Sol Linowitz

I prefer the Post obit of Sol Linowitz to the NYTimes. I never knew the man, but his death triggers these thoughts:

1 Egotistically, in 1964, with its endowment bulging from Kodak and Xerox stock, the University of Rochester was aspiring to become great. Unfortunately, their greatest grad student (me) busted out, an omen of what was to happen with Kodak and Xerox.

2. Clark Clifford in his memoir talked about one paper, absolutely vital in post war policy making, (may have been the Truman Doctrine speech) being walked around because there was only one copy. The Xerox machine and then client-server e-mail, like the IBM Profs that Ollie North ran afoul of, had a great impact on the operation of bureaucracy, both good and bad. (In Taubman's biography of Khrushchev, he observes that the USSR was run by a literal handful of man. I'd add, if he did not, run with carbon paper and no Xerox machines. The Xerox also must change the role of archivists and then historians (not that I'd know)--in the old days you could rely on an official record carbon copy, after Xerox such reliance is dubious.

3. What, if anything, should be the penalty for being wrong on great historical issues? I think it's clear that Carter and Linowitz were right on the Canal, Reagan and the right wing were wrong. (During the Clinton administration the wing nuts were still raising the spector of Hutchison Whampoa operating the Canal. Of course, then they were accusing Clinton of treason for allowing computer exports to China; I haven't seen anything in the Washington Times criticizing the approval of sales of IBM PC operation to China.) The problem is that inevitably one ignores the beam in one's own eye in glee over the mistakes of others.

4. The anecdote about Elihu Root shows the openness of the power elite. Root was a player in TR's time, his protege was Henry Stimson who was a player into FDR's cabinet, his legacy passed on to the Bundy's, McGeorge and William in the Best and Brightest.