[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah. Okay. That's nice. What about, you know, the football game this weekend, that sort of stuff. But, and, uh, I was, I was aware of the differences culturally in terms of shopping. You know, I did, I grew up in an agricultural area, so I was familiar with farmers markets and so on. And that was not a whole lot different over there. But that's all it was. When I, when I got home, I remembered that supermarkets were big, but it hit me and it still hits me.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And the one thing that has lasted with me is the driving. Not being able to drive in the Peace Corps was one thing, but when I did get to ride with other drivers, they drove sensibly. The ones I rode with, they drove sensibly within the speed limit, courteous to other people, letting other people pull out of driveways, or stopping if there were animals in the road or whatever. And over here, everyone's aggressive. And when I, when I came home, that really hit me. That really hit me. And I was disoriented even in my own community. I remembered where things were, but I forgot how to get there.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[User] So, um. But even to this day now, I returned home in the end of November of 2013, so that was six years ago now. Will be six years ago. Um, I still drive more sensibly.

[Assistant] Hmm. How did Peace Corps change your life?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So, um. But even to this day now, I returned home in the end of November of 2013, so that was six years ago now. Will be six years ago. Um, I still drive more sensibly.

[Assistant] Hmm. How did Peace Corps change your life?

[User]
In many ways, one is realizing that governments are corrupt everywhere. And I'm not, I'm not necessarily pointing a finger at Macedonian government, but everywhere I went and talked with people within the, while I was in the Peace Corps, and in Israel. And hearing the news differently, you know, it made me, uh, what is it? More distant, less caring about some of the craziness that goes on in this country. Um, I'm still concerned about everything that goes on, but in a, in a more objective way.

Um, uh, politically, I'm definitely independent. I'm concerned about how schools are run now. I wasn't concerned before because I was distant from them. I was actively involved in the schools when my children were small, but we were in a good school district. You know, um, I was very actively involved. And my children were in classes, when they graduated from high school their class size was over 600. But, but the teachers and the principals knew my name.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] Um, I was at meetings at my, my children's school where there were only like six other parents in a class size of 600. You know, that's, that was sad for me. So locally now I try to encourage parents to be more involved. Um, and maybe it got me more community minded, being in the Peace Corps, and more grassroots community minded. I even say to people, you can be involved.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah. How long were you home before you volunteered to do a Response job?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
In many ways, one is realizing that governments are corrupt everywhere. And I'm not, I'm not necessarily pointing a finger at Macedonian government, but everywhere I went and talked with people within the, while I was in the Peace Corps, and in Israel. And hearing the news differently, you know, it made me, uh, what is it? More distant, less caring about some of the craziness that goes on in this country. Um, I'm still concerned about everything that goes on, but in a, in a more objective way.

Um, uh, politically, I'm definitely independent. I'm concerned about how schools are run now. I wasn't concerned before because I was distant from them. I was actively involved in the schools when my children were small, but we were in a good school district. You know, um, I was very actively involved. And my children were in classes, when they graduated from high school their class size was over 600. But, but the teachers and the principals knew my name.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] Um, I was at meetings at my, my children's school where there were only like six other parents in a class size of 600. You know, that's, that was sad for me. So locally now I try to encourage parents to be more involved. Um, and maybe it got me more community minded, being in the Peace Corps, and more grassroots community minded. I even say to people, you can be involved.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah. How long were you home before you volunteered to do a Response job?

[User] Well, I was home no more than about three months before I started looking on the internet.

[Assistant] Uh huh. And why? What, what got you thinking I want to go?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I was home no more than about three months before I started looking on the internet.

[Assistant] Uh huh. And why? What, what got you thinking I want to go?

[User] Actually, I was staying involved in the internet to see what was happening with the cohort that I had been with and so on and exchanging a lot of things. But no, when I came back to resume retirement, I realized that I really didn't want to do nothing. I wanted to be active. And I was a volunteer at the local library and a volunteer at the YMCA and trying to do things in my neighborhood and so on. But it just, it just wasn't enough. I felt a little empty about that.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] Um, so the Response program of the, of the Peace Corps, I saw things about it and I was intrigued by it. I didn't want to serve another 27 months particularly, and my kids and my wife at that point were opposed to it. They were, they were very supportive of the fact that I did go in the Peace Corps, but it was.

[Assistant] Enough's enough, Dad.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Actually, I was staying involved in the internet to see what was happening with the cohort that I had been with and so on and exchanging a lot of things. But no, when I came back to resume retirement, I realized that I really didn't want to do nothing. I wanted to be active. And I was a volunteer at the local library and a volunteer at the YMCA and trying to do things in my neighborhood and so on. But it just, it just wasn't enough. I felt a little empty about that.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] Um, so the Response program of the, of the Peace Corps, I saw things about it and I was intrigued by it. I didn't want to serve another 27 months particularly, and my kids and my wife at that point were opposed to it. They were, they were very supportive of the fact that I did go in the Peace Corps, but it was.

[Assistant] Enough's enough, Dad.

[User] Yeah, exactly. Enough is enough. It's time for you to stay here with family. But I saw the Response programs had shorter assignments. Three, six, nine, 12 months. I don't think they have any more than 12. So I was looking at some of them, and I was intrigued that they were specific to people who had relevant career experience and even higher level of education. And so that was intriguing me. And then I saw one that sounded very interesting to me. It was in the eastern Caribbean sector, which made it a whole lot more acceptable to the family. That would be not that far away.

[Assistant] Yeah, easier to get to.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And it was in Saint Lucia on top of it, which everyone has the idea that that's a vacation.

[Assistant] Paradise.

[User]
Paradise. But what I was really intrigued with, it was working with youth, which had been my whole career. And. And something really meaningful was to help reduce the suicide rate among teenagers. Unbelievably, for most people in Saint Lucia, they were having a spike in suicides among 12, 13, 14 year olds, particularly girls. And why would teenagers in an island paradise be committing suicide? Well, it turns out that their culture couldn't handle the internet. Cyberbullying was really big there. It's a problem in this country, but it's really a problem there. And they have no supports, no emotional supports to deal with it.

And that goes partly in the understanding that that corporal punishment was rampant there. Parents hit kids, teachers hit kids. So they, the children had no support. And the Ministry of Health tried to start a program, wanted to, wanted to start a program to try to teach resiliency among the kids. And that's what they put a call out for, was a Response volunteer to come and help build a program to teach adolescents resiliency. That was me. I applied and got accepted right away. So I went there.

Now, from that point on, there's a big, big contrast with my previous Peace Corps experience. I had no, um, no staging.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] I went straight there. I had no orientation program with the other, other volunteers because they had already completed their orientation and they were at their work sites. The ones who were there. So I was lucky that there was one more Response volunteer who went at the same time as I went. And I met her on the airplane. Um, we were, I found out we were supposed to be seated beside each other, but when I got on the airplane, I realized these vacationers weren't.

[Assistant] Weren't going to Peace Corps.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] They weren't a Peace Corps volunteer.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Um, and, uh, but I saw a person across the aisle at a window seat on the other side who seemed to fit the description that I was given about the Response volunteer that I would be going with. And I just called to her, excuse me, is your name? And she said, you know, how do you know my name? And I told her who I was. And we had had an exchange of emails.

[Assistant] Uh huh.

[User] So we, our, we had three days of orientation together, real compressed orientation in the Peace Corps office in a conference room, sitting just at a table with all the people who had to come and tell us all the policies and procedures real fast. And we had four hours of language training in Creole, which just was, they might as well not have.

[Assistant] Yeah, four hours.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It's almost like someone from New Hampshire trying to understand someone from Alabama.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah.

[User] In English. So anyway, we had that compressed orientation and then we were assigned to opposite ends of the island.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] So we would see each other occasionally, especially if I came to the Peace Corps office. She was in the capital city where the Peace Corps office was, in Castries, and we'd have lunch together and share our stories and our miseries. Um.

[Assistant] How long were you there?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] In English. So anyway, we had that compressed orientation and then we were assigned to opposite ends of the island.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] So we would see each other occasionally, especially if I came to the Peace Corps office. She was in the capital city where the Peace Corps office was, in Castries, and we'd have lunch together and share our stories and our miseries. Um.

[Assistant] How long were you there?

[User] I was there a year. Yeah. No, not quite a year. Nine months.

[Assistant] And did you have a counterpart there?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So we would see each other occasionally, especially if I came to the Peace Corps office. She was in the capital city where the Peace Corps office was, in Castries, and we'd have lunch together and share our stories and our miseries. Um.

[Assistant] How long were you there?

[User] I was there a year. Yeah. No, not quite a year. Nine months.

[Assistant] And did you have a counterpart there?

[User] I had a supervisor because I was working for the Ministry of Health, and my supervisor was the head nurse of the local hospital who had the whole, the whole health network of, of the island under her. And I was told when I arrived by her that I would address her as a Nurse Siraj. No first name. So I said, will you call me Dr. Hemmer? And she said, I'll call you Lew. Okay.

[Assistant] I'm the boss and I want you to know it.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It was a really rigid hierarchy in their government there, which adds to my thoughts now on governments and so on. And, and I'll tell you another thing later. But, uh, she pretty much gave me the guidelines of what she expected and I was on my own to do it. So while I was there, I wrote a training manual for each department of health in each parish of the county. The country was 27 miles long, 14 miles wide. So governmentally, because of the history of its development from colonial days and all, they, they had, it was divided into parishes. Catholicism was the ruling religion. And the government followed the parish lines for everything.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] It had in its, that country in its history had been a colony. When it was a colony of the Europeans, it had exchanged hands between the French and the British 14 times.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User]
It was a pawn in every treaty negotiation that this country's had. Yeah, we'll agree to this and you give us Saint Lucia. Or if you agree to this, I want Saint Lucia. Because at one point that was a major source of bananas until the global economy caught on and you had fruit and Chiquita bananas found out that they could grow and ship bananas cheaper from Central America because the labor was cheaper, and that decimated the banana. Well, first it started with sugar cane. Back in the slave trading days, sugar cane was the major crop there and the major economy. But some bright American discovered beet sugar was cheaper. So sugar cane bottomed out. Then they went to bananas. And then that's what I just said.

They lost their economy to Central America, except it was supported through a treaty with the United Kingdom because they felt some responsibility to their former colony until the large companies made such amazing, cheap offers to the United Kingdom to break the treaty. And they broke the treaty and then the economy collapsed and that happened there. So everyone was poor except investors in, uh.

[Assistant] And what, you wrote the protocol, did you work directly with the youth or?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
Somewhat. I got it, I got it started. But what I wrote for the protocol was to be implemented in each parish by a group of presenters. I wrote a series of training meetings for the youth, 21 of them as a matter of fact, covering everything from personal hygiene to, to, you know, sexually transmitted diseases and, oh, civic responsibility, to instill, to instill resiliency in the children. It had to be built on self confidence and to instill the self confidence, we gave them a lot of training that they just weren't getting from families and from schools.

And in order to do that training, I said that somebody in the community, in each community, should address each aspect of the training. So obviously for things like sexually transmitted diseases, we had a physician or a nurse, depending on each parish, who they chose. For civic responsibility. I met with the police people and we chose a policeman to do a presentation. But I, but I wrote an outline for every session, what they should cover. And, and we had icebreakers to start the session, the content of the session, and wrap ups at the end. So and I wrote all those out so that they wouldn't be intimidated and feel that it was too much for them to do, that they were easy and fun things to do.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[User] They bought into it that way.

[Assistant] And what was your life like there?

[User] Well, there was one other couple, a young couple, American couple, who were volunteers, and they, they were lovely. We didn't spend a lot of time together because of the age difference. They were straight out of college. But they invited, they had been there earlier than me because they had their orientation and everything. They were six months ahead of me, I guess. So they introduced me to a lot of local people. And we sometimes did things together. They helped orient me a whole lot. I had no orientation to my community.

[Assistant] Did you have your own apartment?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I had an apartment that was the size of your living room. It was everything except it had a door for the toilet. But my stove and my refrigerator were on, my stove was on one bare wall. It was all concrete.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And my refrigerator was on another wall. And I had, um, I had a table that was about two feet in diameter that I could sit at and a half- sized couch and that was it. And a bed. My landlord, it was, it was in the basement of my landlord's house. My landlord worked. He had a government job. He was educated. His wife was a schoolteacher. They had two young children who were, I'd have to guess, eight and ten years old. And they were very nice. And of course, as in most of the Caribbean islands, everyone could speak English.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] So communication wasn't difficult. They didn't help me much with Creole. They laughed at my Creole and chose not to use Creole with me.

[Assistant] Did you cook for yourself and?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And my refrigerator was on another wall. And I had, um, I had a table that was about two feet in diameter that I could sit at and a half- sized couch and that was it. And a bed. My landlord, it was, it was in the basement of my landlord's house. My landlord worked. He had a government job. He was educated. His wife was a schoolteacher. They had two young children who were, I'd have to guess, eight and ten years old. And they were very nice. And of course, as in most of the Caribbean islands, everyone could speak English.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] So communication wasn't difficult. They didn't help me much with Creole. They laughed at my Creole and chose not to use Creole with me.

[Assistant] Did you cook for yourself and?

[User] Oh yeah, I cooked for myself. I had a, I had a little gas stove and something that had scared me. I finally got used to it, but I was frightened at first. It was a gas stove and the gas canister sat in the room. And in this country that would not be legal. And it scared me occasionally if I smelled gas. But everything went well. And the Peace Corps gave me a nice filter system for water purity. It was a wonderful filter. I'm surprised that in our United States foreign aid, we don't give those filters out to other countries. It was a perfect filter and over the course of several hours could give you a couple gallons of water.

[Assistant] What was your takeaway from that experience?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That was my feeling, well, this is me. And what it was, was to work with the Ministry of Education in Dominica to, uh, do staff training with teachers, but also community education with parents regarding helping children with autism. That was my job when I retired. When I retired I had, previous to my retirement, I had created an early intervention program throughout the city of Philadelphia where we went into homes and helped the families help the children who were under age three, not yet diagnosed, but likely to be diagnosed with autism, to help them behaviorally so that they could not be too far behind their same age peers when they went to kindergarten.

[Assistant] So they recognized autism?

[User] Oh. Oh yes, they over recognized it.

[Assistant] Ah.

[User]
When I got there, I met my counterpart. I had two counterparts and they were under the Minister of Education. Um, my, my primary counterpart was in charge of special education. I forget what they called it, but it was special education throughout that country. And my secondary counterpart was her assistant. And they did primarily, they, they either coordinate. They did some diagnostics or coordinated with a psychologist, not a psychiatrist, but not a child psychologist either, just a psychologist who I don't think was certified to do autism diagnoses, but did them anyway. They didn't use any of the testing modules that we use here, especially not the gold standard, the ADOS.

But anyway. Early on when I was there and talked about things we would do, which would be me going around to schools and having meetings with teachers and either during school time with parents or in the evenings with parents. Um. And I, and I laid out some of the modules that I had worked on in my career. I said, well, first, let's start at the very beginning. How many children are we talking about?

[Assistant] Yeah, that's what I was wondering.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh. Oh yes, they over recognized it.

[Assistant] Ah.

[User]
When I got there, I met my counterpart. I had two counterparts and they were under the Minister of Education. Um, my, my primary counterpart was in charge of special education. I forget what they called it, but it was special education throughout that country. And my secondary counterpart was her assistant. And they did primarily, they, they either coordinate. They did some diagnostics or coordinated with a psychologist, not a psychiatrist, but not a child psychologist either, just a psychologist who I don't think was certified to do autism diagnoses, but did them anyway. They didn't use any of the testing modules that we use here, especially not the gold standard, the ADOS.

But anyway. Early on when I was there and talked about things we would do, which would be me going around to schools and having meetings with teachers and either during school time with parents or in the evenings with parents. Um. And I, and I laid out some of the modules that I had worked on in my career. I said, well, first, let's start at the very beginning. How many children are we talking about?

[Assistant] Yeah, that's what I was wondering.

[User] In this country, what's the incidence of autism in this country? The population of the whole country was under 80,000.

[Assistant] Yeah. I was wondering how many kids they had that were.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] In this country, what's the incidence of autism in this country? The population of the whole country was under 80,000.

[Assistant] Yeah. I was wondering how many kids they had that were.

[User] It was an incredibly spread-out population.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Um, they had schools with small classes because they were very, what we would say, very rural. They were just hard to get to. It was maybe only five miles, but it would take you two hours, you know, the roads were so bad. Uh, so they told me that they had identified ten children with autism. And I thought, dear me, why would they ask for some specialist to come?

[Assistant] For ten kids.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Um, they had schools with small classes because they were very, what we would say, very rural. They were just hard to get to. It was maybe only five miles, but it would take you two hours, you know, the roads were so bad. Uh, so they told me that they had identified ten children with autism. And I thought, dear me, why would they ask for some specialist to come?

[Assistant] For ten kids.

[User] For ten kids.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User]
So I said, well, let's go see them. Ten kids. I could see ten kids and I can see ten families and I can talk to 30 teachers that are involved with these ten kids. And we started going first to the schools. And I would observe. And I saw characteristics of autism, but not enough to say that that child probably was autistic. There were other behavioral problems and other developmental delays. And we got, we narrowed it down to maybe 2 or 3 of the children were really autistic. And my work became for me very boring. They asked me to go and help administer standardized tests. They asked me to, to go with them in their school meetings with faculty where they talked about everything.

And I was the behavioral specialist from the United States who was just coming along to answer questions if the teachers had any. And I was introduced to some special, special needs teachers who were doing wonderful with their classes that were way too many children for the one person to be with, you know. And my biggest recommendation was they need a teacher's aide or they need another teacher. And then I found out that the teachers were what we would call teacher's aides here. So I was thinking, oh, dear me, you know, I've got to watch my step. I'm recommending things that are.

[Assistant] Are beyond the pale.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] For ten kids.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User]
So I said, well, let's go see them. Ten kids. I could see ten kids and I can see ten families and I can talk to 30 teachers that are involved with these ten kids. And we started going first to the schools. And I would observe. And I saw characteristics of autism, but not enough to say that that child probably was autistic. There were other behavioral problems and other developmental delays. And we got, we narrowed it down to maybe 2 or 3 of the children were really autistic. And my work became for me very boring. They asked me to go and help administer standardized tests. They asked me to, to go with them in their school meetings with faculty where they talked about everything.

And I was the behavioral specialist from the United States who was just coming along to answer questions if the teachers had any. And I was introduced to some special, special needs teachers who were doing wonderful with their classes that were way too many children for the one person to be with, you know. And my biggest recommendation was they need a teacher's aide or they need another teacher. And then I found out that the teachers were what we would call teacher's aides here. So I was thinking, oh, dear me, you know, I've got to watch my step. I'm recommending things that are.

[Assistant] Are beyond the pale.

[User] Beyond what they are wanting to operate as. Um. So anyway, the, what happened was I grew a little tired of that. And fortunately, I had a very good country, well, she wasn't a country director. The country director in the Caribbean is the country director for seven countries. Seven islands. And so she, at the time, she would only get to visit each island every several months. Um. And so on each island they had what I was used to in Macedonia was an assistant director.

[Assistant] Yeah. Sort of local coordinator.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Beyond what they are wanting to operate as. Um. So anyway, the, what happened was I grew a little tired of that. And fortunately, I had a very good country, well, she wasn't a country director. The country director in the Caribbean is the country director for seven countries. Seven islands. And so she, at the time, she would only get to visit each island every several months. Um. And so on each island they had what I was used to in Macedonia was an assistant director.

[Assistant] Yeah. Sort of local coordinator.

[User]
Yeah. And they, and they were not an American Peace Corps volunteer. They were a host country national. And the one that was in Dominica was fine. She was really good. But there was a lot of dissension in the office. The office, I don't know if her title was really office manager or office secretary or whatever. There were the, the supervisor that I reported to, the assistant country director and two other host country nationals that ran the office. One was pretty much what we would in this country consider a secretary, took care of the mass mailings and things like that. The other one coordinated an awful lot of things, your medical files and everything else.

And, and it was, and she was very, um, upset with the fact that that's what she was doing because she wanted the director's job and had been passed over for it. The director, I thought, was very capable. But she had to deal with that. She had dissension in the office and it was difficult. It was, it was difficult for all the volunteers in that, in that country.

[Assistant] How did it affect you?

[User] It affected us in that when we asked to have things done or asked for help for things, it was done begrudgingly. It wasn't what I was used to in Macedonia and in Saint Lucia, a very nice, cohesive group who, even if they had some personal issues, you didn't know it.

[Assistant] How long, how long were you in Dominica?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I got, rather than a close of service, I got an administrative separation, in case I could get my surgery and come back.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] I got my surgery and I went to rehab. And it took longer than it should have for them. It was fine for me because it was a lot faster than my previous knee surgery. It went very well, but that was the end of that.

[Assistant] Well, that was going to be my other question was, as an older volunteer, did you have any other health issues during all these years of service?

[User] I'm trying to think. I had health issues when I was in Macedonia, but they were of doctor's office visit nature. I had, uh, I had some allergy cropping up but managed it with Sudafed. Um, I had a hearing problem in Macedonia. I decided I had a hearing problem that, uh, I just couldn't, in group meetings I could hear, I couldn't understand. And I would sit in the front and that, and I went to, uh, what was our medical doctor? I forget her name.

[Assistant] Started with an M.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I got my surgery and I went to rehab. And it took longer than it should have for them. It was fine for me because it was a lot faster than my previous knee surgery. It went very well, but that was the end of that.

[Assistant] Well, that was going to be my other question was, as an older volunteer, did you have any other health issues during all these years of service?

[User] I'm trying to think. I had health issues when I was in Macedonia, but they were of doctor's office visit nature. I had, uh, I had some allergy cropping up but managed it with Sudafed. Um, I had a hearing problem in Macedonia. I decided I had a hearing problem that, uh, I just couldn't, in group meetings I could hear, I couldn't understand. And I would sit in the front and that, and I went to, uh, what was our medical doctor? I forget her name.

[Assistant] Started with an M.

[User] Yeah, I wanted to call her Mimi but.

[Assistant] Yeah, it's Mimi.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, I wanted to call her Mimi but.

[Assistant] Yeah, it's Mimi.

[User] Mimi.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] Um, I went to see her. She was lovely I thought. She was very helpful in some other things, very critical things regarding volunteer support network. I was one of the members and I had to go to her confidentially about some other volunteer issues that were, that they brought to me. But anyway, I went there and I described. I said, and this is, I guess I told her the right thing. It tipped her off. I said, I feel like I'm underwater. It sounds whoa whoa whoa. She examined my ears. She said fine, but had me take a stronger dose, stronger or more frequent Sudafed.

[Assistant] Clean out all those inner ears.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
If the, if a person was needing overnight hospitalization, they had to go to the capital. It was, there were no overnight hospitals in my area. So it was essentially a clinic. The waiting room for the different exams was outdoors. Beautiful patio at the top of this street drive. I don't know how an ambulance got up there. I really don't. But anyway, and everyone there was nice.

One day I got to work and the hospital was closed and there were people scrubbing the cement where the waiting area was and the walls. And I said, what the heck is going on? They said, you didn't hear? I said no. There had been a machete fight the night before at there. Some woman had come up there for some reason and two men came and fought over her. Everyone there carried a machete, partly to clear brush along the side of the road and also for their lunch or snack time during the day. Anyone who was thirsty would just climb a tree and get a coconut and whack it open.

[Assistant] Smash it open.

[User] And drink the coconut water. And the coconut water was wonderful. I loved it. Um, but it was a volatile community. And as I said, corporal punishment was rampant. If a parent went to the school and said to the teacher, I can't get the child to do his homework, the teacher would say.

[Assistant] Beat him.

[User] Beat him. And if the teacher said to the parent, they're misbehaving in school, the parent would say, beat them. And they did. And the volunteers who were teachers were having a real big problem with that. Uh, because they just, no, I'm not hitting the children, you know, and they would stop the teachers from hitting them, which got them in sort of a.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, yeah.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Hot tub hot because thermal springs were coming up from underground and bubbling. So it was actually called Champagne Beach.

[Assistant] Uh huh.

[User]
But these streams of bubbles were coming up and you could swim and feel the warm rise up. But anyway, the, um, the, the travel was difficult. And this, this woman had a private school that had been created, again, corruption in governments. It was created by a woman who worked for the Ministry of Education and realized that kids weren't getting what they needed, special needs children. So she funneled money from the public education into her private school that she ran. And the woman who ran it was a woman from Connecticut who had been a teacher, I think, in Connecticut, and ended up down there for a variety of other personal reasons. She and her husband ended up there.

But a white woman and sharp. She knew things. She knew. She's running a good program and doing really well with the kids. And so I shared a lot what I could share with her that she didn't already have. And then I was pretty much done. I mean, that was over a couple of months' period, um, that I went there instead of going. And we worked it out. My assistant country director worked it out with my counterparts that I would be going down there to that school and that was fine with them. I think they were just as happy that I had another assignment because they didn't have enough for me.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And I would stop back and talk with them and let them know what I was doing, but it just didn't really matter much.

[Assistant] So that wasn't as well developed as a Response job as your other thing.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And I would stop back and talk with them and let them know what I was doing, but it just didn't really matter much.

[Assistant] So that wasn't as well developed as a Response job as your other thing.

[User] And that again was a benefit of being older.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] I knew it was time to talk with her and it had to be careful of how I did that. And I didn't complain and all that. I just worked that out.

[Assistant] Well, is there any last thing you want to say before we wrap this up?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And that again was a benefit of being older.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] I knew it was time to talk with her and it had to be careful of how I did that. And I didn't complain and all that. I just worked that out.

[Assistant] Well, is there any last thing you want to say before we wrap this up?

[User] Well, overall about the Peace Corps, nothing but good to say. I have concerns. But what organization doesn't? I'm, I am, I am sad that the Peace Corps doesn't help the younger volunteers truly understand the importance of their role, not only in their assigned work, but in their personal time use and the communities. I think what I observed or what I was aware of, there was a lot of negative portrayed about the United States on the part of the students. I mean, there was one volunteer who, because we were told in Macedonia to not associate with the embassy at that time. And I understood it because local people asked me, you have a family back in America? Yes. And you're here alone? Yes. And you're not getting paid? Yes, volunteer. Are you a spy?

[Assistant] Yeah. Why would you do this?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I am. I’ve given you most of what I could probably give you. But yes, I’m happy to go a little bit longer. Let’s do it.

[Assistant] I have a couple more questions. You talked about Harvey. Are there any other memorable events or moments that took place? It’s probably hard to top Harvey, but were there any things that come to mind?

[User] During the final test itself?

[Assistant] During the final test, yes, the cryogenic test.

[User] That was so significant, it’s really hard to top that. I think that whole five, six days was probably the part that it’s just hard to top.\n\n Maybe when we ended the test was memorable. We had a consent to proceed, consent to warm up basically. I think after having been through the hurricane and having that meeting, the amount of optical data that got analyzed and the quality of the data and how well the telescope was working, I think that consent to warm up was very memorable. Just because I think people despite the storm were like, “Wow, this was really successful, this data looks great. You guys are ready to warm up.” I think that was memorable.\n\n I don’t even remember if I was actually there the very final day. I might have been there at the end of warm-up, but maybe not when we repressurized, I can’t even remember. I don’t think I was there when we opened the door. That wouldn’t be one that I would remember, Carl would probably remember that better than I would. But yes, I think that’d be the other critical moment that was a huge relief for everybody.

[Assistant] You mentioned of course the Canadians, the Europeans. This was a multi-Center and an international effort. Would you talk a bit about that?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Have you talked to Carl? Carl Reis, he’d be a very important person to talk to. I think Mark Voyton would be a really good one from Goddard.

[Assistant] I think he’s on my list.

[User] Let’s see. Gary [W.] Matthews, who worked for Harris Corporation for a while, and Tom [Thomas R.] Scorse who’s at Harris right now. Those guys probably from the Harris perspective would have a lot of really good input.

[Assistant] Thank you so much for your time today. I know you are busy with everything out there, so I really appreciate it.

[User] No problem.

[Assistant] All right, have a good afternoon.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Let’s see. Gary [W.] Matthews, who worked for Harris Corporation for a while, and Tom [Thomas R.] Scorse who’s at Harris right now. Those guys probably from the Harris perspective would have a lot of really good input.

[Assistant] Thank you so much for your time today. I know you are busy with everything out there, so I really appreciate it.

[User] No problem.

[Assistant] All right, have a good afternoon.

[User] All right. Good luck, thank you very much.

[Assistant] Thank you. All right, bye-bye.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It is important. It’s good that they could do that.

[Assistant] Were there often any major changes that hadn’t exactly been anticipated or that affected many different systems?

[User] Because we’d have to restart?

[Assistant] And those.

[User] No, I don’t remember any that caused major changes. We changed out the main engine models that came from Marshall. There were some major changes of those, but they came as a block to us. We just had to integrate them in. They didn’t affect a whole lot of things other than just the vehicle performance, you know. I don’t recall anything that was a major surprise to us or a major redesign of the Shuttle or anything. No, it was just bad from day one.

[Assistant] The Shuttle is obviously a very different system than had been used before in Gemini, Apollo, very different than Skylab. You had even mentioned that originally you were planning for all these flights per year and trying to figure out, okay, how much could the astronauts be used. How did that transition between all of those programs occur, and then the transition to Shuttle being a little bit less than—


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] But they couldn’t be in better hands. I mean the Space Station couldn’t. I don’t know what your center director status is. You need to go find a center director. [Laughter]

[Assistant] Yes, I think they’re working on that at the moment.

[User] I guess you need an administrator, too.

[Assistant] Yes. It will be interesting to see what happens with all of it.

[User] Well, I know Roy [S.] Estess very well. He’s a nice fellow, but he, of course, he doesn’t want to be center director at JSC. He wants to retire, I think. He and I went to school together a long time ago. So I expect he’s not going to be a candidate. I don’t know. They need to go find a good fifty-year-old guy. Have you got any of them floating around out there somewhere?

[Assistant] I’m sure there’s quite a few out there that have experiences such as yours to build off of, that will—


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I guess you need an administrator, too.

[Assistant] Yes. It will be interesting to see what happens with all of it.

[User] Well, I know Roy [S.] Estess very well. He’s a nice fellow, but he, of course, he doesn’t want to be center director at JSC. He wants to retire, I think. He and I went to school together a long time ago. So I expect he’s not going to be a candidate. I don’t know. They need to go find a good fifty-year-old guy. Have you got any of them floating around out there somewhere?

[Assistant] I’m sure there’s quite a few out there that have experiences such as yours to build off of, that will—

[User] There’s not as many of them internal to JSC as they need, but they’ll find somebody.

[Assistant] I know time is just about up. We appreciate the time that you’ve shared with us today and the experiences that you’ve been able to—


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I know Roy [S.] Estess very well. He’s a nice fellow, but he, of course, he doesn’t want to be center director at JSC. He wants to retire, I think. He and I went to school together a long time ago. So I expect he’s not going to be a candidate. I don’t know. They need to go find a good fifty-year-old guy. Have you got any of them floating around out there somewhere?

[Assistant] I’m sure there’s quite a few out there that have experiences such as yours to build off of, that will—

[User] There’s not as many of them internal to JSC as they need, but they’ll find somebody.

[Assistant] I know time is just about up. We appreciate the time that you’ve shared with us today and the experiences that you’ve been able to—

[User] Well, I don’t know if that will help you any or not, but.

[Assistant] Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s been very useful. There are a couple things, if you might consider coming back at a second time, but maybe after we’ve had a chance to get the transcript done, you can review what you’ve said. But I think there were a couple things I’d like to go back and touch on in a little more detail, but not long.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] There’s not as many of them internal to JSC as they need, but they’ll find somebody.

[Assistant] I know time is just about up. We appreciate the time that you’ve shared with us today and the experiences that you’ve been able to—

[User] Well, I don’t know if that will help you any or not, but.

[Assistant] Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s been very useful. There are a couple things, if you might consider coming back at a second time, but maybe after we’ve had a chance to get the transcript done, you can review what you’ve said. But I think there were a couple things I’d like to go back and touch on in a little more detail, but not long.

[User] Sure. Well, you have my office number. We’re over there, just five minutes away. We’re not usually so busy that we can’t break out. One thing I find about working for a Japanese company is, you know, they are very paternalistic companies, but, you know, something like a performance plan or something, that’s unheard of. They don’t do anything like that. I mean you just go do the thing, and that’s it. So they’re very easy to work with, very personable, can’t do enough for you, that sort of thing. Certainly they would never tell you how to schedule your day or something like that. So we have pretty much free rein to do.

[Assistant] Certainly a different environment, having come from NASA and the government background and then—


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I don’t know if that will help you any or not, but.

[Assistant] Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s been very useful. There are a couple things, if you might consider coming back at a second time, but maybe after we’ve had a chance to get the transcript done, you can review what you’ve said. But I think there were a couple things I’d like to go back and touch on in a little more detail, but not long.

[User] Sure. Well, you have my office number. We’re over there, just five minutes away. We’re not usually so busy that we can’t break out. One thing I find about working for a Japanese company is, you know, they are very paternalistic companies, but, you know, something like a performance plan or something, that’s unheard of. They don’t do anything like that. I mean you just go do the thing, and that’s it. So they’re very easy to work with, very personable, can’t do enough for you, that sort of thing. Certainly they would never tell you how to schedule your day or something like that. So we have pretty much free rein to do.

[Assistant] Certainly a different environment, having come from NASA and the government background and then—

[User] One of the things which they did last year, which they didn’t have to do, we did a study for Joe [Joseph H.] Rothenburg on basically Space Station operations, but it was for utilization of the Space Station. I don’t know if you know, but the National Research Council did a study on how the utilization should be managed on Space Station. Basically, what they concluded was that you ought to take the whole operation and turn it over to an NGO, a non-government organization. Do you remember this study?

[Assistant] A little bit, yes.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The Station is probably going to fly more than the fifteen years, too. Why would they turn it off after ten or twelve years? Because we won’t be able to build a new one by then.

[Assistant] This one took long enough.

[User] Well, you don’t have any money. Congress won’t give you the money, so this thing will be like the B-52. Do you know how old the B-52s are?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] They started flying that about 1952. Been over fifty years.\n\n But, yes, if you need me to come back and answer any questions, I’d be happy to do that.

[Assistant] Great, we appreciate that.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, you don’t have any money. Congress won’t give you the money, so this thing will be like the B-52. Do you know how old the B-52s are?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] They started flying that about 1952. Been over fifty years.\n\n But, yes, if you need me to come back and answer any questions, I’d be happy to do that.

[Assistant] Great, we appreciate that.

[User] Anything else I can help you with.

[Assistant] Appreciate it. You certainly had some very interesting times.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] They started flying that about 1952. Been over fifty years.\n\n But, yes, if you need me to come back and answer any questions, I’d be happy to do that.

[Assistant] Great, we appreciate that.

[User] Anything else I can help you with.

[Assistant] Appreciate it. You certainly had some very interesting times.

[User] Well, some of them were tough. Some of them were tough. We had some dark, dark periods there in the late eighties and early nineties. I mean NASA did. The Station was really in the dumps, and we weren’t sure where Shuttle was there for a couple of years. Things are looking a little better right now.

[Assistant] Tried to learn from those experiences and make the best of them as could be done.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Anything else I can help you with.

[Assistant] Appreciate it. You certainly had some very interesting times.

[User] Well, some of them were tough. Some of them were tough. We had some dark, dark periods there in the late eighties and early nineties. I mean NASA did. The Station was really in the dumps, and we weren’t sure where Shuttle was there for a couple of years. Things are looking a little better right now.

[Assistant] Tried to learn from those experiences and make the best of them as could be done.

[User] Well, the country probably can afford us more so now. We don’t have to fight for it. Well, you do. I mean you’re still imposing the budget constraint on the Station now, and I don’t know, I haven’t talked to anybody over in the Space Station Program Office, but if you have to live with these cuts that leave you with three people, three astronauts, that doesn’t work. So that has to change.

[Assistant] Yes, that’s hard.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, some of them were tough. Some of them were tough. We had some dark, dark periods there in the late eighties and early nineties. I mean NASA did. The Station was really in the dumps, and we weren’t sure where Shuttle was there for a couple of years. Things are looking a little better right now.

[Assistant] Tried to learn from those experiences and make the best of them as could be done.

[User] Well, the country probably can afford us more so now. We don’t have to fight for it. Well, you do. I mean you’re still imposing the budget constraint on the Station now, and I don’t know, I haven’t talked to anybody over in the Space Station Program Office, but if you have to live with these cuts that leave you with three people, three astronauts, that doesn’t work. So that has to change.

[Assistant] Yes, that’s hard.

[User] And it will. Tommy [Holloway] will at least work toward that. I’m not sure he’s going to be around long enough to make it all happen, but he’s, Tommy’s sixty. He’s got about thirty-five, thirty-six years of service, maybe now. And I know Shirley is ready for him to retire.

[Assistant] Sometimes that’s a very large consideration.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, the country probably can afford us more so now. We don’t have to fight for it. Well, you do. I mean you’re still imposing the budget constraint on the Station now, and I don’t know, I haven’t talked to anybody over in the Space Station Program Office, but if you have to live with these cuts that leave you with three people, three astronauts, that doesn’t work. So that has to change.

[Assistant] Yes, that’s hard.

[User] And it will. Tommy [Holloway] will at least work toward that. I’m not sure he’s going to be around long enough to make it all happen, but he’s, Tommy’s sixty. He’s got about thirty-five, thirty-six years of service, maybe now. And I know Shirley is ready for him to retire.

[Assistant] Sometimes that’s a very large consideration.

[User] Well, he’s got grandkids that she likes to be close to. I don’t blame her. You live to work, or you work to live. There’s a difference.

[Assistant] There is. There is.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] A lot of competence there. It was more so than you would find in most things because you had to be competent in the sense that if you couldn't do that job, somebody had to come in and do it for you because it was mostly real time.

[Assistant] Going back a little bit in your involvement with the Mercury Program, you worked on you said basically every Mercury mission up through about MA-7. So were you then working—I believe it was MR-1 when they—

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] —did the first.

[User] Yes, when it spit out everything at the top.

[Assistant] Yes. Can you tell us a little bit about that?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, we had two serious losses here in the last three weeks. We lost the Titan 4 and then we lost the Delta 3. Everybody, even the people that have absolutely nothing to do with the space business, were saddened by it, not by the money that's lost, but by the setback, you know. Everybody is very positive, especially in here, and I'm sure everywhere, but this man across the street, he had his nephew's son or something over to watch the Delta 3, and he came out of the house about the same time I came out and neither one of us knew it had blown up. He was telling me how happy the kid was to see a launch. And then the next day we got together and, gee, he was just way down. What is this going to do, what's it going to do?\n\n But just living in the area, there's that kind of aura. Well, it's the same way around Houston, I mean, you go down around the space center and those people are still so gung-ho. "Let's get another one going and let's get the Spacelab working."\n\n How long you say you've been down there?

[Assistant] In Houston? I've been down there now for just a little over a year. I arrived down there last July and the project's been going for a little longer than that. It's about two years for the project.

[User] Is that right?

[Assistant] Yes. It is exciting to be down in the Houston area to be right in the center of the manned space flight aspects of the program and with mission control and certainly to talk to everyone about it.

[User] Yes, you're fortunate. I know we haven't been back now in, oh, I'd say about five years. We talk about it, but we don't go.\n\n …Been down to Galveston?

[Assistant] Yes, occasionally, occasionally. I just finished, actually, a master's degree program, so I've been a little busy with school.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Is that right?

[Assistant] Yes. It is exciting to be down in the Houston area to be right in the center of the manned space flight aspects of the program and with mission control and certainly to talk to everyone about it.

[User] Yes, you're fortunate. I know we haven't been back now in, oh, I'd say about five years. We talk about it, but we don't go.\n\n …Been down to Galveston?

[Assistant] Yes, occasionally, occasionally. I just finished, actually, a master's degree program, so I've been a little busy with school.

[User] Where, University of Houston?

[Assistant] Actually, no, at the University of North Dakota.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, you're fortunate. I know we haven't been back now in, oh, I'd say about five years. We talk about it, but we don't go.\n\n …Been down to Galveston?

[Assistant] Yes, occasionally, occasionally. I just finished, actually, a master's degree program, so I've been a little busy with school.

[User] Where, University of Houston?

[Assistant] Actually, no, at the University of North Dakota.

[User] Oh, you do it by correspondence.

[Assistant] Well, actually, I'm doing it over the Internet. Talking a little about computers and the changing technology. With this program, we had classes online. We met at a normal class time. We talked with each other and the professors, and basically everyone in the program was working full time in the space industry somewhere, so not only did we learn from the professors, but we learned from each other. It's been a fascinating program, fascinating program.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh, you do it by correspondence.

[Assistant] Well, actually, I'm doing it over the Internet. Talking a little about computers and the changing technology. With this program, we had classes online. We met at a normal class time. We talked with each other and the professors, and basically everyone in the program was working full time in the space industry somewhere, so not only did we learn from the professors, but we learned from each other. It's been a fascinating program, fascinating program.

[User] Well, you're doing a lot of that now with video conferencing that really never had that advantage. They tried it a little later, ten years ago. I don't know, today I imagine it all works very well. I'm not in it anymore. But it was not very successful. You still wound up getting on an airplane and going someplace. Of course, that can get very expensive after a while.

[Assistant] And time-consuming.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] It takes time to fly. Yes, the space program has seen quite a bit of changes in a few years out there. Now we're moving into the International Space Station age. Were you ever involved much in your working with future programs like that?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Luckily, he was able to bring it through and get NASA back on track.

[User] Yes, he did a very good job, I thought. We worked with Werner von Braun, if you know that name, up there.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] When Fletcher came in the first time, von Braun was kind of out of the Huntsville area and was up at NASA headquarters and was principally—he's so dynamic and so charismatic that he would go up the Hill and sell literally anything, I guess, you know, with the accent. Very funny man, very funny man. I bought his golf clubs, I mention in there. He didn't play golf, but he got it as a gratuity for a speech one time. I held onto the check for a long period of time and I've lost it. But he really had a great sense of humor, fun to be around, especially somebody of that notoriety. He and Fletcher got along very well, too.

[Assistant] Looking back, what would you consider to be your most significant achievement or participation in the space program?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, he did a very good job, I thought. We worked with Werner von Braun, if you know that name, up there.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] When Fletcher came in the first time, von Braun was kind of out of the Huntsville area and was up at NASA headquarters and was principally—he's so dynamic and so charismatic that he would go up the Hill and sell literally anything, I guess, you know, with the accent. Very funny man, very funny man. I bought his golf clubs, I mention in there. He didn't play golf, but he got it as a gratuity for a speech one time. I held onto the check for a long period of time and I've lost it. But he really had a great sense of humor, fun to be around, especially somebody of that notoriety. He and Fletcher got along very well, too.

[Assistant] Looking back, what would you consider to be your most significant achievement or participation in the space program?

[User] Well, I laugh at it, but I think my conclusion about how many astronauts were required was not only the funniest, but it turned out to be really right. I got hee-hawed at a lot about that. Jay, Jay Honeycutt. Have you met Jay?

[Assistant] Not yet, no.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] When Fletcher came in the first time, von Braun was kind of out of the Huntsville area and was up at NASA headquarters and was principally—he's so dynamic and so charismatic that he would go up the Hill and sell literally anything, I guess, you know, with the accent. Very funny man, very funny man. I bought his golf clubs, I mention in there. He didn't play golf, but he got it as a gratuity for a speech one time. I held onto the check for a long period of time and I've lost it. But he really had a great sense of humor, fun to be around, especially somebody of that notoriety. He and Fletcher got along very well, too.

[Assistant] Looking back, what would you consider to be your most significant achievement or participation in the space program?

[User] Well, I laugh at it, but I think my conclusion about how many astronauts were required was not only the funniest, but it turned out to be really right. I got hee-hawed at a lot about that. Jay, Jay Honeycutt. Have you met Jay?

[Assistant] Not yet, no.

[User] He's quite a card. He's a very nice man. He would laugh at it, too, until he became converted.

[Assistant] Looking at that, what would you say was the most challenging aspect for you?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] A sweetheart. He sent me a piece of paper that was dated 1986. It was a newspaper article, and it was about crabs. One of the life sciences people at Johnson had figured out the way to flash-freeze crabs and mail them or send them air mail, I mean, by plane, I suspect, to Japan or the Orient where they're a delicacy, and how much money he was making on this. I've forgotten his name. Well, this is last year, I think, and I get this thing that's dated 1986. So I write back a smart-ass letter, but she [my wife] wouldn't let me send it. [Laughter] It said, "You finally got to your 'in' basket." But I did send a questioning letter back, and I talked to Mary on the telephone. She said, "Mr. Clements, he hasn't changed at all, hasn't changed at all."\n\n You're not familiar with the military? Your parents ever in the military?

[Assistant] Actually, my father was in the Army.

[User] Was he? So you know what the PX is.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] The PX at Ellington one time sold jelly beans that were purple and white, the ugliest jelly beans you ever saw in your life. There was a big box of them, probably didn't cost more than twenty cents. So I'm big on bargains, so I took, I don't know, three or four boxes. One day I went down to his office like a child and I put these jelly beans all over everything, and he came in and he was beside himself. So when I went down there later, he had not moved a one, but he was eating them. [Laughter] Great fun. We had a lot of fun with George. Great fellow. He didn't marry down there, did he? Haven't ever heard?

[Assistant] I don't believe so.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Was he? So you know what the PX is.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] The PX at Ellington one time sold jelly beans that were purple and white, the ugliest jelly beans you ever saw in your life. There was a big box of them, probably didn't cost more than twenty cents. So I'm big on bargains, so I took, I don't know, three or four boxes. One day I went down to his office like a child and I put these jelly beans all over everything, and he came in and he was beside himself. So when I went down there later, he had not moved a one, but he was eating them. [Laughter] Great fun. We had a lot of fun with George. Great fellow. He didn't marry down there, did he? Haven't ever heard?

[Assistant] I don't believe so.

[User] Well, I'm sure I would have heard. He gets over here quite often, but he doesn't come by anymore. He used to bring me jelly beans.

[Assistant] Well, we'll pass it on to him that he needs to bring you some crabs and some more jelly beans.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The PX at Ellington one time sold jelly beans that were purple and white, the ugliest jelly beans you ever saw in your life. There was a big box of them, probably didn't cost more than twenty cents. So I'm big on bargains, so I took, I don't know, three or four boxes. One day I went down to his office like a child and I put these jelly beans all over everything, and he came in and he was beside himself. So when I went down there later, he had not moved a one, but he was eating them. [Laughter] Great fun. We had a lot of fun with George. Great fellow. He didn't marry down there, did he? Haven't ever heard?

[Assistant] I don't believe so.

[User] Well, I'm sure I would have heard. He gets over here quite often, but he doesn't come by anymore. He used to bring me jelly beans.

[Assistant] Well, we'll pass it on to him that he needs to bring you some crabs and some more jelly beans.

[User] Actually, we got crabs here. We do fairly well, but I kind of miss them over there. They were less expensive and they were good-sized. You wouldn't know, being from Colorado.

[Assistant] No, not much seafood up there, and what they do have is imported.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I'm sure I would have heard. He gets over here quite often, but he doesn't come by anymore. He used to bring me jelly beans.

[Assistant] Well, we'll pass it on to him that he needs to bring you some crabs and some more jelly beans.

[User] Actually, we got crabs here. We do fairly well, but I kind of miss them over there. They were less expensive and they were good-sized. You wouldn't know, being from Colorado.

[Assistant] No, not much seafood up there, and what they do have is imported.

[User] You've got trout.

[Assistant] Yes.\n\n We've gone for almost two hours now.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Actually, we got crabs here. We do fairly well, but I kind of miss them over there. They were less expensive and they were good-sized. You wouldn't know, being from Colorado.

[Assistant] No, not much seafood up there, and what they do have is imported.

[User] You've got trout.

[Assistant] Yes.\n\n We've gone for almost two hours now.

[User] Is that enough for you?

[Assistant] I think so.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] You've got trout.

[Assistant] Yes.\n\n We've gone for almost two hours now.

[User] Is that enough for you?

[Assistant] I think so.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] But if you're interested, if we do come up with some other small topics perhaps you could talk again.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Is that enough for you?

[Assistant] I think so.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] But if you're interested, if we do come up with some other small topics perhaps you could talk again.

[User] I'd be happy to, I'd be happy to. I think George has a good idea here, and I'd like to say if they can get it on the Internet and be available to other people who might have an interest in it, that's great.

[Assistant] Great. Thank you so much.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Right. Well it was a GSA program and I think they were offering similar jobs in the other services for people with appropriate majors in those services. You have to remember that two-thirds of my career I worked for GSA. If you know what I mean.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] And as we might get to more later on I was probably more closely associated with GSA on the day to day basis than most Archives employees.

[Assistant] Yes, we’ll be talking about that and about your contributions to then disassociating from GSA. And question, the next question, describe Day One on the job. What was it like on your first day at the job in both St. Louis and Washington?

[User] I went to St. Louis on the train. I had no idea where I was going to live. Stayed in the, in the Railroad Hotel in the train station, long gone. And went out to the Center and I was sent to the Personnel Office and sworn in and then processed in the St. Louis Personnel Office. Remind me to talk with you when we get to independence time about St. Louis Personnel. Then I was taken and introduced to Joseph Schwartzberg who was the Center Director and the three Branch Chiefs. And I can only remember two names: John Gross was the Reference Branch and I think Paul Boyer was the A&D Branch. There was also a Special Projects Branch. The three Branch Chiefs had been the heads of the three military record centers. And then Mr. Gross took me to the Reference Branch Office and introduced me to his immediate staff. They asked me if I had a place to live, I said no. They took me to lunch. And then Larry Cromshaw who was one of the staff members grabbed a paper and drove me around until I found a place to live. You have to remember that this is roughly 18 months after GSA took over the Record Center from the military and what had been three separate military record centers had been merged into one and were not fully integrated yet.

[Assistant] That's interesting—I didn't know that that was the history of the National Archives coming from the military.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Okay. Then in Washington, I guess we’re going to go back and forth with the time a little. I got to Washington and they sent me to Helen Buselmeier’s office. Helen was an assistant to Walter Robertson who was the long-time Administrative Law Office, Executive Director, Assistant Archivist for whatever and whatever. He had that job basically from 1941 until the mid 70’s I think. But Helen, Helen was—this was when GSA’s administrative work was still very, very centralized. Helen was his liaison with the Personnel Office and with the Budget Office. And rather than make new employees go to the GSA Building, most of them went to Helen and she did all the paperwork and stuff and sent it back and forth to GSA. But… in a real work like classification and stuff GSA sent somebody over. But anyway, I went to Helen for processing. Then she took me to Sherrod East who was the Assistant Archivist for Military Archives. So this was when Military and Civil Archives were separate. Talked to him for a minute or two and then he took me to Mabel Dietrich who was the Director of the Projects Division. She had Gary Ryan with her who was managing the project they assigned me to. And then they took me up to 10 W2 and introduced me to the staff and put me to work on Military Records, Military Command Records, what was then RG 98 but probably got split into four or five separate record groups later.

[Assistant] What is 10 W2?

[User] The stack area that we worked in.

[Assistant] Well that sounds like a busy day. What were your impressions of the agency at the beginning of your career coming out of a history background, learning history in college?

[User] I had no idea what I was getting into. Except I had a history professor who had done research at the Archives and he told me I would like it, huh.

[Assistant] What kind of training did you initially get within the National Archives? One other individual that I trained with had classes with Schellenberg and I found that to be quite interesting.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The stack area that we worked in.

[Assistant] Well that sounds like a busy day. What were your impressions of the agency at the beginning of your career coming out of a history background, learning history in college?

[User] I had no idea what I was getting into. Except I had a history professor who had done research at the Archives and he told me I would like it, huh.

[Assistant] What kind of training did you initially get within the National Archives? One other individual that I trained with had classes with Schellenberg and I found that to be quite interesting.

[User] I met Schellenberg once but I never had classes with him. He was really gone by then. The resume I sent you had a list of all of the significant training classes I could remember. But most significant probably is when I was in St. Louis they sent me to a Civil Service Orientation for Federal Service Entrance Exam employees which is what most people being hired by the government at the 5 or 7 level were sent to by their agencies at the time. And the top managers in St. Louis at the time were very active in Toastmasters and took me along to their meetings. When I got to Washington, they had no internal training programs so they enrolled me in the Modern Archives Institute that NARA and American University did jointly at the time. And I think I remember John Fawcett went through that at the same time I did. You know John Fawcett?

[Assistant] No. No, I don't recall him.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] He came out of the Hoover Library about the same time I started in Washington. He was Assistant Archivist for Presidential Libraries for quite a while. And his ex-wife, Sharon, was Assistant Archivist for Presidential Libraries later.

[Assistant] Interesting.

[User] Interesting because John Fawcett and I got letters from our Draft Boards about the same time. And I flunked the physical but he passed. And he had connections so when he finished basic training he ended up in the White House as a military aide to the Johnsons. But anyway to wrap up the thing, the most important training, when the Archives finally had a training course for new archivists, I took it, but it was, you know, several years later. Three or four years later. When I was a GSA management intern I went to several classes both GSA and the old Civil Service Commission had for management interns because it was a big government-wide push at that time including some computer classes. And then the Archives sent me to the Federal Executive Institute in 1982. I went in a PBS slot and I think the situation at the time is they were trying to get me out of the building or get rid of me or do something with me. And PBS had given up a slot because the administrator had said something at some staff meeting about what a waste of money the Federal Executive Institute was. So PBS elected to give up a slot and the Archives didn't care if the administrator was upset with them so they sent me.

[Assistant] Hmm.

[User] I didn't think it was a waste of time but…

[Assistant] Well it seems like you do have a lot of government sponsored training and education and maybe we can draw on some of that, you have a really a nice list of business classes that you seemed to take so I'm sure that helped you along the way as you got further into your career. Moving onto something else. Your first work experiences in the National Archives, can you just describe some of the people and positions and some of the work that you did?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Some. There were some. But I was mainly supposed to work with the paper records unless I really needed to ask somebody.

[Assistant] And at that time and I might as well ask this question right here, when you're dealing with those - - in the military, were they all paper records or were there other types of records?

[User] Paper and microfilm.

[Assistant] Microfilm, okay.

[User] There was a lot of microfilm. And, I spent some time but not very much rotating through microfilm of organizational records that were being used even before the fire to reconstruct service records if something was missing. So if they’d get a request in and they thought they couldn't find the record and they thought there should be something, they’d send me or whoever to microfilm of things like Muster Rolls or Morning Reports to see if we could identify the person. And that’s sort of the approach they used for reconstruction after the fire. So there were a lot of microfilm records that weren’t purely Personnel Records but used to supplement them.

[Assistant] And after that you decided to move in the summer of?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Paper and microfilm.

[Assistant] Microfilm, okay.

[User] There was a lot of microfilm. And, I spent some time but not very much rotating through microfilm of organizational records that were being used even before the fire to reconstruct service records if something was missing. So if they’d get a request in and they thought they couldn't find the record and they thought there should be something, they’d send me or whoever to microfilm of things like Muster Rolls or Morning Reports to see if we could identify the person. And that’s sort of the approach they used for reconstruction after the fire. So there were a lot of microfilm records that weren’t purely Personnel Records but used to supplement them.

[Assistant] And after that you decided to move in the summer of?

[User] Well that was the deal. The deal from the beginning was that I’d do one summer in Military and one in Civil and then I’d go to a library. So the second summer I was at the Civilian Building. And mostly it rotates around different reference tasks. They found out that I’d done some drafting in high school and they had me working on a shelving plan for the Vital Records Depository in Neosho, Missouri. I don’t know if you know about that.

[Assistant] No, I don’t, could you elaborate a little bit on that.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] There was a lot of microfilm. And, I spent some time but not very much rotating through microfilm of organizational records that were being used even before the fire to reconstruct service records if something was missing. So if they’d get a request in and they thought they couldn't find the record and they thought there should be something, they’d send me or whoever to microfilm of things like Muster Rolls or Morning Reports to see if we could identify the person. And that’s sort of the approach they used for reconstruction after the fire. So there were a lot of microfilm records that weren’t purely Personnel Records but used to supplement them.

[Assistant] And after that you decided to move in the summer of?

[User] Well that was the deal. The deal from the beginning was that I’d do one summer in Military and one in Civil and then I’d go to a library. So the second summer I was at the Civilian Building. And mostly it rotates around different reference tasks. They found out that I’d done some drafting in high school and they had me working on a shelving plan for the Vital Records Depository in Neosho, Missouri. I don’t know if you know about that.

[Assistant] No, I don’t, could you elaborate a little bit on that.

[User] They had a Federal Records Depository in a cave in Neosho that they had inherited from somebody. And I don’t remember much about it.

[Assistant] Did the National Archives at the time identify what a Vital Record was?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well I didn't really, you know, I met Truman. I didn’t really meet the others, I was just in the room or sitting there being talked about while they were there. I got an autographed picture on my birthday from Truman. Truman was there, oh, an average of three days a week, mainly. And you know he did not have Secret Service protection or didn’t you know that?

[Assistant] I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t know when that began for ex-Presidents.

[User] He did not have Secret Service protection. He had a Kansas City detective who sat in the library most days and my bicycle was stolen out from under the nose of the Kansas City detective. [Chuckling] Which really upset the Independence, err, the Independence detective rather, it really upset the Independence Police Department.

[Assistant] If I was Harry Truman I might be a little worried myself.

[User] Truman walked some days. And he liked to get there early because he liked to read the hate mail before his secretary censored it.

[Assistant] [Laughing] So Truman was everything that you thought he was when you first met him? Like your impressions of him before you even met him?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] He did not have Secret Service protection. He had a Kansas City detective who sat in the library most days and my bicycle was stolen out from under the nose of the Kansas City detective. [Chuckling] Which really upset the Independence, err, the Independence detective rather, it really upset the Independence Police Department.

[Assistant] If I was Harry Truman I might be a little worried myself.

[User] Truman walked some days. And he liked to get there early because he liked to read the hate mail before his secretary censored it.

[Assistant] [Laughing] So Truman was everything that you thought he was when you first met him? Like your impressions of him before you even met him?

[User] Oh, I didn’t have much of an impression before I met him. He used to, once every week or two, he’d have the guards round up everybody in the museum and run them into the auditorium they had and he'd answer questions from school kids. And he’d tell them, he wanted questions from the children, not from the adults. And he was very good at answering the children and if an adult asked him a question he was nasty.

[Assistant] Interesting. He’s just a character—


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh, I didn’t have much of an impression before I met him. He used to, once every week or two, he’d have the guards round up everybody in the museum and run them into the auditorium they had and he'd answer questions from school kids. And he’d tell them, he wanted questions from the children, not from the adults. And he was very good at answering the children and if an adult asked him a question he was nasty.

[Assistant] Interesting. He’s just a character—

[User] But this is 52 years ago. Anyway… going into August sometime Dr. Brooks told me that he couldn’t keep me. That he was losing a position. And I could make a choice. They were going to take care of me. I could make a choice of whether I wanted to go to Hoover, Eisenhower, or Washington. And I picked Washington.

[Assistant] Why?

[User] Oh, because I think I wanted to go to graduate school which I had thought about doing at the University of Kansas City which is now the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and it looked more doable in Washington than in either of the other two places.

[Assistant] So were you thinking at this time of furthering your education to work within the National Archives or were you thinking of leaving the National Archives?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh, because I think I wanted to go to graduate school which I had thought about doing at the University of Kansas City which is now the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and it looked more doable in Washington than in either of the other two places.

[Assistant] So were you thinking at this time of furthering your education to work within the National Archives or were you thinking of leaving the National Archives?

[User] Within. By that time I was happy working for the Archives or GSA or whoever.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] One thing that sort of sticks with me is that you know I’d ask questions about things, the way things were done… that seemed a little odd to me and the answer from Brooks frequently was, well, he might do it differently but we did things the way that Herman Kahn had done them at the Roosevelt Library because he was, you know, the Truman Library was still relatively new and he was trying to follow the precedents from the Roosevelt Library.

[Assistant] And was what Kahn saying, was that counter to what you learned?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] One thing that sort of sticks with me is that you know I’d ask questions about things, the way things were done… that seemed a little odd to me and the answer from Brooks frequently was, well, he might do it differently but we did things the way that Herman Kahn had done them at the Roosevelt Library because he was, you know, the Truman Library was still relatively new and he was trying to follow the precedents from the Roosevelt Library.

[Assistant] And was what Kahn saying, was that counter to what you learned?

[User] No, not necessarily, it's just attitude, sort of, and I don't know—it's hard to put a finger on. It's been too long.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And I think I mentioned somewhere but we can come back to it later if you want, Brooks’s son worked for me for a short time in the 70’s and he might be somebody worth interviewing. If he’s not on your list already.

[Assistant] Yes, you mentioned Brooks as one of the three people that you mentioned as being responsible for a lot of furthering the National Archives cause.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, not necessarily, it's just attitude, sort of, and I don't know—it's hard to put a finger on. It's been too long.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And I think I mentioned somewhere but we can come back to it later if you want, Brooks’s son worked for me for a short time in the 70’s and he might be somebody worth interviewing. If he’s not on your list already.

[Assistant] Yes, you mentioned Brooks as one of the three people that you mentioned as being responsible for a lot of furthering the National Archives cause.

[User] Well, Brooks stayed with the Archives during the war. And he was one of the people, that’s probably a different conversation or a different part of the conversation, but he was probably one of the people who founded Records Management if you know what I mean.

[Assistant] Okay, very interesting. And from there you decided to go, can you talk a little bit about your move to DC?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And I think I mentioned somewhere but we can come back to it later if you want, Brooks’s son worked for me for a short time in the 70’s and he might be somebody worth interviewing. If he’s not on your list already.

[Assistant] Yes, you mentioned Brooks as one of the three people that you mentioned as being responsible for a lot of furthering the National Archives cause.

[User] Well, Brooks stayed with the Archives during the war. And he was one of the people, that’s probably a different conversation or a different part of the conversation, but he was probably one of the people who founded Records Management if you know what I mean.

[Assistant] Okay, very interesting. And from there you decided to go, can you talk a little bit about your move to DC?

[User] Well I came to DC I moved myself and I came to DC. We talked about what I did the first year in DC and I started at American University when I got here that fall.

[Assistant] What type of classes were you taking at American University?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well I came to DC I moved myself and I came to DC. We talked about what I did the first year in DC and I started at American University when I got here that fall.

[Assistant] What type of classes were you taking at American University?

[User] I took public administration and political science classes. I applied both to the History Department and the School of Government and the History Department didn’t seem to want me and the School of Government and Public Administration did seem to want me.

[Assistant] Mm-hmm.

[User] And probably the History Chairman was sort of ho-hum and talking to the Dean of the School of Government and Public Administration and he wants me to sign up so I did. Mabel Dietrich I guess influenced me on that. She had gotten her PhD in Public Administration. From American University.

[Assistant] And at this time you also continued your day work at the National Archives?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I took public administration and political science classes. I applied both to the History Department and the School of Government and the History Department didn’t seem to want me and the School of Government and Public Administration did seem to want me.

[Assistant] Mm-hmm.

[User] And probably the History Chairman was sort of ho-hum and talking to the Dean of the School of Government and Public Administration and he wants me to sign up so I did. Mabel Dietrich I guess influenced me on that. She had gotten her PhD in Public Administration. From American University.

[Assistant] And at this time you also continued your day work at the National Archives?

[User] Right.

[Assistant] What were some of your projects that you did there during this period?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh. Oh there was some compute stuff. And I think there was some basic personnel stuff. And I forget what all.

[Assistant] So was there any thought among management at this time of thinking about how to bring the National Archives into the present in the sense of possibly, you know, creating more organization and things like that?

[User] You’re a little too early for that.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] I think it was during the AHA meeting in 1965, right after Wayne Grover retired as Archivist that he made a speech about how the Archives should get out of GSA. And that started an independence movement that ran from ‘65 to ‘67 or so. I don't remember. I don't know who else you can ask about that but. There was an effort to get the Archives out of GSA during the period right after Grover retired while Bahmer was Archivist. Grover had enlisted Ladybird Johnson’s support. Bahmer was all for it to begin with but I think Bahmer cooled on it near the end because it became clear that if the Archives wanted out of GSA it would have to give up the Records Management Program and he thought that would be a fatal mistake.

[Assistant] So why would that be so? Why would you have to give up the Records Management?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So the Archives got some budgeting and planning and internal records management and other authorities that had previously been completely centralized in the GSA Building.

[Assistant] So this is part of the idea of throwing more money at the National Archives.

[User] Well it was at the same time but it wasn't part of the same idea.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] Because there were changes going on in the rest of the GSA, too.

[Assistant] So that’s the origins of us leaving GSA.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well it was at the same time but it wasn't part of the same idea.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] Because there were changes going on in the rest of the GSA, too.

[Assistant] So that’s the origins of us leaving GSA.

[User] That was the first effort—the failed effort.

[Assistant] And then in 1968 to ‘74 you became a Senior Program Analyst.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Because there were changes going on in the rest of the GSA, too.

[Assistant] So that’s the origins of us leaving GSA.

[User] That was the first effort—the failed effort.

[Assistant] And then in 1968 to ‘74 you became a Senior Program Analyst.

[User] Well first I was that and then I was Chief of the Planning and Analysis Branch. When the budget people came they made the Budget Branch and the Planning and Analysis Branch. And the budget guy that came from GSA was the Budget Branch and I was the Planning and Analysis Branch. Then he became the Division Director, the budget guy. John Awkward who had been the Archives budget person at GSA and who had been in government since 1939 or something. He was the other best boss I had of two best bosses. Awkward had been with the government since before World War II. He’d never taken a day of sick leave. He had a heart attack about 1973 and he was out for almost 2 years and did it all on sick leave.

[Assistant] Wow. They don’t make them like that anymore. [Chuckling]


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That was the first effort—the failed effort.

[Assistant] And then in 1968 to ‘74 you became a Senior Program Analyst.

[User] Well first I was that and then I was Chief of the Planning and Analysis Branch. When the budget people came they made the Budget Branch and the Planning and Analysis Branch. And the budget guy that came from GSA was the Budget Branch and I was the Planning and Analysis Branch. Then he became the Division Director, the budget guy. John Awkward who had been the Archives budget person at GSA and who had been in government since 1939 or something. He was the other best boss I had of two best bosses. Awkward had been with the government since before World War II. He’d never taken a day of sick leave. He had a heart attack about 1973 and he was out for almost 2 years and did it all on sick leave.

[Assistant] Wow. They don’t make them like that anymore. [Chuckling]

[User] But then he retired and he had a heart attack and died.

[Assistant] So during this period of Robertson, Williams and Awkward, you have the—


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] But then he retired and he had a heart attack and died.

[Assistant] So during this period of Robertson, Williams and Awkward, you have the—

[User] [Interposing] Well you sent me the memo that Robertson wrote in December ‘67—

[Assistant] [Interposing] Yes.

[User] —that even though I was reassigned on paper I stayed in the Publication and Sales Branch on a day to day basis until probably March of '68 because that was when they finally found a replacement who was Betty Hill. And I don’t know if I mentioned Howard Greenberg or you want to get into that at all but my assistant in the Publication and Sales was Rose Greenberg. And her husband Howard had been Commissioner of the Utilization and Disposal Service in GSA. And LBJ appointed him Administrator of Small Business. And LBJ tended to appoint careerists to agency head positions unlike virtually every other President. So he took Howard Greenberg out of GSA and he made him Administrator of Small Business. Lawson Knott who was Administrator of GSA had been Commissioner of the Public Building Service and had worked his way up. And I think that LBJ did that in other agencies, too. He basically promoted or reassigned career employees. Anyway once I got to work for Robertson and Williams was my immediate supervisor, before Awkward, as part of the “give them more money” I did the study that resulted in the Regional Archives and another study that resulted in spending a lot of money on preservation including basically redoing the Paper Preservation Lab and drastically expanding the reproduction of microfilm and motion pictures and some recordings.

[Assistant] And we can reference here the material that you had from your file, “Microfilm Publics and Archival Records a Cost Effective Study.”


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] [Interposing] Well you sent me the memo that Robertson wrote in December ‘67—

[Assistant] [Interposing] Yes.

[User] —that even though I was reassigned on paper I stayed in the Publication and Sales Branch on a day to day basis until probably March of '68 because that was when they finally found a replacement who was Betty Hill. And I don’t know if I mentioned Howard Greenberg or you want to get into that at all but my assistant in the Publication and Sales was Rose Greenberg. And her husband Howard had been Commissioner of the Utilization and Disposal Service in GSA. And LBJ appointed him Administrator of Small Business. And LBJ tended to appoint careerists to agency head positions unlike virtually every other President. So he took Howard Greenberg out of GSA and he made him Administrator of Small Business. Lawson Knott who was Administrator of GSA had been Commissioner of the Public Building Service and had worked his way up. And I think that LBJ did that in other agencies, too. He basically promoted or reassigned career employees. Anyway once I got to work for Robertson and Williams was my immediate supervisor, before Awkward, as part of the “give them more money” I did the study that resulted in the Regional Archives and another study that resulted in spending a lot of money on preservation including basically redoing the Paper Preservation Lab and drastically expanding the reproduction of microfilm and motion pictures and some recordings.

[Assistant] And we can reference here the material that you had from your file, “Microfilm Publics and Archival Records a Cost Effective Study.”

[User] Yes. And there was a similar study on preservation but I don’t remember the title or have a copy of it. The preservation one, the preservation one is interesting because you opened the cover and we had a picture of nitrate film exploding. And that’s what they sent up on the Hill with their budget request is this picture of nitrate film exploding and why we needed money to copy it.

[Assistant] So the goal was to get more money from Congress, that's what this report really was aiming at?