The cover story of your May/June issue, on why America won’t go the way of the British Empire, was heartening. I am a new subscriber to your magazine, and this article alone warranted my order. The recent Gulf War proved that the United States is in no way on the decline. Politically, we organized the first effective, worldwide coalition since the Second World War. Economically, we triumphantly pooled and employed the resources of dozens of nations. Militarily, we led a complex, multinational force to an unparalleled and absolute victory. In its heyday, the British Empire could never have dreamed of such accomplishments.
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January 2011
Professor Joseph Nye’s answers about America’s future are just accurate enough to be dangerous. To him America is a “rich country that acts poor.” His “low” 31 percent tax rate does not include all the property, sales, dual and hidden fuel and corporate taxes, as well as larger state and local governments than exist in other countries. He’s been on the rich-institution dole too long. It’s tough out in the real America.
As a Briton who has spent a third of his lifetime in the United States, who has been in business in both the United States and Britain, and who has seen American manufacturing struggle in the 1980s at firsthand, I would like to add a simple thought to “Are We Really Going the Way of the British Empire?” When living in Britain, I was painfully aware that—at least in the preThatcher era—the country was not even trying very hard to manufacture successfully. I came to the States in 1980 expecting to find that fullblooded capitalism would make attitudes and achievements quite different here. No such luck. Manufacturers wanted to make money—but not so much that they were willing to flush out the under-investment, wasteful overmanning, extravagant salaries, aversion to risk, and heavy health costs and so on that rendered American manufacturing incapable of withstanding foreign competition.
JUNE 12,1989: The number of cartographers who still go into the field to compile maps for the U.S. Geological Survey has dwindled to about sixty, and five of the best of them are seated around a table in a trailer park in Mountain Home, Idaho, shivering in the unseasonable June weather and eating elk meat shot by their boss, Jim Hanchett.
Writing a biography is an act of self-discovery. As James Atlas, a New York Times Magazine editor, said in a recent article, “Choosing a Life,” “the biographer’s subject enacts the main themes of the biographer’s own life.” Atlas quoted Leon Edel, who spent twenty years writing a five-volume life of Henry James: “Biographers are invariably drawn to the writing of a biography out of some deep personal motive.”
In December 1943, Captain Charles L. Brown flew his first mission over Germany as aircraft commander of a battle-weary B-17. What happened that day is an extraordinary untold story of World War II. Recently, I sat with Lieutenant Colonel Brown (USAF Retired) in the leafy yard of his Florida home. His keen memory supported by a diary, he told me the tale.
The target was Bremen, Germany; the specific objective, a Focke-Wulf plant in one of the city’s outlying districts. During the preflight briefing at the base in Kimbolton, England, the intelligence officer pointed out flak areas to avoid - Bremen was protected by more than 250 guns manned by the best artillerists the Germans had - and told the pilots they’d be subject to attack by more than five hundred German fighter planes. American and Royal Air Force fighters were scheduled to be on hand all the way to the target and back.
I read with great interest and substantial agreement Peter Andrews’s article concerning the historical relationship between the media and the military (July/August). It is a generally excellent article, but a few additional thoughts are required. Through twenty-five and one-half years of military service, I have found that the members of both the print and electronic news media covering military matters are grossly ignorant of the subject which they cover. The night before we launched our one-hundred-hour assault against the Iraqi Army in January, I observed one of our major television networks carrying a live story from one of its reporters in Saudi Arabia, who gave his general location and said that for many hours an unending stream of military vehicles and weapons had been passing him on a specified road, in a northbound direction.
There are established rules which regulate visiting, the use of cards, the leaving or sending of cards, and when these rules are clearly understood and faithfully followed there is a feeling of satisfaction which relieves the conscience.
Ceremonious card leaving is obligatory after receiving invitations to a wedding reception, a dinner, luncheon, card party, or an evening entertainment, the call to be made and cards left within a week after the event and whether one has accepted or not.
A card represents its owner and means a visit, or some courtesy, and women do not call on men or send cards to them; their cards are for the women of a household.
WHAT ETIQUETTE REALLY IS
Etiquette is not a servile yielding up of one’s individuality, or a mere cold formality. It is rather the beautiful frame which is placed around a valuable picture to prevent its being marred or defaced.
Etiquette throws a protection around the well-bred, keeping the coarse and disagreeable at a distance, and punishing those who violate her dictates, with banishment from the social circle.
KISSING GUESTS
We have seen a family of children compelled to pass the ordeal of kissing every guest in a room when the hour for retiring arrives. It is a senseless custom, and often creates disgust on both sides.
LADIES KISSING EACH OTHER