholarship...
...Libros Bilgewater, how Trivia Press could be so generous...
...Briefly put, earlier this year the National Security Council at the President's request called together the country's leading minds to meet at Slippery Rock State College in Pennsylvania to consider alternatives to the military-industrial complex, which is obviously on its last leg due to an impending outbreak of peace...
...You surely don't mean," I interrupted, "that a new power elite is forming to replace the New Left shibboleth, the Military-Industrial Complex!'' "Precisely...
...Bilgewater smiled...
...Credentials...
...Politicians, whether at the local, state or national level, will appropriate billions for the P-E-P Complex because they know that the electronics, publishing and other allied industries, being grateful, will give them high-paying consultant positions when they retire from public office...
...Same principle works here-self-interest, pure and simple...
...That's easy...
...Now the true meaning of that motto hit me with the force of a first edition...
...Librarians these days will buy anything, now that they can gouge the public through the state legislatures, not to mention the funds from HEW...
...We won't just publish your peanut monograph...
...Why the demand has been so great that we have entertained the project of publishing all of Andrei Y. Vishinsky's U.N...
...Well, to take up the slack (witness Seattle's unemployment rate due to curtailed aerospace contracts for Boeing) the publishing industry must continue to increase its output...
...Hell...
...Kelley is the author of HARDING: THE FIRST EDWARD KENNEDY...
...We'll call it A Kernel of Truth...
...Relieved, Bilgewater continued...
...Outraged I grabbed my manuscript and headed for the door while Bilgewater attempted an interception...
...Reconsider our inducements before you make such a hasty decision over your future," Bilgewater pleaded, blocking my exit...
...Much to my surprise the manuscript prompted bids from ten or fifteen different houses, not to mention several attractive offers from certain academic editors...
...exclaimed Bilgewater...
...It wasn't the professor who would perish if he didn't publish -it was the entire country...
...Becker said it all when he wrote that 'the historian is the myth-maker for the tribe.' Thus I feel 'authority' is determined by the climate of opinion of the historian...
...You've heard of the Report from Iron Mountain and its warning that the American economy cannot afford to revert from a war-time to a peace-time structure...
...Easy...
...Jerry Rubin...
...HE FIRST EDWARD KENNEDY...
...I...I...I'll go to a competitor...
...Rather uneasy about the exotic nature of my manuscript, I anticipated rough sledding...
...I attempted to shove him aside but he clung to my manuscript like a dying man, all the time imploring me not to desert my country...
...Why you wouldn't believe how many requests our reprint division, Retread Press, gets for reissues of the great classics outlining America's incomparable history of violence, imperialism, and racism...
...We are already forming alliances between these three groups to keep the economy going the moment peace erupts...
...The insidiousness of such a practice overwhelmed me, and at first I was tempted to dismiss it as merely another Bilgewater excess...
...You can edit a new series on American foreign policy...
...speeches as Stand Up For America...
...I'll have no part of your insane perversion...
...Trivia Press won't get my research nor will anyone else...
...Don't you remember Hamilton's ideas on government...
...But surely," I interjected, "the value of foreign policy critiques from such aberrant journals is at least dubious and at best transitorv...
...Enough, Bilgewater...
...Peace may break out at any moment, and we in the industry must be ready for it...
...Suddenly I realized a new significance to that maligned phrase "publish or perish...
Vol. 4 • November 1970 • No. 1
