TILTING AT WINDMILLS

...The latest example comes from California, where Henry Kissinger spoke to the Santa Clara County Dental Society...

...It takes," says the AAA, "an 80,000-pound truck traveling 55 miles per hour between 225 and 275 feet to stop on dry pavement...

...When the campaign is over, they are expected to gratefully accept their certificate of appreciation from the League of Women Voters and leave almost all the work of government to the technocrats of the civil service...

...Their greatest fear is fucking up...

...But we also miss the important truths...

...Is it, "I just work here...

...the first place...

...You may recall our recent items expressing concern about the large numbers of accidents caused by giant tractor-trailer trucks and the large number of medals given by the Army for service in Grenada...

...That same House report revealed that the poorest man in the House is David Bonior...

...Kim Davis, a friend of our editors, has a solution for this problem: Let the government provide rent-free housing for each congressman in Washington, but only so long as he is a member...

...hose movie stars who devote so much of their time to charity-what wonderful, big-hearted people they must be...

...He would speak the same words, but he would be sobbing...

...One is simply that they have bought a house here that has become their home...

...One of my recurring fantasies is that some night I'll sneak into the advertising agency that makes those Brim coffee commercials and reshoot the one that has the father proudly saying, "I never thought my baby daughter would grow up to be a lawyer...

...He was working for the White House as Bill Moyers's deputy, and since Johnson was an enthusiastic advocate of the bombing, his subordinates had to support it loyally in public...

...Why not...

...Hope is, in fact, one of the richest men in Hollywood...

...And there is no truth federal agencies are more desperate to conceal from Congress...

...When McNamara was shown affidavits from intelligence and military officers saying they had lied and suppressed information about enemy troop strength, he said it was "inconceivable...

...The cover article was "Moscow's Real Secret Weapon," which was the enormous amount of credit Western banks had extended to Russia and other Eastern bloc countries...

...For those of you who thought high tech would balance our loss of exports in traditional industries like autos and steel, the American Electronics Association reports that "the already shrinking U.S...

...They seem in constant attendance at events for one good cause or another...

...The result is that as the enlisted man begins to answer the reporter's question, he looks into the steely eyes of a major from the public affairs section-with predictable results...

...The truth is that the agency got more money than it needs...

...It stated that Tip O'Neill and Dan Rostenkowski, one of the most powerful committee chairmen in the House, had each received a $2,000 honorarium from Hanley's union...

...So the orders go out to spend and spend...

...Yet various departments of the government continue to spend millions on shuttle buses for their employees that run between these same places...

...They select the same kinds of people with the same values, people who, like the owners, have little desire to grab the world by the lapels and say here are the important truths you must understand if we are to save this country and the world...

...West European banks recently extended another $250 million loan to Russia, which already owed the West $28.7 billion...

...How many trucks have you observed traveling closer, much closer, to you...

...Today fewer than 1 percent of the jobs in the federal government are available to the people who campaign for a presidential candidate...

...There is not a Henry Luce among them...

...The part of The Washington Monthly's gospel that is most resisted by the respectable world is our advocacy of political patronage...

...Listen to this one: "No responsible military official would ever withhold information from a superior that conceivably could bear on the superior's rightful decision-making power...

...Metro sounds pretty good on a day it doesn't rain," State's Brian Carlson told The New York Times...

...The argument was heated, and I turned to Hayes for support...

...Today's press lords don't think that way...

...That means the reporters are talking to people who have maximum interest in covering up what's wrong...

...Believe it or not...

...Did Hanley make a ringing denial of the allegations...

...I challenge them this year, while there's still time, to wake up and do something for a change...

...A few of these celebrities may be down on their luck and actually need the money...

...I've been thinking about the tragedy of Lebanon...

...After all, she says, Mondale is the candidate of the liberal special interest groups...

...Without that kind of desire we are spared the stories of Chiang Kai Shek's mighty armies poised to retake mainland China if only Washington will unleash them...

...But occasionally, as with a biting description of an inept U.S...

...Reed reminds me of a tactic the public affairs people will use when they're trying to give the appearance of candor-the "We'll show you anything you want to see-just name it" treatment...

...My wife and I had been invited to dinner by the Hayes Redmons...

...Not quite...

...Such rigor is long gone from the process of teacher selection in urban schools...

...Citizens are urged to participate in politics as lobotomized drones who dutifully hand out leaflets and push doorbells, but who aren't supposed to have anything to do with carrying out the policies for which they have worked...

...One of State's shuttle routes is the looniest of them all...

...Smith Barney, the brokerage firm, publishes a booklet called "Tax Shelters The Basics...

...Also, CBS, as a news organization, had a responsibility to reveal, not conceal, its own officials' doubts about the show, most especially the fact that Howard Stringer, its executive producer, had said, "I should never have hired him to do it in...

...And can anyone doubt that Willkie was a better Republican candidate in 1940 than Dewey or Taft would have been...

...The day after this hearing, the House of Representatives issued a financial disclosure report...

...No matter how great a humanitarian Bob must be, he can't do them all for free...

...If you can stand one more Vietnam item that makes you weep, consider this from William Sullivan's recently published memoir, Obligato...

...According to the San Jose Mercury News, "The state Board of Dental Examiners is planning to count the speech as two units of course credit in its continuing education program," and the IRS said that a tax deduction "almost certainly would be allowed if the dental board accepts the course credits...

...The civil service has erected a wall of separation between politics and policy...

...And remember, this is just Russia we're talking about...

...But what are we to think when Bob Hope's publicity agent says, "Let's face it...

...But there is much more unconscious bias-and much...

...For if Congress understood what had happened, it would be likely to reduce next year's appropriations, especially when that sum represents an increase, on the ground that the agency couldn't even use what it received last year...

...The staff was more likely to gild lilies, with the gilding becoming increasingly artful as one went up the ladder to the top of the organization, reaching its peak in the public affairs office and the director's office...

...Turpin-Forster is not surprised that NOW is supporting Mondalesending out mailings with NOW logos on the envelope and letterhead but with a reply envelope for the check addressed to the Mondale for President Committee...

...Patently inept or crooked contractors are implored to accept orders...

...So they select staffs that are not likely to embarrass them...

...They're eating away the income you thought you were getting from those higher interest rates...

...The former secretary of defense finally furnishes the proof that in crucial respects he was a fool...

...Beginning with our third issue, in 1969, we have been trying to educate members of Congress, journalists, and political scientists about this phenomenon in the hope that they would begin to expose the practice and bring it to a halt...

...He is also, by the way, an able and thoughtful congressman...

...Here is an update on both...

...But I don't think he'll win unless he declares his independence from these groups...

...As I talked, I realized that this person, even though not enthusiastic about Mondale, was not going to do what I was suggesting, indeed could not even contemplate striding into the newsroom and announcing a major series on anything...

...In the process, absurd waste occurs...

...Does Burns really think such a prospect is going to stir the souls of our ablest men and women...

...TILTING AT WINDMILLS Fred Reed is a conservative columnist for the conservative Washington Times...

...Continuing education" requirements were enacted by state legislatures...

...Sullivan was on the North Vietnam team under Taylor...

...And then they gave it all up for the joys of religious and political warfare...

...But it tilted too far in the direction of suggesting deliberate conspiracy and did not sufficiently recognize the powerful role bureaucracy and stupidity played...

...Several years ago there was a movement to do something about the fact that a lot of doctors and dentists did not keep up with the-latest developments in their fields...

...This is a profound observation, of which most journalists seem sadly unaware...

...Its members are called celebrity brokers...

...Corporal, does the XM-327 Whoopeedoop work?' `Beats me...

...They went right to work presiding over the increasing American involvement in the quagmire and helped make their game become reality...

...Recently in a review for The Boston Globe of James MacGregor Burns's The Power to Lead, I had occasion to try once more...

...I hoped that, because he had been in the Air Force, he would know about the studies made after World War II that showed how ineffective our bombing had been in reducing the war effort of a Germany that was far more urbanized and industrialized and thus far more susceptible to bombing damage than Vietnam...

...My friend Shela Turpin-Forster thinks this is a terrible idea and I agree...

...The other guests were the bureau chief of a national news magazine and his wife...

...Reed explains: "Enlisted men know what is going on and are politically unreliable-i.e., they answer questions...

...Code provides that the chief circuit judge shall hold annual conferences of the judges of the circuit in active service...

...Veteran readers may recall our June 1980 cover with a smiling Brezhnev holding an American Express card and saying, "Don't Leave Home Without It" in Cyrillic...

...Nevertheless, I will of course support him if he's nominated, because he's better than Reagan...

...It runs every 15 minutes between State's main building in Foggy Bottom and its satellite offices in Rosslyn, Virginia...

...Why should the public affairs officers want to do that...

...There is certainly a good side to this fact-we are spared the incredible distortions that Time and Life used to be guilty of in the service of Luce's various causes...

...Amidst the surrounding turmoil, it was an island of peace and prosperity...

...The Pentagon alone operates 17 different shuttle routes, including vans or buses every 20 minutes or so to Capitol Hill and the State Department...

...Carlson has not heard of a device called the umbrella...

...This reflects the fact that their owners see themselves as stewards, not as messiahs...

...The game showed that by 1972 the North would dominate most of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and would succeed in tying down 500,000 American troops in an unwinnable quagmire...

...In a last-ditch effort to get publicity for the dark-horse alternatives to Mondale, I tried to persuade one of our most powerful press lords to do a series on Bumpers, Biden, and Cuomo...

...The Washington subway was built with several billion dollars of government money...

...Here is what I said: If we want good people to go into politics in large numbers, we must give them a chance not only to select a candidate but to serve under him in the government, helping him put into practice the programs for which they campaigned...

...It happened in 1966...

...His column is called "Soldiering" and is usually sympathetic to the military...

...As often happened in those days, an argument about Vietnam quickly came to dominate the evening...

...The result, however, as our readers know, has been something other than the reformers intended...

...He was asked to respond to allegations that he had padded union payrolls, become president through the influence of organized crime, and made loans of more than $6 million of union money to his friends and others associated with organized crime-loans that had not been repaid to the union...

...Have you noticed those extra charges that are cropping up on your bank statements...

...In the beginning these meetings were held in courthouses around the circuit...

...As for those trucks, a recent article in the American Automobile Association's magazine points out why you have good reason to be terrified when one of those monsters looms in your rearview mirror...

...This means that even he gets "the treatment" from the Pentagon's publications officers...

...When I visited it in the sixties, it was the Switzerland of the Middle East...

...The depositions from the LBJ Westmoreland case are providing some fascinating footnotes to history...

...Smith Barney notwithstanding, I have come to the conclusion that greed is not the dominant motive in human beings...

...They are," it advises, "based on law and are not meant to be measured against standards of fairness or morality...

...The judgment of a tax shelter must be based on its economic viability as an investment, not on its acceptance as socially desirable...

...He has no assets, liabilities, or income for 1983 beyond his salary of $69,358...

...They take along all the retired judges, even though you will recall that the statute clearly says "active judges!' .. . In May, Edward Hanley, the president of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers International Union, testified before the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations...

...He would then be more likely to run for Congress in the first place, if he was one of those David Boniors, who have no outside income and can't see how they can afford to maintain two residences...

...The treatment involves keeping reporters away from enlisted men...

...This is the time to strike, because while the actual spending sins usually take place in September, the pressure behind them almost always begin to build in July, when agencies discover that they haven't come close to spending the money Congress gave them for this fiscal year...

...There is less conscious bias in the mainline press today because of this lack of Luces...

...The subway travels the same route and takes only three minutes, plus a three-block walk at each end...

...One wonders what Dan Rather and the rest of our heroes at CBS News think about this...

...If, on the other hand, they sought out people like enlisted men and Peace Corps volunteers, they would find sources who mostly thought of themselves as spending two years or so with the organization, did not have career interests to protect, and thus had no reason to try to cover their asses...

...If what the rest of the Eastern Bloc owes the West is added, the total debt would rank ahead of Brazil's or Mexico's...

...So in 1977 the conference was held in Hawaii, in 1978 at the Camelback Inn in Arizona, in 1979 at Sun Valley, in 1980 at Monterey, in 1981 at Jackson Hole, in 1982 at the Del Coronado Hotel in San Diego, and in 1983 back to Hawaii...

...I later found out, however, that, behind the scenes, both Moyers and Redmon were fighting the bombing, using Carver's reports as ammunition Another fascinating deposition comes from Robert McNamara...

...Well, it's true they do a lot of charity work, but, according to The Wall Street Journal's Bill Johnson, a lot of them are paid for their trouble...

...Perhaps Mr...

...And that's not so good...

...Charles Peters...

...For a fee they make the connection between the charity and the star...

...I was against the bombing, the bureau chief was for it...

...For example, over the past ten years, the cost of processing a bad check has gone down-from 78 cents to 36 cents-because of automation...

...The dentists paid $65 to hear him discuss such subjects as Central America and the need for a bipartisan foreign policy...

...My guess is that CBS is in danger of losing the suit, and that's a shame because the broadcast was mostly right...

...The solution to this problem is higher pay, not for the bad teachers, but only for the good teachers, and for new teachers hired by standards as rigorous as those that tested Roslyn Olitsky...

...When I was working at the Peace Corps during the sixties and my job was to find out what the organization was doing right and wrong, I repeatedly found that the volunteers were my best source...

...The prediction was uncannily accurate...

...As most readers of this magazine know, the September Spending Spree occurs not just at the Pentagon but at most other federal agencies as well...

...And the charges are often inflated well above what the service they reflect actually costs the bank to peform...

...more similarity of point of view-in Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and other leading papers...

...When Roslyn Olitsky began teaching in the public schools of New York City 30 years ago, teachers, she recently told The New York Times, were required to take rigorous examinations, including a six-hour written test with essays, an oral interview before a board of examiners, and teaching an assigned subject to a strange class with only 40 minutes' preparation...

...Tax deductions were allowed so as to encourage the process...

...But Hayes remained silent...

...Of course, he had to...

...The result is that a lot of bad teachers have replaced the Roslyn Olitskys...

...The Office of Management and Budget," reports Army Times, "has found that the Pentagon bent or ignored rules in order to spend $6.8 billion in the last weeks of September 1983...

...This choice has the effect of further discouraging the kind of contact with constituents that is vital if a congressman is to represent them well...

...He answered one question, giving his home address in Antioch, Illinois, and then proceeded to invoke the Fifth Amendment on every other question, 35 times in all...

...This reminded me of an incident in my own life that illustrates the complex undercurrents of Washington...

...Yet the people who should do something about this outrage-those congressmen, journalists, and political scientists I was talking about-usually sleep through the period...

...This happens because often congressmen cannot afford to own houses both in their districts and in Washington, and, since they have to be in Washington most of the time, they choose to have their main residence here and to maintain only an apartment or an occasional hotel room in their district...

...If organizations like NOW imitate the National Rifle Associations of this world and threaten to oppose all candidates who do not give them unquestioning support, there is no hope of getting a Congress with backbone...

...And you know what sticklers for the law those judges are...

...Not only are their expenses -including limousines, fancy hotels, and first-class air fares-taken care of, but fees of as much as $50,000 are paid...

...On the other hand, there is no one saying the people need to know about Bumpers as Luce said they needed to know about Willkie...

...To handle all this business, a new profession has sprung up in Hollywood...

...The Lebanese were growing richer by the day...

...Our efforts have not been rewarded with much success...

...One by George Carver, a highly respected CIA offical in the sixties, was reported in The New York Times: "Officials of the Central Intelligence Agency concluded in 1966 and 1967 that United States bombing in North Vietnam was not only ineffective but also left the North Vietnamese with more transport and other assets than they had before the bombs began to fall...

...To have the courage to vote his convictions, a congressman has to believe that his constituents will vote for him on his overall record, not on the basis of his stand on a single issue...

...It connects such places as Capitol Hill, the State Department, and the Pentagon with trains that are fast, frequent, and comfortable...

...We've never been able' to get it started.' " "The truth," Reed continues, "is at E-5 and below...

...Last year the National Organization for Women (NOW) began screening a television commercial that showed a cigarette and a handgun, with a voice overlay saying that they have two of the most powerful lobbies in Washington and that women needed the same kind of representation...

...So what did the participants in this prophetic venture proceed to do...

...Warehouses begin to bulge with enough paper clips and wastebaskets to last a thousand years...

...Yet it was to those two sources that most reporters went in those days, and still do, in covering most government agencies...

...If elected, he would be more likely to visit his home district because he would still have a home there...

...This puts the Soviet Union right behind Brazil and Mexico in the rank of world-debtors with similar power to collapse Western banks...

...Section 333 of Title 28 of the U.S...

...But the practice is so wasteful that I feel we should try once more...

...As to the medals, Jeffrey Record points out that while we handed out 8,633 medals to the 7,000 Army officers and men who participated in Grenada, the British distributed only 679 medals to the 28,000 soldiers, sailors, and airmen who participated in the Falklands invasion where the going was, to put it mildly, considerably tougher, with 255 lives lost compared to our 18 in Grenada...

...Most of today's teachers, according to the Times, are drawn from the bottom quarter of their freshman class...

...But gradually the jurists began to more fully perceive the potential delights inherent in the fact that the government footed the bill for their travel and expenses for the conferences...

...And, if he is defeated, he would be less likely to stay in Washington, where it's likely all he would do is swell the ranks of Washington lobbyists, whose number is already far too legion...

...Yet the average bank has doubled the amount it charges for such checks from $5 to $10, with some banks now charging their customers as much as $20...

...That," he said, "is not the nature of a Government...

...A similar situation exists in state and local governments...

...It seems that in 1963 there was a secret war game sponsored by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in which the players were not second-teamers but men like John McCone and Maxwell Taylor...

...export balance of trade for electronics and information technology products virtually disappeared in 1983" The export balance (over imports) was $4.8 billion in 1981, $3.5 billion in '82, and only $.1 billion last year...

...There are a number of reasons why congressmen tend to remain in Washington after they have been defeated at the polls...

...Our stars for this month are the distinguished federal judges of the ninth circuit...

...What they do is accompany the reporter on his interviews, just as a matter of courtesy, of course...

...I should have known I couldn't get fair journalism off him" Since "him" is George Crile, the show's principal reporter, this statement comes close to being the case's smoking gun, and the fact that CBS had concealed such doubts about the show is perilously similar to what it would call a coverup by anyone else...

...Again, I agree with her...

...Army outfit in Europe, he writes something critical...

...And now for the latest from the conference circuit...