Tilting at Windmills
Tilting at Windmills T h e Carters sometimes appear to be warm human beings. More often, according to the people who work for them at the White House, the President and his wife come across as...
...Recently the Civil Service Commission has approved a plan to remove from civil service coverage sizable blocs of middle- and upper-level jobs so that they can be made available for women, blacks, and other minority groups...
...Is Henry Bradsher of the Washington Star right in reporting that the Russians have made dramatic improvements in their ability to track down our submarines...
...It may be that the press has gotten so carried away with its justifiable indignation at CIA misdeeds that it has forgotten that this country still needs a good intelligence agency and that the press has an obligation to criticize its inefficiencies as well as its scandals...
...According to the Post’s Mike Causey, Carter “has approved a plan that would prohibit federal government agencies from firing any employee as a result of efforts to reorganize the bureaucracy...
...Because Carter has been so cowardly about confronting the salary and pension problem-and the government employees’ unions-he needs a massive push from the media...
...Surely, you think, there must have been beer and peanuts, or potato chips and coke...
...The guests were permitted, however, to circulate among the rooms of the mansion’s first floor...
...The only trouble was that it began with a shot of what looked like some Salvation Army bell-ringers, and the show had no evidence of wrong-doing by the Army...
...You’ll never find the answer to these questions in The New Republic or The Nation or indeed in The Washington Post or The New York Times (except by Drew Middleton, whose views are too predictably right-wing...
...I n December, The Washington Post attacked the New York City Council for voting pay raises for the city’s top 51 elected officials...
...No other member of the Carter family was there...
...But the story that the CIA was not doing its job-providing the country with reliable intelligence about import a n t developments abroad--was at least equally important...
...Elizabeth’s Hospital, was found not guilty by reason of insanity and returned to the hospital where his presence is a daily comfort to all the members of the staff who testified against him...
...T h e r e is another aspect of federal employment where Jimmy Carter needs to be turned away from the direction in which he is heading...
...Employers are simply reducing the number of working hours...
...The most recent convert is Vietnam...
...What they seek is protection against arbitrary firing on the basis of sex, race, politics, or simple favor4 itism...
...But it did so on the ground that the raises were politically stupid, not that they were wrong, conceding that “it is possible to argue that the council now fears the wrath of the taxpayers for doing what was right, just as Congress did in the last round of federal pay increases...
...The problem is that such protection, to be complete, requires exhaustive hearings that can be manipulated by the incompetent to outlast all but the most determined supervisors...
...No drink...
...All of us who enjoy comedy owe an eternal debt to Donald Barnes, chief of the State Department’s Language Services Division, who selected the Polish interpreter for President Carter’s recent trip...
...E v e r y legislative measure has its advocates and opponents who paint the most glowing or depressing picture of the results of its enactment...
...This is why we have proposed that as government jobs open up, half of them should be filled with the understanding that the new employee is subject to arbitrary dismissal...
...So it was with the recent increase in the minimum wage...
...There were platters and punch bowls aplenty...
...We think the government should make an equal effort to make room for the risk-taker and the original thinker...
...The President was not there...
...A Kentucky Fried Chicken employee who was working 23 hours a week and making $53, is now working 18 hours and getting $48 . . . . Washington recently witnessed two dramatic demonstrations of how not to handle criminals...
...Government salaries and related pension costs (see Marjorie Boyd’s article in this issue) are drastically limiting this country’s financial ability to meet pressing problems of unemployment and health care...
...Much of the CIA’s manipulation of the press was deplorable (although we can see absolutely nothing wrong with a reporter who in an unpaid, voluntary, and patriotic capacity gives information to the CIA) and deserved exposure...
...w h e n e v e r I write something like the preceding item, some frienrd will tell me our liberal readers will think I’m pro-CIA...
...In fact, the federal pay increases in the last 16 years have been scandalous, as has the Post’s lack of opposition to them...
...Perhaps it can increase its revenues this year by suing CBS for libel...
...Let him know what you think of this ridiculous waste...
...According to Frank Ching, of the Asian Wall Street Journal, the government of Vietnam has set up People’s Inspection Commissions, whose members are elected by the people on a block-byblock basis, to monitor bureaucracy that, in the words of the Vietnam News Agency, is increasingly characterized by “overbearingness, au o n December 19, the CBS Evening News carried a good segment on crooked charity appeals...
...On the other hand, Richard E. Fields, a criminal with a history of violence reaching back to his childhood who had murdered a technician at St...
...And the military is no better...
...It is the way the clever administrator turns disaster into a budget increase...
...Both were wrong, according to a recent survey by The Wall Street Journal...
...The same kind of thing is said whenever I express concern about the efficiency of our military...
...Another 6.5-percent pay increase for federal employees is scheduled for October 1. The Defense Department, on grounds of saving money, and the Treasury Department, on grounds of avoiding an inflationary example, are said to favor eliminating or reducing the increase...
...More often, according to the people who work for them at the White House, the President and his wife come across as cold...
...Is W. R. Taylor, editor of Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, right in saying that the cruise missile isn’t much better than the Nazi V-1 the British learned to shoot down with regularity in World War II...
...In fact, the Army is generally more honest and has a less overgrown bureaucracy than most American charities...
...Since as reasonable people we must concede that unpleasant fellows might seize power in a country that has the potential of waging war against us, don’t we want an intelligence agency that can let us know what the unpleasant fellows are up to and a military that can protect us if things get out of hand...
...But they were empty...
...In recent months, The New Republic and Mother Jones have joined us in protesting excessive salaries...
...He then attempted to escape and was shot in the head and killed by a policeman...
...They will tell you that they don’t want to be protected from firing for incompetence...
...No Carters...
...Advocates said it would mean higher income for workers...
...T h e Washington Monthly was founded on the belief that the main enemy was not communism or capitalism but bureaucracy, and we’re always pleased when others join us in that perception...
...Reasonable federal...
...Is retired Admiral Gene La Roque right in saying that we should stop wasting money on aircraft carriers and instead spend it on submarines and antisubmarine warfare...
...Barnes’ defense-that he didn’t have enough budget to hire a full-time Polish speaker for his staff-is a bureaucratic classic...
...Charles Peters...
...The other, dealing with the failure of the CIA to predict Saudi Arabia’s crucial behavior at the time of the Arab oil embargo, was a back-page item...
...How on earth can the government be made more efficient if inefficient employees can’t be fired...
...We hope other magazines, newspapers, television stations, and networks will begin to face the problem...
...He was searched and found to have no weapon on him...
...No food...
...So at last there is some kind of force working within the government against these annual raises...
...Carter was not there...
...And you can bet that there will be congressmen who, instead of asking why Barnes didn’t get a Polish speaker from the Library of Congress or the Foreign Service Institute, will move to give him enough money to hire fluent translators of every known language so that “this President, this country will never be embarrassed again” . . . Two major stories about the CIA appeared in the press during December...
...Write your congressman...
...The federal government now has 73,000 employees designated GS-14 and GS-15, jobs in which modest responsibility is the rule rather than the exception, and in which the pay ranges from $30,000 to $47,500...
...Opponents said it would cause massive layoffs...
...In spite of the Post’s silence, there is some sign of movement here...
...We think this will have the added benefit of attracting more adventurous types to a government service that the appeal of tenure has packed with cautious people who seek security above all...
...Hardly anyone is being fired, but few workers are making more money...
...The average lieutenant colonel costs you $51,200 per year in salary and fringe benefits...
...employees realize this...
...William Ray was arrested for stealing a $7 pair of shoes...
...Now is the time not only for the media but for the taxpayer to join in...
...Surlier souls might question, however, why Barnes chose a Russian speaker to translate Polish and why he ignored the many fluent speakers of Polish who work for our government, including those in the Slavic Division of the Library of Congress and in the Foreign Service Institute, which is part of Barnes’ own Department of State...
...I find this tragic because it is essential that liberal intellectuals rejoin the defense debate they left for understandable reasons early in the Vietnam war...
...One told of the CIA’s use of reporters, and it, reflecting journalism’s fascination with itself, received major attention...
...During the Christmas holidays, for example, the Carters had a party for the families of the White House staff...
Vol. 9 • February 1978 • No. 12
