The World Is My Home: A Memoir

by James A. Michener

  From a succession of such experiences I was learning how a citizen can lose in an election but win the game. Although I had run in a district from which no Democrat could then have been sent to Congress, the vigor of my campaigning attracted such comment that I was appointed to a series of boards in Washington and found myself close to the heart of government. I must confess that all my appointments came from Republican presidents—the result of a salutary law governing the composition of committees. A board of five appointees, to be confirmed by the Senate, had to consist of no more than three members of the political party in power, the other two coming from either the party out of power or from independents. If the committee had seven members, there had to be three minority; if nine, four. Thus the president had to appoint somebody from the opposition, and I became known as the Democrat with whom Republicans could live. When a Democrat held the presidency his party put forward born-again fire-eaters, so that a moderate like me was no longer needed.

  By a series of accidents I became a prototypical child of my century in that I was thrust into the middle of the struggle between democratic capitalism and Soviet Marxism. In a series of dramatic personal experiences Communism became a familiar opponent and one whose ruthless force I feared and respected.

  • From 1950 through 1953 I reported on the Korean War, witnessing at close quarters the stubborn power of Chinese Communist land forces, the skill of Soviet airmen and the intransigence of the North Korean communists. I was especially concerned with the American soldiers who defected to the communist side and had many opportunities to observe European and Australian citizens who fought with the Chinese Communists and heaped insult upon the Americans.

  • In 1956 I operated behind Russian lines during the Hungarian Revolution, led many freedom fighters to sanctuary in Austria, found homes for them in the United States and wrote an impassioned book about the uprising.

  • In 1963 as a representative of the United States I participated in a remarkable semisecret conference in Leningrad at which I spoke forcefully for the liberation of the three former Baltic republics—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—much to the disgust of the Soviet conferees.

  • In 1964 I traveled widely in the Russian provinces facing Afghanistan, and became aware that all was not well in the Soviet Union’s many Asian republics. It was then that I first voiced a judgment whose validity became more apparent year by year: ‘Russia is extremely vulnerable along her perimeters and in Siberia. If she launches any kind of outward aggression, she runs the risk of revolution in the non-Russian parts of her empire.’

  • In the late 1960s I traveled four times along remote Russian flight lanes, catching glimpses of the distant frontiers, and my impression of fragile borders was intensified.

  • In 1972 I accompanied President Nixon on his visit to Moscow, Iran and Poland, and I proved that I was never going to be a diplomat: At a huge public meeting in Moscow presided over by Ekaterina Furtseva, full-fledged member of the ruling Communist clique, and only female member of the Presidium, I became so outraged by the crude falsehoods she was peddling that I rose in the midst of her worst lies and stalked from the meeting, causing an uproar. Nixon would have been justified in sending me home for having caused a scandal, but a member of his staff confided: ‘You served us well—made points we wanted to make but couldn’t,’ and I was allowed to stay. Not long thereafter, men in the Presidium fed up with Furtseva’s tyrannical ways brought such grave charges against her—that she had expropriated government funds for the enhancement of her private dacha—that she was dismissed, and she died shortly thereafter in disgrace.

  • From 1972 through 1981 I visited Poland nearly a dozen times, making myself familiar with all aspects of life under the Communist dictatorship imposed on that nation by the Soviet Union. At the conclusion of my studies I wrote a novel that depicted the heroism of the Polish people and the bleak harshness of life under Communist rule.

  I thus acquired both a theoretical understanding of Communism and a practical experience of the system as it operated in Hungary, Russia, the non-Russian republics, Korea and Poland. I had combated the evil effects of Communism during my work with the Friends of Asia, had fought against it twice militarily in Hungary and in Korea, and had lived under its rule in Poland. But my intensive study of this twentieth-century phenomenon began when the United States government appointed me to a series of boards whose specific job it was to fight Communism. I would spend a quarter of a century at this task.

  I was initially chosen for this kind of work by an exceptional man, one of those largely silent behind-the-scenes people who account for so much of what happens in government. Frank Shakespeare was a television executive whose personal politics made Genghis Khan and Bill Buckley seem like free-wheeling liberals. A graduate of Holy Cross, he was a medium-sized, onetime redhead with an ingratiating manner, a disarming Irish smile and a positive passion for aiming at the jugular. We would become trusted friends, a strange pair whose association began in the 1960s because the law required that he select some Democrat for an advisory board he controlled; I doubt if he was happy about taking me on, but he had learned that I was forthright in my Democratic allegiance and able to work at least as hard as he did. I found joy in watching him spin his webs and on several occasions have spoken strong words of endorsement in his behalf when he sought promotions, first to the ambassadorship in Portugal, later to the influential position as the president’s personal representative at the Vatican.

  I first met him when he was the pugnacious head of the United States Information Service, whose task it was to show foreign nations the constructive aspects of American life. Frank interpreted this as a directive to fight the Soviet Union, which, as a devout Catholic and confirmed supporter of capitalism he identified as the enemy. Had he been allowed by his advisory board, of which he made me a member, I do believe he would have invaded the three captive Baltic states in a rowboat.

  The board that Shakespeare assembled was evaluated as ‘unquestionably the most effective and best-run advisory board in the nation.’ This was due not to any contribution I made, for I was very much the junior member, but to the rare skill demonstrated by its chairman, Frank Stanton, in running it. Of all the men I have known, Stanton utilized the highest percentage of whatever natural intelligence he was given at birth. I once calculated that he used about 96 percent of his abiliities, whereas I used no more than 56 percent of mine. He was soft-spoken, organized, incredibly swift in comprehending ideas and masterly in putting them into execution. To have known him was a privilege; to have worked with him for four or five years, an education.

  His number two man when I came aboard was William F. Buckley, Jr., the right-wing ideologue and one of the funniest, most delightful and outrageous men in the nation. He and I were about as far apart politically as two men could be, but I held him in the warmest regard. Savagely brilliant and devastating in his witty dismissal of bores, he was one of the young men most influential in helping to swing the nation far to the right, a sinful performance for which I suppose God will forgive him, for he convinced me that God was of course both a Catholic and a conservative.

  The third member was George Gallup, the pollster, an avuncular man with a wealth of accumulated wisdom and a gracious manner of presenting it. He surprised me by his extensive knowledge of nations other than the United States, information that he used when trying to determine American habits of thought. He spoke cautiously, but when some topic touched a deeply held opinion, he could be formidable, and he had a keen, practical sense of what radio broadcasting could accomplish in a cold war.

  The fourth member was a longtime friend and delightful companion, Hobart Lewis, editor in chief of the Reader’s Digest. Slow-spoken and conciliatory, Hobe always voiced the sensible conservative interpretation of a subject, but listened attentively if Stanton and I tried to knock it down. He was extremely knowledgeable and a stalwart supporter to have on one’s side. When President Nixon visited in the Northeast, he oft
en stayed with Lewis, who had been most active in Nixon’s two campaigns for the presidency. In the bad summer of 1974 when Nixon was on the ropes, Hobe and I visited the White House with a bipartisan plan that might have enabled him to crawl out from under the mounting tragedy of Watergate. Hobe, understandably, wanted to help a friend; I sought to protect the office of the presidency, and I think we might have made some small contribution. But Rose Mary Woods, his personal secretary, told us: ‘He’s in terrible isolation. Sees no one but Bebe Rebozo. Not even Cabinet members can get in to see him. John Connally’s been trying for days.’ The solid counsel that Lewis wanted to give strengthened by my effort to line up Democrats who had the welfare of the nation at heart, was not allowed to be delivered, and when we retreated from the White House we knew that resignation had become inescapable.

  Stanton’s committee met each month in a suite at the Madison Hotel: on Sunday night we met with some important official of the government; at breakfast on Monday we were briefed by a major figure from the administration; and at luncheon we had as our guest a head of some major agency involved in work related to ours. Thus, in the years I served, I listened each year to some forty men such as David Packard of Defense, Elmo Zumwalt of the Navy, Pete Petersen of Commerce and Lawrence Eagleburger of State. The two lunches I remember best were the occasions when we listened to the strong and reassuring comments of John Ehrlichman of Mr. Nixon’s staff, who would soon be in the headlines, and when I spoke warmly of Thomas Jefferson, only to be told by our guest Irving Kristol: ‘I consider Jefferson to be one of the principal enemies of our nation and a man whose every idea ought to be combated.’ I remember replying somewhat weakly: ‘We seem to have a difference of opinion,’ but he ignored me.

  While on this board I visited as an informal inspector some nine different countries and covered myself with glory in a certain place where one of our young men was in considerable trouble and was about to be fired. I was known as a board member to whom staffers could apply for a second hearing, and after I had spent two days listening to this chap’s lament about his mistreatment by an unfeeling superior and satisfying myself that he had indeed been abused, I wrote a strong report urging reconsideration, which was granted, saving the young man’s career. Half a year later our inspector-general came to me and said without rancor: ‘Michener, remember the staffer whose neck you saved? Against my recommendations? You might be interested in this follow-up,’ and while he waited I read a harrowing statement. The young man, euphoric at having beaten the system with my assistance, had gone wild. He had cursed the head of the mission, slugged an assistant and been thrown out of a local disco bar, at whose exit door he tried to assault a policeman. ‘Rather high spirits,’ I said, but the inspector tapped the paper I was holding: ‘Read the next part,’ and I recall this is what it said: ‘When we learned that he was spending far more money than his salary would warrant, we started an investigation and found that he was photographing his wife, Lucille, nude and in various interesting poses, developing the prints in our darkroom and selling them to local students.’ Folding the papers neatly, I handed them back and said no more.

  Under Stanton’s guidance, our board did its best to give our agency good counsel in its fight against Communism. We suffered some disastrous mishandling of certain problems that we hastened to correct, but my worst memory is of our libraries abroad—those centers where local young people and university professors had access to the books about America that they needed—being severely bombed or blown to pieces. It astounded me that citizens of an undeveloped country, who need all the information and wisdom they could gather, would wantonly destroy the very agency that could help them. Often as the news reached headquarters concerning this or that library’s destruction, I would visualize the carefully arranged reading room, the neat chairs, the rows of excellent books available to all who entered, and I would feel a deep sadness at the stupidity that had prompted such crimes. But never in my work for USIS did I doubt the value of what we were attempting abroad, because our enemies recognized the importance of keeping their own people in ignorance of our ideas based on freedom and democracy so that they could more easily enslave them. I was proud to be a soldier in such honorable warfare.

  My next assignment brought me once again in conflict with the Soviet Union, for I was given an advisory job close to the high command of NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration). I was the layman on this board of the world’s foremost scientists and technical experts and I spent the years breathlessly trying to catch up, for almost every concept mentioned in our discussions was far more complex than anything I had ever dealt with before. I studied endlessly. I visited most of the NASA bases inspecting men and machines. I worked in the great laboratories. I tried out many of the training devices, watched launches, worked in control rooms, and came to know many of the second and third groups of astronauts who followed the first seven. At the end of my self-imposed training period, which lasted three full years, I understood our space program about as thoroughly as an average layman could, but far below the level of people like Walter Cronkite and Jules Bergman of television who had specialized in the field, and, of course, eons behind the great astronomers and astrophysicists who directed the program, but I did try to pull my weight.

  In this work I was constantly reminded that in many areas of space exploration and utilization the Soviet Union was far ahead of us, a fact that most laymen did not appreciate. Russia had put the first satellite into orbit, Sputnik; the first man, Yuri Gagarin; and the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova. Its unmanned flights had been the first to bring samples back from the moon and first to photograph and name the features on the far side of that body. They had led, too, in explorations of Venus, had performed well with Mars, and had accomplished staggering feats of prolonged manned flight in space, far exceeding anything we did.

  Mindful of our lagging in certain aspects of space exploration, I was exultant about our great triumphs: men walking on the surface of the moon, robotic landings on Mars, explorations of the far edges of our solar system, probes into the galaxy, and constant adventures into areas of space into which the Russians could not go because their technology was not sufficiently advanced. But, as in all our confrontations with the Russians, I had to be grudgingly admiring of their accomplishments and regretful that we seemed destined to be enemies instead of friends.

  Periodically NASA assembled some thirty or forty of the best-qualified people in the nation to spend a couple of weeks together at some remote spot like Woods Hole and speculate on what space exploration might look like a quarter of a century down the line, and this was an exciting exercise. Nothing was too bizarre for us to speculate upon, but when our ideas were palpably absurd, they were either ignored or quickly disposed of. I worked in these sessions with some of the most scintillating minds I have ever known, men who lived constantly not on the frontier but infinitely beyond it, and I was awed by the power of their conceptions.

  More than a decade before the idea of Star Wars surfaced in public, we studied available analyses of its basic principles and concluded that because of the magnitude of the space to be covered and the concentration of power required in each segment, the concept was not viable. I remember that several specific objections, some of which were too abstruse for me, were lodged against it, any one of which would disqualify it, but I am speaking only of the techniques and levels of information then available.

  I gave my unflagging support to the idea of constructing a master computer, enormous in size and capacity, that would enable planners in all fields to attack a host of problems simultaneously. Its potential was best defined by an airplane designer who said: ‘One of the greatest problems in designing an airplane is to determine how air will behave when it flows over the leading edge of the plane. Using a most intricate set of equations, we can analyze the problem for any specific point in the edge—wing tip, engine nacelle, cabin, Pitot tube area—but we obviously cannot afford to analyze all the points, f
or they are innumerable. So what we do is agree upon ten to twelve significant ones and extrapolate for the distances between. Now with the computer we’re talking about we could analyze all the points simultaneously and produce an airplane completely suited to flying nose first through the air, no matter how violently its passage disturbs that air.’

  We wanted that computer, but the scientists pointed out a major difficulty: ‘To house the paperwork it would generate, or even the tapes on which the data were recorded, would require a set of buildings enormous in size.’ When I asked how big the computer itself would have to be, they said: ‘Not too big, of manageable size, but its capacity to generate data endlessly would be awesome. Especially if it were associated with the new space telescope.’

  This gigantic telescope was to be inserted into a permanent orbit far above the atmosphere, whose elements disturb even the most powerful earthbound telescopes, which must waste much of their power simply penetrating the first score of miles. It would ride high in a region where nothing would impede its capacity to gather information from distances many times greater than those available to present telescopes. Even though I have been a galaxy connoisseur most of my adult life and know them as familiar neighbors, I cannot even guess what marvels await us when this great telescope starts to function. It will reveal wonders of which we have not dreamed, configurations which will bedazzle us and call for new theories of the universe, and it will bring even laymen pictures to tease and delight.*

  One problem agitated NASA continuously: ‘Should we specialize in manned space travel so heavily when unmanned exploration could be cheaper, less dangerous and more productive?’ In something I wrote I postulated a debate between a scientist who plumped, as most do, for unmanned flight and a political leader, who had to pay the bills, who sponsored manned flight. I did my best to maintain an impartial position between them and shall do so here.