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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Feb. 27, 1963
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
Beat It-Don't Fight It
Talking about the English Proficiency examination would be like beating a dead horse, except that this particular horse is not yet dead, much to the sorrow of those who will fail it this Thursday.
BUT THOSE WHO oppose the test have an ace in the hole. They bring up specific examples, and there are several, of students who earned all B's in their first four semesters of English at KU but nonetheless failed the English Proficiency examination.
Those who favor the test say that any graduate of the University of Kansas should be able to express himself coherently and grammatically on paper. This obviously is a valid argument.
A BACKGROUND in higher mathematics is not needed to reveal that the latter possibility, fault on the part of the English Proficiency grader, is far more probable.
Here is the problem. It is not feasible for one person to grade all the English Proficiency examinations, and even if it were, his attitude would not remain constant throughout. The very fact that so many are required to take the examination demands that there be many graders to handle the volume.
Either these persons had four consecutive incompetents as English instructors, or the grader of the English Proficiency examination was too demanding.
THE PROBLEM must be approached from the other direction. Since the English Proficiency examination cannot be perfected, some means to beat its imperfections must be devised by the student who takes it.
The "see Spot run" approach is a bit extreme, but the basic idea is sound. As a theme is made more complex, the chance for error increases. On this basic assumption is built the formula for "How to Succeed in the English Proficiency Examination Without Really Trying."
(2) Write in direct, simple words and sentences.
(4) In SUBSEQUENT paragraphs, say what you are going to say, one point in each paragraph.
(3) In the first paragraph, say, "This is what I am going to say."
(5) In the final paragraph, say, "This is what I have said."
(1) Choose the least complex subject among those on the list.
This process may not be intellectually stimulating, but the goal is to pass the examination—not to be intellectually stimulated.
"CLASS - IT HAS BEEN ENTROUGH TO MY ATTENTION THAT SOMEONE IN HERE IS USING 'CRIB NOTES' PURING MY EXAMS,"
McNamara Gets Results Without Showmanship
"Brother Bobby" and "Portly Pierre" are national personalities as well as important governmental figures. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and McGeorge Bundy are more reserved but just as controversial.
It is doubtful that there has ever been as colorful a cast of characters in Washington as have gathered around President John F. Kennedy.
YET THE man who in recent months has held stage center among this collection of characters and dignitaries is neither colorful nor a politician.
His place in the spotlight might be explained by his Cabinet post in an age when thermonuclear destruction is an everpresent danger. But others have held the same post without having the impact on the world that McNamara has had.
He is Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara.
HE GRADUATED from the University of California in 1937,
earning Phi Beta Kappa honors his sophomore year. He next breezed through the Harvard School of Business Administration, where he established one of the most distinguished academic records in the school's history.
He joined the Air Force as a statistical control officer.
He and nine others were tabbed the "Whiz Kids" for their ability to cut through red tape and break supply-line bottle-necks. These 10 men were grabbed in 1945 by Henry Ford II, who at 28 was laying the organizational groundwork to put the nation's second-largest automaker's bookkeeping back in black ink. McNamara was 29.
Less than 24 hours after Kennedy was elected President, McNamara, then 44, succeeded Henry Ford II as president of Ford Motor Co. To those who were close to McNamara, his ascendance was not surprising.
DRIVING THE 38 miles from his home in Ann Arbor, where he lived in a relatively modest
$50,000 home with his wife, two daughters and a son, McNamara arrived at his desk by 7:30 a.m. and seldom left before 6 p.m. Various sources have been connected with the statement that "Bob carries the facts and figures in his head that others have to consult reports to find."
Regardless of the source, those connected with McNamara are in general agreement: he has, as Time magazine put it, the tidiest mind in Washington.
McNamara's public record tells little which does not relate to business or organizational maneuvers. An exception was his leadership to end racial discrimination in selling property to Negroes in Ann Arbor.
He reads voluminously and appropriately for an inhabitant of the physically fit New Frontier, he loves to climb among the Sierra Mountains in California.
DailyTransan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912
Extension 711, news room Extension 376, business office Telephone Viking 3-2700
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Member Inland Daily Press Association, Associated Collegiate Press Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays, and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
Fred Zimmerman ... Managing Editor
Ben Marshall, Bill Sheldon, Mike Miller,
Art Miller, Margaret Cathcart ... Assistant Managing Editors
Steve Clark ... Sports Editor
Scott Payne ... City Editor
Trudy Meserve and Jackie Stern ... Co-Society Editors
Murrel Bland ... Photograph Editor
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Dennis Branstiter...Editorial Editor
Terry Murphy...Assistant Editorial Editor
FROM THIS collection of biographical data, an image begins to take form: a hard-working, eminently successful businessman who personifies the New Breed of young leaders who have emerged on every front of the U.S. scene since World War II.
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Jack Cannon, Business Manager; Jim Stevens, Assist. Business Mgr.; Mike Carson, Advertising Mgr.; Joanne Zabornik, Circulation Mgr.; Brooks Harrison, Classified Mgr.; Bob Brooks, National Adv. Mgr.; Charles Hayward, Promotion Mgr.; Bill Finley, Merchandising Mgr.
This takes us to his position as head of Ford Motor Co. He seemed set for life: at 44 he had an annual salary of more than $400,000, enough power to satisfy all but the power-crazy, and a proud, self-made record of achievement — not to mention slightly more than $1.5 million in Ford stock and the promise of a $1,315 monthly pension at age 65.
Perhaps it was because he had "arrived" that he chucked it all to step into the caldron of troubles belonging to any secretary of defense.
Less than six weeks after
AS FAR as Ford Motor Co. was concerned, Robert S. McNamara had gone as far as he could go. President Kennedy's call to direct and strengthen the military might of the world's foremost power was a new, fresh challenge.
For several months after he took office, little was heard from Section E of the Pentagon. When Robert NeNamara appeared in the news, it was the result of action, not public speeches.
reaching the top of his climb to the presidency of Ford Motor Co. he stepped down to start a new climb — one which few secretaries of defense before him had negotiated with much success, let alone acclaim.
"I SEE my position here," he says, "as being that of a leader, not a judge. I'm here to originate and stimulate new ideas and programs, not just to referee arguments and harmonize interests."
With defense spending and policy being the political football that it is, the resulting repercussions could be expected.
Logrolling and inter-service back-scratching for defense funds do not fit McNamara's formula for building and maintaining an efficient military organization.
A few of the more significant changes instituted by McNamara during his first two years in office are:
A NEWLY-formed Defense Intelligence Agency which cuts across contradictory inter-service lines.
A unified, all-service, Defense Supply Agency which saves millions of dollars annually.
Budgeting of defense spending by function rather than service i.e. — Strategic Retaliatory Forces, General Purpose Forces,
Short Ones
Nothing can come out of an artist that is not in the man.—H. L. Menken
Somebody has to take a stand for what he believes in.—Edward Wilson
Drink is worse than war, for drink is continuous, war but periodic.—Gracio Houlder
All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own fashion.—Tolstoi
Airlift and Sealift Forces, Reserve and National Guard Forces.
Streamlining National Guard and Reserve organization, thereby eliminating 1,850 units despite anguished, bitter cries from Guard-controlling state governors.
IT TAKES little imagination to realize that his programs are unlikely to increase his Capitol Hill popularity. But, grudging as it may be, he has earned respect and admiration.
Rep. Carl Vinson of Georgia, chairman of the House Armed Forces Committee and a morethan-occasional critic of McNamara's policies, said this of a 198 report prepared by McNamara: "One of the most significant documents ever presented to Congress."
McNamara rates high with the President, and not merely on the basis of his 'Cabinet position. President Kennedy is an administrator who places little faith in following traditional chains of command — ask Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
THE PRESIDENT goes directly to the men whose judgment he respects most. During the Cuban crisis this select circle was compact, and McNamara was one of the first men called to the White House for the all-night conference which preceded the decision to blockade Cuba.
But again, what does all this tell of the man as an individual? Perhaps it tells as much as there is to know. Most certainly he is nothing akin to the 40-hour a week man who lives next door. Nor is he a member of the dunkin-the-swimming-pool or water-skiing set whose private lives have become an unusually public matter.
The 46-year-old innovator may be just what many tab him to be: a member of the New Breed; an interchangeable, reasoning computer who works at peak proficiency wherever he is placed.
—Terry Murphy