Letters
Letters Memo of the Month [Our October Memo reported that skin rashes were developed by some members of the President’s party during their recent visit to China, due to contact with lacquer...
...Political Book Notes Your note on my book Both Your Houses [September] calls it “A Hedda Hopper of the Hill...
...Including the other side might have made it a much better story...
...But picking at errors misses the point...
...Actually, the role of the Office of Inspection was limited...
...The Shriver Prescription My congratulations to John Rothchild and Jack Gonzales and the Monthly for their excellent piece on “The Shriver Prescription: How the Government Can Find Out What It’s Doing” [Novemb.er] . There is more wisdom in that article than in the last 10 issues of the American Political Science Review combined...
...policy...
...The physician-writer allegedly discovered that poison ivy juice was regularly used as a catalyst or hardener for fine oriental lacquers...
...But it also includes about 15 other chapters dealing seriously, if not ponderously, with the perilous state to which Congress has fallen and what can be done about it...
...Both ran in scores of national publications and were seen by I don’t know how many millions of readers...
...Washington, D. C. The editor replies: We were wrong...
...As a CAP person, I valued and respected Inspectors like Mr...
...CHRISTOPHER H. PYLE New York, N. Y. As a former CAP Field Representative in the Atlanta Region from 1965 to 1967, I was concerned by some of the observations in the article, “The Shriver Prescription...
...It served as a troubleshooter and early warning system for problems of politics and public relations...
...But it would be a quantum jump to suggest that it improved the lives of the poor by making CAP more effective...
...And his statement that “Bell advertisements have so identified operators as women that it is hard for the public to imagine a man in the job” is also outdated and completely ignores a campaign which includes full-page ads of a male operator at work, and a woman installer on a telephone pole...
...LEO FISHMAN Washington, D. C. Fair Emulovment ~ As a charter subscriber and long time admirer of The Washington Monthly, I was unhappy to read your story in the December issue, “Fair Employment: The Machinery Continues to Rust” [by Timothy H. Ingram...
...Truthfully, success varied directly with the commitment and capability of local communities, and there was little that any of us could do about it...
...These procedures are unique, so far as I know, in industry or government...
...Timothy Ingram, apparently talked to various government people who for one reason or another questioned the validity of our intentions...
...Rivalry in which virtuous Inspectors defeated evil CAP bureaucrats was neither as all-prevailing nor as positively influential as implied by the article...
...WARREN WEAVER, JR...
...While inspectors may save us from General Lavelle or even Lieutenant Calley, I don’t think they can ever end the war...
...Gonzales, who were men of unusual ability and dedication...
...by Jack Gonzales and John Rothchild...
...Drags up every manipulation, fornication, and fraud known to the Congress...
...But Ingram got only the one side...
...Principally, it seems unwarranted, in light of the OEO experience, to characterize an Office of Inspection, like deus ex muchina, as the savior of bureaucracy...
...Unfortunately, in the reprint the table of contents, on the reverse side of the cover, was printed upside down...
...It is doubtful, however, that any of us in OEO had a significant impact on the quality of the CAP antipoverty effort...
...My book does include a chapter on the fighting, drinking and sex habits of members of Congress over the years, heretofore largely unreported...
...WINSTON MCNAMARA Springfield, Va...
...Letters Memo of the Month [Our October Memo reported that skin rashes were developed by some members of the President’s party during their recent visit to China, due to contact with lacquer toilet seats.] Some time ago I encountered a report of a severe skin rash that always followed exposure to fresh lacquer fumes in an oriental bazaar...
...The size of the print order must have been at least 40,000 since the pamphlet was to be given out to all employees in 58 district offices...
...The point is that Bell System’s affirmative action plans spell out specific procedures to assure every individual equal opportunity to choose a career and advance as far along that chosen path as skill and ambition take him-or her...
...This provided valuable protection for the program on Capitol Hill, in State Houses, and at City Hall...
...CHARLES E. DYNES Washington, D. C. Charles Dynes is Information Director for American Telephone and Telegraph Company...
...IRS first had to reprint the pamphlet cover because of a mistake in the wording of the name of the employee union (National Association of Internal Revenue Employees...
...For example, with rare exceptions, such as restroom attendants, Bell today has no sex-typed jobs, and no “dual hiring system...
...If the writer had checked with me, I would have been able to point out several errors...
...Outside of Washington where most of the CAP development work took place, we cooperated...
...Such is the background of our foreign ARNDT VON HIPPEL Anchorage, Alaska Being an Internal Revenue Service alumnus I called a retired (also IRS) friend about your November IRS item [“Memo of the Month”] and learned there was even more to the story...
...This seems to be roughly the equivalent of assigning an unfamiliar critic the Old Testament, having him open it to the Song of Solomon and conclude that it was a book about breasts...
...Your writer, Mr...
...Maybe IRS needs a tax-payer audit...
Vol. 4 • January 1973 • No. 11
