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

[User] [Laughter].

[Assistant] It’s almost been 10 years. Is that hard to believe?

[User] Well actually, President Obama set the deadline to eliminate the backlog by the end of 2013, and we met that. We went ahead and you kept chopping and dicing. I mean, you just keep doing it. We would have murder boards where we would actually take a look at our processes, and if people saw that there were issues, they could bring it up to the senior leadership and say hey, this ain’t working, how about that? We were trying to encourage a lot of critical thinking, that just because we proclaimed it this way doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. And so we were able to get a lot of teamwork out of what was going on, and that allowed us to declare victory at the end of 2013. And so after that, it was more a question of sustainment, where what I mentioned before, we were able to get reviewed accessions in the building and were able to start the NDC process the year following the accessioning. And so that has allowed us to avoid buildup of the backlog. Now that we’re in danger of that again because of the Presidential Libraries business, with all the classified records coming into the Presidential Library, classified coming here. And so that’s going to cause a bit of a—we’re trying to figure that one out still.

[Assistant] And all those records will come to College Park?

[User] All the classified ones.

[Assistant] And when is that scheduled? [Laughter]


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

[User] Well actually, President Obama set the deadline to eliminate the backlog by the end of 2013, and we met that. We went ahead and you kept chopping and dicing. I mean, you just keep doing it. We would have murder boards where we would actually take a look at our processes, and if people saw that there were issues, they could bring it up to the senior leadership and say hey, this ain’t working, how about that? We were trying to encourage a lot of critical thinking, that just because we proclaimed it this way doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. And so we were able to get a lot of teamwork out of what was going on, and that allowed us to declare victory at the end of 2013. And so after that, it was more a question of sustainment, where what I mentioned before, we were able to get reviewed accessions in the building and were able to start the NDC process the year following the accessioning. And so that has allowed us to avoid buildup of the backlog. Now that we’re in danger of that again because of the Presidential Libraries business, with all the classified records coming into the Presidential Library, classified coming here. And so that’s going to cause a bit of a—we’re trying to figure that one out still.

[Assistant] And all those records will come to College Park?

[User] All the classified ones.

[Assistant] And when is that scheduled? [Laughter]

[User] You’re asking the wrong person. I—probably later this calendar year and into next year. And that’s just going to be a long and painful process, mainly because you’re dealing with the differences between presidential and federal. And as agency historian, you are no doubt aware of the tensions that have gone on over the years between the Presidential Libraries and the Federal Records side, because we went through those years where we’re the only important records there are, so the resources should come our way kind of thing. And this is not the solution that anybody envisioned. It’s just kind of complete capitulation, but—and those people aren’t coming with the records.

[Assistant] I was going to ask—


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

[User] All the classified ones.

[Assistant] And when is that scheduled? [Laughter]

[User] You’re asking the wrong person. I—probably later this calendar year and into next year. And that’s just going to be a long and painful process, mainly because you’re dealing with the differences between presidential and federal. And as agency historian, you are no doubt aware of the tensions that have gone on over the years between the Presidential Libraries and the Federal Records side, because we went through those years where we’re the only important records there are, so the resources should come our way kind of thing. And this is not the solution that anybody envisioned. It’s just kind of complete capitulation, but—and those people aren’t coming with the records.

[Assistant] I was going to ask—

[User] [Interposing] [crosstalk].

[Assistant] —so no additional staff? And they’re—that will certainly be a challenge.


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

[User] You’re asking the wrong person. I—probably later this calendar year and into next year. And that’s just going to be a long and painful process, mainly because you’re dealing with the differences between presidential and federal. And as agency historian, you are no doubt aware of the tensions that have gone on over the years between the Presidential Libraries and the Federal Records side, because we went through those years where we’re the only important records there are, so the resources should come our way kind of thing. And this is not the solution that anybody envisioned. It’s just kind of complete capitulation, but—and those people aren’t coming with the records.

[Assistant] I was going to ask—

[User] [Interposing] [crosstalk].

[Assistant] —so no additional staff? And they’re—that will certainly be a challenge.

[User] [Laughter].

[Assistant] Do you have any idea how much the volume—


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

[User] [Interposing] It’s—

[Assistant] — is it just rapport? It’s...

[User] Exactly. You have to sit there and—what I thought was successful for me is just getting some mutual respect. Part of the issue we have with some of the agencies is, as they are creators of this classified information, they think they are the only ones who know its value and know its sensitivity. And what I’ve had to demonstrate repeatedly, and thanks to—thanks to my dear bride and my library, has been able to go back and co-op them and say I know that this is important. And what about this? And you start throwing some facts at them and you start getting into a dialogue about their program, their system, their history. And once you can get it on that basis, you know, now you’re on a level playing field. And now you have some mutual respect that they see your point, and if they can do something about it, they will. But it’s gaining that respect, and that was the—an important thing for me was I’m not just an archivist at the National Archives. I get what you do. I get what this did or what that event meant, but here we are 56 years later. Does it seem to have the same sensitivity? And pick up something from the internet or just use whatever I can use in a bag of tricks to get them to just say well, maybe you have a point, you know? Or something like that. Does it result in a document being declassified? I don’t know. What it does do is enhance the respect that we have for each other, and allows dialogues in other directions that may pay off better. So that’s what I found important.

[Assistant] So, not sure there is a typical day, but—

[User] [Interposing] [laughter].

[Assistant] —is there a typical day in...


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

[User] Well, it certainly applies. It’s just that the stuff’s going to get put into some sort of buffer, some sort of storage and just stay there. Or it stays with the agency and takes its chances when media migration concerns—you know, I just—I know there’s been discussions at higher levels that the director and deputy director—David Mengel, I know has been involved with these discussions. But they just haven’t amounted to anything that we can point to a calendar and say by this time, we’re going to have a system to ingest and do something with, because there’s no underlying anything to do review of the—no automated review.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] We have been able to use ADRRES in weird ways, because we can actually load movies and sound into ADDRES and treat it similar to textual records, so that you can listen to an audio file in that classified environment and actually make decisions on that. But it’s only in those cases of special media, not in general electronic records format. So that’s what we’re stuck with right now.

[Assistant] That’s really—

[User] [Interposing] It is. I agree, and it’s going to require a totally different field and some of the young’uns are getting into that. And that’s—we’ve got some digitization folks who are—who—we just don’t have the tools in place to actually do the work we can do now with textual.

[Assistant] So, how did you get involved with the blog?


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

[User] [Laughter] I enjoy writing and I—it was just a way to highlight things that we would release and, you know, we’ve developed a small—there’s 120 followers now. And that’s up a couple dozen from when I started.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And it’s just—we run into the most unique things. And being able to share that stuff is—and I enjoy doing the research and I just love sharing what we do.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] And so it’s just a natural extension of the other things I was doing, and what—nobody else in NDC wanted to write, so I threw my hat in the ring.

[Assistant] Do you have any interesting finds that you could share? Memorable, I guess?


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

[User] It’s going through these decks—it’s dealing with these deck logs, the classified deck logs.

[Assistant] Right, right.

[User] And there was a class of four ships that the Navy didn’t have much else use for. They weren’t successful at what the Navy has built them for. So the Navy found something for them to do. 300 foot-long, it was 175 guys on them. And so they would go out, be based out of Pearl Harbor, and they would rotate between Pearl Harbor, Midway Island, and Johnston Island. And of the three, Pearl Harbor was the best that they were going to come up with, because Midway was a fly-speck of an island, just like Johnston Island. And their job in between those little trips, they would hang out in the North Pacific and Central Pacific. And they would actually wait for a Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile test, and they would actually get warning of a launch of a Soviet ICBM. And their job was to catch the debris from the reentry vehicle when the thing came down, and they were close enough to hear the sonic booms of the reentry vehicle—

[Assistant] [Interposing] Wow.

[User] —which would have been the sound of Armageddon, had they actually had warheads on them. But they would—and they would triangulate—being in the proximity, they would triangulate where the thing went down and they would steam rapidly over to where that location was to see if there was anything in the water to pick up of intelligence value. And so nobody knows that. You’re the first—

[Assistant] [Interposing] That’s so interesting.


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

[User] And my poor wife is the one who’s going to have to deal with it in the future, so...

[Assistant] Well, I know we’ve been—we’re about an hour and a half now—

[User] [Laughter].

[Assistant] —which I—this is fine. I just—I know you probably need to go—I know you wanted to go to the gift shop, but I just have a couple more questions—

[User] [Interposing] [laughter] No, no. That’s all right.

[Assistant] —and then we’ll wrap up.


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

[User] [Laughter].

[Assistant] —which I—this is fine. I just—I know you probably need to go—I know you wanted to go to the gift shop, but I just have a couple more questions—

[User] [Interposing] [laughter] No, no. That’s all right.

[Assistant] —and then we’ll wrap up.

[User] It’s your job to focus this discussion.

[Assistant] Yeah. No, it’s been very helpful. So I was just curious to see, how do you view your time here at the Archives?


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

[User] [Interposing] [laughter] No, no. That’s all right.

[Assistant] —and then we’ll wrap up.

[User] It’s your job to focus this discussion.

[Assistant] Yeah. No, it’s been very helpful. So I was just curious to see, how do you view your time here at the Archives?

[User] This has been such a neat experience, because I—my Navy experience was not the best.

[Assistant] Right. I read your oral history.


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

[User] And so she just said okay, you’re just going to do the SME business. And business has been booming ever since. And they found another manager. M’Lisa Whitney—

[Assistant] [Interposing] Okay.

[User] —had—has my job—

[Assistant] [Interposing] Okay.

[User] —and so she and I have regular conversations, even to this day, about how to work things and stuff like that. So it’s—that mentorship piece has really been helpful. And—which kind of leads me to—NARA has tried over the years any number of mentoring and it’s really not taken off, mainly because you can’t really regulate a mentoring process. That’s a natural thing. A natural chemistry thing between two people, and it either happens or it doesn’t. I was first exposed to the forced stuff in CIDS where I was paired with an archivist of some seniority, and it just didn’t work.

[Assistant] The relationship wasn’t there?


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

[User] —had—has my job—

[Assistant] [Interposing] Okay.

[User] —and so she and I have regular conversations, even to this day, about how to work things and stuff like that. So it’s—that mentorship piece has really been helpful. And—which kind of leads me to—NARA has tried over the years any number of mentoring and it’s really not taken off, mainly because you can’t really regulate a mentoring process. That’s a natural thing. A natural chemistry thing between two people, and it either happens or it doesn’t. I was first exposed to the forced stuff in CIDS where I was paired with an archivist of some seniority, and it just didn’t work.

[Assistant] The relationship wasn’t there?

[User] It just wasn’t there. And so, you know, you have to build that relationship over a period of time. And one has to be willing to share and the other one’s got to be willing to listen, and you just can’t force—I mean, at some points, you had enforced reporting in the mentoring environment where people had to submit weekly reports and stuff like that. Saying—oh my God, no. No. The Navy does it quite informally. You—they just call it the Sea Daddy. You would have a Sea Daddy—

[Assistant] [Interposing] Sea Daddy. [Laughter].


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

[User] —and so she and I have regular conversations, even to this day, about how to work things and stuff like that. So it’s—that mentorship piece has really been helpful. And—which kind of leads me to—NARA has tried over the years any number of mentoring and it’s really not taken off, mainly because you can’t really regulate a mentoring process. That’s a natural thing. A natural chemistry thing between two people, and it either happens or it doesn’t. I was first exposed to the forced stuff in CIDS where I was paired with an archivist of some seniority, and it just didn’t work.

[Assistant] The relationship wasn’t there?

[User] It just wasn’t there. And so, you know, you have to build that relationship over a period of time. And one has to be willing to share and the other one’s got to be willing to listen, and you just can’t force—I mean, at some points, you had enforced reporting in the mentoring environment where people had to submit weekly reports and stuff like that. Saying—oh my God, no. No. The Navy does it quite informally. You—they just call it the Sea Daddy. You would have a Sea Daddy—

[Assistant] [Interposing] Sea Daddy. [Laughter].

[User] —one of the reasons why my career didn’t work well was I didn’t have a Sea Daddy. My wife had a Sea Daddy—

[Assistant] [Interposing] Oh, okay.


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

[User] —one of the reasons why my career didn’t work well was I didn’t have a Sea Daddy. My wife had a Sea Daddy—

[Assistant] [Interposing] Oh, okay.

[User] —and was of some benefit to her—

[Assistant] [Interposing] Okay.

[User] —and she maintains some of the—she still maintains some of those relationships. It just didn’t happen for me, but that’s the Darwinism that goes in a selection process. And as a Navy officer, it’s up or out. So, Darwin, here you are. If you don’t get selected, you’re out. You’re no longer a naval officer. And the same thing, just generally this should apply all the way around. You just can’t force people into mentoring relationships. And I don’t know what the state is—I volunteered when it was a voluntary program a couple of years ago—

[Assistant] [Interposing] Mm-hm. I remember that.


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

[User] —and she maintains some of the—she still maintains some of those relationships. It just didn’t happen for me, but that’s the Darwinism that goes in a selection process. And as a Navy officer, it’s up or out. So, Darwin, here you are. If you don’t get selected, you’re out. You’re no longer a naval officer. And the same thing, just generally this should apply all the way around. You just can’t force people into mentoring relationships. And I don’t know what the state is—I volunteered when it was a voluntary program a couple of years ago—

[Assistant] [Interposing] Mm-hm. I remember that.

[User] —and, you know, I just never got picked. I was available, just wasn’t picked, mainly because I was an unknown in that awkward sixth floor up over College Park—

[Assistant] [Interposing] Yeah.

[User] —and nobody wanted anything to do with that. So when people voluntarily get into those relationships, I’m all into that. And so—and I finally have the discipline to regulate how long I take of people’s time, how much time I take— so that the mentoring is not a punishment; it’s something someone would look forward to and maybe want to repeat. So that’s something that I would miss, and I’m trying to see how else I can do that on the other side, like with a museum or something like that.

[Assistant] Yeah. Well, I think I could talk to you all day, but I’m wondering if there’s anything else you’d like to add that we didn’t cover. Any antidotes or words of wisdom or anything that we missed?


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

[User] And so nobody really knows what the ships looked like, and there’s still arguments—were they blue? Were they gray? But one thing I found that categorically establishes a color was a memo that the Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet at the time, a guy by the name of Husband Kimmel, put a memo out in March of 1941 that mandate that the turret tops of the battleships were going to appear in a certain way with these colors, depending on what organization they belonged to. And for the Arizona, that meant that the front two turrets— it has four. So the front two turrets were colored red on top and the third one—or the fourth one, would be colored red as well. And that was to allow the ship to be seen from very far away, because that’s how the guns were being aimed. You needed to be up high in an airplane over the enemy, and you needed to be able to see 20 miles away at your ship to see if it’s firing. That’s how you corrected the fire. And you had to be able to positively—to identify it, and they did that through the use of turret top colors. And so, the Arizona now has three red turret tops. I needed to share because you can Google Arizona models, so when somebody wants to build one, and since I am a modeler—but I’m not well known for the models I build—but—

[Assistant] [Interposing] Yet.

[User] —yeah, I will have more time. But now, those exist. And so...we’re...yeah. See, this is the instructions.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] That’s the instructions on a model kit that’s telling people to paint it that way.

[Assistant] To paint it red. That’s...


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

[User] —yeah, I will have more time. But now, those exist. And so...we’re...yeah. See, this is the instructions.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] That’s the instructions on a model kit that’s telling people to paint it that way.

[Assistant] To paint it red. That’s...

[User] So if—

[Assistant] [Interposing] And you found this—


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

[User] That’s the instructions on a model kit that’s telling people to paint it that way.

[Assistant] To paint it red. That’s...

[User] So if—

[Assistant] [Interposing] And you found this—

[User] —a modeler has to be famous—

[Assistant] [Interposing] That’s you.


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

[User] —a modeler has to be famous—

[Assistant] [Interposing] That’s you.

[User] —and—well, it doesn’t have to be. I—a lot of people don’t know me. I shared it with a modeler who actually built the big one. It’s a 196th scale, so it’s like six feet long or something like that. So we’re in Pearl Harbor at the visitor’s center for Ford Island, and he built this. And I shared with him that piece of paper and asked, have you ever seen anything like this before? And his eyes just popped, and no, he had not seen anything like that before. And that’s a claim to fame. I will—I’m happy about that one. I kept it low-key because you don’t want that modeling community to be calling on you on a regular basis, because they—can you look this up for me?

[Assistant] Oh, yeah?

[User] And all of a sudden—no. I didn’t want to do that, but I—for this purpose, I want to go ahead and get that down on bits or whatever—

[Assistant] [Interposing] Record it forever.


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

[User] And all of a sudden—no. I didn’t want to do that, but I—for this purpose, I want to go ahead and get that down on bits or whatever—

[Assistant] [Interposing] Record it forever.

[User] —it is. [Laughter]. But, I mean, that—it’s just neat stuff like that that really—it makes working at this place so neat.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] And even though you can go through some rough spots and have bad days, just like you can have bad days anywhere it’s when these gems occur and you can do that, that’s what I love about it.

[Assistant] Yeah. Well, thank you and congratulations again on your retirement.


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

[User] —it is. [Laughter]. But, I mean, that—it’s just neat stuff like that that really—it makes working at this place so neat.

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] And even though you can go through some rough spots and have bad days, just like you can have bad days anywhere it’s when these gems occur and you can do that, that’s what I love about it.

[Assistant] Yeah. Well, thank you and congratulations again on your retirement.

[User] Thank you.

[Assistant] I hope your phased retirement—


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

[User] And even though you can go through some rough spots and have bad days, just like you can have bad days anywhere it’s when these gems occur and you can do that, that’s what I love about it.

[Assistant] Yeah. Well, thank you and congratulations again on your retirement.

[User] Thank you.

[Assistant] I hope your phased retirement—

[User] [Interposing] Yeah, well...

[Assistant] —works out for you.


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

[User] Well, it was kind of exciting. I thought it was exciting, and I was majoring undergraduate in what was a heat power option at Case. When I graduated, it was Case Institute of Technology [Cleveland, Ohio]. When I started, it was Case School of Applied Science. My education was interrupted in World War II. I was away for three years in the Army. Interestingly, I ended up with a technical group that was attached to the Ballistic Research Lab [laboratory] at Aberdeen Proving Ground [Maryland], so I had a good experience in the Army in research in this group.

[Assistant] After the war, obviously, the situation with the United States globally and the Cold War beginning between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, was there a feeling when you first began working full-time again—well, during the summers and then when you started working full-time—a feeling of needing to catch up with what Germany had done during the war and trying to push that forward in the United States, that research?

[User] Yes. We had one very famous German come to Cleveland, Ernst R. G. Eckert. He was a heat transfer expert and eventually went back to teaching and became professor at [the University of] Minnesota [Minneapolis, Minnesota]. I think he’s still living, as far as I know, and he may be. He must be ninety-five or something like that. So, yes. And, of course, we wanted to make sure that people realized, also, that liquid engine rocketry was pioneered by Dr. [Robert H.] Goddard.

[Assistant] As far as the community around Lewis, what was the perception of what was going on at NACA? Did they have any idea of the type of work that you were doing there?

[User] I don’t think so. That’s been one of the problems that we’ve had. This is why we had the Speakers Bureau.

[Assistant] So they weren’t aware of what you were doing.


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

[User] Yes. We had one very famous German come to Cleveland, Ernst R. G. Eckert. He was a heat transfer expert and eventually went back to teaching and became professor at [the University of] Minnesota [Minneapolis, Minnesota]. I think he’s still living, as far as I know, and he may be. He must be ninety-five or something like that. So, yes. And, of course, we wanted to make sure that people realized, also, that liquid engine rocketry was pioneered by Dr. [Robert H.] Goddard.

[Assistant] As far as the community around Lewis, what was the perception of what was going on at NACA? Did they have any idea of the type of work that you were doing there?

[User] I don’t think so. That’s been one of the problems that we’ve had. This is why we had the Speakers Bureau.

[Assistant] So they weren’t aware of what you were doing.

[User] And Cleveland, the Cleveland Laboratory hasn’t had, I think, the press that some of the others have had, or, I think the political backing.

[Assistant] When you first started there, it was around 1948, is that correct, the summers?


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

[User] I don’t think so. That’s been one of the problems that we’ve had. This is why we had the Speakers Bureau.

[Assistant] So they weren’t aware of what you were doing.

[User] And Cleveland, the Cleveland Laboratory hasn’t had, I think, the press that some of the others have had, or, I think the political backing.

[Assistant] When you first started there, it was around 1948, is that correct, the summers?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And then you began working there full-time after that. Can you describe the facilities and what it was like when you first started working there, as far as the buildings and what you had to work with and the areas you worked in?


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

[User] And Cleveland, the Cleveland Laboratory hasn’t had, I think, the press that some of the others have had, or, I think the political backing.

[Assistant] When you first started there, it was around 1948, is that correct, the summers?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And then you began working there full-time after that. Can you describe the facilities and what it was like when you first started working there, as far as the buildings and what you had to work with and the areas you worked in?

[User] Well, the test procedure was vastly different than we do today. Everything is electronic today, as far as receiving and operating on data. In those days we had walls of manometer tubes, for instance, with my compressor readings. They had walls of manometer tubes, some of them were mercury, some of them tetrabromide; probably fluids that we couldn’t use today. But anyway, the way of taking a data shot was to take a photograph of these tubes, so we would get pressures where we had instrumentation, and then we had computers, which were women, who would read these tubes. They were given calculational procedures on how to process that data and give us information back.\n\n So you’d run a test maybe for several hours, and you’d have these films, big camera with big sheets, big pieces of film that were used to photograph these things. Then these women had the tedious job of, with the magnifiers, reading the data and then transferring it to calculators, which at that time were Monroe calculators, mechanical devices. So we didn’t know how a test ran maybe till a week or two weeks later.

[Assistant] How closely did you work with the women, with the computers, as an engineer?


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

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And then you began working there full-time after that. Can you describe the facilities and what it was like when you first started working there, as far as the buildings and what you had to work with and the areas you worked in?

[User] Well, the test procedure was vastly different than we do today. Everything is electronic today, as far as receiving and operating on data. In those days we had walls of manometer tubes, for instance, with my compressor readings. They had walls of manometer tubes, some of them were mercury, some of them tetrabromide; probably fluids that we couldn’t use today. But anyway, the way of taking a data shot was to take a photograph of these tubes, so we would get pressures where we had instrumentation, and then we had computers, which were women, who would read these tubes. They were given calculational procedures on how to process that data and give us information back.\n\n So you’d run a test maybe for several hours, and you’d have these films, big camera with big sheets, big pieces of film that were used to photograph these things. Then these women had the tedious job of, with the magnifiers, reading the data and then transferring it to calculators, which at that time were Monroe calculators, mechanical devices. So we didn’t know how a test ran maybe till a week or two weeks later.

[Assistant] How closely did you work with the women, with the computers, as an engineer?

[User] Quite closely. One of the first ladies I had became the first Division Chief at Lewis, woman Division Chief. She was in charge of computing.

[Assistant] What was her name?


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

[User] Well, the tests that I’d run were a pretty small prototype. The control room wouldn’t be maybe quite as big as this room, and then we’d have the test facility over in the—and maybe a bullet-proof window to look in, and the cameras and so forth. The manometer tubes would be in the operation room, and the camera, so we’d click the pictures as we went from test point to test point. But the major facilities, they were very careful to build mufflers, because some people in the community objected to the noise. But the major wind tunnels had mufflers at Lewis; still do. And, of course, they ran at night because of electrical power demand. That’s when the industry was off-line, like the ten-by-ten supersonic tunnel and the eight-by-six supersonic tunnel in that facility. But when it came to hydrogen, I had to run that at night, and the area was roped off. We just ejected the hydrogen into the air after it would pass through the test section. We had a stack, we called it.

[Assistant] You mentioned NACA inspections and the one in 1957. How often did those inspections take place?

[User] Well, I guess they were yearly, but they were passed around, so the three Centers, it was every three years that you got the assignment.

[Assistant] Who was normally involved during that inspection? Was it the entire Lab? Were you all involved in presenting what was being done at that time?

[User] Well, a good piece of the Lab. It did take quite a manpower effort. It was given a very high priority because congressional people, representatives of industry came. It was a public exposure of what was going on in these Centers, the three major NACA Centers. So, yes, it was a big project.

[Assistant] In November of 1957 I read that you took part in the NACA Flight Propulsion Conference that was being held at Lewis, and you were one of the presenters on “Propulsion Requirements for Earth Satellites,” and with some suggestions for the possibility of landing on the Moon at that time. Can you talk about that for a minute?


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

[User] I guess when I probably joined the Rocket Branch in the mid-fifties to [19]’60, just before Sputnik.

[Assistant] Did that seem far-fetched at that time to you—

[User] No, no, no.

[Assistant] —or was that something that you felt that was achievable?

[User] Yes, I thought it was exciting, and of course, we had done enough simple calculations to indicate what rockets could do in terms of getting up into orbit.

[Assistant] Well, you came there—you were still relatively young, in your twenties at that time, and I know a lot of the people that worked there, and it was an academic-type setting, that there were a lot of young people there. Were there a lot of social activities that you took part in?


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

[User] No, no, no.

[Assistant] —or was that something that you felt that was achievable?

[User] Yes, I thought it was exciting, and of course, we had done enough simple calculations to indicate what rockets could do in terms of getting up into orbit.

[Assistant] Well, you came there—you were still relatively young, in your twenties at that time, and I know a lot of the people that worked there, and it was an academic-type setting, that there were a lot of young people there. Were there a lot of social activities that you took part in?

[User] Oh yes. It was a family. We were very self-contained as a Center. Everything was done there, machine shop, model shop, instrumentation. If you had any kind of a problem, whether it was aeronautical or whether it was at home, you could find somebody that could help you. It was a marvelous source of information. I built my own house, and I had electrical help from the electricians at the Lab. I did the finishing, putting receptacles and things like that in, but to make the major circuits and patch into the power grid, I had a fellow come over on the weekends and did the wiring. And it was like that.

[Assistant] Did you join the Speakers Bureau then, or was that something you did later?


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

[User] Yes, I thought it was exciting, and of course, we had done enough simple calculations to indicate what rockets could do in terms of getting up into orbit.

[Assistant] Well, you came there—you were still relatively young, in your twenties at that time, and I know a lot of the people that worked there, and it was an academic-type setting, that there were a lot of young people there. Were there a lot of social activities that you took part in?

[User] Oh yes. It was a family. We were very self-contained as a Center. Everything was done there, machine shop, model shop, instrumentation. If you had any kind of a problem, whether it was aeronautical or whether it was at home, you could find somebody that could help you. It was a marvelous source of information. I built my own house, and I had electrical help from the electricians at the Lab. I did the finishing, putting receptacles and things like that in, but to make the major circuits and patch into the power grid, I had a fellow come over on the weekends and did the wiring. And it was like that.

[Assistant] Did you join the Speakers Bureau then, or was that something you did later?

[User] Well, it wasn’t called the Speakers Bureau when I joined it. When I quit, I think I was probably one of the first that did that, and I think my first speech was in [19]’55.

[Assistant] Were you given the information to give to the public, or were you allowed to come up—


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

[User] Oh yes. It was a family. We were very self-contained as a Center. Everything was done there, machine shop, model shop, instrumentation. If you had any kind of a problem, whether it was aeronautical or whether it was at home, you could find somebody that could help you. It was a marvelous source of information. I built my own house, and I had electrical help from the electricians at the Lab. I did the finishing, putting receptacles and things like that in, but to make the major circuits and patch into the power grid, I had a fellow come over on the weekends and did the wiring. And it was like that.

[Assistant] Did you join the Speakers Bureau then, or was that something you did later?

[User] Well, it wasn’t called the Speakers Bureau when I joined it. When I quit, I think I was probably one of the first that did that, and I think my first speech was in [19]’55.

[Assistant] Were you given the information to give to the public, or were you allowed to come up—

[User] No, you generated your own talks.

[Assistant] Was there a big interest from the public?


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

[User] Well, it wasn’t called the Speakers Bureau when I joined it. When I quit, I think I was probably one of the first that did that, and I think my first speech was in [19]’55.

[Assistant] Were you given the information to give to the public, or were you allowed to come up—

[User] No, you generated your own talks.

[Assistant] Was there a big interest from the public?

[User] Oh, I had some wonderful experiences.

[Assistant] What type of groups did you talk to?


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

[User] No, you generated your own talks.

[Assistant] Was there a big interest from the public?

[User] Oh, I had some wonderful experiences.

[Assistant] What type of groups did you talk to?

[User] Oh, all kinds of people, professionals and insurance people, you name it, and, of course, a lot of Kiwanis and clubs like that, church people, church organizations, civic groups. It was an interesting activity.

[Assistant] Did you notice the interest pick up after Sputnik as opposed to before Sputnik, as far as the public was concerned, in what was happening?


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

[User] Oh, I had some wonderful experiences.

[Assistant] What type of groups did you talk to?

[User] Oh, all kinds of people, professionals and insurance people, you name it, and, of course, a lot of Kiwanis and clubs like that, church people, church organizations, civic groups. It was an interesting activity.

[Assistant] Did you notice the interest pick up after Sputnik as opposed to before Sputnik, as far as the public was concerned, in what was happening?

[User] I think generally that happened, yes. I think my first talk was actually not in Cleveland. It was in Fort Wayne [Indiana]. I was asked to go to a group in Fort Wayne to talk.

[Assistant] If you had to look back over your years when it was still the NACA, what do you think your most significant contribution during that time period would have been?


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

[User] Oh, all kinds of people, professionals and insurance people, you name it, and, of course, a lot of Kiwanis and clubs like that, church people, church organizations, civic groups. It was an interesting activity.

[Assistant] Did you notice the interest pick up after Sputnik as opposed to before Sputnik, as far as the public was concerned, in what was happening?

[User] I think generally that happened, yes. I think my first talk was actually not in Cleveland. It was in Fort Wayne [Indiana]. I was asked to go to a group in Fort Wayne to talk.

[Assistant] If you had to look back over your years when it was still the NACA, what do you think your most significant contribution during that time period would have been?

[User] I think when I managed to get consent from management to explore liquid hydrogen as a coolant, and I think my reputation as a researcher, which had international recognition, was based pretty much on that and the general topic of heat transfer, basic heat transfer. Lewis had one of the outstanding groups in heat transfer in the world, and I was privileged to have one of the groups in that. So it wasn’t the only heat transfer section, but outstanding people.

[Assistant] Was that a difficult process, getting that approval?


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

[User] I think generally that happened, yes. I think my first talk was actually not in Cleveland. It was in Fort Wayne [Indiana]. I was asked to go to a group in Fort Wayne to talk.

[Assistant] If you had to look back over your years when it was still the NACA, what do you think your most significant contribution during that time period would have been?

[User] I think when I managed to get consent from management to explore liquid hydrogen as a coolant, and I think my reputation as a researcher, which had international recognition, was based pretty much on that and the general topic of heat transfer, basic heat transfer. Lewis had one of the outstanding groups in heat transfer in the world, and I was privileged to have one of the groups in that. So it wasn’t the only heat transfer section, but outstanding people.

[Assistant] Was that a difficult process, getting that approval?

[User] I had to fight for it, but, actually, I got support primarily from my Division Chief. He said, “Go ahead.” I had no problems of going ahead with it after that at all. I was fortunate to get a few people to work on it. I worked with them, people that I supervised. I had one man who was outstanding. He’s still at Lewis. He was a dynamo, so he was really the project leader, eventually, in the experiments.

[Assistant] Do you recall his name?


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

[User] I think when I managed to get consent from management to explore liquid hydrogen as a coolant, and I think my reputation as a researcher, which had international recognition, was based pretty much on that and the general topic of heat transfer, basic heat transfer. Lewis had one of the outstanding groups in heat transfer in the world, and I was privileged to have one of the groups in that. So it wasn’t the only heat transfer section, but outstanding people.

[Assistant] Was that a difficult process, getting that approval?

[User] I had to fight for it, but, actually, I got support primarily from my Division Chief. He said, “Go ahead.” I had no problems of going ahead with it after that at all. I was fortunate to get a few people to work on it. I worked with them, people that I supervised. I had one man who was outstanding. He’s still at Lewis. He was a dynamo, so he was really the project leader, eventually, in the experiments.

[Assistant] Do you recall his name?

[User] Yes. Robert Hendricks.

[Assistant] Did you work with George [M.] Low when he was there?


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

[User] I had to fight for it, but, actually, I got support primarily from my Division Chief. He said, “Go ahead.” I had no problems of going ahead with it after that at all. I was fortunate to get a few people to work on it. I worked with them, people that I supervised. I had one man who was outstanding. He’s still at Lewis. He was a dynamo, so he was really the project leader, eventually, in the experiments.

[Assistant] Do you recall his name?

[User] Yes. Robert Hendricks.

[Assistant] Did you work with George [M.] Low when he was there?

[User] Yes. Yes. In fact, on that rocket tunnel that I mentioned, I worked with George Low and some of his people on that. In fact, he loaned me one of his designers to help in designing that rig—the operational sell—Robert [R.] Godman. He died, I think, last year. George Low was a remarkable guy.

[Assistant] If you had to look back and talk about your greatest challenge during that time, would it be something different than getting that approval?


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

[User] Lots of cooperation. People trusted one another. There wasn’t somebody trying to get ahead. I felt like we were a team. That was the family nature of the Center.

[Assistant] After 1958 when the change as far as NACA turning into NASA, was there any major change in your duties or what you were assigned to at that time, or did you just continue on working in the same section?

[User] After [19]’58, yes, my section grew. I had at one time fourteen, fifteen people, and then I’d have summer faculty come in and work with us, and summer students. So I had a big group to deal with.

[Assistant] Did you notice any other changes in the Center? Besides increasing in size, did you notice anything in the change—as you said, it was a family. People interacted. There was a lot of cooperation. Did that hold true once it transferred to NASA?

[User] Yes, that worked for a while, but then it began, I think after the success in the Moon, that sort of went away, and then there was the contracting business that you did outside work rather than—the Center wasn’t as self-dependent as it was before.

[Assistant] Well, during that time, I know you mentioned, of course, Neil Armstrong worked there for a while, and that was before he was well known, but I know that people would visit the Centers or the Labs at that time, famous people, politicians. Do you remember any incidents or any visitors coming to Lewis, or anything surrounding that?


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

[User] After [19]’58, yes, my section grew. I had at one time fourteen, fifteen people, and then I’d have summer faculty come in and work with us, and summer students. So I had a big group to deal with.

[Assistant] Did you notice any other changes in the Center? Besides increasing in size, did you notice anything in the change—as you said, it was a family. People interacted. There was a lot of cooperation. Did that hold true once it transferred to NASA?

[User] Yes, that worked for a while, but then it began, I think after the success in the Moon, that sort of went away, and then there was the contracting business that you did outside work rather than—the Center wasn’t as self-dependent as it was before.

[Assistant] Well, during that time, I know you mentioned, of course, Neil Armstrong worked there for a while, and that was before he was well known, but I know that people would visit the Centers or the Labs at that time, famous people, politicians. Do you remember any incidents or any visitors coming to Lewis, or anything surrounding that?

[User] Yes, I remember when people were there, and I’ve seen these people occasionally around the Laboratory and have met some of them. Like I mentioned, James Doolittle, of course, had a history with NACA.

[Assistant] Anyone else come to mind?


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

[User] Yes, that worked for a while, but then it began, I think after the success in the Moon, that sort of went away, and then there was the contracting business that you did outside work rather than—the Center wasn’t as self-dependent as it was before.

[Assistant] Well, during that time, I know you mentioned, of course, Neil Armstrong worked there for a while, and that was before he was well known, but I know that people would visit the Centers or the Labs at that time, famous people, politicians. Do you remember any incidents or any visitors coming to Lewis, or anything surrounding that?

[User] Yes, I remember when people were there, and I’ve seen these people occasionally around the Laboratory and have met some of them. Like I mentioned, James Doolittle, of course, had a history with NACA.

[Assistant] Anyone else come to mind?

[User] Well, there was a number of people in my area of heat transfer expertise. I had international visitors, some of them world-renowned. [Ralf] Schmidt, actually one of the great people and recognized all over the world for his heat transfer. And Eckert coming back.

[Assistant] Well, you mentioned Abe Silverstein, and I know he was instrumental in bringing the Centaur Program to Lewis to, I guess, debug, if you will, the program when it was having problems. Did you participate in that program?


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

[User] Yes, I remember when people were there, and I’ve seen these people occasionally around the Laboratory and have met some of them. Like I mentioned, James Doolittle, of course, had a history with NACA.

[Assistant] Anyone else come to mind?

[User] Well, there was a number of people in my area of heat transfer expertise. I had international visitors, some of them world-renowned. [Ralf] Schmidt, actually one of the great people and recognized all over the world for his heat transfer. And Eckert coming back.

[Assistant] Well, you mentioned Abe Silverstein, and I know he was instrumental in bringing the Centaur Program to Lewis to, I guess, debug, if you will, the program when it was having problems. Did you participate in that program?

[User] I wasn’t part of the Centaur Group, no, but I feel like my connection to the RL-10 was significant. So I guess the change was when we became more project-minded rather than research-minded. I stayed pretty much with the groups that were on the research side of the house. Development became a bigger thing in the Laboratory.

[Assistant] And you stayed more on the research—


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

[User] The motivation was great, really great, and general morale was very, very high. People would go out of their way to work and help others, even, in their programs. It was a golden era. But, unfortunately, once the accomplishment was made and then where to go next wasn’t clarified, I think that’s where NASA has had some of its problems.

[Assistant] As you mentioned, the goal was achieved. Then in [19]’72, [19]’73, when things started winding down and there were RIFs [reductions in force] across NASA, and I know they affected Lewis, how did that affect your work at that time, or did it affect that work?

[User] Well, I had to let go of, I think, just one person, but I felt sorry I had to do that. That’s hard. That’s one of the hardest things a manager has to do, because the fellow was doing okay, and it’s just too bad that I had to—I was told I had to choose who, and who did I want to let go.

[Assistant] Do you know if he went on to the private sector, or was he moved into another position?

[User] No, he left.

[Assistant] What was the morale like at Lewis during that time period, as compared to just a few years before when it was so high?


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

[User] Well, I had to let go of, I think, just one person, but I felt sorry I had to do that. That’s hard. That’s one of the hardest things a manager has to do, because the fellow was doing okay, and it’s just too bad that I had to—I was told I had to choose who, and who did I want to let go.

[Assistant] Do you know if he went on to the private sector, or was he moved into another position?

[User] No, he left.

[Assistant] What was the morale like at Lewis during that time period, as compared to just a few years before when it was so high?

[User] Well, when you start talking about firing, you know, that doesn’t help. Then people begin to guard themselves, you know, people and organizations.

[Assistant] Was the social atmosphere still there as it was in the early days?


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

[User] Well, when you start talking about firing, you know, that doesn’t help. Then people begin to guard themselves, you know, people and organizations.

[Assistant] Was the social atmosphere still there as it was in the early days?

[User] No.

[Assistant] Things changed?

[User] Things changed.

[Assistant] But you were still a part of that Speakers Bureau at that time?


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

[User] No.

[Assistant] Things changed?

[User] Things changed.

[Assistant] But you were still a part of that Speakers Bureau at that time?

[User] Oh yes. I was in the Speakers Bureau up until—even when I was a contractor. I think I probably left about late maybe 1998 or something like that.

[Assistant] Do you have any memories or any involvement with the Plum Brook [Sandusky, Ohio] facility?


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

[User] Things changed.

[Assistant] But you were still a part of that Speakers Bureau at that time?

[User] Oh yes. I was in the Speakers Bureau up until—even when I was a contractor. I think I probably left about late maybe 1998 or something like that.

[Assistant] Do you have any memories or any involvement with the Plum Brook [Sandusky, Ohio] facility?

[User] Well, this connection was when I had the Technology Assessment, I had some acquaintances out there, and made a few visits, but I hadn’t had any close. There was one tunnel that we were interested in, a supersonic tunnel, that, I guess, eventually it ended up out there, and we were interested in that.

[Assistant] You mentioned your achievements during the NACA time. Is there anything during that NASA time that you’d like to mention?


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

[User] Oh yes. I was in the Speakers Bureau up until—even when I was a contractor. I think I probably left about late maybe 1998 or something like that.

[Assistant] Do you have any memories or any involvement with the Plum Brook [Sandusky, Ohio] facility?

[User] Well, this connection was when I had the Technology Assessment, I had some acquaintances out there, and made a few visits, but I hadn’t had any close. There was one tunnel that we were interested in, a supersonic tunnel, that, I guess, eventually it ended up out there, and we were interested in that.

[Assistant] You mentioned your achievements during the NACA time. Is there anything during that NASA time that you’d like to mention?

[User] Well, we still carried on a basic research program in heat transfer, and even though the hydrogen sort of tapered off eventually, but one of my colleagues and I wrote a book on boiling and near-critical heat transfer, and published that in the seventies. So we sort of documented some of the work that was done. This fellow was Chinese, Taiwanese, and he was doing—when I heard about him, when we were entering some of this boiling research, I heard about him through some of my connections. I was active in technical societies, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He was doing postdoctoral work. Even though he wasn’t a citizen at that time, we managed to get him on board, and Dr. [Hugh L.] Dryden approved his coming. So Y. Y. Hsu and I wrote this book.

[Assistant] Did you belong to any other technical societies or professional societies?


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

[User] Well, this connection was when I had the Technology Assessment, I had some acquaintances out there, and made a few visits, but I hadn’t had any close. There was one tunnel that we were interested in, a supersonic tunnel, that, I guess, eventually it ended up out there, and we were interested in that.

[Assistant] You mentioned your achievements during the NACA time. Is there anything during that NASA time that you’d like to mention?

[User] Well, we still carried on a basic research program in heat transfer, and even though the hydrogen sort of tapered off eventually, but one of my colleagues and I wrote a book on boiling and near-critical heat transfer, and published that in the seventies. So we sort of documented some of the work that was done. This fellow was Chinese, Taiwanese, and he was doing—when I heard about him, when we were entering some of this boiling research, I heard about him through some of my connections. I was active in technical societies, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He was doing postdoctoral work. Even though he wasn’t a citizen at that time, we managed to get him on board, and Dr. [Hugh L.] Dryden approved his coming. So Y. Y. Hsu and I wrote this book.

[Assistant] Did you belong to any other technical societies or professional societies?

[User] Well, I was a part of the IAA [International Academy of Astronautics], too. I kind of dropped that, but I was very active in ASME [American Society of Mechanical Engineers]. I was a Governor of the society, and I was Senior Vice President for Public Affairs, and one time I was a candidate for President, but I wasn’t selected. But up till quite recently, I was active in it. Kind of dropped out three years ago in any committee work or anything like that.

[Assistant] Just taking it easy now?


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

[User] Well, we still carried on a basic research program in heat transfer, and even though the hydrogen sort of tapered off eventually, but one of my colleagues and I wrote a book on boiling and near-critical heat transfer, and published that in the seventies. So we sort of documented some of the work that was done. This fellow was Chinese, Taiwanese, and he was doing—when I heard about him, when we were entering some of this boiling research, I heard about him through some of my connections. I was active in technical societies, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He was doing postdoctoral work. Even though he wasn’t a citizen at that time, we managed to get him on board, and Dr. [Hugh L.] Dryden approved his coming. So Y. Y. Hsu and I wrote this book.

[Assistant] Did you belong to any other technical societies or professional societies?

[User] Well, I was a part of the IAA [International Academy of Astronautics], too. I kind of dropped that, but I was very active in ASME [American Society of Mechanical Engineers]. I was a Governor of the society, and I was Senior Vice President for Public Affairs, and one time I was a candidate for President, but I wasn’t selected. But up till quite recently, I was active in it. Kind of dropped out three years ago in any committee work or anything like that.

[Assistant] Just taking it easy now?

[User] I think that you give other people a chance.

[Assistant] Is there anything you can think of that we haven’t talked about, as far as your NACA experience, that you’d like to mention?


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

[User] Well, I was a part of the IAA [International Academy of Astronautics], too. I kind of dropped that, but I was very active in ASME [American Society of Mechanical Engineers]. I was a Governor of the society, and I was Senior Vice President for Public Affairs, and one time I was a candidate for President, but I wasn’t selected. But up till quite recently, I was active in it. Kind of dropped out three years ago in any committee work or anything like that.

[Assistant] Just taking it easy now?

[User] I think that you give other people a chance.

[Assistant] Is there anything you can think of that we haven’t talked about, as far as your NACA experience, that you’d like to mention?

[User] Well, I had an interesting experience with Dr. Dryden. In that book there, it’s mentioned, too, in talking about him, so you could refer to that, but I got the idea—I’m very active in my church, and our church is in a campus on Baldwin-Wallace College in Cleveland, Ohio. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. I talked to the President one time—he’s a member of our church, as well—and said I’d like to have a conference, which eventually was called Conversations about the Ethical Use of Knowledge. We got an assortment of experts to come, and Dr. Dryden consented to come. He stayed at my house. Great, great guy, really.

[Assistant] Quite an experience, I imagine.


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

[User] I think that you give other people a chance.

[Assistant] Is there anything you can think of that we haven’t talked about, as far as your NACA experience, that you’d like to mention?

[User] Well, I had an interesting experience with Dr. Dryden. In that book there, it’s mentioned, too, in talking about him, so you could refer to that, but I got the idea—I’m very active in my church, and our church is in a campus on Baldwin-Wallace College in Cleveland, Ohio. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. I talked to the President one time—he’s a member of our church, as well—and said I’d like to have a conference, which eventually was called Conversations about the Ethical Use of Knowledge. We got an assortment of experts to come, and Dr. Dryden consented to come. He stayed at my house. Great, great guy, really.

[Assistant] Quite an experience, I imagine.

[User] Yes. So he wrote a big piece, and I have a record of that conference. That was in the early sixties. So that was very much of a highlight for me. I was General Chairman of the conference. It was down at Baldwin-Wallace College. A number of people from Lewis came over and participated. So that’s, I think, probably one of the really nice memories. I had such regard for that guy. He was so humble, and yet so brilliant. We used to get a Christmas card from him every year. [Laughter] That was, “Hugh and Libby Dryden,” just that.

[Assistant] Well, you had a chance to work with some very amazing people during your career.


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

[User] Well, I had an interesting experience with Dr. Dryden. In that book there, it’s mentioned, too, in talking about him, so you could refer to that, but I got the idea—I’m very active in my church, and our church is in a campus on Baldwin-Wallace College in Cleveland, Ohio. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. I talked to the President one time—he’s a member of our church, as well—and said I’d like to have a conference, which eventually was called Conversations about the Ethical Use of Knowledge. We got an assortment of experts to come, and Dr. Dryden consented to come. He stayed at my house. Great, great guy, really.

[Assistant] Quite an experience, I imagine.

[User] Yes. So he wrote a big piece, and I have a record of that conference. That was in the early sixties. So that was very much of a highlight for me. I was General Chairman of the conference. It was down at Baldwin-Wallace College. A number of people from Lewis came over and participated. So that’s, I think, probably one of the really nice memories. I had such regard for that guy. He was so humble, and yet so brilliant. We used to get a Christmas card from him every year. [Laughter] That was, “Hugh and Libby Dryden,” just that.

[Assistant] Well, you had a chance to work with some very amazing people during your career.

[User] Oh yes. Yes.

[Assistant] Quite an opportunity.


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

[User] Yes. So he wrote a big piece, and I have a record of that conference. That was in the early sixties. So that was very much of a highlight for me. I was General Chairman of the conference. It was down at Baldwin-Wallace College. A number of people from Lewis came over and participated. So that’s, I think, probably one of the really nice memories. I had such regard for that guy. He was so humble, and yet so brilliant. We used to get a Christmas card from him every year. [Laughter] That was, “Hugh and Libby Dryden,” just that.

[Assistant] Well, you had a chance to work with some very amazing people during your career.

[User] Oh yes. Yes.

[Assistant] Quite an opportunity.

[User] It was. I’ve had an exciting life.

[Assistant] You don’t regret not going back to teaching.


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

[User] Oh yes. Yes.

[Assistant] Quite an opportunity.

[User] It was. I’ve had an exciting life.

[Assistant] You don’t regret not going back to teaching.

[User] No. And, of course, what happened was I had so much opportunity to teach, and I was an Adjunct Professor at North Carolina State University [Raleigh, North Carolina], and I lectured at a number of colleges, Minnesota, Purdue, [University of] Cincinnati [Cincinnati, Ohio].

[Assistant] So you got to do both, then.


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

[User] It was. I’ve had an exciting life.

[Assistant] You don’t regret not going back to teaching.

[User] No. And, of course, what happened was I had so much opportunity to teach, and I was an Adjunct Professor at North Carolina State University [Raleigh, North Carolina], and I lectured at a number of colleges, Minnesota, Purdue, [University of] Cincinnati [Cincinnati, Ohio].

[Assistant] So you got to do both, then.

[User] Yes, and I guess you build your house, and you get emotionally attached. You get emotionally attached to your community, and you have children and they’re there. You know what happens. You get anchored down.

[Assistant] Did the social life involve your entire family? Did the children of the people you worked with, did they all go to school with your kids and did the social life extend?


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

[User] No. And, of course, what happened was I had so much opportunity to teach, and I was an Adjunct Professor at North Carolina State University [Raleigh, North Carolina], and I lectured at a number of colleges, Minnesota, Purdue, [University of] Cincinnati [Cincinnati, Ohio].

[Assistant] So you got to do both, then.

[User] Yes, and I guess you build your house, and you get emotionally attached. You get emotionally attached to your community, and you have children and they’re there. You know what happens. You get anchored down.

[Assistant] Did the social life involve your entire family? Did the children of the people you worked with, did they all go to school with your kids and did the social life extend?

[User] No. We had picnics. We had a lot of really great family picnics at Lewis, and the Christmas programs. When the kids were little, they had a great program there for Christmas season. It was interesting. People of all faiths and colors and everything, but we got along.

[Assistant] A special time.


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

[User] Yes, and I guess you build your house, and you get emotionally attached. You get emotionally attached to your community, and you have children and they’re there. You know what happens. You get anchored down.

[Assistant] Did the social life involve your entire family? Did the children of the people you worked with, did they all go to school with your kids and did the social life extend?

[User] No. We had picnics. We had a lot of really great family picnics at Lewis, and the Christmas programs. When the kids were little, they had a great program there for Christmas season. It was interesting. People of all faiths and colors and everything, but we got along.

[Assistant] A special time.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Well, if there’s not anything else, I appreciate you coming by to visit with us and sharing this information with us, and we’ll definitely use this, this history that you wrote.


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

[User] No. The most, one was in history when I was a child. But I was I think I was the only one who, when I returned, ultimately became a professor at Teachers College at Temple University. I was one, I think the only one that went into education after high school, but they went into other other areas.

[Assistant] Just to say I was one of the people switched jobs. My second year, I worked in the National Museum.

[User] That's right. And I think I think it was good because it was more enriching for the volunteer to do something who was personally satisfying and it was more enriching for the country, I think to do something, you know, have people in different areas. And then people met people in different areas. So getting back to Nigeria, it was. I was robbed once in the house, I mean, I slept through it, but there were some thieves who came and just went, all of the staff lived in the compound, the students lived in the compound, and they just went from house to house. They were very quiet and I didn't have much. So they I don't know if I had a record player, which they didn't take. I don't know what they took, but maybe a couple of items of clothing. But other than that, it was very safe. And even women at that time could travel from city to city in a public taxi or the truck, mammy wagons, they call them I think. It was very safe.

[Assistant] How big a town where you went?

[User] Well, they had one bank, one what they call cold store, where you could get they had a refrigerator and one gas station, I would I don't know if it was, you know, 20,000 or it was very I mean, not big. And the caller was on the outskirts. As I said, it was 240 stores. There was another secondary Catholic secondary school nearby with about maybe 300 secondary school students. And a few churches.

[Assistant] And were your students coed at that point or not?


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

[User] So, yeah, the O-levels, the A-levels. So that was still going on. They had to prepare them to take these standardized exams that were sent to England to be checked, to be sure that the standard was kept high. But that wasn't the case in the south. But in Nigeria, as I said, they liberalized the curriculum, too, with the introduction of a Nigerian novelist, American autobiography, and Hillary's.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] When I retired from Teachers College, I moved to Japan, where my family was, I been commuting back and forth and I had occasion to work with a Japanese college in New Zealand. From the beginning, it started some years earlier. And I was a consultant, I went to New Zealand quite a few times as a consultant and when I went retired from teachers college and moved to Tokyo. They asked me if I would come to become president of this college because the president had been recruited by another college and he decided he wanted to go to this was a larger college. So it was a step up for him. So they said, can you come out for six months? So anyway, I stayed for eight years, but the connection is that I never thought when I was in Nigeria eating Nigerian lamb chops that I would be living in New Zealand with 80 million sheep running around and I would never dream have dreamt of meeting through Edmund Hillary. He was the honorary president of the returned New Zealand overseas volunteers. And one of the members of our staff was the president of the Returned Overseas New Zealand Volunteers. So she always invited me to receptions in Wellington, which was the capital, the political capital, and they would hold it at the State House Government House. And Sir Edmund Hillary will always be there to speak.

[Assistant] All right, so we turn to New Zealand volunteers, but they have a Peace Corps as well?

[User] Yeah, well, they call it voluntary service overseas. It was the same as England and Australia. Well, Japan has the same thing. I mean, they call it something else.

[Assistant] But is the same idea.


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

[User] Not too much the even though everybody lived on staff. They never interacted socially. In other words, like at the Catholic Secondary School. Well, it was different. They were all there were nuns and then there were some Americans and British all in on campus, but they were all the same age and simmering background. But the age difference at my campus, the different subjects, and they were from different tribes. I mean, not that they were antagonistic. Everyone was friendly in the staff room. And we had social events when somebody left, when somebody came and it was all very amicable, but they simply didn't it wasn't the custom to have other people over for a meal. So in two years, the principal asked me, like the day after I got there or the night I got over for dinner, that was that was that was it. So we were very friendly. But I really the other thing that was quite a bit of turnover. So I got to know a couple of you know, we could talk in the staffroom and compare notes, but also we talk very there were a couple of other English teachers where we all thought different levels. So we didn't have that much in common to talk about.

[Assistant] Should I stop it?

[User] Yes, stop it, sorry.

[Assistant] So you were saying that people weren't socializing with each other too much. What did you do at night?

[User] Well, I.

[Assistant] Read the Peace Corp book locker?


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

[User] Yes, stop it, sorry.

[Assistant] So you were saying that people weren't socializing with each other too much. What did you do at night?

[User] Well, I.

[Assistant] Read the Peace Corp book locker?

[User] I spent a couple of nights in the library. The library was in totally total disarray when I got there. So I asked the principal if I could organize it and, you know, get cabinets and things. He said, fine, sure. I organized the library committee. And students would look at the Dewey Decimal System and classify the books, put labels on and make cards, and so a couple of nights a week, I went through to work with them. And then the other night, between getting ready for class and reading, what students wrote was pretty busy on the weekend. I often visited the teachers at the half the girls who I went to for breakfast. Well, I went to for Mass and then stayed for breakfast.

[Assistant] Were there other Peace Corps volunteers there or not?


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

[User] Half year, after the first year or so after that, this set of policy, you can only travel in Africa, essentially that was which made sense. Having said that, it was a good break and I got a lot of slides from different countries and then shared this visit, you know, to the middle of Turkey and Greece, Israel and Jordan.

[Assistant] Wow. That was quite a bit.

[User]
Egypt with the students, so it was quiet, it was very informative and helpful for the for the students. We had quite a few evenings. It was voluntary, of course, but almost all the students came to these sessions. We had electricity two hours a night. There was a school generator. There was no electricity in town, except it is an individual dance hall with the banquet that a generator, everybody had a generator. So two hours a night and then we use the lantern. If we stayed up late or we used the lantern before eight o'clock, it was just on from eight to 10. But when I did the rounds at night. There was a curfew that was supposed to go to sleep by 10:00. That's why they turned the lights off, but when they were studying for exams, they would have a flashlight under their blanket. And of course, they usually hear you coming in would turn it off, but one guy didn't hear me coming. So I said, Benedict, what are you doing? Sir, I am sleeping.

But generally, they were very they adhere to the rules. And of course, they had the. What did the British call that system? Where senior students are responsible for junior students after do an infraction, they give them punishment. So it worked pretty well and because they were mature, they didn't misuse their authority very much because the other students were of a like age or they weren't there. So that was good.

[Assistant] Did you think, thinking back, that was the first year of independence? You said they changed the curriculum. Were there other things that were going on at that time?

[User] No, I mean, not that, I mean,

[Assistant] Not that, you know.


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

[User]
Egypt with the students, so it was quiet, it was very informative and helpful for the for the students. We had quite a few evenings. It was voluntary, of course, but almost all the students came to these sessions. We had electricity two hours a night. There was a school generator. There was no electricity in town, except it is an individual dance hall with the banquet that a generator, everybody had a generator. So two hours a night and then we use the lantern. If we stayed up late or we used the lantern before eight o'clock, it was just on from eight to 10. But when I did the rounds at night. There was a curfew that was supposed to go to sleep by 10:00. That's why they turned the lights off, but when they were studying for exams, they would have a flashlight under their blanket. And of course, they usually hear you coming in would turn it off, but one guy didn't hear me coming. So I said, Benedict, what are you doing? Sir, I am sleeping.

But generally, they were very they adhere to the rules. And of course, they had the. What did the British call that system? Where senior students are responsible for junior students after do an infraction, they give them punishment. So it worked pretty well and because they were mature, they didn't misuse their authority very much because the other students were of a like age or they weren't there. So that was good.

[Assistant] Did you think, thinking back, that was the first year of independence? You said they changed the curriculum. Were there other things that were going on at that time?

[User] No, I mean, not that, I mean,

[Assistant] Not that, you know.

[User] I didn't talk about it much, you know.

[Assistant] They didn't talk about.


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

[User] No, I mean, not that, I mean,

[Assistant] Not that, you know.

[User] I didn't talk about it much, you know.

[Assistant] They didn't talk about.

[User] No, we. Well, I should. Every morning we had assembly.

[Assistant] Yeah, it's good.


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

[User] Yes, it worked. Now it's playing out again. It took a while, almost twenty years, but here we are again.

[Assistant] You probably would have never thought it would take quite so long.

[User] No, we never did. We thought it would be back much faster than that, but life is surprising in many ways, and here we are.

[Assistant] Many ways.

[User] Here we are.

[Assistant] Thank you very much for joining us today and sharing all this with us.


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

[User] Hi, Jennifer.

[Assistant] Thanks again for taking some time. We definitely appreciate it, know you guys have a very busy schedule these days.

[User] Sure, my pleasure.

[Assistant] So tell us how you became involved with Orion.

[User] I had been working on Space Station for quite a number of years, in one form or another, for actually 22 years before that. It was late in 2005 when I applied for—at the time it was called Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV)—one of the CEV integration jobs and was selected and came over in November of 2005 as just a career move out of Space Station and into this new and burgeoning part of the human spaceflight program.

[Assistant] I read in your PP&C [Program Planning and Control] interview that you were working on establishing organizational structures and working on relationships with the contractors. Can you elaborate on that?


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

[User] Sure, my pleasure.

[Assistant] So tell us how you became involved with Orion.

[User] I had been working on Space Station for quite a number of years, in one form or another, for actually 22 years before that. It was late in 2005 when I applied for—at the time it was called Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV)—one of the CEV integration jobs and was selected and came over in November of 2005 as just a career move out of Space Station and into this new and burgeoning part of the human spaceflight program.

[Assistant] I read in your PP&C [Program Planning and Control] interview that you were working on establishing organizational structures and working on relationships with the contractors. Can you elaborate on that?

[User] One half step behind that, I originally came over into an SE&I [Systems Engineering and Integration] role within the organization that existed at the time. It was shortly after Skip [Caris A.] Hatfield became Program Manager that he asked me to come join him on the staff. In that role one of the things that he was doing was shaping the organization and aligning it with some of the other organizations that were forming up. The Project was actually created and developing before the overarching Program was created; it was called Constellation later on. There’s a little bit of reshaping that was required there. Plus, there was an administration that actually was trying to drive different kinds of relationships around the Agency.\n\n There were a number of things that the Agency and the Program were asking of this organization, and that’s one of the things that Skip needed, my help in helping to create some of the structures but also shaping some of the expectations of how the organization would look, how we would interact with the industry, which came online about a year later in August or September of ’06 with the prime contract. That’s one example of what I was asked to do in this Assistant Program Manager role, staff role to the Program Manager. It’s a pretty broad role with no definition, and it changes from day to day.

[Assistant] Sure, yes, and a very new Program as well.


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

[User] One half step behind that, I originally came over into an SE&I [Systems Engineering and Integration] role within the organization that existed at the time. It was shortly after Skip [Caris A.] Hatfield became Program Manager that he asked me to come join him on the staff. In that role one of the things that he was doing was shaping the organization and aligning it with some of the other organizations that were forming up. The Project was actually created and developing before the overarching Program was created; it was called Constellation later on. There’s a little bit of reshaping that was required there. Plus, there was an administration that actually was trying to drive different kinds of relationships around the Agency.\n\n There were a number of things that the Agency and the Program were asking of this organization, and that’s one of the things that Skip needed, my help in helping to create some of the structures but also shaping some of the expectations of how the organization would look, how we would interact with the industry, which came online about a year later in August or September of ’06 with the prime contract. That’s one example of what I was asked to do in this Assistant Program Manager role, staff role to the Program Manager. It’s a pretty broad role with no definition, and it changes from day to day.

[Assistant] Sure, yes, and a very new Program as well.

[User] Yes, at the time, that’s right. It was a brand-new Program, so it was relationships. It was processes. It was communication within the Agency, and obviously as I said with this new Program that we fell underneath as Constellation started emerging. It was a lot of forming and storming of making the organization come together.

[Assistant] You mentioned communication. I’m wondering how did the Columbia [STS-107] accident impact the type of communication that you were looking at at that point. Did it impact that in any way?

[User] I’m thinking about the context of your question.

[Assistant] Probably not, based on the way you’re looking at me.


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

[User] Yes, at the time, that’s right. It was a brand-new Program, so it was relationships. It was processes. It was communication within the Agency, and obviously as I said with this new Program that we fell underneath as Constellation started emerging. It was a lot of forming and storming of making the organization come together.

[Assistant] You mentioned communication. I’m wondering how did the Columbia [STS-107] accident impact the type of communication that you were looking at at that point. Did it impact that in any way?

[User] I’m thinking about the context of your question.

[Assistant] Probably not, based on the way you’re looking at me.

[User] I can’t think of an example of how we deliberately shaped our communications. As far as communicating with the Program, with [NASA] Headquarters [Washington, DC], that was ’03, this was ’05, ’06. A lot of what was asked of the larger organization was already in place, I would say. Clearly as an organization shaped with highly refined safety culture and that sort of thing, we were very much already sensitized to the need for organizational communications with the Program Manager for decision making that was intentional about drawing in all sides of a discussion, working with dissenting opinions. I really actually can’t think of an example of how we changed things based on the Columbia accident by the time we were standing up a Program Office.

[Assistant] How much did Station influence your ideas about how the organization should be structured, having worked for Station for 22 years?


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

[User] Thank you, Russ.

[Assistant] Well, can you say a little bit about why you joined the Peace Corps?

[User] I had been an African history major in college. That kind of happened by accident early on is what I opted to do. And by the time I was a senior, I was very, very curious to experience Africa firsthand, live and work there. And Peace Corps offered the, the easiest and obvious way to do that. So I applied to Peace Corps in the winter of my senior year.

[Assistant] Where did you go to college?

[User] I went to Yale.

[Assistant] And, um, how did you hear about the Peace Corps?


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

[User] I had been an African history major in college. That kind of happened by accident early on is what I opted to do. And by the time I was a senior, I was very, very curious to experience Africa firsthand, live and work there. And Peace Corps offered the, the easiest and obvious way to do that. So I applied to Peace Corps in the winter of my senior year.

[Assistant] Where did you go to college?

[User] I went to Yale.

[Assistant] And, um, how did you hear about the Peace Corps?

[User] I had a very good friend who had graduated the previous year who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania working on a rural settlement scheme. And he and I wrote back and forth quite a bit. I certainly knew about Peace Corps from its, from its origins, as I think almost every undergraduate did in a college like Yale. I would say, though, that probably only ten or 12 out of the 1,000 who graduated in my class actually went into Peace Corps. I was very, very keen to do it.

[Assistant] You mean only ten or 12 actually applied?


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

[User] I went to Yale.

[Assistant] And, um, how did you hear about the Peace Corps?

[User] I had a very good friend who had graduated the previous year who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania working on a rural settlement scheme. And he and I wrote back and forth quite a bit. I certainly knew about Peace Corps from its, from its origins, as I think almost every undergraduate did in a college like Yale. I would say, though, that probably only ten or 12 out of the 1,000 who graduated in my class actually went into Peace Corps. I was very, very keen to do it.

[Assistant] You mean only ten or 12 actually applied?

[User] Yeah, but I think all who applied probably did it.

[Assistant] Yeah. Interesting. Why do you think that?


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

[User] We can talk a little bit more about deferments and the draft, but in 1967.

[Assistant] Well.

[User] Deferments for graduate school were pretty routine. One year later, they were not.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] So I think that, um, if someone's real motive was to see an alternative path to military service, that was less important and probably I'm just guessing, but someone who went in 1966 or '67 went in very often because Peace Corps service appealed to them. It did to me.

[Assistant] Interesting. And what was your reaction when you were accepted?


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

[User] And I looked at that and I had some questions in my own mind. This was the spring leading up to the Biafran War. And I had two classmates who were graduates who came from eastern Nigeria.

[Assistant] Hmm.

[User] And they said, it won't happen. You have a civil war about to, about to break out.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] You better look at an alternative, which I thought probably I would like. I was more interested in East and Central Africa anyway. Anyway, I called a friend who had been a teacher of mine who'd been in the Ford Foundation in Kenya, and he said, well, obviously go to Kenya. And I said, it's not obvious, how do you do it? He gave me the telephone number of the desk officer at Peace Corps, and he said, just call her. She's a friend. So I did. And after she had put me on the list, she said, you know, I'm not supposed to do this, but I just did. So there's a great good turn in my life done by someone at the request of a friend. Not the way you're supposed to do it, but it's how it happened.

[Assistant] Well, that's very interesting. I think a lot of people have had serendipitous experiences like that that just, just happened. And it fortunately worked out for everyone the right way. So. You went to Kenya. Where did you do your training?


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

[User] And we were trained there. And our training included a month in the countryside at an old hotel, learning Swahili 8 hours a day.

[Assistant] Hmm.

[User] And then the last two months of training were in the New York City school system. We each apprenticed to a teacher.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And we also lived with a host family, in most cases in the projects in New York City.

[Assistant] Mm hmm. So you lived with a host family in New York City?


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

[User] And it was a fabulous eye-opening and rewarding and very close experience.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] It had very little to do with anything I experienced later in Kenya, but it was, it was a, uh, it was worthwhile in its own right.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] Just to understand a part of the United States that might have been not too far away from where I lived, but very, very different.

[Assistant] Where were you originally from?


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

[User] It had very little to do with anything I experienced later in Kenya, but it was, it was a, uh, it was worthwhile in its own right.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] Just to understand a part of the United States that might have been not too far away from where I lived, but very, very different.

[Assistant] Where were you originally from?

[User] I grew up about two miles from the Yale campus.

[Assistant] Oh, in New Haven?


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

[User] Just to understand a part of the United States that might have been not too far away from where I lived, but very, very different.

[Assistant] Where were you originally from?

[User] I grew up about two miles from the Yale campus.

[Assistant] Oh, in New Haven?

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Ah, okay. So in this training process at Columbia University, there was a deselection component. How did that go for you or what was your experience in that, in observing it and participating in it?


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

[User] I grew up about two miles from the Yale campus.

[Assistant] Oh, in New Haven?

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] Ah, okay. So in this training process at Columbia University, there was a deselection component. How did that go for you or what was your experience in that, in observing it and participating in it?

[User] I can tell a story.

[Assistant] Oh, please do. I think everyone who's gone through it has a story.


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

[User] In our group. It was education IV I think, you know, the fourth, the fourth cohort going to Kenya. And we were trained with about 30 who went to Uganda.

[Assistant] Right.

[User] I guess, but I have no memory of it, that several people above the number of 50 were deselected. But there was one instance I remember very well. Well, two things I remember very well. Let me tell you the deselection story then I'll tell you one other.

[Assistant] Right.

[User]
Because they're very, they're good stories to tell. One of our group who became a good friend of mine during training and who remains a very good friend to this day, his host family turned out to be the, um, backup singer for Aretha Franklin, who lived in a penthouse apartment in Harlem. And while he was there as a guest in this apartment, due to some domestic problems that his host had, all the furniture was repossessed except for, I guess, one chair and a couple of mattresses or something like that. It was so bizarre, I think so far outside of what Peace Corps training thought they were doing, that we were asked to write up our experience. What have we seen? What have we learned? What impact did it have?

And my friend said, the only way I can capture this is I'll write a one act play. And the shrink decided that based on that play, he should be deselected. And we had a rebellion and we basically told the training group, if he doesn't go to Kenya, none of us will go.

[Assistant] Good for you.


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

[User] And I really think that many, if not all of us, would have said, you're messing with him for all the wrong reasons. I mean, there were a number of other experiences people had, and it just wasn't. It wasn't managed very professionally.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] The other experience from training. While we were at language training in Monroe, New York, the Hotel Monte Carlo. I don't know if you went there?

[Assistant] No, no.

[User] Uh, it was kind of on the edge of the Catskills. We rented a bus to take everyone who wanted to go, and everyone did, to Washington to participate in the first large antiwar march.

[Assistant] Of course, yeah.


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

[User] In October 1967. Our training director told us we couldn't go.

[Assistant] Hmm.

[User] And we told him there was room for him on the bus. And he couldn't prevent us. We had hired the bus. The bus was going to show up, you know, at 5:00 Saturday morning or whatever. And if there was any punishment meted out, then some of us just wouldn't come back. I mean, we were a little bit of an ornery group.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] But, but these, these were two things that everybody said, come on, this is, this is a free country. We have freedom of speech and Saturday's a day off anyway. Instead of playing touch football, we're going to participate and exercise our right of free speech. I don't want to paint the training director as authoritarian. He was smart enough to ride with us on the bus.

[Assistant] Interesting. Well, so then you went over to Kenya and you had some training there, and then you went out to your.


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

[User] We had no train, we were, we were, I think, sworn in in New York.

[Assistant] Oh, really?

[User] I think so.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] Right at the very end, right before Christmas of 1967. And so when we got off the plane in Kenya, in Nairobi, the Peace Corps director, whom you might remember, Bob.

[Assistant] Is that Bob Poole?


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

[User] And for some reason, uh, in fact, well, I could talk more about my assignment. But this was someone in your own Peace Corps group, Dan Fitts, who was extending and coming back for a third year as I was starting my first.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] So we were in Nairobi for probably three or four days and then sent in multiple different directions. In my case, I, whatever I had, might have been, it might have been a small truck or a couple of suitcases. And I got in the back of what was called the Rift Valley Peugeot Service and rode up 200 miles to Eldoret. And the headmaster of my school met me there and so took me around the town of Eldoret, which was 30 miles from the school. And I really, you know, I don't think I had sort of a game plan of how I was going to live. He said, don't worry, we have a nice house. You'll share the house with Dan. Everything is kind of set up there.

[Assistant] Okay.

[User] And you couldn't ask for a softer landing than I had. You could not ask for one.

[Assistant] Very nice. So. So when you got there, were you given your assignments or how did that, how did they decide what you would do?


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

[User] And you couldn't ask for a softer landing than I had. You could not ask for one.

[Assistant] Very nice. So. So when you got there, were you given your assignments or how did that, how did they decide what you would do?

[User] They knew I was a history teacher and that I actually had majored in African history. And 1968, the year I began to teach, was the first year that African history was on the form for Cambridge curriculum.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] They had just switched over, so there was actually something I knew that was useful. I think many Peace Corps volunteers have to find that out. Sometimes that's a long, a long process. But in this case is that we know what you want, want you to do, and we want you to teach history to Form 4 and Form 3. And what else? Basically anything not science. Eventually, I taught geography, English lit, and so forth, and it was a, it was a well-established school at that point. It had been started.

[Assistant] How many students were there? Ballpark.