Bill, I just read your explanation of why you left academe and it struck a chord. But even better, your "Post Election" piece was the first essay I remember ever sending around to a pretty large audience and the heading was "must read".
As to the state of academe I read a press report back in the 70s that Nixon and I thought, Kissinger, were having cocktails on the South balcony watching the anti-war students protesting down at the south fence. The man asked Nixon, "What will they do when the war ends" and Nixon answered, they will go into the academy and take it over, and bend it to their political ends, including the environment (this probably would have been the fall of '72). I even called Kissinger and asked his aide to see if it was him and he answered "no, but it sounds like Nixon".
After my MA at Georgetown I was invited to pursue a PhD and declined. It seemed so sterile. I was also being evaluated for the career program at the CIA and my recruiter asked me whether I wanted to steal secrets or analyze them? "Both" I said, but he answered that I had to chose. I was also about to take the Foreign Service entrance exam, but withdrew from both and charted my own path (I just turned 80 and am still working on things that interest me).
Bill, I just read your explanation of why you left academe and it struck a chord. But even better, your "Post Election" piece was the first essay I remember ever sending around to a pretty large audience and the heading was "must read".
As to the state of academe I read a press report back in the 70s that Nixon and I thought, Kissinger, were having cocktails on the South balcony watching the anti-war students protesting down at the south fence. The man asked Nixon, "What will they do when the war ends" and Nixon answered, they will go into the academy and take it over, and bend it to their political ends, including the environment (this probably would have been the fall of '72). I even called Kissinger and asked his aide to see if it was him and he answered "no, but it sounds like Nixon".
After my MA at Georgetown I was invited to pursue a PhD and declined. It seemed so sterile. I was also being evaluated for the career program at the CIA and my recruiter asked me whether I wanted to steal secrets or analyze them? "Both" I said, but he answered that I had to chose. I was also about to take the Foreign Service entrance exam, but withdrew from both and charted my own path (I just turned 80 and am still working on things that interest me).
Very interesting. Thank you. And thank you for sharing the piece!